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Or, to be more precise, why are the animal companion charts so laughably unbalanced and bears in particular so woefully sub-optimal?
Consider - the bear starts out as a small animal while the ape, wolf, and lion start out as medium. And while the wolf and big cat keep their special attacks, bears don't.
And then consider how these other animal companions progress. At lvl 4 the ape goes to large while the bear only goes to medium, giving the ape higher strength, reach, and d6's on its claw attacks while the poor bear is stuck with d4's. Here's the thing: APES DON'T HAVE CLAWS! They have finger nails, the same as humans. Bears, on the other hand actually DO have claws. Big sharp ones that merit at least a d6.
At 7, the wolf and big cat also go large while the bear stays medium, taking the absurdity a step further.
EDIT: removed off-topic rant about all bears being larger than wolves because, as pointed out, sun bears are small. They also don't exist in the monster manual and aren't what most people think of when they decide to take a bear companion.
So what happenned here? Did someone's granny get mauled and eaten by wild bears leading to a lifelong vendetta against urcine's both real and imaginary? Did the stats for Ape and Bear get switched at birth? Or, more likely, is this just one of those obvious oversights that never got fixed?
I'd just fix this stuff with a houserule, except most of my gaming these days is PFS.
This isn't hard to fix. All we need is a developer to post an errata with corrected stats for bears or at least a second pair of stats for larger bear companions. Otherwise I'm stuck with my bear shamans animal companion being consistantly less powerful than the bears I can summon using nature's ally from the monster manual. And that just doesn't make sense.
It doesn't really matter since Pounce > Literally every other ability an animal companion could possibly have.
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Jason Bulmahn was raised a Packers fan.
I agree, the bear animal companion is surprisingly weak. I would guess it's meant to approximate a black bear, rather than something larger like a grizzly or Kodiak, which is what most people think of when they picture a bear in a fantasy game. That seems like a very odd decision, especially since bears are larger than wolves, easily - a Large wolf doesn't exist in the real world, while large bears and big cats certainly do, and animal companions are mostly supposed to be real-world animals.
It's worth noting that bears also don't have a special ability. Both the wolf and big cat have powerful offensive powers (grab, pounce, and rake at 7th for the cat, and trip for the wolf starting at 1st). I'd argue that those three creatures are probably the most common animal companions, and they don't seem all that balanced to me either.
Perhaps it has something to do with the cat's higher Charisma compared to the other two? Cats are clearly the mechanically superior choice, and they have a 10 Charisma compared to 6 for the bear and wolf.
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I'll happily pass on pounce to have a bear for my bear shaman if I can just get decent stats for it. Going to talk to the dm's I game with about using the cr4 grizzly bear stats from the monster manual for my lvl 4 bear instead. With those stats he's still not as good as a lion, but good enough I don't feel gimped.
I'd still like a fix here though so I don't have to argue with dm's every time I sit down at a table. It's needlessly broken and easy to fix.
I have heard the same about slings, crossbows, monks, and scads of others things. There are many choices. Some MUST be better than others. Just because one choice is not as good as others doesn't mean Paizo (or SKR or ....) "hates" them.
One early FRPG had every one handed melee weapon identical. You could skin it as whatever you wanted. It could be a club, battle-axe, weird asian martial arts weapon, anything.All identical. Wasn't popular.
Would you really like "Large Carnivorous mammal" "Medium Carnivorous mammal" etc with identical stats?
At 7, the wolf and big cat also go large while the bear stays medium, taking the absurdity a step further. I dare any of Paizo's developers to go to a zoo or wildlife preserve anywhere in the world and find a wolf that is larger than a bear. Any species of bear. Actually, I'll save you the time. It still doesn't exist.
Any species of bear? You might want to look at the sun bear. On the low end, adults can be 4' long and 60 lbs. That sounds like small sized to me. Largest wolf caught was an gray wolf weighing 180 lbs in Idaho. So a wolf can have 120 lbs on a bear in real life.
Would you really like "Large Carnivorous mammal" "Medium Carnivorous mammal" etc with identical stats?
On the other hand, would you like a game where everything you really wanted was subpar and just sucked but was displayed like every other option? Its okay if things are at least a little balanced.
No one is suggesting we just have 2 or 3 different animal stats. I'm sure we could have at least 8!
And I'm pretty sure the packers fan answer was the right one, or at least the closest one I know.
How about something like this? This would make for a pretty tough tank of a bear, with a high Con and decent natural armor compared to the cat's better Dex and rake+pounce. Once it hits 7th it's a solid mount option, and can put out some hurt by grabbing its opponent, pulling him to the ground, and mauling him.
Bear, Big
Starting Statistics
Size Medium; Speed 40 ft.; AC +3 natural armor; Attack bite (1d6), 2 claws (1d4); Ability Scores Str 15, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6; Special Qualities low-light vision, scent.
7th-Level Advancement
Size Large; AC +3 natural armor; Attack bite (1d8), 2 claws (1d6); Ability Scores Str +8, Dex –2, Con +4; Special Attacks grab (bite).
