Ranger - Base Class

Duncehack Edition

So who are you?

Just some tosser with an over inflated sense of self importance.

Send verbal abuse via Minds.com

What is the Duncehack?

It emerged from a place of frustration. There's quite a number of areas where 5e could be improved but... it's not going to happen for various reasons.

The Duncehack is my attempt to fix these problems I have. Plan is to go through the whole game - all of it - and homebrew it into the game I think is should have been.

Feel free to disagree with me, but ultimately I think there's no harm in putting my thoughts out there, at the very least if even one DM decides to adopt these rules, then my job is done.

No DM Guild? No OGL Release?

I chafe under binding contracts and both of these are exactly that.

The DM Guild gives you more room to mess with established rules, but basically demands that all be under the service of flagship settings.

The SRD on the other hand gives more room for interesting settings but clamps down extremely hard on what established rules you're allowed to use. Their biggest contention is that they don't want someone to sell a sourcebook that removes the need for core books. Translation: they don't want Pathfinder to happen all over again.

More to the point, both assume money will change hands. I don't want money, I just want Wizards to fix their game.

Groundrules

Groundrules for the Duncehack are as follows:

• No Nerfs: the goal is to bring weaker archetypes on the level of the stronger ones.

• Remove Traps: incentives built into classes and archetypes should provide an active payoff, rather than be the suboptimal choice.

• Frontload Agency, Backend Power: Generally speaking, people like having more options to do things, rather than more raw power. As a design rule: things that feel like core class features, or are defining class mechanics, should happen in the first ten levels, sheer numeric increases in power should come after that.

No money changed hands here

This is a passion project. I want to keep it that way.

I also want to avoid legal issues for self-evident reasons.

No UA?

Too much changes between UA and official release.

The fewer corrections I have the do between UA changes, the better.

Obligatory Natural Crit Plug

http://www.naturalcrit.com/

Someone else made a thing that lets me make homebrews without having to post them on pastebin or something. They deserve a lot of credit for that.

Obligatory /tg/ Plug

The feedback I got from various Anons on this helped me build it into something that wasn't bad and stupid.

I love you all in a way only abused spouse can possibly understand.

Special Thanks to the Anon with the 'Preparation' idea, and the other Anon with some of the Natural Explorer buffs.

No Images?

Needed to get it under 8mb so I could upload it literally anywhere.

So what in Ranger needs fixing?

Whole class.

Everything from the ground up.

Why? That takes an essay to answer but the long and short of it is that there's nothing you provide that others can't do better. It used to be the case that no one could do guerilla warfare better than you... then Scout and Swashbuckler Rogues became a thing and both are infinitely superior at at.

Presently the only thing that Rangers have in their favour is tracking, but honestly the party is better off having their Bard use one of the magical secrets for hunter's mark - the opportunity cost is nowhere near as high.

Effectively: I have never seen a Ranger in any 5e game I've been in that didn't feel useless, and I haven't seen a Ranger who didn't multiclass to get some utility to the party back.

The full essay is in the next page for those interested.

What if I think this is too much?

There's always Ranger Revised.

"But I don't wanna use-"

Take PHB Ranger, move Foe Slayer to 3rd level, change the capstone to a 3rd weapon attack and move Vanish to 3rd level.

What is Broken then?

All the following points will come back to this same theme: Everything the class is designed to do, the kit doesn't properly back up.

Are Rangers Guerilla Fighters?

Hide in Plain Sight and Vanish support a playstyle that abuses hide actions to create ambushes and otherwise avoid retaliation.

Except Rogues do it better - even if they don't pick up Swashbuckler, they can still disengage on a bonus action thanks to Cunning Action, which they get at 2nd level, and they have better incentives to do so thanks to Sneak Attack.

There is no mechanical incentive for Rangers to attempt similar. Ranger has no combat bonuses similar to Sneak Attack and their hide action features are acquired at 10th and 14th levels.

In this way, Rangers are all setup, no punchline.

Why Bother with Wisdom?

What in your kit actually uses Wisdom?

Seriously, think about it.

You're supposed to go Dexterity into Wisdom if the quick guide's to be believed, except Wisdom is better off treated as a dump stat. The only kit features even in the revised Ranger that use Wisdom are Foe Slayer and Spellcasting and neither of them matter because...

