Revised Ranger update

[OB1]

Hexblade is ridiculously overpowered. It is the best patron for every type of Warlock. It is also devoid of theme.

Hexblade is an example where listening to the people on the internet goes horribly wrong.

The thing is, blade pact is just fine. It allows you to have a good option in melee. The pacts are minor bonuses. Even more minor than the beast master. People look at blade pact and say it is underpowered without looking at the other pacts, same with beast master.

Agree with all of this. My point was that the Beastmaster companion can be made more powerful without a revision or rewrite of the class through trade off of other class features that already allow for this kind of cusomization (ie spells and feats).

Revising a class was a horrible idea that I’m glad died. Giving more options to players (hopefully without the amount of power creep in the Hexblade) is worthwhile.

 

[Mistwell]

Something else I'd like to see as additional rules: better barding clarifications. Right now the DMG says any animal can have barding made for them. However it doesn't say how proficiency works with it. Are all animals automatically proficient with any armor made specifically for them? Are none of the proficient and therefore they all have disadvantage while attacking in armor? Can they be trained in armor using animal handling checks to become proficient? Is it like a downtime activity similar to tools?

Because if you could put plate armor on a giant poisonous snake, suddenly they're a lot more powerful

 

[Chaosmancer]

Is it, though? What if their intent all along was that the Beast Master's companion would act intelligently, where the Ranger would use their action to give the order to attack in the first round, and then subsequent rounds would be able to attack alongside their companion (i.e. it kept following the order to the best of its ability, until directed otherwise). This is exactly the kind of thing they fix with errata, as it's not tossing the entire subclass and rewriting it from scratch. That's my expectation based on JC's comments on Dragon Talk, where he said they had found a way to fix a number of issues via the errata process rather than going down the route of a Revised Ranger.

That is, they could simply change this:

"The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. It takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn’t take an action unless you command it to."

to something like this:

"The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. It takes its turn on your initiative, though it doesn’t take an action unless you command it to. It then continues to perform that action until otherwise directed."

then a fairly major concern about Beast Masters (the action economy) is essentially resolved, right?

PS - Please don't combine replies to several people into one message. If you need to reply to a bunch of posts, at least keeping to one reply per post makes subsequent quotes of your replies much easier to manage.

Fair enough on the multiple quotes.


And I agree that would solve the action economy, however, the rules currently lead to this situation: You must command the beast to move (doesn’t take an action) and command the beast to take an action (takes an action)

The current change you are talking about does not change needing to tell the beast to move, which is fine in terms of the action economy, but then it becomes a weird game logic problem. You tell the wolf to attack the goblins, does it only attack the goblins next to it? If you move it next to an orc will it attack the orc?

And I know the undead work this way, and I know we can make it work at the table, but then it becomes a question of why does it cost your first action every fight to command your beast to attack? It feels weird.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Also... would you really WANT WotC to listen to small subsets of the fanbase over the majority?

Normally that answer would be no. However, WoTC admitted there was a problem, there data said there were enough dissatisfied people to warrant a fix.

Then they dragged their feet until the player base changed enough it was no longer enough people.

This completely changes the dynamic you are talking about. There has been a small subset talking about getting a Warlord fighter since 5e came out. If WoTC suddenly agreed to work on it, saying a signifigant portion of the fanbase wanted it, then two years later said “Our player base has changed, Warlords are no longer popular enough, we’re stopping work on the Warlord class” people would be furious and it would be a black eye for the company because they said they would do something, then took too long and backed out.

And that is kind of what has happened here. They heard the community saying the Ranger needed work. No one so far has said the Ranger is as good as it could be. And the people who were calling for that change didn’t go away, we didn’t get what WoTC indicated they would give us. Instead we are now being told it was just a vocal minority who was never really right, and with the new swell of players we aren’t important enough to finish the work they started.

We're not talking about the beast master.
Where does Crawford mention the beast master? Nowhere in the tweets is the beast master even hinted at.
The beast master is completely irrelevant to this conversation.

If the beast master is broken, you fix that subclass and not the class as a whole. Or make a new ranger pet subclass. Or don't and just let people pick from other subclasses.

We’ve been talking about the Beastmaster a lot, actually.

Crawford in his tweet said “There is only one Ranger, the one in the Player’s Handbook”. Half of the Player’s Handbook Ranger is the Beastmaster. Are you wanting to claim that half of the core Ranger is irrelevant to a discussion about the Ranger? Do we get to just ignore things that don’t work because we can just make more things that do work?

What if they release the Eberron setting and it is as bad a setting as the Beastmaster is a subclass, should we be satisfied with the argument “Well, they can just make more settings, or a different setting with the same themes, or you could just play a different setting.” Do those excuse poor quality work?

