TheCosmicKid
Hero
I've been tinkering with this for a while now, and I think it's finally presentable enough for public critique. I've attached a .pdf, or if you prefer, you can peruse it in your browser by expanding the following spoiler block. (The .pdf is prettier, though.) The tl;dr is that this is a ranger which can do 12d12 necrotic damage to multiple targets at a range of up to a mile. Without magic. Think I'm joking? Read on!
[sblock]The Ranger
Class Features
As a ranger, you gain the following class features.
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d10 per ranger level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per ranger level after 1st
Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields
Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
Tools: None
Saving Throws: Dexterity, Constitution
Skills: Choose three from Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival
Quarry
At 1st level, you learn to hunt with singular focus and precision. Choose a hunting style (detailed below) to designate certain creatures as your quarry. Whenever you make a weapon attack against your quarry or a Wisdom check related to your quarry, you can roll your quarry die, a d4, and add the number rolled to the attack roll or ability check.
Your quarry die increases in size as you gain ranger levels. It becomes a d6 at 5th level, a d8 at 10th level, a d10 at 15th level, and a d12 at 20th level.
To determine which creatures are your quarry, choose a hunting style from the following options:
Favored Enemy. You have dedicated yourself to hunting creatures of a particular kind. Choose a creature type: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid. All creatures of the chosen type or types count as your quarry. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace your choice of favored enemy with a different one.
Favored Terrain. You defend the lands you love from interlopers---it is not so much knowledge of your enemies that gives you the upper hand as knowledge of the terrain in which you fight. Choose a type of terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or subterranean. All creatures dwelling in or traveling through the chosen terrain count as your quarry. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace your choice of favored terrain type with a different one.
Ranger's Mark. Through careful observation, you learn the weaknesses of the creatures you hunt. You can use your action to study a single creature you can see, or spend one minute studying the creature's tracks if you can't see it. That creature becomes your quarry until you study a different creature. You can only have one quarry at a time. However, if you see your quarry drop to 0 hit points, you can use your bonus action on your next turn to mark a new creature of the same type.
At 7th level, you can choose a second hunting style and gain its benefits. Alternatively, you can expand your current hunting style: selecting an additional Favored Enemy or Favored Terrain, or gaining the ability to mark one additional creature at the same time with Ranger's Mark. At 14th level, you can again choose a new hunting style or expand one you already know.
Wilderness Stride
You are at home in the wilderness in a way no other character can claim. At 1st level, you gain the following benefits:
Ranger's Path
At 2nd level, you choose to follow the path of the Beast Master, Pathfinder, Slayer, Stalker, or Warden, all detailed at the end of the class description. Your path grants you features at 2nd level and again at 5th level, 9th level, 13th level, and 17th level.
Fighting Style
Also at 2nd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.
Archery. You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.
Defense. While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Dueling. While you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Mixed Tactics. You can sheathe one weapon and draw another as part of the same action. You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls you make with a ranged weapon if the last attack you made was with a melee weapon, and vice versa.
Mobility. While you are wearing light armor or no armor, you gain a +3 bonus to AC against opportunity attacks.
Two-Weapon Fighting. When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.
Lookout
At 3rd level, you gain the following benefits:
Creature Lore
By 3rd level, you have become a walking repository for hunter's tales and other knowledge of the monsters that dwell in the wild. You have advantage on Intelligence checks to recall information about creatures.
Skirmish
At 6th level, you adopt skirmishing tactics that allow you to avoid retaliation for your strikes. Opportunity attacks and attacks from which you have cover are made against you with disadvantage.
Endurance
Also starting at 6th level, you suffer the effects of exhaustion as though your exhaustion level were halved, rounded down. You can take up to 12 levels of exhaustion instead of 6, and when you finish a long rest, your exhaustion level is reduced by 2 instead of 1.
Hawkeye
At 7th level, your eyes become as keen as a deadly predator's. You gain the following benefits:
Longshanks
At 10th level, your speed increases by 10 feet when you aren't wearing heavy armor. Also, you can't be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.
Watcher of the Wild
By 11th level, your awareness of your environment has become almost supernatural. If you are in natural terrain, you can spend one minute observing your surroundings to make a Wisdom (Survival) check with a DC of 15. If you succeed, you can intuit one fact of your choice about any of the following subjects within a range of 3 miles:
You can use this feature in a natural underground environment, but if you do, the range is only 300 feet. You can't use this feature at all in a constructed environment, such as a dungeon or town.
Each time you use this feature after the first, the DC increases by 5. When you finish a long rest, the DC resets to 15.
Feral Senses
At 14th level, you gain preternatural senses that help you fight creatures you can't see. When you attack a creature you can't see, your inability to see it doesn't impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it.
You are also aware of the location of a creature you can't see within 30 feet of you, provided you aren't deafened.
Wingfoot
At 15th level, you become a particularly fleet-footed and elusive target. Whenever you move at least 15 feet from where you started on your turn, you can take the Dodge action as a bonus action.
Bullseye
Starting at 18th level, you can turn the most improbable attacks into miraculous hits. Whenever you roll a natural 1 on a weapon attack, treat it as a natural 20 instead.
Master of the Wild
At 20th level, you become effortlessly attuned to your surroundings. You can use Watcher of the Wild as a bonus action, and no longer have to make a Wisdom (Survival) check for it.
Ranger Paths
There are as many different ways of being a ranger as there are rangers. But, like game trails worn in the undergrowth, certain paths begin to emerge as rangers with similar outlooks and goals adopt similar methods.
Sometimes rangers on the same path band together in loose associations known as conclaves. Other rangers prefer to explore the path they've chosen on their own.
Beast Master
Beast masters learn the ways of the animal world, keeping the company of wild beasts and earning their loyalty. However far from civilization they may roam, these rangers are never alone.
Animal Companion
At 2nd level, you befriend a creature of the wilderness, who serves as your faithful friend and ally. After 8 hours of tracking and training in a natural environment, you gain the companionship of an animal of your choice that is appropriate to the environment: an ape, a black bear, a boar, an eagle, a giant badger, a giant weasel, a mule, a panther, or a wolf.
Your animal companion obeys your commands as best it can. It rolls for initiative like any other creature, but you determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or absent, your companion acts on its own.
Your animal companion gains the following benefits and alterations:
You can have only one animal companion at a time. If your companion dies, its loyalty to you is strong enough to halve the cost of material components for any spell that would restore it to life. Alternatively, after one week, you can find a new companion. Finding a new companion releases the old one from its bond to you, and its spirit departs to whatever afterlife awaits it.
Animal Empathy
Also at 2nd level, you become proficient in the Animal Handling skill. If you already have this proficiency, your proficiency bonus is doubled with the skill.
You have an innate ability to communicate with beasts, and they recognize you as a kindred spirit. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas to a beast as an action, and can read its basic mood and intent. You learn its emotional state, whether it is affected by magic of any sort, its short-term needs (such as food or safety), and actions you can take (if any) to persuade it to not attack. You cannot use this ability against a creature that you have attacked within the past 10 minutes.
Coordinated Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you and your animal companion form a more potent fighting team. When you use the Attack action on your turn, if your companion can see you, it can use its reaction to make a melee attack.
