Sadly, the Skeleton only gets the improved hit points from Undead Thralls. Its necrotic attack is a ranged spell attack and the proficiency bonus to damage only applies to weapon attacks the undead make.
I am also not sure that a summoning spell *CREATES* an undead creature? - I do not think the "summon undead" spell gets the bonus :( I hope it does... but I am not sure :(
@@Magnushamann I don't think they made it necromancy just for the fun of it, because as necromancy it doesn't benefit from things the Conjurer gets and the damage these undead deal is already on the low side. Seems clear to me they're meant to benefit from Undead Thralls.
Yeah it's great how he's going the extra mile for accessibility! As a completely blind person myself I also very much appreciate that! He really means it when he says "DnD is for everyone."
Unlike the other summon spells, summon undead is a necromancy spell, which may allow the creature to bebefit from a Necromancer wizard's level 6 ability. I saw 'may' because there's some room for table variance based on your dm's interpretation of creating vs, summoning the creature, but the school designation seems to be a deliberate choise on the designer's part specifically to allow this interaction. If your dm is favorable, that let's a necromancer wizard overcome the weaknesses of summon undead in terms of having lower ac and damage than other summon spells.
bleh, so many typos. I've really got to stop posting replies on mobile. The only materially relevant mistake is that necromancer specialty helps hp & damage, not ac & damage.
On the other hand, it also means that Conjurer Wizards will never want to touch Summon Undead, as it won’t benefit from the Conjuration Wizard’s 10th and 14th level abilities. In particular, not losing concentration from damage is a huge boost to these spells.
In terms of shadow spirit working well with a conquest paladin in the party, if the Conqueror takes at least 10 levels of paladin they'll get aura of courage, frighten immunity fir allies w/in 10' of the paladin, which will make the shadow spirit's fear burst much easier to place around the party.
I’m looking at the summoned creatures that force saving throws as killer ways to burn a big enemy’s legendary resistances without effecting your action economy. Also because they don’t specify what the creatures look like, you can use some of the fly speed creatures as mounts and have your own fly speed. Standouts include summon celestial which finally gives spirt guardians a run for its money.
My absolute favourite fantasy trope is Summoners! I need to understand it clearly from a D&D perspective. Your Teaching style is just so effective at clearing up a lot of the mechanics and often underrated features of classes. Thanks Chris!
@@Battleguild heck, it could even be its own base class! Combined with pet options or Wildfire Druid's wildfire spirit ability you could have two summons on the field at one time, one using your bonus action to command and one using no action (verbal) to command. And if the class or subclass or your multiclass build allows access to find greater steed, thats a third reliable summon you could have on the battlefield at once, none of which would be wasting your main action to command leaving you available for healing/support.
I just gotta say, the unlimited charming on any creatures from Summon Fey is extremely powerful. It’s kinda like an unlimited Charm Monster at 3rd level
It's actually not. Nothing here says that the target is friendly to you, and Charmed Condition by itself doesn't do it. All it does is prevent the target from attacking the charmer (you and the fey in this case), they still can and will attack your party members.
@@antongrigoryev6381 I think they fey can be good used if set up right. First have devil sight(by being a warlock or the eldritch invocation feat). summon they tricksy fey. Hold your action(probably best with eldritch blast) have they fey teleport next to your enemy then boom all your attacks have advantage
@@honahamomoru151 the better way to do this is for you to just step into the area area of darkness and fire out. The problem is that, technically, just having magical darkness doesn’t prevent regular darkvision from seeing you. That’s a feature of the Darkness spell, not any magical darkness.
Fun thing about Summon Undead - it mentions "Force damage" in its spell description when referring the the ghostly undead ending its turn in an occupied space. Because the spell specifically mentions "Force damage" in its description, and its a base 3rd level spell, that means Order of Scribes Wizards can make their basic 3rd level Fireballs deal Force damage. You're welcome :3
I like that initiative for the creature is simply after yours. Some DMs rule that your summoned creature sometimes doesn't go on the round it is summoned (it rolls a high initiative, already passed) - but this makes it more clear.
Inorite? In my games all summons just go at the end of their summoners turn because myself and the player don't need another initiative to keep track of.
Summon Beast is an example of how a game effect's rating can change by its availability. Getting it at level 3 instead of level 5 is huge deal and that would get it a green by itself, that it has easy access to advantage and flight makes it earn its blue rating. It does so much damage when you get it and it scales pretty well.
The 4th level Summoning Spells (Aberation, Construct, Elemental) are going to work well for your Order of Scribes Wizard for when you need to kick down a door to let your Manifest Mind in to eliminate all of your opponents.
Something to consiter for Summon Undead, specifically the Putrid Undead and the Rotting Claw attack. Similarly to what you said about the Fury Shadowspawn and having other ways of inducing Frightened in the party, if you have other ways of poisoning creatures consistently (maybe you have a Way of Mercy Monk which is also from this book, who can poison creatures providing no saving throw), then you can have a much better chance of getting the Paralysis off, perhaps upcasting it to 4th level to give it multiattack, aka 2 chances to Paralyze the creature.
@@prancinNOOB Because a 4th level being twice as good as a 3rd level spell slot is not that common, an 8th level being 4 times as good as a 3rd level is fairly common.
One thing that irks me about the new spells is that they don't give a hit die value for the summoned creatures--making it very hard to figure out how a Shepherd Druid's abilities affect them.
What I have ruled is that since the spells scale on spell slot level, use each slot as a 'point' for the feature. (So 6 hp for 3rd level summon fey, or upcasted summon beast)
I love the new summoning spells, I wanted to use them from unearth arcana but now they are official so this is awesome, my conjurer wizard is just entering a level when he can cast these
Been noticing this for a while, I love the art you select for all the spells (and subclasses, etc in other videos), super evocative! In addition to great breakdowns of all the spells and creatures of course!
From the warlock's perspective, one additional benefit of Summon Fiend is that it's the only spell that allows the warlock to get three attacks out of it, as all the other spells cap at 5th level. Granted, we only ever get one 6th level spell, and Mass Suggestion exists, but for certain builds and backgrounds, like mine, the other 6th level spells are just simply uninspiring. Your evaluation of the spell is fair (I wish it were a bit better for its level, too), but I wanted to mention the extra attack as an additional benefit for the warlock specifically when considered in the vacuum of the other Tasha's summoning spells. Whether you're an EB spammer or a Blade Pact warrior, that's three extra attacks every round on top of what you're already doing.
But, any warlock has access to Conjure Fey as a 6th level spell. Which is (in my eyes) one of the best summoning spell - even with the inability to upcast (even better if we can upcast it!)
@@Magnushamann A minute casting time is prohibitive to me, and there is a hostility rider if you lose concentration or need to drop the spell for another important reason. And it technically suffers from the "your DM has the monster's statistics" ruling, which means you might not get what you're asking for. There's no doubt that some of the Conjure Fey choices are more powerful (as are the options in Summon Greater Demon that you get two levels earlier), but Summon Fiend has consistent, dependable, timely performance that has its own compensatory value.
@@johnmichaelarnaud Yeah, you can at least manipulate what you want with Conjure Element (and if a DM gives you something like a Flame Mephit, you as the table are honorbound to atomic wedgie them in front of their kids) but after summoning a Bheur Hag or a Kerred through it a couple of times I think my DM will be thinking twice.
Great information as usual. I think that they were trying to find a way to do summoning so that it didn't break action economy (3.5 had that problem). I think in a vacuum they are good, but I want to see them in play. At least I can't get healing as wizard this way (i.e., summoning a Unicorn and having it to do healing, etc.).
Thank you so much, I've been waiting for someone to cover this for a while! You brought up some interesting points about damage types and synergies I hadn't considered. One thing to note about Summon Celestial and Summon Fiend (Devil Form) is that because they are large creatures with flying speeds and decent strength scores they could reasonably carry you and maybe even another of your party members through the air during combat, or fly you up the mountain, or to the top of the tower, etc... making them pretty reliable as summons!
I love the balance of these spells. They dont overpower options like summon greater demon, but they're far easier for both player and DM to manage. I feel like that was one of the major problems of conjuration up to this point with summons, they were hard to manage and had a lot of maintenence jank that made things more complicated then they needed to be
Nice to hear it Treantmonk! These spells really are good from a QoL standpoint. They're well designed overall I think, so much less headache in actual play.
I'm glad to see Wizards refining how spells like this work to be less time consuming at the table. I do think that they should embrace revising already printed material and include a key with each physical purchase to a repository of errata, since you can't really revise a printed book. So much of dnd is digital now, especially with quarantine, might as well take advantage of that
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah I respect that effort, but the longer they stick to it the more convoluted everything becomes. Imagine a new player trying to decipher all the summon spells in the game and the somewhat obtuse ways they're different from each other.
One issue with the Shadowspawn bonus action hiding is that it doesn't say it can hide in plain sight. The rules on hiding say that you can't hide from someone who can clearly see you. You can only hide in plain sight if you are invisible or heavily obscured and the enemy doesn't have something like blindsight or tremorsense. Since the Shadowspawn only has a melee attack, to make use of its ability to hide, it would either need to incapacitate/kill all enemies adjacent to it or disengage to avoid taking attacks of opportunity before finding a place to hide.
