Ranger: Class Fantasy

[Trickery]

What is the Class Fantasy of the Ranger?

Rangers are the target of more reworks than perhaps any other class. Most of these reworks have added features, increased damage, or in some other way added things to the class. With the Revised Ranger, in particular, it feels like WotC just tacked as many features onto the Ranger as they could think of.

But I don't think that's the correct approach. I don't think many Ranger reworks have addressed the question: how should playing a Ranger feel?

Damage isn't the problem. Treantmonk demonstrated (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcqyGITBTv8) something many of us already knew, that even the Shatner'd-upon Beast Master Ranger could deal respectable damage.

I think the two core problems with the PHB Ranger are as follows:

Its features are clunky and difficult to use.
Its features don't point toward a party role or play style - or at least not one that works for D&D.


Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer, Primeval Awareness, Hide in Plain Sight, and even Land's Stride to a degree are weird and not very effective.

Favored Enemy makes you better at finding and talking to the enemy, but not better at fighting them. Perhaps you're less of a Drizzt Ranger and more of a Search and Rescue Ranger.
Primeval Awareness is something you use when you already think that there are creatures of that type within a few miles. It tells you you're right and that's all. Useless.
Natural Explorer helps you travel, but does nothing otherwise. This isn't helpful in campaigns that ignore travel - most of them, in my experience. You're better at one of the least interesting and most-skipped elements of play.
Land's Stride lets you ignore nonmagical difficult terrain, which is okay, but does nothing to protect against the magical difficult terrain that you'll probably encounter more often by the time you get it.
Hide in Plain Sight leaves the player wondering when they would even use it. When are you ever going to have time to spend one minute making camouflage and then stand still for the next while hiding without making a single move?
Vanish and Feral Senses are good, but they aren't level 14 and level 18-good. Rangers don't get their useful features until they're past the level where most of the game takes place.



What is the Ranger meant to do for the rest of the group? It's easy for a Rogue, Barbarian, Paladin, or even Monk or Fighter to answer that question. Looking at the mechanics with no preconceived notion, it's not as easy for a Ranger.
Their features make them seem like outdoorsmen sticking to particular areas and interacting with particular creatures. In real life, that's a legitimate role. But D&D is not real life. Rangers exist in a game that's about delving into dungeons and dealing with exotic foes. What is the Ranger as written even doing here? Why would Ranger Jack ever join a dungeon-delving adventuring party when his specialty is patrolling a forest?

The Revised Ranger mostly fixes the first problem. However, it throws a dragon's hoard of features onto class that already had complicated mechanics, and it turns the Ranger into an eco-friendly nuclear bomb in terms of damage. With its proficiency to damage vs Favored Enemies (of which all of humanoid is now a type), advantage on initiative, and ability to make four attacks per round at level 5 with advantage on all (TWF kobold BM ranger riding a wolf, if you're curious), the Revised Ranger goes two Chris Farleys past over-the-top in the combat department. More importantly, playing the Revised Ranger doesn't feel much different from playing a normal Ranger. The features are stronger, but the class still seems to have an identity crisis.

So, what should the class do? Is there a particular Fantasy character the Ranger should emulate? And what sort of role should the class fill in a D&D party if we designed it from scratch? If we can answer these questions, I think we can craft a better Ranger.

[Yora]

I've concluded for a while now that the reasons rangers seem to be bad in every edition is that nobody really knows what a ranger is supposed to be. "A nature warrior" seems to be the consensus, but it's never clear what that really means.

There appear to be exactly two reference points now: Aragon and Driz'zt. Aragon is a fighter who knows about herbs. Drizzt is a fighter with two swords. Tracking seems to be an obvious ability for rangers, but that's about it. And someone tacked on simple druid magic, because why not, but it always felt tacked on. The thing is, in a system with skills, there's no reason a fighter can't learn healing and tracking. And then there's not really much left, especially once the thief was turned into a Dexterity warrior with light armor.

I eventually made the choice to simply not have rangers on the list of available classes for my campaign. I don't know how to justify their existence either.

[Bjarkmundur]

I'd love to get in on this :)

Rogues, Fighters and Barbarians are all very similar, but play very differently. A player who loves playing barbarian might not enjoy the rogue or the fighter, even though you could say these classes are all similar. This is where the ranger fits in for me. It's another playstyle for the roster that a player can fall in love with.

My biggest problem is spells. I really don't think they fit the ranger I personally expect. Spells are a great way to have a collection of universal effects that classes and NPCs can draw upon, but there are ways to cast spells without spellcasting. I feel like invocations are a better fit. This would allow a player to piece together what he thinks a ranger is, with a combination of spells-like-effects, at-will effects and random shenanigans.

I made a small proof of concept a while ago, that looks like this. It felt much more natural than summoning and transmuting things WHEN YOU ARE NOT A DRUID.

Survival Skills.
At 2nd level, choose one spell from the ranger spell list. You can now cast that spell as a ritual, using only what you can find around you as material components. You can choose an additional spell at levels 5, 9, 13 and 17.
Example: Goodberry is just your superior ability to forage, alarm is an actual trap you make, cure wounds is a combination of herbs applied to a bruise as a salve, etc.

My second expectation is frequency of attacks. Coming from 4e, I also feel like the Ranger should a straightforward multiattacker. Archer gets Twin Strike, Drizzt get's duel-wielding, and the BM makes a ranger/beast attack combo. If this only makes sense against a single target, a small feature that encourages you to focus fire is easy to make.

I don't know why but none of the subclasses really got me. Personally, I want a ranger to pick his multi-attack and his invocations, and have the subclasses be more akin to rogue subclasses; small. On the scale of specificity the ranger already has a particular flavor, where most of it is decided by what he can do that others cant (invocations) and how he fights (multi-attack style). Adding giant subclass on-top of that is wildly unnecessary. I mean, with a class that maybe can access only a third of the invocations available to him, you can imagine how many different styles and flavors would be possible. A subclass doesn't need to do much to be effective.

I don't care about favored terrain, or enemy. I don't care about the Primeval Awareness. I just want a ranger that plays smoothly and consistently. The specifics can then be added by each player individually, via "Wilderness Knack", "Primeval Talent" or whathaveyou.

[Trickery]

Interesting. Regarding the idea of fluffing your own Ranger, that may be a hidden appeal of the Rogue class. Rogues have features with straightforward, flexible mechanics that can be explained with many different kinds of fluff. But the Ranger abilities are so specific and narrow that they paint a single, limited picture.

[Sparky McDibben]

There appear to be exactly two reference points now: Aragon and Driz'zt. Aragon is a fighter who knows about herbs. Drizzt is a fighter with two swords.

I assume you mean Aragorn. If you meant Eragon....yeesh. :)

I agree with your point, though. Actually, Aragorn's herb thing is really more a function of his lineage, right? "The hands of a king are the hands of a healer." Aragorn can use kingsfoil because of who he is, not due to his class training.

Drizzt is a Mary Sue (in the sense that everything in the story needs to revolve around him, not in that he is functionally broken as a character) who sort of murderizes through everything that stands in his way - he doesn't feel very much like a ranger when he's not in the Icewind Dale itself. Furthermore, most of ranger-y abilities there can be attributed to the fact that it is literally his favored terrain - he's lived there for decades!

I think there's this weird Venn diagram we do for D&D, where we feel the need to color in the overlap between martial characters and magic characters (Eldritch Knight, Paladin, Ranger, Hexblade, etc), instead of focusing on how we make those characters heroic without resorting to magic. For example, what makes Aragorn cool are that he's at home in a strange, inhospitable location, the very blunt "I've seen some ****" vibe we get, and that he straight-up flambe's a ghost. None of that really required magic - it requires skills!


I feel like invocations are a better fit. This would allow a player to piece together what he thinks a ranger is, with a combination of spells-like-effects, at-will effects and random shenanigans.

I love this idea! Mearls, if you're reading this, take notes! My idea for spell-less ranger has been to give the player an ASI whenever they would get a new level of ranger spells, but I like the invocation mechanic better.

I also would prefer it if the ranger didn't allow us to straight-up skip the wilderness mini-game, but rather opened up new options! Like, if you just go to the goblin lair, fine. But if you have a ranger guide you, there's more cool stuff you can find/get to! That would make me feel like I've managed to actively help the party, instead of just removing an obstacle.

[gkathellar]

Echoing remarks to the effect of, "nobody can agree or really knows." The ranger is a beastmaster and/or the archery guy and/or the two weapon guy and/or a fighter-druid and/or the guy who is handy in the woods and/or a hunter specialized against particular foes and/or etc. None of those strictly conflict, but they don't really harmonize until you cut the list down to 2-3 entries, and even then the result may not be coherent or interesting.


I've concluded for a while now that the reasons rangers seem to be bad in every edition is that nobody really knows what a ranger is supposed to be. "A nature warrior" seems to be the consensus, but it's never clear what that really means.

The one edition where rangers were absolutely superb was 4E, but it still goes to your point, since 4E leaned into a very specific class identity (skirmishing multi-attack fighter) and faltered when it tried to move away from said approach.

[Zetakya]

All of the different archetypes are sources for potential subclasses :)

In terms of other possible sources, I'd add Hettar the Horse-Lord from the Belgariad, who I've always thought of as one of the ways I would have liked Beastmaster Rangers to work...

In terms of tabletop abilities, the key one in mobility; both strategic (ability to roam at will over most of a continent without difficulty) and tactical (mobility in the actual fight).

[Morty]

As several people have already said, the root of the problem and the reason why the class is a mess is that there isn't one. The things people bring up are either a skill proficiency (survival) or maybe a subclass (skirmishing). Over time, features have piled up to try and do something about it, but they don't play into each other or form a coherent whole.

Ranger is a class that really probably shouldn't exist. But it has become a staple so it has to. There's no easy way out of this.

[Bjarkmundur]

I also would prefer it if the ranger didn't allow us to straight-up skip the wilderness mini-game, but rather opened up new options! Like, if you just go to the goblin lair, fine. But if you have a ranger guide you, there's more cool stuff you can find/get to!

The Artificer showed us that WotC is willing to have classes give the party as a whole access to stuff. I made a whole rant about this, but removed of from my post due to incoherence. I'd love for the WotC to step a bit on the DMs toes regarding storytelling, take a leap of faith, and have the ranger give access to some storytelling features.

There are some much dramatic stuff a ranger could do for a party. This is a pretty drastic idea, but imagine if ranger came with a pamphlet that allowed the character to add to the exploration element of a session.

DM: You are travelling through a barren tundra
Ranger: How long are we travelling for?
DM: 5 days and nights
Ranger: Cool, I get to roll on my tundra table twice!
DM: Wat
Ranger: Ah, we encounter a frozen ice cave, and meet with two CR 1/4 monsters. If we defeat them we get to roll once on a 0-4CR treasure hoard.
DM: Um, okey...

DM: You are travelling through a jungle
Ranger: How long are we travelling for?
DM: 3 days and nights
Ranger: Cool, I get to roll once on my jungle table!
DM: Wat
Ranger: Through my expertise of the wilderness I find a rare plant that serves as a Potion of Greater Healing if crushed into a paste and consumed within 24H.
DM: Um, okey...

DM: You are travelling through a dark forest
Ranger: How long are we travelling for?
DM: 14 days and nights
Ranger: Cool, I get to roll once on my extended dark forest table!
DM: Wat
Ranger: We get to a crossroad with the following description, and have to choose which way to go.
DM: Wait who's running this session?

The only time i considered to play a ranger in 5e was to REALLY push into the exploration aspect of the game. Only to realize that me knowing stuff does nothing for the game; it all comes from the GM. If my GM doesn't like coming up with interesting locations (or googling them), I'm just a ranger hunting for non-existing fey crossings :/

Dream Ranger:

[*=1]Multiattacker (choose between melee, ranged or beast)
[*=1]Encourages focus fire, but doesn't enforce it.
[*=1]Uses Invocations instead of class features.
[*=1]Gives Exploration opportunities, rather than exploration bonuses.
[*=1]6th level feature that expands upon the melee/ranged/beast archetype
[*=1]1st level subclasses that gives a main feature right away (like cleric or warlock). This way you could go "Herbal Healer" with salves or poultice, but still have a multi-attack: beast. Or you could go Multi-attack: Beast and the Beast subclass, which might grant a channel divinity like power that allows you and your beast to 'Action Surge' a couple of times per long rest. Just something short, sweet and useful. Clean enough to not confuse, but modular enough to allow people to mix and match to get THEIR ranger.

[Nagog]

I feel like invocations are a better fit.

Agreed, having a few set at-will abilities similar to Invocations would make a Ranger really stand out among Martial Classes. I can imagine things like being able to disguise themselves (Different from Mask of Many Faces, as this would be a use of a disguise kit rather than a spell), lay traps for Area Control, gain insight into how to use the terrain around them to their advantage (regardless of favored terrain and such because that mechanic is stupid and everybody knows it), or even to do things with an Animal Companion. Pretty much anything that allows them to synergize with their subclasses and create a more distinct play style.

I've mentioned it on other threads regarding the Ranger, and I still feel a good role for them to fill would be Area Control. They already have a few really good spells for it, like Entangle and Spike Growth, but the heavy reliance on Concentration for the Ranger spells and the fact that they share these spells with Druids (who also have some nifty other spells like Vine Whip) means they fill this role lackluster at best. If they had a few class features to improve their area control (perhaps a select few spells are not concentration for them?) and mobility akin to a Monk to get around their controlled area, they would really stand out as a unique and capable class.

Another fun route to take with the Ranger could be mounted combat. Currently there are a few spells and a few options for mounted combat, but there isn't really much of a go-to build for it. Perhaps Rangers could fill that role? Perhaps have a spell similar to Find Familiar, but it summons a Mount instead of a small creature. This could allow the mount to adapt to the environment they're in, allows it to be taken with the player when they quick travel (like teleportation) without losing them.

[Sigreid]

I've got a bit of a different take on where the ranger comes from. In 1e, the ranger was a fighter specialization that developed extrodinary abilities (wizard and druid spells) had wilderness survival skills and could only have in treasure what he and his horse could carry. He was a roaming agent of good. To my way of thinking, originally it was putting the Lone Ranger into D&D.

[Nagog]

The Artificer showed us that WotC is willing to have classes give the party as a whole access to stuff. I made a whole rant about this, but removed of from my post due to incoherence. I'd love for the WotC to step a bit on the DMs toes regarding storytelling, take a leap of faith, and have the ranger give access to some storytelling features.

There are some much dramatic stuff a ranger could do for a party. This is a pretty drastic idea, but imagine if ranger came with a pamphlet that allowed the character to add to the exploration element of a session.

