D&D 5E Summoning vs Calling

[TaranTheWanderer]

I'm playing in a game (we're 10th, I'm playing a wizard) where a demon keeps randomly showing up to try to kill us. We kill her, she goes poof and disappears.

My plan was to use Contact Other Plane to find out her True Name**, Then summon her in a Magic Circle and use Planar Binding to force her to tell us who is summoning her and trying to kill us. Then we wanted to finish her off permanently.

I seem to remember, in 3.5, there was a difference between summoning a creature (using summon Monster): which had a duration and, if the creature was killed, they'd reform in their plan of existence and; Calling a Monster (I can't remember the spell) but, essentially, you needed a magic circle to keep it bound and you could force it to deal with you etc...the down side was, if it escaped, it could run free and wreck havoc. The upside, was, if you killed it, it was permanently dead.

So, I was looking for the appropriate spell in 5e to enact my plan and couldn't find any.. Planar Binding only changes the duration of regular summoning spells. Summon Fiend and Summon Devil only last 1 hour and the creature's aren't permanently slain. Also, these are Xanathar's spells, so I'm not including them in the list of 'legal' spells. All I could find was Gate...but I'm fairly certain there was another way to do this.

Any help would be appreciated.

*as an aside, given the lack of spells in 5e to summon creatures permanently, I'm wonder if
1. we have a traitor among our trusted NPCs who keep summoning her using the Xanathar spells or;
2. The DM is homebrewing somthing.

**I suppose I could use Contact Other Plane to try find out the name of our assassin, but this demon is a bit of a nemesis.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Double post:

I found the issue: in 5e Planar Binding does NOT call a creature. It only binds it. In 3.5, Planar Binding acted as a super-dangerous way of calling the creature from another plane.

So, given that fact, I'm not sure how 5e designed Planar binding to work prior to the addition of the summoning spells from Xanathar's. This seems like an oversight. Were you supposed to use it to extend the duration of Summon Elemental and Summon Woodland Creature spells?

 

[Dausuul]

Double post:

I found the issue: in 5e Planar Binding does NOT call a creature. It only binds it. In 3.5, Planar Binding acted as a super-dangerous way of calling the creature from another plane.

So, given that fact, I'm not sure how 5e designed Planar binding to work prior to the addition of the summoning spells from Xanathar's. This seems like an oversight. Were you supposed to use it to extend the duration of Summon Elemental and Summon Woodland Creature spells?

More or less, yes. It's used with whatever summoning magic you've got. A 17th-level wizard can pair it with gate to summon (almost) anything they want. At lower levels, however, you're limited to what you can summon with the spells you have.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

disappointing....

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

So, follow up question: You need to be 17th level to kill a demon permanently by gating them in or you need to Plane shift to the Abyss and kill them on their home turf? That's the only way to destroy them?

Also, given the rules, I suppose it makes it much more difficult to have adventures with roving demons/devils since they can't be permanently called to the material plane except by a 17th level caster...

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Gating them in doesn't allow you to kill them in 5e. Whether they were brought here through someone else's spell or just found a portal on their home plane and walked through it is irrelevent. There is no such thing as calling versus summoning in 5e, in any form. They can only be killed permanent on their home plane. (And if they have one of those talisman thingies then even that won't work.)

 

[Gadget]

5e does not differentiate between Summoning & Calling; it simply does not get into that level of detail for the spell casting system. It wanted to avoid the fiddly stuff that seemed to bog down the game in earlier editions by leaving such things up to the DM. Not an altogether improvement, though I applaud the goal.

 

[Megaman_Jeeves]

Is there any reference, article, interview, etc. that confirms this?