Rogue gets a turn Cleric gets a turn Fighter action surges for two turns Rest of the party go to get a drink while the summoner resolves the rolls of his magical army

Most clutch move while fighting a Hydra on a cliffside with a dying party: "I cast Conjure Animals at 5th level." "Ok, what do you wanna summon?" "Two Rhinos." "Ok, roll their initiatives for me." "16, and a 19." *one irl minute of death saving throws later* "Rhino's turn." "He's going to charge the Hydra and push with all his might." "Ok, he is one size smaller, so that's at disadvantage...(rolling)...... ok so the hydra starts struggling against this very determined rhino. It's now the second rhino's turn." "RAMMING SPEED!" *laughing* "Ok......(rollings later)...... the hydra is losing ground, but doesn't look too overly concerned. It's your turn." "I'd like to wild shape." "Rhino?" "Rhino." "Ramming speed?" "Ramming speed." ........... "Alright, all three of you and the hydra are now free falling." ............ "I'd like to drop my concentration and cast another spell." "Go for it." "Conjure Animals." "Sonuvabitch."

I Belive there was a missed opportunity here for "Crack open the Monster Manual and summon a Cold/Old one". Still, it's a great archetype!

23:00 the Ruby worth 999gp isn't actually consumed by the spell so while you do need it to cast Infernal Calling you don't need a new Ruby for every time you cast it

Let's see...who should I play for my next campaign?.... "Morally ambiguous, high risk, high reward, demonic summoning-" CONSTANTINE IT IS BABY!!!!!

I was a Warlock that dabbled in Summon Lesser Demons. Throw them in a random room that has a lot of enemies, leave, and wait.

A small correction we realized while editing this week's episode: Conjure Fey doesn't only conjure fey creatures! Like Conjure Animals, it can also conjures beasts who take the form of a fey creature as well. This somewhat changes our thoughts about the spell, as there are some pretty great high CR beasts -- but we suspect many might have missed this as well and use the spell to conjure actual fey creatures only. Join our Patreon community to chat with us on Discord! www.patreon.com/dungeon_dudes

A notice for future summoners! If you plan on using a summon spell *regularly,* either arrange with your DM, or provide your own minis. Oh, and have the creature stats handy beforehand! Nothing more of a time waster than pulling out the book to see the stats each time, or the DM having to dig for an unexpected figurine!😅

When you really want to play a Pokemon campaign without changing the rules

If 2 summoners engage in battle... Does that make it a Pokemon battle?

I've a high lvl druid with an invisible stalker, earth elemental and water elemental planar bound as his body guard. The water elemental is usually in his portable hole, the earth elemental earth gliding nearby and the invisible stalker is stalking invisibly.

Best move my moon druid made was like this: 1/ Cast Conjure Animals, conjuring eight giant wolf spiders (my DM lets me choose) and telling them who to attack; 2/ Wild shape into a giant badger; and 3/ Burrow underground while maintaining concentration so she can't be hit at all. DM loved and hated that move to the max!!

In my Curse of Strahd campaign the Warlock summoned a Greater Demon. Since the master rule of Barovia is "no one can escape Barovia" I thought that neither the demon could so it didn't disappear after 1d6 rounds. At that moment they had one more enemy :D

Me: summons demon Demon: breaks free Demon: kills all the enemies before running out of time Me: I see this as an absolute win The rest of the party: *all at quarter heath because of the demon*

13:54 "I don't think there's anything too scary in the list of beasts." Player: I summon 8 giant owls and drop the attacking bandits to their deaths. Also Player: Summons 8 giant centipedes who then deal 128 damage in 1 turn

Conjure Fey allows you to summon beasts too. Yes, I would like to summon a mammoth 90 feet in the air above the enemy.

I've actually been interested in conjuration magic for a while, but haven't had the time to deep dive into it. Thanks for the in-depth look, it's gotten me super inspired all over again

This is what i do as a demonic summoner. First off, I take abyssal as one of my languages. Then, the First time i ever summon a new type of demon, my first command is always “tell me your true name in abyssal”

Infernal calling doesn’t consume the ruby by the way, just for everyone’s knowledge.

