D&D 5E A ranger gimmick should be sensory enhancement

[Minigiant]

Think about this for a while.

The ranger as the defender of the borderlands, a skilled tracker, and a bane to certain foes should have more options to enhance their senses. Either through divination or transmutation magic or just pure training, the ranger should have more spells or classes features to upgrade their senses of sight, smell, touch, hearing etc. Unlike the druid who revere's nature and turns into animal for special senses, the ranger is defined by their humaniod-ness.

It's just flavorful that the ranger would be saying "Did you hear/see/smell that" and looking/smelling/tasting things they picked off the floor. "Gross" "Oh you want to be ambushed by orcs then? Shut up and let me listen".

This could extend to combat with natural blindfighing or far/quick shots/strike as goes battling a ranger must deal with a being who sees the fight on another level. It also enhances the idea of a Hunter's Mark as the ranger's senses could be magical tuned to the marked for.

But yeah. Rangers should be able to see through walls, identify people by scent, and feel tremors in the ground and air. It should be either through new ranger exclusive spells or alternate class features.

 

[Lanefan]

I like this, up until the last paragraph at which point it goes way too far over the top for my liking.

They should also get things like direction sense as a baked-in feature, and - at higher levels - 'plane sense', where they always know what plane or demiplane they're on and know if they have changed planes.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Indeed.

As of now, a warlock with all the sight based Invocations and either Chain pact + super Familiar or Tome pact + rituals is probably the best ''ranger'' when it comes to scouting and perceiving stuff.

 

[Horwath]

ranger needs some low tech, simple fixes so he can be best ranger(not Scout sublclass)

some minor things:

at 1st level: expertise in Nature and Survival
for later levels:

Advantage on Survival checks for tracking,
Halving effective exaustion levels(round down) ranger dies after getting 12 exaustion levels.
Hide as bonus action,
normal movement in all natural terrains,
climb and swim speed equal to normal land speed
advantage on Perception checks,
nature's armaments(probably for 11th level or after), with every weapon attack ranger deals +1d6 acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage. Picked when attack hits,

 

[Minigiant]

I like this, up until the last paragraph at which point it goes way too far over the top for my liking.

They should also get things like direction sense as a baked-in feature, and - at higher levels - 'plane sense', where they always know what plane or demiplane they're on and know if they have changed planes.

Some of that over the top stuff is necessary if D&D keeps spouts more and more spells and monsters that defy physics and the mundane.

When low level monsters in the wilderness keep phasing and floating, the ranger quickly becomes reliant on the DM adjudicating favorably to the ranger on skill checks if they don't become as mystical as fast. Mysticalenses is a less overt way to enter this into the system.

 

[Umbran]

I like this, up until the last paragraph at which point it goes way too far over the top for my liking.

See through walls is a bit much, I'll grant. But identifyign by scent? Any dog can do that, so how is it over the top. Sensing ground vibrations is the old trick of putting an ear to the ground and listening to hear groupsof horses n the distance. Accurate or not, it is reasonably in-genre, and not any mre far fetched than having a sense of what plane of existence they are on.

Upper levels.. effective truesight and blindsight/tremorsense?

 

[Gladius Legis]

I've proposed for a while that Feral Senses at Lv. 18 should've been just straight-up permanent truesight.

As for Vanish at Lv. 14, hide as a bonus action needs to come sooner than that, around Lv. 6. A Lv. 14 feature should be something like ignoring blindsight, truesight or tremorsense when hiding, like the Ranger got in one of its playtest versions.

 

[Lanefan]

See through walls is a bit much, I'll grant. But identifyign by scent? Any dog can do that, so how is it over the top.

So if the Ranger's animal companion is a dog, you're good. Maybe a higher degree of communication between Ranger and companion is all that's needed there...and it'd force more of a choice between info-gathering companion and combat companion.

Sensing ground vibrations is the old trick of putting an ear to the ground and listening to hear groupsof horses n the distance.

This is cool. I read the OP as meaning something more like always-on tremorsense like a Xorn has, but also including air tremors, which is OTT.

Upper levels.. effective truesight and blindsight/tremorsense?

Always-on truesight, which both you and the following poster suggested, absolutely hoses illusions and, by extension, Illusionists. As a fan of Illusionists, I can't get behind this even though I see the logic to it.

 

[Umbran]

Always-on truesight, which both you and the following poster suggested,

Read what is there.

Do the words "always on" appear? Is anything about how frequently that happens mentioned at all in my post? No - so, no particular frequency is implied. It is an open issue. Your reading into things, rather than ASKING is getting in the way of communication.

Learn to ask, rather than assume and accuse, please.

 

[Minigiant]

By see through walls I was really thinking more echolocation and minor tremorsense at lower levels. Actual seeing through walls would be a level 17+ plus thing for a ranger if ever via 5th level spell slots.