Class is back in session. This week, we go on the hunt for a class that strikes a balance between skirmishing, survivability, and stealth. That’s right, it’s time to look at the ranger class’s Hunter archetype.
Story of the Hunter
“Silence your hounds,” the ranger snarled. She didn’t even deign to glance over her shoulder at the perplexed houndmaster behind her.
“Beggin’ your pardon, milady, but Stella and Claire ain’t even makin’ any noise at all,” the houndmaster said, a look of confusion upon his face. Indeed, his two muscular pit bulls were standing quietly at his side. Their posture was alert, but their jaws were slack and their tongues lolling out happily.
“You lack the ears of our prey,” the ranger replied. Her voice was quiet beyond a whisper. It was the merest hiss of a noise, and the perplexed houndmaster had to step closer and strain his ears to make her out. “Such a beast can hear a cockroach scuttling across the forest floor half a league away. Those mutts’ panting is like the wingbeats of a dragon to it.” She paused for a moment and sniffed the air, then turned and stared directly at the houndmaster, her golden eyes gleaming at him, cat-like, in a way that set his teeth on edge. “Stay here,” she hissed. “Guard our camp. Make not a sound.”
She then turned away, without awaiting a reply. She muttered an imperceptible incantation, nocked an arrow in her longbow, and leapt into the trees. Even as she tore through the canopy, she seemed to melt away into the shadows of the leaves, which made not even the faintest sound as they rustled. The instant she passed out of sight, there was no trace that she had ever been there.
The Hunter archetype doesn’t have a lot of roleplaying hooks built into its concept in the same way that a paladin’s Sacred Oaths or a warlock’s Otherworldly Patron does, but it’s still easy create a hunter with a cohesive thematic vision. If you feel like the roleplaying suggestions provided by paladin and warlock subclasses are more like constraints than guidelines, then you may appreciate the relative narrative freedom that the Hunter archetype offers.
What can a Hunter be in D&D? The answer is up to you. The idea of a big game hunter-turned-adventurer is a fairly obvious route. Many ranger players like to flavor their character as a bounty hunter, tracking down people rather than monsters. Others like to aim at greatness by being a dragon-hunter or giant-hunter, all takes on the broader niche of monster hunter—though that niche is more specifically addressed by the Monster Slayer ranger archetype in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.
The Hunter ranger archetype is adept at dealing massive damage in quick bursts, and can specialize in either fighting hordes of small enemies, or in focusing on single large targets. Legolas, as portrayed in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy, can be represented by a wood elf ranger with the Hunter archetype. (Aragorn, though he is called a “ranger” throughout the books and the films, is really more of a fighter, when you get right down to it.) Hunter truly is the most iconic manifestation of the ranger class, and any fictional ranger from Robin Hood to Tarzan could be classified as a Hunter.
Hunter Features
Rangers who emulate the Hunter archetype are master skirmishers and survivalists, and are known for passing through the wilderness with the silence of a panther stalking its prey. The ranger gains four subclass features starting at 3rd, 7th, 11th, and 15th level. You can read all of the Hunter features for free in the D&D Basic Rules. In summary, your subclass features allow you to:
- Choose from three different ways of gaining additional damage or attacks against solitary foes, giant foes, or numerous foes.
- Choose from three different defensive options, such as making it harder for opportunity attacks to hit, or making it harder for creatures to hit you with consecutive attacks.
- Chose one of two different superior offensive options, such as making a volley of shots against any number of creatures within a 10-foot radius, or performing a melee spin attack.
- Choose from three different superior defensive options, such as evading effects like fire breath and lightning bolts, or halving the damage of an incoming melee attack.
Benefits of the Hunter Archetype
Hunters are damage-dealing powerhouses, and can easier fight from afar with bow and arrow, or from close quarters with a weapon in each hand. Your subclass features are immensely useful to you, providing both additional offense and defense in combat. While they don’t provide you with any non-combat tools, the ranger class is so stuffed full of neat, situational bonuses to your exploratory abilities that you’ll never feel like you’re low on non-combat options.
Where the Hunter’s subclass features really shine is in their versatility. With two or three separate options to choose from in each subclass feature, the Hunter archetype allows you to customize your character in any way you want—as long as it sticks to the ranger’s class fantasy of fighting with a longbow or with two light melee weapons in hand.
