Updates to the Tasha's Summon Spells in PHB 2024

 Generally speaking, most of the things that came with Tasha's Cauldron of Everything that got put in the new Player's Handbook remained largely unchanged.

That book introduced a number of "Summon" spells, which were designed pretty clearly to function as a replacement for the old "Conjure" spells, which had a tendency to gum up the board and leave players flipping through the Monster Manual for far too long in the middle of combat.

The PHB2024 made this all pretty official by redesigning most Conjuration spells to not even use a stat block anymore (though, notably, Necromancy spells like Animate Dead and Create Undead are basically the same, other than that they use the updated stat blocks... in theory. I guess technically in this brief window you could use 2014 Ghouls with 2024's Create Undead).

I've been a big fan of these summon spells and the way they function - each using a scaling stat block (and usually three variants for what kind of thing you want to summon).

However, while the way these spells work (and their costly material component) haven't changed in general, there are some subtle tweaks that I think are worth noting:

First, a note on damage types:

Generally speaking, I think the power of these summoned creatures varies primarily in the kind of damage type they do. A Summon Beast spell at level 6 is doing pretty comparable damage with a Summon Aberration, but the fact that it deals Piercing damage rather than Psychic (in the case of two of the Aberrant Spirit options) is potentially a big downside. We don't have the new Monster Manual and won't until next year, and so we don't know if most supernatural creatures will have resistance to "physical" damage (i.e., Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing).

What we have seen is that all references to attacks "counting as magical" in class features like a Monk's 6th level "Empowered Strikes" now instead let you change the damage to Force (or Radiant in the Circle of the Moon Druid's case, which is nearly as rarely resisted).

To me, this change suggests that we're probably going to see more creatures with a blanket "resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage," but whether that then means that a +1 Longsword will be doing Force damage now remains to be seen (that we'll at least find out sooner when the DMG comes out).

The point is: I suspect that Summoned creatures that do physical/kinetic damage will continue to be a little less powerful than those that can do other damage types - and that's why it's actually quite notable that some of them have gotten new damage types to deal.

So, let's go into what has changed.

Summon Aberration has had a tweak to the flavor of it.. The "Star Spawn" option for your Aberrant spirit has been replaced with "Mind Flayer," though they are functionally the same. Still, not that Star Spawn aren't formidable, but there's something pretty crazy about summoning an Ilithid to fight for you. My guess is that the Beholderkin will probably be your safest bet here, as it can fly and shoot ranged attacks, making it much more likely to survive combat. The Slaad option will be very resilient if it survives a fight, as its regeneration should continue outside of combat and effectively top itself off. (Though this is less appealing if casting the 1-minute duration version as a 14+ level Great Old One Warlock).

I can't recall for certain, but I believe the Clay Construct Spirit's Berserk Lashing reaction didn't use to allow them to move without provoking opportunity attacks upon getting hit with damage (it still lets them instead hit back, but you have a more survival-focused option as well). This spell is listed as Wizard-only, but I think we can easily carry it over for Artificers (I haven't checked if this will work on D&D Beyond).

Summon Draconic Spirit is now Summon Dragon, and joins the Tasha's spells after having been introduced in Fizban's. It is, however, Wizard-only now (I think the old version was also available to Druids and Sorcerers) but Draconic Sorcerers will get this as one of their subclass spells. As before, its breath attack will never do a ton of damage, but is a freebie on top of its primary attacks. This is one of the few Large sized summons, so you can ride it, but note that if you want to make use of its attacks, you'll need to have it as an "uncontrolled mount," meaning you'll have to do your full turn before taking advantage of its movement (though it will still be right after you in initiative).

Summon Elemental will, I think, be a much more attractive option. While the old version let Fire Elementals do fire damage on their hits, the other three types only did bludgeoning - the new version lets Air Elementals do Lightning, Water Elementals do Cold, and just Earth Elementals will do bludgeoning - so as long as you're not facing a powerful demon with resistance to all four of those, you should have some good options.

Summon Fey's Fey Spirit has a subtle change - the old version did 1d6 Force damage plus 1d6+3+the spell's level in Piercing damage. This meant that, against a piercing-resistant foe, the damage that even got boosted with upcasting was resisted. Now, the damage is pure Force damage, which is very unlikely to be resisted. On top of this, the Fey now has a Fly speed, though both its normal and fly speed are at 30, rather than its old 40-foot walking speed. Finally, the cube of darkness it creates with its Tricksy Fey Step option is now 10-feet on a side up from 5. Honestly, the change to all force damage is probably the thing that makes this version best - in all of 5E so far, only a handful of gem dragons and the Helmed Horror style of monster are immune to Force.

