Bad spell list due to Hunter's Mark taking concentration, as well as most of their other spells.
Their spell list is amazing. A first level smite does 2d8. A hunter's mark spell does more than that over a couple of turns. Rogues, fighters, and paladins focus on doing their damage spikes on a single target. Rangers focus on doing their damage spikes on multiple targets. Their spells reinforce this focus. So this is an apples to oranges situation. A single attack that does 100 damage to a goblin is a waste of time and resources. Their spells also do more to the battlefield. Fog cloud can save a party from a mage with power word kill or a beholder. Plant growth can shut down a small army. Their AoE spells are great and a fine use of concentration. When calculating damage output, we should always assume the AoE effects are hitting 2 targets. You should look at the math of a paladin doing a smite compared to a ranger with hail of thorns witting two targets. It's very interesting.
I just want to expand on this.
The reason Hunter's Mark was put as a concentration spell rather than as a non-concentration feature is for balancing purposes. For example, Horizon Walkers can add 1d8 to attacks, increasing to 2d8 at 11th level, Hunter can get 1d8 damage to their attacks, Monster Slayer gets 1d6.
Put simply the stacking of these with Hunters Mark, PLUS the benefits of Multiclassing into other classes offering extra weapon damage (like Clerics, 1d8, Paladins 1d8, more) - especially since you can have some races that can also improve damage on hits like Aasimar -- and it should be easy to see why its concentration. To allow all that stacking without concentration on something, means there's even more room for other strike damage spells - like getting Hex from magic initiate warlock feat.
I can fully undertand why it's concentration. The restriction prevents some insane super-DPS builds. We already have the nukathon Sorcadin build. Let's not give them even more damage-on-hit numbers with a dash of Ranger.
--
I generally find the people who most complain about ranger being underpowered are usually those who focus on "combat". D&D is more than combat. Ranger is not designed as a pure combat class. If all you care about is DPS then it's not the class for you.
Having played a ranger and been in a long campaign with a ranger in party. I can tell you, there's nothing underpowered about them. Assuming of course you know how to play them correctly and you're in a campaign where base class features can be used. If you're not wandering through various environments or encountering favoured enemies with a need to track them, then sure it can feel like you're not getting as much out of it. But that is a campaign/DM thing not a class thing.
I think this highlights some of the problems.
1) The balance of a class should not be that dependant on the whims of DMs. As someone who does DM I can't promise any one player to cater to their class above all others. I give info about terrain etc ahead of time though and allow both Revised and BG3 style Rangers.
Other classes also don't have to deal with this. Smite is fundamentally useful, even if it is better against undead. So are Auras. Sneak Attack is also always applicable, as is Expertise.
We're lvl 3 atm, and our Gloom Stalker Mark of Finding Orc is facing a bit of competition both in and out of combat from our Outlander Monk. Outlander also makes Rangers less unique in general. A Paladin with the Outlander background and an appropriate Oath and Deity is likely to be a better Ranger than the Ranger.
2) All classes should have a solid niche both in and out of combat. Rogues, for example, are skill specialists, but they still put out very good damage in combat, both melee and ranged.
Hunter's Mark might have a higher ceiling than Divine Smite, but it is also less reliable and it has its cost frontloaded. Worst case scenario for smite is 1 spell slot for 2 damage. For Hunter's Mark, Ensnaring Strike and Hail of Thorns it is 1 spell slot and a bonus action for nothing.
As Rangers have so many Concentration spells for combat, they really should've had Con as their strong save. It's poor design to force the class to pick a feat just to have a baseline reliability for its fundsmental game plan.
I find it to be a cop out to excuse less reliability in combat with references to non combat situations. D&D ruleset mostly revolves around fighting mechanics and non-combat is much more up to the DM.
There are several simple fixes I believe could work. Make Hunter's Mark an At Will ability at lvl 2 or 3, letting the Ranger spend their spell slots on other things. Or make Ensnaring Stike more like Divine Smite; a free addition to an attack after confirming a hit. Maybe 2d6 base damage + the ensnare and spell slots scale ensnare damage like now. Just something available in the core kit to give the Ranger options where RNG can be mitigated.
