I recently started a new campaign set in Eberron and I wanted a character I could feel passionate about. I chose a Mark of Finding Half-Orc Ranger with Beast Master. I was intrigued by this archetype and I wanted to be able to have an animal companion for the role-playing possibilities. I quickly discovered however that the subclass has some very serious problems. With regard to your animal companion in combat it states,
The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. It takes its turn on your initiative. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you). You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, or Help action. If you don't issue a command, the beast takes the Dodge action. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action.
This means that if you choose to use your animal companion in combat there is no net benefit, that is to say, you do not gain anything and in many cases your animal companion's attack will be less effective than your own attack. If this is the case, the subclass seems to be extremely underpowered compared to other classes and subclasses.
A possible solution to this is the spell 'Beast Bond' which states,
You establish a telepathic link with one beast you touch that is friendly to you or charmed by you. The spell fails if the beast’s Intelligence is 4 or higher. Until the spell ends, the link is active while you and the beast are within line of sight of each other. Through the link, the beast can understand your telepathic messages to it, and it can telepathically communicate simple emotions and concepts back to you. While the link is active, the beast gains advantage on attack rolls against any creature within 5 feet of you that you can see.
EE, pg. 150
It seems to me that the only possible use for this spell is to overcome the problem of using an ACTION to command your animal companion, though it does not specifically state that. I have tried to find resources that address the intent of this spell and have not had any success. What do you think? However, even if it was a possible solution it suffers from the fact that Rangers have very few spell slots to use and if there are multiple encounters in a day this could become problematic.
There is a UA for the Ranger class that offers a solution here https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_RevisedRanger.pdf however I think this only complicates the matter. It establishes a telepathic link between you and your animal companion and so no ACTION or bonus ACTION is required in combat. While effective I think it is unnecessarily complicated and overpowered. I think to be fair there should be some consequence or trade-off to using your animal companion.
A possible solution is to petition the DM to allow me to command the animal companion as a bonus ACTION and not as an ACTION.I think this is the most fair since it would prevent me from using spells like 'Hunter's Mark' as a bonus action and attacking with my animal companion on the same turn.
I think you might be misreading the UA article. It specifically allows you to command the beast to attack as a bonus action.
Ah, hang on. That's not the UA I was expecting. There is another one that is more inline with what you want. I recommend this one because it also replaces the other painfully-useless-but-included-for-tradition ranger abilities.
If you still prefer the one you were looking at, consider that the Revised Beast Master never gets the Extra Attack feature. Basically instead of getting to attack twice with the attack action like the other Ranger Conclaves, they attack once and their beast attacks once. So that is the trade-off.
Beast Master is fine as is. Get a companion with Pack Tactics such as the Wolf.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
You don't take Beast Master to get more attacks. If that's what you're interested in mechanically, play a fighter, or a Hunter, or something else. You take a Beast Master to be a Ranger with a cool medium-sized Familiar, a friend and ally that you can use in exploration and roleplaying, or which you can move around on the battlefield to help control positioning. The Beast Master has some ability to urge his beast to attack in combat, which can very situationally be useful.... but you can and should be focused on making your own attacks.
Ways that an Animal Companion can be quite helpful:
Be a multiclass Rogue, and use your animal companion to satisfy the ally-within-5-feet-of-target condition for sneak attacks ( Wolves are especially good for this
Be a small race, and use your animal companion as a mount with better-than-normal AC, HP, and skills
Use the Animal Companion to scout, or to help on watch
Position the Companion in a way which provides Half-Cover to your or your allies
Position the Companion in a way that will provoke OAs from enemies (again, Wolves are very good at this, since their OAs can knock enemies prone)
Dominate Beast your companion, enabling to perform full turns and attack targets in the way that you already think they should be able to :)
Really, it would be great if you could allow your Animal Companion to take full turns "uncontrolled", as you can with an independent mount. There's not a lot of in-game logic for why a regular store-bought Mastiff can be allowed to rampage around the battlefield while a halfling rides it, but if that halfling is a ranger and befriends the dog as an Animal Companion, it suddenly becomes more timid.... but hey, that's how the class was written, and it is what it is.
Also maybe think about choosing the giant poisonous snake. Great dexterity, very high damage per hit that benefits twice per hit from the proficiency bonus to damage rolls, potentially higher AC than the ranger, blindsight, 10ft reach for attacks, perception proficiency which gains your proficiency, and a 30ft walk/swim speed.
you could probably use it as a source of poison if you talk to your DM.
The primary purpose of a Beast Master beast is battlefield control. Attacking with it is NOT its most useful trait.
