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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Revised Ranger Revision Redux Revisited



Conundrumist
2017-12-12, 10:37 AM
I've been working on changing the Ranger class. You can see my first effort in my signature. With all the stuff coming through Unearthed Arcana and Xanathar's now out, I thought I should revisit what I had done. I made some rather significant changes and I now present it to this esteemed forum. You can see it HERE (http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1oEomEJx). I appreciate any and all constructive feedback. Thank you to all the readers for sitting through another attempt to change the ranger.

The following are some design notes.

The base class itself is mostly the UA revised ranger and UA no spells ranger with a few tweaks here and there.

I removed humanoids from the favored enemy list as I thought that was too broad. I know there was a lot of concern about that when the UA article came out. I thought about offering types of humanoids, but really if you can deal extra damage to a hobgoblin and an orc you should be able to deal it to any humanoid. All the important organs are probably in the same place right?

Natural Explorer is basically the same as the UA revised ranger, but I took out the advantage on attack rolls.

Poultices is the same as the UA no spells ranger, but I had thought of changing the d6 to 2d4 to actually line up to a healing potion. I think that might be too strong so I haven't done it. I'm wondering what others think of the idea.

Ranger Animus is the big feature from my previous work. I changed some of the wording to match that of the Monster Slayers 3rd ability Slayer's Prey. Like before it's basically Hunter's Mark. I worry it might be a bit too open. The earlier version upped the damaged to 2d6 at 9th level and 3d6 at 18th, but I think that's too much now given the other class and subclass features.

Skirmisher is basically the Rogue's Cunning Action with the added benefit of more move and the inability to be track except by magic that the Ranger already had. I felt the extra move was thematically appropriate and that it was a nice boost for an ability that comes at 6th level.

I moved Greater Favored Enemy to 8th level. I felt Skirmisher needed to be earlier on the list. I also changed the damage from a flat +2 and +4 to 1d6 and 2d6 respectively. Honestly I'm not so good at running the numbers and figuring out if this will be OK in play, so I hope to get your help with that. Mostly, this revised class will be used in a West Marches style hex crawl that really pushes the random element so for that game I think more dice are more fun.

The rest of the base class is all pretty straight forward.

The Hunter has changed the most from the PHB and my previous version. Previously the Hunter was basically the Battlemaster with a few more utility options. While I like the idea, I thought it better to leave Superiority Die to the Battlemaster and return the Hunter to its PHB version. The more I thought about it, the more I wasn't super happy with the 3rd level and 7th level options. So I merged the Hunter and the Gloom Stalker.

Dread Ambusher now adds int he Colossus Slayer 1d8 extra damage if they're below HP max. I hope that's not too excessive. Iron Mind is Iron mind and the 11th level options remain unchanged. 15th level offers Stand Against the Tide as it was while the other options become the Monster Slayer's Counter and an ability of my own devising.

The other big change is Hunter now gets Extra Attack(2) at 18th level.

Overall I think the Hunter is more powerful than it was, but I worry it's now too powerful.

The Beast Master is now the Beast Tamer, but it's basically the revised versions Beast Conclave. I changed some wording here and there, but nothing new mechanically except the 18th level feature. Symbiotic Bond is a combination of a couple abilities from a ranger revision done by simonb350, a member of these forums. I used his Beast Master for my earlier attempt at this. I really liked what he did there so I kept what I could. Thank you for the inspiration.

I was originally going to have a Stalker subclass as a third option, but that got cannibalized into Hunter. I always planned to do a spellcaster subclass so when Stalker went out the window I thought I'd throw one together and created the Warder. This is probably the area I have the most concerns about. It's got the same progression as the Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster and uses the druid spell list. I change certain Ranger specific spells into abilities. I'm very happy with turning Cordon of Arrows into its defining ability, but the rest *shrug* ...I just don't know.

In short, this is what I've got. Give it to me straight, Doc, I can take it.