Bolts and Arrows – A Comprehensive Ranger Overview, Finale: The Construction

spooky

Well, here we are. The construction of a ranger. This will be covering levels 1 through 20, and will discuss the features offered and potential decisions you can make. At the end, I will discuss which subclasses have the best straightclass power, and also when to multiclass out if you do not plan to straightclass.

Warning: This is a pretty lengthy article and has a lot of reading, so keep that in mind.

Tier 1

Level 0 (Race, Background, Score Distribution)

Race: Variant Human (Vuman) or Custom Lineage (CL)

As a weapon-using class, we need a free feat race to be effective at our job, since Crossbow Expert is absolutely necessary. Crossbow Expert is grabbed first as at this stage, it provides more DPR than Sharpshooter will. Once we pick up Sharpshooter at level 4, it will synergize very nicely.

The choice between Vuman and CL is a lot more dependent on what you want – Vuman provides more well-rounded scores, while CL provides the potential to get an 18 in your Dexterity at level 1, at the cost of lowering your Wisdom for a little bit. CL is a bit more preferable though if either will work and you don’t need clean scores.

Alternative race choices include Kobold (Volo’s version, not Modenkainen’s) and any racial flight race, like Winged Tiefling, Owlin, Aarakocra, etc. (honorable mention to Dhampir). However, these races do push your feat progression back, and with it your damage output. However, if you can get your hands on a Hunting Rifle and ammunition with it, then any race works fine as a Hunting Rifle with Sharpshooter has relatively comparable DPR to a Hand Crossbow with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter (though the Hand Crossbow is a little bit better still).

Background: Any

Anything goes here, actually. You can customize the skill proficiencies and tool/language proficiencies you get from a background RAW, as per page 125 of the PHB, which states:

“The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and roleplaying suggestions. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.”

Preferably, we take skills we did not take from our class, normally Arcana for spell scroll scribing and some random skill of your pick.

For tools, it really depends on what you need and what your party already has. Tabletop Builds has a guide covering every tool, so just take what you need. If you for some reason prefer to have languages, just take whatever suits the campaign.

Tech Van Richten’s Inheritor

In Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (VRGR), there are a set of background “replacements” that can be used in place of your background feature. Most of them are flavorful, but the Inheritor background replacement can be very potent “An ancestor or mentor’s deeds earned them a place in legend. Now it’s your turn. You are the clear inheritor of a famed legacy. You’ve inherited a token from your predecessor, something that marks you as their inheritor, such as a signet ring, signature piece of clothing, or notable weapon. Additionally, any time you reveal your legacy, you swiftly learn the local opinion of your predecessor. If locals have never heard of your predecessor, nothing changes. If they have, rumors of your connection spread swiftly, and many locals consider you either a hero or a threat. Heroes are welcomed and might easily gain an audience with local leaders. Threats are encouraged to leave before they invite danger.” What we’re looking at here is the fact that it only says “token” and adds no further qualifiers, meaning we can get theoretically anything we want from this background. Please discuss with your DM if you choose to do this however, as it’s likely they aren’t going to let you just start with a Ring of Three Wishes. If you want a safe bet, going for a Hand Crossbow as your inherited item can save you some gold.

Ability Scores: DEX, CON, WIS

Dexterity (DEX) is, of course, our main score and what we use for attacking, and is our main priority for stats. Get this to a 15 if using Point Buy and boost it with your racial ASI (+1 of Vuman, +2 if CL). If you use another race besides the free feat ones, make use of Tasha’s Customizing your Origin rules (provided it is allowed) to change your racial ASI to DEX.
Our second most important score is Constitution (CON), which determines our HP, helps save against generally debilitating effects like poisons, and most importantly, is used for our concentration. You want to get this to a 15 if you can, and round it out later with something like Resilient (CON). If you have CON save proficiencies from some other source, then you could probably leave this as a 14 to prevent excess points from being spent.
Lastly, of course, is our tertiary score, Wisdom (WIS), which is used for our spell save DC and spell attack rolls, as well as debilitating saves later on. As covered in my Ranger myths article, due to your best spells relying little to none on your spell save DC, you don’t have to worry too much about boosting this. Get it to a 15 and either boost it with your other racial ASI (if playing a race with 2 ASIs, like Vuman) or just leave it at 15 and boost it at a later time with a class ASI – or not even at all. We do want to keep this score positive though since so many saves that require Wisdom later on are lethal, often outright killing the player
Strength (STR), Intelligence (INT), and Charisma (CHA) are our dump stats, and we have little to do with them. Leave these scores as 8s if using Point Buy, though if you have a spare point or two left over, feel free to put it wherever.

For the purposes of this example in building, I will use this score distribution, using a Variant Human, putting my +1s into DEX and WIS:

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
8	15 (+1)	15	8	15 (+1)	8
-1	+3	+2	-1	+3	-1

If you’re playing Custom Lineage, your score distribution will probably look something more like this:

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
8	15 (+2)	15	8	15	8
-1	+3	+2	-1	+2	-1

Either way, for my free feat from my race, I take Crossbow Expert.

If you’re playing a non free-feat race for some reason, which are +2/+1 races generally (if playing Volo’s Kobold, use the Custom Lineage distribution), then your score distribution will probably look something like this:

STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
8	14 (+2)	15	10	15 (+1)	8
-1	+3	+2	-1	+3	-1

Use Tasha’s Customizing your Origin feature to get that +2/+1 anywhere

The last 2 points from your Point Buy can just be put anywhere you want, I stuck them into Intelligence since I like having 10 INT. You can also opt to instead get your DEX to 15, for a total of 17, but as we don’t need to round out our Wisdom, unlike Custom Lineage, this will end up with some awkward ASIs when we do finally increase DEX.

If you prefer to roll for your stats, place the 2 highest rolls into DEX and CON, and then the 3rd-highest into Wisdom. Place your racial ASIs into DEX and WIS (DEX if you only have one ASI). Make sure the higher bonus from your racial ASIs if applicable goes into DEX.

