Beastmaster err?
Velkir
Member Posts: 70
Looking at the Beastmaster cause it sounded cool..but im seeing its a gimped version of the ranger?..Unless im missing something....ill prolly will try to play one for kicks but..is there any way to make it good?..or at the very least decent?
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now I really want to play one :P
It doesn't say so in the description, but Beastmasters can use the mage spell, "Find Familiar" as a special ability, which gives them a nice extra chunk of HP at the beginning of the game, as well as the unique abilities of the familiar itself.
However, other than the familiar, you really get no benefits from the Beastmaster kit until level 8, when you can start casting spells. That's a pretty big chunk of BG1 content that you must endure as little more than a gimped ranger with a pet, which is somewhat unfortunate. The "Animal Summoning 1" spell is a level 4 druid spell that you can cast as a level 1 Ranger spell, and should be a fairly useful summon spell at that level, equivalent to what a single-classed druid would have access to. All of your summons should be pretty decent at the point in the game when you gain access to them, and are a nice way to use your Ranger spell slots, which are generally pretty useless, in my experience. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these summons will drop-off in BG2, until they become virtually obsolete about midway through. They're probably still better than any other Ranger spells, since every attack that kills one of your animals is one less attack that hitting you, but they won't have the Thac0 to hit anything themselves, nor the required enchantment level to actually damage their target, even on a critical.
Overall, I'd say that the Beastmaster is an interesting kit that forces you to explore all the options and abilities available to the Ranger class, instead of simply strapping on full plate and smacking stuff with a pair of longswords. They really shine in the mid-levels, when their summoning spells are actually pretty effective, but tend to fall behind in the later levels once your animals become little more than a momentary distraction. At the very end-game, the equipment restrictions stop being all that relevant, since the game math sort of breaks down at that point and there is enough mudflation that you can't really avoid being overpowered, so it won't make finishing Throne of Bhaal significantly harder than most other classes/kits.
TLDR: Should work fairly well for BG1, especially in the latter part of the game. Will be decent in the earlier sections of SoA, weaker than a non-kitted Ranger in late SoA/early ToB, and depending on how you distribute your loot, pretty unremarkable at the end of ToB.
Lets check what Beastmaster offers:
1) As ranger kit it allows fast creation od character with high abilities cause 4 of them can't be less then 13 (STR, WIS, DEX and CON) which means you need to chase good roll numbers for only 2 other stats (INT and CHA) which usualy can be achieved in only 5 minutes or less of rolling abilities
2) Mentioned high abilities will, in case of human ranger, assure ease dual classing into Cleric with all nice healing, protective and summoning spells which come with that class. Usualy, cleric does not have great range of weapons it can use, but since Beatmaster is also prohibited from many weapon types, in this dual class is no problem at all to use staffs since they are among most powerfull weapons in both Baldur 1 and 2.
The Staff of the Ram +6 is already mentioned as most damaging weapon in Baldur 2, while Baldur 1 has Aule's staff +3 which can be find in Ulgoth's Beard.
3) Beastmaster can Summon Familiar as ability, not as spell. This is important cause for any magic user (Mage, Sorcerer, Bard, Multiclass) which has casted it, can happen for familiar to "get lost", but he can not resummon another because its restricted to only one casting. That goes for Beastmaster too if his familiar is present, but sometimes happens (as it seems randomly) that Beastmaster's familiar does not follow him from one location to other on world map (from role play point of view in can be considered Beastmaster "released it" in nature).
In such cases, Beastmaster can resummon his familiar, getting additional total HP for each resummon. With that, Beastmater can achive HP larger then any other class or combination of classes. If that is repeated enough times, Beastmaster can reach 1000 HP or even several thousands HP if you play long enough.
One might see this as being ovepowered, but if main character is considered to be not ordinary human, but offspring of immortal, it's in accord with general Baldur's Gate story.
Alo, note that same effect of plenty of HP can be achieved easer by summoning familiar by Beastmaster at very begging of game, save game, and then import character from that saved game to new game. Character will be imported with incerased number of HP, but will be able to summon aditional familiar adding even more HP. That can be repeated as many times as required, but note that game may remember number of familiars summoned, so if last summoned familiar dies, main character may not lose just one CON stat point, but rather all of them, which would instantly kill him - therefore after such procedure it would be wise to keep your familiar in Inventory for protection (just talk to familiar and put him in backpack).
