Opinions on the Ranger additions for the most recent Unearthed Arcana?

[Undyne]

I personally feel the changes are good, but my main thing is the new Beast Master choices. Are they good? Because last I checked you still need to use an action to command them (At least without a homebrew rule), but the resurrection feature seems nice. Are they any better for the Beast Master?

[Protolisk]

They CAN use your action to attack, or by level 5 take one of your attacks to attack, but in their stat line they can ALSO use your bonus action to attack. After a while, forgoing one of your attacks means 2 attacks for the beast, and then your bonus action for it to attack.

On top of that, they have actual saves that get buffed by the Beast Master features based on your proficiency score, and naturally always have higher health. The features are a straight buff, giving more survivability and combat power to your companion.

[Undyne]

They CAN use your action to attack, or by level 5 take one of your attacks to attack, but in their stat line they can ALSO use your bonus action to attack. After a while, forgoing one of your attacks means 2 attacks for the beast, and then your bonus action for it to attack.

On top of that, they have actual saves that get buffed by the Beast Master features based on your proficiency score, and naturally always have higher health. The features are a straight buff, giving more survivability and combat power to your companion.

So, putting it bluntly, they are better than every beast in the Monster Manual that a Beast Master can get.

[paladinn]

I've never really been a Beastmaster fan. To me, the new Favored Foe feature is an essential for rangers going forward. It's way less situational and more useful that the Favored Enemy feature, especially as nerfed in 5e.

[Dork_Forge]

So, putting it bluntly, they are better than every beast in the Monster Manual that a Beast Master can get.

They don't get the special attacks some do but essentially yes, the goal they seem to have was giving you a better way of playing a Beast Master without actually changing how the subclass works. It's surprisingly elegant when you think about it, they basically tell you to call it whatever animal you want but heres some better stats to make it viable.

[8wGremlin]

They don't get the special attacks some do but essentially yes, the goal they seem to have was giving you a better way of playing a Beast Master without actually changing how the subclass works. It's surprisingly elegant when you think about it, they basically tell you to call it whatever animal you want but heres some better stats to make it viable.

Whilst elegant, it does limit you on some things, no small light races riding pterodactyls (Eberron Halflings is canon), due to the size of the beasts.

[stoutstien]

Whilst elegant, it does limit you on some things, no small light races riding pterodactyls (Eberron Halflings is canon), due to the size of the beasts.

I prefer a build-a-bear system where a beast master can find the type of beast they want. You have a size, movement, special feature, damage, and skills.

So you could have a medium flying beast but it wouldn't be as tough as a medium beast on 4(or 2 attack ostrich) legs would have better damage, AC, and maybe a knock down or grapple on hit effect.

[Yunru]

I'd suggest, for the beastmaster, reworking the special beasts so that the ground one is the heavier-hitting, tankier one. Or else there's just no reason to pick it.

As for the rest, it all seems alright (power wise). Tireless can be a concern at lower levels, but is fine once you hit level 5 or so (which honestly can be said for most of the UA stuff).

Design wise the smite spells fill a niche that needed filling, but they're a complete thematic mismatch.

[Kane0]

I’m a fan of all of it except for a couple spells added to the list and the free, concentrationless hunters marks. They could have replaced it with all sorts of things but just handed out a lazy rehash.

[Desteplo]

Whilst elegant, it does limit you on some things, no small light races riding pterodactyls (Eberron Halflings is canon), due to the size of the beasts.

Then just get a pterodon? All those options are still there. It may not have the bonus action attack but... mounted halfling? Mount isn’t able to attack anyway.
-feat support: you’ll have gotten mounted combatant anyway.

[djreynolds]

The beast of air and earth are proficient in dex, wis, con.... the big three.

Is it any more trouble just to say your beast (no matter PHB or UA) is just proficient in the big 3

This UA ranger "enhances" the beast, but these enhancements only affect the beast of air or earth, correct?

