Ultimate Guide to Rangers in D&D 5e

Guide by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

The ranger: a shady cloaked outlander in the corner, muddy boots up on the table, arms resting on their pack filled with the tools of their trade. They’re scouts sent to navigate the wilderness, extra planar guardians tasked with seeking out fey and fiend alike. They’re monster hunters, tracking dangerous beasts and using a bit of magic and mysticism alongside expertise in combat to bring them down. If you’re looking to bring one of these or many other characters to life, the Ranger class can provide that for you better than any other classes can.

Using This Guide

If you want a full breakdown of everything ranger, this page will be a home to take you to every nook and cranny of the class. If you’re looking for what to be thinking about at specific levels, this guide is sectioned off to break down specific class elements, each with dedicated sections talking about the mechanics and offering general recommendations.

There are some small and critical notes to mention before we dive in. The core ranger class presented in the Player’s Handbook has received somewhat of an unofficial patch in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. It offers technically “optional” features that replace some mechanics and features that were underwhelming to use, and this guide will treat them as if they’re the base features. These replaced features are Favored Foe (replacing Favored Enemy), Deft Explorer (replacing Natural Explorer), Primal Awareness (replacing Primeval Awareness), and Nature’s Veil (replacing Hide in Plain Sight). The other features have some small merits you could consider, but are substantially less usable at the majority of tables out there. The updated Xanathar’s Guide to Everything features massively improve a lot of core issues the base class can have.

Some specific elements, like specific spells and fighting styles, have dedicated reviews available that will be linked from here. This can be your one stop shop to everything ranger.

Ranger 101

Rangers are, at their core, survivalists. You’ve got access to a core suite of options from your proficiencies and skills to engage with the world in and out of combat with a decent amount of utility. You aren’t going to necessarily be putting out as many attacks or hitting as hard as the fighter or paladin, nor are you going to have single strikes that hit as hard as the rogue, but you’ll instead get abilities that summon allies, give you the tools to debilitate areas, and bring some exceptional magical stealth tools to the group while still hitting with arrows round after round.

You can build your ranger to specialize more in damage, stealth, or utility, but ultimately will find yourself doing a decent amount of each. Being a half-caster means you’re not getting as many spells, nor as impactful spells as your full-caster allies, and aren’t getting the same quantity of attacks as the fully martial allies without spending some resources, but you bring enough of both that work in harmony to give you a character that walks between worlds and feels good doing it.

Starting Proficiencies and Equipment

Your starting proficiencies define a large amount of your ranger’s combat prowess; you have proficiency with light and medium armor, shields, and simple and martial weapons.

Ranger AC. Having these two armor options available to you offers you a choice to consider when starting: do you want to be a primarily Dexterity based character, or do you want to attack with Strength weapons?

For characters with a Dexterity of 16, Studded Leather Armor gives you an AC of 15, and is probably where you want to start.

For characters with a Dexterity of 14, a Chain Shirt gives you an AC of 15 with no penalty to your stealth, whereas Scale Male gives you an AC of 16, but penalizes your stealth score. I’d recommend the Chain Shirt, as stealth is normally something you’ll want your ranger to excel in.

Armor At Higher Levels. Light armor has no upper cap on their Dexterity modifier, meaning a character starting with a 16 Dexterity (a +3 modifier) with Studded Leather armor has an AC of 15. Medium Armor caps your Dexterity bonus to AC to a +2, meaning with a Chain Shirt you’re spending slightly more gold for the same AC. With Scale Mail, you can get a +1 extra AC from the Medium Armor should you not increase your Dexterity score as you level up.

If you’re ever planning on getting that covetous +5 Dexterity, Light Armor will cost you far less and provide you the exact same AC. If you ever grow beyond +5 Dexterity from magic items, light armor becomes better in every way.

If not, and instead you want to be attacking with bigger, scarier weapons in melee range with a higher Strength score, you can spend a bit more gold for medium armor that will give you that AC of 14 or 15, depending on if you’re okay with disadvantage on Stealth checks or paying a decent chunk of gold.

Shields. Shields are another often overlooked option rangers have access to, and play very well alongside a short or longsword. +2 AC is a big deal, and doesn’t have to be equipped constantly. If you’re looking for a way to improve your ranger without making any changes, check to see if you’ve got a shield, and if you don’t pick one up. They’re very handy to have, even if you’re primarily sitting far away peppering things with arrows. When you need to engage with a melee weapon, drawing a shield the round after you draw a rapier or short sword to attack will feel like a free boon to your AC.

Weapons are their own beast; martial weapon proficiency opens up a well of opportunity to you. There are a few core routes to consider based on what options you get from your fighting style and other synergies within the ranger class.

Longbows are the default option, acting as a d8 ranged weapon attack. Prior to 5th level, heavy crossbows can do more damage for almost no tradeoff, but the loading property will gate their attacks to once a round if you don’t remove that property somehow (usually with the Crossbow Expert feat). If your goal is to play a ranged ranger raining arrows from the sky in a volley of vengeance, and don’t want to think about swapping around weapons that much, the longbow is probably your best bet.

The melee opportunities are far more robust. There are primarily four paths: two-handed weapons, sword and shield, two weapon fighting, and reach options.

Two-Handed Weapons. If you want to live your Monster Hunter fantasies, a greatsword or maul hits like a bus with 2d6 damage per hit. Where paladins and fighters get the Great Weapon Fighting Fighting Style, rangers don’t, meaning you’ll probably end up taking Blind Fighting or Defense if you want to use the bigger tools.

Sword and shield options are available as well with both the rapier and longsword being d8 options you can wield while using a shield to boost up your AC as you fight, and each works in either the Dexterity or Strength build respectively. Like Two-Handed Weapons, you don’t get the same access to the defensive Interception and Protection fighting styles that paladins and fighters get, but you still get Dueling for a damage route with this weapon choice.

With scimitars or shortswords you can engage in two-weapon fighting which can be fairly rewarding, especially in the first few levels prior to extra attack. This tends to pair well with thrown weapons with daggers being a finesse option for Dexterity based rangers, and handaxes and light hammers being the two weapon fighting thrown options for Strength based characters. If you want to make two attacks at level 1 to turn on your Favored Foe immediately, two-weapon fighting can do that, but you’ll need to be aware of the bonus action cost as you go, and build towards features and subclasses that leave it free to keep up your off-hand attacks.

Reach weapons tend to go on characters with feats like Polearm Master and Sentinel, which can be accessed through variant Human or at 4th level. If you aren’t planning to pick up those feats, you’re probably better off using one of the other three options for their various boons. This is one of the less defined base options to have access to that requires feats to really flourish.