4) In Baldur Gate 2, Beastmaster/Cleric dual class was only one able to turn to muliclass - if you turn Beatsmaster to Fallen Beastmaster (with party reputation below 6) and when character has larger number of Cleric levels then Beastmater's, then this combo starts to act as multiclass, adding exp for both classes, and giving access not just to all cleric but also druid spells
5) Even without dualclassing, Beatsmaster is very powerfull, and with additional HP (see point 3) and summoning spells is one of most easest classes to solo
Conclusions:
This great potential of being overpowered is recognized by game developers and is probably reason why Beastmaster / Cleric combo is continued to be nerfed.
In latest patch, one of few flails which may have been used by Beastmater since its woooden (Trasher +2), now can't be used any more.
Also, skeletal warriors summoned by cleric prior to latest patch were leaving +1 long sword after they died, giving practically unlimited source of gold (by selling of those swords in any shop after you summon and kill skellies, ofc), but now they do not leave any item no more.
Still, if You are interested in playing not that usual class, but still want to have great advantages without using cheat codes/programs, then Beastmaster is right class for You !
On the other hand, if someone's gaming standards permit this kind of stuff, but don't allow for things like save game editing, there's another even easier bug to get tons of HP on a ranger. IIRC, during character creation, if at a certain point (I think maybe when you're choosing your favourite enemy) you press Back, and then go forward again, your CON bonus to health is reapplied. Repeat till you're satisfied.
Edit: Actually any character can do the above mentioned exploit. After you choose your proficiencies and hit done to return the main character creation screen, just press back. Then choose your proficiencies again. Everytime you do this, your CON bonus is reapplied. But like I said, I think you're better off just using Shadowkeeper at that point.
Quarterstaves are ok weapon types, but dual-clubs is probably better. It's not till you get the staff of the ram and GWW that staves can really compete with dual-clubs for damage (aside from the 5 enemies you can't hit with them, unless you use the Suicide-Stick (aka the club of detonation), and for most mooks, I'd usually just save my GWW uses and beat them down with clubs when able...the Gnasher is just awesome, as long as the enemy can be hit by +2, which does account for a massive amount of enemies).
And while they tend to do a little worse damage-wise then similar slashing weapons would've, until you get your hands on the Gnasher and blackblood in BG2, they're more effective vs most types of armor, giving you an edge at actually connecting with those hits, especially in the early game when even warrior types need a little help hitting consistently.
If you're trying to play a beast-master with a bow, just re-roll archer, since you're doing it wrong. (Stealth in, and BEAT the ever-loving crap out of the mage or healer in a situation, or to get a start in on the plate-wearers since blunt has a pretty massive to-hit advantage vs them vs other attack types)
I thought so now when creating a Stalker, I gave him 15 WIS to get 18 eventually.
Thank You for warning that reloading game and resummoning familiar by beastmaster can be considered cheating or game exploit. I have mentioned that only to inform readers of this post about quicker way of getting lots of HP for Beastmaster - something which would happen naturaly if you play long enough because when Beastmaster "releases" his previous familiar can summon new one - as he must be good aligned he summons also "good" familiars with 24 HP of which Beasmaster receives half (12 HP) for each summon.
Personaly, I think it was intended that way by original creators of game (I mean BG2 when Beasmaster appears first time) , and that's why he is nerfed in area of weapon choice beacuse it would be owerpowered othervise.
As from poistion of role play, it also has sense for main character as Beastmaster to have hundreds or even thousands of HP , because it is considered offspring of immortal, and since as Beastmaster draws power from nature itself, it's logical to become more stronger and resiliant, until it can't be killed by mere mortals or even magical weapons - only extremely powerfull spells as finger of death should be able to really endanger him.
In any case, I have put this post only as info to new players not to avoid Beastmaster because, although they like that kit, it seems too weak to play.
Truth is opposite, many power players use Beastmaster beacuse with dual classing to Cleric and humongous number of HP it has potential to become most powerfull entity which walks world of Forgotten Realms !!!
I hope my remarks were helpfull :-)
Truth is we will never know until original game developers (BG 2) will have interview when they will say what they really meant with Beastmaster kit.
So, in mean time I propose we all just play and enjoy the game, and let people decide if and in what manner they will use Beastmaster.
As for me, Beastmaster already got my vote, so I admit I am little bias in regard of taht kit :-)
Anways, I hope I didn't come across as being all condescending, as that's not what I was going for. I was just saying that if you're going abuse an exploit, you may be better off using an editor to save yourself some time, and that if you weren't comfortable with using an editor, there are other exploits that can be used to get extra HP for any character, Beastmaster or otherwise. Now that you've stated your... unique opinion on the Beastmaster's ability to re-use Find Familiar, I realize that this may not apply to you, but I think about 99% of people would consider it an exploit, so they might find what I said relevant.
