Ranger: Which would you prefer, beastmaster archetype or find steed spell.

[PhantomRenegade]

Just as the title says, if you were playing a level 5 ranger and were allowed to choose between having the beastmaster archetype or the find steed spell which would you take?


I'm in the Find steed camp, you'll still get two attacks, three if you're TWF plus the beast's attack, so damage wise you're probably pretty competitive with the standard beastmaster and to my mind getting the beast back in 10 minutes vs getting it back in 8 hours is just too much value to pass up.

Plus you get spell share if you're mounted right away, even for medium character's I'm sure the DM would let you crouch over the beast for that if you took the movement penalty.



What about you guys, which would you choose?

[Giant2005]

It depends on how generous my DM was - if I could use Find Steed to summon whatever I wanted, then I'd definitely choose it. I think I'd choose it over any spell in the game under those conditions.
If the DM was being a bit more on the strict side, I'd go with the Beastmaster.
Although the very fact that he made the offer for free stuff choice in the first place suggests that he isn't being particularly strict at all.

[PhantomRenegade]

Well summoning whatever you wanted would be really exploitable but for the sake of discussion i'd say letting you summon anything a beastmaster could summon, and the creatures specifically mentioned in the Summon steed spell seems reasonable.

[Giant2005]

Then I'd choose the Beastmaster.
Sure it is nice being able to bring the steed back so easily but the steed itself is less useful.