Cover Updated

• Tongue shortened to provide space
• Light connection from the amulet onto the wall and hand
• The right side might be a little too dark when printed. I'll need to do a few more tests, but overall looks amazing!

Prey Preparation Ranger Level 1 Feature Redesign

• If your creature type doesn't come up, you can still use this ability.
• If your creature type does come up, you can double up the damage if you want.
• You can add it to your trap damage
• You can attempt to save it for crits for extra impact or multi damage spells, racial abilities, etc.
• The ranger gets better and better at preparing for their prey ideally evoking the survivalist/prepper theme and not tied to a specific environment. Urban, post apocalyptic, high fantasy forest, cyberpunk futuristic bounty hunter, etc.
• It scales well both increasing in frequency and damage to reward staying with the class, but perfectly viable as a 1 level dip as well.
• • In this vein, a level 1 dip for a wizard could be focused on investigation and get extra damage on magic missile
  • A druid could dip for nature/animal handling and increase the damage of their wild shapes
  • Lots of build ideas without feeling overwhelmingly powerful
• Initially, I was thinking the fighter can give you a +1 AC as a level 1 dip, so the ranger giving a +1 to hit is comparable, but a few additional arguments were made.
• • The fighting style requires you to be wearing armor versus the ranger option would apply to everyone regardless of weapon, spell, unarmed strike, etc.,
  • A +1 to hit and prey preparation would be really hard to ignore for classes that get extra targets with their spells, such as scorching ray and eldritch blast, which would dramatically amplify the damage.
• If we removed the +1 damage to tone the ability down, it really decreases the value since that was the static "always good" benefit even if you didn't face the creatures you had prepared for.
• • However, if we gave the player the agency of when they wanted to apply it, we could make it even more impactful.
  • By giving them free uses per day, the player gets the agency back regardless of whether their creature type ends up being part of the encounter.

Survivalist Ranger Level 1 Feature Redesign

I had looked at the ranger redesign as a means of providing the agency back to the player. By building survival checks into later features, we could guarantee that they would have a solid use for their Survivalist feature. However, there were some strong arguments presented to me resulting in the current update:

• Survival might be optimal, but not giving the player a choice removes that agency again.
• Having a choice supports a wider set of builds such as the urban investigator, animal whisperer, etc.
• Dipping into ranger gives an option for honing your craft, which doesn't have to be survival
• Some DMs never use survival checks in the city, so if the campaign takes place completely in the city it may be an unwelcome skill to have focused on
• • The ability reads (emphasis mine): Survival is a skill used for dealing with the wilds. Situations that can call for Survival include tracking footprints, foraging for food or water, navigating wilderness, identifying signs of creatures nearby or living in the area, predicting the weather, and avoiding hazards such as pits or quicksand.
  • 5.5E isn't much better: Follow tracks, forage, find a trail, or avoid natural hazards.
• Providing an option still allows for the intended build, but doesn't limit characters to that.
• • The skills provided are more observational rather than actionable (Athletics, Perception, Persuasion/Deception/Intimidation, Performance, Stealth, etc.)
  • I don't know 5.5E well enough yet to see if there are any huge holes this opens up. I'm going to rely on the Technical Editor (and you all!) to help there.

Adventure's Calling (Bond Option) Ranger Level 2 Feature Redesign

Your companion is a modular chassis that you add the traits that make sense for the build you envision.

• Trait options are split between combat, exploration, and social
• Traits give both the companion and ranger something
• Traits can be swapped out (once per day currently) as an action to keep people from feeling forced to use it just for combat.
• The companion functions as a toolbox comparable, but different, to the spellcasting options the warden gets

These traits were redesigned and organized:

• I organized each column by the prerequisite.
• • Column 1 is open for all, column 2 is level 6+, column 3 is 10+, column 4 is Beastkin only.
• There are 27 traits (which I fit on a single spread)!
• • At level 2 you have 42 combinations available (you start with 2 traits and there are 7 options, so 7 *6)
  • A level 20 Beastkin with 9 traits would have 2,506,375,872,000 options
  • Since each trait has a ranger rider, the ranger has just as many options.
  • You can change these after a long rest. Beastkin can get the Evolution trait to change them as an action.
  • There is a mix of offense, defense, utility, social, exploration, etc.
• I updated the base stat block to remove the Magic Resistance and make that a trait option. Low magic campaigns won't get the benefit of that trait and it factors into the final balancing.
• • I also changed the damage to be 1d4 + PB. This will scale higher than Wisdom and be less punishing to Dex/Str builds.
  • • There's also a beastkin trait that increases PB, which would normally only increase chance to hit and proficient ability checks/saving throws. This way it will also increase damage. Since it uses the Ranger's PB, something like the Mastery Ioun Stone magic item would also increase the companion's chance to hit and damage without needing the companion to be attuned.
• I combined many of the ideas into the companion and ranger rider abilities
• I buffed some and nerfed others. Final balancing isn't done, so there will be additional changes.
• The features for the Bond/Beastkin will unlock access to additional traits. I'm not planning on adding addition features other than gaining additional traits.
• The companion should feel like a solid buff to the ranger chassis plus function as a Swiss army knife for solving a variety of types of challenges.
• The companion doesn't get a second attack. I need to do final balancing before I monkey with this at all. If it's weak, we can consider what we want to add. If it's too strong, we'll have to see where to subtract.

Witch Subclass Illustration

• I like how they each have a unique look/perspective
• Feels much more serious than the previous version. This is more on brand
• The scene feels alive and each character is participating