Storywise, I have my HW ranger who has a displacer beast as a companion. She took inspiration from him and ended up becoming HW. With their ability to look as if they teleport and hide. She also moves from plane to plane as more of a tourist than anything. So she has gotten powerful.
Wow both a ranking and build in such a short amount of time. This works great once you get past lvl 11 (lovely on an arcane archer dip) and down right scary if you get your hands on a 2-bird sling.😂😂😅😊😊 And since the 2-bird sling is only an uncommon weapon and artificer can make common and uncommon weapons, it's on the map.
Lol that build wasn't supposed to go live yet. I am not home at all this week so I had to prerecord and put the wrong date in. The build has been taken down and will go live again on Friday at its regularly scheduled time
Spells: |> Perfect - Do not touch.... well okay, maybe I'd give the option between Teleportation Circle & Dimension Door Detect Portal: |> Awful - Removed and switched with a player + DM collaborated campaign specific non-combat-focused homebrew. Planar Warrior: |> Perfect - A great opening to the sub-classes theme. Leave it alone. Ethereal Step: |> Altered - Moved to level 11 - t just feels like a way too advanced spell, I'm all about the thematics. Switched to a transportation / investigation focused skill. Distance Step: |> Love it - Given at level 7. Its the classes koolest feature and players should get more time with it. Spectral Defence: |> _' Planar Guardian'_ |> Changed - Its their ultimate ability. Once per day reaction to blink yourself and up to 1 other out and then back into existance for a single turn. It makes for some awesome hero moments and I love playing a kool-over-rules style game. So a player over exerting themselves to save a group of people but leave themselves behind is just such good story telling
Sounds to me like, on that last ability, they meant to say “all damage of this attacks type for the rest of the turn”. Just a guess, as you said if they just meant the one attack there’s no reason to include “for the rest of the turn”.
I always prefer ranger players to take Horizon Walker over other subclasses. It's the easiest tool the players can get that makes the campaign jump from trudging through woods and along medieval dirt roads to traveling to any plane I want them to visit. If the ranger player tells me they're going Horizon Walker, that means I don't have to give the party an airship or spaceship right away. That said, there's changes I make to the subclass. First off, I rework the base ranger in my games. Hunter's Mark, favored enemy, and favored terrain are all gone. Rangers get to keep all the other stuff updated to the class in Tasha's, but in place of Hunter's Mark and the "pick a specialty" features, they get one feature. Favored Mana. At the levels the base PHB ranger would pick a favored enemy creature type, they instead pick one of the 5 colors of mana from MtG or colorless. Their favored mana gives them bonus languages, advantage on all dex, int, and wis checks made in relation to anything tied to their favored mana colors, and they deal one bonus damage die on all weapon attacks against creatures tied to their favored mana colors. For the Horizon Walker specifically, I make a few changes. Detect portals goes off whenever a portal is nearby. Portals are permanent, and I put them in places I want the party to go to regularly. I'm not waiting for the player to randomly discover portals by playing a once per day "Hot/Cold" guessing game. I also expect the player to record all the portals they've ever found. They're tools the party will need later. Planar Warrior is good, but it needs to be brought in line with the analogous features on Swarmkeeper and Fey Wanderer. They deal that extra 1d8 on one weapon attack every turn. They only spend their bonus action when they want to turn all their damage on all attacks until the start of their next turn into force damage. The level 7 and 11 features are switched. At 7, they get the bamf ability. At 11, they get to cast etherealness once a day, with the spell's normal duration. The vast majority of campaigns don't make it much farther than 11th level, so letting the ranger cast one 7th level spell is a decent capstone. Also, the rapid teleportation needs to come online earlier to let the subclass really shine. The biggest change I make is telling Horizon Walker players they know a number of portal locations or "portal paths" at character creation. Usually their int of wis score. They know how to get to the 3 planar metropolis cities I want them to eventually visit. They also know how to get to important places. Read the Dresden Files novel "Changes" to get what a portal path is. "Sure, we could walk for two weeks down the main road to get to the capital. Or we could walk into that tree line over there. Fall backwards into the fey wild. Stroll through a cozy little garden. Jump into the beastlands. Sneak to a very popular waterfall. Walk behind the falls to land in Ysgard. Then scamper up a hill in a popular battlefield to get to Sigil. Once we're in Sigil, well. You guys know how easy it is to get to the capital from Sigil." I also put boot camps and safe houses for all Horizon Walkers to check in at all over the multiverse. Every major city has one safehouse where Horizon Walkers can go and get portal locations in exchange for guild dues, locations of portals they find, and advice on how to get past troublesome portal or crossroads guardians. Safehouses and boot camps often have a small shop that sells pirt keys, the arts and crafts paraphernalia to make port keys, and the favorite bribes of well known guardians. "We're going to Avernus? Okay I need to go stock up on cotton candy sticks with big balls of spider webs on them, the stuff to make construction paper Christmas trees, a single bottomless leather boot, and acorns with the caps dipped in gold colored ink. What? No, we don't need a birthday cake dipped in blood. Hades has Cerberus on a diet."
