D&D General What is a Ranger? A miserable pile of secrets! (+)

[Kinematics]

So who wants to work on an "animal companion class" side project? It feels like you could do some cool things with that idea.

The base class could be mostly "pet", while ranger and/or a feat could upgrade it to "combatant". Give it a few abilities as it levels up, and provide it decent stat progression instead of basing it on the Monster Manual. Maybe draw on some of the ideas of the reworked summon spells from Tasha's.

 

[Laurefindel]

Picked “Aragorn”, “Stealth”, and “nature”.

Didn’t know who Katniss was (I know, leave me alone ‘Kay?) but she looks similar of an archetype enough to count in the same vote.

@Ruin Explorer has a strong point with pet. It doesn't have to be in the base class, but it needs to be there somehow. So nature-bow-pet is particularly popular with young (and not-so-young) female player? More the reason to make sure it's in the game. I know that with my daughter, either she plays a character with a pet, or she is the pet (like Tabaxi and other various animal-people). Old-school-me much prefer to play a game with players having a whole menagerie of pets than players being the menagerie, unless that the whole point of the game (like Humblewood campaign and such).

 

[Minigiant]

When it comes to pets, I think multiple classes should have a sidekick option.

Beastmster Ranger
Swarmkeeper Ranger
Chain pact Warlock
Animal Lord Druid
Knight and Squire Fighter
Battlesmith Artificer
Oath of the Rider Paladin

Then there would be a full on new class for the PC that has "75% of the power in the pet". Previous editions had rules too rigid for such a class. And the current edition just doesn't do new classes.

But for the D&D ranger, the animal companion was always just a chasis to hold your buff spells. Especially since unlike the druid, magic wasn't the core to the ranger's combat ability. It was always just a bonus. So the ranger could freely see buff and transmute their beast buddy as they only needed 20-33% of their spell slots for combat.

In the movies, the tracker doesn't kill the target with their dog. The dog sniffs the target out because they have better senses. The tracker shots the quarry with a gun or stabs them it a pointed object.

 

[Yaarel]

For me, the best way to play a "pet" is to play two characters. Take turns and level, like normal.

A bear can have Fighter levels. Stuff like that.

 

[jmartkdr2]

When it comes to pets, I think multiple classes should have a sidekick option.

Beastmster Ranger
Swarmkeeper Ranger
Chain pact Warlock
Animal Lord Druid
Knight and Squire Fighter
Battlesmith Artificer
Oath of the Rider Paladin

Then there would be a full on new class for the PC that has "75% of the power in the pet". Previous editions had rules too rigid for such a class. And the current edition just doesn't do new classes.

But for the D&D ranger, the animal companion was always just a chasis to hold your buff spells. Especially since unlike the druid, magic wasn't the core to the ranger's combat ability. It was always just a bonus. So the ranger could freely see buff and transmute their beast buddy as they only needed 20-33% of their spell slots for combat.

In the movies, the tracker doesn't kill the target with their dog. The dog sniffs the target out because they have better senses. The tracker shots the quarry with a gun or stabs them it a pointed object.

I'll go one further:

The Stryxhaven UA introduced the idea of subclasses available to multiple classes. But the examples weren't good, since they all offered spellcasting but no two classes get quite the same spellcasting base so the subclass features interacted weirdly with the different classes. WotC seemed to take it to mean 'subclasses for multiple classes is not being well-received' but it's hard to separate that from 'this implementation is not being well-received.'

I do think there's at least one concept that can be a subclass to multiple classes: the beastmaster. It doesn't interact directly with spellcasting nor weapons, so it doesn't have janky interactions with class features. It's too complex for a feat (since it requires its own scaling and added customization) but isn't quite enough to be its own class (since 'beastmaster' alone doesn't really tell you what kid of gear the character uses, or what saves they'd be good at, or much about skills beyond 'animal handling, probably')

If the pet doesn't have to have to the beast type, I can justify it for any class but sorcerer (although a couple are a stretch.) Your pet's stat block is set by class levels, and every time you'd get a new subclass feature you get a pet feature instead. Boom.

