Revised Ranger update

[Jester David]

Animal companions of beastmaster rangers have hit dice. It's right in the text.

The revised ranger?

 

[Jester David]

On the contrary then, if only 20% is making them money, ignoring the 80% that don't care should be the profitable choice. So we're back to being a percentage, vs. a percentage of a percentage.

No.

It's a good idea to put out products the 20% want and will buy. Otherwise the products won't sell. But the 80% still has to want to use them. If it negatively impacts their games, then they stop playing.
But we're not even talking about a product that will sell. It's a free product that just costs WotC time and money for no return on investment for a product the vast majority of fans don't want and have no concern about to placate some vocal complainers online.

Focusing only on the "hardcore" fans is how you shrink your audience and make the game less accessible for newcomers.

 

[Mistwell]

The revised ranger?

No the one in the PHB. The description for the animal companion in the PHB, "it can spend Hit Dice during a short rest to regain hit points."

 

[Jester David]

No the one in the PHB. The description for the animal companion in the PHB, "it can spend Hit Dice during a short rest to regain hit points."

Yeah, it retains its Hit Dice. But it's maximum hit points increase based on the ranger level. So it only every has 1-3 Hit Dice that won't do much to get its hp back to max. It really needs bonus Hit Dice...

 

[Mistwell]

Yeah, it retains its Hit Dice. But it's maximum hit points increase based on the ranger level. So it only every has 1-3 Hit Dice that won't do much to get its hp back to max. It really needs bonus Hit Dice...

Almost all the ones people actually use have 2 HD with a con bonus or 3 hit dice. Often the only reason you'd use a 1HD animal is if your last one died and the only thing you can find in the mean time is a 1HD animal.

I agree they could use more HD, equal to your Ranger level. A feat could do that.

 

[Yunru]

Though again, anyone with a d6 hit die and not a high Constitution may well have the same issues. The game is dangerous for those who fight.

Yes but no-one (myself very much included) goes "Oh cool, I can have a pet Panther!" and expect to not use it for combat?

The vanilla beastmaster is "You get a pet with a weak wizard's HP and a barbarian's combat option" but that's not what it advertises itself as. It advertises itself as "enter the fray with your ferocious pet along side you!"

The only vanilla beastmaster I'll ever play now is as a small race, as Mounted Combat (or something) can help mitigate it a bit, but it'd still be my last pick.

 

[Jester David]

Almost all the ones people actually use have 2 HD with a con bonus or 3 hit dice. Often the only reason you'd use a 1HD animal is if your last one died and the only thing you can find in the mean time is a 1HD animal.

I agree they could use more HD, equal to your Ranger level. A feat could do that.

A wolf is one of the better ones, and only has 2d8. So at 4th level they have 16hp and can only heal 2d8+2 without tapping into healer resources. And it only gets worse.

It’s the one problem I have with the beast master. The beasts should add Con to their bonus hp and get extra Hit Dice. But that’s a simple house rule fix...

 

[Mistwell]

Yes but no-one (myself very much included) goes "Oh cool, I can have a pet Panther!" and expect to not use it for combat?

Sure, and in our game our beastmaster uses a panther in combat sometimes. He hasn't died yet, though it's been close sometimes.

I do wonder if people are playing with "instant death" at 0 hit points for animal companions, or unconscious with death saving throws for them? We went with death saving throws. The DMG says, "Most DMs have monster die the instant it drops to 0 hit points, rather than having it fall unconscious and make death saving throws. Mighty vilains and special nonplayer characters are common exceptions; the DM might have them fall unconscious and follow the same rule as player characters."

For us, an animal companion is definitely in the "special nonplayer character" as it's granted by a player character ability and is part of the party. So we have it go unconscious with death saving throws at 0 (though instant death from massive damage remains possible).

The vanilla beastmaster is "You get a pet with a weak wizard's HP and a barbarian's combat option" but that's not what it advertises itself as. It advertises itself as "enter the fray with your ferocious pet along side you!"

Does it? It says, "accompanies you on your adventures and is trained to fight alongside you." For us we've found the beast using the Help command is most effective, particularly once you hit 7th level and can command it to Help as a bonus action instead of as an action. Granting the ranger advantage on their attack is pretty helpful, is part of fighting alongside the ranger, but isn't really "ferocious pet entering the fray" as much as it's "pet distracting the prey while the prey gets hammered by the Ranger and focuses on that Ranger because it just got hammered by him, and not his mild nuisance of a distracting pet". It's a subtle difference in language but in use we've found it somewhat meaningful.

