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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Ranger patch. Work in progress. Constructive critique appreciated.



TheJollySmasher
2019-05-12, 03:23 AM
Hey, my table group has been working on adjusting the Ranger base class to something we will enjoy more. Many of the issues other players had with the class are things we weren't happy with also. So far, this is what I have ended up with. Thoughts and constructive critique would be great. I would like to keep the spirit of the PHB class and maintain game balance.


Play notes
The Beast Master archetype of Ranger Revised is intended to be used with this class. It has one modified ability to prevent the ranger from having access to too many attacks.

This is the only instance where a Unearthed Arcana archetype is intended for use this with class.

The Ranger
Level Proficiency Features
1st +2 Favored Enemy, Adaptable Explorer
2nd +2 Fighting Style, Spellcasting
3rd +2 Ranger Archetype, Primeval Awareness
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement
5th +3 Extra Attack
6th +3 Favored Enemy Improvement, Adaptable Explorer Improvement,
7th +3 Ranger Archetype Feature
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement, Land Strider
9th +4 —
10th +4 Adaptable Explorer Improvement, Hide in Plain Sight
11th +4 Ranger Archetype Feature
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement
13th +5 —
14th +5 Favored Enemy Improvement, Vanish and Escape,
15th +5 Ranger Archetype Feature
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement
17th +6 —
18th +6 Feral Senses
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement
20th +6 Foe Slayer

Spell Slot is the same half caster table as in the PHB.


Class Features
As a ranger, you gain the following class features

Hit Points
Hit Dice: 1d10 per ranger level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 10 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d10 (or 6) + your Constitution modifier per ranger level after 1st
Proficiencies
Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields
Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons
Tools: None
Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity
Skills: Choose three from Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival
Equipment
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

(a) scale mail or (b) leather armor
(a) scale mail or (b) leather armor
(a) two shortswords or (b) two simple melee weapons
(a) a dungeoneer's pack or (b) an explorer's pack
A longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows


Favored Enemy (option 1)
Favored Enemy. You gain the following ability.

You study a creature, making it your quarry and analyzing with a careful eye. Your study allows you to anticipate the creature’s moves, making it easier to anticipate and counter its tactics. As a bonus action, you can designate a creature you can see within 100 feet of you as your favored enemy. The target remains your favored enemy until you use this ability again. You have a number of uses of this ability equal to your wisdom modifier. You regain all expended uses after a long rest.

You gain advantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks to detect your favored enemy and Wisdom (Insight) checks to determine its motives.

Starting at 6th level, you gain do not provoke opportunity attacks from your favored enemies and are considered to have half cover against them. You and your favored enemy can also understand each other as if you shared a language, even if you do not.

Starting at 14th level, you gain advantage on all saving throws made against your favored enemy spells, abilities, and effects.


Favored Enemy (option 2)
Favored Enemy. You gain the following ability.

You study a creature, making it your quarry and analyzing with a careful eye. Your study allows you to anticipate the creature’s moves, making it easier to anticipate and counter its tactics.

At the start of each dawn, you can designate a creature type you have encountered as your favored enemy. You gain advantage on all Wisdom (Perception) checks to detect your favored enemy and Wisdom (Insight) checks to determine its motives.

Starting at 6th level, you gain do not provoke opportunity attacks from your favored enemies and are considered to have half cover against them. You and your favored enemy can also understand each other as if you shared a language, even if you do not.

Starting at 14th level, you gain advantage on all saving throws made against your favored enemy spells, abilities, and effects.


Adaptable Explorer
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 add your proficiency bonus to initiative rolls.
You gain proficiency in the Survival skill. If you already have proficiency in Survival, your bonus is doubled.
You are skilled at navigating the wilderness. You gain the following benefits when traveling for an hour or more:

Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.
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.
Fighting Style
At 2nd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.


Archery
You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.

Defense
While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.

Dueling
When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.

Two-Weapon Fighting
When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

Great Weapon Fighting
When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.

