D&D 5E (2024) Multiclass Ranger Fix?

[Tigris]

The 1e Ranger was no doubt modelled partly on Aragorn, but it's a stretch to say the 5e one was. The 1e Ranger had very limited magic that came at high level which fit the Aragorn mold. The 5e one gets a ton more magic because Aragorn is no longer the main influence. Class influences change with time, and the more magical Ranger's in media like The Witcher, are now bigger influences on D&D Rangers then the old influences like Aragorn. Similarly the Harry Potter world is probably a more significant influence on the Wizard class then the likes of Merlin/Gandalf.

The Witcher did not get popular long after D&D 5e was made.

And the 5.24 ranger is not much different from the 5e one.


Also I can see 0 influence from thr witcher in the ranger. Just because witcher is popular does not mean one needs to force that flavour onto a commpletly different class. Yes Harry pottet had influence thats why there was a Harry Potter school subsetting with spells and different houses.


On the other side what mechanic does a 5.24 ranger have which has anything in common with a witcher?


Hunters Mark is pretty much the same as in 4E and in world of warcraft.


Summoning wild animals and beasts is from druis /"primal spell list" and is pretty much something going completly against what a witcher does. (And summoning many creatures is typical D&D spellcaster behaviour since Baldurs Gate 1 at least).


Animal companion is also druid/nature flavour and the same as in world of warcraft.


Being good with bows and swords is aragorn, not witcher, they focus more on swords (and not dual wield). Oh and is also in world of warcraft.


Ok witchers have some spellcasting, but what kind of? Correct only cantrips. The one thing the ranger does not have (it has to borrow it from the druid).


Also witcher does not have nature magic. It has shield, fire, runes. The thing the ranger does not have.


Witcher go for weaknesses of enemies, there is only 1 ranger subclass which gets to know them and ranger does not have any means to exploit them. (Here a PF2 thaumaturge is much closer).


Lord of the rings is still popular (the movie, not the outdated book) and there the ranger part is the non magical.


There is maybe 1 losely witcher inspired ranger subclass, but ranger is still the nature dude. And there are many inspirations for that. (Baldurs gate even and tons of other games).


Witchers are cool, but they are not rangers.

 

[Sorinth]

Yeah the original Ranger got heavy armor and was a primary heavy melee PC, not the dex-based thing we have today, they did not have pets, they had to be good.

Dual Wielding, Pets, sneaky are all things that came later.

Yeah Drizzt came in and took over from Aragorn as the main influence, and even though in the books his dual wielding was clearly his Drow heritage and not a Ranger thing, it still became a Ranger thing because people associated Ranger with Drizzt and Drizzt with dual wielding and a pet.

 

[Minigiant]

I never said D&D is good at representing the witcher flavour.

I said that the witcher is nowhere close to a ranger (or any other D&D class).

A ranger is close to nature, a witcher is an unnatural being and some animals like cats have a natural disliking of witchers because of that.

What i was saying is that item use is probably better in the eyes of fans.

But Spells are the only core subsystems.
Infusions are supplemental.

 

[Sorinth]

The Witcher did not get popular long after D&D 5e was made.

And the 5.24 ranger is not much different from the 5e one.

The Witcher became popular with the video game series not the TV show. And the games started in 2007, long before 5e came into being.

Also I can see 0 influence from thr witcher in the ranger. Just because witcher is popular does not mean one needs to force that flavour onto a commpletly different class. Yes Harry pottet had influence thats why there was a Harry Potter school subsetting with spells and different houses.


On the other side shat mechanic does a 5.24 ranger have which has anything in common with a witcher?


Hunters Mark is pretty much the same as in 4E and in world of warcraft.


Summoning wild animals and beasts is from druis /"primal spell list" and is pretty much something going completly against what a witcher does.


Animal companion is also druid/nature flavour and the same as in world of warcraft.


Being good with bows and swords is aragorn, not witcher, they focus more on swords (and not dual wield). Oh and is also in world of warcraft.


Ok witchers have some spellcasting, but what kind of? Correct only cantrips. The one thing the ranger does not have (it has to borrow it from the druid).


Also witcher does not have nature magic. It has shield, fire, runes. The thing the ranger does not have.