Animal Alertness
Starting at 9th level, you and your animal companion work together to watch for and avoid threats. As long as the two of you are able to see each other, when you, your companion, or both of you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you and/or your companion instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.
Red in Tooth and Claw
Starting at 13th level, when you or your companion reduce a creature to 0 hit points during an Attack action, either one of you can make an extra weapon attack as part of the same action.
Paragon of Animals
At 17th level, your animal companion can increase its Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution (your choice) by 4, and its maximum for that score is now 24. Alternatively, it can increase two of those scores by 2, and its maximum for both those scores is now 22.
Pathfinder
Pathfinders devote themselves to guiding others through the wilderness and defending them from its dangers. They are leaders and teachers, renowned even among other rangers for the breadth of their wilderness lore.
Wilderness Lore
When you take this path at 2nd level, you learn three wildcrafts of your choice, which are detailed at the end of this class description. Most wildcrafts expand and enhance the activities you can perform while traveling. You can perform two travel activities at the same time instead of one. These must be different travel activities, unless otherwise noted in the wildcraft's description.
You learn two additional wildcrafts of your choice at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level. Each time you learn new wildcrafts, you can also replace one wildcraft you know with a different one.
Wildcrafted Items. Some wildcrafts allow you to create items. As they are by necessity roughly made from foraged materials, they require special care to maintain. At any time, you can maintain a maximum number of wildcrafted items equal to half your ranger level (rounded up) + your Wisdom modifier. If an item doesn't receive maintenance, it breaks down and becomes useless.
Saving Throws. Some of your wildcrafts require a creature to make a saving throw to resist the wildcraft's effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:
Wildcraft save DC = 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Range of Experience
Also at 2nd level, you become proficient in one skill of your choice and one tool of your choice.
Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Expertise
At 9th level, choose two of your skill proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.
Multitasking
Starting at 13th level, you can perform three travel activities at the same time instead of two.
Wilderness Mentor
Starting at 17th level, a creature traveling with you who is able to understand you can add half your proficiency bonus to any ability check that you are proficient in and the creature is not.
Slayer
Rangers who follow the path of the Slayer are direct in their approach, seeking out their enemies and doing battle wherever they may find them.
Efficient Attack
When you begin this path at 2nd level, you learn to waste no movement or effort in your offensive against your enemies. When you make a weapon attack against your quarry, you can add your quarry die to the damage roll instead of the attack roll. You can decide to use this ability after you've made the attack roll, but before any effects of the attack are applied.
Know Your Enemy
Also at 2nd level, choose the Arcana, Nature, or Religion skill. You become proficient in the skill. If you already have this proficiency, your proficiency bonus is doubled with the skill.
You also learn an additional language of your choice.
Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Harry the Foe
Starting at 9th level, when you make a weapon attack against your quarry, you can choose not to add your quarry die to your attack roll or damage roll. If you do, and your attack hits, subtract the result of your quarry die from all attacks the target makes until the end of its next turn. You can decide to use this ability after you've made the attack roll, but before any effects of the attack are applied.
Dance of Death
At 13th level, you learn techniques for taking on multiple enemies at once. As an action, you can make one weapon attack against each creature that is your quarry within reach or range of your weapon. You can use your movement between making these attacks.
Relentless Slayer
Starting at 17th level, whenever you hit your quarry with a weapon attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to the result of your quarry die.
Stalker
Stalkers work from the shadows, confounding their enemies through stealth and ambush. The civilized peoples whose lands and homes they safeguard may not even realize they have a protector.
Precise Strike
Starting at 2nd level, you learn to place your attacks with deadly accuracy. Once per turn, when you hit a creature with a weapon attack roll which exceeds the target's AC by 5 or more, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage. The amount of extra damage increases to 2d6 at 5th level, 3d6 at 7th level, 4d6 at 9th level, 5d6 at 11th level, 6d6 at 13th level, 7d6 at 15th level, 8d6 at 17th level, and 9d6 at 19th level.
Vanish
Also at 2nd level, you become proficient in the Stealth skill. If you already have this proficiency, your proficiency bonus is doubled with the skill.
In addition, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn.
Ambush
Starting at 5th level, when you get the drop on your enemies you can end fights before they even begin. You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit.
Hide in Plain Sight
Starting at 9th level, you can remain perfectly still for long periods of time to set up ambushes. When you attempt to hide on your turn, you can opt to not move on that turn. If you avoid moving, creatures that attempt to detect you take a -10 penalty to their Wisdom (Perception) checks until the start of your next turn. You lose this benefit if you move or fall prone, either voluntarily or because of some external effect. You are still automatically detected if any effect or action causes you to no longer be hidden.
If you are still hidden on your next turn, you can continue to remain motionless and gain this benefit until you are detected.
Hunter's Mercy
Starting at 13th level, you can finish off wounded prey quickly and efficiently. You have advantage on weapon attack rolls against any creature with less than half its maximum hit points.
No Hesitation
Starting at 17th level, immediately after rolling initiative at the beginning of combat, if you are not surprised, you can take an extra turn before any other creature's turn. (If two or more creatures have this feature, they take their extra turns in initiative order.)
Warden
Wardens explore the secret and magical heart of the wild. They consort with druids and fey, learning primal magic to serve the natural order---or to have the natural order serve them.
Unlike most ranger paths, the warden path does not grant you features at 9th, 13th, or 17th level. (Instead, you gain access to a new level of spells at those levels.)
Spellcasting
At 2nd level, you learn to cast spells much as a druid does. See chapter 10 of the Player's Handbook for the general rules of spellcasting and the end of this document for the warden spell list.
Spell Slots. The Warden Spellcasting table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
Preparing Spells. You prepare the list of warden spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the warden spell list. When you do so, choose a number of warden spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + half your ranger level, rounded down (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of warden spells requires time spent in quiet communion with nature: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Spellcasting Ability. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your warden spells, since your magic draws upon your attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a warden spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell save DC = 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Spell attack modifier = your Proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Wildcrafts
The wildcrafts are presented in alphabetical order.
Antivenin
Prerequisite: 5th level, herbalism kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect herbs that counteract common poisons. After 8 hours, you can create a dose of antivenin. When a creature uses its action to consume the antivenin, one poison affect afflicting it is neutralized, and it gains advantage on saving throws against being poisoned and resistance to poison damage for 1 hour.
Blaze Trail[/b]
As a travel activity, you find the quickest and safest routes for your group. Your companions can ignore difficult terrain within 30 feet of you.
Call the Hunt
Prerequisite: 5th level
As a travel activity, you teach your companions the ways and weaknesses of your quarry. After 10 minutes during which your group must be tracking or directly observing your quarry, your companions each gain a d4 quarry die, which they can roll on attacks and checks against the quarry you have been tracking as though they were rangers.
Elude Magic
Prerequisite: 13th level
As a travel activity, you employ running water, decoys of hair and blood, and other means to baffle magical attempts to locate or otherwise gain information about you. Whenever a creature uses such magic, it must make an ability check using its spellcasting ability against your wildcraft save DC. If it fails, the magic has no effect.
