Summon Monster question


3.5/d20/OGL


We've never really used it before, so this is something new for me. You have to be able to communicate with the creature?!? Does this mean my Caster needs Speak With Animals? Does a Celestial Badger speak Celestial? I'm confused!


Some extra info from Sage Advice (even though it isn't exact either lol)

Q: Dear Sage,
Does it take an action to give orders (or new orders) to summoned creatures?
--Don
A: No. You can communicate with a summoned creature using normal speech, which doesn’t take an action.
Q: Dear Sage,
Can the caster command a summoned creature to make special attacks, such as bull rushing or grappling? What about commanding it to deal nonlethal damage?
--Matthew
A: Yes.
As long as the caster is capable of communicating to the summoned creature, and as long as the creature is capable of carrying out the commanded action, the caster can give any command he wants.

Now I guess you could take this two ways and it goes back to your original question. 1 - You must be able to speak with the summoned creature (celestial creatures with an intelligence score of 3 I believe would speak celestial etc, earthen creature terran etc etc). Or...

2 - The basic meaning is that you are able to speak, as in not being mute, silenced, missing a tongue, bound and gagged etc.

I've always played with option 2 as I don't believe, in the instance of a cleric, the diety would place a beast in front of you that you couldn't communicate with.

I suppose it is up to the DM on how it works, once again option 2 for me.


House rule it.

If you summoned it, you can control it.

Sovereign Court

I don't see any reason that you should be allowed to be in full command of all the things you summon. If you simply want them to defend you, I think they're compelled to do something along those lines, or to attack your enemies, but if you want to give it more specific orders you should need to either share a language or make some kind of Handle Animal check to get it to do that.


assuming it automatically knows who your enemies are.


From the spell description (because you know, that would be where to look):
"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. It attacks your opponents to the best of its ability. If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions."

So there you go.


Those four bolded words are the reason I asked my question. The way I read it, communication is not guaranteed/assumed. The spell description, however, never explains what is necessary to communicate with the summoned creature, nor does the Celestial or Fiendish template descriptions in the MM. Given the text under "Intelligence" in the PHB, human-like intelligence starts at 3. A summoned celestial/fiendish creature has its INT as "at least a 3." So I would assume it to speak a language. Since "Speak with Animals" is not on a Wizard's spell-list, that leaves the next obvious option to be the summoned creature speaks Celestial or (Abyssal/Infernal, depending on its home plane). Otherwise, Wizards have little hope of ever using their Summoned creatures to full potential.


This came up in our game and the DM ruled that these celestial creatures do not speak Celestial, as every other creature in the MM has an indication of what languages they speak. His ruling was that celestial bears are basically bears, only bears that grew up in a better place than the material plane.


Doc_Outlands wrote:
Those four bolded words are the reason I asked my question. The way I read it, communication is not guaranteed/assumed. The spell description, however, never explains what is necessary to communicate with the summoned creature, nor does the Celestial or Fiendish template descriptions in the MM. Given the text under "Intelligence" in the PHB, human-like intelligence starts at 3. A summoned celestial/fiendish creature has its INT as "at least a 3." So I would assume it to speak a language. Since "Speak with Animals" is not on a Wizard's spell-list, that leaves the next obvious option to be the summoned creature speaks Celestial or (Abyssal/Infernal, depending on its home plane). Otherwise, Wizards have little hope of ever using their Summoned creatures to full potential.

I think they didn't specify an answer because the question isn't very specific. Communication could be impeded by a number of factors, from silence spells and gags to getting separated and being out of hearing range to not sharing a language. The game often, though perhaps not always, differentiates between having line of sight/effect/hearing and sharing a language. To me, the term "communicate" implies having a common language, in addition to being able to speak/be heard.

There are certainly some creatures whose command this is an impediment to. However, at the lower levels, there aren't that many creatures with special abilities for the summoner to command the creature to use. At the higher levels, the creatures have more abilities but also tend to speak Common or have a tongues effect or the like in play.

I would tend to say that Celestial and Fiendish creatures speak Celestial or Abyssal/Infernal (depending on alignment). At least, they probably understand it, though I have no problem ruling they are incapable of speech themselves. Look at hell hounds and lemures, for example, who do not speak but can understand the commands of other creatures.

Hope that helps.


It pretty much reinforces my existing opinions, thanks. :D


Yeah it is pretty much as simple as all that. ;D

If you can't communicate, then it will attack for you. If you can communicate you can get it to do all those pretty tricks. We had a case were my wizard couldn't communicate because he was rendered unconcious, fortunately the Lantern Archons I summoned continued attacking, since the spell hadn't expired and I couldn't communicate... So even though I wanted them to cast Aid on me they couldn't.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

Here's another monkeywrench for the discussion. Look up the stats for any of the summoned vermin. Despite the template stating all fiendish and celestial creatures have an INT minimum of 3, the stat cards for D&D minis and many printed adventures list celestial and fiendish vermin with INT -. Assuming this isn't a typo, how would a caster communicate with these creatures?

I think it's best to just assume a caster can direct any creature it summons for the duration of the spell and not get bogged down by semantics. Besides, a mage never had to be able to speak the language of its summoned monsters in previous editions of the game so why should they have to now?


You sure on that last part Velcro or did you simply not worry about it?

Personally I generally assume that the Outsider Creature X can understand the language that it is typed after. If they are smarter than base Int 3 I'll generally let them have common too.

All in all just another reason to take a few ranks in linguistics (speak language).

