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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7680360" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Giant rats are CR 1/8, not 1/4, so a DM who gives you those is being a jerk. But, 16 Giant Rats still wouldn't be bad! +4 attack for 16x4 points of damage, plus the meat shield factor. There really are no bad animals to summon. If I knew that Giant Rats were the only animals that could ever show up, I would still strongly consider casting the spell in a number of circumstances.(And of course, if somebody else casts Animal Shapes, all those giant rats become CR 3 Giant Scorpions. Rawr.)Most AoE doesn't have a good shape for disposing of truly large swarms of enemies. Blue dragons and black dragons both have lines, for example, which will kill a few rats but leave most intact. If 16 giant rats surround a red dragon to attack it, the dragon has to choose between killing only a few of them with its breath weapon, moving to a better position to hit them all but taking 16 opportunity attacks in the process, or using a 2 Legendary Actions to beat its wings (killing them all). AoE is not an auto-win, and it burns actions that could otherwise go towards killing PCs. Meanwhile the ranger is filling it full of arrows.And yeah, a pure ranger has only 2 Conjure Animals Vs, but he has a bunch of Conjure Animals III and Spike Growth and Pass Without Trace. Besides, what's the problem with &quot;only&quot; being able to fight off two &quot;boss monsters&quot; in a day? I don't really know what a &quot;boss monster&quot; is in precise terms, but if you mean &quot;climactic encounter with a high-level foe&quot;, and you expect multiple climactic encounters in a single day, then yeah, by the third fight the ranger has run out of his highest-powered stuff. Why is that a problem, and what does that have to do with the original assertion that Conjure Animals is weak?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7680360, member: 6787650"] Giant rats are CR 1/8, not 1/4, so a DM who gives you those is being a jerk. But, 16 Giant Rats still wouldn't be bad! +4 attack for 16x4 points of damage, plus the meat shield factor. There really are no bad animals to summon. If I knew that Giant Rats were the only animals that could ever show up, I would still strongly consider casting the spell in a number of circumstances. (And of course, if somebody else casts Animal Shapes, all those giant rats become CR 3 Giant Scorpions. Rawr.) Most AoE doesn't have a good shape for disposing of truly large swarms of enemies. Blue dragons and black dragons both have lines, for example, which will kill a few rats but leave most intact. If 16 giant rats surround a red dragon to attack it, the dragon has to choose between killing only a few of them with its breath weapon, moving to a better position to hit them all but taking 16 opportunity attacks in the process, or using a 2 Legendary Actions to beat its wings (killing them all). AoE is not an auto-win, and it burns actions that could otherwise go towards killing PCs. Meanwhile the ranger is filling it full of arrows. And yeah, a pure ranger has only 2 Conjure Animals Vs, but he has a bunch of Conjure Animals III and Spike Growth and Pass Without Trace. Besides, what's the problem with "only" being able to fight off two "boss monsters" in a day? I don't really know what a "boss monster" is in precise terms, but if you mean "climactic encounter with a high-level foe", and you expect multiple climactic encounters in a single day, then yeah, by the third fight the ranger has run out of his highest-powered stuff. Why is that a problem, and what does that have to do with the original assertion that Conjure Animals is weak? [/QUOTE]

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