Ranger 101: Beast Master

Tags Class Guides Class 101 Ranger 101

Class is back in session. This week, we are greeted by an animal companion who loyally stands at our side. A Beast Master is a ranger who is bonded to a beast from the lands they wander. Some fight alongside a loyal wolf, others with a flying snake, a giant poisonous snake, or even a pteranodon from the primeval jungles of Chult. A ranger who chooses to become a Beast Master walks a challenging path, but with careful consideration of your animal companion, you can become a powerful warrior.

We’ve completed our first full rotation of the twelve classes, and exhausted all the content that the Basic Rules have to offer—as far as classes go, that is. This next wave of the Class 101 series will appraise every subclass within the Player’s Handbook and break down each subclass’s strengths, weaknesses, thematic elements, and everything else a player would want to know before playing that subclass. Because of this, you will need to own the Player’s Handbook (or purchase the subclass a la carte on the Marketplace) in order to make full use of this series.

Check out other articles in the Ranger 101 series, like our broad overview in Ranger 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Exploring the Wilderness, and Ranger 101: Hunter. If you’re interested in playing other classes, check out the entire Class 101 series.

Story of the Beast Master

“Vine, fangs!” barked the ranger. He was locked in combat with a trio of snarling hobgoblins—well-armed scouts from the forward camp of an invasion force that was slowly pushing into jungle. He was flanked, with one hobgoblin’s spear tip mere inches from his back, goading him straight into the sharp, hungry blades of the two others. For a brief moment, he looked over his shoulder as he barked a command, and then leapt forward, drawing his scimitars in a single motion, like a hawk unfurling its wings.

Suddenly, the hobgoblin at the ranger’s back gargled and fell limp, hitting the hard roots of the forest floor with a jangle of chain mail. The ranger, free to focus on the two foes before him, fought expertly. He put pressure on one warrior with the blade in his right hand, while deftly parrying blows from the other with the sword in his left. Sweat poured from the defending hobgoblin’s brow, and she looked to her squadmate in panic. The ranger noticed this subtle motion, and barked another command.

“Vine, bind!”

Before the attacking hobgoblin could react, a venomous python lunged at the hobgoblin warrior, coiling around his neck in an instant. He fell to the ground as the air was squeezed from his throat. The ranger glanced back just long enough to give a faint smile to his loyal companion, and then renewed his assault on the now-solitary hobgoblin. The advantage of numbers lost, the hobgoblin took a halting step backward, and then dropped her sword and shield and fled towards the forest’s edge. The ranger spit in her footprints, and turned back to the creature whose neck was constricted by his venomous companion.

“Vine, let him breathe.” The ranger lowered himself on one knee and grabbed the hobgoblin’s long, greasy hair, and pulled so that his neck was raised. He pressed the blunt curve of one of his scimitars against his captive’s neck as he returned to consciousness. “Now, let’s talk.”

Beast Master Features

The ranger gains four subclass features starting at 3rd, 7th, 11th, and 15th level. You can read all of the Beast Master features in the Player’s Handbook. In summary, your subclass features allow you to:

  • Gain the aid of a beast companion, allowing you to command it to take action both in and out of battle, and grant it bonuses based on your proficiency bonus.
  • Command your beast to take non-attack actions as a bonus action.
  • Command your beast to attack more than once when it takes the Attack action.
  • Allow the spells you cast on yourself to also affect your beast companion.

Benefits of the Beast Master Archetype

In the first article written for D&D Beyond, I spoke with then-D&D freelancer and now-D&D designer Dan Dillon about the Beast Master, its benefits, its shortcomings, and the many ways the Beast Master can be misunderstood. Discussing the benefits and drawbacks of the Beast Master archetype is complex, as its strengths and weaknesses are often intertwined. Nevertheless, they’re presented here in as clear and simple a manner as possible.

Playing a Beast Master ranger grants you the most powerful animal companion in the game, even when compared to the familiar of a Pact of the Chain warlock, or a Battle Smith artificer—though to do so, you’ll need to choose wisely. As discussed in more detail below, there are many great options for animal companions, but countless more beasts that will hinder you in combat as much as they help.

A Beast Master’s animal companion grows in offensive and defensive power as you level up. Though you must spend your action to command it to attack at first, you eventually gain the ability to trade one of your attacks (with Extra Attack) to command your beast to attack. Later still, your beast can attack multiple times when you command it to attack, allowing you to trade one of your attacks for several of your companion’s. A beast with a single powerful attack, such as a giant poisonous snake or a monster with an attack that requires a creature to be grappled, like a giant frog, is very well served by this additional attack.

Beyond this, some beasts have a mobility advantage that makes it easy for rangers to Help their allies from afar, making the Beast Master a versatile offensive and supportive character. If you have a flying snake companion, you can use your action to command it to fly up to 60 feet to an enemy, use the Help action, and then fly away, using the Flyby trait to escape without provoking opportunity attacks. Your party rogue, if you have one, can make serious use of this advantage to gain Sneak Attack against that foe.

