Those who play the beastmaster want to be Beastmasters. Yes, this can very well be an entire class on its own (although I think its a great sub for a ranger). The players want to be able to tame the beasts of wild, not befriend an enchanted spirit.. It does sound very druid-y.
Is a primal beast necessarily an enchanted Fey Spirit style of wotsit, or is it a particularly special beast - in the same way that an adventurer is not a normal person?
You can fluff it as an enchanted Spirit of the Bear (which teeters between druid and totem barbarian), or a body-stealing ghost from beyond the planes, but that’s not obligatory.
Those who play the beastmaster want to be Beastmasters. Yes, this can very well be an entire class on its own (although I think its a great sub for a ranger). The players want to be able to tame the beasts of wild, not befriend an enchanted spirit.. It does sound very druid-y.
Is a primal beast necessarily an enchanted Fey Spirit style of wotsit, or is it a particularly special beast - in the same way that an adventurer is not a normal person?
You can fluff it as an enchanted Spirit of the Bear (which teeters between druid and totem barbarian), or a body-stealing ghost from beyond the planes, but that’s not obligatory.
It can be either, both or neither of those things. It's flavor text to give some narrative "garnish" to mechanics. And if players or DMs aren't jiving with that flavor text they should ignore it or alter it to suit them and focus on the mechanics benefit. A dog you've raised from a puppy can easily fit into the Beast of Earth template with no more work than saying a sentence to your DM. Or a hawk you've rescued from a Goblin aviary can be your beast or air etc. Flavor text is at best a suggestion, not something to get caught up on too much. I realize that's not what you were doing specifically but I feel like it's a thing some people keep getting stuck on.
I mean I did admit I'm not generally a ranger player but the appeal of a beastmaster class to me is the exact variety of all the animals in nature.
And honestly, as a whole, I think (I may be wrong) beasts are the plainest monsters in the manual.. Nothing too crazy, no magic, no insane innate skills that let you turn invisible and insta-kill everyone with a dc 25 int save... Even the crazy abilities like pack tactics and such are all manageable.
Noxx89, you do have to remember the inherent limitation of the Unearthed Arcana Variant Rule though, It has to 'play nice with' the previous incarnation and thus how far it can push the envelope is limited. They cant start running roughshod over the whole monster manual and they are clearly reluctant to throw the baseline Beastmaster Ranger rules away.
So when you think of the design within that set of limitations, having 2 stat blocks for Beasts of the air and Beasts of the earth is a pretty elegant design considering how many options it can functionally cover.
Heck, I'd be pretty psyched about being able to use the Beast of the air as a Falcon. Pretty sure a bird of prey has never really been a viable option till now, right?
I'll admit - I actually kind of want to run a Beastmaster with a Beast of the Air. I have never before had more than a passing mild curiosity with the Beastmaster, outside of an odd Nature cleric/BM ranger experiment I rigged up once that never went anywhere. There's a few different ways one could run the Beastmaster now, especially with the Druidic Warrior fighting style, that makes me want to experiment some more.
People who hate the idea of being a magical ranger can use the Beast of the Whatever stat template and flavor it as their loyal hound, hunting hawk, or what-have-you, as Ruiner suggests. You can also make your Beast a fantastical, primal creature you encountered in the deep wilds which changed your life, if that's what floats your boat instead. That's the cool thing about these choose-your-fluff statblocks - they can be whatever your character concept needs them to be.
The entire idea behind the fixed stat blocks for the Beasts of the Air/Land is so that Wizards can account for those stat blocks in the design of the class and allow the character actions and abilities they otherwise couldn't, because they have to try and account for ZE ENTIAH MONSTAH MANUELLE, as well as any other additional beasts they introduce from now until the heat death of the universe, when designing the class.
That means the Beastmaster sucked because Wizards had to be ultraconservative with what it could do or the Beastmaster would've been a rampaging monster thing due to being able to take powerful actions with beasts well out of line with their intended curve. They tried to solve that with the (eminently shitty) Revised Ranger rules by giving players a much smaller list of beasts, and then more powerful things they could do with those beasts. Players ignored the restrictions.
