Creative use of Summon Monster?

[Conradine]

I remember reading somewhere, I guess it was Tome and Blood, that it's possible to improve a summoned servant by travelling to his native plane and giving it items.

So, it's also possible to make him do other things, like acting as spy or worker in his native plane when unsummoned?

Or to make him tell you things he saw and know when you summon him ( expecially with Prolonged or Perdurant evocation feats )?

[Segev]

That was an option presented in the 3.0 DMG, actually. It would be a variant rule that allowed you to pact with a particular example of beings from your list of possible summons, so that you always got him when you called his type, and he thus would remember you from casting to casting, and even retain items if you gave them to his real self.

Totally optional rules, but cool and flavorful if you want to go with them!

[the_david]

Slightly off topic: Does anybody enforce this rule: "A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again."
How does this work if you can summon multiples of the same creature?

[Conradine]

I guess it's both possible to Summon a generic monster or a specific one.

I wonder what kind of pact can be made with intelligent ones.
Since the summoner is in control ( and can stage a trap if he is not ) ,an evil one could also repeatedly summon and torture the outsider in order to force him provinding informations and services in his plane.

[Slayn82]

Use the variant rules for fixed summons, and have two casters make a pact, and agree to summon the same creature. Now you have a way to pass information even through diferent planes. I bet priests can pass lots of info this way.

[Yael]

I tend to use summons for roleplaying purposes. Sometimes I summon a Huge Fiendish Centipede with Summon Monster III along with Spell Thematics to make them appear from a summoning circle with screams and even more fiendishness to scare random encounters (animals, bandits, etc). By my logic, it wasn't intended, but common sense tends to make you run away from monstrous things that are your size (or bigger).

Also, intimidation.

Also, disguise bonuses.

I just love Spell Thematics.

[Jack_Simth]

Use the variant rules for fixed summons, and have two casters make a pact, and agree to summon the same creature. Now you have a way to pass information even through diferent planes. I bet priests can pass lots of info this way.

If you're using that variant rule, then yes, it's a way to easily pass information, but there's some issues:
1) Message garbling.
a) First comes Intelligence limits. In order to get something as intelligent as an average human (Int-10 or better), you're going to need Summon Monster V (Hound Archon, Achaierai); anything below that is going to be quite stupid (Int-6 or less). Druids have it easier (Summon Nature's Ally III can get an Int-12 Satyr or an Int-10 Giant Owl). Stupid people don't generally relay messages well, so that Int-3 celestial monkey from Summon Monster I just isn't going to cut it. Obviously, alternate lists change this.
b) Even with things as intelligent as humans, though... D&D is a mostly-literate society, and summons aren't really going to be writing things down. Have you ever played the game of telephone? That applies here. In a literate society where people aren't writing things down, messages garble quickly, even with average intelligence humans (in an illiterate society, everyone's trained to remember such things better and so the game of telephone doesn't apply; when people write things down, that seriously slows the drift, and so the game of telephone does not apply - this would be one of the few scenarios where it actually does).
2) Security problems. The beast is under the control of ANYONE who summons it. How do you ensure your messages don't "leak" when someone else figures out what summon you're using as your messenger?

You're liable to end up putting more effort into the method than it's actually worth compared to more traditional methods, such as Sending or Greater Scrying + Message... or even just coding something and handing it to a messenger (such as a Greater Teleport-capable Lantern Archon from Summon Monster IV).

[Braininthejar2]

The monstrous centipede can be very big for its CR, and a fiendish one will understand simple commands - if you learn a couple words in infernal, you can probably use it for anything from intimidation, through body-blocking opponents, to serving as an improvised bridge.

My friend's druid loved summonning thoqquas with summon nature's ally - foot-wide, red-hot tunnels in load-bearing walls is something few villain lairs would be protected against.

[Jack_Simth]

The monstrous centipede can be very big for its CR, and a fiendish one will understand simple commands - if you learn a couple words in infernal, you can probably use it for anything from intimidation, through body-blocking opponents, to serving as an improvised bridge.Interstingly enough, by RAW, they understand common (odd as that is).

How that works:
The base Monstrous Centipede (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/monstrousCentipede.htm) has no language (Int -, no language specified).
The Fiendish Template (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/fiendishCreature.htm) doesn't specify a language, but does include "Intelligence is at least 3".
The Intelligence entry in the Abilities Section of Reading the monster entries (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/intro.htm#abilities) says "Any creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher understands at least one language (Common, unless noted otherwise)."

The Fiendish Monstrous Centipede has an Int of 3, and isn't noted otherwise, so it understands Common - bizarre as that is.