Oh my what a great video! First, thanks for the colorblind solution, tho I'm not colorblind, it's nice to see accessibility! Also your emphasis on how much better these are for the game itself, as a DM, is appreciated haha. I'm curious what would you do with the other half of the shepherd druid ability, the one that increased the hp of the creatures based on hit dice, now that it's useless for these spells. Anyways, thanks for your great work! Excited to see your opinion on the rest of the spells
@@TreantmonksTemple Nice to know we're on the same page! Thanks for your insight, I'm a softie too and don't want my player to just ignore that ability haha
Interesting set of new summoning options! Circle of shepherd druids still take the cake, with mass summons of the DM's choosing typically being more effective than a single summon of known choice.
Thanks for this video. I think I thought some of these were better than what they were rated. Good to see a different opinion that brought up good points.
For me Summon Undead Putrid Form is crazy because it uses your DC. Coupled with the new Wizard items this DC can be disgustingly high. Opponents will become poisened and will be paralyzed. Every round. Cast this at lvl6 your undead has 3 attacks, all of them paralyzing if the opponent is poisened. Plus it's Necromany and works with the necromancer ability.
Or a Chains warlock with a Sprite and Investments of the Chain Master. The Sprite's poison last for one minute then it's a 1 one way train to paralysis city.
Same, from both the perspective of a player and a DM, these summons are so much better than the nightmare of like 10 extra things thrown into initiative
I thought of another use of Summon Fey with the spellbow build (or any warlock using devils sight): Summon Fey has the ability to summon the trickster, which I couldn't figure out what good 5 for cube of darkness for one round is. But with this build, you could summon the trickster fey on your first turn, and then tell it (since it acts at the end of your turn) to go attack something with its two attacks (or use help action) and then teleport right back beside you and create the darkness around you. You can do this every turn to ensure you are always in magical darkness when you are acting and between turns. Then you aren't party-unfriendly because the darkness is only surrounding you, but you get all of the bonuses in this build as with the darkness spell with two extra attacks from your fey. It ends if the fey gets killed, but it seems like yet another option to get the attacks with advantage with some bonuses (extra attacks and not putting your party in magical darkness)
Yeeesss... This is a video I was looking for, and I'm especially glad it's you looking at this, I appreciate your balanced perspective on things like this.
You asked for a clever use for arcane gate in your guide to wizards, and I actually have one. It can be used together with glyph of warding and/or symbol in order to create a semi mobile blasting platform. Siege defense becomes easier when you can rain spells that don't take your action.
That's a lot of cost and set up and concentration use when the portal blocks vision through it. Gonna be tough for the glyph to target things that can't be seen
@@adamkaris You could always just manipulate the spell going through the portal so that it's a safe Area of Effect (like Symbol, if you're careful) but the problem remains that you need to be within 500 feet of of the glyph (which isn't that bad, especially in smaller dungeons) but you also need to be able to see it. If your DM is feeling nice they might let you use it with Find Familiar.
Summon Beast and Summon Fey are not friendly options for the Shepherd Druid. None of the creatures summoned with these spells get hit dice, so the Shepherd Druid is losing out on part of their special features since they would normally augment the hit points of the beasts or fey they summon. I don't recommend these spells for Shepherd druids.
I would most definitely jury-rig a solution to that. It would be homebrew, but I think it's self-evident and designer-intended that a summoning-focused druid should mechanically synergize with the current crop of summoning spells.
@@ikaemos they don't build new content based on old content (except the PHB) so I doubt it even occurred to them to make it work with the Shepherd Druid
Something you could do to fix the non-magical physical damage some of the summons have is to be a Scribes Wizard and use the Awakened Spellbook to change the damage type.
I have to disagree with you on the summon aberration, i believe it should be purple because the beholder form exists. the strategy would be to have it fly far up into the air, and shoot its eye rays on the enemy. although it's damage is weaker than the skeleton from summon undead, the beholder's flying speed will let you avoid a lot of covers and make it practically immune to melee attacks. then there is also the argument that it deals psychic damage which is a reliable damage type.
Do you really care about your summons avoiding damage though? If my opponents are willing to throw 40 points of damage at my summon, I am 111% willing to let them. That's probably 2/3rds of my own total health pool or better and is even a pretty decent chunk of fighter hit points. If they want to waste that on my spell slot, I'm absolutely game. "Fly up and bombard" is really something I only care to do when: 1. The enemy lacks ranged attacks. 2. My entire party is in a position where the enemy can't attack us instead. 3. That position doesn't allow us to make our own attacks 4. I have a decent amount of time. If they have #1, flying doesn't matter so I'd rather summon the skeleton or something else that can get off some attacks and hopefully trade reasonably before dying. If they have #2, I want something that will encourage them to attack it instead, which means we want to avoid the strategy outright. If we have #3, none of this matters because I'll just kill them with Firebolts. If we don't have #4, we need to push offense as fast as possible and can't worry about being cute, which again means the skeleton looks better.
@@Kestral287 I didn't think of that. I mean, you can still use it to clear some dungeons alone such as Argynvosthold from Curse of Strahd, but that would still be situational which means it is a orange spell.
Aye. And in honesty, a Fly spell plus a couple ranged attackers *also* does a decent job clearing those dungeons alone. But Fly also has a lot of other utility bits stapled on.
@@Kestral287 when i look at the spell again, the abberant spirit has a quite good strength score independent of its form. it might be possible for a light loaded caster to ride on the beholder
That is certainly a more appealing use; as a Fly spell that comes with an attached turret. There's a lot of questions in how the DM handles that one, as a Beholder and its ilk... aren't exactly well-suited to carrying something. So it'd be very reasonable for the DM to break out the Mounted rules since you probably need to be actively riding it, and if so we're immediately locked to Small characters since the summon is only Medium. Still, not the worst idea, and kind of a hilarious image.
Unless you have good in game resigns, resources, and reputation with a plane your summoning from, I’d take this over plainer Allie easily. When your going to go battle a demon invasion the next day, planner ally is a great way for you to help an archon get in the action and bamf our when the job is done tomorrow. Even then, I’ve seen it done the day before a few times cause it’s super high level ‘yes they angel actually wants to fight this mega bad guy’ situation. So you’ll still have the slot to cast summon celestial. (I’ve had it as an option that if you did do really well with plainer ally, they make other summons of their plane alignment more powerful to add flavor and importance to the RP and execution of plans) But again that’s so much up to the table and interpretation, when you pc life is on the line, the new summons are reliable.
You failed to see how awesome this spell is for a Sorcerer of Divine Magic. Extended spell and the ability to keep it healed would make it powerful for little resources used.
Summon Beast is a such great second level spell but I feel like the rest of the spells leave a bit to be desired for their level. I feel like if the summons did magical damage these would be substantially more appealing options.
how so? i'm guessing you mean arcane abeyance through a familiar because the bead spell still requires concentration, but the familiar won't be able to issue verbal commands to it's summon.
Admittedly the aberrant summon is on the lower end, but I figure how it works with the aberrant mind sorc would be pretty nice. You can bypass the material cost, it's the only one you have access to, always prepared. It could be better but not bad either. The other one I'd thought of, is a celestial warlock having a chat with their patron and get access to Summon Celestial. "Hey Patron Sir? You allow me to summon shadow spirits, undead and a whole host of other evil creatures? Would you mind if I was able to borrow one of your underlings for a bit?"
Not sure if it was mentioned in the comments but the Summon Construct (Metal) can be used to grapple an enemy to make them take constant fire damage. Not sure how it will be ruled though since it doesn't explicitly say and it'd probably be up to the DM. If I were the DM, I would just make the grappled creature take the 1d10 fire damage at the start of each of its turns.
A lot of the other summon spells have a - stat on something (mostly int or cha) so if they get hit by one, odds are it not going to take it well, Wis is not as bad but the right immunitys can help hold that off. Summon Fey spirit look like it does a good job as a fast dodge tank even with foe spell casters about, it only weak stats are it Str or Wis but immunity to charmed helps out there. Mithful: You and the fey can't be attacked if (sucks for your team) and you get advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature, so you maybe to hold them off with the fey as you talk them down (gm willing), and the fey can keep using it on them. Trickey: Give someone who being attack darkness to give them some cover (not going to work with anyone with darkvision) great for saving a rouge and giving them a place to to use hide at the same time. Fumming, this is a bit of weak one, not one i want to use unless i just need more bodys in the area and my AOE are going to hit things i don't want.
Great one Chris! I've really been liking your Tasha's vids. Still wish there were some consistency in the summon/conjure naming And I know this isn't really what you get at in your vids, but I think the summon undead and construct is just silly. I don't think they rally have a place in the fiction
I certainly agree with Summon Construct. Summon Undead, certainly with a ghost, is pretty thematically appropriate, even IRL people sometimes claim to be able to summon ghosts...
