Beastmaster fix

[qube]

Now, this has probbably been done a thousand times - but I would like some input (or alternatives) for a beastmaster fix

(requirement: an "easy" fix, not an entire rework of the class)

I though about it, and I came up with

give the beastmaster a free ressurection-like short rest ability, for people who actually RP and establish a bond with their compaignon. (oh, heavy fight? your compagnion died? sure you can have another wolf - but not Nibbles, though)
make the animal compagnion stronger so that it feels your ability does something: give the animal compagnion the features of the champion

lvl 3: crit on 19-20
lvl 7: extra bonus on ability checks
lvl 10: fighting style
lvl 15: crit 18-20
lvl 18: regeneration

a feat that allows for bigger and/or pseudo-animals (I'm thinking unicorn, psuedodragon, ...) but with possible level restrictions or limitations to keep it in line with other animals (but a bit stronger as it's still a feat slot)

[Tiadoppler]

Quick question:

You list 3 items. Do you mean to use all of them, or pick one?

Rather than a short rest resurrection, I'd say that companions have the same Death Save/0 HP/Dies at -Max HP rule as PCs. If Nibbles gets legitimately killed in combat, defending you, his sacrifice is meaningful. If he's knocked out and wounded, he can be healed.

[Grod_The_Giant]

A resurrection idea (and tougher pets in general) is not a bad idea, but the power boost is unnecessary. It's not that the Beastmaster doesn't do enough damage, it's that controlling the pet feels strange and robotic.

[Citan]

A resurrection idea (and tougher pets in general) is not a bad idea, but the power boost is unnecessary. It's not that the Beastmaster doesn't do enough damage, it's that controlling the pet feels strange and robotic.
+1. Although there is still a "HP" problem though.
I'm not sure how much you would need to move things around if you were making the companion as a true NPC acting on its own and just having a special bond with the Ranger...

(Well, I do have some ideas to build on that, but it would amount to nothing less than a new subclass which is not OP goal so... ^^).

To stay on point with OP goal of small changes, I'd probably instead just do the following.
1. Give a one-time HP boost when he makes the bond, like, 15 HP, in addition to everything else (proficiency bonus added to everything, HP is multiple of maximum Ranger).
2. Pull the lvl 7 ability at level 3 and add Attack (obviously ditch the original mechanism): after all, you are using a bonus action on this when you could be instead making an additional attack, moving Hunter's Mark or casting Ensnaring Strike to quote a few...
3. At level 7, make it so like whenever one of the pair (you or beast) attacks a creature, the other gets advantage on its attacks against the same creature for the round (basically a way to translate a pincer/coordinated attack in mechanics).

Then either keep the rest the same or swap lvl 11 and lvl 15 (idea behind this suggestion is that I find lvl 15 ability coming really too late for it to be really interesting besides niche situations, either in single-class or multiclass).

[Easy_Lee]

Have you seen the revised beast master? It goes a long way toward fixing the biggest issues with the current BM, in particular allowing you full control of it. They realized that a free acting beast necessitated reducing the ranger's damage, and did the same thing I thought to do a long time ago by removing extra attack.

I encourage you to check out revised ranger. My only two significant complaints are that there aren't many beast selections available (and none of them fly, so no rangers with a hawk companion sadly), and that the ranger and beast act on separate initiatives (inconvenient, slows down combat).