Beast of the Sea: Totally Unusable

[Garfunion]

as per my original post, giant crab.

There are many different species of crab that spend a lot of their life on land, additionally crabs don’t “swim” they walk on the sea floor and not very fast mind you. While the stat block of a crab might say something different, it was only designed that way to simplify it.

If it has legs with bones or exoskeleton it is a land companion.

[Chaosmancer]

Have people considered that both players and characters can do the things that are not the most tactically optimal?

Like has noone here ever had a player that made a choice based entirely off thematics instead of strength? If I wanna play Steve Irwin the Beastmaster, picking Beast of the Land and just saying 'well the crocodile is just a bad swimmer' feels... wrong.

I'm not saying that the Beast of the Sea should be just as good on land as the BotL, but it should still have viability on land, but just not it's full potential. Like... the BotL has in water.

This.

There is no option that is good for an amphibious situation, which is one that makes sense.

Sure "but crocodile's only hold their breath" but there are plenty of creatures that live in the sea that do that same thing, and if they really wanted to write "can hold its breath for three hours" then fine. The only time it wouldn't be useful then is a purely underwater campaign... and those are startlingly rare.

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A giant crab has speed parity, 30/30 at which point it makes a pretty lousy water specialist creature as a lot/most of the time specialist creatures will have their specialst speed be higher than the PC average of 30ft. If you want someting that can act in land and water at the drop of a hat, then just pick and deal with a Giant Crab, the stock BM rules allow for that. It's going to be worse in almost every conceivable way, but it won't have that crippling land speed you appear to be looking for in a water option right?

I'm also curious, is this the only example? If that's the case your expectations are based on an exception whereas the beast blocks seem to be trying to generically represent the average abilities of each environment's creatures.


If there is any chance whatsovever that you will be fighting on land any time soon just don't pick the Beast of the Sea, you don't like that ("just play a Fighter!") but at the same time you're taking a specialist creature out of its specialist environment and complaining about its performance (which coincidentally does not map with the Fighter/Ranger comparison you make).

I think part of the problem isn't that it is a "specialist option" but that it is the only specialist option out of the three.

A beast of the Land is good on land, and decent underwater.
A beast of the Sky is good on land or in the sky
A beast of the Sea is only viable in an underwater campaign, or when you are spending more than one or two moments underwater.

Sure, in an underwater only campaign, it is the only choice worth taking, or if you are doing a full adventuring day underwater it might be worth taking. But beyond that? It is useless in a way the other two aren't outside of their specialties.

[Dork_Forge]

This.

There is no option that is good for an amphibious situation, which is one that makes sense.

Sure "but crocodile's only hold their breath" but there are plenty of creatures that live in the sea that do that same thing, and if they really wanted to write "can hold its breath for three hours" then fine. The only time it wouldn't be useful then is a purely underwater campaign... and those are startlingly rare.

Choosing a creature that is meant to be exclusively good in water and it not being able to breathe underwater is underwhelming.

I think part of the problem isn't that it is a "specialist option" but that it is the only specialist option out of the three.

A beast of the Land is good on land, and decent underwater.
A beast of the Sky is good on land or in the sky
A beast of the Sea is only viable in an underwater campaign, or when you are spending more than one or two moments underwater.

Sure, in an underwater only campaign, it is the only choice worth taking, or if you are doing a full adventuring day underwater it might be worth taking. But beyond that? It is useless in a way the other two aren't outside of their specialties.

-A 20ft speed, normal breath holding rules and disadvantage on attacks is decent?
-A beast of the sky has a 10ft land speed, is a small creature and has the worst attack (no rider effect, smallest die for crits) and the worst HP max by a significant margin. The Beast of the Sky is basically a big Owl, it'll hit and run but that's it and it will go down very quickly when hit
-You're saying this like it's a problem, it's a niche option for aquatic campaigns, that's not a bad thing. The moment a Beast of the Land needs to go underwater for longer than 3 minutes it will start to drown. 3 minutes is a very low bar to surpass in a niche.

Why does the aquatic option have to be decent or anything else outside of water? It's litreally just intended for water use, it's not a bad thing that it isn't good on land when there's two other options that you'll actually use.

