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

[eprieur]

To come back to pets a bit if you guys don't mind, I updated my spreadsheet and corrected 1 hopefully last mistake I had with 1 dpr formula. This bring down the dpr a bit more which probably feel a bit more at the right spot of where it should be. For example the best dpr is still ape at 4dpr at lvl 3.

You can see the spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...4EgYgQglAHMPqCSVzVMm5g-93M/edit#gid=907589768

In the 2nd tab (Modified Revised Beast Ranger DPS) I tried to slightly modified the basic pets in order to have them more balanced between each other. My baseline is the bear. Here are the modifications in a nutshell. I feel they are still distinct for the most part but you can more easily choose another pet then the ape/bear/wolf without feeling you are gimping yourself.

Ape: -1 con (this is the resulting bonus and not the base stat). This make it so the bear has more hp.
Black Bear: No change.
Boar: +2 Con, +1 HD, Attack to D8. I felt I had to increase the boar damage a bit even after boosting it's hp alot since it was still way too low.
Giant Badger: +1 HD, -1 Initial Con
Giant Weasel: +1 HD
Mule: +1 HD, Removing -2 Base Atk Penalty
Panther: No change. Once you nerf the others a bit, panther can hold it's own I feel even with slightly less dpr but more skills and pounce, etc.
Wolf: +1 HD, Removing Pack Tactics, Prone Attack. I don't think it's possible to have the wolf keep pack tactics and be balanced. Also prone attack is problematic like mentionned in previous post.

All the pets have 3 HD which I feel is ok since having 1 less is just really bad for HP and healing in general and it make too much a difference.

Now once the 8 base pets are somewhat more balanced, what I would do is maybe at lvl ranger 7 and ranger 15, I would add the equivalent of a feat to the pet, like defender, sentinel, or maybe pack tactics would not be that broken at that point that a player could choose. That way there would be clear reason for the ranger to level up his class for his pets cause right now there is not that much reasons I feel.

Let me know what you guys think.

 

[Lord Twig]

I seriously don't understand why everyone is so terrified of someone getting Advantage to Initiative at 1st level when a variant Human can get Alert at 1st level and get a flat +5 to Initiative right off. No need to dip for you Assassin or whatever. Alert also means you cant be surprised and enemies don't get advantage to attacks when they are hidden. Going first is good, but with cyclical Initiative it just isn't that important.

And if a Variant Human wanted Alert and Advantage by dipping Ranger they are giving up a whole lot of other abilities to go first. And it still won't make that big a difference in actual game play.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I seriously don't understand why everyone is so terrified of someone getting Advantage to Initiative at 1st level when a variant Human can get Alert at 1st level and get a flat +5 to Initiative right off. No need to dip for you Assassin or whatever. Alert also means you cant be surprised and enemies don't get advantage to attacks when they are hidden. Going first is good, but with cyclical Initiative it just isn't that important.

And if a Variant Human wanted Alert and Advantage by dipping Ranger they are giving up a whole lot of other abilities to go first. And it still won't make that big a difference in actual game play.

Presumably those people play smaller fights than you do. Initiative basically doesn't matter in a quadruple- or quintuple-Deadly fight that lasts for thirty seconds or more; but in a Medium fight that's over in twelve seconds, losing initiative is like giving the other side a +100% damage boost because they get twice as many attacks before they die.

There's also the metagame concern that if the DM is using cyclic initiative, winning initiative minimizes the amount of time an actual human being has to sit around a table doing nothing, waiting for his or her turn. It could even mean that the human being never gets involved in the fight at all because some other (N)PC ends the fight first with a Forcecage or whatever. That isn't fun.

 

[Lord Twig]

Presumably those people play smaller fights than you do. Initiative basically doesn't matter in a quadruple- or quintuple-Deadly fight that lasts for thirty seconds or more; but in a Medium fight that's over in twelve seconds, losing initiative is like giving the other side a +100% damage boost because they get twice as many attacks before they die.

There's also the metagame concern that if the DM is using cyclic initiative, winning initiative minimizes the amount of time an actual human being has to sit around a table doing nothing, waiting for his or her turn. It could even mean that the human being never gets involved in the fight at all because some other (N)PC ends the fight first with a Forcecage or whatever. That isn't fun.

Hardly quadruple Deadly. If you throw 8 goblins at a 3rd level party of four PCs, the Ranger might take out one goblin. That's one goblin that might have done 5 damage. Sure it's useful, but if wasn't useful the ability wouldn't be worth anything. And again, you can just take the Alert feat for an even better advantage (strait +5).

If you have an NPC ending a fight before the PCs can go, you have an entirely different problem. Same with Forcecage.

Advantage to Initiative allows a Ranger to react fast (which is cool), and Advantage on attacks in the first round makes their action effective.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Lol yeah. And we seem to agree that both would be good. I wonder if here is a way to make a Hunter rogue or something like that, that is a ranger style rogue that isn't redundant with the scout fighter or Ranger, allowing multiclassing.