You’re way underrating Distant Strike. It’s one of the best subclass features in the entire game for ranged weapon users which the HW should always be. You’re completely immune from taking opportunity attacks, ever. You never have to worry about your bow attacks getting disadvantage because someone is in melee range with you - you’ve already teleported away. You never have to give up half your movement to get up from prone - just teleport away so that you’re on your feet. You can also teleport, for free, 20 or 30 feet per round, every single round, which lets you cross chasms and the like. And it costs you NOTHING in the action economy - just 10 automatic feet of teleportation per attack. If you take two levels of fighter, action surge, and have at least three enemies on the board that means 60 feet of free teleportation that round, in addition to your movement, in addition to being able to Misty step as a bonus action.
Distant Strike is under-rated here. Why? Because it works with *any* attack; melee, ranged, or spell. This is extremely important for archers, allowing them to escape foes trying to close to melee range without provoking opportunity attacks. Also, if making three attacks, it grants up to 30 feet of extra movement, which doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, and allows escape from grapples, restraints, etc. I'd give it 9/10 because the extra attack can't be used to focus fire on a single enemy, which is often needed.
Storywise, I have my HW ranger who has a displacer beast as a companion. She took inspiration from him and ended up becoming HW. With their ability to look as if they teleport and hide. She also moves from plane to plane as more of a tourist than anything. So she has gotten powerful.
That sounds like a ton of fun!
I did a Sea Elf Horizon Walker Ranger/Fighter. Possibly one of my favourite characters I've built in a while
It's super fun
it really is :)@@DapperSnapperGaming
Wow both a ranking and build in such a short amount of time.
This works great once you get past lvl 11 (lovely on an arcane archer dip) and down right scary if you get your hands on a 2-bird sling.😂😂😅😊😊
And since the 2-bird sling is only an uncommon weapon and artificer can make common and uncommon weapons, it's on the map.
Lol that build wasn't supposed to go live yet. I am not home at all this week so I had to prerecord and put the wrong date in. The build has been taken down and will go live again on Friday at its regularly scheduled time
I went with a bugbear HW. He uses a 2-handed sword and attacks from the second row.
Spells:
|> Perfect - Do not touch.... well okay, maybe I'd give the option between Teleportation Circle & Dimension Door
Detect Portal:
|> Awful - Removed and switched with a player + DM collaborated campaign specific non-combat-focused homebrew.
Planar Warrior:
|> Perfect - A great opening to the sub-classes theme. Leave it alone.
Ethereal Step:
|> Altered - Moved to level 11 - t just feels like a way too advanced spell, I'm all about the thematics. Switched to a transportation / investigation focused skill.
Distance Step:
|> Love it - Given at level 7. Its the classes koolest feature and players should get more time with it.
Spectral Defence:
|> _' Planar Guardian'_
|> Changed - Its their ultimate ability. Once per day reaction to blink yourself and up to 1 other out and then back into existance for a single turn. It makes for some awesome hero moments and I love playing a kool-over-rules style game. So a player over exerting themselves to save a group of people but leave themselves behind is just such good story telling
Looks good for a musket build, can be a real banger but that competition for the bonus action sucks.
Sounds to me like, on that last ability, they meant to say “all damage of this attacks type for the rest of the turn”. Just a guess, as you said if they just meant the one attack there’s no reason to include “for the rest of the turn”.
I always prefer ranger players to take Horizon Walker over other subclasses. It's the easiest tool the players can get that makes the campaign jump from trudging through woods and along medieval dirt roads to traveling to any plane I want them to visit. If the ranger player tells me they're going Horizon Walker, that means I don't have to give the party an airship or spaceship right away.