Alternate Option Going Guns Blazing

If your DM allows for firearms, and allows you to get your hands on a firearm, you may enjoy taking the Gunner feat instead of Crossbow Expert, provided you get your hands on something like a Musket. Gunner is notably a half-feat, giving us a +1 to our Dexterity score, so account for that when creating your score distributions for rounding things out, such as getting yourself an 18 in DEX at level 1 from Custom Lineage. Do keep in mind though that even then, the DPR of a Musket + Sharpshooter is only somewhat comparable to Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter with a Hand Crossbow, with the Hand Crossbow still coming out on top overall.

Level 1 (Class Features)

After our race, background, and ability scores, we now actually get our class in order.

Skill Proficiencies: Perception, Stealth

Of the options we are given (Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, Survival), we can choose 3. We want to take Perception and Stealth first and foremost, as they are the most important skills in the game. The last skill proficiency can just be whatever you want. Athletics can be nice to have for when you really need to get yourself out of a jam, but it’s really up to you.

Equipment: Scale Mail, 2 Shortswords, Explorer’s Pack, Longbow and 20 arrows

This is the main equipment choices we want to work with for now. Scale Mail provides the best AC of our two options, and disadvantage on Stealth is irrelevant once we get Pass Without Trace going. Sell the 2 Shortswords whenever you can, we have no plans to use them and we need to get our Hand Crossbow as soon as possible. Getting some GP from your background also helps. You’ll preferably want to hold on to the Longbow, since it’ll be helpful for default killing encounters when called for, but if you have to, sell it in order to get a Hand Crossbow and purchase another Longbow later. If you have zero opportunities to get a Hand Crossbow, then use your Longbow for now.
Outside of a Hand Crossbow and ammunition, we also want to purchase Half-Plate whenever we can to properly maximize our armor. Get mounts or whatnot to carry extra gear or to serve as, well, mounts.

Class Feature: Favored Enemy
Favored Enemies: 1 type or 2 humanoids

Choose whatever you want here, it kinda doesn’t matter at all. Choose what you would think would be the most common monster types in the given campaign I suppose – discuss this with your DM. Aberrations, Monstrosities, and Beasts are generally the most common monsters types though.

Class Feature: Favored Foe (Replaces Favored Enemy)
Current Die: 1d4
Current Uses: 2 per long rest

For the love of all that is holy, use this over Favored Enemy if you can. We don’t have many uses, nor is the damage exactly great, but it’s free, is on a separate resource pool, and we have nothing better to concentrate on at this point. Use it on whatever you think needs to die now.

Class Feature: Natural Explorer
Favored Terrains: 1 environment

Like with Favored Enemy, choose whatever you want. The benefits are marginal. Just ask your DM what environment you and your party will most commonly be in I suppose.

Class Feature: Deft Explorer (Replaces Natural Explorer)
Canny: Yes
Roving: No
Tireless: No

As with Favored Foe, please take this feature over Natural Explorer. We’ll get Roving and Tireless later on, but Canny is a fine feature – we take Perception to gain the benefits of Canny’s expertise. Stealth is also a viable option in this case. For the languages, choose whatever you want or what would be campaign-relevant.

Level 2 (Class Features)

Class Feature: Fighting Style

We take Archery, which is the only fighting style that matters for us. If you already have Archery from some other source, then take Defense. Blind Fighting also isn’t too terrible of an option, though a 10-foot blindsight is a bit small considering we are a ranged weapon user. Druidic Warrior for Guidance, Magic Stone, etc. also isn’t too bad, but just ensure you have Archery first.

Class Feature: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Known Spells: 2
Current Spell Slots: 2 (1st level)

Our big feature of the level. We have a few combinations possible here from our picks: Absorb Elements, Detect Magic, Ensnaring Strike, Entangle, Fog Cloud, and Goodberry. Do not fall into the trap that is Hunter’s Mark. However, we only have 2 known spells at this level, which is a little limiting, though to be more accurate, it’s only 1 known spell, as we should always automatically pick Goodberry for rest casting. Each spell has a particular niche to fill:

• Absorb Elements is for improved defenses, and is very valuable at higher levels. However, at lower levels elemental blasts are not as common, so you can safely avoid this option until later, where it becomes a necessity.
• Detect Magic is a solid spell for sweeping for magic items actively. However, as we lack the ritual casting feature, it’s better to let a caster who does have ritual casting handle this, unless we are the sole caster in the party for some reason.
• Ensnaring Strike is decent single-target control, and can also handle flying enemies, unlike Entangle. However, only targeting a single enemy can leave a bit to be desired.
• Entangle is a solid control spell for its level, offering a good area of difficult terrain. The initial restraining effect is also very nice, though not the focus of the spell.
• Fog Cloud is a helpful spell for negating enemy advantage or blocking line of sight when facing enemy casters. Please note that with obscurement rules, a creature is still aware of an obscured creature’s presence so long as the obscured creature did not successfully Hide. As Fog Cloud blinds the creatures inside it, but also “blinds” those looking in, the advantage and disadvantage gained cancel each other out. Use this for encounters such as the common 8 wolves, or when an enemy caster is on the loose. Remember to also think in 3D with this spell! If the enemy is taller than you and your party, you can choose a point higher up that can block the target’s line of sight while leaving your party perfectly fine, as they can still see the rest of the target’s body.

Outside of these given spells, your other options are relatively weak or mediocre and aren’t really worth taking – some you even get for free if you use the Primal Awareness optional feature from Tasha’s.
When casting spells, you should be fairly reactive as opposed to active. You only have two spell slots, after all. Use your spell chosen only when it is necessary, and convert any left over spell slots into Goodberries at the end of the day.

Level 3 (Class Features and Improvements)

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Known Spells: 3
Current Spell Slots: 3 (1st level)

Nothing much, just more slots and spells. Everything stated when you got this feature in level 2 still stands, but now you can get another spell, generally one of the ones you didn’t take from the previous level.

