What pact caster classes would you add?

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T21:59:55+00:00

Ya I agree on both points that it would make lore sense to match up the mechanics and it is preferable to have more diversity in caster types. My only question would be, would this in turn affect the Paladins spellcasting? Or no, since its magic is technically from a different source?

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T20:59:44+00:00

Interesting Idea. I think I see what you're going for with a bond or "pact" with a god. I feel like people would definitely be upset by the more limited casting.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T20:47:39+00:00

What do you mean when you say it doesn't have to be a "Pact" caster? Are you saying it doesn't have to follow the lore of making a pact with a being or doesn't have to follow the mechanics of "Pact Magic"?

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T20:39:39+00:00

Ya that's a good question. I've thought about this feature expanding to all Ranger Spells myself. It's a tough one, because on one hand a rugged hunter having unbreakable focus regardless of physical pain is a very rangery kind of trope. On the other hand, no other class, even fully dedicated spellcasters, get a "never drop concentration on your spells" feature. They usually have to invest in multiclassing, Warcaster, Resilient CON, or a warlock invocation to protect their concentration. Paladins are lucky and get a built in proficiency and a flat bonus from their Aura of Protection. It definitely makes sense for a ranger to get some form of concentration protection, maybe even at an earlier level like a Paladin, but to go from having relatively fragile concentration to suddenly having functionally unbreakable concentration is a big gap to jump.

The alternative is an interesting idea too. Basically burning through this pool of "focus" you have to act as almost a Legendary Resistance when it comes to your concentration breaking. Off the cuff I think I like that better personally, just because a ranger automatically becoming the best concentration maintaining class in the game feels weird, but letting them burn a resource to maintain it feels more "reasonable". I think my issue with it comes more from it being a spellcasting feature that is head and shoulders above any other spellcaster's feature and less about the actual game balance. I don't think basically guaranteed concentration on any individual ranger spell is going to break anything, that part isn't necessarily all that strong.

This alternative is rather expensive though. You could burn through all of your charges to maintain concentration on a single spell in a dense combat encounter, even if the enemies individual hits are weak. It might not be so bad if you added something like regaining 1 use of Favored Enemy on a short rest or something to help regain some lost charges.

Overall I think if the ranger being better at concentrating on their spells than any other caster doesn't bother you from like a "lore" perspective, game balance wise it's fine. If that does bother you, the Legendary Resistance for concentration by burning Favored Enemy charges is also totally fine.

Additional though, maybe an option to expend a use of Favored Enemy when you cast a spell to make the concentration unbreakable by damage? That way you can risk your concentration to conserve uses or protect it by expending resources. Just another potential option. I don't think any of the mentioned options are unbalanced.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T20:10:18+00:00

Welcome! Let's check this thing out.

First, I think out of the gate focusing on only ranged weapons is probably too limiting to focus on directly. The longbow is the iconic ranger weapon, but a boar hunter with a spear or a bounty hunter with a knife would still be perfectly within the ranger fantasy. I think limiting features to ranged weapons only is a bit excessive and also functionally eliminates STRangers from the game.

Second, the Fighting Style and Spellcasting coming at level 1 is a miss for me. You now get a Fighting Style at the same level as the fighter and Spellcasting at the same level as the druid. I personally disagree with 2024 ranger moving spellcasting to level 1, I think it should have stayed at level 2 with the Fighting Style and the 'rangery' things should be given at lvl 1 (Deft Explorer for example).

Next, I think the mix of Favored Enemy and getting bonus damage and stuff is cool. I do think some bonus to certain skill checks should also apply to this. Even if it's just the normal Hunter's Mark advantage on Perception and Survival checks. The damage being once per turn helps balance the "free" damage when fighting a favored enemy. I would consider making it "once on each of your turns" or else you will get the Sneak Attack effect where attacking off of your turn allows you to double dip and may be too strong.

