The Ranger

Rough and wild looking, a human stalks alone through the shadows of trees, hunting the orcs he knows are planning a raid on a nearby farm. Clutching a shortsword in each hand, he becomes a whirlwind of steel, cutting down one enemy after another.

After tumbling away from a cone of freezing air, an elf finds her feet and draws back her bow to loose an arrow at the white dragon. Shrugging off the wave of fear that emanates from the dragon like the cold of its breath, she sends one arrow after another to find the gaps between the dragon’s thick scales.

Holding his hand high, a half-elf whistles to the hawk that circles high above him, calling the bird back to his side. Whispering instructions in Elvish, he points to the owlbear he’s been tracking and sends the hawk to distract the creature while he readies his bow.

Far from the bustle of cities and towns, past the hedges that shelter the most distant farms from the terrors of the wild, amid the dense-packed trees of trackless forests and across wide and empty plains, rangers keep their unending watch.

Creating a Ranger

As you create your ranger character, consider the nature of the training that gave you your particular capabilities. Did you train with a single mentor, wandering the wilds together until you mastered the ranger’s ways? Did you leave your apprenticeship, or was your mentor slain—perhaps by the same kind of monster that became your favored enemy? Or perhaps you learned your skills as part of a band of rangers affiliated with a druidic circle, trained in mystic paths as well as wilderness lore. You might be self-taught, a recluse who learned combat skills, tracking, and even a magical connection to nature through the necessity of surviving in the wilds.

What’s the source of your particular hatred of a certain kind of enemy? Did a monster kill someone you loved or destroy your home village? Or did you see too much of the destruction these monsters cause and commit yourself to reining in their depredations? Is your adventuring career a continuation of your work in protecting the borderlands, or a significant change? What made you join up with a band of adventurers? Do you find it challenging to teach new allies the ways of the wild, or do you welcome the relief from solitude that they offer?

Class Features

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) scale mail or (b) leather armor
• (a) two shortswords or (b) two simple melee weapons
• (a) a dungeoneer's pack or (b) an explorer's pack
• (a) a longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows

Favored Enemy

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

Choose a type of favored enemy: beasts, fey, humanoids, monstrosities, or undead. When you make weapon attacks against creatures of the chosen type, you gain an additional 1d4 damage of the weapon's type. This bonus changes as you gain ranger levels, as shown in the Favored Enemy column of the Ranger table. Additionally, 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, typically one spoken by your favored enemy or creatures associated with it. However, you are free to pick any language you wish to learn.

Natural Explorer

As a ranger you have a mystic connection with the natural world. By taking time in quiet concentration, you can attune yourself to one type of natural environment, granting you heightened senses and unimpeded movement.

Whenever you complete a long rest, choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the underdark. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check, related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you're proficient in.

While within your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:

• You ignore nonmagical difficult terrain.
• If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
• Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.

Beast Kinship

At first level, you have an innate ability to communicate with beasts, and they recognize you as a kindred spirit. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas to a beast as an action, and can read its basic mood and intent. You learn its emotional state, whether it is affected by magic of any sort, its short-term needs (such as food or safety), and actions you can take (if any) to persuade it to not attack.

You cannot use this ability on a creature that you have attacked within the past 10 minutes.

Primeval Awareness

Beginning at 2nd level, your connection with the beasts and land around you allows you to focus your senses to determine if any of your favored enemies lurk nearby. By concentrating for 1 minute, you can sense whether any of your favored enemies are present within 5 miles of you. This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present, as well as their approximate numbers, and the creatures’ general direction and distance (in miles) from you.

If there are multiple groups of your favored enemies within range, you learn this information for each group, though the information gathered may be less specific when sensing many different groups, or when detecting a large quantity, such as sensing humanoids within a city.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of one use). When you finish a long rest, you regain all expended uses.

Fighting Style

At 2nd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.