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

From AD&D Summon Monster I spell description:

Description: Within one round of casting this spell, the wizard magically conjures 2d4 1st level monsters( selected by the DM from the 1st level encounter table). The monsters appear anywhere within the area of effect, as desired by the wizard. They attack the spell user's opponents to the best of their ability until he commands that the attacks cease, the spell duration expires, or the monsters are slain. The creatures do not check morale, but they vanish when slain. Note that if no opponent exists to fight, summoned monsters can, if the wizard can communicate with them and if they are physically able, perform other services for the summoning wizard.
In rare cases, adventurers have been known to disappear, summoned by powerful spellcasters using this spell. Those summoned recall all the details of their trip.
The material components of this spell are a tiny bag and a small (not neccessarily lit) candle.

Nowhere in there does it say the mage has to be able to communicate with the creatures he summons to make them fight something. He only has to point them at a target and say "when." Granted, he does have to be able to communicate with them if he wants them to do other stuff. I know it seems wacky, but that's how it's written. RAW, you could summon as many creatures as you wanted to beat things up and that's really all we ever used summoned creatures for.

But like you say, it really comes down to how the DM wants to rule it and Linguistics is a good skill to have regardless. (I still want to know how I'm going to tell my summoned fiendish spider to knit me a sweater when he has no intelligence.)


The spell only says they attack when ordered and cease if so ordered. I have always presumed such was the limit of the spell and any "automatic" communication.

In my last campaign the Conjurer started learning elemental languages when he got to the point of summoning small elementals so that he could give them more complex commands and have them either do things other than simple attacks, be it other tasks or more complicated tactics.

FWIW,

Rez


Velcro Zipper wrote:

From AD&D Summon Monster I spell description:

Description: Within one round of casting this spell, the wizard magically conjures 2d4 1st level monsters( selected by the DM from the 1st level encounter table). The monsters appear anywhere within the area of effect, as desired by the wizard. They attack the spell user's opponents to the best of their ability until he commands that the attacks cease, the spell duration expires, or the monsters are slain. The creatures do not check morale, but they vanish when slain. Note that if no opponent exists to fight, summoned monsters can, if the wizard can communicate with them and if they are physically able, perform other services for the summoning wizard.
In rare cases, adventurers have been known to disappear, summoned by powerful spellcasters using this spell. Those summoned recall all the details of their trip.
The material components of this spell are a tiny bag and a small (not neccessarily lit) candle.

Nowhere in there does it say the mage has to be able to communicate with the creatures he summons to make them fight something. He only has to point them at a target and say "when." Granted, he does have to be able to communicate with them if he wants them to do other stuff. I know it seems wacky, but that's how it's written. RAW, you could summon as many creatures as you wanted to beat things up and that's really all we ever used summoned creatures for.

But like you say, it really comes down to how the DM wants to rule it and Linguistics is a good skill to have regardless. (I still want to know how I'm going to tell my summoned fiendish spider to knit me a sweater when he has no intelligence.)

Good stuffs it's the same as the 3.x summon monster: They can attack regardless, but if you want them to do something else you have to be able to talk with them (or communicate in some way).

Lets not forget many outsiders do have telepathy at will, or tongues at will so a lot of times (after 3rd level spells) this might not be as hard as it sounds.

Contributor

Abraham spalding wrote:
Good stuffs it's the same as the 3.x summon monster: They can attack regardless, but if you want them to do something else you have to be able to talk with them (or communicate in some way).

This.


I was pretty sure this was how it worked.

So a Celestial X speaks Celestial. What does a Fiendish X speak? Will that vary based on the alignment of the summoned creature?

Contributor

Doc_Outlands wrote:

I was pretty sure this was how it worked.

So a Celestial X speaks Celestial. What does a Fiendish X speak? Will that vary based on the alignment of the summoned creature?

Yep. LE's speak Infernal, CE's speak Abyssal. NE's probably also speak Abyssal.


Eh probably but it's an issue for the DM. I have one overall evil language (Vile) and then a couple of sublanguages (abyssmal and Infernal) same with the Celestial.


My devils still speak Mabrahoring...

Dark Archive

Kirth Gersen wrote:
My devils still speak Mabrahoring...

Heh.

With a name like Melbrinionsadsazzerfeltselior, the demon didn't expect too many wizards to be able to summon him without making a fatal error...


Set wrote:

With a name like Melbrinionsadsazzerfeltselior, the demon didn't expect too many wizards to be able to summon him without making a fatal error...

Melbriniononsadsazzersteldregandishfeltselior, if I recall correctly. "Baran hailed from Blackwold, where a complex, agglutinative language was spoken." Evidently Set hails from somewhere with literate, tasteful readers!

I loved the fact that the old 1e issues of Dragon specified Mabrahoring by name as the language of the Hells, in the "Politics of Hell" articles.

Dark Archive

Kirth Gersen wrote:
Melbriniononsadsazzersteldregandishfeltselior, if I recall correctly. "Baran hailed from Blackwold, where a complex, agglutinative language was spoken." Evidently Set hails from somewhere with literate, tasteful readers!

Yes, that does look right!

Can ya tell I haven't read the Changing Lands in about 20 years? My brain, she goes soft and mushy with age.

I blame it on Hulu.


Set wrote:
Can ya tell I haven't read the Changing Lands in about 20 years?

I'm impressed to find not only someone else who read it, but who remembers that reference! We be a dying breed, I tell ye. For some reason I was particularly taken with the "Dilvish" stories -- like the Count of Monte Cristo, or Vance's "Demon Princes" books (obviously!) -- twenty years ago I had characters named Selar and Arlata...

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