I -really- hate the word "utility." In RPGs, it means everything that isn't directly dealing damage or directly granting HP or THP. Granting advantages or bonuses so someone else deals better damage? Utility. Carrying luggage? Utility. Distraction with shiny lights? Utility. Buffs and debuffs so you do more damage or need to heal less? Utility. Battlefield control is considered to be utility by many.
Its such a broad word that encompasses so, so much that its functionally useless as a term. It can be in combat, out of combat exploration, social, crafting, etc. Anything and everything as long as it doesn't touch hit points directly.
I mean it is supposed to represent broadness. See the first definition under the adjective listing here, for instance.
I find that words lose their meaning when they mean different things to different people. I think most people in an RPG setting have a similar defiinition of utility.
People in a gaming setting have a rather more specific definition of utility than the dictionary's. As near as I can tell, its derived primarily from MMORPGs but applies to any combat heavy game, where every ability was meant to be used in combat. Things that messed with the monster's HP was an attack, things that fixed party HP a heal, and everything else utility.
The problem is that, once you leave combat-focused computer games, suddenly "everything else" covers a hell of a lot more ground. Especially when control spells are considered the most powerful magic, and many people consider them to be "utility." So, you have the best in-combat control and buffing spells, all the exploration, all the social, all the crafting, all the defensive...
So, when you apply that definition to 5e... saying "I miss the utility" can mean so much, that its effectively saying nothing.
I -really- hate the word "utility." In RPGs, it means everything that isn't directly dealing damage or directly granting HP or THP. Granting advantages or bonuses so someone else deals better damage? Utility. Carrying luggage? Utility. Distraction with shiny lights? Utility. Buffs and debuffs so you do more damage or need to heal less? Utility. Battlefield control is considered to be utility by many.
Its such a broad word that encompasses so, so much that its functionally useless as a term. It can be in combat, out of combat exploration, social, crafting, etc. Anything and everything as long as it doesn't touch hit points directly.
Hence why I clarified as "creative problem solving". Buffs / Debuffs are not utility they are support. Battlefield control is much more blurry but most 1-minute duration spells are not viable as utility, though there are some exceptions - e.g. sleep could be used to sneak past some guards, crown of madness can be used to create a distraction, spike growth can be used to aid in escaping from people chasing you. For conjure animals I'm talking about things like : summoning horses for your party to flee on after being noticed committing some crime, summoning dolphins to help rescue someone who fell overboard from a ship, summoning a pleisosaur for your party to hold onto / stand on while the room you are trapped in fills with water, summoning giant spiders to carry the party up a cliff, or summoning a giant toad to carry someone in it's mouth across a river.
While yes, spells off a lot of utility already - depending on which class / spells you take - but they cost limited resources to use (or at least they should, IMO the massive utility available via Mage Hand and Minor Illusion is bad for the game). Which presents interesting choices to the player, do you attempt a skill check to overcome a specific challenge with the risk of failing and taking damage or worse, or do you spend a spellslot to overcome the challenge with guaranteed success but at a cost of not being able to use that spellslot later.
Hence why I clarified as "creative problem solving". Buffs / Debuffs are not utility they are support. Battlefield control is much more blurry but most 1-minute duration spells are not viable as utility, though there are some exceptions - e.g. sleep could be used to sneak past some guards, crown of madness can be used to create a distraction, spike growth can be used to aid in escaping from people chasing you.
On the topic of definitions... 4e "utility" category included buffs and debuffs. Battlefield control spells like the various Wall spells fell under utility spells. So, going by this previous edition, support magic is utility magic.
I'm not saying anyone is being dishonest or using dogwhistles or trying to say they miss being awesome in combat with summons. I'm just saying that using this word is a pet peeve of mine.