The only vanilla beastmaster I'll ever play now is as a small race, as Mounted Combat (or something) can help mitigate it a bit, but it'd still be my last pick.

Aw come on, flying around on a Pteranodon that can make flyby attacks is awesome!

 

[Chaosmancer]

My thoughts flow better responding to you out of order, I don’t know why.

Well, which three classes do you think would be played less than the ranger?
I guarantee your answer will be different than other people's. Mine will be different from yours that will be different from the OPs that will be different from Morrus'.
Heck, even if you polled everyone on this board you might not get an entirely representative answer.

I agree, everyone will give different answers.

So how is “There are classes that aren’t liked as well as the ranger is liked” a good rebuttal to the call to fix the ranger? If everyone has their favorites and least favorites and representative answers require massive amounts of polling to even get close… then why do you insist that those rankings should matter to us? If my opinion doesn’t matter unless it matches some massive, impossible to know super opinion… then your opinion doesn’t matter either. Plus, you admitted there is a mechanical fix, it isn’t even a question for you that that is possible, so this is just a smokescreen to hide behind “popularity”.

If you start fixing a problem with the game you risk going down the slippery slope of fixing the other issues. You set the precedent that you will revise the game and there's more pressure to implement additional fixes for other pet peeves and proud nails.

Wow, is that your final answer?

We have bridges that are crumbling in America, but we shouldn’t fix those because then people might expect us to fix the sewage system that is far out of date, and then the power lines that are inefficient and where will it end?

This is literally the worst call to inaction I have ever heard. Don’t fix anything because you might be expected to fix more. In the effort of staying civil I’m going to stop putting my thoughts down on how I am reacting to that, but let us just say, I disagree that that is a good reason to not fix something.

Is there a mechanical fix for the ranger?
Yes. That was never in doubt.
But no game is perfect. Every game has problems. 1The barbarian can't fight with two weapons. 2Saving throws break down at high levels. 3The monk's Way of Four Elements has resource management issues. 4The -5/+10 feats are too powerful. 5The champion and battlemaster are devoid of flavour. 6Wild Magic is very dependant on DM fiat.

1) Yes, they can. It may not be the absolute most efficient combat choice for them, but they can absolutely dual-wield and they can absolutely fight with sword and board. There is nothing stopping them and legitimate bonuses to doing so. Whether or not they are the most absolutely optimal solution is something else entirely.

2) Fair enough, I’ve run into some wonkiness with saves at high levels. Not sure if there are good solutions to it though. It is just a result of not everyone’s saves improving at higher levels or improving at the same rate as enemy attacks get stronger.

3) Very true, and they also deserve a fix. However, I’ve never been terribly interested in devising that fix, and I haven’t given it much thought. Also, it doesn’t seem to be a problem that has caught a large following, making it harder to have discussions about.

4) Potentially, I’ve personally never had a problem with them, and I’ve seen far more people miss due to the decrease in accuracy than encounters broken do to the increased damage output. Also, easy enough to ban since all feats are optional anyways, so you could just say all feats except this select number are allowed, or alter them in ways that fit your campaign.

5) Beyond easy enough to fix in my mind, if it is even a problem for you. I find flavor comes best in an intersection of class, subclass, race and background. Fighter’s give me plenty of flavor and Battlemasters come chock full of flavorful things, like that tool proficiency, that gives me plenty to latch onto and make my own. If a player came to me saying they liked the Champion but found the flavor lacking, we’d talk about what kind of story they were looking for and how to get there with the Champion. But, it has never come up, so I’ve never had to discuss with them. Usually, the people who choose Champion like the flavor they already found.

6) Agreed, and it is an annoyingly bad problem. I think sorcerers need a complete rework as well, despite how often I get shouted down on that particular issue. However, this is a thread about the Ranger, so I won’t go into my calls for a Revised Sorcerer here and save that for when another thread about fixing the sorcerer comes up on the docket.

So, I agree, no game is perfect. Some of these need mechanical fixes, some just need a little more effort on the DM’s part, and some aren’t even issues for some of us.

Doesn’t mean that those things which are issues shouldn’t be addressed, or that we should dismiss calls to fix something just because other things are broken too.

Plus… is it an effective use of WotC's time to fix a single subclass?
Why not just make more subclasses? It takes largely the same amount of design time and playtesting time, only the net result is more total options.