I wouldn't sleep on an Artificer summoner eitheir. They have one combo they can do at lvl 10 with Spell Storing Item and the Alchemical homunculus Infusion that let's them charge an item with a summoning spell (or really any spell that requires concentration) then have their Homunculus cast that spell using your Spell Storing Item and concentrate on that spell for you. Wich allows you to pre-prep a specific summon, have your familiar take the burden of the summoning, and still be able to concentrate on other useful spells.

I like that you guys never lose sight of RPing, even when you're mostly talking about character optimization. Nice job!

I’ve been playing a Druidic summoner since I started playing dnd and the circle of wildfire is also fun to add to it.

THANK YOU! I WAS HOPING FOR A VIDEO ON THIS!!! Gonna go Circle of the Shepherd druid in my next campaign, and I want to do what I can to not bog down the game.

"If your DM is feeling generous" You mean after you've been dragging out every combat with your 8 fey cannon fodder? Somehow I don't see this happening very often.

Interesting thing I found out. With a high enough spell level casting conjure woodland beings you can summon a coven of sea hags.

As a good fun thing to note glyph of warding can hold a multitude of spells and it retains concentration for full duration. So you could set up multiple glyphs of warding for both defense and summoning and then do your planner bindings and various other spells.

Keep in mind you can use summoning spells as an excuse to make a character out of your squad. Your earth elemental has a name, origin, and it's own ambitions. Every time you summon an earth elemental you get this guy and might even have a dialogue with them. My bard has a celestial cockatiel that acts as his concious/humbler. He also likes peanuts. Because any time said bard is at a bar he pockets them and said cockatiel has developed a taste for them. Just one way to make find familiar more interesting.

Technically a Necromancer is a summoner too. Just saying.

My experience as a summoner: Step 1: Be attacked by an exotic creature hunter, kill him, and take his dimensional shackles. Step 2: Be a wild magic sorcerer and accidentally summon a unicorn. Step 3: Convince him to let you put dimensional shackles on his hoove. Step 4: Pester him enough until he agrees to talk to his god about turning you into an Ancients Paladin.

Love these archetype videos. FAR more interesting than the standard class stuff many others people already made. Great job.

I'm playing a Kobold Shepard Druid, and i am loving it! Honestly, the big thing about Summoning is that it can clog up the game if you aren't careful. I want to make some spells that summon 1 special creature to aid you rather than several. The higher the spell slot, the more powerful the creature becomes, and you can use a gold cost to have it be a permanent being instead of temporary.

There are a LOT of new summoning options coming out in the new Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, I know this video is new, but I'd love to see an updated version or new mini-video about how the new summoning mechanics change summoning!

Earth elementals are great for finding buried treasure

A really good guide, at that moment helped me a lot. Would be awesome have a new version of this video including tasha's cauldron summoning spells.

Great video! One of my players is wanting to play a summoner (level 4 druid, so next level is what he’s been waiting for), so this was super helpful :) Also loved the point about letting the player choose the creatures, ‘cause that’s something we’d been going back and forth on!!

Hopefully you guys had a great holiday!

“TRIFLING GNOME, YOUR ARROGANCE IS YOUR UNDOING!!!” -when you roll a nat 1 to summon.

Playing a Tiefling druid Circle of the Shepard, once I hit 5th level, I intend to use conjure animals after the battle to summon emotional support bunnies :3

Was about to home brew a summoner/elemtalist summoner and I really needed this for inspiration and ideas, Thanks so much!

Second video I've seen Kelli make a Dresden Files shout out. Good taste dude! Really digging this channel.

Yay I'm a grave cleric/celestial warlock! Now I know more tricks

Ooooo now I need to make a character that Hunt's down demons to bind and use them 😱

Nice analytical look at 5e summoners, I liked it. Keep up the good work.

Great advice. I'm going to be playing my first summoner soon. Shepard druid. Can't wait

I tend to think of Summon Lesser Demons less like a summoning spell, more like an extremely chaotic grenade. Just throw it into a room you are not in and close the door.

Used conjure animals to summon 8 apes. Dm hated it.

Honestly, summoner characters feel like another area where the table and DM and individual player could benefit a great deal from fine-tuning via homebrewing and tweaking certain spells. I honestly see no reason to restrict summoners quite as much as the core book spells do - perhaps in some campaigns, but in others, I don't see why the table couldn't use the mechanics of various summoning spells for other types of creatures, tweaking the casting requirements as needed too. Reflavour the Summon Lesser Demons spell and you could have a Law & Order Special Modrons Unit on the scene, for example.