Witcher go for wraknesses of enemies, there is only 1 ranger subclass which gets to know them and ranger does not have any means to exploit them. (Here a PF2 thaumaturge is much closer).


Lord of the rings is still popular (the movie, not the outdated book( and there the ranger part is the non magical.


There is maybe 1 witcher inspired rsnger subclass, but ranger is still the nature dude. And there are many inspirations for that. (Baldurs gate even and tons of other games).


Witchers are cool, but they are not rangers.

I really don't feel like going through each point, but to be clear my point isn't that the 5e Ranger is supposed to be a perfect replica/version of the Witcher, simply that it's an influence. And for the record there are many varied influences all working at the same time.

 

[Tigris]

The Witcher became popular with the video game series not the TV show. And the games started in 2007, long before 5e came into being.

Witcher only really became popular after witcher 3 which was released 2015. It got some us press in 2014 but that was also too late for big 5e influence. And before that it was a niche game, especially in the US.

I really don't feel like going through each point, but to be clear my point isn't that the 5e Ranger is supposed to be a perfect replica/version of the Witcher, simply that it's an influence. And for the record there are many varied influences all working at the same time.

Ok so you have no evidence at all thats an influence. Just a feeling because you heard about witcher.

"There are many influences" sure a fart can also be an influence for poison damage, but in the same sense witcher clearly is not a big influence in the 5e ranger if it was one at all. (It would make much more sense for a hexblade.)

 

[ECMO3]

Being good with bows and swords is aragorn,

I don't remember Aragorn using a Bow, but there are a lot of pages and maybe I just don't remember it.

 

[Minigiant]

The modern 5E ranger is more inspired by Rangers and hunters from real-time strategy games, RPG video games, and comic books.

I Remember this week watching someone play a strategy game on YouTube, which has a ranger unit. And the 3 abilities of the ranger unit is a Magic Fire Arrow, the ability to tame animals and the ability to camouflage.

 

[mellored]

Long way to wait until 12th lvl though.

War cleric, assassin, fighters gonna have more fun lvl 6-9.

Dunno.

Getting Climb +10' speed and a climb speed at ranger 6 is pretty fun.
And then Wis saves at 7 (via Gloomstalker) prevent you from losing turns, which isn't fun.
Then Con saves at 8, giving you proficiency in all 3 main saves.
Then Conjure Barrage, Conjure Animals, and Plant Growth at 9. Plus expertise, all quite good.

Can't see a good reason to go past ranger 9 though. Not enough THP, not enough slots scaling for the higher level spells, not enough exhaustion to be worth it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well the problems which are brought up with the ranger (in lots of discussions I did some googling today) are the following

1. The from level 6 to level 10 there is no damage increase at all. (ignoring spellslots)
2. Most classes have a big damage increase or another really strong feature on level 11, since thats another powerspike level like level 5 and the ranger in general lacks this since its subclass dependant and only 1 from the new subclasses really has that needed powerspike/damage increase.
3. In general the ranger does not scale much lategame also in the levels after 11. So his damage sinks compared to other classes, especially the capstone feature at level 20 is really really weak.
4. The ranger has 2 "main" class features. One being spellcasting the other hunters mark. And several other class features (level 13, 17, 20 + several subclass features) depend on hunters mark. On the same time many spells the hunter has also need concentration (like 40%+) and also many spells (and also some class features) do also need the bonus action. But even if they need an action (like summoning spell withour concentration), you cant do a spell and hunters mark in the same turn. So it feels bad that the 2 main features fight against each other.



These problems will come up rarely in statistics, since most campaigns dont go over level 7, and only a really small percentage ever go above level 11.

However, this is also a bit a spiral because people play high level less often because irs in general co sidered worse balanced etc.




Of course one does not need to use huntrrs mark. And the extra uses makes it hurt not so much when you lose its concenteation. And the level 13 and 17 features come st levels where you get new spell levels so its just a small bonus, but the subclass features and the capstone are still dependant on it.


EDIT: Also your data is from beginning of 2024. So has most likely looot of 5e not 5.24 dsta in it. This post was about the 5.24 ranger.

I’d also note most people have hopes they may see level 11+ play even though it rarely happens.

That factors in as well.