I've mentioned a few times that I'm not a big fan of the Favored Enemy ability, or of the class's obsession with the Hunter's Mark spell. I have been thinking of the value of the archetypical Rangers in stories and whatnot, and rather than being dudes who shot bows and stabbed with swords with any especially deadlier skill, what they all have in common is the ability to lead a party in either tracking, fleeing, or ambushing a target. So I was thinking, what if there was a Ranger that was more movement-support oriented? I literally just put this together in about ten minutes, so it's not the most deeply thought-out variant, but I curious if you all had any thoughts on the below. I'd be replacing the class features of the appropriate level (in the cases where there are multiple, I'm replacing the Hunter's Mark-specific features), and the points from the "leadership pool" would match the number of "favored enemy" uses that the Ranger gets. The feature names are also... y'know... lazy. Feel free to make suggestions for changes.
Level 1: Leadership Pool You have a pool of spell points that you can draw from to empower certain abilities. The number of points the pool contains increases when you reach certain Ranger levels. The pool replenishes after a Long Rest.
Level 1: Move as I Move You always have the Longstrider spell prepared. You can expend one point from your Leadership Pool to cast it without a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, you may target a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Level 6: Master of Many Forms You always have the Alter Self spell prepared. You can expend two points from your Leadership Pool to cast it without a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, the spell’s range becomes Touch, and you may target a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Level 9: Take to the Skies You always have the Fly spell prepared. You can expend three points from your Leadership Pool to cast it without a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, you may target a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Level 13: Relentless Hunter You always have the Freedom of Movement spell prepared. You can expend four points from your Leadership Pool to cast it without a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, you may target a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Level 17: One Mind, One Heart When you cast a spell using points from your Leadership Pool, you may spend one additional point from your Leadership Pool to change the spell in one of the following ways
You may extend the spell's duration to 8 hours.
You may extend the spell's range to 30ft, and you may cast the spells without Verbal, Somatic, or Material components. If the spell has costly Material components, those must still be supplied.
You may increase the speed of the targets of the spell by 10ft for the duration of the spell.
You may only apply one such augmentation to any spell.
Level 20: Peerless Focus Taking damage cannot break concentration on Ranger spells that you have cast.
I recognize that a lot of this supercharges certain spells, but it shouldn't affect them much more than it would if they were upcast by a full caster of equivalent level, and the spells themselves aren't particularly game-breaking. Instead they're just tools to expand the parameters of the team's movement. I also think the capstone ability is a big improvement, and as most of Rangers' concentration spells are movement-based, it fits with the theme.
Any thoughts? Any balancing I could do here? Any better class feature names?
This is a cool idea, but a class leaning on certain spells isn't very fun or exciting. Using Leadership Points to let allies move faster, ignore difficult terrain, get a bonus to attacks, etc, would likely be MUCH more fun in play.
Just casting a few spells isn't very interesting, it feels like a discount druid. Perhaps something like this instead:
Level 1: Travelling Guide (Replaces Favored Foe)
You gain proficiency in Survival and you add double your proficiency bonus to checks with this skill. In addition, you and friendly creatures that start their turn within 5 ft of you are immune to Difficult Terrain, and have advantage on Stealth checks until the end of their turn.
Level 6: Adaptation (Replaces Roving)
You gain a Climb speed and a Swim speed equal to your walking speed, and can hold your breath for 1 hour. As an Action, you can extend these abilities to creatures of your choice within 60 ft of you, up to a number equal to your Wisdom modifier, you can use this ability twice, regaining all uses when you finish a short or long rest.
Level 10: Resilience (Replaces Tireless)
As a bonus action, you can touch one creature to quickly counter physical ailments affecting them. The target gains temporary hit points equal to 2d8+your Wisdom modifier and you can remove one of the following conditions: blinded, deafened, poisoned, stunned or reduce Exhaustion on that creature by one. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, regaining all uses when you finish a short or long rest.
