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.

 

[Minigiant]

Every single attempt to homebrew a new ranger that I have seen has struggled with the idea of the class identity. That WotC also struggles with this is therefore not surprising.

I think this is because like I keep saying.

Ranger skills is a branch of knowledge most TRRPG fans have low knowledge of and hate dealing with if forced.

It's like if there were a Noble class but you had to do the Accounting and Management mechanics.

 

[Parmandur]

This dodges the issue. Any Rogue that focuses on exploration (and there are many) will be just as good as a Ranger would have been. The party won’t be lamenting not having a Ranger in tow.

Relevance? Since when is the question related to having the two options in the same party?

I don't see how it would be relevant other than both being in the same party...?

With a Scout Rogue, there wouldn't be magic from the Ranger available, giving they role to another PC to shine, but still it would be different.

 

[Incenjucar]

I think this is because like I keep saying.

Ranger skills is a branch of knowledge most TRRPG fans have low knowledge of and hate dealing with if forced.

It's like if there were a Noble class but you had to do the Accounting and Management mechanics.

5E Ranger has an app for that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Nah.

Ranger spells traditionally allowed rangers to bypass the limitations of reality or known Medieval/Renaissance technology.

Like how some old Ranger spells helps you track even if weather destroys tracks. Or breathe underwater. Or ignore altitude sickness or planar suffocation.

Okay?

and?

 

[Micah Sweet]

It may just be a hangup on the part of the designers-that-be. Rangers have a lot of possibilities and plenty of real world and fictional examples to use as a basis. Could be some design doc sitting in a drawer that outlines that ranger has to be X and cannot be Y for 5E.

What I would give to have eyes on a doc like that from WotC...

 

[Kannik]

Every single attempt to homebrew a new ranger that I have seen has struggled with the idea of the class identity. That WotC also struggles with this is therefore not surprising.

However they have shown that they can come up with creative new ideas. Primal Knowledge and Brutal Strike for Barbarian, Tactical Mind and Tactical Shift for Fighter, Cunning Strike for Rogue... They've found ways to add something new and interesting to spice up a number of different classes, even if some people are still disappointed with them.

I concur heartily. To make this work you need to lean away from weapon use as the Ranger's main schtick, since that's already covered (in 5e) by the fighter (expert weaponsmith), the rogue (cunning weaponsmith), or the barbarian (overbearing weaponsmith). A properly designed beastmaster can fulfill this role (companion+weaponsmith), and it's why I found something like Tasha's drakewarden interesting -- it offered something clearly different than could be built by the other classes, they felt different in play, and they were flavorful from an RP/worldbuilding perspective.

As an aside, part of why I think the Ranger has always struggled with its identity/design is that it's one of the few classes (Bards used to be another, but even they have been generified in 5e) where it's out of encounter/combat role is supposed to play a big part of its role/identity. But that is not only awkward since most other classes are more flexible in that regard, but often those out of encounter/combat abilities count towards the 'power level' of the class, leaving the Ranger with less capabilities in encounters/combat, and if the DM or adventure doesn't incorporate them, then the out of encounter/combat abilities feel useless. I think that striping out all of the "wilderness explorer" bits from the ranger (and making it available in another form to all characters, say as a separate profession or theme pick) would help, allowing the Ranger as a class to focus on what could be interesting to play, both mechanically and from a flavor perspective, such as a "druidic paladin" spellcaster (or a druidic eldritch knight, if you prefer), a beastmaster, drakewarden, swarmkeeper, etc.

 

[Minigiant]

Okay?

and?

We need to start including fun rangery challenges to allow the ranger to be rangery

OR

develop a new identity for ranger that ignores rangering.

 

[Stalker0]

However they have shown that they can come up with creative new ideas. Primal Knowledge and Brutal Strike for Barbarian, Tactical Mind and Tactical Shift for Fighter, Cunning Strike for Rogue... They've found ways to add something new and interesting to spice up a number of different classes, even if some people are still disappointed with them.

I think the main issue with Ranger is that they didn't manage to find something to really do that for them. The first of the playtest Rangers was really well received, but that seems to be more that they fixed some of the issues with subclasses, and got rid of Natural Explorer.

I do very much agree with this. While we can debate the balance of the new ranger, I do agree there is very little that's "spicy" in the new class, nothing that makes me go "oh man I can't wait to try that".

Hunter's Mark might be perfectly good from a power standpoint, but its not flashy or cool. For example take this idea for hunter's mark:

Hunter's Mark
Duration: 1 minute (concentration)
Action: Bonus Action
Range: 120 feet

Choose a target within range that you can see. If you ever lose sight of the target, the spell immediately ends.

At the start of your turn, the mark's power increases by 2d6 (by to a maximum of 10d6).

When you hit with a weapon attack, you can end the spell to do the mark's power as damage to the target.


Now this is just one crude example, it would need tuning, polishing, etc. But you can see the flashy idea, great for ambush could do incredible damage. Or a ranger might "power it up" in a fight beating up smaller enemies while always staying focused on the BBEG, and then just unleashing a massive attack. Its a lot cooler than just x damage every round.

 

[Stalker0]

develop a new identity for ranger that ignores rangering.

I do think the new ranger does well in that it generates some unique abilities that are good in combat....but also happen to useful for true rangering. Things like:

1) +10 speed
2) gain a climb and a swim speed (can be very useful in certain fights)
3) Remove Exhaustion (does require DMs to use exhaustion, but the new exhaustion design might mean monsters will use this mechanic more, will have to see).


Now we can argue if the ranger gets enough of these or if they are early enough in the class. But I do think this is the way to go. If this ranger got to do no real exploration and was doing all combats, these abilities would still be useful. Put them in a wilderness setting, these abilities would be quite useful.

 

[Gammadoodler]

And your vision is not the 5e vision of the ranger, and never has been. WOTC has been clear from the onset, the ranger is a "magical hunter", spellcasting is in the bones of the class, not an afterthought.

I get a lot of people don't like that, but clearly a good number of people do, and so it was never going to change.

Now where I think they have gone wrong is that with the loss of the scout as a core rogue subclass in the new book, the dropped the only other class archetype you could point to and say "well that's pretty rangery and non-magical". people can always use the 2014 version but there will always be purists that want to stick with one version or the other.

I think most of the class features would indicate otherwise. Certainly they did with the 2014 Ranger. What do Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy, or Hide in Plain Sight have to do with spellcasting.. Anything at all? I'm struggling to think that any features at all that keyed off of spellcasting in 2014.

And the problem with the 2014 Ranger was not a failure to evoke flavor. It was that a lot of the mechanics were some combination of bad and/or hard to use in-play.

And a lot of the 2024 stuff is similarly untethered to spellcasting (see the response to Minigiant).