I am DMing a game that is starting very soon, and one of my players is playing a ranger. they are standard PHB ranger (mountains & monstroisitys for favored enemy/terrain). the gorup is starting at level 1 so i don't know what subclass they are going to pick. the group consists of a rogue, a druid, a warlock, & a wizard. I was wondering if anyone has any ways to make sure the character does not fall behind (as much) compared to the casters & the rogue (whose, because this is a dungeon crawl, skills are invaluable). I do not want to shower the ranger with magic items, as I want to have treasure divided evenly and fairly, but I'm concerned that the ranger just won't be on par with his team mates. this is also a pretty chill game so I don't think that complicated extra features are the solution.
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"Come with me, and you'll be. in a world of pure imagination. Take a look, and you'll see, into your imagination. we'll begin, with a spin. traveling in a world of my creation. what we'll see will defy explanation!" ~Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
their is no light without dark. no calm without storm. no heroes without villains. I, unfortunately am the dark. I am the storm. I. Am. The. Villain (not really considering I'm a forever player and never get the chance to DM)
They'll be just fine. Rangers are not weak or underpowered. Never have been.
Rogues do well in dungeons as cleric do well fighting undead as ranger do well outdoors. However, the suite of ranger spells and subclass abilities will more than make up for whatever they are "lacking". Even more at and beyond level 5.
Your ranger, in this particular group, is the secondary healer, the primary/secondary single target damage dealer, your secondary (primary if the druid is NOT moon) tank, and secondary area of effect damage dealer.
I often find a ranger falling behind is a fallacy .......... unless they are not understanding the ranger features and their usage.
The simplest way to make on the fly adjustments is harvesting mechanics. If a ranger isn't feeling strong enough provide opportunities to favored enemies or terrain skill checks (some may even do both) to harvest consumables. A class/player with access to consumable poisons or healing potions rarely feels bad in dnd (per the rules if a creature is poisonous the ranger can harvest a dose of ITS poison). If you go overboard and the ranger feels too strong finding usable 'materials' can be toned back as consumables go away with use.
another good way is to just make travel matter. even if the adventure isn't in the favored terrain they may need to move through it. During Travel they can remain alert while doing another activity. so if there aren't travel jobs(low risk travel with not much to do) give the range free downtime to craft or forage sale-goods.
even if its a dungeon crawl with no forage, crafting or harvesting........... rangers can do skills well if you are open with what 'related' Means. testing a wooden bridge for sturdiness may be 'related' because its made from A common tree in your area of study. while investigating , A ranger may not know how old the 'wheat' in the room is but the deer meat might look like its been left out for a week. Maybe a ranger will be the best person for Identifying valuables like rare pelts or other desirables.
understanding spells are also key to ranger power. Hunters mark works better on bags Of HP that are fought for multiple rounds. other times Zephyrs strike may provide more overall benefits because it keeps them safe. spell scrolls to experiment with or varried encounters may let the ranger figure out what works and what dosen't.
you can just provide a magic item to balance it out if the ranger falls behind but that becomes obvious and It really feels bad (unless its a periapt of wound closure for a PHB beastmaster Pet)
In this group, I would take the ranger in a fighter direction. Choose two weapon fighting so the bonus action can be used for an attack and would get the damage bonus. Choose hunter sub class and bonus 1d8 damage after creature takes damage once. With bonus attack, first attack could do initial damage, then bonus action attack gets the 1d8 extra. Add hunters mark, and you can do quite a bit per round. Level 5 you get another attack, so now 2 attacks and 1 bonus. I am also a huge fan of the drakewarden ranger. A dragon to command? Who doesn't like that.
Rangers are not necessarily bad in combat. What makes them not as good as other classes is their favoured enemies and natural explorer features. These are situationsal. So overall, don’t worry about it. Each class has their strengths and weaknesses
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DM: “Who’s your patron?”
Warlock: “Ummm”
DM: “Hurry Up”
Warlock: “yOu”
*All other players look at each other with utter fear*
__________________________________________________________________________________ Check out my homebrew: My Homebrew
So, "...not as good as other classes..." is a strong take on this conversation. What are we talking about here? Most classes and subclasses have situational abilities.
