Some interesting posts here.

If we're still trying to fix the system presented in the book instead of junking it altogether I'd be inclined to use it for any other animal that non-rangers try to deploy in combat because in that case the real benefit of the beast master is the significant buffs it applies to its companion.

So, taking some of people's ideas so far, here another proposal:

Keep the second paragraph as is, but add hide and search to the list of actions the companion can perform.

Add a new paragraph after the second paragraph: "If your turn is about to end and you have not issued any commands to your companion, it will instinctively take one of the following actions:
- Move closer to you or to any space around you.
- Move to get out of any harmful terrain or effect its animal intellect can understand. If you are incapacitated it can attempt to drag you out of harm's way as well.
- Move away from enemies.
- Make a single attack against an enemy it saw attack or obviously harm you during the turn. It cannot move before or after doing this.
- Make a single attack against an enemy that attacked or harmed it during the turn. It cannot move before doing this."

Allow the Exceptional Training feature to issue hide and search as commands.

If an animal companion is altered with the spell Awaken it becomes an independent NPC but may still benefit from the alterations to its stats if it agrees to.

What do you think? Did I miss anything?

The trouble I find is I want to avoid expressing rules here in programming code format. You will only feed into the gaps of code where it meets the setting's context/reality. There is way too much you can do with another mobile and aware being that encoding it removes the point, and trying to spell it all out will always be laughably incomplete.

It is like encoding what you can do with a skilled hireling. It is just a bad idea and doesn't need hard and fast rules. It is explicitly the wrong design path to tread, for it has been tread many times before unsuccessfully.

Giving the animal its own stat block and place in initiative is normal and should be expected. Even the new errata believes the animal has "situationally logical autonomy" (why that needed to be spelled out, may I point back to the above about programming code format?). In this way it would be like how you handle skilled hirelings — who many are expected to join combat with you. They can think enough for themselves for self-preservation (fight or flight) at the very least.

For past references on how animals were handled, I look back at 2e and note that animal friendship took quite awhile to build up to a trained pet. Further, even trained pets were open ended on what tricks they could learn. The limiter was something like 3 tricks per INT point and took well over a week to learn (and if the bond was broken the animal would revert and forget those tricks, IIRC).

But the modern D&D paradigm expects gratification considerably faster. So spending weeks to build up an animal's repertoire of tricks is probably unreasonable for half the player pool. In that respect, and to keep with the old school aesthetic of "why can't I at least try?", mAcular Chaotic's idea of including Animal Handling skill check — and my idea of adding the animal's comprehension raw score INT check — should kill two birds with one stone. Now there's a guideline for generic pets, and the Beastmaster Ranger stands well beyond others in not needing, or at least getting bonuses, in the animal checks.

Getting an INT 1 creature to obey your commands, sometimes with no check at all, is pretty magical then.

(My big challenge is checking the wording on Wizard and Warlock's Find Familiar  to see where their weaknesses are.)

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;858608But then that opens the question of how to make using the animal a special perk if the class is centered around it.

The 5e rules at least treat the companion, familliar and steed as something more than an average beast. The Paladins steed is supernatural of course. But the familliar and companion are a cut above the norm. Up to and including speech.

How much so tends to be left to the DM and PCs.

Quote from: Opaopajr;858691The trouble I find is I want to avoid expressing rules here in programming code format.

Well, would adding the following clause to my list fix this issue?

Add a new paragraph after the second paragraph: "If your turn is about to end and you have not issued any commands to your companion, it will instinctively take one of the following actions:
- Move closer to you or to any space around you.
- Move to get out of any harmful terrain or effect its animal intellect can understand. If you are incapacitated it can attempt to drag you out of harm's way as well.
- Move away from enemies.
- Make a single attack against an enemy it saw attack or obviously harm you during the turn. It cannot move before or after doing this.
- Make a single attack against an enemy that attacked or harmed it during the turn. It cannot move before doing this.
- Perform a different action similar to these, at the GM's discretion."

Quote from: OpaopajrIt is like encoding what you can do with a skilled hireling. It is just a bad idea and doesn't need hard and fast rules. It is explicitly the wrong design path to tread, for it has been tread many times before unsuccessfully.

I can absolutely see this point, but the reason I'm currently trying to work with the original write-up is that it maintains the idea that the beast is a class feature of the ranger, that the theoretically cool gimmick of the archetype is, "you get two characters for the price of one!"

Most hirelings are treated as separate NPCs added to the party, and if one is bothering to adjust encounter difficulty then all you need to do is adjust the difficulty accordingly. This is the most realistic way of handling permanent "bodies" added to a party, but if you try to do that with the animal companion concept then there is no more beast master ranger archetype, and the ranger is down to one archetype. I can't personally accept this.

Yes, you could say, "Well then the beast master's power is to enhance a single animal NPC that is added to the party," but that doesn't seem to be worth the loss of what the hunter archetype offers. After all, even with the beast master stat enhancements, the animal is still generally inferior to a hired sword of equivalent level, and your balancing proposal would actually make the animal unreliable to boot.

