D&D (2024) D&D 6th edition - What do you want to see?

[Parmandur]

The design constraint of the beast master is to have a PC and their pet combined be roughly balanced with every other class/subclass. I think a lot of people make the mistake in assuming they want the pet to be basically another PC. Well, that would make the beastmaster too OP. Not gonna happen.

So what does that mean? The core ranger class offers many abilities regardless of subclass, so let's just compare the subclasses

Hunter:
At 3rd level, you can do around an extra 1d8 damage
At 7th level, you get conditional defense. Nothing too major. An AC bonus on subsequent attacks (not the first) from a creature against you. OR advantage on frighten saves. Or enforcing disadvantage on opportunity attacks. So basically, probably about 1/4 of all attacks against you if that.
At 11th level, you get more attacks, but not as big as people assume. You already have 2 attacks, but you're giving both of those up to either do volley or whirlwind. Again, conditional, and you're probably only getting a bonus of one or two additional attacks in those situations. So evened out, maybe an extra half attack per combat round.
At 15th level, you can basically half the damage against you once per round. (half to none on a made save, and half on a successful hit against you)

Now the beast master:
At 3rd level, you get your pet. Let's say a panther because Drizzt (yawn) 24 HP and 14 AC (increases with your prof bonus). What advantages does this give you (assuming your physical attack is better so not considering that a bonus to damage on a per round basis):

• adv on perception checks.
• no cost movement (meaning you can use it to detect or attack creatures from a distance without putting your PC directly in harm's way, or attacking creatures you can't see from your current position, or granting an ally advantage via help at a distance--this is a big one)
• being able to knock opponents prone (again, at a distance)
• simply by being another person on the battlefield, can take attacks that would normally go at you or an ally. In mechanical terms, that's damage reduction to you or an ally. 24 points per long rest? That's significant. Even outside of all other benefits, which subclass ability grants you 24+ points of potential damage reduction at 3rd level?

At 7th level, you basically can grant advantage any anyone via help at no cost to your normal attacks unless you dual wield (since it's a bonus action). Or it can dodge, which significantly improves it's damage reduction ability mentioned above since it is harder to hit and can suck up even more attacks that would otherwise be directed at you or an ally
At 11th level, it makes 2 attacks at the cost of one of yours. If each attack from you does 1d8+4 (ability mod)+2 (assume magic item or equivalent bonus at 11th level) points of damage, and each panther attack does +8 to hit and 1d6+6 damage, then compare: giving up 10.5 points to gain 19 points--or +8.5 points of damage per round.
At 15th level, when you cast as spell targeting you, you also target your pet. Like stoneskin, which reduces your damage by half, as well as your pet's.

So to compare:
3rd level: advantage beast master
7th level: advantage beast master (free advantage and damage reduction every round is better than highly conditional defense bonus from hunter)
11th level: advantage beast master. The 8.5 extra points of damage outpaces the extra half extra damage you get from volley or whirlwind. You'd have to attack 5 or more enemies on your turn for hunter to outpace this. How often does that happen when the beast master can do this every single turn?
15th level: advantage hunter. Both grant half damage (or other versatility with beast master), but hunter doesn't have to use a spell slot to do so.

In summary
The beast master and the benefits aren't nearly as bad as people keep assuming. In some cases, maximized damage in any given round might be less, but the versatility of the beast master far outpaces that. If you assume the pet should be the same as an equal level PC in terms of AC,HP,Dmg, of course it's gonna look weak. But for reasons already presented, that's incredibly flawed to look at it like that.

Quite correct: the problematic aspect is that this is a bit of a tougher Subclass to use effectively, but narratively it appeals to newer players. Hence, expectations and reality collide and result in a significant minority report of dissatisfaction.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Will I get shot if I just say adventuring pets of any kind are annoying and that I for one would be happy to see the end of them?

shields up!

I blame Everquest for the proliferation of pet usage

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sacrosanct]

Naw. "Pet classes" are great for CRPGs, and a PITA for TTRPGs.

