I'm going to throw this thought at the community and see what "calm and collected discourse" it can elicit.
Tasha's has the following little nugget of added text for ONLY the cleric and ranger optional class features: "If you take a feature that replaces another feature, you gain no benefit from the replaced one and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it." The order domain cleric has a pretty clear application of this text with it's level 17 ability, order's wrath. My current thought, with a final opinion yet to be determined, is on how this text interacts with the primal companion replacement in the ranger section.
The Tasha's primal companion says: "BEAST MASTER COMPANIONS The Beast Master in the Player's Handbook forms a mystical bond with an animal. As an alternative, a Beast Master can take the feature below to form a bond with a special primal beast instead. PRIMAL COMPANION 3rd-level Beast Master feature, which replaces the Ranger's Companion feature. You magically summon a primal beast, which draws strength from your bond with nature."
Now there are serval instances of words used in the text above that are worth noting. For some more context, here is the text from some of the PHB subclass: "Ranger’s Companion At 3rd level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you." that is from the level 3 ability, the one that the Tasha's replaces. Then: "Exceptional Training Beginning at 7th level, on any of your turns when your beast companion doesn’t attack, you can use a bonus action to command the beast..." from the level 7 ability. Moving on with the level 11 and level 15 abilities with: "Bestial Fury Starting at 11th level, when you command your beast companion to take the..." and "Share Spells Beginning at 15th level, when you cast a spell targeting yourself, you can also affect your beast companion with the spell..."
What do I think this means? I'm still on the fence, but I believe that it means the Tasha's primal companion does NOT get the level 7, 11, or 15 abilities from the subclass. You can opt for the replacement level 3 ability, which is "loved by all" and "mechanically superior" to the original, but that's it. You get everything frontloaded at level 3 with no more buffs after that. It seems to fit with the order cleric and we see something kind of related with the level 7 aura of the oath of the crown paladin's aura not extending at level 18.
For reference, below are the parts from the Tasha's cleric stuff I mentioned in the original post.
"If you take a feature that replaces another feature, you gain no benefit from the replaced one and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it."
"BLESSED STRIKES 8th-level cleric feature, which replaces the Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting feature You are blessed with divine might in battle. When a creature takes damage from one of your can trips or weapon attacks, you can also deal 1d8 radiant damage to that creature. Once you deal this damage, you can't use this feature again until the start of your next turn."
"DIVINE STRIKE 8th-level Order Domain feature You gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 psychic damage to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8."
"ORDER'S WRATH 17th-level Order Domain feature Enemies you designate for destruction wilt under the combined efforts of you and your allies. If you deal your Divine Strike damage to a creature on your turn, you can curse that creature until the start of your next turn. The next time one of your allies hits the cursed creature with an attack, the target also takes 2d8 psychic damage, and the curse ends. You can curse a creature in this way only once per turn."
RAW it is possible that interpretation is correct, but it is really splitting hairs with how OG Beast Master has a “Beast Companion” it “forms a mystical bond with” vs how Tasha’s can “form a bond with a special primal beast instead”, but we know about Melee Weapon Attacks vs Attack with a Melee Weapon, so it might not be that simple. It’s an interesting look at the very technical wording.
RAI, and rules as almost everyone would do, it’s clearly not intended that a replacement ranger just doesn’t get 3/4 of their subclass. As is usually (often passive-aggressively) stated in Sage Advice, “if it was meant to work that way, it would say so”. There would be a short blurb specifically calling out the lack of features, instead of just saying that it is a 3rd-level replacement feature that unqualifies you from “anything in the game that requires it”. If intended, they might even have just made this alternative thing a separate subclass. Besides, denying these features leaves the Ranger entirely without features for levels 7, 11, and 15, none of which are even a proficiency bonus increase, and once of which is a major ability at the start of a new tier that is supposed to grant a conditional extra attack to all Ranger subclasses.
Edit: the specific wording of the Order domain features support the Ranger getting the other 3 abilities. Order Domain calls out Divine Strike by a capitalized name, rather than saying something like “when you deal your additional psychic damage”, whereas none of the Ranger abilities do so in the same way, referring to the capitalized name of the feature, rather to whatever beast you have assisting you.
I don't know about capitalized names and not making a difference, but in regards to your thoughts on "As is usually (often passive-aggressively) stated in Sage Advice, “if it was meant to work that way, it would say so”.", would not "If you take a feature that replaces another feature, you gain no benefit from the replaced one and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it." cover that?
The deft explorer and favored foe replacements specifically call out additional abilities gained at the places the PHB ranger class would normally gain abilities at levels 6, 10, and 14.