Favored Enemy is great for dungeon crawl adventures. Many of the choices have a broad scope of creatures that exist in dungeons, caverns, and the like. That tracking buff is nice. Knowledge checks is huge. Resistances, lore, habit and habitat, etc., all great for existing in the dangerous underground. If you end up with an extra language from your choice, than you just became the face of the party for these creatures. A DM and/or player would have to actively try to NOT make Favored Enemy work with an ongoing game.
Natural Explorer has a lot of people focus only on the "while traveling" part. And while that is very strong when active, the ability has much more that comes with it than only while traveling, which is also something that a DM and/or player would have to actively work at to make NOT come up in a game. Animal handling, arcana, history, insight, investigation, medicine, nature, perception, religion, and survival, are all candidates for getting "expertise" on a check which is related to their favored terrain. That can mean a lot of different things. So with the original post we are talking about mountains. Any of these skills that the ranger is proficient in that is any way whatsoever RELATED to mountains get the double proficiency bonus. That could be about stone and rock, animals and creatures that natural live or exist in or also in mountains, or even the history of mountains and such. As mentioned above, poison harvesting is a big one. A ranger could have both expertise and advantage while harvesting poison with the right setup.
A rogue has guaranteed expertise in two skills/tools. A ranger has possible expertise in as many skills as they can cram in.
At levels 2-8 the ranger spell selection, especially in dungeons environments, and especially in dungeon crawl adventures, are top tier. The spell's feature long durations, great for dungeon crawl style games, area of effects , that are fantastic in tight quarters like 5 and 10 foot wide hallways, small rooms, and other cramped spaces, and stealth and counter stealth effect, which is woefully under used and underestimated at many tables. If you think action surge is strong, try it with everyone in the party from surprising the enemy force. Rangers are also great primary and secondary party healers (the above original post only mentioned the druid as a possible party healer) with goodberry, cure wounds, and lessor restoration.
Just to name a few: Hunter's mark, ensnaring strike, goodberry, cure wounds, fog cloud, hail of thorns, lessor restoration, spike growth, absorb elements, speak with animals, and pass without trace. Yes, the ranger class has to choose wisely with their selection of known spells, but that choice can and should be tailored to the party to make the party stronger as a whole.
All of this on top of being one of the hardest hitting damage dealing martial classes and subclasses in the game.
Rangers are not mathematically as weak as people make them out to be. Rangers are quite solid. Where rangers can fall behind is with trap options. Taking beast master for example, then picking a poor animal companion, or using that animal companion poorly...that can get a ranger into a bad place. Additionally, a lot of ranger features get handwaved behind the scenes anyways. My DM for example doesn't do a whole lot of terrain exploration stuff, so all the wilderness features it gets, just sit unused and sometimes people will ask "well why am I not just playing a fighter?"
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
L1-10 rangers are as good in combat as a fighter that has used their action surge except they are typically 1 AC worse on average. In addition, starting at L2 they get spells. If you are worried that the ranger “won’t keep up” with the others: 1) they will, n fact you may well find the others aren’t keeping up with the ranger. 2) let them use the UA2 ranger rather than the PHB VERSION - 4 expertises, cantrips and spells from L1 ( do check out the lists and some of the spell changes) etc. the UA2 ranger will keep up with just about anything except possibly a tier 4 Wizard.
I agree you don't need to worry. The main issues with the PHB ranger were favored enemy was weak and natural explorer situation (There is one published adventured based entirely in the underdark where natural explorer could be very powerful) but I think the Tasha's changed the base from a bit below average to around average.
Subclass also makes a big difference, the PHB subcasses were on the weaker side. but a gloomstalker is a very powerful character, especially on a dungeon crawl where it is likely to be dark most of the time and enemies are relying on darkvision if they choos Gloomstalker you might be struggle to let the rest of the group keep up with them. Fey Wanderer and Swarmkeeper are also decent options as is the Beastmaster with the changes offered in Tasha's. Hunter and Monster slayer are not as strong but probably better than the weakest rogue classes and on a par with the weakest Warlocks (do you know the subclass of the Warlock?).