And, we can expand the discussion to other ranger features. I gave a quick list and we all know the debates that have been had over them. Heck, I recognize that the Revised Ranger doesn’t even fix a lot of the complaints that are the worse for the Ranger as a skill class about tracking, but it is better at least.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Just thought of something. The bladelock was considered underpowered, and so a new patron was created to help with that. It cost resources by not allowing you to pick another patron if you wanted to be the best bladelock possible, and I don’t remember a huge outcry about it.
So again I ask, why can’t spells and feats be used to do the same thing for Beastmaster Rangers. Yes it means giving up other things, just as it does for Warlocks, but if the net result is a higher power class option for a certain style of play without having to rewrite anything, isn’t it worth it?

I would wonder if the Bladelock is one of the first things you think about when you picture a warlock, and I don’t think it is. Not nearly as central as the idea of the Beastmaster is at least.

And, we are talking a different type of design. Warlocks are designed with lots of moving parts to swap (spells, cantrips, pacts, boons, invocations, feats) swapping out one part of that is a much smaller cost than it is for the ranger who has only three (subclass, spells, feats) and I don’t think this gets stressed enough, Rangers only get 11 spells known. We can put some perspective on that, Warlocks get 8 invocations, they get almost as many invocations as a Ranger gets spells, but their invocations are only a 1/6 of their options while spells are 1/3 of the rangers. They are highly valuable.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There are no "5 foot step" rules in this game. The Snake attacks from 10ft away and withdraws. If a foe follows, they draw an attack of opportunity from an even deadlier and closer foe. The snake has a 30' move. The game is well adjusted for this sort of tactic - after all there is an entire Rogue type of strategy built around it. It's the purpose of reach. Of course it's not perfect - NO strategy is ever perfect. But, it's pretty darn good.

My fault for not being clear. If an enemy wants to close on an opponent who is attacking with reach, they only need to move 5ft.

And you are right, the enemy might be next to another opponent and be unable to follow the snake. but moving in an out of combat means that with that 30 ft, they are only able to stick 20 ft away (15 ft move, 5 ft reach) that is still in the danger zone of melee combat. And if you end up in a bad position because you used too much movement, the enemy can simply circle your more dangerous PC, and be in reach of the snake.

It is a good strategy, but it isn’t a strategy without weaknesses, and it shouldn’t be the only strategy that is viable for Beastmasters, they should have more viable strategies than that one.

If your plan is to be an archer, do not be a beastmaster. It's as simple as that. The Beastmaster just is not the archer subclass. There is no point to you arguing you want a melee engaged companion if you plan on keeping your ranger out of melee. Pick a strategy.

You're darn right it's not. YOU are the one demanding a melee engaged companion. You can do that - but not if you also want a ranger attacking from range. You will not get it all. You can have either melee or ranged, but the beastmaster is structured such that you cannot have both, and I happen to think that's a very smart way for them to have created it. You want a companion fighting in melee, cool. Then like the description of the sub-class says, "you gain a beast companion that accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you."

So there is no precedent for an Archer with a Hawk or Owl companion? No concept of tag-teaming by covering both far range and melee.

Hell, hunting dogs were trained to chase down prey while people with guns or bows went for the kill shot.

But sure, your PHB says that if you want a beast companion you must be a melee character. Just be aware, no one else feels that Rangers should be limited that much.

And to turn to this point, are you now insisting that “trained to fight alongside you” literally means right next to you. Thought that discussion was had and you were on the other side of that fence.

And why is it smart to design it that way, but nowhere state it as a fact? Nothing prevents it in the current beastmaster. YOU are the one stating that beastmaster’s can’t be archers, beasts have always been melee options, we just want them to be decent at it to make an entire subclass and theme work as intended

I do. In this game you can either be a ranged attacker or a melee attacker. You want to be both simultaneous (and you want each to be equally powerful as well). Yes, that is "I want it all" thinking. It's a beast companion. You can do all sorts of things with them outside of combat, but if you want it to do MELEE combat, then you need to fight alongside it for it to be effective. And that's a fair way to structure the class.

Can you point to me where it says fighters lose access to bows when they decide to wield a sword? Do mages forget all ranged spells if they take Shocking Grasp or Vampiric Touch?

There is no “You must pick melee or ranged, you cannot do both”. If you want to give us beasts that have ranged attacks, then go ahead. But, you are the only one who somehow thinks there must be this one or the other design. We have no choice about Beasts in melee, there isn’t some other beast we can get, so yes, we want them to survive melee, since that is the only place they can be in combat. Heck, I can even prove “Reach” is a melee option, know how? Every single Reach weapon in the game is a melee weapon. There are no weapons with the Reach property listed as ranged weapons. Because that makes no sense, the Reach property just allows people to attack in melee while not immediately next to an enemy.