DM: You are travelling through a barren tundra
Ranger: How long are we travelling for?
DM: 5 days and nights
Ranger: Cool, I get to roll on my tundra table twice!
DM: Wat
Ranger: Ah, we encounter a frozen ice cave, and meet with two CR 1/4 monsters. If we defeat them we get to roll once on a 0-4CR treasure hoard.
DM: Um, okey...

DM: You are travelling through a jungle
Ranger: How long are we travelling for?
DM: 3 days and nights
Ranger: Cool, I get to roll once on my jungle table!
DM: Wat
Ranger: Through my expertise of the wilderness I find a rare plant that serves as a Potion of Greater Healing if crushed into a paste and consumed within 24H.
DM: Um, okey...

DM: You are travelling through a dark forest
Ranger: How long are we travelling for?
DM: 14 days and nights
Ranger: Cool, I get to roll once on my extended dark forest table!
DM: Wat
Ranger: We get to a crossroad with the following description, and have to choose which way to go.
DM: Wait who's running this session?

The only time i considered to play a ranger in 5e was to REALLY push into the exploration aspect of the game. Only to realize that me knowing stuff does nothing for the game; it all comes from the GM. If my GM doesn't like coming up with interesting locations (or googling them), I'm just a ranger hunting for non-existing fey crossings :/

Dream Ranger:

[*=1]Multiattacker (choose between melee, ranged or beast)
[*=1]Encourages focus fire, but doesn't enforce it.
[*=1]Uses Invocations instead of class features.
[*=1]Gives Exploration opportunities, rather than exploration bonuses.
[*=1]6th level feature that expands upon the melee/ranged/beast archetype
[*=1]1st level subclasses that gives a main feature right away (like cleric or warlock). This way you could go "Herbal Healer" with salves or poultice, but still have a multi-attack: beast. Or you could go Multi-attack: Beast and the Beast subclass, which might grant a channel divinity like power that allows you and your beast to 'Action Surge' a couple of times per long rest. Just something short, sweet and useful. Clean enough to not confuse, but modular enough to allow people to mix and match to get THEIR ranger.


The only issue I see with this expansion to the Ranger is it has the potential to derail the entire campaign plot with encounters and time fill that the DM was not planning for. As a DM, I typically plan a session to have a good encounter (Combat or Interaction, sometimes both), some character decision making, and plot progression. Fitting all of that in a 3-4 hour session can be difficult, and if one of my players takes the reigns and adds in another combat encounter, obtaining of items I didn't get the chance to review and authorize, or plot elements that don't fit with the flow of the story I'm telling, then why do I plan for the session at all? In my mind, a good class should work well for both the player and the DM, and this revision gives the Ranger DM power, which leaves the DM at a loss for what they really have to offer. It's one thing for a player to step on another player's toes, that is viable and can work. But as soon as the player begins taking the world and molding it to their liking, it essentially becomes DM vs. DM, which isn't fun for anybody involved.

[Zetakya]

I don't like that random tables idea; anything like that should be run by the DM, not by player fiat.

[Nidgit]

Aragorn and Drizzt don't need to be the only points of reference. Geralt hits pretty much every criteria one could generally have for a Ranger. Van Helsing hits most of them within the Gothic genre.

[Waazraath]

What is the ranger?
- skill user, especially when tracking (mabye should get advantage there)
- fighting (wo)man, though obviously not as strong as the Fighter
- secondary healer
- friend of beasts
- self-sufficient; should be bit a jack of all trades because of that, and definitely be at home in the wildernis
- wise/smart, uses his head and cunning in addition to fighting skill.

Plenty to make a class, I should say.

Can you make something like this from other classes? Yeah, Fighter, Rogue or ever barbarian with the right feats/background. But that doesn't matter, same case could be made for a Paladin.

If you ask me, it was a flaw to make the beastie optional and a subclass. If any ranger would have gotten one, as in 3.x, and without the clunky system to order it around in 5e, it would have had a lot more options. Maybe a subclass to augment it to make it really a powerhouse.

Oh well.

[Lille]

If you ask me, it was a flaw to make the beastie optional and a subclass. If any ranger would have gotten one, as in 3.x, and without the clunky system to order it around in 5e, it would have had a lot more options. Maybe a subclass to augment it to make it really a powerhouse.

Maybe give Rangers access to Find Familiar, and give certain subclasses the ability to upgrade it (e.g. Find Steed), but without some of the more magical aspects (e.g. still treating the familiar/steed as a beast, rather than celestial/fey/fiend).

[Zetakya]

You can find and train normal, non-magical animals perfectly well with a bit of time and the Animal Handling skill; that's what it's *for*.



Anyway, let's try to nail down things we agree *should* be in any revised Ranger Class:

Hit Points:
Hit Dice: d10
Hitpoints at first level: 10 + your CON modifier
Hitpoints at higher levels: d10 + your CON modifier per ranger level after 1st

Proficiencies:
Light Armour, Medium Armour, Shields (?)
Simple and Martial Weapons
STR and DEX Saving Throws

Any three (? two? four?) skills from:
Animal Handling
Athletics
Insight
Investigation
Nature
Perception
Stealth
Survival

Starting Equipment
(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

[Trickery]

I quite like the idea of invocations instead of spells on a Ranger. That said, the invocations need to be designed with a particular direction in mind. What is that direction for Rangers? The consensus seems to be something like a highly-mobile monster hunter with high single target damage and some utility. That seems to fit Drizzt, Aragorn, and Geralt while also lining up with previous versions of the class.

[Bjarkmundur]

The only issue I see with this expansion to the Ranger is it has the potential to derail the entire campaign plot.


I don't like that random tables idea; anything like that should be run by the DM, not by player fiat.

I guess my example was a bit extreme, but you at least get the point. You pick ranger for that exploration pillar.

Just like how the Treasure Hoard and Magic Item tables are optional, they give a DM some sense of direction. Just the fact that they exist as published material add the expectation to both the Player and The DM that, in any way shape or form, treasure will be acquired.

The Ranger pamphlet would do the same. It's a read, published additional content, that gets the DM into the mindset of the ranger player. It's a way of communicating the idea to a DM that a ranger player wants to make the most out of his exploration pillar. Just the fact that they exist add the expectation to both the Player and The DM that, in any way shape or form, a ranger will find stuff in the wilderness. Just like majority of the optional use, it's rarely actually going to see any use without change.

Hell, the number of locked doors and chests in my campaign SKYROCKETS as soon as a player becomes proficient with thieve's tools, or picks up a crowbar. It's so easy to give player the chance to use a tool, it's silly not to entertain the players specific character creation choices. When a player picks up an odd skill or tool, I love going through official material for examples on how it is used during gameplay.

Let's say WotC would publish a book about 'The Wilderness', which would include some new subclasses, additional spells and items, and a ranger. When I get that new ranger in my group, I would without a doubt read the book, and be immediately influenced by the examples of wilderness travel and exotic locations in that book. I'd think "hey, cool. This is where the ranger comes it. I'll probably use this when my group travels to the new area between levels 3-4".

I think expansive and clunky rules are more likely to see simplification and use, than simple rules are to see houseruled expansions and use. Just like hirelings. If we would get a 4000 page encyclopedia on hirelings, it would just be cherry picked for mechanics and inspiration. With just simple rules, like the ones we have now, hirelings are used sparingly in most campaigns, if ever.

Any DM who runs multiple different systems knows the power of published material; it severely changes the focus of the campaign.

I can go on forever how player choice should affect the campaign, and how official content can change how a game is run. but I don't want this rant to get rantier ^^

I'd suggest a twin strike feature that results in the ranger dealing respectable damage at stating at an appropriate level using one action and two attack rolls. This would have to specify you can do it with a bow, crossbow, two non-light weapons or "when you take the attack action you can command your beast to move half its speed and make a single melee attack against the same creature that deals 1d8 damage. "

This could be the big starting feature, with some added stuff. Bows get something extra (+1 attack? increased damage dice? advantage mechanic?), melee gets something extra (cunning action?) and combined attack grants an animal companion. I'd call them Twin Strike, Dual Strike and Combined Attack. Balancing these will be tough, but once it is done, the ranger is basically all set for the combat pillar. This would then be expanded upon at level 5, 11 and 17 with specific mechanics for each fighting style. Based on balance, these would give some bonus damage, and maybe some additional benefit to differentiate the styles.

I can imagine the ranger having no subclasses, since it is itself a subclass. We can use all that design space to instead make a bigger, better, badder ranger. This might seem weird, but imagine how much more interesting the invocations can be if we don't have to make space for subclasses. Using both invocations and subclasses would just mean that the invocations will have to be small and unimpactful, and the subclasses will just force some arbitrary opportunity cost on a class we're already struggling with.

[Trickery]

I agree with several others that giving Rangers something like invocations instead of spells would be a good direction to take the class. Neither Aragorn or Drizzt casts spells. Additionally, many players like the fact that Rangers are a class that can do many things, but the class can never be allowed to do many things well at the same time as that would be overpowered. Warlock-style invocations, some always-on and some spell-like, make the most sense for the class.

Maybe it would be helpful to talk about just one ability: Track. Track is an iconic feature for Rangers to have not just in D&D, but in virtually any game in which they appear. Any reworked Ranger ought to take this feature into consideration as it's one of the more Ranger-y things that Rangers typically do.

What would Track do in this edition? If I wrote it, I would have it function similar to Locate Creature. I might write it like this: If you know that a creature has passed through your current area within the last day, you can attempt to Track that creature. By spending an action, you determine whether that creature is within one mile of you. If so, you sense the direction to the creature's location.

[Sindeloke]

If you ask me, it was a flaw to make the beastie optional and a subclass. If any ranger would have gotten one, as in 3.x, and without the clunky system to order it around in 5e, it would have had a lot more options. Maybe a subclass to augment it to make it really a powerhouse.

Oh well.

Yeah, World of Warcraft had it right on this one. Ranger is the guy who can go it alone, because he's never actually alone.

It's not Everyone's Flavor of Ranger, fine, but it is the only thing Ranger has historically that remains a unique and exploitable niche in the 5e class landscape.

[Trask]

The Ranger is the Druid what the Paladin is to the Cleric, IMO. Taking that element of nature magic and combining with a more martial, warrior tradition rather than a more priestly tradition. Similarly, just as the Paladin has the added knighty aspect of oaths, the Ranger has the aspect of the predator. I dont know if its very well fleshed out but thats what I feel about it, I've always felt like the Ranger has a decent place in the game.

[Davehotep]

The Ranger has always been my favourite class flavour wise but I’ve never played one for the reasons so eloquently put by the OP. It’s a class that doesn’t really feel like anything.
I’ve been working on my own spell-less Ranger class for a while but I’m finding it really hard to balance. I made hunters mark a class feature and, Instead of magic, I drew inspiration from battlemaster fighter and came up with Rangercraft, where a player can pick from a list of different practical skills.
For example they can learn how to craft poisons that different effects or create healing tonics and poultices. Then there’s falconry, where the ranger essentially gets a non magical bird familiar that can obey a handful of simple instructions. I also created a diluted magic rangercraft option so a player can still have a small amount of magic to play with.
Home brew (that will likely never see the light of day) aside, I’ve created my own version of the ranger to play in a future campaign. He’s a half elf archery focussed battlemaster fighter, whose manoeuvres are essentially trick shots. Throw in some ranger appropriate skills, proficiency with the herbalism kit and a custom woodsman background and he feels more like a ranger than the actual class does!

[Trickery]

The Ranger has always been my favourite class flavour wise but I’ve never played one for the reasons so eloquently put by the OP. It’s a class that doesn’t really feel like anything.
I’ve been working on my own spell-less Ranger class for a while but I’m finding it really hard to balance. I made hunters mark a class feature and, Instead of magic, I drew inspiration from battlemaster fighter and came up with Rangercraft, where a player can pick from a list of different practical skills.
For example they can learn how to craft poisons that different effects or create healing tonics and poultices. Then there’s falconry, where the ranger essentially gets a non magical bird familiar that can obey a handful of simple instructions. I also created a diluted magic rangercraft option so a player can still have a small amount of magic to play with.
Home brew (that will likely never see the light of day) aside, I’ve created my own version of the ranger to play in a future campaign. He’s a half elf archery focussed battlemaster fighter, whose manoeuvres are essentially trick shots. Throw in some ranger appropriate skills, proficiency with the herbalism kit and a custom woodsman background and he feels more like a ranger than the actual class does!

Those are interesting ideas.

It just occurred to me that the Ranger's favored enemy and favored terrain could have been expressed as invocation-style features instead. Perhaps what matters is not the specific enemy or terrain, but the skills and tactics the Ranger would use to deal with it.

[Morty]

What is the ranger?
- skill user, especially when tracking (mabye should get advantage there)
- fighting (wo)man, though obviously not as strong as the Fighter
- secondary healer
- friend of beasts
- self-sufficient; should be bit a jack of all trades because of that, and definitely be at home in the wildernis
- wise/smart, uses his head and cunning in addition to fighting skill.

Plenty to make a class, I should say.

Can you make something like this from other classes? Yeah, Fighter, Rogue or ever barbarian with the right feats/background. But that doesn't matter, same case could be made for a Paladin.


A lack of features has never been a problem. The issue is that those features don't synergize, don't play together and generally add up to three mini-classes in a trenchcoat, rather than a proper class. Paladin is different in that its 5E incarnation feels like more than a sum of its parts. It's not just a martial/divine hybrid - there's smite, there's auras and so on. If the ranger is to be a proper class, it needs something that similarly stands out.

[mealar]

Gonna jump on the invocation train that sounds awesome maybe with a twist on the maneuvers from the battle-master to keep it a more martial focus.

My ideal of the Ranger is something a little like the Arcane Archers sub-class, weaving magic into the weapon attacks (lightning arrow and Hail of thorns seem like the right direction to me) so maybe a 1/3 caster to get the odd spell and the invocations to fill in the more common usage attacks, not sure never been all up on class design.

As an aside has anyone read the Bowl of Souls series cause Justan seems like a solid combo Magic/melee/ranged to draw on

we should subtlety drop this thread on the WOTC office mail box, some solid ideas

[ZenBear]

I have always envisioned Rangers as a Rogue subclass. Half-caster with Druid spells the way a Paladin is a half-caster Fighter with Cleric spells. I would rework the Rogue class as a general Dex-based skirmisher with Expertise in skills determined by the subclass. Rangers would have Nature and Survival of course.

[Trickery]

I have always envisioned Rangers as a Rogue subclass. Half-caster with Druid spells the way a Paladin is a half-caster Fighter with Cleric spells. I would rework the Rogue class as a general Dex-based skirmisher with Expertise in skills determined by the subclass. Rangers would have Nature and Survival of course.

Like the Scout subclass? A lot of us said when it came out that Scout Rogue was a better ranger than the Ranger. And it does fit one idea of the Ranger better than the base Ranger. But then, so does the Monster Hunter Fighter, and so does the Arcane Archer.