Of course, I'd rather go the Pathfinder 2 route of separating spellcasting from the core class to focus on the martial abilities and instead have an archetype that is a Druid variant of Eldritch Knight. Or have a class variant like the old Freebooter Ranger. Or the d8 variant of Ranger in 3.5 that was closer to a Rogue than Fighter.
The outlander background, skill proficiencies, and skill expertise are all things that let other classes do something the does but are all things the ranger can also do. You are saying a paladin with the outlander background is a better ranger than the ranger. False. 1. If the ranger took the outlander background they to can find more food. 2. The ranger’s abilities and spells are unequaled or duplicated by any class or subclass. Scout rogue included.
Most classes can answer the question “What does your character do?” with a few answers. “I sneak attack and use skills.” “I smite and heal.” “I tank and do damage.” The ranger touches on all of these things. If you think the ranger’s abilities are situational, it’s not the class for you. That is what makes the ranger what it is and why it’s great.
We're lvl 3 atm, and our Gloom Stalker Mark of Finding Orc is facing a bit of competition both in and out of combat from our Outlander Monk. Outlander also makes Rangers less unique in general. A Paladin with the Outlander background and an appropriate Oath and Deity is likely to be a better Ranger than the Ranger.
I'm not sure why you think there's too much overlap with Outlander? Outlander only makes it easier to find food, and gives you a good memory for maps; it doesn't prevent you from getting lost, let you ignore difficult terrain, remain alert, move stealthily faster when alone, or get far more information out of tracking. It's also worth remembering that a Ranger can also be an Outlander for potentially enough for 12 creatures in favoured terrain (handy if your party has mounts).
In Tasha's Cauldron you can also swap Favoured Terrain for Deft Explorer, which gives more reliable benefits if that's a concern.
Hunter's Mark might have a higher ceiling than Divine Smite, but it is also less reliable and it has its cost frontloaded. Worst case scenario for smite is 1 spell slot for 2 damage. For Hunter's Mark, Ensnaring Strike and Hail of Thorns it is 1 spell slot and a bonus action for nothing.
While this might be technically true, the chances of missing with all of your attacks and then losing concentration immediately are pretty slim, especially if you're a ranged ranger, or mobile enough to move away after attacking (either way, less likely to be hit at all).
As Rangers have so many Concentration spells for combat, they really should've had Con as their strong save. It's poor design to force the class to pick a feat just to have a baseline reliability for its fundsmental game plan.
I don't think the intended play-style for Ranger is supposed to be trading blows and risking concentration loss every round, but rather avoiding being hit and striking as a skirmisher; some of the concentration spells are also ideally used in a surprise round/ambush rather than once things have fallen apart and enemies are nipping at your heels. Save proficiency is also most useful when you're taking smaller amounts of damage frequently; it's not much extra benefit when you take a lot of damage suddenly.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Most classes can answer the question “What does your character do?” with a few answers. “I sneak attack and use skills.” “I smite and heal.” “I tank and do damage.” The ranger touches on all of these things. If you think the ranger’s abilities are situational, it’s not the class for you. That is what makes the ranger what it is and why it’s great.
Ranger's answer to the question "What does your character do?"
Nah, its not one way. Its literally the defining theme of the entire class. Like, read the opening description of the class, and it literally tells you, right there, that's what the ranger is, that is what the ranger does. Its literally in black and off-white.
I mean, they can't be more clear about it. Its even the two sub headings, bolded and large sized. "Deadly Hunter" and "Independent Adventurer"
No one, not even me, can say that the ranger class is “well written”. Someone said it earlier, but it reads like it was written by “someone different” then wrote all the other classes. To this day I believe that it was written hastily and submitted just in time for publication. The last version of the ranger class in the play test material looks, reads, and plays nothing like the final version in the PHB.
Flavor text aside, mechanically speaking, the ranger can and does fill a much wider scope of party roles than a paladin, fighter, or rogue. And you can build a ranger to do different party roles much more than the other three classes as well.
