I definitely let the pet have death saves. I want the ranger to be invested in their pet and not feel like they're churning through them (I also don't want them holding the pet back all the time because they're afraid it's going to die). When the pet actually does full out die, I feel like the ranger should be devastated - they have a deep bond after all. From an RP perspective I feel like it's much better.
As a consolation prize, I let the ranger choose if they want to rage (a modified version of barbarian rage) and go full adrenaline for the rest of the battle because they're so pissed off. She gets advantage on dex checks and saves and bonus damage (borrowed from the barb table), but loses 2 AC because she's so consumed with vengeance that she cares less about harm to herself and feels less pain (which is super badass). So, as an example, she loses her pet and goes into a rage. While she's charging an orc he throws a javelin that hits her in the shoulder (would normally have missed...but she has lower AC right now) that hits her in the shoulder. She ripped it out of her shoulder while running and jump on the orc planting both swords in his head. She cried later, but at least felt like she had punished those responsible.
When she's high enough she can take raise animal companion (basically raise dead, lv4 ranger spell) so she can never have to worry about losing her companion again, but before that it takes real effort / money / a side quest of sorts to restore/resurrect her companion if she doesn't want to pick a new one.
Flying Snake is the one I prefer. It slithers in my clothing, then lashes at an enemy in range with bite & poison. Sometimes the DM even gives it the advantage due to it being technically a surprise attack.
Also great at infiltrating being a small flier that can also swim swiftly, though I need to use spells to make proper use of it, such as speak with animals and beast bond... A familiar is a better choice for scouting I admit, and less costly too. But flying snakes are cool!
Also, if I get a WISH in the campaign I ask for my flying snake to be able to polymorph into a Couatl at will (or at least once a day for 1 hour). Last time he agreed by removing innate spellcasting and change shape from the transformation.
Though that has nothing to do with being my animal companion...
Here is my animal companion, the 1-year-old Steel (3.5E), Silver(5E) dragon hatchling Theiena,
Backstory of my creation if you care to read it, warning that I am only an amateur writer atm.
I was scouting a new band of ogres so that I could report back to the deep watch in the area as to whether or not we'd need to gather more of the watch before wiping them out.
The events that followed happened on the second day of my scouting, I hadn't realized what they were planning and it took a long time to convince myself that the tragedy wasn't my fault.
(told by the mother while it lay dying) Theiena's father had succumbed to an unknown disease. After relocating to get away from the disease, and before she could fully scout out what had at first seemed a safe place to make a lair, a group of 30 ogres that raided the area found they were there, and after realizing there was no mate that would come to the aid of the young adult dragon mother, they set up an ambush and attacked, hungering for dragon meat and dragon gold.
What they hadn't counted on was Theiena, and her mother's nearly unstoppable berserk rage that protected her. When I arrived she was covered in poisoned ogre javelins and bleeding from dozens of places, her wings shredded from almost a hundred similarly poisoned crossbow bolts, yet it only made her continued fury all the more terrifying as it sustained her and held the effects of the poison at bay.
She was surrounded by the mangled corpses of ogres who'd gotten too close or were too slow. There were less than a dozen left when I arrived, but their leader goaded them from the back to finish it off since it was so close to being dead and was already slowing down.
I was lucky. They were so focused on the dragon that none of them saw me coming, and the leader wasn't wearing a helmet.
Empowered by my Hunter's Mark spell I took a flying leap and slammed both my swords into the leader's neck in a scissoring chop, killing and nearly decapitating it. The sound having been drowned by the roaring of the rampaging dragon, I continued, unnoticed as I slew 3 more in a similar fashion, though the last managed to get off a bellowed warning to his remaining allies. Having lost another ogre to the still thrashing dragon and overestimating my handiwork, the handful left finally broke and ran for it.
Her rage spent, and the adrenaline fleeing with the ogres. Theiena's mother collapsed. I ran to her and tried to help , but her wounds were too great, and the poison would soon end her. In her last minutes of life she entrusted her newly born daughter to me to protect and train, as she would not live long enough to do it.
