Arelith

There's a huge discrepancy with which animal companions are useful and which are... not. Obviously a full rework would be a massive endeavor, but I think a few minor tweaks could go a long way towards leveling the playing field.

Actually, just one tweak: Give Weapon Finesse to the badger, wolf, dire wolf and giant spider companions. These three all end up with higher dex than strength (seriously, the badger has 8 str and 17 dex) but no weapon finesse, so the animal companion buff from ranger/druid levels gives them str & AC instead of dex & damage, which would just make more sense.

Is this a blatant suggestion? Yes. I suppose it could also be a discussion about other potential quick fixes for underwhelming animal companions.

other potential quick fixes for underwhelming animal companions.

Give them all Bear stats and let the choice be flavor instead of mechanical?

Actually, for that matter I'd like to see rangers and druids have the choice of most if not all possible animals in the game. Similar to taking a totem but just talking to an NPC and choosing from a list of animals to re-skin your companion.

Wuthering wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 10:21 pm

other potential quick fixes for underwhelming animal companions.

Give them all Bear stats and let the choice be flavor instead of mechanical?

Actually, for that matter I'd like to see rangers and druids have the choice of most if not all possible animals in the game. Similar to taking a totem but just talking to an NPC and choosing from a list of animals to re-skin your companion.

Yeah, this'd be the way to go about it. The only two viable animal companions are really the Bear and the Panther - none of the others can really deal enough damage to be worth using, and that's all animal companions are good as: big ol' glass cannons.