D&D General What is a Ranger? A miserable pile of secrets! (+)

What is a Ranger? (pick up to 3)

  • Archery! Rangers and Bows. They just make sense.

    Votes: 48 39.7%
  • Dual wielding! Just like Drizzt taught me!

    Votes: 8 6.6%
  • Nature! But none of that magic crap, more like, "hey, that's poison oak, don't touch that"

    Votes: 68 56.2%
  • Magic! Like a mini-druid. Maybe poultices. Plants and animals are friends! With magic!

    Votes: 27 22.3%
  • Animal companions! Just like Drizzt taught me!

    Votes: 21 17.4%
  • DPS! Damage on damage on damage. Doesn't matter how, just keep magic out of it! They're martial!

    Votes: 10 8.3%
  • Favored foes! The "X killed my family" trope is due for a comeback! You'll see! You'll all see!

    Votes: 14 11.6%
  • Stealth! Stalking through the woods, unseen, unheard, unsmelt. This is the way.

    Votes: 59 48.8%
  • Aragorn! Just being Aragorn. That's all it ever was.

    Votes: 39 32.2%
  • Rogues! Just replace buildings with trees

    Votes: 8 6.6%
  • Monster Hunting! Toss a coin to your Drizzt!

    Votes: 29 24.0%
  • Environmental Adaptation! A Drizzt of all seasons!

    Votes: 10 8.3%
  • Magical Weapons Combat! Look I don't even know at this point

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • Katniss! Dump Strider in the past! The future is catching fire and mocking jays!

    Votes: 2 1.7%

Enough for the many, many things the ranger essentially is, but should absolutely not have ever though?
Ideally, I'd make three Ranger subclasses. Magic Ranger, which gives you a few options for how you want to magic. Martial Ranger, which gives you fighting styles and monster hunting. And Beastmaster (which we can put in a supplement if it's too much for the PHB). The base ranger has all the wildcraft, survival, and commando stuff.

I know some people would be upset they can't have it all, but something along these lines is probably the best way to go. You can have the Druidadin, the Monster Slayer, and the Mountain Man archetype bolted onto a skilled, lightly armored chassis somewhere between Barbarian and Rogue.
 

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What does a ranger get that changes much of anything? They have favored enemy and natural explorer, but it's a minor benefit to a narrow selection of possible opponents or environments that depends heavily on style of campaign.

Spells



Beyond that? It's spells that wouldn't apply to a mundane ranger. Without buy-in from the DM and group to really lean into the rangers strengths, the non-magic class abilities don't buy anything you couldn't easily get from other classes
That's the thing.

It takes both buy-in and page space for the nonmagical "rangery" rogue or "rangery" "fighter to work.

Because when the DM calls "necrostorm!", They gotta be ready.
 

Ideally, I'd make three Ranger subclasses. Magic Ranger, which gives you a few options for how you want to magic. Martial Ranger, which gives you fighting styles and monster hunting. And Beastmaster (which we can put in a supplement if it's too much for the PHB). The base ranger has all the wildcraft, survival, and commando stuff.

I know some people would be upset they can't have it all, but something along these lines is probably the best way to go. You can have the Druidadin, the Monster Slayer, and the Mountain Man archetype bolted onto a skilled, lightly armored chassis somewhere between Barbarian and Rogue.
then what even is the fundamental core of the ranger?
 



yes but in what form?


There's Fighters Ranger stuff, some Roguish Ranger stuff, some Druidic Ranger stuff, and some Arcane Ranger stuff.

The base ranger would have a bit of all 4. However some fans want to only take from one or two sources.


This can only work with a dozen or more page ranger only subsystem of its own.
 

yes but in what form?
What like, you want class design? Ok sure.

Fundamentally, the Ranger is a lightly armored skirmisher class. The design, therefore, slots neatly between Barbarian and Rogue. d10 Hit die, proficiency in Light and Medium Armor, no shields, but perhaps an Unarmored Defense ability that kicks in at higher levels (much like how a Barbarian wears armor early in his career, but can dispense with it later). The Ranger would get increased movement speed, and eventually bonus action Disengage, to benefit a "hit and run" style of combat, should the player wish to engage in such.

The Ranger would then get a selection of Terrain Types as they level up. When in a Terrain they have trained to fight in, they get bonuses to Perception, Survival, and Stealth. These need not be numerical bonuses- I would prefer expansions on the abilities: for example, they might gain a Camouflage ability, allowing them to Hide in plain sight while in that terrain.

The Ranger would gain an Ambush ability, allowing them to either snipe or perform a takedown of an opponent they either surprise or attack from a hidden position. Thus the base Ranger's fighting style consists of finding a place to hide, jumping someone, then quickly retreating to a new position they can hide in. This isn't as reliable as Sneak Attack, simply because they are a tougher class in melee.

Then the three subclasses bolt onto this. Magic Ranger allows the Ranger access to spells, with a few choices of "Magic Tricks" as they level up, allowing them to diversify their abilities- perhaps they go into Magic Trap Spells, or pick up something like the Smite series.

The "Martial Ranger" grants the various fighting styles we know and love, supporting dual wielding, ranged combat, and so on, as well as specialized abilities to fight monsters- similar to the Hunter subclass.

And finally, the Beastmaster allows the Ranger to acquire animal allies, and work in tandem with them to better harry and defeat foes.
 

There's Fighters Ranger stuff, some Roguish Ranger stuff, some Druidic Ranger stuff, and some Arcane Ranger stuff.

The base ranger would have a bit of all 4. However some fans want to only take from one or two sources.


This can only work with a dozen or more page ranger only subsystem of its own.
the problem is that makes it a very unfocused idea, either make it a bunch of different classes sub-options or have a defined definition, people will hate it but pleasing no one is honestly worse.
 

the problem is that makes it a very unfocused idea, either make it a bunch of different classes sub-options or have a defined definition, people will hate it but pleasing no one is honestly worse.
Well then the only good option is the 5e option of telling people who only want a sprinkle of ranger but be 90% another class to play that class and multiclass 1-4 levels of ranger. Then build the ranger as the Fighter+Rogue+Druid+Wizard hunting explorer.
 
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You can go the 13th Age route and allow two or more “subclasses.”

More realistically you could structure it closer to warlock where you have a major and minor subclass and lots of additional customization points.
If we’re going the warlock route I’d have a choice of ‘method’ and ‘specialisation’ method would be between magic, gear and animal companion, them specialisation would be exploration, slaying and stealth.
Now unlike the warlock the ranger gets a bit of everything from each option already but whichever two they pick they’ll have bonuses to, pick the animal companion and your companion’s power will go from being more comparable to ‘find familiar’ to ‘summon beast’, pick slaying and your hunter’s mark will get bumped up a die size, you get an extra battle style and favoured foe, ect, ect...
 
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