Not All Who Wander are Lost: A Ranger's Guide

[Burnteyes]

I see you rated it sky blue, and I agree, but I wanted to mention something very interesting:

At lv8 with Revised Ranger, a Goblin has gained all of the Rogue's coveted Cunning Action without MCing at all. They can already Disengage and Hide via its racial bonuses, but lv8 RR lets it Dash.

They're a Small race with 30ft movement, and some tables don't allow MCing, so I just figured some people might find it appealing.

I may or may not be building a Goblin RR Deep Stalker at this very moment >_>

Well, that makes two of us that may or may not currently be running a Goblin Ranger.

That said, while I full understand the value of Dash, and the dark vision advantages of a deep stalker, I'd like you and others to talk me out of this idea.

Prior I'll note I'm a damage junkie and have a deep seeded love of all things Warlock. IN other words, I'll need strong logic and data to sway my emotional pull.

Hunter with the Colossus Slayer sub. Archer. It has a 16 dex and 14 Wis, 16 Con, my others suffer majorly. At L4 I am thinking of taking the magic initiate Feat rather than Dex to 18 or Wis to16.

Add Hex as the spell, which is redundant with Hunters mark, but you get to disadvantage the target for another magic users DC spell.

At 5th that is +8 to attack, +3 or +5 to dmg (if it is my favored enemy). 1d8 + 1d6 + 3 damage (with aforementioned disadv on x skill) At L5 that is +7 to hit 2d8 + 2d6 +6=24 average and it is disadvantaged on say, Dex.

I'll would add ye ol' EB which I would have a +5 to hit for 2d10 + 2d6 + 2 = 22 ave you know, if its say a Werewolf or something else with immunity to standard weapons. Throw in Minor Illusion cantrip from Warlock and well...

Yes, you'd have redundancy in Hunters Mark and that might be enough reason, but you need to counter the loss of the EB which doesn't suck and uses force.

Conversely, going with Druid and Shillelagh gives me magic melee which is my other though. I'd take cure wounds spell because that doesn't suck, and probably resistance because it's a very poor man's Bless.

Yeah, this probably belongs in a separate thread, so if we should move it just say so. If not, tell my why getting Dash, dark vision advantages and the other spells are better (and I admit they are good)

[jaappleton]

Reminder that Hex imposes Disadvantage on Checks. NOT Saving Throws.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Well, that makes two of us that may or may not currently be running a Goblin Ranger.

That said, while I full understand the value of Dash, and the dark vision advantages of a deep stalker, I'd like you and others to talk me out of this idea.

Prior I'll note I'm a damage junkie and have a deep seeded love of all things Warlock. IN other words, I'll need strong logic and data to sway my emotional pull.

Hunter with the Colossus Slayer sub. Archer. It has a 16 dex and 14 Wis, 16 Con, my others suffer majorly. At L4 I am thinking of taking the magic initiate Feat rather than Dex to 18 or Wis to16.

Add Hex as the spell, which is redundant with Hunters mark, but you get to disadvantage the target for another magic users DC spell.

At 5th that is +8 to attack, +3 or +5 to dmg (if it is my favored enemy). 1d8 + 1d6 + 3 damage (with aforementioned disadv on x skill) At L5 that is +7 to hit 2d8 + 2d6 +6=24 average and it is disadvantaged on say, Dex.

I'll would add ye ol' EB which I would have a +5 to hit for 2d10 + 2d6 + 2 = 22 ave you know, if its say a Werewolf or something else with immunity to standard weapons. Throw in Minor Illusion cantrip from Warlock and well...

Yes, you'd have redundancy in Hunters Mark and that might be enough reason, but you need to counter the loss of the EB which doesn't suck and uses force.

Conversely, going with Druid and Shillelagh gives me magic melee which is my other though. I'd take cure wounds spell because that doesn't suck, and probably resistance because it's a very poor man's Bless.

Yeah, this probably belongs in a separate thread, so if we should move it just say so. If not, tell my why getting Dash, dark vision advantages and the other spells are better (and I admit they are good)

Well for the EB thing, you use CHA for the 'to hit' not wisdom. So....make sure you have a good cha. And Hex is disadvantage to checks not throws. however BB or GFB is good here. Shillelagh is fine but again BB and BFG are better, if simply because you can use them with a better weapon and also additional affects.