Id also love to see something like 4e's Seeker, either as a ranger, or as a nature themed warlock perhaps. Primal Spirits Patron, and a Pact Bow boon. The bow boon would also support a classic arcane archer, if done right.

The Primal/Seeker Pact would add some ranger/Druid spells, give tracking/hunting benefits, should be pretty strait forward.

Yes. That also sounds good. I am all for different approaches. The only important thing is that the abilities are soldid and make sense. I think the new ranger is better, not because he is more powerful than the phb ranger, but his abilities don't feel like filler material and are useful in all levels.

My problem with a rogue subclass ranger is the thief's tool proficiency and thieves' cant.
But I guess a sidebar that allows you to pick herbalism and druidic instead would do it.

I sometimed wish tha all classes would have been like the warlock and the fighter. Two decision points. One at level 1 and one at level 3.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Hardly quadruple Deadly. If you throw 8 goblins at a 3rd level party of four PCs, the Ranger might take out one goblin. That's one goblin that might have done 5 damage. Sure it's useful, but if wasn't useful the ability wouldn't be worth anything. And again, you can just take the Alert feat for an even better advantage (strait +5)

Or the ranger might cast Entangle and trap all the goblins before the fight has even begun.

 

[eprieur]

A thing I just noticed with the beast ranger conclave is how bad they synergize with the first round initiative advantage bonus and the pet.

Your typical situation will be that you won't start the fight in position, you will roll initiative and your pet will roll it's own initiative. The ranger want to roll high since you get advantager over targets that have not attacked yet only. I don't have the real stats but let's say that you beat your pet 4 times out of 5 usually. Some dex pets are a bit higher in that regard. Before level 5 it does'nt really matter but at lvl 5 if you attack first you lose out big time on the attacks your pet is not getting with coordinated attack. You also get the same kind of situation in any round your pet kill an enemy or another ally kill a monster that the pet is standing beside with no other targets. The round will go back to the ranger, he will move to another target but the pet will be unable to follow and lose another attack.

There is a simple solution to this: the pet just need to use the same initiative as the ranger. This is a small boost overall but this is needed to balance the beastmaster imo with the current powers.

There is another more retarded solution: Use an ape that will throw a rock each time he's unable to attack in melee. This make it so the ape is the only pet that can attack 100% of the time the ranger use coordinated attack making it again one of the only viable pet (with wolf if you let him have all his overpoweredness).

Any other timing solution I'm not seeing? You can't delay stuff in this edition if I remember correctly and the more you delay anyway, the more you risk losing advantage on your first round.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yes. That also sounds good. I am all for different approaches. The only important thing is that the abilities are soldid and make sense. I think the new ranger is better, not because he is more powerful than the phb ranger, but his abilities don't feel like filler material and are useful in all levels.

My problem with a rogue subclass ranger is the thief's tool proficiency and thieves' cant.
But I guess a sidebar that allows you to pick herbalism and druidic instead would do it.

I sometimed wish tha all classes would have been like the warlock and the fighter. Two decision points. One at level 1 and one at level 3.

The warlock really is a great chassis.

Imo, thieves cant is definately something that should be optional. The tools though, idk. Makes sense for a ranger to be able to deal with traps?

 

[ScuroNotte]

If I understand correctly you want them to expand the animal empathy portion of the Primeval Awareness?

How exactly could it be expanded without making it the speak with animals spell, or a free dominate beast ability?

What I would like then to expand is how the Ranger uses the ability.
Is it based off the Animal Handling skill.
Is the number of beasts affected based on Wisdom modifier or off of proficiency modifier, or Ranger level (rounded up, down, same)
Does the beasts intellect have to below a certain number
Could you make the beast your "friend" temporarily
Does it affect magical beasts

Thats what I meant.

 

[Chaosmancer]

What I would like then to expand is how the Ranger uses the ability.
1) Is it based off the Animal Handling skill.

2) Is the number of beasts affected based on Wisdom modifier or off of proficiency modifier, or Ranger level (rounded up, down, same)

3) Does the beasts intellect have to below a certain number

4) Could you make the beast your "friend" temporarily

5) Does it affect magical beasts

Thats what I meant.

Ah, okay. Well, I think all this information might end up limiting the ability. As it is written right now though:

1) No it is not, it is an automatic success that requires no roll

2) The number of beasts affected at the same time, unclear but personally if you have a pack, I'd let you effect the leader which will in turn effect the rest of the pack. Over the course of the day, as many as you would like. No limits.

3) As written, no, the ability allows you communicate with beasts, a hyper intelligent beast is still a beast and will still have much of the same body language. It could be cool to have a really smart beast roll deception vs insight though if it wants to fool the ranger.

4) Potentially, but I'd say it depends on what you mean by friend. Will it fight for you? I doubt it because most animals have a good survival instinct and won't go attacking heavily armed individuals just because some guy gave you a fish. If you really wanted a supplemental animal companion though... I could see animal handling getting used.

5) Magical beasts is a classification that does not currently exist officially (to my knowledge), so they aren't going to make rules for it