Wizards of the Coast has released the newest playtest packet for the forthcoming 2024 republication of the Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition core rulebooks. The document includes updates to the barbarian, druid, and monk classes, their featured subclasses, and new spells.
I'm not really paying attention to the 2024 5e playtests anymore unless I hear about something that sparks my interest. I've been planning to write something about summoning magic for a while, and I heard that the new playtest completely retooled a number of the "Conjure X" spells from 5e, so I decided to check it out.
Unfortunately, while I'm sure these "fixes" will be just what many Dungeon Masters and players are looking for, this simply is not how I want summoning to look and feel in my type of game.
Summoned Creatures Are Creatures
The first indication that WotC was changing its approach to summoning magic was in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (published in 2020), which included a slew of new summoning spells - summon aberration, summon beast, summon celestial, summon construct, summon elemental, summon fey, summon fiend, summon shadowspawn, and summon undead (pages 109-114). Fizban's Treasury of Dragons (published in 2021) added the summon draconic spirit spell (page 21).
Each of these spells summons a "spirit" which "resembles" a creature. The spirit uses a corresponding statblock with a variety of forms (for example, the spirit summoned by summon aberration can be a Beholderkin, Slaad, or Star Spawn). The player chooses which form the summoned spirit takes, which changes some of its statistics and abilities. Many of the form's statistics, like hit points, attack bonuses, and saving throw DCs are determined by either the level of the spell slot used or the summoner's spellcasting ability.
From what I can tell, this was a popular change. Players and DMs had long bemoaned how summoning magic slowed down the game, granted players access to powerful monster statblocks, and skewed spotlight time unfairly towards the player controlling the summoned creatures. These new summoning spells conjure creatures designed to be used by players (versus summoning monsters designed to be used in opposition to player characters), they scale in power alongside the PC's power, and perhaps most importantly, they only summon one creature.
My main issue with this approach is one of taste: I simply don't like that the spells summon a "spirit" which "resembles" a creature of its kind. I don't want to summon a "spirit" that "resembles" a beast, celestial, or elemental - I want to summon actual animals, an actual unicorn, or an actual elemental. I want to summon the actual creatures that my PC can meet in the game's fictional world - the pack of wolves my druid befriended, the unicorn which serves my cleric's god, and the xorn my wizard met in the Plane of Earth. (Interestingly, even the 2014 version of conjure animals - Player's Handbook, page 225 - summons "fey spirits that take the form of beasts", for some reason, though this verbiage isn't replicated in any of the other conjure X spells from that PHB.)
The revised spells in the latest playtest packet have also been warmly received, but they're even farther removed from the type of summoning I want. The revised spells create swarms of spectral animals, pillars of light, and "spirits" that flit about (or around) the caster, or occupy a certain sized space on the battle grid. Each of these spells just another persistent magical area of effect that benefits or buffs the caster or their allies and damages or hinder their enemies when creatures enter or come near them.
These effects are sometimes evocative of the summoned creatures they're supposed to represent, but gone, it seems, are the days when a spellcaster could summon an actual creature that otherwise exists in the game's fictional world. With summoning spells which serve little purpose other than being another AoE the spellcaster can plunk down tactically in a combat scenario, D&D slides further into the "just a combat game" designation which it is often derided for.
Want to summon an ape to climb up something and drop a rope so the rest of the party can follow? How about summoning a bird to fly up above an area to scout for monsters, a path through the mountains, or that ruin the party is looking for? A pack of wolves to track a slippery enemy? A band of horses to carry the party to their next destination or into battle?
Sorry, those are no longer options - instead, a character can conjure a swarm of spectral apes, birds, wolves, or horses, each of which does 2d10 radiant damage and gives the character and their allies advantage on Strength saving throws. A summoned celestial can't scry or remove detrimental conditions or curses - they just heal or do damage. A summoned elemental can't throw enemies around, lay siege to fortified structures, light something on fire, or drown someone - it can only grab creatures and do damage.
Hopefully I've made my point by now, but in case I haven't - I want summoned creatures to be creatures. I want them to exist in the game world, as beasts in the wild, angels from the heavens, fiends from the hells, and the like. The summoner can go and meet them, befriend them or bind them, and get them to answer when the summoner calls for aid. When they come, they are capable of all the things they are normally able to do. They are another tool with which to solve problems, and not just combat problems. They are nonplayer characters with thoughts, feelings, morals, and agendas. They persist in the fictional world even when they're not being summoned, and they remember.
