D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part XI: Rangers)

[doctorbadwolf]

i have gone a thousand different ways over the years, really since 4e launched, about the ranger. That’ll happen when your favorite class conceptually keeps getting done dirty.

One thing for 5e that I think the subclasses really don’t reliably cover is toolkit.

I think the ranger needs a more versatile resource pool, like a less specific point pool, and an expanded set of fighting styles, or a new design pillar in the class like artificer infusions or warlock pact boons.

Things like having an improved familiar that can fight, making traps and specialized poisons (dragons bane and the like) and hidden bivouac and whatever else, but also things like mounted archer that gives a mount and some mobility based shot-on-the-run type benefit that works on or off mount.

That, and more features need to be group-usable. The ranger should be a Jack of all trades that can help any group not totally blow it at survival and stealth.

 

[Undrave]

i have gone a thousand different ways over the years, really since 4e launched, about the ranger. That’ll happen when your favorite class conceptually keeps getting done dirty.

One thing for 5e that I think the subclasses really don’t reliably cover is toolkit.

I think the ranger needs a more versatile resource pool, like a less specific point pool, and an expanded set of fighting styles, or a new design pillar in the class like artificer infusions or warlock pact boons.

Things like having an improved familiar that can fight, making traps and specialized poisons (dragons bane and the like) and hidden bivouac and whatever else, but also things like mounted archer that gives a mount and some mobility based shot-on-the-run type benefit that works on or off mount.

That, and more features need to be group-usable. The ranger should be a Jack of all trades that can help any group not totally blow it at survival and stealth.

Traps should basically be like mundane rituals: you need time and material (valued in GP) and maybe something to anchor the trap to.

I think that'd be cool.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Traps should basically be like mundane rituals: you need time and material (valued in GP) and maybe something to anchor the trap to.

I think that'd be cool.

This may be controversial, but I agree, I just would also want the ranger to be able to spend a spell slot (or whatever) to do it as an action, using magic to shortcut the normal process.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Gonna be perfectly honest, I simply do not understand the "players should NEVER get dragon options" position. Like...dragons are cool. D&D has always been about the opportunity to do, and be or become, something cool. We get demonic things and elvish things and werewolf things. I don't understand why getting a taste of dragonish stuff is anathema.

 

[Tonguez]

I don't think animal companions should be represented by their own bodies and stats and hitdice etc. It's just another attempt at vaguely modelling reality rather than making a thing playable.

Swarmkeeper has the right spirit! Your animals are always present, but you're not taking two turns every round to play with them. It's just a bit too specific (you fly now) to match many concepts, and a bit too hands-off for the animals to have any personality...

Anyway, I am currently playing a Tasha-fixed Beast Master, but I am not voting for BM in this. People might think it's a vote for the subclass, rather than Primal Companion.

Yeah pets as special effects are a great way to handle animal companions which is essentially what Swarmkeeper and Primal Beast does. Snow white calling up a flock of little animals to aid her is a classic

 

[CreamCloud0]

Ranger is one of those classes I'd love to try to redesign from the group up. It would probably work great with the Warlock frame where you can pick if you want to be a melee skirmisher, archer hunter, or a beast master and then add another element on top.

I could definitely see rangers having a choice of a skill focus, a magic focus and a beast companion focus, and then a secondary focus choice of damage or tracking/survival or stealth or support that is expressed different based on their first focus, say you choose tracking/survival: skill might get expertise in survival and investigation, magic might get divination spells and create food and water and leomunds tiny hut and the companion path would get an exclusive Wolf companion with bonuses to track and hunt.

Ranger version of eldritch invocations would be great too.

 

[Undrave]

In 5e, I don’t see an elegant way to do this that doesn’t leverage spell slots. Having to sacrifice subclass to gain Spellcasting is a nonstarter. This is where I’d look more to the artificer than to the warlock for inspiration. I know some folks cannot abide the thought of nonmagical abilities using spells slots, so I’d be fine changing it to a monk style set of points called Hunter’s Focus or something.

I'd see the magic the base Ranger get to be more like Eldtrich Invocation: You pick some stuff you can do and it tells you how often. Maybe your Ranger gets to use Pass Without Trace at will, but it takes him 15 minutes to cast it now. Maybe they get Cure Wound once per short rest, etc. The more half-caster stuff would be optional. Spell slots honestly feel too formal to me, too Wizard. The Ranger's not a guy who went to college, he learned his magic from encountering people and being an apprentice. The Ranger's magic is not flexible, it's just something they do for specific purposes.

This may be controversial, but I agree, I just would also want the ranger to be able to spend a spell slot (or whatever) to do it as an action, using magic to shortcut the normal process.

That said that idea is also really neat! It's like a different take on a Paladin Smite! If the Ranger keeps the Spell Slot progression that's a good use of it.

