CrowsandBones Revised Ranger 5e

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Overview & Creation

I have made some changes to the UA Revised Ranger base class and Beastmaster Subclass from the same document, and will be implementing this Homebrew option in place of the other versions of ranger. When choosing a subclass, not all are intrinsically synergistic with the Unearthed Arcana's Revised Ranger. It is important to consider that your class features should be gained at 3rd, 5th, 7th, 11th, and 15th levels. If your subclass of choice has issues with lining up properly with this base class, see the DM and an accord shall be reached.

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Class Features

Favored Enemy     Beginning at 1st level, you have significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to a certain type of enemy commonly encountered in the wilds.   Choose a type of favored enemy: beasts, fey, humanoids, monstrosities, or undead. You gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with weapon attacks against creatures of the chosen type. Additionally, you have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them.   When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice, typically one spoken by your favored enemy or creatures associated with it. However, you are free to pick any language you wish to learn.       Natural Explorer     You are a master of navigating the natural world, and you react with swift and decisive action when attacked. This grants you the following benefits at 1st level:   • You ignore difficult terrain.   • You have advantage on initiative rolls.   • On your first turn during combat, you have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet acted.   In addition, you are skilled at navigating the wilderness. You gain the following benefits when traveling for an hour or more:   • Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.   • Your group can’t become lost except by magical means.   • Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.   • If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.   • When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.   • While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.       Fighting Style   At 2nd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.   Archery   You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.   Defense   While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.   Dueling   When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.   Two-Weapon Fighting   When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.       Spellcasting By the time you reach 2nd level, you have learned to use the magical essence of nature to cast spells, much as a druid does. See chapter 10 for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 for the ranger spell list. See the Spellcasting section for more details.       Primeval Awareness   Beginning at 3rd level, your mastery of ranger lore allows you to establish a powerful link to beasts and to the land around you.   You have an innate ability to communicate with beasts, and they recognize you as a kindred spirit. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas to a beast as an action, and can read its basic mood and intent. You learn its emotional state, whether it is affected by magic of any sort, its short-term needs (such as food or safety), and actions you can take (if any) to persuade it to not attack.   You cannot use this ability against a creature that you have attacked within the past 10 minutes.   Additionally, you can attune your senses to determine if any of your favored enemies lurk nearby. By spending 1 uninterrupted minute in concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell), you can sense whether any of your favored enemies are present within 5 miles of you. This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present, their numbers, and the creatures’ general direction and distance (in miles) from you.   If there are multiple groups of your favored enemies within range, you learn this information for each group.       Ranger Conclave   At 3rd level, you choose to emulate the ideals and training of a ranger conclave: the Beast Conclave is detailed in the subclass options of this article, however the Hunter Conclave and the Deepstalker Conclave are detailed in the Unearthed Arcana: Revised Ranger document. You may choose a different subclass, from any source material, pending DM approval.   IMPORTANT: Your choice should grant you features at 3rd level and again at 5th, 7th, 11th, and 15th levels.       Animal Companion   At 3rd level, you learn to use your magic to create a powerful bond with a creature of the natural world.   With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 50 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food, you call forth an animal from the wilderness to serve as your faithful companion. You normally select your companion from among the following animals: an ape, a black bear, a boar, a giant badger, a giant weasel, a mule, a panther, or a wolf. However, your DM might pick one of these animals for you, based on the surrounding terrain and on what types of creatures would logically be present in the area.

• Expanding Companion Options: a beast may serve as a ranger's animal companion if it is Large or smaller and has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower.

  At the end of the 8 hours, your animal companion appears and gains all the benefits of your Companion’s Bond ability. You can have only one animal companion at a time.   If your animal companion is ever slain, the magical bond you share allows you to return it to life. With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 25 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food, you call forth your companion’s spirit and use your magic to create a new body for it. You can return an animal companion to life in this manner even if you do not possess any part of its body.   If you use this ability to return a former animal companion to life while you have a current animal companion, your current companion leaves you and is replaced by the restored companion.       Companion’s Bond  

• Your animal companion gains a variety of benefits while it is linked to you.

   

• The animal companion loses its Multiattack action, if it has one.

   

• The companion obeys your commands as best it can. It rolls for initiative like any other creature, but you determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or absent, your companion acts on its own.

   

• When using your Natural Explorer feature, you and your animal companion can both move stealthily at a normal pace.

 

• Your animal companion has abilities and game statistics determined in part by your level. Your companion uses your proficiency bonus rather than its own. In addition to the areas where it normally uses its proficiency bonus, an animal companion also adds its proficiency bonus to its AC and to its damage rolls.

     

• Your animal companion gains proficiency in two skills of your choice. It also becomes proficient with all saving throws.

   

• For each level you gain after 3rd, your animal companion gains an additional hit die and increases its hit points accordingly.