When they introduced the artificer, with its integrated one-statblock critter with a variable appearance, and people loved it (on the Battlesmith, anyways), and then they got heavily positive feedback on the same dealio with the Wildfire Druid, it became clear that baking the critter into the class, using a single statblock that can be fluffed out any way the player likes but which provides a consistent base to plan the rest of the class off of, is enormously better for game design.
Saying "well all right, you can use a primal beast, but it takes the stats/abilities of whatever it looks like if those are better" completely ruins that design and puts us right back at Square 1. Don't be that guy. That Guy is why the Beastmaster is awful right now.
I didn't say take the stats, I said take the actions. And it was a suggestion to someone who had a specific issue. If you don't like that suggestion, don't use it. Beastmaster is also awful right now because they made the phb Beastmaster crap
My second nitpick is thematic. The Beast of the Air and Beast of the Land have way more personal flavor and utility than the old way of taming whatever you can find and replacing it when it dies. However... I feel like it locks the character into a mystic druid archetype where they're channeling the power of Nature into manifesting as one of two forms. It definitely precludes some of the quirky and fun concepts where you pick animal companions with unique abilities or to fulfill specific roles. There was a huge difference stylistically between a gnome ranger who rides on the back of the wolf companion they were raised with and consider their brother, or the ranger whose snake companion has been specially trained to grapple and restrain enemies in a fight to give the ranger an advantage. Boiling the companion down to a choice between two stat blocks with generic abilities really strips out a lot of the creative grounds that made beastmasters fun to build.
You can still do all those this with a primal beast, just make it a snake or a wolf or whatever, use the stat block from the primal as the base, but have it be whatever. I would argue that there is nothing that says you can't replace the Actions of a primal beast with the Actions of whatever form they take (minus multi-attack)
Modifying the statblock is likely the solution, but it's definitely something that would have to be cleared with the DM, and the way it would work would vary significantly because of that. It also precludes it from being AL-legal, which matters for a lot of people.
You can't use UA in AL, so from that standpoint it is a completely moot point anyway
My second nitpick is thematic. The Beast of the Air and Beast of the Land have way more personal flavor and utility than the old way of taming whatever you can find and replacing it when it dies. However... I feel like it locks the character into a mystic druid archetype where they're channeling the power of Nature into manifesting as one of two forms. It definitely precludes some of the quirky and fun concepts where you pick animal companions with unique abilities or to fulfill specific roles. There was a huge difference stylistically between a gnome ranger who rides on the back of the wolf companion they were raised with and consider their brother, or the ranger whose snake companion has been specially trained to grapple and restrain enemies in a fight to give the ranger an advantage. Boiling the companion down to a choice between two stat blocks with generic abilities really strips out a lot of the creative grounds that made beastmasters fun to build.
I think theme is maybe the most amorphous thing in D&D. You and your DM decide the theme from campaign to campaign and if you want your Beast of Earth to be a snake, I don't see why it can't. Nothing in the stat block prevents it from grappling.
And the thing that I really feel I have to point out is, these are just two new options for Beast Master to choose from. At no point does it say this is meant to replace the creatures from the Monster Manual. It says specifically that it's an enhancement to the feature, not a replacement. It's an option I personally would choose because I'd want my Ranger to be a Japanese themed bowman with a yokai-themed companion but if you want to pick a snake out of the monster manual, nothing in the UA prevents you from doing that.
There seems to be a sentiment that they've somehow restricted the Beast Companion options. But all they've actually done is add two extra creatures to it.
I do wish the Primal Beasts had a couple more attack options to choose from instead of being locked into one per beast. Like if you could choose from maul, or a poison bit/sting, or or a specific like a bludgeoning attack. it's simple and it further supports the Build-a-Bear approach they seem to be taking with the Primal Beasts.
Looking at it, I think the way I would go about it for the Beastmaster is something akin to Warlock's Pact Boon/Invocations, where you have a limited number of stat blocks representing the type (climbing, flying, swimming, general land based critter, etc) with a list of options available to the particular types, only ONE of which it can take (charge, flyby, grapple, rampage, poison bite, etc).
