Spirit Guide

Reaching out across the border of the Ethereal Plane, you head a call from beyond the grave to right a great wrong and uphold the wishes of one who has passed. You wonder if anyone has the right to judge the dead, but when confronted with a choice, is it more important to protect the life, or respect the bodies and souls of the dead. Spirit Guides act as a intermediate between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. They must protect both equally to maintain peace, helping wandering souls to pass on to the afterlife, and protecting towns and villages from the wrath of the undead. Whatever decisions you make, you will always be accompanied by your guardian animal, but you must live a life overshadowed by death.

Spirit Guide Features

Spirit Animal

3rd-Level Spirit Guide feature

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you form a connection with an ghostly spirit who you summon from the Ethereal Plane. You learn the find familiar spell. It doesn’t count against the number of ranger spells you know, and you can cast it without a material component.

When you cast the spell, your familiar is an undead instead of a beast, and gains flying speed (hover) equal to its walking or swimming speed, and can see 30 feet into the Ethereal Plane when it is on the Material Plane. Your familiar can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. It takes 5 force damage if it ends its turn inside an object.

Spirit Senses

3rd-level Spirit Guide feature

Your connection with spirits grants you an air of calm and reassurance, as well as a myriad of ethereal voices you can seek knowledge from. While you can see your familiar, You have advantage on all saving throws against being frightened or possessed.

Additionally, as you gain levels in this class, you gain advantage on certain ability checks while seeing through your familiar’s eyes, as shown in the Spirit Senses table:

Ranger Level	Ability Checks
3rd	Intelligence (Nature), Wisdom (Survival)
7th	Intelligence (History), Intelligence (Religion)
11th	Wisdom (Insight), Intelligence (Medicine)
15th	Intelligence (Arcana), Intelligence (Investigation)

 

Ethereal Tracking

7th-level Spirit Guide feature

As the bond between your spirit animal grows stronger, you begin to naturally act in sync with each other. When a creature is within 5 feet of your familiar, you have advantage on all weapon attack rolls you make against the creature.

Also, when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of reach of your familiar, you use your reaction to make one melee or ranged weapon attack against the provoking creature.

Guiding Voice

11th-level Spirit Guide feature

As the bond with your spirit animal continues to grow, you gain the ability to call on particular spirits of the dead. You learn the spell speak with dead. It counts as a ranger spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of spells you know. When you cast this spell, the target understands any spoken language you use to communicate with it, and you understand any spoken language they use to communicate with you. You can also cast it once without a spell slot, and you regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.

In addition, you gain resistance to necrotic damage.

Eternal Suffering

15th-level Spirit Guide feature

When you call on spirits of the dead, you are able to feel their pain and emotions, and channel those feelings to inflict pain on others. As a bonus action, you can mark one creature you can see within 60 feet of you until the start of your next turn or until it is hit by an attack. While marked, all attack rolls against the creature have advantage. When a marked creature is hit by an attack, it takes an extra 4d6 necrotic damage and you gain temporary hit points equal to the amount of necrotic damage dealt. These hit points last for 1 hour, during which time, the creatures maximum hit points are reduced by the same amount.

Once you successfully deal damage with this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you expend a spell slot of 3rd level or higher to use it again.