Brood Lord

You have spent time forming a special bond with a group of beasts who naturally view you as their leader, collectively forming a Brood. The Brood works together to accomplish their goals, which are whatever goals you choose are their goals, with all members of the Brood being able to understand your commands. Each member of the Brood contributes to the greater good of the Brood in some way. The Brood expects you to use your greater intelligence to lead them into the most advantageous situations, which is why you are the Brood Lord and are in charge of choosing who will be in the Brood and who will be crushed by the Brood.

The Brood

Beginning at 3rd level you form the Brood. Using a combination of your skills handling animals, your knowledge of nature, and magic, you gain the ability to summon beasts to join your Brood.

Choose four beasts of any species and size that have a challenge rating of 1/8 or lower. Add your proficiency bonus to the beasts' AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills they are proficient in. Their hit point maximum equals their normal maximum or four times your ranger level, whichever is higher. The beasts are friendly to you and your allies, and all of the Brood share a telepathic bond while they are within 60ft of each other. The other members of the Brood also can understand verbal commands in one of the languages that you speak (Of your choice), but cannot themselves speak it (Unless otherwise able to speak). They will carry out your commands to the best of their abilities, if you are incapacitated or absent they will act on their own prioritizing defending you and themselves. Brood members will not normally attack each other even if they are of species that would normally do so.

The Brood take their turn on your initiative, though only acting if you command them to. On your turn you can telepathically or verbally order them to move as a free action. On your turn you can spend an attack action, a bonus action, and/or all of your movement action to order a particular member of the Brood to move, attack or otherwise use its attack action (Such as Dashing, and so on). Meaning, if you spend an attack action and a bonus action and all of your movement action you can command three members of the Brood to move and attack or otherwise use its attack action, more so if you gain multiple attack actions or bonus actions. The Brood take their reaction as normal without having to be commanded, but can be ordered to specifically not take their reactions.

While traveling through your favored terrain with the Brood you can move stealthily at a normal pace. If any member of the Brood dies, you can spend 8 hours in magical meditation to summon a new member as a replacement either of the same species or another.

(To add the Brood to your D&D Beyond Character Sheet, go to the Extra/Creatures tab, select Manage Extras/Creatures, under Add Extra/Creatures scroll to the Pet Category and make sure "Filter Using Pet Rules" is checked).

Reinforce the Brood

At 7th level, you have gained experience at summoning beasts to join you and can now summon stronger beasts to join your Brood. You may add two more beasts as members of the Brood (total six not counting yourself) of challenge rating 1/2 or lower. Note, only the two new members added by this feature may be above CR 1/8, the four original members of the Brood must still be of CR 1/8 or lower even if one of the original members die they cannot be replaced by a beast of higher CR. If the new Brood members added in this feature die they may be brought back via the same methods other members are brought back as stated in The Brood feature.

All Together Now

At 11th level, the Brood has learned how to work together so effectively that the entire Brood (including you) may spend a full round action to work together to attack the same target at the same time. You must designate the target of this attack, even if members of the Brood are not within reach of the target they may spend their movement to get within range to make their attack as part of the full round action and then return to where they were before All Together Now was used. However members of the Brood cannot move more than their standard movement speed. Members of the Brood who have to move to reach the designated target will not provoke attacks of opportunity. Each member makes a standard attack action against the designated target, even if a member has a multi-attack feature they may not use it during All Together Now. If a member has multiple possible attacks (Such as Bite and Claw attacks) you may choose which one is used.

All Together Now may only be used once per short rest.

Monstrous Brood

At 15th level, you have perfected the art of summoning Brood members to the point that now even the strongest of beasts will join your Brood. You may add one more beast as a member of the Brood (total seven not counting yourself) of challenge rating 8 or lower. Note, only the new member added by this feature may be above CR 1/8 or CR 1/2. The four original members of the Brood must still be of CR 1/8 or lower, and the two members added in Reinforce the Brood must still be of CR 1/2 or lower. Even if one of the other members of the Brood die they cannot be replaced by a beast of higher CR. If the new Brood member added in this feature dies they may be brought back via the same methods other members are brought back as stated in The Brood feature.