CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
There's well over a hundred and twenty different classes and subclasses in the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons game, and we're on a mission to determine which one is the Survivor! And this time around, we are comparing all of the ranger subclasses from all of the Wizards of the Coast game resources against each other. The Survivor of this round will advance to the final round, where it will face off against the champions of all the other character classes.
(Yes, I know that we've done a Survivor: Subclasses thread before, but that was a while ago and lots of new subclasses have been released since. Now there are over a hundred and twenty of them, and probably fifteen more will be added by the time I finish typing this sentence. A Survivor thread of that size would be ridiculous.)
SURVIVOR: 5E CHARACTER CLASSES
Round XI: The Ranger
This time around, we're going after one of the most heavily-revised (and revised, and revised, and revised) classes ever published: the Ranger! Seriously, people have been hating on this class ever since it was published, and the devs at Wizards of the Coast have been trying to fix it nine ways till Sunday in various Unearthed Arcana playtests over the years. Heck, the entire core class now has an optional rebuild in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and the indignity of Internet "fans" only got louder.
Well, we're going to examine all thirteen of the subclass options (also called "Conclaves") for the Ranger class in 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Will your favorite Survive? Does anybody even have a favorite? The winner of this contest will advance to the Final Round, where it will represent ALL Rangers in the 5th Edition D&D game.
The Hall of Heroes
HOW TO PLAY
THE MOST IMPORTANT BITS
Three important points that you must read before voting--
RANGER SUBCLASSES
=====================================
Beast Master (Player's Handbook)
Deep Stalker (Unearthed Arcana, "The Ranger, Revised", 2016)
Drakewarden (Fizban's Treasury of Dragons)
Fey Wanderer (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything)
Gloom Stalker (Xanathar's Guide to Everything)
Guardian (Unearthed Arcana, "Ranger", 2015)
Horizon Walker (Xanathar's Guide to Everything)
Hunter (Player's Handbook)
Monster Slayer (Xanathar's Guide to Everything)
Primeval Guardian (Unearthed Arcana, "Ranger and Rogue", 2017)
Skirmisher (Unearthed Arcana, "Ranger", 2015)
Swarmkeeper (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything)
Wanderer (Unearthed Arcana, "Ranger", 2015)
(Yes, I know that we've done a Survivor: Subclasses thread before, but that was a while ago and lots of new subclasses have been released since. Now there are over a hundred and twenty of them, and probably fifteen more will be added by the time I finish typing this sentence. A Survivor thread of that size would be ridiculous.)
SURVIVOR: 5E CHARACTER CLASSES
Round XI: The Ranger
This time around, we're going after one of the most heavily-revised (and revised, and revised, and revised) classes ever published: the Ranger! Seriously, people have been hating on this class ever since it was published, and the devs at Wizards of the Coast have been trying to fix it nine ways till Sunday in various Unearthed Arcana playtests over the years. Heck, the entire core class now has an optional rebuild in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, and the indignity of Internet "fans" only got louder.
Well, we're going to examine all thirteen of the subclass options (also called "Conclaves") for the Ranger class in 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Will your favorite Survive? Does anybody even have a favorite? The winner of this contest will advance to the Final Round, where it will represent ALL Rangers in the 5th Edition D&D game.
The Hall of Heroes
Round I, Artificers: Battle Smith
Round II, Barbarians: Path of the Totem Warrior
Round III, Bards: College of Lore
Round IV, Clerics: Tempest Domain
Round V, Druids: Circle of the Shepherd
Round VI, Fighters: Battle Master
Round VII, Monks: Way of the Kensei
Round VIII, Mystics: Order of the Immortal
Round IX, Paladins: Oath of the Ancients
Round X, Sorcerers: Divine Soul
Round II, Barbarians: Path of the Totem Warrior
Round III, Bards: College of Lore
Round IV, Clerics: Tempest Domain
Round V, Druids: Circle of the Shepherd
Round VI, Fighters: Battle Master
Round VII, Monks: Way of the Kensei
Round VIII, Mystics: Order of the Immortal
Round IX, Paladins: Oath of the Ancients
Round X, Sorcerers: Divine Soul
HOW TO PLAY
- In this round, only the ranger subclasses are presented.
- Only the subclasses written by Wizards of the Coast qualify. No third-party entries!
- Each entry starts with 20 points.
- Every day, you vote for one subclass that you like, which gains 1 point. And then you vote for a different subclass, which loses 2 points. It is intentional that a negative vote is worth more than a positive vote - first, because it takes something extra to whittle these guys down to size. Second, because.
- Mark your upvotes in green, and downvotes in red. Or just show them in bold text and use "+1" and "-2" to mark them, if colored text is too difficult on your browsing device.
- It's easier if you just copy and paste the previous poster’s vote and change the numbers; the Quote function isn't the best for this.
- You may vote only once per day in each category. This is an honor system, and we are all honorable gamers; please do not abuse it. If this means you vote once at night one day, and once the next morning - that's fine, but don't vote again until the following day. Rule of thumb: if your most recent vote post says "yesterday" in the time stamp, you can vote again.
- This is just another Internet popularity contest and you do not have to explain an upvote or downvote, but feel free to do so...thos explanations are where the fun is! And the more outlandish, petty, or nitpicky your reasons for voting, the better!
- When downvotes reach 0 the subclass is removed from the list.
- Finally, if an entry has one point left, then you have to make the choice to use all of your downvotes to eliminate it; there is no vote splitting. In addition, you can't upvote and downvote the same entry (no "see" votes). And you have to use BOTH YOUR UPVOTE AND DOWNVOTE if you vote.
THE MOST IMPORTANT BITS
Three important points that you must read before voting--
- This is just a popularity contest, and it's supposed to be fun. You can cast your votes for whatever reason you want; spite, malice, love or hatred of archery, two-handed weapon dependency, strategic voting, and so on are all perfectly acceptable. But this is for enjoyment only. If you experience anger, hostility, or other evidence of Not Having Fun, you're doing it wrong.
- This week (and the next few weeks to come) will feature a list of character subclasses from the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, Unearthed Arcana, Plane Shift, The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and other places. Only the subclasses written and published by Wizards of the Coast are included.
- As always, the list is the list. If you have a complaint about the list, please direct it to //dev/null.
RANGER SUBCLASSES
=====================================
Beast Master (Player's Handbook)
Deep Stalker (Unearthed Arcana, "The Ranger, Revised", 2016)
Drakewarden (Fizban's Treasury of Dragons)
Fey Wanderer (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything)
Gloom Stalker (Xanathar's Guide to Everything)
Guardian (Unearthed Arcana, "Ranger", 2015)
Horizon Walker (Xanathar's Guide to Everything)
Hunter (Player's Handbook)
Monster Slayer (Xanathar's Guide to Everything)
Primeval Guardian (Unearthed Arcana, "Ranger and Rogue", 2017)
Skirmisher (Unearthed Arcana, "Ranger", 2015)
Swarmkeeper (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything)
Wanderer (Unearthed Arcana, "Ranger", 2015)
