D&D 5E Why are non-caster Ranger themes so popular?

[Swarmkeeper]

DMs don't show what they checks are.

Not sure what you mean here but I’ll take a guess. Not all DMs roll secretly behind a screen without telling the player why or if they succeeded. I’d go so far as to say most do not in 5e. At our table, when a roll is required, I tell the player the DC and stakes and what ability applies. They can choose to roll or do something different.

The only part of ranger skills that really has rules is tracking
It's not like Weapons where armor values are given (fighters) or Stealth where the game assumes opposed checks of stated monsters (rogues), or trap finding and disabling where the books and adventures give stated up traps. For rangers, the play loop is incomplete because outside of magic the difficult scale is pretty much unknown and DMs are not guided through the process. I doubt many groups even make many Nature and Survival checks and the DCs are likely often nonsense numbers thrown up with little or poor logical basis.

This is why half the ranger stuff is on/off or big hunting +10 bonuses. Because the scale was never determined. You charm the beast or don't. You have tracks or don't. You know the weather or don't. You breathe water or don't. You have +10 to stealth or don't.You see in the dark or don't. The only thinks gradual with the 5e ranger is their spell slots or the progression of druid and wizard spells they have.

Game works fine for all uncertain and fraught actions PCs might take that are not codified using ability check DCs of 10 (easy), 15 (medium), and 20 (hard). A Ranger likely has proficiency and/or suitably high Wisdom/Dexterity to succeed on most checks, if the DM doesn’t just grant auto-success based on the player’s stated approach and goal . Yes, the DM indeed has to make a call without being a subject matter expert. Happens a lot in the game. Why fight so hard against what is already there?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain are interesting ideas, but there is one problem: The choice of terrain and enemy is a build choice. If you don't end up fighting that enemy or terrain, it's not so useful. Two options:

Studying certain terrains and enemies grants you generic benefits that don't just apply to that enemy. So, say, a Favored Enemy "Dragon" gives you a bonus to damage against flying enemies. Favored Enemy "Orcs" might give you a bonus to defense against Axe attacks and maybe you know herbs that counter-act the effects of Rage. Favored Terrain Forest means you're good at running through difficult terrain, Favored Terrain Desert means you're resilient to thirst and can withstand fire and cold better. Favored Terrain Underdark might give you low-light vision.

Allow a Ranger to study enemies or terrain to gain benefits.

• Assess Enemy: Take an action to study a foe. That enemy has disdvantage on his next attack against you. Next turn, when you attack, you have advantage on the attack. If you hit, you can knock the enemy prone, disarm him, or push him a few squares.
• Assess Terrain: Take an action to study the terrain. If you move through difficult terrain, mark each square you touched, up to one square per your level. Allies entering those square can ignore the difficult terrain. If an enemy moves adjacent to one of your allies on those marked squares, that ally can use a bonus action to knock it prone. If an enemy moves adjacent to you while you or him is in a marked square, you can use a bonus action to make an attack against him.
• Assess Tactics: When an enemy starts his turn, spend a bonus action to assess tactics. The Ranger figures out what, given the current surroundings, considering obstacles, combat stances and the like, the opponents best promising could be. Denote an area with a Burst 1 where opponents should move to, or one of your allies (or yourself) they should attack. If they don't move into the zone, they grant advantage to attacks until the start of their next turn. If they don't attack that ally, they have disadvantage on their attacks during this turn. If you're in your favored terrain or fighting a favored enemy, you may use this ability a second time before the start of your next turn.

Beyond that:
Expanded uses of Survival - avoid making the Ranger auto-succeed at stuff that turns the whole trip into a non-event, because then the wilderness adventure is over and the Ranger might have been useful, but didn't really get to enjoy some Rangery-Thing-Spotlight.

Finding herbs for potions, poisons, anti-toxines, spices and the like. He might be able to maintain a small supply of healing supplies that rival magical potions in effectiveness, but might lack the shelf life, or are a bit more specialized - he creates a non-magical healing potion that lasts only a few hours before it goes stale and useless, maybe he can create potions to cure a specific disease or poison.
Finding out stuff about the world and environment that would be useful. Maybe he doesn't get to avoid the Goblins or Shadow Beasts sneaking up on the party either, but he instinctively knows more about what kind of threat they pose, where they'll attack.

 

[Minigiant]

Not sure what you mean here but I’ll take a guess. Not all DMs roll secretly behind a screen without telling the player why or if they succeeded. I’d go so far as to say most do not in 5e. At our table, when a roll is required, I tell the player the DC and stakes and what ability applies. They can choose to roll or do something different.

Game works fine for all uncertain and fraught actions PCs might take that are not codified using ability check DCs of 10 (easy), 15 (medium), and 20 (hard). A Ranger likely has proficiency and/or suitably high Wisdom/Dexterity to succeed on most checks, if the DM doesn’t just grant auto-success based on the player’s stated approach and goal . Yes, the DM indeed has to make a call without being a subject matter expert. Happens a lot in the game. Why fight so hard against what is already there?

I mean DMs don't know what is easy, moderately difficult, or hard for a ranger to do. The community doesn't agree on what they are.

That's my point from way back in in the early pages.