Why Aren't You Using Hunter's Mark?

In the Modifying Classes Unearthed Arcana (you know, the one where they had the spell-less Ranger?), it's implied that Hunter's Mark is the source of most of Ranger's 'combat potency' as they term it.

Given that the half-casters, by design, have few spell slots and no way to regain spell slots between long rests, opportunity costs become an issue. This is doubly compounded by the class spells Ranger has access to, because almost all the spells that matter also require concentration.

So a damage buff measured in hours that doesn't require a save or to-hit roll, is the reliable, objectively better choice.

Frankly, if it isn't hunter's mark, you're doing it wrong by Wizards' own design notes, which is a shame because spells like ensnaring strike are actually pretty cool.

What About Paladins?

Paladins also have this opportunity cost issue, but they've got more freedom than Rangers to deal with it. The player can wait until they know for a fact they've hit before spending spell slots on Divine Smite. The wording of the various smite spells also means the spell slots are only wasted if there's literally no one left to take a swing at.

More to the point, because Charisma has decent returns for Paladins outside of casting, they wind up with a Charisma score that makes spells that need a hit/save roll actually worth risking.

But isn't Wisdom to make Ranger's half-decent healers?

I don't remember where I saw this rationale, but I do remember Wizards saying something to this extent. To which, I say 'access to cure wounds doesn't make you a healer'.

Since Xanathar's, Rangers do have more healing options (i.e. healing spirit, which is actually quite decent), but that's a far cry from being a 'healer', even in a limited capacity.

Frankly, let your Paladin handle the healing, with Lay on Hands, they're actually better at it.

What About Foe Slayer?

You get it at 20th.

It's also garbage. You're better off with 3 levels in Fighter. One usage of Action Surge gives you two extra attacks (lets assume d8s), which benefit from hunter's mark (d6s).

Assuming average rolls on a non-magic weapon with 20 Dexterity, you're pulling 28 damage from the Action Surge turn.

If you've invested in 20 Wisdom to get milage out of Foe Slayer, it takes you 6 successful attacks (so 6 turns at absolute minimum) to pull more damage than the Action Surge turn.

That still makes Foe Slayer seem somewhat reliable, but the 3 level Fighter dip could very well be Battlemaster, in which case Superiority Dice, being d8s (so averaging 5 damage) gives you 4 attacks worth of Foe Slayer's benefit (with added utility) without needing a 20 Wisdom investment.

It takes 10 successful attacks for Foe Slayer to eclipse what the Battlemaster dip provides. With Foe Slayer's once per turn restriction, that's 10 turns - a full minute to begin outpacing the output of the multiclass build.

Also: the original PHB version of this feature specified Favoured Enemies only to make it even more worthless.

Lack of Parity with Paladin

This is a minor point compared to the others, but there are glaring parts where Paladin's just given more stuff for no apparent reason.

For instance, Ranger gets 11 known spells by 20th. Paladin gets a wide range spells and can prepare 10 at a time of those assuming they have a Cha mod of 0 (in all likelihood though, they're probably going to have a Cha of at least 14 assuming they neglected their Charisma, so 12 spells minimum).

Ranger has an equivalent to Divine Sense in Primeval Awareness, but no equivalent to Lay on Hands.

Basically the list goes on and you get the point.

Why this matters is because Wizards has made the case a few times that Rangers and Paladins are designed to sort of 'mirror' each other, and yet consistently Paladins are a slightly higher on the power scale.

So What Should You Expect?

It feels like Ranger features were designed in a vacuum from each other. Each one is actually well designed on its own, but cobbled together don't amount to anything worthwhile.

Basically I'm taking the good ideas from the various Ranger stuff that Wizard's have done and making them actually worthwhile.

You'll... see what I mean.

Class Features

Hit Points

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• Hit Dice: 1d10 per Ranger Level
• Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + Constitution Modifier
• Hit Points past 1st: 1d10 (6) + Constitution Modifier

Proficiencies

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• Armour: Light Armour, Medium Armour, Shields
• Weapon: Simple Weapons, Martial Weapons
• Tools: One of: Herbalism Kit, Poisoner's Kit, Disguise Kit, Woodcarver's Tools, Cook's Utensils or Leatherworker's Tools

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• Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity
• Skills: Three of: Animal Handling, Athletics, History, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival.

