Assessing the Summoning spells in Tasha's

That is of course true. But it still gives advantage on social checks to intimidate, calm down, persuade or even trick the creature(s). In a social interaction it perhaps seems funny to summon a Mirthful Fey before you talk to the Town Guard, but it might be worthwhile. Also if you used the Fey to fight someone and interrogate with the creature afterwards (assuming you need intormations and didn't kill the creature). Our group often reduces a creature to 0 HP with a meele attack and decide to not kill it but instead knock it stable an unconcious. Then feeding it a Goodberry after the fight and after a good "bound 'em up". Often times an at will Charm would be nice. The Friends Cantrip could do the trick, in this situation. But often times it is very costly to use... With your Mithfull Fey on the other hand you could go shopping and haggle with charmed Merchants or the like without them getting angry at you ^^ Also the Fey can try to charm the same creature round after round for an hour until the charmed condition sticks.

Bolduin

The important difference between charm monster and the charmed condition is that Charmed monster also makes the creature friendly to you, while the charmed condition does not - and it may still attack your allies.

Treantmonk's Temple

Hey Chris, now that i'm one of your Patreons, too, i can comment here :) I like your ranking videos and i always mostly agree with your rankings. But there is one Summon spel from Tasha's which doesn't get enough love from you in my opinion: It's Summon Fey. Why? First of all: It can speak a Language. And it understands all the Languages you speak. So it can be used to be a translator if you do find some Fey, ancient Elves or a Text written in Sylvan and noone in your party speaks it. Second: the benefits your get, when the Fey teleports are quite a bit more versatile in my opinion. The Fuming Fey can attack better and is in this regard similar to a more mobile Beast of the Land, okay, forget about it. The other 2 moods are more interesting: The Mirthfull Fey can save itself and you in combat from dangerous situations but it can also be used as a "Mass Charm Creature"-Spell. It has no restrictions on how often it can be used, what creatures can be affectet and how many creatures can be affectet at the same time (okay, technically 10, because one per round with a duration of 1 min). So you can charm one creature after another and even if those creatures are fighting against you, they don't get advantage on the roll (like with charm creature) and it's up to your DM if the creatures even realize they were charmed, because the spell doesn't say. They clearly don't get hostile by the rules as with the Firends cantrip. So this can come in handy for various social situations. The Tricksy Fey can create a Minor Illusion Portion of magical Darkness. On itself this isn't very strong... Unless you do have some Features that let you see in this magical darkness, like Devil Sight or Blindfighting. As a Warlock with Devil Sight at 5th Level and above Summon Fey uses the same Spell Slot as Darkness and both use your concentration. But Summon Fey lasts for 1 hour. And your Fey can run to your enemy, stab it and teleport back at your side to grant you Magical Darkness in your space. And it won't hinder your fellow Wizards with Line-of-Sight issues as much. Of course, the Fey can die... but if your enemies concentrate their effords on your summoned creature, it is always a win. So do i think Summon Fey should have gotten an orange rating? No, i don't. But aren't all of these benefits very situational? Most are. But Mass Charm Monster as a Level 3 Spell, when Charm Monster comes at Level 4 (concentrationless), isn't very situational, unless you're only dungeoneering and everyone you met is only wanting to kill you... And Lastly: This spell combines so many situational aspects, that it is versatile, imho :) Love, Felix aka dieinnerestimme (so that you know with whom your talking :) )

Bolduin

Nicely done

Greg Smith

Thanks! Yes, I assume the spell is supposed to read 40 + 15 hp per spell level above 4th

Treantmonk's Temple

Thank you for your thoughts- I was thinking about a Wildfire Druid after your previous review, and these Summoning spells play into that! Note that for the Summon Undead Ghostly form, if it ends its turn in a solid object, it doesn't just take the damage but gets ejected into the nearest unoccupied space, so it cannot hide from enemies that way. Also, do you think that the hit points for the Summoned Construct (4th level spell, hit points reference increases for spell level above 3rd) is a typo?

Awesome! Thanks for this. I think I value a couple of things a bit differently but you made me aware of a few things I'd missed in my original assessments. Always appreciated! :)

joseph Robideaux