D&D 5E Let's Tweak the 5E Ranger!

[bgbarcus]

Something worth mentioning here, the common theme about the PHB ranger being inadequate isn't necessarily true.

My group has its second ranger now. The first was played as a two weapon fighter and the player was looking to make Stealth a core part of the character. The low damage in melee was disappointing to him and having Stealth no better than any other class could achieve left the player completely soured on the ranger.

The current ranger was built as an archer. It started as a variant human selecting the Sharpshooter feat. The player quickly started looking for ways to gain the high ground and put his longbow to best use. This far he is very happy with the ranger.

I've talked to other players who've taken rangers to 10th+ level and loved them.

Whether the PHB ranger is a good class or not depends on the player's expectations more than anything else.

 

[Inconnunom]

I purposefully left Extra Attack off of the list of abilities for the ranger, to balance out the other more circumstantial combat abilities. And my thoughts originally were to have the tactical tricks stack if appropriate, but I think I'm going to rethink that. Or not? Ranger moves 10 ft and gains +1d8 weapon damage from Skirmish Strike, if the opponent is below max hp gain an additional +1d8 weapon damage from Colossus Slayer, and then additional +Xd6 if you have the target Marked. Hmm. Add in Volley or Whirlwind Attack to that and you can hit a bunch of people for a bunch of damage. But is this too much? You have to be at least 9th level to make that work, and have a group of enemies bunched up that have already been wounded. Assume Whirlwind Attack, Skirmish Strike, and a longsword - base 2d8 damage, or 3d8 if they're not at max hp, against all the targets around you. Too much? Maybe not?

First off Mark as you have it is too good and too similar to the rogue. Every class has something unique and sneak attack mechanic is the rogue's. Next add in hex or hunter's mark through multiclassing or feat. Then stack another 2d8 from tactics, and an additional +2 to hit from combat style. Then add beastmaster damage. Then the fact that all of this is done at range.

It's starting to look more and more broken. You need to rework it. I suggest start by cutting the damage in half and giving extra attack to stalker (and possibly guardian) since a good chunk of the beastmaster's damage (and utility) is also coming from the pet.

Conversely, you could have the tactics scale and mark be a bonus action that is used to track a target.

 

[Mephista]

Something worth mentioning here, the common theme about the PHB ranger being inadequate isn't necessarily true.

My group has its second ranger now. The first was played as a two weapon fighter and the player was looking to make Stealth a core part of the character. The low damage in melee was disappointing to him and having Stealth no better than any other class could achieve left the player completely soured on the ranger.

The current ranger was built as an archer. It started as a variant human selecting the Sharpshooter feat. The player quickly started looking for ways to gain the high ground and put his longbow to best use. This far he is very happy with the ranger.

I've talked to other players who've taken rangers to 10th+ level and loved them.

Whether the PHB ranger is a good class or not depends on the player's expectations more than anything else.

I don't know if I'd call it expectations of the player so much as that certain kinds of builds just are -broken-. The Ranger mechanics are borked, that's the only way I can put it. Two weapon fighting with stealth ambushes is a classical Ranger tactic. However, TWFing is a trap choice for the 5e Ranger given the action economy, and bows get a lot of support.

 

[bgbarcus]

Two weapon fighting with stealth ambushes is a classical Ranger tactic.

Classical is in the eye of the beholder. My group came straight from 1e and our expectations if rangers have nothing to do with two weapon fighting. Stealth? Yes, and 5e changes that but it's not nearly as dramatic a mental shift as trading in the thief for rogues.

 

[Minigiant]

Really the main tweaks to the ranger that might fix it is more stuff.

*More spells (bloodhound, blade thrist, Blades of fire)
*More Hunter features
*More spells and feats that boost a beast master's companion (magic fang, animal growth)
*More ranger subclasses (trapper)

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6749823]Weird Dave[/MENTION] Looks like a good start! And welcome to ENWorld

I noticed you extracted the "Hiding" features of the ranger and put those into the Stalker sub-class. An interesting design choice! Usually I conceive of the ranger as being THE reconnaissance and scouting class, so I was surprised by this.

A few quick comments about sub-class features...

Bestial Fury
Starting at 11th level, your beast companion can make two attacks when you command it (as a bonus action) to use the Attack action.

