The spell description isn’t of much help. The Conjuration school rules give a broad answer to the OP’s first two questions:
Creatures you conjure usually—but not always—obey your commands.
Other official sources do offer more specific limits, but for more specific types of summoning. For example, someone who took the Deific Obedience feat and worshipped Iomedae would receive the Just Ally boon, which spells out limitations to the summoned creature’s conduct and the orders the summoning character can issue:
The shield archon follows your commands perfectly for 1 minute for every Hit Die you possess before vanishing back to its home in Heaven. The shield archon doesn’t follow commands that would violate its alignment, however, and particularly egregious commands could cause it to attack you.
You could use this as a more specific example of what “usually—but not always” translates to. A creature that is brought by the Summon Monster spell probably has less control than a creature that arrives essentially on the strength of prayer, worship, and good conduct, though, and so it probably doesn’t have the ability to attack the spellcaster.
Yeah, they do what you ask, unless you ask them to do something they wouldn’t. But that will seriously vary from GM to GM and from monster to monster.
If you can’t communicate with them, they automatically know to attack whoever you perceive as an enemy.
I guess there might be a rare case where they wouldn’t want to attack your enemies, say asking angels to attack angels. In that case, I’d expect some GM variance. But really why would you even summon an angel to fight an angel, when you could have just summoned a devil and be beating their DR.
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from summon monster
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.
nothing ever says it can disobey you. it says you can direct it to do other actions.
what other spell disobeys you when you cast? does fireball not explode? lighningbolt doesnt go in a straight line?
it does exactly what it says it does, which is attack, or perform other action if you can comunicate.
its not cast "let DM screw with player"
Another point to consider is does the soul gem stay around after the Cacodaemon disappears? From what I understand the gear of a summoned creature does not remain once the summoned creature disappears.
If a summoned creatures gear can be given away and remains after the spell expires that leads to unlimited wealth. Summon Monster spells do not have an expensive material component, so realistically cost nothing to cast. You could summon a creature with valuable gear like an Erinyes and tell them to give you, their gear. Their sword is worth 2,315 GP and their bow is worth 8,900 GP, for a total of 11,215 gold per summoning. That means every casting of a 6th level spell will net the character around 5,600 GP per casting. No GM is going to allow this, so is a pretty good indication the gear of a summoned creature should not remain.
Why bother having a Cacodaemon create soul gems when you can have unlimited wealth.
Having a summoned creature's gear remaining is going to break the game. Any caster able to summon a creature with any kind of gear will allow it to create wealth out of thin air. Summon Cacodaemon is a 2nd level spell which means most evil caster of 3rd or 4th level have unlimited wealth. A non-evil caster would have to be able to cast 4th level spells (Summon Genie, lesser) to get unlimited wealth. Once you are able to cast 6th level spells you can get a lot of wealth very fast.
A non-evil caster would have to be able to cast 4th level spells (Summon Genie, lesser) to get unlimited wealth. Once you are able to cast 6th level spells you can get a lot of wealth very fast.
How are you getting wealth out of summoning genies?
Lesser Summon Genie is a 4th level spell with a focus of an oil lamp worth 50 GP that summons one Janni. A Janni is listed as wearing chainmail and carrying a scimitar and a composite longbow (16 STR) which is 565 GP in gear. By 7th level an NPC should have around 200 GP of gear out of their 4,650 GP of equipment. That is more than enough to afford the lamp. So, all the caster needs to do is cast the spell and tell the Janni to give me your gear. The character can then sell the gear for 282.5 GP per casting. Since the lamp is a focus not a material component it can be used over and over again. Do this every day for a month and you have 8,475 GP, keep it up for a year and it gets you 103,112.5 GP. That is with a single casting of the spell per day. After about 2 months you have enough gold to purchase a +4 headband with will give you another 4th level spell. Now you gain 16,950 GP per month, or 206,225 GP per year. If you are 8th level, you can get 3 castings per day to gain 309,337.5 GP per year. All this requires is a 50 GP oil lamp and access to a 4th level summoning spell.