On that subject, I don't mind your general idea of trying to balance the animal by making it unreliable, but so far it looks like implementation will involve extra rolls, extra bookkeeping, and the occasional argument with the GM/player over what actions are reasonable for animal intelligence. None of that seems very appealing to me personally.

What about my other type of "two characters for the price of one" proposal, where we try to give the animal companion a full range of independent actions in exchange for taking things away from the ranger? I suggested taking a spell slot away from the ranger for as long as she had the companion, since ranger spell slots are generally a pretty valuable source of extra offense. Would that work?

Ok, looking at Find Familiar spell, I see where the largest problem lies:

Find Familiar spell gets a small paragraph (IIRC it is the 2nd) to explicitly normalize it as an NPC (in exchange for the vessel's normal attack form).

The Familiar is explicitly not an animal; it is either a celestial, fey, or fiend within the vessel of one of the small animals listed. So it is assumed to be natively intelligent on a level to comprehend language and complex instructions. Warlock's Pact of the Chain grants Find Familiar as a ritual and access to 4 other rather strong non-animal forms.

That spell's second(?) paragraph explicitly gives the Familiar NPC capacity and autonomy between master's commands. It gets a place on the initiative board, its own action economy spread (including its own reaction), and access to "all other basic actions" except Attack. That alone is a huge piece missing from Beastmaster, and which lead to the errata necessary to apply logical judgment on Animal Companion coherent autonomy (i.e. defend itself without command, keep moving without pixel bitching for more commands, etc.).

The easiest solution is to just adopt that paragraph for the Beastmaster and then add that GM purview controls the Animal Companion until commanded. Resolve the "goes on same initiative" line as "Ranger and Animal Companion have the same initiative value — as in two separate numbers with a tied value — break ties as usual." That way when Ranger sacrifices its action it is a sacrifice for coordination, taking the creature temporarily back from GM control.

As for the Beastmaster being weak due to other animal pets being potentially available... That will always be regardless because of the Find Familiar and Find Steed spell. That ship has already sailed; you might as well add the basic animal pets.

Find Familiar sacrifices just about nothing, except for the vessel's normal attack (boo hoo!). Throw in touch attack spells and Warlock tricks and even this limiter is gone. The big thing is the familiar is functionally tethered to within 100' (otherwise it's free! mwa ha ha!), and has only 1 hour of existence at a time.

Find Steed is similarly powerful, and due to celestial, fey, fiend nature similarly sentient for complex commands, but trades available basic actions for Attack and greater time frame.

Unless you want caster dominance, you must allow normal NPC animal pets with shakier control to contest this level of "action economy" field domination. There really is no other way. Either spells have this in essential isolation — with only a marginalized archetype to contest — or everyone gets access and the differential value gets wiped in the common availability. Animal Pets only real advantage over others would be its common availability, and removing that removes a leg from the stool as it were.

Then by wiping the rarity by democratizing availability you get to define the other niches.

Find Familiar and Steed both trump regular animals due to their inherent celestial, fey, fiend nature. Thus assumed comprehension of language (read: no need for Speak with Animals equivalent), and languages' assumed comprehension of greater complexity, means assumed greater delegation potential. This ship has also already sailed; you might as well niche protect the Beastmaster's level of delegation potential v. regular animal pets.

Now what you get between the gaps of those two spells, Familiar and Steed respectively, is: greater time frame and HP resilience vs. Familiar, greater fine motor/space action finesse v. Steed, and greater resistance v. Dispel for both spells.

Thus the Animal Companion plays a midway point between all four sources, Animal Pets, Familiar, Steed, and Animal Companion. It would be more commonly available, always on, resistant to Dispel, solid combat resilience, solid fine motor control, solid smaller space access, and solid complex delegation potential. Its niche would be all-around capable instead of focused.

The Beastmasters main advantage is that the companion can improve over time. The familliar and steed can not.

But yeah. Easiest solution is to remove the "needs to use action to command" bit and make them semi-autonomous NPCs.

So if I understand Opaopajr's arguments, the fix should look like this (a combination of Find Familiar and Pact of the Chain's benefit):

Replace the second paragraph of Ranger's Companion with this: "Your companion acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands to the best of its ability. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. The companion cannot normally attack, but it can take other actions as normal. When you take the Attack action, you can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your companion to make one attack of its own."

Then replace the level 7 feature with the ability to grant proficiency to one of the animal's saves (mirroring the hunter's Defensive Tactics).

Does that sound good?

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;858992Does that sound good?

er. No?

That does not seem to solve much of anything other than the non-movement problem. The ranger still has to blow an action to get it to do anything significant.

Which leaves it still outstripped by the paladins steed and regular non-class pets or summoned beasts.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;858992So if I understand Opaopajr's arguments, the fix should look like this (a combination of Find Familiar and Pact of the Chain's benefit):

Replace the second paragraph of Ranger's Companion with this: "Your companion acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands to the best of its ability. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. The companion cannot normally attack, but it can take other actions as normal. When you take the Attack action, you can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your companion to make one attack of its own."

