Ranger - House Rules (Feedback Requested!)

[Juuxo160]

Yes, this is indeed another Ranger themed thread. Following are my house ruled changes to the Ranger class and Beast Master archetype. I would appreciate any feedback. The Hunter's Mark change is not dependent on the Beast Master archetype changes or vice versa.. and before you ask, yes you can still use the Poisonous Snake's bite for the poison effect, but the bite attack is not a finesse weapon and cannot be used to sneak attack.


Hunter's Mark spell is replaced by two Ranger features:

Hunter’s Mark: At 2nd level, you can use a bonus action to choose a creature you can see within 90 feet and mystically mark it as your quarry. Until the mark is removed, you can use your Hunter’s Quarry feature against the target and you have advantage on any Wisdom (Perception) or Wisdom (Survival) check you make to find the target. The mark is removed if the target drops to 0 hit points or you dismiss the mark by using an action. Only one creature can be marked by you at a time.

Hunter’s Quarry: At 2nd level, when you or your beast companion hit a target you marked (with the Hunter’s Mark feature) or a favored enemy with a weapon attack, the creature takes an extra 1d6 damage. You can deal this extra damage only once per turn. This ability’s damage increases by 1d6 when you reach 6th level (2d6) and 14th level (3d6).


Changes specific to the Beast Master archetype:

Beast Master - Ranger’s Companion (Addition / Revised)

• The beast’s base AC becomes 13 + the beast's Dexterity modifier + your proficiency bonus.
• Your beast’s hit dice are either its normal hit dice or equal to your ranger level, whichever is greater. Your beast can spend one or more Hit Dice to regain hit points at the end of a short rest (see Short Rest page 186).
• You can use your bonus action to command the beast to take the Disengage or Dash action on its turn.
• If you choose a tiny or small beast as your companion, it gains the following abilities:
  • Strike. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1 piercing damage.
  • The Sneak Attack feature (as described on Page 96), the amount of extra damage increases by 1d6 at 3rd level (2d6) and 11th level (3d6). Your beast’s strike is a finesse weapon.

Beast Master - Exceptional Training (Revised)
Beginning at 7th Level, on any of your turns when your beast companion doesn’t attack, you can use a bonus action to command the beast to take the Dodge or Help action on its turn. In addition, your beast’s attacks count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks and damage.


Note: The changes to the Beast Master archetype are designed to be used in concert with the Twin Strike combat option. This option allows a two-weapon fighting Ranger to use their bonus action to command their beast companion instead of being consumed with an off-hand weapon attack.

Twin Strike (addition to the Combat chapter):
If you have adopted the fighting style Two-Weapon Fighting, you can choose to simultaneous attack with both of your weapons instead of using the Two-Weapon Fighting rules described in (Combat – Page 195). When you use the Attack action to attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you increase the weapon’s damage die by the damage die of a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand.

 

[Juuxo160]

Made a slight adjustment to the Base AC calculation of the beast companion to retain "quick" versus "slow" variances in beasts. I've also added another modification (hit dice and recovery) to address the beast's survivability.

 

[Xeviat]

This is similar to some of the changes that I've done in my ranger houserules: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?470564-Alternative-Beast-Master-Beta-0-1

You go less far, though. Now, it's interesting that you're removing the spell aspect from Hunter's Mark/Quarry. I made it a class feature too, but I made it cost spell slots. I worry that removing it from using concentration and from costing spells could boost the ranger damage too much, but I'd have to run tests.

Your pet change, flattening out the AC, is a great fix that balances the high ac/low hp animals (who were beefed by the ranger) and low ac/high hp animals (who are hurt by the ranger).

I also like your dual strike feature. I "fixed" twfing a different way in my games (I brought back the -2 to hit and have offhand attacks equal mainhand attacks and I don't have it cost a bonus action).

Your changes are small and they should work together rather nicely. Check my changes out if you want to see something bigger. I made new stats for the companion animals, made a spell for animal companions, and more.

 

[Pauln6]

I think simple is best so I will likely just allow every ranger to know the Hunter's Mark spell for free and add Revivify Beast to their spell list but I like the other changes.

I am always nervous about class stacking when it comes to damage. Presumably, the Twin Strike option should be worded to balance it against other classes so that they sacrifice the ability damage on the second attack and it works alongside the beast companion attack and extra (single) attack option but it doesn't grant a stacking boon to the extra attack classes while leaving rogues' cunning action up for grabs, and so forth?

Is that the intention or are you happy to allow that extra damage for every attack? Do just feel that higher level fighters with TWF should get an extra die of damage three times per round because they are using d6 weapons? Is there a risk of stealing the swashbuckler's thunder?

Of course a half way point could be to add a line to confirm that using twin strike to attack more than once with both weapons requires the use of a bonus action.

