D&D 5E Beastmaster's animal companion: can it survive for 2 rounds?

[Juriel]

What is wrong with your wolf? Was it lobotomized? It doesn't know it should fight back when something is trying to kill it? Why can other normal wolves be able to do that, but yours cannot?

Yeaaaah, this. It also has a ton of implications for non-combat, because the assumption that you have to hand-hold the animal companion every second of its life means... it won't be able to do much there, either. 'It takes no actions on its turn without you shouting at it' is pretty damning.

Even if the DM is lenient, and allows a thing like 'hey boy, go scout out the yard', and your beast runs into a single tiny aggressive rat there, either it has to come back or it continues its mission and comes back torn to pieces, because it just would not take a bite on its own, or even use Dodge/Disengage. Not that you could do get much info out of it without casting Speak With Animals, because what bond?

That whole thing, that you're not mentally connected in anyway, it's all within line of sight/shout - because THIS is the part where they need realism, but every Ranger gets spells anyway? If you ever get knocked out, the beast won't even move, because that also requires a nudge from you.

Compared to a regular trained animal, you lobotomized it in order to give it extra HP and proficiency bonus to things. Which you can make work for you, combat-wise, but you have to jump through weird game-mechanical hoops to do - you can only pick from a few beast options that are powerful enough, you need to get them barding, you keep sacrificing the animal near the end of the adventuring day because you can get another with a night's rest...

Note, that last bit? The text in PHB is ambiguous, as it says 'bond with another non-hostile animal' to replace a dead one, which implies you need to find one... So if your character concept is 'the Wolfmaster', and your wolf dies in the first combat of the day, and there are no wolves around the region? You're going to pick up random Tiny Scorpions or Vultures, if you can find/reach them, maybe. So you may not be able to even get ANY use out of your CLASS FEATURE for a few weeks, if the DM is being a strict rules-reader about it.

The crux of the matter comes down to 'If you play a Fighter (Battle Master) and buy a Mastiff (25 gp in the price list) - how is the Mastiff handled during play?'

Seeing how everything other than the animal companion gets treated as acting individually (whether it's a hired mercenary or summons, or even the weird sideline about mounts getting their own actions!), the mastiff would act on its own. Depending on its training, it could even do stuff like 'if I drop, come defend me', which is completely outside the scope of the animal companion.

Yes, it's a much cheaper way to get a BETTER end result as the animal companion (just missing out on HP and proficiency bonus, in exchange for vast amounts of utility and action space). If you were going to have Animal Handling as a skill anyway, you can get so much more use out of it than the animal companion out of combat.

So... Beastmaster archetype is only good for combat, and only if you minmax it. Which seems like a weird design decision...

 

[MightyZehir]

Then it seems that the new edition has failed on this front colossally yes? If you want the designers to see it why discuss it here? Why not on the wizards boards or tweet mike mearls or email them. Surely all of those are much better options for letting the designers see the problem rather than the off chance that they check these boards. I know they do occasionally but why not go directly to the source? Everyone here has clearly made the argument. It's a terrible class, there's not much more we can do in this thread I think.

Well, in one of the recent Mike Mearls interview, he mention that there will be surveys after the books are out. And they will fix class if they are working properly or provide alternatives. In the meantime, I guess we'll just wait and talk about other things.

And when I said the goal of this new edition, I meant that they will listen to our feedback and provide solutions.

 

[jadrax]

I agree that the rule is poorly written. But it's an easy fix that I don't think necessitates a new whinge-thread every few days.

Ok. So if we rewrite the class feature, with your proposed changes will it stack up?

Ranger’s Companion
At 3rd level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you. Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower (appendix D presents statistics for the hawk, mastiff, and panther as examples). Add your proficiency bonus to the beast’s AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills it is proficient in. Its hit point maximum equals its normal maximum or four times your ranger level, whichever is higher.
The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. You may choose to verbally control your companion. When you do so, it takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn’t take an action unless you command it to. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you). You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help action. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action.
If you choose not to verbally control your companion or are unable to, it retains its place in the initiative order. Being an Animal Companion puts no restrictions on the actions the companion can take, and it moves and acts as it wishes. It might flee from combat, rush to attack and devour a badly injured foe, or otherwise act against your wishes.
While traveling through your favored terrain with only the beast, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
If the beast dies, you can obtain another one by spending 8 hours magically bonding with another beast that isn’t hostile to you, either the same type of beast as before or a different one.

 

[Evenglare]

I still want to know the people that would play at the table rules as written. I'm dying to know who would actually do this. Seems like it would make a pretty funny OOTS comic.

 

[BASHMAN]

Those rules are available to everyone else who is riding a mount. The Ranger gets to do the same thing, but they do it remotely, get more choice of animals, and their animal gets upgraded over time.

I agree that the rule is poorly written. But it's an easy fix that I don't think necessitates a new whinge-thread every few days.

If it gets their attention to fix the class in the next supplement, however distant that may be, it absolutey is worth doing. Whinge away. They've addressed "conventional wisdom says this feature is widely disliked" issues in the past. If people are complaining 'my Pathfinder ranger had an actual useful companion before we converted... can we convert back please" to their DM, they may take notice. If the League play statistics show a disproportionately few rangers choose beastmaster, they likewise might want to fix it.

Also saying "just use common sense" when the RAW expressly say "it does nothing without you telling it to as an action" will not guarantee that the GM does the former instead of the latter. I've met quite a few who wouldn't.

 

[The Hitcher]

Ok. So if we rewrite the class feature, with your proposed changes will it stack up?