You can extend this protection to other creatures in your group, but it counts as a separate travel activity for each creature.
False Trail
Prerequisite: 5th level
As a travel activity, if you are moving ahead of another creature or group of creatures and are undetected by them, you can lay down tracks and manipulate the environment to obscure the direction of their travel and divert them in the direction of their choice. This ruse lasts for as long as you travel ahead of those creatures and for up to one hour afterward. A creature that is attempting to navigate can make a Wisdom (Survival) check against your wildcraft DC to discover the deception.
Flawless Projectile
Prerequisite: 17th level
As a travel activity, you seek out natural materials of the best weight and quality to craft a single piece of ammunition perfectly suited to your shooting technique. After 8 hours, you can create 1 arrow, crossbow bolt, or sling bullet. You get a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls with this ammunition, and can always recover it after you have shot it.
Forager's Bounty
As a travel activity, you redouble your search for useful natural resources. If you are foraging, you find twice as much food as you normally would. If you are collecting materials for a wildcrafted item, you can produce the item in half the regular time.
Hidden Paths
Prerequisite: Stealth proficiency
As a travel activity, you provide guidance to your group on how to move undetected. Your companions gain proficiency in the Stealth skill, and the group can move stealthily at a normal pace.
Improvised Ammunition
As a travel activity, you collect wood and small stones suitable for fashioning into projectiles. After 8 hours, you can create a batch of 10 arrows, crossbow bolts, or sling bullets. The whole batch counts as a single wildcrafted item for the purpose of maintenance. Because of its crudity, this ammunition cannot be recovered after it has been shot.
Improvised Gear
As a travel activity, you fashion basic equipment out of natural materials. After 8 hours, you can create a backpack, a bedroll, cold-weather gear, a 50-foot rope, a waterskin, or a comparable common item made from plant and animal products. This wildcraft does not allow you to create weapons or armor.
Lay of the Land
Prerequisite: 5th level
As a travel activity, you search for a location based on a short description of your choice, such as "a tall tree overlooking a valley" or "a small cave with two exits." After one hour, make a Wisdom (Survival) check. If you succeed, you discover a location matching the description. The DC of the check is 10 for descriptions of features that are normal in your current environment, 15 for unusual or very specific descriptions, and 20 for exotic descriptions. Locations with magical properties are too rare to seek out with this wildcraft, unless you have reason to know that one is in the vicinity.
Legendary March
Prerequisite: 17th level
As a travel activity, you set a bracing pace for your group which draws out reserves of strength your companions didn't know they had. After 8 hours, you and your companions gain the benefit of a long rest. Once a creature has received this benefit, it cannot do so again until it completes a real long rest.
Lethal Poison
Prerequisite: Poisoner's kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect the poisons of deadly plants and animals. After 8 hours, you can create one dose of lethal poison. A creature can use its action to apply the poison to one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying. The first time a poisoned weapon deals damage to a creature, that creature takes 1d6 poison damage. This damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 9th level (3d6), 13th level (4d6), and 17th level (5d6).
Obscure Trail
As a travel activity, you hide the traces of your group's passage. Increase the DC of Wisdom (Survival) checks made to track your group by double your proficiency bonus.
Otherworldly Journey
Prerequisite: 17th level
As a travel activity, you seek out a natural passage to another plane of existence, such as an overgrown trail leading to Faerie, or a deep well at the bottom of which lies Shadow. Choose a plane you're searching for, and after 8 hours, make a Wisdom (Survival) check. If you succeed, you and your group can travel to the chosen plane. The DC of the check is 20 for an adjacent plane, as Faerie and Shadow are to the Material Plane. For more distant planes, the DC is 25 or higher. As the ways between the planes are constantly shifting, you must make this check each time you wish to find a passage, even if you have used that passage before.
Natural Panacea
Prerequisites: 13th level, herbalism kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect rare and wondrous curative flora. After 8 hours, you can create one panacea. When a creature uses its action to consume the panacea, it is cured of all diseases and poisons, and rendered immune to such effects for 24 hours.
Natural Poultice
Prerequisite: Herbalism kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect herbs that dull pain and stimulate healing. After 8 hours, you can create one poultice. A creature can use its action to apply the poultice to itself or another creature, restoring hit points equal to 1d6 + your Wisdom modifier. If the applying creature is proficient in the Medicine skill, it can add its proficiency bonus to the hit points restored. This healing increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 9th level (3d6), 13th level (4d6), and 17th level (5d6).
Nerve Poison
Prerequisites: 9th level, poisoner's kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect toxins that attack a creature's nervous system. After 8 hours, you can create one dose of nerve poison. A creature can use its action to apply the poison to one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying. The first time a poisoned weapon deals damage to a creature, that creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned, it is stunned. The creature can make another Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a success, this effect ends.
Protective Gear
Prerequisite: 9th level
As a travel activity, you collect materials that can shield a creature from the elements. After 8 hours, you can create one protective cloak of your choice: a warm fur cloak that grants resistance to cold damage, a tough leather cloak that grants resistance to fire damage, a cloak of insulating leaves that grants resistance to lightning damage, or a cloak treated in plant oils that grants resistance to acid damage. A creature can don or doff a cloak as an action, and can only wear one cloak at a time.
The durability of these cloaks is limited. Each time the creature wearing the cloak takes damage of the resisted type, roll 1d20. If the result is less than the damage the creature took (after applying resistance), the cloak wears out and loses its protective properties.
Refreshing March
Prerequisite: 5th level
As a travel activity, you guide your group along easy trails which allow you to catch your breath while still covering ground. After 1 hour, you and your companions gain the benefit of a short rest. Once a creature has received this benefit, it cannot do so again until it completes a real short rest or long rest.
Roundup
Prerequisites: 9th level, Animal Handling proficiency
As a travel activity, you seek out wild animals and entice them to follow you with calls, body language, and food. After 1 hour, you find one or more beasts appropriate to the environment you're traveling through. Choose one of the following options for what you find:
The beasts are friendly to you and your companions and remain with your group for as long as you maintain this travel activity, unless they are poorly treated. While they remain, you cannot round up any further creatures. The beasts do not understand complicated commands, but you can direct them to attack a creature or perform a simple task within their normal nature (no action required by you), and they will defend themselves, you, and your companions.
The DM has the creatures' statistics.
Run to Ground
Prerequisite: 13th level
As a travel activity, you can push enemies to overexertion. You must be tracking or pursuing a creature or group of creatures that are within 1 mile of you, aware of you, and traveling away from you. After 1 hour, each of those creatures must make a Constitution saving throw against your wildcraft save DC, taking 1d6 necrotic damage on a failed saving throw and half as much damage on a successful one. Creatures immune to exhaustion are immune to this damage. The damage increases by 1d6 for each consecutive hour of pursuit (2d6 after the second hour, 3d6 after the third, and so on), up to a maximum of 12d6. If the target is your quarry, roll your quarry die instead of of d6s.
Set the Pace
Prerequisite: 9th level
As a travel activity, you push yourself in a quick march and dare your companions to keep up. You increase your own speed by 5 feet and the speed of other members of your group by up to 10 feet, to a maximum of your speed.
