Talk:Wildwalker (5e Class)

Major Changes Explanations

I've made some major changes to this class to hopefully address some issues.

Class:

Name: The name has been changed to somewhat remove this class from the idea of being a ranger. The archetypes allow you to be either a summoner or fight up close like a beast yourself. For that very reason, I will be making comparisons between this class and the ranger so that way it can be seen how different they are.

Hit Points: Wildwalkers roll d6s. They are very frail compared to other classes and are meant to be easily defeated if they are ever caught alone. Not including their Constitution modifer, a wildwalker on average would only have about 82 health at level 20 where as a ranger would have 124.

Weapons: Wildwalkers have a very small pool of weapons (same as a druid).

Armor: Wildwalkers can only use light armor and hide armor (a medium armor with the same defense as studded leather light armor). This adds to the wildwalker's frailty.

Skills: They get animal handling and one other from the list.

Spellcasting: Ritual Casting has been removed. Conjure Animals has been removed from the spell list and is now only added if choosing the "Path of the Shaman" subclass.

Level 1:

Wild Empathy: This skill has been completely changed. Now it merely gives you expertise for animal handling checks.

Bonded Souls: Now given at level 1 but otherwise unchanged

Companion: Can only move and attack during the wildwalker's turn. See Companion section below

Level 2:

Guard Dog: The area of effect has been lowered from 30 ft to 10 ft and the bonus has been lowered from a max of +3 to a max of +2. The wildwalker now must be much closer to the fray in order to gain this bonus which opens them up to more damage. The UA companion has proficiency in all saving throws and adds their proficiency bonus to their AC but the wildwalker companion. This helps give the companion more survivability as long as the wildwalker is willing to put themselves in harm's way.

Evolution Points: Now given at level 2. The ability to use evolution points on yourself has been removed from the main class and can now only be obtained by choosing the "Path of the Savage" subclass.

Level 3:

Advanced Animal Companion: The UA companion is given to the ranger at level 3 and has it's own initiative and turn in combat. The wildwalker companion is given to the wildwalker at level 1 but does not gain it's own initiative and turn in combat until level 3.

Familar: The familiar has been moved from level 1 to level 3. See Familiar section below.

Level 6:

Disaster Sense: In short, the companion gains evasion in dex saving throws and the familiar gains evasion in all saving throws. See Companion and Familiar sections for details.

Level 9:

Undying Devotion: This allows the wildwalker and companion to split damage in half between themselves a certain number of times per long rest. A much more flavorful version of the UA ranger ability "Superior Beast Defense" which allows the companion to half the damage they take from an attack once every single turn just because. This wildwalker ability also gives your companion one final chance to break a domination effect if ever order to attack you. Again, very flavorful.

Level 11:

Clever Creatures: Just a fun flavorful ability that allows your animals to read and write your primary language. Merely there to show how intelligent your animal partners have become.

Level 14:

Master's Presence: Team Mascot has been removed and replaced with Master's Presence. Master's Presence itself is unchanged.

Level 18:

Call of the Wild: unchanged

Subclasses:

Path of the Shaman

Level 5:

Hear my Cry: Has been moved from level 3 to level 5. The wildwalker now only gains access to the Conjure Animals spell if they took this subclass. I was going to remove the one free cast per long rest but the removal of ritual casting gave me that much more of a reason not to.

The way my table always handled the Conjure Animals spell was that you got to choose which CR rating option you wanted to summon but it was up to the DM to decide which creatures actually showed up based on what was nearby. Made it a lot more fun and gave the DM more control.

Level 7:

Stronger Together: Moved from level 6 to level 7. No longer gives increases to your summon's and dominated creature's ac, attacks, damage, etc. Now it only gives temporary hit points when you first summon or dominate them.

Level 10:

Unbreakable Focus: Unchanged

Level 15:

Master's Voice: Moved from level 13 to 15. As opposed to using this up to a number times equal to your wisdom modifier per long rest, you instead get one free cast of "Dominate Beast" per long rest. Due to being a spell now as opposed to an action, it now requires concentration to maintain (i.e. you can't have a dominated beast and conjured beasts at the same time).

Level 20:

The Alpha: Only the name changed. Everything else is the same.

Path of the Savage

Level 5:

Unnatural Selection: The wildwalker may now only use evolution points on themselves if they took this subclass and can only use a limited number of points based on their level. The Martially Adept feature which granted medium armor, a bump from d6s to d8s, and access to two martial weapons has been removed. The wildwalker needs to fight like an animal if they want to fight at all.

Level 7:

Coordinated Attack: Moved from level 10 to level 7 but otherwise unchanged. Allows the wildwalker to attack more but doesn't increase the total number of attacks this class has.

