Talk:Beast Conjurer (5e Class)

A decent summoner class is hard to make, right? I recently worked on some of the pseudo-summoner classes (only one monster companion), but even that was a hard job. I skimmed through the Beast Conjurer class, and here are some of suggestions I would like to make:

• Feature Spread. Typically, a full-level spellcaster gains a higher-level spell slots for a feature on odd levels, and other class features on even levels. Beast conjurers, however, somehow gets quite a lot of dead levels (no specific class features upon gaining level, other than Hit Dice). I think this could be improved.

• Spellcasting. No spell list, no preparing spells or spells known, only cantrips. If you have a spell slot, you've got to use them for something.

• Conjure Beast. Okay, I have quite a lot thing to say on this one.

a) Conjure point is nice and all, but the amount is a bit too much, perhaps? You start from the CR of 1/8 and scales up to 8, and you get to spend a tremendous amount of conjure points. From what I see, D&D resources do not rely on quantity: sorcerer's sorcery points and monk's ki are all 20 at maximum, and for most of the time they use one or two points for various effects. You may want to consult your DMG to see a variant rule concerning changing the spellcasting ability into point-based, rather than slot-based. That might help you. Besides, when do I regain all expended conjure points?

b) Challenge Rating (CR) stands for, say, a monster of CR n makes a decent fight against a party of four, each of the members at nth-level. Considering this, it may not be the best choice for player characters to summon up to, what, five? creatures of CR 8. That alone would devastate an entire country, if not a whole continent.

c) It says that "maintaining these [summoned] beast uses concentration." It also says that "you can conjure a maximum number of beasts equal to your Charisma modifier." This is a contradiction, see? Either that or when your concentration breaks, you lose all your summoned beasts.

• Font of Magic. First of all, I would like to tell you that I am a big fan of sorcerer. But that doesn't keep me from asking: Do you really need this feature here? From what I see, a beast conjurer's best weapon is the beasts he/she summons, not the spells. Also, it refers to sorcery point, yet another resources.

• Deeper Connection. You might want to consult the find familiar spell for better wording.

• Connection. You might want to specify that a bit more, because it is all too confusing and vague at current state.

• As Hard As Stone. D&D does not do "+15% hit point" calculation. Just no. Either you give them a hit point maximum bonus based on your beast conjurer level, your ability modifier, or additional Hit Dice. You do not calculate the 15 percents of your beasts' hit point maximum.

• Ultimate Monster / Ultimate Construct. The class name is beast conjurer, right? Now that I think of it, from what I read from the Conjure Beast feature, you can only summon beasts, right? Why summon monstrosity and construct?

There are more to it, but I'm about to sleep for now (it's just past midnight from where I am) and I think this would do. In short: Love the concept, but this class definitely needs some more works. --WeirdoWhoever (talk) 15:43, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Following this as well

Agreed on almost everything ! I like the idea of this class, cheers to who did it.

But to improve stuff :

Remove the sorcery points ?

The idea of a class is to be unique, yes? That means adding something new and not borrowing anything from anyone else (that's what Archetypes can be for in some cases as an alternative to multi-classing)

Spells vs Summons

I think we could keep spells, but maybe half or even quarter magic, no ?

Summoning beasts alone seems a bit fragile, or at least, too 1-trick and maybe not versatile enough for non-battle encounters.

The amount of summoning points seems okay if you're going half magic or less. True, 3 CR 8 creatures is pretty strong, but seems legit for a lvl20 character who basically only does that...