Depending on the sorts of beasts the ranger can get as its companion, this could be overpowered. No other class gets the ability to use a bonus action for TWO attacks.

Primeval Awareness
Beginning at 7th level, you can use your action to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute per ranger level, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you (or within up to 6 miles if you are in your favored terrain): aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.

Wait, so there's no limit on how often the ranger can do this? The PHB ranger had built-in limits to Primeval Awareness cause using it required spending a spell slot. Without any limit it's basically an auto-detect of those types of creatures. Might be too much.

 

[Weird Dave]

[MENTION=6749823]Weird Dave[/MENTION] Looks like a good start! And welcome to ENWorld

I noticed you extracted the "Hiding" features of the ranger and put those into the Stalker sub-class. An interesting design choice! Usually I conceive of the ranger as being THE reconnaissance and scouting class, so I was surprised by this.

A few quick comments about sub-class features...


Depending on the sorts of beasts the ranger can get as its companion, this could be overpowered. No other class gets the ability to use a bonus action for TWO attacks.


Wait, so there's no limit on how often the ranger can do this? The PHB ranger had built-in limits to Primeval Awareness cause using it required spending a spell slot. Without any limit it's basically an auto-detect of those types of creatures. Might be too much.

Thanks! I moved Hiding to the Stalker subclass as it fit more thematically with that subclass, and allowed you to choose that route via subclass if you wanted. But there's been enough discussion here about the subclasses that I'm going to re-think them anyway.

For my tweaked ranger, I'm thinking about eliminating the Beast Master subclass entirely and moving Ranger's Companion to one of the Tactical Tricks. That way you can have a animal companion, a trait I've always felt paramount to the class, as an option regardless of your subclass choice. And I'd leave the Ranger's Companion exactly as written in the PHB (I added the bonus action to direct it to take an action other than move, which I think is too much).

This whole thread has been very worthwhile, so thank you all for your thoughts! And I wanted to reiterate - I don't think the ranger in the PHB is broken, and I've seen a lot of rangers at my Adventures League tables. They DOMINATE damage output in the lower 2nd tier (5th and 6th level, specifically) from what I've seen, but at 3rd tier - which I got to run during the Epic at GenCon - the barbarian and fighters were the ones dishing out the mega punishment to the fire giants. But I think that's because hunter's mark, which is so good at low level, has no opportunity to increase in damage. And I really feel the ranger comes across as a "woodsy fighter" at the table, at least from my perspective, whereas the other classes feel much more distinct. I'm going to work on a few ideas to make them stand out without copying the rogue's sneak attack progression.

 

[Li Shenron]

To me the ranger's purpose has always been to...

I'm starting to feel like I could say "To me the ranger's purpose has always been to divide the gamebase and call for an edition revision." The Ranger was one of the major excuses for the 3.5 revision. In 5e they had two years of open playtest to give players what they wanted, and two weeks after the release of the PHB there were already custom Rangers in all forums... where were all these people during the playtest? Were they writing feedback or not? Did WotC listen to such feedback or not?

[BTW, just copying your post's opening phrase, but I don't disagree agree at all with it]

 

[Minigiant]

I'm starting to feel like I could say "To me the ranger's purpose has always been to divide the gamebase and call for an edition revision." The Ranger was one of the major excuses for the 3.5 revision. In 5e they had two years of open playtest to give players what they wanted, and two weeks after the release of the PHB there were already custom Rangers in all forums... where were all these people during the playtest? Were they writing feedback or not? Did WotC listen to such feedback or not?

[BTW, just copying your post's opening phrase, but I don't disagree agree at all with it]

I see it as a shortness of time and of fire in the design team and mixed messages for the fanbase.

Look at this topic and the other ranger topics, there are many different images from all the different fans. You would need a ranger superfan who is both impartial and unbiased on edition and has the time to think about the ranger on the team. It is that hard of a class to get right. However you can't expect there to be an expert for each class on the team.

To be fair, the 5e ranger is the best ranger in any D&D, any D&D clone or inspired P&P game, or video game to date. However that's a low ceiling to rest. But the class is close. The rager's biggest enemy is page count however. The second is class favoritism.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*