Cure wounds doesn't suck but is also not that good either. I feel like if you're gonna take a feat you should do something that helps focus that Archer playstyle you mentioned.

[Burnteyes]

Reminder that Hex imposes Disadvantage on Checks. NOT Saving Throws.

Good catch and an important point.

[Silkensword]

I Feel like the fact that Dread Ambusher stacks with a fighters action surge is worth mentioning since it makes a multiclass devastating in the first turn of combat!

[jaappleton]

I Feel like the fact that Dread Ambusher stacks with a fighters action surge is worth mentioning since it makes a multiclass devastating in the first turn of combat!

Interesting. I hadn't really thought of it.

As a Deep Stalker, at lv8 (Ranger 6 / Fighter 2), with TWF and 18 Dex...

(1d6+4)*7 after Action Surge. 52.5 damage.

Now, if you're Revised Ranger and facing your Favored or Greater Favored Enemy, that turns into: (1d6+8)*7 = 80.5, assuming all attacks hit, and doesn't account for any bonuses from magical items.

This could also be applied with Crossbow Expert instead of TWF if you want to keep your distance, since CE allows for a BA attack, and you'd actually be more accurate thanks to Archery style, and also allows the possibility of Sharpshooter for another +70 damage for a grand total of 150.5.

[jaappleton]

Apologies for the double post, but I wanted to make a comment while its all fresh in my head.

Last night, my Ranger was introduced to the group. It's my first time playing a Ranger, its a TWF Goblin Revised Ranger, Gloom Stalker Conclave.

I chose Gloom Stalker because although I actually enjoy Horizon Walker's flavor more, the bonus action economy just didn't work. So I went Gloom, and after actually playing it, I have zero regrets.

I thought the weakest part of GS was its bonus spell list, especially the lower level ones. Its pretty insane to complain about free spells, especially on a Ranger, I know.

My group is simply myself and a Sword n Board Paladin. That's it. DM is tailoring encounters to us, so no huge groups of 20+ enemies will have to be dealt with.

Pass Without Trace was amazing. We RPed the Pally and my Ranger meeting for the first time, we didn't get along (She made short jokes ), and I followed her up to her room of a tavern, and after Pass Without Trace, my Stealth roll was a 34. After Rope Trick, from which I was hanging upside down from my secret hidey-hole...

At 2am, she was awoken by an upside down seemingly severed head (Since the rest of me was in my Rope Trick hole) screaming "WHO DID YOU CALL SHORT?!"

TL;DR
Quite impressed with the Ranger. This is going to be fun!

[Mortis_Elrod]

Apologies for the double post, but I wanted to make a comment while its all fresh in my head.

Last night, my Ranger was introduced to the group. It's my first time playing a Ranger, its a TWF Goblin Revised Ranger, Gloom Stalker Conclave.

I chose Gloom Stalker because although I actually enjoy Horizon Walker's flavor more, the bonus action economy just didn't work. So I went Gloom, and after actually playing it, I have zero regrets.

I thought the weakest part of GS was its bonus spell list, especially the lower level ones. Its pretty insane to complain about free spells, especially on a Ranger, I know.

My group is simply myself and a Sword n Board Paladin. That's it. DM is tailoring encounters to us, so no huge groups of 20+ enemies will have to be dealt with.

Pass Without Trace was amazing. We RPed the Pally and my Ranger meeting for the first time, we didn't get along (She made short jokes ), and I followed her up to her room of a tavern, and after Pass Without Trace, my Stealth roll was a 34. After Rope Trick, from which I was hanging upside down from my secret hidey-hole...

At 2am, she was awoken by an upside down seemingly severed head (Since the rest of me was in my Rope Trick hole) screaming "WHO DID YOU CALL SHORT?!"

TL;DR
Quite impressed with the Ranger. This is going to be fun!

this sounds like the start of a great friendship.
and campaign.

[Naanomi]

XGtE gives some real gems to high level Beastmasters... Zephyr Strike and Guardian of Nature are both range: Self; which sets them up to Share Spells with your animal buddy.

The latter lets you do fun things like going Plantman yourself while your pet goes Ape instead, best of both worlds!

