The Beast Master was perhaps the most-maligned subclass in the 2014 PHB. I don't think it was ever the least powerful one (Way of Four Elements might have had that dubious honor - which is why it's so fun that the new Elements Monk might be the best Monk subclass in the book) but the main problem was that it struggled to fulfill the Beast Master class fantasy... sort of. Actually, honestly, it did what it said it would, but given that your pet couldn't scale up, and there wasn't a really clear way to keep them from permanently dying, it just sort of landed as a disappointment. It was also put on display very publicly through the character of Vex'halia on Critical Role, and Laura Bailey's (Vex's player) frustrations (not to mention the mockery that Vex's pet Trinket got from fellow player Sam Riegel) really cemented this sense that the Beast Master was busted in 5th Edition.
We got a big revision of the subclass in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, along with several changes to the Ranger itself, and of course, in 2024, we got much of these revisions codified as the primary version of the class and subclass.
All that being said, while some struggling classes from 2014 got big glow-ups in 2024 (the Monk in particular,) many have expressed dismay that the Ranger was left behind, not getting the power and support it needed.
That being said, I also think that 2024 D&D is more balanced than 2014 was, and thus, I wonder how we might build a Beast Master to be a fairly effective combatant, and if it's even that hard to do.
Way before we even get started on making the many crucial choices in our build, though, we need to consider the following:
A Beast Master's companion uses the Ranger's spell attack bonus to determine its own attack bonus. This incentivizes the Ranger to consider pursuing Wisdom rather than Dexterity (or Strength, though I'd generally advise against making a Strength Ranger, as you get spread out across too many ability scores).
But how can we go hard on Wisdom when we're still reliant on our weapons for a significant portion of our damage?
As I see it, there are a couple possibilities, and both involve getting some Druid cantrips. The good news is that this an option we can pursue even without worrying about Feats. At level 2, when we pick a fighting style, we can get the Ranger-exclusive option of Druidic Warrior. Now, you could grab something like Starry Wisp, and just cast the spell from range. But damage cantrips don't really keep up with weapons, unless you're talking about an Agonizing Blast-enhanced Eldritch Blast (and even that falls slightly behind when you compare it with magic weapons).
Here, another option that presents itself is Shillelagh. This cantrip allows you to fight with a weapon (as long as it's a club or a quarterstaff) using your spellcasting ability. The new version actually has some scaling, by enhancing the weapon's weapon die at each tier, starting at a d8, then d10 at level 5, d12 at level 11, and 2d6 at level 17. Unlike a Druid who uses this, we effectively get a little more scaling because of Extra Attack at level 5.
The downside, however, of Shillelagh, is that it takes our bonus action. Rangers already like to use bonus actions on Hunter's Mark, but we're also going to need it to command our pet. Thus, unless we can pre-cast both spells before the fight gets going, we're either going to need to wait until turn 3 to attack with our pet, or we're going to have to ignore one of these bonuses.
My instinct is that, unless we're expecting a very long fight, we want to get our pet into the mix right away, and that means that we're probably going to be better off just using a Dexterity build and deal with the fact that our pet's attack chance is lower.
Even our softest-hitting pets, the Beast of the Sky (though their average damage is the same as a Beast of the Sea, except on crits) deals 1d4+6, our 8.5 damage on a hit, which is for sure significant at level 4, and is better even than our Hunter's Mark damage when we get Extra Attack.
Indeed, if we assume all hits (which to be fair does favor the pet,) it'll take three hits on a marked target to make up for the lost attack on turn 1.
I'm thus also inclined that the wasted bonus action on turn 1 with a Shillelagh build might also not be worth it, again except in the case of longer fights (though Shillelagh has the advantage of not being concentration and also not requiring reapplication if the target dies).
Thus, let's instead assume our build is going to be a bit more traditional - pushing Dex to the limit before working any further on Wisdom.
We then should figure out what kind of weapon we want to use.
