The Ranger nobody asked for

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 mutters an incantation as he becomes vivified with mystic speed. 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.

Crouching behind a ledge, holding his hand high, a half-elf signals to his team to hold. The marching band of dragon cultists have been spotted. They lay and wait, their ambush prepped. He readies his bow, while the rest wait for his signal.

Each of these characters is a ranger, a diverse class of skilled wilderness survivalists. Rangers do whatever they can to survive in even the harshest of conditions. Whether that entails mastering martial techniques, medicine, befriending animals, or using druid magic, rangers know what is needed to survive in the bitter world they call home.

Deadly and Independent

Though a ranger might make a living as a hunter, a guide, or a tracker, a ranger’s true calling is to defend the outskirts of civilization from the ravages of monsters, humanoid hordes, or otherworldly beings that press in from the wild. Many rangers are independent, almost to a fault, knowing that when a dragon or a band of orcs attack, a ranger might be the first—and possibly the last—line of defense.

Adept wanders, rangers traverse the landscape with ease thanks to their familiarity with the wilds. It it through such familiarity that rangers learn to survive through brutal necessity. They adapt to use terrain to their advantage. They emphasize speed, stealth, and the hunt. A ranger’s talents and abilities are honed with deadly focus on the grim task of protecting the borderlands. They learn ranger magic—a practical magic steeped in ritual and born from the divine reverence of nature and the application of arcane techniques and enhancements to whatever tools and materials are available.

This fierce independence makes rangers well suited to exploration, since they are accustomed to life far from the comforts of a dry bed and a hot bath. Faced with city-bred adventurers who grouse and whine about the hardships of the wild, rangers respond with some mixture of amusement, frustration, and compassion. But they quickly learn that other adventurers who can carry their own weight in a fight against civilization’s foes are worth the extra burden. Coddled city folk might not know how to feed themselves or find fresh water in the wild, but they make up for it in other ways.

Hit Points

• Hit Dice: 1d10 per Ranger level
• Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier
• Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 or 6 + your Constitution modifier per ranger level after 1st

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, Medicine, 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 (b) one martial weapon
• (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
• one ranged weapon and a carrier with 20 ammunition

Fjords

High ledges and long dives have not slowed your step. Climbing and swimming do not cost you extra movement.

Oasis

Long travels across vast nothingness has cultivated extreme self reliance. Choose one skill from the ranger skill list or one tool that you do not already have proficiency in. You gain proficiency with that skill or tool.

Polar

Biting winds fended off with a warm fire restores your body and your spirit. When you spend Hit Dice as part of a short rest, you regain additional hit points equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1) for each Hit Die spent.

Feywild

A quick wit and a jolly step earned the trust of some fascinating friends. You learn the Find Familiar spell, but it can only be ritually cast as part of a long rest. Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for this spell. Your familiar appears fey instead of its normal appearance.

Quagmire

Death isn't obvious to some, but to you, spotting a hidden toxin is a matter of life. You can sense the presence and location of poisons, poisonous creatures, and diseases within 30 feet of you so long as you are able to see or smell the source. You also identify the kind of poison, poisonous creature, or disease in each case. Additionally, you gain advantage on saving throws to resist poison.

Metropolitan

Others walk the path less traveled, but you've studied the books from great libraries and caroused with nomads and urchins alike. You learn 2 additional languages of your choice, and choose three of the following skills: Arcana, History, Nature, Religion, Investigation, Deception, Persuasion, or Performance. Whenever you make a skill check with one of the chosen skills, you can add half your Wisdom modifier (rounded up) to the result.

Cut Down

Your tenacity can wear down the most potent foes. At 1st level, you can augment your attacks for extra lethality. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, they take an extra 1d8 damage.

At later levels in this class, the damage of this ability increases: the damage becomes 2d8 at 9th level and 3d8 at 17th level.

Steady Aim

Starting at 9th level, you suppress any tremble just long enough to ensure you strike true. After you make a weapon attack roll, you can add 1d4 to the total. You must do this before determining the outcome of the roll.

Swift Quiver

Starting at 17th level, you can make 1 attack as a bonus action. If you engage in two-weapon fighting, you make this extra attack concurrently with the bonus action attack from two-weapon fighting and you make this attack with either weapon.

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.

For example, if you know the 1st-level spell animal friendship and have a 1st-level and a 2nd-level spell slot available, you can cast animal friendship using either slot.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You know two 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. For instance, when you reach 7th level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class or spend a tenday performing downtime activities dedicated to learning new magic, 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.

