Using Summoned Creatures to gain an AoO

[KarinsDad]

Check the thread that spawned this thread here. Somebody asked WoTC. They answered that yes, you do get a Cleave attack out of an AoO if you haven't had a Cleave in the round yet.

This is irrelevant to that statement.

The current rule is that you can Cleave out of an AoO, so of course WotC is going to state the current rule.

Nobody is arguing that this is not the current rule.

 

[KarinsDad]

So the game mechanics don't describe the reality of the game anymore, is it that? This neat "It is not really dead" sentence is pretty useless with the preface that the creature has been killed. One excludes the other, by very simple logic. Either it has been killed, then it is dead, or it isn't dead, which means it couldn't have been killed before. Effects that restore life to a slain creature make it "no longer dead" or "alive again". There is no "It is not really dead." That's about as nonsensical as saying "She's not really pregnant, just a little bit."

Now you are just arguing to argue.

"A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead."

They put BOTH of these sentences in for a reason.

If you read them together, they indicate that the creature never dies. The creature is affected by death effect game mechanics such as going below -9 or a Phantasmal Killer, but that does not kill the creature. That sends the creature away.

Period.

Explain to us a different interpretation of these sentences where the creature actually dies since the sentence "It is not really dead" outright disagrees with any such interpretation.

The word "killed" in the previous sentence means affected by a game mechanic that kills.

You would have a good argument if the sentence "It is not really dead" were not there. Unfortunately for your argument, that sentence is there and cannot be summarily dismissed.

The sentence after these two: "It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again." indicates that the creature's body can be destroyed as well, but that TOO will not kill the creature.


You have to take all of the rules into account, not just the ones which agree with your unique interpretation du jour.

 

[Storm Raven]

You have to take all of the rules into account, not just the ones which agree with your unique interpretation du jour.

Back at you.

The creature dies, but reforms, by the rules. Even though it is a temporary condition, you are still inflicting pain and harm upon a creature ostensibly your friend. Hence, even though the condition you inflict is temporary, your actions are still evil.

 

[Storm Raven]

I cannot show you. It was something like an Email response from the Sage that someone posted here maybe three years ago with regard to a question that he asked the Sage on the "bucket of snails" problem in the case of Whirlwind with regard to this same issue of cleaving summoned creatures.

Which is of limited utility, since wer only have your say-so to begin with, and the Sage has been lknown to be wrong on numerous occassions.

The only support I have for this memory is the following quote from the FAQ which answered a totally different question:

The FAQ isn't rules. Referring to it for support only makes your argument suspect.

 

[KarinsDad]

Back at you.

The creature dies, but reforms, by the rules. Even though it is a temporary condition, you are still inflicting pain and harm upon a creature ostensibly your friend. Hence, even though the condition you inflict is temporary, your actions are still evil.

Back at you.

1) "It is not really dead."

It's body can be totally destroyed and it still does NOT die. Just because it does not have a body does not mean that it is dead. Reforming a body does not mean that it is dead. You are putting "real world" conditions onto a fantasy game where the rules do not support you.

Read the rules instead of making opinionated unsupported claims.

2) It is NOT your friend. It is not an ally. It is a slave who does what it is told to do. It has no ability to be your friend.

3) The actions are not evil. You ignore the facts that it cannot die and it cannot be an ally, hence, harming it cannot be considered evil.

Next you will state that a good PC who does not sacrifice himself to protect the summoned creature is not performing a good act as per:

"Good characters and creatures protect innocent life.

...

Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others."

I suspect that you have NEVER been in a game where a PC tried to protect the summoned creature.

Hmmmmm. Guess all of the good PCs in your games are not good after all.

You guys cannot have it both ways:

Either summoned creatures are slaves and summoning one in the first place is an evil act.

Or they are not slaves and every time you use a summoned creature to fight a bad guy, you are performing the evil act of putting another in harms way (to protect yourself).

Period.

Your morality arguments are totally lame because evil and good is not based on what you do, it is based on why you do it.


