Swift Quiver is a touch-range spell that stands out among other powerful 5th level spells like Summon Draconic Spirit, Cone of Cold, and Wall of Stone. It is a high-level Ranger spell that allows players to use their favorite mousing weapon twice with a bonus action. This spell is considered superior for pure damage due to its ability to make two extra attacks.
The spell description is generally better at explaining the spell and its rules. Swift Quiver competes with other touch-range spells such as Summon Draconic Spirit, Cone of Cold, and Wall of Stone. It has a casting time of 1 bonus action and a range of touch. It consists of components V, S, and M (a quiver containing at least one piece of ammunition), and its duration is concentration up to 1.
Despite its niche nature, Swift Quiver stands as an example of what a half-caster spell should be, standing tall above most other spells around its level and majorly boosting the class it gains. It is not a substitute for other spells, but it stands as a great choice for those looking to enhance their character’s abilities.
In summary, Swift Quiver is a unique and powerful spell that stands out among other 5th level spells. It stands out for its unique abilities and can be considered a valuable addition to any character’s spellbook.
📹 SWIFT QUIVER | The Ranger Multiattack – Spell A Day D&D 5E +2
Alrighty day 323! Today is Swift Quiver. 42 more to go. Oh ranger. Let’s see how swift quiver has been twisted into ill use.
📹 Swift Quiver is a suboptimal trap that should be removed from D&D 5E!
This was a fun video to make actually lol, especially the Gator part. Form of Dread blog: https://formofdread.wordpress.com/ …
Poison ammunition is “non-magical” ammunition. So one arrow with extremely rare and expensive poison could be duplicated. Also, a non-magical adamant arrow could be duplicated. A blessed crossbow bolt for those things that are specifically vulnerable to that? Blessing isn’t magical. Cinematically speaking, it allows the caster to appear to have an utterly insane skill level instead of them using magic. In an area where open use of magic can backfire extremely, it has niche use.
Cool concept with weak execution: This spell gets overshadowed by the powerhouses of spells ranger get access to (pass without trace and conjure woodland beings for example). So usually its not worth it. Also the Dm is most likely never uses this as you can do way more cooler stuff than 2 extra attacks to buff the villain. Still this spell has great combopotential as a glyph spell (spell storing ring required), and as already pointed out poisons (which are not consumed by this spell). So I can see the 2/10 as it gives rangers more flexibility with their action economy. Have a nice day AEther
The only reason I could guess for why they made it work only for the caster is that it’s just meant to make the ranger do more cool stuff in combat for their own attacks. But it does fall flat because of the concentration and the ammunition being nonmagical, especially since rangers get access to the spell at *17th level*.
Double the rate of fire of a longbow; you’re matching a fighter of the same level (capstone tier) for rate of fire, at the low-low cost of sacrificing the thing that sets you aside from the fighter in the first place: most of your spells (because concentration): fighter’s making 3 attacks, you’re making 4, before 20th level when the fighter draws level with you again. Oh except the fighter’s not spending a bonus action to make 2 of their attacks, they just do it.
With Colossus Slayer (Hunter archetype 3rd level feature), those two extra attacks/turn can translate into some okayish extra damage. Although, the +1d8 (median +5) damage from Colossus Slayer would probably be overshadowed by simply using a magical bow… and being a 17th+ level Ranger… That said: in this spells defense, this spell effectively doubles the number of attacks a Ranger can make per turn. That should not be overlooked. A Bard casting this triples their number of ranged weapon attacks (which is… well… they’re a Bard). Still, that only counts for so much: as you point out, it is competing for concentration with some fairly potent contenders, such as Wrath of Nature. It also requires a bonus action to use, which prevents the use of Bonus Action spells like Ensnaring Strike or Lightning Arrow.
Ok this spell is only good when your DM let you make your own special non-magical ammunition, or give you special non-magical ammunition. Basically green arrow/ hawk-eye like ammunition. Also i wonder can you pass this ammunition to people. For other reasons . Still you would do better to take some levels of fighter or monk for more attacks
The worst Ranger Spell Ah yes, Infinite Ammo, IN A LEVEL WHERE YOU PROBABLY HAVE IT TO BEGIN WITH If i were to erata this Spell since its a endgame spell heres what i would make it No concentration Bonus Action Effect: For the next 3 Hours, all of your ranged weapon attack has a followup magical attack that does your normal weapon attack roll + wisdom and deal a extra wisdom + 5 damage, you can declare what the damage type will be for this attack except Slashing and Bludgeoning Feat such as Sharpshooter, Piercer(If you pick Piercing damage) and Crossbow Expert also work with this spell
This is so underwhelming. 1. If the ammo, bow or just attacks in not magical it should make them all magical 2. As part of casting this spell you should get to make the two attacks. That is just minimum of what it should do. My redesign? Keep the bonus action, range, components. Increase the duration. “On each of your turns until the spell ends, when you take the attack action to make an attack with a weapon that uses ammunition from the quiver the ammunition splits in two. Make separate attacks for each ammo shot.” and keep the “leaps to your hand.” Also allow the Ranger to touch any quiver and bestow this effect. Maybe add you WIS mod to chance to hit or damage?
Remember, this is a 5th level Ranger Spell. Ranger is a half caster so they’re learning to make 2 whole extra non-magical bow attacks when most casting classes are learning to throw stellar bodies at armies. Also to remember is this is Concentration and takes up a bonus action each time it’s effect is used so they can’t even combine this with Hunter’s Mark or other similar spells for stacking damage. Absolutely garbage, just like all Ranger specific spells.
This is fun for a magical secrets choice, and allows the ranger to match the fighter for a bit, if you play your cards right. Especially fun in consort with things like holy weapon, or other spells that increase a bows damage die. Unfortunately a fighter can do that all the time, but most fighters also don’t have spell casting. Honestly, this should be a minute long non concentration in my oppinion.
Conjure animals doesn’t slow down the game what so ever, its just “I attack” and then roll and just go by average damage. If you have a problem with controlling the animals then share control with the other players. For example each of the 4 players gets control of 4 animals. What is the DM going to say? No? Like peoples stances on conjure animals is so unreasonable. People don’t even try with this spell. Also I didn’t make this clear enough but the conclusion by reading swift quiver is its worse than hunters mark. Swift quiver is worse than a 1st level spell. I got twitter now! twitter.com/Pack_Tacticss
Okay but for real, I think the problem a lot of people have with Conjure Animals isn’t its power level or scaling but the real-time impact of adding 16 new creatures to the combat. Yes, there are digital rollers or you can take the average or just roll once and apply that roll to all of the creatures, but a lot of people will just automatically treat those 16 creatures as full individual turns. Anyone who thinks Conjure Animals is mechanically weak, even at higher levels, has some interesting ideas that I’d love to hear justified lol
I like your content, and you generally make very good points, however… this isn’t a article about Swift Quiver, this is just a rant about Conjure Animals. You should go over the damage output added by the spell, when compared to similar spell level options or concentration options for a ranger. For example, it’s competing with Hunter’s Mark for concentration, and it’s definitely a better use of concentration than that. Another thing no one touches on, is the fact that it replicates any non-magic ammo for the duration. Guess what’s cheap? A single Adamantine arrow (~50gp); which makes any hit against an object a critical; that makes your arrows a siege weapon with infinite ammo and potentially better ranged than an actual ballista; a niche use for sure, but a welcome one. Swift quiver is adding either x2 2d6/2d8 + x2 Ability mod and potentially Sharpshooter damage as well. 32-42/46 extra damage per round isn’t terrible, not counting other potential rider options like Bracers of Archery or magic weapons.
