Many DnD players I meet seem to be disappointed in the current Player Handbook design of the core Ranger class features and spellcasting capabilities. I think the underlying theme of the Ranger class and features are really interesting and adds something different. What are the core Ranger features that need to be improved without completely removing the feature?
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"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Primeval Quarry (Remove Primeval Awareness): As part of same action of a successful Wisdom (Survival) check to track and identify a creature, expend a spell slot to add this creature type as an additional Favored Enemy for one hour for every level of spell slot spent. Phrase it as, "You are a supernaturally talented tracker, capable of learning more information than your average hunters from the trails left by your foes."
Fleet of Foot: Revised Ranger + Advantage on Initiative
Hide in Plain Sight: Revised Ranger Option; Simplify Mechanic to Advantage on Stealth Checks?
Vanish: Revised Ranger Option
Foe Slayer: Better Capstone, but I don't really play Level 20's so not my biggest concern.
Simple: Primeval Awareness doesn't require a spell slot, Natural Explorer is universal from 1st level, Foe Slayer is universal, Favored Enemy doesn't exist, and there's something related to skills (Nature/Perception/Stealth/Survival) at 1st and 6th levels.
For the Rangers in my games, I do similarly to Matthias: Primeval Awareness is at-will. Natural Explorer gains two terrains per tier (I like the flavour of growing familiarity with terrain, but it grows too slowly) and can give extra wilderness bonuses where reasonable; I also give it the initiative advantage from UA because I like the skirmisher idea and my players don't multiclass. I prefer Favoured Enemy to be a flavour thing rather than adding damage, so I keep it as-is. I would probably give expertise in some Ranger skills along the way, but neither of my players has complained so I'm playing it by ear.
I use the UA Beast Master and subtract the Extra Attack feature from the base Ranger (mostly because the UA flavour is so much better - the practical differences aren't as large as players think). Hunter remains the same. Most of the Ranger's combat strengths are in the subclasses and spells anyway; I think the main problem with how the Ranger "reads" is that the base class is long on flavour and short on power. None of my players do much comparison shopping between classes, so it doesn't bother them.
After having a few Revised Rangers in my D&D group, I think a balance between the PHB and revised needs to happen. The damage bonus to favoured enemies I think needs to only kick in once you get greater favoured.
After having a few Revised Rangers in my D&D group, I think a balance between the PHB and revised needs to happen. The damage bonus to favoured enemies I think needs to only kick in once you get greater favoured.
I was kinda shocked to see that favoured enemy is still considered a "ribbon" ability for balancing even with the damage bonus. +2/+4 damage to all humanoids, undead, or monstrosities is a big deal.
I think that's part of why they're going with the hot-swap abilities rather than a full revised class - I think it's become clear that the Ranger was never "broken", it just needed some abilities tweaked, mostly so they weren't so arbitrarily limited compared to similar tiers of Paladin or Totem Barbarian. The UA Ranger was an overcorrection.
Lv. 1 Natural Explorer: Use the UA version, remove the first three bullet points of the feature.
Lv. 2 Spellcasting: see Player's Handbook
Lv. 2 Fighting Style: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 3 Primeval Awareness, I would use the UA version but move the "powerful link to beasts" into the Beast Master subclass.
Lv. 6 Survivalist: You gain proficiency in the Nature and Survival skills if you don’t already have it. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of those proficiencies.
Lv. 6 Land's Stride: see Player's Handbook, Druid Circle of the Land.
Lv. 10 Vanish + Hide in Plain Sight as one feature: Hide as a bonus action, can't be track by non-magical mean unless you choose to. You can spend 1 minute per person creating camouflage. Press yourself against a solid surface. Do not move, fall prone or take action, +10 to Dex (Stealth) check.
Lv. 14 Foe Slayer: You become an unparalleled hunter of your enemies. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll and the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied. Additionally, you have advantage on saves against spells and abilities use by your favored enemies.
Lv. 18 Feral Senses: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 20 Will of the Wild: When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend a spell slot and instead have a number of hit points equal to the level of the spell slot. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Removing the spell cost for Primeval Awareness and making Natural Explorer less specific are the big ones for me. I would take the PHB version of Natural Explorer, remove the choice of terrain and just give flat double proficiency in Nature and Survival.
