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Hussar, your quote is at the bottom. Sorry for the long read, but I prefer multi-quoting to making multiple posts.
I didn't imply it I said it. And it was accurate, as we were discussing topics which had already been discussed in the thread earlier, and you were asking for a list that had already been listed and discussed earlier. Why are you trying to imply or say you had read it? I was not attacking you, I was making an accurate observation that we were re-treading old ground.
I never asked for a list. I stated that there are very few spells that actually allow you to add beasts to your party, because most spells that summon actually create fey. You decided to list a bunch of spells to prove me wrong, the majority of which did not add a beast to the party.
Now, I'll grant, I've been in this thread for over a week and it stretches nearly 400 posts, we might have talked about how conjure animals creates fey before and I might have forgotten. I don't have a steel-trap mind to remember an entire piecemeal conversation over multiple days. But I'm pretty sure we didn't discuss that, and your list was mostly variously utility spells you can use with beasts, which we may have discussed under a completely different context.
And you know, sometimes people talk about things more than once, when there are multiple angles to consider something from. However, just because we revisit a point, or someone doesn't remember something from days ago, doesn't mean they are not reading the thread. That is an insulting leap in logic to make.
Because you're not addressing my point. My point was there were several old school elements in this game already which many people were comfortable with, such as the Champions call-back to 1e fighters. I believe there are people who also are comfortable with the old school style of treating animal companions as disposable as well. Others in this thread have related they are fine with that style too. That's why I mentioned the Champion though - purely as yet another old school element that was well received by some. It's as relevant as any other old school element - which is the topic YOU raised, not me.
Okay, see now I can see your logic, but you never stated that. You just equated Champions to what I was talking about with no context.
Now that I have an actual point to this, yeah, some people are fine with disposable beasts. And some people like older styles of play, but it isn't a majority in most cases. For example, running the Tomb of Horrors as it was originally intended is considered bad form by some people, especially if the party is unaware of what they are getting into, because it is full of "Gotcha" traps that are anti-thetical to most people's style in this day and age. This is important when considering whether or not the designers intended this effect, because intending the major "pet-class" to be played in a style that is seen as unpopular and unfun for some of the biggest proponents of pet-classes, would seem to be an almost comically bad mistake. It would be as though they designed sub-system for quicker combats and utilized THACO, it almost defeats the very purpose of the game element you are designing, especially since it has been out of favor for so long.
And, I would argue that the Champions "I swing my sword" style of combat isn't necessarily old school in the same way that those out-dated styles are. Many modern games use similarly simple combat options, though with different dice usually, so it has never "gone out of style" so to speak, to 'swing my sword' or 'shoot my gun' over and over again in combat.
That is a major difference to my eyes, between a style that was created with the original game but still utilized, and a style that has been mostly abandoned by the player base.
I did. You're late to the conversation and apparently loath to go back and look at what was written about it and demanding I make the argument a second time? If it's something that interests you then spend the time to read the thread, but stop demanding that everyone has to revolve around where you are at this moment in the thread. But right now I am not inclined to respond to even further details of your critique since you don't appear to be wanting a discussion in good faith.
Okay, I'll go digging back through some few hundred posts.
So, assuming you didn't talk about your fighting style before posting the rules for it, I finally found your first post on it in post #207 (by my counter which I think is different for everyone) on August 13th. Where you said
I just realized in addition to adding new spells to help the beastmaster (though I was wrong earlier in suggesting a cantrip - they get no cantrips), you could also add a Fighting Style. Something like "Companion Fighting: Any time you are fighting the same foe as your animal companion, you can use a bonus action to grant your companion an attack action; when you are adjacent to either your animal companion or a foe when that foe attacks your animal companion, you may use your reaction to cause the foe to strike at you instead, and if the attack hits, you have resistance to the damage from that attack."
Now, I never responded to this, it was cbwjm who responded asking the question which I later reiterated, involving the issue of gaining the Fighting Style before the sub-class. You responded with
Yes, they'd get it before the subclass. If there are issues with the earlier levels, you could just as easily change it from "animal companion" to "allied creature of the beast sub-type". That would allow some additional flexibility with animals you're helping, animal friends you've purchased or made through a skill check or spell, perhaps even of aid for a Paladin's mount or a Cavaliers, and maybe some familiars?
