Satyrn
First Post
They can be. I even talked to [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] about simply giving the benefits of his suggested fighting style to the beastmaster directly, and added that to my notes as my preferred fix.
Revised Ranger update
They can be. I even talked to [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] about simply giving the benefits of his suggested fighting style to the beastmaster directly, and added that to my notes as my preferred fix.
OB1
Jedi Master
Why is it a contradiction? Why can’t my pet help me for most of combat to control the battlefield, then go in for the kill at the end? Just because you get the 11th level feature doesn’t mean it has to be used every round.
The Beastmaster Ranger is designed as a controller.
Gradine
The Elephant in the Room (she/her)
The Ranger has never had a stable identity as a class. I feel like it was originally envisioned as "Be Aragorn" and that identity has drifted this way and that ever since. I feel like it retained a relatively stable identity (although I always thought it weird that Minsc was a Ranger) until Wizards picked it up and they haven't figured out what to do with it since. 3.X treated the class like its main distinctions were whether they were archers or dual-wielders, in a system where other classes could excel at either, and didn't really give the class anything else to really set it apart. 4e made it worse by taking away the Ranger's magic and focusing the class almost entirely on its combat role. The 5e Ranger is arguably the closest WotC has gotten to a "classic" Ranger, but it still doesn't have a strong handle on what it's unique identity is supposed to be, and as a result it feels like many "classic" Ranger archetypes could be better built, or at least built more easily, with a different class and the way 5e handles backgrounds. The one exception I could probably think of, in all honesty, is Drizzt, who as far as a PHB-only campaign is concerned is a pretty solid fit for a Hunter Ranger, and now that we have the Gloom Stalker (or heck, Monster Slayer works too) I'm not entirely certain why there's even a conversation as to why he somehow doesn't fit in the class anymore.
Here's the real trouble with the animal companion - it's a vestige of a style of play that D&D has not supported well since, well at least since AD&D. This was back when every class was attracting followers of some kind or another, and there was more of a focus on stronghold building and protection, as opposed to having that small army of followers/apprentices/animals join you on adventures and dungeon crawls and hack monsters with you. It was a nod to its wargaming roots. 3.X made at least a token effort to make followers an option but it just... doesn't really fit the mode of play D&D has shifted into at this point. I can understand the drive to still have an "animal companion" class, and WotC did about as good a job with it as they reasonably could have without really breaking the game or borking over the action economy, but honestly I think the "Beastmaster" is a trope that I think has worn out its fit within the game.
Here's the real trouble with the animal companion - it's a vestige of a style of play that D&D has not supported well since, well at least since AD&D. This was back when every class was attracting followers of some kind or another, and there was more of a focus on stronghold building and protection, as opposed to having that small army of followers/apprentices/animals join you on adventures and dungeon crawls and hack monsters with you. It was a nod to its wargaming roots. 3.X made at least a token effort to make followers an option but it just... doesn't really fit the mode of play D&D has shifted into at this point. I can understand the drive to still have an "animal companion" class, and WotC did about as good a job with it as they reasonably could have without really breaking the game or borking over the action economy, but honestly I think the "Beastmaster" is a trope that I think has worn out its fit within the game.
Asgorath
Explorer
Man, this thread has been moving fast lately. I think it's worth remembering some details from the recent Dragon Talk Q&A from Jeremy Crawford:
- The last survey was in 2015 and there are millions and millions of new players. They are going to do another survey to gauge the current satisfaction levels before pursuing things like the UA Revised Ranger. They are not ruling out making changes as needed, but they want to get more up-to-date information before pursuing a given path.
- They are going to fix some issues with the Ranger via the new errata, which should be out very soon. The likely thing here is to make it clear that a Beast Master's companion will continue to perform the action you ordered it to each round until otherwise specified. That is, you can give your companion an order to attack a target, and it will just keep doing that and free up the Ranger's action on subsequent turns.
Both of these things seem pretty reasonable to me. WOTC isn't saying "the Beast Master is fine and we're not going to change anything", they are saying they'd like to better understand what the current player base thinks before spending their development resources.
- The last survey was in 2015 and there are millions and millions of new players. They are going to do another survey to gauge the current satisfaction levels before pursuing things like the UA Revised Ranger. They are not ruling out making changes as needed, but they want to get more up-to-date information before pursuing a given path.
