Is the Beast Master Broken? Examining D&D’s Most Misunderstood Archetype
One of Dungeons & Dragons archetypes has been the subject of more internet debates and angry Facebook posts than any other. It seems as though almost everyone who has laid eyes on the Beast Master, the second archetype for the ranger class in the fifth edition Player’s Handbook, has some sort of problem with it. Ever since the Player’s Handbook release in 2014, social media has echoed with the outcry of “The Beast Master is broken!” It’s one of the most polarizing topics of this edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and the debate needs to be settled. Is the Beast Master broken?
The answer is yes, the Beast Master is broken.
But perhaps that’s a misleading statement. The Beast Master may be broken, yet that word may not mean what you think it means. Gamers use the word “broken” as a catchall for a litany of disparate complaints, which is great for discovering that a problem exists, but terrible for actually addressing that problem. If you’re a Dungeon Master and you want to try and fix the broken Beast Master’s at your table, you need to know exactly what you’re fixing. And if you’re a player who thinks the Beast Master is broken, you’d better figure out exactly what’s wrong so you can work with your DM to make your experience more fun.
What's Wrong with the Beast Master?
In D&D, we call a part of the game broken because it’s one of three things: not fun to play (or literally unplayable), not fun to play with, or not fun to adjudicate as a Dungeon Master. Of all these complaints, it is the first that dominates this discussion; people just don’t like playing Beast Masters. These three qualities are completely subjective, of course, but they have been so pervasive (and even extending to the ranger class as a whole) that even Wizards of the Coast has taken note of them and released several new visions for the ranger and the Beast Master for public playtesting through Unearthed Arcana.
One common complaint is that the Beast Master isn’t fun to play because it isn’t as powerful in combat as other classes, or even other ranger archetypes. The reasons cited are usually that the animal companion is too weak numerically, it can’t act in combat unless the ranger spends an action to command it, and (now that Xanathar’s Guide to Everything has been released) it doesn’t get any bonus ranger spells. Since so many of Dungeons & Dragons’ rules and player options are geared towards combat, concerns of being underpowered in combat are of primary concern for most players.
So what is a player (or a player-conscious Dungeon Master) to do?
When I ran Princes of the Apocalypse around its release in 2015, one of my players decided to play an air genasi Beast Master with a hawk companion (reskinned as an osprey, but that’s neither here nor there). Even then, I had caught wind of the foul press surrounding the Beast Master, and wanted to make sure my ranger player wasn’t walking into a trap option. We talked it over and eventually decide to give her hawk companion a few buffs to make it more powerful in combat. We decided on two things: first, it could attack independently after being directed to attack a creature. Second, we opted to give it one fighter level for every four levels she had in ranger. These changes seemed perfectly reasonable.
By 20th level, this bird had probably killed more creatures than anyone else in the party, and my players had taken to calling her companion “Murder Bird.” It became a badass animal companion, but I emerged from that campaign feeling that maybe I had put my thumb on the scale a little too hard.
Dan Dillon on Fixing What's Broken and Learning What Isn't
That campaign has been over for about a year now, but I’ve been thinking about how I could have made my ranger player’s experience smoother. I decided to speak with Dan Dillon, a game designer who has created Fifth Edition-compatible adventures and player content for Kobold Press, an excellent adventure for the D&D Adventurer’s League, and has even contributed to an undisclosed project with Wizards of the Coast. He’s also a moderator of a Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Facebook group boasting over 100,000 members, and is a battle-scarred veteran of the Beast Master arguments there. He’s seen every viewpoint imaginable on this issue, he's played a Beast Master ranger from 1st to 20th level, and judging by his headshot, he's probably a Beast Master himself! He’s the perfect person to ask for insight.
One of the first things I asked Dan about was if we could separate signal from noise on this argument. What criticism of the Beast Master are valid, and what criticisms are simply off-base? The first thing he told me was he played his ranger without any house rules and was incredibly effective. He suggests that people who have had “awful experiences with the Beast Master” might need to reread the Beast Companion feature in the Player’s Handbook and be sure they aren’t missing any of the myriad little buffs the animal companion gets. Most of the perceived mechanical weaknesses of the Beast Master come from an incomplete understanding of the Fifth Edition rules.
