Author's Note

This feat models the implementation of the Venatic Ranger homebrew⁽¹⁾ set of optional class features for 2024 Rangers of levels⁽²⁾ 2 to 20.

It lists the optional features gained at levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 20, with all their benefits combined.

How to Use It. If you are playing a Ranger of level 20 or higher, add this feat to your character sheet.

(1). See the corresponding thread in the Homebrew & House Rules Forum here on D&D Beyond.
(2): Prerequisites are not enforced, as D&D Beyond has currently (2024-sep-06) a bug with the 2024 class prerequisites.

List of implemented optional class features.

• Venatic Instinct (Level 2). By communing with the nature around you, you can hone your skills in tracking and hunting a certain type of enemy.
• Venatic Lore (Level 6). Your knowledge of the predator-prey relationship becomes both deeper and broader. You have developed an instinctive preternatural understanding of the language used by your prey.
• Venatic Prescience (Level 10). A new sense awakens in you. Like a primal predator, you can now instinctively focus on a new prey in an instant and supernaturally perceive your quarry across incredible distances.
• Venatic Force (Level 14). Nature itself recognizes you as a culler of the weak and an agent of natural selection. A cohort of invisible natural spirits follows you and guides your strikes and spells.
• Venatic Incarnation (Level 20). You've reached your spot at the top of the food web, becoming the Apex Predator, the Spirit of the Hunt, the Primal Beast Incarnated.

You gain the following benefits.

Everything is Prey. All creature types belong to your Chosen Prey.

Venatic Force. Once per turn, when you deal damage to a creature belonging to your Chosen Prey, you can deal extra damage to it. The extra damage equals your Wisdom modifier.

Focused Mark. While the quarry of your Hunter's Mark spell belongs to your Chosen Prey, the spell doesn't require concentration. This affects both the moment at which you cast the spell on your initial target and when you change your mark while the spell is active.

Efficient Mark. While you are not Incapacitated, the first time during your turn you cast Hunter's Mark on a Chosen Prey or change your marked quarry to a Chosen Prey, you can do it without expending any action.

Perfect Mark. When you attack the quarry of your Hunter's Mark spell, you can now score a Critical Hit on a roll of 18–20 on the d20.

Tracking Mark. You can cast Hunter's Mark targeting a set of tracks that you can see within range. If a creature belonging to your Chosen Prey left those tracks less than 7 days ago, that creature becomes marked as your quarry; otherwise, the spell fails but you don't expend the spell slot or the usage of the feature that granted it.

Beacon Mark. While the quarry of your Hunter's Mark spell belongs to your Chosen Prey and is on the same plane as you, you know the general direction and distance to it

Primal Comprehension. While you are within 60 feet of one or more communicating creatures that belong to your Chosen Prey and that you can see or hear, you can identify the meaning behind speech, gestures, grunts, screeches, gibbering, telepathy, spores, light signals, or other forms of communication among them. In any case, you only get the general meaning of a message or conversation, not a word-by-word translation.