Obviously this will require more thought than the 5 minutes I've put into it, but I think I'm getting my point across.
You can do that now. Just create a homebrew creature with the stat block of the Primal Beast of your choice and attach it to your Beastmaster. Boom - done.
Yeah you can technically homebrew anything you want. But most home brew is built on the work of the official design. As a DM that is constantly having to having conversations with players about the viability of their Beast Master companion choices and having to go through the process of going into the monster manual looking up that stats they want. Finding out it’s over or under powered. Compromising. Home brew something anyway... Yadda Yadda. I appreciate semi official content that is a super quick solution to that process. No matter what they pick I feel like I can fit it into the primal template with very little to no effort Boom. Done.
No no no - what I'm saying is that you can create a creature stat block, call it "Beast of the Air" or "Beast of the Land", copy the stats provided in the UA document into that piece of homebrew, and have access to the primal beasts. Yeah, it's somewhat more annoying than just clicking and adding it in, but Critter Homebrew is actually one of the less infuriating aspects of the editor. Making critters is relatively straightforward.
@IamSposta: I do wish there were more 'Replaces...' options as well. That said, having listened to Crawford's thing on this document, I can kind of understand what he means about certain classes basically having nothing to replace that isn't essential to their design. What can you possibly swap out on a sorcerer, for example, that doesn't basically cripple them?
Now, to me that's an indicator of an extremely barren design plan and "simplicity of play" taken too far, but that's a discussion for another day. Hopefully in the future they'll be more bold with this sort of document and consider switching out sacred-cow features. I'd be quite curious to see what might happen if, for example, they switched out the sorcerer's Metamagic entirely and gave them a brand new use for their sorcery points. What that use would be, I don't know - but I'd be eager to see what it was.
Yes. It still says you are casting the spell, just not expending a spell slot and that it doesn't require the concentration. So you could have multiple up on different targets, but not multiple copies on one target.
Spell Versatility: A long rest is a bit too often for me. Perhaps a day of downtime per level of the spell being swapped?
Fighting Styles: Fine.
Barbarian: N/A. Never played Barbs.
Bard/Druid/Paladin/Rogue/Sorcerer: Good.
Cleric: Mostly fine. I wish Blessed Strikes kinda added radiant to the other damage type though. For instance, if a Forge Cleric used Divine Strike, they can add 1d8 fire or radiant damage.
Fighter: Good. I'm happy they added the more subtle maneuvers.
Monk: Mostly fine. I think the monk weapons tread too much on Kensei though.
Ranger: Yes. Just Yes.
Warlock: Very happy. I'm liking the new invocations. I feel though basic Talisman Pact should be beefed up though as only a 1d4 on certain ability checks feels underwhelming. Perhaps a single-target Paladin Aura?
So I've been looking over this document for a while, and I think this is one of those rare moments where I can honestly say I love every last bit of it (not that I don't have some concerns, but by and large everything here feels like it's on track.) There are a few areas though, that I wish had more attention:
1. After watching one of the talks with Jeremy Crawford I understand they didn't want to delve too much into subclasses, but I reeeeaaaaally wish they had applied the spellcasting variants to the 1/3rd caster subclasses as well, especially the 4 Elements Monk; I realize 4 Elements does get a buff with the Monk changes, but it's still way too limited as a caster.
2. Not that they're in danger of being outclassed just yet, but I also wish Wizards got a bit more love here, especially seeing as other casters have a limited version of their spell swapping, and that Clerics and Paladins now have the option to regain spell slots with their Channel Divinity (again, not that they're in danger of being outclassed, but it's still a thing to consider.)
3 The Ranger's level 20 capstone Foe Slayer will absolutely need reworking for anyone who replaces Favored Enemy with Favored Foe (which, frankly, I feel needs to be done anyways; I cannot stand that it's restricted to only being used against your Favored Enemies, which have no guarantee of showing up, ever.)
4. Someone mentioned this elsewhere: The Bard's Countercharm ability could really to with an alternative. To be perfectly frank, that feature is so underwhelming I completely forgot that it even exists...
