Summon Monster L

[Ashtagon]

Invited into a game with some crazy house ruling on spell levels. What can I summon with a Summon Monster L spell? Give me balanced options and game-breakers please.

[Calthropstu]

Seriously? Summon monster 50?

Seeing as how, given normal patterns, summon monster 20 should be able to summon the tarrasque, at this point we're talking elder evils and greater deities.

[Buufreak]

I assume this also takes a 50th level spell slot to use? How ya planning on cheesing that?

[liquidformat]

the more powerful stuff in epic level handbook and some lower level deities...

[Sepultra]

Probably basically everything out of the Epic Level Handbook? I don't know exactly what you won't be able to summon with something like that.

[smasher0404]

Well... If you consider the option to summon 1d4+1 monsters from the list two levels below you as on the summon monster list for a given level. You could chain that pattern down and summon on average over 17 trillion Celestial Dogs.

[Telonius]

Summon Monster L?

I'd say it can summon anything whose name begins with the letter L. (Either the kind of monster or its actual name). Anything from Lizardfolk up to Loki.

[liquidformat]

Summon Monster L?

I'd say it can summon anything whose name begins with the letter L. (Either the kind of monster or its actual name). Anything from Lizardfolk up to Loki.

This sounds reasonable and pretty comical, summoning Lycanthrops could be interesting maybe mix in the alternate summoning rules pg37 DMG to make things really interesting...

[Endarire]

Does this summon Leisure Suit Larry?

[AvatarVecna]

You could chain that pattern down and summon on average over 17 trillion Celestial Dogs.

This is the correct answer. Summon all the goodest boys and goodest girls.

[Biggus]

Summon Monster spells typically get creatures with CR between 0.8 and 1.3 times the spell level, most often about 1.0 to 1.1 times. So you'd be looking at CR 40-65, typically CR50-55.

So your options are (all ELH unless stated):

Devastation Spider (CR41)
Devastation Scorpion (CR 42)
Devastation Beetle (CR 50)
Hecatoncheires (CR57)
Force Dragon, great wyrm (CR59)
Prismatic Dragon, wyrm (CR61)
Gravewyrm (CR45, online)
Time Dragon, adult (CR60, Dragon magazine #359)

Creatures advanced by HD to a suitable CR (there are lots in the ELH and several elsewhere which can be advanced to CR40+).

[tstewt1921]

Well... If you consider the option to summon 1d4+1 monsters from the list two levels below you as on the summon monster list for a given level. You could chain that pattern down and summon on average over 17 trillion Celestial Dogs.

This is the only option!

[Jack_Simth]

Summon Monster IX ranges from CR 9 to 12. Summon Monster L, by proxy, should range from CR 50 to 66. You define the specific list when you research the spell.

[Zaq]

This feels relevant.

Geddit? Geddit? Summon monster L?

[Bartmanhomer]

Summon Monster L? It shall be done!

I summon monster Luigi in attack mode.

LOL!

[Calthropstu]

Summon Monster L? It shall be done!

I summon monster Luigi in attack mode.

LOL!

I attack it with my pikachu equipped with lightsaber.

[Bartmanhomer]

I attack it with my pikachu equipped with lightsaber.

Noooo...I lost 10,000 life points. I lost the duel.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Going by the interpretation that summon monster does not call specific creatures to you, but rather summons some kind of facsimile, you could summon 1d4+1 Asmodeuses (granted, you could do that with SMXXX, but that's neither here nor there). I'm not entirely sure what you would do that for, but, while you're at it, five levels in Malconvoker will give you an extra Asmodeus. With Dual-Plane Summons, you can give your 1d4+2 Asmodeuses natural invisibility and Pounce, too.

[NNescio]

Going by the interpretation that summon monster does not call specific creatures to you, but rather summons some kind of facsimile, you could summon 1d4+1 Asmodeuses (granted, you could do that with SMXXX, but that's neither here nor there). I'm not entirely sure what you would do that for, but, while you're at it, five levels in Malconvoker will give you an extra Asmodeus. With Dual-Plane Summons, you can give your 1d4+2 Asmodeuses natural invisibility and Pounce, too.

Asmodei(i)?

[Malphegor]

Just because this thread is making me sing this now:

Rock me Asmodeus!

Summon Monster L?

I'd say it can summon anything whose name begins with the letter L. (Either the kind of monster or its actual name). Anything from Lizardfolk up to Loki.

Honestly I kinda want to change Summon Monster so it works like this.

So, you learn a spell, Summon Monster.

When preparing it, you decide on a letter, and what spell slot level you put it in. This defines what you can summon (so if you picked A and 4, you can only summon things that start with an A that have 4 or less HD).

Of course, you have to know what monsters exist out there, and maybe some allowance needs to be made for more than 9HD monsters, but that'd be quite a fun way of shrinking down the Summon Monster spells and making them just one spell you can prepare creatively. Kinda like how polymorph is one spell but has a gajillion outcomes depending on what you read up ahead of time.

Not sure how templates would fit, maybe as something like metamagic-

Fiendish Summon metamagic- all your summons prepared with this metamagic are cast at +1 spell level, but get the benefit of the fiendish template. Cannot be applied to beings who are opposed to fiendish natures, like angels, etc.

That way a Fiendish Ape is under Ape and not Fiend because we're not savages

[Asmotherion]

Considering a Gate spell (9th level) with an optimised caster level can potentially call anything except Gods and Unique Beings (and has an XP cost) this would be the guidline for summon monster 10-12?

Otherwise base the CR/HD progression on summon monster but be aware that Gate already is better and a 9th level spell.

[ShurikVch]

Well, in the Slayers, "L" is the Lord of Nightmares.

Spoiler: That's what happened at attempt of summoning

Show

[Calthropstu]

Considering a Gate spell (9th level) with an optimised caster level can potentially call anything except Gods and Unique Beings (and has an XP cost) this would be the guidline for summon monster 10-12?

Otherwise base the CR/HD progression on summon monster but be aware that Gate already is better and a 9th level spell.

9th level? We're talking about 50th level spells here. At this point, common sense goes out the window which is why people are giving such absurd answers... at the point you are casting 50th level spells, you control the multiverse and can summon anything. (This is at lvl 99 for wizards, 100 for sorcerers and their clerical equivalents.)
Now, if you look at the summon monsters for 1-9, the CRs that summon generally have a 1/4 - 1/2 CR for Summon 1 (With an outlier of CR 1 for the octopus).

Likewise Summon 2 generally have a CR of 1/2-2.
Summon 3 generally has a CR of 1-2.
Summon 4 has a CR of 2-3.
Summon 5 has 3-5.
Summon 6 has CR 4-7. (The first level to have higher than spell level CR)
Summon 7 has CR 6-9
Summon 8 has CR 7,8,9.
Summon 9 has CR 9-12.

Summon 9 has a very definite uptick, and has 0 CRs below its spell level. And there is a very definite uptick progression. Given that pattern, I'd say Summon 50 would probably be summoning CR 60-70 creatures, which means only the biggest of the bigs. Since they can't be unique creatures (No, you can't summon gods with summon monster) you need to find monsters in the CR 60-70 range to place on the summon list.


But, again, we are talking spell level 50 here. 1d4+1 deity like creatures is not out of the realm of possibility depending on GM interpretation. I am guessing the "House rule" is you can go to level 99.

[ben-zayb]

What does Summon Monster L do, summon anything Large sized? It's a bit underwhelming, but I'm sure there are plenty of epic monsters such as Phane, Infernal, and Atropal, that are around that size.