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I think BG3 basically overhauled D&D Rangers and made them good just by tweaking the paradigm. They made them not reliant on being in particular terrain to be effective, but gave them bonuses *because* of the terrains they've acclimated to. Desert rangers get fire resistance anywhere. Arctic Rangers get Cold resistance everywhere. Because you specialize in Bounty Hunting, you get a skill AND the ability to do a thing vs. *everything* that's reflective of your style. They took the flair and flipped it around. It's not: "Because you're an arctic ranger that hunts undead, you are only useful when you're in the Arctic and hunting Undead." which has been such a terrible design for so long.
This makes me feel like Goblin slayer could be a ranger that specializes in caves and goblins. But he is still decent against other types of enemies. Aka how the class should be
It sounds like the old AD&D Ranger rules back from 2nd Edition or so. The favoured terrain and enemy were *bonuses* and you the companions were brutal on the beastmasters. IIRC a starting companion could be Boar, Bear, big cat or Wolf from the beginning.
Rangers are still the weakest pureclass in BG3. Beastmasters are supposed to be pet builds and are some of the weakest pet builds in the game. Hunters are supposed to be amazing single target, but are weaker than barbs fighters and arguably gloomstalkers and even swordsbards.. Gloomstalkers are great but are very front loaded and are better for multiclassing than pureclassing. Rangers need more love.
Main issue with ranger is unfortunately it is too based around specialization in a very specific setting other than general use, Tasha's cauldron did a really good job expanding on a more generalist playstyle. Unfortunately it still suffers from not being the best at what it is meant for.
Ranger is a martial DPS with good spell casting and expertise. If that isn't the literal definition of versatile, I don't know what is. What if I tell you Ranger is better at stealth than the Rogue, better at damage than the Fighter and better at skill checks than the Bard?
@@caurd Deft Explorer (Optional) This 1st-level feature replaces the Natural Explorer feature. You gain no benefit from the replaced feature and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it. You are an unsurpassed explorer and survivor, both in the wilderness and in dealing with others on your travels. You gain the Canny benefit below, and you gain an additional benefit when you reach 6th level and 10th level in this class. Canny (1st Level) Choose one of your skill proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make using the chosen skill. You can also speak, read, and write 2 additional languages of your choice.
A member of our group actually wanted to try out the ranger, but since he knew how much he sucked, everyone agreed to buff him a little. Mainly, we let him do increased damage on favourite enemy and since he also chose beastmaster, we allowed his companions to scale with his level, have autonomous action and he could choose between quality or quantity, based on what he summoned. This may not sound like much, but in the late game he had the choice of supporting us with a goblin horde, or a pet dragon... yeah, we definitely fixed the class XD
The entire time I was listening to him argue about how the whole beast thing sucked, I was thinking “just change his abilities a little. A little homebrew never hurt. Or not that I’m aware of.”
You did exactly what every group I know of has done to fix the ranger. That quality\quantity thing is a neat little twist. If I run a 5e game again, I'm gonna borrow that. Cheers! ✌🏻
3.5 ranger was a far better iteration, I don't know why they nerfed it so hard in 5e. Feels like DnD's design team has no idea what to do with the class.
I feel like Ranger is definitely a class that you need to talk to your DM about if you're going to play so you can build them to be useful. They're the only real class that specializes in the exploration aspect of D&D. Plus, if built right, they can't get the burst damage a Rogue or Paladin can, but they can get consistent DPS, and that's pretty damned handy.
No burst damage? Dafuq? Try a Gloomstalker with 2 levels in fighter. If you use Action Surge, you can get 6 attacks in the first round of combat, with 2 of those attacks dealing an extra d8 damage. Stack that with Hunter's Mark and any hope of a balanced encounter gets thrown out the window. God forbid you multiclass into Assassin for 6 auto-crits in a surprise round.
Yeah, when I DM or when I can talk with the DM, I just make the command beast a bonus action and add the possibility of addind reactions ('protect master', 'pin enemy', 'as one attack') to the beast as you level up.
There were fixes already available for the ranger that he could have shined a light on but ignored. Tasha's gives you the Primal Companion option for this conclave and it is ridiculously good. A scaling monster that can use your bonus action to attack, can be any land, flying or swimming animal you want (or you can swap between them when you know a quest is going to need something specific), and is literally unkillable. Oh, it ran out of hit points? One of your lvl 1 spell slots and 1 minute to summon it brings it back at full.
In my experience, playing Ranger is something you need to work closely with your DM on considering how specialized it is. In my early games I had to request that my player change his favored terrain simply because we weren't ever really going to encounter it. So it being at no fault of his own, since we were playing a homebrew campaign and much of what they were going into was a mystery, I permitted a retcon with advised terrain options.
My husband (who DMs for us) was shaking his head the whole time. Lol. He's like, "No no no, a war-trained animal wouldn't need an action to attack. You'd have to use an action if you want to stop it. Or, I could have you run animal handling checks during stressful situations to prevent your creature from starting combat." Maybe I'll start a ranger, lol
I haven't read the RAW for PHB Beastmaster, but as a DM that would be my ruling too. Or just use the familiar rules; they get their own initiative spot.
Or just play one of the good Ranger subclasses, like Gloomstalker, and run a Druid if you want to swarm people with angry wild animals that actually work correctly
Maybe it's years of 3.5 and pathfinder, but seems pretty easy to fix. Bonus action command, scales with you, asi when you get a prof bonus uptick. So your little wolf at level 20 is a bad ass alpha wolf best of the best, trained for war, a monster in its own right. Have to play with the numbers but bonus hp/HD, increased damage and to hit, possible size and reach increase, natural weapons count as magic past a point, etc. Or do like a nature spirit that switches to different forms as you level so it's always cr equal to your level minus 3 (min cr1) or something. Still bonus action to command but scales otherwise. Representing your deepening connection to nature or something.
Tasha's Beast Master Variant: "I have returned with more power than you ever know!" It honestly feels like the Primal Beast is another party member, mostly because its helpful in and out of combat, whereas most other pet classes specialize in combat.
@@stevenyoung9738 I mean, the new one eats your BA, but rangers don't have a ton of good BA spells (most of them last, like hunters mark), and the companions attack is usually better than an offhand attack. It's basically a good consistent use for your bonus action.
@@grey8288 well I assume sharpshooter or great weapon fighting unless we're talking about low levels. I can see it'd be better at lower levels though, still shouldn't take any action. I'm really not sure about it being better than an off hand attack since it scales off of your spell attack, but thats only relevant when rolling for stats and later levels.
Meanwhile a revised Gloomstalker Ranger is an absolute monster. Amazing out of combat healing, great mobility, great damage (not to mention Conjure Animals), great stealth, has Pass Without Trace (so then the Paladin in plate mail can be stealthy), and great multiclassing synergy.
@@medman6649 Gloomstalkers get 'Stalker's Flurry', which lets you attack again if you miss an attack, and the only limit is that it's once on each of your turns and has to be a weapon attack.
Ranger is actually pretty good if you use the optional features. They give you more spells, free casting of those spells, and the modern subclasses pack a little more punch. It’s not the best class, but it’s got good spells, fun subclasses, and bow + arrow.
Honestly the amount of crazy things you can just do as a hunter is so overlooked it’s baffling, you’re basically a battle master that’s really good at crowd control. At higher levels you literally don’t have a limit on how many attacks you have pass how many enemies are fitting in your AOE area meaning, in the best case scenario a hunter ranger can dish out just as many attacks as an action surging fighter every round if they get surrounded.
But that doesn't fix it. The core of the class is for a section of the game no one plays. No one does hexcrawls, which is understandable because the rules don't tell you how to do it, or how to make it fun. And even if you DO run one, it doesn't interact with the game, it just removes chunks of it.
My Rogue-Ranger gave my DM PTSD. He threw me into a cage match, against a single enemy my level in CR, and then both doubled its HP and Hasted it. _I wasn’t bloodied._ I wasn’t trying to break the game. I was trying to replicate X-Men’s Nightcrawler. Rogue added Sneak Damage, Booming Blade, and a Familiar for Help. Ranger had Zephyr Strike, Planar Warrior, and additional spells to benefit the party.
Tasha’s Cauldron of everything gave a bunch of optional rules for the ranger that's great, and the revised Beast Master is pretty good now! Legit, the Ranger is pretty good and doesn't deserve to be called the worst anymore
At this point the main things keeping it at worst is 1. Reputation. and 2. Needing to own Tasha's which is a costly addition to your book collection for someone entering the hobby. It needed a full ass rewrite of the class but after that its now quite good. Now the main problem to me is monk after fighter spontaneously gained the ability to 1d8 punch from level one. Still better off then ranger but it feels a bit bad when you go 'I put in years of effort(11 levels) and now my fists are as steel' and the fighter walks in and goes 'oh yeah, well I downed a flagon and punched through a mans platemail yesterday.'
@@Sandman382 Yeah, Monk is mechanically #13 on the list. Hopefully 6th Ed will make them playable and not so reliant on Ki to do even basic functions. It feels like they need to spend Ki just to wipe their own .
I’d argue with good spell choices and good feat choices could allow you to easily out perform most martials in dps and survivability except barbarian of course.
I came up with a himebrew for the ranger that actually seems fun: turn your ranger into a special forces ranger. Identifying weaknesses to reduce crit requirements; using the terrain to form traps and improvised weapons that are better than what you otherwise would get; trick arrows that have one of 8 different affects; and being able to use your perception as a modifier to attack and defense, because a good ranger is never caught off guard.
My first "true" character (the first one i purposefully designed myself instead of letting my experienced friend tell me what to do) was a Ranger (bc I loved the flavour and I felt bad for him). I kind of had a terrible time in terms of using my specific abilities...but I loved the campaign, so I have a soft spot for Rangers now! (my sister went as a monk for the exact same reasons. You can't tell we're twins, right?)
Ranger's in this first pass of 6th Ed got a major buff. I'll wait to see what sticks and what is removed (as well as what others get) but they have initially came out ahead which is good.
Yeah if one just looks beyond Beastmaster you'll find some really good subclasses for the Ranger. My personal favorite is still Gloomstalker, but I'm eager to test out Swarmkeeper soon.
I mean I just played a normal hunter. It might not seem as flashy but you get Colossus Slayer and it is basically a free 1d8 extra damage, every turn(if you are doing multiple attacks).
Swarm keepers are so fun xD, u can make the swarm look like anything (flying geckos in my case). You get amazing repositioning powers for yourself and the enemy, extra damage and a limited ability to fly
I'm running a Fey Wanderer right now, and it's actually good fun - Dreadful Strikes is good for additional damage, you get a bonus to Persuadion, Performance, or Deception, and there can be a lot of good RP potential with the subclass as well.
@@itsmii7785 oh definitely. Use a Fire Drake & team up with someone who can cast Wall of Fire or just create an area that's on fire & as long as they're kept grappled in that fire they'll be taking constant fire damage.
Been playing a tasha's beastmaster ranger mounted with a focus on wisdom in an Avernus campaign. And so far up to level 8 he has been a dominant force both on the battlefield and off. I have been shocked by how tanky and damaging he is, and his flexibility in action economy has been really surprising.
Suggestion! The DM and player can just simply tweak the Ranger class here and there to make it a viable playstyle because the creators of DND made the rules as simply a guide for the DM to use as a structure. None of the rules are entirely concrete sans a few acceptions.
This is less about why the Ranger Class sucks and more about why the Beastmaster Subclass sucks. And yes, the 5e base edition Beastermaster does indeed blow chunks. Now, Ranger Subclasses introduced in later materials started balancing and rounding out the Options a little more. But when 5e first released, my biggest problem with the ranger is that when leveling him it seemed there was always a right and wrong choice with each ability. Other classes you could choose either one and they tended to be equally valid, but with Rangers is was pretty cut and dry which ability was actually useful and which one was just pointless fluff.
Part of the problem is that beastmaster is the 'generic' ranger. Its the ranger we all know from the previous editions, but made worse in just about EVERY possible way, the only way it could shit on ranger more is by removing their spell casting and replacing it with more bonuses to tracking for your beast. And yeah, there was basically ONE way to build ranger in base 5e. It took a total class rewrite to make the class not ass, largely because the unsubclassed ranger is just.....bad most classes in 5e are a bit frontloaded AND form a solid base for a subclass to be added on to (hell fighter gets action surge in its base class and just rolls in stat boosts) but base ranger is hands down the WORST class in the game meaning all the weight in the class needed to be carried by its subclasses where it had only one that was decent for making up its problems. A full rewrite of the base class(made optional for cases where the base version WOULD be valuable like survival games) and good subclasses turns it around alot, but still pisses people off who wanted ranger for the 'pet class'.
The core features of the ranger at higher level are too awful to be worth mentioning. And decent sub-classes are not a viable excuse to justify a poorly designed core class.