The support for aquatic campaigns has been ramping up throughout 5e's life cycle:

-We got waterbreathing and alter self initially

-Then we got Tritons

-Then we got a Warlock invocation that allowed for easier access to Water Breathing

-Then we got Sea Elves

-Now we have the Beast of the Sea

I'm pretty sure I've missed multiple options there but I think it's enough to illustrate my point, there's no downside here to the Beast existing as it is now. You're only ever going to summon it if you're going to need extensive water work.

[Willie the Duck]

Once again, ironic to make this argument when we had to complain for how many years that rangers getting bonuses to tracking and roughing through the wilderness are dead features in campaigns that don't feature tracking and roughing through the wilderness before they fixed that, in this very book. Once again, saying "just use the beast of the land" is the same as saying "just play a fighter", but the question remains, why does the ranger have to be comparatively useless outside of those situations? And they changed a whole pile of ranger features for this, and rangers weren't even so bad at being fighters compared to how useless beast of the sea is when an enemy is merely 15 feet away from the water.

I think you might want to clarify the point you think you are making. This seems like a hodge podge of grievances without an actual argument towards or against something underlying it.

Sure, in an underwater only campaign, it is the only choice worth taking, or if you are doing a full adventuring day underwater it might be worth taking. But beyond that? It is useless in a way the other two aren't outside of their specialties.

I'm going to fall back on, 'yes, and?...' This is the ranger equivalent to rules for boats -- they work when you run into water. Rarely have I needed boat rules, but I also don't find it especially odd to find them in a gaming book. 5e already has both rules for boats and rules for aquatic-only creatures (including in the pre-existing Beastmaster Ranger animal companion options). This option retains that for this new set of ranger rules (and you get to switch it out without your pet dying or similar).

[Chaosmancer]

Choosing a creature that is meant to be exclusively good in water and it not being able to breathe underwater is underwhelming.

And as an option you'll never take unless you need to be traveling underwater for an extended time? Most gamer will never see it.

-A 20ft speed, normal breath holding rules and disadvantage on attacks is decent?

Um, comparatively? Yes.

You average PC has 15 ft of movement, normal breathing and disadvantage under those circumstances, so you are already 5 ft up on most player characters.

And compared to the Sea beast on land, you are doing phenomenal.

-A beast of the sky has a 10ft land speed, is a small creature and has the worst attack (no rider effect, smallest die for crits) and the worst HP max by a significant margin. The Beast of the Sky is basically a big Owl, it'll hit and run but that's it and it will go down very quickly when hit

Land speed doesn't matter, unless you've got 1 ft tall ceilings.

Being a small creature can be an advantage, certainly doesn't harm anything.

It does have the worst attack value, but the rider is moving away without opportunity attacks, which off course plays into exactly what you said, hit and run. Which keeps it safe from a lot of potential enemies.

-You're saying this like it's a problem, it's a niche option for aquatic campaigns, that's not a bad thing. The moment a Beast of the Land needs to go underwater for longer than 3 minutes it will start to drown. 3 minutes is a very low bar to surpass in a niche.

Why does the aquatic option have to be decent or anything else outside of water? It's litreally just intended for water use, it's not a bad thing that it isn't good on land when there's two other options that you'll actually use.

The support for aquatic campaigns has been ramping up throughout 5e's life cycle:

-We got waterbreathing and alter self initially

-Then we got Tritons

-Then we got a Warlock invocation that allowed for easier access to Water Breathing

-Then we got Sea Elves

-Now we have the Beast of the Sea

I'm pretty sure I've missed multiple options there but I think it's enough to illustrate my point, there's no downside here to the Beast existing as it is now. You're only ever going to summon it if you're going to need extensive water work.

Yes, I am saying it like a bad thing. Because we got two general options and one that was hyper niche.

Meaning that in 99% of cases, we got two options. And, it really isn't hard to make this option less bad. Give it a 20 ft movement speed on land. Done. It is slow, and not a great option, but it is at least not entirely useless.

Because remember, most of the time people aren't playing Sea Elves or tritons, and they are already casting Waterbreathing, which can give the land beast the ability to breathe underwater at the same time the rest of the team gets that ability. So, the only time you would use this beast more than on a rare blue moon, is when you are part of an exclusively underwater campaign.