And let us not forget, we’ve already covered how the beast’s utility is far below that of the Find Familiar spell, a first level ritual that only costs the user gold, and not even that much gold. So, unless you can prove that Familiar’s are not better utility options in every way than an Animal Companion, they are a combat option. As a combat option, they only have melee attacks (even if one option can attack at reach) and so should they not be able to survive melee?

And nothing about the companion says "You must fight melee" either. YOU are the one demanding that your companion choose that strategy. OK, then you MUST also be melee to use it effectively.

Show me a single beast that can attack an enemy from further than 30 ft away. One. Not a fly-by attack that allows them to leave melee range after their attack. Not a reach of 10 ft which only puts them one step away from the enemy (and therefore still in melee). Show me a single animal companion option that can attack from 30 ft away by RAW. Then I will agree that we are insisting companions be in melee instead of it being the rules insisting on it.

Something else I'd like to see as additional rules: better barding clarifications. Right now the DMG says any animal can have barding made for them. However it doesn't say how proficiency works with it. Are all animals automatically proficient with any armor made specifically for them? Are none of the proficient and therefore they all have disadvantage while attacking in armor? Can they be trained in armor using animal handling checks to become proficient? Is it like a downtime activity similar to tools?

It is implied that animals need proficiency in Barding, because warhorses are specifically called out as being able to wear barding.

 

[Grognerd]

Ok, I've been quiet since it largely seems to me like we are well past the point of beating a dead horse, resurrecting it, beating it again, making it undead, then beating it again! I'd argue that very cogent arguments have been presented, but the majority of them at this point - to my perception - have become fruitless. It really does seem - to my perception - that the revision crowd won't be satisfied until they get a companion to their PCs that is an equal peer. Not saying that's what you want. But the arguments that are being used, and far more importantly, the rejection of every single alternative that has been very reasonably presented lends that impression.

But cool. Forums are for arguing... oops, debating!

But this is simply untrue:

But sure, your PHB says that if you want a beast companion you must be a melee character. Just be aware, no one else feels that Rangers should be limited that much.

I think you meant to say "not everyone else feels..." Because I for one think that it is a reasonable limit. And I'm someone.

Then there is this...

And why is it smart to design it that way, but nowhere state it as a fact? Nothing prevents it in the current beastmaster. YOU are the one stating that beastmaster’s can’t be archers, beasts have always been melee options, we just want them to be decent at it to make an entire subclass and theme work as intended

You want a theme to work as WHO intended? Yeah... you do seem to be wanting to both have and eat cake, just saying...

Your case isn't helped with this bit of disingenuous obfuscation:

Can you point to me where it says fighters lose access to bows when they decide to wield a sword? Do mages forget all ranged spells if they take Shocking Grasp or Vampiric Touch?

There is no “You must pick melee or ranged, you cannot do both”.

Mistwell never said you can't do both Melee and Ranged. He called you out that you seem to want both melee and ranged in equal measure, which is a fair call-out. He was pointing out that you need to decide where your priority lies. And you seem to want equal power in both realms.

But to avoid being completely negative...

And let us not forget, we’ve already covered how the beast’s utility is far below that of the Find Familiar spell, a first level ritual that only costs the user gold, and not even that much gold. So, unless you can prove that Familiar’s are not better utility options in every way than an Animal Companion, they are a combat option.

I think this is a good point.

 

[Asgorath]

Fair enough on the multiple quotes.


And I agree that would solve the action economy, however, the rules currently lead to this situation: You must command the beast to move (doesn’t take an action) and command the beast to take an action (takes an action)

The current change you are talking about does not change needing to tell the beast to move, which is fine in terms of the action economy, but then it becomes a weird game logic problem. You tell the wolf to attack the goblins, does it only attack the goblins next to it? If you move it next to an orc will it attack the orc?

And I know the undead work this way, and I know we can make it work at the table, but then it becomes a question of why does it cost your first action every fight to command your beast to attack? It feels weird.

If you give the order to "attack those Goblins over there", then yeah, a reasonable interpretation would be that the companion attacks them all until they are dead. If one Goblin dies, then it just moves to the next one, probably just picking the closest one. This seems very reasonable, particularly for an intelligent beast. You shouldn't have to say "Okay move 10 feet in that direction, now attack that Goblin. Good boy! Now move 5 feet to your right. No that's too far. Okay now attack that other Goblin. Great, you killed it, now run over there. Wait that's too far again. Now attack that Goblin who's now in front of you" and so if they are going to errata this part of the rules to make it clear that you can in fact just give the order to "attack those Goblins over there" and then your companion will do its best to follow that order on subsequent turns, that would be a pretty good change in my opinion. Similarly, if there are 4 Goblins and 1 Orc, then an intelligent creature could reasonably assume you meant to attack them all, and would include the Orc in its target list.

