“All that is gold does not glitter,
All That is Gold Does Not Glitter, Bilbo Baggins
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.“
Do you dream of being the stoic, brooding stranger that the party, even after months traveling together, still fear and respect in equal parts? The enduring hunter who never abandons pursuit of their foe? Then the Ranger might be the class for you.
This is part of a series of posts examining how to make the most of the mechanics of each of 5e’s classes. Each post explains good and bad class mechanics, combat tactics, and gives a quick comparison guide. This is not an optimisation guide — I aim to highlight the mechanical choices that are good, rather than best. Good choices are those that will keep you from feeling ineffective, as opposed to bad choices that give you abilities that are underwhelming, situational, or demonstrably and significantly inferior to other choices.
Proper Preparation
Every survivalist knows that preparation is key to making it home alive, so lets prepare a character sheet.
Crippling Overspecialisation
While the Bard’s abilities are too general, the Ranger is overly specialised. Natural Explorer is great for overland travel, exploration, and foraging — activities that are generally hand-waved — and only in particular terrain. Favoured Enemy is underwhelming — you must pick a creature type, often without knowing if you will ever face it, and gain only a small bonus for tracking, which comes up infrequently.
Land’s Stride and Hide in Plain Sight are also hard to use effectively. Difficult terrain is usually easily avoidable anyway, and is not an issue for ranged rangers. A +10 Stealth bonus sounds impressive, but at 10th level, a Ranger already has a +19 bonus thanks to Pass Without Trace. If the rest of your party is present, increasing that bonus to +29 will not matter, as someone else will give you away.
Exploration: the Forgotten Pillar
As an aside, the lackluster nature of these abilities indicates an issue with the wider design of 5e. The overwhelming bulk of mechanics are intended for combat — this is where every class has a clear way to contribute. Combat works very well — it is exciting and engaging, and the stakes are clear. Although the PCs will almost always win, there can still be a cost in attrition, or certain enemies escaping, or alarms being raise, and so forth. Even a catastrophic TPK should be exciting, if terrifying.
Exploration tasks like tracking, on the other hand, is not made particularly engaging, and do not have much room for co-operation (mechanically speaking). The designers clearly decided that failing a quest because the one Survival check to track the monster failed was dull, so allowed rerolls at the cost of time. Time is a meaningless concept, so there is nothing to stop infinite rerolls, allowing the game to progress to the next fight.
There is nothing wrong with this, as 5e is a game about killing monsters above all else. It simply means that attempts to bring in tracking and travel will not be as exciting or engaging, so are easier to ignore, and there are fewer opportunities to add cool mechanics. It just is not a big part of the game.
Indomitable Killer
In addition to an impressive array of skill proficiencies, all Rangers have two potent abilities, and whatever their Archetype offers.
Extra Attack is an excellent boost to damage. It is reliable, offering a second chance if your first attack misses, and versatile, letting you damage two targets if the first strike is enough to kill one.
The Ranger’s spell list is their second power. Even at 12th level, Rangers only have spells up to level 3, so will not compete with full casters. Instead, they should pick options that synergies with making lots of attacks.
For 1st level spells, Hunter’s Mark is excellent — the extra damage is multiplied on criticals, applies to both attacks, and the spell can be cast as a bonus action. Absorb Elements offers defense and damage, and does not disrupt your action economy. Cure Wounds looks good, but there are enough other ways to heal, and you will generally have more efficient options in combat. A full explanation of healing magic will be in the Cleric post when it comes.
At 2nd level, Pass Without Trace solves the problem of one party member being loud. Silence has stealth uses, and can disrupt casters with Verbal components, although shooting them twice with Hunter’s Mark may be more effective. Others, like Locate X, again fall into overspecialisation.
Many 3rd level spells — Nondetection, Plant Growth, Speak with Plants, Waterbreathing — are further overspecialisations. Protection from Energy is highly effective, but competes for concentration with Hunter’s Mark, which will last the full day if upcast.
Rangers must also choose a Fighting Style, and the weapons to go with it. I will go into details about Fighting Styles in the Fighter guide.
Rangers in the Wilderness
The Player’s Handbook offers two Ranger Archetypes: the Beastmaster and the Hunter.
