Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 6388610" data-attributes="member: 12731">The problem is that to most people an animal companion needs to do two things:1) carry out commands like a trained animal, being an independent entity2) stay alive through most combats. Not because the AC needs more power, but because the trope demands that the AC stays one and the same.Any acceptable rules design needs to start there, and only then add other abilities to the critter, such as actually dealing damage.I believe most of us would have far preferred a PHB which outright states that additional party members (such as animal companions, cohorts, summoned helpers etc) are inherently unbalanced in that they give the master more than his share of play time attention.And then simply make all those choices optional. With the end result that Rangers can only choose Beastmaster with the DMs and the rest of the group's express approval, but that the Ranger would then enjoy an animal companion that actually meets our expectations (its own action for starters, plus say +50% hp with the proviso that when the animal is down to 1/3 hp, it will disengage/flee further combat, which will increase its survivability without granting it more effective hp or stronger staying power in combat).When it comes to summoning spells and animate dead, I actually prefer an alternate route. That is, instead of making the spells "optional" in this regard, actually nerfing them slightly. At the very least, having 8 summoned wolfs attack should require you using up your own action.Perhaps you can have one (1) out of your summoned pack attack "for free", going up to two (2) at fifth level. With a summoner getting "extra attacks" at levels 11 and 16 much like a fighter, so a high-level summoner can have up to four wolves attack on his turn while doing something else, but needs to use up his own action to orchestrate a synchronized attack routine from larger numbers of summoned critters. And same with Necromancer, obviously.</blockquote>

Verification