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

[Corpsetaker]

I've actually decided to do a blending of Favoured Enemy and Hunter's Mark.

I am going to remove Hunter's Mark as a spell and make it automatic against a Ranger's Favoured Enemy. Also, if the Ranger spends one round studying a target that is not his Favoured Enemy, he can use Hunter's Mark against that enemy until it is either dead or he switches it to another target. At levels 5, 10, 15, and 20, the ranger can target another enemy, along with his current one, for a total of 5 enemies at 20th.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I'd also like to refine my position, if I may. You seem to be responding to the idea that by saying that FE was the Ranger's raison d'etre, I was saying that FE style hatred is the main motivating factor for every Ranger character. That wasn't what was meant. The Ranger I was referring to is the class as a whole in that I see the Ranger class as taking what I would call the "FE" trope in D&D, which preexisted the class and goes back to Chainmail, and building a character class around the mechanic.

Okay. It's certainly possible to build a class around a mechanic. But two questions about this one. If it's just built around the favored enemy mechanic, (1) why does it have all this other woodcraft capability and flavor; and (2) why is it called the "ranger"? Seems like something of a bait-and-switch.

Notice that this position doesn't assume the preexistence of a "ranger archetype" that the class was trying to emulate, because I don't think such a thing did exist before D&D made it what it is. Such archetypes are more properly referred to as character-class archetypes, and as such the Ranger is as much a creature of D&D as it ever was of Tolkien or any other author.

Could you clarify what you're saying here? Because elsewhere, including directly below, you seem to acknowledge that all the pre-D&D woodcrafty characters we've been talking to do belong to an archetype. Are you simply saying that this archetype has not always received the label of "ranger"?

You're simply not following me. I'm not substituting an unrelated example. Nathaniel Bumppo is widely acknowledged to have been based in part on Daniel Boone. Notice how similar their names are? Certain episodes of the Leatherstocking Tales are lifted right out of Daniel Boone's life. As I said up-thread, I haven't read the works of James Fenimore Cooper, so I can't speak to Bumppo's attitudes towards Native Americans, but I think since we're discussing literary archetypes that it's fair game to bring up the real life figure from which the archetype, in part, derives.

It's fair to bring up Boone as being another example of the archetype. (Or a prototype of the archetype, if you will.) However, the example of Boone does not erase the example of Bumppo. You can say that Boone is an example of an archetypal character with a favored enemy, but Bumppo is still an example of an archetypal character without one. Be he ever so derived from Boone, that particular aspect of Boone's character was removed from him. And the removal was accomplished without in any significant way altering the archetype. Which rather proves my point, I think.

PS: You can safely skip the works of James Fenimore Cooper. Twain has said all that needed to be said about them. I don't mention Bumppo because I'm a fan. (Though the Daniel Day-Lewis movie is good.)

It's a D&Dism that's still part of the PH description of dwarves. They hate orcs and goblins across the board. Of course, you are free to ignore the fluff when creating your own characters and campaign worlds.

I remind you, my remark was in response to your suggestion that this fluff ought to be hard-coded into the crunch. In which case I am somewhat less free to ignore it.

Beowulf didn't hate Grendel after killing so many of his men?

Grendel didn't kill his men until after Beowulf had come to Heorot to kill the monster (and Beowulf seems to have deliberately let them die). Beowulf was motivated to seek out and fight Grendel by a lust for fame. He had no intention of finding Grendel's lair, or going out into the wilderness at all -- his plan was to kill Grendel at Heorot. He fought and beat Grendel through superior strength rather than special knowledge of the monster's weaknesses. And when Grendel got away, he did not track him across the moor (not that following a blood trail like that would have required great skill in any case), but rather was led to the lair by a party of Danes who already knew where it was.

Three monsters really isn't a large enough sample size to determine whether there was any specialization in play.

Ergo we should assume there was?

If I wanted to create a character that emulated the exploits of Perseus, for example, it might be a good idea for that character to have some sort of an advantage against medusas.

See, I think that would be a terrible idea. Medusa was a monster that Perseus pretty definitely only fought once.

Furthermore, Perseus doesn't display any of the woodcraft of the ranger class. So, even assuming he should have medusa as a favored enemy, this just raises the question again of why the favored enemy ability should be associated with those other skills.

How narrow is a focus that includes this list of creatures?

Given the size of the Monster Manual, pretty narrow.

But the Ranger is primarily a warrior, whereas a woodsman is not.

I believe all the example literary woodsmen we've been talking about were great warriors. The two concepts are hardly mutually exclusive.

