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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6701757" data-attributes="member: 2067">Yeah, that would not be cool. I think this would probably call for some more robust monsters-in-the-party advice and guidelines, but given the sort of opt-in nature of NPC party members, I could see this being pretty loose. You could go the simple route (a monster is considered a character of a level equal to its' CR something, every level they gain adds a hit die that varies with their size, and they get increased proficiency bonuses at various levels), or get a little more custom with it (I like the sound of a dog with fighter levels, and have no issue with it from a mechanical perspective, but it seems like it'd encourage some weird combos at the edges), or somewhere in between (guidelines for converting a creature into a racial template you can overlay on a class? a rough damage/defense comparison you can run to give it a rough character level like the table for monster CR?). That might be useful independent of what happens with the beastmaster specifically, because it can give a DM a better sense of when it might want to give a paladin a unicorn or something anyway. The DMG already advises treating a follower or adventuring NPC as a full party member who eats up some XP for the group, and I think that's a very useful starting point for this!</blockquote>