Beast master companion

[Soft Lockpick]

What are the options? Are they as wimpy as familiars?

[Ravioli]

Giant spider, Bear, Raven, Wolf and Boar. Honestly the two I use most are the spider, which can tank because of high hp, has the best leap, as well as a poisonous bite and enweb. The bear can taunt things around it to fight it but has around 13 hp. Boar can charge and potentially knock things down, the wolf has a bite that bleeds I believe, the raven can blind a target.

[Sir_Baldur]

Ranger.

Beastmaster.

Issue: Level 3 - beast master - my companion is treated like a summoned monster. No dialog.

It forces me to use a spider.

Raven 1 Hp
Spider 32 Hp
Wolf 11 Hp
Boar 11 Hp

The idea of the beastmaster class is that the ranger is supposed to form a bond with the ranger and it's a deep bond. They can hear each others thoughts. They can talk to each other. They are friends or at least they are connected,

It's not summon monster.

I am hoping that the side quest with the owl bear will yield the type of outcome I'm looking for but right now it feels pretty hollow not having any connection to the animal I'm summoning.

It would be nice if at level 3 - you hit beastmaster - the you pick 1 creature from a list of five or six (wolf, boar, raven, spider, bear) and that creature becomes bonded to you. You can talk to it. Have conversations. It can have a personality and be sassy or sweat.

Then - in the wilderness..when I kill the mother owlbear - I have the option of casting the ritual on the owlbear that locks its mind to mine. I tell it to go to camp. There, it will be bonded to me too (along with my first animal for balance sake). Ohh, so much drama. Good storytelling.

I can bond with animals up to my wisdom modifier. (max +5)

I should be able to cast befriend animal and then cast a ritual if I want to bond to that animal. I could imagine some crazy outcomes trying to bond to animals in the druid circle! It would be great to have the ranger have the option to find at least 3 different companions in the 1st Act.

(Dog)
(Owlbear)
(Warg)

By the end of the game I'd have hoped to establish meaningful relationships with my beast companion. Treating it like a standard summon monster robs this class of it's most interesting storytelling aspect.

[Jack Hawklight]

My bear has 19 hp? Weird that would be different.

[AlfordV1]

My bear also has 19hp but ac11, which is laughable really, it should be a tanky animal at least. It'll get whomped twice, be dead and you can't re-summon it mid battle. I don't understand the raven having 1hp either XD

[TreK]

The summoned beast apparently doesn't scale but maybe that will come later, starts out decent but got worse. Taunt on bear often didn't hit on the mobs where you needed it to, which made it somewhat useless compared to other summons for the "important" fights.

[Realhollow]

Originally posted by Soft Lockpick:

What are the options? Are they as wimpy as familiars?

Its bad atm as they dont lv up bear with 19 hp fighing lv 4s gets 1 shot makes it pointless spider is the best one as its base Hp is about 39 give it mage amour and its pretty tanky

[Realhollow]

Originally posted by AlfordV1:

My bear also has 19hp but ac11, which is laughable really, it should be a tanky animal at least. It'll get whomped twice, be dead and you can't re-summon it mid battle. I don't understand the raven having 1hp either XD

I feel the bears and spiders Hp are mixed up

[Realhollow]

Originally posted by Sir_Baldur:

Ranger.

Beastmaster.

Issue: Level 3 - beast master - my companion is treated like a summoned monster. No dialog.

It forces me to use a spider.

Raven 1 Hp
Spider 32 Hp
Wolf 11 Hp
Boar 11 Hp

The idea of the beastmaster class is that the ranger is supposed to form a bond with the ranger and it's a deep bond. They can hear each others thoughts. They can talk to each other. They are friends or at least they are connected,

It's not summon monster.

I am hoping that the side quest with the owl bear will yield the type of outcome I'm looking for but right now it feels pretty hollow not having any connection to the animal I'm summoning.

It would be nice if at level 3 - you hit beastmaster - the you pick 1 creature from a list of five or six (wolf, boar, raven, spider, bear) and that creature becomes bonded to you. You can talk to it. Have conversations. It can have a personality and be sassy or sweat.

Then - in the wilderness..when I kill the mother owlbear - I have the option of casting the ritual on the owlbear that locks its mind to mine. I tell it to go to camp. There, it will be bonded to me too (along with my first animal for balance sake). Ohh, so much drama. Good storytelling.

I can bond with animals up to my wisdom modifier. (max +5)

I should be able to cast befriend animal and then cast a ritual if I want to bond to that animal. I could imagine some crazy outcomes trying to bond to animals in the druid circle! It would be great to have the ranger have the option to find at least 3 different companions in the 1st Act.

(Dog)
(Owlbear)
(Warg)

By the end of the game I'd have hoped to establish meaningful relationships with my beast companion. Treating it like a standard summon monster robs this class of it's most interesting storytelling aspect.

the Owlbear cub maybe but there is some notes in the druid place about a cub cant let you have the big one as its pretty strong for a pet

[Guy]

Spider is the best because of the HP.

[Ertwin]

Originally posted by Sir_Baldur:

Ranger.

Beastmaster.

Issue: Level 3 - beast master - my companion is treated like a summoned monster. No dialog.

It forces me to use a spider.

[snip]

By the end of the game I'd have hoped to establish meaningful relationships with my beast companion. Treating it like a standard summon monster robs this class of it's most interesting storytelling aspect.

The game does not force you to use the spider you are simply choosing to value game mechanics over roleplaying which is ironic considering the bulk of your argument.

As for wanting dialogue and special scenes for you beastmaster pet, let me explain why this is a REALLY big ask:

There will be 12 classes at full release, 13 if they add the Artificer. Each of those has at least 3 subclasses. So you're either asking for special treatment for 1/36th of the class options, or you're asking them to do special scenes and dialogue for all 36+ subclasses. Either way, that's pretty unreasonable even with the scope of this game.

[Jiro Dragonheart]

Like yes ranger in 5e has animal summons but an animal companion should be different. Like an option between a few or the option to try and use animal handling to get your own animal companion.