That said, there's changes I make to the subclass. First off, I rework the base ranger in my games. Hunter's Mark, favored enemy, and favored terrain are all gone. Rangers get to keep all the other stuff updated to the class in Tasha's, but in place of Hunter's Mark and the "pick a specialty" features, they get one feature.
Favored Mana. At the levels the base PHB ranger would pick a favored enemy creature type, they instead pick one of the 5 colors of mana from MtG or colorless.
Their favored mana gives them bonus languages, advantage on all dex, int, and wis checks made in relation to anything tied to their favored mana colors, and they deal one bonus damage die on all weapon attacks against creatures tied to their favored mana colors.
For the Horizon Walker specifically, I make a few changes.
Detect portals goes off whenever a portal is nearby. Portals are permanent, and I put them in places I want the party to go to regularly. I'm not waiting for the player to randomly discover portals by playing a once per day "Hot/Cold" guessing game. I also expect the player to record all the portals they've ever found. They're tools the party will need later.
Planar Warrior is good, but it needs to be brought in line with the analogous features on Swarmkeeper and Fey Wanderer. They deal that extra 1d8 on one weapon attack every turn. They only spend their bonus action when they want to turn all their damage on all attacks until the start of their next turn into force damage.
The level 7 and 11 features are switched. At 7, they get the bamf ability. At 11, they get to cast etherealness once a day, with the spell's normal duration.
The vast majority of campaigns don't make it much farther than 11th level, so letting the ranger cast one 7th level spell is a decent capstone. Also, the rapid teleportation needs to come online earlier to let the subclass really shine.
The biggest change I make is telling Horizon Walker players they know a number of portal locations or "portal paths" at character creation. Usually their int of wis score. They know how to get to the 3 planar metropolis cities I want them to eventually visit. They also know how to get to important places. Read the Dresden Files novel "Changes" to get what a portal path is.
"Sure, we could walk for two weeks down the main road to get to the capital. Or we could walk into that tree line over there. Fall backwards into the fey wild. Stroll through a cozy little garden. Jump into the beastlands. Sneak to a very popular waterfall. Walk behind the falls to land in Ysgard. Then scamper up a hill in a popular battlefield to get to Sigil. Once we're in Sigil, well. You guys know how easy it is to get to the capital from Sigil."
I also put boot camps and safe houses for all Horizon Walkers to check in at all over the multiverse. Every major city has one safehouse where Horizon Walkers can go and get portal locations in exchange for guild dues, locations of portals they find, and advice on how to get past troublesome portal or crossroads guardians. Safehouses and boot camps often have a small shop that sells pirt keys, the arts and crafts paraphernalia to make port keys, and the favorite bribes of well known guardians.
"We're going to Avernus? Okay I need to go stock up on cotton candy sticks with big balls of spider webs on them, the stuff to make construction paper Christmas trees, a single bottomless leather boot, and acorns with the caps dipped in gold colored ink. What? No, we don't need a birthday cake dipped in blood. Hades has Cerberus on a diet."
You’re way underrating Distant Strike. It’s one of the best subclass features in the entire game for ranged weapon users which the HW should always be. You’re completely immune from taking opportunity attacks, ever. You never have to worry about your bow attacks getting disadvantage because someone is in melee range with you - you’ve already teleported away. You never have to give up half your movement to get up from prone - just teleport away so that you’re on your feet. You can also teleport, for free, 20 or 30 feet per round, every single round, which lets you cross chasms and the like. And it costs you NOTHING in the action economy - just 10 automatic feet of teleportation per attack. If you take two levels of fighter, action surge, and have at least three enemies on the board that means 60 feet of free teleportation that round, in addition to your movement, in addition to being able to Misty step as a bonus action.
I should've read all the comments before I posted; this is very similar to my own observations on Distant Strike. I love this feature!
The rating until now:
Gloom Stalker 10/10
Fey Wanderer 9/10
Horizon Walker 7.5/10
Beast Master 7/10
Distant Strike is under-rated here. Why? Because it works with *any* attack; melee, ranged, or spell. This is extremely important for archers, allowing them to escape foes trying to close to melee range without provoking opportunity attacks. Also, if making three attacks, it grants up to 30 feet of extra movement, which doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity, and allows escape from grapples, restraints, etc.
I'd give it 9/10 because the extra attack can't be used to focus fire on a single enemy, which is often needed.
Skipping drake warden again?😉🙃🤔🤪
Yeah, I am just gonna stick it at the end of the series. I did not forget about it! Don't worry