D&D 5E (2014) Convince me that the Ranger is a necessary Class.

[Zardnaar]

Exactly!
I hate 3/.5 and I still regard the 3.5 ranger as the best iteration thus far, except maybe the 5e Revised Ranger from UA. I haven’t seen any 3pp or homebrew Rangers that beat them either.
But it had the same issue as 5e.

Yeah I actually really liked it, and I wish they’d have iterated on it for the 2024 playtest.

Giving Rangers better initiative, natural explorer with no terrain silo, animal affinity, ability to sense favored enemies*, and the BM companion having its own turn and scaling well, fantastic. I do think that it needed to lose the favored enemy damage bonus but keep the rest of it and make Hunter’s Mark not a spell and do 1d6 and scale up.

I liked 3.5 ranger and bard. Just in wrong edition.

 

[Corinnguard]

Should we start a similar thread for how messed up Paladins are with Divine Smite as a bonus-action spell?

Why stop there? Every class/subclass has something that needs fixing. I suggest that we start with the Fighter class and go from there.

I hate 3/.5 and I still regard the 3.5 ranger as the best iteration thus far, except maybe the 5e Revised Ranger from UA. I haven’t seen any 3pp or homebrew Rangers that beat them either.

Any chance you have seen the homebrewed version of the Ranger by Laser Llama for 5e?

 

[James Gasik]

I like it! But I also think the Ranger is fine the way it is.

As for overpowered damage gods, how about a 5e Paladin dumping spell slots into smites?

The Paladin is great for burst, but I don't really like Smite. My playstyle is, if I have spell slots, I want to conserve them because I always plan for a long adventuring day, even if it doesn't manifest. I've seen Paladins burn all their spell slots in early encounters and then end up with nothing to use later, with the only saving grace being the fact that they have, IMO the best defensive chassis in the game.

 

[Minigiant]

But to answer the questions again.

1) Why is the Ranger a necessary class?
The Ranger is "necessary" because it is a container for a bunch of small but desired features that Base D&D usually lacks.

2) What are these things?

1. Stealth Warriors (Now core in modern D&D)
2. Tracking and creature/object finding
3. Wilderness survival
4. Herbology and potion craft
5. Zoology and animal lore
6. Botany and plant lore
7. Geology and rock lore
8. Monster lore
9. Fighting tailored to monsters
10. Using animals, plants, and rocks in combat
11. Using animals, plants and rocks in noncombat
12. Group Stealth and Group Detection
13. Elemental weapon attacks
14. Trap use

3) Why do rangers cast spells?

Because in core D&D, the rules for the above don't exist or don't scale past level 5. So designers just copy and reuse spells.

4) Can't we just make these core rules are removed the ranger?

In theory, yes. In practice, the rules either never appear, are poorly written, or don't scale

 

[Micah Sweet]

Can be



Can't be a satisfying subclass with the above



Can't be a satisfying subclass with both the above
---
Weapons Combat, Companions, and Spellcasting can't be choosable options on one class. It's never satisfying to the plurality in play.

That's how the WotC ranger works. You're claiming that it can't be satisfying? So no one enjoys playing that class?

 

[Minigiant]

That's how the WotC ranger works. You're claiming that it can't be satisfying? So no one enjoys playing that class?

This is WOTC 5e forum about the D&D ranger.

The official D&D community is different from the communities of other games who might enjoy other types of ranger.

 

[Corinnguard]

That's how the WotC ranger works. You're claiming that it can't be satisfying? So no one enjoys playing that class?

What makes a class satisfying is how you role-play one during a gaming session.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is WOTC 5e forum about the D&D ranger.

The official D&D community is different from the communities of other games who might enjoy other types of ranger.

I'm talking about the WotC ranger. Your statement claims that it is objectively unsatisfying. So no one enjoys playing it then? And the A5e (a 5e game) ranger offers even more choices that require opportunity costs. Does no one enjoy that either? My wife would disagree.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm talking about the WotC ranger. Your statement claims that it is objectively unsatisfying. So no one enjoys playing it then? And the A5e (a 5e game) ranger offers even more choices that require opportunity costs. Does no one enjoy that either? My wife would disagree.

I said it is unsatisfying for a wide community to have Weapons Combat, Beast Companions, and Spellcasting in the same class not as options.

Too many sacrifices must be made to do it in one class. Not even A5E could satisfy the majority. A5E heavily shifts to weapons combat at the expense of Magic.

That's why my position is 3 classes.

 

[Rocker26a]

Giving Rangers better initiative, natural explorer with no terrain silo, animal affinity, ability to sense favored enemies*, and the BM companion having its own turn and scaling well, fantastic. I do think that it needed to lose the favored enemy damage bonus but keep the rest of it and make Hunter’s Mark not a spell and do 1d6 and scale up.

Exactly, as before and as again afterwards, Favoured Enemy provided a sticking point. The fact that it's more explicitly a combat feature brings that problem of "Are there (creature type)s in this leg of the campaign? No? Well just let me know when there are, because I dedicated a class feature and a facet of my character roleplay to that eventuality!" into sharper focus.

Ruling out a total overhaul, I would've liked if Revised Ranger had just lost the hard shell of Favoured Enemy, and done something similar to what Natural Explorer got; render it agnostic, provide benefits that are potentially applicable for any monster fight/tracking. Though I do get why Favoured Enemy might've provoked a bit more rigidity than Natural Explorer when it comes to a revision.

While it's by no means my preferred solution, I do agree there might've been ways to make "Hunter's Mark does Favoured Enemy's heavy lifting" work well, particularly for Revised Ranger. I think if the Class Feature Variants UA that came out a couple years after had provisions for Revised Ranger, that would've been perfectly acceptable for a good portion of the playerbase. I'd say that initial incarnation of Favoured Foe was one of the least worst ones we ever got, it just lacked a touch of scaling. If they'd just offered as a footnote "Playing Revised Ranger and using Favoured Foe? The 6th level feature "Greater Favoured Enemy" now does this instead: (some form of buff)!", I think that might've been good.