@@blackmage471 If the subclasses were designed to carry a majority of the burden of combat, yes it does justify a weaker main class. I’m willing to bet you haven’t read the justification for why the mechanics are what they are: media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA3_ClassDesignVariants.pdf By Rodney Thompson, somebody who actually understood the balance of 5e combat. Unlike Perkins who made the monster manual. Ever wonder why CR’s don’t line up with monster difficulty well? That’s due to Chris Perkins largely designing monsters as he thought best instead of to fit the system Rodney made. The issue with Rangers is less the main class and more the two pillars designed to take the burden of combat weren’t enough. The way to fix that is improve those mechanics instead. So: give the ranger better exclusive spells. Zephyr strike was an amazing step towards this. The ranger having a lot of low level spells that trick it out is the method by which we fix the class.
I completely forgot that half the class is dead weight leaving you underpowered in any mission not specifically tailored for that one character. I just remember "Hunter's Mark + Colossus Slayer = fun".
Another thing everyone forgets. They get really good, unique spells. A better alarm that also shoots whoever triggers it. Ignore opportunity attacks for a minute and get an advantage Even one to just slash everyone within 30ft I played a Druid, and couldn't do more than 1 spell in a fight because they're all concentration Ranger spells are better than druid spells
I've gone Beast Master Ranger. I have got a companion from prior that I managed to tame at level 2- a Zombie Rat I named Karumonix. My level 3 spell of choice- Conjure Animals. I intend to use it to conjure rats at some point
Tasha’s really saved the day for rangers. Invisibility, extra damage, expertise and other cool stuff making them much better. And my last character - Gloomstalker with Primal Savagery and ridiculous perception and stealth - was just awesome. I took a dip in monk for unarmored defence and was wearing just rugs and cape. I also used Thaumaturgy to make his eyes glow red and pupils look like an ameba. Then trained a few days to make low growling voice without hurting my vocal cords. And I ended up basically playing Morbius but with some Punisher vibes
Honestly, I'd homebrew the beast master so that at level 7 or so, you can start commanding it with a bonus action instead of an action. That mitigates a lot of the drawback, and has the flavor of "your companion knows you so well by now that it only takes a grunt, whistle, or short word for it to understand what you want it to do".
Honestly, the class is really fun to play when you don't have someone yelling in your ear that it's trash. The one character that made the DM punch a couple levels higher than necessary was mine and it was a Drow Gloom Stalker/Assassin. My first turn of combat was always a doozy as the advantage on everyone who I have had a turn before and Elven Accuracy for three attacks led to some really whack numbers. Plus the one time I got to say to my DM, "Okay, your enemy now gets to roll a DC 50 con save to maintain concentration" and all I heard was him swearing about how that homebrew enemy he found and buffed didn't have legendary resistance.
Your channel is just like how real oneshots occasionally turn into full on campaigns. It's cool watching your videos turn from clips with no continuity and just being funny bits, to mini stories exploring the memes and also having a little continuity.
Tasha's changed everything. I'm playing a Gloomstalker with optional features (Favored Foe and Deft Explorer) and having a blast so far. Amazing class with an excellent damage output and lot to offer to the party when it comes to survival, tracking, stealth and infiltration.
yeah it's cool that the updated ranger feels like it has it's place in a party now as the single target dps, with the subclasses kind acting as ways to add veriety.
While the meme of the ranger being bad will always exist... I honestly consider them a solid A tier class now. They're a better rogue than the rogue is and they're second only to a fighter in single target damage. And they've got spells to boot Beast master is still bad, you're better off playing a hunter or gloomstalker or whatever other subclass you want then picking up summon beast as a spell once you hit 5th level. If you really want to play a beast master then just reflavor drakewarden and talk with your DM. I'm biased though, I actually love the rangers, my favorite subclass is gloomstalker but I have also played hunter, drakewarden, and monster slayer.
To be fair though you picked the one subclass that people consider actually good, while every other subclass (and the class as a whole) remain very low in consideration. It's unfortunate that if you play with a group of players that are very serious about their combat and you want to play a ranger - they'll hate you if you play anything other than Gloom.
Post tasha's Ranger is actually fun and I think it's good. I enjoyed mine until the abilities didn't quite make sense as a centaur but that's on me. If I was a human, loads more utility and fun
@@tango7974 How come? You have proficiency with medium armour and a d10 for a hit die, that alone gives you better survivability than 2/3 of the other classes.
@@HunterTracks His AC doesn’t really go way up there. He has high Dex and Wis so his Con suffers a bit. The stuff thrown at us can really hurt him. That is if you can find him. He’s a wood elf gloomstalker, sharpshooter. More emphasis on cannon, less on glass.
From what I gathered from googling forums, the beastmaster could relinquish control of the beast to the DM to have it attack on its own (the closest threat). If the beastmaster wants the beast to attack/assist/defend a specific target, that is when they would need to spend the action to communicate using gestures and command words.
I'm playing a drakewarden ranger atm (with the optional rules not the base rules) and I'm really liking it. Running around as a goblin with a drake that's larger than me that I can use as a mount or help in battle is fun.
In 2e, you got a +4 to hit and damage vs. your favorite enemy. And, if you took the falconer sublcass, you could train a falcon who also had a favorite enemy and got those bonuses, too!
1e and 2e rangers were freakin' deadly, not sure what happened along the way. We still play a hybrid between those two editions, so not sure what all happened after 3e came out
@@BreandanOCiarrai it’s apparently relatively good in 3rd since it’s, like, tier 2 or 3, 4th apparently have Hunter subclass as their core ability or something, didn’t read their power yet because I’m lazy, and I think they just went to shit in 5th for no apparent reason
@@justnoob8141 dude where are you getting this info from. 3rd edditon the ranger literally gets a favored enemy at level 1 than the rest of it's class chart is blank. A little better in 3.5/pathfinder. But still in general lagging behind the fighter at anything it's trying to do, even against it's favored enemy. And fighters are bottom of the rung when it comes to power scaling in melee combat. In a highly specialized campain where favored enemy comes up a lot it might be worth as a one level dip but even that's a maybe. Like the class has always been a trash fire, in 1e they were the only class that could dual wield and that's the last time the class had any kind of bonus.
except the fighter got grand mastery which is +3 to hit +5 damage and an extra attack against anything while wielding your weapon, not to mention better saves, and no alignment or race restrictions. And the fighter doesn't have to worry about becoming a fallen fighter.
@@LordMooDF not sure where are you going with this one but all I'm saying that, after rechecking the source, Ranger is under tier 3 next to Bard, other source said tier 4 but apparently no tier 2
Revised beast master from Tasha’s is great, and if the DM actually gives you things to track and doesn’t skip travel and exploration (like I do) the Ranger is awsome
It’s definitely better than ‘the worst subclass of 5e’ but the problem is that it’s not an entirely new subclass. They changed one feature of it and the rest of it literally doesn’t function with the patched feature.
Favored enemy in other editions (and games like pathfinder) is much better. You actually gain bonuses to attack and damage while still being able to track them really well. Favored terrain was also pretty rad. I liked how in PF you can choose wether to share half the bonuses with your allies or just have an animal companion with all the bonuses. 5e really didn’t do well with ranger at first, but they’re getting better… I think.
My biggest grip with those two features in Pathfinder 1e is that, once again, they're not optional, but even then you can use archetypes to get something better. In Pathfinder 2e both are directly optional ranger feats, so you can choose whether you want them in your build or not, which is a way better design choice imo. But yeah, 1e's Favored enemy/terrain completely sweep 5e's.
One of my players rolled up a Drakewarden for my Sea Raider Campaign. So far he has discovered there are other Dragon-blooded in the new land he came to and that his Sister is hunting him Its just a shame it took fixes all the way to Tasha to make the Ranger just a bit less underpowered
Tasha's is all a ranger needed, honestly. If you really want, you could give them prepared casting, similar to the new UA, but other than that they are at least on par with most of the other classes. People are just blinded by how much more powerful spellcasters are, but that's not the Ranger's fault.
@@Rebelcommander6 The complaints are overblown. People still ragging on the ranger have, in my experience, not read the Tasha's optional features. Every bad or questionable feature has a good or great generalist alternative. Beastmaster was fixed and every subclass released has been so good that I consider the hunter to be the worst, or at least one of the bottom 2 subclasses now. Rangers are fine. I personally think Deft Explorer and any non PHB subclass is all that was needed to fix.
Playing as a Fey Wanderer ranger rn with some of Tasha’s adjustments. It’s actually been fun so far. But I’ve always picked classes more based on role play stuff and what fits the character’s story than combat abilities so these issues don’t usually occur to me 😂
Jokes aside, the Ranger is fantastic if your table uses the optional class features from TCoE. You get to deal damage consistent with other martials, can be the best class at stealth and have a ton of great spell options. Also, there are really fun subclasses.
This. Every class has bad subclasses, and most classes with terrible base mechanics either have a Tasha's update to fix them, or have a template for later subclasses to consistently address them. Except Monk, but Monk being absolutely horrific has gotta be an inside joke at this point.
Running a drow Drakewarden right now in a Curse of Strahd campaign and honestly it's a solid class. Solid damage output while leaving a lot of room for other general help (ex. stealth). Tasha's did fix a a lot of the issues.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm about to go play the *best* class in DnD." "...And what is that?" "The *monk*." "Okay listen-!" Oh man that just killed me xD
Honestly my monk characters have been some of the most absurd bullshit my DM's have ever had to deal with. The issue is just knowing how to build them. Having some knowledge/experience really helps as well. Knowing what combat maneuvers are, how to use them and which work best goes a mile and a half.
@@Meowthix I cannot agree to this. If you play them as a traditional fist fighting class, then you're not going to be that useful. The way to play them is to ignore unarmoured defence and martial arts. You use a weapon and don armour. Basically, you are a slightly differently flavoured fighter class. Now playing that way is no problem, but it's far from what you'd expect to play when picking the class, monk. Of course, you can play a monk among other players that are also playing sub-optimal builds (whether intentional or not) and you'd probably see the monk perform pretty well compared to others at the table. That does not mean the monk is good. The problem with monk as a class is: It's MAD. It's squishy. It does less damage than other martials. It uses the same resource pool for all of its features. That resource pool is very limited. Most of the sub class features either don't make sense or underperform when compared to other classes features (like-for-like).
