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? Or perhaps you learned your skills as a 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, either through book study in a civilized environment, or as a recluse who learned combat skills, tracking, and even a magical connection to nature through the necessity of surviving in the wilds.

Is your adventuring career a continuation of your work in protecting the borderlands? 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

As a ranger, you gain the following class features.

Proficiencies

• Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields
• Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
• Tools: None
• Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity
• Skills: Choose three from Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival

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 scimitars, (b) two simple melee weapons, or (c) one martial melee weapon
• (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
• (a) A longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows or (b) a large quiver containing 10 Javelins

Natural Explorer

You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. Choose two types of Favoured terrain: arctic, cave, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp or urban. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your Favoured terrain, you add the modifiers of both your Intelligence and Wisdom to the roll.

While traveling for an hour or more in your Favoured terrain, you gain the following benefits:

• Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.
• Your guidance allows your companions to also add your wisdom modifier to rolls where they attempt to forage for food or evade dangers unique to that locale (things like quicksand pits or cliffs concealed by jungle foliage, at your DM's discretion). If both you and another ranger or creature with this feature would grant their companions this benefit, each creature only adds the highest bonus it has been granted.
• You can move stealthily at a normal pace while traveling alone, or while accompanied only by a familiar, animal companion, or other such follower granted by a spell, background, or class feature.
• Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.

You also gain one additional favoured terrain at level 14, and all of your favoured terrains also gain a new benefit at that level.

Favoured Enemy

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

Choose a type of Favoured enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as Favoured enemies.

Creatures who have "Hybrid Nature" can be chosen via either of their types. For example, if you wanted to be a grizzled warrior seasoned at fighting centaurs, the UA Centaur race counts as both Humanoid and Monstrosity, so you could either take Favoured Enemy (Centaur) and still select one other kind of Humanoid, or, if you chose monstrosity, Centaurs would still be affected by it.

You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your Favoured 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 that is spoken by your Favoured enemies, if they speak one at all. If you select Beasts, instead, you can speak to, and understand, one sub-category of beasts (such as canines or birds) as if you shared a language.

You choose one additional Favoured enemy, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 10th level. When you reach those levels, you also gain additional benefits which apply to all of your chosen favoured enemies.

Ranger's Trick

Rangers don't rely solely on their spells and skill, both on the battlefield and off it. A ranger's tricks represent those surprises a Ranger can pull out of the bag without seemingly having had enough time or resources to prepare such things, convenient and useful items nobody can ever quite remember how they came to possess, or risky maneuvers they still manage to pull off, despite looking exhausted.

Finally, also at 1st level, you learn two tricks of your choice, from a list given at the end of the class description. If a ranger trick calls for a saving throw, the DC is equal to your Spell Save DC.

While each trick is a specific skill or item you happen to have on your person, even a well-prepared person's luck runs out eventually. You can use one of the Ranger's Tricks you know once. You must then finish a short or long rest to use your Ranger's Tricks again.

You have a pool of Trick points equal to your wisdom modifier, which you expend to use Ranger Tricks. You recover all expended points when you finish a short or long rest.

Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can swap one Trick out for any other you meet the pre-requisites for.

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 the time you reach 2nd level, you have learned to use the magical essence of nature to cast spells, much as a druid does. See chapter 10 for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 for the ranger spell list.

Hunter's Mark

This feature is intended to replace the 1st level ranger spell of the same name. While this homebrew is being used, the spell Hunter's Mark should be removed from the ranger spell list.

Expertise

At 3rd level, choose two of your skill proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies. At 10th level, you can choose another two skill proficiencies to gain this benefit.

Ranger Styles

People who would fit into the ranger class do not necessarily have a recognisable pattern in terms of combat style, source of their magical abilities, or moral ideals. However, there are certainly identifiable trends in how a ranger's more specialised skills take shape, even if they were learned in different ways. These are sometimes colloquially called a Ranger's Style.

You gain your first Ranger Style Feature when you choose your Style at 3rd, and it grants you additional features at levels 7, 11 and 15.

The majority of styles work exactly as presented in the PHB or Xanathar's Guide to Everything, but the Beastmastery style has been revised and will be included at the end of the document, after the Ranger Tricks.

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.

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level you can attack twice, instead of once, when you make an Attack action on your turn.

Instinctive Preparation

After you've reached level 6, the acts of preparing to combat your favoured enemies are so instinctive you don't even notice doing them, and your depth of knowledge ensures you're never unprepared to take one down.

Choose 2 damage types. When attacking your favoured Enemies using that damage type, you ignore resistance to it, and creatures who would normally be immune to it still take half damage.

When you gain an additional favoured enemy at 10, you can also choose another damage type to overcome resistances to in this manner.

Reliable Knowledge

When you've reached 10th level, your knowledge on your favoured enemies is reaching unparalleled levels, and there's nearly no tale or fact about such creatures that you haven't heard. When making intelligence and wisdom checks regarding your favoured enemies, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.

Honed Instincts

When you reach 11th level, your instincts have become so finely honed that they contribute as much to your combat as sheer skill does.

