Chaosmancer
Legend
sigh Really?
1) Spellcasting having Verbal components: First off, I'm glad your NDA on the early release copy of your PHB has expired so you can tell us how the spells in the book work. For the rest of us though, there are a few things to keep in mind. Like the fact that most combat spells the ranger has at low levels are a bonus action, and therefore will happen about the same time the Ranger shoots someone with an arrow. Shooting someone with an arrow also breaks stealth. Also, I know people love having all spellcasting being an operatic performance for the back rows, but nothing actually says that is how loud you need to be. If I'm 100 ft away in a forest, you might not be able to tell I'm talking while your buddies are loudly laughing and slamming back beers.
2) Concentration: Yes, they explicitly said they kept concentration on Hunter's Mark to prevent stacking effects. Now, we don't know what the other spells look like (due to the book not being published) and at low levels, this is likely the correct call. It would be awesome to be able to grant everyone advantage on all the enemies with Faerie Fire and then also deal massive damage with Hunter's Mark, but at level 1 that might be a little much.
Now, I do agree that eventually the Ranger should have a concentrationless Hunter's Mark. My plan is to homebrew the spell, so that if cast using a 3rd level slot (which is a significant investment) the spell lasts 8 hours and is concentration free. This means I will probably need a new 13th level ability, but I don't think it should be advantage on every attack the ranger makes all the time, not when the Fighter's Studied Attacks is around this level. What will it be? Probably an extension of the Roving abilities.
3) The Invisibility: Let us not give 5 +1 per short rest unbreakable bonus action invisibility that lasts until the end of our next turn. That is actually a really powerful ability. Even if you never bump your Wisdom above a 16, being able to turn invisible three times until the end of your next turn is going to be incredibly useful.
4) Ranger's are Explorers: Look, I know it is never going to end up seeing play this way, but let's stop and look through the abilities we know about in the context of the Ranger being a wanderer.
Level 1 - Rangers get more spells and can swap a single spell per day. Rangers can also cast ritual spells that they have prepared without using a spell slot. Now I don't know how many spells a Ranger gets, but that opens up the ability to Speak to Animals, use them to scout, secure your camp, detect poisons and diseases in food and water, create food if needed, increase your speed, create fog banks to hide your prescence, create difficult terrain to slow pursuers and a few other combat options. For a person traveling alone cross-country? That is bloody amazing.
Level 2 - Expertise in a single skill, making you better than a professional at your choice of skill. Two languages. Now, not sure how languages exactly work now, but in the UA it worked out so that most characters could speak three languages. The Ranger is going to be able to speak 5. Double checking the old book, with 8 standard languages if you take Sylvan for Fey folk in the deep wilderness, you can speak half of all languages. Again, as a person traveling the world alone? If you could speak half the languages in Europe or Africa, that would be an amazing boon. Not so great in your game? Well, maybe find a way to make it more useful that the Ranger is a polygot.
3 thru 5 are all combat buffs, unless you are a Fey Wanderer or Gloomstalker who can gain even more magic, and the Fey wanderer also improves your Charisma checks. But that is subclass specific.
level 6 - Permanent speed increase (you are almost as fast as a horse, and as fast as a wolf) and you gain a climb and swim speed. Which, again, seems like so little when thinking about combat, but in exploration? You are as fast on land as a wolf, as fast in the water as a Shark, and can climb above the treeline of just about any forest in 12 seconds. Maybe this isn't super helpful in a combat situation because you don't use 3-D movement in combat, but this is legitimately crazy. Only the Thief Rogue can match your climbing speed, and only the Monk at level 9 can outpace you across all terrain.
Level 10 - Tireless. Oh boy, Tireless. Quite literally the only problem with this ability is that DnD is a team game. You can go all night. Missing a Long Rest is a level of exhaustion, you recover exhaustion on a short rest. Sure, you lose out on your spell recovery, if you are constantly fighting you may need a long rest to get back your hit dice, but you can essentially go for 8 hours, take a short rest, go for another 8 hours, take a short rest, and just repeat this ad infinitum.
This is a rough estimate, but the Ranger might be covering 60 miles per day if they can move 16 hours a day with a 40 ft base speed, and that is normal pace.
Now, I acknowledge, this is a team game, the rest of the team can't make that kind of time. This is why the ability also has a combat usage. But this is darn impressive for the fantasy of being a lone traveler eking out their existence in the wilds of the world.
5) The Capstone: Yeah, it sucks. I'd got with @Stalker0 's suggestion of making it so every enemy counts has having Hunter's Mark on it. My variation is every enemy within 120 ft of the ranger, for the utility side of Hunter's Mark mostly.
6) The Subclasses: I do also want to point out that the Subclasses for the Ranger carry a lot of mechanical and combat oomph to them. Fey wanderer gives spells, increased damage, and Charisma abilities. Gloomstalker gives ambushing, stealth, spells, increased damage and fear effects. Hunter gives increased damage and the ability to swap your kit depending on the threat. Beastmaster has a vastly improved beast, and playtesters found they were doing quite respectable damage by level 11, which is usually when the ranger damage is falling off.
Now, specifics could kill some of these for people, I get that, but they could also make some of these more powerful than you expect. So no, I don't think the Ranger is a joke. I think it is going to be doing fairly solidly. Could it have been better? Sure, but so could EVERY class in the game.
