Apart from the woefully inadequate Monk, the Ranger is the clear problem child of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. But whereas the 2024 ruleset update seems to have entirely fixed fans’ Monk misgivings, they are still working hard on homebrew content to repair the Ranger.
This DnD class is a sort of fusion between a DnD Fighter and the DnD Druid, with a few features that feel a bit Rogue-ish too. It’s always been a jack-of-all-trades, master of none kind of class, but while 2024’s changes made a lot of alterations to the DnD Ranger, it left it in a controversial spot.
Months later, and fans are still hotly debating the merits and pitfalls of the class, while crafting homebrews that attempt to ‘fix’ it. The big point of contention is Hunter’s Mark, a spell which was always important, but has become absolutely central to the class in 2024, with many level ups focused on upgrading it, including an absolutely dire Level 20 ability that just gives a small damage boost to your HM target.
The big problem with Hunter’s Mark is it requires concentration and uses up your bonus actions, meaning in 2024 DnD, if you want to use a key Ranger feature, you’re cut off from using a bunch of other class options – like some of the coolest spells.
Fortunately, fans have offered a bunch of different suggestions for improving the situation. For instance, DnD Shorts put out his fixes earlier in the year. He adds two features: Hunter’s Instinct, and Hunter’s Mind.
The first of these, Hunter’s Instinct, comes in at Level 3 and lets you move the Hunter’s Mark as a reaction if your first target drops dead. This means you only have to use your bonus action at the start of combat, or if you make the active decision to change targets.
The second is a Level 9 feature, which essentially lets you cast Hunter’s Mark without using Concentration twice per Long Rest. DnD Shorts points out that non-con HM is deceptively powerful, and you don’t want players dipping into Ranger with multiclassing and easily picking it up.
Another recent attempt, by Dungeon Dudes, tweaks Hunter’s Mark more directly. It downgrades it from a bonus action to a full action, but makes an attack part of the spell’s casting. It also lets you switch it to a new target freely if the first one dies, but says this has to happen on your turn.
It also makes a bunch of other upgrades and changes. Rather than just preventing HM from popping, the 13th level feature now prevents any concentration spell fizzling due to damage – which seems a bit crazy powerful.
The new capstone feature is also very good: your HM target becomes vulnerable to all damage you deal – of any DnD damage type – so long as they are bloodied (below half HP).
These features probably need some balancing tweaks, and Dungeon Dudes make clear this is just its first draft, but it is really cool to see different ways invested fans have tried to make improvements.
Do you agree that the Ranger needs fixing or is it fine in its current state? Let us know your thoughts via the Discord. You should also check out our guides to the best DnD campaigns, and the DnD races you can play across the entire multiverse.
Source: Wargamer