I think the ranger was written to appeal to a different personality type. Someone who is creative and open but also technical. It generally puts me in a DMing mindset when I play it. It has a lot of bits to pay attention to. I also think they based it on certain expectations that the community quickly shied away from. Dms don't use custom monsters as much as expected. Dm encounter designs and player interactions led to needing more specific wording. Many of the vague background abilities are super powerful but just ignored in game, showing a trend towards disliking the wording. When ranger was written the plans for future books was a lot more vague. Would more monster manuals sell? would adventures? What spell additions would be made to the game? what magic items would be made to the game? how much player/class cooperation would there be? They had to make something that accounted for all these areas because the ranger interacts with these areas more so than any other class.
The game designers indicated people needed to be careful with adding extra reactions, concentration, attunement and size/ Field, other action economy changes space but then they added a ranger subclass that could potentially break all of those. When asked in various mediums the have implied the ranger is mechanically sound but acknowledge the high rate of dissatisfaction but also a large group of satisfied players. This left them in a hard place to even actually address the issue because if the community meta changed it could potentially create more problems.
Well, given how game companies work, and the size of the team, i wouldn't be too surprised if we had a couple different people work on different classes. Actually, I would be more surprised if we had a single person do all twelve classes.
Flavor text aside, mechanically speaking, the ranger can and does fill a much wider scope of party roles than a paladin, fighter, or rogue. And you can build a ranger to do different party roles much more than the other three classes as well.
Ehhh.... I'm going to disagree with you on the simple premesis that you seem to be vastly underestimating the flexibility and abilties of these other classes. While rangers do touch on a lot of different areas, depending on the build, I can easily say the same thing about various builds from other classes as well.
I mean, it just feels weird to say that a Ranger is touching on being "smiting and healing" when I didn't take any healing or smite spells, but I can't have a sneaky, skill focused paladin or fighter.
They had to make something that accounted for all these areas because the ranger interacts with these areas more so than any other class.
Not really? The writers determined that there are three major pillars in d&d. Combat, exploration, and social interaction. They also decided that things like magic items would not be considered part of the default game balance between classes and between PCs / monsters, and their business model would involve primariy producing adventures to sell (which incldues pregenerated monsters) - surveys showed DMs didn't have time for custom monsters and less time for custom plot. The writers also decided they wanted far less book bloat. Thus, only one non-adventure book per year decision. This was decided at the start, and we've mostly kept to it.
In terms of the pillars... Fighters, as the feat-heavy class, can take social and exploration feats easier than anyone else, plus there's battle maneuvers with social and exploration effects. Paladins are known for their charisma, plus come with a boatload of Detect X type spells for exploration. Barbarians have natural survival and trap based skills. Social Rogues are a thing, as well as being sneaky and dealing with traps in dungeons. Monks get a lot of mobility for going around exploring places. And those are just the more martially inclined classes.
The Ranger does get a lot of ability when it comes to wilderness exploration (less so with urban, which is generally where the rogue shines instead), but we can't honestly say that the ranger is unique in all the areas it touches.
------------
One trend I notice between the twelve classes is that they seem to be divided into four groups of three. Fighters, paladins and barbarians are more tanky; rangers, rogues an monks tend to have a lot of support towards mobility and skirmishing; clerics, druids and bards are healers (by virtue of all the healing spells) wizards, warlocks and sorcerers are more blaster / control effects.
We have one tanky half-caster, one skirmisher half-caster. We have a point-based tank (barbarian) and a point based skirmisher (monk), as well as point-based sorcerer and bards with their inspirations. Clerics are half-tanky with their spells and armor that encourages them to hang out in melee range, while warlocks arer kind of half-skirmish-y with their magic archery-like Eldritch Blasting builds.
Its kind of interesting to see the patterns that emerge when we look at the classes. Anways, what this means is that we have a couple different classes we can compare the Ranger to, depending on which aspect we want to compare.
I believe it's a mistake to think in terms of, or make assumptions about, the "community meta". Not only is it incredibly hard, if not impossible, to pin down, but any attempt at labeling likely won't cover enough people to make correct assumptions. The closest we can likely get is the sometimes-published DDB statistics of which characters are made on their servers. But this isn't indicative of which ones are played actually played. Some of us just like to make characters.
