# The Ranger: Alternate Class Features ## *The Compleat Ranger* <style> .phb{ background : white;} .phb img{ display : none;} .phb hr+section blockquote{background : white;} </style> ##### **Preface** The interweb has and abundance of dissections and critiques on the *Player's Handbook* Ranger (and almost as many aimed at the Unearthed Arcana-Ranger Revised). Alongside these, I'd wager that the class has received more homebrew treatments than just about any other core class. All told, this is evidence that many amongst us are simply not content with the class as it stands. I won't go into a deep analysis here (you can find many on the web) but the categorical 'issues' identified with the ranger are as follows: 1) a frustrating lack of core flexibility due to key class features being usable in very specific situations (i.e. Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer); 2) a perception by some (but contested by others) that the ranger is underpowered when compared to other half-casters and martial classes (e.g. many have sought to show how the ranger compares unfavorably in power to the paladin); and 3) a significant plurality (if not outright majority) who are deeply dissatisfied with the Beast Master archetype due to its frustrating action economy, and an inability to protect or revive a relatively 'squishy' animal companion. These and other points of dissatisfaction have been simmering within the ranger community since 2014, and the various attempts by the game designers to address them have stalled, with only a bit of minor improvements on the Beast Master offered as errata to the PHB in 2018. Lead designers at WotC have spoken of a set of alternate class features to address these persistent concerns but to date nothing has been forthcoming, beyond the work done by Mike Mearls on his unofficial online stream late last year. ***The Compleat Ranger*** (as I am calling this limited set of alternate class features; shout out to Izaac Walton's 1653 Angler) seeks to act as a bridge of sorts until an official offering is made. It is important to emphasise that making these alternate features available does nothing to preclude the PHB version, nor does it create a 'new' version of the ranger class in the way that the UA-RR did. Why is that important? It's clear that the game's designers (quite understandably) don't wish to diminish the experience of the core PHB class, as lot of people enjoy it as is. But for those of us who find it lacking, perhaps this simple offering can help! For additional perspective on this set of alternate features and how one might use it, please have a look at the **Design Notes** attached as an appendix. </div> \columnbreak \pagebreakNum # The Compleat Ranger ### Favored Enemy <div class='descriptive'> ##### Alternate Feature: Favored Enemy You may either select this version of the feature, or the original version as detailed on pg 91 of the *Player's Handbook*. NB- If you select this version of the feature, then *Hunter's Mark* is not available to you as an option on the list of ranger spells. </div> (**Source: PHB, HFH**) You study a creature, marking it as your quarry and analyzing with a careful eye. Your study allows you to anticipate the creature’s moves and tactics and to strike deeper and truer. As a bonus action, you can designate a creature you can see within 90 feet of you as your favored enemy. You deal an extra 1d4 damage of the weapon's type to the marked target whenever you hit it with a weapon attack, and you have advantage on all Wisdom ability checks to detect and track it or to determine its motives. This effect ends if you fall unconscious, use the feature again on another creature, or dismiss it as a bonus action. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. #### **Favored Enemy Improvement.** From 6th level, you can also mark a creature by studying tracks and other traces or signs it has left for 10 minutes, and the extra damage dealt when you hit increases to 1d6. Starting at 14th level, the extra damage increases to 1d8. ### Natural Explorer <div class='descriptive'> ##### Alternate Feature: Natural Explorer You may either select this version of the feature, or the original version as detailed on pg 91 of the *Player's Handbook*. </div> (**Source: UA-RR, HFH, HB**) You share a deep connection to the natural world, and you react with swift and decisive action when facing danger. This grants you the following benefits: - You have advantage on initiative rolls. - Choose a ranger skill in which you are proficient. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses it. In addition, you are skilled at navigating the wilderness. You gain the following benefits when traveling for an hour or more: - Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. - If you are traveling alone or with your familiar or beast companion, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. - Other creatures have disadvantage on ability checks made to track your group or discover a camp you have set up. #### **Natural Explorer Improvements.