The Ranger

Class document for Adventures Beyond the Mists.

You are a patient hunter who turns waiting into a weapon. Every round the enemy fails to land a hit on you, you bank Focus, and you spend that Focus to turn your own worst dice into guaranteed hits with no gamble at all. You are the one fighter who trades luck away for certainty, and the thrill is the clean, sure strike that patience earns.

At a Glance

• Personal die: 1 at Trained (5-6).
• Signature live now: Focus (convert the Pool's low dice to hits). (Deep Focus, 2 Focus per untouched round, unlocks at Level 5.)
• Command Capacity: 2 Retainers. Detachment Limit: 2.
• Starting Pool: 3 dice (1 personal + 2 Retainers).
• Hit Points: 4 base, plus armor.
• Starting Specialties: 3 Advancement Points on the Ranger's Level 1 menu, priced by tier.

Flavor

Every round you weren't found is a round you were paid for.

You have spent long enough tracking things that you have learned to be patient in a way most heroes never have to be. You do not need the first opening. You need the right one, and you are content to wait for it, watching the shape of a fight change from a distance until the moment it finally opens up exactly where you are standing.

Your company is small, quick, and built to see without being seen, archers who never needed to be told twice, scouts who move like they were never quite where you last looked. None of you win a fight through weight of numbers. You win it by being the one thing on the field the enemy did not account for.

Every round you go untouched is not wasted time. It is patience becoming certainty, the kind of certainty that turns a wild, desperate throw into a clean, sure strike later, when it matters. You have never needed luck the way some heroes do. You have only ever needed enough time.

How the Ranger Plays

This document assumes familiarity with Core Resolution (the shared Pool, hit ranges, and the bank-and-push loop), Wounds and Fatigue (Hit Points, wound direction, death and return), and Command Capacity (Company size and Bond), all in core-rules. Only what is specific to the Ranger is detailed below.

Command Capacity

Starting Command Capacity is 2, rising to 3 at Level 5 and 4 at Level 9 (see the Level Table). A Ranger's Company is typically built from Archer and Blade Retainer roles, mobile, ranged, and comfortable staying out of an enemy's immediate reach. Because Focus converts the low dice anywhere in the Ranger's Pool, a growing scouting party is also a growing payoff: more dice means more misses that patience can turn into hits.

Personal Dice

A Ranger begins play with 1 personal die at Trained (5-6). This range was chosen deliberately narrow: Focus, the class's signature mechanic, is built around converting a Character's own worst dice into hits, and it matters more, tier for tier, the narrower that Character's baseline range already is.

Additional dice. The second die arrives at Level 3 and the third at Level 7. Each is yours, rolled from your Pool, and each enters play Untrained, hitting only on a 6, then sharpens up the ladder to Trained (see the Level Table); the Ranger never widens past Trained, by design. When a die arrives you choose its Source, a Bonded Beast, a Guardian Spirit, a Bound Weapon, or the Killing Art (see Sources of the Second Die): the Source is that die's fiction and a small Trait, live only while its fiction is present, but the die is always yours to roll. Entering Untrained costs the Ranger little, because Focus feeds on low dice regardless of range, and a wider die would only shrink the miss pool patience converts.

Hit Points

4 at First Level, before armor. Armor adds on top: Light +1, Medium +2, Heavy +3. This is the class's baseline under the Level 1 Hit Point table (see character-creation, Hit Point baselines).

Designer's note

The baseline runs inverse to how much a Company can soak. The Ranger works at range with a band around them and is built to avoid being struck rather than to weather it, so the personal Card sits low at 4. [PLAYTEST] The gradient is chosen, not yet confirmed in live combat.

Focus

Nothing found you this round. That is worth something.

The Ranger gains 1 Focus at the end of any round in which no enemy attack hit them. Being hit does not reduce or reset accumulated Focus, it simply means that round contributed none. Focus carries between rounds within a fight, and, unless a specific rule says otherwise, is expected to reset between fights.