@@Zombiesbum This is going to be a long reply, but you've asked for it. First off. Monks are defenders, not strikers. I'll be using standard fantasy rules. By definition a monk is, VIA Google, : a member of a religious community of men typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Let's ignore the men part. But you get the geist. Their focus is on the improvement of themselves and life tends to be something they quite value. They are also forced lawful for this reason. They ARE expected to act in a similar fashion although this is open to interpretation. There is no traditional fist fighting class. IF anything pathfinders brawler is the only one. Taking up a staff or equivelant weapon doesn't make a monk any less a monk. But lets create a monk that'll be using fists and i'll show exactly why it will outperform many other defenders. You do not need a weapon, your fists with get their ki improvements and be decent enough that you CAN deal some damage if it's needed, but here's the thing. A monk doesn't need damage. At all. Nor do you need armor. I'll agree that at first I also thought monks suffered from MAD. You need Str for dmg, Dex for AC, Con for HP, Int because they actually have some decent skills and Wis because class features. You can ignore Cha. So how do we fix this in a reasonable way? Well. You dont actually need strength. Your focus here isn't as a striker but as a defender. Plus many editions have feats that allow the use of light weapons, which fists count as this has been discussed and decided many times over the years, to use Dex to hit instead of Strength. It's unlikely you'll be aiming to deal damage and when you do dealing a bit less probably wont matter and you're almost guaranteed a hit. You can dip this. Even skill wise many editions tend to just give monks a free or ki ability to just use skills like climb or swim better. Your strength is at 8. Dex is crucial and will be the main focus stat. Although you can start with this a bit lower for reasons i'll explain below. Obviously it improves AC and Reflex and a crucial skill in acrobatics. You start dex at 15 and all stat points gained go to this. Next is Con. I'll agree that the biggest drawback monks have is their HP pool. This has been improved in later editions but not by much. Con will almost always be 14, maybe 16. Depending on how characters are made, rolling or stat allotment, and in the case of rolls how well the rolls are. Then you ignore it forever. You will 100% always take tough. Every favored class bonus will go towards bonus hp. You'll end up boasting a decent Fortitude save as a result but this ends up being less important as you level up and with so many other HP gaining effects it's why you dont end up pumping it a lot. You start Con at 14. Int you start at 10, maybe dip to 8 if you're a newer player or more combat focused but monks do get access to nice skills. Knowledge (Religion) in nearly every edition, Knowledge (Arcana) and (Nobility) have been in some, Perception and Sense Motive, if available, are always worthwhile and some of the earlier editions with Perform were fun to put a couple levels in. Basically you'll always take Acrobatics, Perception, Religion and then use the other across a couple skills to slowly level them up. Wis is where class features come in and your willpower. This you'll probably want around 16. Raise to 14 and leave it. Charismas dip. No explenation needed. You're not the Leader. You dont want to have to take Diplomacy or Intimidate. This is a 7. This gives you 16/15 spent points. I've personally always allowed people a 1 point leeway to make sure the character ends up with decently allocated stats as have most of my DM's. I'd rather a player have 1 more stat point in Dex at 16/15 than starting with 11 int because "I didn't know what to do with it." End result is. Str 8, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 7. This leads into point 2. Squishy. We've covered the biggest issue which will be a lack of HP pool. Tough is a viable feat on nearly every character and favored class bonuses will net you a bit. Depending on the edition you're looking at a minimum gain of 4 hp a level pre roll. Meaning on average you will gain 7/8 hp a level. This isn't bad anymore. Your AC's and saves are all quite high. Although a heavy armor class will have higher base AC you'll end up with higher touch and flatfooted. You'll also gain spell resist to help with spells. So while other strikers/defenders have to worry their wizard blows them up with a fireball you dont really have to. You'll almost always suceed your saving role assuming the spell resist doesn't nullify it. The way you play the monk helps out with this. Further explenation below. A monks intent isn't to deal damage. It's combat maneuvers. Many people gloss over the fact that you can use your attacks in a flurry of blows as maneuvers instead and this is huge. At an early level you can trip and disarm an opponent and as a monk you get lots of bonuses to doing so. There tends to be a feat which allows you to replace your Str modifier with Dex for combat maneuvers and so much like weapon finesse and tough you will take this. That is the trinity of feats for monks and they in every edition get bonus feats so you can get these easy. While some base combat maneuvers are handy (tripping, disarm and grapple specifically) the one you'll probably use most will be Dirty Tricks. This allows you to debuff an opponent in various ways. Blinded, dazzled, deafened, entangled, shaken, or sickened. Can all be applied. As can a movement speed penalty. With improved dirty tricks, which you want more than any other improved maneuver. This lasts 1d4 rounds, with an additional round for every 5 by which the attack suceeds your opponents CMD. So stack up the debuffs and get free stunning fists off. Assuming your goal then is to kill the enemy and not let him run off with his pants around his legs, deafened, dazed, blinded and crying for mama. You're beating a helpless prone bandit. The resource pool is always intended to keep at least 1 point in it. This is what allows your fists to act as various weapons for reductions. Whether it be cold steel or Adamantine. The monks Ki points also allow for a lot of utility which it needs. Some great Ki points that can be consistantly used are. Additional action on flurry of blows. Another combat maneuver each round at max bonus. Increasing your movement speed by 30 for 1 round. This is great for repositioning yourself to defend the squishier targets or to get to a high priority enemy (spellcaster) and applying something like a silence or a stun to take them out of the fight. You'll never die to fall damage and compensate for your lower strength by being able to swim/climb quite fine still. Although the monks usual self heal isn't spammable like a paladins you can still utilize it to keep yourself going if the cleric has to heal somebody else. Chances are your target(s) are already debuffed enough you'll be fine to take a turn and heal up a bit. The dimension door ability monks get is always insanely strong. As for resources. Most classes with a similar system use the same resource pool. Pathfinders "Grit and Panache" is all still 1 resource pool and monks tend to gain some of the most points to use in their pool. Especially if you decide to roleplay and take ANY vow. Many of which can be taken to realistically 0 disadvantage to your character. Vow of Celibacy or Truth for example. In fact if you really wanted to be cheesy your could design a character around Vow of Chains, slap on some armor, forego your Wis bonus and gain a bonus ki point every 3 levels. I'm not sure specifically on 5e's take on archetypes/subclasses but I can almost guarantee you it's no worse than any other classes. Some of them seem really good, take out less used features for something that'll just be used more and is better. Some are very themed and even designing a character around it will probably fall short overall although it'll be a fun character to play. Although through a quick skim 5e's Way of the Long Death is probably a good option here. A couple points about monk class features many overlook. Flurry of blows can be used against multiple targets. While any other martial character is limited to tripping a single individual if they choose to make a combat maneuver, which they wont, you can begin stacking debuffs on anyone within range. Many of the maneuvers and debuffs you apply will allow you to make attack of opportunities on them. These can also be combat maneuvers. Stunned or tripped a target? Free trip when they go to stand up. They're now permanently fighting on all 4s. Even outside of this. You WILL be making your targets helpess. This gives you a swing of +9 to hits. -5 for their dex being treated as 0, and +4 bonus for the target being helpess. Coup De Grace is allowed in many editions and plays off of the helpess factor even more. You just kill them. Voila they dead. Oh well you "Dont deal damage" you just snapped the poor dudes neck so who cares. You provide and gain more utility than any other martial class off of its features. While a fighter is forced to carry around several weapons so they can hit different opponent and maintains their armor, you're funneling your gold to the wizard or something to make sure they dont die of 1d4 not enough hp potions when you cant babysit them. Why? Because your fists count as those different weapons. You punch a ghost just as easily as an Adamantine golem. You can even become a mini pack mule for your party. Even keep a small fraction of gold for yourself and stock up on a thousand potions to toss around to your party.
If you want to be the best at bows? Be a fighter If you want to be really good at nature control magic? Be a druid If you want to be bad at both? Be a ranger.
Rangers are pretty much tied for my favorite class and I stand by them being slept on. While they're overly situational originally, Tasha's replaces most of those bad traits with several actual good traits, and I'd argue the One D&D Ranger we have so far is even better. The Primal Companion for the Beast Master is also really good and very much redeems the subclass in my eyes.
@@jeffreybogard2713 I wouldn't necessarily say it's on par with combat-focused classes because its abilities do still center around mobility, utility, and skill use, but it's definitely a lot more comparable in combat. Mind you, I think that's a good thing because I want each class to have a niche and not all just be combat focused.
@@thefrostychemist Niches are good, but since combat is a near-universal experience almost every PC shares, I think every class should have some means of reasonably contributing in combat. Not all PCs need face skills, or need to be able to scout, or pick locks, etc, but combat is something most PCs get into eventually. I don't think combat effectiveness should be on the table when considering niches. Not always damage, mind you. Lots of builds can be great in combat without rolling damage, but I don't think any class should be weak in combat.
@@jeffreybogard2713 I mean that relatively though; obviously every class should have a use in combat, but imagine if bards or druids were as capable as a barbarian or Paladin while still retaining all their skills and utility spells. Barbarians, Fighters, and to some extent Paladins, among perhaps a couple others, are focused specifically on combat, with less out of combat utility. Juxtapose that with druids, for instance, which have good combat spells but without a doubt most of their spell list would most likely have more use as out of combat utility. It wouldn't be fair if every class were equally capable in combat, with some having only combat specialty and others having amazing outside niches, so while Rangers are certainly good in combat, they are by no means a combat-focused class.
@@jeffreybogard2713 if yall want a good example of ranger Look no foward to the being that gave my dm a look of horror. The aasimar fey wanderer ranger. Full. Ranger. What gave the dm utter horror is that my character was a god of war who could bounce around and lay hell on targets within seconds And god have absolute mercy if he starts flying because then it gets ridiculous
It is sad that he didn't bother to hear about the Swarmkeeper or even the Drakewarden. People need to give Ranger a break. I played a Beast Master once and I had a great experience with him and his Boar. He was my first Ranger, he is also my favorite character that I have played so far.
Beastmaster Ranger was my first character when I first started playing DnD. It became my favorite class before I found out that I could play a Shepard druid with a bow for the same results. However I later found out that in Pathfinder there is a subclass of Barbarian that has pets. Safe to say from now on I often ask the DM if I can homebrew that it in.
I'm currently playing a Swarmkeeper Ranger in one of my Campaigns and honestly it's been really fun! It's a low magic campaign with a wild west feel, so Dual Revolvers instead of a bow and I'm essentially a Cowboy!
There’s a D&D book called crown of the Oathbreaker (friggin love that book) that has a ranger subclass call Siege Beast Master. It’s like Beast master but better in every way. You start off with a CR 1 beast of large or smaller, up to CR 4 and huge later. And you don’t have to spend actions telling your companion what to do.
A few bad features doesn't ruin a class entirely. Even before Tasha you could get the Archery fighting style, extra attack and some of the best spells in the game : Conjure animals, Goodberry, Fog Cloud
The Beastmaster subclass is actually better than that because in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything your beast companion can get up to a challenge rating of 6.
I'm currently about to start a campaign for some new players and one of them decided she wanted to be a Ranger, I had to try really hard to not be like "but the memes say its bad!" and just let her pick her own character. I then decided it wouldn't hurt to tell her that Drakewarden is a thing and she is all about it lol
the favorite enemy is basically flavor text, in my 1920s esque alcohol bootlegging campaign, the ranger gang leader chose celestians so that he could tie it into his backstory. it ended up being a crazy over the top campaign so i was okay with it
This. Outside of playing strict published adventures, which come down to meta gaming anyways, Favored Enemy is mostly up to the fluff of the setting, and arbitration of the DM. If the DM doesn't want you getting favored enemy, the Manticore turns into a dragon, and the orcs turn into hobgoblins, or vice versa of they do. At BEST, the DM may reward a player that has paid attention to the actual details of their setting and chosen an enemy that makes sense.
I do like the updated ranger, it seems a lot better than old ranger. I'm doing a Curse of Strahd campaign rn and at 3rd level i get 3 attacks on undead on my first turn as well as extra damage
@@Nerd704 Same for all Ranger spells. I don't accept that every physical class has access to magic. I'm happy I don't DM myself, because I would not be able to deal with players who would want to play that recent garbage Barbarian subclass that makes them a literal Sorcerer.
@@Nerd704 That's true. It's a great spell, especially without concentration, but it always felt like something only Rangers should get access to anyway. The way it is right now makes it suck so badly as a class feature flavour-wise, despite it being actually quite powerful.
This is why making up rules is FUN Ranger is my favorite class because of how I choose to play it and bend its rules: favored enemy gives you significant advantages in combat against it, with attacking, defending and rolling to hit. and you have advantages on most kinds of survival checks, since favored terrain is too specific. A class centralized on being a survivalist cannot just be good at one climate. They're straight up just good at all of it. Also, ranger spellcasting is buffed in lots of ways in my games but I usually multiclass it with a caster anyway (likely a druid). I think of Rangers as specialized fighters, they aren't just about attacking thirty times, they're situationally advantageous, but broader than that word entails. In my opinion, Rangers are best multiclassed, since you can bring specialized martial ability to something like a sorcerer, druid or warlock, or even, as I tried once, a Monk, that even Fighter or Rogue would fail to give, provided your rules you make up are good for it.
my very first character I ever made was a Aarakocra Drakewarden Ranger with the optional class features and I still play/love him. The original design for rangers is admittly pretty bad but with the optional features from Tasha's and some of the newer/updated classes. it's quite a sleeper pick that can offer quite a lot : )
Tasha's helps a lot, plus there's the Drakewarden. You too can have a dragon buddy that's actually pretty fun to use and have around. Now, monk is the worst class. Unless your DM denies you access to the Tasha's alternate class features, at which point ask them if Aragorn gave them nightmares or something...
I would argue that Warlocks can be the worst class, though it is only if you play them poorly. The lack of spell slots just really throws me off, though I guess it does make sense since regaining hem with a short rest would be useful, but most of the time it will hinder the party.
Ranger isn't even the second worse class imo. Monk and Rogue are definitly worse and a gloomstalker is literally one of the most op damage dealers in the game (exspecially as a bugbear)
@@Cephandr1us No. Warlocks only suffer when compared to other casters. They don't have the raw versatility, but warlocks can still bring decent utility and damage. Tomelocks can have a book full of rituals, Hexblades can pinch hit for ranged or melee, etc. Old Ranger and current monk are still worse.
@@jeffreybogard2713 I’ll be honest, I don’t have much experience in D&D, but the times that I have played, Warlocks paled in comparison to other spellcasters, and monks have unique abilities like feather fall, which has saved my characters many times. Granted, I put myself in situations where I can use that ability, but monks just require a bit of strategy or a gun to be extremely useful. The main thing keeping them underpowered is the lack of Ki points, but most of the time I play in campaigns that instead give Ki points equal to your monk level plus your proficiency bonus.
This video made me realize how different the rules are between pathfinder and d&d: I played a ranger in Pathfinder, and against favorite enemies, besides all the already mentioned things, I got a bonus +2 in both roll to hit and damage, and any 5 levels, I could pick another favorite enemy and increase the bonus of an extra +2 on whatever enemy I chose; it's still pretty situational, it's not gonna be that useful if your favorite enemies are dragons and you're in the city's square, but STILL, MUCH BETTER THAN D&D
thats also what favoured enemy did for rangers in dnd 3.5.... which is where pathfinder 1st edition was based off. they just really messed up the ranger in base 5e
* pathfinder 1e and d&d 5e :) Rangers of earlier DnD editions had similar bonuses against favored enemies. Also, I must say, I actually like Ranger, even beastmaster. Yeah, it's quite utilitarian but not as useless as in memes )) P.S. And ranger actually doesn't lose its action completely after giving an order to a beast. It's still possible to make its additional attacks. Edit: also 1/4 CR = Horse. So you can ride it spending no actions and shooting arrows at the same time!
