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[Twinwolf]

So knock the enemy prone, then summon an elephant on them?

[SOLDIER First]

Aw.
Well, at least that means you can summon, say, a weapon straight to your hand or something.

Twin, that would require the elephant to be floating, which violates the rule.
Or you would summon in on the ground the enemy occupies, also violating the rule.

[Sirus]

So knock the enemy prone, then summon an elephant on them?

It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.

So, nope

[Rolan7]

Those limitations are distinctly not present in 3.5e, but I don't think I ever had the gall to summon something in space above an enemy.  I remember considering it, but figuring it would probably get shot down (the idea, not the creature )

[Jimmy]

Yes they are.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#conjuration

Each conjuration spell belongs to one of five subschools. Conjurations bring manifestations of objects, creatures, or some form of energy to you (the summoning subschool), actually transport creatures from another plane of existence to your plane (calling), heal (healing), transport creatures or objects over great distances (teleportation), or create objects or effects on the spot (creation). Creatures you conjure usually, but not always, obey your commands.

A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.

The creature or object must appear within the spell’s range, but it does not have to remain within the range.

Pathfinder copy-pasted a hell of a lot of their core rules from the 3.5 OGL material. That was one of them.

[Rolan7]

Nice, my bad!
I only thought to check the spell description itself, and the section for range/effect area.  Didn't think to check the school description for additional rules.

[Kadzar]

This discussion reminded me that, in Talislanta, you totally could summon a sword inside of a guy (at least in 4th and 5th editions) because the magic system lets you build your own spells and its school is based on the ultimate mechanical effect it has, so even though it has the appearance of summoning, it's technically an Attack spell.

So you probably wouldn't be able to get a sword out of this, since it would only last for the duration of the attack, and you could, I guess, summon a creature, but, again, it would only last for that one attack (which makes me realize you could use this to do Final Fantasy-style one-round summons). I suppose you could also combine Attack and Summon with Sorcery (which is an ancient powerful magic technique that must be quested for and takes some effort to learn). Or you can use Attack as something that modifies your existing attacks, so it could possibly exist for the whole combat at most, but I don't think you can combine the duration attack with the instant (though you could have a spell that lets you summon swords in dudes when you hit them with an attack; maybe you could be pulling them out of them?)

This is somewhat off-topic since it's a different game, but it's just something I thought of.

[Jimmy]

Yeah, it's clear that the designers intended you not be able to summon a dire rat inside someone's chest cavity and have it eat its way out. Likewise, no summoning a whale mid-air and dropping it on your enemies.

There's ways around this of course. Wall of Force above the enemy followed by spamming Communal Mount for example, which carpet bombs the area beneath in horseflesh. However the Pathfinder rules call out the damage as about 4d6, and require a touch attack roll with a 20 ft. range and add a DC 15 Reflex saving throw to halve the damage. At that stage it's probably just easier to throw a fireball and call it a day.

[BlackFlyme]

Reminded a bit of the old "Wall of Horse" tactic. Use large sized or larger summons to create a wall the enemies can't pass through so that the party can escape, or to create a buffer so that they can pelt the enemies with ranged attacks without worrying about melee units coming through.


Not much in this session. Repaired the broken citadel. Wandered to the south. Came across a hidden cavern with a lava lake inside. No-one could pass the perception DC to spot the hidden entrance of a stone structure on an island in the middle of the lake, and the DM wouldn't allow me to use my Shift Earth talent to create a door in it.

Wandered south again, into a forest. Came across a desolate town. The residents wouldn't talk, and even fled once the Paladin started chasing people trying to be friends, so we went to the largest building we saw. There were two guards inside by the front doorway, and they went to attack us. They went down pretty quick. In the next room. there were eight more guards, and the Wizard killed them all with a single Mythic Fireball.

In the last room, we met the lord of the town. A demon with a pet frost drake. The Wizard challenged him to a duel, 2 on 2. I was the Wizard's second, and obliterated the drake. I gathered energy, and took Burn to use a Maximized Empowered Composite Blast. It was dead three times over. Meanwhile the Wizard kept popping the demon with Scorching Rays while hopping about the room using Dimension Door. So we're the leaders of the town now. The peasants still don't like us.

[scriver]

Yeah, it's clear that the designers intended you not be able to summon a dire rat inside someone's chest cavity and have it eat its way out. Likewise, no summoning a whale mid-air and dropping it on your enemies.

I just realised that technically those rules mean you cannot summon a whale in the ocean either, though.

[SOLDIER First]

Technically that would be both an open location and a surface capable of supporting it.

[Jimmy]

If it has a swim speed, water counts as a surface capable of supporting it. Likewise, if it has a fly speed, mid-air counts as a valid summoning space. Only empty space is specifically ruled out, so no summoning minions in outer space sadly.

[My Name is Immaterial]

What if they have magical flight and do not breathe?

[Arcvasti]

So you could summon a celestial griffon or something a space above someone and then order them to stop flying/paralyze them.

[Jimmy]

The only two types of creature capable of surviving without breathing are constructs and undead, and of those none of them are featured on the default list of available summoned creatures. There is a single alternative type of creature called a Daughter of the Dead that could theoretically survive in space, so it's possible this one creature could fill that niche, but overall it's not worth worrying about given that the situation is never likely to arise in a real game.

As for summoning a griffon, it's actually a decent strategy against small non-flying creatures to get your summoned monster to grapple it and then fly up, dropping them for falling damage. It gets complex though, since a lot of the time you've got no idea how much a particular enemy weighs, which is important when you're figuring out if they exceed the weight limit for your flier to lift.