Miss you guys, I am excited for season two!

“And we are the dungeon dudes.” Perfect sync! Well done.

Yet another character type to go into the list of ones I wish to play someday.

I'm currently running a game where a friend didn't like the summoned options offered (as discussed in your video) so I reskinned the beast master ranger for him so he could play his martially trained nobleman but still have a permanent "summon" at his side. He's quite happy and therefore so am I :)

I was actually just working on a gnome conjurer so this is super helpful and perfectly timed

This makes me want to create a summoning specialist, a Pokémancer if you will.

A horn of Valhalla is a good supplement to any summoners abilities.

Right on for the Dresden Files Reference! You just won a sub!

For Tomb of Annihilation I played a human circle of the moon druid summoner, (think Tarzan but with dinosaurs), and let me tell you, summoning a small army of velociraptors is one of the best feelings. Multi attack and pact tactics make it like putting your enemies through a blender.

3.5 Evil Eberron campaign, pretty high lvl; Cleric of the flayed one, liked to summon zombie ogres. Winter druid, liked to summon huge centipedes. Conjurer wizard, liked to throw some barbed devils into the mix. Telepath mindlord psion, yeah I got 20 noob mooks who follow me around and replenish when killed, and I mindcontrol any monsters who oppose us. Oh and I can summon ectoplasmic creatures. Yeah.. fun times. 😄 Haven't seen any creatures summoned at our table since 5e...

You guys should re-do this video now that Tasha's added so many summoning options.

I really liked the summoner class from Pathfinder. Being able to customize your own monster to suit your needs was something I really enjoyed.

27:52 you can also jank it with glyph of warding to hold the concentration for you while you bind a summon giving you a decent setup time

The Glyph of Wardings spell with the "Spellglyph" option might be good to get around the concentration since the cast spells always go to full durartion. Perfect for the summoning Spells and the Banishment spell. Geas might be an option if you dont have a circle too keep the creature in check (up to 30 days no less!) Now if you have an unruly creature/demon/devil Contigency with banishment might work as safeguard. Comprhend languages can be good if the creature just say "Pikachu" over and over. if you add Enhance Ability - you are pretty safe on charisma/int/wis checks. Hallow gives you protection against fiends and lets you comprehend languages so it might be a good precaution.

Infernal calling can be great for boss fights. Devils aren't chaotic so you can make a deal with them so that even if you loose concentration he won't betray you. In my experience it works extremely better if you're fighting demons.

Great video! Would love to see an update taking into account all the new summons in tasha's. Some of them look pretty dang good.

I always loved the concepts of summoning and making pacts with entities, regardless of the media

Episode suggestion: " best support role magic items"

I used Summon Greater Demon on my *Fallen Druid* character which is a warlock/druid hybrid and brought forth a Tanarukk and it broke my control and crit landed a hit on me nearly impaling me. Luckily we had another druid that was solely healer build that kept me alive and we finished off the demon before the party got wiped.

Thank you for making these guides, Dudes :D

Been a long while since I've played before,5th edition, for, sure but enjoy these kinds of videos. Also,would,like to say that videogame wise, divinity original sin 2, really lets you get into the summoner/conjurer archetype.

Love the Dresden reference.

Don’t forget unseen servant carrying a distracting marionette or throw a robe over it.

The new dragonmarked subraces include several summoning spells in the expanded spell lists, which apply to whatever spellcasting class they take. In particular, the half elf marl pf storms provides both conjire elemental and minor elementals. The mark of handling human gets conjure animals. These can be used then to add other possibilities to classes or subclasses that dont normally get access to those respective spells

Love the content! Could yall do a tinkerer guide? Keep up the good work.

Hey Dudes, you really should have put lower CR demons on your list too. One of the best demons to summon with SGD is the CR 4 Babau

I'm trying out the Onomancer wizard UA and I think that the benefit of finding out beings true name with be helpful as a summoner.

Awesome! I didn't know my Cleric had such a cool summoning spell!