- They are going to fix some issues with the Ranger via the new errata, which should be out very soon. The likely thing here is to make it clear that a Beast Master's companion will continue to perform the action you ordered it to each round until otherwise specified. That is, you can give your companion an order to attack a target, and it will just keep doing that and free up the Ranger's action on subsequent turns.
Both of these things seem pretty reasonable to me. WOTC isn't saying "the Beast Master is fine and we're not going to change anything", they are saying they'd like to better understand what the current player base thinks before spending their development resources.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
Part of the issue is that the ranger just isn't a very good combatant in mid to upper levels. They're also compare poorly to paladins, one of the better non-full casters. They only get a second attack, but so do valor bards. One of their typical fighting styles, Dual Wielding, drops off considerably and uses the bonus action, a flaw Mearls even admits. Unlike paladins who get a bonus d8 damage onm attacks at 11th level, their damage is flat from 5th level on.
They're needlessly saddled with a spells known limitation - paladins get almost as many extra spells granted from their Oath as Rangers can KNOW. Their ranger specific spells in general also suck outside of Swift Quiver and Hunter's Mark, being poor damage for the levels obtained and not worth the actions. Hail of Thorns, Cordon of Arrows and Lightning Arrow are straight garbage. Paladins get to use their spell stat for social checks, casting, as well as combat, in the form of their bounded accuracy breaking auras. Rangers get marginal exploration perks on stuff that is highly campaign and playstyle dependent. Their first level is basically all ribbon, and too many things are marginal at best, like Hide in Plain Sight.
Rangers can function OK, but that's because the bar is so low in 5E that you have to actively try to fail. They're by far the weakest of the PHB classes IMO. One of my players is running a revised ranger, and it still isn't as impressive as the Oath of the Ancients paladin I've nerfed twice...
They're needlessly saddled with a spells known limitation - paladins get almost as many extra spells granted from their Oath as Rangers can KNOW. Their ranger specific spells in general also suck outside of Swift Quiver and Hunter's Mark, being poor damage for the levels obtained and not worth the actions. Hail of Thorns, Cordon of Arrows and Lightning Arrow are straight garbage. Paladins get to use their spell stat for social checks, casting, as well as combat, in the form of their bounded accuracy breaking auras. Rangers get marginal exploration perks on stuff that is highly campaign and playstyle dependent. Their first level is basically all ribbon, and too many things are marginal at best, like Hide in Plain Sight.
Rangers can function OK, but that's because the bar is so low in 5E that you have to actively try to fail. They're by far the weakest of the PHB classes IMO. One of my players is running a revised ranger, and it still isn't as impressive as the Oath of the Ancients paladin I've nerfed twice...
Asgorath
Explorer
I've seen plenty of arguments that suggest all classes compare poorly to Paladins, though. All non-Fighter classes cap at two attacks per round, so it's not surprising that Rangers only get 2 as well. I think it's worth considering the Ranger additions from XGtE, which is WOTC's first official effort to improve the Ranger. Personally, I think the Gloom Stalker is pretty great, and am currently playing a Wood Elf Gloom Stalker with Sharpshooter. At higher levels, you get:
- 3 attacks in the first round, with an extra 1d8 on the first attack.
- Bonus action to Hide, giving triple advantage via Elven Accuracy.
- If you do miss, you get another attack (which means you get 3 attacks per round fairly often).
Sure, it's not going to match an Action Surging Fighter/Paladin who's dumping max-level Smites on every hit, but then again, who is? You can also do that from the safety of hundreds of feet away from the enemy, assuming the battlefield allows for it. I also remember standing around doing basically nothing against a flying dragon on my Vengeance Paladin, and would've been in the same situation as any melee class/subclass.
Chaosmancer
Legend
Massive amount of replies, didn't expect to have +10 pages of new stuff to read through
Until 7th level, this is essentially the True Strike Cantrip (use your action to get advantage on a later attack)
How powerful you consider that cantrip will likely inform how powerful you see this ability.
After 7th level this is a viable use of your bonus action, but you have to get through 7 levels of the class to use this tactic, and you cannot Hunter's Mark or Dual-wield on the turn you do this.
Or the enemy disengages and avoids both attacks, or they just focus on the ranger and ignore the wolf who is doing nothing in the combat
And again, until 7th level this tactic takes your entire turn and action to pull off, because you are using your action to command the dodge.
