Editing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (section)

===[[Ranger]]===
Rangers retain Favored Enemies, with a few social benefits included to make them less serial-killer-ish, and are pretty good at hiding (camouflage) and tracking things. Interesting new addition are druidic-flavored spells for arrows and attacks - like transforming your arrow into a hail of thorns, enchanting your quiver to produce ammo or summoning entangling vines from your weapon - most likely the remains of the [[Seeker]], a 4e class created by splitting off the mystic aspects of the ranger and which had a similar "magical arrows and weapons" motif.

* '''Hunter''' (PHB): [[Drizzt]]-style [[Anal Circumference|"backdoor fighters,"]] with access to a few "fighting styles" that make them rough customers, specializing in either big game hunting or cutting through hordes.
* '''Beastmaster''' (PHB): gives you a bestial companion, which now behaves like a 4e summoned creature, requiring you to constantly remind it to attack every single round. And you can only start attacking too when you get the Extra Attack feature.
* '''Gloom Stalker <sub>Formerly Deep Stalker</sub>''' (Xanathar's Guide to Everything): This Ranger specialises in ambushing and sneaky stuff, with tricks like a free speed boost in the first turn of combat, a bonus action that can be used to hide in all subsequent turns, free Darkvision at level 3, some illusion spells, a bonus attack if you miss at least one attack, and an enhanced dodging ability. It also grants proficiency in a mental stat saving throw (Wis by default).
* '''Horizon Walker''' (Xanathar's Guide to Everything): A Ranger who acts as border-patrol between the material plane and others, and gains class features based around limited dimensional hopping. Originally a 3E Prestige class.
* '''Primeval Guardian''' (UA: Rangers and Rogues): A ranger who goes balls-deep into the class's druidic flavor to gain the ability to shapeshift into a neigh-unkillable tree-form. Kinda like the Warden from 4E, who turned into some super-nature form.
* '''Monster Slayer''' (Xanathar's Guide to Everything): WoTC admits that this is essentially a retread of the Monster Hunter subclass they did for fighters back in 2017. Armored with bonus spells relating to fighting powerful magical critters, it excels at fighting one particular creature at a time, with tricks like scouting out vulnerabilities, negating abilities that would let their victim flee from a fight, and enhanced killyness against their victim. Also, if you're using the Revised Ranger ruleset, they gain an Extra Attack at level 5 as well. The XGE edit adds in a more mage-hunting feature, with the ability to outright foil the casting of a spell and smack them even if it does work.
*'''Swarmkeeper''' (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything): Like Beastmaster, but you have a swarm of fey spirits instead of a single animal. At first, your swarm hangs around you and can deal force damage when you hit a creature with a weapon, but later on you can send one spirit out as a Tiny animal and create an area that deals necrotic damage and lets you heal.
*'''Drakewarden''' (UA: 2020 Subclasses Part 5): Another Beastmaster-like subclass, though you now summon (this guy is actually impermanent, though he lasts for several hours) a drake who acts like an amped-up pet (including actually attacking by spending your bonus action). As you level up, this drake improves in some significant ways, including a breath weapon and typed damage on its attacks. 
* '''Fey Wanderer''' (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything): A Fey-themed subclass with some interesting perks. Aside from some extra damage on an attack, you also gain +Wis to all Charisma checks. This becomes important because level 7 lets you bounce back any charmed or frightened effects to an enemy the moment any ally makes their save. In addition, you have the ability to summon a fairy as an ally and Misty Step with the added benefit of being a taxi.

====The Troubled Development of the Ranger====
The "Designing Class Variants" UA article on the WotC website includes a "Magic-free Ranger" alternate class, for those who want a more Martial Ranger. It gets Combat Superiority (access to Fighter maneuvers), the ability to create Poultices (healing potions that also cure poison once you hit the proper level), venom resistance, the ability to summon animals from your surroundings 1/day, and an inability to run out of superiority dice. Beastmasters built from this variant get to halve damage their companion takes instead of sharing spells since, y'know, no spells to share.

The September 2015 UA article on WotC was dedicated to a revised low-level (1-5) Ranger class, based apparently on WoTC noting a lot of players were giving them the feedback that the Ranger was kind of weak and unsatisfying to play, with many class features feeling restrictive or difficult. This version of the Ranger gets Ambuscade (you get a special extra turn to Attack or Hide when you roll initiative) and Natural Explorer at level 1, Skirmisher's Stealth (a Ranger can choose one target to stay hidden from, no matter what else they do, during a turn, if they start that turn in hiding, and they can make a fresh Hide check at the end of their turn) at level 2, and a new mystical "Paladin of the woods" branching class feature at level 3. These Rangers can pick between the Guardian (dish out temporary hit points as a bonus action), Seeker (force a target to confer advantage) or Stalker (buff yourself or an ally to do extra damage with melee attacks). It also retains the Fighting Style, Natural Explorer, Primeval Awareness, Ability Score Improvement and Extra Attack class features from the vanilla [[Ranger]]. However, it has ''no'' spellcasting of any kind.

In September 2016, WotC published an Unearthed Arcana called "The Ranger, Revised", officially admitting that they were aware that people didn't like the Ranger and they were using playtesters to try and find a more agreeable format that they would <s>eventually print and publish in an official book, although they emphasized that this wouldn't invalidate the original ranger</s>. It has the same three subclasses as the original ranger, including the Deep Stalker, as "Ranger Conclaves," though only the beastmaster has been hugely remade. Notably, extra attack was excised from the class proper and given to every archetype ''but'' the beastmaster, favored enemy now comes with a baked-in damage bonus but only offers ''two'' choices in the class's entire lifespan, and Natural Explorer now works in any terrain. Some of their derpier abilities have had their cost reduced or been generally-reworked to be more useful.

In July 2018, Jeremy Crawford announced via Twitter (and would later make the same statements on Youtube in videos that have since had their comments turned off) that the Ranger would not get a revision, simply stating that if you have a problem with the class that the players and DM should "add class levels to the animal companion as found in rules in the DMG" or to play a different class.

Unsurprisingly, the November 2019 "Class Feature Variants" Unearthed Arcana article gave Rangers more extra options than any other class and significantly boosted their viability.  They got more spells and a better version of Natural Explorer (giving one of three major benefits), Favored Enemy (Essentially casting Hunter's Mark but not without using spellslots), and Primeval Awareness.  The Beastmaster also got some elemental companions that scale with level better. "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" keeps the Natural Explorer replacement, though it is now in a static progression path with no choice in the matter. The Favored Enemy replacement essentially remains as-is, though the damage it deals starts off weaker before improving in exchange for any non-combat uses. The Primeval Awareness and Hide in Plain Sight replacements are the only ones that actually remained the same. Sadly though, these ultimately only make the Ranger ''better'' rather than ''good''.