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Do classes built for the 5E D&D *ENGINE* NEED sub-classes?
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<blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 7599269" data-attributes="member: 6777737"><p>It's not that bad. If you know how the class works, Hunter is extremely potent. The level 3 and level 11 abilities are all good. Particularly when you go ranged, and doubly so when Feats aren't available. With Feats, Fighters are able to keep up a little too well.</p><p></p><p>The class itself has got four core problems:</p><p></p><p>1. Favored Terrain and Favored Enemy are the primary, defining abilities of the entire class, and they don't do anything. In the overwhelming majority of encounters and overland travel in the campaigns I've played in, they're functionally non-existent abilities. The DM often has to go out of their way to make them do something. Their benefit is that they eliminate penalties that usually get hand-waived away (Favored Terrain) or they grant benefits for rolls you essentially never need to know or for which you have to succeed (Favored Enemy, knowledge and tracking, respectively). Literally the best benefit of these abilities is the bonus languages that you learn. Amazingly, it's Rangers, not Bards or Wizards, that are the best linguists in the game.</p><p></p><p>2. Land's Stride, Hide in Plain Sight, Vanish, Feral Senses, Foe Slayer, and everything from Superior Hunter's Defense either a) never come up like FT and FE, or b) all come 5+ levels later than other classes get similar abilities.</p><p></p><p>3. The basic class design is far too narrow. With the exception of Hunter's Mark (spell) and Fighting Style, all damage boosting abilities this class gets come from the subclass. This means that every subclass they add needs to pack in essentially nothing but combat and damage dealing abilities. This is why Beastmaster is extremely poor in actual play. It spends all it's abilities making the companion able to kind of keep up, but then makes the Ranger burn all his actions to do anything with it. It's like an extremely bad Summon Monster spell that requires spending actions instead of maintaining concentration.</p><p></p><p>4. The class concept is wedged into an extremely small design space, and much of it isn't what players want anymore. The class is part fighter, part druid, part stealthy hunter. However, that means the class is stuck between Fighter, Druid, Rogue, Barbarian, and Bard (the other blended class). That's a very, very narrow design space. Simply put, there isn't much left to carve an identity out for the Ranger. The only remaining big concept is "pet class" because Druid gave that one up, and pets are extremely weak in 5e. It doesn't help that the iconic rangers are Drizzt and Robin Hood. Aragorn, the namesake, is kind of a blend of Fighter, Ranger, and Paladin. Who else do we have? Daniel Boone? Jim Bowie? Davy Crockett? Very few players care about exploring untamed wilderness like a frontiersman anymore. Our world has no wildernesses left to tame. Those that remain need protection, not exploration and subjugation.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Unearthed Arcana's Revised Ranger. There have been several versions. The first version was very OP and I don't think anybody should actually play with that version, particularly that version's Beastmaster. The second verison was much more fair, but the designers still didn't like it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bacon Bits, post: 7599269, member: 6777737"] It's not that bad. If you know how the class works, Hunter is extremely potent. The level 3 and level 11 abilities are all good. Particularly when you go ranged, and doubly so when Feats aren't available. With Feats, Fighters are able to keep up a little too well. The class itself has got four core problems: 1. Favored Terrain and Favored Enemy are the primary, defining abilities of the entire class, and they don't do anything. In the overwhelming majority of encounters and overland travel in the campaigns I've played in, they're functionally non-existent abilities. The DM often has to go out of their way to make them do something. Their benefit is that they eliminate penalties that usually get hand-waived away (Favored Terrain) or they grant benefits for rolls you essentially never need to know or for which you have to succeed (Favored Enemy, knowledge and tracking, respectively). Literally the best benefit of these abilities is the bonus languages that you learn. Amazingly, it's Rangers, not Bards or Wizards, that are the best linguists in the game. 2. Land's Stride, Hide in Plain Sight, Vanish, Feral Senses, Foe Slayer, and everything from Superior Hunter's Defense either a) never come up like FT and FE, or b) all come 5+ levels later than other classes get similar abilities. 3. The basic class design is far too narrow. With the exception of Hunter's Mark (spell) and Fighting Style, all damage boosting abilities this class gets come from the subclass. This means that every subclass they add needs to pack in essentially nothing but combat and damage dealing abilities. This is why Beastmaster is extremely poor in actual play. It spends all it's abilities making the companion able to kind of keep up, but then makes the Ranger burn all his actions to do anything with it. It's like an extremely bad Summon Monster spell that requires spending actions instead of maintaining concentration. 4. The class concept is wedged into an extremely small design space, and much of it isn't what players want anymore. The class is part fighter, part druid, part stealthy hunter. However, that means the class is stuck between Fighter, Druid, Rogue, Barbarian, and Bard (the other blended class). That's a very, very narrow design space. Simply put, there isn't much left to carve an identity out for the Ranger. The only remaining big concept is "pet class" because Druid gave that one up, and pets are extremely weak in 5e. It doesn't help that the iconic rangers are Drizzt and Robin Hood. Aragorn, the namesake, is kind of a blend of Fighter, Ranger, and Paladin. Who else do we have? Daniel Boone? Jim Bowie? Davy Crockett? Very few players care about exploring untamed wilderness like a frontiersman anymore. Our world has no wildernesses left to tame. Those that remain need protection, not exploration and subjugation. Unearthed Arcana's Revised Ranger. There have been several versions. The first version was very OP and I don't think anybody should actually play with that version, particularly that version's Beastmaster. The second verison was much more fair, but the designers still didn't like it. [/QUOTE]
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Community
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Do classes built for the 5E D&D *ENGINE* NEED sub-classes?
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