Cutting off escape routes if the wolf can get to them or if there are single points of exit from the map. In a forest for example, the enemy can run in multiple different directions. Meanwile in a cave or a dungeon room, the wolf will need to get behind enemy lines to cut off retreat, possibly taking many Attacks of Opportunity or drawing attention as it gets in range of mages or archers who will want it to stay back. Defending the mage by being a body in the way can work, but if the enemy already charged through the rest of your party, it is probably willing to take the hit from the wolf too.
The conception comes from the abilities. Until level 7 the beast cannot take any action other than attacking without it costing the ranger his entire turn. Until level 5 the beast cannot even attack without costing the Ranger his entire attack action.
And, how do you think companions knock down foes, poison foes, and ect? Do they not need to make an attack action to do this? Are they not on the frontlines when they do so, since almost no beasts have a ranged attack?
Hence, they are frontline combatants. They are on the front lines of the fight, making melee attacks. Otherwise, they stand in the back and look mildly threatening, which isn't exactly what I would call a "combat role"
I don't respond every day, and it takes some time for me to read through and reply to everything, sometimes I miss that I'm talking about a point someone else covered. More beasts have 2 than I thought, very few have 3 (panther does surprisingly, I didn't think they were that sturdy) but again, more than I thought. So, 1 to 3, with most having two.
As for "how is it hard" I imagine if I went to some of my newer players, they would have no idea where a beasts HD are, because they wouldn't realize the dice calculation for the hp shows you the HD. Once you know that it is easy, but if you don't read monster statblocks often (which not a lot of players do) you might be stuck looking for something that says "Hit Dice" and you will never find it.
Great, Help the Ranger and the other fighters, so what does it do until level 7 when it can do that? Stand there and be threatening. Sure, tactically sound idea, boring as heck and very passive.
And hit and run tactics are very hard to pull of without cunning actions or Mobile, since you'll proc OA's all over the place.
Fair enough. I know I've gotten snippy and sarcastic recently.
But, I'm not sure I've been entirely dismissive of all your fixes. It just seems to me that taking a weak subclass and fixing it by demanding more resources from the player (invest feats, new spells, and fighting styles) breaks down as a solution when you turn around and compare it to another ranger who instead of going beastmaster went a different route and either still took the useful and powerful stuff you created, or simply got things that made them better, leaving the Beastmaster in the dust.
Why not just rewrite the class to do the things we want, instead of demanding they pay further tribute in feats and spells? Especially since the point of those feats and spells is to rewrite the abilities that the class gives us and are causing the problems.
Also, we've examined some of your suggestions. There are very few higher CR beasts to make an increase in CR worth it, as was discussed with the spell that could allow up to a CR 3 beast bond with the ranger. I'm not sure what your feat means by "heal them", so I can't comment on it. Taking hits for the beast would only work in melee, a powerful option, but one that would then limit the advantage of being two places at once and would rarely work for the Archer archetypes common to rangers, since they would rarely decide to be in the melee with the beast. I like the HD based on level, it keeps things simple and consistent with how Hit Dice work. I'd like it to just be a rule instead of a feat, but it is a good idea.
So, I'm criticizing the ideas that I see as having problems, and wondering what your solutions are to those. How do you plan on allowing a ranger who focuses on archery to protect a beast like a wolf which is best in melee range? I'm not going to ignore that that is an issue with your proposed design just because it works in some circumstances, that would not be useful for either of us.
Yes we can find a reason, because the mechanics seem to be incredibly poor.
And that's not good enough for you because we could try and fix anything in the game? Fine, but you know those people asking "is the ranger weak" they got responses that said "Yes it is, because of these reasons." Never once did I see someone reply "Yes it is weak because the internet said so" or "I heard it was weak, but I don't know why".
And so maybe the individual player doesn't matter, maybe "PLAYERS" as a massive faceless group matters. But, in multiple of those posts, I saw threads of people talking about how they went to play the ranger as a brand new player, and within a few weeks or a few levels they went to their DM to ask about rerolling their character as something else. Not because they no longer liked the story of their class, or the themes of their class, but because the mechanics drove them away and they felt useless. That bothers me, that shows me that something needs to be done. And sure, I can play a Scout Rogue Outlander and be better than the ranger, I can play a Druid and be better than the Ranger (don't even need a melee class to go into melee as a druid, Shillelagh rocks) I can do a lot of things, except be satisfied with the PHB Ranger
Great, has nothing to do with the point. Fixing a class shouldn't necessitate a reworking of the entire system from the ground up. That is a strawman if I've ever seen one.
