How to have animal companions fight on "without direction"?

[CapnZapp]

To maintain balance, this is what we did:

Your solution is indeed acceptable, but what do you mean by "maintain balance"?

As far as I can see, you have only boosted the action economy for the beastmaster. Not that I'm complaining, but doesn't your solution have any balancing drawbacks?

 

[CapnZapp]

I guess the general question is: is player-controlled allies compatible with the new idea on action economy?

That is, if an ally doesn't give you more actions, what's the point of having that ally?

To me, sharing actions makes beast companions feel very artifical and constricted. But much more critical - it sucks out the fun from the feature. Wizards have shown they can make ally rules that don't have this significant flaw, so how do we redesign the beast companion to rid it of this (in my mind) completely debilitating disadvantage?

The first question must be: would it be so wrong to allow a Beastmaster PC more actions than his friends? This isn't any more "overpowered" than when a NPC decides to tag along after all.

I mean, wouldn't a much better solution be to ask the other players if they're fine with a "real" beast companion? If no, the ranger player will simply have to choose another build. If yes, he is assumed to be rules-savvy enough not to slow down gameplay by making faster-than-average decisions and die rolls each turn.

Thoughts?

 

[Garthanos]

The first question must be: would it be so wrong to allow a Beastmaster PC more actions than his friends? This isn't any more "overpowered" than when a NPC decides to tag along after all.
Thoughts?

I would make normal companion npc's ... minions whether they are beasts or not, they then never over shadow the pc's and then you dont need very many special rules. (bloody-able minions can be rescued etc)

However if you want the npc to have heroic survivability and devoted to the pc and vice versi and you want to simulate special synergy or integration between their attacks .. we need more rules

The telempathic hitpoints idea come in to play at this point. Leave the creature a minion and give the pc some special abiltiy to share healing surges with beasts and synergize attacks with the creature. (yup like a leader but only leading animals as we are talking beast mastery)

Beast Masters and Necromancers both could be sort of a leader types

 

[Pale Jackal]

The first question must be: would it be so wrong to allow a Beastmaster PC more actions than his friends?

If the other players are okay with it, then no, but the extra actions, even if it's an extra move action, does confer an advantage, so ideally I'd make up for the advantage by taking something else away.

Garthanos' empathic link is one solution, though it does kind of clash with the flavor of the classical ranger.

 

[KarinsDad]

Your solution is indeed acceptable, but what do you mean by "maintain balance"?

As far as I can see, you have only boosted the action economy for the beastmaster. Not that I'm complaining, but doesn't your solution have any balancing drawbacks?

It does.

1) The Ranger has to spend a minor action to get the companion to move. Currently, he could have it move for free if the Ranger moves.

2) The Ranger has to spend a move action to get the companion to fight defensively. Currently, he could have it fight defensively for free if the Ranger fights defensively.

3) In our game, the companion is rarely close to combat because the few times it was close, it got whaled on. Now, it's a choice. Have the companion fight and risk itself, or have the companion stay back. So far in our campaign, the companion attacked for about half of an encounter once and outside of that, only averages about 1 attack per encounter. This is the real balance. Risk vs. reward. Animal companions have nowhere near the number of healing surges as PCs. Putting them at risk does gain a slight increase in dpr, but it does so by risking the companion. Pro and Con. At least in our game, the player is not heavily risking the companion, but still has the option to use the companion to fight. To me, this is balance. The Ranger does not seem a lot more powerful than other PCs because the Ranger does not use this advantage too often. The risk is too great. It's a go to the well ability, but one that makes the animal companion feel less artificial.

 

[RangerWickett]

Be akin to 3rd edition and the real world.

A pet gets a standard, move, and minor action each round, and it acts during your turn after you finish all of your actions. It is controlled by the GM, but it follows your orders if you give them. Orders work like real world animal training does - attack that, defend that, follow that, stay here, go there, fetch that, etc. (I figure your pet will get a suite of those half dozen standard commands, plus it can have any two special tricks you want, like balance on a ball, or bark a song. You can spend an hour to replace one of those tricks with another.)