Focus is spent to reclassify the Ranger's own lowest dice as hits when reading a roll, before deciding whether to push any remaining misses. Spending 1 Focus converts any natural 1s in that roll into hits. Spending 2 Focus converts both 1s and 2s. Each additional point spent extends the conversion one number higher, regardless of what the Ranger's normal hit range would otherwise require.

This conversion is fully deterministic, no roll is involved, and nothing is risked. It is the one mechanic in the game built entirely around certainty rather than push-your-luck tension, which is precisely the point: patience earns a guaranteed payoff, not a better gamble.

Deep Focus (Level 5)

At Level 5 patience comes faster. The Ranger gains 2 Focus at the end of any round in which no enemy attack hit them, rather than 1. This is the class's signature milestone: the point banked Focus grows quickly enough that the deeper conversion tiers, reaching past 2s into 3s and 4s, and the Focus-spending Specialties, become reliably affordable rather than aspirational. Everything else about Focus is unchanged; only the rate at which a quiet round pays out doubles.

Combos

The Ranger does not read Pair, Triple, Straight, or Set. Focus occupies the same design role combos fill for other classes, functioning as a complete, standalone signature mechanic rather than a gap needing to be filled, the same design choice made for the Witch's Mana and casting system.

Worked Example

Worked example

A Ranger's Pool is 4 dice: 2 personal at Trained (5-6) (a Ranger at Level 5 or beyond, so the second die has sharpened from Untrained to Trained), 1 Archer Retainer (hits on 6 only), and 1 Blade (hits 5-6). Entering this turn, the Ranger has 2 Focus banked from two earlier rounds spent unnoticed.

The Pool rolls 4, 3, 2, 1, one die per combatant. Checked normally: the 4 and 3 (personal dice, needing 5-6) miss; the 2 (Archer, needing 6) misses; the 1 (Blade, needing 5-6) misses. Zero hits, checked the ordinary way.

Spending the 2 banked Focus reclassifies every 1 and 2 in the roll as a hit. The Archer's 2 and the Blade's 1 both convert. Two hits banked, where a moment ago there were none.

The two personal dice, showing 4 and 3, are still misses; Focus only reaches as high as the Character has spent for, and 2 Focus does not touch a 3 or a 4. The Ranger chooses to push them. The reroll comes up 6 and 2: the 6 hits at Trained range, the 2 does not. One more hit, and the push did not bust, since at least one die hit.

Three hits total this turn, two of them owed entirely to two quiet rounds earlier in the fight, when nothing found the Ranger at all.

Starting Specialties

The menu a first-level Ranger spends its 3 starting Advancement Points on. Costs are the standard Specialty tiers (see character-creation, Starting Specialties): universal picks are open to any Character, picks marked Ranger only are this Class's own, and a requirement in parentheses must be met. Spend the 3 points however you like across the menu: one Tier 3 pick, a Tier 2 plus a Tier 1, or three Tier 1s.

• Quarry (2 AP, Ranger only): mark a target you always track and that cannot hide from you.
• Patient Aim (2 AP, Ranger only): stand still for a Rend 2 shot.
• Steady Draw (2 AP): +1d6 on a ranged attack.
• Sixth Sense (2 AP, Ranger only): spend 2 Focus to negate a Hit.
• Longshot (2 AP): +2 Range.
• Pathfinder (1 AP): terrain and weather immunity; the wilderness identity.

Specialty Menu

These Specialties are the Ranger's own, bought with Advancement Points through ordinary Advancement rather than from the open menu (see universal-specialties). Each reads against the Class's patience-and-payoff identity or its Focus economy, which is why none is open to other classes.

Designer's note

Migrated from the Legends Ranger on 2026-08-01 (Quarry, Patient Aim, Volley) or newly designed to fill the Focus gap (Sixth Sense); full record in ranger-migration.md. All four are still [PLAYTEST].

Quarry

Cost: 2 AP. Ranger only.

Flavor. You have decided which one is yours. From that moment it is only a question of time, and time is the one thing you always have.

Effect. As an Action, name one target you can see as your Quarry. While the mark holds, you always know its direction and rough distance, it cannot become Unaware to you (see core-rules, Part Eleven) by stealth or concealment, and out of combat you cannot lose its trail while any trail exists to follow. You hold one Quarry at a time; naming a new one ends the old.

