Fey Beast Tamer.

[Tegu8788]

Of the four possible pets, which appeals to you the most, and why? Is it the flavor for a character, the mechanics, or a personal preference? What pet do you think would work best for each role?

Personally, I think they all flavor towards leader, and to some extent they would all work well for a ranger that wanted a pet.

Alternately, given the theme now giving a pet, has anyone seen or made a fun minion master build? Akin to a self promoting warlord perhaps.

[Badgerish]

Personally, I prefer Displacer Beast, due to:

a) KITTY!
b) +1 alldef is a pretty good bonus, scales well

Still not a theme I would generally choose, but I've got it on an Encounters character.

re: minion master build

For a laugh, I made a hybrid Beastmaster Ranger|Sentinel Druid with Fey Beast Tamer theme and MC Bard for Arcane Familiar feat.
The character-builder crashed when I viewed that part of the character sheet.

[darkdragoon]

The owlbear is probably the most powerful. but they all have their quirks.

The blink dog has the whole zip around the area motif. Bonus points if you call it Lockjaw.

Tentacle joke about displacer beast goes here.

[Servbot]

Owlbear is useful in the early game due to the +2 bonus to damage rolls, and CA to boot at level 5. Drops a bit later due to not scaling, but you can do worse than a +2 bonus.

I only dislike the Panther. The Dog is infinite OA evasion and Displacer is a solid +1 bonus to defences, which never goes wrong.

Hybrid Sentinel|BeastMaster Ranger with Summons and MC Skald->Arcane Familiar seems to be the way to go for Minion Mastery. Something about getting 7 bears.

[Yakk]

Owlbear for a multi-tap striker, like a Ranger. While +2 damage doesn't scale, it remains tasty at all levels (well, by epic, it starts being weak, but hey...) (and always-on power bonuses to damage, outside of essentials builds, aren't common, so it stacks well).

[Reverent-One]

re: minion master build

For a laugh, I made a hybrid Beastmaster Ranger|Sentinel Druid with Fey Beast Tamer theme and MC Bard for Arcane Familiar feat.
The character-builder crashed when I viewed that part of the character sheet.

Huh, I made up a similar character before the theme came out, only multiclassed to Shaman, not Bard.

[Simpatiya]

Very good and*informative*exchange*..*Thank you!