UA Revised Ranger FAQ

[Drache64]

Hello!

My wife is playing a 5e UA Revised Ranger tomorrow for the first time.

I was reading over the class and it seems like she always ignores difficult terrain, Always gains advantage on initiative, and always has advantage on attack rolls on the first turn of combat against creatures who haven't had actions yet.

Am I understanding this correctly?

[Contrast]

Am I understanding this correctly?

You are. The class is very front loaded.

[Drache64]

You are. The class is very front loaded.

Seems like she should take it to level 3 (she wants an animal companion) then switch to something else

[Kane0]

Are you the DM? Are alternatives to the UA on the table?

The UA one is okay, but it's not really much of an improvement over the original

[Contrast]

Seems like she should take it to level 3 (she wants an animal companion) then switch to something else

Eh is you've gone 3 may as well pick up extra attack. Favoured enemy is also pretty good in revised ranger depending on your campaign (+4 damage to all humanoids?).

If she wants the animal companion for combat only taking 3 levels means its gonna spend a lot of time dead.

If she just wants it for fluff/non-combat reasons I would recommend just picking up Find Familiar (Magic Initiate and variant human gets that online from level 1 for any class) or consider talking to the DM about using the Sidekick UA or just agree to a non-combatant animal companion of some sort.

I will say I believe they are also on record as saying they don't encourage multi-classing with UA stuff but that's really a call for the DM to make.

[Drache64]

Are you the DM? Are alternatives to the UA on the table?

The UA one is okay, but it's not really much of an improvement over the original

I am not, but the DM seems open to official stuff. He recommended the UA ranger for her

[rbstr]

If you switch out of ranger the animal companion isn't (shouldn't) going to get ASIs or extra hit die, which are pretty great. Besides the extra features the beastmaster gets.

Revised ranger is a pretty good class - the first-level combats stuff is really good, but not something insane. The only thing that's a bit much is Favored Enemy.
Even regular ranger is better than most people give it credit for. Mid/high level archetype features are all good, the spells are pretty good.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

I mean, there are far worse options she could take for multiclassing. Just the one level dip alone is fantastic. Beast Conclave isn't the most optimized conclave to pick (usually it's Hunter or Gloomstalker for 3 level dips), but if she wants an animal companion, then why not? The animal is never going to be completely useless since it uses your proficiencies and becomes proficient in all saves, but it'll be a little squishy and won't really be a powerhouse. Basically it's the familiar feature, but slightly more expensive and trades off some utility for the ability to actually fight.

I'd probably multiclass into a martial class after that, or maybe Cleric or Druid. The "optimized" way to do it for martials would be UA Ranger 1 -> Martial 5 -> Ranger 3 -> Whatever X, but that's a long time without the animal buddy. Going Ranger 5 -> Rogue X could give you some good ranged damage, two tries at sneak attack, as well as being able to use the animal companion to ensure you have an ally for sneak attack.

One option she might take is Sharpshooter War Cleric 1 -> Ranger 5 -> War Cleric X. Makes you an archer with an animal companion, up to 3 attacks, and a lot of support options with the Cleric spell list.

Really, though, Beast Conclave benefits a lot from staying in Ranger. You'll start racking up quite a bit of extra damage between coordinated attacks, the beast's own attacks, and Storm of Claws and Fangs.

[Bjarkmundur]

Well, then there's the Kane0 Rework, the Grod Rework and my Pet-Keeper rules you can work with.
.

Pet-Keeper
As a part of a Downtime you can train a Pet. The pet is an ordinary animal, as shown on the table below. You can communicate with your Pet as if you were under the effects of Speak With Animals. It is in no way compelled to put itself at risk for you, but loves doing favors for treats such as fetching items, delivering messages or distracting creatures..
You can choose a new Pet as a part of your downtime, but can only have one active at a time. A pet costs 10 times it's XP value and can be bought at your local pet shop. A complete list of available pets can be found here (https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Monsters%20List#content).




Level

Max CR

Example



1st

0

Cat, Eagle



3rd

1/8

Mastiff, Mule.



5th

1/4

Riding Horse, Wolf



8th

1/2

Bear, Warhorse