I tell ya, I'm most excited to play with these with a Druid. As a Land or Shepherd Druid, I would be playing a caster rather than a shapeshifter. Being able to use my Wildshape to have a familiar type creature, and a Summon Beast as well, will really flesh out the feel of being a Druid. I know there may be times when I need to use my concentration for something else. Having the option though, makes it feel like a lot more of a Druid than simply a "Dirt Wiz." I just hope that DMs are open minded to these new spells. I know the PHB conjure spells that bring in groups of creatures are greatly frowned upon at most tables because of how they slow down combat.
Looking at the summon beast for my ranged ranger about to level up to 5. Realized that the strength score enables a flying small beast to carry you around with effective 30 ft movement speed. This is in many cases effectively a fly spell (level 3) for a 2nd spell slot with added scouting or combat utility like find familiar (one of the best level 1 spells). It can also switch target for the fly effect during the duration. But it does have the added risk of the beast dying ending the spell. Just for the pseudofly effect alone it is worth picking and (ab)using 2nd spell slots on. I don't understand why guides downgrade this spell just because any older (higher level) conjure spells can do the same. Summon beast shines at 2nd level. Just keep it there for the utility and reuse it all day. I will end up picking this over Pass without a Trace. That is crazy in itself to me and shows its power level.
I think Treatmonk is wrong with his analsysis. I play a conjurer wizard for 3 years now. The Summon Construct (Clay) is pretty nice against brute monsters. He basically has an additional attack and can get the most hitpoints of any summon when upcasted. And in addition is immune to Charm, Banishment and Fear. Dont unterestimate this. Bosses in higher levels often use charms and fears effects. The Summon Aberration (Beholder)'s ranged attacks deal psychic damage and it can fly. If you go against a dragon, position of your team is very important. Nothing is as bad as to loose a 6th slot at the moment when a Dragon breaths. Fly helps alot to keep it alive and deliver damage. Its good when a summon soaks single target damage, but its worse if it dies as a "side effect". The beholder is also the go against extraplanar creatures which have weapon resistances. The Summon Fiend (Devil) can be used as Mount. You ride the devil and you both shoot magic bolts at the enemies. As example my DM allowed me to have it be a Devil Wyvern. The advantage of this summon is that the creature has +3 Cha, good damage and Magic Resistance. The enemy will have a hard time banishing it. Summon Beast blue? The benefit of summons comes with upcasting it to 4th, 6th and 8th level. But beast scales fairly poor. 6th slot 50 hp 17 AC 8th slot 60 hp. 19 AC Compare that to the golem. The golem is much better. 6th slot 70 hp 19 AC 8th slot 90 hp 21 AC In my opinion its like: Summon Beast (Purple) Summon Construct (Blue) Summon Aberration (Blue) Summon Celestial (Blue) Summon Fiend (Purple) Summon Undead (Green)
Only thing that sucks is there are no hit die to add some hit points if you are a Shepherd Druid... But they do get magical attacks for their summons so that’s good.
you know the fury shadow spirit probably works out super well with undead warlocks, though I'd probably sooner give them the summon undead just for theme reasons. Aside from that, yeah the fouth level ones are pretty mid but the tasha's sorcs get one each, and while wizards get all of them (and warlocks most), for classes like druid for instance, beast is a great L2 but I'd probably sooner take the elemental summon as an L4 over the fey as an L3. Just one of those cases where even if some summons are better than others, if your class only gets one or two at all its still a 'yes please' pick. Oh, and I guess divine soul sorcs can grab the summon celestial if they want, as another example.
Hey Treatmonk, love your videos. Ive been bingeing them lately, no one else examines and analyzes the different aspects of 5e with as keen and impartial an approach as you imo... it kinda makes me wonder what your opinions on the flavor side of things is... I would greatly enjoy a ranking vid on the subclasses based purely on the appeal that the particular subclass flavour has for you... no pressure, just thinkin. :) Love your content!
Would love a "World Soul" Warlock that functions as a Summoner class. Put the 'Summon' spells into the expended patron list that the warlock doesn't already have, and give the class the option to swap out conjuration spells like the aberrant sorcerer does with its Psionic sorcery. The warlock is a great choice for this due to it's limited and always capped slots.
I know you're not a big fan of direct damage, and I think you way underrated Summon Aberration because of that. If you upcast Summon Aberration to level 6, Beholderkins can do 3d8+27 damage per round. That is, 40 damage per round on average if all attacks hit -- and since it runs off of your spell attack roll, it's not unreasonable to see from +10 to +13 by T3. For up to an hour. Because the Beholderkin does psychic damage at range and can fly, it can stay out of melee and AoE range... meaning that if you just want a turret, it will last for much longer than other spells while using a rarely resisted damage type. Its advantage over Summon Undead is flight, its advantage over Summon Fiend and Summon Celestial is availability. It definitely deserves a green for the level you get it at and just how much raw damage you can reliably pump out with this.
One thing you didn't really talk about was how the gold cost of summon beast is actually kinda prohibitive. Earning that much gold by level 3 isn't a trivial matter. For a ranger, it's a bit different I guess since they can't do take the spell until level 5 anyway. I know it's not consumed but even so, 200gp is a lot to spend on access to a spell, so early.
It seemed that you might not have known when you did the segment that Summon Construct is not just the only one of the new summon spells available to Artificers, but also the only summoning spell they get at all. So it doesn't have any alternatives for the Artificer. With that in mind, I think it's definitely a viable option for the Artificer.
I agree with all of this. I'd just mention that summon fiends is specifically better for warlocks because it's the only way you'll get a tashas summoned creature with three attacks
Well, i'll try to do a case for Summon Fey: it has a One Minute equivalent of Charm Monster (kind of bad fourth level spell) to use every round in addition to the damage, and it can affect multiple enemies simultaneously (one each round), without the advantage on the saving throw if it's during a combat, and without the creature knowing it was Charmed (so it's also useful for RP situations), all at the cost of a lvl 3 slot. For me that seems really good, specially if you consider that you and the fairy can't be targeted by Area of Effect Spells from the charmed creature, so that might prevent AoEs to hit more than one ally at a time if either of you are in the way (and the fairy will surely be close to the other melee PCs); and if your friends damage the enemy and the initiative is in your favor, you could just charm it again before it's turn. Everything that i've mentioned might have been taken into account when considering Summon Fey as a weaker option, but i had to point it out because it wasn't said in the video. With love, Mucho Texto.
Summon construct is a little meh but something that came into my mind that is just hilarious is the metal construct grappling some bigshot NPC while the wizard casts heat metal on it. Every time the golem hits him 1d10 fire, every round on the NPC's turn 1d10 fire, every time the NPC tries to break the grapple or attack the golem 1d10 fire and every turn on the wizard's turn 2d6 fire.
I feel like when discussing druid summons, it is worth mentioning the bonuses that shepherd druids get. Non magical b, s, or p damage may be the worst damage types, but magical b, s, or p damage are among the best types.
Use 7th level Glyph of Warding for 6th level Summon Fiend. Wait a day. Hold action to cast 7th level Planar Binding when the Glyph activates. You now have a semi-permanent Devil pet that no longer requires concentration. You can now also have two summons out at a time and it only cost you 1200 gold.
I think that the Metallic construct could be pretty good grappler. 18 STR and Damage when he grapples the target. So If you need to hold the target - it could be good.
Speaking only for the Druid spells i read, i wasn't attracted to the scaling of beast summon, was slightly more interested in the circumstantial uses of the summon element creature thing, but the summon fey was the show stopper. It's bonus action includes misty step, therefore it moves 40 and misty steps 30, and still performs a magical perk on top of that and THEN makes the attack action. That's a move of 70, and using 30 to move in any direction. At 8th level this is a very strong summons, meant to be paired with my shepherd druid of course for maximum efficiency. 4 attacks with 2d6+ damage per attack (one of those damage types being force damage is very unresisted) magical attacks for the shepherd's fey, a decent AC of 20 or near 20, 80 or 90 hit points... this thing is a monk, or better than the class of monk because you don't have to save it from dying. It's a disposable monk... ahaha. It heals from the shepherds aura at the end of its turn, it throws darkness on the enemy if the enemy is trapped or cornered, it gets advantage to one attack (somewhat weak), and for some reason i don't know if the charm ability has any restrictions in combat or if it's darn near a domination effect with no disadvantage to the save for being in combat. It also has darkvision. WTF also i didn't hear if Treant described that all these summons operate best at even levels, and are essentially less efficient if cast on an odd numbered spell level. This intelligent, combat worth summons, is much more effective than most of the 8th level spells. Reverse Gravity = circumstantial yet awesome. Sun blast or whatever its called blows up your friends as well as enemies. How bout an assassin with half the hit points but as much hitting power as a regular combatant? OK. All the other druid spells are massive AOE, or utility as in Animal Shapes (educate me), therefore there is no other combat spell to use at 8th level except summon fey.... atm. Lovely, easy to remember, tactile design.
yeah.... but by the time a druid is casting eighth level spells, they'll have much better things to be using their concentration on. there's also the fact that eighth level spell slots are not really worth considering, since 90% of campaigns won't be getting to that point. even if casting summon fey at eighth level were worth it, which it's not, casting at that level isn't worth considering in the evaluation of the spell, since that will rarely ever be possible.
I don't think the putrid Undead would actually give disadvantage on attacks very often, if at all (maybe OAs?). The poison only lasts until the start of the creatures next turn which means as of the start of its turn its no longer poisoned and therefore attacks normally.
