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About this mod
This mod expands the Beast Master's Companion Range. As soon as you unlock Beast Master, you gain access to an Owlbear Cub that eventually grows up into a full Owlbear. Additionally, at Level 7, you unlock a summonable Dilophosaurus, Gremishka, Displacer Beast, and Panther who all change and gain new abilities as Rangers Level Up.
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
Ranger Beast Master - Extra Companions
Version: 0.98
I love playing as a "Beast Master" in pretty much any game. The idea of having that awesome extra animal buddy is great, but I was left feeling a bit disappointed in only having common animals as companion. This is a game franchise and world about exotic animals and monsters, but my fantasy is to be best buds with a Raven or Bear. The most exotic companion is a Giant Spider, and even then, it's not even the cool Phase Spider variant.
Don't get me wrong, being best buds with a Bear would be amazing, but in a world where there are monsters of all crazy types, I wanted to reflect a more exotic set of beast master companions. My personal fantasy it to run around with a dinosaur, and I was extremely jealous the Druids get to live out that fantasy, but not the "Beast Master". So if I was going to spend another 70+ hours playing the game, I'd see if I could mod in some more cool companions to play with.
I hope you guys download and enjoy them as well.
!!COMPATIBILITY NOTICE!!
It sounds like there are some issues with compatibility with other mods.
I personally designed this mod to work for Vanilla BG3, and am only running "Summons and Wildshapes don't make NPCs flee" mod and this mod. If you are having troubles with this mod, and really want to use it, I'd suggest remove the other mods, and slowly start adding them back in until something breaks.
For the more popular mods, if I find sometime, I'll look into creating more compatible versions/variants of this mod that will hopefully fix some issues people have been running into. For example, the Mod that keeps coming up a lot and seems to be popular is "Untamed", however it seems at this time, this mod is incompatible with that mod.
Version 0.98 Changes
There was a bug where Level 7 Players couldn't summon the Displacer Beast. This should be fixed now.
Created handmade Icons for each new Companion.
Split the data sets for the new companions away from their non-companion counterparts. This is a shot in the dark to try to stave off bugs and incompatibility issues.
Optional Files
I've added 3 Optional Files. 2 of these modify the gameplay of this mod, while one of them is a shot in the dark to fix some players not having the Owlbear companion.
Stay as Owlbear Cub
Use this if you don't want your Owlbear Cub to ever grow up. It should stay in it's Cub form throughout. However, it will still have its stats as if it was an adult. So now it's a tiny murder machine, but adorable.
Beasts Only
For those who don't want the more exotic/monsterous companions, this mod removes the Displacer Beast and the Gremishka from your summonable companions.
Owlbear Summon Fix
This is an attempt to fix some users having issues with summoning the Owlbear. DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS UNTIL AFTER LEARNING IT ISN"T WORKING.
New Companions (with handmade Icons!)
Owlbear
Unlocked at Level 3 (with Beast Master)
The Owlbear begin as a cub. Not as tanky as the bear, nor as damaging as the wolf, it instead has a Leap attack that can knock enemies prone.
At Level 5, it gains "Howl" letting it go into a Rage for 2 turns. The Cub finally becomes fully grown at Level 7, the cub's "Howl" replaced with "Enrage" lasting for 3 turns and causing Fear to anyone nearby. At Level 9, the Owlbear, once per short rest, can Rupture the environment, dealing bludgeoning damage to all around it. Finally, at Level 11, the Owlbear gets encased in Armor, making it more difficult to damage. It gains "Greater Enrage", causing Silence and Fear. While Enraged, it can perform a Bonus Action called "Enraged Shove" to push enemies around.
Dilophosaurus
Unlocked at Level 7
The Dilophosaurus starts with it's "Corrosive Spit" ability that can be used once per short rest to deal heavy acid damage to an enemy and reduce their AC. At Level 9, it gains "Acid Spit", an 18" Acid Projectile bonus action. At Level 11, she gains "Acid Pounce" a variant of her "Pounce" ability that not only knocks down enemies, but gives everyone in the area Corrosive and spawns a pool of Acid under her feet. The Dilophosaurus is fast and hits hard, but it's low Health and lower AC should prevent it from becoming too powerful.
