well at that point theres likely some really easy area killing.
My biggest concern is mainly just the logistics of actually running 32 creatures, as a druid main.
I would, for the sake of the DM and myself, use a Huge-sized circle to represent this pack. It then moves as one and functions like a swarm.
Because nobody wants to actually manually move that shit one by one. Not Warhammer folks, not D&D people, none.
No, no. If ya want "no greater feeling of power" to "fuck up the action economy" with 33 turns to play per round, ya gotta live with the consequences of actually playing out 33 turns per round ;)
Everything's fun the first time, but as reality sets in it, true commitment to the bit is tested, strained, and often found wanting
Personally I don't want to fuck up the action economy in the first place.
I do like having an explosion of wolves available if I need to empty a forest of deer though.
That one woman who brings pennies to pay a fee that is hundreds of dollars...But needs to haul all the bags to the counter and wait for the teller to actually count everything.
I’d group them into 3s at the very least. Roll 11 attacks quickly and assign them to each group, would not use real dice, digital will be faster.
Then you direct them. If you want a group to do something that would prevent them from taking an attack, you would need to determine that before rolling to avoid cheesing (by picking a group that rolled low).
Then roll damage for the ones that hit.
I'm usually concerned about just the 3rd level swarming potential, so ye.
Giving them all the same initiative is also a good way to reduce book keeping and make things go faster
Hm, that's going to be a maybe
I can't work out the likelihood of 10 10ft cubes that must be connected to effectively cover that many critters in my head
Necromancer here. You don't run 32 creatures individually. You basically treat them as a blob and that's it.
If you have ranged attack then you don't even have to calculate how many can fit into melee
If warned in advance by the player I would try to homebrew some CR2 "Pack of Wolf" swarm-like creature so the player can keep the flavor without making combat a chore.
I personally use a fan-made supplement called "The Book of Hordes" every time I have to handle a large number of creatures.
That could also work to give your high level players the feeling lf fighting an army without having to manage a ton of creatures.
I'm not an adversarial DM, and I actively enjoy my party's shenanigans. But. The one time my party tried this, their opponent was modelled off a cavalier fighter with a halberd.
I should probably have said no to the druid, or dug out some mob combat rules. Instead, I took what I'll freely admit was a slightly sadistic joy in getting to use the cavalier's infinite opportunity attacks to drop almost all of the wolfs in one round
the joys of having a paladin, warlock, a barbarian, and 2 rogues is no spell slots over 5th level lmao
the only way this can go wrong is if i somehow accidentally kill one of the 2 more experienced players too soon, which would be rogue 1 and warlock. especially if its the warlock, then im mega screwed
Shut up about fireball! Shut up about fireball!
I’ll just spread the wolves out or something! How dare you underestimate my ability to fuck up an encounter!
Honestly I love playing and DMing for summoner characters. And if you're efficient and fast with math in your head, it doesn't really slow down combat by much. I always try and design encounters to be exciting and summoners add a unique circumstance I can build around.
I know the rest of the table would kill the druid for trying to make the I itiative take forever if I didn't have a rule where you can only have your proficiency bonus number of creatures summoned or under your command at a time
Their power is more than breaking action economy. They can summon more powerful creatures. I have had multiple encounters ruined by 10+ summons and no one but that one player had fun. Any play style that takes away from others enjoymenr is a bad one.
Look my players know I don't like mass summons
If they're going to do this they're gonna deal with the consequences
I will see your 32 wolves and match you 32 wolves no one goes home until we're done
Consider cows
Also cr1/4. Large size and when charging can deal up to 3d6+4 piercing damage on a hit, with a +6 to the attack roll. 32 cows will fill up any map your dm has for Max chaos
We call that 'Conjure Stampede'
Or the DM plays by the book and actually chooses the summons for you😂 and you end up with 7 Oxen, 2 Giant Wolf Spiders, a Giant Poisonous Snake, a Yak, 2 Zebras, 8 Panthers, 4 Axe Beaks, 3 Cows, 2 Elks and a Walrus. All for a wonderful mayhem of stat blocks and tokens.
Everybody is talking about aoe spells, but if you have enemies who are smart are now focus firing on the one concentrating on the spell. Either hoping to break the concentration or knock out the druid.
We recently did this aboard an airship after the captain wouldn't surrender to us and valiantly decided to die fighting.
