Ranger. I think it's fine, but...

[loki_ragnarock]

“I could just play a rogue-fighter multi-class and get a better ranger.”
- A bunch of people on the internet.

To be clear, I disagree with the sentiment. I also have to admit that I see it expressed frequently.

So I gave it a thought, and started considering what ability could be added to ranger to differentiate them enough from other options to make them appealing. Since two of the most griped about things I've seen are:
1. Too many competing options for your bonus action
2. Too many mutually exclusive concentration spells

I thought, “Okay, lets just do that then. Give them an extra bonus action and the ability to concentrate on two spells at once. That’d address the concerns and give them something totally unique that lets them feel more like their own thing and less like a multi-class hybrid.”
But then I thought, “Oh, but I don’t want to make a hexblade or fighter scenario where people are looking for a 1 or 2 level dip to act as a force multiplier on a build that otherwise has nothing do with either. That’d be a bummer. So those solutions would have to be late enough in the progression that someone still feels like they're mostly ranger, even if they multi-class.”

And wouldn’t you know it; rangers have a gap in abilities at level 9 and 13. And while ostensibly one would assume the access to new spell levels would be the class feature in those instances, they’re also kind of perfectly situated to prevent multi-classing shenanigans by being just after the common break points for a multi-class build. They add a significant power-up that’d synergize even more effectively with other classes, but going that one extra level in ranger would also mean that a multi-class would be sacrificing an ASI somewhere in the progression to do it.

Further, they’d give rangers a slight boost at about the time they start to feel like they need it in late tier two and tier three. An extra bonus action would not only alleviate the struggles of a two-weapon fighting ranger, but also reestablish them as the preeminent practitioners of the form. The ability to concentrate on more than one spell at a time gives rangers a niche that no one else can fill, and distinguishes from the other martial half-caster in that it encourages them to actually cast spells.

Cool, but which goes where? The bonus action coming in at level 9 seems right to me, as that opens up a key distinguisher at the tail end of tier 2 that can benefit archers and two weapon fighters, but two weapon fighters are the ones who need the most help. Moving a double concentration ability to level 13 puts it late enough in the progression to make it a clearly ranger boon, and allows someone to use swift quiver and hunter’s mark at the same time; archers can also get in on the benefits of being a high level ranger.


So something like:

Efficiency of Body: At level 9, you gain a second bonus action in a round.

Efficiency of Mind: At level 13, you may concentrate on two effects in the same round. If you fail a concentration check, you lose concentration for both effects.

So… what does this break?

In theory, someone could run through 13 levels of ranger, pick up some levels of cleric and run around with Spirit Guardians, Bless, and two instances of Spiritual Weapon. Yikes. But when it doesn’t come online until level 18, is it any more obnoxious than other high level combinations? Since it’s effectively limited to low level effects (no higher than 4th level spells), it’s probably not going to overpower too many things. And since there’s nothing to make spellcasting faster, the Bless/Spirit Guardians/x2 Spiritual Weapon combo would take 4 rounds to manifest; whatever it is should have been dealt with by then, anyway.

So… that might be the case with a cleric, but you could probably break it with a celestial sorcerer instead, right? They’d still be limited to one non cantrip per round, so nothing there will accelerate the 4 rounds it would take to get to a combo of doom. But there might be the abuse angle in being able to quicken so many cantrips in a round, since cantrips scale independent of level. But again, that’s burning through a lot of a fairly limited resource… but also one that they can replenish by spending a bonus action, feeding into the system. There might be some potential for abuse there, but it comes from a multi-class combination that doesn’t actually synergize very well. If someone wanted to play a high charisma ranger – charisma high enough to actually hit with a cantrip in tier 3 and 4 with a multi-class combo that ensures they lose out on a critical ASI - for nine levels, then the joke may be on them. Certainly a tall ask for standard array or point-buy.

Maybe the problem is actually cleric again, where a war cleric can use their bonus action to attack even more times with a greatsword? Nah, that has a hard cap on the number of uses in a day; that doesn’t really get to the broken status, as it turns into a fewer rounds of slightly more burst damage than such a cleric would typically get. A typical paladin or fighter would likely out perform it. Especially when one could just two-weapon fight for more consistent damage across multiple rounds as a standard ranger, it doesn’t seem too radical.

While there might be some outliers, the real problems are obviously monk and rogue, which both get enormous utility out of a bonus action for a low level investment and have overlapping stats.

A rogue multi-class being able to dash twice in a round could lead to kiting shenanigans heretofore unseen. Or even the ability to hide, attack, hide in the confines of the same round could lead to some wonkiness, though come to think of it a ranger can do that on their own eventually. But being able to disengage every round without a meaningful opportunity cost could also ruffle a few feathers, as it also serves to create the ultimate kiting character. The rogue interactions leave me a bit torn; it opens up some potential for abuse, but doesn’t come online until tier 3 at the soonest; is it broken, or is it the benefits of playing a high level character? Is it broken, or is it putting dexterity based multi-class options on par with charisma based options? I’m going to lean broken for the sake of being conservative, and consider it a mark against the idea in the initially proposed form.

A monk multi-class produces many of the same problems. With an extra bonus action they could do things like double the number of bonus action unarmed strikes to 4 in a round at the cost of 2 ki. Yikes… but since hunter’s mark specifies weapon attacks, there’s no real synergy there. Or they could dodge every round for a low cost of 1 ki per round. Or perform the same gonzo kiting of the rogue concerns at a cost of 2 ki. Or mix and match, so long as the have the available ki. While all impressive, the obvious interactions there are hard capped by a monk’s ki pool. Since the ki pool is determined by monk level, this is all something that the character would have to grow in to. At tier three they could start making a flurry of unarmed strikes once per short rest, but it wouldn’t be until the end of tier three that those strikes would count as magical; if the characters only manages half damage for every strike, is it really that bad if they take twice as many while burning a limited resource? Monk is less of a problem due to the inherent restrictions that come with the class; stunning strike doesn’t even come online until the end of tier 3, and that’s also about the time that the abilities really start to pump into something to be concerned about… but since tier 4 is when things should probably be getting pretty gonzo in general and that’s about the time this combo would come online in a meaningful way, that seems on track to me. My personal take is that it would just mean there's an interesting dex/wis multiclass, finally. Take that charisma!
Suffice it to say, a monk dip isn’t going to break much, but in the interests of being more conservative I think a quick edit is in order.

Efficiency of Body: At 9th level, the ranger gains a second bonus action. This bonus action can only be used to cast or activate a ranger spell, use a ranger class ability, or make an additional attack per the two-weapon fighting rules.
Efficiency of Mind: At 13th level, the ranger gains the ability to concentrate on a second effect. This second effect must be a ranger spell or ability. If you fail a concentration check, you lose concentration on both effects.

There. That prevents having to examine every possible combination of bonus action that could break the game in tier 3 and 4. That also prevents having to examine every possible combination of concentration spell of 4th level or lower for some combination that’ll break the game in tier 4. While it would probably work in either form, this one serves to make it more ranger exclusive and prevents the danger of a few rogue levels leading to constant double dashing or a cleric throwing down a double spiritual weapon or casting elemental weapon on both swords. It does allow for a rogue’s dash and a ranger’s spell, or a cleric’s spiritual weapon and an extra longsword attack, or an elemental weapon with an ensnaring strike; allowing that kind of multi-class to benefit from both classes at once without relegating the abilities of the ranger to the dust bin seems like a good compromise.

The way it’s phrased – which could stand to be work shopped - also puts a hard cap on the number of bonus action’s you can utilize for popular feats like Polearm Master or Great Weapon Master; while it allows them to be used with a ranger more freely, it doesn’t lead to a doubling of the effects of the feat. Having stymied the double haft strike or the double foe cleave options, the fighter can remain comfortable in continuing to be the best polearm user. I probably should have mentioned that as a concern before the revision, so it didn’t look like an afterthought. But it became pretty clear that the list of things to consider it breaking was fairly long.


So, the end result should be a slight tweak to the ranger that doesn’t lead to easy exploits for non-rangers.

What does it get a ranger, though?

Well, a ranger who focused on two weapon fighting got an upgrade that makes the fighting style more viable. It’s a pretty effective offensive option at low levels and doesn’t need the boost there, but falls off pretty sharply sometime after extra attack. Getting a second bonus action to attack with helps extend its viability, and puts a little pepper back in right when it was starting to get bland. All in a way that’d be unique to the ranger’s progression.

Further, it relieves the burden of how to manage all the bonus action options presented to the ranger. While it’s something they have to manage at low levels, there comes a point where a horizon walker no longer has to decide to use their planar warrior ability or hail of thorns in a round; they can do both. Where the two weapon fighting hunter doesn’t have to choose between moving his hunter’s mark or attacking with his off hand weapon; she can do both. Where a beastmaster doesn’t have to choose between directing their companion to use the help action or casting ensnaring strike; they can do both. (If it’s something that even helps out beastmasters, it almost feels like we must be on the right track.) Where a ranger of any stripe doesn’t have to choose between casting swift quiver and using it; they can do both.

They don’t start out having to do both; they have to grow into it. I like that it feels like character progression rather than just starting awesome. A few levels of salt followed by levels of sugar, like a business that starts to show profit in year five, or a person who struggles to learn a new skill and later becoming the best in the business.


But yeah, it does let a high level ranger cast swift quiver and hunter’s mark in the same combat. It also lets a high level ranger cast swift quiver and attack six times; twice as an action, twice as an action, twice as an efficiency of body bonus action.
And is that really so bad? For the Ranger to have some pre-emminence as dual wielders and bow users? To give them a real niche where they’re still slightly behind a samurai archer? To once a day pull ahead of the bard who stole one of the ranger’s best spells some seven levels earlier, and has been spamming it every combat since?
I don’t think that’s so bad at all. To me, it sounds like justice.

Shame on the bard. Shame on him.

In fact, I’d even go one ability further:
Perfect Coordination: At level 17, the ranger may cast any number of leveled spells in a round. The leveled spells must be ranger spells.

Now at their peak, the can concentrate on more than one spell in a round, cast more than one spell in a round, and have the actions required to enable casting more than one spell in a round. They aren’t wizards or sorcerer’s; the ranger has focused on different things (warping reality itself vs. practical life hacks), and thus rendered different results. They aren’t burning through spellslots the same way as the paladin; the ranger has been distinguished from the other half caster by being rewarded for casting spells. They aren’t just fighter druids, either; druids have a connection with nature of a greater spiritual magnitude (higher level spells), rangers have a connection to nature of a greater practical magnitude (ease of spellcasting). Nor is the ranger better expressed as a fighter rogue; no fighter rogue could maintain concentration on pass without trace while using bonus action hide only to strike with a debuff attack spell from the shadows. Nor is one even necessarily better served by backing out of the class after the first couple of levels; the ranger gets a little more compelling with time. It also serves to highlight spellcasting for the ranger as a core feature instead of something tacked on, another complaint checked off.

I think this would work pretty well to address a lot of (but certainly not all, or even many of my own) complaints about the ranger. It's a series of small tweaks that carve out a little mechanical niche for them that synergizes with their already present tool kit.

[Kane0]

Seems viable to me. Not the approach I would have taken personally but for your stated scope this appears to work just fine.

[Jelkan]

You might consider just removing the concentration requirement for Hunter's Mark altogether (as a Ranger feature at level 9/13 like you are already thinking). This would only allow them to have Hunter's Mark plus one other concentration spell active at once. Instead of another bonus action, let them change Hunter's Mark targets once per round as a free action. Otherwise they might be able to dredge up some shenanigans you or I can't even imagine.

Of course, then you might have warlocks arguing that they should be just as practiced with Hex.

[Darc_Vader]

My knee-jerk reaction was that those would be overpowered, but actually thinking about it I really like both these ideas. The existing rules on bonus action casting actually keep both from getting out of line, and Ranger being only a half-caster means that you’re not going to be able to keep a Hunter’s Mark up while firing off repeated Hail of Thorns’ and Entangling Strikes all day. Anything making twf more viable outside tier 1/2, and buffing Beastmaster is fine with me.

[LudicSavant]

/rant

My biggest problem with the Ranger class in 5e is that it doesn't have a soul. It comes off to me like there's no guiding vision of flavor, no clear grasp of the fantasy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKEzMz6FcXs) they wanted the player to experience.

Perhaps the worst example of this is the Beastmaster. Your dog can't do dog things. Hey, your master went unconscious, what does Lassie do? Go tell someone that you fell down a well? Maybe feed you a potion like the rescue St. Bernards of legend? Maybe get angry and attack the one who hurt their master?

Nope, they sit there and Dodge, spinning in circles as if you just dropped the controller for a remote control robot. That's unacceptable for a living creature who's your friend and companion in a goddamn roleplaying game. Heck, it'd be unacceptable for a half-baked AI buddy in a video game made 15 years ago, let alone today.

This isn't the kind of mechanic you make when you're thinking about how to fulfill the fantasy of having a faithful hound companion, it's when you are throwing that all on the chopping block for your ideas about how minions should interact with the action economy.

While the Beastmaster is perhaps the most egregious offender, the issue seems to be present throughout the class. For example, Natural Explorer is oft remarked upon for the way it sort of undermines the very thing that many Ranger players want out of the class (there's a whole article about the Baldur's Gate devs talking to WotC about this when they were asked to make a 5e videogame). The second you stop traveling and start exploring, it doesn't really contribute.

Contrast the improvement in the flavor of the Paladin, comparing the Oath system to the janky Code of Conduct of the past. Or basically its entire class design being overhauled compared to the "it's basically just a nerfed Cleric" of 3.5e infamy? Where was any of that sense of care for the Ranger?

Maybe it's just me but the Ranger just seems phoned in to me. Like they didn't really have a clear vision for what they wanted to do with the Ranger, but felt like the PHB had to have one.

[Morty]

My biggest problem with the Ranger class in 5e is that it doesn't have a soul. It comes off to me like there's no guiding vision of flavor, no clear grasp of the fantasy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKEzMz6FcXs) they wanted the player to experience.

This is true, but this sort of implies the ranger has ever not had this problem. And the only version that could be argued not to have it is 4E's (which as it s own issues). The D&D ranger is just a poor basis for a class and nothing will ever make it work.

[CTurbo]

The 5e Ranger gets a lot of hate. It's not really that it's a weak class because it's really not IMO, it just has clunky features.

Your proposed changes make the class stronger, but not any less awkward.

I don't have all the answers on how to "fix" the class, but I think it would have worked best as a purely martial spell-less class. Hunter's Mark should have never been a spell at all, but a Ranger class feature.


For the record, I didn't like the proposed spell-less Ranger very much. I think combat maneuvers should be reserved for the Battle Master Fighter.

[Dienekes]

/rant

My biggest problem with the Ranger class in 5e is that it doesn't have a soul. It comes off to me like there's no guiding vision of flavor, no clear grasp of the fantasy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKEzMz6FcXs) they wanted the player to experience.

As someone who has recently been working on a martial rework with the goals of making each of the martial classes play pattern being vastly different, by digging deep into the desired fantasy of each class. I was wondering if you (or anyone else really) could describe what you think it really means to be a ranger? What is the fluff you want to play and how does the base class not live up to it?

[Morty]

As an addendum to my previous post, the first of two 5E characters I played was a dwarven scout rogue. She had good Wisdom and expertise in Survival, Perception and Nature. Thus she basically did act in most ways like a ranger. She scouted ahead, tracked and shot stuff from behind cover. She didn't have spells, an animal companion or the pile of other features rangers get in an attempt to make them distinct, but she performed the core of what supposedly makes rangers what they are.

[Kane0]

I was wondering if you (or anyone else really) could describe what you think it really means to be a ranger? What is the fluff you want to play and how does the base class not live up to it?

My views on ranger 'identity'
- Where the Rogue hides, the Ranger seeks
- Where the Druid reveres nature, for the Ranger it is a tool
- Where the Barbarian is brutal and direct, the Ranger is cunning and crafty
- 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 Paladin prioritizes burst damage, the Ranger focuses on consistency
- Rangers fight smarter not harder
- Rangers are equal parts lone wolf and team player
- Rangers primarily operate on the 'second line' or 'flank', much like Rogues and Monks
Rangers, like all classes, should get some unique items (like pets and traps) and it's fine to share things with other classes. What isn't OK is lazily copying features or removing aspects of play.

For what it’s worth, i’ve done my own Ranger rework too but I think i’ve plugged that enough recently.

[Dr. Cliché]

While the Beastmaster is perhaps the most egregious offender, the issue seems to be present throughout the class. For example, Natural Explorer is oft remarked upon for the way it sort of undermines the very thing that many Ranger players want out of the class (there's a whole article about the Baldur's Gate devs talking to WotC about this when they were asked to make a 5e videogame).

Do you have a link to that article?

[MrStabby]

Well it does a good job of fixing what you think is wrong with the ranger. Less of a good job fixing what I think is wrong with the ranger, but that is to be expected.

My suggestion would be to focus on why people would want to play a class. It isn't that the ranger is bad, it is that it doesn't have a niche (or that it is too small). Find a playstyle that it does do better than the fighter, the rogue, the monk and the druid. Make it the best at something that actually takes table time; make it have a role that people enjoy.

[LudicSavant]

Do you have a link to that article?

I read it a long time ago, so basically I'd just have to start Googling.

But you can see them mentioning the Baldur's Gate dev reaction in this Kotaku article: https://kotaku.com/the-ranger-class-is-getting-some-changes-in-d-d-and-ba-1835659585

[KorvinStarmast]

/rant
{snip most of the rant}

Maybe it's just me but the Ranger just seems phoned in to me. Like they didn't really have a clear vision for what they wanted to do with the Ranger, but felt like the PHB had to have one. Hunter is OK, though, and when they brought in Gloom Stalker in its final form I thought it was a nice improvement. What I'd rather they'd have done though is also add that "one bonus spell based on your archetype" back to beast master and Hunter. I think that would have helped.
As for the outdoorsman, tracker and survival skills ... yeah, I agree that it could use a tweak.

(Such as, maybe, don't limit it to favored terrain. Great, my mountain ranger is a complete rube when he arrives in a forest. Really? I'm gonna say "he's still the quitnissential outdoorsman. He'll do a lot better than any other PC besides, maybe, a Druid or a Barbarian)
When I go back to OD&D and AD&D Rangers, I find no limitation as regards favored terrain.
Who came up with that bright idea, I wonder? (Is that a 3.x thing?)
EDIT: Ah, it appears that one of the supplements (The Complete Ranger handbook in AD&D 2e) added in "primary terrain." NVM. Wasn't in the basic kit. Looks like a "bloat" thing ....

@MOrty:

The D&D ranger is just a poor basis for a class and nothing will ever make it work.
If you are referring to 5e, hmm, not sure I agree, and I think you are engaging in a bit of hyperbole there. I found my Ranger Hunter to work just fine. GLoom Stalker was better than fine, however, our campaign went dead due to RL. :smallmad:

If you are taking it back to the original concept, you are mistaken. Ranger was a very useful and versatile class, particularly in AD&D 1e ... if you could get the rolls to qualify for it. (Hard, that was)

[Segev]

While the Beastmaster is perhaps the most egregious offender, the issue seems to be present throughout the class. For example, Natural Explorer is oft remarked upon for the way it sort of undermines the very thing that many Ranger players want out of the class (there's a whole article about the Baldur's Gate devs talking to WotC about this when they were asked to make a 5e videogame). The second you stop traveling and start exploring, it doesn't really contribute.

That's an interesting observation. On the one hand, the travel being made easier thing is one of those things that you're in a catch-22 over if you want to have useful and powerful mechanics to help out at all. How do you make somebody better at something without obviating it? There's no real minigame to foraging; it's a roll. There's no fun way to MAKE it a minigame, either, that won't make travel such a slog that DMs start to gloss over it even more than they already do. And even if you made food management a strategic-level minigame that covers days at a time, making the ranger "better" at it still mostly obviates the challenge of it, since it's designed as-is to be not-really-overwhelming to those with zero skill at it (you just carry rations).

On the other hand, your last sentence that I quoted is key to pointing out the real problem with it: travel isn't the exciting part, even of travel itself IRL. The exciting thing is seeing stuff you don't normally see. Being new places. Discovering things. Exploring.

And that pillar of the game is, like the social pillar, largely left to the ability(skill) check subsystem, and to RP. "I move here. I look around. Do I see anything? Should I roll Investigation or Perception?" The DM describes scenes, the players say what they're doing with them.

This isn't a bad thing, necessarily. In fact, the ability to abstract it without needing rules is great; it's a strength of tabletope RPGs vs. computer-run RPGs.

The mechanics that are invoked are things like light levels and vision, perception/investigation checks, and maybe saving throws against hazards and traps or ability checks to overcome obstacles or get to better vantage points. Discovering important details and clues is usually a matter of a perception check or catching it in the DM's description (without a roll, just the player catching on to it).

You can give Rangers bonuses to skills; Rogues enjoy their Expertise for this kind of thing. Thieves, weak as they are, climb as fast as anybody is able.

Cool landmarks are something that the DM is going to point out to the party without any rolls, generally speaking. So it's not something you can give to Rangers to let them "automatically find them." Using magic to talk to animals and scout out larger areas isn't helpful to being "a ranger" when a druid can do the same thing just as well, if not better (with more spells and earlier spell level access).

So the question is, what CAN you do with "the exploration pillar" that you can then give the Ranger mechanics to make it better? In my ToA game, the ranger is able to tell what the purpose of any building or ruin he comes across was when it was built, as well as any major purposes for which it was redesigned. He also can tell a great deal about the stonework. But these are from his Archeologist Background and his Dwarf Race, respectively. The ranger side has trivialized travel in Chult (his favored terrain is "jungle"), which has been a boon for the party, and his gloomstalker archetype has been helpful for seeing further in the dark and the extra attack in the first round. But I can't really say his class has contributed much to the exploration pillar.

The characterization difference of druids revearing nature and being one with it vs. rangers mastering nature and seeing it as a tool is a good way, I think, of differentiating the class fantasies. But how you express that, mechanically, is tricky. Like the paladin has always been a fighter/cleric hybrid, the ranger has always been a fighter/druid hybrid. Focus on the exploration pillar of the game is another good place to (heh) explore. The druid isn't really an "explorer" so much as a hermit/holy man, possibly a force of nature. The ranger is the one who goes out into the wild to find new things, rather than simply to meld into it as his home.

But, other than Beastmaster (which falls a bit short compared to just having dominate beast at mid-to-high level), how do you mechanically implement "mastery of the wild?" How do you even give mechanical advantage - beyond making getting there easier (i.e. travel made trivial) - to the Exploration pillar? What is there to do to help with that that isn't just "Travel" and isn't "I find traps and secret doors and have a good spot check?"

[loki_ragnarock]

Well it does a good job of fixing what you think is wrong with the ranger. Less of a good job fixing what I think is wrong with the ranger, but that is to be expected.


Nah, it doesn't do a great job of dealing with the things I think are wrong with the ranger, either. It's just a quick patch proposal to address some common complaints I see on the internet.