And outright new options don't risk causing confusion.
Here's the thing, no matter how much they advertise the new class, not everyone will hear. So you will have people showing up at games and being told they're using the wrong ranger. DMs not allowing the new ranger as it's not in the PHB, and causing tension with the players. Players being pressured to upgrade at AL.
It just causes needless confusion for very little gain.


Which is probably the point. The ranger maybe need a small tweak to its first level powers to make it more attractive, and a tweak to the beast master. But they've instead rewritten the entire class twice.
And both times people still weren't entirely happy. I doubt there's a version of the ranger that will entirely satisfy everyone...

So if a car company released a car that performed poorly in wintery conditions, they shouldn’t look into solutions for that car design, they should just keep making more different car designs?

Again, I don’t understand this desire to do nothing. Sure, maybe if this was a discussion about the difference between the Champion, Battlemaster, and Samurai where all of them could be seen as a similar style of play, but Beastmaster’s are supposed to be the epitome of the pet class and other than the Chainlock, they are the only subclass focused around permanent pets. You can’t release a new subclass that focuses on this style of play for the Ranger without in actuality just rewriting the Beastmaster to make it better. Sure, call it “the Spirit Shaman” but we’d all know what it is.

And I’m not sure what kind of tension you think there is going to be. Just last night I was doing character creation for a new group, and someone wanted to go College of Swords. I told them to hold up a minute, because I thought I remember one of the old UA’s being a much better fit. Turns out I was wrong, but there was no tension or anger about it. They were grateful to make sure they had the best possible version of what they wanted to do.

And we already have players who want to use the Revised Ranger and being told that it isn’t in the PHB (and no not even considered UA) and so they can’t use it. Boat sailed on that point, so not doing anything isn’t going to prevent it.

It's pretty clearly meant to be a combat heavy option, given the 7th and 11th features are focused on attacking. It's just a combat option that also has a LOT of utility uses and has a lot of flexibility that improves that.

Most of the issues I see people complaint about with the beasts is their survivability and not their utility. The point of having an animal companion is having an animal run around and help you, akin to the hunter in Warcraft. It's the pet class.
Crazy magical abilities aren't necessarily part of that trope, and forcing every beast master to be a "warg" and magical doesn't support that character concept. Magical stuff like that are located in spells, like beast sense. (Which the ranger gets.) You opt into utility via spells.

Okay, so why are you so derisive of people complaining because “They only care about Combat power” it is meant to be a combat ability, and it underperforms?

You can’t say “people are fine with it because they don’t care about combat and prefer the utility options” then turn around and defend its poor utility compared to other options with “well, it is meant to be a combat option.”

Yes, beast survivability is a big issue, so is the absolutely bonkers action economy set up we currently have and how it can actually encourage people to not use the beast as a combat option. If it is a bad combat option and a bad utility option then it is a bad option pretty much in totality. And, if it was a single ability we might end up okay with that, it is an entire subclass that falls behind. That is pretty egregious.

And you agree it is egregious, you said you agree there are mechanical fixes to this problem. You just don’t want to bother because we might end up fixing other things that are underperforming once we are done. Oh the humanity of reaching for something better.

Yeah… but your anecdotal evidence is just not supported. Because people ARE playing the ranger. If no one was playing the ranger than might be true, as the class being underpowered would actually be an issue. But since people do seem to happily be playing the class then it's apparently not a dealbreaker.
Maybe more people would play the class. But maybe not. It's fixing a theoretical issue. [/QUOTE

Since my Anecdote was for some people not liking the Ranger as is, you want to tell me that not everyone dislikes it. And because not everyone dislikes it I’m wrong that some people don’t like it, and since some people play it isn’t a real problem to fix.

Want to twist logic a bit more, we might actually end up having pretzels for brunch at midnight if we keep it up.

You are stating the premise of this debate (Some people don’t like the Ranger) as the solution to the debate (Some people don’t like the Ranger, so some people do like the Ranger, so it is perfectly fine) despite you yourself agreeing there are mechanical issues that need fixed.

Some people play with Homebrewed classes that can do 200 damage at will at level 3, doesn’t mean that is perfectly fine to let into the game just because some people like it.

Yeah, but it's still nothing compared to Reddit and Twitter and the Facebook groups.
Forums are the social media of the previous generation. Newer and younger players engage in the internet in other ways.
Looking at the D&D audience through the lense of forums is like looking at it through Usenet posts.