This is an obvious abuse of the system, and no sane GM is going to allow it. But if summoned creature's gears remain after the spell expires it is RAW legal. The only difference between this and the soul gem is that the spell to summon the Cacodaemon is 2nd level instead of 4th and does not have an expensive material component.
It’s pretty universally accepted that the creature’s gear returns when it does. It’s also the way James Jacobs thinks it works.
I could have sworn there was an actual line somewhere in the books saying something similar to the following, but I can't find it now.
With the usual "James Jacobs is not an official rules source" caveat:
5) Summoned creatures are very different. The actual summoned creature itself has no existence before or after the summon monster/summon nature's ally spell is cast, and thus any items it's equipped with have nowhere to come from and nowhere to go. If a summoned monster is a creature that, in its actual stat block, has gear, that gear is with the monster when it arrives, but vanishes as soon as the monster or spell effect is slain/ends. And any additional gear given to a summoned monster drops to the ground as soon as the spell ends or the summoned monster is defeated.Yes, all summons come with full gear. Yes, they can give that gear to someone else to use. But as soon as the spell ends they (and everything that came with them) goes away.
If you can summon it "for long enough" you could sell the weapons. But most smiths aren't going to buy an expensive weapon from a stranger within 5 minutes of meeting them. And doing this would have significant repercussions. You would probably be arrested the next time you showed up in town.
My example of summoning a Janni was intended to illustrate why the creating a soul gem would not work. If the gear of a summoned creature is not real than any gear they create is equally unreal. Which means what the players want to do in the original post does not work.
The summoned Cacodamon may be able to create a soul gem, but as soon as it vanishes the soul gem would also vanish freeing the trapped soul.
It depends on the source of the materials. If you summon a creature and have it stack stones, then the stack of stones remains once it’s gone. If you summon a creature and have it make a stack with its equipment and some stones, then the stack will fall over once the creature disappears and the equipment disappears with it.
So, if you were supplying all the “stones”, and the creature were just “stacking” them for you, then the stack should remain.
The question is if the soul gem is made purely of soul, which you are supplying, or if it’s partly composed of demon gut stuff, which will vanish when the demon does.
From a game mechanic point of view allowing the summoned Cacodaemon to create a soul gem is allowing the creation of wealth out of nothing except dead bodies. That is not something a good GM is going to be ok with.
From an in-game standpoint a soul has no physical manifestation and the Cacodaemon has to consume the soul and grow it within themselves indicates it creates the gem from its own being.
For the djinn, it depends on if it's permanent or "permanent". A spell with a permanent duration can still end under other conditions.
Permanent: The energy remains as long as the effect does. This means the spell is vulnerable to dispel magic.
If the Djinni's spell is this kind of permanent, then I think it would still end as any other spell would that hadn't finished its own duration before the summon ends.
Here's another weird distinction. The ability in question is not a spell-like ability. It's a supernatural ability, and as such there's not actual text saying the ability expires when the creature returns. Now, I believe the intent was for Su abilities to also expire when the spell ends, but I don't see any rule to that effect.
Soul Lock (Su) Once per day as a full-round action, a cacodaemon can ingest the spirit of any sentient creature that has died within the last minute. This causes a soul gem to grow inside of the cacodaemon’s gut, which it can regurgitate as a standard action. A soul gem is a fine-sized object with 1 hit point and hardness 2. Destroying a soul gem frees the soul within, though it does not return the deceased creature to life. This is a death effect. Any attempt to resurrect a body whose soul is trapped in a soul gem requires a DC 12 caster level check. Failure results in the spell having no effect, while success shatters the victim’s soul gem and returns the creature to life as normal. If the soul gem rests in an unholy location, such as that created by the spell unhallow, the DC of this caster level check increases by +2. The caster level check DC is Charisma-based.
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Honestly soul gem bothers me much like hellfire ray as it allows you to send a saint who's lived their entire life by their gods rules even before they were old enough to understand because it felt right to the abyss or hell with no recourse. It feels like if something like that is possible it should be limited to the greatest devils or demon lords not a CR 2 critter. Even worse this damnation is done for a mere 2 fast healing for a few rounds. Which to me kind of devalues the soul gem as this seems a pretty petty thing to use an immortal soul for.
