Ranger Subclasses 5e
Published on December 12, 2024
Explore the archetypes of roving hunters with our guide to Ranger subclasses in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. From the Beast Master to the Fey Wanderer, find the subclass that aligns with your character’s skill set.
Raoul Vitale - Wizards of the Coast - Jaspera Sentinel
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Learn more.Your Guide to DnD 5e Ranger Subclasses
The Ranger’s subclass is a key part of shaping your character’s role in the wilderness and in the heat of battle. Whether you’re tracking down foes or communing with nature, your subclass choice gives you a unique set of abilities that define how you approach challenges and contribute to your party’s success.
Will you be a Beast Master, forging a bond with a loyal animal companion who fights by your side? Or perhaps an Hunter, focused on taking down enemies with precision and versatility? This guide walks you through each Ranger subclass, offering tips and strategies to help you make the most of your chosen path!
What is this guide?
This guide is meant as a deep dive into the 5e rangers subclasses. For the full overview of the ranger class, check out our ranger class guide.
To allow you to scan through the options quickly, we use the following color rating scheme:
- Red : Isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
- Orange : Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
- Green : A good option
- Blue : A great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
- Sky Blue: An amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized
Beast Master
The Beast Master has an animal companion that aids them on their journey. This subclass was revised in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything to help fix issues which prevented the Ranger's Companion from being effective.
3rd level
- Ranger’s Companion: This one is a bit of a bummer. The Ranger Companion is strictly worse than a wizard’s Familiar (and much worse than a Pact of the Chain’s Familiar) at lower levels. The main reason for this is because a familiar takes actions independently of you, so you don’t have to waste an action to command it around. If you want your companion to do anything, you have to have willing to give up your action own in order to do so. You also can’t use your compaion’s senses or have it deliver touch spells like you can a familiar. The companion does get better at later levels, but until the 7th Level, it is pretty much useless.
- Flying Snake: Flyby can keep the Flying Snake out of trouble and it has blindsight. Damage is alright.
- Giant Badger: Unfortunately, you cannot use multiattack until you unlock Bestial Fury at 11th Level, where each other Companion gets the ability to make two attacks. This makes the badger strictly worse than the Wolf in every way.
- Giant Crab: Good AC and HP, can breathe air and water and can grapple a target. Damage isn’t great.
- Giant Poisonous Snake: Good AC, HP is on par with a Wolf, and the damage from the failed CON save makes this the potential heaviest hitter out of all the Companions.
- Owl: Flyby, so it doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks, but the low AC, pitiful damage and HP, make this a hard choice. It really comes online at the 7th level when it has the ability to give the help action on each turn.
- Pteranodon: Great HP and good AC. Flyby and solid damage. This is your best option in the air.
- Vulture: If you don’t have a Pteranodon handy to make your familiar, the Vulture will do just fine. Worse damage, AC, and HP than the Pteranodon but has Pack Tactics.
- Wolf: Ahh, the tried and true Ranger Companion. Good damage, HP, AC, Pack Tactics. and a chance to knock an enemy prone makes this a top tier choice.
- Primal Companion: This is a huge improvement from the original Beast Master’s Ranger’s Companion, which this feature replaces. First, you can command your companion with a bonus action, rather than a full action. Second, your companion can be magically summoned, you won’t have to go find a non-hostile beast to make your companion. Third and most importantly, the companion scales its AC, hit points, and damage with your level. The Primal Companion comes in three flavors, Land, Sea, and Sky, which can you change on a long rest.
7th level
- Exceptional Training: This makes your companion a lot more useful, you can use it to give you advantage to one shot each turn.
11th level
- Bestial Fury: This pairs nicely with giving the companion feature that allows you to give your companion one of your attacks. To put this in perspective, if you are using a longbow, have hunter’s mark on, and have stacked your DEX, you will be doing 1d8+5 + 1d6 (average of 12). For the sake of it, if you hit twice with your Wolf you are doing on average 2d4 + 6 x 2 (average of 20). This is, of course, assuming you don’t have any upgraded weapons.
15th level
- Share Spells: Rangers have some nice buff spells to increase the lasting power and effectiveness of your companion. Stone skin is an obvious choice for this.
