jmartkdr2
Hero
13th Age's solution, which worked well in my experience, was to make the pet the bulk of the ranger's power budget (2/3 talents). If my ranger had ever needed to fight without her pet spider, she'd be a mediocre-at-best warrior (think of a fighter without any features beyond fighting style).
I think something like that could work in 5e, but you'd need a really thin chassis to build off of - so the base ranger would have essentially just martial weapons, a fighting style, and expertise in a couple of skills. Magic, weapon tricks, pets, everything else would need to come from the subclass (or not).
I think something like that could work in 5e, but you'd need a really thin chassis to build off of - so the base ranger would have essentially just martial weapons, a fighting style, and expertise in a couple of skills. Magic, weapon tricks, pets, everything else would need to come from the subclass (or not).