Summon Fiend's only change that I've noticed is that the Devil form's Hurl Flame is now Fiery Strike, which can be either a melee or ranged attack. I'd generally say that unless you're fighting something immune or resistant to Fire, the Devil version is probably your best bet, but the Demon's necrotic damage is also pretty good (and the Yugoloth is very mobile).

Finally, Summon Undead's Putrid option no longer requires multiple saving throw failures on the part of its targets to become paralyzed - its Rotting Claw attack will just paralyze a poisoned target that it hit, no save. Likewise, the Ghostly form's Deathly Touch automatically gives the Frightened Condition, no longer allowing for a save. I typically use the Skeletal form because of its ranged attacks, but cutting down on the target's ability to save out of things, I think that the melee versions are now really, really good (a 6th level Ghostly spirit pretty reliably frightening three creatures a round? Not too bad. The paralyzation from the Ghastly form is obviously amazing if it does go off).

Delves - a Game Changer

It remains to be seen if Blizzard makes good on its promise to make Delves an "evergreen" feature, which will carry on to future expansions.

For over a decade, they've sought to create some kind of more low-key version of dungeons. In Mists of Pandaria, they had Scenarios. In Legion, they had some solo content like the Withered Army Training. In Shadowlands, we had Torghast (something that players in the Beta and early in the expansion were ecstatic about and somehow it later became one of the many things people moaned about).

But they've also always kind of struggled with what they should reward for such things - for so long, the philosophy was that you couldn't allow players doing something on their own to get something as good as what you could get in organize play.

Raiding, of course, has long been the centerpiece of the WoW experience. And as I understand it, you'll still never be able to get better gear than you can find in Mythic Raids (unless Mythic + dungeons hit that level?)

But, remarkably, Delves will apparently allow you to get Hero-level (as in, Heroic raid-level) gear from them - something you can do solo.

Now, I've taken some characters into tier 7 and one tier 8 delve (which award Champion, or normal-raid-level gear) and while it certainly keeps you on your toes, it's doable - I even took my Mage in there.

As someone who doesn't really do organized raiding anymore (my guild kind of fell apart and I reserve my weekly gaming sessions for D&D) it's really exciting that there's something I ought to be able to do and get some serious gear out of.

Of course, what I wonder is what this will mean for things like LFR. Gear-wise, at this rate I'm going to be at least on-par with gear from the new raid before the last LFR wing is open. I'm still planning on running it to see the raid in all its glory, but I can imagine a world in which I run through it on my main once (well, probably the first couple wings a few times) and then wildly outgear it thanks to Delves.

The limiting factor, of course, here is the keys - you can only get so many keys for the Reinforced Chests each week, and there are also only so many bountiful delves per week (though I think the keys are the tighter limitation). But, also, with Delves and other world content now on the Great Vault, it's going to potentially mean gearing up that much faster.

I've only done a little Delving with a friend - I wonder to what extent when you get to big groups (potentially with a healer and a tank) that it starts to just feel like a dungeon. I'm also curious to see how many delves it takes to progress the seasonal storyline - with already a fair number of alts at the level cap (see the name of the blog) I was able to get past the first little node on the progress bar. But then, I have to remind myself it's literally the first week of the new season.

Monk Building in 2024

 While in previous RPGs, I was never terribly excited about Monk-style unarmed combatants, there's something I really like about the way that D&D's 5th Edition presents them. The 10th/50th anniversary update to the class has taken a fun but flawed class and turned it into an absolute beast - while I do some napkin math here and there, I'm not an optimizer and I'm not intending to tell you what you have to do to deal the absolute most damage with this class. The way I play, the "optimization" I do for a character is really just to help it better fulfill the fantasy of the character (this is part of the reason I don't really like multiclassing, as I think the vast majority of multiclass character are less about crafting an interesting story and more about just eking out some more damage per round - though there are exceptions to be sure).

That said, it is fun to be effective in the game. I know there are people who enjoy playing a character who is really bad at certain things (my Wizard, for example, with a -1 to Wisdom, is utterly naive and credulous) but in general, I think you're going to have more fun if your character is at least good at the things they're supposed to be good at.

