Ranger

Image used by permission of Yama Orce.

Note: The text in this shaded box was taken from a different Open Game License product. Nothing in the text should be interpreted as “rules” or “mechanics”.

For those who relish the thrill of the hunt, there are only predators and prey. Be they scouts, trackers, or bounty hunters, rangers share much in common: unique mastery of specialized weapons, skill at stalking even the most elusive game, and the expertise to defeat a wide range of quarries. Knowledgeable, patient, and skilled hunters, these rangers hound man, beast, and monster alike, gaining insight into the way of the predator, skill in varied environments, and ever more lethal martial prowess. While some track man-eating creatures to protect the frontier, others pursue more cunning game-even fugitives among their own people.

Class Features

As a ranger, you gain the following class features.

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, 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) two simple melee weapons
  • (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
  • A longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows
Table: The Ranger
Level Proficiency Bonus Features Spells Known Spell Slots per Spell Level
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
1st +2 Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer
2nd +2 Fighting Style, Spellcasting 2 2
3rd +2 Ranger Archetype, Primeval Awareness 3 3
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement 3 3
5th +3 Extra Attack 4 4 2
6th +3 Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer improvements 4 4 2
7th +3 Ranger Archetype feature 5 4 3
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement, Land’s Stride 5 4 3
9th +4 6 4 3 2
10th +4 Natural Explorer improvement, Hide in Plain Sight 6 4 3 2
11th +4 Ranger Archetype feature 7 4 3 3
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement 7 4 3 3
13th +5 8 4 3 3 1
14th +5 Favored Enemy improvement, Vanish 8 4 3 3 1
15th +5 Ranger Archetype feature 9 4 3 3 2
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement 9 4 3 3 2
17th +6 10 4 3 3 3 1
18th +6 Feral Senses 10 4 3 3 3 1
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement 11 4 3 3 3 2
20th +6 Foe Slayer 11 4 3 3 3 2

Favored 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 favored 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 favored enemies.

You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored 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 favored enemies, if they speak one at all.

You choose one additional favored enemy, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 14th level. As you gain levels, your choices should reflect the types of monsters you have encountered on your adventures.

Natural Explorer

You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, or swamp. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you’re proficient in.

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

  • 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 traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.
  • If you are traveling 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.

You choose additional favored terrain types at 6th and 10th level.

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.

Archery

You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.

Defense

While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.

Dueling

When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.

Fang and Talon (3pp)

Source SPCM

When you use a bonus action to engage in two-weapon fighting after making an unarmed strike using your Bite or Claw trait, and you attack with another unarmed strike using another natural weapon as your off-hand weapon, you can make an unarmed strike with a third ghoul natural weapon afterward. For example, if you attacked with a claw and a bite, your third natural weapon would be the other claw. You don’t add your ability modifier to the unarmed strike with your third natural weapon unless it is negative.

Additionally, you use the monk’s Martial Arts table entry to determine the damage with your Bite and Claws (treating your levels in the class for which you chose this Fighting Style option as monk levels).

Multiweapon Fighting (3pp)

Source SPCM

Prerequisite(s): Gnorri

When you use a bonus action to engage in two-weapon fighting, you can choose to gain disadvantage on the attack granted by two-weapon fighting. If you do, you can attack with a third weapon you wield in one or two hands you haven’t already used to attack this turn or you can attack with a third weapon and a fourth weapon each wielded in one hand you haven’t already used to attack this turn. Attack rolls with these third and fourth weapons also have disadvantage. You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage with the third and fourth weapons unless it is negative.

If you are wielding melee weapons in at least three hands, you can use your reaction to parry a melee attack that would hit you. You add 2 to your AC against that attack, or 3 if you have melee weapons in four hands, which can make the attack miss.

Tail-Fighting (3pp)

Source SPCM

Prerequisite(s): You have a tail

Your unarmed strikes with your tail have the light property; when you make an off-hand unarmed strike with your tail, you add your ability modifier to the damage. Additionally, any time you make an unarmed strike with your tail, you can choose either to gain a +1 bonus to your AC until the start of your next turn (which isn’t cumulative) or to move up to 5 feet without spending any of your movement.

Two-Weapon Fighting

When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

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.

Spell Slots

Table: The Ranger shows how many spell slots you have to cast your 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 Table: The Ranger 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 5th level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.

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

Ranger Archetype

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

The hunter is the only archetype released by Wizards of the Coast as Open Game Content but there are variants or other archetypes available from other publishers (listed below).

Subpages

    Primeval Awareness

    Beginning at 3rd level, you can use your action and expend one ranger spell slot to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you (or within up to 6 miles if you are in your favored terrain): aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.

    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, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

    Land’s Stride

    Starting at 8th level, 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 have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement, such those created by the entangle spell.

    Hide in Plain Sight

    Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage.

    Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. You gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit.

    Vanish

    Starting at 14th level, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, you can’t be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.

    Feral Senses

    At 18th level, 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.

    Foe Slayer

    At 20th level, you become an unparalleled hunter of your enemies. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make against one of your favored enemies. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied.

    Ranger Archetypes

    The ideal of the ranger has two classic expressions: the Hunter and the Beast Master. Only the Hunter is included in the SRD. Mechanical features of the Beastmaster will be added later.

    Ranger Spells

    1st Level

    2nd Level

    3rd Level

    4th Level

    5th Level

    Section 15: Copyright Notice

    System Reference Document 5.1 Copyright 2016, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell, Chris Sims, and Steve Townshend, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

    This is not the complete license attribution - see the full license for this page