I am surprised no one mentioned the Glass Jaw Saving Throws. For any stat that is a dump stat, you are better at the saving throw at low levels than at high levels due to the foes that you face. Even if you have a +2 in a non-proficient saving throw, you are stuck with that +2 for 20 levels unless you invest via ability score increases, magic items, or feats. Seems like a flaw in the game that neither 1e, 2e, 3e or 4e had. Your saves always increased a little bit as the character gained levels. For the save or suck spells and effects/traps this flaw is really glaring. I would have like to have asked Mike if this was design as intended or if it was an unintentional byproduct.
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D&D 5E Mike Mearls' AMA Summary
- Thread starter Morrus
- Start date
Man, you would have hated original AD&D rangers -- they could only be humans or half-elves, they had to be of good alignment, and their explicit role was not as protectors of the wilderness, but protectors of those travelling from civilization into the wilderness. No surprise that many saw this class as heavily influenced by Aragorn from "Lord of the Rings" (though the designers denied this, likely for legal reasons).
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Pauper
I'm well aware of the AD&D Ranger and its inspirations thank you very much. And they were not 'nature paladins' at all, unless you consider 'good guys' paladins. The implied fiction is that they were rugged outdoors types that specialized in working in the wilderness for the good of society and protected others from the dangers of the deep wilderness. Not that they were some sort of pseudo-druids who worshiped nature and such.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
[MENTION=17607]Pauper[/MENTION] I know all of that old school info, and I played a handful of rangers in 3.5 and 4e (pre-3e I was all about bards and rogues). I'm not particularly concerned with when the animal companion became part of the Ranger's identity. Just a quick note, though. The BM option came into 4e exactly because people felt it was part of the ranger's identity, and spoke up to that effect when wotc put out a ranger with no companion. The ranger has a pet in 5e in part due to that, in part bc people wanted it when surveyed, and in part bc the pet is part of the identity of the concept, in TTRPGs and video RPGs, from WoW to Dragon Age and beyond. I don't care what the identity used to be, I care what it currently is.
One of the most requested changes in DDO for years was giving rangers a pet, until finally they gave rangers quicker access to a decent summon animal spell, and put a feat in the game to boost summoned and controlled allies. Even still, a lot of people want there to be a specialization that boosts use of that feature for rangers.
Beyond all that, the revised class functions really well, is very fun to play, and surveys well with the broader DnD playing base. All on it's own, no need to multiclass. The hunter sits just fine alongside the newer conclaves, and fills a different role from them. It does what people want from a ranger, and does it well.
Have you actually played it, or been at a table with it?
One of the most requested changes in DDO for years was giving rangers a pet, until finally they gave rangers quicker access to a decent summon animal spell, and put a feat in the game to boost summoned and controlled allies. Even still, a lot of people want there to be a specialization that boosts use of that feature for rangers.
Beyond all that, the revised class functions really well, is very fun to play, and surveys well with the broader DnD playing base. All on it's own, no need to multiclass. The hunter sits just fine alongside the newer conclaves, and fills a different role from them. It does what people want from a ranger, and does it well.
Have you actually played it, or been at a table with it?
It's odd that you should spend so much time defending the premise that the ranger *now* has this as its identity given that you don't seem to care *when* that happened. My point is simply that it happened at a point where not everyone sees it as a given that rangers should have animal companions, and some folks who do see those two things as connected don't care for the source of that connection.
From a mechanical perspective, it's much simpler to balance a class whose primary feature is a 'pet' -- see the World of Warcraft Hunter class and similar MMO classes for an example. (And, this is a good reason why the DDO Ranger never got that degree of a rework -- it wasn't designed that way from the beginning, making it difficult to fudge such a thing in afterward.)
I have a ranger, but have only played him up to 3rd level to this point. Most of my experience comes from others in my area who play rangers, all of whom play hunters, and almost every one of whom is desperately hoping for a free rebuild if/when the Stalker Conclave becomes AL legal.
Ironically, the few people who are Driz'zt fans in my area build their Driz'zt clones as rogues, not as rangers, because they don't see the animal companion as central to their concept of the character -- they just want to wield two weapons and deal imperial butt-loads of damage.
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Pauper
No, I consider them 'nature paladins' because...
...they had ridiculous stat requirements (though they didn't require a 17 in anything)...
...they could lose their class abilities if they stopped being good-aligned...
...they could only own the gear they could carry themselves and/or store on their mount...
You might not have played them in the campaign as paladins, but mechanically, they were the closest thing to a paladin that wasn't actually a paladin.
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Pauper
Yes, and in AD&D Ranger and Paladins where basically fighters++. This was the old school way enforcing a rough kind of 'balance' on these classes. They were hard to get into with stat requirements (but paradoxically, once achieved benefited quite a bit from these "requirements"); were based on "good" archetypes or organizations (Holy Knights, and Aragorn & co.), thus the good alignment and loss of abilities on deviation from such (to keep you from playing too far against type); and the restrictions on possessions (To simulate a vow of poverty type of holy order, and a ranging wilderness adventurer who lived out of his saddle bags). Fortunately, D&D has moved on from these type of Roll Playing Restrictions as balancing and archetype enforcement.
And in the post you quoted, I was specifically praising a mechanically similar approach, while decrying the thematic/story symmetry of "As Paladins are to Clerics, so Rangers are to Druids" type attitude.
BookBarbarian
Expert Long Rester
This is still what a Ranger is to my mind.
OB1
Jedi Master
I see this as a feature, not a flaw. I like that powerful PCs (and monsters) still have weaknesses that they need to work around when preparing to face powerful enemies. And as you say, you can choose to invest in ASIs or feats, can quest for magic items, or, one thing you didn't mention, use teamwork to overcome. In the Tier III campaign I am currently running, it's what forces the PCs to stay on their toes even against enemies several CRs below their level, and forces them to make sure they understand the capabilities of their enemies before they fight them.
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