Quick question about the UA Ranger

[sir_argo]

Just started a new campaign today and our party includes a new UA Ranger. First combat, the Ranger says he gets advantage on initiative. We've never used the new UA Ranger. A number of players, and the DM, ask what class feature gives him advantage on initiative and we read the rule:

You are a master of navigating the natural world,
and you react with swift and decisive action
when attacked. This grants you the following
benefits:
• You ignore difficult terrain.
• You have advantage on initiative rolls.
• On your first turn during combat, you have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet acted.

Do these abilities work at all times, or only in certain environments (such as forest)?

[PeteNutButter]

As written it is always on.

There are good reasons many DMs don't allow UA content. It is generally not very well balanced.

[Lord Ruby34]

As written it is always on.

There are good reasons many DMs don't allow UA content. It is generally not very well balanced.

That said, I'd say that the UA ranger isn't one of those examples. I've had players use it and it feels in line with the other classes.

[Kuulvheysoon]

One of my players also uses the Revised Ranger and it feels pretty good with the PHB classes. I mean, yeah, she's one of the primary damage dealers of the party but that's because she plays smarter than most of them.

[mephnick]

There are good reasons many DMs don't allow UA content. It is generally not very well balanced.

It's not balanced with multiclassing for sure, the UA ranger being the prime example, but for the most part standalone UA classes tend to be weaker in my experience.

[Beelzebubba]

I interpreted those initiative / advantage powers were only when in nature, due to being in 'Natural Explorer' and not as a separate callout. The flavor is about their ability to use natural terrain to their advantage in perception, stealth, and tactics.

So, in dungeons, cities, other civilized areas, they wouldn't work.

Who disagrees?

[Puh Laden]

I interpreted those initiative / advantage powers were only when in nature, due to being in 'Natural Explorer' and not as a separate callout. The flavor is about their ability to use natural terrain to their advantage in perception, stealth, and tactics.

So, in dungeons, cities, other civilized areas, they wouldn't work.

Who disagrees?

I disagree that that was what was intended, but I agree that it would be just as or more fitting.

[PeteNutButter]

I interpreted those initiative / advantage powers were only when in nature, due to being in 'Natural Explorer' and not as a separate callout. The flavor is about their ability to use natural terrain to their advantage in perception, stealth, and tactics.

So, in dungeons, cities, other civilized areas, they wouldn't work.

Who disagrees?

It definitely isn't RAW or RAI. RAMS maybe.

I generally prefer to have as few situational abilities as possible as they are hard to balance and are frequently forgotten when they do come up. The fighter gets his abilities always, limiting the rangers doesn't seem fair.

It is of course, up to you.

[Arkhios]

'Natural' Explorer doesn't necessarily refer to an Explorer most 'home in nature'. I'd personally put more weight on the 'Explorer' part of the feature. A ranger can come from any environment, after all. Imho, it isn't fair to assume that a duergar ranger, who has lived underground probably his entire life, wouldn't have an edge in initiative while in underground environments (which, by the way, doesn't solely refer to natural environments.)

In my opinion, the revised ranger's niche is a survival expert who is at home anywhere he travels and likewise attuned to the constant chance of danger, and for that it makes sense, that he would have advantage on initiative, anywhere at any time.

Is it unbalanced on its own? Nah. It's not even unprecedent; barbarian gets advantage on initiative as well?

Is it unbalanced at 1st level? Perhaps, considering that barbarian gets their feature at 7th level.

[Waterdeep Merch]

The two UA rangers I've seen in action have done much better than the PHB rangers. That said, while they definitely hold their own and got some great abilities, they certainly aren't overpowered. Fighters and rogues do more consistent damage, barbarians and paladins have better burst, full casters have better utility. That's sort of the niche rangers are starting to fulfill- a half caster martial that has a great amount of utility centered around exploration.

Both UA rangers I've seen in action picked beastmaster. I couldn't tell you how the other subclasses do, other than that they appear balanced enough.

[DanyBallon]

We use the Revised Ranger in our game, but we agreed we didn't like the "always on" advantage to initiative roll, so we houseruled that it applies only in Favored Terrain. We also houseruled that you get new Favored Terrain pretty often, I just can't remember the exact ruling we did.

[Naanomi]

Part of the reason for the change in the Ranger was because of how many of their abilities were dependent on outside factors like terrain and opponant faced. Hence the removal (basically) of favored terrain in favor of more broad 'good at stuff' abilities; and the broadening of categories in favorite enemy

[JeffreyGator]

I have DM's for two UA rangers now and while both are strong fighters, they aren't always the primary damage dealer in their party.

Going first isn't always helpful as well. Both rangers are archers (one underdark and one hunter) and they both took Alert at level 4. If they didn't have such a high initiative they wouldn't run into this strange surprise situation.

"You don't see anyone hostile about (failed perception, perception vs stealth), but you are uneasy - what do you do?"

Frequently the answer is nothing or not relevant and so while not surprised they miss out on acting in the surprise round.

