Ranger: Fixed? Or as broken as ever?

[Schwann145]

Between Xanathar's subclass options, and Tasha's swappable options, I think it's safe to say that most people consider the Ranger, if not "fixed," then at least massively improved and no longer a poor class choice.

I think I'd contend that nothing could be further from the truth.

The Ranger today is certainly more capable in combat, with options that work much better together and with fewer hiccups, than the Core Book Ranger. There's no denying that! But, did that fix the Ranger? Or did it simply make the Ranger a better Fighter?

If D&D is a combat simulator board game, then the Ranger is indeed "fixed."
But if D&D is a role-playing game with various other pillars, and the Ranger is intended to exist in more than a combat capacity, then nothing has really changed from the Core Rules, the Ranger isn't fixed, and the glaring issue (a lack of design for non-combat pillars) continues to exist and hold the class back.

[Kane0]

Well, at least they get climb/swim speeds and bonus action invisibility now, plus a handful of spells for free not counting new ones and the ability to add their Wis bonus to Cha checks on that one subclass.

So significantly better than nothing, but I think half of the Tashas features should have been additions rather than alternatives (Favored enemy and Natural Explorer in particular)

[Dork_Forge]

Well, at least they get climb/swim speeds and bonus action invisibility now, plus a handful of spells for free not counting new ones and the ability to add their Wis bonus to Cha checks on that one subclass.

So significantly better than nothing, but I think half of the Tashas features should have been additions rather than alternatives (Favored enemy and Natural Explorer in particular)

I agree with this, Tasha's options do apply to outside of combat too, but they shouldn't have wholesale wiped out the exploration stuff.

[SharkForce]

ranger spells can give them a decent amount of exploration power if they want it. I'm not seeing a huge problem.


and frankly, for all the talk about three pillars in D&D... that may be nominally true, but in terms of game design there is pretty much only one. or, to put it another way... in this game, it is perfectly fine to have a combat specialist who sucks at exploration and/or social capabilities, but there are no exploration or social specialists who are terrible in combat.

if exploration or social were pillars of equal importance to combat, it would be fine to have classes that weren't good in combat (or at least, just as acceptable as having classes that aren't good at exploration or social scenarios) provided they were good in another pillar.

[Amnestic]

I'm still dissatisfied with Ranger post-level 15, potentially level 11 depending on your subclass. Tasha's ACFs didn't address their high level features at all, and jumping out to something else is almost always going to be a net gain over sticking with pure ranger.

But if your campaign isn't going to be reaching high levels they're fine.

[Chad.e.clark]

and frankly, for all the talk about three pillars in D&D... that may be nominally true, but in terms of game design there is pretty much only one. or, to put it another way... in this game, it is perfectly fine to have a combat specialist who sucks at exploration and/or social capabilities, but there are no exploration or social specialists who are terrible in combat.

if exploration or social were pillars of equal importance to combat, it would be fine to have classes that weren't good in combat (or at least, just as acceptable as having classes that aren't good at exploration or social scenarios) provided they were good in another pillar.

Agreed, having more of an emphasis on acutal challenges related to exploration, as opposed to simple "roll a Nature/Survival check" goes a long way (but still not far enough) towards aligning exploration with the other pillars.

Same way as a social encounter is not merely "meet NPC...Roll your deception or intimidation or insight....determine pass vs fail....proceed to next challenge", so to should exploration be fleshed out a little more. The DM has to set the scene and encourage the players to bring their character to life without trying to railroad the players. Give the players options, give the players deadends, but don't give them anything if they cant sort through it all on their own with the information and opportunities provided to them. But the key is the DM *HAS* to provide said information and opportunities. As long as the DM is putting forth effort on that end, its up to the players. After all, what kind of adventurers are they if they cant trek through a forest and find the goblin encampment that bloke at the tavern was rambling on and on and on about?

The goal isn't to be a "gotcha!" DM, neither is the goal to present a game absent of struggle, challenge, and conflict; the goal is to help provide your part of a memorable story. The trek to the dungeon should have every chance to be as memorable as the dungeon itself. (Or maybe not? Maybe the party didn't have success with the exploration pillar and completely misses the dungeon. That sets up other adventure hooks for next session, too. )

In any case, its up to every person at the table to figure out how they can best contribute to the story to make it a story worth remembering and continuing til its end.

//rant

[Dienekes]

So, the issue as I think it is. Though, I’ll admit I haven’t seen a Ranger played post 11. Isn’t that the Ranger is weak, exactly, it’s that it doesn’t feel like anything to play.

Even the maligned release Beastmaster could get high enough damage to be relevant, provided you picked one of the few weird options available and don’t care if their pets get killed.

But people don’t want to play a dead pet treadmill, often are uninterested using flying snakes or wolf spiders as opposed to things like bears or other more standard creatures. And actually playing with the class originally did not feel like the pet had any autonomy or was anything other than a machine that the Ranger constantly had to manually order about. This makes it feel unsatisfying.