/sarcasm off
This is obviously a bug. A familiar is supposed to be a trusted, life-long friend. That's why it increases your HP (you share in each other's presence and being), and also why you lose -1 CON permanently when it dies. Going through them like paper towels is clearly not the way it was meant to work.
As for the whole dual into multi thing, that also smells a lot like bug, though I guess there could be some convoluted RP reason for it to work otherwise, especially considering it involves falling from grace.
Still, touting these as "advantages" for the class is quite misleading.
A lot of good information on beastmasters on this thread, but let's call a spade a spade with the game engine exploits. Other than wishful thinking, there is zero reason to think that beastmasters were supposed to be different than every other caster (familiars) or ranger (dual classing) in these respects.
Stalker is probably the best and very fun to play with back-stab and arcane spells later on and archers have their own niche in the game. Both these kits also scale incredibly well unlike beastmaster.
However if people wanna spam summons go for it. But wand of monster summoning can also do this as well as casters
That being said, it seems that discussion got life of it's own so I am forced to get more involved after all :-)
Main argument in some of previous forum discussions was that multiple pet casting by Beastmaster during same game must obviously be a bug. However, that bug does not work for other summoners - that is wizzies, bards and sorcerers should be imported in new game in order to be able to cast familiar again.
As Beastmaster's summon familiar does not work completely the same way as for rest of mentioned classes, logical conclusion is that it was indeed intended to work little different - therefore why game developers did not make just a simple copy / paste of wizard/sorcerer summon familiar to Beastmaster in order to work completely same way ?
However, since I know that this rhetorical question will not be sufficient as argument, I am enclosing one link (just for example) to a Sorcere's place site , in part where they describe Beastmaster:
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/beastmaster.php
That description is not only consistent with my understanding of Beastmaster, but shows that, if rules are applied fully, this kit would have even greater powers and abilities. I will quote just few sentences from it:
"The Beastmaster's animal henchmen are free to come, go, or act as they will. Any attempt to restrict or regulate their freedom, or ignoring their needs and desires, will result in resentment, sulkiness, and possible abandonment."
As it can be seen, one of feats specialy for Beastmaster is to abandon his animal pets (or pets abandon him) which completeli matches situation when Beastmasters familiar suddenly gets lost during travel between locations on world map, and since its not a spell but an ability, it/s logical there is no limit to ressummon another.
Description in mentioned link also says that (if powerfull enough) Beastmaster can summon horde of creatures which become more powerfull with level and age of Ranger (although only once a year). Logic says that Beastmaster which would have that ability , and with sufficient level, would literally get hundreds of additional HP when they would summon horde of Hippogryphs, Griffons or even maybe few Green or Gold Dragons to aid some important good cause as Beastmaster's familiars.
Of course, probably due to game mechanics, previously BG 2 developers and now BG EE team did not introduce such a powerfull ability, but they probably allowed multiple summonings for a Beastmaster during a same game as replacement to a calling of Horde (although admittedly it seems to work rather randomly during map travels, but that also makes sense cause Your wild pet can abandon You anywhere in wilderness if You are not good to him).
Therefore for Beastmaster can be said that in same time it has great disadvantages and potentials and therefore is fun to play:
a) very limited weapon choices then regular Rangers (or any other fighter type class)
b) Much more HP then other fighter classes
Bottom line is, if You are good player, or just enthusiastic enough, You can find ways to reduce disadvantages and emphasise mentioned advantage.
I hope this has somewhat cleared this isue. For the end, I will say that I am open for constructive remarks (as done by majority of previous commenters) , but some comments are more close to envy/spite zone, therefore I will state that I am definetely not first player to understand fantastic potential of Beastmaster. I rather took good advices from many other posts and tried to join them to one, for benefit of all Baldur gate players interested in this kit.
If I succeeded in that, is for readers to decide :-)
The only issue is the permanent boost to HP through repeated use of the find familiar spell which is inconsistent with design and with PnP. Notably, the PnP description linked above mentions nothing about the Beastmaster gaining any HP from his animal followers but specifically calls out that the animal followers will get additional HPs as the Beastmaster levels up (the obvious negative inference being that the Beastmaster is not intended to gain any HP per that description). Your read of the PnP kit linked above as one that would grant the Beastmaster literally "hundreds of additional HP" as the Beastmaster summons multiple dragons dragons and the like is not the way the PnP class worked. At all.
