Since the announcement of the new take on the Ranger class for the 2024 edition, I felt a bit underwhelmed by the new implementation. The problems I perceived with the official revision stem — in my opinion — mostly from these three concerns:
From a mechanics perspective, their heavy dependency on the Hunter's Mark spell for many class features, even at mid and high tiers of play, becomes more and more a trap as the Ranger progresses in their levels. Hunter's Mark competes both in concentration and action economy with many better options.
From a flavor perspective, the Ranger has lost a sizeable chunk of their identity. Having a subset of Favored Enemies and Favored Terrains was sort of their gist as the class that embodies a specialized hunter.
From a power-curve perspective, the competitiveness of the Ranger when compared to other martial classes is a bit lacking at the higher tiers of play.
My design goal was to meet the abovementioned perceived problems — at least partially — without changing the class from the ground-up.
How Does this Variant Work?
This variant I've homebrewed is easy to introduce because it adds as an extra layer on the existing chassis of the 2024 Ranger, without modifying the base class or their subclasses.
With this variant, the 2024 Rangers gets additional class features at levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 20.
It adds a set of optional class features like those firstly introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. These features allow the Ranger player to:
overcome the weaknesses of the Hunter's Mark spell, but only on a selected subset of enemies;
introduce progressive quality-of-life improvements so that the class is not too heavily front-loaded (I wanted a full committed Ranger to feel more specialized than a light multi-classed one);
give them a subset of features for the exploration and social pillars of play;
augment their power level at later levels and give them a substantial capstone.
How to Adopt this Variant in D&D Beyond?
I've homebrewed some feats that you can add to your character, as follows.
You only need to add 1 single feat at a time, as later feats include and compact previous optional features gained at lower levels. When you reach a specific Ranger level, replace the added feat with the next down the list. I've decided to go this route in order to avoid cluttering the Feats section of your character sheet.
You can add or remove feats from the MENAGE FEATS button in the FEATURE & TRAITS tab of your character sheet. Make sure that you have toggled on the Homebrew slider for your Character.
Note that I haven't added any prerequisite to these feats, because at the moment (2024-Sep-06) D&D Beyond seems to have a bug with the new classes as requisites (a Ranger 2 does not qualify for a homebrew feat that requires 2 levels in Ranger).
The most up-to-date version of this variant can be found at
this Homebrewery page ⧉.
Why this Variant?
Since the announcement of the new take on the Ranger class for the 2024 edition, I felt a bit underwhelmed by the new implementation. The problems I perceived with the official revision stem — in my opinion — mostly from these three concerns:
My design goal was to meet the abovementioned perceived problems — at least partially — without changing the class from the ground-up.
How Does this Variant Work?
This variant I've homebrewed is easy to introduce because it adds as an extra layer on the existing chassis of the 2024 Ranger, without modifying the base class or their subclasses.
With this variant, the 2024 Rangers gets additional class features at levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 20.
It adds a set of optional class features like those firstly introduced in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. These features allow the Ranger player to:
How to Adopt this Variant in D&D Beyond?
I've homebrewed some feats that you can add to your character, as follows.
You only need to add 1 single feat at a time, as later feats include and compact previous optional features gained at lower levels. When you reach a specific Ranger level, replace the added feat with the next down the list. I've decided to go this route in order to avoid cluttering the Feats section of your character sheet.
You can add or remove feats from the MENAGE FEATS button in the FEATURE & TRAITS tab of your character sheet. Make sure that you have toggled on the Homebrew slider for your Character.
Note that I haven't added any prerequisite to these feats, because at the moment (2024-Sep-06) D&D Beyond seems to have a bug with the new classes as requisites (a Ranger 2 does not qualify for a homebrew feat that requires 2 levels in Ranger).