Drawbacks of the Beast Master Archetype

Though it’s true that many of the benefits of the Beast Master archetype are often forgotten, it can’t be denied that this subclass has problems. Some of these problems are legitimate mechanical deficiencies, such as the Beast Master’s lack of bonus spells (a drawback it shares with the Hunter archetype)—some are problems of balanced options that don’t feel fun, like having to find a new beast companion if your current one dies—and some are both, like having to sacrifice your own action at early levels to command your beast to attack.

The most egregious challenge that new Beast Master players face is the endless sea of animal companions to choose from, ranging from CR 0 to CR 1/4. This not only requires the player to dig through an ostensibly DM-only resource, the Monster Manual (or the D&D Beyond monster database), but also to have the in-depth game knowledge required to choose a helpful beast. Some options, like the hawk may seem iconic, but ultimately provide little help, since they can’t contribute much in combat, and are unable to communicate with their ranger, making them poor scouts. Many of the most powerful options, like the giant poisonous snake and giant frog are odd and distinctly un-iconic choices, making new players unlikely to choose them right out of the gate.

The issue of the Beast Master’s drawbacks have been discussed to death on countless social media posts and optimization forums, and don’t need to be discussed any further here. Likewise, innumerable fixes to the subclass exist, such as allowing your animal companion to continue performing an action (like Help or Attack) on subsequent turns until you command it to perform a different action, or allowing you to command your animal companion to attack as a bonus action instead of as an action or sacrificing an attack.

Side Note: Unearthed Arcana

A few weeks ago, the most recent Unearthed Arcana presented several options that mitigate some of the Beast Master’s most egregious flaws. Namely, the new Ranger Companion Options eliminates the risk of falling into one of the many of the “trap options” of low-CR animal companions, and allows you to resurrect your animal companion if it dies during your adventures. Though these are playtest options, they’re worth looking at. If you like what you see, consider asking your Dungeon Master if you can use them in your game.

Suggested Build

If you’re building a Beast Master ranger from 1st level, be aware that you won’t gain your subclass until 3rd level. When creating your character, you should choose a race that gives you a bonus to Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom—ideally at least two of the three. You can play a ranger that focuses on Strength instead of Dexterity, and uses large melee weapons instead of dual-wielding light weapons or shooting a bow, but it’s definitely nontraditional. For this reason, playing a wood elf or a stout halfling are your best bets; both give a large bonus to Dexterity and a small bonus to Constitution or Wisdom, and give some useful traits, as well.

Though playing a forest gnome grants you a +2 to Intelligence, a decidedly less important ability score, gaining the ability to speak with Small beasts can be useful if you have a Small animal companion. On the other hand, if you play a Small race (like gnome or halfling), and choose a Medium animal companion, you can ride it as a mount! Riding on a giant wolf spider or flying on the back of a pteranodon is just awesome.

As usual, your character’s background is up to you. Some rangers were born in civilization and felt the call of the wild from an early age, while others have lived in the wilderness their entire lives. As such, Outlander or Hermit would be a fairly standard starting background for a ranger, while choosing soldier, acolyte, or sailor could be an interesting way to “play against type.”

Select EQUIPMENT when creating a character. Choose scale mail if you’re playing an unusual ranger with low Dexterity; otherwise, choose leather armor. Also, unless you have a specific reason to want a simple melee weapon, choosing two shortswords is a good route to go. As a Beast Master, you will often find yourself sacrificing your action to allow your beast to attack. As such, your choice of weapon doesn’t matter greatly—until 5th level, when you gain Extra Attack and the ability to trade just one of your own attacks to let your beast companion attack. Then, fighting with two weapons becomes very attractive, as it lets you make one attack with your Attack action, then make a second with the bonus action granted by dual wielding.

At 1st level, figure out which you enjoy more: fighting in melee with a shortsword in each hand, or fighting from afar with your longbow. Once you know your preference…

Fighting Style

Your first major build decision comes at 2nd level, when you have the option to choose your Fighting Style. Rangers have several options, but the best two options for you are either Archery or Two-Weapon Fighting. Archery gives you a serious accuracy bonus when fighting with ranged weapons (not just bows!) and Two-Weapon Fighting grants you a small damage bonus while dual wielding. Archery is probably the better style in a vacuum, but your character concept should supersede what is mechanically “optimal.”

Defense is a perfectly reasonable fighting style if you have mediocre defenses, but generally speaking, investing in offense is better for rangers. Only consider the Dueling fighting style if you’re playing an unusual Strength-focused ranger with a one-handed melee weapon and a shield.

Spells

Your second major decision comes at 2nd level, too! You first gain the ability to cast spells at this level, drawing from their own unique spell list. While your spell selection is more limited and you gain access to more powerful spells more slowly than “full caster” classes, you balance it out with your robust combat arsenal. Take this time before you gain your subclass at 3rd level to feel out what your role in the party is. That way, when you do gain your subclass, you’ll know what spells your party needs you to have access to on a regular basis.

