Ranger's "Smite": Unerring Accuracy

[Trask]

Right now in the 5e forum there's a long thread about the Ranger's class identity which brought up many interesting points of comparison. One of particular interest to me is the comparison between the Paladin and the Ranger as sort of "mirrors" of each other, an idea going all the way back to AD&D where they were both subtypes of the Fighter. But while the Paladin class' design enjoys a lot of praise from this community, the Ranger class does not. There are many possible reasons for this, including the belief that the Ranger is not a good concept for a class (which I disagree with), but I think its because the Ranger lacks an iconic and awesome feature like Divine Smite, and that Paladins never got Divine Smite we'd be having the same discussion about them.

So here's my stab at providing the Ranger with a "smite-like" feature without actually just copying Divine smite and giving it elemental damage or whatever. The Ranger's "smite" shouldn't be focused on pure damage anyways, but something that speaks more to the class' fantasy. I'm going for to-hit here to help simulate being a keen-eyed and blazing fast marksman or swordsman.

*Note that I do not take sole credit for coming up with this idea, as I'm pretty sure I saw it first here on GitP before, I just don't remember where. I'm simply re-introducing it as I thought it was a great idea and this is a good time to revisit ideas like this.

Unerring Accuracy

Starting at 2nd level, when you make a weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to roll dice and gain a bonus to the attack roll equal to the total. You can use this feature after you make the attack roll, but before the DM tells you whether you hit or miss. The bonus is 1d4 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d4 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 4d4. If this bonus would make your attack roll score 20 or higher, you score a critical hit.

Pretty simple, and a great way to eat up the Ranger's spell slots on something that feels both impactful and Ranger-y, but it'd be great to good a few more seasoned eyes on this proposed feature to assess its quality An alternate idea could be to increase the die size one step rather than increasing the number of dice rolled, but that could get pretty swingy. Also maybe at level 11 you could add a 1d8 damage die when used.

I really like this feature concept because it feels instantly like a Ranger feature to me and it achieves an elegant parity with the Paladin. The one weakness I think I can see in it, possible balance issues aside, is that its pretty indifferent to TWF. This would encourage Sharpshooter Rangers like crazy (which is fine) but its not quite as good for melee Rangers.

[Yakk]

Roll a pool of dice and pick the best one, don't add.

You end up with infinite accuracy without that. And it is good enough without infinite accuracy.

I've had it deal both damage *and* boost accuracy however. So you expend a slot and roll 1d4 per slot level. The highest adds to accuracy, and all add to damage.

A 4th level slot is then ~+4 to hit and +10 to damage.
A smite, in comparison, is +0 to hit and +22.5 to damage.

Die size could also scale if you want it to. If it scales, I'd make the high die accuracy and damage, or pick an accuracy and a damage die from the pool.

Unerring Accuracy:
Starting at level 2 when you make an attack you can expend a spell slot to increase your accuracy. Roll 1d4 per slot level; pick any of the dice to increase your to hit roll, and any die to increase the attack's damage, but not the same die for both.

At level 5 your Unerring Accuracy dice increases to 1d6, at level 9 to 1d8, at level 13 to 1d10 and at level 17 to 1d12.

...

So at level 17, you can expend as 5th level slot for rolling 5d12, taking the best 2 for a bonus to hit and damage.

By having it scale with both Ranger and Slot level, this rewards higher level rangers (as opposed to ranger-dips).

[Kane0]

*Note that I do not take sole credit for coming up with this idea, as I'm pretty sure I saw it first here on GitP before, I just don't remember where. I'm simply re-introducing it as I thought it was a great idea and this is a good time to revisit ideas like this.

Heh, was it me?

Unerring Precision
At 2nd level, when you make a weapon attack you can expend one spell slot to roll an extra two die and add the result to the attack roll, potentially turning a missed attack into a hit. These extra die are d4s for a 1st level spell slot and increase in size for each spell slot above 1st, to a maximum of d12s.

Was a few years back though, probably just coincidence.


Your version looks like a very easy (if not effiicient) way to crit-fish, which Rangers can take advantage of with things like Subclass bonus damage (Dreadful Strikes, Planar Warrior, Colossus Slayer, etc), Crusher/Piercer/Slasher, Hunter's Mark and access to Searing Smite thanks to Tasha's, even before multiclassing shenanigans.
So that's a valid niche! You'd want to playtest it but I think it's an idea worth pursuing. Yakk's idea of only one die for accuracy and the rest for damage is also a great alternative, but that takes away the crit-fishing and shifts it closer to a smite-but-different.