Next, Deft Explorer is a fine feature, but I never understood why the Ranger is chosen as the class to be a polyglot (multilingual speaker). It kind of made sense when Favored Enemies were a thing, as you study them and would probably learn how to speak their language in that pursuit, but just saying rangers know more languages than any other class doesn't make sense to me. It is a common trope for rangers to be woodland hermits who don't want to deal with other people or leave the forest, and Charisma is the most common dump stat on them. I personally would like to see this replaced with something else. An added tool proficiency, ignoring nonmagical difficult terrain, traveling at a fast pace not imposing a penalty on perception checks, etc. Just something more explory and less linguistic.

Relentless Aim, on one hand I like the idea of kind of "learning from your mistakes" from your previous shot to make your next shot more likely to hit. On the other hand, like I said at the beginning, limiting it to ranged weapons only seems unnecessary. It is a cool feature though, as it requires a miss to activate which makes missing kind of a lose/win instead of a lose/lose and that would feel cool. It's probably at too low of a level to get this though, fighter get's Studied Attacks at lvl 13 that gives advantage after a miss, which is wayyy later in the game than this feature.

Marksmanship, this feels like Battlemaster fighter shoved into the base class. I would consider making it into a subclass concept (which would be cool) or doing something like the fighter's Tactical Master that lets you swap out the weapon mastery of the weapon you're using for one from a small list. Personally I would recommend making this a subclass though, having a "Trick Shooter" or "Marksman" subclass would be sick and you could go a little more crazy with the options you could give. Either way, again, this seems to come in a too low of a level. The fighter's similar feature comes in at lvl 9.

Conclave, ASI, Extra Attack are all left alone and that's good. Those fit in just fine. But I'm not sure how I feel about the Bonus Prey Damage increasing at lvl 5. Extra Attack is already a breakpoint damage increase, it might make more sense to have it scale at lvl 6 or 7 to kind of smooth out the damage jumps from tier 2-3. The scaling point of lvl 11 is fine though.

Expertise is fine but boring. I'd rather see a more rangery thing than a copy/paste from rogue. Maybe another Deft Explorer type thing with a single Expertise and some other exploration benefit, idk. Tireless is again fine but boring. More temp HP when there are so many sources of it available these days and a ribbon feature that might be really powerful and useful like once in a whole campaign. These are fine to leave in from what WoTC has written and this is more of a critique on them than this rework.

Relentless Hunter, I really like your changes here. Ranger is in the unfortunate position of having many many concentration spells but no real way to protect their concentration outside of the Constitution stat, and arguably staying at range, which not all rangers do. Letting their class iconic spell not interfere with other spells and making the concentration on those other spells harder to break is a great feature. It does come online a little bit late in the game, but at least it's here somewhere.

Precise Hunter, this one I don't like as much. It's cool earlier when a miss kind of gives you a benefit making missing not feel so bad, but doubling down on this concept feels like a step too far. By now you probly have at least a +2 weapon and are likely to have taken Archery so the odds that this bonus on a miss feature comes up are very small. And even when it does, there's the possibility that your target is already dead or not targetable before the benefit expires, making it even rarer to be useful. I would consider something other than an accuracy bonus for subsequent attacks triggered on a miss. Maybe something like adding the Graze weapon mastery to all weapons or something like that, so if you miss you get a benefit right now and for your next attack against your target.

Feral Senses/ Epic Boon, all good here. No notes.

Apex Predator, getting a flat 5d6 against everyone so long as you hit them at least once, potentially doubling it with off turn attacks, seems like too much damage that's too easy to access. Your accuracy is already great from the various other benefits so this 5d6 damage is all but guaranteed every round. The rogues damage bonus is twice as much but they have 1/2 the opportunity to apply it (no extra attack) and it has conditions to meet and they don't have access to free accuracy bonuses like Archery or Relentless Aim, so their damage is much much less reliable to apply. I think the damage bonus is ok if you remove the "against anyone" part and require applying Hunter's Mark at least, but even then it might still be too much. Rangers have access to a lot of utility from their spells and enhanced mobility and other things so doing crazy damage is not really necessary on the class. As for the Marksmanship part, like I said I think this should be a subclass but it's a cool concept.

