The Best Ranger Spells In D&D 5e

greetings my name is monty martin and i'm kelly mclaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes welcome to our channel where we cover everything dungeons and dragons including advice for players and guides for dungeon masters we upload new videos on tuesdays and thursdays so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode today we are taking a look at the best spells for rangers in dungeons and dragons 5th edition rangers are half casters who get up to 5th level spells they don't have to prepare their spells they actually get a limited selection of spells known with such a limited selection though it's hard to pick out the ones that are stand out now monty and i have taken a look at the ranger spell list and picked out spells from each level that we think are the best options all around for rangers in dungeons and dragons 5th edition ranger spell casting is a huge ace in the hole in the rangers arsenal and one that's not to be underestimated they can really add to a lot to the rangers capability in both combat exploration and many interaction scenarios not to mention many of the new subclasses that have been introduced in xanathar's and tasha's which have added additional spells known on top of the spells that the ranger gets to select when they level up so it's such a limited selection kelly and i have each picked one of our favorites for each of the levels from first to fifth level as well as a few honorable mentions as well so that you can help decide the perfect spells for your rangers loadout there's a lot to look at today so let's get rolling so let's kick things off with the bread and butter of the ranger perhaps one of the most must-have and essential ranger spells and that is hunter's mark this is a first level divination spell that is available to rangers right off the gate and it takes one bonus action to cast and requires the rangers concentration when you cast the spell you nominate one target within the spells range of 90 feet until the spell ends you have advantage on your wisdom survival and perception checks to find them but then you also deal an extra 1d6 points of damage with any attack that hits it does have to be a weapon attack so this won't benefit your spells but whether you're attacking with longbows crossbows long swords or other melee weapons or ranged weapons doesn't matter you get that extra damage it applies to every single attack you make so whether you're using this with extra attack or dual wielding or crossbow expert or any of the other ways that you can make additional attacks opportunity attacks whatever it is and extra d6 points of damage which means that as you make more attacks this spell actually gets stronger even though you're only using it with a first level slot if the target of your hunter's mark dies you don't lose the spell you get to use a bonus action to move it to a new target and if you decide to up cast the spell you get to increase how long the spell lasts for yeah you do have to use your bonus action on a subsequent turn to move your hunter's mark to a new target but this is a bread and butter spell for the ranger's damage dealing and should always be part of your ranger's arsenal one of my favorite first level spells for the rangers is absorb elements this spell allows you to use your reaction when you are subject to some sort of elemental damage and you get to have resistance to that damage and this next part is more specific for if you're playing a melee build for rangers but on your next melee attack you can do an additional 1d6 damage of the damage type that you resisted basically taking in the elemental power and channeling it into your weapon this spell is great if you do have a melee build and it's pretty good even if you have a ranged build because taking resistance on damage is useful no matter what and this is an essential protective spell and it's actually one of the only reaction spells that rangers get so it's a really good use of their reaction to just half elemental damage and if you do have a sword in hand stab somebody and do a little bit extra more damage our honorable mention for this level goes to zephyr strike which was a spell that our friend jill used very extensively in our dungeons of drakenheim campaign zephyr strike is a bonus action cast spell that lasts for one minute requiring your concentration and well it's in effect your movement does not provoke opportunity attacks which is fantastic for a range based character in close quarters who needs to get away so they can keep shooting with a disadvantage or for a melee combatant who wants to duck and weave through a swirling melee also when you cast a spell once before the spell ends you get to give yourself advantage on one of your attacks if the attack hits it does an additional 1d8 force damage and whether or not it hits you get to add an additional 30 feet to your movement we saw jill use this spell time and time again to gain advantage when she really needed it in a pinch as well as zip in and out of really dangerous situations she was playing a tabaxi as well so she could use the speed boost combined with the baxi's innate speed boost to really cover a lot of ground quite quickly it's a really useful spell to get out of situations or get into situations and should definitely be on your radar when you're picking spells for your ranger one final spell to put on your radar that was added to the ranger spell list in tasha's cauldron of everything is the druidic spell in tangle which conjures a mass of vines which can restrain creatures within it and create difficult ground well you might not have the best savings row dc to make the most out of entangle it is a really nice spell to have in your arsenal and i would highly recommend considering it for your ranger as well as we move into second level spells for the rangers one that i think every ranger should highly