They fall off hard in tier 3 and 4, so I may as well multi-class to something? Common complaint, here's a restrained boost.
Archer ranger is the only viable option, and all the others are traps? Common complaint, here's some restrained diversity.
Their features work against each other instead of together? Common complaint, here's some restrained streamlining.
If they're higher level features are mostly spells, I could just play a bard and get them seven levels earlier? Less common complaint, usually buried a couple of comments down, but frequent enough for my brain to log it. Here's something that will make the ranger better than the bard who stole the ranger's thing when it comes to the appropriate level.
I'm a better ranger as a fighter/rogue? Here's something that fighter/rogue's can't do.
I'm a better ranger as an appropriately fluffed single class bard? Ouch. There's not much anyone can do about that.


My actual complaints are more... I started listing them, but suffice it to say that the list is pretty long and addressing them requires substantial rewrites and the creation of more defined set of exploration rules to serve as a metric to measure their effectiveness. Way more work to address; basically recreating the class to conform to a set of rules that don't really exist. Or at least adding spells that conform to them, as spells serve as one of the systems ultimate patch tools.
But without a fleshed out game system for exploration, the class that's supposed to exemplify that pillar is left in the cold. That's a hard pill to swallow.

[Democratus]

I think part of the problem is that 5e has lost one of the 3 pillars: exploration.

In old D&D, a class had a primary pillar where it shone, while usually being weak in at least one. Fighters were great in combat, but terrible at exploration. Rogues were great at exploration but terrible in combat. At early levels, Wizards were great at the social pillar but struggled with combat.

When running a hex crawl in 5e the rules remove much of the hazards and challenges of wilderness adventuring. There are backgrounds that make sure you never get lost and abilities that guarantee everyone gets as much food/water as they need.

I believe a party should breathe a sigh of relief when doing a wilderness crawl and a Ranger is in the party. Just as they should breathe a sigh of relief when doing a dungeon crawl and a Rogue is in the party.

Neither of these is really the case any more thanks to abilities now available to just about everyone in 5e. With some good selection of abilities, any group of warm bodies will do fine in any situation - regardless of class. This is a design choice, and it has its good points. But niche classes like Ranger were much more dependent on the shortcomings of other classes so they could find a welcome and essential role in a party.

Just my 2cp.

[Dr. Cliché]

With regard to the above conversation, I think a further difficulty is that not every party is going to include a Ranger.

Hence, whilst you want the Ranger to feel good at exploring, you also don't want a situation where a party needs a Ranger to be any use at exploring.


Incidentally, perhaps another part of the issue is that Rangers seem intended to excel at travelling and exploring. However, given that this is going to comprise a good deal of time for *any* Adventurer, it seems like something that every class should be proficient at as well. :smalltongue:

I don't know, it just seems like even to begin with the Ranger is trying to squeeze into a very narrow niche.

[Morty]

I don't see how making the "exploration pillar" better helps rangers. In order to be a proper part of the game, it needs to be able to engage the entire party. Making one class just better at it than everyone else is entirely contrary to this goal and something that doesn't apply to the other pillars. "If the exploration pillar was better, the ranger would work!" is a trap. It's not going to work.

At the end of the day, the ranger's supposed major class feature is in fact a glorified skill proficiency. Maybe two. So we end up with three hypothetical scenarios:

1. The party doesn't do much or any wilderness travel. Maybe the campaign takes place in a city or small, well-travelled area. The ranger's abilities are sidelined or useless.

2. The party traverses the wilderness but being proficient in survival, perception and nature is enough to handle it, together with good decision-making. The ranger's special abilties are overkill or trivialize the whole experience.

3. The party traverses the wilderness and the ranger's special abilities are necessary to do it effectively. A party that doesn't have a ranger is effectively penalized.

And even in the latter two scenarios, the journey is often eventually going to end when the party gets to where they were going - a town, a civilized area, a dungeon, whatever else. And the ranger's skills are going to be placed on the back burner again.

[Segev]

Thinking about the exploration pillar and mechanics, the Barbarian's Eagle Totem power at level 6 would fit a ranger very well: see things as well at a mile as at 100 feet, and no penalty for dim light.

Giving them some sort of scent-based feature would work, too. Ability to draw more information from their environment.

Increased speed in favored terrains? Ignore difficult terrain (in general, or in favored)?

In 3e, they had almost exclusive (but not quite) access to tracking. Tracking is...underplayed in 5e, I think, but I'm not entirely surprised, either because it's one of those things that didn't come up as often as one might like in 3e, either, so now people can just do it.

Certainly, a scene that would fit into the class fantasy of the Ranger is the one where somebody examines prints and is able to tell what kind of shoe they're wearing, how tall they are, how heavy they are, whether they have a limp, and (in often comedic cases) what they had for breakfast and where they'd been over the course of the last week.

The favored enemy has always been an awkward mechanic, at least since 3e. In 5e, it's where they have some tracking ability (advantage on survival checks to track favored enemies). The term "enemy" is a bit off-kilter, too, to something that gives them a bonus language to communicate with. I know, it's there to let them eavesdrop and read their writings; prey on them. But it can be used for more peaceable interactions, and often is, in my experience.

Giving them, instead, some ability to read body language that works on a broad spectrum of creatures - humanoids, beasts, plants, and monstrosities, say - and then letting them pick some esoteric ones (aberrations, undead, fiends, celestials, oozes, etc.) that they also know would expand the utility to all the things that they're supposed to be good with. They can just track with advantage, period. Maybe they even double their proficiency bonus (expertise) on survival checks. Reading body language lets them get the gist of conversations and such. Enough key words and symbols to pick up meaning from signs.

Making them full polyglots is probably too strong, and a little weird when that's usually a scholar's thing. Maybe a feature to learn languages faster and cheaper than normal?

The idea here would be that most things you'd encounter in the wilderness, they just get these benefits with. Savage races, campers, animals, plants, animal-like monstrosities, that sort of thing. And then it's only the "weird" things that they need to pick a specialty in. The enemies of nature. ...oozes might even be in their "freebie" list; those are wilderness hazards more than weird alien things to have a hate-on for.

Additionally, some ability to examine a scene and figure out what kinds of creatures were present. "Yep, this here is a goblin cave, and you can tell by the boot-sizes that they have at least one hobgoblin in charge. The weight distribution precludes an orc. The lack of organization suggests he's not really in charge, though, so there may be a bit of a nilbog infestation."

"By the smell wafting out of there, these kobolds have a pet dragon."

"Eugh, not zombies. This graveyard's got a ghoul problem."


Additionally, an ability to navigate to the nearest settlement of specified creature type by virtue of spending a day or so just finding tracks.



Edit to add a response:


I don't see how making the "exploration pillar" better helps rangers. In order to be a proper part of the game, it needs to be able to engage the entire party. Making one class just better at it than everyone else is entirely contrary to this goal and something that doesn't apply to the other pillars. "If the exploration pillar was better, the ranger would work!" is a trap. It's not going to work.
At the end of the day, the ranger's supposed major class feature is in fact a glorified skill proficiency. Maybe two. So we end up with three hypothetical scenarios:
1. The party doesn't do much or any wilderness travel. Maybe the campaign takes place in a city or small, well-travelled area. The ranger's abilities are sidelined or useless.
2. The party traverses the wilderness but being proficient in survival, perception and nature is enough to handle it, together with good decision-making. The ranger's special abilties are overkill or trivialize the whole experience.
3. The party traverses the wilderness and the ranger's special abilities are necessary to do it effectively. A party that doesn't have a ranger is effectively penalized.
And even in the latter two scenarios, the journey is often eventually going to end when the party gets to where they were going - a town, a civilized area, a dungeon, whatever else. And the ranger's skills are going to be placed on the back burner again.


You're not wrong. But you are missing my point. I'm already responding to somebody discussing the divide between "travel through wildnerness and harsh climes" and "exploration." The exploration pillar isn't about the slog, but what you find on the way. It can certainly use environmental hazards, getting lost, and other such things as challenges, and the ranger being able to help with those or even eliminate them is...fine, I guess, but that's not what the exploration pillar is actually about.

It's about discovery. Understanding what you find. Learning new things by seeing new places.

See my above brainstorming for my best efforts at thinking of how to enhance that. But being able to see further and garner more information about things, to find specific things, and to understand more of what you find is all helpful to the whole party, and can help the party engage the content better.

[Democratus]

With regard to the above conversation, I think a further difficulty is that not every party is going to include a Ranger.

Hence, whilst you want the Ranger to feel good at exploring, you also don't want a situation where a party needs a Ranger to be any use at exploring.


Why wouldn't you want this situation? It compels the players to engage more with the world. They need a ranger but have none - so they find and hire a ranger/guide to get them where they need to be. They have to get past a fiendish trapped vault but have no rogue? Go speak to the master of the thieve's guild and hire out an expert. The guildmaster might require a 'favor' in return - creating a new adventure in itself.

Parties that can do anything and everything tend not to need anyone else and therefore find it easy to not engage with the world around them - except as a shopping mall or quest generator.

For my money, it's far more interesting to have to go and find what you need when something specialized is called for. Our last foray into the desert required hiring two dozen camels to carry food and water; which meant handlers, porters, animal handlers, etc. Once the dungeon had been plundered, there were literally tons of treasure to remove - which could be hauled out on the same baggage train.

Finding out where the dungeon was required hiring the services of an expert in Netherese history and then using the results of that to feed into the skills of the Diviner. That same expert paid choice prices for some of the more exotic antiquities that were hauled back.

[TigerT20]

I agree with Segev, but also have some more to put forward: Stuff like being able to predict the weather (would have to find a way to not be overshadowed by Druidcraft), being able to tell which way is north in certain climates, accurately guessing the time of day, or even things like knowledge about lairs (goblins always leave a wide exit to their lairs so they can flee if needed, kobolds like to have lots of hidden side chambers running parallel to their main corrdors, etc).

[LudicSavant]

but that's not what the exploration pillar is actually about.

It's about discovery. Understanding what you find. Learning new things by seeing new places.

Right.

This is why, for example, Wild Shape is a far more interesting exploration ability than anything Natural Explorer would ever do.

Suddenly you can do things like, say, turn into a little house spider to infiltrate a crime lord's hideout and uncover the details of his operation (to use but one example from but one recent campaign). That's exploration, as opposed to merely traveling.

[Segev]

Right.

This is why, for example, Wild Shape is a far more interesting exploration ability than anything Natural Explorer would ever do.

Suddenly you can do things like, say, turn into a little house spider to infiltrate a crime lord's hideout and uncover the details of his operation (to use but one example from but one recent campaign). That's exploration, as opposed to merely traveling.

Good example. And - perhaps intentionally - an illustration of another way druid does something ranger is theoretically meant to do, better.

This isn't even a "spellcaster vs. martial" thing, since wild shape isn't a spellcasting power.

I'm not bemoaing this, either: I'm accepting it, and thinking about how rangers can get better at this kind of thing, even if not in this exact way.

I mean, between beast sense and speak with animals, he could get a spider to crawl in and let him spy through its senses, but so (again) can a druid, which defeats a lot of the purpose of being a ranger. Unless, as a ranger, once he's using the beast's senses, he can do more with them than even the wild shaped druid in beast form could.


...does a druid in wild shape count as a beast? Could a ranger or other druid use beast sense to ride the wild shaped druid's senses?

[KorvinStarmast]

Suddenly you can do things like, say, turn into a little house spider to infiltrate a crime lord's hideout and uncover the details of his operation (to use but one example from but one recent campaign). That's exploration, as opposed to merely traveling. FWIW, Gloom Stalker has the disguise self for slightly riskier infiltration missions ... but the other bit that may be missing from a lot of adventures is the old tracking skill. (There is some evident in Sunless Citadel).

The party being in pursuit of (something/someone) and the abilty to track to find out what they were searching for , or whom they were following, was an integral part of what originally made the Ranger such a nice addition to a party. That tracking skill was originally (this set of mods in dungeons, another set of numbers for outdoors)

Perhaps the whole "tracking" thing is being lost (which would point toward exploration being a bit under emphasized)

[Morty]

Why wouldn't you want this situation? It compels the players to engage more with the world. They need a ranger but have none - so they find and hire a ranger/guide to get them where they need to be. They have to get past a fiendish trapped vault but have no rogue? Go speak to the master of the thieve's guild and hire out an expert. The guildmaster might require a 'favor' in return - creating a new adventure in itself.


There's no other class that's as essential to any part of the game as people are suggesting rangers should be to exploration. Direct melee combat can be done by fighters, paladins, barbarians and monks. Stealth by rogues or bards if you demand expertise - if not, anyone with good dexterity and proficiency will do. Healing magic can be done by clerics, druids or paladins. Bards excel at social skills, but rogues can handle them too - or paladins and sorcerers, who need good charisma anyway. Or, you know, just a fighter with the right proficiency in a pinch. Why should wilderness survival by any different?

[Segev]

FWIW, Gloom Stalker has the disguise self for slightly riskier infiltration missions ... but the other bit that may be missing from a lot of adventures is the old tracking skill. (There is some evident in Sunless Citadel).

The party being in pursuit of (something/someone) and the abilty to track to find out what they were searching for , or whom they were following, was an integral part of what originally made the Ranger such a nice addition to a party. That tracking skill was originally (this set of mods in dungeons, another set of numbers for outdoors)

Perhaps the whole "tracking" thing is being lost (which would point toward exploration being a bit under emphasized)

I think it's more that it's now just Wisdom(Survival) to track, and, like all things in 5e related to skills, they provide no guidance for how hard any given set of tracks is to follow (unless it's printed for you in a module for this specific set of tracks). It's also victim to the simplification where you're just supposed to assume the PCs can do it. This is usually a good thing, but here, it's something that's...harder to adjudicate due to a lack of any guidelines.

A ranger gets advantage on this vs. favored enemies; I think he should probably get more than that. It should do more interesting things, too. But...well, that's either its own subsystem or a lot of heavy lifting to expand the existing ability(skill) roll subsystem.

[LudicSavant]

There's no other class that's as essential to any part of the game as people are suggesting rangers should be to exploration.

Who are these "people" that are suggesting this? What I'm seeing in this thread is people saying that they should contribute to exploration in fun and interesting ways, not that they should be uniquely essential in order for exploration to take place.

Edit Are you referring to Democratus's comment?

[Dienekes]

Thinking about the exploration pillar and mechanics, the Barbarian's Eagle Totem power at level 6 would fit a ranger very well: see things as well at a mile as at 100 feet, and no penalty for dim light.

Giving them some sort of scent-based feature would work, too. Ability to draw more information from their environment.

Increased speed in favored terrains? Ignore difficult terrain (in general, or in favored)?

In 3e, they had almost exclusive (but not quite) access to tracking. Tracking is...underplayed in 5e, I think, but I'm not entirely surprised, either because it's one of those things that didn't come up as often as one might like in 3e, either, so now people can just do it.

Certainly, a scene that would fit into the class fantasy of the Ranger is the one where somebody examines prints and is able to tell what kind of shoe they're wearing, how tall they are, how heavy they are, whether they have a limp, and (in often comedic cases) what they had for breakfast and where they'd been over the course of the last week.

The favored enemy has always been an awkward mechanic, at least since 3e. In 5e, it's where they have some tracking ability (advantage on survival checks to track favored enemies). The term "enemy" is a bit off-kilter, too, to something that gives them a bonus language to communicate with. I know, it's there to let them eavesdrop and read their writings; prey on them. But it can be used for more peaceable interactions, and often is, in my experience.

Giving them, instead, some ability to read body language that works on a broad spectrum of creatures - humanoids, beasts, plants, and monstrosities, say - and then letting them pick some esoteric ones (aberrations, undead, fiends, celestials, oozes, etc.) that they also know would expand the utility to all the things that they're supposed to be good with. They can just track with advantage, period. Maybe they even double their proficiency bonus (expertise) on survival checks. Reading body language lets them get the gist of conversations and such. Enough key words and symbols to pick up meaning from signs.

Making them full polyglots is probably too strong, and a little weird when that's usually a scholar's thing. Maybe a feature to learn languages faster and cheaper than normal?

The idea here would be that most things you'd encounter in the wilderness, they just get these benefits with. Savage races, campers, animals, plants, animal-like monstrosities, that sort of thing. And then it's only the "weird" things that they need to pick a specialty in. The enemies of nature. ...oozes might even be in their "freebie" list; those are wilderness hazards more than weird alien things to have a hate-on for.

Additionally, some ability to examine a scene and figure out what kinds of creatures were present. "Yep, this here is a goblin cave, and you can tell by the boot-sizes that they have at least one hobgoblin in charge. The weight distribution precludes an orc. The lack of organization suggests he's not really in charge, though, so there may be a bit of a nilbog infestation."

"By the smell wafting out of there, these kobolds have a pet dragon."

"Eugh, not zombies. This graveyard's got a ghoul problem."


Additionally, an ability to navigate to the nearest settlement of specified creature type by virtue of spending a day or so just finding tracks.



I'm gonna link my aforementioned Differentiating Martials (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610037-Differentiating-Martials-(PEACH))because it actually does a bit of what you're suggesting.

But the idea of expanding the exploration pillar is interesting. The first thought I had was tying scavenging to something a bit more mechanically useful. Essentially Goodberries and even Lesser Restoration got changed from spells they could just cast to something they have to scavenge for. I also thought that perhaps Rangers would provide bonuses when they've secured a place to camp as opposed to others. But my initial plan stepped on the Bard's Song of Rest too much and so I dropped it.

Creating options to know more about what they're tracking and what lives around them is neat. But are there other mechanics that fit this survival explorer feel that can be used for their own purpose without creating an entire pillar all around the Ranger.

I worry for things like "Discovery checks" to see what random loot you uncovered while exploring, Rangers roll twice. Which is the worst way to go in my mind.

[Sorinth]

As someone who has recently been working on a martial rework with the goals of making each of the martial classes play pattern being vastly different, by digging deep into the desired fantasy of each class. I was wondering if you (or anyone else really) could describe what you think it really means to be a ranger? What is the fluff you want to play and how does the base class not live up to it?

Combat wise Rangers should be skirmishers.

So in terms of the "play pattern" in combat I would want to see some mobility related abilities and a reason for the ranger to move every round so that you are constantly repositioning as a Ranger.

In terms of mobility it shouldn't be as good as Cunning Action. The Escape the Horde from the Hunter Archetype for example is solid, add some sort of scaling fast movement that isn't as good as the Monk, and/or the Scout's Skirmisher feature and you have a solid base for skirmisher. The only thing left would be to give the Ranger a reason to move, the Horizon Walker's Distant Strike offer a template. Basically remove the teleporting, but allow the Ranger to generate extra Attacks so long as he moves a certain distance during his turn. Possibly at higher levels have a feature that triggers when an opponent fails an Opportunity Attack.

There should also be ambush abilities to bring him up to par with Rogue as an ambusher, though this could potentially be more of an Archetype rather then base class. To differentiate the Ranger's ambush abilities from the Rogue/Assassin instead of adding damage I would probably do it through debuff effects (Save to negate). So in the first round of combat if the Ranger hits a target who hasn't taken a turn they must save or suffer a debuff. I would probably go with something like failed save and the target is Incapacitated for 1 round. He should also get a bonus to initiative, either add wisdom, or gain advantage or gain proficiency.


Outside of combat the Ranger is supposed to be a master hunter, he's the guy you get to track down and eliminate threats, whether that is a gang of bandits who've taken up residence nearby, or some animal/monster that is preying upon the town/livestock.

The problem with the Ranger is that he's supposed to be the go to guy for the exploration pillar but in 5e that pillar is so ill-defined/vague that it renders most of those kinds of abilities meaningless. For example, most people hand waive food, so bonuses to forage is meaningless, there's nothing about being able to find a good campsite which is something the ranger should be good at. Getting lost is rare to begin with because it's not a fun mechanic for the DM/Players to begin with.

So apart from giving the Ranger expertise/advantage in a few skills so that he isn't outclassed by the Rogue/Scout, I think the only way to really handle this is for the Ranger to be a font of additional information. You still want survival checks to be made to get that information but the Ranger should be more likely to provide it. So for example, knowing the exact number and the composition of the enemies from their tracks, being able to recall/discern info about resistances/vulnerabilities, being able to estimate numbers from just looking at the camp/lair, etc... It would still be something that is very much DM dependent which is unfortunate but if done properly it makes him one of the premier scout as you get the information while minimizing risk/discovery.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm gonna link my aforementioned Differentiating Martials (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610037-Differentiating-Martials-(PEACH))because it actually does a bit of what you're suggesting. Man, you put in a lot of work there. I am going back to read more later, but two thumbs up!

But the idea of expanding the exploration pillar is interesting. I'd like to see favored terrain done away with. Ranger is good in all terrain.

[Democratus]

There's no other class that's as essential to any part of the game as people are suggesting rangers should be to exploration. Direct melee combat can be done by fighters, paladins, barbarians and monks. Stealth by rogues or bards if you demand expertise - if not, anyone with good dexterity and proficiency will do. Healing magic can be done by clerics, druids or paladins. Bards excel at social skills, but rogues can handle them too - or paladins and sorcerers, who need good charisma anyway. Or, you know, just a fighter with the right proficiency in a pinch. Why should wilderness survival by any different?

I answered that in my post. To engage further with the game world.

And it shouldn't be just wilderness survival. If you're exploring a trap-laden dungeon, a Rogue should be the go-to. If it isn't, then the Rogue class (or dungeoneering) should be revisited just like Rangers and the wilderness.

Social encounters should be a specialty of Bards, Enchanters, and the like - and the two should be weak when it comes to at least one other pillar (probably exploration for Enchanter and combat for the Bard).

An ersatz substitution can be used in a pinch - but it should be an act of desperation and not the first choice.

"Good at everything" isn't a great definition of a class, nor does it make for a well designed game - which should involve difficult and meaningful choices.

My 2cp.

[Segev]

The problem with the Ranger is that he's supposed to be the go to guy for the exploration pillar but in 5e that pillar is so ill-defined/vague that it renders most of those kinds of abilities meaningless. For example, most people hand waive food, so bonuses to forage is meaningless, there's nothing about being able to find a good campsite which is something the ranger should be good at. Getting lost is rare to begin with because it's not a fun mechanic for the DM/Players to begin with.Giving Rangers the ability to set traps or manipulate terrain - possibly justified not by actively setting traps or magically altering it, but rather by finding good sites for it - would be a way to make campsite their demesne.

"Find ideal terrain" or something like that. When a ranger can choose the ground, he gets to declare a number of five-foot-square patches on the battlefield to be rough terrain for enemies, or to NOT be rough terrain for allies. Given an hour of prep time, he can also declare, as a reaction, up to one trap per round to be sprung by enemies as they move. Maybe 4 traps initially, with more as he levels?

The idea here being that, just by letting him pick where the fight will happen (possibly with a minimum amount of time searching), he gives terrain advantages. Let him rig it up, and it becomes deadly. Particularly good when camping, but also useful if you are being chased and can make it to a spot the ranger scopes out.


So apart from giving the Ranger expertise/advantage in a few skills so that he isn't outclassed by the Rogue/Scout, I think the only way to really handle this is for the Ranger to be a font of additional information. You still want survival checks to be made to get that information but the Ranger should be more likely to provide it. So for example, knowing the exact number and the composition of the enemies from their tracks, being able to recall/discern info about resistances/vulnerabilities, being able to estimate numbers from just looking at the camp/lair, etc... It would still be something that is very much DM dependent which is unfortunate but if done properly it makes him one of the premier scout as you get the information while minimizing risk/discovery.It's a bit DM-dependent, but for most of this, it's concrete info the DM would have. The key would be spelling out exactly what kind of info the ranger is entitled to.


