Revised Ranger update

[Satyrn]

What they *should* do is just offer a variant pet using ranger subclass. This skirts all the problems with releasing a variant ranger, as people are used to additive options. Drop an "animal lord" that fills the same niche but has slightly different flavour and variant powers. Which lets people play that kind of character, but doesn't confuse people with contradictory options or forces players to revise their character.
Heck, they could even have two. Have a "warg" option that is more utility and lets the ranger see through the eyes of its pet, which is more of a hardy familiar. And a combat pet option, with the beast being all about kicking butt.

It might also work if they offered some beasts that were at the top of CR 1/4.

49 hit points and 1d10 damage sounds pretty good to me (noting that the beast gets a damage bonus equal to the ranger's proficiency)

 

[Yunru]

I'll agree that they dragged their feet. But continuing to work on a projected fewer and fewer people want isn't a good business decision.

Except it's not fewer people, it's a lesser percentage, but that's due to more people total, not less in a camp.

Hell, the two sets aren't even that comparable, given that the source of data and questions asked a different in both cases. One asks how many rangers does their one specific program have created on it, the other asked how those who could be bothered to fill in a form felt about the ranger.

 

[Mistwell]

So there is no precedent for an Archer with a Hawk or Owl companion? No concept of tag-teaming by covering both far range and melee. Hell, hunting dogs were trained to chase down prey while people with guns or bows went for the kill shot. But sure, your PHB says that if you want a beast companion you must be a melee character. Just be aware, no one else feels that Rangers should be limited that much. And to turn to this point, are you now insisting that “trained to fight alongside you” literally means right next to you. Thought that discussion was had and you were on the other side of that fence. And why is it smart to design it that way, but nowhere state it as a fact? Nothing prevents it in the current beastmaster. YOU are the one stating that beastmaster’s can’t be archers, beasts have always been melee options, we just want them to be decent at it to make an entire subclass and theme work as intended Can you point to me where it says fighters lose access to bows when they decide to wield a sword? Do mages forget all ranged spells if they take Shocking Grasp or Vampiric Touch? There is no “You must pick melee or ranged, you cannot do both”. If you want to give us beasts that have ranged attacks, then go ahead. But, you are the only one who somehow thinks there must be this one or the other design. We have no choice about Beasts in melee, there isn’t some other beast we can get, so yes, we want them to survive melee, since that is the only place they can be in combat. Heck, I can even prove “Reach” is a melee option, know how? Every single Reach weapon in the game is a melee weapon. There are no weapons with the Reach property listed as ranged weapons. Because that makes no sense, the Reach property just allows people to attack in melee while not immediately next to an enemy. And let us not forget, we’ve already covered how the beast’s utility is far below that of the Find Familiar spell, a first level ritual that only costs the user gold, and not even that much gold. So, unless you can prove that Familiar’s are not better utility options in every way than an Animal Companion, they are a combat option. As a combat option, they only have melee attacks (even if one option can attack at reach) and so should they not be able to survive melee? Show me a single beast that can attack an enemy from further than 30 ft away. One. Not a fly-by attack that allows them to leave melee range after their attack. Not a reach of 10 ft which only puts them one step away from the enemy (and therefore still in melee). Show me a single animal companion option that can attack from 30 ft away by RAW. Then I will agree that we are insisting companions be in melee instead of it being the rules insisting on it.

The ranger attacking from range while your companion attacks from melee is not well supported by the class. But it's also vastly different from the argument you or anyone else in this thread was making earlier. You've shifted from, "I want a beast that is effective in combat" to "I want my Ranger to be an archer, nice and safe from harm away from the battlefield, while I want my beast companion to mix it up on the front line in melee, and be as effective as I would be in melee".

You can want that of course, but it's asking more than others were asking for previously. And that specific preference isn't well supported right now. But, if your general prior argument, and the argument others made previously, was simply for an animal companion who can be effective in combat, I think I've proven that they can be effective that way. But to do it, you must be a melee ranger as well.