We can't even, in a thread about rangers, agree which level a nonspell casting ranger can speak to animals... if ever. And that's the whole problem with the non-spell-casting ranger. Every homebrew nonspellcasting ranger puts features at different levels and different strengths. Without spells as a gauge, we as a community cannot agree what and what level a ranger can do anything rangery.

 

[ScuroNotte]

I played Pathfinder 2e briefly, where base Rangers have no pets or spells. There are no formal subclasses as in 5e, but the feats generally fall under thematic categories (as in the chart below), and many have prerequisites, so you often end up with implicit subclasses; even if you don't have to fill out a given feat tree, or theme, you're usually leaving yourself weaker. For example, if you get an animal companion, you're practically obligated to take the upgrade feats to keep your pet viable in combat.

We recently created a Ranger using choices as the warlocks invocations. If you are interested,

Martial Ranger II by Scuronotte

Martial Ranger II by Scuronotte - Created with GM Binder.

www.gmbinder.com

 

[Mordhau]

delete

 

[Swarmkeeper]

I mean DMs don't know what is easy, moderately difficult, or hard for a ranger to do. The community doesn't agree on what they are.

That's my point from way back in in the early pages.

We can't even, in a thread about rangers, agree which level a nonspell casting ranger can speak to animals... if ever. And that's the whole problem with the non-spell-casting ranger. Every homebrew nonspellcasting ranger puts features at different levels and different strengths. Without spells as a gauge, we as a community cannot agree what and what level a ranger can do anything rangery.

What does "The Community" have to do with adjudicating actions at our table?

 

[Mordhau]

What does "The Community" have to do with adjudicating actions at our table?

If I'm playing a Wizard in a game with a new GM (new to me) I know what the wizard can do.

If what the Ranger can do is purely up to GM adjudication then I don't know what the Ranger can do, or even if I will want to play a Ranger in this game. Not unless I sit down and have a long and explicit conversation with the GM about what he will or will not allow a Ranger to do (which contrary to what the internet tends to think and champion is not really how people work - chances are that the GM has not got a fully considered conscious philosophy of Ranger actions but just tends to adjudicate things by feel of what's appropriate).

 

[Mordhau]

Honestly the whole historical approach to terrain is just wrong headed.

What you don't want is the Ranger to specialise in one terrain. What you want is for the terrains to feel different. Being super good at stealth in all terrains is a bit dull and is not a terrain advantage.

What you want is for the Ranger to have a special ability in all terrains, but the one which they have access to is different in each terrain.

So the Ranger may get a massive bonus to stealth in the woods, but in the mountains it's something different.

This is not really all that different in principle to some of the more recent abilities where the player rolls a dice to see which effect on a list is applicable.

I would also make sure there's two abilities for each terrain, one passive always on one, which is useful but not enormous (Bonus on stealth, climb speed equal to movement, advantage on saving throws against exhaustion etc) and one once per long rest ability that is equivalent to what can be done with magic (invisibility, darkvision, create food and water, etc) although framed slightly differently.

This means the Ranger feels a bit different in each terrain, which makes the terrain matter to the Ranger, which helps bring across that whole connection to nature aspect. (And take a leaf from 13th Age and make "ruins" a terrain).

 

[ECMO3]

....... and there are no tables or rules to help DMs adjudicate stronger traps.

Yes there is, it is right in XGE under Thieves Tools:

Traps: Just as you can disable traps, you can also set them. As part of a short rest, you can create a trap using items you have on hand. The total of your check becomes the DC for someone else's attempt to discover or disable the trap. The trap deals damage appropriate to the materials used in crafting it (such as poison or a weapon) or damage equal to half the total of your check, whichever the DM deems appropriate.

Create a trap with alchemists fire and it is 1d4 per turn until extinguished. Rig a a heavy crossbow to shoot at someone who walks through the door and it is 1d10 (or alternatively 1d10+ability bonus), poison the bolt with purple worm poison and it does another 12d6 poison with a save of 19. Cut off a Ancient Red Dragon's tail and rig it up to sweep through someone and it is 2d8. Rig a building to fall over on someone, or set a buried catapult to fling someone off of a cliff .... well your DM will have to creative, but that is a lot of damage.

This method is far better, far more flavorful and "more real" than assigning some random numerical value based on level - "A Ranger can craft a trap that does 1d6 damage for every 2 levels" .... that would be silly and immersion breaking.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

If I'm playing a Wizard in a game with a new GM (new to me) I know what the wizard can do.

If what the Ranger can do is purely up to GM adjudication then I don't know what the Ranger can do, or even if I will want to play a Ranger in this game. Not unless I sit down and have a long and explicit conversation with the GM about what he will or will not allow a Ranger to do (which contrary to what the internet tends to think and champion is not really how people work - chances are that the GM has not got a fully considered conscious philosophy of Ranger actions but just tends to adjudicate things by feel of what's appropriate).

Huh? Every class has a lot that is codified in terms of their abilities: Wizard, Ranger, all of them. And every PC can take actions that are not codified. And the DM needs to adjudicate. I don’t think the Ranger is special in this context. It’s fine (and fun) to discuss how the Ranger might be granted more and/or better Things to Do. But I don’t think DMing for a Ranger is currently more difficult than DMing for any other class.