Ranger Conclave: Fey Wanderer 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

Fey Wanderer is the ranger subclass that sells the wanderlust fey fantasy; traversing the woodlands in fashion and style with nothing but whimsy on the mind. To make this fantasy happen in the ranger class, they throw a BUNCH of features at the wall to see what sticks. The result is a subclass that technically gives you enough to use it, but I’m not sold it’s giving enough to justify it over many of the other new subclass options rangers get.

3rd Level: Fey Wanderer Magic, Dreadful Strikes, and Otherworldly Glamour

Fey Wanderer Magic gives you some much needed bonus spells known while simultaneously getting a cute, flavorful little addition with the Feywild Gifts table. 3rd level gives you Charm Person, which definitely helps sell the meandering, aimless fairy fantasy, charming those that stumble into them.
Dreadful Strikes gives you a needed damage improvement to try to stay in line with modern ranger subclass designs, this time being just a bonus d4 damage on hit that eventually upgrades to a d6. It doesn’t scale with extra attacks, nor does it really improve meaningfully later in the subclass making it feel like a tacked on afterthought when the subclass didn’t output enough damage as all the other ranger options.
Otherworldly Glamour is a great little feature to differentiate the Fey Wanderer from a lot of the other charisma based fey subclasses and spells. Getting to add your Wis mod to all Charisma checks on top of getting a bonus skill is great, and will help take characters that are already cramped in the ability score department not need to worry as much about buffing up their Charisma to be the party face or sell the suave fey fantasy.

5th-7th Level: Misty Step and Beguiling Twist

Misty Step is definitely a flavorful addition to this subclass, but it tends to feel quite a bit worse on 5th level rangers than it does on other characters. The bonus action 30 ft. teleport is great when you’ve got buckets of spell slots to spare in the mid to upper tiers, making the cost feel fairly low. Rangers don’t have that luxury. Still, on rangers it's a fun positioning tool that opens up your ability to interact with the world around you, and still gives you room to attack immediately before or after teleporting, which is pretty baller.
Beguiling Twist is the 7th level subclass addition that gives you the typical defense boost, but like other newer subclasses, gets a bit more than just a static defense ability. In addition to the mediocre advantage on a niche save, Beguiling Twist offers you a chance to turn failed charms or fear into another shot on a different creature within 120 feet of you. This little reaction can help you get a great deal more out of your low level Charm Person or friend’s bigger, badder charm and fear effects. It rewards building towards the fantasy, and definitely wants to be in a party that can use it beyond just the ranger, but is a deeply interesting and fun ability to play with when those conditions are met.

9th and 11th Level: Dispel Magic and Fey Reinforcements

Dispel Magic is a spell I like to consider a “magic hygiene” spell. It offers a magical solution to a lot of magical problems, and is something you’re regularly going to want access to. Getting it for free on a ranger feels great; you can contribute to breaking powerful magical effects for a set cost, and while yours doesn’t scale as well as full casters does, you still get opportunities as a ranger to combat some backbreaking magical effects in the upper tiers.
Fey Reinforcements gives you Summon Fey with a free cast, which is pretty baller, but on top of that, you also can edit any cast of the spell to have a minute duration with no concentration. Huge. Powerful. Exactly what I want from ranger spells.
This opens up a whole array of new possibilities for you. You can actually have two fey spirits running around with you at a time, one using your concentration, the other just sticking around for a minute. As you grow in strength, you can start just spitting these out every round for your spell slots, amassing a small army of magical creatures with multiattack to aid in a fight. This will feel very “nova”-ish, as it’ll be using the bulk of your spell slots, but my god can it be powerful, even in the upper tiers when 6th and 7th level slots are getting fired off.

13th-17th Level: Dimension Door, Mislead, and Misty Wanderer

Dimension Door shares similar problems to Misty Step exacerbated by Fey Reinforcements being an exceptional option that competes with every spell you have. The distance is massive, and can be a fun tool to expand out your suite of utility. If you’re on of the more magical characters in the party, this can feel like a major new toy to play with. If you’ve been watching your wizard friend Dimension Door around since 7th level, it’s hard to get particularly excited for this.
Mislead is the kind of capstone effect I’d expect for a fey trickster, and it is only undercut, again, by the spells system with the half-casters. It has almost the exact same problems as Dimension Door but in addition to being a higher level, also competes for your concentration, making it worse on your sheet with Summon Fey. It’s an undeniably cool effect, but getting practical uses out of it can be more challenging than it may seem. It's kind of just a regular, 2nd level Invisibility stapled to a Major Image of you you can see through. Fine, but not particularly compelling given its competition.
Misty Wanderer closes out the subclass, giving you your Wisdom modifier number of Misty Steps per long rest. Very cool. Way too late. Even with the Dimension Door buddy system attached to it, getting 4-5 (at most) uses of a 2nd level spell slot as a capstone isn’t all that exciting. It needs more than this for me to get particularly excited about it, especially since its not giving us anything new to do. You’ve been able to Misty Step if you’ve wanted to Misty Step. You don’t need that many Misty Steps per long rest. I have to wonder would this really be that oppressive if it was just an at will ability? I think not, and probably closer to a capstone I could actually get excited to use.

All Together

The core fantasy is here. You’re getting a massive spellcasting upgrade to do the whole trickster-fairy fantasy, but do end up needing to rely on friends or your limited spell list beyond this subclass to get the most out of your kit. Your expanded spell list contains all completely reasonable spells alongside the excellent inclusion of Dispel Magic, but you’re still stuck with half the spell slots of the full casters.

Nothing here outside Dreadful Strikes empowers your combat prowess, which is a major part of playing ranger. If you’re cool with that, and would rather live out your fey prankster lifestyle, I have to question if Archfey Warlock, Enchanter/Illusionist Wizard, or Trickery Domain Cleric offer that better.

Teleporting around tends to reward risky, front line play patterns, meaning you’re likely getting the most out of these features on a melee character. Those characters getting to only need to worry about Dex and Wis is a pretty crucial element of this subclass coming together at all. I think if you’re going into this knowing you’re going to be spamming Summon Fey in the upper tiers and supporting them with your bow or getting up next to them with a pair of short-swords, you’ll probably have a blast with this subclass.

Regardless of its comparative power, all of its features use really enjoyable spells and mechanics, making it a fun option to consider even if it doesn’t necessarily gel that well with what the rest of ranger is trying to do.

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