Trapper's Snare
As a travel activity, you collect sticks and vines suitable for making a simple trap. After 8 hours, you can create one snare. You can use your action to set the snare around a 5-foot-radius circle on a flat surface. In a natural environment, the snare looks much like ordinary plant matter and requires a successful Wisdom (Perception) check against your wildcraft save DC to be seen.
The first time a creature steps into this circle, the snare suddenly tightens. The creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, it is restrained until it breaks free. A snared creature can use its action to make a Strength check against your wildcraft save DC, freeing itself on a success. Alternatively, another creature that can reach the snared creature can make this Strength check to free it, and rolls the check with advantage. The snare can also be attacked. It has an AC of 15 and 5 hit points. If the snare is destroyed, the snared creature is freed.
Vigilance
As a travel activity, you forgo other tasks to focus on watching your surroundings. You gain a +5 bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) score.
New Spells
The spells are presented in alphabetical order.
Animal Bond
2nd-level enchantment
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: 3 miles
Components: V, S, M (50 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food that the animal consumes)
Duration: Instantaneous
From out of the wilderness you call forth an animal of your choice: ape, black bear, boar, eagle, giant badger, giant weasel, mule, panther, or wolf. The closest animal within range responds to the call; if there are no animals of the chosen type within range, the spell fails. The called animal travels directly to your location, and you forge a mystical bond with it, gaining a loyal companion to accompany you on your travels.
Your companion acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. A companion can attack, but cannot perform the Multiattack action.
If your companion dies, its spirit remains with you rather than passing on, unless you choose to release it. While its spirit remains, you can cast this spell again on its body to return it to life, as the effect of the raise dead spell.
You can't have more than one companion bonded by this spell at a time. As an action, you can release your companion from its bond at any time. The animal remains friendly to you (unless you have mistreated it) but departs to live in the wilds once more.
Hunter's Guidance
1st-level divination
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: 90 feet
Components: V
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
You choose a creature you can see within range, and draw on the instincts of predatory spirits to take it down. Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 2 damage to the target whenever you hit it with a weapon attack. If you have the Quarry feature, the target counts as your quarry.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the extra damage increases by 1 for each slot level above 1st.[/sblock]
Some of my thoughts ---
Yes, Quarry is an attack bonus rather than a damage bonus. It makes the ranger's core class feature more distinctive and, I believe, better embodies a theme of efficient precision over raw power.
Three different hunting styles. It was originally just Ranger's Mark, and I generally kept Mark in mind as the "default" setting. But Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain seemed like easy enough substitutions to make and have legacy value, so I ended up writing the ability the way you see. I go back and forth on the question of simplicity versus extra options. In the end, I might go back to just Ranger's Mark in the core class writeup, and introduce the Favored Enemy/Terrain substitution as an option in a sidebar or something.
Do note that I added a couple of new Fighting Styles. These can be considered fighter options, as well. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a fighting style that the fighter should not have access to, and these certainly aren't that.
I'm not... ecstatic about the way I've handled the ranger's core skills just by giving them expertise. Feels like kind of a brute-force method. But at the same time, it does feel like the best method for saying that rangers are supposed to be the experts at these things. And it feels really bizarre giving rangers abilities like Hawkeye or Watcher of the Wild without expertise in those skills. It's like, rangers learn these super-special survival tricks, but are potentially outclassed in basic survival tasks by a freakin' bard? What?
I've moved the stealth-focused features to the stalker subclass and reoriented the core ranger towards perception and mobility. Sure, most rangers probably know how to move unseen when they wish, but I don't feel like that's a big enough part of the core fantasy of being The Wilderness Guy to merit two class features devoted to the skill. That's two more than the rogue gets. Perception, on the other hand, does seem to be a trait that consistently sets archetypical rangers apart from other characters.
And yeah, spellcasting is in a subclass too.
Bullseye. It's kind of cheesy, but I love Bullseye. In my mind, it's exactly what a high-level filler feature should look like: it breaks the rules in an exciting way, without actually breaking the game.
Animal Companion. Note that even though you enter the subclass at 2nd level now, the companion doesn't start gaining new hit dice until after 3rd. This is clunky and I don't really like it, but it was an unfortunate consequence of moving the subclass choice down to 2nd level from 3rd. 2nd-level beastmasters are probably overpowered, but between letting them be overpowered and whipping up some patch to nerf them for a single short level, I opted for the former. The feature is complicated enough already.
The pathfinder. Very experimental. I'm not completely satisfied with the implementation, and I'd like a few more wildcraft options especially at higher levels. But in principle, I see this as the "default" ranger, what you pick if you want to just be the master of the wild, so I really want to get it right.
The slayer. I thought it was important that most of the ranger class not hang too heavily on the quarry mechanic so characters don't feel ineffectual when they can't use it. But the slayer is there if you want to opt into being that binary death machine. Efficient Attack is really strong. It was in the core class for a long time, the 11th-level feature equivalent to the paladin's Improved Divine Smite or the fighter's third attack, but it was too hard to balance its damage output on top of all the rest the subclasses provide (the beastmaster and stalker in particular).
The stalker, yes, is a ranger pretending to be a rogue. You might ask, why not just make a rangerish subclass of rogue? To which I would answer, because I'm writing a ranger class. Nobody said there has to be exactly one way to implement a character concept, and no more.
And did you really think I was joking about that 12d12 necrotic damage?
[sblock]The Ranger
Code:
[B]
Proficiency Quarry
Level Bonus Die Features[/B]
1st +2 d4 Quarry, Wilderness Stride
2nd +2 d4 Ranger Path, Fighting Style
3rd +2 d4 Lookout, Creature Lore
4th +2 d4 Ability Score Improvement
5th +3 d6 Path feature
6th +3 d6 Skirmish, Endurance
7th +3 d6 Hawkeye, Quarry improvement
8th +3 d6 Ability Score Improvement
9th +4 d6 Path feature
10th +4 d8 Longshanks
11th +4 d8 Watcher of the Wild
12th +4 d8 Ability Score Improvement
13th +5 d8 Path feature
14th +5 d8 Feral Senses, Quarry improvement
15th +5 d10 Wingfoot
16th +5 d10 Ability Score Improvement
17th +6 d10 Path feature
18th +6 d10 Bullseye
19th +6 d10 Ability Score Improvement
20th +6 d12 Master of the WildClass Features
As a ranger, you gain the following class features.
Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d10 per ranger level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per ranger level after 1st
Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields
Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
Tools: None
Saving Throws: Dexterity, Constitution
Skills: Choose three from Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival
Quarry
At 1st level, you learn to hunt with singular focus and precision. Choose a hunting style (detailed below) to designate certain creatures as your quarry. Whenever you make a weapon attack against your quarry or a Wisdom check related to your quarry, you can roll your quarry die, a d4, and add the number rolled to the attack roll or ability check.
Your quarry die increases in size as you gain ranger levels. It becomes a d6 at 5th level, a d8 at 10th level, a d10 at 15th level, and a d12 at 20th level.
To determine which creatures are your quarry, choose a hunting style from the following options:
Favored Enemy. You have dedicated yourself to hunting creatures of a particular kind. Choose a creature type: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid. All creatures of the chosen type or types count as your quarry. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace your choice of favored enemy with a different one.