Spellcasting

By 2nd level, you have learned to draw on the primal magic which permeates the natural world to cast Spells as a Druid does. See chapter 10 for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 for the ranger spell list.

Spellcasting Ability

Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your ranger spells, since your magic draws on your attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a ranger spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Watchful Eye

Beginning at 3rd level, you are always on alert, making you much harder to catch by surprise. You gain the following benefits:

• You gain proficiency in the Perception skill. If you are already proficient in the skill, you add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.
• Being in a lightly obscured area doesn't impose disadvantage on your Perception checks if you can both see and hear.

Ranger Conclave

At 3rd level, you choose to emulate the ideals and training of a ranger conclave: the Beast Conclave, the Gloom Stalker Conclave, the Horizon Walker Conclave, the Hunter Conclave, or the Monster Slayer Conclave, all detailed at the end of the class description. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 5th, 7th, 11th, and 15th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Primal Instincts

Starting at 6th level you are quick to spring into combat. You have advantage on initiative rolls. On your first turn during combat, you have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn yet.

Greater Favored Enemy

At 6th level, you are ready to hunt even deadlier game. Choose a type of greater favored enemy: aberrations, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fiends, or giants. You gain all the benefits against this chosen enemy that you normally gain against your favored enemy, including an additional language.

Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws against the spells and abilities used by a greater favored enemy.

Fleet of Foot

When you reach 8th level, you are always light on your feet and ready to move. You gain the following benefits:

• You can use the Dash or Disengage action as a bonus action on your turn.
• Moving through difficult terrain, magical or otherwise, costs you no extra movement.
• You can pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them and without taking damage from them if they have thorns, spines, or a similar hazard.
• In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement, such those created by the entangle spell.

Hide in Plain Sight

Starting at 10th level, your ability to use the natural environment to hide is unparalleled. You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.

In addition, you learn to harness your magical connection with the land and extend a portion of that power to your allies. You can spend 10 minutes casting a special ritual using fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, and other naturally occurring materials as the material component for the ritual. Once completed, you and up to 6 creatures of your choice gain a magical camouflage. The camouflage imposes disadvantage on any Wisdom (Perception) check made to detect a camouflaged creature, as long as the creature is within your favored terrain. The benefit lasts for 8 hours.

Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you complete a long rest.

Vanish

Starting at 14th level, your ability to evade your enemies and hide grants you the following benefits:

• You can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn.
• You can’t be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.
• If you are hidden, you can move up to 10 feet in the open without revealing yourself if you end the move in a position where you’re not clearly visible.

Feral Senses

At 18th level, you gain preternatural senses that help you fight creatures you can’t see. When you attack a creature you can’t see, your inability to see it doesn’t impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it. You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you, provided that the creature isn’t hidden from you and you aren’t blinded or deafened.

Foe Slayer

At 20th level, you become an unparalleled hunter. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied. If the target of your attack is a favored enemy, your favored enemy die deals maximum damage, instead of rolling. If the target is not a favored enemy, you can add your favored enemy die to the damage.

Ranger Conclaves

Across the wilds, rangers come together to form conclaves—loose associations whose members share a similar outlook on how best to protect nature from those who would despoil it.

Modifying the Companion's Statistics

When you gain your animal companion at 3rd level, its proficiency bonus matches yours, and it's ability scores match those found in its original statblock. As you gain levels, your proficiency bonus increases, remember that your companion’s statistics are effected in the following areas: Armor Class, skills, saving throws, attack bonus, and damage rolls.

Your companion's ability scores affect its statistics in the same way as your own, such as hit point maximum increasing according to Constitution modifier increases, and skill modifiers increasing when the relevant ability modifier is increased.

Work with your DM to determine which ability score is used for your companion's attack rolls as well as any saving throw DC listed under an ability. A creature may use the same score for both its attack rolls and DC, or it may use a different score for each.