The final weapon of note is the Net, a weapon I’m a big fan of I’d recommend any character with martial weapons have access to. The biggest issue with it is it's a ranged weapon with a 5/15 ft. range, basically meaning you’re always making the attack with disadvantage, but for 1 gold you can have access to this other tool for potentially restraining something in combat when you absolutely need to. That’s a cost that’s very easy to pay for no downside.

Ability Score Considerations

One other major element to consider when building your ranger is your Ability Scores. Knowing what you need will shape what future spells you’ll consider, what fighting style you’ll select, and which subclass fits best.

Typically, rangers care about having as high a Dexterity score as possible for Dexterity based attack rolls, AC, and ability checks. If you’d rather attack with Strength, that will typically become your highest ability score, with Dexterity still being highly desired for medium armor AC at minimum. With their spellcasting ability being Wisdom, and being typically trained in some quantity of Wisdom based skills, having a high Wisdom is also recommended, leaving little room for other ability scores to really shine.

This tends to lead rangers to make Dex their highest stat, followed by Wis. Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma all somewhat fall to the side, but should still be considered. Whatever score ends up being your third best skill typically will open up specific multi-class opportunities in the future. Charisma is an excellent ability score for this reason, as Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Warlock can all be great options to take a couple levels in from ranger in the future.

1st Level: Favored Foe, Deft Explorer

Favored Foe

Favored Foe is the core ranger damage enhancer; when you hit something, you can start concentrating on it to make it your favored foe, increasing each subsequent hit against that creature by a d4 while you concentrate on it or for a minute. You get a scaling amount of uses with your proficiency bonus, making this a pretty easy feature to pick up via multiclassing.

Where I struggle with Favored Foe is in how it asks you to concentrate on it. At 1st level, that’s not a problem in any way, as you’ve got nothing else to focus on. As you progress, though, you get access to excellent spells you actually want to be concentrating on instead like Hunter's Mark and Summon Beast. This often leaves Favored Foe waiting around for something to break your concentration before you switch it on, which is a bit of a bummer.

The other major note about Favored Foe is that its damage doesn’t reward multiple attacks. You can’t really do much to empower this damage; two-weapon fighting doesn’t improve it at all, nor does getting access to Extra Attack. The damage dice scales with your ranger level, at least, and it's definitely better than the old Favored Enemy at most tables.

Deft Explorer

Where Favored Foe pulls against a lot of what ranger wants to be doing as you progress, Deft Explorer is a perfect addition to the class. As opposed to getting Natural Explorer which expands on rules built around overland travel and little else, Canny, the first of three features baked into Deft Explorer, grants you an improvement to any skill of your choice. Doubling your proficiency bonus in any skill will help define your niche; want to play the natural explorer still? Doubling your bonus to Survival will help deliver that. Want to be a sneaky, stealthy critter? You can be the absolute sneakiest!

The languages are flavorful additions to your sheet, but not ultimately that empowering. The skill empowerment will be what takes your ranger and makes it powerful out of combat when engaging with your chosen skill.

The Rogue Comparison

With Favored Foe offering you a once per turn d4 bonus to damage, and Deft Explorer offering you half of Expertise with some bonus languages, it's easy to look at the rogue class and think that these abilities seem… worse. And they are. You’re trading a bit of raw power from abilities here for better weapon and armor proficiency, larger hit dice, and future power potential, namely in extra attack and spellcasting.

If you like the core concept presented at level one, and just want more of it, Rogue may be a class more for you than ranger. If you’re excited to do more nature magic and expand out your utility belt, ranger is about to start delivering.

2nd Level: Fighting Style and Spellcasting

Ranger comes into its own at 2nd level. Your Fighting Style will denote your preferred means of combat and improve it while Spellcasting will open up a world of possibilities to enhance your in and out of combat performance.

Ranger Fighting Style

Rangers get seven Fighting Styles to choose from as of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything: Archery, Blind Fighting, Defense, Druidic Warrior, Dueling, Thrown Weapon Fighting, and Two-Weapon Fighting.

Archery is often the default ranger Fighting Style; you get +2 to hit with your trusty longbow. Not particularly exciting, but a fine enough improvement that will help you hit more consistently.
Blind Fighting is a neat optional tool to consider that you can build around in some interesting ways. Blindsight can empower you in heavily obscured areas like fog or darkness against enemies that don’t have tools to mitigate the blindness; as a ranger, you’re getting access to your first level spells this level, and that includes Fog Cloud! Paired with Blind Fighting, you can get advantage from blinding enemies while remaining unimpaired while close to them, and get the added boons of exploring with a 10 ft. blindsight.
Defense offers you a +1 AC. If you don’t know what to take, you can take this and it’ll be fine. It won’t ever be interesting, nor will it offer you more ways to engage a fight, but +1 AC is reasonable. I would never recommend it, but if literally no other fighting styles appeals to you, this is a fine option to default to.
Druidic Warrior can be an expansion of utility for a character who wants to offer more out of combat while still scaling up to get extra attack. Because you’ve got access to a longbow or heavy crossbow, almost all available cantrips that’s primary job is to deal damage will feel lackluster, as you’ve got access to a higher damage, higher range option. You can consider options like Guidance if your group doesn’t have another character with it as the spell is exceptional at bolstering everyone’s skill checks, and cantrips like Mold Earth and Druidcraft can bring a specific character fantasy to life. Forgoing a boon to combat prowess will absolutely be felt, though, especially as the game progresses. If you’re looking fondly at Druidic Warrior, I’d consider looking at the Druid or Cleric class instead, as they may be able to deliver on the fantasy you want a bit better than ranger can.
Dueling is the fighting style for the sword and board characters running around with a shield. +2 damage to attacks with your one-handed weapon is perfectly reasonable, and can make up a bit for the damage the other ways you engage in combat can offer like off-hand attacks or larger weapons. Again, not unbelievably exciting, but meaningfully empowering for the style of engagement.
Thrown Weapon Fighting is finicky. It’s largely hurt by the lack of powerful thrown weapons. Thrown weapons are often the ranged option for melee characters, options you fall back on when engaging from a distance while approaching to eventually be replaced by melee weapon attacks. Given that there isn’t a two-handed weapon fighting style for rangers, and rangers love skirmishing, this can go alongside two-handed weapon wielding rangers fairly naturally. The damage being limited to only empowered hits when made as ranged attacks definitely makes this a lot harder to keep using round after round without a bag of holding and a massive arsenal of hammers on hand.
Two-Weapon Fighting goes on characters with a pair of scimitars and a dream. Adding your Dexterity modifier to your off-hand attack is a big damage bump in the early game. Two attacks a round at 2nd level is really good, and while it doesn’t scale particularly well, it will still often feel good enough that you can play the two-weapon fighting ranger and deal solid damage throughout the game. This fighting style pairs particularly well with effects like Hunter's Mark that give you bonus damage when you hit with any attack. That build can be challenging to maintain your concentration with, though, given that it’s primarily a melee build, and juggling your bonus action can be a real challenge, especially if you’ve considered subclasses that ask you to use it frequently.

