Let’s look at a new item from the Advanced Class Guide: the Ring of Summoning Affinity. There are twelve variants. All do basically the same thing: they add a few extra monsters to your Summon Monster list. The rings vary in terms of how many monsters they add to your list, from three to eight. The price varies accordingly, though not by a great deal (7,200 – 10,600). There are two things that all of the rings have in common: they all add a monster to the SMIII list, and they all allow you to summon that monster one extra time per day as though casting the spell.

There are also some similar rings that modify Summon Nature’s Ally, but I’m going to ignore those for now.

Rather than posting all twelve rings, here’s one example:

RING OF SUMMONING AFFINITY (DAEMON)

PRICE 10,600 GP

SLOT ring

CL 5th

WEIGHT —

AURA faint conjuration [evil]

This ring is carved from bone. If the wearer can cast summon monster spells, the wearer adds cacodaemon to the 3rd level list of monsters she can summon with those spells, adds ceustodaemon to the 5th-level list, adds hydrodaemon to the 6th-level list, adds luekodaemon and piscodaemon to the 7th-level list, adds derghodaemon and meladaemonto the 8th level list, and adds thanadaemon to the 9th level list. Also, once per day on command the wearer can use this ring to summon a cacodaemon, as if by the summon monster III spell.

CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS: Forge Ring, planar ally or planar binding, creator must be neutral evil.

COST 5,300 GP

These rings are especially cool if you’re using Sacred Summons (See my post about that here), since they increase the number of options for that feat. I thought it would be interesting to see which rings have the best available monsters, though.

That said, here is a neurotically assembled list of the available monsters and their CR, with the standard Summon Monster outsiders at the bottom of each list. Of course, CR is not the only way to judge a monster’s power, but for the sake of this post not being a thousand pages, I think it’s best to stick to CR as a good general indicator. If the minutiae doesn’t interest you, skip to the bottom for my conclusions.

(B2, B3, and B4 refer to the Bestiary that the monster is from)

SMIII:

Aeon: Paracletus B2 (CR 2)

Agatheon: silvanshee B2 (CR 2)

Angel: cassian B2 (CR 2)

Archon: Harbringer B3 (CR 2)

Asura: tripurasura B3 (CR 2)

Daemon: cacodaemon B2 (CR 2)

Div: Doru B3 (CR 2)

Inevitable: arbiter B2 (CR 2)

Kyton: augur B3 (CR 2)

Protean: void worm B2 (CR2)

Psychopomp: nosoi B4 (CR 2)

Qlippoth: Cynthigot B2 (CR 2)

Core: Lantern Archon (CR 2), Dretch (CR2)

Comments: So, everything on this list is CR 2, with no stand-outs. I think there may be some kind of rule that all subtypes of Outsider must have a CR 2 monster. Also, it’s kind of funny how many of these monsters are spheroids– the Div, Aeon, Kyton, Archon, and Angel are all basically spheroids that hover around.

SMIV:

Aeon: Theletos B2 (CR 7)

Asura: Adhukait B3 (CR 7)

Div: aghash B3 (CR 4)

Psychopomp: catrina B4 (CR 5)

Core: Hell Hound (CR 3), Hound Archon (CR 4), Mephit (CR 3)

Comments: Wow, this list just got crazy. The Aeon and Asura on this list are +3 CR to the best outsider on the core list. That alone makes those two rings pretty worthwhile so far as I’m concerned.

SMV:

Agathion: Vulpinal B2 (CR 6)

Daemon: ceustodaemon B2 (CR 6)

Core: Bearded Devil (CR 5), Babau Demon (CR 6), Kyton (CR 6), Xill (CR 6) Bralani Azata (CR 6), Salamander (CR 6)

Comments: No huge standouts here; everything is CR 6, with one CR 5 on the core list.

SMVI:

Archon: legion archon B3 (CR 7)

Daemon: hydrodaemon B2 (CR 8)

Div: pairaka B3 (CR 7)

Protean: naunet B2 (CR 7)

Psychopomp: vanth B4 (CR 7)

Qlippoth: Shoggti B2 (CR 7)

Core: Erinyes Devil (CR 8), Invisbile Stalker (CR 7), Succubus (CR 7), Shadow Demon (CR 7), Lillend Azata (CR 7)

Comments: Again, nothing too crazy going on; everything is CR 7 or CR 8.

SMVII:

Agathion: avoral B2 (CR 9)

Angel: movanic deva B2 (CR 10)

Archon: shield archon B2 (CR 10)

Asura: Upasunda B3 (CR 9)

Daemon: luekodaemon B2 (CR 9); piscodaemon B2 (CR 10)

Div: ghawwas B3 (CR 10)

Inevitable: zelekhut B2 (CR 9)

Kyton: sacristan B4 (CR 10)

Qlippoth: nyogoth B2 (CR 10)

Core: Beblith (CR 10), Bone Devil (CR 9), Vrock (CR 9)

Comments: No stand-outs, all CR 9 or 10.

SMVIII:

Agathion: leonal B2 (CR 12)

Angel: monadic deva B2 (CR 12)

Asura: aghasura B3 (CR 11)

Daemon: derghodaemon B2 (CR 12), meladaemon B2 (CR 11)

Div: shira B3 (CR 12)

Inevitable: kolyarut B2 (CR 12)

Qlippoth: chernobue B2 (CR 12)

Core: Barbed Devil (CR 11), Hezrou (CR 11)

Comments: All CR 11 or 12, so nothing huge going on here. It’s worth noting that there are no CR 12 outsiders available on the SMVIII core list, so the rings that offer those do give an advantage.

SMIX:

Aeon: akhana B2 (CR 12)

Daemon: thanadaemon B2 (CR 13)

Div: sepid B3 (CR 14)

Inevitable: marut B2 (CR 15)

Kyton: interlocutor B3 (CR 12)

Protean: imentesh B2 (CR 10)

Psychopomp: morringa B4 (CR 13)

Qlippoth: augnagar B2 (CR 14)

Core: Astral Deva (CR 14), Ghaele Azata (CR 13), Glabrezu (CR 13), Ice Devil (CR 13), Nalfeshnee (CR 14), Trumpet Archon (CR 14)

Comments: Okay, the list got crazy again. For the first time, several summons off the ring are actually worse than the core standard, which in this case is CR 13-14. The Protean entry, at CR 10, is especially pathetic. Also, for the first time since the SMIV list, there is a ring summon that is better than the core ones; the Marut, at CR 15, is now the most powerful outsider available for Summon Monster IX.

Conclusions: All of these rings are cool in their own way; I could see buying any of them depending on what kind of summoner you are and what you want to summon, just to give your character more flavor.

Of the twelve rings, eight of them have at least one option more powerful than those on the core list. Those eight are Inevitable (SMIX and SMVIII), Agathion (SMVIII), Angel (SMVIII), Daemon (SMVIII), Div (SMVIII), Qulippoth (SMVIII), Aeon (SMIV), Asura (SMIV), and Psychopomp (SMIV).

Inevitable is the only ring with two such monsters, though both are at very high spell levels. I’d have to say that my favorite options are the Aeon ring and the Asura ring, due to both having awesome CR 7 monsters on the SMIV list. No other rings offer monsters at such a substantially increased CR from the core options.

I play a Lawful Evil Sacred Summoner, so I will be buying an Asura ring ASAP.