I'm gonna link my aforementioned Differentiating Martials (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610037-Differentiating-Martials-(PEACH))because it actually does a bit of what you're suggesting.I've seen it, but haven't given it as much time as it deserves.


But the idea of expanding the exploration pillar is interesting. The first thought I had was tying scavenging to something a bit more mechanically useful. Essentially Goodberries and even Lesser Restoration got changed from spells they could just cast to something they have to scavenge for. I also thought that perhaps Rangers would provide bonuses when they've secured a place to camp as opposed to others. But my initial plan stepped on the Bard's Song of Rest too much and so I dropped it.I don't like the idea of transforming spells into not-spell class features, no matter how they're fluffed, for this, because this really just goes back to "rangers obviate the challenges of travel." I'm a little more inclined to be on board with lesser restoration, but even then... well, they have spells because that's the easiest way to represent such things.

Now, maybe giving them a means to substitute material components for somatic and verbal...would be flavorful but not very useful, honestly. Hrm. The ability, perhaps, to spend time gathering rare wilderness items to replace expensive material components, though, might work. Maybe even a means of making "natural infusions" or something that are essentially scrolls in potion form, with some limits to the kinds of spells that can be "encoded," and a number of ingredients equal to 1d4+spell level required. The ranger gets a minigame about being able to identify what those are, maybe with a survival roll to see if he can figure out a list of ingredients that are within reasonable acquisition distance/in this climate. The DM gives him a list of items and the ranger can track them down, with each typicalyl being guarded by a hazard of a given set of CR possibilities. Probably some sort of scaling CR as ingredient numbers go up, so one ingredient is always low CR/threat rating, but the more there are, the higher-CR the highest one will be.

It's a super-fast crafting method, in game-time, and cheap in terms of not having to spend (tens of) thousands of gp, but will make a mini-adventure that is harder the more powerful the potion. Probably potions with limited shelf-life, too.

Of course, at this point, I've outlined a rough subsystem for a "wild crafting" in general, and there's no reason druids or even Outlanders and Hermits couldn't do it. So the key thing would be that Rangers have a special ability that helps them locate the ingredients, perhaps.


Creating options to know more about what they're tracking and what lives around them is neat. But are there other mechanics that fit this survival explorer feel that can be used for their own purpose without creating an entire pillar all around the Ranger.

I worry for things like "Discovery checks" to see what random loot you uncovered while exploring, Rangers roll twice. Which is the worst way to go in my mind.I agree, that would be silly. What's there is what's there; what I'm contemplating is the ranger having a better chance of getting accurate information without having to go in, since druids and rogues are going to be better at going in to get it.


I'd like to see favored terrain done away with. Ranger is good in all terrain.
I'm okay with having favored terrain, but I agree that they should be good in all terrain. Favored terrain should have even MORE benefits. I'm actually good with rangers only never getting lost in their favored terrain. That's a good favored terrain benefit. It's very absolute, and not something I'd want to see for all terrain. But they should be able to do most of their travel benefits, and all of their master-of-location stuff, in all terrains. Favored terrains should enhance them FURTHER.

Maybe even such things as automatically getting the benefits of pass without trace while in them, and the like.

[Pleh]

Right.

This is why, for example, Wild Shape is a far more interesting exploration ability than anything Natural Explorer would ever do.

Suddenly you can do things like, say, turn into a little house spider to infiltrate a crime lord's hideout and uncover the details of his operation (to use but one example from but one recent campaign). That's exploration, as opposed to merely traveling.

Combat wise Rangers should be skirmishers.

Is that really Exploration? Or is it Infiltration? I feel like there's a bit of a difference, even if it's a rather subtle nuance.

See, the challenge of Infiltration is gaining access to begin Exploring an area. That's what Wild Shape is providing here: access. Infiltration is classically the Rogue's department. They open locks, disable traps, bluff/ghost guards, etc.

I would think the challenge of Exploration isn't discovery, it's old fashioned Attrition. There is no game to discovery, unless you're doing an Investigation Mystery game, deciphering clues and deducing conclusions. That is a Discovery game.

In D&D, Exploration is about fighting Adventure Day Attrition, controlled by Adventure Rests. You don't have enough resources (time, inventory space, HP, etc) to explore every hex on the dungeon map. Which areas do you prioritize? How much risk do you take vs playing smart and quitting while you're ahead? It's like in Dead Space when you see the story objective takes you past a hallway, implying that the path you are bypassing is either a later objective point, or a completely optional path with extra resources and extra monsters that you can skip entirely if you think the risk of fighting the monsters is higher than the reward for whatever bonus resources they are guarding.

Now, in 5e, most of the Attrition game (which I've just asserted is the core complication of Exploration), is handled by how far apart Resting is spaced. The more easily the party can Rest, the more Exploration they can manage. This leads to a conclusion that any class that focuses on dealing with the Exploration Pillar must be experts in granting the Party optimal Rests.

You'd want the expert Explorer to be a master of Item Inventory, Rest Quality and Safety (housing and security), and minimizing the party's need to rest by helping them adventure/explore further while needing fewer rests. They are the Ship's Captain, watching over the journey's resources and making sure there's enough remaining for a return trip.

I've just described the role of practically every Full Caster in the game, and almost none of the Martials. Sure, the Strength based Barbarian and Fighter might help with carrying inventory, but not as much as a Wizard that can stow loot in an extradimensional plane or summon a monster that is way stronger than the Barbarian or Fighter ever will be. The "Power of Nature" aspect of the Ranger makes us feel like they are supposed to be about survival, but they just can't be as good at it as a Druid would be. Magic is the best answer to questions of Survival, hands down, and the Ranger comes up short in this department.

Is there maybe a Navigation Niche that they could be utilizing? Like if they had a primary utility as a Wayfinder rather than Exploration? Druid's combat spells tend to be a Poison Ivy style, "Feel the wrath of Nature" kind of thing. What if Rangers were more based around controlling the battlefield and countering the controls of others? Like if they leaned into Freedom of Movement so Rangers ignore difficult terrain, easily move and fight around obstacles and obscurement (maybe gaining some equivalent to Devils Sight), and had martial maneuvers that lock down enemies and keep them from taking advantageous positions? Would that help make them a bit more of a unique skirmisher build, a combat debuffer with resistance to enemy and environment debuffs and reliable, if moderate, damage output?

[Justin Sane]

Out of curiosity, what are people's thoughts on Favored Foe, Deft Explorer, and Primal Awareness (from the Class Features Variants UA)? Do you consider them being worth the trade-off?
To me, they're well worth it - but to be fair, I have really strong opinions how Favored Enemy/Terrain are awful, so...

[Segev]

Out of curiosity, what are people's thoughts on Favored Foe, Deft Explorer, and Primal Awareness (from the Class Features Variants UA)? Do you consider them being worth the trade-off?
To me, they're well worth it - but to be fair, I have really strong opinions how Favored Enemy/Terrain are awful, so...

Deft Explorer is certainly more powerful. It makes Ranger a dip-worthy class by itself, especially for a Frenzied Berserker Barbarian. Take Tireless, and now you can Frenzy once per short rest.

I was actually thinking about having Natural Explorer give climb and swim speeds when in the Favored Terrain. Just getting them, period, is, again, quite the dip-worthy thing. (Yes, I know you only get one of these if you dip 1 level.)

The one-skill Expertise is...not that great, but still isn't worthless. But Canny is definitely the weakest of the three options for Deft Explorer.

Favored Foe is... more useful than Favored Enemy, but feels off in the sense that it's not really "favored" at all. It's just Hunter's Mark made better. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, giving the Ranger a special purview with that spell, but it's definitely got the feel of a patch. Given how much of a spell tax hunter's mark is, it makes sense to just make it a class feature (or remove it from the game, depending on whether you think it too good or not).

Primal Awareness also feels like a patch more than a real class feature. They probably should just do as they did with Paladins and make Rangers prepared casters. If those spells include ones that aren't on the Ranger list, add them to it.

Primeval Awareness is cool, thematically, and my players have used it to some effect. It probably could do with some sprucing up, including giving ability to identify if anybody the Ranger is able to directly perceive is one of those he's sensing, and a direction sense to large clusters, if any. Primal Awareness is stretching to be called "Awareness," though I'll agree that knowing more spells is good.

[Kane0]

Out of curiosity, what are people's thoughts on Favored Foe, Deft Explorer, and Primal Awareness (from the Class Features Variants UA)? Do you consider them being worth the trade-off?
To me, they're well worth it - but to be fair, I have really strong opinions how Favored Enemy/Terrain are awful, so...

They were... okay. Like a passive aggressive okay. Two of those were just 'have some free spells' which was an improvement over but I wouldn't call it a smashing success, especially the extremely dippable, concentrationless and slotless Hunter's Mark. Deft explorer was a great concept not taken as far as it could have been.

But flawed as they are, I will concede they are improvements. I just prefer my own solution (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=22979639&postcount=2).

[Segev]

I should add that I do NOT like Fade Away. Properly utilized, Hide In Plain Sight does that anyway, only better, and use of stealth the skill is something I approve of. Now, the problem with Hide In Plain Sight as a class feature is that, unless the class gives you Stealth without making you spend a class-granted proficiency on it, it's kind-of useless. So they need to get to add their proficiency bonus to stealth checks when in their favored terrain. Yes, this means that if they are proficient in stealth, they add it twice. I am ambivalent about whether this should let them stack it thrice with Expertise, but I am leaning towards "no."

--wait, no, ugh. I just read the Ranger class feature. That's... way too limited. I get what htey're going for, but no.

Here's what the feature is right now, for those who want to follow along without looking it up:


Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage. Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. You gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit.

This isn't hiding in plain sight. This is spending a lot of extra time setting up your ability to hide for a +10 bonus to it, which you can already get from pass without trace (and the latter lets you move while doing it).

What it should be, if the flavor of preparing your camoflage is to be preserved, is something more like this:


Starting at 10th level, when you are in your favored terrain, your habitual and natural mode of dress camouflages you sufficiently that you can take the Hide action even when directly observed. Outside of your favored terrain, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, or other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage. Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can take the Hide action even when directly observed, as if in your favored terrain. While camouflaged for a particular terrain, you do not gain the benefits of this in any other. This camouflage remains viable for up to one hour of travel or exploration, though as long as you remain relatively stationary it will persist until you change it.

You can also use camouflage to set up an ambush. If you spend one minute arranging your blind or camouflashing yourself for a particular spot, you can gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this bonus, though you retain the ability to Hide while observed in this environment. You can also set up blinds and camouflage for ambushes for others; they gain the benefits as long as they take no actions other than the initial Hide and don't move. They gain no other benefit of this feature from camouflage as they don't know how to use it effectively.

Further, because Vanish is so much higher level than Cunning Action, it should do more.


Starting at 14th level, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, you can't be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.


Starting at 14th level, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn, and blindsight and other special senses cannot prevent you from doing so. Also, you can't be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.

It's not a huge change, but it should extend Hide In Plain Sight's whole schtick of the Ranger disappearing into the terrain no matter how you're observing him.

[Moxxmix]

I prefer the Workshopped Ranger (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?595643-By-request-Workshopping-another-Ranger) (a collective effort to create a well-rounded and appropriately themed ranger class). The thread was started by Kane0, but isn't in his signature's list of reworks (though it does share some similarities to the signature's version of the ranger).

The thread ended about 6 months ago, and I'm kind of inclined to go back and take another pass at it. See if time away from it gives ideas on different approaches.

It also explicitly limited itself to three subclasses, so it might be nice to try another subclass that focuses more on the exploration side. (The three subclasses were Hunter, Beastmaster, and Warden (spellcaster).) Exploration features for a class is hard because it's hard to know how to even translate exploration properly into the game. That needs its own little discussion first.

[HiveStriker]

“I could just play a rogue-fighter multi-class and get a better ranger.”
- A bunch of people on the internet.

To be clear, I disagree with the sentiment. I also have to admit that I see it expressed frequently.

So I gave it a thought, and started considering what ability could be added to ranger to differentiate them enough from other options to make them appealing. Since two of the most griped about things I've seen are:
1. Too many competing options for your bonus action
2. Too many mutually exclusive concentration spells

I thought, “Okay, lets just do that then. Give them an extra bonus action and the ability to concentrate on two spells at once. That’d address the concerns and give them something totally unique that lets them feel more like their own thing and less like a multi-class hybrid.”
But then I thought, “Oh, but I don’t want to make a hexblade or fighter scenario where people are looking for a 1 or 2 level dip to act as a force multiplier on a build that otherwise has nothing do with either. That’d be a bummer. So those solutions would have to be late enough in the progression that someone still feels like they're mostly ranger, even if they multi-class.”

And wouldn’t you know it; rangers have a gap in abilities at level 9 and 13. And while ostensibly one would assume the access to new spell levels would be the class feature in those instances, they’re also kind of perfectly situated to prevent multi-classing shenanigans by being just after the common break points for a multi-class build. They add a significant power-up that’d synergize even more effectively with other classes, but going that one extra level in ranger would also mean that a multi-class would be sacrificing an ASI somewhere in the progression to do it.

Further, they’d give rangers a slight boost at about the time they start to feel like they need it in late tier two and tier three. An extra bonus action would not only alleviate the struggles of a two-weapon fighting ranger, but also reestablish them as the preeminent practitioners of the form. The ability to concentrate on more than one spell at a time gives rangers a niche that no one else can fill, and distinguishes from the other martial half-caster in that it encourages them to actually cast spells.

Cool, but which goes where? The bonus action coming in at level 9 seems right to me, as that opens up a key distinguisher at the tail end of tier 2 that can benefit archers and two weapon fighters, but two weapon fighters are the ones who need the most help. Moving a double concentration ability to level 13 puts it late enough in the progression to make it a clearly ranger boon, and allows someone to use swift quiver and hunter’s mark at the same time; archers can also get in on the benefits of being a high level ranger.


So something like:

Efficiency of Body: At level 9, you gain a second bonus action in a round.

Efficiency of Mind: At level 13, you may concentrate on two effects in the same round. If you fail a concentration check, you lose concentration for both effects.

So… what does this break?

In theory, someone could run through 13 levels of ranger, pick up some levels of cleric and run around with Spirit Guardians, Bless, and two instances of Spiritual Weapon. Yikes. But when it doesn’t come online until level 18, is it any more obnoxious than other high level combinations? Since it’s effectively limited to low level effects (no higher than 4th level spells), it’s probably not going to overpower too many things. And since there’s nothing to make spellcasting faster, the Bless/Spirit Guardians/x2 Spiritual Weapon combo would take 4 rounds to manifest; whatever it is should have been dealt with by then, anyway.

So… that might be the case with a cleric, but you could probably break it with a celestial sorcerer instead, right? They’d still be limited to one non cantrip per round, so nothing there will accelerate the 4 rounds it would take to get to a combo of doom. But there might be the abuse angle in being able to quicken so many cantrips in a round, since cantrips scale independent of level. But again, that’s burning through a lot of a fairly limited resource… but also one that they can replenish by spending a bonus action, feeding into the system. There might be some potential for abuse there, but it comes from a multi-class combination that doesn’t actually synergize very well. If someone wanted to play a high charisma ranger – charisma high enough to actually hit with a cantrip in tier 3 and 4 with a multi-class combo that ensures they lose out on a critical ASI - for nine levels, then the joke may be on them. Certainly a tall ask for standard array or point-buy.

Maybe the problem is actually cleric again, where a war cleric can use their bonus action to attack even more times with a greatsword? Nah, that has a hard cap on the number of uses in a day; that doesn’t really get to the broken status, as it turns into a fewer rounds of slightly more burst damage than such a cleric would typically get. A typical paladin or fighter would likely out perform it. Especially when one could just two-weapon fight for more consistent damage across multiple rounds as a standard ranger, it doesn’t seem too radical.

While there might be some outliers, the real problems are obviously monk and rogue, which both get enormous utility out of a bonus action for a low level investment and have overlapping stats.

A rogue multi-class being able to dash twice in a round could lead to kiting shenanigans heretofore unseen. Or even the ability to hide, attack, hide in the confines of the same round could lead to some wonkiness, though come to think of it a ranger can do that on their own eventually. But being able to disengage every round without a meaningful opportunity cost could also ruffle a few feathers, as it also serves to create the ultimate kiting character. The rogue interactions leave me a bit torn; it opens up some potential for abuse, but doesn’t come online until tier 3 at the soonest; is it broken, or is it the benefits of playing a high level character? Is it broken, or is it putting dexterity based multi-class options on par with charisma based options? I’m going to lean broken for the sake of being conservative, and consider it a mark against the idea in the initially proposed form.

A monk multi-class produces many of the same problems. With an extra bonus action they could do things like double the number of bonus action unarmed strikes to 4 in a round at the cost of 2 ki. Yikes… but since hunter’s mark specifies weapon attacks, there’s no real synergy there. Or they could dodge every round for a low cost of 1 ki per round. Or perform the same gonzo kiting of the rogue concerns at a cost of 2 ki. Or mix and match, so long as the have the available ki. While all impressive, the obvious interactions there are hard capped by a monk’s ki pool. Since the ki pool is determined by monk level, this is all something that the character would have to grow in to. At tier three they could start making a flurry of unarmed strikes once per short rest, but it wouldn’t be until the end of tier three that those strikes would count as magical; if the characters only manages half damage for every strike, is it really that bad if they take twice as many while burning a limited resource? Monk is less of a problem due to the inherent restrictions that come with the class; stunning strike doesn’t even come online until the end of tier 3, and that’s also about the time that the abilities really start to pump into something to be concerned about… but since tier 4 is when things should probably be getting pretty gonzo in general and that’s about the time this combo would come online in a meaningful way, that seems on track to me. My personal take is that it would just mean there's an interesting dex/wis multiclass, finally. Take that charisma!
Suffice it to say, a monk dip isn’t going to break much, but in the interests of being more conservative I think a quick edit is in order.

Efficiency of Body: At 9th level, the ranger gains a second bonus action. This bonus action can only be used to cast or activate a ranger spell, use a ranger class ability, or make an additional attack per the two-weapon fighting rules.
Efficiency of Mind: At 13th level, the ranger gains the ability to concentrate on a second effect. This second effect must be a ranger spell or ability. If you fail a concentration check, you lose concentration on both effects.

There. That prevents having to examine every possible combination of bonus action that could break the game in tier 3 and 4. That also prevents having to examine every possible combination of concentration spell of 4th level or lower for some combination that’ll break the game in tier 4. While it would probably work in either form, this one serves to make it more ranger exclusive and prevents the danger of a few rogue levels leading to constant double dashing or a cleric throwing down a double spiritual weapon or casting elemental weapon on both swords. It does allow for a rogue’s dash and a ranger’s spell, or a cleric’s spiritual weapon and an extra longsword attack, or an elemental weapon with an ensnaring strike; allowing that kind of multi-class to benefit from both classes at once without relegating the abilities of the ranger to the dust bin seems like a good compromise.

The way it’s phrased – which could stand to be work shopped - also puts a hard cap on the number of bonus action’s you can utilize for popular feats like Polearm Master or Great Weapon Master; while it allows them to be used with a ranger more freely, it doesn’t lead to a doubling of the effects of the feat. Having stymied the double haft strike or the double foe cleave options, the fighter can remain comfortable in continuing to be the best polearm user. I probably should have mentioned that as a concern before the revision, so it didn’t look like an afterthought. But it became pretty clear that the list of things to consider it breaking was fairly long.


So, the end result should be a slight tweak to the ranger that doesn’t lead to easy exploits for non-rangers.

What does it get a ranger, though?

Well, a ranger who focused on two weapon fighting got an upgrade that makes the fighting style more viable. It’s a pretty effective offensive option at low levels and doesn’t need the boost there, but falls off pretty sharply sometime after extra attack. Getting a second bonus action to attack with helps extend its viability, and puts a little pepper back in right when it was starting to get bland. All in a way that’d be unique to the ranger’s progression.

Further, it relieves the burden of how to manage all the bonus action options presented to the ranger. While it’s something they have to manage at low levels, there comes a point where a horizon walker no longer has to decide to use their planar warrior ability or hail of thorns in a round; they can do both. Where the two weapon fighting hunter doesn’t have to choose between moving his hunter’s mark or attacking with his off hand weapon; she can do both. Where a beastmaster doesn’t have to choose between directing their companion to use the help action or casting ensnaring strike; they can do both. (If it’s something that even helps out beastmasters, it almost feels like we must be on the right track.) Where a ranger of any stripe doesn’t have to choose between casting swift quiver and using it; they can do both.

They don’t start out having to do both; they have to grow into it. I like that it feels like character progression rather than just starting awesome. A few levels of salt followed by levels of sugar, like a business that starts to show profit in year five, or a person who struggles to learn a new skill and later becoming the best in the business.


But yeah, it does let a high level ranger cast swift quiver and hunter’s mark in the same combat. It also lets a high level ranger cast swift quiver and attack six times; twice as an action, twice as an action, twice as an efficiency of body bonus action.
And is that really so bad? For the Ranger to have some pre-emminence as dual wielders and bow users? To give them a real niche where they’re still slightly behind a samurai archer? To once a day pull ahead of the bard who stole one of the ranger’s best spells some seven levels earlier, and has been spamming it every combat since?
I don’t think that’s so bad at all. To me, it sounds like justice.

Shame on the bard. Shame on him.

In fact, I’d even go one ability further:
Perfect Coordination: At level 17, the ranger may cast any number of leveled spells in a round. The leveled spells must be ranger spells.

Now at their peak, the can concentrate on more than one spell in a round, cast more than one spell in a round, and have the actions required to enable casting more than one spell in a round. They aren’t wizards or sorcerer’s; the ranger has focused on different things (warping reality itself vs. practical life hacks), and thus rendered different results. They aren’t burning through spellslots the same way as the paladin; the ranger has been distinguished from the other half caster by being rewarded for casting spells. They aren’t just fighter druids, either; druids have a connection with nature of a greater spiritual magnitude (higher level spells), rangers have a connection to nature of a greater practical magnitude (ease of spellcasting). Nor is the ranger better expressed as a fighter rogue; no fighter rogue could maintain concentration on pass without trace while using bonus action hide only to strike with a debuff attack spell from the shadows. Nor is one even necessarily better served by backing out of the class after the first couple of levels; the ranger gets a little more compelling with time. It also serves to highlight spellcasting for the ranger as a core feature instead of something tacked on, another complaint checked off.

I think this would work pretty well to address a lot of (but certainly not all, or even many of my own) complaints about the ranger. It's a series of small tweaks that carve out a little mechanical niche for them that synergizes with their already present tool kit.
Hi! ;)

Interesting ideas, probably works well, although it would probably require a hefty deep analysis to ensure there is nothing to trouble-making (especially with the double bonus action).

I'm not sure why you'd need to go to such lengths though.
IMHO, it would probably enough to follow in the steps of what WoTC explored in their UA revisions, such as...

