Poor Ranger

[Kane0]

As my good friend Chappy happened to point out, it appears the Ranger is the only class to receive Optional Class Features via Tasha's that are strictly alternative rather than additional.

Barbarian get extra skill profs at 3 and 10 plus half movement when entering rage at 7
Bard can add Insp. die to spell damage or healing
Cleric and Paladin can use Channel to get back spell slots
Druid can use Wildshape to Find Familiar
Monk gets free monk weapons, martial arts when spending ki, ki healing and attack rerolls
Rogue gets Steady Aim
Sorcerer can reroll ability checks for 1 SP

Now in fairness this doesn't take into account spell lists and 'X Versatility', and Fighter and Warlock also don't get additional features but rather more options for existing ones like fighting styles and pact boons. But that said, given the amount of work WotC have put into improving the Ranger over the years it actually surprises me that at least some of their features aren't just straight up additional.

Going forward if anyone in my group wants to make use of Tasha's for their Ranger I'll let them have Favored Foe and Nature's Veil without replacing Favored Enemy and Hide in Plain Sight respectively. Deft Explorer and Primal Awareness will likely remain as alternative options at least for the time being.

[Dork_Forge]

I think this more speaks to classes like the Barbarian having space left in their design space, whereas for the Ranger it's all pretty well allocated just very poorly used.

That said, this isn't strictly true though either as I believe they gained the ability to use Druidic foci, which is strictly additional.

[paladinn]

I think if they're just given Favored Foe without concentration, all may have been right with the ranger world. Well, a lot More right anyway..

[Foxhound438]

I think this more speaks to classes like the Barbarian having space left in their design space, whereas for the Ranger it's all pretty well allocated just very poorly used.

That said, this isn't strictly true though either as I believe they gained the ability to use Druidic foci, which is strictly additional.

Monks get an absolute stack of features from levels 1 to 7 and get four more in this book. I think that probably has more to do with people perceiving the monk as weak and saying so in surveys, but I think a lot of people look at the white room damage output of the classes and forget that monk has a ton of great features that aren't just + damage. It seems like WotC really leaned into trying to "fix" this "problem" with astral self monks too.

Rangers get a handful of replacements and only foci purely additional, but as we all know the things being totally replaced aren't that hard to give up.

[Witty Username]

Ranger loses non-features so isn't that bad, Hide in plain sight and Primeval awareness are the best examples. Also, with the quality of ranger spells, over tuning them is definitely an issue.
Monk is a great counter example actually, the get new features except they are all ribbon level, smoothing out rough edges for multi-class and caster monks and all costing Ki, which is not infinite.

[Amechra]

Monks get an absolute stack of features from levels 1 to 7 and get four more in this book. I think that probably has more to do with people perceiving the monk as weak and saying so in surveys, but I think a lot of people look at the white room damage output of the classes and forget that monk has a ton of great features that aren't just + damage. It seems like WotC really leaned into trying to "fix" this "problem" with astral self monks too.

If we drop the "chassis" features (Ability Score Increase, Extra Attack, and the two subclass levels, which all Martial classes get within that level range), Monks have 14 features in those 7 levels. However, looking at the raw number of features probably isn't the best way to do it:


Two of those features effectively make up for the fact that they can't use most weapons or wear armor (Unarmored Defense and Dedicated Weapon.)
Four of those features are passive (Unarmored Movement, Slow Fall, Ki-Empowered Strikes, and Evasion)
Three of those features are very situational (Deflect Missiles, Quickened Healing, and Stillness of Mind)
One of those features is a situational upgrade of an earlier feature (Ki-Fueled Attack is basically an upgrade/expansion of Martial Arts)


Even with Tasha's, they basically have four features that they can use proactively - Martial Arts, Ki, Stunning Strike, and Focused Aim. If we were to take a Ranger with the alternate features from Tasha's, they come out roughly equivalent:


They're proficient with actual armor/weapons, so that's good.
They have three passive features (Canny, Fighting Style, and Roving)
They have two situational features (Favored Foe and Primal Awareness)
They know five spells of their choice. Yes, I'm counting each one as a distinct feature, since you get to pick the best ones available to you.


10 vs. 14 "things you can do because you are a [CLASS]" by 7th level is not that different, especially since three of the Monks features are either upgrades or attempts to "catch up" with the the stuff that most Martial classes get as standard.

[Kane0]

That said, this isn't strictly true though either as I believe they gained the ability to use Druidic foci, which is strictly additional.
Ah yes, I did miss that. I wouldn't say that's entirely redeeming, but you are technically correct. The best kind of correct.