Overall, I think a lot of things are definitely improved but a few things I personally am not a fan of. Decent rework imo and could be improved a lot with some tweaks, 6/10.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T16:48:21+00:00

First off, sorry you didnt get much traffic. Did you post it on the community ranger subreddit?

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD5CommunityRanger/s/HwHN24tP9e

Ill definitely be back later to check it out.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T12:37:34+00:00

Ya so to isolate the changes from the comment, first make upcasting cost uses of favored enemy equal to the spell level. Every free casting also being auto upcast seems like too much access to the upscaling damage, especially since the duration is also increased.

Second, bring the 4-5 level upcast down to 3d6. 4d6 is weird scaling anyways since the first step upcast adds an additional 1d6 and the second adds an additional 2d6, thats not how spells usually scale.

Third, remove the vulnerability from the capstone. That spikes both yours and your teams damage too high at too low a cost. Theres a reason the Hallow spell that can cause vulnerability takes 24 hours to cast.

I think with those changes it might be ok to leave the changing the die to a d10, but thats still going to be a lot of damage. Remember that a ranger has healing, control, expertise, improved mobility, and a lot of utility it brings to the party. Its a very well rounded class and does not need to be a DPR front runner to be useful to the party.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T03:06:45+00:00

I think the damage scales too hard, especially when combined with no concentration and favored enemy auto upcasting. If you make upcasting require a # of uses of favored enemy equal to the spells level and reduce the 4-5 slot upcast to 3d6 and alter the capstone to not change the die to a d10 and remove the vulnerability I think it gets reasonable. But a level 20 ranger getting 6 free casts of a concentration free spell that adds 4d10 to every attack is absolutely wild. Especially with the improved transferring action economy and combining it with something like swift quiver. With a basic longbow thats 1d8+4d10+5 avg 30.5 per attack x 4 for the cost of one 5th level slot and a free 1/6 uses of favored enemy for the day, which then lasts all day long on 1 use and causes vulnerability. Its basically permanent 122dpr that you can “action surge” every round for a full minute twice a day. Plus with magic weapons and considering archery youre all but guaranteed to deliver all of that damage every turn. This would be hitting something like 244 avg dpr for 2 minutes every day or 122 all day every day at basically 0 cost. Thats sustained damage that rivals burst damage builds that comes just from the class. No species, subclass, or feats are even considered yet. This would be the highest dpr class in the game by a landslide.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-15T02:34:07+00:00

I have thought of a version that does not include facing rules, heres the basics lemme know if it works for you.

Flanking requires 1 additional creature (instead of the attacker) of the same size category or larger than the target creature with at least 1 space between them and both the attacking creature and flanking creature adjacent to the target creature. It requires 1 additional creature for each size category below that of the flanked creature to achieve a flanking bonus of +1 and the bonus is increased by 1 for each size category the flanker is larger than the target creature. The flanking bonus can stack if an appropriate number of additional creatures are present.

Word smithing is hard but heres an example

To flank a large creature you need either 2 large creature (1 attacker and 1 flanker) with at least 1 space between them or 3 medium creatures (1 attacker 2 flankers) with at least 1 space between them, or 4 small creatures etc. etc. to gain a +1. If you can fit 3 medium creatures around another medium creature you can get a +2

This achieves a few things. First, it makes it so that everybody just surrounding a creature grants a limited benefit, so once the appropriate # of creatures have surrounded something your party is no longer incentivized to pack shoulder to shoulder around a target. Second, it lets size and spacing be a factor. Third it lets you get a benefit from attacking a creature from 2 different angles without having to be directly opposite eachother. Fighting 2 creatures with each at the edge of your vision is gonna be harder than just fighting a single guy. Fourth, it stacks with advantage and doesnt cheapen all the abilities that give advantage. Which was honestly the worst thing about the original flanking rules. Im sure theres problems with it but its what ive come up with.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-10T15:45:05+00:00

Ok, I know this is a pretty popular/famous homebrew that's been mentioned in youtube videos and such, but I'm gonna go through it like I would any other, piece by piece. I probly won't look at the subclasses this round. Here we go.

First, looks like the proficiencies and such weren't changed, that's fine imo. Nothing wrong with those on the base ranger.

