Are non-nimble Animal Companions still bad?

[Nik Gervae]

graystone wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

I try not to do it, but it becomes hard to justify not doing it in certain situations.

Like area attacks: it similar to a familiar on your shoulder and you getting fireballs or dragon breathe shot at you.

Always keep your familiar in a backpack! :-P

(Or Pet Cache.)

[shroudb]

Nik Gervae wrote:

graystone wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

I try not to do it, but it becomes hard to justify not doing it in certain situations.

Like area attacks: it similar to a familiar on your shoulder and you getting fireballs or dragon breathe shot at you.

Always keep your familiar in a backpack! :-P

(Or Pet Cache.)

line of effect is a thing, so if you have your familiar completely sealed away from harm, you also lose most of the benefits of having a familiar.

the intent is clearly evident in Familiar Satchel that specifies that even though it has holes for breathing, basically blocking the line of effect and aoe TO the familiar also blocks the line of effect FROM the familiar.

if you just want to use your familiar as a scout/skill use/etc then in the first place you wouldnt need it to have it close by but simply have it following you from a safe distance.

[Gortle]

Angel Hunter D wrote:

I'm pretty sure there's a section in the core book that says picking on ACs and mounts is a jerk play, so don't do that.

?

Maybe but that is an old sentiment that goes back to the time of knights. Mostly I think it is a combination of horses where tough to kill, and valuable.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think it's mostly that if you pick on a player's familiar/animal buddy "because it's an easy target" then that's liable to lead to hurt feelings, the same way you should be careful not to have the monsters focus fire on one PC.

[Angel Hunter D]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think it's mostly that if you pick on a player's familiar/animal buddy "because it's an easy target" then that's liable to lead to hurt feelings, the same way you should be careful not to have the monsters focus fire on one PC.

This exactly, if someone goes through the effort of making a mounted character or Beastmaster they're dedicating significant resources to do it. Don't kill their toy on purpose, even if it "makes sense" because the game flows better that way and people still want to come to your table. You keep kneecapping their horse, I wouldn't blame them for not coming back.

That doesn't mean they should be invincible NPCs either, AoE still hits then, as do environmental effects and both seem more common this edition. And if they use the beast as a meat shield, hit it like any other shield.

It's one thing to topple a jenga tower, another to topple a card tower.

I also believe this to be why Rust Monsters are so reviled and object damage isn't really a thing anymore.

[PossibleCabbage]

It's sort of a social contract thing. If you keep using your flying animal companion to abuse enemies that have no way to fight "things that they cannot reach for melee" then the GM is probably going to counter that tactic sooner or later. If you're just riding around on a giant dragonfly because that's cool and you like it then that's another issue entirely.

[Inquisitive Tiefling]

So I thought flying mounts lost their flight if you were riding them? Or is that only if you're trying to fly an AC without the mount ability?

[Angel Hunter D]

Inquisitive Tiefling wrote:

So I thought flying mounts lost their flight if you were riding them? Or is that only if you're trying to fly an AC without the mount ability?

Only if they don't have the Mount ability, which is everything that flies last checked. Everything that swims as well, so underwater adventures are a no go either.

[Gaulin]

Yeah all this talk of climbing and flying mounts doesn't matter too much, as by the rules you can't use anything but their land speed when mounted unless they have the mount ability (which so far is limited to horse, camel, riding drake and monitor lizard)

[Unicore]

Air walk is a useful spell since it doesn't give a fly speed, it just lets the creature walk on air as if it was ground.

Strangely, a roc can carry a person in their talons, but not on their back, so if you had one trained, it could carry you, but at the cost that you would be grabbed.

Basically, they did go through a lot of trouble to make sure that flying mounts are not really a thing. Constant flight is a very limited resource in PF2. I kinda wish they would have adapted the lore a lite to reflect that, and made less low level creatures that just have it arbitrarily, but I get how that would be disruptive to world building, because of birds.

Having a mount to move 80ft with every 1 action spent on movement is still nice, even when the creature is stuck on the ground. Having an animal companion instead of just a mount you buy, as a PC is nice, because the creature is likely to live through a singular round of attacking, and not die when its HP hits 0.