One simple thing you can do if you are concerned the player will get frustrated with how circumstantial favored enemy and natural explorer are is to let them switch to the Tasha's options at any level up.
Especially if the players are new I would discuss how the players find the first few sessions and if necessary point them to a subclass that might fit in they what they want.
I think this thread should specify what strong and weak mean. Are we talking about combat? If so, are we only talking about damage output? If so, are we only talking about known damage when toe-to-toe with a big bag of hit points? If so, are we assuming starting right next to them with no warning or terms of engagement? This is important because which questions we are asking may not align with other's answers based on their interpretations of the questions.
Saying that Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy, and Primeval Awareness are weak is utter garbage of an evaluation. It's like saying the spell Tongues is weak in combat. Or how expertise in thieves' tools is weak in combat. Take away everything "weak" about the ranger class and subclasses (in the player's handbook) and you will still have a character dealing outright better and consistent damage than rogues, fighters, paladins, monks, and barbarians, and that is without taking terms of engagement into account. The other "weak" abilities are not designed to be combat abilities. They are exploration pillar mechanics.
So, "...not as good as other classes..." is a strong take on this conversation. What are we talking about here? Most classes and subclasses have situational abilities.
Favored Enemy is great for dungeon crawl adventures. Many of the choices have a broad scope of creatures that exist in dungeons, caverns, and the like. That tracking buff is nice. Knowledge checks is huge. Resistances, lore, habit and habitat, etc., all great for existing in the dangerous underground. If you end up with an extra language from your choice, than you just became the face of the party for these creatures. A DM and/or player would have to actively try to NOT make Favored Enemy work with an ongoing game.
Natural Explorer has a lot of people focus only on the "while traveling" part. And while that is very strong when active, the ability has much more that comes with it than only while traveling, which is also something that a DM and/or player would have to actively work at to make NOT come up in a game. Animal handling, arcana, history, insight, investigation, medicine, nature, perception, religion, and survival, are all candidates for getting "expertise" on a check which is related to their favored terrain. That can mean a lot of different things. So with the original post we are talking about mountains. Any of these skills that the ranger is proficient in that is any way whatsoever RELATED to mountains get the double proficiency bonus. That could be about stone and rock, animals and creatures that natural live or exist in or also in mountains, or even the history of mountains and such. As mentioned above, poison harvesting is a big one. A ranger could have both expertise and advantage while harvesting poison with the right setup.
A rogue has guaranteed expertise in two skills/tools. A ranger has possible expertise in as many skills as they can cram in.
How often do rangers actually use these features?
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DM: “Who’s your patron?”
Warlock: “Ummm”
DM: “Hurry Up”
Warlock: “yOu”
*All other players look at each other with utter fear*
__________________________________________________________________________________ Check out my homebrew: My Homebrew
Are you asking how often do players use these features, do DMs use these features, and/or does the game use these features? If the game is played as designed, frequently. If the player and DM aren't simply playing talk-fight-talk-fight, limited to a 24"x36" battle matt/VTT, style game, then often.
I think this thread should specify what strong and weak mean. Are we talking about combat? If so, are we only talking about damage output? If so, are we only talking about known damage when toe-to-toe with a big bag of hit points? If so, are we assuming starting right next to them with no warning or terms of engagement? This is important because which questions we are asking may not align with other's answers based on their interpretations of the questions.
Saying that Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy, and Primeval Awareness are weak is utter garbage of an evaluation. It's like saying the spell Tongues is weak in combat. Or how expertise in thieves' tools is weak in combat. Take away everything "weak" about the ranger class and subclasses (in the player's handbook) and you will still have a character dealing outright better and consistent damage than rogues, fighters, paladins, monks, and barbarians, and that is without taking terms of engagement into account. The other "weak" abilities are not designed to be combat abilities. They are exploration pillar mechanics.
I was rating power as the amount the character will contribute to completing the campaign though combat, exploration and social interaction.