PS. You have still totally avoided the following:

Killing or harming a celestial creature is an evil act, by its very nature.

Quote a rule that harming a celestial creature is an evil act. Otherwise, you are making up your own objective system.

I suspect that you haven't quoted a rule to support your claim because there is no such rule.

 

[KarinsDad]

The FAQ isn't rules. Referring to it for support only makes your argument suspect.

It's better than your approach of:

1) Don't use rules to support your argument.
2) Don't use the FAQ to support your argument.
3) Ignore the rules that are there when they disagree with your argument.

Lame.


PS. I'm still waiting for you to post rules that illustrate:

Killing or harming a celestial creature is an evil act, by its very nature.

If you have two spell caster summon a celestial creature and have them fight each other, neither celestial creature will disobey.

Since the two celestial creatures will be harming another celestial creature, your opinion here is totally bogus.

Otherwise, both celestial creatures would be performing evil acts, something that celestial creatures are supposed to be incapable of doing.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Now you are just arguing to argue.

Bingo. That's what I've been doing for the last two days. Or do you really think I'm here with the mission to convince everybody that I'm right, and that I can prove it from the rules as written?

"A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead."

They put BOTH of these sentences in for a reason.

Yup, and that reason was most likely because Hasbro wants to sell this product called D&D to the parents of 12-years old, too, with an eye on how the merciless butchering and killing of summoned creatures would affect said parents opinion of this product. They could as well have tacked a "No animals or outerplanar creatures are harmed in the course of this special effect." sentence at the end.

If you read them together, they indicate that the creature never dies. The creature is affected by death effect game mechanics such as going below -9 or a Phantasmal Killer, but that does not kill the creature. That sends the creature away.

Period.

Of course it does kill the creature. It says in the description that they can be killed, hmm? That the act of killing them sends them away is a side effect of the spell's magic.

Explain to us a different interpretation of these sentences where the creature actually dies since the sentence "It is not really dead" outright disagrees with any such interpretation.

Who's us? Right now, you're the very only one who claims that those creatures killed during the summoning are not dead, that they effectively are not even harmed, but merely put to sleep, and wake up 24 hours later without any memory of what happened.

And, as far as I'm concerned, I've explained the "different interpretation" at last twice in the course of this thread. Being dead is the condition a creature is in after it has been killed. "It's not really dead", with the explanation about the body being reformed 24 hours later, can be summarized as an "It's not dead for very long".
How about you trying to explain to me what they mean with "not really dead"? What is it, then, in the 24 hours that it takes for the body to reform? Does it not exist in the meantime? Does Summon Monster miraculously create a new soul, as the body and soul of an outsider are the same? And why am I even bothering to ask, seeing as you simply ignore any question that would put your whole line of reasoning into the game's context, and instead keep throwing simple sentences at me like "It's not killing" and "It is not really dead" as some kind of arguments.

The word "killed" in the previous sentence means affected by a game mechanic that kills.

You would have a good argument if the sentence "It is not really dead" were not there. Unfortunately for your argument, that sentence is there and cannot be summarily dismissed.

Nah, that's okay, fortunately there's enough context in the whole game to put this little sentence into. No need to dismiss it, except as either a badly worded timeframe, or a badly framed disclaimer.

The sentence after these two: "It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again." indicates that the creature's body can be destroyed as well, but that TOO will not kill the creature.

That's weird, why then does it say two sentences before that it goes away if it is killed, and not that it goes away if it's body is destroyed? Maybe because, as you so nicely quoted a few posts back, for an outsider, body and soul are the same? You kill the body, you destroy the soul. The magic simply makes sure it will come back in perfect condition, kinda like a delayed True Resurrection or Limited Wish with a perfect chance of occuring.

You have to take all of the rules into account, not just the ones which agree with your unique interpretation du jour.