1. Taking a first level spell and make it a non-concentration one and/or boost effect and/or give a free cast per short rest: Hunter's Mark was the target of WotC, but Zephyr's Strike, Hail of Thorns and Speak With Animals would be solid choices too. Think "Signature spell".
Difference with your idea is that it's simply easier to manage (although it does require extra work at start): you design a short list of spells and how they are enhanced so you're sure there won't be any trouble. Plus level 1 spell has very little risk of overpowering in the first place, while keeping relevant for all game.

2. Allow them to learn one or two Druid spell whenever they gain access to a new "tier" of spell. Won't break anything but is a thematic way to boost their spellcasting while allowing a bit more idendity to them.

3. Give them the equivalent of Arcane Recovery. To fall in line with the half-caster progression, you should probably make it half what a Wizard gets, but honestly, even if you were that generous and give them the same thing, it still wouldn't be overpowered (although it would definitely be a huge boost... Then again Rangers don't have Ritual casting, and many of their spells are kinda situational: having more slots would allow players to use such spells more liberally because knowing that in worst case, they can restore some power with a rest).

Apart from the bit of work of first point, those are changes that require little to no work from you, and should make the players feel just more enough powerful to be satisfied.

Of course, if their gripe in the first place is that they don't like that half of Ranger's efficiency comes from spells (more than half in some games in practice, when Favored Environment is hard to make come into play for various reasons)...
Then it's an entirely different matter.
And I suspect that's the crux for most people wrongfully saying they could be a better Ranger than a Ranger by mixing Fighter and Rogue... Because that is terribly untrue, yet again, if you play class X like you'd play Y instead of using its specific strenghs, you're obviously bound to be disappointed. :)

[Contrast]

“I could just play a rogue-fighter multi-class and get a better ranger.”
- A bunch of people on the internet.

To be clear, I disagree with the sentiment. I also have to admit that I see it expressed frequently.

I mean level 1 is disappointing but levels 2-5 are totally fine. It's just at 6+ you start to wonder why you didn't just multiclass into rogue or druid instead.


My biggest problem with the Ranger class in 5e is that it doesn't have a soul. It comes off to me like there's no guiding vision of flavor, no clear grasp of the fantasy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKEzMz6FcXs) they wanted the player to experience.

I think this may be why I don't really like this as a suggested fix. You've made the ranger stronger but not in a way that makes you feel more like a ranger and doesn't fix the other broken things about the ranger that make it feel so underwhelming.

[Kane0]

I prefer the Workshopped Ranger (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?595643-By-request-Workshopping-another-Ranger) (a collective effort to create a well-rounded and appropriately themed ranger class). The thread was started by Kane0, but isn't in his signature's list of reworks (though it does share some similarities to the signature's version of the ranger).

The thread ended about 6 months ago, and I'm kind of inclined to go back and take another pass at it. See if time away from it gives ideas on different approaches.

It also explicitly limited itself to three subclasses, so it might be nice to try another subclass that focuses more on the exploration side. (The three subclasses were Hunter, Beastmaster, and Warden (spellcaster).) Exploration features for a class is hard because it's hard to know how to even translate exploration properly into the game. That needs its own little discussion first.

Still in my sig, it's the 'by request' one. I kept it separate from my own extended signature since it was a community work and not for my own table, though I took many aspects of it for my personal version.

[Techcaliber]

Oh my god thank you. I love the idea of the ranger class, and I think the Revise Ranger made a big leap towards making it a class that doesn't get s*** on be everyone, but it still wasn't to that point. But I think that what you have come up with is an amazing solution! Might need a little work, I don't know, don't really know game balance, but I love it!

[Segev]

I went ahead and wrote up a revised ranger (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610762-Yet-another-Ranger-revision&p=24462460) of my own. It incorporates several of the things discussed in here, so I thought I'd share here, too.

[Kane0]

Excellent tags by the way, I laughed.

[loki_ragnarock]

Excellent tags by the way, I laughed.

I like to bury jokes in there for the people who take the time to look for them. I'm glad it got the desired reaction.

[Morty]

I think this may be why I don't really like this as a suggested fix. You've made the ranger stronger but not in a way that makes you feel more like a ranger and doesn't fix the other broken things about the ranger that make it feel so underwhelming.

I feel like that's the ranger's history in a nutshell. Throwing features at the wall to see what sticks, which makes the class stronger but doesn't really make it feel like a coherent whole.

[Witty Username]

Ranger has the problem that all of of its class features read baldly or do nothing, except extra attack, spell casting, and subclass features. Favored enemy gives no benefits too combat, natural explorer is very limited in what it actually applies too (for example it is up to the DM whether or not tracking relates to the terrain or the type of creature), etc.
I think the big solution is increase the visibility of the rangers spell list: animal friendship, detect magic, goodberry, pass without trace, water breathing, commune with nature, speak with animals are all useful exploration tools that reduce the need of many of these class features.
I like Primal awareness in the variants because it shines a light on these positive features. Also, increasing the spells known of the ranger would do great things for making the ranger feel better to play, heck straight out replacing hide in plain sight with you add pass without trace to you spells known would be a power increase.

[Kane0]

Ranger has the problem that all of of its class features read baldly or do nothing, except extra attack, spell casting, and subclass features. Favored enemy gives no benefits too combat, natural explorer is very limited in what it actually applies too (for example it is up to the DM whether or not tracking relates to the terrain or the type of creature), etc.
I think the big solution is increase the visibility of the rangers spell list: animal friendship, detect magic, goodberry, pass without trace, water breathing, commune with nature, speak with animals are all useful exploration tools that reduce the need of many of these class features.
I like Primal awareness in the variants because it shines a light on these positive features. Also, increasing the spells known of the ranger would do great things for making the ranger feel better to play, heck straight out replacing hide in plain sight with you add pass without trace to you spells known would be a power increase.

Try spells prepared instead of known.

[KorvinStarmast]

Ranger has the problem that all of of its class features read baldly or do nothing, except extra attack, spell casting, and subclass features. Favored enemy gives no benefits too combat, natural explorer is very limited in what it actually applies too (for example it is up to the DM whether or not tracking relates to the terrain or the type of creature), etc.
I think the big solution is increase the visibility of the rangers spell list: animal friendship, detect magic, goodberry, pass without trace, water breathing, commune with nature, speak with animals are all useful exploration tools that reduce the need of many of these class features.
I like Primal awareness in the variants because it shines a light on these positive features. Also, increasing the spells known of the ranger would do great things for making the ranger feel better to play, heck straight out replacing hide in plain sight with you add pass without trace to you spells known would be a power increase.Favored enemy adding +2 to damage per hit (as with Revised) should have been in the original kit. Or better yet, or a favored enemy, you critical on a 19 or 20, not on a 20.

[Segev]

Ranger has the problem that all of of its class features read baldly or do nothing, except extra attack, spell casting, and subclass features. Favored enemy gives no benefits too combat, natural explorer is very limited in what it actually applies too (for example it is up to the DM whether or not tracking relates to the terrain or the type of creature), etc.
I think the big solution is increase the visibility of the rangers spell list: animal friendship, detect magic, goodberry, pass without trace, water breathing, commune with nature, speak with animals are all useful exploration tools that reduce the need of many of these class features.
I like Primal awareness in the variants because it shines a light on these positive features. Also, increasing the spells known of the ranger would do great things for making the ranger feel better to play, heck straight out replacing hide in plain sight with you add pass without trace to you spells known would be a power increase.


Try spells prepared instead of known.


Favored enemy adding +2 to damage per hit (as with Revised) should have been in the original kit. Or better yet, or a favored enemy, you critical on a 19 or 20, not on a 20.

On my phone, so linking is hard, but a few posts up in here I have a link to yet another Ranger revision this thread inspired me to put together. I think it addresses some of the biggest criticisms here, and wonder if you agree.

In particular, it makes them prepare spells like a paladin, expands the application of favored enemy mechanics to enable broader communication and tracking, and gives a limited but potent ability to their natural explorer feature. Among other adjustments, like to hide in plain sight and vanish, which are beefed up considerably.

They still make travel a lot easier, but i tried to give them more to do that helps out with seeing and finding cool stuff when they get where they’re going.

[Witty Username]

Favored enemy adding +2 to damage per hit (as with Revised) should have been in the original kit. Or better yet, or a favored enemy, you critical on a 19 or 20, not on a 20.

Very much yes, I have heard the argument that they didn't want to make the ranger's damage output dependent on a situational ability but that is no excuse for an ability with almost no use. On the other hand, I am not particularly concerned by a combat becoming trivial because of choices made by my players.

[Morty]

I don't think an ability that will sometimes simply not work through reasons entirely outside of the player's control will ever be functional.

[Segev]

I don't think an ability that will sometimes simply not work through reasons entirely outside of the player's control will ever be functional.

I think a better way to phrase this, if I am not mistaking your meaning, would be, "An ability that will only work sometimes, through circumstances entirely outside the player's control, won't ever be functional." And I'll add that, if it's just a ribbon - something tossed on for flavor without meaning it to matter most of the time - that it's fine.

The reason I suggest this rephrasing is because there are a lot of things that can become useless for reasons outside a player's control. Flight when you're in a corridor with no special reason that avoiding the floor is important, and it's only "normal" height? Totally makes no difference. But it's hardly a useless ability, even though the player never chose that the corridor would not care if he could fly or not. Proficiency with martial weapons when the party's been disarmed and only improvized and simple weapons are around? Wow, useless under this circumstance the player did not control. But so niche-rare and contrived that it doesn't make martial weapon proficiency useless at all.

The problem with favored enemy mechanics - even if they DID give +2 damage - is just how few choices the ranger player gets for favored enemies. If he guesses wrong, he won't face them very often at all. If he guesses right, he might face them all the time, but probably just still faces them only a plurality of times. And, as written, the ability to track goblins or undead precisely is nice...when it comes up. A cleric does better against undead for most purposes, though. (This is why the revision I made gave most types for free as things they can do their super-awesome tracking tricks on, and one "esoteric" type they can pick, with options to pick more later if they want. It's still not a combat gift, but the ability to tell exactly how many of various kinds of critters wandered through should be generally useful, I think, when exploring the wilderness or searching dungeons. By giving them most creature-types this way, it makes the ability apply often enough that it should be useful, even if it's conceivably possible that only creatures not on the list nor that they chose ever show up. It's just very unlikely.)

[NorthernPhoenix]

I don't think any combat focused change is going to "fix" the Ranger because the Ranger is already adequate at what everyone is good at (combat). The problems with the Ranger come from it being bad at being best at what it's supposed to be best at, both in mechanics and especially in feel.

[Nidgit]

The best ranger concepts I've seen have usually included some sort of mechanical benefit or additional spells in addition to tracking and maybe damage buffs against Favored Enemies. The idea is that you should have skills tailored to fighting certain foes that can still be of use against other enemies. Things like increased movement, extra bonus actions or reactions, situational advantage, and so on add a lot of flavor and customization to a class that is explicitly based around experiences.

Rangers also need to be able to change a Favored Terrain or Enemy on level up, in the same way that Sorcerers and Bards can swap out known spells. At higher levels, Rangers should be able to make the switch in shorter time frames as a way of quickly adapting to their environment.

[Segev]

The best ranger concepts I've seen have usually included some sort of mechanical benefit or additional spells in addition to tracking and maybe damage buffs against Favored Enemies. The idea is that you should have skills tailored to fighting certain foes that can still be of use against other enemies. Things like increased movement, extra bonus actions or reactions, situational advantage, and so on add a lot of flavor and customization to a class that is explicitly based around experiences.

Rangers also need to be able to change a Favored Terrain or Enemy on level up, in the same way that Sorcerers and Bards can swap out known spells. At higher levels, Rangers should be able to make the switch in shorter time frames as a way of quickly adapting to their environment.

Letting them change it out could work, but feels weird. There's something ... more easily bought about being able to forget a spell for a new one than to say, "I grew up in the jungle; it is my home, and I am its master...but now I don't know how to live there anymore and instead am master of this grassland we're about to be adventuring through."

My approach (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610762-Yet-another-Ranger-revision&p=24462460) was to broaden most of what favored terrain gave them into generic travel ability, and put favored terrain as something that does buff them, but isn't essential to their utility. On the other hand, I just gave them a bunch of favored enemies for "free," and reduced the list of possible ones to choose to a few "esoteric" types, so the abilities that gives them are more broadly-applicable.

I also made them prepped casters, like paladins. I have no idea why WotC made Paladins prepped and Rangers known-list. It was weird, and this way, Rangers can tailor their nature-loving list for different situations.

[Morty]

I think a better way to phrase this, if I am not mistaking your meaning, would be, "An ability that will only work sometimes, through circumstances entirely outside the player's control, won't ever be functional." And I'll add that, if it's just a ribbon - something tossed on for flavor without meaning it to matter most of the time - that it's fine.

The reason I suggest this rephrasing is because there are a lot of things that can become useless for reasons outside a player's control. Flight when you're in a corridor with no special reason that avoiding the floor is important, and it's only "normal" height? Totally makes no difference. But it's hardly a useless ability, even though the player never chose that the corridor would not care if he could fly or not. Proficiency with martial weapons when the party's been disarmed and only improvized and simple weapons are around? Wow, useless under this circumstance the player did not control. But so niche-rare and contrived that it doesn't make martial weapon proficiency useless at all.

The problem with favored enemy mechanics - even if they DID give +2 damage - is just how few choices the ranger player gets for favored enemies. If he guesses wrong, he won't face them very often at all. If he guesses right, he might face them all the time, but probably just still faces them only a plurality of times. And, as written, the ability to track goblins or undead precisely is nice...when it comes up. A cleric does better against undead for most purposes, though. (This is why the revision I made gave most types for free as things they can do their super-awesome tracking tricks on, and one "esoteric" type they can pick, with options to pick more later if they want. It's still not a combat gift, but the ability to tell exactly how many of various kinds of critters wandered through should be generally useful, I think, when exploring the wilderness or searching dungeons. By giving them most creature-types this way, it makes the ability apply often enough that it should be useful, even if it's conceivably possible that only creatures not on the list nor that they chose ever show up. It's just very unlikely.)

There's a considerable difference between a power having logical limitations and being only one of many tools in a character's repertoire, and a class feature - considered to be central to rangers - being designed from the start as only applying to some select enemies. I don't really see the point in trying to make it work while still remaining recognizable as a "favored enemy" instead of just getting rid of it.

[Nidgit]

Letting them change it out could work, but feels weird. There's something ... more easily bought about being able to forget a spell for a new one than to say, "I grew up in the jungle; it is my home, and I am its master...but now I don't know how to live there anymore and instead am master of this grassland we're about to be adventuring through."

My approach (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?610762-Yet-another-Ranger-revision&p=24462460) was to broaden most of what favored terrain gave them into generic travel ability, and put favored terrain as something that does buff them, but isn't essential to their utility. On the other hand, I just gave them a bunch of favored enemies for "free," and reduced the list of possible ones to choose to a few "esoteric" types, so the abilities that gives them are more broadly-applicable.

I also made them prepped casters, like paladins. I have no idea why WotC made Paladins prepped and Rangers known-list. It was weird, and this way, Rangers can tailor their nature-loving list for different situations.

That's the beauty of having more than one of each learned over time. When you gain your second Favored Terrain, that's when you can start switching by, say, spending a long rest in the new terrain. A good Ranger very much should be able to master new terrains without too much difficulty, and it's not uncommon for a person to forget unused things. If a spellcaster can forget a spell they've known for the past 10 levels, why can't a Ranger temporarily forget a terrain?

I agree that having a fewer, broader categories for Favored Enemies is a good call, but I still think they need to be changeable to some degree. Part of the reason the PHB Favored Enemy is so weak is that WotC didn't want players to feel like they were missing out when they were fighting different enemies, something every other class very rarely deals with. It's supposed to feel like a neat buff based on experience but instead feels totally extraneous. Allowing them to be a bit more flexible means the player isn't locked into blindly guessing during character creation and means it can actually feel both powerful and applicable.

[Segev]

That's the beauty of having more than one of each learned over time. When you gain your second Favored Terrain, that's when you can start switching by, say, spending a long rest in the new terrain. A good Ranger very much should be able to master new terrains without too much difficulty, and it's not uncommon for a person to forget unused things. If a spellcaster can forget a spell they've known for the past 10 levels, why can't a Ranger temporarily forget a terrain?

I agree that having a fewer, broader categories for Favored Enemies is a good call, but I still think they need to be changeable to some degree. Part of the reason the PHB Favored Enemy is so weak is that WotC didn't want players to feel like they were missing out when they were fighting different enemies, something every other class very rarely deals with. It's supposed to feel like a neat buff based on experience but instead feels totally extraneous. Allowing them to be a bit more flexible means the player isn't locked into blindly guessing during character creation and means it can actually feel both powerful and applicable.

Right, whereas my approach was to just let them use this extra on most creatures, plus one more type of creature of their choice. There remain a number to which they don't get these bonuses, but they're rarer types and it's likely the kinds they do have the ability with will come up.

[Dienekes]

There's a considerable difference between a power having logical limitations and being only one of many tools in a character's repertoire, and a class feature - considered to be central to rangers - being designed from the start as only applying to some select enemies. I don't really see the point in trying to make it work while still remaining recognizable as a "favored enemy" instead of just getting rid of it.

Personally been a fan of instead making it be a choice similar to the Warlocks Pact Boon, where instead of getting some abilities that only work on the designated creature they get abilities that are generally useful but tailored to fit focusing down a specific creature type.

For example, if your Favored Enemy is Fey you might get Advantage on Charm or Frightened saving throws because that would be very important to someone who hunts fey. And even if you never actually see a Fey in the entire campaign, you will probably have to roll a save against being charmed or frightened at some point.

[Witty Username]

That can easily be fixed by in one of two ways.
1. Allow Favored enemy to be changed, either on long rest, during downtime or on level up. This means that the ranger will be able to benefit from it consistently enough. This will increase the power of the ranger generally but favored enemy as is is already situational so it wouldn't be big as written.
2. Ensure that the ranger is functional without the ribbon applying. Clerics often have situational channel divinities, like turn undead which could never come up in a game. But it is not considered an issue because the cleric is powerful class in other areas most notably its high impact spell casting.

I lean toward 2. Because of the abilities Favored enemy and Natural explorer I am more inclined to replace Natural explorer which I would argue is the weaker ability even when the situation is applicable. And Favored Enemy(if it did what it said it does) is more helpful from an RP perspective.

[Dienekes]

That can easily be fixed by in one of two ways.
1. Allow Favored enemy to be changed, either on long rest, during downtime or on level up. This means that the ranger will be able to benefit from it consistently enough. This will increase the power of the ranger generally but favored enemy as is is already situational so it wouldn't be big as written.
2. Ensure that the ranger is functional without the ribbon applying. Clerics often have situational channel divinities, like turn undead which could never come up in a game. But it is not considered an issue because the cleric is powerful class in other areas most notably its high impact spell casting.

I lean toward 2. Because of the abilities Favored enemy and Natural explorer I am more inclined to replace Natural explorer which I would argue is the weaker ability even when the situation is applicable. And Favored Enemy(if it did what it said it does) is more helpful from an RP perspective.

At what point is it better to just let the ribbon be Advantage on Wisdom checks to Track and Intelligence checks to recall information about creatures?

Since we’re making the meaning of favored to just be whichever one they pick per long rest. Seems easier.

[Segev]

At what point is it better to just let the ribbon be Advantage on Wisdom checks to Track and Intelligence checks to recall information about creatures?

Since we’re making the meaning of favored to just be whichever one they pick per long rest. Seems easier.

Making it work by default on beasts, dragons, elementals, monstrosities, oozes, and plants (and maybe some I’m forgetting) and the letting them pick one from the remainder as “favored enemy” works, I think. Now they cover most things, but not every thing, and have a meaningful pick for some uniqueness.

[Witty Username]

At what point is it better to just let the ribbon be Advantage on Wisdom checks to Track and Intelligence checks to recall information about creatures?

Since we’re making the meaning of favored to just be whichever one they pick per long rest. Seems easier.

I was taking from the sorcerer replacing spells options in UA. If a sorcerer can replace a spell once per long rest, why not let rangers replace a favored enemy? Which is why I included the options for on level up or downtime, since those tend to also be acceptable spots to make character changes. But your complaint is part of why I prefer option 2.

[loki_ragnarock]

Making it work by default on beasts, dragons, elementals, monstrosities, oozes, and plants (and maybe some I’m forgetting) and the letting them pick one from the remainder as “favored enemy” works, I think. Now they cover most things, but not every thing, and have a meaningful pick for some uniqueness.

That's not far off from what they did in AD&D; the list of creatures that counted for their additional combat bonuses was actually incredibly broad, every ranger got them, and it was the same broad list.

It's only later that they were made to narrow it down into something "favored." Second edition when you started you got one special foe you gained the benefits of weaponized racism against which never changed, making it more of a flavor choice. In third edition rangers got to pick from a couple options, and then pick a few more as time progressed, making it a central part of their identity and progression. I don't remember if they did anything in 4th with a favored enemy or foe of humanity or the like, but I don't think they did?

And in 5th edition they gave it the mechanical weight of a pure flavor choice like in second edition, but also made it a key part of the ranger's progression like in third edition. Therein lies a problem; it's listed multiple times in their progression table for an ability that amounts to a one time choice that taken for flavor purposes. They oversold a ribbon throw away as a central part of their identity and progression, splitting the difference in the worst way possible.

No sir. I don't like it. It's a non-feature in place of where real features should be. Natural explorer is in a similar basket, even if marginally better; the supporting spells that help define a ranger make them more about where they fight than what they fight. Even so, while it's slightly better than a ribbon, it's not much more so. And as a result, the sixth level of ranger is - at least one of - the lamest level up in all of 5th edition.

Natural Explorer is an easy fix; lean into the magical nature of the ranger. Other PCs attune to magic items, but rangers attune to landscapes. Let them change their natural explorer selection over a long rest; while they sleep their consciousness begins bonding with the natural spirits of the land, the subtly guide their actions and perceptions while traversing it. They aren't skilled woodsmen; leave that to the fighter rogues. Let the ranger listen to what the wind says. Let him translate what the rustling leaves say in the susurrus, what the zephyr writes in the water's surface, what meaning derived from the gestures of the gully ferns, what tales told in falling flakes of snow, what is conveyed in the congress of dunes, and how to suss out the sirocco's intent.
And as a result, let it be one class feature that defines them, not a feature that's been needlessly limited and then drug out far too long for the sake of artificially generating progression. I like this change because it puts the emphasis on the "Explorer" side; a guy stuck in the same place isn't an explorer. But the guy who paints with *all* the colors of the wind? He seems cool.

But favored enemy? I'd lean towards making it a pure ribbon; it exists at level one as a flavor option that helps define the nature of your character. Go full second edition with it. Because trying to make it more than that means that you have a central mechanic that becomes useless as soon as you aren't facing those opponents. Remove the progression from it completely, pull away from letting it define the class in any shape or form, and just let it be.

Which means you'd need to come up with new abilities, because now level 6 would be an actually empty level instead of a functionally empty level. Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy both come off as unnecessarily padded out to make up for a lack of worthy mechanics that provide the Ranger with that niche that only they fill.