Panther
Unlocked at Level 7
Starting as an agile, fast hitter, the Panther is able to use "Prowl" to go invisible and sneak around. Once per short rest, it can use a sneak attack called "Cunning Claws" to do extra damage. At Level 11, it unlocks Misty Step as a Bonus Action to get in and out of combat situations.
Displacer Beast
Unlocked at Level 7
The Displacer Beast uses its Illusions to aid it and it's companions in fighting her enemies. She can make Illusory Copies of herself that attack on their own and can pull her enemies through space to isolate her prey. At Level 9, she gains "Mirror Image" she can perform oncer per short short rest. At Level 11, the displacer beast is fully unleashed, able to use "Displacement" and "Illusory Copy" every turn. Additionally, she can now cast "Mass Blur" on herself and any ally within 3 meters.
Electric Gremishka
Unlocked at Level 7
While normally Gremishka are fast moving cat-like creatures who resist all magic and even can explode when magic is cast near them, the Electric Gremishka goes a different route.
(While I might have been able to get the idea of a fast moving, but low health, mage annoyer to work, and it does sound cool, I decided to go a different route with this beast that I also thought sounded cool.)
Due to it's "Insulated Skin", when it Dashes, Jump, and/or Bites, it stores Lightning Charges in its body. Like normal with Lightning Charges, this increases the damage the Gremishka can do, and when they "Discharge Lightning" after attacking with 5 Lightning Charges, it'll do even more damage. However, starting at Level 9, it gains "Shocking Claws", letting it expend some Lightning Charges to deal extra Lightning Damage instead. At Level 11, the Gremishka can perform "Lightning Breath" attack, hitting everything in a small line in front of it with Lightning. This creature can't survive many hits, but it can deal a lot of damage if left alive long enough to charge up it's attacks.
FAQ (Probably)
How to Install
Drop the .pak inside your mod folder, and make sure its added to your Mod Manager and you should be good to go.
Make sure you have downloaded the ModFixer for BG3, otherwise you will get weird behavior where no one will talk to you.
If there are other mods that modify the Summon Ability, or change monster properties, try placing this mod after them. That should hopefully let these continue to work with each other. If this doesn't work, try the optional files and see if that helps.
Compatibility (Potential) Issues?
See above, but TL:DR... Mod was made with/for Vanilla BG3. If having troubles with other mods, consider removing them for now until/if a fix comes out for this mod to work with other mods.
Why Version 0.9?
Wasn't sure how much more I was going to do to this, but as of publishing, my highest level character is level 6. While I tested out the unlocking feature (by having the new companions unlock at Level 5 instead of 7) I have yet to go through the game and fully confirm everything works as intended. It SHOULD... I hope. Version 0.9 also is there to represent that I'd like to go back in and update all of the Summon Icons to look more in line with the other Companions, as currently they are borrowed from either the Druid or Familiar summons.
And then of course... as mentioned above, I haven't really been able to test out the balance of these new Companions as I have yet to really use them. I was able to confirm each one spawns in (including all their variants), they don't crash, can fight, abilities unlock and trigger appropriately etc. But again, I haven't confirmed all of this works in a full playthrough.
So if you download this and use it, and something seemingly isn't triggering properly, please let me know. And as I playthrough my own game, I will also be keeping an eye out for bugs and balance issues.
Why these Companions?
I took a look through the Characters.txt looking for creatures that felt reasonable to add to the Beast Master subclass. I mostly avoided Demons, Elementals, Undead, and other non "Beast" style creatures (though technically Gremishka is a monster type), to stay true to the core concepts of the Beast Master. I also wanted to make sure each of the Companions had a very unique gameplay style and fit into a different role than the companions already in the game.
I also of course took a look through the Druid's wildshapes, and overall was fairly jealous that they unlocked new forms and more exotic forms as they leveled up, so I wanted to bring some of those things in.
