With that said, it's simplest for everyone involved if you just reach an agreement with your players to not abuse them. And let me tell you, there's some pretty crazy abuse to be had. Making it the DM's choice does prevent players from abusing these spells. But what about the invisible flying T-Rexes? This is how I ran it in my games since long before the Sage Advice in question was written, and it's always worked fine. A spell that summons some random creatures just isn't as useful or interesting as a spell that lets you summon creatures you choose. In my experience, players casting these spells know what they want, and they're casting these spells to get that thing. The most straightforward way to deal with this is just to let your players choose the creatures they want. The player is expending a spell resource, after all. In general, the DM should make something appear that has some relevancy and helpfulness for the current situation. If you can convince them to do the heavy lifting (as I did for my DM) so much the better. So yeah, if your players intend on making a lot of use of these spells, some prep work ahead of time can be helpful. Part of the fun of D&D is dealing with surprise results (one of the main reasons the game has dice). For poison, I might get snakes or spiders. If I am hoping for air support, I might get owls, or bats. When I cast the spell, I tell him what my character is hoping will appear, usually using a keyword. Each entry on the sheet has key words that can help him make a quick judgement call: underground, flying, darkvision, poison, etc. He usually has me run them for him, but he still makes the decision. If there are 8 creatures summoned for that CR, then there are 8 hit point markers. It's just a little sheet that has AC, relevant abilities and a hit point marker for each summoned creature. To make life easy on my DM I prepared a cheat sheet of all the summonable subjects. I play a druid character who regularly uses conjuration spells. What are your experiences with these spells and how do you handle these situations? People don't like the Wild Magic Sorcerer because the DM has to remember to roll for Wild Magic Surges, this feels like something similar. If I have to prepare these sets of creatures, it's a lot of additional prep work.If I pick randomly, then it's random, so it might not make sense in the adventure.If, to make it quick, I prepare this set, then the player's plans might be ruined and he just wasted a valuable spell slot (we have 2 Rangers on our party with Conjure X spells).If I try to appease the player, I can't decide a basic set of creatures that get summoned.I'm having trouble with these decisions because they seem to contradict each other. Then, how do I make this a fast choice? Am I supposed to have a list available of all fey or all beasts or all elementals by CR? If so, should I, before each adventure, run through the list and decide which creatures should appear? Or make them random? How am I, the DM, meant to choose the creatures that appear without screwing over the player but also not giving him exactly what he wants? I need this for combat, I need crowd control, I need utility The player will cast this with some expectation: However, me and my players are having trouble matching our expectations and even progressing the game quickly enough. The DM will often choose creatures that are appropriate for the campaign and that will be fun to introduce in a scene. A spellcaster can certainly express a preference for what creatures shows up, but it’s up to the DM to determine if they do. The design intent for options like these is that the spellcaster chooses one of them, and then the DM decides what creatures appear that fit the chosen option. Other spells of this sort let the spellcaster choose from among several broad options. When you cast a spell like conjure woodland beings, does the spellcaster or the DM choose the creatures that are conjured? Some spells of this sort specify that the spellcaster chooses the creature conjured. Very recently I've discovered the DM is the one that chooses the creatures that appear. Two fey creatures of challenge rating 1 or lower One fey creature of challenge rating 2 or lower Choose one of the following options for what appears. You summon fey creatures that appear in unoccupied spaces that you can see within range.

Conjure woodland beings