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I'm going to fall back on, 'yes, and?...' This is the ranger equivalent to rules for boats -- they work when you run into water. Rarely have I needed boat rules, but I also don't find it especially odd to find them in a gaming book. 5e already has both rules for boats and rules for aquatic-only creatures (including in the pre-existing Beastmaster Ranger animal companion options). This option retains that for this new set of ranger rules (and you get to switch it out without your pet dying or similar).

See, but that is part of the problem here, the Beast of the Sea doesn't work "when you run into water"

There is an event coming up in a game I am in. We are going to head to a "fathomless lake" to confront a monster and get a magic staff. I am planning on my character creating and stocking up on water breathing potions, because it will be a long swim down.

I also fully expect to find a dry cave where the actual adventure will take place.

And this is one of the only times in my entire time with 5e we will be using the underwater rules. Other times?

A single fight against water spirits in a cave.

A flooded cave that the Cleric emptied with Control Water.

Another fight in a flooded cave against Chuul.


And that's it. And if I took a Beast of the Sea into any of those at the start of the day... well first off all, other than the lake, known of us knew it was coming for the day, so I couldn't even make that decision, but if I did... it would have been for a few minute combat where there was also dry land to utilize.

The only time you would use a Beast of a Sea is an exlcusively underwater campaign, featuring only Sea elves and Tritons.

Pirate Campaign? Nope. Can't get back on the boat, so it will be alone in the water to be attacked by whatever enemies come from the deep

Coastal Campaign? Nope. Too much time on land, won't get a chance to use it.

It just doesn't have a use except for a single, very rare, campaign. That is just far too niche.

[Unoriginal]

Have people considered that both players and characters can do the things that are not the most tactically optimal?

Like has noone here ever had a player that made a choice based entirely off thematics instead of strength?

You mean, not tactically optimal like picking a Beast of the Sea with a 5ft land speed?

[TigerT20]

You mean, not tactically optimal like picking a Beast of the Sea with a 5ft land speed?

The thing is that it's too unoptimal. Players should be allowed to play land-based characters with amphibious/aquatic partners because noone will ever play an Octonauts campaign. Ever. So if they want an aquatic theme, they're going for Florida Man and Professor Octo.

Yes, crocodiles can't breathe underwater forever and octopi have slow land speeds.

But this is a magic crocodile using the power of freindship. Noone's questioning why your eagle buddy is just a big owl or why Gizzard the Lizard, a komodo dragon, has the same statblock as Bjorn With A Horn, a rhino. It's a primal beast with mysterious origins, it's not gonna be your bog-standard hippo/frog/crab/axolotl/baby whale on a skateboard

Noone will ever play an Octonauts campaign.

[Lolzyking]

As a long time Giant crab guy I feel the giant crab is simple superior to the beast of the sea in every facet other than health (DAMN YOU NEW SCALING!)

I also feel the Pteranodon is superior to the beast of sky.

As for the Land beast....eh.... Frog/Spider/Wolf/Badger are competitive choices.

[stoutstien]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a bigger complaint that the new beasts' attack modifiers are based on the rangers spell attack modifier. This works fine for the artificer that is basically SaD but rangers don't have that luxury. They do have the ability to grab druid cantrips as a fighting style but then you have action conflicts.

[Foxhound438]

Choosing a creature that is meant to be exclusively good in water and it not being able to breathe underwater is underwhelming.

You mean, not tactically optimal like picking a Beast of the Sea with a 5ft land speed?

I feel like you're missing the point.

Hypothetically (this is decidedly not a real situation for me right now because of pandemic-y things, but bear with me), I want to play a ranger with something of a sea theme because my DM just picked up a copy of Ghosts of Saltmarsh, which is specifically advertised as a sea campaign book, and the whole group wants to be aquatic themed characters to fit the game. In an ideal world, I would pick beast of the sea and have my crab companion (or walrus, or crocodile, or penguin, or whatever else) and be able to have fun adventures fighting alongside my companion on land (where most of the game is) or at sea. However, because someone at WotC decided that beast of the sea has to be exclusively good in water, to the point of being not usable at all in an effective sense elsewhere, I have to take beast of the land all the time or just be a vanilla ranger with no subclass for most of the game. The question is, why? Why can't there be a beast of the sea that is viable for combats that occur a whole 10 feet away from water? why does picking one specific theme have to cripple a subclass's flagship feature so hard that you have to sacrifice thematic fit for re-skinned numbers that are good?