Drawbacks of the Hunter Archetype
Most of the Hunter’s flaws are endemic to the ranger class as a whole, so feel free to take this iconic archetype without fear. Perhaps one of the most grating flaws, one that you’ll encounter regularly throughout play, is how many ranger spells demand concentration. Hunter’s mark, a spell you will probably be using to deal damage in almost every single combat you enter, is the most egregious offender. Since hunter’s mark is so iconic a spell, it rarely feels like a choice to cast a different spell so much as it feels like a sacrifice.
Nevertheless, Hunters do suffer a small number of flaws unique to their subclass. The customizability provided by the Hunter archetype’s four subclass features is a great way to create a unique Hunter, but once you’ve chosen a path, you’re locked into it. If you choose the Giant Slayer option at 3rd level, but find later on that you’re rarely fighting large enemies, you’ll have to ask your Dungeon Master if you can swap it out. By strict rules as written, that’s not in the cards, meaning that if you play in Adventurers League or in any game where the DM is a strict rules literalist, you’re stuck with a crummy feature.
I recommend any DM in this situation to be generous to your players and allow a way to retrain subclass features, much like you can retrain your ranger spells known whenever you gain a level. Or, perhaps you want it to require undergoing a quest to find a tutor. Either way, simply disallowing feature retraining is needlessly antagonistic, and I urge you to let your Hunter players retrain their features within reason.
Suggested Build
If you’re building a Hunter archetype ranger from 1st level, be aware that you won’t gain your subclass until 3rd level. When creating your character, you should choose a race that gives you a bonus to Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom—ideally at least two of the three. You can play a ranger that focuses on Strength instead of Dexterity, and uses large melee weapons instead of dual-wielding light weapons or shooting a bow, but it’s definitely nontraditional. For this reason, playing a wood elf or a stout halfling are your best bets; both give a large bonus to Dexterity and a small bonus to Constitution or Wisdom, and give some useful traits, as well.
Humans, hill dwarves, and forest gnomes are also useful and interesting choices of race for rangers.
As usual, your character’s background is up to you. Some rangers were born in civilization and felt the call of the wild from an early age, while others have lived in the wilderness their entire lives. As such, Outlander or Hermit would be a fairly standard starting background for a ranger, while choosing soldier, acolyte, or sailor could be an interesting way to “play against type.”
Select EQUIPMENT when creating a character. Choose scale mail if you’re playing an unusual ranger with low Dexterity; otherwise, choose leather armor. Also, unless you have a specific reason to want a simple melee weapon, choosing two shortswords is a good route to go. If you want to emulate Drizzt Do’Urden and play with two scimitars, try to convince your DM to allow you start with two scimitars instead of shortswords. An explorer’s pack is great for rangers in the wilderness, and you have no choice but to accept a longbow.
At 1st level, figure out which you enjoy more: fighting in melee with a shortsword in each hand, or fighting from afar with your longbow. Once you know your preference…
Fighting Style
Your first major build decision comes at 2nd level, when you have the option to choose your Fighting Style. Rangers have several options, but the best two options for you are either Archery or Two-Weapon Fighting. Archery gives you a serious accuracy bonus when fighting with ranged weapons (not just bows!) and Two-Weapon Fighting grants you a small damage bonus while dual wielding. Archery is probably the better style in a vacuum, but your character concept should supersede what is mechanically “optimal.”
Defense is a perfectly reasonable fighting style if you have mediocre defenses, but generally speaking, investing in offense is better for rangers. Only consider the Dueling fighting style if you’re playing an unusual Strength-focused ranger with a one-handed melee weapon and a shield.
Spells
Your second major decision comes at 2nd level, too! You first gain the ability to cast spells at this level, drawing from their own unique spell list. While your spell selection is more limited and you gain access to more powerful spells more slowly than “full caster” classes, you balance it out with your robust combat arsenal. Take this time before you gain your subclass at 3rd level to feel out what your role in the party is. That way, when you do gain your subclass, you’ll know what spells your party needs you to have access to on a regular basis.
When you reach 2nd level, you learn two 1st-level spells from the ranger spell list. Unlike some other spellcasting classes, once a ranger learns a spell, they know that spell forever. You can "trade out" one known spell for another spell on your spell list when you gain a level, but that's it. From here on out, you learn one new ranger spell at 3rd level, and at every odd-numbered level thereafter. You also gain access to a new spell level at 5th level, and every four levels thereafter. This is where retraining spells becomes important; if you know low-level spells that just aren’t useful to you anymore, you can swap them out for higher-level spells one-by-one to adapt to rising challenges.