If Rangers could do all of these things well with their base features, they would either be overpowered as a class, or we would need to break their features up into invocations.

I think invocations are the right idea.

[Bjarkmundur]

It just occurred to me that the Ranger's favored enemy and favored terrain could have been expressed as invocation-style features instead. Perhaps what matters is not the specific enemy or terrain, but the skills and tactics the Ranger would use to deal with it.

It's actually kind of perfect. I can easily see a player choose an invocation that grants a "demon-hunter" package, and others ignoring it in favor of more "arcane arrow" type abilities.

Having each favored enemy be a seperate invocations also allows for more specific packages, and therefor increasing immersion for the player.

The part I like about invocations instead of spells, is that they all run of separate resources, which I think is a huge deal.

[GloatingSwine]

I've concluded for a while now that the reasons rangers seem to be bad in every edition is that nobody really knows what a ranger is supposed to be. "A nature warrior" seems to be the consensus, but it's never clear what that really means.

There appear to be exactly two reference points now: Aragon and Driz'zt. Aragon is a fighter who knows about herbs. Drizzt is a fighter with two swords. .

Aragorn is the reference point for quite a lot of the ranger. It's not just that he "knows about herbs", he knows a hell of a lot about the world at large. He knows the hidden paths nobody else can navigate, he knows how to hunt, track, and survive like no other mortal man, he knows his foes' strengths and weaknesses, etc.

That's why one branch of the ranger is the "nature warrior", because he's the one who lives in the wilds as easily as the rogue lives in the back alleys of a city.

On top of that, I think rather than locking in a "favoured enemy" the ranger's ability to get bonuses against specific things should be a versatile thing, rather than the current selecting a class of enemy you select something more specific but can change it on a Long Rest, and at higher levels share the bonus with party members as long as they rested with you.

[Sindeloke]

Invocations are literally just "class features a la carte" so I honestly don't think that solves the identity problem at all. It also offloads the burden of "making sure my features actually synergize" onto the player - favored terrain turns from a cute ribbon to a legitimate trap option, for example - which pushes strongly against the general philosophy of 5e.

I mean, the warlock works and a lot of people love it but it's also a weird complicated mess that only gets talked about in serious mechanical discussion as a multiclass supplement to a different primary class (incidentally, one of the major complaints about the Revised Ranger as well). Surely we want the ranger to be something more coherent and fully realized than that.

[ZenBear]

Like the Scout subclass? A lot of us said when it came out that Scout Rogue was a better ranger than the Ranger. And it does fit one idea of the Ranger better than the base Ranger. But then, so does the Monster Hunter Fighter, and so does the Arcane Archer.

If Rangers could do all of these things well with their base features, they would either be overpowered as a class, or we would need to break their features up into invocations.

I think invocations are the right idea.

Yes, except the Scout doesn’t have spells. The invocation idea is just good all around, and ought to be applied to every class.

[Waazraath]

Yes, except the Scout doesn’t have spells. The invocation idea is just good all around, and ought to be applied to every class.

Please no. Personally I love it, and the added layer of choice/complexity, but there are plenty of players who want it as simple as possible and who don't want to make a lot of mechanical choices in their build. D&D should stay accessible to them as well.

[KorvinStarmast]

I've got a bit of a different take on where the ranger comes from. In 1e, the ranger was a fighter specialization that developed extrodinary abilities (wizard and druid spells) had wilderness survival skills and could only have in treasure what he and his horse could carry. He was a roaming agent of good. To my way of thinking, originally it was putting the Lone Ranger into D&D. Yes, which was an expansion on the role Aragorn played and which informed the Ranger as first published in Strategic review. He's not the stick in the mud that the paladin is, but he's a Fighter with magical upgrades and a particular specialty.

The Ranger is the Druid what the Paladin is to the Cleric, IMO. T That too.

Drzzt is just ... wrong. (though the books were easy reading on the beach in the summer)

[Mortis_Elrod]

Ranger has always been one of my favorite classes in terms of ideas, but consistently disappointed me in play. So i made my own (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/ByZPaZWkZS).

In terms of fantasy, the ranger to me has a few clear things.

Mobility
Skillful
trained in fighting with multiple weapons
explores
self sufficient
has an innate connection to nature(or some specific aspect)
can adapt to their surroundings and situations easily.


In terms of what they bring to the party
Tracking, guiding, and knowledge of the environment
small amounts of healing
sustained single target damage
control or utility based spells
searching for specific things
a flexible combat position (long range, to skirmish and switch hit, to possibly a dodge tank).



The ranger is gonna be the guy who can smell the storm before it approaches, He's gonna be the guy to know that bears shouldn't be this far south and the party should go north to see whats happening. He's gonna be the one to shoot his arrows at the same spot to open up a hole in an enemies armor or hide. to the ranger, there is no difference between civilization and the rest of the world, and she'll treat the cities as her personal cement jungle. She's faster than most, and trusts her instincts. The ranger grows stronger as the fight continues, outpacing those who would waste all their energy in the first few seconds.

If the party were to be ambushed, the ranger is the one to react first. The ranger might be the one prevent disease and sickness after a hard battle with venomous foes, or give small amounts of healing to the injured. The ranger is at the very heart, a reliable flexible member of the party. given time to prepare the ranger might find something around thats useful.

Ranger's lead the way. Paladin's hold the line.
Paladin's nova. Ranger's are consistent.

Rogues are masters of skill. Rangers are masters of the environment.

Fighters are soldiers, knights, and duelists. Rangers are scouts, skirmishers, and raiders.

Barbarians are reckless. Rangers are studious.

Monks improve the mind and body. Ranger improves their ability to survive.

[ZenBear]

Please no. Personally I love it, and the added layer of choice/complexity, but there are plenty of players who want it as simple as possible and who don't want to make a lot of mechanical choices in their build. D&D should stay accessible to them as well.

Which is where Archetypes come in. City of Heroes is a game that did this quite well. A wealth of options for those who care to figure it out, and quick builds for those who want an simple thematic character.

[Waazraath]

Which is where Archetypes come in. City of Heroes is a game that did this quite well. A wealth of options for those who care to figure it out, and quick builds for those who want an simple thematic character.

Fair enough, in that case it could work.

[Kane0]

Invocations are cool but the way they are being talked about here replacing spellcasting it does seem like 'features a la carte', or worse yet a return to previous editions' style of implementing feats. It would be a tough balancing act to pull off.

[Trickery]

Invocations are cool but the way they are being talked about here replacing spellcasting it does seem like 'features a la carte', or worse yet a return to previous editions' style of implementing feats. It would be a tough balancing act to pull off.

Right. There would need to be a balance between invocations and built-in features. For example, all Rangers should have extra attack, Hunter's Mark, and Track, in my opinion.

[Kane0]

So if you're looking at Invocations the question becomes what becomes an Invoc and what stays as a core class feature? I'll put my votes in brackets.

Fighting Style (CF)
Natural Explorer (Invoc)
Favored Enemy (Invoc)
Hunter's Mark (CF under new name Quarry)
Primeval Awareness (CF, with Invocs granting additional functions using it)
Mobility spells/Fleet of Foot/Land's Stride (Subclass/Invoc)
HiPS (Invoc)
Vanish (Invoc)
Camouflage (Invoc)
Feral Senses (CF)

Bonus Round!
Spellcasting/Rituals (Subclass/Invoc)
Archery spells (Subclass/Invoc)
Nature Utility spells (Invoc)
Healing Salves/spells (Invoc)
Find Companion/Steed (Subclass/Invoc)
Superiority Dice (Invoc)
Wildshape (Invoc)

Which would mean we would need to introduce some extra CFs or change these so they make for better CFs, which nobody seems to be able to agree on. Sort of back to where we started, eh?

[Trickery]

So if you're looking at Invocations the question becomes what becomes an Invoc and what stays as a core class feature? I'll put my votes in brackets.

Fighting Style (CF)
Natural Explorer (Invoc)
Favored Enemy (Invoc)
Hunter's Mark (CF under new name Quarry)
Primeval Awareness (CF, with Invocs granting additional functions using it)
Mobility spells/Fleet of Foot/Land's Stride (Subclass/Invoc)
HiPS (Invoc)
Vanish (Invoc)
Camouflage (Invoc)
Feral Senses (CF)

Bonus Round!
Spellcasting/Rituals (Subclass/Invoc)
Archery spells (Subclass/Invoc)
Nature Utility spells (Invoc)
Healing Salves/spells (Invoc)
Find Companion/Steed (Subclass/Invoc)
Superiority Dice (Invoc)
Wildshape (Invoc)

Which would mean we would need to introduce some extra CFs or change these so they make for better CFs, which nobody seems to be able to agree on. Sort of back to where we started, eh?

Well, we certainly have a direction now. I was taking some notes myself and came up with some ideas for invocations. Rather than requiring a spellcasting class, I thought it should be possible to express spells as features. For example, Zephyr Strike could be simplified to: Your next weapon attack has advantage and deals 1d8 extra force damage on a hit. For one minute, your movement does not provoke opportunity attacks. Once you've used this feature, you must complete a short rest before you can do so again.

And there could be categories for such abilities. Perhaps Rangers can have invocation traps, such as the spell Snare, but it takes one minute to place a trap and it can only be placed in one spot at a time. Healing poultices might have effects like healing a target for HP equal to twice the Ranger's level or removing one disease or poison on the target and could be usable three times per day. And there could be invocations for utility spells that are always-on. Instead of being able to take the spell Darkvision, Rangers could have an invocation called Cat's Eyes that gives the Ranger darkvision and expertise on Perception checks relying on sight.

Those were my thoughts. I like your suggestions and agree with your conclusions on most of them. Some thoughts:

I agree with fighting style, hunter's mark, feral senses, and some mobility features being core.
Regarding mobility features, we could probably just give Rangers a core feature to dash / disengage as a bonus action.
I think that superiority dice work better on a subclass.
Natural Explorer makes sense as an invocation, but it makes more sense to me to just give the Ranger the benefits of this feature in all of the terrains listed rather than limiting the Ranger to just one. None of the terrains are city or dungeon, which is where players spend most of their time, so I don't think it would be overpowered to just grant this as an invocation (or even a core feature) called Outdoorsman, Wanderer, or some-such. Or just Natural Explorer.
Favored Enemy I think could be replaced with specific types of combat benefits, but it might be even better to put this into its own subclass similar to the Monster Hunter. Not all Rangers devote their lives to fighting specific types of creatures, but the ones who do ought to get some truly special benefits.
Vanish as invocation - definitely.
Primeval Awareness and Hide in Plain Sight - I don't particularly like these features. I'd just as soon get rid of them and focus on other invocations. Why not change Primeval Awareness to a proper Track feature and make it core? And why keep Hide in Plain Sight when we could just make Pass Without Trace a once/short rest invocation?

[Sigreid]

Alright, I'll take a shot at what I think the ranger should be.

The ranger is a protector/guardian, not of the wilderness so much as from the threats that come out of the wilderness.

All rangers should be adept at confronting opponents far from the support knights or an army would expect to have. Identifying a wilderness that is "tainted" or inhabited by monsters. The ability to track horrors in the wilderness. And the ability to survive in and navigate the wilderness for an extended hunt, either alone or with a small band of allies. The typical ranger moves from settlement to settlement looking for signs of danger from the wilderness.

Like with the fighter, the base class should contain all the features necessary to be competent in most situations.

Archetypes:

The Monster Slayer: Abilities that aid in combating abominations, monstrosities and lycanthrops.

The Bandit Hunter: Abilities that revolve around effectively dealing with bandits and raiders, possibly including traps and skirmishing skills.

The Beast Warden (Pokemon Master): Tending to the well-being of the of the beasts. Abilities would be things like the ability to move freely among even the most ferocious of beasts. The ability to communicate with beasts. The ability to form a bond, and share his strength with an animal "brother".

[Yora]

I just had the thought that even when you have a pretty good idea what a ranger is supposed to be like, it's about the application of abilities, but not about any special abilities.

A fighter/rogue with typical fighter and rogue abilities could already completely adequately provide a character with any abilities that would make a ranger.

Having a separate ranger class does not add any new abilities to that.

[Sindal]

I'm not sure about the invocation ideas but

To me the easiest way to describe rangers id that theyre basicly...proactive fighters. Learn of a problem, find the problem and snuff it out as fast as possible.

[Kane0]

To flip the tables somewhat: define ‘fighter’.

I don’t think there will be answers that are more consistent than the ranger. I’d wager its not the only class with an identity problem

[Morty]

To flip the tables somewhat: define ‘fighter’.

I don’t think there will be answers that are more consistent than the ranger. I’d wager its not the only class with an identity problem

Just about every D&D class has an identity problem on some level. The class list as a whole is kind of a mess. But in practical terms, rangers appear to have it worse than others. The fighter class at least lets people play dirt-simple or slightly less dirt-simple beatsticks without problems.

[DanyBallon]

The Ranger was in its beginning the ‘’ nature ‘’ skill monkey of the fighting class with a splash of healing. He was good in the exploration pillar when D&D wasn’t just about killing everything. Now, even the rogue is a better fighter than the ranger whereas in the past rogue focused mostly around exploration and social pillars.

In 5e, the Ranger is the only class that the devs tried to focus on a different aspect of the game, and I believe, it’s one of the major reason it feels underwhelming.

The game have changed toward a more combat centric entity over the last 20 years (for better or worst), and through those change the old ranger vocation lost its usefulness.
I think that in 5e Rangers would be better deserve as subclasses for Fighter, Rogue (rogues already have the scout) and maybe Druid.

[Waazraath]

The Ranger was in its beginning the ‘’ nature ‘’ skill monkey of the fighting class with a splash of healing. He was good in the exploration pillar when D&D wasn’t just about killing everything. Now, even the rogue is a better fighter than the ranger whereas in the past rogue focused mostly around exploration and social pillars.

In 5e, the Ranger is the only class that the devs tried to focus on a different aspect of the game, and I believe, it’s one of the major reason it feels underwhelming.

The game have changed toward a more combat centric entity over the last 20 years (for better or worst), and through those change the old ranger vocation lost its usefulness.
I think that in 5e Rangers would be better deserve as subclasses for Fighter, Rogue (rogues already have the scout) and maybe Druid.

As 5e is now, I'd say a subclass from Rogue (despite it being a 'warrior in earlier editions). At least, if they want to keep the same flavour it has now. Think about it: Rogue is either ranged, or finesse, and it's one of the few classes for which 2wf is worth it. It also is a skirmisher. And it has the class abilities to be a really good tracker / scout (with expertise and other skill enhancers). Give the subclass minor healing, an animal buddy (with specials, like familiar / steed), and you're set.

