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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8260308" data-attributes="member: 87792">You're missing two major things:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Ranger is almost certainly using Dex and the Paladin Str. Dex > Str in skills. (One reason for this is the fighting styles on offer; rangers don't get great weapon or protection and paladins don't get two weapon or archery).<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It's comparatively trivial, but there's a Beastmaster Ranger build that uses Wis as their attack stat as Druidic Warrior has Shillelagh as a cantrip  and the new viable beast option also uses Wis; there's no real Paladin equivalent.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If Tasha's is in play the Ranger is probably using Deft Explorer rather than the incredibly situational ability Natural Explorer. That's expertise on their most important skill (Perception? Stealth?) and two languages (which are, admittedly, situational)<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Str becomes even less useful for a ranger at L6 with Deft Explorer because they get a climb speed and a swim speed, cutting most of those skill checks</li> </ul></li> </ul>Divine Smite also costs spell slots. FF is free. At second level a paladin can divine smite or cast spells twice a day. A ranger can FF twice and cast spells twice per day.If we assume that the paladin Divine Smites twice a day - but the Ranger Goodberries once to provide as much healing as Lay On Hands then we've still got two FF fights and a Hunter's Mark fight from the Ranger. That's 4d8 damage from smiting vs 2* d4/round and 1*d6/attack. Not seeing a huge advantage to the smite here (and especially not if they want to use their spells for anything other than smites) - the Paladin has more burst damage but less sustain.It's action free damage that, unlike smite, comes with its own resources to use. This last would be crappy if it wasn't how rangers worked anyway. All the level 3 subclasses except the beastmaster have an extra dice damage 1/round mechanic at level three (although the Gloomstalker's only applies to their extra attack in round 1 and the fey wanderer and hunter can apply theirs to multiple targets 1/target/round). It's not how I'd have chosen to do things, certainly - but this overhead is in how the ranger works. Its damage might fail to scale on its own - but that's because it's a patch to the scaling of the ranger as a whole.And if we then throw in the rest of the class it's decent enough. Smite is basically a class-defining feature. Favoured Foe is a tweak to class abilities of a weak class that's better than the ability it replaced and helps them close the gap on the upper mid pack.</blockquote>

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