It sounds like there are three options. Leave it alone, use the UA one, or home brew it a little. I think the UA one is too mechanically convoluted so I think we'll leave that one alone. I also don't like having it have its own turns. I think that leaves homebrewing it or leaving it alone and offsetting it with magic items and such.
Regarding the RR being too mechanically convoluted, I would say don't sell yourself or your players short. It takes a little extra work to memorize and figure out some of the nuanced mechanics, but repetition breeds familiarity and eventually it all becomes second nature. Cheat sheets help.
I am curious why you don't like it having its own turns. I say this is the easy fix, maybe not the best or most creative one, but effective.
What do you think about home brewing it to move the pet command to the bonus action when she takes the attack action? Mathematically it's a little better in terms of damage but would actually fall behind after swift quiver would come online. It would certainly feel better from 3 to 5 and the campaign is only taking us to 6 unless we continue with the same characters later. Do you see any major reasons why this would be a bad idea?
I'm personally less concerned about being surpassed by any spell as long as the feature itself still accomplishes our main goal. I don't think the main goal of a Beast Companion should be to deal the most damage but to feel like a partner in our adventures that can hold its own. I don't even think DPS with a Beast Master should be on par with a Hunter or Gloom Stalker with Swift Quiver, because the idea is that you lose some damage but gain various other effects.
I'm not sure what we could do about upping the survivability of the pet though. Maybe just give the pet magic items or something that provide hit points or proficiency in saving throws. Maybe up the armor class.
Some of the things that others have pointed out in this thread and further research has shown me that I am a little out of date on some of the errata, so I want to double-check a lot of stuff before I make any assumptions or test out a solution something that has already been addressed. Also while waiting on your answers, how in-depth are you willing to go on homebrewing? I ask because I have been wanting to flesh out my ideas for a while but have always put it off since any time my players pick a Ranger they are satisfied with the RR, and no reason doing all that extra work when sometimes you just want an easy, "good enough" solution.
Expanding the spell list by itself without increasing HD does not do much for the companion's survivability - or it does only through a large expenditure of spell slots by party members.
Mage Armor is very cheap by the time the companion dying to things like a dragon's breath or a flameskull's fireballs is a concern, will last pretty much all day and yield +2 to +3 AC to any companion (which is already getting +3 AC or more from your proficiency bonus past 5th level.)
Warding Bond will literally double the amount of punishment a companion can take for a whole hour (and yield another +1 AC.)
Even with the relatively low HP the RAW rules give your companion, it shouldn't be getting one-shotted with any kind of regularity, the DM should absolutely be giving it death saves, and if things really do turn ugly you can always command it to Disengage/Dash as a bonus action past 7th level and just get it out of that bad situation.
This means that on a short rest, while the rest of the party is recovering 10+ HD at mid-tier play, the animal companion is still sitting on a piddly #.
This is a fair point that I didn't consider. Swapping the "4 times your Ranger level" with an extra hit die for every Ranger level past 2nd would result in the same or slightly higher max HP (CR 1/4 medium beasts use a d8 and have +0 to +2 CON) but actually give them HD to use for rests.
So then any animal companion getting into combat can expect to either bite the dust or require an inordinate amount of healing resources devoted to it from the party's healers. I don't see how that is exactly a good fix.
Like I said before, it's trivial to get a companion's AC to around 18 by 5th level if literally anyone is willing to burn a single 1st level slot for Mage Armor. Having less max HP doesn't increase the rate at which they take damage; it just affects how much damage they can take all at once.
The fact is that the monsters have a fixed amount of attacks to make and limited resources for dealing area damage. It's better for a monster to target your 18 AC wolf than a 15 AC wizard that's trying to maintain concentration on a spell and might be forced to burn a slot on Shield to avoid a hit or a 2nd level slot on Misty Step to get to safety. Adding a pet to the party isn't going to increase the amount of healing the party has to produce unless the monster has a unique ability to deal area damage every single round.
Beast Masters also get Share Spells at 15th level, right in time for tier 4 gameplay which starts at 17th level. That lets you do things like share Cure Wounds or Absorb Elements.
Also, the reality is the subclass, by RAW, remains below average for most combat situations unless the DM is quite lenient towards player, gives extra spells not in the PHB, does not target the animal companion explicitly, and the player goes into it knowing a lot about the action economy and picks from a small list of animal options. If that is your view of it being fixed, I cannot agree with you.
The Beast Master is not supposed to a combat specialist; that's the Hunter. It has stronger benefits outside of combat than in combat. I'm giving you tips because you specifically said you're worried about a new player's satisfaction. And honestly, your concerns may not be that warranted, because new players don't have the level of system mastery to crunch a spreadsheet that shows a Hunter will do 20% more damage than a Beast Master or whatever. And even if they could, that's probably not the main reason they chose Beast Master.
The Beast Master is not supposed to a combat specialist; that's the Hunter. It has stronger benefits outside of combat than in combat. I'm giving you tips because you specifically said you're worried about a new player's satisfaction. And honestly, your concerns may not be that warranted, because new players don't have the level of system mastery to crunch a spreadsheet that shows a Hunter will do 20% more damage than a Beast Master or whatever. And even if they could, that's probably not the main reason they chose Beast Master.
