Using Summoned Creatures to gain an AoO

[Storyteller01]

You can compare it to putting the mercenary in a 24 hour suspended animation on another plane of existence in order to get a small advantage in combat.

Since when is having an extra figter a small benefit!

Does he agree to do into suspended animation/

(Here's the good one) Does he agree to let you kill him to gain a small melee advantage, knowing his company or you will resurrect him later?

 

[Abraxas]

It is the nature of "good" to care about the difference.

In your campaign.

Everyone should read Thanee's sig.
It sums up this discussion nicely.

Never mind, it sums up another discussion now (and is much much funnier)

 

[KarinsDad]

But using this logic, killing a player character or allied NPC does not cause real death (definied as no longer returning to the Prime Material). They can be resurrected, and the lost level is regained rather quickly, given the exp needs of the rest of the group compared to that of the recently dead. Level loss is a minor consequence, unless your DM really enforces some nasty rules. Can one player kill another to gain the same advantage (assuming that player a knows he can drop player be in one hit)?

What is the difference?

You cannot understand the difference?

1) In one case (kill PC), there is no guarantee of a pleasant afterlife. In the other, the summoned creature goes back to his home with no ill effects (minor inconvenience).

2) In one case (kill PC), the creature did not agree to it. In the other (as per Geron's earlier agreement), the summoned creature did agree to it (minor inconvenience).

3) In one case (kill PC), the creature is not guaranteed resurrection. In the other, the summoned creature is guaranteed resurrection (minor inconvenience).


So I will repeat myself since you basically sidestepped the issue.

"Except it is NOT REAL DEATH or real killing."


The summoned creature allows himself to be summoned, attacks automatically as per the agreement, obeys the spell caster per the agreement, does not whine about getting hurt. The summoned creature agreed to be a slave and to even allow itself to be killed, regardless of how that occurs.

What is so difficult about this to understand?

Killing the creature is not breaking the agreement, nor is it evil in and of itself.

Killing the creature to perform an evil act would be an evil act.

Killing the creature to perform a good act would be a good act.

Morality 101.

 

[Arkhandus]

Thanks for helping clarify my point, KarinsDad. I ramble sometimes. {:^D This is the last time, I promise.

Storyteller01 and company.... Your points about a summoned creature suffering when it is injured or slain while summoned are moot and illogical, if you take a moment to look at what that would mean in the imaginary multiverses of D&D. The summoned creature is only a psuedo-real magical robot that mimics an actual creature who is going about their business unhindered on some Outer Plane. The wording of the Summoning spells, the Conjuration (Summoning) description in the PH's Magic chapter, and simple logic all show that it would make no sense for summoning to work as you think in D&D. No celestial creatures would be summonable, because most do not generally cause enough of a difference in battle to justify the suffering you assume they would endure for it, and benevolent deities like Pelor and Yandalla would never allow such summonings if your assumptions were right. Summoned creatures are unfeeling, unthinking, partially-real constructs of pure magical energy created to duplicate the appearance of an existing creature somewhere on the Outer or Elemental Planes.

If it were immoral to summon a celestial creature for the sake of it being cleaved by an allied warrior in order to get in an extra hit against the party's main enemy at the time, then it would also be immoral to summon a celestial creature to dash in and attack any enemy who would surely slay it; sending a Celestial Badger to attack a Kyton would be just as morally-incorrect as summoning it for the purpose of this thread's topic. Either way the CB would die before the round was over, most likely disappearing the instant it touched the Kyton because of Spell Resistance. Whether you summon it to die in that way or to die from drawing one attack from the Kyton, it matters not, and is no more moral than summoning it to be cleaved by the party's fighter. You are nonetheless summoning that critter for the sole purpose of charging in and dying immediately to achieve absolutely no effect against the forces of Evil; if you at least use it as fodder for the fighter's cleave-attack into the bad guy, it's serving a purpose for the sake of Good.

Now if the Celestial Badger were a real body inhabited by the soul of the summoned creature, feeling pain and such normally, it would certainly be evil to kill it in this way, but again, no more evil than summoning the CB to charge in and die upon the briefest contact with a Demon's or Devil's Spell Resistance. Thus it follows that the summoned badger could not possibly be a real body with real feelings and life, otherwise no forces of Good would allow its summoning under any circumstances; therefore the summoned badger is no more real than an illusion, merely controlled 'by remote' from its real body on the fields of Bytopia or Elesium or wherever, which feels no pain from the manifested psuedo-body composed of nothing more than magical energy; not true flesh. A monster chewing on summoned Celestial Badgers is not ingesting any flesh, the bitten-off parts just dissipate into their constituent nonliving magical energies immediately.