If you’re coming to the ranger class and want to do the ranger thing, chances are you’re taking Archery. If you want to shake up your build from the norm, both Two-Weapon Fighting and Blind Fighting can be rewarding styles to pursue, and Thrown Weapon Fighting, while challenging to get consistency out of, can also be a super fun direction.

Dueling is the fighting style for more protector based rangers, and Defense and Drudic Warrior can be for characters that aren’t particularly interested in their Attack action. If you’re playing a ranger you probably should care about your Attack action (as you’ll be taking it a lot), but if you’re happy enough with a regular, unempowered attack every round, they both will give you something reasonable.

Spellcasting

Rangers are half casters; where full casters like Wizards and Clerics get a new tier of spell level every other class level, rangers, like paladins and artificers, get their new spell level tier every four levels, and tend to learn far fewer spells than their full caster counterparts.

This tends to mean you only have room on your character sheet for the most consistent and castable spells of the given slot you’ve got access to, and it needs to have as big an effect for its level as you can get. You’ll typically look for high impact or long duration effects that empower your attacks or exploration skills, with less focus on single instantaneous burst effects.

As you get in the mid tier, the lower level single use options do start to feel better to use, especially if you’re finding you’re not spending all of your spell slots between rests. Out the gate, with just two spells known and two first level spell slots to play with, you’re going to want spells with high impact effects that likely last for the duration of fight.

1st Level Spell Recommendations

Of their list, a few ranger spells stand out to me as options I consistently am glad I have access to. These are Entangle, Fog Cloud, Goodberry, and Hunter's Mark. Each serves a major purpose, is pretty reliable at all tiers of play, and fits the bill of high impact I’m looking for out of a 1st level ranger spell. Entangle can lock down an area and debilitate an handful of enemies for a few rounds, giving you and your team ample time to leverage your ranged options safely. Fog Cloud not only pairs well with Blind Fighting but also is just handy to have access to in a stealth mission or when things aren’t going your way in a tense situation. Sometimes you just really want a big bubble of smoke to give you a window to bail. Goodberry is the only healing spell you’ll ever really need on ranger, as it’ll act as a way to get an unconscious character off of 0 and back into a fight. The cost of an action is high, but when it comes with ten uses you can spread to your friends and summoned companions, it becomes a comfortable option to have access to that’ll feel similar to a paladin’s Lay on Hands.

Hunter’s Mark gets its own paragraph; before Favored Foe, it was the ranger spell. It defined how you engaged with extra damage. Now, with it competing for your concentration with a second worse damaging option, you can reasonably play without it. If you want to increase your damage, and like playing from a distance and shooting from the brush, Hunter’s Mark lasting an hour and dealing a bonus d6 on each hit will play well and scale with your attacks as you get more of them. It having an hour long duration means you desperately want to avoid damage to keep it up, so it’ll tend to play best on longbow rangers, but if you’re willing to risk it for the biscuit, and don’t mind juggling the bonus actions, two-weapon fighter rangers can double up on the damage it offers the moment you get spellcasting which can make you feel like you hit like a truck up until it hits back and knocks the effect off.

1st Level Spells at Higher Levels

With only 2 spell slots and 2 spells known, those four I think are steep competition to choose between. As you gain more levels in the class, though, and are finding you’ve got a bit more wiggle room with your spell slots, there are some exceptional options for enhancing your attacks that can easily find a home on your sheet. Those to me are Absorb Elements, Ensnaring Strike, Hail of Thorns, Longstrider, and Zephyr Strike.

Defensive reaction spells are typically excellent at the cost of just a 1st level slot, and Absorb Elements is no exception. Gaining spontaneous resistance to a critical damage type is worth a 1st level spell slot; adding bonus damage to your next attack is gravy.

Ensnaring Strike, Hail of Thorns, and Zephyr Strike are all improvements to your weapon attacks I’m pretty happy using when engaging a fight, or just after concentration breaks on another higher impact spell. None are typically worth forgoing longer duration concentration effects, but they do offer enough usually that I can see a character readily breaking them out for the right circumstance. Need to restrain the big scary Large creature? Ensnaring Strike can do it while still keeping up the attack pressure. See a swarm of little critters charging you down? Hitting one with your regular attack and then it and everything around it for a bonus d10 is pretty great for just a 1st level slot, especially without having to forgo extra attack to make it happen.

1st Level Spells to Avoid

Rangers aren’t ritual casters. Ritual Spells are balanced around their utility not actually costing you spell slots. This makes options like Alarm and Detect Poison and Disease really difficult to justify using. With only two spell slots to play with early, having to spend them on any of these when the druid or cleric can just cast them for free is deeply troubling. Detect Magic and Speak with Animals will at least feel pretty cheap to use later, but in the early tiers, you probably want to let somebody else handle these effects when able.

Beast Bond was a mistake of a spell that barely does anything when cast, doesn’t work with the revised Beast Master ranger, and shouldn’t be put on basically any character sheet.

Cure Wounds is at its best and likely only should be getting cast when somebody is at 0 hit points. Goodberry, in this case, is usually going to feel close to ten casts of Cure Wounds. Cure Wounds is a trap spell you don’t need on your character sheet; if somebody is conscious, they don’t need you to waste actions in combat healing them. Kill whatever the threat is first; that’s the best way to mitigate damage. Having a way to get an ally back into the fight is valuable; Goodberry is the best way rangers have access to for this. Cure Wounds isn’t something you need.

3rd Level: Primal Awareness and Ranger Conclave

Third level is the last major choice offered to rangers outside their spell selection: their conclave. On top of this massive boon, you get a huge expansion of spells with Primal Awareness.

Primal Awareness

Primal Awareness is a spellcasting expansion that takes a lot of spells that either have a fairly low impact or are rituals and teaches you them alongside giving you one free cast of it per long rest. Third level opens up a free cast of Speak with Animals, which feels deeply thematically appropriate, and otherwise is very challenging to fit onto your sheet. It's not the largest upgrade in the world, but one free cast of five new learned spells as you progress definitely helps in feeling like your ranger is growing in the utility department as the game progresses.

