a single opponent. Other abilities allowed the ranger to aid his companions with skill checks and avoiding ambushes. Dungeons & Dragons Essentials The Essentials rulebook Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms presented two alternate versions of the ranger, the hunter and the scout. The hunter focused on ranged attacks, while the scout focused on melee attacks. Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition The ranger was included as a character class in the 5th edition Player's Handbook (2014). Rangers are a half caster class in 5th edition, gaining limited spellcasting. Their features and spells focus on exploration, survival skills, and tracking foes. At third level, players chose from one of two ranger archetypes: the Hunter, and the Beast Master. The hunter archetype gains combative capabilities, while the beast master gains an animal companion to control. Several sourcebooks since the launch of 5th edition have expanded the number of ranger archetype options. Xanathar's Guide to Everything (2017) added three more ranger archetypes: the Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker and Monster Slayer. The Gloom Stalker focuses upon hiding in areas of low light, the Horizon Walker gains access to certain teleportation features, and the Monster Slayer becomes adept at attacking certain studied foes. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (2020) added two more archetypes: Fey Wanderer and Swarmkeeper. In 2016, due to criticisms of the ranger as presented in the Player's Handbook (2014), the "Revised Ranger" class was released as part of the Unearthed Arcana playtest. This playtest version "made some of the ranger's core abilities easier to use and specifically fixed how a ranger uses its animal companion, giving a ranger the animal at Level 3 and allowing a ranger to attack with both its weapon and the animal on the same turn". However, this new version of the class is not legal for organized play such as in the Adventurer's League. Since the release of the "Revised Ranger", Jeremy Crawford, Co-Lead Designer of the 5th Edition, has reiterated multiple times that there no plans to release an official alternate version of the class. One D&D Playtesting for the next version of Ranger was announced. Reception Screen Rant rated the ranger class as the least powerful class of the base 12 character classes in the 5th edition. "The reason this class gets the lowest ranking is because it forces players to be kind of specific. Being able to have a favored enemy and terrain is kind of