I feel Summon Fey is getting a bit of a raw deal here (Although I admit a bias as my party has two Blind Fighting Style characters & a Devil Sight Warlock). I feel the defensive ability to charm for a minute as a bonus action is great and if you have the aforementioned elements to your party you will be phenomenal for battlefield control.
All Charm does is prevents the enemy to attack you. They still can attack your allies just as well. And it lasts when the enemy takes any damage, so even if you want to defend yourself, it won't last for long.
I feel like you really undersold a few of them. The Beholderkin basically becomes a turret with 150ft range and flight. A Conjuration Wizard is summoning it with 17 AC and 60 hp + 30 temp hp with a 6th level spell making it pretty survivable too. I feel like it definitely should have been given a reaction eye beam though. Just shooting a laser isn't very Beholder to me.
I LOVE the idea of these spells and plan on playing a pseudo summoner type character in my next campaign. The conjure spells didnt fit the fantasy of summoning a single powerful beast as your guardian (i.e. persona style).
8:20 Because casters got to be better at pets than pet classes. Because wizards got to be better av everything than the classes that specialize in those things.
Summon Beast is great at level 2, but it will be pretty difficult to get the 200 gp for the materials to cast it at the low levels where the spell is actually good.
I think you are underestimating summon fey a little. Mostly because of the fact that they are using a weapon. Nothing stops you from giving the fey a magical shortsword. Getting rid of the resistance downside You can even give the fey a ranged weapon and the worst the dm can do is take away their proficiency to hit. Also summon elemental the earth variant has the neat side ability that you have an hour to make tunnels at will if you are in sand, earth, mud, or ice terrain. That's a pretty nice bonus for also getting a creature on top of it.
I would say summon undead and summon abberation are the spells i would choose but lets see what i say after this video. :) especially the toad form of abberation i think sounded intersting.
I LOVE these spells! I love the idea of summoning spells, but I hate the design of spells like Conjure Animals (Why does the DM pick the animal and not the number? Why are the more disruptive choices so much stronger?!)
Because it's a copout from 5E D&D's game designers to not do their job. "Uh, uh, uhhhh we printed an overpowered spell? It's not us, uhhhh, it's your DM's fault! Yeah! Make them do all of the work!"
I thought due to the magical nature of the summons slashing , piercing and bludgeoning damage was considered magical due to the fact that the creature itself is magic. Same as the moon-touched weapons. IT counts as magical damage when considering bypassing resistances even thought they do not have a +1 or higher bonus.
In order for the weapons of a creature to be considered magical, they need the magical attacks feature included in their stat block. Any spell that does direct damage is considered magical, but in this case, it's the summoned creature, not you, doing the damage.
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WotC had this kind of design at the tail end of 4E. Then they decided to abandon it and made the powerful but sadly messy for game play Conjuration spells. Now they're looping back to the good design they had. I really do wish they'd used this model from day 1 and also made these more widely available. A sorcerer or warlock with a summoning theme would be really cool but is rather hard to arrange just given the allocation of the spells.
It's a bit of a bummer for warlocks that Summon fiend is a 6th level spell. The flavor is very fitting, but since you need our mystic arcanum for it, you can only do it once a day, and you have to give up goodies like mass suggestion and eyebite for it. How good is this for Warlocks in your opinion?
I mean warlocks sadly can't upcast the other spells to lvl 6, so if you really want to keep the summoner flavour I guess this is your only way to get to the 3 attacks per round for the summon?
Where do you read that the temporary hitpoints only come on a hit? If they take the Radiant Mace attack they get to give temp HP is how I read this text. Nowhere does it say hit.
Maybe I need to watch his other vid on summon animals, but for the druid class, I am just not getting it. Other than the fact you get a level 2 summon, the conjure spells all seem VASTLY superior in what you can get over these summons, even if your DM picks. The conjured beasts just seem to have better stats overall, and you get more often. I would take summons ONLY if we have a lot of players at the table and I want to make my turn go faster and be nice to the DM. I would take conjure if I want my turn to be more effective. :) What am I missing? (cause I'm sure its something other than just being nice to the DM!)
I've tried using Conjured Animal for offense at higher levels and they're really lacking unless you're a Circle of the Shepherd Druid. The attack roll bonus is just too low unless you have something like Pack Tactics. But something like Giant Eagles? Boy, I sure love missing on six out of eight attacks when ordering my CotS Druid's flock to attack an iron golem. Granted, it never becomes an outright bad or even average spell, because you always have the option for Giant Spiders, but it really starts to fall off in T3.
I was thinking summon fey might work pretty good with a warlock with devils site. it runs forward, stabs someone, teleports back and creates a darkness cube around the warlock. Pretty niche, but I can see it being useful.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Maybe? It refers to it as magical darkness. Which IMO would mean it would use the normal rules for magical darkness whether or not it adds a line that says people with darkvision can't see through it, that's just what magical darkness is.
@@Ahglock There are no "rules for magical darkness". Darkness spell explicitly says that creatures with darkvision can't see through it, it is a feature of the spell, but not of "magical darkness" in general. Other kinds of magical darkness don't work like that, Crawford confirmed it.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Disagree with that. Only special visions say they can see through magical darkness. And it is a stated ability in those visions. If all visions could you would not need to mention that, or it would be more specific in saying can see through magical darkness that expressly states dark vision can't
Out of curiosity and on the topic of this video. Have you thought of making a build that focuses on familiars, homunculi, summons and the like and seeing how many you can possibly have at one time? I am very curious as to the viability of such a build.
On the one hand, I appreciate summon shadowspawn is better than summon fey, but on the other I’m definately taking fey with my feylocke just for the flavour and the cool interaction of the fey actually being a character my warlock can talk to, rather than a shadowspawn which isn’t exactly a conversationalist.
i have bad exp with summoners . We had druid and he always wanted to summon lowest CR creatures (wolfs he wanted) and was bogging down game .. no one enjoyed it , least DM coz all of the sudden he had A LOT more attacks and game got slowed to a halt
I feel summon fey is being underestimated. Say you're a warlock; This is a high-value long-term spell that makes another body for the enemies to attack instead of you. You can use it to harass other ranged fighters by going into melee with its 110 movespeed, block enemies from going into melee with you, create magical darkness that only you can see through, and cast charm monster, a *4th level spell*, as a bonus action every round with no disadvantage for being in combat. It only lasts for 1 minute but the summon lasts for an hour. You could reasonably keep 2 monsters/people charmed by constantly casting it because it doesn't require concentration to maintain and they probably won't make 3 consecutive saves apiece against your spell save DC let alone 6. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think I am.
It isn't "Charm Monster". It is just Charmed condition. All it does is prevents the enemy from attacking you, it doesn't turn the enemy into an ally, as Charm Monster does. And it lasts only until the target takes any damage. Plus "Magical Darkness" isn't Darkness spell, creatures with Darksight can still see through it, or just walk 5 ft sideways.
I'm just glad they made sure the Undead spell was Necromancy so that Necromancer's ability works with it.
They had to get it right at least ONCE
@@felipercalvo yeah this book is kind of a wreck in a few places.
Sadly, the Skeleton only gets the improved hit points from Undead Thralls. Its necrotic attack is a ranged spell attack and the proficiency bonus to damage only applies to weapon attacks the undead make.
I am also not sure that a summoning spell *CREATES* an undead creature? - I do not think the "summon undead" spell gets the bonus :(
I hope it does... but I am not sure :(
@@Magnushamann I don't think they made it necromancy just for the fun of it, because as necromancy it doesn't benefit from things the Conjurer gets and the damage these undead deal is already on the low side. Seems clear to me they're meant to benefit from Undead Thralls.
I'm always so thankful that you use the stars on your grading scheme. As a colorblind person it makes things so much easier. It really means a lot.
I like them because I can't remember which colors mean what.
Yeah it's great how he's going the extra mile for accessibility! As a completely blind person myself I also very much appreciate that! He really means it when he says "DnD is for everyone."
@@weasilboy7 Also this, yes
Unlike the other summon spells, summon undead is a necromancy spell, which may allow the creature to bebefit from a Necromancer wizard's level 6 ability. I saw 'may' because there's some room for table variance based on your dm's interpretation of creating vs, summoning the creature, but the school designation seems to be a deliberate choise on the designer's part specifically to allow this interaction. If your dm is favorable, that let's a necromancer wizard overcome the weaknesses of summon undead in terms of having lower ac and damage than other summon spells.
bleh, so many typos. I've really got to stop posting replies on mobile. The only materially relevant mistake is that necromancer specialty helps hp & damage, not ac & damage.
On the other hand, it also means that Conjurer Wizards will never want to touch Summon Undead, as it won’t benefit from the Conjuration Wizard’s 10th and 14th level abilities. In particular, not losing concentration from damage is a huge boost to these spells.
In terms of shadow spirit working well with a conquest paladin in the party, if the Conqueror takes at least 10 levels of paladin they'll get aura of courage, frighten immunity fir allies w/in 10' of the paladin, which will make the shadow spirit's fear burst much easier to place around the party.