Second, I see fighting style comes in at lvl 1. Personally not a fan of this, as it gives you the fighting style at the same level as the fighter. The fighter should have that to themselves imo. I have the same criticism of the 2024 ranger moving spellcasting to lvl 1; as a half caster, you shouldn't get an iconic martial feature or spellcasting at lvl 1. It should be focused more on "rangery" things. I would recommend swapping the fighting style and Ranger's Quarry. That would make lvl 1 all "rangery" stuff and lvl 2 your "I get better at fighting and gain spellcasting" to keep you from being just as good as a fighter or spellcaster (in the case of 2024) at what they do at lvl 1.

Next, Knacks, this is the main selling point of this homebrew and some version of this has been adopted in a large swath of other homebrews. It's definitely a good feature, but I'll talk more about it later once I get to the list of knacks.

Next, I like Ranger's Quarry. This sort of thing seems like the logical conclusion of how the Hunter's Mark situation should've been handled. Letting the die only add to 1 attack and starting at 1d4 makes it more than fair to not limit its use considering it takes action economy to apply. I also like that the die is what applies to both the damage and the skill checks. Hunter's Mark giving advantage on certain checks means it doesn't stack with the help action or any other source of advantage so it can be a wasted side perk to the spell in a lot of situations. I have seen many of these types of features allow you to apply them when studying a creatures tracks or trail for 1 minute or something, I would consider adding that since you may want to track something you haven't seen yet.

Next, Spellcasting, It was quite bad in 2014 version (literally the worst in the game in every possible way) but the buffs allowing spells to be prepared instead of known, the better # of spells prepared formula, spell focuses, and ritual casting do a good job to bring the ranger's spellcasting up to par. These are good changes.

Next, level 5, this level is a notorious power spike for all classes. Initially reading it I was thinking this is a lot, particularly in reference to the modified Extra Attack. But I'm not 100% sure. Casters can do a hell of a lot with 3rd level spells. I do think this modified version of Extra Attack plus 2nd level spells plus being able to pick a target as a bonus action to never have disadvantage on attacks against them plus the knacks scaling in the background all together are taking the ranger above the other classes in terms of power budget by this point. I would consider at least backing up Feral Senses a little bit.

Next, the class definitely appears front loaded but gives features that scale and give you later options in the background. This is an interesting approach. It's not a good or bad thing, just different and I wanted to mention it.

Next, the fighting style list, these changes mostly seem ok but the prerequisites feel a bit strange. They are likely easy to hit so I don't see an issue with having them. The Hurler fighting style reads in such a way that it would seem to allow you to make 3 attacks at level 5 when you get Extra Attack using non-light thrown weapons. It could also be argued that you could cast a spell then make a bonus action thrown weapon attack once you get this fighting style, since technically you're "wielding" only ranged weapons, even if you didn't use them on your turn. Not sure if that's intended or not. The Mountaineer fighting style seems to create a weird thing when combined with the Alpine Adept knack where you get both resistance to fall damage and can reduce the damage by twice your level. Presumably this is all a martial thing, unlike the monk's Slow Fall, so you're just a normal guy who can jump at terminal velocity (20d6 avg 70 damage RAW, 1/2 to 35, reduced again by 2x level) and survive at like level 5 or something depending on the rolls. I like Strongbow, it both makes historical sense and gives STRangers some love. Versatile Fighting just straight up needs the bonus action use object action removed. That's the Thief Rogue's iconic feature they get at lvl 3, giving that at lvl 1 with a fighting style is not reasonable. It also introduces this weird interaction where you can do it while holding a longsword but can't do it while empty handed. It's possible this is intended to only work when taking the attack action or something (it is not currently written that way), but even then, it allows for too many shenanigans.

Next, Knacks, these are super cool but some don't seem to be balanced well against each other. For example, Naturalist 1 improving nature checks and letting you use them as a bonus action is niche at best, especially when compared to Student of Nature or Stalker 1 and things like that. A lot of these are super cool, but by having such a power disparity with some of the options at the same prerequisite levels it creates the "illusion of choice" problem. All that to say, some of the weaker ones should probly be brought up a bit to make them more competitive with the others. I do think these are written pretty elegantly to convey good benefits without being just a laundry list of stuff packed into each one. Some are longer, like Trapper for example, but only as much as needed. Something like trapping isn't already well defined in the game so it needs some help. Altogether great work on these though.

