Description

• 1 New Ranger Subclass - Monster Tamer
• 2 NPC Statblocks for a Monster Tamer Ranger and Their Guardian Grey Ooze
• Notes on Components Likely to Help Tame Different Types of Creatures.

Where other rangers seek to hunt, and kill, the monsters which threaten civilization, you take another path - seeking to tame them and channel their energy for your own ends. Some monster tamers are looking to co-opt allies in the fight against a greater foe, others turn the tamed creatures against their own kind.

Many rangers of this type have vast reserves of carefully accrued knowledge regarding different types of creature, using this information about their favored foes to manipulate them into becoming easy prey, or loyal friends. All monster tamers are consummate animal handlers, using typical animal behaviors to divert and repurpose encountered beasts. Individual monster tamers develop a similar in depth knowledge of the more predictable creatures among their favored foes, which helps them repel, attract or distract them when they are encountered in the wild.

The interactions between non-druidic character classes and unintelligent creatures aren’t an area with great coverage in the 5e ruleset. The ranger beastmaster has traditionally had to contend with three problems - firstly the relative weakness of their companion animal, secondly the fact that their powers are constrained by the artificial designation of some fantasy animals into types other than beast and, thirdly, that their subclass features offer no real interaction with wild creatures other than their companion animal, without burning through their small amount of spell choices/slots.

The first of these issues has been largely solved in official revisions, but the second and third still remain, leaving the official beastmaster as more of a character with a trained fighting pet. Which is fine if you want to play a character that leans into the wilderness fighter side of things, but not if you actually wanted to play a “master of beasts”.

- from the publisher's blurb