Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: The ranger, revised... overcompensation?

[CapnZapp]

Yes it is. But against a variable target you can take the average. But obviously you don't know how math works and such. Compare it against a static number and you know what is better. Too bad it was lost but we had it calculated. I won't do it for you again.
Actually what is your problem understanding that you can compare a bonus against advantage and look what is better?

Why so hostile? Why do you think I'm having trouble evaluating advantage?

And why do you think I was asking for your calculations? I don't need your calculations, I just said what the benefit of advantage is: it's not a static number like +4, it's variable.

If you have a 50-50 shot at making your roll (that is, you need to roll an 11 or better), advantage is at its most advantageous and you get a +25% (percentage points) increase, which, translated to a d20 means +5.

That is, your chance goes up from 50% to 75% = +5

At the other end is the situation where you only miss on a 1, or only succeed on a 20. In this case advantage gives you a second chance of rolling that specific number (which is 5%) - so you get about a +1.

That is, your chance goes up from the chance of rolling a 20 on a d20 on a single try (5%) to the chance of rolling one 20 on two tries (nearly 10%) = +1

In no way is it helpful to try to boil down this range (a bell curve from +1 up to +5 and back down again to +1) to a single number. +2, +3 or +4 doesn't matter; they're all correct.

And they are all wrong too.

Have a nice day

Edit: Do note that none of this is specifically tied to initiative. The above is true for any roll involving what D&D calls "advantage".

As for initiative, I haven't seen your numbers, but since every campaign is different, there really is no useful way of calculating an "average" here, unless you do it after the campaign is finished. You certainly can't just sum up the bonus for all monster/NPC initiatives from +0 to +10 (say) and calculate how much adventage helps you, and then divide by ten. Nor can you calculate the average from all the MM monsters, since no real-life campaign contains one specimen of each monster race.

In the end, the conclusion must be that no single number is actually helpful. The only thing you can say is stuff like "against monsters with the same initiative bonus as you, advantage is incredibly helpful" and "if you're especially slow, advantage on initiative is not going to change much, I'm afraid - you're much better off looking for Dexterity bonuses instead".

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And still, it doesn't paint a complete picture. When you have advantage you no longer have any reason to hunt for advantage. This impact of this - in how actual play changes - cannot be underestimated.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Why so hostile? Why do you think I'm having trouble evaluating advantage?

And why do you think I was asking for your calculations?

Sorry. Nevermind.

 

[Staccat0]

For whatever it's worth, I am playing one in Storm King's Thunder. I tried to weaken him ahead of time but the DM was like, "eh let's see if it actually matters"

Honestly it didn't really feel any stronger than the monk or paladin and I still felt LESS cool than the Bard.

Only two sessions in, but it's working for us.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

For whatever it's worth, I am playing one in Storm King's Thunder. I tried to weaken him ahead of time but the DM was like, "eh let's see if it actually matters"

Honestly it didn't really feel any stronger than the monk or paladin and I still felt LESS cool than the Bard.

Only two sessions in, but it's working for us.

Good to see someone testing it.

 

[Staccat0]

Good to see someone testing it.

It's honestly maybe not the BEST play test. Considering I KNOW to pick Giants as my greater enemy and the early combats are especially stacked against us.

 

[Kyvin]

I am playing a melee Aarakocra ranger in a Princes campaign. He's lvl 7 and I switched him over to the UA ranger. Before that he was ranger/fighter because I felt like many of the ranger abilities as-is were useless.

I chose humanoids and dragons as favored enemies. While I agree that some of the abilities should be moved up to something above first level, it certainly doesn't feel overpowered. As others have mentioned, I don't see myself getting much use out of whirlwind attack, especially as I'm using a glaive and polearm master.

 

[Umbran]

But obviously you don't know how math works and such.

How about you actively attempt to avoid insulting people when you talk to them from now on, okay?

If not, go take a break, and come back when it is okay. Thanks.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I've got a Hunter conclave ranger in the game I'm running, so my comments are aimed at the base ranger.

Personally, I think that Natural explorer needs to be split in two, with some of its features coming at a higher level.

Never getting lost (except through magical means) is something that shouldn't be granted at first level. Sure, I can see advantage to Survival checks to avoid getting lost, and then upgrading to inability to get lost at a higher level. But for low-level characters, getting lost should still be a possibility.Also, the tacking thing is also definitely cool, but it should kick in at a higher level. Right now, rangers seem to be uber at doing rangery things from the day one, instead of being just good and then growing into their uberness as they level.

Sure, those aren't combat abilities that will break the game, but the game is about more than just combat.

Also, Advantage to initiative seems a bit much for a 1st-level ability—especially in conjunction with getting advantage to hit those that haven't acted in the first turn. Not an issue at later levels, but it should move to latter levels (if it stays at all—it doesn't really seem particularly thematic of rangerness).

On the whole, it just seems that rangers get too much at first level, a lot of which makes them too good at early levels and ripe for multiclassing shenanigans. Spreading out the options over multiple levels, and leaving some options to later levels seems like it would fix my complaints.

This. The exploration pillar is already weak and difficult to engage successfully. I severely dislike abilities that further reduce the impact of the exploration pillar in the game. Class abilities should be enabling engagement of the pillars, not eliminating portions of them.

And this, honestly, I've recently concluded is the source of my biggest gripes about 5e design. Don't get me wrong, 5e is still my favorite edition to date, and my gripes are small, but they all seem to center around negating engagement in the social or exploration pillars. The combat pillar is well formed (and that's great, I'm looking for mostly combat engagement out of my D&D), and I initially felt that I had more leeway in engaging the other 2 pillars in 5e, but I'm consistently seeing crap like 'can't be lost' at 1st level being shoehorned in. Come on, devs, this isn't a tool to engage the exploration pillar -- it makes nothing more exciting or interesting. Instead, it removes a possible point of tension and reduces the incentive to design challenges around exploration (note: doesn't remove, reduces -- clearly you can build exploration challenges that don't involve being lost, however, some do and they've neatly excised those with this ability).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Other than that, sure there are niggles, but nothing I cant live with.

With one exception: the final in-print official non-playtest class absolutely can not hand out all those bonuses already on level one. That would be the best argument for banning the multiclassing option ever.

The actual bonuses aren't THAT overpowered even at level 1 if you stay Ranger, but it's crazily overpowered for a one level dip. It simply must happen later. Your Ranger will have to make do without those bonuses for a few levels for the greater good of the overall game.

IMO, they just need to put the combat buffs of natural explorer into Primeval Awareness instead. That's all it needs, IMO.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It's honestly maybe not the BEST play test. Considering I KNOW to pick Giants as my greater enemy and the early combats are especially stacked against us.

Why not? You then know if it feels overpowered due to the bonus against them.