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

[Don Durito]

They are. The point is that Animal Handling, Nature, and Survival don't scale well past level 4 if unsupported. And the Tier 1 stuff WOTC does support is the stuff many people skip. So D&D puts on the weight on the DM's back.

I thought we were talking about the rules for Rangers? I don't need WOTC to publish a book in order to set a DC20 Survival check.

 

[Helldritch]

I thought we were talking about the rules for Rangers? I don't need WOTC to publish a book in order to set a DC20 Survival check.

Sometimes, a thread gets derailed...
But rangers are not in such a bad spot if you give them a tweak or two. The revised ranger of UA was good if you kept the subclasses of the PHB and only took the general from the revised. Give the pet the ability to be commanded with a bonus action and make single class rangers able to ignore concentration on Hunter's Mark. This is what we did and it works wonder.

 

[Don Durito]

I don't know I thought the Revised Ranger made Natural Explorer worse. No more expertise, just a universal set of autosucceed features.

 

[Minigiant]

I thought we were talking about the rules for Rangers? I don't need WOTC to publish a book in order to set a DC20 Survival check.

We are. The rules for rangers on the player's side aren't great and the rules for rangers on the DM side are bare.
It would be great to have both but we don't have either or.

A cynical person would say that WOTC knew this and de-emphasized Ranger unique rules on purpose. Whether deliberate or accidentall, they didn't leave design space in the class to fix it. And they are hesitant to put more space into the DM side due to the amount getting attention on the player side.

 

[Asisreo]

Too bad there few official DCs to roll Nature or Survival against for Tier 2 or up challenges.

That has nothing to do with the higher skills succeeding more often. If one DM decides tracking a devil is DC 30 while another thinks its DC 20, a +13 to track is more useful than a +0.

Too bad WOTC practtically forgets Rangers cast spells when they make new spells for books

Rangers have gained most spells out of its half-caster counterpart. Hopefully you don't think a half-caster should have as much as a fullcaster.

Too bad when WOTC remembers Rangers cast spells they forget to make exploration spells.

Rangers have plenty of utility spells already. I don't think anyone complains that Rangers have a lack of utility in their spells out-of-combat.

Too bad, higher tier and fantastical climates like the planes or even cities and dungeons aren't on the favored enemies list.

They're probably implied that a certain plane doesn't matter, as long as it still relates to whatever your enemy or terrain is. Having elementals as your favored enemy makes going to the elemental chaos extremely worthwhile. And in these planes, there can be deserts in the plane of fire or grasslands in the Silt Flats.

5e assumes an adventuring warrior gets access to a magic weapon eventually. The treasure tables will spit one out eventually. It doesn't assume you get a weapon that gives any pluses or benefits at all.

I agree. Thing is, random treasure tables favor the Ranger. Not only can they use every weapon and every armor save for heavy armor, they can also take advantage of spellscrolls and spellcaster-only magic items. Beastmasters actually get a second body to attune items to.

 

[Don Durito]

There's little point printing more Ranger spells as they learn so few spells anyway - it's just teasing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

To you, maybe. To me that stuff would be just what I'd want to see in a DMG (general exploration guidelines) and a setting book (weather conditions etc. specific to that setting, and their effects on play).

But the point is, it niche. You don't put a load of niche content in core rulebooks.

 

[Minigiant]

That has nothing to do with the higher skills succeeding more often. If one DM decides tracking a devil is DC 30 while another thinks its DC 20, a +13 to track is more useful than a +0.

The point is the DCs come out of nowhere but that DMs mind. This is why Rangers are fine at some tables but stink at others.

Rangers have gained most spells out of its half-caster counterpart. Hopefully you don't think a half-caster should have as much as a fullcaster.

Paladins don't need spells for their "job" anymore. They just need slots. And artificers wasn't included in the original PHB.

So it's not equal.

They're probably implied that a certain plane doesn't matter, as long as it still relates to whatever your enemy or terrain is. Having elementals as your favored enemy makes going to the elemental chaos extremely worthwhile. And in these planes, there can be deserts in the plane of fire or grasslands in the Silt Flats.

Again, it's all biased on DM friendliness. No where in the DMG or PHB does it say that Carceri or the Nine Hells counts as a desert.

5e goes back to the 3e mindset of having the DM warp their game for the Ranger to work. But it is worse because 5e is even more open ended so a Ranger player has less to go on when figuring out what their PC can do and do well until the DM tells them. This is because the Ranger class features refer to aspects of the game that either purely come out the Dm's brain (Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer) or are needed because they refer to another system that wasn't explicitly designed to work with it (Spellcasting, Beastmaster, Favored Foe).

 

[Lanefan]

But the point is, it niche. You don't put a load of niche content in core rulebooks.

Exploration is not 'niche', it's one of the three core pillars of the game.

But, if 'niche' is the prevailing attitude among the design team it kinda sums up why Rangers - probably the most exploration-based class - keep getting so little to work with.

 

[Asisreo]

The point is the DCs come out of nowhere but that DMs mind. This is why Rangers are fine at some tables but stink at others.

As long as we assume an impartial DM, it doesn't matter that the DC was an impulse. Whether the DM felt one day that the DC is 20 while its a DC 25 on another day still doesn't stop the fact that a +13 is always mathematically better than +3.

The phenomenon you're describing is that a DM doesn't choose a DC and merely decides if you pass or fail after you roll which isn't fair because that means your dice roll never mattered to begin with and he's purposefully screwing with you by asking you to roll.

Paladins don't need spells for their "job" anymore. They just need slots. And artificers wasn't included in the original PHB.

So it's not equal.

Cool. And this is why Rangers have been given more spells.

Again, it's all biased on DM friendliness. No where in the DMG or PHB does it say that Carceri or the Nine Hells counts as a desert.

The model for all other prisons in existence, Carceri–a plane of desolation and despair. Its six layers hold vast bogs, fetid jungles, windswept deserts, jagged mountains, frigid oceans, and black ice.

The Beastlands is a plane of nature unbound, of forests ranging from moss-hung mangroves to snow-laden pines, of thick jungles where the branches are woven so tight that no light penetrates, of vast plains where grains and wildflowers wave in the wind with vibrant life.

There are clearly terrain in the other planes of existence. So long as what the Ranger does is about or in these planes, they get their bonus.

5e goes back to the 3e mindset of having the DM warp their game for the Ranger to work. But it is worse because 5e is even more open ended so a Ranger player has less to go on when figuring out what their PC can do and do well until the DM tells them. This is because the Ranger class features refer to aspects of the game that either purely come out the Dm's brain (Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer) or are needed because they refer to another system that wasn't explicitly designed to work with it (Spellcasting, Beastmaster, Favored Foe).

The missing word is prep. The game expects the DM to at least have a map of the environment and have it be reasonable. They also expect the DM to have their lore in order, whether homebrew or official. If a DM doesn't know what's in his areas or why they're there, of course the players will struggle when they ask.

Is it not the same when a DM decides they'll just "wing" a combat encounter without a statblock?