Favored enemy is weak not because it an out of combat feature but that it will come up infrequently. You mention expertise Expertise lets you add your prficiency bonus (a second time) to two skills of your choice. If a ranger got advantage on all nature and survival checks it would probably be on a par with expertise. At low levels advantage provides a bigger boost than adding proficiency but the ranger can not choose which skills he gets a boost on (and they ar every likely to be weak on intelligence checks). A ranger does not get advantage on all survival checks or even all survival checks to track any creature only those of a particular type. A rogue might typically have a thieves tools check once or twice a session a ranger might have a survival check to track a monstrosity once or twice a campaign.
Natural explorer is situational, if characters are built without any consulation with the DM what terrains will be most common in the campaign (which could be thought as meta gaming) the feature might never come up, if the entire campaign is in a single terrain (Out of the Abyss) it can be a useful feature but a lot of the things it does are not as good as they sounds. If it is a terrain the party are in say 20% of the time it is weak.
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. Might not come up often but could be useful at times
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. Normally it is rare for the DM to makes checks to see if the party gets lost but if the DM does this is useful
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. Never known a party not be alert to danger because they are doing something else
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. The ranger is rarely travelling alone
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. Not as good as Goodberry
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.
I will add that a weak feature doesn't mean a weak class. Any feature doesn't make a class worse than not having it. A ranger is decent as a martial, it isn't as good as say a fighter martially (due to a lack of things like action surge) but they make up for that with spellcasting.
I think this thread should specify what strong and weak mean. Are we talking about combat? If so, are we only talking about damage output? If so, are we only talking about known damage when toe-to-toe with a big bag of hit points? If so, are we assuming starting right next to them with no warning or terms of engagement? This is important because which questions we are asking may not align with other's answers based on their interpretations of the questions.
Saying that Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy, and Primeval Awareness are weak is utter garbage of an evaluation. It's like saying the spell Tongues is weak in combat. Or how expertise in thieves' tools is weak in combat. Take away everything "weak" about the ranger class and subclasses (in the player's handbook) and you will still have a character dealing outright better and consistent damage than rogues, fighters, paladins, monks, and barbarians, and that is without taking terms of engagement into account. The other "weak" abilities are not designed to be combat abilities. They are exploration pillar mechanics.
I was rating power as the amount the character will contribute to completing the campaign though combat, exploration and social interaction.
Favored enemy is weak not because it an out of combat feature but that it will come up infrequently. You mention expertise Expertise lets you add your prficiency bonus (a second time) to two skills of your choice. If a ranger got advantage on all nature and survival checks it would probably be on a par with expertise. At low levels advantage provides a bigger boost than adding proficiency but the ranger can not choose which skills he gets a boost on (and they ar every likely to be weak on intelligence checks). A ranger does not get advantage on all survival checks or even all survival checks to track any creature only those of a particular type. A rogue might typically have a thieves tools check once or twice a session a ranger might have a survival check to track a monstrosity once or twice a campaign.
Natural explorer is situational, if characters are built without any consulation with the DM what terrains will be most common in the campaign (which could be thought as meta gaming) the feature might never come up, if the entire campaign is in a single terrain (Out of the Abyss) it can be a useful feature but a lot of the things it does are not as good as they sounds. If it is a terrain the party are in say 20% of the time it is weak.
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. Might not come up often but could be useful at times
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. Normally it is rare for the DM to makes checks to see if the party gets lost but if the DM does this is useful
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. Never known a party not be alert to danger because they are doing something else
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. The ranger is rarely travelling alone
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. Not as good as Goodberry
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.
I will add that a weak feature doesn't mean a weak class. Any feature doesn't make a class worse than not having it. A ranger is decent as a martial, it isn't as good as say a fighter martially (due to a lack of things like action surge) but they make up for that with spellcasting.
A phb ranger can get it on more skills than just survival and nature. Often arcana or investigation are the real adventure critical checks.
