D&D 5E 5th edition Ranger: Why does every class have to have it's own schtick?

[TheCosmicKid]

And my perception of a Ranger's wilderness survival kit includes the spells that they gain as they level up, as far as I'm concerned it's part and parcel of being a DnD ranger.

Why? It's an unusual approach to the wilderness survival trope -- there are a lot more "survivor" characters in fiction who don't cast spells than do, starting with the original Ranger, Aragorn himself. We don't say the fighter uses magic to fight, or the rogue uses magic to sneak around. There are specific variants of those classes that do do those things, but the baseline assumption is that they don't because that allows the class to cover a more general archetype.

Tracking airborne or waterborne creatures once they are out of sight is impossible in my game, with the rare exception of a waterborne creature that has just passed out of sight might leave a slight wake you can follow.

And no, if a Dragon flies away you shouldn't be able to directly track it; instead you watch it fly off then find a way to scry it (Reflecting Pool, Clairvoyance, or a host of devices) and see where it goes.

Watch the birds. Head in the direction they're flying away from. That's covered under "tracking", in my mind.

 

[Minigiant]

Why? It's an unusual approach to the wilderness survival trope -- there are a lot more "survivor" characters in fiction who don't cast spells than do, starting with the original Ranger, Aragorn himself. We don't say the fighter uses magic to fight, or the rogue uses magic to sneak around. There are specific variants of those classes that do do those things, but the baseline assumption is that they don't because that allows the class to cover a more general archetype.

You don't need magic to fight or sneak around. The ranger do both with it.

However, if you are tracking a red dragon's footsteps and they suddenly end by it took flight...

conjure animals to summon birds and have them fan out
speak with animals and ask if they've seen it
speak with plants to ask the trees which way it went
locate creature if you know it
locate object if you have one of it's possessions
use you crystal ball (1st edition level 9 ranger feature) to scry it.

There's no GPS, radar, or extensive network of rangers to call like we have on Earth. So Ranger's got use magic.

Watch the birds. Head in the direction they're flying away from. That's covered under "tracking", in my mind.

You can only do that if you are standing there when the birds fly away.

If the birds fly away.... 5 miniutes before you get there, there are no birds to watch then...

However, if you are tracking a red dragon's footsteps and they suddenly end by it took flight...

conjure animalss to summon birds and have them fan out
speak with animals and ask if they've seen it
speak with plants to ask the trees which way it went
locate creature if you know it
locate object if you have one of it's possessions
use you crystal ball (1st edition level 9 ranger feature) to scry it.

 

[Li Shenron]

Despite what the magic haters say, the Ranger is a magical class. Yes he doesn't pick it up till later levels, but he has always had magic. 4e excepted of course, and even then it was added back in later.

Letting the Ranger get spells sooner goes along with the "letting you play the character you want to play from early levels" idea that 5e has embraced. Not from level one, but by level 3 you have the basics. By 5th you are there.

Agree until this point. I think the PHB Ranger base class is already great and well balanced with the others, and so is the Hunter subclass. As for the Beastmaster, I will not judge it until I see one in play, and I point out that most of those who criticize it haven't actually seen one in play (they think it sucks so they don't play, and then say that nobody playing it is the proof it sucks).

But as I mentioned already way too many times, there is no solution to the pet design problem, exactly because they insist for it to be part of the Ranger's "power budget". So it's either always on the weak side (compared to what pet-lovers want) or otherwise the whole Ranger+pet is too strong, or (where we're heading now in the next iteration) the Ranger minus the pet is too weak -> expect that the main criticism on the next iteration will either be from other players saying that now the Ranger+pet dominate the game OR it will be from Ranger's player saying "but the DM isn't letting my pet come into the city/dungeon/castle, and now my Ranger cannot do anything!"

The only way to solve the problem is to think out of the box: the pet must not be part of the Ranger's power budget!

 

[Staffan]

However, if you are tracking a red dragon's footsteps and they suddenly end by it took flight...

conjure animalss to summon birds and have them fan out
speak with animals and ask if they've seen it
speak with plants to ask the trees which way it went
locate creature if you know it
locate object if you have one of it's possessions
use you crystal ball (1st edition level 9 ranger feature) to scry it.