[EvilAnagram]

XGtE gives some real gems to high level Beastmasters... Zephyr Strike and Guardian of Nature are both range: Self; which sets them up to Share Spells with your animal buddy.

The latter lets you do fun things like going Plantman yourself while your pet goes Ape instead, best of both worlds!

Solid points! Updated!

[GlenSmash!]

Solid points! Updated!

Thanks for keeping the guide updated, so many others just fall by the wayside.

[KorvinStarmast]

Solid points! Updated!

I need to decide by Saturday whether or not I take Archery or dueling as fighting style.
Leaning towards archery.

Between Zephyr Strike and Hunters Mark, I went with the latter.
Also took Fog Cloud since sometimes, a "provide cover while we flee" isn't a bad plan.

With only two spells to pick I am trying to balance wants versus needs.
Party has a cleric, so I don't need goodberry.

[EvilAnagram]

I need to decide by Saturday whether or not I take Archery or dueling as fighting style.
Leaning towards archery.

Between Zephyr Strike and Hunters Mark, I went with the latter.
Also took Fog Cloud since sometimes, a "provide cover while we flee" isn't a bad plan.

With only two spells to pick I am trying to balance wants versus needs.
Party has a cleric, so I don't need goodberry.

Solid picks. I would say that in a party with full casters, fog cloud might be best left to them, but you seem imaginative enough to put it to good use. If you're going archer, I would grab Ensnaring Strike as your third pick, when it comes up. It will feel good to be able to disable and hurt an opponent.

[Arkrayven]

Hi there! First off, I wanted to say thank you for keeping this guide updated and for being so active. I was hoping you could answer a particular question about melee fighting for me. (I've read the entire first page of this thread but I haven't read every comment on every page, so I'm sorry if this has already been addressed.)

I haven't rolled a Ranger in something like eight years and I'm really looking forward to going back to it. The group I'm running with could use a decent front/mid-liner (and I prefer melee combat anyways), so I want to make a Hunter Conclave Ranger and I was torn between Dueling and Two-Weapon Fighting.

Initially, I thought Dueling was superior because it would be a 1d8 + 2, giving me a 3-10 range versus the 2d6 of dual shortswords. But the further out I took the equations, the more and more TWF seems massively superior, especially with the Dual Wielding feat so I can use 2d8s instead of 2d6s, plus the AC bonus.

If my math is right, by 8th level a Dueling Ranger could potentially be hitting for an average of 28 damage [40 against Favored Enemies.] However, a TWF Ranger would be hitting for an average of 36 [54 against Favored Enemies.] (I'll post my math below just in case I missed something.) Furthermore, a Dueling Ranger is far more crippled by a single missed attack than a TWF Ranger would be because Duelists would lose 50% of their damage whereas TWF only loses 33%. I also realize that Dueling allows a free hand or a focus for somatic spells, but stowing a single weapon for a quick cast shouldn't pose enough of an issue to lose out on that much damage, right?

However, on the first page there are multiple people who say that TWF "seems like a trap" and that "TWF is okay but Dueling is better in most situations." Was that simply because they were referring to TWF and Dueling pre-Revised Ranger, or is there something big here I'm missing?



*In case of necessity: my math. For simplicity's sake, this assumes an ABI of +5 as well as Hunter's Mark on all targets (TWF is still higher on average without Hunter's Mark as well.) I did not include potential features like Colossus Slayer.

Dueling: 2d8 + 4 [Dueling Bonus] + 2*5 [ABI Bonus] + 2d6 [Hunter’s Mark] + (2*6 for Fav. Enemies); Max = 42 (54), Min = 18 (30), Average = 28 (40)
TWF with the Dual Wielding feat: 3d8 + 3*5 [ABI Bonus] + 3d6 [Hunter’s Mark] + (3*6 for Fav. Enemies); Max = 57 (75), Min = 21 (39), Avg = 36 (54)

On turns where Hunter's Mark is moved with the bonus action, the equations are nearly identical except TWF only loses out on the +4 Dueling Bonus for that one turn.

Edit: In a scenario where Dueling is able to keep Hunter's Mark up and TWF ignores Hunter's Mark completely, TWF does somewhere from 1 damage less on average to 5 more on average, depending on if the enemy is Favored or not.