So the fact that there are so many fixes, that people are constantly working to fix the Ranger, doesn't strike you as a bit odd if there is nothing wrong with it?
And, I'm not looking for external happiness, heck, I've said it repeatedly if WoTC had simply decided to say "Hey, fixing the Ranger is hard, and we aren't going to devote further resources at this time to that end" We'd be having an entirely different conversation. Because, they wouldn't be telling me that the problems I see are an illusion, a hoax crafted by internet trolls to fool people into thinking there exists a problem with this class.
When people tell me that what I believe is a lie, that I'm actually wrong, and then can't back it up with evidence, I tend to get my hackles up a bit. They didn't need to give it a fourth pass (I must have missed 2 or 3, unless you are thinking 1 was during playtest) they just didn't need to say I'm a liar.
I hope by almost zero you aren't including myself, who has responded to your fighting style and your feats (as vague as you've written them). Not sure when the third thing was.
And, considering that despite the occasional drop in we've only had like half a dozen people responding in this thread consistently... I represent a rather larger percentage of the thread than "almost zero"
Edit: And this gets discussed. See, reading through ten pages of catch up material and responding is hard.
Because they should have had greater combat abilities to begin with.
Let us make a hypothetical class, this class has no weapon proficiencies, but also has no bonuses to unarmed attacks. We'll assume that the rest of the class is meh in utility abilities, but clearly the melee options are terrible, despite this class being called Hero for example.
So someone suggests a feat that will give someone proficiency in all martial weapons. Is this a good fix for the class? After all, if you want more combat power it should come at a cost.
However, that doesn't fly, because it was designed in a way that made it terrible, and people rightly point out that demanding a feat just to get weapons for their class which should clearly have weapons is a pointless cost.
Feats and spells should provide more baseline options, not be a tax used to bring someone up to the baseline level. That shouldn't need to be explained again and again and again.
Like... because the wolf was the only one attacking it? Until level 5 your companion either does nothing, or is the one attacking the enemy. And if the Bugbear wants to live, it hits the thing hurting it, not the man standing there whistling.
So does that count as something going "horribly wrong" or are we supposed to accept that for two full levels you combat companion (because if it was utility only we need to once again discuss how Find Familiar is superior in every sense) is supposed to not engage in combat except to stand next to you and look scary?
Actually, just because the Basic rules are free doesn't mean people even know they exist.
I certainly didn't tell my new players about it, because it is a poor version of the PHB and I always allow people to peruse my Player's Handbook so there is no need to tell them about the Basic Rules online.
And, I think Yunru has a fair point I had not considered. There is a taboo on the players looking through the Monster Manual, but alternatively, all of the best companion choices are not in the Player's Handbook and are intstead in the Monster Manual.
Yes, a proper DM should make those stats available to the player, but it would not be something a new player would see on their own.
Before level 5 or level 7, how does the Companion do this.
Yes, [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] has talked a lot about the help action, but you are four levels deep into the subclass by that point. Is getting the equivalent of the True Strike Cantrip a valuable use of your time at levels 3 and 4?
Sure, you could also have it stand somewhere and threaten opportunity attacks. But, either the enemy will be engaged with another PC (in which case the animal will be ignored as it is not contributing to the fight) or the animal will be 1v1 (in which case the enemy might kill the beast, use their action to disengage and move towards the backline, or simply take the relatively weak attack of the beast). This also puts the full tactical value of your beast on the DMs whims, because the DM gets to decide what the enemy does and you just have to hope it is what you were expecting.
Translate bold into "working as advertised" and you might see what we are saying about it being a tax.
I'm liking the 3rd option the more I think about it.
May end up fiddling around with it, but it adds more to the story that the ability to revive the beast has for the Beastmaster and gets that mystic bond I want pretty dead on.
[MENTION=6779717]Eric V[/MENTION]
If you don't want to look back through the thread, I believe Parmandur is talking about the expectation that the Beast master's companion is disposable and dies very often, only to be replaced by another disposable beast that will die very quickly.
So you don't have a companion, you have a missile you send after your enemies (reference to a story where someone was told not to act like a missile in a fight by flying in head-first "because you don't reuse a missile")
And you designate control as "stand there and look threatening if they try and leave?"
Beastmaster Ranger would then be designed as one of the worst controllers, who generally can shape the battlefield by affecting multiple enemies at a time. Not by threatening one enemy with some minor damage.
