Unearthed Arcana released a slew of new spells recently, and most of them were Conjuration spells...specifically, they were classified as "Summon X Spirit" spells.

These spells allows the spellcaster to summon creatures from the various planes of existence...fey, infernal, shadow, undead, elemental, & aberrant...to do their bidding and aid in combat. In general, these spells do a great job of simplifying controlling the conjured spirit (they take their turn right after the wizard's turn), and their number of attacks scale with the level spell slot the wizard uses.

To make things even more interesting, each spell allows you to summon one of three different creatures from the plane of existence...for example, "Summon Undead Spirit" allows you to summon either a ghost, skeleton or zombie, or "Summon Aberrant Spirit" lets you conjure a beholderkin, slaadi or starspawn...each with their own special effects or tactics.

This variety both expands the amount of "Conjuration" spells the Conjuration Wizard has available, and greatly bolsters their power...many of these summoned spirits give the Conjuration Wizard a means to attack frequently and instill debuffs to their targets, but with the benefit of range...and with the baked-in features to increase the HP of the summoned creatures and eliminate concentration-checks to keep them going...these spirits become VERY beefy.

Add "Benign Transposition", and the Conjuration Wizard can strategically maneuver these creatures or themselves around the battlefield...without the hassle or delay of convincing fellow players to go along with your tactics.

Now I'm picturing this Conjuration Wizard who has a "team" of planar creatures they've tamed from their travels, and will shout "I choose YOU!" when they conjure them in battle...and they may be a bit mad (Demiplane a random NPC into combat, for instance...I choose you, Joe the accountant!).

It's honestly a very interesting playstyle I can't wait to try out.

For discussion, I'd be interested what others think about these new conjuration spells, or perhaps your favorite summoned creatures.

Similarly, I'd love to hear about any Conjuration Wizard characters you all might have created & their backstories...if for no other reason than I seldom see Conjuration Wizards at my table.

I like the new spells but they aren't all properly balanced with each other. The main example I can give of this is that [Tooltip Not Found] and [Tooltip Not Found], both of which deal 2d8 which outdamages all of the other spirits easily. I did a bunch of math on this that I can bring back into this thread if you want to hear more specifics.

Balance isn't limited to damage output but also other factors like other abilities, AC/Health, movement options, resistances, healing, buffs/debuffs, damage type in comparison to frequency of targets with relative resistances, and such as. How did you quantify and compare the other elements into deciding these two you state as being overpowered?

Well the first thing I realized when looking at these spells is that due to their scaling they are very easy to compare to each other. Each of these spells scales in a few different ways

A: Each creature's armor class is 11+ spell level.
B: Each creature's Hit Point scaling is almost identical, with the exact same formula and some slight differences to Con. Con Modifier + spellcasting ability modifier + (10 x spell level). This might seem to make it so that the different creatures are different but the lowest Con modifier of them all is +2 and the highest is +3.
C: Each creature's bonus to hit and damage is a number (either Dex mod or Str mod) + the spell's level. The lowest starting bonus of all the creatures is +2 (The Celestial Avenger) and the highest starting bonus is +4 (Beast and Elemental)

Then individual creatures have unique characteristics. The easiest way to figures out the differences is by comparing raw numbers, and due to each spell having the exact same scaling (listed above) we can compare them at 6th level (equal to the highest level spell, summon fiendish spirit) to see how they compare.

Aberrant- immune to psychic (rarely relevant); 67 hp (2+5+60)
Beholder- can fly; ranged attack- average damage per round 40.5 (3d8+27) +9 to hit. Psychic damage is rarely resisted.
Slaadi- regenerates, stops healing- average damage per round 43.5 (3d10+21) +9 to hit.  Slashing damage is resisted at higher levels but this might be magical slashing which isn't. DM question there, I'd say its not magical since it comes from the creature.
Star Spawn- AOE aura, even if it only hits one person still does good damage- average damage per round 47.5 (3d6+ 3d6+27) +9 to hit, DC against aura=spell save. All Psychic, which is rarely resisted.