consider is one of my favorite stealthy spells in the game pass without trace having this in your arsenal just means that stealth missions are going to go off so much smoother when you cast the spell you and any creature you choose within 30 feet of you gains plus 10 to their stealth checks not only that but you cannot be tracked except by magical means and you leave no footprints or other indications of your travel this is great if you are being hunted by an enemy or if you are trying to get somewhere that you just don't want people to know that you're there if you're already playing a stealthy character and you have a stealthy party this not only benefits the ranger who will probably be pretty decent at stealth but also your whole party so even the clunky paladin or fighter towing along with you gets a plus 10 which means that the chances of them succeeding and not giving the party up on their stealth mission increase a lot it makes for a really good spell to drop first when you're setting out on that infiltration mission just one thing to bear in mind with pass without trace is that it is not invisibility you are getting a bonus to stealth checks but you still need to have the proper conditions for stealth available password trace does not help you get across an open courtyard unseen it won't help you cross a field where there's nothing to hide behind it just means that when you are able to use stealth you're probably going to go undetected i do think though that a ranger with this in their back pocket on the same party as somebody who has silence or invisibility suddenly becomes a whole new belt oh yeah and rangers do actually have silence on their spell list as well it's just that since both spells require concentration you as one character can't combine them so i would probably choose pastor that trace over silence but it is an option there for you for me the other second level spell that i would personally consider would be spike growth spike growth is a transmutation spell of second level that requires one action to cast and requires your concentration lasting for up to 10 minutes when you cast spike growth you cause a field of horrific thorny vines to appear in an area that you can see within the range of the spell the area of a 20-foot radius becomes difficult ground and whenever creature moves through this area they take 2d4 piercing damage for every 5 feet they travel which means a creature that has to traverse the entire 40 foot diameter of the spike growth is going to end up passing through 8 5-foot sections taking 16 d4 points of damage to move across the field of thorns naturally many creatures aren't going to do this and they're either going to stay put or find some other way to get past it but the threat of the damage of the trap is really really deadly it is made worse by the fact that the spell is naturally camouflaged if a creature doesn't see you cast the spell they don't know that the area is that dangerous so they have to make a wisdom perception check against your spell-saving throat dc otherwise they don't detect innately that the area is hazardous we also should mention that tasha's introduced a lot of new spells for rangers and for second level there are some great ones like aid enhanceability and summon beast which i think are all really flavorful for the ranger and are all great spells yeah there's actually a lot of competition now for the second level spell slot and well i think spike growth and pass without trace are the absolute must haves the fact that aid is now in contention is worth considering if no one else in your party already has it enhanceability is a really good spell and summon beast even if you're not a beast master is a really nice summoning spell and you get it pretty early i think honestly especially if you're not a beast master but you still wish that you kind of had some elements of it taking summon beast means that you get that beast companion and if you are a beast master your pet gets a pet and isn't life about friendship well speaking of friendship moving on to the third level spells conjure animals is on the ranger spell list this spell is incredible and even though rangers get it at a pretty late level compared to druids being able to conjure a pack of elks or a pack of wolves or even just one big big old bear is a fantastic asset conjure animals naturally is a conjuration spell of third level it takes one action to cast so unlike many other summoning spells it's really easy to use it in combat and it lasts for one hour and one of the things that i like about it is that the summon can both be used for utility and a whole bunch of other combat attributes again with any of these summoning spells there is some contention over whether or not you can choose the creature that's summoned if you can choose the creature that's summoned it gets a lot more utility in that fact because you can for instance conjure some giant eagles to fly on which seems awesome no matter what way you slice it for an archer i mean even if you need mounts you could conjure yourself a few mounts to get from point a to point b quickly um there's there's so many uses for this and again you just want more friends animal friends are rangers best friends and you get a lot of them now with a lot of these additions to the spell list and conjure animals is just one of my favorite spells in the game i think it's it's very useful i will say you let me pick yeah i i'm a fan of letting as especially a ranger i think it's it's pretty okay if the ranger gets to pick because it's a needed boost to their spell casting in my opinion uh and i think as opposed to uh rangers do get the fourth level spell conjure woodland beings as well which is a much more problematic pick because of the pixie yeah one of my favorite third level choices is actually plant growth this is a really great spell for controlling the battlefield in a large way when you