Cap's Ranger (3.0)

[mild summit]

Hi folks! It's me Cap, coming to you all today with a project I've been working on the past few weeks! An updated Ranger Class for D&D 5e!

I explain my reasoning in the document itself, so I won't do into too much detail here, but essentially I have felt for a long time that Ranger is an underwhelming class. In terms of white room pure damage capability, it performs fine, so that's not really my complaint. No, instead my complaint is instead their lack of identity. Most classes have a core feature they can point to, which grows with them as they level up. Often the subclasses will use this feature in interesting ways. Barbarian Rage is my best example; as you level as a Barb, your Rage gets better, and each Barbarian subclass offers something different that you can do whilst raging. Most of the other classes in the game have something similar. Ranger though, kinda just doesn't? Its "core" features of Favoured Enemy/Favoured Foe and Favoured Terrain are either mostly ribbon features, or incredibly slow-scaling meh features that don't really separate it from an Archer Fighter or a Scout Rogue.

So my homebrew addresses this, by giving them a core feature which the class is built around, which grows as you level, and which each subclass uses in different ways. In my case, this is the Wild Companion. That's right, I made Rangers the pet class! Within these rules, every Ranger will have a buddy to travel with, and to grow stronger with. I'm aware that this will put some people off the class, but I want to just make it clear that when I say buddy, that doesn't necessarily mean an animal, as each subclass expands your list of potential friends, and much in the same way that Wizards' subclasses are themed around the schools of magic, my Ranger's subclasses are each themed around different types of monsters in the game! Gloom Stalkers for instance can make an Ooze or Aberration friend, Fey Wanderers have Fey friends (naturally), and I was especially delighted when designing this system because Swarm Keeper just gets a Swarm, and Drakewarden just gets a Dragon, which made me feel like it was a good system because of how easily the homebrew slotted into the established subclasses! And for those who don't like bestial creatures at all, I even have some subclasses for you, as the aforementioned Fey Wanderer can get you a Fey creature which isn't necessarily an animal, and my Grim Slayer (My renamed and reworked Monster Slayer)'s theming is celestial creatures, with one of the options being a Cherub or Angel friend, and perhaps most obviously the Hunting Skirmisher (my renamed Hunter) has either the spirit of an old warrior as an option, or a nebulous fey spirit, which can just be a physical manifestation of your own spirit, for those who truly do not want any companion but still want these mechanics.

I've been playtesting this Ranger in my group, with two Ranger players, for the past couple of years. Both love the class and get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but I've noticed some areas I want to amend with the rules, and with One D&D's rules being announced and me still being thoroughly unimpressed with their Ranger, I figured I'd update the class to fix the issues I had with my own homebrew from playtesting it, whilst also bringing it in line with the 2024 versions of the base classes.

What's Changed (From my previous version):

• Rangers now share their AC and HP Pool with their Companion. Previously the Companion had a separate AC and HP pool, and the option for Rangers to split damage dealt to either party. In practice though this meant a bit too much HP since it was like having permanent Wild Shape, and it was also more busywork to keep track of than was necessary, so I elected to change it to a shared HP pool for ease, and to make it so that the Companion doesn't just become the target of every attack, I did the shared AC change as well. I've accounted for all the ramifications this could have (AOEs for instance), and I'm hoping it will be better moving forward.
• Rangers now their their subclass at level 3 again (previously it was 1 in my rules). I've adjusted the progression of the Wild Companion features as a result of this, whilst also cleaning up what those features give.
• Neatened up the statblocks for the Wild Companions.
• Introduced some new features (if you want to know I'll go into details, but for now the main ones to look at are Favoured Foe, and the way in which Hunter's Mark scales in the Companion features, as well as the Boost Features which each companion statblock gives)
• Made the non-Wild Companion features better as well, by removing unnecessary ribbon stuff and making them simpler to understand.
• A lot of general neatening up and small buffs/nerfs to the Companion Talents and Powers (special powers you can give your companion, kinda like Warlock Invocations)
• Actual rules on Avatar Forms (20th Level feature which allows your Companion to transform into like a super version of itself). Previously these were very vague because it wasn't relevant to my games, but I figured if I wanted to present complete rules, these should be included.

Now, I am showing these off in part as a "hey if you wanna use this, please do", since I of course believe this Ranger is much better than 5th Edition's and think Ranger players would love to use it, but I do actually have a further purpose to posting this, which is for feedback.

I've already gone through a slate of feedback with a couple of the players in my server who have a good head for the mechanics of the game, just to make sure every feature works properly, is worded correctly, and doesn't have unintended consequences in other areas, but one area which I am missing is the balance. I don't want to create a god class that is just better than everything else in the game, that's not my aim here, so I want to make sure this Ranger feels powerful to use, but not so powerful it overshadows the other players at the table. Essentially what I really want and would find valuable here is someone with good number knowledge of 5e to have a look at this and make sure it's not over-powered, but if you do have any other things to mention I'm happy to hear it as well. I therefore welcome anyone's feedback, although I do have some requests/things to bear in mind:

1. Feedback to the effect of "this is unnecessary, why have you bothered" or "this is too long" or similar is not particularly helpful. This IS what the Ranger is going to be at my table, or at least something very close to these rules, so being told to not use it achieves very little here for either me or for you.
2. Please be constructive. I've worked hard on this and put a lot of time and effort into making this good, and nothing is as deflating as seeing nothing but negatives when you put a lot of effort into something. This includes suggesting massive, sweeping changes to vast swathes of the homebrew. Small changes are fine, major overhauls less so.
3. If my table moves to One D&D's ruleset, which seems decently likely, my Ranger will also be getting Weapon Masteries, and their spellcasting will be moved to level 1, as it is in One D&D's rules, and any other changes which One D&D affects (ie spell levels changing or similar stuff) will mean some rules here will need to be tweaked. I haven't put it here in this document because at present we haven't made the switch.
4. The biggest areas of balance worry for me are the Ranger's average DPR on a turn by turn basis and how it stacks up against other classes (in particular the new Monk, and the Rogue, since I view them as filling the same combat role as Rangers), and the Avatar Forms, since I don't have enough 20th level experience to know what is reasonable for that level. I'd prefer for feedback to focus on those areas if possible, but as mentioned if you do have thoughts on other stuff I am open to hearing it.

[willow flicker]

I was able to convince one of my players into using this version of the ranger

I'll make sure to send feedback about it when we start the campaign

[mild summit]

Awesome