Which, is basically true to a lesser extent for the rest of the Ranger. Playing it, I don’t feel like Aragorn, or Drizzt, or Geralt. Any of the outdoorsy hunter types in fantasy fiction. It’s mechanical identity, as far as it has one is, cast hunter’s mark or some other generic feeling attack booster and then attack. And that’s just inherently less satisfying than Rage or Smite or fiddling with Ki Points. Even if the numbers are technically fine.

[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 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.

____

Now, the above is what I said on the matter back in early 2020. Do I still think that's true? Well, they have made some improvements, but it still feels like there's something missing at the core. It probably doesn't help that a lot of the changes are just poachable numbers buffs to its early game. Gloom Stalker, for instance, is just screaming "dip me" at Fighters. There's the Deft Explorer variant (which is supposed to be their answer to the Natural Explorer problem mentioned above) and it's better, but it's still on the bland side IMHO. Favored Foe is arguably even less interesting than the original Favored Enemy, it's just mechanically stronger.

The new Primal Companion still suffers from a failure to really fulfill that animal companion fantasy, still feeling like a badly programmed AI companion. And a generic cardboard cutout one, at that. They added in the "if you are incapacitated, it can take any action of its choice," line, yet that means I still can't have it do some basic, common sense dog things unless I am knocked out. Great. It feels like the Ranger's expert Beast Master guidance has brain damaged this animal, which is pretty much the opposite of how it should feel. And you can just straight up forget about being any of the badass Beastmasters of fantasy, like, say, Lyon the Beast King. That sort of stuff is just not on the table for you.

[stoutstien]

/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 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.

____

Now, the above is what I said on the matter back in early 2020. Do I still think that's true? Well, they have made some improvements, but it still feels like there's something missing at the core. It probably doesn't help that a lot of the changes are just poachable numbers buffs to its early game. Gloom Stalker, for instance, is just screaming "dip me" at Fighters. There's the Deft Explorer variant (which is supposed to be their answer to the Natural Explorer problem mentioned above) and it's better, but it's still on the bland side IMHO. Favored Foe is arguably even less interesting than the original Favored Enemy, it's just mechanically stronger.

The new Primal Companion still suffers from a failure to really fulfill that animal companion fantasy, still feeling like a badly programmed AI companion. And a generic cardboard cutout one, at that. They added in the "if you are incapacitated, it can take any action of its choice," line, yet that means I still can't have it do some basic, common sense dog things unless I am knocked out. Great. It feels like the Ranger's expert Beast Master guidance has brain damaged this animal, which is pretty much the opposite of how it should feel. And you can just straight up forget about being any of the badass Beastmasters of fantasy, like, say, Lyon the Beast King. That sort of stuff is just not on the table for you.

Probably the most apt description of the ranger's issues in 5e. It is sad that the fighter, which is supposed to be the generic martial class, has more identity than the ranger.
Mechanically they fall off a little bit in T3 but half the classes do so that is really a minor issue compared to the tin man feeling the class has.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The companion-autonomy thing is certainly odd, and makes even less sense for the Ranger than it does for, say, an Artificer... but I don't think there's much that can be done about it. Not without a complete rewrite that effectively turns the Ranger into a sidekick for their companion*. The power gap between "martial weapon proficiency and extra attack" and "level-appropriate combatant" simply isn't wide enough to fit a second action. That's why every permanent minion shares its actions with its master, so that the action economy is preserved.

-----------

The REST of the Ranger's issues, their interaction with the exploration pillar, is tricky in a different way. Ideally they'd have abilities that interact directly with the basic structure of the game-- messing with random encounter tables, boosting travel speeds, laying false trails for pursuers, stuff like that.

The problem is that there IS no basic structure for exploration. The vast majority is left up to the GM; the only universal rule that applies is ability checks. It's hard to writing meaningful class features when they'll be wildly overpowered at some tables and completely useless at others.

If you look at the revised Ranger in my Grimoire, you'll see that in play. I made the noncombat bonuses of favored enemy/terrain SIMPLER, but for the most part I wound up linking them back to the most complex pillar of the game--combat.

Tl;dr: the Ranger is a hard class to design because its main thematic focus isn't covered by the rules of the game.





*That's how the Summoner in my Guide is balanced. Your pet gets a full set of level-appropriate combat actions, but you don't. You're stuck with a crappy chassis and 1/3 casting.

[LudicSavant]

That's why every permanent minion shares its actions with its master, so that the action economy is preserved.

On the contrary, there are minions that don't work that way, such as the one granted by Find Greater Steed.

The companion-autonomy thing is certainly odd, and makes even less sense for the Ranger than it does for, say, an Artificer... but I don't think there's much that can be done about it

I think there's plenty that can be done. After all, minionmancy (and more generally, things that expand action economy) is not some insoluble novel problem, it's ground that has been covered, and covered well, by many games throughout the decades.

D&D 5e just makes a mess of it. The way minions are handled is inconsistent, janky, and restrictive ("only basic humanoid skeletons for Animate Dead, please"), and still fails to provide balance despite that, even in places that seem like it should be relatively straightforward (ex: balancing the different Animate Objects options against each other).