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, that creature takes additional damage equal to your wisdom modifier.

Heart of the Land

Reaching 14th level has honed your understanding of the natural world to such an extent that the basic benefits of Natural Explorer apply to all terrains. Instead, you have the following benefits while traveling in your favoured terrains.

• Your knowledge of the patterns and layouts these areas tend to take prevent you from getting lost, except via magical means.
• You don't need to purchase or spend additional time collecting materials in order to protect yourself and a number of creatures up to your ranger level from the conditions inflicted by extreme heat or cold, at least as it occurs in those areas
• You, and any companions that travel with you, can move stealthily at a normal or fast pace.
• You can attempt a foraging roll even where it'd normally be impossible for anyone else, and gain twice as much food if you succeed, regardless of the difficulty.

Feral Senses

At 18th level, you've honed your senses to an almost supernatural level, which helps 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.

Eternal Hunter

When you reach 20th level, you mark your quarry almost instinctively. You no longer need to expend a spell slot in order to use your hunter's mark feature, and if you don't use it again, or move it to a different target, the mark will stay active until the affected creature dies or is targeted by an effect that removes curses or dispels magic.

Ranger's Tricks

If an Ranger Trick has prerequisites, you must meet them to learn it. You can learn the Trick at the same time that you meet its prerequisites.

When a Ranger Trick calls for a saving throw, use your Ranger Spell Save DC as the DC for that saving throw.

Crippling retreat

When you use the disengage action on your turn, you can expend 1 trick point to make a weapon attack using either a melee weapon in your hand, or a piece of ammunition, which is treated as a simple finesse weapon that deals 1d4 piercing damage.

On a hit, the target must make a dexterity saving throw. If it fails that saving throw, it's land movement speed is also reduced by 10' until the end of it's next turn.

Different Tack

You learned your abilities and magic in a different way to most other rangers. When you learn this trick, select Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma. This permanently becomes your spellcasting ability modifier for your ranger spells, and also replaces any other references to your Wisdom score in your Ranger class features.

In addition, your method of casting spells is so different you can use it to catch people off guard.

When you cast a spell on a creature who hasn't seen you cast a spell before, you can expend 1 trick point to impose disadvantage upon the first saving throw they make against that spell.

You can try to use this trick on a creature who has seen you casting before, however, you have to succeed on a Charisma(Deception) check contested by the creature's Wisdom(Insight). If you win the contest, they also take disadvantage on the first saving throw they make against the spell. If they win the contest, the Trick point is still expended, but the spell is only cast normally.

Improvised Snare

As an action, you can expend a trick point and 50' of rope to increase your movement speed by 30 feet until the end of your current turn.

Within the path that you pass through during that turn, select a 50' line to set your snare along. This line can be curved or broken up however you like, but you must set at least 5' of the snare at a time.

These Snares are concealed, if a creature doesn't see you placing them, they need to succeed on a Perception check against your Spell Save DC or be unaware of their presence.

When a creature passes through the space, they must succeed on a dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone and have their movement reduced to 0 until the end of it's current turn.

A creature can avoid this penalty by spending twice as much movement to move through the space, if it is aware of the snare.

You can recover the rope used in this way by spending a minute retracing your path slowly, removing the snare carefully.

Shift Grip

On your turn, when you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can expend a trick point to change the style of the strike, and how you use your current weapon. Select one damage type of bludgeoning, piercing or slashing which your weapon doesn't currently deal. The weapon does that damage type until you either use a bonus action to end this effect, or you finish a short or long rest.

Skill Share

Pre-Requisite: Beastmastery Style

When you finish a short or long rest, you can expend 1 trick point to run through strategies with your companion. They gain the full benefits of your Favoured Enemy and Natural Explorer features, and become proficient in one skill that you are also proficient in.

These benefits last until the end of your next short or long rest.

Hunter's Quarry

Pre-Requisite: Hunter or Monster Slayer Style

When you use your hunter's mark feature on a creature, you can spend a Trick point to make the feature last 24 hours while it remains on that creature, and if you can see that creature while the mark remains, you can take the dash action as a bonus action, as long as you move towards the marked creature.

Shadow Weaver

Pre-Requisite: Gloom Stalker Style

As a bonus action while in darkness or dim light, you can spend a Trick point as a bonus action to gather some of these shadows around you as you try and leap out to ambush your foes.

The first time after spending this Trick point that you step out of the concealment that Darkness or Dim Light would offer you, you can move a number of feet equal to your wisdom score without being considered in plain view, or losing the benefits of any stealth check you might have made to hide in those shadows.

Planar Knowledge

Pre-Requisite: Horizon Walker

You have seen so much of the planes that you can spend a Trick point as an action to focus on recalling your knowledge of a certain plane.

When you do this, select one Plane that isn't the material plane, and one type of creature native to that plane. You treat the Plane as a favoured terrain, and the chosen creatures as your Favoured Enemy, until the end of your next Short or Long Rest.

You can also select a creature type you already count as a Favoured Enemy in order to temporarily add the benefits of making different choices with your Instinctive Preparation feature.

Beastmastery Style