Beast Master Ranger is AMAZING in D&D 2024 Player's Handbook!

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[TheHatwolf]

Thanks for commisioning me for the thumbnail art <3

[reamonexcelsior]

Its called the beast master after all, being the best at conjuring a swarm of animals fits with the theme imo

[Peberro]

For the level 11 hunter's mark thing, you can cast it as a BA and then give up one of your attacks to let the beast swing twice. You're only losing 1 attack then instead of 2 from the beast. I've done it in fights against bigger stuff in the campain I'm currently playing, it could be worth it sometimes.

[OblivionsRising]

Finally, a positive Ranger 2024 video!

[myself]

I don't think there's a good reason why the Conjure Woodland Beings thing would be considered two effects. The wording of the capstone ability says that the same spell can effect your companion, not that your companion can cast the spell. Regardless of it covering twice the area, it's still the same single casting, which can't damage a creature more than once on a turn. Whether the companion would have its own emanation at all is debatable, based on the wording of the feature (it "affects" the companion, not "targets" it).

[KiithnarasAshaa]

Cute pets, strong mounts, ample friend-shaped objects. Literally nothing to not like.

[josephlieberman]

I’m currently playing a gnome mounted rapier/shield Beastmaster (lvl 7 atm) and I’ll say that the most unique thing about it is actually that you stack WIS over DEX.

This makes your beast stronger across the board, but it also makes your spell DC keep up with pure casters, giving more incentive to fire some CC spells like entangle instead of the boring HM.

So BM to me at least is also the most caster-friendly Ranger option. Which is good news for cwb!

[SolnerV]

The ranger really should have gotten a way to cast hunters mark without an action or bonus action somewhere in there, or at least made it so moving it didn’t take a bonus action.
There’s so many fun things a ranger can do, but hunter’s mark just slows it down like 95% of the time

[redcat]

Love the art ya got, it's amazing! Shows a cute kobold enjoying life

[margaretmyklebust]

Your videos are the highlight of my week! 🐊

[mikecarson]

imagining beast companion variants of sky gator, sea gator, land gator . . .

[kingbaby]

3 mins in. I’d argue beast of the sea is very strong as well if you say it’s something like a long barracuda that’s wrapped around you or your barbarian or monk, and it can mount any large creature. Giving a grappling attack to you or whoever you put it on. Not only that, the text doesn’t say it can only grapple one creature, just that whoever it hits is grappled. So the barracuda or octupus can start grabbing people all around you and give itself advantage on its next attack, or if someone is knocked prone even better.

[howouwuse]

This might be a bit of a gimmick strat, but there's potentially some merit to going all-in on Wisdom early using Druidic Fighting or Magic Initiate (Druid) for Shillelagh, since it getting buffed means it actually stays relevant a little longer than it used to (in my opinion, I'm not sure if that's really accurate or not). This'd not only buff up the mount more from the get-go, but would also get you access to higher DC spells faster while still enabling you to hit just as hard, assuming you're willing or wanting to run into melee to hit things really hard with Nature's Latest and Greatest™ in Goblin-Clubbing technology. I'd love to hear your take on this! It's a build concept I've tossed around with friends as a surface level ridiculous strategy that might enable some crazy stuff the later you go.

[mezcla]

It is a good cap feature for beast master but it's just 1 part of the old find steed spell. This feature is also dependent on your summon living a lot of my pets either die to AoE, get one shot by a boss, or dispelled. As good as the features are with the beast master you can't guarantee that they will work.

[eliascabbio]

About Conjure Woodland being + level 15 beast master capstone:

"When you cast a spell targeting yourself, you can also *affect* your primal companion beast with the spell [...]"

The spell:
"you conjure nature spirits that flit around *you* [...]"

The wording used is "affect", not "extend" or such, so it means that the effects, not the aura, are transmitted to the companion.

A smart counterargument would be that when the spell is describing that you cast this area around "you", the conjuration of these spirits is also affecting your companion, so it's not the area that gets extended, but the act of conjuring it.

However, there's an effect that gets surely transfered, with no doubt:

"you can take the disengage action as a bonus action for the spell duration"

[tridentgreen]

This is one of those capstones where getting expanded spell lists would be sure useful. War Cleric dip for example for Bless, Shield of Faith, Protection From Good And Evil, Sanctuary and Divine Favor actually wouldn't suck, and you could work to snag 2 Epic Boons as well. Ranger's 5th level spell options are niche enough that gaining the 5th and 6th level slots but no 5th level spells feels worth it to me?

[linktristen]

Great video! I never thought about how AOE auras would work with the 2024 Beastmaster Capstone.

That said, I think the original beastmaster (2014) was quite good, but just played wrong at tables. All you had to do was use the rules in the DMG for giving monsters class levels.

Your beast levels up with you as a member of the party, but is 3 levels behind due to when they joined. If you want to be a bit more restrictive, your beast needs to meet the multiclassing stat requirements to qualify for a class.

Your beast now gets higher damage and survivability as you level up, while still giving lots of fun roleplaying potential and growth.

On a side note, I think making the new beasts be summons cheapens the value of your beast companion. The beastmaster is all about forming a bond with a creature and deepening it over time. Summons detract from that, since they aren't around all the time and "can just come back if they die". I like it better in my games when losing your beast companion is a big deal. Something big enough to where the party might go on a quest to ressurect them instead of just forming a new bond or "summoning another one".

[joshuasmith]

I don't think CWB works with share spells since it is missing the target option for the spell. The origin of area of effect spells are no longer considered targets. I read this in the DnD Beyond thread called "At least the 2024 rules clearly define the meaning of target ..." so they may be wrong, but it sounds convincing.

[evansmith]

You can still command the beast to strike when you cast HM, you just need to replace one of your attacks. Very worth after bestial fury.

[Morganwrath]

JC has stated weight does not come into the equation of wether or not a creature can grapple and thus lift another creature, only the creatures. That is why Monsters don't have a weight in their stat blocks. So beast of the sky can carry you no problem if you are a small race that cast reduce on themselves.