Ranger’s Companion
At 3rd level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you. Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower (appendix D presents statistics for the hawk, mastiff, and panther as examples). Add your proficiency bonus to the beast’s AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills it is proficient in. Its hit point maximum equals its normal maximum or four times your ranger level, whichever is higher.
The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. You may choose to verbally control your companion. When you do so, it takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn’t take an action unless you command it to. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you). You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help action. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action.
If you choose not to verbally control your companion or are unable to, it retains its place in the initiative order. Being an Animal Companion puts no restrictions on the actions the companion can take, and it moves and acts as it wishes. It might flee from combat, rush to attack and devour a badly injured foe, or otherwise act against your wishes.
While traveling through your favored terrain with only the beast, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
If the beast dies, you can obtain another one by spending 8 hours magically bonding with another beast that isn’t hostile to you, either the same type of beast as before or a different one.

I think so. I'm not saying you couldn't do other things with it if you wanted to tinker, but that's perfectly functional.

 

[Juriel]

Ok. So if we rewrite the class feature, with your proposed changes will it stack up?

Still, no. Your change puts more onto the GM, asking every turn 'hey, will you my class feature over by having my beast run from every fight?'. And CR 1/4 beast is still weak, only leaving a few valid options, and this still has the ambiguous 'get a new beast' phrasing...

I think you need to rewrite the whole archetype from the ground up. I'll present two considerations.

First, I think treating the animal companion as a regular entity with stats and physical space and all is a boneheaded design decision. I'd rather abstract it, by deciding what it is the Ranger should be getting from the animal, and give those to them as special abilities - think Battlemaster Maneuvers or Warlock Invocations. Your pet has 'poisonous', you can add that to an attack once per encounter. Your pet has 'genius', yay, you can send it to run even complex errands on its own. Your pet has 'mental link', congrats, you can see and hear everything through it. No worry about extra actions, no worry about where it physically is, no worries about it dying all the bloody time - it's just a part of what your character is.

Second, if we were going to try and fix the regular version... sigh.

Rather than reference MM and CRs, you should pick a type of animal, and that gets it its (intended to be balanced with one another) stats. Like, if you have a 'flier', then it can be a crow/vulture/giant bee, whatever you want it to be, all with the same statline. Then same for 'sneaky critter' and 'pack hunter', etc. Restricting player options/theme, by gimping the hell out of their intended Ferretmaster concept, serves no valuable reason, when we're dealing with a game that has Str 20 Halflings weighing 30 pounds anyway. So what if ferret being a 'sneaky critter' gets it the same stats as a Panther, look at that halfling.

The animal needs to be its completely own entity in actions, but the GM should not have to worry about deciding what it does. Just let the player direct their pet, because it's their bloody class feature. It's all they're getting from their archetype, while casters can get 8 times the actions through a single summon spell.

The Ranger needs to have some kind of a bond with their animal companion, right away. At the very least 'can communicate telepathically, in images and feelings' from lv2, preferrably full-on 'see through their eyes across any distance'. This is something a Chain Warlock can do, so come on, this is a bigger part of the Beastmaster than their familiar is.

The animal companion needs to be immortal, not be a class feature that you can actually lose and never get back (because you're in a dungeon/desert/different plane, and the GM just says 'sorry, no beasts here'). Just say 'animal companion runs away from combat if reduced to 0 hp, but will return to after the next short rest' or something, because that's the same as getting a new one, but completely different in feel if you're supposed to have a bond with this one particular animal that is your COMPANION, not just a random meatpuppet you picked up off the streets for today's dungeon.

 

[BASHMAN]

Ok. So if we rewrite the class feature, with your proposed changes will it stack up?

Ranger’s Companion
At 3rd level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you. Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower (appendix D presents statistics for the hawk, mastiff, and panther as examples). Add your proficiency bonus to the beast’s AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills it is proficient in. Its hit point maximum equals its normal maximum or four times your ranger level, whichever is higher.
The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. You may choose to verbally control your companion. When you do so, it takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn’t take an action unless you command it to. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you). You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help action. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action.
If you choose not to verbally control your companion or are unable to, it retains its place in the initiative order. Being an Animal Companion puts no restrictions on the actions the companion can take, and it moves and acts as it wishes. It might flee from combat, rush to attack and devour a badly injured foe, or otherwise act against your wishes.
While traveling through your favored terrain with only the beast, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
If the beast dies, you can obtain another one by spending 8 hours magically bonding with another beast that isn’t hostile to you, either the same type of beast as before or a different one.

Not bad. I'd add the following: If you set the beast on a course of action, it can continue it. So if you tell it to "Guard" it will do so while you sleep. If you tell it "Attack" it will continue to attack the target you directed it towards until you call it off (which you can do as part of your next action).

I'd also give the thing 6HP per level instead of 4. We're talking about a Panther here.

maybe do it somewhat like the Druid's wild shape where its hp is based on features. So 4hp / level if it can fly, 5hp/level if it has some other special thing, and 6hp per level if it something like a panther.

 

[The Hitcher]

Still, no. Your change puts more onto the GM, asking every turn 'hey, will you my class feature over by having my beast run from every fight?'.

Why would the DM do that? The DM's job is to create an enjoyable experience for the players, and part of that is letting the players make use of all the bits and bobs that come with their class. If the DM wants to make your experience , he or she has all the power in the world to do that. But if that's the kind of person who's running your games, then you've got bigger problems.

If there is a potential problem, it's the opposite: that the GM will default to just saying that your pet attacks every round - or just give control back to the player - which could end up being unbalanced in the Ranger's favour. Which wouldn't matter unless it bothered the other players, but whatever. If the DM plays the animal the same way they'd play a human NPC, then it seems like it would work fine. But a DM might not want that extra burden.

 

[Juriel]

But a DM might not want that extra burden.

This is my exact point. DM has a million other things to do already, without trying to gauge the right middle between 'not screw the player over' and 'what would a beast actually do', every turn.