There are many players that love them (either because they believe they will come up with clever ways to abuse the rules, or they are emotionally stunted and want the love of fictional pet and/or undead), but my table has had a multi-decade ban on them, because the hassle is never equal to the fun.

This includes Beastmasters, wanna-be Drizzts, Necromancers, Summoners,Demon Binders, and any all sorts of other character classes that primarily operate through one or more surrogates.

It must really chap your hide how 5e made call woodland beings so overpowered then

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Lanefan]

Naw. "Pet classes" are great for CRPGs, and a PITA for TTRPGs.

There are many players that love them (either because they believe they will come up with clever ways to abuse the rules, or they are emotionally stunted and want the love of fictional pet and/or undead), but my table has had a multi-decade ban on them, because the hassle is never equal to the fun.

This includes Beastmasters, wanna-be Drizzts, Necromancers, Summoners,Demon Binders, and any all sorts of other character classes that primarily operate through one or more surrogates.

I don't mind Summoners, Necromancers, and so forth so much; as most of their "pets" are temporary things - they're usually intended as no more than short-term cannon fodder, and work just fine as such.

But a true pet that's intended to stick around and survive - annoying. (wizard familiars also fall into this category)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Bears are not eligible as BM pets. They recommend birds or snakes. Not combat heavies.

You're right about the bear. I'd forgotten that. The second sentence is completely false. They recommend no such thing.

Further, the description literally refers to the pet as a combat companion.

The Beast Master archetype embodies a friendship between the civilized races and the beasts of the wild. United in focus, beast and ranger fight the monsters that threaten civilization and the wilderness alike.

Ranger’s Companion

At 3rd level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you.

Then we come to the actual mechanics of the class. At level 3, a 1/4 CR beast is a perfectly good combatant alongside the party. Then it gets scaling that clearly intends to keep it's attack, AC, and HP at a point where it won't die every single time you let it participate in a fight.

Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower. Add your proficiency bonus to the beast’s AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills it is proficient in. Its hit point maximum equals the hit point number in its stat block or four times your ranger level, whichever is higher. Like any creature, it can spend Hit Dice during a short rest to regain hit points.

The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. It takes its turn on your initiative. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you). You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, or Help action. If you don't issue a command, the beast takes the Dodge action. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action.

If you are incapacitated or absent, the beast acts on its own, focusing on protecting you and itself. The beast never requires your command to use its reaction, such as when making an opportunity attack.

While traveling through your favored terrain with only the beast, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.

If the beast dies, you can obtain a new companion by spending 8 hours magically bonding with a beast that isn’t hostile to you and that meets the requirements.

I don't know why you are stuck on this idea that it was never the intent that this subclass was meant to have a combat pet, but you're objectively incorrect.

That's very clearly a pet that is supposed to be usable in both exploration and combat. Most of it's features relate to combat, in fact. The features you get as you level up are also related to using the beast in combat.

The only subclass levels where you don't gain a boost that is specific to using the pet in combat is 15th, and sharing spells is at least as useful in combat as it is in exploration, and is the first time after level 3's benefit of getting your proficiency in it's skills and stealthing better while traveling with you that the pet gets any benefit at all outside of combat.

If they'd meant it to primarily be a scouting buddy, they'd have given it extra skill proficiency, or given the BM ranger something like Beast Sense as a bonus spell or feature, or the ability to communicate basic ideas with your beast (ya know, so it can scout ahead and report back, or you can both scout different directions and share info, etc), or literally anything at all as you level up that makes it a better scout, instead of making it better at fighting.

And literally all it needs is a different HP scaling setup. That's it. Just give it a Hit Die per level you gain, and you're done, as far as balance goes. It just needs to keep up with average enemy damage output. Player expectations would be better met by giving it an attack either with your bonus action or on it's own, and there is room for that in balance terms, but it wouldn't be required to "fix" the BM Ranger. Your claim that the BM as an archetype just isn't going to work, or just will not be included in a 6e, is just nonsense that you can't back up with literally anything at all but repeating the claim.

 

[Parmandur]

You're right about the bear. I'd forgotten that. The second sentence is completely false. They recommend no such thing.

Further, the description literally refers to the pet as a combat companion.