Favored Terrain. You defend the lands you love from interlopers---it is not so much knowledge of your enemies that gives you the upper hand as knowledge of the terrain in which you fight. Choose a type of terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or subterranean. All creatures dwelling in or traveling through the chosen terrain count as your quarry. Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace your choice of favored terrain type with a different one.
Ranger's Mark. Through careful observation, you learn the weaknesses of the creatures you hunt. You can use your action to study a single creature you can see, or spend one minute studying the creature's tracks if you can't see it. That creature becomes your quarry until you study a different creature. You can only have one quarry at a time. However, if you see your quarry drop to 0 hit points, you can use your bonus action on your next turn to mark a new creature of the same type.
At 7th level, you can choose a second hunting style and gain its benefits. Alternatively, you can expand your current hunting style: selecting an additional Favored Enemy or Favored Terrain, or gaining the ability to mark one additional creature at the same time with Ranger's Mark. At 14th level, you can again choose a new hunting style or expand one you already know.
Wilderness Stride
You are at home in the wilderness in a way no other character can claim. At 1st level, you gain the following benefits:
- You become proficient in the Survival skill. If you are already proficient in this skill, your proficiency bonus is doubled when you roll a check with it.
- You ignore difficult terrain.
- You do not take damage from terrain features that have thorns, spikes, or a similar hazard.
- You have advantage on saving throws against hindering effects of terrain features, such as plants created by the entangle spell.
- If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
- You always know which way is north and which direction you are traveling, unless confused by magical means.
Ranger's Path
At 2nd level, you choose to follow the path of the Beast Master, Pathfinder, Slayer, Stalker, or Warden, all detailed at the end of the class description. Your path grants you features at 2nd level and again at 5th level, 9th level, 13th level, and 17th level.
Fighting Style
Also at 2nd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.
Archery. You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.
Defense. While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Dueling. While you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Mixed Tactics. You can sheathe one weapon and draw another as part of the same action. You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls you make with a ranged weapon if the last attack you made was with a melee weapon, and vice versa.
Mobility. While you are wearing light armor or no armor, you gain a +3 bonus to AC against opportunity attacks.
Two-Weapon Fighting. When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.
Lookout
At 3rd level, you gain the following benefits:
- You become proficient in the Perception skill. If you are already proficient in this skill, your proficiency bonus is doubled when you roll a check with it.
- You remain alert to danger even when engaged in another travel activity (such as foraging or tracking).
- You have advantage on initiative rolls.
- When you roll initiative, if you are not surprised, you can use your reaction to call out a warning. If any friendly creatures who can hear you are surprised, they are no longer surprised.
Creature Lore
By 3rd level, you have become a walking repository for hunter's tales and other knowledge of the monsters that dwell in the wild. You have advantage on Intelligence checks to recall information about creatures.
Skirmish
At 6th level, you adopt skirmishing tactics that allow you to avoid retaliation for your strikes. Opportunity attacks and attacks from which you have cover are made against you with disadvantage.
Endurance
Also starting at 6th level, you suffer the effects of exhaustion as though your exhaustion level were halved, rounded down. You can take up to 12 levels of exhaustion instead of 6, and when you finish a long rest, your exhaustion level is reduced by 2 instead of 1.
Hawkeye
At 7th level, your eyes become as keen as a deadly predator's. You gain the following benefits:
- You can see up to 1 mile away with no difficulty, able to discern even fine details as though looking at something no more than 100 feet away from you.
- Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged weapon attack rolls.
- Dim light doesn't impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks.
Longshanks
At 10th level, your speed increases by 10 feet when you aren't wearing heavy armor. Also, you can't be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.
Watcher of the Wild
By 11th level, your awareness of your environment has become almost supernatural. If you are in natural terrain, you can spend one minute observing your surroundings to make a Wisdom (Survival) check with a DC of 15. If you succeed, you can intuit one fact of your choice about any of the following subjects within a range of 3 miles:
- terrain and bodies of water
- prevalent plants, minerals, animals, or peoples
- powerful monsters not native to the area
- your quarry
- buildings
You can use this feature in a natural underground environment, but if you do, the range is only 300 feet. You can't use this feature at all in a constructed environment, such as a dungeon or town.
Each time you use this feature after the first, the DC increases by 5. When you finish a long rest, the DC resets to 15.
Feral Senses
At 14th level, you gain preternatural senses that help you fight creatures you can't see. When you attack a creature you can't see, your inability to see it doesn't impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it.
You are also aware of the location of a creature you can't see within 30 feet of you, provided you aren't deafened.
Wingfoot
At 15th level, you become a particularly fleet-footed and elusive target. Whenever you move at least 15 feet from where you started on your turn, you can take the Dodge action as a bonus action.
Bullseye
Starting at 18th level, you can turn the most improbable attacks into miraculous hits. Whenever you roll a natural 1 on a weapon attack, treat it as a natural 20 instead.
Master of the Wild
At 20th level, you become effortlessly attuned to your surroundings. You can use Watcher of the Wild as a bonus action, and no longer have to make a Wisdom (Survival) check for it.
Ranger Paths
There are as many different ways of being a ranger as there are rangers. But, like game trails worn in the undergrowth, certain paths begin to emerge as rangers with similar outlooks and goals adopt similar methods.
Sometimes rangers on the same path band together in loose associations known as conclaves. Other rangers prefer to explore the path they've chosen on their own.
Beast Master
Beast masters learn the ways of the animal world, keeping the company of wild beasts and earning their loyalty. However far from civilization they may roam, these rangers are never alone.
Animal Companion
At 2nd level, you befriend a creature of the wilderness, who serves as your faithful friend and ally. After 8 hours of tracking and training in a natural environment, you gain the companionship of an animal of your choice that is appropriate to the environment: an ape, a black bear, a boar, an eagle, a giant badger, a giant weasel, a mule, a panther, or a wolf.
Your animal companion obeys your commands as best it can. It rolls for initiative like any other creature, but you determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or absent, your companion acts on its own.
Your animal companion gains the following benefits and alterations:
- It uses your proficiency bonus rather than its own, and adds your proficiency bonus to its AC in addition to the areas where it normally uses its proficiency bonus.
- It becomes proficient in two skills of your choice and all saving throws.
- If it is reduced to 0 hit points and not killed outright, it immediately becomes stable.
- It loses its Multiattack action, if it has one.
- When using your Wilderness Stride feature, you and your companion both ignore difficult terrain and can move stealthily at a normal pace.
- It gains the benefits of your Quarry feature. Your companion always has the same quarry you do.
- For each level you gain after 3rd, your companion gains an additional Hit Die and increases its hit points accordingly.
- Whenever you gain the Ability Score Improvement class feature, your companion's abilities also improve. Your companion can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or it can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, your companion can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature unless its description specifies otherwise.
You can have only one animal companion at a time. If your companion dies, its loyalty to you is strong enough to halve the cost of material components for any spell that would restore it to life. Alternatively, after one week, you can find a new companion. Finding a new companion releases the old one from its bond to you, and its spirit departs to whatever afterlife awaits it.