I upheld the mother's dying wish, raising and training Theiena as she grew and flew beside me, serving with me in the deep watch for the remaining years of my term. Developing a familiarity with each others personality and fighting style, as well as her own increasing proficiency in magic we eventually developed a telepathic bond that allowed us to converse more freely both in and out of combat.
Mostly I wasn't about to be constrained to a wolf, panther, boar, etc in a world where rothe, bichir, bunyips, and miniature giant space hamsters etc. all exist or have existed.
I wonder if there is a way to get the UA beast master with the beast conclave in D&D beyond. It's sad that it's been almost 2 years since they released the revised ranger, and they are STILL not finished with it.
There is... make the Homebrew Archetype. You can make custom subclasses in D&D Beyond.
I am still new to DnD, and I have chosen to roll a BM Ranger with a Bloodhawk. I have done quite a bit of research and think this is a good way to start.
I have a Yuan Ti ranger, and my DM let me have a giant poisonous snake, a cobra. Her name is Damia, and recently she got the kill on a boss, she slithered up behind it and her poisonous bite actually worked, and killed it.
I had a goblin beastmaster named Dog who had a giant badger Not-Dog. Not-Dog was decorated with pixie skulls and unicorn blood.
I had a halfling beastmaster with a goat. He lived on a goat farm before adventuring. He also became the central religious figure for a cult of Kuo-toa. There were five of them and they all had M names (I remember Mario and Murdock, but not the other), and they became a group of performers.
I wonder if there is a way to get the UA beast master with the beast conclave in D&D beyond. It's sad that it's been almost 2 years since they released the revised ranger, and they are STILL not finished with it.
I wonder if there is a way to get the UA beast master with the beast conclave in D&D beyond. It's sad that it's been almost 2 years since they released the revised ranger, and they are STILL not finished with it.
technically not released...
Yup, technically not. But I always use the revised ranger when building one.
The reality is that they kinda screwed up the ranger, and they really don't have an elegant way to officially introduce a second version. I don't entirely understand the concern though, just release an updated player book, put out a free errata as follows:
The Ranger now describes the Revised Ranger with any changes they have found in the 2 years since it came out that are required for balance and the original ranger becomes the Ranger (Classic). Both can be used, player choice. Done. Is it elegant, not really, but it is easy to understand and gives the players what they want, an official version of the ranger that (according to polls I've seen) 90% of players use.
I worked out with my DM that my ranger gets a very young dragon as a companion. The Dragon was brutalized and lost its breath weapon and it's ability to talk or fly. I'm playing a revised beast conclave ranger, so we worked out that at level 11, instead of the Storm of Teeth and Claws or whatever, it will get its breath attack back. It will also regain the ability to fly at some point, though we haven't determined when that will be yet. The DM also fudged a few of the stats to be more in line with what a companion should be, but it wasn't a huge nerf, honestly.
The long-term plan is for my ranger to ride the dragon and rain down death from the sky.
I haven't explored this yet in 5e, but in 4e my all-time favorite character was an elven ranger with a tiger companion. She dealt some extreme damage, but even then I was a little frustrated having to choose between who got to do what.
I haven't really explored the differences between standard and UA Ranger in 5e yet.
Id say thats a bit unreasonable considering they are beyond a monster and are considered part of the party they should be given the same chance of survival.
My friend is running a Norse themed campaign, so I've elected to go with a raven named Heiarn --which we've elected is the elven name for Huginn. Not as powerful attack-wise as other beasts, but I love ravens, and I feel he'd be useful for scouting reasons and flavor.
I definitely let the pet have death saves. I want the ranger to be invested in their pet and not feel like they're churning through them (I also don't want them holding the pet back all the time because they're afraid it's going to die). When the pet actually does full out die, I feel like the ranger should be devastated - they have a deep bond after all. From an RP perspective I feel like it's much better.