I think I'm a bit biased against the "make it more utilitarian" position because spellcasters already have the most utilitarian options in the game. But I'm not really willing to make a big fuss about it.
this is also a concern. Getting 8 castings of Polymorph with one 4th level slot, or any Utility on top of combat features in one spell, when spellcasters already have it in other spells, seems a bit too much. And I think the summon spells address this somewhat as well as the UA conjure spells
I think I'm a bit biased against the "make it more utilitarian" position because spellcasters already have the most utilitarian options in the game. But I'm not really willing to make a big fuss about it.
this is also a concern. Getting 8 castings of Polymorph with one 4th level slot, or any Utility on top of combat features in one spell, when spellcasters already have it in other spells, seems a bit too much. And I think the summon spells address this somewhat as well as the UA conjure spells
Or, alternatively, they just tweak the pixie stat block or dial back the number of summons, rather than going all New Coke on us.
I think I'm a bit biased against the "make it more utilitarian" position because spellcasters already have the most utilitarian options in the game. But I'm not really willing to make a big fuss about it.
this is also a concern. Getting 8 castings of Polymorph with one 4th level slot, or any Utility on top of combat features in one spell, when spellcasters already have it in other spells, seems a bit too much. And I think the summon spells address this somewhat as well as the UA conjure spells
i agree. a suggested healing utility from page 1 was to conjure multiple unicorns. there's so very little stopping someone from making a deal with the dm to reflavor any number of other healing spells as a brief conjuration (with no substantial benefit beyond the spell effect and visuals). bonus: you don't have to wait for multiple 9th-level spell slots to pull it off.
Or, alternatively, they just tweak the pixie stat block or dial back the number of summons, rather than going all New Coke on us.
if a spell already exists for the desired 'utility' effect, then why is it important to use (5e-old) RAW mechanisms to conjure that effect? especially when the (5e-old) conjuring mechanism can be misapplied as a force multiplier to eek out more benefit than the similar spell could have (like in the polymorph example)?
I think I'm a bit biased against the "make it more utilitarian" position because spellcasters already have the most utilitarian options in the game. But I'm not really willing to make a big fuss about it.
this is also a concern. Getting 8 castings of Polymorph with one 4th level slot, or any Utility on top of combat features in one spell, when spellcasters already have it in other spells, seems a bit too much. And I think the summon spells address this somewhat as well as the UA conjure spells
i agree. a suggested healing utility from page 1 was to conjure multiple unicorns. there's so very little stopping someone from making a deal with the dm to reflavor any number of other healing spells as a brief conjuration (with no substantial benefit beyond the spell effect and visuals). bonus: you don't have to wait for multiple 9th-level spell slots to pull it off.
Or, alternatively, they just tweak the pixie stat block or dial back the number of summons, rather than going all New Coke on us.
if a spell already exists for the desired 'utility' effect, then why is it important to use (5e-old) RAW mechanisms to conjure that effect? especially when the (5e-old) conjuring mechanism can be misapplied as a force multiplier to eek out more benefit than the similar spell could have (like in the polymorph example)?
Because the “desired effect” of calling up particular creatures with particular utility is not really met with Tasha’s summons or the UA Conjures, and when the majority of the complaints I see about summoning are “too many creatures and/or pixies”, that indicates that the basic premise of calling up creatures from the MM is not the problem, just swarm summons. Would anyone be carrying on about having 2 pixies on the field? Or is the problem just when there’s 8 of them, or anything, at once?
I think I'm a bit biased against the "make it more utilitarian" position because spellcasters already have the most utilitarian options in the game. But I'm not really willing to make a big fuss about it.
this is also a concern. Getting 8 castings of Polymorph with one 4th level slot, or any Utility on top of combat features in one spell, when spellcasters already have it in other spells, seems a bit too much. And I think the summon spells address this somewhat as well as the UA conjure spells
Pixie should be CR 1, or possibly even CR 2. I have no idea who at WotC messed up and put them as CR 1/4. Access to 3rd and 4th level spells should automatically classify a creature as CR 1 or higher.
That said, your point is completely moot because no DM ever allows that at their table anyway.
