Why We "Fix" the Ranger
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- Reworking the ranger class has been around since 5e's release. In this vid, I go over the history of 'fixing' the ranger, and what I think is the real reason why the D&D community obsess over it. I also go over reworks I did in 2016 and 2021 to see if anything was learned over 5 years.
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Old School D&D heavily emphasizes exploration both of dungeons and wilderness. Most hexcrawl approaches to overland exploration basically treat it as a larger dungeon. Except unlike 5e, there are random encounters rather than planned set pieces. This makes the game less about a preplanned plot resolving, and more about the surrounding world. The reason exploration isn't *fun* in 5e is that it's lost the old school aspect, treating encounters as preplanned and "balanced" to the party. This is very different than a system like Old School Essentials, which is a remake of B/X.
The main problem with the ranger has to do with the shift in 5e emphasizing an overarching narrative of which the players are the central part, which in turn de-emphasizes exploration and wilderness travel. In Old School play, the wilderness (along with the dungeon) was the game: surviving the wilderness and returning back with treasure was the ultimate goal. By contrast, in 5e exploration is largely discounted--light no longer matters due to cantrips, no more random encounters, time is not strictly tracked, and so on. Most importantly, in 5e you can completely heal after one long rest which is in large contrast to B/X, where you only gain 1d3 hp for a full day of complete rest. This makes travel less of a challenge, since you'll always be completely prepared. In effect, this puts the ranger in a double bind as filling in for a part of the game that proponents of 5e are no longer interested in and that is not well-supported by the system.
I agree, ranger might never fit in 5e, because travel and exploration is so watered-down.
There is a lot of people talking about how warlocks NEED to work with DMs, I would say Rangers are the same. You need DM help to tie in rangers.
Something I forgot to mention is the Rodney Thomson 'spell less ranger' UA that helped give everyone the idea of healing boosts through poultices, and how that helped elevate the idea for on demand healing that was popular.
The only fix I’ve ever done for the ranger is to make the animal companion go on the ranger’s turn, no action required, just like the wizard’s familiar. That one change makes the beast master fun and attractive and makes the combat aspects of a Ranger better choices for gamers.
I've been saying for years that the Ranger isn't underpowered so much as it is a setting-specific class that often gets misplaced. For the same reasons I wouldn't play a Barbarian in a political intrigue campaign, there are plenty of typical campaign settings that a Ranger just isn't gonna gel with through no fault of its own. I think it just comes down to having a good Session Zero, players knowing what to expect, and the DM working with what the players bring.
It seems to me that a big part of the issue is the disconnect that has developed between dnd Rangers and Rangers in pop culture. Can you build Aragorn, Jon Snow, or Robin Hood with this class? Yeah, kinds, but you'd get closer with a different build. If a class isn't a vehicle to meet new player expectation then it'll always have an identity problem.
This is always my feeling too. The D&D Ranger is such a goofy combination of factors, like the Monk, and it feels like a special class carved out of other people's abilities. I wish it didn't exist, or existed in such a way that it didn't cause such problematic divisions between barbarians, rogues, rangers, and fighters in terms of skills, weapons, and the like.
Damn! Had to check twice did I just see my art on your video. :D Awesome that you actually gave people credit!
Barbarian was by me (Toni Puumalainen)
I have been looking your videos for a long time so it was a bit surreal.
Excellent! I love your modern take on Frazette's style - the color, the poses, the sexiness and power. Killer stuff!
I don't know the best 20th level ability but I don't feel like seeing invisible creatures and no suprise is a good enough 20th level ability. As it stands the likelihood of me committing the last 2 levels from the interesting 18th level ability and not taking 2 level dip into fighter is null.
Maybe they should get something along the lines of "Your ability to perceive the world is incredible as a result you gain Truesight out to a range of 30ft and as a bonus action you can spend a 5th level spell slot to increase the range to 120 ft for 1 minute. In addition you cannot be surprised."
Now that is a good feature it is essentially what you proposed but cooler and not just the Rogues 14th level ability but 30ft instead of 10 ft.
Not just invisible, but all creatures attempting to hide. But I think you're making my point about the 'fixing' never being done! 😜
@@ZipperonDisney in fairness, it’s not gonna be done until an official update. That’s not exactly a useful point to make, because the power to actually FIX the official ranger rests in the hands of WoTC, not any homebrewers.
Great video! Lots of thought-provoking stuff on the topic of class design, both in how it's been approached over the years and how you personally tackled the Ranger's features.
Totally unrelated to the actual meat of the video but if you don't mind me asking: where could I find the Chrono Trigger remixes that were bgm to the stream clips you included (around 12:20)?
