I just realized how to make Ranger good

[FabulousFizban]

Certain games have codified types that have become hobby staples, and those types can be useful in explaining ideas even across systems. What I mean is: If wizard is a black mage, and cleric is a white mage, then ranger should be the blue mage of the party.

EDIT: blue mage from the final fantasy series.

[8wGremlin]

Certain games have codified types that have become hobby staples, and those types can be useful in explaining ideas even across systems. What I mean is: If wizard is a black mage, and cleric is a white mage, then ranger should be the blue mage of the party.

As in a character is able to use the special skills/magics of an enemy?
steal their abilities

[kobo1d]

Certain games have codified types that have become hobby staples, and those types can be useful in explaining ideas even across systems. What I mean is: If wizard is a black mage, and cleric is a white mage, then ranger should be the blue mage of the party.

Ranger is already pretty good, it's just not very good at being a Ranger. That seems to be the biggest issue people have with the class.

Your Blue Mage idea definitely sounds fun, but isn't at all going to fix what most people complain about.

[Man_Over_Game]

Certain games have codified types that have become hobby staples, and those types can be useful in explaining ideas even across systems. What I mean is: If wizard is a black mage, and cleric is a white mage, then ranger should be the blue mage of the party.

I mean, you can make the Ranger good in a lot of ways. It just doesn't really do any of them. Being a "blue mage" isn't a bad idea, I just don't think it's something that the Ranger does thematically more than virtually anything else. Technically, the Arcane Trickster, War Wizard, or Moon Druid actually have features that allow them to use their opponents' powers against them.

[Juno Delphox]

I mean, technically speaking, the Ranger is the Ranger from FF. Or Beastmaster.

I feel like D&D doesn't have a Blue Mage, as it's a solely Final Fantasy concept, unlike Black Mage (clearly based of Wizards with the likes of Haste, Slow, and heavy damage) and White Mage (clearly based off Clerics because of healing, Dispel Magic).

I could definitely see it being a different archetype for Ranger, much like Hunter and Beastmaster feel like other medias Ranger and Beast Master class archetypes. Someone who has spent so long stalking their prey, they can features similar to them.

Maybe even build it similar to the Totem Barbarian, where each subclass option gives you a choice of a few iconic Blue Magic/Monster "Abilities".

[FabulousFizban]

As in a character is able to use the special skills/magics of an enemy?
steal their abilities

Exactly. Ranger as it exists is just imitates existing classes, all of which are better at their functions than the ranger is. Turning the ranger into a blue mage gives it a unique party role that doesn't already exist in d&d. The ability to mimic, or control enemies (like a pokemon trainer), is new to the system. This could also easily tie with existing ranger abilities like favored enemy/terrain. Favor beasts? You can mimic and control beasts. Favor aberrations? Same deal.

[Dienekes]

Certain games have codified types that have become hobby staples, and those types can be useful in explaining ideas even across systems. What I mean is: If wizard is a black mage, and cleric is a white mage, then ranger should be the blue mage of the party.

You say this, but you’ve just added more confusion to me. When I hear a blue mage I think of a heavy Counterspell and illusion focused wizard, that may have control effects especially on what their opponent can theoretically cast. One that is opposed by green and red mages but aligned with black and white mages.

Other than that I don’t know how they’d be rangers.

[HappyDaze]

Certain games have codified types that have become hobby staples, and those types can be useful in explaining ideas even across systems. What I mean is: If wizard is a black mage, and cleric is a white mage, then ranger should be the blue mage of the party.

You say that those are codified even across systems, but I have no idea what you're talking about despite playing several RPG systems. What are these and where do they come from?

[FabulousFizban]

You say this, but you’ve just added more confusion to me. When I hear a blue mage I think of a heavy Counterspell and illusion focused wizard, that may have control effects especially on what their opponent can theoretically cast. One that is opposed by green and red mages but aligned with black and white mages.

Other than that I don’t know how they’d be rangers.

apologies, I was trying to carry over a term from final fantasy.

[HappyDaze]

apologies, I was trying to carry over a term from final fantasy.

I've heard of Final Fantasy computer games, but I've never played any of them. I believe that there's more than a dozen of them. Do they all use these terms, or is there one that makes a better source than the others?

[ImproperJustice]

I am on board with this.

Maybe not full on blue mage, but what if the Ranger evolved into a class that mimics monster abilities and behaviors, incorporating magic to do so.