You can't look at a single audience and then believe that's representative. Focusing only on forums is focusing on one particularly loud vocal minority. Which is a bad idea. You can't get decent feedback just from the people complaining the loudest.
That's why WotC has the surveys and hires marketing companies. And looks at play data from partners like D&D Beyond, while also engaging with the fans on Twitter, Facebook, conventions, and more.

Wait, so now we need to talk about the Snapchat version of DnD? Wait, I know about Snapchat, clearly from an older generation, what’s the newest new thing?

Look, I get that there are other portions of the community. I’m not stupid, I can look at how many people are users of the forums and realize that it is a drop in the bucket. But, just because Facebook has more people than us doesn’t mean that A) the conversations on forums aren’t much more in-depth and B) That we are wrong C) We should be dismissed because we aren’t on the biggest platform this minute.

And, don’t you find it at all weird that when they are currently dismissing their old market research they are claiming “there was never a problem, just a vocal minority who thought there was a problem and tricked us into seeing a problem” We must have been really good to fool their surveys and marketing companies if it was all just a massive illusion.

But a problem is a problem, and stopping and reversing a fix that was called for just because a new audience joined doesn’t seem like something I want being done. It makes it seem like quality is less important than popularity, and that is not a road that leads to the best material.

Try hitting https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/ or the D&D Facebook group for a while. Spend some time there rather than the forums. See what people are talking about on the #dnd hastag.

And I’ll learn what? Pulled up both, saw some people posting maps, a cake, some awesome fanart, someone asking about how to handle smoking at the table… Is this supposed to change my mind on Rangers?

But, let us be somewhat fair. I know how to search Reddit for more than just the front page.

Here is a post where someone was disappointed by their Beastmaster, lot of thread advice on going to the Revised Ranger instead https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/96pbou/fiancée_doesnt_like_her_level_3_bm_ranger_is_it/

Here is another 4 threads talking about the Ranger, why people don’t like it, what solutions there are, you know, essentially the thing we are doing here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/92xs13/my_personal_issues_with_the_revised_ranger_sage/

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/92tq6s/revised_ranger_there_is_one_ranger_the_one_in_the/

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/9at6nk/just_how_bad_is_the_phb_ranger_really/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/9139rb/why_is_the_ranger_5e_hated_so_much/


And what does all of this prove?

Exactly what I’ve been saying, which is not a massive logical leap, some people don’t like the PHB Ranger, specifically the Beastmaster, and there are legitimate problems with it that should be addressed.

I guess since some people on Reddit agree we are done now? Probably not, they aren’t the “majority” of Reddit users, and they are probably old people who are also on Forums, and they probably don’t even Tweet so…. I guess we ignore them as well?

Audiences change, especially depending on how they're introduced to the game.

The audience that started with D&D was introduced through the lense of wargaming. And the ones introduced via the novels and campaign settings in the late '80s and '90s saw the game entirely differently. And now we have streaming as a surprisingly large source of new players, and those games focus much more heavily on the storytelling and narrative side of the game
Unless you honestly think people's campaigns now are similar to how people played back in the '80s….

Heck, you can hear con organizer and former AL bigwig Paige Leiteman discuss the changing audiences here:
http://slyflourish.com/streaming_changes_op_paige_leightman.html
With this tweet being telling:
https://twitter.com/PaigeLeitman/status/1032270919115235328

So, let me make sure you are certain about this claim.

People who were introduce to DnD through novels, you know, stories, care less about storytelling and the narrative side of the game than people who were introduced via streaming.

How the heck do you plan on backing that one up? Seriously, give me some evidence of that one, cause it makes zero sense to me.

1) Have you introduced 10,000 people to D&D? Because that'd be a representative sampling of the audience.

So because I haven’t introduced enough people I can’t have experience in how new players act or think? Well, good to know we are all useless in understanding new players, since no one has introduced 10,000 people to the game by sitting them down and making characters.

2) Don't you think, that as you're introducing them to the game, YOU might be influencing their tastes and how they approach the game?