Manifestations are not necessarily real; they are clones of the creature's body, made purely of magical energy, susceptible to winking out of existence due to Antimagic Fields, Spell Resistance, etc. The creature's soul may control the magical-clone of its body, but its true body isn't summoned, that stays put right on its celestial/fiendish/elemental/whatever homeplane. The soul of the creature feels no pain or the like while controlling this magical puppet that looks like its own body, and the summoned creature obviously doesn't rebel against the control; it's just a temporary observer, operating this flesh-puppet about as directly as you would control a video game character. For all we know, the summoned creature could be controlling its real body at the same time back in its homeplane, no inconveniance at all because it's an extraplanar being and more in tune with the universe than the mortal who summoned its manifestation. The summoned body is no more than a magical construct that closely mimics flesh and allows the creature's soul to use its own magical abilities normally through the life-like puppet.

D&D does not distinguish living cells and such; in D&D, everything is made up of nonsentient elements only (fire, air, earth, water). They may form living cells, but those cells are not themselves sentient or living creatures. Does Remove Disease have the Evil descriptor since it destroys bacteria, viruses, and other assorted 'diseases'? Of course not. Cells in D&D are not necessarily creatures themselves. The magically-created puppet-construct of a summoned creature's body does not feel pain, as it does not think or feel anything really. The summoned creature's soul thinks for it, and directs it as if holding the puppet strings, but nothing more. I already described the logic earlier about how no Celestial creature would ever be summoned if good-aligned deities didn't want the summoned bodies to suffer; they do not suffer, they are no more susceptible to pain than an Iron Golem's or Flesh Golem's artificial body.

The summoner isn't pulling an actual Ghaele Eladrin or whatnot from Bytopia or wherever, he's creating a construct of pure magical energy that mimics that Eladrin's form and then coaxes the Eladrin's soul to control the psuedo-real puppet for a few seconds or so, pulling its metaphorical strings to direct it at the summoner's bidding so he can more effectively fight evil, no matter how the summoner goes about that. The Eladrin is happy to guide the puppet that looks like her, directing it to attack villains or move just so and allow the summoner's ally to cleave through the psuedo-real puppet in order to get in another solid hit against a villain. The only inconveniance for the soul of the summoned creature is perhaps a momentary distraction from whatever they were doing at home or whatever, as they turn their attention to their mind's eye where they see the magical puppet and move it around. No pain or death, just a brief moment of controlling the magical equivalent of a robot by remote control.

 

[Arkhandus]

Oh, and Storyteller01: The Outer Planes are filled with Celestial and Fiendish creatures of all sorts, and they aren't magical constructs themselves. They live and die normally on the Outer Planes, with their own civilizations and such. When a PC summons a creature from the Outer Planes, he or she is actually only summoning a look-alike magical construct, they aren't summoning the outsider itself. When the summoned clone-construct is destroyed or runs out of energy, it dissipates and the outsider, who never left their home plane, simply ceases to see through its remote-controlled, magical-robot-clone's eyes; just as if the outsider took off some binoculars or removed a camcorder from in front of their eyes. Essentially: Game Over, turn off the Nintendo, put down the control pad, take off the VirtualBoy gloves, take off the VirtualBoy VR-visor, and go back to cooking dinner. No harm, play again tomorrow if Pelor calls with another adventurer-helping, evil-fighting gig. {:^D

 

[Scion]

There is of course the optional rule of specific summons wherein you always get the same guy. This has the benefit of being able to track down your little buddy in the planes and give him gear.

 

[Anthraxus]

Now I'm really feeling bad about all those summoned creatures we use for trap defusing... You know:

Player(...me): "I cast summon monster I to bring forth a celestial monkey"
DM: "Okay."
Player: "I send him forward to touch what looks to be a strange Glyph."
(everybody laughs) "That's the way you check for traps!"
DM: "Well, the monkey climbs up onto the altar, looks back at you with a sad, sad look. Finally, a tear in it's eye, it waves once- before exploding."

Seriously, we do it all the time. We always bring up the "They're not really dying" thing, but we know we're being cheese weasels.

I can't imagine our DM's allowing the summoned creature/AOO/Cleave deal. That's just too much, man.

-A

 

[Geron Raveneye]

@Arkhandus
Lots of words that could have been saved, because you're starting off wrong in your first paragraph already. Allow me to quote from the text passages you mention, okay?