Three of those features are very situational (Deflect Missiles, Quickened Healing, and Stillness of Mind)


I'm curious, what was your reasoning behind Deflect Missiles and Quickened Healing being situational?

[Darzil]

I wonder if the game designers just think powers such as the overground skills in the PHB Natural Explorer are much more powerful than I do. I can certainly see that running an exploration sim game they'd be godly. I just have never encountered such a game, so the skills tend to just be a way to restrict what a GM does, without giving the player fun in return. Similarly tracking skills are basically helping players find the GMs encounter so that fun can be had.

Ranger is the only class that gets these. Natural Explorer also appeared in UA Fighter:Scout, which didn't get published. The tracker feat was one of a handful of UA Feats from the recent UA that didn't get into Tashas.

It's also the only class to have had a complete revision in UA, which shows it needed help. (Though Revised Ranger was far too front loaded, it was more extreme than Cleric Domains! Really shouldn't have too many major or powerful features before level 3 to avoid the one level dips multiclassing)

Situational benefits like Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy are just so hard to balance. You can easily end up godly or useless depending on how they line up with a campaign. Revised Ranger addressed these issues, and something really needs to!

[Unoriginal]

I'm curious, what was your reasoning behind Deflect Missiles and Quickened Healing being situational?

Well, for starter, Deflect Missiles require:

1. the Monk gets shot at with a ranged weapon
2. for the attack to hit
3. for the Monk to spend their reaction, which they may already have spent or are saving for an AO or the like
4. only works on one hit at most

So it's a kinda specific situation.

[MoiMagnus]

Well, for starter, Deflect Missiles require:

1. the Monk gets shot at with a ranged weapon
2. for the attack to hit
3. for the Monk to spend their reaction, which they may already have spent or are saving for an AO or the like
4. only works on one hit at most

So it's a kinda specific situation.

The fact that Deflect Missile doesn't eventually allow to deflect any ranged attack (weapon or not) and/or deflect multi-attack is quite sad.

Low level monk has this "Wait, is that even physically possible to do?" when you look at it from a realism point of view. IMO, high level monk should give the same feeling but scaled up by multiple orders of magnitude.

[Democratus]

I think the Ranger is the class with the worst defined role.

It really should be a sub-class, rather than a full class.
- Archer specialist is better done by fighter and rogue.
- Nature specialist is better done by druid.

The class started as an Aragorn clone, and has fought to find a unique space in the game ever since.

It's no wonder that they keep failing to get it right mechanically, because it it very hard to do without stepping on the toes of other classes.

[Keltest]

I think the Ranger is the class with the worst defined role.

It really should be a sub-class, rather than a full class.
- Archer specialist is better done by fighter and rogue.
- Nature specialist is better done by druid.

The class started as an Aragorn clone, and has fought to find a unique space in the game ever since.

It's no wonder that they keep failing to get it right mechanically, because it it very hard to do without stepping on the toes of other classes.

Thats kind of a silly argument. Other classes step on each other's toes all the time. Barbarian and Fighter. Druid and Cleric. Wizard and Sorcerer. Paladin and Fighter. Paladin and Barbarian. Bard and rogue. Bard and any primary caster, frankly.

I dont see why people single out the ranger as being somehow exceptional in this regard.

[Dork_Forge]

I think the Ranger is the class with the worst defined role.

It really should be a sub-class, rather than a full class.
- Archer specialist is better done by fighter and rogue.
- Nature specialist is better done by druid.

The class started as an Aragorn clone, and has fought to find a unique space in the game ever since.

It's no wonder that they keep failing to get it right mechanically, because it it very hard to do without stepping on the toes of other classes.

Arguably they keep falling short mechanically because it's meant to thrive in one of the least developed 'pillars' of the game: Exploration

[MoiMagnus]

Arguably they keep falling short mechanically because it's meant to thrive in one of the least developed 'pillars' of the game: Exploration

Bonuses to the exploration pillar always felt to me like "this part of the game that you were ignoring up until now, well now you have the right to continue to ignore it thanks to this capacity".

If you play a social-less game and that someone is like "I know we never talk to NPCs usually, I've took this capacity that allows me to be better at talking, so that we can convince peoples to help the party", this is great, you can add a little of the social pillar in your game that otherwise ignores it. It's not hard for the DM to add a few opportunities to use the social abilities.

