The Ranger class is one focused on stealth, surviving in the wild, and defeating wild beasts and creatures. These spells are the best Ranger spells, and how to use them.
- The Best Level 1 Ranger Spells
- The Best Level 2 Ranger Spells
- The Best Level 3 Ranger Spells
- The Best Level 4, Level 5 and Level 6 Ranger Spells
- The Best Level 7, Level 8 and Level 9 Ranger Spells
Table of Contents
Best Ranger first level spells
#1 Hunter’s Mark
School: Divination
Casting Time: 1 Bonus Action
Level: 1
Range: 90 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 251
Description: Hunter’s Mark is mechanically one of the coolest spells that exists in D&D 5e. It allows you to pick a target and deal additional damage to them, as well as gain advantage on checks when trying to locate them. This is an especially useful low-level spell because it adds an extra 1d6 to every attack you make against your target, which is a decent amount of additional damage at level one. Hunter’s Mark should be fully taken advantage of by all novice Rangers.
#2 Speak with Animals (Ritual)
School: Divination
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 1
Range: Self
Duration: 10 minutes
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 277
Description: Speak with Animals is a spell that gives you the ability to do exactly what its title suggests – speak with any and all non-hostile animals you encounter on your adventure. While this may seem like a relatively useless ability, you never know what the animals of the world have seen or heard lately. If you are tracking someone through the forest, try speaking with some nearby birds and convincing them to help you locate the person.
#3 Fog Cloud
School: Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 1
Range: 120 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 243
Description: Fog Cloud is a great spell for low level Rangers because it offers a few different strategies you can utilize without much additional requirement. First of all, you can use the fog to blind and disrupt your enemy during a fight. Secondly, you can quickly shoot out a cloud of fog and then, when your enemy is distracted, make a run for it when you are in danger.
Best Ranger second level spells
#1 Animal Messenger (Ritual)
School: Enchantment
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 2
Range: 30 feet
Duration: 24 hours
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 212
Description: Animal Messenger is a useful spell that’s description sounds absolutely ridiculous. Animal Messenger allows you to command a small beast to deliver a message for you to anyone that you are able to locate within the world and describe well enough that an animal will recognize. The spell lasts for twenty-four hours and lets you send a flying animal up to 50 miles to deliver a message, and land animals 25 miles. The kicker with Animal Messenger is that the beast, when it has located the intended recipient of your message, will literally speak using a replication of your voice to deliver the message.
#2 Spike Growth
School: Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 2
Range: 150 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 10 minutes
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 277
Description: Spike Growth is a great low-level spell for inflicting some extra damage during combat. It lets you cause spikes and thorns to sprout out of the ground, turning the area into difficult terrain. Anytime a creature enters the area or moves within the area, they take 2d4 piercing damage for every five feet they travel.
#3 Find Traps
School: Divination
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 2
Range: 120 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 241
Description: Find Traps does not tell you exactly where a dangerous trap is located, but it does give you a general sense of where the trap is located, and the nature of the danger posed by the trap. This spell will work to prevent you from accidently causing yourself extra damage because it alerts you to the presence of virtually anything intentionally placed to cause another person harm.
Best Ranger third level spells
#1 Speak with Plants
School: Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 3
Range: Self (30-foot radius)
Duration: 10 minutes
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 277
Description: Speak with Plants is similarly useful to Speak with Animals. There is no way of knowing what the plants around you are thinking about – or what they have witnessed or heard in their environment – until you ask them! This spell is probably less useful than Speak with Animals because plants are stationary, but they may also have a deeper understanding of nature which could be useful to you. You could potentially ask a tree about something that occurred hundreds of years ago, if the tree is old enough.
#2 Plant Growth
School: Transmutation
Casting Time: Special
Level: 3
Range: 150 feet
Duration: Instantaneous
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 266
Description: Plant Growth is an exceedingly useful and powerful spell when given proper thought and consideration. While most would use the first of the benefits it offers, which rapidly increases the growth of plants in the surrounding area and slows movement. The second benefit Plant Growth offers, however, has effects that are far more profound. If cast as a ritual for eight hours, Plant Growth will enrich the plant life in an area for an entire year. Just think of all of the good your character could do for the people of the world with this ability.
#3 Wind Wall
School: Evocation
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 3
Range: 120 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 288
Description: Wind Wall is one of the few mid-level Ranger spells capable of dealing high amounts of damage. It is also a useful spell to cause a quick disruption if you need to escape danger or cause a distraction.
Best Ranger fourth level, fifth level and sixth level spells
#1 Stoneskin
School: Abjuration
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 4
Range: Touch
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 278
Description: Stoneskin is a spell that makes the skin of the person it is cast on as hard as stone. The creature you are casting Stoneskin on must be willing, or else the spell will fail. When the spell is cast the affected creature gains resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.
#2 Conjure Woodland Beings
School: Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 4
Range: 60 feet
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 hour
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 226
Description: Conjure Woodland Beings is an excellent mid-level Ranger spell to utilize when you need to cause a distraction, escape danger, or simply add a few bodies on your side of a fight. These fey creatures will defend you if you command them to, listening to virtually everything you order them to do. You can choose to summon one large fey creature, two slightly smaller fey creatures, four small fey creatures, or eight tiny fey creatures.
#3 Freedom of Movement
School: Abjuration
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 4
Range: Touch
Duration: 1 hour
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 244
Description: Freedom of Movement allows the caster to imbue one creature it touches with increased speed and mobility. Targeted creatures can transverse difficult terrain as if it were normal terrain, easily escape from being grappled or bound in any way and become immune to spells that would attempt to decrease their speed or cause paralysis.
Best Ranger seventh level, eigth level and ninth level spells
#1 Commune with Nature (Ritual)
School: Divination
Casting Time: 1 Minute
Level: 5
Range: Self
Duration: Instantaneous
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 224
Description: Commune with Nature is a really cool high-level Ranger spell that allows you to gain information about the natural environment surrounding you. When you are outside the spell has a range of three miles. The spell’s range is greatly reduced within caves, where its range is only 300 feet.
#2 Tree Stride
School: Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 Action
Level: 5
Range: Self
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Spell Source: Players Handbook, page 283
Description: Tree Stride is a high-level Ranger spell that I find kind of ridiculous. The spell allows you to physically enter a tree and use that tree to transport yourself to any tree within 500 feet of the same kind. This is a fairly efficient means of traveling, even if it costs a high-level spell slot.