Because the “desired effect” of calling up particular creatures with particular utility is not really met with Tasha’s summons or the UA Conjures, and when the majority of the complaints I see about summoning are “too many creatures and/or pixies”, that indicates that the basic premise of calling up creatures from the MM is not the problem, just swarm summons. Would anyone be carrying on about having 2 pixies on the field? Or is the problem just when there’s 8 of them, or anything, at once?
someone else can address whether the problem is the pixies or the quantity of pixies. my narrow interest is in why it's important for the game to include an additional way to accomplish the same spell. it was noted that spellcasting already provides incredible general flexibility (utility), so why is it important that spellcasting retain a privileged even-more-flexible toolbox? conjure woodland beings: dryad and charm person (upcast to 4th-level), for example, both accomplish similar charm with a 4th level spell slot. except that 2014 conjuration allows for increased action economy (3 charms in a round) and no mandatory "the target knows it was charmed by you," plus a handful of additional beast charms, and the toolbox utility to summon something else instead. the downside is that it would take two rounds to set this up and suffers from concentration, whereas the charm person can be done in one action and targets an additional person (as long as everyone's within 30ft). but charm person can't also stand in for a fear or advantage on perception or an impromptu hedonistic barbershop quartet, etc.
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Because the “desired effect” of calling up particular creatures with particular utility is not really met with Tasha’s summons or the UA Conjures, and when the majority of the complaints I see about summoning are “too many creatures and/or pixies”, that indicates that the basic premise of calling up creatures from the MM is not the problem, just swarm summons. Would anyone be carrying on about having 2 pixies on the field? Or is the problem just when there’s 8 of them, or anything, at once?
someone else can address whether the problem is the pixies or the quantity of pixies. my narrow interest is in why it's important for the game to include an additional way to accomplish the same spell. it was noted that spellcasting already provides incredible general flexibility (utility), so why is it important that spellcasting retain a privileged even-more-flexible toolbox? conjure woodland beings: dryad and charm person (upcast to 4th-level), for example, both accomplish similar charm with a 4th level spell slot. except that 2014 conjuration allows for increased action economy (3 charms in a round) and no mandatory "the target knows it was charmed by you," plus a handful of additional beast charms, and the toolbox utility to summon something else instead. the downside is that it would take two rounds to set this up and suffers from concentration, whereas the charm person can be done in one action and targets an additional person (as long as everyone's within 30ft). but charm person can't also stand in for a fear or advantage on perception or an impromptu hedonistic barbershop quartet, etc.
Your point about Dryads makes no sense, honestly. Even with two on the field you get from casting the spell at 4th level, they can only charm 1 humanoid each, as opposed to the 4 you can hit with Charm Person for that spell level. Now, setting two Entangles is more noteworthy, but that’s also two level 1 spells, and so is a fairly equitable effect for a 4th level slot. And what’s ultimately more interesting with a Dryad is Tree Stride and Speak with Beasts and Plants; if you can Conjure them and want to search a forest, hey, look at the conjurer calling in some help. And that’s something you can’t replicate with a Tasha’s summon or generic spell effect, very on point for Druids, and not stepping on the toes of other classes. That’s the kind of thing people who don’t like the new change want to preserve, not some white room power game move that doesn’t even hold up.
Because the “desired effect” of calling up particular creatures with particular utility is not really met with Tasha’s summons or the UA Conjures, and when the majority of the complaints I see about summoning are “too many creatures and/or pixies”, that indicates that the basic premise of calling up creatures from the MM is not the problem, just swarm summons. Would anyone be carrying on about having 2 pixies on the field? Or is the problem just when there’s 8 of them, or anything, at once?
someone else can address whether the problem is the pixies or the quantity of pixies. my narrow interest is in why it's important for the game to include an additional way to accomplish the same spell. it was noted that spellcasting already provides incredible general flexibility (utility), so why is it important that spellcasting retain a privileged even-more-flexible toolbox? conjure woodland beings: dryad and charm person (upcast to 4th-level), for example, both accomplish similar charm with a 4th level spell slot. except that 2014 conjuration allows for increased action economy (3 charms in a round) and no mandatory "the target knows it was charmed by you," plus a handful of additional beast charms, and the toolbox utility to summon something else instead. the downside is that it would take two rounds to set this up and suffers from concentration, whereas the charm person can be done in one action and targets an additional person (as long as everyone's within 30ft). but charm person can't also stand in for a fear or advantage on perception or an impromptu hedonistic barbershop quartet, etc.