If you don't have a beastmaster bond with the animal, giving an order is a standard action. You tell the pet what to do, and after you finish your turn, the pet goes, and the GM decides how it fulfills your last direction. If you told it to attack a target, once that target drops it returns to you. When the animal becomes bloodied it flees to the best of its ability. If you give it an order while it's bloodied it will obey for one round, then flee on its next turn.

For a beastmaster ranger, you can spend a minor action to give your pet an order (just like a normal person would do as a standard action). If you do, just like normal, after you finish your turn, the GM controls the pet's turn. However, a bloodied pet still follows your orders, and doesn't flee.

Alternately, if you're a beastmaster ranger you can instead spend a standard action to direct your pet. If you do, once you finish your turn, you control your pet's turn (even if you fell unconscious after you spent the standard action).

Finally, if you use one of your 'beast' powers, the pet acts on its own, but it counts as having used the same type of action for its turn. So if you use a move action beast power, the pet will only have a standard and minor action on its turn.

If you're a beastmaster ranger, when you go unconscious, if you have line of sight to your pet, you decide whether it keeps following your last order, or if it moves to defend you. If you don't have line of sight, the pet keeps following your last order until such time it sees you, at which point it defaults to defending you.


Conclusion: In this version, anyone can buy pets and such, but a) directing them is a hassle, and b) their attack bonuses and HP don't improve, so they're not useful beyond low levels.

How does that sound?

 

[Garthanos]

How does that sound?

Pretty much what I was thinking for normal pets with a caveat ... they arent villains or heros they are minions... you pay for a war dog, or hire a soldier they arent heroic (with bloody-able minion rules firmly in place) and so can be healed and are also inclined to bothe flee the battle or die fairly easily... they will never show up the heros, they arent meant to be the center of the scene.... Wolves and Soldiers are both good at flanking the bad guys the dogs cost less, are usually more loyal, but dont understand orders as easily ... ie we roleplay most of it.

 

[RangerWickett]

What bloodiable minions rules do you use? We do this:

Minions have HP of 5 + their level, and a bloodied value equal to half of that. Any effect that does damage less than the bloodied value deals no damage to the minion if the minion (unless it's bloodied, see below).

Any effect that deals damage equal to the minion's HP kills it as normal. Any effect that deals damage equal to or greater than the bloodied value without killing it outright causes the minion to become bloodied. A bloodied minion dies when it takes any damage, even from attacks that deal damage on a miss.


The idea of this is that solid hits still kill minions, whereas mild effects are generally ineffectual. It sucks to have minions die just because they ran past a flaming sphere. At first I balked at the idea that sometimes damage might do nothing, but it works.

 

[CapnZapp]

3) In our game, the companion is rarely close to combat because the few times it was close, it got whaled on. Now, it's a choice. Have the companion fight and risk itself, or have the companion stay back. So far in our campaign, the companion attacked for about half of an encounter once and outside of that, only averages about 1 attack per encounter. This is the real balance. Risk vs. reward. Animal companions have nowhere near the number of healing surges as PCs. Putting them at risk does gain a slight increase in dpr, but it does so by risking the companion. Pro and Con. At least in our game, the player is not heavily risking the companion, but still has the option to use the companion to fight. To me, this is balance. The Ranger does not seem a lot more powerful than other PCs because the Ranger does not use this advantage too often. The risk is too great. It's a go to the well ability, but one that makes the animal companion feel less artificial.

Well, I guess you are aware those are what I'd call self-imposed restrictions. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, beast companions are meant to fight alongside their master throughout their career. The hit points and attacks of the beast is what the beastmaster build gets in place of the benefits of the other ranger builds. The ranger even gets a ritual to bring back his pet each time it dies, even if that is halfway through each and every encounter.

So I hope you don't get disappointed if I say I can't use a solution with that kind of balancing factor (your #3).

I would make normal companion npc's ... minions whether they are beasts or not, they then never over shadow the pc's and then you dont need very many special rules. (bloody-able minions can be rescued etc)

I sure hope you're not talking about regular minions.

Don't make allies, NPCs, escorted princesses, etc into minions. You're powerless to defend them. Whether they die or live is not up to your skill, but pure chance.

