Ranger Animal Companions

[Nattmackan]

Hi. I have a few questions/issues with the beastmaster animal companions
1. They are quite underwhelming except for the giant spider. Are there changes coming?
-2. The wolf looks weird, but all the others look good. Perhaps make the head a bit smaller and the legs normal?
3. Are animal companions going to be like a disposable resource? Because that is what tey feel like eight now. I feel like they should be more like a permanent companion that grows and develops alongside your character. Not a slightly more powerful summon familiar. I want to have a animal companion that is useful in combat somehow and it should have a deep bond with the ranger for roleplaying reasons.

P.s i like the game so far and hope there will be more content!

[jonnin]

even the little ones are useful. That raven can get to anything in one turn, blind it sometimes, and once its is there, the thief now can sneak attack it and I think it ups your hit chances against it to have an ally attacking same target no matter how weak. I used the 2 imps to clear the archers in several large goblin fights; you can't beat flying critters in this game.

I agree it would be nice if the companion were more of a party member than a spell, agreed. They should also be useful in combat, but not for the damage done. I remember earlier D&D (was it BG or NWN or what?) where the wolf was able to knock anything down every round, and that was a very strong ability.

[Maebog]

Really agree with your second point. Your animal companion should be someone the ranger has a bond with that levels with you, not a creature that you just summon willy nilly. Otherwise it's just Find Familiar

[Nattmackan]

I agree animal companions have some uses already and I used the find familiar raven a lot before lvl 3 to blind ranged enemies (lost a lot of good ravens out there). I guess the bear can be useful right now also for one or maybe two rounds of combat when it taunts enemies before it's killed. The spider is really good, but the rest feel like meeh.

My point with the combat usefulness kind of goes hand in hand with the second point about the animal companion mattering. If a wolf companion has 11 hp it's gonna die every single battle if you try to make it useful by attacking enemies, same for the 1 hp raven or 19 hp, 11 AC "tank" bear. I agree that they shouldn't be overpowered either (like an additional character) but if you send your animal companion to get oneshot immediately every battle (at least against higher lvl enemies) you aren't really being a good companion to it. And that makes it feel like they don't matter.

[Fennico]

Agreed. There shouldn't be any at will find familiar uses in here. they should always take a resource or spell slot. You could feasibly take out entire combats from across the map with enough patience and enough imps. As written find Framiliar is the same as mage hand where they cannot attack. They're scouts, and button pressers, but rarely are they canaries at low level play.
That patron would be furious for wasting that many imps on goblins. XD

[stephendkruger]

Not that I disagree with your point, but Find Familiar is supposed to give you a sentient, permanent ally, that was intentionally close to useless in combat. Now its like summon animal 1 for druids... just saying, similar expectations for wizards.