So what would fill that?
And that's where the varied interpretations of the ranger become highly divergent, because the expectations are sort of all over the place. Everybody wants something different from the ranger, and they haven't been particularly consistent between editions. In fact, if I had to list the things that remained consistent-ish, it would look like:
Special damage or to hit vs a select group of monsters - AD&D,AD&D2, 3, 3.5, 5 (I really can't recall anything of the sort in 4.)
Tracking - AD&D, AD&D2, 3, 3.5, 5ish (I really can't recall anything of the sort in 4.)
Spellcasting - AD&D, AD&D2, 3, 3.5, 5 (Were they primal or martial in 4? I can't recall.)
Animal Companions: AD&D2, 3, 3.5, 4, 5ish (I can't recall if they were about in AD&D.)
Kicking ass with a weapon in each hand - AD&D, AD&D2, 3, 3.5, 4, 5ish


The only thing that's really consistent is that they kick ass with two weapons; either they mitigated the penalties (1-3.5) or were actually pretty good at it (4). Apart from being a sub-par fighting style in 5, they seem to have tried to let them inhabit that space, too... just inadequately.

But for me, the pedigree of being magical is also a fairly important cornerstone of their identity; a purely martial ranger just doesn't scratch the itch, as that really can be simulated by a fighter/rogue. Missing mysticism is muy malo

This has gotten ramble-y.

Night Night. I'll try to organize the thoughts a little better tomorrow.

[Democratus]

I don't think any combat focused change is going to "fix" the Ranger because the Ranger is already adequate at what everyone is good at (combat). The problems with the Ranger come from it being bad at being best at what it's supposed to be best at, both in mechanics and especially in feel.

This is a good summary.

Combat isn't the Ranger's problem. And tweaking how it does combat doesn't fix the core concept.

Rangers are supposed to be good at "ranging" - exploring the wilderness, surviving in the wilderness, scouting, wilderness lore, etc. These abilities, imo, are more important than combat perks as they are what sets the Ranger aside from a rogue/fighter multiclass.

[Kane0]

Proper stealth features and getting them before tier 3 wouldnt go astray either

[KorvinStarmast]

Clerics often have situational channel divinities, like turn undead which could never come up in a game. Uh, a D&D campaign with no undead?

[Democratus]

Uh, a D&D campaign with no undead?

There are quite a few! :smallcool:

[Morty]

Personally been a fan of instead making it be a choice similar to the Warlocks Pact Boon, where instead of getting some abilities that only work on the designated creature they get abilities that are generally useful but tailored to fit focusing down a specific creature type.

For example, if your Favored Enemy is Fey you might get Advantage on Charm or Frightened saving throws because that would be very important to someone who hunts fey. And even if you never actually see a Fey in the entire campaign, you will probably have to roll a save against being charmed or frightened at some point.

That is the only way I could see it working, yes.

[sithlordnergal]

-rant incoming

Hmmm, I think that's a pretty good start, and giving the core Ranger some good class abilities is a step in the right direction. However, I don't think those alone will fix the core issues with the Ranger. Please note, I'm talking about the basic PHB Ranger, not the Revised Ranger, or any other Ranger. The regular, unchanged, PHB Ranger. That said, here are what I find to be the two big issues of the Ranger:


The first issue is what are Rangers even supposed to be? A Ranger is supposed a Fighter, Rogue, Druid mixed into a single class...but those three classes don't really play well together. Fighters are generally front line damage dealers that are great at fighting things head on. They have high hit points, decent AC, and have a lot of weapons available to them. But they generally aren't the class you look for if you wanna be a skill monkey.

Rogues are skirmishers and skill monkies, they don't do combat in the same way the Fighter does it. Instead of face tanking a huge blow from an enemy, they try to dodge around and avoid said foe, and like to keep their distance. Everything in a Rogue's combat kit is oriented to not being hit. On the skill side of things, they're one of the best skill monkies in the game, to the point where only Bards can come close to them.

Finally there are Druids, which are semi-hybrids by themselves. Druids are full casters, but their spells range from healing, to damage, to battlefield control. At the same time they have one of the most flexible ability in the game, Wild Shape. Wild Shape alone lets a Druid tank, do damage, scout, provide easy methods of transportation, infiltration, ect., the list goes on.

And unfortunately, those three classes kind of clash when you mash them all together. The Ranger is part Fighter, so they need to be able to hold their own in frontline combat. As such they get Extra Attack, d10 Hit Die, a Fighting Style and Simple/Martial Weapon Proficiency. They also need to be Rogue-ish, so they need to be light on their feet, skilled, and able to be a skirmisher. As such they get three skills, only Medium Armor and Shields, abilities that improve their chosen skills in specific situations, and stealth skills. But wait, they also need that Druid thrown in! Lets give them spell casting, some nature specific abilities, a way to sense the land around you, and a way to sense what sort of creatures are in the surrounding area.

Do you see the issue there? The Ranger needs the fighting abilities of a Fighter, the spells of a Druid, and the skills of a Rogue. But if you gave them everything each of those classes got, it would turn the class an OP broken mess. I think Rangers would have fared far, far better if they had chosen just two of those classes for the Ranger to be a hybrid of, instead of all three. Look at the Paladin, its a hybrid Fighter Cleric, and if you squint you can see a dash of Bard in it. Why does it work? Because Fighter, Cleric, and even that dash of Bard work well together. Fighter can be thrown in with almost anything, while Clerics and Bards both focus on aiding their team mates with buffs, debuffs, and controlling the battlefield.

That said, I don't really blame WotC for this. I forget exactly where I read it, but it was a thing talking about the problem with the Ranger that really stuck with me. The problem with the Ranger was, and still is in some ways, Drizzt Do'Urden. Again, I forget exactly where I read this, but it was talking about how Drizzt was clearly based off the Ranger...but then WotC tried to base the Ranger off of Drizzt. Drizzt is amazing in combat, he's in touch with the land, and he's an expert infiltrator and amazing at being stealthy. So now Rangers have to be amazing in combat, in touch with the land, and be experts at infiltration and stealth. But you cannot make Drizzt Do'Urden into a class, it would not work, because Drizzt himself is a walking power house in the books. He is basically good at everything when it comes down to it, and a class that's good at everything is a bad class.



So, in order to make the Ranger into a Druid/Fighter/Rogue hybrid, the Ranger was given several class abilities...but I would argue that those base abilities aren't really that good. Outside of three abilities that are actually good, and one ability that is ok, the Ranger's core abilities are kind of...underwhelming. They are mostly garbage abilities, with only one of them being impossibly OP...but we'll get to that.

So, what are the three good Ranger abilities? The first is the Fighting Style, the second is Land's Stride, and the third is Feral Senses. The ok ability is Vanish, though its not that great since its a watered down version of Cunning Action that comes online far too late.

Outside of those, the only other mechanically good one is Natural Explorer, but I don't count it as a good ability because of two very simple reasons. If you aren't able to use it, its useless. If you are able to use it, it is incredibly OP. Why bother trying to find your way through the woods with a Ranger that has Woods as their Favored Terrain? The Ranger an guide you through it perfectly, without a chance of being lost, you can do your regular activities without worrying about disadvantage to perception checks, and you find twice as much food as you usually would. There's no point to worrying about travel anymore, the Ranger has it all covered, literally.

What about the rest? Favored Enemy is trash. Like Favored Terrain, it only works in specific situations. Unlike Favored Terrain, the bonuses it does give you are kinda terrible. You gain advantage on Wisdom(Survival) checks to track things, and advantage on Int checks to remember things, as well as a language. You know who else can get that? Any class with Survival, Nature, History, or Arcana, and someone who can Aid them. You know who can track better? A Rogue or Bard that has Expertise in Survival, or a Druid that maxed out their Wisdom before the Ranger did.

How about Primeval Awareness? Despite it being a Ranger version of Divine Sense, I actually rank Divine Sense as being flat out better. Why? Because Divine Sense has some special limitations that make it far more useful. Primeval has a 1 Mile Radius, or 6 if you're in your favored terrain, and reveals that there are Aberrations, Celestials, Fiends, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, and Undead within that radius. It does not tell you the location or the amount. Nor does it state that anything stops that sense. Meaning you get to learn that there are undead...somewhere? Within 1 to 6 miles of you. You don't know how many there are, or where they are. It could be a lone zombie shambling along a mile away, or it could be a hoard of 100 zombies about to close in on you. And to top it off, it costs a spell slot...a spell slot!?! Why does it cost a spell slot!?! Why?

How about Hide in Plain Sight? Surely that's goo-Nope! Nope, not good at all. Its a watered down, less useful version of Pass Without Trace. You spend 1 minute setting it up, get a +10 bonus to stealth, and its ended if you move, take an action, or reaction. It is good if you're the person keeping watch, but that's about it.

Ah, but what about spell casting? Pro tip, it sucks too. You're a half caster with the fewest spells known in the game. Yes, some of the Ranger spells are really good...but again, Half Caster, fewest spells in the game. And one of your abilities cost a spell slot to use. Honestly, not that good.



Before I talk about Xanathar's Subclasses, lets talk about the PHB subclasses. The PHB subclasses for the Ranger are...not good. I feel subclasses should be used to help flesh out precisely how you want to build a character. Rogues did this to a pretty good extent, even before Xanathar's came out. Wanna be an amazing skill monkey, Thief is the choice for you. Wanna be really good at dealing damage? Assassin technically works. Wanna have a nice balance of the two? Arcane Trickster is your best choice.

So, how about Ranger? In the PHB you first have the Hunter, which focuses more in the Fighter/Rogue side of things with the Ranger. Its actually pretty good...but it focused more on making you a better Fighter/Rogue, it didn't really do anything for the Druid side of things. It also focused more on the Fighter side of things in the Fighter/Rogue combo. Meanwhile Beastmaster tried, and failed, to pick up on the Druid side of things, but they clearly couldn't balance the benefits of having a Beast Companion well enough. As a result, its a bit of a mess.

Xanathar's actually does a lot better with the subclasses. You have your choice of Gloomstalker, Horizen Walker, and Monster Slayer. Gloomstalker is similar to the Hunter, in that it focuses on the Fighter/Rogue side of things, but it leans more towards the Rogue side of things. Horizen Walker feels a bit like a Druid/Rogue subclass, with a bit more focus on the Druid's magical might mixed in with some things taken from Rogue. And Monster Slayer feels more like a Rogue/Druid subclass, where you gain more Rogue-ish things mixed in with know-how from the Druid.

And there lies the problem. The Ranger is a Fighter/Rogue/Druid hybrid, and those subclasses only use two of the three options. So you kind of lose out on part of what the Ranger is meant to feel like, or you have it shoehorned in and it feels off.

[Democratus]

sithlordnergal summed it up really nicely.

In trying to figure this class out (to see how to 'build' one) I wanted to see exactly what it was originally trying to emulate.

What are the prototypes for the Ranger class?

Aragorn: (the warrior component)
I'd argue that Aragorn, who was literally a ranger in the literature, is the main prototype.

Aragorn was a great warrior who also wandered the land and kept watch over the movements of the minions of The Enemy. He wasn't particularly known as an archer of renown. He didn't have an animal companion. He wasn't even super sneaky. I don't recall him casting lots of spells.

Robin Hood: (the archer component)
People also like to sometimes use Robin Hood as an example, mostly because he lived in the forest and used it to advantage against the Sherrif.

He seems much more like a Fighter (with archery specialty) to me. He lays ambushes but doesn't pick pockets or stealth about. And he also has no animal companion. Spell casting? Not that I remember,

Others
The old AD&D player's handbook also mentions Jack the Giant Killer, the goddess huntress Diana, and the Greek hero Orion. These are all hunters - which has a wilderness/stalker element to it. But still nothing that can't be done as a Fighter sub-type.

I don't really get where the spell casting bit of Ranger is supposed to come from. Or any "Rouge-ness" other than being able to stalk and hunt prey.

[Segev]

What are the prototypes for the Ranger class?

Aragorn: (the warrior component)
I'd argue that Aragorn, who was literally a ranger in the literature, is the main prototype.

Aragorn was a great warrior who also wandered the land and kept watch over the movements of the minions of The Enemy. He wasn't particularly known as an archer of renown. He didn't have an animal companion. He wasn't even super sneaky. I don't recall him casting lots of spells.


Aragorn is also the strongest influence. A lot of those "what the...?" abilities are really just efforts to directly emulate something about Aragorn: Favored Enemy? Foe Slayer? That's Aragorn's "unique" ability to use the black arrow to slay Smaug (a dragon). The root idea being that Aragorn, then, has "Dragons" as a "favored enemy." Spellcasting? Primeval Awareness? That's Aragorn's woodsman skills and near-supernatural sense of what's going on around him. This is also the tracking and the like.

Favored terrain, even, I think is just "Aragorn's good in the forest, not so much in the grasslands, right?"

Animal companions came in in 3.5, when druid got it shifted from being a spell to being a class feature and rangers, as "the fighter/druid hybrid class," followed suit.

A lot has been tacked on and sloughed off over the editions, but at its root (I won't say "core," as that's not quite right), the Ranger started as "I want to play Strider."

[Democratus]

Aragorn is also the strongest influence. A lot of those "what the...?" abilities are really just efforts to directly emulate something about Aragorn: Favored Enemy? Foe Slayer? That's Aragorn's "unique" ability to use the black arrow to slay Smaug (a dragon). The root idea being that Aragorn, then, has "Dragons" as a "favored enemy." Spellcasting? Primeval Awareness? That's Aragorn's woodsman skills and near-supernatural sense of what's going on around him. This is also the tracking and the like.

Wasn't Smaug killed by Bard the Lakeman with his Black Arrow?

[Segev]

Wasn't Smaug killed by Bard the Lakeman with his Black Arrow?

Was he? I stand corrected, then. Much to the confounding of many who know me and my love of fantasy fiction, I never could stand Tolkien, and thus haven't read much of it. And my memories of the animated movie are fuzzy, and I didn't really watch much of the more recent ones. Edit: Which is to explain, not excuse, my ignorance/mistakes.

[NorthernPhoenix]

sithlordnergal summed it up really nicely.

In trying to figure this class out (to see how to 'build' one) I wanted to see exactly what it was originally trying to emulate.

What are the prototypes for the Ranger class?

Aragorn: (the warrior component)
I'd argue that Aragorn, who was literally a ranger in the literature, is the main prototype.

Aragorn was a great warrior who also wandered the land and kept watch over the movements of the minions of The Enemy. He wasn't particularly known as an archer of renown. He didn't have an animal companion. He wasn't even super sneaky. I don't recall him casting lots of spells.

Robin Hood: (the archer component)
People also like to sometimes use Robin Hood as an example, mostly because he lived in the forest and used it to advantage against the Sherrif.

He seems much more like a Fighter (with archery specialty) to me. He lays ambushes but doesn't pick pockets or stealth about. And he also has no animal companion. Spell casting? Not that I remember,

Others
The old AD&D player's handbook also mentions Jack the Giant Killer, the goddess huntress Diana, and the Greek hero Orion. These are all hunters - which has a wilderness/stalker element to it. But still nothing that can't be done as a Fighter sub-type.

I don't really get where the spell casting bit of Ranger is supposed to come from. Or any "Rouge-ness" other than being able to stalk and hunt prey.

It's a mistake common to forums like this going too far back or too deep when trying to define the identity of the "Ranger". The "Ranger" has existed as a stand-alone archetype in mass-appeal games for decades now. When people come to DnD from video games and other similarly influenced sources (TV, Anime, etc), they already have a rough idea of what the Ranger is. It's the Hunter/Ranger/Beastmaster/Warden/Wilderness Warrior from games like Diablo, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Final Fantasy and so on, or show equivalents. The modern Ranger exists to emulate itself, created by old-DnD, defined for the masses by outside fantasy influenced by old-DnD, and then brought forward as an expected part of New-DnD.

[TigerT20]

Aragorn is also the strongest influence. A lot of those "what the...?" abilities are really just efforts to directly emulate something about Aragorn: Favored Enemy? Foe Slayer? That's Aragorn's "unique" ability to use the black arrow to slay Smaug (a dragon). The root idea being that Aragorn, then, has "Dragons" as a "favored enemy."

Nitpick: That's Bard the Bowman, not Aragorn. Unless that's some super-deep knowledge...

Something I do want to point out is that looking purely at rangers in media won't give us the whole thing, we need to look at past editions, other games and what you imagine a ranger as - someone who uses the wilderness to their advantage, can calm ferocious beasts, knows the land and the creatures upon it, etc

Most video games and the like - probably as a byproduct of past editions of D&D, but whatever, show the ranger as the deadly hunter/huntress with a keen eye, animal companians and that always wears green cloaks for whatever reason. Also they're elves. So people coming to D&D from such games will expect that of the Ranger. It's not just LOTR fans that want to be rangers, after all.

[Democratus]

We are largely in agreement, though. Aragorn is the pattern.

A fighter sub-class should be plenty enough to represent this kind of Ranger.
- Good at fighting
- Good at wilderness survival
- Good at tracking
- End of list...?

Which, I believe, means there is no need for animal companions. If spells were deemed absolutely needed (I don't think they are) you could add them much like the Eldrich Knight - only dip into Druid spells.

[NorthernPhoenix]

We are largely in agreement, though. Aragorn is the pattern.

A fighter sub-class should be plenty enough to represent this kind of Ranger.
- Good at fighting
- Good at wilderness survival
- Good at tracking
- End of list...?

Which, I believe, means there is no need for animal companions. If spells were deemed absolutely needed (I don't think they are) you could add them much like the Eldrich Knight - only dip into Druid spells.

There is a colossal need. Beastmaster is probably the most played class relative to how weak it is by far, because no matter what the power rankings say, people really, really want to be animal guy/girl. It's a core fantasy game archetype.

[Segev]

Right. For all that its root is LotR - like much of D&D's non-direct-wargaming elements - Ranger has evolved considerably. The reason we're having this thread, I think, is because it hasn't evolved a solid mechanical role the way other classes have, but has definitely evolved a distinct flavor. If you say "ranger," most poeple will have something close to the same mental image. Not identical, but close. As TigerT20 puts it: "the ranger [is] the deadly hunter/huntress with a keen eye, animal companians and that always wears green cloaks for whatever reason." Or, "someone who uses the wilderness to their advantage, can calm ferocious beasts, knows the land and the creatures upon it, etc."

Any effort to build a class needs to take most (though probably not all) of these things into account. And needs to find a way to make these themes relevant to as many pillars of D&D's intended gameplay as possible.

[Morty]

Animal companions are the one ranger feature that might justify having a separate class. It's something people want and effectively having an extra character to command is strong enough to hang a character off. Doubly so now that druids have lost access to them. If we define rangers as "Beastmasters" and work from where, we might be getting somewhere.

As far as Aragorn goes, what gets forgotten in those discussions is that he doesn't act like a ranger for most of the story. He takes this role when leading the hobbits to Rivendell and chasing the orcs across Rohan. Otherwise his character centres around assuming his role as the rightful king of Gondor and all that. So even he's not really a solid role model.

[Segev]

Animal companions are the one ranger feature that might justify having a separate class. It's something people want and effectively having an extra character to command is strong enough to hang a character off. Doubly so now that druids have lost access to them. If we define rangers as "Beastmasters" and work from where, we might be getting somewhere.

As far as Aragorn goes, what gets forgotten in those discussions is that he doesn't act like a ranger for most of the story. He takes this role when leading the hobbits to Rivendell and chasing the orcs across Rohan. Otherwise his character centres around assuming his role as the rightful king of Gondor and all that. So even he's not really a solid role model.

Which is partially why when I closed that post, my statement of intent behind the original ranger was, "I want to play Strider."

Yes, Aragorn goes on to be different - at least, I'll take your word that he does - but the ranger-inspiration was Strider.



You could potentially rebuild the Ranger entirely around the Beastmaster subclass. Strip that of its stuff and beef it up as a full class feature. There's certainly enough room to leave favored enemies and favored terrains more or less alone and shovel in "beast lord" as the class's primary feature. But you would have to be a little cautious in so doing, since you'd want to make it better than it currently is, on top of making it something that sits alongside other subclasses.

[Witty Username]

Ranger includes spellcasting partially to represent the wilderness lore end of rangers, or at least it used to. LOTR wise Strider using kingsfoil to slow and cure poisons and curses, doesn't really have a representation in 5e outside of spellcasting. Also in earlier editions when LOTR was being copy/pasted into d&d rangers had very weak spellcasting which was buffed as the editions progressed to better differentiate the ranger.

Which leads into the subclass problem/argument. The more classes in 5e could be subclasses of others than not.
Fighter could absorb barbarian, paladin and ranger.
Wizard could absorb sorcerer and warlock.
cleric could have a druid domain.
But most people don't seem to want that, and these archetypes seem to me to have more design space than that, heck the fact that people disagree on what the ranger is feels like that is what sub classes are supposed to be for.

[Kane0]

Controversial opinion: If Rangers were done right they would become the quintissential well-rounded adventurer, equal parts warrior skillmonkey and caster. It wouldnt knock the bard off the ‘jack of all trades’ throne but it could well become the ‘poster child’ of adventurers.

[jas61292]

As other have mentioned, Rangers are originally based on Aragorn from Lord of the Rings. And note that this is not to say that he is a fictional character that fits the archetype so much as it is to say that Ranger was the Aragorn class. The name of the class itself is "Ranger" because Aragorn was the chieftain of the Dúnedain of the North, who were known to the common people as "rangers." So if you want to have a class that is true to its origins, then this is the character you want to look at.

The problem with this is, well, Aragorn is not much of a Ranger in the D&D sense. At least in terms of the design space of the Ranger in 5th edition. Sure, he is a skilled outdoorsman, and in terms of exploration ability, he is pretty much unmatched, which is what, in theory, the Ranger class is supposed to be. Beyond that, though, the differences start to show themselves. Rangers in 5e are a primarily Dex focused class that has Wisdom based spellcasting. Aragorn probably is quite dexterous, but the iconic weapon he uses for most of the series is Anduril, a rather substantial longsword that is very much a strength weapon. And while he is portrayed more with light armor than heavy, strength is more often than not a more defining feature of his (though to be fair, this is mainly just a thing with men in general in Tolkein. Humans, not Orcs or Dwarves, were the strong race). And in terms of magic, Aragorn is portrayed as knowledgeable about lore, magical and otherwise, but he never really uses magic. His skill was more in knowledge and natural remedies.

Ultimately, while it is obvious where the ranger class comes from, the class as it stands today does a poor job of representing that origin. As the main problem in many people's eyes is that the ranger lacks a clear purpose or idea behind it, if you are going to redesign it, you need to answer what that core idea is. You could go back to the origin and try to make the Aragorn class, but that is rather difficult, especially in this edition where a fighter with the right background would do the job of representing the character far better.

Personally, if I was to remake things, I don't think I would have a ranger class that even vaguely resembles what it is like today. A half-druidic caster type character is a decent archetype, but I don't think I would tie something like that to being a outdoorsman/tracker. Same thing with a beastmaster, which I think could have been its own entire class, with subclasses based on the type of companion, thereby being able to represent both beastmaster style characters and more magical summoners in one class. And while I don't know if it is possible to do well without stepping on too many toes, I would love to see an Aragorn class, where characters are lightly armored and skilled in lore and wilderness activities, but can hold their own as martial combatants in melee. I just don't know how to do that.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

I think the Ranger isn't well designed. It's not necessarily as bad as some people say, but it's true.