Kind of makes me want to put together a frighten-based party composition, whether as PCs or as antagonist team.
I really appreciate that you’re also using stars in your ratings to accommodate colorblind folks. Nice! 👏
Hello Chris :D glad to see familiar faces here :D
@@MFewwy Hey! Small world. Nerds gonna be nerds, ya know?
@@cferdinandi DnD is for everyone! :D
I’m looking at the summoned creatures that force saving throws as killer ways to burn a big enemy’s legendary resistances without effecting your action economy.
Also because they don’t specify what the creatures look like, you can use some of the fly speed creatures as mounts and have your own fly speed. Standouts include summon celestial which finally gives spirt guardians a run for its money.
My absolute favourite fantasy trope is Summoners! I need to understand it clearly from a D&D perspective. Your Teaching style is just so effective at clearing up a lot of the mechanics and often underrated features of classes. Thanks Chris!
I could see a Summoner as a Warlock Subclass.
@@Battleguild heck, it could even be its own base class! Combined with pet options or Wildfire Druid's wildfire spirit ability you could have two summons on the field at one time, one using your bonus action to command and one using no action (verbal) to command. And if the class or subclass or your multiclass build allows access to find greater steed, thats a third reliable summon you could have on the battlefield at once, none of which would be wasting your main action to command leaving you available for healing/support.
I just gotta say, the unlimited charming on any creatures from Summon Fey is extremely powerful. It’s kinda like an unlimited Charm Monster at 3rd level
It's actually not. Nothing here says that the target is friendly to you, and Charmed Condition by itself doesn't do it. All it does is prevent the target from attacking the charmer (you and the fey in this case), they still can and will attack your party members.
@@antongrigoryev6381 I think they fey can be good used if set up right. First have devil sight(by being a warlock or the eldritch invocation feat). summon they tricksy fey. Hold your action(probably best with eldritch blast) have they fey teleport next to your enemy then boom all your attacks have advantage
@@superdragonite1000 readying a spell require concentration unfortunately, so this sadly won’t work
@@honahamomoru151 the better way to do this is for you to just step into the area area of darkness and fire out. The problem is that, technically, just having magical darkness doesn’t prevent regular darkvision from seeing you. That’s a feature of the Darkness spell, not any magical darkness.
Fun thing about Summon Undead - it mentions "Force damage" in its spell description when referring the the ghostly undead ending its turn in an occupied space.
Because the spell specifically mentions "Force damage" in its description, and its a base 3rd level spell, that means Order of Scribes Wizards can make their basic 3rd level Fireballs deal Force damage.
You're welcome :3
I like that initiative for the creature is simply after yours. Some DMs rule that your summoned creature sometimes doesn't go on the round it is summoned (it rolls a high initiative, already passed) - but this makes it more clear.
Inorite? In my games all summons just go at the end of their summoners turn because myself and the player don't need another initiative to keep track of.
Summon Beast is an example of how a game effect's rating can change by its availability. Getting it at level 3 instead of level 5 is huge deal and that would get it a green by itself, that it has easy access to advantage and flight makes it earn its blue rating. It does so much damage when you get it and it scales pretty well.
The 4th level Summoning Spells (Aberation, Construct, Elemental) are going to work well for your Order of Scribes Wizard for when you need to kick down a door to let your Manifest Mind in to eliminate all of your opponents.
Something to consiter for Summon Undead, specifically the Putrid Undead and the Rotting Claw attack. Similarly to what you said about the Fury Shadowspawn and having other ways of inducing Frightened in the party, if you have other ways of poisoning creatures consistently (maybe you have a Way of Mercy Monk which is also from this book, who can poison creatures providing no saving throw), then you can have a much better chance of getting the Paralysis off, perhaps upcasting it to 4th level to give it multiattack, aka 2 chances to Paralyze the creature.
Summon Fey might as well be a 4th level slot. I can't imagine choosing not to upcast it when it doubles the damage.
Why stop at 4th? Make it an 8th level spell! Oh wait, spell slots exist.
@@prancinNOOB Because a 4th level being twice as good as a 3rd level spell slot is not that common, an 8th level being 4 times as good as a 3rd level is fairly common.
One thing that irks me about the new spells is that they don't give a hit die value for the summoned creatures--making it very hard to figure out how a Shepherd Druid's abilities affect them.
maybe we should assume what they are based ib Challenge rating and size, i know it's not perfect but it could give an idea
What I have ruled is that since the spells scale on spell slot level, use each slot as a 'point' for the feature. (So 6 hp for 3rd level summon fey, or upcasted summon beast)
I love the new summoning spells, I wanted to use them from unearth arcana but now they are official so this is awesome, my conjurer wizard is just entering a level when he can cast these
Been noticing this for a while, I love the art you select for all the spells (and subclasses, etc in other videos), super evocative! In addition to great breakdowns of all the spells and creatures of course!
From the warlock's perspective, one additional benefit of Summon Fiend is that it's the only spell that allows the warlock to get three attacks out of it, as all the other spells cap at 5th level. Granted, we only ever get one 6th level spell, and Mass Suggestion exists, but for certain builds and backgrounds, like mine, the other 6th level spells are just simply uninspiring. Your evaluation of the spell is fair (I wish it were a bit better for its level, too), but I wanted to mention the extra attack as an additional benefit for the warlock specifically when considered in the vacuum of the other Tasha's summoning spells. Whether you're an EB spammer or a Blade Pact warrior, that's three extra attacks every round on top of what you're already doing.
But, any warlock has access to Conjure Fey as a 6th level spell. Which is (in my eyes) one of the best summoning spell - even with the inability to upcast (even better if we can upcast it!)
@@Magnushamann A minute casting time is prohibitive to me, and there is a hostility rider if you lose concentration or need to drop the spell for another important reason. And it technically suffers from the "your DM has the monster's statistics" ruling, which means you might not get what you're asking for. There's no doubt that some of the Conjure Fey choices are more powerful (as are the options in Summon Greater Demon that you get two levels earlier), but Summon Fiend has consistent, dependable, timely performance that has its own compensatory value.
@@johnmichaelarnaud Yeah, you can at least manipulate what you want with Conjure Element (and if a DM gives you something like a Flame Mephit, you as the table are honorbound to atomic wedgie them in front of their kids) but after summoning a Bheur Hag or a Kerred through it a couple of times I think my DM will be thinking twice.
Great information as usual.
I think that they were trying to find a way to do summoning so that it didn't break action economy (3.5 had that problem). I think in a vacuum they are good, but I want to see them in play. At least I can't get healing as wizard this way (i.e., summoning a Unicorn and having it to do healing, etc.).
Thank you so much, I've been waiting for someone to cover this for a while! You brought up some interesting points about damage types and synergies I hadn't considered. One thing to note about Summon Celestial and Summon Fiend (Devil Form) is that because they are large creatures with flying speeds and decent strength scores they could reasonably carry you and maybe even another of your party members through the air during combat, or fly you up the mountain, or to the top of the tower, etc... making them pretty reliable as summons!
I'm eagerly waiting on your take on the new Aberrant Mind sorcerer!
I USED to be a steadfast Transmuter fan (still am I suppose), but lately I am more into Conjuring/Summoning for what the "pets" can do for you.
I love the balance of these spells. They dont overpower options like summon greater demon, but they're far easier for both player and DM to manage. I feel like that was one of the major problems of conjuration up to this point with summons, they were hard to manage and had a lot of maintenence jank that made things more complicated then they needed to be
Go my murder toad. Slay my enemies! XD
Nice to hear it Treantmonk! These spells really are good from a QoL standpoint. They're well designed overall I think, so much less headache in actual play.
I'm glad to see Wizards refining how spells like this work to be less time consuming at the table. I do think that they should embrace revising already printed material and include a key with each physical purchase to a repository of errata, since you can't really revise a printed book. So much of dnd is digital now, especially with quarantine, might as well take advantage of that
They are pretty careful to make sure the PHB on someone's book shelf doesn't become scrap paper.
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah I respect that effort, but the longer they stick to it the more convoluted everything becomes. Imagine a new player trying to decipher all the summon spells in the game and the somewhat obtuse ways they're different from each other.
One issue with the Shadowspawn bonus action hiding is that it doesn't say it can hide in plain sight. The rules on hiding say that you can't hide from someone who can clearly see you. You can only hide in plain sight if you are invisible or heavily obscured and the enemy doesn't have something like blindsight or tremorsense. Since the Shadowspawn only has a melee attack, to make use of its ability to hide, it would either need to incapacitate/kill all enemies adjacent to it or disengage to avoid taking attacks of opportunity before finding a place to hide.
Oh my what a great video! First, thanks for the colorblind solution, tho I'm not colorblind, it's nice to see accessibility! Also your emphasis on how much better these are for the game itself, as a DM, is appreciated haha. I'm curious what would you do with the other half of the shepherd druid ability, the one that increased the hp of the creatures based on hit dice, now that it's useless for these spells.
Anyways, thanks for your great work! Excited to see your opinion on the rest of the spells
Technically it is useless for these spells, but I'm a softie and would probably do some kind of houserule, like HD equal to spell level or something.