I think the choice to compare Swift Quiver to Conjure Animals was a mistake. Conjure Animals has … complexities … that most other spells in the game do not have. In addition to that complexity, Conjure Animals is also a substantial outlier in terms of potential return. A spell being worse than what Conjure Animals can potentially deliver is not a surprise and does not mean that the other spell is bad. I would instead compare to Wrath of Nature or one of the (possibly upcast) Summon spells.
People don’t not pick conjure animals because they think it’s bad, they don’t pick it because it’s a nightmare to resolve at the table. Setting them up on the grid, rolling initiative, then making 16 extra attacks every round takes an age. You also have 16 more sets of hit points to track and a potential 16 saving throws to make against a monster’s AOE attacks. Regardless of whether it’s numerically better than other spells, people don’t want to waste table time to cast it, because it’s an annoying faff that slows the game down for everyone. On VTT, it’s probably about manageable for some poeple, but at a physical table I wouldn’t blame a DM for just saying no outright to someone casting it, because it sounds like hell
TLDR: I don’t disagree mathematically that 16 wolves is great, even if its just help actions, but they have to *survive* to their turn in the initiative to actually be useful. Action economy is important but we’re also talking about a spell that is traditionally only cast at *17th* level. Something that really is skipped over in this article. Anyone who has actually played at 17th level knows that for Conjure Animals to be effective you’ll need to have specialized heavily to ensure they either a) deal damage or b) actually block off whatever encounter you’re fighting against. You can’t rely on standard CR calculators because anyone who actually DMs for 17th level PCs just looks at the party composition, ups the CR until its deadly, and then doubles it after maxing out the HP and everything. Even when you assume a Tier 4 campaign DM goes for something extremely tame, like an unmodified CR 20 for 3 level 17 PCs, the options for creatures of that CR are creatures like Pit Fiends or Nightwalkers which have resistances, or creatures with AOE options, like Pit Fiends (at-will fireball or the 3/day wall of fire to ensure it gets a few PCs first), Nightwalkers (average 14 damage for annihilating aura which will kill your average wolf or raptor), Drow Matron Mother (legendary action spirit guardians for your dogs are going to probably die before they reach her), and you know all the dragons (legendary action wing attack to kill all of the wolves with average 15 damage). The way that actual 17th level encounters goes is: *Roll Initiative* *Action cast Conjure Animals* -> Roll initiative for 16 creatures of CR 1/4 creatures that have less than 20 hit points.
The biggest problems are as follows: 1. You’re assuming the DM will be cooperative every time, when they are the wild card in this scenario. Sure, having a good DM will help, but if that isn’t the case, especially with a petty or vindicative one, you might just get 16 cats. 2. Stats. You mentioned how even if enemies are “immune to nonmagical attacks,” you can still grapple. Keep in mind these animals have very low ability scores, and the odds of landing a successful grapple are next to nonexistent. You get Conjure Animals at 9th level as a ranger, and 17th level is when you can upcast it. This means you’ll run into this problem a lot with the enemies you fight at that level. 3. Environment. Your points in this article rely on the situation where the battlefield is open-spaced and you have room to summon 16 animals. While this may be true in some environments, it will be much harder to pull off in either highly hazardous areas, small rooms, or tight corridors. I’d get extremely pissed if the ranger did this during a dungeon crawl. This leads to the fourth problem. 4. Space. Cast improperly, Conjure Animals can get in the way of your melee party members. Especially in the aforementioned tight spaces, your melee party members may not even get the chance to do the only thing they’re good at. While Swift Quiver may be a “bad” spell, it is a lot more user-friendly than Conjure Animals. You said this was gonna be one of your best articles, but frankly, I’m disappointed. EDIT: Fixed spelling/grammar mistakes.
I think you should potentially consider that this comparison takes place at 17th level. You are making assumptions on a combat flow one would expect in the early levels, wher eyou fight a bunch of melee mooks who hit once or twice. That’s not really how I expect most dms at 17th elvel would do. Like, goodbye to your sanity if you never started adjusting strategy as a dm before then. At 17th level casters, flying enemies and huge or larger enemies will be common. They all fundamentally nerf the power you are extolling. Casters can obliterate 11hp wolves with a single fireball, circle of death or spirit guardians. Carfeul placement can save some of them, for sure, but your damage potential just got gimped, and it didn’t even necessarily cost what they were going to do that turn anyway, since they might have intended to hit the party like that in the first place. Flying enemies are kind of self apparent. Youa re relying on your dm giving you animals that can fly, and it’s a matter of personal opinion and who your dm is if they’ll be so gracious. If you’ve been spamming conjure animals to ruin everyone’s evening every fight, then it might be unlikely. Huge enemies aren’t so much a direct counter as a negation of one of conjure animals’ major advantages. That is, medium creatures cannot grapple it, and cannot physically block it since by rules it can just walk over them. Add onto these things persistent damage auras, frightful presence, breath weapons… Conjure animals at this level has an amount of inconsistentcy, combined with an obnoxiousness in play, that can make it completely unappealing.
“Conjure animals is optimal but it isn’t fun.” Is to comments consensus here. But it doesn’t compare well to other spells either Now about lightning arrow plus sharp shooter’s absolutely unreasonable dpr? Conjure volley for groups of enemies. Summon elemental they also make 2 attacks, but it can last multiple fights, guardian of nature gives you advantage on all your attacks and con saves some hit points and works with CBE and works the then you cast it and best of all, discriminant difficult terrain, with a hand crossbow in hand, it’s not even a hit to dpr compared to 2 more arrows because you see the boon of advantage the turn that you cast it and it works with CBE on subsequent turns Few things out dpr conjure animals. Because conjure animals was a massive oversight of balance that we probably won’t see in 5.5. 8 cr 1/4 are simply way stronger than 1 cr 2. But many spells still out preform 2 arrows none the less even though rangers are few in the ways of high level spells. The exception to that is if you get a really REALLY powerful magical bow and still only care for dpr instead of anything else
I think the difference here is that swift quiver is a late game spell. In most games at that point you’re fighting enemies with resistance or even immunity to physical damage. At that point you probably have a magic bow, but your wolves’ attacks won’t be magical. Not only that, your enemy probably has an AOE that will destroy most wolves even if they use hit and run and spread tactics. Guardian of Nature might be a better spell though, unless you already have another party’s member taking care of the advantage for you.
I would like to say that first, the spell effects your quiver and non magical ammunition meaning a magic bow would still bestow benefits. Second the spell replaces the non magical piece of ammunition with a similar one so think oil filled arrowheads if your dm allows it, and they don’t vanish until the spell ends. Third while conjure animals does more damage, swift quiver works with distance. I personally get both because of different situations and depending on your dm long range may not be a major thing making conjure animals substantially better but always watch how your campaign goes when deciding on spells so you don’t grab a dead spell.