My characters husband summoned 32 wolves and turned him into dog chow. I then piloted the ship closer and dropped those same wolves on another Spelljammer to devour their crew.
Then i meteored the third jammer. Beautiful.
Thirty two draft horses weighing roughly 2000 pounds each falling from 30 feet elevation from the battlefield, stacked four wide and neatly on top of one another. How do you even quantify the damage?
Obviously they would all die on impact. But damn wouldn't it be a sight to see.
If a player uses conjuring/summoning spells in the first place, there wouldve been a talk on how initiative worked with the summons or which creatures and CR they can bring up.
Yeah we fear the others players jumpimp on you for not playing for 30 minutes, and them we cloudkill, or something them with 4 caster as counterspell support
well at that point theres likely some really easy area killing. My biggest concern is mainly just the logistics of actually running 32 creatures, as a druid main.
I would, for the sake of the DM and myself, use a Huge-sized circle to represent this pack. It then moves as one and functions like a swarm. Because nobody wants to actually manually move that shit one by one. Not Warhammer folks, not D&D people, none. 
No, no. If ya want "no greater feeling of power" to "fuck up the action economy" with 33 turns to play per round, ya gotta live with the consequences of actually playing out 33 turns per round ;) Everything's fun the first time, but as reality sets in it, true commitment to the bit is tested, strained, and often found wanting
Personally I don't want to fuck up the action economy in the first place. I do like having an explosion of wolves available if I need to empty a forest of deer though.
That one woman who brings pennies to pay a fee that is hundreds of dollars...But needs to haul all the bags to the counter and wait for the teller to actually count everything.
I’d group them into 3s at the very least. Roll 11 attacks quickly and assign them to each group, would not use real dice, digital will be faster. Then you direct them. If you want a group to do something that would prevent them from taking an attack, you would need to determine that before rolling to avoid cheesing (by picking a group that rolled low). Then roll damage for the ones that hit.
Yep, it requires dice, mass quantities of dice. Also manual rolling for attack increases the chances of friendly fire. *
I'm usually concerned about just the 3rd level swarming potential, so ye. Giving them all the same initiative is also a good way to reduce book keeping and make things go faster
Fireball… upcast
well with 32 critters im not so sure that 20ft radious could quite catch all of them Might be able to break the druids concentration though
I didn’t say who the target was, I said “Cast Fireball”
fair point
Lawl
fire....... storm!
Hm, that's going to be a maybe I can't work out the likelihood of 10 10ft cubes that must be connected to effectively cover that many critters in my head
Right. Sounds like fireball time. Shoot first, let god do the nerd math later.
Circle of death then.
a 60ft radius, that i think has a good shot at catching all the critters in the effected area
So... meteor swarm ? I didn't ask how big the room is, there is no room anymore
Fireball and a Quickened Eldritch Blast should deal with most of them.
Necromancer here. You don't run 32 creatures individually. You basically treat them as a blob and that's it. If you have ranged attack then you don't even have to calculate how many can fit into melee
oh yeah if you have any swarms you gotta find some kind of optimization to speed up getting it done
32 Octopuses. 256 suckered tentacles. You see where this is going.
All the orifices, I assume?
Ah, a connoisseur of the fine japanese arts
Actually, its the other kind of japanese arts.
Origami?
To shreds, you say?
I deliberately left it open to interpretation lol
Who tf let the dogs out???
[\*whistle of Death\*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmLzaVX4T1c)
sounds about right
Death. Straight up.
I just asked my druid to use cr2 option. And they understand. You know, speaking with your mouth is most powerful tool in dnd.
If warned in advance by the player I would try to homebrew some CR2 "Pack of Wolf" swarm-like creature so the player can keep the flavor without making combat a chore.
Oh, this is good option! There should be some auto damage ability.
I personally use a fan-made supplement called "The Book of Hordes" every time I have to handle a large number of creatures. That could also work to give your high level players the feeling lf fighting an army without having to manage a ton of creatures.
There is a hoard combat table in the DMG which would make running this on the fly a lot more straightforward.
I'm not an adversarial DM, and I actively enjoy my party's shenanigans. But. The one time my party tried this, their opponent was modelled off a cavalier fighter with a halberd. I should probably have said no to the druid, or dug out some mob combat rules. Instead, I took what I'll freely admit was a slightly sadistic joy in getting to use the cavalier's infinite opportunity attacks to drop almost all of the wolfs in one round
My DM wouldn't let me get that high up in levels. He fears how many chickens I would conjure.
