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

[Chaosmancer]

Its np. Your Hunter does more damage than the Wolf Spider, though it still does less than the Giant Poisonous Snake at level 5 without any buff spells. By level 8, the GPS does 19 damage and the Ranger does 17, that's 36 damage which is still quite even a Hunter's Mark Hunter.

Plus, by level 9, the Beastmaster has their concentration free. If they want to pile on more damage, they can use Conjure Barrage or Conjure Animals.

SKIP

You may as well us concentration. Its not that hard to see that a white dragon will probably do cold damage and the beast should be protected against it.

If something is the most effective option in your arsenal at the moment and it costs concentration, then its the most effective option anyways and the concentration is well spent.

You don't see anyone complaining about Hypnotic Pattern's concentration even though it would be cool (and probably broken) if it didn't have it.

SKIP

I mean, am I not supposed to ever use my resources.

Its like if a wizard used Wish to Ressurect a fallen party member and its like "Oh, you used a 9th level spell? That's quite an expensive resource, you shouldn't have done that."

What should be evaluated isn't that the resource was consumed, but whether the resource's consumption was as good or better than alternatives of the same resource.

Those spells are mostly situational or can be disruptive to your own party. The only 2 exceptions are Healing Spirit and Hunter's Mark. They're okay for lower level play but fall off sharply unless you specifically build around them. Even then, they're basically just par.

SKIP

Using spells like Beastsense, Speak with Animals, and Beast Bond helps by alot.

You really don't seem to get my problem with your spell usage. You are listing spells exclusively to keep your beast alive.

I mean, let's take the White Dragon for a second. If you have access to Protection from Energy, then you are at least 9th level, so let's say it is an Adult White Dragon. We'll say level 10 for math, just so I can say that the beast has 40 hp... and would die instantly if you don't use Protection from Energy to protect the Beast. Because the dragon does 54 damage with the breath weapon on average.

And, by protecting the Beast, you don't protect yourself. So, assuming you fail the DC 19 save, you just took 54 damage, which is devastating and you likely can't make the DC 27 Concentration save, so your spell is gone with the only effect being keeping your beast alive for one round.

And remember, Ranger's don't get a lot of spells and you've wanted to devote two feats, Protection from Energy. Protection from Poison, Cure Wounds, Stoneskin and Barkskin just off the top of my head to protecting your beast. That is a 1/3 of all your spellcasting and two feats.... and you still can't keep it alive for more than two or three rounds.

And then you want to add Beast Bond, Speak with Animals, Beast Sense... you are investing your entire ranger into this one aspect of your class. And it can't survive an adventuring day without you putting even more resources into it... and what about the rest of your party? If you are using three cure wounds on your beast... then you aren't using them on the Fighter or the Cleric.

Some of it spills over into the party, sure, but you are devoting a lot to just reaching the point of survival, let alone improving.

You're also adding extra attunement slots, which are useful.

You can equip things that would naturally make sense for the creature's anatomy. Things like amulets, rings, periapts, robes, mantles, necklaces, and maybe even boots.

And after level 15, if you buff yourself, you also buff your Beast.

Robes, mantles and boots can't be worn by most beasts. Rings are hard to justify for some too.

But, assuming the treasure doesn't just increase, you are taking items that could have been given to other party members, or gold that could have been spent on other things.

Every character has a weak matchup. Paladins aren't amazing against flying enemies. Even with Find Greater Steed, the fact they have to wait until level 13 before they are somewhat effective against flying enemies sucks. Even past then, its not like having to fly on a mount is great since the enemy can just prone the mount or the Paladin.

Again, you are making a false comparison.

"Flying enemies" is more specific than "Anything over CR 5"

I mean, I keep looking at various monsters of CR's over 5. All of them deal about as much damage as that Orc Warchief you said you wouldn't send your snake to fight, so you can keep giving me examples of mid-ranged enemies, or enemies that fly, but I think you'd have a really hard time of finding a class in the game that does poorly against "Monsters of appropriate challenge level"

And before you list all the spellcasters who can't go into melee with those mosnters either... well, your beast isn't a spellcaster or even a ranged attacker. It is exclusively melee.