When you reach 2nd level, you learn two 1st-level spells from the ranger spell list. Unlike some other spellcasting classes, once a ranger learns a spell, they know that spell forever. You can "trade out" one known spell for another spell on your spell list when you gain a level, but that's it. From here on out, you learn one new ranger spell at 3rd level, and at every odd-numbered level thereafter. You also gain access to a new spell level at 5th level, and every four levels thereafter. This is where retraining spells becomes important; if you know low-level spells that just aren’t useful to you anymore, you can swap them out for higher-level spells one-by-one to adapt to rising challenges.

As an offense-focused subclass, you’ll want to start by picking two spells labeled OFFENSE at 1st level. From there, you can be the judge of what spells you need to best support yourself and your party. Picking up a few spells labeled DEFENSE or SUPPORT over time couldn’t hurt, but you’ll want to make sure that your offense is always top-notch. As mentioned above, a large number of ranger spells require concentration, and you can’t have more than one concentration spell active at a time, so be careful.

Note that this list only includes some spells from the Player's Handbook, so if you want to choose more unusual spells, or have other sources like Xanathar's Guide to Everything, you'll have to do a little self-directed research. This list is just here to get you started if this is your first time playing a Beast Master ranger.

This list of spells is geared towards helping you select spells, while giving you freedom to pick your own spells and stand out from the pack. Nevertheless, there’s one spell that no Beast Master should be without: beast bond. Though this spell takes an action to cast, it’s such a serious buff to you and your beast companion that you should learn it the instant you rise to 3rd level. As long as you maintain your concentration, you can communicate telepathically with your animal companion while within line of sight, and the beast has advantage on attack rolls against any creature within 5 feet of you.

Of course, this spell is much less powerful if your animal companion has Pack Tactics, such as a wolf.

Animal Companion

Once you reach 3rd level and choose this subclass, you gain the Ranger’s Companion feature, allowing you to choose your animal companion. If you want your animal companion to aid you in combat, you should choose a beast with a challenge rating of 1/4 (the highest you’re allowed to choose). Here is a list of all Small or Medium CR 1/4 beasts in the Monster Manual. Of these beasts, you’ll want to pick ones with powerful attacks, or with other powerful offensive benefits. Some include:

  • Giant frog. The frog’s Swallow attack lets it eat Small enemies, temporarily taking them out of the fight! This is great against packs of enemies like goblins or kobolds, but it loses steam as enemies become larger.
  • Giant wolf spider. For a stealthier ranger, this creepy companion has a quick climbing speed, and a powerful poisonous bite. Gnomes and halflings can ride this guy up walls!
  • Panther. This jungle cat’s Pounce trait can turn it into a damage machine, as long as it has room to move.
  • Pteranodon. This prehistoric beast is notable for its Flyby trait, which allows it to avoid opportunity attacks, and its size—making it flying mount for Small rangers like halflings and gnomes!
  • Wolf. A classic ranger companion, the wolf is one of the most powerful “iconic” beast to have by your side. Its Pack Tactics and Keen Senses make it useful in both combat and exploration.

Feats

At 4th level, you get to gain either an Ability Score Increase or a feat. Choosing an Ability Score Increase lets you increase one ability score by +2 (such as increasing your Wisdom score from 14 to 16) or increase two ability scores by +1 (like increasing your Dexterity from 15 to 16 and your Wisdom score from 13 to 14). Increasing your ability scores makes you better at a wide variety of things; for instance, increasing your Wisdom score makes it harder for enemies to resist your spells, and also makes you better at making Wisdom checks and saving throws.

Feats, on the other hand, give you a special ability that could be more helpful in a specific circumstance, as opposed to the broad improvement that an Ability Score Increase could give you. Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom are likely your most important ability scores, since they govern your offensive, defensive, and spellcasting abilities. Since you have several ability scores to pour Ability Score Increases into, you may only want to only choose a feat if it seriously speaks to you. You can choose any feat you want to support your character concept, but there are some feats that may be more useful to your character than others. These feats include:

Crossbow Expert. Forget longbows, what you want is a crossbow—if you’re using this feat, at least. Ignoring loading restrictions and ignoring disadvantage on ranged attacks while in melee is incredibly powerful. Once you reach 5th level, have your beast attack, make one attack with a shortsword, and use your bonus action to shoot your hand crossbow. Pretty sweet.

Dual Wielder. This feat ups both your offense and your defense while wielding a weapon in both hands. A fine feat to take, especially if your Dexterity score is already maxed out at 20.

Mounted Combatant. If you’re a Small-size character riding a Medium-size beast, this feat has interesting potential, as it lets you protect your companion from harm while you’re riding it. You probably won’t gain advantage on attacks since your mount is only Medium-size, but it could still happen every now and then.

Sharpshooter. If you’re a ranger with a longbow and the Archery Fighting Style, this feat can turn you into a mobile laser cannon, tearing enemies to shreds with arrows that regularly deal 20 damage in a single hit. Ignoring cover is a potent benefit, in addition to the damage. If you command your animal companion to Help you from range as a bonus action, this feat can just become unfair.

If you want more advice for building a ranger, check out Ranger 101. Have you ever played a Beast Master? What advice would you give to players that want to play this subclass?

James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.

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