Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is overflowing with new player options, including some wild new summoning spells. As discussed in Spell Spotlight: Conjure Minor Elementals and Spell Spotlight: Conjure Animals, spells that summon other creatures can be some of the most frustrating spells in the game. They take up lots of time at the table by adding new combatants to the fight, sometimes even doubling the number of bodies on the field, forcing players plan out several new creatures’ actions and have a bevy of additional monster statistics on hand.
A handful of new summoning spells in Tasha’s addresses a number of common concerns that players have with summoning spells, making it faster and easier to play Circle of the Shepherd druids and School of Conjuration wizards and other summoner-type characters in your D&D games.
New Spells for Summoners
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything introduces no fewer than nine new summoning spells, usable by a variety of different classes. These spells are already in your Compendium if you’ve purchased Tasha’s, but you can also purchase these spells individually by scrolling down to the Spells section on the Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything product page on the D&D Beyond Marketplace. In order of spell level, these spells are:
- Summon beast, a 2nd-level spell for druids and rangers
- Summon fey, a 3rd-level spell for druids, rangers, warlocks, and wizards
- Summon shadowspawn, a 3rd-level spell for warlocks and wizards
- Summon undead, a 3rd-level spell (the only necromancy spell of the bunch) for warlocks and wizards
- Summon aberration, a 4th-level spell for warlocks and wizards
- Summon construct, a 4th-level spell for artificers and wizards
- Summon elemental, a 4th-level spell for druids, rangers, wizards, and warlocks of the Fathomless patron (water only)
- Summon celestial, a 5th-level spell for clerics and paladins
- Summon fiend, a 6th-level spell for warlocks and wizards
These spells range from 2nd to 6th level, and give characters of a variety of different classes the ability to summon creatures from almost every type in the game. Notably, humanoid, dragon, giant, ooze, and plant are missing—though there’s probably a good reason for most of those creatures not to appear in this list of conjurations. It would be cool to summon a gloopy ooze or a minor drake to help you fight, though, wouldn’t it?
Have you created a summoning spell for oozes or dragons in the D&D Beyond Homebrew tools? Share it in the comments!
These spells share a number of similarities. Notably, they all summon a single creature, have a casting time of 1 action, last as long as you concentrate on them up to a maximum of 1 hour, the spell ends when the creature is reduced to 0 hit points, and you can conjure the creature within 90 feet of the caster. They also all require an expensive material component which, notably, is not consumed when you cast the spell. So, once you spend money on your component, you can use it to cast the spell as many times as you want. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the cost of this special material component is a number of gold pieces equal to the level of the spell × 100. So, the 2nd-level spell summon beast requires a golden acorn worth 200 gp, while the 6th-level spell summon fiend requires a ruby vial worth 600 gp.
Also, these creatures’ proficiency bonus is always equal to yours, and their power scales based on the level at which you cast the spell. That makes these spells some of the only spells in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons that scale in power based on your character’s level—to say nothing of the fact that they also scale in power based on your spell level!
Let’s take a quick look at the summon beast spell for an example of how these spells work!
Summon Beast
This 2nd-level spell is available to druids and rangers. When you cast it, you call forth a bestial spirit, and choose if the beast you summon is aquatic, aerial, or terrestrial. Other than that choice, its cosmetic appearance is entirely up to you. You’ll find that this is a common theme among these new summoning spells, too; their stats are identical no matter what appearance you decide this spirit creature takes.
This beast’s hit points, movement speed, and its unique trait varies based on what type of environment it belongs in. Land creatures have a climb speed and high hit points, and have Pack Tactics. Air creatures have low hit points, a fast flying speed, and the enviable Flyby trait. Finally, water creatures have a swimming speed, high hit points, the Pack Tactics trait, and the ability to breathe underwater—but of course, they can’t breathe on land.
This beast is Small size, about the size of a large terrier, an eagle, or a small seal. They have relatively low Armor Class and hit points, but make up for it with a powerful attack and useful offensive traits like Flyby and Pack Tactics. Their Multiattack trait lets them make a number of attacks per turn equal to half the spell’s level—since this is a 2nd-level spell at base, they can only make one attack per action, but if you cast it using higher-level spell slots, they can make two attacks with a 4th-level slot, and so on.
As you can see, each of these new summoning spells allow you to customize your conjured creature on the fly, choosing certain aspects of them to suit the situation, and even improving their power with increased AC, hit points, attack bonuses, and damage based on the level you cast the summoning spell at. This is highly customizable, but also requires you to do some quick napkin math at the table, so be prepared by getting your creature’s stats ready while your friends are taking their turns before you!