Classically, the Ranger uses a... ranged weapon. And yet, there's also a grand tradition of dual-wielding (like with Drizz't Do'urden). If we're focused on Dexterity, it won't make sense to use a big two-handed melee weapon, so I'd say the route we're taking allows for two primary options: dual-wielding or fighting with a ranged weapon.
Now, I mentioned how we're going to need to be careful in our choice of feats. On almost any other character (including most Rangers,) I'd recommend picking up the Dual Wielder feat, because it effectively gives us a second off-hand attack as long as we're taking advantage of the Nick property. However, a Beast Master always (unless things have gone very wrong) has a bonus action to take by commanding their beast. And thus, this feat won't be very good for us.
But that doesn't rule out dual-wielding as a configuration: Nick actually enables us to do so. We can wield a Shortsword and Scimitar in combination. We can even pick up the two-weapon fighting style.
The alternative is fairly simple: we grab a ranged weapon and the archery fighting style, and we're golden. Here's the twist, though: we probably want to take the Shortbow instead of the Longbow. While the Shortbow has a shorter range and lower weapon die, it also has the Vex property, which actually means that over time, it winds up dealing more damage than the longbow because we hit and crit more often. The double-twist, though, is that technically, a Longbow can benefit from Great Weapon Master - while not a strength-based weapon, it does have the Heavy Property, and thus you can get that PB bonus to its damage with your attacks. The downside, though, is that you're taking a point of Strength on a character who is built for Dexterity, and while some Rangers might push both Strength and Dexterity in equal measures while ignoring Wisdom, we can't really do that because of our Beasts.
Again, I don't really have the math done out, but my instinct is that the melee build will do better damage - though it of course carries a risk, which is that being in melee means taking more attacks.
I will also say that dual-wielding further incentivizes actually getting Hunter's Mark up there. At level 5, we're effectively making three attacks with our attack action, and so we reach those three required to make up for the lack of a beast strike that much faster.
So, let's imagine a scenario:
My longest-played character is currently level 8, so that's the range I'm generally thinking about for combat examples. So, we'll assume we're level 8, and we're fighting a monster with an AC of, say, 17.
At this level, we've got two general feats. We'll say we took Mage Slayer at level 4 (knowing that Dual Wielder wouldn't help us that much) and then, perhaps, because we know we want to get working on our Wisdom, we've just taken an ASI to pop Dex to 20 here. We have two-weapon fighting as our fighting style feat, and we're using a Beast of the Land to maximize damage.
Now, let's be generous and say that we got off Hunter's Mark before the fight broke out. Our Beast of the Land will have their turn to charge toward the target and get a bonus d6 of damage on a hit.
Here's how I imagine our sequence goes:
We start by running to the target. We then use a bonus action to command the beast to do the same, as well as attack it and then use its bonus action to give us the Help action, so we get advantage on our first attack. The beast has an attack bonus of only +6 (compared with our +8). Thus, it has a 50% chance to hit our AC 17 target.
Pet hit damage: 1d8+1d6+5, or 13 average
Pet crit bonus: 8 average
So, 13x50%, or 6.5, plus 8x5%, or .4, gives us the pet's average damage of 6.9 (nice).
Now, once the pet's done their movement, action, and bonus action, it's our turn. Here, Vex makes the math a little hairy, but I'll do my best:
Our hit chance is 60%, but with advantage from the help action, it means that actually we've got an 84% chance to hit, and a 9.75% to crit.
Hit damage (remember that we said we pre-cast Hunter's Mark) is 2d6+5, or 12
Crit bonus is 7
So, on our first attack, we're looking at 12x84%, or 10.08, plus 7x9.75%, or .6825, meaning our average damage on this first attack is 10.7625.
