Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Make Scratch the dog available as a ranger companion!

Please give rangers the option to summon Scratch the dog once they have adopted him! This would greatly improve the feeling of having an actual animal companion you have a personal connection with, rather than just summoning whatever animal fits your situation best.

I strongly agree with the spirit of this. If it were done well, I think it could be brilliant.

The question is, what happens when/if Scratch dies? Does he just come back after being resummoned? That doesn't feel right to me.

Thats a good question. If he just comes back to life when resummoned, it would feel wrong, you're right... but if he dies and stays dead.. that wouldnt feel good either...

edit: maybe he just gets knocked out/runs away every time he hits 0 hit points instead of dying?

Are there no animal companions for the Ranger class? No Smilodon, Loepard etc.?

the beast master currently is able to summon a variety of animal companions, like a bear, wolf, raven etc, if I am not mistaken. But in my opinion this doesn't quite capture the spirit of the ranger-animal-connection - it feels impersonal. Being able to have Scratch the dog as a companion would feel more like you actually have a personal connection with your animal friend.

Rangers, by virtue of their nature bond, actually gain the ability to call back the spirit and life of an animal companion they have bonded with; it's part of the class description. So, if you bonded scratch, you would be able to call him back to life, as long as he remained your bonded companion.

+1

Where did you get this? According to the beastmaster rules, if the animal dies, you need to spend 8 hours to bond with a new one. You don't rez the one that died.

I played this game out via Tabletop D&D sessions, and during one Scratch did get killed. I simply allowed the players to treat him like any other companion. You can use Revivify scrolls or, if nothing else, pay 200 gold and have Withers, the Talkative Skeleton Guardian of Tombs rez him.

That's how they could do it, but I would hope that they would code the game so that enemies don't target Scratch very much so that players don't have to constantly rez him. That would not be fun.

I do hope they allow this, though. It really would be lots of fun to have either Scratch or the owlbear cub as actual animal companions while adventuring - again, though, only if enemies don't target them much.

+1

It's in every version of Revised Ranger, across the various Unearthed Arcana - basically every revision of ranger after the original PHB:

"If your animal companion is ever slain, the magical bond you share allows you to return it to life. With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 25 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food, you call forth your companion’s spirit and use your magic to create a new body for it. You can return an animal companion to life in this manner even if you do not possess any part of its body.

If you use this ability to return a former animal companion to life while you have a current animal companion, your current companion leaves you and is replaced by the restored companion."

Definitely! Scratch!