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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6701227" data-attributes="member: 2067">I've spent too-much-time over the last week pondering ranger stuff in response to the UA article, and I've thought about looking at this from another perspective. Setting aside for the moment the lack of a schtick or how everyone can TWF now or the "crapstone" ability at 20th level, I want to dig into one particular aspect that's been banging around my head a bit:Animal Companions.5e has a pretty decent method for handling "extra party members" (DMG, pog 92-93), which kind of translates into "If you've got an NPC party member, they get XP, and the challenge goes up, but you don't need to spend your action to control them or anything." Presumably, if your party paladin wound up astride a unicorn or your druid befriended a giant weasel, they'd be handled under this rubrick: they're a party member. Maybe you as a player control them, but they're independent creatures with their own agendas and their own cut of the XP load (and they'll make combats more tough, often, if the DM takes them into account). This seems to be kind of what a lot of folks who want a more robust animal companion - one that doesn't use the ranger's actions - kind of want. An independent party member who does their own thing. This might also apply to a noble's bodyguard, or a planar ally'd fiend or an intelligent paladin mount, as well as an animal companion. They get all their actions and features, and you just get a little less XP. They maybe even gain levels (so that they can increase their own proficiency bonus and hit point total). What strikes me is that these kinds of companions aren't really class features. The druid can gain an animal companion for an adventure, and they gain abilities to make that more likely animal friendship, speaking with animals, etc. It's not part of their class per se, but certainly it's something they can do if the DM's cool with adding another part-time party member. You can summon a demon or ride a pegasus, and these creatures might join your party, but they are not features of you being a wizard or having a pegasi-wrangler background per se. Thinking about companions like this makes me wonder if we really need a ranger who can control beasts independent from this. A subclass like "beastmaster" isn't any more essential for a ranger than it is for a druid, anyway, and countless character types - summoners, nobles, psionic mind-controllers, etc. - benefit from having a little NPC to control. So maybe one system for handling them ("they're a party member") is sufficient. If your ranger wants a bear friend, awesome, use Animal Handling and get one, and that bear gets XP and travels with the party and hangs out in the stables being chill around some panicky horses.Okay, you say, but rangers need more than one subclass, right? Well, how about we rip out the half-spellcasting and instead give them the spell-less ranger features. Now, we can have a ranger subclass that works like a druidic eldritch knight - one that casts some spells. That gives us the Hunter (now completely spell-less), and the "Spell Ranger" (Sylvan?). And maybe with that framework, we can massage the other elements of the ranger class to perfection. That also means that hunters and spell rangers who wanted to could still get an animal companion, just like how anyone else gets an NPC party member - roleplay, skill use, and DMing. So, what do you think - would it be cool to drop the idea of an animal companion as a class feature altogether, relying on general NPC party member rules for animal companions?</blockquote>

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