Beastmaster Fix

[Mistwell]

Finally, you can resummon your beast with 8 hours, rather than having to find a new one and then bond with it for 8 hours.

I would prefer a ritual which calls a beast within a 20 mile radius to you or which bonds with a beast already present (your choice), and it bonds immediately with you when it arrives. That way you might not get to choose which beast shows up if you don't already have one nearby that you've chosen.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I don’t think most BM players want to play an animal, and letting the companion have the full power of a PC class is both more complex and more spotlight heavy than a pet feature should be.

Insufficient power/spotlight time/ heck, even complexity* seems to drive all these "fix the BM" threads. Since minor tweaks seem unlikely to "fix" anything and letting one PC be two seems unkosher, I would say the options are make the majority of the offensive power be in the pet (which seems like it would only work in a class built around pets) or remove one of the PC's (in this case, the humanoid who is primarily there to order Fido around). Is playing a beast too niche? I don't know, but we are talking about people who want to play a BM ranger, so we may have stepped over niche 10 posts ago....

* Look at which beasts get love on the "guide to rangers" threads--damage plus something else seems more popular than damage (even greater damage).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Obviously most beastmasters must have a character age of <15

Apparently! lol

A pet feature should definitely be spotlight heavy.

Otherwise the pet - per definition - is too frail/weak to fulfill its role.

The problem is that the design must acknowledge that any pet feature worth having must abandon any hope of being spotlight neutral.

Any effort that attempts to keep the pet spotlight neutral fails to understand the inherent need of an animal companion function:

That the player wishes to play TWO characters, neither of which is so frail/powerless as to be a weak link or liability to the party.

I haven't come across many players that want the Beast taking up a lot of spotlight. They, IME, don't want two full characters, they want a character with a useful pet. In 5e, that either requires houserules (for a combat pet), using hireling rules with a beast (kludgey and weird), or taking a feat or a level of wizard to get find familiar (useful scout pet).

They want their class feature/pet to survive combat, without taking as much (much less more) spotlight as the actual character. Which is absolutely doable. Being harder to kill doesn't mean more spotlight. Surviving a fireball doesn't put the spotlight on the creature.

I would prefer a ritual which calls a beast within a 20 mile radius to you or which bonds with a beast already present (your choice), and it bonds immediately with you when it arrives. That way you might not get to choose which beast shows up if you don't already have one nearby that you've chosen.

Would you compromise on that being one of two rules options presented in the feature?

Because I know several players for whom that would be a non starter, and they'd just play something else, just like they would if the PHB ranger had no magic.

They aren't playing a BM ranger to play a guy who can quickly befriend new pets each time they get their pet killed, using nearby animals as canon fodder. They're playing to have a lifelong bond with an animal that becomes as a sibling to them, grows with them, and is bonded to them both in terms of the bond one forms with a beloved pet, and magically bonded. I've taken to just making it an hour ritual that costs 10 gold, making it a beast familiar, complete with some communication, but I know that cost is too low for many GMs.

And honestly, if we just made it a familiar that can attack, with even beefier options than the chain warlock (but less magical), I think the feature would work better at all of it's goals. You form a bond with a creature, and as part of that it becomes something more than it was, bonded to you spiritually and magically, able to speak to you, to share it's senses with you, and to come to your aid no matter where you are, returning even from death to fight and explore beside you. It'd be a better exploration feature, and a combat feature that wouldn't be a liability in later levels.

And the "no magic!" crowd can use the rules Mearls is building in Happy Fun Hour to build a pet using spell slots, instead of getting the spellcasting feature.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Insufficient power/spotlight time/ heck, even complexity* seems to drive all these "fix the BM" threads. Since minor tweaks seem unlikely to "fix" anything and letting one PC be two seems unkosher, I would say the options are make the majority of the offensive power be in the pet (which seems like it would only work in a class built around pets) or remove one of the PC's (in this case, the humanoid who is primarily there to order Fido around). Is playing a beast too niche? I don't know, but we are talking about people who want to play a BM ranger, so we may have stepped over niche 10 posts ago....

* Look at which beasts get love on the "guide to rangers" threads--damage plus something else seems more popular than damage (even greater damage).

I'm fine with there being an option to play a beast character. That isn't what the BM Ranger is, though. In general, players I know that want that play things like Shifter Moon Druid. In one case, we even did some houseruling to let them spend more time in the animal form, like giving them access to Self targeting spells while in animal form, and playing fast and loose with any use of Wild Shape that isn't part of exploration or combat. if it's for fun, it just doesn't cost a use. But those players tend not to be interested in playing a guy with a pet, IME.