@@TreantmonksTemple Nice to know we're on the same page! Thanks for your insight, I'm a softie too and don't want my player to just ignore that ability haha
Interesting set of new summoning options! Circle of shepherd druids still take the cake, with mass summons of the DM's choosing typically being more effective than a single summon of known choice.
Thanks for this video. I think I thought some of these were better than what they were rated. Good to see a different opinion that brought up good points.
For me Summon Undead Putrid Form is crazy because it uses your DC. Coupled with the new Wizard items this DC can be disgustingly high. Opponents will become poisened and will be paralyzed. Every round. Cast this at lvl6 your undead has 3 attacks, all of them paralyzing if the opponent is poisened.
Plus it's Necromany and works with the necromancer ability.
Or a Chains warlock with a Sprite and Investments of the Chain Master. The Sprite's poison last for one minute then it's a 1 one way train to paralysis city.
Obviously this varies, but if I were a DM, I would never give my PCs one of those DC items.
@@rorybax3287 damn you're right. I have to re-pick my warlock's spells
While I don't care for most of the spells, I like this style of summoning better than just choosing monsters out of the book.
Same, from both the perspective of a player and a DM, these summons are so much better than the nightmare of like 10 extra things thrown into initiative
I thought of another use of Summon Fey with the spellbow build (or any warlock using devils sight):
Summon Fey has the ability to summon the trickster, which I couldn't figure out what good 5 for cube of darkness for one round is. But with this build, you could summon the trickster fey on your first turn, and then tell it (since it acts at the end of your turn) to go attack something with its two attacks (or use help action) and then teleport right back beside you and create the darkness around you. You can do this every turn to ensure you are always in magical darkness when you are acting and between turns. Then you aren't party-unfriendly because the darkness is only surrounding you, but you get all of the bonuses in this build as with the darkness spell with two extra attacks from your fey. It ends if the fey gets killed, but it seems like yet another option to get the attacks with advantage with some bonuses (extra attacks and not putting your party in magical darkness)
Yeeesss... This is a video I was looking for, and I'm especially glad it's you looking at this, I appreciate your balanced perspective on things like this.
Thank you for using stars for colorblind people like me!! Blue and purple would have definitely given me some trouble 😅
You asked for a clever use for arcane gate in your guide to wizards, and I actually have one. It can be used together with glyph of warding and/or symbol in order to create a semi mobile blasting platform. Siege defense becomes easier when you can rain spells that don't take your action.
That's a lot of cost and set up and concentration use when the portal blocks vision through it. Gonna be tough for the glyph to target things that can't be seen
@@adamkaris You could always just manipulate the spell going through the portal so that it's a safe Area of Effect (like Symbol, if you're careful) but the problem remains that you need to be within 500 feet of of the glyph (which isn't that bad, especially in smaller dungeons) but you also need to be able to see it. If your DM is feeling nice they might let you use it with Find Familiar.
HELL yeah I've been waiting for someone to put out a guide for these o3o
Thank for doing the star rating. As a colorblind person is it super appreciated
Summon Beast and Summon Fey are not friendly options for the Shepherd Druid. None of the creatures summoned with these spells get hit dice, so the Shepherd Druid is losing out on part of their special features since they would normally augment the hit points of the beasts or fey they summon. I don't recommend these spells for Shepherd druids.
I would most definitely jury-rig a solution to that. It would be homebrew, but I think it's self-evident and designer-intended that a summoning-focused druid should mechanically synergize with the current crop of summoning spells.
@@ikaemos they don't build new content based on old content (except the PHB) so I doubt it even occurred to them to make it work with the Shepherd Druid
@@undrhil That's lazy and dumb on their part.
@@haroldboxty6733 agreed
Something you could do to fix the non-magical physical damage some of the summons have is to be a Scribes Wizard and use the Awakened Spellbook to change the damage type.
It won't work. It's not the spell that deals damage, it's the creature.
I have to disagree with you on the summon aberration, i believe it should be purple because the beholder form exists. the strategy would be to have it fly far up into the air, and shoot its eye rays on the enemy. although it's damage is weaker than the skeleton from summon undead, the beholder's flying speed will let you avoid a lot of covers and make it practically immune to melee attacks. then there is also the argument that it deals psychic damage which is a reliable damage type.
Do you really care about your summons avoiding damage though? If my opponents are willing to throw 40 points of damage at my summon, I am 111% willing to let them. That's probably 2/3rds of my own total health pool or better and is even a pretty decent chunk of fighter hit points. If they want to waste that on my spell slot, I'm absolutely game.
"Fly up and bombard" is really something I only care to do when:
1. The enemy lacks ranged attacks.
2. My entire party is in a position where the enemy can't attack us instead.
3. That position doesn't allow us to make our own attacks
4. I have a decent amount of time.
If they have #1, flying doesn't matter so I'd rather summon the skeleton or something else that can get off some attacks and hopefully trade reasonably before dying. If they have #2, I want something that will encourage them to attack it instead, which means we want to avoid the strategy outright. If we have #3, none of this matters because I'll just kill them with Firebolts. If we don't have #4, we need to push offense as fast as possible and can't worry about being cute, which again means the skeleton looks better.
@@Kestral287 I didn't think of that. I mean, you can still use it to clear some dungeons alone such as Argynvosthold from Curse of Strahd, but that would still be situational which means it is a orange spell.
Aye. And in honesty, a Fly spell plus a couple ranged attackers *also* does a decent job clearing those dungeons alone. But Fly also has a lot of other utility bits stapled on.
@@Kestral287 when i look at the spell again, the abberant spirit has a quite good strength score independent of its form. it might be possible for a light loaded caster to ride on the beholder
That is certainly a more appealing use; as a Fly spell that comes with an attached turret. There's a lot of questions in how the DM handles that one, as a Beholder and its ilk... aren't exactly well-suited to carrying something. So it'd be very reasonable for the DM to break out the Mounted rules since you probably need to be actively riding it, and if so we're immediately locked to Small characters since the summon is only Medium. Still, not the worst idea, and kind of a hilarious image.
Unless you have good in game resigns, resources, and reputation with a plane your summoning from, I’d take this over plainer Allie easily.
When your going to go battle a demon invasion the next day, planner ally is a great way for you to help an archon get in the action and bamf our when the job is done tomorrow.
Even then, I’ve seen it done the day before a few times cause it’s super high level ‘yes they angel actually wants to fight this mega bad guy’ situation.
So you’ll still have the slot to cast summon celestial.
(I’ve had it as an option that if you did do really well with plainer ally, they make other summons of their plane alignment more powerful to add flavor and importance to the RP and execution of plans)
But again that’s so much up to the table and interpretation, when you pc life is on the line, the new summons are reliable.
You failed to see how awesome this spell is for a Sorcerer of Divine Magic. Extended spell and the ability to keep it healed would make it powerful for little resources used.
Can we hand the Defender a shield when summoned and get an AC 20?
How about a flying mount for the Avenger?
Summon Beast is a such great second level spell but I feel like the rest of the spells leave a bit to be desired for their level. I feel like if the summons did magical damage these would be substantially more appealing options.
Another thing to note is that Chronurgist wizards will be able to have two summons on the field since many of these spells are level 4 or lower
how so? i'm guessing you mean arcane abeyance through a familiar because the bead spell still requires concentration, but the familiar won't be able to issue verbal commands to it's summon.
Admittedly the aberrant summon is on the lower end, but I figure how it works with the aberrant mind sorc would be pretty nice. You can bypass the material cost, it's the only one you have access to, always prepared. It could be better but not bad either.
The other one I'd thought of, is a celestial warlock having a chat with their patron and get access to Summon Celestial. "Hey Patron Sir? You allow me to summon shadow spirits, undead and a whole host of other evil creatures? Would you mind if I was able to borrow one of your underlings for a bit?"
Not sure if it was mentioned in the comments but the Summon Construct (Metal) can be used to grapple an enemy to make them take constant fire damage. Not sure how it will be ruled though since it doesn't explicitly say and it'd probably be up to the DM. If I were the DM, I would just make the grappled creature take the 1d10 fire damage at the start of each of its turns.
summon Feys tricksy ability is AMAZING for warlocks... its basically a party friendly darkness :D
A lot of the other summon spells have a - stat on something (mostly int or cha) so if they get hit by one, odds are it not going to take it well, Wis is not as bad but the right immunitys can help hold that off.
Summon Fey spirit look like it does a good job as a fast dodge tank even with foe spell casters about, it only weak stats are it Str or Wis but immunity to charmed helps out there.
Mithful: You and the fey can't be attacked if (sucks for your team) and you get advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature, so you maybe to hold them off with the fey as you talk them down (gm willing), and the fey can keep using it on them.
Trickey: Give someone who being attack darkness to give them some cover (not going to work with anyone with darkvision) great for saving a rouge and giving them a place to to use hide at the same time.
Fumming, this is a bit of weak one, not one i want to use unless i just need more bodys in the area and my AOE are going to hit things i don't want.
Great one Chris! I've really been liking your Tasha's vids. Still wish there were some consistency in the summon/conjure naming
And I know this isn't really what you get at in your vids, but I think the summon undead and construct is just silly. I don't think they rally have a place in the fiction
I certainly agree with Summon Construct. Summon Undead, certainly with a ghost, is pretty thematically appropriate, even IRL people sometimes claim to be able to summon ghosts...