Animal Empathy
Also at 2nd level, you become proficient in the Animal Handling skill. If you already have this proficiency, your proficiency bonus is doubled with the skill.
You have an innate ability to communicate with beasts, and they recognize you as a kindred spirit. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas to a beast as an action, and can read its basic mood and intent. You learn its emotional state, whether it is affected by magic of any sort, its short-term needs (such as food or safety), and actions you can take (if any) to persuade it to not attack. You cannot use this ability against a creature that you have attacked within the past 10 minutes.
Coordinated Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you and your animal companion form a more potent fighting team. When you use the Attack action on your turn, if your companion can see you, it can use its reaction to make a melee attack.
Animal Alertness
Starting at 9th level, you and your animal companion work together to watch for and avoid threats. As long as the two of you are able to see each other, when you, your companion, or both of you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you and/or your companion instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.
Red in Tooth and Claw
Starting at 13th level, when you or your companion reduce a creature to 0 hit points during an Attack action, either one of you can make an extra weapon attack as part of the same action.
Paragon of Animals
At 17th level, your animal companion can increase its Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution (your choice) by 4, and its maximum for that score is now 24. Alternatively, it can increase two of those scores by 2, and its maximum for both those scores is now 22.
Pathfinder
Pathfinders devote themselves to guiding others through the wilderness and defending them from its dangers. They are leaders and teachers, renowned even among other rangers for the breadth of their wilderness lore.
Wilderness Lore
When you take this path at 2nd level, you learn three wildcrafts of your choice, which are detailed at the end of this class description. Most wildcrafts expand and enhance the activities you can perform while traveling. You can perform two travel activities at the same time instead of one. These must be different travel activities, unless otherwise noted in the wildcraft's description.
You learn two additional wildcrafts of your choice at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level. Each time you learn new wildcrafts, you can also replace one wildcraft you know with a different one.
Wildcrafted Items. Some wildcrafts allow you to create items. As they are by necessity roughly made from foraged materials, they require special care to maintain. At any time, you can maintain a maximum number of wildcrafted items equal to half your ranger level (rounded up) + your Wisdom modifier. If an item doesn't receive maintenance, it breaks down and becomes useless.
Saving Throws. Some of your wildcrafts require a creature to make a saving throw to resist the wildcraft's effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows:
Wildcraft save DC = 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Range of Experience
Also at 2nd level, you become proficient in one skill of your choice and one tool of your choice.
Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Expertise
At 9th level, choose two of your skill proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.
Multitasking
Starting at 13th level, you can perform three travel activities at the same time instead of two.
Wilderness Mentor
Starting at 17th level, a creature traveling with you who is able to understand you can add half your proficiency bonus to any ability check that you are proficient in and the creature is not.
Slayer
Rangers who follow the path of the Slayer are direct in their approach, seeking out their enemies and doing battle wherever they may find them.
Efficient Attack
When you begin this path at 2nd level, you learn to waste no movement or effort in your offensive against your enemies. When you make a weapon attack against your quarry, you can add your quarry die to the damage roll instead of the attack roll. You can decide to use this ability after you've made the attack roll, but before any effects of the attack are applied.
Know Your Enemy
Also at 2nd level, choose the Arcana, Nature, or Religion skill. You become proficient in the skill. If you already have this proficiency, your proficiency bonus is doubled with the skill.
You also learn an additional language of your choice.
Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Harry the Foe
Starting at 9th level, when you make a weapon attack against your quarry, you can choose not to add your quarry die to your attack roll or damage roll. If you do, and your attack hits, subtract the result of your quarry die from all attacks the target makes until the end of its next turn. You can decide to use this ability after you've made the attack roll, but before any effects of the attack are applied.
Dance of Death
At 13th level, you learn techniques for taking on multiple enemies at once. As an action, you can make one weapon attack against each creature that is your quarry within reach or range of your weapon. You can use your movement between making these attacks.
Relentless Slayer
Starting at 17th level, whenever you hit your quarry with a weapon attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to the result of your quarry die.
Stalker
Stalkers work from the shadows, confounding their enemies through stealth and ambush. The civilized peoples whose lands and homes they safeguard may not even realize they have a protector.
Precise Strike
Starting at 2nd level, you learn to place your attacks with deadly accuracy. Once per turn, when you hit a creature with a weapon attack roll which exceeds the target's AC by 5 or more, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage. The amount of extra damage increases to 2d6 at 5th level, 3d6 at 7th level, 4d6 at 9th level, 5d6 at 11th level, 6d6 at 13th level, 7d6 at 15th level, 8d6 at 17th level, and 9d6 at 19th level.
Vanish
Also at 2nd level, you become proficient in the Stealth skill. If you already have this proficiency, your proficiency bonus is doubled with the skill.
In addition, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn.
Ambush
Starting at 5th level, when you get the drop on your enemies you can end fights before they even begin. You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit.
Hide in Plain Sight
Starting at 9th level, you can remain perfectly still for long periods of time to set up ambushes. When you attempt to hide on your turn, you can opt to not move on that turn. If you avoid moving, creatures that attempt to detect you take a -10 penalty to their Wisdom (Perception) checks until the start of your next turn. You lose this benefit if you move or fall prone, either voluntarily or because of some external effect. You are still automatically detected if any effect or action causes you to no longer be hidden.
If you are still hidden on your next turn, you can continue to remain motionless and gain this benefit until you are detected.
Hunter's Mercy
Starting at 13th level, you can finish off wounded prey quickly and efficiently. You have advantage on weapon attack rolls against any creature with less than half its maximum hit points.
No Hesitation
Starting at 17th level, immediately after rolling initiative at the beginning of combat, if you are not surprised, you can take an extra turn before any other creature's turn. (If two or more creatures have this feature, they take their extra turns in initiative order.)
Warden
Wardens explore the secret and magical heart of the wild. They consort with druids and fey, learning primal magic to serve the natural order---or to have the natural order serve them.
Unlike most ranger paths, the warden path does not grant you features at 9th, 13th, or 17th level. (Instead, you gain access to a new level of spells at those levels.)
Spellcasting
At 2nd level, you learn to cast spells much as a druid does. See chapter 10 of the Player's Handbook for the general rules of spellcasting and the end of this document for the warden spell list.
Spell Slots. The Warden Spellcasting table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
Preparing Spells. You prepare the list of warden spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the warden spell list. When you do so, choose a number of warden spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + half your ranger level, rounded down (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of warden spells requires time spent in quiet communion with nature: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.
Spellcasting Ability. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your warden spells, since your magic draws upon your attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a warden spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell save DC = 8 + your Proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Spell attack modifier = your Proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier
Code:
[B]
Ranger - Spell Slots per Spell Level -
Level 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th[/B]
2nd 2 --- --- --- ---
3rd 3 --- --- --- ---
4th 3 --- --- --- ---
5th 4 2 --- --- ---
6th 4 2 --- --- ---
7th 4 3 --- --- ---
8th 4 3 --- --- ---
9th 4 3 2 --- ---
10th 4 3 2 --- ---
11th 4 3 3 --- ---
12th 4 3 3 --- ---
13th 4 3 3 1 ---
14th 4 3 3 1 ---
15th 4 3 3 2 ---
16th 4 3 3 2 ---
17th 4 3 3 3 1
18th 4 3 3 3 1
19th 4 3 3 3 2
20th 4 3 3 3 2Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Wildcrafts
The wildcrafts are presented in alphabetical order.
