Beast Master Ranger: D&D 2024 Optimisation Guide

Adventure alongside an animal companion to aid you in combat and exploration.

What is the beast master?

These rangers have a deep connection and affinity with the creatures of the animal kingdom. Their bond is so great with these beasts, that they can summon a particularly powerful animal to become their primal companion. Beast masters nurture and train these creatures, helping them develop and grow.

A beast master’s link to their animal companion is so great that the beast will obey their master’s commands unerringly. This link deepens over time so that even magical benefits cast upon one, benefit the other.

Drizzt Do’Urden is a beast master, with his link to his beast companion Guenhwyvar. Owen Grady from Jurassic World is also fits this mould with his pack of velociraptors.

While the beast master existed in the 2014 Player’s Handbook, D&D 2024 has revised it to bring it inline with the substantially changed ranger class. You’ll also find a beast companion that improves as you gain levels. My guide will take you through all this as well as showing you tactics and optimal builds for a 2024 beast master.

At a glance

Half caster, half martial class
Solid utility class that leans into the exploration elements of the game
Summon a beast companion to aid you in combat and exploration

What’s changed in D&D 2024?

A lot has changed for how your primal companion works in a pragmatic sense as well as ensuring that controlling your beast is easier and allows it to scale better as you gain levels. The main changes include:

Bringing primal companions in line with Tasha’s Guide with variants for land, sky and sea that can be flavoured as an appropriate beast of the player’s choice.
Wisdom plays a bigger role in your beast’s capabilities rather than your proficiency bonus. This works for things like AC.
Exceptional training sees a big improvement, now allowing these actions to be taken as bonus actions by the beast alongside its attack action.
Beast companions can now benefit partially from the effects of Hunter’s mark.

These changes are a decent upgrade on the previous beast master and make using a beast companion in combat more fluid and useful.

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Beast master features

Primal companion – Lv3

How it works

Summon a beast companion to aid you. You can choose from 3 types of creature; land, sky or sea. You can choose the form it takes as long as it’s appropriate to the stats of its form. The stats for the creature are determined by the creature type you choose and scale with your level.

You can change your creature type when you make a long rest.

Tactics

Each creature type has a distinct use case. Land is the best at combat, sky is great for exploration with it’s flight and size (but the worst in combat) and sea can swim (and is a more mediocre option in combat).
You will likely find that you need different creature types at different times, but you’ll need to plan ahead for your day’s activities. Land and sky will likely be your most common options. Sea is great if you need to be in water a lot, but with just a 5ft move speed when walking, it’s a dreadful option anywhere else.
If you play a species that is small, you can use your primal companion as a mount as land and sea companions are both medium in size. Riding your sky companion will be a lot more challenging as they’re small, but if you need a boost up high, you could have a friendly druid cast enlarged/reduce to make you tiny so you can catch a lift. It’ll only last 1 minute though and reduce your damage output making it a bit tricky to work effectively.

Exceptional training – Lv7

How it works

When you command your primal companion to perform an action, you can also command it to perform the dash, disengage, dodge or hide action as a bonus action.

Also, when your primal companion hits with an attack, they can choose to make the damage force damage instead.

Tactics

You’ll want to make sure your primal companion is always using it’s bonus action each turn, even if it’s just to dodge or give you help.
Force damage is rarely resisted (at least in the 2014 Monster Manual) so makes a good option when enemies are resistant to your standard damage types.

Beastial fury – Lv11

How it works

When your primal companion takes the beast strike action, it can do this twice now.

It can also do extra damage once per turn against creatures that have Hunter’s mark applied to them.

Tactics

Obviously your power levels increase at this point, but hunter’ mark also gets more powerful making it an even more worthwhile option to be using.
The slight challenge here is that hunter’s mark and commanding your primal companion both compete for your bonus action. This does mean a bit of estimating the impact of applying Hunter’s mark one turn over having your beast companion attack. The best thing you can do here though is apply Hunter’s mark to enemies with a lot of hit points to reduce how often you need to transfer it to new targets.

How it works

When you cast a spell on yourself, you can also make it affect your primal companion.

Tactics

The trick here is finding spells that will be useful to both you and your primal companion. You’ve got a lot of competition for your action economy so your best options will be spells you can cast ahead of combat or ones that will be more useful than your standard action/bonus action (at least in certain moments).
Spells like aid and enhance ability can be cast ahead of combat, while cure wounds can be worthwhile in combat if in desperate need. But whether you can work in combat spells to be useful enough to replace your precious actions and bonus actions is something you should always ask before using a spell for this purpose.

Building a beast master

Beast masters need to be able to combine martial prowess with spellcasting acumen and the abilities that enable their primal companion to perform at the highest levels.