Determining which score is used can be accomplished by working backwards from the original statblock. A saving throw DC is equal to 8 + the proficiency bonus + an ability modifier. You can subtract the creature's damage bonus from the attack bonus to determine its proficiency bonus. Once you know the proficiency bonus it can be used to determine whether Strength or Dexterity is used in the creature's attacks, and what ability is used for a saving throw. If the creature has the same bonus for different abilities then the DM determines which ability is used.

Generally, a creature's Armor Class is calculated as 10 + its Dexterity modifier, however some creatures have natural armor, which is calculated as the Natural Armor value + its Dexterity modifier. If your companion has natural armor it will be indicated in its original statblock. If so, simply subtract its Dexterity modifier from the Armor Class in the original statblock to determine the Natural Armor value.

Coordinated Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you and your animal companion form a more potent fighting team. When you use the Attack action on your turn, if your companion can see you, it can use its reaction to make a melee attack.

Beast’s Defense

At 7th level, while your companion can see you, it has advantage on all saving throws.

Primal Magic

Starting at 7th level, your animal companion's attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

Storm of Claws and Fangs

At 11th level, your companion can use its action to make a melee attack against each creature of its choice within 5 feet of it, with a separate attack roll for each target.

Superior Beast’s Defense

At 15th level, whenever an attacker that your companion can see hits it with an attack, it can use its reaction to halve the attack’s damage against it.

Gloom Stalker Conclave

There are rangers who delve into the darkest places: deep under the earth, in gloomy alleyways, in primeval forests, and wherever else the light dims. Most folk enter such places with trepidation, but Rangers of the Gloom Stalker Conclave venture boldly into the darkness, seeking to ambush threats before they can reach the broader world. Such rangers are often found in the Underdark, but they will go any place where evil lurks in the shadows.

Horizon Walker Conclave

Rangers who guard the world against threats that originate from other planes, or that seek to ravage the mortal realm with otherworldly magic, belong to the Horizon Walker Conclave. They seek out planar portals and keep watch over them, venturing across the places as needed to pursue their foes. Such rangers find allies in any forces that work to preserve life and the order of the planes

Hunter Conclave

Some rangers seek to master weapons to better protect civilization from the terrors of the wilderness. Members of the Hunter Conclave learn specialized fighting techniques for use against the most dire threats, from rampaging ogres and hordes of orcs to towering giants and terrifying dragons.

Monster Slayer Conclave

Rangers who dedicate themselves to hunting down creatures of the night and wielders of grim magic, are members of the Monster Slayer Conclave. These rangers seek out vampires, dragons, evil fey, fiends, and other magical threats. Trained in supernatural techniques to over come such monsters, they are experts at unearthing and defeating mighty, mystical foes.

Hunter's Sense

At 3rd level, as an action, choose one creature you can see within 60 feet of you. You immediately learn whether the creature has any damage immunities, resistances, or vulnerabilities and what they are. If the creature is hidden from divination magic, you sense that it has no damage immunities, resistances, or vulnerabilities.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once). You regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

Slayer's Prey

Starting at 3rd level, as a bonus action, you designate one creature you can see within 60 feet of you as the target of this feature. The first time each turn that you hit that target with a weapon attack, it takes an extra 1d6 damage from the weapon.

This benefit lasts until you finish a short or long rest. It ends early if you designate a different creature.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Supernatural Defense

At 7th level, whenever the target of your Slayer’s Prey forces you to make a saving throw and whenever you make an ability check to escape that targets grapple, add 1d6 to your roll.

Magic-User's Nemesis

At 11th level, when you see a creature casting a spell or teleporting within 60 feet of you, you can use your reaction to try to magically foil it. The creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC, or its spell or teleport fails and is wasted.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Slayer's Counter

At 15th level, if the target of your Slayer’s Prey forces you to make a saving throw, you can use your reaction to make one weapon attack against the quarry. You make this attack immediately before making the saving throw. If your attack hits, your save automatically succeeds, in addition to the attack’s normal effects.