That would be some odd errata.
Right now you need to order the beast to move and order them to attack.
Let us say you order the beast to attack the goblins, and it auto-attacks every goblin in range, but then you need to order it to move to the next goblin to continue following their previous order, but you don't need to order them to attack again.
Sure, it works as long as the companion can keep attacking the same target for a while, but things strong enough to survive two or three turns of the beast attacking it can probably smear it with two or three attacks being returned. Unless we also buff Hp as has been being discussed.
Until 7th level, this is essentially the True Strike Cantrip (use your action to get advantage on a later attack)
How powerful you consider that cantrip will likely inform how powerful you see this ability.
After 7th level this is a viable use of your bonus action, but you have to get through 7 levels of the class to use this tactic, and you cannot Hunter's Mark or Dual-wield on the turn you do this.
Or the enemy disengages and avoids both attacks, or they just focus on the ranger and ignore the wolf who is doing nothing in the combat
And again, until 7th level this tactic takes your entire turn and action to pull off, because you are using your action to command the dodge.
Cutting off escape routes if the wolf can get to them or if there are single points of exit from the map. In a forest for example, the enemy can run in multiple different directions. Meanwile in a cave or a dungeon room, the wolf will need to get behind enemy lines to cut off retreat, possibly taking many Attacks of Opportunity or drawing attention as it gets in range of mages or archers who will want it to stay back. Defending the mage by being a body in the way can work, but if the enemy already charged through the rest of your party, it is probably willing to take the hit from the wolf too.
The conception comes from the abilities. Until level 7 the beast cannot take any action other than attacking without it costing the ranger his entire turn. Until level 5 the beast cannot even attack without costing the Ranger his entire attack action.
And, how do you think companions knock down foes, poison foes, and ect? Do they not need to make an attack action to do this? Are they not on the frontlines when they do so, since almost no beasts have a ranged attack?
Hence, they are frontline combatants. They are on the front lines of the fight, making melee attacks. Otherwise, they stand in the back and look mildly threatening, which isn't exactly what I would call a "combat role"
I don't respond every day, and it takes some time for me to read through and reply to everything, sometimes I miss that I'm talking about a point someone else covered. More beasts have 2 than I thought, very few have 3 (panther does surprisingly, I didn't think they were that sturdy) but again, more than I thought. So, 1 to 3, with most having two.
As for "how is it hard" I imagine if I went to some of my newer players, they would have no idea where a beasts HD are, because they wouldn't realize the dice calculation for the hp shows you the HD. Once you know that it is easy, but if you don't read monster statblocks often (which not a lot of players do) you might be stuck looking for something that says "Hit Dice" and you will never find it.
Great, Help the Ranger and the other fighters, so what does it do until level 7 when it can do that? Stand there and be threatening. Sure, tactically sound idea, boring as heck and very passive.
And hit and run tactics are very hard to pull of without cunning actions or Mobile, since you'll proc OA's all over the place.
Most feats do three things and what I had in mind, if you're not going the Fighting Style or Spell route, would be a feat that would cover a lot of ground that people seem to complain about the most with th beastmaster ranger. Like let it open up higher CR animals, allow the ranger to take a hit intended for the animal instead, heal them, give them hit dice equal to your ranger level, etc..
My perspective is that the beastmaster could use some boosts and I have suggested three, but that it's not nearly as bad as people here often say it is right now. You've been dismissive of those fixes, and blatantly sarcastic, while simultaneously suggesting my position is to simply defend the status quo. You're not even internally consistent in your response to me (dismissing proposed fixes while claiming I am defending status quo). Which suggests it's almost like you're disagreeing with everything I say just to disagree. See how that works?
Fair enough. I know I've gotten snippy and sarcastic recently.
But, I'm not sure I've been entirely dismissive of all your fixes. It just seems to me that taking a weak subclass and fixing it by demanding more resources from the player (invest feats, new spells, and fighting styles) breaks down as a solution when you turn around and compare it to another ranger who instead of going beastmaster went a different route and either still took the useful and powerful stuff you created, or simply got things that made them better, leaving the Beastmaster in the dust.
Why not just rewrite the class to do the things we want, instead of demanding they pay further tribute in feats and spells? Especially since the point of those feats and spells is to rewrite the abilities that the class gives us and are causing the problems.
