Ranger Beast Comparison

[WalterKovacs]

More generally, I have a question regarding beast use.

It seems the animal must use your actions. That is, you have one standard and one move action with which you can have both yourself and your animal act.

A single move action allows both you and your pet to take a move action. A standard action can be spent to make the pet take a standard action (such as basic attack), however you also have powers that let you and your beast to attack ... which work when compared to the ranger powers that allow two attacks for the other types of rangers.

This seems incredibly strange and very weak to me. I'm assuming your beast's attacks are always going to be much inferior to your own.

Damage wise, perhaps. However, they advance like monsters ... their attack bonus is a fixed ammount modified by level. For a PC, you would be getting 1/2 level, plus your stat boosts and your magic items. However that is only +25 over 30 levels, while you get +30 over 30 levels for the beast, and there are a number of times (for example level 7 where you'll get a +2 boost when you get to level 8) where the beast's attack bonus will be better than the ranger.

Either way, even if you never attack with the beast (for example, an archer ranger with a raptor for use of quarrying hard to get to targets) you can still use it's movement during your own moves to have it flank for the rest of the party members. Also, you are able to use an immediate interupt to allow the beast to make an opportunity attack.

In addition, if you go on total defense, you can have both yourself and the beast do so (and it's better if your adjacent at the time).

And what's up with the raise dead ritual? You can use it even if you can't use any other rituals? WTF? That's the most video-gamey concession to playability I've ever seen. Would it have been so hard to give the Beast Master Ritual Caster, so he could have followed the game's own rules?! Or simply to make a note "before choosing a Beast Master, make sure your Cleric/Wizard is willing to learn the Raise Dead Beast ritual for your benefit. Unless you learn the ritual yourself, that is."

The ritual is ONLY usable by rangers with that specific class feature. It's basically a class feature that works like a ritual. It allows you to raise your animal companion, and nothing else. It may seem "video gamey", but as a ranger it signifies a connection to your beast friend that allows you to bring it back to life.

 

[Starfox]

How about the Dex and Str based beast Damage? I was thinking of saying that ranger powers that use the beast's Str to calculate damage instead use basic attack damage (based on either Dex or Str, depening on type).

Another way to ask this is; do the dex-damage beasts enjoy some other superiority that makes having their power attacks be based on Str balanced? Or was some critters arbitrarily punished by having their damage be dex-based?

 

[Alas]

Raising a ranger's pet

The companion resurrection ritual seems to function like the swordmage's swordbond-- it's a way to recover a critical tool. It doesn't have to work explicitly like raising the dead. For example:

1) A tiefling ranger has an infernal boar for a companion (hey-- remember the devil swine from basic D&D?). When he performs the recovery ritual, he's actually summoning his beast back from the fiery pit.

2) A human ranger from House Vadalis employs a magebred strain of dire wasp (using the stats for the raptor). When she performs the recovery ritual, she's actually fast-hatching a replacement, using the remains of the fallen wasp as a catalyst. (This option works well for anything that can come from an egg, really. Ooh-- dire platypus!)

Heh-- I also kind of like the image of a swamp ranger as some kind of voodoo veterinarian. Gives an orc ranger a good reason to carry around a Winslow plushie ("It's for mah gator!").