D&D 5E What is/should be the Ranger's "thing"?

[Minigiant]

If they're broken against a mundane ranger, how are they not just as broken against a mundane fighter or rogue? In fact they are not broken, because D&D is a team game and no one character has to go up against these monsters alone.

It was broken for mundane fighters when they weren't whirling, nigh unkillable, death machines at high level. In 1st through 2nd and in 5th, the fighter just killed all challengers. Sure, the monster were and still are overpowered, but if the fighter caught them... RIP. Dig the grave! In 4th, everyone got nerfed.

Same with high level rogues to a lesser extent but they had both niche protection for a lot of D&D and could fake magic.

It's a team game. The ranger just has all the tools in one efficient package compared to the relying on the more resources as the party divides the work.

[/QUOTE]
And once again, in your counterfactual universe where they are broken, this is a problem with the system, not a problem with the mundane ranger. So don't criticize the idea of a mundane ranger for that.[/QUOTE]

Yes the problem is the system. It's like using a knife in a gunfight. D&D is set up for you to eventually get shot if you do wilderness adventures.

If you're level 10 or more and some jerk kidnaps a major NPC, commits a major crime, or takes over a wild place then flees to the wildnerness and you're playing D&D...
....chances are
....he or she is some flying, perfect burrowing, or teleporting jerk who might know magic or have magic items and has flying, perfect burrowing, or teleporting jerkface minions who might know magic, have magic items, or have supernatural powers.

Because D&D.
It makes the life for the mundane hard past a certain point.

 

[steeldragons]

I'm not saying the ranger has to be equal to a fighter. But I'd like the ranger to have a specialty not up to the whim of the DM and not locking the campaign to using the FE a lot.

I understand what you're saying. I just think it is a...what's that called...false dichotomy? No I don't think that'ss right. Well, it's not a true/a mistaken perception (whatever the phrase I can't think of right now). Having an FE mechanic built into the class does not leave it to the whim of the DM or lock a campaign into anything.

...and if I were playing a ranger that wasn't fighting my chosen enemies very often, I am sure I would still be a useful and productive member of the party, contribute well in combat, and be having fun, in the game, role-playing my character.

 

[bedir than]

Nope. If your DM isn't coddling you, you either need to be a spell caster or have at lesat supernatural effect. Once a dragon takes flight or a mage teleport/passeswithouttrace you can't track them and they can gank you in your sleep.

If I believed this it would mean a third of the classes are useless in third and fourth tier play.

 

[Quickleaf]

Speaking in terms of the character archetype outside of D&D, favored-enemy-type characteristics rarely appear. Artemis didn't have it, Robin Hood didn't have it, Natty Bumppo didn't have it, Allen Quatermain didn't have it, Tarzan didn't have it, Aragorn and Legolas didn't have it, the Lone Ranger didn't have it, and the "ranger" or "hunter" classes in most other RPGs don't have it. If anything, I'd say characters who excel at fighting a particular kind of opponent are more likely to be paladins, rogues, or fighters (St. George, Jack the Giant Killer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) than rangers. Wilderness types tend to be big on adaptability, after all.

Speaking in terms of game design, a ranger with FE doesn't hold his own against a fighter. A fighter's got abilities that can increase her damage output no matter what kind of enemy she's fighting. If a ranger does more damage against certain foes, but less damage against everybody else, that's a spotlighting problem: the character is going to be in the spotlight for an entire encounter or even adventure, then out of the spotlight for several other adventures. 4E and 5E deemphasizing this element of the ranger's identity was a major step forward for the class, and I can't get behind a rewrite which reverses that.

Myself and another poster suggested a ranger re-design with a feature mirroring warlock Invocations for this very reason. There are certain aspects of the class which are less about it's core identity and more optional add-ons (e.g. Favored Enemy & Favored Terrain). Such features could be included in the list of "Ranger Invocations" (called Wildcrafts, Wilderness Lores, or whatever), and as long as it was balanced - BAM! Problem solved!

The same could be done with Spellcasting (some players want it in their ranger, some don't) by having the Spellcasting ranger be a sub-class akin to the Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster.

While doing this would make a lot of sense - and I imagine WotC designers debated these points or something similar - it also begs the question:

Well, what ARE the core identity features of the ranger?

Which gets back to the comments on tracking, scouting, wilderness survival, etc. and how to translate such ideas into 5e now at a lot of the exploration aspects of the Playtest have been excised.

Note that these are ideas having more to do with concept, not to do with the balancing of damage. I've heard very mixed reports of how the ranger fares compared to other warrior types in terms of DPR and overall combat effectiveness, so I hesitate whether there actually *is* a "ranger combat problem" or not.

 

[Mercule]

Sorry. Been swamped at work. Just getting to this thread....

After giving it some thought, I've come to the conclusion that the primary identity of the ranger is that he's a hard SOB to kill. Not in the sense that he can take more damage than everyone else -- that's the barbarian, though the ranger is probably a close second. He's just adept at staying alive by whatever means are necessary.

The wilderness lore comes from this. The ranger doesn't know a lot about the wilderness because he loves them (he might, but that's irrelevant). He knows a lot about them because that knowledge helps him do things like find food, shelter, and not get eaten. Tracking goes here.

