Reviewing the "Spirit Conjuring" Spells That Are Likely to Make it Into Tasha's Cauldron of Everything

 As fun as it was to read through Rime of the Frostmaiden and all the really cool concepts it has (I think I've maybe been harsh on my perceived lack of horror to it - when you factor in all the environmental effects, it does seem extremely scary) the book I'm most excited for of all is Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. While I love campaign setting books and adventures, the books I'm most likely to use in their entirety are the setting-agnostic rules expansions. Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes are both fantastic to have, but of the currently published books, I think Xanathar's Guide to Everything is the rules book outside the core three that I find to be the best addition to the game.

Tasha's has some big shoes to fill, but I'm optimistic it'll succeed.

Now, to specifics:

We're getting new spells in Tasha's, just as we did in Xanathar's, and while we don't have the official list yet, or their text (I guess I'll have to, you know, wait for the book to come out) some of the spells teased in Unearthed Arcana are really interesting.

There is a set of spells that conjures creatures - spells like "Conjure Celestial Spirit," "Conjure Shadow Spirit," "Conjure Fey Spirit," etc. Unlike the "Summon Woodland Beings" - style spells, these have a simple, singular stat block that has values based on the caster's stats and the level at which the spell is cast.

I. Love. Them.

Because while the idea of conjuring creatures to fight for you is a great fantasy trope, in practice, most of the summoning spells are extremely complicated. I once had a wizard conjure eight mephits - four different types - and it was a nightmare to handle all their stats and such.

These spells will conjure a fairly beefy, hard-hitting creature that gets harder to kill and dolls out damage more based on the level at which you cast the spell. And you get to pick your flavor, so a hexblade warlock can summon shadow creatures, a cleric can summon celestials, and an aberrant mind sorcerer can summon aberrant spirits.

Again, each spell conjures just one creature, so it shouldn't bring combat to a grinding halt, but that creature can be capable of really helping in combat.

The spells, which all take the form of "Summon _____ Spirit" names, also let you choose within that category between different variants, which get different abilities that might be suited to your particular needs.

Aberrant: Your options are Beholderkin, who can hover and shoot ranged eye beams, Slaadi, who regenerate health and have a claw attack that prevents healing, and Star Spawn, who have an aura that deals psychic damage as well as a psychic melee attack.

Bestial: Your options are Land, which gets pack tactics and a climbing speed, Water, which has a swim speed and can breathe water and also gets pack tactics, and air, which can fly and has the flyby ability (no opportunity attacks if it flies by your enemies.)

Celestial: Your options are Avenger, who has a bow that deals radiant damage, and Defender, whose melee attacks also grant temporary hit points to a friendly target nearby.

Elemental: Your options are Air, which grants lightning and thunder resistance, Fire, which grants fire immunity, Earth, which grants slashing resistance (and is the only one without amorphous form, so no squeezing under doors and such - though it can burrow,) and Water, which has a swim speed and acid resistance.

Fey: Your options are Deceitful, which creates darkness after using its Fey Step ability, Joyful, which can charm a nearby creature after it does its Fey Step, and Furious, which gets advantage on its attack rolls after using its Fey Step (Fey Step is a bonus action 30-ft teleport.)

Fiendish Spirit: Your options are Demon, which has a climb speed, explodes when it dies, and bites for necrotic damage, Devil, which can fly, gets devil's sight and can hurl flame from a distance, and Yugoloth, which can teleport after using its claw attack.

Shadow: Your options are Fury, which has advantage on attacks against frightened creatures, Fear, which can hide as a bonus action in dim light and darkness, and Despair, which reduces the speed of nearby beasts and humanoids other than the caster. (In addition to a cold-dealing melee attack, they also have a once-a-day AoE fear ability.

Undead: Your options are Ghostly, which can hover, has incorporeal movement, and its attack can cause the frightened condition, Putrid, which has an aura that can poison other creatures and an attack that can also poison and possibly paralyze targets, and Skeletal, which has a hard-hitting ranged spell attack.

Not only are these a lot of fantastic options to pick between, but their scalability makes them really attractive.

The general math for AC is 11 + the spell level. HP is generally ten times the spell level plus its Con modifier and your spellcasting ability modifier. And then each has multiattack, hitting a number of times equal to half the spell level rounded down.

So if we take the lowest-level of these spells, Summon Bestial Spirit, which is available to Druids and Rangers, and is a 2nd level spell, you get the following:

A 3rd level druid, using the standard array (and thanks to the new way racial ASIs are assigned, now pretty much guaranteed to have a +3 to wisdom) would be able to summon a creature with AC 13 and HP 26, with a single attack that has +6 to hit and deals 1d8+6 piercing damage.

While the AC's a bit low, you've pretty much got another party member right there.

Now, let's say you have an 8th level warlock, summoning an aberrant spirit. Again, with the standard array and assuming they've maxed out Charisma, you have a creature that has AC 15, HP 47, and two attacks with a +7 to hit, dealing 1d8+7 on each hit (if it's a beholderkin.)

We're talking about respectable damage for a player character to be doing, and these are just spells that last up to an hour (yes, they're concentration) and require you to buy special material components - but the components aren't consumed!

While I would caution players who use these spells to be sure that they have their attacks figured out ahead of time so that the game doesn't slow down profoundly, I think these could be really fun additions to your spellcasting repertoire.