Also, we've examined some of your suggestions. There are very few higher CR beasts to make an increase in CR worth it, as was discussed with the spell that could allow up to a CR 3 beast bond with the ranger. I'm not sure what your feat means by "heal them", so I can't comment on it. Taking hits for the beast would only work in melee, a powerful option, but one that would then limit the advantage of being two places at once and would rarely work for the Archer archetypes common to rangers, since they would rarely decide to be in the melee with the beast. I like the HD based on level, it keeps things simple and consistent with how Hit Dice work. I'd like it to just be a rule instead of a feat, but it is a good idea.
So, I'm criticizing the ideas that I see as having problems, and wondering what your solutions are to those. How do you plan on allowing a ranger who focuses on archery to protect a beast like a wolf which is best in melee range? I'm not going to ignore that that is an issue with your proposed design just because it works in some circumstances, that would not be useful for either of us.
Yes we can find a reason, because the mechanics seem to be incredibly poor.
And that's not good enough for you because we could try and fix anything in the game? Fine, but you know those people asking "is the ranger weak" they got responses that said "Yes it is, because of these reasons." Never once did I see someone reply "Yes it is weak because the internet said so" or "I heard it was weak, but I don't know why".
And so maybe the individual player doesn't matter, maybe "PLAYERS" as a massive faceless group matters. But, in multiple of those posts, I saw threads of people talking about how they went to play the ranger as a brand new player, and within a few weeks or a few levels they went to their DM to ask about rerolling their character as something else. Not because they no longer liked the story of their class, or the themes of their class, but because the mechanics drove them away and they felt useless. That bothers me, that shows me that something needs to be done. And sure, I can play a Scout Rogue Outlander and be better than the ranger, I can play a Druid and be better than the Ranger (don't even need a melee class to go into melee as a druid, Shillelagh rocks) I can do a lot of things, except be satisfied with the PHB Ranger
Great, has nothing to do with the point. Fixing a class shouldn't necessitate a reworking of the entire system from the ground up. That is a strawman if I've ever seen one.
So the fact that there are so many fixes, that people are constantly working to fix the Ranger, doesn't strike you as a bit odd if there is nothing wrong with it?
And, I'm not looking for external happiness, heck, I've said it repeatedly if WoTC had simply decided to say "Hey, fixing the Ranger is hard, and we aren't going to devote further resources at this time to that end" We'd be having an entirely different conversation. Because, they wouldn't be telling me that the problems I see are an illusion, a hoax crafted by internet trolls to fool people into thinking there exists a problem with this class.
When people tell me that what I believe is a lie, that I'm actually wrong, and then can't back it up with evidence, I tend to get my hackles up a bit. They didn't need to give it a fourth pass (I must have missed 2 or 3, unless you are thinking 1 was during playtest) they just didn't need to say I'm a liar.
I hope by almost zero you aren't including myself, who has responded to your fighting style and your feats (as vague as you've written them). Not sure when the third thing was.
And, considering that despite the occasional drop in we've only had like half a dozen people responding in this thread consistently... I represent a rather larger percentage of the thread than "almost zero"
Edit: And this gets discussed. See, reading through ten pages of catch up material and responding is hard.
Because they should have had greater combat abilities to begin with.
Let us make a hypothetical class, this class has no weapon proficiencies, but also has no bonuses to unarmed attacks. We'll assume that the rest of the class is meh in utility abilities, but clearly the melee options are terrible, despite this class being called Hero for example.
So someone suggests a feat that will give someone proficiency in all martial weapons. Is this a good fix for the class? After all, if you want more combat power it should come at a cost.
However, that doesn't fly, because it was designed in a way that made it terrible, and people rightly point out that demanding a feat just to get weapons for their class which should clearly have weapons is a pointless cost.
Feats and spells should provide more baseline options, not be a tax used to bring someone up to the baseline level. That shouldn't need to be explained again and again and again.
Like... because the wolf was the only one attacking it? Until level 5 your companion either does nothing, or is the one attacking the enemy. And if the Bugbear wants to live, it hits the thing hurting it, not the man standing there whistling.
So does that count as something going "horribly wrong" or are we supposed to accept that for two full levels you combat companion (because if it was utility only we need to once again discuss how Find Familiar is superior in every sense) is supposed to not engage in combat except to stand next to you and look scary?
Actually, just because the Basic rules are free doesn't mean people even know they exist.
I certainly didn't tell my new players about it, because it is a poor version of the PHB and I always allow people to peruse my Player's Handbook so there is no need to tell them about the Basic Rules online.
