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.

 

[lkj]

This new ranger looks pretty good to me. The proof will be in the spells. I don't have any inherent objection to them having the exploration features in the spells now that they're freeing up spell casting from purely being Hunter's Mark related by giving us free uses. My evaluation won't be complete till I see the spell list. But if it looks good this largely fixes issues that I had with a ranger.

Just my two cents.

AD

 

[CreamCloud0]

i feel like the Healing Elixir spell would've been good for rangers, replicating the idea of them making medicinal salves, i'd buff it so it's slightly more potent than cure wounds but weighed against the minute casting time meaning you need to pre-prepare them outside of combats.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ranger has used druidic magic since the get-go, though. It's not about stopping trying to give every class spell options as trying to show Rangers off as having spells, martial weapons masteries and fighting styles, and roguish expertise and skill usage. A lot of these ointment and poultices ideas fit the flavour of spells like goodberry etc or else can be imitated with Medicine / Herbalism Kits. I would like a more robust Tools system, personally, though.

Otherwise, we're looking at a Fighter or a Rogue with an Herbalism Kit, trained in Nature, Survival, Animal Handling, and Medicine.

Yeah, literally the first thing they said in the video. Ranger's are a class with magic, they want to get people using magic from first level because it is core to the Ranger identity.

Disagree? Fine. But WoTC has made their stance clear. Rangers are spellcasters.

 

[Chaosmancer]

i feel like the Healing Elixir spell would've been good for rangers, replicating the idea of them making medicinal salves, i'd buff it so it's slightly more potent than cure wounds but weighed against the minute casting time meaning you need to pre-prepare them outside of combats.

It should be remembered Cure Wounds got buffed. It is 2d8+mod per spell level now. And, having used that on my cleric, it feels SO GOOD to have healing that actually has an impact on the game. But you'd need to start having some really potent healing to be better than that.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I banned gloomstalker after I had a player use it once (along with twilight cleric). I'm surprised to find it in 2024 handbook.

To me the interesting thing is there's this class that people either don't think is powerful or interesting enough to play or it's OP and should be banned. Obviously a lot of people play Rangers, so that can't be a universally true assessment. What do people think about that take, though?

The old Gloomstalker, which is the one that people are always referring to, gave you one extra attack, then you didn't have a subclass for the rest of the fight. So it is really unimpactful if you play casually, or... completely vaporizes people if you have, like, Sharpshooter + Fighter2, because every attack is a multiplier.

I don't understand why WotC made it like that, given how it doubles down on the whole alpha strike or bust problem... But it may have something to do with how they don't play anything but full casters.

Now, OneDnD changes the main feature of the subclass.

The new Gloomstalker is Wisdom-dependant: WisMod bonus to initiative and WisMod amount of Frightening attacks per day (with a Wisdom-based DC). No extra attack, no alpha strike rewards. They still get Darkvision and anti-Darkvision and Wisdom save proficiency, so, combined with their frighten and extra spells, they're like a bag of utility tricks.

Speaking of which, of course they keep Rope Trick, because they have to give the GM cancer in some way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, literally the first thing they said in the video. Ranger's are a class with magic, they want to get people using magic from first level because it is core to the Ranger identity.

Disagree? Fine. But WoTC has made their stance clear. Rangers are spellcasters.

Again, Level Up has a great spell-less ranger. Worth checking out.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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.

< insert Aliens "Kill me" gif >

Overall sounds like WotC still have absolutely no idea what to do with Ranger. No surprise there. They didn't in 3.XE, they didn't in 4E (though it was much less a problem there, because it was more mechanically sound and entertaining), they didn't in 5E 2014, and they didn't in the 2024 UA. It's now officially "Hunter's Mark - The Class".

I don't want to be too mean, because it's not a downgrade from 2014, just a sidegrade from Tasha's (because it basically is Tasha's).

But disappointing nonetheless. Honestly WotC you can do better than Hunter's Mark as the key mechanic for Ranger, I know you can. This smacks of not really being very interested in thinking about what they could/should do with it.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Speaking of Gloom Stalker's Umbral Sight's second feature, 'while in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness'. This is not great design, firstly because it's heavily GM-reliant (some have every goblin carrying their own torch, while others act like sentient beings would enjoy not seeing well in the murk, or maybe there's ever-present glowing fungus so nowhere is actually in darkness)...

But mostly because it is not party-friendly, because a single person without darkvision is now removing your subclass feature by requiring an actual light source. Which continues the theme of this subclass doubling down on problematic issues, like pressuring other players if they are picking a non-Darkvision race, why don't you pick from the 66% of races that have it? (which is also why Halflings are not great thieves or scouts)

Yeah, they still keep that feature.

 

[Marandahir]

Yeah, literally the first thing they said in the video. Ranger's are a class with magic, they want to get people using magic from first level because it is core to the Ranger identity.

Disagree? Fine. But WoTC has made their stance clear. Rangers are spellcasters.

I feel like – given the sheer number of Feats that Fighters get (and too a lesser extent, Rogues) – that all we REALLY need to get to a Spell-less Ranger is enough Ranger-y feats that Fighters and/or Rogues can choose from, and MAYBE another Martial Archetype (though Arcane Archer already can be flavoured Primal to get something a bit akin to the Seeker from 4e).

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I feel like – given the sheer number of Feats that Fighters get

It's 1 extra feat in the levels that matter.

Unless discussing DnD3, could we please stop this Fighters and their PILES of feats thing?