I believe that I have stated my reasoning for the dissatisfaction that many players have for BM Ranger thoroughly in previous posts. I will address this last point, however.
My thoughts on the BM Ranger's Animal Companion are not solely about damage/round. I agree with you, in fact, that the companion is supposed to provide benefits to other areas of play, esp. exploration that are less provided for by other Ranger subclasses. Aside from my concerns about action economy during combat and survivability, my point is that the beast should stay useful to the party both in and out of combat. Aside from pure hit point damage, the other major utility of the animal companion during combat is to deny freedom of movement to the enemy and to limit enemy actions. At low levels, this works fine playing a Wolf or Panther, but at higher levels, the save DCs to effects like Trip and Pounce are too low to stay useful except against the lowliest mooks. For the specific purposes of the OP's question, then, they are okay. However, they aren't much fixed at higher levels for precisely the issue that save DCs don't get adjusted up no matter how high a level the Ranger becomes. This further narrows the list of viable animal companions to mostly those options that confer a mount option for Small PCs and to those that deliver a strong attack regardless of saving throws' success. Whether this is satisfactory depends a lot on what type of beast the player is okay with and what level the group is playing to.
In a campaign where the PCs are created using the standard array and feats aren’t allowed, the animal companion should be at least adequate.
If the PCs start with a couple stats at 18, everyone gets a feat at 1st level, and the DM is increasing the difficulty of encounters to compensate, the basic animal companion is going to be more of a liability than an asset.
At low levels, this works fine playing a Wolf or Panther, but at higher levels, the save DCs to effects like Trip and Pounce are too low to stay useful except against the lowliest mooks.
I don't think it's as much of an issue as you're making it out to be. Monsters rarely have saving throw proficiencies and when they do it's usually to bring a save associated with a weak score up to par with their non-proficient saves in their strong scores. For example, adult black dragons don't have proficiency in STR saves and that's their highest score. You're not going to be up against monsters with +10 to a save with any kind of regularity. And while the companion's DCs don't go up, a level 11+ companion gets to attack twice and therefore apply their saving throws twice as often.
Also, strength scores are closely tied to size so you're only going to bump up against a strength score of 20+ regularly if the creature's huge, or to a lesser extent large. Still, going back to the huge dragon with 23 STR, they're making the save with a +6 bonus and have a 20% chance to fail against a wolf's DC 11. That's a failure every 1-in-5 tries and the companion gets two tries per turn. Against a less beefy monster you'll get better results. You're looking at a 1-in-3 chance for a monster with a respectable 18 STR. Bane - a very inexpensive but effective spell - can increase those odds even more while also helping the companion stay alive.
And remember, you get those saves for free. It's not like a grapple or shove where it costs you one attack's worth of damage or things like Trip Attack or Ensnaring Strike which consume limited resources. The companion gets to keep trying for as long as it gets to keep attacking.
Either way, the encounters with minions tend to be the most strategically interesting because players can lock down a single tough monster with ease through sheer action economy advantage. It's precisely when there aren't enough melee combatants to engage every enemy that things get interesting. So the fact that that's where the companion shines most isn't a flaw; I'd argue multi-monster encounters should be the norm, not the exception.
Saving throw proficiencies are as common as the DM wants them to be. If the DM wants to give the Kobold or Hobgoblin Captain character levels, s/he can do so. And the higher the tier of play, the more likely you will find ogres, undead, giants, elementals, illithid, driders, demons, etc. possessing and utilizing class levels and even feats. So I think you're downplaying this aspect of companion (lack of) advancement in a significant way.
Saving throw proficiencies are as common as the DM wants them to be.
If that's your argument there's no point in discussing this because 1) there's no baseline with which to assess the Beast Master's strengths and weaknesses and 2) just like the DM can choose to change literally anything in a way that's detrimental to the companion, they can just as easily make arbitrary changes in the other direction.
The fact remains that by default most monsters don't come with high saving throw resistances.
If this were my sole argument, then, yes, it would be difficult to argue either way. Difficult, but not impossible. The commonality of class levels for monsters likely increases rather than decreases as the characters level. This is b/c making challenging encounters for more experienced players and higher level PCs becomes more difficult without incorporating monsters who can pull from the toolbag that PCs get. Think about it: are you more likely to fight a lich, an Oathbreaker paladin NPC, a mind flayer wizard, or a drow matron mother at low levels or at high levels? Is that group of elven Shadow Monk assassins with Carrion Crawler-poison-dipped darts more likely to show up to confront a level 5 party or a level 10 party? This is not purely random.
The rest of my arguments are spread out through my other posts on this very thread, which I'm not going to bother rehashing since anyone can just scroll and click to read them.
Liches, mind flayer arcanists and drow matron mothers don't have class levels. PC classes come with a lot of extra baggage that's frankly overkill for an NPC or monster. Adding class levels to monsters also makes figuring out their new CR (and thus estimating encounter difficulty) a heck of a lot more difficult precisely because they come with so many extra options. As cool as it might sound to add a couple of levels of Barbarian to a werewolf or something, it's usually a lot simpler to transplant 1 or 2 iconic class features into a stat block on an ad-hoc basis. The Assassin is a good example of this. They don't have all of the class features of a Rogue Assassin, but they do have the few that stand out.
