Subclass Ranger Hunter

What Is the Hunter?

The Hunter is the baseline Ranger subclass — no transformation, no summoned companions, no exotic magic. It offers a clean choice system at Levels 3 and 7: pick one option from a list, tailoring your combat approach to single targets or groups, and swap that pick on any Short or Long Rest. Hunter's Lore at Level 3 lets your weapon attacks cut through the physical Resistances of whatever your Hunter's Mark is on. Superior Hunter's Prey at Level 11 automatically fires an extra 1d6 Force projectile at a second nearby creature whenever you hit your Hunter's Mark target.

Class Features

Progression Overview

LEVEL	FEATURE
3	Hunter's Lore, Hunter's Prey
7	Defensive Tactics
11	Superior Hunter's Prey

Level 3

Hunter's Lore While a creature is marked by your Hunter's Mark, your weapon attacks ignore that creature's Resistance to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage.

This differs from the rulebook. By the rules, Hunter's Lore tells you whether a marked creature has any Immunities, Resistances, or Vulnerabilities, and what they are. BG3 hands that information out for free — Examine shows any creature's full resistance table to anyone, at any time, without marking anything — so a literal port would be a passive that prints text and does nothing, leaving the Hunter with Hunter's Prey alone at Level 3. The feature therefore spends the knowledge instead of displaying it: a hunter who has studied its prey knows where to put the arrow. It covers weapon attacks only, since the Ranger has nothing built around unarmed fighting, and physical damage only, so elemental damage carried by the weapon still meets the target's Resistances. Immunities are never bypassed — this cuts through partial protection, not absolute protection.

Hunter's Prey You gain one of the following options of your choice. Whenever you finish a Short or Long Rest, you can swap the chosen option for the other one — the choice lives on a spell you cast on yourself out of combat, not on a locked-in level-up pick. Giant Killer was dropped in the 5.5 rules and is not offered.

Colossus Slayer — Once per turn, you deal an extra 1d8 damage to a creature you hit with a weapon if the creature is below its Hit Point Maximum.

Horde Breaker — Once on each of your turns when you make a weapon attack, you can make another attack with the same weapon against a different creature that is within 10 feet of the original target and within range of your weapon.

The radius is wider than the rulebook's 5 feet. On a tabletop grid, "within 5 feet" means the next square over, and a pack of enemies fills adjacent squares as a matter of course. BG3 has no grid and its creature models are small, so enemies rarely stand that tightly packed — at the literal distance the follow-up attack would find no legal target in most fights. The wider radius keeps the feature firing as often as the rule assumes it will.

Level 7

Defensive Tactics You gain one of the following options of your choice, swappable on a Short or Long Rest the same way Hunter's Prey is. Steel Will was dropped in the 5.5 rules and is not offered.

Escape the Horde — Opportunity Attacks against you are made with Disadvantage.

Multiattack Defense — When a creature hits you with an attack roll, that creature has Disadvantage on all other attack rolls against you for the rest of the turn. This replaces the +4 AC bonus the option used to give; the 5.5 rules changed it to Disadvantage.

Level 11

Superior Hunter's Prey Whenever you hit and damage a creature marked by your Hunter's Mark with a weapon attack, you automatically fire an additional projectile at a different enemy within 30 feet that isn't marked, dealing 1d6 Force — the same extra damage Hunter's Mark itself adds.

Playstyle Notes

The Hunter is a reliable direct damage Ranger subclass in single-target encounters. Colossus Slayer adds 1d8 damage every turn once the target has taken any damage — with Extra Attack at Level 5, you're adding 1d8 to one attack per turn essentially every turn. Combined with Hunter's Mark, the damage bonus is 1d6 + 1d8 per turn from passives alone.

Hunter's Lore costs nothing to use and asks only that Hunter's Mark is already where you want it — which it is, on almost every Ranger turn. Against a target that halves Bludgeoning, Piercing, or Slashing damage it brings your weapon damage back to full. Against a target with no physical Resistance it does nothing at all, so its value swings entirely on what you're fighting.

Horde Breaker is better in multi-enemy fights: hit two different targets with the same weapon, no additional action cost. Against groups it outperforms Colossus Slayer; against single targets they are comparable. The widened radius matters here — at the rules-literal 5 feet the second target would rarely be close enough to qualify in BG3's gridless positioning.

Neither Hunter's Prey nor Defensive Tactics locks you in: both choices sit on a self-cast spell you can recast after a Short or Long Rest, so you can run Colossus Slayer through a boss wing and switch to Horde Breaker before a room full of trash without respeccing.

Defensive Tactics at Level 7 is a straight two-way pick:

• Escape the Horde — Disadvantage on OAs is universally valuable; lets you reposition freely
• Multiattack Defense — once an attacker lands a hit, its remaining attacks on you that turn have Disadvantage; best against high-attack-count bosses

Superior Hunter's Prey at Level 11 turns Hunter's Mark into a chain: hit the marked target with a weapon attack, and an extra 1d6 Force projectile automatically fires at a second, unmarked enemy within 30 feet. It costs nothing and needs no setup beyond keeping the mark where you want it, so on a Ranger who is already attacking twice a turn it adds up over a fight.