D&D 5E Is WotC over-thinking the Ranger?

[EditorBFG]

The ranger needs a combat ability at 1st level. Every other class has one.

The problem with favored enemy is not just that it currently sucks. Even a better version would have the problem tjat the DM decides if it ever gets used. Favored Enemy is dragons? Well, for the first six game sessions you never fight for anything but bandits, orcs, and undead. In an organized play program like Adventurers League, especially, where the DM can't customize your adventures for you, this is a big problem.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Presenting a new class for playtesting was certainly overthinking it. As I said in the other thread, the hunter is fine, no need to change. We had some hunters in our table by now, all of them working well and contributing a lot the the party's overall efficiency.

The beastmaster is a totally different issue, and I think Wizards is going in a doomed direction with the concept. A spirit beast that manifests to fight once per day couldn't be further from what my players want as a beastmaster. I believe anybody who wants to play a beastmaster wants to have a true animal companion. If it makes the ranger a little overpowered, so be it, because by now we know that a beastmaster that is just a little underpowered is not making the cut.

If I were Mike Mearls, I'd just bring my team together and say: "You're professional game designers, give me a balanced ranger+animal companion build. If you can't, at least give me one that people are willing to play."

 

[Nebulous]

Someone on these boards made a nearly perfect ranger IMO. Not sure where the link is now, but it was professionally done as far as I'm concerned.

 

[cmad1977]

Way overthinking it. In my experience rangers play fine. They seem to do well in combats. Good at sneaking. Solid skill sets. Emergency tactical or healing spells.

Haven't seen anyone who plays one pout. In fact as the DM I often pout when they roll damage or slip past guards.

And who makes the beast master pet stop all actions after 1 round? C'mon DM's adjudicate that stuff.

 

[Green1]

The ranger needs a combat ability at 1st level. Every other class has one.

The problem with favored enemy is not just that it currently sucks. Even a better version would have the problem tjat the DM decides if it ever gets used. Favored Enemy is dragons? Well, for the first six game sessions you never fight for anything but bandits, orcs, and undead. In an organized play program like Adventurers League, especially, where the DM can't customize your adventures for you, this is a big problem.

That's the reason you take orcs and humans as your first favored enemy. If it is a humanoid race, you get two. You would also get orcish as a bonus language out of the deal. You would as the DM at char gen what humanoids populate the area beforehand. But, realistically, it makes no sense to select at first level dragon as favored barring rare events.

 

[Azurewraith]

The hunter is "fine" could be better (remove all the spells and make them class features). The Bm hunter sucks easy way to fix is allow it to act on its own or make the command a bonus action and have it scale people playing a BM ranger COULDN'T CARE LESS!!!!!!!!! if that beast out shone them in AC HP and DPR honestly they couldn't so just remove all the silly restrictions and add scaling.

 

[Green1]

I agree. They keep saying they want each subclass to portray a known archetype and the last UA ranger just simulated a poor melee shaman from 4e. I'd much rather they focus on reworking the existing ranger no matter the fact that it's printed and they don't want to change it because someone out there loves it as is.

I got this, too, from the UA article.

I do believe the 4e type shaman has a place as some kind of subclass somewhere. But, totally rewriting the ranger to include it misses the point. Not even sure the shaman would even be a subclass of ranger, but not sure I could come up with a better place. After all, Oath Pally is sort of a 5e Warden.

To make everyone happy, you need to:

1. Make command beast a bonus action for beastmaster.
2. Make a subclass that focuses more on 4e strikery abilities to appease the DPR folks that have DMs that do not do scout ahead scenarios or scouting in general.

The class isn't badly borked, it just needs slight tweaks and another subclass.

 

[steeldragons]

WotC calls it a playtest, but it's really a concept test. They're throwing up a wave of new ideas and concepts and seeing what people think. Which means going with the most experimental stuff that they're uncertain about. It's not really meant to improve the ranger, it's to get them the information they missed during the mass playtest.

I agree with this. This seems exactly what they're doing. But that, also, speaks directly to the question of the thread...Yes. They are overthinking and, each one more than the last, is overwrought!

Mechanical complexity/retcons just to remove spells? A spirit-companion shaman/conjurer/medium...that gives you benefits for the whole party? Massively immersion breaking mechanics? What?! Why is any of this necessary?!