Personally, I am pretty satisfied with the variant Ranger features in Tasha's. It allows a player to replace abilities that are campaign-specific for better spellcasting and a splash of Rouge.
Honestly, if there is one thing I personally want added in the Ranger, it's Heavy Armor proficiency. I know It doesn't support the original ADND Flavor (which had it anyways), but it allows for a wider range of builds and I believe that's a good thing. They can use Greatswords and Polearms, so why not make a Ranger using those weapons more viable?
Really like the flavor of the consensus Ranger. No fighting style, though? Maybe I missed it. Either way, thanks for the video.
There are 4 fighting styles. I think GW fighting got swapped with Mariner for climb+swim speed
@@ZipperonDisney thanks for the reply!
Web DMs Weird Wasteland Kickstarter has some additional rules for wilderness games as well as new class features and spells to replace ones that trivialises wilderness travel, it would be interesting when these rules are done how they effect the ranger class,
I think if it would get its subclass sooner, it might help.
Because if the way rangers work, it's such a broad category with strong pieces within.
Yeah, a big problem is 1st level feature, which defines the class (rage, spell casting, etc) is really weak in the PH ranger
I mechanic that is under used that all rangers have is the animal companion. Most people just want to use the companion as another damage dealer or meat shield and it is really un satisfying. However if you start using your companion as another set of hands like a wizatds familiar you can toss things to your companion to deliver things to places you may not be able to get to. Potions to party members, calories in a narrow corridor, alchemists fire on a group of enemies, etc. Let's stop sending our companions into danger and use them to create danger for our foes.
Beast as buddy is best :)
This reminds me of a Dota 2 tactic called the laser panda... Basically you give one of the characters animal companions a wand that can blast a character for a bunch of damage and use it to gank your opponents.
... calories?
The variety of the ranger subclasses makes it feel more like a background not a class, the Initial Class feels like a combination between Fighter/Rogue/Druid, Ranger should've been a background not a Class. The Outlander Background fits this enough to be a suitable option.
Everyone has their own idea of what a ranger should be. I think it's fine as it is. Specifically for the matter of mechanics, it's one of those like eldritch knight and sorcerer that if you REALLY optimise it's bonkers and if you take it casually it's gonna be terrible. To all the people saying rangers suck gloomstalker says hi hold my beer and to all people who want a spelless ranger rogue scout is exactly that.
I had a hard time hearing you over the music while you were going over the consensus ranger.
I think people, at least for me, that the issue isn't that Rangers cast spells, but that they cast so many spells of other classes, especially druid.
But I agree, actually playing ranger, I feel like they become boring, mechanically they aren't distinct. Also I don't think the Ranger's contributions to the group are on par with other classes; many contributions are completely dependent DM choices - IE favored terrain and enemy. One thing that I have used before is after a week of being in a area or after besting a same type of monster 3 times, landing NAT 20 counts as 2 counts, the ranger can change favored enemy or Terrain after beating DC.
Where’s your tinder pouch? Is it dry?
Nowadays, a lower percentage of the population goes camping. Fewer and fewer go camping and hiking on a regular basis. It’s harder to find a DM and a player who understand the outdoors well enough to make the Ranger interesting. Instead of treating overland travel as a challenge that also builds the world, many DMs handwave it and make overland travel a much shorter, easier process. Or they make it a boring slog through basic terrain. That’s cheapened the Ranger’s place in a lot of games.
But it didn’t stop some of us. I’m playing a city ranger soon, who lives in Waterdeep and treats it as his wilderness. The DM is solid, and I won’t be teleporting the party to anywhere we need to go. I’m not a tour guide or a shortcut generator, and I haven’t been to every block of the city, I’m just immersed in it. That means I have a better map, I’m free to use more meta knowledge of Waterdeep than other players, and I literally know the names of the major landmarks and streets and districts by heart. That includes some of the histories behind it all.
Meanwhile, in my homebrew game, the Ranger shares overland travel responsibilities with an elf Barbarian. They don’t have to tell me they’re gathering food and tinder, they just have it when it’s available. And they STILL don’t live in comfort on the open plains or in the deep woods, because it takes a LOT of work to scavenge enough for everyone in the party, and the party keeps track of resources. But the party as a whole requires comfort sometimes, because this lifestyle is hard, and the steppes are far more unforgiving than the Ranger or Barbarian expected. Rain and river crossings can still make campfires impossible or extremely difficult to make. Until they joined a larger camp for downtime, the party was slowly starving because goodberry and lichen and small animals weren’t enough to sustain them all forever. So if they travel too far, they need to hunt something bigger once in awhile. They need to figure out how to transport their sled across rivers. And they’re about to enter a vast Shadow Wood, where nothing grows and no light shines, which is Hard Mode requiring preparation.