Scout is terrible designed btw, especially as a replacement for Ranger. Survivalist (lvl3) gives you 2 skills (nature and survival), but only if you don't have 'em yet, and gives expertise. No player is going to pass on the 2 free skills, so almost all scouts will start without knowledge on survival and nature, and then suddenly, at lvl 3, turn into absolute experts. That's terrible, and could have easily have been avoided if the ability would have had a clause "if you already have these skills, pick another", just like the Purple Dragon Knight lvl 7 ability.

[paladinn]

The Ranger was in its beginning the ‘’ nature ‘’ skill monkey of the fighting class with a splash of healing. He was good in the exploration pillar when D&D wasn’t just about killing everything. Now, even the rogue is a better fighter than the ranger whereas in the past rogue focused mostly around exploration and social pillars.

In 5e, the Ranger is the only class that the devs tried to focus on a different aspect of the game, and I believe, it’s one of the major reason it feels underwhelming.

The game have changed toward a more combat centric entity over the last 20 years (for better or worst), and through those change the old ranger vocation lost its usefulness.
I think that in 5e Rangers would be better deserve as subclasses for Fighter, Rogue (rogues already have the scout) and maybe Druid.

Definitely a fighter subclass. People forget that rangers started out as a fighter subclass, and really only became a separate class in 3.0. That's where it needs to be; there just aren't enough distinguishing features to make it a class of its own. Since 3.x, there have been constant attempts to find a ranger's "thing". 20 years and they haven't found it yet.

A ranger would benefit greatly from the fighter's "basic" abilities; then just take the rangers (few) good features and make an archetype. Personally I'd borrow the barbarian's "danger sense".

[Zetakya]

You can actually make a pretty good Ranger-substitute by using an Archfey Warlock with either Blade or Chain Pact

Choose some combination of the following Eldritch Invocations, depending on what you are trying to achieve (with potentially some reflavouring):

Beast Speech
Devil's Sight
Eldritch Smite
Fiendish Vigor
Gaze of Two Minds
Ghostly Gaze
Gift of the Depths
Gift of the Ever-Living Ones
Improved Pact Weapon
One with Shadows
Otherworldly Leap
Relentless Hex
Shroud of Shadow
Thirsting Blade
Trickster's Escape
Visions of Distant Realms
Voice of the Chain Master
Witch Sight

[PeteNutButter]

To flip the tables somewhat: define ‘fighter’.


I came here to say the problem isn't the ranger, it's the fighter. Class identity just isn't on a similar level. If you put 5e classes on a grocery list they would look like this:

Apples
Bananas
Fruit
Oranges
Pears
...

With Fighter being the "Fruit" in the list of other specific fruits. You can have different types of oranges or apples just like you can have different barbarians and paladins, but they are all still fruit. The fighter is just too broad of an identity that it encompasses pretty much everything (with the possible exception of full casters).

I'm not saying they should change it. There's too much history baked into D&D for them to start upending the classes, but if it were to be created fresh I suspect either all these other classes (Barbarian, Paladin, Monk and even Rogue) would be subclasses of fighter or the fighter would simply not exist. You'll note that in many other IPs the fighter/warrior class tends to blend with the barbarian or paladin concepts in D&D.

As for the ranger, personally I think thye should play up the hunter, stalker, predator aspect, lean into the witcher idea, because its awesome. No matter how they do it, people will always ask, "Why can't I just take the survival skill and do that as a fighter?"

[Trickery]

I came here to say the problem isn't the ranger, it's the fighter. Class identity just isn't on a similar level. If you put 5e classes on a grocery list they would look like this:

Apples
Bananas
Fruit
Oranges
Pears
...

With Fighter being the "Fruit" in the list of other specific fruits. You can have different types of oranges or apples just like you can have different barbarians and paladins, but they are all still fruit. The fighter is just too broad of an identity that it encompasses pretty much everything (with the possible exception of full casters).

I'm not saying they should change it. There's too much history baked into D&D for them to start upending the classes, but if it were to be created fresh I suspect either all these other classes (Barbarian, Paladin, Monk and even Rogue) would be subclasses of fighter or the fighter would simply not exist. You'll note that in many other IPs the fighter/warrior class tends to blend with the barbarian or paladin concepts in D&D.

As for the ranger, personally I think thye should play up the hunter, stalker, predator aspect, lean into the witcher idea, because its awesome.

That's fair. The devs certainly could have created a warlock-style fighter with lots of options to customize it into all of these. The game would certainly be more varied if they had.

Well, in theory, anyway. In reality, players would probably tend toward the most popular options. For example, if Reckless Attack was an invocation-style feature, everyone would take it.

With Rangers specifically, I think their class fantasy already encompasses too many concepts. Yes, they're the hunter, stalker, predator. But they're also the outdoorsmen, traveler, backwoods guy. They're also the nature protector / park Ranger. And they're also the beast tamer and the half-Druid. Lastly, they're the fighter who specializes in certain kinds of enemies.

The Ranger has already become a kitchen sink of relatively weak features - they had to be weak else the class would be overpowered, like the Revised Ranger. Giving characters more choice in which features to take would allow those features to be both more powerful and more meaningful.

[Yakk]

Champions

Ranger - Fighter Barbarian - Paladin
| |
Tricksters Rogue Cleric Healers
Monk Druid
| |
Warlock - Wizard Sorcerer - Bard

Mages

[paladinn]

I came here to say the problem isn't the ranger, it's the fighter. Class identity just isn't on a similar level. If you put 5e classes on a grocery list they would look like this:

Apples
Bananas
Fruit
Oranges
Pears
...

With Fighter being the "Fruit" in the list of other specific fruits. You can have different types of oranges or apples just like you can have different barbarians and paladins, but they are all still fruit. The fighter is just too broad of an identity that it encompasses pretty much everything (with the possible exception of full casters).

I'm not saying they should change it. There's too much history baked into D&D for them to start upending the classes, but if it were to be created fresh I suspect either all these other classes (Barbarian, Paladin, Monk and even Rogue) would be subclasses of fighter or the fighter would simply not exist. You'll note that in many other IPs the fighter/warrior class tends to blend with the barbarian or paladin concepts in D&D.

As for the ranger, personally I think thye should play up the hunter, stalker, predator aspect, lean into the witcher idea, because its awesome.

Paladins have mostly become their own "thing" because of the smite aspect and the oaths, although I wouldn't mind a paladin subclass of fighter. It used to be for clerics what the EK is now for the wizard.

I'm not a barbarian fan; too much of what has been done has taken it far afield from the raging, magic-hating, survivalist class it began. I'd sooner see a few of its features made ranger class features; but I still don't know if it'd be good as a class of its own.

Monks, by their very name, were a sort-of subclass of cleric, even if they didn't have to serve a deity and didn't get "spells." I really don't know what to make of them now; like the barbarian, they've gone far afield. In 4e they were the "striker" psionic class, and that was Never on the table before.

Rogue/"thief" has always been a class of its own; but back in the day, there were skills that Only thieves had. With the advent of skill systems, Anyone could do those things; so again, there had to be a rationale for the class. Currently the "thing" for rogues seems to be sneak attack and maybe dodge/evasion. But then they gave some of that to the ranger. Is there a need for a rogue And a Dex-based fighter?

Back to the ranger: if its "thing" is favored enemy, it's not a justification for the class, IMHO. Make it a fighter archetype.

[RulesJD]

Rangers are the Druidic/Nature Magic Paladins.

That's basically their identity. Both roleplay and mechanics.

[Zetakya]

Rangers are the Druidic/Nature Magic Paladins.

That's basically their identity. Both roleplay and mechanics.

Except that's Ancients Paladin's role.

[moonfly7]

So, as someone who has always loved the ranger, and sees revised as a perfect fix, I would like to drop my two cents.

Ranger is a fighter rogue druid. That's what it is. You've all been asking what its supposed to be, its a perfect blended class. See, in my opinion, it fixes a lot of issues I've seen argued on this very site.
Lets start with fighter, so many people hate that fighter doesn't do a ton out of combat (I dont think this, but several threads do), and argue over how to fix it. Ranger does that. You have all martial weapons, some fighting styles, and you have out of combat cool stuff. With revised ranger, suddenly you never get lost, never die of dehydration, and can track down anyone anywhere. He can use his crazy good survival to make you leather armor from a deer he killed, kill 20 of said deer when you shot one, and hide your movement from trackers.
Oh, and if he checks every couple hpurs, he knows if fools are following within obe mile of you, especialy if he chose humanoid favored enemy. Our ranger did this in a campaign where we were wanted, and he saved us from getting caught like, 20 times.
Now rogue: rogue is an awesome class, great on its own. But with revised ranger, you get to add rogue to a martial class. You can just go basicaly invisible with hide in plain site, allowing you to just go stealth in seconds. While also maintaining crazy multiattacking power, with the subclasses and hunters mark adding several extra damage dice, allowing a semblance of rogue sneak damage.
Druid, how many threads have shamed and flamed a player who says "I want to use the druid class, but he doesn't worship the old gods, so I'm gonna where metal armor"? Ranger gets to do that. Of course, they don't get beast shape, but they get lors of stuff that lets them druid in other ways. They talk to beasts and plants, they have beast like senses, and they're in tune with the natural world around them, allowing them to, in any environment with UA ranger, basically set up kick butt ambushes, leading enemies in long chases through nature, and then just being gone.
At the end of the day, whats a ranger? A rangers bear grills, he'll drink his own urine, kill a deer with a stick, and then smell an orc raiding party from a mile off, and proceed to hide his caravan of twenty people and sneak around them. Then double back and stealthily murder them all. Using nature, tactics, and stealth. (Assuming you use revised ranger, which my DMS consider the real ranger)
At the end of the day, the ranger is a hardenened soldier of nature, an example of survival of the quickest, fittest, and smartest. They can fill any party roll, need a support? The ranger has healing spells and moves first 90 percent of the time, and can get to you to help you with ease, all while taking solid hits. Need a skill monkey? He might not get expertise, but he can shoulder skills like stealth, slight of hand, persuasion, and survival like a boss. You only have melees? Ranger is by far the best archer when you look at its subclasses, features, and spells. Need a frontliner? Rangers got you. Need all of that at once? Ranger has you. All while getting plus 2/4 against humanoids, the only smart favored enemy choice.
So the ranger is a park Ranger whose lived everywhere. Rangers flavor is they help the party navigate life, be it social encounters, running from assasins in a city, or hiding fron the law in the forest. Rangers are guides, through all walks of life.

They're also robin Hood, living in the woods and killing things with swords and bows.

[RulesJD]

Except that's Ancients Paladin's role.

You're talking a singular subclass versus overall Class design.

That's like saying a Paladin isn't meant to be a Divine Gish because War Cleric exists.

[GlenSmash!]

Aragorn is the reference point for quite a lot of the ranger. It's not just that he "knows about herbs", he knows a hell of a lot about the world at large. He knows the hidden paths nobody else can navigate, he knows how to hunt, track, and survive like no other mortal man, he knows his foes' strengths and weaknesses, etc.

Bingo. Aragorn is the guy who can put his ear down to the ground and hear the approach of a host of riders, then ignore that so he can hear the march of a party of orcs that are not mounted and much further away.

He was the greatest tracker of his time.

Fighter with knowledge of herbs just doesn't cover that.

Still I agree with Nidgit that Geralt is more representative of what a D&D Ranger is. Not too surprising since his world is far closer to the typical D&D setting than Middle-Earth is.

[Trickery]

So, as someone who has always loved the ranger, and sees revised as a perfect fix, I would like to drop my two cents.

Ranger is a fighter rogue druid. That's what it is. You've all been asking what its supposed to be, its a perfect blended class. See, in my opinion, it fixes a lot of issues I've seen argued on this very site.


The trouble is that, by being a class with so many built-in features and identities, the Ranger is doomed to be too strong or too weak. Base Ranger is too weak. Revised Ranger is too strong.

I could go into detail about the revised BM Ranger making four attacks per round with free advantage on all by level 5, or how primeval awareness forces the DM to give out information he might not even have in the first place, or how a Revised Ranger Gloomstalker beats the hell out of everyone in terms of damage and stealth potential. But, from your post, it sounds like you already realized how good the Revised Ranger is, and it's what you liked about the option.

I've seen Revised Ranger in play twice. With just a little bit of support, it csn do anything. That invalidates other builds. Most kinds of fighter and rogue are inferior to what the Revised Ranger can do.

So that isn't good class design. It should get good features, but it shouldn't get so many of them all at the same time. That's the appeal of invocations as a solution.

[moonfly7]

The trouble is that, by being a class with so many built-in features and identities, the Ranger is doomed to be too strong or too weak. Base Ranger is too weak. Revised Ranger is too strong.

I could go into detail about the revised BM Ranger making four attacks per round with free advantage on all by level 5, or how primeval awareness forces the DM to give out information he might not even have in the first place, or how a Revised Ranger Gloomstalker beats the hell out of everyone in terms of damage and stealth potential. But, from your post, it sounds like you already realized how good the Revised Ranger is, and it's what you liked about the option.

I've seen Revised Ranger in play twice. With just a little bit of support, it csn do anything. That invalidates other builds. Most kinds of fighter and rogue are inferior to what the Revised Ranger can do.

So that isn't good class design. It should get good features, but it shouldn't get so many of them all at the same time. That's the appeal of invocations as a solution.

Let me introduce you to a little something called the rogue. The ranger revised is fine, its subclasses might be a bit much, but when compared to the rogues "i litteraly never fail any skill check. And I can deal more damage per hit than the paladin." Or any other class that lets you do crazy powerful stuff, the suddenly, revised ranger is tame.
But were not here to discuss ranger power level, this thread is about what rangers flavor is, fantasy wise, and guess what? I figured it out, its litteraly Robin Hood.
Favored terrain is like sherwood. All the ranged stuff? The two weapon fighting? The stealthy aspects of hiding in plane sight in the woods? Never being found because you hide like a boss in nature?
All robin hood, all the time, 24/7. What are rangers in fantasy? Robin hood.

[Sindal]

The trouble is that, by being a class with so many built-in features and identities, the Ranger is doomed to be too strong or too weak. Base Ranger is too weak. Revised Ranger is too strong.

I could go into detail about the revised BM Ranger making four attacks per round with free advantage on all by level 5, or how primeval awareness forces the DM to give out information he might not even have in the first place, or how a Revised Ranger Gloomstalker beats the hell out of everyone in terms of damage and stealth potential. But, from your post, it sounds like you already realized how good the Revised Ranger is, and it's what you liked about the option.

I've seen Revised Ranger in play twice. With just a little bit of support, it csn do anything. That invalidates other builds. Most kinds of fighter and rogue are inferior to what the Revised Ranger can do.

So that isn't good class design. It should get good features, but it shouldn't get so many of them all at the same time. That's the appeal of invocations as a solution.