The fact that you thought beastmaster's damage was bad kinda showed that you hadn't experienced one that can do alot of damage.

You've shown you are critical of a class but you've failed to show that you've experienced these criticisms firsthand in an honest effort. If you said "I played a GPS Ranger and they don't do great damage." Then it would at least show that you at least tried. I could then assess that maybe one of us made a mistake in how the class functions. But as of now, it seems like your criticisms of beastmaster, if not wholly unfounded, are at least exaggerated.

So, what, I need to go into specifics with the Beastmaster Ranger one of my players played, with a wolf companion named Umber, who only played the PHB version for three weeks after turning down my recommendation of going to the Revised version because she wasn't worried about the combat power of the class.

And then after those three weeks she came back to me, embarrassed and asked if she could still switch to the revised ranger because she was not having fun or feeling effective with the class?

And that even after that swtich, I needed to buff the Wolf at multiple points in the story (luckily she got up to shenanigans that allowed for it) because she was still under-performing the rest of the group by a sizeable margin?

Is letting you know all of that give me enough of a "founding" to speak on the subject? Does my two year campaign meet your requirements for seeing the class in action?

You don't get advantage on stealth for being invisible. You only get to hide while in an enemy's LoS. An Imp's +5 will always be +5.

That invocation doesn't give you advantage on perception checks, but even if it did, advantage is not an effective flat +5 to an ability check. If anything, its closer to +2.25.

If I had the boots of Elvenkind, my steps can't be heard. That grants advantage on stealth. If it is impossible to see me (literal words from the description of Invisible) then why would that not grant advantage? Isn't "Can't be seen" as good of a situation as "Can't be heard"?

Also, I'm not going to get into the specifics of advantage math here, the general consensus I have always seen and referred to is +5.

Finally, no invocation needed. Find Familiar lets you see through the familiar's eyes and hear through their ears. You als have telepathic communication with them. If I can talk and also see in the same area, then I can provide the help action. The Help action grants advantage, unless you would like to find a way to either say that Perception can't benefit from the Help action or that seeing and hearing in the location and communicating with the person isn't enough to allow a Help action to be taken. Which... personally I don't see how that is possible.

There is more to the beastmaster than the Wolf Spider. Yesterday may have been the Wolf Spider but today it may be the Hawk or the Rat. If you want 60ft blindsight, have the bat be the scout.

Yesterday? You don't get to switch companions on a whim. In fact, per RAW I see no way to get a new beast without the old one dying first.

The fact it adds your proficiency bonus to its skills is quite good utility. Plus, the spells a Ranger gets like Beastsense, Locate Animals and Plants, Speak with Animals, Animal Friendship, and Pass without Trace makes a beast's scouting abilities even greater.

Just don't use the spider and use a rat or insect to scout. As long as they don't get too close, I doubt the local dragon is going to care that a centipede just entered its lair.

Oh, missed those on my skimming. Yet more spells.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Surely we can all agree that the beast companion should have hp equal to 5x ranger level, if not more? Maybe 4+beast’s con mod per ranger level.

Ideally, you should be able to heal it and res it pretty easily at a small resource cost, and it should have weakish PC hit points unless it’s a “tank” companion, in which case it should maybe have resist to almost damage and middling PC HP.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

We had a new-to-5e player join the campaign and roll up a 6th level beast master Ranger as a character from the PHB. After two sessions (and multiple dead velociraptors who usually stood around doing nothing in battle) the player asked why their character seemed to be doing half as much damage as the paladin and monk, and why the raptor just stood around instead of attacking....like a warhorse or trained attack dog would.

We politely pointed them at the other Rangers in the book.

PHB Beast master is just not good. Unplayable, no, but not on par with everyone else.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

T

We had a new-to-5e player join the campaign and roll up a 6th level beast master Ranger as a character from the PHB. After two sessions (and multiple dead velociraptors who usually stood around doing nothing in battle) the player asked why their character seemed to be doing half as much damage as the paladin and monk, and why the raptor just stood around instead of attacking....like a warhorse or trained attack dog would.

We politely pointed them at the other Rangers in the book.