[EvilAnagram]

Hi there! First off, I wanted to say thank you for keeping this guide updated and for being so active. I was hoping you could answer a particular question about melee fighting for me. (I've read the entire first page of this thread but I haven't read every comment on every page, so I'm sorry if this has already been addressed.)

I haven't rolled a Ranger in something like eight years and I'm really looking forward to going back to it. The group I'm running with could use a decent front/mid-liner (and I prefer melee combat anyways), so I want to make a Hunter Conclave Ranger and I was torn between Dueling and Two-Weapon Fighting.

Initially, I thought Dueling was superior because it would be a 1d8 + 2, giving me a 3-10 range versus the 2d6 of dual shortswords. But the further out I took the equations, the more and more TWF seems massively superior, especially with the Dual Wielding feat so I can use 2d8s instead of 2d6s, plus the AC bonus.

If my math is right, by 8th level a Dueling Ranger could potentially be hitting for an average of 28 damage [40 against Favored Enemies.] However, a TWF Ranger would be hitting for an average of 36 [54 against Favored Enemies.] (I'll post my math below just in case I missed something.) Furthermore, a Dueling Ranger is far more crippled by a single missed attack than a TWF Ranger would be because Duelists would lose 50% of their damage whereas TWF only loses 33%. I also realize that Dueling allows a free hand or a focus for somatic spells, but stowing a single weapon for a quick cast shouldn't pose enough of an issue to lose out on that much damage, right?

However, on the first page there are multiple people who say that TWF "seems like a trap" and that "TWF is okay but Dueling is better in most situations." Was that simply because they were referring to TWF and Dueling pre-Revised Ranger, or is there something big here I'm missing?



*In case of necessity: my math. For simplicity's sake, this assumes an ABI of +5 as well as Hunter's Mark on all targets (TWF is still higher on average without Hunter's Mark as well.) I did not include potential features like Colossus Slayer.

Dueling: 2d8 + 4 [Dueling Bonus] + 2*5 [ABI Bonus] + 2d6 [Hunter’s Mark] + (2*6 for Fav. Enemies); Max = 42 (54), Min = 18 (30), Average = 28 (40)
TWF with the Dual Wielding feat: 3d8 + 3*5 [ABI Bonus] + 3d6 [Hunter’s Mark] + (3*6 for Fav. Enemies); Max = 57 (75), Min = 21 (39), Avg = 36 (54)

On turns where Hunter's Mark is moved with the bonus action, the equations are nearly identical except TWF only loses out on the +4 Dueling Bonus for that one turn.

Edit: In a scenario where Dueling is able to keep Hunter's Mark up and TWF ignores Hunter's Mark completely, TWF does somewhere from 1 damage less on average to 5 more on average, depending on if the enemy is Favored or not.

There are a lot of people who are down on TWF for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. For fighters especially, the TWF damage falls far behind what they can achieve with other styles.

For the ranger, it's a bit more nuanced. Hunter's Mark adds a good bit of damage to that offhand attack, but it's competing with Hunter's Mark for your bonus action, which can eat into your damage output with it. And don't forget that Dueling feats compete with the TWF one.

Anyways, I think it's fine. I might revise my language there because I've seen it be pretty effective, but be aware of how often you eat into your bonus action, and maybe start out targeting big hit point bags.

[Strangways]

There are a lot of people who are down on TWF for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. For fighters especially, the TWF damage falls far behind what they can achieve with other styles.

For the ranger, it's a bit more nuanced. Hunter's Mark adds a good bit of damage to that offhand attack, but it's competing with Hunter's Mark for your bonus action, which can eat into your damage output with it. And don't forget that Dueling feats compete with the TWF one.

Anyways, I think it's fine. I might revise my language there because I've seen it be pretty effective, but be aware of how often you eat into your bonus action, and maybe start out targeting big hit point bags.

TWF is also completely unsuited to the Horizon Walker subclass because TWF and Planar Warrior both require your bonus action every round.

[Naanomi]

TWF is also completely unsuited to the Horizon Walker subclass because TWF and Planar Warrior both require your bonus action every round.

Though it also lets you teleport another 10ft

[Spacehamster]

I really think you are rating standard humans too high. There are maybe 3 ability scores a ranger will care about, and those can all be boosted by just being a variant human with the right feat. Oh, except those actually gain racial abilities. Standard humans also get very boring after a while, because while high elves are using their cantrip every combat and dragonborn get to scorch people, you are stuck saying: 'yeah, I am slightly better at a lot of things, half of which I'll never need'.

