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So strange that some people can't think of ways to balance pets. Like some have suggested, the game Just needs new options. A pet focused hunters edge, more options like companions cry that give interesting tactics, say a defense option like raise shield, a stance that improves ac, two action options, etc. There's so much room here for making pets viable in survival while not stepping on the toes of martials. There are indeed ways to take power from the core class to support the AC, two or three action abilities fit this idea, then you can give feats to make those actions more efficient to blend both PC and AC acting together.
Two & Three action feats that makes use of the AC & the PC would be interesting.
I suspect that'd be part of a Dedication, or at least I hope it would be so the levels aren't prohibitive for those who MCD to get a pet (even if the 3 feats hurdle is still there.
an extra pile of HPs for the enemies to depleteWith respect, you need to acknowledge that animals dying is a huge turnoff for some players. Sometimes even more than humans dying - since every party member has free will that **chose** to go down a dangerous dungeon. Not so much with a pet.
(For many players, the idea to bring along a sentient being just for it to die so you save x hit points amounts to nothing less than animal cruelty, albeit a fictional case. These players can't and won't ignore the story perspective where the animal trusts you and protects you, and they want to reciprocate by giving it a fair chance)
Its not overwhelming or impressive but its remains stoically useful throughout the game.If you treat it as a pawn, a resource to be used up, bled dry, maybe.
If you on the other hand expect your wolf or bear to share your adventures and fight alongside you for many levels, creating many exciting and happy memories you need an AC that's not made out of paper.
Which is exactly what fedoraferret concludes.
Stuff like this is why I would be tempted to have AC use the PC dying rules. That way your pet may go down a bunch but it is not very likely to die unless you are yo yo healing it and pushing its luck in a dangerous manner.
While you can’t have multiple Animal Companions in PF2 …
Not yet, no. :-)
With respect, you need to acknowledge that animals dying is a huge turnoff for some players. Sometimes even more than humans dying - since every party member has free will that **chose** to go down a dangerous dungeon. Not so much with a pet.
(For many players, the idea to bring along a sentient being just for it to die so you save x hit points amounts to nothing less than animal cruelty, albeit a fictional case. These players can't and won't ignore the story perspective where the animal trusts you and protects you, and they want to reciprocate by giving it a fair chance)
Its not overwhelming or impressive but its remains stoically useful throughout the game.If you treat it as a pawn, a resource to be used up, bled dry, maybe.
If you on the other hand expect your wolf or bear to share your adventures and fight alongside you for many levels, creating many exciting and happy memories you need an AC that's not made out of paper.
Which is exactly what fedoraferret concludes.
An animal companion is not a pet. And I don't think animal companions are sentient. That said, I agree generally that one should not treat them as pawns - unless one is evil. :-)
Also agree that they should not be made of paper. OTOH, I don't think a 20th level fighter's animal companion should be, or be the equivalent of, another 20th level fighter.
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Stories are more important than balance.If AC Rangers become better than Barbarians, then you just killed the story concept of a ferocious barbarian :)
Balance makes stories.
If the AC has to feel terrible so the Barbarian can feel good about themselves, I feel like there's been a fundamental game design misstep, because there's no reason the two have to be mutually exclusive.
If the AC has to feel terrible so the Barbarian can feel good about themselves, I feel like there's been a fundamental game design misstep, because there's no reason the two have to be mutually exclusive.Stories are more important than balance.If AC Rangers become better than Barbarians, then you just killed the story concept of a ferocious barbarian :)
Balance makes stories.
I'm not so pessimistic.
Paizo had done a good job here. There is a trade off using a pet, it takes actions. The pet should clearly not be as strong as a barbarian. A couple of points of to hit and AC is fine though. That is maybe 30% less effective in attack and defense. That's Ok. It just can't be much more than that or there is no point in having a pet.Animal companions are fine at low levels.
What they have missed is that the progression is not right. Str based pets are not survivable at high level. To hit numbers for all pets eventually fall to far behind.
It probably could be fixed by allowing pets to get item bonuses to attack, and adding an alternative feat to Daredevil Companion feat that gives them some extra toughness for Str pets.
However I do think it is OK for the GM to put some caveats. For example, if I'm GMing a game with 3 players I'd be actively encouraging pets, but if it was 6+ player game I'd be banning pets and summoners.
A party with pets is a little tougher, and more resilient, but probably shouldn't be any stronger offensively. I think that that is inherent in the concept and Ok. It's near enough to fair.
Cheers
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Stuff like this is why I would be tempted to have AC use the PC dying rules. That way your pet may go down a bunch but it is not very likely to die unless you are yo yo healing it and pushing its luck in a dangerous manner.an extra pile of HPs for the enemies to depleteWith respect, you need to acknowledge that animals dying is a huge turnoff for some players. Sometimes even more than humans dying - since every party member has free will that **chose** to go down a dangerous dungeon. Not so much with a pet.
(For many players, the idea to bring along a sentient being just for it to die so you save x hit points amounts to nothing less than animal cruelty, albeit a fictional case. These players can't and won't ignore the story perspective where the animal trusts you and protects you, and they want to reciprocate by giving it a fair chance)
Its not overwhelming or impressive but its remains stoically useful throughout the game.If you treat it as a pawn, a resource to be used up, bled dry, maybe.
If you on the other hand expect your wolf or bear to share your adventures and fight alongside you for many levels, creating many exciting and happy memories you need an AC that's not made out of paper.
Which is exactly what fedoraferret concludes.
