Copying the text from a homebrew Ranger spell I'm working on here, since I'm not intending to publish said spell until/unless it actually does what it's supposed to. AHEM:
You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal companion, creating a long-lasting bond with it. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the companion takes on a form that you choose: a Large or smaller beast of CR 1 or lower. Your GM has the final say on whether a given beast is acceptable as a companion. The companion has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of its normal type. Additionally, if your companion has an Intelligence of 5 or less, its Intelligence becomes 6, and it gains the ability to understand one language of your choice that you speak.
Your companion is a loyal friend, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit. The companion shares your initiative in combat, though it takes its turn immediately after you do. On its turn the companion takes the Dodge action, unless you use a bonus action on your turn to command it to Dash, Disengage, Help, or use one of the actions in its stat block. It may use its reaction freely. Out of combat the companion seeks to help you remain alert to potential threats; while within five feet of you, the companion can freely Help your Perception or Investigation checks.
When the companion drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You can also dismiss your companion at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, casting this spell again summons the same companion, restored to its hit point maximum.
While your companion is within 1 mile of you, you can communicate with each other telepathically.
You can't have more than one companion bonded by this spell at a time. As an action, you can release the companion from its bond at any time, causing it to disappear.
When you cast this spell at 3rd level, you may expend 250gp worth of material components instead of 25gp; if you do, you may summon a beast of CR 2 or lower rather than CR 1. When you cast this spell at 4th level, you may expend 2500gp worth of material components instead of 25gp; if you do, you may summon a companion of CR 3 or lower, rather than CR 1. Once this companion has been summoned, the ordinary 2nd-level version of the spell may resummon it, though if it is dismissed a higher-level companion will need to be summoned with extra material components again.
Background: everybody knows and can agree that the Beastmaster ranger sucks. Yes, it can be made functional, but the amount of effort/mechanical knowledge required to do so is all out of proportion to the impact gained from it. Most people say "just use Revised Ranger instead!", but the revised ranger is hogwash, three going on four years out of date, unavailable on DDB for very good reason, and I hate it so no.
The idea me and my player group were tossing around, then, was a ranger-specific analogue to the paladin's Find Steed and the wizard's Find Familiar - a 'Find Companion' spell, since rangers are far more closely tied to their critter companions than paladins are to horses and wizards are to cats. This spell assumes that Beastmaster is essentially soft-banned from the game - either Find Companion is legal in your game or you have people taking Beastmaster. Or, more likely, nobody has critters.
Couple points: -the Large, rather than Medium, beast allowance is because it is hogwash that Small races like gnomes and halflings can ride their animal companions but regular-sized rangers can't. The Large allowance does introduce a lot of weirdness though, and I'm debating whether or not letting regular rangers ride their critter the way smalls do is worth the hassle DMs will have to suffer when their players are jamming their jimmies for a giant pygmy mastodon or whatever bizarre thing players will find to try and completely break the spell. -"Upcasting" the spell is designed to try and keep it relevent into later levels, because unlike the paladin the ranger is stuck with Find Companion on their spell list, and unlike the wizard, rangers don't get seven hundred spells in their book and can afford to use one on Find Critter. The material requirements try to make sure it's not abused too damn heavily, but I'll admit, I have no idea how busted it is to allow players access to a CR 3 critter companion. Any CR 3 beasts that make this a Really Bad Idea? -Yes yes, I know, Magical Secrets sucks. Bards: making life difficult for halfcaster homebrew since whenever 5e released. We're just going to have to accept that bards can have critter companions the same way we accept that they can have magical flying bullshit mounts ten levels before palladalladingdongs do. Bard wants to kill a Magical Secret on a CR 3 or lower companion, I suppose we'll just let them do that.
Anything else I should be taking into account? Any ideas for things the spell should do that it doesn't - or does do that it shouldn't? Pretty obvious riff on Find Steed so far, but I'm willing to break that mold if solid evidence for doing so is presented. Lemme know what you think, folks. Thanks, and have a great weekend!
I am going to start a campaign where i play BM and if my DM wasn't so supportive of my frustration with the weakness of BM ill probably try to convince him to use this, seems a little to strong with the beast summoned but the UA lets you increase its ability score and benefit from your favoured terrain and enemy so it balances out.
Also does it only count as a spell and the player can take another conclave?
That was the intent, yes. All rangers, regardless of their other skills, tend to have a strong association with animal companions; in this case the ranger takes the spell if they want a critter or doesn't take the spell if they don't, and in either case they can otherwise select any conclave/subclass they'd like. The critter CR is strong, and I'm unsure of the scaling there. In my eyes, that's partially balanced by the fact that the beast is an otherwise stock example of its type with no boosts to its HP, abilities, or damage, but I'm legitimately unsure if Bigger Badder Stock Critters is the way to go, especially when a lot of rangers would likely prefer to make one of the more classic (but much weaker) beasts like a wolf or badger stick around properly.
