D&D 5E (2014) Conjure Woodland Beings - Where is the "DM chooses the monster" clause?

[jasper]

D&D is a conversation between Players and DM, if the spell doesnt give an exact menu to choose from, you default to the conversation and ask the DM. if the DM is a jerk then get better friends

but but TALK to the DM. but but the rules must be totally clear so I CAN tick off the DM. HOW DARE YOU make read the natural language of the books and not be able to tick off the DM.
As some one upstream said. Don't play with jerks. And if jerks are the only ones you are playing with DON'T Play.

 

[jasper]

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

yes this is bad worded. "The DM has the creatures’ statistics."

 

[Not a Hobbit]

If done correctly, 8 summoned wolves should take about 40 seconds/turn to run. Hardly slowing down the game.

The problem lies with players who want to summon something, then have to look in the PHB for how many of what type/# they can summon, then have to have the DM give them the stats for the creature, then decide which enemy they want the creature to attack, then roll the dice for each, then check the stat block again for the "to hit" bonus, then go back to the die roll and try to do simple math to add the two together, then check the stat block again to find the damage bonus, then roll those dice, up to 8 times, then remember, after about the fifth attack, that there is a saving throw required to knock down the opponent, then try to remember which of those five previous attacks hit against which targets, requiring a saving throw, then shrugging to the DM/rest of the party and say "Well, what can I do? I'm a summoner."

 

[Coroc]

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

you summon 2 oh no wait 4 nah, they seem to multiply..... It is 49 fluffy rabbits which instantly start to comb their ears with their paws.

the enemy orc horde dies from cuteness overload ...


sometimes the dm is a bit over the top with those wild magic zones.