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.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Speak with Animal instead?

a version of SwA that's active 24/7 and that isn't disrupted by antimagic effects? sure.

 

[Xeviat]

IMO: let hunters mark be cast on tracks. And you can automatically follow them though soft soil, along with the +1d6 damage.

At higher levels, you can track enemies across stone, across water, across air, and across plains.

This is a feature I've wanted them have for a long time.

 

[FrogReaver]

A class does not need to be balanced with other optimised builds to be playable.

a melee Ranger works great, with or without a feat. Optimized for melee and they will generally be better at it than most of the players at the table.

I've never taken Resilient Constitution on any Ranger I played. I do generally take Reslient Wisdom at high level (16th level generually), but that is not unique to Ranger. I generally take that feat on any class that doesn't have it at high level.

2014 single classed rangers were good up till level 5-7 as long as not compared to super optimized builds.

Even a simple archer hunter ranger could easily do 1d8+4+1d6 x2 @ 70% accuracy and 1d8 @ 91% accuracy. 20.9 DPR without accounting for crits.

But there’s really no clear buffs to that beyond level 5. That’s why the 2014 ranger felt bad. And melee rangers tended to be even worse because of concentration issues.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, Pathfinder 1e Rangers still had the same issues as D&D Rangers, where their flavor is poorly defined and very broad- but Paizo leaned into that by giving us a wide variety of Ranger archetypes to choose from. So you had spellcasting fey Rangers, pet Rangers, environmental experts, rangers who focus on slaying particular foes, teamwork Rangers, bow experts, outlaws, shapeshifters, skirmishers, pirates, bounty hunters, wilderness defenders, and grizzled old mountain men.

Yep - this is one of the major weaknesses of relying just on the 5e subclass system.

 

[mellored]

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).

a version of SwA that's active 24/7 and that isn't disrupted by antimagic effects? sure.

What if it was a ritual?

 

[CreamCloud0]

What if it was a ritual?

what if it was something that was always active?

 

[mellored]

what if it was something that was always active?

If your making a spell-less ranger, then sure. But assuming they are still a half caster, probably not.

Oh. Give the spell-less ranger "nature invocations", which can include Speak with Animals, and all the other ranger stuff.

 

[Minigiant]

All of the above

One thing I say in almost every ranger thread is

Most of the commonly stated ranger icons are low level and/or for low magic settings.

Like Jon Snow from a ASOIAF. He's the Lord Commander of the Nights Watch. And Id be generous to say he's over level 7 and a Ranger 5.

Daniel Boone, Robin Hood... all sub level Ranger 5.

What about the other 15 levels.

I keep going back Aquaman as the example of a level level ranger. A warrior who mostly uses his strength, speed, and a magic weapon to beat people up. But he has magic to buff his exploration and combat ability in a pinch.

Now if you changed Aqua to Forest, made the trident into a staff, and made him talk to land animals, everyone would use Forestman as the iconic ranger.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Well, you were incredibly vague on what you think that versatility should be.

Should rangers be the pet class? They have a subclass for that.
Should they deal with the Fey? They have a subclass for that.
Hunter of monsters? Subclass
Stalker of the Shadows? Subclass

Should they be survivalists? They are. Should they epitomize traveling? They do.

Just about the only thing I can see the ranger not covering is crafting items... which is now a new subsystem in the PHB and so that should be covered too. So your ranger can gather herbs in the forest and make healing poultices and poisons.

Rangers, as written, actually can cover a massive range of concepts. And yes, some of those concepts are currently covered by spells. You want a Ranger that can speak with animals? Just like the Druid you need a spell for that. So... where is the lack that specifically needs a non-magical ability added to the class to cover it?

 

[CreamCloud0]

Well, you were incredibly vague on what you think that versatility should be.

versatility to be able to pick and choose when building a character with all the different individual facets of what people see as ranger stuff, ranger is probably the one class in DnD with the greatest number of micro-concepts that make up it's themes, exploration, medicine, hunter's mark, stealth, nature, tracking, survival, making consumables, favoured terrain, animal companions, melee combat, ranged combat, beastmastery, magic, favoured foes, and with more granularity inside those concepts of how they're executed.

Should rangers be the pet class? They have a subclass for that.
Should they deal with the Fey? They have a subclass for that.
Hunter of monsters? Subclass
Stalker of the Shadows? Subclass

Should they be survivalists? They are. Should they epitomize traveling? They do.

sure, but those are very large chunks, they're not very customisable, like getting housing bricks to build with when you need something more akin to duplo-sized for a finer touch.

Just about the only thing I can see the ranger not covering is crafting items... which is now a new subsystem in the PHB and so that should be covered too. So your ranger can gather herbs in the forest and make healing poultices and poisons.

is there a typo in here somewhere? you seem to hard reverse direction in what you're saying after the first sentence? 'i can't see the ranger crafting...which is now a subsystem so ranger's got that covered too'

Rangers, as written, actually can cover a massive range of concepts. And yes, some of those concepts are currently covered by spells. You want a Ranger that can speak with animals? Just like the Druid you need a spell for that. So... where is the lack that specifically needs a non-magical ability added to the class to cover it?

i'm not saying it needs to be non-magical, but i do think making specifically spellcasting the loadbearing mechanic for all of the ranger's customisation is a terrible idea, not all magic needs to be spells, the ranger would work wonders with an invocations/infusions style system that lets it pick out a number of smaller supplementary boons to shape it alongside subclass.