I made a Ranger for Icewind Dale and I loved it. It was just a basic Ranger to dip my toes into ranged fighting and he was pretty useful. Helped me with figuring distances out and positioning during battles. My next character is gonna be another Ranger but I'll dip more into Tasha's and possibly the dragon book that came out (whatever the name is. Can't remember now) and I'm excited for it. Or should I do my Druid herbalist named Cil N. Trow?
I get that its cliché at this point, but growing up I loved (and still like)Ranger because my first DM (my uncle) ran with what he called survivalist rules. Any nonprepared food acquired (Travel Rations) lasted until the end of next session, Sleeping outside required a survival check (with a table of hilarious or horrifying consequences). Non magical gear had to be cared for at least once per session. He also had a couple of tables of "inconveniences", basically minor but annoying stuff that could happen that we could play out in character. (Our rope becoming rotted because of the swamp, one of the ties holding armor breaking, etc)
It's like this video was made 6 years ago and not 12 days ago. Aside from Tasha's improving virtually ALL of the ranger's situational features, the ranger was *never* as bad as the community thought they were (that would be the monk, but I digress). I mean the class is packed with SO much they can do. Amazing skill monkeys especially with exploration / survival skills (with beneficial features on top of that). Half-casters with a very good half-caster spell list. Powerful martials with the amazing archery fighting style, and the disgusting gloomstalker subclass. The class allows you to be an extremely competent damage dealer, exploration based skill monkey, all while providing support with spells like healing word or goodberry. The ranger was always more competent than people gave it credit for, and the new subclasses + tasha's rules pushed the ranger to even greater heights. They're still not in the realm of paladins or any full casters, but I think they sit ahead of just about everything else at this point.
It honestly feels like ranger is the one class that needs to ask the dm about setting details beforehand. Such as: where will we be fighting? what types of enemies are common? Because otherwise you normally only get a handful of situations where your skills matter.
@@talscorner3696 Indeed. Imagine making a character, backstory and all, then ending up so far from where they would logically be that you have to say a wizard teleported you here.
@@Merilirem yep... I've seen something similar happen because 5e doesn't encourage its players (especially those who haven't played any other systems) to just make characters and expect the DM to fit them in the story without really providing them with the means to do so
My old party had a beast master ranger. Her beast was a shape-shifting dog. It was suppose to have a land sea and air version but that didn't happen because the campaign ended to soon. Our DM let our companion attack as a bonus action
If you have Tasha's, the ranger is instantly just a downright good starting class. One of the only things holding it down is needing to own Tasha's for you to get that.
That was before Tasha and Xanathar came out and gave the Ranger some ungodly buffs and new subclasses that shit on the idea of Ranger being a meme. Imagine how the Whitestone arc would have gone if Vex could turn invisible at will.
As someone who is currently playing a ranger, drakewarden(and is a better beast master in literally every way) feels very very nice, especially with optional feats. I took natural explorer but not favored enemy lol
In my group we just let the beast have its own initiative and also bump the cr rating allowed up a every other level up. Makes the beast master subclass much more powerful. Also we class "cr rating allowed" as you can have four 1/4 cr beasts or one 1 cr beast. Very nice.
Druid has always been insanely busted. CoDzilla has been a pervasive problem in D&D for as long as those classes have been around. People meme on Wizards breaking the game, but Wizards only do it at high levels, if they're paying attention. CoDzilla trivializes the game at every level while being half asleep, and playing Bejeweled on their phone.
One is a full caster which has historically been insanely strong or broken, and the other was garbage in 3.x. Crawford was just keeping with tradition.
Enter Mircalla, Monster Slayer. Barovia was never a good place, apparently, but she and her companions were determined to make things better. Her distrust was so great that zone of truth was cast even on the party members (with good reason, since the dwarf went crazy after dying and being resurrected). It was her bow that put an end (?) to Count Strahd von Zarovich: the vampire had killed one of her companions, and after a chase in his castle, there he was, smiling behind an invisible wall. The arrow flew high up in the air, following a perfect parable that ended straight into the vampire's heart. All in all, pretty badass stuff.
@@Jaybird_102 spoil as in "damn, after reading this it seems my character doesn't fit" or as in "well, in this Curse of Strahd campaign this Strahd von Zarovich guy seems like a nice fellow"?
Allow for Favorite terrain to work on ALL terrains AND give some bonus in the actual favored terrain. Favorite foe gives a +1/+2/+3 to hit and attack rolls on creatures and an extra D6 dmg on the favorite foes. Best companion has its own actions ans can act Before OR after the ranger. Companion can be a best of a CR half the rangers level and Beast Masters can choose another type of creature as long that it aint an humanoid or humanoid like creature. You're welcome
As a ranger gloomstalker I prevented my entire party from dying on multiple occasions, especially at night ambushes as gloomstalkers are invisible to dark vision at night and therefore have advantage on all attacks, since I chose sharpshooter being a variant human, so I have advantage then accuracy fighting style and was capable of 44 on the first turn I deal (d8 by base bow damage 2d8 as the second attack gets a +d8 then 20 from two sharpshooter hits as adv +2 mods and dex make it almost always hit (44 damage is with no dex buffs or crit)) at level 2 in one turn
I just started a ranger and used Tasha’s Cauldron. I went from being a middling member of the party as a bard to one of our biggest damage dealers and even tanky too as a Goliath Ranger
I've always considered rangers to be a more cohesive version of the fighter-druid multiclass & your DM should usually let you know what terrains you'll be starting the campaign in to not waste your class features while at low levels. Monks are just amazing if you don't try to use them the same way you would us a fighter.
Have a halfling drakewarden ranger with sharpshooter and I love her. She has no legs. They were eaten by a drake… which she tamed… so she could still get around. For combat she has the drake tank while she shoots from far away. Monks are made great with mobile because of being able to back out of attack range after punching.
Yeah some of those ranger subclasses have a straight up outrageous damage output at lower levels, and most campaigns never get to tier 3 where the ranger really starts to suffer. Monk on the other hand is kinda just mediocre at doesn’t do anything awesome until level 6 at which point they become a little silly. Then in tier 3 they become monstrously powerful to the point where they keep pace with builds so broken they errataed them out of existence with Tasha’s. People complain about casters being crazy at high levels but it’s really monks that get the silliest game breaking stuff (presuming the wizard doesn’t have like a million gold to burn since their strength is directly tied to how rich they are). No dnd 5e class is actually particularly bad. Some subclasses and multi class combinations are downright awful though.
A simple fix would have been to let you swap out favored terrain and favored enemy on long rests or something. If you expect you're gonna be fighting orcs in a swamp, switch to orcs and swamps. This could represent changing out their gear and dialing in their tools to meet the new situation.
This is why I love the idea of homebrew! If a player wants to play as a Beast Ranger, just add a few changes to make it better! Like allowing the Beast Companion to have its own turn! Provide a level-up system that allows it to get stronger alongside the player! Make the changes you want to see in the game, and have fun!
I played a Ranger for most of my D&D life, and they don't suck as much as you would think. Although my DM gave me some stuff to help me out, and let me do extra damage if I was fighting a my favored enemys
Tasha's pretty much fixed all that! Including the beastmaster, which now requires, if I recall, a bonus action to have it attacked, rather than an action. Plus they now have set stats, so you basically can have a hamster (for flavor) while still working in battle.
> Hear Beastmaster’s “downside” So they get a token they can move for free to wherever they want AND YOU WOULDN’T COMBINE THAT WITH ROGUE _WHY EXACTLY?!_ Think of the flanking bonuses! The sneak attacks! The flavor you could give your 1/4CR flankitten!
Well an interesting companion that a ranger I worked with was Otto the Octupus. They had a wand of enlarge creature which would turn it into a large class monster and she had trained Otto to use a spiked chain weapon with it's arms giving it 6 attacks per turn (2 legs were required to be in contact with the wall/ground at all times or it would have disadvantage on most things). It even got a feat related to chain weilding. Then after a while she was successfully able to have Otto be a trained Fighter who could use all sorts of class abilities like 2nd wind and frenzied attack. Thus allowing it to attack 12 times in one turn. Then our Sorcerer got the bright idea to cast Hast on Otto giving him even more attacks. Admittedly the class and feat training for a companion may have been homebrew, I don't know for sure. But it was awesome in anycase.
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@@TaiJendamNation Is there any control on what they are actually doing tho' ? Sounds like a weird intermediate
I think BG3 basically overhauled D&D Rangers and made them good just by tweaking the paradigm. They made them not reliant on being in particular terrain to be effective, but gave them bonuses *because* of the terrains they've acclimated to. Desert rangers get fire resistance anywhere. Arctic Rangers get Cold resistance everywhere. Because you specialize in Bounty Hunting, you get a skill AND the ability to do a thing vs. *everything* that's reflective of your style. They took the flair and flipped it around. It's not: "Because you're an arctic ranger that hunts undead, you are only useful when you're in the Arctic and hunting Undead." which has been such a terrible design for so long.
Not to mention giving the companion their own initiative and better upgrades
100% I feel that D&D proper should update to do Rangers like BG3 did. It's one of those areas that the video game version did better than tabletop
This makes me feel like Goblin slayer could be a ranger that specializes in caves and goblins. But he is still decent against other types of enemies. Aka how the class should be
It sounds like the old AD&D Ranger rules back from 2nd Edition or so. The favoured terrain and enemy were *bonuses* and you the companions were brutal on the beastmasters. IIRC a starting companion could be Boar, Bear, big cat or Wolf from the beginning.
Rangers are still the weakest pureclass in BG3. Beastmasters are supposed to be pet builds and are some of the weakest pet builds in the game. Hunters are supposed to be amazing single target, but are weaker than barbs fighters and arguably gloomstalkers and even swordsbards.. Gloomstalkers are great but are very front loaded and are better for multiclassing than pureclassing.
Rangers need more love.
Main issue with ranger is unfortunately it is too based around specialization in a very specific setting other than general use, Tasha's cauldron did a really good job expanding on a more generalist playstyle. Unfortunately it still suffers from not being the best at what it is meant for.
Yep, the best is still a rogue. The scout subclases specially
Ranger is a martial DPS with good spell casting and expertise. If that isn't the literal definition of versatile, I don't know what is.
What if I tell you Ranger is better at stealth than the Rogue, better at damage than the Fighter and better at skill checks than the Bard?
@@trndrd Then you are lying. No, you are literally dying. And rangers don't have expertise.
@@caurd Deft Explorer (Optional)
This 1st-level feature replaces the Natural Explorer feature. You gain no benefit from the replaced feature and don't qualify for anything in the game that requires it.
You are an unsurpassed explorer and survivor, both in the wilderness and in dealing with others on your travels. You gain the Canny benefit below, and you gain an additional benefit when you reach 6th level and 10th level in this class.
Canny (1st Level)
Choose one of your skill proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make using the chosen skill.
You can also speak, read, and write 2 additional languages of your choice.
@@trndrd , good spellcasting? Bahahaha
As for your what if question: people have proven time and time again that's a load of horse dung.
A member of our group actually wanted to try out the ranger, but since he knew how much he sucked, everyone agreed to buff him a little. Mainly, we let him do increased damage on favourite enemy and since he also chose beastmaster, we allowed his companions to scale with his level, have autonomous action and he could choose between quality or quantity, based on what he summoned. This may not sound like much, but in the late game he had the choice of supporting us with a goblin horde, or a pet dragon... yeah, we definitely fixed the class XD
The entire time I was listening to him argue about how the whole beast thing sucked, I was thinking “just change his abilities a little. A little homebrew never hurt. Or not that I’m aware of.”
Just use 3.5 ranger
You did exactly what every group I know of has done to fix the ranger. That quality\quantity thing is a neat little twist. If I run a 5e game again, I'm gonna borrow that.
Cheers! ✌🏻
I ran a Ranger my first time playing. My DM let me do this. My panther companion quickly became overpowered lol
3.5 ranger was a far better iteration, I don't know why they nerfed it so hard in 5e. Feels like DnD's design team has no idea what to do with the class.
I feel like Ranger is definitely a class that you need to talk to your DM about if you're going to play so you can build them to be useful. They're the only real class that specializes in the exploration aspect of D&D. Plus, if built right, they can't get the burst damage a Rogue or Paladin can, but they can get consistent DPS, and that's pretty damned handy.
No burst damage? Dafuq? Try a Gloomstalker with 2 levels in fighter. If you use Action Surge, you can get 6 attacks in the first round of combat, with 2 of those attacks dealing an extra d8 damage. Stack that with Hunter's Mark and any hope of a balanced encounter gets thrown out the window. God forbid you multiclass into Assassin for 6 auto-crits in a surprise round.
@@Aredel Nice build, I honestly forgot about Gloomstalker at the time of writing that little blurb. XD
That why you have to remember DND is not set by the rules and the DM wan tweak them to his and the players's fun.
Yeah, when I DM or when I can talk with the DM, I just make the command beast a bonus action and add the possibility of addind reactions ('protect master', 'pin enemy', 'as one attack') to the beast as you level up.
