D&D 5E Ranger's favored enemies and spells.

[Squidmaster]

The Ranger for me is:

A standard sized Ford truck available in most US markets. To my knowledge, it is not any good at two weapon fighting OR archery, but it may have focus in favored enemy: Toyota.

In all seriousness, I think I agree with every single point made by Kobold Stew. I would add that the current implementation of tracking and wilderness Lore feels to black and white to me. It's not really fun if you could ignore large chunks of wilderness exploration simply by having a ranger in the party. Ranger should get advantages in this area, and possibly some tricks that no other classes can duplicate, but they should not automatically succeed on any given aspect of wilderness exploration and survival.

I would tend to agree that dexterity is optimal for the ranger class as a whole, but I can see a couple of instances where strength wins the day, namely with climbing and swimming.

 

[Minigiant]

To me, a D&D ranger uses magic. D&D's wilderness is mystical and dreadfully unfair. The ranger has to fight unfair too.

And since rangers are not the Fighter++ of the old days with its required high stats and restrictions where you can simply have them rampage over every evil giant-class humaniod, the only other other is to let them heal, create magic traps, and buff.

If you are in a setting where the wilderness isn't a slaughterhouse, you don't need rangers.

 

[gotbrain]

That's not as big a problem as it may first seem. Much like making a character who is a little bit elemental monk and a little bit martial arts monk, it should be entirely possible to break up Ranger subclasses into discrete bits if an individual wants a little bit of everything.

So, you maybe have a few subclasses, call them Orders, of rangers:

Order of the Grove allies with druids and has further choices of druidic magic or animal companions (or potentially other things like wild shape).

Order of Blood is primarily defined by combat style, allies with fighters, and chooses things like archery or TWF or other things (like perhaps thrown weapons). They're para-military special-forces with survival knowledge.

Order of Hunters is primarily defined by their chosen enemy, and follows some of the same logic of the current favored enemies, but isn't tied as intimately to weapon type (no "Bows = Dragons"). You can keep things thematic to the enemy type, like being able to pierce DR for dragon-hunters, but you're more interested in that particular enemy than you are in a particular weapon.

And there are characters, like with any other class, who goes more a la carte. Someone could take a single favored enemy ability, a single weapon specializaiton, and a few spells, too.

I like this. This is my vote for how the ranger should be imlemented.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The problem is that rangers are too many things to too many people, and you can't come up with a single class that can even make 70% of the player base happy. About all everyone can agree on is they have a connection with nature and can track. Consider:

- Rangers can be scouts, or hunters, or defenders of the woodlands, or defenders of civilization who live in the woodlands, or elite assault troopps
- Rangers can be fighter-like (1-3E), or rogue-like (4E)
- Rangers with spells (1E), rangers without spells (4E)
- Rangers with animal companions (3.5 & 4E), and rangers without (1-3E).
- Rangers with forced fighting styles (2E - 4E), or preferred weapons (1E), or without.
- Rangers in light armor (2E-4E) or rangers in any armor (1E)
- Rangers who hate giants (1E), or a group of creatures (3E), or a specific creature in sight (4E)
- Rangers who associate with anyone (2E-4E), or rangers who are particular about who they associate with (1E)
- Rangers with magic item restrictions (1E), and rangers without (2E-4E)

Frankly, they're all viable, and more or less equally rangers -- though I don't care for built-in dual wielding, since that joined the ranger class because of a certain drow, who had the ability because 1E drow could dual-wield without penalty.

If I had to vote for one, I want the Aragorn-type fighter-like wilderness guardian with skills and tracking, but can choose his armor, choose his preferred weapon, choose whether to be sneaky or not, and might or might not have spells or an animal companion (good ability modules for the class, IMO). I prefer a favored terrain over a favored enemy, but both are DM-dependent abilities, so the class shouldn't be built around a favored anything.

[MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]'s suggestion is a great one, though, to allow for multiple types of rangers.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I think I agree with every single point made by Kobold Stew.

A fine motto with which we all can surely agree.