No Displacer Beast?
There is one now! Enjoy! It unlocks at Beast Master Level 7.
How Balanced are these?
No idea. I did my best glancing at the stats of the other Companions and try to balance around that. But there are so many new companions, abilities, etc that I'm sure I missed the mark in some ways. The goal here was NOT to make the original companions obsolete, for example, the Owlbear should not deal more damage and be a better tank than the wolf or bear (respectively). It should hopefully have it's own use cases.
When they get to Level 11, I really wanted to play up their unique aspects and hopefully they all become just slightly broken in terms of being overpowered. Running a Level 11 Owlbear, Enraged, and performing "Enraged Shove" and smacking and knocking back enemies is just really entertaining. Even there these abilities are often either on Short Rest, have a limited time usage (like while Enraged), or require other resources to use (like Gremishka's Lightning Charges). Hopefully that lets you do something big and cool, but not be absolutely broken.
Am I looking for any feedback?
Yes! Bugs and balance concerns. I can't promise I'll get to them all, but I'll try to improve this mod overtime, at least to make sure everything works properly.
I wouldn't mind hearing about hopes/dreams for new/different companions, but that takes even longer to do, so I don't expect too many new ones (if any honestly).
Anything I wanted to do but didn't/couldn't?
I mentioned above, but I'd like to go back and redo the Icons to look more in line with the official set so they don't clash so much.
I considered splitting up the companions so people could download them individually and pick and choose which ones they want. I wasn't sure how easy/possible that would be (with the way I did the mod especially), and felt like if you only want the Owlbear, you can just choose to never summon the others.
The other big thing I wanted to do, but decided not to invest the time, was have the unlock process of the new Companions happen due to in game events. For example, you'd only have access to the Owlbear companion if the Owlbear Cub joined your camp. (Btw, no spoilers on if the Owlbear ever becomes playable/usable later in the narrative. I'm still in Act 1). Or finding a Dinosaur egg (or completing Chult questline) would unlock the Dilophosaurus for example. I ultimately decided to simplify and keep it tied to your Level Progression like many other in-game abilities.
Is the design of the Electric Gremishka basically a certain famous electric mouse monster?
Shhhhhhh....
Version: 0.98
I love playing as a "Beast Master" in pretty much any game. The idea of having that awesome extra animal buddy is great, but I was left feeling a bit disappointed in only having common animals as companion. This is a game franchise and world about exotic animals and monsters, but my fantasy is to be best buds with a Raven or Bear. The most exotic companion is a Giant Spider, and even then, it's not even the cool Phase Spider variant.
Don't get me wrong, being best buds with a Bear would be amazing, but in a world where there are monsters of all crazy types, I wanted to reflect a more exotic set of beast master companions. My personal fantasy it to run around with a dinosaur, and I was extremely jealous the Druids get to live out that fantasy, but not the "Beast Master". So if I was going to spend another 70+ hours playing the game, I'd see if I could mod in some more cool companions to play with.
I hope you guys download and enjoy them as well.
!!COMPATIBILITY NOTICE!!
It sounds like there are some issues with compatibility with other mods.
I personally designed this mod to work for Vanilla BG3, and am only running "Summons and Wildshapes don't make NPCs flee" mod and this mod. If you are having troubles with this mod, and really want to use it, I'd suggest remove the other mods, and slowly start adding them back in until something breaks.
For the more popular mods, if I find sometime, I'll look into creating more compatible versions/variants of this mod that will hopefully fix some issues people have been running into. For example, the Mod that keeps coming up a lot and seems to be popular is "Untamed", however it seems at this time, this mod is incompatible with that mod.
Version 0.98 Changes
There was a bug where Level 7 Players couldn't summon the Displacer Beast. This should be fixed now.
Created handmade Icons for each new Companion.
Split the data sets for the new companions away from their non-companion counterparts. This is a shot in the dark to try to stave off bugs and incompatibility issues.
Optional Files
I've added 3 Optional Files. 2 of these modify the gameplay of this mod, while one of them is a shot in the dark to fix some players not having the Owlbear companion.