Yeah. Those are the same feature, that by removing the level 1 feature would cause them to be removed as well. By not having such a replacement, it shows that it is intended for the Primal Beast to not forfeit those other features.
I can’t argue RAW, because RAW is kind of dumb sometimes, and I can’t find any wording that specifically declares it either way, so there is a pretty good chance you are right on that side.
RAI though there is no chance they were trying to remove those other abilities. Why would they get rid of features on an ability meant to buff the class without providing a replacement at those levels?
Maybe front loaded? I don't know. I'm having a really hard time with it back and forth in my head. I just can't justify all of the parts with it keeping the later abilities.
What about it is overpowered? You still have a pretty mediocre 6th level ability to make up for anything that might be OP.
Its kind of like two-weapon fighting and skill help attached to a killable health pool.
The level 11 numbers really blow me away, and I take the conservative view on the number of attacks that can be made, meaning each creature only gets one action. I am also a big fan of the PHB ranger, so while your description is correct, it's not even close to complete in my experience.
Tasha Beastmaster (Sky) At level 11 does slightly more damage than a generic dual-wielding fighter at level 11, and that’s assuming Tasha beastmaster has Archery to average out it’s own and the beast’s attacks (likely lower Wisdom). With the Fighter’s subclass perks, they should be pretty even. Ranger has all sort of other abilities, but so does Fighter, so I wasn’t counting anything but auto attacking without resources.
It's the without resources bit that trips me up. Look at level 11 ranger damage numbers without using any resources and tell me how the Tasha's beast master compares to the other ranger subclasses. Hunter, gloomstalker, etc.
The only other one I really know that well is the Swarmkeeper, which, while dual-wielding (which is arguable a much worse way to build a Swarmkeeper than Sword and Board or Archery, but I’m keeping it there for the same action economy) the Swarmkeeper is down by 8 damage assuming all hit, but if we assume one BA attack misses, the Swarmkeeper catches up to be only 6 behind, narrowing the gap for each miss, especially if there is only 1 hit. With only the Swarmkeeper Shortsword/air beast hitting, the Swarmkeeper leads by 3.5 damage. Additionally, the ranger themselves is the only one benefiting from Favored Foe/Hunters Mark (though Share Spells let both Ranger and Beast get at least some of Guardian of Nature).
The Swarmkeeper gains temporary flight, some great extra spells, and they have multiple options to do when they hit if they don’t need the extra damage. The Tasha Beast Master stands evenly with a Swarmkeeper, another subclass from TCoE.
The land beast does the most damage by itself, although if you cast spike growth on the bed of a body of water, the sea one will neal nonsense levels of damage. That's where you need to do your math. Of course, Swarmkeepers also get a lot better at L11 - their swarm jumps straight from "neat but niche" to "oh my god look at my swarm my swarm is amazing".
Now, it's a bit challenging making reasonable assumptions, but let's assume a Dex 20 Wis 16 Ranger attacking a Yagnoloth, which is CR 11. And of course, the whole point is we're assuming the L11 benefits apply.
First beast attack is +7 to hit vs AC 17, so 55% chance. The hit is 14 damage and then a DC 15 Str save - the Yagnoloth has a +4 on this, so 50% failure rate - or the fiend is knocked prone.
Second attack is the same, only at advantage if the fiend is already prone.
The odds of the fiend being prone after both hits are 47.44%. If it is, the Ranger's attacks within 5 feet will be at advantage.
Ignoring accuracy, 28 damage in one bonus action is a lot better than a pam bonus action swing with gwm (2.5+5+10=17.5, 21 if Hunter's Mark was up, assuming S20), but bear in mind the beast will typically have accuracy problems - you can't apply fighting styles or feats to its output that I know of, and it hits with your wisdom, not your dex. And you won't be arming it with magic weapons or anything.
The sky and sea beasts deal 1 less damage per strike, so 26, not 28.
If our aforementioned ranger was directly competing with a fighter and let's say both are going pam gwm, and we'll skip the odds of critting and advantage, just look at raw dpr:
Both Primal and ranger companions are beast companions so class features that reference beast companions work with either. The 7th level feature is redundant with primal companions but sometimes features are redundant, it happens.
Both Primal and ranger companions are beast companions so class features that reference beast companions work with either. The 7th level feature is redundant with primal companions but sometimes features are redundant, it happens.
The primal companion is a primal companion, not a beast companion. Note that we're discussing proper names - we're not discussing something that is both a companion and primal, we're discussing a Primal Companion. The Primal Companion is certainly a companion, and it is certainly a beast (since it has the beast type), but by name, it is a Primal Companion, not a Beast Companion.
