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.
True, having a connection to nature magic is missing, but so are many, many other ones. Things like having a fiend in your ancestry, a prophecy about you, elemental blood, or being infused with the power of undeath are all good options(I will admit, those are all bloodlines from Pathfinders 1, not my own ideas), so they can't do all of them. I'd look to Divine Soul for the expanded spell list, but I'd homebrew the rest. Sorry, but some things just haven't been made yet.
Yes, the sorcerer is desperately in need of additional subclasses. I just think an elemental origin would have been better than Clockwork Soul...
I don't understand why sorcerers got none of these.
Sorcerer didn't get any, either. Which is sad because I had Summon Elemental Spirit on my Storm Sorcerer and it was a really good fit for the character.
Every summon that doesn't poof away when you lose concentration is an npc waiting to happen...
I wholly agree about Beyond's support in Extras.
"Too much competition for spells for magical secrets" is part of the design of bard. Bard has no "bad" spells and and you only pick them once, same with sorcerer. I could see a subclass of bard dedicated to summons, themed as sketches or paintings which, through force of will and power of belief, are made real.
Bard, ranger, and sorcerer need subclass-themed "domain" style spells like land druids, clerics, and paladins.
15 spells and 6 cantrips is crap (sorcerer)
Bards have a similar profile, dedicated to support however.
Addendum: bane and bless are terrible spells because of their use of concentration and ridiculously small die size that works out to usually a 1 or 2 to die rolls. Even for a first lv spell
A very good part about it is that it can heal right after getting summoned. I basically can be used as a heal spell to get someone up, that leaves behind a creature to protect them. I'd say it's actually probably one of the best of the bunch if you think of it more like a heal with upside rather than a straight brawler.
Yejue
All of the bloodlines you mention already exist, apart from elemental (other than storms) and fiend.
The design of 5e favors reflavoring over new designs, but tbh, that's lazy design. It took them 6 years to make a beast barbarian that transformed, and before that the official answer was "just say that you're transforming when you rage as bear totem"
Telling the customer "just pretend its what you want", even in a game of make-believe, is really, really bad customer service, when the service is making rules that allow customers to enact a given concept. I'm not saying the design team doesn't work hard (I've agonized over writing balanced-feeling material enough to know how hard it is). The customer facing side needs to show the love.
I agree, though, that nobody asked for modron-themed sorcerer, while the entire community has been clamoring for elemental themed sorcerers for ages. As in, 6 years on, I have a player who is running a stone sorcerer after his Phoenix sorcerer got killed. The WotC official answer to that, too, has been "make a genasi, boom, you're elemental themed".
Well, all of the summons are between small and large. For monsters, we can determine the size of their hit dice, and because we also know their con and their average HD, we can determine the number of HD they have. I won't go into calculations, and these are approximate, won't work at super high levels, but Aberration has 6 HD + 2 x spell level above normal, land/water beast has 5 + 1 x spell level above normal, air beast has 3 + 1 x spell level above normal, celestial has 5 + 1 x spell level above normal, construct has 5 + 2 x spell level above normal, elemental has 7 + 1 x spell level above normal, fey has 6 + 2 x spell level, above normal demon has 7, devil has 5, yugoloth has 8, fiends add 2 x spell level above normal, shadow has 5 + 2 x spell level above normal, undead has 5 + 2 x spell level above normal unless skeletal, which has 3 + 2 x spell level above normal. I haven't yet looked at a good approximation if you don't have this handy, but I probably will.
First iteration of a Summon Plant spell - any suggestions?
https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/778241-summon-plant
Yes, two suggestions: don't give it healing per round for an extended period of time. That could be used to, assuming the party is around 5th level, heal the party to full HP in under a minute(remember, the duration is up to an hour). I'd say make it an action, and have it be 3/casting. That way, it functions for almost all of the combat, but can't be abused afterward. Also, the HP are a bit much for an AoE-creating creature. I'd recommend 15 or 20. Otherwise, that spell is looking really useful while still being pretty balanced.
Thanks! Looking at it again, yeah, that much healing could be problematic - I’ll make an amendment, maybe play test it when I get a chance, and perhaps post an updated version later. I’ll tweak the hit points too - though I reckon I’ll make the fungal option a little more resilient than the other two.
Necromancer is a terrible adversary, because summons mobs ""at the terrible cost of his/her own life."".
When the Necromancer reaches lvl 18 they no more gonna get a single bit of own flesh. They gonna become Liches, geez....
I'm a bit surprised that Summon Celestial wasn't made available to Celestial Warlocks. I know Celestial Warlock is a subclass compared to Clerics which are a full class, but still it's almost a no-brainer that they would get it.
If you also could change the Find Familiar and Find Steed spells to have the same kinda structure/mecanics, that would be migthy fine.
Really tired of having my WAR Horse as a Paladin be killed by 2 Xbow bolts shot by kobolds, even if it as a PLATE barding on it or simply dying cause of a DEX save spell thats deals 3D8 dmg...
There is the alternative to make them sidekicks, but not all DM's agree's to this, specially the kind that are like "PHB+1" (the boring kind) but you allready use the +1 for another book for your Race/Subclass...
Afaik, it doesn't have to be your flesh (and indeed you don't take hp damage when summoning)
Incidentally, wizard is the best class.
I have a yaun-ti warlock of Dendar that aspires to use the more evil of these to spread fear.
Personally, I'd like it better if summons didn't require concentration and instead had a limit of one summoned creature. (Maybe with an increase to 2 or more when you reach certain levels as a Conjurer). Then you could use other spells in your repertoire to buff the creature further. This would, in my opinion anyway, be much closer to a classic summoner from various fantasy tropes.
But in general, I think the changes to the spells are pretty nice and well thought out.