I'm not sure this is the best way to do pets, but it's an option.

 

[Minigiant]

I'll go one further:

The Stryxhaven UA introduced the idea of subclasses available to multiple classes. But the examples weren't good, since they all offered spellcasting but no two classes get quite the same spellcasting base so the subclass features interacted weirdly with the different classes. WotC seemed to take it to mean 'subclasses for multiple classes is not being well-received' but it's hard to separate that from 'this implementation is not being well-received.'

I do think there's at least one concept that can be a subclass to multiple classes: the beastmaster. It doesn't interact directly with spellcasting nor weapons, so it doesn't have janky interactions with class features. It's too complex for a feat (since it requires its own scaling and added customization) but isn't quite enough to be its own class (since 'beastmaster' alone doesn't really tell you what kid of gear the character uses, or what saves they'd be good at, or much about skills beyond 'animal handling, probably')

If the pet doesn't have to have to the beast type, I can justify it for any class but sorcerer (although a couple are a stretch.) Your pet's stat block is set by class levels, and every time you'd get a new subclass feature you get a pet feature instead. Boom.

I'm not sure this is the best way to do pets, but it's an option.

The issue with the strixhaven multiple class subclasses as that subclasses were not uniform between classes nor were weighted equally.

If they were are the same levels and power levels, it might have worked.

But it would never work because of one class that starts with a "W", rhymes with "lizard", and has base class features so powerful that you can't match them up with the base class feature of any other classes and had to nerf it by making their subclasses boring as stale unbuttered unjammed whitebread toast.

But even so, it still mike not work as a hound in the hands of a ranger or druid will be thrice as powerful and useful as one in the hands of a fighter, bard, or rogue.

Ultimately the better option is to createmultiple pet option tailored to specific class fantasies and attribute more than 40% of a single page to it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So who wants to work on an "animal companion class" side project? It feels like you could do some cool things with that idea.

Will a series of feats coupled with a comprehensive Companion system do?

 

[Kinematics]

Will a series of feats coupled with a comprehensive Companion system do?

I think some feats might fit in there, yeah. And yes, a Companion system, though obviously one would need to work out what that actually means.

My basic thoughts were that the base animal companion class would be purely a pet. It can be cute, and do a few utility things, but is almost entirely non-combat, and can't be hurt by incidental damage in combat (ie: anything not specifically targeting the pet). This is open to any character, and is mostly a ribbon-tier feature.

After that, there would be optional packages that could come from certain classes or feats. The ranger beastmaster could get a combat package for the pet. The wizard could get a familiar package (because I find people tend to think of familiars as real animals rather than magic energy constructs; consider Kiki's cat, or the familiars in Harry Potter). The paladin could get a combat mount package. Etc. Each package would scale with the companion's level.

The animal companions would level up alongside their owners, and combat pets would be treated as their own characters for encounter building and experience purposes.

The companion still has to be built (stats, HP, etc), but I'm still fuzzy on how that would work.

 

[Laurefindel]

Will a series of feats coupled with a comprehensive Companion system do?

I wouldn’t be satisfied with it, but feats to augment a subclass’ pet features would work.

 

[Minigiant]

When it comes to base class vs subclass.

Many people see woodcraft, herbalism, and beastmastery as parts of the ranger. Though not outwardly similar it does hint to the ranger being a master of Earth and Nature Sciences.

Perhaps the ranger itself could be in monster hunting, stealth, aad "ranger sciences" . Then subclasses coud be specializations in different fields within.

Astronomy- Horizonwalker
Botany
Cryptozoology- Drakwarden, Hunter, Monster Slayer
Ecology
Geology
Geography- Gloomstalker
Meteorology
Oceanography- Aquaman
Zoology- Beastmaster, Swarmkeeper

Maybe Rangers are Weirdos in Green Labcoats.