I had an opportunity to look at the upcoming PHB, and I wanted to compare the 2014 Ranger side-by-side with 2024 Ranger to see what was changed, gained, or lost. While doing so, the first question that came to mind was would it be unbalanced to include 2014 features that were removed for 2024? This would be a few features that, while flavorful, weren’t too strong or didn’t have much practical use.

I also started brainstorming how to improve Favored Enemy & Hunter's Mark since it’s seemingly meant to be a signature class feature and spell. I came up with the following additions and changes, and I’m hoping that, by sharing my thoughts, we can talk balance and viability. Or just toss the entire thing in the trash. 🤷🏾‍♂️

So, what’s gone from the 2014 Ranger?

Any why can’t we keep some of these features?

Natural Explorer at level 1 vs Deft Explorer at level 2. Natural Explorer’s Favored Terrain feature wasn’t great. Deft Explorer is a fair replacement, but Natural Explorer feels very thematic to the Ranger without feeling overpowered or unbalanced, especially considering how limited it was.

Primeval and Primal Awareness are gone at level 3. Primeval Awareness felt weak, and I don’t think it would be problematic to keep it.

Primal Awareness, on the other hand, was nice, especially considering the 2014 Ranger’s few known spells with no ability to change them. Plus, it granted 5 free spell casts. At first, I was bummed about its loss, but I think the 2024 Ranger comes out about even. You lose 5 always known spells that can be cast for free 1/day, but you gain 4 more spells prepared in addition to always having Hunter’s Mark prepared, and you can change your prepared spells daily rather than being stuck with a few known spells forever. You can also cast Hunter’s Mark for free, determined by your Proficiency Bonus. This isn’t the best trade off if you don’t want to use HM, but it at least frees up some spell slots when you do.

Land’s Stride is gone from Level 8. Without a replacement since it was also removed from the Circle of the Land druid. It feels thematic to the ranger and druid, but if it’s gone from the Circle of the Land druid, then it should remain gone from the ranger.

Hide in Plain Sight is gone from Level 10. Tasha’s replaced this with Nature’s Veil, then the 2024 PHB moved Nature’s Veil to Level 14. Would it be unbalanced to bring this back while also keeping Nature’s Veil at Level 14? It’s a specific use-case that won’t always be useful even if the requirements are met.

Vanish is gone from Level 14.  Replaced by Nature’s Veil, but why not both? The number of times you can use Nature’s Veil is limited by your Wisdom modifier and Vanish is limited by needing somewhere to physically hide. As long the Ranger requires an actual hiding spot, it shouldn’t hurt to give them the option to hide naturally vs magically.

So how could the 2024 Ranger look if we squeezed some of these features back in while also making FE/HM more versatile?

Plus, some other changes, because it wouldn’t be the ranger if we didn’t try to revise it.

LEVEL 1: AGILE HUNTER.

Wearing medium armor doesn't impose disadvantage on your Dexterity (Stealth) checks.

Medium Armor Master removed its perk to ignore Stealth disadvantage with medium armor, and it’s fitting that the Ranger should be able to effectively use medium armor without being penalized for doing something rangers commonly do (stealth).

LEVEL 1: HUNTER’S FAVOR

You must remain adaptable. You may call upon your instincts to use one of the following options, Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain, or to use other features that call upon your Hunter’s Favor. The number of times you can use these options increases when you reach certain Ranger levels, as shown in the Hunter’s Favor column of the Ranger Features table (i.e., your proficiency bonus).

Favored Enemy remains the same (granting Hunter’s Mark). Favored Terrain is described below. This is a name change for the resource used because some features I describe below rely on those “Favored Enemy” charges but have nothing to do with favored enemies or Hunter’s Mark.

LEVEL 1: FAVORED TERRAIN

You may expend one use of your Hunter’s Favor feature to designate the current terrain as your Favored Terrain for the next hour. After 10 minutes of study and preparation, you are particularly familiar with the environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in that studied region.

While traveling in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:

• Difficult terrain doesn't slow your group's travel.

• Your group can't become lost except by magical means.

• Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.

• If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.

• When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.

• While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.

