Summoning humanoids?

[False God]

So, I've surfed through various summoning guides and it's all left me somewhat unsatisfied.

I'm a big MTG fan and I thought the idea of something like Elspeth would be a cool cleric concept, summoning soldiers and knights and stuff. But there doesn't really appear to be any way to summon "level 1 human fighter" or similar, unless I'm missing it. I mean sure you can summon angels down the road, and that's cool and all...but not what I'm looking for.

I'd really like to be able to just summon a whole bunch of soldiers. I'd even accept "spirits" or "illusions".

Sure, I could probably work something like this out with my DM, you get a fighter of X level, where X is equal to the level to the "Summon" spell you just used, and 1d4 or 1d4+1 of lower-level fighters. But I'd be really happy if there was just something RAW that I could use.

So, am I missing something?

[Uncle Pine]

Dragon #302 has an article called "The Summoner's Circle: expanded rules for summoning animals & outsiders" that is focused on altering the existing lists of the Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally to better suit the intents and flavours of spellcasters. While it straightly uses a CR system (1st level spells summons creature with CR <1, 2nd level CR 1, 3rd level CR 2, etc. topping at CR 12-13 creatures summoned by 9th level spells), it does restrict you to elementals and outsiders: in other words no groups of 1st level human fighters, but aasimar fighters (or tiefling, githyanki, and so on) could work.
Would this be close enough to what you had in mind?

EDIT: Divine minions (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20050209a) are also outsiders and in case of Anhur, Hathor, Isis, Nephthys, Sebek, and Thoth have a CR equal to that of the base creature (i.e. human fighter). They are described as extremely devout followers and don't really look too different from their normal counterparts, at least until they start morphing into a traveling circus. :smallwink:

[Inchhighguy]

Well....

*Horn of Valhalla: This magic instrument comes in four varieties. Each appears to be normal until someone speaks its command word and blows the horn. Then the horn summons a number of human barbarians to fight for the character who summoned them.

*The Summon Undead spells: They summon lots of humanoids.

*Summon Monster: There are TONS of rules legal substustions:Guardinals, Archons and such can fit ''knights".

*Illusion spells can make ''shadow knights"

*Summon Construct spells-can summon suits of armor to fight...or warforged

[Asmotherion]

Technically Gate is not limited by creature type. Though it's a calling and not summoning effect.

[Psyren]

Personally I think MTG is a bit more abstract than that. White mages/planeswalkers aren't literally summoning humanoid soldiers out of the ether when they use their powers/cast something like Captain's Call (https://scryfall.com/card/m13/9/captains-call), Raise the Alarm (https://scryfall.com/card/m20/34/raise-the-alarm), or Recruit the Worthy (https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/22/recruit-the-worthy) - rather, white magic is just that good at arming and training otherwise ordinary citizens, just like green magic is just that good at turning otherwise ordinary animals into the kinds of beasts that can fight in a mageduel. So if you were to translate those kinds of white spells into D&D terms, it wouldn't literally be summoning, it would be more like conjuring weapons and/or buffing their combat skills.

[StevenC21]

Chain Gate Solars and then wish for human soldiers.

[daremetoidareyo]

In the spellbound of faerun archived web article, there is a spellbook that allows you to summon a 1sr level drow with summon monster 1

[ShurikVch]

In the "Core Beliefs" article series (Dragon magazine), they often included expanded creature list for the Summon Monster spells; Vecna will give you Gnoll Tainted Raver at II, and Bugbear Unholy Scion at IV; Heironious - Aasimar Fighter 2 at II, and Aasimar Paladin 4 at IV (just say it's Lesser Aasimars - and they would be Humanoids).

[Alcore]

Well...

In complete divine (not entirely sure it's that book) anyone who dies and isn't merged into their afterlife plane or spent like coins by their god do exist as creatures. They gain a template (petitioner?) Which does make them outsiders that could be summoned into magic circles.

Pretty sure that is not what you want...

[radthemad4]

Legion of Sentinels (PHB 2, Beguiler 3, Sorcerer 3, Wizard 3, Spellthief 3) lets you summon a bunch of illusionary swordfighters that can share space with other creatures or objects but can only take attacks of opportunity. Sculpt Spell (Complete Arcane) could be used to get more of them (the spell says one for each square covered by the spell's area). Maybe get a lesser metamagic rod of sculpt spell.

