Second 5th Edition Survey! Plus Results of the First Survey: The Ranger Gets Some Attention!

A new survey is up on the official D&D website. It looks like its covering the classes not in the last survey and the recent Eberron material. WotC also reports on what was learned from the last survey. "For our second survey, we’re focused on the final six classes in the game and the Eberron material that we rolled out in last month’s Unearthed Arcana. If you haven’t looked at that article and want to provide feedback, read it over and come back to the survey later. Even if you don’t have a chance to use the Eberron material in your game, your reactions to it are helpful. You can also skip over the Eberron questions if you don’t want to give feedback on that material."

Here's the overall feedback from the first survey:

"So, what did we learn from our last survey? Let’s take a look at some trends:

To start with, there are a lot of you. We had more people respond to this survey than any of our playtest surveys. A lot of people are into D&D these days!

There are a lot of new players and DMs out there. Welcome to D&D!

You are playing the game in droves. Only about 10 percent of you have read the books without yet playing.

Your campaigns are just getting started. Most of you are playing at 6th level and below.

You love the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and we’re overjoyed to be able to write that. The overall assessment was incredibly positive, surpassing our results from the playtest by a significant margin."
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The ranger, in particular, is getting some focus:

"To start with, a majority of players and Dungeon Masters are happy with the ranger overall. The game as a whole is grading well, so we don’t want to make a huge, sudden change to that class. But taking a deeper dive into the ranger, we can see that favored enemy and the beast master archetype received the lowest ratings. Our next step is to take a closer look at why that is.

We’ll start with an internal assessment mixed with feedback from our closed circle of testers. From there, we’ll work up some options and present them to you, most likely in the Unearthed Arcana column. That process allows us to determine if the track we’re on answers your concerns with the class.

The critical step is making sure that any changes we make genuinely improve the class. Remember, plenty of people are happy with the ranger, so any changes need to cover a number of options:

People who like the ranger as it is can simply keep playing their current characters.

People who don’t like the ranger should feel as though the new options allow them to play the ranger they want to create.

The new options are exactly that—new choices for ranger players to select from, as opposed to a rewrite of the Player’s Handbook.

DMs should always feel that they can take or leave the new options, just like any other material in the game beyond the Basic Rules."
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Hop on over here to take the new survey!

 

[AverageCitizen]

I can assure you people's complaints about the Beastmaster won't stop just because they rearrange the words describing it.

The people that feel the Beastmaster is fine can keep it.

The rest of us want a beast that
1) acts like any other character (PC or NPC) given its limitations on Intelligence, etc
Any solution that restricts animal companions in boardgamey ways, and/or restricts animal companions MORE than any other individual entity on the battlefield is an automatic FAIL.
2) can be brought along on adventures without adding a weak link to the chain. This specifically means it needs to survive your average combat on its own, including splash damage for when NPC spellcasters start bombarding heroes.
It does not mean it should be able to win combats by its own. It does not mean it should be exempt from a real death risk in harder combats.
But any solution where the ranger needs to resurrect or replace his beloved pet more than he needs to resurrect or replace his friends and allies is an automatic FAIL.

Anything else is on the table, pretty much.

Take away the spells - fine. Give us worse armor or weapons - not exactly fine, but I understand. In fact, why don't you strip down the Beastmaster to the level of a naked commoner.

Then you add a fully featured animal companion.

And THEN, you start adding back ranger features until things are balanced. THAT is how you create a Beastmaster. By making you Beastmaster first, everything else second.

Don't use beastmaster. If you are alright with an animal companion that is another character, just let your ranger, or WHOEVER, have an animal as a follower. Pg. 93 DMG. DONE.

 

[Li Shenron]

You have, no doubt, noticed that the you or your animal "do nothing" until 5th level...

Do you mean "nothing in combat"? Isn't there anything else the animal companion can be useful for?

 

[steeldragons]

Do you mean "nothing in combat"?

That seems to be the only thing people are concerned about, amount of DPR and all that.

Isn't there anything else the animal companion can be useful for?

One would think.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Do you mean "nothing in combat"? Isn't there anything else the animal companion can be useful for?

It does, but its not much you also couldn't get by buying some wardogs or a familiar, neither of which craps away your subclass features. But some people are too busy shouting down any critiques and analysis as the realms of only munchkin powergamers to discuss that.

 

[steeldragons]

<bolding mine>

It does, but its not much you also couldn't get by buying some wardogs or a familiar, neither of which craps away your subclass features. But some people are too busy shouting down any critiques and analysis as the realms of only munchkin powergamers to discuss that.

Assuming this is directed at me, I'll just say at any point that your "critiques and analysis" do not support/define "the realms of only munchkin powergamers", I am more than happy to discuss anything you like.

As far as I can tell, that has yet to happen.

And that something else is worse than just attacking yourself. You pay too much crunch cost for a mostly fluff ability. The pet is a significant loss of damage from hunter ranger who can still also buy a dog.

Hunter matters because that's the opportunity cost to getting the pet. So the pet should be on par with the benefits of being a hunter ranger.