   

• Whenever you gain the Ability Score Improvement class feature, your companion’s abilities also improve. Your companion can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or it can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, your companion can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature unless its description specifies otherwise.

   

• Your companion shares your alignment, and has a personality trait and a flaw that you can roll for or select from the tables below. Your companion shares your ideal, and its bond is always, “The ranger who travels with me is a beloved companion for whom I would gladly give my life.”

   

• Your animal companion gains the benefits of your Favored Enemy feature, and of your Greater Favored Enemy feature when you gain that feature at 6th level. It uses the favored enemies you selected for those features.

    Roll a d6 or choose one trait for your companion from the following options:

1. I’m dauntless in the face of adversity.
2. Threaten my friends, threaten me.
3. I stay on alert so others can rest.
4. People see an animal and underestimate me. I use that to my advantage.
5. I have a knack for showing up in the nick of time.
6. I put my friends’ needs before my own in all things.

    Roll a d6 or choose one trait for your companion from the following options:

1. If there’s food left unattended, I’ll eat it.
2. I growl at strangers, and all people except my ranger are strangers to me.
3. Any time is a good time for a belly rub.
4. I’m deathly afraid of water.
5. My idea of hello is a flurry of licks to the face.
6. I jump on creatures to tell them how much I love them.

• Keeping Track of Proficiency When you gain your animal companion at 3rd level, its proficiency bonus matches yours at +2. As you gain levels and increase your proficiency bonus, remember that your companion’s proficiency bonus improves as well, and is applied to the following areas: Armor Class, skills, saving throws, attack bonus, and damage rolls.

• Why No Multiattack? Multiattack is a useful design tool that keeps monsters simple for the DM. It provides a boost in offense, but that boost is meant to make a beast threatening for one battle—a notion that doesn’t mesh well with a beast intended to fight with the party, rather than against it. Project Multiattack across an entire adventure, and an animal companion runs the risk of outclassing the fighters and barbarians in the party. So in story terms, your animal companion has traded in some of its ferocity (in the form of Multiattack) for better awareness and the ability to fight more effectively in concert with you.

        Ability Score Improvement   When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.       Greater Favored Enemy   At 6th level, you are ready to hunt even deadlier game. Choose a type of greater favored enemy: aberrations, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fiends, or giants. You gain all the benefits against this chosen enemy that you normally gain against your favored enemy, including an additional language. Your bonus to damage rolls against all your favored enemies increases to +4.   Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws against the spells and abilities used by a greater favored enemy.       Exceptional Training   Beginning at 7th level, on any of your turns when your beast com panion doesn’t attack, you can use a bonus action to com m and the beast to take the Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help action on its turn.     Fleet of Foot   Beginning at 8th level, you can use the Dash action as a bonus action on your turn.       Hide in Plain Sight   Starting at 10th level, you can remain perfectly still for long periods of time to set up ambushes. When you attempt to hide on your turn, you can opt to not move on that turn. If you avoid moving, creatures that attempt to detect you take a −10 penalty to their Wisdom (Perception) checks until the start of your next turn. You lose this benefit if you move or fall prone, either voluntarily or because of some external effect.   You are still automatically detected if any effect or action causes you to no longer be hidden. If you are still hidden on your next turn, you can continue to remain motionless and gain this benefit until you are detected.       Vanish   Starting at 14th level, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, you can’t be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.       Feral Senses   At 18th level, you gain preternatural senses that help you fight creatures you can’t see. When you attack a creature you can’t see, your inability to see it doesn’t impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it.   You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you, provided that the creature isn’t hidden from you and you aren’t blinded or deafened.       Foe Slayer   At 20th level, you become an unparalleled hunter. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied.

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Starting Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:   • (a) scale mail or (b) leather armor • (a) two shortswords or (b) two simple melee weapons • (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack • A longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows   In addition to the equipment listed above, all characters gain their starting wealth as determined by the Players Handbook. Rangers Starting Wealth: 5d4 x 10 gp

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Spellcasting

By the time you reach 2nd level, you have learned to use the magical essence of nature to cast spells, much as a druid does. See chapter 10 for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 for the ranger spell list.   Spell Slots   The Ranger table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.   For example, if you know the 1st-level spell animal friendship and have a 1st-level and a 2nd- level spell slot available, you can cast animal friendship using either slot.   Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher   You know two 1st-level spells of your choice from the ranger spell list.   The Spells Known column of the Ranger table shows when you learn more ranger spells of your choice. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 5th level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.   Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the ranger spells you know and replace it with another spell from the ranger spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.   Spellcasting Ability     Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your ranger spells, since your magic draws on your attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a ranger spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.   Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier   Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