I would also like to see Favored Enemy grant an ability or bonus based upon the creature type chosen, such as choosing Undead grants resistance to nectrotic damage or Fey grants advantage to save vs charm. This was an idea that WotC toyed with during the Next playtest where Favored Enemy was your archetype choice and you got broad but thematic abilities. For the PHB release, these subclasses got squished together into the Hunter archetype and it lost a bit of flavour.
My group house-ruled Hunter's Mark to not be able to break on concentration when used by a ranger. Granted my hunter ranger didn't get past level 8, but up to that point he was the best damage dealer in the party by a long shot. I'm assuming most people are concerned with the ranger past level 11?
I've seen people discuss Rangers changing favored enemy or favored terrain if they do proper preparation. I can easily agree with it for changing favored terrain. I don't see a way to flavor the Ranger so that they can change Favored Enemy. Here is something I thought of:
Level X Natural Explorer Adaptation: Additionally, You can perform a ritual to adapt to your current environment. You can spend 1 hour communing with nature. You can perform this ritual during a rest. At the end of your ritual, you can replace one favored terrain with the terrain of your current environment. This ritual only works if you are currently traveling in a natural terrain.
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"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Lv. 1 Natural Explorer: Use the UA version, remove the first three bullet points of the feature.
I feel that you are taking much of the interesting changes out of revised ranger leaving mostly the disappointing PHB ranger. However I agree that the new Natural Explorer is a bit OP. I would at least leave the advantage on initiative on favored terrain (and definitely expand the terrain options to two terrain sets at level 1 and then giving additional favored terrain options quickly at levels 5 and 11.) And maybe reduce the attack advantage rolls to only the first attack (not the full turn) with expanding it to the full turn around level 11 (or maybe first 2 attacks limited to the first turn.) That should give the ranger room to grow without making it OP or as tempting a multiclass target. It will be much less interesting even with these enhancements though if the favored terrain options are not increased at first level. I see the PHB version as uninteresting and limiting (don't want to play with that version of Ranger.)
Lv. 1 Natural Explorer: Use the UA version, remove the first three bullet points of the feature.
Lv. 2 Spellcasting: see Player's Handbook
Lv. 2 Fighting Style: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 3 Primeval Awareness, I would use the UA version but move the "powerful link to beasts" into the Beast Master subclass.
Lv. 6 Survivalist: You gain proficiency in the Nature and Survival skills if you don’t already have it. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of those proficiencies.
Lv. 6 Land's Stride: see Player's Handbook, Druid Circle of the Land.
Lv. 10 Vanish + Hide in Plain Sight as one feature: Hide as a bonus action, can't be track by non-magical mean unless you choose to. You can spend 1 minute per person creating camouflage. Press yourself against a solid surface. Do not move, fall prone or take action, +10 to Dex (Stealth) check.
Lv. 14 Foe Slayer: You become an unparalleled hunter of your enemies. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll and the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied. Additionally, you have advantage on saves against spells and abilities use by your favored enemies.
Lv. 18 Feral Senses: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 20 Will of the Wild: When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend a spell slot and instead have a number of hit points equal to the level of the spell slot. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
I think Survivalist makes sense to combine with Natural Explorer. Once that is done, the “Favored Enemy” traits become even more of a ribbon. You are essentially giving a Ranger expertise for tracking, getting them already a +10 or 11 to the skills. Advantage on the roll is less beneficial when you can track almost anything anyway. Same with Hide in Plain Sight being really overshadowed when Pass without a Trace accomplishes the same thing so much better. Plus in the instance you fail the roll somehow, Primeval Awareness will find your Favored Enemy anyway
I appreciate the constructive feedback so far. It seems like many of us like what Natural Explorer has to offer for the most part. It also seems that many of us prefer Favored Enemy to provide combat boosts in addtion to Wisdom (Survival) and Intelligence check advantage.
I can agree with Ranger gaining advantage on Initiative rolls and 1st Attack advantage vs creatures lower on intitiave (I could also see this being a Favored Enemy perk) while traveling in their favored terrains. In terms of balance or fairness, would you also suggest the Ranger receive those perks at a higher level? For example, at 10th level, You gain advantage to initiative rolls. Additionally, on your first turn during combat, you have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet acted. You only gain the benefits of this feature while you are traveling in your favored terrain.