As a long time Giant crab guy I feel the giant crab is simple superior to the beast of the sea in every facet other than health (DAMN YOU NEW SCALING!

I completely agree with old crab being better, but on top of having worse health for using the old rules, you're also stuck with the garbage action economy mechanics. You don't get to command the beast to attack as a bonus action for the old style beast companions, and not taking the attack action yourself means you can't even take advantage of two weapon fighting or crossbow expert to get something out of that part of your turn. It's just ridiculous that that's still more attractive than the "upgraded" beast of the sea.

[JackPhoenix]

I completely agree with old crab being better, but on top of having worse health for using the old rules, you're also stuck with the garbage action economy mechanics. You don't get to command the beast to attack as a bonus action for the old style beast companions, and not taking the attack action yourself means you can't even take advantage of two weapon fighting or crossbow expert to get something out of that part of your turn. It's just ridiculous that that's still more attractive than the "upgraded" beast of the sea.

No, it's not riddiculous. Both choices being valid in different situations instead of one being straight-up superior is a good design.

[Unoriginal]

[/B] The question is, why? Why can't there be a beast of the sea that is viable for combats that occur a whole 10 feet away from water?

I have a different question: why do you think that Beast of the Sea is not viable for land combat?

I know it's because of the 5ft speed, but WHY does that speed make it not viable, in your mind?

[Lolzyking]

I have a different question: why do you think that Beast of the Sea is not viable for land combat?

I know it's because of the 5ft speed, but WHY does that speed make it not viable, in your mind?

Because most of the time dm's rule that after any movement in water a creature with a 5 foot land move speed does not have the required movement left to disembark the water.

Most people wanting an aquatic theme beast master pet want one that is semi aquatic and don't enjoy changing stat blocks willy nilly.


Personally I'm just sad that this doesn't fix the beast master. the new beasts are weaker in most areas compared to the bog standard cr 1/8 and 1/4th creatures we have access to. One horrendous point is the change to spell attack modifier as their hit chance.....what? Before rangers just added proficiency their pets hit chance.


The only thing beast masters needed was
A) bonus action to make pet attack if you didn't use the attack action this turn.
B) pet gets an ASI when you get a Ranger ASI.
C) all old pets get the new pets health scaling.

[Yakk]

The only thing beast masters needed was
A) bonus action to make pet attack if you didn't use the attack action this turn.
B) pet gets an ASI when you get a Ranger ASI.
C) all old pets get the new pets health scaling.

I don't think a pet ASI is a good option; it adds too much complexity (and plausible mistakes) to the beastmaster for little return.

[Unoriginal]

Because most of the time dm's rule that after any movement in water a creature with a 5 foot land move speed does not have the required movement left to disembark the water.

What if the Beast starts next to the land? Or is already on land? Or can Dash?

[Luccan]

What if the Beast starts next to the land? Or is already on land? Or can Dash?

With a speed that low, it's not unreasonable for a foe to have moved or fallen before your beast actually gets there. And it's also fairly likely it'll take at least another round of Dashing before finally being next to a foe you can hit. 2-3 rounds of nothing but movement and combat might be nearly over by then. That's assuming you start close enough for you beast getting there being remotely reasonable. If you start more than 30ft away from you enemies you'll probably have beaten them by the time your beast has crawled over. It's not even an extra sack of hit points at that point, because it's so irrelevant only mindless enemies will have a reason to attack it.

[Chaosmancer]

With a speed that low, it's not unreasonable for a foe to have moved or fallen before your beast actually gets there. And it's also fairly likely it'll take at least another round of Dashing before finally being next to a foe you can hit. 2-3 rounds of nothing but movement and combat might be nearly over by then. That's assuming you start close enough for you beast getting there being remotely reasonable. If you start more than 30ft away from you enemies you'll probably have beaten them by the time your beast has crawled over. It's not even an extra sack of hit points at that point, because it's so irrelevant only mindless enemies will have a reason to attack it.

This exactly.

I have seen multiple combats where the melee fighters are 40 ft away from the action, requiring them to dash.

