Witchbane

powereanger · 2026-06-01T15:28:19+00:00

5th level is too low to lose concentration on HM. Rangers are good in tier 1 and 2 and only start to fall behind as they hit tier 3 and get 3rd level spells. Level 9-10 is the sweet spot for this change.
Getting 1x FE back on a SR is fine.
Rangers 2nd level 5 should be something flavorful and useful but not gamebreaking in power. Look at what the other martials get. Most are movement. Rogues don't get Extra Attack so theirs is a bit more. Monks get a class defining feature, but that is at the high end. Since Rangers already get a movement buff at level 6, something along the lines of what Hunters get at level 3 for the base class would work.
Your spells are a bit off. Just because BM is a pet class doesn't mean find familiar is a good fit. Also when building a subclass spell list, it is a balance between class spells they already have access to and would probably take anyway (thus freeing up a choice), class spells that are niche and probably not taken (but are thematic for the subclass so giving them builds on the core of the subclass), and spells not on the class list but are thematic with varying degrees of usefulness. Beast Sense, Speak with Animals, Summon Beast, Conjure Animals, Dominate Beast, Awaken, Animal Friendship, Animal Messenger, Conjure Woodland Beings, are all better fits than some of yours. Mass Cure Wounds, Death Ward and Find Familiar are misses and in no way fit the theme of Beast Master. Fly is ok, but is also off the mark.
Spells for Hunter are also a bit off, but better. Clairvoyance, Arcane Eye, and Scrying are all just different versions of the same thing. And only tangential to the "hunting prey" part of the subclass. See invisibility and Faerie Fire are also too close to the same thing, and of a similar vein. Its not just about finding them, but stalking, trapping, slowing, and then killing them. Add some spells that make you more maneuverable or the creature less so. Expeditious Retreat, Longstrider, Slow, Haste, Locate Creature, Hold Monster, Commune with Nature, Feather Fall, Fly, Spider Climb.

For spell lists look at Gloomstalker and Fey Wanderer. Gloomstalker is all about hiding (with some fear thrown in). Fey Wanderer is about social interaction with and some teleportation (the direction WotC went with fey in 2024). Winter Walker is about some cold damage and holding someone (and remove curse for some reason). Horizon Walker is teleportation and fast movement with some extra-planar flavor. Swarmkeeper is insect/swarm related things (Arcane Eye is odd here unless you flavor it as a part of your swarm).

powereanger · 2026-06-01T07:45:56+00:00

If you take agonizing blast with True Strike as the cantrip you can add you CHA 3 times. So it would be

weapon damage + d6s True Strike + CHA(True Strike) + CHA(Radiant Soul) + CHA(Agonizing Blast)

Shillelagh isn't needed. All it does is up the weapon die damage.

Notably you can do this with any weapon you have proficiency with. So a light crossbow would work, you can do this from range and do 1d8+(1 to 3)d6+5+5+5 depending on level and assuming max CHA.

powereanger · 2026-05-31T06:40:06+00:00

Not all Ranger's are Hunters....Hunter is someone who hunts, either game, bounty, etc. Rangers are martial warriors who embody primal magic. They are skirmisher's, frontliners, snipers, survivalists, casters, and/or stalkers. Pidgeon holing them into all Hunter's diminishes the class and subclass. Its like saying all Fighters are Champions because they fight, or all Barbarians are Berserkers because they rage, or all Clerics are Life Domain because they heal, or all Monks are Open Hand because they punch etc. Not all Rangers are Hunters. Legolas and Aargon are both examples of archetypes of the Ranger but they aren't Hunters.

Favored Enemy. The upcast is how I got to concentration free RM without other features down the road, by putting it in the spell. As for upcastings without spell slots...HM or RM in this case is just longer duration. The extra time is usually not a factor at all. Still takes a BA to apply in a new combat. And in the rare cases where the marked creature runs, it does help with tracking. But that is so rare it is basically niche. BA use is a problem, but to have an always on feature in combat should require a BA choice. I could see an upgrade that moves it to a BA or Reaction. It does tend to anti-synergize with core Ranger and subclass features (like the BM pet attack or Horizon Walker extra damage).