This is where it gets nasty:
Because of Vex, if we did hit on the first attack, we have advantage on the second attack, but if we still missed with that 16% miss chance, we won't have advantage. So, we now need to know what our average damage would be if we didn't have advantage. This isn't too hard to get: 60% hit chance and 5% crit chance, so we're talking 13x60%, or 7.8, plus 7x5%, or .35, so the average there is 8.15.
Then, we go back to how likely our previous attack was to hit and apply these as coefficients before summing them: we had an 84% chance to get advantage on this attack, so 10.7625x84%, or 9.0405, and a 16% chance to have not had advantage, so 8.15x16%, or 1.304, which gives us an average damage on this attack of 10.3445.
Finally, we have our off-hand scimitar attack. Jesus, here we go: the first attack had guaranteed advantage from the Help action. The second attack's advantage was conditional on the first attack landing with advantage. Now, we're looking at a further-split timeline where we're more likely to get advantage if the previous attack hit, which itself was more likely to happen if the first attack hit.
So: let's break it down:
84% of the time, the first attack hits. In this scenario, the second attack has an 84% chance to hit.
16% of the time, the first attack misses. In this scenario, the second attack has a 60% chance to hit.
Thus, the second attack's chance to hit overall becomes 84%x84% plus 60%x16%. That's 70.56% plus 9.6%, for a total hit chance of 80.16%.
Now, the second attack hitting tells us how likely it is for our scimitar off-hand attack gets advantage.
Thanks to the two-weapon fighting style, the damage is actually the same on a hit or a crit, so we're just applying the same damage we got for advantage and disadvantage, just in a new ratio.
Once again, attacking with advantage gives us average damage of 10.7625, while lacking advantage gives us 8.15. With an 80.16% chance to have advantage, we're looking at 10.7625x80.16%, or 8.6722, and then an 19.84% chance to not have advantage, so we look at 8.15x19.84%, giving us 1.61696, totaling on average 10.28916 for this final attack.
So, let's sum it all up:
Beast Strike: 6.9
First Shortsword Attack: 10.7625
Second Shortsword Attack: 10.3445
Third Shortsword Attack: 10.28916
Total damage on round 1 with pre-cast Hunter's Mark: 38.29616.
That is, honestly, very respectable damage. But this is also a very best-case-scenario. If we can't pre-cast Hunter's Mark, for example, we need to choose between doing so or having our pet's turn, the latter of which is also how we get advantage on that first attack.
Still, I'd guess we're not dropping far below 30 average damage if we have to make that decision. As a point of comparison, let's figure out what a comparable Champion Fighter with a Greatsword would be doing. Our Champion has GWM and we'll say, like, Mage Slayer and Heavy Armor Master to fill out their Strength. With a +5 to Strength, we're looking at a +8 to hit. Thanks to Graze, every attack is going to do our 5 Strength damage, so we can just add that at the end. As a champion, we have a 10% crit chance. So, again, 60% hit chance.
Hit damage (ignoring Strength for now) is 2d6+3, or 10 average
Crit bonus: 2d6, or 7
So, 10x60% is 6, and then 7x10% is .7, so we're doing 6.7 average damage, but then add the 5 that comes even if we miss, and we get 11.7 damage per attack. Two attacks gives us 23.4.
Now, if either of these crit, we get a bonus action attack that lacks the +3 PB to damage. With two attacks and a 10% crit chance, the chance that either crits is 19%, so we figure out the average damage for our Hew attack and then multiply it by that.
Once again, Graze means a guaranteed 5, so we can add that to the average at the end.
Hit damage: 2d6
Crit bonus: 2d6
I think we can actually just combine the 60% chance to hit and the 10% chance to crit, so 7x70% is 4.9, then 4.9x19% is .931, meaning our total average damage here is actually just 24.331 - significantly lower than the Beast Master was doing.
Now, sure, a Fighter has a few more options like Action Surge, but this is honestly kind of eye-opening.
I'd be tempted to run the Beast Master through less ideal scenarios, but Vex is pretty tough to calculate as someone who was never that much of a math guy.
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