And, I think Yunru has a fair point I had not considered. There is a taboo on the players looking through the Monster Manual, but alternatively, all of the best companion choices are not in the Player's Handbook and are intstead in the Monster Manual.
Yes, a proper DM should make those stats available to the player, but it would not be something a new player would see on their own.
Before level 5 or level 7, how does the Companion do this.
Yes, [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] has talked a lot about the help action, but you are four levels deep into the subclass by that point. Is getting the equivalent of the True Strike Cantrip a valuable use of your time at levels 3 and 4?
Sure, you could also have it stand somewhere and threaten opportunity attacks. But, either the enemy will be engaged with another PC (in which case the animal will be ignored as it is not contributing to the fight) or the animal will be 1v1 (in which case the enemy might kill the beast, use their action to disengage and move towards the backline, or simply take the relatively weak attack of the beast). This also puts the full tactical value of your beast on the DMs whims, because the DM gets to decide what the enemy does and you just have to hope it is what you were expecting.
Translate bold into "working as advertised" and you might see what we are saying about it being a tax.
I'm liking the 3rd option the more I think about it.
May end up fiddling around with it, but it adds more to the story that the ability to revive the beast has for the Beastmaster and gets that mystic bond I want pretty dead on.
[MENTION=6779717]Eric V[/MENTION]
If you don't want to look back through the thread, I believe Parmandur is talking about the expectation that the Beast master's companion is disposable and dies very often, only to be replaced by another disposable beast that will die very quickly.
So you don't have a companion, you have a missile you send after your enemies (reference to a story where someone was told not to act like a missile in a fight by flying in head-first "because you don't reuse a missile")
And you designate control as "stand there and look threatening if they try and leave?"
Beastmaster Ranger would then be designed as one of the worst controllers, who generally can shape the battlefield by affecting multiple enemies at a time. Not by threatening one enemy with some minor damage.
That would be some odd errata.
Right now you need to order the beast to move and order them to attack.
Let us say you order the beast to attack the goblins, and it auto-attacks every goblin in range, but then you need to order it to move to the next goblin to continue following their previous order, but you don't need to order them to attack again.
Sure, it works as long as the companion can keep attacking the same target for a while, but things strong enough to survive two or three turns of the beast attacking it can probably smear it with two or three attacks being returned. Unless we also buff Hp as has been being discussed.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
There is no way I can reply to that mess you posted. Seriously, you quoted 6-7 people in one post, quoted me many times, but there are many replies to other posters in the same post as your replies to me, with many in between replies to me, and with a mention in reply to someone else? How am I, or anyone else, supposed to parse all that out to reply?
Here are a few replies as I saw them:
"Until level 7 the beast cannot take any action other than attacking without it costing the ranger his entire turn." Which is just plain false. "You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help action. " So you can't command it to attack without costing all your actions any more than you can command it to do anything else without it costing all your actions.
"And, how do you think companions knock down foes, poison foes, and ect? Do they not need to make an attack action to do this? Are they not on the frontlines when they do so, since almost no beasts have a ranged attack?" I already responded to that point. There are companions with reach, and with flyby attack, if direct attacking is what you want them to do. Try the Giant Poisonous Snake or Flying Snake for instance.
"How do you plan on allowing a ranger who focuses on archery to protect a beast like a wolf which is best in melee range?" I don't. I absolutely completely do not expect a beastmaster ranger who wants their pet to focus on melee to themselves focus on archery. Take another sub-class if that's what you want to focus on. Because if you want your pet to focus on melee, then in the very least you need to focus on melee as well to fight beside your companion. This just seems to be one of those "I want it all" type perspectives. You're not going to get it all - with any class. A melee companion expects a melee ranger to be paired with it, or else don't choose a melee companion strategy. You can instead choose a run and gun beast like those mentioned above.
Asgorath
Explorer
Jeremy Crawford said that they have some Hunter changes/fixes coming via the new errata that solve some of the problems they were attempting to address with the UA Revised Ranger. We'll see once they actually make those errata public, but as others have pointed out, I think there's a very reasonable reading of the Ranger text that allows for your companion to make intelligent choices once you've given it an order, freeing up your action every round to do other stuff like attack as normal. After all, isn't that one of the complaints people have about the Beast Master, that you have to burn your action every turn to tell your companion to attack?
Jester David
Hero
No it’s not.
