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

[Lord Twig]

But... but... you would lose the bear granade! I LIKE the bear granade!

Yeah, the bear grenade is pretty cool.

So reconsidering again, I think I went too far with my last edit. So instead I will just leave Storm of Claws and Fangs alone. This would give the Beast Ranger two attacks (one from him, one from his animal companion), which would bring him inline with the Hunter Ranger who also only has two attacks and gets by just fine.

And for multiclass characters the animal companion will continue to gain HD regardless of class, but will only get ASIs from Ranger levels.

So to recap:

Replace the Coordinated Attack reaction attack with +1d8 damage when the animal companion hits a creature the Ranger attacked on his last round. This makes it similar to Colossus Slayer in power.

Beast's Defense is unchanged. Advantage on all saves increases the durability of the pet.

Storm of Claws and Fangs remains exactly the same at 11th level, which is inline with the Hunter's Whirlwind Attack.

Superior Beast's Defense is unchanged, buts gets a minor boost as it is now not competing for the pet's reaction with Coordinated Attack.

Hit Dice increase every level, regardless of class. ASIs are only received by the animal companion if the Ranger gets it from Ranger levels.

 

[eprieur]

Maybe there were infos on that in the 9000 pages thread that was deleted but have you guys looked at the number dpr numbers for the pets? The overall power level? I did, I can share a table with more details if people want, here are some important infos on the 8 base pets.

Dpr vs 16 AC at lvl 3 goes from 3 (mule) to 6 (ape) to 7.25 (wolf with pack tactics). So if you pick one of the 4 somewhat bigger hitters (Ape, Bear, Wolf or Giant Badger) you will pretty much do double dps at lvl 3. A typical character will do between 5 dpr and 7 dpr depending on optimisation in those levels. So say you are a ranger doing 6dpr + lvl 3 pet doing another 6 meaning you will do 12 dpr at lvl 3, certainly the best dpr in the game or so.

At lvl 5 with coordinated attacks, the range of dpr goes from 8.05 (mule) to 13.9 (ape) to 18.5 (Wolf with pack tactics). Add the 5-7 dpr from the ranger and you are still way up there.

I think it's strong but not necessarily broken except for the wolf. The wolf basically quadrupple dip. He already do close to top damage normally. With melee characters in the party or a melee ranger, he gains pack tactics, giving the wolf the best damage of all pets. When fighting humanoid he also get a 50% chance or so to knock the target prone, which enable all the melee characters in the party to attack the humanoid with advantage the damage output granted by the pet can get out of hand. Finally, the wolf is dex based meaning that when you increase his dex at lvl 4 and 8+ he also get an AC boost. So he get to 17 AC at lvl 5, 19 ac at lvl 9, etc.

Did I miss something?

 

[Greybeard_Ray]

No, you didn't. Very good analysis. However, do check the HP on the Wolf. Even (or especially) at Level 9, he's gonna drop quick if/when he gets hit.

 

[eprieur]

Here are the AC/HP of everything at lvl 5 and 9:
Ape; 15/32, 16/58
Black Bear; 14/32, 15/58
Giant Badger; 13/30, 14/60
Wolf; 17/22, 19/44
Boar; 15/22, 16/44
Giant Panther; 16/22, 18/40
Giant Weasel; 17/18, 19/36
Giant Mule; 13/22, 14/44

The wolf is not that bad compared to that it seem to me. It's certainly lower then Ape and Bear, but close to Giant Badger (much better AC) and it's clearly better then the rest of the other 4 base pets. For saving throws it's similar other then panther is slightly above wolf in that department.

 

[Greybeard_Ray]

So, let's compare those with some CR 9 monsters:

Abominable Yeti: AC 15, HP 137, Attacks: 2x Claw @ 14 slash + 7 cold [21 ea] & Cold Gaze (DC 18 CON Save or 21 cold]
Bone Devil: AC 19, HP 142, Attacks: 2x Claw @ 8 slash [16] & Sting @ 13 pierce + 17 poison
Clay Golem: AC 14, HP 133, Attacks: 2x Slam @ 16 bludg AND DC 15 CON save or HP Max reduced
Fire Giant: AC 18, HP 162, Attacks: 2x Greatsword @ 29 slash

As the song says, "Dead puppies aren't much fun."

