D&D 5E Conjurer Confusion

[RonLugge]

A lot of words, but you basically agree with me when I say Conjurers conjure jack skit until mid to high levels, right?

Not really. You don't conjure up creatures, but grease puddles, fog clouds, swarms of daggers, spheres of fire, webbing, ice storms, stinky clouds, and more can be conjured before you hit your 4th level spells at level 7.

And if you look at the conjurer's archetype features, something that stands out is that his summoning boost features don't even show up until later on -- a design hint that acknowledges the lack of early-level summoning spells. Personal teleport & conjuring minor items are useful too.

Also, I don't think your familiar qualifies as useless, even at lower levels. Those 30 extra temp HPs are enough to make it actually survivable in a fight. Not highly so, but... not 'lets get the nuisance out of our way in a single move' survivable either, anymore.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

A lot of words, but you basically agree with me when I say Conjurers conjure jack skit until mid to high levels, right?

I would agree that they are failures as summoners until mid level. As for the act of conjuring (or as the OP says creating), they do fine. Whether there is an audience for "creating" without much summoning is a good question. It doesn't do much for me, but I won't claim to speak for anyone else.

 

[Morlaf]

thank you all for your contributions......

 

[CapnZapp]

Not really. You don't conjure up creatures, but grease puddles, fog clouds, swarms of daggers, spheres of fire, webbing, ice storms, stinky clouds, and more can be conjured before you hit your 4th level spells at level 7.

And if you look at the conjurer's archetype features, something that stands out is that his summoning boost features don't even show up until later on -- a design hint that acknowledges the lack of early-level summoning spells. Personal teleport & conjuring minor items are useful too.

Also, I don't think your familiar qualifies as useless, even at lower levels. Those 30 extra temp HPs are enough to make it actually survivable in a fight. Not highly so, but... not 'lets get the nuisance out of our way in a single move' survivable either, anymore.

My point is that you're describing general D&D Wizards. Grease, Fog Cloud, Fireball, ... these things might qualify as Conjuring in another game, but not D&D, where they have been available to every Magic User for decades.

Not saying this to argue, but to point out that there are posts here that look like they contest the OPs implied accusation, but really don't. In other words, I would like to ask you to flat out concede his point, that conjurers aren't conjuring much in 5e.

This isn't something that is wrong, by the way. It just is.

But replies such as "sounds like a good number of monsters to me" or telling the OP about conjuration spells every wizard gets or bringing up unofficial UA content are just not helpful if you are confused about the conjurer's role per the PHB. Better is to state up front that conjurers don't conjure many more monsters than other wizards, and that wizards don't conjure many monsters at all, compared to druids for instance.

Directly, openly and honestly putting down the baseline is what the OP needs to hear first, before we offer ways to amp up the conjuration aspects and/or suggest houserules and playtest content.

 

[Caliban]

Conjurers confuse me. They should SUMMON. Instead they call it Create <jobly>. But the Create Animal does not appear the wizard spell list.
but page 116 of the PHB: “DURABLE SUMMONS: Starting at 14th leveI, any creature that you summon or create with a conjuration spell has 30 temporary hit points.”
Where are the Conjurer's summonable monsters please ?!?!?!?!

Conjurers conjure. Summoners summon.

There isn't a specific "Summoner" school of magic for wizards' (yet). So for now, it's folded into Conjurer because summoning is a subset of conjuring.

Maybe they'll eventually add enough summoning-type spells in a future supplement to have a Summoning specialization for wizards.

 

[RonLugge]

My point is that you're describing general D&D Wizards. Grease, Fog Cloud, Fireball, ... these things might qualify as Conjuring in another game, but not D&D, where they have been available to every Magic User for decades.

Not saying this to argue, but to point out that there are posts here that look like they contest the OPs implied accusation, but really don't. In other words, I would like to ask you to flat out concede his point, that conjurers aren't conjuring much in 5e.

This isn't something that is wrong, by the way. It just is.