Let's look at some of the features that play into what I'm talking about:

Primeval Awareness-- this is not good. It is not very helpful and it's even more useless in your favored terrain than it is outside of it. Because it tells you if there are creatures of a specific type within a mile. But not how many, where they are, or even which direction they're in. And in your favored terrain, it expands to six miles. It sure is useful information to know there is 1 to infinity demons somewhere within 6 miles. I guess you could walk around and try to triangulate their location by when they enter and leave your range, but that's a slow process and you have to sacrifice one of your very few spell slots at the rate of 1 level per minute.

Land's Stride: Not slowed by difficult terrain? That's good but it's also partly redundant with Natural Explorer.

Vanish: Hide as a bonus action is great. It's also something rogues get at level 2, being passed off as a Level 14 ability. And Rogues get other bonus action options with Cunning Action. Now, not being able to be tracked without magic sounds great, except, wait, you've been able to do that when it mattered for a long time with the spell Pass Without Trace.

Also, Favored Enemy should probably give a minor combat bonus as soon as you get it, instead of making no difference until the capstone of the class.

So, if I was going to remake the ranger, I would keep the outdoors hunting/tracking focus, but I'd trim it down a little and get rid of the hyperfocus on it that the base class suffers from.

[Morty]

Controversial opinion: If Rangers were done right they would become the quintissential well-rounded adventurer, equal parts warrior skillmonkey and caster. It wouldnt knock the bard off the ‘jack of all trades’ throne but it could well become the ‘poster child’ of adventurers.

The fact that other classes can't be well-rounded adventurers is more of a problem with the class system as a whole than an endorsement of any particular class.

[Segev]

The fact that other classes can't be well-rounded adventurers is more of a problem with the class system as a whole than an endorsement of any particular class.

Depending on what one means by "well-rounded adventurer," it could also be a feature rather than a bug.

"Casters can do everything!" was a common complaint in 3e, and is still echoed a bit in 5e.

[Moxxmix]

@sithlordnergal made an excellent critique. Trying to blend the fighter, rogue, and druid together into one package strains the ranger class's ability to provide a cohesive focus on the character types it represents.


Caveat: This is my own personal opinion, though developed from the discussions had in the Workshop Ranger thread.

When thinking of ranger, these are the concepts that come to mind:

Where a rogue is sneaky, a ranger is perceptive.

Where a rogue escapes, a ranger hunts.

Where a rogue is unlawful, a ranger is lawful. (Not necessarily in the sense of alignment.)

Where a fighter is dutiful, a ranger is independent.

Where a fighter is direct, or a rogue ambushes, a ranger will lay traps.

Where a rogue is knowledgable, a ranger is aware.

Where a druid connects with nature at a large scale, a ranger connects with nature at a small, personal scale.

Where a paladin protects people within the bounds of the law, the ranger protects people outside the bounds of the law.

Where others try to conform the environment to themselves, the ranger conforms to the environment.


----

I think the current half-caster design is wrong. The ranger should allow a magical focus as a subclass, like the Eldritch Knight, rather than using so much of its design space on its spellcasting component. Then you can give it access to all druid spells, instead of being shoehorned into the very narrow ranger spell list.

That also opens up a huge amount of design space for the class as a whole, as well as the other subclasses.

Beastmaster, for example, is definitely a thing people want. Give it some room to breathe. Take away the spellcasting weight, and that frees up room to improve the animal companion in ways that can make it more fun and useful.

Same for the Hunter. You can design around the "hunting" aspect in ways that actually make sense for the class, instead of borrowing spellcasting for everything.


Scrap the default Favored Terrain and Favored Enemy.

Possible replacements might be:

Bounty Hunter: You may designate a specific individual or group as an enemy that you are hunting down. While you are hunting this target, you have advantage on Tracking and Investigation skill checks related to them, as well as designing traps or planning ambushes to be used against them. You may designate a new bounty once your chosen one has been defeated, or after you gain a level.

Traveler: You are well-versed in the dangers of wilderness travel, in a variety of natural environments. You may prepare for your travel, and give your party advantage on any travel-related skill checks to the extent that you have prepared. In addition, your party moves at the speed of the fastest member of the party , and difficult terrain only increases travel time by 50%, instead of 100%. Every hour you spend preparing allows you to provide this benefit to your party for one day of travel, as long as you travel within an environment that you expected to be in.


Fastest member means effective walking speed is 30' if everyone is a standard human, but that a gnome (25' walking speed) won't slow you down, while a barbarian (+10' walking speed after level 5) would speed you up.

[sithlordnergal]

I think the Ranger isn't well designed. It's not necessarily as bad as some people say, but it's true.

Let's look at some of the features that play into what I'm talking about:

Primeval Awareness-- this is not good. It is not very helpful and it's even more useless in your favored terrain than it is outside of it. Because it tells you if there are creatures of a specific type within a mile. But not how many, where they are, or even which direction they're in. And in your favored terrain, it expands to six miles. It sure is useful information to know there is 1 to infinity demons somewhere within 6 miles. I guess you could walk around and try to triangulate their location by when they enter and leave your range, but that's a slow process and you have to sacrifice one of your very few spell slots at the rate of 1 level per minute.
.

Oh, Primeval Awareness is even worse then you think. It doesn't state that anything blocks you from sensing the creatures in that list. So could learn there is 1 to infinity undead within a 1 to 6 mile radius around you. They could be 6 miles in the air, 6 miles below your feet, or 40 feet away from you...they just exist somewhere.

[LudicSavant]

Oh, Primeval Awareness is even worse then you think. It doesn't state that anything blocks you from sensing the creatures in that list. So could learn there is 1 to infinity undead within a 1 to 6 mile radius around you. They could be 6 miles in the air, 6 miles below your feet, or 40 feet away from you...they just exist somewhere.

It's basically a forced Spell Known choice, and the spell isn't a good one.

[sithlordnergal]

It's basically a forced Spell Known choice, and the spell isn't a good one.

Its one of the few times where I think certain restrictions would make it better. Take Divine Sense, its only a 60 foot radius, is blocked by full cover, and gives you basically the same info. You don't know how many undead are around or their exact location...but you get more useful infor because you at least know they are within 60 feet of you, and not behind full cover. So you know to prepare for them. Primeval Awareness has too big of a radius, because you can't be ready for imminent battle for 1 to 6 miles.

[Dienekes]

Ranger includes spellcasting partially to represent the wilderness lore end of rangers, or at least it used to. LOTR wise Strider using kingsfoil to slow and cure poisons and curses, doesn't really have a representation in 5e outside of spellcasting. Also in earlier editions when LOTR was being copy/pasted into d&d rangers had very weak spellcasting which was buffed as the editions progressed to better differentiate the ranger.

Which leads into the subclass problem/argument. The more classes in 5e could be subclasses of others than not.
Fighter could absorb barbarian, paladin and ranger.
Wizard could absorb sorcerer and warlock.
cleric could have a druid domain.
But most people don't seem to want that, and these archetypes seem to me to have more design space than that, heck the fact that people disagree on what the ranger is feels like that is what sub classes are supposed to be for.

5e has a bit of a problem in that they set as a design goal for catering to what the fans expect to see. In our own homebrew design space we can of course completely ignore that. But I do think that answers a few questions we have about why some things are classes and others subclasses.

However, I would say from a theorycrafting/design standpoint. Just because a a different class could be subsumed as a subclass of a different class doesn't necessarily mean it should. What matters is how much mechanical work is needed to make the class behave in distinct ways.

For your example, certainly a warlock could become just a subclass of the wizard. But then it is forced to have the same basic mechanics of the wizard. Which personally I think makes the game less interesting since the Warlock spell mechanic allows a different style of play than the wizard.

The problem with a lot of the martial classes is that D&D has focused a whole lot on making the spell lists distinct, but not so much on doing anything else. So the real difference between a Fighter and a Barbarian essentially just becomes whether they rage or not on a mechanical level.

The Ranger I think is at the forefront of this problem. If we go with the Aragorn is the base of the Ranger thing. Aragorn doesn't really perform magic. But he heals people, can look at at tracks and determine where everyone is and has been two days later. Can jump across chasms. Sleeps so lightly that he can tell when an enemy creature comes within 60 feet of him. Immediately calm a wild animal just by speaking to it.

And the only way D&D has really even tried to model all of that is with spells. So, the Ranger became a spellcaster.

Personally, I think there is enough in the Ranger, the Barbarian, and possibly the Paladin to make up their own mechanically distinct class from the Fighter. But not really the 5e versions.

[Segev]

Oh, Primeval Awareness is even worse then you think. It doesn't state that anything blocks you from sensing the creatures in that list. So could learn there is 1 to infinity undead within a 1 to 6 mile radius around you. They could be 6 miles in the air, 6 miles below your feet, or 40 feet away from you...they just exist somewhere.


It's basically a forced Spell Known choice, and the spell isn't a good one.


Its one of the few times where I think certain restrictions would make it better. Take Divine Sense, its only a 60 foot radius, is blocked by full cover, and gives you basically the same info. You don't know how many undead are around or their exact location...but you get more useful infor because you at least know they are within 60 feet of you, and not behind full cover. So you know to prepare for them. Primeval Awareness has too big of a radius, because you can't be ready for imminent battle for 1 to 6 miles.

Yeah, in the revised version I posted up thread, primeval awareness now tells you which are in the area, the rough direction and distance to any clusters of 12 or more, and identifies any you can see as what they are.

Now the ranger actually gets actionable info from it.

[Morty]

The problem with deciding which classes should be separate ones and which shouldn't is that there's no real rhyme reason to it in the list as it exists. Or consistency to what a class is or isn't. The only criterium is "that's what people expect". We've got a complete blank slate in the fighter, a slightly less blank one in the rogue, then laser-focused ones like barbarians, with others in between. But I think those threads show, time and again, that the ranger as it exists is a particularly bad case.

[Quietus]

Personally been a fan of instead making it be a choice similar to the Warlocks Pact Boon, where instead of getting some abilities that only work on the designated creature they get abilities that are generally useful but tailored to fit focusing down a specific creature type.

For example, if your Favored Enemy is Fey you might get Advantage on Charm or Frightened saving throws because that would be very important to someone who hunts fey. And even if you never actually see a Fey in the entire campaign, you will probably have to roll a save against being charmed or frightened at some point.

I really do like this. Having Favored Enemy be a *defensive* feature that doesn't just apply against the one thing, but rather to a type of effect, would be a great way to repurpose it. Make it just powerful enough to be slightly more than a ribbon, still fairly niche, but if it never comes up you won't feel you've built your entire identity around it. It's also a lot easier for a DM to shoehorn in an excuse to use a generalized mechanic, than it is to shoehorn in an enemy type in general. I'd probably do something like this, the bracketed items are simply my thoughts as to what these could represent.


Favored Enemy : You have advantages against certain types of assaults. At level 1, choose one of the following options, which represent defenses you have either built up through long practice hunting specific types of creatures, or a natural affinity for avoiding certain kinds of danger. You gain additional choices at level 6 and level 14.


Advantage against Charm/Frightened (Could represent fey or fiends)
Advantage on Dex saves for half damage (Could represent dragons or spellcasters)
Immune to max HP reduction due to necrotic damage (Undead?)
Something something int saves? Or saves vs. Stun? (Aberration)


I'd probably include something where you can add to AC or reduce damage as a reaction against creatures larger than yourself, and something where you have advantage on checks to escape grapple/restrained type effects. And something that would apply to poison damage/saves. Doing it this way means that if I wanted to be a dragon hunter, over the course of my career I'd pick up advantage against charm/frightened, advantage on dex saves, and reduce damage from larger creatures. If I wanted to hunt devils, I'd pick up advantage against charm/frightened, benefits against poison, and one other - and these benefits could come up when I'm fighting spellcasters, particularly magical monsters, spiders, anything with a breath weapon....

[Asisreo1]

People are saying the problem is the lack of focus for a Ranger but I think the opposite is true. It seems like the Ranger is clearly supposed to have one type of playstyle but they want to describe it like it can fit a more generalized playstyle. Rangers need to stick to their terrain, their proficiencies needs to have Wis and Int in it to take advantage of expertise, the animal companion needs to be either a mount, a wolf, or a panther.

If you want damage, or extremely good combat ability, you chose the wrong class. If you want to dominate a terrain that the 1-6th level adventure will take place in, then you've chosen quite well. Nobody likes to actually run travel, though. Even though they actually do and the players love it but everybody believes "travel" and "exploration" is a hexcrawl.

[Witty Username]

People are saying the problem is the lack of focus for a Ranger but I think the opposite is true. It seems like the Ranger is clearly supposed to have one type of playstyle but they want to describe it like it can fit a more generalized playstyle. Rangers need to stick to their terrain, their proficiencies needs to have Wis and Int in it to take advantage of expertise, the animal companion needs to be either a mount, a wolf, or a panther.

If you want damage, or extremely good combat ability, you chose the wrong class. If you want to dominate a terrain that the 1-6th level adventure will take place in, then you've chosen quite well. Nobody likes to actually run travel, though. Even though they actually do and the players love it but everybody believes "travel" and "exploration" is a hexcrawl.

This is why my main complaint is that the abilities don't do what they say they do. Natural Explorer only applies to checks related to the terrain, perception, tracking, investigation all arguably don't get any benefit because they do not relate to the terrain (your DM may vary).
And then there is primeval awareness and hide in plain sight, which actually do nothing.

[Segev]

This is why my main complaint is that the abilities don't do what they say they do. Natural Explorer only applies to checks related to the terrain, perception, tracking, investigation all arguably don't get any benefit because they do not relate to the terrain (your DM may vary).
And then there is primeval awareness and hide in plain sight, which actually do nothing.

So would you prefer something like this, or does it not address your concerns with the ability, either?

Natural Explorer
You are at home in the wilderness and are adept at traveling and surviving away from civilization. You gain proficiency with Survival. If you are already proficient, you gain Expertise in it, and double your proficiency bonus on checks related to it. This does not stack with other effects which double your proficiency bonus.

When traveling in the wilderness, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn't slow your group's travel.
Even when you are engaged in another activity (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
You are adept at finding ideal sites for various activities, from defensive stands to camp sites (and these are not mutually exclusive). When you spend an hour (which may be done during travel) searching for such a site, the location you find is easily defended and comfortable for a medium or long-term stop.
The site will be useful for an intended purpose, if it is feasible to find such in the environment.
If combat breaks out in or around this site (within a 1000 foot radius outdoors, or within a single room or hall indoors or underground), you may use a reaction to declare up to your Wisdom modifier in five-foot-square regions to be difficult terrain. You may do this once, plus once for every five levels of Ranger you have, for any given site you scout out. Creatures you designate may ignore this difficult terrain.

You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are more at home in those areas than most civilized creatures are in their own houses. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, or swamp. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you're proficient in.

While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, your traveling companions enjoy the following benefits:
Your group can't become lost except by magical means.
You can guide your group to move stealthily at a normal pace.
While in your favored terrain, you also gain the following personal benefits:
Your speed is increased by 10 ft.
You gain a climb and swim speed equal to your walking speed.
You do not suffer disadvantage for attacking at long range with a ranged weapon.
You are not impeded by difficult terrain.
You are proficient in athletics, acrobatics, and stealth. If you are already proficient in any of these, your proficiency bonus is doubled for those in which you are already proficient. This does not stack with other things which double your proficiency bonus.

[Witty Username]

snip

This is more powerful, that is a lot of skill proficiencies (four by my count). This feels like it doesn't so much fix what I was thinking of so much as throw a bunch of additional abilities in. I think If I was rebuilding Natural Explorer I think I would do something like ax picking a favored terrain along with the *2 proficiency bonus and have the travel abilities apply in any terrain that the ranger has spent at least an hour in, make the stealth apply to the the ranger's group, and maybe change the wording on the "alert to danger" ability because I have not figured out what it means by that maybe to something like advantage on perception checks while traveling or that you ignore the penalties for traveling at fast pace.

[Segev]

This is more powerful, that is a lot of skill proficiencies (four by my count). This feels like it doesn't so much fix what I was thinking of so much as throw a bunch of additional abilities in. I think If I was rebuilding Natural Explorer I think I would do something like ax picking a favored terrain along with the *2 proficiency bonus and have the travel abilities apply in any terrain that the ranger has spent at least an hour in, make the stealth apply to the the ranger's group, and maybe change the wording on the "alert to danger" ability because I have not figured out what it means by that maybe to something like advantage on perception checks while traveling or that you ignore the penalties for traveling at fast pace.

The idea I had when working on it was to keep the core of what it already does, but try to make it more useful when on-screen. Tracking, identifying, stealthing, and generally doing anything "hunter-like" or "scout-like" in the wild should be a thing a Ranger is good at. Especially in his favored terrain(s).

[Kane0]

So would you prefer something like this, or does it not address your concerns with the ability, either?

Natural Explorer
You are at home in the wilderness and are adept at traveling and surviving away from civilization. You gain proficiency with Survival. If you are already proficient, you gain Expertise in it, and double your proficiency bonus on checks related to it. This does not stack with other effects which double your proficiency bonus.

When traveling in the wilderness, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn't slow your group's travel.
Even when you are engaged in another activity (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
You are adept at finding ideal sites for various activities, from defensive stands to camp sites (and these are not mutually exclusive). When you spend an hour (which may be done during travel) searching for such a site, the location you find is easily defended and comfortable for a medium or long-term stop.
The site will be useful for an intended purpose, if it is feasible to find such in the environment.
If combat breaks out in or around this site (within a 1000 foot radius outdoors, or within a single room or hall indoors or underground), you may use a reaction to declare up to your Wisdom modifier in five-foot-square regions to be difficult terrain. You may do this once, plus once for every five levels of Ranger you have, for any given site you scout out. Creatures you designate may ignore this difficult terrain.

You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are more at home in those areas than most civilized creatures are in their own houses. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, or swamp. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you're proficient in.

While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, your traveling companions enjoy the following benefits:
Your group can't become lost except by magical means.
You can guide your group to move stealthily at a normal pace.
While in your favored terrain, you also gain the following personal benefits:
Your speed is increased by 10 ft.
You gain a climb and swim speed equal to your walking speed.
You do not suffer disadvantage for attacking at long range with a ranged weapon.
You are not impeded by difficult terrain.
You are proficient in athletics, acrobatics, and stealth. If you are already proficient in any of these, your proficiency bonus is doubled for those in which you are already proficient. This does not stack with other things which double your proficiency bonus.


This is more powerful, that is a lot of skill proficiencies (four by my count). This feels like it doesn't so much fix what I was thinking of so much as throw a bunch of additional abilities in. I think If I was rebuilding Natural Explorer I think I would do something like ax picking a favored terrain along with the *2 proficiency bonus and have the travel abilities apply in any terrain that the ranger has spent at least an hour in, make the stealth apply to the the ranger's group, and maybe change the wording on the "alert to danger" ability because I have not figured out what it means by that maybe to something like advantage on perception checks while traveling or that you ignore the penalties for traveling at fast pace.

I reckon I can simplify all that a little.

Natural Explorer
You are at home in the wilderness and are adept at all forms of outdoorsmanship. Select one of the following benefits, which can be changed at the end of a long rest:

Your speed is increased by 10 ft
You gain a climb or swim speed equal to your walking speed
You are not impeded by difficult terrain
You gain proficiency in your choice of animal handling, nature, survival or stealth. If you are already proficient, your proficiency bonus is doubled for those in which you are already proficient. This does not stack with other things which double your proficiency bonus.
Choose Animal Handling, Nature, Survival or Stealth. You cannot suffer disadvantage when rolling this skill.
Choose Animal Handling, Nature, Survival or Stealth. You treat any d20 roll of 7 or lower as an 8 when rolling this skill.

At level 6 and again at level 10 you can choose one additional option from the list at a time.

In addition, when you travel for more than one hour through the same terrain you gain the following benefits:

Your group's travel speed is not slowed by difficult terrain or moving stealthily
You remain alert to danger even when you are engaged in another activity such as foraging, navigating, or tracking
Your group cannot become lost and are always able to find a suitable, defensible campsite
When you forage, you find twice as much provisions as you normally would.
Creatures in your group that can see and hear you can add half their proficiency bonus to Athletics, Acrobatics, Animal Handling, Nature, Survival and Stealth checks if they aren't already proficient in made as part of travel


You could be interesting and break the travel functionality into multiple parts replacing the extra terrains at levels, however this doesn't really fix the 'takes away gameplay' problem Natural Explorer presents. It's just sort of passively awesome, removing potential problems to be dealt with rather than presenting an opportunity to take the spotlight (either as an individual or a party).

[Segev]

Eh, I am not hugely fond of "you're good at this thing today, and that thing tomorrow, but it's all skill, honest" mechanics. Also, I like the concept of having favored terrains, but recognize the need for broader applicability, which is why I went with the breakdown I did.

The messiest mechanic in my bit was the campsite one, and I'm trying to think of a more elegant way to do it. It is a good illustration of the kind of thing I want to achieve, but a poor implementation of it. That being: I want to see the ranger's ability to guide and scout create advantageous situations that the party enjoys actively using. If this were RL, they'd be thrilled at the nice, comfy camp site and the lack of hardship, but that's all abstracted away anyway, so it doesn't feel like much gameplay is going on. Hence a need to make his navigation let him find something useful in what actually gets played out.

[jas61292]

Eh, I am not hugely fond of "you're good at this thing today, and that thing tomorrow, but it's all skill, honest" mechanics.

I strongly agree with this. I see this in a lot of attempted fixes for various things; people wanting to let you change up what you are good at as a boost to power and versatility, and I hate it. If you are good at something, you should be good at it. Not "good, but only on days where I specifically chose to be good." Not only is this not satisfying to me, and incredibly weird narratively, but I also just think it is bad design. Either make options powerful enough that any one choice is good enough and you don't feel bad for having chosen it, making it a meaningful diversification point, or make options of a power level where none are too strong and they don't synergize together too well, and then just give them all.

[Dienekes]

Personally, I think it'd be easiest as a start for fixing Favored Terrain/Natural Explorer is just to make it broader. Aragorn wasn't only a good ranger in mountains or forest or grassland. He was just a ranger that was always good in the wild.

My own creation was to just divide it into: surface wilderness (for your standard Aragorn types), tunnels and the underdark (for your classic dungeon crawlers and dwarves), coast and high seas (for your pirate/underwater campaigns), and urban centers (to broaden the ranger class slightly into a potential bounty hunter archetype).

It also mitigates the need for changing your favored terrain frequently.

Other than that, I worry about making this really tied to your ranger's combat and utility power in drastic ways, which is a restriction no other class really has.

Getting a better knowledge nature or survival checks in their favored environment makes a lot of sense. But other things, like Athletics, probably shouldn't be.

On that note, what skills do you guys think the Ranger should be better at than most? If the Ranger is supposed to also be something of a skill monkey I don't really have a problem with giving them expertise so long as it isn't for just anything like a Rogue. If we're going to focus in on the "Rogue hides, Ranger's seek" idea I think Perception, Investigation, and Survival will most certainly need to be on that list.

[Segev]

Personally, I think it'd be easiest as a start for fixing Favored Terrain/Natural Explorer is just to make it broader. Aragorn wasn't only a good ranger in mountains or forest or grassland. He was just a ranger that was always good in the wild.