Stay as Owlbear Cub
Use this if you don't want your Owlbear Cub to ever grow up. It should stay in it's Cub form throughout. However, it will still have its stats as if it was an adult. So now it's a tiny murder machine, but adorable.
Beasts Only
For those who don't want the more exotic/monsterous companions, this mod removes the Displacer Beast and the Gremishka from your summonable companions.
Owlbear Summon Fix
This is an attempt to fix some users having issues with summoning the Owlbear. DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS UNTIL AFTER LEARNING IT ISN"T WORKING.
New Companions (with handmade Icons!)
Owlbear
Unlocked at Level 3 (with Beast Master)
The Owlbear begin as a cub. Not as tanky as the bear, nor as damaging as the wolf, it instead has a Leap attack that can knock enemies prone.
At Level 5, it gains "Howl" letting it go into a Rage for 2 turns. The Cub finally becomes fully grown at Level 7, the cub's "Howl" replaced with "Enrage" lasting for 3 turns and causing Fear to anyone nearby. At Level 9, the Owlbear, once per short rest, can Rupture the environment, dealing bludgeoning damage to all around it. Finally, at Level 11, the Owlbear gets encased in Armor, making it more difficult to damage. It gains "Greater Enrage", causing Silence and Fear. While Enraged, it can perform a Bonus Action called "Enraged Shove" to push enemies around.
Dilophosaurus
Unlocked at Level 7
The Dilophosaurus starts with it's "Corrosive Spit" ability that can be used once per short rest to deal heavy acid damage to an enemy and reduce their AC. At Level 9, it gains "Acid Spit", an 18" Acid Projectile bonus action. At Level 11, she gains "Acid Pounce" a variant of her "Pounce" ability that not only knocks down enemies, but gives everyone in the area Corrosive and spawns a pool of Acid under her feet. The Dilophosaurus is fast and hits hard, but it's low Health and lower AC should prevent it from becoming too powerful.
Panther
Unlocked at Level 7
Starting as an agile, fast hitter, the Panther is able to use "Prowl" to go invisible and sneak around. Once per short rest, it can use a sneak attack called "Cunning Claws" to do extra damage. At Level 11, it unlocks Misty Step as a Bonus Action to get in and out of combat situations.
Displacer Beast
Unlocked at Level 7
The Displacer Beast uses its Illusions to aid it and it's companions in fighting her enemies. She can make Illusory Copies of herself that attack on their own and can pull her enemies through space to isolate her prey. At Level 9, she gains "Mirror Image" she can perform oncer per short short rest. At Level 11, the displacer beast is fully unleashed, able to use "Displacement" and "Illusory Copy" every turn. Additionally, she can now cast "Mass Blur" on herself and any ally within 3 meters.
Electric Gremishka
Unlocked at Level 7
While normally Gremishka are fast moving cat-like creatures who resist all magic and even can explode when magic is cast near them, the Electric Gremishka goes a different route.
(While I might have been able to get the idea of a fast moving, but low health, mage annoyer to work, and it does sound cool, I decided to go a different route with this beast that I also thought sounded cool.)
Due to it's "Insulated Skin", when it Dashes, Jump, and/or Bites, it stores Lightning Charges in its body. Like normal with Lightning Charges, this increases the damage the Gremishka can do, and when they "Discharge Lightning" after attacking with 5 Lightning Charges, it'll do even more damage. However, starting at Level 9, it gains "Shocking Claws", letting it expend some Lightning Charges to deal extra Lightning Damage instead. At Level 11, the Gremishka can perform "Lightning Breath" attack, hitting everything in a small line in front of it with Lightning. This creature can't survive many hits, but it can deal a lot of damage if left alive long enough to charge up it's attacks.
FAQ (Probably)
How to Install
Drop the .pak inside your mod folder, and make sure its added to your Mod Manager and you should be good to go.
Make sure you have downloaded the ModFixer for BG3, otherwise you will get weird behavior where no one will talk to you.