This is Natural Explorer but without giving advantage to Intelligence and Wisdom checks since a ranger can still get advantage either by using Hunter’s Mark or by choosing those skills with one of their Expertise options. This is a neat feature that makes a ranger feel like a ranger, and it means your Hunter’s Favor isn’t wasted if you don’t want to cast Hunter’s Mark.

 LEVEL 3: HUNTER’S SENSE

As an action, you may expend one ranger spell slot or one use of your Hunter’s Favor to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend or use of Hunter’s Favor, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you (or up to 6 miles if you are in your favored terrain): aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn't reveal the creatures' location or number.

This is Primeval Awareness rebranded. It's another way to use your Hunter’s Favor if you don’t want to cast Hunter’s Mark, and it’s doing something that feels thematic to the ranger without feeling too powerful or unbalanced.

LEVEL 5 . . . three proposals.

For the next feature, I had Primal Awareness and the free castings of its always prepared spells in mind while also thinking of a way to utilize Hunter’s Favor for something other than Hunter’s Mark. I placed this feature at Level 5 because that is the same level Primal Awareness would have granted you a new spell level. I had three different ideas, but I’m not sure which to keep, if any are kept at all: the first two are direct replacements to Primal Awareness while the third is another option for your Hunter’s Favor.

INSTINCTUAL CASTING (Proposal 1).

You may expend one use of your Hunter’s Favor plus an additional use per spell level to cast one of your prepared ranger spells or a spell provided by your ranger subclass without using a spell slot. For example, if you expend two uses of Hunter’s Favor, you can cast any prepared level 1 spell without using a spell slot; if you expend three uses of Hunter’s Favor, you can cast any prepared level 2 spell without a spell slot; and so on.

The idea here is that Primal Awareness lets you cast one of its provided spells once per day without a spell slot. This feature aims to do something similar while not forcing you to use Hunter’s Mark.

ALWAYS PREPARED (Proposal 2).

Rangers are survivors and know how  to prepare for anything. You may spend 10 minutes to assess your current situation then expend two uses of Hunter’s Favor to prepare one use any spell on the ranger's spell list that you don't currently have prepared. A spell prepared this way still requires using a spell slot of the appropriate level to cast. Once cast, you cannot cast it again unless you spend 10 minutes and expend two more uses of your Hunter’s Favor.

Primal Awareness gave you a few situational spells, and this aims to do the same by allowing you to cast any spell on the ranger’s spell list if the situation calls for it.

KNACK FOR SURVIVAL (Proposal 3).

Any time you make a survival check, you can expend one use of your Hunter’s Favor to roll an additional d20. You can use the feature after rolling but before you know the outcome of the d20 test.

Rangers are meant to be the masters of survival. This feature reflects that.

LEVEL 6: FOCUSED HUNTER

You may simultaneously concentrate on Hunter's Mark and one other spell that has been prepared from the Ranger spell list or granted by your Ranger subclass. If you fail a concentration check, you lose concentration on both spells, but, as a reaction, you may expend one use of your Hunter’s Favor to refocus and maintain concentration only on Hunter's Mark.

 You cannot simultaneously concentrate on spells acquired from any other source except for spells prepared from the Ranger spell list or granted by your Ranger subclass while also concentrating on Hunter's Mark.

One of the most common complaints about the ranger and Hunter’s Mark is the concentration requirement for a spell that’s meant to be the ranger’s signature class feature. This does away with that by letting you concentrate on one additional spell, but the spell must be from the ranger spell list. This avoids spells that a ranger wouldn’t normally have access to that might upset balance.

LEVEL 10: HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT

Exactly as printed in the 2014 PHB. It’s thematic to the ranger while not seeming unbalanced to reimplement into the class, and it fills the void left by Nature’s Veil being pushed back four levels.

LEVEL 13: RELENTLESS HUNTER

Taking damage can't break your Concentration on Hunter's Mark. If you are concentrating on a second ranger spell using the Focused Hunter feature, you must still pass a concentration check to keep concentration on that spell. If you fail the concentration check, as a reaction, you may expend one use of your Hunter’s Favor plus an additional use per spell level to refocus and maintain concentration on your second spell.

This is the 2024 Relentless Hunter feature, but it also acts as an upgrade to the Focused Hunter feature introduced above.

