Revised Ranger update

pukunui · Jul 29, 2018

Looks like the revised ranger might be dead.

Jeremy Crawford just posted this on Twitter:

pukunui · Jul 29, 2018

Also this:

Parmandur · Jul 29, 2018

Well, good riddance. The revisions never seemed to add much, and the Class works as is. More focus on other options is a good development.

jgsugden · Jul 29, 2018

There is a bit of a fallacy at play here... the class has a historic popularity that lends it to being played, even if it isn't 'balanced' AS WELL as other classes. In a campaign with efficient PCs, the ranger struggles to match up. Does it need to be fixed? No. Of course not. It may struggle, but it isn't a joke. It can be played. But tht does not mean it would not benefit from a revision.

Jester David · Jul 29, 2018

jgsugden said:
There is a bit of a fallacy at play here... the class has a historic popularity that lends it to being played, even if it isn't 'balanced' AS WELL as other classes. In a campaign with efficient PCs, the ranger struggles to match up. Does it need to be fixed? No. Of course not. It may struggle, but it isn't a joke. It can be played. But tht does not mean it would not benefit from a revision.

There's always going to be a "last place". One class is always going to end up being the least popular or seen as the least powerful.
If they "fix" the ranger, then someone else just takes its place.

Plus, it was really an issue in 2015 when the older players and grognards were a larger percentage of the audience. The optimizers who looked and the ranger and found it unappealing. Now, a couple years and several million new players later, that segment of the audience is a much smaller minority. And the percentage of the audience that is happy with the ranger and is playing it as-is has increased.

Eubani · Jul 29, 2018

I personally was fine with the class it was just the Beastmaster I thought needed more polish.

pukunui · Jul 29, 2018

I personally don't have a problem with the beastmaster, although I must admit that it doesn't appeal to me. Not a big fan of pet classes myself.

My main issues with the PHB ranger have to do with Favored Terrain, Natural Explorer, and Primale Awareness. I think those features are a bit wonky. While the revised ranger fixed some of the issues I had with them, it introduced new ones. For instance, Primal Awareness went from being next to useless to a DM's nightmare. Natural Explorer also became far too front-loaded.

I can't say I'm particularly satisfied with any version of the 5e ranger. However, I can't really bother homebrewing my own version, so for my games, I've just stuck with the default PHB one. One of my players is playing a half-elf hunter ranger, and she seems to be enjoying it, so who am I to judge?

KenNYC · Jul 29, 2018

I DMed a bunch of adv league and all the ranger players played the same: take Hunters Mark (or whatever that is called). That to me said there was something wrong with the design that every player played it the exact same way. When they released a pdf of UA Ranger I played some sort of underground ranger, that allowed me to roleplay being obsessed with Drow (they killed my one true love apparently). Consequently, I went heavy into using Detect Magic and it served the party quite well. I never hunted a mark, or marked a hunted.

The class doesn't need to be as powerful as everyone else, but this class, druids, and assassins all need a good DM who will come up with material to make the class shine. These classes have strong theme--stronger than your central casting wizard or warlock, and you can have them thrive in settings. The DM just has to put the work in.

Enevhar Aldarion · Jul 29, 2018

Seeing his comment at the bottom of the first tweet pictured, I think he must have been secretly reading the posts about the Ranger here. lol

CapnZapp · Jul 29, 2018

pukunui said:
Looks like the revised ranger might be dead.

Jeremy Crawford just posted this on Twitter:

Well, frak them.

The PHB Beastmaster is useless and a pet without its own action is shíte.

Their success is getting to their heads with that dismissive and condescending tweet.