If there are other mods that modify the Summon Ability, or change monster properties, try placing this mod after them. That should hopefully let these continue to work with each other. If this doesn't work, try the optional files and see if that helps.
Compatibility (Potential) Issues?
See above, but TL:DR... Mod was made with/for Vanilla BG3. If having troubles with other mods, consider removing them for now until/if a fix comes out for this mod to work with other mods.
Why Version 0.9?
Wasn't sure how much more I was going to do to this, but as of publishing, my highest level character is level 6. While I tested out the unlocking feature (by having the new companions unlock at Level 5 instead of 7) I have yet to go through the game and fully confirm everything works as intended. It SHOULD... I hope. Version 0.9 also is there to represent that I'd like to go back in and update all of the Summon Icons to look more in line with the other Companions, as currently they are borrowed from either the Druid or Familiar summons.
And then of course... as mentioned above, I haven't really been able to test out the balance of these new Companions as I have yet to really use them. I was able to confirm each one spawns in (including all their variants), they don't crash, can fight, abilities unlock and trigger appropriately etc. But again, I haven't confirmed all of this works in a full playthrough.
So if you download this and use it, and something seemingly isn't triggering properly, please let me know. And as I playthrough my own game, I will also be keeping an eye out for bugs and balance issues.
Why these Companions?
I took a look through the Characters.txt looking for creatures that felt reasonable to add to the Beast Master subclass. I mostly avoided Demons, Elementals, Undead, and other non "Beast" style creatures (though technically Gremishka is a monster type), to stay true to the core concepts of the Beast Master. I also wanted to make sure each of the Companions had a very unique gameplay style and fit into a different role than the companions already in the game.
I also of course took a look through the Druid's wildshapes, and overall was fairly jealous that they unlocked new forms and more exotic forms as they leveled up, so I wanted to bring some of those things in.
No Displacer Beast?
There is one now! Enjoy! It unlocks at Beast Master Level 7.
How Balanced are these?
No idea. I did my best glancing at the stats of the other Companions and try to balance around that. But there are so many new companions, abilities, etc that I'm sure I missed the mark in some ways. The goal here was NOT to make the original companions obsolete, for example, the Owlbear should not deal more damage and be a better tank than the wolf or bear (respectively). It should hopefully have it's own use cases.
When they get to Level 11, I really wanted to play up their unique aspects and hopefully they all become just slightly broken in terms of being overpowered. Running a Level 11 Owlbear, Enraged, and performing "Enraged Shove" and smacking and knocking back enemies is just really entertaining. Even there these abilities are often either on Short Rest, have a limited time usage (like while Enraged), or require other resources to use (like Gremishka's Lightning Charges). Hopefully that lets you do something big and cool, but not be absolutely broken.
Am I looking for any feedback?
Yes! Bugs and balance concerns. I can't promise I'll get to them all, but I'll try to improve this mod overtime, at least to make sure everything works properly.
I wouldn't mind hearing about hopes/dreams for new/different companions, but that takes even longer to do, so I don't expect too many new ones (if any honestly).
Anything I wanted to do but didn't/couldn't?
I mentioned above, but I'd like to go back and redo the Icons to look more in line with the official set so they don't clash so much.
I considered splitting up the companions so people could download them individually and pick and choose which ones they want. I wasn't sure how easy/possible that would be (with the way I did the mod especially), and felt like if you only want the Owlbear, you can just choose to never summon the others.
The other big thing I wanted to do, but decided not to invest the time, was have the unlock process of the new Companions happen due to in game events. For example, you'd only have access to the Owlbear companion if the Owlbear Cub joined your camp. (Btw, no spoilers on if the Owlbear ever becomes playable/usable later in the narrative. I'm still in Act 1). Or finding a Dinosaur egg (or completing Chult questline) would unlock the Dilophosaurus for example. I ultimately decided to simplify and keep it tied to your Level Progression like many other in-game abilities.
Is the design of the Electric Gremishka basically a certain famous electric mouse monster?
Shhhhhhh....