Of course, and guess what I love to emphasis? Story. I’m a frustrated writer at heart, I love the story of the game. But, I also make sure that people’s expectations are in the right place. If someone wants to play a bard, I’ll make sure to tell them “hey, you aren’t going to be doing a lot of direct damage early on, this class is definitely more about buffing and debuffing” “Hey, you want to play a warlock, you’re only going to get like 2 big spells at time, so be prepared to rely more on your at-will abilities than those big bombs you can throw”

And I do that because I’ve seen people quit because they felt useless as a Bard (they wanted to kill things with magic) or drop a warlock character (They felt too constrained by the limited slots and short rests). I don’t want people unhappy because their mechanics don’t match the story in their head.

Regardless, at the end of the day… if people REALLY think the beast master is broken… they can just house rule it for their tables. Use one of the dozen on the DMsGuild or the UA one. Take what they want from the options given.
There are options out there. WotC doesn't need to do anything more.

I agree, except for the point that WoTC doesn’t need to do anything. Because they decided to declare that all of that DMGuild and UA material is invalid. Sure, they don’t have the authority to take it away from me, but if they want to claim the Beastmaster is fine, they need to prove it beyond “well, some people like it”

Like I said, if they had said they weren’t going to print the Revised Ranger, but it was still a valid option, I wouldn’t be so incensed, but no, they declared “There is one Ranger. The one in the PHB” and that brought about a very different response.

A standard wizard has 22 hit points at that level

In 1e they had 12 hit points at that level.

And is a Wizard supposed to be a frontline combatant like the companion?

More accurate to compare it to the Fighter who will have closer to 44 hp.

We've had a beastmaster ranger in our party since the book was released. His companion has never died, and he uses it in combat sometimes. Many people in this thread report they've never had an issue with them dying too often. So at what point does white room theorizing give way to actual experience?

I agree the beastmaster could use a boost (and I proposed some). I don't agree the companions actually die as often as people who have literally never played them or seen them played keep speculating will happen.

Wouldn’t people who had seen them played have actual experience? At that point you have actual experience versus actual experience, which is where theorizing can be useful to see which scenario is more likely to occur, since both have been observed.

Animal companions of beastmaster rangers have hit dice. It's right in the text.

Some of the better companions also have things like fly-by attack like the Pteranodon, which while not "ranged" is effectively like being ranged attackers.

Kind of hard to find their HD if you don't know where to look, and since we are usually talking about 1 or 2 dice, it is very different from the 5 dice a player has and is expected to use.

And Flyby attack is great, as long as you don't care about damage since owls and Pteranodon's have pretty low damage. Also, until the enemy readies an attack to knock them out of the sky since they generally have poor AC and Hp too.

But yeah, it is a good ability.

Almost all the ones people actually use have 2 HD with a con bonus or 3 hit dice. Often the only reason you'd use a 1HD animal is if your last one died and the only thing you can find in the mean time is a 1HD animal.

I agree they could use more HD, equal to your Ranger level. A feat could do that.

*Sarcasm* Another tax upon the ranger, let’s give them feats to allow them to heal their companions better too. *End Sarcasm*

And, those 1 HD animals include some of those with Flyby attack, like the flying snake, which is kind of a cool companion to have. Of course, having something for the good of the story is against the ranger’s ethos right?

It’s almost like people are arguing different points based upon which point is better for the moment of defending the status quo.



Look, I don’t disagree with you guys on everything. I agree about giving death saves to the companion as a standard move for example, but we seem to just be circling around and around on a lot of this.

 

[OB1]

For us we've found the beast using the Help command is most effective, particularly once you hit 7th level and can command it to Help as a bonus action instead of as an action. Granting the ranger advantage on their attack is pretty helpful, is part of fighting alongside the ranger, but isn't really "ferocious pet entering the fray" as much as it's "pet distracting the prey while the prey gets hammered by the Ranger and focuses on that Ranger because it just got hammered by him, and not his mild nuisance of a distracting pet". It's a subtle difference in language but in use we've found it somewhat meaningful.

Yes exactly! An Owl at 6th level can swoop in, help on a ranged attack, then swoop out without taking AoO.

Battlefield control using dodge as a bonus is also a powerful tactic. With a wolf next to a melee Ranger, now her opponent takes two AoOs if it leaves, one of which has advantage and the chance to knock prone. At range, that Wolf taking dodge can make it harder for opponents to close.

In the first few levels of the subclass, a wolf can prowl the edge of the battlefield, cutting off escape routes or providing a last line of defense for your squishy mage. It can also hold back in later fights if it took a hit in an early combat.

Just because it’s not meant to go head to head in melee with your opponents doesn’t make it useless in combat.