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Edea
2020-08-14, 02:12 PM
I need some help/PEACHing for this Ranger re-write. I like to put down stuff that sounds cool first, but this is all probably too much power-wise, or it might've missed the mark with regard to fixing the original 'problems' that needed addressing (if any, though it did seem kinda weaksauce on initial reading).

There's a good chance I might actually get to use this in an upcoming 5e game, but I haven't shown the DM yet. He's generally supportive of homebrew and he's not a fan of the ranger in the PHB, but I'd like to minimize the work he needs to do to make this 'ready', if possible. Maybe I took this completely in the wrong direction, no idea; I guess the most important parts are "would you want to play this" (yay) and "would you rather play this than any other martial class" (whoops, too much).

Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d10 per ranger level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + Con mod
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + Con mod per ranger level after 1st

Proficiencies
Armor: Light, medium, shields
Weapons: Simple, martial
Tools: Herbalism kit, poisoner's kit
Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity
Skills: Choose three from Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival

Equipment

(a)scale mail or (b)leather armor
(a)two shortswords or (b)two simple melee weapons
(a)a dungeoneer's pack and poisoner's kit, or (b) an explorer's pack and herbalism kit
A longbow and a quiver with 20 arrows

Mind of the Hunter
You have significant expertise in the fields of anatomy, psychology, and physiology, allowing you to hone your hunter's senses to a particular type of creature with a sufficient period of time to meditate and focus your thoughts on the appropriate areas of study.
When you begin play, choose a type of favored enemy: aberration, beast, celestial, construct, dragon, elemental, fey, fiend, giant, monstrosity, ooze, plant, undead, or a race of humanoid (gnoll, orc, etc.). You have advantage on all ability checks related to tracking your favored enemy type or recalling information about them. You also gain a +2 bonus on all attack rolls made against creatures of the favored enemy type.
Whenever you take a long rest, you may change around your selected favored enemy type/s. At 6th level, you can have two favored enemy types selected at once. This increases to three favored enemy types at 14th level.

Heart of the Explorer
You have significant expertise in the fields of geography, geology and ecology, allowing you to hone your hunter's senses to particular type of environment with a sufficient period of time to meditate and focus your thoughts on the appropriate areas of study.
When you begin play, choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coastline/aquatic, desert, forest/jungle, grassland, mountain/cliff, ruins, swamp, volcanic, or underground/caverns. You are treated as proficient with all ability checks related to your favored terrain, and said proficiency bonus is doubled.
While traveling in your favored terrain, you also 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.
Your group can move stealthily at a normal pace.
When foraging in a terrain type other than urban, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
When tracking, you learn the exact number of creatures, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.
Whenever you take a long rest, you may change around your selected favored terrain type/s. At 6th level, you can have two favored terrain types selected at once. This increases to three favored terrain types at 10th level.

Fighting Style
At 2nd level, you can focus your mind and body on a particular style of combat. Choose one of the following options upon gaining this class feature.

Archery: You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.
Defense: While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Dueling: When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Two-Weapon Fighting: When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

Spellcasting
By the time you reach 2nd level, you have learned to use the magical essence of nature to cast spells, much as a druid does. See chapter 10 for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 for the ranger spell list.
Spell Slots: The ranger table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. When outside of a favored terrain, you regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
Spells Known: You begin knowing two 1st-level spells of your choice from the ranger spell list. The Spells Known column of the Ranger table shows when you learn more ranger spells of your choice. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the ranger spells you know and replace it with another spell from the ranger spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.
Spellcasting Ability: Wisdom (follows standard Spellcasting Ability rules).

Ranger Archetype
At 3rd level, you choose an archetype that you strive to emulate: Foe Hunter or Beast Master (both detailed below). Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 11th and 15th level.

Primeval Awareness
Beginning at 3rd level, you can use your action to focus your awareness on the region around you. For every round where you spend your action on this ability, you can sense whether any of your favored enemy types are present within 1 mile of you, or within 6 miles of you while in a favored terrain. You can also choose to expend a ranger spell slot (of any level) as part of this action; if you do so, you also learn of the creatures' exact numbers and locations (Note: this is generally done after detecting their presence in the first place).