After having played the revised ranger, and even the gloomstalker, I can say one thing for sure:
A revised ranger is very good at getting rid of a problem very quickly. That's what they're designed to do. Find a problem. Get rid of it.
The problem should ideally be a monster though.
A ranger cannot hold a candle to the natural tankiness a fighter can acheive (via heavy armour)
A gloomstalker relies on the dark to be sneaky. If it's not dark, they aren't sneaky. They can hit like a truck. But if whatever your fighting can handle being hit like a truck, then your down to just being a fighter again. And the fighter WILL outpace you eventually

My ranger has been the individual that has probably been damaged the most in the campaign.
The fighter is generally too tanky to be hit by anything that isn't magic.
The rogue is busy hiding around the place and disengaging while standing on rooftops and throwing knives.
Our Cleric is keeping a safe distance
And that leaves me, having to be a psuedo second wall for the real squishers.

[Trickery]

People's experiences with the Revised Ranger will differ. The times my wife and I have played it, it was the most effective party member able to do the most things while dealing the most damage. On paper, I can pretty easily beat any rogue's damage, and I do mean any rogue, with a Revised Ranger of any subclass. It's also not that hard for the class to self-boost and spell-supplement its skill checks, particularly stealth. But that's not the point of the thread.

People generally play Revised Ranger the same way I'm told Rangers worked in 4e. They play it as if it's a mobile striker class dealing high damage to single targets. And that's an identity. But it's not the Ranger's only identity.

My experience has been that Ranger players generally use about half of their features. Strong or weak, its features generally serve different identities. If a Ranger player is trying to be a striker, then they probably aren't trying to forage or speak to animals. If they're trying to be the wilderness guy who knows how to get anywhere and is psuedo-druidic and one with nature, then they probably aren't using Hide in Plain Sight to setup ambushes with the rogue.

Other classes sometimes suffer from this. The class that suffers least of all, though, is probably the Wizard. More than any other class, the Wizard is able to pick almost exactly the features that it wants. That's because Wizards' spells are its features, it has many to choose from, and it has more subclass options than anyone else.

I'm in the camp of more customizations, not less. We need to be able to build classes to suit our own goals. We should make more choices than just race and subclass.

You may think the Monk has it worst in this department. While it's true that Monks make fewer choices than any other class in terms of build and features, what the Monk has that the Ranger lacks is a clear design philosophy. It knows what it is. The Ranger doesn't.

I'm not arguing that Rangers ought to be buffed or nerfed, not really. Rather, I'm saying they need to be able to customize their features to the type of Ranger they're trying to be. There's a big difference between a scout with a bow and two swords, a half-druid speaking to plants, and a beast lord rushing into combat with his panther friend. Subclasses, as written, are not enough to cover the wide variances in playstyles and expectations.

[GlenSmash!]

And I can deal more damage per hit than the paladin." Or any other class

Per hit means very little. Damage per round is a much more useful metric.

[moonfly7]

Per hit means very little. Damage per round is a much more useful metric.

I honestly don't care about the damage,or anything. I care about the ranger being fun to play as, and play with, with fun flavor. Guess what? Normal ranger doesnt do that. Revised does.
I play with a revised ranger, guess what? I have not seen a single issue that you all keep talking about from reading the class. He handles ranged combat, and he backs up my monk and the bladelock pretty well. That's it. Our wizard has killed the most things, and my monk does the most in a round. Our ranger covers our butts, gets us food, and saves us by being our only perceptive/sneaky/street wise member.
He's great for his role, but he never messes with the power balance, he just complents us well.
When I played revised, the same thing happened. Same when our DM played ranger. And same for every revised we've had. So I don't know what you guys have been using, or what it looks like to people who min max or weigh every last part of a class against the "best" damage. But to this casual, for fun only group, the revised ranger has never once been that powerful.
Sorry if that conflicts with your games, but thats my experience.

[GlenSmash!]

I honestly don't care about the damage,or anything.
Then why bring it up?


I care about the ranger being fun to play as, and play with, with fun flavor. Guess what? Normal ranger doesnt do that.

D&D Beyond reports it as a very popular class. I have a lot of nitpicks about specific abilities, especially ones that bypass game features for the DM rather than actually enhance the chance of the character succeeding. But I do think some people have fun playing the ranger as is.


Revised does. I'm not surprised. It's broadly more useful. I have a few nitpicks with it too. I would prefer to see some of it's level 1-2 abilities spread out a bit more for example. In fact I think a 3rd take at it would have been really interesting to see.


I play with a revised ranger, guess what? I have not seen a single issue that you all keep talking about from reading the class. He handles ranged combat, and he backs up my monk and the bladelock pretty well. That's it. Our wizard has killed the most things, and my monk does the most in a round. Our ranger covers our butts, gets us food, and saves us by being our only perceptive/sneaky/street wise member.
He's great for his role, but he never messes with the power balance, he just complents us well.
When I played revised, the same thing happened. Same when our DM played ranger. And same for every revised we've had. So I don't know what you guys have been using, or what it looks like to people who min max or weigh every last part of a class against the "best" damage. But to this casual, for fun only group, the revised ranger has never once been that powerful.
Sorry if that conflicts with your games, but thats my experience.

Awesome. I'm glad it's working out for you.

[moonfly7]

Then why bring it up?



D&D Beyond reports it as a very popular class. I have a lot of nitpicks about specific abilities, especially ones that bypass game features for the DM rather than actually enhance the chance of the character succeeding. But I do think some people have fun playing the ranger as is.

I'm not surprised. It's broadly more useful. I have a few nitpicks with it too. I would prefer to see some of it's level 1-2 abilities spread out a bit more for example. In fact I think a 3rd take at it would have been really interesting to see.



Awesome. I'm glad it's working out for you.

A third version is being worked on for the next UA release. Im personally quite excited

[paladinn]

A third version is being worked on for the next UA release. Im personally quite excited

Wonder when that'll be.. WotC isn't as forthcoming with the UA's as they used to be.

[mephnick]

I care about the ranger being fun to play as, and play with, with fun flavor. Guess what? Normal ranger doesnt do that. Revised does.

How, exactly? Revised Ranger didn't do anything to change the identity of the Ranger. It provided stupid combat buffs...which was the pillar the Ranger was already competent in. That's why many people see it as a terrible fix. It didn't fix anything important. Some people were happy that they gave up and reverted Favored Enemy to a boring damage bonus and declared the Ranger "FiXEd!!"

I've played and DM'd both and fail to see how RR changed anything except made them much better at the thing they were already best at.

[moonfly7]

Wonder when that'll be.. WotC isn't as forthcoming with the UA's as they used to be.

They said before the end of the summer, cant wait personally.

[Trickery]

How, exactly? Revised Ranger didn't do anything to change the identity of the Ranger. It provided stupid combat buffs...which was the pillar the Ranger was already competent in. That's why many people see it as a terrible fix. It didn't fix anything important. Some people were happy that they gave up and reverted Favored Enemy to a boring damage bonus and declared the Ranger "FiXEd!!"

I've played and DM'd both and fail to see how RR changed anything except made them much better at the thing they were already best at.

To be fair, revised BM feels a lot better to play than base BM. Your companion feels like a second unit and not like a dumb robot. The trouble is that they made it overpowered with the feature Coordinated Assault. On top of everything Revised Ranger could already do, that was too much.

Revised Ranger could theoretically be "fixed" by working on favored enemy, primeval awareness, and reviewing the BM attacks. The version of BM I'd do would be something like: "You can command your beast to attack using your bonus action. Any time you could make an attack, you may have your companion make an attack instead."

However, that would only fix it on paper. It would still feel like an amalgamation of unrelated features.

[GlenSmash!]

A third version is being worked on for the next UA release. Im personally quite excited

It seems to be more based on the ideas from Mike Mearl's Happy fun hour, which I thought were interesting, rather than the last Revised Ranger. I'm interested too.

[moonfly7]

It seems to be more based on the ideas from Mike Mearl's Happy fun hour, which I thought were interesting, rather than the last Revised Ranger. I'm interested too.
Mike mearls happy hour?

[GlenSmash!]

Mike mearls happy hour?

A link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SAcLXEAbb4

A summary of the ideas discussed:

https://thinkdm.org/hfh/revised-ranger-2018/

[Trickery]

A link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SAcLXEAbb4

A summary of the ideas discussed:

https://thinkdm.org/hfh/revised-ranger-2018/

Seems like they had a lot of the same ideas as we did. That said, it looks complex.

[moonfly7]

Seems like they had a lot of the same ideas as we did. That said, it looks complex.
I saw it, i want it

[Evaar]

To my mind, the fantasy of the ranger that most interests me is as sort of "generic adventurer."

Usually that's portrayed as the Fighter, but that doesn't do it for me only because Fighters are just so good at combat. They're experts at it, and rightly so, whereas I would want the Ranger to be competent at combat and better than most, but not the greatest swordsman of the age.

The kinds of abilities I would want from a Ranger would be focused around exploration and improvisation. That means, yes, they're good in the wild and can find herbs to heal people and befriend animals. But also, they're good in a dungeon and can dodge their way through a series of traps (or rig up something to jam them), negotiate with unfriendly and potentially hostile supernatural creatures, and navigate the party towards the destination (whether that's a person they're tracking, or a dungeon hidden in the misty mountains). They can investigate.

I would differentiate this from a fighter or barbarian by saying the Ranger should have more to contribute in the exploration and social pillars of the game. Aragorn had to negotiate with the spirits of the dead. Geralt solves mysteries and talks to monsters before he decides whether they have to die.

Other characters I'd call Adventurers are Prince Colwyn from Krull, the Man In Black from The Princess Bride (arguably swashbuckler rogue but think of all the wilderness knowledge he displays), Jon Snow, Taran from The Black Cauldron, Van Helsing, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood, Katniss Everdeen, Lara Croft.

I think when you get to the core of the inspiration behind the Ranger class, it's trying to get to these examples without screaming "I'M THE PROTAGONIST" in the face of all the other characters. So what can be taken from these characters that can be represented mechanically without stealing the spotlight?

I think the combat chassis Rangers have right now is fine. They're not as good at fighting as the Fighter, but they can handle themselves. I would like to see them use this class to bring back the longsword/shortsword classic D&D combo (name a more iconic duo).

I'd offer something like "Observant" to alert them that "something seems off" when they come within X feet of a hidden trap or door. Don't negate the check, but prompt the players to pause and explore. Help the DM highlight things. The Rogue can still be the expert at getting into those things, but the Ranger makes sure you don't miss them.

For outdoor navigation, I'm not sure how you solve this without DM buy-in. But one way you could work with the DM is to present several options for travel - "Do we go through the forest or over the mountains?" - and have the Ranger able to explain in detail what each of those means. Not just "This will take 3 days and require cold weather equipment, this will take 5 days but should be easy travel" but more like "That route is claimed by the Stoneclaw Ogres; we'll either have to pay their toll or sneak through. I recall some mercenaries complaining they lost one of Lady Harwell's treasure carriages up there, the ogres may still have it." Again, prompt the players by giving more information rather than negating the challenge entirely. This one's tricky, though, as the DM just might not have much to say about a mountain path, so it'll likely be more of a ribbon than anything.

[Amechra]

Honestly, I'd go with moving the beast companion to form the core of the class. Spice it with exploration-boosting abilities (heck, pull a Rogue and make it so that Ranger subclasses are all only tangentially focused on combat - you could get something interesting from primarily making them terrain based).

As for "I want to be the badass exploration dude", you're really going to need a proper exploration subsystem before that kind of thing can really work. At least with social encounters you have stuff like Bonds/Flaws/stats to bounce off of, even if it oftentimes devolves into "roll Charisma(X) vs. Wisdom(Insight), m8". Maybe some kind of feature dealing with secret doors and traps as well?

---

The Warlock has already been screwed up by making it all things to all people - if we're fixing the Ranger, we really shouldn't be following in its footsteps.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

A bunch of people mention Aragorn and Drzzt as the archetypal rangers, but it's important to remember that Legolas is just as much an archetypal ranger (4e in particular leaned hard into this). I think part of the problem with 5e is that Battlemaster Fighter does that trick based awesome archery better than rangers, robbing them of a significant chunk of their identity.

A bigger problem, though, is that the ranger is at heart a generalist. They combine martial combat, skill use, and magic (the three mechanical pillars of D&D) into a single class. However, a lot of their class features are weirdly specific (I'm looking at you Favored Enemy/Terrain). In previous editions you had enough of these specific class features to still build a decent generalist ('one trick for every situation', basically), but 5th edition is much more minimalistic in that respect, and so you're left will a class that feels like it's trying to be both a jack of all trades and a specialist, and ends up a master of none.

How would I fix it? This is a pretty bare-bones idea as of now, but I'd steal from 3.5's Horizon Walker (or 5e's power sources for sorcerers if you want a more contemporary but less exact analogy). You chose a specific terrain/enemy, and rather than being better at fighting there/them, you learn a thematically related trick that's applicable much more widely. So if you pick dungeon terrain, you get something like "Your extensive experience travelling through the Underdark and dungeons has made you adept at dealing with the natural hazards that riddle this terrain, as well as the traps its denizens tend to favor. Against any attack made by a trap/natural hazard, add your proficiency bonus to your AC or saving throw." (Maybe let party members add it too, or half of it, if you want to keep the party support aspect). Just spitballing ideas here, but forest could be a bonus to stealth, humanoids a bonus to social skills, cities let you move through enemy spaces, animals give you a bonus to perception (or maybe even a second, weaker animal companion to use to scout? Perhaps via the summon familiar spell), undead some healing perk/power... you get the idea. Choose an additional one every five levels or so. You still end up with a very generalist class that can do a lot of different things, and you've still got the flavor of specific enemies/terrains granting you experience, but the features are much more widely useful, so you don't have to have a bunch of combat boosts to compensate.

[Composer99]

I don't think the ranger is suffering from class fantasy problems.

Most classes are generic to some extent, encompassing a variety of potential niches, with some resulting degree of overlap between classes.

I mean, just think of the wide variety of different paladins there are, thanks to all the subclasses. Ancients gets you a natural, "green knight"-themed paladin. Conquest gets you an archetypal lawful evil paladin. Devotion gets you the more-or-less traditional paladin. And so on and so forth.

Or look at the wizard. With all the subclasses and spells, wizards easily have the most mutable "class identity". With care in your choice of proficiencies and backgrounds, you can make a wizard that can do just about anything that isn't a baked-in feature of another class.

Looking at overlap, look at the ways you can build an arcane Gish - eldritch knight, arcane trickster, bladesinger, swords bard, valour bard, bladelock.

That variety and overlap necessarily means that the case can be - and has been - made that this class or that ought to be a subclass or variant of another class, instead of a stand-alone class. IMO that's all well and good for any given DM's game, but I'm quite satisfied with the core PHB classes as they are.

So the fact that there are several different themes for a ranger (stalker/hunter/predator, beastmaster, "park ranger vs monstrosities", etc.), or that there are overlaps between rangers and other classes, does not seem to me to be problematic in and of itself.