I once built a ranger with possible bonuses for every intelligence or wisdom skill -1 (including tools) . Now this would be op with advantage and expertise on all of them but since it's only "related" ones it becomes a bit more balanced and it didn't outshine others (much)
You also downplay several of the natural explorer elements. That free activity while remaining alert can mean foraging x 2 , training, sometimes even crafting. Travel make a ranger better because it's one of the few indicators of downtime. Free Money(selling foraging) or extra scrolls or potions would be too powerful but good thing they limited it.
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. Might not come up often but could be useful at times
actually it should come up almost all the time - anything short of a “Roman” paved road should be considered difficult terrain in most cases. There are reasons why wagon trains and marching armies seldom covered more than 8 miles in a day.
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. Normally it is rare for the DM to makes checks to see if the party gets lost but if the DM does this is useful
this is on the DMs, not the ranger. If the party isn’t drawing maps as part of their regular activity the DM should be rolling to see if they are getting lost. The more forested or darker the terrain the more frequent the checks should be.
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. Never known a party not be alert to danger because they are doing something else
because they can only do the alert for danger unless they want to get ambushed. Again this is really on the DM not the ranger or the party. The point of this is to allow the ranger to do stuff while traveling other than just watching out for ambushes. Things like foraging are not just food and water but also poisons (or the plants/animals to brew the poisons/potions etc from.
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. The ranger is rarely travelling alone
unless the ranger is scouting ahead of the party
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. Not as good as Goodberry
until you realize goodberry is only nutrition (& 1 point of healing) while foraging allows you to collect materials for making poisons and potions as well as rare and valuable plants and animal (skins, etc) even the writers missed this it should be twice as much material not just food.
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.
another “on the DM” this doesn’t just apply to favored creatures it should be being used any time the ranger examines some tracks . Used that way it becomes much more effective and much more useful. Should also include what the animal is ( at least roughly - a big cat, some type of bear, a really big snake, etc)
I will add that a weak feature doesn't mean a weak class. Any feature doesn't make a class worse than not having it. A ranger is decent as a martial, it isn't as good as say a fighter martially (due to a lack of things like action surge) but they make up for that with spellcasting.
yes action surge is a powerful feature - that is why it’s limited in uses. It’s really an emergency feature - used when you have to kill something THIS ROUND before it does a TPK or kills the fighter, not as a regular means of getting nova damage. If the fighters are using it for nova damage then you need to have the party rest far less often.
simple, rangers tend to be in game highly respected, this can be ,especially combined with a smart backstory, easily exploited to create free passes through guarded passages and strongholds and npc allies, just hint the player about it and maybe a few other tricks, like using favored enemy to think of the habitat and ranks of them.
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I am DMing a game that is starting very soon, and one of my players is playing a ranger. they are standard PHB ranger (mountains & monstroisitys for favored enemy/terrain). the gorup is starting at level 1 so i don't know what subclass they are going to pick. the group consists of a rogue, a druid, a warlock, & a wizard. I was wondering if anyone has any ways to make sure the character does not fall behind (as much) compared to the casters & the rogue (whose, because this is a dungeon crawl, skills are invaluable). I do not want to shower the ranger with magic items, as I want to have treasure divided evenly and fairly, but I'm concerned that the ranger just won't be on par with his team mates. this is also a pretty chill game so I don't think that complicated extra features are the solution.
"Come with me, and you'll be. in a world of pure imagination. Take a look, and you'll see, into your imagination. we'll begin, with a spin. traveling in a world of my creation. what we'll see will defy explanation!" ~Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
their is no light without dark. no calm without storm. no heroes without villains. I, unfortunately am the dark. I am the storm. I. Am. The. Villain (not really considering I'm a forever player and never get the chance to DM)
Extended Signature
They'll be just fine. Rangers are not weak or underpowered. Never have been.
Rogues do well in dungeons as cleric do well fighting undead as ranger do well outdoors. However, the suite of ranger spells and subclass abilities will more than make up for whatever they are "lacking". Even more at and beyond level 5.
Your ranger, in this particular group, is the secondary healer, the primary/secondary single target damage dealer, your secondary (primary if the druid is NOT moon) tank, and secondary area of effect damage dealer.