Um.. that's not how that works. If you're engaged in a conversation with some NPCs they are going to notice & react if you suddenly conjure 2 dryads, and the dryads charm them not you so they could still attack you if they wanted to. Dryads are more notable for Pass without Trace which can allow your party to split up while also sneaking, and Goodberry which provides decent out-of-combat healing. Sure they have Entangle as well but their DC is very low so it's only useful for fighting a swarm of low CR creatures. Or as Ace points out to help you call the forest to your aid using Tree Stride and Speak with Beasts and Plants.
The thing with the pixies, specifically, isn’t the number of them per se, it’s that they can each cast polymorph. So for a single 4th level spell of the summon, you get 8 more 4th level spells. It’s a great deal. I think that illustrates a bigger issue when the developers need to cross-reference every summon with every possible creature you could summon, and see if it creates those kinds of situations. And if they want to add a new spell or creature, they have to make sure it won’t create a busted combo like that. It ends up handcuffing new monster development to the summon spell, where you can’t give a new monster interesting powers because now a PC might summon it. And as we know, monsters don’t have to follow PC rules, so with a summon, PCs can now get that benefit, too. So if you do something like a stat block, you can be sure of exactly what the spell will do, without having to refer to every other book to double check if there’s a creature in there somewhere that will complicate things.
ace, the dryads each cast one charm and the PC burns an additional 1st-level slot to cast one. that's three.
agile, if you're engaged in conversation with some NPCs they're going to notice and react if the spellcaster suddenly starts using visual and somatic components to cast charm person as well. either way there's some subtlety and setup so i don't feel that that invalidates my comments. actually, your scenario makes me consider whether the dryads could do that more effectively (casting without V&S, hiding in a tree, etc). your other examples are pertinent but mostly just have me gesturing at how very, very full the spellcasting toolbox is. why not just prepare goodberry, pass without trace, entangle, and charm? is it because one spell covers all those options multiple times? *gesture gesture gesture* there's spellcasting and then there spellcasting+ and that's okay? this is what i mean when i say 2014 5e conjuring is a force multiplier.
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The thing with the pixies, specifically, isn’t the number of them per se, it’s that they can each cast polymorph. So for a single 4th level spell of the summon, you get 8 more 4th level spells. It’s a great deal. I think that illustrates a bigger issue when the developers need to cross-reference every summon with every possible creature you could summon, and see if it creates those kinds of situations. And if they want to add a new spell or creature, they have to make sure it won’t create a busted combo like that. It ends up handcuffing new monster development to the summon spell, where you can’t give a new monster interesting powers because now a PC might summon it. And as we know, monsters don’t have to follow PC rules, so with a summon, PCs can now get that benefit, too. So if you do something like a stat block, you can be sure of exactly what the spell will do, without having to refer to every other book to double check if there’s a creature in there somewhere that will complicate things.
They don’t need to police every single block, the DM has discretion over summons too. Plus the fundamental problem with pixies is the multi summon angle, which is generally agreed to be problematic. Would you feel that summoning even two pixies was terribly broken, keeping in mind they have separate initiative so it’s entirely possible they get hit by an AoE and poofed before they can even act?
Really, the “what if some new block completely breaks everything” angle is really overrated imo. You don’t get serious spellcasters until level 11, at which point you’re only getting 1 creature at a time and honestly the CR to spell slot return only diminishes as you use higher spell slots. Heck, the return is even worse on Conjure Celestial; the slot to CR ratio there is almost 2 to 1.
Stupid question. Would people have an issue if there was a blanket ban on summons being able to cast spells on their own? Like, the dryad would be able to use Tree Stride and Fey Charm, but not Pass Without Trace. No more Pixies going around with Polymorph.
Yes. Despite what people claim, summons do not have serious spellcasting clout for the slot used, outside of one specific case that’s only considered a problem because it arrives in bulk (Pixies have 1 HP, 15 AC, and a spell save DC of 12). Seriously, look at the CR 4-6 Fey; the most spectacular spell you can get from them is probably Legend Lore, which is also very niche. Or Scrying, but that’s still trading down on slots, and there’s enough hard and soft limits there that it’s not particularly game breaking.