Ranger Conclave

Like many other classes, rangers get their subclass at 3rd level, and can choose between Beast Master, Fey Wanderer, Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker, Hunter, Monster Slayer, Swarmkeeper, and Drakewarden.

Ranger subclasses tend to point you more towards an aesthetic than specified means of engagement; all of them work to some degree with the skirmisher fantasy, and most support ranged and melee dedicated weapon wielding.

Beast Master, like the core ranger, received major revisions. In place of Ranger’s Companion, Beast Master rangers now have the Primal Companion option, functioning similarly to Summon Beast. You get a generic beast of either the land, sea, or sky. Differing from that, you can command it as a bonus action or forgo an attack to issue it the attack command, which majorly improves the option from where it was prior when fighting side by side. It’s scales fine enough, with your beast getting multi-attack at 11th level, and while Exceptional Training is almost a non-feature with the revised Primal Companion, having a bonus action commendable ally that makes extra attacks, and deliver Goodberries, and comes back to full HP for just a 1st level spell slot is excellent. The fixed version feels great to play, and I can’t recommend it enough if you want to run side by side with your favorite animal buddy.
Fey Wanderer opens up ranger’s utility belt to encompass some extra tricky options based around fairies. You get additional known spells as you go, starting out with Charm Person at 3rd level, and also get to add your Wisdom modifier to Charisma checks alongside picking up a bonus charisma skill. These two features wouldn’t be enough on their own, though, and with Dreadful Strikes offering you a bonus d4 damage once a turn whenever you hit a creature, the option comes together at 3rd level as a reasonable yet somewhat generic improvement to damage and new tools to offer you some meaningful engagement in social settings. Beguiling Twist and Misty Wanderer are both cool utility tools with varying applicability, but Fey Reinforcements is a house of a feature, giving you the means to cast Summon Fey without concentrating on it. Having two or three summoned creatures making extra attacks and messing with enemies can be absurdly powerful, making this an option that absolutely pays off for sticking with it.
Gloom Stalkers are the edgy rangers we all know and love; they sneak around in the dark, using the shadows to spook people and stab them from out of nowhere. These are the lurking ambushers waiting to get the drop on enemies below, the silent hunter waiting on the roof for the right moment to strike. Dread Ambusher, Umbral Sight, and Stalker’s Fury all meaningfully empower that fantasy as well, and with free bonus learned spell every time you get a new spell level opening up powerhouse options like Fear and Greater Invisibility to you, Gloom Stalker can deliver on the fantasy it promises.
Horizon Walker is a bit of a miss to me. Like Fey Wanderer and Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walkers get bonus spells as they level up with some notable options like Haste and Banishment in the mid tiers, but their core abilities just don’t offer you a whole lot. Detect Portal is rarely going to be anything beyond a flavorful ribbon, and Planar Warrior is a bonus action bonus d8 damage. That’s fine, but compared to the suite of features the prior options have gotten up to this point, pretty lackluster. Ethereal Step sounds promising, but with how Etherealness slows you and its limitation to once per short rest, it is incredibly difficult to actually use it effectively without investing a ton into move speed. Distant Strike is dazzling and splashy, and getting an extra attack is excellent, but needing to wait up until 11th level to finally get an ability that delivers on some kind of portal warrior fantasy is just too late for me.
Hunter is the bread and butter generalist ranger archetype. You get to customize how you want to engage fights, and specialize in one of a handful of different routes that can lead you to some deeply satisfying moments in combat. Compared to the newer conclaves with their multiple features and expanded spell lists hunter does feel a bit left behind, but building around options like Colossus Slayers or Whirlwind Attack can be a delight.
Monster Slayers, like the other newer subclasses, come with bonus spells with highlights being Banishment and Hold Monster. Hunter’s Sense is a major miss to me, as so few monsters in 5th edition have resistances or vulnerabilities that aren’t readily apparent. Slayer’s Prey is bonus action mark for once per turn bonus d6 damage until you move it with unlimited uses; par for the course for most other conclaves, and nothing to really get excited about. Their upper tier options have some silver bullets aimed at spellcasters and empowering your Slayer’s Prey mark. The subclass doesn’t do anything so unique I’d consider outside of the fantasy, though.
Swarmkeeper exists for people who either want to be horrific and gross and covered in bugs or people who saw Snow White singing to the birds and thought “Yeah, but what if she used those birds for VIOLENCE!” It stands out to me as a unique option within the fantasies presented in most areas of D&D, and delivers on that fantasy with some varied and interesting decisions. Gathered Swarm offers you choice every turn, and the upper tier abilities like Writhing Tithe and Swarming Dispersal sell the magic of being one with a huge group of tiny critters. Their bonus spells aren’t superb for the most part, but do add to the fantasy alongside offering some utility I’d be happy to get. Overall a niche, yet compelling option.
Drakewardens round out the ranger subclasses, and oh boy are they stellar. The meat of the option is your Drake Companion, a small baby dragon that will one day grow to a large fire breathing mount you work in harmony with to destroy your foes. It uses the same basic rules as the Beast Master ranger, but actually gets major new toys as you level as opposed to what is usually just the extra attack. If you want to be a dragon rider, Drakewarden takes a bit to get there, but will absolutely deliver on its promise of giving you the feeling of having a pet dragon.

Of all the selections, I think only Monster Slayers and Horizon Walkers lack enough new stuff for me to consider them. If you’re playing a ranger for the first time, or just want a good subclass and aren’t super worried about your theme or archetype, Beast Master, Fey Wanderer, Swarmkeeper, and Drakewarden all are exceptional options to go with.

4th Level: Feat Considerations

Feats are a core element of most martial classes. When you get to fourth level, if you’re not a variant human, chances are you haven’t gotten a supportive feat for your build yet that will blast you into new heights of power. All feats aren’t created equally, though. Here I’ll quickly touch on which feats are often great ranger options, and which can be traps many rangers don’t get a lot of mileage out of.

Feats to Take

Sharpshooter is near the top of the list when it comes to feats presenting raw power, and with ranger being most commonly used to deliver the archer fantasy, it’s a common, and excellent, addition to any character already with the Archery Fighting Style. If you’re wondering when you should take the -5 to hit, the answer is if you wouldn’t kill it with normal damage, you probably want to take the penalty to hit.

Sentinel, Great Weapon Master, and Polearm Master are all options on any two-handed weapon style of martial character which can extend to ranger if you’d like. Missing out on the fighting style aimed at the build isn’t typically that big of an issue, and all three feats deliver tremendous boosts to a character's ability to engage in a fight.

