D&D: Wait, is the New Ranger Actually Good?
The new Ranger does the impossible, it not only fixes the Ranger, it makes the Beast Master actually good. Who would’ve thought?
Rangers have been steadily getting better and better as 5th Edition has gone on. And now that a new not-edition is right around the corner, the new Ranger feels like it’s finally where it should’ve been from the beginning. The new playtest rules incorporate much of the Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything quality of life improvements.
Though fans of some of the old subclasses may surely feel a bit of disappointment. Unless you’re a Beast Master fan, in which case, this is the playtest for you. Here’s hoping they don’t change this one before the PHB comes out.
New Ranger Overview
For the most part, the new Ranger just incorporates all the improvements to the Ranger introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Deft Explorer has been split up into three different features. You still get Expertise (though now you also get to pick a favored terrain that you can switch around after a long rest), but its improvements are their own features now.
At 6th level Roving gives you an extra 10 feet of movement (when you’re not wearing Heavy Armor) as well as a Climb Speed and Swim Speed, and at 10th level you get Tireless (which was an improvement for Deft Explorer) that gives you the ability to add temporary hit points as well as to recover Exhaustion levels on a short rest.
On top of that, you have access to Fighting Styles and Weapon Mastery. And your higher level features are stronger. Really the only disappointments are the capstone feature, Foe Slayer, which is just kind of sad and boring, and the new Favored Enemy.
The new Favored Enemy gives you a cool benefit for the first couple of levels: you’ll always have Hunter’s Mark prepared and can even cast it without a spell slot. The problem is, once you’re able to upcast Hunter’s Mark to where you can make it do more damage, this feature is immediately useless and you’ll never bother with it again.
Which doesn’t feel great. But those are two small complaints overall.
Ranger Subclasses – Putting the Beast Back in Beast Master
The Beast Master Ranger has come a long way from where it was in the 5E Player’s Handbook. Now, with improvements from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything as a jumping-off point, the Beast Master Ranger is extremely solid.
Your Primal Companion feature lets you summon a primal beast. You pick a stat block, Beast of the Land, Sea, or Sky, and can describe what kind of animal it is. This lets you have a pet that can scale in level with you. But on top of that, you can improve their damage. At 7th level, Exceptional Training gives your beasts the ability to use Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help as a Bonus Action whenever you command them to take an Action, like one of the attacks in their stat blocks.
But now on top of that, at 11th level, your beast gets an extra attack whenever you command your Primal Companion beast to take the Attack action. Meaning they hit twice. And what’s more, you can give up one of your attacks when you take the Attack action to make your beast take the Attack action, so you effectively get a total of three attacks.
And it just gets better, because you also let your beast benefit from your Hunter’s Mark spell, dealing extra damage as Force damage, so you can trigger Hunter’s Mark twice in a single turn. Which can lead to some serious damage. Beast Master is now one of the strongest damage-dealing classes out there.
What About the Others?
Sadly the others, not so much. Gloom Stalker gets a redesign, which it probably needed, especially with the Assassin horning in on its “first turn of combat” shenanigans. However, it loses out on the amazing “get an extra attack in the first round” ability. Instead, the new Gloomstalker Ranger deals extra Psychic damage once per turn but it’s limited to your Wisdom modifier times per day, rather than just a feature, so it’s worse than the Hunter, which is a questionable decision.
The only other change is to the 11th level feature, which no longer lets you make an extra attack when you miss. Instead, you can hit someone else or cause Mass Fear, which is extremely meh in comparison to what it used to be.
And the Hunter Ranger is basically what it had been in 5th Edition with some slightly worse choices. The 11th and 15th level options are pretty bland and not nearly as effective or impactful as what other classes get. You just get to pick one more option you got at lower levels, WotC couldn’t have phoned this one in harder if they tried. They obviously didn’t with this one.
Still, it is an improvement overall. And the new Ranger seems like it’s on the way to joining the more popular classes once again!
What do you think of the new Ranger?