The last campaign I ran took place in the far north, at the frozen corner of the Walls of the World. Everyone was expected to have at least some of a Ranger’s skills, and as a DM I had to make the wilderness the primary antagonist. Nobody played a Ranger, but everyone shared Ranger responsibilities. Plus they were being stalked by bugbears, shadows, owlbears, and worse. Encounters included: avalanches, cliffs, different varieties of snow, breaking ice, and the danger of burning down entire dried-out forests if a campfire got out of hand. Exhaustion was always a threat. But together we walked that line, and found the fantasy in the woods, so the players loved Shadows of the Wall.
It’s fantasy. We shouldn’t skip over the importance of setting, nor turn Rangers into a Free Easy Travel button. Yeah, a Ranger typically can’t get lost, but journeying 100 miles in uncharted territory is still a test of their skills. If we knuckle down and bring out the fantastic elements, and use the real world’s wildernesses for inspiration, even cities and open plains can be a fascinating realm to explore. And all the while, players are still unraveling mysteries, participating in spectacular events, pausing to roleplay, and doing battle with more than just random monsters. Every encounter, however random, becomes a brushstroke that paints the world around them.
The best thing the Ranger has done in my current campaign? He stayed behind to clean up a lake inhabited by a water spirit. He got to witness his enemies return to bury their dead, and he got a strong healing potion from the water spirit. Later, in another area, he investigated missing druids and found evidence of a Missing 411 scenario.
I love Rangers, even when they aren’t a ranger.
To me, the reason for the lack of mechanical identity of a ranger seems obvious - it's not because it's missing something, it's because it has too much, which dilutes the identity. For example, the defense, dueling, and two-weapon fighting styles you choose at lv2 means you can be pretty much whatever type of fighter you want to be (and that's exactly what would actually define a "Fighter" not a "Ranger"). Clearly the right "fix" is to remove some of the cruft and instead focuse deeper into other traits. For a good example of that we have to look no further than the Hunter class in World of Warcraft: it focuses on two mechanical aspects: high-distance ranged attacks and strong animal companions. Just because someone once wrote a story where a ranger was dual-wielding weapons, doesn't need to trap us into forever supporting that kind of fantasy for the ranger class. I'd say throw away the old that doesn't make sense and refocus on things that really differentiate this class from others.
Dayoum
That is good stuff !
Where can we get those pdf ?
Galder's is on DriveThruRPG, linked above. The Consensus Ranger is floating around the internet somewhere, but I directly linked it on my $1 patreon 😜
People don't like rangers not because of some sticky trick where they don't know what the ranger should do, people don't like rangers because WIZARDS OF THE COAST don't know what rangers should do. Rangers are in essentially every fantasy ttrpg and mmo there is out there, people KNOW what a ranger is supposed to be. WotC, on the other hand, is a couple things: 1) Terrified of minions, so no quality animal companion mechanics or rules. 2) Undecided. There are abilities even in the core classes that are bizarrely placed, such as Barbarian getting a danger-sense ability that SHOULD belong to the "vigilant ranger", and not the tank that's designed to take damage. Not to mention slapping the same subclass tropes on every single class there is, causing classes to become homogenized rather than further diversified. Finally, 3) Lazy. Whether it's making having players summon creatures from the monster manual, or leaving the mechanics involving overland travel and world explanation woefully underdeveloped, 5e was spat out in record time to try to recoup losses from 4e, leaving ranger with bandaid abilities for problems that they never really got around to designing in the first place.
It's a little embarrassing to suggest that players don't know enough about how rangers work, when they're in so many other games, and they work in all those other games. Heck they even work in older versions of DND, so what happened in 5e that leaves both veterans and newcomers alike disappointed in what rangers bring to the table?
I'm loving the Galder's variant a lot. I'll be begging to use it in the games I play from now on, haha.
I have some questions:
Would you consider giving Forest boundless terrain the ability to forage better like the PHB ranger does?
Is there any reason to why Protector's Awareness doesn't include beasts anywhere?
It's just that poison is a super common damage type, so forests didn't get a second minor buff. Like how deserts didn't get you resist the effects of extreme heat. But in both cases, adding a minor ribbon won't *really* affect balance and play experience as much as *perceptions* of balance.
The beast question is a great one! It's for flavor; the ranger is sensing supernatural corruption and extraordinary threats that might wreck balance of nature and despoil their bailiwick. Beasts are part of the natural order.
