What would happen if a summoned monster were to eat some object? When the spell expired would the object remain in the creature's belly when it went back to never-never land or would it fall to the ground where the monster was? For simplicity's sake lets suppose it is a non-creature, non-magical, ordinary object that is small enough for the creature to easily swallow without incident.
Alternatively, is riding in a celestial t-rex's stomach a new way to travel the cosmos?
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Really interesting question. My initial thought was that the contents of something's stomach would go with it. Otherwise, things could get silly and messy really quick. Upon further reflection though, I think that would also cause all sorts of problems. Your cheat to planar travel being just one.
For example, a first level wizard can't destroy the Hand of Vecna, but he can summon a viper which spends its round swallowing the hand before disappearing. Sure, the hand is out there somewhere, but tracking it down is going to be a pain. This might give the wizard some time to gain some levels at least.
I asked a similar question a long time ago. My question was "What if a monster with the swallow ability swallowed a player, and then the caster dismissed it?
We eventually agreed that it is one of those "not in the rules" issues. I think that in the spirit of fairness and fun the swallowed person would remain behind so summon monster does not turn into an alternate plane shift spell.
I think the thing inside the monster's belly would go with it. Especially if the person or thing is digestible. Technically, if it is digestible, it is already becoming part of the creature.
As to this being a cheat to extraplanar travel, consider the fact that you are not only stuck in the belly of some beast, but you are likely stuck in the belly of some beast with nobody else to help you get out, on a plane that is not exactly hospitable to you. I don't think that's a cheat so much as a pretty fair trade.
Now, it's a bit of an easy out to do it to your enemy (as opposed to volunteering to have it done), but in most cases if you are able to summon something with that level of power, you BBEG at least could be expected to have a way back. His mooks would be doomed, of course.
Uh? I didn't know that summon monster allows for kobold conjuration...
I think that I would partial approach: undigested contents of the summoned monster's stomach would be purged somewhere between material plane and transitive planes. Usually on the border of Astral or Material/Ethereal Planes, maybe shadow as it is quite accessible.
The part about creatures being able to travel this way was mostly a joke. The only part I'm actually interested in would be the part about small nonmagical items. I do appreciate the answers so far though!
This one has been answered by the developers before -- but I'm not going to do the search fu... it came up again when the summoner first came out too, and was answered (again) then too.
I remember the answer was that stuff ate gets left behind.