So I've been looking over this document for a while, and I think this is one of those rare moments where I can honestly say I love every last bit of it (not that I don't have some concerns, but by and large everything here feels like it's on track.) There are a few areas though, that I wish had more attention:
1. After watching one of the talks with Jeremy Crawford I understand they didn't want to delve too much into subclasses, but I reeeeaaaaally wish they had applied the spellcasting variants to the 1/3rd caster subclasses as well, especially the 4 Elements Monk; I realize 4 Elements does get a buff with the Monk changes, but it's still way too limited as a caster.
2. Not that they're in danger of being outclassed just yet, but I also wish Wizards got a bit more love here, especially seeing as other casters have a limited version of their spell swapping, and that Clerics and Paladins now have the option to regain spell slots with their Channel Divinity (again, not that they're in danger of being outclassed, but it's still a thing to consider.)
3 The Ranger's level 20 capstone Foe Slayer will absolutely need reworking for anyone who replaces Favored Enemy with Favored Foe (which, frankly, I feel needs to be done anyways; I cannot stand that it's restricted to only being used against your Favored Enemies, which have no guarantee of showing up, ever.)
4. Someone mentioned this elsewhere: The Bard's Countercharm ability could really to with an alternative. To be perfectly frank, that feature is so underwhelming I completely forgot that it even exists...
1. I feel you i love the 4 elements monks but they breeze through their ki points so fast itd be really nice to have some enhanced rules to help deal with that problem so they feel more viable
2. I'm prob biased as someone who loves sorcerers but I think wizards have been shown more than enough love lol. Including UA stuff they have 12 subclasses compared to a sorcerers 7 or a bards 6. (2 of which for a Sorc are actually UA so its really 5 and 5 to the wizards 10) and they have very solid class features as is on top of a massive spell selection (min 44 at max lvl)
3. yeah their deff gonna have to change some stuff around its always felt like one of the weakest and most situational capstone abilities as is
4. YES! THIS! countercharm has never once come up in a game where weve had a bard (which is alot of games.) Its completely reliant on you just assuming something is going to attempt to charm or frighten you which you have no logical way of knowing unless you fighting a dragon whos going to use its draconic presence and even then it could just not use it that turn.
Any type of armor can be made into barding, which is applied to animals instead of humanoids. Making barding costs four times as much as making equivalent armor for humanoids (which means plate barding is freaking stupid), and by RAW it weighs twice as much.
I would rule instead that the size category of the creature being barded determines weight, especially in cases like ranger companions. Barding for Large creatures like most horses or similar beasts of burden weighs twice as much per RAW, as that is clearly what the RAW barding rules are for. Barding for Medium creatures weighs no more or less than barding for Medium humanoids. Barding for Small creatures weighs half of what the parent armor does. If somebody tries to make barding for Tiny creatures, that's a case-by-case basis, but most of the time armor just isn't going to work for your pet rat or pixie familiar.
1. I feel you i love the 4 elements monks but they breeze through their ki points so fast itd be really nice to have some enhanced rules to help deal with that problem so they feel more viable
They're already getting a Ki point benefit since they can do more damage for the same Ki point cost. Their other two problems have nothing to do with ki; they start with too few disciplines and only being able to upgrade them at 6th, 11th, and 17th levels means access to their higher level disciplines gets delayed too much and they have to wait too long to make changes.
1. I feel you i love the 4 elements monks but they breeze through their ki points so fast itd be really nice to have some enhanced rules to help deal with that problem so they feel more viabl
1. I feel you i love the 4 elements monks but they breeze through their ki points so fast itd be really nice to have some enhanced rules to help deal with that problem so they feel more viable
They're already getting a Ki point benefit since they can do more damage for the same Ki point cost. Their other two problems have nothing to do with ki; they start with too few disciplines and only being able to upgrade them at 6th, 11th, and 17th levels means access to their higher level disciplines gets delayed too much and they have to wait too long to make changes.