Ability Score Improvement
At 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th levels, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Vanish
Starting at 8th level, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, you can't be tracked by non-magical means unless you choose to leave a trail.

Hide In Plain Sight
Starting at 10th level, you can wrap your physical body in primal power, cloaking you in a camouflaging mien of latent natural energy. Hiding in plain sight takes 1 minute to complete; once finished, you can attempt the Hide action absolutely anywhere, even on featureless terrain in broad daylight. You also gain a +10 bonus to Stealth checks as long as you don't move or take any actions. Movement does not disrupt hiding in plain sight (though you will need to make Stealth checks to remain hidden); taking any other actions does, however, and will necessitate re-establishing the camouflaging effect afterwards.

Feral Senses
At 14th level, you gain preternatural senses that help you fight creatures you can't see. When you attack a creature you can't see, your inability to see it doesn't impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it. You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you (so long as they haven't otherwise successfully hidden themselves).

Grace of the Wilds
At 18th level, you are treated as proficient with all saving throws made while in a favored terrain or against the attacks of a favored enemy type.

Foeslayer
At 20th level, you have become a consummate hunter of your prey. You now add your Wisdom modifier to all attack rolls and damage rolls made against your favored enemy types. You can also add your Wisdom modifier to an attack roll or damage roll made in one of your favored terrains once per turn, even against non-favored enemies. These modifiers stack with each other.
Emulating the foe hunter archetype means accepting your place as a bulwark between civilization and the terrors of the wild. As you walk the foe hunter's path, you learn specialized techniques for fighting the threats you face, from rampaging ogres and hordes of orcs to towering dragons and terrifying aberrations.

Hunter's Prey
At 3rd level, you learn the hunter's mark spell; this does not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known.
In addition, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
Colossus Slayer: Deal +1d8 damage on one weapon attack per turn to a foe that's already been damaged.
Swift Killer: When a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack against you (hit or miss), you can use your reaction to attack that creature immediately after its attack, provided you can see it (or perceive it with your Feral Senses class feature).
Horde Breaker: Once on each of your turns when you make a weapon attack, you can make another attack with the same weapon against a different creature that is within 5 feet of the original target and within range of your weapon.

Defensive Tactics
At 7th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.
Will of the Colossus: You can no longer be frightened.
Swift Parry: When a creature hits you with an attack, you gain a +4 bonus to AC against all subsequent attacks made by that creature for the rest of the turn.
Escape the Horde: Opportunity attacks against you are made with disadvantage.

Adaptive Puissance
At 11th level, your Fighting Style improves. You gain access to one of the following features depending on your Fighting Style choice.
Volley: This feature is associated with the Archery option for Adaptive Style. You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon's range. You must have sufficient ammunition for each target, and each target requires a separate attack roll.
Rebounder: This feature is associated with the Defense option for Adaptive Style. Whenever a hostile creature misses you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to redirect that attack to another hostile creature within the attacker's reach (including the attacker themselves). The attacker re-rolls their attack roll against the designated target, and they have advantage on the roll.
Brutal Riposte: This feature is associated with the Dueling option for Adaptive Style. You can intentionally provoke an opportunity attack from a targeted creature within your melee reach using your Attack action; regardless of whether or not the target takes this opportunity attack, this allows you to attack an additional time with said Attack action (this stacks with other sources of additional attacks). The target must be able to see you and make opportunity attacks against you, and the opportunity attack triggered by Brutal Riposte occurs before your attacks and is made with advantage.
Whirlwind Attack: This feature is associated with the Two-Weapon Fighting option for Adaptive Style. You can use your action to make a melee attack against any number of creatures within 5 feet of you, with a separate roll for each target.

Hunter's Memories
At 15th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice. These represent the manifestation of basic techniques learned from both your own past lives and your observations of other adventurers.

Dreams of the Wild: you gain the barbarian's Reckless Attack ability.
Warrior's Ways: you gain the fighter's Action Surge ability.
Assassin's Thoughts: you gain the rogue's Evasion and Uncanny Dodge abilities.


