Beast Master

The Beast Master archetype embodies a friendship between the civilized races and the beasts of the world. United in focus, beast and ranger work as one to fight the monstrous foes that threaten civilization and the wilderness alike. Emulating the Beast Master archetype means committing yourself to this ideal, working in partnership with an animal as its companion and friend.

Ranger's Companion

At 3rd level, you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you. Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower (the Player's Handbook appendix D presents statistics for the hawk, mastiff, and panther as examples). Add your proficiency bonus to the beast’s AC and attack rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills it is proficient in. Its hit point maximum equals its normal maximum or five times your ranger level, whichever is higher.

The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. It takes its turn right after yours, though it doesn’t take an action unless you command it to. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you), and you can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help action. Once you have done so, your companion will keep following the command on its following turns as best as it can and until it is reasonably impossible for the beast to do so (if its target is incapacited or became invisible, for example).

Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action. However, your beast companion can never use the Multiattack action, even if it is part of its normal actions.

While traveling through your favored terrain with only the beast, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. If the beast dies, you can obtain another one by spending 8 hours magically bonding with another beast that isn’t hostile to you, either the same type of beast as before or a different one.

Exceptional Training

Beginning at 7th level, whenever your beast companion is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you can use your reaction to warn the beast, granting it resistance against that instance of the damage. This feature intentionally stacks with any effect that would improve the outcome of your beast companion's Dexterity saving throws (such as the Mounted Combatant feat, see the Player's Handbook page 168).

Also at 7th level, if one of your beast companion's actions or features requires its target to make a saving throw, the saving throw DC is 8 + your proficiency bonus or its normal DC, whichever is higher.

Bestial Fury

Starting at 11th level, when your beast companion is reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can use your reaction to expend one ranger spell slot. The beast is instead reduced to an amount of hit points equal to the level of the spell slot you expended. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Additionally, if you are wielding at least one magical weapon, your companion beast attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Share Spells

Beginning at 15th 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.



What has been changed?

This band-aid variant, easy to implement in your games, aims to fix mechanical issues with the class, mainly the action economy problem. In this homebrew, we give the beast companion its own turn, which may not be suited to parties larger than 6 individuals.

The DM may also want to adjust its encounter building to account for this "new player", although the beast should probably be considered, at best, as a Fighter of half its ranger's level.


Ranger's Companion (3rd level)
  • No more proficiency bonus to damage rolls.
  • Beast HP is five times ranger level (up from 4).
  • Commands carry on the following turns.
  • Beast companion cannot use Multiattack.

Exceptional Training (7th level)
  • Completely changed since action economy is not a shared thing anymore.
  • Instead provides survivability from AoE effects for the beast, if its owner is still able to burn his reaction. The mechanic does not make the Mounted Combatant feat redundant, quite the opposite, and works even on Dexterity save failure, as not to penalize the low Dexterity beasts even further.
  • Addresses the minor DC scalability issue. At 7th level this will only benefit DC10 features which are rare (but not non-existent). However most features are DC11 and would therefore begin to improve at 9th level.

Bestial Fury (11th level)
  • More survivability and a "oh shit" button.
  • Adresses the major magical damage issue while respecting low-magic settings.

Not included in this fix
  • Still 1/4 CR beasts. If you want a Bear, reskin the Giant Badger and swap burrowing speed for climbing speed
  • Ranger still has some issues as a class, and this homebrew doesn't pretend to fix it as well. Its only goal is to make the Beast Master better, as simply and elegantly as possible.