New Sage Advice: Class Features, Combat, Spells, & Monsters

There's a new Sage Advice column up from D&D designer Jeremy Crawford. This month he tackles class features, combat (bonus actions; reach weapons), spellcasting, and monsters. It's quite a long edition, covering 18 questions in total, all questions asked via Twitter.

You'lll find the article here. All Sage Advice material is added to the Sage Advice Compendium, which is a 6-page PDF of questions and answers.

 

[kerbarian]

I feel sorry for all of you players who are playing in games where you think your DM is intentionally going to screw you over on your conjurations. I can't imagine playing in any game like that.

I wouldn't play in a game like that, either, but there can still be different expectations between players and DM about what's fun. It could be fun for the players to take out high-CR encounters with efficient use of spells, but it might not be fun for the DM to have to design every encounter around the idea that a swarm of wolves or pixies may be involved.

I think it's fine as long as both sides have the same expectations about the results of the spells, but I can see there being legitimate friction between "I designed my character as a summoner and early on I always got the specific creatures I wanted" and "These spells are causing problems for me in running the campaign, so now pixies will almost never show up when you summon."

 

[Coredump]

Specific vs. general is a 4e rule, not a 5e rule. But using it as a guideline still leads to d8.

The feat assigns a weapon damage die. The spell modifies an already existing damage die. That's more specific - you already need a weapon damage die.

It's the same way it works with anything else.

Wield a club. It has a weapon damage die. Shillilagh modifies it. Trying to reverse the order makes the spell never work with any weapon.

Specific beats general is not only a 5E rule, it is the basis of just about every game more complex than tic-tac-toe. It is the only way rules *can* work. BUt as mentioned, it is also a printed rule.

And you are (again) misrepresenting the feat rule. It assigns a weapon damage die *for one specific attack*. The spell assigns a weapon damage die *for all attacks*.

It seems pretty obvious which of those is the more specific.

 

[Li Shenron]

I feel sorry for all of you players who are playing in games where you think your DM is intentionally going to screw you over on your conjurations. I can't imagine playing in any game like that.

Yeah, I don't think it's that common... Most likely cases are:

- DM is going to let the player choose their summons anyway
- DM determines or adjusts the summons in a way it best matches the situation (e.g. you are in a desert, you don't summon a water elemental)
- DM rolls randomly

All of which would be fun to me anyway.

 

[IgnatiusJ.Reilly]

Given that Call Woodland Beings and Conjure Animals having a casting time of 1 Action, I'd happily settle for whatever the DM was willing to give me. That's awesome, I don't even use the other summonings, they take an entire minute to cast.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Given that Call Woodland Beings and Conjure Animals having a casting time of 1 Action, I'd happily settle for whatever the DM was willing to give me. That's awesome, I don't even use the other summonings, they take an entire minute to cast.

This is one of the reasons why I am disappointed by the ruling. Wizards already have a 1 minute casting time on their summoning spells, giving them a huge handicap compared to other summoners, who only need 1 action. All of the overpowered uses of summoning I heard of were with conjure animals (8 wolves) and woodland beings (8 pixies). I never heard anyone complain about wizards breaking the game by getting whatever type of elemental or mephit they intended. I can't help but feel like wizards are getting punished for druid shenanigans. Whether the ruling was intended as a nerf or a clarification, the effect is the same.

I think they need to errata the elemental summoning spells to take only 1 action. That, or give wizards the advantage of being able to choose what they summon. After all, I think this would help to set wizards and druids apart. Wizards subjugate beings from other planes of existence through force. Druids, on the other hand, call out to nature for aid. So it makes sense to me that druids don't have any control over what appears. For wizards, not so much.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This is one of the reasons why I am disappointed by the ruling. Wizards already have a 1 minute casting time on their summoning spells, giving them a huge handicap compared to other summoners, who only need 1 action. All of the overpowered uses of summoning I heard of were with conjure animals (8 wolves) and woodland beings (8 pixies). I never heard anyone complain about wizards breaking the game by getting whatever type of elemental or mephit they intended. I can't help but feel like wizards are getting punished for druid shenanigans. Whether the ruling was intended as a nerf or a clarification, the effect is the same.

Naw, wizards are still awesome. Skeleton archers are pretty awesome already, and adding smoke mephits on top with free stealthy Dancing Lights for NARC beacons + Blinding breath weapon, and a bunch of temp HP, is even better. Yeah, Conjure Animals is better, but for one-action casting Animate Objects is still great. And wizards can both Gate and Planar Binding, making them better summoners than druids later on.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Naw, wizards are still awesome. Skeleton archers are pretty awesome already, and adding smoke mephits on top with free stealthy Dancing Lights for NARC beacons + Blinding breath weapon, and a bunch of temp HP, is even better. Yeah, Conjure Animals is better, but for one-action casting Animate Objects is still great. And wizards can both Gate and Planar Binding, making them better summoners than druids later on.

As someone who really likes the conjuration school, I don't like having to use necromancy and transmutation spells to provide my minions. I want to play a conjurer that summons elementals, fiends, and other extraplanar beings to serve me. Undead and animated objects don't fit that character concept. They also don't benefit from focused conjuration or durable summons.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As someone who really likes the conjuration school, I don't like having to use necromancy and transmutation spells to provide my minions. I want to play a conjurer that summons elementals, fiends, and other extraplanar beings to serve me. Undead and animated objects don't fit that character concept. They also don't benefit from focused conjuration or durable summons.

Conjuror 15/Druid 5 (for Conjure Animals) would be a pretty interesting multiclass combination, actually. All of your wolves/cobras/owls/horses/etc. would get a ton of temp HP. You wouldn't get Wish though, which is kind of a bummer.

Anyway, wizard conjurors are still awesome too, even without necromancy or transmutation--just make sure you summon your elementals in advance and Planar Bind them. By 11th level you can have a squad of four AC 18 Air Elementals (thanks to Mage Armor) on tap with 24 hours notice, two of them being Planar Bound for 10 days and one more bound for one day (no concentration required) plus one more from a regular old Conjure Elemental. That's a pretty decent brute squad! Wizards are supposed to be crazy prepared, so it shouldn't be an issue if their best summons require a day or two of prep time.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Conjuror 15/Druid 5 (for Conjure Animals) would be a pretty interesting multiclass combination, actually. All of your wolves/cobras/owls/horses/etc. would get a ton of temp HP. You wouldn't get Wish though, which is kind of a bummer.

Anyway, wizard conjurors are still awesome too, even without necromancy or transmutation--just make sure you summon your elementals in advance and Planar Bind them. By 11th level you can have a squad of four AC 18 Air Elementals (thanks to Mage Armor) on tap with 24 hours notice, two of them being Planar Bound for 10 days and one more bound for one day (no concentration required) plus one more from a regular old Conjure Elemental. That's a pretty decent brute squad! Wizards are supposed to be crazy prepared, so it shouldn't be an issue if their best summons require a day or two of prep time.

I like the way you think.

 

[brehobit]

My basic complaint about conjuration spells under this clarification is that as a caster I don't have any reasonable expectations about what the effect of my spells will be.

I do think this was the original intent of the spell (or at least it was left vague on purpose). But I would find playing such a caster "not fun" as I feel like I'm playing "mother may I" with the DM to an extent I don't like. Which is why I'm not playing such a caster (we reached the same conclusion about the intent of the rule on our own) in our current game.