Summon monster via an artifact

[Lynos]

Hey folks

One of the PC's in my campaign has recently acquired the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords.

The item's description says: "Additionally, the wielder can summon an elder earth elemental (as summon monster IX; duration 20 rounds) once per week."

The Summon special ability, hyperlinked in the description says: "A creature with the summon ability can summon other specific creatures of its kind much as though casting a summon monster spell, but it usually has only a limited chance of success (as specified in the creature’s entry). Roll d%: On a failure, no creature answers the summons."

I am not sure what is meant by "creature entry". The page for the Summon Monster spell does not list any failure conditions, and when I click on some of the creatures just to check their individual pages, I don't see anything either.

My question is simple: can the PC summon the Elder Elemental automatically using the axe, or is there a roll involved?

Thanks!

[blahpers]

Short answer:

Yes, it's automatic. There is no roll involved.

Long answer:

The summon special ability is for monsters that have an innate ability to summon other monsters. The "creature's entry" is its stat block, usually in one of the Bestiary books. For an example, see the creature entry for hezrou:

Hezrou wrote:

Spell-Like Abilities (CL 13th)

At will—chaos hammer (DC 18), greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. of objects only), unholy blight (DC 18)
3/day—gaseous form
1/day—blasphemy (DC 21), summon (level 4, 1 hezrou 35%)

This ability has nothing to do with the summon monster spells or abilities that duplicate them (such as that of the axe of the dwarvish lords). Those spells/abilities have no failure chance.

[Lynos]

Thanks, blahpers!

So essentially the artifact's description shouldn't link to that ability, since it's just confusing...

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

Lynos wrote:

Thanks, blahpers!

So essentially the artifact's description shouldn't link to that ability, since it's just confusing...

AFAICT d20pfsrd's internal links are almost entirely auto-generated and go through zero human sanity-checking. Don't count on any of them to be sensible. (Though I admit I've occasionally found them quite useful, and I'm glad AoN has been (more carefully) adding such.)

[Cevah]

I sent a PM to d20pfsrd.com. Hopefully it will be fixed shortly.

/cevah