[DrMotives]

Petitioners, from Deities & Demigods, are a template that sets level to 2. They're spirits of the dead, that appear much as they did in life, and are the main residents of every afterlife / realm of whatever god. Very reasonable for a custom summons list for a divine caster.

[Thurbane]

There's a bunch of summoning spells out there. Not sure about humanoids, but you can summon giants!


Cool, thanks. Won't be including KoK, Dragon or similar sources at the moment.

Does this list look complete?


Abyssal Army
Aerial Summoning Dance
Armageddon
Call of the Twilight Defender
Creeping Doom
Doom of the Seas
Dragon Ally
Dragon Ally, Greater
Dragon Ally, Lesser
Elemental Swarm
Eyes of the King
Fierce Pride of the Beastlands
Gatorswarm
Heavenly Host
Hellish Horde
Hunters of Hades
Insect Plague
Luminous Assassin
Luminous Assassin, Greater
Luminous Assassin, Lesser
Mephit Mob
Mount
Phantom Bear
Phantom Wolf
Plague of Rats
Regal Procession
Spider Plague
Summon Aspect of Bahamut
Summon Babau Demon
Summon Bearded Devil
Summon Blood Elemental
Summon Bralani Eladrin
Summon Clockwork Mender Swarm
Summon Desert Ally I
Summon Desert Ally II
Summon Desert Ally III
Summon Desert Ally IV
Summon Desert Ally IX
Summon Desert Ally V
Summon Desert Ally VI
Summon Desert Ally VII
Summon Desert Ally VIII
Summon Devoted Roc
Summon Dire Hawk
Summon Elemental Monolith
Summon Elementite Swarm
Summon Elysian Thrush
Summon Giants
Summon Golem
Summon Greater Elemental
Summon Hound Archon
Summon Marked Homunculus
Summon Mirror Mephit
Summon Pest Swarm
Summon Swarm
Summon Undead I
Summon Undead II
Summon Undead III
Summon Undead IV
Summon Undead V
Summon Warforged Champion
Vipergout


Other stuff:

Child of Winter:

1st Level - Monstrous centipede, Medium, Monstrous scorpion, Small , Monstrous spider, Small. 2nd Level - Giant ant, worker , Monstrous centipede, Large; Monstrous scorpion, Medium; Monstrous spider, Medium; Spider swarm. 3rd Level - Giant ant, queen , Giant ant, soldier ; Monstrous centipede, Huge ; Monstrous spider, Large. 4th Level - Giant praying mantis; Giant wasp ; Locust swarm; Monstrous scorpion, Large. 5th Level - Centipede swarm,; Carrion crawler; Giant stag beetle. 6th Level - Monstrous centipede, Gargantuan; Monstrous scorpion, Huge. 7th Level - Hellwasp swarm; Monstrous spider, Gargantuan. 8th Level - Monstrous centipede, Colossal; Monstrous scorpion, Gargantuan. 9th Level - Monstrous scorpion, Colossal; Monstrous spider, Colossal.

Wild Soul (Summon Seelie Ally):

2nd (Summon Monster IV) Seelie: Blink dog, Pegasus, Senmurv (Fiend Folio), Unicorn; Unseelie: Aranea, Howler, Redcap, young (Monster Manual III); Shadar-kai (Fiend Folio); 4th (Summon Monster V) Seelie: Nixie, Satyr (with pipes), Unseelie: Joy stealer (Monster Manual IV), Shadow mastiff, 6th (Summon Monster VI) Seelie: Pixie (can't cast Otto's irresistible dance; with sleep arrows, but not memory loss arrows), Shimmerling swarm (Monster Manual III), Unseelie: Displacer beast, Winter wolf, 8th (Summon Monster VII) Seelie: Lillend, Leskylor (Book of Exalted Deeds), Unseelie: Annis, Will-o'-wisp, 10th (Summon Monster VIII); Seelie: Bearhound (Monster Manual III), Leskylor, three-headed (Book of Exalted Deeds); Unseelie: Redcap, elder (Monster Manual III), Rejkar (Monster Manual III)