Of course, your definition of "good" can vary greatly. Personally, I think that the game is balanced such that a character who just plays things straightforwardly, taking ability score improvements at each level rather than feats (yes, I know that ASIs technically are feats now) should do just fine as long as they're not, you know, a Wizard with a +1 to Strength trying to primarily attack with a +1 Sword because it's magic (unless they're using the new True Strike!)

So this is more about things to consider rather than hard and fast rules.

Backgrounds (and Origin Feats)

You are going to see a lot more Monks who live a life on the sea. Sailors were always popular for getting Athletics and Perception proficiencies (both common skill checks) but on top of this, the new version gives Strength, Dex, and Wisdom as its potential ability boosts, as well as the Tavern Brawler feature, which is particularly attractive to a class that uses a lot of Unarmed Strikes.

    I will note here that I'm very curious to see how the new DMG handles custom backgrounds. Frankly, I think that the new Backgrounds feel like a step back in the sense that it was so liberating when Tasha's Cauldron of Everything started letting us swap out, say, Charisma and Intelligence boosts on a Tiefling for other abilities. While this makes Background choice more meaningful, I also fear that we'll see the same classes taking the same backgrounds every time.

But how important is Tavern Brawler to a Monk, and what might we get instead?

The feat does the following:

First, you can use a d4 for damage instead of 1 for unarmed strike damage, adding your Strength to it. This is fully redundant for us, as our Martial Arts feature now starts us off with a d6 (going up to a d12 by tier 4) and lets us use Dexterity for both the damage and the save DC for the Grapple and Shove options.

Second, we can reroll 1s we roll on the dice for our unarmed strikes. How much does this get us?

On a d6, we go from 3.5 to 3.9. On a d8, we go from 4.5 to 4.9. On a d10, we go from 5.5 to 5.95, and on a d12, we go from 6.5 to 6.96. If we consider a typical no-FP-cost turn level 5 and up, we're talking a difference of 1.2-1.3 damage. That's pretty marginal.

We also get proficiency in Improvised Weapons - but these are not Simple Weapons or Martial Weapons with the Light Property (hey, did you know a Hand Crossbow is a Monk Weapon now?)

So we're at best 1 for 3 so far. However, the last part is pretty enticing: Once per turn, we can push a creature 5 feet when we damage them with an unarmed strike. Note that unlike a Shove, there's no saving throw against this and no size restriction - this can technically push the Tarrasque back if you hit that AC 25 (or whatever it is in the new Monster Manual).

    Does this mean you have to be a Sailor?

I'd say it's definitely appealing, but it's not the only viable Background. Charlatans, Criminals, Guides, Scribes, Soldiers, and Wayfarers all get Dexterity and either Wisdom or Constitution.

Of these, I'm always a little hesitant to get a Magic Initiate or other spell-granting feat on a class that doesn't have spell slots, as it's nice to be able to cast those spells more than once a day. Some of these grant the Alert and Skilled feats, which are both solid. I'm less impressed by the new version of Lucky - which is now proactive advantage rather than a reactive re-roll. Savage Attacker, which you get from Soldier, feels like possibly the least powerful Origin feat, but the math of figuring out the whole "roll twice and take the higher amount" is too complex for my sleepy brain.

Now - let's talk loadout.

Monks don't get Weapon Mastery, and with Martial Arts dice all now bumped up (and starting with a d6) you'll probably want to start off with a d8 weapon (Quarterstaff and Spear are both good ones - the latter is part of the Monk's new starting equipment. Note that as a heavy melee weapon, a Greatclub will impose disadvantage on attacks if you don't have a 13 in Strength or higher).

I'm hoping we'll see Wraps of Unarmed Mastery (which come in +1/+2/+3 variants and provide a bonus to the attack and damage rolls of your Unarmed Strikes), introduced in the Book of Many Things, added to the new DMG, but if they're not or your DM just forgets they exist, you might want to still fight with a weapon so you can have a +1 or otherwise magically boosted thing. However, I'm assuming the Wraps will be there, in which case you should be able to safely swap to pure Unarmed Strikes once you hit level 5.