Level 10:

Feral Instincts: The wildwalker may now gain temporary hit points equal to their wis mod if they bring an enemy to 0 hit points with one of their evolution attacks. This was done because the wildwalker has very low health but this subclass encourages entering right into the fray. This helps alleviate some of that problem. This feature also triggers on the wildwalker if your animal companion kills an enemy as long as you damaged them with an evolution attack at some point. This was done so you're not constantly trying to pull punches with your companion.

Level 15:

Attack Dog: Moved from level 13 to 15. Gives a flat +2 bonus to attack chance (instead of scaling up to a +3) as long as the wildwalker and companion are attacking the same enemy and are within 10 ft of each other. This acts in place of a fighting style.

Level 20:

Feral Fury: Only the name changed. Everything else is the same.

Companion

This has been completely overhauled.

Ability Scores:

First, you get to choose what stats your companion has.

You have 60 ability points that you can allocate in way you'd like but you can't start with any ability score over 16. Why do you get to choose your own ability scores? This allows the wildwalker to choose any sort of animal they want as opposed to trying to pick the animal with the best stats. For example, the UA ranger lets you choose between a small list of animals and some of the animals are drastically better than others (put the ape and the boar side by side). If you want to play the wildwalker with a chicken companion with a high strength score, you should be able to. It won't be any stronger than any other animal you could pick.

Why 60 points specifically? The UA companion is selected from a small list of creatures. If you add up the ability scores of the most powerful creature on that list (the ape), you get a total of 69. If you add up the ability scores of the least powerful creature on that list (the boar), you get a total of 52. 60 points is a happy medium between the two.

Level Up Abilities:

Companions no longer have their own level up abilities. Any of the really important ones have either been moved to the wildwalker class table or became evolutions they can purchase.

Companion Comparison

Attribute	UA Companion	Wildwalker Companion
Hit Points	d10s	d8s
AC	Starting AC + Prof bonus	10 + dex mod
Saving Throws	All of them	2 of your choice
Damage	Starting Damage + Prof bonus + favored enemy	Depends on evolutions
Ability Scores	Increases with the ranger	Increases with the wildwalker

Initiative and Turn in Combat: At levels 1 and 2, your companion only does something if you use your action to command them to. This "Command" action allows you to move your companion as well as give them an action. At level 3, you no longer command your companion with your action because it instead gains its own initiative and turn in combat.

The UA ranger doesn't get their companion until level 3 but it has its own initiative and turn in combat.

The companion is such a huge part of the wildwalker class that I couldn't bear to take it away from even one level. So I changed it that up until level 3, you essentially have to sacrifice your turn in order to attack with it.

Extra-Attack:

Your companion is able to forego one of their Ability Score Increases in order to gain the Extra Attack feature. It seemed too trivial to make it cost evolution points so this is a much bigger decision.

Why does the UA companion only get one attack while the wildwalker companion gets two? Simple. The UA ranger can make two attacks and the wildwalker can only make one. In both cases, that's a max total of three attacks. At level 7, a wildwalker that took the Path of the Savage subclass is able to shift this so they attack twice and their companion only attacks once.

Will the wildwalker's companion do more damage than the UA companion? Yes

Will the UA ranger himself do more damage than the wildwalker himself? Absolutely

Disaster Sense

Why does the wildwalker companion get evasion? Because the UA companion has proficiency in all saving throws, advantage on all saving throws, and more health. Additionally, at level 15, the UA companion can halve the damage as well. The wildwalker companion doesn't get all that.

Familiar

This has been completely overhauled.

Ability Scores:

First, you get to choose what stats your familiar has much like the companion.

You only get 45 ability points this time around.

Abilities:

The actions and abilities of you animal are now replaced with the standard familiar abilities.

Later Level

You now get the familiar at level 3 as opposed to 1 so you don't start with everything at once.

AC, Saving throws, and Opportunity Attacks:

Your familiar's AC is equal to 10 + dex mod + half your profciency bonus. It is proficient in all saving throws and does not trigger opportunity attacks. Why does it gain these bonuses? Because of it's health. Your familiar has half of the wildwalker's total health. The wildwalker is already rolling the smallest hit point die in the game which means, at level 20 with no Constitution modifier, your familiar only has 41 hit points. At that point in the game, your familiar would be obliterated instantly without these bonuses. And unlike a standard familiar, that just vanishes when it runs out of hit points only to be re-summoned a little while later, the wildwalker's animal companion starts rolling death saving throws and can potentially die.

Disaster Sense

Why does the wildwalker familiar get evasion on all saving throws that aren't specifically targeting it? Because of what was stated above. Near the end of the game when you're fighting enemies that can summon meteors, your familiar would be decimated instantly even if it succeeded on the saving throw due to how low it's hit points are.

Evolutions List

The Evolutions list has been updated so your companion no longer does additional damage the larger it is.

In Conclusion

I believe this brings the wildwalker into a much better place for standard games and removed a lot of what some people cited could be potential problems.