The thing with the pixies, specifically, isn’t the number of them per se, it’s that they can each cast polymorph. So for a single 4th level spell of the summon, you get 8 more 4th level spells. It’s a great deal. I think that illustrates a bigger issue when the developers need to cross-reference every summon with every possible creature you could summon, and see if it creates those kinds of situations. And if they want to add a new spell or creature, they have to make sure it won’t create a busted combo like that. It ends up handcuffing new monster development to the summon spell, where you can’t give a new monster interesting powers because now a PC might summon it. And as we know, monsters don’t have to follow PC rules, so with a summon, PCs can now get that benefit, too. So if you do something like a stat block, you can be sure of exactly what the spell will do, without having to refer to every other book to double check if there’s a creature in there somewhere that will complicate things.
Except they don't because the spells are intended to work as the DM providing a list of creatures that can be summoned. The pixie combo has been known about for years now, but have any of you actually participated in a game where it was actually used to ruin the game? I'm betting not. It takes all of 1 second for the DM to say "no you can't do the Trex pixie thing, that's so dumb". It's not different from any other game-breaking combo - e.g. Spike Growth + Haste, Forcecage + Sickening Radiance, etc... etc... The designers could easily tag monsters as "Common", "Uncommon" and "Rare" and have recommendations for the DM that they should be cautious about allowing summoning or polymorphing into "Rare" tagged monsters.
The only way to prevent there ever being any possible game-breaking combos is to severely restrict the options players have - e.g. no MCing, no summoning / befriending / mind controlling monsters, no transforming into monsters, no stacking anything together... Too much balance is IMO bad for the game because of the design limitations it demands. It's like swingy combat, people like to complain about it in 5e but the alternative - where combat is a consistent continuous grind - is not better.
I will say I will continue to use the old versions with two rules that are implied in the text.
1. the situation/location/dm are all taken into account for what you attempt to summon. It has to pass a logic test. No octopuses in the desert and no summoning summoners.
2. Orders/comands are standardized. Complex orders must be simplified with a chance of "lemmings shenanigans" ... attack all goblins is a good order. Telling 8 animals 8 different targets is bad.
Note: I realize real lemmings are not as stupid as the game made people think.
Flavor isn't the problem, I can reflavour anything as anything. The boring-ness comes from the lack of utility. The new conjure spells and the tasha's summon spells aren't a tool to creatively solve problems they are pure-combat spells.
I'm sorry but this argument that the Tasha Summons are "pure combat" is and always has been wrong. They last for an entire hour, have all 6 ability scores, and they can understand whatever languages the summoner speaks, with some even having languages of their own. Any inability to think of things they can do outside of the combat pillar is a failure of imagination on your part or that of your players, not a failure of the spells themselves.
If my Druid has their Elemental burrow under a door or squeeze through the keyhole and then report back to me in Primordial about everything it saw on the other side, that's a noncombat use. If my flying Beast uses its talons to grapple my medium Ranger with its 18 Str and take me up a cliff or across a gap, that's a noncombat use. If my Summoned Fiend hides on the ceiling in the king's chamber and telepathically relays everything it overhears to me, that's a noncombat use. Treat their statblocks as statblocks instead of a list of attacks and you'll find all kinds of ways they can be used when initiative isn't going on.
I don’t think that’s entirely true. The new ones are crap but I expected them to offer us crap so I’m not terribly disappointed. The Tasha summons aren’t entirely combat oriented though. They definitely geared for combat performance over utility for sure but they can still be useful outside of combat too depending on how creative you get. I do think there are two main problems with them though. Their M components are really nipickily specific and very expensive so it makes it hard to get them if you level up in a dungeon or something. That and since they are so heavily geared toward combat they only last for any hour and ones you can get the most utility out of are all to be too high level to rely on them a lot of times. The fiend and the celestial and the dragon one from Fizban’s can all be used for creative problem solving but they all 5th and 6th level which makes them prohibitive unless you can be really sure you can get an hour’s worth of use from them. If they were a little weaker but lasted at least 3 or 4 hours and weighed in at at least one level lower then they would be more utilitarian though.