Subclasses can be creature types:

Way of the:
Beast
Fey
The Verdant (plants)


Then get crazy:
Dragons
Undead
Fiends
Oozes


Sure. Who wouldn’t want a crazy mountain man that howls like a wolf and fights as one, or a fairy kin chap who floats through the air, or another who grows bark armor and fights with thorn whips?

[HPisBS]

I am on board with this.

Maybe not full on blue mage, but what if the Ranger evolved into a class that mimics monster abilities and behaviors, incorporating magic to do so.

Subclasses can be creature types:

Way of the:
Beast
Fey
The Verdant (plants)


Then get crazy:
Dragons
Undead
Fiends
Oozes


Sure. Who wouldn’t want a crazy mountain man that howls like a wolf and fights as one, or a fairy kin chap who floats through the air, or another who grows bark armor and fights with thorn whips?

Sounds more like a Druid, honestly.

When I think of Rangers, I think of John Flanagan's book series, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger%27s_Apprentice) wherein Rangers are like spec ops - experts in Stealth (with a special, mottled cloak for advantage), Survival, and Perception, good in Athletics and Acrobatics, and sometimes Insight, Intimidation, and Investigation. And, of course, masters of the longbow and skilled with daggers (throwing and melee). They're also trained to wake up, fully alert, at the slightest disturbance - even if that disturbance is nothing more than the surrounding wildlife going quiet.

(They also have incredibly well-trained and well-bred warhorses.)

That happens to be a low fantasy series in which there are some fantasy creatures and phenomena, but "magic" doesn't really exist. We could make that kind of Ranger by simply building a small handful of spell-like effects into a Spell-less Ranger's class features. Kinda like Monks. So instead of casting Alarm, Snare, Cordon of Arrows, or Flame Arrows, the spell-less Ranger would have features that help him set up traps, wake up whenever his surroundings are disturbed, and craft regular arrows into Flame Arrow equivalents (which are ruined once ignited).

[micahaphone]

Can anyone summarize what a blue mage is? because counterspell + illusions just sounds like an abjuration wizard with certain spell choices, definitely nothing related to rangers. It's been ages since I've played any final fantasy. I think the last one I touched was 4?

If it's being an anti-mage, that's kind of in the Monster Slayer subclass of Xanathar's. I'd certainly be down for more of that though. Anything that works the way I think that the Mage Slayer feat should work is good by me.

[Edea]

Main issue with the Ranger's that its early-game class features are too specific to be left static choices, like that. You need to be able to have a bit more flexibility with your favored enemy and favored terrain parameters; probably the simplest way would be the ability to choose new sets from the offered lists after every long rest. Remember, Rangers are NOT 'mundanes' this edition like they were in 4th, they use a clearly supernatural power source ("primal") and wield magic again; it's not really a stretch that they'd be able to alter the way their hunting 'senses' work on a daily basis.

Fighting Style also needs to be a bit more flexible, but that applies to all the classes that have it; it's just especially apparent in the Ranger, since they actually have flavor/mechanical reasons to switch that around.

Another big one is that the Animal Companion archetype has...problems.

[LudicSavant]

Whenever I hear people defend the class and say that Rangers are 'actually pretty good' I always have the question in my head, 'what are they good compared to? What am I dropping from an optimized party to play a Ranger instead?'

[ImproperJustice]

Sounds more like a Druid, honestly.

When I think of Rangers, I think of John Flanagan's book series, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger%27s_Apprentice) wherein Rangers are like spec ops - experts in Stealth (with a special, mottled cloak for advantage), Survival, and Perception, good in Athletics and Acrobatics, and sometimes Insight, Intimidation, and Investigation. And, of course, masters of the longbow and skilled with daggers (throwing and melee). They're also trained to wake up, fully alert, at the slightest disturbance - even if that disturbance is nothing more than the surrounding wildlife going quiet.

(They also have incredibly well-trained and well-bred warhorses.)

That happens to be a low fantasy series in which there are some fantasy creatures and phenomena, but "magic" doesn't really exist. We could make that kind of Ranger by simply building a small handful of spell-like effects into a Spell-less Ranger's class features. Kinda like Monks. So instead of casting Alarm, Snare, Cordon of Arrows, or Flame Arrows, the spell-less Ranger would have features that help him set up traps, wake up whenever his surroundings are disturbed, and craft regular arrows into Flame Arrow equivalents (which are ruined once ignited).

I think it is Druidish archetype like a Paladin is a clerical archetype.
The emphasis is less on magic spells on more on majic enhancements that augment combat.
Taking the Guardian of Nature Spell and dialing it into a full on class / subclass.