Agree should be black with added text that it goes blue if you are doing some MAD multiclass that needs the in total +6 that humans get. :)

Starting point buy array of15/13/13/13/11/8 as a regular human is very strong for exempel as it lets you have 16 in main stat and a respectable 14 in 3 others. If you put the 12 in CON you can cover all MC requirements except one without gimping yourself very much. :)

[KorvinStarmast]

Solid picks. I would say that in a party with full casters, fog cloud might be best left to them, but you seem imaginative enough to put it to good use. If you're going archer, I would grab Ensnaring Strike as your third pick, when it comes up. It will feel good to be able to disable and hurt an opponent.

Thanks. That's some good advice right there. We do have a nature cleric, so in a few ways we have some overlap.
Party is: Cleric, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian

My problem, though, is that my wisdom is 12. (Point buy) So my spell DC is sort of lame (11). I had to go with more strength since we are using encumbrance rules, and we need to carry stuff. I made a decision to go with athletics versus acrobatics (I know, counter intuitive for a ranger) ... not an optimized ranger by any means. I intend to bump Dex at 4, and if I am alive at 8, bump Wis to 14. That would put Ensnaring Strike into a little bit better DC when cast. (13)

If we weren't playing with encumbrance rules, I'd have left strength at 12 and had wisdom at 14. Oh well, we make choices.

I also chose my feat as Medium Armor Master at 1st level (vhuman) since I am playing the long game ... I want to be able to sneak, since I am also the party's rogue substitute, and wear decent as we level up. (Later in life Half Plate and high dex gives me 18 AC, and if we have to mix it up in close quarters, I have a shield for 20). We won't be in the wilderness for the whole campaign, so I need to have options.

[Arkrayven]

There are a lot of people who are down on TWF for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. For fighters especially, the TWF damage falls far behind what they can achieve with other styles.

For the ranger, it's a bit more nuanced. Hunter's Mark adds a good bit of damage to that offhand attack, but it's competing with Hunter's Mark for your bonus action, which can eat into your damage output with it. And don't forget that Dueling feats compete with the TWF one.

Anyways, I think it's fine. I might revise my language there because I've seen it be pretty effective, but be aware of how often you eat into your bonus action, and maybe start out targeting big hit point bags.

Thank you!

[JaxBen]

Great guide as always, Evil!

One side note/possible correction: I think that in the Beast Conclave section where you talk about the various companion options, you confused Ape with Giant Ape. Ape doesn't have reach, though it still has the ranged attack. Great Apes DO have a 10ft attack, but I don't think that is an acceptable companion (CR 7???).

[EvilAnagram]

Great guide as always, Evil!

One side note/possible correction: I think that in the Beast Conclave section where you talk about the various companion options, you confused Ape with Giant Ape. Ape doesn't have reach, though it still has the ranged attack. Great Apes DO have a 10ft attack, but I don't think that is an acceptable companion (CR 7???).

Thanks!

You are correct! I will update it.

[nmitchell2]

For anyone that is interested,

The campaign with my Ranger/Monk character has finished. A campaign spanning four continents with a war going on multiple fronts, encounters with everything from mafia weapon dealers to an Adult Ethereal Dragon and her babies, has finally drawn to a close. And what a campaign it was, more testing of the players than their characters. Regardless, my group is evidently one of optimisers (we had a Sorcadin, a Bardlock, an Abjurer with a level in Life Cleric for heavy armour without slowing spell slot progression, an Arcane Trickster/Bladesinger and myself) and I believe my character performed quite admirably, at levels 13+ I felt weak compared to the casters but so does every martial at that point right?

In more detail, I was a Kobold Ranger (Beast Conclave) 14/Monk (Way of the Open Hand) 6 with a Warg as my Animal Companion. I originally intended to ride it into combat but with both of us having Pack Tactics, there was no need so I just worked on keeping close enough together to benefit from it as much as possible and it worked. I had the highest and most reliable sustainable DPR in the party as long as my Warg was alive.