Hmhmm...my unique interpretation du jour actually takes all the rules into account, at least all that matter. A creature is summoned by a spell, and as soon as it is decimated to -10 HP, i.e. it is killed by D&D rules, it dies, vanishes, and is resurrected 24 hours later in a new body on it's home plane, where the spell effect deposited it. The "It's not really dead" simply comes into play as a disclaimer that this creature doesn't stay dead, as the resurrection effect takes place under all circumstances, except maybe if it's home plane is destroyed in the intervening time, so it will always come back to life. It's not really dead, it will be resurrected with a 100% certainty in 24 hours. It won't lose a level, won't lose a point of Constitution, won't be under any lingering spell effects, and as bad memories don't have any measurable effect in D&D, it won't suffer from it being killed, same way no resurrected character suffers mental repercussions for being killed.

Now, if I would have to summarize your unique interpretation du jour, it'd be something like: A creature is summoned by a spell, and as soon as it is decimated to -10 HP, it is killed, except that it isn't really, because it can't be killed, it simply vanishes. It is not really dead though, it simply is...gone, maybe sleeping, maybe simply not there...until it is reformed 24 hours later. It can't be dead because, if it's killed, it is not really dead.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

And just to put the whoe thing into even more game context (which will be ignored, I know, but I'm in a good mood for posting right now ), do you know what happens to the souls of the dead in D&D cosmology, according to the Manual of the Planes?

Well, they go to the home plane of the god they followed, or the alignment they adhered to before they died, and are reconstituted as Petitioners. They gain a physical body, which either looks like the one they had when they were "alive", or it looks in accordance to the plane they are on. It uses all the base statistics of their "former" body, and changes their subtype to "Outsider".

So, essentially they lose their body in their home plane by being killed, and regain it when they arrive on their destined outer plane. Does that mean they are "not really dead", too?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

2) It is NOT your friend. It is not an ally. It is a slave who does what it is told to do. It has no ability to be your friend.

Pure interpretation. Where does it say so?

3) The actions are not evil. You ignore the facts that it cannot die and it cannot be an ally, hence, harming it cannot be considered evil.

Wrong. It can be killed. Killing for convenience reasons only is evil. Ignore it as you like, that's in the rules.
And as a sidenote, if you really are of the opinion that, in D&D, it's only evil if you harm your ally, I'm really sorry for every innocent bystander your characters might encounter.

Next you will state that a good PC who does not sacrifice himself to protect the summoned creature is not performing a good act as per:

"Good characters and creatures protect innocent life.

...

Good implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others."

I suspect that you have NEVER been in a game where a PC tried to protect the summoned creature.

It's very nice of you to make up claims for us to use in this discussion, but I guess Storm Raven agrees that we don't need them...using arguments is so much more effective.

Hmmmmm. Guess all of the good PCs in your games are not good after all.

I know all the good PCs in my games are good according to the rules. But you make me wonder about yours, to be frank.

You guys cannot have it both ways:

Either summoned creatures are slaves and summoning one in the first place is an evil act.

Or they are not slaves and every time you use a summoned creature to fight a bad guy, you are performing the evil act of putting another in harms way (to protect yourself).

Period.

Utter and complete tosh. An "either, or" argument doesn't hold water like this, especially while using only your own interpretations, which are about as well supported by the rules as are, for example, mine.

Or, to put it differently, summoned creatures aren't slaves, and summoning them to fight against my enemy is as evil as drafting loyal soldiers to fight for my cause. My interpretation. Period.

Your morality arguments are totally lame because evil and good is not based on what you do, it is based on why you do it.

Heh...lame. And here I was already wondering when this word would turn up. Sorry, but this argument here simply shows a very narrow, limited and oversimplified understanding of what constitutes "good" and "evil" alignment. Of course, if you want to judge a character's alignment solely on his motivations, more power to you..in your own game. D&D, as simple as it's definitions of morals may seem to look, still acknowledges that motivation and action go hand in hand to make up a character's alignment.

 

[Storyteller01]

'ello...folks...

let's not debate about who's character is due for divine punishment or moral attack. This tends to attack its player....

I may not argue, but I will referee...

If you cannot explain your point w/o assaulting other members, then consider it invalid. Find another tactic...

This is the third, and final, warning...