As a consolation prize, I let the ranger choose if they want to rage (a modified version of barbarian rage) and go full adrenaline for the rest of the battle because they're so pissed off. She gets advantage on dex checks and saves and bonus damage (borrowed from the barb table), but loses 2 AC because she's so consumed with vengeance that she cares less about harm to herself and feels less pain (which is super badass). So, as an example, she loses her pet and goes into a rage. While she's charging an orc he throws a javelin that hits her in the shoulder (would normally have missed...but she has lower AC right now) that hits her in the shoulder. She ripped it out of her shoulder while running and jump on the orc planting both swords in his head. She cried later, but at least felt like she had punished those responsible.
When she's high enough she can take raise animal companion (basically raise dead, lv4 ranger spell) so she can never have to worry about losing her companion again, but before that it takes real effort / money / a side quest of sorts to restore/resurrect her companion if she doesn't want to pick a new one.
Flying Snake is the one I prefer. It slithers in my clothing, then lashes at an enemy in range with bite & poison. Sometimes the DM even gives it the advantage due to it being technically a surprise attack.
Also great at infiltrating being a small flier that can also swim swiftly, though I need to use spells to make proper use of it, such as speak with animals and beast bond... A familiar is a better choice for scouting I admit, and less costly too. But flying snakes are cool!
Also, if I get a WISH in the campaign I ask for my flying snake to be able to polymorph into a Couatl at will (or at least once a day for 1 hour). Last time he agreed by removing innate spellcasting and change shape from the transformation.
Though that has nothing to do with being my animal companion...
Here is my animal companion, the 1-year-old Steel (3.5E), Silver(5E) dragon hatchling Theiena,
Backstory of my creation if you care to read it, warning that I am only an amateur writer atm.
I was scouting a new band of ogres so that I could report back to the deep watch in the area as to whether or not we'd need to gather more of the watch before wiping them out.
The events that followed happened on the second day of my scouting, I hadn't realized what they were planning and it took a long time to convince myself that the tragedy wasn't my fault.
(told by the mother while it lay dying) Theiena's father had succumbed to an unknown disease. After relocating to get away from the disease, and before she could fully scout out what had at first seemed a safe place to make a lair, a group of 30 ogres that raided the area found they were there, and after realizing there was no mate that would come to the aid of the young adult dragon mother, they set up an ambush and attacked, hungering for dragon meat and dragon gold.
What they hadn't counted on was Theiena, and her mother's nearly unstoppable berserk rage that protected her. When I arrived she was covered in poisoned ogre javelins and bleeding from dozens of places, her wings shredded from almost a hundred similarly poisoned crossbow bolts, yet it only made her continued fury all the more terrifying as it sustained her and held the effects of the poison at bay.
She was surrounded by the mangled corpses of ogres who'd gotten too close or were too slow. There were less than a dozen left when I arrived, but their leader goaded them from the back to finish it off since it was so close to being dead and was already slowing down.
I was lucky. They were so focused on the dragon that none of them saw me coming, and the leader wasn't wearing a helmet.
Empowered by my Hunter's Mark spell I took a flying leap and slammed both my swords into the leader's neck in a scissoring chop, killing and nearly decapitating it. The sound having been drowned by the roaring of the rampaging dragon, I continued, unnoticed as I slew 3 more in a similar fashion, though the last managed to get off a bellowed warning to his remaining allies. Having lost another ogre to the still thrashing dragon and overestimating my handiwork, the handful left finally broke and ran for it.
Her rage spent, and the adrenaline fleeing with the ogres. Theiena's mother collapsed. I ran to her and tried to help , but her wounds were too great, and the poison would soon end her. In her last minutes of life she entrusted her newly born daughter to me to protect and train, as she would not live long enough to do it.
I upheld the mother's dying wish, raising and training Theiena as she grew and flew beside me, serving with me in the deep watch for the remaining years of my term. Developing a familiarity with each others personality and fighting style, as well as her own increasing proficiency in magic we eventually developed a telepathic bond that allowed us to converse more freely both in and out of combat.