Level 13: Cut the Binds (Replaces Relentless Hunter)
You can use one attack that is part of your Attack action to cut through the physical or magical binds holding a creature in place. Choose one creature within range of your weapon that has the restrained, grappled, or paralyzed condition, those conditions immediately end for the target and the target is immune to those conditions until the end of their next turn. In addition, your attack rebounds and deals 3d10 bludgeoning damage to any creatures or objects that were causing the condition(s) you ended.
Level 17: Wild Heart (Replaces Precise Hunter)
You can spend 10 minutes to complete a ritual to summon local wildlife to your aid. You summon up to 8 Beasts of CR <= 1 which will act as mounts for you and your allies, these creatures do their best to follow your instructions but will flee from combat or if they become Bloodied. These beasts will depart after 8 hours. If you are in a location without native beasts, another type of creature of the DMs choice with CR <=1 and Intelligence <=4 may respond to your call. If you use this feature again, your previous summons will depart.
Level 20: Farthest Trek (Replaces Foe Slayer)
You become a master of traversing the multiple planes of existence. You can cast Teleport and Plane Shift as ritual spells, each time you cast one of these spells you gain one level of Exhaustion.
In addition, when you finish a long rest, choose up to 10 creatures, their movement speeds are increased by 10 ft until the end of their next long rest.
Level 20: Toughened Body and Mind (Bonus Feature)
Your skin has toughened after long exposure to the elements, your Constitution and Wisdom scores increases by +4 to a maximum of 24. In addition, you cannot lose concentration on a Ranger spell due to taking damage.
I appreciate the feedback, though I feel like the feedback largely misses the point. I'm not looking to revamp the entire Ranger class. I just think the keystone ability (i.e. access to a spell that requires concentration and gives a marginal damage boost to a class that is not otherwise built to be a striker) needs to be replaced. The class features I'm replacing are largely not "very fun or exciting" themselves, so replacing them with OP features will only serve to unbalance a class which, other than Hunter's Mark is very well-balanced in my opinion. I was honestly expecting feedback that the abilities were too powerful, especially since they include spells that, for reasons that confound understanding, aren't already on the Hunter's spell list.
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Hi All,
I've mentioned a few times that I'm not a big fan of the Favored Enemy ability, or of the class's obsession with the Hunter's Mark spell. I have been thinking of the value of the archetypical Rangers in stories and whatnot, and rather than being dudes who shot bows and stabbed with swords with any especially deadlier skill, what they all have in common is the ability to lead a party in either tracking, fleeing, or ambushing a target. So I was thinking, what if there was a Ranger that was more movement-support oriented? I literally just put this together in about ten minutes, so it's not the most deeply thought-out variant, but I curious if you all had any thoughts on the below. I'd be replacing the class features of the appropriate level (in the cases where there are multiple, I'm replacing the Hunter's Mark-specific features), and the points from the "leadership pool" would match the number of "favored enemy" uses that the Ranger gets. The feature names are also... y'know... lazy. Feel free to make suggestions for changes.
Level 1: Leadership Pool
You have a pool of spell points that you can draw from to empower certain abilities. The number of points the pool contains increases when you reach certain Ranger levels. The pool replenishes after a Long Rest.
Level 1: Move as I Move
You always have the Longstrider spell prepared. You can expend one point from your Leadership Pool to cast it without a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, you may target a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Level 6: Master of Many Forms
You always have the Alter Self spell prepared. You can expend two points from your Leadership Pool to cast it without a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, the spell’s range becomes Touch, and you may target a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Level 9: Take to the Skies
You always have the Fly spell prepared. You can expend three points from your Leadership Pool to cast it without a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, you may target a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Level 13: Relentless Hunter
You always have the Freedom of Movement spell prepared. You can expend four points from your Leadership Pool to cast it without a spell slot. When you cast it in this manner, you may target a number of creatures equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1).
Level 17: One Mind, One Heart
When you cast a spell using points from your Leadership Pool, you may spend one additional point from your Leadership Pool to change the spell in one of the following ways
You may only apply one such augmentation to any spell.
