Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Ranger Animal Companions have no Proficiency Bonus

Why is it that when you as a Ranger (and perhaps this is true of other classes too) cast the spell Find Familiar you get a cool pet who albeit weak can attack and it gets your 2 points of Proficiency Bonus, BUT when you go Beast Master and summon one of your Animal Companions (beasts that are suppose to be tougher/better than Find Familiar) there is NO Proficiency Bonus and thereby you have a much better chance to hit with your Familiar than you do with your Animal Companion in a sub class that BOASTS the Animal Companion? This is lame, why dont the Ranger Animal Companions have same Proficiency Bonus of the Ranger??

Larian pls respond

Animal companions and familiars are done ALL wrong in BG3.

1. Familiars don't attack. They are an extension of the mage. A mage casts touch spells through the familiar so THEY don't have to get close.
2. Animals have prof bonus.
3. Animals require action/bonus action to command based on beastmaster special abilities.

The list goes on.

In short, they redid the whole system for animals and familiars.

1. Personally I like familiars the way Larian does them. I'd rather they were like 5e P&P where they can use the Help Action to give their master Advantage, but without that Larian does them fine. Though casting Touch Spells through them, as per 5e, would be a welcome addition.
2. Completely agree!
3. Well before recent changes, Rangers were ranked as one of the worst 5e classes. And Beastmasters as their worst subclass. I mean why give up an attack to have an animal attack? The animal usually had a worst attack bonus and damage potential. A really flawed design.

Hmm. I didn't read it that way. Give up an action to issue a command like "Attack goblin 2.". Until goblin 2 dies, animal keeps attacking goblin 2. 1 action. Multiple rounds. As ranger gets better, bonus action is all that's required. Made sense to me. Animals are not easy to boss around in combat.

From the PHB:
Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower ...
Add your proficiency bonus to the beast’s AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills it is proficient in. Its hit point maximum equals the hit point number in its stat block or four times your ranger level, whichever is higher.
It takes its turn on your initiative. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you).
You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, or Help action. If you don't issue a command, the beast takes the Dodge action. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action.

Seems pretty clear to me. They even make the point that once you can attack twice, you can take one attack and the beast can take the other attack. But like I said, WotC changed the Ranger recently. Beasts can attack on the Ranger's Bonus Action now, which is way better. But that was after early access started. There is even an interview, where Larian (I forget who) stated they were working with WotC to make changes to the Ranger. That WotC liked the changes Larian was making. Obviously WotC went a different direction with their upgrades. I actually prefer the new P&P version over Larians, but Larians is a lot better than the PHB version.

I forget the livestream, however the 'rulemaker' for WoTC made the point that Larian is, essentially, a dungeonmaster and if they want to change it, that's the dungeonmaster's perogative. Before that, they also made a point that's far more fundemental; BG3 is a computergame, not tabletop. That means many things that 'work' in tabletop 'don't work' in a computergame.

Sure, but it's equally within our rights as players to say that rule X - 5e RAW or Larian homebrewed - is dumb. Especially in this EA process of BG3 where Larian has specifically asked for feedback. Find Familiar (a level 1 spell) animals having better stats than Beast Master Companions (a level 3 class ability, roughly equivalent to a level 2 spell) devalues the Beast Master subclass, making it much less fun to play and doesn't make sense thematically.

Plus, all of the things discussed in this thread can easily work in a computer game.
- Beast Master Companions getting a proficiency bonus? Easy.
- Find Familiar animals not being allowed to take the attack action? Easy.
- Find Familiar animals channeling touch spells through them? A bit more difficult but still feasible to implement. Click spell -> click familiar -> familiar gains ability to cast that spell once.

What you're/Larian's referring to is more along the lines of spell durations, long rest restrictions, freedom to explore, and dialogue and social checks, not pure combat/creature mechanics.

One thing I loved allowing players to do was cast Dragon's Breath on a familiar. Touch spell. Familiar becomes a fire/lightning/ice/whatever breathing beast. In conjunction with the mage being free to cast other spells, the familiar became a force to be reckoned with.

That would be an amazing and acceptable use of a familiar.

Absolutely, I'm making the point that Larian has said-and been told by the WoTC themselves-they don't need to follow the RAW if they don't want to.

No DM ever has to follow the rules. Whenever you play any game, you don't have to follow the rules.

But the further you go from the rules, the less you are playing the game you said you were playing.

It's just another example of how changing the rules breaks other rules. By making familiars fighting companions, you make beastmaster less special.

I'd rather have them make familiars capable of channeling all spells so mages can stay back and use their familiars as spell launchers than have them be combatants. At least that's unique.

It also really bugs me that you can just conjure up any familiar or beast companion and they're basically treated like just a random minion, when most of the campaigns I've experienced have players treating familiars and animal companions as characters in their own right, tied closely to their owners. I hope that's something they plan to integrate down the line and they're just doing things this way for the sake of getting the subclasses functional.