Wall of Whale

[Scribble]

Ok so I recently purchased the Tin of Summonable monsters token set. I believe from Fiery Dragon.

In it they have a list of summonable monsters, and one of them is the whale, and it has a note reading only in aquatic settings. At first this made complete sense to me but then I thought:

Couldn't you just summon the thing say 30 feet over someone's head and make an improvised Whale Bomb?

Couldn't you just summon the thing in the middle of a hallways and make an improvised Wall of Whale spell?

What do yu think? Is it just abusing the spirit of the rules too much? Is there a valid crunch concern I'm missing?

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I believe this was addressed in the FAQ recently; and the decision stated summoned creatures could not be dropped on opponents.

 

[Scribble]

What about a wall of whale?

**edit***

I guess the real question is wether there is any reason water creatures cannot be summoned on land, other then the fact that they wouldn't really have an attack ability?

 

[AuraSeer]

You can't conjure a creature or object in empty space; it must arrive in an open location, on a surface capable of supporting it. This is stated in the general description of the Conjuration school.

Whales and other water-dwelling creatures can only be summoned in an aquatic environment, because the summon monster descriptions say so. You could still create a "wall of whale", if you managed to flood the corridor first...

 

[Quidam]

i'd buy the wall

If my players were creative enough to think of Wall of Whale, I'd let 'em do it. If they were good, though, I'd make 'em feel the cruelty of it.

And since whales breathe air, you don't have to worry about your wall suffocating and *poof*ing into thick air.

 

[Scribble]

Whales and other water-dwelling creatures can only be summoned in an aquatic environment, because the summon monster descriptions say so.

Yes I understand this. My question is basically why do the rules say so. My inclination would be to agree with Quidam and say if they were creative enough to think of wall of whale I'd allow it. (Sometime ask me about the bouncing water wyrd on a string story...)

What I'm wondering is if there was some crunch reasoning that this was dissallowed when the spell was written.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The crunchy reason is that critters should never be summoned into obviously contrary environments. Whales and fish should not be summoned on land. Elephants not in the air. Fire Elementals not underwater.

I suppose there is some ambiguity of whether this is really crunch or flavor, but this is a pretty extreme case. Flavorwise you are pulling a magical rendition of a creature into the world and it should be easier to accomplish this where "like matches like". A fish (or whale) out of water is a gross mismatch. D&D does not bother with fine gradations of bonuses and penalties for casting spells, but just forbids extreme examples. Frex, it would be extremely cool to give a small bonus for summoning wolves in a forest, but it would be too troublesome to be worthwhile for most campaigns to handle this level of detail.

 

[Sejs]

Couldn't you just summon the thing say 30 feet over someone's head and make an improvised Whale Bomb?

Heh, Whale Bomb. Oh that takes me back. Friend of mind was running a Shadowrun game, when at some point we find out that the remote corporate facility we needed to get into was encapsulated by some kind of ward that dispelled any ongoing magical effect that passed across the terminus.

So we proceeded to hatch the Worst Plan In Shadowrun History; as a backup, we were going to break into the Aquarium, shapechange a whale into a squirrel, fly a good ways above the corp facility (well outside the ward's area) and let the furry once-cephalopod drop. He'd pass thru the ward, return to his former whaley state and ... splash down. Explosivly.

You know, as a distraction...

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

So we proceeded to hatch the Worst Plan In Shadowrun History; as a backup, we were going to break into the Aquarium, shapechange a whale into a squirrel, fly a good ways above the corp facility (well outside the ward's area) and let the furry once-cephalopod drop. He'd pass thru the ward, return to his former whaley state and ... splash down. Explosivly.

You know, as a distraction...

Heh. <hijack> Reminds me of a SR experience...

One kid I gamed with had the exact same plan for absolutely every situation: Drive up in a pizza delivery truck, walk right up to the door with a pizza box in hand, then go in with guns blazing when someone opens the door. Except sometimes he would like to loosen up and substitute an AK-97 for the pizza box -- when he was feeling creative.

 

[dcollins]

Couldn't you just summon the thing say 30 feet over someone's head and make an improvised Whale Bomb?

From SRD core rules on "Magic: Conjuration":

A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.