D&D 5E It's official, WOTC hates Rangers (Tasha's version of Favored Foe is GARBAGE)

[doctorbadwolf]

The beastmaster was let down by the quality of the available beast stat blocks, which look like they where dashed off in 5 minutes.

And we know that a lot of DMs didn't get the memo that they are expected to create stuff themselves.

Yep.

The UA beasts work much better.

 

[Helldritch]

Can someone explain the appeal of a sword and board Ranger? This is literally the first I've ever heard of the concept, considering that dual wielding had basically always been their shtick.

It started to be a ranger shtick at the end of 1ed with the UA of 1ed as dex rangers could exist, thanks to the UA rolling method. The ranger was originally a humanoid and giant class slayer and could wear any armor. In fact, before Dritzz, ranger were either using two handed swords (3d6 dmg vs large opponents) or long sword and shield vs everything else. Dritzz was so popular that it extinguished every other ranger builds.

 

[Asisreo]

Beastmaster is unsatisfying because the animal is a lobotomised automaton.

Only in combat. And to be fair, Barbarians are also lobotomized automatons but they bring the beer so its okay.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Can someone explain the appeal of a sword and board Ranger? This is literally the first I've ever heard of the concept, considering that dual wielding had basically always been their shtick.

There are Sword and Board Barbarians, Sword and Board Fighters, and Sword and Board Paladins. Why shouldn't there be Sword and Board Rangers?

Also, Aragorn uses a sword that is definitely not "finesse" in 5e terms.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Can someone explain the appeal of a sword and board Ranger? This is literally the first I've ever heard of the concept, considering that dual wielding had basically always been their shtick.

I've always wanted a spear hunting ranger. Seems like an iconic "hunter" image to me.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I've always wanted a spear hunting ranger. Seems like an iconic "hunter" image to me.

Kraven, is that you?

 

[Gradine]

I've always wanted a spear hunting ranger. Seems like an iconic "hunter" image to me.

Now this is something I can get behind

 

[Bacon Bits]

A party with a Ranger (Outlander) in Chult:

DM: You move at 10 miles per day because of the difficult terrain of the jung..
Ranger: Nope. We move at normal speed as per the DMG; 24 miles per day.
DM OK then, this is a hexcrawl and you need to make Survival checks or you get los...
Ranger: Nope. I never get lost. I also have a good idea of whats around me (ruins, settlements, terrain features etc) in the local area at all times.
DM: OK, food and water are hard to...
Ranger: Nope. I can feed myself and up to 10 people with no checks required.
DM: OK, screw it, where do you want to go?

So, instead of having 2-4 encounters on the way to the dungeon, you arrive at the dungeon completely uneventfully. In a game about playing through encounters, your ability is to not play through encounters. Sure, it mattered when it took a week of rest to recover 7 hp, but that's not the game anymore.

This is why the ranger's "exploration" abilities are pretty poorly designed. While I agree that obtaining food and water isn't a challenge worth preserving in most campaigns, there are so many better ways to make exploration or travelling abilities good than making them skip encounters. The problem is that there's no system of travel or exploration, so it's impossible to create mechanics to interact with travel and exploration. The best you could do would be something like, "Whenever a random encounter is rolled while travelling, roll twice and the players determine which encounter to take." But the game isn't really designed with that in mind.

It started to be a ranger shtick at the end of 1ed with the UA of 1ed as dex rangers could exist, thanks to the UA rolling method. The ranger was originally a humanoid and giant class slayer and could wear any armor. In fact, before Dritzz, ranger were either using two handed swords (3d6 dmg vs large opponents) or long sword and shield vs everything else. Dritzz was so popular that it extinguished every other ranger builds.

This doesn't match my experience at all. We always tried to run TWF rangers in 1e because you got the damage bonus against every attack. That said, we did allow elven rangers, ignored racial level limits, and typically ignored racial ability limits. I don't remember how we generated ability scores, but we liked them high. I don't ever remember a ranger with less than a 16 Dex, even in 1e. A hasted elven ranger with high dex and high str was a freaking Cuisinart.

 

[Helldritch]

This doesn't match my experience at all. We always tried to run TWF rangers in 1e because you got the damage bonus against every attack. That said, we did allow elven rangers, ignored racial level limits, and typically ignored racial ability limits. I don't remember how we generated ability scores, but we liked them high. I don't ever remember a 1e ranger with less than a 16 Dex, even in 1e. A hasted elven ranger with high dex and high str was a freaking Cuisinart.

Experience may vary. But the two weapon ranger was hard to pull off with standard rolling methods. Removing all penalties required 19 dex that only elves could achieve (if I remember correctly the rule). This meant that fighting with main hand and off hand penalties were common on two weapon fighting. Depending on the penalties, it was not worth the hassle.

Demi-human restrictions were enforced but the secondary requirements were often base requirement + 1/superior level to be attained. So an elven ranger could reach 12th level max with 18 in the secondary stats (or about, I don't have my books with me). If single classed ranger, you could go on an other 2 levels. Which was still quite reasonable at any table.

Of course, with no restrictions on level from races, there would have been a lot more of two weapon fighting rangers.

And yes, haste was a beast. Doubling your attacks was OP but at both the cost of getting older by one year and dying of a system shock. Only elves were willing to use haste on a regular basis for the penalties on mature adults were not pleasant.

 

[Asisreo]

I've always wanted a spear hunting ranger. Seems like an iconic "hunter" image to me.

I did a spear-based Ranger before. Of course, I can't say it was all that optimal but my party wasn't constantly thinking "Wha-? That's a d6 where it could've been a d8! And what do you think you're doing on the front lines missy!? Get back in the back ranks and make us a hunter's mark where you belong!"

Our campaign at the time wasn't a whole gritty meat grinder so a few suboptimal playstyles were fine. Again, wouldn't recommend it for a game where only the elite survive, but I'm absolutely certain most games aren't like that anyways.