Survivalism is followed up by a knack for dealing with a certain type of threat in decisive, final manner. At a certain point, a good offense really is the best defense. The ranger doesn't become awesome at killing everything (that's the fighter). Instead, he just becomes good at dealing with the biggest active threat to his survival.

Tertiary is the "utility belt" idea. Mostly, that ends up being a ranger theme: Beastmaster, caster, skirmisher, whatever.

Spells are something a ranger might learn as an ace in the hole, and it makes a ton of sense. I still can't quite follow the ranger spells == divine source, though. They should really be arcane, since the ranger doesn't revere nature so much as use it effectively. Spells are the same thing; they are useful, so intentionally learn them. Something like an Eldritch Knight path for ranger would be just fine.

 

[Erik42]

I don't recall two weapon fighting ever being that popular in 1E because of the stiff to hit penalties. Unless you had an 18+ Dex the penalties could be pretty severe. And it was a lot harder to raise ability scores in 1E.
(Hmm... there was supposed to be a quote with this, made more sense with the quote.)

 

[Yaarel]

For the Ranger, I like Hunters Quarry (as a feature) replacing Favored Enemy.

I know Favored Enemy is ‘traditional’, but it is unseemly, a weird fixated racism.



By contrast, Favored Terrain, is awesome, and captures the flavor of being one with the environment. A Ranger should pick two terrains to start with, and perhaps gain more while leveling.

 

[Hriston]

For the Ranger, I like Hunters Quarry (as a feature) replacing Favored Enemy.

I know Favored Enemy is ‘traditional’, but it is unseemly, a weird fixated racism.

I see the Favored Enemy as the class's raison d'etre.

The Ranger goes out into the wilderness fueled with a burning hatred for the creatures that prey upon those whom the Ranger protects.

The Ranger tracks down these foes even to the haunted and isolated places where they reside, bringing the fight home to them.

By contrast, Favored Terrain, is awesome, and captures the flavor of being one with the environment. A Ranger should pick two terrains to start with, and perhaps gain more while leveling.

The Ranger is not a hippie.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Yes. I am well aware of the 1e's ranger. And 2e's. Being better against all "giant [goblinoid] class humanoids", I would say, are a pretty darn specific "favored enemies" in all but name.

And the spells are, well, spells. At this point it seems pretty arbitrary for you to decide that one is central to the ranger's identity and the other isn't.

Which, thankfully, we don't have to since we are discussing 5e D&D. "Because X does Y in Z book/movie/tv show/comic book" does not mean a damned thing for what D&D "should/has to" be striving to allow/emulate.

Come on, dude. D&D is striving to emulate classic fantasy adventure; that's the whole reason it exists. If it takes a very popular archetype and ties it to a specific ability that is not displayed by most other examples of the archetype, something has gone wrong. Players are trying to make crafty woodsmen characters, but they're given favored enemy and being told that all crafty woodsmen in D&D must be defined by this ability, because that's just the way things are done in this game. Why? Why do that? If I proposed that, say, all rogues get eye lasers, wouldn't it be kind of relevant that roguish characters in most other media do not show any sign of having eye lasers? Or would it be enough for me to say, "D&D is different! Those other media don't matter!"?

The only reason you wouldn't be doing as well as a fighter against non-FE foes would be the dice roll.

I don't understand what you're trying to say here, because in your very next sentence you acknowledge that this is not true at all.

Fair enough. But I think "spotlight problem" is a...skewed...perception of the game and not something classes can be "designed" for. It is [if such a thing actually exists] a player issue, not a problem of the design or that a class will fix.

And yet 5E classes are designed for it. In the ranger's case, by making favored enemy a minor flavor ability and putting their combat power in features they can use more reliably. Why not do this?

As my write-up works, the ranger is constantly adding to their enemies as opposed to simply increasing damage against a single target...which was the FE problem, in fact if not name, going back to 1e with the ever-increasing "+'s" to hit and damage against "these particular guys."

Both the 3E and 5E rangers expand their favored enemy list. By more than your write-up, in fact.

Fast forward to 20th level, you'll have 1 creature type or 2 humanoids + 6 other creatures (8 if you're a slayer). You should be able to get extra/be at your best most, if not all, of the time.

How many characters get to 20th level? A class that has to wait until epic levels to be reliably effective is completely unacceptable. And at one creature type (or two humanoids) plus six other creatures, it's still not going to be reliably effective. There are thirteen non-humanoid creature types in the MM and about four hundred individual creatures.

A far better way to ensure that rangers are "at their best most, if not all, of the time" is not to put all this power in the favored enemy ability in the first place. By acknowledging that for rangers to be at their best is a good thing, you're as much as admitting that favored enemy is a problem.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I see the Favored Enemy as the class's raison d'etre.

The Ranger goes out into the wilderness fueled with a burning hatred for the creatures that prey upon those whom the Ranger protects.

The Ranger tracks down these foes even to the haunted and isolated places where they reside, bringing the fight home to them.

What about rangers who go out into the wilderness for other reasons? Do they just not exist? Should class be allowed to define a character's motivations? Do all fighters or rogues or wizards have the same motivations?

And if a ranger does feel this way, what if the people whom he protects are preyed upon by a diverse assortment of monsters rather than just one? Your standard paladin is also a protector, but we don't say she has to specialize in fighting one kind of monster. Shouldn't a character as resourceful as a ranger have even less reason to overspecialize?