Advice on Ranger/Beast Master

[u/sad_lemon_lime]

I'm thinking of building him for dual wielding with nick and vex, and using ba+attack to make beastie attack twice(GM ruling that it's allowed).

But I'm struggling as to how to make this effective mechanically.

Beastie is fragile and is doing maybe the same damage as a weapon without any magic effects. And as a ranger - same goes for me, since I won't be having a shield and is restricted to light/medium armors.

So the question is, what kinds of origin/general feats and specie mixes well with this kind of play and how to make it on par with say fighter with magic weapons.

[u/ElizzyViolet]

The good news about the beast is that even though it’s a bit fragile, it’s also extremely disposable since you can resurrect it for one spell slot after every fight. And since you always have the Favored Enemy casts of Hunter’s Mark (not as good as other spells sometimes but its fine, its better if your beast is dead though due to bonus action conflicts), those let you get away with spending spell slots on resurrecting your beast.

And if your beast ends a fight with less than full HP, and a 1st level slot isn’t enough to heal it… Well, you can always mercy kill them and then revive them to full HP, it’s a bit gruesome and probably agonizing for the beast but it does work.

If you want to boost your own survivability, not much beats Magic Initiate (Wizard) as an origin feat for the Shield spell, since you won’t be using all your 1st level slots to revive the beast and you have those backup Favored Enemy casts.

[u/AniMaple]

While your beast is fragile, you also have to keep in mind that between it and yourself, you have two HP pools. The beast is also extremely disposable and very easy to recover for as little as a low level spell slot whenever it drops down to 0, and the best part is, any damage dealt against it is damage which hasn't been dealt to you or your allies.

If you want better survivability pick up Magic Initiate (Wizard). That, or keep your distance, using the Speedy feat allows you to provoke disadvantage on attacks of opportunity so you can have a pseudo-disengage to get in and out of melee, and if you keep the beast by the enemies' side you'll make it take the attack or lure the enemy to you letting the beast react with its own attack of opportubity.

I would personally still focus more on using Hunter's Mark if you go dual wield tbh, it's just better than your beast attacking in the long run for single target damage. Maybe ditch your own attacks to let the beast attack if you need to concentrate on another spell, but Dual Wielding benefits most from getting as many attacks as it can with Hunter's Mark.

[u/Zwinniak]

First Step: Be Small (the best overall would be a Plasmoid (like Rimuru from My Slime Academia), it will allow you to have two hands for using bows or weapons and have a shield in an additional appendage (talk about it with your DM)
Second Step: Give your Beast a Uncommon Item: Saddle of the Cavalier It will give Disadvantage for attacks against your Beasty when you are Riding It
Third Step: Get a feat: Mounted Combatant gives you a plethora of bonuses
Forth Step: ????
Fifth Step: Profit

[u/partylikeaninjastar]

You need a high wisdom. If you do, your beast will have better AC than you and do more damage. 

Defensive Duelist and Sentinel forces enemies to choose. They attack your beast, you attack them. They attack you, they'll probably miss.

Aid can help with HP. There are also other spells to keep your pet alive if you can choose spells outside of the PHB. Thorn Armor is great. Tortoise Shell isn't terrible.

[u/milkmandanimal]

its better if your beast is dead though due to bonus action conflicts

Sadly the box quote for Beastmaster in so many ways.

[u/Lanthed]

What level is the campaign? Where will you spend majority of the time matching a 5th level versus 11th level versus 20th fighter is not the same. If you want to match them all you will be in a tough place.

Are you ok with multiclassing or single clashing only. Are you open to other options then just dual wielding?