That thumbnail is gold. Also I cant wait fro Drakenheim to start up again

Love to see a video on the Illusionist, speaking as an AD&D Illusionist veteran :-)

6:04 Actually druids can by technicality be summoners by level 3 because of summon beastial spirit which is a 2nd level spell

One of my current characters is a summoner. I started off with the concept of a disney/fairytale princess, so I incorporated Snow White's looks, Esmerelda's dancing and Red Riding Hood's red cloak in there, and made her a bard/druid multiclass. She's a circle of the sheperd druid, and summons creatures in combat to deal melee damage or protect innocents while she heals the party. She also starts every morning by singing out of her window and having a chat with the birds that land on her finger. Her bard college is a homebrew one based on a part of our adventure that took place in the Feywild; We all broke some of the rules of dealing with the fae (we drank tea offered by an archfey, and revealed our true names) and so all of us were changed somehow. One of the subclass feats is that my familiar (magic initiate: wizard) can and does now change forms at will and at random. Some tricks the pixies taught her. She also now has an affinity for pixies and her bardic spells are partly flavoured around them now. She's an absolute joy to play and I;m having a blast roleplaying how she interacts with the animals and fey creatures. Like for the rest of the hour of summon animals after combat she usually just braids the lions' manes or makes flowercrowns and such. She also has a special friendship with our horse, whom she taught to make a bow (for which he is now famous in certain areas), and whom seems to have inherited some magical traits and unusual intelligence due to her involvement. Truly amazing. It's true it's a whole bunch of paperwork though; I have a folder with printed out lists and stats of all the creatures I can turn into, and summon, with separate lists for all the summoning spells. So all familiar options in one document, and then a separate document for conjure animals, conjure fey, conjure woodland beings, etc. and within those I've grouped all creatures together according to their challenge rating, and noted down which stats change into what due to my circle features. It's a lot of prep work, but the system works and once the list is made it's such a breeze to figure out what to cast and I have all the info I need right there. So yeah, I recommend playing a summoner 😆

Thanks for the video - you should make one about party buff builds - like a bard who focuses all spells and abilities on enhancing their fellow party members

Glyph of warding can be used to help with the magic circle/planar binding combo. 🤓

It's important to note that SUMMONED monsters (ones that can be dispelled) do not actually die if they are slain while summoned, so using them as cannon fodder isn't evil.

I've never been much for magic users in general, but after watching this video I'm interested in playing a summoner now.

On an unrelated note: please consider making a video about psionics! I believe there is no official 5e class material but a review of the UA release and general overview of psionics throughout the history of the game would be very interesting.

Im playing a cleric who's been charmed by an npc to steal a powerful artifact from the party....I'm gonna need a little help from my Celestial buds to make this happen XD

Thumbs up for Harry Dresden reference!

Thank you for your videos.

The paladin gets a couple too. Some really funky ones too with find steed spells

An inverted magic circle keeps a demon from returning to its home plane for the duration, regardless of whatever you roll on the d6

So, with Tasha's Cauldron of Everything out, does this receive an addendum of some kind; e.g. to its description text or a brand smiting new video? 🤓

Figured I'd put this here since I personally didn't see it anywhere. A Magic Circle spell includes interplaner travel in the methods of entering/exiting the circle. It does require a save though so they may still escape.

Season two of dungeons of drakkenheim??😍😍😍 amazing! I am still waiting for all episodes of the campaign on spotify so that i can continue to listen to the show on the go ;D

A wizard can use the contingency spell to cast Planar Binding by himself.

Wait, so if there's "Summon Lesser Demons," and "Summon Greater Demons," where is the "Summon Demons" spell?

I've been keeping an eye on you guys, the Dresden reference got a subscribe from me.

A summoner was the main villain in a two-year home brew campaign I played back in the 90s. Very very memorable indeed.

If I use Summon Greater Demons, can I command the demon to tell me its true name so I can speak it out to give the demon disadvantage on the save? 🤔

There needs to be a new subclass that's specifically revolves around summoning another creature and give them an ability that they can change the casting time to summon a creature form a minute to 1 action for a number of times a day equal to their casting modifier. I would Imagine Wizard, Druid, and Perhaps even a Warlock could fit this motif.

i played a swarmkeeper ranger/shepherd druid combo who had a swarm of insects and summoned giant bugs. she was amazing to roleplay.

Abjuration wizard’s arcane ward is extremely useful as a summoner Bladesinger also gets nice benefits to their concentration saves