Now I don't doubt that everyone who ever considered making a ranger character has toyed with the idea of using the ranger's animal companion as a mount. After all riding a giant bear or a flying lizard is just too cool not to want to try.
Unfortunately, with the state of the PHB beast master ranger and the 5e rules for mount the general consensus seems to be that just buying a regular horse would be more efficient than riding the animal companion in combat.
Enter the revised ranger. It is a unofficial, likely never to be published, quick fix of the beast master to make the animal companion efficient again in combat. And from reading the rules it does just that, making the animal companion a lot more durable and giving it enough attacks and a simplified action economy so that a lot of a ranger's damage comes from the new animal companion in combat.
But when looking at using the RR's animal companion as a mount has the rules gone too far in the other direction?
It feels like the animal companion is so good at fighting that making it a semi-passive mount would reduce the RR's combat potential?
Is the concept of a ranger riding it's animal companion as a mount in combat still not a good idea? But now, because while it is a better mount the both regular mounts and the PHB's animal companion, you want it fighting on its own rather than carrying a ranger around?
This is a somewhat complicated question. First off, the Revised Beast Master is directly intended to get around the problem many players have with BM in that it allows the companion freedom of movement and attacking without needing Action input from the Ranger. This means the Ranger gets less powerful on their own in trade for having a flexible and powerful companion. It's well calculated at this point that the BM in the PHB and Revised document both scale favourably for damage output with the other Ranger subclass options (important since the Ranger more than any other class depends on its subclasses for combat effectiveness) - the problem has always been with the PHB option being inflexible and easy to kill.
Going back to your question, the Mounted Combatant feat makes the PHB BM quite a lot hardier, as long as you're a small race who can ride a medium animal. And one of the keys with the PHB BM is that Exceptional Training at level 7 lets you use your Bonus Action to do a lot of useful things with your mount. An archer or duelist Ranger can get a lot of mobility and support from a PHB companion mount, and it's probably the strongest way to get mileage out of the PHB version of the subclass.
Contrast with the Revised BM, and it sacrifices your Extra Attack and the Bonus Action freebies at Level 7 for having an overall more effective creature. It doesn't work especially better as a mount, but riding on it doesn't cause any detriment to the creature either. It does mean you're presumably always giving it advantage on saving throws at Level 7, which is nice. But because it's treated as an intelligent creature instead of a dummy your character moves around, it might be hard to coordinate with it as a mount, especially because it rolls its own initiative. You're essentially just along for the ride, and it might be hard to count on either archer or duelist playstyles working depending on whether it goes before or after you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Now I don't doubt that everyone who ever considered making a ranger character has toyed with the idea of using the ranger's animal companion as a mount. After all riding a giant bear or a flying lizard is just too cool not to want to try.
Unfortunately, with the state of the PHB beast master ranger and the 5e rules for mount the general consensus seems to be that just buying a regular horse would be more efficient than riding the animal companion in combat.
Enter the revised ranger. It is a unofficial, likely never to be published, quick fix of the beast master to make the animal companion efficient again in combat. And from reading the rules it does just that, making the animal companion a lot more durable and giving it enough attacks and a simplified action economy so that a lot of a ranger's damage comes from the new animal companion in combat.
But when looking at using the RR's animal companion as a mount has the rules gone too far in the other direction?
It feels like the animal companion is so good at fighting that making it a semi-passive mount would reduce the RR's combat potential?
Is the concept of a ranger riding it's animal companion as a mount in combat still not a good idea? But now, because while it is a better mount the both regular mounts and the PHB's animal companion, you want it fighting on its own rather than carrying a ranger around?
This is a somewhat complicated question. First off, the Revised Beast Master is directly intended to get around the problem many players have with BM in that it allows the companion freedom of movement and attacking without needing Action input from the Ranger. This means the Ranger gets less powerful on their own in trade for having a flexible and powerful companion. It's well calculated at this point that the BM in the PHB and Revised document both scale favourably for damage output with the other Ranger subclass options (important since the Ranger more than any other class depends on its subclasses for combat effectiveness) - the problem has always been with the PHB option being inflexible and easy to kill.
Going back to your question, the Mounted Combatant feat makes the PHB BM quite a lot hardier, as long as you're a small race who can ride a medium animal. And one of the keys with the PHB BM is that Exceptional Training at level 7 lets you use your Bonus Action to do a lot of useful things with your mount. An archer or duelist Ranger can get a lot of mobility and support from a PHB companion mount, and it's probably the strongest way to get mileage out of the PHB version of the subclass.
Contrast with the Revised BM, and it sacrifices your Extra Attack and the Bonus Action freebies at Level 7 for having an overall more effective creature. It doesn't work especially better as a mount, but riding on it doesn't cause any detriment to the creature either. It does mean you're presumably always giving it advantage on saving throws at Level 7, which is nice. But because it's treated as an intelligent creature instead of a dummy your character moves around, it might be hard to coordinate with it as a mount, especially because it rolls its own initiative. You're essentially just along for the ride, and it might be hard to count on either archer or duelist playstyles working depending on whether it goes before or after you.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.