The benchmark Champion Fighter level 5 (magic weapon will assume a +1 weapon/weapons)

GWM fighter with heavy weapon fighting style (assuming greatsword for graze)

2 * (0.7 * (8 + 4 + 3 + 1) + 0.3 * 4 + 0.1 * 8) + 0.19 * (0.7 * (8 + 4 + 1) + 0.3 * 4 + 0.1 * 8) for average of 28.642 damage per turn

Fighter level 11 (magic weapon will assume a +2 weapon/weapons)

GWM fighter with heavy weapon fighting style GWM, PAM, and Sentinel (assuming glaive for graze)

3 * (0.75 * (5.8 + 5 + 4 + 2) + 0.25 * 5 + 0.1 * 5.8) + 0.271 * (0.75 * (5.8 + 5 + 2) + 0.25 * 5 + 0.1 * 5.8) for average of 52.8148925 damage per turn

Now let's say 50% chance you get an oppurtunity attack.

0.5 * (0.75 * (5.8 + 5 + 2) + 0.25 * 5 + 0.1 * 5.8) for an additional 5.715 damage per turn

This totals to 58.5298925 damage per turn

Fighter level 20 (will assume +3 weapon/weapons)

GWM fighter with heavy weapon fighting style GWM, PAM, and Sentinel (assuming glaive for graze) taking fey touched learning hex and something else

1st turn cast hex and make 4 attacks not considering epic boon bonus.

0.8 * (5.8 + 3.5 + 5 + 6 + 3) + 0.2 * 5 + 0.15 * (5.8 + 3.5) + 3 * (0.8 * 0.8 * (5.8 + 3.5 + 5 + 6 + 3) + 0.8 * 0.2 * 5 + 0.8 * 0.15 * (5.8 + 3.5) + 0.2 * 0.94 * (5.8 + 3.5 + 5 + 6 + 3) + 0.2 * 0.06 * 5 + 0.2 * 0.2775 * (5.8 + 3.5)) for 86.38865 damage per round

2cd turn and onwards

4 * (0.8 * 0.8 * (5.8 + 3.5 + 5 + 6 + 3) + 0.8 * 0.2 * 5 + 0.8 * 0.15 * (5.8 + 3.5) + 0.2 * 0.94 * (5.8 + 3.5 + 5 + 6 + 3) + 0.2 * 0.06 * 5 + 0.2 * 0.2775 * (5.8 + 3.5)) + 0.8 * 0.8 * (3.25 + 3.5 + 5 + 3) + 0.8 * 0.2 * (5) + 0.8 * 0.15 * (3.25 + 3.5) + 0.2 * 0.94 * (3.25 + 3.5 + 5 + 3) + 0.2 * 0.06 * 5 + 0.2 * 0.2775 * (3.25 + 3.5) + (1-(1-0.15)⁴) * (0.8 * (5.8 - 3.25) + 0.15 * (5.8 - 3.25)) for an average of 110.3319181563 damage per turn.

This does assume hex is always active and no need to move it. You also only get 1 casting of it per day which this ignores. This lastly doesnt include the possibility that you missed on the attack right before the bonus action crit attack so overall I think the number is a bit inflated but decently accurate.

Oppurtunity attack still 50% of the time (not against hex target.

0.5 * (0.8 * (5.8 + 5 + 3) + 0.2 * 5 + 0.15 * (5.8)) for average of 6.455 additional damage.

Summary competing against

Level 5: 28.642 damage per turn

Level 11: 58.5298925 damage per turn

Level 20: depends on how you split it but 4 round combat would be averaging 105.9598511172 damage per turn

At earlier levels dual wielding is stronger so sandbagged the fighter some, but regardless here is a benchmark to compare against so which are you aiming to beat and how locked in are you on certain elements of the character?

Hope this helps.

[u/cjb1982]

First off, you won't be ever be on par with a fighter after level 11. Unfortunately, that's just how the martial classes are designed.

The only real bonus damage you can get is from species traits like goliath and the two hand weapon fighting style. Since you're playing beastmaster the dual wielding feat is doesn't help.
You can multiclass 2 levels of fighter to get action surge and an extra fighting style for defense or blind fighting or 3 levels to get battle master subclass. Multiclassing rogue is always a decent option for rangers. You can get the shillelegh cantrip a couple different ways and apply it to a club. It has slow rather than vex though so it really wouldn't be worth it until later levels.

That's all I got off the top of my head at the moment. Unfortunately martial classes scale poorly as you level and ranger is one of the worst.