Would tweaking the familiar make Beastmaster worth it?

catsarekacamp

Trying the Beastmaster, sure, you can have a familiar, but if it dies, it's the same Con penalty as Mages. If there was no Con penalty to death, and you could just re-summon another one, do you think that would make the Beastmaster worth it?

lroumen

Depends on your playing style.

If you use ranged weaponry then it does not matter whether your hp decreases. You still had that d10 to roll with, it just gets reduced a bit so after a few deaths you have the hp of a priest then rogue then arcane then less... might be important to you, might not be. In any case you will still be very good at ranged combat.
If you go melee you can always use constitution increasing potions and gear and draw upon holy might for a while when you get your powers.

I use familiars a lot. The dragons actually have good abilities. Just be careful how you are going to use them. Flanking or picking apart foes that get into your backline is very feasible in my opinion.

smeagolheart

Beastmaster familiars should probably be different than mage familiars.

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Abi_Dalzim

They could have their animal summons in the regular ranger slots (because let's face it, they're not replacing much valuable), and scale them up such that Summon Animal 2 is a level 1 spell, Summon Animal 3 is level 2, and Conjure Animals (which I think is underrated) is level 3. Throw in some even stronger HLA abilities and it might actually be imposing.

OlvynChuru

My idea for a beastmaster HLA was Summon Dire Bear, which would summon a dire bear on par with the ones from Trials of the Luremaster.

lunar

I don't think summoning a familiar every day to sacrifice it works well with the beastmaster kit's ideals. Ofcourse, regular mage familiars make no sense, while a ferret or something similiar would have been so much better.

magisensei

Its possible but it would still need a overhaul.

A beastmasters familiar should not be a small little dragon but a huge creature with power.

Imagine a beastmaster with a greater dire lion that levels along with the beastmaster - not only does it get the stats of a dire lion it is also magically protected (imagine armor for lions - magical weapon to hit) - it does slashing + crushing damage (with its claws) and teeth - giving a minimum of 3 attacks/round with a strength of 20. The claws and teeth hit as +1 weapons (max +3) which improves as the beast master gets leveled up. The lion is immune to charm and hold animal/monster abilities. The familiar also regenerates at a rate of 1hp/3r.

The mere presence of the familiar gives the beastmaster +1 vs all enchantment spells and all spells/abilities that hinder movement and any type of morale/panic.

1/day per 2 levels of the beast master - the lion is able to roar - all creatures within a 30' radius must save versus fear and morale failure at -1 (improves at the lion levels) if they fail to save the monster flees in panic (5 rounds); casters must also save vs breath weapon or be deafen for 2 rounds; allies gain +1 to attack roles (to hit) and morale (this bonus lasts 5rounds). This ability is non cumulative (after the end of 5 rounds it may be used again to effect creatures)

1/day the familiar may summon a pack of dire lions (regular) - the pride consists of 3-5 dire lions.

1/day - share life - the familiar is able to give up to 20% of its HP to the beast master in times of need - this sharing also removes all effects from poison, disease, and enchantments.

Tarlugn

How about giving the beastmaster an ability to tame an animal, and have it become some sort of pseudo-npc with stats and levelling? Of course, the first thing I´d do would be to attempt to tame a bear after leaving Candlekeep xD The ability could scale though, somewhat like in lvls 1-3 you could tame a cat, rat or squirrel, then at lvls 3-5 a dog, wolf or deer, at lvls 5-8 bear, moose or spider, then 8+ I kind of run out of animal candidates, though a wyvern might make sense as the best beast around the woodlands.

SirBatince

Make a HLA that summons a young dragon and we'll be talking.

(sod has resized dragon animations)

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semiticgoddess

@subtledoctor @magisensei: Opcode 177 could be used to do this without too much work. It has the ability to apply certain spell effects only to familiars. A Beastmaster could be given a special spell, using opcode 177, that tweaked the familiar's stats according to the Beastmaster's level. At level 1, it might give the familiar a little extra THAC0 and HP. At level 10, it could give the familiar some spell-like abilities and stronger attacks. At level 20, it might even have its own summoning spells. You could probably even use it to turn the familiar into a bear or a lion or a wyvern or whatever, though it would still start out as a fairy dragon or pseudo dragon (unless you added an alignment change opcode to Find Familiar to make it into a rabbit or something).

Level 1 Beastmaster summons a kitty cat and uses a mind link spell (opcode 177) to make it stronger. By the end of the game, it's a massive lion with Ironskins, Improved Invisibility, and +4 claws.

No scripts necessary; just a single spell.

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semiticgoddess

@subtledoctor: I'm sure you know a lot more about 177 than me. I didn't mean create the familiar, but modify it. I noticed today there was a separate critter type for familiars, which means you could create a spell that could be used to strengthen a familiar, but could not be exploited to strengthen a party member.

It could in fact be done with a single spell; it's just that the spell would be more complex than normal. No scripts; no .2da files; no .cre files. Just one spell with a lot of 177 on it.

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