Thats definitely one of the issues they have. I'd argue at 6th level having to spend half of the entire amount of ki that you have to cast hold person (3 ki points) or shatter (3 ki points) is pretty hefty. say you wanna do fangs of the fire snake thats 1 ki point every turn you wanna do it and another 1 ki point to do an extra 1d10. Now your still a monk so your gonna wanna flurry of blows for extra attacks thats another 1 ki point and stunning strike is another 1 ki point per hit that you wanna do it. You either need to play extremely conservatively or ur out of tricks extremely quickly after unleashing one semi decently powered spell. thats not an issue at 15th level plus cause u have a lot of ki but few games ever get to that point. You have access to a lot of cool toys but u burn out too quickly to really feel impactful using them. Once that ki's gone theres no magic items or features that'll get them back so u need to hope u get a rest in between fights or ur just gonna devolve into punching everything like a weaker open hand monk.
Any type of armor can be made into barding, which is applied to animals instead of humanoids. Making barding costs four times as much as making equivalent armor for humanoids (which means plate barding is freaking stupid), and by RAW it weighs twice as much.
To follow this tangent, full plate barding for your horse/bear/wolf for example, would include leg armour, fully articulated to allow movement at the shoulder, elbow and wrist - from walking to full gallop, jumping, dodging, you name it. 4x cost is perfectly reasonable, if you’re going to ask a smith to build slinky metal trousers for your furry friend. They can wear a breastplate or a splint dress and like it.
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Is a primal beast necessarily an enchanted Fey Spirit style of wotsit, or is it a particularly special beast - in the same way that an adventurer is not a normal person?
You can fluff it as an enchanted Spirit of the Bear (which teeters between druid and totem barbarian), or a body-stealing ghost from beyond the planes, but that’s not obligatory.
It can be either, both or neither of those things. It's flavor text to give some narrative "garnish" to mechanics. And if players or DMs aren't jiving with that flavor text they should ignore it or alter it to suit them and focus on the mechanics benefit. A dog you've raised from a puppy can easily fit into the Beast of Earth template with no more work than saying a sentence to your DM. Or a hawk you've rescued from a Goblin aviary can be your beast or air etc. Flavor text is at best a suggestion, not something to get caught up on too much. I realize that's not what you were doing specifically but I feel like it's a thing some people keep getting stuck on.
Noxx89, you do have to remember the inherent limitation of the Unearthed Arcana Variant Rule though, It has to 'play nice with' the previous incarnation and thus how far it can push the envelope is limited. They cant start running roughshod over the whole monster manual and they are clearly reluctant to throw the baseline Beastmaster Ranger rules away.
So when you think of the design within that set of limitations, having 2 stat blocks for Beasts of the air and Beasts of the earth is a pretty elegant design considering how many options it can functionally cover.
Heck, I'd be pretty psyched about being able to use the Beast of the air as a Falcon. Pretty sure a bird of prey has never really been a viable option till now, right?
I'll admit - I actually kind of want to run a Beastmaster with a Beast of the Air. I have never before had more than a passing mild curiosity with the Beastmaster, outside of an odd Nature cleric/BM ranger experiment I rigged up once that never went anywhere. There's a few different ways one could run the Beastmaster now, especially with the Druidic Warrior fighting style, that makes me want to experiment some more.
People who hate the idea of being a magical ranger can use the Beast of the Whatever stat template and flavor it as their loyal hound, hunting hawk, or what-have-you, as Ruiner suggests. You can also make your Beast a fantastical, primal creature you encountered in the deep wilds which changed your life, if that's what floats your boat instead. That's the cool thing about these choose-your-fluff statblocks - they can be whatever your character concept needs them to be.
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I didn't say take the stats, I said take the actions. And it was a suggestion to someone who had a specific issue. If you don't like that suggestion, don't use it. Beastmaster is also awful right now because they made the phb Beastmaster crap
You can't use UA in AL, so from that standpoint it is a completely moot point anyway
I think theme is maybe the most amorphous thing in D&D. You and your DM decide the theme from campaign to campaign and if you want your Beast of Earth to be a snake, I don't see why it can't. Nothing in the stat block prevents it from grappling.