** At 6th and 10th levels, you may choose another ranger skill in which you are proficient, doubling your proficiency bonus for any ability check you make that uses it. ### Fighting Style The following additional options can be selected for the Fighting Style class feature. #### Mariner (**Source: UA-WA**)As long as you are not wearing any armor other than light armor, or using a shield, you have a swimming speed and a climbing speed equal to your normal speed, and you gain a +1 bonus to AC. #### Whirling blades (**Source: HFH**) When you engage in two-weapon fighting while wearing light or no armor, you do not expend your bonus action and add your ability modifier to the second attack. You can still gain the benefits of two-weapon fighting only once during your turn. ### Primeval Awareness <div class='descriptive'> ##### Alternate feature: Primeval Awareness You may either select this version of the feature, or the original version as detailed on pg 92 of the *Player's Handbook*. </div> (**Source: UA-RR, PHB**) Beginning at 3rd level, your competency in the wild allows you to establish a link to the beasts and land around you. You have an innate ability to communicate with beasts, and they recognize you as a kindred spirit. As an action, through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas to a beast 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, and actions you can take (if any) to persuade it to not attack. You cannot use this ability against a creature that you have attacked within the past 10 minutes. In addition, through your connection to the land, you can use your action to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you: aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number. You cannot use this ability again in this manner until you complete a long rest. \pagebreakNum ### New Ranger Spell The following spell is now available for rangers (with the exception of Beast Master archetype for which it is disallowed). #### Find Spirit Animal *2nd-level conjuration* ___ - **Casting Time:** 10 Minutes (or 8 hours if familiar has been slain) - **Range:** 30 feet - **Components:** V, S, M (25 gp worth of charcoal, incense, and herbs that must be consumed by fire in a brass brazier) - **Duration:** Instantaneous ___ You gain the service of a spirit animal that takes the form of a beast with a challenge rating of 1/2 or lower chosen by you. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the spirit has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial or fey (your choice) instead of a beast. Its hit point maximum is 20. Add your proficiency bonus to the familiar’s AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills it is proficient in. Additionally, if it has an Intelligence score of 5 or lower, its Intelligence becomes 6, and it gains the ability to understand one language of your choice that you speak. Your spirit animal receives a number of benefits while it is linked to you, but loses its Multiattack action, if it has one. It obeys your commands as best it can and acts on your initiative. You determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. Doing so requires no action by you, unless you direct it to take the Attack action, which then requires the use of your action. (Through your Extra Attack feature, you also can make one weapon attack yourself when your spirit takes the Attack action.) Its attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. If you are incapacitated or absent, the animal acts on its own. When it drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. It reappears after you cast this spell again. While your spirit animal is within 100 feet of you, you can communicate with it telepathically. Additionally, as an action, you can see through its eyes and hear what it hears until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses that the animal has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses. As an action, you can temporarily dismiss your spirit animal. It disappears into a pocket dimension where it awaits your summons. Alternatively, you can dismiss it forever. As an action while it is temporarily dismissed, you can cause it to reappear in any unoccupied space within 30 feet of you. You can't have more than one spirit animal at a time. If you cast this spell while you already have a spirit animal, you instead cause it to adopt a new form. Choose one of the forms allowed by the spell. Your familiar transforms into the chosen creature. ***At Higher Levels.*** When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, your spirit animal's hit point maximum is increased by 15 for each slot level above 2nd. \pagebreakNum ### Design Notes ##### Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer The PHB versions of these two features are perceived by some to be quite restrictive and situational, allowing the ranger to access two important and character-defining features only *if and when* the circumstances are right, i.e. combat encounters against certain creatures that the ranger may or may not encounter, or exploring a particular type of terrain that might or mightn't be part of the adventure. Having such situation-specific features not only removes agency from the player, but also can be burdensome for a DM, who may feel that she has to find a way to weave in a certain type of enemy or terrain to serve the needs of the ranger player. Furthermore, the PHB Natural Explorer feature all makes it impossible to get lost and all but guarantees success in exploration, essentially rendering a main pillar of the game obsolete for the party while inside a ranger's