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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why does it have to be Hunter's Mark at all? Like, it's not even a convenient framework! Just make a new ability!

Why can't it be Hunter's Mark, since that is the ability that is in the 2024 books and they aren't going to reprint them just because a half-dozen people on the internet think it is lame.

Sure, you can rewrite and homebrew anything you like, but in a few months that new ranger is hitting the bookshelves and it will still have Hunter's Mark. Isn't it better, since it seems to be purely an aesthetic problem for half the people in this thread, to figure out minor changes to the ability that make it palatable, rather than "I'm going to rewrite the entire class and all the subclasses" Because, every discussion about the ranger from now until the 2030's is going to include the fact that the Ranger's cornerstone ability is Hunter's Mark.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't know the 5E scroll rules; are Scrolls of Hunter's mark an option?

Very likely.

 

[Corinnguard]

The language is "The first time on each of your turns that you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it, including when you mark it, you can increase that damage by 1d4". Which suggests the first time, and not subsequent times. So, once per turn.

True. But unlike Hunter's Mark, you can freely use it again in the following turns. Favored Foe is more like a spell-like ability than a spell.

 

[Rocker26a]

Why can't it be Hunter's Mark, since that is the ability that is in the 2024 books and they aren't going to reprint them just because a half-dozen people on the internet think it is lame.

I mean it can be, they can do what they will. But the result will be lame. They have conclusively demonstrated that they
cannot make Hunter's Mark, as the Ranger's signature ability, not lame.

Sure, you can rewrite and homebrew anything you like, but in a few months that new ranger is hitting the bookshelves and it will still have Hunter's Mark. Isn't it better, since it seems to be purely an aesthetic problem for half the people in this thread, to figure out minor changes to the ability that make it palatable, rather than "I'm going to rewrite the entire class and all the subclasses" Because, every discussion about the ranger from now until the 2030's is going to include the fact that the Ranger's cornerstone ability is Hunter's Mark.

Shrug, I can't tell people what's better for them and their tables, but I can say that no amount of minor changes will make this palatable to me. A top-to-bottom rewrite is what I think is beneficial if not necessary for Ranger, which is why I'm making one for my own use. And when it's done, I never have to think about the notion of Hunter's Mark as a signature class feature again.

I cannot be convinced that Hunter's Mark should be anything more than a nice spell Ranger can sometimes prepare/cast if they want to. Prepare/cast with their spellcasting feature, that they have.

 

[Rocker26a]

True. But unlike Hunter's Mark, you can freely use it again in the following turns. Favored Foe is more like a spell-like ability than a spell.

I mean it's not freely, it's costly. A refresh costs one of your uses per day. You can do it, but again, that seems more like an oversight than anything else.

 

[Gammadoodler]

When you answer why you feel Hunter's Mark needs to be a spell, I'll answer what version of a Hunter's Mark spell I'd be satisfied with..

After all..I asked my question first.
(And seems like a reasonable prerequisite question to answer to begin the discussion anyway).

@Chaosmancer ..Changed my mind..I'll answer your question, but with the caveat that my version of the spell would just be for the purposes of liking the spell better rather than liking all the class ability dependencies tied to it.

With that in mind, I think it'd be pretty simple, when you mark a creature, you define a damage type, and all your weapon strikes deal that damage type on hit. Maybe throw some bonus damage on top.

At least that way you can reckon that the Ranger is using a spell to inflict a type of damage they otherwise would not have access to, for the purpose of attacking weaknesses and bypassing resistances.

 

[Chaosmancer]

When you answer why you feel Hunter's Mark needs to be a spell, I'll answer what version of a Hunter's Mark spell I'd be satisfied with..

After all..I asked my question first.
(And seems like a reasonable prerequisite question to answer to begin the discussion anyway).

It needs to be a spell because it already is a spell, because it is part of the Vengeance Paladin package, and because it can be quite nice to upcast it to increase the duration. And you can't upcast abilities. Also, it uses the concentration mechanics, which in early levels of play prevents stacking the frankly massive boost in damage with other concentration effects.