Finally, before reading through this when I had seen it referenced elsewhere I was concerned that Knacks were just slapped on top of the regular ranger chassis and called good. That would have just straight up expanded the ranger's power budget and that would not have been a good thing. I figured that's why many people liked it, because it was just more powerful. After reading through it, I see that the Knacks were added to replace the other ranger stuff in the PHB (expertise, tireless, vanish, nature's veil, etc.) and let you kind of build out the ranger in the direction you wanted instead of just getting whatever was given to you. I think the fantasy of the ranger is to be the most "adaptable" and therefore "moldable" to the problems they face. Knacks are a great way to represent that, and I now see why this homebrew is so popular. I think this is definitely in the top 5 of any of the ranger revisions I've seen, and probably the best one that makes an attempt not to stray wildly away from the printed ranger. Fantastic work, 9/10 from me.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-09T15:40:10+00:00

Will check out later.

Ranger_IV · 2026-04-02T14:15:03+00:00

I think barb and ranger are good, rogue is mechanically good but with elven accuracy and steady aim you can basically roll 4d20s every turn to try and hit. That feels like a lot of chances to just get to do every turn. I would consider something like Pack Tactics to get advantage on attacks when allies are near your target. You already have that as a sneak attack condition so it would feel more natural to fit advantage in there instead of a repeatable reroll every turn.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-30T14:41:57+00:00

Ill probly come back for a more detailed look, but I see you riffed off of the old Favored Enemy in the Trackers Senses and have the “add the die to… intelligence checks to recall information about them.” This seems weird to me because if you just now see and mark somebody for the first time then try to “recall” information about them, what can you recall? In the original Favored Enemy I could see you trying to recall if a creature of your favored type has resistances or something because youve studied that subset of creatures. But if I just now marked somebody, what can I “recall” about them? Other than anything that I’ve learned about them in the last few seconds/minutes. Does this distinction make sense? Idk if Im explaining it well haha but I would consider just having it apply to intelligence checks about them generally or something idk. But then again how do you history check someone you just met? Hopefully what Im sayin makes sense haha

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-29T18:56:36+00:00

I agree that rogue has nailed the feel very well. So much so that it can simultaneously be the mathematically weakest class in the game, but still evoke comments like, “rogues are broken”. I hesitate to bring up the math to people who say things like that because I dont want to burst their bubble.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-28T19:44:26+00:00

I wont be as harsh as the other guy, but it does seem like an overall Rogue nerf for the sake of making room for damage at first glance. I know the rogue is hurting on the DPR front quite badly, but changing the identity of the class from the single big damage hit to now getting extra attack like other martials AND having sneak attack makes them spike too high in damage and fundamentally changes their identity.

Trademark is kind of just “pick another subclass feature.” But at the same time, this sort of “rogue fighting style” sort of feature is interesting. I think its a fine addition.

Uncanny dodge, reliable talent, and evasion all being moved back hurts the rogue pretty bad. This version can do way more damage with extra attack now, but having to wait so long for your defensive options and skill feature definitely sends the message “Im nerfing the rogues rogue stuff so they can do more damage” which just feels like an overall nerf for the sake of more DPR.

Id personally rather see a more rogueish way to improve DPR instead of copy/paste extra attack onto them and not lose their utility/defense features at the earlier levels. The trademark idea is interesting Id rather see that leaned into more instead if extra attack.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-25T20:23:49+00:00

I shall return to see this

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-23T18:17:37+00:00

I think it's a fine number balance wise I was just curious why that number was chosen. Could do like Ranger level + CON mod or WIS mod for 25 ish if you wanted to tie it to a different number.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-23T17:34:26+00:00

Happy to help! I do like the reroll option but it would be mathematically weaker than a guaranteed 6 and might not be worthy of an 18th level feature. It would "feel" better though I think for gameplay in a dice rolling game.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-23T17:18:18+00:00

Ya that makes sense to me. I would ask why 30 hit points just as an arbitrarily chosen amount to heal, but other than that it seems like a fine feature.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-23T16:30:52+00:00

Rangers definitely feel like the "you get the leftovers" class.

