Quote: 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 its hit points drop to 0 or lower, but it is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can't be summoned again.
When the spell that summoned a creature ends and the creature disappears, all the spells it has cast expire. A summoned creature cannot use any innate summoning abilities it may have.
If you cast summon monster I to summon an eagle, and it is dropped to 0 hp or lower, then you can't summon it for 24 hrs. That makes pretty simple sense at first, but then, when I think about it more, does this also mean that you only ever have access to 1 eagle? As far as I can see, there is no limit mentioned, nor is there any rule that prevents you from casting summon monster I multiple times to have multiple summoned eagles with you at the same time.
What happens in you cast summon monster II to summon 1d3 eagles in less than 24 hrs after your summon monster I eagle was killed? Do you summon 1d3-1 eagles?
Or does losing one eagle mean that you simply can't summon ANYmore eagles for 24 hrs? This seems to make the most sense and would also make it easier than having to keep track of the number of each type of summoned monster that has been killed in the past 24 hrs.
That's a good question, but as far as I can tell it has a pretty simple solution. The key lies in the language. "It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform..." If you were trying to re-summon that specific eagle you'd end up fizzling your spell. But the plane from which that creature came has possibly hundreds of thousands of eagles, and you can summon another eagle as quickly as you please. Looking at the language of Summon Monster 1 from the PSRD shows: d20pfsrd.com wrote: The spell conjures one of the creatures from the 1st Level list on Table: Summon Monster. You choose which kind of creature to summon, and you can choose a different one each time you cast the spell. Bolding and italics are mine. By my understanding if a sorcerer has this spell they can cast it back to back to back, and summon a viper each time, because each of the vipers is a different unique viper.
If I'm wrong I'd love to see the RAW that shows it.
It is left open enough for each DM to decide how he wants to rule on this.
Most of the time, i ignore this rule, when summon general creatures. So ya summon an eagle, rise and repeat as desired.
The only time i use this rule, is with Name Creatures. So if you summon John the eagle, who you have made friends with. Then ya, if he is killed or crippled, then you have to wait at least 24 hour before re-summoning John the eagle.
If you are summoning any eagle the spell can catch, like I said, I ignore the 24 hour rule.
......
MendedWall12 beat me to the post :D
Personally, unless your character was summoning a PARTICULAR eagle, I don't think it would matter. You would just summon different eagles.
Now, that being said, there was something in the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana or somewhere else about summoning individual creatures (i.e. when you summoned an eagle, you summoned a particular eagle, or a particular group of eagles). This was a trade off. You were limited by the above, but the eagle itself could be equipped, be exceptional and/or even advance a bit.
The other case is where the spell or ability is limited to a specific creature. For instance, the Antipaladin's summon fiend ability (edit: although, like the Paladin's mount, it has its own rules for dying). As another example, perhaps you have summoned a particular intelligent critter, and have grown fond of it (as well as the fact it understands you and your motivations, or it has knowledge that you need, for ex. you used it to scout, but it died before reporting back).
But if you're just pulling eagles willy-nilly from the ether, you should be fine (heck, you could call a single eagle again right after the first one died, if you're not too attached to the first :) ).
Thanks for the replies so far! They have all been helpful. Here are some of my thoughts on them...
MendedWall12 wrote: That's a good question, but as far as I can tell it has a pretty simple solution. The key lies in the language. "It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform..." If you were trying to re-summon that specific eagle you'd end up fizzling your spell. But the plane from which that creature came has possibly hundreds of thousands of eagles, and you can summon another eagle as quickly as you please. Looking at the language of Summon Monster 1 from the PSRD shows: d20pfsrd.com wrote: The spell conjures one of the creatures from the 1st Level list on Table: Summon Monster. You choose which kind of creature to summon, and you can choose a different one each time you cast the spell. Bolding and italics are mine. By my understanding if a sorcerer has this spell they can cast it back to back to back, and summon a viper each time, because each of the vipers is a different unique viper.
If I'm wrong I'd love to see the RAW that shows it. I agree that there are many eagles on the "Plane of Eagles" (or wherever they come from), but I'm not sure if "the creature" definitively means a specific individual. That part of it seems, at best, very open to DM discretion - which I wish it weren't...but it doesn't say specific or individual creature, nor does it say creature type or anything else more general.
Also, the other section that you quote, I always took that to mean that you can summon different types of creatures each time you cast the spell, so you can summon an eagle, and next time, you can summon a viper, and later, you can summon some other creature. I never took it to mean that you can summon Bob the eagle, and next time, you can summon Fred the eagle. I figured this section was added to let people know that "summon monster" doesn't become "summon eagle" just because the first creature you summon is an eagle... because there are many things in the rules where the first choice has a permanent effect, such as selecting a Favored Enemy, Domains, Arcane Bond, etc.
Oliver McShade wrote: It is left open enough for each DM to decide how he wants to rule on this.
Most of the time, i ignore this rule, when summon general creatures. So ya summon an eagle, rise and repeat as desired.
The only time i use this rule, is with Name Creatures. So if you summon John the eagle, who you have made friends with. Then ya, if he is killed or crippled, then you have to wait at least 24 hour before re-summoning John the eagle.
If you are summoning any eagle the spell can catch, like I said, I ignore the 24 hour rule.