The only time I've ever been tempted to build an NPC with class levels was for persistent NPC companions in Curse of Strahd, but even then I realized it was a lot easier and more sensible to just add a hit die every so often, give them multiattack past a certain point, and maybe add one trait after they've been hanging out with the PCs long enough.
Also, a lich and a drow matron mother are Legendary creatures. They're designed to be able to single-handedly challenge a full group. That flat out doesn't work with non-legendary creatures like a mind flayer arcanist, even with all their tricks, because it's still incredibly easy for a group of players to overwhelm a single mind flayer through sheer numeric advantage if the mind flayer is stupid and decides to fight them head-on. Strength in numbers is still the best way to challenge players regardless of the monster's traits.
More to the point, none of the examples you listed other than the ad-hoc Shadow Monk NPCs (which can easily be replaced with the Shadow Dancer or Martial Arts Adept stat blocks) would even have STR save proficiency. The spellcasters in particular almost always have awful STR scores; the mind flayer arcanist and lich have +0 while the drow matron mother has +1. That's a 50/50 chance to fail a lowly CR 1/4 wolf's DC 11 STR save.
Okay, I used several examples that aren't very illustrative. (Probably b/c spell-casting monsters are the ones that most readily come to mind for me in terms of non-standard monster abilities.) And yes, very few monster and NPC stat blocks list a STR saving throw proficiency. CON saving throw proficiencies are much more common, however. This narrows the utility of poison-using beasts further for upper tier campaigns (not to mention all those with outright poison resistance or poison immunity).
My broader point is not that liches or mind flayer Arcanists or elven Assassins are reasonable or unreasonable challenges to BM Rangers, but to show that class level (or as you argue, class level lite) abilities given to NPCs of both the humanoid and non-humanoid variety tend to be more common encounters at higher levels than at lower levels. So while the standard Wolf might maintain some combat viability at upper levels due to the lack of STR saving throws amongst monsters, the flying snake, the giant centipede, the giant wolf spider, etc. will not see much usage except as maybe as mounts or as short-term meat shields (before they are killed and require a long rest and 25 gp to be re-integrated/re-summoned) in combat. This illustrates how the many ifs, buts and maybes regarding the Beastmaster subclass continue to limit its playability and popularity at many tables as well as show all the extra homework that DMs are faced with when trying to introduce a new player to the game who wants to star in their RPG versions of "The Black Stallion," "The Beastmaster," or "White Fang."
Oooh I see what you're saying now. The decision to have your pet attack or you attack twice is basically a pointless decision until level 11. Depending on what pet you took and what weapon you're using, you might even be better off ignoring your pet altogether until then. After 11 I think the subclass actually makes at least some sense but prior to it I agree that it's pretty bad. It looks like the UA ranger fixes a lot of the issues you mentioned. The only issue I see there is the game mechanics surrounding it are a little more advanced.
I'm DMing a game and my girlfriend chose to be a ranger because she got excited about the pet aspect. She doesn't care as much about the mechanics part as I do so I think she'll still have fun. I'm a little worried that the shepherd druid in the group might steal her thunder though.
Any advice?
This is really the crux of the issue. You can build a beastmaster that makes baseline DPR numbers. Treantmonk did a video on how to do it. I'd post a link, but I am not certain that's allowed. Of course, you have to make certain pet selections and class build selections to do so, but you /can/ make decent beast masters. Unfortunately, most beasts that newer players pick (iconic wolf, I am looking at you) are...not so good.
Advice? Don't kill her pet off. She's your girlfriend and you will not win brownie points for doing so. Just ignore the pet and try to keep the other characters from pointing out how suboptimal she is.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Oooh I see what you're saying now. The decision to have your pet attack or you attack twice is basically a pointless decision until level 11. Depending on what pet you took and what weapon you're using, you might even be better off ignoring your pet altogether until then. After 11 I think the subclass actually makes at least some sense but prior to it I agree that it's pretty bad. It looks like the UA ranger fixes a lot of the issues you mentioned. The only issue I see there is the game mechanics surrounding it are a little more advanced.
I'm DMing a game and my girlfriend chose to be a ranger because she got excited about the pet aspect. She doesn't care as much about the mechanics part as I do so I think she'll still have fun. I'm a little worried that the shepherd druid in the group might steal her thunder though.
Any advice?
This is really the crux of the issue. You can build a beastmaster that makes baseline DPR numbers. Treantmonk did a video on how to do it. I'd post a link, but I am not certain that's allowed. Of course, you have to make certain pet selections and class build selections to do so, but you /can/ make decent beast masters. Unfortunately, most beasts that newer players pick (iconic wolf, I am looking at you) are...not so good.
Advice? Don't kill her pet off. She's your girlfriend and you will not win brownie points for doing so. Just ignore the pet and try to keep the other characters from pointing out how suboptimal she is.
So I watched the video you mentioned (I think). Here is the link for others as I think it's fine. They gave us a way to link for a reason!
