I was wondering if a properly crafted Find companion Spell ala Find Steed and Familiar would be a good way of dealing with the Ranger companion. Should the spell improve with a higher level slot or should a Greater version be made. I imagine it would be a 1st level spell so the Magic Initiate feat would give access. The next question what would properly crafted entail in this context?
Animal Companion Fix thoughts
- Thread starter Eubani
- Start date
Harzel
Adventurer
I sort of hate to be the one to ask, since some take offense at the question, but what problem are you trying to solve? Beastmaster rangers already can have a companion. Are you looking for a way to give all Rangers a companion, or are you dissatisfied with the Beastmaster companion feature, or something else?
I have no issue asking as it was asked politely and is meaningful to the conversation. To answer your question I find the Beast Master subclass to be very clunky and poorly designed and I like the ideas of the spell as it opens it up to all Rangers at a minor cost (1 spell known) and to all others at a slightly larger cost (1 feat).
Oofta
Legend
I agree, the beastmaster seems pretty underpowered. Sacrificing an attack every round is pretty huge, even if you do add a few points to attack and damage.
What we did in my wife's campaign was to allow the PC to buy barding (light armor) and said that they needed to use a bonus action to command the animal the first round but after that it would continue attacking until told otherwise. We also increased the HP since at higher levels it was way too squishy. We ended up just giving it 3/4 of the HP of the ranger. So not quite as tough as the rest of the party but decent.
What we did in my wife's campaign was to allow the PC to buy barding (light armor) and said that they needed to use a bonus action to command the animal the first round but after that it would continue attacking until told otherwise. We also increased the HP since at higher levels it was way too squishy. We ended up just giving it 3/4 of the HP of the ranger. So not quite as tough as the rest of the party but decent.
Mike Mearls recently created such a spell during his 'Happy Fun Hour' on Twitch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRT6G4wwO_A
Oofta
Legend
A ranger's companion could be a warhorse. Depending on how much you pay attention to sage advice tweets a while back I think they said that a summoned steed was just a regular horse and that it the paladin needed to use their attack action to command the horse. In addition, the "official" answer seems to be that the mount leaves all equipment behind if it dies or is sent away meaning no saddle, barding, bit or bridle.
We never played it that way, it's an intelligent mount. So the only thing the spell buys you is that the animal is slightly more intelligent than average which may allow it to act independently. You lose the benefit of proficiency bonus and the minor increase to HP at higher levels.
In other words, making it a spell doesn't buy much of anything unless there's something I'm missing.
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