Druid/Ranger Companion

[necromancingthestone]

I play a Druid here, and I'm a n00b, so maybe I am missing things. But, I'm almost every way a cleric is far superior to a Druid in combat... and should be. I'm not trying to pull druids up to be Gods of combat like clerics or make rangers equivalent to fighters. However, the one thing that druids and rangers get, is an animal companion that helps them fight in order to lessen their combat inferiority.

The issue with animal companions is, their AC Even fully buffed with what a level 13 pure Druid can get them too is HORRID.  They can get in there, get a few licks in, but if they perform the function they were designed for.... Pulling combat heat away from me.... They get slaughtered. As a Druid, I fight shifted, as you really have to to take advantage of what a Druid can do.... But that feeds into companions AC being lower than Britney Spears IQ.... Because I can't cast spells while shifted to heal them.

I don't think much is needed, but they need something, especially an increase to their armor class. Advanced companions should get things like sneak attacks for panther, knockdown/ikd for bear, and etc. It's sad that I can get my bear to survive maybe 1 or 2 encounters and he's gone.

[Nokteronoth]

We specifically haven't looked into this because it would involve editing every single companion's base reference for every single level (They get a new one each level), so it's something like 400+ template edits, not counting any subsequent edits that may be required if they're still undertuned, or worse, overtuned.

Rebalancing these would take tens to dozens of man hours that could be spent on other server coding or systems projects, when the companions aren't really meant to be that much of a boon. CD is built around party play, not solo + summons/companions.

~BR

[shotgunbunny]

Would it be possible to attach a script to newly spawned companions, to apply some buffs based on level? I feel like that would be a far less time consuming task.

[DubiousScroll]

As the person that made the non-vanilla animal companions/familiars we currently have on the server, I just want to add I would not wish having to add more on anyone, not even my greatest enemy.  It was the definition of tedious.

[necromancingthestone]

That's a crazy amount  of work. I totally understand that. I thought it was just one animal companion that had scripts to increase its power based on character level. If it's An entirely new companion each level and their are so many different ones to choose from, i can imagine the work to fix them.

I will say, it's not about soloing. Druids bring companions to the party as force multipliers. They don't have amazing offensive spells, they don't hit very hard or very often. But what they can do is summon in friends to distract foes and help kill them. It just sucks that one of their major summons at my current level (16th level druid) can't ever NOT get hit, and is usually dead within 4-5 rounds tops.

But with the volume of work it would require, I completely agree, not worth it.

[Misty]

May 28, 2022 2:38:16 GMT -5 shotgunbunny said:

Would it be possible to attach a script to newly spawned companions, to apply some buffs based on level? I feel like that would be a far less time consuming task.

Tying a buff to spawn or to a spell(Awaken seems like a great candidate) has been a popular idea to fix the issue, but even balancing that isn't easy and just hasn't been done yet guess.

[necromancingthestone]

It wouldn't take much. If you attached say +1 dodge AC per caster level or some such, my animal companion would have enough AC to keep it alive through at least one battle at a time generally, until I can heal it.

I can expend spell slots and make them viable for everything except Armor class which is the most important bit.