Any species of bear? You might want to look at the sun bear. On the low end, adults can be 4' long and 60 lbs. That sounds like small sized to me. Largest wolf caught was an gray wolf weighing 180 lbs in Idaho. So a wolf can have 120 lbs on a bear in real life.
At 7, the wolf and big cat also go large while the bear stays medium, taking the absurdity a step further. I dare any of Paizo's developers to go to a zoo or wildlife preserve anywhere in the world and find a wolf that is larger than a bear. Any species of bear. Actually, I'll save you the time. It still doesn't exist.
Sun Bears are also so rare as to be nearly extinct.
For PFS, I'm guessing you're just going to be out of luck. It's been long enough that I doubt the developers are going to change their minds now.
The problem is clearly with the fact that Bear's Endurance is the iconic stat raiser, so they made them hardier, not stronger.
They can live off our garbage!
Edit: Never mind, their Con is worse too. They do get 3 attacks to a wolf's 1 though.
Sun Bears are also so rare as to be nearly extinct.Any species of bear? You might want to look at the sun bear. On the low end, adults can be 4' long and 60 lbs. That sounds like small sized to me. Largest wolf caught was an gray wolf weighing 180 lbs in Idaho. So a wolf can have 120 lbs on a bear in real life.
At 7, the wolf and big cat also go large while the bear stays medium, taking the absurdity a step further. I dare any of Paizo's developers to go to a zoo or wildlife preserve anywhere in the world and find a wolf that is larger than a bear. Any species of bear. Actually, I'll save you the time. It still doesn't exist.
I'm pretty sure the OP said 'I dare someone to find a wolf bigger that ANY species of bear'. It took less than a minute to do that. How rare/plentiful isn't part of what he asked for.
Now would it make more sense to start bears a size larger? I think so, but that wasn't the part I replied to. My reply was only to the fact that in real life bears CAN start out as small size and there are wolves bigger than bears. To quote the OP "when was the last time you saw a bear that was smaller than a ape wolf or lion of the same age?"
Small bears are silly and unflavorful. That said, suboptimal options aren't new to PF. I would be cool with more accurate bears, but I'm not gonna lose sleep over it.
Eh, I play a Bear Shaman and my bear companion is constantly the highest damage dealer and most lethal of the characters at the table.
Eh, I play a Bear Shaman and my bear companion is constantly the highest damage dealer and most lethal of the characters at the table.
Is that the bear, is it you, or is that them.
What bothers me most isn't whether the bear is supbar, its that when I wanted Beth the bear to be a big bear, I got this silly little bear! I wanted a big bear dontcha' know.
With a few spells from me the Bear not the shaman does all my Damage dealing.
With a few spells from me the Bear not the shaman does all my Damage dealing.
Well , you can do a LOT with spells , but unless you are really into buffing your bear , your martials kinda need help if they are losing to it ...
I dont care much , i agree that the tiger with pounce is the best pick anyway if what you want is fight.
Golarion used to have bigger bears. That was me breakfast time.
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Fair play to the person who pointed out sun bears. They are, in fact, mini. So I'll stand corrected and admit that the smallest bears in the world are smaller than the biggest wolves.
It still doesn't make sense from the game world perspective. Why would my half orc travel all the way to the tropics to get a tiny sun bear companion for which no stats exist when he can walk into any forest in the game setting and make friends with an (objectively better) grizly like the one listed in the monster manual.
I have heard the same about slings, crossbows, monks, and scads of others things. There are many choices. Some MUST be better than others. Just because one choice is not as good as others doesn't mean Paizo (or SKR or ....) "hates" them.
One early FRPG had every one handed melee weapon identical. You could skin it as whatever you wanted. It could be a club, battle-axe, weird asian martial arts weapon, anything.All identical. Wasn't popular.
Would you really like "Large Carnivorous mammal" "Medium Carnivorous mammal" etc with identical stats?
Terrible argument, and a classic example of the 'slippery slope' fallacy. The problem isn't too much variety, variety is fine. The problem is that bear animal companions are far weaker then any other bears in the game, weaker then the vast majority of animal companions, and basic things like their size scaling are clearly off.
There's no plausible explanation that leaves that as a conscious design choice, it's clearly a mistake. No biggie, mistakes happen. I'm just asking for a fix
Can't be ridden by medium characters, though. That's a pain. Besides, sometimes bigger is better :) .
I would probably check with my DM to use mastodon stats and adjust a little.
Thread renamed to something not so confrontational.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm#theDruidsAnimalCompanion
If they aren't imbalanced, use the stats for the brown bear. 3.5 SRD compatible, remember?
I find this amusing, really. The bear was the default animal companion in 3.5 because it was so much stronger and tougher then the other animals. Even pounce only made it a toss-up.
==Aelryinth
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I really don't think the bear animal companion is weak by any degree. Actually, it's one of the strongest medium companions out there. It doesn't beat the small cat, but it's close.
I agree with you. I compared with with the boar and it was pretty close power-wise.
I am sorry, but I think the OP is asking for a little too much. The devs obviously wanted to include bears as an option for an animal companion, but they also had to balance them against others. I think the stats they decided for the bear are fine.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/druid.htm#theDruidsAnimalCompanion
If they aren't imbalanced, use the stats for the brown bear. 3.5 SRD compatible, remember?