Class Feature: Primeval Awareness

A mediocre feature that we won’t use too often. The amount of monster types it detects is quite plentiful, and it covers quite a large area, but it requires our spell slots and doesn’t even at least give a rough number of enemies or their general locations. If you think you’ll get mileage out of it, go for it, it can be very helpful for preparations with your party, but otherwise don’t bother.

Class Feature: Primal Awareness (Replaces Primeval Awareness)
Current Spells Gained: Speak with Animals

Unlike the other optional features, I don’t fully recommend taking this over Primeval Awareness, since Primal and Primeval Awareness both have their situations. If you don’t think Primeval is going to do a lot though, then take Primal for the free additional spells and free castings. We get Speak with Animals at this level, which can help with roleplay scenarios or diffusing combat, as well as getting information. Keep in mind we lack ritual casting though.

Class Feature: Ranger Conclave

We get our subclass now. I’ve covered all of them in my previous articles, so go read those depending on what you want. However, to reiterate the overall power of each conclave, 6 are usable, and 2 suck a lot, out of the 8 conclaves available. Of the 6 that are usable, they are divided half-and-half into an upper and lower tier, upper being the general strongest, and lower being good but not outstanding.

Upper Tier
1. Gloom Stalker
2. Swarmkeeper
3. Hunter

Lower Tier
4. Beast Master
5. Drakewarden
6. Fey Wanderer

Weak
7. Horizon Walker
8. Monster Hunter

Level 4 (Class Features)

Class Feature: Ability Score Improvement/Feat
Chosen: Feat – Sharpshooter

Our first ASI/Feat, and with it we take Sharpshooter. No ifs or buts here, only Sharpshooter. From here on out, you’ll want to be power attacking most of the time, only not power attacking if you can guess that the creature’s HP is low enough that it will die without the damage from Sharpshooter.

Class Feature: Martial Versatility

We don’t have reason to bother with this, Archery is the best fighting style and there’s no reason to change. If you already had Archery from another source though, then you could probably do a few swaps, though Defense is the one you generally want to keep.

Level 5 (Class Features and Improvements)

We get a big power spike this level.

Feature Improvement: Favored Foe
Current Die: 1d4
Current Uses: 3

This is not the actual improvement for the feature, but as our proficiency bonus scaled from +2 to +3 now, it’s worth noting.

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Spells Known: 4
Current Spell Slots: 4 (1st level), 2 (2nd level)

Second-level spells are here now, and we get a wider array of spells to choose from. Keep in mind expanded spells from our conclave of choice too. Due to the great options we have from 2nd-level, we’re probably have to make adjustments, dropping the 3rd 1st-level spell we learned back at 3rd level in order to have 2 2nd-level spells.
Our good choices from the 2nd-level spells are Aid, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, Pass Without Trace, Silence, and Spike Growth.

• Aid is an awesome spell for buffing up hit points, and should be restcasted. However, due to also healing, this can be used to bring back up multiple downed party memebers in a pinch. Preferably, someone else in the party, like an actual caster, should be casting this, but you can provide if needed.
• Lesser Restoration is a bit niche, but helpful when needed. Like Aid, the casting of this spell should be left to an actual caster or a caster with spell preps to spare, and shouldn’t be your main choice.
• Locate Object is an amazing spell for locating MacGuffins, sweeping for loot, or finding where the BBEG ran off to. Tabletop Builds has covered this spell in great depth, so there’s not much more for me to say here.
• Pass Without Trace is insane. Surprise rules in this game are incredible, granting the entire party what is effectively an Action Surge in Round 1 of combat, and Pass Without Trace provides heavily with its whopping +10 bonus to Stealth. This is one of the prime picks for your known spells, and is what you generally concentrate on outside of combat. However, if your DM rules differently for Surprise, and/or your party doesn’t enjoy the tip toe strategy, then this may not be a great idea.
• Silence is a more situational pick and best left to an actual caster. However, it has its uses when called for. Don’t make this your main pick though.
• Spike Growth is an amazing control spell, and well worth being one of our limited known spells, covering a large area and even having some damage to discourage enemy movement more. If you pick this, then this is your main concentration spell when you aren’t concentrating on Pass Without Trace (and the situation warrants you casting Spike Growth).

A solid amount of picks overall, but remember not to skimp on defenses with your 1st-level spells.

Feature Improvement: Primal Awareness
Current Spells Gained: Speak with Animals, Beast Sense

Nothing much to say, Beast Sense is just meh. Free casting though, so we’ll take it anyways.

Class Feature: Extra Attack

A strong yet straightforward feature. We now make a total of 3 attacks per turn (2 attacks from Extra Attack, 1 from Crossbow Expert), and our DPR is doing very nicely.

Tier 2

Ending Tier 1 on a good note, we now enter Tier 2 of gameplay, gaining more features to play around with.

Level 6 (Class Feature Improvements)

It’s all upgrades to meh features this level. Except Deft Explorer, that one is cool.

Feature Improvement: Favored Enemy
Favored Enemies: 2 types or 4 humanoids

We don’t care about this feature at all so once again, take whatever you want.

Feature Improvement: Favored Foe
Current Die: 1d6
Current Uses: 3

An improvement to the damage die, but it’s not very significant. By this point, we have better things to be concentrating on, so we’re rarely ever even using Favored Foe. Even in situations where we don’t need a concentration spell, we’ll likely be holding concentration on Pass Without Trace from out of combat.

Feature Improvement: Natural Explorer
Favored Terrains: 2 environments

Yay, an improvement to a feature we’ll never use. At least you have 1 additional terrain you might be able to get a tiny bit of benefit from. Choose whatever you want.

Feature Improvement: Deft Explorer
Canny: Yes
Roving: Yes
Tireless: No

We get Roving now, which is very welcome. Increasing our walking speed by 5 feet means we can now kite harder, and will often be faster than most enemies. In addition, we get climbing speed, which is always nice to have, and swim speed, which is situational but somewhat useful. The inability to breath underwater though does lessen the effectiveness of the swim speed, however.

