The beastmaster ranger is one of those classes in D&D 5e that has been proclaimed underpowered and that is generally avoided. For giving up significant, attack, defense, and damage capabilities from Hunter, the ranger gets an animal companion. The problem is that the animal companion doesn't scale very well, and the ranger has to give up his own action to command the animal companion to do anything useful. I understand the philosophy behind the way this class was built. The action economy doesn't easily accommodate having two character with a full set of actions without becoming overpowered. However, having two creatures share an action economy is also a big problem, because it just isn't effective, especially with the underpowered stats of the animal companion. Compare this against the druid wildshape, for example, where the animal and character stats effectively stack, and you can see why this combination is underwhelming. Had the design focused o...
Chronicles of an Elder GM Running, Hacking, and Sharing Advice on TTRPGs