[Amnestic]

Certain games have codified types that have become hobby staples, and those types can be useful in explaining ideas even across systems. What I mean is: If wizard is a black mage, and cleric is a white mage, then ranger should be the blue mage of the party.

EDIT: blue mage from the final fantasy series.

A blue mage - that is, a character who acquires monster abilities by being hit by them - is much harder to codify in DnD where the monster manual(s) are huge and any the enemies you fight will vary enormously depending on the campaign. You could go 1-20 without ever fighting a devil or celestial for instance, depending on the focus of your specific campaign.

You could, I suppose, copy the wizard with "[X] monster abilities on level up, but you can learn extra from getting hit" to give them a baseline of effectiveness but a) doesn't that sort of take away from the fun nature of the blue mage if you can learn how to use Bad Breath without ever fighting a marlboro? and b) this sort of fix would be huge in scope, requiring basically a whole rewrite of not just the class but also a great deal of monster manual monsters to have 'blue mage' learnable abilities.

Not that that's necessarily a *bad thing* in giving monsters more stuff to do, but it's not a small task. I'm talking "not doable in 5e realistically, wait for 6e" sorta size.



Can anyone summarize what a blue mage is?

A blue mage is a class where all of their abilities are monster abilities that they learn from getting hit by them. They're often kind of janky, kind of cool, kind of underpowered except for a few strong tricks.

In final fantasy it's essentially a flexible caster class that you need to have a strategy guide to actually take advantage of.

[rlc]

So the best way to make the Ranger good is to make it something completely different than what it is? Yeah, I can see that.

[Nhorianscum]

Exactly. Ranger as it exists is just imitates existing classes, all of which are better at their functions than the ranger is. Turning the ranger into a blue mage gives it a unique party role that doesn't already exist in d&d. The ability to mimic, or control enemies (like a pokemon trainer), is new to the system. This could also easily tie with existing ranger abilities like favored enemy/terrain. Favor beasts? You can mimic and control beasts. Favor aberrations? Same deal.

*mutters in druid*

Rangers are quite good with their class passives blanked and are stellar when they're on. Playing a gloomstalker hunting drow in the underdark is just unfair. They fall off a bit in tier 3 and 4 but their tier 1 and 2 feels great.

[Kyutaru]

Druids are the imitators of monsters, not Rangers.

Rangers fit a much more common trope in FF games -- the Archer. What do archers tend to be high in focus with? Speed, Number of Attacks, Evasion, Critical Chance, Accuracy.

Archers/Rangers/Scouts/Hunters share the same group. They're practiced experts on killing their prey, whether it's other humans or beasts in the field or some type of extravagant dragon. This expertise usually comes out of necessity or profession which gives them strong survival skills too because they have to learn to think like the enemy and immerse themselves in its world. They sometimes even tame other animals to help them, but this is not a friendship. These pets are tools that possess capabilities the hunter does not like long distance scent tracking or a bird's eye view from flight. The hunter himself knows everything required to hunt his prey right down to the terrain they exist in and all their vulnerable weak points. A shot from a hunter's bow is as lethal as a swordsman's swing, sometimes more so because the hunter knows where every vital organ is by heart. One must also train to be swift when chasing after beasts that can outrun you easily and one must be clever to outmaneuver them when the chase is reversed. Ambushes, traps, tracking, wilderness survival, spotting, reconnaissance, taming, improvised repairs and crafting, all of it plays a part in their mission and they are singularly focused on mastering these skills.

So if I wanted to make Ranger good I'd focus on these aspects. Old Rangers had massive bonuses to Accuracy and Damage with a bow to reflect the precision of their aim and innate knowledge of anatomy. Other versions granted large bonuses against specific racial types to reflect how well they know their chosen enemy, sacrificing general utility for focus. The modern terrain-based ones reflect knowing all creatures in the place they call home or hunting ground. Honestly all of these are aspects of Rangers that should be unified. They're without doubt Specialists like the rogue or bard is.

[Man_Over_Game]

Whenever I hear people defend the class and say that Rangers are 'actually pretty good' I always have the question in my head, 'what are they good compared to? What am I dropping from an optimized party to play a Ranger instead?'

I think they're a lot more versatile than a Paladin. A Paladin doesn't really make too many choices:

Stand there. Now I'm 5ft away, stand here instead. Hit them. Hit them harder. I'm dying, healpunch me.

Those are about your options. Rangers feel more fun at mid levels for me, I just wish you didn't have a lot of dead levels with noncombat features that your party won't ever use or appreciate.