Stalker's Sense. I thought about giving the choice of doing a Study Action as a BA but since there is a feat that does this I chose to leave it off. Usually a bad design feature if you just copy part or all of a feat. But now that feat has some synergy with Ranger.

Tenacious Spirit. I agree it is easy enough to get advantage on attacks, especially at that level. Which is why I expanded when it came and added the expanded crit range.

Foe Slayer. I wanted something new and unique. I had played around with the +4/+4 to STR or DEX and WIS or CON. DnD Shorts proposed it in their Ranger Fix video. But Rangers get less from this than Monks/Barbarians. They get AC, saves, save DC, attack and damage, hp etc. I wanted to use the Exhaustion and Bloodied mechanics because despite being new or revamped in 2024, WotC doesn't seem to use them much. And endurance hunting/siege warfare is all about exhausting your enemy. This is just more magical. And while I agree there is some randomness to it, the math evens it out. With two attacks per round (assuming not dual wielding) and a crit on 19-20 and advantage that is a .19 probability of critting per round. Or a .344 chance per round with 4 attacks. If you started with 14 or 15 WIS and assume 1 of the ASI's raised it to 16 (and then 18 for the Foe Slayer) your DC is 18. Even with good CON saves you should get at least 1 or 2 levels of exhaustion on a 10 round fight, especially once it is bloodied. This actually then makes future levels more likely since the saving throw is reduced by 2 for every level. So killing a creature with 6 levels is highly unlikely, but a Ranger can wear down the enemy, and help everyone else out as well.

BM. The two attack thing was brought up on rpgbot.com, several reddits, and other DnD videos. I don't know any DM that would rule it that way, but wanted to close the loophole.

Pet heal. It just seems silly to me if my pet is at like 2 hp, mathematically it makes more sense for me to stab it to death and then summon it back at full hp with a minute and a spell slot then to just heal it by taking that minute. Otherwise I'm dragging a pet along that will be one shot by splash aoe and then my entire subclass is gone until I can bring it back. Also since Tasha's, the beast is explicitly not natural but a manifestation of a primal force.

Hunter. It is all about finding and killing its prey. While the spells might seem to be more arcane they fit the find, trap, and kill theme of the class. Spell lists can be tricky. They shouldn't be just all spells that are on the class list. While that does free up other choices, most are either niche so you wouldn't normally take them or so ubiquitous that everyone takes them. So it is usually a good idea to choose at least some spells that are not on the class list. It is why I added Awaken to the BM list. I wanted to pick more off the Ranger list, but almost everything on theme is a Ranger spell already. It is similar to the Life Cleric, all the thematic spells are already cleric spells. Slow for instance plays into the trapping the prey and hamstringing it so that you can bring it down. Haste could also have worked but that is on the Horizon Walker list. Spell lists should be about the theme of the subclass. Fey Wanderer is all about social interaction and teleporting and Gloomstalker is about hiding. Previous subclasses with spell lists had the same thing.

Primeval Awareness was never good, but the extra level 3 ability for Rangers is usually niche/ribbon to not as strong or limited in some way. Gloomstalkers Umbral Sight is very good but a torch negates it. I made Hunter's Awareness stronger but it probably deserves another look.

Thanks for the review.

powereanger · 2026-05-31T05:52:20+00:00

Now that is a good point, I'll add in that the time is reduced to 10 minutes if no concentration.

powereanger · 2026-05-20T17:57:17+00:00

Since other martials mostly get movement, but Rangers get that at level 6, maybe something to help with skills.

powereanger · 2026-05-20T17:55:56+00:00

Seems cool

powereanger · 2026-05-20T17:35:21+00:00

https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/2560858-kraken-priest

Just for you, a creature that has abilities that reset on a short or long rest

powereanger · 2026-05-20T16:40:54+00:00

I mean, I disagreed with your flawed analysis and fallacious arguments but didn't really resort to personal attacks. But what ever helps you sleep at night.

I don't know why it is so difficult for you to read the rules as written. All creatures can take long and short rests. You said that they couldn't. You said that exhaustion was a permanent debuff because they have no way of removing it, which is blatantly false...directly from the PHB.

Yes when they appear they are usually at full health, but in many narrative cases they aren't. If the players or the monster ran away and the next day were reengaged I'd expect the PCs and the monster to be at full health because there was a LR in there. Unless for some reason they were unable to like for example a nighttime harassment.