Beast: Different movement options, flying comes with flyby, others come with pack tactics (good buff to the hit chance)- average damage of all is 43.5 (3d8+30) +10 to hit. Damage is piercing which is resisted at the higher levels. 68 health.

Celestial- resistant to radiant (rarely relevant); both fly (40 speed), immune to charm and frightened, which is very good. Can heal for 15 (2d8+6) once per day.

Avenger- damage per round 45 (6d6+24) +8 to hit. Radiant damage, sometimes resisted, very good against some creatures, sometimes vulnerable. This is a ranged attack, which works well with flight.

Defender- damage per found 43.5 (3d10+27) +9 to hit. Radiant damage (see above). Distributes temp HP equal to each hit (really strong).

Elemental- 68 health, lots of condition immunities, immune to poison. All deal the same amount of damage of 46.5 per round (3d10+30) +10 to hit.

Air- Can fly, resistant to lightning and thunder, semi common, definitely has its uses.

Earth- Can borrow, resistance to all piercing and slashing. Really strong.

Fire- Immune to fire which is really good, but also deals fire damage, so you're unlikely to be able to use both to their full potential due to most creatures that use fire having immunity or resistance to fire.

Water- Resistant to Acid, which is very uncommon except for oozes.

Fey- 67 heal, immune to charm, which is good. Can teleport each turn, each type gets a different teleport feature which are all similar and situational. They all deal an average of 48 damage each turn (3d6+27 piercing, and 3d6 force damage). Mostly piercing (which is not the best) but 10.5 per turn is force which is very strong. +9 to hit.

Fiendish- 67 health, resistant to fire (strong), immune to poison (very common), immunity to poisoned condition (also good). Magic resistance (very strong). +9 to hit.

Demon- 46.5 damage per turn (3d12+27). Necrotic damage which is a mixed bag, overall pretty good damage. Can climb, explodes on death for 17 (2d10+6) fire damage. Fire damage is fairly weak but sometimes really good

Yugoloth- 40.5 damage per turn (3d8+27). Piercing damage. Gets to teleport after each attack. This one is definitely weaker than the others since the teleport will typically not make up for the large drop in damage per round.

Devil- 48 damage per turn (6d6+27). Fire damage, which is often resisted. Ranged attack. Has flight. Can see through magical darkness.

Shadow- 67 health. Resistant to necrotic (meh), immune to frightened (very good), average damage of 54 per turn (6d8+27) cold damage. All can also frighten targets (as action). Each has pretty decent secondary abilities.

Undead- 67 health. Immune to necrotic and poison (poison is good, necrotic is okay, but both are immunities, which is really good). A bunch of different immunities, one of which is paralyzed.

Ghost- 40.5 average damage (3d8+27). Necrotic damage which is pretty good. Also frightens enemies it hits. Ghost can fly

Skeletal- 54 average damage (6d8+27) Ranged attack. Necrotic damage.

Putrid- 37.5 average damage (3d6+27) slashing damage (which is relatively weak at higher levels). If the target is poisoned, they might become paralyzed. Creatures within 5 feet of spirit can become poisoned.

Also, I didn't use the word overpowered, I just feel as though they aren't properly balanced with each other. The damage outputs should be closer together at this higher level, with the higher level ones (being the least flexible) gaining the most. As it stands this isn't necessarily true because there are two third level ones that out-damage the higher levels ones. In addition, ranged attacks should be valued highly, and should deal less damage as a result due to the rather fragile spirit not having to risk its self as much to do it. Comparing these as spells you can see that they have interesting utility, but by raw numbers Skeletal and Shadow are out-damaging the others by a larger margin then I'd prefer.

Overall I like these spells a lot, and I think that they're fairly well balanced, those two just are outside of what I feel as the range for damage should be, especially since they also have a bunch of other useful abilities.