Seeing how the comments are going, it might have been better to make this two separate analyses rather than compare the spells to each other. Because Pack Tactics is 100% right on the DPR RAW comparison, but it’s invited a lot of complications over the different uses of the spells. Is conjure animals strong? Yes, to the degree many tables only consider it in nerfed or antagonistic forms. Is swift quiver weak? Yes, it of course still has its uses and it’s time to shine but that could be said of almost any. Would either of these spells last another revision of the game? Probably not.
Great vid, and good luck on exams (same happening for me and it is a stressful hell), but I kinda wanna play Gators Advocate for a second. As a ranger you don’t get anything to buff the summons like druid, so no magical attacks, pretty low hitpoints individually so their definitely susceptible to AoE from magic casters Grapple is definitely a good option to CC a bunch of creatures when they have damage resistance, but the summons could still die to AoE in on the next turn (this does apply friendly fire on whoever your swarming but fireball damage isn’t too bad against CR 17+ which is when all this shenanigans is happening) Not saying swift quiver is good btw, it’s a pretty garbage spell and I have been enlightened so thank you for that. but why not just use your 5th level slots for another Conjure woodland beings for more utility fey or Wrath of Nature for more permanent area control or just a big AoE spell if you’re against a bunch of smaller threats to kill them at once
Oh, totally agree, it sucks so bad. What makes me tense up is when I hear someone recommend Swift Quiver to a Bard for level 10 magical secrets (as a big YouTube website did). Oh yeah, what I fool I was taking wall of force, I could cast Swift Quiver! And of course it does something on the round you cast it, it steals your bonus action away! If you have Crossbow expert, it takes 3, that’s 3 rounds before you get a single extra shot.
I just want to confirm 3 points that I thing that are left out of this article. 1.- What happens to conjure animals if the enemy has high AC? I would assume higher AC has tremendous impact on its damage. 2.- what about magic weapons? Were they accounted in the calculations? At the level you get this spell you ain’t gonna use the bow you found at your local shop. 3.- how many animals can actually hit your target? I know for a fact that 4 arrows can hit most enemies but 16 animals might not even fit in a room, let alone be able to fit next to the creature you want to beat up.
At the end of the day I personally don’t mind the nitty gritty portion of D&D mechanics. But at the same time not everyone has the same mindset where their goal is to make an “op” character. The point of D&D is to tell a more narrative heavy story within the context of a TTRPG without removing combat. If adding 16 creatures defeats or ruins the story, it’s worth considering not only the level of experience a DM has for encounter creation and the issues that surround the spotlight around the table. Sure darkness devil sight warlock is optimal, but leaving your teammates in the dark isn’t fun.
I really do wish that the ranger got an actually good combat augmentation spell at 5th level like how paladin gets holy weapon. Conjure animals is good but even with all the actions they can take, they do melt from AOEs and generally have bonuses too low to be effective against big strong high ac targets (odds aren’t great on them successfully grappling, shoving, or even hitting an ancient dragon or greater demon/devil). It’s still the best option they have at the moment though and works great any time that you aren’t dealing with AOE effects or super powerful single targets.
Also the swift quiver math assumes non magical items? its a 17th lvl spell. if you still use a non magic or common/uncommon magic weapon something has gone terribly wrong this implys the strength of swift quiverr strongly depends on the weapon you have. not saying that makes it vetter then conjure animals. jsut saying thats a big overlooked part
I usually agree with you and I do about Swift Quiver but I don’t think that a few good options make Rangers good. Pass Without a Trace, Goodberry, Entangle, Conjure Animals are all great spells but remember that Ranger is a half caster with known instead of prepared spells. Due to them being a Half Caster, they get Conjure Animals at level 9, which most campaigns don’t get to. And the rest of the spells are limited due to the lower spell slots. “What about paladins and artificers?”, well Paladins and Artificers get more than their spells meaning they are fine without a lot of slots (they also prepare spells, which is a big plus). Without spells, Ranger is just a fighter with less tricks and on long adventuring days you could run out of spellslots. I think Ranger is mechanically weaker because of this. They can do a lot if you know what you are doing but that goes for any and all classes.
conjure animals is really strong, but it falls off really hard for non shepard druids, 2 main reasons, first is non magical resistance and immunity found on like 50% or more of all monsters past CR 8ish, and second is that a lot of high level encounters have atleast one aoe option, 16 wolves sounds great until you fight a demon who can fly… and use fireball to one shot all of them… and take half damage from all the summons etc. Summoning lower amounts of monsters also greatly reduces the damage output. Sheperd druids can stave this limitation off all the way through T3 play (Rangers only get the spell at level 9 when it’s alreaedy starting to drop slightly) the druids have 3 avantages, first is they can upcast it if they want, second is the magical attacks (effectively double damage against most high level monsters) and most importanty, between mighty summoner and the totem, the effective hp of the wolves is almost tripled, allowing them to survive the ever present aoe affects for atleast a round or 2. When I played a Sheperd druid at level 8-10, so the same level rangers get access to the spell, is over 50% of combats outside of minor encounters, the buffed hp prevented the spell from being instantly negated and so it was very powerful, and the DM didn’t even know what class I was gonna play before hand, this was just random effects going off, not targetted counters. TLDR: For rangers specifically, conjure animals is a great spell but really isn’t as powerful as the raw calculations make it out to be, there are a number of very common factors that hold the spell back at level 9+ even if the DM doesn’t try to screw you over.
Swift quiver is a great spell, if paired with a magical weapon, esp if its something better than just a straight +x magic weapon. It’s more reliable than conjure animals and fits more scenarios. I didn’t play as the ranger, but one was in the party in a high level campaign I played in. Conjure animals was only cast 3 or 4 times in a combat setting that campaign simply because there weren’t many great opportunities to use it. -Enclosed spaces would make it hard for the party’s melee people to get up to the enemies to make their own hits. I’m genuinely not sure if this was a homebrew ruling or not, but the way we played, you can move through one allied space as normal movement, but any more allied spaces further are difficult terrain. -Enemies fought often had AOE attacks that nullified it. In this specific campaign, a lot of enemies we fought were humanoid, not monstrous, and thus could counter the spell with a simple fireball, or other spell AOE attack. -Again bringing up the point of “DM chooses the monster!”. It may feel cheap if you do this and say the DM spawns 16 rats for you, yippee thats +0 to hit and 1 piercing damage on hit. Cheap stuff like that can happen, and a bad DM may do that. Personally our DM talked to the table and we agreed that they would just write a program which randomly generated (x) amount of creatures in the given CR range and spawned them. The way it was agreed, it worked out that spawning the creatures of 1/4 or lower would punish you because you would randomly draw from the pool of 1/4, 1/2, and 0 CR beasts.
