Guys, I'm currently playing a Revised Ranger BM with a Ape pet at lvl 5. My guy is a Two-Weapon style and honestly does pretty well between his pet and both attacks. But with Tasha's out our DM is giving us the option to do a 1 time rewrite of our characters. From a RP point my character is having a hard time with his companion always dying. He's always the first in and last out of a fight and our DM tends towards rougher fights. He's a DEX/Con build with a 19 Dex. I could us some thoughts on maybe flipping to HorizonWalker - Either TWF or Duelist compared to the Revised BM I'am now.
With the revised beast master, dual wielding is difficult since you use your bonus action to control your beast now. Horizon walker isn't quite as bonus action heavy if I remember correctly.
Plane Warrior requires you to use your bonus action each time you want to use it so it's not a good fit with two weapon fighting. The new blind fighting style in tashas is definitely worth considering.
If you want to be two weapon fighting, i would suggest any ranger except for the new beastmaster or the horizon walker. Both of those subclasses have a strong use for their bonus action every single turn. Hunter, gloomstalker, fey wanderer and swarmkeeper on the other hand have no immediate use for their bonus action so they can benefit very well from two weapon fighting or crossbow expert. The monsterslayer subclass is a bit in the middle as he uses bonus action sometimes but not all the time.
The fey wanderer gets an extra mention for his special synergy with two weapon fighting in that his dreadful strike ability deals 1d4 damage when you hit a creature for the first time on a turn. But this effect is bound to the creature and not to you so if you spread out your attacks, you can deal 1d4 extra damage to each creature you hit.
If you have RP trouble with your companion always dying, the new beastmaster offers some solution. In the way the new one is written, you companion is no longer a beast but instead is a spirit that manifests as a beast. This also means that it doesn't die. Instead, its connection to the physical world gets temporarily severed. You can still play it that he does feel pain and severely dislikes dying, but at least he won't actually die (think Guenhwyvar from the drizzt books).
When I meant I'm playing a Revised Ranger. I'm using the original UA revised Ranger rules for Beastmaster. So my pet is getting all his own attacks/actions. I don't ever get a 2nd attack, but I don't ever get a 2nd attack with those rules, but the Ape really seems to do some decent damage. If I change to Horizon Walker I would probably switch to duelist as well in the process.
I guess what I'm wondering is would Horizon Walker be fairly equal to the UA Beast Master.
Yea, guess kind of trying to figure out which want to go. Duel-Wielding w/Hunters Mark up and an Ape that helps give me advantage and some bonus DMG is fairly heavy handed. I've never played a Horizon Walker so not sure how they stack up.
I'm personally running a Horizon walker and have to say that so far, i like him. One thing to keep in mind though is that the horizon walker playstyle is pretty vanilla up until level 11 (but, hearing you complain about too much to do, that might be a benefit). Before level 11, you get a nice chunk of extra damage on your bonus action and your attack deals force damage, which is by no means bad but isn't something that's very flashy. The level 7 feature of being able to cast etherealness is very nice for moving through walls and quick getaways so again fun but not much to do with it in combat. That said, man do i love misty step as an extra spell! At level 11, when you start teleporting around the battlefield like a madman, the horizon walker really starts to get his own identity.
Even if you decide to stick with beastmaster, i would suggest you take a look at the new variant ranger and it's extra beast master options. I think revised ranger is still stronger in combat but I prefer the variant ranger as a much more elegant solution to most of the problems rangers have, especially the problems out of combat. The way the variant beastmaster handles also seems much more elegant than the revised beastmaster.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Guys, I'm currently playing a Revised Ranger BM with a Ape pet at lvl 5. My guy is a Two-Weapon style and honestly does pretty well between his pet and both attacks. But with Tasha's out our DM is giving us the option to do a 1 time rewrite of our characters. From a RP point my character is having a hard time with his companion always dying. He's always the first in and last out of a fight and our DM tends towards rougher fights. He's a DEX/Con build with a 19 Dex. I could us some thoughts on maybe flipping to HorizonWalker - Either TWF or Duelist compared to the Revised BM I'am now.
With the revised beast master, dual wielding is difficult since you use your bonus action to control your beast now. Horizon walker isn't quite as bonus action heavy if I remember correctly.
Plane Warrior requires you to use your bonus action each time you want to use it so it's not a good fit with two weapon fighting. The new blind fighting style in tashas is definitely worth considering.
If you want to be two weapon fighting, i would suggest any ranger except for the new beastmaster or the horizon walker. Both of those subclasses have a strong use for their bonus action every single turn. Hunter, gloomstalker, fey wanderer and swarmkeeper on the other hand have no immediate use for their bonus action so they can benefit very well from two weapon fighting or crossbow expert. The monsterslayer subclass is a bit in the middle as he uses bonus action sometimes but not all the time.
The fey wanderer gets an extra mention for his special synergy with two weapon fighting in that his dreadful strike ability deals 1d4 damage when you hit a creature for the first time on a turn. But this effect is bound to the creature and not to you so if you spread out your attacks, you can deal 1d4 extra damage to each creature you hit.
If you have RP trouble with your companion always dying, the new beastmaster offers some solution. In the way the new one is written, you companion is no longer a beast but instead is a spirit that manifests as a beast. This also means that it doesn't die. Instead, its connection to the physical world gets temporarily severed. You can still play it that he does feel pain and severely dislikes dying, but at least he won't actually die (think Guenhwyvar from the drizzt books).
When I meant I'm playing a Revised Ranger. I'm using the original UA revised Ranger rules for Beastmaster. So my pet is getting all his own attacks/actions. I don't ever get a 2nd attack, but I don't ever get a 2nd attack with those rules, but the Ape really seems to do some decent damage. If I change to Horizon Walker I would probably switch to duelist as well in the process.
I guess what I'm wondering is would Horizon Walker be fairly equal to the UA Beast Master.
Yea, guess kind of trying to figure out which want to go. Duel-Wielding w/Hunters Mark up and an Ape that helps give me advantage and some bonus DMG is fairly heavy handed. I've never played a Horizon Walker so not sure how they stack up.
I'm personally running a Horizon walker and have to say that so far, i like him. One thing to keep in mind though is that the horizon walker playstyle is pretty vanilla up until level 11 (but, hearing you complain about too much to do, that might be a benefit). Before level 11, you get a nice chunk of extra damage on your bonus action and your attack deals force damage, which is by no means bad but isn't something that's very flashy. The level 7 feature of being able to cast etherealness is very nice for moving through walls and quick getaways so again fun but not much to do with it in combat. That said, man do i love misty step as an extra spell! At level 11, when you start teleporting around the battlefield like a madman, the horizon walker really starts to get his own identity.
Even if you decide to stick with beastmaster, i would suggest you take a look at the new variant ranger and it's extra beast master options. I think revised ranger is still stronger in combat but I prefer the variant ranger as a much more elegant solution to most of the problems rangers have, especially the problems out of combat. The way the variant beastmaster handles also seems much more elegant than the revised beastmaster.