Why are Beastmasters so harshly Gimped ?

DevardKrown

So far every Kit I'm looking at has trade-offs ...but they all feel sort of Fair.

to stay in Ranger territory like the Archer , we give you the Power of the "Insert ranged weapon" !... but we gimp your melee combat a little bit and cut down on that armor ...don't want you to be to comfy in melee..but still be able to club that Golem over the head.

or the Stalker , we take away armor again but here have some sneak and a light Back stab , and why not tumble in some Spells..

and then we have the Beast Master , trades armor again this time for Animal Summoning , and a Familiar, i can dig that ..you get free canon fodder you don't have to face-tank yourself.
and then he just gets shit on by Removing 13 ! of 20 Possible weapons for 15 % sneak ? i mean he cant even back stab with it so even if you sneak all you get is a slightly better hit chance for once..even if you say "its a trade off for the summoning and the familiar too" its not in revelation to any other Kits trade offs.



even if we look outside the Ranger class , aside the Wizard slayer who surely trade off a bit more than what he gets, and the Shapeshifter who just trades armor for a gimped werewolf form nothing feels that harsch as removing 2/3'ds of a classes weapons.

Jarrakul

I'm not sure restricting weapon use is quite as bad as you think it is. Don't get me wrong, I think the beastmaster is garbage, but that's because I think the beastmaster's summoning spells are garbage, not because I think the class's penalties are especially severe. The thing is, the beastmaster still has access to most of the best ranged weapons, and to some pretty solid melee weapons. That's all you really need.

Abi_Dalzim

Honestly, even though I've never really run a Beastmaster I'm inclined to agree with Jarrakul; a Beastmaster run seems about as viable as any other fighter-type. The problem is that they give up significant weapon/armor choices for basically nothing in return. Rangers don't have any problems with Stealth anyways so a boost is meaningless, and yeah, those Animal summons seem crappy. Now, if it was Summon Animal 2, Animal 3, and then Conjure Animals or something like that, then that would be somewhat respectable, but no, that's not what you get.

[Deleted User]

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deltago

Rangers shouldn't wear more than studded leather anyway IMO due to their stealth ability.

And Find Familiar (from lvl 1) is pretty decent. The extra hp and spells (detect illusion or invisiblity 10') make up for lost weapon choices. You can still build a character decently around the weapons you are allowed to take.

TStael

My hypotheses is that some specialist classes are supposed to be even tactically challenging - to jazz it up for eventual replay, after replay.

comebackhome

Beast masters should rely more on a scaleable companion, e.g. a wolf that changes over the duration of levels e.g wolf -> direwolf -> worg -> dread wolf -> vampiric wolf -> winter wolf. This actually makes the most sense to me and I'm not sure why this idea hasn't been implemented.

DevardKrown

Jarrakul said:

I'm not sure restricting weapon use is quite as bad as you think it is. Don't get me wrong, I think the beastmaster is garbage, but that's because I think the beastmaster's summoning spells are garbage, not because I think the class's penalties are especially severe. The thing is, the beastmaster still has access to most of the best ranged weapons, and to some pretty solid melee weapons. That's all you really need.

club for dualwield, and quarterstaff ... that all melee weapons he can use..and as for building him ranged , i could just pick an Archer , and utterly destroy enemy's in ranged.

i just think he trades off too much for way way way too little..

i actually wanted to Build him as Ranger2/Cleric , just having my lil dragon in my pocket chilling out.
but looking in the Progression table i will possible run out of weapons to put Points in !

Grum

I'd much rather they have a scalable companion that gets a percentage of their HP, Thaco and dmg. That way it is always relevant to have.

DevardKrown

Grum said:

I'd much rather they have a scalable companion that gets a percentage of their HP, Thaco and dmg. That way it is always relevant to have.

True , that was the thing of the NWN1-2 Ranger, you got your scaleable companions who where good in their own right.

i think the Ranger in general is just sad in Baldurs Gate...aside the archer

Abi_Dalzim

Rangers do have the problem of basically being fighters who level more slowly. Still, the free points in two weapon style do help a bit in keeping them competitive.