Most of my woes in my Princes of the Apocalypse campaign, Dan assures me, came from my player selecting a CR 0 animal companion. Of course a CR 0 hawk isn’t going to fight very well, it only does a few points of damage! I didn’t need to give it fighter levels in order to give it more hit points, it gets more hit points naturally as the ranger levels up. It even gets to attack and take aiding actions without consuming the ranger’s action as the ranger gets more class features! Rather than haphazardly throwing buffs on this weak animal, it would have been simpler to just insist that my ranger player use a CR 1/4 beast instead.
But some of these mechanical woes were not without precedent. A quick reading of the Beast Master archetype shows that the Beast Companion class feature suggests taking a hawk (or a mastiff or a panther) as an animal companion! Dan says that it’s “setting [a player] up for failure…you should not take challenge rating 0 beasts. But if you do want to do that, work with your DM and ask if you can just have a falcon companion that you’ve trained,” and choose a ranger archetype like Hunter instead.
That said, this option isn’t available to people with rules-adherent DMs or those who are a part of Organized Play. That is a flaw of the Beast Master; it’s inflexible. If you want its combat ability to be on par with similar characters, you need to know what the good options are and optimize your build (yuck). This may be a fun puzzle for veteran gamers, but poses a discouraging barrier to entry for new players. Not only do you need to know how disastrously poor at fighting a CR 0 beast is compared to a CR ¼ creature, but you have to know what books to look in (including asking the DM to let you use the Monster Manual or even the monster appendix for Tomb of Annihilation), and then you need to do a bunch of calculations to improve its stats. It’s not impossible, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, either.
Dan’s recommended animal companions are flying snakes for flight without sacrificing much damage, wolves for pack tactics and their keen senses, giant poisonous snakes for swimming and truly incredible damage and accuracy, and pteranodons if you’re playing in Tomb of Annihilation. If you’re playing a halfling or a gnome, you can use this flying dinosaur as a mount. That’s incredible!
If you want a second opinion, the gentlemen at Nerdarchy have a video on their 5 favorite Beast Master companions.
Also note, according to admins the D&D Adventurer’s League, where character builds are limited to the Player’s Handbook plus one other book, monster stat blocks do not count as your +1. So, if you really want to optimize your Beast Master, you can use the beasts in Volo’s Guide to Monsters or Tomb of Annihilation while still using another book.
Taking all that into consideration, the Beast Master is in a strong place mechanically. Dan says one underappreciated aspect of the Beast Master is that its animal companion simply adds another body to the players’ side, allowing rogues in the party to Sneak Attack more often, other players to get advantage more often (through the Help action and possibly Pack Tactics), and by allowing the ranger seriously improved battlefield control, as the animal companion can attack enemies on the other side of cover the ranger can’t shoot behind, get on top of elevated terrain if it can fly, and even serve as a mount if your ranger is Small and the companion is Medium.
But don’t think for a moment that the Beast Master is perfect. While it's possible that the incredible outcry over this archetype is all due to people not reading the Player’s Handbook closely enough or the archetype requiring too much system mastery, it's more likely that there are some problems with the archetype that a close reading of the rules can't solve. One of Dan’s chief concerns is that, unlike the trio of new ranger subclasses presented in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, the Beast Master (and the Hunter) lack bonus spells to supplement their “very tiny number of spells known [as compared to paladins who prepare spells like a cleric].”
Maybe in a future article on D&D Beyond, Dan could show us the bonus spell lists for Beast Masters and Hunters that he's house ruled to improve their power level in games he runs.
Final Verdict
I never directly asked Dan if the Beast Master was “broken” or not. That’s not what I wanted to learn from him, because I knew from the word go that the Beast Master was broken, I just needed to learn how it was... and how it wasn't. As it turns out, the Beast Master is not broken mechanically; it’s broken in a subtler, more insidious way. A way that’s harder to fix than changing a few calculations and printing errata.