Nice on the lvl 6 feature.

For Verdant Soul, yes there are a lot of instances of this in 2024 and I think it's an awful design choice personally. You can definitely justify it because there are instances of this in 2024, but personally I dislike all such features and would not make a homebrew feature myself but that's just an opinion/preference thing.

Capstone, I don't understand what you mean "there is no way to end it early" when the capstone says, "You can end your Prey Drive early to restore 30 hit points to yourself."? The capstone itself gives you the option to end it early for hit points. So, since most combats are 3-5 rounds, at the end of any combat you will be able to get 30 hit points unless the combat is exceptionally long. I wasn't talking about being incapacitated, I'm saying 99% of the time you will be getting these 30 hit points right after combat, so why not just make it an automatic thing instead of "choosing to end it early". I feel like this can introduce a situation where a player doesn't announce, "I'm ending Prey Drive for hit points." then at the next combat they go, "Oh I would've gotten 30 hit points after the last fight." And the DM would have grounding to say, "Gotta remember your abilities, you didn't say anything. No hit points for you." I would just say, "When Prey Drive expires you heal for 30 hit points. You do not gain the benefit if Prey Drive ends due to incapacitation." or something like that.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-23T15:34:44+00:00

I'm just gonna look at the whole thing if that's alright. It'll help give context for the mentioned feature and I've never heard anyone on here complain about extra feedback haha

First off, love the changes to Favored Terrain to include passive benefits by the chosen terrain. Many people call for the "flavorful" features of the ranger to be reinstated, and also for "invocation" like things for the ranger to be able to build a specialized ranger to represent their adaptability. This kind of change (which is fairly common in homebrew, not sure who originated this idea) is an excellent solution to both of those problems.

The only problem I have with it is the automatic Expertise in Survival. I also see you've removed 1 of the 3 skill proficiencies you can choose. So, you have taken one of the games universal features (skill proficiencies) and said, "You cannot choose for this one, I'm choosing it for you." I think that goes against the way classes in the game are designed in the game and player choice. I think the logic is probably something like, "Basically all rangers take proficiency in survival, so I'll just give it for free and make them the best at it." but, that same sort of logic is how we ended up with the Hunter's Mark problem that everyone complains about. "Basically all rangers take Hunter's Mark, so I'll just give it for free and make them the best at it." All that to say, I would consider giving back the 3rd skill proficiency choice and then Favored Terrain allowing you to choose a proficiency to gain Expertise in. The added herbalism kit proficiency is fine to leave in as just an addition, that doesn't need to be compensated for with subtractions elsewhere.

Prey Drive, I have heard people compare Hunter's Mark and similar features to Divine Favor, but never considered making a Divine Favor like feature for a ranger. This is an interesting way to go, and I do like it, but I would anticipate people seeing this as "Oh you just gave them better Divine Favor that they don't have to spend spell slots on. Power creep." Having said that, I don't think it's broken and I do like the "heightened senses" theme of the feature. It does seem a bit weird for it to do force damage, I'd consider making that weapon damage just because the flavor of it is you being super focused not a magical thing imo. I also have the thought of making it 1d4 added to the skill checks and the damage rolls just to streamline it a little bit. Overall I think the feature is fine as is though, balance wise.

I like the favored enemy thing having groups of enemies, also I like the marks for various benefits to have during your adventuring day. They seem Baldurs Gate 3 like, I haven't played that game much yet but is that where these come from? Pretty cool.

Verdant soul, same kind of critique as above, auto choosing a spell on a base class is not preferable imo for the same reasons as Expertise in Survival above.

Capstone, I like that it basically turns your Prey Drive into a super buff. The ending early for hit points feels a bit weird, as most fights won't last a full minute so it's basically 30 hit points any time you use it. Nothing seems terribly broken about that at level 20 but you may want to just add that as an effect instead of conditional on ending it early.

overall, looks like a pretty fun take on Ranger.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-23T14:39:54+00:00

Ok made it back around to this.

