Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: The ranger, revised... overcompensation?

[phantomK9]

Natural Explorer I agree with a lot of the sentiment about the combat abilities, they are not too powerful, but thematically it seems like they would be more at home under Primeval Awareness.

Primeval Awareness Mabye its just me, but not only would I move bonus to Initiative here, but I would also move the communicate with beasts thing over to the Beast Conclave (not happy about "Conclave") to make sure that all things "beast" are part of that class.

Fleet of Foot actually seems kind of week for an 8th level ability. Rogues get the ability to Dash, Hide or Disengage as a bonus action at much lower level. Perhaps here add in the combat ability of not being slowed by terrain and maybe even increase movement speed? Lot's of possibilities, but definitely more needs to be added.

Favored Enemy has definitely improved although I'm not sure if I like +2 / +4 to damage. To clarify, I love that extra damage was added in, it should have always been there, but I would prefer additional dice like +1d4 / +1d8. Or even better, damage dice that scale up with your proficiency bonus, so +1d4 at level 1, +1d6 at level 5, +1d8 at level 11....etc. etc.

The rest of it doesn't strike me as problematic at all. Some word clarification is surely needed, but all-in-all I'm very happy about what they did with the Ranger.

 

[OB1]

Primeval Awareness Mabye its just me, but not only would I move bonus to Initiative here, but I would also move the communicate with beasts thing over to the Beast Conclave (not happy about "Conclave") to make sure that all things "beast" are part of that class.

Favored Enemy has definitely improved although I'm not sure if I like +2 / +4 to damage. To clarify, I love that extra damage was added in, it should have always been there, but I would prefer additional dice like +1d4 / +1d8. Or even better, damage dice that scale up with your proficiency bonus, so +1d4 at level 1, +1d6 at level 5, +1d8 at level 11....etc. etc.

Really like the idea of moving the communicate with beasts over to beast conclave. It makes up for their loss of the more utility type animals from the original and fits thematically. If a hunter wants to do the same thing, they can take the spells for it.

And strongly agree on using dice instead of static bonus for favored enemy and the damage dice scaling with prof bonus.

 

[Mistwell]

By the Way:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?495782-UA-Ranger-Up] The Thread Cache[/url]

(just push enter into the address bar after you click the link)

I tried going to page 37-38 for my original response, but it was lost.

This is why I normally view 100 posts per page instead of the default 10 or whatever it is.

I believe you can view each page of that thread by simply adding to the end /pageX where X = page number.

Example of page three

 

[bedir than]

If the combat related features of Natural Explorer move elsewhere than the Scout no longer gets them. The Scout is designed to get those.

 

[Lord Twig]

Natural Explorer I agree with a lot of the sentiment about the combat abilities, they are not too powerful, but thematically it seems like they would be more at home under Primeval Awareness.

I have come around to this way of thinking as well. Instead of swapping the level of Primeval Awareness and Natural Explorer, just move the problematic abilities.

Primeval Awareness Mabye its just me, but not only would I move bonus to Initiative here, but I would also move the communicate with beasts thing over to the Beast Conclave (not happy about "Conclave") to make sure that all things "beast" are part of that class.

Here I disagree. It should either be left here, or moved to Natural Explorer to replace the bonuses that was moved here.

Fleet of Foot actually seems kind of week for an 8th level ability. Rogues get the ability to Dash, Hide or Disengage as a bonus action at much lower level. Perhaps here add in the combat ability of not being slowed by terrain and maybe even increase movement speed? Lot's of possibilities, but definitely more needs to be added.

I'm actually fine with Fleet of Foot, but the difficult terrain immunity would be fine here as well if they decided to do that.

Favored Enemy has definitely improved although I'm not sure if I like +2 / +4 to damage. To clarify, I love that extra damage was added in, it should have always been there, but I would prefer additional dice like +1d4 / +1d8. Or even better, damage dice that scale up with your proficiency bonus, so +1d4 at level 1, +1d6 at level 5, +1d8 at level 11....etc. etc.

I also love the extra damage, but strongly disagree with additional dice. I vastly prefer the strait bonuses. More dice adds nothing but (admittedly minor) delay to the roll.

The rest of it doesn't strike me as problematic at all. Some word clarification is surely needed, but all-in-all I'm very happy about what they did with the Ranger.

Agree.

 

[iserith]

Before the Forum Reckoning, I mentioned in one of the seventeen ranger threads that someone would be trying the UA ranger in my campaign that weekend and that I would report back.

He was grappled by a mimic and killed by a lightning trap. Later, his poisoned body was fed to a manticore.

Take from that what you will.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Before the Forum Reckoning, I mentioned in one of the seventeen ranger threads that someone would be trying the UA ranger in my campaign that weekend and that I would report back.

He was grappled by a mimic and killed by a lightning trap. Later, his poisoned body was fed to a manticore.

Take from that what you will.

Clearly the class needs to be completely scrapped and WotC to return to the drawing board.

 

[Lord Twig]

Before the Forum Reckoning, I mentioned in one of the seventeen ranger threads that someone would be trying the UA ranger in my campaign that weekend and that I would report back.

He was grappled by a mimic and killed by a lightning trap. Later, his poisoned body was fed to a manticore.

Take from that what you will.

Obviously overpowered then. I mean, he took out a manticore all by himself!

 

[Lord Twig]

If the combat related features of Natural Explorer move elsewhere than the Scout no longer gets them. The Scout is designed to get those.

Hmmm... This is a good point. I like the Scout getting the combat buffs. Now I go all the way back to just leaving the abilities they way they are right now in the UA.

I fear no dippers!

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I fear no dippers!

Honestly, this is where I'm at right now. Advantage on initiative and one round of attacks is nice, but it doesn't strike me as something characters would fall over themselves to snap up at the cost of a level. I would like to see Natural Explorer do something other than that, but that's because the new ranger no longer has any way of getting expertise, not because of multiclassing power concerns.