Drakewarden
The Drakewarden can summon a drake companion that follows you into combat and grows as you level up.
3rd level
- Draconic Gift: Thaumaturgy is one of the weaker utility cantrips when compared with similar options like minor illusion and prestidigitation. Luckily for your draconic ranger, it’ll allow you to do cool dragon-y things like make your voice boom or cause flames to roar to life. Learning the draconic language is campaign specific but will likely be useful due to the frequency of dragons in D&D.
- Drake Companion: The Drakewarden’s features mainly revolve around this drake companion, upgrading its abilities as your ranger increases in power. Luckily for your ranger, this drake starts off as a great companion and only gets better as it levels up. First, you can use your bonus action to issue a command, which is solid action economy but may interfere with hunter’s mark on occasion. Second, the drake can be summoned for free using an action once per long rest and can be summoned using an action and expending a 1st-level spell slot after that. Each time you summon the drake, you can choose a different type of elemental damage that the drake (and eventually your) abilities are associated with. These generous summoning rules means your little drake can soak up some mean damage, which is further complimented by the reasonable 14 + prof. bonus AC, free damage resistance, and 5 + five times your ranger level hit points. In terms of offensive capabilities, the drake has a decent bite and can add 1d6 elemental damage to an allies’ strike, as long as they’re within 30 ft. One last thing to note is that the drake has an INT of 8 and can speak draconic, meaning that you can easily have a conversation with your dragon buddy.
7th level
- Bond of Fang and Scale: Besides some increased damage, the biggest feature here is a free damage resistance from a list of fairly common damage types. At this point, you can ride your drake, but unfortunately the drake can’t fly while you’re mounted. Though drake doesn’t have any long range attacks, it’s flying speed is mainly for exploration and reconnaissance. If you plan on riding your drake into battle, consider picking up the Mounted Combatant feat, which will allow you to tank some hits for your dragon buddy and give it a bit more survivability. The real benefit from this feat comes online at 15th level, when your drake grows to the Large size. Keep in mind that a Mounted Combatant build would only really be worth it if you plan to have your dragon in melee range, as ranged attacks don’t trigger the advantage on attacks.
11th level
- Drake’s Breath: You get a breath weapon that outputs 8d6 of your drake’s Draconic Essence damage type, which puts it on par with a 3rd-level fireball. This is absolutely amazing for rangers, who don’t normally get access to AoE attacks of this caliber. Better yet, you can use this for free once per long rest. After that, you can expend a 3rd-level spell slot to use it again. The damage increases to 10d6 at 15th level as well, which helps it keep up with other party member’s damage output.
15th level
- Perfected Bond: The moment we’ve all been waiting for! Your dragon buddy has grown to the Large size so now you can fly them into combat! On top of that, the drake’s bite deals an extra 1d6 elemental damage depending on its Draconic Essence. Lastly, if you get hit while you’re within 30ft of your drake companion, you can use your reaction to give yourself or your drake resistance to the triggering damage a number of times per long rest equal to your prof. modifier. This is essentially a pseudo Uncanny Dodge 5 times per short rest (up to 6 at 17th level) which will majorly help with survivability. Another thing to keep in mind at this point is the drake’s Infused Strikes ability will still apply if you’re riding the drake, using your longbow to rain down death on your enemies.
Fey Wanderer
Infused with the power of the Feywild, Fey Wanderer rangers can beguile their enemies and move effortlessly across the battlefield.
3rd level
Fey Wanderer spells: You gain some fey staples that allow you to trick the mind and make you hard to catch.
3rd level
-
Charm Person:
One of the better options for dealing with NPCs outside of combat. Good for quick interactions, but the biggest caveat to this spell is the target knows it was charmed by you once the effect ends.
5th level
-
Misty Step:
Misty step is the staple movement spell for those classes lucky enough to have access to it. It can be cast as a bonus action and avoids opportunity attacks.
9th level
-
Dispel Magic:
Always make sure at least one of your party members has this.
13th level
-
Dimension Door:
Teleport, with a friend, over a much longer distance than misty step. Unfortunately, it’s two spell slots higher than misty step and a full action to cast. Still, this spell can save your bacon is a tight circumstance.
17th level
-
Mislead:
Pretty decent scouting spell or opportunity to plan an ambush. Pretty high spell slot for the meager effect though.