If you play an exploration-less game and that someone is like "I know we never track food usually, but I've took this capacity that allows me to be better at hunting, so now I can hunt for food for the party.". Without the ranger, the party had 0 chance to starve to death because this part of the game was ignored. Now, with the ranger, the party is keeping track of food, so the presence of a ranger makes it harder to survive for them... Alternatively, the party continue to not track food and the capacity to hunt for food become a ribbon without mechanical effects.

In other words, the social pillar is often a "positive pillar" (something that makes the game easier for the players when added), while the exploration pillar is often a "negative pillar" (something that makes the game harder for the players when added).

IMO, gathering plants to make potions and poisons should have been an explicit part of the Ranger identity, as this is one of the few "positive" parts of the exploration pillar, which is currently hidden in some corners of the rules (artisan's tool kits & DMG).

[Amechra]

I'm curious, what was your reasoning behind Deflect Missiles and Quickened Healing being situational?

Unoriginal did a good job of covering why I think Deflect Missiles is situational, so I'll just cover Quickened Healing.

Quickened Healing basically just costs a lot for what it gives you, especially at low levels. Activating it in combat is a pretty bad idea - however, it's also a pretty bad idea to activate it to heal up your boo-boos between fights, since it directly drinks from your pool of "do stuff" juice. The best use I can think of is that you'd activate it right before a short rest to effectively use up any leftover ki and save yourself from spending hit-dice. And that requires that you both have enough ki left over and have taken damage.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice feature to have if you need it... but in practical terms, it's very narrow.


Ranger loses non-features so isn't that bad, Hide in plain sight and Primeval awareness are the best examples. Also, with the quality of ranger spells, over tuning them is definitely an issue.
Monk is a great counter example actually, the get new features except they are all ribbon level, smoothing out rough edges for multi-class and caster monks and all costing Ki, which is not infinite.

Only two of the four features cost ki, and Ki-Fueled Attack triggers off of you using ki for anything during your action. I will agree that they're pretty much ribbons, except for maybe Ki-Fueled Attack (due to how many builds it makes more-or-less viable.)

[Nidgit]

Bonuses to the exploration pillar always felt to me like "this part of the game that you were ignoring up until now, well now you have the right to continue to ignore it thanks to this capacity".

If you play a social-less game and that someone is like "I know we never talk to NPCs usually, I've took this capacity that allows me to be better at talking, so that we can convince peoples to help the party", this is great, you can add a little of the social pillar in your game that otherwise ignores it. It's not hard for the DM to add a few opportunities to use the social abilities.

If you play an exploration-less game and that someone is like "I know we never track food usually, but I've took this capacity that allows me to be better at hunting, so now I can hunt for food for the party.". Without the ranger, the party had 0 chance to starve to death because this part of the game was ignored. Now, with the ranger, the party is keeping track of food, so the presence of a ranger makes it harder to survive for them... Alternatively, the party continue to not track food and the capacity to hunt for food become a ribbon without mechanical effects.

In other words, the social pillar is often a "positive pillar" (something that makes the game easier for the players when added), while the exploration pillar is often a "negative pillar" (something that makes the game harder for the players when added).

IMO, gathering plants to make potions and poisons should have been an explicit part of the Ranger identity, as this is one of the few "positive" parts of the exploration pillar, which is currently hidden in some corners of the rules (artisan's tool kits & DMG).
That's just one way to describe Exploration, though. A lot of people get caught in hexcrawl survival as the only type of exploration, which has a very narrow appeal and typically gets ignored. But there are plenty of ways Exploration is present in 5e if people take a broader view.

Exploration, on a basic level, is anything that's not combat or interacting with NPCs. That means stealth missions, tracking, dungeon delving, scouting, and more. Basically any time you're interacting getting the DM to develop and tell you about the world via narration, that's exploring it. And I think there's enough there to work with to make the Ranger feel like a proper explorer.

The Rogue is excellent at Stealth but typically scouts and hides alone; they're good with some traps but less so with tracking. The Ranger excels at tracking and helps the whole party conceal themselves better.

The Druid is in touch with nature to maintain balance, learning many spells to shape the world around them. The Ranger attempts to master nature in order to accomplish their goals.

The Fighter a few strategies that it uses pretty effectively against most enemies. The Ranger takes a decrease in raw power in exchange for flexibility in adapting to their opponents (or at least they should!)

All those have elements of Exploration to them. WotC hasn't implemented them effectively though.

[MrCharlie]

Thats kind of a silly argument. Other classes step on each other's toes all the time. Barbarian and Fighter. Druid and Cleric. Wizard and Sorcerer. Paladin and Fighter. Paladin and Barbarian. Bard and rogue. Bard and any primary caster, frankly.