Another good option would be to make it clear you can order your companion to just follow and assist you, i.e. just attack whatever you are attacking. Again, the companion should be an intelligent creature, not a mindless undead creature.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what the new errata says, but I'm suspecting it'll be something along these lines in order to free up the Ranger's actions on subsequent turns and let the companion continue to follow an order in a reasonable manner.

 

[OB1]

I would wonder if the Bladelock is one of the first things you think about when you picture a warlock, and I don’t think it is. Not nearly as central as the idea of the Beastmaster is at least.

And, we are talking a different type of design. Warlocks are designed with lots of moving parts to swap (spells, cantrips, pacts, boons, invocations, feats) swapping out one part of that is a much smaller cost than it is for the ranger who has only three (subclass, spells, feats) and I don’t think this gets stressed enough, Rangers only get 11 spells known. We can put some perspective on that, Warlocks get 8 invocations, they get almost as many invocations as a Ranger gets spells, but their invocations are only a 1/6 of their options while spells are 1/3 of the rangers. They are highly valuable.

Yes, and you pick those spells to mold the Ranger into your vision of how you want to play it. The choices are limited because the class isn't supposed to be as versatile as a full caster due to it's other strengths.

If a new set of spells tailored to Beastmasters both enhanced your companion and were as powerful or slightly more powerful than the existing spell choices, why wouldn't that be a satisfactory resolution?

 

[Jester David]

Normally that answer would be no. However, WoTC admitted there was a problem, there data said there were enough dissatisfied people to warrant a fix.

Then they dragged their feet until the player base changed enough it was no longer enough people.

This completely changes the dynamic you are talking about. There has been a small subset talking about getting a Warlord fighter since 5e came out. If WoTC suddenly agreed to work on it, saying a signifigant portion of the fanbase wanted it, then two years later said “Our player base has changed, Warlords are no longer popular enough, we’re stopping work on the Warlord class” people would be furious and it would be a black eye for the company because they said they would do something, then took too long and backed out.

And that is kind of what has happened here. They heard the community saying the Ranger needed work. No one so far has said the Ranger is as good as it could be. And the people who were calling for that change didn’t go away, we didn’t get what WoTC indicated they would give us. Instead we are now being told it was just a vocal minority who was never really right, and with the new swell of players we aren’t important enough to finish the work they started.

I'll agree that they dragged their feet. But continuing to work on a projected fewer and fewer people want isn't a good business decision. "Obligation" isn't a good reason to release a product.

If they started work on a trilogy and the reception to the first release was cool, they shouldn't be obligated to finish.
Especially as it will literally be coming at the expense of content that the current audience DOES want. There's a finite amount of hours in the day, and they can only log so many hours of work.

Yes, it sucks that they didn't spend a tonne of money on manhours releasing free content for an increasingly small percentage of the audience.
And yes, it's a black eye. But a much smaller black eye than releasing a low quality book for the larger audience because they were focusing on the ranger.


Really, this is why WotC was so secretive in the late 3e/ 4e era. Because when they changed their plans people got upset. So, the "mistake" they made was keeping the fans in the loop.
And, personally, I'd rather have the company reactive and responsive to changes and shifting feedback than maintaining a plan years after it was devised.

We’ve been talking about the Beastmaster a lot, actually.

Crawford in his tweet said “There is only one Ranger, the one in the Player’s Handbook”. Half of the Player’s Handbook Ranger is the Beastmaster. Are you wanting to claim that half of the core Ranger is irrelevant to a discussion about the Ranger? Do we get to just ignore things that don’t work because we can just make more things that do work?

I could say very similar things about the PHB sorcerer given how unpopular wild magic is. Should they redo the sorcerer as well? There's a bunch of fixes they could do (bloodlines giving spells, rephrasing metamagic).
Or… they could just release more options, which largely fixes the problem.

Regardless, the beast master isn't "half" the ranger. It's half the options, but maybe a quarter of the class features. Less if you include spells.
So redoing the entire ranger to fix the beast master is unnecessary.

What they *should* do is just offer a variant pet using ranger subclass. This skirts all the problems with releasing a variant ranger, as people are used to additive options. Drop an "animal lord" that fills the same niche but has slightly different flavour and variant powers. Which lets people play that kind of character, but doesn't confuse people with contradictory options or forces players to revise their character.
Heck, they could even have two. Have a "warg" option that is more utility and lets the ranger see through the eyes of its pet, which is more of a hardy familiar. And a combat pet option, with the beast being all about kicking butt.

What if they release the Eberron setting and it is as bad a setting as the Beastmaster is a subclass, should we be satisfied with the argument “Well, they can just make more settings, or a different setting with the same themes, or you could just play a different setting.” Do those excuse poor quality work?

If the response to a poor quality product is for them to release it again and make even more money… what's the incentive to get it right the first time?