I like what Positron said about combining Survivalist into Natural Explorer. That would also give Natural Explorer a lot of perks. Did you also envision that players would still have to choose favored terrains as a part of the Natural Explorer feature? For example: While traveling in your favored terrain, you are proficient in the Nature and Survial skills and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of those proficiencies.
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"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Here is another spitball of the layout, change it around however but easier than typing paragraphs :)
Lv. 1 Natural Explorer: Use the UA version, remove the first three bullet points of the feature. Add Proficiency (2x) for Survival and Nature Skills.
NOTE: This now gives all Rangers the "Nature Skill Monkey" flavor in all settings for a party, which is thematic for the class.
Lv. 1 Favored Habitat:
NOTE: This one will always feel messy to me, but someone needs to come up with a way to combine down the "Favored" Traits into an ability so it doesn't bleed into other ones and require contingencies throughout the Ranger class for its abilities to function. If we can keep it to one (even if it scales) it will make the class feel better. Open for suggestions.
Lv. 2 Spellcasting: see Player's Handbook
Lv. 2 Fighting Style: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 3 Primeval Awareness, I would use the UA version but move the "powerful link to beasts" into the Beast Master subclass. Change to 1+Wis Modifier per long rest.
Lv. 6 Favored Habitat: Selection #2
Lv. 6 Fleet of Foot: Use the UA version, Ignore Difficult Terrain removed from Natural Explorer goes here.
Lv. 10 Vanish + Hide in Plain Sight as one feature: Hide as a bonus action, can't be track by non-magical mean unless you choose to. You can spend 1 minute per person creating camouflage. Press yourself against a solid surface. Do not move, fall prone or take action, +10 to Dex (Stealth) check.
Lv. 14 Foe Slayer: You become an unparalleled hunter of your enemies. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll and the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied. Additionally, you have advantage on saves against spells and abilities use by your favored enemies.
Lv. 18 Feral Senses: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 20 Will of the Wild: When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend a spell slot and instead have a number of hit points equal to the level of the spell slot. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
I've seen people discuss Rangers changing favored enemy or favored terrain if they do proper preparation. I can easily agree with it for changing favored terrain. I don't see a way to flavor the Ranger so that they can change Favored Enemy. Here is something I thought of:
Level X Natural Explorer Adaptation: Additionally, You can perform a ritual to adapt to your current environment. You can spend 1 hour communing with nature. You can perform this ritual during a rest. At the end of your ritual, you can replace one favored terrain with the terrain of your current environment. This ritual only works if you are currently traveling in a natural terrain.
I really like the idea of a 'ritual rest' that replaces a favored terrain with the current favored terrain. I would love to see it at a lower level if possible (level 3 or 5?) The idea that I'm at the mercy of the DM to match my terrain has always made ranger distasteful to me. I prefer to have a chance to show off my abilities outside of begging the DM for a vacation in the forest. It would be nice to believe my advantages will be used at some point. I really like many things about the ranger but it wasn't until the UA revision that it really become a 'must have' kind of character. I have always liked the idea of a beast companion just out of playable story interest (come my wonderful wolf let us subdue this wild environment together!) The new beast rules rock making this a viable alternative to hunter.
Lv. 1 Natural Explorer: Use the UA version, remove the first three bullet points of the feature. Add Proficiency (2x) for Survival and Nature Skills.
NOTE: This now gives all Rangers the "Nature Skill Monkey" flavor in all settings for a party, which is thematic for the class.
Lv. 1 Favored Habitat:
NOTE: This one will always feel messy to me, but someone needs to come up with a way to combine down the "Favored" Traits into an ability so it doesn't bleed into other ones and require contingencies throughout the Ranger class for its abilities to function. If we can keep it to one (even if it scales) it will make the class feel better. Open for suggestions.
Lv. 2 Spellcasting: see Player's Handbook
Lv. 2 Fighting Style: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 3 Primeval Awareness, I would use the UA version but move the "powerful link to beasts" into the Beast Master subclass. Change to 1+Wis Modifier per long rest.
Lv. 6 Favored Habitat: Selection #2
Lv. 6 Fleet of Foot: Use the UA version, Ignore Difficult Terrain removed from Natural Explorer goes here.