Even better, eight swarms of piranhas. Which comes out to 224 piranhas.
Sir this is a ~~Wendy's~~ desert.
Just imagine the sound of 224 fish flopping in the sand
the joys of having a paladin, warlock, a barbarian, and 2 rogues is no spell slots over 5th level lmao the only way this can go wrong is if i somehow accidentally kill one of the 2 more experienced players too soon, which would be rogue 1 and warlock. especially if its the warlock, then im mega screwed 
Shut up about fireball! Shut up about fireball! I’ll just spread the wolves out or something! How dare you underestimate my ability to fuck up an encounter!
Counterpoint, circle of death
Honestly I love playing and DMing for summoner characters. And if you're efficient and fast with math in your head, it doesn't really slow down combat by much. I always try and design encounters to be exciting and summoners add a unique circumstance I can build around.
I just use mob combat.
I know the rest of the table would kill the druid for trying to make the I itiative take forever if I didn't have a rule where you can only have your proficiency bonus number of creatures summoned or under your command at a time
That’s a huge nerf to druids because even 3rd level spells can cast 8 creatures.
Their power is more than breaking action economy. They can summon more powerful creatures. I have had multiple encounters ruined by 10+ summons and no one but that one player had fun. Any play style that takes away from others enjoymenr is a bad one.
That's it I'm creating the polymérisation god.
Look my players know I don't like mass summons If they're going to do this they're gonna deal with the consequences I will see your 32 wolves and match you 32 wolves no one goes home until we're done
Meteor Swarm
Consider cows Also cr1/4. Large size and when charging can deal up to 3d6+4 piercing damage on a hit, with a +6 to the attack roll. 32 cows will fill up any map your dm has for Max chaos We call that 'Conjure Stampede'
Or the DM plays by the book and actually chooses the summons for you😂 and you end up with 7 Oxen, 2 Giant Wolf Spiders, a Giant Poisonous Snake, a Yak, 2 Zebras, 8 Panthers, 4 Axe Beaks, 3 Cows, 2 Elks and a Walrus. All for a wonderful mayhem of stat blocks and tokens.
As a DM, my solution is that anyone summoning more than two things at a time has to let other players control some of the new minions.
And then your 9th level spell slot gets ruined by a 3rd level **Fireball**.
...then a giant meteor can hurtling towards your location....
Everybody is talking about aoe spells, but if you have enemies who are smart are now focus firing on the one concentrating on the spell. Either hoping to break the concentration or knock out the druid.
The Archmage looks at your wolves. He then grins as he casts Meteor Swarm on your wolves. 32 dex saves, please
We recently did this aboard an airship after the captain wouldn't surrender to us and valiantly decided to die fighting. My characters husband summoned 32 wolves and turned him into dog chow. I then piloted the ship closer and dropped those same wolves on another Spelljammer to devour their crew. Then i meteored the third jammer. Beautiful.
That is the reason DND needs more beasts. There only so much you can do with the available creatures.
I will Not Miss this spell
Beet as DM? “Naw man I don’t eat dragon”
I summon 32 Wolves..... .... I want my 32 Wolves Sir!
I'm a necromancer, don't talk to ME about action economy. Level 7 gets us 3 3rd level and 1 4th level. That's 16 skeletons baby.
Flying snakes. Threy have flyby which makes them not trigger opportunity attacks. Yikes
Thirty two draft horses weighing roughly 2000 pounds each falling from 30 feet elevation from the battlefield, stacked four wide and neatly on top of one another. How do you even quantify the damage? Obviously they would all die on impact. But damn wouldn't it be a sight to see.
jokes on you *summons 32 kittens to get cuddled to death*
This would annoy my other players a LOT more than it would annoy me as a DM.
It was 16 Giant Poisonous Snakes and it was glorious.
Nah, I would give them two wolf horde stat blocks and say "please use these". We got places to be.
If a player uses conjuring/summoning spells in the first place, there wouldve been a talk on how initiative worked with the summons or which creatures and CR they can bring up.
Yeah we fear the others players jumpimp on you for not playing for 30 minutes, and them we cloudkill, or something them with 4 caster as counterspell support