cast a spell as an action you can choose a point and every natural plant within a hundred foot radius of that point becomes thick and overgrown meaning that enemies or anybody trying to pass through have to give up four feet of movement for every one foot of movement they take you can also cast this spell with a longer casting time to make fruitful crops harvested for an entire village which might seem like a ribbon piece but i actually imagine that a lot of times in a campaign there are times that your dm might not account for this and you show up in a town and they're like so and so stole our crops this is the adventure you have to go on and the ranger's like give me a few hours i'll fix this problem for you and you have all the crops you need plant growth has some really weird world building implications but that aside plant growth also when you use it to just make an area overgrown it doesn't require concentration so you can combine it with your other spells for instance you could use it with conjure animals conjure up a flying mount fly around pelt your enemies over a huge area now they're in difficult ground or maybe use spike growth spike growth and plant growth together we've we've discussed how much this actually impacts movement and anybody stupid enough to try to struggle through that combination is is gonna have a bad time now of course you do need to have the natural area there already to use plant growth so it is based on the terrain but it's a really nice one to have in your arsenal if you are regularly in traditional planty overgrown forested sort of areas in your adventures beyond that it is worth noting that rangers now get revivify in their spell list as of taxes cauldron of everything as well as the new upgraded sounding spell summon fey at third level spell slots we briefly mentioned as we move it into fourth level spell slots that rangers also do get conjure woodland beings which gives you a lot more options for what you can summon compared to conjure animals including fake creatures like dryads and pixies and sprites and even hags conjure woodland beans has a really iffy uh reputation because of the ability to summon a group of eight pixies that can now cast polymorph on the party yeah with a party of four and pixies half of them casting polymorph and half of them casting fly keep in mind that polymorph is specific to the level of the creature you cast it upon not the caster so i've ruled that one out at my table because eight four because four flying t-rex is a little is a little too much to deal with yeah but on the other hand uh we've seen the spell used in really cool ways when all the other interesting fake creatures that aren't pixies get summoned with it summoning a group of dryads themselves that cast and tangle is really cool you can use it as i said to summon hags and other creatures so it is a worthwhile contender on the rangers spell list and i again i would be more generous with conjure woodland beings with a ranger especially considering the level that rangers get fourth level spells at it's kind of worth giving the the extra oomph for it beyond that the fourth level spell offerings for rangers the only other one that i think is really worth considering is freedom of movement yeah freedom of movement when you cast it allows you to ignore difficult terrain and magic can't reduce your speed or paralyze or restrain you what's really awesome here is this is a great one to partner with plant growth or yeah you can now cause all the plants in an area to become overgrown and while your enemies struggle through it you're hopping around from tree to tree killing them freedom of movement doesn't require concentration and you can cast it on yourself or an ally as well so it's a great setup strategy to give yourself that positional advantage and flat out immunity to being paralyzed and restrained is incredible it also gives you the ability to just spend five feet of movement to escape a grapple these are these really tricky and scary things that paralysis being restrained being grappled all these things happen a lot at high level play and the fact that rangers actually have immunity to this from a spell that they get is a is something that shouldn't be understated it's a nice little ace in the hole i find that freedom of movement is a very overlooked spell but if you take into account all the implications of it especially when combining it with other things that rangers are going to be excelling at i think it actually stands out amongst the ranger spell list a lot yeah i really like the idea of a ranger using it on themselves to get immunity to difficult terrain and things that slow their movement and then just as we said like something like plant growth or even the spell of another character in your party like if your wizard cast you can't be restrained you ignore difficult ring you can move through the webs completely unopposed as we come to fifth level spells there's one that definitely stands out to me and that is swift quiver you can cast this as a bonus action giving you an endless supply of ammunition for your weapons and when the spell is in effect you can now make two attacks as a bonus action using the weapon that is using the ammunition so if you are a bow wielding ranger this will just allow you to pile on so many extra attacks and if you look at some of the subclasses presented to the ranger that get bonuses to their damage on certain attacks or other features that might benefit their ability to attack or enhance their attacks this becomes really valuable and dishing out more attacks is always valuable but on the ranger it can add a lot of extra pain two things to note though with swift quiver it does require concentration last one minute and on the turn that you cast it since it's cast as a bonus action the spell actually doesn't let you automatically use the action right away so in the turn you cast it you aren't