1) Spellcasting having Verbal components: First off, I'm glad your NDA on the early release copy of your PHB has expired so you can tell us how the spells in the book work. For the rest of us though, there are a few things to keep in mind. Like the fact that most combat spells the ranger has at low levels are a bonus action, and therefore will happen about the same time the Ranger shoots someone with an arrow. Shooting someone with an arrow also breaks stealth. Also, I know people love having all spellcasting being an operatic performance for the back rows, but nothing actually says that is how loud you need to be. If I'm 100 ft away in a forest, you might not be able to tell I'm talking while your buddies are loudly laughing and slamming back beers.
2) Concentration: Yes, they explicitly said they kept concentration on Hunter's Mark to prevent stacking effects. Now, we don't know what the other spells look like (due to the book not being published) and at low levels, this is likely the correct call. It would be awesome to be able to grant everyone advantage on all the enemies with Faerie Fire and then also deal massive damage with Hunter's Mark, but at level 1 that might be a little much.
Now, I do agree that eventually the Ranger should have a concentrationless Hunter's Mark. My plan is to homebrew the spell, so that if cast using a 3rd level slot (which is a significant investment) the spell lasts 8 hours and is concentration free. This means I will probably need a new 13th level ability, but I don't think it should be advantage on every attack the ranger makes all the time, not when the Fighter's Studied Attacks is around this level. What will it be? Probably an extension of the Roving abilities.
3) The Invisibility: Let us not give 5 +1 per short rest unbreakable bonus action invisibility that lasts until the end of our next turn. That is actually a really powerful ability. Even if you never bump your Wisdom above a 16, being able to turn invisible three times until the end of your next turn is going to be incredibly useful.
4) Ranger's are Explorers: Look, I know it is never going to end up seeing play this way, but let's stop and look through the abilities we know about in the context of the Ranger being a wanderer.
Level 1 - Rangers get more spells and can swap a single spell per day. Rangers can also cast ritual spells that they have prepared without using a spell slot. Now I don't know how many spells a Ranger gets, but that opens up the ability to Speak to Animals, use them to scout, secure your camp, detect poisons and diseases in food and water, create food if needed, increase your speed, create fog banks to hide your prescence, create difficult terrain to slow pursuers and a few other combat options. For a person traveling alone cross-country? That is bloody amazing.
Level 2 - Expertise in a single skill, making you better than a professional at your choice of skill. Two languages. Now, not sure how languages exactly work now, but in the UA it worked out so that most characters could speak three languages. The Ranger is going to be able to speak 5. Double checking the old book, with 8 standard languages if you take Sylvan for Fey folk in the deep wilderness, you can speak half of all languages. Again, as a person traveling the world alone? If you could speak half the languages in Europe or Africa, that would be an amazing boon. Not so great in your game? Well, maybe find a way to make it more useful that the Ranger is a polygot.
3 thru 5 are all combat buffs, unless you are a Fey Wanderer or Gloomstalker who can gain even more magic, and the Fey wanderer also improves your Charisma checks. But that is subclass specific.
level 6 - Permanent speed increase (you are almost as fast as a horse, and as fast as a wolf) and you gain a climb and swim speed. Which, again, seems like so little when thinking about combat, but in exploration? You are as fast on land as a wolf, as fast in the water as a Shark, and can climb above the treeline of just about any forest in 12 seconds. Maybe this isn't super helpful in a combat situation because you don't use 3-D movement in combat, but this is legitimately crazy. Only the Thief Rogue can match your climbing speed, and only the Monk at level 9 can outpace you across all terrain.
Level 10 - Tireless. Oh boy, Tireless. Quite literally the only problem with this ability is that DnD is a team game. You can go all night. Missing a Long Rest is a level of exhaustion, you recover exhaustion on a short rest. Sure, you lose out on your spell recovery, if you are constantly fighting you may need a long rest to get back your hit dice, but you can essentially go for 8 hours, take a short rest, go for another 8 hours, take a short rest, and just repeat this ad infinitum.
This is a rough estimate, but the Ranger might be covering 60 miles per day if they can move 16 hours a day with a 40 ft base speed, and that is normal pace.
Now, I acknowledge, this is a team game, the rest of the team can't make that kind of time. This is why the ability also has a combat usage. But this is darn impressive for the fantasy of being a lone traveler eking out their existence in the wilds of the world.
5) The Capstone: Yeah, it sucks. I'd got with @Stalker0 's suggestion of making it so every enemy counts has having Hunter's Mark on it. My variation is every enemy within 120 ft of the ranger, for the utility side of Hunter's Mark mostly.
6) The Subclasses: I do also want to point out that the Subclasses for the Ranger carry a lot of mechanical and combat oomph to them. Fey wanderer gives spells, increased damage, and Charisma abilities. Gloomstalker gives ambushing, stealth, spells, increased damage and fear effects. Hunter gives increased damage and the ability to swap your kit depending on the threat. Beastmaster has a vastly improved beast, and playtesters found they were doing quite respectable damage by level 11, which is usually when the ranger damage is falling off.
Now, specifics could kill some of these for people, I get that, but they could also make some of these more powerful than you expect. So no, I don't think the Ranger is a joke. I think it is going to be doing fairly solidly. Could it have been better? Sure, but so could EVERY class in the game.