Rather, I think the PHB ranger's problems stem from its features.

Its low-level class-defining features mostly suck.
(1) Favoured Enemy is a great exploration feature - when you're dealing with your favoured enemy. It's otherwise useless. It's mildly irritating that Favoured Enemy doesn't have a combat benefit, but I understand why - by convention, the "half-casters" don't get combat buffs at 1st level.
(2) Natural Explorer breaks the exploration pillar of the game in your favoured terrain, but is otherwise useless. What's more, it's highly dependent on the campaign including exploration as a non-trivial part of the game. I don't think it's a stretch to say that no other class' core features depend on DM prep work, or on playing the right published module, as much as Natural Explorer does.
(3) Primeval Awareness is just terrible.

None of its low-level class-defining features affect combat.
Most other classes that have class-defining features (outside of spellcasting, fighting styles, or subclasses) tend to be able to use them in combat, even if they can also be used out of combat. Indeed, most such features are meant to be used in combat. The ranger is, as far as I know, the only such class where none of its low-level defining features are combat features, or are applicable to combat without a great deal of player creativity and/or DM latitude. If you didn't have subclasses, you'd never actually get to play as a ranger, so to speak, in combat.

Its distinct higher-level features also either suck or arrive too late.
Other posters have touched on higher-level features already, so I won't go into detail regarding them here. I suspect a lot of that has to do with the fact that they get new favoured enemy and natural explorer options at 6th level when they could have got something else. Other classes have this problem at times (monk and Tongue of the Sun and Moon, for instance), but they don't have the other problems the ranger does, so it's not as noteworthy.

There isn't universal (or nearly-universal) consensus on rangers and spellcasting the way there is with other classes.
Rangers are, so far as I am aware, the only class for whom their spellcasting feature is at all controversial. It seems to me that views such as, say, that paladins should be stripped of their spellcasting, or, say, that barbarians should be made into half-casters, are quite rarely held. This doesn't seem to be the case for rangers. Even if there is widespread agreement on rangers being a specialised "wilderness warrior" (even if we don't all agree on what that means, mechanically speaking, it strikes me that the agreement is rather less widespread that spellcasting ought to be a core component of their toolkit, as compared to something they can pick up with a subclass.

Speaking of spellcasting, PHB rangers probably have the worst spellcasting.
The amount of concentration spells, the bonus action-eating hunter's mark, the number of quality class-specific spells that come online really late for ranger but are easily poached by the bard a whole tier of play earlier, the fact that the other half-caster class has an awesome way to spend spell slots if it doesn't want to cast spells while the ranger has Primeval Awareness - all of those make ranger spellcasting feel lacklustre. Xanathar's helps with the bonus spells, but that only addresses the number of spells known, not the other problems.


I think that the key to fixing the ranger is first and foremost fixing its low-level "class-defining" features.

[paladinn]

Rangers were non-casters in Castles & Crusades, and in 4e.. one of the few things 4e got right, IMO.

Ok, so if we were to make rangers a fighter subclass, how would we do the subclass features so they could still take advantage of the base fighter class features, but still be a bit distinct?

Or do we just use the EK with druid spells?

[8wGremlin]

The ranger is one of the most popular character classes in the AD&D® game. A woodsman and tracker, as well as a dangerous fighter, he combines good combat skills with a few extra abilities that give him many options and decisions during play. He boasts the courage and strength of a warrior and the stealth and self-reliance of a thief. He combines the druid's affinity for the outdoors with the devotion and magical aptitude of a priest. He's a hunter, a tracker, and a survivalist. By temperament and by choice, he's a loner, often preferring the company of animals to people. Without question, he's one with nature, sworn to protect the inhabitants of the wilderness and preserve the integrity of the land.
http://worldofmor.us/rules/CRH/DD05676.htm


you should read some of this, and see what you think of the old 2nd edition concepts. also look to some of the sword and sorcery movies of the 80's and 90's such as The Beastmaster

[Arkhios]

Personally, I feel that the ranger class fantasy is right where it should be. The problem seems to be in how it's represented by the class features. The class features (RAW) are undoubtedly under-powered, in that they don't do much in a vacuum; they depend a lot (some might even say 'too much') on the setting's environment - a thing that many DM's simply forget to address (whether they're aware of it or not); which is arguably difficult to portray in a theater of mind. Also, because they imply traveling within vast distances - much larger than any battle mat, it's difficult to enable with character figures on table. In short, most ranger features go to waste in most games.

Compared to Paladin, which is the closest possible comparable class in general form, ranger is definitely weaker, even before you take Divine Smite into account.

Let's assume that Natural Explorer and Divine Sense are intended as equivalent features, and same with Favored Enemy and Lay on Hands.

While most people would say that Divine Sense is a bit 'meh', it has more use than Natural Explorer because Divine Sense depends only on creature types, which can be found basically everywhere (environment be damned), and can be used in-combat, near-combat, and while exploring.

In contrast, Natural Explorer depends explicitly on the exploration pillar. It has zero value in combat, and is worth almost* nothing near-combat. *Almost, because technically the 6th (and last) bullet point can be used to glean out information what the group might expect soon. Still, it's weaker than Divine Sense, because while it tells the exact numbers and sizes, it doesn't tell you what the creature types are. It's a big difference to know whether you're going to encounter celestials, fiends, or undead vs. several small, medium, large or even huge creatures.

Likewise, Lay on Hands pool might be low at 1st level, but even just 1 hit point saves a fallen companion from dying. In and out of combat, that's huge. Especially if the fallen companion is capable of healing themselves with spells.

Unlike it used to be in earlier editions, Favored Enemy is now purely an exploration tool. Being able to track a creature in combat is almost worthless (unless the creature hides and flees and you have to follow it in initiative count). Knowing a little extra of the strengths and weaknesses of your chosen enemy is certainly strong, if you know how to use that information, but still, given how few creatures you've learned to "hunt", it's possible that you get to use the ability very rarely, if at all.

In a vacuum, Ranger is simply a warrior with their armor (up to medium) and weapons to rely upon. Later, their spells, too.
A Paladin has all that (and heavy armor), plus divine sense (many celestials and fiends can change shape; knowing that you're fighting a shapechanger might change the course of battle), and Lay on Hands can turn the tide if even just one companion has fallen unconscious from taking too much damage.

[Bjarkmundur]

Which would mean we would need to introduce some extra CFs or change these so they make for better CFs, which nobody seems to be able to agree on. Sort of back to where we started, eh?

lul asdfasdfasdf

[Skylivedk]

Aragorn is the reference point for quite a lot of the ranger. It's not just that he "knows about herbs", he knows a hell of a lot about the world at large. He knows the hidden paths nobody else can navigate, he knows how to hunt, track, and survive like no other mortal man, he knows his foes' strengths and weaknesses, etc.

That's why one branch of the ranger is the "nature warrior", because he's the one who lives in the wilds as easily as the rogue lives in the back alleys of a city.

On top of that, I think rather than locking in a "favoured enemy" the ranger's ability to get bonuses against specific things should be a versatile thing, rather than the current selecting a class of enemy you select something more specific but can change it on a Long Rest, and at higher levels share the bonus with party members as long as they rested with you.

I agree on the tracking part - and also that locking into one type of enemy/terrain for your career is a bad design choice. Much better to be able to change at Long Rest or give commonly applicable bonuses based on favoured enemies and terrains (such as the Sorcerer and Druid)


The trouble is that, by being a class with so many built-in features and identities, the Ranger is doomed to be too strong or too weak. Base Ranger is too weak. Revised Ranger is too strong.

I could go into detail about the revised BM Ranger making four attacks per round with free advantage on all by level 5, or how primeval awareness forces the DM to give out information he might not even have in the first place, or how a Revised Ranger Gloomstalker beats the hell out of everyone in terms of damage and stealth potential. But, from your post, it sounds like you already realized how good the Revised Ranger is, and it's what you liked about the option.

I've seen Revised Ranger in play twice. With just a little bit of support, it csn do anything. That invalidates other builds. Most kinds of fighter and rogue are inferior to what the Revised Ranger can do.

So that isn't good class design. It should get good features, but it shouldn't get so many of them all at the same time. That's the appeal of invocations as a solution.

I'm pretty sure Revised Ranger isn't designed to mesh with any subclass outside of those presented with it. In particular, Gloomstalker seems to have a lot of the same type of buffs and due to that, stacking them is way too powerful.

I'm playing with a Revised Ranger now. He's good, but better than my Hexblade or the Battlemaster Crossbow Expert? Not really. Especially, he can get hurt very very bad in early levels by losing his pet. The main exception being Primeval Awareness which was horribly done: way too much work for the DM, way too strong way too early. If they had gradually increased it to its present power levels over time (so it maybe hit that power level at tier 3 or 4) and gave it some kind of cost (spell slots?) then maybe.

Main issues with rangers, I've seen and experienced:

Ridiculous spell casting
Not very impressive in combat (pre-Xanathar's)
Clunky pet for the Beastmaster
Focus on a pillar where no other class adds much and hence has a high chance of wanting to be fast-forwarded by players and DMs alike
Overly locked in on choices that either require the DM to reveal too much about the campaign, takes away agency or changes the campaign.


I don't think the class fantasy lacks much. The skirmisher/wilderness man/ambusher/stealth warrior and tracker are all tropes that play well together and are seen often. To me, it's bad design most of all.

And before anyone asks if I played a ranger: yes, it was my very first class in 5e.

[Trickery]

I'm playing with a Revised Ranger now. He's good, but better than my Hexblade or the Battlemaster Crossbow Expert? Not really. Especially, he can get hurt very very bad in early levels by losing his pet.

What kind? If you're playing a medium race and are using a bow or two-handed weapon, then Revised BM should be just average. It's when you push the boundaries of your features that the class gets crazy. The one I have in mind is a TWF Kobold with Mounted Combatant riding a Wolf. Due to coordinated assault, the character makes a minimum of four and a maximum of thirteen attacks per round (perfect whirlwind = 8 + coordinated assault + your attack + your bonus + your reaction). Due to pack tactics, all melee attacks are made with advantage.

Edit: actually you could make one more with swiftquiver and two more than that if someone put haste on you and your wolf, but that's getting pedantic.

[Bigmouth]

Ranger class fantasy?
In order of importance.
A: Bow (could be any ranged weapon).
B: Ultimate survivalist. So good it seems/is magic.
C: Ultimate perception, So good it seems/is magic.
D: Stealth. Should be as good as a rogue
E: Magic/magic abilities to support the above

Animal companions are definitely part of the appeal of rangers, but they feel like a subclass thing more than something all rangers share.

I've played a ton of D&D, but honestly not much 5E. I've played 5E at Cons and in a few one shots. Reading this thread has lead me to do a lot more studying of the 5E ranger, contrasting it to other classes and options. I now feel kind of bad for encouraging my wife to play one for my first 5E campaign.

The class features are lackluster/worthless down the line. (excluding Extra Attack and ASI)
Favored Enemy: To be fair, I've never been a fan. There are so many monsters in D&D and there's no guarantee that you'll ever even encounter your favorite without the DM specifically catering. Even if you and the DM get together and have a conversation, "Yep, I see a lot of stuff with Orcs and Goblins. Those would be good choices." the natural course of non-railroaded campaigns can go in completely unexpected directions. "Well, this has turned into a campaign against human pirates. Sorry Ranger Rick" Assuming the DM is trying to help the ranger out by steering towards FE encounters, there's always that tightrope. Too many FE encounters and everyone else feels sidelined as it turns into the Ranger Rick Show. Too few and Ranger Rick sulks over the worthless pick. 5E avoids all these complications by making this a nearly worthless ability. Finding the monsters is rarely a problem in D&D and even if the DM decides that the party will indeed have to track down a monster, the difference between the whole party rolling Survival (Wis) and the whole party rolling Survival (Wis)+1 extra roll from the rangers favored enemy isn't really something to get super excited about. But don't forget the bonus to Int rolls to know stuff about the monster! This is so bad it is almost insulting. It's Ranger Rick's favored enemy and yet the DM is supposedly going to make them roll to remember things about them? And once again, if it is important, you've got a whole party rolling Nature (Int) to 'remember' that rust monsters rust things. I'm sure everyone playing a ranger will be salivating for level 6 and 14 when they get to taste the awesomeness of this class feature again. Grade:F
Natural Explorer You are good in one of 7 terrains. arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark. A ranger will only ever be good in 3 of these when even a modest setting can have players easily moving between 6 on a regular basis. (My first level group just travelled through 3 in one short trip.) Even assuming you are in your chosen environment, the benefits are pretty background note level at best. Does the distance the party travel in a day really matter? They'll get there when they get there. Do they really get lost that much? Once again you've got a lot of Survival(Wis) rolls to go around to find your way. I am sure every ranger player is super excited when they get to pick those new exciting environments again at 6 and 10. Grade:C (Grade:F because of it being 3 level ups instead of just one)
Primeval Awareness It's just horrible Grade:D
B]Lands Stride[/B]Not horrible! An honest to goodness okay class feature. Grade: B
Hide in Plain SightHorrible. Really horrible.Grade:F
Vanish Meh? You can hide 13 levels later than rogue and without the option for disengage, which sure sounds like it could be handy with a character normally focused on ranged attacks. The trackless thing is a nice bit of flavor that also would be much cooler at a lower level Grade:C
Feral SensesThis one is actually cool. Grade:A+
Foe Slayer No flavor. Pure number benefit. Linked to Favored Enemy, the last of which you chose six levels in the past. Grade:F

7 features. A:1 B:1 C:1 D:0 F:4
Doing the research for this post has been illuminating. If I could figure out a way to get the UA Revised Ranger as a class option for DnD Beyond I would definitely be switching my wife over to that. It fixed most everything. Favored Enemy is still problematic, but better one borked feature than 7.

[GreyBlack]

What is the Class Fantasy of the Ranger?

Rangers are the target of more reworks than perhaps any other class. Most of these reworks have added features, increased damage, or in some other way added things to the class. With the Revised Ranger, in particular, it feels like WotC just tacked as many features onto the Ranger as they could think of.

But I don't think that's the correct approach. I don't think many Ranger reworks have addressed the question: how should playing a Ranger feel?

Damage isn't the problem. Treantmonk demonstrated (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcqyGITBTv8) something many of us already knew, that even the Shatner'd-upon Beast Master Ranger could deal respectable damage.

I think the two core problems with the PHB Ranger are as follows:

Its features are clunky and difficult to use.
Its features don't point toward a party role or play style - or at least not one that works for D&D.


Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer, Primeval Awareness, Hide in Plain Sight, and even Land's Stride to a degree are weird and not very effective.