And, again, I never responded to this. It happened right before OB1 started posting their spells and asking for my feedback, and I guess I figured cbwjm would respond. Now, you would occasionally mention "spells and fighting styles" as a soltution to the beastmaster, but none of those got into specifics. The next specific time you mention your Fighting Style is in Post #336 on the 21st when you were responding to my assertion that spells and fighting styles aren't a good solution, partially because Fighting Styles don't cover enough mechanical space to "fix" the Beastmaster.
Your response here
The fighting style I had proposed above included several elements. 1) Instead of using an attack action of yours to direct the beast to attack, you can use a bonus action, and 2) If an opponent you are adjacent to strikes your companion, you can re-direct that attack to yourself instead, and if it hits, you have resistance to the damage from that attack. I'd say that covers a fair bit of ground.
So, just to keep the timeline straight (hey, you asked me to go back and revisit it) I got involved with talking about your fighting style 129 posts and eight days after you first brought it up (during those 8 days, it was essentially never talked about)
And actually, I'm glad you had me go back and look at these posts, because it seems you edited the fighting style without letting anyone know, since "Any time you are fighting the same foe as your animal companion, you can use a bonus action to grant your companion an attack action" is fairly substantially different from "Instead of using an attack action of yours to direct the beast to attack, you can use a bonus action"
In you original fighting style it seems the Ranger and the Companion would need to targeting the same enemy to get the bonus action attack. That is a pretty signifigant restriction, especially if the Ranger is a melee fighter who may be unable to reach the same enemies as their companion. I prefer the second version if I had to choose between the two, obviously.
Now, you did mention way back when about expanding it to all beasts with the party in your reply to cbwjm. But I never got in on that discussion, and it never went further than you stating it. So, yesterday, when I began to question how often a party may get beasts, especially since almost no spells actually cause beasts to join the party,
it was the first time anyone had asked that.
You should hopefully remember that part of the conversation though, so I won't recap.
Yeah, I'm glad you convinced me to go back over the thread and see that not only were you rude in your accusations towards me, you were dead wrong about this being ground we had already covered. Sure, you mentioned your fighting style ten days ago, but no one actually did any work with seeing how it would fare, or how your proposed addition of "all the beasts with the party" would pan out.
So, unless there are some posts you deleted in this thread, I think I am fully caught up and would like to return to the conversation, instead of this smoke and mirrors crap of baseless accusations.
Just to gather all my thoughts on your fighting style in one place, it would be a weird fix. You would gain the ability to command beasts at second level using your bonus action, for any beast (because the Urchin has a pet mouse I suppose). I am curious if it allows you a bonus action for one friendly beast or if that bonus action could cause a cascade of attacks, I'd assume it is only a single, but you haven't rewritten it to include the "any allied beast" language. Then, you get your subclass and become a "Beastmaster" able to command a single beast only with your action... Which is signifigantly worse than the ability you already have at second level. This of course would just highlight the problem with the Beastmaster's currently written version
We also still have the situation of how few beasts are actually involved with the standard party, and how many of those beasts the players would even want to involve in the combat, because the fewer that number, the less useful your fighting style becomes until it is simply a rewrite to the Beastmaster that costs the beastmaster their additional point of AC or their +2 accuracy with bows, both of which are a significant resource loss since this is really a better version of the Beastmaster's lv 3 ability and can be seen as "neccesary" to take.
Also, we can still discuss those spells if you would like, since you have still refused to respond to my critique of your list of spells which add beasts to the party, by RAW.
If they are dropping every fight, then there's something very wrong beyond the mechanics of the revised beast master. The revised BM's companion, at low levels, has probably pretty close to the HP of a PC and even at higher levels, isn't that far off. Unless the DM is being a total dick and directing every single attack at the companion every single fight, the companion shouldn't be dropping below zero any more than pretty much any other PC.
I agree. I thought you were referring to death saves as a fix for the PHB Beastmaster. Still similar AC, but they tend to have less HP depending on the beast (Revised Ranger relies more on the Beasts Con and HD, so it fluctuates more). By 5th level 20 hp is very little and I could see them dropping often if they are in the thick of it. Worse if there are AOE save for half attacks going off.