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Subclass Options

Ranger Conclaves   Across the wilds, rangers come together to form conclaves—loose associations whose members share a similar outlook on how best to protect nature from those who would despoil it.         Beast Conclave   Many rangers are more at home in the wilds than in civilization, to the point where animals consider them kin. Rangers of the Beast Conclave develop a close bond with a beast, then further strengthen that bond through the use of magic.     Animal Companion   At 3rd level, you learn to use your magic to create a powerful bond with a creature of the natural world.   With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 50 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food, you call forth an animal from the wilderness to serve as your faithful companion. You normally select you companion from among the following animals: an ape, a black bear, a boar, a giant badger, a giant weasel, a mule, a panther, or a wolf. However, your DM might pick one of these animals for you, based on the surrounding terrain and on what types of creatures would logically be present in the area.   Expanding Companion Options: A beast can serve as a Beastmasters animal companion if it is Large or smaller and has a challenge rating of 1 or lower.   At the end of the 8 hours, your animal companion appears and gains all the benefits of your Companion’s Bond ability. You can have only one animal companion at a time.   If your animal companion is ever slain, the magical bond you share allows you to return it to life. With 8 hours of work and the expenditure of 25 gp worth of rare herbs and fine food, you call forth your companion’s spirit and use your magic to create a new body for it. You can return an animal companion to life in this manner even if you do not possess any part of its body.   If you use this ability to return a former animal companion to life while you have a current animal companion, your current companion leaves you and is replaced by the restored companion.     Companion’s Bond  

• Your animal companion gains a variety of benefits while it is linked to you.

 

• The animal companion loses its Multiattack action, if it has one.

 

• The companion obeys your commands as best it can. It rolls for initiative like any other creature, but you determine its actions, decisions, attitudes, and so on. If you are incapacitated or absent, your companion acts on its own.

 

• When using your Natural Explorer feature, you and your animal companion can both move stealthily at a normal pace.

• Your animal companion has abilities and game statistics determined in part by your level. Your companion uses your proficiency bonus rather than its own. In addition to the areas where it normally uses its proficiency bonus, an animal companion also adds its proficiency bonus to its AC and to its damage rolls.

   

• Your animal companion gains proficiency in two skills of your choice. It also becomes proficient with all saving throws.

 

• For each level you gain after 3rd, your animal companion gains an additional hit die and increases its hit points accordingly.

 

• Whenever you gain the Ability Score Improvement class feature, your companion’s abilities also improve. Your companion can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or it can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, your companion can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature unless its description specifies otherwise.

 

• Your companion shares your alignment, and has a personality trait and a flaw that you can roll for or select from the tables below. Your companion shares your ideal, and its bond is always, “The ranger who travels with me is a beloved companion for whom I would gladly give my life.”

 

• Your animal companion gains the benefits of your Favored Enemy feature, and of your Greater Favored Enemy feature when you gain that feature at 6th level. It uses the favored enemies you selected for those features.

  Roll a d6 or choose one trait for your companion from the following options:

1. I’m dauntless in the face of adversity.
2. Threaten my friends, threaten me.
3. I stay on alert so others can rest.
4. People see an animal and underestimate me. I use that to my advantage.
5. I have a knack for showing up in the nick of time.
6. I put my friends’ needs before my own in all things.

Roll a d6 or choose one trait for your companion from the following options:

1. If there’s food left unattended, I’ll eat it.
2. I growl at strangers, and all people except my ranger are strangers to me.
3. Any time is a good time for a belly rub.
4. I’m deathly afraid of water.
5. My idea of hello is a flurry of licks to the face.
6. I jump on creatures to tell them how much I love them.

• Keeping Track of Proficiency:When you gain your animal companion at 3rd level, its proficiency bonus matches yours at +2. As you gain levels and increase your proficiency bonus, remember that your companion’s proficiency bonus improves as well, and is applied to the following areas: Armor Class, skills, saving throws, attack bonus, and damage rolls.

• Why No Multiattack? Multiattack is a useful design tool that keeps monsters simple for the DM. It provides a boost in offense, but that boost is meant to make a beast threatening for one battle—a notion that doesn’t mesh well with a beast intended to fight with the party, rather than against it. Project Multiattack across an entire adventure, and an animal companion runs the risk of outclassing the fighters and barbarians in the party. So in story terms, your animal companion has traded in some of its ferocity (in the form of Multiattack) for better awareness and the ability to fight more effectively in concert with you.

      Coordinated Attack   Beginning at 5th level, you and your animal companion form a more potent fighting team. When you use the Attack action on your turn, if your companion can see you, it can use its reaction to make a melee attack.       Beast’s Defense   At 7th level, while your companion can see you, it has advantage on all saving throws.       Improved Exceptional Training   Beginning at 7th level, on any of your turns when your beast companion can see or hear you, you can use a bonus action to command the beast to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or Help action on its turn.       Storm of Claws and Fangs   At 11th level, your companion can use its action to make a melee attack against each creature of its choice within 5 feet of it, with a separate attack roll for each target.       Superior Beast’s Defense   At 15th level, whenever an attacker that your companion can see hits it with an attack, it can use its reaction to halve the attack’s damage against it.