D&D 5E 5E Beast Companion Mechanics.

[doctorbadwolf]

Dunno. I think they're moving away from the ASI concept because frankly the beasts usually ended up with more HP than the PC's

Elk/Constrictor snake each have 13 hp base and are on the higher end, so at the top end assuming you spend 3 ASI on Con and 2 on Str, they'd be 19d10+76 (avg. 190). If you used 4 ASI on Con then they're at 209 for average HP.

The new Beast versions max out at roughly 104 hp (Con +2 for Earth + 2 Ranger Wis (on average?) + 100 (5x20), but you can share spells with it.

I think the Revised Beast probably ended up being too powerful and overshadowed some of the other melee types which is something they don't want for companion/sidekick options. That's my guess anyway.

There's no way a bag of hit points that can attack once for 2d4 damage, or whatever, was overshadowing the fighter or paladin or barbarian. That is an issue that can only have existed in theory.

A PC has class features that far outstrip HP in terms of contributing to a combat. Even a basic Champion Fighter with no feats is going to perform vastly better than the beast companion, attacking several more times per turn at high level, with two fighting styles, expanded crit range, Action Surge, Second Wind, the ability to pick up a ranged weapon when needed, etc.

The beast companion is still very much an appendage of the ranger. It's an off hand attack that gets in the way of enemies sometimes. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to play with, but it literally cannot overshadow anyone, at anything.

 

[Salthorae]

There's no way a bag of hit points that can attack once for 2d4 damage, or whatever, was overshadowing the fighter or paladin or barbarian. That is an issue that can only have existed in theory.

It's not 2d4 damage though. It's 2d4+4 or 5 + 6 (at the top end), so potentially 2d4+11 per hit. If you attack on your action, it got to attack as a reaction, so it's doing that probably twice per round at least and it's 11th level feature let it attack each creature within 5' of it for that same damage. That's not insignificant. Either way.

I agree it's not the end all be all of overshadowing, but there is some reason that WotC has moved to this style of printing the creature stat block in the feature (Battle Smith's Iron Defender, Circle of Wildfire's Wildfire Spirit, Beast of Air/Earth) and using hp = Creature's Con + Master's relevant Stat (int or wis) modifier + 5x Master's level.

Either people in playtest found it too powerful or... something because it hasn't seen print and we now have another new revision to the Ranger feature.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's not 2d4 damage though. It's 2d4+4 or 5 + 6 (at the top end), so potentially 2d4+11 per hit. If you attack on your action, it got to attack as a reaction, so it's doing that probably twice per round at least and it's 11th level feature let it attack each creature within 5' of it for that same damage. That's not insignificant. Either way.

I agree it's not the end all be all of overshadowing, but there is some reason that WotC has moved to this style of printing the creature stat block in the feature (Battle Smith's Iron Defender, Circle of Wildfire's Wildfire Spirit, Beast of Air/Earth) and using hp = Creature's Con + Master's relevant Stat (int or wis) modifier + 5x Master's level.

Either people in playtest found it too powerful or... something because it hasn't seen print and we now have another new revision to the Ranger feature.

Honestly, the simplest answer is that the revised ranger would have required replacing the PHB one, and some people didn't like the pet getting a whole turn. Perception of balance often overshadows actual balance, after all. I'd bet real money that they got negative feedback by a lot of people that didn't actually try the thing.
Combine that with an option that works, but requires the total replacement of part of the whole of the PHB Ranger, and you've got something they should have known wouldn't work.

OTOH, you can keep the ranger's turn relatively simple (rather than them having two whole turns), and get a lot of the same effects, by just making it a simple pet that can be commanded to attack as a bonus action, and has the following stats that are the same regardless of what the pet looks like.

They went for the simpler option, that doesn't poke at some folks sensibilities about the "fairness" of one player getting two turns.

But the pet overshadowing PCs? Nah. What you describe here would be utter garbage if it was the total per round contribution of the entire Ranger PC. It works really well as an addition to the ranger themself, though.

 

[Salthorae]

But the pet overshadowing PCs? Nah. What you describe here would be utter garbage if it was the total per round contribution of the entire Ranger PC. It works really well as an addition to the ranger themself, though.

You might be right on the score of Revised Ranger would have been too hard to implement in practical terms, dunno.

I never said the Revised Beast was the total per round contribution of the entire Ranger PC, not sure where you got that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But the pet overshadowing PCs? Nah. What you describe here would be utter garbage if it was the total per round contribution of the entire Ranger PC. It works really well as an addition to the ranger themself, though.

You might be right on the score of Revised Ranger would have been too hard to implement in practical terms, dunno.

I never said the Revised Beast was the total per round contribution of the entire Ranger PC, not sure where you got that.

