First, I wasn't pleased by WotC's Unearthed Arcana ranger fix. I felt it went too far.

Second, this blog post on the subject is both eye-opening and kinda funny, and provides context for what I'm going to post:
http://librarians-and-leviathans.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-beastly-problem-animal-companions-in.html

So with the above in mind, here's what I'd do:

Ranger's Companion. Replace the second paragraph with this: "In combat your companion has its own initiative roll and set of actions. Until you give it specific instructions it will only stand its ground and fight back against anything that attacks it, or flee if the situation warrants it. If you are incapacitated it will try to protect you or drag you to safety. On your turn, you can use an action to verbally and physically communicate a set of commands to it. Once you have done this, you can control the companion's actions as if it were an additional character until either the combat ends, you or your companion are incapacitated, or your companion can no longer see or hear you."

Add this to the third paragraph: "Your companion can make death saving throw like a player character and can spend hit dice during a short rest."

Replace Exceptional Training with this: "You can now select large beasts and beasts that have a challenge rating of 1/2 as your Ranger's Companion."

Replace Bestial Fury with this: "You can now select beasts that have a challenge rating of 1 as your Ranger's Companion."

Rationale for the change: Best of both balance styles - The beast feels less like the automaton described in the blog post and the ranger only has to give up one action to get the beast started (comparable to a druid spending an action to conjure animals).

So, what have I overlooked or written incorrectly?

Id rather see some sort of upgrade in the companions ability to do things as the Ranger levels up. Essentially showing that the bond, rapport, and skills are growing. Even animals learn.

Just swapping out the animal every few levels like buying a new sword feels wrong.

Quote from: Omega;858433Just swapping out the animal every few levels like buying a new sword feels wrong.

It makes them like a horse rather than a dog.

(A dog is for life, a horse is until you feel you need a new one).

Ironically in fiction heroes often have one famous sword all their career.

Firstly, I totally agree with your sentiments and Shimmin's about the way companions are handled in 5th edition.  I think they went too far in pulling back from earlier editions.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;858430Ranger's Companion. Replace the second paragraph with this: "In combat your companion has its own initiative roll and set of actions. Until you give it specific instructions it will only stand its ground and fight back against anything that attacks it, or flee if the situation warrants it. If you are incapacitated it will try to protect you or drag you to safety. On your turn, you can use an action to verbally and physically communicate a set of commands to it. Once you have done this, you can control the companion's actions as if it were an additional character until either the combat ends, you or your companion are incapacitated, or your companion can no longer see or hear you."

Specific to this, I feel like this is one time that something similar to the MMO treatment of pets (GASP) would be more appropriate.  Specifically, if you feel the need to quantify the rule, I'd handle it like this:

"In combat, your pet has its own initiative roll and set of actions.  You may use your action to command your pet to attack a target of your choice, which must be within sight and clearly discernible. Your pet will act on its initiative to attack the target lethally to the best of its ability until the target is incapacitated or you expend another action to command it to cease, at which time it will return to your side.  If you are attacked in combat and your pet has not yet been commanded to attack a target, it will defend you, attacking any creatures taking hostile actions against you.  You may command your companion not to defend you if you desire.  If you are incapacitated it will try to defend you or drag you to safety regardless of if you have commanded it to defend you or not."

The logic I put forward for this method is that your companion is still an animal, not some kind of equally intelligent extension of the Ranger.  That was the issue they were trying to correct with pets in the previous editions; they became tactical extensions of the commanding character, and the method you present (IMO) retains that form for the measly cost of a single action per combat (anyone would be insane not to just do it as their first action, other circumstances permitting).  

When the pet has clearly been instructed to attack a target (and it's definitely an action to command a working dog to attack, you have to be very clear with it to avoid confusion) it'll do it, but it won't necessarily change targets to the next target without a specific command to do so (IRL you'd have to use an action to call the dog all the way back to you then another action to command it again).

What neither method takes into account is that animals don't see things the way we do.  You might point at a group of orcs and yell "Chopper, sic balls!" and the companion will take off, but he won't necessarily go for the third one from the right because he's carrying the crossbow, he'll go for the one that seems like the weakest; or maybe for the one with the big mustache and hat because FUCK POSTMEN!; or maybe the one that just moved to the side of that group because he's likely to run.  If someone was playing a BM Ranger in my game I'd probably run the companion as an NPC more than as an extension of the character.