If you want to squeeze one more attack in, you could potentially grab Weapon Mastery via a feat or a multiclass dip in order to grab a weapon with the Nick property. By tier 3, even a lowly dagger in the off hand will be hitting for 1d10. A fighter could get you a Nick weapon and a Vex weapon for your main hand, as well as the Two Weapon Fighting Style so that nick weapon is also adding your Dexterity modifier. But this will also delay your Monk progression (and, if you have a chance of hitting level 20 in your campaign, will prevent you from getting what is probably the best level 20 capstone feature for any class).

Now, one of the huge changes for Monks is actually a general change for Unarmed Strikes - where previously these were just hitting something with your fist, foot, or other part of your body and doing damage, now an Unarmed Strike covers both this option as well as Shoving and Grappling.

This means that our bonus action Unarmed Strike and Flurry of Blows can potentially have us do a ton of Grappling and Shoving (though we'll probably only be able to grapple at most two creatures at a time - a very lenient DM might allow a Plasmoid to grapple more).

For this reason, I think no class will be as attracted to the Grappler feat as the Monk will. Grappler both boosts either Dexterity or Strength by 1 (we'll obviously take Dexterity). Once a turn, it will allow us to both hit the target for damage with an unarmed strike and attempt a Grapple (remember that we use our Dexterity to set the DC, so at level 4, if we started off with a 17 in Dexterity and got it to 18 with the feat, we're looking at a DC 14). We also gain advantage on attacks if we're grappling a target. And finally, we aren't slowed down if we're dragging a grappled creature.

In our ideal scenario, even at level 4, we could grapple one creature with our Attack action and then a second creature with our Bonus Action unarmed strike (and one of these could also damage them if we hit) and then we could drag both of these creatures at our full, enhanced Monk speed. We could even jump off a ledge and then use Slow Fall to protect ourselves from falling damage while they both take the full force of it (though this leaves us without Deflect Attacks to protect us if they survive and want to take revenge).

But even if there aren't any convenient ledges, we're also going to be able to protect our allies by keeping foes away from them. And thanks to the quite excellent Deflect Attacks, we'll be much better at standing up on the front lines.

Now, there are other feats you might consider - Speedy, for example, can boost our Dexterity while increasing our movement speed by even more. But even though the new rules make feats a lot more attractive, I might still push for ASIs simply because Monks benefit so much from having high Dexterity and Wisdom (and Constitution, though no more than anyone else).

Thoughts on D&D Moving Forward

 With the PHB kinda-sorta out, I've been going nuts on D&D Beyond creating updated versions of characters I've played, and some brand-new characters as well.

Here are my general thoughts:

    First, some functionality on the site needs work - there's no way to designate a Pact Weapon, for example, so you don't get the weapon with its proper attack and damage stats (nor that you're proficient in it). Also, I re-created my very first D&D character and it puts all of his Patron spells as simply "at will." If that were the case, I'd very happily create an endless army of Aberrant Spirits at level 14, but I think my DM might have a problem with that.

    As it stands, D&D Beyond has a lot of things marked as "legacy." You can pick a legacy class or species or even spells, but so far, I don't see a button to just say "legacy character" or "legacy campaign," so, for example, even with the 2014 Warlock I made for a campaign while I'm out of town, the "unarmed strike" section of the action tab has the new version of it - and this was a copied version of an existing character I'd created prior to the changeover.

    On a more design-side of things: we desperately need either many more backgrounds or the ability to customize them. Right now, as it stands, every Monk is going to want to be a Sailor, as it's the only background that gives the Tavern Brawler origin feat, which enhances Unarmed Strikes (though one aspect of it is redundant, as it lets you use a d4 for unarmed strike damage, when a Monk already starts with a d6 now). I understand a desire to make Background a more meaningful mechanical choice, which it sure is now, but it also kind of funnels players into certain archetypes a little like the old method of tying ability scores to what is now called species did. To me, a Background should be mostly a flavor choice, but if these rules were in place when I made my Eldritch Knight back in the day, I'd be very hesitant to give him the Sage background because I'd be starting off with less than 16 in Strength.

Perhaps we could get similar backgrounds with slightly different bonuses, but at that point why not just make them fully customizable?

Indeed, in the playtest, backgrounds were presented as examples, with the primary intention being that most people would make a custom background.

    Planning a character out is going to be a more meticulous process now that feats are better - at the moment, I'm going feat-crazy because you can still max out your primary stat with them. For example, I made a version of my 12th level Monk (with some alterations) I played in Adventurer's League but he's got a lower AC now that he has slowed his advance to 20 Dexterity because he took the Grappler and Speedy feats (and I think Sentinel?) Still very worth it, because now he can grapple a target and run a full 65 feet with them (or 130 if he uses Step of the Wind,) and Monk survival I think is going to lean less on AC and more on negating attacks with Deflect Attacks.

