“Alright.” Cassandra Claire looked at her daughter, deciding to be happy about her being a remarkably well-statted halfling Ranger. Anything was better than last time—anything was better than Blood Mage. “No stealing without explicit permission, no planting anything without explicit permission, I don’t want you using that Sleight of Hand Skill without clearing it with me or your father first, understand?”

“I don’t use Sleight of Hand without your or Dad’s permission.” The girl nodded emphatically. “Got it.”

“What’s your role in a fight?”

“Attacking with arrows! And overwatch.”

Attack

The most common action to take in combat is the Attack action, whether you are swinging a sword, firing an arrow from a bow, or brawling with your fists. With this action, you make one melee or ranged attack. Certain features, such as the Extra Attack feature of the fighter, allow you to make more than one attack with this action.

Cassandra blinked away the totally unnecessary explanation. I knew what an attack was before I had my first ever time being portalled into a fantasy world, she groused, and it’s been a long time since then, and a lot of planes of existence—

The Planes of Existence

The cosmos teems with a multitude of worlds as well as myriad alternate dimensions of reality, called the planes of existence. It encompasses every world of adventures, all within the relatively mundane realm of the Material Plane. Beyond that plane are domains of raw elemental matter and energy, realms of pure thought and ethos, the homes of demons and angels, and the dominions of the gods. Many spells and magic items can draw energy from these planes, summon the creatures that dwell there, communicate with their denizens, and allow adventurers to travel there. As you achieve greater power and higher levels, you might walk on streets made of solid fire or test your mettle on a battlefield where the fallen are resurrected with each dawn.

Okay, she admitted to herself, I asked for that one.

“And what,” she asked, not skipping a beat despite the unwelcome informational flood, “do you do if someone closes in?”

“I Disengage,” Harriet parroted dutifully, “focusing on not giving anyone in reach an Opportunity Attack.”

Disengage

If you take the Disengage action, your movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks.

Opportunity Attacks

In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for a chance to strike an enemy who is fleeing or passing by. Such a strike is called an opportunity attack. You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach. You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction. For example, you don't provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe's reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.

Reaction

Certain special abilities, spells, and situations allow you to take a special action called a reaction. A reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind. The opportunity attack, described later in this chapter, is the most common type of reaction. When you take a reaction, you can't take another one for approximately six seconds. If the reaction interrupts another creature's action, that creature can continue its action right after the reaction, unless otherwise specified.

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“Exactly correct!” Cassandra beamed at her, then tilted her head at her daughter’s suddenly worried expression. “What’s wrong?”

“How do I know what that even means? Disengage? Opportunity Attack? I mean, the voice told me that I had Sleight of Hand and Stealth, but how do I know what those are and how to do them?”

“You get used to it, pumpkin.” Jason squatted down, offering Harriet a hug that she accepted with feigned reluctance. “Having the world shove information into our heads beats having to figure it out ourselves. I mean, that’s hard! Playing super-powered linebacker for your mom, that’s a lot easier.”

“Also,” she mumbled into his absurdly broad chest, “I picked Human, Elf, and Goblin for my Favored Enemies and I didn’t get a choice, I got Shadowy for my favored terrain because apparently you’re right and I live in a cave.”

“Your bedroom is in the basement, dear.” A maternal hand patted the apparent cave-dweller’s head gently. “And so is your drum set, and so is your computer. Also, I think halflings live in holes in the ground.”

“Well-lit,” the girl sniffed, “well-appointed holes in the ground, with extremely cozy lighting and warm colors and kitchens that let them do a lot of baking!” Her parents hugged her wordlessly, and after a long moment she sniffed again and stepped back from the emotional brink. Shrugging out of their arms, she went to step away, thought better of it, gave each of them a quick hug, and then disengaged.

Favored Enemy

Beginning at 1st level, you have significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to a certain type of enemy. Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies. You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them. When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at all.

Natural Explorer

You are particularly familiar with one type of natural OR UNNATURAL environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, SHADOWY, or swamp. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you're proficient in. While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:

Difficult terrain doesn't slow your group's travel. Your group can't become lost except by magical means. Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.

“Anything else, dear?”

“Not really, mom.” Harriet shifted awkwardly under both parents’ eyes, having fooled neither of them. “I’m Proficient in two other Skills,” she blurted, “but I’m bad at both of them anyway. And I’ll get some magic, I think! But not until I level up at least once. I’m not sure.”

Ranger Spellcasting

By the time you reach 2nd level, you have learned to use the magical essence of nature to cast spells, much as a druid does.

“Level two,” Cassandra confirmed. “The magical essence of nature, this says. You’re going to do great, honey. Just remember that the best strategy—”

“—is always to make tactics irrelevant, I know, I know. A swarm of summoned dire buttmonkeys is just as valid, blah, blah, blah.”

“We love you, cherub, but don’t make that face at us, not over this. It’s not just about you.” The seriousness of her mother’s tone made Harriet look up, erasing the pout on her face and forestalling her objections. “You’re old enough to really contribute to the ideas and planning, to the strategy. We need you to be thinking with us about what the absolute most bullshit things are we can pull off, because not getting hurt applies to all of us, and because winning by pratfall is a lot funnier than winning by putting an arrow in someone’s eye.”

Cassandra held her serious face for precious, challenging seconds before all three of them burst into stress-relieving laughter. Composing themselves eventually, they looked around at one another.

“What are we forgetting? Any ideas?”

Harriet smirked at her father. “Driver’s license!”

“That was once!” He hid his face, but the redness of his neck gave away his flush of shame. “I’m never going to live that one down, am I.”

“There’s nothing in the room, so we can’t be forgetting any things. Any questions about what we’re doing next?”

“Get breakfast?” The girl frowned suddenly. “Actually, I’m not hungry. And I don’t need to pee. And I’m wearing armor indoors and I’m more comfortable than I was in jeans? Why am I not even sweating?”

The two adults traded nods. “To the caravan!”