Then replace the level 7 feature with the ability to grant proficiency to one of the animal's saves (mirroring the hunter's Defensive Tactics).

Does that sound good?

The fix needed to make the Animal Companion an autonomous NPC with its own action spread and base actions available. So yes, it's in the right direction because it is removing limitations (or "explicitly allowing") the Animal Companion to be its own NPC. However the spells are written like typical WotC shit, so that's the next big hurdle -- you've only begun to "undo the suck."

The Ranger Beastmaster ability needs to sacrifice an action to get any coordinated action out of the AC. Neither spell needs this. Now, we can chalk this up to "magic" and let that be part of their spell advantages. But in turn you would have to make regular owners sacrifice their action to coordinate their regular pet's action.

But then we get into discussing command range and delegated coordination.

As for command range, regular pets and animal companions should be far and away better than the spells. If the animals can be commanded by sight or sound, as far distant as their senses allow, then animals should easily best 100', possibly going out into miles. Working animals do this now (falconry, sheep herding, etc.), there is no reason this should not be an animal advantage over those spells.

As for delegated coordination, commanding pets to separate and follow delayed commands is also not impossible for animals ("Lassie, go get help girl!"). Familiars are bound to obedience within 100', but it leaves it open what happens beyond 100'. The big differences between animals v. astral/ethereal beings should be one of comprehension and cooperation.

Animals in general would likely have challenges in comprehension and cooperation. That is what the checks that would be there represent. They may be willing or unwilling, hence Animal Handling check. They may be able or unable to understand, hence Skill (INT) check (yes, you can do this mix with any Skill, as per Ability Check chapter).

Spirits in general would likely not have challenges in comprehension. However, since they deliberately tied obedience to a rather close band around the caster, it does invite questions about cooperation. While they may understand their caster, they may have other powers or desires to answer to, and once out of command range won't hesitate to forward their own goals while out of command shot.

It would make them risky choices to delegate anything farther than command range.

As for Animal Companions, you now have an interesting design space reserved. They have bonded to a level of comprehension and cooperation that is greater than the average animal pet. However, they aren't too smart to cause really big trouble once "off their leash," as it were. They are close and far range utility.

I will admit one of the design paradigms I am working with is trying to step as lightly between the rules as possible so as to implement this as a solution in Adventure League style play.

In AL those spells are present, it is a done deal. However regular animal pets are undefined, outside of mounts, and are open ended like hirelings. AL deliberately does not let you hire skilled hirelings for combat due to action economy issues, hence it would likely come down the same upon regular pets. (Translation: usable for social and exploration actions, like unskilled hirelings. at which point Find Familiar is leagues better.) Which in turn leads to caster dominance in that game facet of Organized Play.

(It's like they don't always read what they write...)

Anyway, since many people try to play according to Organized Play formats to at least stay abreast of cross-table style play, it is an area worth addressing before getting too far afield. Too many players immediately write off house rules and stick to Org Play just to be part of the larger crowd. If you can slide between the rules I think you might get more people listening.

And another example I totally forgot. The very mis-inspiration for the ranger companion.

Figurines of Wonderous Power. Obeys the users spoken commands. Defends itself on its own. Otherwise does not move or act/attack unless told to.

No Actions needed to just command it.

Sure they are uncommon to rare to very rare items and have use and duration limits. But here again we have pet type monsters that dont use actions.

Then there is the Staff of the Python which also does not need actions to command acts on its own initiative and can be ordered for general defend/attack actions left to its own discretion. This is an uncommon item. So a Druid or Cleric could possibly have one at level 1 with some luck. (More likely around level 5 or thereafter.

And others.

The playtest interestingly had no entries for anything other than the Find Familliar spell and animate Dead. And at that time the familliar had set stats no matter the form it assumed. It acted independantly, but would follow orders given. No action requirement to command. Animated dead also did not use an action to command and could be set to general orders.

Quote from: Omega;859000The ranger still has to blow an action to get it to do anything significant. Which leaves it still outstripped by the paladins steed and regular non-class pets or summoned beasts.

So what would you remove from the ranger to make it fair? I've already suggested a spell slot.

Perhaps the ranger could get disadvantage on Initiative rolls (he's busy coordinating the companion but doesn't lose any actions?)

Quote from: OmegaAnimated dead also did not use an action to command and could be set to general orders.

Animated dead can still take general orders (page 212).

Quote from: OpaopajrI will admit one of the design paradigms I am working with is trying to step as lightly between the rules as possible so as to implement this as a solution in Adventure League style play.

Thank you for clarifying that. I understand your position and you have my sympathy. I'm motivated by the blog post I linked in my first post (specifically the parts about the companion not behaving like any sane creature would), a desire to make the companion less retarded and more palatable for players who sit at my table without provoking the dreaded whine of "overpowered!" from anyone. I am willing and able to make bigger changes, but I want to avoid extra bookkeeping and extra rolls.