This was a table I put together for a campaign I was playing a druid in. The DM and I wanted to remove the ambiguity around the spell -- whether the animal is chosen by DM or Player. So we made a table for the lowest level casting, assuming temperate forest or similar terrain. Thoughts on this solution?
Sure, it works. I tend to be a "Bucket of Fun" DM. While I appreciate letting the dice decide, this is one of those instances where I feel giving the player some agency can lead to wildly unpredicatble outcomes. I like to let my players explore all possible outcomes, but I'm also never really in danger of them breaking the game. To me, the list just ends up feeling like a glorified Bag of Tricks.
Fair enough! I created it when I was a player and the DM didn't like the idea of the player picking their summons. And it was created as a compromise. When I'm DMing, I prefer to let my players run buck wild :)