@@ZipperonDisney Actually, creatures with fire resistance automatically succeed at saving throws to resist exhaustion due to extreme heat, so if you choose the desert environment, the fire resistance automatically makes you immune to the effects of extreme heat. At least according to page 110 of the DMG. Just FYI.
Personally I think the Ranger is fine in D&D 5E. The Beast Master is a different story. Interesting Discussion.
I just wanna say that I love the variant bard it's everything I wanted out of a bard
My modded ranger: By the book, except +2 damage vs favored enemies
Break the rogue class up into thief and assassin class. Give the ranger all the rogue abilities with some Druid magic. Fixed.
I don't think "because they are" is a good argument. Casters used to start with like 1 spell and be worthless and die a million times before you get one that makes it. We used to have classes like acrobat and cavalier, but we don't have them as base classes anymore because the game changed. Ranger could change too. Halfcasters are easy to add to a class, but impossible to remove. Every martial class but barbarian has a casting option right now, so its clearly working. It makes sense that some rangers would go into magic, but the core fantasy to me should be the beastmaster class. It definitely is the most classic trope beyond archery, and since archery alone would just be limiting that shouldn't be the core function. The animal companion makes the ranger the one class that is a pet class by default giving it a very unique position that no matter what your ranger has some animal to assist them.
Spellcasting itself I feel has become a crutch that stops people from having cool non-spell powers. Monk is an example where a lot of their abilities thankfully aren't spells, but if you look at 4 elements they're just a caster without spellslots. I like the fantasy of having magic that isn't spells, its more inherent built into the character as something they just do where as spells feel like they're something tacked on, learned, or otherwise external.
As for the point about using ranger as a shield, I'd say no. I dislike ranger as it is because it doesn't feel like something special when it's my favorite archetype in fantasy. The ranger here is a very narrow class that overly specializes where as the fantasy of a ranger to me is the adaptable defender of nature or hunter of beasts who draws from nature not just in a magical way but by knowing how to use his environment to his advantage and what resources he can make use of. Personally I think all the martial classes lack some content in terms of having unique actions, and I've long advocated to remove fighter and give literally everything base fighter has to all martial classes. Most of all maneuvers being a standard set of actions all martial characters just know because I'm sick and tired of "I just hit him 3 times", it should be "I trip one, push the other, and then go for a brutal hit on the third". Casters get to literally rain fire and summon creatures from other planes the least the martials could do is have different ways to hit.
I think both classes you presented here are fantastic versions. I would literally just add fighter content as I feel that should be a thing for all martial as mentioned about, but even beyond that it seems like a far more fun class to play.
Personally, having the Ranger being the scapegoat for more complex homebrews doesn’t help much considering that homebrewing is general is almost always percieved in 5e as "Hur durrrrr let's breaks da game guyyyyzzzz" despite mountains of innovative homebrews
It's more than a band aid fix to a thing that Wizards inflicted on themselves , with DMsGuild stealing away creators property rights and to my knowledge Wizards being surprisingly quiet about trying to step up and defend homebrewers from scrutiny so....
I thought we were supposed to be getting a reworked ranger around the time of baldur's gate 3 release?
I think some of those ended up in Tasha's while others were specific to the needs of the video game
Disagree with your thesis here. The PHB ranger is woefully underdeveloped, and BM is a bad subclass on top of a bad class chassis. Later subclasses like the Gloomstalker are deliberately overloaded to compensate for the class’s failings, which is why it’s such a disgusting multiclass option. Additionally, “the fixing doesn’t end” is a silly point to make as long as the fixing remains in the hands of the players, not WOTC; there are many different Ranger fantasies, so there will always be different takes on it, but that’s no different than any other class. The difference instead is the other classes have a version of themselves that is at least “good enough” - when you’ve got this, it’s easier to push aside the “I wish Barbarians had this instead” because you can say “that’s what a D&D barbarian is, and it’s good enough to fulfil its mission”.
Main problems I see with base ranger:
-Hyperspecialisation. Pick a favoured terrain/enemy, and they don’t come up? Great, you have literally nothing here. By contrast, a Druid from the Circle of the Land (Arctic) can still cast their extra spells without being in an arctic environment.
-Focused on earlier editions. As much as people claim there are three pillars of D&D, in practise in 5e it shakes out to “Combat, social and the other one”. Rangers’ specialisations fit into exploration, but that isn’t a style of game supported by 5e due to vague and nebulous rules provided by WoTC (when they actually even exist).