Summoned Creatures Are Nonplayer Characters (and The DM Controls NPCs)
This brings me to my main point: summoned creatures are NPCs. When the caster summons a bear, or unicorn, or fire elemental, they are summoning this bear, this unicorn, this elemental. It has a name, a personality, goals, and a relationship to the summoner. If a wizard's familiar is constantly being riddled with goblin arrows and smashed by rat catchers as a result of their master's orders, that familiar is going to remember their ill treatment. The abusive wizard is going to develop a reputation. When they visit the Plane of Familiars, they're going to find it an unwelcoming place.
Pretty much universally, these spells state that summoned creatures follow the caster's commands (unless those commands run counter to the creature's alignment - again indicating that these are distinct, thinking creatures with their own moral compass and agenda). Nowhere does it say that the summoner controls them. Summoned creatures are NPCs controlled by and managed by the DM. The summoner's player doesn't have access to the statblock and can only issue commands which make sense in the fiction - "run over there", "attack that goblin", "protect me", etc. The DM is charged with actually carrying out that action using the creature.
Some DMs may not want this extra burden - after all, they have so much on their plate already - but I vastly prefer it. I'm already accustomed to running a bunch of monsters and NPCs. I either have all the statblocks pulled up at once (if I'm running an online game) or have a succinct shorthand which I'm accustomed to using (if I'm running a game in-person), both of which allow me to control multiple unique game elements at a time quickly and decisively. Players are used to worrying about only their PC (which, often, is far more complex than any single monster), and because they are used to having just that one turn, they tend to spend more time agonizing over what to do with it compared to a DM who is just trying to keep the game moving. I experience significantly more slowdown in play when players control their summons versus when I do it myself.
Some players might chafe at this if they presume that they get to personally control an additional 1-8 creatures every combat round, but it's what I've found works best. Instead of giving the player control of eight wolves, each of whose turns they will agonize over and try to optimize every bit as much as they will their own character's turn, the DM should simply ask the player on their turn "And what would you like your wolves to do?" The DM can then quickly and efficiently adjudicate those wolves' actions on their respective turn or turns.
Another solution is to spread our the control of multiple summoned creatures evenly among the players. If there are eight wolves and six players, each player control 1-2 wolves. I don't like this either, because while the DM is spreading the bloated action economy among more players - giving everyone a little something extra to do and eliminating the issue of one player having nine times as much spotlight time as anyone else at the table - the DM is also asking three to five additional players to familiarize themselves with the wolf statblock, which necessitates either the DM providing the statblock to each of them (in an online game), or, in an in-person game, the players each finding the statblock in the PHB (if it's one of the few included in that book), which likely multiple players are sharing, or worse yet, finding it in the Monster Manual (of which there is almost certainly only one at the table).
So, summoned creatures are NPCs, and the DM controls NPCs.
Unique Summons
The summoned-creatures-as-NPCs approach has another benefit - it allows summoners to ally themselves with and summon specific creatures. If the summoned creature is a specific bear, or unicorn, or elemental, or hag, or the like, this allows the summoner to summon unique NPCs.
The first time the summoner casts conjure elemental and summons a gargoyle, for example, it might just seem like any other gargoyle. But if they summon the same gargoyle each time, what if they give a magic sword to the gargoyle? The next time they summon the gargoyle, it has a magic sword (unless it traded the sword away to a dao for a bejeweled amulet or something - after all, summoned creatures are NPCs, and that gargoyle has its own thing going on when it's not being summoned). What if the summoner spends weeks of downtime summoning the gargoyle every day, and begins teaching it magic during that time? (The gargoyle with 6 Intelligence is most definitely a slow learner and a poor example, but the point stands.)
The DM can also seed their world with creatures which are distinct from the generic varieties that are normally summoned - a cave bear with levels in barbarian, a hierophant unicorn, or a storm sorcerer air elemental. A summoner could then learn of such a creature and embark on a special quest to seek it out, befriend it, and convince it to agree to being summoned in the future.
There is some implication in the spell descriptions that suggests that not all creatures enjoy being summoned. If the summoner loses concentration on a conjure elemental spell (PHB, page 225), the elemental breaks loose, becomes hostile towards the summoner and their allies, and might attack them. Conjure fey (page 226), summon greater demon (Xanathar's Guide to Everything, page 166), and infernal calling (XGE, page 158) work similarly. The latter even necessitates that each command the PC gives to the devil they summon may need to be resolved with a skill contest to see if the devil complies. Demons have true names and devils have talismans, both of which make them easier to summon and control.