Stats and abilities are currently identical to a pseudodragon ( https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Pseudodragon?fromList=Pseudodragon&Name=pseu&Speed=#content ) but with better hit points and telepathy (though that's still under normal ranger companion benefits). How much the DM will let her grow and/or level over the course of the campaign is yet to be determined.
Mostly I wasn't about to be constrained to a wolf, panther, boar, etc in a world where rothe, bichir, bunyips, and miniature giant space hamsters etc. all exist or have existed.
I am still new to DnD, and I have chosen to roll a BM Ranger with a Bloodhawk. I have done quite a bit of research and think this is a good way to start.
My ranger character is a lightfoot halfling, she has a giant badger that she uses as a mount as well as her companion in battle
I have a Yuan Ti ranger, and my DM let me have a giant poisonous snake, a cobra. Her name is Damia, and recently she got the kill on a boss, she slithered up behind it and her poisonous bite actually worked, and killed it.
I started with beast master when I picked up 5th edition. Went with the Giant Poisonous Snake.
I had a goblin beastmaster named Dog who had a giant badger Not-Dog. Not-Dog was decorated with pixie skulls and unicorn blood.
I had a halfling beastmaster with a goat. He lived on a goat farm before adventuring. He also became the central religious figure for a cult of Kuo-toa. There were five of them and they all had M names (I remember Mario and Murdock, but not the other), and they became a group of performers.
Hill Dwarf Ranger with a mule named Jerry... Mules carry the most gold
also
Dwarves don't love gold... they just tell it that to get it into bed with them!
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
technically not released...
Gnome Ranger with a Mastiff Mount!
Yup, technically not. But I always use the revised ranger when building one.
The reality is that they kinda screwed up the ranger, and they really don't have an elegant way to officially introduce a second version. I don't entirely understand the concern though, just release an updated player book, put out a free errata as follows:
The Ranger now describes the Revised Ranger with any changes they have found in the 2 years since it came out that are required for balance and the original ranger becomes the Ranger (Classic). Both can be used, player choice. Done. Is it elegant, not really, but it is easy to understand and gives the players what they want, an official version of the ranger that (according to polls I've seen) 90% of players use.
I worked out with my DM that my ranger gets a very young dragon as a companion. The Dragon was brutalized and lost its breath weapon and it's ability to talk or fly. I'm playing a revised beast conclave ranger, so we worked out that at level 11, instead of the Storm of Teeth and Claws or whatever, it will get its breath attack back. It will also regain the ability to fly at some point, though we haven't determined when that will be yet. The DM also fudged a few of the stats to be more in line with what a companion should be, but it wasn't a huge nerf, honestly.
The long-term plan is for my ranger to ride the dragon and rain down death from the sky.
Pteranodon as a Lightfoot Halfling is epic.
A halfling on a pteranodon makes me imagine “what if Frodo became a ringwraith?”
Honestly, take a look at that article recently that talked about Halflings of Eberron.
I haven't explored this yet in 5e, but in 4e my all-time favorite character was an elven ranger with a tiger companion. She dealt some extreme damage, but even then I was a little frustrated having to choose between who got to do what.
I haven't really explored the differences between standard and UA Ranger in 5e yet.
Id say thats a bit unreasonable considering they are beyond a monster and are considered part of the party they should be given the same chance of survival.
My friend is running a Norse themed campaign, so I've elected to go with a raven named Heiarn --which we've elected is the elven name for Huginn. Not as powerful attack-wise as other beasts, but I love ravens, and I feel he'd be useful for scouting reasons and flavor.
Can I choose Swarm of Ravens? Because: Kenku.
Mega Yahtzee Thread:
Highest 41: brocker2001 (#11,285).
Yahtzee of 2's: Emmber (#36,161).
Lowest 9: JoeltheWalrus (#312), Emmber (#12,505) and Dertinus (#20,953).