If I grab a panther, hp is still 4xmy ranger level, etc.

[Kane0]

This UA ranger "enhances" the beast, but these enhancements only affect the beast of air or earth, correct?

If I grab a panther, hp is still 4xmy ranger level, etc.

Yeah, we’ve been asking this kind of question for years. At this point with WotC i suppose we just have to take what we can get and offer as much feedback as they will listen to

[Monster Manuel]

The beast of air and earth are proficient in dex, wis, con.... the big three.

Is it any more trouble just to say your beast (no matter PHB or UA) is just proficient in the big 3

As a houserule, I would say that works just fine. But it's a change to the baseline abilities of the beastmaster subclass, and that's not the direction they went in for this UA.

This UA ranger "enhances" the beast, but these enhancements only affect the beast of air or earth, correct?

If I grab a panther, hp is still 4xmy ranger level, etc.

That's correct. Crawford explained the reasoning behind this in one of the videos they recorded on D&DBeyond. Rather than tweak the beastmaster, they just created some better beasts. Any other beasts out of the MM are still fair game, but your panther only gets 4xRanger level HP, and all the same stuff it had before. It's objectively worse than taking a Beast of the Earth and skinning it to look like a panther.

He also mentioned the possibility of making some more Beast of the X models, to better cover some of the edge cases you can't build with the two on offer...probably a Beast of the Water, and maybe something that would let you build a snake-like beast. Which would be nifty.

Overall, I like it. If you were happy with your pterodactyl companion for your halfling ranger, there's nothing stopping you from keeping it. It also means they can resolve some of the complaints behind the beastmaster while not having to re-write and re-print the ranger class. That's where the elegance comes in.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's a definite improvement and I expect I'll be using the variant beasts in my game.

[Willie the Duck]

As for the rest, it all seems alright (power wise). Tireless can be a concern at lower levels, but is fine once you hit level 5 or so (which honestly can be said for most of the UA stuff).

even then, unless you roll stats and max wisdom, it's most likely 3d10+9 temp hp over a day, which isn't far from what a low-level fighter will get with second wind, with 2-3 short rests).

[da newt]

It seems to lag behind the Shepard Druid to me. I hope I'm wrong, but what am I missing that makes the Beast Master even in the same league as the druid?

[Willie the Duck]

It seems to lag behind the Shepard Druid to me. I hope I'm wrong, but what am I missing that makes the Beast Master even in the same league as the druid?

They really aren't great direct compares. Animal-theme notwithstanding, they aren't much alike. Ranger is a full combatant, while Shepherd Druid is a caster. Give any ranger archery fighting style, Hunter's Mark, and Sharpshooter, and hopefully they will show you what they bring to the party.

[paladinn]

Just throwing this out.. For folks who really like the Favored Enemy feature, Pathfinder's Advanced Players' Guide has a Ranger spell called "Instant Enemy". It allows a ranger to temporarily apply his/her favored enemy feature to Any single foe for one minute/level. It's a level 3 spell, and probably still not as good as the Favored Foe feature. Would there be any use in adapting this to 5e?

[Ravinsild]

I just want to say I love the direction they are taking the Ranger. It feels really good.

I think that Favored Foe, Deft Explorer and Primal Awareness in addition to the ability to change 1 spell per long rest makes them feel like a nature themed primal class but it also gives them what I think the class fantasy of the Ranger is, which is adaptability and versatility. They are now far better able to adapt to the situation at hand.

- Expertise in Survival, or Stealth or what-have-you depending on how you want to play it allows for more customizability
- Climbing and/or Swimming speed I feel impacts the exploration part of the game without just hand-waving it. You can climb better than any PC now, or swim, and you can get to where others cannot as easily.
- The ability to just be tough makes for a valuable front line tank as well as unable to get tired, that speaks of natural resilience, I love this.
- The ability to swap a spell per long rest really alleviates some of the Rangers issues and allows them to better adapt and prepare for the day ahead, I love this.

