Revised Ranger update

[cbwjm]

So my only problem with Rangers really is that I could not build a descent two-weapon fighting build. This is admittedly an annoyance for me because I played a 2 handed ranger in 3.5 that was awesome and have a bit of nostalgia there, but it picked it then because I did and still feel that the two-weapon fighting always was a symbolic ranger thing in side and outside of D&D. INFACT, they still get it as a fighting style in this edition too.

They added some things like Zephyr strike that look like they are for Ranger melee moving in and out of enemies but on further inspection it only works on one attack and can be use with a ranged weapon making it a great spell for an archer to stay at ranged but not really that good in melee since its one strike and concentration.

Hunter's mark is your mult-hit go to spell but that's it and it doesn't scale, rangers don't really get a melee smite or anything that really lets them evoke more damage from multiple attacks, and even giving them booming blade or green flame blade only makes them descent at one weapon fighting.

Absorb Elements - Scales, melee weapons, single attack (multiple attacks allow more chances to trigger, the need to get hit with elemental damage makes it unreliable at best, many elemental casters are immune/resistant to the elemental damage type they cast, and since 2/3 of your attacks are coming from Extra attack, you will usually have triggered before your 3rd swing. This making the times when you can use the spell, have a target it will actually damage, and miss twice but hit the third time negligible. Best to consider it a defense spell for the resistance.)

Ensnaring Strike - Scales, all weapons, single attack (multiple attacks allow more chances to trigger, but the one hit limit + the bonus action casting stops the off hand in the same turn you cast it and with two hits from extra attack your better off focusing on bow or single sword)

Conjure Barrage - Doesn't scale, thrown melee or ammunition, single attack (does not allow bonus action offhand attack because its a spell, but you could use a dagger one handed thrown and be just ass effective as an archer)

Conjure Volley - Basically the same as conjure Barrage but higher level damage and a vertical cylinder instead of a cone. Throw a dagger or an Arrow.

Steel Wind Strike - Doesn't scale, melee weapon, single attack (does not allow bonus action offhand attack because its a spell, but requires 1 melee weapon which one main hand melee weapon fulfils.)

-So the ONLY ranger spells, class, or subclass features that I can find that work with the base class Two-weapon fighting style are:

Hex - per hit +1d6 damage (doesn't scale)

Gloom Stalker -> Umbral sight (lvl 3), invisible to darkvision could mean all 3 attacks at advantage. Not useful during the day or if even one enemy (or your party member) brought a light source.

Gloom Stalker -> Stalker's Furry (lvl 11), three chances to miss makes getting another attempt to hit on miss more likely to trigger. While not adding to damage max, damage reliability is welcome. It also, does not require you to use your reaction.

Monster Hunter -> Slayer's Prey (lvl 3), one target per short rest +1d6 per hit that stacks with hex.

All of this said, unless I missed something, two-weapon fight style for rangers as they are is a bit of "trap choice" where you look at the first 3 levels and think, "a two sword wielding ranger? Awesome!" only to find regret. Is it soo much to ask that they make one subclass for two weapon fighting rangers like previous additions?

I dunno, I liked my dwarven dual wielding hunter. I thought he worked out really well with the various hunter abilities. I wouldn't consider the fighting style a trap at all.

 

[Jester David]

I don't know where you got the number 10% of fans in 2015, I also don't like your phrasing on how they "decided" the ranger was underpowered, as though it was a nearly arbitrary choice.

The numbers I thought we were working off of are the current number of players, and the current number of players playing Rangers, but now you are talking about a group of players from 3 years ago. So, we are assuming that people's opinions haven't changed, that more people have gotten upset with the ranger, that the sentiments of those people have not spread?

I will grant you, no fix will ever be perfect, there is no silver bullet, but just because we can't fix everything doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix anything.

I forget where I picked up the 10% number. They've said in podcasts that that's their threshold for reevaluating something from playtest feedback.

Why am I talking about people playing from three years ago? Because that's when the satisfaction surveys were held. 2015. Three years and possibly five to ten million players ago. Waves or new players who are often more focused on the narrative and less on combat, who have different priorities than the audience in 2015.

It’s not people’s opinions that have changed. It’s the ratio of that audience.
Us forum lurkers are no longer representatives.

You are completely right, we should focus on them as well.

Which classes are they, why are they unpopular, what kinds of things could we do to fix them if there are legitimate problems.

Because, I think if you've been following the discussion on the Ranger you would find that a large part of the complaint is how the theme does not match the mechanics and it is far too backwards in how it approaches the beast companion. Yes, there is a mechanical argument as well about the power of the sub-class, but no solution proposed would beat out a Fighter armed with a Flametongue, or a Paladin's Smite damage Spikes or any of the other highest tiers of inherent class power.

Trying to dismiss the concerns brought out as power gaming nonsense doesn't work when the problem is not limited to how weak the beast is, but instead extends into the action economy disaster of the their implementation and how it doesn't reflect the reality of how DMs use beasts in their own encounter.

First, this assumes you can “fix” the bottom classes mechanically. It’s likely the story and flavour of the classes be as much issue, if not more of an issue.

Also, what’s the advantage of encouraging people to play the bottom most played classes? All that does is shuffle those classes up and other classes down. There are now new least played classes.
There’s no such thing as perfect balance. D&D doesn’t need to be like an MMO that is continually shifting and being tweaked.

It isn't a matter of who is at the bottom. At least, not to me. And it isn't all about combat power either.