I think this comes down to what I consider the larger issue of the ranger and the player base, a smaller scale version of the same issue can be found with the eldritch knight fighter. Which is that what is optimal doesn’t necessarily line up with the minds eye fantasy of the class for many folk, and while flavor may be free most of the time, many don’t find reflavoring to achieve the same satisfaction as a mechanical backing of the ability. Hunters mark gives a very huntery feel to the ranger. Marking a target and doing better against them. It’s poor action economy, but it simulates a lot of ranger fantasy is what it’s trying to do. The same can be said for swift quiver and archery fantasy. It lets you rapid fire that bow and pew pew and that FEELS cool despite not being worth the investment overall. Conjure animals on the other hand definitely feels more druidy than rangery for some folk and as a result doesn’t play into what many hold as the ranger fantasy and so the feel is overtaking the real because Ivan really looked forward to using the sharpshooter feat, and by golly he’s gonna use it. Ranger was never really bad numbers wise, but to be effective with ranger means adopting a particular play style that didn’t always mesh with a players fantasy of the class, which resulted in dissatisfaction from putting a square peg in a round hole. As I said earlier you see the same thing to a lesser point with eldritch knight. Can b quite effective if you adopt a particular play style.
My DM specifically limits it so you can’t take a bunch of low CR animals and do this. It’s OP and it clogs up game play. That said, when I used to play a wizard, I would cast Animate Objects on 20 silver coins, and I specifically got a set of 20d20s and 20d4s that I kept for that spell alone, and it made things much faster.
Swift quiver is a great fantasy that just doesn’t deliver. For a spell that is only for rangers, it could do with being stronger. So, Pack Tactics. If you could buff Swift quiver, how would you do so? Reduce to 4th level? Cause the ammo to become magical with a +1? Three attacks? Free action to cast? Ignore cover? Lasts an hour? No concentration so it works with hunter’s mark? Double range?
A weird thought I had, but wouldn’t conjure animals be an amazing screen for your enemies? Your melee attackers are now unable to enter combat due to all nearby spaces being taken up by the animals, your ranged attackers will have more difficulty hitting due to the animals providing cover, and your AOE attacks will lose effectiveness as they make it less likely for the enemy to bunch up (as they’re all busy dealing with their own animals).
I think one of the big problems of Swift Quiver is that it’s a 5th level spell, you can, as a ranger, get it earliest at 17th level. The Interesting thing about swift quiver is it’s range is touch, so you can cast it on a party member’s quiver, so as a lore bard with magical secrets, you could potentially give this spell to another person at 6th level, like the ranger who won’t even have it as an option until the end of the campaign, or you can flex on them and use it yourself.
On the other hand, does anyone want to be at the table with a player who constantly runs conjure animals and spends all combat making a billion attack rolls? Unless I knew I was seconds from combat and could get a free/ surprise round to bring up the quiver, it would never be worth using a 5th level spell for something that doesn’t activate until round 2. But yeah, as far as 5th level spells, if I’m not trying to infuriate the DM or be a combat diva, there’s still great options that while probably inferior, are way less clunky than animals, but more interesting than quiver… The two I’m referring to are the very underrated Wrath of Nature, or the two-way tie between Conjure Barrage & Steelwind Strike. The latter while slightly lower in damage output per target, has some interesting utility that’s excellent for melee characters while the other is a great crowd killer, especially to balance out any ranger that perhaps went hunter and chose giant killer/colossus slayer instead of horde breaker.
At my table, if someone picks conjure animals then I need to make them aware right off the bat that they need to know how to use mob combat rules(if they’re summoning more than four), since any other method of running them just slows shit down. And yes, this is an indirect response to your pinned comment. A case could be made for quiver in specific scenarios outside of character creation. If a player has extra damage that applies to the weapon(eg grung racial, magic item effects) then it applies on all four of their attacks. This probably won’t put it above conjure animals but might put it above hunter’s mark or other competing spells(Haven’t number crunched). Op magic items are likely to be doled out at the level you get 5th level spells, so it’s worth considering at least. Problem with this is that it’s hard to say what sort of extra damage a weapon needs before it starts being comparable(and whether specific items, like poison, are available) There’s also a scenario where quiver outdamages animals, that’s if something has non-magical damage immunity(assuming the weapon is magical), since the animal’s damage at the point would be 0(or maybe higher if the gm allows venom to hit through a non-magical immune attack(and they aren’t immune to poison)) There is one last case for quiver: Flavour, if you want to be the man what shoot stuff instead of the man what summons a horde of velociraptors then this is the spell to choose. And if the gm is balancing encounters with the party in mind(so, if they’re good at encounter building basically).
Ah, there’s that meme again. Hi from Reddit Kobold. In response to the magic resistance point. If you’ve got the party composition then work with your paladin / bard / war cleric to cast Crusader’s Mantle. Make all your wolves into Amaterasu. Up to an extra 16d4 per round radiant. Also, everything past lvl 15 in ranger is mostly wank. Multiclass to a full spellcaster and get a 7th level slot. Flood the world with wolves.
Correct Conjure animals is good Good but bloody boring 16 animals? That’s 16 more things you’re adding to initiative which yes You can just say “I attack” but you also need to move and everything Sure it’d fun as a player because there’s more things you can do, but God from an outsider’s perspective, it just means it’s longer to wait til other people’s turns Hell can sometimes completely invalidate them because by the time their turn comes around, they don’t get to do anything. DnD is a multi-player game, and if you’re bogging down the fun for everyone else, nobody is going to like you. Though I wouldn’t take swift quiver either
I think the main thing with conjure animals is that it doesn’t scale not because of bad spell mechanics but because of DM choice. If you want 16 animals, you can have 16 animals but I’m probably not going to give you 16 wolves. You might be able to drop enough bats to make the sky black or a ton of cats, but if you’re going for bodies, you’re not going to get the most combat optimal choice. If you cast it and are looking for CR 1 or 2 creatures, then I won’t drop below the CR you selected but to me as a DM, conjure animals for the most number of bodies isn’t fun in combat so I would rather give weak animals that might be a great distraction instead. There’s too much flanking, pack tactics, map space, hp tracking, and tokens to be divided up so it instead creates a wall of basically allied minions if you select the lowest CR. Maybe this is just how I and some of my friends have run this but it keeps it so that the lots of animals are more utility, and high CR animals are actual combat creatures. It also feels more in line with intended conjure/summon mechanics of actual higher level spells where you get 1 strong ally instead of lots of little ones. I will not rule that a 3rd level summon spell is better than summon fiend or celestial just because there are a few summon choices that are much stronger than intended.
The problem with petting zoo building is the DM gets really tired of it very quickly especially using VTT systems, you start running into a lot more AoE attacks that do about 16 damage on average. not to say they always will but clogging up action economy will cause a response from a lot of DMs to fix the economy. and the easiest way is AoE if not. mass battle time. or, flying enemies. edit: I’m saying this out of experience. the moment I had a pack of wolves mulched by a single AoE that instant downed them, there was about a 1:3 chance something like that would always be present in any encounter I had. best use for summoning the petting zoo is to do it rarely and know what your doing when you do to reduce the amount of backlash you take from it.
