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

[doctorbadwolf]

Can be



Can't be a satisfying subclass with the above

Yes, it can.

Can't be a satisfying subclass with both the above

Yes, it can.

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

It already is. The only issue for the Ranger is that the current base class features aren’t good gameplay and don’t really execute on the class fantasy all that well, but fixing that doesn’t require being less good with weapons or losing Spellcasting, and very few people seem to really think the Ranger needs to have the companion in the base class.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

I stated back in the WOTC GLEEMAX forum days, that the ranger should get bonus damage to big monster or bonus attacks or AC vs minions as their gimmick. Applying damage to FE is a headache fans kept going back to.

If it were up to me

1. Ranger
   1. 1/2 caster
   2. Scales with spells
   3. Gets Hunter's Mark and other Mark spells
   4. Hunter subclass gives
2. Pathfinder
   1. Gets Collosus Slayer, Giant Killer, or Hordebreaker by default
   2. Scales with Collosus Slayer, Giant Killer, and Hordebreaker
   3. No spells
3. Shaman
   1. Has Beast Spirit Companion
   2. Scales with Beast Companion
   3. 1/2 caster

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

Very reasonable. My solution would have been to give the Ranger two FE options at level 1, and make the benefits more general for each one, like a benefit when fighting flying creatures or spellcasting creatures or large+ creatures, or hordes, etc. Basically steal the Hunter’s deal and expand it.

Another way to go would be to use spells (dragon’s Bane makes a breath weapon hurt the user too and makes flight painful, 3rd level spell), or to keep the damage buff but make it two creature types at level 1 and let you use a BA to mark a specific creature as a favored enemy if it isn’t already.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes, it can.

Yes, it can.

It already is. The only issue for the Ranger is that the current base class features aren’t good gameplay and don’t really execute on the class fantasy all that well, but fixing that doesn’t require being less good with weapons or losing Spellcasting, and very few people seem to really think the Ranger needs to have the companion in the base class.

The issue is that that

Spell optional Mostly Martial Ranger fans
Spells mandatory, Magical Fighting Ranger fans
&
Ranger with Combat beast fans

are fighting for the same class spot because WOTC didn't want to add classes. No one successfully made this all in one class.

And no designer invested time and page space to specifically to Rangery skills in a high magic power fantasy game.

 

[Corinnguard]

@Rocker26a, what about having it where you can change your Favored Enemy per Long Rest?

 

[Rocker26a]

what about having it where you can change your Favored Enemy per Long Rest?

I'm glad you've asked! I actually mentioned this in a thread ages ago.
The issue with that sort of proposed solution is; it becomes a non-choice, because you just pick whatever you know/you think you're most likely going to see today. You might as well just have the bonus regardless.
And then also, the ability to pick something different detracts from the roleplay aspect, it's no longer a meaningful part of your character's backstory or identity. "My home town is raided by Fiends at the end of each season... But, we're exploring a Haunted Manor today, so my Favoured Enemy is Undead."

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm glad you've asked! I actually mentioned this in a thread ages ago.
The issue with that sort of proposed solution is; it becomes a non-choice, because you just pick whatever you know/you think you're most likely going to see today. You might as well just have the bonus regardless.
And then also, the ability to pick something different detracts from the roleplay aspect, it's no longer a meaningful part of your character's backstory or identity. "My home town is raided by Fiends at the end of each season... But, we're exploring a Haunted Manor today, so my Favoured Enemy is Undead."

You can always choose to not change your Favored Enemy to stay true to that specific mechanical expression of your background. Or you can represent that background in other ways, and have favored enemy represent your ability to focus on the qualities of a particular type of creature, one of many with which you are familiar. And who says what you choose is necessarily all or even some of what you face that day?

 

[Rocker26a]

You can always choose to not change your Favored Enemy to stay true to that specific mechanical expression of your background.

You can, but then you're foregoing being more obviously mechanically useful in the name of staying true to your roleplaying, which isn't a decision class features should be provoking. You want them to work towards both aims hand-in-hand, ideally.

Or you can represent that background in other ways, and have favored enemy represent your ability to focus on the qualities of a particular type of creature, one of many with which you are familiar.

Also something you could do, but it's just not the implicit flavour of the feature.

And who says what you choose is necessarily all or even some of what you face that day?

Nothing of course, but that's just a different potentially annoying thing about how Favoured Enemy is offered.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm glad you've asked! I actually mentioned this in a thread ages ago.
The issue with that sort of proposed solution is; it becomes a non-choice, because you just pick whatever you know/you think you're most likely going to see today. You might as well just have the bonus regardless.
And then also, the ability to pick something different detracts from the roleplay aspect, it's no longer a meaningful part of your character's backstory or identity. "My home town is raided by Fiends at the end of each season... But, we're exploring a Haunted Manor today, so my Favoured Enemy is Undead."

And worse, you're being forced to make a choice at the start of the adventuring day when you might have zero information about what you're actually going to fight, thus opening the door to picking wrong anyways. Just looking over my last adventure session, the players had three encounters, one with beasts, one with celestials, and one with fey. Based on what they knew about the scenario, I'm certain a Ranger player would have chosen fey, because they'd faced some already, but they'd also already faced dragons twice, beasts twice, and an encounter with monstrosities.

The problem is? The fey encounter was the easiest of the three and wouldn't have required a bonus. Now maybe it scouting ahead was a more viable strategy in D&D, you could do that before the long rest, but typically, that just puts you at risk of having to escape a solo encounter since stealth is unreliable.

Primeval Awareness isn't even all that helpful, since it requires you to still have a spell slot to use it, only has a 1 mile range, and tells you only if a creature type is present, not location or number- unless you're in one of your favored terrains, another unreliable feature, which at least ups the range significantly.

So you could use a first level slot, find out that there's a dragons within 1 mile, swap your FE, end up encountering a lone friendly Fairy Dragon and then find a cave with an underwater grotto with an Aboleth and a pack of Chuul inside.

Changing FE gives you more chances to get it right, so it's less unreliable, but it's still not reliable. Great for a ribbon feature, not great for a prime ability.

 

[Corinnguard]

I'm glad you've asked! I actually mentioned this in a thread ages ago.
The issue with that sort of proposed solution is; it becomes a non-choice, because you just pick whatever you know/you think you're most likely going to see today. You might as well just have the bonus regardless.
And then also, the ability to pick something different detracts from the roleplay aspect, it's no longer a meaningful part of your character's backstory or identity. "My home town is raided by Fiends at the end of each season... But, we're exploring a Haunted Manor today, so my Favoured Enemy is Undead."

You're welcome. I asked because of a post I made on this same thread several pages as well. Level Up: A5e has a feature that is like Favored Enemy called Studied Adversary. It differs from Favored Enemy in that you can change your favored enemy per long rest. I can imagine that the Studied part of Studied Adversary implying that a Ranger uses some of their downtime and past experience studying what they know of their potential foe to be.

If you had a character whose hometown was being raided by Fiends at the end of each season, they probably spent their time learning everything they could about Fiends. Their strengths and weaknesses, their tactics, etc. in order to better prepare themselves for when the time came again to defend their hometown. But it probably wasn't the only type of monster they learned about. They might have learned about the undead as well because of those times where a Fiend reanimated those who had been killed in the raid.