There were fixes already available for the ranger that he could have shined a light on but ignored. Tasha's gives you the Primal Companion option for this conclave and it is ridiculously good. A scaling monster that can use your bonus action to attack, can be any land, flying or swimming animal you want (or you can swap between them when you know a quest is going to need something specific), and is literally unkillable. Oh, it ran out of hit points? One of your lvl 1 spell slots and 1 minute to summon it brings it back at full.
In my experience, playing Ranger is something you need to work closely with your DM on considering how specialized it is. In my early games I had to request that my player change his favored terrain simply because we weren't ever really going to encounter it. So it being at no fault of his own, since we were playing a homebrew campaign and much of what they were going into was a mystery, I permitted a retcon with advised terrain options.
My husband (who DMs for us) was shaking his head the whole time. Lol.
He's like, "No no no, a war-trained animal wouldn't need an action to attack. You'd have to use an action if you want to stop it. Or, I could have you run animal handling checks during stressful situations to prevent your creature from starting combat."
Maybe I'll start a ranger, lol
I haven't read the RAW for PHB Beastmaster, but as a DM that would be my ruling too. Or just use the familiar rules; they get their own initiative spot.
Or just play one of the good Ranger subclasses, like Gloomstalker, and run a Druid if you want to swarm people with angry wild animals that actually work correctly
or just use the revised beast master
Maybe it's years of 3.5 and pathfinder, but seems pretty easy to fix. Bonus action command, scales with you, asi when you get a prof bonus uptick. So your little wolf at level 20 is a bad ass alpha wolf best of the best, trained for war, a monster in its own right. Have to play with the numbers but bonus hp/HD, increased damage and to hit, possible size and reach increase, natural weapons count as magic past a point, etc.
Or do like a nature spirit that switches to different forms as you level so it's always cr equal to your level minus 3 (min cr1) or something. Still bonus action to command but scales otherwise. Representing your deepening connection to nature or something.
@@TheOneTrueEfrate as a fellow 3.5/Pathfinder aficionado you know what I'm going to say.....
"There is a Prestige Class for that!"
Tasha's Beast Master Variant: "I have returned with more power than you ever know!"
It honestly feels like the Primal Beast is another party member, mostly because its helpful in and out of combat, whereas most other pet classes specialize in combat.
No, is not
Those points just apply to the regular companion? And its still pathetic and weak and eats your actions for no reason
@@stevenyoung9738 I mean, the new one eats your BA, but rangers don't have a ton of good BA spells (most of them last, like hunters mark), and the companions attack is usually better than an offhand attack. It's basically a good consistent use for your bonus action.
@@grey8288 well I assume sharpshooter or great weapon fighting unless we're talking about low levels. I can see it'd be better at lower levels though, still shouldn't take any action.
I'm really not sure about it being better than an off hand attack since it scales off of your spell attack, but thats only relevant when rolling for stats and later levels.
Still should have just been revised for the player's handbook and include all abilities from the hunter SC as part of the rage base habilities IMO
Meanwhile a revised Gloomstalker Ranger is an absolute monster. Amazing out of combat healing, great mobility, great damage (not to mention Conjure Animals), great stealth, has Pass Without Trace (so then the Paladin in plate mail can be stealthy), and great multiclassing synergy.
Lol.
Gloomstalker Ranger: "I missed with my bow attack"
DM: "Roll again, see if you hit"
@@Kageoth I don't get your joke here.
There was an "lol" involved, so I'm guessing it was supposed to be cheeky, but I still don't get it.
@@medman6649 Gloomstalkers get 'Stalker's Flurry', which lets you attack again if you miss an attack, and the only limit is that it's once on each of your turns and has to be a weapon attack.
Wait gloomstalker has out of combat healing?
@@realdragon Every ranger has access to Heal Wounds, not the best spell to use in combat, but quite good outside of it.
We had a Gloomstalker in our campaign and his damage output was INSANE! He permanently removed any idea that "rangers suck" from my mind.
gloomstalker is broken
5 gloomstalker ranger + 2 fighter + 3 assassin rogue is one of the most powerful multiclass combos in the game at 10th level
Gloom stalker and fey wander can do some insane stuff
A class isn't good because a subclass carries it
@@k.m.sparks1190 OK. Hunter, Revised Beastmaster, Drakewarden, Swarm Keeper. A class doesn't suck just because you're a bad player.
Drakewarden will always be my favorite Ranger subclass.
Having a pet dragon to help you incinerate things can be pretty fun.
Ranger is actually pretty good if you use the optional features. They give you more spells, free casting of those spells, and the modern subclasses pack a little more punch. It’s not the best class, but it’s got good spells, fun subclasses, and bow + arrow.
True, admittedly they do get a cool spell they can only use once but works well on a bard of swords.(steel wind strike)
It’s always been better than rogue especially after gloomstalker released
Honestly the amount of crazy things you can just do as a hunter is so overlooked it’s baffling, you’re basically a battle master that’s really good at crowd control. At higher levels you literally don’t have a limit on how many attacks you have pass how many enemies are fitting in your AOE area meaning, in the best case scenario a hunter ranger can dish out just as many attacks as an action surging fighter every round if they get surrounded.
But that doesn't fix it. The core of the class is for a section of the game no one plays. No one does hexcrawls, which is understandable because the rules don't tell you how to do it, or how to make it fun.
And even if you DO run one, it doesn't interact with the game, it just removes chunks of it.
@@bongosmcdongos4190 tasha fixes it
My Rogue-Ranger gave my DM PTSD. He threw me into a cage match, against a single enemy my level in CR, and then both doubled its HP and Hasted it. _I wasn’t bloodied._
I wasn’t trying to break the game. I was trying to replicate X-Men’s Nightcrawler.
Rogue added Sneak Damage, Booming Blade, and a Familiar for Help. Ranger had Zephyr Strike, Planar Warrior, and additional spells to benefit the party.
But you were not a pure ranger, you were duel classed.
So, uhh gonna give us the levels specifically for research purposes of course.
@@DeusVult-x6l it's probs arcane trickster rogue 3, ranger x
@@Rood67 Hey if it helps it helps.
@@DeusVult-x6l Lvl 5 Gloomstalker, Lvl 3 Assassin is vicious
Tasha’s Cauldron of everything gave a bunch of optional rules for the ranger that's great, and the revised Beast Master is pretty good now! Legit, the Ranger is pretty good and doesn't deserve to be called the worst anymore
At this point the main things keeping it at worst is 1. Reputation. and 2. Needing to own Tasha's which is a costly addition to your book collection for someone entering the hobby.
It needed a full ass rewrite of the class but after that its now quite good. Now the main problem to me is monk after fighter spontaneously gained the ability to 1d8 punch from level one. Still better off then ranger but it feels a bit bad when you go 'I put in years of effort(11 levels) and now my fists are as steel' and the fighter walks in and goes 'oh yeah, well I downed a flagon and punched through a mans platemail yesterday.'
@@Sandman382
Yeah, Monk is mechanically #13 on the list. Hopefully 6th Ed will make them playable and not so reliant on Ki to do even basic functions. It feels like they need to spend Ki just to wipe their own .
@@Sandman382 Google/UA-cam.
I’d argue with good spell choices and good feat choices could allow you to easily out perform most martials in dps and survivability except barbarian of course.
Arcanum's Beastmaster is best
I came up with a himebrew for the ranger that actually seems fun: turn your ranger into a special forces ranger. Identifying weaknesses to reduce crit requirements; using the terrain to form traps and improvised weapons that are better than what you otherwise would get; trick arrows that have one of 8 different affects; and being able to use your perception as a modifier to attack and defense, because a good ranger is never caught off guard.
That's actually a pretty good Idea, if you don't mind, can I use this type of homebrew as well?
So.... Hawkeye.
?
My first "true" character (the first one i purposefully designed myself instead of letting my experienced friend tell me what to do) was a Ranger (bc I loved the flavour and I felt bad for him). I kind of had a terrible time in terms of using my specific abilities...but I loved the campaign, so I have a soft spot for Rangers now! (my sister went as a monk for the exact same reasons. You can't tell we're twins, right?)
Tasha's fixed a lot of the Ranger, and I'm having a blast playing a Swarmkeeper. It looks like One D&D is leaning into more Tasha's now too.
Also running a Swarmkeeper right now and loving it.
I made a Drakewarden, & he's tons of fun.
Ranger's in this first pass of 6th Ed got a major buff. I'll wait to see what sticks and what is removed (as well as what others get) but they have initially came out ahead which is good.
@@peterwhitcomb8315 I doubt the concentration free Hunter's Mark at first level sticks, but it's definitely been improved further from Tasha's.
@@aaronwhite1882
🤞
Don’t forget the Tasha’s update to the Beastmaster
It is basically an answer to every major complaint this video (rightly) gives
Still gotta use your attack to make it attack.
@@bennythemonk Bonus Action*
@@bennythemonk Only if you already used up your Bonus Action on something.
Yeah if one just looks beyond Beastmaster you'll find some really good subclasses for the Ranger. My personal favorite is still Gloomstalker, but I'm eager to test out Swarmkeeper soon.
I mean I just played a normal hunter. It might not seem as flashy but you get Colossus Slayer and it is basically a free 1d8 extra damage, every turn(if you are doing multiple attacks).
Swarm keepers are so fun xD, u can make the swarm look like anything (flying geckos in my case). You get amazing repositioning powers for yourself and the enemy, extra damage and a limited ability to fly
I'm running a Fey Wanderer right now, and it's actually good fun - Dreadful Strikes is good for additional damage, you get a bonus to Persuadion, Performance, or Deception, and there can be a lot of good RP potential with the subclass as well.
I haven’t played a Ranger yet, but when I do, I’ll be going Drakewarden as my subclass
@@itsmii7785 oh definitely. Use a Fire Drake & team up with someone who can cast Wall of Fire or just create an area that's on fire & as long as they're kept grappled in that fire they'll be taking constant fire damage.
Been playing a tasha's beastmaster ranger mounted with a focus on wisdom in an Avernus campaign. And so far up to level 8 he has been a dominant force both on the battlefield and off. I have been shocked by how tanky and damaging he is, and his flexibility in action economy has been really surprising.
Suggestion! The DM and player can just simply tweak the Ranger class here and there to make it a viable playstyle because the creators of DND made the rules as simply a guide for the DM to use as a structure. None of the rules are entirely concrete sans a few acceptions.
This is less about why the Ranger Class sucks and more about why the Beastmaster Subclass sucks. And yes, the 5e base edition Beastermaster does indeed blow chunks. Now, Ranger Subclasses introduced in later materials started balancing and rounding out the Options a little more. But when 5e first released, my biggest problem with the ranger is that when leveling him it seemed there was always a right and wrong choice with each ability. Other classes you could choose either one and they tended to be equally valid, but with Rangers is was pretty cut and dry which ability was actually useful and which one was just pointless fluff.
Not for the hunter subclass. Horde breaker, and colossus slayer are both viable the only one being niche is giant slayer.
Part of the problem is that beastmaster is the 'generic' ranger. Its the ranger we all know from the previous editions, but made worse in just about EVERY possible way, the only way it could shit on ranger more is by removing their spell casting and replacing it with more bonuses to tracking for your beast. And yeah, there was basically ONE way to build ranger in base 5e. It took a total class rewrite to make the class not ass, largely because the unsubclassed ranger is just.....bad most classes in 5e are a bit frontloaded AND form a solid base for a subclass to be added on to (hell fighter gets action surge in its base class and just rolls in stat boosts) but base ranger is hands down the WORST class in the game meaning all the weight in the class needed to be carried by its subclasses where it had only one that was decent for making up its problems. A full rewrite of the base class(made optional for cases where the base version WOULD be valuable like survival games) and good subclasses turns it around alot, but still pisses people off who wanted ranger for the 'pet class'.
The core features of the ranger at higher level are too awful to be worth mentioning. And decent sub-classes are not a viable excuse to justify a poorly designed core class.
Honestly yea. The same video could be made on "why the barbarian sucks" and just talk about how horrible berserker is
@@blackmage471 If the subclasses were designed to carry a majority of the burden of combat, yes it does justify a weaker main class.
I’m willing to bet you haven’t read the justification for why the mechanics are what they are:
media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/UA3_ClassDesignVariants.pdf
By Rodney Thompson, somebody who actually understood the balance of 5e combat. Unlike Perkins who made the monster manual. Ever wonder why CR’s don’t line up with monster difficulty well? That’s due to Chris Perkins largely designing monsters as he thought best instead of to fit the system Rodney made.
The issue with Rangers is less the main class and more the two pillars designed to take the burden of combat weren’t enough. The way to fix that is improve those mechanics instead. So: give the ranger better exclusive spells. Zephyr strike was an amazing step towards this. The ranger having a lot of low level spells that trick it out is the method by which we fix the class.
I completely forgot that half the class is dead weight leaving you underpowered in any mission not specifically tailored for that one character. I just remember "Hunter's Mark + Colossus Slayer = fun".
Just use the varient features from Tasha's and you'll be fine. Ranger really isn't that bad.
