Conjure Animals rework

[Nonah_Me]

So, I hate summoning spells. I dislike players having to pour through the back of the Player Handbook to find animals, and I dislike them often needing to look through the Monster Manual to find the abilities of whatever elemental or demon or fey they have summoned.

So, I've written a potential rework of the Conjure Animals spell; what does this forum think?


Conjure Animals
Range 60ft
Casting Time 1 action
Level 3 spell
Components Verbal, Somatic
Conjuration
Concentration: Yes

You summon fey spirits that take the form of Beasts and appear in unoccupied spaces that you can see within range. You can verbally direct the creature freely, and it understands your speech, though it cannot speak back to you. You conjure a creature that has the following statistics using your Wisdom modifier where appropriate:

HP: One half your full hit point total
Attack Bonus: One half proficiency bonus + Wisdom Modifier
AC: 8 + one half proficiency bonus + Wisdom modifier
Their abilities equal the caster’s abilities + one half proficiency bonus

The damage your creature does depends on one of these options:
Bear: 1d10 + Wisdom Modifier
Wolf: 1d6 + Wisdom modifier + Strength save using your spell save DC, prone on failure
Eagle: 1d4 + Wisdom modifier + Dexterity save using your spell save DC, disadvantage on Perception checks until end of the Eagle’s next turn
Giant Snake 1d6 + Wisdom modifier + Strength save using your spell save DC, failure means restrained

Upcasting: At higher levels, the caster can summon more creatures, each with their own statistics. At Level 4, roll 1d4 + Wisdom modifier, you can summon up to that many creatures. Add an additional 1d4 per spell level above 4.

[Lalliman]

Aside from the fact that some of the animal's stats are still missing (movement speed?), this is certainly more elegant than the original. But there's a problem. This spell scales very strongly with level. Spells aren't supposed to do that in 5e. To compare it to another 3rd level spell: Lightning Bolt becomes slightly more powerful as you level due to the increasing save DC, but the damage remains the same. This spell is more than three times as powerful when cast at 15th level than at 5th, from the same spell slot.

Spells aren't supposed to do that, because that's not how the power progression of a caster works. Cantrips aside, their spells don't become more powerful; their progression comes from getting more and higher-level spell slots. So this spell breaks the design of 5e, in a way that makes it probably overpowered at high level.

Edit: As an aside, casting it from a 4th level slot instead of 3rd increases the amount of summoned animals from 1 to at least 6, assuming a high Wisdom score. That's ridiculous, no spell scales that hard. Just compare the real version of Conjure Animals: twice as many at 5th level, three times as many at 7th, and four times as many at 9th. Your version grants 7 to 13 times as many at 5th level.

[Nonah_Me]

Honestly, I was tempted to take the scaling numbers out; one of my least favorite things to do as a DM is to have a player have to spend a huge amount of time telling me what each individual creature is doing. I'll make some revisions and see what happens next time I run a game.

[Lalliman]

I think you can salvage it by removing the scaling hit points. The stuff that scales with proficiency and Wisdom isn't so far removed from normal spell scaling. Go to the monster creation guide in the DMG and make sure this hypothetical creature matches CR 2, which is what Conjure Animals normally summons.

Then when cast with a higher spell slot, you can simply give a second creature at 5th, a third at 7th, and a fourth at 9th. That way you're also saved from your players summoning 10+ creatures.

[Nonah_Me]

Good idea, thanks!