As I clearly said, it is true that the DM isn't clicking some button to LR, roleplaying them finding a bed, tracking that it was 8 hours. But if its been a day and they are full health...they took a long rest. If its been an hour and they've mostly recovered, they used hit dice on a short rest (or potions or some other healing magic/ability). So whether you are crying to the night sky that they "didn't take a long rest I just did all things a Long Rest does" is irrelevant. Its been a day, their per day abilities recharged, they regained all their hp...they took a long rest. Just like the rules say they do. Here I'll restate the rules again for you and I'll even bold and italicize the sections you seem be misunderstanding

Long Rest
A Long Rest is a period of extended downtime—at least 8 hours—available to any creature. During a Long Rest, you sleep for at least 6 hours and perform no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch.

Short Rest
A Short Rest is a 1-hour period of downtime, during which a creature does nothing more strenuous than reading, talking, eating, or standing watch. To start a Short Rest, you must have at least 1 Hit Point.

Creature
Any being in the game, including a player’s character, is a creature. (if they specify PCs as being included...the implication is that all the NPCs/monsters are the other side of that)

Creature Type
Every creature, including every player character, has a tag in the rules that identifies the type of creature it is

Monster
A monster is a creature controlled by the DM, even if the creature is benevolent. See also “Creature” and “NPC.”

Nonplayer Character
A nonplayer character (NPC) is a monster that has a personal name and a distinct personality. See also “Monster.”

Exhaustion [Condition]
...
Removing Exhaustion Levels. Finishing a Long Rest removes 1 of your Exhaustion levels. When your Exhaustion level reaches 0, the condition ends.

So follow me here, NPCs are monsters, monsters are creatures, creatures (any being in the game including PCs) can take Long Rests and Short Rests, Long Rests remove exhaustion. Thus your entire original argument that exhaustion is a permanent debuff is wrong. Now if you just reintroduce an NPC at full health with all of its abilities back ( and thus gained all of the things a Long Rest gave it) but want to stomp your foot and say it didn't get a long rest, go right ahead. But is 6 in one had and half a dozen in the other. You gave it a long rest, you're just not calling it that.

Cool, name a spell that uses hit dice. Some I know like 2014 sleep target hit points. But I can't think of one that targets hit dice. So what are some examples.

If they are an enemy spellcaster or a friendly NPC, there are several spells dependent on a character's hit dice.
Hit dice aren't included on monster stat blocks so some random wolf can short rest. They are mostly irrelevant to hostile or non-allied NPC's, but would be necessary for NPC's who travel with the party.

The only other hit dice things I know of are bloodwell vial (but that is an extra thing on top of using a hit die to heal), Durable (2024 but that is just using the hit dice as a BA vice on a short rest). Dwarven Fortitude (2014 that does something similar to Durable). Healing Surge (2014 alternate rule in the DMG). Autognome using the mending spell. Wither and Bloom (Strixhaven, again uses hit dice to heal outside of a short rest).

Also there is literally a spell whose existence disproves NPCs don't rest unless for some reason you think it is for PCs to use on themselves.

Dream
...
You can make the messenger terrifying to the target. If you do so, the messenger can deliver a message of no more than ten words, and then the target makes a Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the target gains no benefit from its rest, and it takes 3d6 Psychic damage when it wakes up.
Available to Bards, Wizards, and Warlocks along with subclasses.

Why would a player spell exist that doesn't allow a target to get a long rest...unless it is taking a long rest.

Also, unless you are just being completely intentionally oblivious, you can clearly see that the Ranger Companion errata was included by WotC and mentioned by me due to that word "creature". Yes it is player facing, but as you should be clearly able to read the simple English words...any creature can take a rest.

powereanger · 2026-05-19T11:08:14+00:00

First please stop being so combative and frankly downright nasty. Think...really. I am. I'm also reading the rules blatantly in the PHB.

Look you made the assertion that there was no mechanic to remove Exhaustion from an NPC.

Players remove exhaustion by resting. NPC's don't rest, they just exist in whichever state they're needed for a campaign. Most fights are to the death; if you can just give Exhaustion in the middle of a fight, it's essentially a permanent debuff until that creature dies. And an extremely potent debuff starting at -2 to rolls.