I lean towards the replacement restriction referring to NE And FE shenanigans where someone would gain a favored terrain even though they never had one in the first place. I think a primal companion is still a beast companion for purpose of future abilities but.... a beast companion isn't always a primal companion.
The primal companion is a primal companion, not a beast companion. Note that we're discussing proper names - we're not discussing something that is both a companion and primal, we're discussing a Primal Companion. The Primal Companion is certainly a companion, and it is certainly a beast (since it has the beast type), but by name, it is a Primal Companion, not a Beast Companion.
If the Primal Companion prevented the other features from functioning, then it's a worthless substitution except in all but the lowest tiers of play. It would mean its attacks could never be magical; never mind the dispute on the rest of the Exceptional Training. It would mean the primal companion could only ever attack once; thus denying the ranger of a substantial DPR boost that causes it to lag behind the PHB Beast Master. And it would mean the primal companion cannot Share Spells; even if the list of spells is woefully short.
It's worth noting that none of the subsequent features at levels 7, 11, and 15 actually list Ranger's Companion as a prerequisite. That's an assumption we impose because they all enhance that feature, granting new options. They only ever use the term "beast companion;" which is deliberate.
The only other one I really know that well is the Swarmkeeper, which, while dual-wielding (which is arguable a much worse way to build a Swarmkeeper than Sword and Board or Archery, but I’m keeping it there for the same action economy) the Swarmkeeper is down by 8 damage assuming all hit, but if we assume one BA attack misses, the Swarmkeeper catches up to be only 6 behind, narrowing the gap for each miss, especially if there is only 1 hit. With only the Swarmkeeper Shortsword/air beast hitting, the Swarmkeeper leads by 3.5 damage. Additionally, the ranger themselves is the only one benefiting from Favored Foe/Hunters Mark (though Share Spells let both Ranger and Beast get at least some of Guardian of Nature).
The Swarmkeeper gains temporary flight, some great extra spells, and they have multiple options to do when they hit if they don’t need the extra damage. The Tasha Beast Master stands evenly with a Swarmkeeper, another subclass from TCoE.
By the way, these numbers were including giving the Tasha Beastmaster the other subclass abilities. Without them, the Beastmaster drops to be 1.5 DPR behind assuming all attacks hit, and their beast doesn’t have magic damage, dropping them another 4.75 damage against resistant foes. The Swarmkeeper still has all their versatility, letting them move, shove, get cover, and all that great stuff. RAI, and balance-wise, Beastmaster should get their whole subclass.
I'm going to throw this thought at the community and see what "calm and collected discourse" it can elicit.
Tasha's has the following little nugget of added text for ONLY the cleric and ranger optional class features: "If you take a feature that replaces another feature, you gain no benefit from the replaced one and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it." The order domain cleric has a pretty clear application of this text with it's level 17 ability, order's wrath. My current thought, with a final opinion yet to be determined, is on how this text interacts with the primal companion replacement in the ranger section.
The Tasha's primal companion says: "BEAST MASTER COMPANIONS The Beast Master in the Player's Handbook forms a mystical bond with an animal. As an alternative, a Beast Master can take the feature below to form a bond with a special primal beast instead. PRIMAL COMPANION 3rd-level Beast Master feature, which replaces the Ranger's Companion feature. You magically summon a primal beast, which draws strength from your bond with nature."
Now there are serval instances of words used in the text above that are worth noting. For some more context, here is the text from some of the PHB subclass: "Ranger’s Companion At 3rd level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you." that is from the level 3 ability, the one that the Tasha's replaces. Then: "Exceptional Training Beginning at 7th level, on any of your turns when your beast companion doesn’t attack, you can use a bonus action to command the beast..." from the level 7 ability. Moving on with the level 11 and level 15 abilities with: "Bestial Fury Starting at 11th level, when you command your beast companion to take the..." and "Share Spells Beginning at 15th level, when you cast a spell targeting yourself, you can also affect your beast companion with the spell..."
What do I think this means? I'm still on the fence, but I believe that it means the Tasha's primal companion does NOT get the level 7, 11, or 15 abilities from the subclass. You can opt for the replacement level 3 ability, which is "loved by all" and "mechanically superior" to the original, but that's it. You get everything frontloaded at level 3 with no more buffs after that. It seems to fit with the order cleric and we see something kind of related with the level 7 aura of the oath of the crown paladin's aura not extending at level 18.
Thoughts?
For reference, below are the parts from the Tasha's cleric stuff I mentioned in the original post.