As an offense-focused subclass, you’ll want to start by picking two spells labeled OFFENSE at 1st level. From there, you can be the judge of what spells you need to best support yourself and your party. Picking up a few spells labeled DEFENSE or SUPPORT over time couldn’t hurt, but you’ll want to make sure that your offense is always top-notch. As mentioned above, a large number of ranger spells require concentration, and you can’t have more than one concentration spell active at a time, so be careful.
Note that this list only includes some spells from the Player's Handbook, so if you want to choose more unusual spells, or have other sources like Xanathar's Guide to Everything, you'll have to do a little self-directed research. This list is just here to get you started if this is your first time playing an Hunter archetype ranger.
- Alarm (DEFENSE)
- Cure wounds (SUPPORT)
- Ensnaring strike (OFFENSE/DEFENSE)
- Hail of thorns (OFFENSE)
- Hunter’s mark (OFFENSE)
- Speak with animals (SOCIAL)
Feats
Rangers don’t gain a huge number of feats like fighters do, and since you will want to make both your Dexterity and Wisdom as high as possible, you may not have the chance to take many feats. If you don’t mind leaving your Wisdom on the low end, or just want to shore up some of your weak points, taking a feat or two at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, or 19th level can be a huge boon.
Crossbow Expert is amazing if you wield a heavy crossbow instead of a longbow. It makes your ranger seem a bit less elegant and a bit more brutish, but with this feat, the perks are worth it. Even if you aren’t using a crossbow, not having disadvantage on ranged attacks while in melee combat is pretty slick.
Defensive Duelist lets you use your reaction to try to parry an incoming attack. This can be very useful for dual-wielding rangers, even if you can only use it once per round.
Dual Wielder is a good choice if you’re, well, dual wielding. It ups both your offense and your defense, so what’s not to love?
Mobile is a stellar feat choice for dual-wielding rangers, allowing you to whiz about the battlefield with impunity.
Ritual Caster helps augment your limited spell slots and spells known, making this an unusual, versatile, and surprisingly handy feat to have.
Sharpshooter is all but necessary for archery rangers. Your damage will skyrocket with this feat in hand, especially since you gained an accuracy boost from your Archery fighting style.
War Caster can help you conserve your precious spell slots when faced with saves to maintain concentration, but it’s mostly useful for melee fighters, since archery-focused rangers tend to not bear the full brunt of combat.
Multiclassing
As a post-script, ranger is a great class to multiclass out of, especially if you sense that your campaign will go into the mid-level range, but not into high levels. Rangers get their 5th-level spells at level 17, and those spells rock, but their 20th level capstone ability is only so-so. If you don’t care much about ranger magic but want to be a mighty, fighty, sneaky assassin, ranger multiclasses well with rogue. Multiclassing into fighter also gives you some rock-solid combat traits. Likewise, multiclassing into druid gives your spells an additional kick in much the same way that fighter levels can improve your combat abilities.
If you want more advice for building a ranger, check out Ranger 101. Have you ever played a Hunter archetype ranger? What advice would you give to players that want to play this subclass?
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, the DM of Worlds Apart, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
Personally, I like the Ranger class, because it has a lot of good RP potential. There are mechanical issues with the design because of the limited usability of their flavor components. The simple fix for the mechanical issues with the Ranger would be to give them the same Extra Attack progression as the fighter. That would put them on par with the fighter in terms of game balance.
The problem that I find with the ranger is that people try to make characters from books and movies (cough, Drizzt, Legolas, cough) when in reality, those characters are closer towards other classes, like fighters. Then they complain that the ranger isn't working out how they want it to. The problem with the ranger isn't so much with it's mechanics, I find, but more that it doesn't function like people want it to. My best advice is make your own ranger, don't try and clone a character from a book or movie.
Great Article series James. A personal preference suggestion I have for organizing these articles would be to name the archetype/subclass articles as "Ranger 201: Hunter" or 1001. 100 level classes in universities are meant for basic, entry level education on broad topics. 2nd year classes and more specific classes would be higher numbered.
This makes it easier to tell which articles you should start with for basic/broad topics (the base classes) and which ones to come back to for specific intermediate lessons (subclasses and such).
Thanks for all the hard work and good suggestions.
In that last part you described my current character.🤣
My personal recommendation from my own experience for those seeking a high damage-dealing archer with magical arrows and a nature-focused theme:
Play an Arcane Archer!
