Summoning and SLA restrictions.

[Yogibear41]

Was reading through the rules compendium for something else when I came back across the rules for summoned creatures.

The rules state that a summoned creature can't use any of its innate summoning abilities, and then continues on and says "it refuses to use any abilities that cost it experience points or would cost experience points if they were spells."

Now based on this wording it would seem the creature could use these abilities, but refuses to do so, so if a summoned creature were then affected with some sort of domination could it be forced to perform these abilities that it would normally refuse?

[AlanBruce]

I haven't had a chance to read on that particular ruling in the Rules Compendium, but few Summon Monster creatures in the SM line of spells have SLAs that would cost them XP (to my recollection at least).

That being said, I would refer to the SRD regarding summoned monsters and specific abilities they may have, such as:



A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities.

Having a bunch of monsters in the field should be enough to warrant victory early on in the game without having them spam summoning powers on their own.

After all, that's what Planar Ally/Binding and Gate are for, which actually call the creature to your location and allow you to have it use as many conjuration spells as you want, hence the infamous Solar gating trick.

But if your DM allows you to dominate the summoned monster or coerce it to use abilities the spell states it cannot use, go for it.

[Venger]

Was reading through the rules compendium for something else when I came back across the rules for summoned creatures.

The rules state that a summoned creature can't use any of its innate summoning abilities, and then continues on and says "it refuses to use any abilities that cost it experience points or would cost experience points if they were spells."

Now based on this wording it would seem the creature could use these abilities, but refuses to do so, so if a summoned creature were then affected with some sort of domination could it be forced to perform these abilities that it would normally refuse?

Your reading is correct.