But replies such as "sounds like a good number of monsters to me" or telling the OP about conjuration spells every wizard gets or bringing up unofficial UA content are just not helpful if you are confused about the conjurer's role per the PHB. Better is to state up front that conjurers don't conjure many more monsters than other wizards, and that wizards don't conjure many monsters at all, compared to druids for instance.

Directly, openly and honestly putting down the baseline is what the OP needs to hear first, before we offer ways to amp up the conjuration aspects and/or suggest houserules and playtest content.

Your post, taken as a whole, makes no sense. Flat out no sense. I'd make noises about suspecting a communication issue, except the details are often flat out wrong. Grease & Fog Cloud are conjuration spells; Fireball is evocation. And what does the time frame they've been available for have to do with anything? So we're definitely having a communication issue of some sort; some sort of fundamental terminology or outlook issue that we need to bridge.

I listed an entire set of spells that do conjurations. The specific benefits of the conjuration subclass at low levels is the ability to conjure a minor trinket at level 2, and some teleportation at 6. On top of this, there are a number of conjuration spells available to any wizard -- just like evocation spells are available to any wizard.

So the statement that conjuration wizards do 'jack ' is flat out wrong. It's just an issue that summoning spells -- which are rather destabilizing and highly potent -- don't show up until spell level 4.

 

[Caliban]

Your post, taken as a whole, makes no sense. Flat out no sense. I'd make noises about suspecting a communication issue, except the details are often flat out wrong. Grease & Fog Cloud are conjuration spells; Fireball is evocation.

He probably meant "Flaming Sphere" instead of "Fireball". Flaming Sphere is a Conjuration spell.

So the statement that conjuration wizards do 'jack ' is flat out wrong. It's just an issue that summoning spells -- which are rather destabilizing and highly potent -- don't show up until spell level 4.

You need to understand something. He takes any complaint about 5e as proof of a game destroying design flaw and the only solution is to completely rewrite that section of the rules. Feat, Spells, Skills, Classes, Melee vs Ranged Combat - all of them are irredeemably flawed and must be fixed. Anyone who disagrees just doesn't understand how much fun they aren't having due to the unworkable rules in this edition.

So don't take his rants personally.

 

[Lanliss]

My point is that you're describing general D&D Wizards. Grease, Fog Cloud, Fireball, ... these things might qualify as Conjuring in another game, but not D&D, where they have been available to every Magic User for decades.

Not saying this to argue, but to point out that there are posts here that look like they contest the OPs implied accusation, but really don't. In other words, I would like to ask you to flat out concede his point, that conjurers aren't conjuring much in 5e.

This isn't something that is wrong, by the way. It just is.

But replies such as "sounds like a good number of monsters to me" or telling the OP about conjuration spells every wizard gets or bringing up unofficial UA content are just not helpful if you are confused about the conjurer's role per the PHB. Better is to state up front that conjurers don't conjure many more monsters than other wizards, and that wizards don't conjure many monsters at all, compared to druids for instance.

Directly, openly and honestly putting down the baseline is what the OP needs to hear first, before we offer ways to amp up the conjuration aspects and/or suggest houserules and playtest content.

And my point is that the OP is flat out wrong. The Wizard is capable of summoning creatures to help them fight at 7th level, at the earliest.

As for the rest of your post, what about Evocation wizards? Do they all automatically suck because all wizards can use Fireball? How about Necromancy Wizards, are they all "Useless as necromancers" because someone else can also cast Create Undead? The only way the Conjurer is a failure is if you want a Summoner. I had never even played D&D when I first saw the Conjuration school, and I never expected it to be a Pokemon Master. I expected him to Conjure objects, and maybe later get a companion or two to summon.

So, I am completely happy with the Conjurer, and don't at all consider it any sort of failure of expectations. If anyone was going to get more Summoning spells, I wouldn't want it to be the Wizard anyway, Warlock should be the Summoner to me. One of the things I will be addressing in my homebrew.

EDIT: I had to leave part way through writing. fixed.