Revised Ranger update

[UngeheuerLich]

The revised rangers were all terribly overpowered.
The ranger works well as is.
It just needs a downtime activity to retrain terrain or add a favoured enemy.
Hunters mark is not needed all the time. Same goes for hex.
If you use xanathar subclasses you even have plenty of spells. So just cope with it.

 

[Horwath]

Ranger is popular as concept.

As for balance, you compare paladin and ranger. Both martial half-casters.

Paladin blows it out of the water.

5.0 Ranger is like 3.0 Ranger.

Then look at 3.5e ranger. Most buffed up class in 3.0->3.5 revision.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

Oh well, I can wait until 2024 for 6e to give the class a better experience, I probably could homebrew something between the original Beastmaster Ranger and the revised version to make something acceptable to Ranger lovers. I think they were on the right track if there was going to ever be a revision, it just needed to be pulled back slightly power-wise.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is a UA ranger in one of my current games, and IMO they are horribly overpowered.

I hate the feeble implementation of "favoured enemy" in the PHB version though - this used to be a core feature of the class, it shouldn't have been nerfed into the ground.

If they wanted to go with "anyone can have a pet", it might have been nice to mention it in the DMG....

 

[Pauln6]

So if they aren't going to revise it, what minor tweaks can we make to at least improve them slightly.

For my part, giving rangers advantage on initiative the first round of combat in their favoured terrain looks fine as does +2 damage to their favoured enemies. I think allowing them to know Hunter's Mark without taking up a spell slot is a good shout. Allowing them to ignore natural difficult terrain in favoured terrain should be OK as a higher level class feature.

For Beast Masters, allowing them a Revivify Beast spell is a popular choice, as is sharing hit dice while resting i.e. Damage is restored to both Ranger and beast equally. Allowing the beast to train in two skills seems like a fun idea. Maybe adding half proficiency bonus to untrained saves is a good compromise? Allow Hunter's Mark to add to the Beast's damage as well as the Ranger.

Would they be tiny tweaks to help if not fix a few of the issues?

 

[Hussar]

Huh. Different strokes I guess. I've seen multiple revised rangers in my games. We've had four or five of the hunter rangers and one beast master. All worked pretty much as expected and no problems.

Not sure what the problem is.

 

[Ratskinner]

Huh. Different strokes I guess. I've seen multiple revised rangers in my games. We've had four or five of the hunter rangers and one beast master. All worked pretty much as expected and no problems.

Not sure what the problem is.

This is my experience as well. The Paladin on the other hand...

 

[Eric V]

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

You got that vibe from that tweet too, huh?

It's too bad. Revised Ranger was definitely a step in the right direction. Fortunately, it's finished enough for some minor tweeks.

Makes me less than confident about what they consider "fine" for a class moving forward...

 

[OB1]

Makes me less than confident about what they consider "fine" for a class moving forward...

Makes me much MORE confident, as they are making their decision off of actually data and play testing, rather than freaking out about what a small number of loud voices on the internet says about it. More companies these days would do well to take a lesson from WoTC in that regard.

Is Ranger one of the weaker DPR options? Sure, but D&D isn't so finely balanced that it makes a difference in play. You could have a party of 4 rangers and they would be fine in keeping up with level appropriate CR, encounters and encounter days.

The Hunter Ranger I DM for at 18th level has no problem shining multiple times every session (and rarely casts hunter's mark, there are more interesting things for him to do with his slots).

 

[Jester David]

When I added the revised ranger playtest to my game, two players immediately dipped. Which, I think says something about the ranger at level 1-3.

Looking at the PHB ranger, it really is unappealing at first level. Fighters get Second Wind and a Fighting Style, barbarians get Rage, rogues get Sneak Attack, paladins get nothing offensive but can heal, and rangers... Like the paladin, the rangers offence comes later, as both get Fighting Style at level 2. But while the paladin gets smite, the ranger gets... nothing. Favoured Enemy is an out-of-combat power, as is Natural Explorer, and they get no boost at second level. It's a harsh few couple levels.
But when you give it advantage to initiative and advantage on creatures that haven't acted yet, that's a solid bump for a class.

The beast master... that does need a little tweak.
The problem comes down to hit points: damage increased by 5 points per CR as does a wizard's hp with a Con of 12. At 4 hp per level, the beast is squishier than a wizard. And as it's Hit Dice are static, it cannot heal and is a drain on party resources. The fix: the beast gains an additional Hit Dice for each ranger level beyond 3 its master has. Then make it automatically stabilise when it drops to 0 and you're golden.