Building a pure wis ranger

[Dankus Memakus]

So, I am really drawn to the idea of a ranger who uses shelligah and magic stone and fights purely with their wisdom. I however can’t really decide on which path is most reasonable for this plan. Multiclassing is allowed and everything besides UA can be utilized in the build.

Thanks!

[Meichrob7]

Pole arm master and Shillelagh both work with a quarter staff. If you go that direction then Monster hunter and Horizon walker are kinda out as options because Shillelagh and Pole arm master both need bonus actions and those classes have important class features also eating the bonus action. You said no UA so beastmaster is out for the most part. The only exception to that is if you’re going to be playing in a dark campaign with little-no sunlight and there’s no other melee fighters in your party, in that situation a Kobold riding a wolf will have advantage on all his attacks because of pack tactics. However if you’re doing a mostly dungeon based campaign with a lot of darkness then gloom stalker is probably better.

In terms of all around usefulness the Hunter is probably best, it doesn’t use a bonus action for any of its class features and isn’t dependent on you being in a dark area to function.

In terms of race there’s a few planeshift races with +2 wis, Kalashtar from Ebberon can get 2wis and telepathy, I’m pretty sure firbolgs get 2wis and thematically fit as rangers, Varient Human can start with 2wis if you pick a feat that gives you +1 to wis.

I know you asked for ranger builds so I won’t spend too long talking about this but if your dm is okay with you using the blood hunter class on DND beyond, it has a lot of good ways to make a wisdom based melee fighter and is pretty similar to a ranger.

[clash]

There is 2 questions I would ask and they kinda go hand in hand:
1. How are you getting shillelagh
2. How are you calculating your ac

The most obvious way to get shillelagh is going variant human, taking magic initiate and getting your cantrips. Rangers get medium armor so if your dex is at least 14 you are good to go.

The other alternatives are druid and nature cleric. I wouldnt recommend druid as that will limit your armor choices substantially and we dont really want to worry about investing in dex past the 14 so limited armor choices will mean poor ac.

Nature cleric is a bit better and can add some nice toys including heavy armor. Heavy armor has a min strength but the penalty is just a movement reduction. So if you are okay with taking a -10ft penalty to movement then you could leave dex at 13 for multiclassing out of Ranger, take nature cleric and get that 18 ac plate armor plus a shield with almost no stat investment. If you dont want the heavy armor nature cleric is still viable as it doesnt interfere with your standard medium armor build anyways.

[Talij]

Hill dwarf with one level nature cleric gets you heavy armor with no movement penalty and one of the two cantrips. After that you just need 13 dex to mc ranger. Suggest Gloomstalker as it gets you wisdom for initiative and its abilities don't eat up your bonus action.

With this path you can have a front line fighter with two attacks (one level late) that has good AC and HP, all while having 8 str and 13 dex. Just don't get grappled.

[clash]

Hill dwarf with one level nature cleric gets you heavy armor with no movement penalty

Right, I was trying to remember what race got that. Of course wood elf gets 35ft movement which even after -10 get the same 25ft movement as hill dwarfs. So works out to the same as an alternative.