Equipment

• (a) scale armor, (b) leather armor and 2 simple weapons
• (a) martial weapon, (b) simple weapon and shield
• (a) dungeoneer's pack, (b) explorer's pack
• (a) shortbow and quiver with 20 arrows, and sling and pouch with 20 bullets, (b) longbow and quiver with 20 arrows
• (a) A Component Pouch, (b) A druidic focus
• Tools of a kind you are proficient in

Natural Explorer

Your mastery over the natural world imparts the following benefits:

• You ignore difficult terrain.
• You have advantage on initiative rolls.
• On your first turn during combat, you have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet acted.
• You have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement, such those created by the entangle spell.
• You have advantage on saving throws imposed by terrain or natural conditions, such as a dexterity save to avoid slipping on smooth rocks.

You are skilled at navigating the wilderness. You gain the following benefits when travelling for an hour or more:

• Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.
• Your group can’t become lost except by magical means.
• Even when you are engaged in another activity while travelling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. You are immune to the surprised condition.
• If you are travelling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
• When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
• While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.

In addition, through gestures and sounds, you can communicate simple ideas to a beast as an action. You can read its basic mood and intent. You can learn its emotional state, whether its affected by magic of any sort, its short term needs (i.e. food, safety) and actions it can take (if any). You can also persuade it not to attack.

You cannot use this feature against a creature you have attacked in the past 10 minutes.

Deft Explorer

You are an unsurpassed explorer and survivor. Choose one of the following benefits, and then choose another one at 6th and 10th levels.

• Canny Gain another skill proficiency from your Ranger skill list. Pick one of your proficient skills, you double your proficiency bonus for checks made with that skill. In addition, thanks to your extensive wandering, you are able to speak, read, and write two languages of your choice.
• Roving Your walking speed increases by 5, and you gain a climbing speed and a swimming speed equal to your walking speed.
• Tireless As an action, you can give yourself a number of temporary hit points equal to 1d10 + your Wisdom modifier. You can use this special action a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (a minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. In addition, whenever you finish a short rest, your exhaustion level, if any, is decreased by 1.

Fighting Style

At 1st level, you gain a fighting style of your choice.

Natural Explorer

Moved half of Revised Ranger's Primeval Awareness and the Class Options UA's Deft Explorer and Primeval Awareness replacement in here.

Fighting Styles

I've made some changes to the Fighting Styles. Moving it to first is mostly parity with Paladin.

Quick note on the Frontloading

Yeah, I'm aware the Ranger here gets a lot in the first couple of levels, even by the standards of the Duncehack. That's why I've made as much of it as I possibly can scales by some dimension, so that Ranger isn't the go-to multiclass dip. It's still an efficent one, but in a 'jack of all trades' way.

Deft Explorer needs 10th Ranger to give all benefits. If you're after skillmonkeying, with the Canny feature, Bard or Rogue are probably better options anyway (even if this one expertise is technically a cheaper dip). The Roving one will be achievable with the athlete feat (if I haven't already completed it by this writeup, know that gaining swim and climb speed is part of the plan), and the Tireless one is probably better accomplished with Fighter's Second Wind, especially after the changes I made (d12 instead of d10, can use second wind even when unconscious, it adds Con Mod to the base healing amount, and if you eat a crit you regain its usage).

Preparation scales with both level (for favoured enemies and primeval awareness) and wisdom modifier (for foe slayer). Granted, for accuracy there's not that many other options out there compared to Foe Slayer, but Wisdom is a hell of an investment for it and being locked to favoured enemies means it's only situationally useful. Given Rogues get the Aim part of cunning action thanks to that UA, it's probably superior for the job anyway.

Poultices scale with both Wisdom and level, Hunter's Acumen scales with Wisdom Modifier. Granted these are kind of strong out the gate and probably the best arguments for multiclassing Ranger in this form. For Poultices, even at only 1d6, that's fewer hit dice you have to spend and you're not locked to rests with the feature as long as you're able to gather ingredients. For Hunter's mark, that's just free 1d6 damage per attack against a creature, and even having only one use is enough as you can keep reapplying it duing that 8 hour window (it doesn't require concentration after all, so you can just keep it going without any interruption).