The Beast Master archetype embodies a friendship between the civilized races and the beasts of the world. United in focus, beast and ranger work as one to fight the monstrous foes that threaten civilization and the wilderness alike. Emulating the beast master archetype means committing to this ideal, working with an animal as your companion and friend.

Ranger's Companion
At 3rd level, you learn the animal friendship and speak with animals spells; these spells do not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known. You can also cast speak with animals as a ritual. You gain proficiency with the Animal Handling skill. You also gain a beast companion, which uses the following rules:


You forge a telepathic connection with a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you. Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/2 or lower (see Appendix D). Add your proficiency bonus to the beast's AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills in which it is proficient. Its hit point maximum equals its normal maximum or your ranger level multiplied by 4, whichever is higher.
The beast obeys your commands as best it can. It takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn't take an action unless you command it to. On your turn, you can telepathically command the beast to move where you designate without consuming any of your actions (within its movement capabilities). You can telepathically command the beast to use the Dash, Disengage, Dodge or Help actions as a bonus action. You can telepathically command the beast to Attack with your regular action; once you have the Extra Attack class feature, you can make any additional attacks from the Attack action yourself while your beast makes the primary attack.
You can also use a bonus action to expend a ranger spell slot for the purpose of empowering the beast companion; doing this gives the beast a +2 bonus to its next attack roll and a bonus to the damage roll made with that attack equal to 1d8 per level of the spell expended. This benefit lasts for 1 minute or until expended. Multiple empowerments do not stack with one another.
If the beast dies, you can obtain another one by spending 8 hours telepathically bonding with another beast that isn't hostile to you, either the same type of beast or a different one within the allowed parameters.
You sense everything the beast senses, and vice versa. You are able to recall your beast companion to you with 1 full round of uninterrupted meditation, so long as it remains within 10 miles of you (this is a teleportation effect). If it moves beyond that range, you will need to perform a 1 hour ritual to recall it, but this will return it to your side no matter where it's located (even across planes, though it can't bring anything or anyone else with it).
Your companion's telepathic connection to you reinforces its mental; it cannot be charmed or frightened, unless you are suffering from said condition/s yourself. Further, so long as you are both within 30 feet of one another, you can prevent your beast from suffering damage by transferring some or all of the damage the beast would normally be dealt to yourself, instead (you cannot transfer damage you suffer to your beast, however).

Wild Resonance
At 7th level, you learn the animal messenger and beast sense spells; these spells do not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known. You can also cast animal messenger and beast sense as rituals.

Once per day after a short rest, you can recover a number of spells slots whose total level does not exceed one-half your ranger level rounded down (so a 7th level ranger could recover 3 1st level spells, or 1 2nd level spell and 1 1st level spell) so long as you spend the entirety of the short rest within 30 feet of your beast companion.

Bestial Fury
At 11th level, you learn the conjure animals and revivify beast spells; these spells do not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known. (Note: revivify beast (3rd level ranger spell) works exactly like the normal revivify, except that you can only target an animal or beast with it and the component cost is reduced to 150 gp.)

Your beast companion is now able to make an additional attack of its own when you command it to use the Attack action, on top of any additional attacks you're able to make yourself.

Wild Synchronization
At 15th level, you learn the dominate beast and polymorph spells; these spells do not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known.

When you cast a spell targeting yourself, you can also affect your beast companion with the spell as long as it is within 30 feet of you.

Composer99
2020-08-15, 09:59 AM
I need some help/PEACHing for this Ranger re-write. I like to put down stuff that sounds cool first, but this is all probably too much power-wise, or it might've missed the mark with regard to fixing the original 'problems' that needed addressing (if any, though it did seem kinda weaksauce on initial reading).

There's a good chance I might actually get to use this in an upcoming 5e game, but I haven't shown the DM yet. He's generally supportive of homebrew and he's not a fan of the ranger in the PHB, but I'd like to minimize the work he needs to do to make this 'ready', if possible. Maybe I took this completely in the wrong direction, no idea; I guess the most important parts are "would you want to play this" (yay) and "would you rather play this than any other martial class" (whoops, too much).

