D&D 5E Tasha's really improved and changed the feel of Rangers

[ECMO3]

There is a night and day difference between pre-Tasha and post-Tasha Ranger. Aside from being substantially more powerful, the extra spells with Primal Awareness and extra abilities through Deft Explorer and nature's viel completely change the feel from an undpowered martial to an arguably overpowered rogish caster.

At 13th level you have: expertise in 1 skill, 2 languages, +5' movement, swim speed, climb speed, 4 free spell castings a day, turn yourself invisible as a bonus action 5 times a day, give yourself 1d8+W thps 5 times a day, ignore difficult terrain, favored foe 5 times a day ..... this is in addition to subclass abilities that are pretty awesome and extra attack and spell casting from the original Ranger chassis.

The new Ranger plays more like a GISH/utility guy as opposed to a martial and in terms of all 3 pillars I would argue it is actually one of the strongest classes now. Second probably to Wizard but competitive with all others.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Second to Ranger is a bold claim; would you put them ahead of Rogues (who can interact well with the other pillars and has a lot of damage, particularly when ranged) and Paladin (much less impact exploration wise, mind, but good socially and fantastic in combat) for martials, and all full spellcasters besides Wizards (since even Sorcerers, who are 'weaker', are still quite powerful due to full spellcasting)?

Legitimate question because that would be fantastic to hear that Tasha's really improved Rangers that much. The main D&D experience I had acknowledged that one player's character, as a Ranger, was weakened by their class... and they were planning to multi-class as soon as they could.

 

[Weiley31]

It helps it be better, but I'm still more partial to the Revised Ranger.

 

[ECMO3]

Second to Ranger is a bold claim; would you put them ahead of Rogues (who can interact well with the other pillars and has a lot of damage, particularly when ranged) and Paladin (much less impact exploration wise, mind, but good socially and fantastic in combat) for martials, and all full spellcasters besides Wizards (since even Sorcerers, who are 'weaker', are still quite powerful due to full spellcasting)?

Legitimate question because that would be fantastic to hear that Tasha's really improved Rangers that much. The main D&D experience I had acknowledged that one player's character, as a Ranger, was weakened by their class... and they were planning to multi-class as soon as they could.

It is bold. Rogues are (or were?) my favorite class. I think Rogues are better out of combat, but they can't keep up with Tasha's Ranger in combat. Paladins generally do more damage in combat, when able to melee, but they are less mobile and less versatile in combat and are generally behind when in water or difficult terrain or any time they need to use missile weapons. Paladins are better in social situations (Fey Wanderer excepted), but generally not a lot better unless they use ASIs on Charisma, in which case combat suffers significantly. With Drudic Warrior, Shillaleigh and Magic Stone Rangers can do a SAD build with 14 Dexterity and still be very effective in combat (although that does cause them to be bonus action starved when using magic stone and a sling).

On spells, the thing with the new Ranger subclasses and Primal Awareness is they are not that far behind a full caster. That is what I am talking about in terms of feel. With my current Ranger I never find myself running out of spells and rarely have to weigh "should I cast it or should I save it" when I want to cast a spell. With most subclasses a 13th level Ranger will now know 16 spells, which is more than a 13th level Sorcerer and the same number as a 13th level Bard. A 13th-level full caster gets to cast 17 leveled spells a day, not counting AR, CD, SPs etc. A 13th level Ranger can cast 15 leveled spells a day, not far behind at all. Granted they are weaker levels and 4 of them are specific spells that have to be cast as opposed to slots that can be used for anything. But then you also have 5xTireless, 5xFavored Foe, 5xNatures Veil and subclass features that either are spells or work a lot like spells in execution.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Those are good points. You're reminding me that each spellcaster in 5e has a differen table indicating how many spells slots they have... which is still a lot mad to me, but it does probalby help the Ranger balance wise.

Hope one day I'll get to play with one as a GM.

 

[Charlaquin]

There is a night and day difference between pre-Tasha and post-Tasha Ranger. Aside from being substantially more powerful, the extra spells with Primal Awareness and extra abilities through Deft Explorer and nature's viel completely change the feel from an undpowered martial to an arguably overpowered rogish caster.

Yeah… But if “caster” is not what you want your Ranger to feel like, Tasha’s is no help.

At 13th level you have: expertise in 1 skill, 2 languages, +5' movement, swim speed, climb speed,

4 free spell castings a day, turn yourself invisible as a bonus action 5 times a day, give yourself 1d8+W thps 5 times a day, ignore difficult terrain, favored foe 5 times a day ..... this is in addition to subclass abilities that are pretty awesome and extra attack and spell casting from the original Ranger chassis.

Ugh, so many X/day abilities… And after 4e got so much crap for “making every character a caster,” but I guess it’s ok now as long as everyone’s actually a caster.

The new Ranger plays more like a GISH/utility guy as opposed to a martial and in terms of all 3 pillars I would argue it is actually one of the strongest classes now. Second probably to Wizard but competitive with all others.

Surprise, surprise, the solution to rangers feeling weak was to make them more like wizards

 

[ECMO3]

Yeah… But if “caster” is not what you want your Ranger to feel like, Tasha’s is no help.

Maybe not for everyone, but I love it. Spells and magic have been part of the Ranger since 1E and more of that is better IMO.

You can still play plenty of non-casters/non-magic classes: Several non-Magic Barbarians, Rogues and Fighters are available. Not to mention Monks.

A Rogue-Scout could do that Wilderness explorer theme pretty well without any magic I think. RAW they will actually be generally better at the exploration pillar than most Rangers I think.

 

[Charlaquin]

It helps it be better, but I'm still more partial to the Revised Ranger.

I still wish they’d give us the rest of the spelless Ranger we got 5 levels of back in 2015.

 

[Minigiant]

That's because Primeval Awareness was that bad.
And Primal Awareness helps alleviate the Ranger's low spells known.
And that WOTC forgot Ranger was a skill class and forgot to give it any expertise.

 

[Scribe]

Ugh, so many X/day abilities… And after 4e got so much crap for “making every character a caster,” but I guess it’s ok now as long as everyone’s actually a caster.

To be fair, there's a lot of people pushing against 'x but with casting'.