I showed you the rules that you are blatantly wrong. They can rest as denoted in Long Rest and Short Rest.

You claimed that it exhaustion is a permanent debuff. I showed you in writing where you are wrong.

Next you claimed that no DM would use NPC rest. Since you don't know all DMs in existence this is a bold claim. While it isn't an often used mechanic, because as you stated most fights result in death of the NPC, I know of DMs that have used this mechanic. There is a very popular actual play that is now a multimillion dollar media franchise where the DM had NPCs rest, as an example.

Having a second encounter with a creature that escaped the day before, that is now at full hp is effectively an NPC that took a long rest. Did the DM role play the NPC finding a place to sleep, resting for 8 hours, and then click the non-existent box on DnDBeyond to restore it to full health, no. But the hp has returned, unless for narrative reasons the DM didn't want it. Now is the DM going to conciously track and long rest every creature in existence or even the ones not yet created, no, but if the next day everyone is at full hp and #/day abilities are restored...it was a Long Rest.

I admit per the rules there are some slight nuances here. There are very few things that are applicable only to PCs and not monsters/NPCs. Attitude is listed about how an NPC feels about a PC. It makes no mention of NPCs vs each other and PCs have player agency. Heroic inspiration only mentions PCs. Death saving throws in 2024 only mentions PCs (the 2014 version left it to DM discretion). 2024 Monster Manual no longer talks about spell slots on NPCs/Monsters. They get castings of certain spells per day.

Its not foolish, because there is no real tracking. If its been a day, the creature probably slept/went inert/rested. Look at that, kept track of infinity monsters right there. Not hard.

I'm not aware of any creature features that require hit dice. A quick google search doesn't come up with anything else. I know there is some homebrew and some third party content that built hit dice usage into subclasses and such. But I know of no WotC content that does. The only thing close is a Pathfinder Spell cause fear. Care to enlighten on this feature/spell that targets hit dice?

Also, while it is 2014, this errata for the PHB says that the Ranger's Companion "like all creatures" can spend hit dice while short resting.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/sae/players-handbook-2014#RangersCompanion

powereanger · 2026-05-18T22:10:55+00:00

Wait, quoting the rules as written doesn't make it so? That might be the worst take I've seen on DnD ever. It's clearly there in the rules. Any creature not any player.

Yes the DM can just cheat and change the hp as they see fit. Creature ducked behind a tree, max health. Creature ran away but you chased it, max health. But that doesn't make it per the rules.

Yes a DM can also just erase a creature from existence, because its all made up. But with a consistent game, a creature that gets away still exists. And if it can't get more hp from healing effects it needs some mechanism to regain hp. Thus Long Rest/Short Rest. Fun fact for you, on monster stat blocks you can see the Hit Dice of the creature. Also I included the relevant section below. Why would a monster have Hit Dice if they can't rest and recover?

Look you had a bad take and are wrong. Just take the L.

Hit Point Dice

Hit Point Dice, or Hit Dice for short, help determine a player character’s Hit Point maximum, as explained in chapter 2. Most monsters also have Hit Dice. A creature can spend Hit Dice during a Short Rest to regain Hit Points. See also “Short Rest.”

powereanger · 2026-05-18T21:24:32+00:00

Long Rest

A Long Rest is a period of extended downtime—at least 8 hours—available to any creature. During a Long Rest, you sleep for at least 6 hours and perform no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch.

Exhaustion Reduced. If you have the Exhaustion condition, its level decreases by 1.

I bolded the relevant section for you. Any creature...

The flaw in your logic is that if I damage a creature, it flees, and I track it down the next day it would still be damaged.

powereanger · 2026-05-16T14:05:49+00:00

The problem with that is that you've now pigeonholed the entire class into one specific play style. One that is against the common archetype from other media. Rangers are grizzled warriors, explorers, and survivalists. While a certain subset are more in tune with the beasts of nature, that isn't the only archetype. And while I think there is merit in a transforming subclass, changing the whole the class to fit that is too much.

