D&D 5E Dragon+: Q&A with Jeremy Crawford, 10/30/18

5ekyu · Nov 1, 2018

CapnZapp said:
Interesting. I didn't know that was a (major) issue.

If I had guessed, the vulnerability of the pet to an area effect would be the #1 issue.

The first design goal of any pet companion ability should clearly be that the owner should never need to ressurrect the pet more often than any other valued member of the party.

(Yes, way before even starting to worry if the pet does any actual good. And I'm saying that as a fairly hardcore DM where players judge abilities by their Damage-Per-Round potential! Not even I am immune to the fact that a tiger or wolf is not worth having even if it eats the monsters alive, if you need to replace/raise Fluffy every other game session)

So clearly Crawford needs to be exposed to actual gamer questions, where he can't hide behind corporate .

Obviously it varies with focus.

For me well before we get to sub-class features is the notion of the basic class highlights and the ranger to me has always been keyed more towards your solid go-to guy for outdoors guide and hunter stuff. Whether or not they choose a companion for combat or for scout or if they even go that route is to me secondary to whether or not a good number of the core abilities work in like 75% of the adventuring space (or limits the campaign to that other 25% etc.)

But, a lot will vary by campaign.

UngeheuerLich · Nov 1, 2018

I think dodge action when issued no command is actually not that bad. But I have to agree, just allowing the beast to do whatever it was told until another command was issued would have easily be called a clarification. It is not 100% clear that issuing a command has to be repeated every turn.
Maybe the interpretation is still possible. We have to see.

Sword of Spirit · Nov 1, 2018

Those errata are still pretty useless.

Here's the thing:

The game already has companions for anyone--they are called purchased animals. Warhorse, elephants, etc. If you aren't controlling them as mounts, they act on their own--which if they are battle trained usually means they will attack whoever is attacking them. This takes zero actions on your part.

Add Beastmaster. Now you can get a very limited choice of animals as a special pet that just stands there in combat unless you use your action economy to command it.

Seriously?

The easiest way to handle this is just to allow the animal companion to act normally, like any other animal, and any actions the Beastmaster grants to it are in addition to its normal actions. It would use its reaction to take them.

I personally have little respect for a DMing style that would try to buff the animal companion by not allowing other creatures to act as they are allowed to by the rules, or disallowing the purchase of animals for mechanical reasons (a campaign avoiding a menagerie for thematic reasons is different). Anyone can get a beast who will use its own actions to fight for them. That fact has to be taken account of in ranger animal companion design, and it simply wasn't.

CapnZapp said:
How about... treating the animal companion just like all those other creatures, then?

Instead of making it even more highly specific, how about just removing (errataing away) the PHB text that makes the AC special in this regard - the lines specifying that it does nothing on its own?

Yep, this.

flametitan · Nov 1, 2018

The way he words it, those sound like they're not the only changes. Just two he felt he could publicly announce before the rest of the errata.

It might be that these are the only changes, or it might be that there's going to be more substantial updates to go with it.

The Crimson Binome · Nov 1, 2018

pukunui said:
How is this not changing the rules via errata? JC’s tweet to me about how they haven’t changed their approach to errata is feeling more and more disingenuous to me.

Regarding the Dodge action, it was always a perfectly reasonable interpretation for a DM to make, that an animal without commands will choose to defend itself. It is supported exactly as much as the alternative, where it would just stand around doing nothing and getting stabbed in the face. (As far as I recall, "do nothing" was never a valid option in combat, and the rules do suggest taking the Dodge action if you aren't sure what to do.)

The only difference here is that they seem to be spelling it out, rather than leaving it up to DM interpretation.

pukunui · Nov 1, 2018

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]: That one's OK. It's the one about adding a class feature that makes beast's attacks magical for the purposes of bypassing resistance. I don't care how JC tries to justify it to himself or spin it to us, that's a rules change. Not errata.

Parmandur · Nov 1, 2018

Saelorn said:
Regarding the Dodge action, it was always a perfectly reasonable interpretation for a DM to make, that an animal without commands will choose to defend itself. It is supported exactly as much as the alternative, where it would just stand around doing nothing and getting stabbed in the face. (As far as I recall, "do nothing" was never a valid option in combat, and the rules do suggest taking the Dodge action if you aren't sure what to do.)

The only difference here is that they seem to be spelling it out, rather than leaving it up to DM interpretation.

Magic attacks does seem to be a more substantive change, however.

Jester David · Nov 1, 2018

The Crimson Binome · Nov 1, 2018

pukunui said:
[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]: That one's OK. It's the one about adding a class feature that makes beast's attacks magical for the purposes of bypassing resistance. I don't care how JC tries to justify it to himself or spin it to us, that's a rules change. Not errata.

Going by this thread, I was under the impression that it was a new option, akin to a new choice being presented. Adding a new option wouldn't change the functionality of anything already in the book.

If I was reading that incorrectly, and he's just sneaking in a new core feature of the Beastmaster so "at level 7, your animal companion counts as a magical weapon for the purposes of bypassing defenses", then that would be a real change.

pukunui · Nov 1, 2018

Saelorn said:
Going by this thread, I was under the impression that it was a new option, akin to a new choice being presented. Adding a new option wouldn't change the functionality of anything already in the book.

If I was reading that incorrectly, and he's just sneaking in a new core feature of the Beastmaster so "at level 7, your animal companion counts as a magical weapon for the purposes of bypassing defenses", then that would be a real change.

He described it was being one of the "tweaks" included in the errata. It didn't sound optional to me. We'll have to wait and see what the actual errata says.

The real issue I have with this is how late in the game it's coming, and the resulting fact that it will now be possible for there to be multiple iterations of the PHB at the same table, all of which say slightly different things.

Also, what if you have a DM with an older PHB who doesn't want to use the new errata who has a player with a newer PHB that has the errata incorporated into it? That DM will now essentially have to house rule that errata away and tell the player his book is "wrong".

Could get messy ...