PHB Beast master is just not good. Unplayable, no, but not on par with everyone else.

hats a bummer. The revised beast master subclass (or even just the revised Beastmaster level 3 feature) fixes the subclass handily, if you still have anyone who wishes they could play a BM ranger and enjoy it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Then I say that you have likely not run across an interesting one, rather than saying they are all boring. I know I've run across a few that were engaging when I read them.

Maybe I haven't come across an interesting one because there aren't any?

That said, lots of people find Reality TV engaging.

 

[cbwjm]

Surely we can all agree that the beast companion should have hp equal to 5x ranger level, if not more? Maybe 4+beast’s con mod per ranger level.

Ideally, you should be able to heal it and res it pretty easily at a small resource cost, and it should have weakish PC hit points unless it’s a “tank” companion, in which case it should maybe have resist to almost damage and middling PC HP.

Part of me thinks they should have gone with different builds like tank, dps, or control with a modifier for creature type. I guess that's what the elemental beasts are somewhat trying to rectify.

For hit points, I think they should have gained extra hit points and a commensurate number of hit dice which would allow constitution bonuses (and, I guess, penalties) to be applied. It would also provide them with the ability to heal up during short rests.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Maybe I haven't come across an interesting one because there aren't any?

That said, lots of people find Reality TV engaging.

Well when comparing the two possibilities of:

"There is not a single interesting survival story written in human history"

or

"Paul Farquhar has not read a single survival story they found interesting during their lifetime"


I think I know which one is more statistically likely.

 

[Asisreo]

We had a new-to-5e player join the campaign and roll up a 6th level beast master Ranger as a character from the PHB. After two sessions (and multiple dead velociraptors who usually stood around doing nothing in battle) the player asked why their character seemed to be doing half as much damage as the paladin and monk, and why the raptor just stood around instead of attacking....like a warhorse or trained attack dog would.

We politely pointed them at the other Rangers in the book.

PHB Beast master is just not good. Unplayable, no, but not on par with everyone else.

Isn't this what happens to most players that are new to D&D and don't know how to emphasize damage in their build?

As a DM, it's my job to guide players to what they want out of their build and to help them with it. If a wizard players wants to do good AoE damage, I'll direct them to the fireball spell. If they want good control, I'll direct them to Hypnotic Pattern. Because new players might not immediately realize the significance of these spells to their purpose.

Likewise, I direct beastmaster players into the direction they want their beast to be. If they want high damage, I'll lead them to GSP. If they want high defense and control, I lead them to the Giant Crab.

I believe beastmaster Ranger is one of the most complex classes because there's so many moving parts.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Part of me thinks they should have gone with different builds like tank, dps, or control with a modifier for creature type. I guess that's what the elemental beasts are somewhat trying to rectify.

For hit points, I think they should have gained extra hit points and a commensurate number of hit dice which would allow constitution bonuses (and, I guess, penalties) to be applied. It would also provide them with the ability to heal up during short rests.

They did give them hit dice and short rest healing via errata, but yeah the fact their HP scale so badly means that they lose power over levels.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Isn't this what happens to most players that are new to D&D and don't know how to emphasize damage in their build?

As a DM, it's my job to guide players to what they want out of their build and to help them with it. If a wizard players wants to do good AoE damage, I'll direct them to the fireball spell. If they want good control, I'll direct them to Hypnotic Pattern. Because new players might not immediately realize the significance of these spells to their purpose.

Likewise, I direct beastmaster players into the direction they want their beast to be. If they want high damage, I'll lead them to GSP. If they want high defense and control, I lead them to the Giant Crab.

I believe beastmaster Ranger is one of the most complex classes because there's so many moving parts.

We were in the middle of Chult when the player joined. They thought the idea of a buddy velociraptor was fun and thematic. I agreed , but the buddy raptor doesn't do anything in combat unless the ranger himself stands around doing nothing.

We also play a little differently than you do, I think. The ranger has to choose something from the area they are in. You can't casually go find a giant wolf spider or giant crab because you like the stats....you kinda gotta go with what's in the area you are when you "summon" the beast. In the area of Chultnwe were in the beasts are mostly dinosaurs....or snakes.