The components are not really an issue because they aren't consumed, so once you have the gilded acorn or whatever you can spam that spell for the rest of the campaign. Really they're just there so (a) you can't suddenly summon a bunch of stuff just because you leveled up mid-dungeon unless you prepped in advance and (b) so that the DM can lock you up occasionally without you being able to drop an iron golem or a silverback ape in your cell to rip the bars out. All you need to do if you plan on being a summoner character is make getting each component focus your first downtime priority with your gold when you're approaching the level that you'll learn one. (What else were you going to spend that gold on anyway, unless you're a wizard that needed scrolls?)
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People in a gaming setting have a rather more specific definition of utility than the dictionary's. As near as I can tell, its derived primarily from MMORPGs but applies to any combat heavy game, where every ability was meant to be used in combat. Things that messed with the monster's HP was an attack, things that fixed party HP a heal, and everything else utility.
The problem is that, once you leave combat-focused computer games, suddenly "everything else" covers a hell of a lot more ground. Especially when control spells are considered the most powerful magic, and many people consider them to be "utility." So, you have the best in-combat control and buffing spells, all the exploration, all the social, all the crafting, all the defensive...
So, when you apply that definition to 5e... saying "I miss the utility" can mean so much, that its effectively saying nothing.
Hence why I clarified as "creative problem solving". Buffs / Debuffs are not utility they are support. Battlefield control is much more blurry but most 1-minute duration spells are not viable as utility, though there are some exceptions - e.g. sleep could be used to sneak past some guards, crown of madness can be used to create a distraction, spike growth can be used to aid in escaping from people chasing you. For conjure animals I'm talking about things like : summoning horses for your party to flee on after being noticed committing some crime, summoning dolphins to help rescue someone who fell overboard from a ship, summoning a pleisosaur for your party to hold onto / stand on while the room you are trapped in fills with water, summoning giant spiders to carry the party up a cliff, or summoning a giant toad to carry someone in it's mouth across a river.
While yes, spells off a lot of utility already - depending on which class / spells you take - but they cost limited resources to use (or at least they should, IMO the massive utility available via Mage Hand and Minor Illusion is bad for the game). Which presents interesting choices to the player, do you attempt a skill check to overcome a specific challenge with the risk of failing and taking damage or worse, or do you spend a spellslot to overcome the challenge with guaranteed success but at a cost of not being able to use that spellslot later.
On the topic of definitions... 4e "utility" category included buffs and debuffs. Battlefield control spells like the various Wall spells fell under utility spells. So, going by this previous edition, support magic is utility magic.
I'm not saying anyone is being dishonest or using dogwhistles or trying to say they miss being awesome in combat with summons. I'm just saying that using this word is a pet peeve of mine.
this is also a concern. Getting 8 castings of Polymorph with one 4th level slot, or any Utility on top of combat features in one spell, when spellcasters already have it in other spells, seems a bit too much. And I think the summon spells address this somewhat as well as the UA conjure spells
EZD6 by DM Scotty
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Or, alternatively, they just tweak the pixie stat block or dial back the number of summons, rather than going all New Coke on us.
i agree. a suggested healing utility from page 1 was to conjure multiple unicorns. there's so very little stopping someone from making a deal with the dm to reflavor any number of other healing spells as a brief conjuration (with no substantial benefit beyond the spell effect and visuals). bonus: you don't have to wait for multiple 9th-level spell slots to pull it off.
if a spell already exists for the desired 'utility' effect, then why is it important to use (5e-old) RAW mechanisms to conjure that effect? especially when the (5e-old) conjuring mechanism can be misapplied as a force multiplier to eek out more benefit than the similar spell could have (like in the polymorph example)?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
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Because the “desired effect” of calling up particular creatures with particular utility is not really met with Tasha’s summons or the UA Conjures, and when the majority of the complaints I see about summoning are “too many creatures and/or pixies”, that indicates that the basic premise of calling up creatures from the MM is not the problem, just swarm summons. Would anyone be carrying on about having 2 pixies on the field? Or is the problem just when there’s 8 of them, or anything, at once?