I gave you a reply. Earendil is a Dragon Slayer. Are you saying he isn't, or that it doesn't define him?

That it doesn't define him. He is called Halfelven, the Mariner, and the Evening Star, not the Dragon Slayer. His lineage, his ship, and his Silmaril define him far more than his fight with Ancalagon.

It doesn't. You asked the question. To my mind it doesn't need to be rationalized.

It sounds like you're saying you don't think it's important to ask why characters are doing what they're doing. But I know you're not saying that. Right?

If you agree that class is not the sole determining factor in establishing character then why would you see any class-feature as a straightjacket?

If, as you say, favored enemy means "[t]he Ranger goes out into the wilderness fueled with a burning hatred for the creatures that prey upon those whom the Ranger protects", then that is placing some pretty tight restrictions on my character's attitudes and motivations.

Everyone hates their enemy. D&D is not generally a game about loving your enemy. The FE feature is about being specialized with regard to specific enemies.

To me, at least, there is a wide gap in between "love" and "hate". Not everyone is "fueled with a burning hatred".

You're just picking and choosing the parts you like and calling that the archetype.

Okay, let me lay out my methodology here.

The first step is the most subjective: I'm assembling a group of literary characters whom I intuitively identify as members of the archetype we're labeling "ranger". If you were of a mind to argue that, for example, Aragorn just absolutely was not a ranger, we'd have an axiomatic difference and could not proceed any further. But so far you seem to have accepted at least tentatively that these characters have enough in common to form an archetype. And yes, I am literally picking and choosing characters here. But I don't think that's particularly damning here, or amounts to picking and choosing traits, because of step two.

Step two is considering these characters' immediately defining traits. I haven't literally done this, but you can imagine me making list for each like "The Top Five Things To Know About Aragorn". Now, to figure out which of these traits define the archetype, I have to look for the ones that they all share with each other, but which simultaneously distinguish them from others. To make an example of another class: Merlin, Gandalf, and Harry Potter have in common the ability to perform magic, and they are distinguished by it; ergo, magic defines the wizard archetype. Now, turning back to the ranger, Aragorn's palantir ability is not shared (and it should be no surprise that I'm willing to dispute 1E D&D's design decision there). The fact that all these characters are humanoid is shared, but not distinctive. And the fact that some (okay, most) of them are male is neither shared nor distinctive. For shared, distinctive traits, we're looking at things like survival skills, situational awareness, and all the stuff I've already mentioned elsewhere on this thread. We are not looking at favored enemy.

To explain why not, I'll give you one more example that is, I hope, as favorable to your case as I can make it. Consider Jim Corbett. One of those figures you are astonished to believe was actually real. And he lines up almost as close as can be with your description of the ranger. Definitely had a specialty, definitely went out into the woods and killed out of a desire to protect those who could not protect themselves. If he were a literary character, it's pretty obvious that "tiger hunter" would be right at the top of his list of traits. I mean, it's in the first sentence of his Wikipedia article. All this I mention by way of contrast with Aragorn, Bumppo, et al.. This is what definitional specialization looks like; this is what those other characters do not have. It is not a shared, distinctive trait. It is not a general trait of the ranger. It is a particular trait of Corbett, like palantir ability is a particular trait of Aragorn.

(And it's also worth noting that there is one point on which even Corbett doesn't line up with your description at all. He didn't hate big cats. He loved them.)

Because I'm looking for shared traits -- universal traits -- I really don't think I can be accused of picking and choosing them. Picking and choosing would be if all these other rangers were as specialized as Corbett and I were simply refusing to see it.

Maybe the class should be called the Hunter. The archetypal Hunter is generally good at hunting certain animals with which it is familiar. That might be a good starting place for designing a distinctive Ranger.

On the other hand, the archetypal hunter is generally familiar with everything that lives in the wilderness. Very seldom do you see the grizzled buckskin-clad woodsman kneel down with his knotted muscles, carefully examine a set of tracks with his steely eyes, and then speak in his clipped, laconic growl: "Sorry, don't know this one, not my specialty."

So while I agree that hunter's expertise might be a good starting place for designing a distinctive ranger, I strongly disagree that it should take the form of a specialization. It should be quite the opposite. A ranger should have something like Bardic Knowledge, but for monsters.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

OOC: Overwatch: As a bonus action you can begin concentrating on either a specific enemy or a fixed 10 foot radius area you can see. Maintaining your Overwatch requires concentration. While concentrating on a specific enemy, your attacks deal +1d6 damage against that enemy. At 6th level, this extra damage increases to +1d8, at 11th level to +1d10, and at 17th level to +1d12. While concentrating on an area, you may use your reaction to make a ranged attack against a creature in the area making an attack against you or an ally, or against a creature attempting to leave the area. This ranged attack deals the same bonus damage described above.