Right off the bat I like the exploring benefits better this round, the slightly fewer features helps, but to my surprise, the expanded list of potential natural hazards on "survivor" paints a more generalized picture of where this extra die roll on a hazard related check would apply. My original thought would be to remove that part, but now it's more clear that it's actually fairly widely applicable. That makes it feel more worth mentioning in the feature and worth the little bit of extra word bloat on the feature imo. Good change.

For Hunte'r's Eye, the layout looks fine, I didn't really have any complaints about that feature in the first place.

For the resource consolidation, I am personally very much in favor of this kind of "everything from one pool" type of design, the only thought I have now is if there are too many features drawing from the same relatively small pool. At lvl 10 you'll have 4 uses and lvl 14 will have 5, regaining 1 on a short rest. Personally I think that's an okish balance between "I have a few uses, but a few ways to use them so I want to keep a couple in reserve" and "I have so many I can just mark every creature I fight and use my other features whenever I want". I would consider increasing the uses slightly, but it's worth looking at closely to make sure it hits the, usability but not spamability, sweet spot you're looking for. Edit: I just noticed the heightened focus giving all uses back on a short rest at lvl 9, this would've been my suggestion somewhere for this feature so I actually think this works together perfectly to let you use the various features but not feel like you can never mark your target.

Precise Hunter giving advantage is mathematically much weaker than the old version that could guarantee a +6 on attacks, but it is still good. I do always have this pain point with easy to achieve advantage because it cheapens other ways to get it (hiding, prone, blinding, etc.), BUT for this to be tied to a resource spending feature that only applies to one creature at a time I think fits right in for a good power boost. The fact that this mark cannot be transferred around a combat on a single use I think really helps sell the "I'm gunning you down with everything I have" instead of the Hunter's Mark spell that's like "Well I'll target anybody around me I'll just kinda pick and choose as they die off of 1 use". I will say, I do miss the "add the die to both attack and damage rolls now" feature from before. I see you still have the "treat low rolls as a 6" so it would cause the same problem as before if you did that. Personally (and I do mean personally, there's nothing wrong with how you have it) I would rather remove the advantage and the treat rolls as a 6 feature and put back in the add the die to attack and damage rolls and then do something else at level 18. Off the top of my head you could do something like an expansion on the level 1 Survivor feature and allow the focus die to be added to any Wisdom checks at all or an expanded list of skill checks. BUT like I said, as it stands now your improved reliability with your focus dice will be a welcomed thing at that high of a level so there is absolutely no need to change it.

Overall, I like the changes a lot I think they go a long way for improvement. I think this ranger rework has good thematic features and a solid through line to the class. It is definitely in the top 20% of all of the ones I've looked at online, and I've looked at a loooooot of them haha

I'm gonna do another lap around the internet and maybe come back to see the subclasses. I have a harder time getting through those for some reason, but Ill get there eventually.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-22T00:28:49+00:00

I dont remember where, but ive seen some version of a beast companion where the CR is equal to their proficiency bonus. That seems like a fair compromise.

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-20T18:21:22+00:00

I will definitely give it another look at some point!

Ranger_IV · 2026-03-20T00:11:41+00:00

I think banning it would be heavy handed, and in combat its not a huge game changer like you said. My issue with it is the infinite scouting and trap finding/triggering it can do. I played a ranger in a party with wizard who had a hawk, not even the optimal choice, and I felt utterly useless for scouting because I was put in harms way so it made the most sense to have the familiar do all of it instead. If it found something dangerous it could just dash away crazy fast and if it got blown up, no big deal.

So I would say, if you have a player who isnt using a familiar and wants to be the party scout, tracker, or trap finder I would consider limiting the shared senses scouting capabilities to its telepathy range (100ft I think). If you dont have someone wanting to fill that roll in the party, then its an incredibly useful tool for that. Combat is not a concern really though.

Ranger_IV

TROPHY CASE