The issue I really have with Conjure Animals is that it slows the game down substantially. There’s a few ways to get around it, but having to maneuver potentially 18 different entities (if you include yourself and a possible animal companion) around a battlemap takes a lot of time, not to mention attack and damage rolls for each individual animal. You can get around some of this by using average damage and the mob combat rules found in the DMG, of course, and I think it’s pretty important that you do so to keep the game moving… but really that’s up to your DM. Overall though, I absolutely think that Swift Quiver probably belongs at 2nd level, as it’s quite comparable to Melf’s Minute meteors but without the nice features like half damage on a failed save or being able to use the effect of the spell the turn you cast it on…. and Minute Meteors is a spell i would call okay at best, with it’s biggest advantage being that it has a 10 minute duration so you can pre-cast it, but I would refrain from upcasting it as it only lets you get more meteors without actually increasing the damage. (Edit: got rid of a lengthy house rule dump and just suggested the mob combat rules, easier to suggest and do)
Dude…. 16 animal to me is the definition of MinMax character despite of the health & sanity of the table or GM. Is like the meele characters who pick darkness e Devil Sight. Or the caster who picks only area damage. Example 5 players vs 6 enemy. Lets say 2 attacks each, that is around 22 dices rolled per round not counting the time moving around, getting in flank position etc…. This increase 16. This isr 38 on average plus the board will bee stuffer with tokens. Even if you share the turn with you friends, this completely shut down aoe. Shut down proper flanking strategy & the big majority of the 16 attack of the animals are probably weaker & gonna niss a lot. If you ask me if 16 animals worth the spell slot, I would say that if you are not battling magic damage only enemy, definitely. But if you ask me if you should do it… I would say no. This is an OP strategy. Your teammates will end up building characters to deal with this strategy, not to create their own. Is like you hijacked the whole table to do your own thing. Just like the meele darkness characters, or the 100% time aoe casters.
The only problem is that if it’s any creature with immunity to non-magical damage, Conjure Animals is next to worthless, unless the creature’s can grapple the enemy, which could be useful still. But even still, without resistances or immunities, something like an adult dragon can wipe the animals in one turn if they have a cone breath. Conjure Animals is still a great spell though.
How often will you have space for 16 creatures to all attack, and actually have enough movement to get through the difficult terrain of walking through allies. Sure, the theoretical DPR of conjure animals is much better, any you get battlefield control, but I’d argue it’s less reliable then other dpr or aoe control spells. Higher efficiency cap, but far less likely to achieve that cap in game.
this makes a lot of sense, I once tried a high level ranger for a one shot. this was when I just started playing and didnt know any optimized builds. but still then I realized i could’ve gotten more with my 5th-level slot by casting conjure animals then swift quiver. my reasoning was that it brings more creature and health in my side making it easier the creature block an enemy (forgot i could’ve grappled) while the rest of my party perform ranged attacks from our end. after this I just love conjure animals in general and love the ranger by proxy
There are rules out there on how to handle hordes of enemies as a DM. Maybe players who use conjure animals should give em a read. You know…do your homework as a player…so that it wont slow down the table. You can also use digital dice! Does DM need to roll 14 strength checks against grapples? Don’t roll them 1 by 1, make him roll 14d20’s, then he can mentally check those numbers to see where he fails and where he succeeds, it’s not that hard. It takes seconds to do.
Swift quiver is useful for high-level rangers with the sharpshooter feat if you can still hit your targets reliably despite the penalty, but it’s only slightly better than taking crossbow expert and using a hand crossbow and considerably worse than just going straight fighter considering the damn thing requires concentration and a 5th level spell. Conjure animals is just a great spell in general. Anyone who still wants to play a sharpshooter ranger should grab guardian of nature (tree spirit) and crossbow expert for the bonus action attack.
I know everyone is piling on about Conjure Animals (everything that can be said has been, so I won’t) but I DO agree Swift Quiver is awful. I prefer Wrath of Nature, personally. 60 ft cube of difficult terrain for only enemies, every turn Dex saves v slashing (no action), Strength save v restraint for one creature a turn (no action), and a bonus action rock throw, with a chance to prone. Even if you don’t have trees for the slashing nearby (and your DM doesn’t let you substitute other forms of nature for that damage), 60 ft of one-way difficult terrain, especially with another party member dropping additional control options, can leave enemies stranded or slogging towards the exit as you hammer them with ranged attacks, or even just run in and stab them (you don’t suffer the effects of the terrain). Swift Quiver is a trap, and yeah, there are builds that can abuse it, but so what? There are builds that abuse all kinds of features, so why does SQ get a pass despite otherwise being lackluster for its spellslot.
You can choose where the animals are summoned as long as the location is unoccupied and within 60ft of you. So even if you don’t expect any of your creatures to survive a turn, as a 3rd level spell you can completely box in 2 enemies by summoning an animal on every space adjacent to them. 4 enemies if you do the upcasted version. This might prevent enemies from using AoE spells to remove them because of the friendly fire, or just CAUSE that friendly fire. If the enemy doesn’t have reliable AoE removal, you can treat the animals as a wall that moves and rebuilds itself on their turn. Cut the battlefield in half by forcing enemies to cut through the summons or move around or over them entirely. If you don’t want enemy spell casters or ranged attackers to be able to retreat and get some distance, 8 creatures can simply stand in a line behind them or just completely jam a bottleneck like a doorway or something. You can enable rogues to have their sneak attack on any enemy by having a summon stand adjacent to each enemy if necessary. Also, apart from the giant pile of attack rolls these animals can make along with grapples or shoves or what have you, they also have an array of opportunity attacks to threaten enemies with.
It’s funny because I’ve argued this before, con jure animals is actually the trap when compared to Swift quiver and I can explain. In theory 16 additional animals sounds great, in practicality it suffers depending on the situation. Remember in this situation the ranger is at least level 17. At 17th level a (I’m just doing quick averages in my head bagged off prior information so it’s not the most accurate) +4 to attack and averaging 10 damage to creatures who at this point should be having an AC of at least 15 and hit points around 70 it’s not cutting it( compsre with a ranger who should normally have a +2 bow by now. Even if they don’t simply, taking sharpshooter with this spell is cranking out the same if not more damage if at least 3 hit.) They aren’t going to crank out the damage let alone hitting enough to make it viable. Let’s not forget that they all aren’t making attacks on their first round, unless your dm is FLOODING you with enemies. Even in the example you show with your map, where are your enemies? Where are your allies? If you have all of your beast fight and there isn’t at least 5 other enemies your melee teammates (who should have a better ac and hit to damage) are effectively iced out for your spell to do your “calculated damage”. ALSO, they are dying in one or two rounds of being summoned because their AC and HP are TRASH at this level. This only gets worse when using this against a BBEG because they’re normally chucking out AOEs. But again it does have a purpose.