It's long! I guess I had a lot of issues with the video. Firstly, he literally said that intelligent enemies wouldn't attack the beast because if they kill the beast the ranger actually gets stronger. This is because now the ranger uses two attacks. This I think is the issue. The beast is so bad that just not using it is probably the optimal way to go until level 11.
He then talks about a bunch of useless ranger abilities that he wouldn't even write on his character sheet. He says some of the things that the ranger does get that are good, but none of them are unique to the ranger. He then uses arguably one of the cheesiest mechanics in the game to get advantage once per round. Ok sure.
I guess my issue with this video is that he starts by saying how bad everything is, then does some power gaming to make it viable. Power gaming usually makes a class very strong. Powergaming the beastmaster makes it ok and I think that's the issue. His starting argument was that the beastmaster was ok. I don't think he actually proved that though. Everything he said to make it better is oddly enough something that pretty much any class could do to be stronger. I would also argue other classes doing the same things would be a lot stronger.
He also says that other classes require work to be useful but I don't think any class takes as much effort to be useful. You really have to game the systems in order to be anything coming close to useful.
One thing I did like is where he talked about giving the pet barding to up the armor class. I think that's something I'll explore with her.
What you've said here is spot on though. I think I'll create situations where her pet could be at risk, but for the most part do what I can to help her keep it alive.
I think I'm going to stick with the RAW rules but try to keep her on par with the rest of the group by giving her slightly better magic stuffs.
My solution to most of the perceived problems of the Beast Master archetype is to read the archetype description as specific changes to the general rules, rather than as everything and the only things that the animal companion can do.
This interpretation allows the ranger to command the animal companion to take the Ready action without using the ranger’s action.
The animal companion readies an attack with the trigger of “when the ranger says “attack”. This uses up the animal companion’s action and reaction but doesn’t use the ranger’s action. The ranger can then use her action any way she wants.
My solution to most of the perceived problems of the Beast Master archetype is to read the archetype description as specific changes to the general rules, rather than as everything and the only things that the animal companion can do.
This interpretation allows the ranger to command the animal companion to take the Ready action without using the ranger’s action.
The animal companion readies an attack with the trigger of “when the ranger says “attack”. This uses up the animal companion’s action and reaction but doesn’t use the ranger’s action. The ranger can then use her action any way she wants.
Your solution goes against some of those specific rules. Namely:
If you don't issue a command, the beast takes the Dodge action.
The Beast Master archetype description makes specific changes to the general rules. If the description doesn’t mention a rule, then it doesn’t change how the general rule affects the animal companion.
For instance, if a DM was controlling a NPC mastiff, the DM could have the mastiff take the Ready action to attack the first enemy that comes within 5 feet. This is the general rule.
If the mastiff is an animal companion controlled by the ranger, the ranger can verbally command the mastiff to take the Ready action. Since the Ready action is not listed as one of the actions that the ranger must use her action to command, the ranger doesn’t need to use her action to command the animal companion to take the Ready action.
Most people read the archetype description as everything and the only things the animal companion can do. Since the Ready action is not listed in the description, they read it as the animal companion cannot take the Ready action.
Reading it as specific changes to the general rules gives the ranger a lot more flexibility in what she can command the animal companion to do.
Oooh I see what you're saying now. The decision to have your pet attack or you attack twice is basically a pointless decision until level 11. Depending on what pet you took and what weapon you're using, you might even be better off ignoring your pet altogether until then. After 11 I think the subclass actually makes at least some sense but prior to it I agree that it's pretty bad. It looks like the UA ranger fixes a lot of the issues you mentioned. The only issue I see there is the game mechanics surrounding it are a little more advanced.
I'm DMing a game and my girlfriend chose to be a ranger because she got excited about the pet aspect. She doesn't care as much about the mechanics part as I do so I think she'll still have fun. I'm a little worried that the shepherd druid in the group might steal her thunder though.
Any advice?
This is really the crux of the issue. You can build a beastmaster that makes baseline DPR numbers. Treantmonk did a video on how to do it. I'd post a link, but I am not certain that's allowed. Of course, you have to make certain pet selections and class build selections to do so, but you /can/ make decent beast masters. Unfortunately, most beasts that newer players pick (iconic wolf, I am looking at you) are...not so good.
Advice? Don't kill her pet off. She's your girlfriend and you will not win brownie points for doing so. Just ignore the pet and try to keep the other characters from pointing out how suboptimal she is.
So I watched the video you mentioned (I think). Here is the link for others as I think it's fine. They gave us a way to link for a reason!
It's long! I guess I had a lot of issues with the video. Firstly, he literally said that intelligent enemies wouldn't attack the beast because if they kill the beast the ranger actually gets stronger. This is because now the ranger uses two attacks. This I think is the issue. The beast is so bad that just not using it is probably the optimal way to go until level 11.
He then talks about a bunch of useless ranger abilities that he wouldn't even write on his character sheet. He says some of the things that the ranger does get that are good, but none of them are unique to the ranger. He then uses arguably one of the cheesiest mechanics in the game to get advantage once per round. Ok sure.
