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Whether you fell through a puddle and out the other side or stepped over a hedge and never returned, you somehow found yourself in the Feywild. For how long you wandered, you do not know, but eventually, your soul and your fate were changed by that magical place. You are now a Fey Wanderer, ranger of the fey and mortal realms, the laughter in the woods and the eyes lurking in the shadow.
If you feel the magic of the Feywild drawing you in, read below for a breakdown of the Fey Wanderer ranger from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything:
Fey Wanderer Ranger Features
The Fey Wanderer’s features reflect your time in the Feywild, your relationship with its inhabitants, and its effects on your mind.
- Dreadful Strikes (3rd level): Amplify your attacks with mind-bending magic from the Feywild and deal extra psychic damage once per turn. This will support your damage output and lessen the pressure to devote your concentration to hunter’s mark.
- Fey Wanderer Magic (3rd level): Like a few other ranger subclasses, the Fey Wanderer gains five thematic spells as it levels up. These spells focus on charm effects and movement options, which allow your ranger to feel as tricksy and elusive as a fey!
- Otherworldly Glamour (3rd level): Your connection to the Feywild bestows upon you a magical allure. You gain proficiency in Deception, Performance, or Persuasion. Further, whenever you make a Charisma check, you add your Wisdom modifier on top of your usual Charisma bonus. This is where the subclass really shines, deftly allowing the Fey Wanderer to keep up with even the most charismatic characters without investing much in another ability score.
- Beguiling Twist (7th level): Spending great lengths of time in the Feywild can damage a mind, but yours has only been sharpened by your exposure to fey magic. You now have advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened. Furthermore, you can use your otherworldly magic to twist and redirect nearby enchantments. Whenever a creature you can see within 120 feet of you resists being charmed or frightened, you can use your reaction to force a different creature to resist your own spell save DC or be charmed or frightened by you. Teach your enemies that if they want to mess with your party’s minds, they better not miss.
- Fey Reinforcements (11th level): Your relationship with the Feywild and its inhabitants allows you to call upon them for assistance. You learn the summon fey spell, can cast it without material components, and can cast it without expending a spell slot once per day. But most usefully, you can alter the spell so that it does not require concentration in exchange for shortening its duration from 1 hour to 1 minute. Remember that most encounters in fifth edition last 30 seconds or less, so if you think you’ll just need help for one critical encounter per day, this is a very handy ability.
- Misty Wanderer (15th level): Jump in and out of the Feywild at a moment’s notice. You can cast misty step without expending a spell slot a number of times per day equal to your Wisdom modifier. Critically, this version of misty step allows you to bring a willing creature along with you, opening the door to more daring maneuvers.
Fey Wanderer Compared to Other Ranger Subclasses
The Fey Wanderer ranger demonstrates the class’ flexibility, providing you with a socially adept and mobile character who can deftly navigate the Feywild’s many dangers. Its Otherworldly Glamour feature is its calling card, allowing Fey Wanderer rangers to keep up with even the most charming bards and rogues in any court. You can invest in both Charisma and Wisdom to crank your Deception and Persuasion bonuses bafflingly high, or you can lean on this feature as a reason to move Charisma points into other ability scores without worrying about falling behind.
Though the Fey Wanderer specializes in diplomacy and negotiation, they pull their weight in combat. Dreadful Strikes’ extra psychic damage helps you keep pace without having to cast hunter’s mark, freeing up your concentration for other thematic spells like silence or summon beast. With Beguiling Twist, you can rebound enchantments in a manner even the Archfey warlock would envy. Fey Reinforcements summons a fey spirit to fight by your side daily without costing concentration or a spell slot.
The Fey Wanderer ranger is a highly skilled diplomat with potent mental defenses, the ability to summon allies at a moment’s notice, and weapon strikes that attack your mind. True to the spirit of the ranger’s versatility, this subclass has a little bit of everything I’d expect and hope for from its fey theme.
Things to Keep in Mind
I like the Misty Wanderer feature when I read it, but I don’t know that I’d find it very rewarding after 14 levels of play. In general, I don’t think a capstone feature should fix an issue that the player likely already worked hard to “solve.” Over your adventures, you have probably learned to skillfully budget your existing misty steps and dimension doors, so by 15th level I don’t think I would find this very exciting.
Building a Fey Wanderer Ranger
Ability Scores
Rangers will want to pick between Strength or Dexterity for their weapon attacks and need Wisdom to fuel their magic. Fey Wanderers are versatile, able to face down a team of diplomats or a horde of redcaps. Look at your adventure’s themes and genre to help determine what ability scores you want to prioritize. If you find yourself playing in a campaign that prominently features diplomacy, negotiation, and intrigue, focus on Wisdom and Charisma, then Dexterity. For more balanced or combat-focused adventures, you may prefer to stick to the ranger’s standard hierarchy of Strength/Dexterity first, then Wisdom.
Ancestry
Fifth edition contains many lineages with Fey traits, as well as non-fey lineages with histories relevant to the Feywild—far too many to list here! Below are a few of my favorites:
- Elf (High Elf, Wood Elf, or Eladrin): Elves make for a classic Fey Wanderer. Their longstanding relationship with the Feywild often affords them a degree of status when dealing with the fey, mainly if you play an eladrin (elves who live in the Feywild). Playing as a high elf will grant you an extra cantrip and language, wood elves move more quickly and can hide even when only lightly obscured, and eladrin can teleport a few times per day with additional magical effects based on their season.