@@A.C_B. monk isn't either
@@A.C_B. You could also use the revised ranger UA
Another thing everyone forgets.
They get really good, unique spells.
A better alarm that also shoots whoever triggers it.
Ignore opportunity attacks for a minute and get an advantage
Even one to just slash everyone within 30ft
I played a Druid, and couldn't do more than 1 spell in a fight because they're all concentration
Ranger spells are better than druid spells
Just use Fighter with a bow, bro
Hey I am playing a Ranger right now and he absolutely destroyes everything because the damage is absolutely ridiculous
The revised ranger is great, I'm level 14 and have a plus 16 to hit
Hunters mark is awesome
I've gone Beast Master Ranger. I have got a companion from prior that I managed to tame at level 2- a Zombie Rat I named Karumonix. My level 3 spell of choice- Conjure Animals. I intend to use it to conjure rats at some point
Tasha’s really saved the day for rangers. Invisibility, extra damage, expertise and other cool stuff making them much better. And my last character - Gloomstalker with Primal Savagery and ridiculous perception and stealth - was just awesome. I took a dip in monk for unarmored defence and was wearing just rugs and cape. I also used Thaumaturgy to make his eyes glow red and pupils look like an ameba. Then trained a few days to make low growling voice without hurting my vocal cords. And I ended up basically playing Morbius but with some Punisher vibes
@@lordheklsmosh9490lvl 14?! 😱
Honestly, I'd homebrew the beast master so that at level 7 or so, you can start commanding it with a bonus action instead of an action. That mitigates a lot of the drawback, and has the flavor of "your companion knows you so well by now that it only takes a grunt, whistle, or short word for it to understand what you want it to do".
Honestly, the class is really fun to play when you don't have someone yelling in your ear that it's trash. The one character that made the DM punch a couple levels higher than necessary was mine and it was a Drow Gloom Stalker/Assassin. My first turn of combat was always a doozy as the advantage on everyone who I have had a turn before and Elven Accuracy for three attacks led to some really whack numbers.
Plus the one time I got to say to my DM, "Okay, your enemy now gets to roll a DC 50 con save to maintain concentration" and all I heard was him swearing about how that homebrew enemy he found and buffed didn't have legendary resistance.
Your channel is just like how real oneshots occasionally turn into full on campaigns. It's cool watching your videos turn from clips with no continuity and just being funny bits, to mini stories exploring the memes and also having a little continuity.
Tasha's changed everything. I'm playing a Gloomstalker with optional features (Favored Foe and Deft Explorer) and having a blast so far. Amazing class with an excellent damage output and lot to offer to the party when it comes to survival, tracking, stealth and infiltration.
yeah it's cool that the updated ranger feels like it has it's place in a party now as the single target dps, with the subclasses kind acting as ways to add veriety.
While the meme of the ranger being bad will always exist... I honestly consider them a solid A tier class now. They're a better rogue than the rogue is and they're second only to a fighter in single target damage. And they've got spells to boot
Beast master is still bad, you're better off playing a hunter or gloomstalker or whatever other subclass you want then picking up summon beast as a spell once you hit 5th level. If you really want to play a beast master then just reflavor drakewarden and talk with your DM.
I'm biased though, I actually love the rangers, my favorite subclass is gloomstalker but I have also played hunter, drakewarden, and monster slayer.
To be fair though you picked the one subclass that people consider actually good, while every other subclass (and the class as a whole) remain very low in consideration. It's unfortunate that if you play with a group of players that are very serious about their combat and you want to play a ranger - they'll hate you if you play anything other than Gloom.
I DM a group with two rangers: a Drakewarden and a Gloomstalker. I have to increase the difficulty of encounters because of their DPR
I am playing even without the optional features in CoS campaign and ranger can get pretty OP. :D People just don't know how how good gloomstalker is.
Post tasha's Ranger is actually fun and I think it's good. I enjoyed mine until the abilities didn't quite make sense as a centaur but that's on me. If I was a human, loads more utility and fun
I play one right now and he's quite the glass canon.
@@tango7974 How come? You have proficiency with medium armour and a d10 for a hit die, that alone gives you better survivability than 2/3 of the other classes.
@@HunterTracks His AC doesn’t really go way up there. He has high Dex and Wis so his Con suffers a bit. The stuff thrown at us can really hurt him.
That is if you can find him. He’s a wood elf gloomstalker, sharpshooter. More emphasis on cannon, less on glass.
@@tango7974 All you need is Medium Armour Master, a shield, scale mail, & 16 Dex.
Boom, instant 20 AC.
@@Nomadik You can't exactly use shield with a two handed long bow (or crossbows except hand crossbow) which is what most rangers use
From what I gathered from googling forums, the beastmaster could relinquish control of the beast to the DM to have it attack on its own (the closest threat). If the beastmaster wants the beast to attack/assist/defend a specific target, that is when they would need to spend the action to communicate using gestures and command words.
yes. this is how i ran it for my group. the beast just sitting there doing nothing breaks reality too much.
I'm playing a drakewarden ranger atm (with the optional rules not the base rules) and I'm really liking it. Running around as a goblin with a drake that's larger than me that I can use as a mount or help in battle is fun.
That Drake is a baller. Personal favorite Ranger subclass. I only wish it had a breath attack :c
@@ApocryphalSaint It gets a Breath Attack at level 11 tho
Your character can also use it but me personally I would only have my Drake use it
That's awesome!
In 2e, you got a +4 to hit and damage vs. your favorite enemy. And, if you took the falconer sublcass, you could train a falcon who also had a favorite enemy and got those bonuses, too!
1e and 2e rangers were freakin' deadly, not sure what happened along the way. We still play a hybrid between those two editions, so not sure what all happened after 3e came out
@@BreandanOCiarrai it’s apparently relatively good in 3rd since it’s, like, tier 2 or 3, 4th apparently have Hunter subclass as their core ability or something, didn’t read their power yet because I’m lazy, and I think they just went to shit in 5th for no apparent reason
@@justnoob8141 dude where are you getting this info from. 3rd edditon the ranger literally gets a favored enemy at level 1 than the rest of it's class chart is blank. A little better in 3.5/pathfinder. But still in general lagging behind the fighter at anything it's trying to do, even against it's favored enemy. And fighters are bottom of the rung when it comes to power scaling in melee combat. In a highly specialized campain where favored enemy comes up a lot it might be worth as a one level dip but even that's a maybe. Like the class has always been a trash fire, in 1e they were the only class that could dual wield and that's the last time the class had any kind of bonus.
except the fighter got grand mastery which is +3 to hit +5 damage and an extra attack against anything while wielding your weapon, not to mention better saves, and no alignment or race restrictions. And the fighter doesn't have to worry about becoming a fallen fighter.
@@LordMooDF not sure where are you going with this one but all I'm saying that, after rechecking the source, Ranger is under tier 3 next to Bard, other source said tier 4 but apparently no tier 2
Revised beast master from Tasha’s is great, and if the DM actually gives you things to track and doesn’t skip travel and exploration (like I do) the Ranger is awsome
The one time i tried to play ranger my party forced me to play tasha's ranger, i still thank them to this day
Ah...not really, is just ok.
tashas fixed a LOT of the ranger problems
"Great"? Lmao
It’s definitely better than ‘the worst subclass of 5e’ but the problem is that it’s not an entirely new subclass. They changed one feature of it and the rest of it literally doesn’t function with the patched feature.
Favored enemy in other editions (and games like pathfinder) is much better. You actually gain bonuses to attack and damage while still being able to track them really well. Favored terrain was also pretty rad. I liked how in PF you can choose wether to share half the bonuses with your allies or just have an animal companion with all the bonuses. 5e really didn’t do well with ranger at first, but they’re getting better… I think.
My biggest grip with those two features in Pathfinder 1e is that, once again, they're not optional, but even then you can use archetypes to get something better. In Pathfinder 2e both are directly optional ranger feats, so you can choose whether you want them in your build or not, which is a way better design choice imo. But yeah, 1e's Favored enemy/terrain completely sweep 5e's.
"My spleen thanks you" got me laughing way more than it probably should've
To be fair, they've gotten a fair bit of errata, and Tasha's optional feats make it pretty decent
One of my players rolled up a Drakewarden for my Sea Raider Campaign. So far he has discovered there are other Dragon-blooded in the new land he came to and that his Sister is hunting him
Its just a shame it took fixes all the way to Tasha to make the Ranger just a bit less underpowered
Tasha's is all a ranger needed, honestly. If you really want, you could give them prepared casting, similar to the new UA, but other than that they are at least on par with most of the other classes. People are just blinded by how much more powerful spellcasters are, but that's not the Ranger's fault.
@@Rubycule So far I gave him the option to imbue his attacks with his breath-weapon, but he hasn't been using it.
@@Rebelcommander6 The complaints are overblown. People still ragging on the ranger have, in my experience, not read the Tasha's optional features. Every bad or questionable feature has a good or great generalist alternative. Beastmaster was fixed and every subclass released has been so good that I consider the hunter to be the worst, or at least one of the bottom 2 subclasses now.
Rangers are fine. I personally think Deft Explorer and any non PHB subclass is all that was needed to fix.
Playing as a Fey Wanderer ranger rn with some of Tasha’s adjustments. It’s actually been fun so far. But I’ve always picked classes more based on role play stuff and what fits the character’s story than combat abilities so these issues don’t usually occur to me 😂
Jokes aside, the Ranger is fantastic if your table uses the optional class features from TCoE.
You get to deal damage consistent with other martials, can be the best class at stealth and have a ton of great spell options. Also, there are really fun subclasses.
Belkar from Order of the Stick is righteously furious about being screwed over once again.
2:08 its funny but then also really sad when you realize he just told the other guy that he accidentally killed his mom
Just use the varient features from Tasha's and ignore the bad subclasses. Its really not that hard to build a good ranger at this point.
This.
Every class has bad subclasses, and most classes with terrible base mechanics either have a Tasha's update to fix them, or have a template for later subclasses to consistently address them.
Except Monk, but Monk being absolutely horrific has gotta be an inside joke at this point.
Running a drow Drakewarden right now in a Curse of Strahd campaign and honestly it's a solid class. Solid damage output while leaving a lot of room for other general help (ex. stealth). Tasha's did fix a a lot of the issues.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm about to go play the *best* class in DnD."
"...And what is that?"
"The *monk*."
"Okay listen-!"
Oh man that just killed me xD
Honestly my monk characters have been some of the most absurd bullshit my DM's have ever had to deal with. The issue is just knowing how to build them. Having some knowledge/experience really helps as well. Knowing what combat maneuvers are, how to use them and which work best goes a mile and a half.
Multiclass as an Alchemist Monk so you can grapple with Extra Arms. Per RAW every arm past the 1st only takes a -2 non-stacking penalty to grapple.
@@Meowthix I cannot agree to this. If you play them as a traditional fist fighting class, then you're not going to be that useful. The way to play them is to ignore unarmoured defence and martial arts. You use a weapon and don armour. Basically, you are a slightly differently flavoured fighter class. Now playing that way is no problem, but it's far from what you'd expect to play when picking the class, monk.
Of course, you can play a monk among other players that are also playing sub-optimal builds (whether intentional or not) and you'd probably see the monk perform pretty well compared to others at the table. That does not mean the monk is good. The problem with monk as a class is:
It's MAD.
It's squishy.
It does less damage than other martials.
It uses the same resource pool for all of its features.
That resource pool is very limited.
Most of the sub class features either don't make sense or underperform when compared to other classes features (like-for-like).
@@Zombiesbum I wrote out a bit of a reply, did that hit backspace and it deleted. So I'm going to post it and edit it a couple times.
@@Zombiesbum This is going to be a long reply, but you've asked for it. First off. Monks are defenders, not strikers. I'll be using standard fantasy rules.
By definition a monk is, VIA Google, : a member of a religious community of men typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Let's ignore the men part. But you get the geist. Their focus is on the improvement of themselves and life tends to be something they quite value. They are also forced lawful for this reason. They ARE expected to act in a similar fashion although this is open to interpretation.
There is no traditional fist fighting class. IF anything pathfinders brawler is the only one. Taking up a staff or equivelant weapon doesn't make a monk any less a monk. But lets create a monk that'll be using fists and i'll show exactly why it will outperform many other defenders.
You do not need a weapon, your fists with get their ki improvements and be decent enough that you CAN deal some damage if it's needed, but here's the thing. A monk doesn't need damage. At all. Nor do you need armor.
I'll agree that at first I also thought monks suffered from MAD. You need Str for dmg, Dex for AC, Con for HP, Int because they actually have some decent skills and Wis because class features. You can ignore Cha. So how do we fix this in a reasonable way?
Well. You dont actually need strength. Your focus here isn't as a striker but as a defender. Plus many editions have feats that allow the use of light weapons, which fists count as this has been discussed and decided many times over the years, to use Dex to hit instead of Strength. It's unlikely you'll be aiming to deal damage and when you do dealing a bit less probably wont matter and you're almost guaranteed a hit. You can dip this. Even skill wise many editions tend to just give monks a free or ki ability to just use skills like climb or swim better. Your strength is at 8.
