Substitute Creatures For Summon Monster/Natures Ally

[Damionte]

Heya Gang,

Wow been so busy on the RP forums it feels like it's been forever since Ive been in here with my real people. My fellow rules lawyers. :)

Anyway, I have a question.

I've found a couple of feats in various books that give you the ability to add more creatures to your list of summonable creatures with the summon monster/ summon natures ally spells.

In the text for these feats it says that under normal conditions you may swap a creature off of these lists by taking one of the older creatures off.

Does anyone know where this base rule is? These feats seem to feel that it's a rule somewhere, and I honestly believe I remember reading it somewhere as well. for the life of me thouigh I can't find it. It's not in the spell discriptions. I went looking through the DMG, & the Monster manual and I don't think I found em there either. I even browsed through the rules of the game articles on the wizards site.

Has anyone seen where this rule is and can point to the book/page?

is the text of the feats themselves enough of a rule to pass the mustard?

[cupkeyk]

I can think of Child of Winter, from ECS that lets you add vermin to your summon nature's ally list.

Also Rashemi Elemental Summoning that replaces any air or earth elementals you summon with Orglash or Thomil. Its from Unapproachable East.

[Wonderpus]

I'm not sure if it's exactly what you're thinking about, but there is a variant rule on p. 136 of Unearthed Arcana describing how to construct alternate / themed summoning lists.

I'm currently using something similar with my dwarven conjurer -- with DM permission I think it's a great way to add personality to summoners.

[Starbuck_II]

Heya Gang,

Wow been so busy on the RP forums it feels like it's been forever since Ive been in here with my real people. My fellow rules lawyers. :)

Anyway, I have a question.

I've found a couple of feats in various books that give you the ability to add more creatures to your list of summonable creatures with the summon monster/ summon natures ally spells.

In the text for these feats it says that under normal conditions you may swap a creature off of these lists by taking one of the older creatures off.

Does anyone know where this base rule is? These feats seem to feel that it's a rule somewhere, and I honestly believe I remember reading it somewhere as well. for the life of me thouigh I can't find it. It's not in the spell discriptions. I went looking through the DMG, & the Monster manual and I don't think I found em there either. I even browsed through the rules of the game articles on the wizards site.

Has anyone seen where this rule is and can point to the book/page?

is the text of the feats themselves enough of a rule to pass the mustard?

Book of Exalted Deeds adds some without removing any.
Planar Handbook adds without wording you must substitute another of same level.

[The_Snark]

Stormwrack has a list of aquatic creatures you can permanently swap out on the summons list, complete with what they replace. Some of the newer books, like Fiendish Codex II, offer the option for characters of certain classes (or of a certain religion) to permanently swap out summonable creatures on a monster-by-monster basis.

[cupkeyk]

ANd the initiate feats in FR change out some monsters in favor of monsters applicable to the gods specified by the feat.

[Damionte]

These all kinda just add on to my point.

I'm looking for soem kind of base rule other than what's in these feats. I know the one in the planar handbook says something like.

Benifit: This feat allows you to add such and such creature to your list.

Normal: Normally you may swap out a creature on your list for another creature.

I'm looking for somewhere the "Normal" part is stated other than these assorted feats.

[Fizban]

I think it was in a sidebar earlier in the book. It explains that the summon monster/ally lists are finite, and just adding more creatures make them a lot more versatile than the are supposed to be, and therefore more powerful, so you should only swap out creatures. It's perfectly debatable if you ask me, it's not like summons are super powerful, and there's plenty of existing feats, such as those from ebberon, that work differently.

[Damionte]

Ahhh thanks. I'll go hunt for that.

[TheLogman]

You can swap out one of the demons from Summon monster for the Arrow Demon from MM 3 for free. Quite an impressive monster too.

[Damionte]

Didn't find that sidebar you were speaking of.

Anyone else know? I need a book and page number.

[The_Snark]

Page 134, Planar Handbook, may be what you're looking for. And as said earlier, some other books have similar lists of creatures you can swap without having to take a feat.

The Unearthed Arcana rules here also provide some example lists, but that's a variant rule.

[Damionte]

Thank you snark. That was very helpful.

May the hair on your toes, never fall out.