Martial Versatility

Whenever you reach a level in this class that grants the Ability Score Improvement feature, including this one, you can replace a fighting style you know with another fighting style available to rangers. This replacement represents a shift of focus in your martial practice.

Wilderness Expert

2nd-level Hunter feature

You lead from the front, and are never lost. You gain proficiency with Medicine, Survival, or the Herbalism Kit (your choice). In addition, you gain the following:

• Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.
• You have advantage on Survival(Wisdom) checks to navigate so long as you can see the sun and/or the night sky.
• When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
• You gain advantage on Survival(Wisdom) checks to track or find other creatures. Additionally, you learn how long ago they passed through the area on a tracking success.

Hunter’s Eye

2nd-level Hunter feature

You gain the ability to peer at a creature and magically discern how best to hurt it. 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.

Favored Enemy

6th-level Hunter feature

You have significant experience studying, tracking, and hunting a certain type of enemy. Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, giants, monstrosities, oozes, or plants. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies. The damage of your Huntsman Cutdown feature increases by 1d8 if the target is your favored enemy.

During a long rest, you can spend time studying a new type of enemy. After finishing the long rest, you can change your favored enemy to a different type from the list above.

Improved Huntsman

6th-level Hunter feature

You can use each of your Huntsman abilities one additional time between rests.

Land’s Stride

10th-level Hunter feature

Moving through nonmagical difficult terrain costs you no extra movement. You can also 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 can add half your proficiency bonus (round down) to any Strength or Dexterity check you make that doesn’t already use your proficiency bonus.

Evasion

14th-level Hunter feature

When you are subjected to an effect, such as a red dragon’s fiery breath or a lightning bolt spell, that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

Slayer’s Counter

18th-level Hunter feature

You gain the ability to counterattack when your foes try to sabotage you. When you are forced to make a saving throw, you can use your reaction to make one weapon attack against the creature forcing the save. 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.

Feral Senses

18th-level Hunter feature

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.

Ranger's Flexibility

2nd-level Outrider feature

The school of hard knocks forced you to be a versatile combatant, quickly switching tactics moment by moment. On your turn, you can stow one weapon and draw a different weapon with your free Interact with an Object Action. In addition, you treat the Shortbow, Longbow, and weapons with the versatile property as also having the finesse property.

Rough and Ready

2nd-level Outrider feature

Hard travel, long hours, and dangerous environments don't slow you down, gifting you with tenacity and a hardy physique. You gain the following benefits.

• You gain proficiency with either Acrobatics or Athletics.
• You have advantage on Constitution checks and saving throws to avoid fatigue or to avoid dangerous environments; such as by holding your breath.
• You are considered to be one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. If you're already considered a size larger from your race, this feature does not stack.
• Your jump distance is doubled.
• Anytime you gain temporary hit points, you gain an additional amount equal to your Proficiency bonus.

Skirmishing Tact

6th-level Outrider feature

Skilled at skirmishing, you learn to maneuver swiftly in order to keep pace with your foes. You gain the following two unique combat techniques. You can use each of these techniques a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses after finishing a long rest.

Overwatch: You tenure a deep focus which allows you to act and react with greater precision. You can use your reaction to make one ranged attack against a creature who moved at least 10 feet in a straight line on its turn.

Heavy Strike: Once per turn, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon held with both hands, you may perform a special Heavy Strike. The weapon damage of the attack gains 1 additional die of its type. Additionally, you do not provoke attacks of opportunity from the target for the rest of your turn.

Ready to Ride

10th-level Outrider feature

You learn the Find Steed spell as a Ranger spell for you. You may cast this spell once, without expending a spell slot. However, when you cast it in this manner, you cannot telepathically communicate with your steed. Once you do so, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest.

Defensive Tactics

14th-level Outrider feature

You gain the following features:

Escape the Horde Opportunity attacks against you are made with disadvantage.

Multiattack Defense When a creature hits you with an attack, you gain a +4 bonus to AC against all subsequent attacks made by that creature for the rest of the turn.

Steel Will You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.

Multiattack

18th-level Outrider feature

You master the swiftness needed to cut down all foes in your way. You gain the following attack upgrades.

Volley. Once per turn, when you hit a target with a ranged weapon attack, you can make an additional attack against each other target that is within 10ft of the original target.

Whirlwind. Once per turn, when you hit a target with a melee weapon attack, you can make an additional attack against each other target that is within 5ft of the original target.