In fact, the Beast Master is quite mechanically sound, if played in a certain way. The rub is that most players have no idea what this specific way of having fun as a Beast Master is! The Beast Master is one of the most complex and choice-dependent archetypes in the entire Player’s Handbook, but the book provides no help on how to navigate its many incredibly important choices. Spellcasters like wizards and clerics face a similar problem, but there’s a significant difference: most of the spells a spellcaster picks aren’t central to their identity. If you’ve ever seen Critical Role, try to imagine Vex’ahlia without her bear Trinket. If Pike, the party cleric, didn’t like a spell she chose, she could switch it out the next morning with no trouble; specific spells aren't part of her identity, but Trinket is essential to Vex’s character.
This highlights another problem of the Beast Master that, while it doesn’t strictly make the archetype weaker in combat, does make it less fun to play: animal companion death. For most Beast Masters, their animal companion is like another character in terms of emotional weight, but the game rules don’t treat it that way. While most player characters in D&D are expected to be resurrected if they die (after a certain point), all the Player’s Handbook has to say if an animal companion dies is: “If the beast dies, you can obtain another one by spending 8 hours magically bonding with another beast that isn’t hostile to you, either the same type of beast or a different one.” It expects you to do the equivalent of rolling up a new character named Bob II after your first character, Bob, was killed by a wandering monster.
For players that invest emotionally in the lives of their animal companions, like Laura Bailey and her ranger Vex’ahlia, this just isn’t fun. If you’re playing at home and not in the Adventurer’s League where strict adherence to the rules is necessary, consider this house rule that Dan and I hashed out about in our conversion: “As a Beast Master, you can spend 8 hours performing a ritual of resurrection that returns your dead animal companion to life if it died of means other than old age.”
Even if you don’t use this house rule, the animal companion should at least be able to roll death saves. The Player’s Handbook says “special nonplayer characters” are supposed to fall unconscious and roll death saving throws when reduced to 0 hit points, just like player characters. You’re just being a jerk if you don’t consider animal companions special NPCs.
If the Beast Master’s problem is one of system mastery and misplaced emotional expectations, what is the best way to “fix” this “broken” archetype in play? If you’re a player, you’re practically there already just because you’ve read this article. Choose a powerful animal companion when you first choose this archetype, and make sure you’re communicating well with your Dungeon Master about little rules interactions like whether or not animal companions get death saving throws.
If you’re a Dungeon Master looking to make life easier for a player who wants to be a Beast Master, then start by talking with your player about what kind of beast they want to choose. If it’s something small like a hawk, a squirrel, or some other inconsequential CR 0 creature, consider letting that player play as a Hunter ranger instead with a minor noncombatant companion instead.
The Beast Master may be broken, but clear communication and a little ingenuity can fix it. Happy hunting!
James Haeck is a D&D fan, frequent paladin player, and a lover of roleplaying and tactical combat in equal measure. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his two animal companions, Mei and Marzipan, and writes as a freelancer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurer's League, Kobold Press, and EN Publishing. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
Here is my attempt at creating a version of the subclass that (a) strikes a balance between PHB Beastmaster and UA-RR Beast Conclave, aiming to be fun and flexible but not OP, and (b) is useable on D&D Beyond. I've borrowed elements from both and added some spice of my own. Would love comments and suggestions:
---
Many rangers are more at home in the wilds than in civilization, to the point where animals consider them kin. Beast Wardens call forth and develop a close bond with a wild beast, then further strengthen that bond through the use of magic.
Beast Magic
Starting at 3rd level, you learn an additional spell when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown in the Beast Magic table. The spell counts as a ranger spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of ranger spells you know.
Beast Warden Spells
Animal Whisperer
Beginning at 3rd level, your mastery of ranger lore allows you to establish a powerful link to beasts and to the land around you, granting you a material connection with fauna and flora. You gain proficiency in the Animal Handling and Nature skills, or if already proficient, then you can double your proficiency bonus when making a skill check. Although this ability doesn’t grant you an automatic friendship with beasts, you can use it curry favor with them as you would with any nonplayer character.