Compared to a hunter ranger making an attack himself, the pet doesn't get colossus slayer so deals d8 less vs wounded targets (or loses out on hordebreaker if that's what you'd pick) and doesn't benefit from hunter's mark (d6) which will be up many fights. That's an average of 8 less per hit, which is pretty big drop in damage for the sole benefit of attacking from a different spot. Factor in something like sharpshooter, and its even worse.

The beastmaster is more or less a trap option in combat. You get a little more utility, but not enough over what the hunter ranger who just buys some wardogs gets to warrant the significant loss of combat power. Given that the beast's stats don't increase, its attack bonus falls behind yours (even moreso when you start getting magic weapons). It has no saving throw proficiencies, so is always at straight stats for saves, which is just terrible. Its attack is roughly balanced against a ranger with no spells, subclass abilities, magic weapons or feats. Why should that consume your entire subclass benefit package to obtain?

All any of this does is support my position of where the complaints [specifically about the Beastmaster, but others too] are coming from.

If all you want is for someone to agree with you that a ranger who buys a wardog can have the same thing as the Beastmaster...that's just not so. All that means is the dog can act on its own, as the DM decides, while you attack. So what? It doesn't get your prof. bonus to AC, attacks, damage, skills or saves. It doesn't follow any commands (other than attack or heel, I suppose). Can't get extra attacks. Can't share spells. (granted those are a bit higher level than necessary, imho)

So...no. They aren't just the same/as good or anything else...in any way except, possibly, from a DPR perspective and since it's not getting your prof. bonus to attack or damage rolls, that is unlikely.

For that, I suppose, "munchkin powergamers" does seem to be the most appropriate terminology, though I've found many find it inflammatory.

 

[Eric V]

You know...there is also the, granted fairly liberal, reading of the Beastmaster that states you have to use your action to direct the beast...and then could just leave it.

That is, for one round, you [ranger] don't attack, but direct your beast to Attack. Done.

Until you want it to move elsewhere, Dash, Disengage, Dodge or Help...the beast is "in Attack mode" [for lack of a better term]. When what you want the creature to do changes, then you need to use your action to change what the beast is doing...but until that time, the beast's rounds are "Attack" on your initiative.

Include "Help Mode" in that ruling and it becomes perfectly fine.

 

[steeldragons]

Include "Help Mode" in that ruling and it becomes perfectly fine.

Right. When you want to have it Help, you use your action to have it Help. Then it will help...until told to do something else (Dash, Disengage, etc).

If you mean make it so that the "Attack" command includes the Help command at the same time...I guess that would be fine...I probably would be reticent to do that, however. It could open a can of worms for other animals/companions that might have implications I am not fluent/savy enough to foresee.

 

[dd.stevenson]

The real question (in danger of derailment) is:

Should there have been a full pet class?

Where 50%+ of this class' powers and features run through the pet. Then rangers, warlocks, paladin, and wizards could be 1/3 "masters" and have their levels stack via muticlassing

The big, recurring problem with pet classes is that pets can be (and traditionally are) bestowed by DM fiat/houserules/general skill proficiencies. Pets are, in effect, a form of table-dependent loot. So any pet class ability has to answer two questions: What advantage does a pet class have in a game where every player has access to a pet? and How does the pet class cope in games where nobody has access to a pet?

It is evidently quite difficult to write an exciting pet class that answers both these questions satisfactorily--at least, I'm not aware of anyone who's done a great job of it yet.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I would almost build a pet class that essentially counts as two characters, the pet growing with the character, and all encounters built as if the party had that extra player. Some wouldn't like that one person gets to be two characters, but then again the pet doesn't do much role playing and decision making or much more than help in combat, and it helps the entire party, right?

Am I off base in that respect? I've been in parties where a player controlled another PC so that we could have a cleric, for instance. Robot heals.

It would certainly be a strange class in comparison to the others in terms of, well, everything.

 

[Minigiant]

The big, recurring problem with pet classes is that pets can be (and traditionally are) bestowed by DM fiat/houserules/general skill proficiencies. Pets are, in effect, a form of table-dependent loot. So any pet class ability has to answer two questions: What advantage does a pet class have in a game where every player has access to a pet? and How does the pet class cope in games where nobody has access to a pet?

It is evidently quite difficult to write an exciting pet class that answers both these questions satisfactorily--at least, I'm not aware of anyone who's done a great job of it yet.

One, The pet class gets to boost their pet. The pet-master's dog is stronger than a fighter's dog.
Two, the pet class ALWAYS gets the pet.

Look at the beastaster ranger. Remove the martial weapons, spells, extra attack and skills bonuses. Double all the ranger bonuses.

Essentially, how many games do it is by having the "master" have a bond with the "pet". They balance it by having the master suck and the pet a monster.
The beast tamer and his giant lion.
The demonlogist and his bonded demon.
The mob boss and the brutal thug.

The crux of the problem is you can't have one player control 2 strong character. Either one of them must suck in the main conflict resolution system (combat) or both of them are meh. In most games, the master is physically wimpy and the pet is mentally wimpy or the master just gets a slight boost from the pet. It is very easy to screw up though.