I often find a ranger falling behind is a fallacy .......... unless they are not understanding the ranger features and their usage.
The simplest way to make on the fly adjustments is harvesting mechanics. If a ranger isn't feeling strong enough provide opportunities to favored enemies or terrain skill checks (some may even do both) to harvest consumables. A class/player with access to consumable poisons or healing potions rarely feels bad in dnd (per the rules if a creature is poisonous the ranger can harvest a dose of ITS poison). If you go overboard and the ranger feels too strong finding usable 'materials' can be toned back as consumables go away with use.
another good way is to just make travel matter. even if the adventure isn't in the favored terrain they may need to move through it. During Travel they can remain alert while doing another activity. so if there aren't travel jobs(low risk travel with not much to do) give the range free downtime to craft or forage sale-goods.
even if its a dungeon crawl with no forage, crafting or harvesting........... rangers can do skills well if you are open with what 'related' Means. testing a wooden bridge for sturdiness may be 'related' because its made from A common tree in your area of study. while investigating , A ranger may not know how old the 'wheat' in the room is but the deer meat might look like its been left out for a week. Maybe a ranger will be the best person for Identifying valuables like rare pelts or other desirables.
understanding spells are also key to ranger power. Hunters mark works better on bags Of HP that are fought for multiple rounds. other times Zephyrs strike may provide more overall benefits because it keeps them safe. spell scrolls to experiment with or varried encounters may let the ranger figure out what works and what dosen't.
you can just provide a magic item to balance it out if the ranger falls behind but that becomes obvious and It really feels bad (unless its a periapt of wound closure for a PHB beastmaster Pet)
i like rangers.
In this group, I would take the ranger in a fighter direction. Choose two weapon fighting so the bonus action can be used for an attack and would get the damage bonus. Choose hunter sub class and bonus 1d8 damage after creature takes damage once. With bonus attack, first attack could do initial damage, then bonus action attack gets the 1d8 extra. Add hunters mark, and you can do quite a bit per round. Level 5 you get another attack, so now 2 attacks and 1 bonus. I am also a huge fan of the drakewarden ranger. A dragon to command? Who doesn't like that.
Rangers are not necessarily bad in combat. What makes them not as good as other classes is their favoured enemies and natural explorer features. These are situationsal. So overall, don’t worry about it. Each class has their strengths and weaknesses
DM: “Who’s your patron?”
Warlock: “Ummm”
DM: “Hurry Up”
Warlock: “yOu”
*All other players look at each other with utter fear*
__________________________________________________________________________________
Check out my homebrew: My Homebrew
So, "...not as good as other classes..." is a strong take on this conversation. What are we talking about here? Most classes and subclasses have situational abilities.
Favored Enemy is great for dungeon crawl adventures. Many of the choices have a broad scope of creatures that exist in dungeons, caverns, and the like. That tracking buff is nice. Knowledge checks is huge. Resistances, lore, habit and habitat, etc., all great for existing in the dangerous underground. If you end up with an extra language from your choice, than you just became the face of the party for these creatures. A DM and/or player would have to actively try to NOT make Favored Enemy work with an ongoing game.
Natural Explorer has a lot of people focus only on the "while traveling" part. And while that is very strong when active, the ability has much more that comes with it than only while traveling, which is also something that a DM and/or player would have to actively work at to make NOT come up in a game. Animal handling, arcana, history, insight, investigation, medicine, nature, perception, religion, and survival, are all candidates for getting "expertise" on a check which is related to their favored terrain. That can mean a lot of different things. So with the original post we are talking about mountains. Any of these skills that the ranger is proficient in that is any way whatsoever RELATED to mountains get the double proficiency bonus. That could be about stone and rock, animals and creatures that natural live or exist in or also in mountains, or even the history of mountains and such. As mentioned above, poison harvesting is a big one. A ranger could have both expertise and advantage while harvesting poison with the right setup.
A rogue has guaranteed expertise in two skills/tools. A ranger has possible expertise in as many skills as they can cram in.