I like what you did with Level 1 Natural Explorer. Feels very nature warrior, desireable if you wanted to dip into Ranger. It doesn't seem too powerful by itself. In this situation, picking favored terrains seems out of place even unnecesary now. I also like Level 3 PA as a 1 + Wis mod ability to sense my favored enemy (which is conditional) at a very far distance (which is helpful). I like Fleet of Foot + Ignore difficult terrain, although personally i will miss the plant stuff from Land's Stride. By the way, I made up Will of the Wild using inspiration from similar abilities in other classes.
What do you envision for Favored Habitat? How many favored enemies/terrains would the player select? What are the benefits of the feature at level 1 and level 6?
I think that is the hardest part of fixing the Ranger. If it was up to me I would scrap the Favored mechanic as a whole since (in DND) it forces the DM or the player to tailor their concepts one way or the other for it to find use.
If it stays, which I think it has to for simplicity, I just made up the Favored Habitat to encompass the idea that you are combining the terrain and Enemy features together a bit, saying something like “you grew up in a certain environment or spent time learning to survive in one. Your experience with the terrain, creatures, and conditions within this habitat provided the following benefits...”
I am torn on how the Habitat is made up as a feature. I really don’t like pre made buckets because there are so many backgrounds that most Rangers will homebrew their Habitat options anyway to fit their theme. I think (since the benefits aren’t as substantial in this version) it should be something like, “When you pick a Habitat, choose a Terrain most commonly found in the area. Select the most common type of Enemy you encountered and the most common Humanoid that lives there. Select the language that these humanoids are most likely to speak.” And that is the makeup of your Favored Habitat. You maybe get to select another one later (6?) or even push it off to later in a Campaign as the character develops a bit more, since 6 always feels early to be getting something so fleshed our.
And then I am brainstorming the benefits from it, probably...
While in the Terrain, You have advantage on Initiative. You have Advantage on Nature and Survival checks while within this Terrain as you are more familiar exploring it.
You have advantage tracking your Favored Enemy and recalling information about them. While in combat, you know their weakness and are more likely to hit their weakspot. You ignore resistances and score critical hits on a 19 or 20.
Again, run with whatever ideas sound good for your own. I just throw whatever comes to mind.
Here's a quote from StormKnight on a different Ranger thread.
A friend of mine ruled in a game he was running that the Ranger was allowed to switch his favoured enemy ability after spending a day of preparation and a long rest.
Basically the idea was that the Ranger would be going through information on the quarry he is hunting, weaknesses, maybe gathering natural poisons to add to their weapons or whatever. Think of the way Geralt prepares to hunt monsters in the Witcher series.
I like this idea. The Ranger does preparation work, reads literature, listens to to the folklore, observes and studies their Favored Enemy. To me, this is similar to the way a sports team or athlete watches video footage and prepares to compete against their challenger(s). I think it adds onto the flavor of the Ranger class. This homebrew idea also brings adaptability to an otherwise conditional feature. Maybe a DM allows you to carry a textbook full of notes about monsters and creatures you have fought in your adventures (i.e a pokedex or Ranger encyclopedia). Or maybe you come across a new town having issues with an enemy you've never encountered before. How to handle it? Have the Ranger talk to the townspeople about the history of their triumphs and losses to that enemy; engage the Fey in combat and take down notes after a few battles; meet a noteworthy NPC who has been researching the problem for the past decade and has several books on the enemy for your Ranger to read. Now your Intelligence checks to recall information has a direct tie back to something you actually did during the adventure. I imagine you could add something such as:
Favored Enemy Adaption: You can replace your current favored enemy with a different creature, or humanoids, from the favored enemy list. To do so, you must spend at least 8 hours doing preparation for the hunt against your new favored enemy. You complete your preparation through some combination of reading relevant texts; interacting with people with experience fighting or studying the creature(s); studying your experiences hunting and battling the creature(s). At the end of the 8 hours of preparation and after completing a long rest, you switch favored enemies.
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"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Rangers are known spellcasters instead of prepared spellcasters, and it really limits their casting capability compared to other classes, but they really don't have a whole lot else to offset that. Of known spellcasters, bards have good skill usage and great support in your bardic inspiration, sorcerers can manipulate their spells, and warlocks get their full nova weirdo spell slot system back on short rest.