You clog up the front line with your beast as quickly as possible. It automatically Dodges each round and automatically uses its reaction as well. That means at level 3 you can attack once and your animal gets a free reaction attack. If you’re a melee ranger that means you’re getting 2 reactions if they run away.
It will not get hit - while dodging it means everything attacks at disadvantage and it will have an AC around 17+.
Later on it gets the Help action as a Bonus Action which is very useful.
Synergies? Crabs get “auto grapple” when baddies try to run. Wolf gets Pack Tactics for more guaranteed strikes. Giant Poisonous Snake gets really good damage.
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I recently started a new campaign set in Eberron and I wanted a character I could feel passionate about. I chose a Mark of Finding Half-Orc Ranger with Beast Master. I was intrigued by this archetype and I wanted to be able to have an animal companion for the role-playing possibilities. I quickly discovered however that the subclass has some very serious problems. With regard to your animal companion in combat it states,
This means that if you choose to use your animal companion in combat there is no net benefit, that is to say, you do not gain anything and in many cases your animal companion's attack will be less effective than your own attack. If this is the case, the subclass seems to be extremely underpowered compared to other classes and subclasses.
A possible solution to this is the spell 'Beast Bond' which states,
It seems to me that the only possible use for this spell is to overcome the problem of using an ACTION to command your animal companion, though it does not specifically state that. I have tried to find resources that address the intent of this spell and have not had any success. What do you think? However, even if it was a possible solution it suffers from the fact that Rangers have very few spell slots to use and if there are multiple encounters in a day this could become problematic.
There is a UA for the Ranger class that offers a solution here https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_RevisedRanger.pdf however I think this only complicates the matter. It establishes a telepathic link between you and your animal companion and so no ACTION or bonus ACTION is required in combat. While effective I think it is unnecessarily complicated and overpowered. I think to be fair there should be some consequence or trade-off to using your animal companion.
A possible solution is to petition the DM to allow me to command the animal companion as a bonus ACTION and not as an ACTION.I think this is the most fair since it would prevent me from using spells like 'Hunter's Mark' as a bonus action and attacking with my animal companion on the same turn.
What do you think?
I think you might be misreading the UA article. It specifically allows you to command the beast to attack as a bonus action.
Ah, hang on. That's not the UA I was expecting. There is another one that is more inline with what you want. I recommend this one because it also replaces the other painfully-useless-but-included-for-tradition ranger abilities.
https://media.wizards.com/2019/dnd/downloads/UA-ClassFeatures.pdf
If you still prefer the one you were looking at, consider that the Revised Beast Master never gets the Extra Attack feature. Basically instead of getting to attack twice with the attack action like the other Ranger Conclaves, they attack once and their beast attacks once. So that is the trade-off.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Beast Master is fine as is. Get a companion with Pack Tactics such as the Wolf.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
You don't take Beast Master to get more attacks. If that's what you're interested in mechanically, play a fighter, or a Hunter, or something else. You take a Beast Master to be a Ranger with a cool medium-sized Familiar, a friend and ally that you can use in exploration and roleplaying, or which you can move around on the battlefield to help control positioning. The Beast Master has some ability to urge his beast to attack in combat, which can very situationally be useful.... but you can and should be focused on making your own attacks.
Ways that an Animal Companion can be quite helpful:
Really, it would be great if you could allow your Animal Companion to take full turns "uncontrolled", as you can with an independent mount. There's not a lot of in-game logic for why a regular store-bought Mastiff can be allowed to rampage around the battlefield while a halfling rides it, but if that halfling is a ranger and befriends the dog as an Animal Companion, it suddenly becomes more timid.... but hey, that's how the class was written, and it is what it is.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Also maybe think about choosing the giant poisonous snake. Great dexterity, very high damage per hit that benefits twice per hit from the proficiency bonus to damage rolls, potentially higher AC than the ranger, blindsight, 10ft reach for attacks, perception proficiency which gains your proficiency, and a 30ft walk/swim speed.
you could probably use it as a source of poison if you talk to your DM.
The primary purpose of a Beast Master beast is battlefield control. Attacking with it is NOT its most useful trait.
You clog up the front line with your beast as quickly as possible. It automatically Dodges each round and automatically uses its reaction as well. That means at level 3 you can attack once and your animal gets a free reaction attack. If you’re a melee ranger that means you’re getting 2 reactions if they run away.
It will not get hit - while dodging it means everything attacks at disadvantage and it will have an AC around 17+.
Later on it gets the Help action as a Bonus Action which is very useful.
Synergies? Crabs get “auto grapple” when baddies try to run. Wolf gets Pack Tactics for more guaranteed strikes. Giant Poisonous Snake gets really good damage.