Level 7 (Class Feature Improvements)

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Spells Known: 5
Current Spell Slots: 4 (1st level), 3 (2nd level)

More known spells and some more spell slot, a very welcome improvement. You now have 1 additional known spell, letting you grab anything you were missing. Absorb Elements is starting to be a good idea to grab if you don’t already have it.

Feature Improvement: Ranger Conclave feature

Another feature from our conclave. This one is usually more defensively-oriented, but it really depends on the conclave you chose.

Level 8 (Class Features and Improvements)

Feature Improvement: Ability Score Improvement/Feat
Chosen: Feat – Resilient (CON)

We want to round out and protect our concentration around now, bumping our CON from a 15 to a 16 (if using the score distribution at the start) and giving us proficiency in the Constitution saving throw. If we already obtained proficiency from elsewhere though, then other good feats of choice include Alert, Lucky, Fey Touched (Gift of Alacrity, take Dissonant Whispers if not available), or Strixhaven Initiate (Shield if you don’t have it, otherwise Silvery Barbs).

Class Feature: Land’s Stride

There’s not much to really say about this feature, use it to get around difficult terrain and whatnot, as well as being able to save against control effects affecting terrain. This likely won’t come up too often, but it’s a welcome feature to have.

Level 9 (Class Feature Improvements)

This is it. The big level. The largest power spike we will ever see as a straightclassed Ranger.

Feature Improvement: Favored Foe
Current Die: 1d6
Current Uses: 4

This is not the actual improvement for the feature, but as our proficiency bonus scaled from +3 to +4 now, it’s worth noting.

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Spells Known: 6
Current Spell Slots: 4 (1st level), 3 (2nd level), 2 (3rd level)

We get one more known spell and 3rd-level spells. There’s some options here, but there is only one spell that matters at all for this level: Conjure Animals. Outside of that, feel free to drop one of your lower-level known spells in favor of another 3rd-level spell here. Good choices besides Conjure Animals here are Nondetection, Plant Growth, and Revivify (honorable mention to Speak with Plants).

• Conjure Animals is our premier 3rd-level spell and is what will dominate our concentration generally, outside of Pass Without Trace. The hour-long duration of this spell also means it can persist past one combat encounter, which is very nice and aids in resource conservation. This spell just offers a ton of flexibility, and while I could write an article covering all of your options, Haen from Form of Dread has already done so (Note: I did end up writing an article about it). Now, in later tiers you may run into enemies that are resistant or outright immune to nonmagical damage, but that can be partly dealt with through the use of more supportive summons rather than damaging ones.
• Nondetection is a situational pick and best left to an actual caster, but you’ll know when this will be helpful.
• Plant Growth is a wonderful concentrationless control spell that can absolutely shut down enemies with a massive area, and makes a solid second pick after Conjure Animals, provided you are dropping one of your lower-level spell picks for this. Quartering enemy movement is just insane. Plant Growth is, however, written oddly, and your DM may have different rulings about where the plants are coming from.
• Revivify is best left to an actual caster, but it never hurts to have another character to have this at the ready. After all, if the person who normally casts this spell goes down, who’s going to revive that person?

This level is just “Conjure Animals: The Class Feature” and is our main choice. However, at this point you should definitely consider taking Absorb Elements to shore up your defenses. An example of spell picks at this level looks something like this:

Spell Level	Spell Name
1st	Absorb Elements, Goodberry
2nd	Aid, Pass Without Trace
3rd	Conjure Animals, Plant Growth

List borrowed from Tabletop Builds’s Basic Build Ranger

Question How does Plant Growth work in your game?

“This spell is poorly written, and it’s hard to determine how exactly it works, but it’s a potentially very potent spell on the Druid spell list.  ‘If you cast this spell using 1 action, choose a point within range. All normal plants in a 100-foot radius centered on that point become thick and overgrown. A creature moving through the area must spend 4 feet of movement for every 1 foot it moves. – PHB p.266’ Which part of this spell description is flavor, and which part is mechanic? How does the presence of plants affect the spell area and what does ‘become thick and overgrown’ mean? What counts as plants?  The radius of this spell can be read in different ways. 1. The entire area, regardless of plant coverage in each square, becomes 4x speed penalty.  2. Existing plants grow to undefined size to become the spell effect.  3. Only exactly the area with plants already existing impose the speed penalty. One way to handle this is to agree on a consistent ruling, possibly by defining a baseline expectation for the spell. Can you make use of general moss throughout the dungeon? Can the spell effect expand from a plant you carry by your side?

Questions borrowed from Tabletop Builds’s What to Ask Before Playing a Druid

Feature Improvement: Primal Awareness
Current Spells Gained: Speak with Animals, Beast Sense, Speak with Plants

Speak with Plants is a solid concentrationless control spell, covering a decent area and creating difficult terrain for us. Getting a free casting on top of this is a very nice cherry on top.

Level 10 (Class Features and Improvements)

We get nothing of note here. Unless you use the Tasha’s optional features.

Feature Improvement: Natural Explorer
Favored Terrains: 3 environments

All I feel is pain when I look at this. At least you can kind of cover your environmental bases now? Just… god this feature really sucks. There’s just nothing to give here because the features are so marginal that it really doesn’t matter what you pick. Same with Favored Enemy.

Feature Improvement: Deft Explorer
Canny: Yes
Roving: Yes
Tireless: Yes

With this, we have completed the Deft Explorer trinity. I sure hope you chose this feature over Natural Explorer if you could. While Tireless is a bit of a weird feature, it’s very solid and worth using when entering a short rest or before entering combat to get some temporary hit points. The action isn’t otherwise worth any use in combat, but we do have a plentiful amount of uses, so feel free to use it as you see fit
As for the Exhaustion reduction part, it’s situational but very funny and can lead to some potential interactions. This is overall a good finish to Deft Explorer.

