D&D 5E Did anyone try beastmaster with no action for beast attack?

[Giltonio_Santos]

Greetings, folks!

I'm not interested in discussing the ranger in Unearthed Arcana, because I believe the hunter in the PHB is fine and only the beastmaster needs some help.

What I want to know is: did anyone try to just let the beast keep attacking the same target every round without the ranger having to spend a new action to command it? I have a player willing to try it that way, and I saw other people refer to this as an alternative. I'd like to know about what happens in actual gameplay.

 

[steeldragons]

That is the way the PHB ranger makes sense to me. Take the action to start the beast doing something...they keep doing it until you tell them not to or they're done...you [the ranger] can do whatever you want until you need to spend time to change their action. Tell them to "Help" and you are getting advantage on every attack after until the enemy falls. Obviously, if you direct them to attack, and leave them to their devices, once all foes are gone they'll stop on their own before attacking those it knows to be your friends.

So, I never really got the big stink about them. It's not like you need to give up every turn you have for the animal to do something.

I haven't actually used or seen it done in play yet. But I can't fathom how it could/would cause any problems.

 

[Paraxis]

I haven't seen anyone play a beastmaster because the way the mechanics handle the companion. In the game I play in there is a paladin(ancients) and the DM allowed him to have a dire wolf as his summoned mount with find steed. Most of the time the paladin isn't mounted since then the wolf gets it's normal compliment of actions. So I see something close to what you are describing every week, and it doesn't break anything. The only issue honestly is how large the wolf is and trying to deal with that. The fact the paladin gets his normal turns worth of actions and so does the wolf is not an issue at all.

 

[Unwise]

I have seen it in practice twice, both while DMing. The first time around was with a pretty power gaming lot, they cared a lot about DPR and soon found that the ranger was eclipsing other people. That bothered a few members of the group, namely the melee damage dealers. I alleviated that somewhat by having the beast do lots of things that were not tactically sound. Like biting out the throats of enemies that were already down and being easily taunted off the enemy mages by enemy tanks. Also if the beast got hit really badly it would run away from that enemy. It had survival instincts, so if you wanted to keep it in combat with an alpha predator you had your work cut out for you. The ranger had to regularly spend their action or bonus action to redirect the companion.

In another group, they were pretty powergamey too, the difference is I rolled for the animal when it was not being directly controlled. Somehow that made all the difference, the players loved the beast as it was just extra help, because the ranger did not roll the damage etc, nobody put 2 and 2 together and realised that his DPR ecplipsed theirs.

 

[Azurewraith]

At my Table we have the pets run by the DM unless specifically commanded to do something by its master. Its a complete bust that a trained animal would just sit there and do nothing unless it was told to when it can see that not only his master put his travailing companions are getting attacked especially a pack animal(lets face it 99% of beast companions are wolves and the other 1% are panthers) they would totally get stuck in there. The dm does quite a good job of running it tbh makes just enough mistakes to make it seem like an animal and that giving it a command is worth your action.

Iv all so seen it moved as a bonus action to command it (the pet got buffed in this game and added prof+ranger level to attack damage.)

Both of these where fine i feel that at higher levels adding ranger level will get out of hand real fast but the game stopped at lvl 7ish

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm not interested in discussing the ranger in Unearthed Arcana, because I believe the hunter in the PHB is fine and only the beastmaster needs some help.

Agreed, at least in part. I especially agree the UA article threw out the baby with the bathwater.

The beastmaster is in much greater need of help, yes.

But the ranger class as a whole will need to be tweaked; currently there is not enough going on higher levels to justify staying in the ranger class if multiclassing is on the table. If favored enemy added your proficiency to damage, then that would be a little something that increased with levels and made it worthwhile to stay in the class.

And the way Hunter's Mark is a spell makes for a very strange decision; it effectively blocks all other choices, since that extra damage is a cornerstone of making a ranger combat viable. I realize it was designed as a kind of bonus, but it's really essential, kind of a spell slot tax. It's just so much better than any other spell.

And the way Hunter's Mark is concentration makes it too hard on melee rangers compared to ranged rangers.

I understand the design decisions given Hunter's Mark as just one of many non-essential combat bonuses. But that's not reality, so make it a class feature that can't be disrupted and be done with it.

But again, fixing that can wait. Back to your discussion

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I already XP'ed [MENTION=22953]SteelDragon[/MENTION], and I'm just reiterating what he said. I've said this in other thread...I don't understand how people can read the Ranger - Beastmaster ability of "can command animal companion at cost of Rangers Action" and then assume that the beast just sits there and does nothing. It's not a inanimate weapon.... it's a living creature, fanatically loyal to it's master. If it is, say, the typical wolf companion...it does "wolf stuff" all on it's own. It doesn't sit there like a rock and get claw/claw/bite 'ed every round until it dies just because the Ranger is busy trying to save his own skin, for example. The wolf is going to attack or run. It's also likely to help his master, but it will do so based on "wolf logic"; in other words, it's going to just run up and attack the rangers foe simply because, well, that's what any fantatically loyal trained attack wolf would do. It will ignore the three goblins guarding the shaman 30' away, however... unless the ranger uses his action to tell the wolf to attack the guy with all the bone-jewelry.

Anyway, yeah. There's my additional 2¢ on the whole "Beastmaster sucks!" thing. I think they're cool and very interesting to DM. Then again, I'm kind of an animal person, so there is that.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Paraxis]

I don't understand how anyone can read the description of the beastmaster and take away that the ranger doesn't have to spend his action commanding the beast each turn if they want the companion to take an action. It is very clear. Is it a good rule, eh maybe not considering all the other ways to break the action economy in this edition.

 

[Minigiant]

I've only did it as a DM via a beastmaster hobgoblin. Twice.

Once with the CR 3 hobgoblin captain sacrificing a attack to make his CR 1/4 wolf attack. No Leadership though. The second time the wolf just attacked after one order.

Martial Advantage: 2d6 damage
Hobgoblin Greataxe: +4 attack, 2d6+2 damage
Hobgoblin Javelin: +4 attack.1d6+2 damage
Wolf bite :+6 attack, 2d4+4 damage + Trip


That second time, beastmaster hobgoblin dealt a lot of damage. It' literally was 7 extra damage... for nothing

I'll add my hound hobgoblin wolflord, human falconeer, and orc houndmaster to the database one day.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have not tried this, but in the upcoming 5e campaign I am in, a friend is wanting to play a Ranger and was extremely upset to learn that the animal companion works the way it does (that is, effectively inert unless his character is inert for the round). Part of that was being somewhat drunk at the time he read it, but he's still very annoyed about it. I have advised him to take it up with our DM to see if some sort of compromise can be found, and have provided two different alternatives:

(1) Command is a Bonus Action. Essentially, this trades most Ranger spellcasting and dual-wielding for bonus pet damage, or the benefit of Help, or a few other things. Since the damage is largely comparable to an offhand attack for creatures of CR 1/4 or lower, this should remain balanced if TWF is balanced.

(2) As the OP suggests, Command as an Action with ongoing effects, only Command again to change what's being done.

(3) Combine (1) and (2) together--Command as a Bonus ACtion with ongoing effects.

I've sent the friend a message with these options detailed, and presumably either he or I will bring it up with the DM to see if it is acceptable. (Normally I would not think to do it myself, but the DM has...frustrated the friend with the sometimes-excessively casual/non-investigative attitude he's taken, so I've already been called on to help facilitate effective and clear communication before.)