Beastmaster Tweak
ZanathKariashi
Member Posts: 2,869
While I personally feel the class is fine as is I do feel a couple small tweaks to it's mechanics would help it over-come it's currently bad rap with the majority of players.
Remove Find Familiar (doesn't fit the class at all), speed up their current spell progression by 4 levels, and give them ability to cast Conjure animals once per day at 12 and 16. (this Allows them to actually fulfill their summoner-role in BG1 when their animals are actually useful for more then just soaking up spells, but still give them some benefit between lvl 8 and getting HLAs).
The PnP beastmaster begins attracting a huge horde of animals starting at lvl 4, and since them getting Animal summoning spells early is supposed to compensate for lack of a followers mechanic letting them get spellcasting much sooner then other rangers is a nice compromise (it's a minor bonus overall since they only get casting up to 3rd level and only 3 casts per spell level). And give them something much more immediately tangible, considering their extremely strict equipment restrictions and lack of immediate benefit, relative to the archer or especially the stalker, who get several powerful benefits in BG1 with few real penalties, and either continually scaling benefits or extremely powerful spells in BG2.
Remove Find Familiar (doesn't fit the class at all), speed up their current spell progression by 4 levels, and give them ability to cast Conjure animals once per day at 12 and 16. (this Allows them to actually fulfill their summoner-role in BG1 when their animals are actually useful for more then just soaking up spells, but still give them some benefit between lvl 8 and getting HLAs).
The PnP beastmaster begins attracting a huge horde of animals starting at lvl 4, and since them getting Animal summoning spells early is supposed to compensate for lack of a followers mechanic letting them get spellcasting much sooner then other rangers is a nice compromise (it's a minor bonus overall since they only get casting up to 3rd level and only 3 casts per spell level). And give them something much more immediately tangible, considering their extremely strict equipment restrictions and lack of immediate benefit, relative to the archer or especially the stalker, who get several powerful benefits in BG1 with few real penalties, and either continually scaling benefits or extremely powerful spells in BG2.
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