Level 20: Peerless Focus
Taking damage cannot break concentration on Ranger spells that you have cast.
I recognize that a lot of this supercharges certain spells, but it shouldn't affect them much more than it would if they were upcast by a full caster of equivalent level, and the spells themselves aren't particularly game-breaking. Instead they're just tools to expand the parameters of the team's movement. I also think the capstone ability is a big improvement, and as most of Rangers' concentration spells are movement-based, it fits with the theme.
Any thoughts? Any balancing I could do here? Any better class feature names?
This is a cool idea, but a class leaning on certain spells isn't very fun or exciting. Using Leadership Points to let allies move faster, ignore difficult terrain, get a bonus to attacks, etc, would likely be MUCH more fun in play.
Just casting a few spells isn't very interesting, it feels like a discount druid. Perhaps something like this instead:
Level 1: Travelling Guide (Replaces Favored Foe)
You gain proficiency in Survival and you add double your proficiency bonus to checks with this skill. In addition, you and friendly creatures that start their turn within 5 ft of you are immune to Difficult Terrain, and have advantage on Stealth checks until the end of their turn.
Level 6: Adaptation (Replaces Roving)
You gain a Climb speed and a Swim speed equal to your walking speed, and can hold your breath for 1 hour. As an Action, you can extend these abilities to creatures of your choice within 60 ft of you, up to a number equal to your Wisdom modifier, you can use this ability twice, regaining all uses when you finish a short or long rest.
Level 10: Resilience (Replaces Tireless)
As a bonus action, you can touch one creature to quickly counter physical ailments affecting them. The target gains temporary hit points equal to 2d8+your Wisdom modifier and you can remove one of the following conditions: blinded, deafened, poisoned, stunned or reduce Exhaustion on that creature by one. You can use this ability a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, regaining all uses when you finish a short or long rest.
Level 13: Cut the Binds (Replaces Relentless Hunter)
You can use one attack that is part of your Attack action to cut through the physical or magical binds holding a creature in place. Choose one creature within range of your weapon that has the restrained, grappled, or paralyzed condition, those conditions immediately end for the target and the target is immune to those conditions until the end of their next turn. In addition, your attack rebounds and deals 3d10 bludgeoning damage to any creatures or objects that were causing the condition(s) you ended.
Level 17: Wild Heart (Replaces Precise Hunter)
You can spend 10 minutes to complete a ritual to summon local wildlife to your aid. You summon up to 8 Beasts of CR <= 1 which will act as mounts for you and your allies, these creatures do their best to follow your instructions but will flee from combat or if they become Bloodied. These beasts will depart after 8 hours. If you are in a location without native beasts, another type of creature of the DMs choice with CR <=1 and Intelligence <=4 may respond to your call. If you use this feature again, your previous summons will depart.
Level 20: Farthest Trek (Replaces Foe Slayer)
You become a master of traversing the multiple planes of existence. You can cast Teleport and Plane Shift as ritual spells, each time you cast one of these spells you gain one level of Exhaustion.
In addition, when you finish a long rest, choose up to 10 creatures, their movement speeds are increased by 10 ft until the end of their next long rest.
Level 20: Toughened Body and Mind (Bonus Feature)
Your skin has toughened after long exposure to the elements, your Constitution and Wisdom scores increases by +4 to a maximum of 24. In addition, you cannot lose concentration on a Ranger spell due to taking damage.
I appreciate the feedback, though I feel like the feedback largely misses the point. I'm not looking to revamp the entire Ranger class. I just think the keystone ability (i.e. access to a spell that requires concentration and gives a marginal damage boost to a class that is not otherwise built to be a striker) needs to be replaced. The class features I'm replacing are largely not "very fun or exciting" themselves, so replacing them with OP features will only serve to unbalance a class which, other than Hunter's Mark is very well-balanced in my opinion. I was honestly expecting feedback that the abilities were too powerful, especially since they include spells that, for reasons that confound understanding, aren't already on the Hunter's spell list.