Class Feature: Hide in Plain Sight

Just don’t. You have Pass Without Trace for this. Sure, this doesn’t require resources, but it takes a minute and prevents you from moving or really doing anything, and it only works on yourself, compared to casting Pass Without Trace and granting everyone that sweet, sweet +10 bonus to Stealth without any sort of restrictions.

Class Feature: Nature’s Veil (Replaces Hide in Plain Sight)
Current Uses: 4

The better option between this and Hide in Plain Sight. It’s essentially Greater Invisibility, and helps in a pinch, letting you get the hell away. Being a bonus action use can help free up your action for other things, and can be used for quick advantage generation for ourselves if need be. Good feature overall.

Tier 3

We now enter Tier 3 of gameplay. Things are generally slowing down for us, but we’re still getting some goodies here and there.

Level 11 (Class Feature Improvements)

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Spells Known: 7
Current Spell Slots: 4 (1st level), 3 (2nd level), 3 (3rd level)

One more 3rd-level slot for Conjure Animals, and an additional spell known. All your spell choices pretty much remain the same, with nothing out of the ordinary. You really should take Absorb Elements if you haven’t already by this point.

Feature Improvement: Ranger Conclave feature

Our second-to-last feature from our conclave. The effectiveness of this feature depends on your conclave.

Level 12 (Class Feature Improvements)

Feature Improvement: Ability Score Improvement/Feat
Chosen: +2 DEX or +1/+1 to DEX and WIS

Now that we are at this point, it’s preferable for us to boost our to-hit to continue keeping up with enemy AC, especially now since we’re in Tier 3 of gameplay. If you are using the Vuman ability score distribution, then take a +2 to your DEX, and if you’re using the CL score distribution, take a +1/+1 to your DEX and WIS to round both of them out.
These scores can, of course, change depending on what you’re exactly doing with your Ranger, though by this point it’s safe to say you probably plan on continuing to straightclass Ranger.
Besides the ASI, feats are also a valid choice here, we are simply increasing DEX (and WIS depending on ability score distribution) so our to-hit is more reliable and rounding out our scores.

Level 13 (Class Feature Improvements)

We get our 4th-level spells now.

Feature Improvement: Favored Foe
Current Die: 1d6
Current Uses: 5

This is not the actual improvement for the feature, but as our proficiency bonus scaled from +4 to +5 now, it’s worth noting.

Feature Improvement: Nature’s Veil
Current Uses: 5

This is not an actual improvement for the feature, but as our proficiency bonus scaled from +4 to +5 now, it’s worth noting.

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Spells Known: 8
Current Spell Slots: 4 (1st level), 3 (2nd level), 3 (3rd level), 1 (4th level)

We get our 4th-level spells now. We don’t have many choices to really choose from here, but a good pick is Conjure Woodland Beings. Other good choices are Freedom of Movement and Guardian of Nature.

• Conjure Woodland Beings is the magical utility to Conjure Animals’ damage. There are quite a lot of things you can get from this spell, such as pixies, dryads, reflections, and so on. Keep in mind that your premier choice for concentration is either Pass Without Trace (when out of combat) or Conjure Animals (when in combat), but this spell offers great utility when it’s needed while still being able to contribute some damage. Haen has discussed notable options for this spell.
• Freedom of Movement is a decent, if a little expensive spell for getting you or another creature out of a jam, since it deals with difficult terrain as well as being grappled, restrained, or paralyzed. Not the first pick, but not the worst either.
• Guardian of Nature is a solid spell if we’ve got nothing better to do, providing advantage on our Hand Crossbow attacks, creating difficult terrain, and granting some temporary hit points. As you can guess, we use Guardian of Nature for the Great Tree form – pretend Primal Beast doesn’t exist, we have no reason to get into melee.

We only have one 4th-level slot, so it’s best to reserve it for upcasting Conjure Animals normally. However, if you see the need to, feel free to cast one of the other spells you have, like Conjure Woodland Beings. You have one additional spell known at this level as well, so feel free to reorient your chosen spells.

An example of what you could have now:

Spell Level	Spell Name
1st	Absorb Elements, Goodberry
2nd	Aid, Pass Without Trace, Spike Growth
3rd	Conjure Animals, Revivify
4th	Conjure Woodland Beings

Feature Improvement: Primal Awareness
Current Spells Gained: Speak with Animals, Beast Sense, Speak with Plants, Locate Creature

Just a meh level for Primal Awareness overall. Locate Creature is not a great spell, since Locate Object just does its job but cheaper and better (locate the target’s hair for example, which is an object). However, we do get a free casting thanks for Primal Awareness, so we’ll take it anyways.

Level 14 (Class Features and Improvements)

Feature Improvement: Favored Enemy
Favored Enemies: 3 types or 6 humanoids

We don’t care about this feature at all so once again, take whatever you want.

Feature Improvement: Favored Foe
Current Die: 1d8
Current Uses: 5

Our final improvement to the damage die, but at this point, we’re pretty much always concentrating on something better, so don’t expect to ever use this save for very fringe cases.

Class Feature: Vanish

Hiding as a bonus action isn’t too terible, but it’s not something we’ll find ourselves using too often in combat, as our bonus action is dedicated to the Hand Crossbow normally.

Question Hunter’s Advantage

If you are playing Hunter specifically, Vanish may be able to actually provide some solid combat benefits depending on your DM’s interpretation, specifically with Volley. If the DM interprets the advantage from Hiding as only applying to the first attack from Volley, then Vanish remains as a “whatever” feature. However, if your DM interprets the advantage from Hiding as applying to every attack from Volley, this could offer some pretty good AoE damage when needed.

Level 15 (Class Feature Improvements)

We end off Tier 3 on a good note, which unfortunately can’t be said for Tier 4.