Then we come to the actual mechanics of the class. At level 3, a 1/4 CR beast is a perfectly good combatant alongside the party. Then it gets scaling that clearly intends to keep it's attack, AC, and HP at a point where it won't die every single time you let it participate in a fight.


I don't know why you are stuck on this idea that it was never the intent that this subclass was meant to have a combat pet, but you're objectively incorrect.

That's very clearly a pet that is supposed to be usable in both exploration and combat. Most of it's features relate to combat, in fact. The features you get as you level up are also related to using the beast in combat.

The only subclass levels where you don't gain a boost that is specific to using the pet in combat is 15th, and sharing spells is at least as useful in combat as it is in exploration, and is the first time after level 3's benefit of getting your proficiency in it's skills and stealthing better while traveling with you that the pet gets any benefit at all outside of combat.

If they'd meant it to primarily be a scouting buddy, they'd have given it extra skill proficiency, or given the BM ranger something like Beast Sense as a bonus spell or feature, or the ability to communicate basic ideas with your beast (ya know, so it can scout ahead and report back, or you can both scout different directions and share info, etc), or literally anything at all as you level up that makes it a better scout, instead of making it better at fighting.

And literally all it needs is a different HP scaling setup. That's it. Just give it a Hit Die per level you gain, and you're done, as far as balance goes. It just needs to keep up with average enemy damage output. Player expectations would be better met by giving it an attack either with your bonus action or on it's own, and there is room for that in balance terms, but it wouldn't be required to "fix" the BM Ranger. Your claim that the BM as an archetype just isn't going to work, or just will not be included in a 6e, is just nonsense that you can't back up with literally anything at all but repeating the claim.

Eagles, hawks and snakes are prominent examples in the book. The strongest critters are weak pack critters, not bruisers.

They contribute to combat, in a way comparable to the equivalent level features of other subclasses as demonstrated above by @Sacrosanct . They are bonuses and tactical options for the PC, not agents in and of themselves.

 

[DWChancellor]

My vote is for 5.5E. A cleanup and re-tightening of the rules and books. A big push for redesigning core monsters to have a greater variety of (interesting, not just gotcha) gimmicks. I rely on 3rd parties for a lot of that right now since the MM really only has a few tricks. One thing 4E did better was to make "families" of monsters feel more related which is weaker in 5E.

Everything else feels (to me) like changing it would lose as much as it gains. A testament to the excellent work on 5E.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Eagles, hawks and snakes are prominent examples in the book. The strongest critters are weak pack critters, not bruisers.

They contribute to combat, in a way comparable to the equivalent level features of other subclasses as demonstrated above by @Sacrosanct . They are bonuses and tactical options for the PC, not agents in and of themselves.

They demonstrated no such thing. Show me these examples, by the way. They aren't in the writeup for the ranger, at all, so far as I can tell. The strongest critters are fine at levels 3 to about 6 or 7. In that level range, you can choose a primarily scouting and advantage granting pet, or a pet that fights beside you, and the class doesn't punish either choice. It's later levels where one option becomes a trap.

What sacrosanct demonstrated was a misunderstanding of the subclass and what it's features are. 24 hp (at most) of mitigated damage isn't an actual thing when the pet can die from incidental damage from an AOE, and when almost no one that wants to play the archetype is really down for constantly replacing their subclass granted pet with an entirely new animal chosen from animals available in the area in which they're currently adventuring. What CR 1/4 beasts are you finding in dungeons, by the way? And it sure as hell isn't 24hp soaked up per long rest.
It takes 8 hours to regain the pet. There is no indication that this can be done as part of a long rest. How much time will the party let you take up regaining a pet every single adventuring day?

The idea that properly scaling HP (ie, HP scaling that doesn't decrease the pet's power over time) would make the pet equal to a full PC indicates a total lack of understanding, or refusal to admit to, what a PC has to work with. The pet has no special class features, very few proficiencies, etc. It's a wolf or whatever with some more HP. That doesn't compare at all to any PC class.

I did, however, demonstrate that your claim that it's supposed to be a scouting pet and NOT a combat companion is objectively false.