Guerilla Tactics takes until 10th level to completely come online and Cunning Action is an easier investment for what it does.

Preparation

At 1st level, whenever you take a long rest, you can spend some time to prepare for enemies you are anticipating.

During that long rest, you select one of the following: Beasts, Fey, Humanoids, Monstrosities, Undead, Aberrations, Celestials, Constructs, Dragons, Elementals, Fiends, or Giants. This becomes your Favoured Enemy.

While you have a creature type selected, you gain the benefits of Foe Slayer and Primeval Awareness against them.

At 10th level, you may prepare two Favoured Enemies. You also have advantage to saving throws against spells cast by your Favoured Enemies.

Foe Slayer

Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom Modifier to either the attack, or damage roll of a weapon attack against a Favoured Enemy.

You can choose to do this before, or after, the roll is made, but before any effects are applied.

Primeval Awareness

If you spend 1 uninterrupted minute in concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell), you can sense whether any of Favoured Enemies for are present within 5 miles of you. This feature reveals what kinds are present, their numbers, general direction, and distance in miles from you.

If there are multiple groups of them within range, you learn this information about each group.

In addition, you also get advantage to Wisdom (Survival) checks to track them and on Intelligence checks to recall information about the type chosen.

Primeval awareness may be used without losing concentration on a spell, however doing so is taxing and imposes disadvantage on all concentration checks. Failing a concentration check means losing concentration on both effects.

Voluntarily losing concentration on one ability does not lose concentration on both.

In addition, You learn new spells when you reach certain levels in this class if you don’t already know them, as shown in the Nature's Warden table below. These spells don’t count against the number of ranger spells you know.

Primal Awareness Spells

Ranger Level	Spell
3rd	detect magic, speak with animals
5th	beast sense, locate animals or plants
9th	speak with plants
13th	locate creature
17th	commune with nature

You can cast each of these spells once without expending a spell slot. Once you cast a spell in this way, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Poultices

At 2nd level, you can make salves on the fly.

You can spend one hour gathering the materials to make them (this can be done while foraging, during a long rest, etc.). When you do, you create up to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1) in poultices. You can only hold up to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1) in poultices at a time.

They cannot be applied by anyone but you, and all poultices lose their potency if you haven't gathered materials to maintain them in 24 hours.

You can spend one minute and a poultice to heal a creature.

They restore 1d6 hit points per two Ranger Levels

Hunter's Acumen

At 2nd level, you gain the hunter's mark spell. This spell doesn't count towards your number of known spells. You can cast it a number of times equal to your Wisdom Modifier (minimum once) without expending a spell slot.

Your hunter's mark doesn't require concentration. If cast against a Favoured Enemy, you can cast it without using a bonus action.

You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

At 11th level, you regain one expended use after you finish a short rest.

Preparation

Foe Slayer is moved down here because it was an awful capstone. Here it provides a mechanical incentive to go out of your way to act like a ranger, go scouting and track things.

The rest of Primeval Awareness is here because of how it's tied into the Favoured Enemy system.

Poultices

Rolling in the Spell-Less Ranger features too. So this and Natural Antivenom are going to show up. Call Natural Allies is just the spell Conjure Animals as a class feature, so that won't directly come up.

But why here if Rangers have access to cure wounds?

Simply: extra incentive for Wis. Mod. and provides them a way to act as an offhealer without overdoing it.

The minute restriction means that it doesn't help in combat healing at all, but that's what cure wounds is for. Also, equivalent to Lay on Hands, so there's that.

Hunter's Acumen

What they released in that UA for hunter's mark was actually stronger than my version. Yeah, that's something I never thought would happen.

Spellcasting

By the time you reach 2nd level, you have learned to use the magical essence of nature to cast spells, much as a druid does.

Cantrips

At 1st level, you know two cantrips of your choice from the druid spell list. You learn additional druid cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the druid table. These are ranger cantrips for you.

(The cantrips are listed in the spell list at the end of this document)

Spell Slots

The Ranger table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your ranger spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You know three 1st-level spells of your choice from the ranger spell list.