[Yakk]

To me, crit-fishing is a bit risky, in that it scales mainly with non-ranger features.

Ie, more multiclass bait.

[Kane0]

Yeah it absolutely would be, but i dont really mind of everyone already has good reasons to dip pally 2, rogue 2, barbarian 2, fighter 2, and so on. Its not so much the classes, its the multiclassing, this just makes ranger just as lucrative as the others (for wis characters compared to cha for pally)

[Deepbluediver]

@OP
That would probably get the job done mechanically, I'm just wondering if there wasn't something more interesting we could do with it.

Every other melee class has SOMETHING to boost damage- the Fighter gets extra actions and extra-extra attacks; the Barbarian has rage and brutal crit, the Paladin has smite; all of the Gishes (Bard, Monk, other achetypes) have spells to either substitute or add versatility, etc etc etc. And the Ranger always felt like it was missing something. I'm just wondering if there isn't anything else we could do that would make it feel more-different from the Paladin's Smite; i.e. add MOAR dice to your roll.
Like, for example, there's a Fighter Archetype called Arcane Archer and it's abilities basically let you add damage and SLAs to your ranged attacks, and part of me feels like that should have been similar to some kind of Ranger class-ability. I haven't played it in a game yet, but it feels like a Fighter with that Archetype would be a better ranged-attacker than the Ranger, which is kind of yet another example of the other classes eating the Ranger's porridge, again.

The one weakness I think I can see in it, possible balance issues aside, is that its pretty indifferent to TWF. This would encourage Sharpshooter Rangers like crazy (which is fine) but its not quite as good for melee Rangers.

What about an extra clause like, "if you are dual-wielding, you add 1d2 to your next two attacks instead"? Alternatively, "add 1d3 to your next attack and then 1d2 to the attack after that before the end of your turn", if you felt 1d2 wasn't enough of a boost to your main attack.

Roll a pool of dice and pick the best one, don't add.

You end up with infinite accuracy without that. And it is good enough without infinite accuracy.

I've had it deal both damage *and* boost accuracy however. So you expend a slot and roll 1d4 per slot level. The highest adds to accuracy, and all add to damage.

A 4th level slot is then ~+4 to hit and +10 to damage.
A smite, in comparison, is +0 to hit and +22.5 to damage.

I feel like that is actually a pretty workable mechanic. I mean, as far as you can get anyway when you're just rolling dice. Maybe let you roll 1 larger dice as you level up, to keep it from being soft-capped at a +4 to hit.

Ie, more multiclass bait.

Is that... bad? I feel like 5E tossed multiclass-casters a plum by having all spell-slots auto-stack, but Melee multi-class kinda got sent to the doghouse. Some of the wacky multiclass builds people came up with in 3.5 where my favorite part of that edition. Yes some of the could be pretty broken (assuming you had lenient GM), but not any more broken than what casters could do naturally anyway. I'd love to see more support for multiclassing in 5E by changing abilities to scale by ECL instead of class-level.

[Yakk]

Sure, but most martial PCs have poor back-10 features.

I'm ok with the feature being a good one to dip. But I think a Ranger 20 should be better at Ranger tricks than a multiclass PC.

Like, imagine:
Divine Smite: When you cast a paladin spell on your turn with a spell slot, the next time you make a melee weapon attack you hit with before the end of your next turn you deal an extra 1d8 radiant damage per slot level (max of 4d8 from a 4th level slot).

If the target is undead or a fiend, the damage is increased by +1d8. If you are 5th level, the damage is increased by 1d8, 2d8 at 9th level, 3d8 at 13th level and 4d8 at 17th level.

This is crazy good, arguably better than divine smite. You can bonus action smite spell, then stack divine smite on it, and ka-pow.

It doesn't crit fish as well, and it stacks with Paladin levels better than non-Paladin levels. Also, it really encourages you to cast bonus action Paladin spells every round, instead of hording for smiting.

You could even remove the cap on the initial smite.

The key part is, while it is still fun to dip, adding paladin class levels adds more smiting than non paladin class levels.