UA: Hollow Warden Ranger

 Dammit, WotC, stop trying to get me to play a Ranger!

Yes, after the Forgotten Realms subclass UA gave us the Winter Walker Ranger, the Horror Subclass UA now gives us a brand-new subclass that essentially turns your Ranger into a dark and spooky monster from the deep woods.

The subclass appears to be a bit tankier than your typical Ranger, and likely would thrive as a dual-wielding character (which the new balance of weapons and feats also seems to push Rangers toward).

Subclass Spells:

1st: Wrathful Smite

2nd: Spike Growth

3rd: Phantom Steed

4th: Hallucinatory Terrain

5th: Awaken

    I'll confess that some of these are going to be profoundly situational, and Awaken in particular feels like something more of a "flavor" spell than one with really obvious utility, though it's one I think is really interesting. Phantom Steed is underrated for both travel and mobility. Still, I don't think any of these are game-changers (Spike Growth is great, but Rangers get that anyway, I think).

Level 3:

Wrath of the Wild enhances your Hunter's Mark in two ways (and yes, they're fully leaning into the "we mainly want you concentrating on Hunter's Mark" design).

Ancient Armor gives you a bonus to AC equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1) while you're concentrating on the spell.

Unnerving Aura causes any enemies that start their turn within a 10 foot emanation of you while concentrating on the spell to have to make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, they can take an action or bonus action, not both.

    Practically speaking, I think this is going to mean something like a +2 or +3 bonus to your AC, or perhaps more at higher levels (or if you have really good rolled stats). For a melee Ranger, that's going to be quite nice - with capped Dex, you'd normally have an AC of 17 with the best armor, but this could push it up to 20, and if you cap Wisdom as well, 22. The Unnerving Aura is really dependent on the enemy stat block - lots of them don't have bonus actions, making this useless against them. But plenty do.

Level 7:

Hungering Might gives you a bonus to your Con saves equal to your Wisdom modifier. Additionally, once per turn when you hit a creature with an attack roll while transformed by Wrath of the Wild (i.e., concentrating on Hunter's Mark), if you're bloodied, you regain HP equal to 1d10+Wis.

    Honestly, that's not bad - obviously you never want to be Bloodied if you can help it, but this is going to make it easier to get out of that state. Healing when you need it most.

Level 11:

Rot and Violence has two sub-features that affect your Wrath of the Wild.

Eerie Aura causes creatures that fail against your Unnerving Aura feature to take your choice of Necrotic, Poison, or Psychic damage equal to your Ranger level, and this ignores resistance.

    That's actually a hefty chunk of damage for something that's an add-on to other stuff. It is a save for none, of course, but creatures will fail the save. Now, how many creatures have resistance rather than immunity to those damage types? I'm not sure. But against most creatures, this can be real damage numbers.

Strangling Roots lets you add the Sap or Slow mastery when you hit a creature with an attack roll with a weapon, in addition to the weapon's normal mastery. Notably, both of these are masteries that really only have an effect on a creature once per turn, so dual-wielding isn't going to make this crazy, and these masteries aren't the most powerful ones, but it's nice that you don't have to give up, say, Nick or Vex for this.

Level 15:

Ancient Endurance, once again, is really two features.

Persistent Hunt allows you, when you drop to 0 HP while transformed by Wrath of the Wild but don't die outright, to expend a 4th or higher level spell slot (no action required) and instead your HP becomes 5 times the level of the spell (so 20 if a 4th or 25 if a 5th).

    Naturally, you don't generally want to drop to 0 HP, especially by the time you're at these higher levels, but this is some insurance.

Timeless gives you immunity to Exhaustion.

    While Exhaustion doesn't come up super-often, even in its less devastating form in 2024, it's still really nasty. Practically, while this will make you very good at fighting Salamander Inferno Masters, I think it also effectively means you can go without food, drink, sleep, and I believe even air (because I think suffocation involves getting exhausted). There is some negative synergy, as this makes the Decrease Exhaustion part of Tireless meaningless. But I guess it's also just indicative of further mastery.

I've got to say: I love the vibes here. But are these mechanics enough to get me to play a class I feel didn't quite get the glow-up it deserved in the 2024 PHB? I'm not sure.

Actually, for the Horror themed subclasses, I wouldn't have minded them taking another crack at the Monster Slayer subclass from Xanathar's.

I guess to me, the version of a Ranger that I'm most interested in playing is an expert on terrifying monsters in the vein of Solomon Kane, Geralt of Rivia (though ability-wise he's clearly an Eldritch Knight) or the many exaggerations of Abraham van Helsing (the actual character from the novel is less intrepid monster hunter than knowledgeable academic). This subclass is very much leaning into more of "I am the monster from the woods" than being the one to hunt it, though that's very cool in its own right.

I am still disappointed with the continued focus on Hunter's Mark - why do Rangers have so many concentration spells if the design of the class seems to be built around always using this one?