I guess my issue with this video is that he starts by saying how bad everything is, then does some power gaming to make it viable. Power gaming usually makes a class very strong. Powergaming the beastmaster makes it ok and I think that's the issue. His starting argument was that the beastmaster was ok. I don't think he actually proved that though. Everything he said to make it better is oddly enough something that pretty much any class could do to be stronger. I would also argue other classes doing the same things would be a lot stronger.
He also says that other classes require work to be useful but I don't think any class takes as much effort to be useful. You really have to game the systems in order to be anything coming close to useful.
One thing I did like is where he talked about giving the pet barding to up the armor class. I think that's something I'll explore with her.
What you've said here is spot on though. I think I'll create situations where her pet could be at risk, but for the most part do what I can to help her keep it alive.
I think I'm going to stick with the RAW rules but try to keep her on par with the rest of the group by giving her slightly better magic stuffs.
I personally agree with your critiques. Is making a beastmaster viable from a mathematical perspective? Yes it is. I think that's the best that can be said about it. Is his beastmaster compelling and interesting? Not in my opinion; having my ranger run around with a pet cobra just screams nope on so many levels to me.
The ranger chassis is imo, poorly designed. It works mathematically, and most of the people defending the ranger do so on mathematical grounds. His video is about ignoring what makes it a RANGER (as opposed to say a fighter) and focusing on making the pet do enough damage to be worth using. The ranger class has poor class features that are either overpowered (in an uninteresting way because they let your DM just handwave some things in your favored terrain) or non existent (sorry ranger, you're not in your favored terrain, no soup for you). The beast master doubles down on this by offering a list of "companions" that are mostly trap options.
What my fear would be is exactly as you expect; she's going to roll up to the table expecting her wolf or panther to be super cool. Then, her wolf or panther is going to hit something for weak damage and she's going to realize that's ALL she gets to do...shoot bow/swing sword OR attack with her wolf. Meanwhile, the moon druid is going to literally turn into a bear and RAWWWWR all over your baddies, and your GF is going to be like "wtf is this, my wolf sucks, my class features never do anything" and feel like her character is underwhelming. This is how we get to the point where people think that rangers are a bad class and beastmasters are the capstone of badness. They trap you with a cool thought in your head, then completely fail to deliver on that mental image.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
You’re absolutely right, Crzyhawk. And the appalling thing is that even despite a very clear and strong consensus against PHB Beast Master, and a not inconsiderable amount of dissatisfaction with the core class itself, WotC still refuse to take meaningful steps to fix either one. As a customer, it leaves me feeling quite annoyed.
You’re absolutely right, Crzyhawk. And the appalling thing is that even despite a very clear and strong consensus against PHB Beast Master, and a not inconsiderable amount of dissatisfaction with the core class itself, WotC still refuse to take meaningful steps to fix either one. As a customer, it leaves me feeling quite annoyed.
The problem as I see it from WotCs perspective is two fold. First is that mathematically, beast masters can be made to perform. They’re not underpowered from the sense that they can meet the performance baseline expectations. Additionally, if they issue errata, it will make people’s current books obsolete, and they wish to avoid that. People will be quite upset that their old PHB is no longer accurate. I’d imagine that they feel that people are numb to issues with phb content and are less likely to be outraged over weak options than they are outdated books. And if you have to buy a copy of say Xanathars to get a respectable ranger...that’s good for the bottom line
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
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Regarding the RR being too mechanically convoluted, I would say don't sell yourself or your players short. It takes a little extra work to memorize and figure out some of the nuanced mechanics, but repetition breeds familiarity and eventually it all becomes second nature. Cheat sheets help.
I am curious why you don't like it having its own turns. I say this is the easy fix, maybe not the best or most creative one, but effective.
I'm personally less concerned about being surpassed by any spell as long as the feature itself still accomplishes our main goal. I don't think the main goal of a Beast Companion should be to deal the most damage but to feel like a partner in our adventures that can hold its own. I don't even think DPS with a Beast Master should be on par with a Hunter or Gloom Stalker with Swift Quiver, because the idea is that you lose some damage but gain various other effects.
Some of the things that others have pointed out in this thread and further research has shown me that I am a little out of date on some of the errata, so I want to double-check a lot of stuff before I make any assumptions or test out a solution something that has already been addressed. Also while waiting on your answers, how in-depth are you willing to go on homebrewing? I ask because I have been wanting to flesh out my ideas for a while but have always put it off since any time my players pick a Ranger they are satisfied with the RR, and no reason doing all that extra work when sometimes you just want an easy, "good enough" solution.
Mage Armor is very cheap by the time the companion dying to things like a dragon's breath or a flameskull's fireballs is a concern, will last pretty much all day and yield +2 to +3 AC to any companion (which is already getting +3 AC or more from your proficiency bonus past 5th level.)
Warding Bond will literally double the amount of punishment a companion can take for a whole hour (and yield another +1 AC.)
Even with the relatively low HP the RAW rules give your companion, it shouldn't be getting one-shotted with any kind of regularity, the DM should absolutely be giving it death saves, and if things really do turn ugly you can always command it to Disengage/Dash as a bonus action past 7th level and just get it out of that bad situation.
