I'm GMing a gestalt campaign soon and one of the PC's wants to play a necromancer with Gravewalker Witch/Cleric. Could she use summon minor monster to create bats, and then kill them, and then raise them with Animate Dead? I realize this would take a while and multiple castings of each, so after x amount of days, is this possible? The reason I ask is because the Summon Minor Monster clearly states that the duration of the spell is 1round/level. So, even if the monster is immediately slain, does it remain there or does it teleport back to where it came from?
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Summon Minor Monster
School conjuration (summoning); Level antipaladin 1, bard 1, cleric/oracle 1, psychic 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, summoner/unchained summoner 1, witch 1
CASTING
Casting Time 1 round
Components V, S, F/DF (a tiny bag and a small candle)
EFFECT
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect 1d3 summoned creatures
Duration 1 round/level (D)
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
DESCRIPTION
This spell functions as summon monster I, except you can summon 1d3 Tiny or smaller animals, such as bats, lizards, monkeys, rats, ravens, toads, or weasels. The summoned animals must all be the same type of creature. As with animals summoned with summon monster I, you may apply one alignment-appropriate template to these animals.
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Summon Monster I
School conjuration (summoning) [see text]; Level antipaladin 1, bard 1, cleric/oracle 1, medium 1, psychic 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, spiritualist 1, summoner/unchained summoner 1, witch 1
CASTING
Casting Time 1 round
Components V, S, F/DF (a tiny bag and a small candle)
EFFECT
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect one summoned creature
Duration 1 round/level (D)
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
DESCRIPTION
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. 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.
A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities. Creatures cannot be summoned into an environment that cannot support them. Creatures summoned using this spell cannot use spells or spell-like abilities that duplicate spells with expensive material components (such as wish).
When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type. Creatures on Table: Summon Monster marked with an “*” are summoned with the celestial template, if you are good, and the fiendish template, if you are evil. If you are neutral, you may choose which template to apply to the creature. Creatures marked with an “*” always have an alignment that matches yours, regardless of their usual alignment. Summoning these creatures makes the summoning spell’s type match your alignment.
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Animate Dead
School necromancy [evil]; Level antipaladin 3, cleric/oracle 3, shaman 3, sorcerer/wizard 4; Domain death 3; Subdomain souls 3
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (an onyx gem worth at least 25 gp per Hit Die of the undead)
EFFECT
Range touch
Targets one or more corpses touched
Duration instantaneous
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
DESCRIPTION
This spell turns corpses into undead skeletons or zombies that obey your spoken commands.
The undead can be made to follow you, or they can be made to remain in an area and attack any creature (or just a specific kind of creature) entering the place. They remain animated until they are destroyed. A destroyed skeleton or zombie can’t be animated again.
Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead. The desecrate spell doubles this limit.
The undead you create remain under your control indefinitely. No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level. If you exceed this number, all the newly created creatures fall under your control, and any excess undead from previous castings become uncontrolled. You choose which creatures are released. Undead you control through the Command Undead feat do not count toward this limit.
Skeletons: A skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton. The corpse must have bones. If a skeleton is made from a corpse, the flesh falls off the bones. Editor’s Note: The bloody skeleton and burning skeleton variants are created by use of the animate dead spell but count as double their normal HD when doing so.
Zombies: A zombie can be created only from a mostly intact corpse. The corpse must be that of a creature with a physical anatomy. Editor’s Note: The rule regarding costing double HD for creating variant bloody skeleton and burning skeleton variants was not included in the fast zombie and plague zombie variant zombie template details. It is left to the GMs discretion if that rule would apply to creating variant zombies.
Note: This spell can be used on any mostly intact dead vermin that has an exoskeleton. When this is done the creature gains the exoskeleton template. The template does not indicate any additional costs or requirements (see Exoskeleton template.)
No, summoned monsters don't leave behind bodies when they die. They don't leave behind anything.
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.
Leaving aside that the fact that summon monsters don't leave corpses, if the player actually wants a swarm as defined by the pathfinder game term they would have other issues.
Certainly it is within the realm of possibility for a character to just hunt down bats in the wild, kill them, and animate them. This would create a bunch of zombie bats (I'm assuming we want to keep flight) but a swarm of common bats is about 5000 bats. No way your necromancer is getting that many. It would also be arguable even if they did that you could create a swarm just by getting enough, swarming arises from certain behaviors, and these zombie bats don't have that, they are just individual creatures the you would have to command.
Undead swarms exist, but they generally have a specific way they come about.
Sounds good, thanks guys.