The ride feat as it exists right now is so much more of an NPC feat than a PC feat because it takes so long to train an animal to ride, that by the time you can ride them, you have leveled up to the point that the animal is at great risk of instant death from even the most minor of AoE situations. Animal Companions are really the only way around that, and the ride feat is completely useless to you with a companion.

[graystone]

Gaulin wrote:

Yeah all this talk of climbing and flying mounts doesn't matter too much, as by the rules you can't use anything but their land speed when mounted unless they have the mount ability (which so far is limited to horse, camel, riding drake and monitor lizard)

Phantom Steed.

[Gaulin]

Oh sorry, I thought this thread was about animal companions. Admittedly I haven't read every single post, just wanted to chime in to the people planning a character that could fly or climb. I hate it when you have a concept built around something only to find out it doesn't work by the rules, I wouldn't want anyone misled.

[Nik Gervae]

graystone wrote:

Gaulin wrote:

Yeah all this talk of climbing and flying mounts doesn't matter too much, as by the rules you can't use anything but their land speed when mounted unless they have the mount ability (which so far is limited to horse, camel, riding drake and monitor lizard)

Phantom Steed.

Yes, but it's non-nimble and therefore bad. ;-)

[Gortle]

Nik Gervae wrote:

graystone wrote:

Gaulin wrote:

Yeah all this talk of climbing and flying mounts doesn't matter too much, as by the rules you can't use anything but their land speed when mounted unless they have the mount ability (which so far is limited to horse, camel, riding drake and monitor lizard)

Phantom Steed.

Yes, but it's non-nimble and therefore bad. ;-)

\

Super non nimble, with its special ability to die really fast if attacked. By the time it can fly it will be extremely unlikely it could take any level appropriate attack and stay in the air. Probably only missed on a natural 1, extremely likely to be critically hit, 10 hitpoints. Good luck keeping it alive in combat.

[Unicore]

Yeah, mounted combat of any sort, even staying way back and avoiding conflict almost requires an animal companion because of how quickly the party levels up and how difficult it is to keep up with level appropriate mounts otherwise. I don't know how much that was intended or not, but generally, I think all the mendev crusaders must now go steed ally if they are bringing their horses into what is left of the world wound.

However, it is a little weird that you can't really build an effective mount to utilize heavy barding. It seems like, at the very least, the champion should have unique specializations that let their mounts use barding effectively.

[Deadmanwalking]

Unicore wrote:

Yeah, mounted combat of any sort, even staying way back and avoiding conflict almost requires an animal companion because of how quickly the party levels up and how difficult it is to keep up with level appropriate mounts otherwise. I don't know how much that was intended or not, but generally, I think all the mendev crusaders must now go steed ally if they are bringing their horses into what is left of the world wound.

In fairness, NPCs do not level like PCs do. I mean, they gain levels, but not at anywhere near the same rate. Many go years, or even decades, without leveling at all.

[Perpdepog]

They also no longer have to adhere to the rules of classes, either. Crusaders can just have real durable mounts scaled to their level and hidden behind a Rare tag and they're good to go.

[Organis]

From what I've gathered, the discussion seems to have expanded to overall uses with animal companions in addition to the original discrepancy between nimble and non-nimble.

I think the overall power level of companions is about where it should be, though perhaps under-tuned in some aspects. Even when fully invested, they aren't supposed to be as impactful as PCs, more like half PC, the other half of the ranger/druid/champion. The issue is that splitting your character into two halves brings about problems when the frontline half (the companion usually) goes down and the other half loses tons of features, where other characters don't experience such an issue when, say, they go down to half health, as a rough comparison. Of course, the key is a balance between a companion who feels like more than fodder to merely distract and then die quickly, but not so good that it can stand alone as a frontliner and render any martial build objectively better with one than without.

As for imbalance with path choices, perhaps Savage could also grant proficiency bonuses to unarmed attacks and Intimidation (that stack with specializations later on), or both? Maybe just increase the flat damage increase to whatever feels worth it compared to the others on a build purposed for maximum damage and not for survivability.

For Indomitable, just introduce new options/reasons to further improve barding or constitution.