To help you achieve this, I’ve given some guidance below on how you can build your beast master:

Ability scores

Recommended options

Dexterity: You’ll need this for ranged attacks, a decent AC and some of your skills. You can also opt for finesse weapons in melee if you want to avoid investing in strength altogether.
Wisdom: The effectiveness of your spells and primal companion rely on this so needs to be highly invested in.
Constitution: You’ll need the resilience from this as a frontline warrior. It’ll also help you maintain concentration on certain spells. And you’re likely to be making a lot of concentration saving throws, especially if you’re jumping headlong into melee combat.
Strength: You can opt for a strength build if you want. It’s a little harder on your ability scores, as you can’t ignore dexterity entirely (you’ll need at least 14 AC to properly benefit from medium armor), but strength rangers can hit a bit harder in melee with higher damage weapons.

Options to avoid

Intelligence: Of little worth to a ranger.
Charisma: Unfortunately, you don’t have enough space to invest in charisma and face skills, so should leave this to others.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	10	12
Dexterity	15	15
Constitution	14	13
Intelligence	8	8
Wisdom	15	14
Charisma	8	10

Skills

Recommended options

Athletics: Acrobatics will often be better for a ranger with their bigger focus on dexrerity, but isn’t an option as standard. Athletics is a decent option though.
Perception: Crucial skill for a scout and highly used.
Stealth: Used a lot and great for a scout as well as just being great for investigating and bypassing combat.
Insight: A good skill for social situations. You may pick up on things your companions don’t.
Investigation: Great option for an exploration class.

Options to avoid

Survival: It feels like if anyone should have this, it’s a ranger. The problem is it just comes up too rarely to be of much use.
Animal handling: It feels wrong to not recommend this for a beast master, but animal handling just comes up too little to recommend.
Nature: Another rarely used skill.

Species/race

There are a few things to consider when choosing a species for a beast master:

Resilience: Rangers can mix it as frontline and ranged martials, but you may find that working in tandem with your primal companion will work best, which can mean attacking together in melee. Some of your cooperative features also mean being close to one another. All of this means, you can expect to take a bit of a beating meaning some resilience traits are a pretty good idea.
Innate spellcasting: As a spellcaster, you can repeat cast spells and have the wisdom to back this up. Rangers tend to have a limited repertoire of spells, so enhancing this tends to be a good option.
Damage dealing: Beast masters are primarily there to deal plenty of damage so increasing this can really help.
Utility class: Rangers are something of a utility class. Species that can aid this are usually a good option.

Recommended options

Aasimar (2024): Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage increases your hardiness. For celestial revelation, I’d lean on inner radiance for the extra damage. Necrotic shroud requires decent charisma which you’ll struggle for. However, temporary flight is always useful. Expect to use this for accessing hard to reach places and enemies or to launch projectiles from the safety of the skies. A bit of healing is a decent emergency option too.
Dragonborn (2024): You don’t get much in the way of AoE damage as a ranger, especially with the option of being a frontline martial. This makes a Dragonborn’s breath weapon a useful tool. You can use it in place of one of your attacks too. Temporary flight again lets you get to hard to reach enemies. Plus there’s a resistance for better durability.
Dwarf (2024): An extra hit point per level is great for a frontline warrior. And for even more resilience, you have resistance against poison and advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition.
Elf (2024): A skill for utility and some resilience to things like the charmed condition is useful. The main thing here though is the extra spells. A High Elf can get you another cantrip of your choice and the likes of misty step (great for exploration and safety). You could go for a damage dealing cantrip like poison spray which can out perform your standard attacks at certain points and works with Hunter’s mark. A Drow gets you darkness and faerie fire. But you may want to consider a Wood Elf for the extra stealth and speed.
Goliath (2024): Faster movement makes you even better at traversing the battlefield. Your giant ancestry grants some very useful options too. For a ranger, the durability of the stone giants, knocking enemies prone with hill giant and extra damage from fire giants are all great options.
Gnome (2024): A forest gnome will get you minor illusion (great for stealth and distractions) and speak with animals, useful if you need to speak with your primal companion. You can repeat cast speak with animals, but can also cast it as a ritual. Gnomish cunning is great for added resilience.
Human (2024): A great option if you want to lean more into the utility aspects of a ranger. An extra skill and feat will help here, while a regular supply of heroic inspiration is always useful.
Orc (2024): A couple of great endurance features here with temporary hit points and relentless endurance to save you when knocked to 0HP. Great for a frontline melee warrior.

Options to avoid

Any race can work well for a beast master so there are no bad options here.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 as the ability score increases previously tied to your race/species are now linked to your background. Remember that you can either choose to increase one of the ability score options from a background by 2 and the other by 1, or you can choose to increase all 3 ability scores by 1.

You also get an origin feat linked to your background too.

