Mark of the Beast

Mark of the Beast rangers bind their souls to an Animal Companion of their choice, creating a bond that aids both the ranger and the animal and allowing them to operate nearly as a single being.

Ranger’s Companion

At 3rd level, you learn to use your magic to create a powerful bond with a creature of the natural world.

With 8 hours of work meld your soul with that of your faithful companion. Your companion can be any beast small, medium, or large with a CR no higher than 1(at the DMs discretion). However, your DM might pick one of these animals for you, based on the surrounding terrain and on what types of creatures would logically be present in the area.

At the end of the 8 hours both you and your animal companion have a mark representing the other somewhere on your body, and your animal companion gains all the benefits of your Companion’s Bond ability. You can have only one animal companion at a time.

If your animal companion is ever slain, you are stunned for one round and suffer 1 point of exhaustion until you resurrect or replace them. With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 25 gp worth of rare herbs, you call forth your companion’s spirit and use your magic to create a new body for it. You can return an animal companion to life in this manner even if you do not possess any part of its body. If you use this ability to return a former animal companion to life while you have a current animal companion, your current companion leaves you and is replaced by the restored companion.

As a result of the bonding ritual you and your companion gain a sense for the distance and direction of the other, feel the wounds suffered by each-other [but do not suffer the damage], and can sense one another's emotional state; all of these sense are sharper the closer you are to one another

Companion's Bond

Your animal companion gains a variety of benefits while it is linked to you:

The animal companion loses its Multiattack action, if it has one. You and your companion share the attack action - i. e. if you only have one attack either your or your companion can attack, when you get a multi-attack either of you can attack twice, or you can each attack once.

The companion obeys your commands as best it can. It shares your initiative, you determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or absent, your companion acts without orders, but still at the player's discretion.

When using your Natural Explorer feature, you and your animal companion can both move stealthily at a normal pace.

Your animal companion has abilities and game statistics determined in part by your level. Your companion uses your proficiency bonus rather than its own. It adds this to its attack rolls and saving throws it is proficient in.

Your animal companion becomes proficient with two saving throws - one from wis, dex, con - one from cha, str, and int.

For each level you gain after 3rd, your animal companion gains an additional hit die and increases its hit points accordingly. Whenever you gain the Ability Score Improvement class feature, your companion’s abilities also improve. Your companion can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or it can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, your companion can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature unless its description specifies otherwise.

Your companion shares your alignment, and has a personality trait and a flaw that you can roll for or select from the tables below. Your companion shares your ideal, and its bond is always, “The ranger who travels with me is a beloved companion.”

Your animal companion gains the benefits of your Favored Enemy feature, and of your Greater Favored Enemy feature when you gain that feature at 6th level. It uses the favored enemies you selected for those features.

d6 Trait

1 - I’m dauntless in the face of adversity.

2 - Threaten my friends, threaten me.

3 - I stay on alert so others can rest.

4 - People see an animaland underestimate me. I use that to my advantage.

5 - I have a knack for showing up in the nick of time.

6 - I put my friends’ needs before my own in all things.

d6 Flaw

1 - If there’s food left unattended, I’ll eat it.

2 - I growl at strangers, and all people except my ranger are strangers to me.

3 - Anytime is a good time for a belly rub.

4 - I’m deathly afraid of water.

5 - My idea of hello is a flurry of licks to the face.

6 - I jump on creatures to tell them how much I love them.

Share Spells

Beginning at 7th level, when you cast a spell targeting yourself, you can also affect your beast companion with the spell if the beast is within 30 feet of you.

Bestial Fury

Starting at 11th level, as an [Tooltip Not Found] you can command your companion to attack every creature of your choice within 5' of it, with separate attack rolls for each creature.

Primal Fury

Primal Fury:
Bonus action - 1 minute duration
Affects Ranger and Companion:
Advantage on all attack rolls
+2 to damage rolls
Resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage
Ranger Only:
Spirits of Nature surround you in a 15' sphere, creating difficult terrain for hostile creatures and dealing 2d6 acid, cold, fire, or lightning damage each turn to creatures you designate when a target creature enters the area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there