New Druid Spell

[TheNavyBlues]

A player of mine sent me a spell for his spores Druid, any thoughts about balance and such are appreciated.


Conjure Steed - Circle of Spores

Level: 3

Casting Time: 10 Minutes

Range: 30 Feet

Components: V, S, M (A piece of a dead animal- Bone, hide, tooth, etc.)

Duration Instantaneous

School Necromancy


You summon the spirit of a dead animal that takes the form of one of the following beasts and appears in an unoccupied space that you can see within range. Choose one of the following options for what appears:

Stench Kow, Giant Lizard, Variant Giant Lizard, Rothe, Ox, Giant Spider? (this one may be too good), EDIT: Giant Toad

The steed has the statistics of the chosen form. Additionally, if your steed has an Intelligence of 5 or less, its Intelligence becomes 6, and it gains the ability to understand one language of your choice that you speak.

Your steed serves you as a mount, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit. While mounted on your steed, you can make any spell you cast that targets only you also target your steed. While Mounted, when you activate Symbiotic Entity your mount receives the same benefits for so long as you stay on it.

It is considered undead in addition to its other types.

When the steed drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You can also dismiss your steed at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, casting this spell again summons the same steed, restored to its hit point maximum.

You can't have more than one steed bonded by this spell at a time. As an action, you can release the steed from its bond at any time, causing it to disappear.

[Composer99]

As a technical point, creatures don't have more than one type, so if the mount summoned by this spell is undead, it's an undead, and not any other type of creature.

Also, I'm not keen on the idea of a spell that has a mechanic that depends on some specific subclass feature. If anything, I would drop that and make it so that whenever you gain temporary hit points, your steed gains the same number. That's only part of the benefit of Symbiotic Entity, but it's the part that's most easily generalised. However, if you want it to work that way at your table for that player, well and good.

As far as balance goes, as a 3rd level spell, this should probably come out in between 2nd-level find steed (PHB) and 4th-level find greater steed (XGE). As it happens, those spells have the same effect, except find greater steed has better mount options.

Find Steed: Steed options are warhorse (CR 1/2), pony (CR 1/8), camel (CR 1/8), elk (CR 1/4), or mastiff (CR 1/8).

Find Greater Steed: Steed options are griffon (CR 2), pegasus (CR 2), peryton (CR 2), dire wolf (CR 1), rhinoceros (CR 2), or sabre-toothed cat (MM calls it "sabre-toothed tiger") (CR 2).

You've got Stench Kow (CR 1/4), Giant Lizard (CR 1/4), Variant Giant Lizard (??), Rothe (CR 1/4), Ox (CR 1/4), Giant Spider, which you're not sure about (CR 1), and Giant Toad (CR 1).

With all the CR 1/4, the mount options are closer to find steed levels, in which case some kind of buff is okay. If you keep the CR 1 options, you're probably good with just one buff, such as the temporary hit point thing. If you ditch them, and only have the CR 1/4 options, you could even add a second buff as well.

[TheNavyBlues]

(With all the CR 1/4, the mount options are closer to find steed levels, in which case some kind of buff is okay. If you keep the CR 1 options, you're probably good with just one buff, such as the temporary hit point thing. If you ditch them, and only have the CR 1/4 options, you could even add a second buff as well.)
...
I definitely agree with the first two points and I will make those changes. If I was to cut the CR 1s what second buff might you suggest for the CR 1/4? I really appreciate this feedback I was thinking of making it a level 2 but adding a material gold cost