(PEACH) Vanguard Ranger Subclass

[Saelethil]

I had an Idea for a Ranger subclass that was more of a leader and less of a wanderer. Something of a scout and cavalier who uses their understanding of the natural world, magic, and combat to the advantage of those with good coin or good cause.
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Vanguard
An assertive boldness is your greatest ally, at times perhaps a flaw but under normal circumstances you lead the way with glorious results. While some rangers are comfortable wandering, allowing the whims of fate to determine their next adventure and others strategize, lurking from the shadows, you have often found the quickest and most effective course of action to be charging headlong into the fray as soon as bloodshed becomes certain. Vanguard Rangers are often sought out to lead expeditions into dangerous territories. Riding ahead of their companions, they and their familiar scout out the path ahead in hopes of getting a drop on any adversaries that may be attempting the same.

Vanguard Spells
Ranger Level-----Spells
3------------------Faerie Fire, Zephyr Strike
5------------------Find Steed
9------------------Haste
13-----------------Guardian of Nature
17-----------------Hold Monster
1st level: Find Familiar, Longstrider
4th level: Death Ward

High Strung
At 3rd level, you learn to quickly read a situation. You can give yourself a bonus to your initiative rolls equal to your Wisdom modifier.

Precise Strikes
At 3rd level, whenever you make a weapon attack with advantage, you deal an extra 1d4 damage to the target. Additionally, you have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn in the combat yet.
This extra damage increases to 1d6 when you reach 11th level in this class.

Into The Fray
At 7th level, you have mastered the art of getting into, and around in, combat. Mounting or dismounting a creature costs you only 5 feet of movement and when a creature within 15 feet of you makes an attack roll you can use your reaction to move up to them and make an attack against them. If you are mounted your mount can move instead of you when you use this reaction.
You can use this reaction a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier and regain all expended uses when you complete a long rest.

Quickened Aggression
For you, combat is a visceral dance of instinct and training. At 11th level, being prone no longer imposes disadvantage on your melee attacks and you can now use the Dash or Shove actions as a bonus action on your turn.
Additionally, when you dash or shove as a bonus action you can make one melee attack as part of it. You can make this special attack a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of 1) and regain all expended uses when you complete a long rest.
"At 11th level, you can use the Dash action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, when you take the dash action you can make one melee attack as part of it."
A possible bonus action melee attack every round seemed too powerful and a little boring

Disastrous Strike
At 15th level, when you find a weakness in an opponent you learn to take full advantage of it. When you take the attack action action you can choose to make one attack with advantage rather than two attacks. Whenever you make an attack with advantage and both rolls would have hit you can choose to consider it a critical hit.
When you roll a critical hit you can deal a Crippling Strike, choosing to reduce the target’s speed to 0 until the start of your next turn, knock them prone, or give them disadvantage on their next attack. You can deal a Crippling Strike a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum of 1) and regain all expended uses when you complete a long rest.
Exploit Weakness
At 15th level, when you find a weakness in an opponent you learn to take full advantage of it. Whenever you make an attack with advantage and both rolls would have hit you can choose to consider it a critical hit.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

[sandmote]

I really like Into the Fray.

I don't think find familiar or find steed break anything, but I'm not sure what find familiar has to do with the character idea.

I have some more general notes, but I'm unclear where you're aiming for the subclass to do. Are they meant to search ahead of the party, locating and reporting back on traps and ambushes? Are they meant to be fighting on the front lines? Exploit Weakness could probably be converted into a Rogue feature without much work, but the mechanics don't seem to really tell me where on the battlefield the Vanguard is meant to be standing.

[Saelethil]

I’m glad you like “Into The Fray,” I thought that would be a fun mechanic.
My thought for the Vanguard was “a scout that rushes in ruthlessly instead of skirting around.” In battle I see them rushing from target to target, eliminating stragglers and taking any advantage they can to end the fight quickly.
I wanted to encourage strategic and tactical play which is why I attached so much to having advantage.
As for Find Familiar, it gives them a greater range of vision or a better point of view when entering potentially hostile territory and some possible tactical advantage in combat. I mostly just felt like it would be fun and I like the image of a grizzled merc. riding a warhorse through enemy territory with a hawk circling overhead. Honestly it could probably go but Imho it should jut be on the Ranger spell list.

[sandmote]

My thought for the Vanguard was “a scout that rushes in ruthlessly instead of skirting around.” In battle I see them rushing from target to target, eliminating stragglers and taking any advantage they can to end the fight quickly.


I wanted to encourage strategic and tactical play which is why I attached so much to having advantage. I the case of these two, I would add Zephyr Strike to the spell list instead of Longstrider, to make sure the vanguard has an option allowing them to rush from target to target without constantly having to take opportunity attacks. The spell also allows you to grant yourself advantage in an emergency, which is a problem I don't see minimized by the rest of the subclass.

Similarly, I think Exploit Weakness is a bit weak for what you've described. RAW crits in 5e don't do very much extra damage. I would either make the damage much more significant or remove the 1/ rest limit.

[Saelethil]

I the case of these two, I would add Zephyr Strike to the spell list instead of Longstrider, to make sure the vanguard has an option allowing them to rush from target to target without constantly having to take opportunity attacks. The spell also allows you to grant yourself advantage in an emergency, which is a problem I don't see minimized by the rest of the subclass.

Similarly, I think Exploit Weakness is a bit weak for what you've described. RAW crits in 5e don't do very much extra damage. I would either make the damage much more significant or remove the 1/ rest limit.

Zephyr Strike would be a really good option. I'm mostly trying to stick to SRD content so that if I try to publish my homebrew (outside of DMs guild) there would be minimal alterations needed so I forget about non SRD spells when making subclasses. Aside from that, Zephyr Strike would be a more thematic option and Guardian of Nature would also be a better 4th level choice.

For advantage, that was a bit of an oversight. I was thinking build-wise this character would benefit from something like Mounted Combatant or Shield Master but feats shouldn't be necessary. I will note that Precise Strikes at 3rd level gives them advantage on any attack they make against a creature that hasn't gone yet in combat and that their familiar can take the Help action after that. Post Tasha's they can also pull the Fog Cloud/Blind Fighting trick which could be pretty efficient for them (although their party might not thank them). Into The Fray should be allowing for flanking at least some of the time and I know its an optional rull but I've only ever played with one person who doesn't use it. What if I just gave them Shove as a bonus action? I know Rangers are already a BA heavy class but that would at least give an option. There are already a lot of ways for Melee builds to get advantage and I think this subclass incentivizes melee.

They're also getting to add 1d4 then 1d6 damage to every attack they make with advantage and have the option of Hunters Mark so they could potentially be dealing 4d6 without a crit if they have a greatsword and there are higher level spells that could be better than that such as Guardian of Nature which would be a really good choice for the Vanguard, especialy on a Str. build. I could give another d6 as well and/or non damage bonuses to crit's depending on the weapon's damage type. Bludgeoning: knocked prone, Slashing: Half (or 0?) movement for a round, Piercing: disadvantage on their next attack, etc. Those could be fun...

Thanks for the input, you've given me a lot to think about. I'll think it over a little more and add the updates within the next day or so.

[Saelethil]

Alright, I changed a few of the spells to be more within the theme of the subclass, made a couple changes to Quickened Aggression, and overhauled the 15th level feature to be more fitting of the level it is received. I'm still not really happy with Disastrous Strike but I figured I'd show you all what I've decided so far.