D&D 5E Rangers in 5e

[SlimJim]

Personally, I'm not a fan of them having spells. If they have extremely limited spells, I would likely be okay with that. Otherwise, my main idea for the ranger was this: he gets his favoured enemy (perhaps favored terrain too, from pathfinder, or a choice of one or the other), some cool survival bits, and a combat focus, which works similarly to the rogue scheme. Much as the rogue gets a bonus background, the ranger gets a bonus specialty, which comes with even more benefits. I think the animal companion should either come as one of these choices, or else your animal companion is a non-combatant unless you take the beast master focus. I wouldn't even mind the magic system coming as one of these choices, but thats mostly just because I don't like rangers doing magic that much.
Including the usual combat focus, plus spells, plus combat pet is simply too much for a character to have IMO. I feel similarly about the druid, where I think they should choose between pet, wild shape, or spiritualist (4e shaman equivalent).

 

[Sadrik]

I am firmly in the ranger with no spells camp. I feel like if you want minor spells multi-class into Druid or wizard. Then you have them. I also think the best ranger possibly out there is the rogue with a wilderness theme. I mean it does everything that the rogue does. Give him The archery theme and you have a wilderness archer that is bad ass. Multi class into some Druid and you have something. That is not going to happen though we will have a ranger.

So what does that leave us with? A background, how do you base a whole base class on a wilderness background? Give them nifty specialties with their background? The ranger needs to exist on its own and a background is not enough. In factno background is better. Give it unique abilities that are neither rogue abilities nor are they fighter abilities. I think the only way you do that is to make them lightly armored and somehow still effective, you give them all weapons but they focus on one, you give them two backgrounds, one is a wilderness one (arctic, desert, forest, underdark etc.) (i am also ok with rangers without wilderness attached - let the player choose it!), I like the idea that the ranger consumuse some of the strategist portion of the warlord too. Finding weakness in enemies, perhaps tracking prey, developing tactical solutions. Ranger eats warlord?

 

[Shadeydm]

Yes! The ranger is my favorite class. Well, the 1e ranger, at least. He's been neutered ever since. 2e and 3e made him Drizzt, 3.5 made him Robin Hood. I want to play Aragorn or Jim Bridger, or Rambo.

Glad someone said it, the little Drizzt clones are the first thing that comes to mind about a ranger that needs to "die in a fire" to use the common phrase.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I agree the spell thing could be weird, but, man, there was a certain panache about your Ranger blapping something with a magic missile!

 

[Li Shenron]

I think that to be a successful archetype it is important to *completely divorce* weapon style etc from the class. Completely.

Absolutely!

I don't even thing any class should have "fighting styles" to choose from as in-built class features except the Fighter and the Monk. There is plenty of room between themes/feats and simply weapon & armor selection to build up a fighting style.

Also, let's realize that the introduction in 3.5 of Ranger's fighting styles weren't really needed by the concept of the class. The archery style was just thrown in because a lot of people weren't interested in the free 2WF feats, so they wanted something to compensate for not using those. Then other players complained that they weren't interested in neither the 2WF nor the archery feats because they wanted to have a Ranger with an even other style, at which point it's a fair complaint. The problem came from the original decision of giving fixed bonus feats to the class, but in 5e they are not bound to this, so far thankfully there is nothing really fixed that shoehorns any character into a "mandatory" fighting style*!

(*minor complaint, the closest thing to this is the automatic Eldritch Blast to all Warlocks)

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I listened to the little Pax interview that had Mike Mearls in it and I agree and disagree with what he said. He is perfectly aware that the ranger is easily made using a class such as the fighter, and an appropriate background and specialty but he goes on to say that they are going to create a ranger anyway because of the flavor.

Why can't Wizard's just write an entry about Ranger's as a society, which was one of the reasons he mentioned, and just leave it at that. I think a "Ranger" should be any class that fits the criteria set forth by the organization.

I fear we are going down the road of class bloat when the designers are already aware that you can create those archtypes using the core 4 plus backgrounds but still want to create the class anyway.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I want a modular ranger much like I want a modular druid.

Ranger is my favorite class, of the 1E variety -- a wilderness warrior who protects the realms of men against the hordes of evil monsters, who knows tricks of the wilderness and survival, who can use a limited number of weapons with great expertise, and who can suit up in heavy armor when tough assault troops are needed to take on giants and other threats. I prefer mundane rather than magical rangers, though I'd accept spells as a module (and would prefer mundane abilities that substitute for spells).

I skipped 2E, so was shocked and disappointed by the 3E dual-wielding ranger, who couldn't hang in melee due to light armor and lower hit points. The 3.5 ranger was a good fix -- my rangers usually augmented their longsword or handaxe/shield with a longbow -- but was still disappointed by being shoehorned into one of two fighting styles. I think the 4E ranger has provided the best set of choices, and particularly liked the animal companion option of the beastmaster ranger.

So I'd like to see 5E retain toughness, mobility, and wilderness focus for all rangers, while providing options for weapon specialization (more than just archery or dual-wield fighting styles), spellcasting/skill focus, and animal companions. I'd like, too, to be able to remake a 1E-style ranger in heavy chain, sword, and shield as a tough wilderness assault fighter without having to completely toss out class mechanics.

 

[Sadrik]

I fear we are going down the road of class bloat when the designers are already aware that you can create those archtypes using the core 4 plus backgrounds but still want to create the class anyway.

Rough, they need to get some people in there that can come up with some original ideas then.

I think everyone's ranger concept is best encapsulated as a rogue with a wilderness background (their thieves cant is reading trail signs) and a archery specialty (or two weapon fighting one).

Divorcing the weapon specialty and the blasphemy wilderness background is the way I would go with them. But since in previous editions that is all they were they have to be something else.

How about this concept:
Fighter is STR based
Rogue is DEX based
Monk WIS based
Ranger is INT based
Barbarian is CON based
Paladin is CHA based

This is as good a place as any to begin. Clearly STR is useful for all of these classes and I can see the Barbarian and Fighter can be combined in this design scope idea. Like upthread, I can see the ranger being a strategist and being an INT based warrior that swallows much of the warlords schtick. YMMV... this is the ranger after all...

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I fear we are going down the road of class bloat when the designers are already aware that you can create those archtypes using the core 4 plus backgrounds but still want to create the class anyway.

Well, I think I could live with a return to the concept of ranger, paladin, and barbarian as "sub-classes" of fighter. Make certain choices in character creation -- assuming all of the options are there -- and you get a "ranger" fighter that apes a prior generation ranger class. Have a pre-packaged background or specialty labeled "ranger" that gets one archetype if you want to roll up the character quickly.

 

[The Shadow]

I listened to the little Pax interview that had Mike Mearls in it and I agree and disagree with what he said. He is perfectly aware that the ranger is easily made using a class such as the fighter, and an appropriate background and specialty but he goes on to say that they are going to create a ranger anyway because of the flavor.

That's not quite what I got out of it. He was talking a lot about starting with story and then building mechanics to reflect it, rather than coming up with a cool mechanic and then asking how to justify it with fluff after the fact.

When talking about the paladin, for example, he said that, sure, a cleric with the Knight background and the Defender specialty is kind of like a paladin. So if there's to be a paladin class, it needs to pull its own weight. So they ask themselves what makes a paladin unique and special, and then how they can mechanically "punch it up".

Likewise the ranger. It's not just a wilderness fighter with the fluff of belonging to an organization - presumably they will be coming up with mechanics to make it unique and special.