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Spells Known: 9
Current Spell Slots: 4 (1st level), 3 (2nd level), 3 (3rd level), 2 (4th level)

Another known spell and second 4th-level spell slot. You can kind of just choose whatever by this point, but adding in something like Revivify, or adding back Fog Cloud if you removed it or whatnot is a good idea, and for the love of god get Absorb Elements if you haven’t already by this point.

Feature Improvement: Ranger Conclave feature

Our last feature from our conclave. The effectiveness of this feature depends on your conclave.

Tier 4

The last tier of gameplay and where things generally break if they haven’t already… if you’re playing a fullcaster. As a half-caster, we just kind of end on a quiet note.

Level 16 (Class Feature Improvements)

Feature Improvement: Ability Score Improvement/Feat
Chosen: Feat – Lucky

By now we definitely want to enhance our defenses, taking Lucky to help negate a variety of things. Other defensive feats are also valid choices here, but Lucky is the standard and provides plenty for us to work with.
Taking a +2 to your DEX instead to finally cap it is also something worth noting on, but it’s generally more important to enhance your defenses first before finishing off your DEX.

Level 17 (Class Feature Improvements)

We get our 5th-level spells. Shame most of them are disappointments though, we’d rather just upcast Conjure Animals.

Feature Improvement: Favored Foe
Current Die: 1d8
Current Uses: 6

This is not an actual improvement for the feature, but as our proficiency bonus scaled from +5 to +6 now, it’s worth noting.

Feature Improvement: Nature’s Veil
Current Uses: 6

This is not an actual improvement for the feature, but as our proficiency bonus scaled from +5 to +6 now, it’s worth noting.

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Spells Known: 10
Current Spell Slots: 4 (1st level), 3 (2nd level), 3 (3rd level), 3 (4th level), 1 (5th-level)

An additional spell known, one more 4th-level slot, and a 5th-level slot. As mentioned earlier, our options from 5th-level spells are disappointing, and we’re really just better off upcasting Conjure Animals. However, we do have two decent options, which are Greater Restoration and Steel Wind Strike.

• Greater Restoration is a situational spell and best left to an actual caster who got it multiple levels earlier, but we won’t say no either considering it’s only one of two good 5th-level spell options we get. Like Revivify, we will likely not be the person casting this spell generally, but it never hurts to have another person who can cast it, just in case.
• Steel Wind Strike is more of a mediocre spell if anything. Its DPR is only similar to that of some velociraptors from Conjure Animals, but spread over multiple targets instead of focus fire, which leaves a bit to be desired. However, its damage isn’t bad at all, and can be a decent spell to cast if the situation really demands multitarget damage. But seriously, just upcast Conjure Animals.

We can take one of two of the good 5th-level spells, or we can just take another lower-level spell from previous levels with our known spells.

Feature Improvement: Primal Awareness
Current Spells Gained: Speak with Animals, Beast Sense, Speak with Plants, Locate Creature, Commune with Nature

Commune with Nature is a decent information spell, and while we lack ritual casting to maximize this spell, we do get a free casting, which is “good enough.”

Level 18 (Class Features)

Class Feature: Feral Senses

Free advantage generation for ourselves, paired with something like Fog Cloud or whatnot since we no longer suffer disadvantage as a result of being unable to see a creature. It also allows use to deal with invisible enemies.
The second half of the feature though is useless, since RAW an invisible creature’s location is still known unless it succeeds on Hiding, but in that case, this feature then doesn’t even function since the creature successfully hid.

Level 19 (Class Feature Improvements)

Feature Improvement: Spellcasting (Known)
Current Spells Known: 11
Current Spell Slots: 4 (1st level), 3 (2nd level), 3 (3rd level), 3 (4th level), 2 (5th-level)

We get one more known spell and a second 5th-level slot. Just take whatever at this point, it doesn’t matter.

Example final spell list:

Spell Level	Spell Name
1st	Absorb Elements, Fog Cloud, Goodberry
2nd	Aid, Pass Without Trace, Spike Growth
3rd	Conjure Animals, Plant Growth, Revivify
4th	Conjure Woodland Beings
5th	Greater Restoration

Feature Improvement: Ability Score Improvement/Feat
Chosen: +2 DEX

We now finally cap off our Dexterity. Quite frankly, you can replace this with a feat like Alert if you so wish, we’re just taking +2 to DEX just to finally round it off.

Level 20 (Class Features)

The level of pure disappointment.

Class Feature: Foe Slayer
Foe Slayer Bonus: +3

The likelihood of encountering a Favored Enemy is low, and we’re pretty much never concentrating on Favored Foe, so don’t expect this feature to come up often enough to have any sort of impact, unless your DM is merciful.
Even if you do get benefit from this feature, +3 to your attack roll (we don’t care about buffing the damage roll) once per turn is not a great enough benefit to warrant this being your capstone. Go cast Conjure Animals and let those things shred for you.

Construction Recap

Overall, when constructing our Ranger, we can see there is reasonably solid progression in the early tiers of gameplay, with things slowing down in Tiers 3-4. However, even then we still keep up thanks to our spells gained and used, and our trusty Hand Crossbow by our side. Our choices are a bit static though, with most of the flexibility coming from our race and background. Oh well, it’s what we need to be an effective Ranger.

Conclave Straightclass Effectiveness

As mentioned at the start, each conclave has a level of straightclass power. I’m not going to be restating my previous articles, which cover each conclaves’ progression more in-depth, but will be giving a brief summary.

Rating System (Out of 5)
1 – The worst of the worst, don’t even bother with this.
2 – Workable, but underwhelming and not worth the time generally.
3 – Middle-of-the-road, with nothing outstanding or terrible. There are better choices still though.
4 – Very good, pretty much always worth it
5 – Excellent, with no progression drop-off ever.

Gloom Stalker
5/5

Leading off strong, we have the Gloom Stalker, which has incredible progression at almost every point of the game. Dread Ambusher and Umbral Sight are amazing, but Iron Mind and Stalker’s Flurry are no slouches either, being effectively a free feat and an extra attack, respectively. The only time Gloom every really drops off is with its capstone, Shadowy Dodge, which is weak and not really worth its use, but by this point we have so many goodies that it doesn’t matter.