They also suffer from some squishiness with an AC 3-5 points less than the heavy armor and shield types.

I do limit the favored enemy from all humanoids to all monstrous humanoids. So goblins, orcs, gnolls, essentially pp118-120 of Volo's and sometimes more orclike half-orcs but not elfs, dwarfs, humans. An evil NPC ranger may have 'civilized' = PHB humanoid races instead.

[Gryndle]

we use the revised ranger, and finally it is getting some playtime in our new group. in fact two of the players settled on ranger this time around (both focusing on archery, but different enclaves, and different races).

the revised ranger seems right on par with the other characters. I think in a vacuum they are balanced fine. I think it gets a little wonky when you factor in multi-classing.


the only issue we have had thus far was from one player miss-reading the 3rd level ability from his enclave (Deep Stalker, Deep Scout, whatever. the one that gives him a choice on first round of combat of either gaining an extra attack or an increase in speed.) Somehow, and I believe it may have been beer related, he confused the ability as an extra attack and +10 to hit on first round. Again, I blame the beer, not the class design.

[HidesHisEyes]

I don't think advantage on Initiative is anywhere close to overpowered in isolation. As for multiclassing, I think there's a good reason why multiclassing is specifically described as optional, and it has a lot to do with the power balance of different builds. Good luck explaining that to anyone though.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I don't really get why everyone's so hung up on the initiative advantage. Rangers are likely going to cap their dexterity anyway, and probably wisdom as well, which means they'd have the perception to never be surprised. Even as a dip, it's sort of a waste. Alert's statistically better and easier to get without derailing your whole build, and I don't see people banning that.

Even the elephant in the room, assassins, aren't really that big of a deal here. They'd still need surprise to get anything out of this besides advantage on their first attack, and they were probably going to go first anyway thanks to high dex and alert.

[Naanomi]

Yeah barbarians get advantage to initiative as well, no one is talking about how much of a huge boost that is when they 'finally get it'

[Steampunkette]

Advantage on Initiative is noce. Not broken or OP, but nice. I'd prefer it to be initiative proficiency, personally, so that it feels like it is advancing.

[BeefGood]

As written it is always on.


I don't have anything against this interpretation but I don't think it's the only interpretation. This is a weakness of the fluff-then-crunch rule writing style. You're never quite sure where the fluff ends and the crunch begins. I think this is a good example (of the problem).

[PeteNutButter]

I don't have anything against this interpretation but I don't think it's the only interpretation. This is a weakness of the fluff-then-crunch rule writing style. You're never quite sure where the fluff ends and the crunch begins. I think this is a good example (of the problem).

If you apply that approach you run into all kinds of problems. Sneak attack doesn't require you to sneak. The dodge action doesn't really make sense for characters with a negative dex mod in heavy armor. Chill Touch isn't a touch spell. Green Flame Blade doesn't require a blade. Dueling fighting style doesn't require you to be dueling, etc.

[Steampunkette]

I don't have anything against this interpretation but I don't think it's the only interpretation. This is a weakness of the fluff-then-crunch rule writing style. You're never quite sure where the fluff ends and the crunch begins. I think this is a good example (of the problem).

There's that... but there's also the linguistic vagueness.

Natural Explorer: Explorer of the Natural World
Natural Explorer: Someone who explores intuitively, as if it were their nature.

The phrase "You're a Natural at this!" is, after all, a fairly common colloquial expression.

[GlenSmash!]

I've found the Revised Ranger to be great, and fairly well balanced. I think we are likely to see it published with very few tweaks. I do think Advantage on Initiative is fine, but a little strong for Level 1. I'd like to see it swapped for Primeval Awareness at level 3.

[Beelzebubba]

It definitely isn't RAW or RAI. RAMS maybe.

I generally prefer to have as few situational abilities as possible as they are hard to balance and are frequently forgotten when they do come up. The fighter gets his abilities always, limiting the rangers doesn't seem fair.

It is of course, up to you.

Yeah, after thinking about it, you're right.

The 5e rules are really, really terse sometimes, so I'm always making sure I'm not accidentally adding things with assumptions.

It's situational enough with surprise, and only first round.

[Foxhound438]

Initiative isn't too big of a deal later on when you aren't able to out speed and one shot something anymore. Maybe there's a few times where the difference of getting in 2 extra attacks is life or death, but that seems really rare with a full party and high hp totals.

[DeAnno]

As written, Rangers are alpha-strike experts (the Rogue-like attack advantage thing is really stronger than the initiative advantage, imo), which I think fits their fluff well. Some people might balk a bit when multiclassed with Fighter for Action Surge, but I don't think any other combo is synergistic enough to make this less reasonable than vanilla PHB martials.

I think the class is fine alone in general, though yeah, Favored Enemy: Humanoids is a bit centralizing right now and could maybe use a split of some kind. Hunter is also sort of a slightly weak archetype compared to Deep Stalker and most of the UA fare, which is a lesser issue.