D&D General Ranger Identity Patch (+)

[Minigiant]

Flavour-wise, if you were going to redo the sub classes for Ranger, what would you do?

I think 4e had a good set up.

• Beastmaster
  • Combat Beast Pet focused
  • Can speak to animals at will
  • Can buff beast offense and defense*
  • Animal Handling Expertise
• Hunter
  • Ranged focus
  • Has a Sniper Shot*
  • Has a Volley*
  • Has a Pin Down*
  • Perception Expertise
• Marauder
  • Melee focused
  • Bonus HP or THP*
  • Can Whirlwind
  • Can Rapid Attack
  • Stealth Expertise
• Warden
  • Spell focused
  • Shilleagh user
  • Boosted Barkskin
  • Backup healer
  • Nature Expertise

Then you get the Fey, Underdark, Planar rangers who have heightened focused in skills.

*Could be a spell

 

[doctorbadwolf]

the winter walker, and presumably any other environs themed subclasses isn't directly designed to make you better in an arctic environment, it instead more took the angle of having learnt from it gave you features themed off of harnessing cold and ice, your weapon attacks deal additional cold damage, an expanded spell list of cold-themed spells, ect, ect...

in this way their themed abilities become more universally useful, a swamp ranger might excel in inflicting sickness or could have their own personal swarm to command like swarmkeeper (lots of insects in the swamp), a mountain ranger would be an expert climber and could know how to reshape stone with geokinesis and direct the winds how to blow.

it's like, yes, you could design a dragon slayer ranger to purely only have traits that activate against dragons OR you could have this ranger having learnt from their target, becoming more dragonlike in themselves, flight, to match them in their air, intimidation, you've stood strong against the king of reptiles and are considered as scary as they are, speaking draconic, learning the tongue of your enemies to understand what was previously eluded from your understanding.

I would love to see favored enemy mostly as single features you get 2 of at level 1 and then 1-2 more each tier, with the same mindset as the subclasses you propose.

To me, terrain is a better subclass. "I fight this way because i trained in the deep forest, with dryads and treants and shambling mounds and poisonous things." Works either way, too, i suppose. I just like winter walker more than i would dragon slayer, i think.

 

[Minigiant]

This is why spells work best for D&D rangers.

In most media, rangers really mostly fight their Favored enemies in their Favored terrain. Aragon mostly fights orcs in forests and grasslands. Jon Snow fights mostly fights men in the arctic. Jack fights Giants. Pirate ranger fights at sea and on coasts. Etc Etc.

But due to range of foes, you either need to make ranger talents super broad to hit tons if situations (Hordebreaker works on any group of foes) or swappable (swap out Entangle for Absorb elements vis dragons).

I just think designers would do swapable flavorful features better than broad flavorful features. History leans that way.