- Forest Gnome: Communities inhabiting natural spaces over many centuries, such as forest gnomes, live closer to the Feywild than most. As they work to cultivate positive relationships with the local fey, such as by offering gifts to dryads and avoiding hags, they may wish to lean on a Fey Wanderer ranger. The forest gnome is naturally suited to confronting fey creatures: their Gnome Cunning grants them potent magical defenses, Natural Illusionist helps them trick and misdirect, and Speak with Small Beasts allows them to learn much from their surrounding environment.
- Half-Elf: Half-elves are the quintessential Fey Wanderer. They often find themselves astride two communities, navigating opposing worlds so frequently and deftly that neither feels quite like home. Mechanically, the half-elf’s Skill Versatility feature and their extra +1 to starting ability score bonuses work well with the Fey Wanderer’s focus on diplomacy.
- Hobgoblin: Originating from the ancient fey courts, these tall goblinoids retain some magic of their former home. The power of gifts and reciprocity runs in their blood, boosting their abilities when taking the Help action and granting extra luck when near allies. Perhaps your Fey Wanderer hobgoblin is fulfilling a contract to an eladrin lord in exchange for your family’s eventual return to the Feywild you once knew. (For other goblinoids, all of which have roots in the Feywild, look to the bugbear and goblin.)
- Leonin: The leonin, coming to us from Mythic Odysseys of Theros, is admittedly not a fey or fey-aligned creature. However, their quick speed, darkvision, and Hunter’s Instincts trait make them good candidates for the ranger class. I like the image of a lion stalking the border between realms, keeping the fey to their side and the mortals to theirs and slaying any darkling who gets in their way. (For other animalistic origins that would fit a fey theme, look to the centaur and satyr.)
Feats
Just as with ability scores, feats should be selected with your campaign’s themes and genre in mind. For example, some of the feats below will work best with high intrigue or high roleplay campaigns, while others might be better suited for more traditionally dangerous environments.
- Alert: Never be surprised again. With this feat, you gain a +5 bonus to initiative, you cannot be surprised while you are conscious, and other creatures don’t get advantage on attack rolls made against you when you can’t see them. Together, these abilities are a more effective defense against assassins than any armor or fortress.
- Elven Accuracy: As its name implies, this feat requires elven ancestry (half-elves and all elf subraces invited). Whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, you can roll the d20 three times instead of two. This is the only official instance of what is commonly referred to as “super advantage” in the game, and as such, its value cannot easily be overstated.
- Fey Touched: I mean, it’s right there in the name! Your time in the Feywild has left its mark on you, granting you misty step and one 1st-level divination or enchantment spell of your choice. You get one free casting of each spell per day. Though the misty step ability is partially redundant, this feat presents an opportunity to learn a spell that would not otherwise be on your spell list. (I recommend dissonant whispers or silvery barbs.)
- Eldritch Adept (Mask of Many Faces): This feat grants you the ability to cast disguise self at will, effectively turning this handy 1st-level spell into a cantrip for you. Spies, con artists, and tricksters apply here.
- Observant: If you can see a creature’s mouth while it is speaking and you understand its language, you can read its lips. In addition, this feat increases your passive Perception and Investigation scores by 5. At a grand party, a socialite courtier or a spy disguised as a server could use this feat to learn innumerable secrets.
- Skill Expert / Skilled / Prodigy: Heavy roleplay campaigns are likely to prominently feature skill checks. If you play in one, I highly recommend grabbing any feat that grants you extra skill proficiencies, expertise, and languages.
Fey Wanderer Ranger Sample Build
I suggest adapting your Fey Wanderer’s build to your adventure’s setting. It’s also important to consider whether your campaign will focus specifically on combat, exploration, and roleplay or if it will contain an even mix. For example, a trek through woods where unseelie fey dwell may demand a different Fey Wanderer than a treaty negotiation.
This sample Fey Wanderer ranger plays in a heavy roleplay adventure, brimming with intrigue, subtlety, and courtly matters. Their campaign is set in one of the more dangerous courts, perhaps the Gloaming Court, so they have invested equally in Dexterity and Wisdom, with Charisma not too far behind. Thanks to the Observant feat, they can read lips and boast a passive Perception of 23. I used the ranger’s Canny feature to pick up expertise in Persuasion, then took Skill Expert for expertise in Deception. This character speaks eight languages and uses the Feywild Connection feature granted by the Feylost background to help establish relationships at court.
Making Your Own Fey Wanderer Ranger
The Fey Wanderer flexes the ranger class’ versatility, able to entertain and negotiate by day, then sneak and slash their way through a dark forest by night. It’s got all the classic fey-flavored abilities you’d think of, as well as a few with unique twists. Among fifth edition’s Feywild-themed subclasses, the Fey Wanderer ranger is my personal favorite.
If you’ve made it this far through the Feywild and still remember your name, then it’s time to create your own Fey Wanderer! Jump into D&D Beyond’s character builder to get started!
Damen Cook (@damen_joseph) is a lifelong fantasy reader, writer, and gamer. If he woke up tomorrow in Faerun, he would bolt through the nearest fey crossing and drink from every stream and eat fruit from every tree in the Feywild until he found that sweet, sweet wild magic.
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