 

[Xeviat]

Here are the AC/HP of everything at lvl 5 and 9:
Ape; 15/32, 16/58
Black Bear; 14/32, 15/58
Giant Badger; 13/30, 14/60
Wolf; 17/22, 19/44
Boar; 15/22, 16/44
Giant Panther; 16/22, 18/40
Giant Weasel; 17/18, 19/36
Giant Mule; 13/22, 14/44

The wolf is not that bad compared to that it seem to me. It's certainly lower then Ape and Bear, but close to Giant Badger (much better AC) and it's clearly better then the rest of the other 4 base pets. For saving throws it's similar other then panther is slightly above wolf in that department.

Considering a rogue with a 12 Con has 57 hp at level 9, some of those aren't hugely off. And that's without using a stat up to boost the pet's con.


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[eprieur]

And is there some kind of concensus on healing pets with hit dices during short rest? Can you do that, etc? I feel that they should otherwise it's a huge heal sink unless you often take long rest. Can they also go into negative, requiring stabilisation, doing death saves, etc, and basically only dying in case of TPK or some super pet sacrifice?

I think they should on both count to be balanced. It does yet again give another boost to the 2 big hitters (Ape and Bear that have 3 hit dices) and small boost to the panther also over the 5 other pets that are already kinda weaker except maybe the wolf as mentionned.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

And is there some kind of concensus on healing pets with hit dices during short rest? Can you do that, etc? I feel that they should otherwise it's a huge heal sink unless you often take long rest.

I don't think it's contentious that they have their own pool of Hit Dice and can spend them to heal. All monsters can.

Can they also go into negative, requiring stabilisation, doing death saves, etc, and basically only dying in case of TPK or some super pet sacrifice?

Again, all monsters are entitled to do this (except for going into negative, because that's not a thing in 5E). DMs often skip it and have monsters just die at 0 because it makes play simpler and faster, but if it becomes important, they can always start rolling death saves for something.

 

[ScuroNotte]

I actually dislike the changes done to Natural Explorer with respect to terrains. It eliminates the "expertise" in the Favored terrains. My issue with the terrains was that they were too few and far between. We actually play Natural Explorer with selecting 2 terrains at 1st and 6th level.(no 10th level)

I don't like Favored Enemy or its incorporation into Primeval Awareness.
I don't understand the revelry in these abilities.

Consider if the Paladin's Divine Smite was only effective against fiends and Divine Sense only detected the Undead. Or if the Cleric had to select what 2 types of undead (mummy, vampire, ghouls, etc) the Turn Undead feature would affect Would players jump for joy with those features? I would not think so. So why do players clamor for Favored Enemy feature and anything associated with it for the Ranger? I never will understand.

These restrictions makes the Ranger's abilities too focused on a set of creatures. Rangers are supposed to be an adaptable class that should be able to use their abilities in various situations. If people like the specialty against one creature type, then they should offer it as an option like they do for the Hunter conclave. I for one could care less about damage bonus. I prefer a class I enjoy playing and not selecting specific features because I know the adventure i am going to play so I need to maximize my features to that game if I want to be useful.

That's my 2 cents worth.

 

[ScuroNotte]

Other opinions

Primeval Awareness is great with the animal empathy portion. They just need to expand on that ability.
However, focusing on only favored enemies is unfortunate. Expertise in Survival would be preferable. It would allow you to be effective in non selected favored terrains as well as tracking and searching for clues to determine if a creature or creatures are in the area.

I agree the combat bonuses placed into Natural Explore should be given later. My preference would be 6th level.That is more of a dip plus spreads out the abilities better.

And return Land's Stride back to 8th level.
Dash could be incorporated into what was the Natural explorer combat issue or just include it into Vanish.

And one final note, I wish they created a Ranger without spells. If they choose to I think they could with the present format. Just include abilities for the non spell casters in the unoccupied level slots (9th, 13th, & 17th) and give them herbalism. They could tweak some combat abilities for the conclaves to compensate for the loss of damage or just make Hunter's Mark an innate ability for the spell less versions.