I like it a lot overall. Conceptually, I love that you're keeping the concentration requirement: the ranger is fighting smart, not hard, so needs to keep his focus. For a little more flavor, I'd add bonuses to spot and track the target as well as damage. I do think the damage may need to scale a little harder to keep up, but that's just math. And the term "Overwatch" is a little jarring to me as it immediately evokes X-COM, but it also underscores the ranger's characterization as the hyper-aware one, so if not that name, something very like it. As for more substantial concerns, I don't think ranger abilities should favor either ranged or melee combat, so I'd rework the second part of the ability to work with melee as well. And coming back to the concentration, a concern being raised over the psionics playtest is that a class ability that takes your concentration might be too limited in its viable multiclass options. Kind of raises larger questions of whether to design for the single class or the multiclass.

Side note: I'm new around these parts. What's this "OOC" notation? I know it as "Out Of Character", but that's obviously not what it signifies here.

 

[LapBandit]

If we're going to use the existing chassis to build upon:

Ranger is now a 1/3 caster.
Primeval Awareness gives the Ranger some natural/mystical/spiritual way of tracking the sensed being.
All Ritual spells in the Ranger spellbook are the Ranger focusing on being in tune with his environment, they do not emanate magic nor are they considered spell casting.
Favored Enemy is now part of Natural Explorer/Favored Terrain. Add Expertise to skill checks and Ranger level / 5 (minimum 1) to Attack, Damage, and Save rolls when on your Favored Terrain. Select new terrains you've been exposed to at 5th, 10th, and 15th.
Ranger gains Cunning Action, he is preternaturally aware of his body and how to use it in whatever environment he's in.
Allow the Beast Master to command his pet using his Bonus Action.

New Archetype - Warden/SpellCaster (1/2 caster again)
------------------------------
Has the druid's cantrips, can select from the Druid spell list.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Notice who doesn't get spells or supernatural abilities.

Champion Fighter: Best DPR or Tank
Battlemaster Fighter: Best DPR or Tank
Thief Rogue: Best skill user and sneak
Assassin rogue: Best skill user of sneak
Bezerker Barbarian: Best Brute type

in 5e, pure mundane at the highest tiers are just damage, passive defense, and skill use.

You're making them sound even more diverse than they really are, too. Thieves' & Assassins' Sneak Attack is fairly high DPR, and the Berserker's 'Brute type' also hits hard. In combat, they're all essentially(pi) 'strikers.'

This is why it is hard to find D&D ranger in other media. The only setting with flora, fauna, and roaming threats as powerful as D&D are Magic the Gathering planes and Exalted. And everyone is a spellcaster there. Are Garruk, Nissa, and Night solars the only other D&D rangers in media?

It's hard to find any D&D class in genre, really. It's always been slanted towards the daily 'Vancian' mechanic which, at best, gives a highly abstract modeling of how heroic fantasy characters perform. That is characters in genre may cast spells sparing or perform a particular remarkable or superhuman feat only once in the course of a story, but they aren't memorizing spells or expending daily uses or otherwise managing some tightly-defined resource.

The thing of the Ranger changes with the setting as the ranger's thing is to survive the world's thing and help his allies survive it as well.

Sure, the details change. But, yes, the ranger's thing could be mainly about surviving or being familiar with the environment. Thus, like other casters, it would tend represent a McGuffin or exposition character in genre: one who's there not for his own story, but to enable moving the story to a hostile environment, and inform the audience how it works and what heroes are going to need to do...

 

[Kobold Stew]

Side note: I'm new around these parts. What's this "OOC" notation? I know it as "Out Of Character", but that's obviously not what it signifies here.

It does mean out of character, but the tag "ooc" (in square brackets, with "[/ooc]" at the end) is one way to set something off in grey, which that way marks it as the specific passage under discussion.

 

[TwoSix]

To my mind, what ties favored enemy, favored terrain, spellcasting, and fighting prowess all together into a coherent whole is the concept of worldliness. The ranger is smart. Not book smart (although that isn't ruled out). He's savvy. He knows the wilderness. He knows why you should step here and not there. He knows to eat these berries but not these mushrooms. He knows that orcs favor camping on the north side of streams due to a superstition, and that orc axefighting is notoriously lax in training to defend the off-hand flank. He knows and is friendly with the druids that live in these woods, the centaurs in the plains to the south, and that pixies that live in the enchanted mushroom ring just a mile away. He knows the words that will wake up the old tree spirit right here, and that can tell us if the goblins have passed. And when we find the goblins, he knows just what to do to put them down.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Sure, the details change. But, yes, the ranger's thing could be mainly about surviving or being familiar with the environment. Thus, like other casters, it would tend represent a McGuffin or exposition character in genre: one who's there not for his own story, but to enable moving the story to a hostile environment, and inform the audience how it works and what heroes are going to need to do...

