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.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Rangers have had spells since 1e, so you could definitely say it's a core part of their identity. Though often those spells have generally being an afterthought for a Ranger.

I'm curious how well they do for survivability, it seems to me it's more built around out of combat things, rather than in combat abilities like Barbarian damage resistance. Though Ranger subclasses do have things like being able to teleport. Also being able to cast Cure Wounds is probably a big thing for Rangers.

 

[UVAtom]

Eh ..still not too sold. At this rate the Revised Ranger or the ToV Ranger will be my go to 5E ranger class.

What does “ToV” stand for?

 

[Remathilis]

What does “ToV” stand for?

Tales of the Valiant

 

[Chaosmancer]

Plenty of 5e players appear to disagree with the designers on this score (and many others). By your argument, everyone should just accept what Papa WotC gives you and never question it.

Do they? Maybe. But I'm just a little sick of every single ranger thread I am ever on always serving into "but Ranger's shouldn't have magic because Aargorn didn't have magic, and if you look at characters from non-magical worlds, they are called rangers and they don't have magic"

Homebrew exists. 3rd Party Content exists. You have plenty of options if you don't like what the creators of the game have decided, and insulting me by making it sound like I call the company Daddy doesn't change that. When the next big rules change comes in a decade or so, feel free to agitate for spell-less rangers. But since it will literally never happen in the 2024 book, can we drop it? Even if you got a million people to march on WotC's offices carrying signs... the books are printed. It is too late.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do they? Maybe. But I'm just a little sick of every single ranger thread I am ever on always serving into "but Ranger's shouldn't have magic because Aargorn didn't have magic, and if you look at characters from non-magical worlds, they are called rangers and they don't have magic"

Homebrew exists. 3rd Party Content exists. You have plenty of options if you don't like what the creators of the game have decided, and insulting me by making it sound like I call the company Daddy doesn't change that. When the next big rules change comes in a decade or so, feel free to agitate for spell-less rangers. But since it will literally never happen in the 2024 book, can we drop it? Even if you got a million people to march on WotC's offices carrying signs... the books are printed. It is too late.

And I say again by that argument, expressing any issue at all about any confirmed aspect of the 2024 books is equally pointless and should be dropped, because the books are already printed. You are asking people to shut up if they have nothing good to say.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Rangers have had spells since 1e, so you could definitely say it's a core part of their identity. Though often those spells have generally being an afterthought for a Ranger.

I'm curious how well they do for survivability, it seems to me it's more built around out of combat things, rather than in combat abilities like Barbarian damage resistance. Though Ranger subclasses do have things like being able to teleport. Also being able to cast Cure Wounds is probably a big thing for Rangers.

I imagine they will do pretty decently for survivability. They have medium armor which isn't bad, ranged rangers are always going to be more defensive than Dual-Wielders. D10 hit die is solid, just like a fighter. Tireless comes on late, but is nice. Same with the invisibility.

For the lower levels, Cure Wounds healing 2d8+mod per spell level is going to be fairly solid healing if they need it. And they may get better healing spells, like Healing Spirit or some of the mass cure spells at high levels.

Overall? Probably less tanky than the Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin, but more tanky than the Druid and Cleric, so not a bad spot.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And I say again by that argument, expressing any issue at all about any confirmed aspect of the 2024 books is equally pointless and should be dropped, because the books are already printed. You are asking people to shut up if they have nothing good to say.

No, I am not.

I am asking people to stop on the argument that has been going on for the last who knows how many years about demanding something from Ranger's that isn't going to happen. There are things I'm not happy about with the ranger, features that I've pointed out I'm not thrilled about and would change. I've even expressed how I will likely change them in my games. But when the creators open the discussion of the class by saying "Magic is important to this class" and I STILL see people demanding a spell-less variant to this class, from WoTC, instead of just using the dozen of spell-less variants that exist... I get annoyed. We've all had this argument dozens upon dozens of times. No one is going to convince anyone. We didn't do it the last time, or the time before that, or the time before that. This ranger is also not going to be spell-less. They did the reveal. They said magic was core to the Ranger identity.

You want to go to the DC20 pages and talk about spell-less ranger? You want to start a new DnD thread demanding spell-less ranger? Fine to both. But this thread is about the ranger revealed in the book. And just like the last one, it has spells. It will continue to have spells. It will likely get more spells. And I don't feel like arguing about whether or not WoTC should have done something they consistently indicated they were never going to do, in every. single. ranger thread.

 

[Eubani]

Did Danny the intern from the sheltered workshop do the Lv20 capstone?

 

[Yaarel]

Ranger is a class whose spellcasting method should use Material components. I picture Rangers with herbs, poultices, and concoctions. A magical MacGyver. Relatedly, the Medicine skill should handle poisons as well.

 

[Yaarel]

I like some of this but I was fruitlessly hoping for a ranger who is only a spell caster depending on their subclass. Back to the homebrew board, I guess.

If you want a full caster Ranger, is it possible to rangerify a Druid build? Is a Druid with a Ranger dip feasible?