How does one play a beastmaster Ranger?

[Klaus]

I thought about that when I was playing with the CB, but I noticed two things... (1) that hoses your flanking advantage; and (2) several of the Ranger beast powers require you and your beast to be adjacent to an enemy...

It's too bad, because that would be sweet.

You can still be adjacent to your enemy, giving your beast a flanking bonus, and attack foes 2 squares away with your reach weapon.

The lack of any magical item bonuses, or even feats to improve damage, will quickly leave your beast behind anything you can dish out.

But the beast will be far more accurate, since it adds your level to attack rolls, while you add only half that much.

 

[KarinsDad]

Beastmaster Archer v2 - as above, plus use Beast Protector and the Sharpshooter PP to give yourself an OA anytime your beast is attacked. Send him into harms way and happily fill anyone who lays a hand on him full of arrow.

The problem with this is that it doesn't happen until level 11.

It's really difficult for an archer ranger to keep the beast protected and alive (with so few healing surges) for the first 10 levels up until that point in time.

 

[Mort_Q]

I thought about that when I was playing with the CB, but I noticed two things... (1) that hoses your flanking advantage; and (2) several of the Ranger beast powers require you and your beast to be adjacent to an enemy...

It's too bad, because that would be sweet.


It would hardly be game-breaking to allow a power like Twin Strike to be used once for the PC and once for the beast, IMHO. I think, in fact, it'd be objectively less-powerful than Twin Strike, given that beasts won't even get an enhancement bonus to damage.

-O

I'd just take the Spiked Chain multiclass feat.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

In the campaign I play in, we climb a lot of ladders and ropes. We don't have a Ranger in the party, but I keep wondering how well a Beastmaster Ranger's bear or wolf would climb... The only solution I can see is to choose a Raptor or re-flavor one of the other beasts as an Ape or something similar.

Any ideas?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I wouldn't allow it... I mean, at that point the only thing a dual-wield ranger gets is a free Toughness feat. And when it comes down to it, having a beast companion is a great deal more valuable than a single feat.

While I can see your point, our game isn't really concerned with balance between ranger variants. I'd be more concerned about the beastmaster overshadowing the rogue, for instance.

Also, the pet is actually more likely to provide flanking for the rogue than the ranger, since the rogue does so much damage. And also the ranger often servers as a pseudo-tank, so he's invested a lot of feats into armor (see my armor specialization thread. ) so he is already less offensively capable than another ranger by several feats, to fill in that roll.

Which is only to say, point taken, I'll have to ask my DM.

 

[Caliber]

You can still be adjacent to your enemy, giving your beast a flanking bonus, and attack foes 2 squares away with your reach weapon.

But the beast will be far more accurate, since it adds your level to attack rolls, while you add only half that much.

Except that just doesn't hold in practice. The Ranger has a proficiency bonus and magic item bonuses enhancing his ability to hit. The beast has ...? For my Beastmaster Ranger that just died last night .-() my Ranger swung with a +13 basic attack, my beast with a +12. Meanwhile, my Ranger did 1d12+9 with my beast doing 1d8+4.

Edit: And I didn't even get into the differences between crits. My basic attack would crit for 21 + 2d6 + 1d12 + another basic attack. My beast? 12. I actually died a little inside every time the beast's d20 came up a crit ...

His attack bonus may well have out scaled mine eventually, but his damage wasn't going to go up by much, ever, while mine would continue to increase, not only from items, but from feats. There was just no comparison (before I actually saw it in play, I would have agreed with you, honestly. Now that I have though, I think trying to actively use the beast is almost always a losing gambit.)

The problem with this is that it doesn't happen until level 11.

It's really difficult for an archer ranger to keep the beast protected and alive (with so few healing surges) for the first 10 levels up until that point in time.

Very true. Really, that concept is more of a refinement of a regular Beastmaster Archer. It should be pointed out the point of the OAs when the beast is attacked isn't really to protect the beast though; the point is to increase the number of attacks you are pouring out there. If the beast dies, you just bring him back after combat using the ritual all Beastmasters get for free.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Bump. I'm hoping someone will address my question above.

 

[Klaus]

In the campaign I play in, we climb a lot of ladders and ropes. We don't have a Ranger in the party, but I keep wondering how well a Beastmaster Ranger's bear or wolf would climb... The only solution I can see is to choose a Raptor or re-flavor one of the other beasts as an Ape or something similar.

Any ideas?

Ropes would require a harness to be fashioned (tying the rope around the creature's chest) and the creature to be pulled up. Ladders are less of a problem, since there are, in the real world, trained animals that can handle ladders well enough. Since this is a fantasy game, you can say the companion handles those as well as a trained animal would and handwaive it.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Ropes would require a harness to be fashioned (tying the rope around the creature's chest) and the creature to be pulled up. Ladders are less of a problem, since there are, in the real world, trained animals that can handle ladders well enough. Since this is a fantasy game, you can say the companion handles those as well as a trained animal would and handwaive it.

Thank you, Klaus. [BTW, I love both your art and your always-helpful comments here on ENWorld.]

I go back and forth on the issue of realism in D&D. I'm as happy as anyone to handwave on most issues, but the idea of a bear climbing a rope or a ladder (a rope ladder is actually what I meant) just sticks in my craw. Still, I'm not the DM, so I guess if it ever comes up in my campaign I'll let him deal with it.

 

[Snotboy]

I played a BM ranger* in a one-off delve, and I'd like to repeat something someone mentioned above--Martial Power introduced many ranger melee abilities that don't require you to be wielding two melee weapons. I can't calculate how it stacks up with Twin Strike, but using some multi-[W] abilities with a mordenkrad made for some rather impressive messes.


* Dwarf with a mordenkrad and a wolf-type. We didn't have a wolf or dog fig available, but we found a sort of robo-rat from Heroscape. The dwarf insisted, "What's that you say? That's me dog!"