Antivenin
Prerequisite: 5th level, herbalism kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect herbs that counteract common poisons. After 8 hours, you can create a dose of antivenin. When a creature uses its action to consume the antivenin, one poison affect afflicting it is neutralized, and it gains advantage on saving throws against being poisoned and resistance to poison damage for 1 hour.
Blaze Trail[/b]
As a travel activity, you find the quickest and safest routes for your group. Your companions can ignore difficult terrain within 30 feet of you.
Call the Hunt
Prerequisite: 5th level
As a travel activity, you teach your companions the ways and weaknesses of your quarry. After 10 minutes during which your group must be tracking or directly observing your quarry, your companions each gain a d4 quarry die, which they can roll on attacks and checks against the quarry you have been tracking as though they were rangers.
Elude Magic
Prerequisite: 13th level
As a travel activity, you employ running water, decoys of hair and blood, and other means to baffle magical attempts to locate or otherwise gain information about you. Whenever a creature uses such magic, it must make an ability check using its spellcasting ability against your wildcraft save DC. If it fails, the magic has no effect.
You can extend this protection to other creatures in your group, but it counts as a separate travel activity for each creature.
False Trail
Prerequisite: 5th level
As a travel activity, if you are moving ahead of another creature or group of creatures and are undetected by them, you can lay down tracks and manipulate the environment to obscure the direction of their travel and divert them in the direction of their choice. This ruse lasts for as long as you travel ahead of those creatures and for up to one hour afterward. A creature that is attempting to navigate can make a Wisdom (Survival) check against your wildcraft DC to discover the deception.
Flawless Projectile
Prerequisite: 17th level
As a travel activity, you seek out natural materials of the best weight and quality to craft a single piece of ammunition perfectly suited to your shooting technique. After 8 hours, you can create 1 arrow, crossbow bolt, or sling bullet. You get a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls with this ammunition, and can always recover it after you have shot it.
Forager's Bounty
As a travel activity, you redouble your search for useful natural resources. If you are foraging, you find twice as much food as you normally would. If you are collecting materials for a wildcrafted item, you can produce the item in half the regular time.
Hidden Paths
Prerequisite: Stealth proficiency
As a travel activity, you provide guidance to your group on how to move undetected. Your companions gain proficiency in the Stealth skill, and the group can move stealthily at a normal pace.
Improvised Ammunition
As a travel activity, you collect wood and small stones suitable for fashioning into projectiles. After 8 hours, you can create a batch of 10 arrows, crossbow bolts, or sling bullets. The whole batch counts as a single wildcrafted item for the purpose of maintenance. Because of its crudity, this ammunition cannot be recovered after it has been shot.
Improvised Gear
As a travel activity, you fashion basic equipment out of natural materials. After 8 hours, you can create a backpack, a bedroll, cold-weather gear, a 50-foot rope, a waterskin, or a comparable common item made from plant and animal products. This wildcraft does not allow you to create weapons or armor.
Lay of the Land
Prerequisite: 5th level
As a travel activity, you search for a location based on a short description of your choice, such as "a tall tree overlooking a valley" or "a small cave with two exits." After one hour, make a Wisdom (Survival) check. If you succeed, you discover a location matching the description. The DC of the check is 10 for descriptions of features that are normal in your current environment, 15 for unusual or very specific descriptions, and 20 for exotic descriptions. Locations with magical properties are too rare to seek out with this wildcraft, unless you have reason to know that one is in the vicinity.
Legendary March
Prerequisite: 17th level
As a travel activity, you set a bracing pace for your group which draws out reserves of strength your companions didn't know they had. After 8 hours, you and your companions gain the benefit of a long rest. Once a creature has received this benefit, it cannot do so again until it completes a real long rest.
Lethal Poison
Prerequisite: Poisoner's kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect the poisons of deadly plants and animals. After 8 hours, you can create one dose of lethal poison. A creature can use its action to apply the poison to one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying. The first time a poisoned weapon deals damage to a creature, that creature takes 1d6 poison damage. This damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 9th level (3d6), 13th level (4d6), and 17th level (5d6).
Obscure Trail
As a travel activity, you hide the traces of your group's passage. Increase the DC of Wisdom (Survival) checks made to track your group by double your proficiency bonus.
Otherworldly Journey
Prerequisite: 17th level
As a travel activity, you seek out a natural passage to another plane of existence, such as an overgrown trail leading to Faerie, or a deep well at the bottom of which lies Shadow. Choose a plane you're searching for, and after 8 hours, make a Wisdom (Survival) check. If you succeed, you and your group can travel to the chosen plane. The DC of the check is 20 for an adjacent plane, as Faerie and Shadow are to the Material Plane. For more distant planes, the DC is 25 or higher. As the ways between the planes are constantly shifting, you must make this check each time you wish to find a passage, even if you have used that passage before.
Natural Panacea
Prerequisites: 13th level, herbalism kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect rare and wondrous curative flora. After 8 hours, you can create one panacea. When a creature uses its action to consume the panacea, it is cured of all diseases and poisons, and rendered immune to such effects for 24 hours.
Natural Poultice
Prerequisite: Herbalism kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect herbs that dull pain and stimulate healing. After 8 hours, you can create one poultice. A creature can use its action to apply the poultice to itself or another creature, restoring hit points equal to 1d6 + your Wisdom modifier. If the applying creature is proficient in the Medicine skill, it can add its proficiency bonus to the hit points restored. This healing increases by 1d6 when you reach 5th level (2d6), 9th level (3d6), 13th level (4d6), and 17th level (5d6).
Nerve Poison
Prerequisites: 9th level, poisoner's kit proficiency
As a travel activity, you collect toxins that attack a creature's nervous system. After 8 hours, you can create one dose of nerve poison. A creature can use its action to apply the poison to one slashing or piercing weapon or up to three pieces of ammunition. Once applied, the poison retains potency for 1 minute before drying. The first time a poisoned weapon deals damage to a creature, that creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for 1 minute. While poisoned, it is stunned. The creature can make another Constitution saving throw at the end of each of its turns. On a success, this effect ends.
Protective Gear
Prerequisite: 9th level
As a travel activity, you collect materials that can shield a creature from the elements. After 8 hours, you can create one protective cloak of your choice: a warm fur cloak that grants resistance to cold damage, a tough leather cloak that grants resistance to fire damage, a cloak of insulating leaves that grants resistance to lightning damage, or a cloak treated in plant oils that grants resistance to acid damage. A creature can don or doff a cloak as an action, and can only wear one cloak at a time.
The durability of these cloaks is limited. Each time the creature wearing the cloak takes damage of the resisted type, roll 1d20. If the result is less than the damage the creature took (after applying resistance), the cloak wears out and loses its protective properties.
Refreshing March
Prerequisite: 5th level
As a travel activity, you guide your group along easy trails which allow you to catch your breath while still covering ground. After 1 hour, you and your companions gain the benefit of a short rest. Once a creature has received this benefit, it cannot do so again until it completes a real short rest or long rest.