I didn't suggest that you did. The wording of my statement quoted above unavoidably recognizes that it isn't, in fact. "If it were" is pretty clear in meaning.
If it needs clarification, what I'm saying is that if we were to imagine the revised beast as a PC, standing on it's own, next to other PCs, it would be considered unacceptably underpowered. Therefor, the idea that it overshadows anyone is pretty strange.

Now, if you meant to suggest that the ranger and their pet may have been overshadowing others, I can concede that this is possible, if IMO unlikely to be any more common than the Paladin or Fighter or Barbarian overshadowing other melee combatants. But you suggestion that I challenged was that the revised pet was abandoned because it was too strong in itself, and may have been overshadowing PCs due to it's great durability.

 

[Nebulous]

I let the tiefling ranger have a wolf spider pet, and it is causing problems. Maybe it's how the pet is used (we switched from the core to the new revised ranger recently) but the pet spider is treated as a highly intelligent extension of the ranger and follows all orders beyond what an Int 3 creature would know. Such as, climb 90 feet into that tower and go in the window and retrieve the wizard's spellbook and bring it back. I tried to tell the player the beast isn't smart enough and I got argued with from several people (dogs can fetch, why can't the spider?). I wish they would just leave it as Attack/Defend, but the description is so vague it is open ended as to what the pet is actually capable of doing.


The companion obeys your commands as best
it can. It rolls for initiative like any other
creature, but you determine its actions, decisions,
attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or
absent, your companion acts on its own.

 

[Weiley31]

I let the tiefling ranger have a wolf spider pet, and it is causing problems. Maybe it's how the pet is used (we switched from the core to the new revised ranger recently) but the pet spider is treated as a highly intelligent extension of the ranger and follows all orders beyond what an Int 3 creature would know. Such as, climb 90 feet into that tower and go in the window and retrieve the wizard's spellbook and bring it back. I tried to tell the player the beast isn't smart enough and I got argued with from several people (dogs can fetch, why can't the spider?). I wish they would just leave it as Attack/Defend, but the description is so vague it is open ended as to what the pet is actually capable of doing.


The companion obeys your commands as best
it can. It rolls for initiative like any other
creature, but you determine its actions, decisions,
attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or
absent, your companion acts on its own.

Clearly you never watched Charlotte's Web if your saying the Spider ain't smart enough.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I let the tiefling ranger have a wolf spider pet, and it is causing problems. Maybe it's how the pet is used (we switched from the core to the new revised ranger recently) but the pet spider is treated as a highly intelligent extension of the ranger and follows all orders beyond what an Int 3 creature would know. Such as, climb 90 feet into that tower and go in the window and retrieve the wizard's spellbook and bring it back. I tried to tell the player the beast isn't smart enough and I got argued with from several people (dogs can fetch, why can't the spider?). I wish they would just leave it as Attack/Defend, but the description is so vague it is open ended as to what the pet is actually capable of doing.


The companion obeys your commands as best
it can. It rolls for initiative like any other
creature, but you determine its actions, decisions,
attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or
absent, your companion acts on its own.

In the original Beastmaster movie the Beastmaster Dar has two ferrets whose primary function is to steel things in the way you describe. So I would say "order your pet to steel something" is intended behaviour.

The issue is spiders are not usually considered as intelligent as ferrets (and the rules kind of reflect that, a ferret has an INT of 3, and a spider 2).

It's up to the DM to rule if the spider is not intelligent enough to follow those orders, or if it is a magically intelligent spider. Personally, in a pet solo mission, I would expect the player to role-play as the pet.

 

[Gadget]

Though the recent alternate class features UA does not change the Beastmaster subclass per se (beyond the beast options), it does offer a significant upgrade to the base Ranger class features that benefits the Beastmaster. I would prefer the newer alternate class features Ranger and just forget about the Alt Ranger from a while back altogether. You might have to make a few house rules to limit quick "dipping" into Ranger for some of the sweet new features, as it has not been calibrated for that, but probably worth the effort.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I let the tiefling ranger have a wolf spider pet, and it is causing problems. Maybe it's how the pet is used (we switched from the core to the new revised ranger recently) but the pet spider is treated as a highly intelligent extension of the ranger and follows all orders beyond what an Int 3 creature would know. Such as, climb 90 feet into that tower and go in the window and retrieve the wizard's spellbook and bring it back. I tried to tell the player the beast isn't smart enough and I got argued with from several people (dogs can fetch, why can't the spider?). I wish they would just leave it as Attack/Defend, but the description is so vague it is open ended as to what the pet is actually capable of doing.


The companion obeys your commands as best
it can. It rolls for initiative like any other
creature, but you determine its actions, decisions,
attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or
absent, your companion acts on its own.

It's working as intended. The beast is supposed to be more than "just attack/defend".