Slasher, Piercer, and Crusher are compelling reasons to start with a 17 in your Dexterity or Strength to hit score, as these can double as both Ability Score Increases and improvements to your combat routine. Piercer in particular stands out as an option that can support longbow usage at tables less friendly towards Sharpshooter, but you really need to make the ability score improvement matter or the feat is on the weaker side of things.

Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, and Magic Initiate all are excellent feats for empowering your magical capabilities if you’re in the market to expand your out of combat aptitude. Shadow Touched in particular works exceptionally on many stealthy ranger fantasies, as it both adds Invisibilility to your regular spell selection while giving you a free cast of it every rest. For more animal buddy capabilities, Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster can give you access to Find Familiar for the ranger’s hawk or hound you’ve been itching for without consuming an entire subclass.

Feats to Avoid (Most of the Time)

Alert might be my most contentious opinion on this list, and while it can be a great pickup on an Assassin rogue multiclassing Gloom Stalker, beyond that on the average ranger you just don’t ever need this. There are a ton of options that actually empower your character in other meaningful ways you’ll feel more.

Skulker is conceptually a major flavor win for a ranger trying to sneak about and ambush people; in practice, unless you care regularly about the ability to now hide when lightly obscured, you just don’t ever need this. With extra attack coming next level, and the advantage you already have when making attacks from an unseen location, getting an extra layer of insurance on top of that is just ghoulish overkill. Without cunning action to enable quick hiding, skulker isn’t adding enough meaningful utility to your character to justify it at the majority of tables. Almost all of the spellcasting improvements will give you a wider selection of tools to approach stealth problems in ways Skulker just never could.

Poisoner presents an avenue to introduce poisons more readily to the game, and comes with an extra new option to give you something to do with the hastened applications. With so many extra damage options baked into the core ranger and subclasses that use your bonus action for bonus damage, the applications paired with their 50 gold cost per batch makes it challenging to justify over other options that just give you more damage without the hassle. In a world with a more robust poisons system, I’m all here for Poisoner. As 5e currently is, I’d steer clear.

5th Level: Extra Attack and 2nd Level Spells

5th level is a major milestone for all of the classes, ranger being no exception. Not only do they get their Extra Attack, they also get a spell level improvement, up from 1st to 2nd. This is basically the last time you’ll get pretty excited to get access to a new tier of magic compared to the other full caster characters, as 2nd level spell are still at a point where they’re pretty great to have, whereas getting 3rd or 4th level spells when other characters have had higher level options available prior just feels bad.

Primal Awareness Spell: Beast Sense

Beast Sense has always been the kind of spell that feels difficult to use, and when compounded with the existence of Find Familiar making it near obsolete in utility practicality leaves it as something I’m never really eager to prepare. When its free, and you get a free cast of it per long rest, its a neat little flavorful expansion, a ribbon on your ranger, that will assist in the feeling of being one with nature and attuning to the creatures of the wild. This isn’t a radical improvement power wise, but absolutely helps contribute to feeling like you have tools to interact with the world. You’ll probably struggle to cast it even once per long rest, and even more rarely will want to cast it more than that.

2nd Level Spells of Note

Beyond your free Primal Awareness spell, rangers get some notable 2nd level spells even as other characters are getting 3rd level options.

Summon Beast, even without the multi-attack you can get from its up-cast, is exceptional. An extra companion to threaten enemies and make attack rolls, especially if you’re working with a subclass with a pet already, can be brutal for a DM to account for. You’re bringing a whole extra character with relevant hit points and abilities into the fight on your team. It can deliver Goodberries, attack meaningfully, offer you a flying or climbing companion to aid in early out of combat exploration, and can, at minimum, act as a threatening force to draw fire. It's a top tier spell, and only needing to spend a 2nd level spell slot on it with an hour long duration is a great deal for rangers.

Pass without Trace is near the top of their list, and normally feels to me closer to a ranger class feature than a spell. If you don’t have a druid in the party, you’re going to be the only way the group has to access this massive boon in stealth utility with a +10 bonus to all Stealth checks alongside immunity to magical tracking. An exceptional spell you’ll use regularly when sneaking about; as a ranger, that’s going to be often.

Silence is another notable spell in the same way spells like Counterspell and Dispel Magic are; it fights on an axis different than most other abilities can. Silence is a tool to interact with spellcasting, turning off the ability to cast spells with verbal components while in the area. That on its own probably wouldn’t justify its preparation, but when you consider the utility of guaranteed silence in a bubble when you need it for hiding sounds, sneaking into places, or creating a safe space for discreet conversing, Silence becomes a spell you’ll always be happy to have access to.

Spike Growth is a pretty solid effect that can be built on to weaponize it in some powerful ways. It’ll play well on characters who can force things to move through it, and you can typically take advantage of the large area of coverage being difficult terrain while using your longbow to make up for the round spent casting it. Its usability tends to fall of a lot in the mid to upper tiers on more complex maps against enemies with varied speeds, but when you get it you’ll probably have a few levels left where it can shine.

2nd Level Spells to Avoid

Unfortunately for rangers, a lot of the spells exclusive to their list are really bad. Cordon of Arrows, as an example, gives you four d6 damaging bolts you have to prep in a location to, and attaching their damage to an all or nothing Dexterity save against your mediocre save DC. Sure, it can stack, but with only one bolt firing per turn, you need to commit so many spell slots for this to start doing anywhere near enough damage to consider using it.

Find Traps is a special kind of terrible, failing to perform its basic given function or provide any meaningful assistance when it comes to engaging with traps. Animal Messenger is challenging to find uses for, as can Protection from Poison, Darkvision, and Enhance Ability.

Healing Spirit can be your only needed healing spell, as it can function similarly to Healing Word (but more expensive), and probably isn’t going to be that worth it over just Goodberries for its cost. Lesser Restoration is the kind of effect you don’t want to have to learn, as its very niche in applications and is something you’d rather see a prepared caster prepare when needed.

6th Level and Beyond

Once you’re out of the early tier, you’ll get less frequent decisions, as the decisions you made prior will start to grant lasting effects. The following sections will briefly touch on the general power of obtained features alongside some general spell recommendations as you get access to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th level spells.

Deft Explorer Upper Tier Features

6th level gives you Roving as part of Deft Explorer, granting you a bonus 5 ft. speed and a swim and climb speed if you don’t already have them, and will scale up again at 10th level with the Tireless feature which feels similar to a preemptive Second Wind stapled to fast exhaustion recovery.

3rd Level Spell Recommendations

9th level opens up 3rd level magic to you, which while a bit unexciting (as your full-caster buddies have been using it for four levels now), it does offer some meaningful additions to your sheet.