Swarmkeeper
4.5/5

Swarmkeeper is next in line, with very solid progression overall. Gathered Swarm is our signature feature of course, coming straight in at 3rd level, but its improvements at 11th level with Mighty Swarm are also amazing. Swarming Dispersal is also a respectable capstone feature, offering decent defenses. The only off one out here that drags Swarmkeeper down just a little is Writhing Tide. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine feature, but with only 10 feet of flying speed proficiency bonus per long rest times, it does leave a bit to be desired.

Hunter
4/5

Hunter has okay progression in its straightclassing overall, but its progression gets a bit weaker as time goes on.
Hunter initially starts strong with Hunter’s Prey, which is very good with both Colossus Slayer and Horde Breaker. The second feature we get, Multiattack Defense, which has a handful of decent features which have some general applications – Steel Will and Multiattack Defense will come up enough to be relevant most of the time. Once we get to Multiattack and Superior Hunter’s Defense, the ball does drop a little though.
Multiattack, specifically Volley, while decent AoE when called for, does need a fair amount of targets to break even with making 3 attacks with your power-attacked Hand Crossbow, and due to not being a ranged weapon attack as written, it doesn’t let us qualify for our bonus action attack with Crossbow Expert either.
Superior Hunter’s Defense is also just okay, but does leave a bit to be desired, even if Evasion is a solid feature.

Beast Master
2/5

While Beast Master is a solid conclave, pretty much all of its power is frontloaded into the first feature of the class with Ranger’s Companion or Primal Companion (Ranger’s Companion is recommended over Primal Companion). Past that, this subclass doesn’t offer much for us to use, though Exceptional Training’s bonus action Dash is nice I suppose.

Drakewarden
3/5

Although Drakewarden overall is slightly worse than Beast Master, its progression is a little better. Draconic Gift is a ribbon obviously, so what we’re here for is our Drake Companion. We can’t mount or use it to fly around yet, but it has a decent enough reaction for bumping up our damage, and it’s cheap to revive.
Bond of Fang and Scale is where thing really start ramping up, allowing our drake to finally grapple and fly us around while we go pew pew with our Hand Crossbow. Do keep in mind that if reading the mounting part, it only prevents you from using its flying speed, not another player.
Drake’s Breath on the other hand isn’t all that great and not worth our time, but Perfected Bond is a decent capstone, giving us adaptable resistance, and now you can actually properly ride it instead of grappling + flying.

Fey Wanderer
3/5

This subclass is the peak of mediocrity quite honestly, and exemplifies the 3/5 rating the best. Beguiling Twist is about the best feature Fey Wanderer gets, and everything else is just kind of okay – Dreadful Strikes is bonus damage that exists, Otherwordly Glamour is a decent ribbon, Fey Reinforcements gives us a free casting and concentrationless casting of a mediocre spell, and Misty Wanderer is discount Dimension Door.

Horizon Walker
1/5 (1.5/5 if using guns)

I’ll give Horizon Walker some breathing space and note that the teleportation from Distant Strike is decent enough for kiting. That’s it. And this doesn’t come until 11th level. The rest of Horizon Walker’s progression is also poor. Planar Warrior wastes our bonus action that should’ve just been used to attack again with your Hand Crossbow (However, it is worth noting that if you use a gun like a Musket or Hunting Rifle and not a Hand Crossbow, then your bonus action is freed up to use this feature), Ethereal Step doesn’t last long enough to have any good defensive applications (and is only once per short rest), and Spectral Defense is Uncanny Dodge but worse and comes at much later level. Just never bother with this subclass.

Monster Slayer
1/5

This subclass is just really bad and offers absolutely nothing worth using. Hunter’s Sense is a ribbon that doesn’t even help since you can already figure out all of the information it would provide by just shooting your target, Slayer’s Prey wastes our bonus action when using a Hand Crossbow, and even if we’re using a gun it’s not good enough to matter (at least Horizon Walker’s Planar Warrior had a higher damage die, and gave us two once we reached 11th level). Supernatural Defense doesn’t provide enough, being only +1d6 against a single target, which is practically nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Magic User’s Nemesis just wastes our reaction, being a significantly worse Counterspell (which we wish was in our spell list. Our spell save DC also isn’t exactly very high, so the chance of creatures suceeding is somewhat decent, even if Wisdom is a good save to target in monsters. Lastly, the fact that this feature is only once per short rest means that even if we manage to get any sort of value, we won’t be able to use it again at all until much later, when we finally have the time to short rest.
Slayer’s Counter would be a decent capstone… if it didn’t only work against the target of Slayer’s Prey and require you to even use Slayer’s Prey, making it functionally useless most of the time.

Multiclassing

Lastly of course, is points to multiclass out. Ranger is perhaps one of the most varied classes to multiclass out of, due to subclass features and spells, and as such when you choose to multiclass out really depends on what features you’re looking for from the class.
(For those who don’t know what multiclassing out means, it means the level where you stop taking levels in the main class, and start taking levels in another class)

Level 5 – The Bare Minimum
Ranger, being a weapon user, absolutely wants Extra Attack as soon as it can get its hands on it. As such, you pretty much never want to multiclass out of Ranger until you at least get Extra Attack. Reaching 5th level also means you finally get your 2nd-level spells, and with it, Pass Without Trace.

Most highly optimized Ranger builds don’t usually take Ranger past level 5, favoring a subclass that doesn’t require to take deeper progression to have payoff, before investing into other classes.

Level 7 – Second Features
Going to 7th level in Ranger before multiclassing out nets you your second subclass feature, which is very nice depending on your subclass, and is a necessity if playing Drakewarden.

Level 9 – Petting Velociraptors (and elks and wolves and…)
Taking Ranger to 9th level before multiclassing out nets you the most important spell in your whole kit: Conjure Animals. This spell is a power house and is worth the 9 levels, though it can be worth delaying by 1 level if you’re doing something like a Ranger 5/Druid X split, as Druid would provide more ammunition.