Kaid - AC do use the PC dying rules. This includes Animal companions and Familiars. See page 459 of the CRB under 'Knocked Out and Dying', 2nd paragraph, 1st sentence:
"Player characters, their companions, and other significant characters and creatures don't automatically die when they reach 0 hit points."
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You're saying the easy things here.
Things get difficult only when you realize you must choose: this or a proper Beastmaster. You can't have both.
I apologize if it was not clear that my general statement was meant to apply to specific cases, including the idea of "the Beastmaster".
I do agree that tables should play however they want. If a player enjoys controlling two or more characters, and the rest of the players don't care how balanced their PCs are with that group, then more power to them. But I don't agree that game books that don't cater to that sort of group are wasting pages, nor do I think there is any sort of obligation to publish materials for them.
Yes, as a player, I don't want other characters to be significantly more powerful and/or useful than mine. Yes, that is another way of saying I don't want to play with "Beastmasters" or "Chosen Ones" or "GM's Favorite". If their Ranger is as powerful as my Barbarian, AND she has a bear or three, I want my Barbarian to have a support cleric and a wilderness guide. My Bard should have a troupe of dancing thieves. My Wizard should have a squad of guards.
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That is a reasonable solution.
Alternatively the Barbarian could get options to do other awesome things that are of comparable power to the ranger's companion but different.
5e and PF2 were both very cautious in their design, but I don't think that means there's no grey area between waste of paper and overpowered either.
That is a reasonable solution.
Alternatively the Barbarian could get options to do other awesome things that are of comparable power to the ranger's companion but different.
5e and PF2 were both very cautious in their design, but I don't think that means there's no grey area between waste of paper and overpowered either.
PF2 works at least much better than the 5e beastmaster, as it is good at some levels rather than none.
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That is a reasonable solution.
Alternatively the Barbarian could get options to do other awesome things that are of comparable power to the ranger's companion but different.
5e and PF2 were both very cautious in their design, but I don't think that means there's no grey area between waste of paper and overpowered either.
True enough. I think an easier solution is to have enough feats so that a player can choose to make their animal companion as strong as they might reasonably want, at the cost of weakening their main character (because they spent their feats on their AC instead of their character).
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True enough. I think an easier solution is to have enough feats so that a player can choose to make their animal companion as strong as they might reasonably want, at the cost of weakening their main character (because they spent their feats on their AC instead of their character).
The problem with that approach is, by and large, class feats are meant to give power through options/versatility, and not through straight numeric boosts. (There are of course exceptions; signature fighting styles, level 20 capstones, and multiclass feats that give spells/proficiencies/etc all come to mind)
Even if you put all your feats into your Animal Companion, you are still a e.g. 20th level druid with full spellcasting. And that's by design. To change the progression of your class, you'd need an Archetype. For instance, I could conceive of an Archetype that toned a druid's spellcasting down to Warpriest levels (eg only hitting Master instead of Legendary) in order to give the Animal Companion some more oomph at higher levels.As an aside, my main PFS character is an Animal order Druid. I plan on seeing this through as far as I can, and trying to figure out how I can have fun with a build that apparently loses steam at higher levels. I'm thinking about trying to pack on party-wide buffs so that the AC is more effective. (I suspect single target buffs would almost always be better on PCs than an AC, unless I sit down at a table and find that *everyone* is a ranged/caster.) If I get to 18th level, I might end up taking Specialized Companion a second time. The benefits are so marginal, but at the moment there isn't a whole lot else that would be better...
For instance, I could conceive of an Archetype that toned a druid's spellcasting down to Warpriest levels (eg only hitting Master instead of Legendary) in order to give the Animal Companion some more oomph at higher levels.
Have we seen any class archetypes that change existing class features and not just a subset of starting or continuing proficiencies? The Cleric is the only casting class I know of that separated spell casting proficiency away from a core class ability. That also makes me wonder about how archetypes that are supposed to interact with class features will be handled because
clerics spell casting boosts won't be tied to a class feature but the doctrine sub system. Thus if there was a Mystic Theurge style archetype (not one that feels particularly necessary but just as an example), it would have to be worded to interact with casting class features and the cleric specific doctrine stuff, which feels like it will be pretty messy.
I think it would be a lot better if you separated considerations for different types of rangers and druids.
Bear is only good for rangers because druids won't be using the support abilities and need to go dex based to have ac so it's attack suffers.
I think wolf is a solid option for precision rangers and druids. They'll be using the companion to attack so it's higher damage and good Ac are much more important than its bad support.
Bear and bird are definitely good options for rangers who will use the support actions.
Dromaeosaur and snake supports are bad.
Badger is bad past very low levels, lower accuracy and Ac is way more important than 4 damage.
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@Zapp
Your "problem" has nothing to do with the beastmaster or whichever any class or archetype is called.
We all understood that you deem it legit to have classes or archetypes that are more powerful than other classes or archetypes because it "fits their theme" and you insist that these classes or archetypes have to be more powerful to fit their theme. Thats actually 2 separate issues but I will leave it here.
To me this also is some kind of the old "Katana must be better than Longsword because movies" issue.
I think you have understood that many GMs and players do not want differing power levels at their table as has been expressed in various posts in this thread. For those GMs and players any class or archtype has to be balanced against every other existing class or archtype which to various degrees is certainly possible given the current ruleset and as far as we know this is also what the designers want to achieve.
Note that I am not saying that Paizo might not at one point in time provide a literal "superhero" source book, containing uncommon, empowered classes or archetypes like Archmage, Beastmaster, Pontifex or Warlord, so if all players and the GM agree the power levels between characters within the group may differ or the general power level of the group may be higher than of a group entirely made of CRB chars, however I can not see something like this happening soon (if at all).