Primarily, you want to focus on increasing key ability scores with the associated origin feat being your next priority. As such, I’d suggest the below are your best backgrounds for a beast master:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves tools
Farmer	Strength, constitution, wisdom	Tough	Animal handling, nature	Carpenter’s tools
Guide	Dexterity, constitution, wisdom	Magic initiate (druid)	Stealth, survival	Cartographer’s tools
Sage	Constitution, intelligence, wisdom	Magic initiate (wizard)	Arcana, history	Calligrapher’s tools
Sailor	Strength, dexterity, wisdom	Tavern brawler	Acrobatics, perception	Navigator’s tools
Soldier	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Savage attacker	Athletics, intimidation	One kind of gaming set

Only the guide and sailor backgrounds offer the ideal combo of dexterity and wisdom increases. Unfortunately, sailors get the tavern brawler origin feat and rangers aren’t really built for unarmed combat. Thankfully, the guide background has magic initiate which is decent for a ranger.

If you’re happy to forego a wisdom or dexterity increase (perhaps you’re opting for a strength based ranger) there are good options to increase strength or constitution too.

Feats

At 1st level, you can grab an origin feat through your background and from level 4, you can pick up a general feat (or another origin feat if you want) instead of an ability score increase.

General feats are all half feats now as they give an ability score increase and the traits of a feat. But you’ll only get +1 to an ability score rather than the +2 you’d get from increasing your ability score. Make sure you go with a feat with an appropriate ability score increase.

Below are some feats I’d recommend for a beast master:

Origin feats

Alert – Going early in combat is always handy to get some damage in before your enemies do.
Lucky – More ways to be reliable at important rolls is universally beneficial.
Magic initiate – Grab some more spells, including a couple of cantrips. Things like minor illusion and guidance are good for a stealthy, utility class while something like thunderclap and thunderwave are great for melee combat. You should have the wisdom to back these kinds of spells up too.
Musician – A universally great feat for dishing out heroic inspiration. Great for altruistic rangers. Plus you can ensure you have some heroic inspiration available too.
Savage attacker – Decent enough damage dealing feat to make your attacks a little more powerful.
Skilled – You may find you need a lot of skill proficiencies as subterfuge tends to require a lot of skill proficiencies. You could grab acrobatics over athletics this way too. And maybe even grab sleight of hand so you can work as a backup rogue.
Tough – You’re a martial and may be required to take a bit of a beating, even if your preferred place is shooting a bow at the back. This will help here by giving you more HP.

General feats

Defensive duelist – Better AC at the expense of your reaction is a strong option if you’re wielding a finesse melee weapon.
Fey-touched – Misty step is great for escaping danger as well as getting into it and even for exploration too; all things you’re likely to get involved in as a ranger. You get another spell too, just go for the wisdom increase.
Great weapon master – Excellent option for a strength build if you just want to deal more damage. You’ll get to land extra attacks occasionally with your bonus action, but you already do that with your primal companion so this part of the feat is less useful.
Inspiring leader – Great for granting temporary hit points to the party. Go for the wisdom increase to make this work best.
Mage slayer – Best against mages, but having what is practically legendary resistance is also great.
Sentinel – Good for a melee ranger, especially if you’re fighting with an ally (like your primal companion).
Shadow-touched – Invisibility is great for a stealthy class plus you get an extra spell. Make sure you increase your wisdom for this.
Sharpshooter – Great for a primarily ranged ranger.
Skill expert – Great for becoming more of a skill expert. Plus you can get proficiency (and even expertise) in a skill you don’t normally have access to, like sleight of hand.
War caster – You’re mainly there for improved concentration (important for maintaining hunter’s mark and some of your other spells), which is enough to be honest.

Weapons

The weapons you choose will depend largely on how you want to fight and what weapon mastery properties you want to be using:

Pure damage: Go for two-handed weapons like a greatsword, greataxe, glaive, halberd or maul.
Sword and shield: If you want to go heavier on defense, you’ll need a one handed weapon like a longsword, battleaxe, morningstar or warhammer.
Two weapon fighting: If you want to fight with two weapons for the extra offhand attack, you’ll need to use light weapons. Handaxes, shortswords and scimitars are best for this. To make this work best, you’ll want to invest in things like two weapon fighting, dual wielder and/or the nick weapon mastery property.
Ranged: A longbow is likely your best option here. Crossbows need reloading which is no good once you get an extra attack (unless you take crossbow expert). If you’re strength based, you could go with thrown weapons like a trident or handaxes if you want to dual wield.

If you want some help choosing a weapon mastery property, you can check out my weapon mastery guide to work out how best to utilise these properties.

Armor

If you’re a strength build, go for 14 dexterity and take medium armor like half plate (or a breast plate if you want to be able to sneak around). If you’re going for a dexterity build, go for studded leather.

If you want some extra protection, a shield is a good option but it will diminish your damage output.