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

[Shardstone]

Are you intentionally trying to be insulting or just accidentally doing it?


Which is precisely why I said it has "little to do with rangers."

Sorry I thought it was cute and funny. I meant no harm.

 

[Guest 7037866]

Sorry I thought it was cute and funny. I meant no harm.

I didn't think you meant to since normally you are not like that, but it came off a bit abrupt. Thanks.

EDIT: Just to possibly help avoid potential issues, if it was presented this way:

Weak response.

I would have better understood your intent was "weak" as in "not strong", get it!?

 

[ECMO3]

My Rangers want/need Dex and CON ...with INT (knowing/have learned things) instead of Wis. But, admittedly, that is not the commonly used or official PHB ranger.

Dump CON ... and intelligence. Pick up Wisdom and Charisma. That is what I generally like in a Ranger.

 

[Horwath]

Dump CON ...

are all your rangers suicidal?

and intelligence. Pick up Wisdom and Charisma. That is what I generally like in a Ranger.

That works, it worked better in 3.5 when you would actually get a lot more from 14 vs 6 Int on a ranger(more skills) and spells were horrible part of the class and you tried to find and decent ACF to replace them.

Sure in 5E you can use only non-attack and non-DC spells and it works great, but wis saves are still stronger than int save, later books did make more int save based spells and that is a good thing(better would be a return to 3 saves only, but that is another topic).

 

[Vaalingrade]

are all your rangers suicidal?

No, that's why they avoid the trap of taking CON instead of something that lets you survive.

 

[Shardstone]

Ranger should be ultra-MAD and just make use of every ability score. Intelligence Rangers use traps; Charismatic Rangers employ the help of beasts and spirits; Wise Rangers have all kinds of tricks and versatile spells; Con makes them hardy against poisons, diseases, and environmental hazards; dex to shoot people and be sneaky; strength to hit people and overcome big ol' obstacles.

Ranger starts the game with 20 in every stat of course.

 

[cbwjm]

Ranger should be ultra-MAD and just make use of every ability score. Intelligence Rangers use traps; Charismatic Rangers employ the help of beasts and spirits; Wise Rangers have all kinds of tricks and versatile spells; Con makes them hardy against poisons, diseases, and environmental hazards; dex to shoot people and be sneaky; strength to hit people and overcome big ol' obstacles.

Ranger starts the game with 20 in every stat of course.

This reads a little tongue-in-cheek but I do like subclasses that add another stat to a class's requirements. Things like the charismatic swashbuckler getting bonuses for a high Charisma bonus which causes the player to branch out into a second stat that they otherwise may not have. There's also a little of this in the battlemaster depending on the manoeuvres you choose and the arcane trickster and eldritch knight benefit from a decent intelligence if they're going to try to use spells that require spell attacks or saves.

 

[ECMO3]

are all your rangers suicidal?

No. Constitution is overated.

TBH I usually play with a 10 Con. Just about all my 1-20 PCs have had a 10 or a 12 Constitution. I am playing a Warlock-Bard with a 14 right now and it is the highest Constitution I have had on a character in 2 over years.

 

[Guest 7037866]

CON 14 is the most common by far. It is high enough to give you the bonuses to saves (including concentration checks) and hit points, without being overly taxing on the player, easily 3rd highest for most PCs (or 4th in some cases).

Usually seeing it lower on the list order is due to role-play concerns IME.

In order of priority my experiences have been:

DEX or STR
WIS or CON
CON or WIS
STR or DEX
INT or CHA
CHA or INT

 

[Laugh-ing-Coffin]

Ranger and Rogue fullfill the same niche that I have had legendary game designers argue that Robin Hood is a rogue.

If the paragon of ranger is not your class, it is extraneous.

Rogue now covers the skirmisher concept so I would be okay of folding the ranger abilities into it and the stereotypes as sub classes.

Then again my favorite ranger was the 4e version, because i have always preferred the deepwoods sniper version for my rangers.

So I'm asking.

Is the Ranger a necessary Class?

This post is a year old and I'm still sharing my opinion. No the ranger class has never been necessary, they originally belonged as a subclass for the rogues. But people wanted more combat damage potential and a survival and tracker niche which they couldn't justify with just one or two subclass so they made it its own class... Now the rogues have scout as a subclass to kinda fill that rogue gap but it's meh in my opinion compared to the original rogue ranger subclass.