I absolutely loved playing this subclass of Fighter. You get druidcraft (or prestidigitation if you'd rather go arcane over nature) for flavor/RP. Your arrows do magical things, like slow down enemies with thorny vines, explode in a shatter-like detonation, blind opponents with shadows, follow targets around corners, and so on. You have plenty of ability score improvements for archery feats like sharpshooter, and if you're an elf, you can take elven accuracy and/or one of the elven magic options. Want more spellcasting? Use one of those extra ASI for ritual caster or magic initiate. You can easily pick up stealth, survival, and acrobatics proficiency with your background and class options. Story options classic to rangers are appropriate for this subclass as well. All without multiclassing. To me, the Arcane Archer feels much more fulfilling than a ranger of any sort if I'm looking for the magical, tough, stealthy, elven archer.
Most of the favored terrain/favored enemy upgrades are so situational and so limited in scope as to be nigh useless.
There's literally nothing that the PHB ranger brings to the table which is not able to be done the same but better by other classes. Rogues are better sneak types and trackers, druids have actual nature theming. Paladin has actual useful spells and better spell-like abilities, fighters are tougher, deal more damage, and can track just as well, anyone with the Outlander (iirc) (possibly far traveler, I don't recall) background is as good in all terrain as a ranger is in one...
They get a substandard companion if you go that route (which should be baked into what it means to be a ranger)
Right off the cuff, rangers are exceptionally flaccid except in RP, but don't bring any unique things to that table either.
Laura said it best on CE: "... well, I can fire TWO arrows now" meanwhile her homebrew bear would get perma-killed if they used it, and every member of their party brought something flashy and exciting to the table.
Just give them Prof to damage on favored enemy. Give Nature and Survival AND 3 skills and give expertise on those two skills in favored terrain. Boom, tracking and nature mechanical theme, and a way to be competitive with damage which is still situational but possibly more relevant.
Rangers underperform across the board right now, which is a huge shame, bc in love the class in previous editions
(Also, sorry everyone, the entire LotR/hobbit main cast were fighters, except Gandalf and Bilbo)
I had a lot of fun and was a good carry with the below ranger build
Wood Elf Ranger/Hunter - Background: Outlander (allows you to never get lost unless by magical means, goes very well with natural terrain)
Prof: Investigation & Athletics (Outlander) / Insight, Stealth, Survival (The only thing here I would consider switching out is Insight. I had a specific reason for why I took it, but normally you "should" take nature over insight.)
Favored enemy: should make sense with background, beast for beast hunter, humanoids (pick 3) if part time bounty hunter, etc. Take a language close to Favored enemy. Each additional Favored Enemy should be creatures you fight alot (example, from lvl 1-5 my party fought alot of orcs, humans, and some goblins, so humanoids was the best choice. I worked with my DM to let him know I was going to be learning Orc, so one of our "drops" was a shamans tablet with some orc to common translations. This worked for both our wizard to learn a new spell in his book, after I learned how to speak Orc and help translate it.)
Natural Explorer: Forest (again, should link with your background, work with your DM on the general starting area. If your a low level you probably have not traveled around too much) Each additional Favored Terrain should be places you have traveled through alot.
Fighting Style: Archery Rangers have a decent hit dice for HP, but unless your entire party is a bunch of back liners, you will want to be in the back as well, as rangers dont really have a lot of defensive's until higher level.
Lvl 3 Hunters Prey: Colossus Slayer - most consistent boost to your damage. 100% always take this, almost no reason ever not to. Works against any enemy, just keep in mind the enemy needs to be wounded (which they will be most of the time if you roll bad initiative like myself)
Lvl 4: Feat Sharpshooter - if you get a low stat roll (you should start with at least 16-17 dex) you could bump up your dex some, but its almost always better to go SS.
Lvl 5: multi attack (hurray)
Lvl 6: Favor Enemy (see above)
Lvl 7: Multi attack defense - Everything at this lvl has multi attack. You should have an okay ac around 16/17 by lvl 7, so if the first attack hits, well now you have 20/21 ac for the next one. There are spells (zepher strike) that allow you to move out of combat without taking opportunity attacks, and having advantage of fears saving throws is very specific. You will be getting beat in the fact alot more.
Lvl 8: Stat boost get up to 20 dex and pump constitution/wisdom
Your campaign will unfortunately end at this lvl... (or at least mine did) :P
Spells Lvl 1-4:
-Hunters mark (always, damage boost espeically low levels)
-Cure wounds (just incase)
-Detect magic (required if you dont hav eother spell castors. Can swap out fora more rogue spell if no rogue. pretty much use this slot to fill in a out of combat role that benefits the party. You honestly wont be using any other combat spells except hunters mark until you are at a higher lvl)
Spells 5-8
-Spike growth (while its concentration, this spell can win you fights in a single round with good placement and a nice funnel where enemies have to cross.)