 

[Xeviat]

Compare the ranger's damage to the paladin's. At 11th level, the paladin has 2 attacks with +1d8 damage on each, in addition to being able to dump their spells into smites for 1(+1/spell level)d8 damage. The ranger would have 2 or 3 attacks with +1d6 damage, with the ability to spend spells for some extra damage here and there (1d10 per level for hail of thorns is a good metric that compares to smite).

Before 11th level, though, Hunter's Mark itself compares to smite. Fights are seemingly balanced around 3 rounds. A paladin gets +2d8 damage from a 1st level spell; a ranger gets +1d6 damage per attack for 2 rounds (round 2 and round 3) and on main hand attacks for 1st round. The bonus action to move hunter's mark can interact badly with TWFing. Smite can't "miss" (since it's used after a hit), which increases its effectiveness (since you can't waste it, aside from over-damage).

That's what you'll be wanting to check.

Now I do think the ranger deserves additional spells known for their subclass; I doubt Wotsee will be errating anything like that, though.

 

[renevq]

Compare the ranger's damage to the paladin's. At 11th level, the paladin has 2 attacks with +1d8 damage on each, in addition to being able to dump their spells into smites for 1(+1/spell level)d8 damage. The ranger would have 2 or 3 attacks with +1d6 damage, with the ability to spend spells for some extra damage here and there (1d10 per level for hail of thorns is a good metric that compares to smite).

Before 11th level, though, Hunter's Mark itself compares to smite. Fights are seemingly balanced around 3 rounds. A paladin gets +2d8 damage from a 1st level spell; a ranger gets +1d6 damage per attack for 2 rounds (round 2 and round 3) and on main hand attacks for 1st round. The bonus action to move hunter's mark can interact badly with TWFing. Smite can't "miss" (since it's used after a hit), which increases its effectiveness (since you can't waste it, aside from over-damage).

That's what you'll be wanting to check.

Now I do think the ranger deserves additional spells known for their subclass; I doubt Wotsee will be errating anything like that, though.

Agreed; I also made Hunter's Mark a Class Feature, but using spell slots (each higher spell slot increasing the duration) to keep resource management similar to the Paladin's. What I did tweak, though, was to increase damage to 1d8 vs Favored Enemies. Now I don't think that Rangers need DPR comparable to Paladins and Fighters, just a small boost to keep them from lagging too far behind. They compensate by being so much better than everyone else in the exploration pillar (outside cities), but sadly this can't be quantified in the lab. In game, with carefully selected favored terrains, this aspect really shines through.

 

[Xeviat]

I think it can be quantified. Compare the Fighter to the Rogue. At early levels, their damage ends up being pretty similar if you are using a Greatsword fighter and assuming the Rogue gets sneak attack every round. The Fighter has action surge, while the Rogue deals more damage per hit (and more chances for damage with two-weapon fighting). Where they fundamentally differ is that the Fighter gets second wind and the Rogue gets expertise and cunning action. So, the fighter gets some recovery in combat, while the rogue gets some mobility in combat and added strength in social or exploration challenges.

The Ranger lacks the recovery ability that the fighters and paladins get through second wind and lay on hands. In its place, the Ranger effectively gets expertise in a large number of skills due to Natural Explorer.

Seems like it could be considered a trade off.

 

[renevq]

I completely agree with that; paladin and fighter get considerably better combat abilities while the Ranger gets better exploration abilities. But how would you quantify it? The DMG and PHB guidelines for exploration are pretty open and exploration challenges will have very high variance between DMs, so it's pretty hard to numerically state how much value a Ranger adds to a party in this area as opposed to combat, where you can calculate a character's level to level DPR/burst damage/damage mitigation on a spreadsheet and compare to level appropriate challenges. And so you get the "Ranger is weak" argument.
That being said, all in all the Ranger, IMO, is a pretty decent class; thematically awesome and really well thought out, just needs a few tweaks to really give it that mechanical versimilitude.

 

[Pauln6]

Our hunter ranger is immense fun out of combat and that trade-off is fine with me. I also don't see a pressing need to make the overall damage comparable to fighters and paladins but I do like the notion of d8 for favoured enemies.

I'm not great at maths crunching. I can see the above amended Hunter's Quarry works only once per round while the spell applies to every attack. As such, the TWF beastmaster ranger suffers more than most and deserves a bit of help - but if the beast has multi-attack, it will also score a lot more damage using the old method.

If Hunter's Mark inflicted 2d6 from 11th level on every attack and 2d8 for favoured enemies, does that tip the balance too far in the other direction, especially for TWF rangers with a multi-attack beast?

I'm still unsure about the portability of any increased power curve for twin strike. For rangers it's fine since you would be sacrificing damage from the loss of the second attack but it gives freebies to rogues who don't really need them and steps on the toes of the swashbuckler.