D&D 5E It's official, WOTC hates Rangers (Tasha's version of Favored Foe is GARBAGE)

[NotAYakk]

Not really. The ranger is a decent ranger. It should be better.

The problem is the bard and druid are overpowered and the base exploration subsystems fall apart outside of traps and exposition.

In a game, when a class is worse at every job than multiple other classes, saying "every other class is overpowered" is equivalent to "this class is bad at everything".

Except one involves fixing one class, and the other involves rewriting the game.

 

[Weiley31]

Between the Revised Ranger and Class Variant UAs, I have all that I need to fix the ranger.

That's all the Ranger ever needed to be fixed: but people act like neither don't exist unless its in a book released by WoTC and treated like Gospel.

 

[Minigiant]

In a game, when a class is worse at every job than every other class, saying "every other class is overpowered" is equivalent to "this class is bad at everything".

Except one involves fixing one class, and the other involves rewriting the game.

Only the Bard's and Druid's opness affects rangers.

Because Druids share many spells with Rangers while being competent in combat without spells via Wildshape.

And Bard can copy Ranger spells and be not horrible in combat without spell slots.

Every other class in 5e not mentioned stinks at Rangering.

 

[Gadget]

Sorry, I'm going to have to go along with OP, hyperbolic as it may be. This strikes me as poor design that competes with, rather than fixes Hunter's Mark.

 

[Lanefan]

Not really.
The ranger's biggest issue is that people don't play it how its archetype is supposed to be played. No one reads the ranger class description.

The ranger is not great at that archetype but neither are other classes. Save for the Bard and Druids everyone sucks at rangering.

The problem is many see it as an alternative fighter or variant paladin. The ranger fails at that.

Which it shouldn't.

1e had it right: the Ranger there was a Fighter-with-extras, and gated behind some pretty serious stat requirements to make them less common.

Some idiot named Drizz't came along during 2e and mangled the Ranger archetype. It has yet to recover.

WOTC made a crappy ranger but too many approach the class like a fighter.

For us old-timers that's because it was originally supposed to BE a (sub-class of) Fighter!

Probably because WOTC built a bad ranger so no one knows what a ranger is supposed to do.

I think it's because WotC can't or won't let go of the awful two-weapon high-dex light-armour Drizz't archetype.

 

[Don Durito]

The problem with Rangering is that like the Dwarf Baker with expertise in baking tools it gets forced off screen. The Ranger is so good that there is no point to it.

It's like if you had a subclass 'Duelist' with the feature: "Whenever you fight a duel you win".

 

[NotAYakk]

Only the Bard's and Druid's opness affects rangers.

Because Druids share many spells with Rangers while being competent in combat without spells via Wildshape.

And Bard can copy Ranger spells and be not horrible in combat without spell slots.

Every other class in 5e not mentioned stinks at Rangering.

So, you can just make the Ranger not horrible at combat. And maybe make them a bit better at Rangering.

And the problem goes away.

(And warlocks, clerics, wizards and sorcerers are pretty good at rangering; flight (and other exploration buffs), shelter-magic, provision-magic, teleportation and divination are all substitute for much of what a ranger can do. Some of this shows up in later tiers, but the ranger's rangering skills don't do get much better at that point anyhow.)

 

[CleverNickName]

Yikes, it really IS a meme already.

I agree with @Sir Brennen , I think the Ranger should just be a subclass of Fighter (same for the Barbarian and the Monk, but that's another topic.) But I'm not on the design team, so my opinion should be taken with an equally-small grain of salt.

Alas, making the "perfect Ranger" for D&D is likely an exercise in futility. There are just too many different ideas of what "a ranger" is supposed to be in pop media. Should the ideal Ranger be based on Legolas? (Yes.) Should it be based on Aragorn? (Also yes.) Should it be based on Princess Mononoke? (Still yes.) Should it be based on Hank from the D&D cartoon? (Yes again.) Can it be all of them at once? (Absolutely not how dare you...)

I don't envy Wotc.

 

[Kurotowa]

At level 5+ if you are using your bonus action to attack you are getting 3 taps/round.

Okay, but what if I'm playing a Beast Master or Drakewarden and one of my attacks is from my pet and wouldn't trigger HM? That leaves two attacks, and if one misses than FF and HM are pretty close together. Heck, at higher levels the FF damage die scales so it's ahead in some circumstances.

FF is an optional feature that fits well with certain Ranger builds, for which I'm very thankful. Other builds may still want to use HM, and it still exists for them. This is literally the best of both worlds.

 

[Don Durito]

Which it shouldn't.

1e had it right: the Ranger there was a Fighter-with-extras, and gated behind some pretty serious stat requirements to make them less common.

Some idiot named Drizz't came along during 2e and mangled the Ranger archetype. It has yet to recover.

For us old-timers that's because it was originally supposed to BE a (sub-class of) Fighter!

I think it's because WotC can't or won't let go of the awful two-weapon high-dex light-armour Drizz't archetype.

The way to actually do that concept in 3E would have been as a Prestige Class (which I believe they considered but chickened out of).

If they'd done that it would probably now be a Fighter subclass (which from the perspective of what 5e rules are able to handle, at least, is where they probably belong).