[LudicSavant]

I think they're a lot more versatile than a Paladin. A Paladin doesn't really make too many choices:

Stand there. Now I'm 5ft away, stand here instead. Hit them. Hit them harder. I'm dying, healpunch me.

Those are about your options. Rangers feel more fun at mid levels for me, I just wish you didn't have a lot of dead levels with noncombat features that your party won't ever use or appreciate.

Ranger is most definitely not a stronger class than Paladin.

Whether or not you personally like them more is a very different, much more subjective discussion.

[Dienekes]

Ranger is most definitely not a stronger class than Paladin.

Whether or not you personally like them more is a very different, much more subjective discussion.

In fairness he did not say stronger, he said more versatile.

And I can see it. Another skill, a more utility focused spell list. Sure they both have +damage spells/abilities and Paladin’s are better. And yeah they have healing spells/abilities and Paladins are better. But they get stuff like fog cloud, speak with animals, pass without trace, silence. You know spells that give you other useful options beyond hitting things really hard and tanking being hit really hard (which is not to say that’s all Paladin has. But if the two, I’d say Ranger was more versatile).

[LudicSavant]

he did not say stronger

My question is about strength. Ergo, if that's not what he's saying, my question remains unanswered.

[Ovarwa]

Hi,


I think they're a lot more versatile than a Paladin. A Paladin doesn't really make too many choices:

Stand there. Now I'm 5ft away, stand here instead. Hit them. Hit them harder. I'm dying, healpunch me.

Those are about your options. Rangers feel more fun at mid levels for me, I just wish you didn't have a lot of dead levels with noncombat features that your party won't ever use or appreciate.

If you find Rangers more fun, great!

But Paladins do have some interesting choices to make, even excluding interesting choices that Rangers don't get, like "Which of these awesome subclasses should I take?" and "What spells from the full list to which I have access do I want to have prepared today?

For example, throughout their day, a Paladin gets to decide whether to cast a spell or expend it for immediate damage. Paladins get some good spells, and there might be another, bigger enemy around the corner, so this isn't always an easy and obvious decision.

It's true that Paladins are rather better in melee than at range, but if they had everything they'd be maybe too good... and can solve this problem too with 2 levels of Warlock. Not that they necessarily should.

Anyway,

Ken

[Morty]

Wouldn't making rangers a "Blue Mage" sort of character essentially require creating a whole new system for what powers they can get from what monsters? Considering the paucity of special monster powers that aren't spells in 5E, this could be kind of complicated.

[Jason]

If you want them to be good, put them in their favored environment hunting their favored enemies.
I'm running a two-part game for my players currently. The first part was all urban and the ranger didn't get many opportunities to shine. The second part has been all jungle, and the ranger has proven indispensable to the party's success.

[Edea]

If you want them to be good, put them in their favored environment hunting their favored enemies.

See? Now just put in something that gives the ranger the flexibility to shift those parameters around.

You hear that you're about to storm a crypt? After the long rest prior to going down there, shift your favored foe to undead and your favored environment to underground/cavern. Oh, the crypt's surrounded by jungle? Have beasts up as your favored enemy and jungle as your favored environment on the way to said crypt.

I'm not saying they should be able to just flip these things on a dime, but having them locked down at 1st is extremely limiting and imposes on the rest of the group in order to make the ranger feel useful. Let him shift that stuff around after a long rest.

[micahaphone]

If you want them to be good, put them in their favored environment hunting their favored enemies.
I'm running a two-part game for my players currently. The first part was all urban and the ranger didn't get many opportunities to shine. The second part has been all jungle, and the ranger has proven indispensable to the party's success.

So your parties do RAW exploration, and now they don't get lost when they roll for it? And your players frequently need to track certain creatures?
I thought that the worst part of favored terrain/enemy was that they're situational and don't even do that much.

[Snownine]

Wouldn't making rangers a "Blue Mage" sort of character essentially require creating a whole new system for what powers they can get from what monsters? Considering the paucity of special monster powers that aren't spells in 5E, this could be kind of complicated.

Yeah, as much as I love blue mages, they are the kind of thing the system has to have in mind at creation and that has not been the case with 5e. It would take a pretty big overhaul of the available monsters to make this work and a lot of work to make sure the abilities are balanced with each other and other abilities and spells for pc use while also making them balanced for the monsters themselves. This combined with the fact that you have overwhelming less control over the enemies you fight in a D&D campaign, as it is up to the DM what monsters you fight, than in a Final Fantasy game makes this seem pretty hard to execute in a satisfactory way with 5e.