And the thing that I really feel I have to point out is, these are just two new options for Beast Master to choose from. At no point does it say this is meant to replace the creatures from the Monster Manual. It says specifically that it's an enhancement to the feature, not a replacement. It's an option I personally would choose because I'd want my Ranger to be a Japanese themed bowman with a yokai-themed companion but if you want to pick a snake out of the monster manual, nothing in the UA prevents you from doing that.
There seems to be a sentiment that they've somehow restricted the Beast Companion options. But all they've actually done is add two extra creatures to it.
I do wish the Primal Beasts had a couple more attack options to choose from instead of being locked into one per beast. Like if you could choose from maul, or a poison bit/sting, or or a specific like a bludgeoning attack. it's simple and it further supports the Build-a-Bear approach they seem to be taking with the Primal Beasts.
Looking at it, I think the way I would go about it for the Beastmaster is something akin to Warlock's Pact Boon/Invocations, where you have a limited number of stat blocks representing the type (climbing, flying, swimming, general land based critter, etc) with a list of options available to the particular types, only ONE of which it can take (charge, flyby, grapple, rampage, poison bite, etc).
Obviously this will require more thought than the 5 minutes I've put into it, but I think I'm getting my point across.
I love all of these Upgraded and Expanded rules, I just wish there were more in the way of actual Options across all of the Subclasses.
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Yeah you can technically homebrew anything you want. But most home brew is built on the work of the official design. As a DM that is constantly having to having conversations with players about the viability of their Beast Master companion choices and having to go through the process of going into the monster manual looking up that stats they want. Finding out it’s over or under powered. Compromising. Home brew something anyway... Yadda Yadda. I appreciate semi official content that is a super quick solution to that process. No matter what they pick I feel like I can fit it into the primal template with very little to no effort Boom. Done.
No no no - what I'm saying is that you can create a creature stat block, call it "Beast of the Air" or "Beast of the Land", copy the stats provided in the UA document into that piece of homebrew, and have access to the primal beasts. Yeah, it's somewhat more annoying than just clicking and adding it in, but Critter Homebrew is actually one of the less infuriating aspects of the editor. Making critters is relatively straightforward.
@IamSposta: I do wish there were more 'Replaces...' options as well. That said, having listened to Crawford's thing on this document, I can kind of understand what he means about certain classes basically having nothing to replace that isn't essential to their design. What can you possibly swap out on a sorcerer, for example, that doesn't basically cripple them?
Now, to me that's an indicator of an extremely barren design plan and "simplicity of play" taken too far, but that's a discussion for another day. Hopefully in the future they'll be more bold with this sort of document and consider switching out sacred-cow features. I'd be quite curious to see what might happen if, for example, they switched out the sorcerer's Metamagic entirely and gave them a brand new use for their sorcery points. What that use would be, I don't know - but I'd be eager to see what it was.
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Yes. It still says you are casting the spell, just not expending a spell slot and that it doesn't require the concentration. So you could have multiple up on different targets, but not multiple copies on one target.
Here's my take on everything:
Spell Versatility: A long rest is a bit too often for me. Perhaps a day of downtime per level of the spell being swapped?
Fighting Styles: Fine.
Barbarian: N/A. Never played Barbs.
Bard/Druid/Paladin/Rogue/Sorcerer: Good.
Cleric: Mostly fine. I wish Blessed Strikes kinda added radiant to the other damage type though. For instance, if a Forge Cleric used Divine Strike, they can add 1d8 fire or radiant damage.
Fighter: Good. I'm happy they added the more subtle maneuvers.
Monk: Mostly fine. I think the monk weapons tread too much on Kensei though.
Ranger: Yes. Just Yes.
Warlock: Very happy. I'm liking the new invocations. I feel though basic Talisman Pact should be beefed up though as only a 1d4 on certain ability checks feels underwhelming. Perhaps a single-target Paladin Aura?
So I've been looking over this document for a while, and I think this is one of those rare moments where I can honestly say I love every last bit of it (not that I don't have some concerns, but by and large everything here feels like it's on track.) There are a few areas though, that I wish had more attention:
1. After watching one of the talks with Jeremy Crawford I understand they didn't want to delve too much into subclasses, but I reeeeaaaaally wish they had applied the spellcasting variants to the 1/3rd caster subclasses as well, especially the 4 Elements Monk; I realize 4 Elements does get a buff with the Monk changes, but it's still way too limited as a caster.