I dont see why people single out the ranger as being somehow exceptional in this regard.
Because every role it could fulfill is done by another class better, and only the combination of roles is unique to the ranger-and the combination of roles is antisynergistic. Their spellcasting does not aid their combat prowess very well, and their extremely limited spells prevent them from using them very effectively to explore nature. Further, having decent exploration skills is useless when other classes can mimic your skills with expertise and spellcasting (good spellcasting).

The obvious contrast is Paladins, whom get better spells, have a better spellcasting system, and whose spells are centered around the holy warrior ideal and aid that ideal better, including buffs, healing, and the ability to divine smite. Rangers get healing, **** buffs, some environmental debuffs, and **** damage abilities instead-and can use at best half as many because they are known casters and paladins are not. The end result is that Paladins are a key class and rangers suck.

Compare also the Rogue, who have sneak attack, skills, and avoidance abilities. The skills aid in getting sneak attack, the avoidance abilities help them hit and run, and the entire thing feels extremely tight. Rangers lack any way to exploit the exploration pillar similarly, which for a class which is arguably based on it is a huge deal.

And finally-people absolutely complain about this with other classes. In my own opinion, we should go back to five or six base classes, and then have 1st level archetypes that branch off of these. Clerics, Fighters, Mages, Rogues, Spellswords, and maybe a couple others to cover warlocks and artificers if you can't wrap them into the base five . You can easily fit every class as archetypes of those core ideas, and then build outward from there. Druids are a type of cleric, Barbarians a type of fighter, wizards and sorcerers both mages as are warlock, Bards either a type of Rogue or spellsword, Spellswords include Paladins, rangers, and probably monks.

But that's an aside. The reason the ranger gets mentioned and others don't is because their issues are so pressing-they almost lack a core of a class to fall back on, in comparison to the other classes. That just leaves them ineffectually filling roles the others are better at, which is the real issue.

[Amechra]

The thing is that there are actually plenty of ways to make "you're really good at hunting or whatever" really nice for the party... you just need to make being out in nature kinda terrible by default.

For example: instead of counting the number of remaining rations, you'd have some kind of system where having access to fresh food and good water gave you some kind of boost (maybe take a leaf from the Chef feat and give out extra healing during short rests?) You lose those bonuses after you leave town unless you go out hunting or have some sort of magical way to preserve food. In that case, the Ranger having a feature that makes them a good hunter is going to be a solid upgrade. Similarly, if forests or whatever were set up as dungeons, where a Ranger's keen nature senses helped you find secret paths or helped "disarm traps", I think people would be a bit happier about Natural Explorer.

Instead, a lot of "nature encounters" either punish players for a lack of foresight or boil down to "the DM wants this to happen because <PLOT>".

[MoiMagnus]

The thing is that there are actually plenty of ways to make "you're really good at hunting or whatever" really nice for the party... you just need to make being out in nature kinda terrible by default.

But that's the point. If the default is "nature is nice" until a hunter join the party and now the default becomes "nature is terrible" so that the hunter feels useful, then the hunter is counterproductive at a meta level.

Imagine that the Paladin lay of hand was only there to heal diseases (not heal regular HP or poison), and that it was a central feature of the class to offer a better protection against infections and various natural disease. If the table was already playing with diseases, sure it would be useful. But if your table don't like to play with natural sicknesses, this core part of the class (in this fictive alternative universe) would be lacklustre, and changing the default to "peoples get sick often and can even die on a bad sickness roll during downtime" just to make this ability useful would be more frustrating than anything.

[Amechra]

But that's the point. If the default is "nature is nice" until a hunter join the party and now the default becomes "nature is terrible" so that the hunter feels useful, then the hunter is counterproductive at a meta level.

Pretty much. The default rules have to be "nature is terrible" before a class that focused on making nature not terrible is relevant to the party. Except it's less "nature is terrible", and more "nature is difficult" - there have to be valid reasons to engage with the rules before anyone will use them. Like, take the encumbrance rules - ignoring them completely is equivalent to the best possible result you can get while using them, and as a result people handwave them.

[Dienekes]

The thing is that there are actually plenty of ways to make "you're really good at hunting or whatever" really nice for the party... you just need to make being out in nature kinda terrible by default.