 

[Mistwell]

Apparently! lol



I haven't come across many players that want the Beast taking up a lot of spotlight. They, IME, don't want two full characters, they want a character with a useful pet. In 5e, that either requires houserules (for a combat pet), using hireling rules with a beast (kludgey and weird), or taking a feat or a level of wizard to get find familiar (useful scout pet).

They want their class feature/pet to survive combat, without taking as much (much less more) spotlight as the actual character. Which is absolutely doable. Being harder to kill doesn't mean more spotlight. Surviving a fireball doesn't put the spotlight on the creature.



Would you compromise on that being one of two rules options presented in the feature?

Because I know several players for whom that would be a non starter, and they'd just play something else, just like they would if the PHB ranger had no magic.

I've long said there should be a beast resurrection low level spell on the Ranger list. If they really want a life long partner, they will carry a scoll of it always, and/or prepare that spell.

 

[CapnZapp]

I haven't come across many players that want the Beast taking up a lot of spotlight.

What I mean is that the pet needs more spotlight than the devs is willing to give them.

That's not the same as claiming the player needs two characters of equal spotlight.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What I mean is that the pet needs more spotlight than the devs is willing to give them.

That's not the same as claiming the player needs two characters of equal spotlight.

Right, I don’t think I said that you were suggesting equal spotlight time. What I’m saying is, the best just needs to survive being physically in combat. That doesn’t require more spotlight. Surviving a fireball doesn’t take any spotlight.

I've long said there should be a beast resurrection low level spell on the Ranger list. If they really want a life long partner, they will carry a scoll of it always, and/or prepare that spell.

That’s workable.

 

[CapnZapp]

Insufficient power/spotlight time/ heck, even complexity* seems to drive all these "fix the BM" threads.

Letting "one PC be two" is, in essence, the only solution.

You need two separate "bags of hp" to withstand the rigors of adventuring, not just one. What that boils down to is the number two. Not "one plus a small one".

This is not hard to understand, yet WotC has yet to exhibit any understanding of this fundamental fact.

Much better to do it right, and then make the subclass optional, than to waste all these words on trying to avoid the unavoidable. (I don't mean you. I mean WotC and the Internet in general)

 

[CapnZapp]

Right, I dot th honk I said that you were suggesting equal spotlight time. What I’m saying is, the best just needs to survive being physically in combat. That doesn’t require more spotlight. Surviving a fireball doesn’t take any spotlight.

The beast needs to survive fireballs, yes, but it needs more than that. It needs to bring enough offensive to justify the party bringing it along, without stealing the ranger's own action.

You can't just take a wolf and give it 200 more hit points at level 20. At that level, having a single +4 bite for 7 damage would be a joke.

What is needed is to first ensure the animal companion isn't significantly more frail than any other character - and I don't mean the wizard that avoids combat, I mean any other melee combatant since the animal companion is a melee combatant.

Then all the offense upgrades that normally would have gone into the ranger chassis needs to be applied to the companion in a way that actually makes a difference. (You can't just increase the wolf's bite damage and keep the attack bonus at +4)

In the end, you will find that you must choose between two things:
* keeping it balanced by offering a weirdly underpowred ranger, beast or both
* keeping it fun by offering a weak:ish (but still viable) ranger coupled with a melee monster of a beast (that's utterly incapable of everything else)

To me the latter choice will mean more spotlight simply because the pet is there. Not only is it there, it's doing great stuff. And since the ranger can't come off as handicapped, the spotlight sum will have to be >1.

For me, it's only when people finally accept this state of affairs as fundamental facts, and stop looking for solutions that aren't there, the development of a PHB Beastmaster replacement becomes truly interesting.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Eh, you could do away with the subclass and have "nature's ally" as a second level spell (similar to planar ally but all you get are beasts and are assumed to be able to communicate with the beast [and I would probably go with you give the beast food instead of gold]--and, if it is like planar ally, you can ask for the beast by name, so you and Fido can be buddies for many levels). It would mean getting a pet a level later, but if you wanted two pets, you can cast the spell twice (or save the other slot for when Fido bites it), because nature's ally should be like planar ally with no concentration (just a DM with enough common sense not to let you summon Fido the T-Rex and his buddy George the Giant Gorilla at 4th level). Sure the pet eats up some of the party's XP, but what's a little XP among friends? Also, PETA approves of you not summoning Fido right before you are going to fight an ancient red dragon or a fireball tossing lich, and since you are now a hunter or gloomstalker, you can still do as much damage as rangers do to the dragon and/or lich even without sacrificing Fido against an enemy he has no real chance to hurt anyway.