Our next mini-campaign will be a test of some homebrew material, I wanted to try giving the Ranger a limited version of Wild Shape in place of spellcasting (you pick one creature a Moon Druid can Wild Shape into and have its HP and proficiency scale up with you, otherwise it's the same as Land Druid gets). Because it swaps out spellcasting, it doesn't hinder your ability to take archetypes so you can be a Beast Conclave Ranger and get both Wild Shape and an Animal Companion, at the cost of your spellcasting. Personally I think it's great I can see a Bear Totem Barbarian multiclass being really thematic and strong. My friend will be playtesting the Magus class I made as well, looking forward to seeing how it performs and potentially being able to improve it.

[EvilAnagram]

For anyone that is interested,

The campaign with my Ranger/Monk character has finished. A campaign spanning four continents with a war going on multiple fronts, encounters with everything from mafia weapon dealers to an Adult Ethereal Dragon and her babies, has finally drawn to a close. And what a campaign it was, more testing of the players than their characters. Regardless, my group is evidently one of optimisers (we had a Sorcadin, a Bardlock, an Abjurer with a level in Life Cleric for heavy armour without slowing spell slot progression, an Arcane Trickster/Bladesinger and myself) and I believe my character performed quite admirably, at levels 13+ I felt weak compared to the casters but so does every martial at that point right?

In more detail, I was a Kobold Ranger (Beast Conclave) 14/Monk (Way of the Open Hand) 6 with a Warg as my Animal Companion. I originally intended to ride it into combat but with both of us having Pack Tactics, there was no need so I just worked on keeping close enough together to benefit from it as much as possible and it worked. I had the highest and most reliable sustainable DPR in the party as long as my Warg was alive.

Our next mini-campaign will be a test of some homebrew material, I wanted to try giving the Ranger a limited version of Wild Shape in place of spellcasting (you pick one creature a Moon Druid can Wild Shape into and have its HP and proficiency scale up with you, otherwise it's the same as Land Druid gets). Because it swaps out spellcasting, it doesn't hinder your ability to take archetypes so you can be a Beast Conclave Ranger and get both Wild Shape and an Animal Companion, at the cost of your spellcasting. Personally I think it's great I can see a Bear Totem Barbarian multiclass being really thematic and strong. My friend will be playtesting the Magus class I made as well, looking forward to seeing how it performs and potentially being able to improve it.

That's great! I always love to hear input from actual play, and it seems like that campaign was a blast!

[lilika]

I really am not trying to be a troll at all. But I fail to see how Beast Master can be even close to optimal. As you said at higher levels your beast has so low hit points that it will just die. The damage while maybe not much lower than other rangers is significantly worse than anything trying to actually do damage by any of my calculations. I really want this option to be good but the errata was actually a nerf to those of us hoping that you could multiattack twice with the Badger. While you can do Zypher's Strike with both beast and ranger, by the time you can do this lvl 15 your pets low health really prevents this from being a thing.

If I am missing anything pls tell me.

ok I will admit flying beast small character, niche and prolly gimmicky at anything higher tier.

[EvilAnagram]

I really am not trying to be a troll at all. But I fail to see how Beast Master can be even close to optimal. As you said at higher levels your beast has so low hit points that it will just die. The damage while maybe not much lower than other rangers is significantly worse than anything trying to actually do damage by any of my calculations. I really want this option to be good but the errata was actually a nerf to those of us hoping that you could multiattack twice with the Badger. While you can do Zypher's Strike with both beast and ranger, by the time you can do this lvl 15 your pets low health really prevents this from being a thing.

If I am missing anything pls tell me.

ok I will admit flying beast small character, niche and prolly gimmicky at anything higher tier.

I'm afb, so I can't really do the math on the damage right now, but both Giant Poisonous Snake and Flying snake have extremely high damage outcomes. Because you add your proficiency bonus to every damage roll, poisonous damage (which is separate from attack damage) gets its own added damage. That means each bite from a Flying Poisonous Snake at high levels deals 3d4+13 damage, with a +12 to attack. It also has flyby, so it can dart in and out of combat relatively easily. At high levels, it deals 41 damage, plus whatever you can muster, which can be significant.

If you convince your DM that you should add your proficiency to saving throw DCs (as you do for literally everything else for your companion) then wolf, panther, spider, and giant poisonous snake are all effective in their secondary damage and abilities.

That said, even with the +prof to AC and saving throws, their health is low. It isn't so bad in mid game, but around level 12 it becomes fairly prominent.