This is a fair point that I didn't consider. Swapping the "4 times your Ranger level" with an extra hit die for every Ranger level past 2nd would result in the same or slightly higher max HP (CR 1/4 medium beasts use a d8 and have +0 to +2 CON) but actually give them HD to use for rests.
Like I said before, it's trivial to get a companion's AC to around 18 by 5th level if literally anyone is willing to burn a single 1st level slot for Mage Armor. Having less max HP doesn't increase the rate at which they take damage; it just affects how much damage they can take all at once.
The fact is that the monsters have a fixed amount of attacks to make and limited resources for dealing area damage. It's better for a monster to target your 18 AC wolf than a 15 AC wizard that's trying to maintain concentration on a spell and might be forced to burn a slot on Shield to avoid a hit or a 2nd level slot on Misty Step to get to safety. Adding a pet to the party isn't going to increase the amount of healing the party has to produce unless the monster has a unique ability to deal area damage every single round.
Beast Masters also get Share Spells at 15th level, right in time for tier 4 gameplay which starts at 17th level. That lets you do things like share Cure Wounds or Absorb Elements.
The Beast Master is not supposed to a combat specialist; that's the Hunter. It has stronger benefits outside of combat than in combat. I'm giving you tips because you specifically said you're worried about a new player's satisfaction. And honestly, your concerns may not be that warranted, because new players don't have the level of system mastery to crunch a spreadsheet that shows a Hunter will do 20% more damage than a Beast Master or whatever. And even if they could, that's probably not the main reason they chose Beast Master.
I believe that I have stated my reasoning for the dissatisfaction that many players have for BM Ranger thoroughly in previous posts. I will address this last point, however.
My thoughts on the BM Ranger's Animal Companion are not solely about damage/round. I agree with you, in fact, that the companion is supposed to provide benefits to other areas of play, esp. exploration that are less provided for by other Ranger subclasses. Aside from my concerns about action economy during combat and survivability, my point is that the beast should stay useful to the party both in and out of combat. Aside from pure hit point damage, the other major utility of the animal companion during combat is to deny freedom of movement to the enemy and to limit enemy actions. At low levels, this works fine playing a Wolf or Panther, but at higher levels, the save DCs to effects like Trip and Pounce are too low to stay useful except against the lowliest mooks. For the specific purposes of the OP's question, then, they are okay. However, they aren't much fixed at higher levels for precisely the issue that save DCs don't get adjusted up no matter how high a level the Ranger becomes. This further narrows the list of viable animal companions to mostly those options that confer a mount option for Small PCs and to those that deliver a strong attack regardless of saving throws' success. Whether this is satisfactory depends a lot on what type of beast the player is okay with and what level the group is playing to.
In a campaign where the PCs are created using the standard array and feats aren’t allowed, the animal companion should be at least adequate.
If the PCs start with a couple stats at 18, everyone gets a feat at 1st level, and the DM is increasing the difficulty of encounters to compensate, the basic animal companion is going to be more of a liability than an asset.
I don't think it's as much of an issue as you're making it out to be. Monsters rarely have saving throw proficiencies and when they do it's usually to bring a save associated with a weak score up to par with their non-proficient saves in their strong scores. For example, adult black dragons don't have proficiency in STR saves and that's their highest score. You're not going to be up against monsters with +10 to a save with any kind of regularity. And while the companion's DCs don't go up, a level 11+ companion gets to attack twice and therefore apply their saving throws twice as often.
Also, strength scores are closely tied to size so you're only going to bump up against a strength score of 20+ regularly if the creature's huge, or to a lesser extent large. Still, going back to the huge dragon with 23 STR, they're making the save with a +6 bonus and have a 20% chance to fail against a wolf's DC 11. That's a failure every 1-in-5 tries and the companion gets two tries per turn. Against a less beefy monster you'll get better results. You're looking at a 1-in-3 chance for a monster with a respectable 18 STR. Bane - a very inexpensive but effective spell - can increase those odds even more while also helping the companion stay alive.
And remember, you get those saves for free. It's not like a grapple or shove where it costs you one attack's worth of damage or things like Trip Attack or Ensnaring Strike which consume limited resources. The companion gets to keep trying for as long as it gets to keep attacking.
Either way, the encounters with minions tend to be the most strategically interesting because players can lock down a single tough monster with ease through sheer action economy advantage. It's precisely when there aren't enough melee combatants to engage every enemy that things get interesting. So the fact that that's where the companion shines most isn't a flaw; I'd argue multi-monster encounters should be the norm, not the exception.
Saving throw proficiencies are as common as the DM wants them to be. If the DM wants to give the Kobold or Hobgoblin Captain character levels, s/he can do so. And the higher the tier of play, the more likely you will find ogres, undead, giants, elementals, illithid, driders, demons, etc. possessing and utilizing class levels and even feats. So I think you're downplaying this aspect of companion (lack of) advancement in a significant way.
If that's your argument there's no point in discussing this because 1) there's no baseline with which to assess the Beast Master's strengths and weaknesses and 2) just like the DM can choose to change literally anything in a way that's detrimental to the companion, they can just as easily make arbitrary changes in the other direction.
The fact remains that by default most monsters don't come with high saving throw resistances.