I think this ranger re-work could stand to have a high level review done. By that I mean, trying to assess what you see were the problems with the PHB ranger, and then revising or replacing the features in order to address them.

The reason for this is that I feel that this rework involves throwing the ranger a more toys (especially the beast master) without a sort of high-level strategy for how they are supposed to make one feel when playing the ranger, or for how they are supposed to improve on the PHB class.

Also, the spellcasting gets out of hand, as we shall soon see.

Base Class

So, apropos of spellcasting, at first I missed the part where you can get spell slots back on a short rest in your favoured terrain. Since the feature isn't restricted in any way, you are now better than a wizard, land druid, or warlock at short rest slot recovery, since you can change your favoured terrain whenever you finish a long rest. That is bonkers.

At 2nd level, you get 2 spell levels of slots back every short or long rest. So does the warlock. The wizard and land druid each get 1 level of slots back on a single short rest, and 3 levels on a long rest, for a daily cap of 4 slot levels, which you equal after one short rest and exceed after two.

At 5th level, you get 8 levels of slots back every short or long rest. The warlock gets 6 levels of slots. The wizard and land druid each get 3 levels of slots back on a single short rest, and 16 levels back on a long rest, for a daily cap of 19 slot levels, which you very nearly match after one short rest and exceed after two.

At 9th level, you get 16 levels of slots back every short or long rest. The warlock gets 10 levels of slots. The wizard and land druid each get 5 levels of slots back on a single short rest, and 36 levels back on a long rest, for a daily cap of 41 slot levels, which you don't really get close to after one short rest but overshoot after two.

Skipping ahead to 20th level, you get 41 levels worth of slots back every short or long rest. The warlock gets 20 levels of slots on a short or long rest, and 30 levels of slots (the mystic arcanum) back on a long rest. The wizard and land druid get 10 levels of slots back on a single short rest, and 89 levels back on a long rest, for a daily cap of 99 levels. Again, you get well past this cap after two short rests.

Sure, the other spellcasters get spells of 2nd through 5th level well before you do, and get 6th+ level spells, but it's still the case that you're probably better than full casters at sheer numbers of spell slots during the day. Bonkers.


Mind of the Hunter
You have significant expertise in the fields of anatomy, psychology, and physiology, allowing you to hone your hunter's senses to a particular type of creature with a sufficient period of time to meditate and focus your thoughts on the appropriate areas of study.
When you begin play, choose a type of favored enemy: aberration, beast, celestial, construct, dragon, elemental, fey, fiend, giant, monstrosity, ooze, plant, undead, or a race of humanoid (gnoll, orc, etc.). You have advantage on all ability checks related to tracking your favored enemy type or recalling information about them. You also gain a +2 bonus on all attack rolls made against creatures of the favored enemy type.
Whenever you take a long rest, you may change around your selected favored enemy type/s. At 6th level, you can have two favored enemy types selected at once. This increases to three favored enemy types at 14th level.

The original favoured enemy feature was decent, but had the following problems:
- It was too narrow
- It had no native combat capability (which you kind of expect it should, between the name and the legacy of editions past)

This seems to solve this problem. The narrowness is the same, except now you can change who it applies to each day.



Heart of the Explorer
You have significant expertise in the fields of geography, geology and ecology, allowing you to hone your hunter's senses to particular type of environment with a sufficient period of time to meditate and focus your thoughts on the appropriate areas of study.
When you begin play, choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coastline/aquatic, desert, forest/jungle, grassland, mountain/cliff, ruins, swamp, volcanic, or underground/caverns. You are treated as proficient with all ability checks related to your favored terrain, and said proficiency bonus is doubled.
While traveling in your favored terrain, you also 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.
Your group can move stealthily at a normal pace.
When foraging in a terrain type other than urban, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
When tracking, you learn the exact number of creatures, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.
You recover spent magical energy more quickly than normal while in a favored terrain type (see Spellcasting).

Whenever you take a long rest, you may change around your selected favored terrain type/s. At 6th level, you can have two favored terrain types selected at once. This increases to three favored terrain types at 10th level.

