Design Notes

This class is designed to be a striker character with utility. The ranger hits hard and fast, is a specialist - especially where tracking is concerned. This class was made with the intent of mirroring the paladin as the other half-caster. The paladin is tanky, has great support abilities, and nova damage, with party face capabilities due to high charisma. This ranger is fast, has decent damage per round, and can fill the roll of utility. Here is a quick overview of the decisions made over the base base class.

Note This class has been extensively tested up to the 8th level. So take anything afterwards with a grain of salt. Numbers have been crunched for all tiers of gameplay comparing it to rogue, paladin, barbarian, fighter, and monk. This class has not been playtested with feats or multicalssed yet.

Favoured Enemy this version is the same as the phb version, but as an identifying feature of this class grows as the class does.

Mark the hunter's mark spell was removed and incorporated into the base class. It is the bread and butter. Comparable to rage in damage, but rather than improving tankiness it improves utility. The lack of concentration is decent buff favouring melee rangers, and its scaling damage makes it more difficult to abuse.

Natural Explorer was mildly buffed as there is no favoured terrain now. You can also make gold from it as being a ranger is quite literally a job. It give a tiny mechanical benefit to fun and flavourful ability.

Ranging Style was added in place of fighting style. A ranger is not a trained warrior like a fighter or paladin. They favour mobility. A ranger's damage and bonuses to attack come from other places now. This helps make a ranger feel less like a nature fighter.

Primeval Endurance is a simple ability. It helps add to the feel that a ranger is more used to tracking over long periods of time.

Expertise was added to the ranger's class features. A paladin gives a small buff to their allies saving throws - as well as more buffs at higher levels. The ranger instead becomes a more skillful individual. A marked, favoured enemy will also now be able to be tracked better by a ranger than a rogue.

Vanquisher long known as a lackluster capstone. The +wis to attack will help make up for the missed bonus of fighting styles. It comes in just before tier 3 gameplay making it harder to exploit.

Vanish remains largely the same as the phb version.

Feral Senses remains largely the same as the phb version. The improvements to Mark and Favoured Enemy will keep the ranger competitive at high levels.