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.

 

[Weiley31]

Cast Tongues on the Bard

I think the Bard may lIke that a bit to-oh you meant the spell.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm not against helping players who regret a choice and letting them retrain, but all these 'you can change X on a long rest' gives a feel to the game I don't particularly appreciate AND it'll result in players always looking for THE optimal choice for the day, obsessing over which one to go for all the time. Feels like it's way more fun to ovrcome obstacles within the limits of what you have insead of always having the optimal response. Then again I'm not a Wizard player...

It comes off as a patch for inflexible DMs and passive but powergamer Players who refuse to talk to each other.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, this would help. Unused resources feels baaad.

Can my fighter who is never going to use a simple weapon trade that out for a skill or hp? How about my wizard who is never going cast necromancy? Maybe my rogue can swap out poison cunning strike for better armor?

We could make a whole supplement where characters can exchange Skills and Powers for other things. We could give Players Options to customize their characters to the inch. I wonder if such a system would be lauded by the community? Too bad they never tried it...

 

[Undrave]

Half the classes can switch their entire spell load out on a rest. Adding in a few ranger abilities doesn't seem like much.

In fact, you can just use the 9th level spell slot part of the page.

I'm not a fan either.

This is just turning everybody into a Wizard and having to constantly obsess witho ptimizing your day's load out.

Also, increasing a d6 to a d10 on 2-3 attacks per turn (unless you wanted to use your concentration on something else, in which case you get no benefit at all) is easily the weakest 20th level feature ever conceived. Barbarians get an equivalent damage boost from rage at 1st level! Between that and calling Flex one of the mathematically strongest masteries, it’s clear that WotC just massively overvalues damage die size increases.

Yeah, I'd rather get a stable bonus than risk rolling a 1 on a big dice.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I'm not against helping players who regret a choice and letting them retrain, but all these 'you can change X on a long rest' gives a feel to the game I don't particularly appreciate AND it'll result in players always looking for THE optimal choice for the day, obsessing over which one to go for all the time. Feels like it's way more fun to ovrcome obstacles within the limits of what you have insead of always having the optimal response. Then again I'm not a Wizard player...

I am torn. On one hand, I see that having permanent character choices allows to differentiate characters. On the other hand, I bemoan for almost 25 years, that the game has focused from making decisions in the game to making decisions on level up. Which is usually not making an informed choice, but educated guessing what could help you in the next few levels. And then after those, maybe your choice has become redundand.

So my personal best solution would have been using downtime activities to retrain. Or bastion action while you are there. Meetong with your scholarly wozard or man at arms or whoever to chamge the focus of your training.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Can my fighter who is never going to use a simple weapon trade that out for a skill or hp? How about my wizard who is never going cast necromancy? Maybe my rogue can swap out poison cunning strike for better armor?

We could make a whole supplement where characters can exchange Skills and Powers for other things. We could give Players Options to customize their characters to the inch. I wonder if such a system would be lauded by the community? Too bad they never tried it...

I see what you did there.

But honestly, we had a lot of fun with skills and powers for a while... and then we reverted back to phb + complete book options. We just kept the skill system and spell points from spells and magic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Can my fighter who is never going to use a simple weapon trade that out for a skill or hp? How about my wizard who is never going cast necromancy? Maybe my rogue can swap out poison cunning strike for better armor?

We could make a whole supplement where characters can exchange Skills and Powers for other things. We could give Players Options to customize their characters to the inch. I wonder if such a system would be lauded by the community? Too bad they never tried it...

Sounds awesome to me.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the best spell-ranger at this point WOTC could provide is a build guide. Just show how a standard fighter with a few feats can basically be very good as a spell-less ranger, and off you go.

 

[ECMO3]

I did, the dwarves anyway (never played a 1e barbarian).

So you enjoyed having a 20% chance of any magic item just malfunctioning when you tried to use it or drinking a potion of invisibility and rolling and then NOT turning invisible ... but your potion is gone?

If you did enjoyed that stuff, you are the only player I ever met that did.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So you enjoyed having a 20% chance of any magic item just malfunctioning when you tried to use it or drinking a potion of invisibility and rolling and then NOT turning invisible ... but your potion is gone?

If you did enjoyed that stuff, you are the only player I ever met that did.

I played them as hating magic, and trusting in their own skills and good steel to carry the day. Felt good.