As has been pointed out here many times, the PHB ranger needs two or three tweaks, and it's done. [I won't get into what the actual changes need to be, as the one with the most vocal detractors is something I find whiny and entitled and trivially houseruled.]

The obvious follow up question, "Why?" Why are they doing this? Why are they, what seems "purposefully" at this point, making it so difficult?

This whole crisis of identity and purpose of the ranger is a load of crap, as far as I'm concerned.

Stop looking at/to things that are derivative of D&D and say "Oh, yeah, we have to include that too!" No. No, you don't! That is something that branched off from you[the D&D ranger]. Let it! You can't redesign a tree TRUNK off of the twig or leaf. But for some reason, that's what they seem to think they want to do..."Here's this offshoot of the D&D ranger (often for little more reason than it's called a "ranger") in this book/video game/whatever context. Our ranger needs to do that, too!"

Stop trying to "innovate." Stop trying to be all rangers to all people [or, since they apparently can't do that, be purposely NO ranger to anyone, as evidenced in this latest version] and be THE D&D RANGER! Just do/be that! They know what it is. They've shared enough design notes (and a lot of the material in the PHB) to show us they know what its supposed to be/be doing...

D&D [by way of the Tolkien literary base] knows what the ranger was intended to be...Make a outdoorsy/wilderness/borderlands warrior surviving and holding back the tides of evil from civilized lands/peoples. Throw in some rogue skill, an ambush/skirmisher focus/style, and a bit of magic know-how/lore (not, necessarily, spell-use).

HOW and WHY do they keep messing it up?! Why is anyone trying to experiment with the concept?! If we can't make everyone happy, we'll just make no one/change the whole premise of the class?!

Just...STOP! WotC has a serious problem with the whole "fixing what ain't broke" mindset.

 

[Gadget]

1) Replace Favored Enemy with any kind of decent combat mojo (Ambuscade, which they included in the new version, would fit the bill, though it needs playtesting).

While I'm not opposed to this idea, I feel Favored Enemy is a fine ribbon ability and should stay that way. I see many people on the boards clamoring for a return to 3.X style favored enemy, and I couldn't be more opposed. The Colossus Slayer and Hoard Breaker abilities are the real spiritual decedents of the old favored enemy, and I like them better.

2) Add another archetype, since Beastmaster is such an inferior choice (maybe one based on all this Spirit Companion stuff in the new version).

Maybe, but personally, I feel that the only reason we have the Beastmaster is because they needed another subclass for the Ranger and this was the only handy one they could think up, despite the questionable wisdom of adding a permanent pet to a PC, as shown by the past couple of editions.

Part of the problem with the Ranger seems to be that the importance and focus on the exploration pillar of the game varies quite a bit from table to table. Many tables just hand wave a lot of the overland travel and survival stuff to 'get to the dungeon', so much of the utility of the Ranger can be glossed over and only emphasized when there is a Ranger (or perhaps a Druid) in the party to take advantage of it.

Personally, I could go either way with the spells. They give the Ranger a little more oomph and more differentiation from the Fighter, but I can see a spelless Ranger that had many of the utility spells incorporated as calls abilities (wilderness knacks or some such).

 

[Barantor]

Favored Enemy: You learn by observing an enemy and fighting them over time. After facing a specific type of enemy (red dragon, orc, goblin) you can set that creature as your favored enemy. You can only have one favored enemy at a time. After fighting and defeating an enemy that you observed and did damage to, you can make a wisdom check (survival) in order to determine that creatures weaknesses and ways to track it. The DC for this check is 10 + CR of creature (rounded up to nearest full number) + 2. Once attempted you cannot attempt to set another creature as your favored enemy until you finish a long rest. Successfully set favored enemies have disadvantage on tracking your movements and you have advantage on tracking theirs. When attacking a favored enemy with a melee or ranged weapon attack, you do +2 damage to them on a successful hit.

At 9th level you gain the ability to set two favored enemies and at 15th you gain the ability to set three. At 20th level you have advantage to hit on all favored enemies and they cannot escape you except by magical means when tracking them.


It would need some refinement, but that is what I would do the favored enemy so it has more flair and combat ability. I never liked the language thing myself as learning a language takes a lot more time than what I feel the current ability allows for.

As far as beastmaster, I think that making it use their bonus action to have the creature attack is a fair trade off to making the reacquire of a new creature take a lot longer with more checks.