Swift Quiver can be good; IF, and ONLY IF; you have an amazing magical weapon that does crazy stuff As a DM, I love giving out busted magic items for the fun of it. (But don’t like giving flat bonuses to hit/damage, since thats boring IMO) But for the most part….Just say no to Swift Quiver. There is almost always something better to use your concentration on
Conjure Animals was once used by one of my players to 1v1 someone twice his level (I intended it for the guy to be a boss fight for the party but he did it on his own _despite being banished to another dimension because the sheer number of attacks made it impossible for the boss to keep up with_) It was the biggest stomp I ever saw
Mass conjuration spells, in general, all suffer from the same problem – more things on the board means each individual round takes longer. Sure you do more DPR meaning combat lasts fewer rounds, but each PC gets less action time the more things are on the board. Let’s say its a party of 4 PCs, the DM has 6 mobs for them to fight – that’s 10 total meaning it’d be 9 turns before an individual PC gets to go again, add a conjuration spell like conjure woodland beings and that’s now 26 mobs on the board or 25 turns before the PC gets to go again. Sure, they can be handed out to other PCs to control which might make it slightly more bearable for everyone else, but some people would find controlling 4 wolves is less enjoyable than deciding which spell their PC is going to cast or which abilities they’ll use. Sure you can say, they can just “dodge” and the “wall of flesh” response, what’s the point? Then it’s a discount wall of force, web, entangle, and so on. If that’s the purpose of casting it, there are better options for that type of effect. The basic problem is in essence captured by tv show “That Mitchell and Webb look” with the skit “BMX bandit and Angel Summoner” sure it’s effective to summon thousands of angels to kill all the bad guys, but is that really that much fun for everyone else to sit back and watch the summoned minions wipe everyone out and not get to play their character? Different tables mileage may vary, but I know I’d get bored shitless perusal 16 wolves munch enemies (even if I get to control 4).
I’m not such a great fan of crossbow expert: it locks you into a single weapon, one that is absolutely unlikely to come across unless the DM puts it there for you to find. Can you guarantee you’ll find a magical hand crossbow at all in a campaign? What do you do if you find an amazing bow? Of course many DM will take note of the weapon you like to use and let you find a good one, but many other will just roll with whatever the adventure is listing.
I totally agree with other comments here: the really bad spell here is conjure animals (like all the conjure/evocation /animate dead spells before Tasha). Those spells break the game’ action economy, the fights are a mess, your pg overshadows other pgs and the only thing you accomplish is irritating the DM. You are correct saying there is too much hype and talks about Hunter’s Mark and Swift Quiver, where Pass without a Trace is vastly superior, but the reason is that you can use those spells to create builds and improve other classes while there isn’t so much to say about Pass w/o Trace and Goodberry, you cast them and you are good.
This really feels like clickbait, spells are nothing alike and the argument doesn’t even really hold much weight from a DPR perspective. Going by the CA & Blog tables; Swift Quiver is coming out ahead when against a singular 18AC (w/ +5 on saves) monster against the average 8 animals from CA, assuming at minimum 4 rounds of combat. Allowing for 16 animals (same spell slot level), CA destroys SQ – but the environment really dictates if this is possible. This isn’t taking into consideration potential resistances, flight, etc… as many have mentioned, and also excludes the fact that CA is an action and not a BA like Swift Quiver, so you’re missing out on your initial attack action. That doesn’t excuse the massive benefit you get out of having a giant meat shield in front of you though, or the fact that CA is nuts in both larger areas and against multiple enemies. CA’s flexibility (lvl 3 spell slot, meat shields, shove/prone/etc…) make it undeniably more useful, but having Swift Quiver available to you is not a bad thing – and definitely doesn’t warrant being removed (albeit should likely be reworked to a level 2-3 spell slot, potentially with upcasting for more attacks). I will say that a DPR comparison with Hunter’s Mark makes a bit more sense. Would be curious to crunch the numbers to see when SQ catches HM w/ and w/o CE, and with a variety of ranged weapons. TLDR; for the most part CA > SQ, but a bad comparison & doesn’t really account for fights in D&D being environment dependent.
Conjure animal is super useful when you partner with your rogue because as long as “allies” are atleast 5ft from the enemy, they can sneak attack every turn. I play rogue and have the druid or ranger conjure animal so I can hit the enemy from a far with my hand crossbow. That’s 1d6+dex damage plus sneak attack; your rogue becomes a cannon.
How does Conjure Animals being good make Swift Quiver bad? They’re different level spells and they do wildly different things. It’s like saying Fireball is bad because Hold Monster exists. Also there’s no reason to not take Crossbow Expert with Swift Quiver. Just bring a hand crossbow for when you don’t feel like using the spell, and a Heavy crossbow for when you do; four d10 attacks makes you basically a fighter for a minute, along with allowing you to use your entire action on something else (like a non-concentration spell) and then swill make TWO weapon attacks with your bonus action. That’s insane!
As a Dm i have no problem controlling and adjucating for mob combat, that’s what macros are for. On a real life table rolling dozens of extra dices per round ? Yeah that shit gets much weirder. Most players and DMs are just not ready for spells like conjure animals. Playing them on roll 20 with initiative tracks and instantaneous macro attacks is one thing, doing it irl is clearly a mess
The problem with Conjure Animals isn’t that it’s bad, it’s too powerful to the point of being a trap as well. Think about it, why concentrate on any other spell when you can butcher the action economy by conjuring a bunch of velociraptors, why be a fighter when a single spell does more damage than any of the martial classes? The biggest problem with this article is that you got it all backwards. It is true that Swift Quiver and Hunter’s Mark are suboptimal, but instead of offering homebrew solutions that would give people a reason to use them because they now could be optimal in certain encounters, you instead go “nah, get rid of those spells and just use Conjure Animals, trust me you’ll break every combat encounter and your DM will hate you for it.” Tl:Dr fuck Conjure Animals, and Goodberry and Entangle as well, those spells either need to be nerfed or just banned out of existence. Also, good luck with your exam.
“Are you afraid, Mr. DM?” YES! I AM VERY AFRAID. MY DRUID ONLY SUMMONS WOLVES AND SHE EATS EVERYTHING AND I CAN’T STOP HERE HELP ME Jokes aside, Conjure Animals is fantastic. Source- My pain. We agreed on the animals that would be summoned before hand, and we have them act on the end of the Druid’s turn same as, say, Tascha’s Summon Beast. Since we picked up Foundry VTT it’s been a lot faster when the player can just click the “bite” button 8 times.
In defense of Swift Quiver: a Short rebuttal Making the comparison between conjure animals and Swift Quiver isn’t really fair. Like others have said before me, conjure animals is a very unique spell with a lot of different things to consider. Whereas Swift Quiver, even if its “suboptimal” as the article is saying is still a pretty good spell. And personally one of my favorites. One issue with conjure animals is the real time problem of adding 16 more turns every round. Thats just not fun. For you having to roll a ton of D20s for different things your animals are doing. And especially for the other players who have to wait for you to finish. I’d much rather turn my bow into a machine gun than slow the pace of the session and take away a lot of fun from my other party members. So while Conjure animals is indisputably a better spell. Its terrible because of how little enjoyment it brings to the game. Sometimes the simple things like Having a Pew Pew machine gun bow is more fun while still being powerful whereas conjure animals is just gonna take up your time and give your DM migraines trying to work around you. Its just not a fun spell while swift quiver is. Thanks for reading this
I play a rat-themed shepherd druid and use conjure animals regularly on the big encounters. Managing 16+ giant rats with pack tactics, even against a small amount of creatures and use of macros gets really tiresome, effective though the spell may be. Stopping everything to roll 32 attack rolls per round is not necessarily table friendly.
