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

[CreamCloud0]

i've probably already said this in this thread but given it's inclination to disappear and resurface every couple of weeks it's probably worth restating, i really liked what baldur's gate 3 did conceptually with favoured enemy(admittedly focused on humanoid archetypes than creature categories) and favoured terrain, just to start with you get multiple of both as you level up, but more importantly the benefits you get from both are more generically applicable rather than specifically active against a specific type of foe, you pick the anti-demon archetype and you get proficiency in religion and the sacred flame cantrip, pick bounty hunter you get investigation proficiency and advantage on ensnaring strike, pick tundra as your favoured terrain and get cold resistance, pick the city and get sleight of hand.

i do think you could probably get away with a baseline martial ranger, but with a number of feature choices that offer to lean into spellcasting that have the potential to synergize into making your character play higher-magic than they are, like stacking a third-caster subclass, with a druidic warrior fighting style for extra cantrips, and 'ranger invocations' which give you an arcane recovery feature and the ability to cast cure wounds PB/LR,
plus a focus on giving high quantity usage of low level magic that remain useful being cast at low levels(like find familiar, jump, shield, healing word, speak with animals, identify, bane, detect poison+disease) rather than spells that come online too late to be useful.

 

[Zardnaar]

i've probably already said this in this thread but given it's inclination to disappear and resurface every couple of weeks it's probably worth restating, i really liked what baldur's gate 3 did conceptually with favoured enemy(admittedly focused on humanoid archetypes than creature categories) and favoured terrain, just to start with you get multiple of both as you level up, but more importantly the benefits you get from both are more generically applicable rather than specifically active against a specific type of foe, you pick the anti-demon archetype and you get proficiency in religion and the sacred flame cantrip, pick bounty hunter you get investigation proficiency and advantage on ensnaring strike, pick tundra as your favoured terrain and get cold resistance, pick the city and get sleight of hand.

i do think you could probably get away with a baseline martial ranger, but with a number of feature choices that offer to lean into spellcasting that have the potential to synergize into making your character play higher-magic than they are, like stacking a third-caster subclass, with a druidic warrior fighting style for extra cantrips, and 'ranger invocations' which give you an arcane recovery feature and the ability to cast cure wounds PB/LR,
plus a focus on giving high quantity usage of low level magic that remain useful being cast at low levels(like find familiar, jump, shield, healing word, speak with animals, identify, bane, detect poison+disease) rather than spells that come online too late to be useful.

I was thinking of mentioning the BG3 ranger.

I've used it as tge basis of my homebrew one.

If you haven't played BG3 you get a special feature every level or maybe two you pick from curated list. On top of 5.0 type abilities.

 

[Rocker26a]

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.

Moving the goal posts a bit there, I would say. There's only so many justifications you can pull.
Regardless, the proposed example is; their character motivation is killing them Fiends, and that propels their mechanical investments. The ability and incentive to shelf their character motivation when it's convenient, weakens it. "I don't care about the Fiends that raid my home town at the end of each season today, I need to bust ghosts".

 

[James Gasik]

i've probably already said this in this thread but given it's inclination to disappear and resurface every couple of weeks it's probably worth restating, i really liked what baldur's gate 3 did conceptually with favoured enemy(admittedly focused on humanoid archetypes than creature categories) and favoured terrain, just to start with you get multiple of both as you level up, but more importantly the benefits you get from both are more generically applicable rather than specifically active against a specific type of foe, you pick the anti-demon archetype and you get proficiency in religion and the sacred flame cantrip, pick bounty hunter you get investigation proficiency and advantage on ensnaring strike, pick tundra as your favoured terrain and get cold resistance, pick the city and get sleight of hand.

i do think you could probably get away with a baseline martial ranger, but with a number of feature choices that offer to lean into spellcasting that have the potential to synergize into making your character play higher-magic than they are, like stacking a third-caster subclass, with a druidic warrior fighting style for extra cantrips, and 'ranger invocations' which give you an arcane recovery feature and the ability to cast cure wounds PB/LR,
plus a focus on giving high quantity usage of low level magic that remain useful being cast at low levels(like find familiar, jump, shield, healing word, speak with animals, identify, bane, detect poison+disease) rather than spells that come online too late to be useful.

It's not actually a Ranger thing per se, though it was obviously meant for Rangers, but 3.5's Horizon Walker was peak for this sort of thing. If you're a Desert Ranger, you're resistant to exhaustion and get a bonus to fight desert creatures. If you're a Mountain Ranger, you're better at climbing and get a bonus to fight mountain creatures. This eventually led to planar terrain masteries, which could grant resistances or even the ability to dimension door every 1d4 rounds!

 

[Zardnaar]

BG3 ranger

Ranger - bg3.wiki

Ranger is a character class in Baldur's Gate 3.

bg3.wiki

 

[Minigiant]

For FE/NT, I've always been a fan of 1 hard pick and 1 floater that can switch by spending a week studying.

 

[Rocker26a]

For FE/NT, I've always been a fan of 1 hard pick and 1 floater that can switch by spending a week studying.

I would say that's as least worst as it gets if you are determined to keep as close to the regular Favoured Enemy/Natural Explorer frameworks as you can. Obviously for me personally, I'd rather just scrap both altogether, but I do get why that'd be unpalatable for some.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Moving the goal posts a bit there, I would say. There's only so many justifications you can pull.
Regardless, the proposed example is; their character motivation is killing them Fiends, and that propels their mechanical investments. The ability and incentive to shelf their character motivation when it's convenient, weakens it. "I don't care about the Fiends that raid my home town at the end of each season today, I need to bust ghosts".

Well, if it's that much of an issue for your PC, why are they wasting their time busting ghosts when they should be hunting down fiends?

Unless, busting makes them feel good of course.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Well, if it's that much of an issue for your PC, why are they wasting their time busting ghosts when they should be hunting down fiends?

Unless, busting makes them feel good of course.

because just because you can't always be directly driving towards your own character's personal backstory hooks doesn't mean they shouldn't have weight on your character's in-universe build choices.

 

[Corinnguard]

because just because you can't always be directly driving towards your own character's personal backstory hooks doesn't mean they shouldn't have weight on your character's in-universe build choices.

True, there could be Ranger builds where the character focuses their attention towards one type of monster. I have seen at least one Ranger subclass whose class features deal exclusively with the undead. These Rangers would be like the Specialist Wizards.

A Ranger who deals with all kinds of foes would be like a Generalist Wizard.