Designer's note

Migrates Hunter's Mark, dropping the Legends restriction that locked the Ranger out of attacking anyone else. Named Quarry, not Hunter's Mark, to avoid deepening the existing Mark naming overlap (the Chancellor's Mark, the Blade's Marked Prey; see open-questions).

Patient Aim

Cost: 2 AP. Ranger only.

Flavor. One breath held. The shot was always going to land; you were only waiting for it to be worth the most.

Effect. If you take no Move on your turn, your next ranged Hit this turn carries Rend 2 (see core-rules, Part Fourteen: a single indivisible hit dealing 2 damage, one more than the usual 1). If you also spend 1 Focus when you do this, the Hit carries Rend 3 instead. Either way this applies to one Hit only and does not stack across turns.

Designer's note

Migrates Increase Tension. The first effect to spend Focus offensively rather than for the miss-conversion, which is why it is Ranger only. Capped hard so it cannot become an unbounded charge. [PLAYTEST] the precedent of opening the Focus economy to an offensive damage sink.

Volley

Cost: 3 AP. Ranger only.

Flavor. You do not pick a target. You pick a stretch of ground and fill it with arrows.

Effect. As your Action, make a ranged attack as an Area of Effect (see core-rules, Part Sixteen), choosing a Line or a Cone from your position. Roll your Pool once; every Hit applies to every target in the area, as the Area of Effect rule already provides.

Designer's note

Renamed from the Legends Sweeping Blitz, since "Blitz" is a reserved core term and must never name an unrelated effect. Gives the Ranger a signature offensive Specialty, which the Class otherwise lacks. Shape sizes wait on the general Area of Effect sizing (open-questions).

Sixth Sense

Cost: 2 AP. Ranger only.

Flavor. The same patience that steadies your shot warns you when to move. You were already leaning aside before the arrow left the string.

Effect. Once per Combat, spend 2 Focus to negate a single Hit that would land on your own Card.

Designer's note

New, realizing the Growth Potential wish for a defensive Focus spend. Priced so it competes with spending that Focus on the miss-conversion, which is the intended tension. [PLAYTEST] alongside realistic Focus accumulation, since a Ranger who rarely banks 2 Focus cannot use it.

Level Table

Like the Witch and Squire, the Ranger grows a standalone signature system rather than combos. It keeps the universal 100 XP per Level (see character-creation, Advancement). Both axes grow: personal dice to 3 (Levels 3 and 7) and Command Capacity to 4 (Levels 5 and 9), for a maximum Pool of 7. Because Focus converts low dice anywhere in the Pool, that growth compounds the signature. Deep Focus at Level 5 is the milestone, doubling the rate at which patience pays out.

Level	Fixed class grant	AP granted	Cumulative AP (incl. 3 starting)	Personal dice (Hit Range)	Cmd. Cap.	Pool
1	die at Trained (5-6); Command Capacity 2; Focus; Ranger Specialties	3 (starting)	3	5-6	2	3
2	—	2	5	5-6	2	3
3	Second personal die (choose a Source), enters Untrained (6)	—	5	5-6, 6	2	4
4	—	3	8	5-6, 6	2	4
5	Second die sharpens to Trained (5-6); +1 Command Capacity (3); Deep Focus (gain 2 Focus per untouched round)	—	8	5-6, 5-6	3	5
6	—	4	12	5-6, 5-6	3	5
7	Third personal die (choose a Source), enters Untrained (6), three-die cap	—	12	5-6, 5-6, 6	3	6
8	—	5	17	5-6, 5-6, 6	3	6
9	Third die sharpens to Trained (5-6); +1 Command Capacity (4)	—	17	5-6, 5-6, 5-6	4	7
10	—	6	23	5-6, 5-6, 5-6	4	7

A full arc to Level 10 grants 23 Advancement Points, the same as the scaffold classes, spent across Bond in the scouting party, the Ranger Specialties (Quarry, Patient Aim, Volley, Sixth Sense), Guild, Skills, and gear such as a Named Bow. Watch the interaction of a Pool of 7 with deep Focus at high Level: converting the low dice across a large Pool is a big deterministic swing, though it stays gated behind going untouched, which a smart enemy will try to deny.