That will satisfy some, and not others. But now that we've reduced down to a much more specific an less typical strategy preference, I think it's not a very compelling argument. You want to have a combat companion instead of a scouting and helping one, you can. You just can't be an archer while doing it. If that is a big deal for you, don't choose this subclass. But it's not a strong argument to justify alone altering the entire base class.

It is implied that animals need proficiency in Barding, because warhorses are specifically called out as being able to wear barding.

Implied but not specified. So it's room to clarify it to provide more protection to animal companions.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

For those dissatisfied with the Beastmaster, go try the Mahout

 

[Hussar]

Look, as much as a 4e fan as I am, I have to admit that 4e is the perfect example of what happens when WotC listens to only a certain subset of gamers to build games. 4e is the RPGA edition of D&D. It was built almost entirely to satisfy organized play issues. And they based it on the fact that you have tens of thousands of organized play players, so, they if they want X, then everyone must want X, right?

Well, that proved to be very, very wrong. So, now WotC is taking a much broader look at what people want. And, as [MENTION=21556]Jester[/MENTION] Canuck says, until there is a critical mass of players unhappy with the ranger that outnumbers, significantly, those that don't have problems, they aren't going to lift a finger because there is no upside for them.

 

[Parmandur]

Look, as much as a 4e fan as I am, I have to admit that 4e is the perfect example of what happens when WotC listens to only a certain subset of gamers to build games. 4e is the RPGA edition of D&D. It was built almost entirely to satisfy organized play issues. And they based it on the fact that you have tens of thousands of organized play players, so, they if they want X, then everyone must want X, right?

Well, that proved to be very, very wrong. So, now WotC is taking a much broader look at what people want. And, as [MENTION=21556]Jester[/MENTION] Canuck says, until there is a critical mass of players unhappy with the ranger that outnumbers, significantly, those that don't have problems, they aren't going to lift a finger because there is no upside for them.

I think their initial experiments show they are willing to work to help a minority, as long as it is a large enough minority and they can be do it in a majority friendly way.

 

[Mistwell]

I think their initial experiments show they are willing to work to help a minority, as long as it is a large enough minority and they can be do it in a majority friendly way.

I think this says what I've been trying to get at, better than I've been saying it. They will likely offer additional material for those who want something more out of the beastmaster ranger, without changing the base class, for this very reason. It's just not "majority friendly" to re-write the entire class because a minority don't like it as it is right now. But it is "majority friendly" to offer a fighting style, spells, feats, additional animals, barding rules expansion/clarification, and a couple of minor clarifications about how animal companions can continue to do something without orders once they've been given a command to do it first. I doubt the majority will be bothered by those additions, like they probably would be from a re-write of a base class.

 

[Chaosmancer]

But this is simply untrue:
I think you meant to say "not everyone else feels..." Because I for one think that it is a reasonable limit. And I'm someone.
Then there is this...
You want a theme to work as WHO intended? Yeah... you do seem to be wanting to both have and eat cake, just saying...

That is a fair enough criticism, if I wanted to be the most clear I could have said “No one who has been arguing this point on this thread before now has indicated a position that would agree with your limitation.” Since we aren’t in a formal setting I tend to occasionally dip into more informal speech.

Mistwell never said you can't do both Melee and Ranged. He called you out that you seem to want both melee and ranged in equal measure, which is a fair call-out. He was pointing out that you need to decide where your priority lies. And you seem to want equal power in both realms.

I don’t want to penalize the ranger as a result of fixing a bad design.

Rangers are currently allowed to choose between wanting to be a melee fighter or a ranged fighter, However, as part of his fix to the beastmaster, he wishes to disregard that potential choice. If you are going to be a Ranged attacker as a Ranger, in his mind you seem to have no business being a Beastmaster.

Because as I have been pointing out repeatedly, no beastmaster companion is built to be a ranged option.

