Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Imbalance of Ranger Beast companions

I've been playing a Drow ranger and chose beastmaster at level 3. After summoning each of the beast companions available, the giant spider is by far the most powerful by a significant margin. It has the most health, the most damage potential, a solid AC, a chance to poison, the second-best mobility behind the raven, and the most utility being able to enweb an area of enemies. Maybe the other pets catch up in power as you gain levels but at least the start there is no contest. It would make sense for the bear to have the most health, the spider to have the best utility with enweb and poison, the wolf to have the most damage, the raven to be the most mobile and have the highest AC (due to low hp, small size, high dex etc) and able to blind and the boar to have the 2nd best AC (behind the raven) with its thick bristles of hair and tough hide to allow it to charge in, run out and charge in again while hopefully causing attacks of opportunity to miss with its good AC.

I agree that they seem imbalanced between each other. Would be good if they scaled similar to beast master in PHB, where their HP, AC, attack bonus, and damage would scale based on your level, in order to promote companion choice being about playstyle as well as higher level viability.

In pnp dnd the beastmaster is kinda useless. So him beeing at least decent is a nice plus.

Better balance between the pets sounds like an issue of tweaking the perks between each pet. Some simply have more upsides like the spider but I feel that could be easily remedied.

Ranger pets are kind of weak though compared to what the warlock can get. The imp can go invisible at will and can fly everywhere.

The BM ranger is about the weakest class in pnp 5th ed dnd. Making it more powerfull shouldnt be frowned upon.

In pnp the ranger has to give up an attack action to even let the pet contribute in combat for example. The pet scales poorly with the player as well.

What could Larian do to buff the class without straying to far from the phb? What buffs do you guys reckon they should give the pets?