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

[Cap'n Kobold]

So who wants to work on an "animal companion class" side project? It feels like you could do some cool things with that idea.

The base class could be mostly "pet", while ranger and/or a feat could upgrade it to "combatant". Give it a few abilities as it levels up, and provide it decent stat progression instead of basing it on the Monster Manual. Maybe draw on some of the ideas of the reworked summon spells from Tasha's.

I would remove the "animal" flavour of the class and make it a purely mechanical companion class.
Then you would have subclasses where the flavour resides, whether that is companion animal, artificial construct, ancestral or Nature spirit, animated dead, faithful mount, extradimensional monster etc.

The base class would cover pet mechanics and a choice of pet templates for different purposes, alongside additional choices like Warlock invocations. The subclasses would modify the companion slightly (giving it the beast, or construct, or undead etc type) as well as granting the character some abilities. The subclass with the Beast companion would get some druidic and wilderness abilities, others might get necromancer, or artificer-like abilities etc.

 

[Shardstone]

I would remove the "animal" flavour of the class and make it a purely mechanical companion class.
Then you would have subclasses where the flavour resides, whether that is companion animal, artificial construct, ancestral or Nature spirit, animated dead, faithful mount, extradimensional monster etc.

The base class would cover pet mechanics and a choice of pet templates for different purposes, alongside additional choices like Warlock invocations. The subclasses would modify the companion slightly (giving it the beast, or construct, or undead etc type) as well as granting the character some abilities. The subclass with the Beast companion would get some druidic and wilderness abilities, others might get necromancer, or artificer-like abilities etc.

You didn't really describe a ranger at all here, did you.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

You didn't really describe a ranger at all here, did you.

I have already given my thoughts on the Ranger. As the quote that my post is a response to says, that post was about an "animal companion class" side project.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Re: Beastmaster as the primary theme of the Ranger

I'd use the old Revised Ranger UA with the companion multi-attack to bolster the main chassis, putting the BM's Shared Spells in there too.

For archetypes:
- Falconer -> Ranged, distant marking, perception and scouting

- Packrunner -> Canine/Lupine/Feline with pack tactic, overwhelming attacks and creating opening for the party.

- Swarmkeeper -> Mostly as-is

- Claw Adept -> Unarmed/light weapon masters, grapple like bears.

- Stalker -> Stealth themed, with a feline or spider theme.

- Coiled One -> Grapple, Stealth, Poison etc with a giant snake or octopus

 

[FireLance]

You know, this talk about subclasses for every class made me remember a late 4e mechanic which I thought could have resulted in the most flexible character customization system ever, and it could only have happened in 4e because of the much hated-on (by many of its detractors) AEDU power structure.

For those of you who played late 4e, do you remember character themes?

For those of you who did not, themes were a collection of powers that supported a specific character archetype, such as Gladiator, Primal Guardian, or Elemental Priest (these were from the Dark Sun Campaign Setting). Because of the AEDU power structure, you could just replace one or more of your class powers with a power of the same level from one of your themes without significantly affecting balance. (This is also similar to how 4e multiclassing worked and why it was the most balanced multiclassing system in D&D.) So you could have a fighter who was also an Elemental Priest, for example.

So, if Strixhaven had been implemented in 4E, WotC could have made all the colleges into themes. As for the ranger, you could have a Beast Master theme, a Giant Killer theme, a Desert Adept theme and so on.

 

[jmartkdr2]

You didn't really describe a ranger at all here, did you.

It the core of the class is "pet," it's not really a ranger, no.

Which means adding pet class probably means making ranger a background or something.

 

[Seramus]

For me, it's always been Nature Themes (magic or mundane knowledge) + Favored Foe.

Ranger has always been the "Druid Hybrid Martial" to me. I don't care if that hybrid nature is expressed through druidic magic spells or just nature themed mundane abilities, but they are a necessary part of the Ranger identity for me. Favored Foe comes second. It's not a mechanic that is necessary for the future of the D&D Ranger, but it's the second thing I think of when I hear the word "Ranger."

For newer players, Pets would be the third thing. Since Druids lost their big floofy animal companion, Ranger is now the class I point to whenever a player wants to have a big floofy animal companion.

 

[Undrave]

Yes, yes we absolutely do.

Because pets are absolutely key to the appeal of Rangers for a lot of people, particularly people new to the game.

So you've said...

Anyway, what about my prior suggestion of beast companions being a sidekick class instead of requiring so much design space onto the Ranger?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And yeah, "Use MM stats" is fundamentally not a good plan, so how about we just don't?

I think it came from a desire for simulationism, that is really out of place in 5e. A heroic pet should be to a MM beast what an adventurer is to a commoner.

 

[Leatherhead]

EDIT: Same for stealth vs. “like a rogue.”

It's the difference between a wheel and a car.

Rogues do more than just sneak around, they also deal with traps*, fight with cunning, and have an extensive knowledge of their home turf.

*setting traps and springing traps are related enough.

All of those things fall neatly into most people's ideas of "Ranger"