The Beast of the Sea needs to dash for 4 turns, assuming the enemy does not move. If the enemy takes a 5 ft step back every turn? 6 turns.


But, there is another aspect people aren't talking about that is even worse. Overland travel.

Let us say you are playing a sea campaign, and come to an island. And everyone says "cool, lets explore this island". Your normal walking speed is 300 ft per minute or 3 miles per hour. This is based (roughly) on the 30 ft per round speed of walking.

A Beast of the Sea has 5. Meaning that if you want to walk the island to find something it not takes you 50 ft a minute, or half a mile per hour.

And if you decide to carry your medium sized beast? Your movement is cut in half, which still slows the party down to half their normal travel speed.

All to keep a beast who can't even fight effectively with the party.

[Dork_Forge]

This exactly.

I have seen multiple combats where the melee fighters are 40 ft away from the action, requiring them to dash.

The Beast of the Sea needs to dash for 4 turns, assuming the enemy does not move. If the enemy takes a 5 ft step back every turn? 6 turns.


But, there is another aspect people aren't talking about that is even worse. Overland travel.

Let us say you are playing a sea campaign, and come to an island. And everyone says "cool, lets explore this island". Your normal walking speed is 300 ft per minute or 3 miles per hour. This is based (roughly) on the 30 ft per round speed of walking.

A Beast of the Sea has 5. Meaning that if you want to walk the island to find something it not takes you 50 ft a minute, or half a mile per hour.

And if you decide to carry your medium sized beast? Your movement is cut in half, which still slows the party down to half their normal travel speed.

All to keep a beast who can't even fight effectively with the party.

Except that movement speed doesn't matter outside of combat, the movement section (PHB pg 181) doesn't discriminate how fast you move based on your in combat speed, if it did then you'd have Wood Elves moving faster or everyone slowing down for the Halflings, Gnomes and Dwarves.

[Chaosmancer]

Except that movement speed doesn't matter outside of combat, the movement section (PHB pg 181) doesn't discriminate how fast you move based on your in combat speed, if it did then you'd have Wood Elves moving faster or everyone slowing down for the Halflings, Gnomes and Dwarves.

By this logic then getting horses doesn't make overland travel faster, because there is nothing that gives you a per mile change for riding horses. Except we know horses are faster and we adjust based on the numbers which are rather explicit (300 ft per minute is literally the average of combat speed)

[JackPhoenix]

By this logic then getting horses doesn't make overland travel faster, because there is nothing that gives you a per mile change for riding horses. Except we know horses are faster and we adjust based on the numbers which are rather explicit (300 ft per minute is literally the average of combat speed)

Indeed. Horses are explicitly mentioned as being faster over short distances, but they don't increase speed for overland travel otherwise.

[Unoriginal]

Indeed. Horses are explicitly mentioned as being faster over short distances, but they don't increase speed for overland travel otherwise.

IIRC they do affect something about the exhaustion one can get from the overland travel, which indirectly can makes the trip shorter than if you have to worry about not pushing the PCs past their limits.

Or I could be misremembering.

[Valmark]

I mean... Of course it's going to be hard to use on land when it's a beast of the sea instead of the land. It's like saying that the beast of the land is terrible 'cause it can't breath underwater when it needs to.

That said, it's not unusable. Try using a shark on land, you can tell me how it went later. It has, besides hp, worst stats then other amphibious options (not by much) if I saw correctly but better mobility underwater (sacrificing land speed), substantially more hp, better action economy and better saves/skills.

I haven't compared it to strictly-acquatic options but I'd expect the Beast of the Sea to have the same rough comparison with the caveat that it can actually work on land in exchange for not being more manueverable in water.

Everybody will have their opinion, but imo I'd take the Beast of the Sea for acquatic campaigns- if you want to use it extensively on land sure, but you can't then blame the feature if you are using it for something it's not made for when you have a whole other version to use for it. Two if we consider Air.

This ignoring the fact that you can just switch it on a long rest.

If you never were in a situation where a mainly water-based companion would have been useful... That's just you. Picking the water option and saying that it sucks on land is kinda pointless.

IIRC they do affect something about the exhaustion one can get from the overland travel, which indirectly can makes the trip shorter than if you have to worry about not pushing the PCs past their limits.

Or I could be misremembering.