[lilika]

I'm at work and afb, so I can't really do the math on the damage right now, but both Giant Poisonous Snake and Flying snake have extremely high damage outcomes. Because you add your proficiency bonus to every damage roll, poisonous damage (which is separate from attack damage) gets its own added damage. That means each bite from a Flying Poisonous Snake at high levels deals 3d4+13 damage, with a +12 to attack. It also has flyby, so it can dart in and out of combat relatively easily. At high levels, it deals 41 damage, plus whatever you can muster, which can be significant.

If you convince your DM that you should add your proficiency to saving throw DCs (as you do for literally everything else for your companion) then wolf, panther, spider, and giant poisonous snake are all effective in their secondary damage and abilities.

That said, even with the +prof to AC and saving throws, their health is low. It isn't so bad in mid game, but around level 12 it becomes fairly prominent.

Decent points, but I don't think anything that you have to convince your dm to change the written rules about just to be ok-ish at 11+ level should still be dark blue rated, and this is simply by reading your own descriptions (which are spot on). Because the dc of 11 on the flying poisonous snake will make your average damage at higher lvls significantly low.

Also i do recognize that your style is generous and open-minded (similar to what I like to think I am) which are good things, but I have always thought that Beast Master as written and errata'd still has major flaws and seeing it dark blue in your guide gave me false hope that maybe there was some combination or stealth buff in Xanathars (this book as so many stealth buffs in it that I thought it could be true for BM as well) that fixed some of these weaknesses, but alas while it did get a few fun things I think it didn't overcome the issues plaguing BM which are low pet health, no real revive pet that works and no real optimal way to improve damage. For example with any other hunter I could just take a few feats and have slightly less damage than a fighter (and certainly less spike single target damage), but the BM lags very far behind, feats or magic weapons do not improve pet damage much at all.

[EvilAnagram]

Decent points, but I don't think anything that you have to convince your dm to change the written rules about just to be ok-ish at 11+ level should still be dark blue rated, and this is simply by reading your own descriptions (which are spot on). Because the dc of 11 on the flying poisonous snake will make your average damage at higher lvls significantly low.

Also i do recognize that your style is generous and open-minded (similar to what I like to think I am) which are good things, but I have always thought that Beast Master as written and errata'd still has major flaws and seeing it dark blue in your guide gave me false hope that maybe there was some combination or stealth buff in Xanathars (this book as so many stealth buffs in it that I thought it could be true for BM as well) that fixed some of these weaknesses, but alas while it did get a few fun things I think it didn't overcome the issues plaguing BM which are low pet health, no real revive pet that works and no real optimal way to improve damage. For example with any other hunter I could just take a few feats and have slightly less damage than a fighter (and certainly less spike single target damage), but the BM lags very far behind, feats or magic weapons do not improve pet damage much at all.

The flying snake doesn't have a DC. The poison damage involves no save.

As for my rating, I developed that rating after playing multiple beast masters in AL and experiencing very few setbacks. The highest level I achieved with one was 14, and at that point I was still quite happy with it. I don't know how much changes over the next few levels, save that breath weapons get worse, but I can only say that in my experience the ACs and saves, combined with the sheer damage output, make it very fun in play.

If you're worried about your pet, ask your DM about magic items for it or of you can use the revive rules from the revised ranger. It's definitely a consideration.

Damage, however, is pretty solid.

[Naanomi]

I wouldn’t give up my giant crab for anything

[lilika]

The flying snake doesn't have a DC. The poison damage involves no save.

As for my rating, I developed that rating after playing multiple beast masters in AL and experiencing very few setbacks. The highest level I achieved with one was 14, and at that point I was still quite happy with it. I don't know how much changes over the next few levels, save that breath weapons get worse, but I can only say that in my experience the ACs and saves, combined with the sheer damage output, make it very fun in play.

If you're worried about your pet, ask your DM about magic items for it or of you can use the revive rules from the revised ranger. It's definitely a consideration.

Damage, however, is pretty solid.

Well you can't argue with that :), to be fair I found the same success with a straight class Halfling Thief Rogue with the feats Healer and Alertness and a magic sling. I guess optimization is as much to do with playing to the strengths and weaknesses of the class and getting the most out of it.