Tasha's, Class by Class - Ranger

 Ah, the Ranger. The Ranger has always had a poor reputation in 5th Edition, and while not all of that is deserved, there are some features that could use some love.

While most of the new class features in Tasha's are pure additions, for the Ranger, they instead swap them out, in many cases for better, or at least more broadly useful features. So let's get into them!

Deft Explorer (1st level, replaces Natural Explorer):

Giving away Favored Terrain, you get an array of new features at 1st, 6th, and 10th level.

Canny (Deft Explorer): You essentially get expertise in one of your skill proficiencies, doubling your proficiency bonus in that skill. You also learn two additional languages.

Roving (Deft Explorer, 6th Level): Your walking speed increases by 5, and you gain a climbing speed and swimming speed equal to your walking speed.

Tireless (Deft Explorer, 10th Level): As an action, you can give yourself temporary hit points equal to 1d8+ your Wisdom modifier (minimum of +1,) and you can do this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all uses when you finish a long rest. Additionally, your exhaustion level is reduced by 1 if you finish a short rest.

Favored Foe (1st level, replaces the Favored Enemy feature and works with the Foe Slayer feature):

When you hit a creature with an attack roll, you can call on your mystic bond with nature to mark the target as your favored enemy for 1 minute or until you lose concentration (as if on a spell.) The first time on your turn you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it, including when you mark it, the damage is increased by 1d4. You can use this feature to mark a favored enemy a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all uses when you finish a long rest. The damage increases to 1d6 at 6th level and 1d8 at 14th level.

    Overall, I think the main benefit of these is that they'll be active regardless of your environment or foes - while it's cool to have particular prey, this frees a character up to be useful regardless of what the DM throws at you. I don't think Favored Foe is crazy powerful - you're probably better off using Hunter's Mark in most cases.

New Spells:

Rangers get some new spells in Tasha's, but also some access to some PHB and Xanathar's Spells. The PHB ones are Entangle, Searing Smite, Aid, Enhance Ability, Gust of Wind, Magic Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Meld into Stone, Revivify, Dominate Beast, and Greater Restoration.

New Fighting Options:

Blind Fighting: You have blindsight out to a range of 10 feet, allowing you to effectively see when blinded or even if the target's invisible, as long as the target doesn't successfully hide from you.

Druidic Warrior: You learn two Druid cantrips, using Wisdom as your spellcasting ability. When you level up in this class, you can swap one of these with a different Druid cantrip. The cantrips count as ranger spells for you.

Thrown Weapon Fighting: You can draw a thrown weapon as part of the attack to throw it, and when you hit with a ranged attack using a throw weapon, you can add a +2 bonus to the damage roll. (Given that my ranger primarily fights with a Handaxe that the Artificer put Returning Weapon on, this would probably be great for him.)

Spellcasting Focus (2nd level): Rangers can now use a druid focus as a spellcasting focus for their ranger spells (so no more worrying about material components for most spells!)

Primal Awareness (3rd level, replaces Primeval Awareness): You learn additional spells that don't count against your spells known, and you can cast each of them once per long rest without spending a spell slot - though you need to be high enough level to cast them as a half-caster. The spells are Speak with Animals, Beast Sense, Speak with Plants, Locate Creature, and Commune with Nature.

Martial Versatility (4th, etc. level):

When you get an Ability Score Improvement, you can replace a fighting style you know with a different Ranger fighting style. Again, nice Quality of Life change.

Nature's Veil (10th level, replaces Hide in Plain Sight):

As a bonus action, you can magically become invisible, along with any equipment you're waring or carrying, until the start of your next turn. You can use this a number of time equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all uses on a long rest.

    Holy crap, folks, that's a lot of changes. Roughly half the Ranger class features can be swapped out for these new ones. Let's get to the subclasses (though we won't even be done after that!)