Again, all IMO and YMMV.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;858454Ironically in fiction heroes often have one famous sword all their career.

A-lot of players apparently do to. They get "that one special item" and hang onto it over sometimes better ones later due to the personal history. Sometimes a +1 to hit is not better than the story of how this normal sword was wrested from the tomb of an ancient wraith king.

The more I explore, the worse it gets - consider the spell Awaken. What happens when a ranger inevitably gets it cast on their companion? Does the companion remain weirdly artificially restricted by the ranger's actions for no logical metagame reason?

Quote from: Omega;858433Id rather see some sort of upgrade in the companions ability to do things as the Ranger levels up. Essentially showing that the bond, rapport, and skills are growing. Even animals learn.

Just swapping out the animal every few levels like buying a new sword feels wrong.

Alright, how about these alternatives:

Level 7 - If your companion has a Challenge Rating of 1/4 or less its attacks are now considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Level 11 -  If your companion has a Challenge Rating of 1/4 or less you can grant it proficiency in one saving throw of your choice (remember you also add your own proficiency bonus to saves it is proficient in).

Quote from: PanzerkrakenThe logic I put forward for this method is that your companion is still an animal, not some kind of equally intelligent extension of the Ranger. That was the issue they were trying to correct with pets in the previous editions; they became tactical extensions of the commanding character, and the method you present (IMO) retains that form for the measly cost of a single action per combat (anyone would be insane not to just do it as their first action, other circumstances permitting).

When most combats are over in less than three rounds, I don't believe an action is not such a measly cost. And yes, the idea is to make that action mechanically comparable to a druid spending an action to cast Conjure Animals, so it frequently would be the ranger's first move under my proposal.

I'm concerned that your proposal would make the beast good against big targets with lots of hit points but kinda bad against hordes of smaller monsters that die quickly. That would be odd, as I think players would be inclined to think that having an extra body to fight at their side would actually help against hordes.

Your proposal does highlight a potential lack of clarity in mine though: What if the ranger argues he can 'prep' the beast right before a fight to save his in-combat action? What if the circumstances of the fight change so radically (like everyone falling through a rotting floor) that a new 'instructions' action would logically be required? How would I write my proposal to plug these holes without getting too wordy?

Quote from: PanzerkrakenWhat neither method takes into account is that animals don't see things the way we do. You might point at a group of orcs and yell "Chopper, sic balls!" and the companion will take off, but he won't necessarily go for the third one from the right because he's carrying the crossbow, he'll go for the one that seems like the weakest; or maybe for the one with the big mustache and hat because FUCK POSTMEN!; or maybe the one that just moved to the side of that group because he's likely to run. If someone was playing a BM Ranger in my game I'd probably run the companion as an NPC more than as an extension of the character.

Perhaps some modification of the morale rules from the DMG could be applied to this situation? I don't know, I appreciate where you're coming from, but that's starting to feel like a lot of potential complexity for very little 'realism' gain that many game tables (including mine) would quickly forget about.

ADDITIONAL NEW PROPOSAL for consideration: Let the pet be totally independent, no ranger commands or anything, but in exchange the ranger must permanently 'commit' a first level spell slot to the beast for as long as it is around. If this feels unbalanced, consider everything a familiar can do for the cost of a single 1st level spell cast ONCE and how powerful the Hail of Thorns and Hunter's Mark spells are.

There's the rub about culture clash, between "doesn't say so, but makes sense, so why not?" vs. "doesn't say so, therefore it cannot be done."

Notice a few more actions that are left out of that Beast Master paragraph: animals cannot Hide, Search, Use an Object, or Ready an action. (I left out Cast a Spell on purpose, as it assumes spellcaster access, and beasts just logically don't so far.)

Now arguments can be made about Use an Object and Ready an action due to the context of the specific animal (and possible object to be used). But the lack of Hide and Search is illogical, since that's so often core to what animals do for survival. Granted there's the errata for animals to logically act on their own interests, yet bonding and training an animal to Hide or Search does not stretch credulity.

(Ready an action is an interesting one because I would make the argument that guard dogs are trained to do exactly that. "Heel," "stay," and "sic 'em" are well known commands. And just a little observation of K9 units or dog training competitions show you that you can train animals for delayed reactions.)