Summoning: A summoning spell instantly brings a creature or object to a place you designate. When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from. but a summoned object is not sent back unless the spell description specifically indicates this. A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if it's hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours to reform, during which time it can't be summoned again.
Player's Handbook 3.5, p. 173

Summon Monster: This spell summons an extraplanar creature (typically an outsider, elemental or magical beast native to another plane). It appears where you designate and acts immediately on your turn.
Player's Handbook 3.5, p. 286

I'm sorry, but claiming that you don't get a real creature is but the clone-image made of energy that simply winks out of existence, at best, a houserule. Both descriptions state that you get the real thing, a solid, living creature from another place that can be reduced to below 0 hitpoints, and, more importantly, killed. This neat little let's-calm-down-all-animal-loving-12-years-old "It is not really dead" fog-up is a laugh if you look at the sentence directly before it. It can be killed, but it is not really dead? [sarcasm]No, hon, it's gone to puppy heaven, where it will find lots of trees and juicy bones.[/sarcasm] A creature, under D&D rules, that is reduced to -10 hitpoints is commonly referred to as dead. Just because it is revived perfectly 24 hours later doesn't mean it wasn't killed, and wasn't dead in the meantime.

And what constitutes as "simple logic" in fantasy settings where gods send their servants off to war against the forces of evil, and them obeying, knowing that they risk their lifes, is up for interpretation. I'd say D&D is modeled on a setting mindset where risking your life willingly for a good cause (to fight against evil) is percieved as good and heroic, while surprisingly being killed by an ally for no real reason is percieved as the deed of callous and evil minds.

@Karinsdad
The "bizarre" reason why I keep ignoring your weird claim in addition to your comparison to a coma/sleep comparison, is that the creature can be, and for an AoO+Cleave combo, has to be killed. It doesn't get any clearer, does it? You kill it, reduce it's hitpoints to 0, drop it with one hit. 24 hours later, the remaining effect of the summoning magic will revive it, yippie. It was dead still. Your sleep comparison is complete nonsense. If you want to compare it to something, you can compare it to somebody laying a Contingency coupled with a True Resurrection upon his slightly dim-witted henchman, because he plans to carve him up in combat later and doesn't want to miss his services afterwards. That way, you can kill the poor sod and still claim it wasn't too bad, because he'll come back in a few.

As I said, that's a course of action that can be viewed as unproblematic only in a very specific set of circumstances, at least from a good character's point of view, without threatening to start an alignment shift.

About my "argument" that summoned creatures don't mind getting killed by their allies because there's some contract between the caster and the highr powers making them "his slaves"...read the spell description. They attack his enemies to the best of their abilities. If he can communicate with them, he can make them attack some other enemy, not attack, or handle some other task he has. They also will act normally in the last round before the spell ends (which, for nearly any creature, would mean attacking the bugger who tried to lop my head off, or flee as soon as possible).

Summoning a creature is the magical variant of drafting a soldier, or hiring a mercenary. They are there at the right time, they fight for you because they share your view about your enemies and want to get rid of them as much as you want it, and they accept the risk of getting killed by your enemy in the course of that, or their superior who allowed the design of that spell accepted it and they obey that contract.

Heedlessly killing off your allies for a small advantage still registers as non-good in my books. If the situation is right, it might be different, but most of the examples given in this discussion simply show that respect for life apparently only counts as good if you can't repair the damage again afterwards for a lot of posters here...which is quite a sad view on it, to be honest.

And yes, I'd have used them to spring traps, fill up a pit so I can walk over it or as bait for an AoO+Cleave combo without a second thought from me and my DM...15 years ago, when I didn't care to think about deeper consequences and did view those creatures as simple cannon fodder, too.

Edit: Make that True Resurrection

 

[Philip]

So simply killing another ally in your group for the same advantage would be just as okay as long as you raise him again afterwards? I guess we have to agree to disagree here. And no, killing a summoned creature is the moral equivalent of reducing a human being to -10 hitpoints and perfectly resurrecting it 24 hours later. It's in the description for Summoning magic that they are killed and reformed 24 hours later. They die!. And then the magic makes them come back.

Since summoned creatures 'dissipate', when they reach 0 hit points, a point at which true creatures would still be alive and conscious, I don't think that qualifies as actually dying!

From the PHB:
When the spell ends or is dispelled, a summoned creature is instantly sent back to where it came from. 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. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can't be summoned again.

So the creature 'goes away' if it is dispelled, the duration runs out, it is brought to 0 or less hit points, or fails a save versus a death effect. In all cases it cannot be summoned for 24 hours because it needs that time to 'reform'. It does not 'die', it 'goes away'.

It may be similar to killing your companion and perfectly ressurecting him, but is sure is not equivalent.

On another note: your companion may refuse to be ressurected after you killed him, which would be probable if you did it without his consent. A summoning creature cannot refuse to come back after you killed it.

 

[Philip]

Actually (as a house rule, and because I love rule consistency and logic) I consider summoned creatures to be the reverse of astral projections mechanically (see the 9th lvl wizard spell Astral Projection). It's quite neat and solves all kinds of problems with the interpretation of both spells.

And yes, astral travellers have been known to 'sacrifice' their astral forms to spring traps. There is no true danger involved, after all: they just 'go away' and return to their true body.

Edit: added some clarification