able to benefit from it so it's one of those spells that you really want to ideally cast before combat begins to get the maximal effect out of it but afterwards making the two attacks as a bonus action is not contingent on you taking the attack action with your main attack so you can use swift quiver on subsequent turns to continue attacking as a bonus action while you're doing something else with your main action such as dashing running around casting other spells performing other actions using magic items or any of those other amazing things that high level characters like to do rangers don't have too many other fifth level spells that are awesome on the battlefield you might be partial to steal win strike and conjure volley i'm on the fence about these spells i like them i i don't think that they're as good as swift quiver but i think that they're they're decent spells and rangers also do get tree stride as well as a fifth level spell although the impact of tree stride might not be quite as massive as it would have been when other characters got that spell about 10 levels sooner considering the high levels that rangers are when they get their fifth level spell slots and considering that they have a very tight premium on how many fifth level slots you have you're probably going to want to use it for swift quiver overall when we look at the ranger spell list i think that this is one of the most downplayed parts of the rangers everybody talks about their abilities what their subclasses offer but we kind of forget that they are half casters a lot of their spells have benefits that complement what the ranger does in meaningful ways and i actually find with the right spells you can be a master of dealing damage to the right target or controlling the battlefield which is something that a lot of these spells are good at or getting a bunch of meat shields onto the battlefield to help you and your allies out one of the things that didn't make it into our top picks that is worth mentioning is that rangers do get a very wide suite of restorative spells they get cure wounds they get healing spirit they also have lesser restoration and as of tasha's they have greater restoration and revivify this means that a ranger can be a backup healer and that is something that is really worth considering in your overall party dynamic as well because yeah you might have the life domain cleric in your party but if they die you're gonna be really glad that the ranger had revivified the other major point that i'd like to make about ranger spell casting is rangers use their wisdom for spell casting wisdom might not be your highest stat and in most cases rangers are more reliant on their abilities in combat with a bow or sword or what have you you could have a low wisdom score and still cast hunter's mark or pass without trace and the benefits are still there you actually don't lose a lot by not having a great wisdom score with a lot of these spells on the flip side tasha's cauldron of everything did introduce the druidic warrior archetype for rangers which allows them to pick up two druid cantrips one of these could be shali which lets you attack with a quarter staff using your wisdom modifier when you cast it it's a cantrip so you could build a ranger that took druidic warrior took shillely took another druid cantrip maybe even picked up magic initiate but all this to say you could lean into the spell casting and summoning of the ranger using these new options natasha's cauldron of everything there is a versatility of builds presented in the ranger spell list and i think that's a lot of fun is you could dip into healing you could go full out in combat you could become a battlefield controller you could take the right feats and other options to make a very druidic ranger there's a lot of versatility within here and the spell the spells that arranger gets are really impactful and should be taken into account when you're designing your ranger characters there's a lot more than just casting hunter's mark and forgetting about your spellcasting feature entirely when it comes to the ranger spell list if you really start diving into the tactics and strategy that are presented to the ranger through their magical abilities you really see that there's a lot more depth to the class than you might have seen at the first glance so this has been a look at our favorite spells for reading our top spells for rangers yeah so this has been a look at our top spells for rangers in dungeons and dragons 5th edition tell us about your favorite spell selections in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters a big thank you from both kelly and myself to all of our patrons for your continued support and making the work that we do here on youtube possible if you enjoy our channel and our work in general consider joining our patreon community by following the links in the description below if you enjoy our work you may also be interested to hear that we are creating a book for 2021. we've partnered with ghostfire games and we are bringing dungeons of drakenheim to life as a module for 5th edition you can find all the information about the upcoming kickstarter campaign and get updates about the book by going to drakenheim.com or by following the links below if you want to check out our live play in the worlds of drakenheim you can check that out on tuesday nights at 6pm eastern at twitch.tv slash dungeon underscore dudes you can also find all of the previous episodes of our campaign right up over here and we have plenty more guides to the all the spells for all the classes in dungeons and dragons 5th edition right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we will see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 157,199

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: tTfORYLy48c

Length: 24min 27sec (1467 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 14 2021