I think the big problem is the defined wording of actions allowed. This is instead of relying on GM and Player judgment upon situational context — which I know angers some, but due to the known complexity of the world is the only logical phrasing available. If it was reworded where it said the Ranger "uses their action to coach the animal through an action that animal can reasonably perform" a lot of this headache would have been avoided.

First off, all those basic actions (outside of Cast a Spell, unless you are specifically able to do so) are presumed available to all, PC and MM NPC alike. Second, it leaves free any inherent abilities latent to the animal accessible. Third it doesn't bother with delineation of specific possibilities versus nonsense, i.e. whether a bat can Use an Object on the massive portculis lever, because it assumes participant judgment can handle such obvious things.

Sure it will piss off Denner aesthetics and they'll decry Magical Tea Party. But writing a treatise of how to handle every potential situation you can with an animal, and note the differences with each potential animal, is madness. It opens up interaction with the environment — y'know roleplaying in a shared imagined world — than trying to finagle micro-measures to the Cult of the Balance.

Southlands Heroes had a good solution. But did not think it out far enough.

Here was my solution.

Treat the companion as an henchman and give it the NPC traits. Ideal, Bond and Flaw. They may baulk at some tasks or dislike someone and these things need to be worked out between the Ranger and the companion and possibly the other PCs.

The example given was

QuoteA rangers giant spider may adore the party halfling, but despise the drow. A ranger's hawk may have staring contests with the party fighter, while putting dead animals in the bed of the wizard as a sign of affection.

Take that firther and run them as NPCs. The party can have hirelings anyhow so what really is restricting the companion and ranger accomplishing?

So we went with this.

The above noted NPC style traits. Ideal, Bond and Flaw.

They can act on their own with basic commands. Actions are needed to be spent to have the companion perform more complex tasks, like retrieving a specific potion bottle from a pile of items or a specific attack routine.

At levels 5, 11 and 17 the companion gains another hit dice and one point to a stat of the rangers choosing. Which may improve its proficiency and damage bonuses.

Jannet plans to test run this should her current non-ranger character drop.

I've toyed with the idea of a very simple change. Simply this - if your companion is within 5 feet of you, you can command it to take an action without using an action of your own.

Found a great post on enworld:

Quote from: Sword of SpiritWe've mostly sort of glossed over an important distinction in this discussion, but I think it would be good to be clear about what angle we are coming from on it. The question being whether or not it is assumed that other players can/will have normal pets (not class features). It makes a huge difference in how you handle the Beast Master.

If anyone can have a pet, then you need to run the games from the baseline of how you decide that that works (ignoring the ranger for the moment). Only then can you look at it and ask, "what makes the Beast Master special?" Since his subclass is all based around having a pet, his pet should be significantly more effective than another character's pet. And while it isn't strictly required, suspension of disbelief is also better served if the Beast Master's pet doesn't lose anything (no standing around stupid unless commanded)--he only gains benefits. You basically have a situation where PC(1.5) + Pet(0.5) = 2, and Beast Master(1) + Pet(1) = 2. (The shift of the arbitrary 0.5 is meant to represent the subclass portion of the character being invested in his pet.) So you essentially have to buff the Beast Master somehow.

If, on the other hand, you decide that the baseline for pets is that they are class features in your games, then you have this situation instead: PC(1) = 1, and Beast Master(0. + Pet(0.2) = 1. (All numbers arbitrary.) In that situation, either you straight up forbid PCs from having pets without class features, or you have to decide how pets that aren't class features actually work and you have to make sure that they aren't competing with the Beast Master's pet. So you can't say something like: PC(1) + Pet(0.1) = 1.1, and Beast Master(0. + Pet(0.2) = 1. What's the point of being a Beast Master? So either forbid PCs from having pets that aren't class-features, or you essentially have to buff the Beast Master somehow.

I suppose this is a third solution, for those who want it. The baseline can be that pets are a liability. Only by having a class feature can you have a pet be on par with other PCs. So it's PC(1) = 1; PC(1) + Pet (-0.2) = 0.8; Beast Master(0. + Pet (0.2) = 1.

