D&D General Seeking Input: A moment of prayer for the Ranger

[Clint_L]

You never know unless you do some exploring.

I actually do know. I'm the DM. If I want to set an adventure in the wilderness I can, and sometimes do. If the players want to make choices that take them into the wilderness, then they'll do that, and I'll build around it. But there's no way for the rules to enforce X amount of wilderness play in order to make rangers more viable, so they remain dependent on the taste of a particular table.

An entire character class should not be so tied to the choice of setting. It's bad class design for D&D.

 

[TiQuinn]

But there's no way for the rules to enforce X amount of wilderness play in order to make rangers more viable, so they remain dependent on the taste of a particular table.

Depends on what “wilderness play” entails, but I think it’s better as linking abilities to exploration, which can happen in any environment. That’s what Unlimited Dungeons does and it works very well for Rangers.

 

[Corinnguard]

I actually do know. I'm the DM. If I want to set an adventure in the wilderness I can, and sometimes do. If the players want to make choices that take them into the wilderness, then they'll do that, and I'll build around it. But there's no way for the rules to enforce X amount of wilderness play in order to make rangers more viable, so they remain dependent on the taste of a particular table.

An entire character class should not be so tied to the choice of setting. It's bad class design for D&D.

How would you fix the Ranger class so that it's not tied to the choice of setting? If by setting, you mean the wilderness.

 

[abirdcall]

Strange comment. It's like saying that the party traveling in the wilderness might be missing out on the haunted house or political intrigue that might be important to the adventure's plot or subplot.

I'm the DM. If I need wilderness travel as an aspect of the plot or subplot, I can make sure it happens. Mostly, we skip through it, especially after early levels, because I find it tedious and the players agree. The game is built so that travel times become increasingly shorter as parties level. Maybe your campaigns are different, and therefore rangers are much more useful. That's kind of my point. Different people prefer different stuff, and the ranger's effectiveness is too tied to a particular type of preference.

You can run a city campaign and barbarians will be just fine. So will druids. Rangers have always been too tied to the wilderness niche, though less so with the 2024 update.

Edit: contrast with the monk. There was pretty wide consensus that the 2014 version of the class was second rate at its intended niche, mobile skirmisher, but the 2024 update successfully corrected that (arguably too much so). Shifting the ranger from a focus on the wilderness to a focus on exploration and infiltration in general, and making it king of the exploration pillar would allow it to more strongly fill a niche..but what about rogues? So it remains a class without a strong purpose, unless the campaign happens to be strongly focused on the wilderness.

I think maybe the best role for rangers in 5e D&D is as magical rogue. Make the both of them the expert at exploration pillar only rangers get druidic magic which represents their theme as coming from the wilderness.

So Paladins are magical fighters and rangers are magical rogues.

 

[Corinnguard]

I think maybe the best role for rangers in 5e D&D is as magical rogue.

The only problem with having the Rangers in 5e being a magical rogue is that the Ranger and the Rogue are conceptually different from one another. Both are experts at what they do. The Ranger is a wilderness and exploration expert who has honed their skills of survival and combat. The Rogue otoh is a master of stealth and subterfuge who relies on trickery.

 

[Moorcrys]

If I were going to play with the idea I might use the warlock chassis as a starting point. Instead of invocations, they would get a range of martial and stealth tricks. Then look at the ranger abilities in 4e to get inspired for creating a number of martial tricks that could be chosen as abilities along the way - urban, wilderness, combat, exploration, stealth, tracking, information gathering, animal companions, etc. Then you could customize the sort of ranger you want to build, but it would all seem Non magical. The three ‘pacts’ might be ‘paths’ and focus on melee, ranged, and a beast companion.

That would probably be the route I would take.

 

[Minigiant]

You need to answer how an "army scout" hunts a storm giant, red dragon, archmages, archfiend, or lich and survive in environment polluted by them.

This typically can't be done without either spell casting, something that maybe spell casting (invocation or infusions), or warping the entire game to create a subsystem that require specific wilderness mechanical play,

 

[Corinnguard]

You need to answer how an "army scout" hunts a storm giant, red dragon, archmages, archfiend, or lich and survive in environment polluted by them.

This typically can't be done without either spell casting, something that maybe spell casting (invocation or infusions), or warping the entire game to create a subsystem that require specific wilderness mechanical play,

It wouldn't be a single 'army scout' hunting these monsters or surviving in areas where they are found. They would be doing these kinds of things in groups. Also, most of these monsters are something you would be dealing in high-level adventures, and how many RPG groups do those kinds of adventures in D&D?

 

[Minigiant]

It wouldn't be a single 'army scout' hunting these monsters or surviving in areas where they are found. They would be doing these kinds of things in groups. Also, most of these monsters are something you would be dealing in high-level adventures, and how many RPG groups do those kinds of adventures in D&D?

1) Someone in the group of army rangers would need the abilities to hunt those monsters

2) Doesn't matter. D&D goes up to level 20.

That's the crux of the issue. D&D goes past low levels. Past low power fantasy. Army rangers and knights rangers would still need abilities to hunt arch-Xes and ancient Ys.

 

[abirdcall]

The only problem with having the Rangers in 5e being a magical rogue is that the Ranger and the Rogue are conceptually different from one another. Both are experts at what they do. The Ranger is a wilderness and exploration expert who has honed their skills of survival and combat. The Rogue otoh is a master of stealth and subterfuge who relies on trickery.

That doesn't sound like a problem to me.

Give them both the chassis of an exploration expert.

Then Rangers get Druid spells to represent wilderness expertise and instead of that, Rogues get extra abilities to represent their trickery.

Both should be masters of stealth.