[Man_Over_Game]

I've heard of Final Fantasy computer games, but I've never played any of them. I believe that there's more than a dozen of them. Do they all use these terms, or is there one that makes a better source than the others?

Final Fantasy V about covers it. Most of the "Job System" Final Fantasies, the ones where you change your class constantly, have pretty much the same list (Black Mage, White Mage, Blue Mage, Summoner, etc).

[Morty]

See? Now just put in something that gives the ranger the flexibility to shift those parameters around.

You hear that you're about to storm a crypt? After the long rest prior to going down there, shift your favored foe to undead and your favored environment to underground/cavern. Oh, the crypt's surrounded by jungle? Have beasts up as your favored enemy and jungle as your favored environment on the way to said crypt.

I'm not saying they should be able to just flip these things on a dime, but having them locked down at 1st is extremely limiting and imposes on the rest of the group in order to make the ranger feel useful. Let him shift that stuff around after a long rest.

Even if they can shift favored enemies/terrain around, this just means they can more consistently apply advantage on some checks, bonuses to damage, and some other passive advantages. Favored enemies and favored terrain just aren't very good features. Alright as an add-on, but they won't carry a character.


Yeah, as much as I love blue mages, they are the kind of thing the system has to have in mind at creation and that has not been the case with 5e. It would take a pretty big overhaul of the available monsters to make this work and a lot of work to make sure the abilities are balanced with each other and other abilities and spells for pc use while also making them balanced for the monsters themselves. This combined with the fact that you have overwhelming less control over the enemies you fight in a D&D campaign, as it is up to the DM what monsters you fight, than in a Final Fantasy game makes this seem pretty hard to execute in a satisfactory way with 5e.

Not that giving 5E monsters more interesting abilities would be a bad thing, but yes. It'd be a massive amount of work. And it's also true that such a feature would be dependent on the monsters the party happens to face. Come to think of it, how would it even work if the party happened to face mostly intelligent humanoids?

[Amnestic]

Not that giving 5E monsters more interesting abilities would be a bad thing, but yes. It'd be a massive amount of work. And it's also true that such a feature would also in the end be dependent on the monsters the party happens to face. Come to think of it, how would it even work if the party happened to face mostly intelligent humanoids?

There are ~some~ classic blue mage abilities that you can just staple onto intelligent humanoids as special abilities if you wanted to - things like Goblin Punch, Magic Hammer, Mighty Guard or White Wind.

The FF14 in 5e Homebrew compendium has blue mages they say pretty much outright "you need to work closely with the DM - if they don't want to do that, you're better off just grabbing spells from the sorcerer list instead" which...fair, honestly.

[Jason]

So your parties do RAW exploration, and now they don't get lost when they roll for it? And your players frequently need to track certain creatures?
I thought that the worst part of favored terrain/enemy was that they're situational and don't even do that much.The first part of the campaign was Dragon Heist, which was all in Waterdeep, and the second is Tomb of Annihilation. They have never had to worry about getting lost in the jungles of Chult or being short on food, and they very seldom get surprised by random encounters, they can deal with animal encounters, and they've been able to determine the presence of hags or demons, which has proven very useful. The Ranger has got them covered on all of these things.

I view the Ranger as kind of like Aquaman (not the Super Friends Aquaman, more like the modern version). Yes he is something of a specialist limited by his environment, but he is pretty impressively awesome in that environment. If you have a player who picks Ranger it's your job as DM to make sure he gets the chance to have adventures in his chosen environment fighting against his favored enemy, just like you periodically include traps for the Rogue to disarm, undead for the Cleric to turn, and spell books in the loot for the Mage to collect spells from. I made it clear to my Ranger player that the first part of the campaign would be all urban adventures where he might feel a little like a sixth wheel, but that his time to shine would come with Tomb, and I nudged him a bit to help him pick an environment and favored enemy at 1st that would come up a lot. It has paid off wonderfully.

[Vogie]

I mean, I could see it - As many have said, it'd look very much unlike the existing ranger class

The easiest way to conceptualize such a thing, would be to search for the homebrew "Planeshifter" class from reddit's Unearthed Arcana section - Essentially, it allows the PC to attune to various planes, shift between them to mix up their spell list and abilities

I could see the same design with your Taskmaster-style Ranger. Have a core style, then each encounter, they gain a new fighting style based on the creature types faced - humanoids, beast, fey, outsider, undead, et cetera - and each of those would scale with the Ranger's level.