Dex is crucial and will be the main focus stat. Although you can start with this a bit lower for reasons i'll explain below. Obviously it improves AC and Reflex and a crucial skill in acrobatics. You start dex at 15 and all stat points gained go to this.
Next is Con. I'll agree that the biggest drawback monks have is their HP pool. This has been improved in later editions but not by much. Con will almost always be 14, maybe 16. Depending on how characters are made, rolling or stat allotment, and in the case of rolls how well the rolls are. Then you ignore it forever. You will 100% always take tough. Every favored class bonus will go towards bonus hp. You'll end up boasting a decent Fortitude save as a result but this ends up being less important as you level up and with so many other HP gaining effects it's why you dont end up pumping it a lot. You start Con at 14.
Int you start at 10, maybe dip to 8 if you're a newer player or more combat focused but monks do get access to nice skills. Knowledge (Religion) in nearly every edition, Knowledge (Arcana) and (Nobility) have been in some, Perception and Sense Motive, if available, are always worthwhile and some of the earlier editions with Perform were fun to put a couple levels in. Basically you'll always take Acrobatics, Perception, Religion and then use the other across a couple skills to slowly level them up.
Wis is where class features come in and your willpower. This you'll probably want around 16. Raise to 14 and leave it.
Charismas dip. No explenation needed. You're not the Leader. You dont want to have to take Diplomacy or Intimidate. This is a 7.
This gives you 16/15 spent points. I've personally always allowed people a 1 point leeway to make sure the character ends up with decently allocated stats as have most of my DM's. I'd rather a player have 1 more stat point in Dex at 16/15 than starting with 11 int because "I didn't know what to do with it."
End result is. Str 8, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 7.
This leads into point 2. Squishy. We've covered the biggest issue which will be a lack of HP pool. Tough is a viable feat on nearly every character and favored class bonuses will net you a bit. Depending on the edition you're looking at a minimum gain of 4 hp a level pre roll. Meaning on average you will gain 7/8 hp a level. This isn't bad anymore. Your AC's and saves are all quite high. Although a heavy armor class will have higher base AC you'll end up with higher touch and flatfooted. You'll also gain spell resist to help with spells. So while other strikers/defenders have to worry their wizard blows them up with a fireball you dont really have to. You'll almost always suceed your saving role assuming the spell resist doesn't nullify it. The way you play the monk helps out with this. Further explenation below.
A monks intent isn't to deal damage. It's combat maneuvers. Many people gloss over the fact that you can use your attacks in a flurry of blows as maneuvers instead and this is huge. At an early level you can trip and disarm an opponent and as a monk you get lots of bonuses to doing so. There tends to be a feat which allows you to replace your Str modifier with Dex for combat maneuvers and so much like weapon finesse and tough you will take this. That is the trinity of feats for monks and they in every edition get bonus feats so you can get these easy. While some base combat maneuvers are handy (tripping, disarm and grapple specifically) the one you'll probably use most will be Dirty Tricks. This allows you to debuff an opponent in various ways. Blinded, dazzled, deafened, entangled, shaken, or sickened. Can all be applied. As can a movement speed penalty. With improved dirty tricks, which you want more than any other improved maneuver. This lasts 1d4 rounds, with an additional round for every 5 by which the attack suceeds your opponents CMD. So stack up the debuffs and get free stunning fists off. Assuming your goal then is to kill the enemy and not let him run off with his pants around his legs, deafened, dazed, blinded and crying for mama. You're beating a helpless prone bandit.
The resource pool is always intended to keep at least 1 point in it. This is what allows your fists to act as various weapons for reductions. Whether it be cold steel or Adamantine. The monks Ki points also allow for a lot of utility which it needs. Some great Ki points that can be consistantly used are.
Additional action on flurry of blows. Another combat maneuver each round at max bonus.
Increasing your movement speed by 30 for 1 round. This is great for repositioning yourself to defend the squishier targets or to get to a high priority enemy (spellcaster) and applying something like a silence or a stun to take them out of the fight.
You'll never die to fall damage and compensate for your lower strength by being able to swim/climb quite fine still.
Although the monks usual self heal isn't spammable like a paladins you can still utilize it to keep yourself going if the cleric has to heal somebody else. Chances are your target(s) are already debuffed enough you'll be fine to take a turn and heal up a bit.
The dimension door ability monks get is always insanely strong.
As for resources. Most classes with a similar system use the same resource pool. Pathfinders "Grit and Panache" is all still 1 resource pool and monks tend to gain some of the most points to use in their pool. Especially if you decide to roleplay and take ANY vow. Many of which can be taken to realistically 0 disadvantage to your character. Vow of Celibacy or Truth for example. In fact if you really wanted to be cheesy your could design a character around Vow of Chains, slap on some armor, forego your Wis bonus and gain a bonus ki point every 3 levels.
I'm not sure specifically on 5e's take on archetypes/subclasses but I can almost guarantee you it's no worse than any other classes. Some of them seem really good, take out less used features for something that'll just be used more and is better. Some are very themed and even designing a character around it will probably fall short overall although it'll be a fun character to play. Although through a quick skim 5e's Way of the Long Death is probably a good option here.
A couple points about monk class features many overlook. Flurry of blows can be used against multiple targets. While any other martial character is limited to tripping a single individual if they choose to make a combat maneuver, which they wont, you can begin stacking debuffs on anyone within range.
Many of the maneuvers and debuffs you apply will allow you to make attack of opportunities on them. These can also be combat maneuvers. Stunned or tripped a target? Free trip when they go to stand up. They're now permanently fighting on all 4s. Even outside of this. You WILL be making your targets helpess. This gives you a swing of +9 to hits. -5 for their dex being treated as 0, and +4 bonus for the target being helpess.
Coup De Grace is allowed in many editions and plays off of the helpess factor even more. You just kill them. Voila they dead. Oh well you "Dont deal damage" you just snapped the poor dudes neck so who cares.
You provide and gain more utility than any other martial class off of its features. While a fighter is forced to carry around several weapons so they can hit different opponent and maintains their armor, you're funneling your gold to the wizard or something to make sure they dont die of 1d4 not enough hp potions when you cant babysit them. Why? Because your fists count as those different weapons. You punch a ghost just as easily as an Adamantine golem. You can even become a mini pack mule for your party. Even keep a small fraction of gold for yourself and stock up on a thousand potions to toss around to your party.
If you want to be the best at bows? Be a fighter
If you want to be really good at nature control magic? Be a druid
If you want to be bad at both? Be a ranger.
Beastmaster subclass: exists
Warlock Pact of the Chain: look what they do to mimic a fraction of our power.
Rangers are pretty much tied for my favorite class and I stand by them being slept on. While they're overly situational originally, Tasha's replaces most of those bad traits with several actual good traits, and I'd argue the One D&D Ranger we have so far is even better. The Primal Companion for the Beast Master is also really good and very much redeems the subclass in my eyes.
Post-Tasha ranger is much better and on par with the other combat focus classes.
@@jeffreybogard2713 I wouldn't necessarily say it's on par with combat-focused classes because its abilities do still center around mobility, utility, and skill use, but it's definitely a lot more comparable in combat. Mind you, I think that's a good thing because I want each class to have a niche and not all just be combat focused.
@@thefrostychemist Niches are good, but since combat is a near-universal experience almost every PC shares, I think every class should have some means of reasonably contributing in combat. Not all PCs need face skills, or need to be able to scout, or pick locks, etc, but combat is something most PCs get into eventually. I don't think combat effectiveness should be on the table when considering niches. Not always damage, mind you. Lots of builds can be great in combat without rolling damage, but I don't think any class should be weak in combat.
@@jeffreybogard2713 I mean that relatively though; obviously every class should have a use in combat, but imagine if bards or druids were as capable as a barbarian or Paladin while still retaining all their skills and utility spells. Barbarians, Fighters, and to some extent Paladins, among perhaps a couple others, are focused specifically on combat, with less out of combat utility. Juxtapose that with druids, for instance, which have good combat spells but without a doubt most of their spell list would most likely have more use as out of combat utility. It wouldn't be fair if every class were equally capable in combat, with some having only combat specialty and others having amazing outside niches, so while Rangers are certainly good in combat, they are by no means a combat-focused class.
@@jeffreybogard2713 if yall want a good example of ranger
Look no foward to the being that gave my dm a look of horror. The aasimar fey wanderer ranger. Full. Ranger. What gave the dm utter horror is that my character was a god of war who could bounce around and lay hell on targets within seconds
And god have absolute mercy if he starts flying because then it gets ridiculous
It is sad that he didn't bother to hear about the Swarmkeeper or even the Drakewarden. People need to give Ranger a break. I played a Beast Master once and I had a great experience with him and his Boar. He was my first Ranger, he is also my favorite character that I have played so far.
Tasha's fixed Beast Master. Also fixed Ranger in general. Also the One DnD playtest does wonders for the class.
Beastmaster Ranger was my first character when I first started playing DnD. It became my favorite class before I found out that I could play a Shepard druid with a bow for the same results.
However I later found out that in Pathfinder there is a subclass of Barbarian that has pets. Safe to say from now on I often ask the DM if I can homebrew that it in.
I'm currently playing a Swarmkeeper Ranger in one of my Campaigns and honestly it's been really fun! It's a low magic campaign with a wild west feel, so Dual Revolvers instead of a bow and I'm essentially a Cowboy!
There’s a D&D book called crown of the Oathbreaker (friggin love that book) that has a ranger subclass call Siege Beast Master. It’s like Beast master but better in every way. You start off with a CR 1 beast of large or smaller, up to CR 4 and huge later. And you don’t have to spend actions telling your companion what to do.
My current Beastmaster fix:
Beast companion has it's own turn after the player.
The Creature also gets Sidekick levels from the DM section of Tasha's.
A few bad features doesn't ruin a class entirely. Even before Tasha you could get the Archery fighting style, extra attack and some of the best spells in the game : Conjure animals, Goodberry, Fog Cloud
It does when this features were suposed to be the core of the class.
Monk runs out of ki points: well that's all I can do
The Beastmaster subclass is actually better than that because in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything your beast companion can get up to a challenge rating of 6.
I'm currently about to start a campaign for some new players and one of them decided she wanted to be a Ranger, I had to try really hard to not be like "but the memes say its bad!" and just let her pick her own character. I then decided it wouldn't hurt to tell her that Drakewarden is a thing and she is all about it lol
the favorite enemy is basically flavor text, in my 1920s esque alcohol bootlegging campaign, the ranger gang leader chose celestians so that he could tie it into his backstory. it ended up being a crazy over the top campaign so i was okay with it
This.
Outside of playing strict published adventures, which come down to meta gaming anyways, Favored Enemy is mostly up to the fluff of the setting, and arbitration of the DM.
If the DM doesn't want you getting favored enemy, the Manticore turns into a dragon, and the orcs turn into hobgoblins, or vice versa of they do. At BEST, the DM may reward a player that has paid attention to the actual details of their setting and chosen an enemy that makes sense.
I do like the updated ranger, it seems a lot better than old ranger. I'm doing a Curse of Strahd campaign rn and at 3rd level i get 3 attacks on undead on my first turn as well as extra damage
Updated Ranger is great I just kind of wish Hunter's Mark was a class feature instead of a spell.
@@Nerd704 ooh yeah true. It being a bonus action kinda hurts since I can’t take my 2 weapon attack
@@Nerd704 Same for all Ranger spells. I don't accept that every physical class has access to magic. I'm happy I don't DM myself, because I would not be able to deal with players who would want to play that recent garbage Barbarian subclass that makes them a literal Sorcerer.
@@nyxnightmare3542 Ranger is a half caster, same as Paladin and Artificer, they're by no means a physical class.
@@Nerd704 That's true. It's a great spell, especially without concentration, but it always felt like something only Rangers should get access to anyway. The way it is right now makes it suck so badly as a class feature flavour-wise, despite it being actually quite powerful.
This is why making up rules is FUN
Ranger is my favorite class because of how I choose to play it and bend its rules: favored enemy gives you significant advantages in combat against it, with attacking, defending and rolling to hit. and you have advantages on most kinds of survival checks, since favored terrain is too specific. A class centralized on being a survivalist cannot just be good at one climate. They're straight up just good at all of it. Also, ranger spellcasting is buffed in lots of ways in my games but I usually multiclass it with a caster anyway (likely a druid). I think of Rangers as specialized fighters, they aren't just about attacking thirty times, they're situationally advantageous, but broader than that word entails. In my opinion, Rangers are best multiclassed, since you can bring specialized martial ability to something like a sorcerer, druid or warlock, or even, as I tried once, a Monk, that even Fighter or Rogue would fail to give, provided your rules you make up are good for it.
my very first character I ever made was a Aarakocra Drakewarden Ranger with the optional class features and I still play/love him. The original design for rangers is admittly pretty bad but with the optional features from Tasha's and some of the newer/updated classes. it's quite a sleeper pick that can offer quite a lot : )
Tasha's helps a lot, plus there's the Drakewarden. You too can have a dragon buddy that's actually pretty fun to use and have around. Now, monk is the worst class. Unless your DM denies you access to the Tasha's alternate class features, at which point ask them if Aragorn gave them nightmares or something...