-Removal, not enhancement. So, you’ve got a mountain-based ranger, and you’re playing a survival exploration game. Great! Except… not. Your features don’t add anything to your gameplay - they just mean you don’t have to worry about getting lost or finding food. So your reward for being in the perfect setup is… a skip cutscene button?
- Underwhelming features.
Primeval Awareness: “I spend a spell slot. Is there a dragon?” “Sure, there’s at least one dragon somewhere” “How many? Where?” “Idk lol”
Land’s Stride: “Sweet, level 8! I can walk through difficult terrain and outwit plants!” “Great! Since level 2, Barbarian has had total advantage on all Dex saves if he isn’t blinded or literally dribbling on the floor at the time, and loads of us can either use or be targeted with Fly”
Hide in Plain Sight: “Sweet, level 10! I can spend a whole minute slapping myself with mud so I’m stealthier if I do absolutely nothing! Cleric, what can you do?” “Well, I got my god’s phone number. Also Wizard has been able to go actually invisible (and still do stuff) since level 3”.
Vanish: “Sweet, level 14! Really getting powerful now! I can even hide as a bonus action!” “Dude, you know Rogue has been able to do that since level 2…”
Feral Senses: “18th level! No disadvantage on blindfighting and I can see invisible creatures!” “Hey, that’s legitimately great for our campaign. That’s why I took See Invisibility as a 2nd level spell and Fighter grabbed the Blind Fighting style at level 1.”
Foe Slayer: “Yay. 20th level. Now if we ever see an aberration (DM, I swear to god, please let me change my favoured enemies) I can add up to (but probably less than) five to my attack roll OR damage to it once per turn :)” “Great! Fighter can hit something four times every turn without having to go nova, Cleric has his god on speed dial, Barbarian is stronger than a goddamn Giant, Druid’s become an unstoppable master of shapeshifting and casting, Paladin can turn into a demigod, Monk and Bard are literally always ready to throw down, Warlock can go see his sugar mommy for a full “recharge”, Sorcerer learned how to nap properly, Wizard got some free Fireball, and Rogue multiclassed”
-Spellcasting: I’ve legitimately never seen anyone claim a ranger shouldn’t cast spells, so I can’t comment on that one. What I have seen is people say “Hunter’s Mark is great, but it’s my signature spell and nearly mandatory for me to feel like I’m doing anything, and all of my other good or interesting spells seem to require concentration too.” Add to that the delayed spell progression from being a half-caster, and no equivalent alternative function using those spell slots like Paladin’s smite, and you get a package that could be useful to augment your ranger’s play-style that is largely overshadowed by one option. For this reason, many of the HB rangers have some sort of feature tying Hunter’s Mark to favoured enemy, or otherwise stripping it of concentration requirement in specific circumstances.
Add to all of that the terrible BM subclass and the thematically “so okay it’s average” Hunter, and it’s not a surprise PHB rangers felt shite.
You can't claim to want to make the ur-ranger for the people and then claim that you have to follow tradition. Thise are opposed goals when many in the community itself want spell-less ranger.
Maybe it’s an unpopular opinion, but I feel that “the player character” is a concept that requires both the DM and the player to make an effort when it comes to playing D&D.
I personally think any class can be fun and worthwhile to play as long as the DM is making it fun for the players. I know the DM has a lot going on already and I’m not trying to add to the list, but when a player goes into a game and want to be a Ranger, but the DM has an already decided opinion on how the class and its features aren’t worthwhile, it sets a bad tone for the rest of the campaign for that player and in most cases the DM may not even put any effort into making the Ranger come alive by providing the monsters and exploration that the class demands.
I actually do think the Bard is bad, haha.
The real problem with the ranger is that it shouldn't be in the game. At most it should be a subclass.
ranger was always been good Big Homebrew has been pushing their false narrative for too long.
What else is r/unearthedarcana keeping from us??
You know what I think "ruined" the Ranger?
The Rogue.
Think about it, the rogues combat abilities are pretty much everything that the Ranger should be good at: quick skirmishes, good at stealth, powerful strikes against a target when they aren't expecting it, good at dodging, etc.
Lockpicking, climbing, and stealth are things every class should be doing anyways. The problem is... you can't really get rid of the rogue.
Honestly, I think the Ranger shouldn't be it's own class. It should be broken up into subclasses within the Fighter, Rogue, and Druid. It's sad to see it go, but it might be for the best.
Edit: actually, just realised with the recent UA of subclasses that work for multiple subclasses, this idea works even better. The Ranger can be a subclass for Fighter, Rogue, Druid.
Those multi-class UAs are a nightmare. If classes gained power symmetrically, they would work better - but as it is, they are totally limited in design space (can’t make use of class-specific features) and awkward power scaling.