D&D Why The Ranger Was Revised (How 5.5 Can Fix It)

Dungeons & Dragons players love to rank the classes by their overall strength, and it’s often the arcane spellcasters that come out on top. One class that has had a tumultuous history in terms of viability is the Ranger, which is currently so weak that it had to receive a revised version through errata. This is strange, considering the most iconic D&D character is a Ranger. Drizzt Do’Urden is a drow Ranger who has starred in many books and appeared in several D&D video games, yet his fellow wanderers and trackers aren’t quite as fearsome on the battlefield.

The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons version of the Ranger was a popular class, as it had more interesting abilities than the Fighter and fewer restrictions than the Paladin. When third edition launched, the Ranger had a major issue. The Ranger received all of its best abilities at level one, with most of the following levels lacking any new features. A first-level Ranger received the Track feat, a +1 bonus against a Favored Enemy, and gained the Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting feats when wearing light or no armor. This meant it was beneficial to multiclass one Ranger level and dump the class for something like the Rogue. The Ranger had to be overhauled in the 3.5 Player’s Handbook, in order to make it viable.

The current version of the Ranger is poorly regarded by fans, as most of its abilities are situational, and only work with prior knowledge of the environment and types of enemies that will appear in the campaign. The Ranger was eventually improved via an online revision, and it’s a strong candidate for being remade entirely in the upcoming new version of the Player’s Handbook. 

The Weak Version Of The Ranger In The Player’s Handbook

The version of the Ranger that is featured in the Player’s Handbook is considered to be one of the weakest classes in D&D, if not the weakest. The Favored Enemy ability that used to give Rangers +4 to hit in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is now reduced to giving advantage on checks to track one enemy type, and advantage on checks to recall information about them. The Natural Explorer ability makes it impossible for the party to get lost, but only in one specific type of terrain. The Primeval Awareness ability lets the Ranger sense if one specific creature is within a mile of their current location, but doesn’t reveal how many or where they are. The Fighter and Paladin classes receive far better abilities at low levels than the Ranger in terms of combat prowess.

By far the worst aspect of the Ranger class was the Beast Master subclass. The Beast Master calls on a CR 1/4 monster (which technically includes the incredibly deadly D&D cow) and takes it as an animal companion. The Ranger has to give up their action to command their beast to attack, which can also include giving up their use of Extra Attack. That wasn’t even the biggest issue, as the animal’s stats grew at a snail’s pace, and the Ranger couldn’t replace them with a stronger animal at higher levels. This meant they were still carting around cows and mastiffs all the way up to level 20. The only good thing about the Ranger in the Player’s Handbook was the Hunter subclass, which did gain some awesome combat abilities, but it was still left in the dust by the other classes in the game.

The Revised Ranger In Unearthed Arcana Fixed Things

D&D players around the world let their dissatisfaction with the Ranger class known, and Wizards of the Coast rectified the issue with a full revision. Wizards of the Coast released The Ranger Revised Unearthed Arcana article, which is something that has been adopted by many groups around the world. This version of the Ranger boosted many of the weaker D&D class features that were in the Player’s Handbook. The Favored Enemy feature now grants +2 to attack rolls and damage against the chosen type, which is followed by choosing a second Favored Enemy at level 6, where they get +4 to attack rolls and damage, as well as advantage against spells and special abilities used by that enemy type. The Natural Explorer class feature now works on all types of terrain, lets the Ranger flat out ignore all difficult terrain, gives them advantage on initiative checks, and gives them advantage during the first round of combat against enemies that haven’t taken an action yet. The Primeval Awareness ability now lets the Ranger communicate with animals, as well as being able to detect their favored enemy’s presence within five miles of their location, along with their numbers and general direction. The Land’s Stride ability from the Player’s Handbook has been replaced with Fleet of Foot, which lets the Ranger use a Dash as a bonus action on their turn.

The biggest beneficiary of the Revised Ranger was the Beast Master, which was changed to the Beast Conclave. The Ranger could now select from a list of beefier creatures, including the black bear, to use as allies. The animal companions can now act on their own and don’t require actions to command, they gain a steady stat increase when the Ranger levels up, and they gain the benefits of Favored Enemy and Greater Favored Enemy. The base Ranger and the Beast Master did lose access to Extra Attack, but it was kept by the Hunter Conclave. The Ranger also received the Deep Stalker Conclave, which is a basic subclass that is perfect for beginners D&D players.

How 5.5 Can Improve The Ranger

The current edition of D&D is set to receive a mid-cycle revision in 2024, which fans are referring to as “5.5”, in reference to the 3.5 revision from back in the day. All that is known about D&D 5.5 is that the three core rulebooks will receive new revisions, which are backward compatible with the existing fifth edition books. The safest bet regarding the 5.5 rules is that the Ranger will be overhauled, with the Unearthed Arcana version of the class becoming the standard. It’s also likely that the class will be tweaked even further, such as a full progression system for the animal companions used by the Beast Conclave, or offer alternate selections for animals at higher levels.

Source: Wizards of the Coast

About The Author

Scott Baird
(2502 Articles Published)

Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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