Did they change the Ranger's Favored Enemy?

I was just fussing with my Ranger character on DnDBeyond, and I noticed that Favored Enemy has been fundamentally changed from the original text. I felt completely crazy, checked my physical PHB, and sure enough, the online rule has changed. It is now:

Level 1: Favored Enemy

Beginning at 1st level, you have significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to a certain type of enemy.

Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies.

You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them.

When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at all.

You choose one additional favored enemy, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 14th level. As you gain levels, your choices should reflect the types of monsters you have encountered on your adventures.

You always have the Hunter’s Mark spell prepared. You can cast it twice without expending a spell slot, and you regain all expended uses of this ability when you finish a Long Rest.

The number of times you can cast the spell without a spell slot increases when you reach certain Ranger levels.

Did I miss an announcement? Is this an error? It appears they have smushed the 2014 and 2024 Favored Enemy features together. I can only assume this is a mistake?

My 2024 PHB says this:

Level 1: Favored Enemy

You always have the Hunter’s Mark spell prepared. You can cast it twice without expending a spell slot, and you regain all expended uses of this ability when you finish a Long Rest.

The number of times you can cast the spell without a spell slot increases when you reach certain Ranger levels, as shown in the Favored Enemy column of the Ranger Features table.

The 2014 text getting smushed in there on your end is likely a bug, perhaps from having both 5.0 and 5.5 rules selected?

You can find more explanation on the change in 2024 Ranger vs. 2014 Ranger: What’s New article:

Favored Enemy — Level 1

Favored Enemy has seen some significant changes. This feature no longer focuses on tracking and recalling information about certain creature types, or learning their language (though you can learn two new languages with the Deft Explorer feature below). Instead, you can now cast Hunter’s Mark twice per Long Rest without expending a spell slot, and you always have it prepared. This will make it much easier to keep up with the Barbarians, Fighters, and Paladins in damage output without having to spend your precious spell slots to do it.

With the new Spellcasting feature, you could already prepare more spells than before; with the new Favored Enemy, you also prepare the Ranger’s trademark spell for free. You’ll get more free castings of Hunter’s Mark as you level up.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

My 2024 PHB says this:

Level 1: Favored Enemy

You always have the Hunter’s Mark spell prepared. You can cast it twice without expending a spell slot, and you regain all expended uses of this ability when you finish a Long Rest.

The number of times you can cast the spell without a spell slot increases when you reach certain Ranger levels, as shown in the Favored Enemy column of the Ranger Features table.

 

The 2014 text getting smushed in there on your end is likely a bug, perhaps from having both 5.0 and 5.5 rules selected?

The PHB itself is correct, but the class page for the 5.5e Ranger class has the text from both versions concatenated: https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/2190882-ranger#RangerClassFeatures

This appears to be a pretty recently introduced bug.

I just noticed this as well when leveling up. Went through the same process as you checking my book to make sure I wasn't going crazy and then ended up here.

Yeah, I know Ranger 2014 and 2024 are different. The entry I shared is a copy/paste from the Favored Enemy class feature from my 2024 Ranger entry in DnDBeyond. Not entirely sure how I'd pick 2014 AND 2024 at the same time. It's also in the character editor. Definitely a bug. Very strange.

Quote from RWinnie >>

Yeah, I know Ranger 2014 and 2024 are different. The entry I shared is a copy/paste from the Favored Enemy class feature from my 2024 Ranger entry in DnDBeyond. Not entirely sure how I'd pick 2014 AND 2024 at the same time. It's also in the character editor. Definitely a bug. Very strange.

 

 I know you know they're different, I was just confirming that there was no secret errata to the 2024 PHB that reintroduced elements of the 2014 ability. It's therefore a bug.