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Copying the text from a homebrew Ranger spell I'm working on here, since I'm not intending to publish said spell until/unless it actually does what it's supposed to. AHEM:
You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal companion, creating a long-lasting bond with it. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the companion takes on a form that you choose: a Large or smaller beast of CR 1 or lower. Your GM has the final say on whether a given beast is acceptable as a companion. The companion has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of its normal type. Additionally, if your companion has an Intelligence of 5 or less, its Intelligence becomes 6, and it gains the ability to understand one language of your choice that you speak.
Your companion is a loyal friend, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit. The companion shares your initiative in combat, though it takes its turn immediately after you do. On its turn the companion takes the Dodge action, unless you use a bonus action on your turn to command it to Dash, Disengage, Help, or use one of the actions in its stat block. It may use its reaction freely. Out of combat the companion seeks to help you remain alert to potential threats; while within five feet of you, the companion can freely Help your Perception or Investigation checks.
When the companion drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You can also dismiss your companion at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, casting this spell again summons the same companion, restored to its hit point maximum.
While your companion is within 1 mile of you, you can communicate with each other telepathically.
You can't have more than one companion bonded by this spell at a time. As an action, you can release the companion from its bond at any time, causing it to disappear.
When you cast this spell at 3rd level, you may expend 250gp worth of material components instead of 25gp; if you do, you may summon a beast of CR 2 or lower rather than CR 1. When you cast this spell at 4th level, you may expend 2500gp worth of material components instead of 25gp; if you do, you may summon a companion of CR 3 or lower, rather than CR 1. Once this companion has been summoned, the ordinary 2nd-level version of the spell may resummon it, though if it is dismissed a higher-level companion will need to be summoned with extra material components again.
Background: everybody knows and can agree that the Beastmaster ranger sucks. Yes, it can be made functional, but the amount of effort/mechanical knowledge required to do so is all out of proportion to the impact gained from it. Most people say "just use Revised Ranger instead!", but the revised ranger is hogwash, three going on four years out of date, unavailable on DDB for very good reason, and I hate it so no.
The idea me and my player group were tossing around, then, was a ranger-specific analogue to the paladin's Find Steed and the wizard's Find Familiar - a 'Find Companion' spell, since rangers are far more closely tied to their critter companions than paladins are to horses and wizards are to cats. This spell assumes that Beastmaster is essentially soft-banned from the game - either Find Companion is legal in your game or you have people taking Beastmaster. Or, more likely, nobody has critters.
Couple points:
-the Large, rather than Medium, beast allowance is because it is hogwash that Small races like gnomes and halflings can ride their animal companions but regular-sized rangers can't. The Large allowance does introduce a lot of weirdness though, and I'm debating whether or not letting regular rangers ride their critter the way smalls do is worth the hassle DMs will have to suffer when their players are jamming their jimmies for a giant pygmy mastodon or whatever bizarre thing players will find to try and completely break the spell.
-"Upcasting" the spell is designed to try and keep it relevent into later levels, because unlike the paladin the ranger is stuck with Find Companion on their spell list, and unlike the wizard, rangers don't get seven hundred spells in their book and can afford to use one on Find Critter. The material requirements try to make sure it's not abused too damn heavily, but I'll admit, I have no idea how busted it is to allow players access to a CR 3 critter companion. Any CR 3 beasts that make this a Really Bad Idea?
-Yes yes, I know, Magical Secrets sucks. Bards: making life difficult for halfcaster homebrew since whenever 5e released. We're just going to have to accept that bards can have critter companions the same way we accept that they can have magical flying bullshit mounts ten levels before palladalladingdongs do. Bard wants to kill a Magical Secret on a CR 3 or lower companion, I suppose we'll just let them do that.
Anything else I should be taking into account? Any ideas for things the spell should do that it doesn't - or does do that it shouldn't? Pretty obvious riff on Find Steed so far, but I'm willing to break that mold if solid evidence for doing so is presented. Lemme know what you think, folks. Thanks, and have a great weekend!
Please do not contact or message me.
I am going to start a campaign where i play BM and if my DM wasn't so supportive of my frustration with the weakness of BM ill probably try to convince him to use this, seems a little to strong with the beast summoned but the UA lets you increase its ability score and benefit from your favoured terrain and enemy so it balances out.
Also does it only count as a spell and the player can take another conclave?
That was the intent, yes. All rangers, regardless of their other skills, tend to have a strong association with animal companions; in this case the ranger takes the spell if they want a critter or doesn't take the spell if they don't, and in either case they can otherwise select any conclave/subclass they'd like. The critter CR is strong, and I'm unsure of the scaling there. In my eyes, that's partially balanced by the fact that the beast is an otherwise stock example of its type with no boosts to its HP, abilities, or damage, but I'm legitimately unsure if Bigger Badder Stock Critters is the way to go, especially when a lot of rangers would likely prefer to make one of the more classic (but much weaker) beasts like a wolf or badger stick around properly.
Please do not contact or message me.