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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 7022953" data-attributes="member: 53980">Yeah, I consider that a specialized application. You know what you're going into and that you're probably going to need that elemental.A generalized application would be typical overland travel, or an ancient dungeon where you're not sure what you'll face or how long you'll be delving.You won't use it every day unless it rains gold, because even with 5e's generous treasure tables 1,000 gp and a 5th level spell slot for something you may or may not need is rather prohibitive. Therefore I don't consider it a significant factor. There's a pretty decent chance that at some point, even if you have Planar Binding in your spellbook, you'll wish you'd cast it but can't due to time constraints (such as a dragon trying to roast you right now).Agreed.IMO, a significant part of the reason they don't normally bother with more minions is because they want a few high level spell slots for other uses.Yeah, 11th level == 85,000 xp.Spell points is fine for a simplified numerical analysis of how much magic each has available, but it is an optional rule so I think we ought to stick to spell slots for actual use cases.Your numbers seem off. Using slots, NecroDruid can maintain 24 skeletons (3 x 3rd slots [12 skeletons], 1 x 4th slot [+6], and arcane recovery to use the 4th slot again [+6]). Necro can maintain 46 skeletons (3 x 3rd slots[12 skeletons], 3 x 4th slots [+18], 1 x 5th slot [+8], and arcane recovery to use the 5th slot again [+8]). This assumes that a 3rd level slot can maintain 4 skeletons and a higher level slot increases this by 2 per slot level. I am not including the bonus from Undead Thralls since that refers only to creating, not maintaining, your undead.I'm going to assume a 50% hit rate (AC 15) and I'm not going to bother accounting for crits, although that would favor NecroDruid's wolves. I will, however, factor in the advantage from the wolves' pack tactics.NecroDruid's 24 skellys have 20 HP each, and deal 1d8 + 5. That's a total of 480 HP, and (9.5 * .5 * 24 = ) 114 DPR.His 8 wolves have 11 HP each, and deal 2d4 + 2 with advantage. That's a total of 88 HP, and (7 * .67 * 8 = ) 37.5 DPR.NecroDruid's side has 568 HP and 151.5 DPR.Necro's 46 skellys have 22 HP each, and deal 1d8 + 6. That's a total of 1,012 HP and (10.5 * .5 * 46 = ) 241.5 DPR.Therefore, clearly Necro's side wins, right?Well, not necessarily. Whereas Necro is limited to using 1st and 2nd level spells, NecroDruid still has two 3rd level slots and one 4th level slot left (after using a 3rd level slot to summon the wolves).If the wolves die, he can just conjure up more. They're far more expendable than the skeletons (who require more slots to create than to maintain). Moreover, he can cast Conjure Woodland Beings to summon 8 pixies and pwn just about anything with 8 castings of confusion/dispel magic/entangle/fly/phantasmal force/polymorph/sleep. Pick your poison. While I can't exactly quantify 8 castings of polymorph in terms of HP and DPR (for starters it depends on whether you're using it as control or a buff), I think you'll agree that it is significant.I still think that the NecroDruid is the superior choice between 6th and 11th, but you've convinced me that the gap isn't quite as large as I'd estimated. At least under your fundamentally different types of magic rules. Pretty sure it would be fairly broken using my synergistic rules. Oh well.</blockquote>

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