At least in my opinion, the PHB Natural Explorer feature is too powerful within its niche, but useless outside of it. The reason being that, when you are within a PHB ranger's favoured terrain, there is no exploration pillar of play. Having a ranger is like having a teleport spell in the sense that you bypass the challenges of long-distance travel, especially in the wilderness. The other problem was that the ranger's features largely helped only the ranger themselves.

This is an improvement in the sense that the feature is more broadly applicable (narrow but changeable), and helps the ranger's allies - but it has the same flaw of essentially negating the exploration pillar.



Adaptive Style
At 2nd level, you can focus your mind and body on a particular style of combat. Choose one of the following options upon gaining this class feature. You can only have one style active at a time. Whenever you take a long rest, you can choose to change your active fighting style. If you acquire additional fighting styles from other classes (such as fighter or paladin), add them to your Adaptive Style list.

Archery: You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.
Defense: While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Dueling: When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Two-Weapon Fighting: When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.



If this class is meant to be played with other PHB classes, then this feature is out of line compared to their capabilities.


Primeval Awareness
Beginning at 3rd level, you can use your action to focus your awareness on the region around you. For every round where you spend your action on this ability, you can sense whether any of your favored enemy types are present within 1 mile of you, or within 6 miles of you while in a favored terrain. You can also choose to expend a ranger spell slot (of any level) as part of this action; if you do so, you also learn of the creatures' exact numbers and locations (Note: this is generally done after detecting their presence in the first place).

So... this is kind of like locate creature (a 4th level spell), only with an upper range limit of 1 or 6 miles, no upper limit on how many creatures you can detect, and no restriction (like locate creature's running water restriction). Locate creature is pretty low-power for a 4th level spell, I would say, but I think it says something about a feature that massively outstrips it with little (or even no) spell slot expenditure.

Coming at this with my DM hat on, this feature is a huge pain in the neck. I have to spend a bunch of prep time (or worse, table time) going through the dungeon description and figuring out precise distances from the ranger (or, during prep, where I think the ranger would use this feature) of each group of eligible creatures - and what's more, I have to either arbitrarily decide or come up with a way of randomly determining whether or not there are any other eligible creatures within the effect's range - and come up with their precise locations and numbers too!

It's a feature that works in a game where the computer can do the legwork for you, especially one where a lot of creatures are procedurally generated and "naturally" populate the world, but it's just a supreme hassle in a table top game.


Vanish
Starting at 8th level, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, you can't be tracked by non-magical means unless you choose to leave a trail.

Hide In Plain Sight
Starting at 10th level, you can wrap your physical body in primal power, cloaking you in a camouflaging mien of latent natural energy. Hiding in plain sight takes 1 minute to complete; once finished, you can attempt the Hide action absolutely anywhere, even on featureless terrain in broad daylight. You also gain a +10 bonus to Stealth checks as long as you don't move or take any actions. Movement does not disrupt hiding in plain sight (though you will need to make Stealth checks to remain hidden); taking any other actions does, however, and will necessitate re-establishing the camouflaging effect afterwards.

Solid features; and a much better level at which to get Vanish. Getting to be untrackable except by magic might be a little much at 8th level, but on the other hand, the corresponding "can't be tracked by magic" ability, the nondetection spell, is available for "full casters" at 5th level, so it's good.


Feral Senses
At 14th level, you gain preternatural senses that help you fight creatures you can't see. When you attack a creature you can't see, your inability to see it doesn't impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it. You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you (so long as they haven't otherwise successfully hidden themselves).

You could maybe push this to an earlier level? But you might have too much mucking around with other features to make that happen.


Grace of the Wilds
At 18th level, you are treated as proficient with all saving throws made while in a favored terrain or against the attacks of a favored enemy type.

Solid feature. I dig it.


Foeslayer
At 20th level, you have become a consummate hunter of your prey. You now add your Wisdom modifier to all attack rolls and damage rolls made against your favored enemy types. You can also add your Wisdom modifier to an attack roll or damage roll made in one of your favored terrains once per turn, even against non-favored enemies. These modifiers stack with each other.

Nice buff to the feature. It's still kind of underwhelming, but a lot of 20th-level capstones are, so all good.

