For some context, the ranger (along with the warlock) is my FAVORITE "fantasy" for a character. My online name for a long time on many forums and avenues was Strider for a reason.
So, what system has the best ranger? I've read them all, but not played them all, and at the end of the day, I've come to some conclusions:
- The 5E ranger is really whack mechanically but the fantasy is so poignant that people still love playing it.
- What a lot of people love about the ranger fantasy is that its a "complete kit" in one character. This is a rough, hyper-competent, somewhat specialized person who works the frontier to take care of dangers.
- The 5E ranger accomplishes this mechanically, but in a way that doesn't feel satisfying. The core ranger's mechanics are TOO specialized into their focuses, and either complete remove an aspect of the game (survival) or don't give enough benefits (Favored Foe).
- The 5E ranger was designed with a more old school gameplay focus in mind. But 5E has evolved to be quite a game used to tell curated or pre-written stories. Because of that, a lot of the ranger's campaign-esque abilities (tracking things, finding monsters, and so on) just don't get a lot of use.
- There's a bit of a culture issue too, where players don't like "metagaming" and designing their characters for the adventure. This is something that 5E players and Dms kind of have to get over; 5E works best with a session 0 and when all the characters are somehow mechanically and narratively tied into the adventure.
- The 1E ranger is similarly designed, but with a narrower focus. You're literally a budding Aragorn who becomes a full on Aragorn. This is neat, but the fiction of the ranger in mainstream has evolved past this. The 1E ranger did what it was designed to do perfectly, but ultimately does not fit what people want from a ranger.
- The 2E, 3.XE, and 4E rangers each take things in different methods, but they never quite build on their previous successes. This is what leads to the 5E ranger feeling so lackluster.
Now, on top of all these points, something else: there is an overblown problem where people say "everyone has their own idea of what a ranger is!" Correct, but that applies to literally every class. 5E was an attempt to make these classes fit as many possible stories as they could within that archetype. The ranger attempts this with giving options to pick from, but ultimately is missing the core component in everyone's ranger fantasy: the hyper-competent frontier soldier.
The frontier can be anywhere. It can be a city (crime frontier!), it can be oceans, the arctic, forests, what have you. This is seen in the Natural Explorer 5E ranger feature. However, instead of just giving benefits in that feature, what the ranger should have done was look how to apply these specializations to the party in unique ways. In other words, the terrains themselves needed to be given more mechanical heft in the system AND in the ranger.
To translate this a bit to something that could make more sense, Mearls at one point did a Happy Fun Hour where every terrain + creature type for favored enemy gave the ranger some kind of bonus. This was cool, but let's look at what virtually every ranger does in novels and movies - that, their helping of the party. I know it sounds like I'm talking in circles, but the 5E ranger does this, but in a way that is explictly focused on survival, and in a way that removes that component (survival) from the game.
Instead, the perfect ranger for 5E's goals is one where very terrain (and enemy) gives the ranger a suite of benefits. The ranger should then be able to give SOME of these benefits to the party.
Let's homebrew an example.
Trotter takes
coasts for their Natural Explorer favored terrain.
Coasts gives the following abilities to the Ranger:
- A swim speed of 30 feet, and advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks to swim in fast currents.
- Removal of disadvantage when fighting ranged weapons underwater.
- The ability to hold your breath for a number of minutes equal to your Constituion score instead of your modifier.
The ranger can then choose one of these benefits to "teach" to, let's say for now, 5 creatures.
Then, because we don't want too narrow a focus, introduce the idea of picking up new terrains NOT just based on level but based on spending time in them.
- When a ranger spends their long rest inside of non-favored terrain, they can choose one of the abilities normally reserved for that favored terrain to learn. During another long rest, you can change to another benefit. You may only have one additional benefit like this active at a time.
- The ranger cannot give these benefits to its party members.
- At levels 6, 11, and 17, you have studied other terrains, giving you an addtional option for your favored terrain.
Now we have a ranger who is mastering the frontier, constantly learning, and getting to a level where they can give these benefits to their party members too.
Lastly, give the ranger Expertise for Survival checks. This covers their ability to track, find food, not become lost, and so on without just invalidating those aspects of the game.
I think this is a stronger skeleton for the ranger than what the 5E uses, and builds on the fantasy of the ranger as it has evolved over the last few editions. You can also apply these concepts to Favored Enemy, but that's for a different time, and to be honest I think the UA version of Favored Foe is the best version of this concept so long as you modify the spell a bit. Maybe something like this:
- You can spend a spell slot of your choice to cast a modified version of hunter's mark.
- The damage of the mark changes depending on the spell slot. (1d6 -> 1d8 -> 1d10 -> 1d12 -> 2d6).
- This special version of hunter's mark does not use concentration, and the damage can only be applied to one attack per turn.
This keeps the design of the ranger more in line with the rogue, paladin, and so on, and drives home the fantasy of a hyper-competent frontier warrior.
Then the subclasses of the ranger, called conclaves, introduce either:
- Ways for the ranger to manage the frontier (hunter, beastmaster).
- Fantastical environments that have impression the ranger, giving them unique magical abilities (horizon walker, gloom stalker, fey wanderer).
Boom! Dope ass ranger.
And make them Spells Prepared.