At levels 2-8 the ranger spell selection, especially in dungeons environments, and especially in dungeon crawl adventures, are top tier. The spell's feature long durations, great for dungeon crawl style games, area of effects , that are fantastic in tight quarters like 5 and 10 foot wide hallways, small rooms, and other cramped spaces, and stealth and counter stealth effect, which is woefully under used and underestimated at many tables. If you think action surge is strong, try it with everyone in the party from surprising the enemy force. Rangers are also great primary and secondary party healers (the above original post only mentioned the druid as a possible party healer) with goodberry, cure wounds, and lessor restoration.
Just to name a few: Hunter's mark, ensnaring strike, goodberry, cure wounds, fog cloud, hail of thorns, lessor restoration, spike growth, absorb elements, speak with animals, and pass without trace. Yes, the ranger class has to choose wisely with their selection of known spells, but that choice can and should be tailored to the party to make the party stronger as a whole.
All of this on top of being one of the hardest hitting damage dealing martial classes and subclasses in the game.
Rangers are not mathematically as weak as people make them out to be. Rangers are quite solid. Where rangers can fall behind is with trap options. Taking beast master for example, then picking a poor animal companion, or using that animal companion poorly...that can get a ranger into a bad place. Additionally, a lot of ranger features get handwaved behind the scenes anyways. My DM for example doesn't do a whole lot of terrain exploration stuff, so all the wilderness features it gets, just sit unused and sometimes people will ask "well why am I not just playing a fighter?"
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
L1-10 rangers are as good in combat as a fighter that has used their action surge except they are typically 1 AC worse on average. In addition, starting at L2 they get spells. If you are worried that the ranger “won’t keep up” with the others:
1) they will, n fact you may well find the others aren’t keeping up with the ranger.
2) let them use the UA2 ranger rather than the PHB VERSION - 4 expertises, cantrips and spells from L1 ( do check out the lists and some of the spell changes) etc. the UA2 ranger will keep up with just about anything except possibly a tier 4 Wizard.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I agree you don't need to worry. The main issues with the PHB ranger were favored enemy was weak and natural explorer situation (There is one published adventured based entirely in the underdark where natural explorer could be very powerful) but I think the Tasha's changed the base from a bit below average to around average.
Subclass also makes a big difference, the PHB subcasses were on the weaker side. but a gloomstalker is a very powerful character, especially on a dungeon crawl where it is likely to be dark most of the time and enemies are relying on darkvision if they choos Gloomstalker you might be struggle to let the rest of the group keep up with them. Fey Wanderer and Swarmkeeper are also decent options as is the Beastmaster with the changes offered in Tasha's. Hunter and Monster slayer are not as strong but probably better than the weakest rogue classes and on a par with the weakest Warlocks (do you know the subclass of the Warlock?).
One simple thing you can do if you are concerned the player will get frustrated with how circumstantial favored enemy and natural explorer are is to let them switch to the Tasha's options at any level up.
Especially if the players are new I would discuss how the players find the first few sessions and if necessary point them to a subclass that might fit in they what they want.
I think this thread should specify what strong and weak mean. Are we talking about combat? If so, are we only talking about damage output? If so, are we only talking about known damage when toe-to-toe with a big bag of hit points? If so, are we assuming starting right next to them with no warning or terms of engagement? This is important because which questions we are asking may not align with other's answers based on their interpretations of the questions.
Saying that Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy, and Primeval Awareness are weak is utter garbage of an evaluation. It's like saying the spell Tongues is weak in combat. Or how expertise in thieves' tools is weak in combat. Take away everything "weak" about the ranger class and subclasses (in the player's handbook) and you will still have a character dealing outright better and consistent damage than rogues, fighters, paladins, monks, and barbarians, and that is without taking terms of engagement into account. The other "weak" abilities are not designed to be combat abilities. They are exploration pillar mechanics.
How often do rangers actually use these features?
DM: “Who’s your patron?”
