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

[EzekielRaiden]

As I said just over a year ago (a year and one week exactly, it would seem):

It's not necessary.

Neither is any other class.

Your standard is one that would result in a classless game, because no class is necessary. Full stop.

The actually meaningful questions to ask are:

• Is the ranger class useful? Does it fill a player desire or interest?
• What archetypes can be found in the ranger? Does it bring them to life?
• What mechanics does the ranger use? Are they well-made for the purpose they serve?

Those are actually worth answering. And I'm afraid you'll find that the answers are not to your liking--because they indicate the ranger very much has a place in D&D, for a variety of reasons.

That list of questions remains. "Necessity" is, was, and always will be a useless thing to ask about, because literally nothing is "necessary" in a leisure activity. It's always a matter of what benefit is brought, not whether something is required by some divine authority. So:

Is the ranger class useful? Does it fill a player desire or interest?
This would seem to be unequivocally the case. Even folks who don't care for it recognize that it fulfills a couple of different player interests, usually in ways that don't match well with other classes: it is THE pet class, for example, as well as the wilderness survivalist. Those are both mechanical and thematic things that a significant chunk of players really like.

What archetypes can be found in the ranger? Does it bring them to life?
This is more in question, but I think just looking at the 5.5e Ranger gives a clear idea of the archetypes it's meant to capture. It includes things like David from David and Goliath (the small hero against the great monster), or Robin Hood by way of "gritty survivalist and all around sneaky-boi" which also covers (for example) Odysseus, or the monster-tamer e.g. Androcles and the Lion. I do think a lot of the heavy lifting for bringing this to life comes purely from the player, rather than the class design, which is a shame but not uncommon in 5e (see: Wizard and its extremely minimal support for its flavor, as opposed to the 5.0 Wizard's near-total lack of support--yet I don't see folks clamoring for the removal of Wizards.)

What mechanics does the ranger use? Are they well-made for the purpose they serve?
We can see those mechanics by looking at them in the 2024 books--and the 2014 books, for comparison. The old Beast Master, for example, fell pretty short of actually being well-made for the purpose they (were intended to) serve. 5.5e has improved some things. I haven't seen them in action enough to speak to their function myself.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm afraid those all ring a little too true.

Indeed. It's the Psion in miniature, except at least the Ranger got to actually exist. The poor Psion, and psionics rules in general, don't even get that far because there's at least 3-5 different loose camps, all of them mutually disagree about something, and all of them are perfectly content with "if I can't have perfection, I'll sabotage anyone else getting even part of what they want."

 

[Minigiant]

Indeed. It's the Psion in miniature, except at least the Ranger got to actually exist. The poor Psion, and psionics rules in general, don't even get that far because there's at least 3-5 different loose camps, all of them mutually disagree about something, and all of them are perfectly content with "if I can't have perfection, I'll sabotage anyone else getting even part of what they want."

Except the Ranger's problem is just...

Page Count

Even the beloved Laserllama ranger is

4 pages of base class
1 page for each subclass
1 page for beast companions
2-3 pages of knacks.

That's 12 pages for a nonwizard, noncleric. And it's not complete. Not gonna happen.

A5e ranger is 12 pages and it doesn't scale wilderness skills to Tier 3. Not gonna happen.

The whole reason why this question exists is because the community will never ever give the space for the answer.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Except the Ranger's problem is just...

Page Count

Even the beloved Laserllama ranger is

4 pages of base class
1 page for each subclass
1 page for beast companions
2-3 pages of knacks.

That's 12 pages for a nonwizard, noncleric. And it's not complete. Not gonna happen.

A5e ranger is 12 pages and it doesn't scale wilderness skills to Tier 3. Not gonna happen.

The whole reason why this question exists is because the community will never ever give the space for the answer.

I mean...I don't really see the difference here. The page count required by the Ranger-Enjoyers would piss off the Wizard-Enjoyers who never want a lesser quantity of nice things to be given to them than is given to anyone else. And the Ranger-Haters don't get what they want, which is the deletion of the class, and instead stuffing its torn-out intestines into some other class as a pale shadow of its former self via subclass.

Three groups, none of whom really get what they want...except arguably the Wizard-Enjoyers. Just as, with the Psion, however-many-groups, none of which get what they want...except arguably the Psionics-Haters (though a lot of them don't even want the psi-flavored subclasses we've gotten!)

 

[MGibster]

I'm always curious as to whether all the players who always say "We only need four classes" actually play their games that way? I mean just because the PHB includes the other eight doesn't mean a DM is required to use them. All of us could be playing Fighting / Rogue / Cleric / Wizard all along if we really wanted to.

I suppose it's technically true the DM could restrict any class they want. From a practical point of view, how easy would it be for such a DM to find enough players for a campaign? I don't think it's unreasonable for anyone to show up to a D&D campaign with the expectation the base classes in the PHB are fair game. Paladins don't even have an alignment restriction so you don't even have to worry about Lawful Stupid characters not fitting in with a group of morally questionable adventurers.