Yeah pets as special effects are a great way to handle animal companions which is essentially what Swarmkeeper and Primal Beast does. Snow white calling up a flock of little animals to aid her is a classic

A bit like a Shaman should. I'd like to see a take on the Necromancer using this philosophy for the bulk of their ability, with only a handful of proper 'Raise Undead' type of summons so it doesn't get overwhelming.

Ranger version of eldritch invocations would be great too.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. The Warlock model is just so fun that I wish it was applied more.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd see the magic the base Ranger get to be more like Eldtrich Invocation: You pick some stuff you can do and it tells you how often. Maybe your Ranger gets to use Pass Without Trace at will, but it takes him 15 minutes to cast it now. Maybe they get Cure Wound once per short rest, etc. The more half-caster stuff would be optional. Spell slots honestly feel too formal to me, too Wizard. The Ranger's not a guy who went to college, he learned his magic from encountering people and being an apprentice. The Ranger's magic is not flexible, it's just something they do for specific purposes.

The ranger not being flexible is a non starter for me. Of all the classes, only the wizard and Druid makes sense to be more flexible than the ranger. As for spell slots, I mean that’s how Spellcasting works in 5e. The Arcane Trickster didn’t “go to college” either, nor the Druid, tbh.

The ranger is a trades professional whose trade demands versatility and adaptability.

That said that idea is also really neat! It's like a different take on a Paladin Smite! If the Ranger keeps the Spell Slot progression that's a good use of it.

Thank you. I think we just have different base assumptions about the game and the ranger specifically.

 

[Undrave]

The ranger not being flexible is a non starter for me. Of all the classes, only the wizard and Druid makes sense to be more flexible than the ranger. As for spell slots, I mean that’s how Spellcasting works in 5e. The Arcane Trickster didn’t “go to college” either, nor the Druid, tbh.

The ranger is a trades professional whose trade demands versatility and adaptability.

I’d like the class to be versatile, but I just don’t feel it fit for someone who’s not a full caster to have a huge spell list they can switch whenever. And, IMO, a lot of what the Ranger uses Spell for is just to compensate for a lack of good non-spell mechanics. Like, the Ranger spell list has what are basically trap but as spells. I’d like to see more design going outside of spell slots. The Ranger’s a competent Warrior, they shouldn’t need to be spending spell slot in battle all the time. Even if they make Hunter’s Mark magical it should be a class feature and not a spell.

Thank you. I think we just have different base assumptions about the game and the ranger specifically.

I'm mostly not a fan of seeing everybody with the spell slot Vancian casting. I'm not particularly a fan of it. Magical Class features for the Ranger? Cool and flavourful. The same feature as a spell? BOOOOORING

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’d like the class to be versatile, but I just don’t feel it fit for someone who’s not a full caster to have a huge spell list they can switch whenever. And, IMO, a lot of what the Ranger uses Spell for is just to compensate for a lack of good non-spell mechanics. Like, the Ranger spell list has what are basically trap but as spells. I’d like to see more design going outside of spell slots. The Ranger’s a competent Warrior, they shouldn’t need to be spending spell slot in battle all the time. Even if they make Hunter’s Mark magical it should be a class feature and not a spell.

I'm mostly not a fan of seeing everybody with the spell slot Vancian casting. I'm not particularly a fan of it. Magical Class features for the Ranger? Cool and flavourful. The same feature as a spell? BOOOOORING

Yeah, see, I don’t see the spell slot system as anything but a neutral delivery system.

If D&D moved away from all real magic being spells, I could see a few ranger designs with no spell slots, but as 5e is? IMO the 5e ranger genuinely has to be a spellcaster, and that’s fine. Pass Without Trace isn’t a wizard spell. I’d love more spell exclusivity by class, but the game might be ditching that idea for the rest of 5e’s lifespan, judging by the playtest.

I’d love for pass without trace to be a thing rangers can just do, even with smaller numbers, as part of just making the group more effective at doing the things rangers do that usually end up being group checks.

But I also love the Ranger whisper Sylvan words to their arrow that they purposefully made from the branches of thorny trees like the lemon tree (the one at my parents’ had thorns over an inch long) and causing it to explode with thorns when they shoot it. I think it makes sense that doing so requires drawing on an internal reservoir of power the Ranger has cultivated over time, though not as deeply as a Druid does, to give power to those Sylvan words. In a game wherein magic works a different way, I’d expect the ranger to do magic that way, instead.

I’m not a fan of different schools of magic working completely differently in one world, and you either do one or the other. That, to me, is even more idiosyncratic than flex-vancian Spellcasting. IMO it limits concepts more than just saying, “magic works via XYZ model, regardless of where it comes from or what it’s used for”.

Then, specific spells distinguish different characters, and in game stuff like divine magic has character by way of trends and norms in the specifics of those spells, and then some classes have exclusive tricks they have cultivated that you’d have to train with them to learn, in the form of class (or even subclass) specific spells baked into class features like the UA hunters mark if HM was nowhere in the game but the Ranger.