I'm not sure that's a completely accurate description of the state of the genre. Savvy outdoorsmen are pretty common protagonists. In fantasy proper, it seems like every other hero these days is an Aragorn clone, from Richard Rahl (who also becomes a caster, contra your side point) to Jon Snow. In the broader world of adventure fiction, they're even more popular, from Bumppo and Quatermain to Wolverine and Green Arrow.

To my mind, what ties favored enemy, favored terrain, spellcasting, and fighting prowess all together into a coherent whole is the concept of worldliness. The ranger is smart. Not book smart (although that isn't ruled out). He's savvy. He knows the wilderness. He knows why you should step here and not there. He knows to eat these berries but not these mushrooms. He knows that orcs favor camping on the north side of streams due to a superstition, and that orc axefighting is notoriously lax in training to defend the off-hand flank. He knows and is friendly with the druids that live in these woods, the centaurs in the plains to the south, and that pixies that live in the enchanted mushroom ring just a mile away. He knows the words that will wake up the old tree spirit right here, and that can tell us if the goblins have passed. And when we find the goblins, he knows just what to do to put them down.

Good way of putting it.

My problem with favored enemy emphatically isn't that the ranger knows things about orcs. It's that he only knows things about orcs. As a character who is, as you put it, "worldly", his expertise should be far more general than the favored enemy ability implies.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Good way of putting it.

My problem with favored enemy emphatically isn't that the ranger knows things about orcs. It's that he only knows things about orcs. As a character who is, as you put it, "worldly", his expertise should be far more general than the favored enemy ability implies.

But he gains more knowledge about different creatures as he progresses in level which represents him gaining knowledge as he adventures. He can't know everything at level one. Having worldly knowledge doesn't mean you know everything about every thing. You can have vast knowledge about terrain while only knowing specific information about certain creatures. Ranger's are a niche class and it's that area that makes the Ranger unique.

If you want want general knowledge about everything and you want to do damage to everything then make a Fighter and take survival type skills and feats. This edition of D&D was designed around story and that is where classes like the ranger really do fit. The DM is supposed to take in account of the classes that are involved in the party do his best to accommodate any class that has a specialty. It's also up to the player to pick a class that will fit what the DM has proposed. You wouldn't really pick druid for a city based campaign.

 

[Hussar]

As far as archetypes go, I see rangers in Tarzan, Mowgli and Aragorn. Any character that can draw from Tolkein, Kipling and Burroughs deserves its own class AFAIC.

What differentiates rangers from barbarians is choice. A barbarian comes from a tribal culture on the fringes of "civilisation" (using scare quotes here because there's a bit of an implied cultural bigotry inherent here). A ranger doesn't though. A ranger comes from the "civilized" parts of the setting and chooses to live in the fringes. Aragorn was a king. Tarzan was Lord Greystoke. They live on the fringes, not because that's particularly home, but, because there is something about living on the fringe that appeals to them.

For me, the primary schtick of rangers is self sufficiency. Plunk a barbarian down in his home territory, and he'll do pretty well. Plunk a ranger down anywhere and he'll thrive. If you were organising an exploration into the wilderness, who would you rather have blazing your trail? A barbarian or a ranger? Me, I want that ranger.

Not sure how this translates mechanically, but, I think that if we pin down the archetype a bit, more will flow from that. For example, why couldn't favoured enemy be based on terrain type? Rangers start with a particular terrain, and, when facing anything from that terrain, gain bonuses on knowledge checks, tracking and social checks. That keeps the idea of "favoured enemy" but, makes it broad enough to be more applicable. As the ranger goes up levels, he gains more terrain types, and thus broader favoured enemy knowledge.

So, Jon Snow as a ranger has arctic terrain - any time he's dealing with "cold" creatures, he has bonuses. Tarzan and Mowgli both have jungle, and Tarzan might also have mountain terrain as well. Drizz't would have Underdark and possibly a couple of other terrains. Indiana Jones would likely have Underdark and Jungle terrains. ((Not sure if Indiana Jones counts as a ranger archetype, but, IMO, he's not far off either))

Would that work?