"If you take a feature that replaces another feature, you gain no benefit from the replaced one and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it."
"BLESSED STRIKES 8th-level cleric feature, which replaces the Divine Strike or Potent Spellcasting feature You are blessed with divine might in battle. When a creature takes damage from one of your can trips or weapon attacks, you can also deal 1d8 radiant damage to that creature. Once you deal this damage, you can't use this feature again until the start of your next turn."
"DIVINE STRIKE 8th-level Order Domain feature You gain the ability to infuse your weapon strikes with divine energy. Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can cause the attack to deal an extra 1d8 psychic damage to the target. When you reach 14th level, the extra damage increases to 2d8."
"ORDER'S WRATH 17th-level Order Domain feature Enemies you designate for destruction wilt under the combined efforts of you and your allies. If you deal your Divine Strike damage to a creature on your turn, you can curse that creature until the start of your next turn. The next time one of your allies hits the cursed creature with an attack, the target also takes 2d8 psychic damage, and the curse ends. You can curse a creature in this way only once per turn."
RAW it is possible that interpretation is correct, but it is really splitting hairs with how OG Beast Master has a “Beast Companion” it “forms a mystical bond with” vs how Tasha’s can “form a bond with a special primal beast instead”, but we know about Melee Weapon Attacks vs Attack with a Melee Weapon, so it might not be that simple. It’s an interesting look at the very technical wording.
RAI, and rules as almost everyone would do, it’s clearly not intended that a replacement ranger just doesn’t get 3/4 of their subclass. As is usually (often passive-aggressively) stated in Sage Advice, “if it was meant to work that way, it would say so”. There would be a short blurb specifically calling out the lack of features, instead of just saying that it is a 3rd-level replacement feature that unqualifies you from “anything in the game that requires it”. If intended, they might even have just made this alternative thing a separate subclass. Besides, denying these features leaves the Ranger entirely without features for levels 7, 11, and 15, none of which are even a proficiency bonus increase, and once of which is a major ability at the start of a new tier that is supposed to grant a conditional extra attack to all Ranger subclasses.
Edit: the specific wording of the Order domain features support the Ranger getting the other 3 abilities. Order Domain calls out Divine Strike by a capitalized name, rather than saying something like “when you deal your additional psychic damage”, whereas none of the Ranger abilities do so in the same way, referring to the capitalized name of the feature, rather to whatever beast you have assisting you.
I don't know about capitalized names and not making a difference, but in regards to your thoughts on "As is usually (often passive-aggressively) stated in Sage Advice, “if it was meant to work that way, it would say so”.", would not "If you take a feature that replaces another feature, you gain no benefit from the replaced one and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it." cover that?
The deft explorer and favored foe replacements specifically call out additional abilities gained at the places the PHB ranger class would normally gain abilities at levels 6, 10, and 14.
Yeah. Those are the same feature, that by removing the level 1 feature would cause them to be removed as well. By not having such a replacement, it shows that it is intended for the Primal Beast to not forfeit those other features.
I can’t argue RAW, because RAW is kind of dumb sometimes, and I can’t find any wording that specifically declares it either way, so there is a pretty good chance you are right on that side.
RAI though there is no chance they were trying to remove those other abilities. Why would they get rid of features on an ability meant to buff the class without providing a replacement at those levels?
Maybe front loaded? I don't know. I'm having a really hard time with it back and forth in my head. I just can't justify all of the parts with it keeping the later abilities.
What about it is overpowered? You still have a pretty mediocre 6th level ability to make up for anything that might be OP.
Its kind of like two-weapon fighting and skill help attached to a killable health pool.
The level 11 numbers really blow me away, and I take the conservative view on the number of attacks that can be made, meaning each creature only gets one action. I am also a big fan of the PHB ranger, so while your description is correct, it's not even close to complete in my experience.
Tasha Beastmaster (Sky) At level 11 does slightly more damage than a generic dual-wielding fighter at level 11, and that’s assuming Tasha beastmaster has Archery to average out it’s own and the beast’s attacks (likely lower Wisdom). With the Fighter’s subclass perks, they should be pretty even. Ranger has all sort of other abilities, but so does Fighter, so I wasn’t counting anything but auto attacking without resources.
It's the without resources bit that trips me up. Look at level 11 ranger damage numbers without using any resources and tell me how the Tasha's beast master compares to the other ranger subclasses. Hunter, gloomstalker, etc.
I mean, if you wouldn't mind.
