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

[steeldragons]

I'm not a fan of the Beastmaster and I definitely agree with you that the animal companion should not be the core of what makes the Ranger unique. I think you're overlooking the obvious precedent however of the 1E Ranger's followers at high levels. There was a chance that the Ranger would attract a bear or a pair of blinkdogs, giant lynxes, or giant owls. Not the same, I know, but perhaps the seed of the idea.

Perhaps. But, no, not the same.

We (and others) are all in agreement: The Ranger base class should NOT include/be defined by an animal companion. A subclass dealing with this particular archetype for players that want it is sufficient.

So what's with the pushback?

And then there's always Silver, the animal companion of that famous masked man, the Lone Ranger.

edit: I also think a good case can be made for Tarzan fitting the Ranger archetype pretty well, and he had Cheeta.

I had, in fact, thought of Silver, though I'll admit Tarzan had not come to mind. I dismissed Silver as an example based on my view of "Westerns" (and the same for whatever genre you want to consider Tarzan) not being a "Fantasy" archetype with which D&D should have any concern...imho.

I'll give you Brego and Aragorn...yet the paladins got the "loyal steed" and the rangers, in 1e, had nothing to do with animals (beyond the druidic magic, at level 8, having access to the Animal Friendship spell). 2e brought in their proto-animal empathy and the animal/fantastic beast followers.

POINT IS, and several of us agree, the Animal Companion as a central defining feature for the BASE class of Ranger would be a mistake. It would be narrowing and unnecessarily constraining to the archetypes of ranger...in the 5e format and design philosophy, it would be a BAD thing. Which is nice to see since I was only saying something (perhaps too strenuously) to refute those few posts that said they thought/wanted the Ranger to have an animal companion "by default"/"the pet class". That is something I VERY much disagree with and would find detrimental to the class and game as a whole.

SO, for anyone on the design team poking around on ENworld [HI GUYS/GALS!], I wanted to make sure they understood that that is a distinctly MINOR view of what people want from the Ranger...and, to the thread topic of the OP at hand, that "animal companion" is not on MY [and judging by the amount of XP I've gotten for it, others] list of what "makes" a ranger a ranger/their defining trait.

 

[steeldragons]

But that's not what people want.

They want Super Forest Ninja and Wolf-Tank who act independently, don't come from spells, doesn't take months to replace, and have no XP penalty.

And that AINT happening.

Thank the gods. We can certainly hope not!

 

[Kobold Stew]

This is well said. The "beast master" is a great theme for a ranger subclass, but not for the main class itself.

 

[Mephista]

So much angst. So much hate. Let me ask y'all this - Who here is actually a Ranger fan? They're the people that should be having input on the matter. If the ranger fans overwhelmingly want a beast to be default, then, by hell and high water, we should have it. If the fans are split, or its a minority? Then there shouldn't.

Just as the Fighter fans wanted a simple Fighter type first and foremost, it was delivered. Psionics fans got their own class, instead of nay-sayers feeling that it should be a subclass (I was among the ones happiest with subclasses, but I admitted to not being a fan that particularly cared about it as a class). In the end, all classes should be aimed at pleasing their number 1 fans.


Ranger is actually my number 4 favorite class, after the 'lock, pally, and bard, and then followed by an eldritch knight / spell sword type with elemental daggers. Yes, in case you haven't noticed, spell-and-blade types are my personal favorites.

 

[Minigiant]

So much angst. So much hate. Let me ask y'all this - Who here is actually a Ranger fan? They're the people that should be having input on the matter. If the ranger fans overwhelmingly want a beast to be default, then, by hell and high water, we should have it. If the fans are split, or its a minority? Then there shouldn't.

Just as the Fighter fans wanted a simple Fighter type first and foremost, it was delivered. Psionics fans got their own class, instead of nay-sayers feeling that it should be a subclass (I was among the ones happiest with subclasses, but I admitted to not being a fan that particularly cared about it as a class). In the end, all classes should be aimed at pleasing their number 1 fans.


Ranger is actually my number 4 favorite class, after the 'lock, pally, and bard, and then followed by an eldritch knight / spell sword type with elemental daggers. Yes, in case you haven't noticed, spell-and-blade types are my personal favorites.

Its more that many ranger fans want thing that if implemented would either make the class unable to function OR would have unintended consequences they would not like.

Its the "there's a reason why we don't have super wizards anymore" argument.

 

[Mephista]

Its more that many ranger fans want thing that if implemented would either make the class unable to function OR would have unintended consequences they would not like.

Its the "there's a reason why we don't have super wizards anymore" argument.

Which totally explains why we have summoners and necromancers that can send out hoards that completely destroy the action economy. Or that we have Fighters slaughtering everyone in combat with -5/+10 feats. Meanwhile, the pact of the blade is crying with its inability to keep up with most others, without heavy levels of optimization from the optional feats/multiclassing.

People like freaking out over these things, but you know what? Balance is already across the board with different options. More than anything, the class needs to be FUN first and foremost. Exact numbers can be dialed back after the design is fixed. Otherwise, we end up with a lackluster class that no one wants to play. And that's bad.

 

[Minigiant]

Blade warlock complainers are in the same boat as beastmaster complainers and spell less ranger complainers. They want to do something which is probably broken.

Necromancer fans just got lucky and their broken thing wasn't caught before release.

 

[Yaarel]

I think one of the things that would help the Ranger's companions is if they "level" in similar ways to cantrips or extra attacks. This could be by adding quantity of pets at certain tiers, or powers of pets at certain tiers.

D&D needs a good way for ALL NPC party members to be able to level. If your adventurer has a buddy, a hireling, a pet, or any kind of NPC, this NPC needs to be able to fight alongside your adventurer, and be able to level up when your adventurer levels up.

 

[Yaarel]

If the fans are split, or its a minority? Then there shouldn't.

If fans are split on any feature, then ideally there needs to be options to make it easy to be either with or without that feature.

 

[Minigiant]

If fans are split on any feature, then ideally there needs to be options easy to be either with or without that feature.

Indeed
The issue is the classic ranger, the mundane ranger, and the pure beastmaster have little in common. You can't make them into the same class without making the name "ranger" meaningless. Its wizard/sorcerer/warlock and fighter/warlord/barbarian all over again.

Maybe its time to create new classes: the scout and the beastlord.