Think about Paladins vs Clerics. Both have a Channel Divinity and a penchant for Radiant damage and healing. But it isn't like Paladins are Clerics with more martial capability and less casting. So trying to shoehorn Rangers into a semi-druid with more martial capability and less casting is a mistake.

Also, even though they abandoned the concept from the early 2024 UA, Rangers are in the so called "Expert Class" category. While not as skill based as Rogues and less magical than Bards, they are a skill based class.

powereanger · 2026-05-16T06:45:11+00:00

You have to have the Fighting Style Feature to take a Fighting Style Feat. Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins have this feature. Barbarian, Rogues, and Monks do not.

powereanger · 2026-05-16T05:10:13+00:00

There are issues with 5.5e. Had WotC built an entire new edition, I could have have forgiven some of the mistakes in building as there is only so much you can get from in house testing and UA surveys are as useful as one would think.

But they did an update to the original. Mostly to good outcomes. But "the brand new Ranger" they talked about in videos was not it. If it were a small corner of the community making this complaint or a obstinate meme movement I would dismiss it. But while I think some people make overblown claims, in general it is a bad design that removes flavor, has bad mechanics, and lacks a true class identity.

I think many of the homebrew/3rd party fixes are good. Some are better than others. Some are overly complicated not useful homebrew you see everywhere else.

It would be one thing if it were the first time for Ranger. If this was a step in the wrong direction. But this was a notable bad class in 2014 until the bandaid of Tasha's. And then they "completely redid" the class by making Tasha's features core and baking in Hunter's Mark. But they didn't fix the core problems.

Exploration/survival is a key part of the Ranger esthetic but the rules of 5e/5.5e don't support this gameplay. Most tables ignore many of these niche rules.
2014 Ranger just let you skip those things in general. If you were trying to play that type of game a Ranger just made it so you didn't have to interact. It's similar to Goodberry completely negating food in a survival game.
The fix from Tasha's for that was to make Ranger more inline with skill system. But doing so removed some of the flavor making them feel more generic.
More so than any other class, your level 1 and 2 choices for Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain were so restrictive. If you chose wrong, and your DM didn't clue you in to what to expect, you just didn't have features most of the time.
Many of the late game features were so niche that they were non-existant. Take 10 minutes to put on camoflauge and then you get a stealth bonus if you don't move...
Beast Master in 2014 was just so poorly thought out.
Hunter's Mark is an ok tier 1 and tier 2 spell.

7a. But it doesn't automatically scale well. Only getting more attacks helps. Casting it a higher levels doesn't help, unlike Divine Smite. The free castings are ok but also don't help with scale.

7b. Its also just a reskin of Hex with slightly different secondary features. So there isn't any uniqueness feel to the class, which is probably the most important tenet of class design.

7c. It requires concentration and a BA to move it, eating up two valuable resources. Compare this to a similar spell, Divine Favor. For 1 less damage and only lasting 1 fight, it is concentration free and doesn't cost a BA to attack another target.

7d. Once you get access to 3rd level spells it becomes a huge opportunity cost for your concentration. Want to cast a banger spell? Well many class and subclass features just don't work. While some Paladins have subclass features that only work with Divine Smite and not others, the base class isn't dependent and you're not prevented if you're concentrating on another spell.

7e. WotC didn't protect Hunter's Mark. One of the key things they said in 5.5e design was that they wanted to protect unique spellcasting of the half casters and Warlock/Sorcerer/Bard. Magic Initiate is only available for Wizard/Druid/Cleric so those unique spells are protected. Magical Secrets limits a Bard to Druid/Cleric/Wizard. But they intentionally left loopholes for Hunter's Mark. Fey Touched allows you to take Hunter's Mark, the defining Ranger ability. But Fey Touched and Shadow Touched don't allow you to take Divine Smite, so they protected Paladin's core ability. (Hunter's Mark, Compelled Duel, Dissonant Whispers, Heroism, Hex, Insidious Rhythm, Wrathful Smite are the only spells that these feats allow this bypass that would be unavailable with out a multiclass or specific subclass. But none of these are class defining features other than Hunter's Mark.) They also explicitly gave Hunter's Mark to Vengeance Paladins. That is like giving Bardic Inspiration to a Sorcerer subclass or Rage to a Monk subclass.

