D&D 5E [+] Rangers should have monster fighting spells equivalent to Paladin's Smite spells. Discuss!

[doctorbadwolf]

I think the Ranger has been suffering ever since D&D adopted a skill system. "Master of the Wilderness" has just become a less and less niche thing anyone has been able to do since 2E NWP's and being the Two Weapon Fighter/Archer isn't enough of a niche in this edition.

The Ranger has improved ever since then. Master of the wilderness was never a sustainable class niche outside of the Druid.

What the Ranger suffers from in 5e is just design mistakes. Like that’s genuinely it. It’s full of features that just mechanically are not good.

If favored enemy, natural explorer, hide in plain sight, foe slayer, and whichever other ones, were all mechanically strong features, we wouldn’t have all these threads.

(And I gave Barbarians the option to replace Reckless Attack with a fighting style, as Reckless Attack is a sort of fighting style by itself)

I don’t hate the idea of a Reckless Fighting Style.

 

[Corinnguard]

If favored enemy, natural explorer, hide in plain sight, foe slayer, and whichever other ones, were all mechanically strong features, we wouldn’t have all these threads.

What are your thoughts on the optional Ranger class features from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything? When I designed my first Ranger character I decided to use those optional features instead of the ones provided by the PHB. They are much better than the originals IMO. Less niche and situational.

 

[Horwath]

Maybe at higher levels.

Level 1: change favorite enemy on a short rest
Level 5: change favorite enemy in 1 minute
Level 11: change favorite enemy as an action
Level 17: change favorite enemy as a bonus action

But the main issue with 3e style favorite X is how inflexible it is. Allow it to change, and it's useful.

anything above Bonus action is same as current favorite enemy, you cannot count on it 100% in combat.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What are your thoughts on the optional Ranger class features from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything? When I designed my first Ranger character I decided to use those optional features instead of the ones provided by the PHB. They are much better than the originals IMO. Less niche and situational.

Favored Foe is absolutely worse than nothing. It’s an active detriment to the character. A ribbon feature about vaguely knowing about monsters would be several times more useful. It’s one of the worst features the 5e Ranger has ever had. It’s literally never worth using instead of any other concentration spell or feature.

Deft Explorer is good, but I would like it a lot more if it were broken into at least 3-4 “environments” that each give a different primary benefit that is broadly useful but still feels themed to its environment, along with 1-2 ribbons like “you are acclimated to high altitudes and extreme cold”, or “you can hold your breath for 10x con score minutes”, for each enviroment.

Pair that with a very universal benefit like expertise in 1 ranger skill and 1 of a list of tools (navigators, herbalist kit, cartographers, vehicles, etc).

Hell, or just take the tool section of Xanathar’s and give Ranger-specific versions of those uses and advantage situations and whatever for a collection of tools and give rangers jack of all trades.

My replacement feature for natural explorer is a list of invocation style Wilderness Knacks.

The higher level replacement features are all improvements. Primal Awareness is good but also kinda dumb like…just take Primeval Awareness and remove the spell slot expenditure.

My Favored Enemy is instead Ranger’s Bane. You get a Quarry Die that you can pick a target and apply the die to damage against them as part of the attack action or reduce thier saving throw or attack roll by the number as a reaction, and you learn a number of Banes, which are poisons that target creature traits in order to be effective against either a wide range of enemies or a smaller range of more powerful enemies.

anything above Bonus action is same as current favorite enemy, you cannot count on it 100% in combat.

Incredible level of hyperbole.

Being able to change your favored enemy on a long rest is a vast improvement on “cannot change ever” or “can change when you gain a level”.

Not being relevant every combat every day guaranteed forever is not a serious design consideration.

 

[ECMO3]

But there are spellcasters that cannot cast Fireball or Cure Wounds.

I've never played a 5E Wizard or Sorc that had Fireball in their arsenal. A few of them did have the spell in a scroll or wand though. Ironically the only caster I played that could cast this spell was a light cleric.

IMO there are so many good 3rd level spells, there is not usually room for fireball.

Also most of my Wizards are controllers looking to limit an enemies options or steal actions. Like you said, damage is not their thing.

I also almost never have Cure Wounds prepared unless I have it always prepared through the metallic Dragon feat. My Clerics have healing word instead. Using HW to yo-yo downed allies is a lot more efficient than getting into touch range and using an action to heal them for 2 more points.

 

[Undrave]

Only TWO likes on my brilliant parody? Man my talent is wasted

 

[Corinnguard]

My replacement feature for natural explorer is a list of invocation style Wilderness Knacks.

The Ranger class in Level Up has a feature called Exploration Knacks. You start out with two of them at first level, and then you gain a new Exploration Knack at every even level. There are about 17 of these Knacks. Each of them provides a minor exploration benefit.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

The Ranger class in Level Up has a feature called Exploration Knacks. You start out with two of them at first level, and then you gain a new Exploration Knack at every even level. There are about 17 of these Knacks. Each of them provides a minor exploration benefit.

i mean really every level up class has some equivalent to them but they're called different things depending on the class.

 

[Corinnguard]

i mean really every level up class has some equivalent to them but they're called different things depending on the class.

True. They're mostly a minor customization feature.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The Ranger class in Level Up has a feature called Exploration Knacks. You start out with two of them at first level, and then you gain a new Exploration Knack at every even level. There are about 17 of these Knacks. Each of them provides a minor exploration benefit.

Yeah Star Wars 5e does that too, and collectively calls the type of feature an “invocation” while giving each class a specific name for their brand of invocations.

I bounced off Level Up, as it kinda does all the stuff I don’t want from a more “advanced” version of 5e, so my inspiration comes more from Warlock Invocations, Artificer Infusions, and 4e Wilderness Knacks.

I was working on similar features for my monk rewrite, but with the playtest monk I’m not sure I’m even going to do a monk rewrite, and if I do it will use the revised monk as the basis.