Exactly.
Laser Llama's Ranger had it where your Ranger could take up a series of knacks to become a stealth expert, a survivalist, a slayer, a movement expert, etc. Or somewhere in-between as your character could gain up to 10 knacks by the time they reached level 20.
If my wife ends up still unhappy with her rangers after using 2024 for a couple levels, we might look at that Ranger or build one ourselves.
Agreed.
Pure Martial Ranger only made sense in 4e where the entire system was redesigned around that.
Even then it felt wrong until we got primal utility powers for the class.
Tech meaning tool use. Poisons, herbs, traps, lures, smoke bombs.
Basically the items many ranger spells are supposed to represent.
Weird word choice then. Tools. The Ranger using tools doesn’t interfere with using anything else. It isn’t a “different direction” that pulls against the rest of the class.
Martial/spell and martial with a dab of spell have fundamentally different gameplay loops.
No, they don’t. They both mostly shoot or stab things, and use skills and magic outside of combat. All that is needed is ways for the Ranger to turn spell slots into adventuring resources, allowing a dial for how much magic your Ranger uses.
No one asks for it directly.
But having a wolf or bear companion that stands up to a dragon like a fighter would require most of your PC resources.
No one asks for that. They ask for a pet that doesn’t die immediately when the dragon uses its breath weapon, and can add a worthwhile amount of damage to encounter. Using up your whole subclass is plenty for that, and as a core feature it could be even stronger without using up even half the power of the class, much less leave the ranger themselves as secondary to their pet.
Martial buffed or Spell Buffed
- A pure martial = 4E Weapon Ranger
- A martial/spell = 5E Ranger
- A martial/tech = 3.5e Ranger with spell flavored as items
That isn’t even a thing. You can flavor any edition spells as items.
- A martial with a dab of spell = A5E Warden Ranger
That’s literally just less good Ranger with spells. It’s the same gameplay, but less of it because you run out of spells faster and your spells are lower level.
- A martial with a dab of tech = 1e/2e Ranger
- A pure beastmaster = WOW Beast hunter
The wow hunter literally deals great damage while the pet tanks…neither is powerful without the other. It’s an even split of power at most, but really the Hunter is still more than the pet, last I played.
- A martial/beast = 4e Beastmaster Ranger
The worst Ranger option in 4e by far. So bad it was better to take Fey Beast Tamer theme.
- A spell/beast = 3e Druid/Ranger
What. That isn’t even a Ranger concept. That’s just a Druid with a pet focus. And yes, the Druid should be the one that can trade wild shape for a
strong pet that they can buff with spell slots, and be the ultimate Beastmaster, not the Ranger.
The pet can't really fight.
The Warlock? I mean, it’s a full caster with powerful at-will combat potential, of course the pet is weak. We are discussing a half caster putting power options into the pet rather than further boosting their own power, there is much more room for that. And the subclass could be adding to an existing beast feature, which would allow even more power for the pet.
And the Warlock mostly relies on D&D's overgenerous spell system and the most powerful custom Cantrips to make it work.
And like I said, it unbalanced the game. The warlock was too abusable and is only slightly less now.
The Warlock isn’t even top tier, though. And the “abusable” builds all either rely on mixing three Cha classes into a weird Frankenstein, or cheesy rules interpretations that no one took seriously.
So no, the invocation model is not a problem.