The Spells Known column of the Ranger table shows when you learn more ranger spells of your choice. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the ranger spells you know and replace it with another spell from the ranger spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

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.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

Spellcasting Focus

You can use a druidic focus as a spellcasting focus for your ranger spells.

Spell Versatility

Whenever you finish a long rest, you can replace one spell or cantrip you learned from this Spellcasting feature with another spell from the ranger spell list. The new spell must be the same level as the spell you replace.

Ritual Casting

You can cast a ranger spell that you know as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag.

Guerilla Tactics

At 3rd level, you can hide as a bonus action.

In addition, enemies you have attacked cannot make opportunity attacks against you until the end of your turn.

When you hide, provided you then remain motionless, enemies suffer a -10 penalty to their Wisdom (Perception) checks to spot you, until the start of your next turn.

You lose this benefit when you move (or are moved), or if you are considered no longer hiding due to another action or effect.

If you are still hidden at the beginning of your next turn, you continue gaining this benefit so long as you remain motionless.

You also cannot be tracked by nonmagical means unless you choose to leave a trail.

At 5th level, this feature also allows you to dash as a bonus action.

At 10th level, whenever you roll initiative and aren't already hidden, you can hide as a reaction.

Ranger Conclave

At 3rd level, you choose an archetype that you strive to emulate from the list of available archetypes. Your choice grants features at 3rd level, and again at 7th, 11th, and 15th level.

You may choose from the: Hunter, Beastmaster, Gloom Stalker, Monster Slayer, or Horizon Walker Conclaves.

Ability Score Increases

At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th and 19th levels you gain +2 to one ability score, or +1 to two ability scores. You cannot raise an ability score above 20 this way.

Extra Attack

At 5th level, you make two weapon attacks on your attack action instead of one.

Cantrips

Adding cantrips as a base thing. I had it before the Class Options UA, but I flat out disagree with sacrificing a fighting style for them - not only are fighting styles a lot more of an opportunity cost as written in the PHB (there's no other way to get them than class levels, while cantrips are attainable with a feat), but Rangers suffer greatly without a fighting style.

Guerilla Tactics

So it looked like Hide in Plain Sight and Vanish were in 10th and 14th levels respectively because there were bordering on too many class features up front. Even now there's as many class features here as there are in Paladin.

Revised Ranger had Fleet of Foot, giving then Dash as a abonus action as well... but that was at 8th level.

Natural Antivenom

At 6th level you have resistance to Poison damage and advantage to saving throws against Poison.

Your poultices now also remove Poisons when applied.

Fade Away

At 10th level, you can use a bonus action to magically invisible, along with any equipment you are wearing or carrying, until the start of your next turn.

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

Feral Senses

At 14th level, you no longer suffer disadvantage when attacking targets you cannot see.

In addition, you are aware of the positions and movements of invisible creatures within 30 feet of you, provided the creature isn't hidden and you aren't blinded or deafened.

Heightened Instinct

At 18th level, you add your Wisdom Modifier to all saving throws, and you gain a bonus to all passive skill checks equal to your Wisdom Modifier.

In addition, you can prepare your Favoured Enemies on a short rest.

Wasn't Feral Senses an 18th feature?

It was. It also kind of comes too late at 18th, because greater invisibility is both a 4th level spell and a likely a frequent issue in the mid teens if the Monster Manual is anything to go by.

But it can't be much earlier either given that it's just really strong.

Heightened Instinct

Doubling your Wisdom saving throw is probably the biggest part of this, but don't knock the utility of passive skills either. Being able to spot the ambush, not because you aced your perception check, but because they can't physically roll higher than your passive DC, is incredibly powerful. Also, conceptually fits a Ranger.

General Design Notes

I think I figured out why the Ranger was so badly broken. There's too many things Rangers are supposed to be able to do that, if you were to put it all in right off the bat, it would wind up so frontloaded in the first 3-5 levels that it'd screw with the game balance hard, and that many martials would be stupid not to dip Ranger.

The problem is though, Battlemasters exist and already do that to the game balance.

Re: Formatting

I can't work out how to format this correctly with Homebrewery, sorry.