Sherlockpwns
2022-04-28, 12:33 AM
I’ve been kicking around the concept since Tasha’s of a character built around bird companions. I have a few pieces of the puzzle I keep flip flopping on.
The concept is simple: Ranger beastmaster with the sky beast and then summon beast. This allows for 2 summon attacks plus your own attack action (after turn 1).
The two unknown components are the race (yes aaracokra is the obvious choice but level 1 flight races are banned at my table) and the multiclass vs not argument.
The straight forward pure ranger comes online first at level 3 and then fully at level 5. The sky companion becomes the workhorse… bird…and eventually the summon just kinda sucks due to the slow scaling and lack of magical damage. Still should be viable for a while.
The alternative is Ranger 3, druid 3, Probably Druid from here on out, but could also go back to ranger for a bit. In this build it is the summoned bird doing the lifting… flying. This comes online a level later. Could also do Ranger 7 and Druid X, eventually getting the Druid 6 ability at level 13; but at that point is is probably far smarter to just be a ranger and give your sky beast 2 attacks.
“But what about the sky beast terrible hp with just 3 levels in ranger?!” you ask. Well, in theory flyby will keep it safe in most situations. Otherwise it dies in one hit and you bring it back later. Better him than you as they say. The same for the summon, which is what makes this kind of interesting to me. They all have “meh” ac, but what a distraction they’ll make! Two birds swoop in, claw someone, and swoop off in opposite directions while you blast away with a bow or spells or whatnot from a safe distance.
If I can work it in I’d also throw on a bird familiar too, because why not… and I hope to have low charisma being covered in bird feces all the time.
Anyway in general the only leaning I have right now is that Druid taking the first turn to summon hurts less (e.g if you upcast to 4 or 6) than giving up 2 ranger attacks and the Druid is less MAD, but I can certainly be convinced.
So: pure ranger or ranger druid hybrid. Who is the better BIRDMAN? And what race?! And why does my phone capitalize BIRDMAN?! Not that I mind, it’s given the whole post a dramatic flair.
The concept is simple: Ranger beastmaster with the sky beast and then summon beast. This allows for 2 summon attacks plus your own attack action (after turn 1).
The two unknown components are the race (yes aaracokra is the obvious choice but level 1 flight races are banned at my table) and the multiclass vs not argument.
The straight forward pure ranger comes online first at level 3 and then fully at level 5. The sky companion becomes the workhorse… bird…and eventually the summon just kinda sucks due to the slow scaling and lack of magical damage. Still should be viable for a while.
The alternative is Ranger 3, druid 3, Probably Druid from here on out, but could also go back to ranger for a bit. In this build it is the summoned bird doing the lifting… flying. This comes online a level later. Could also do Ranger 7 and Druid X, eventually getting the Druid 6 ability at level 13; but at that point is is probably far smarter to just be a ranger and give your sky beast 2 attacks.
“But what about the sky beast terrible hp with just 3 levels in ranger?!” you ask. Well, in theory flyby will keep it safe in most situations. Otherwise it dies in one hit and you bring it back later. Better him than you as they say. The same for the summon, which is what makes this kind of interesting to me. They all have “meh” ac, but what a distraction they’ll make! Two birds swoop in, claw someone, and swoop off in opposite directions while you blast away with a bow or spells or whatnot from a safe distance.
If I can work it in I’d also throw on a bird familiar too, because why not… and I hope to have low charisma being covered in bird feces all the time.
Anyway in general the only leaning I have right now is that Druid taking the first turn to summon hurts less (e.g if you upcast to 4 or 6) than giving up 2 ranger attacks and the Druid is less MAD, but I can certainly be convinced.
So: pure ranger or ranger druid hybrid. Who is the better BIRDMAN? And what race?! And why does my phone capitalize BIRDMAN?! Not that I mind, it’s given the whole post a dramatic flair.