@@TreantmonksTemple Good point about the ghost!!
I tell ya, I'm most excited to play with these with a Druid. As a Land or Shepherd Druid, I would be playing a caster rather than a shapeshifter. Being able to use my Wildshape to have a familiar type creature, and a Summon Beast as well, will really flesh out the feel of being a Druid.
I know there may be times when I need to use my concentration for something else. Having the option though, makes it feel like a lot more of a Druid than simply a "Dirt Wiz." I just hope that DMs are open minded to these new spells. I know the PHB conjure spells that bring in groups of creatures are greatly frowned upon at most tables because of how they slow down combat.
Looking at the summon beast for my ranged ranger about to level up to 5.
Realized that the strength score enables a flying small beast to carry you around with effective 30 ft movement speed.
This is in many cases effectively a fly spell (level 3) for a 2nd spell slot with added scouting or combat utility like find familiar (one of the best level 1 spells). It can also switch target for the fly effect during the duration. But it does have the added risk of the beast dying ending the spell.
Just for the pseudofly effect alone it is worth picking and (ab)using 2nd spell slots on.
I don't understand why guides downgrade this spell just because any older (higher level) conjure spells can do the same. Summon beast shines at 2nd level. Just keep it there for the utility and reuse it all day.
I will end up picking this over Pass without a Trace. That is crazy in itself to me and shows its power level.
The other summoning video by Treantmonk: th-cam.com/video/_z7mvOb0PSk/w-d-xo.html
a banger
I think Treatmonk is wrong with his analsysis. I play a conjurer wizard for 3 years now.
The Summon Construct (Clay) is pretty nice against brute monsters. He basically has an additional attack and can get the most hitpoints of any summon when upcasted. And in addition is immune to Charm, Banishment and Fear. Dont unterestimate this. Bosses in higher levels often use charms and fears effects.
The Summon Aberration (Beholder)'s ranged attacks deal psychic damage and it can fly. If you go against a dragon, position of your team is very important. Nothing is as bad as to loose a 6th slot at the moment when a Dragon breaths.
Fly helps alot to keep it alive and deliver damage. Its good when a summon soaks single target damage, but its worse if it dies as a "side effect".
The beholder is also the go against extraplanar creatures which have weapon resistances.
The Summon Fiend (Devil) can be used as Mount. You ride the devil and you both shoot magic bolts at the enemies. As example my DM allowed me to have it be a Devil Wyvern. The advantage of this summon is that the creature has +3 Cha, good damage and Magic Resistance. The enemy will have a hard time banishing it.
Summon Beast blue? The benefit of summons comes with upcasting it to 4th, 6th and 8th level. But beast scales fairly poor.
6th slot 50 hp 17 AC
8th slot 60 hp. 19 AC
Compare that to the golem. The golem is much better.
6th slot 70 hp 19 AC
8th slot 90 hp 21 AC
In my opinion its like:
Summon Beast (Purple)
Summon Construct (Blue)
Summon Aberration (Blue)
Summon Celestial (Blue)
Summon Fiend (Purple)
Summon Undead (Green)
I love that the celestial and fiend are Large because they can be mounts. An alicorn or a nightmare.
Only thing that sucks is there are no hit die to add some hit points if you are a Shepherd Druid... But they do get magical attacks for their summons so that’s good.
you know the fury shadow spirit probably works out super well with undead warlocks, though I'd probably sooner give them the summon undead just for theme reasons.
Aside from that, yeah the fouth level ones are pretty mid but the tasha's sorcs get one each, and while wizards get all of them (and warlocks most), for classes like druid for instance, beast is a great L2 but I'd probably sooner take the elemental summon as an L4 over the fey as an L3. Just one of those cases where even if some summons are better than others, if your class only gets one or two at all its still a 'yes please' pick. Oh, and I guess divine soul sorcs can grab the summon celestial if they want, as another example.
Hey Treatmonk, love your videos. Ive been bingeing them lately, no one else examines and analyzes the different aspects of 5e with as keen and impartial an approach as you imo... it kinda makes me wonder what your opinions on the flavor side of things is... I would greatly enjoy a ranking vid on the subclasses based purely on the appeal that the particular subclass flavour has for you... no pressure, just thinkin. :) Love your content!
Would love a "World Soul" Warlock that functions as a Summoner class. Put the 'Summon' spells into the expended patron list that the warlock doesn't already have, and give the class the option to swap out conjuration spells like the aberrant sorcerer does with its Psionic sorcery.
The warlock is a great choice for this due to it's limited and always capped slots.
I know you're not a big fan of direct damage, and I think you way underrated Summon Aberration because of that. If you upcast Summon Aberration to level 6, Beholderkins can do 3d8+27 damage per round. That is, 40 damage per round on average if all attacks hit -- and since it runs off of your spell attack roll, it's not unreasonable to see from +10 to +13 by T3. For up to an hour.
Because the Beholderkin does psychic damage at range and can fly, it can stay out of melee and AoE range... meaning that if you just want a turret, it will last for much longer than other spells while using a rarely resisted damage type. Its advantage over Summon Undead is flight, its advantage over Summon Fiend and Summon Celestial is availability. It definitely deserves a green for the level you get it at and just how much raw damage you can reliably pump out with this.
One thing you didn't really talk about was how the gold cost of summon beast is actually kinda prohibitive. Earning that much gold by level 3 isn't a trivial matter. For a ranger, it's a bit different I guess since they can't do take the spell until level 5 anyway. I know it's not consumed but even so, 200gp is a lot to spend on access to a spell, so early.
It seemed that you might not have known when you did the segment that Summon Construct is not just the only one of the new summon spells available to Artificers, but also the only summoning spell they get at all. So it doesn't have any alternatives for the Artificer. With that in mind, I think it's definitely a viable option for the Artificer.
I agree with all of this. I'd just mention that summon fiends is specifically better for warlocks because it's the only way you'll get a tashas summoned creature with three attacks
Well, i'll try to do a case for Summon Fey: it has a One Minute equivalent of Charm Monster (kind of bad fourth level spell) to use every round in addition to the damage, and it can affect multiple enemies simultaneously (one each round), without the advantage on the saving throw if it's during a combat, and without the creature knowing it was Charmed (so it's also useful for RP situations), all at the cost of a lvl 3 slot.
For me that seems really good, specially if you consider that you and the fairy can't be targeted by Area of Effect Spells from the charmed creature, so that might prevent AoEs to hit more than one ally at a time if either of you are in the way (and the fairy will surely be close to the other melee PCs); and if your friends damage the enemy and the initiative is in your favor, you could just charm it again before it's turn.
Everything that i've mentioned might have been taken into account when considering Summon Fey as a weaker option, but i had to point it out because it wasn't said in the video. With love, Mucho Texto.
Summon construct is a little meh but something that came into my mind that is just hilarious is the metal construct grappling some bigshot NPC while the wizard casts heat metal on it. Every time the golem hits him 1d10 fire, every round on the NPC's turn 1d10 fire, every time the NPC tries to break the grapple or attack the golem 1d10 fire and every turn on the wizard's turn 2d6 fire.
these are my favorite type of topics!
I feel like when discussing druid summons, it is worth mentioning the bonuses that shepherd druids get. Non magical b, s, or p damage may be the worst damage types, but magical b, s, or p damage are among the best types.
14:00
@@TreantmonksTemple touché
Use 7th level Glyph of Warding for 6th level Summon Fiend. Wait a day. Hold action to cast 7th level Planar Binding when the Glyph activates. You now have a semi-permanent Devil pet that no longer requires concentration. You can now also have two summons out at a time and it only cost you 1200 gold.
My DM was willing to do a rule patch on Summon Beast so that the HP buff from Mighty Summoner still applies to it. Same with Summon Elemental.
I think that the Metallic construct could be pretty good grappler. 18 STR and Damage when he grapples the target. So If you need to hold the target - it could be good.
And here i am looking for summoning spells for my manhwa
Speaking only for the Druid spells i read, i wasn't attracted to the scaling of beast summon, was slightly more interested in the circumstantial uses of the summon element creature thing, but the summon fey was the show stopper. It's bonus action includes misty step, therefore it moves 40 and misty steps 30, and still performs a magical perk on top of that and THEN makes the attack action. That's a move of 70, and using 30 to move in any direction.
At 8th level this is a very strong summons, meant to be paired with my shepherd druid of course for maximum efficiency. 4 attacks with 2d6+ damage per attack (one of those damage types being force damage is very unresisted) magical attacks for the shepherd's fey, a decent AC of 20 or near 20, 80 or 90 hit points... this thing is a monk, or better than the class of monk because you don't have to save it from dying. It's a disposable monk... ahaha. It heals from the shepherds aura at the end of its turn, it throws darkness on the enemy if the enemy is trapped or cornered, it gets advantage to one attack (somewhat weak), and for some reason i don't know if the charm ability has any restrictions in combat or if it's darn near a domination effect with no disadvantage to the save for being in combat. It also has darkvision.