- Dreadful Strikes: Deal an extra 1d4 psychic damage each turn, which turns to 1d6 at 11th level. Free damage is never a bad thing, but is almost more annoying to roll a d4 than not gain the extra 2 average damage.
- Otherworldly Glamour: Being able to add your WIS modifier to CHA checks helps your ranger become a more rounded build out of combat, as does gaining a free CHA-based skill proficiency.
7th level
- Beguiling Twist: Charmed and frightened are two solid conditions to have advantage against. The secondary feature can be used defensively (when you or a friendly succeeds against being charmed or frightened), but can also be used offensively (when an enemy succeeds against being charmed or frightened). Unfortunately, you don’t have many options to charm or frighten an enemy, beyond animal friendship or your new charm person. This can work well with the leonin’s Daunting Roar ability, if you or a party member decide to choose that race.
11th level
- Fey Reinforcements: Summon fey is a quality summon spell that you can further improve by dropping the concentration requirement. As 1 minute is 10 rounds of combat in D&D, this amount of time is plenty for summoning fey backup into a combat situation while keeping concentration for hunter’s mark.
15th level
- Misty Wanderer: Casting misty step for free up to your WIS modifier (probably 5 at this point) times per day is a solid movement option, but doesn’t really give you any additional raw power output. Being able to bring a willing creature along is added value, but doesn’t really push this feature into a new tier.
Gloom Stalker
Check out our
Gloom Stalker 5e guide for a more in-depth breakdown of the Gloom Stalker subclass, including build recommendations, playstyle breakdowns, and an example build.
Horizon Walker
Check out our
Horizon Walker 5e guide for a more in-depth breakdown of the Horizon Walker subclass, including build recommendations, playstyle breakdowns, and an example build.
Hunter
3rd level
- Hunter’s Prey
- Colossus Slayer: Deal an extra 1d8 of damage per turn reliably.
- Giant Killer: Good use for a reaction, but is somewhat limiting due to the caveat that it has to be a Large or larger creature.
- Horde Breaker: Extra attack that can be taken reliably, multiple times each combat. Very good.
7th level
- Defensive Tactics
- Escape the Horde: Decent ability to get out of danger. Good for moving around in combat or if you are a ranged fighter than constantly finds themselves in melee range.
- Multiattack Defense: Lots of creatures have multiattack. This is essentially a free Shield spell against them when they hit you.
- Steel Will: Advantage on saving throws against being frightened is a fairly limited ability.
11th level
- Multiattack
- Volley: Good pick up for ranged builds. If you have already picked up Horde Breaker, this will only net you an additional attack if 4 creatures are jammed into the 20ft square.
- Whirlwind Attack: Again, a good pick for melee builds but likely won’t net you more attacks than your two attacks + Horde Breaker.
15th level
- Superior Hunter’s Defense
- Evasion: Great ability because DEX saves are so common. Your high DEX score and proficiency in DEX saving throws will likely cause you to not take damage from these effects unless you roll very poorly.
- Stand Against the Tide: This is a fun one and can cause some major damage in the right situations. The fact of the matter is that these situations are far and few between.
- Uncanny Dodge: One of the best defensive abilities in the game.
Monster Slayer
3rd level
Monster Slayer spells:
3rd level
-
Protection from Evil and Good:
You love to see this spell in any party, the buffs this can provide are extremely useful in any combat scenario. The creature types this affects are very common so this spell will likely be useful in your campaign.
5th level
-
Zone of Truth:
Great for when you need to gain the trust of some NPCs, or when you don’t quite trust them yourself.
9th level
-
Magic Circle:
While celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead are quite common, this spell provides a very lackluster effect against them. As the creatures can still attack inside the cylinder and can still teleport out using a CHA save, it’s not very effective at containing, nor protecting from, these creatures.
13th level
-
Banishment:
Get rid of creatures from another plane, or take out a big threat for most of the combat. One of the better save or suck spells out there. Keep in mind that, unless the creature is natively from another plane, they will return after the spell ends.
17th level
-
Hold Monster:
Spell that can take a creature out of the fight. Allows for a save after each turn which makes it worse than banishment for consistently keeping a monster out of the fight, but the monster can be attacked with advantage which will make quick work of it after it fails a save or two.