Rangers can track stuff and ignore difficult terrain if and only if it A) actually comes up and B) you're actually in a favored terrain you took, out of like eight possible terrains.
You can't say it's because of the martial prowess, because paladins have that and they get prepared spells in addition to their oath spells. You can't justify it being because they get their magic from nature, because so do druids, but they get prepared spells.
So yeah, just let them have prepared spells instead of known spells. Having more spells on hand would make them stronger in the form of versatility. Like how each new ranger archetype in Xanathar's gains on theme spells at certain levels.
I probably would have made the Ranger the third Expert class. Maybe not have the Expertise feature, per say, but you specialize in surviving in the wilderness, and knowing things about certain kinds of monsters. That's basically the Survival skill, or identifying monsters with Nature/Religion/Arcana. Rather than picking specific types of monsters or terrain, you get bonuses to identifying any of them. Maybe some History checks to understand some "monster languages" such as orc or sylvan. The big issue here is just that I hate having to pick specific monsters or specific terrain, I prefer generalized abilities.
Fix the bow spells up a bit. They're vastly underpowered for the level you get them at and what they're supposed to do, and there's so few of them - compare to the variety of smite spells the paladin gets. I'd like to see more tricks and wilderness traps too.
Oh, and of course, fix the beastmaster subclass.
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Many DnD players I meet seem to be disappointed in the current Player Handbook design of the core Ranger class features and spellcasting capabilities. I think the underlying theme of the Ranger class and features are really interesting and adds something different. What are the core Ranger features that need to be improved without completely removing the feature?
"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Natural Explorer: Revised Ranger (Remove Advantage on Attack Rolls and Initiative); Add Proficiency/Double Proficiency to Nature and Survival
Favored Enemy/Greater Favored Enemy: Revised Ranger Option; Damage Bonus = Wisdom Modifier?
Primeval Quarry (Remove Primeval Awareness): As part of same action of a successful Wisdom (Survival) check to track and identify a creature, expend a spell slot to add this creature type as an additional Favored Enemy for one hour for every level of spell slot spent. Phrase it as, "You are a supernaturally talented tracker, capable of learning more information than your average hunters from the trails left by your foes."
Fleet of Foot: Revised Ranger + Advantage on Initiative
Hide in Plain Sight: Revised Ranger Option; Simplify Mechanic to Advantage on Stealth Checks?
Vanish: Revised Ranger Option
Foe Slayer: Better Capstone, but I don't really play Level 20's so not my biggest concern.
Simple: Primeval Awareness doesn't require a spell slot, Natural Explorer is universal from 1st level, Foe Slayer is universal, Favored Enemy doesn't exist, and there's something related to skills (Nature/Perception/Stealth/Survival) at 1st and 6th levels.
Complex: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/7246-another-spell-less-ranger
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For the Rangers in my games, I do similarly to Matthias: Primeval Awareness is at-will. Natural Explorer gains two terrains per tier (I like the flavour of growing familiarity with terrain, but it grows too slowly) and can give extra wilderness bonuses where reasonable; I also give it the initiative advantage from UA because I like the skirmisher idea and my players don't multiclass. I prefer Favoured Enemy to be a flavour thing rather than adding damage, so I keep it as-is. I would probably give expertise in some Ranger skills along the way, but neither of my players has complained so I'm playing it by ear.
I use the UA Beast Master and subtract the Extra Attack feature from the base Ranger (mostly because the UA flavour is so much better - the practical differences aren't as large as players think). Hunter remains the same. Most of the Ranger's combat strengths are in the subclasses and spells anyway; I think the main problem with how the Ranger "reads" is that the base class is long on flavour and short on power. None of my players do much comparison shopping between classes, so it doesn't bother them.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
After having a few Revised Rangers in my D&D group, I think a balance between the PHB and revised needs to happen. The damage bonus to favoured enemies I think needs to only kick in once you get greater favoured.
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Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
Some things I've thought about overtime:
Lv. 1 Favored Enemy: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 1 Natural Explorer: Use the UA version, remove the first three bullet points of the feature.
Lv. 2 Spellcasting: see Player's Handbook
Lv. 2 Fighting Style: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 3 Primeval Awareness, I would use the UA version but move the "powerful link to beasts" into the Beast Master subclass.
Lv. 6 Survivalist: You gain proficiency in the Nature and Survival skills if you don’t already have it. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of those proficiencies.
