D&D General What is a Ranger? A miserable pile of secrets! (+)

[Mind of tempest]

There were evil Druids in 3e, as I recall. Blighters, I think they were called.

evil anti-druids I think were what they were.

 

[Minigiant]

There were evil Druids in 3e, as I recall. Blighters, I think they were called.

Blighters were ex-druids.

Evil druids still revered nature. Blighters hated nature therefore losing their druid magic.

 

[Horwath]

Blighters were ex-druids.

Evil druids still revered nature. Blighters hated nature therefore losing their druid magic.

This.

I played evil druid in 3.5e.

Basically, an eco-terrorist.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A druid hating nature makes no sense since nature is were it gets its powers.

Not a rule in 5e. My druid gained his powers from studying the stars.

That's like a barbarian who never gets mad.

The they have a focused combat mode. No need for them to have a particular emotional state.

We had a barbarian in our game who was possessed by spirits when "Raging".

 

[Horwath]

my 1st character for 5e should have been a ranger.

Then I saw favored terrain and enemy. and compared that to paladin.

then I decided to have rogue(assassin) with 1 level of fighter with outlander background to be a better "ranger".

Later I have respec rogue from assassin to Scout when it came out.


currently, best version of ranger for me is:

Spell less version from UA(martial maneuvers) with Tasha's options, Gloomstalker with Rogue(scout) multiclass to patch up skills and 1st feat is Skill expert for an extra skill and expertise and boosting dex to 18.

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

A druid hating nature makes no sense since nature is were it gets its powers.

Nature is always out to hurt the druid. Animals see the druid as food. Plants have spikes, poison or both. The druids has powers to protect himself against nature.

That's like a barbarian who never gets mad.

Woah. That's one that I want to roleplay. The rage is like Super Mario Bros. catching a star. Good idea!

 

[Undrave]

Also, just for something no one will like, I’d have rangers only able to do ritual spells. Or at least, nothing in combat, everything takes 10 seconds minimum. I feel like magic yes, but only rituals of the forest magic, mostly practical healing and protective ward and buff stuff.

I think that'd be cool. Heck, I'd give them a list of spells they treat as rituals in exchange for expanding some GP worth of components. Pass Without Trace? Spend some special material per target and ten minutes and here we go. Cordon of Arrows as a ritual? Sure, but you lose the arrows you use for it.

The 4e ranger still more or less needed to take Ritual Caster to travel, travel, and survive if the DM wasn't being extremely generous. All the naturey stuff were rituals.

Eh, you got more than enough feats for that in 4e if you wanted to. Otherwise the Ranger was like a blender of death.

but one of the few consistent themes that has managed to stick throughout the editions is that the Ranger is a specialist that can take down a specific type of creature better than anyone else. There has been an effort to diminish this for reasons that everyone here can infer, however.

Yeah because it's too story reliant and you end up sucking when facing something else. It's a fun conceit for a story (see the -inexplicable- popularity of Goblin Slayer) but it doesn't work if you're expected to face multiple types of enemies like in a game.

Outside of D&D, the big ranger Thing is being able to tame creatures. People come into the game expecting to have them.

D&D's been unable to stuck a landing on how it does rangers, so other fictions are what people draw from and the animal companion is a big part of those.

Yeah and that's fine. Beast Taming as a class feature is fine... the problem is the animal itself should not be considered a class feature. It's design weight becomes too unwieldy and hard to balance and the Ranger shouldn't be one character with two bodies (including a squishier one). Taming animals should be treated as hiring a sidekick, only you pay them in food and scritches instead of money.

In terms of game balance, having a wolf with you shouldn't be any different than having an hireling warrior. The Ranger would just get an easier time taming one and have some kind of bonus to the animal's loyalty. And if the Ranger is still a spell caster, give them a few buffing spells that specifically targets beasts, so the companion can do elemental damage and stuff.

Just have a sidebar to tell DMs "Hey! Animal companions are cool! it's totally fine to allow the Ranger to start with one. Don't forget to consider the party as having 1 extra member while designing encounters."

And if everybody else in the party wants their own sidekicks so they can play 2 characters too? Well, it's their prerogative and they can deal with the consequences (i.e. longer turns) and see if it was a good idea or not.

 

[Oofta]

Druids would have the civilization magic needed to effectively track anything. Druids tend to not be willing to corrupt or strangle nature to do their job nor utilize civilized, mechanical, or man-like magics.


Fine is not good. The ranger can track who leaves no tracks, hide from who sees all tracks, and withstand all the danger of nature.

How many resists do fighters have access too?


A rogue can't be made to be tough and have hunting and survival features.

Why not? Don't tank con, take the toughness feat if you're human or do a hill dwarf fighter (they also get a +1 to HP). Expertise in survival and stealth. Take the scout subclass. Poof: martial ranger archetype.

Nearly as many HP as most rangers who also probably want to put a fair amount into wisdom for spells.

A fighter can't be built to get stealth, hunting, and survival features.

Pretty much the same except you'd probably take the prodigy feat to bump up survival.

On the other hand not sure what you would need for "hunting" other than survival for tracking, stealth to get close and probably a decent ranged option.

What makes the ranger is that it picks parts of the 4 core class archetypes that cater to its job. It's essentially a "4 Way Multiclass"

That's why ranger types are the best solos in MMOs. They have parts of a whole party in the single class.

D&D is not an MMO, so seems like you're comparing apples and oranges.

 

[Vaalingrade]

A druid hating nature makes no sense since nature is were it gets its powers.

That's like a barbarian who never gets mad.

Done both.

One was a dude who got Swamp Thing'd and the nature god thought he could just draft me. No dice, antler boy.

The other was an RDJ Sherlock Holmes type whose Rage ability represented the Sherlock scan base fighting from those movies. If anything, he calmed up when using Rage.

 

[Minigiant]

Why not? Don't tank con, take the toughness feat if you're human or do a hill dwarf fighter (they also get a +1 to HP). Expertise in survival and stealth. Take the scout subclass. Poof: martial ranger archetype.

Nearly as many HP as most rangers who also probably want to put a fair amount into wisdom for spells

The scout rogue can't track or survive supernatural threats and obstacles.

Pretty much the same except you'd probably take the prodigy feat to bump up survival.

On the other hand not sure what you would need for "hunting" other than survival for tracking, stealth to get close and probably a decent ranged option.

Same as scout rogue, the fighter can't handle ranger stuff post Tier 1.