IF you want to argue it can be a limited use, magical ability that is not a spell, but uses concentration and is just spell-like... then I'd wonder what the point of the change is. It would be a spell that is a spell in everything except for name.

Also, while I could totally homebrew it be literally anything else, it is far easier to modify it as a spell and stay within the bounds of the current design, when I need to figure out how other effects and rules play into it. I would already need to either re-write the 13th level ability or add a small ribbon if I allowed casting the spell using a 3rd level slot to avoid concentration, because the ability to prevent concentration from breaking is tied into it being a spell that has concentration. How much more difficult would it be to adjust a potential future ranger subclass that has an ability such as "whenever you cast Hunter's Mark using a spell slot of level 2 or higher, you can teleport 30 ft to a location you can see" if I have made it not a spell? Future proofing your design is an important consideration.

Is all of that a good enough reason for you to finally answer what explanation for the damage of hunter's mark you would find acceptable? Remember, I'm already increasing the utility by having it actually work as a Magical GPS, making it far more useful out of combat that essentially anything except locate person or locate object.

 

[Gammadoodler]

It needs to be a spell because it already is a spell, because it is part of the Vengeance Paladin package, and because it can be quite nice to upcast it to increase the duration. And you can't upcast abilities. Also, it uses the concentration mechanics, which in early levels of play prevents stacking the frankly massive boost in damage with other concentration effects.

IF you want to argue it can be a limited use, magical ability that is not a spell, but uses concentration and is just spell-like... then I'd wonder what the point of the change is. It would be a spell that is a spell in everything except for name.

Also, while I could totally homebrew it be literally anything else, it is far easier to modify it as a spell and stay within the bounds of the current design, when I need to figure out how other effects and rules play into it. I would already need to either re-write the 13th level ability or add a small ribbon if I allowed casting the spell using a 3rd level slot to avoid concentration, because the ability to prevent concentration from breaking is tied into it being a spell that has concentration. How much more difficult would it be to adjust a potential future ranger subclass that has an ability such as "whenever you cast Hunter's Mark using a spell slot of level 2 or higher, you can teleport 30 ft to a location you can see" if I have made it not a spell? Future proofing your design is an important consideration.

Is all of that a good enough reason for you to finally answer what explanation for the damage of hunter's mark you would find acceptable? Remember, I'm already increasing the utility by having it actually work as a Magical GPS, making it far more useful out of combat that essentially anything except locate person or locate object.

As reasons go, it's pretty bad, but I did already answer your question.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I mean it can be, they can do what they will. But the result will be lame. They have conclusively demonstrated that they
cannot make Hunter's Mark, as the Ranger's signature ability, not lame.

SO instead of homebrewing hunter's mark to make it less lame... the only possible thing we can do is homebrew an entirely new ability, rewriting the ranger class and subclass?

Shrug, I can't tell people what's better for them and their tables, but I can say that no amount of minor changes will make this palatable to me. A top-to-bottom rewrite is what I think is beneficial if not necessary for Ranger, which is why I'm making one for my own use. And when it's done, I never have to think about the notion of Hunter's Mark as a signature class feature again.

I cannot be convinced that Hunter's Mark should be anything more than a nice spell Ranger can sometimes prepare/cast if they want to. Prepare/cast with their spellcasting feature, that they have.

What about making it potentially a more powerful locator spell than Locate Person? That's what I've proposed, after all. Would it still be unpalatable?

 

[Chaosmancer]

@Chaosmancer ..Changed my mind..I'll answer your question, but with the caveat that I don't think my version of the spell would just be for the purposes of liking the spell better rather than liking all the class ability dependencies tied to it.

With that in mind, I think it'd be pretty simple, when you mark a creature, you define a damage type, and all your weapon strikes deal that damage type on hit. Maybe throw some bonus damage on top.

At least that way you can reckon that the Ranger is using a spell to inflict a type of damage they otherwise would not have access to, for the purpose of attacking weaknesses and bypassing resistances.

You know what? That would be a pretty cool version of the spell. I don't feel a need to add that to my new version of it, because 90% of the time the ranger will just keep it as force damage, but that would be a fun way to play with vulnerabilities.