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This one feels pretty sparse on content.
I like the Tiefling subrace, but the Conjure spells will probably go unused. Flavorful with the risk of summoning fiends, but also pricey. Maybe useful for a DM that wants rules for how the villain's summons work, but most DMs probably have their own ideas there.
I like the conjure spells. We were just commenting last week on the lack of 'summon monster x' spells in 5E.
There are some friendlier options in Conjure Animals/Celestial/(Minor) Elemental/Fey/Woodland Beings.
Yea, after seeing these, I started working on their celestial equivalents. But since all the angels are high cr, I also have to make the celestial as well.
Do the spells as prevented here seem balanced to you, since I'll be using them as a basis for the other variations.
Yeah, this Arcana seems to be NPC fodder to me.
Do the spells as prevented here seem balanced to you, since I'll be using them as a basis for the other variations.
I wouldn't mind using them in my game, but the 'must kill an intelligent humanoid' thing is enough to make sure my players wouldn't get out of check - so balance isn't something I'm too stressed about.
I do think that granting the ability to summon monsters who can do stuff without using the summoner's actions is a change from 5E's basic approach. We were speculating that the reason they dropped 'summon monster 1,2,3...' was because of this issue (they already copped a lot of flak for the beastmaster ranger approach, I think it would have been worse if they tried to implement an "action-economy-appropriate summoner").
In this case, that's kind of mitigated by the fact that these summoned creatures are uncontrolled. Porting them over, I think I'd retain that aspect even if you were reflavoring them to be 'summon good guy' - you summon an ally but the summoner doesn't control them (they are NPC allies, controlled by the DM).
Having said that, I'll confess that I think the beastmaster approach is a good way to do it (all things considered) and that appears to be a minority view. People may balk at the thought of not retaining control of their summoned creatures.
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Action economy seems to go out the window with things like henchmen and hirelings, as well as other options such as the summons currently available. Uncontrolled summons seems like a really good way to go.
For rangers, I think that whatever new iteration of Ranger that integrates the companion as a base class feature and not an archetype (as mentioned in one of the recent survey results) will be interesting.
I think an "action economy expansion" class or archetype should be an option available to groups that are not overly concerned with different characters having different action economies.
Good to see some more free playtest stuff for 5e. :)