Whirling Blades
When you engage in two-weapon fighting while wearing light or no armor, you do not expend your bonus action. You can still gain the benefits of two-weapon fighting once during your turn by making a special melee attack with your off hand weapon when you take the attack action. You may not add ability modifiers to the damage.

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. See chapter 10 for the general rules of spellcasting and end of this document for the ranger spell List.

Spell Slots
The Ranger table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest. For example, if you know the 1st-level spell animal friendship and have a 1st-level and a 2nd-level spell slot available, you can cast animal friendship using either slot.

Preparing and Casting Spells
The Ranger table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your ranger spells. To cast one of your ranger spells of 1st level or higher, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

You prepare the list of ranger spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the ranger spell list. When you do so, choose a number of ranger spells equal to your Wisdom modifier + half your ranger level, rounded down (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

For example, if you are a 5th-level ranger, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With a Charisma of 14, your list of prepared spells can include four spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or a 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.

You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of ranger spells requires time spent in prayer and meditation: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Spellcasting Ability
Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your ranger spells, since your magic draws on your attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a ranger spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell Save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus +your wisdom modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus +your wisdom modifier

Ranger Archetype
At 3rd level, you choose an archetype that you strive to emulate: detailed in the Players Handbook at the end of the ranger class description, and in other published materials. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 11th, and 15th level.

Beast Master (use Ranger Revised, UA)
Modification:
Coordinated Attack- Beginning at 5th level, you and your animal companion form a more potent fighting team. When you use the Attack action on your turn, if your companion can see you, it can use its reaction to make a melee attack. You may not use this feature and the Extra Attack feature in the same turn.

Primeval Awareness
Beginning at 3rd level, your mastery of ranger lore allows you to establish a powerful link to beasts and to the land around you.

You have an innate ability to communicate with beasts, and they recognize you as a kindred spirit. Through sounds and gestures, you can communicate simple ideas to a beast as an action, and can read its basic mood and intent. You learn its emotional state, whether it is affected by magic of any sort, its short-term needs (such as food or safety), and actions you can take (if any) to persuade it to not attack.

You cannot use this ability against a creature that you have attacked within the past 10 minutes.

Additionally, you can attune your senses to determine what creatures lurk nearby. By spending 1 uninterrupted minute in concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell), you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 5 miles of you, and their general direction: aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn't reveal the creatures' precise location or number.

Ability Score Improvement
When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Land Strider
PHB version. Text left out for copyright.

Hide in Plain Sight
Starting at 10th level, you can remain perfectly still for long periods of time to set up ambushes. When you attempt to hide on your turn, you can opt to not move on that turn. If you avoid moving, creatures that attempt to detect you take a −10 penalty to their Wisdom (Perception) checks until the start of your next turn. You lose this benefit if you move or fall prone, either voluntarily or because of some external effect. You are still automatically detected if any effect or action causes you to no longer be hidden. If you are still hidden on your next turn, you can continue to remain motionless and gain this benefit until you are detected.

Vanish and Escape
Starting at 14th level, you can use the Hide or Dash action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, you can't be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail. Moving through magical difficult terrain does not require extra movement.

Feral Senses
PHB version with slight alteration allowing you to be blinded but not deafened.

You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you, provided that the creature isn't hidden from you and you aren't deafened.

Apex Predator
At 20th level, you become an unparalleled hunter.

Once on each of your turns, you can add your Proficiency bonus to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied.
You have advantage on initiative rolls.


Ranger Spells
All official released Ranger spells.

snafuy
2019-05-30, 09:11 PM
You've put a lot of thought into your design. I think it's about the right power level.

I prefer to keep Favored Enemy as a mostly-permanent decision like it was in 1E 2E 3E, maybe allow one retraining per level-up if desired.

Perhaps Favored Enemy should grant advantage on all Wisdom-based skill checks relevant to that creature type. But in either this version or yours, it's stepping on the toes of Hunters Mark.

It looks like Whirling Blades style gets extra damage while keeping the bonus action for something else (not an extra extra offhand attack, right?) Do you limit it to just Rangers or do you add it to the standard list of Fighting Styles?