Level 11 – Third Features
Similar to 7th level,going to 11th level before multiclassing out also isn’t a bad idea for subclass features. Swarmkeeper for example can get a lot out of its 11th-level feature due to more enhancements to its swarm, though it’s not necessary to get. This logic also applies to 15th level, but most subclass features at 15th level just kind of exist, and it’s generally better to just multiclass out before then.

Level 13 – Level Four!
This is an odd point to multiclass out at, but still worth noting, as this level grants you your 4th-level spells. It’s more likely that you actually multiclassed out earlier and returned for Ranger levels though.

Level 19 – Escape the Inevitable
Only do this if you’re “straightclassing” Ranger. Multiclassing out at 19th level for a 1-level dip in some class like Rogue or Cleric allows you to have what I guess would be more benefits than sticking to 20th level to receive the disappointment that is Foe Slayer.

Multiclass Choices

Of course, when to multiclass aside, there is also what class to actually multiclass into.

Artificer
Ranger has little to no reason to bother with multiclassing into Artificer, and the same is true of Artificer multiclassing into Ranger. Both receive no benefits from multiclassing with each other.

Barbarian
Ranger has the Archery fighting style and is best with ranged weaponry, so the Barbarian package offers nothing worth taking for Ranger. Skip.

Bard
The Bard package also offers little for Ranger and just causes odd divides in scores and spells. It doesn’t help that the early Bard spells aren’t all that amazing. Bard, being a fullcaster though, does give more spell slots to work with, so it’s at least something. Creation Bard can be funny though, due to the item creation meta.

Cleric
Being a Wisdom caster, Cleric gives us a solid dip without requiring a bit of score stretch. Peace Domain and Twilight Domain make great 1-2 level dips, and just also great class levels if you don’t plan to return to Ranger levels. Life Domain is also an amazing 1-level dip for the Lifeberry interaction.

Tech Lifeberry

This requires access to both the Goodberry spell and Life Domain’s 1st-level feature, Disciple of Life. Disciple of Life adds additional healing to each Goodberry equal to 2 + the spell’s level (1 in this case, for a total of 3), making each berry created heal a total of 4 hit points, to a maximum of 40 hit points per casting of Goodberry. This is massive, and becomes the single best source for out-of-combat healing (as if Goodberry wasn’t already). This interaction is also confirmed to be intended by Crawford. While it is good to discuss with your DM as to whether or not they will allow this, this functions RAW as the Goodberry spell directly states it heals, hence benefitting from Disciple of Life. Don’t expect most DMs to actually let you use this, but it’s still worth trying to ask them if you so wish.

Druid
The other main option for multiclassing as Ranger, Druid provides us more spells and spell slots, making for a great multiclass option as well as just having class levels for in general as a Ranger – a good split would be Ranger 5/Druid 15 for example (or if you want a Peace or Life dip, Ranger 5/ Druid 14/Peace or Life 1). While this does delay Conjure Animals by 1 level, the setup Druid provides is quite good. Haen utilizes this in their Web Slinger build.

Fighter
Ranger has quite a bit to gain from Fighter, particularly maneuvers from Battle Master to enhance itself further, especially if you’re a Gloom Stalker. Starting in Fighter 1 if you know that delaying your Extra Attack won’t be too bad (such as starting at a higher level) is also a decent move, in order to get CON save proficiencies and the Archery fighting style early. A good build that is once again created by Haen is their Shadow Sniper build, which I mentioned back in my Gloom Stalker article. However, Fighter should not be where you take most of your class levels, instead stopping Fighter levels after 3-4 levels into that class.

Monk
Ranger has nothing to really gain from Monk, except maybe Shadow in order to have more spammable Pass Without Trace. Monk has plenty to gain from Ranger however, using a Gloom Stalker dip to maximize Pass Without Trace from Shadow.

Paladin
No. Just no.

Rogue
Rogue normally isn’t really worth Ranger’s time unless you’re at level 19 and just need some random class since Ranger’s capstone sucks. However, the Assassin archetype is quite solid for Ranger, and can be worth a 3 or 4-level investment in later levels once we are set up, primarily due to the fact that Ranger has more reliable means to get surprise and does Rogue’s job better than Rogue.

Sorcerer
Like Bard, Sorcerer is a bit of a weird dip for Ranger, but does offer more good spells at lower levels compared to Bard. Not really what I would recommend though.

Warlock
Warlock is a decent dip in order to be able to spam Pass Without Trace more with short rest spell slots, and depending on our subclass, get Shield or frighten enemies really well. Getting the EBARB package (Eldritch Blast + Repelling + Agonizing Blast) is also nice, but will be kept in our back pocket and generally never used as when dipping into Warlock, Ranger lacks the Charisma to actively make use of Eldritch Blast (having only 13 generally), and would rather prefer firing a Hand Crossbow anyways. Taking more than 3 levels into Warlock isn’t really recommended for Ranger.

Wizard
Wizard is an odd dip, but due to the sheer power of Wizard, it’s possible to just go to Ranger 5 and do the rest of your levels in Wizard. However, you will be in an odd position due to stretched ability scores to meet Wizard’s multiclass prerequisites. Realistically though, your best bet would be something like Ranger 1/Wizard X since Wizard is so oppressive that it would rather have a single level in Ranger for armor and shield proficiencies, but even then it has better options.

Conclusion

Well, here we are, at the end of a long series of posts that have basically been my sole focus for a bit, alongside my homebrew. Discussing the construction of Ranger has been really fun, as has discussing Ranger in general. Thanks to HR Carinae for their help in articles, as well as Form of Dread and Tabletop Builds for providing ample information to utilize for these articles.

With Bolts and Arrows now coming to a close, I will probably release a post at some point further discussing my future plans with this blog.

Hope you all enjoyed!

– Mistral Umaimon