I have seen other people mention this "Name Creatures" option but cannot find it in the rules. Can you point me in the right direction?
If you can name specific individuals with a regular summon spell, then MendedWall12's outlook on "the creature" seems more likely to be correct.
Makarnak wrote: Personally, unless your character was summoning a PARTICULAR eagle, I don't think it would matter. You would just summon different eagles.
Now, that being said, there was something in the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana or somewhere else about summoning individual creatures (i.e. when you summoned an eagle, you summoned a particular eagle, or a particular group of eagles). This was a trade off. You were limited by the above, but the eagle itself could be equipped, be exceptional and/or even advance a bit.
The other case is where the spell or ability is limited to a specific creature. For instance, the Antipaladin's summon fiend ability (edit: although, like the Paladin's mount, it has its own rules for dying). As another example, perhaps you have summoned a particular intelligent critter, and have grown fond of it (as well as the fact it understands you and your motivations, or it has knowledge that you need, for ex. you used it to scout, but it died before reporting back).
But if you're just pulling eagles willy-nilly from the ether, you should be fine (heck, you could call a single eagle again right after the first one died, if you're not too attached to the first :) ).
Thanks for pointing out the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana info! I'm actually interesting in look at that info for a player in my game but could not remember where I saw it.
My best guess was that this was so that it would be harder to use them as "disposable scouts". For example, summon an eagle and have it fly into an area that you expect to be heavily guarded. Once they shoot down the eagle, re-summon the same one and ask it what it saw before it was shot.
As I said, I could be wrong.
Off-topic, but it would make for a great solo adventure is a PC was the summoned creature of a celestial caster? It casts "Summon Material Adventurer 3" and brings in a level 5 fighter to help kill a Kyton or something.
haha i love that.
It would also make for a great backstory for some back-woods PC.
"How does your Pc know celestial? they've not seen more than trees for 15 years!"
"well, every couple of weeks or so this angel would rip me away to fight some demon or something.. and eventually I just kinda got onto their language.. made things easier in the long run"
Could also be used to justify all manner of odd (fluff) things about a character- from how they got their starting gear to languages to skills known or whatever.
900gp trait could be from your "summoner" benefactor who got tired of seeing you show up in crappy leather armor with a rusty long sword :)
-S
reefwood wrote: Thanks for pointing out the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana info! I'm actually interesting in look at that info for a player in my game but could not remember where I saw it. My mistake, the individualized summoning lists are in UA, but the summoning individual monster variant is in the 3.5 DMG, page 37.
Hope that helps.
The summoned PC game sounds like fun, heh.
Nebelwerfer41 wrote: Off-topic, but it would make for a great solo adventure is a PC was the summoned creature of a celestial caster? It casts "Summon Material Adventurer 3" and brings in a level 5 fighter to help kill a Kyton or something. +1! This gives me an idea on how to start the next campaign I might run.
Makarnak wrote: reefwood wrote: Thanks for pointing out the 3.5 Unearthed Arcana info! I'm actually interesting in look at that info for a player in my game but could not remember where I saw it. My mistake, the individualized summoning lists are in UA, but the summoning individual monster variant is in the 3.5 DMG, page 37.
Hope that helps.
The summoned PC game sounds like fun, heh. Yes, that is exactly what I was looking for in regards to a related matter, and the individualized summoning lists look they could be fun for an NPC.
.
.
.
Anyway, from reading these posts and doing some research, it looks like...
1) The option to name a specific creature is given in the spell lesser planar ally, which is a "calling" spell, not a "summoning" spell. It makes me think that if it is stated in this description, but nowhere else, then it can only be done with this spell.
2) The "24 hr reformation" rule is given in the entry for the "summoning" sub-school, but not the "calling" sub-school. Also, according to other rules, if your "called" planar ally gets killed, it is really dead and cannot reform anyway.
3) In 3.5, summoning a specific creature was a variant option, so it seems that summoning under normal circumstances would always provide a random creature.
I know that last part is 3.5, and plenty of things in Pathfinder work differently, but those 3 things seem to be as much RAW or RAWish material that I can find on the matter.
Based on all this, if the "24 hr reformation" for summoning rule doesn't apply to a specific creature (because you can't summon a specific creature), then what would it apply to? I know this is the same as my opening question, but now I have a little more info to give me some direction on at least what the answer isn't.
Or did Pathfinder purposefully leave this vague to allow DMs to make up their own interpretations? And if so, are there general schools of thought on this matter? Do most people handle it one way, or is it split pretty evenly between to different methods, or is it just all over the place based on many varied interpretations?
If there is no definitive answer, I'm inclined to treat the number of summoned creatures killed as a penalty to the summoning. If you can only summon 1 eagle, and it dies, no more eagles for 24 hrs. If you can summon 1d3 eagles, and 1 dies, you can only summon 1d3-1 eagles for 24 hrs. Although, this is would be just like the 3.5 variant for summoning specific creatures, but it is better than not being able to summon any eagles for 24 hrs... I guess one change I could make to the 1d3-1 is to have a minimum of 1, so you always get at least 1 summoned eagle even if 10 summoned eagles have been killed in the past 24 hrs.
And if the "24 hr reform" rule doesn't apply to specific creatures, and it doesn't mean you get less or none for 24 hrs, what else could it mean?
Recent threads in Rules Questions
|