The problem with that is that those spells are generally pretty situational, and 5e rangers are spells-known casters. Spells-known casters tend to choose most of their spells for the widest possible utility, rather than narrow applications.

And that leads me into one of the two changes I'd make to the 5e ranger: I would make them prepared casters instead, like paladins. IMO, that works a lot better with the "wilderness scout" feel of the class - they try to learn things about the situation they would be in, in order to bring the right toolkit (= spells prepared). I might expand their spell list a little to help with that - there are probably some druid spells that were judged too situational to put on the ranger list where they'd act as traps.

The second change I'd make would be to the Beastmaster, where the animal could act independently of the ranger. That might require a nerf of the companion, but I feel it's the right thing to do. The thing is that the Hunter gets to add damage compared to the baseline ranger in various situations (when attacking wounded targets, when attacking packed targets, or when being attacked by big creatures), whereas the Beastmaster gets to replace some of her regular damage with the companion's damage. A Colossus Slayer hunter with a longbow and Dex 18 (at 4th level) will attack once at +6 and deal 2d8+4 against a wounded target (and there usually is a wounded target around to shoot). A Beastmaster with the same stats and a Wolf companion can either attack herself once at +6 for 1d8+4, or get their wolf buddy to do it at +6 for 2d4+4 with a relatively easy save to avoid getting knocked prone. In addition, the ranger has a lot more options for enhancing their own attacks (various spells, stat increases, feats) than those of their companion - though the companion does get a bit of a buff via proficiency bonus on its own, but hardly enough to make up for things like hail of thorns or Sharpshooter.

On the other hand, writing that does give me an idea for a niche for the Beastmaster: the "survivalist" ranger. This is, the ranger that doesn't take feats and spells that make them better in personal combat, but instead focuses on knowing more stuff about the wilderness. More speak with animal, water breathing, and locate creature than hail of thorns, lightning arrow, or conjure barrage. The companion doesn't have as many opportunities for buffing, but it does get a little buffer on its own, and that lets the ranger do other stuff. I don't know how viable this is, but I think it's a better way to work the Beastmaster instead of focusing on damage.

 

[Li Shenron]

Why? It's an unusual approach to the wilderness survival trope -- there are a lot more "survivor" characters in fiction who don't cast spells than do, starting with the original Ranger, Aragorn himself.

As someone else already said, basic wilderness survival makes you an Outlander. You don't need to be a hero to know about wilderness survival. PC classes are more about heroes (at least in the making, for the first few levels), so heroic wilderness survival means something more than just the Survival skill. Same difference that comes between a Soldier and a Fighter, or a character with Thieve's Tools proficiency and a Rogue.

What I'm trying to say is that basic wilderness survival alone is not enough for a class. That's also why IMHO the Scout class concept has always been too weak. The Ranger's spells have always helped a lot towards heroic wilderness survival. The Ranger's animal companion has nearly nothing to do with it, it's a separate thing.

 

[Onslaught]

And the Ranger in the PHB does capture the right feel. It just is mechanically a little lacking. A couple fixes and it would be golden. The biggest problem is making the animal companion an independent (but still controlled by the player) creature without making it too good. But something needs to be done because the current rules are clunky and doesn't make much sense from a verisimilitude perspective.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-to-have-it-s-own-schtick/page5#ixzz3s86o04WW

I think Lord Twig has a point when he says that the Ranger in the PHB captues the right feel, but the problem is rules execution. And that is important: the point here isn't to make a spell-less ranger... or something totally different as they did with the spirits.

Moreover, one of the stapple features of the ranger for me is the Favored Enemy... yes, that's circunstancial, but I think the execution was perfect in 5e, making the Ranger the better hunter - not necessarely the best killer. But they could be, if they decided to focus on it (aka archetype).