I find this amusing, really. The bear was the default animal companion in 3.5 because it was so much stronger and tougher then the other animals. Even pounce only made it a toss-up.
==Aelryinth
In 3.5 what was best varied with level and what books you had access too.
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I really don't think the bear animal companion is weak by any degree. Actually, it's one of the strongest medium companions out there. It doesn't beat the small cat, but it's close.I agree with you. I compared with with the boar and it was pretty close power-wise.
I am sorry, but I think the OP is asking for a little too much. The devs obviously wanted to include bears as an option for an animal companion, but they also had to balance them against others. I think the stats they decided for the bear are fine.
But Bears shouldn't be a medium companion in the first place. Or at least shouldn't be restricted to medium.
As currently written, the bear animal companion is not only one of the weaker animal companions (though not the weakest), it's objectively weaker than the bears I can summon using summon nature's ally. That's my big beef. It doesnt make sense for a druid to go out of his/her way to find the weakest possible member of a genus when choosing an animal companion.
Maybe there are people who want a little brown bear. But it seems silly that I can get a velociraptor as an animal companion but not a grizzly when I could walk into any forest in Golarian and make friends with a grizzly.
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Because Stephen Colbert has friends at paizo!
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What amuses me is this will likely lead to animal companions going to the same place wildshape went...
When you make the perfect the enemy of the good, everyone loses.
Tiny baby bears are good?
As currently written, the bear animal companion is not only one of the weaker animal companions (though not the weakest), it's objectively weaker than the bears I can summon using summon nature's ally. That's my big beef. It doesnt make sense for a druid to go out of his/her way to find the weakest possible member of a genus when choosing an animal companion
Fine then , i say we now give druids lvl 1 CR 4 animals.
Cause why the hell are they getting weak versions of animals while there are CR 4 ones they could have?
Cause why the hell are they getting weak versions of animals while there are CR 4 ones they could have?
Because druids are underpowered like all fullcasters, that's why they get full animal companions and a variety of choices but rangers don't. Rangers are just straight OP yo'.
Rangers are just straight OP yo'.
I know you're joking but I seriously think they're the strongest martial option in PF(2 good saves, full Bab, good HD, skills, bonus feats, nice damage, a companion, divine casting... What's not to live?) But I digress.
More on point I think it's just silly that real bears are considered too good for a druid to have. Come on now, they're not T-Rexes or Rocs, where game balance alone rings true for why they don't hit their full size. As it is, there are a variety of better martial companions who hit large and it seems silly to deny them that size.
Now as I've infered it's not worth an actual fix imo, bigger fish to fry for pfs, but a house rule is good common sense for any home game.
I'm pretty sure the message is pretty obvious when SKR changes the title, but doesn't bother to chime in anything on the subject.
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Atarlost, just change the level bears become large. Change the size increase level to 7th. This would make bear people like me and jiggy happy and make sense. Start bears as medium make a special rule for bears that bears must follow normal weapon attack rules rather than natural attack rules until the bear buys the multiattack feat at 3rd or 5th level. So bob the bear would get one primary attack bite at full BAB
and 2 secondary attacks at -5 and they would get grab with the ability to gain improved grab after they buy the multiattack feat.
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Thread renamed to something not so confrontational.The new title isn't quite what I had in mind. Maybe "Why do bear animal companions max out as Medium when the forests of golarian are full of Large bears."
Mamma bears will only give you the runts of the litter.
I'm pretty sure the message is pretty obvious when SKR changes the title, but doesn't bother to chime in anything on the subject.
Meh. They made a design decision and are sticking by it. People can disagree with them, that's what house rules are for. I don't have a problem with that, even when I disagree with it. The designers don't have the time - or, I'm guessing, the interest - to justify all their decisions, even the ones that seem strange.
As someone who played a dwarf druid with a ridiculously powerful dire bear animal companion and mount in 3.5, I just figured the designer in charge of the animal companion rules wanted to smack around that option with a nerf stick, and liked big cats better. Bears were easily one of the best options in 3.x.
The problem I find is when people go out and compare in pf they always comparr it to number 1. Pf has about 3 super acs then a lot middle of the road. The bear AC represents a blacl bear its fine move on. As to why they have never released a. Bigger ear ac? I haven't a clue but at the end of the day animal companions are a secondary class feTure so it doesn't matter a lot if a grizzly ac isn't an option.
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A level 4 ape is large with three 1d6 primary natural attacks, 21 str, 15 dex, 14 con, 2 int, 12 wis, 7 cha, and 3 natural armor.
A level 4 bear is medium with one 1d6 and two 1d4 primary natural attacks, 19 str, 13 dex, 15 con, 2 int, 12 wis, 6 cha, and 2 natural armor.
I see that they both have the same bonus to attack, and the ape does +1 damage with its bite and +2 damage with its claws. The ape has +1 to its AC due to natural armour, and the bear has a slightly higher potential constitution.
However, the bear doesn't need to squeeze or move at half speed in a five foot corridor. When the ape and the bear are on such an even footing, why would anyone ever choose an ape?
Nerf bears, buff apes.