I really get the sense that they weren't sure what to do with minionmancy, as just about every new ability seems to try to come at it from a new angle. Animate Dead, Conjure Animals, Summon Greater Demon, Animate Objects, the Tasha's summons, each of the various Beastmaster incarnations, Simulacrum, Accursed Specter, Find Steed, Find Familiar, and so on and so forth all take different tacks, and many of those tacks seem unpolished. IMHO, minionmancy is a place where 5e dropped the ball.

[loki_ragnarock]

Between Xanathar's subclass options, and Tasha's swappable options, I think it's safe to say that most people consider the Ranger, if not "fixed," then at least massively improved and no longer a poor class choice.

I think I'd contend that nothing could be further from the truth.

The Ranger today is certainly more capable in combat, with options that work much better together and with fewer hiccups, than the Core Book Ranger. There's no denying that! But, did that fix the Ranger? Or did it simply make the Ranger a better Fighter?

If D&D is a combat simulator board game, then the Ranger is indeed "fixed."
But if D&D is a role-playing game with various other pillars, and the Ranger is intended to exist in more than a combat capacity, then nothing has really changed from the Core Rules, the Ranger isn't fixed, and the glaring issue (a lack of design for non-combat pillars) continues to exist and hold the class back.

I have a couple lines of thought on this:

1. The ranger was basically fine to begin with. Sure, there's some jankiness like Primeval awareness being worse when you're in your favored terrain, and that the ability itself is a pain in the ass for GMs who haven't thought about the full population of a 6 square mile area, and most of the higher tier abilities are pretty lackluster, but otherwise it basically does what it needs to do. It has identity that isn't covered by being a fighter or a rogue or a wizard or a paladin; it's it's own thing. A spellcasting martial polyglot with an anthropologist's understanding of various cultures with a smidgen of all sorts of esoteric knowledge; a guy who can fight and knows a surprising amount about the world, an outdoorsman because that's where the action is. He's no bard... but he's close in many ways, with a more martial focus than a spell casting focus. If you want to play that generalist adventurer, ranger hits the mark from it's inception.

1b. But not Beastmaster, which is a *mess.* It is such a missed opportunity, even when I'm being gracious towards ranger design. However, if you think of Hunter as the "Fighting Ranger" and Beastmaster as the "Utility/Exploration Ranger," it makes a little more sense... but the mechanics are still pretty gag me with a spoon, even in that context. Boo. It's hard to forgive 50% of the subclasses being bad from the inception.

1c. From the perspective of "The Ranger is basically fine," with the follow up of "Hunter = Fighting Ranger, Beastmaster = Utility/Exploration Ranger," most of the newer subclasses are somewhat disappointing. This isn't because they aren't better; the addition of a bonus spell list A++ tier thinking for diversifying theme between subclasses while adding additional utility. It's more because all of the follow up subclasses have also leaned into being - to mostly a greater, but sometimes a lesser extent - the "Fighting Ranger." Subclasses that focus in other areas are doing so almost as an afterthought... and that's pretty weak design for a chassis that screams "The Generic Adventurer." This aspect has been continually under addressed, and it's no wonder people think Ranger's have an identity crises when all the subclasses are mechanically tweaked variants of the basic idea; the "Force Damage Fighting Ranger" vs. "The Extra Attack In The First Round Fighting Ranger" isn't meaningfully diversifying the conceptual space.

2. People want the ranger to be umpteen specific thematic things. The fighting druid, the sans spell woodsman, a witcher, a trapper, a fighter rogue, the guerilla warrior, a strapping mountain man, a mundane survivalist - I've seen so many pitches for what rangers should be that I can only come to the conclusion that there is no clear consensus. Thus, the ranger will always have the criticism lobbed at it that it fails to live up to the idea of a ranger... except for the handful of people you managed to satisfy, this time. The other 80% will roll their eyes and say it missed the mark, again, because it didn't hit their specific conception of what appears to be a catch all word for a really wide variety of ideas. "Generic Adventurer" just isn't going to cut it for people looking for a very specific image.

2b. As a result, I think the "Generic Adventurer" theme is exactly what they should be leaning into; just put the building blocks in place so that most of those thematic ideas *can* be built around a ranger. That's what continues to be missing from the ranger design; the means to customize it into enough different, distinct shapes to let it hit the various fantasies.
And that would take a pretty hard rework, I suspect. The alternative class features in Tasha's are a step in the right direction (specifically for this class, I'm pretty meh about most of the book in general). They just need to step way more in that direction to make rangers mutable.

You can't please everyone with this class. Impossible; there are too many competing, often mutually exclusive visions. But you can give them the tools to please themselves.



3. Whoa. Ranger is way better now. Those subclasses really punched them up. Even Beastmaster is good at being a fighting ranger now.

EDIT:
Simultaneously:
4. Ah, jeeze. The original ranger sucks so bad. It sucks so, so bad.

Because I'm capable of holding conflicting ideas in my head at once.