The Hunter makes an expert killer better at killing. The third level options are offensive. Colossus Slayer is the easiest to use with Hunter’s Mark, and can be applied reliably once you can make two attacks. Giant Killer is overspecialised — it is not every turn that a giant will miss you with a melee attack. Horde Breaker stops you focusing fire, making less effective use of Hunter’s Mark, and is harder to force than Colossus Slayer. The 7th and 11th level options depend on whether the Ranger fights in melee or at range. Archers will want Escape the Horde to get out of melee, and Volley. Melee Rangers will want Multiattack Defense and Whirlwind Attack.
The Beastmaster is more complex. As presented in the Player’s Handbook, the companion has a modified version of the Monster Manual stat block. Where the Hunter lets you make your attacks more powerful, the Beastmaster lets you exchange attacks for…other attacks. Exceptional Training consumes a Bonus Action that you will hopefully want to cast or move Hunter’s Mark. Bestial Fury is the only purely good ability here — you exchange one of your attacks for two companion attacks.
It is not without reason that the Beastmaster is held in disdain, and that a better version was published in a later supplement. Although the concept is fun, the mechanics consume to much of the Ranger’s action economy, keeping them from other things they are better at. If you want to play a Beastmaster, use the Primal Companion version from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, which fixes these issues.
Ability Scores
As Rangers lack Heavy Armour, they need a Dexterity of at least 14. By using ranged or finesse weapons, they can make Strength redundant. Wisdom is used for spellcasting, but most Rangers will be more concerned with Constitution for the hit points. Intelligence is useful for some skills, but Rangers do not gain proficiency in any Charisma skills, so gain nothing from Charisma. Their scores should be ordered: Dexterity; Constitution and Wisdom; Intelligence; Charisma and Strength.
The Hunt
Martial classes — those that get multiple attacks — fall somewhere between two extremes. Some, like the Barbarian, focus on staying alive long enough to keep hitting the enemy, trusting that they will win the war of attrition. The Ranger is the other extreme: a striker who focuses on hitting so hard the monster cannot hit back.
Rangers have very limited defensive options, lacking the Heavy Armour of the Fighter and the Uncanny Dodge of the Rogue — the two classes the Ranger has the most in common with. This makes ranged attacks very attractive, as most enemies will be unable to attack you, while you will always be able to attack them. Melee Rangers will need a good Constitution to cope with the extra damage.
A sound Ranger strategy is to cast Hunter’s Mark on a weak or wounded monster, then shoot it. On a future turn, once it is dead, transfer or recast Hunter’s Mark to a new weak monster. Killing these minions will generally be better than wounding tougher monsters, as it will change the action economy — the monsters will take fewer actions each round, so the party will be safer. Hunters with Colossus Slayer will be particularly effective at moping up wounded creatures. This leaves the Barbarians and Fighters of the world free to wade into danger while you stay safe.
Beastmasters will be less threatening than Hunters, but can use their companion to pin down other monsters as you both have Reactions. The extra pool of hit points improves your survivability — every attack against your companion is one not directed at you. Controlling an extra creature gives you an improved ability to control space on the battlefield. Use this to create flanking opportunities for Rogues, keep Wizards out of melee, and stop Fighters being pinned down by grunts.
Rate My Ranger
Following the normal method, how does the Ranger measure up to other classes? Complexity is about how much you must keep track of while playing. Strategy is about the number of options available in combat. Versatility indicates how many options a character has in non-combat scenarios. Flavour is how clear and distinct the class’s concept is. Finally, Diversity represents how many options there are for making different characters of the same class distinct.
Complexity: 2 (4 for Beastmasters)
All Rangers need to track concentration, and remember who is affected by Hunter’s Mark. Most campaigns ignore counting ammunition, so they are otherwise fairly simple. Beastmasters are the exception, as they have an extra creature with different stats and a separate HP pool, which benefits from seperate buffs and may frequently take the Dodge action.
Strategy: 2
Depending on the build, the ranger’s strategic choices will usually be to kill lots of minions, or wear down the boss . However, Beastmasters have access to significantly more complex strategies for controlling the battlefield.
Versatility: 3
Rangers have more skill proficiencies than most, some (infrequently used) bonuses for tracking and traveling, and the help of spells. They are particularly good at hiding and spotting things. However, they lack possibility-creating spells like Dimension Door, and are ill-suited to negotiations.
Flavour: 4
Wilderness wandering survivors have been a trope of fantasy since Tolkien, who named them. Robin Hood, the outcast forest-dwelling archer, also fits. However, there are fewer examples in older myths and folklore.
Diversity: 4
For all their flaws, Beastmasters offer a very different approach from the Hunter. Weapon and spell choices also change how Rangers function, creating plenty of way to vary them.