D&D 5E Ranger

[Joe Liker]

So far, I see a lot of armchair charops completely ignoring spells and one person who has actually played a ranger saying it's great.

Whom to believe ... whom to believe ...

 

[Stalker0]

So far, I see a lot of armchair charops completely ignoring spells and one person who has actually played a ranger saying it's great.

Whom to believe ... whom to believe ...

I still remember when 3e came out...and everyone was like "Have you looked at the monk...my god are they powerful! How could WOTC allow such a class!"


And....we all know how that turned out.

Rangers are not fighters...they are spellcasting warriors in this edition. Time will tell if their spells give them enough to be competitive.

 

[CrusaderX]

Rangers are not fighters...they are spellcasting warriors in this edition. Time will tell if their spells give them enough to be competitive.

So...who's the better spellcasting warrior in 5e? A Ranger or an Eldritch Knight?

 

[greymarch]

I still remember when 3e came out...and everyone was like "Have you looked at the monk...my god are they powerful! How could WOTC allow such a class!"


And....we all know how that turned out.

Rangers are not fighters...they are spellcasting warriors in this edition. Time will tell if their spells give them enough to be competitive.

We dont need time to tell if ranger spells will make them competitive. We have the spells right in front of us, in the PHB. We already know that ranger spells help, but they are not enough. Rangers, even with their spells, are fairly weak in 5.0 combat.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

How does Colossus Slayer work exactly what does it do?

 

[Runny]

In our DnD Next group the ranger was consistently our top damage dealer. Also, the ability to cast cure wounds is huge.

 

[was]

I liked the hordebreaker option that gives them an extra attack if another enemy is within 5' of the first target.

 

[Uller]

We dont need time to tell if ranger spells will make them competitive. We have the spells right in front of us, in the PHB. We already know that ranger spells help, but they are not enough. Rangers, even with their spells, are fairly weak in 5.0 combat.

Have you actually played the class in a handful of games at varying levels and situations? We have a poster saying the class worked great in their group. This reminds me of the Rogue/Archer thread where everyone focused on DPR and forgot about how the class actually works as part of a party.

While it's fine to look a class over and and try to do some comparisons to help decide what kind of character to make, it's hard to make such definitive statements until you've seen it at the table.

 

[lordbadguy]

For the beastmaster ranger, does the mastiff still have the special attack that adds advantage and 2d6+2+PROF damage to the next attack against that enemy? Because advantage goes a long way for claiming that -5/+10 sharpshooter bonus. And Crossbow Expert sets you up for two Mastiff+CrossbowBolt combos at level 11.

Just number crunching that'd put a level 6 ranger hypothetically at (assuming 20 dex like the number crunching in page 2)
2d6+5+1d8+5+ (10)
7+4.5+20
31.5 (21.5 without sharpshooter)

Once you actually get to level 11 (admittedly, this trick would require 2 feats: Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert)
Action: 2 attacks -> 1 Attack + 2 pet attacks, use your bonus action for another ranged attack (crossbow expert), for a total of 2 attacks and 2 pet attacks (Using a hand crossbow at this point)
2 * ( (2d6+6) + (1d6+5+10) )
2 * ( (13) + (18.5) )
2 * ( 31.5 )
63 (43 without sharpshooter)

This is just number crunching from my notes on the alpha, but it seems like even without taking the Sharpshooter bonus damage the ranger does better than demonstrated in page 2.

 

[Dausuul]

We dont need time to tell if ranger spells will make them competitive. We have the spells right in front of us, in the PHB. We already know that ranger spells help, but they are not enough. Rangers, even with their spells, are fairly weak in 5.0 combat.

A player reading the 3E monk could have said the same thing.

I'm with Joe Liker. Between the theorycrafters and the person who's seen an actual ranger in action, I'll go with the latter. (Not that there's anything wrong with theorycrafting, but there are limits to what one can do with it; it's fine for DPR calculations, but judging the utility of a complex spellcasting class is another matter.)