For example: instead of counting the number of remaining rations, you'd have some kind of system where having access to fresh food and good water gave you some kind of boost (maybe take a leaf from the Chef feat and give out extra healing during short rests?) You lose those bonuses after you leave town unless you go out hunting or have some sort of magical way to preserve food. In that case, the Ranger having a feature that makes them a good hunter is going to be a solid upgrade. Similarly, if forests or whatever were set up as dungeons, where a Ranger's keen nature senses helped you find secret paths or helped "disarm traps", I think people would be a bit happier about Natural Explorer.

Instead, a lot of "nature encounters" either punish players for a lack of foresight or boil down to "the DM wants this to happen because <PLOT>".

A while back I tinkered with a spell-less Ranger and tried to think up all the ways I could get the rugged outdoorsmen archetype to fit into the game better. Some of it did involve the ability to scavenge food during Short Rests to make snacks for allies to eat and gain boosts. Moving over difficult terrain with ease. Guiding others to move easier/gain benefits on certain checks.

I found the end result is usually just doing stuff that the Ranger does as spells, but a bit more flavorfully since their natural talent and knowledge is no longer tied to spellcasting.

But on the whole I felt that kind of revealed the problem. A lot of the difficulties of exploration that are actually fun and relevant to playing the game are pretty much all solved through the use of magic. And you're left when trying to make flavorful nature based abilities that are not already covered by magic you get some pretty niche things. Which is where Ranger currently is.

[MaxWilson]

Well, for starter, Deflect Missiles require:

1. the Monk gets shot at with a ranged weapon
2. for the attack to hit
3. for the Monk to spend their reaction, which they may already have spent or are saving for an AO or the like
4. only works on one hit at most

So it's a kinda specific situation.


The fact that Deflect Missile doesn't eventually allow to deflect any ranged attack (weapon or not) and/or deflect multi-attack is quite sad.

Low level monk has this "Wait, is that even physically possible to do?" when you look at it from a realism point of view. IMO, high level monk should give the same feeling but scaled up by multiple orders of magnitude.

Because you only spend your reaction on a hit, it effectively does work against multiple attacks, especially if attackers have disadvantage from long range, monk being prone at more than 5' range, or Patient Defense. I've used it to win archery duels against e.g. squads of 7 hobgoblins in Tier 2.

[Morty]

The problem with the ranger's "wilderness focus" is that the game already has tools to handle wilderness exploration: the Survival and Nature proficiencies. Possibly others as well, but those are more situational. And rangers' supposed main selling point is basically an upscaled proficiency in Survival and Nature. So we end up with three possible situations:

1) Those skills don't come up. Maybe the party is in an urban or well-explored area and getting places isn't a problem. Or they get to a dungeon without much fuss. The ranger's features go unused.

2) Those skills come up, but someone proficient in Survival and Nature is enough to handle things, along with proper preparation and supplies. Ranger class features end up overkill and trivialize the entire challenge or just don't make a big difference.

3) Those skills come up and you need a ranger to properly navigate the wilderness. A party without a ranger is penalized.

"This class is better than anyone at two proficiencies everyone can take" just isn't a tenable situation. And that's without getting into how their field of expertise is rendered obsolete by spells, because that's a fairly universal problem.

[Makorel]

IMO, gathering plants to make potions and poisons should have been an explicit part of the Ranger identity, as this is one of the few "positive" parts of the exploration pillar, which is currently hidden in some corners of the rules (artisan's tool kits & DMG).

If there's two player behaviors that I am baffled by but see all the time it's the need to gather random crap from the environment and the need to have wild animals/monsters as companions, two things you would think the Ranger would be better at accomplishing.


Exploration, on a basic level, is anything that's not combat or interacting with NPCs. That means stealth missions, tracking, dungeon delving, scouting, and more. Basically any time you're interacting getting the DM to develop and tell you about the world via narration, that's exploring it. And I think there's enough there to work with to make the Ranger feel like a proper explorer.


To this day I'm baffled that "Dungeon" wasn't a biome for the Natural Explorer feature. It's by far the most likely place for a party to be so why wouldn't there be a Ranger for this sort of place? Granted many of the features for Natural Explorer don't work in a small scale dungeon but that makes it all the more astonishing to me that they would focus on the Macro of exploration over the micro for their mechanics considering how most games tend to go.

[paladinn]

I wonder if there has been a topic (or at least a class) that has had as many threads as this..

Kane0 and I spent a lot of time reworking the ranger a while back. Still not sure we had something that scratched everyone's ranger itch.

Personally I prefer spell-less. Ranger "spells" seem to be more extensions of class abilities; so are they really spells? But then what is left, if you trim all the ribbons, could work (better?) as a fighter subclass.