I'm not sure even "bloodyable minions" cut it. I guess this refers to some kind of "two strikes and you're out" rule, right? It's a sliding scale, where a regular minion can't take even one hit, and a regular NPC can take several (and be healed to boot; utilizing its 1-3 surges). For an escort mission to be truly interesting I think the NPC needs to be able to soak at least three hits (with healing being able to add one more or at least save somebody who's been downed).

This goes doubly for beast companions, because they're worthless if they need to be escorted by the party. Again, unless I'm horribly mistaken, they're supposed to bring some measure of useful offensive to the table.

Conclusion: In this version, anyone can buy pets and such, but a) directing them is a hassle, and b) their attack bonuses and HP don't improve, so they're not useful beyond low levels.

How does that sound?

Well, I think for any non-ranger animal companion to be truly useful, they can't use the same statistics as the ranger animal companion. Why? Because either it will be just right for the common man (and be overpowered for the ranger) or it will be just right for the ranger (and suck mightily for the common man).

Besides, I'm not interested in features that are useful for a certain level span only. That only means you want to persuade your DM to play a Beastmaster throughout the first levels and then be able to switch into a Two Blade Ranger... what I'm saying is "that would make the Beastmaster build irrelevant".

Besides, this is D&D, why shouldn't even a pet be able to gain attack bonuses and hit points? (If a Gnome can soak a hundred points of damage, why can't a cat or a wolf?)



The quest for a solution that meets minimum standards of fun while not being brokenly good continues...!

 

[KarinsDad]

Well, I guess you are aware those are what I'd call self-imposed restrictions. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, beast companions are meant to fight alongside their master throughout their career. The hit points and attacks of the beast is what the beastmaster build gets in place of the benefits of the other ranger builds. The ranger even gets a ritual to bring back his pet each time it dies, even if that is halfway through each and every encounter.

So I hope you don't get disappointed if I say I can't use a solution with that kind of balancing factor (your #3).

I understand your position.

I think you are mistaken though. As designed, companions should stay out of combat because they are about as tough as tough minions:

1) Average same level foe hits the average companion AC on a 9 or 60% (level + 5 vs. level +14 AC). Higher level foes hit more often.

2) Average same level foe (except Brutes) hits the average companion NAD on an 8 or 65% (level + 4 vs. level +12 AC). Higher level foes hit more often. It's extremely easy to put a condition on a companion.

3) Companions only get 2 healing surges. So if damaged a lot, the Ranger has to use his healing surges to heal it. This gets expensive quickly. And the Ranger can only do this if the companion is adjacent. The Ranger could use Second Wind to help, but that is limited to twice per day.

4) Raising the companion costs 50 GP (500 GP Paragon, 5000 GP Epic) in rare herbs or residuum. If the Ranger does not have these or runs out, the companion is on the sidelines.

A Ranger gets 6 + Con Mod healing surges per day. Even with a Con of 14 (which not all Rangers will have), that's 10 healing surges to share between the Ranger and the easy to hit companion. That's an average of 4 (low Con Ranger) to 5 each, knowing that the companion will get hit more often than most other PCs.

4 to 5 healing surge average means that the Ranger is going to be wanting the group to take an Extended Rest a lot more often. Sure, they might do that, but there are PCs out there with 10 or more healing surges who will not want to do this.

The only up side for a companion is that it typically has more hit points than the Ranger. But even this does not mitigate how easy they are to hit.

And since companions are melee creatures, they are easy to get caught in blasts or bursts.

Now, the Ranger could say "I could care less about my companion. I will carry a boatload of Rare Herbs and just let the companion die without using my own healing surges and then raise it". Course, the companion gets the -1 raise dead penalty until 6 or more encounters have gone by (3 milestones). And this is not the best of roleplaying either unless the Ranger is Evil.


It's one thing to add another PC to a group. PCs have a lot of combat options and can pull their own weight.

It's another to add an in melee companion that needs to be healed more often than any other PC on average, has very few healing surges, does minimal damage, and never adds any conditions to foes.


So yeah, using the companion sparingly is a self imposed restriction. Not doing so is extremely poor tactics that will cost a lot of resources. Pros and Cons, hence, balance.