Primal Awareness gives you a free use of Speak with Plants, which is a spell I adore even if its not the strongest spell of all time. I probably wouldn’t find room for it on most ranger builds; getting to as a bonus is amazing.

Conjure Animals has a lot of potential to do some bananas broken things, even with just a 3rd level slot at 9th level. When cast, you’ll probably always want to choose eight beasts of CR ¼ or lower, as eight summoned creatures tends to be significantly more impactful than half as many higher CR options, and if your DM lets you pick the beasts that are summoned you can do some crazy nonsense with some specific beasts. Giant owls are known for wreaking havoc in flocks, and giant frogs or even just eight extra wolves can be a major hurdle for a DM to build encounters around even at 9th level.

Plant Growth has a massive impact in environments rich with flora, and can easily lock down a massive space rangers can thrive in. With a longbow in hand making two attacks a round against some unsuspecting melee creatures, Plant Growth can ensure they waste plenty of turns flailing about in the super difficult terrain while you pick them apart from a safe distance.

Summon Fey is highlighted on the Fey Wanderer conclave, and even without it is still a massive boon. It’s not that much better than an up-cast Summon Beast, but does offer some neat utility options and a bit more magic than the 2nd level summon option does.

I would also recommend avoiding Conjure Barrage; for some reason, four levels earlier full casters get to deal 8d6 damage in a massive area. Rangers have that number dropped to just 3d8. 3d8 in a cone is closer to a 2nd level spell than a 3rd, and is nowhere close to as good as you need it to be for justifying spending one of your precious few 3rd level slots on. Lightning Arrow fits in the exact same camp; way too low damage for the spell level on a class tight for spells as it is.

4th Level Spell Recommendations

13th level for 4th level slots is nearly twice the level the full casters need to be to get access to these. If you’re partying with a druid who can use most of these, it’ll be hard to get excited for any of them. Without a druid to compete with, there are some major power players here that can empower you further.

Conjure Woodland Beings can always be one of the most game warping spells when pixies are a summonable option. Even without being able to summon pixies, Conjure Woodland Beings provides exceptional utility and a robust suite of excellent fey options that, even when the choice is on the DM, will leave you with powerful allies that will warp every fight they’re in and offer out of combat exploration tools in spades.

Summon Elemental is one of the worst summon options, yet is still excellent. I’d recommend up-casting Summon Beast or Fey at this tier instead, as that will give those creatures extra attack, but if Elementals are more your thing, getting an ally to make two attacks a turn with a fly or burrow speed is stelar.

Guardian of Nature is a pretty cool upgrade over Hunter’s Mark if you’re specifically a melee Strength based ranger, but with the duration tradeoff can still be something you’re only using when you know there’s only one fight left and you want to be attacking two or three times to get the most out of the damage from Primal Beast. Great Tree offers a one-sided difficult terrain around you and some interesting protection features alongside advantage on Dexterity attack rolls, but doesn’t actually empower your damage at all. Even with both options being mediocre, there will be plenty of ranger options happy to try it out.

Beyond these two, your options are slim; Stoneskin is fine, but largely unnecessary and functions weirdly with the concentration component when protecting yourself. Beyond that, the rest lack meaningful contributions to most games, and probably aren’t worth the cast.

5th Level Spell Recommendations

17th level is reserved for 9th level spells for the full-casters. Rangers get 5th level spells then. It’s impossible to compare any of these to the likes of Meteor Swarm or Wish and be thrilled about it, but there are few options that are big improvements for rangers specifically.

Swift Quiver gives you a way to get more attacks like a fighter. If your bonus action is free, going from two-three attacks to up to five ranged attacks a round is pretty baller, especially when stacked with Sharpshooter. Concentration for a minute means it’ll be around for an encounter, and it won’t play well with long duration concentration effects like the lower

Upper Tier Features

8th Level: Land’s Stride is a quality of life ranger upgrade I’d expert to see early but isn’t horrendous to get here. Immunity to non-magical difficult terrain paired with advantage on saves to avoid movement impediments are both common enough it’ll come up fairly often at more tactical tables. If you’re DM isn’t readily creating spaces of difficult terrain or using area of effect immobilizing effects, which is commonly the case with newer DMs, this can feel like no feature at all.

10th Level: Nature’s Veil is way better than Hide in Plain Sight. Optionally becoming invisible can offer you a means of quickly setting up advantage on attacks in the first round of combat anywhere. What’s critical about this form of invisibility is attacking doesn’t end the condition. It just ends at the start of your next turn. For a bonus action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus you’re getting a massive boost to attacks in combat alongside a great hiding utility option for clever tricks in high stakes searches.

14th Level: Vanish comes roughly 12 levels too late; a bonus action to Hide can be acquired with just two levels in rogue, and instead of getting immunity to tracking (a boon that will rarely come up), you’re getting two other ways to use your bonus action. Nature’s Veil is going to feel like the actual upgraded version of this, and you get that four levels earlier. Its fine to have once you get here, but at this point you don’t really need it, and if you wanted it so badly two level dips into rogue are excellent on rangers.

18th Level: Feral Senses kind of functions like a blind sight, but at any distance. Competing with Blind Fighting is a real bummer, as you don’t get an opportunity to switch it out here. Still, a 30 ft. blind sight is fine. I’ll never be particularly impressed with it, especially given it doesn’t see through heavy obscurity, and it certainly isn’t a reason to commit to 18 levels of ranger.

20th Level: Foe Slayer caps off the ranger class with a once per turn bonus damage equal to your wisdom modifier against one of your favored enemies, which basically means you need to use Favored Foe prior to get the bonus 3-5 damage. For a 20th level feature, a conditional once per turn bonus 3-5 damage ain’t it. Most 1st level class features will offer you better options than this as far as adding raw power to your character sheet.

Fundamental Ranger Build Directions

Ranger’s core class carries the fighting style of the fighter class with less attacks on average and the druid spellcasting suite of spells with lower tier options throughout the game. This, when paired with their damage bump from their subclass selection, lends them to be exceptional skirmishers in a game where skirmishing isn’t typically that great. Still, you can take these two base ideas and blend them together to create very flexible characters that have a consistent game plan for combat they can enhance or shake up from time to time with some splashy effects you’re always happy to see.

Ranged

You can take any tried and true martial build and stick it on ranger and have some amount of success. Sharpshooter builds in particular tend to be very common here, and while you only get a handful of ranger only abilities that actually empower Sharpshooter, when those features are bonus attacks (like in the case of Swiftquiver or Hunter’s Hordebreaker feature), you’re going to get a leg up on your competition.

