D&D 5E Did anyone try beastmaster with no action for beast attack?

jodyjohnson · Sep 15, 2015

Entangle is not on the Ranger Spell List.

Maybe if the Ranger has "Speak with Animals" active he could command as a free action.

Eric V · Sep 15, 2015

If the beast goes on its own turn or is activated as a bonus action, the beastmaster gets more attacks than the hunter (though less than the necromancer). Now, if you also feel the hunter is underpowered, than perhaps that's fine, but most people seem to think the hunter is ok...

If the beast goes as a bonus action, what would you replace the level 7 beastmaster ability with?

Sword of Spirit · Sep 15, 2015

Preface: The designer intent does appear to be that the animal companion does nothing on a turn that it isn't specifically commanded. I suppose someone could dig up tweets (and the preface to the new ranger article implies it also), but that's really how it is, you can argue the designers are interpreting the rules they've written poorly (I have done such before), and you can definitely agree with the majority of us that it is a bad rule, but it is the rule.

My house rule is that, like any other pet you can just buy off of the equipment list, the animal will act naturally according to its inclinations and training. It doesn't require any actions whatsoever (unless I rule that you need to expend effort to direct it to do something specific) to command a pet, whether you got it as a class ability or not. Instead, I say that the class ability allows you to grant your companion extra actions beyond its normal complement--much like certain Battle Master maneuvers do.

So to the OP, I basically do as you've described plus give the ranger a little bit extra beyond that.

We had one character set up to run this way in a one-shot adventure. Unfortunately the player had to miss the adventure, so it never saw play. These were 20th level characters with a few magic items each. From what I could see on the sheet (and I did a lot of analysis so the player would understand the pros/cons of giving up actions/bonus actions/attacks, etc) it was rarely very useful to trade his own actions for the animal companion's. It was usually slightly better for the ranger to keep all his actions to himself. So the primary benefit he was getting was having a slightly buffed pet. Still not as good as some of beasts he could have just purchased in an exotic market. If giving up his actions was only occasionally situationally useful, that should be some indication of the general usefulness of the subclass.

That being said, if a DM won't let a player actually acquire pets without a class feature, the subclass has some minor value in being a way to obtain one, assuming that you think a crappy pet is better than no pet.

CrusaderX · Sep 15, 2015

I haven't tried this in play, but I would like to see how this house rule works out:

At 3rd level, the Beast Master Ranger must always use his Action to have the beast Attack, but the Ranger can use a Bonus Action to have the beast take the Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help actions. If the beast gets no commands, it will always take the Dodge action in combat.

The Grassy Gnoll · Sep 15, 2015

I know the "licks balls" thing may seem like it's a silly rule, but seriously, try the d6 method (I rule on the side of "last command stays in place until superseded" by the way):
Tonight's session included:
- the ranger using an action to command his beast to "attack the orcs"
- once the orcs were dead, he had the choice to use another action to command it to "attack the ogre" - but he chose not to
- so, for each round, I rolled a d6 to see what the beast got up to
- it dodged, dodged, helped, licked balls*, dodged, then helped
- as it goes, this last help let the ranger score a crit to finish the ogre off
- the "licks balls", in this case, I decided was that the beast was trying to back away due to the raging fire the PCs had created in the course of the fight, and was choking on the smoke
- previous LB results have been spun as "the beast chews on one of the corpses", "the beast licks at its wounds" and "the beast backs away, snarling"...it doesn't have to translate to a mid-combat intimate grooming regimen!
- note that if an "LB" should occur immediately after an "attack" the previous round, the beast would trigger an opportunity attack against itself as it, essentially, disengages (I rule that this isn't triggered if the "LB" follows a "help")
- it gives the feeling that the beast is (a) doing something other than being a PC extension, and (b) that it has a mind of its own, helping to create a personality for the creature - after all, the ranger has bonded with it, it should have some colour.
- as a recap, 6=attack, 4-5=help, 2-3=dodge, 1=LB.
- it hasn't worked out too OP so far by any means
Try it next session and let me know how you get on!

Rhenny · Sep 16, 2015

When I ran Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, the pcs found a black dragon egg that hatched and bonded with the fighter in the group. I had the thing do what it would normally do, but if the fighter wanted to train/control it, he would make charisma checks (DC 15). When successful, he could direct the wyrmling and tell it what foe to attack, or what not to eat or bite. It would continue to follow the initial command until the condition of the command was complete. Then it would either eat the dead foe or fly up and around until commanded again. If the PC wanted to control it again, he made another handling attempt. We liked the way that worked because it added uncertainty to the game. Of course, after a while, with a trained pet, I'd lower the DC of the check, and maybe with a ranger's beast, make it nearly automatic. Even so, I don't think it would op the beastmaster, and for the right player it would give a pretty functional pet.