- Hunter’s Sense: This is a cool ability. Unfortunately, not many creatures have vulnerabilities and most creatures with resistances are fairly obvious.
- Slayer’s Prey: A strictly worse Hexblade’s Curse. It’s even worse than Colossus Slayer for the Hunter and Planar Warrior for the Horizon Walker. Just underpowered in general
7th level
- Supernatural Defense: This is where Slayer’s Prey starts to get good. Adding a d6 to any saving throw and checks against grapples is pretty darn good.
11th level
- Magic-User’s Nemesis: A free counterspell per short or long rest. If you have a good WIS modifier this is a great ability to improve your ranger’s versatility.
15th level
- Slayer’s Counter: This is an awesome capstone for the Monster Slayer.
Swarmkeeper
Swarmkeepers conjure a swarm of nature spirits to add them in battle.
3rd level
Swarmkeeper spells: Some decent utility options are available here. Because of your limited spell slots mage hand is probably the best pickup in all honesty.
3rd level
-
Mage Hand:
Mage hand provides a lot of utility for a caster, allowing them to extend the range they can grab or interact with objects, with little combat benefit.
-
Faerie Fire:
Giving your allies advantage is really good, especially if you have a rogue or paladin in the party. Invisible creatures can also be a nuisance, so having a way to deal with them as extra value is sweet.
5th level
-
Web:
For when you want to get creative. Web is a great way to take away an enemy’s turn and deal some extra damage at the same time.
9th level
-
Gaseous Form:
This spell can honestly vie for the top “infiltration” spell over invisibility. Being able to fly and move through tiny cracks as an inconspicuous cloud can make getting into any heavily defended fortress a cinch.
13th level
-
Arcane Eye:
A great scouting tool and can be moved as an action, making it a worthy spell to pickup.
17th level
- Gathered Swarm: Your swarm allows you to deal an extra 1d6 damage, move an enemy 15ft, or move yourself 5ft after you hit a creature with an attack. More often than not, you’ll be using the added damage option, though you may find it beneficial to move enemies into a hazard if there’s one available. It’s worthwhile to note that choosing the option to move yourself doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks, making it a strong option if you need to disengage.
7th level
- Writhing Tide: A concentration-less flying speed is something that most classes covet and DEX-based rangers can make a great use of it. Even though it’s only 10ft, that’s still plenty to get out of reach of enemies while you rain arrows down on them.
11th level
- Mighty Swarm: You get some upgrades to your Gathered Swarm feature. The damage increasing from 1d6 to 1d8 is quite measly, but luckily it’s made up for in the next two improvements. Now, when you attempt to move a creature, they also fall prone. Unfortunately, that means you can’t follow up with an attack with advantage unless you follow them with your movement. If you have another party member who can make use of prone enemies and the initiative works in your favor, this will be a very strong choice. Finally, you get half cover (+2 to AC and DEX saving throws) when you use the movement option on yourself. All three of these options are strong contenders in their own scenario and provide plenty of meaningful choices in combat.
15th level
- Swarming Dispersal: Reaction-based damage mitigation is always a strong ability and now you can also teleport 30ft away as part of the same reaction. This is great defensive value, especially for DEX-based rangers who want to stay at a distance.
Sources Used in This Guide
- : 2014 Player's Handbook
- 2024 PHB: 2024 Player's Handbook
- BR: Basic Rules
- GotG: Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants
- SotDQ: Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
- ERLW: Eberron: Rising from the Last War
- EEPC: Elemental Evil Player’s Companion
- EGtW: Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount
- FToD: Fizban's Treasury of Dragon
- GGtR: Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica
- MotM: Monsters of the Multiverse
- MToF: Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
- MOoT: Mythic Odyessys of Theros
- PAitM: Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse
- PHB: Player's Handbook
- SAiS: Spelljammer: Adventures in Space
- SCoC: Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos
- SCAG: Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide
- TCoE: Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
- TTP: The Tortle Package
- WBtW: The Wild Beyond The Witchlight
- : Unearthed Arcana
- VRGtR: Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
- VGtM: Volo's Guide to Monsters
- XGtE: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
Other Ranger Guides
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