Hide in Plain Sight

2nd-level Stalker feature

Whether you're a bounty hunter, dungeon delver, wander, or vagabond, you learn the tricks required to avoid pursuers. You cannot be tracked by non-magical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.

Additionally, you can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena. When you use your action to hide, you gain advantage on the Dexterity (Stealth) check as long as you have not moved or used a bonus action on your turn. You retain this benefit so long as you stay motionless and do not use an action, bonus action, or reaction.

Guise of the Night Walker

2nd-level Stalker feature

You establish an art for concealment and surprise. You gain proficiency in one of the following skills or tools of your choice: Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Thieves' Tools, or the Disguise Kit. You can add your Wisdom modifier to your initiative rolls.

Additionally, you gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. If you already have darkvision from your race, its range increases by 30 feet.

Ambuscade

6th-level Stalker feature

When you roll for initiative and are not surprised, you can immediately move up to 1/2 your speed; acting as if you had taken the disengage action. On your first turn in combat, if you take the Attack action, your first weapon attack deals an extra 2d6 damage of the weapon’s damage type. This damage increases to 3d6 at 10th level, and 4d6 at 14th level.

Additionally, whenever you were hidden from a creature at the start of your turn, you remain hidden from that creature until you take an action on your turn.

Hearth of Moonlight and Shadow

10th-level Stalker feature

Home can be wherever you are. During a short or long rest, you can invoke the shadowy power of the Gloaming Court to help guard your respite. At the start of the rest, you touch a point in space, and an invisible, 30-foot-radius sphere of magic appears, centered on that point. Total cover blocks the sphere.

While within the sphere, you and your allies gain a +5 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) and Wisdom (Perception) checks, and any light from open flames in the sphere (a campfire, torches, or the like) isn’t visible outside it.

The sphere vanishes at the end of the rest or when you leave the sphere.

Eyes of the Deep Stalker

10th-level Stalker feature

Your senses improve. You gain blindsight out to a range of 10 feet. If you already have blindsight, its range increases by 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you.

Shadowy Dodge

14th-level Stalker feature

You can dodge in unforeseen ways, with wisps of supernatural shadow around you. Whenever a creature makes an attack roll against you and doesn’t have advantage on the roll, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on it. You must use this feature before you know the outcome of the attack roll.

If the creature has multiple attacks, they have disadvantage on all attacks against you until the start of your next turn.

Curtain Call

18th-level Stalker feature

You can momentarily summon the wisps of supernatural shadow to infuse your weapons with heightened lethality. When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you can convert that hit into a critical hit.

Once you use this feature you cannot do so again until you roll for a new initiative.

Transcendental Detection

2nd-level Horizon Walker feature

By spending 1 minute feeling the earth and the flow of space and time around you, you gain a fine-tuned mystical sense to other worldly beings nearby. For the next minute, you gain the ability to magically sense the presence of any planar portal, and whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile: aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number but does reveal their general direction, as well as the exact location of any planar portals.

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

Planar Warrior

2nd-level Horizon Walker feature

You learn parts of the secrets and strengths of the multiverse. You learn the Control Flames, Gust, and Shape Water cantrips. They count as ranger cantrips for you, and Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for these spells. You gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Arcana, History, or Religion.

Additionally, when you use your Cut Down Huntsman ability, you can convert the damage of the entire attack to: fire, cold, thunder, or lightning damage.

Slipstream

6th-level Horizon Walker feature

You can draw the planes together for brief moment, letting you slip past creatures resulting in a discharge of energy as the spacial tear traverses their being. As a bonus action, you can become partially ethereal until the end of your current turn. During this time, you have a fly speed equal to your movement speed, you can move through other creatures freely, and ignore all attacks of opportunity.

If you move through one or more creatures during this time, you can force one of those creatures to make a Constitution saving through against your spell save DC. On a failure, the creature takes force damage equal to the roll of a number of d6s equal to your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier. On a success, it takes 1/2 as much damage.

You can use this bonus action to slip past creatures a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses after finishing a long rest.

Become the Gatekeeper

10th-level Horizon Walker feature

As an action, you can cast the Arcane Gate spell with this feature. Once you use this feature you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

Nullification

14th-level Horizon Walker feature

You gain the ability to thwart someone else’s magic. 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, unless you expend a 3rd or 4th level spell slot to use this feature again early.

Investiture of the Multiverse

18th-level Horizon Walker feature

Reaching through the planes, you can infuse yourself with their otherworldly power. Drawing from the plane's power, you can cast one of the following spells as an action. When you cast the spell, it does not require concentration, nor verbal and somatic components.