I also have to ask why your going this route as creating a soul gem is a pretty dark act, as is demon summoning. Is this an evil party or is there something else going on?
As for the Djinn my ruling has always been the creature and anything it brings with it returns when its time is up. Anything it changes/creates however persists as per normal. For example if it planeshifts you to Elysium you remain on Elysium when it goes. If it creates wine the wine remains when it goes. If it creates a sword the sword remains for 7 hours (couldn't be bothered looking up djinni caster level so using hd) even if created right before the djinni returns to its real. If it creates a cabbage then the cabbage remains till eaten or it rots. You take its armour the armour vanishes when its summoning expires. While the being has gone what it did to the world remains. Just like if a player planeshifts to a realm and creates a sword then planeshifts away the sword remains.
The djinn issue is pretty clear with our given rules. The spell effects end when the spell ends as per summon monster, so create food and water and minor creation both expire as they still have durations, even if one has a duration of permanent. The create water/wine has an instantaneous duration so would remain once the djinn returns. But the wine created still disappeares after one day as per the spell description.
The teleportation stuff can’t happen in the first place.
summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities.
The problem with the cacodaemon is that the ability is supernatural, which has a lack of rules and information for instances like this.
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The djinn issue is pretty clear with our given rules. The spell effects end when the spell ends as per summon monster, so create food and water and minor creation both expire as they still have durations, even if one has a duration of permanent. The create water/wine has an instantaneous duration so would remain once the djinn returns. But the wine created still disappeares after one day as per the spell description.
The teleportation stuff can’t happen in the first place.
summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities.The problem with the cacodaemon is that the ability is supernatural, which has a lack of rules and information for instances like this.
I think we're reading different things.
Source Bestiary 6 pg. 299, Pathfinder RPG Bestiary pg. 304, Bestiary 2 pg. 302, Bestiary 3 pg. 300, Bestiary 4 pg. 300, Bestiary 5 pg. 300
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. Summoned creatures automatically return to wherever they came from after 1 hour. A creature summoned in this way cannot use any spells or spell-like abilities that require material components costing more than 1 gp unless those components are supplied, nor can it use its own summon ability for 1 hour. An appropriate spell level is given for each summoning ability for the purposes of caster level checks, concentration checks, and Will saves. No experience points are awarded for defeating summoned monsters.
At will—invisibility (self only), plane shift (willing targets to elemental planes,
A djinni can send a willing target to an elemental plane. This is a different power from summoning and uses different rules. Although there may be a different summoning definition somewhere I haven't time to look it up now.
That ruling would both annoy and worry me as a player. If the djinni damages an enemy does that also dissapear at the end of its summoning? If your planeshifted do you come back?
The bestiary summon ability is different but similar. I am referring to the rules governing this specific spell.
This spell functions like summon monster I, except you can summon one janni.
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).
The summoned djinni can’t use any teleportation type abilities. And even more specifically no planar travel abilities. So no plane shift for the the summoned genie at all.
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.
Rules were clearly added to keep summoning from being too effective. That’s not accidental. Multiple efforts were made to keep you from generating wealth or accessing higher abilities than you should have access to with summoning. And in general those efforts were successful. The cacodaemon is just something that slipped through the cracks.
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The bestiary summon ability is different but similar. I am referring to the rules governing this specific spell.
This spell functions like summon monster I, except you can summon one janni.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).The summoned djinni can’t use any teleportation type abilities. And even more specifically no planar travel abilities. So no plane shift for the the summoned genie at all.
Rules were clearly added to keep summoning from being too effective. That’s not accidental. Multiple efforts were made to keep you from generating wealth or accessing higher abilities than you should have access to with summoning. And in general those efforts were successful. The cacodaemon is just something that slipped through the cracks.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.
Sorry that wasn't clear (hazard of rushed posting to catch a train). I wasn't arguing summoning can bring in other creatures. I know of that rule and agree with the reason it was restricted. My post was to point out the Djinni ability isn't technically summoning. It can't bring anything to it and it can only be used with inbuilt restrictions willing/elemental plane. However the summoning one does cover it I didn't know about the restrictions on planar travel seems a bit excessive.