WTF
also i didn't hear if Treant described that all these summons operate best at even levels, and are essentially less efficient if cast on an odd numbered spell level. This intelligent, combat worth summons, is much more effective than most of the 8th level spells. Reverse Gravity = circumstantial yet awesome. Sun blast or whatever its called blows up your friends as well as enemies. How bout an assassin with half the hit points but as much hitting power as a regular combatant? OK.
All the other druid spells are massive AOE, or utility as in Animal Shapes (educate me), therefore there is no other combat spell to use at 8th level except summon fey.... atm.
Lovely, easy to remember, tactile design.
yeah.... but by the time a druid is casting eighth level spells, they'll have much better things to be using their concentration on. there's also the fact that eighth level spell slots are not really worth considering, since 90% of campaigns won't be getting to that point. even if casting summon fey at eighth level were worth it, which it's not, casting at that level isn't worth considering in the evaluation of the spell, since that will rarely ever be possible.
Upcast summon beast air has some fantastic comedy value when used on a farm to get a chicken.
I don't think the putrid Undead would actually give disadvantage on attacks very often, if at all (maybe OAs?). The poison only lasts until the start of the creatures next turn which means as of the start of its turn its no longer poisoned and therefore attacks normally.
I feel Summon Fey is getting a bit of a raw deal here (Although I admit a bias as my party has two Blind Fighting Style characters & a Devil Sight Warlock). I feel the defensive ability to charm for a minute as a bonus action is great and if you have the aforementioned elements to your party you will be phenomenal for battlefield control.
All Charm does is prevents the enemy to attack you. They still can attack your allies just as well. And it lasts when the enemy takes any damage, so even if you want to defend yourself, it won't last for long.
The Avenger Celestial has a wicked range, up too 600 feet for its attacks and it has flight and its large so you can ride it.
I feel like you really undersold a few of them. The Beholderkin basically becomes a turret with 150ft range and flight. A Conjuration Wizard is summoning it with 17 AC and 60 hp + 30 temp hp with a 6th level spell making it pretty survivable too. I feel like it definitely should have been given a reaction eye beam though. Just shooting a laser isn't very Beholder to me.
I think these spells make planar binding more interesting.
I LOVE the idea of these spells and plan on playing a pseudo summoner type character in my next campaign. The conjure spells didnt fit the fantasy of summoning a single powerful beast as your guardian (i.e. persona style).
Great, now I want to play a summoner. :D
8:20 Because casters got to be better at pets than pet classes. Because wizards got to be better av everything than the classes that specialize in those things.
Summon Beast is great at level 2, but it will be pretty difficult to get the 200 gp for the materials to cast it at the low levels where the spell is actually good.
Very valid point. On the other hand, rangers get them later, it should be doable.
Im giving my warlock summon undead. My skeletal friend is basically Skelly from the hades game. I can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction lol
I think you are underestimating summon fey a little.
Mostly because of the fact that they are using a weapon.
Nothing stops you from giving the fey a magical shortsword. Getting rid of the resistance downside
You can even give the fey a ranged weapon and the worst the dm can do is take away their proficiency to hit.
Also summon elemental the earth variant has the neat side ability that you have an hour to make tunnels at will if you are in sand, earth, mud, or ice terrain. That's a pretty nice bonus for also getting a creature on top of it.
I would say summon undead and summon abberation are the spells i would choose but lets see what i say after this video. :) especially the toad form of abberation i think sounded intersting.
First of all shadow sounds alot better than i gave credit for.
Was the ua of the aberation better? I would have sworn was once the best one?
Was hoping for more for my necro lol
Beholderkin can be a cute tiny beholder? Maybe? Lol
I LOVE these spells! I love the idea of summoning spells, but I hate the design of spells like Conjure Animals (Why does the DM pick the animal and not the number? Why are the more disruptive choices so much stronger?!)
Because it's a copout from 5E D&D's game designers to not do their job. "Uh, uh, uhhhh we printed an overpowered spell? It's not us, uhhhh, it's your DM's fault! Yeah! Make them do all of the work!"
Side note: Shepherd Druid does help some of the lower level Summon spells available
I thought due to the magical nature of the summons slashing , piercing and bludgeoning damage was considered magical due to the fact that the creature itself is magic. Same as the moon-touched weapons. IT counts as magical damage when considering bypassing resistances even thought they do not have a +1 or higher bonus.
In order for the weapons of a creature to be considered magical, they need the magical attacks feature included in their stat block. Any spell that does direct damage is considered magical, but in this case, it's the summoned creature, not you, doing the damage.
Thanks for the clarification.
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WotC had this kind of design at the tail end of 4E. Then they decided to abandon it and made the powerful but sadly messy for game play Conjuration spells. Now they're looping back to the good design they had.
I really do wish they'd used this model from day 1 and also made these more widely available. A sorcerer or warlock with a summoning theme would be really cool but is rather hard to arrange just given the allocation of the spells.
It's a bit of a bummer for warlocks that Summon fiend is a 6th level spell. The flavor is very fitting, but since you need our mystic arcanum for it, you can only do it once a day, and you have to give up goodies like mass suggestion and eyebite for it.
How good is this for Warlocks in your opinion?
Still good, but I'm not jumping on summon fiend at 11. Going to summon lots at levels 5-8
I mean warlocks sadly can't upcast the other spells to lvl 6, so if you really want to keep the summoner flavour I guess this is your only way to get to the 3 attacks per round for the summon?
Where do you read that the temporary hitpoints only come on a hit? If they take the Radiant Mace attack they get to give temp HP is how I read this text. Nowhere does it say hit.
Maybe I need to watch his other vid on summon animals, but for the druid class, I am just not getting it. Other than the fact you get a level 2 summon, the conjure spells all seem VASTLY superior in what you can get over these summons, even if your DM picks. The conjured beasts just seem to have better stats overall, and you get more often. I would take summons ONLY if we have a lot of players at the table and I want to make my turn go faster and be nice to the DM. I would take conjure if I want my turn to be more effective. :) What am I missing? (cause I'm sure its something other than just being nice to the DM!)
I've tried using Conjured Animal for offense at higher levels and they're really lacking unless you're a Circle of the Shepherd Druid. The attack roll bonus is just too low unless you have something like Pack Tactics. But something like Giant Eagles? Boy, I sure love missing on six out of eight attacks when ordering my CotS Druid's flock to attack an iron golem. Granted, it never becomes an outright bad or even average spell, because you always have the option for Giant Spiders, but it really starts to fall off in T3.
I was thinking summon fey might work pretty good with a warlock with devils site. it runs forward, stabs someone, teleports back and creates a darkness cube around the warlock. Pretty niche, but I can see it being useful.
It isn't a "Darkness" spell, so creatures with Darksight can still see through it.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Maybe? It refers to it as magical darkness. Which IMO would mean it would use the normal rules for magical darkness whether or not it adds a line that says people with darkvision can't see through it, that's just what magical darkness is.
@@Ahglock There are no "rules for magical darkness". Darkness spell explicitly says that creatures with darkvision can't see through it, it is a feature of the spell, but not of "magical darkness" in general. Other kinds of magical darkness don't work like that, Crawford confirmed it.
@@antongrigoryev6381 Disagree with that. Only special visions say they can see through magical darkness. And it is a stated ability in those visions. If all visions could you would not need to mention that, or it would be more specific in saying can see through magical darkness that expressly states dark vision can't
@@Ahglock Again, there is no ruling for "magical darkness" in phb. It is just darkness. And again, it comes from J.C.
Out of curiosity and on the topic of this video. Have you thought of making a build that focuses on familiars, homunculi, summons and the like and seeing how many you can possibly have at one time? I am very curious as to the viability of such a build.
Why would the Bestial Spirit's piercing damage be non-magical? It's a spell effect.
On the one hand, I appreciate summon shadowspawn is better than summon fey, but on the other I’m definately taking fey with my feylocke just for the flavour and the cool interaction of the fey actually being a character my warlock can talk to, rather than a shadowspawn which isn’t exactly a conversationalist.
i have bad exp with summoners . We had druid and he always wanted to summon lowest CR creatures (wolfs he wanted) and was bogging down game .. no one enjoyed it , least DM coz all of the sudden he had A LOT more attacks and game got slowed to a halt
I feel summon fey is being underestimated. Say you're a warlock; This is a high-value long-term spell that makes another body for the enemies to attack instead of you. You can use it to harass other ranged fighters by going into melee with its 110 movespeed, block enemies from going into melee with you, create magical darkness that only you can see through, and cast charm monster, a *4th level spell*, as a bonus action every round with no disadvantage for being in combat. It only lasts for 1 minute but the summon lasts for an hour. You could reasonably keep 2 monsters/people charmed by constantly casting it because it doesn't require concentration to maintain and they probably won't make 3 consecutive saves apiece against your spell save DC let alone 6. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think I am.
It isn't "Charm Monster". It is just Charmed condition. All it does is prevents the enemy from attacking you, it doesn't turn the enemy into an ally, as Charm Monster does. And it lasts only until the target takes any damage.
Plus "Magical Darkness" isn't Darkness spell, creatures with Darksight can still see through it, or just walk 5 ft sideways.