Warlock: “Ummm”
DM: “Hurry Up”
Warlock: “yOu”
*All other players look at each other with utter fear*
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Check out my homebrew: My Homebrew
Are you asking how often do players use these features, do DMs use these features, and/or does the game use these features? If the game is played as designed, frequently. If the player and DM aren't simply playing talk-fight-talk-fight, limited to a 24"x36" battle matt/VTT, style game, then often.
I was rating power as the amount the character will contribute to completing the campaign though combat, exploration and social interaction.
Favored enemy is weak not because it an out of combat feature but that it will come up infrequently. You mention expertise Expertise lets you add your prficiency bonus (a second time) to two skills of your choice. If a ranger got advantage on all nature and survival checks it would probably be on a par with expertise. At low levels advantage provides a bigger boost than adding proficiency but the ranger can not choose which skills he gets a boost on (and they ar every likely to be weak on intelligence checks). A ranger does not get advantage on all survival checks or even all survival checks to track any creature only those of a particular type. A rogue might typically have a thieves tools check once or twice a session a ranger might have a survival check to track a monstrosity once or twice a campaign.
Natural explorer is situational, if characters are built without any consulation with the DM what terrains will be most common in the campaign (which could be thought as meta gaming) the feature might never come up, if the entire campaign is in a single terrain (Out of the Abyss) it can be a useful feature but a lot of the things it does are not as good as they sounds. If it is a terrain the party are in say 20% of the time it is weak.
I will add that a weak feature doesn't mean a weak class. Any feature doesn't make a class worse than not having it. A ranger is decent as a martial, it isn't as good as say a fighter martially (due to a lack of things like action surge) but they make up for that with spellcasting.
A phb ranger can get it on more skills than just survival and nature. Often arcana or investigation are the real adventure critical checks.
I once built a ranger with possible bonuses for every intelligence or wisdom skill -1 (including tools) . Now this would be op with advantage and expertise on all of them but since it's only "related" ones it becomes a bit more balanced and it didn't outshine others (much)
You also downplay several of the natural explorer elements. That free activity while remaining alert can mean foraging x 2 , training, sometimes even crafting. Travel make a ranger better because it's one of the few indicators of downtime. Free Money(selling foraging) or extra scrolls or potions would be too powerful but good thing they limited it.
actually it should come up almost all the time - anything short of a “Roman” paved road should be considered difficult terrain in most cases. There are reasons why wagon trains and marching armies seldom covered more than 8 miles in a day.
this is on the DMs, not the ranger. If the party isn’t drawing maps as part of their regular activity the DM should be rolling to see if they are getting lost. The more forested or darker the terrain the more frequent the checks should be.
because they can only do the alert for danger unless they want to get ambushed. Again this is really on the DM not the ranger or the party. The point of this is to allow the ranger to do stuff while traveling other than just watching out for ambushes. Things like foraging are not just food and water but also poisons (or the plants/animals to brew the poisons/potions etc from.
unless the ranger is scouting ahead of the party
until you realize goodberry is only nutrition (& 1 point of healing) while foraging allows you to collect materials for making poisons and potions as well as rare and valuable plants and animal (skins, etc) even the writers missed this it should be twice as much material not just food.
another “on the DM” this doesn’t just apply to favored creatures it should be being used any time the ranger examines some tracks . Used that way it becomes much more effective and much more useful. Should also include what the animal is ( at least roughly - a big cat, some type of bear, a really big snake, etc)
I will add that a weak feature doesn't mean a weak class. Any feature doesn't make a class worse than not having it. A ranger is decent as a martial, it isn't as good as say a fighter martially (due to a lack of things like action surge) but they make up for that with spellcasting.
yes action surge is a powerful feature - that is why it’s limited in uses. It’s really an emergency feature - used when you have to kill something THIS ROUND before it does a TPK or kills the fighter, not as a regular means of getting nova damage. If the fighters are using it for nova damage then you need to have the party rest far less often.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
simple, rangers tend to be in game highly respected, this can be ,especially combined with a smart backstory, easily exploited to create free passes through guarded passages and strongholds and npc allies, just hint the player about it and maybe a few other tricks, like using favored enemy to think of the habitat and ranks of them.