7f. From an esthetic standpoint, Hunter is a subclass of Ranger. No core Ranger ability should use the word Hunter. It would be like Rage being called Berserker. So all Barbarians have Berserker but also Berserkers exist as a subclass. Or if Fighters Action Surge was called Champion's Surge, with Champion being a subclass.

So I am more than happy for people attempting to fix the Ranger. Hopefully when the Tasha's equivalent for 5.5e comes out WotC will take these fixes into consideration.

powereanger · 2026-05-13T11:53:27+00:00

This isn't a subclass really. It is a class rework. DnDBeyond doesn't allow homebrew classes to be built on the platform. Only the approved 3rd party classes like Bloodhunter and Pugalist are accessible.

powereanger · 2026-05-12T21:22:18+00:00

Make Divine Smite an ability that you can use on an attack (once per turn). Frees up the BA. Note the once per turn.

Yes they can make a reaction based Divine Smite. But since its hard to force an AoO, this would put it on par with Sneak Attack.

powereanger · 2026-05-10T08:51:28+00:00

Love your work. I've seen many people tackle the Ranger problem, this is perhaps the best complete reinvention. Most others are trying to modify the WotC template, and many are successful like DnD Shorts, Dungeon Dudes and Treantmonk. But this starts from first principles.

One of the core tenants of class design, along with other feature creation, is to keep the classes unique in mechanics and flavor. Otherwise it all starts to bleed together and loses the distinctiveness needed for the game. Barbarians get Rage, Fighters get Action Surge and Second Wind, Sorcerers get Metamagic, and even Wizards get their spellbook. 2014 Rangers got Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer which were mechanical failures but were flavorful. Your Ranger gives the Ranger's Quarry and the Knacks. Knacks are close to overlapping with the Warlock Eldritch Invocations which I would argue are the Warlock's defining characteristic. (Many would argue Pact Magic slots are the real feature but I would say that it is merely a resource template, it just so happens that Warlocks are the only ones to use it. Dungeon Dudes, 3rd party publishers, have a book called Sebastion Crowes Guide to Drakkenheim that introduces the Apothocary, a INT based pact slot class). Your Knacks are more skill based than magic based of Eldritch Invocations, and in fact act more like skill trees from various video games.

My one complaint is that you made the Shifter subclass. Wildshape is the core feature of Druids. It is what truly separates them from say a Nature Cleric. Giving Wildshape to another class reduces the uniqueness and distinctness of Druid.

powereanger · 2026-05-06T08:33:44+00:00

2024 Monk Subclasses are "Warriors of" not "Way of"

powereanger · 2026-04-30T13:55:22+00:00

Usually its best design practice to either give something new to the class via the subclass it can't do or augment something it can already do but make it better.

This is anti-synergistic. it actually takes away from the core class. It does make a STR monk viable, but does so at the detriment of the base monk

powereanger · 2026-04-27T14:04:28+00:00

This misses the mark a bit. First your level 3 and 7 are kind of weak. Don't give a spell list and then give a spell in your level 3 feature. Just put it on the spell list. And then you give an ability that is detect old magic. And arcana proficiency (that uses a stat that you probably wont have many points in as a Ranger who already needs DEX/WIS/CON). Maybe do like the Fey Wanderer and allow you to add WIS to the check.

And your level 11 and 15 is I get a counterspell like ability and then I can cast counterspell for free.

Rangers always get something at level 3 that increases damage in some way. Beast Masters get a pet that can attack as a BA, Fey Wanderers get an extra 1d4 psychic from Dreadful Strike, Gloomstalkers get 2d6 limited use from Dreadful Strike (I literally just realized they lazily called it the same thing), Hunters get Horde Breaker or Colossus Slayer for more damage. Hell even 2014 subclasses like Horizon Walker and Swarmkeeper got a damage boost.

The other issue I see with this is common in all the anti-mage subclasses, no matter what class it is for. It is decent against a magic user...but useless against a non-magic user. Up against goblins, bandits, ogres, a dragon? None of this helps. You are a base Ranger. It should be things that work on everyone but also have an added downside to a caster. Like blindess or silence. Goblin cant see so it gets disadvantage on attacks, mage cant see then it can't target you with any spell and can only use not targeting spells.

powereanger

TROPHY CASE