Brainstorming with Conjure Celestial

[ImproperJustice]

So my pluck little Forge Cleric may soon rise to the upper levels of power where she can unleash the fearsome might of the Spell that is Conjure Celestial.

Unfortunately, by the book her options are:

A Couatl
A Pegasus
And some say a Unicorn although it is CR5 and the spell says CR 4 or lower.

So I was shooting the breeze with my GM (who is a busy guy), and we were discussing how there should be some wider options out there.

So we got to talking, and thought maybe a Forge Cleric could summon something that looks like one of those Dwemer Centurion Golems from Skyrim.
So we flipped to the Golem section in the MM and wow, those are some high CRs.

So I thought I would reach out the the creative folls of the forum.
How can we get a cool Golem critter that is CR appropriate for the spell, while hopefully requiring the least amount of bookwork for the GM?

And maybe, while we are here. What might be some cool summons for various other domains?
Example: Air Elementals for Tempest Domain?

[Harrysonford]

I’m not familiar with Skyrim, so I don’t know if this matches up, but the stone defender from mordenkain’s.
If you’re flexible on the creature summoned, then you could choose an appropriate type (construct, elemental, fey etc.) and apply the same CR restrictions. Then if you want to keep it consistent, you could just change the type to “celestial” so abilities that affect celestial work on this summon.

[MaxWilson]

If you're not excited about Couatls, you are underestimating them. Effective AC 24 (19 + Shield 3/day), Truesight (goes well with magical darkness if you've got e.g. a Devil's Sight warlock or Shadow Sorc in the party), immunity to nonmagical weapons, flying speed 90', constriction, magical weapons (and even a bite attack with a weak save DC but a strong effect), Polymorphing (into e.g. a Stegosaurus if you want more damage), good saves, and miscellaneous healing, divination, and protection spells.

The Couatl is not the best-case Celestial you could want, but it is pretty much the best case CR 4 Celestial you could ask for. Anything better will require upcasting or a different spell.

[ImproperJustice]

I’m not familiar with Skyrim, so I don’t know if this matches up, but the stone defender from mordenkain’s.
If you’re flexible on the creature summoned, then you could choose an appropriate type (construct, elemental, fey etc.) and apply the same CR restrictions. Then if you want to keep it consistent, you could just change the type to “celestial” so abilities that affect celestial work on this summon.

Looks up Stone Defender:

Yeah! That’s perfect! Thanks!
Yeah we were thinking of just letting it have both types (Celestial and Construct.
It just makes sense that the heart of the spell is to pull something from the “Heavenly Realms” to aid the Cleric, and we figured it should fit a little more thematically.

RE the Couatl:
Oh yeah. It seems really cool, and we even met one before during the Isle of Dread. It just didn’t feel very thematic for the Forge Domain.

[Mr.Spastic]

The core benefit of the Couatil is their polymorph ability. My personal favorite is to turn them into an Orc Cheif who gets three attacks. Also, the cr for celestials is really misguiding. They have a crazy high power for their low cr.

[No brains]

The best use for a couatl is to polymorph it into a quetzalcoatlus. :smalltongue:

It's not just a stupid pun; it becomes an extremely huge, tanky, and mobile meatshield. Area-deny whatever areas you please. A generous DM may even allow the beak attack to count as a bit for couatl poison.

Also if you feel like putting in the money/ RP time, you can conjure a couatl and negotiate calling it with Planar Ally later. This can free up your concentration and maybe even work out a deal on its payment. Then you can have TWO couatl-quetzalcoatluses!

[Kaliayev]

Change shape also affords innate spellcasting to a conjured couatl. One's couatl can transform into an albino dwarf spirit warrior to cast pass without trace when the party needs to sneak around. It can turn into a warlock of the archfey and conjure another creature. As long as one is not looking at conjure celestial narrowly, it's a perfectly valid seventh level spell, though one may want to use change shape sparingly to avoid overly frustrating the DM.


The Unicorn is in reference to higher level casting (i.e. CR 5 with a ninth level slot), though I personally prefer the couatl with a seventh level slot. The unicorn's healing capacity doesn't come close to mass heal, so upcasting conjure celestial is not necessarily a good use of a ninth level slot. The unicorn's teleport is a decent red alert button, but in my experience there are typically more pcs in a given party than the teleport can handle. That being said, if a cleric is lucky enough to read the book of exalted deeds, a unicorn might be worth an eighth level spell slot.

[sambojin]

It's nearly unlimited low level spell casting. That's insane, even for a 7th level spell.

It's not like a couatl can't just turn into something tanky after it's fulfilled virtually any utility need you could ever want.