How to communicate with your summons?

Question

The Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally spells mention:

If you can communicate with the creature, you can direct it not to attack, to attack particular enemies, or to perform other actions.

In that situation, what exactly is "communicate"? Do you need to speak the same language? If the summons is intelligent enough, can you use gestures (e.g. pointing toward a specific enemy you want it to attack) or similar nonverbal communication? Can you use someone else as a translator?

An answer from RAW would be appreciated, or at least something as RAW as possible.

Answer 1

You are right that the key word here is "communicate," but unfortunately, because that word has no specially-chosen meaning in the RAW,

The answer varies depending on the creature summoned, and may not be covered clearly by RAW alone.

However, here are cases clearly covered by the RAW:

• Obviously, summoned creatures obey commands given in any language they can understand (listed in the Languages section of their stat blocks).
• Summoned creatures with Intelligence 2 or 1 can be commanded by using Handle Animal normally. The check is DC 25 (30 for non-animals), and requires a full-round action. (Because there is no evidence that summoned creatures are trained as an attack dog would be, you must use the "push" option from the skill.)
• Numerous special abilities and spells may be helpful, such as Speak with Animals.

The GM's intepretation of the RAW may permit other options:

• Commands may possibly be obeyed via Diplomacy, but only if the creature can "understand" you, has intelligence higher than 3, and "generally" only outside of combat. "Understand" and "generally" are also not clearly defined, so good luck.
• As a last resort, a Charisma (scroll to the bottom) ability check may be permitted when nothing else applies; discussions of RAW often miss the basics, but the basics are there for a reason: "You apply your character's Charisma modifier to . . . Checks that represent attempts to influence others."

I don't mention the Charisma check as a joke: Simple commands like "Attack that guy" can be implied well enough with two or three words and some pointing. Anybody can memorize two or three key phrases in several different languages. But that kind of thing is subject to GM interpretation.

Answer 2

As in the rules statement you copied in, communicate means communication. Either verbal (intelligent summons), handle animal (animals), or some other way. If you can't think of a way to communicate, then your summons just follow you around and attack stuff. An exception is the Summoner class's Eidolon special ability Link (Ex), which allows them to communicate at all times. I've also heard of house rules allowing Summoners to communicate to their normal summoned monsters even if they wouldn't normally be able to, but again that's a house rule.