Roundup
Prerequisites: 9th level, Animal Handling proficiency
As a travel activity, you seek out wild animals and entice them to follow you with calls, body language, and food. After 1 hour, you find one or more beasts appropriate to the environment you're traveling through. Choose one of the following options for what you find:
- One beast of challenge rating 2 or lower
- Two beasts of challenge rating 1 or lower
- Four beasts of challenge rating 1/2 or lower
- Eight beasts of challenge rating 1/4 or lower
The beasts are friendly to you and your companions and remain with your group for as long as you maintain this travel activity, unless they are poorly treated. While they remain, you cannot round up any further creatures. The beasts do not understand complicated commands, but you can direct them to attack a creature or perform a simple task within their normal nature (no action required by you), and they will defend themselves, you, and your companions.
The DM has the creatures' statistics.
Run to Ground
Prerequisite: 13th level
As a travel activity, you can push enemies to overexertion. You must be tracking or pursuing a creature or group of creatures that are within 1 mile of you, aware of you, and traveling away from you. After 1 hour, each of those creatures must make a Constitution saving throw against your wildcraft save DC, taking 1d6 necrotic damage on a failed saving throw and half as much damage on a successful one. Creatures immune to exhaustion are immune to this damage. The damage increases by 1d6 for each consecutive hour of pursuit (2d6 after the second hour, 3d6 after the third, and so on), up to a maximum of 12d6. If the target is your quarry, roll your quarry die instead of of d6s.
Set the Pace
Prerequisite: 9th level
As a travel activity, you push yourself in a quick march and dare your companions to keep up. You increase your own speed by 5 feet and the speed of other members of your group by up to 10 feet, to a maximum of your speed.
Trapper's Snare
As a travel activity, you collect sticks and vines suitable for making a simple trap. After 8 hours, you can create one snare. You can use your action to set the snare around a 5-foot-radius circle on a flat surface. In a natural environment, the snare looks much like ordinary plant matter and requires a successful Wisdom (Perception) check against your wildcraft save DC to be seen.
The first time a creature steps into this circle, the snare suddenly tightens. The creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, it is restrained until it breaks free. A snared creature can use its action to make a Strength check against your wildcraft save DC, freeing itself on a success. Alternatively, another creature that can reach the snared creature can make this Strength check to free it, and rolls the check with advantage. The snare can also be attacked. It has an AC of 15 and 5 hit points. If the snare is destroyed, the snared creature is freed.
Vigilance
As a travel activity, you forgo other tasks to focus on watching your surroundings. You gain a +5 bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) score.
New Spells
The spells are presented in alphabetical order.
Animal Bond
2nd-level enchantment
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: 3 miles
Components: V, S, M (50 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food that the animal consumes)
Duration: Instantaneous
From out of the wilderness you call forth an animal of your choice: ape, black bear, boar, eagle, giant badger, giant weasel, mule, panther, or wolf. The closest animal within range responds to the call; if there are no animals of the chosen type within range, the spell fails. The called animal travels directly to your location, and you forge a mystical bond with it, gaining a loyal companion to accompany you on your travels.
Your companion acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. A companion can attack, but cannot perform the Multiattack action.
If your companion dies, its spirit remains with you rather than passing on, unless you choose to release it. While its spirit remains, you can cast this spell again on its body to return it to life, as the effect of the raise dead spell.
You can't have more than one companion bonded by this spell at a time. As an action, you can release your companion from its bond at any time. The animal remains friendly to you (unless you have mistreated it) but departs to live in the wilds once more.
Hunter's Guidance
1st-level divination
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
Range: 90 feet
Components: V
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
You choose a creature you can see within range, and draw on the instincts of predatory spirits to take it down. Until the spell ends, you deal an extra 2 damage to the target whenever you hit it with a weapon attack. If you have the Quarry feature, the target counts as your quarry.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the extra damage increases by 1 for each slot level above 1st.[/sblock]
Some of my thoughts ---
Yes, Quarry is an attack bonus rather than a damage bonus. It makes the ranger's core class feature more distinctive and, I believe, better embodies a theme of efficient precision over raw power.
Three different hunting styles. It was originally just Ranger's Mark, and I generally kept Mark in mind as the "default" setting. But Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain seemed like easy enough substitutions to make and have legacy value, so I ended up writing the ability the way you see. I go back and forth on the question of simplicity versus extra options. In the end, I might go back to just Ranger's Mark in the core class writeup, and introduce the Favored Enemy/Terrain substitution as an option in a sidebar or something.
Do note that I added a couple of new Fighting Styles. These can be considered fighter options, as well. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a fighting style that the fighter should not have access to, and these certainly aren't that.
I'm not... ecstatic about the way I've handled the ranger's core skills just by giving them expertise. Feels like kind of a brute-force method. But at the same time, it does feel like the best method for saying that rangers are supposed to be the experts at these things. And it feels really bizarre giving rangers abilities like Hawkeye or Watcher of the Wild without expertise in those skills. It's like, rangers learn these super-special survival tricks, but are potentially outclassed in basic survival tasks by a freakin' bard? What?
I've moved the stealth-focused features to the stalker subclass and reoriented the core ranger towards perception and mobility. Sure, most rangers probably know how to move unseen when they wish, but I don't feel like that's a big enough part of the core fantasy of being The Wilderness Guy to merit two class features devoted to the skill. That's two more than the rogue gets. Perception, on the other hand, does seem to be a trait that consistently sets archetypical rangers apart from other characters.
And yeah, spellcasting is in a subclass too.
Bullseye. It's kind of cheesy, but I love Bullseye. In my mind, it's exactly what a high-level filler feature should look like: it breaks the rules in an exciting way, without actually breaking the game.
Animal Companion. Note that even though you enter the subclass at 2nd level now, the companion doesn't start gaining new hit dice until after 3rd. This is clunky and I don't really like it, but it was an unfortunate consequence of moving the subclass choice down to 2nd level from 3rd. 2nd-level beastmasters are probably overpowered, but between letting them be overpowered and whipping up some patch to nerf them for a single short level, I opted for the former. The feature is complicated enough already.
The pathfinder. Very experimental. I'm not completely satisfied with the implementation, and I'd like a few more wildcraft options especially at higher levels. But in principle, I see this as the "default" ranger, what you pick if you want to just be the master of the wild, so I really want to get it right.
The slayer. I thought it was important that most of the ranger class not hang too heavily on the quarry mechanic so characters don't feel ineffectual when they can't use it. But the slayer is there if you want to opt into being that binary death machine. Efficient Attack is really strong. It was in the core class for a long time, the 11th-level feature equivalent to the paladin's Improved Divine Smite or the fighter's third attack, but it was too hard to balance its damage output on top of all the rest the subclasses provide (the beastmaster and stalker in particular).
The stalker, yes, is a ranger pretending to be a rogue. You might ask, why not just make a rangerish subclass of rogue? To which I would answer, because I'm writing a ranger class. Nobody said there has to be exactly one way to implement a character concept, and no more.
And did you really think I was joking about that 12d12 necrotic damage?