Favored Enemy makes you better at finding and talking to the enemy, but not better at fighting them. Perhaps you're less of a Drizzt Ranger and more of a Search and Rescue Ranger.
Primeval Awareness is something you use when you already think that there are creatures of that type within a few miles. It tells you you're right and that's all. Useless.
Natural Explorer helps you travel, but does nothing otherwise. This isn't helpful in campaigns that ignore travel - most of them, in my experience. You're better at one of the least interesting and most-skipped elements of play.
Land's Stride lets you ignore nonmagical difficult terrain, which is okay, but does nothing to protect against the magical difficult terrain that you'll probably encounter more often by the time you get it.
Hide in Plain Sight leaves the player wondering when they would even use it. When are you ever going to have time to spend one minute making camouflage and then stand still for the next while hiding without making a single move?
Vanish and Feral Senses are good, but they aren't level 14 and level 18-good. Rangers don't get their useful features until they're past the level where most of the game takes place.



What is the Ranger meant to do for the rest of the group? It's easy for a Rogue, Barbarian, Paladin, or even Monk or Fighter to answer that question. Looking at the mechanics with no preconceived notion, it's not as easy for a Ranger.
Their features make them seem like outdoorsmen sticking to particular areas and interacting with particular creatures. In real life, that's a legitimate role. But D&D is not real life. Rangers exist in a game that's about delving into dungeons and dealing with exotic foes. What is the Ranger as written even doing here? Why would Ranger Jack ever join a dungeon-delving adventuring party when his specialty is patrolling a forest?

The Revised Ranger mostly fixes the first problem. However, it throws a dragon's hoard of features onto class that already had complicated mechanics, and it turns the Ranger into an eco-friendly nuclear bomb in terms of damage. With its proficiency to damage vs Favored Enemies (of which all of humanoid is now a type), advantage on initiative, and ability to make four attacks per round at level 5 with advantage on all (TWF kobold BM ranger riding a wolf, if you're curious), the Revised Ranger goes two Chris Farleys past over-the-top in the combat department. More importantly, playing the Revised Ranger doesn't feel much different from playing a normal Ranger. The features are stronger, but the class still seems to have an identity crisis.

So, what should the class do? Is there a particular Fantasy character the Ranger should emulate? And what sort of role should the class fill in a D&D party if we designed it from scratch? If we can answer these questions, I think we can craft a better Ranger.

I can think of a classic character. His name is Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and rightful king of Gondor.


Skilled in both magical and nonmagical healing.
Skilled at identifying weak points in the enemies and exploiting them
Can use the natural terrain to their advantage in remarkable ways.
Skilled with multiple weapon types.


To me, this screams a character who is more intelligence based than wisdom based. More someone who has gone to school and learned various techniques for gaining advantage. In fact, given some time, he can even acclimate himself and learn the terrain of the area, which gives him certain advantages. In fact, I could see their spell list erring more towards the Wizard than to the Cleric.

I also think the Druid should err more towards the Wizard list than it currently does but that's neither here nor there.

[Skylivedk]

What kind? If you're playing a medium race and are using a bow or two-handed weapon, then Revised BM should be just average. It's when you push the boundaries of your features that the class gets crazy. The one I have in mind is a TWF Kobold with Mounted Combatant riding a Wolf. Due to coordinated assault, the character makes a minimum of four and a maximum of thirteen attacks per round (perfect whirlwind = 8 + coordinated assault + your attack + your bonus + your reaction). Due to pack tactics, all melee attacks are made with advantage.

Edit: actually you could make one more with swiftquiver and two more than that if someone put haste on you and your wolf, but that's getting pedantic.

I know about the kobold combo; might have seen you mention it in another threat. I've yet to play with monster races (no yuan-ti either), so I've no personal experience with it, nor do I think I'll get it anytime soon. My party's ranger hasn't gotten to whirlwind yet and due to an intimate experience with a Death Slaad, I fear we won't either.

Even then... It seems like a lot of attacks. But are they that dangerous? They come online in tier 3. Most of the attacks are not very focused and require a bunch of prep and even with that it's worse than a fireball (which costs a resource, I know); proning might change that of course. Way more often you'd be looking at a significantly lower number; closer to the six that a fighter can spam out with action surge, but less damaging. And also less damaging and disabling than Synaptic state which could be thrown three times at a safe distance :smallfrown: smart enemies and daylight both reduce the danger significantly. So does grapple.


Ranger class fantasy?
In order of importance.
A: Bow (could be any ranged weapon).
B: Ultimate survivalist. So good it seems/is magic.
C: Ultimate perception, So good it seems/is magic.
D: Stealth. Should be as good as a rogue
E: Magic/magic abilities to support the above

Animal companions are definitely part of the appeal of rangers, but they feel like a subclass thing more than something all rangers share.

I've played a ton of D&D, but honestly not much 5E. I've played 5E at Cons and in a few one shots. Reading this thread has lead me to do a lot more studying of the 5E ranger, contrasting it to other classes and options. I now feel kind of bad for encouraging my wife to play one for my first 5E campaign.

The class features are lackluster/worthless down the line. (excluding Extra Attack and ASI)
Favored Enemy: To be fair, I've never been a fan. There are so many monsters in D&D and there's no guarantee that you'll ever even encounter your favorite without the DM specifically catering. Even if you and the DM get together and have a conversation, "Yep, I see a lot of stuff with Orcs and Goblins. Those would be good choices." the natural course of non-railroaded campaigns can go in completely unexpected directions. "Well, this has turned into a campaign against human pirates. Sorry Ranger Rick" Assuming the DM is trying to help the ranger out by steering towards FE encounters, there's always that tightrope. Too many FE encounters and everyone else feels sidelined as it turns into the Ranger Rick Show. Too few and Ranger Rick sulks over the worthless pick. 5E avoids all these complications by making this a nearly worthless ability. Finding the monsters is rarely a problem in D&D and even if the DM decides that the party will indeed have to track down a monster, the difference between the whole party rolling Survival (Wis) and the whole party rolling Survival (Wis)+1 extra roll from the rangers favored enemy isn't really something to get super excited about. But don't forget the bonus to Int rolls to know stuff about the monster! This is so bad it is almost insulting. It's Ranger Rick's favored enemy and yet the DM is supposedly going to make them roll to remember things about them? And once again, if it is important, you've got a whole party rolling Nature (Int) to 'remember' that rust monsters rust things. I'm sure everyone playing a ranger will be salivating for level 6 and 14 when they get to taste the awesomeness of this class feature again. Grade:F
Natural Explorer You are good in one of 7 terrains. arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark. A ranger will only ever be good in 3 of these when even a modest setting can have players easily moving between 6 on a regular basis. (My first level group just travelled through 3 in one short trip.) Even assuming you are in your chosen environment, the benefits are pretty background note level at best. Does the distance the party travel in a day really matter? They'll get there when they get there. Do they really get lost that much? Once again you've got a lot of Survival(Wis) rolls to go around to find your way. I am sure every ranger player is super excited when they get to pick those new exciting environments again at 6 and 10. Grade:C (Grade:F because of it being 3 level ups instead of just one)
Primeval Awareness It's just horrible Grade:D
B]Lands Stride[/B]Not horrible! An honest to goodness okay class feature. Grade: B
Hide in Plain SightHorrible. Really horrible.Grade:F
Vanish Meh? You can hide 13 levels later than rogue and without the option for disengage, which sure sounds like it could be handy with a character normally focused on ranged attacks. The trackless thing is a nice bit of flavor that also would be much cooler at a lower level Grade:C
Feral SensesThis one is actually cool. Grade:A+
Foe Slayer No flavor. Pure number benefit. Linked to Favored Enemy, the last of which you chose six levels in the past. Grade:F



7 features. A:1 B:1 C:1 D:0 F:4
Doing the research for this post has been illuminating. If I could figure out a way to get the UA Revised Ranger as a class option for DnD Beyond I would definitely be switching my wife over to that. It fixed most everything. Favored Enemy is still problematic, but better one borked feature than 7.

I'm with you on most except the ranger being ranged. I used to think the same, but as far as I know it's a faux ami (resembling in sound, not meaning). I'd also have stealth only be as good as the rogue when you're outdoors.



I can think of a classic character. His name is Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and rightful king of Gondor.


Skilled in both magical and nonmagical healing.
Skilled at identifying weak points in the enemies and exploiting them
Can use the natural terrain to their advantage in remarkable ways.
Skilled with multiple weapon types.


To me, this screams a character who is more intelligence based than wisdom based. More someone who has gone to school and learned various techniques for gaining advantage. In fact, given some time, he can even acclimate himself and learn the terrain of the area, which gives him certain advantages. In fact, I could see their spell list erring more towards the Wizard than to the Cleric.

I also think the Druid should err more towards the Wizard list than it currently does but that's neither here nor there.

Good points with int/wisdom. It's an old old debate though. In general INT has been hit hard with the nerf stick in 5e which seems odd considering how strong it is irl.
I guess the ranger is thought to be so reliant on his senses and intuition hence the choice. Warlock should also be int imo (at least some of them).

[GlenSmash!]

I'm with you on most except the ranger being ranged. I used to think the same, but as far as I know it's a faux ami (resembling in sound, not meaning).

Very true, Rangers range, meaning they do a lot over overland travel. They may also attack with ranged weapons, but not necessarily so.

For example a Ranger may range in an area were local fantastic beasts have extremely tough hides (resistant to piercing damage) and thus would favor weapons other than the bow.

[Doug Lampert]

As far as I'm concerned, any time a class has a bonus that "only works on X," you need to have a solid justification for the limit.

Obviously, the feature isn't overpowered, or in an adventure or campaign focused on X, the power would be too much. So why the limit? Because we want the character underpowered the rest of the time? Or is it because the ability is just a ribbon and we want to maximize the chance that the player will forget to use it when it comes up? (5th edition Ranger it's just a ribbon, seriously, let it work all the time.)

What's the need for any limit to only on X on any ranger ability, which of them is too good if it just works. Would it hurt their theme if their abilities just worked?

Advantage on ALL checks to track and to recall information on monsters or races is not overpowered. Same comment for Natural Explorer, what type of terrain was Aragorn completely useless in? I've forgotten... Give those advantages in all types of terrain.

I don't know why "rangers are only good against X" was added to the game, but it's a bad idea, strip it out.

Then there's Hunter's Mark? Oh, look, it's a class feature, disguised as a spell, which pointlessly only works on one foe at a time, because Aragorn and Drizzle are only good against single foes or something and needed to waste a round casting a spell at the beginning of each combat. Seriously, why is this a spell?? Worse, it's a concentration spell because we want to nerf melee combat for rangers! And it uses a bonus action, because we wouldn't want a Ranger using two-weapon fighting! What is good or well designed about this feature?! If the ranger baseline damage is supposed to include this, just add it. "At level 1, all rangers get a 'precision strike' which adds 1d6 to one weapon attack that hits per round, at level 5, this improves to adding 1d6 to up to two different weapon attacks that hit per round, at level 11 this improves to 2d6 on up to two weapon attacks per round." If this is overpowered, then I'd hate to hear what a rogue's sneak attack is.

[Trickery]

As far as I'm concerned, any time a class has a bonus that "only works on X," you need to have a solid justification for the limit.

Obviously, the feature isn't overpowered, or in an adventure or campaign focused on X, the power would be too much. So why the limit? Because we want the character underpowered the rest of the time? Or is it because the ability is just a ribbon and we want to maximize the chance that the player will forget to use it when it comes up? (5th edition Ranger it's just a ribbon, seriously, let it work all the time.)

What's the need for any limit to only on X on any ranger ability, which of them is too good if it just works. Would it hurt their theme if their abilities just worked?

Advantage on ALL checks to track and to recall information on monsters or races is not overpowered. Same comment for Natural Explorer, what type of terrain was Aragorn completely useless in? I've forgotten... Give those advantages in all types of terrain.

I don't know why "rangers are only good against X" was added to the game, but it's a bad idea, strip it out.

Then there's Hunter's Mark? Oh, look, it's a class feature, disguised as a spell, which pointlessly only works on one foe at a time, because Aragorn and Drizzle are only good against single foes or something and needed to waste a round casting a spell at the beginning of each combat. Seriously, why is this a spell?? Worse, it's a concentration spell because we want to nerf melee combat for rangers! And it uses a bonus action, because we wouldn't want a Ranger using two-weapon fighting! What is good or well designed about this feature?! If the ranger baseline damage is supposed to include this, just add it. "At level 1, all rangers get a 'precision strike' which adds 1d6 to one weapon attack that hits per round, at level 5, this improves to adding 1d6 to up to two different weapon attacks that hit per round, at level 11 this improves to 2d6 on up to two weapon attacks per round." If this is overpowered, then I'd hate to hear what a rogue's sneak attack is.

I agree with most of your points.

With Hunter's Mark, I'd refine this just a bit. I do think this should have been a class feature and not a spell. It's weird that fighters, if they can get hold of it, make better use of the spell than Rangers can. But it seems like this feature is meant to be the Ranger picking a focus target to be especially effective against. If Rangers were roughly equivalent to fighters when focusing their attacks on one target, that might make them roughly balanced considering their lower HP but much higher utility.

I like the Whirling Blades idea that I believe came from Mearls. It's a new fighting style idea: when wearing light armor, you can make the extra TWF attack without consuming your bonus action and with your attribute added to the damage. That fixes the Ranger's bonus action problem. Whirling Blades combined with Hunter's Mark as a CF (core feature) would be my fix of choice. And I'd have Hunter's Mark add 1d6 per hit at level 1, 1d8 at 5, 1d10 at 11, and 1d12 at 17.

[mephnick]

I also think Rangers need a way to be good at both ranged and melee combat without resorting to Dex min/maxing. They should be switch-hitters.

Rapier/Longbow isn't a Ranger to me. Longsword/Longbow is. Some kind of Fast Hands for drawing weapons might help. Some bonuses that smooth out STR and DEX requirements.

A Ranger without decent strength and Athletics is not a Ranger. It's a nature gymnast. But then your bow isn't as good.

I'm not really sure how you would do this in the current system though..

[Trickery]

I also think Rangers need a way to be good at both ranged and melee combat without resorting to Dex min/maxing. They should be switch-hitters.

Rapier/Longbow isn't a Ranger to me. Longsword/Longbow is. Some kind of Fast Hands for drawing weapons might help. Some bonuses that smooth out STR and DEX requirements.

A Ranger without decent strength and Athletics is not a Ranger. It's a nature gymnast. But then your bow isn't as good.

I'm not really sure how you would do this in the current system though..

Perhaps there could be a feature that allowed Rangers to use either their strength or dexterity when making attacks with ranged weapons or non-heavy melee weapons. That would allow the Ranger to diversify all they wanted. Though I would worry about dip potential. Perhaps this could be a level 5 feature along with extra attack to prevent that.

[paladinn]

Hunters Mark should definitely be a class feature. I would say that, after one round, after studying how one opponent fights, s/he adds his/her proficiency bonus to his/her to-hit roles, armor class and possibly saves against that one foe (but Not damage). That in addition to the initial proficiency bonus.