That's why I took most of the Favored Terrain perks and moved them to "anywhere in the Wilderness," then made some more powerful ones for the favored terrain.

[Kane0]

Eh, I am not hugely fond of "you're good at this thing today, and that thing tomorrow, but it's all skill, honest" mechanics. Also, I like the concept of having favored terrains, but recognize the need for broader applicability, which is why I went with the breakdown I did.



Primal Awareness also feels like a patch more than a real class feature. They probably should just do as they did with Paladins and make Rangers prepared casters. If those spells include ones that aren't on the Ranger list, add them to it.

Not saying they're exactly the same, but I feel they're two sides of the same coin.

As an aside, i'm not a fan of having to pick terrains. Just have the Ranger be good at the great outdoors. Fighters don't have to pick weapons, Bards don't have to pick performances, Wizards don't have to pick banned schools; that just isn't the methodology of this edition like it used to be. Same for Favored Enemy.

[Nidgit]

Natural Explorer snip
The issue with something like this is that it doesn't really enhance gameplay that much, it removes it. Stuff like foraging for food is either an actual concern or something a campaign will ignore- if the GM actually wants it to matter in the first place, the Ranger removes that option by simply checking a box. It doesn't do much to give the player a feeling of actual interaction.

Other things, like increased movement speed, climbing/swimming, and free proficiency/expertise would make Ranger an extremely powerful dip. I'd rather see those split up in some fashion that's a bit more tailored to the particular terrain that's favored.

For instance, I'd imagine Favored Terrain giving a short slew of benefits that could be summed up through advantage on Survival and maybe Perception checks, plus an always active cantrip, resistance, and minor buff that's suited to the terrain. Arctic might be learning Produce Flame, resistance to cold damage, and having advantage versus effects that would cause you to be knocked Prone. Forest could be Thorn Whip, resistance to poison, and a climb speed equal to walking speed, and so on.

Then I'd add a buff and bonus spell progression to Favored Enemy as a way of distinguishing Rangers from Land Druids. Land Druids evoke their environment, Rangers survive it.

[Quietus]

A question for the people still keeping up with this. I proposed my ideas from up thread to one of my friends - favoured enemy as a themed defense against a type of attack, and a base Ranger chassis that focuses on expanding the exploration pillar and a bit of utility, with most /all of the class's offense coming from the subclass pick. His reaction was that favoured enemy needs to be an inherent part of the Ranger package, and needs to be offensive in nature. His class fantasy apparently includes "I'm hunting that particular group /race /whatever" with mechanics to support that, on every single variation of Ranger.

What does everyone here think about that? Is favoured enemy and weaponised racism inherent to the Ranger fantasy, or would it be better to have a "hunter" subclass that is specifically tied to that idea?

[Kane0]

It's a perfectly valid perspective to have, but I don't personally share it.

Incidentally, elsewhere I came up with this less exploration orientated feature to cover the favored terrain concept:

Terrain Adaption
When you finish a long rest you gain resistance to one damage type according to the terrain you finished your rest in, which lasts until your next long rest.
Coast/Aquatic: Thunder or Lightning
Arctic: Cold or Force
Desert: Fire or Radiant
Plains/Forest: Piercing or Poison
Highland: Fire or Cold
Swamp: Acid or Poison
Underground: Necrotic or Bludgeoning
Urban: Psychic or Slashing

[Segev]

The issue with something like this is that it doesn't really enhance gameplay that much, it removes it. Stuff like foraging for food is either an actual concern or something a campaign will ignore- if the GM actually wants it to matter in the first place, the Ranger removes that option by simply checking a box. It doesn't do much to give the player a feeling of actual interaction.

Other things, like increased movement speed, climbing/swimming, and free proficiency/expertise would make Ranger an extremely powerful dip. I'd rather see those split up in some fashion that's a bit more tailored to the particular terrain that's favored.

For instance, I'd imagine Favored Terrain giving a short slew of benefits that could be summed up through advantage on Survival and maybe Perception checks, plus an always active cantrip, resistance, and minor buff that's suited to the terrain. Arctic might be learning Produce Flame, resistance to cold damage, and having advantage versus effects that would cause you to be knocked Prone. Forest could be Thorn Whip, resistance to poison, and a climb speed equal to walking speed, and so on.

Then I'd add a buff and bonus spell progression to Favored Enemy as a way of distinguishing Rangers from Land Druids. Land Druids evoke their environment, Rangers survive it.

There’s no real way to make the survival bookkeeping an exciting on-screen activity and actually make anyone v better at it without making it less impactful, because it is all about whether you have the square peg for the square hole or not.

The thing I did there was expand ranger so it did the obviation in more environments.

The part that is about making it more engaging is the site finding and the way the Ranger can impact the terrain by showing that he picked it for its strategic importance. The site is good for the party and it has direct combat impact.

It still isn’t great. But it at least shows the right direction for engaging the problem, I think.

[Quietus]

It's a perfectly valid perspective to have, but I don't personally share it.

Incidentally, elsewhere I came up with this less exploration orientated feature to cover the favored terrain concept:

Terrain Adaption
When you finish a long rest you gain resistance to one damage type according to the terrain you finished your rest in, which lasts until your next long rest.
Coast/Aquatic: Thunder or Lightning
Arctic: Cold or Force
Desert: Fire or Radiant
Plains/Forest: Piercing or Poison
Highland: Fire or Cold
Swamp: Acid or Poison
Underground: Necrotic or Bludgeoning
Urban: Psychic or Slashing

My preferred take on favored terrain would be starting every ranger out with expertise in survival - or rather, a feature that grants them survival as a skill, and if they already have it, grants them expertise. This would replace the "+1 skill" that you get from multiclassing into ranger. I'd then look at providing a list of thematic options that would be generally useful, but not completely challenge-negating, each themed after a region. Someone who would have otherwise taken grasslands as their preferred terrain, for example, might steal the Eyes of the Eagle feature from barbarian, and be able to see for a mile. Someone who would have taken mountains would get the ability that either allows them to climb better, or more likely, allows them to aid others in climbing. Possibly something along the lines of giving a number of allies equal to their wisdom mod temporary proficiency in athletics for the purpose of climbing, or giving their entire party advantage on the same checks, or something like that.

The key design conceit I would be going for would be not taking away the roll, but making it easier. The ranger knows how to get along in the wild, and more than that, knows how to aid their companions in doing the same.

[Segev]

Gaining resistances based on environment they rest in is potentially interesting, but still feels a bit more gameist than expert, to me. Maybe if they got resistances based on favored terrain - which would actually be worthy of a choice - it would fit better. But I still feel like that's going to be reaching for things that aren't arctic resistance to cold or desert resistance to heat. Forests giving resistance to poison? Maybe, but it's a stretch, since you can live in the forest with minimal protective gear and not need to fear poison in general.


My preferred take on favored terrain would be starting every ranger out with expertise in survival - or rather, a feature that grants them survival as a skill, and if they already have it, grants them expertise. This would replace the "+1 skill" that you get from multiclassing into ranger. I'd then look at providing a list of thematic options that would be generally useful, but not completely challenge-negating, each themed after a region. Someone who would have otherwise taken grasslands as their preferred terrain, for example, might steal the Eyes of the Eagle feature from barbarian, and be able to see for a mile. Someone who would have taken mountains would get the ability that either allows them to climb better, or more likely, allows them to aid others in climbing. Possibly something along the lines of giving a number of allies equal to their wisdom mod temporary proficiency in athletics for the purpose of climbing, or giving their entire party advantage on the same checks, or something like that.

The key design conceit I would be going for would be not taking away the roll, but making it easier. The ranger knows how to get along in the wild, and more than that, knows how to aid their companions in doing the same.

The trouble with this is that "okay, now roll to not starve" is only moderately engaging in the first place. Making the roll easier and obviating it are almost the same thing, here, and neither adds interest to the gameplay. This is because the "gameplay" of the survival rolls et al is more about creating a sense of the danger of the wilderness than it is about actually making a game. It's a verisimilitude thing, and when you can obviate it with class powers, the game is happy to waive it because there's no game THERE other than a nuissance mechanic about how much you're carrying vs. how far you've left to go before you can restock.

[loki_ragnarock]

Personally, I think it'd be easiest as a start for fixing Favored Terrain/Natural Explorer is just to make it broader. Aragorn wasn't only a good ranger in mountains or forest or grassland. He was just a ranger that was always good in the wild.

I agree with this 100%. Maybe even 110%.

Natural Explorer is not a name that meshes well with the mechanic; the mechanic should be named Natural Homebody.



What does everyone here think about that? Is favoured enemy and weaponised racism inherent to the Ranger fantasy, or would it be better to have a "hunter" subclass that is specifically tied to that idea?
Well... in D&D it is the case in every edition but 4th. I posted something stream of consciousness about the historical precedents a few pages back.

1e: Rangers got a bonus when attacking just a ton of creature types, but not demi-humans generally. (Yes, it's a loaded phrase, but that's how they spoke about this stuff back then.) Generally, any evil humanoid and giantish foe; orcs, gnolls, hill giants, trolls etc. A scaling damage bonus that came online early in the progression. I like it because it thematically fits the Tolkien ranger pretty well - someone living in the wilds fighting the forces of darkness so that others could live in relative peace. Very Grey Warden, in Dragon Age terms. As such, they'd learned how to do it effectively and broadly, and it's a feature that should come up with great frequency in a campaign.
2e: Rangers got a bonus to attack one specific type of creature. Flat, non-scaling bonus that came online early in the progression. I like it because it thematically fits the idea of a person who has learned how to fight one specific threat that is special to their own story. They never get another one, and it's foundational to their character. It might not come up too often; its one specific type of creature that may or may not come up in a campaign. Mechanically, it's basically been reduced to a ribbon, but one that helps define the character.
3/.5e: Rangers get to choose broadly from creature types (except humanoids). It comes early in the progression, but the bonuses scale, the number of types of enemies you choose from also increases, and it comes in regular intervals as you level up. This is the edition where the favored enemy gets folded into a core mechanic of the ranger, and it's also the edition that introduces them in the light of non-combat bonuses. It had some wonky issues like your first pick being most valuable if you chose creatures that you had no business fighting at first level. I wasn't a huge fan, but it had the potential to be fun.
4e Well, that's gone, along with a bunch of lore in general. This is the first and only edition that skips this aspect.
5e It's back! But implemented in such a bad way. It's presented as a core mechanic, but with all the weight of a ribbon. Yuck.

So I would agree with your friend that being good at fighting a specific bad guy is a part of the pedigree. The degree to which it defines the character varies wildly, though.

Were it me, I'd embrace it as a ribbon, ala second edition. A first level ribbon ability that helps define the character and little more. And then replace the iterations with a different class feature down the line. It's the simplest solution.

Or - and this is evidence of my fickle nature - go 1st edition but make it a broad bonus against non-natural foes. Here's why I think that might be a better idea; the ranger doesn't exist in isolation. The Paladin already effectively has a favored enemy in the form of the extra dice against specific creatures with smite.
Paladin is good vs. Undead and Fiends. Those are covered.
Rangers are then free to be generally good against: monstrosities, aberrations, giants, oozes, elementals and fey. Things you'd find well away from the places where people live in peace. Horrors that no sane man would hunt. Maybe drop giants and oozes; the first is mundane enough, the second very dungeon specific.
So that leaves: monstrosities, abberations, elementals, fey. A pretty solid list of creatures fits into that mold.
So what sort of bonus should you get? Rangers are pretty solid at damage, especially at low levels where favored enemy first comes on. They don't need a damage bonus. Maybe defensive bonuses? A bonus to saving throws, or the like?
Regardless, this gets more complicated; what qualifies as an enemy of man in the modern era? Giving up about here, because opinions will diverge wildly.

[Moxxmix]

So would you prefer something like this, or does it not address your concerns with the ability, either?

<snip>


I don't care much for the overall design, but I do like the "scout a site" aspect (with caveats on the ranges you included). I think it would combine well with my own "prepare to travel" idea.

Basically, instead of choosing a class feature that you're stuck with forever, or discarding any specializations to say that it always works, the ranger can actively do something that will affect the difficulty of travel as part of play.

So you can say, "You're going to travel through the jungle to get to the hidden temple", and the ranger can say, "OK, I know what we need to make travel easier through the jungle, and pick up the bug repellent and snake bite kits for the type of creatures we'll encounter, and have the gear we'll need to not get stuck in the bogs, and have asked around to get an idea of the terrain, and can use my expertise to make life easier along the way." In other words, the ranger can actively do stuff to make the exploration easier, rather than just be the "Ignore exploration difficulties" card.

Same with the scouting and setting up camp. If the ranger sets up the camp, perhaps you have the equivalent of the Alarm spell set up, and have difficult terrain for anyone attempting to approach the camp, and maybe set up traps as an actual skill, rather than the stupid Snare spell.

If it weren't so math-y, I'd make it so that the speed increase is a Survival skill check. Take the total roll and divide by 10, with a minimum value of 1.0. So a total roll of 18 would be 1.8, and that's the multiplier on the party's speed. So the 18 would give you 1.8 days of travel per day, for example.


Make it so that the ranger can "do a thing" that will make things easier, instead of "bypass any checks". Make it feel like he's actively contributing, instead of passively contributing.

Some of the stuff might need to be at higher level, just to prevent a 1-level dip from obviating the value of a full ranger. Like maybe get the Alarm effect at level 1, difficult terrain at level 3, and the Trap effect at level 5, for your scouted campsite. Just don't push things too high.

[Segev]

Or - and this is evidence of my fickle nature - go 1st edition but make it a broad bonus against non-natural foes. Here's why I think that might be a better idea; the ranger doesn't exist in isolation. The Paladin already effectively has a favored enemy in the form of the extra dice against specific creatures with smite.

I actually went the other way, and made it a broad bonus against the kinds of creatures he might expect to meet in natural surroundings (or travelling through them). It's the unnatural ones he has to choose a specialty in. But I also didn't make it a "smite the enemy" type ability, but rather an "understand and stalk" type ability.


I don't care much for the overall design, but I do like the "scout a site" aspect (with caveats on the ranges you included). I think it would combine well with my own "prepare to travel" idea.
Basically, instead of choosing a class feature that you're stuck with forever, or discarding any specializations to say that it always works, the ranger can actively do something that will affect the difficulty of travel as part of play.
So you can say, "You're going to travel through the jungle to get to the hidden temple", and the ranger can say, "OK, I know what we need to make travel easier through the jungle, and pick up the bug repellent and snake bite kits for the type of creatures we'll encounter, and have the gear we'll need to not get stuck in the bogs, and have asked around to get an idea of the terrain, and can use my expertise to make life easier along the way." In other words, the ranger can actively do stuff to make the exploration easier, rather than just be the "Ignore exploration difficulties" card. The trouble I have with this isn't the concept, but the gameplay truth: you're still just ignoring the difficulties. And that's because the difficulties themselves boil down to, "Do you have the key item? No? Make some rolls to see how badly that screws you over."

Unlike combat, there's no gameplay to it. It's just a skill check or a save or something to avoid being hurt, and the right tools either auto-pass or give you a bonus on the roll. Either way, it's not really letting the ranger enhance gameplay so much as make a single obstacle less obstacular. (Yes, I just made up that word.)

It needs to either interact with something directly involved in things that take place on-screen and involve deeper gameplay, or it needs its own deeper gameplay mechanics. The former of which is far more doable without rewriting the whole system. But you also don't want to make it so that you're ADDING difficulties just to let the Ranger lessen them. You want the Ranger adding something, not subtracting a negative that is only there to make the Ranger useful.


Same with the scouting and setting up camp. If the ranger sets up the camp, perhaps you have the equivalent of the Alarm spell set up, and have difficult terrain for anyone attempting to approach the camp, and maybe set up traps as an actual skill, rather than the stupid Snare spell.Now this is a good idea. It's roughly what I was going for, but actually selecting the difficult terrain is tricky. You don't want to force the player to make strategic sim citycampsite decisions every night, especially since he's liable to make it boringly the same every time for his own convenience and because he found something optimal, and the whole idea is finding NEW sites that have cool features to use to their advantage.

The reason this concept works better, in my mind, than "prepare the exploration bag," is because (a) the exploration bag can also be prepared by any old player just scumming the books and getting the right stuff, and (b) this kind of thing impacts a deeper element of gameplay. If the party is attacked in their camp site, here, they can't be surprised as easily and, more importantly, they have terrain that works to their advantage in some fashion that alters the battlefield and makes it more interesting AND useful to them (or hindering to the monsters).


If it weren't so math-y, I'd make it so that the speed increase is a Survival skill check. Take the total roll and divide by 10, with a minimum value of 1.0. So a total roll of 18 would be 1.8, and that's the multiplier on the party's speed. So the 18 would give you 1.8 days of travel per day, for example.

Make it so that the ranger can "do a thing" that will make things easier, instead of "bypass any checks". Make it feel like he's actively contributing, instead of passively contributing.
Some of the stuff might need to be at higher level, just to prevent a 1-level dip from obviating the value of a full ranger. Like maybe get the Alarm effect at level 1, difficult terrain at level 3, and the Trap effect at level 5, for your scouted campsite. Just don't push things too high."Give a bonus to checks" is little different than "bypass a check," except it's less impactful. You either succeed or fail on the check, still.

"move twice as fast" is a convenience mechanic that has serious impact on other things, but still is mostly a ribbon outside special circumstances. "Find enough food" really doesn't enhance gameplay so much as reduce what you ahve to carry or extend your time away from civilization. Valuable, but "off screen" for the most part. And if you're not obviating the roll, just adding to the roll doesn't make it more "on screen" so much as just "less annoying." The actual availability of food would need to be something the party experiences shortages of and has to make interesting decisions based on before the Ranger relaxing that or extending that made a difference that felt like the ranger was DOING something. And even then, it feels a lot like the ranger is just a passive buff rather than an active contributor.

The trouble here is that the exploration/encumberance rules are just not impactful, and 5e doesn't want to make them moreso because they become punishing rather than fun when made more impactful.

[Quietus]

The trouble with this is that "okay, now roll to not starve" is only moderately engaging in the first place. Making the roll easier and obviating it are almost the same thing, here, and neither adds interest to the gameplay. This is because the "gameplay" of the survival rolls et al is more about creating a sense of the danger of the wilderness than it is about actually making a game. It's a verisimilitude thing, and when you can obviate it with class powers, the game is happy to waive it because there's no game THERE other than a nuissance mechanic about how much you're carrying vs. how far you've left to go before you can restock.

Survival also covers tracking, and avoiding natural traps such as quicksand. Those things are, of course, still DM dependent - it doesn't always occur to me as a DM to include natural hazards - but they should be more common, and the ranger should be the one who's best at that. Also, I really like the suggestion about a ranger setting up a shelter/hunting blind as a place to rest, and would include a sidebar about using the survival skill to do that, at which point the survival expertise kicks in and makes them the best at doing that.


Or - and this is evidence of my fickle nature - go 1st edition but make it a broad bonus against non-natural foes. Here's why I think that might be a better idea; the ranger doesn't exist in isolation. The Paladin already effectively has a favored enemy in the form of the extra dice against specific creatures with smite.
Paladin is good vs. Undead and Fiends. Those are covered.
Rangers are then free to be generally good against: monstrosities, aberrations, giants, oozes, elementals and fey. Things you'd find well away from the places where people live in peace. Horrors that no sane man would hunt. Maybe drop giants and oozes; the first is mundane enough, the second very dungeon specific.
So that leaves: monstrosities, abberations, elementals, fey. A pretty solid list of creatures fits into that mold.
So what sort of bonus should you get? Rangers are pretty solid at damage, especially at low levels where favored enemy first comes on. They don't need a damage bonus. Maybe defensive bonuses? A bonus to saving throws, or the like?
Regardless, this gets more complicated; what qualifies as an enemy of man in the modern era? Giving up about here, because opinions will diverge wildly.

Snipped the D&D history, because yes, I recognize it's been a sacred cow of previous editions. What I was looking to find out is whether it's inherently part of the 'outdoorsman' niche that rangers attempt to occupy. However, I'll address the portion I left quoted above;

I think that it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a larger list of creatures you have a small general offensive bump against, as the 'defender of the wild' sort. I really like that idea, and might have to play with it a bit. However, that is a slight divergence from the idea of a 'favoured enemy', as that doesn't allow you to be the dude that hunts orcs (or at least, have a specific mechanical bonus to do so), or whatever. It's more a general natural warden, which does fit into the archetype of ranger better than favoured enemy, to me.

Your idea regarding saving throws is personally how I would implement favoured enemy, personally. I mentioned it upthread, but providing general bonuses that are on theme but not tied to a type seems like a more elegant approach - someone who would normally take favoured enemy : fey, for instance, would get advantage on saves against charm/fear effects. As a DM, I can now throw enemy spellcasters and some fiends in, which will allow you to get use from that mechanic, without being forced to have a fey-centered arc every few levels just to ensure you don't have a wasted feature. It widens the net the DM can throw to make this ranger feel special, while still carrying the flavor of someone who's gotten good at dealing with creatures who have a particular common method of offense.

I suppose the other other option is to keep favoured enemy as it is now, but mechanically weight it as the ribbon it is.

[Dienekes]

The trouble with this is that "okay, now roll to not starve" is only moderately engaging in the first place. Making the roll easier and obviating it are almost the same thing, here, and neither adds interest to the gameplay. This is because the "gameplay" of the survival rolls et al is more about creating a sense of the danger of the wilderness than it is about actually making a game. It's a verisimilitude thing, and when you can obviate it with class powers, the game is happy to waive it because there's no game THERE other than a nuissance mechanic about how much you're carrying vs. how far you've left to go before you can restock.

Honestly that's a major problem with the game system as a whole more than the Ranger. 5e has no depth to the exploration pillar. Quietus I think has a point that giving the Ranger features that interact with events that actually do take place and are engaging in the way the game actually is.

Climb speeds, moving over rough terrain, better perception, healing, and tracking all are parts of the game much more than forage ever is.

As to Quietus other question about favored enemy. I personally don't have much of an opinion on whether favored enemy should still be a thing. I personally kept it. However, I would say that I tend to prefer active abilities over passive ones.

[Segev]

Survival also covers tracking, and avoiding natural traps such as quicksand. Those things are, of course, still DM dependent - it doesn't always occur to me as a DM to include natural hazards - but they should be more common, and the ranger should be the one who's best at that. Also, I really like the suggestion about a ranger setting up a shelter/hunting blind as a place to rest, and would include a sidebar about using the survival skill to do that, at which point the survival expertise kicks in and makes them the best at doing that.

We might be talking past each other, here.

My point is more about what is and is not happening as gameplay "on screen." What requires engagement, and provides tools to solve problems in different ways. Versus what is just a "roll to not suffer" event.

"Do you have enough food? Are you dressed warmly/coolly enough? Can you avoid getting lost?" are all things that, if you do it "successfully," don't really happen on screen except, if the DM is feeling theatrical, for the DM telling them what they missed suffering. If you fail at it, it might induce events as you try despreately to figure out how to survive the problem.

This is also often a complaint about rogues and trapfinding, too.

The reason the "good shelter" thing works better is because it enables more engaging tactics to the party's advantage in something that is more than a one-and-don't-suck roll.

[Quietus]

We might be talking past each other, here.