    Also, feats are going to make characters a little more complex. For players who want to covert higher-level characters from existing campaigns, I suggest really taking your time familiarizing yourself with everything that has changed. It might be worth it to simply rebuild the character level-by-level.

Anticipating PHB 2024 Today

 Having ordered the whole digital/physical bundle (something I wish they could have involved my local game store in) and having a subscription to D&D Beyond, I am, apparently, going to have access to the new PHB in an hour and twenty minutes or so.

I've been following the development of the new core books very closely, so I'm not anticipating any huge surprises, but I have been thinking about what I want to do with it.

The first real question, of course, is whether the entire character-building system will be fully working after the site comes back from maintenance. If it isn't fully implemented, then I'll obviously have to wait.

But I think my plan is to start by reconstructing my three original D&D characters with the new system.

The first is a human Great Old One Warlock. This subclass got one of the biggest glow-ups of the revisions, which I'm very excited about. While the improved Pact of the Blade is certainly enticing (and I'm tempted to make another Warlock with that whole thing, possibly an Undead Warlock if I can extend the "Expanding Spell List" into the new "Patron Spells), this character actually has his Tome/Book of Shadows written into his backstory, so I'll definitely be sticking with that. I was so-so on Nobles getting the Skilled feat (if I recall correctly) but given that he's human, he'll get his pick of the other ones, so I'll need to think about which he should take (Tough is always appealing, if a bit boring).

The second is my Dragonborn Eldritch Knight fighter. Unlike the Warlock, I actually got to play him for a long time, getting him to level 12. While the changes to spellcasting have made Fireball-Action Surge-Fireball impossible (they've even killed Thunderwave-Action Surge-Thunderwave, sadly, even with the weird exemption where Fighters are casting spells as part of the attack action, though you can still Green-Flame Blade-Action Surge-Green-Flame Blade) I overall think the character will be much more powerful, especially as he'll be able to weave in Lightning breaths along with his attack cantrips and his normal attacks (here I'll be curious to see how easy it is to use spells from older non-PHB books, as GFB and Booming Blade are pretty core spells for an Eldritch Knight, with no real replacements in the new PHB).

Finally, I've got a character I also played up to level 12, but I'll probably be making a lot of adjustments. Initially conceived as a Wood Elf Shadow Monk (largely due to the fact that Wood Elves got bonuses to Dexterity and Wisdom in the 2014 PHB) it'll be hard not to take the Sailor background to get Tavern Brawler. This might have to actually be a new character, but I'm thinking a Monk, either Way of Mercy or Way of Shadow (while the new Elements Monk is cool, I'm still skeptical about having to spend an FP to engage their "battle-mode"). Obviously, I'm going to build this character to start with Tavern Brawler and pick up Grappler at 4th level. Now, I could go with my original "expanded" concept of making him an Air Genasi, but I'm now playing an Air Genasi Rogue in a Wild Beyond the Witchlight game, so I might try something else. Even if not going Drunken Master (the subclass of my original Monk) I could play that up and maybe be a Dwarf. Alternatively, I could be a big hulking Goliath (particular ancestry... honestly Hill makes a lot of sense, but I could imagine going with nearly all of them...) Hold on, if we make him a Cloud Goliath sky pirate? One who has gotten really good at grappling so he can throw foes off of airships? Yeah... this is kind of an amazing idea. And Way of Shadow works kind of for a Pirate/Ninja idea.

Anyway, I'll also want to just read the PHB cover to cover (so to speak).

I've been tentatively talking about allowing players to convert to the new rules, though I'll need to upgrade to a Master subscription and create a campaign so I can share it all. For the DMs in the two games I'm playing in, I haven't gotten official word, but I think both are probably enthusiastic to let us try (and the Witchlight game is only at level 2, so it's not like we're really set in our ways yet).

I am very excited to start my next campaign with these rules from the start. I have a sense that characters will just feel a little more capable at level 1 (which, to be fair, is better news for a bunch of experienced players like mine than someone just getting into the game).

Anyway, I've killed about 19 minutes writing this, so hopefully the site will be back up when it's scheduled to be.