D&D 5E Conjure Woodland Beings - Where is the "DM chooses the monster" clause?

[Undrave]

Yeah, for elementals in particular, I'm probably conjuring them for a specific utility need based upon the type of elemental. If I'm trying to conjure a water elemental to douse a conflagration, having a fire elemental turn up isn't of use.

I'm also much more of a fan of the newer summoning spells from the Tattoo UA since you don't have to go look elsewhere for your creature stat AND it cuts down on potential accidental cheese when introducing more monsters don't the line.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

I think a simple sentence like " The DM will determine exactly which creatures are summoned. " would clear up a lot.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Personally, I think this advice is BS.

Not only does it mean the spell is just badly worded (why doesn't it specifies it instead of this ambivalent thing?) but if you pick say 'One X type of creature of challenge rating 2 or lower' then the DM can screw you over and just give you a single 1/4 creature instead, or give you a fish out of water and so forth. It's just a recipe for arguments at the table and wasting spell slots.

A jerk DM is gonna be a jerk DM whether you cast Conjure X or not. That isn't the fault of the Conjure X spell mechanics.

It also totally fails at its intended archetype of the Summoner. Players who want to play the Summoner don't want to gamble with what they can summon, they want to be able to be strategic and pick the right creature for the job.

I'm not sure there really is a true Summoner archetype in 5e, but cool idea. Conjuration Wizard or Shepard Druid come close I guess. I picture a new subclass that gains the ability to specify the creature more accurately beyond just Type when casting a Conjure X spell, perhaps twice a day. And with buffs and/or more creatures and/or multiple types of creatures. But those come with class levels not just with the base spells.

And if the player can take care of the stats it's a lower burden on the DM. I mean, the PHB already has animals for Conjure Animals.

I think that already happens. The DM hands over the Conjured creature stats to the player to take care of. Not my job as DM to run the PC's summons.

Now, granted, some options are just too good. When I had a Druid I quickly realized there wasn't much that 8 wolves couldn't solve. Me and the Warlock took out two slavers caravan with nothing but my wolves and me and some Eldritch Blasts. After that my go-to was Giant spiders or Giant Frogs for the range grapple options. But i don't thnk that's the fault of the summoning mechanic and more of the specific options available.

And that might be one reason why the choice of the specific creature is up to the DM. The DM can pick the creature most appropriate for the environment and prevent a player from spamming wolves or pixies or whatever every time. If the player could specify the exact creature every time, then I think the Conjure X spells become more powerful and might all be another spell level or two higher each.

Now, as DM, I like to take the player's preference into account when picking the creature, assuming it makes sense for the current environment. Rather than me just picking something that suits my DM whim, I pick 4 or 6 choices including the PCs preference and let a die roll decide. I'm even fine with a player spending inspiration for a better chance to get what they want. But you are right, it is not the fault of the summoning mechanic that some groups of Beasts or Fey or whatever are better than others.

Anyway, if a spell is meant to be unreliable, it should say so clearly AND give you something pretty darn powerful for that element of randomness.

I think "unreliable" is overstating it - especially when we take the "jerk DM" out of the equation. A PC gets what is advertised when the spell is cast: "Eight beasts of challenge rating 1/4 or lower" etc.

 

[Gadget]

Personally, I think with things like Pixie Cheese, the Sage Advice is reasonable and does not contradict the RAW. Can a DM screw you over? Sure, but if you have a DM that is going to constantly mess with you like that (giving you a fish out of water or some such) then you have other problems.

I do agree that this spell (and many many others for 5e) is poorly worded and the so called "natural language" employed by the designers here let them down. I get that they could not be expected to spell out complicated corner cases and minutia, but they really needed better mastery of 'natural language' if they were going to go this route.

 

[Ancalagon]

My biggest concern with this spell is how it can slow down the game by introducing a small horde of new combatants...

 

[Undrave]

My biggest concern with this spell is how it can slow down the game by introducing a small horde of new combatants...

which is why the newer spells that only summon 1 creatures (with stats scaling depending on Spell level)are superior.

 

[jasper]

How so? The spell says nothing about the conjured creatures being appropriate to your current environment - it just conjures woodland beings.

Because the BOOK knows jack on where when it going to be cast. The spells says "The DM has the creatures’ statistics. " Which means the DM knows what is around you.

 

[MarkB]

Because the BOOK knows jack on where when it going to be cast. The spells says "The DM has the creatures’ statistics. " Which means the DM knows what is around you.

Yeah, but why is that relevant? The creatures aren't coming from what is around you, they're being popped in magically.

 

[Stormdale]

A jerk DM is gonna be a jerk DM whether you cast Conjure X or not. That isn't the fault of the Conjure X spell mechanics.

Alas a jerk player is going to be jerk player with summoning spells too and as a DM I have the right to prevent that from happening. I don't want to see 8 giant owls spammed and slow down play and prevent everyone else having fun so here is how it works at my table.

1. I have random tables of summonable monsters for each CR and the player may summon.
2. I also have removed the CR 1/4 option and have a single table for CR 1/4-1/2 which are run more like swarms than single monsters and summons 2 such creature swarms/packs, so you will be 2 packs of wolves rather than 4 individual wolves.
3. The player tells me, based on terrain, what they would like to summon and we 50/50 die roll to see if they get what they want (we are considering changing this to an ability check instead)
4. If they fail on this check we roll on my D8 random monster table to see what appears.

We've recently had a running joke in the game about summoned giant octopus in fresh water and how long they'll live.

Most amusing summon in recent weeks was a wyvern had grabbed one of the pcs and was flying off to its lair with him, the druid summoned 2 gaint eagles to arrive on either side of the wyvern to try to head it off at the pass so to speak only to see 2 summoned worgs fal to thier deaths. Magc is a fickle beast- but summon spells are IMO the mosyt troublesome spells in the game as written so I've come up with a "fix" that works for us.

The summon spells are amongst the most poorly thought out spells at lower level for their impact on play."The DM decides what creatures appears" being in the spell description would have cleared the matter up so much easier but alas we have what we have.

Stormdale

 

[Undrave]

I'm not sure there really is a true Summoner archetype in 5e, but cool idea. Conjuration Wizard or Shepard Druid come close I guess. I picture a new subclass that gains the ability to specify the creature more accurately beyond just Type when casting a Conjure X spell, perhaps twice a day. And with buffs and/or more creatures and/or multiple types of creatures. But those come with class levels not just with the base spells.

Pretty sure the Sheppard Druid is meant to be the Summoner subclass. It gets its own special spirit summon and it has class features that boosts conjured creatures (granting them more HP and magical weapons). It's not an outright 'Summoner' named subclass, but a lot of its features depend on you summoning something.

And by Archetype I meant in general. People want to play the cool monster summoner because they can call the right creature at the right moment. No one likes to waste a spell slot on a creature that falls to their death or some shenanigans.