This is long. Very. By it's basic formula, it has to be. However, I dare say, including the viable creature's stat blocks into the length of the Revised Ranger, it'd be about on par. And, this feels more intuitive to me, allowing the player to make decisions in some amount of detail about their companion's abilities.

The core concept is... Still sort of similar. Modular-ly creating the creature you want as a pet through a collection of abilities. This does aim to be the more simple and straightforward, and in both this and future iterations of the point buy based attempt, things will be more organized.

This is a splinter homebrew inspired by some feedback to my previous attempt at a beastmaster , namely, that the point system is over-complicated, but that simplifying it could result in something cool.

Unique Bond.

Whether the creature you now call your companion was born or hatched by your side, or some encounter led to you forming this bond at a later date, your experiences by each other's side have defined this creature almost as much as it's original species. At level 3, regardless of it's origins, this creature becomes prepared to fight alongside you and your allies.

You design the personality, alignment, and other such traits of your pet, and it gains a bond describing it's loyalty to you.

Furthermore, at level 3, and as you take more levels in this class, you will be able to select additional traits and abilities to help define exactly what your companion is, and maintain their ability to fight alongside you.

If the stats your companion has when it joins you are not fully on par with the base creature of the monster manual, this probably implies the animal is at least somewhat younger than others of it's kind, though it will grow as it continues to adventure alongside you.

Your companion acts freely on your initiative, following your instructions if it has them, or, if you are incapacitated or otherwise unable to communicate, verbally or otherwise, it acts in favour of your interests as far as it understands and is able to.

If your companion dies, you may undergo an 8 hour ritual which costs 50 GP in gold in order to revive them, the strength of your bond able to make this process much easier than usual.

By default, you can't ride your companion, though it becomes an option at certain points, depending on your race's size.