UngeheuerLich
Legend
Depends how you read "up to".
Revised Ranger update
Depends how you read "up to".
Hussar
Legend
I dunno. My Forge Priest is pretty much identical to the UA one. It changed a single spell - Shield. That was it. And, as I understand it, many of the Xanathar's classes were pretty much verbatim what came out in UA.
CapnZapp
Legend
Now WotC just needs to publish it. Then I'll boom you.
CapnZapp
Legend
That's okay. I will explain to a certain level. If you still don't get it I don't think we can have a fruitful exchange, so I'm not losing out on anything worthwhile.
Edit: What Enevhar said.
ChameleonX
Explorer
BookBarbarian
Expert Long Rester
Kudos! That does look like a really good Ranger. It incorporates a lot of of the REvised this I like, but moves them to appropriate level, Actually has an Inspiring capstone, and good bonus spells for the PHB subclasses.
Hussar
Legend
Enevhar never actually said anything. All he did was repeat your point that there is some problem with multi classing the ranger. No actual specifics about what the problem is.
Again, for the umpteenth time, we played multiple rangers, some UA, some multi classed and none of them were ever a problem. So, where's the problem here? We just never had it happen. And since three times now you aren't willing to actually pony up and give what the problem is, I'm very much getting the sense that the problem probably lies somewhere between the chair and the table.
Chaosmancer
Legend
So, I know this was forever ago in this thread, but I felt this need to respond to this. In my experience, this is completely false. Every beastmaster ranger I have ever seen has wanted to take a named pet, such as Umber the Wolf from my most recent Ranger, and keep them going throughout the entire game.
In fact, losing Umber would have been utterly devastating to her character. Threatening Umber with damage or death was a tool used by many an evil individual, sometimes to great success. And, this was using the Revised Ranger (she initially didn’t want to go revised, but after a session or two as a PHB Beastmaster she asked to go ahead and shift over) which meant we all knew Umber could be easily brought back to life.
In fact, I’m very glad I had the revised ranger on hand. Because, after initially offering it and her not wanting to play it (she was very new to the game and figured sticking with the PHB options would be far less confusing) when she turned around and asked for a solution because the class was not performing the way she expected I had a ready-made solution. I didn’t have to take time and make a solution, which I probably would have done poorly. So, I’m keeping the Revised Ranger for myself obviously, I just don’t see a good argument not to.
People keep saying this, but it has not been my experience at all.
Sure, it can be fairly powerful if you multi-class or dip, but that is something I try to discourage in my games anyways. The player I’ve been talking about, she still was weaker than a lot of the other people in the party most of the time (Swashbuckler Rogue, Assassin Rogue, Zealot Barbarian, Moon Druid were some of the more notable ones) and I gave upgrades to her and her companion because of story reasons on a semi-regular basis.
Now I grant, humanoids as a favored enemy, that one goes. I’ll switch back to the PHB rule of “if you pick humanoid instead pick 2 or 3 humanoid types that this applies to” but other than that, nothing I saw in the Revised Ranger dominated. I think the game was lv 5 to 20, over two years, so maybe if we had started lower we would have had problems, but I tend to get us out of the low levels relatively quickly since 5th level is such a power spike across the board.
The problem, as I remember it being discussed over a year ago, was how front-loaded the Revised Ranger was for dipping.
Getting Advantage on Initiative, a handful of utility abilities, bonus damage on humanoids, and a few other things was a massive list of benefits from a very small investment. In particular, I remember people talking about dipping rogues for all those goodies, and how advantage on initiative was the Assassin's thing, and they got it at 3rd level so the ranger shouldn't get it so early.
However, I'm with you in that I've never seen it as a problem at the table. I've had far fewer rangers over the time the Revised Ranger has been out, but none of the multi-classed except maybe the Bard.
Actually, I think my bigger problem is how I almost never see the ranger using their spells. I specifically remember one fight in which the Ranger I've talked about above used Lightning Arrow, and the spell was so disappointing in damaging the horde of enemies that I think she never used that spell again. Too many of the ranger spells are highly situational or just not effective enough to warrant using, which is why the own thing I've consistently homebrewed is giving rangers a spells prepared list like the paladin, where they can prepare from their entire list per day, 1/2 lv + wisdom mod. I've never seen player actually take advantage of that versatility, but I feel better knowing they have the option if they choose to use it.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
I agree that's how a lot of people play it and it makes sense that people would be drawn to that. My point was more about how I think the designers were thinking about it, and how the class is built in terms of what's most effective.
The rule for replacing your companion is, "If the beast dies, you can obtain a new companion by spending 8 hours magically bonding with a beast that isn’t hostile to you and that meets the requirements." The Ranger starts with Speak with Animals and Animal Friendship on their spell list as first level spells, and they get locate animals as a second level spell. You can also better track animals at first level. This set of abilities tells me the intent was for the animal companions to be more disposable. It was anticipated you'd use them, and locate more as the need arose, on a fairly regular basis. In fact I think the intent was you would have many animal friends along with you, and only one at a time would be designated your companion.
As you mention, it hasn't worked out that way very often in actual play. But I suspect it was what the designers thought would happen. And, if played that way, I think the class becomes more powerful. The companion was supposed to protect you, and their hit points are essentially added to yours as a sort of buffer or temporary hit points, and it's mobility was supposed to be sort of temporary mobility for your abilities.. Instead it's become you as the protector of your companion, which can sometimes be more of a burden than a boon.
If the companion were a summoned spirit animal that simply re-appeared after a long rest if it died, I bet it would play dramatically differently. Even though, in essence, it can already be almost played that way if you don't bond to the companion.