[Sorinth]

I disagree that the ranger hasn't gained anything outside of combat. They got an extra skill, expertise, increased movement speed including swimming and climbing, and can recover faster from the effects of most environmental hazards (Often cause exhaustion). And in terms of subclasses, Gloom Stalkers are amazing scouts, Fey Wanderers have great social skills.

Yes how much the social or exploration pillar matter to a game is always going to depend on the type/style of game the DM. is running. But it's not like Ranger is the only class or build that depends on the type of game the DM is running, most classes have the same inherent issue the only difference is that it's probably more common for games to run games where the exploration pillar doesn't really matter.

[Psyren]

The companion-autonomy thing is certainly odd, and makes even less sense for the Ranger than it does for, say, an Artificer... but I don't think there's much that can be done about it. Not without a complete rewrite that effectively turns the Ranger into a sidekick for their companion*. The power gap between "martial weapon proficiency and extra attack" and "level-appropriate combatant" simply isn't wide enough to fit a second action. That's why every permanent minion shares its actions with its master, so that the action economy is preserved.

I get where you're coming from but I don't really buy that. Pet classes should have better action economy than non-pet ones, and that advantage can and should be balanced in other ways instead. The Starfinder Mechanic has a Drone pet that starts off being able to take very limited actions on its own, or you can trade your move action to give it a full rounds worth - that's a much better deal than being forced to spend your standard action for the pet to do anything, and it doesn't break the game. They were way too cautious with the Ranger in 5e.

[Abracadangit]

Between Xanathar's subclass options, and Tasha's swappable options, I think it's safe to say that most people consider the Ranger, if not "fixed," then at least massively improved and no longer a poor class choice.

I think I'd contend that nothing could be further from the truth.

The Ranger today is certainly more capable in combat, with options that work much better together and with fewer hiccups, than the Core Book Ranger. There's no denying that! But, did that fix the Ranger? Or did it simply make the Ranger a better Fighter?

If D&D is a combat simulator board game, then the Ranger is indeed "fixed."
But if D&D is a role-playing game with various other pillars, and the Ranger is intended to exist in more than a combat capacity, then nothing has really changed from the Core Rules, the Ranger isn't fixed, and the glaring issue (a lack of design for non-combat pillars) continues to exist and hold the class back.

I agree with you, concerning the Ranger. But at the same time... then isn't this a problem for almost all the classes in the game? Almost no one has what you would call a "social ability" with some exceptions, and most of those exceptions work like a charm spell. Very few classes have what you would think of as "exploration" abilities, and the ones that do (looking at you, Monk) catch a lot of flak for it, because it seems to eat into space designed for combat.

Part of the problem is that "exploration" is by itself an extremely nebulous concept. It seems to often mean "Everything That Isn't Explicitly Combat Or Social," which is... a lot. It might mean a hexcrawl-travel system like what Grod_The_Giant's working on now, it might mean platforming, it might mean puzzle-solving or using certain knowledge skills like an archaeologist or tools or a million other things. I'll be honest, I think even WotC is having a hard time coming up with what Exploration really means. Look at the Tasha's Ranger - it got an Expertise, bonus languages, and a climb/swim speed at level 6. Isn't that interesting? It's like a class-designing robot was tasked with making the Ranger better at exploration, and because even the robot couldn't really figure out what exploration meant, it gave the Ranger a grab bag of "explorationy" things and left it at that. And when they do give an outright exploration bonus/boost, like the Tireless thing where they can shed exhaustion on short rests, it feels... insubstantial, somehow. Doesn't it? Because so many DMs just don't bother with exhaustion, and so on.

Combat abilities ALWAYS feel like they'll be useful, because combat is always going to be a thing, but an exploration ability that gives you a swim speed feels like it's only going to be useful if you bump into water. A social ability where you can see through NPC's lies is only useful if you're in a game where one or more NPCs is going to lie to you, etc. I'm not giving WotC an out for not doing this, but I think the key is to give everyone exploration/social abilities at certain level milestones, so that way everyone feels like they have a part to play without eating into combat real estate.

Like let's say at levels 1, 5, 11, and 17, you can pick from a small subset of exploration/social abilities designed for your class. You get one exploration and one social. The level 1 abilities are really frilly, almost like background ribbons - like the Ranger's level 1 socials would be add your prof. bonus to Persuasion rolls when speaking with game wardens, forest guardians, and other rangery types, or add your prof. bonus to Intimidation rolls when cornering poachers or illegal trappers. Almost guaranteed to never come up, right. But then at level 5, the socials start becoming more robust - if you're holding a ranged weapon you're proficient with when you make an Intimidation roll, add your Dex mod as a bonus. (Think samurai's Elegant Courtier.) Or you get bird calls/whistles that you can use to compel Beast-type creatures to do things. Level 11, the abilities are even more substantial, and so on. These are just examples, but my point is that if they don't set aside some reserved space for fun exploration/social abilities, then it's eating into the other spaces, and then every class is going to devolve into a reappearing Monk thread scenario.