2. Not that they're in danger of being outclassed just yet, but I also wish Wizards got a bit more love here, especially seeing as other casters have a limited version of their spell swapping, and that Clerics and Paladins now have the option to regain spell slots with their Channel Divinity (again, not that they're in danger of being outclassed, but it's still a thing to consider.)
3 The Ranger's level 20 capstone Foe Slayer will absolutely need reworking for anyone who replaces Favored Enemy with Favored Foe (which, frankly, I feel needs to be done anyways; I cannot stand that it's restricted to only being used against your Favored Enemies, which have no guarantee of showing up, ever.)
4. Someone mentioned this elsewhere: The Bard's Countercharm ability could really to with an alternative. To be perfectly frank, that feature is so underwhelming I completely forgot that it even exists...
Off topic but about ranger , can the new beast companions wear armour to boost ac.
1. I feel you i love the 4 elements monks but they breeze through their ki points so fast itd be really nice to have some enhanced rules to help deal with that problem so they feel more viable
2. I'm prob biased as someone who loves sorcerers but I think wizards have been shown more than enough love lol. Including UA stuff they have 12 subclasses compared to a sorcerers 7 or a bards 6. (2 of which for a Sorc are actually UA so its really 5 and 5 to the wizards 10) and they have very solid class features as is on top of a massive spell selection (min 44 at max lvl)
3. yeah their deff gonna have to change some stuff around its always felt like one of the weakest and most situational capstone abilities as is
4. YES! THIS! countercharm has never once come up in a game where weve had a bard (which is alot of games.) Its completely reliant on you just assuming something is going to attempt to charm or frighten you which you have no logical way of knowing unless you fighting a dragon whos going to use its draconic presence and even then it could just not use it that turn.
Any type of armor can be made into barding, which is applied to animals instead of humanoids. Making barding costs four times as much as making equivalent armor for humanoids (which means plate barding is freaking stupid), and by RAW it weighs twice as much.
I would rule instead that the size category of the creature being barded determines weight, especially in cases like ranger companions. Barding for Large creatures like most horses or similar beasts of burden weighs twice as much per RAW, as that is clearly what the RAW barding rules are for. Barding for Medium creatures weighs no more or less than barding for Medium humanoids. Barding for Small creatures weighs half of what the parent armor does. If somebody tries to make barding for Tiny creatures, that's a case-by-case basis, but most of the time armor just isn't going to work for your pet rat or pixie familiar.
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They're already getting a Ki point benefit since they can do more damage for the same Ki point cost. Their other two problems have nothing to do with ki; they start with too few disciplines and only being able to upgrade them at 6th, 11th, and 17th levels means access to their higher level disciplines gets delayed too much and they have to wait too long to make changes.
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Thats definitely one of the issues they have. I'd argue at 6th level having to spend half of the entire amount of ki that you have to cast hold person (3 ki points) or shatter (3 ki points) is pretty hefty. say you wanna do fangs of the fire snake thats 1 ki point every turn you wanna do it and another 1 ki point to do an extra 1d10. Now your still a monk so your gonna wanna flurry of blows for extra attacks thats another 1 ki point and stunning strike is another 1 ki point per hit that you wanna do it. You either need to play extremely conservatively or ur out of tricks extremely quickly after unleashing one semi decently powered spell. thats not an issue at 15th level plus cause u have a lot of ki but few games ever get to that point. You have access to a lot of cool toys but u burn out too quickly to really feel impactful using them. Once that ki's gone theres no magic items or features that'll get them back so u need to hope u get a rest in between fights or ur just gonna devolve into punching everything like a weaker open hand monk.
To follow this tangent, full plate barding for your horse/bear/wolf for example, would include leg armour, fully articulated to allow movement at the shoulder, elbow and wrist - from walking to full gallop, jumping, dodging, you name it. 4x cost is perfectly reasonable, if you’re going to ask a smith to build slinky metal trousers for your furry friend. They can wear a breastplate or a splint dress and like it.