In addition to all of the above the free spells they gave Ranger loosens up what spells they're now able to take. Since Hunter's Mark is baked into Favored Foe you can now more easily pick a flavorful spell, plus Primal Awareness gives a ton of free spells and all of these cast be cast without expending a spell slot a number of times per day, which allows room for different types of spells like support spells, and really helps flavor out the Ranger. I feel before every Ranger basically, essentially, took the same few spells over and over and over.

I think the spells specifically given to Primal Awareness really do what it did anyway but better in some cases and with a more versatile function. I just love it.

They really feel like a FIGHTER + DRUID now, which I think is a huge win.

I feel like Melee Rangers saw some love here with enhanced tanking ability and even smite spells, the Ranged variants continue to stay strong, and overall things like Entangle and such feel like they have some "trap" spells and features.

I think they nailed it. Not to mention I feel like these additional options (including Fighting Style) really adds a ton of flavor and additional ways to play a Ranger from a hand-axe throwing Half-Orc, to a more druid-like Ranger (the cantrips fighting style feels really cool).

The only thing I’d love to see is a retroactive addition of bonus spells to Hunter and Beast Master to reach parity with the other subclasses.

Having used it in my 2 campaigns now, I have to say I love it. Also my DMs love it. Whereas before it was either just "bypass traveling" or whatever, now with Primal Awareness whenever I use one of the spells my DMs have been like "Wow! Cool! Creative solutions!" I used Beast Sense to use my Beast of Earth (Panther) To scout an enemy fortress without being seen (high stealth rolls woot!) and I also used them to speak with animals to find a friendly encampment we had been looking for. They blind folded us and lead us to their camp....I used beast sense again to see through my panther's eyes to know where we were and how to find out way back just in case.

So far Primal Awareness has brought a ton of utility and RP in tracking, tracing and finding things that Primeval Awareness utterly lacked. Now I too can participate in the game.

Favored Foe is amazing as we have fought so many variety of enemies Favored Enemy just...wouldn't apply. We've fought Yetis, Trolls, Dragons, Undead, Basilisks, Air and Earth elementals and more! With Favored Enemy it wouldn't even matter, but with Favored Foe I now have a feature that just works! It just works! It's amazing!

I love the Cunning feature and I've picked it twice, once for expertise in stealth and once for expertise in survival (I have a Kenku Beast Master in 1 campaign and a wood elf beast master in another) and I really like being able to super specialize for once!

The beasts are amazing now too, I really love my new Beast of Air (Kenku, flavored as a Raven) compared to the old blood hawk I was using.

Really just an A+ rework IMO. Absolutely adore it in the few sessions I've gotten in since.

[GlenSmash!]

I agree with PMRavinsild.

Also a bit jealous that you have tried them out already

[Ravinsild]

Ranger has long been my favorite class tied with Fighter and I happen to be in 3 campaigns, 2 of which I am running a Ranger! A beast master Ranger! Both are archers....but they're pretty different I swear.

I also have nice DMs who are open to UA and homebrew and stuff :D

[Arkhios]

My DM kit-bashed the old beast companion rules with the UA templates:

Use the original creature's stat-block and normal companion rules, except as follows:
- calculate hit points with either beast of the air or beast of the earth method, depending on the base creature's type (land creatures use Beast of the Earth hit point method, while flying creatures use the Beast of the Air method. Aquatic creatures could technically use either).
- give the base creature the Ready Companion and Primal Rebirth features.
- Saving Throw DC's the base creature might have increase by 1 every time your proficiency bonus improves.

As written, the Beast of the Air/Earth gives the ranger only two options that are always the same (depending on their type). That's quite boring, because regardless of the form you choose for the beast, it always has the same statistics.

With the kit-bashed method, the already vast amount of creatures capable of being Beast Master's companions still remain valid, and besides, many of those creatures have unique abilities that are different from those two "Primal Beasts".