I would argue that Warlocks can be the worst class, though it is only if you play them poorly. The lack of spell slots just really throws me off, though I guess it does make sense since regaining hem with a short rest would be useful, but most of the time it will hinder the party.
Ranger isn't even the second worse class imo. Monk and Rogue are definitly worse and a gloomstalker is literally one of the most op damage dealers in the game (exspecially as a bugbear)
@@Cephandr1us No. Warlocks only suffer when compared to other casters. They don't have the raw versatility, but warlocks can still bring decent utility and damage. Tomelocks can have a book full of rituals, Hexblades can pinch hit for ranged or melee, etc. Old Ranger and current monk are still worse.
@@saint3371 Rogue has issues, monk is even worse. Monk is easily the worst class in the game. Almost makes me nostalgic for 3.5...
@@jeffreybogard2713 I’ll be honest, I don’t have much experience in D&D, but the times that I have played, Warlocks paled in comparison to other spellcasters, and monks have unique abilities like feather fall, which has saved my characters many times. Granted, I put myself in situations where I can use that ability, but monks just require a bit of strategy or a gun to be extremely useful. The main thing keeping them underpowered is the lack of Ki points, but most of the time I play in campaigns that instead give Ki points equal to your monk level plus your proficiency bonus.
This video made me realize how different the rules are between pathfinder and d&d: I played a ranger in Pathfinder, and against favorite enemies, besides all the already mentioned things, I got a bonus +2 in both roll to hit and damage, and any 5 levels, I could pick another favorite enemy and increase the bonus of an extra +2 on whatever enemy I chose; it's still pretty situational, it's not gonna be that useful if your favorite enemies are dragons and you're in the city's square, but STILL, MUCH BETTER THAN D&D
thats also what favoured enemy did for rangers in dnd 3.5.... which is where pathfinder 1st edition was based off. they just really messed up the ranger in base 5e
Another favored enemy? Pathfinder strikes again
* pathfinder 1e and d&d 5e :)
Rangers of earlier DnD editions had similar bonuses against favored enemies.
Also, I must say, I actually like Ranger, even beastmaster. Yeah, it's quite utilitarian but not as useless as in memes ))
P.S. And ranger actually doesn't lose its action completely after giving an order to a beast. It's still possible to make its additional attacks.
Edit: also 1/4 CR = Horse. So you can ride it spending no actions and shooting arrows at the same time!
@@sleepyboldhijack Huh? But you get additional favored enemies in 5e also - in level 6 and 14. Or I misunderstood you somehow?
@@JustLoveHnS oh, so they do, still gets an attack bonus? I forgot they got more
I made a Ranger for Icewind Dale and I loved it. It was just a basic Ranger to dip my toes into ranged fighting and he was pretty useful. Helped me with figuring distances out and positioning during battles. My next character is gonna be another Ranger but I'll dip more into Tasha's and possibly the dragon book that came out (whatever the name is. Can't remember now) and I'm excited for it. Or should I do my Druid herbalist named Cil N. Trow?
I get that its cliché at this point, but growing up I loved (and still like)Ranger because my first DM (my uncle) ran with what he called survivalist rules. Any nonprepared food acquired (Travel Rations) lasted until the end of next session, Sleeping outside required a survival check (with a table of hilarious or horrifying consequences). Non magical gear had to be cared for at least once per session. He also had a couple of tables of "inconveniences", basically minor but annoying stuff that could happen that we could play out in character. (Our rope becoming rotted because of the swamp, one of the ties holding armor breaking, etc)
It's like this video was made 6 years ago and not 12 days ago. Aside from Tasha's improving virtually ALL of the ranger's situational features, the ranger was *never* as bad as the community thought they were (that would be the monk, but I digress). I mean the class is packed with SO much they can do. Amazing skill monkeys especially with exploration / survival skills (with beneficial features on top of that). Half-casters with a very good half-caster spell list. Powerful martials with the amazing archery fighting style, and the disgusting gloomstalker subclass.
The class allows you to be an extremely competent damage dealer, exploration based skill monkey, all while providing support with spells like healing word or goodberry. The ranger was always more competent than people gave it credit for, and the new subclasses + tasha's rules pushed the ranger to even greater heights. They're still not in the realm of paladins or any full casters, but I think they sit ahead of just about everything else at this point.
Swarmkeeper Ranger is a great class. It's a good addition and a much needed one.
For me rangers are more about The Aesthetic(TM) and vibe rather than practicality
That's me when I create my first character lol, while it not powerful it was a fun ride.
It honestly feels like ranger is the one class that needs to ask the dm about setting details beforehand. Such as: where will we be fighting? what types of enemies are common? Because otherwise you normally only get a handful of situations where your skills matter.
Imo, giving a damn about the setting should be the basics for all classes
A good dm would tell you all that anyway.
@@talscorner3696 Indeed. Imagine making a character, backstory and all, then ending up so far from where they would logically be that you have to say a wizard teleported you here.
@@Merilirem yep... I've seen something similar happen because 5e doesn't encourage its players (especially those who haven't played any other systems) to just make characters and expect the DM to fit them in the story without really providing them with the means to do so
My old party had a beast master ranger. Her beast was a shape-shifting dog. It was suppose to have a land sea and air version but that didn't happen because the campaign ended to soon. Our DM let our companion attack as a bonus action
Ranger and beast master got reworked and they’re pretty good now
If you have Tasha's, the ranger is instantly just a downright good starting class. One of the only things holding it down is needing to own Tasha's for you to get that.
You don't have to own the book to use features from it, you know that right?
Gloomstalker 4 is also a super handy graft for a lot of characters
Wait even a gloom stalker I wanna start playing dnd and really wanted to play a happy go lucky gloom stalker eĺf ranger
Barbarian: "There is a Red Dragon living next to us, and she is pissed"
Bard: "Oh she?"
I am honestly surprised the video didn't make that joke. I'm hoping for a callback in a later adbarian segment
Bard: Oh, she?
Degenerate Charisma Engine Sorlockadin: My dragon mommy bought me diamond dust :3
Any DM worth their salt should ignore that beast comanion attack uses player action rule
Now I’m starting to understand why Matt Mercer did alot of fine tuning and changed the class up a bit for Laura Bailey when she played ranger.
That was before Tasha and Xanathar came out and gave the Ranger some ungodly buffs and new subclasses that shit on the idea of Ranger being a meme. Imagine how the Whitestone arc would have gone if Vex could turn invisible at will.
“My spleen thanks you”…😂
Fellow Monk Stans Rise Up 🙌
Please drag one puberty episode 😢
As someone who is currently playing a ranger, drakewarden(and is a better beast master in literally every way) feels very very nice, especially with optional feats. I took natural explorer but not favored enemy lol
In my group we just let the beast have its own initiative and also bump the cr rating allowed up a every other level up. Makes the beast master subclass much more powerful.
Also we class "cr rating allowed" as you can have four 1/4 cr beasts or one 1 cr beast.
Very nice.
I find it hilarious that the Moon Druid and Beast Master Ranger existed in the same book😂
Druid has always been insanely busted.
CoDzilla has been a pervasive problem in D&D for as long as those classes have been around.
People meme on Wizards breaking the game, but Wizards only do it at high levels, if they're paying attention.
CoDzilla trivializes the game at every level while being half asleep, and playing Bejeweled on their phone.
One is a full caster which has historically been insanely strong or broken, and the other was garbage in 3.x. Crawford was just keeping with tradition.
@@juultoo lol true
Enter Mircalla, Monster Slayer. Barovia was never a good place, apparently, but she and her companions were determined to make things better. Her distrust was so great that zone of truth was cast even on the party members (with good reason, since the dwarf went crazy after dying and being resurrected). It was her bow that put an end (?) to Count Strahd von Zarovich: the vampire had killed one of her companions, and after a chase in his castle, there he was, smiling behind an invisible wall. The arrow flew high up in the air, following a perfect parable that ended straight into the vampire's heart. All in all, pretty badass stuff.
May I introduce Flower, my halfling Monster Slayer curently rowing Barovia. He special abilities has been quite useful :)
YOU ASSHOLE! QUIT SPOILING CAMPAIGNS
@@Jaybird_102 spoil as in "damn, after reading this it seems my character doesn't fit" or as in "well, in this Curse of Strahd campaign this Strahd von Zarovich guy seems like a nice fellow"?
The one time a sponsorship ad was entertaining! Thank you so much, Adbarian!
Allow for Favorite terrain to work on ALL terrains AND give some bonus in the actual favored terrain.
Favorite foe gives a +1/+2/+3 to hit and attack rolls on creatures and an extra D6 dmg on the favorite foes.
Best companion has its own actions ans can act Before OR after the ranger.
Companion can be a best of a CR half the rangers level and Beast Masters can choose another type of creature as long that it aint an humanoid or humanoid like creature.
You're welcome
Thank God for TCoE, makes the Ranger so much better
As a ranger gloomstalker I prevented my entire party from dying on multiple occasions, especially at night ambushes as gloomstalkers are invisible to dark vision at night and therefore have advantage on all attacks, since I chose sharpshooter being a variant human, so I have advantage then accuracy fighting style and was capable of 44 on the first turn I deal (d8 by base bow damage 2d8 as the second attack gets a +d8 then 20 from two sharpshooter hits as adv +2 mods and dex make it almost always hit (44 damage is with no dex buffs or crit)) at level 2 in one turn
I just started a ranger and used Tasha’s Cauldron. I went from being a middling member of the party as a bard to one of our biggest damage dealers and even tanky too as a Goliath Ranger
4:34 "Now if you excuse me, I'm gonna play the best class in D&D"
Me "...the monk?"
"The Monk."
Me "The Monk!"
What about the Fey Wanderer, Drakewarden, Gloomstalker and Swarmkeeper??
I've always considered rangers to be a more cohesive version of the fighter-druid multiclass & your DM should usually let you know what terrains you'll be starting the campaign in to not waste your class features while at low levels.
Monks are just amazing if you don't try to use them the same way you would us a fighter.
Oh my god. I've been playing a Beast Ranger in BG3 and it's been great, I had no idea it was so bad in the main game
Have a halfling drakewarden ranger with sharpshooter and I love her. She has no legs. They were eaten by a drake… which she tamed… so she could still get around. For combat she has the drake tank while she shoots from far away. Monks are made great with mobile because of being able to back out of attack range after punching.
Yeah some of those ranger subclasses have a straight up outrageous damage output at lower levels, and most campaigns never get to tier 3 where the ranger really starts to suffer.
Monk on the other hand is kinda just mediocre at doesn’t do anything awesome until level 6 at which point they become a little silly. Then in tier 3 they become monstrously powerful to the point where they keep pace with builds so broken they errataed them out of existence with Tasha’s. People complain about casters being crazy at high levels but it’s really monks that get the silliest game breaking stuff (presuming the wizard doesn’t have like a million gold to burn since their strength is directly tied to how rich they are).
No dnd 5e class is actually particularly bad. Some subclasses and multi class combinations are downright awful though.
A simple fix would have been to let you swap out favored terrain and favored enemy on long rests or something.
If you expect you're gonna be fighting orcs in a swamp, switch to orcs and swamps. This could represent changing out their gear and dialing in their tools to meet the new situation.
This is why I love the idea of homebrew!
If a player wants to play as a Beast Ranger, just add a few changes to make it better! Like allowing the Beast Companion to have its own turn! Provide a level-up system that allows it to get stronger alongside the player! Make the changes you want to see in the game, and have fun!
I played a Ranger for most of my D&D life, and they don't suck as much as you would think. Although my DM gave me some stuff to help me out, and let me do extra damage if I was fighting a my favored enemys
Tasha's pretty much fixed all that! Including the beastmaster, which now requires, if I recall, a bonus action to have it attacked, rather than an action. Plus they now have set stats, so you basically can have a hamster (for flavor) while still working in battle.
> Hear Beastmaster’s “downside”
So they get a token they can move for free to wherever they want AND YOU WOULDN’T COMBINE THAT WITH ROGUE _WHY EXACTLY?!_
Think of the flanking bonuses! The sneak attacks! The flavor you could give your 1/4CR flankitten!
Well an interesting companion that a ranger I worked with was Otto the Octupus. They had a wand of enlarge creature which would turn it into a large class monster and she had trained Otto to use a spiked chain weapon with it's arms giving it 6 attacks per turn (2 legs were required to be in contact with the wall/ground at all times or it would have disadvantage on most things). It even got a feat related to chain weilding. Then after a while she was successfully able to have Otto be a trained Fighter who could use all sorts of class abilities like 2nd wind and frenzied attack. Thus allowing it to attack 12 times in one turn. Then our Sorcerer got the bright idea to cast Hast on Otto giving him even more attacks.
Admittedly the class and feat training for a companion may have been homebrew, I don't know for sure. But it was awesome in anycase.