This is such an underrated comment!

Reference?

@@nickmillar999 Sebastian Crow, Kelly's character in the Dungeons of Drakenhiem campaign is a half elf shadow sorcerer who seems to cause several "unfortunate incidents."

@nickmiller999 you should watch the Dungeons of Drakkenheim campaign by the dungeon dudes

JIMMOTHY!

I think the Slaad beats the other two if the goal is to soak up damage/distract enemies.

I played a oneshot where we were all playing goofy characters, and I played a knockoff of a warner bros character. I also was a creation bard, and chose to pick up summon celestial. I summoned Taz as a Defender lol

You should see if there's some way you can get access to Flock of Familiars. Or even conjure animals to bring in some baboons. Go for great quantity on the backup dancers. You could even get the magic item "Bag of Tricks", or the "Horn of Valhalla" Summon forth the warriors of Valhalla to avail you of song and dance.

@@ecothunderbolt257 The goal of using the Tasha's Summons is to Not Flood combat with more creatures having an already large party, but I use illusions during my non-combat performances to back me up ;)

@@lilyz6412 Makes sense.

If only Summon Accompaniment were in 5e. Btw, what page in the 3e Spell Compendium is it on? I can’t find it.

It doesn't since it doesn't directly kill enemies. Same as Animate Dead - it doesn't heal you if your created Undead kill proper

@@jpjfrey5673 I'm talking about the Dead Thralls feature that buffs undead not Grim Harvest. Guess I shoulda been clearer.

@@fuddmuggler fair enough, that one does indeed work. And it adds *a lot* of necrotic damage

My DM created a gnome villain that I gave a chance to surrender. When she refused and died, I demanded the barbarian give me her head. Guess what’s going to be gilded with 300gp of gold…? We never learned her name but she’s going to continue to be part of the campaign.

I mean, you can say they would have __ hit dice because of their size. There is a chart in the intro to the MM that specifies npcs of __ size will have ___ hit dice, and i have heard that exceptions to that rule are essentially nonexistent in the context of what the table applies for. Any exceptions are likely Divine Avatars always having like a D20 or larger hit die irrelevant of size. Obviously PCs are exceptions as Barbarian levels give the same hit dice as Huge size creatures no matter the PC's size, but the table is for Monsters. Summons are best described as Monsters spawned by a spell to do the summoner's bidding. Using the table, I would say Beast and Fey spirits of their respective spells have D6s; Fiend and Celestial spirits have D10s, and all the rest D8s. Which using the actual table as well for the Average HP numbers to algebraically reverse engineer the amount of hit dice means they didnt ever account for that as they dont Quite scale the same as if they scaled by hit dice alone (Large spirits vary/grow by multiples of 5 not 5.5, etcetera.) And those calculations weren't even trying to factor in their Con mods, which are anywhere between +2 and +4, gumming up the works even more. There is some limited room to Homerule them in, but obviously as you say there just arent hit dice to the Tasha Summons, making the Mighty Summoner feature not incredibly useful to them. Most people assume a Spell-entity such as what is summoned by these spells do have innate magical attacks but by RAW I would say they dont due to that not being specified as something they have in neither the spell itself nor the stat blocks. So the feature retains *some* use at least. But it is feasible a DM would house rule that feature into these spells themselves anyway. Sending the feature straight to Useless for these spells in the process if they dont add in the hit dice. God, accurately examining the full situation makes my head hurt a little 😅.

@@casualmarkit9969 Yeah, definitely there are homerules available, and the lack of Magic Damage (RAW at least) makes it half usable! But the RAW of lack of Hit Dice definitely just feels Off and a disadvantage to the Summoner Specific Druid

Also use the slaad against trolls, with their pesky regeneration ability.

I had an eladrin that got summon fey, and the dm was nice enough let me make the fey a medium creature. So I flavored the fey as a fey/dryad like echo of my character made of fey energy and wood/roots

My Drakewarden managed to nab a Circlet of Knowledge, and you better believe I put Summon Draconic Spirit into it for when I get my fifth level slots lol

Rangers are not, collectively, supposed to lean into their casting as much as classes like Druids, Clerics, and Paladins. Plus they're probably looking to make the subclass additional spell list a Priest feature.

Nice to see that, I also gave my Drakewarden extra spells but I went with Identify, Dragon's breath, Incite Greed, Elemental Bane and Legend Lore.

@@willieoelkers5568 All the subclasses in Xanathar and Tasha have expanded spell lists, though.

@@chrisvossler8795 And they didn’t give you a scaling minion with those classes. That’s arguably the trade-off of the Drakewarden subclass

Our Druid also Summoned Draconic Spirit at 7th level, and GOD that thing is Crazy powerful

I noticed this comment in my rewatching of this. The cost is 1 time only as they don't consume the component needed for the summon. And if memory serves, a Spellcasting Focus also covers the component requirement, so long as it isn't consumed by a spell. I could be wrong though

@@gamergunn7139 if the material component has a listed cost, even if not consumed, you must have the specific component.

(Haste is probably overkill)

pairs well with a conquest paladin

Noice Just hope you don't run into any monsters with fear immunity

@@benjaminwalker9369 I believe that almost 20% of monsters are immune to fear in D&D 5e. This tactic would not work well in a campaign with a lot of undead.

no its not

They also didn't have any before Tasha's which a huge boon

Oops, never mind

You just need to prepare for your turn beforehand so it's not that bad if you're good at managing turns

Yeah, a bad player playing summons is rough to deal with. Advanced players only. But it's definitely achievable to have smooth summer gameplay. If you've ever had a DM who's able to keep the enemies' turns short enough that combat feels smooth, then you know it's true. DM's are essentially always playing the ultimate minion class lol.