Choosing your own Summon List

[Lord Herman]

Hi there,

I'm working on a new character. He's a dwarven wizard, who often summons creatures during battle. Unfortunately, the standard summon monster lists are a bit too short, and don't include the creatures I'd like to use. I'm using a fire-and-earth theme, so I'd love to summon thoqquas and other fire/magma/earth creatures.

The problem is: I don't know which creatures should be in what list. It's not by CR: summon monster III has some cr 1 creatures, but so does summon monster II. Both I and II include cr ½ creatures, but there are also cr 2 creatures on list II.

Does anyone have an idea how to pick the creatures for my list? Is there a system I didn't see?

- Lord Herman

[Kurobara]

Unearthed Arcana (which is Open Game Content and thus in the SRD) has some rules for creating your own summon lists, but it doesn't really seem to include guidelines for the power level of the creature summoned except for "mix and match with the other summon spells of that level" and "if it's not on any summon list, look at its CR and hit dice and stuff".

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/summonMonsterVariants.htm

(Thoqquas, at least, you should be able to place appropriately, though - I'm pretty sure that's on the Summon Nature's Ally list, thought I don't know at what level, since I've been playing in a party with a druid who summoned one once.)

[PinkysBrain]

I think Dragon #302 had an article on this.

[oriong]

Yep, thoqua is on the summon nature's ally 3 list, a flamebrother salamander is on the 4 list, a full salamander is on 6, noble salamander is on 7. You could probably put a Magmin on the 4 list (it's a bit stronger than the thoqua), along with fire and magma mephits.

[Rockphed]

There are elementals on the summon nature's ally lists, not sure which ones, but that might help.

[Ramza00]

Thanks someone already posted the UA stuff so my job is half done.

You are familiar with Rasehmi Elemental Summoning? See if you can get your DM to adapt it to your campaign. It should help your earth elementals alot (and air elementals if you were doing that)

[grinner666]

I'd like to point out that the Summon Nature's Ally spells generally allow a druid to summon more powerful creatures than the Summon Monster spells. If you're playing a wizard and want to summon a Thoqqua, you should probably create a 4th-level spell, not 3rd (or get the DM to allow it as a Summon Monster 4 choice ...).

[Tengu]

When using a custom summon list, you can't go wrong with...

Summon Monster I: a dire (Medium-sized) chicken
Summon Monster II: a snow witch
Summon Monster III: an efreeti
Summon Monster IV: a wizard with lots of Lightning Bolts prepared
Summon Monster V: a stone giant
Summon Monster VI: a mounter fighter with a vorpal sword
Summon Monster VII: a sea serpent
Summon Monster VIII: a positive energy-imbued Huge construct
Summon Monster IX: an ancient dragon

Sorry, I couldn't resist.