And then this response to it:

Quote from: I'm a BananaThat's a useful analysis, @Sword of Spirit, and helps inform my idea that the beastmaster is a bit of an odd duck out - pets shouldn't be reserved for one particular subclass (that you lock in at level 3 and have to spend the next 17 levels in). Let ANY ranger have a panther companion, ANY paladin have a pegasus mount, ANY fighter have her squire to follow her around, ANY bard to get a groupie/bodyguard...the question should be more about how to account for these creatures for any PC, rather than trying to shove them all into subclass positions (where, if the Beastmaster is anything to go by, quarters are a little cramped).

That was part of what I was mentioning above.

What is the point of limiting the Rangers companion when the other PCs or the whole group can pick up fully autonomous NPCs? Or have autonomous but still commandable pets?

While a familliar may not be able to attack. It can still be given orders without using an action. The Paladins summoned steed on the other hand is combat capable and fights in co-ordination with the paladin without need to blow actions.

I was actually going to raise that point: one of the players in my games loves to have dog or wolf pets, and he plays a Fighter. I typically let him do Ranger type stuff, ie., training the animal, coaching it, etc., since dog owners IRL do this stuff all the time and they're just regular people. But then that opens the question of how to make using the animal a special perk if the class is centered around it.

What I do if you're just a normal PC trying to coach an animal: you have to use an action, and make an Animal Handling check to get the animal to listen to you each time.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;858608What I do if you're just a normal PC trying to coach an animal: you have to use an action, and make an Animal Handling check to get the animal to listen to you each time.

That is a solid way of resolving it. That, unlike the Beastmaster Ranger, there is always a risk that your Animal Handling check will fail. It also opens all the basic actions back up for both Ranger and regular pet owners, so you can command Search ("fetch!"), Hide, or Ready ("stay!... sic 'em!"), etc. The Ranger just gets an additional benefit where Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, and Help all do not require an ability check.

You could make it even stronger where the animal itself needs to make a raw ability (INT) check for more complex tasks (i.e. "fetch that specific thing over there"). Since it is often negative it makes the Ranger's PB added to the animal's checks that much stronger. As a solution it is very system cohesive while setting logical.

e.g. Fighter tells Mastiff to Use Object (fetch) that scroll case on the empty floor and bring it back to her. Relatively easy command, DC 8. Fighter uses her action to command and rolls Animal Handling (WIS) to see if it works. Mastiff is willing to help and easily knows which thing brought back will please.

Beastmaster Ranger would do the same thing, and for the most part it would be a wash.

e.g.2. Fighter tells Mastiff to Use Object (fetch) that third scrollcase to the left of the table and bring it back to her. Relatively easy — yet complex — command, Animal Handling check DC 8. Fighter uses her action to command and rolls Animal Handling (WIS) and passes. Mastiff is willing to help.

But then the animal itself has to INT check for comprehension. Normally an Easy idea, DC 10, but then the Mastiff's INT (-4) gets in the way. Animal is willing to help, but is not necessarily mentally capable of carrying it out.

Beastmaster Ranger would do the same thing, but the animal companion would get the Ranger's PB to its INT check to partially offset its penalty. So the mastiff penalty would be -2 or smaller depending on the Beastmaster Ranger's PB. Suddenly even those with Speak With Animals realize the Beastmaster has a remarkable communion of minds with said companion.

Also, you may want to have pet animals make INT checks during Attack or Help commands so that it doesn't mess with your allies, hover only around you, or target foes randomly. Then the GM can apply DCs accordingly to a) how long and well your companions have been together, b) how confident the animal is in straying from your side, c) how coherently it can follow attack orders in combat or launch a helpful distraction, etc. That the Beastmaster would not need their animal companion to roll INT at all for this would make them stand out from pet owners.

Ah that's another thing. I didn't have the PC use an Action to command the wolf. I didn't think of that really since it's easy to say "go fetch" and that's not really something that takes an action.

The wolf just gets its own initiative and turn during combat. And since it's a loyal animal you wouldn't need to tell it to help defend its owner or itself. A real dog would just leap to your defense on its own. (Unless it was a dragon or something, in which case there'd be some sort of check to see if it's scared.)

Maybe this is all making the average Fighter with his Wolf too strong. Luckily there's no Ranger in my game yet.

Oh but as a tradeoff the Wolf doesn't level up or anything. No matter how long he's with you or how late into the campaign it is he'll always be the CR 1 or whatever animal he is. Although I did consider having it grow alongside the Fighter, but then that really is Ranger territory.