Foe Hunter Archetype

This is basically the hunter archetype with a few extra goodies. Basically fine so far as I can tell.


Hunter's Prey
At 3rd level, you learn the hunter's mark spell; this does not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known.
In addition, you gain one of the following features of your choice.



Colossus Slayer: Deal +1d8 damage on one weapon attack per turn to a foe that's already been damaged.
Swift Killer: When a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack against you (hit or miss), you can use your reaction to attack that creature immediately after its attack, provided you can see it (or perceive it with your Feral Senses class feature).
Horde Breaker: Once on each of your turns when you make a weapon attack, you can make another attack with the same weapon against a different creature that is within 5 feet of the original target and within range of your weapon.

Defensive Tactics
At 7th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice.

Will of the Colossus: You can no longer be frightened.
Swift Parry: When a creature hits you with an attack, you gain a +4 bonus to AC against all subsequent attacks made by that creature for the rest of the turn.
Escape the Horde: Opportunity attacks against you are made with disadvantage.

Adaptive Puissance
At 11th level, your Adaptive Style improves. You gain access to one of the following features depending on your current Adaptive Style choice; if you change your Adaptive Style choice, your Adaptive Puissance feature changes to match it. Note that if you change your Adaptive Style to a non-ranger fighting style, you won't gain any benefit from Adaptive Puissance while that fighting style's active.

Volley: This feature is associated with the Archery option for Adaptive Style. You can use your action to make a ranged attack against any number of creatures within 10 feet of a point you can see within your weapon's range. You must have sufficient ammunition for each target, and each target requires a separate attack roll.
Rebounder: This feature is associated with the Defense option for Adaptive Style. Whenever a hostile creature misses you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to redirect that attack to another hostile creature within the attacker's reach (including the attacker themselves). The attacker re-rolls their attack roll against the designated target, and they have advantage on the roll.
Brutal Riposte: This feature is associated with the Dueling option for Adaptive Style. You can intentionally provoke an opportunity attack from a targeted creature within your melee reach using your Attack action; regardless of whether or not the target takes this opportunity attack, this allows you to attack an additional time with said Attack action (this stacks with other sources of additional attacks). The target must be able to see you and make opportunity attacks against you, and the opportunity attack triggered by Brutal Riposte occurs before your attacks and is made with advantage.
Whirlwind Attack: This feature is associated with the Two-Weapon Fighting option for Adaptive Style. You can use your action to make a melee attack against any number of creatures within 5 feet of you, with a separate roll for each target.

Hunter's Memories
At 15th level, you gain one of the following features of your choice. These represent the manifestation of basic techniques learned from both your own past lives and your observations of other adventurers.

Dreams of the Wild: you gain the barbarian's Reckless Attack ability.
Warrior's Ways: you gain the fighter's Action Surge ability.
Assassin's Thoughts: you gain the rogue's Evasion and Uncanny Dodge abilities.



Beast Master Archetype

This subclass seems to go off the rails. It really feels like a lot of "caster ranger archetype" is getting squeezed in.
- Conditional immunity to being charmed and frightened at 3rd level is a little too much.
- Telepathically commanding your beast isn't overpowered, but just jars a bit with the fantasy of having a beast companion, at least in my view.
- Mucking around with concentration is too much, especially at the same level that you get ritual casting (which doesn't really strike me as a beast master feature).
- Empowering your already bonkers short rest spell slot recovery isn't much more bonkers (because with care you can always have it on anyway), but it is a cherry on top of bonkerscake.



Ranger's Companion
At 3rd level, you learn the animal friendship and speak with animals spells; these spells do not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known. You gain proficiency with the Animal Handling skill. You also gain a beast companion, which uses the following rules:


You forge a telepathic connection with a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you. Choose a beast that is no larger than Medium and that has a challenge rating of 1/2 or lower (see Appendix D). Add your proficiency bonus to the beast's AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls, as well as to any saving throws and skills in which it is proficient. Its hit point maximum equals its normal maximum or your ranger level multiplied by 4, whichever is higher.
The beast obeys your commands as best it can. It takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn't take an action unless you command it to. On your turn, you can telepathically command the beast to move where you designate without consuming any of your actions (within its movement capabilities). You can telepathically command the beast to use the Dash, Disengage, Dodge or Help actions as a bonus action. You can telepathically command the beast to Attack with your regular action; once you have the Extra Attack class feature, you can make any additional attacks from the Attack action yourself while your beast makes the primary attack.
You can also use a bonus action to expend a ranger spell slot for the purpose of empowering the beast companion; doing this gives the beast a +2 bonus to its next attack roll and a bonus to the damage roll made with that attack equal to 1d8 per level of the spell expended. This benefit lasts for 1 minute or until expended. Multiple empowerments do not stack with one another.
If the beast dies, you can obtain another one by spending 8 hours telepathically bonding with another beast that isn't hostile to you, either the same type of beast or a different one within the allowed parameters.
You sense everything the beast senses, and vice versa. You are able to recall your beast companion to you with 1 full round of uninterrupted meditation, so long as it remains within 10 miles of you (this is a teleportation effect). If it moves beyond that range, you will need to perform a 1 hour ritual to recall it, but this will return it to your side no matter where it's located (even across planes, though it can't bring anything or anyone else with it).
Your companion's telepathic connection to you makes it so that you share mental states with each other; neither of you can be charmed or frightened, unless both of you are afflicted with the condition at the same time. Further, so long as you are both within 30 feet of one another, you can prevent your beast from suffering damage by transferring some or all of the damage the beast would normally be dealt to yourself, instead (you cannot transfer damage you suffer to your beast, however).

Wild Resonance
At 7th level, you learn the animal messenger and beast sense spells; these spells do not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known. You gain the ability to cast druid spells as rituals (if you did not already have this ability).

Your beast companion also becomes capable of holding concentration on one of your ranger spells for you. It can only hold one such spell at a time, however, and once it takes hold of a spell you cannot resume concentrating on it, yourself.

Bestial Fury
At 11th level, you learn the conjure animals and revivify beast spells; these spells do not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known. (Note: revivify beast (3rd level ranger spell) works exactly like the normal revivify, except that you can only target an animal or beast with it and the component cost is reduced to 150 gp.)

Your beast companion is now able to make an additional attack of its own when you command it to use the Attack action, on top of any additional attacks you're able to make yourself.

Wild Synchronization
At 15th level, you learn the dominate beast and polymorph spells; these spells do not count towards the limit on your ranger spells known.

When you cast a spell targeting yourself, you can also affect your beast companion with the spell as long as it is within 30 feet of you. In addition, you can now regain expended spell slots after a short rest even if not in favored terrain, so long as your beast companion is within 30 feet of you for the duration of the short rest.

Edea
2020-08-15, 11:23 AM
Alright, will be going in to review a lot of this soon, thanks muchly for looking over it.

EDIT: The spellcasting shenanigans were toned down sharply: most of it was just removed, and what remained was strictly relegated to the beast master archetype. Fighting Style was de-optionized (the Foe Hunter feature attached to it is now likewise static based on FS choice). Both of those were too much, agreed; I didn't realize certain specifics about spell recovery mechanics for other casting classes when I put that in, and I didn't know "Fighting Style" (originally a ranger-specific class feature) was suddenly present on most of the martials (which...I actually dislike, but it clearly doesn't need fixing). Also fixed the mental status condition part for the beast companion (now it's specifically the beast that's immune, not you, and they're only immune so long as you're not suffering the conditions yourself).

Unfortunately for the other main sticking points, I'm not really sure what can be done about them.

Favored terrains are kind-of core to the ranger experience. They're just supposed to be good at getting around, and they're supposed to be the game's best trackers; I really am at a loss as to how to better represent that beyond what's already been put down, frustrating though that might be to challenge from a DM perspective. I strongly disliked the choices being static.

Primeval Awareness is inadequate in its PHB form; no-one's going to blow spell slots like that when they're not even sure if the specific enemy's around, and even if it registers a positive it doesn't tell the ranger nearly enough for the blown slot (not even direction, much less location or number). Also, the types from the default list are usually powerful opponents with access to anti-detection measures anyway, save for undead, and I didn't like that it was favored enemy-agnostic.