The only other one I really know that well is the Swarmkeeper, which, while dual-wielding (which is arguable a much worse way to build a Swarmkeeper than Sword and Board or Archery, but I’m keeping it there for the same action economy) the Swarmkeeper is down by 8 damage assuming all hit, but if we assume one BA attack misses, the Swarmkeeper catches up to be only 6 behind, narrowing the gap for each miss, especially if there is only 1 hit. With only the Swarmkeeper Shortsword/air beast hitting, the Swarmkeeper leads by 3.5 damage. Additionally, the ranger themselves is the only one benefiting from Favored Foe/Hunters Mark (though Share Spells let both Ranger and Beast get at least some of Guardian of Nature).
The Swarmkeeper gains temporary flight, some great extra spells, and they have multiple options to do when they hit if they don’t need the extra damage. The Tasha Beast Master stands evenly with a Swarmkeeper, another subclass from TCoE.
The land beast does the most damage by itself, although if you cast spike growth on the bed of a body of water, the sea one will neal nonsense levels of damage. That's where you need to do your math. Of course, Swarmkeepers also get a lot better at L11 - their swarm jumps straight from "neat but niche" to "oh my god look at my swarm my swarm is amazing".
Now, it's a bit challenging making reasonable assumptions, but let's assume a Dex 20 Wis 16 Ranger attacking a Yagnoloth, which is CR 11. And of course, the whole point is we're assuming the L11 benefits apply.
First beast attack is +7 to hit vs AC 17, so 55% chance. The hit is 14 damage and then a DC 15 Str save - the Yagnoloth has a +4 on this, so 50% failure rate - or the fiend is knocked prone.
Second attack is the same, only at advantage if the fiend is already prone.
The odds of the fiend being prone after both hits are 47.44%. If it is, the Ranger's attacks within 5 feet will be at advantage.
Ignoring accuracy, 28 damage in one bonus action is a lot better than a pam bonus action swing with gwm (2.5+5+10=17.5, 21 if Hunter's Mark was up, assuming S20), but bear in mind the beast will typically have accuracy problems - you can't apply fighting styles or feats to its output that I know of, and it hits with your wisdom, not your dex. And you won't be arming it with magic weapons or anything.
The sky and sea beasts deal 1 less damage per strike, so 26, not 28.
If our aforementioned ranger was directly competing with a fighter and let's say both are going pam gwm, and we'll skip the odds of critting and advantage, just look at raw dpr:
Ranger: Beast 14*2, Ranger 20.5*2 = 69 (72.5 with Hunter's Mark)
Fighter: 20.5*3+17.5=79
Ranger using a greatsword instead: 28+22*2=72, 75.5 with Hunter's Mark
And the Fighter's doing all that with a polearm, so fewer accuracy problems, although the Ranger has a chance at making attacks with advantage.
Both Primal and ranger companions are beast companions so class features that reference beast companions work with either. The 7th level feature is redundant with primal companions but sometimes features are redundant, it happens.
The primal companion is a primal companion, not a beast companion. Note that we're discussing proper names - we're not discussing something that is both a companion and primal, we're discussing a Primal Companion. The Primal Companion is certainly a companion, and it is certainly a beast (since it has the beast type), but by name, it is a Primal Companion, not a Beast Companion.
I lean towards the replacement restriction referring to NE And FE shenanigans where someone would gain a favored terrain even though they never had one in the first place. I think a primal companion is still a beast companion for purpose of future abilities but.... a beast companion isn't always a primal companion.
If that's the way you want to interpret it.
If the Primal Companion prevented the other features from functioning, then it's a worthless substitution except in all but the lowest tiers of play. It would mean its attacks could never be magical; never mind the dispute on the rest of the Exceptional Training. It would mean the primal companion could only ever attack once; thus denying the ranger of a substantial DPR boost that causes it to lag behind the PHB Beast Master. And it would mean the primal companion cannot Share Spells; even if the list of spells is woefully short.
It's worth noting that none of the subsequent features at levels 7, 11, and 15 actually list Ranger's Companion as a prerequisite. That's an assumption we impose because they all enhance that feature, granting new options. They only ever use the term "beast companion;" which is deliberate.
By the way, these numbers were including giving the Tasha Beastmaster the other subclass abilities. Without them, the Beastmaster drops to be 1.5 DPR behind assuming all attacks hit, and their beast doesn’t have magic damage, dropping them another 4.75 damage against resistant foes. The Swarmkeeper still has all their versatility, letting them move, shove, get cover, and all that great stuff. RAI, and balance-wise, Beastmaster should get their whole subclass.
Ok. Like I said, I'm on the fence. What is the little extra sentence meant to address then? The other optional replacement abilities?