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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Beastmaster's animal companion: can it survive for 2 rounds?
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<blockquote data-quote="SilverfireSage" data-source="post: 6372270" data-attributes="member: 6778313"><p>My thoughts are twofold: One, 99% of the time in a group of 4, a monster is not going to even think about attacking the companion. It's going to attack the massive fighter/barbarian/paladin, or attack the ranger himself. All seem like worse foes than a lowly wolf or panther. </p><p>Second, the companion is far, far better than people are making it out to be. I have someone who is translating a pathfinder ranger to 5E (since my group is all switching over) and after playing around with the math, the Ranger+Animal companion actually is tougher and deals more damage at a more consistent rate than a fighter of the same level.</p><p>He's level 11 right now, so we'll use that for the example. At that level, on the average hit the fighter is going to be doing around 1d10+6 (5 for strength, 1 for magic) each attack for three attacks at a +10 bonus. Fighting against a creature with an 20 armor class that's about 16-17 damage a round rolling perfectly average. Contrast that to a wolf, who has a +8 to hit, two attacks that deal 2d4 + 6 damage each and can knock prone. Seems pretty bad until you notice pack tactics, where the wolf gets advantage whenever he's near someone. If that someone is the ranger, he now has the equivalent of a +5 to his attacks, meaning that he gets a +13 to hit, and deals around 15 damage alone. Then you add in the ranger's damage which should be somewhere near the Fighter's, and you're dealing as much damage as the fighter, while also providing a sneak attack opportunity for a rogue and a buffer of 44 hit points for the casters. Not to mention that at that level the Wolf has an exceptional 17 AC (which could easily be boosted to 20+ if any sort of barding is made), and the wolf/ranger combo doesn't seem so bad in my eyes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SilverfireSage, post: 6372270, member: 6778313"] My thoughts are twofold: One, 99% of the time in a group of 4, a monster is not going to even think about attacking the companion. It's going to attack the massive fighter/barbarian/paladin, or attack the ranger himself. All seem like worse foes than a lowly wolf or panther. Second, the companion is far, far better than people are making it out to be. I have someone who is translating a pathfinder ranger to 5E (since my group is all switching over) and after playing around with the math, the Ranger+Animal companion actually is tougher and deals more damage at a more consistent rate than a fighter of the same level. He's level 11 right now, so we'll use that for the example. At that level, on the average hit the fighter is going to be doing around 1d10+6 (5 for strength, 1 for magic) each attack for three attacks at a +10 bonus. Fighting against a creature with an 20 armor class that's about 16-17 damage a round rolling perfectly average. Contrast that to a wolf, who has a +8 to hit, two attacks that deal 2d4 + 6 damage each and can knock prone. Seems pretty bad until you notice pack tactics, where the wolf gets advantage whenever he's near someone. If that someone is the ranger, he now has the equivalent of a +5 to his attacks, meaning that he gets a +13 to hit, and deals around 15 damage alone. Then you add in the ranger's damage which should be somewhere near the Fighter's, and you're dealing as much damage as the fighter, while also providing a sneak attack opportunity for a rogue and a buffer of 44 hit points for the casters. Not to mention that at that level the Wolf has an exceptional 17 AC (which could easily be boosted to 20+ if any sort of barding is made), and the wolf/ranger combo doesn't seem so bad in my eyes. [/QUOTE]
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Beastmaster's animal companion: can it survive for 2 rounds?
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