Do we still expect the Revised Ranger and Artificer this year?

[Parmandur]

Mearls said the following in his AMA on Reddit late last year, since this the Ranger has gone back a bit, and the Artificer has been hinted at lately:

"Hoping for ranger and artificer in first half of the year, mystic depends on a deeper revision to give it a clearer identity, driven by settings like Dark Sun and what it would need."

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/7kuzsa/ama_mike_mearls_dd_creative_director/#drhcpei

 

[lkj]

So, in Happy Fun Hour, Mearls went on a tangent to talk about the revised ranger. And I no longer expect any new UA in the near term. He said they are planning to do another 'State of the Game' survey this fall and will look to see whether people still feel the same way (now that the game is more mature and there are more supplements out).

He didn't come out and say it directly. But it sounds an awful lot like they'll wait to see the results of that survey before doing anything more with the Ranger. Which would probably mean this winter at the earliest.

I mean, who knows, they might try another round before the survey. But given the way he answered the question, I wouldn't hold my breath.

AD

 

[AtomicPope]

We've been using the UA Beastmaster and it's working quite well. The way to balance for Beast attacks is to give Beasts magic items. When a Beast companion has a "Flaming Sword", giving their attacks a bonus to hit and damage with extra dice of fire damage you'll find the DPR isn't a problem anymore. Just like with the TWF the problem lies in the magic items. A GWF will get one awesome great weapon, but a TWF won't get two awesome weapons. Artifacts don't come in pairs.