Pixie should be CR 1, or possibly even CR 2. I have no idea who at WotC messed up and put them as CR 1/4. Access to 3rd and 4th level spells should automatically classify a creature as CR 1 or higher.
That said, your point is completely moot because no DM ever allows that at their table anyway.
someone else can address whether the problem is the pixies or the quantity of pixies. my narrow interest is in why it's important for the game to include an additional way to accomplish the same spell. it was noted that spellcasting already provides incredible general flexibility (utility), so why is it important that spellcasting retain a privileged even-more-flexible toolbox? conjure woodland beings: dryad and charm person (upcast to 4th-level), for example, both accomplish similar charm with a 4th level spell slot. except that 2014 conjuration allows for increased action economy (3 charms in a round) and no mandatory "the target knows it was charmed by you," plus a handful of additional beast charms, and the toolbox utility to summon something else instead. the downside is that it would take two rounds to set this up and suffers from concentration, whereas the charm person can be done in one action and targets an additional person (as long as everyone's within 30ft). but charm person can't also stand in for a fear or advantage on perception or an impromptu hedonistic barbershop quartet, etc.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
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Your point about Dryads makes no sense, honestly. Even with two on the field you get from casting the spell at 4th level, they can only charm 1 humanoid each, as opposed to the 4 you can hit with Charm Person for that spell level. Now, setting two Entangles is more noteworthy, but that’s also two level 1 spells, and so is a fairly equitable effect for a 4th level slot. And what’s ultimately more interesting with a Dryad is Tree Stride and Speak with Beasts and Plants; if you can Conjure them and want to search a forest, hey, look at the conjurer calling in some help. And that’s something you can’t replicate with a Tasha’s summon or generic spell effect, very on point for Druids, and not stepping on the toes of other classes. That’s the kind of thing people who don’t like the new change want to preserve, not some white room power game move that doesn’t even hold up.
Um.. that's not how that works. If you're engaged in a conversation with some NPCs they are going to notice & react if you suddenly conjure 2 dryads, and the dryads charm them not you so they could still attack you if they wanted to. Dryads are more notable for Pass without Trace which can allow your party to split up while also sneaking, and Goodberry which provides decent out-of-combat healing. Sure they have Entangle as well but their DC is very low so it's only useful for fighting a swarm of low CR creatures. Or as Ace points out to help you call the forest to your aid using Tree Stride and Speak with Beasts and Plants.
It’s not even about getting additional backup, it’s just a cool way to search a wooded area.
The thing with the pixies, specifically, isn’t the number of them per se, it’s that they can each cast polymorph. So for a single 4th level spell of the summon, you get 8 more 4th level spells. It’s a great deal.
I think that illustrates a bigger issue when the developers need to cross-reference every summon with every possible creature you could summon, and see if it creates those kinds of situations. And if they want to add a new spell or creature, they have to make sure it won’t create a busted combo like that. It ends up handcuffing new monster development to the summon spell, where you can’t give a new monster interesting powers because now a PC might summon it. And as we know, monsters don’t have to follow PC rules, so with a summon, PCs can now get that benefit, too. So if you do something like a stat block, you can be sure of exactly what the spell will do, without having to refer to every other book to double check if there’s a creature in there somewhere that will complicate things.
ace, the dryads each cast one charm and the PC burns an additional 1st-level slot to cast one. that's three.
agile, if you're engaged in conversation with some NPCs they're going to notice and react if the spellcaster suddenly starts using visual and somatic components to cast charm person as well. either way there's some subtlety and setup so i don't feel that that invalidates my comments. actually, your scenario makes me consider whether the dryads could do that more effectively (casting without V&S, hiding in a tree, etc). your other examples are pertinent but mostly just have me gesturing at how very, very full the spellcasting toolbox is. why not just prepare goodberry, pass without trace, entangle, and charm? is it because one spell covers all those options multiple times? *gesture gesture gesture* there's spellcasting and then there spellcasting+ and that's okay? this is what i mean when i say 2014 5e conjuring is a force multiplier.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
They don’t need to police every single block, the DM has discretion over summons too. Plus the fundamental problem with pixies is the multi summon angle, which is generally agreed to be problematic. Would you feel that summoning even two pixies was terribly broken, keeping in mind they have separate initiative so it’s entirely possible they get hit by an AoE and poofed before they can even act?
