UnadvisedGoose445
First Post
The old Ranger was underpowered. The beastmaster was extremely underpowered. I played a 13th level Ranger Beastmaster in a one-shot game and the Ranger needed the companion to do anything resembling reasonable damage, and then was still behind the Fighter by a considerable margin. However, the companion spent most of the time near death and having to be protected, which put the Ranger even further behind. It also consumed a ton of resources in healing and buffs just to make it semi-viable.
The UA Revised Ranger is now about middle of the road for the character classes. So please don't encourage any nerfing.
As for "dipping", I don't think it is that big of a problem at most tables. Sure munchkins and powergamers might play that way, but most players don't. Nerfing a class to spite powergamers is what crippled the Ranger in the first place. All that said the simple fix is to just switch Natural Explorer and Primeval Awareness.
Primeval Awareness at 1st level just lets you avoid some animal encounters in a very flavorful, rangery, way and know the general direction and distance of your favored enemies. And conveniently the Ranger gets Favored Enemy at 1st level. Plus since it no longer requires a spell slot there is no need to wait till at least 2nd level when the Ranger gets spells.
This moves Natural Explorer to 3rd level, which is when you choose a Ranger conclave. This is a significant investment into a class. Consider that 3rd level is when primary casters are getting 2nd level spells, the Fighter is getting Improved Critical, Combat Superiority dice or spells and the Paladin is getting immunity to disease, Oath spells, and Channel Divinity. By 3rd level a class is truly supposed to come into their own, so this is a good level for Natural Explorer.
I LOATHE that Multiclassing is literally the only reason we must do this, but for those concerned about it, this is the best, most reasonable, and cleanest "fix" to the issues. If Sorcerer's don't get Metamagic til level 3, pushing off Natural Explorer until 3 isn't going to kill anything.
Or, if need be, as others have suggested, we can move the combat benefits (advantage on initiative and attacks against creatures who haven't acted yet) to Primeval Awareness at 3. I guess always being the first to act and always more "alert" would go along with "Primeval Awareness" though, in terms of matching fluff.