I don’t want anything new in terms of the Ranger being ranged or melee, I just want the beast companion to be capable in the niche it was designed to fill, and I don’t see why that requires me to be forced into a fighting style, forced into a choice between ranged and melee combat, and be forced to take a specific group of spells.

To bring up the sorcerer, it would be like if someone decided that the only time wild magic would activate is if you cast Color Spray, Chromatic orb, or Chaos Bolt. Well, that’s all well and good, but the subclass is designed with the idea of activating Wild Magic Surges, not activating wild magic surges if you happened to pick the correct spells and metamagics.

But to avoid being completely negative...
I think this is a good point.

Thank you.

 

[Chaosmancer]

If you give the order to "attack those Goblins over there", then yeah, a reasonable interpretation would be that the companion attacks them all until they are dead. If one Goblin dies, then it just moves to the next one, probably just picking the closest one. This seems very reasonable, particularly for an intelligent beast. You shouldn't have to say "Okay move 10 feet in that direction, now attack that Goblin. Good boy! Now move 5 feet to your right. No that's too far. Okay now attack that other Goblin. Great, you killed it, now run over there. Wait that's too far again. Now attack that Goblin who's now in front of you" and so if they are going to errata this part of the rules to make it clear that you can in fact just give the order to "attack those Goblins over there" and then your companion will do its best to follow that order on subsequent turns, that would be a pretty good change in my opinion. Similarly, if there are 4 Goblins and 1 Orc, then an intelligent creature could reasonably assume you meant to attack them all, and would include the Orc in its target list.

Another good option would be to make it clear you can order your companion to just follow and assist you, i.e. just attack whatever you are attacking. Again, the companion should be an intelligent creature, not a mindless undead creature.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the new errata says, but I'm suspecting it'll be something along these lines in order to free up the Ranger's actions on subsequent turns and let the companion continue to follow an order in a reasonable manner.

Two points on this.

1) How intelligent is an Intelligent creature? A flying snake has an intelligence of 2, while the stupidest mindless undead creature (the zombie) has an intelligence of 3, higher than the animal. In fact, most animals after a quick skimming, have an intelligence of 2 or 3. So, if we need to bring intelligence per the rules into this, that actually hurts both of our cases.

2) the bolded part, that is exactly how it currently works. You must order the beast to move. You must order the beast to attack. So, an errata that changes it to say that you don't have to keep ordering to to attack would still require that you order it to move. So, the errata, to make logical sense, would mean that once you order it to "kill everyone not in the pack" you would neither have to command it to move or to attack. And by that point, why not just remove the requirement that it takes you action to command the beast? Because, effectively it becomes the action "Activate Beast Companion" which then does not require further input and people would wonder about standing orders and the fact that you can train dogs at least to "Attack when I give this signal" which could be a non-action manuever. After all, how long does a command last for the beast if they just follow it after it was given?

This is why I feel like you will be disappointed by any errata. The fix you mention, if taken as RAW, creates a mess that simply rewriting the rule does not.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes, and you pick those spells to mold the Ranger into your vision of how you want to play it. The choices are limited because the class isn't supposed to be as versatile as a full caster due to it's other strengths.

If a new set of spells tailored to Beastmasters both enhanced your companion and were as powerful or slightly more powerful than the existing spell choices, why wouldn't that be a satisfactory resolution?

It isn’t a satisfactory resolution for exactly what you said in your own post. “The choices [of spells] are limited because the class isn't supposed to be as versatile as a full caster due to it's other strengths.”

Those “other strengths” are its subclass abilities, along with things such as weapon and armor proficiencies. But, let us remember, with only 11 spells known, the Ranger is a worse spellcaster than an Eldritch knight, who gets the same weapons and even more armor profs. So subclass abilities have to be tied into the strength calculated when they reduced the Ranger’s spellcastng.


And we are taking the ranger’s spellcasting and devoting as much as half of it to improving the strength of the subclass feature.

Because you have A, we will weaken B.
However, if A is too weak, weaken B to increase A…

That makes no logical sense. A should be stronger on its own, to justify weakening B.