Once you cast one of these spells, you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

• Investiture of Flame
• Investiture of Ice
• Investiture of Stone
• Investiture of Wind

Plane Shift

18th-level Horizon Walker feature

Finally mastering the ability to shift through the planes, you learn the Plane Shift spell. However, you cannot use this spell to banish an unwilling creature. You can cast this spell once using this feature, and regain the ability to do so after finishing a long rest.

Otherworldly Glamour

2nd-level Fey Wanderer feature

Your fey qualities give you a supernatural charm. You gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Deception, Performance, or Persuasion. Additionally, choose another skill from the same list, which could be the same or different skill. You gain an expertise die with the chosen skill. When you make an ability check in which you have an expertise die, roll 1d4 and add the number rolled to the result of your check.

Beguiling Twist

2th-level Fey Wanderer feature

The magic of the Feywild guards your mind. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened. Additionally, you learn the Dancing Lights and Minor Illusion cantrips. They count as ranger cantrips for you, and Wisdom is your spell casting ability for these spells.

Heart Strung Marionettist

6th-level Fey Wanderer feature

A light flick of the wrist tightens the grip wrapped around your victim's vitality. After dealing damage to a creature with an attack, you can leave a mark laced with potent magic from the Feywild. A creature can be marked more than once. Each mark lasts up to 1 minute, unless it is dispelled or detonated.

When you use your Cut Down Huntsman ability against a marked target, you detonate all marks on the target. Roll 1d6 for each mark and choose to gain temporary hit points equal to total or deal psychic damage equal to the total.

Mirage

10th-level Fey Wanderer feature

As an action, you can create an illusory copy of yourself that lasts for up to 10 minutes. The copy can appear within 120ft of you. The illusion looks and sounds like you, but is intangible. If the illusion takes any damage, it disappears.

You can use your action to move this illusion up to twice your speed and make it gesture, speak, and behave in whatever way you choose. It mimics your mannerisms perfectly.

Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an illusion because things can pass through it. A creature that uses its action to examine the image can determine that it is an illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the illusion for what it is, the creature can see through the image, and any noise it makes sounds hollow to the creature.

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

Misty Wanderer

14th-level Fey Wanderer feature

You can slip in and out of the Feywild to move in a blink of an eye: you can cast Misty Step without expending a spell slot. You can do so a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

In addition, whenever you cast Misty Step, you can bring along one willing creature you can see within 5 feet of you. That creature teleports to an unoccupied space of your choice within 5 feet of your destination space.

Blades of Duality

18th-level Fey Wanderer feature

The magic of the royalty mirrors your blades, doubling your cuts. As a bonus action you can conjure a floating prismatic mirror of your active weapons for the next minute. Once per turn after you attack a target, you can make one additional attack against that same target using a mirrored copy of your active weapon. You are proficient with this weapon and it has all the properties of your active weapon, except that it deals force or psychic damage instead your weapon's normal damage type.

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

Celestial Trailblazer

2nd-level Pathfinder feature

The spirits under the stars guide your way. You learn the Light and Guidance cantrips. They are Ranger spells for you, and Wisdom is your spell casting ability for these spells.

Additionally, you gain proficiency with the Cartographer's Tools or Navigator's Tools (your choice).

Guiding Strike

2nd-level Pathfinder feature

The great Perseus fills you with the power to guide your allies' deadly strikes. When you use your Cutdown Huntsman ability, you expose a weakness via faint illumination from star light. The next attack against the target, other than one of yours, gains Advantage.

Orion's Aim

6th-level Pathfinder feature

The hunter Orion guides your aim. You can add your Wisdom modifier to your first weapon attack roll on each of your turns.

Traveling Soot Sprite

10th-level Pathfinder feature

You can summon the spirits from a generation ago to aid you in completing your journey. You can perform a small, 1 minute ritual to summon a tiny sprite in your open hand. The sprite is considered to be a tiny creature that can fly, but vanishes immediately upon taking damage or rolling for initiative. When summoned, you can ask the sprite for aid. You must describe what you are looking for to the sprite. The sprite will float whimsically in front of you, guiding you towards the described.

The sprite can easily find well described things, such as a creature, an exit, a hidden object, or a location within 1000 feet. If you provide loose information to the sprite, it may not be able to locate what you desire. In such a case, the sprite may cause you to loop in circles, leading you to something similar, or it may not move at all.

The sprite lasts for up to 1 hour or until it has found what you have described before disappearing. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.