 

[Minigiant]

I mean...I don't really see the difference here. The page count required by the Ranger-Enjoyers would piss off the Wizard-Enjoyers who never want a lesser quantity of nice things to be given to them than is given to anyone else. And the Ranger-Haters don't get what they want, which is the deletion of the class, and instead stuffing its torn-out intestines into some other class as a pale shadow of its former self via subclass.

Three groups, none of whom really get what they want...except arguably the Wizard-Enjoyers. Just as, with the Psion, however-many-groups, none of which get what they want...except arguably the Psionics-Haters (though a lot of them don't even want the psi-flavored subclasses we've gotten!)

With Psions, 4 different factions fighting for 1 slot for a class. And no faction will accept any other version.

With Ranger, while there might be 3 or 4 (pure martial, half caster, supernatural skill) factions fighting for the 1 slot, any of the factions would be mostly okay if you give any version its full space. Just the Wizard lovers won't allow for the space. Rangers get a little and often has to share most of it.

D&D gives rangers few unique spells and gives them away easier. A5E doesn't give rangers a unique school and it's knacks don't scale well. Daggerheart has Ranger share it's domains and leaves all other wildness stuff to narration. Etc. Etc.

 

[Horwath]

Well the Bard didn't start as a full caster.

Bard and Warlock became full casters because WOTC and 3PPs suck at balancing not full casters.

Also the community is too freaking wizard biased to extend niches to other types of magic.

But I'll say it again The ranger exists and is a half caster because you need distinct rules for many rangery things.

You cannot heal with the Medicine skill.
You cannot charm an animal with Animal handling skill.
You cannot cover yourself with natural armor of bark or stones with Nature skill.
You cannot make special tracking tools with Survival skill.

Animal handling, Medicine, Nature and Survival are traditionally Ranger skills along with Stealth.

But we all agree for the most part at most tables...

Animal Handling, Medicine, Nature and Survival don't "do anything".​

The ranger class exist to introduce those prepackaged effects associated with wilderness survival and hunting along with high skill rolls in order to add them to the game.

The major issue with 5E is that for the most part WOTC and most 3PPs forgot ranger is a skills class and rangers either had exclusive access to some skill uses or had spells that removed limitations/restrictions on defined skill uses.

this can be solved by adding those things to specific skills:

1. If you have proficiency in this skill you can do this extra
2. if you have expertise in this skill you can do this extra.

I.E:
Medicine,
if you have proficiency in Medicine and you use a charge of medicine kit you can heal the target of your 1st aid for a number of HPs equal to your passive Medicine score(take 10).
if you have expertise in Medicine you can heal as you rolled a 20 on your Medicine roll and remove one condition(Poisoned, Blinded, Deafaned)
A target must finish Long rest before benefiting from this Action again.

Animal handling:
expertise might give you a small animal companion,

Survival can give you ability to prepare traps during Long rest that you can deploy as an Action.
prof bonus number of traps(double if you have expertise)
DC: 8+2×prof bonus, for both noticing traps(Perception or Survival) and for avoiding/limiting effects of them.
damage 1d6 to d12 per prof bonus, depending on damage rider from traps.

Nature:
well there can be a limit on what can you know without proficiency or expertise, no matter the roll.

 

[GrimCo]

One of the bigger problem with ranger is that his main niche isn't really that prominent in modern adventures and that other classes have better and more efficient ways to deal with same problems. One of his main shticks is that ranger is wilderness survival expert. Yet, by tier 2, food/water/shelter aren't problem any more. Casters can overcome that with few spells. Goodberry, create food/water, tiny hut.

IMHO, looking at classes in vacuum is not best idea. We should look at them in party context and what is their unique contribution or what do they do better than any other class.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

The Ranger is still odd. Is this the Druid warrior? Is the Barbarian the Druid warrior? At least thematically, the Ranger seems like a Wizard-Druid-Fighter-Rogue fusion.

Even the 5.24 Ranger is still a placeholder for conflictive concepts.

Maybe it would be better to put the different ranger concepts into different subclasses. Scout as the rogue part, the 'Aragorn' ranger as a fighter subclass, maybe a pet subclass somewhere.

But I'd still want a primal half caster class. Maybe one with that primal magic emphasis built in as a core assumption alongside weapon wielding.

WoW Shaman is a perfect example of this, and maybe DnD needs a class inspired by this one.

 

[Corinnguard]

But I'd still want a primal half caster class. Maybe one with that primal magic emphasis built in as a core assumption alongside weapon wielding.

WoW Shaman is a perfect example of this, and maybe DnD needs a class inspired by this one.

How about this take on the Shaman from Laser Llama?

The Shaman Class by laserllama

The Shaman Class by laserllama - Created with GM Binder.

www.gmbinder.com

The Shaman: Expanded by laserllama

The Shaman: Expanded by laserllama - Created with GM Binder.

www.gmbinder.com