Really, the “what if some new block completely breaks everything” angle is really overrated imo. You don’t get serious spellcasters until level 11, at which point you’re only getting 1 creature at a time and honestly the CR to spell slot return only diminishes as you use higher spell slots. Heck, the return is even worse on Conjure Celestial; the slot to CR ratio there is almost 2 to 1.
Stupid question. Would people have an issue if there was a blanket ban on summons being able to cast spells on their own? Like, the dryad would be able to use Tree Stride and Fey Charm, but not Pass Without Trace. No more Pixies going around with Polymorph.
Yes. Despite what people claim, summons do not have serious spellcasting clout for the slot used, outside of one specific case that’s only considered a problem because it arrives in bulk (Pixies have 1 HP, 15 AC, and a spell save DC of 12). Seriously, look at the CR 4-6 Fey; the most spectacular spell you can get from them is probably Legend Lore, which is also very niche. Or Scrying, but that’s still trading down on slots, and there’s enough hard and soft limits there that it’s not particularly game breaking.
Except they don't because the spells are intended to work as the DM providing a list of creatures that can be summoned. The pixie combo has been known about for years now, but have any of you actually participated in a game where it was actually used to ruin the game? I'm betting not. It takes all of 1 second for the DM to say "no you can't do the Trex pixie thing, that's so dumb". It's not different from any other game-breaking combo - e.g. Spike Growth + Haste, Forcecage + Sickening Radiance, etc... etc... The designers could easily tag monsters as "Common", "Uncommon" and "Rare" and have recommendations for the DM that they should be cautious about allowing summoning or polymorphing into "Rare" tagged monsters.
The only way to prevent there ever being any possible game-breaking combos is to severely restrict the options players have - e.g. no MCing, no summoning / befriending / mind controlling monsters, no transforming into monsters, no stacking anything together... Too much balance is IMO bad for the game because of the design limitations it demands. It's like swingy combat, people like to complain about it in 5e but the alternative - where combat is a consistent continuous grind - is not better.
I will say I will continue to use the old versions with two rules that are implied in the text.
1. the situation/location/dm are all taken into account for what you attempt to summon. It has to pass a logic test. No octopuses in the desert and no summoning summoners.
2. Orders/comands are standardized. Complex orders must be simplified with a chance of "lemmings shenanigans" ... attack all goblins is a good order. Telling 8 animals 8 different targets is bad.
Note: I realize real lemmings are not as stupid as the game made people think.
I'm sorry but this argument that the Tasha Summons are "pure combat" is and always has been wrong. They last for an entire hour, have all 6 ability scores, and they can understand whatever languages the summoner speaks, with some even having languages of their own. Any inability to think of things they can do outside of the combat pillar is a failure of imagination on your part or that of your players, not a failure of the spells themselves.
If my Druid has their Elemental burrow under a door or squeeze through the keyhole and then report back to me in Primordial about everything it saw on the other side, that's a noncombat use. If my flying Beast uses its talons to grapple my medium Ranger with its 18 Str and take me up a cliff or across a gap, that's a noncombat use. If my Summoned Fiend hides on the ceiling in the king's chamber and telepathically relays everything it overhears to me, that's a noncombat use. Treat their statblocks as statblocks instead of a list of attacks and you'll find all kinds of ways they can be used when initiative isn't going on.
The components are not really an issue because they aren't consumed, so once you have the gilded acorn or whatever you can spam that spell for the rest of the campaign. Really they're just there so (a) you can't suddenly summon a bunch of stuff just because you leveled up mid-dungeon unless you prepped in advance and (b) so that the DM can lock you up occasionally without you being able to drop an iron golem or a silverback ape in your cell to rip the bars out. All you need to do if you plan on being a summoner character is make getting each component focus your first downtime priority with your gold when you're approaching the level that you'll learn one. (What else were you going to spend that gold on anyway, unless you're a wizard that needed scrolls?)