Slightly underpowered maybe. But “incredibly poor” is pure hyperbole.
The beast master is so-so, but the ranger itself is fine. Especially for its first dozen levels (aka 90% of the levels that will actually see play). The hunter ranger is far from the weakest character option and can out-damage a fighter at many levels. (To say nothing of the Guide to Everything options.)
Okay, the ranger relies a little too much on spells. And a few of its mechanics aren’t great. It’s first level features are lame. But it’s far from the unplayable mess it’s often presented as online. It’s not going to drag down the party, it will deal decent damage, and it still shines during exploration.
Really, most optimizer’s class tier rankings put the ranger quite high. Above the berserker barbarian, elemental and shadow monk, and warlock.
Also…
I can name a half dozen things in the game that “weak” compared to simmilar options. I can also name a half-dozen overpowered options.
Should they fix them all?
And if not, why give the ranger special treatment? Why is it more of an issue?
Personally, I don’t think we need a repeat of 4th Edition (and late 3e) where each book has a dozen pages or errata and updates and the physical books become increasingly useless. I don’t want to have to stick loose leaf pages in my PHB to “patch” problems with the game, or have to wonder what version of the rules a DM is using.
:/
Why on EARTH would they say “because the internet said so”?!? That’s not a thing anyone has said ever in the history of humanity.
Of course they’re going to say “Because or these reasons”... and then recite a list of problems they read off the internet.
Okay, so let’s just proceed assuming the ranger IS unequivocally weak. So what? There’s always going to be a weakest option. If they revise and fix the ranger, then another class will become the weakest.
Will we need to fix the next weakest option after?
The catch is even if the ranger is weak compared to other classes of the same type, in most homegames you don’t have a ranger and a paladin and a fighter and a barbarian all at the same table at the same time. So you don’t notice the difference at play.
And even then, the variable of dice can have more of an impact. In play the weakest character has less to do with class and more to do with whose dice are hot.
Also… if the ranger was empirically weak and everyone knows it… why are so many people playing them? Why do so very, very many people happily play a class that is apparently obviously inferior?
Because. It. Doesn’t. Matter.
Here’s the thing… despite being ridiculously weak compared to the wizard, cleric, and druid, people STILL played fighters in 3e. The fighter was always one of the most popular classes. And the variance in power level between a mid level wizard and a fighter in 3e/Pathfinder was ridiculously larger than the difference between the ranger and other classes in 5e. The disparity is well within the margin of error.
That’s nice.
How many people? Again, was it 1,000? Because otherwise the sample size is too small to remotely be relevant.
You also have a obvious sampling bias. First, you’re innately going to remember threads and posts that match your opinions and skim over the ones that don’t. Second, the people who don’t find their character weak and don't switch aren’t going to post.
It’s like going to a tech forum and looking for comments on an iPhone. Most of the posts that’s going to be people having trouble, as the people who are happily going about their buisness don’t visit, let alone write a thread about how their phone didn’t freeze and become a brick.
How else do you get the class out to people?
The vast majority of players don’t visit the forums or the website or follow the designers on Twitter. Jeremy Crawford only has 46,000 followers. That’s only 0.3% of the D&D audience.
They could put out a revision of the class, and most players would not see it.
So what good is a fix that most people don’t know of?
I didn’t say that it was perfect or that it couldn't be better. Just that it was fine.
Also, there are variant bards, fighters, and paladins out there too. Should we redo those classes as well? A lot of people seem unhappy with the sorcerer and warlock.
.Where did they say that?
Actually LOOK at the tweet. What did Crawford *actually* say:
they’re not releasing an alternative ranger
The PHB ranger is the only official ranger
The ranger isn’t in among the least played classes
The Internet’s view of the ranger doesn’t match that of most players.
What point isn’t true?
If you have a problem with the ranger, he’s not telling you that you’re wrong. He’s saying your view and experience was just do not match that of most players.
Big deal. I’m also totally a minority among players. Heck, I’d argue most of us at ENWorld are.
It’s not that what you believe is a lie, it’s that not everyone has the same belief.
If someone tells me that vanilla isn’t the best iced cream flavour I don’t say they’re calling me a liar and saying that I’m wrong.
Also, what evidence would you really accept? Is there *anything* Crawford could show you to back up his statement that you would accept?
As for a fourth pass, they did two in Unearthed Arcana, and one in the PHB. Three rangers. In addition to any released during the playtests.
Why would the next be perfect?
