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.

 

[Rocker26a]

They do have access to both.

They do. But their first level of Expertise (or first feature that provides Expertise), instead of being two skills, is one skill and two languages. Which is a bit lame and also bizarre.

 

[mellored]

They do. But their first level of Expertise (or first feature that provides Expertise), instead of being two skills, is one skill and two languages. Which is a bit lame and also bizarre.

1st levels is expertise and animal friendship/snare/jump (which is now better than longstrider) or whatever other thing you want.

Half feature and half spell.

Extra languages seems a little tangental, but sure.

 

[Rocker26a]

1st levels is expertise and animal friendship/snare/jump (which is now better than longstrider) or whatever other thing you want.

I personally dislike using Animal Friendship to express a Ranger's affinity for animals, I much prefer that half of Revised's Primeval Awareness. It's not a charm, it's not forced. I'm sure that's not a big deal for some/most players but y'know.

Half feature and half spell.

I would say that the needle is a bit too skewed towards spell, even for an edition that seems to have leaned more towards spells in general. In particular for Ranger, spells have kinda sucked all the air out of the room.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I'm not sure the Ranger has a strong identity, I mean, is the Ranger:

Tarzan, Lord Greystoke?

Aragorn son of Arathorn?

Daniel Boone, King of the Wild Frontier?

Drizz't Do'Urden?

Robin Hood?

Simo Häyhä, The White Death?

A Druidic or Fey Knight, a counterpart to the Paladin?

What features do we want them to have? Dual-wielding? Archery? Peerless tracking? Camouflage? Trap and snare making? Herbalism? The ability to live off the land indefinitely? Monster Hunting? Animal Taming? Beast speaking? Terrain mastery? Fast movement? Ignoring difficult terrain and natural hazards? Ignoring exhaustion and extreme weather? Learning combat abilities from beasts? Are they aligned with Druids or Nature priests? Do they gain powers and boons from sylvan creatures and the fey? Shapeshifting (either as a Druid or something as transformative as turning into a Treant, like 2e's Limbant Ranger?). Do they have climbing and swim speeds? Can they call upon primal spirits, conjure and call protectors of the forests?

There's a lot of different things that's been thrown into this nebulous category we call "Ranger".

All of the above

 

[Chaosmancer]

i feel like that's something you needed to be reminded of in the opposite direction given that you're proposing their breadth of features all take the form of spells, so like it or not, they are half casters, so half their stuff is going to be martial features!

But it is. That's the part that boggles me.

Look at the Paladin. Their martial kit is as follows:

• Access to all weapons, armor and shields
• d10 HD
• Weapon Mastery
• Fighting Style
• Extra Attack

All of their other abilities? Lay On Hands, Spellcasting, Auras, Channel Divinity, Divine Smite, Radiant Strikes, Summoning a Steed.... these are all Magical abilities. The half-caster, half-martial Paladin is split with only five martial abilities.

The Ranger?

• Access to all weapons, up to medium armor and shields
• d10 HD
• Weapon Mastery
• Fighting Style
• Extra Attack
• Expertise
• Roving
• Tireless
• Feral Senses

The ranger has MORE non-magical abilities than the Paladin, the only part of the martial kit they are lacking is access to Heavy Armor, which they would never use anyways. So, the ranger is already more of a non-magical martial than the paladin, who is also a half caster... but we want to give them even fewer magical abilities and even more non-magical ones?

 

[Chaosmancer]

They do. But their first level of Expertise (or first feature that provides Expertise), instead of being two skills, is one skill and two languages. Which is a bit lame and also bizarre.

1st levels is expertise and animal friendship/snare/jump (which is now better than longstrider) or whatever other thing you want.

Half feature and half spell.

Extra languages seems a little tangental, but sure.

Rangers range, they travel to different lands. Out of all of the classes in the game, only the Bard makes more sense to get more languages than them... and bard typically gets no extra languages as a base. The only issue is people don't often do much with extra languages.

 

[mellored]

I personally dislike using Animal Friendship to express a Ranger's affinity for animals, I much prefer that half of Revised's Primeval Awareness. It's not a charm, it's not forced. I'm sure that's not a big deal for some/most players but y'know.

Speak with Animal instead?

I would say that the needle is a bit too skewed towards spell,

I understand. But that ship sailed 10 years ago.

 

[Rocker26a]

Rangers range, they travel to different lands. Out of all of the classes in the game, only the Bard makes more sense to get more languages than them... and bard typically gets no extra languages as a base. The only issue is people don't often do much with extra languages.

I understand that was probably the logic, I still think it's a reach. And a reach made for a reason I disagree with, I think they should've just kept it at regular Expertise.

 

[Rocker26a]

Speak with Animal instead?

A little better, but still would rather it was innate like Revised Primeval Awareness (or the various other abilities that do basically the same thing, Speech of the Woods, etc).

 

[CreamCloud0]

But it is. That's the part that boggles me.

Look at the Paladin. Their martial kit is as follows:

• Access to all weapons, armor and shields
• d10 HD
• Weapon Mastery
• Fighting Style
• Extra Attack

All of their other abilities? Lay On Hands, Spellcasting, Auras, Channel Divinity, Divine Smite, Radiant Strikes, Summoning a Steed.... these are all Magical abilities. The half-caster, half-martial Paladin is split with only five martial abilities.

The Ranger?

• Access to all weapons, up to medium armor and shields
• d10 HD
• Weapon Mastery
• Fighting Style
• Extra Attack
• Expertise
• Roving
• Tireless
• Feral Senses

The ranger has MORE non-magical abilities than the Paladin, the only part of the martial kit they are lacking is access to Heavy Armor, which they would never use anyways. So, the ranger is already more of a non-magical martial than the paladin, who is also a half caster... but we want to give them even fewer magical abilities and even more non-magical ones?

do cross reference my post with the original point i was making: that ranger's design is too centralised and suffers for it, so their build design ought to be significantly more versatile, and in response i was told their versatility should all be spells,

however the things you list provide very minimal avenues of build diversification, even if they are martial traits, but the ranger deserves a more granular design to account for all the different variations of the ranger concept that people have and can occur even within various themes subclass can provide, and i wouldn't say there abilities need to be purely martial but they shouldn't just take the form of straight up more spells either.