Give him/her the barbarian's Danger Sense ("What's this, a ranger caught off his guard?"), animal handling, tracking, maybe Fast Movement, possibly dodge and/or evasion, and some other non-spell abilities. Done.

The ranger "spells" just seem like either druid ripoffs or ways to let a ranger do really cool stuff, just not all the time. Stuff better done in subclasses, if at all.

[Trickery]

I'm thinking that Rangers, similar to Warlocks, have too many possible features to contain them all in just subclasses and core features.

What I'm thinking is that we should go full warlock and setup Pacts (Paths) and Invocations (Aptitudes). You choose one path and can take aptitudes at various points while leveling. Then there would be core features that all Rangers got.

Here's what I have so far:

Core Features

Level 1: HP, armor, weapons, Track (survival expertise, always able to follow tracks without needing to roll), terrain feature, Hunter's Mark.
Level 2: Fighting style, choose a Path
Level 5: extra attack
Level 7: Evasion
Level 9: Land's Stride - ignore all difficult terrain
Level 10: Feral Senses.
Level 20: Capstone based on Path

Paths:

Beastlord - beast pet, psychic link, follows your orders. Can spend your bonus action to have it make one attack, can also have it do so when you set Hunter's Mark. Whenever you could make an attack, you may have the companion do so instead provided it has a valid target within reach.
Wanderer - current Ranger spellcasting progression, advanced tracking, speak with animals and plants, small number of Druid cantrips
Warrior - advanced Hunter's Mark that doesn't require bonus action to use, bonus action strikes similar to BM Fighter Manuevers (Ensnaring Strike, Zephyr Strike, etc.)

Aptitudes (two at 3, then one every 3 levels):

Danger Sense
Cat's Eyes
Vanish
Rabbit's Feet - dash or disengage as a bonus action.
(6+) Pass Without Trace
Snare trap (as the spell)
(6+) Spike trap (spike growth)
Curing herb - touch creature, cure poison, disease, or suppress a curse temporarily, 3/day
Healing herb - touch creature, heal for Ranger level in HP, 3/day
Spider Venom

[Bigmouth]

I'm with you on most except the ranger being ranged. I used to think the same, but as far as I know it's a faux ami (resembling in sound, not meaning). I'd also have stealth only be as good as the rogue when you're outdoors.
Indoors is a good distinction between the two with the muddy in between area being the whole 'Underdark" thing. Then their are the "urban rangers" and the "Nature Rogues" stirring up the waters even more. But overall yeah, Rogue's should be better as it is more class defining for them. Rangers should be darn close with all other classes being also-rans (possibly with a stealth based subclass joining the 'we're super sneaky' club)

Hunting and scouting by yourself or in small numbers just doesn't scream melee weapons to me, but I can definitely see a few instances where melee rangers make sense. For me, that would be: places where range just isn't an option; where the ranger was/is the melee support part of a ranger team; cultures where thrown weapons are the range of choice. (I've always wanted to do a spear/javelin hunter but have always talked myself out of it. Again, the Underdark is a great place for these edge cases. Tight tunnels could easily make range difficult and you end up with a dagger fighting ranger.

From a design point of view, you've got 3 classes with a better arguments for melee supremacy being a class defining feature.

[Trickery]

From a design point of view, you've got 3 classes with a better arguments for melee supremacy being a class defining feature.

You also have Sorcerer, Wizard, most Warlocks, some Clerics, and arguably Rogues for a whom ranged options are preferable. Also, Fighters can go either way pretty easily. I don't see an issue with Rangers having options, at least. If they could easily move between ranged attacks and melee on the same build without any lost efficiency, that would make them akin to rogues in that regard.

[Zetakya]

You also have Sorcerer, Wizard, most Warlocks, some Clerics, and arguably Rogues for a whom ranged options are preferable. Also, Fighters can go either way pretty easily. I don't see an issue with Rangers having options, at least. If they could easily move between ranged attacks and melee on the same build without any lost efficiency, that would make them akin to rogues in that regard.

Bow and Sword, in Accord, is the trope you are looking for.

Personally I would adore it if Hunter's Mark required a Ranged Attack to apply (a la the SCAG melee attack cantrips) but then applied bonuses to melee combat as well.

That would make for a really flavourful "Mark Target, then Attack" mechanic. It would also make their "strike first, be the ambusher" tendencies meaningful - because someone else getting the drop on you mean you don't get to apply the Marking Arrow or w/e you call it.

[8wGremlin]

I'm thinking that Rangers, similar to Warlocks, have too many possible features to contain them all in just subclasses and core features.

What I'm thinking is that we should go full warlock and setup Pacts (Paths) and Invocations (Aptitudes). You choose one path and can take aptitudes at various points while leveling. Then there would be core features that all Rangers got.

Here's what I have so far:

Core Features

Level 1: HP, armor, weapons, Track (survival expertise, always able to follow tracks without needing to roll), terrain feature, Hunter's Mark.
Level 2: Fighting style, choose a Path
Level 5: extra attack
Level 7: Evasion
Level 9: Land's Stride - ignore all difficult terrain
Level 10: Feral Senses.
Level 20: Capstone based on Path

Paths:

Beastlord - beast pet, psychic link, follows your orders. Can spend your bonus action to have it make one attack, can also have it do so when you set Hunter's Mark. Whenever you could make an attack, you may have the companion do so instead provided it has a valid target within reach.
Wanderer - current Ranger spellcasting progression, advanced tracking, speak with animals and plants, small number of Druid cantrips
Warrior - advanced Hunter's Mark that doesn't require bonus action to use, bonus action strikes similar to BM Fighter Manuevers (Ensnaring Strike, Zephyr Strike, etc.)

Aptitudes (two at 3, then one every 3 levels):

Danger Sense
Cat's Eyes
Vanish
Rabbit's Feet - dash or disengage as a bonus action.
(6+) Pass Without Trace
Snare trap (as the spell)
(6+) Spike trap (spike growth)
Curing herb - touch creature, cure poison, disease, or suppress a curse temporarily, 3/day
Healing herb - touch creature, heal for Ranger level in HP, 3/day
Spider Venom



Yeah this is a good way of approaching it.

[Trickery]

Yeah this is a good way of approaching it.

Thank you! It looks like Mearls has a similar approach, and I took a lot of inspiration from what he's doing (posted earlier in the thread). I've been trying to incorporate everyone's thoughts into a single, relatively simple model.

I say relatively simple since it's going to involve more choices than the base ranger but, hopefully, less to write on your character sheet.

Still a WIP, though. I need to flesh out the aptitudes, levels 11-19, and figure out path features.

[Kane0]

Happy to help, do you have a homebrew thread for it already?

[Bjarkmundur]

I'd love to see a big community project, a sort of "create your own homebrewed ranger". Making one ranger everyone likes won't happen, but if we can narrow each level to 5 or so possible features, and have a "pick 1-2 features of each level" clause, it would maybe give us something to work with until a better solution pops up.

This would require one unified "template", dividing ribbons, combat bonuses, base features, mobility bonuses, durability bonuses between levels. After that each homebrewer can fill in the gaps on his own. It would be the ultimate class design challenge. You have to design a class without knowing the features, but instead create a guide on how to make a balanced and enjoyable class from suggested mechanics.

Based on the answers to this thread, there are a lot of ways to fulfill the "ranger fantasy"

[Trickery]

Happy to help, do you have a homebrew thread for it already?

Not yet. I'll try to create something over on the homebrew forum tonight.

[paladinn]

I'd love to see a big community project, a sort of "create your own homebrewed ranger". Making one ranger everyone likes won't happen, but if we can narrow each level to 5 or so possible features, and have a "pick 1-2 features of each level" clause, it would maybe give us something to work with until a better solution pops up.

This would require one unified "template", dividing ribbons, combat bonuses, base features, mobility bonuses, durability bonuses between levels. After that each homebrewer can fill in the gaps on his own. It would be the ultimate class design challenge. You have to design a class without knowing the features, but instead create a guide on how to make a balanced and enjoyable class from suggested mechanics.

Based on the answers to this thread, there are a lot of ways to fulfill the "ranger fantasy"

It's always fun to theorycraft; but the truth is, if WotC doesn't embrace something or does something different, no one is going to pay much attention.

I've been daydreaming of doing my own OSR/5e mashup with all the things I think would make the game better. But I know it's really an exercise in futility. That's why these endeavors have been called "fantasy heartbreakers". Sigh

[MagneticKitty]

Major complaints with current ranger:
Nature person should be good in all terrains, I hate favored terrain.
Beast master never getting magic attack is crippling. Sharing attacks with them is lame.
Exploration aspect doesn't work well, forces dm to try and toss a bone when most groups would rather skip this all together. And if a group liked exploration before, the rangers ability to generate food, water and not get lost ruins exploration for those people too.

I would remove favored everything.
Give expertise in survival (Which has other applications If a group doesn't use exploration, like tracking)
Invocations are a decent idea.. I'd probably rebuild a little like Warlock using the druid list, offering signature ranger spells as ability choices (invocations) instead of spells.

So you can have eldritch blast specialization which is like archery. Basically make them an archer with green arrow like enhancements. Can be magic or mechanical (gets a lot of shots like eb does)
Pact of blade > dual weilder replacement (hunters mark perk pairs with this)
Pact of chain > beast master replacement (paladin makes a better beastmaster... Actually why not find familiar, find steed, and find greater steed replacing their beast master in this instance. Just have them getting paired with a nature spirit that manifests in different forms)

I guess that makes pacts subclasses. Hmm unsure how to build it exactly, but the idea is there.

[Kane0]

I'd love to see a big community project, a sort of "create your own homebrewed ranger". Making one ranger everyone likes won't happen, but if we can narrow each level to 5 or so possible features, and have a "pick 1-2 features of each level" clause, it would maybe give us something to work with until a better solution pops up.

This would require one unified "template", dividing ribbons, combat bonuses, base features, mobility bonuses, durability bonuses between levels. After that each homebrewer can fill in the gaps on his own. It would be the ultimate class design challenge. You have to design a class without knowing the features, but instead create a guide on how to make a balanced and enjoyable class from suggested mechanics.

Based on the answers to this thread, there are a lot of ways to fulfill the "ranger fantasy"

I believe that has already been a thing. (https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/4cq6jq/consensus_ranger/)

[Nagog]

Not yet. I'll try to create something over on the homebrew forum tonight.

Be sure to post a link here, I'd love to use this template!

[Trickery]

Be sure to post a link here, I'd love to use this template!

Okay, here's what I came up with: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?592824-Ranger-Paths-Revision. It's a WIP, as you can see. I think it gets the three major Ranger identities correct, overall.

It isn't compatible with existing Ranger archetypes - too many changes were necessary. However, it would be pretty easy to tweak the existing archetypes (for better or worse) to work with this template. It gains archetype features (path features) at the same levels as before with the exception of gaining an archetype (path) at level 2 instead of level 3. So, the simple way to use the template would be to take the core features and the invocations that you want, then slap an existing archetype on top of it if you prefer the current Ranger archetypes.

Edit: I'm worried the number of attacks is too high with the warrior and beast lord paths, particularly considering Hunter's Mark as a feature and not a spell. I know I need to look at that part.

[Kane0]

Okay, here's what I came up with: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?592824-Ranger-Paths-Revision. It's a WIP, as you can see. I think it gets the three major Ranger identities correct, overall.

It isn't compatible with existing Ranger archetypes - too many changes were necessary. However, it would be pretty easy to tweak the existing archetypes (for better or worse) to work with this template. It gains archetype features (path features) at the same levels as before with the exception of gaining an archetype (path) at level 2 instead of level 3. So, the simple way to use the template would be to take the core features and the invocations that you want, then slap an existing archetype on top of it if you prefer the current Ranger archetypes.

Edit: I'm worried the number of attacks is too high with the warrior and beast lord paths, particularly considering Hunter's Mark as a feature and not a spell. I know I need to look at that part.

Left my initial thoughts, hope it's helpful.

I just realized that I haven't actually stated what I envision the identity of the ranger to be in this particular thread. I'll copy-paste from the last one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?590774-Ranger-Playtesting-over-the-Summer):

Here's some clarification to what I see in rangers. I fully expect others to disagree.
- Where the Rogue hides, the Ranger seeks
- Where the Paladin uses magic for bursts on single targets, the Ranger uses it for consistency against many targets
- Where the Rogue is a martial with skill and the Bard is a caster with skill, the Ranger is a martial with a bit of both
- Where the Fighter and Monk rely on attack quantity and the Rogue relies on attack quality, the Ranger sits in the middle with the Barbarian and Paladin
- Where the Barbarian is brutal and direct, the Ranger is cunning and crafty

- Rangers are equal parts lone wolf and team player
- Rangers fight smarter not harder
- Rangers (should) get some unique niches like pets but it's fine to share niches with other classes like the Rogue and Paladin. What isn't OK is just ripping off their features
- Rangers primarily operate on the 'second line' or 'flank' in combat, much like Rogues and Monks

[8wGremlin]

Actually giving an ability like

Pack Tactics Master/Flanking master: whilst you and an ally are melee fighting the same target you both get advantage to hit.

might be good.

[Sindal]

Echoing gremlin

Thought:
What if rangers got monster abilities based
on their favored terrain. Like you learn tricks from the beasts in there.

Like spider webbing
Pack tactics
Grapples and knockdowns
Venom
Beast tackles
Swimming and climbing speeds
Vision
Disarming

[Trickery]

Left my initial thoughts, hope it's helpful.

I just realized that I haven't actually stated what I envision the identity of the ranger to be in this particular thread. I'll copy-paste from the last one (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?590774-Ranger-Playtesting-over-the-Summer):

Here's some clarification to what I see in rangers. I fully expect others to disagree.
- Where the Rogue hides, the Ranger seeks
- Where the Paladin uses magic for bursts on single targets, the Ranger uses it for consistency against many targets
- Where the Rogue is a martial with skill and the Bard is a caster with skill, the Ranger is a martial with a bit of both
- Where the Fighter and Monk rely on attack quantity and the Rogue relies on attack quality, the Ranger sits in the middle with the Barbarian and Paladin
- Where the Barbarian is brutal and direct, the Ranger is cunning and crafty

- Rangers are equal parts lone wolf and team player
- Rangers fight smarter not harder
- Rangers (should) get some unique niches like pets but it's fine to share niches with other classes like the Rogue and Paladin. What isn't OK is just ripping off their features
- Rangers primarily operate on the 'second line' or 'flank' in combat, much like Rogues and Monks



Actually giving an ability like

Pack Tactics Master/Flanking master: whilst you and an ally are melee fighting the same target you both get advantage to hit.

might be good.

Thanks for the suggestions. I made quite a few changes.