LEVEL 14: VANISH

Exactly as printed in the 2014 PHB. This is also the level you get Nature’s Veil. Reintroducing the Vanish feature gives the Ranger the option to hide by natural or magical means.

LEVEL 17: PRECISE HUNTER

You have Advantage on attack rolls against the creature currently marked by your Hunter's Mark, and the damage die of your Hunter's Mark is a d8 rather than a d6.

The same as the new 2024 feature of the same name but with an incremental upgrade to Hunter’s Mark damage before the capstone.

LEVEL 20: FOE SLAYER

You become an unparalleled hunter of your enemies. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make against an enemy who is the target of your Hunter’s Mark. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied.

Additionally, when you hit a creature with an attack roll, you can cast Hunter's Mark without taking a Bonus Action and before you roll any damage dice. If a target of your Hunter’s Mark drops to 0 Hit Points before the spell ends, you can move the mark to a new creature with your next successful attack roll without taking a Bonus Action.

 Finally, the damage die of your Hunter’s Mark is a d10 rather than a d8.

This combines the 2014 capstone (add Wisdom modifier to attack or damage) with Tasha’s Foe Hunter (apply on hit) and the 2024 capstone (increase the damage die to d10). The 2024 capstone feels like a joke on its own, letting the ranger use Hunter’s Mark without a bonus action alleviates the complaint that too many ranger features require a bonus action, and retaining the 2014 capstone features is just icing.

And that’s my Revised Ranger Revision, but what about the subclasses?

Since were presumably encouraged to use Hunter’s Mark, each ranger subclass should offer some complementary feature when using it. The Hunter gets a renamed version of the Monster Hunter’s Hunter’s Sense at Level 3 that works on enemies marked by Hunter’s Mark then Hunter’s Mark gets an upgrade at Level 11 that spreads the damage among multiple enemies.

Then there’s the Fey Wanderer and Gloom Stalker getting bonus spells while the Beast Master and Hunter do not…

BEAST MASTER LEVEL 3: PACK HUNTER

LEVEL 3: PACK HUNTER

You can call upon on the mystical bond of your primal companion allowing its senses to flow through you. While a creature is marked by your Hunter's Mark and your primal companion is tracking it with you, you can reroll one of the dice once on any Wisdom (Perception or Survival) check you make to find it.

Giving the Primal Companion Pack Tactics felt like too much, but giving the ranger a bonus to tracking seems fine.

LEVEL 3: BEAST MASTER SPELLS

When you reach a Ranger level specified in the Beast Master Spells table, you thereafter always have the listed spells prepared:

3 Heroism*

5 Enlarge/Reduce*

9 Aura of Vitality**

13 Dominate Beast

17 Awaken

*Heroism, Enlarge/Reduce, and Aura of Vitality can only benefit your Primal Companion

 FEY WANDERER LEVEL 3: HEADHUNTER . . . two proposals.

Proposal 1:

When you hit a creature marked by your Hunter’s Mark with a weapon, they can take the extra damage from your Dreadful Strikes up to two times per turn.

Or proposal 2:

A creature marked by your Hunter’s Mark has disadvantage on saving throws to avoid or end the Charmed or Frightened condition triggered by you.

At Level 11, Fey Reinforcements could be upgrade as follows:

Additionally, the first time each turn any fey summoned by this feature hits a creature under the effect of your Hunter’s Mark, it deals an extra 1d4 Psychic damage.

Gloom Stalker next:

GLOOM STALKER LEVEL 3: FEARED HUNTER

When you hit an enemy who’s marked your Hunter's Mark with your Dreadful Strikes feature and while you have the Invisible condition, you can force it to make a Wisdom saving throw against your Spell Save DC. On a failed save, it has the Frightened condition until the start of your next turn.

At Level 11, Feared Hunter and the Mass Fear option of Stalker’s Flurry could be upgraded by giving the enemy marked by Hunter’s Mark disadvantage on the save against the Fear effect.

LEVEL 3: HUNTER SPELLS

When you reach a Ranger level that grants you access to a new spell level, you can choose any one spell of that level from the Ranger spell list. You thereafter always have that spell prepared.

The only spells that really fit the Hunter are already on the Ranger spell list, and the Hunter subclass already gives the player options when choosing other features, so it felt fitting they would do so here.

That’s all I’ve got. What do you all think?