Summon Monsters with Evil Descriptor

[cure]

Clerics with the domain of one of their alignments cast aligned spells at at +1 caster level. And a cleric with two alignment domains, say lawful evil, would be able to cast doubly aligned spells, with the lawful evil type in this example, at +2 caster level. Now in Ravenloft a spell with the Evil descriptor gets a further +1 bonus to its effective spell level. What spells would fit the bill for the +3 boost?

The only candidate that I see would be Summon Monster. Summoning a Imp Assassin would get the +3 bonus.

But, and this brings up an old and thorny issue, just what can you summon in Ravenloft?

The RCS says: "Rather than summoning outsiders for assistance, you conjure creatures taken from the surrounding region. Thus, only creatures found in the domain in which this spell is cast can be summoned. Summoned creatures in Ravenloft do not use the outsider template. Thus, summon monster I would summon a dire rat, not a fiendish dire rat. Attempts to summon an outsider like a succubus or kyton automatically fail unless such a creature happens to be in the domain. Attempts to summon
elementals automatically produce dread elementals. Elementals or outsiders with the Mists descriptor are conjured from the Mists themselves — the very planar fabric of the Realm of Dread. These creatures can be summoned in any domain."

This is to say that all the standard animals with the added celestial and fiendish sub-types cannot be summoned hence the spell, at low-levels at least, is unaligned. You get a dire rat rather than a fiendish rat, assuming that there are any rats in the land that your are in. Although were there, for some odd reason, fiendish rats you could summon them.

The only creature that appears on the standard PHB list that has an alignment type and definitely exists in Ravenloft is Night Hag (Evil, Extraplanar). But curiously, Succubus is mentioned in the RSC description above. Should the spell, however, really be able to summon Styrxx from her labours on her Rift Spanner or even Elisabeth from her seductions, although, of course, only when in the same land as that in which each abides? The same question applies eventually to any Lemures, Dretchs, Bearded Devils, Barbed Devils, Chain Devils, Bone Devils, Hellcats, Babaus, Bebilithes, Vrocks, Hezrou, Archierai, Howlers, and Yeth Hounds that are lurking about the Demiplane.

In Denizens of Dread we have the following creatures with the evil subtype: Furies, Imp assassin, Night Mare, Shadow Fiend and Tenebris. The Furies have the Mists and Evil subtypes, although they probably should have the lawful subtype too. So they fit the criteria for summonability in any land, if, again, it is a good idea that individuated being such as Stryxx, Elisabeth and the Furies should be summonable. The Imp assassin, Nightmare, Shadow Fiend, and Tenebris are outsiders, but would fit the criteria for summonability when they and the summoner are in the same land.

However, is it really necessary for a creature to have the evil subtype for the spell to have the evil descriptor? The PHB says: "When you use a summoning spell to summon an air, chaotic, earth, evil, fire, good, lawful, or water creature, it is a spell of that type." A search of WOTC material yielded this: "Sometimes a spell may have the evil descriptor and other times it may not. Many summoning spells, for example, gain the evil descriptor if they're used to summon evil creatures." There is also a spell called Summon Blood Elemental (not that of Ravenloft that was given the evil descriptor even though the creature did not itself have the evil subtype (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp? ... b20030208a).

Shadow Mastiffs, Xill, and Elementals are given in the monster summoning tables as aligned creatures but are creatures that are without alignment subtypes. Even Elementals in Ravenloft, although they are evil, do not have that subtype. So does a cleric with the domain of evil get a +1 bonus to caster level when summoning a Shadow Mastiff and in Ravenloft would that bonus become +2? I believe so . . .

Now of course none of the creatures from the Denizens of Dread appear on the standard PHB list. Should they be added to a Ravenloft specific list? Which creatures in particular? All the Mists descriptor one's at least as they would be summonable in any domain? Or should certain ones be excluded?

And should the individuated beings, the known fiends, be added too? At a mininum I think that one would have to know that there is a Night Hag in existence before one could attempt to summon it. Once summoned is Stryxx going to happily do the assigned work? Should she not attempt to pervert every command given to her? A And once returned home is she not likely to seek out and destroy the responsible individual?

Thoughts?

Thanx.

[Jester of the FoS]

Couple options:

* Just ignore the name. Use the stats for a fiendish dire rat and the like but it isn't actually a "fiendish dire rat" its a unique Mist-touched possibly even enhanced by the summoning spell itself.

* Just remove those spells.

* Ignore the restriction.

Personally, I'd say there are planar-touched and corrupted versions of most creatures in the various domain. Animals tainted by evil, essentially given the "fiendish" template. Those can be summoned easily.