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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Twig" data-source="post: 7701208" data-attributes="member: 31754">How exactly does going first win a fight? It give you an advantage, sure, but there is a good chance the Ranger with a high Dex was going to go first anyway! He get's one shot with advantage with his bow, which again might have hit anyway, and now his ability is done. If he's melee there is no guarantee that an enemy will be in range to attack, so that wastes that ability. That's it for that combat.How is that so great again? It's cool, sure. Get jumped by some goblins and the Ranger reacts quickly and efficiently. That sounds like a Ranger to me. But the other side being down one goblin isn't going to end any encounters.The Ranger needs something that is useful at 1st level to help him keep up with the other classes. Barbarians get 2 Rages that gives them +2 damage, resistance to all physical attacks and advantage on all strength checks. Paladins get a combat heal (that increases every level) that can also cure any disease or poison. Fighters get a self combat heal usable every short rest plus a Fighting Style that adds either +2 to ranged attacks, +2 to one-handed damage, re-rolls on two-handed damage (essentially advantage on damage rolls), etc.Meanwhile the PHB Ranger got exactly nothing combat related. Adding advantage to initiative rolls, advantage to the first round of attacks (one or two depending on level) and a situational +2 damage has to stack up against everything that the other classes get. Compared to the Barbarian's Rage, it's not looking that overpowering. Ignoring difficult terrain is nice, but it doesn't happen all the time. Honestly in the canned adventures that I have played it probably comes up less than 10% of the time. Useful, and great flavor for a Ranger, but hardly game breaking, even at 1st level.By 6th level the Revised Ranger's situational +2 bonus goes to +4 and they can make it slightly less situational. Meanwhile the Barbarian can Rage 4 times a day making their bonus almost an 'always active' ability. The Paladin can now drop a 30 point heal and the Fighter (most likely) gets an additional +1 to hit and damage (maybe AC too) from his ASI and his self heal goes from 1d10+1 to 1d10+6.Of course there are a lot of other factors for each level of all of the classes.Drizzt used magic all the time, Faerie Fire and Darkness immediately come to mind. Although those were Drow spells. Honestly Salvator was horrible at representing magic in his novels. I have only read a few but I remember him describing his characters resting for months to recover from some battle or other and I'm thinking, "Why the heck don't they just cast a few heal spells?" It was pretty frustrating to read honestly.My favorite Ranger from D&D novels was The Justicar (real name Evelyn) from the Greyhawk Classics series. He is a huge, bald-headed, death machine that used ambush, dirty fighting and well placed spells to take out his enemies in a ruthless and efficient manner. Much to the chagrin of Benelux, his sentient bastard sword, that was more used to dealing with honorable paladins. He also pretty commonly used healing magic, because why wouldn't you?But more on point... Yes, the Ranger spell list could use a boost. But you left out a few good spells in there. I don't have my books, but Lightning Arrow is a good one. Definitely need more melee spells though.</blockquote>

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