BluSponge · Sep 16, 2015

Azurewraith said:
Its a complete bust that a trained animal would just sit there and do nothing unless it was told to when it can see that not only his master put his travailing companions are getting attacked especially a pack animal(lets face it 99% of beast companions are wolves and the other 1% are panthers) they would totally get stuck in there.

That might have been a safe assumption back in the O/AD&D days, but since 3e came along with it's if it's not in the rulebook you can't do it philosophy, im inclined to take the book at its word. Plus, there is plenty of back up evidence (in the latest UA even) that they DID mean for the companion to basically be a drone on standby until the Ranger drops whatever it is he's doing and grabs his controller. To paraphrase Vin Diesel, "you guys need to be thinking XBOX!"

Now, saying that, I agree with you 110%. It doesn't make any sense outside of a complete game-centric mindset, and completely wrecks versimilitude and suspension of disbelief to manage it that way. I get what the designers say about having trouble "balancing" a satellite character. But from where I stand, it looks like the influence of that 1/4 CR critter is going to deteriorate quickly after level 5, bounded accuracy or not.

Tom

Green1 · Sep 16, 2015

EzekielRaiden said:
I have not tried this, but in the upcoming 5e campaign I am in, a friend is wanting to play a Ranger and was extremely upset to learn that the animal companion works the way it does (that is, effectively inert unless his character is inert for the round). Part of that was being somewhat drunk at the time he read it, but he's still very annoyed about it. I have advised him to take it up with our DM to see if some sort of compromise can be found, and have provided two different alternatives:

(1) Command is a Bonus Action. Essentially, this trades most Ranger spellcasting and dual-wielding for bonus pet damage, or the benefit of Help, or a few other things. Since the damage is largely comparable to an offhand attack for creatures of CR 1/4 or lower, this should remain balanced if TWF is balanced.

(2) As the OP suggests, Command as an Action with ongoing effects, only Command again to change what's being done.

(3) Combine (1) and (2) together--Command as a Bonus ACtion with ongoing effects.

I've sent the friend a message with these options detailed, and presumably either he or I will bring it up with the DM to see if it is acceptable. (Normally I would not think to do it myself, but the DM has...frustrated the friend with the sometimes-excessively casual/non-investigative attitude he's taken, so I've already been called on to help facilitate effective and clear communication before.)

THIS.

Command as a bonus action would solve this. After all, if you are playing a beastmaster, you want a beast and yourself. You want a terrain savvy scout that if you tangle with him, you have a mad animal at you. Not either one or the other. But, I do think you would need a bonus action to direct a beast. Good immersion but keeps it down for those who think it is WoW with DPS meters. Plus, unless you switch out beasts (which few PC rangers do), each beast has limited situations it can be useful in.

Unwise · Sep 16, 2015

Similar to @G. Barrelhouse Esq. I have a bit of a system for knowing what a pet wolf will do. Mine is more of a mental flowchart. It would be different for other creatures, but a wolf is a pack hunter.

Has a current target:
In a fight with a creature weaker than it = attack
In a fight with a stronger predator = attack if the ranger (or pack member) is helping it, otherwise disengage or dodge
In fight with an alpha predator = help action if ranger is there, run if not

No current target:
It will never engage in a fair fight. It will come and use a help action on the rangers target unless it has advantage on somebody or it sees a fleeing, bloodied target.

This worked well, all of the PCs thought about helping the wolf if ever it was engaged by itself, because they did not want it to back off or dodge. They also made liberal use of attempts to give the wolf advantage on attacks, such as knocking people prone, or even using the help action and saying "sick em boy!" When uncontrolled, the wolf felt more like a whole party asset than just the rangers class feature.

<edit PS> This made melee rangers much better by comparison. A bow using ranger would have to command their pet a lot, as most animals have no interest in engaging head on with an equal or greater foe.
Also some players wanted really aggressive animals, hoping to avoid my rulings on avoiding fair fights. A dire wolverine etc would have other issues, for instance it might attack the closest bloodied person that is not the ranger if uncontrolled. A dire pitbull might spend time mauling a combatant that was clearly out of the fight. A dire honeybadger might just not care.

Azurewraith · Sep 16, 2015

BluSponge said:
That might have been a safe assumption back in the O/AD&D days, but since 3e came along with it's if it's not in the rulebook you can't do it philosophy, im inclined to take the book at its word. Plus, there is plenty of back up evidence (in the latest UA even) that they DID mean for the companion to basically be a drone on standby until the Ranger drops whatever it is he's doing and grabs his controller. To paraphrase Vin Diesel, "you guys need to be thinking XBOX!"

Now, saying that, I agree with you 110%. It doesn't make any sense outside of a complete game-centric mindset, and completely wrecks versimilitude and suspension of disbelief to manage it that way. I get what the designers say about having trouble "balancing" a satellite character. But from where I stand, it looks like the influence of that 1/4 CR critter is going to deteriorate quickly after level 5, bounded accuracy or not.

Tom