True neutral druids and spell descriptors

[pawsplay]

I'll grant you that there's room for argument on Summon Nature's Ally I and Summon Nature's Ally II.

But I must disgree with you on Summon Nature's Ally III, Summon Nature's Ally IV, Summon Nature's Ally V, Summon Nature's Ally VI, Summon Nature's Ally VII, Summon Nature's Ally VIII, and Summon Nature's Ally IX.

-Hyp.

Ok, that's just weird.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Ok, that's just weird.

I have a possible explanation for the omission of that line from SNAI and SNAII.

Before SNAIII, all the creatures on the SNA list are neutral. There are no Good, Evil, Chaotic, or Lawful creatures.

In SNAII, there's Elemental (Small), which can be an Air, Earth, Fire, or Water creature, and so the line is applicable. But I can see someone glancing down the list, noting that the spell can't be used to Summon any non-neutral creatures, and assuming the line is unnecessary.

However, even with the omission of the line, SNAII is still a summoning spell, so the lines in all the other SM/SNA spells that state "When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type" are still applicable, and SNAII used to summon a Small Fire Elemental would be a [Fire] spell. (Hence why I said "room for argument" - I could see someone saying "SNAII doesn't have the line, so it doesn't become a Fire spell!", but I'd disagree with them when they did it.)

-Hyp.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Since casting an aligned spell is considered an act of that alignment...

Is there a source on that?

Book of Vile Darkness (sorry, I don't have the page number handy). But it's a fiercely contested issue (as I suspect you're aware).

 

[Hypersmurf]

Book of Vile Darkness.

Is there a 3.5 source on that?

-Hyp.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I don’t know what’s the actual rules are in this case, as they seem ambiguous, But i have always played summoning, similar to worshiping gods. You can worship a god as a cleric act and be 1 step from that god. You can be true natural, but if so, you cant summon a unicorn because that’s chaotic good. If your natural good, you cant summon a salamander.

I feel that this is close to how it was intended to work. Although I can backup my clame with any citation, I just wonder what’s the point in pointing out the alignment of some of the summons if it has no point.

 

[Pielorinho]

Summon Nature's Ally can be Good, Evil, or Chaotic (but interestingly, not Lawful ).

Sure it can: just summon salamanders until one of the ones that shows up is lawful evil.

This came up in our game recently: I've been summoning unicorn swarms to handle healing, and the DM asked me what I thought about implementing the rule that summoning spells are aligned spells. I said sure, until I went over the book and realized that if I wanted to continue this tactic, my only choice was to balance the summoning of unicorns with the summoning of salamanders, slowly moving my neutral good druid to chaotic neutral (summoning only unicorns would make me chaotic good, and I think that'd mean I could no longer be a druid).

That seemed really goofy, so we struck a compromise: because I play a dwarven druid with ambivalent connections to Moradin, we decided that any earth creature I summoned would be lawful good, a representative of Moradin.

Daniel

 

[pawsplay]

However, even with the omission of the line, SNAII is still a summoning spell, so the lines in all the other SM/SNA spells that state "When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type" are still applicable, and SNAII used to summon a Small Fire Elemental would be a [Fire] spell. (Hence why I said "room for argument" - I could see someone saying "SNAII doesn't have the line, so it doesn't become a Fire spell!", but I'd disagree with them when they did it.)

-Hyp.

I had assumed that the line was deliberately ommitted from SMA, as druids are not heavily involved with the alignments and such, and presumably, all the creatures they cast represent their connection to the balance. Seeing that SNAIII do not contain that line definitely changes the picture. I think there is a reasonable argument that since SNA I and II are the texts on which SNA III and above are based, the text was not accidentally ommitted from the first two, but rather, accidentally cut and pasted into the higher ones.

 

[pawsplay]

Brandon from customer service says, yes, SNA spells do get the descriptor.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I think there is a reasonable argument that since SNA I and II are the texts on which SNA III and above are based, the text was not accidentally ommitted from the first two, but rather, accidentally cut and pasted into the higher ones.

If you read SNAIII in the PHB (rather than the SRD), you'll see that it uses the specific example of a Salamander making SNAIII a fire and evil spell. It's not just a cut and paste; it's a cut and paste specifically tailored to that spell, which is a whole lot more deliberate

Interestingly, none of the higher SM spells have that note, because SMI has it. Which, I think, reinforces the "Oh, we can't put the note in SNAI, because there are no non-neutral creatures to use as an example." So while all the higher SNA spells say "As SNAI, except...", they all need that note, since it's missing from SNAI. All the higher SM spells say "As SMI, except...", and they don't need the note, because it's in SMI.

-Hyp.