/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 they wanted the player to experience.

SNIP

I've spoken on another thread before, about this problem. Ever since everyone realized Favored Enemy wasn't very good, they've been scrambling to recover/regain the Ranger thesis ever since, and it seems like they're having a hard time doing it.

They clearly have very strict rules about what they're allowed to let NPC companions/minions do, and they're never gonna cross that line, so it seems like if you're playing a pet or minionmancy class, it's just never gonna feel like the fantasy, unfortunately.

There are a lot of directions they could lean in -- stealthy ambusher who fights kinda like a woodsy Batman, popping out of camouflage or hiding to deal a bunch of damage before disappearing again; enchanted forest guardian, who protects a given area/territory with traps or nature-magic sentries; demi-human who can assume the aspects of different animals for enhanced senses and tracking (thought it was odd Barbs got this before Rangers); but it seems like they're afraid to lean in any one direction for fear of alienating anyone who thinks the Ranger is X instead of Y.

I also think this is why the subclasses often don't land for me - as opposed to fighter or rogue or wizard, who are so thematically diverse, rangers are ALREADY kind of weird and unfocused, so their subclasses feel less like "Distilling This One Ranger Trope" and more like "We Don't Know Anymore So Here's Another Thing We Made Up."

[strangebloke]

Mechanically I've always felt rangers had a niche, being a half-caster martial specializing in area of effect spells and exploration utility. Their biggest problem was (and is to an extent) that they have very few spells known and thus don't really get to flex the utility side all that much without cost.

Fluff-wise? Subjectively I'd say the lone ranger who rejected civilization and forged a close bond with the land while hunting and fighting is pretty cool. But the mechanics are sort of mixed on this front. IMO its sort of indicative of a more general problem 5e has which I'll broadly refer to as "everything except combat."

What's been fixed is a lot of tertiary stuff. Its nice but probably not enough.

[Kane0]

2. People want the ranger to be umpteen specific thematic things. The fighting druid, the sans spell woodsman, a witcher, a trapper, a fighter rogue, the guerilla warrior, a strapping mountain man, a mundane survivalist - I've seen so many pitches for what rangers should be that I can only come to the conclusion that there is no clear consensus. Thus, the ranger will always have the criticism lobbed at it that it fails to live up to the idea of a ranger... except for the handful of people you managed to satisfy, this time. The other 80% will roll their eyes and say it missed the mark, again, because it didn't hit their specific conception of what appears to be a catch all word for a really wide variety of ideas. "Generic Adventurer" just isn't going to cut it for people looking for a very specific image.

2b. As a result, I think the "Generic Adventurer" theme is exactly what they should be leaning into; just put the building blocks in place so that most of those thematic ideas *can* be built around a ranger. That's what continues to be missing from the ranger design; the means to customize it into enough different, distinct shapes to let it hit the various fantasies.
And that would take a pretty hard rework, I suspect. The alternative class features in Tasha's are a step in the right direction (specifically for this class, I'm pretty meh about most of the book in general). They just need to step way more in that direction to make rangers mutable.

You can't please everyone with this class. Impossible; there are too many competing, often mutually exclusive visions. But you can give them the tools to please themselves.

Yeah I definitely ran into that each time I worked on Ranger fixes or overhauls. I settled on the modular approach, picking out class features like the Warlock does their pact boon. Spellcasting couldnt be done like that though.

[Garresh]

I have to agree with this threads consensus. Ranger combat abilities are fixed. They work now. But their out of combat features are still pretty much entirely dm fiat and broken because of it. I will say this isn't exclusively a ranger issue. They just have the worst of it. Exploration pillar is basically hand wavey bs in 5e. None of the abilities are integrated well into gameplay. And the classes flavored around this suffer as a result. Ranger is THE explorer. So they get screwed hardest.

[Naanomi]

They are markedly improved from the original model, but still feel like... something a fighter/rogue/druid with the right background could still do better at their core role efficacy

[Sorinth]

They are markedly improved from the original model, but still feel like... something a fighter/rogue/druid with the right background could still do better at their core role efficacy

Isn't that partly by design? Being able to build that super outdoorsman as a Ranger or Fighter or Rogue or whatever is no different then being able to build the holy warrior as a Fighter with right background, or a Cleric with the right subclass or a Paladin, etc...

[Dienekes]

Isn't that partly by design? Being able to build that super outdoorsman as a Ranger or Fighter or Rogue or whatever is no different then being able to build the holy warrior as a Fighter with right background, or a Cleric with the right subclass or a Paladin, etc...

Multiple ways to get the same role is good. But questioning why you would play X if you could just be Y with a background is not all that great.

To use the Paladin example. Of course, you could be a Fighter with Acolyte background, or Cleric with the Knight background and you'd get one way to play the character. But you won't be a Holy Smiter following the tenets of an Oath and providing positive auras to their allies.

While I'm certain someone might be able to come up with a way to describe the Ranger's playstyle as something unique. But I'm coming up blank.