A major reason to play a ranged ranger beyond their prowess at shooting stuff is the nature of concentration spells, specifically the long duration summon effects. Melee rangers are trying to leverage their hit points for the team, and likely are going to be getting attacked and hit more often than a hunter in the rafters with a longbow. That makes maintaining concentration on your long duration effects like Summon Beast harder, meaning ranged characters tend to be better at keeping up their powerful concentration effects like Hunter’s Mark and Summon Fey.

Subclasses to Consider: most any ranger subclass will get some value to add to their ranged repertoire. Hunter and the pet subclasses (Drakewarden and Beast Master) tend to play particularly well with this fantasy, and Swarmkeeper’s bonuses tend to empower melee rangers a bit more while having some anti-synergy in the eventual prone condition it imposes.

Melee

Melee rangers tend to like skirmishing, and want reasons to hit and run. A lot of their core identity is about mobility, and if you’re not getting a payoff for being mobile, it can feel pointless to sink parts of your build into immunity to opportunity attacks or hastened speeds when you’re remaining stationary whacking the giant twice a turn for the duration of the encounter. To empower this as best as possible, often you’re going to want your attacks to apply some amount of debuff to an enemy to justify switching up your targeting. Spells like Ensnaring Strike tend to play well alongside this fantasy with your goal being to tie up a bunch of enemies while slowly whittling away the entire enemy team's hit points.

Two-Weapon Fighting is a clear direction to take a ranger in the early levels, but there are some major downsides to be aware of. Two-weapon fighting asks you to use your bonus action on it over and over again; with one other bonus action feature like Hunter’s Mark you may feel some strain when it comes to getting the most out of both effects in any given fight. The pet subclasses ask you to spend your bonus action commanding your pets, and some other subclasses ask you to spend a bonus action to get bonus damage on hit, making it so the fantasy has surprisingly few directions left to go in. Fey Wanderer and Gloom Stalker don’t offer you bonus actions to compete with, and can make for great two-weapon fighting rangers, but most of the other options are going to feel crowded in the bonus action department.

If you’d rather play a stationary bulwark, ranger does have some options to support you. Stoneskin may come really late, but still gives you resistance to a bunch of damage types, and with Absorb Elements alongside lockdown effects like Entangle you can build a character that funnels enemies to them and plays defense really well. Feats like Sentinel and Polearm Master tend to easily slot into these kinds of builds.

Subclasses to Consider: all the ranger subclasses are built to work on both the melee and ranged varieties, but as mentioned in two-weapon fighting, some specific caveats apply. Gloom Stalkers like making extra attacks for free; the bigger the attacks the better the payoff, meaning two-handed weapon builds can get a lot of mileage out of their features. Swarmkeepers also offer a solid amount of payoffs for melee characters to play around with, namely with free pushes and added mobility to keep them free from danger while they navigate the battlefield.

Pets

A major core pillar of the newest form of ranger are “pets”, summonable or subclass allies that add extra actions to your character. I would recommend nearly every ranger consider Summon Beast, Summon Fey, and Conjure Animals for their spell slots. Drakewardens and Beast Masters offer you an additional companion, meaning many rangers can be working with two or more companions at any given time.

Managing these can be a bit of a daunting endeavor; having a clear goal and understanding of what all these creatures can do is vital to gameplay. If you’re using Summon Beast, knowing which for you’re going to take on cast (and critically, what its AC, speed, attack modifier, and important abilities are) is crucial to keeping the game moving.

Conjure Animals and Woodland Beings are both special cases where you’ll want to talk to your DM about how they want to handle these kinds of effects. Rules as written, you pick the CR category and they pick what appears. This puts a huge burden on your DM to just always have prepared whatever monsters they want to give you, but if they let you pick you’re highly incentivized to pick the obviously most busted options, namely Giant Owls for Conjure Beasts and Pixies for Conjure Woodland Beings. Having a mutual understanding of what these spells should be capable of at your given table is important, as some tables just aren’t good fits for spontaneously summoned eight owls that grapple as many small enemies as they can and fly as fast as they can straight up.

With these elements in mind, there aren’t a ton of ways to empower your pets that are unique to pets. Having tools to knock creatures prone or offer advantage on attack rolls otherwise can empower them in some cool ways, normally while also empowering your own attacks and your monk and rogue friends too.

Subclasses to Consider: Drakewarden and Beast Master get pets; they’re the pet subclasses for ranger, and both pretty solid options to consider.

How to Multiclass Ranger

You might notice that almost all of these touch on lower tier features and abilities. Ranger suffers majorly from being a half-caster in the upper tiers, and outside subclass specific improvements, it's hard to get excited to grow past 4th level slots at 13th level, with Vanish being the major consideration at 14th level and your subclass capstone at 15th in some cases.

If you want a taste of ranger, but want to juice up your character in other ways after reviewing some unimpressive mid tier subclass abilities (I’m looking at you, Beast Master)

To multiclass ranger, you need a 13 Dexterity and 13 Wisdom; if you’re coming from some other class, this opens up medium armor, shields, martial weapons, and a ranger skill to you, which are exceptional pickups for classes without them.

More often than not, I’d probably want to start with five levels in ranger for two reasons: Extra Attack, and 2nd level spell slots. These two core elements give your character a lot of juice over five levels, and with ranger’s 1st level being comparatively quite weak when put against most other classes, you’re going to need to know you want other elements of their class unlocked in the early tiers first. If that’s the case, you definitely want to get Extra Attack as fast as possible, as it's a massive upgrade to every fight you’ll be taking for the rest of the game.

Once you’re here, though, Deft Explorer’s Roving feature isn’t a major upgrade, and its really all you’re getting at 6th level. If your 7th level subclass option isn’t particularly compelling, 6th level is when you can get a lot of juice out of dipping into other classes for some extra punch to your character.

Martial Multiclass Options

Rangers love multiclassing Rogue. The two pair beautifully together; already, rangers get a once per turn damage boost, and rogue will help solidify that. With their ample access to pets, rangers have an incredibly easy time turning on their own Sneak Attack to ensure the bonus damage is coming. With Expertise giving you now three skills you’re doubling your proficency bonus in, with a one level dip into rogue, you’ll be adding a huge amount of consistency and utility to your sheet while forgoing very little. Cunning Action isn’t a perfect fit on rangers with particularly competitive bonus actions, like Drakewardens and Beast Masters, but on Hunters, Gloom Stalkers, or Fey Wanderers, getting a bonus action hide, disengage, and dash just feels right. You can get wherever you need to be, hide with expertise stacked on top of Pass Without Trace, and ultimately feel like the master infiltrator and assassin. Picking up the third level for a subclass like Assassin and my goodness are you cooking up the recipe to an option that hits like a buss with a host of powerful utility options baked into it. Rogue’s are the easiest place to dip into for almost every ranger.