Ranger’s Companion
Animal Companion
At 3rd level, you gain a companion that accompanies you on your adventures. 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. When you gain your companion, its hit point maximum equals the hit point number in its stat block or four times your ranger level, whichever is higher. Thereafter, for each level you gain after 3rd, your animal companion gains an additional hit die and increases its hit points accordingly. Whenever you gain the Ability Score Improvement class feature, your companion’s abilities also improve. Your companion can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or it can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, your companion can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature unless its description specifies otherwise.
The companion obeys your commands as best as it can. In combat, it takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn’t take an action until you command it to do so. On your turn in combat, you direct the beast where to move (no action required by you) and you can use your action to command it to take an action. After receiving such a command, it can continue carrying out that action independently (with the exception of the Attack, which still requires your action each turn) until either it becomes impossible for it to do so, or it is directed by you to cease (no action required by you) or until you use your action to issue an alternative command. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when your companion takes the Attack action.
If you are incapacitated or absent, the companion acts on its own, focusing on protecting you and itself. The companion never requires your command to use its reaction, such as when making an opportunity attack.
Companion's Bond
While traveling through your favored terrain(s) with only the companion, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. Your animal companion gains the benefits of your Favored Enemy feature. It uses the same favored enemies you selected for those features.
The companion can spend its Hit Dice during a short rest to regain hit points and if brought to zero hit points then you roll death saving throws as with a PC. If your animal companion is ever slain, the magical bond you share allows you to return it to life. With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 25 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food, you call forth your companion’s spirit and use your magic to create a new body for it. You can return an animal companion to life in this manner even if you do not possess any part of its body.
Your companion shares your alignment, and has a personality trait and a flaw that you select. Your companion shares your ideal, and its bond is always, “The ranger who travels with me is a beloved companion for whom I would gladly give my life.”
Preternatural Bond
The spiritual bond shared between you and your companion draws its energy from the Fey Wild, and enables nuanced conveyance and sensory enhancements to flow between you. From 7th level, if your companion doesn’t attack, you may use your bonus action to command it to take the Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide or Ready action. Also, at 7th level, the companion gains advantage on all saving throws as long as you are within sight of it.
Fierce Potency
Starting at 11th level, the magic of the bond you share with your companion is embodied in its ferocity of attack. Your companion's attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. Furthermore, your companion can take the Multiattack action if it has that action.
Bonding Aura
Beginning at 15th level, when you cast a spell targeting yourself, you can also affect your beast companion with the spell if the beast is within 30 feet of you.
I like the idea of giving the beast master the extra spells and I understand that you choose spells that help protect the companion. Warding Bond is one of those spells that seems good at first but the more you think about it, the worse it seems. My concern with it is how it interacts with area of effect spells. Worst case scenario, if the beast master and companion both fail their saves, does that mean the AC takes 50% damage and the beast master takes 150%? Since area of effect spells are one of the companion’s biggest vulnerabilities, does warding bond help or just make it worse.
I think you raise a good point re: Warding Bond...and unless I’m mistaken your calculus on the damage is correct... saying that, the ranger has discretion on when to use it.... if the battle is melee orientated then he might choose to use it, esp if ranger is sat back with his longbow and AC is running interference. Also, it might be that the ranger has a much better dex save so on balance of probabilities they end up both taking half damage on AoE, e.g. the ranger succeeds on save and AC fails against dragon breath weapon, fireball etc...although in my proposed Beast Warden build, I give the AC adv on saving throws when she can see the ranger à la UA-RR from Lvl 7... but yeah, your point is a valid one...
I will have another flip through the spell lists to see about improving that selection. If you have any ideas that would be much appreciated!
Here's a question relating to Beast Masters. In the text concerning the benefits that a Beast Companion gets, the PHB states that the creature will receive a bonus to any saving throws that it is proficient in equal to your proficiency. There are no beast with proficiency in any saving throws, that are CR 1/4 or weaker. It isn't even an option. So why is it even mentioned?
It for future released or homebrew beasts.
So how come every other RPG ever manages to get this right? Even pathfinder makes this a useful option? How did you lot drop the ball so spectacularly on what is a common archetype in fantasy? Why wasn't it playtested? Not once? Why hasn't it been fixed after 5+ years?
Using expressions like "you lot" here makes no sense since no one here has designed this subclass.