Math in this article don’t add up and that’s weird since usually a very precise math is one of your strong points SQ almost add another ranger to the fight, we are talking of a level 17 fight, most weapon here are magic weapon and you make those attack with at least a +11 to hit (and that without arcery) and usually since at this level any monster has an AC around 18/19 you will hit around 70/65% of the times so in a 6 round fight (i admit a long one but not too hard to reach in a boss fight or anyway in the hardest fight of the day) hitting 7 more times with a magic weapon means about 67 hit point at a 13 hp/round and if your magic weapon has any buff you apply them 7 more times and if your ally buff you in any way you apply 7 more times, moreover many ranger hardly use their bonus action in a reliable way, the only real loss is that you have to use your concentration I was also going to list why conjure animals has also many bad points but many in the comment already did ( For Faerghus! has one the best list) so I will only add that Conjure Animals give you summons that usually have a +3/+4 to hit and almost half of them rely on DEX makking them useless grappler
I think everyone is in agreement that conjure animals is objectively the better spell. But it’s about time efficiency for me. Best case scenario, you have a VTT that rolls all 16 attacks for you. You still have to sort through which ones hit, move them around the battlefield, and then roll the damage again. I’ve been in games where summoning creatures is prevalent, and all the extra time adds up. The other players sit around and have to wait for you to finish playing an RTS game so they can get back to playing dungeons and dragons. Even if you hand the animals to the other players to control, not everyone will like that, nor want to participate. Just because something is optimal and best, doesn’t mean it’s fun. Saying it doesn’t slow down the game is just blatantly ignorant.
Ok dude, I normally don’t make a big fuss about your optimal vs suboptimal articles, but today your title is a bit extreme. Just because something is suboptimal doesn’t mean it should be removed from the game. IT’S A GAME, and people play it to have FUN. If they find a suboptimal thing more fun than the optimal counterpart, they deserve to be able to use the suboptimal thing if they want. Cutting out variety just for the sake of maximizing numbers is not good game design.
The problem is that if you want all that makes a Ranger good, you should play a Druid. When all that makes it good is in the spells, and most of those are also Druid spells, a problem soon becomes apparent. Yeah there’s extra attack & Archery fighting style, but there’s also, idk, playing a fighter, or casting a powerful spell each turn.
Have fun dealing no damage against any creature immune to nonmagical bps with those 16 animals. Sure you get a bunch of meatshields, but they won’t do much against a lot of creatures. In addition, not only do you have to do all the rolls for all of the animals, you have to do all the rolls AGAINST the animals as well. Every attack, every saving throw, etc. I’ve used it and it can be effective when it is, but a lot of the time it won’t be that effective. In my groups we always have the animals share player initiative and the like, so that’s not that much of a problem, but it adds a lot of unnecessary slog for something that could be accomplished in plenty of other ways. Same with the arguably much better spell animate objects. Poison some daggers and then animate them and suddenly you’ve got a lethal fighting force… That’s resisted or immune by a very large amount of monsters in the game.
100% agree with Kobold here. I’m an optimized player at a slightly less optimized table, I’ve done multiple attack rolls in one turn on different occasions. Even 10+ or so attacks/turn on higher level campaigns. Conjure Animals doesn’t slow the game down all too much. Roll attacks, see what hits, roll damage, apply damage. Any high enough level character gets multiple rolls. Conjure Animals slows the game just as much as a fireball spell against multiple opponents (with multiple/different saving throw bonuses) would. Sure, it’s not something new players/dms would find easy, but this is a high enough level spell that both players/dms should be kinda experienced at running the game at this point. Swift Quiver is trash as a spell, and I’ve ever only used it once (as a flex against a new DM), and Conjure Animals is a far better option. As for CA being overpowered/slow, you can take ave damage and multiply by number of attacks that hit. It’s not that difficult, and hardly takes 2 minutes a turn. A player that “thinks” of their move only on their turn takes way longer. Trust me, I’ve been both the player and DM in tier 4 games. Conjure Animals doesn’t slow down the game as much as one would think, and Swift Quiver is absolute garbage.
Conjure Animals is susceptible to AoE, but then I’m sure you know that. It’s not a spell that solves every situation, so there may be times when you would want to use something else. Something like a self-buff sounds like a good alternative, but you’re right that Swift Quiver does seem a bit on the weak side for the spell’s level. Swift Quiver isn’t a lost cause, though; it could probably be fixed by allowing the BA attacks on the same turn you cast the spell, and by either dropping the spell’s level or by removing the concentration requirement (maybe both). Let’s not forget that two attacks as a BA is something monks can do as early as 2nd level, so Swift Quiver as, say, a 2nd or 3rd level spell might be more appropriate. Alternatively, Swift Quiver could simply let you make one additional attacks as part of the Attack action. That way, casting it as a BA still lets you use it on the same turn you cast it without needing special permission to do so. It also makes it compatible with other BA stuff, like Crossbow Expert. If it’s only one additional attack, though, the level should definitely be dropped.
Just because there is an overpowered spell on the same list doesn’t make all other spells of that level bad. This is just arguing in bad faith. Should we just remove all other 5th level spells from the list so that people cannot make a suboptimal choice? Of course not. This would have been a better article if it covered comparison to other 5th level spells that are not the obvious choice. (it is like saying all 3rd level spells other than fireball are bad because you should just use fireball, this is a tiresome argument)
But the Argument Spell X is bad because Spell Y exists isnt entirely correct and the article titel kinda baits that. In this case it shows that conjure animals is better then Swift quiver and not that Swift quiver is a bad spell. to show that swift quiver is the worst option. you also have to look at the other 5th lvl spells (who atleast on a first look feel better too) or else rename the article to: “never take swift quiver take instead this one no one thinks of”
Ahhh, Swift Quiver. A pretty fun option… for Valor Bards… who want to go bow and arrow… and don’t want to concentrate on something usually more powerful… Honestly, there is no way around it: Swift Quiver is terrible, especially due to how late it comes for a Ranger. While it is nice that you are getting two extra attacks with your longbow, increasing your damage by 2d8 + 10 if both arrows hit, consider the following: You are spending one of the two 5th level spells you are able to use to increase your damage by 2d8 + 10, something a feat can do a little bit worse for free (1d6 + 5). Considering ONLY 5th level spells, you can cast Swift Wind Strike, a spell that gets you 6d10 force damage against up to 5 foes; Greater Restoration, a lifesaver against certain nasty effects; or Conjure Volley, dealing 8d8 damage on a 40 foot radius. Even if you ignore upscaling Conjure Animals and only consider the options Swift Quiver needs to compete, it pales to compare with Ranger’s other options. Now, there is a case where Swift Quiver is actually rather nice: buffing on the Fighter. He can now deal 6d8 + 30 damage without any consideration of damage, Action Surge or item, and allows more opportunities for them to use their abilities like rune Knight’s runes or Battlemaster’s maneuvers. But if you want to buff the Fighter to attack more, why not go with Haste that also gives 2AC and bonus movement; or Bless to buff the whole party; or Flame Arrows for an extra d6 of fire damage per hit for 12 shots?