If this were my sole argument, then, yes, it would be difficult to argue either way. Difficult, but not impossible. The commonality of class levels for monsters likely increases rather than decreases as the characters level. This is b/c making challenging encounters for more experienced players and higher level PCs becomes more difficult without incorporating monsters who can pull from the toolbag that PCs get. Think about it: are you more likely to fight a lich, an Oathbreaker paladin NPC, a mind flayer wizard, or a drow matron mother at low levels or at high levels? Is that group of elven Shadow Monk assassins with Carrion Crawler-poison-dipped darts more likely to show up to confront a level 5 party or a level 10 party? This is not purely random.
The rest of my arguments are spread out through my other posts on this very thread, which I'm not going to bother rehashing since anyone can just scroll and click to read them.
Liches, mind flayer arcanists and drow matron mothers don't have class levels. PC classes come with a lot of extra baggage that's frankly overkill for an NPC or monster. Adding class levels to monsters also makes figuring out their new CR (and thus estimating encounter difficulty) a heck of a lot more difficult precisely because they come with so many extra options. As cool as it might sound to add a couple of levels of Barbarian to a werewolf or something, it's usually a lot simpler to transplant 1 or 2 iconic class features into a stat block on an ad-hoc basis. The Assassin is a good example of this. They don't have all of the class features of a Rogue Assassin, but they do have the few that stand out.
The only time I've ever been tempted to build an NPC with class levels was for persistent NPC companions in Curse of Strahd, but even then I realized it was a lot easier and more sensible to just add a hit die every so often, give them multiattack past a certain point, and maybe add one trait after they've been hanging out with the PCs long enough.
Also, a lich and a drow matron mother are Legendary creatures. They're designed to be able to single-handedly challenge a full group. That flat out doesn't work with non-legendary creatures like a mind flayer arcanist, even with all their tricks, because it's still incredibly easy for a group of players to overwhelm a single mind flayer through sheer numeric advantage if the mind flayer is stupid and decides to fight them head-on. Strength in numbers is still the best way to challenge players regardless of the monster's traits.
More to the point, none of the examples you listed other than the ad-hoc Shadow Monk NPCs (which can easily be replaced with the Shadow Dancer or Martial Arts Adept stat blocks) would even have STR save proficiency. The spellcasters in particular almost always have awful STR scores; the mind flayer arcanist and lich have +0 while the drow matron mother has +1. That's a 50/50 chance to fail a lowly CR 1/4 wolf's DC 11 STR save.
Okay, I used several examples that aren't very illustrative. (Probably b/c spell-casting monsters are the ones that most readily come to mind for me in terms of non-standard monster abilities.) And yes, very few monster and NPC stat blocks list a STR saving throw proficiency. CON saving throw proficiencies are much more common, however. This narrows the utility of poison-using beasts further for upper tier campaigns (not to mention all those with outright poison resistance or poison immunity).
My broader point is not that liches or mind flayer Arcanists or elven Assassins are reasonable or unreasonable challenges to BM Rangers, but to show that class level (or as you argue, class level lite) abilities given to NPCs of both the humanoid and non-humanoid variety tend to be more common encounters at higher levels than at lower levels. So while the standard Wolf might maintain some combat viability at upper levels due to the lack of STR saving throws amongst monsters, the flying snake, the giant centipede, the giant wolf spider, etc. will not see much usage except as maybe as mounts or as short-term meat shields (before they are killed and require a long rest and 25 gp to be re-integrated/re-summoned) in combat. This illustrates how the many ifs, buts and maybes regarding the Beastmaster subclass continue to limit its playability and popularity at many tables as well as show all the extra homework that DMs are faced with when trying to introduce a new player to the game who wants to star in their RPG versions of "The Black Stallion," "The Beastmaster," or "White Fang."
This is really the crux of the issue. You can build a beastmaster that makes baseline DPR numbers. Treantmonk did a video on how to do it. I'd post a link, but I am not certain that's allowed. Of course, you have to make certain pet selections and class build selections to do so, but you /can/ make decent beast masters. Unfortunately, most beasts that newer players pick (iconic wolf, I am looking at you) are...not so good.
Advice? Don't kill her pet off. She's your girlfriend and you will not win brownie points for doing so. Just ignore the pet and try to keep the other characters from pointing out how suboptimal she is.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
So I watched the video you mentioned (I think). Here is the link for others as I think it's fine. They gave us a way to link for a reason!
It's long! I guess I had a lot of issues with the video. Firstly, he literally said that intelligent enemies wouldn't attack the beast because if they kill the beast the ranger actually gets stronger. This is because now the ranger uses two attacks. This I think is the issue. The beast is so bad that just not using it is probably the optimal way to go until level 11.
He then talks about a bunch of useless ranger abilities that he wouldn't even write on his character sheet. He says some of the things that the ranger does get that are good, but none of them are unique to the ranger. He then uses arguably one of the cheesiest mechanics in the game to get advantage once per round. Ok sure.
I guess my issue with this video is that he starts by saying how bad everything is, then does some power gaming to make it viable. Power gaming usually makes a class very strong. Powergaming the beastmaster makes it ok and I think that's the issue. His starting argument was that the beastmaster was ok. I don't think he actually proved that though. Everything he said to make it better is oddly enough something that pretty much any class could do to be stronger. I would also argue other classes doing the same things would be a lot stronger.