Moreover, this subclass has been playtested and the designer stated that there is no need for a fixing.
'You lot' as in WotC.
The 'designer' is simply wrong then, because the subclass is awful.
Like this article, 'oh, 'its' fine as long as you add loads of houserule stuff'.
That they haven't amended it officially is absolutely pathetic.
They did amend it. Go read the Unearthed Arcana rules.
Indeed they did issue a revision in UA, in 2016! In the preface they stated clearly that the PHB version was unpopular and deemed flawed. Then, inexplicably, the designers have walked that admission back in a series of tweets, panels and podcasts, going so far as to say there is only one class, and suggesting strongly that the revision you speak of is abandoned, and given us no tangible hope that anything will offered in its place to address the issues raised by so many and acknowledged by WotC themselves in 2016.
Therefore, referring to that UA-Revised Ranger herein as a fix is circular and unhelpful. If our friends at DDB would add the UA-RR to the DDB platform as an option for the many tables that (1) like using DDB and (2) also prefer the UA-RR to PHB version, then your remark is very relevant and helpful. Until then, with respect, it’s really not. {And please, I don’t mean this in a nasty way, I am only following the point through to its logical conclusion- no offence is meant here :-) }.
Finally, I agree with all those comments in the thread that point out that it is illogical, annoying and frankly poor customer service for WotC/DDB to continue to deflect and de-legitimise valid concerns that many have with this class. WotC: I wish you would stop taking such a rigid, defensive approach to this matter. It would be very nice if you could address the issues with new action, or otherwise ask DDB to give us the flexibility online to fix them ourselves. Please.
Wow, I couldn’t agree more!! Well said.
That's a bit unfair. They are going by the results of their surveys, and the devs were shocked at how much people went "meh, core Ranger is fine." Most people don't have an issue with Ranger as-is. Its BEASTMASTER that everyone's always had issues with.
Are you actually suggesting that there is NOT significant dissatisfaction with the core class? As of 2016 there certainly must have been otherwise why publish UA-RR in first place? Please if you could provide a link to the shocking data that confirms a consensus that the core class is fine, I would be grateful.
It’s good to hear you are happy with the PHB class- and that is great and you and others should be able to keep enjoying it. But a quick count of the posts in numerous Ranger-related threads on DDB and elsewhere strongly suggests many others are not, so out of respect for them it would be nice to avoid to delegitimise out of hand those concerns. If the designers would just get on with the task of provision of some *class options* as they keep hinting, then everyone will benefit- the PHB version fans and non-fans alike.
For the sake of advancing the discussion, however, my comments could equally be applied to the Beast Master subclass as well. Would be a step in right direction to see a revised treatment of that certainly. Heaven knows they have had ages to study and research the issue so now is time for action.
[For the avoidance of let me just say that I am in no way hating on the game or 5e in general. I love them both. I came back to D&D after a very long hiatus (having last played 1e in 80s and 90s) and 5e is nearly perfect in my eyes. The problem I (and others) have is the strong feeling that PHB Ranger is inflexible and underpowered as a class, with so many of primary abilities extremely situation specific, and requiring of significant DM involvement to allow them to be useful in a game. Many think it’s painful to play, and that is doubly so for Beast Master. It just so happens that Ranger is my favourite class and (as I normally get stuck as DM) when do get to play, it’s Ranger for me. I also love DDB, and it’s frustrating not to have the ability to run a tweaked version of the core class via DDB. Furthermore, as I said, many of us feel the designers are being evasive and unhelpful to the big chunk of the community who share these views or similar. All my comments herein are made with goodwill and a genuine desire to find solutions that improve everyone’s experience without detracting from others in the process. Peace out.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vE28Saqcow&feature=youtu.be&t=2144 from an interview with Crawford
https://youtu.be/U9tl1HTMgGc here's Mike Mearls doing his Happy Fun Hour and talks a small bit on the Ranger as well.
The general result from what's being said is that lots of people don't have the "core ranger hate!" that is being assumed. There will probably some optional things for ranger and maybe sorcerer at a later date, but overall, there's less hate for the core Ranger than there is for Beastmaster.