Swift Quiver on ranger is bad cus you get it soooooo late, and it competes with other spells like Conjure and steel wind strike, BUT Swift Quiver on say a Swords Bard, 4 attacks, elven accuracy and sharp shooter is worth it. then go 3 champion fighter and 8 rogue. that is more consistent than animals. essentially later levels.
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone call this spell outright bad but it is a spell you NEED to have a conversation with the DM and the table. First to determine who and how the spell works. Then to see how the table feels about a mob of animals taking extra time in combat. Does the table want more or less combat? Does the table mind having less character attention in combat for the animals? Does the table trust the Summoner to proper paper work and tracking that’s needed for this spell? The Conjure Animal spell is great but you cannot randomly drop it onto a table/combat and not expect problem in someway or form. If all the red tape is dealt with and everyone at the table knows what’s going on, like at Pack Tactic’s table, then the spell is fine to use.
I don’t pick any sort of conjure X spells because I think it’s too good and I don’t feel like throwing 16 wolves at a problem when I can instead have an actual interesting combat instead. Maybe I’d consider elemental summons cuz it’s just one unit, but still don’t really use them unless I’d have a magic item that gives it to me. Also, I’d rather control all 16 animals, my table isn’t the best at doing fast turns. I’m playing a wizard and even with many spells to pick and stuff my turns are usually “I cast this, deal damage, coolio next person” and they always think of what to do for a minute. But still, even assuming just 8 animals rolled fast by me, with all the shortcuts I could take (like arranging attack rolls from lowest and then reading them out until one hits, then I know the rest also hits, then just rolling combined damage), it’s still probably around a minute or two of time wasted. Which I know my group wouldn’t mind but I personally mind it. I don’t minmax characters, I do minmax time spent on a turn though. Either way, at least I agree swift quiver is awful. Unless you’re a weird archery bard (why would you when you could instead do bigby’s hand for bonus actions, but I mean, flavor I guess) there’s no place for it. Maybe as a 2nd level it would be okay early game. But as 5th no way.
A great use of swift quiver is if you are playing with a DM who for some reason does not want you to have easy access to ammunition. If your DM hates you and wants to take away your main attack, swift quiver can stop that. otherwise, it seems kind of underpowered for a 5th level spell that lasts for one combat if you hold concentration.
The moment player starts conjure 16 animals on each big fight I as DM would start to use monsters with breath and or AOE attacks. Seriously I want players to have similar time in the spotlight. I hate have to many things in initiative table as it takes ages to finish one round. I am fine with conjuring animals in some fight when players are outnumbered and would not roll for each Wolf vs Goblin/Kobold duel. I would just describe ongoing battle and let the players fight Big Bad Guy instead.
Honestly, just like most of spells that dump bodies on the field, conjure animals should be used with consideration for the DM and the rest of the party, action economy is very important indeed, but more important than it is not bogging down the combat with bunch of animals, point which I just force “mob” combat rules from the DMG.
People keep citing the logistical issues of Conjure Animals. This is fair, since mob combat rules aren’t in the PHB, & they exist tucked way too far into the middle of the DMG. Plus, the rules are incomplete! The mechanics for determining attacks can be used for average saving throws, & even ability checks like shove or grapple. While overflow rules for damage reduce mobs of summoned animals to a single pile of HP divisible by the number of creatures in the mob. Handled this way higher level combat become elegant, & has the potential for thematic scenes. Like… the BBEG gets up from the ground, makes their attack, & unleashes a series of quick strikes akin to Sauron in the LOTR movies upon 12 out of 16 chickens.
Ah yes, the True Strike of Ranger Cant even use it the turn you cast it AT LEAST CONJURE ANIMALS GIVE YOU A FREE DEFENSIVE WALL BY SIMPLY EXISTING At least Crossbow expert give you aditional benefits like enabling Extra Attack WHICH IS ALSO POSSIBLE WITH REPEATING SHOT INFUSION BY THE WAY If anyone want to cast Damaging Ranger Spells LIGHTNING ARROW IS THE SMITE OF RANGER AND IT CAN CRIT
Our table summoned a a ton of beasts with CA last session. We divided the beasts into roll groups and let every PC handle a small group of actions/rolls. This is a good fix for the argument “everyone waits 15 minutes for the ranger to finish their turn”, and with our table using flanking rules/some beasts had pack tactics he just had us roll advantage once and all beasts would hit/miss in that group.
Conjure animals is great until your 5th level spell is countered by a fireball or non magical immunity. Gator brings this up but its never countered. Conjure animals is CIRCUMSTANTIALLY the best spell they have. Not even saying swift quiver is good now, although it is better if you have legendary magic weapons, like Ascendant Dragon Wrath Weapons. Both have circumstances where they are useful, but, yes, conjure animals is, writ large, better
Goodberry is a god tier spell. They provide magical healing, 1 point of magical healing restores a creature back to consciousness. I refuse to let my Cleric’s burn a full spell slot for restoring one person after a fight. I’ll cast Goodberry just before the start of a fight and hand them out to my party. “Someone knocked out next to you? Shove this in their mouth and they’ll be back up.” I’ve prevented more than one TPK with this method, because everyone was down except a monk with more movement speed than God. He used his turn to force feed the main healer some berries and suddenly we’re back in fighting form. It was from that point on, in that campaign, I would cast Goodberry every time it ran out and just shove them into the Monk’s pockets.
These spells aren’t really comparable. You might say they’re purely attack economy, but they both fulfill pretty specific roles. I’m not gonna fill a two wide hallway with 16 wolves. You also don’t know what class effects the endless quiver might be using that makes their utility more useful in that situation.16 extra creatures doing peanuts for damage is also going to slow the game down no matter how many people you share them with.
To play with conjure animals, there are two ways. If you are in Roll20 or similar system, you set up a script (like Treantmonk in the last game played together with DDudes and D4) and there is no big issue. It takes a bit of practice, but the game can be quite smooth. If you are playing OTB, you have produce a fixed table before the game: if 6+ monsters attack, the law of large numbers is good enough. You select beforehand a list of monsters you might be interested in summoning, and you put them in a table: columns for different monsters, rows for different ACs of the enemies. For each cell, you put three numbers: normal, advantage, disadvantage. Each number is the average DPR per creature, rounded down, in those conditions. You have a velociraptor, against AC 15? They hit with 11+ (50%), two attacks (1d6+2 and 1d4+2) for a total DPR of 5. Make a simple excel file and fill the columns before the game, print it and bring it with you. Whenever you attack, you just count the raptors: 5 raptors attacking that AC15 monsters? 25 damages. Do they have advantage? Oh, now it is 6 damages per raptor, so 30 damages. If you were to roll you might have got 20 or 30 damages instead of 25, but the game is largely unaffected.
One important point to note is that Swift Quiver scales with the strength of your magic items. And when Swift Quiver comes online at 17th level, you’re going to have some dope magic items. If you’re a 17th level ranger with an Oathbow, Swift Quiver is a great spell. You’ll crank out 96 damage on average every round against an AC 20 foe.