 

[Li Shenron]

I can agree with the general thrust of the thread (Rangers currently lack something). But I feel that there is something missing in the debate of the Ranger history as I recall it. Rangers (along with paladins) where originally fighters++, a reward for rolling good stats that qualified you for these upper tier classes (kind of like prestige classes you had to qualify for at level one). There were some tweaks in regard to alignment and role play restrictions that seemed to be a partial balancing factor, but the fact remains that they got most of the benefits of being a fighter, plus the additional features of their class. Rangers running around in full plate, tracking, hard to surprise, etc. was quite common.

Yeah, there was a certain "only the best fighters can join the rangers" idea back then, but I don't think this is feasible anymore. Equality is too much of a value for a lot of gaming groups, just check how many of them reject even rolling for stats in favor of point-buy... But in the old days it was fairly acceptable that if you rolled high (which already is self-rewarding) then you would have access to an even better class, and even XP bonus to speed up advancement.

 

[Frostmarrow]

[D][/D]

The word ranger has nothing to do with ranged attacks. While there's nothing wrong with a ranger choosing to focus on archery, he, nor any other class, should be forced, nor even encouraged to do so, unless there is an archer class that I'm not aware of.

I didn't mean the word ranger has anything to do with ranged weapons.

I mean the concept of ranger often comes with ranged weapons. Make an image search on Google and you will see that ranger is almos synonymous with archer. Picturewise at least.

Do the same with fighter you will see that fighters carry swords. Knights carry shields and rogues carry daggers and rapiers.

The true niche of the ranger in D&D is ranged weaponry. It's a good niche that deserves class representation.

 

[Frostmarrow]

The way I see it rangers should have strong ranged attack, average melee attack (as cleric), average armor, and weak unarmed attack.

Fighters should have weak ranged attack, strong melee attack, average armor and average unarmed attack.

 

[Minigiant]

[D][/D]

I didn't mean the word ranger has anything to do with ranged weapons.

I mean the concept of ranger often comes with ranged weapons. Make an image search on Google and you will see that ranger is almos synonymous with archer. Picturewise at least.

Do the same with fighter you will see that fighters carry swords. Knights carry shields and rogues carry daggers and rapiers.

The true niche of the ranger in D&D is ranged weaponry. It's a good niche that deserves class representation.

But what about desert rangers who can barely see far enough to effectively use range.
Or sea rangers who can't aim on rocking boats and underwater.
Or arctic rangers whose fingers would freeze if they had exposed hands for bows, slings, and throwing daggers.

To me, rangers were never about the weapons style. They metagamed their combat to match their enemy and terrain.

It would make more sense that they get passive buffs according to the favored enemy and terrains they take.

Orcs/Goblins/Gnolls- Damage Reduction when within the reach of two of more enemies. (because they surround you)

Dragons- Bonus to Dex and Con saving throws (because they have breath weapons)

Giants- Bonus damage to Large or larger creature (because they are big)

Plains- Bonus damage if you move 20ft before attacking (because you have room)

Forest/Jungle- Ignore cover and difficult terrian (because you are used to stuff being in the way)

Urban/Underground- Bonus to AC when near a wall or when you have cover (because you use walls and chairs to hinder enemy attacks)

 

[I'm A Banana]

The way I see it rangers should have strong ranged attack, average melee attack (as cleric), average armor, and weak unarmed attack.

Fighters should have weak ranged attack, strong melee attack, average armor and average unarmed attack.

For me personally, cleaving any class too tightly to equipment seems silly. I want rogues in heavy armor with spears. I want fighters with rapiers and no armor. I want wizards with greatswords. I want clerics with twin scimitars.

So "uses equipment X" doesn't seem like a great idea for a class to my mind.

Which is why my "order of blood" is more defined as a military organization adept at survival, a la the Special Forces or the Army Rangers or whatever. Sure, weapons training is a big part of that, learning to put the pointy thing in the other guy is the POINT of the military, but these guys are also "Here is how you eat a raw snake so that you don't die," and for a D&D ranger, that's actually more key and unique and special than the weapons shenanigans.