Fey Wanderer:

This type of ranger has a strong connection to the Feywild, gaining some of the magic of that realm. As usual, you get a couple extra spells (that are pretty Fey-themed) as well as the ability to deal a bit of extra psychic damage once per turn. You also get some bonuses to your Charisma checks and ways to turn around charm and fear effects on your foes.

In addition to your spells, you also get a class feature that lets you misty step - making the Fey Wanderer a slippery ranger if ever there was one.

Swarmkeeper:

The main concept of the swarmkeeper is that you have a swarm of creatures - maybe insects or other tiny creatures, or even nature spirits - that can aid you in various ways.

The swarm can augment your attacks with extra damage or moving the target or yourself. Also, amongst the spells you get is Mage Hand, which is just your swarm manipulating objects for you. The capstone allows you to discorporate into your swarm and teleport 30 feet away, making this arguably one of the creepiest ranger subclasses.

Beast Mastery Features:

Ah, perhaps the most maligned subclass of the most maligned class, Beast Mastery in the PHB is an early attempt at a pet-based class that didn't really work out that well. Using newer concepts, this attempts to fix it:

Primal Companion (3rd level Beast master feature, replacing Ranger's Companion):

This lets you magically summon a beast - choosing a Beast of the Land, Beast of the Sea, or Beast of the Sky. While not quite the same as the spirits summoned by the Summon Beast spell (which Rangers can get, though it might be a bit redundant for beast masters) it works a bit similarly. The beast can move and use reactions on its own, but you need to use a bonus action to command it to take an action. You can also, like with the PHB version, use one of your attacks when you take the Attack action to instead have the beast attack.

You can also revive the beast if it dies by touching it and expending any spell slot if it's been dead less than an hour - it comes back with full hit points after a minute.

You can also summon a new beast after you finish a long rest, though the previous one will vanish if you do this, or if you die.

The beasts have scaling stat blocks. The Beast of the Land has a 40-ft movement speed, including a 40-ft climb speed, as well as the Charge feature of a Boar, Elk, or Rhino, and its health is 5+ 5x your ranger level (so 20 at level 3 when you first get it, and 105 by level 20). The Beast of the Sea has a swim speed of 60 (but only 5 feet of normal movement) and is Ampibious. Its attack grapples the target. The Beast of the Sky has 10 feet of normal movement but a fly speed of 60 and the Flyby feature (no opportunity attacks when it flies out of an enemy's reach) which is good, as it has less health than the others (it's a small beast, thus its HP is 4 + 4x Ranger level, so 16 at level 3 to 84 at level 20). The Beast of the Land does the most damage, at 1d8 + 2 + your Proficiency Bonus, while the Beast of the Sea replaces the d8 with a d6, while the Beast of the Air does 1d4 + 3 + PB, which I believe should work out to be the same damage as the Beast of the Sea on average, both of which are just 1 average damage below the Beast of the Land, so do as you like!

I believe that any Beast Master feature that applies to the Ranger's Companion should also work with the Primal Companion.

    Overall, I think this feature is good because it's clean and simple, and the built-in ability for the Ranger to bring their companion back to life makes it easier for an RP-focused character to feel ok about sending their beast into battle.

    Frankly, as a DM, I'd allow that mystical bond to persist such that even if technically they're replacing a dead companion they couldn't revive with one with the same stat block, I'd allow for it to canonically just be a longer process for bringing them back. I keep thinking about how in Critical Role's first campaign, Vex was very hesitant to send her bear, Trinket, into battle, given that the bear was such an important figure to her (having lost pets as a kid, I sympathize.) Frankly, I might even allow for a player to flavor the summoning of different types of beasts as simply changing the form of the same animal spirit, similar to how one can shift the form of one's familiar with the Find Familiar spell.

    As you can see, this post is pretty deeply involved - Rangers got a major overhaul with Tasha's. While "viability" isn't really something I care too much about in D&D, I think it does really create a more broadly appealing version of the class.