That said, casting Raise Dead on a post from the first page:

I think the main problem with the Ranger is they forgot how to actually make it unique. Right now a Paladin and Fighter are distinguished but the Ranger really feels like a mixture of the two.

I personally would've preferred the following:

1) All Rangers to be granted an Animal Companion of CR 1/4 or less.
2) The Archetypes to be split Marksman, Hunter or Beastcaller with each revolved around how the damage is dealt.
3) Ranger Spells focusing on the mix of druidic magic and stealth abilities (I mean I think giving Ranger's Invisibility would've been a positive move) mixed with creating some trap-style spells that have conditional triggers, like if an enemy moves they are knocked prone and take piercing damage.

Hunter, for example, could focus on dual-wielding and allow them to add their ability modifier to off-hand. They could also be granted the ability to make off-hand attacks as part of an attack action instead of a bonus, or grant them a bonus to armour class when dual-wielding.

Marksman would turn all of those magical arrow spells and create X per Y abilities such as a Cone of Arrows, or a Pin Down attack that prevented a foe from moving.

Beastcaller would take the Animal Companion every Ranger had and allow it to perform special actions such as grapple, knockdown or charge, as well as allowing it to attack without requiring an action on the Ranger's part.

I like dmnqwk's approach quite a bit.

1) Every Ranger can have a "fluffy" animal companion, that doesn't scale or scale so poorly that it shouldn't even try to fight - Boo, I'm looking at you now.
2) The archetypes end up defining how the Ranger approach the combat: pairing with an animal companion, being expert archers or great at melee (maybe focusing on two weapon fighting).

The "marksman" option could as well be the Scout - more sneaky.

The "hunter" option be better at tracking and not as good with hiding - without basic Ranger hide reatures... but maybe be more resistant, with some "Bonfire Healing", like extra HD for short rests

And the Animal Companion would have a nice beast that scales well and attacks others on his own. Or can be Large so the Ranger can mount it. I think this Ranger could even give up an ASI to have a better companion.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The problem with the Ranger is that people have more versions of the ranger than can ever possibly fit in a single class archetype without having a more flexible class design. It's just as ranger-y to not have TWF or spells as it is to have them; what if I want no spells and an animal companion to track while using my sword-and-board fighting style?

My personal solution is to provide a broader list of ranger archetypes within the class and allow choices that are all equally viable.

 

[Mephista]

Why? It's an unusual approach to the wilderness survival trope -- there are a lot more "survivor" characters in fiction who don't cast spells than do, starting with the original Ranger, Aragorn himself.

1) We have several ways to make a "survivor" - including the barbarian class or several backgrounds. 2) Aragorn was more paladin than modern Ranger, but irregardlss, Strider absolutely displayed magical ability. "The hands of a king are the hands of a healer" and all that.

The 1e Ranger was just a Fighter subclass. I really think that's the only solution that's going to make spell-less ranger fans happy. For everyone else, we need magic.

 

[S'mon]

If if they did die before reaching those levels, spellcasting was still a core part of the overall class. It would be like saying that casting 5th level spells aren't a default part of a wizard because many of them die before reaching 9th level... Or saying that casting 2nd level spells aren't a default part of a wizard considering how fragile they were back in the day.

I've run settings where there was a spell level cap at level 4, eg most of my Yggsburgh setting (1e AD&D, highest PC level reached in 45 sessions was a 5th level Fighter). This did not make the wizards "not wizards", so yes I'd say that casting 5th level spells is not a core or vital part of what it means to be a wizard. I guess maybe getting to cast Fireball might be considered
core for many people playing D&D, but not Cloudkill or Teleport.

And yes, casting spells was definitely not seen as core or vital to the 1e AD&D Ranger or
Paladin concept.

 

[S'mon]

conjure animals to summon birds and have them fan out
speak with animals and ask if they've seen it
speak with plants to ask the trees which way it went
locate creature if you know it
locate object if you have one of it's possessions
use you crystal ball (1st edition level 9 ranger feature) to scry it.

Sounds like a Druid to me - except the crystal ball, a weird interpretation of Aragorn's attempt to use Saruman's palantir.