Best Feats for Rangers 5e
By Johnathan Wilson
It seems to be popular to hate on the Ranger class, but I’ve never been popular so why try and start now? While some folks will always be diehard fans, there are a number of other folks who have less than stellar opinions of D&D’s resident tracker slash explorer. As the DM of a Ranger, and prior player of a Ranger, I can say that a lot of the criticism is due to white-room theorycrafting stuff. Rangers are fun to play! You have a diverse bag of tricks, before even getting into subclass benefits. Stuff like a d10 Hit Die, a Fighting Style, and healing spells!
You’re like a Paladin in Medium-Armor, who’s probably using a longbow. That being said, with options also comes the potential for a lack of synergy between choices of options. A Ranger that takes the Archery fighting style, and invests points in their Dexterity, is going to feel a lot better than a Ranger that takes the Dueling fighting style, but invests points in Charisma. While I can’t make your character choices for you, I can help you pick out some excellent feats to either help shore up the weaknesses of your Ranger, or make them that much better at what they already do.
Best Feats for Rangers 5e
Skill Expert - This is a feat added in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, that I almost immediately fell in love with. You get to choose an ability score to increase by 1, gain proficiency in one skill of your choice, and then choose a skill you have proficiency with already and increase it to Expertise. Expertise is a mechanic usually limited to Bards and Rogues, which allows you to double your proficiency bonus for whatever check you have expertise in. How does this help your Ranger on the range? Well since you’re likely going to need to invest in three ability scores (Strength/Dexterity for damage, Constitution for health, and Wisdom for spells), being able to increase one of them by a point is almost a must have for one of your Ability Score Improvements. A skill proficiency always helps, since Perception, Investigation, and Survival are all kinda crucial for a Ranger to feel Rangery, and you only get 3 to start outside of any background based proficiencies. The Expertise selection is what you really want though, since whatever skill you choose for that is going to be one that you can shape a character around. Take something like Survival and you’ll always feel like a phenomenal tracker, Stealth if you want to be just as much of a ghost as your rogue, and Perception if you want to make sure that nothing gets by you. While I recommend improving a skill that you’re already good at, something based on Dexterity or Wisdom, there is the choice to use the expertise to cover a weakness in something like Athletics or Arcana. Just a thought!
Observant - Hey, speaking of Perception, it’s a super useful skill. So useful in fact, that this feat is designed almost entirely around it! Like Skill Expert, you can increase an ability score, but unlike Skill Expert we can only put a point into either Wisdom or Intelligence. Wisdom is the obvious choice for us Rangers, and between Skill Expert and Observant you can get the value of a whole Wisdom ASI if that’s your bag. The second aspect of Observant is that you can read lips, whiiiiiich is pretty game/DM dependent, but could be useful! Maybe! The same could be said for the third benefit, which is a +5 bonus to your passive Perception and Investigation scores. Passive scores are 10 + regular skill bonus, and they’re designed as either the “...average of a task done repeatedly…or when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice”. If we have a 4th level Ranger with 14 Wisdom, their bonus to Perception would be +4 and their Passive would be 14. Expertise takes that to +6 bonus and 16 Passive, while Observant is still at +4 bonus with 19 Passive. While the pairing of expertise and Observant is the real chef’s kiss, just being Observant alone can help find traps you didn’t even know you were looking for.
Medium Armor Master - This might seem a little off the wall, but hear me out. One of the main opportunity costs for armor wearing classes is the Stealth skill, but wearing armor is generally the only meaningful way to improve AC. All of the best armor choices impose Disadvantage on Stealth checks, since all that metal has a tendency to clang around. While not all Rangers are going to care about being stealthy, Disadvantage on a check that can blow the cover of a whole party is never awesome. Boots of Elvenkind somehow don’t require attunement, so campaign and finances depending, they’re an easy way to nullify the Disadvantage from Half-Plate. But wouldn’t it be better to just have Advantage on Stealth checks if you’re gonna wear those fancy boots? Medium Armor Master allows you to just ignore the disadvantage penalty from Half-Plate (or similar Medium armors, but while expensive, Half-Plate is the best in this case), and also increases the max Dexterity mod bonus from the armor as well. Normally, Half-Plate sets your AC to 15 + Dex modifier, with a max of 2 from the Dex mod, so 17 total max. Medium Armor Master allows you to increase the max potential Dex mod benefit to 3, allowing you to have 18 AC from Half-Plate, assuming you have at least 16 points in Dexterity. That’s the same AC as full Plate, without any of the Disadvantage on Stealth checks!
Mobile - This is one of those feats that really empowers a whole playstyle, and two out of three aspects of it are absolutely fantastic. Increased movement speed by 10 ft? That’s awesome! Being able to use the Dash action without being hindered by Difficult Terrain is…meh. Not provoking opportunity attacks from creatures that you make a melee weapon attack is AWESOME. That clause combined with the increase to movement speed, means that you can dip in and out of melee range while making attacks, without getting cheese-grated by enemy opportunity attacks. You no longer need to sit in melee range of everything, and hope that they die first. You can position yourself around the enemies to suit your needs, while still making strikes as you move in and out. Paired with the benefits of Medium Armor Master, and you’ve got a Ranger who’s armored like a Fighter, can move like a Monk, and is as (almost) as quiet as a Rogue. Skill Expert could make sure that you’re as quiet as that Rogue, just sayin’.
Fey Touched - When this feat was published in Tasha’s Cauldron to Everything, I knew that I had to play a character with it, and I did! It was fantastic, and so is this feat. It’s ripe with flavor options, and the mechanical benefits are undeniably prime. Yep, it’s another half-feat with a +1 to Wisdom for us. That’s awesome, and your Spell Save DC will thank you. What’s that? You also learn Misty Step?? The second level Get-Out-of-Jail-Free-Card that every melee character wants?? As if that wasn’t enough, you also may cast it for free once per long rest, and then with any available spell slots from that point on. The cherry on top is that you may ALSO learn a 1st level Divination or Enchantment spell following the same rules, with a free cast and then with spell slots. Bless and Detect Magic are both available spells that will earn you the love and favor of your party. Taking Identify may not be the sexiest choice, but your resident Wizard will be thrilled to share the magic item identification burden.
Slasher - Say what you want, but I’m a huge fan of the weapon feats from Tashas’s Cauldron of Everything. While Crusher can be a great option for Rangers, I think that the Slasher feat is a great way to augment that hit and run playstyle I mentioned earlier. In and of itself, Slasher provides 1 point for Strength or Dexterity, which you know I love. The remaining text allows you to, once per turn, when you deal slashing damage to a creature, reduce its movement speed by 10 feet until your next turn. Finally, when you land a critical hit with slashing damage, the wounded target has Disadvantage on all of its attacks for the next round because it’s such a huge nerd and needs to think about what it did wrong. While slashing damage is teeeechnically sub-optimal for a Dexterity based Ranger build, due to the existence of the 1d8 Rapier, I say screw all that go with the Whip! Sure it’s 1d4 damage, but you’ll be so (relatively) fast from slowing them by Slashing, and so far away with that 10 ft reach, that danger won’t even be able to get to you. Combine Slasher with the Mobile feat, and the Dueling Fighting Style, and you’ll be the fastest and deadliest whip in the fantasy west!
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