Lv. 6 Land's Stride: see Player's Handbook, Druid Circle of the Land.
Lv. 10 Vanish + Hide in Plain Sight as one feature: Hide as a bonus action, can't be track by non-magical mean unless you choose to. You can spend 1 minute per person creating camouflage. Press yourself against a solid surface. Do not move, fall prone or take action, +10 to Dex (Stealth) check.
Lv. 14 Foe Slayer: You become an unparalleled hunter of your enemies. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll and the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied. Additionally, you have advantage on saves against spells and abilities use by your favored enemies.
Lv. 18 Feral Senses: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 20 Will of the Wild: When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend a spell slot and instead have a number of hit points equal to the level of the spell slot. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Removing the spell cost for Primeval Awareness and making Natural Explorer less specific are the big ones for me. I would take the PHB version of Natural Explorer, remove the choice of terrain and just give flat double proficiency in Nature and Survival.
I would also like to see Favored Enemy grant an ability or bonus based upon the creature type chosen, such as choosing Undead grants resistance to nectrotic damage or Fey grants advantage to save vs charm. This was an idea that WotC toyed with during the Next playtest where Favored Enemy was your archetype choice and you got broad but thematic abilities. For the PHB release, these subclasses got squished together into the Hunter archetype and it lost a bit of flavour.
My group house-ruled Hunter's Mark to not be able to break on concentration when used by a ranger. Granted my hunter ranger didn't get past level 8, but up to that point he was the best damage dealer in the party by a long shot. I'm assuming most people are concerned with the ranger past level 11?
I've seen people discuss Rangers changing favored enemy or favored terrain if they do proper preparation. I can easily agree with it for changing favored terrain. I don't see a way to flavor the Ranger so that they can change Favored Enemy. Here is something I thought of:
Level X Natural Explorer Adaptation: Additionally, You can perform a ritual to adapt to your current environment. You can spend 1 hour communing with nature. You can perform this ritual during a rest. At the end of your ritual, you can replace one favored terrain with the terrain of your current environment. This ritual only works if you are currently traveling in a natural terrain.
"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Lot's of stuff ...
I appreciate the constructive feedback so far. It seems like many of us like what Natural Explorer has to offer for the most part. It also seems that many of us prefer Favored Enemy to provide combat boosts in addtion to Wisdom (Survival) and Intelligence check advantage.
I can agree with Ranger gaining advantage on Initiative rolls and 1st Attack advantage vs creatures lower on intitiave (I could also see this being a Favored Enemy perk) while traveling in their favored terrains. In terms of balance or fairness, would you also suggest the Ranger receive those perks at a higher level? For example, at 10th level, You gain advantage to initiative rolls. Additionally, on your first turn during combat, you have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet acted. You only gain the benefits of this feature while you are traveling in your favored terrain.
I like what Positron said about combining Survivalist into Natural Explorer. That would also give Natural Explorer a lot of perks. Did you also envision that players would still have to choose favored terrains as a part of the Natural Explorer feature? For example: While traveling in your favored terrain, you are proficient in the Nature and Survial skills and your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of those proficiencies.
"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Here is another spitball of the layout, change it around however but easier than typing paragraphs :)
Lv. 1 Natural Explorer: Use the UA version, remove the first three bullet points of the feature. Add Proficiency (2x) for Survival and Nature Skills.
Lv. 1 Favored Habitat:
Lv. 2 Spellcasting: see Player's Handbook
Lv. 2 Fighting Style: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 3 Primeval Awareness, I would use the UA version but move the "powerful link to beasts" into the Beast Master subclass. Change to 1+Wis Modifier per long rest.
Lv. 6 Favored Habitat: Selection #2
Lv. 6 Fleet of Foot: Use the UA version, Ignore Difficult Terrain removed from Natural Explorer goes here.
Lv. 10 Vanish + Hide in Plain Sight as one feature: Hide as a bonus action, can't be track by non-magical mean unless you choose to. You can spend 1 minute per person creating camouflage. Press yourself against a solid surface. Do not move, fall prone or take action, +10 to Dex (Stealth) check.
Lv. 14 Foe Slayer: You become an unparalleled hunter of your enemies. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll and the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied. Additionally, you have advantage on saves against spells and abilities use by your favored enemies.