Paladins are surprisingly a solid option to try out for melee rangers, specifically Gloom Stalkers or Hunters built to make boat loads of attack rolls. Having additional opportunities to smite while not slowing down your spell growth is pretty exceptional from the perspective of converting those spells into raw radiant damage. The major downside to this multiclass is paladin’s level 1 is pretty terrible, being just Divine Sense and Lay On Hands.

Multiclassing into a Full Caster

With Extra Attack unlocked, rangers now have a pretty easy time expanding out their spellcasting if they want to. Dipping into Druid and Cleric specifically is really easy. The Multiclass Spellcaster table explains that you basically count your ranger level as half a full-caster when determining what your spellcaster level is for the table; a Druid 1 Ranger 5, for example, counts as a 3rd level Multiclass Spellcaster. This means your first level in a full caster doesn’t actually give you any extra spell slots, but still will let you prepare or learn a bunch of new spells to use with your existing slots alongside cantrips and other 1st level features.

Cleric in particular stands out as its domain is selected at 1st level, and some of their domain features are nuts. War Domain gives you your Wisdom modifier per long rest bonus action weapon attacks, which can include those made with a longbow. Any ranger not already spending their bonus action each round will love having an extra two to five shots a long rest. Channel Divinity is opened up at 2nd level, offering you Guided Strike from War Domain as well that can give you +10 whenever you want it. Trickery Domain can just be a tool to always give yourself or whatever ally you want advantage on Stealth checks, and their expanded spell pool alongside Invoke Duplicity at 2nd level plays great on a ranger looking to leverage distractions and deception.

Druids offers a lot less at 1st level, but a lot more at 2nd level. If you don’t already have a pet and want one, Wildfire druids get a teleporting fiery companion they can spend Wild Shapes on to get back. Wild Shape on its own is an enormously powerful exploration tool, offering you a variety of critters to sneak around with inconspicuously. If you want to play the bestial, savage fighter, Moon Druid paired with Beast Master ranger can easily deliver the fantasy of being the literal leader of the pack, engaging with claw and fang alongside your summoned beast companions. Circle of Spores paired with Swarmkeeper ranger will sell the “covered in bugs” gross archetype you may be craving.

All of these can then be continued to the level cap, and you’ll be regularly happy with empowered spells that are coming only slightly behind the other full-caster characters. You’re only 3 levels down, and still get your two attacks a round, which is a massive deal in all tiers of play.

These builds focus heavily on spells learned and concentrated on, and usually play best when on a ranged damage dealer over a melee one. A ranger making two Sharpshooter attacks a turn that also has a 4th level Summon Beast friend running about is excellent, and easily stacks up against dedicated ranger builds of the same level in combat while having a myriad more opportunity to affect the game with heightened levels of magic.

Munchkin Nonsense to Mess Around With

Rangers don’t really get wildly abusable abilities, but there are some potent options that hit like a bus when paired with some other options.

Gloom Stalker Assassin Paladin Obliterator

So Gloom Stalkers pair really nicely with the Assassin rogue subclass. Gloom Stalker’s Dread Ambusher feature helps them act first in combat, and Umbral Sight makes it really easy to surprise unsuspectign enemies to get those critical hits. What’s more, Assassin rogues critically hit every attack made against an unseen creature, meaning the bonus attack Dread Ambush offers can crit, and will double the d8 damage it offers. We can up our attacks from two with Dread Ambusher to three with two-weapon fighting at the cost of our bonus action. Favored Foe also lets us deal a bonus d4 damage to a creature we designate as our Favored Foe when hit once a round, which also can crit, and because we’re making three attacks, we’re definitely getting that bonus d4 on either of the subsequent hits.

So with three levels in rogue and three levels and ranger, we’ve got a character armed to drop somebody in a single surprise round with two scimitars for 6d6+ 9 damage from a scimitar, 4d6 damage from Sneak Attack, 2d4 from favored for, and 2d8 bonus damage from Dread Ambusher for a total of 2d8+10d6+2d4+9. But we can do better.

2nd level Paladins let us convert spell slots on hit into 2d8 damage that scales with critical hits, meaning we can sink our three 1st level slots into each attack for a bonus 4d8 damage per slot spent, or a bonus 12d8 radiant damage in total over three attacks.

This 8th level character without extra attack can deal 14d8+10d6+2d4+9 damage in a single round to a surprised creature; but we can do better. It uses all but one of their spell slots, and doesn’t require any prep round. With a prep round, you can also cast Hunter’s Mark on the target (assuming it’ll live the initial damage) for a bonus 2d6 per hit attack, but we won’t assume we’ve got the prep round.

With two more levels, we’re working with a level 5 ranger with 2nd level spell slots. This does a few important things: first, we’re getting an extra attack that can incorporate a 4th extra attack for another Divine Smite. Second, two of our now four smites we’re spending are getting upgraded to 2nd level, meaning they're dealing 6d8 damage when critting instead of 4d8 damage. This puts our surprise round 5 ranger/3 rogue/2 paladin dealing over four attacks 22d8+12d6+2d4+12 damage in a single round, or an average of 158 damage at once, and this is ignoring the 4th level ranger Ability Score Improvement or feat option.

From this point, you’ve got a bunch of level directions to consider. One more level in rogue offers you another Ability Score Improvement or another feat, while another level of Paladin opens up the choice of any oath you’d like.

This is more leveraging the broken interaction between the Assassinate feature and Divine Smite feature, but Gloom Stalker ranger plays an important part in giving you a free extra attack while scaling up your spell levels for better smites and making it all the easier to get set up for a big surprise.

Should you play this build at most tables? No, absolutely not! Most games aren’t designed to factor in one character's ability to drop down and dish out 158 damage at 10th level. If this appeals to you, I’d talk to your DM about it. It can be really fun and satisfying in a one shot or a confined environment to mess around with munchkin nonsense, though.

Rangers, When Patched, Are Great

The modern iterations of ranger are a much needed improvement on the PHB ranger that takes almost all my complaints about their early tier play and addresses them. Now they still suffer pretty majorly in the upper tiers, and I regularly will recommend swapping out of ranger as soon as you get whatever subclass ability you’re most excited for, but you can play them up to 20 and have a great time.

They aren’t as clear cut as fighter, and have to work a bit harder to get all their attacks, but can absolutely be forces of nature at all tiers of play. Their pet thematics and mechanics have been majorly improved, and their new core features make them actually get impactful abilities you’ll use on every adventure, instead of just when busting out the adventure map for a hexcrawl.

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Ranger 5e