I am not trying to cross into 'envy/spite zone' but trying to maintain a degree of intellectual honesty in the face of rationalization that doesn't seem remotely plausible to me (i.e., that the developers intended characters to have potentially multiple thousands of HP by spamming find familiar - including a description in the same breath of how this was intended to be done either by randomly losing your familiar or by a player's intentional choice through exporting your character and starting a new game over and over until your HP are huge). The idea of a level 1 Beastmaster with 500 HP (totally achievable by the techniques being proffered as "intended by the developers") screams 'exploit' to me.
Of course, I am not the final arbiter of these things so take my $.02 for what it is worth.
Let's look at the spell "Find Familiar" in the manual. I'm just going to give you a snippet:
"The caster receives half the familiar's total hit points as bonus hit points. However, the caster must take care to treat his familiar well, for if the familiar should die, the caster loses the bonus hit points and then suffers damage equal to half the familiar's hit points. The caster also loses one point of Constitution permanently."
I'll save you the trouble of refuting the above statement. Your arguments are:
1. That's how it works for Wizards. Maybe it works differently for Beastmasters.
2. You only lose the HP if the familiar DIES! It doesn't say anything about penalties if the familiar just goes away.
I'll just assume that you have made those two arguments, and continue...
Maybe it is supposed to work differently for Beastmasters. Without the original designers to sound off, we can't know for sure. But I would suggest that precedent tells us that the ability isn't supposed to function any differently for a Beastmaster than for a Wizard. I say this because of the way the game manual and in-game descriptions handle other classes' special abilities that are transposed from other classes. A couple examples:
Inquisitor's Dispel Magic - It's not the same as either the cleric spell or the mage spell of the same name, and the manual tells you so. It specifically lays out how it is different (speed factor 1, doubles the caster level).
Berserker/Barbarian Rage - Same name, different effects. Because they're different, they're spelled out in the manual.
The fact that the manual (and in-game text) highlights when spells/abilities work differently isn't a fluke, because they never spell out how a special ability works if it's unchanged from its original source. Examples:
Protection From Evil (Paladin)
Detect Evil (Paladin)
True Sight (Inquisitor)
Poison Weapon (Blackguard - it's the same as the previously established Assassin skill)
Lightning Bolt (Priest of Talos)
True Sight (Priest of Helm)
Hold Undead (Priest of Lathander)
Those are all special abilities that function identically to the cleric/mage spells. They exist as special abilities instead of spells because that's the only way to grant these specific skills at specific levels. Likewise, the only way to grant Find Familiar to a level 1 ranger is as a special ability, rather than just adding it to the level 1 druid spellbook for that character.
So if Find Familiar was supposed to be different for the Beastmaster, I think we'd know.
Moving on to 2. The text specifically mentions death of familiars, and in the narrative that you're providing for the Beastmaster, the familiar doesn't die, and Beastmaster just has lots of familiars.
Okay... So try summoning a familiar when you already have one. Do you get a second one?
No? Then that's a sign that you should only have one, or one at a time...
So how about those extra HP. You get those for having a special bond with a familiar. Logically, you should lose them when you no longer have that familiar. You shouldn't lose a point of constitution to a familiar just disappearing on you (For wizards it happens as the result of a well known bug. Don't know why it's so buggy for Beastmasters), but you likewise shouldn't be rewarded for losing your precious companion.
Get a familiar, get HP. Lose a familiar, those HP go away. Get another familiar, the HP come back. That makes totally sense. Endless permanent HP do not.
And that's really the only argument you need here. Look at every way you can get bonus HP in the game. Constitution, Find Familiar, Larloch's Minor Drain, equipment, etc... There are plenty of ways to get some bonus HP in the game.
Do any of those methods give you potentially unlimited life? Because the argument you are making is this:
"I believe it is intentional that one specific sub-kit (Beastmaster) of one single class (Ranger) can have more than 10 times the maximum HP of any other sub-kit of any other single class."
You're also saying this:
"I believe it is intentional that it is possible for a level 1 Beastmaster with 3 Constitution to have more HP than a level 30 Barbarian with 25 Constitution"
weapon choice restiction is really flavour as there are awsome clubs and quaterstaves in the game (club of detonation,staff of the ram) and he can use all bows(bg1 there is an easily obtainable club+2 by a shadow druid)
the summons rock early and the disadvantages become less important lategame