D&D 5E Ranger as Prestige Class

[Yaarel]

Ranger can make sense as a Prestige Class.

The Ranger Prestige Class grants ‘favored terrains’, with tracking, sensing activity, gaining combat abilities, whenever in ones favored terrain. Terrains include Urban, Forest, Mountain, Plain, Arctic, Coast/Seafaring, plus exotic terrains with DM approval such as Underdark/Dungeon, Aquatic/Waterbreating, Ethereal, Astral, or so on. The Ranger also as a kind of scout, grants bonuses to allies to help them function effectively in a favored terrain.

Multiclass the Ranger Prestige Class with a Fighter, for a classic Ranger experience, for a nonmagical hunter and elite special ops military concept.

Multiclass the Ranger Prestige Class with a Rogue, for Stealth, and Dexterity combat for Archery missile attacks and/or two-weapon fighting.

Multiclass the Ranger Prestige Class with a Druid, for nature warrior spellcaster.

Possibly, the Druid class itself can have an animal companion / spirit animal that replaces the Wildshape feature. Otherwise, animal companion is optional as a ‘treasure’, as a ‘feat’, as a ‘spell’ like Find Familiar, or even as a prestige class. Levels in the prestige class determine prominence of animal in combat, but in any case allows animal to advance across all 20 levels.

The Ranger Prestige Class is designed to make multiclassing with several classes effective: Ranger/Fighter/Rogue/Druid/Wizard.

 

[Jester David]

I believe 3e's Unearthed Arcana included variants of the ranger, bard, and paladin as 15-level prestige classes. Those always made sense to me.

 

[Mercule]

I'd be warm to the idea. In the other thread, I cracked about going back to the core 4 classes (give or take) and having everything else as a long PrC. I'm still not sure whether I'm serious or not. It's definitely worth consideration.

There's definitely a case to be made for Ranger, Paladin, et al. continuing to have subclasses, though. I'm really, really not sure what I think about that. There's a certain fractal elegance to it, but it seems like it could be brittle: I'm a 5th level Fighter (Eldritch Knight), 4th level Ranger (Stalker), and 3rd level Runecaster.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Make it rangers prestige classes and it is good. Survivalist (nonmagic), Hunter, Beast Master, and Shaman. It makes a lot of sense. From a design standpoint, beast master is a problem at low levels, but less of one at high levels. The consequence of the low level's nerf carries through and becomes problematic as you increase in level. If you had to be level 7 or 8 to be a BM, then there is no design need to nerf it. Favored enemy and favored terrain (which I am thinking would go with survivalist) have more value at low levels and don't really scale up very well.

The ability to deal with spirits (shaman), having a pet (BM), or being an archery monster (hunter) all seem like they could fit just about any class at the small price of maybe having to be a little MAD.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ranger can make sense as a Prestige Class.

Overall you make a reasonable case.

Maybe some things the Ranger has done in the past could be better done with a PrC.

Spell-casting, for instance, in the classic game, came at higher levels (8th IIRC). If the Ranger re-design ends up not including spell-casting per se, or if you wanted to use the UA spell-less ranger or some variation thereof, you could /also/ have a PrC that can fairly seamlessly replaces some ranger levels, and grants ranger-specific spellcasting (as opposed to just MCing Druid).

The Ranger Prestige Class grants ‘favored terrains’, with tracking, sensing activity, gaining combat abilities, whenever in ones favored terrain. Terrains include Urban, Forest, Mountain, Plain, Arctic, Coast/Seafaring,

Those all sound more like things a character could have from 1st level on, more like Background than PrC.

plus exotic terrains with DM approval such as Underdark/Dungeon, Aquatic/Waterbreating, Ethereal, Astral, or so on.

These, OTOH, sound more like PrCs, something that's appropriate to pick up outside of Apprentice Tier. But in addition to a Ranger class rather than as a replacement for it.

Multiclass the Ranger Prestige Class with a Fighter, for a classic Ranger experience, for a nonmagical hunter and elite special ops military concept.

Multiclass the Ranger Prestige Class with a Rogue, for Stealth, and Dexterity combat for Archery missile attacks and/or two-weapon fighting.

Multiclass the Ranger Prestige Class with a Druid, for nature warrior spellcaster.

Those sound good, but sound just as good with Ranger as a full class, IMHO.

The Ranger Prestige Class is designed to make multiclassing with several classes effective: Ranger/Fighter/Rogue/Druid/Wizard.

Are they that ineffective in 5e?

 

[Alex-]

I disagree. There's nothing prestigious about a Ranger. /ducks


Seriously, though, the prestige class for Ranger is King. Look what happened to Aragorn.

The Rangers of the North -of which Aragon was a high ranking member- were a rather prestigious and exclusive group. All of them were high men from Middle Earth's version of Atlantis. When they called for them in the final battle, they could only get together a few dozen of them.

And before 3E, you needed to meet specific stat requirements to even qualify for being a Ranger. Same with Paladin.

So having them be prestige classes (or subclasses) would make perfect sense. I doubt they'd officially go that route, however, sicne many people are used to the idea of them being base classes that you can play from level 1.

 

[Minigiant]

Terrible idea

Mostly because those who dislike the current one cannot agree what a high level ranger that doesn't suck looks like.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I like this idea, it reflects the original idea of needing stat scores of a certain level before one could be considered.

Especially with standard array or point buy methods, most characters won't be able to qualify until they've gained a few levels.

If you're running a FR game using factions this could be incorporated into a prerequisite, perhaps:
- Harpers - enable your Rogue to Bard, or Fighter/Rogue/Nature or Tempest Cleric to a non-BM Ranger
- Emerald Enclave - enable your Rogue/Nature Cleric/Fey Warlock to a BM Ranger, your Cleric/Fighter to Oath of the Ancients Paladin
- Order of the Gauntlet - enable your Cleric/Fighter to Paladin
- The Lord's Alliance - enable your C/F to Paladin; perhaps Rogue to City a Favoured Terrain Ranger?
- Zhentarim - trickier. Is there a "prestige" Rogue? Would you say Assassin would count? Or perhaps they only allow power and influence rather than class features.

 

[MoonSong]

I'd be warm to the idea. In the other thread, I cracked about going back to the core 4 classes (give or take) and having everything else as a long PrC. I'm still not sure whether I'm serious or not. It's definitely worth consideration.

I could get behind it, if you just made wizard the prestige class and sorcerer the base class.