Best Ranger Spells in 5E Ranked | Ranger Spells 5E Guide

Welcome to our Ranger spell rankings! The Ranger doesn’t have many options for spells (nor do they have cantrips), so our choices are limited here. That doesn’t mean they don’t get some great effects! Rangers have mostly Druid flavoring, so a decent mix of summoning and damage, which is exactly what we went for! Let’s see where the spells landed in our Best Ranger Spells 5E Ranked!

 10. Fog Cloud

• School: Conjuration
• Level: 1st
• Casting Time: One Action
• Range: 120 Feet
• Components: Verbal, Somatic
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 Hour

The first entry into our Ranger Spells 5E Rankings is Fog Cloud. With Fog Cloud, you create a sphere of fog that extends from a 20-foot radius from the targeted space. This fog can move around corners, and it makes the whole area obscure for the duration of the spell. The radius increases for each level above the first that you cast this spell at. It will disperse if a wind that moves at least 10 miles per hour moves through the fog. Fog allows you to choose where combat is most violent. Blocking off your escape, allowing for stealth, or forcing a low-health enemy into a terrible situation is easy with this spell. And it lasts so long!

 9. Animal Friendship

• School: Enchantment
• Level: 1st
• Casting Time: One Action
• Range: 30 Feet
• Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (food)
• Duration: 24 Hours

This spell will convince a beast with an Intelligence score below 4 that you mean no harm to it as long as it fails its Wisdom check. The target must be able to see and hear you. If the target is harmed by you or one of your allies, the spell ends. When cast in a slot above the 1^st level, you get to target an additional beast for every level above the 1^st. This can instantly end a fight against some fairly high-level beasts! And animals often don’t have a stellar Will save. Situational, but potent.

8. Freedom of Movement

• School: Evocation
• Level: 4th
• Casting Time: One Action
• Range: Touch
• Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (a leather strap, bound around the arm or a similar appendage)
• Duration: 1 Hour

A willing target of your choice is no longer affected by difficult terrain for the duration of the spell’s length. Spells and other magical effects cannot change the effect that Freedom of Movement gives the target, nor can the target become paralyzed or retrained. The target can also spend 5 feet of movement to escape from nonmagical restraints. And lastly, being underwater does not give the typical movement or attack penalties the target would normally receive.

This spell is great for emergencies. Removing painful statuses, like Paralyze, will allow you to handle a fight much easier. Put this on your damage dealer to let them handle a bad situation.

7. Conjure Animals

• School: Conjuration
• Level: 3rd
• Casting Time: 1 Action
• Range: 60 feet
• Components: Verbal, Somatic
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 Hour

Conjure Animals is one of my favorite options in our Ranger Spells 5E list. When you cast Conjur Animals, you summon one of the following options:

• One beast with a challenge rating of 2 or lower
• Two beast with a challenge rating of 1 or lower
• Four beast with a challenge rating of 1/2 or lower
• Eight beast with a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower

All beasts summoned with this spell are spiritual versions of beasts. They don’t fall unconscious; at 0, they’re gone. They have their own initiative, and don’t necessarily attack enemies unless they’re commanded. Since you’re a Ranger, you can only upgrade this to a 5th level spell; you double the beasts at that level. That’s still enough to surround enemies with wolves, at least! And trust me, that mauling circle will destroy your target.

6. Pass Without Trace

• School: Abjuration
• Level: 2nd
• Casting Time: One Action
• Range: Self
• Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (ashes from a burned leaf of mistletoe and a sprig of spruce)
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 Hour

You and several of your allies are masked in a veil of shadows, giving everyone this veil covers a plus 10 bonus to Stealth checks, they can only be tracked by magical means, and they leave no tracks or trace of being in the area. All targets have to be within 30 feet of your location. +10 to Stealth is hilariously absurd, and will leave enemies scratching their heads as they look for where you disappeared to.

5. Spike Growth

• School: Transutation
• Level: 2nd
• Casting Time: One Action
• Range: 150 Feet
• Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (seven sharp thorns or seven sharpened twigs)
• Duration: Concentration, up to 10 Minutes

Hard spikes and thorns sprout up out of the ground, creating a difficult terrain for others to move through. If a character was not in the area at the time you cast Spike Growth, they have to make a Perception check against your spell save DC in order to see the change in the terrain. For every 5 feet an unsuspecting character travels in this area, they take 2d4 Piercing damage.

This is great area denial. After the enemy steps a foot into this massive, 20-ft radius, they’ll have to think twice before moving any farther. As long as they can’t fly or jump a large distance, this can naturally prevent movement. Or, at least force the target to take upwards of 16d4 damage as they slog through difficult terrain.

4. Goodberry

• School: Transmutation
• Level: 1st
• Casting Time: One Action
• Range: Touch
• Components: Verbal, Somatic, Material (a spring of mistletoe)
• Duration: Instantaneous

Up to ten berries will appear in your hand that is infused with magic that can heal whoever consumes them. Each berry will heal 1 hit point, and it will provide enough nourishment to sustain a creature for 1 day. The berries will lose their effectiveness if they are not consumed within 24 hours. Decent money savings with alright healing. A Goodberry can be as effective as a Cure Wounds, if your goal is to heal someone out of Death saves.

3. Silence

• School: Illusion
• Level: 2nd
• Casting Time: One Action
• Range: 120 Feet
• Components: Verbal, Somatic
• Duration: Concentration, up to 10 Minutes

For the duration of the spell’s length, no sound can be created within or pass through a 20-foot radius centered on a point of your choice. Any character in this sphere is immune to thunder damage, and creatures are deafened while inside. This will be very useful when you are fighting against another magic castor, as most spells have a Verbal component. Very good anti-mage tech, and with the help of other casters’ spells, this can shut down Wizards entirely.

2. Cure Wounds

• School: Evocation
• Level: 1st
• Casting Time: One Action
• Range: Touch
• Components: Verbal, Somatic
• Duration: Instantaneous

A character within touching distance heals 1d8 plus your spellcasting modifier, which is the Wisdom modifier for a Ranger. If you set Cure Wounds in a spell slot above the first level, you will get to roll an additional 1d8 per level. Healing is strong in 5E, because you really want to get people out of unconsciousness quickly. Cure Wounds gives them a decent health barrier to work with, and Ranger doesn’t have Healing Word naturally. So, Cure Wounds is up here. Yay, teamwork!

1. Hunter’s Mark

• School: Divination
• Level: 1st
• Casting Time: 1 Bonus Action
• Range: 90 Feet
• Components: Verbal
• Duration: Concentration, up to 1 Hour

And number one of our Ranger Spells 5E top 10 list is Hunter’s Mark! One target becomes mystically marked as your quarry; that means until the spell ends, you deal an extra 1d6 damage whenever you hit it with a weapon and you have an advantage against them on any Perception or Wisdom check. When the target reaches zero hit points, you can use a bonus action on your next turn to cast Hunter’s Mark on a new target. When you cast this spell at a 3^rd or 4^th level slot, Hunter’s Mark will last 8 hours. At the 5^th level, this spell will last 24 hours.

Great bonus to damage with extra utility as a tracking tool. Rangers actually hit fairly often for most of their archetypes, so Mark’s d6 of bonus damage comes into play a lot. Since the Ranger’s main goal is to deal damage, this ends up being our best spell out of all Ranger Spells in 5e!