[Psyren]

I have to agree with this threads consensus. Ranger combat abilities are fixed. They work now. But their out of combat features are still pretty much entirely dm fiat and broken because of it. I will say this isn't exclusively a ranger issue. They just have the worst of it. Exploration pillar is basically hand wavey bs in 5e. None of the abilities are integrated well into gameplay. And the classes flavored around this suffer as a result. Ranger is THE explorer. So they get screwed hardest.

I think their exploration pillar got a boost too honestly. Deft Explorer's climb speed is phenomenal when scouting as few creatures remember to look up, and works in all kinds of environments - forest branches, urban rooftops, mountain passes etc. And the free spells from Primal Awareness, even with the long rest limitation, give the ranger options that few other classes can match, certainly not as easily since they don't have to be prepared in advance.

[Sorinth]

Multiple ways to get the same role is good. But questioning why you would play X if you could just be Y with a background is not all that great.

To use the Paladin example. Of course, you could be a Fighter with Acolyte background, or Cleric with the Knight background and you'd get one way to play the character. But you won't be a Holy Smiter following the tenets of an Oath and providing positive auras to their allies.

While I'm certain someone might be able to come up with a way to describe the Ranger's playstyle as something unique. But I'm coming up blank.

I do understand your point but it's not like a Cleric can't make and follow the tenets of an oath, and their spellcasting can very much provide "auras" to their allies. Ranger's don't have that 1 big signature ability like Divine Smite, or Rogue's Sneak Attack, though I would argue that it does show up in the subclasses. Horizon Walker has their teleport before every attack, Gloom Stalker has their perma-invisibility, Beast Master is janky but they have their Beast, Swarmkeeper have their swarm, etc...

[Grod_The_Giant]

I get where you're coming from but I don't really buy that. Pet classes should have better action economy than non-pet ones, and that advantage can and should be balanced in other ways instead. The Starfinder Mechanic has a Drone pet that starts off being able to take very limited actions on its own, or you can trade your move action to give it a full rounds worth - that's a much better deal than being forced to spend your standard action for the pet to do anything, and it doesn't break the game. They were way too cautious with the Ranger in 5e.

I guess you could say "if you order your [companion] to engage in combat, you cannot take bonus actions until it stops fighting," but I don't think that's really better than the current bonus-action-to-attack paradigm. If you have any thoughts about how to fit a fully-autonomous pet onto a competent fighter-type, please throw them out there-- the current paradigm is certainly better than the original Beast Master, but it's certainly not ideal.

Part of the problem is that "exploration" is by itself an extremely nebulous concept. It seems to often mean "Everything That Isn't Explicitly Combat Or Social," which is... a lot. It might mean a hexcrawl-travel system like what Grod_The_Giant's working on now, it might mean platforming, it might mean puzzle-solving or using certain knowledge skills like an archaeologist or tools or a million other things. I'll be honest, I think even WotC is having a hard time coming up with what Exploration really means.

Even if you do explicitly focus on surviving-in-the-wild, it's hard. Exalted has massive lists of special abilities for every skill, including Survival... except that the vast majority of Survival charms have to do with enhancing an animal buddy. Skipping quirky dice tricks, I'm only seeing the following effects:

• Guaranteed foraging
• Animal Friendship, basically.
• Survive in hostile environments without penalty
• Basically ignore difficult or harsh terrain
• Track a foe even if they didn't actually leave a trail
• Hide yourself/an object from all senses as long as you/it remain immobile.
• Borrow some elemental powers from your environment.

Which sounds like a lot until you compare it to the 20-odd abilities for turning your pet into an unstoppable juggernaut, or to the dozen-plus unique new abilities in most other skills.

The problem with writing really robust wilderness exploration mechanics is that the basic concept overlaps too much with the core structure of most RPGs. The things that make a journey interesting--dangerous storms, hostile animals, fellow travelers, mysterious ruins in the middle of nowhere, etc--are the same things you usually want to play out as full scenes using normal rules.

[Kane0]

I sync up how Familiars, Animal Companions and Steeds work like so:

Spoiler: Summons

Show

Find Familiar
1st-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous

You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an animal. Choose a beast that is no larger than Tiny size and that has a challenge rating of 0. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the familiar has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of a beast.
Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. It acts on your initiative, but it cannot take the attack action.
When within 100 feet you can communicate with your familiar telepathically, and when you cast a spell with a range of touch you can have your familiar use its reaction to deliver the spell using your attack modifier.
As an action, you can dismiss your familiar temporarily or permanently. Temporarily dismissed familiars disappear into a pocket dimension where it waits until you summon it again as an action.
A familiar that drops to 0 hit points disappears, leaving behind no physical form.
While you have your familiar, you cannot recover the spell slot used to summon it.
If you cast this spell while you already have a familiar, you instead restore your familiar to its hit point maximum and can cause it to adopt a new form that meets the same requirements above.
At Higher Levels: If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, your familiar can be of CR 1/2 or lower and can be a beast of up to Small size.

