D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook reveal: "New Ranger"

"More than any other class, the ranger is a new class."

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It has been a year (less a day) since we last saw the Ranger in UA Playtest 6. There still could be a lot of change. My sense is that they are more or less happy with three of the subclasses (Fey Wanderer, Beastmaster, and Gloom Stalker), but many questions remain: Will anyone be happy with the favored enemy/relation to the land abilities? Will Hunter's Mark be foregrounded in multiple abilities? Will rangers at least get a free casting of the Barrage/Volley spells? For the Hunter, will the "Superior" abilties at levels 11 and 15 continue to be things you didn't choose at lower levels? For the Gloom Stalker, will they pull out 3rd level invisibility from "Umbral Sight"? Any chance for a surprise substitution of the Horizon Walker? Let's find out.

OVERVIEW

• "widely played, but ... one of the lowest rated"
• Spellcasting and Weapon Mastery at 1 (as with Paladin). Spellcasting can change spells after long rest (not every level)
• NEW: Favored Enemy: Hunters Mark always prepared, and X castings per day. (was level 2 in PT6, where it was WIS times/day)
• NEW: Fighting Style at 2 (no limits on choice). or you may choose two cantrips (again, like Paladin).
• NEW: Deft Explorer at 3: expertise in a proficient skill, +2 languages. NO INTERACTION WITH LAND TYPES. This is a nerf from PT6, where at least you got a bonus to Intelligence (Nature) checks.
• Extra attack at 5, Roving at 6 (+10' move, Climb Speed, Swim speed).
• Two more expertise options, at 9, presumably. Compared to the playtest, this is a nerf: PT6 gave 1 expertise, the spell Conjure Barrage always prepared, and +2 land types for Explorer. These had problems, but it's a lot to lose for one additional expertise.
• At 10, Tireless (as in PT6) -- THP and reduced Exhaustion.
• NEW: At 13, Damage no longer breaks concentration with Hunter's Mark.
• At 14, Nature's Veil -- invisibility. At 18, Blindsight.
• NEW: At 17, advantage vs person marked with Hunter's Mark.
• NEW: Damage of Hunter's mark increases to d10, not d6. (This too is a nerf from the playtest, which gave +WIS to hit, and +WIS to damage.)

The clear expectation is you are using Hunter's Mark, occupying your concentration and taking your first Bonus action every combat, from levels 1-20.

SUBCLASSES
Beastmaster

• command Primal Beast as a bonus action, and higher level abilities as in PT6, apparently.
• stat blocks level up with you (as in Tasha's and PT6). Beast gets Hunter's Mark benefits at 11.

Fey Wanderer

• vague on specifics; apparently just as in Tasha's.

Gloom Stalker

• as in PT6, Psychic damage bonus a limited number of times per day. +WIS to initiative (cf. Assassin and Barbarian)
• Umbral Sight, darkvision bonus, and invisible in the dark.
• NEW: psychic damage goes up at level 11. Mass fear option of Sudden Strike mentioned, nothing about Sudden Strike.

Hunter.

• Hunter's Lore at 3: know if there are immunities/resistances of creature marked by Hunter's Mark.
• NEW: Hunter's Prey at 3: you have a choice and can change your choice every short/long rest.
• NEW: Defensive Tactics at 7: you have a choice, and again can choose after a rest. The choices are Escape the Horde, Multiattack defense (not Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, and Hunter's Leap, as in PT6).
• NEW: At 11, Hunter's mark now "splashes" damage onto another target.
• NEW: you can choose to take resistance to damage, until the end of your turn.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

There is another thing no one mentioned:
Rangers can cast rituals now. That alone is a pretty big change as ranger has quite a good selection of ritual spells in the 2014 handbook. When I took the ritual caster feat, I would have taken ranger instead of wizard if it was allowed. That also makes rangers way more versatile.

 

[mellored]

There is another thing no one mentioned:
Rangers can cast rituals now.

True for all classes.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

True for all classes.

Yes, but look at the actual spell selection of rangers. They have a wide variation of rituals, both from the wizard and the druid list. There are other casters eligible for the 2014 ritual caster feat, that have way less ritual spells.

So for the ranger, this is a real upgrade.

Ranger
compared to
Sorcerer

 

[Chaosmancer]

You can either have two druid cantrips, or two druid cantrips and the ability to cast a level-1 spell. Are you really choosing just the cantrips?

Yeah, I'm honestly thinking the "best" way to do it is the get the Magic Initiate feat as your origin feat, then grab the Fighting style you want.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sure
But it was an option

No, it wasn't "an option" it was the level 11 boost to the Ranger's damage to keep up with the Fighter's 3rd attack. It wasn't like Volley was a free choice you could just decide to get.

Volleys problem was only that most fights didn't have 3+ foes withing a 10 ft radius.

So the problem with the feature was that most of the time... you couldn't use the feature. That is a pretty big problem for a level 11 boost.

But if you didn't use it, you could still attack 1 target twice or thrice with XBE.

1d6 splash damage at level 11 is frankly ignorable and just wastes time. It'll only be tolerated because it's free. It's Long range worse Graze.