Every one of these spells has a variety of different forms for your creature to take, giving you the ability to conjure the right creature for the task when you need to.
Summon Fey
This 3rd-level spell, for druids, rangers, warlocks, and wizards, summons a fey spirit that is skilled at debuffing enemies and making them easier for you and your allies to defeat. You choose a mood for the fey when you summon it, Fuming, Mirthful, or Tricksy. Each of these moods grants the fey a debuffing power that it can use when it uses its Fey Step bonus action. (Though, the fuming fey is just good at attacking, since it’s so angry.)
Summon Shadowspawn
This 3rd-level spell for warlocks and wizards conjures a horrid creature from the Shadowfell to do your dark bidding. You choose an emotion when you summon it, Fury, Despair, or Fear, which grants it new abilities to aid in offense, debuffing, or stealth, respectively. This shadowspawn is an ugly, misshapen, and vaguely humanoid creature, like a grotesque thing out of a nightmare.
Summon Undead
This 3rd-level spell for warlocks and wizards calls forth an undead spirit to plague the living. When you summon it, you choose if the undead is ghostly, putrid (like a festering zombie), or skeletal. Ghostly undead are mobile creatures skilled at debuffing enemies by frightening them, while putrid undead are likewise strong debuffers with an aura that causes creatures to be poisoned and an attack that can paralyze. Skeletal undead lack the mobility of ghosts and the negative status conditions of zombies, but possess a powerful and straightforward necrotic magical attack.
Summon Aberration
This 4th-level spell for warlocks and wizards summons a creature whose spirit is drawn from the alien horrors of the Far Realm, the roiling planar power of Chaos, or the hungering stars themselves. When you summon it, you choose if your aberration is a beholderkin, a slaad, or a star spawn. Beholderkin are powerful, mobile ranged damage-dealers. Slaad are durable, regenerating melee fighters. And star spawn are so toxic to the mind, that even being near one causes creatures to suffer psychic damage.
Summon Construct
Artificers will love this 4th-level spell, because it represents their ability to deploy a powerful fighting machine of their own design. Wizards, too, can call forth a golem of their own creation or a modron from the orderly plane of Mechanus. You can choose stone, clay, or metal, with metal constructs dealing heavy damage through their heated bodies, stone constructs debuffing foes by infecting nearby creatures of flesh and blood with their stony nature, and clay creatures fighting in a berserk fury against all nearby enemies.
Summon Elemental
This 4th-level spell for druids, rangers, and wizards gives you four options to choose from! Despite the many different options to choose from, the differences between these elementals feel less significant than the differences between other summoned creatures. They generally only affect a movement type, a type of damage resistance, its attack’s damage type, and the rarely useful Amorphous Form ability. The Fathomless warlock can cast this spell, but can only summon water elementals. Given how similar the four elementals summoned by this spell are, this isn’t much of a restriction.
Summon Celestial
The power to summon angels to is granted to clerics and paladins with this 5th-level spell. When you summon a celestial with this spell, you can gain access to one of two types: Avenger or Defender. Avengers are powerful, mobile damage dealers with their Radiant Bow, and Defenders are tanky protectors with the ability to heal whenever they attack with their Radiant Mace. Once per day, either of these types of celestials can confer a small amount of healing upon another creature.
Summon Fiend
Beyond the shining light of heaven lives the gruesome decadence of fiends. Available to wizards and warlocks, this 6th-level spell allows you to summon forth a demon, a devil, or a neutral party in the war to control the cosmos, a yugoloth. These fiends are all quite different, with demons being wild terrors in combat that die as explosively as they lived. Devils are flighty ranged combatants, hurling flame while they fly out of range of enemy attacks. And yugoloths are evasive combatants who warp around the battlefield while tearing chunks out of their foes with their claws.
What summoning spells do you want to use? What creatures will you call forth from the beyond to do your bidding? And what class do you most want to play, now that these spells are at your disposal?
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James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
wizards get their subclass at 2nd level not 3rd
there is no conjugation subclass and conjuration is not terrible if you play it right
Also, should we expect a variant rule in the future that lets Celestial Warlocks take the Summon Celestial spell? It would fit them well.
I definitely intend to use Summon Celestial with my Knowledge Cleric! It's the perfect spell to serve as both additional defense for him along with giving him more damage potential.