Grum

Abi_Dalzim said:

Rangers do have the problem of basically being fighters who level more slowly. Still, the free points in two weapon style do help a bit in keeping them competitive.

Rangers make great ranger/clerics for the two weapon fighting.
They make subpar for dual classing to clerics
They are subpar when compared to fighters, and to Paladins.
The stalker is subpar compared to a fighter/thief.
The only rangers that shine are archers and Minsc...

Sids1188

As others have said, the loss of the weapons isn't so bad in and of itself. Most rangers (most characters in general) only use a couple of weapons anyway, so once you've put in your specialisations it makes little difference - the diffence between a club and a katana is only 2 average damage. The problem arises in that most of the beastmaster weapons don't have competetive enchantments. There aren't any clubs that are comparable to a crom faeyr or a flail of ages. Shortbow and quarter staff are available for range and 2 handed, which are more up to par with the competition.

Their biggest issue is that their summoning abilities are really poor. They're 1 use per day, unavilalable until level 8 and finish at level 12. At which point you have very limited uses of a specific spell line which is frequently overlooked even by druids - they aren't even good summoning spells. Beyond level 12 you are left with no further improvement, just the same 1 use per day of a spell that was mediocre at it's peak. If it got fire elementals, or more uses per day or something, it might be more useful as a light warrior/summoner, which seems to be it's point.

In contrast, the stalker's backstab multiplier increases until lvl 17, and the damage continues to scale as it gets better weapons/stats. It's spells, while low level, are ones that are frequently used by mages and are useful even in late game (as buffs, they also scale with the character using them), and they can choose how many of them to take - multiple hastes per day if they want em.

Kamigoroshi

Grum said:

The only rangers that shine are archers and Minsc...

Of course Minsc shines: his baldness reflects sunlight after all. The same as Edwin without his hood.

JumboWheat01

Grum said:

The only rangers that shine are archers and Minsc...

Is it really Minsc shining, or is Boo's badassery so great he makes up for it?

Yulaw9460

Deleted.

jesterdesu

Beast masters are viable, wizard slayers are fine, if a little slow starting, shapeshifters are fine and the ww is even overpowered for most of bg1.

As said before, rangers in this game are just fighters of a slightly different flavour. I don't think that's too much a problem though, it's just more that the multi and dual classes do not carry enough (any) draw backs when done right and therefore piss all over the myriad of interesting single classes.

Ulb

comebackhome said:

Beast masters should rely more on a scaleable companion, .. This actually makes the most sense to me and I'm not sure why this idea hasn't been implemented.

Yeah, if only there was a mod like that!

Jarrakul

@Ulb my only regret is that I cannot give you both an Insightful and a Like.

DevardKrown

Grum said:

Abi_Dalzim said:

Rangers do have the problem of basically being fighters who level more slowly. Still, the free points in two weapon style do help a bit in keeping them competitive.

Rangers make great ranger/clerics for the two weapon fighting.
They make subpar for dual classing to clerics
They are subpar when compared to fighters, and to Paladins.
The stalker is subpar compared to a fighter/thief.
The only rangers that shine are archers and Minsc...

pretty much boils down the ranger class, you can have them all just better, only the Archer is unique Enough to stick out since kensai and berserker are gimpt in the ranged compartment.


@ulb , mods are fine , but everything that changes more than a visual aspect is like a Cheat for me.
i could just boot up EEKeeper and add use any item if i go that route..

jesterdesu

@DevardKrown

Multi and dual classes reign supreme in this game... It's one of my biggest annoyances also. That said, any classes can complete the game easy enough.

Some classes are blatantly weaker but this shouldn't stop anybody playing them imo... It's not like you'll get owned in pvp or something

As for mods, well if you truly believe you're only using ones which address unfair imbalances, is that really still a bad thing?

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Chnapy

Whether or not using mods is cheating is moot : it's your game and no one else's. You can cheat if you wanna. The only thing that factors anymore is whether or not the game becomes worse for it.
Ultimately it's your call, but I can only recommend giving a few of these mods a go if ye haven't yet, to see if they really harm your gaming experience.