A Beastmaster is fully outclassed in utility by any person who takes the Find Familiar Ritual spell. The Familiar has a telepathic link, you can see through it's eyes, it can be turned into any type of small animal that might be useful so that it can fly one day as a sparrow scouting the forest and sneak into the a bar as a rat the next, it can deliver touch spells and it has it's own initiative and takes it's own actions. This actually means there is a potential argument that Find Familiar is more useful in combat than a beast master's companion as well, since it can take the Help action to grant advantage to an ally.

The Beastmaster get's their companion 2 levels after someone can get Find Familiar, and it is far inferior as a utility option. An entire sub-class has half of it's potential usefulness outclassed by a single spell (Half because we are splitting Exploration and Combat, there are few pertinent ways to use either in Social situations).

Having seen familiars in combat… they don’t fare well. One hit and gone, followed by expensively replacement.

Also… if the problem is the beast master, why remake the entire ranger? Why not just play any of the other subclasses? There’s no talk of remaking the sorcerer just because the wild magic bloodline is unpopular.

This isn't the slippery slope of "Now the Champion does 3.5 less DPR per day than the lowest class, so we need to buff them up followed by the Paladin who then falls behind on a per week basis" This is a severe mechanical problem.

Anecdotes are what they are, I understand that, but I have yet to hold a conversation with someone outside of this website who thinks the Beastmaster Ranger is perfectly fine. In just these past two weeks I've had a player in Dischord deride another player for choosing a Ranger (because they are too weak) and a conversation in the GiTP forums were again most people giving advice on the Beastmaster were urging the player to pick an entirely different class.

But I think the core of it comes to me right here.

I doubt a forum based on a comic making jokes related to a fifteen-year-old Edition is the best place to find out what the typical 5e player wants.

Also, if someone at my game table derided another player for their choice of class, the balance of classes would be the least pressing issue.

 

[Yunru]

Having seen familiars in combat… they don’t fare well. One hit and gone, followed by expensively replacement.

Which is no different to the animal companion.

 

[Jester David]

Which is no different to the animal companion.

It's a pretty big difference, as animal companions can actually deal damage. Most have pretty high accuracy, and can have some decent AC. And they can take more than a single hit from the mookiest mook.

They are admittedly weak. I said so above. Which is a good reason to tweak beast companions, not rebuild the entire ranger.

 

[ad_hoc]

It's a pretty big difference, as animal companions can actually deal damage. Most have pretty high accuracy, and can have some decent AC. And they can take more than a single hit from the mookiest mook.

They are admittedly weak. I said so above. Which is a good reason to tweak beast companions, not rebuild the entire ranger.

I think it is more of a problem with familiars. They should not be able to Help in combat.

 

[CapnZapp]

Really, the people who disagree with you are "deserving hatred and contempt," which is what despicable means?

No, read what I wrote instead of putting words in my mouth.

 

[CapnZapp]

Well, they did make a mistake in their overall approach to the Beastmaster: they probably would have been better off cutting out animal companians as a class feature entirely.

That could have worked.

The PHB Beastmaster suffers from getting class features that are not nearly as strong as the designers think. By cutting out the rules regarding beasts, replacing them with "the secret is you can simply buy an animal at the fair", the subclass would likely have gained much more useful class features instead.

(I'm not sarcastic btw)

 

[CapnZapp]

The more I think about it, the more I believe it’s an absence of well defined animal handling rules that is at the root of the issue.

Were those rules made clear in the first place, and the beastmaster a clearly better animal handler, people would have reacted much better IMHO. I wish the difference between an intelligent ally and an animal companion had been made clearer and more coherently throughout the whole ruleset.

And I wish D&D would support BOTH a basic animal companion AND a fully-featured combat pet.

 

[CapnZapp]

Do I have this straight?

WotC made a horrible mistake with the Beastmaster class. To fix that mistake, they need to make the pet as durable as a PC and deal equal damage to what a PC can. Additionally, in order to fix this mistake, they should put a disclaimer on the class that this class is totally unbalanced and you can only play it if your DM okays it.

Is that about right?
[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION], you actually expect WotC to publish something like this? Seriously?

You'd make a poor game designer if that's your best shot. Don't quit your day job is all I'm saying.

And yes.

I mean, no, not specifically your suggestion.

But in general yes. Why not?

 

[Hussar]

You'd make a poor game designer if that's your best shot. Don't quit your day job is all I'm saying.

And yes.

I mean, no, not specifically your suggestion.

But in general yes. Why not?

Well, I can think of several reasons why not.

1. By your own admission, it's unbalanced. There's zero chance they're going to publish that when it's clearly unbalanced. You're granting a player, essentially, two characters, or about one and three quarters. In a game where you have zero followers or anything like that. There's a reason we don't have the Leadership feat anymore.

2. They have already done a revised beastmaster and apparently, it's pretty functional. What would be the point of going beyond that?

3. Fencing in a class by saying it's "too powerful" is no different than leaving it in the Unearthed Arcana. It's still not going to be AL legal, by your own admission. Essentially, what's the difference between leaving it in UA or putting it in an "official" book but then telling everyone that it's a broken class?

4. What are they gaining here? Where's the upshot for WotC? I get that it makes YOU happy, but, I'm sorry, who cares? It's going to cause nothing but problems at tables as players will want to play this, but, the DM shoots the idea down, leading to endless whining and kvetching. And all we're going to get is endless arguments about how to "fix" the class so this or that player's DM will let it be played at the table.

If this is what you consider good game design, I'm pretty happy to leave it in WotC's hands.