D&D 5E What is/should be the Ranger's "thing"?

[pming]

Hiya!

There's actually nothing in AD&D 1e that makes rangers light-armored or ranged warriors. The surprise abilities of rangers work equally well in plate armor and they do not have any specific skill with ranged weapons.

Yeah, the armor thing I was mixing up with Barbarian I think, where they are "better" (especially if they have high dex) wearing lighter armors. The weapons thing though, in the PHB you are correct...but I've always played with Unearthed Arcana as well; in there rangers have specific weapon requirements by level. They are also allowed to specialize as a Fighter in Long, Short or Composite bows, and Light Crossbows (as well as dagger, knife, spear, axe, and any sword-type). I guess that was where I was mentally adding-in the Bow/Missile thing.

Anyway...I haven't DM'ed 1e in about three years now, so I'm a bit rusty... and obviously have just gotten used to my "house rule assumptions". *shrug* No matter how you slice it, I still like the idea of a ranged, lightly-armored "wilderness scout" better than a dual-scimitar wielding quisenart of death.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[bedir than]

To me the Ranger, Barbarian and Druid are all wilderness experts of some kind. Simplistically, Barbarians are raw and primal, Druids see Nature as a god(s). The Ranger has been one that respects the power of the wild, that is friends with it and lives with a foot in civilization and the untamed lands.

They are the guardian of the frontier; one who communes with animals (beasts, unintelligent monstrosities). Their weapons should be those that are useful in survival situations (bows, axes, spears).

I prefer the mundane (Spellless) Ranger, though I could see certain Druid spells being granted abilities (Druidcraft and Goodberry for example).

A Ranger should be able to track their enemy through the Trackless Wastes. When they meet a hostile animal it should become neutral. When they meet a neutral it could become a friend.

They should develop bonds. In the cold of night they and their bond sleep, curled together for warmth. Their eagle scouts ahead. Their dog tracks along the ground. The bear they saved is muscle.

When they see an aberration, or a giant, there is not a desire to defeat them. There is a desire to end them. This isn't to bring safety to the civilized, it is to bring safety to the land, to the flock of geese, the herd of deer. These are their friends, their neighbors.

tl;dr

Fewer spells, by a lot
More companions and/or more powerful companions
Fluff that lives and breathes in mechanics.

 

[Obryn]

When the Exploration mini-game basically died, maybe the Ranger should have gone with it...

But let's work with it anyway. The core idea, and the Robin Hood and Aragorn types, resonate well. It's a more obvious class candidate than Sorcerers or Warlocks, imo. But it needs to be more than "fighter with bow" to justify its existence as a separate class.

I'd probably start from the 4e Hunter, if I were rebuilding the class. Give a Ranger plenty of sneaky wilderness capabilities, a ranged weapon focus, and cool special effects with arrows. See where that leads you.

 

[Hriston]

I wonder why they didn't work the errata for the errata for unarmed strikes (http://tencopper.com/article/2015/06/dnd-5e-unarmed-attacks-errata-phb/) into this 1.1 document. Maybe it's too late to change the printed PHB so they didn't change the errata either?

The errata document is specifically for the PH, and they've indicated that resistance/immunity to non-magical "weapon damage" will be dealt with in upcoming errata for the MM.

 

[fuindordm]

The "favored enemy problem" is when the class is too reliant on a certain enemy type to function that it forced the DM to constantly use them. Meaning if you make a goblin slayer, the ranger suck unless 50% of the fights have goblins in threatening numbers or power.

5th edition did as I suggested and made rangers combat power rely on monster fighting groups (hordes, solos, giants) so the DM isn't hogtied to a monster type or have a mad ranger player.

Favored enemy combat bonuses are bad.

Well, that problem is exactly why I suggested that the ranger be able to use their FE bonus on whatever monsters happened to be in the area. In that implementation the FE problem goes away. It also gives them an incentive to scout and to try to ambush a small group of monsters before getting into a big battle, which are both very "ranger-y" things to do.

The current implementation, where rangers get combat bonuses based on the type of battle going on, isn't bad. But for me personally, it feels bland. I remember opening the 3E PH for the first time and thinking the ranger was cool, and wanting to play one, because the FE mechanic was something I could hang a story on (before I knew about it problems). Reading the 5E ranger, the current mishmash of abilities left me with no strong impression of the class.

Anyway, to answer the OP again: for me, the ranger's schtick is being able to stalk and hunt down dangerous enemies, ALONE, and have a good chance of success. But it's more satisfying to me if the rules that reflect this provide an incentive to stalk and hunt, instead of just being always on (e.g. Colossus slayer, which works against non-colossi) or delivered through a bland spell like Hunter's Mark. Casting Hunter's Mark is not hunting.