favored terrain. The proposed alternate interpretation of Favored Enemy puts control back into the player's hands, and duplicates the effects of the *Hunter's Mark* spell, which many in the community have suggested should be a class feature rather than a spell. Doing so makes the Favored Enemy feature usable in more than specific circumstances and does not give the ranger any new combat advantage that could not otherwise be gained. Removing the concentration requirement for marked targets can free up the ranger to use spells and two-weapon fighting more effectively, and gives them just a touch more focused power in combat, but in no way surpasses the punch of the fighter, paladin or barbarian in pure damage per turn. To avoid risk of stacking DPR at lower levels from mark plus spell effects, I have damage scaling with level, at pace with PHB version favored enemy improvements. Similarly, the proposed alternative take on Natural Explorer avoids the trap of loss of player agency and follows the lead for the most part of UA-RR, but with a slight dial-back in power. It offers some skill-based benefits (I believe the ranger should be every bit as capable as the rogue in the outdoor-related skills, e.g. Nature and Survival- thanks to Mike Mearls here!) and allows advantage on initiative but not first round attacks as in UA-RR. Importantly all the benefits are usable in exploration no matter the terrain. ##### Fighting Style All I've done here is to port in the proposal made by Mearls in his Happy Fun Hour stream that allows for a tweaked two-weapon fighting that does not wreck the ranger's action economy. Admittedly by moving *Hunter's Mark* to a class feature as an option to solve some action economy issues brought about by the PHB version, this is less important. But it is very feasible that a player would choose to take some of these alternate features à la carte rather than a package. If so, Whirling Blades can make a nice difference, and without being overpowered. The Mariner fighting style is so nice for a ranger and frankly I've no idea why it has not been picked up officially. That's a real shame, but I've brought it back here. I did nerf it slightly, removing medium armor eligibility, mostly because the idea of someone swimming full speed in scale mail is quite absurd! That aside, I think a fighting style that allows for wide-ranging types of movement fits the ranger well, whether she's land- or sea-based. ##### Primeval Awareness My sense is that not a lot of rangers use the PHB version too often, even though thanks to Aragorn it seems like some version of it ought to be there in the core class. The UA-RR version is far more popular, especially the subtle animal communication ability. It works very well with the ranger theme and at the very least, a child of the wilderness should be able to have some basic understanding with wild things. To maintain balance, nerfing the standard abilty to sense creature types for those who want to be sympatico with beasts seems fair. ##### Modified Spells This is my attempt to find a peace accord between the group who really want an animal companion but feel Beast Master subclass falls flat in terms of power and limiting action economy, and the other group who think it's pretty much fine as is. The complaints about the PHB Beast Master are easy enough to locate online. The the Beast Conclave of UA-RR has issues too. Criticsms include that it slightly to significantly over-powered, and also that it is a bit clunky for some DM's to run as the companion basically becomes another character with it's own initiative etc. Going down the path of rangers with a form of familiar - *re-skinned here as spirit animals for flavour and to avoid offending the wizarding community*- seems like an interesting way to grant a companion with good utility and limited combat capability without going whole hog and stepping all over Beast Masters, or pumping the ranger's damage output higher. (The idea here is not mine, it is most recently seen in Reddit user /u/aeyana's 'Hunter', which is also the source of the idea for an enhanced camp as part of Natural Explorer, so thanks for that! ) In any case the spirit animal spell should not materially enhance the damage a ranger can do, but my hypothesis is that it could really boost the enjoyability and distinctiveness of the class. (After all, why should Paladins have all the fun with their *Greater Steeds*?!) Just a final note to confirm that the use of the *Find Spirit Animal* should not stack with the Beast Master archetype- only one pet at a time! And the *Hunter's Mark* spell is disabled for selection as a ranger spell if the version herein of favored enemy is taken. **I look forward to your feedback on these ideas, particularly those based on any playtesting that is done.** \pagebreakNum ### Credits For each optional feature, the source of the material is provided at the start of the entry, as per the following key: - The *Player's Handbook* ("PHB") - Unearthed Arcana, *The Ranger, Revised* 2016 ("UA-RR") - Unearthed Arcana, *Waterborne Adventures* 2015 "(UA-WA") - Mike Mearls *Happy Fun Hour* Nov 2018 ("HFH") - Homebrew elements, which are my own unless otherwise cited ("HB") **Any class features not mentioned here remain unchanged from the *Player's Handbook* class version.** Copyright © 2017 WWC Logo