He also says that other classes require work to be useful but I don't think any class takes as much effort to be useful. You really have to game the systems in order to be anything coming close to useful.
One thing I did like is where he talked about giving the pet barding to up the armor class. I think that's something I'll explore with her.
What you've said here is spot on though. I think I'll create situations where her pet could be at risk, but for the most part do what I can to help her keep it alive.
I think I'm going to stick with the RAW rules but try to keep her on par with the rest of the group by giving her slightly better magic stuffs.
My solution to most of the perceived problems of the Beast Master archetype is to read the archetype description as specific changes to the general rules, rather than as everything and the only things that the animal companion can do.
This interpretation allows the ranger to command the animal companion to take the Ready action without using the ranger’s action.
The animal companion readies an attack with the trigger of “when the ranger says “attack”. This uses up the animal companion’s action and reaction but doesn’t use the ranger’s action. The ranger can then use her action any way she wants.
Your solution goes against some of those specific rules. Namely:
Commanding the Ready action is issuing a command.
The Beast Master archetype description makes specific changes to the general rules. If the description doesn’t mention a rule, then it doesn’t change how the general rule affects the animal companion.
For instance, if a DM was controlling a NPC mastiff, the DM could have the mastiff take the Ready action to attack the first enemy that comes within 5 feet. This is the general rule.
If the mastiff is an animal companion controlled by the ranger, the ranger can verbally command the mastiff to take the Ready action. Since the Ready action is not listed as one of the actions that the ranger must use her action to command, the ranger doesn’t need to use her action to command the animal companion to take the Ready action.
Most people read the archetype description as everything and the only things the animal companion can do. Since the Ready action is not listed in the description, they read it as the animal companion cannot take the Ready action.
Reading it as specific changes to the general rules gives the ranger a lot more flexibility in what she can command the animal companion to do.
Here is another way to think about this.
First imagine that you are the DM. You are controlling a nonplayer character that happens to be a wolf. What can the wolf do?
It can attack. It can use the Attack action and it can make an opportunity attack using its reaction.
It can Dash, Disengage, Dodge and Help using its action.
It can Hide and Search.
It can Ready itself to attack a creature who threatens it.
It can even Use an Object to some extent.
Obviously there will be things it cannot do due to lack of opposable thumbs, ability to speak a language etc.
Now apply the specific rules of the Beast Master archetype to this wolf.
It can still attack. It can make opportunity attacks. It can take the Attack action if the ranger verbally commands it and the ranger uses her action.
It can still Dash, Disengage and Help if the ranger verbally commands and uses her action.
It can still Hide and Search if the ranger verbally commands it (ranger’s action is not required).
It can still Ready an attack if the ranger verbally commands it (ranger’s action is not required).
If the ranger doesn’t command an action the wolf takes the Dodge action.
I get what you are saying. That makes sense.
I personally agree with your critiques. Is making a beastmaster viable from a mathematical perspective? Yes it is. I think that's the best that can be said about it. Is his beastmaster compelling and interesting? Not in my opinion; having my ranger run around with a pet cobra just screams nope on so many levels to me.
The ranger chassis is imo, poorly designed. It works mathematically, and most of the people defending the ranger do so on mathematical grounds. His video is about ignoring what makes it a RANGER (as opposed to say a fighter) and focusing on making the pet do enough damage to be worth using. The ranger class has poor class features that are either overpowered (in an uninteresting way because they let your DM just handwave some things in your favored terrain) or non existent (sorry ranger, you're not in your favored terrain, no soup for you). The beast master doubles down on this by offering a list of "companions" that are mostly trap options.
What my fear would be is exactly as you expect; she's going to roll up to the table expecting her wolf or panther to be super cool. Then, her wolf or panther is going to hit something for weak damage and she's going to realize that's ALL she gets to do...shoot bow/swing sword OR attack with her wolf. Meanwhile, the moon druid is going to literally turn into a bear and RAWWWWR all over your baddies, and your GF is going to be like "wtf is this, my wolf sucks, my class features never do anything" and feel like her character is underwhelming. This is how we get to the point where people think that rangers are a bad class and beastmasters are the capstone of badness. They trap you with a cool thought in your head, then completely fail to deliver on that mental image.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
You’re absolutely right, Crzyhawk. And the appalling thing is that even despite a very clear and strong consensus against PHB Beast Master, and a not inconsiderable amount of dissatisfaction with the core class itself, WotC still refuse to take meaningful steps to fix either one. As a customer, it leaves me feeling quite annoyed.
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The problem as I see it from WotCs perspective is two fold. First is that mathematically, beast masters can be made to perform. They’re not underpowered from the sense that they can meet the performance baseline expectations. Additionally, if they issue errata, it will make people’s current books obsolete, and they wish to avoid that. People will be quite upset that their old PHB is no longer accurate. I’d imagine that they feel that people are numb to issues with phb content and are less likely to be outraged over weak options than they are outdated books. And if you have to buy a copy of say Xanathars to get a respectable ranger...that’s good for the bottom line
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha