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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 4817561" data-attributes="member: 12731">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 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.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...! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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