Lv. 18 Feral Senses: see Player's Handbook.
Lv. 20 Will of the Wild: When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend a spell slot and instead have a number of hit points equal to the level of the spell slot. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Lot's of stuff ...
I like what you did with Level 1 Natural Explorer. Feels very nature warrior, desireable if you wanted to dip into Ranger. It doesn't seem too powerful by itself. In this situation, picking favored terrains seems out of place even unnecesary now. I also like Level 3 PA as a 1 + Wis mod ability to sense my favored enemy (which is conditional) at a very far distance (which is helpful). I like Fleet of Foot + Ignore difficult terrain, although personally i will miss the plant stuff from Land's Stride. By the way, I made up Will of the Wild using inspiration from similar abilities in other classes.
What do you envision for Favored Habitat? How many favored enemies/terrains would the player select? What are the benefits of the feature at level 1 and level 6?
"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
I think that is the hardest part of fixing the Ranger. If it was up to me I would scrap the Favored mechanic as a whole since (in DND) it forces the DM or the player to tailor their concepts one way or the other for it to find use.
If it stays, which I think it has to for simplicity, I just made up the Favored Habitat to encompass the idea that you are combining the terrain and Enemy features together a bit, saying something like “you grew up in a certain environment or spent time learning to survive in one. Your experience with the terrain, creatures, and conditions within this habitat provided the following benefits...”
I am torn on how the Habitat is made up as a feature. I really don’t like pre made buckets because there are so many backgrounds that most Rangers will homebrew their Habitat options anyway to fit their theme. I think (since the benefits aren’t as substantial in this version) it should be something like, “When you pick a Habitat, choose a Terrain most commonly found in the area. Select the most common type of Enemy you encountered and the most common Humanoid that lives there. Select the language that these humanoids are most likely to speak.” And that is the makeup of your Favored Habitat. You maybe get to select another one later (6?) or even push it off to later in a Campaign as the character develops a bit more, since 6 always feels early to be getting something so fleshed our.
And then I am brainstorming the benefits from it, probably...
While in the Terrain, You have advantage on Initiative. You have Advantage on Nature and Survival checks while within this Terrain as you are more familiar exploring it.
You have advantage tracking your Favored Enemy and recalling information about them. While in combat, you know their weakness and are more likely to hit their weakspot. You ignore resistances and score critical hits on a 19 or 20.
Again, run with whatever ideas sound good for your own. I just throw whatever comes to mind.
Here's a quote from StormKnight on a different Ranger thread.
"Time is money. Nobody knows how much time they have, but you can always count how much time you spent. So spend it wisely."
Two words: prepared spells.
Rangers are known spellcasters instead of prepared spellcasters, and it really limits their casting capability compared to other classes, but they really don't have a whole lot else to offset that. Of known spellcasters, bards have good skill usage and great support in your bardic inspiration, sorcerers can manipulate their spells, and warlocks get their full nova weirdo spell slot system back on short rest.
Rangers can track stuff and ignore difficult terrain if and only if it A) actually comes up and B) you're actually in a favored terrain you took, out of like eight possible terrains.
You can't say it's because of the martial prowess, because paladins have that and they get prepared spells in addition to their oath spells. You can't justify it being because they get their magic from nature, because so do druids, but they get prepared spells.
So yeah, just let them have prepared spells instead of known spells. Having more spells on hand would make them stronger in the form of versatility. Like how each new ranger archetype in Xanathar's gains on theme spells at certain levels.
How would I redesign the Ranger... hm....
I probably would have made the Ranger the third Expert class. Maybe not have the Expertise feature, per say, but you specialize in surviving in the wilderness, and knowing things about certain kinds of monsters. That's basically the Survival skill, or identifying monsters with Nature/Religion/Arcana. Rather than picking specific types of monsters or terrain, you get bonuses to identifying any of them. Maybe some History checks to understand some "monster languages" such as orc or sylvan. The big issue here is just that I hate having to pick specific monsters or specific terrain, I prefer generalized abilities.
Fix the bow spells up a bit. They're vastly underpowered for the level you get them at and what they're supposed to do, and there's so few of them - compare to the variety of smite spells the paladin gets. I'd like to see more tricks and wilderness traps too.
Oh, and of course, fix the beastmaster subclass.