Balance and thoughts: - summon <monster> spells

[8wGremlin]

A number of people have been missing the Summon Monster, and Summon Nature's Spirit type spells

So I thought I'd knock up some spells.

Each type of creature requires a different spell.
You can summon 1/2 CR * spell level used to cast the spell.

So upto 1/2 a CR worth of Beasts with Summon Beast cast with a level 1 spell.
or upto 3 CRs worth of Undead with Summon Undead cast with a level 6 spell.



Name
Level
Casting Time
Range
Duration
Summon upto CR worth, per spell level
Type


Summon Beast
1
1 minute
10
1 hour, conc
1/2
beast


Summon Elemental
1
1 minute
10
1 hour, conc
1/2
elemental


Summon Fae
1
1 minute
10
1 hour, conc
1/2
fae


Summon Fiend
1
1 minute
10
1 hour, conc
1/2
fiend


Summon Celestial
1
1 minute
10
1 hour, conc
1/2
celestial


Summon Undead
1
1 minute
10
1 hour, conc
1/2
undead





These are less powerful than the existing conjuration spells, but are available early so as to be available throughout your adventuring career.

What do people think, balanced, too op, what could be changed?
Thanks for feedback.

[Tiadoppler]

My initial impression:

I like the casting time, but don't understand the casting range. Is that "it appears within 10' of you" or "within 10 squares" or "must stay within 10' of you at all times" or what?

Overpowered at low level. A 1st level caster summoning a 1/2 CR combat pet multiple times a day at level 1 could be very helpful.
Underpowered at high level. A 17th level caster summoning a 4.5 CR monster once a day doesn't sound interesting to me.
There might be a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, at the intersection of Have Extra Spell Slots and Need A Meatshield.

Are these creatures actually summoned from elsewhere, or are they simply creations of the spell? I might fluff it as a magical construct/conjuration rather than an actual summon. If they're simple constructs, I wouldn't make different versions of the spell, just say that you can choose the form they take (similar to the Paladin's Find Steed spell).

[Kane0]

Seems good to me. The minute casting time hurts them though, seeing as they can't be used as a go-to combat concentration spell for a summoner type character.
I would personally start them at a 2nd level slot, with a creature of CR 1 or lower and scaling by +1 CR per slot above 2nd but that's just a personal preference.

Edit: Actually, since we already have summon spells for Beasts, Fey, Elementals, Fiends and Undead plus the Planar ally/binding spells the ones we're really missing are Aberrations, Dragons and Monstrosities, the latter of which works perfectly for the classic 'Summon Monster' name.

[Cespenar]

If I could be extremely brief:

-1/2 CR is a bit too beefy for a level 1 party.
-You should differentiate Beasts from the rest of them, since they are mundane and overall less powerful/tricky for the same CR.

Problems:

A 1/4 CR Sprite could cast Polymorph, Confusion, etc. at level 1. Seriously.

[8wGremlin]

If I could be extremely brief:

-1/2 CR is a bit too beefy for a level 1 party.
-You should differentiate Beasts from the rest of them, since they are mundane and overall less powerful/tricky for the same CR.

Problems:

A 1/4 CR Sprite could cast Polymorph, Confusion, etc. at level 1. Seriously.

Right, thanks!

So it's an inherent issue with the CR system them, a 1/2cr beast != 1/2cr fae, good to know.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Right, thanks!

So it's an inherent issue with the CR system them, a 1/2cr beast != 1/2cr fae, good to know.

It's specifically an issue with using CR-based creatures as allies. CR (roughly) measures how many resources a particular creature will use if faced in combat--how hard it is to kill and how much direct damage it deals. It's not designed to do more than that.

Probably better would be to curate the list, specifically removing those with out-of-band non-damaging abilities (like pixies) or moving them higher in the list.

Curation (restricting it to specific lists) would also drastically speed up the use of these spells in combat--as it stands, you have to

a) decide on a spell
b) decide on a spell level
c) decide on a creature or creatures (this is the rate-limiting step as the choices are so broad)
d) figure out how to use their abilities each turn.

With curation (down to 2-4 choices per CR step), step c) speeds up a lot and you're more likely to have balanced results.

[Flashy]

The basic problem I have with these is that they’d become among the most up-castable spells in the system.

Sure, at the very highest levels you’re getting a REAL measly creature, but through 4-5th level spell slots it’s at least fairly comparable to the value you’d get from casting a spell of the slot’s level. I sort of question the balance of a summon spell which can be learned once and cast at max level through much of an adventuring career, simply because it removes so much necessity to prepare/learn new spells. I feel like EVERY caster would chose Summon Fiend or Summon Elemental and then prepare it every day. That’s often one of the hallmarks of a spell that’s too powerful or scales too well.

As pointed out with the Fey, a lot of these let you jump ahead on spell level. Magma Mephits can cast Heat Metal 1/day at CR 1/2. Beyond that, there are a LOT of monster features written with the assumption that they’ll be used either narratively or against PC characters. Banshees (which would cost you an 8th level slot in this system but still) have the 1/day ability to force every creature in a 30’ radius to save or drop to 0 HP. Any humanoid killed by a Shadow (1st level slot) rises as a new shadow in 1d4 hours. Pheonixphyre put it enormously well with the remarks about monsters not being rated for use against other monsters.

So Summon Undead, Summon Elemental, and Summon Fey all let you break the power curve in one way or another, while Summon Celestial can’t be cast until 4th level slots at the earliest because there are no celestials below CR 2. Summon Beast is probably vaguely okay, but still provides a LOT of value as a 1st level spell.

If you’re going to do additional summoning spells I really think you need to break them into more discrete spell level groups, more carefully curate the monsters they can summon, maybe homebrew some new ones, and accept MUCH stricter limitations on the summoning spells at 1st and 2nd level.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Another issue with unbounded "Summon <X>" spells is that they inherently experience power creep--as new monsters are published, their power increases.

I think this is a reason why the casters who have gotten the fewest spells (Clerics, especially) are those who prepare from their whole list--every new Cleric spell published is an immediate, no-opportunity-cost upgrade for every cleric with access to that book.