My point is more about what is and is not happening as gameplay "on screen." What requires engagement, and provides tools to solve problems in different ways. Versus what is just a "roll to not suffer" event.

"Do you have enough food? Are you dressed warmly/coolly enough? Can you avoid getting lost?" are all things that, if you do it "successfully," don't really happen on screen except, if the DM is feeling theatrical, for the DM telling them what they missed suffering. If you fail at it, it might induce events as you try despreately to figure out how to survive the problem.

This is also often a complaint about rogues and trapfinding, too.

The reason the "good shelter" thing works better is because it enables more engaging tactics to the party's advantage in something that is more than a one-and-don't-suck roll.

You're right, there's definitely an element of things coming up only to showcase a character's ability to avoid them. That stems from the game leaning hard into the combat pillar, and is endemic to the way the game is constructed. Whether that's an issue or not depends on a person's preferences. Part and parcel of making the ranger the undisputed king of the exploration pillar, AND making that relevant, is building up the exploration pillar significantly. 'Fixing' the ranger entails growing the system as a whole, in a way that will make exploration interesting for everyone at the table, and giving the ranger abilities that allow them to be specifically useful in that new landscape. But the first and easiest approach is using what we already have, which begins with the Survival skill.

Also, I just came up with an idea on how to try and engage the ranger in my home game, will need to really start putting those pieces together when I don't have the beginning of a migraine!

[Segev]

Honestly that's a major problem with the game system as a whole more than the Ranger. 5e has no depth to the exploration pillar. Quietus I think has a point that giving the Ranger features that interact with events that actually do take place and are engaging in the way the game actually is.

Climb speeds, moving over rough terrain, better perception, healing, and tracking all are parts of the game much more than forage ever is.

As to Quietus other question about favored enemy. I personally don't have much of an opinion on whether favored enemy should still be a thing. I personally kept it. However, I would say that I tend to prefer active abilities over passive ones.

Right. This is more or less my point, actually. Unless we're also redesigning a whole exploration subsystem, we need to focus a Ranger "fix" on things that have sufficient depth to be interesting when the Ranger brings his unique "exploration-type" mechanics to them.

Movement modes, terrain manipulation/control, that kind of thing works into the very well-developed combat pillar. Enabling the engagement of the social pillar in ways others who have specialized but inapplicable mechanisms cannot is another way to do it, because while it also lacks development, everyone's got some idea of RPing their social encounters. (Whether there should be more mechanics for this or not is a topic for many other threads, but not this one.) This is why I tried to give them both the means to track, count, and spy on creatures, AND the means to understand and be understood even without a common language. Playing some pantomime and charades with enough oomph to get meaning across makes for more interesting encounter options, and lets the Ranger feel like the wilderness expert for being able to pull a Crocodile Hunter type anaylsis and interaction.

[Dienekes]

Right. This is more or less my point, actually. Unless we're also redesigning a whole exploration subsystem, we need to focus a Ranger "fix" on things that have sufficient depth to be interesting when the Ranger brings his unique "exploration-type" mechanics to them.

Movement modes, terrain manipulation/control, that kind of thing works into the very well-developed combat pillar. Enabling the engagement of the social pillar in ways others who have specialized but inapplicable mechanisms cannot is another way to do it, because while it also lacks development, everyone's got some idea of RPing their social encounters. (Whether there should be more mechanics for this or not is a topic for many other threads, but not this one.) This is why I tried to give them both the means to track, count, and spy on creatures, AND the means to understand and be understood even without a common language. Playing some pantomime and charades with enough oomph to get meaning across makes for more interesting encounter options, and lets the Ranger feel like the wilderness expert for being able to pull a Crocodile Hunter type anaylsis and interaction.

Gonna be a little proud that I did some of this in my rework.

But more to the point I do think that Ranger has a bit of a problem in how they're supposed to be doing this. Ranger has options to track, spy on people, and move through environment in quicker ways than most already in the class. They're just spells. And honestly, casting spells doesn't really feel like being a wilderness trecker, and also suffers the problem of having the "cool ranger stuff" resource often getting eaten up as it is tied to the "be minimally effective in combat" resource.

Which makes me question, how important is spells to be a ranger? Because I know I'm more in favor of giving a nice bunch of utility abilities over time to get the feel of being a ranger that you can just do as opposed to forcing those same abilities to being tied to spell slots.

[Democratus]

Which makes me question, how important is spells to be a ranger? Because I know I'm more in favor of giving a nice bunch of utility abilities over time to get the feel of being a ranger that you can just do as opposed to forcing those same abilities to being tied to spell slots.

Agreed. I feel the Ranger should not be a spellcaster at all.

Give it cool abilities, like they did the Battlemaster or the Assassin. No need for magic to get involved.

[Segev]

Gonna be a little proud that I did some of this in my rework.

But more to the point I do think that Ranger has a bit of a problem in how they're supposed to be doing this. Ranger has options to track, spy on people, and move through environment in quicker ways than most already in the class. They're just spells. And honestly, casting spells doesn't really feel like being a wilderness trecker, and also suffers the problem of having the "cool ranger stuff" resource often getting eaten up as it is tied to the "be minimally effective in combat" resource.

Which makes me question, how important is spells to be a ranger? Because I know I'm more in favor of giving a nice bunch of utility abilities over time to get the feel of being a ranger that you can just do as opposed to forcing those same abilities to being tied to spell slots.


Agreed. I feel the Ranger should not be a spellcaster at all.

Give it cool abilities, like they did the Battlemaster or the Assassin. No need for magic to get involved.

My answer is another question: why not both?

"It's overpowered!" you say? Why? Pick the spells they get carefully. Hunter's mark seems to me to be the most widely-acclaimed Ranger combat spell. There've been a few threads on gishes and how to do them; if you want to make Ranger Wilderness Stuff be non-spell, you could focus on gish-spells in their list.

Taking spells off of them will annoy people who like them as spellcasters far more than adjusting their spell list to do what you want it to do. If the spells being nature-y is unsatisfying, make them combative and put the wilderness mastery in their class features.

[Dienekes]

My answer is another question: why not both?

"It's overpowered!" you say? Why? Pick the spells they get carefully. Hunter's mark seems to me to be the most widely-acclaimed Ranger combat spell. There've been a few threads on gishes and how to do them; if you want to make Ranger Wilderness Stuff be non-spell, you could focus on gish-spells in their list.

Taking spells off of them will annoy people who like them as spellcasters far more than adjusting their spell list to do what you want it to do. If the spells being nature-y is unsatisfying, make them combative and put the wilderness mastery in their class features.

I don’t care about overpowered so much as a desire for consistency and fluff matching mechanics. Hunter’s Mark being an operative case. It’s a powerful spell. Just reading it doesn’t really feel like a spell. Probably just my 3.PF roots but this reads like the ability Quarry, or something any regular old hunter or investigator type character should do.

But if we think the spell route is better, I think just about any imbalance in the game can be solved by stapling on enough spells. For example, wanting Rangers to be able to communicate simple ideas even when not sharing a language is cool. But for a spelled Ranger, just adding Tongues to their spell list works. I don’t personally find it as satisfying but it is probably more useful.

But that means the question changes to: what spells do we add to the Ranger spell list to get it to do all the things we want it to?

[Moxxmix]

I agree that there's too much spell focus in Ranger, but I lean towards having the Eldritch Knight-analog subclass to give the Ranger spellcasting options. Ranger doesn't have many spells in the first place, and the ones it does have feel more like things that should be abilities instead. (For example, I can understand Snare as a spell for a Wizard; that makes sense. But for a ranger? It just feels gross.)

Taking away general spellcasting also opens up design space for the non-spellcasting subclasses, like Hunter and Beastmaster (neither of which feel like they should have much of anything to do with spells).

Hunter's Mark and its variants can be rebuilt as an ability tree, and maybe provide some sort of healing ability, along the lines of paladin/monk/celestial warlock. But that's about it.

[Morty]

Gonna be a little proud that I did some of this in my rework.

But more to the point I do think that Ranger has a bit of a problem in how they're supposed to be doing this. Ranger has options to track, spy on people, and move through environment in quicker ways than most already in the class. They're just spells. And honestly, casting spells doesn't really feel like being a wilderness trecker, and also suffers the problem of having the "cool ranger stuff" resource often getting eaten up as it is tied to the "be minimally effective in combat" resource.

Which makes me question, how important is spells to be a ranger? Because I know I'm more in favor of giving a nice bunch of utility abilities over time to get the feel of being a ranger that you can just do as opposed to forcing those same abilities to being tied to spell slots.

The D&D paradigm that 5E embraces is that if you want to be doing something interesting, you'll probably need to cast a spell. Otherwise it's suspicious. There's not a whole lot to work with outside this assumption.

[Segev]

I don’t care about overpowered so much as a desire for consistency and fluff matching mechanics. Hunter’s Mark being an operative case. It’s a powerful spell. Just reading it doesn’t really feel like a spell. Probably just my 3.PF roots but this reads like the ability Quarry, or something any regular old hunter or investigator type character should do.

But if we think the spell route is better, I think just about any imbalance in the game can be solved by stapling on enough spells. For example, wanting Rangers to be able to communicate simple ideas even when not sharing a language is cool. But for a spelled Ranger, just adding Tongues to their spell list works. I don’t personally find it as satisfying but it is probably more useful.

But that means the question changes to: what spells do we add to the Ranger spell list to get it to do all the things we want it to?

See, there's benefit in NOT having things be spells. I don't mean this to say, "Them being spells is bad because it's just stapling on spells." I mean this to say... hrm. How to put it. "Just because you have a spell doesn't mean you're good at a thing."

The ranger having the Tracker benefit I wrote him as having, where he communicates roughly with just about anything native to the natural world, means he doesn't NEED tongues nearly as much. Tongues is still an improvement on it, as is knowing the specific language, but it's "enough" that tongues is less valuable to him. Moreover, it's better than tongues in at least one way: he can do it all day long. There's no set-up time. There's no spent resource. There's no time limit. And, if he DOES have tongues, he can reserve it for important, nuanced discussions, and get by on Tracker's ability to communicate generally.

Even switching the Ranger to a prepared caster, he has a limited number of spells prepared each day, too. Having to choose tongues to speak to people eats a choice. Having the ability to pick it up tomorrow, on the other hand, means he can start a parley when he didn't have it ready, and do the delicate discussion the next day. With Ranger as-written, a known-spells caster, the choice to have tongues says he cares about communicating more deeply than his Tracker ability allows, but Tracker still eases pressure on hsi spell slots. If he chooses NOT to have tongues, he still has Tracker to communicate broadly with.

Both the spell and the ability have value for different reasons. Enough he MIGHT choose to have both, but isn't crippled in an area of being a guide if he doesn't choose that particular spell. Or is out of spell slots for the day.

[Democratus]

The D&D paradigm that 5E embraces is that if you want to be doing something interesting, you'll probably need to cast a spell. Otherwise it's suspicious. There's not a whole lot to work with outside this assumption.

Not at all. The battle master is a great example of this. It has powers and abilities with the maneuvers (pinning, moving, bolstering, etc.), none of which require spells.

This is exactly the kind of thing that could power a Ranger class.

[Warwick]

Not at all. The battle master is a great example of this. It has powers and abilities with the maneuvers (pinning, moving, bolstering, etc.), none of which require spells.

This is exactly the kind of thing that could power a Ranger class.

It's the sort of thing that should be more ubiquitous, but isn't, and it's still confined to combat. Fighters don't get recon powers, the ability to freeroll stealth, fly over obstacles, plane shift etc... On a more meta level, even when characters do get non-magic utility, my observation is that GMs are way more skeptical about creative applications than with magic.

And IMO it's kind of important that these abilities not share a resource schedule with combat abilities.

[Justin Sane]

I think my issue with the Ranger boils down to the wilderness thing (I also have issues with Favored Enemy, but that's an agency thing, not a narrative thing).

I don't see Rangers as "masters of the wild" - that's the Druid's schtick. I see Rangers as the ultimate bounty hunter. No matter who their quarry is, no matter where they hide, the Ranger will get to them - which makes the Favored Terrain mechanics an odd fit.

To me, the Ranger shouldn't get bonuses on specific terrain - instead, they should ignore penalties from said terrain. You know how Wood Elves can hide in natural cover/concealment? The Ranger should be able to ignore natural cover/concealment. Rangers shouldn't be hindered by extreme heat/cold. Rangers shouldn't lose track of their quarry in heavy rains/winds. Rangers shouldn't have to slow down to avoid getting lost.

That would reinforce the idea that Rangers can thrive anywhere - even cities, if they want to. That'd open up lots of potential concepts for new Ranger characters. Batman, chasing criminals through rain-slicked rooftops. The Mandalorian, slogging through whichever backwoods planet his bounty is hiding in. Even Aragorn would become a better fit, with his forced march through the difficult terrain the orcs would be sprinting on.

On a more meta perspective, it'd give Rangers a separate identity, as the "consistency class". Whatever the DM throws at you, you'll be able to carry on as usual. You might not get big power spikes (like a smiting Paladin on an undead-focused campaign), but you'll never operate below baseline efficiency, either.

And on a more gamist perspective... it feels right. To me, it'd be much more fun to know that I'm rolling normally when everyone else is at disadvantage thanks to my class features, and have that work anywhere, than to be OP in forests, knowing we'll move out of them in 3-4 sessions.

[Segev]

I think my issue with the Ranger boils down to the wilderness thing (I also have issues with Favored Enemy, but that's an agency thing, not a narrative thing).

I don't see Rangers as "masters of the wild" - that's the Druid's schtick. I see Rangers as the ultimate bounty hunter. No matter who their quarry is, no matter where they hide, the Ranger will get to them - which makes the Favored Terrain mechanics an odd fit.

To me, the Ranger shouldn't get bonuses on specific terrain - instead, they should ignore penalties from said terrain. You know how Wood Elves can hide in natural cover/concealment? The Ranger should be able to ignore natural cover/concealment. Rangers shouldn't be hindered by extreme heat/cold. Rangers shouldn't lose track of their quarry in heavy rains/winds. Rangers shouldn't have to slow down to avoid getting lost.

That would reinforce the idea that Rangers can thrive anywhere - even cities, if they want to. That'd open up lots of potential concepts for new Ranger characters. Batman, chasing criminals through rain-slicked rooftops. The Mandalorian, slogging through whichever backwoods planet his bounty is hiding in. Even Aragorn would become a better fit, with his forced march through the difficult terrain the orcs would be sprinting on.

On a more meta perspective, it'd give Rangers a separate identity, as the "consistency class". Whatever the DM throws at you, you'll be able to carry on as usual. You might not get big power spikes (like a smiting Paladin on an undead-focused campaign), but you'll never operate below baseline efficiency, either.

And on a more gamist perspective... it feels right. To me, it'd be much more fun to know that I'm rolling normally when everyone else is at disadvantage thanks to my class features, and have that work anywhere, than to be OP in forests, knowing we'll move out of them in 3-4 sessions.

There's possibility here. I don't agree entirely - I think Rangers are Masters of the Wild while Druids are Forces of Nature - but I see the theme you're going for here, and you've got a solid underlying idea how to shape it. My issue is the nitty-gritty of implementation: how do you define "natural" concealment/cover? Is it just a DM call? That gets flakey, making abilities relying on it a lot of "mother, may I?" play. Wood Elves get to hide in specified light obscurement; Rangers either need a solid way to categorize what qualifies as "natural" or they need a painfully exhaustive list. Maybe you can come up with something better than those, though; I'm just seeing it as a potential stumbling block to this approach.

[Moxxmix]

There's possibility here. I don't agree entirely - I think Rangers are Masters of the Wild while Druids are Forces of Nature - but I see the theme you're going for here, and you've got a solid underlying idea how to shape it. My issue is the nitty-gritty of implementation: how do you define "natural" concealment/cover? Is it just a DM call? That gets flakey, making abilities relying on it a lot of "mother, may I?" play. Wood Elves get to hide in specified light obscurement; Rangers either need a solid way to categorize what qualifies as "natural" or they need a painfully exhaustive list. Maybe you can come up with something better than those, though; I'm just seeing it as a potential stumbling block to this approach.

Sharp Eyes: Creatures may not attempt to hide from you if they only have light obscurement.

I wouldn't try to fit in "natural" obscurement, as that runs counter to the Batman/urban ranger utility side of things. Light obscurement as a generalized mechanic should be sufficient as a descriptor.

[Segev]

Sharp Eyes: Creatures may not attempt to hide from you if they only have light obscurement.

I wouldn't try to fit in "natural" obscurement, as that runs counter to the Batman/urban ranger utility side of things. Light obscurement as a generalized mechanic should be sufficient as a descriptor.

Given that it takes a special ability to be able to hide in light obscurement, this feels like a ribbon more than an actually useful ability.

[Democratus]

It's the sort of thing that should be more ubiquitous, but isn't, and it's still confined to combat. Fighters don't get recon powers, the ability to freeroll stealth, fly over obstacles, plane shift etc...

That's because fighters...fight. So the non-magic powers they get are related to combat.

Bards have a non-magic ability to inspire skill rolls by other characters. Rogues have a non-magic expertise to double up on key skills.

With a class that focuses on exploration, you would put the powers there instead.

[Warwick]

That's because fighters...fight. So the non-magic powers they get are related to combat.

Bards have a non-magic ability to inspire skill rolls by other characters. Rogues have a non-magic expertise to double up on key skills.

With a class that focuses on exploration, you would put the powers there instead.

Right, but that's a terrible design choice. This is D&D - everyone fights. The Fighter can't claim that as a niche. If there's supposed to be significant gameplay outside of combat, you don't want several players/characters standing around holding various appendages while the character that gets to interact with the subsystem does everything. Likewise, you really don't want be trading off combat power for exploration power (or other utility) because, as mentioned, everyone fights.

[NorthernPhoenix]

Right, but that's a terrible design choice. This is D&D - everyone fights. The Fighter can't claim that as a niche. If there's supposed to be significant gameplay outside of combat, you don't want several players/characters standing around holding various appendages while the character that gets to interact with the subsystem does everything. Likewise, you really don't want be trading off combat power for exploration power (or other utility) because, as mentioned, everyone fights.

The Ranger is already good, or at least fine, at fighting in 5e. The problem is that its abilities outside of combat are poorly designed in a whole host of ways discussed in this thread.

[Kane0]

Sharp Eyes: Creatures may not attempt to hide from you if they only have light obscurement.

I wouldn't try to fit in "natural" obscurement, as that runs counter to the Batman/urban ranger utility side of things. Light obscurement as a generalized mechanic should be sufficient as a descriptor.


Given that it takes a special ability to be able to hide in light obscurement, this feels like a ribbon more than an actually useful ability.

Thats why i went with bonus action search.

[Warwick]

The Ranger is already good, or at least fine, at fighting in 5e. The problem is that its abilities outside of combat are poorly designed in a whole host of ways discussed in this thread.

I don't really disagree with that. I am specifically rebuffing the idea it is okay for martial characters to not have relevant out of combat utility because they are good at fighting, and more generally noting that all characters need to be able to participate in all pillars of gameplay without seriously compromising their ability to participate in another. Giving the Ranger powers in the yet-to-be-created exploration minigame or more general purpose utility is fine and good; having them sacrifice combat power to do so (in the form of spell slots/spells known) is bad, as Dienekes noted.

[Segev]

Thats why i went with bonus action search.

That's probably better than I give it credit for, but I'm not terribly impressed by it on the Rogue Inquisitive subclass, either. :smallannoyed:

[Kane0]

If there is one thing i’ve learned with my various attempts at the ranger, its that there is no silver bullet. No single feature or even aspect can be tweaked to fix it, there are always interconnected moving parts that need to be addressed. When i read ‘the problem is x’ i always mentally change that to ‘a problem is x’.

[Segev]

If there is one thing i’ve learned with my various attempts at the ranger, its that there is no silver bullet. No single feature or even aspect can be tweaked to fix it, there are always interconnected moving parts that need to be addressed. When i read ‘the problem is x’ i always mentally change that to ‘a problem is x’.

Agreed. There's a reason my first pass "fix" is an overhaul of most of it. I didn't do a lot of interconnecting, but I did a fair bit of broadening and adding.

[loki_ragnarock]

If there is one thing i’ve learned with my various attempts at the ranger, its that there is no silver bullet. No single feature or even aspect can be tweaked to fix it, there are always interconnected moving parts that need to be addressed. When i read ‘the problem is x’ i always mentally change that to ‘a problem is x’.

I often change it to, "That's not actually a problem."

Mostly when people say, "Rangers shouldn't be casting spells."

Fixing natural explorer isn't that hard; the class feature substitutions UA does a pretty good job with it, or at least something to build on.
Fixing favored enemy isn't that hard; replacing it with something different is a matter of coming up with one alternative feature.
Fixing primeval awareness isn't that hard; just tweak it to make the divinatory ability somewhat useful.

Eliminating spell casting? That's hard. Now you have to replace 2 additional, flexible features at second level, another at third, another at fifth, etc. For a grand total of 11 features you have to come up with... for just the base ranger. Add in the XgtE bonus spell lists, and its 16 new features you have to squeeze into the progression. That's a tall ask for any designer, and if you want a good look at how shockingly bad it can wind up, just look at the early spell-less ranger UA from way back; it's a terrible trade. And unless you're giving the classes 11-16 new and incredibly flexible abilities, it will always be a terrible trade.

Call them ranger "tricks." Call them "the intervention or invocation of friendly nature spirits." Call them what you need to, but calling them off is going to make for a whole lot of work that will lead to a cluttered level chart if you're giving them anything even remotely equivalent to what they'd be losing.


And that's without invoking the history of the class through the editions to cite that they've always been a magical class. It's not just a sacred cow when eliminating spellcasting is a strict downgrade.

[Democratus]

I don't really disagree with that. I am specifically rebuffing the idea it is okay for martial characters to not have relevant out of combat utility because they are good at fighting,


That's exactly the design space of the fighter, ever since the "Fighting Man "in the original white box. Its role is actually in the name.

Combat in 5e, thanks to bounded accuracy, is not a challenge for any class - with or without special combat abilities.

Thus, everyone has a baseline for combat that is already sufficient. The matter then is to figure out what to add for each class. In particular, in which of the 3 legs of adventuring they should excel.

For the fighter, that leg is combat. For the Ranger, it should be exploration.

[Rowan Wolf]

Not at all. The battle master is a great example of this. It has powers and abilities with the maneuvers (pinning, moving, bolstering, etc.), none of which require spells.

This is exactly the kind of thing that could power a Ranger class.

They tried that a couple of times with the earlier reworks on the ranger in Unearthed Arcana and it didn't really stick. If it was for the sacred cow of the half caster I would not be surprised that in a future edition would see full caster ranger as they did with the bard.

Though I think that some of the issue with the ranger is that while it is considered a class that needed to be in the PHB it feels that it was designed after much of the game and there wasn't anything left for them that had not been given to Ranger so we see so many lackluster abilities that are poor copies of other classes features.

[Dark.Revenant]

I personally favor the spellcasting ranger, just with more unique benefits. Along those lines, my fixes can be found HERE (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/LhO8kd6Q8) and my commentary can be found HERE (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?611215-How-It-Should-Have-Been-Fixes-for-5E-(Today-the-Ranger)&p=24476695&viewfull=1#post24476695).