I think the point is that each class's spell list contains certain types of spells and not others. When you look at the wizard spell list, are there any healing/resurrecting spells? No. When you look at the bard list, are there many large damage or summoning spells? No. When you look at the paladin spell list, are there any AoE spells? No. When you look at the sorcerer spell list, are there any summoning spells? No. First off, bards are not the only class that doesn't get access to summoning spells. Second, yes, bards are supposed to be able to be jacks of all trades, but they can't be masters of all of them. If you want to use your magical secrets to get fireball and a summon spell, go ahead, but you can't get all of a wizard's spell list on top of your already top-notch buff/debuff spell list. If you want to play a musical-themed character who summons stuff, I would say re-theme the Conjuration subclass of wizard and play that with the Entertainer background. If you just want one spell, use your magical secrets.
When I learned that this was becoming official a couple of months ago, i was literally screaming in giddy excitement
"Not terrible if you play it right" is literally every single subclass in the game, ranger included, and is an incredibly low bar. So low, in fact, that wizards, which have Abjuration, Divination, Transmutation, AND Illusion, all of which are amazing, have no reason to ever consider conjuration over others.
Necromancer makes a significantly better summoner than the subclass that's literally devoted to it.
Druids of any flavor are better summoners than any wizard, any day of the week, and shepherd druids are no better than any other at specifically summoning.
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Not terrible if you play it right? Nothing would be so unbalanced as to be terrible. In any way. And Necromancer needs corpses for summoning.
I hadn't realised sorcerers were denied access as well; so now I'm annoyed about that too, thanks. At least they get access to some of the other better new spells in Tasha's. Bards get Intellect Fortress (good, but extremely situational) and Dream of the Blue Veil (completely useless unless your DM gives you exactly what you need to use it).
So thanks, now I'm more annoyed about it. We got Summon Fey Spirit in UA and it worked great; it clearly wasn't OP because they actually made it stronger in the final release, they just took it away from Bards for no reason.
And Bards not having access to summoning spells isn't a very good reason; most classes didn't have access to summoning spells (or only "summoning" in a very limited or specific sense, e.g- Find Familiar/Steed). There were actually very few proper summoning spells before, and none at all using the new template. There's no good justification for the change, and I 100% intend to fully remain annoyed by it no matter what else you wish to say.
Is there a balance reason as to why a sorcerer doesn’t get any of these? I love sorcerers and I don’t like the lack of spells options they have, I wish they got access to a few more spells from the druid/ranger list most specifically call lightning from the Druid spell list for storm sorcerers, and steel wind strike for a potential melee sorcerer from the ranger.
please don’t post multiclass options. I know multiclass is a thing. But I want a pure sorcerer with better spell options. I’ve had good character ideas and these were among a few of the reasons i needed to just find another path. Why is there an option for a sorcerer to learn any cleric spell, but not a Druidic/fey like sorcerer bloodline option that gives them the Druidic spell list?
the sorcerer is a bigger staple to the game that I feel should have more builds than that of a blaster. But the gets a lot more love community wise and game mechanic wise. I’m very bias and know that, I just would like an reason behind this mindset from the game designers if possible.
This is interesting
Sorcerers get magic from a bloodline or a blessing. You aren't asking nature, the gods, or a patron to send someone down, or looking into a book that details how to drag a monstrosity from the shadowfell. You your magic just causes you to do things. Being descended from a powerful entity isn't enough. The same goes for bards, who achieve the ability to cast these spells through magical secrets.
However, I do agree that sorcerers should deserve to get more spells. Ask your DM if your sorcerer can learn some more spells. If they refuse, just show the abberant mind and clockwork soul ones that does give extra spells.
I hope this has been helpful.
So I have a Ranger in one of my games who took the UA Drakewarden subclass. Player's not aware of Summon Beasts, yet. Do you think I'm inviting too much of a headache if I'm wondering how Summon Beast (draconically "skinned," natch) in tandem with the Draconic Gift might work in tandem?
I don't get the fear in the Game Devs in limiting Sorcerer spell access. Yes, Wizards study how the "science" so to speak of brining a being from one plane into the Wizards presence. Why can't a Sorcerer, used their imbued power to bring a similar being into the presence through force of magical will? I actually could see the Dragonblood sorcerer having a line to something like the Drakewarden's drake, maybe a few tiers of drake.
Calling Sorcerous origin a "blessing" is an oversimplification of the origin for the sake of your argument. Blessing also implies some sort of directive from the blessing entity, "I approve of you, so go forth." That's not really what sorcerous origins are universally about. Sorcerous origins mean the sorcerer is imbued with magic, some external factor had interaction with the sorcerer's bloodline, birth, or a happenstance in life that granted the sorcerer magical power. Unlike a Wizard who hones intellectual ability, a Sorcerer learns to control (an act of will, hence the CHA base) their powers. I don't see why that will should be limited in a way study isn't, this is magic we're talking about.