Find Companion
2nd-level Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous

You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an animal. Choose a beast that is of large size or smaller and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the companion has the statistics of the chosen form.
Your companion acts independently of you on your initiative, but it always obeys your commands.
When within 100 feet you can communicate with your companion telepathically, and when you cast a spell with a range of self you can choose to touch your companion to also target them with that spell.
As an action, you can dismiss your companion permanently.
A companion that drops to 0 hit points disappears, leaving behind no physical form.
While you have your companion, you cannot recover the spell slot used to summon it.
If you cast this spell while you already have a companion, you instead restore your companion to its hit point maximum and can cause it to adopt a new form that meets the same requirements above.
At Higher Levels: If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the companion is up to CR 1/2. If you use a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the companion is up to CR 1. If you use a spell slot of 5th level or higher, the companion is up to CR 2.

Find Steed
2nd-level Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous

You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an animal. Choose a beast that is of large size (or medium if you are small) and that has a challenge rating of 1/2 or lower. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the mount has the statistics of the chosen form.
Your mount acts as a controlled mount, but it always obeys your commands. It acts on your initiative, but it cannot take the attack action.
When within 100 feet you can communicate with your mount telepathically, and while riding your mount if you cast a spell with a range of self you can also target your mount with that spell.
As an action, you can dismiss your mount permanently.
A mount that drops to 0 hit points disappears, leaving behind no physical form.
While you have your mount, you cannot recover the spell slot used to summon it.
If you cast this spell while you already have a mount, you instead restore your mount to its hit point maximum and can cause it to adopt a new form that meets the same requirements above.
At Higher Levels: If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the steed is up to CR 1. If you use a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the steed is up to CR 2. If you use a spell slot of 5th level or higher, the steed is up to CR 3.

So they all follow pretty much the same framework.

Artificer Steel Defenders, Druid Wildfire Spirits and Pre-Tasha's Animate dead and Conjure X spells operate on the bonus action command ala Summon X spells from Tasha's. These creatures are either not smart enough to act on their own or are generally not disposed to in the first place, requiring you compel them to act. If they don't disappear when you lose concentration/fall unconscious they will use their action to dodge, disengage or dash as appropriate.
Artificer Homunculi are basically special Familiars the same way that Chain Pact Warlocks can pick from other statblocks.

[Psyren]

I guess you could say "if you order your [companion] to engage in combat, you cannot take bonus actions until it stops fighting," but I don't think that's really better than the current bonus-action-to-attack paradigm. If you have any thoughts about how to fit a fully-autonomous pet onto a competent fighter-type, please throw them out there-- the current paradigm is certainly better than the original Beast Master, but it's certainly not ideal.

Why? I don't know that "full autonomy" is necessary until very high levels, if at all. I think Primal Companion looks fine, and I don't think it reduces a BM Ranger to their companion's sidekick.

[Abracadangit]

Even if you do explicitly focus on surviving-in-the-wild, it's hard. Exalted has massive lists of special abilities for every skill, including Survival... except that the vast majority of Survival charms have to do with enhancing an animal buddy. Skipping quirky dice tricks, I'm only seeing the following effects:

• Guaranteed foraging
• Animal Friendship, basically.
• Survive in hostile environments without penalty
• Basically ignore difficult or harsh terrain
• Track a foe even if they didn't actually leave a trail
• Hide yourself/an object from all senses as long as you/it remain immobile.
• Borrow some elemental powers from your environment.

Which sounds like a lot until you compare it to the 20-odd abilities for turning your pet into an unstoppable juggernaut, or to the dozen-plus unique new abilities in most other skills.

The problem with writing really robust wilderness exploration mechanics is that the basic concept overlaps too much with the core structure of most RPGs. The things that make a journey interesting--dangerous storms, hostile animals, fellow travelers, mysterious ruins in the middle of nowhere, etc--are the same things you usually want to play out as full scenes using normal rules.

Right you are, and I feel like after working on your own travel system, you probably know this better than most of us here. I tried doing something similar a while ago -- yours is way more polished and better implemented, but my general idea was to have something like your system for each "wilderness" area, in between a town and a proper dungeon. Didn't have to be literal wilderness -- could be a battlefield, a thief-infested slum, a merchant's trade road linking cities, etc, but just some large area where encounters can happen, and it's not a dungeon.

Random encounters (that weren't outright combat or social interaction with an NPC) were typically very quick, with one or two decision nodes and skill checks. "You see a bronze statue of a swordsman, weathered with age. It looks like there was something written near its base, but corrosion and verdigris make it difficult to read. What would you like to do?" Skill check or spell to clean it up, then skill check to make sense of the inscription, say the right thing and a little drawer pops out with a fencing manual for any melee bruiser to take and read.

My point is that if you have a lot of quick, one-or-two-check encounters in the "Wilderness" areas, you have a lot of room to cram in fun things like knowledge skills, navigation/survival, speaking languages, platforming, and so on, but so often it seems like people like the big Zelda-style set pieces in dungeons and then don't need "exploration" skills for anything else, so then it's hard to figure out what to do with them.