 

[Hriston]

To me, Aragorn is a Fighter Champion with proficiency in medicine and survival. Kingsfoil is a feature of Middle Earth that interacts with an element of Aragorn's background to effect a cure wounds and lesser restoration effect, but isn't a class feature.

Seems kind of over-powered for a background. The ones in the PH don't confer spell-like abilities.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

The ranger is one of my favorite classes, and I believe that it's thing is not having a thing. But if the ranger really needs its own thing, then I think it's time for WoW to give something back, after stealing so much of D&D to create a viable universe. Make fighting with a pet the ranger thing and you'll have a pretty unique approach. But prepare, because threads with people complaining they want a "petless" ranger will abound.

 

[Hriston]

It seems like the Ranger may be that fighter that folks are discussing on another thread that has something to offer in the non-combat pillars. Favored Enemy is the expression of this, and I like Rodney Thompson's explanation of the design choice for it to not give a combat bonus.

•Favored Enemy was intentionally designed to provide no combat bonus, because the ranger’s strength in combat should not rely solely on the discretion of the Dungeon Master or the circumstances of the adventure. Although the Hunter archetype’s 3rd-level ability does rely somewhat on the nature of the foes being fought, Favored Enemy is generally useful in the interaction and exploration pillars of the game.

So FE is great for making the Ranger an expert on its chosen enemy, but it doesn't quite go as far as it needs to for the Ranger to be the best tracker in the game, which IMO should be the Ranger's main focus.

I'd actually like to see FE, or something like it, made available to other characters through a feat. In 1E most demi-human by default knew the languages of their most hated humanoid foes. Dwarves and Gnomes had their anti-giant abilities. All of this was very similar to the Ranger's abilities against the "Giant class" humanoids, and I tend to see the Ranger as having taken this feature of early D&D and made it onto its own class.

With that being said, I don't think FE goes far enough because of its narrow focus. A broader tracking ability that's not creature or terrain specific would be good. I don't think the Ranger has this beyond Survival proficiency, so maybe Expertise in Survival.

Another thing I'd like to see reflected in the Ranger, which I don't think any edition has done, is the tirelessness of Aragorn. Maybe an ability tied to tracking that allows the Ranger to forgo long rests and make forced marches without incurring exhaustion levels.

I don't have my PH with me, so if any of this already exists I've forgotten about it.

 

[Minigiant]

I disagree entirely.

Most of these could easily be class abilities and since when did rangers have chats with animals? There is communicating with animals and then there is having a chat. Druids should be able to actually speak with animals while rangers have basic communication.

Spells have always seemed tacked on but that was because instead of giving them class abilities back in the day, they just had spells. Rangers shouldn't have to stop and switch these abilities on or memorize them or pray or whatever, they should always be on.

Don't forget that rangers are supposed to be masters of the land, so they should be able to use different plants and things to heal, cure poisons etc...

Well you could make a set of class features for creating many of the effects of the ranger spells. The issue is D&D sucks at this and you would be hard pressed to do so without resorting to magic, locking away something that should not be, or upsetting the fanbase.


Either

• Rangers cast spells. Rangers can cast cure wounds, darkvision, locate animal or plant, conjure animals, etc... Rangers are spellcasters.
• Rangers create magic items. Rangers can create magic healing potions, crystal balls, goggles of the night, and summoning scrolls Rangers are pseudo-spellcasters like artificers.
• Rangers can do a few of the weaker, lesser supernatural abilities but not the advanced ones and it always works and they don't stack because of balance. Rangers can collect items to make potions, antitoxins, poisons, spike but cannot make crystal balls and magical arrows. Rangers can always find the ingredients to make the items, even in the Plane of Fire.
• Rangers can do a few of the weaker, lesser supernatural abilities but not the advanced ones and it don't always work and they do stack because of 'realism". Rangers can collect items to make potions, antitoxins, poisons, spike but cannot make crystal balls and magical arrows. Rangers can find the ingredients if the DM stays they are available. The range is screwed in the desert, the Plane of Fire or the Shadowfell unless he made 1000 potions ahead of time.
• Rangers can do very very small set of the weak non-magical abilities. Rangers are non-magical but weaker.
• Some other headache inducing thing.

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Overall the part that is off is the ranger needs more spells. Rangers rely too much on hunter's mark and to a lesser extent swift quiver and lightning arrow.

Rangers need more expolration spells and combat buff spells.

 

[Raith5]

I have never understood the angst or confusion about the ranger. I wish they called the class the hunter to capture the lightly armoured/ outdoorsy/ non magical/ skirmisher archetype, so as to avoid the whole "does it look like Aragon" line of questioning.

I quite like the story behind the quarry ability of rangers in 4e: you focus using your martial skill on one enemy and aim at its weakness. I think this makes more sense and avoids the problems of most favoured enemy as being the core of the ranger class. So if I were to pick one ability to match with the hunter like theme which appears inherent in the class (to me), some sort of quarry ability would be it.