Thanks for the links. I'd seen both of them but good to have another look. Let's see what (if anything) they come out with in terms of options. Just to be very clear- (at least for me) 'hate' is way too strong a word- I know I used it myself in another context but just to be clear I don't hate either the PHB core class or BM subclass. They (esp. latter, as you rightly say) just have a few unnecessary flaws that are IMO easily fixable. (Here's my crack at fixing the Beast Master: https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/subclasses/67623-beast-warden , and also here are two feats I designed to 'patch' the core class to add flavour, fun and flexibility:(https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/feats/40261-pathfinder) and (https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/feats/40262-strider). The feats can easily be offered to a Ranger player by a willing DM without breaking the game, and respecting the chassis of the PHB version. (we use them at our table and they avoid some of the OP elements of UA-RR, but keep the flexibility and versatility that it offers.)
The other frustration many of us have is the shear amount of time they are taking to offer anything. The date of JC's interview is one year ago, and the UA-RR is 2 years ago. I fully understand the need to 'get it right' as they say and not be seen to take things away from people that they might very much like, but a large number of us who are not as happy as we would like to be have been waiting an awful long time. Hence my attempts at home brew solutions above.
In any case these are all first world problems. The game overall is great and is lots of fun and it's important to keep that in mind! :-)
The problem with Beast Master is that we have been reading it wrong. Let me explain.
A beast controlled by the DM can do anything the DM deems appropriate within the rules. It can take any action the DM wants it to within reason. It has a reaction and can make opportunity attacks. This is the “general” in Specific beats General, found on page 7 of the PBH.
Reading the Beast Master archetype description as Specific changes to the General rules is the only way the archetype makes any sense to me.
I have posted about this before, and to those who have offered comments, thank you. I have been thinking about this for over two years and your comments have helped me clarify my arguments but all of things that have been pointed out are things I have thought of before. I’m offering this idea again here in case there is someone who is frustrated with the conventional reading of the Beast Master archetype and wants a fix that is arguably within the rules.
Mearls and Crawford have clarified that they won't be proceeding with an an official Revised Ranger (as they suggested they might in the 2016 UA article) because they decided having two official versions of a class would be too confusing. They're not claiming that the class is flawless (far from it); what they're saying is that the class is not so unpopular overall that it would be worth the added confusion. They're still keeping an eye on the Ranger (and they're waiting for feedback from the last round of surveys to see where they go next). In the meantime, they have announced some errata for the Beastmaster in the next PHB printing which fixes two minor problems: one, the beast companion's attacks now become magical at level 6; two, the beast companion takes the dodge action when the Ranger doesn't give it any specific command.
Finally! A reply that actually has a substantive credit in actual use and explanation, rather than theory, opinion or speculation. Thank you
I found that letting the Ranger gain a pet with a CR level that changes using the Druids wild shape table helps as things goes on to higher levels to keep the beast useful. I have also let Beast-masters have a custom made magic collar for a normal 1/4 CR pet is another very useful way to keep things going in the right direction. Such as the
Collar of Natural Armor (3.5e Equipment)
Collar of Natural Armor: This collar, usually crafted from bone or beast scales, toughens the creature’s body and flesh, giving him an enhancement bonus to his natural armor bonus of from +1 to +5, depending on the kind of collar. It is worn around a creatures neck. Can be used on a Familiar, a Druid's Animal Companion, or a Paladin's Mount.
Weak transmutation;CL 5th; Craft Wondrous Item, barkskin, creator’s caster level must be at least three times the collar’s bonus; Cost 1,000 gp and 80 exp(+1), 4,000 gp and 320 exp(+2), 9,000 gp and 720 exp(+3), 16,000 gp and 1,280 exp(+4), 25,000 gp and 2,000 exp(+5); Weight: - lb.; Market Price: 2,000 gp (+1), 8,000 gp (+2), 18,000 gp (+3), 32,000 gp (+4), or 50,000 gp (+5)
There are definitely improvements with the beast conclave but there stills issues, For example with the exchange of the extra attack feature for your companion to act on their own accord. If your companion falls in combat you are officially screwed. You don't have the option to attavk twice with your own weapons so your dependency on your beasts are extremely high.