The other nice thing about making a system like yours is then you can riff character abilities off the system mechanics. Like Rangers could have an ability that, after a successful Survival check, allows the caravan to move at double speed for one turn without penalty, while Wizards could have an ability that doubles the rate of Mysterious Encounters (i.e. statues, tiny ruins, altars) for one turn. If we can make the levers, then class abilities can bank off the levers, but right now there's either no levers or levers that don't hold much (like the Ranger's original PHB incarnation which hand-waved their own wilderness survival system).

But I think WotC knows that everyone would scream a lot if they tried implementing something like that, so they're just not gonna. Can't say I blame them.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why? I don't know that "full autonomy" is necessary until very high levels, if at all. I think Primal Companion looks fine, and I don't think it reduces a BM Ranger to their companion's sidekick.

My apologies--I thought you were expressing dissatisfaction with Primal Companion type minions.

Right you are, and I feel like after working on your own travel system, you probably know this better than most of us here.

And you'll note that what I had wasn't really a set of mechanics, either. Hexes and random encounter tables go back to the Gygax/Arneson days, and the rest is just "make a survival check to see if you get lost.". Interesting events will still use the typical full-game rules.

[Quietus]

I sync up how Familiars, Animal Companions and Steeds work like so:

Spoiler: Summons

Show

Find Familiar
1st-level conjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous

You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an animal. Choose a beast that is no larger than Tiny size and that has a challenge rating of 0. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the familiar has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of a beast.
Your familiar acts independently of you, but it always obeys your commands. It acts on your initiative, but it cannot take the attack action.
When within 100 feet you can communicate with your familiar telepathically, and when you cast a spell with a range of touch you can have your familiar use its reaction to deliver the spell using your attack modifier.
As an action, you can dismiss your familiar temporarily or permanently. Temporarily dismissed familiars disappear into a pocket dimension where it waits until you summon it again as an action.
A familiar that drops to 0 hit points disappears, leaving behind no physical form.
While you have your familiar, you cannot recover the spell slot used to summon it.
If you cast this spell while you already have a familiar, you instead restore your familiar to its hit point maximum and can cause it to adopt a new form that meets the same requirements above.
At Higher Levels: If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, your familiar can be of CR 1/2 or lower and can be a beast of up to Small size.

Find Companion
2nd-level Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous

You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an animal. Choose a beast that is of large size or smaller and that has a challenge rating of 1/4 or lower. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the companion has the statistics of the chosen form.
Your companion acts independently of you on your initiative, but it always obeys your commands.
When within 100 feet you can communicate with your companion telepathically, and when you cast a spell with a range of self you can choose to touch your companion to also target them with that spell.
As an action, you can dismiss your companion permanently.
A companion that drops to 0 hit points disappears, leaving behind no physical form.
While you have your companion, you cannot recover the spell slot used to summon it.
If you cast this spell while you already have a companion, you instead restore your companion to its hit point maximum and can cause it to adopt a new form that meets the same requirements above.
At Higher Levels: If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the companion is up to CR 1/2. If you use a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the companion is up to CR 1. If you use a spell slot of 5th level or higher, the companion is up to CR 2.

Find Steed
2nd-level Conjuration
Casting Time: 1 minute
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Instantaneous

You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an animal. Choose a beast that is of large size (or medium if you are small) and that has a challenge rating of 1/2 or lower. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the mount has the statistics of the chosen form.
Your mount acts as a controlled mount, but it always obeys your commands. It acts on your initiative, but it cannot take the attack action.
When within 100 feet you can communicate with your mount telepathically, and while riding your mount if you cast a spell with a range of self you can also target your mount with that spell.
As an action, you can dismiss your mount permanently.
A mount that drops to 0 hit points disappears, leaving behind no physical form.
While you have your mount, you cannot recover the spell slot used to summon it.
If you cast this spell while you already have a mount, you instead restore your mount to its hit point maximum and can cause it to adopt a new form that meets the same requirements above.
At Higher Levels: If you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the steed is up to CR 1. If you use a spell slot of 4th level or higher, the steed is up to CR 2. If you use a spell slot of 5th level or higher, the steed is up to CR 3.

So they all follow pretty much the same framework.

Artificer Steel Defenders, Druid Wildfire Spirits and Pre-Tasha's Animate dead and Conjure X spells operate on the bonus action command ala Summon X spells from Tasha's. These creatures are either not smart enough to act on their own or are generally not disposed to in the first place, requiring you compel them to act. If they don't disappear when you lose concentration/fall unconscious they will use their action to dodge, disengage or dash as appropriate.
Artificer Homunculi are basically special Familiars the same way that Chain Pact Warlocks can pick from other statblocks.

How does this interact with the beastmaster subclass? Do you just eliminate it? Because you have made the Paladin's steed 100% superior to the ranger's beast companion.

[Witty Username]

I agree with this, Tasha's options do apply to outside of combat too, but they shouldn't have wholesale wiped out the exploration stuff.

What exploration abilities did the Ranger lose that actually effect a game?