Traditionally, while nature magic can be learned, if you're good at nature magic by default, you're a druid. Fey folk are sensitive to nature magic, which is why fey and nature go hand in hand.
I'm not saying you can't, but sorcerer is Traditionally an arcane class (with celestial being the standout exception).
Wild magic is the fey-focused subclass, which capitalizes on the chaotic/exotic nature of fey.
I do agree that a 2 spells/level up to 5yh lvl thematic list would go very far toward enhancing the flavor and playability of sorcerer without meaningfully damaging balance
I think that for most bards, it wouldn't fit the theme, and that is why they took it off the spell list. If you think it fits your theme, then by all means, ask your DM to give you it. Same thing goes for giving a conjuration wizard cure wounds so they can heal their conjured beings.
Also, to your comment about most classes didn't already have summoning spells, in fact most did. There just we'rent a lot, so they didn't really stand out on the lists. The only class that gained the ability to summon creatures is paladins, mostly because Conjure Celestial is 7th level. I will also point out that clerics still have no true summoning ability until 9th level(yes, there are spells like spiritual weapon and guardian of faith but they really aren't the same), and paladins have no summoning ability(Other than Find Steed, but even a Warhorse is CR 1/2) until 17th level. The cleric's is later than a Lore College Bard's Additional Magical Secrets, and the paladin's is way later than any Magical Secrets. Admittedly, I have not yet checked Xanathar's Guide, but I do know there was almost nothing in there for clerics or paladins. Bards also do get Animate Objects which is mechanically very similar, but thematically very different.
Again, for some bards, specifically College of Creation and those tied to the fey, some spells would work well, but not for most, which is why they aren't on the spell list.
Edit: I have now checked Xanathar's, and nothing has changed.
The thing is that you could make the same argument for other classes as well. I understand wizards having access to most of the spells since they can choose to study what they want, regardless of their specialization. However, I don't see why it makes any more sense for "most" rangers or "most" warlocks to summon fey than it does for "most" bards or "most" sorcerers.
The three options when a spell makes sense for some subclasses and/or character concepts, but not others, are:
They seem to be completely unwilling to do option 2 for already-existing subclasses, so they're left with 1 or 3. They seem to have chosen option 1 for some classes and option 3 for others, and the choice seems to be completely arbitrary. Maybe there's some justification, but I'm not seeing it.
Sorcerers were also excluded from getting any of these spells :(
Re: character theme vs class concept
Class concept is a design niche which the (in this case bard) is designed to be able to fill irrespective of subclass choice. Subclasses should be viewed as a way to shift the play style by a kind of half step. Swords bard is still the same as any other bard at its core, with new ways to use their class resource (flourishes use bardic inspiration).
Bards inspire allies. Their spellcasting is also almost entirely supported oriented. They don't get summons because summons aren't in their wheelhouse. Besides:
If you want summons on a bard, be a lore bard 6+ and pick it up with magic secrets. Nothing stops you from doing that.
You don't need summons on their list because you could take summons with magic secrets, if you're that keen on it.
Likewise, sorcerers are either battlefield controllers or blasters. Summons don't do either of those things
Now for the subjective part: summon spells are terrible. They slow down combat, many of them specifically create NPCs for the DM to manage, that's before you ever even consider BS shenanigans with summoning polymorphers or summoning summoners. The only summon I've ever used is conjure Animals to play a shell game with my (squishy) cave bear and 2 summoned cave bears. Oh, and I summoned 384 rats by summoning 16 swarms of rats once to do a Pied Piper of Hamlin thing once.
Building characters around action-economy-breaking spells is never fun for anyone else at the table, DM included
Right, but any church will have those, or battlefield, or dungeon, or any place the party has been lol. Even without being a murder hobo, corpses are rarely a scarcely available resource.
I know it's low hanging fruit, but The PHB beastmaster is pretty terrible in play until at least 6th lv. Even with homebrew to get better companions (higher CR) the only decent way to have a BM ranger in combat is to be a small race and ride your companion.
This is all an aside, though. The Necromancer is the best summon-reliant subclass, because your summons are stronger, and you're still a wizard, AND your summons don't take concentration. Plus you can equip them with armor from other mooks.
The concentration is the key here, though, as every other summon spell means you can't do other, more dynamic or impactful things like Haste, or Fly or Polymorph, or Spirit Guardians, or Beacon of Hope.
Interesting thought; all of these stat blocks can be quickly turned into easy, fairly brutal monsters for the party to fight, or if you just want a stat block and don't know what it should be. Dealing with 4-5 Summon Fey (set at 4th level) creatures would be a serious headache for most parties, and Summon (Putrid) Undead would be downright horrid to fight against.