Water vehicles ignore penalties from Fast Pace and bonuses from Slow Pace, while horses just let you cover double the distance for an hour. More if you can get fresh horses every... 8 to 10 miles I think it says?

Neither of those deal with exhaustion BUT it does say that depending on current and wind the ships can keep traveling 24/24.

I don't know enough about traveling by boat or on horse to know if all this makes sense, but regarding overland travel having horses doesn't do that much unless you keep changing them. And as JackPhoenix said the rules don't really care about the exact speed the characters in the group have.

[Dork_Forge]

By this logic then getting horses doesn't make overland travel faster, because there is nothing that gives you a per mile change for riding horses. Except we know horses are faster and we adjust based on the numbers which are rather explicit (300 ft per minute is literally the average of combat speed)

It's not logic, it's game rules they don't have to align with one another. Combat speed is an abstraction of short bursts when one's life is under threat (paraphrasing), so using speeds for overland travel isn't appropriate either way you slice it.

Movement speed has no bearing on out of combat travel like you described, if oyu don't like it then you can change it, but at the same time if you don't like the beast of the sea's speed then you can change it too.

[AdAstra]

By this logic then getting horses doesn't make overland travel faster, because there is nothing that gives you a per mile change for riding horses. Except we know horses are faster and we adjust based on the numbers which are rather explicit (300 ft per minute is literally the average of combat speed)

Honestly, that kinda tracks. When a horse is loaded down with people and stuff on it, its practical speed over a long time tends to plummet. Traveling much faster than people can while mounted will exhaust a horse quite quickly. They'll still be faster, but DnD's assumptions for how far people can travel in a day are pretty optimistic to begin with (30 miles in a day is basically a forced march), and the difference in speed is not massive.

The Mongols could do much better, but that was due to a variety of specific factors (the Mongols tend to subvert a lot of typical stuff). They achieved something like 80 miles a day because their horses were bred for endurance and hardiness over speed and size. They also had multiple horses per rider, as many as half a dozen, which allowed the rider to transfer between horses to avoid exhausting them too badly. Mongolian horses also tolerated going without feed so long as they could graze, which reduced how much they needed to carry. And even then, terrain can slow that down significantly.

[Quietus]

That's my understanding, as well. Having a (one) horse, with absolutely minimal kit, will increase your pace over a long distance. However, as soon as you start getting them to carry all kinds of equipment (see : 50 lbs of armor, etc) on top of carrying you, and relying on one single horse to do all the work? They're really not going to increase your pace, they just make it possible to carry all of that stuff.

[Chaosmancer]

Well, this is literally the first time I've ever heard that the party buying horses to ride make zero difference in their travel speed. I would fully expect that spending that much money there would be some difference in your ability to travel, but I suppose it is purely aesthetic and a waste of money.

[Valmark]

Well, this is literally the first time I've ever heard that the party buying horses to ride make zero difference in their travel speed. I would fully expect that spending that much money there would be some difference in your ability to travel, but I suppose it is purely aesthetic and a waste of money.

And being able to carry more loot.

[TigerT20]

Well, this is literally the first time I've ever heard that the party buying horses to ride make zero difference in their travel speed. I would fully expect that spending that much money there would be some difference in your ability to travel, but I suppose it is purely aesthetic and a waste of money.

Well, you can use them in combat, among other things. So not useless, just not as useful as may have been originally thought.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well, this is literally the first time I've ever heard that the party buying horses to ride make zero difference in their travel speed. I would fully expect that spending that much money there would be some difference in your ability to travel, but I suppose it is purely aesthetic and a waste of money.

It's a well known fact that humans are better long-distance runners than almost any other animal. In part because we can eat on the move (which they cannot).

Instead, horses allow
* more comfortable travel--the horse is doing the work.
* higher capacity, especially when the horse is pulling something.
* faster in bursts. This can translate to faster overall coverage if you can change out horses every few miles (CF ancient post stations, up to the Pony Express).
* the ability to do mounted combat (which ties into the higher capacity and faster in bursts pieces).

For adventurers, horses mainly are useful for the higher capacity. And it's probably best to get a few mules to carry stuff.

[Ettina]

Why are so many DMs putting random air-filled caves underwater? That seems like an odd feature for an underwater cave.