Combine these factors (some creatures resent being summoned, must be specially compelled to follow orders, and may become dangerous if control over them is lost), and now finding the means to summon a specific creature or convincing it to allow itself to be summoned, convincing it to comply with commands, and not getting killed in the process becomes an exploration and social interaction skill challenge at the very least, and an entire adventure at most.
Shovel
There's a delightful moment in Baldur's Gate 3 in which the player can find a scroll which summons a specific quasit named Shovel (the player can rename Shovel to Basket, Fork, or some other name I can't remember). If the player has a wizard in their party, the wizard can scribe the scroll into their spellbook, and from then on can forever summon Shovel. Leaping off of this, a DM can create any number of unique conjuration spells for their game - instead of casting conjure animals, try conjure Arcticheart, Bear King of the North, conjure Swiftfeather, Archon of the Skies, or conjure Redbat, the Red Bat (these names happily brought to you by Fantasy Name Generators' Fursona Name Generator).
Or, consider extraplanar creatures who don't exist in the material world, residing instead on another plane of existence, merely waiting for the moment some mortal might bring them into being again. The means to summon such creatures can be found in secret or forgotten places around the campaign world - in ruins, libraries, a wizard's desk, under the mattress, or in between the couch cushions.
This trope is all over the place in genre fiction - the wizard's apprentice who accidentally summons a demon they can't control, the meddling academic who reads the wrong passage in an old book, or the bored teenagers who perform the ancient rite (supposedly just an urban legend) to scare their goody-goody friend. Such misadventures are basically impossible in rules-as-written 5e, where summoned creatures are almost always friendly, and usually locked behind a corresponding level of PC experience.
Specific entities (like demons with true names and devils with talismans) might have specific means of being summoned in the form of scrolls, tomes, nursery rhymes, and the like - it's only a matter of the PCs discovering or stumbling upon the means to do so, after which they might befriend a new ally or unleash some unique hell on the setting.
Miscellaneous and TL;DR Tips for Summoned Creatures
- The player chooses the Challenge Rating of the creature they summon, but the DM chooses the creature. The player knows they want to summon a CR 2 beast, but which should they choose? Queue the player poring over the PHB or Google searching "D&D 5e best CR 2 beasts" while the rest of the players sit around twiddling their thumbs (not that a little bit of out-of-character downtime is something to be completely avoided). Or, the player wants to summon an allosaurus, and now the DM has to explain that they don't want dinosaurs in their game. Instead, the player decides they want to summon a CR 2 beast. They have no idea what beast will answer the call. If the DM is using a filterable, searchable database of D&D monsters (like D&D Beyond or...something else 😉), they can simply choose one from the list of those with the CR the player chose, preferably one which is appropriate to the environment the party is in.
- The player commands the creature, but the DM controls it. The PC issues commands to their summoned creature(s) on the PC's turn, which the DM then resolves on the creature's turn to the best of the creature's ability and in accordance to its alignment.
- The creature is an NPC with its own name, personality, ideals, bonds, flaws, and goals. It acts according to these traits and pursues its own interests when not being summoned.
- The creature is a recurring NPC. It remembers how it's treated and what it's asked to do. It may share information about its summoner and their allies with others of its kind. When the PC summons the same type of creature multiple times (i.e. a familiar, a bear, a unicorn, etc.), they summon the same specific creature each time.
- Recurring summoned creatures can be given equipment, such as magic items, and may acquire new skills. The aforementioned gargoyle may be given a magic sword, a dryad might be given a staff of the woodlands, or a bear might be barded in armor, for example.
- Specific creatures encountered in adventures can be recruited as summons. If the PC has previously summoned another creature of the same type, the new creature can be an option in addition to the original creature, or it can replace the original creature, in which case the original creature is released from its service to the PC. These creatures may have additional abilities (such as from spells or class levels) compared to their "generic" counterparts.
- Scrolls, tomes, rituals, and the like found in adventures can summon additional unique creatures. Wizards can scribe the spells to summon these creatures into their spellbook. At the DM's option, other classes may be able to learn this magic as well. This magic might work similarly to spellcasting (where a spell to summon a unique creature is of a specific level and can only be performed by appropriately powerful PCs), or they might be available for spellcasters (or anyone) of any level to cast - the wizard's apprentice might summon a Demon Prince, the mad librarian might summon a Great Old One, or the village teenagers might summon a murderous ghost.
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