Is 2d6 ignorable? Again, from their phrasing, it might be activated every single time hunter's mark activates. That means that it could be 2d6 or 3d6 if you have a bonus action attack, to any enemy within 30 ft of your target. Compared to a feature that most of the time you couldn't even use.

The main benefit of Volley is it carried your buffs from feats, magic, and magic items. Now with Weapon Mastery, Volley with a melee ally would been so annoying to DM.

The free HM splash damage is indicative of the 2024 Ranger.

Free effective but boring flavorless buffs.

Sure, a weapon Master volley could have been more powerful, an entire area of speed reduction. Now, what would the melee ranger have gotten? Because Whirlwind Strike was even more terrible. I definitely would have been upset if the 2024 Hunter had an ability that only worked with ranged attacks.

And sure, maybe you find this boring and flavorless, but compared to "didn't even come up because the combat made it impossible to use" this is... a lot better. Even if it is only 1d6 damage once a turn, it is unavoidable damage, potentially even to invisible enemies, once per turn. Heck, if it works the way I think, you could wail on the enemy in front of you, send three d6 damage to a spellcaster, and proc three concentration checks while the enemy you were hitting takes a boatload of damage.

It is potentially an awesome feature.

 

[ECMO3]

Yeah, I'm honestly thinking the "best" way to do it is the get the Magic Initiate feat as your origin feat, then grab the Fighting style you want.

Maybe, but there might be other origin feats you want instead .... or maybe you want 4 Cantrips.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The issue is your level 11.

If you DM is using mooks to boost the enemy's action economy, Volley will trigger a lot. And with the high damage of bow archers by level 11, a few Volleys might wipe the add at no resource cost.

1d6 splash damage is more consistent and better overall damage. But as a whole does nothing the the 11 HP hobgoblins taking 4 12 damage potshots at your party from the back.

1-2 Sharpshooter, Magic Bow, Volleys, they scatter, advance to the frontline, or die.

1d6 splash HM is just 3.5 damage to someone you aren't shoot. At best, someone else is also engaging it and you are speeding its demise. But if no one is attacking your splash target, you really aren't speeding up much.

You are forgetting Sharpshooter doesn't have a -5/+10 anymore I think.

But sure, let's take this at face value. Volley allowed you to use your action to make Volley, so, looks like 4 hobs, so you make four attacks vs AC 18. If all of them hit, 4 dead hobs, if one of them misses, you have 3 dead hobs, and one hob at full health.

Okay, switch over to the 2024 Hunter with Hordebreaker. You get to make three attacks, bonus action to swap Hunter's Mark during that, and if all of those attacks hit, you have three dead hobs... and one hob that potentially took 2d6 damage. So overall.... about the exact same result.

So... you really aren't losing a lot of effectiveness here.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Maybe unpopular opinion: I actually like the Ranger.

Sure, the capstone could be better. But overall I think they nailed it.

Hunters Mark as a core class feature is fine and how most players play the class anyway. If you were playing a melee Ranger, you were already taking Resilient Con or War Caster to maintain concentration on spells anyway, and the sustained 1d6 added damage over 2-4 attacks a turn will add up (4 because Beast Masters, 2-3 for everyone else).

On top of HM giving you a core damage boost, the Ranger subclasses all boost damage at level 3, with many getting more damage buffs at level 11. And from what we saw in the playtest, all those layer on HM, with Beast Master being the only one that may conflict with you BA on turn 1.

With fairly aggressive scaling on the free uses of HM, even at lower levels if you drop concentration you can usually pop it back up again easily.

So with HM, Subclass features, and Weapon Mastery, the Ranger should easily be able to keep up, damage wise, with the other martials, maybe even exceeding them with certain builds.

The rest of their kit gives them good maneuverability, good skill boosts, and some decent survivability in tier 3 with Tireless and Natures Veil.

All in all, I think it’s a good kit that will play fine at the table. The capstone isn’t great, sure. But I’ll take 95% good features, especially when the 5% bad is the one you’ll play with the least.

Now if Rangers get some “Smite” style spells by dropping concentration from things like Hail of Thorns and Lightning Arrow, I think they will be just fine.

I largely agree with you. The only reason I really thing I want to have a Concentration free Hunter's Mark if cast as a 3rd level spell, is I feel like eventually, I want them to have Hunter's Mark and Entangle, or Faerie Fire, or other concentration buff and battlefield control spells.

Not at level 1, perhaps, but by level 9? That sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There is another thing no one mentioned:
Rangers can cast rituals now. That alone is a pretty big change as ranger has quite a good selection of ritual spells in the 2014 handbook. When I took the ritual caster feat, I would have taken ranger instead of wizard if it was allowed. That also makes rangers way more versatile.

That is a good point, I had forgotten about the new Ritual spell rules.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Maybe, but there might be other origin feats you want instead .... or maybe you want 4 Cantrips.

Oh, absolutely. I just wouldn't want to miss out on the style, but I love giving cantrips to my Ranger. Most of the other origin feats I also find... less flavorful. I can do less fun things with Tough or Lucky than I can by gaining some spells to toss out.