Designer's Notes

Rationale and open testing questions. Safe for players to read, but written for the designer.

Design decisions

• Command Capacity raised from an initial floor of 1 to 2. Focus and the miss-conversion mechanic function identically at any Company size, so no combo-rarity math forced a specific number the way it did for classes built around Pair, Triple, Straight, or Set. The floor of 2 was chosen for fictional weight, a scout leading a genuinely single-person unit read as closer to the Errant than to this class's own identity.
• Trained hit range chosen specifically to make Focus matter more. A wider starting range would mean Focus's early tiers (converting 1s, then 1s and 2s) reclassify a smaller share of an already-narrow miss pool. Starting narrow gives the mechanic real room to matter from the first tier onward.
• No traditional combo reads. As with the Witch's Mana, Focus was judged a complete substitute for Pair, Triple, Straight, and Set rather than an addition alongside them, avoiding a second parallel system this class does not need.
• Focus pauses rather than resets on being hit. An earlier version considered wiping accumulated Focus entirely the moment the Ranger took a hit. This was rejected as too harsh for a single bad break. Pausing growth for that round only, without erasing what was already earned, keeps the mechanic feeling like a steady reward rather than a fragile one.

Testing done and pending

The worked example in this document is the first time Focus has been walked through with specific dice. No live tabletop test has been run, and no prior worked combat in design featured a Ranger.

Specifically pending:

• Realistic Focus accumulation across a full fight. No test has established how much Focus a Ranger typically has banked by the time a fight reaches its decisive moment, this affects whether the higher conversion tiers (3+ Focus) are commonly reachable or largely aspirational.
• Focus interacting with enemy targeting decisions. An enemy that recognizes a Ranger is accumulating Focus has a clear incentive to focus fire on them specifically, ending the streak. No worked example has yet shown this dynamic playing out.
• Whether the Command Capacity curve feels right at the table. The start of 2 was chosen for fictional weight rather than forced by combo-rarity math, and it now grows to 4 (Levels 5 and 9). Because Focus scales with Pool size, the top of that curve is worth watching: a Pool of 7 plus deep banked Focus is a large deterministic swing, gated only by the Ranger staying untouched.

Growth potential

• Command Capacity increases, now on the ladder. Realized as growth to 3 at Level 5 and 4 at Level 9. A growing scouting party is also a growing Focus payoff, since more Pool dice means more low dice for patience to convert.
• Raising the conversion ceiling. A veteran Ranger might eventually convert dice up to a higher number for the same Focus cost, or accumulate Focus faster under specific conditions (successful stealth, favorable terrain).
• A Named Bow or similar relic tied to Focus. A thematic variant on the Named Weapon concept, tying a relic's signature property to the class's patience-and-payoff identity rather than raw combat output. Relics grant signature properties rather than dice under the current rules; see weapons.md, Named Weapons.
• A way to spend Focus defensively, not only offensively. Realized 2026-08-01 by the Sixth Sense Specialty above, which spends 2 Focus to negate a Hit. The same patient accumulation currently spent to guarantee a hit now also buys out a wound.

Changelog

• 2026-08-09: Converted personal dice to the Source model (universal staggering). The second die (Level 3) and third die (Level 7) now enter Untrained and sharpen to Trained up the ladder; each is chosen as a Source. Cap is unchanged at three Trained dice, so the endpoint and Focus math are untouched; only the early ramp is staggered. [DRAFT.]
• 2026-08-06: Updated the Named Bow designer note; relics grant signature properties rather than dice.
• 2026-08-04: Rebuilt to the class-page template: heading hierarchy, Specialty Menu reformatted and moved into the player section, designer notes collapsed.
• 2026-08-04: Added an Explanation-voice opening pitch above the at-a-glance block; normalized the subtitle to the rebuilt-template style.
• 2026-08-03: Added to the v0.3 playtest site.