-Zepher strike: (as stated above, used for a temp damage boost [the D8 stacks with colossus slayer] and great for getting out of melee )
-Swap Healing spirit for Cure wounds: (if your dm allows you to take the incredibly OP healing spirit, since you dont have a cleric or something, swap cure wounds for it.)
And once again... Your campaign will unfortunately end at this lvl... (or at least mine did) :P
This was not a GUIDE this was a sorry excuse of an article. The ranger clad and with the hunter subclass can do many things that you did not list other than saying here this sucks multiclass out of it
I mean at lvl 5 you get pass without a trace to make your entire party be able to get the surprise round consistently, then you also get 2 attacks at lvl 5. At lvl 11 you get volley which is strong if you are a hunter. Cure wounds and heal poison.
Im not saying Ranger is not the weaker class or whatever but I think its playable for sure. Rangers get advantage on tracking in their favorite stuff, when combined with proficiencies thats pretty strong. I do believe the rogue scout getting auto expertise in those two is probably just as good as advantage + proficiency and not limited.
So... I’m not supposed to create a Drizzt like character?
I would recommend carrying both - you may need the heavy crossbow for when your target is out of range of the hand crossbow, and for the turn when you use Hunters Mark (which competes for the bonus action).
Create a drow fighter, wielding scimitars, with a bunch of nature-related skills and a figurine of wondrous power that turns into a panther. I have read the books, I knew that Drizzt is referred to as a ranger, but he rarely shows skills like the 5e ranger. If you want make a ranger, make your own ranger.
How to make a strong Hunter: Prioritize Strength, then Constitution, then put Dexterity to 14 to maximize your medium armor. Don't worry about dumping Wisdom the best Ranger spells don't require Wisdom anyway. Take Hunter's Mark as one of your first level spells, then at 3rd level take Colossus Slayer, and then at 4th level take Polearm Master. Because you can deal the extra 1d8 from Colossus Slayer "once per turn" this means that you also get it on the Polearm Master reaction attack as reaction attacks are usually done on other characters' turns. Use the reach of your pole weapon to attack from afar and then back up to get foes to run into your reaction attack. Hunter's Mark plus Colossus Slayer gives the Ranger a better average damage output than a Fighter who also has Polearm Master as well as Barbarians with the same who don't Reckless Attack. When you get Guardian of Nature at level 13 then you out damage even the Reckless Barbarian.
Ranger's problem isn't that it's weak in combat it's that, from what I've seen, players gravitate towards it to do archery or two-weapon fighting only to find that it's much easier to build a stronger archer out of a Fighter and that two weapon fighting does not synergize with the rest of the Ranger's bonus actions and is underpowered in general. Also that certain class features wind up not being used at tables but that's another issue.
It was in 3.5. As it stands, there is no mechanical reason to even bother selecting a favored enemy. Oh so you can track goblins. Guess what, so can anyone. Other classes can even do it better than rangers.
I can see good reasons to downplay Favoured Enemy from 2nd/3rd edition. It was a very hit-and-miss ability - it might be very useful, it could be completely useless. It's better to have abilities whose efficacy is more predictable when balancing adventures.
Likewise losing dwarf and gnome racial hatred abilities.
I don't disagree, but short of a complete redesign (that is needed, but wont come) there really isn't much to do in making Rangers pretty terrible in mid and high tier play.
What they desperately need is a complete overhaul from the ground up, where the focus stays on the exploration pillar, bit they are at all relevant in combat. They don't have to out-damage any particular class, but for a half-caster, they're significantly weaker than paladin in every respect, and don't bring enough unique good to balance it. Maybe even baking Huntet's Mark into the class, say 1x/short rest, with additional uses as you level (like a cross between smite and action surge) , would do it. You could even still have it take a 1st level slot, just no concentration.
Classes should feel poweful without the DM having to play favorites. Strong support for Rangers from a DM, to make them perform as intended, is going to make everyone else at the table bored when they can't begin to participate in Exploring, but without that DM support, the ranger is going to feel entirely irrelevant, because anyone CAN roll on their survival or nature checks.
The fact is that feats ruined rangers, and 5e takes away anything else they got to compensate. 1-2e rangers were cool, but with feats in 3e, now anyone could dual wield, so they gave you a druid pet, only weaker. Then in 5e, it seems all you did was rip off pathfinder's favored terrain, and make the pet useless. The 5e ranger really looks like someone who hates the class designed it. The UA ranger fixes a lot of that, but they killed it because reasons.
We have optional rules for that. Google "Unearthed Arcana 'Sidekicks'"