I think the ranger was written to appeal to a different personality type. Someone who is creative and open but also technical. It generally puts me in a DMing mindset when I play it. It has a lot of bits to pay attention to. I also think they based it on certain expectations that the community quickly shied away from. Dms don't use custom monsters as much as expected. Dm encounter designs and player interactions led to needing more specific wording. Many of the vague background abilities are super powerful but just ignored in game, showing a trend towards disliking the wording. When ranger was written the plans for future books was a lot more vague. Would more monster manuals sell? would adventures? What spell additions would be made to the game? what magic items would be made to the game? how much player/class cooperation would there be? They had to make something that accounted for all these areas because the ranger interacts with these areas more so than any other class.
The game designers indicated people needed to be careful with adding extra reactions, concentration, attunement and size/ Field, other action economy changes space but then they added a ranger subclass that could potentially break all of those. When asked in various mediums the have implied the ranger is mechanically sound but acknowledge the high rate of dissatisfaction but also a large group of satisfied players. This left them in a hard place to even actually address the issue because if the community meta changed it could potentially create more problems.
I believe it's a mistake to think in terms of, or make assumptions about, the "community meta". Not only is it incredibly hard, if not impossible, to pin down, but any attempt at labeling likely won't cover enough people to make correct assumptions. The closest we can likely get is the sometimes-published DDB statistics of which characters are made on their servers. But this isn't indicative of which ones are played actually played. Some of us just like to make characters.
My point was that it was kind of impossible to predict but in hind sight in can be accounted for as an X Factor. This x factor is an explanation as to why there is dissonance between ranger feeling bad and actually mechanical analysis. But at the same time the trend could move back and forth just like the design on summoned creatures. My understanding is, Original play testing had generic stat blocks for ranger pets and summoned creatures. Then the community asked for the monster stat blocks and it got higher acceptance ratings. Now, its back to the original style and community feedback has changed positively.
People say Ranger is so badly designed when wizards would had a hard time accounting for the x Factor change. Things like the term "Related" has become such a matter of debate. (When in other RPG systems used similar methods with no issue ) To some it seems obviously open ended but others see it as highly restrictive. My personal belief is they intended the ranger core abilities to be comparable to Rogues expertise/ reliable talent by about level 11.
Another Part of this x factor is the surge in popularity. This brought along with it a change in Most common personalities playing the game. and as popularity grew more people who liked different styles of difficulty. Players who are more apposed to PC death. Narrative focused players tend to enjoy ranger and have no issue but people who are more into tactical simulations have a harder time placing value on certain abilities because you can't "white room" the value of knowing the exact number and time since an enemy has passed. Also the popularity growth led to drawing in younger audiences, trolls and streamers. I find it particularly interesting how few popular ranger role models there are in actual play media. I didn't notice bad reputation of rangers until critical role changed beastmaster and ranger abilities. Morgaine from acquisitions inc is a strong female but she is also kind of evil (A put off for some). Minsc and Boo are just silly sometimes he feels more like a barbarian with a purchased pet. Not to mention Rangers are bad is the perfect clickbait title for drawing in viewers.
I believe it's a mistake to think in terms of, or make assumptions about, the "community meta". Not only is it incredibly hard, if not impossible, to pin down, but any attempt at labeling likely won't cover enough people to make correct assumptions. The closest we can likely get is the sometimes-published DDB statistics of which characters are made on their servers. But this isn't indicative of which ones are played actually played. Some of us just like to make characters.
My point was that it was kind of impossible to predict but in hind sight in can be accounted for as an X Factor. This x factor is an explanation as to why there is dissonance between ranger feeling bad and actually mechanical analysis. But at the same time the trend could move back and forth just like the design on summoned creatures. My understanding is, Original play testing had generic stat blocks for ranger pets and summoned creatures. Then the community asked for the monster stat blocks and it got higher acceptance ratings. Now, its back to the original style and community feedback has changed positively.
People say Ranger is so badly designed when wizards would had a hard time accounting for the x Factor change. Things like the term "Related" has become such a matter of debate. (When in other RPG systems used similar methods with no issue ) To some it seems obviously open ended but others see it as highly restrictive. My personal belief is they intended the ranger core abilities to be comparable to Rogues expertise/ reliable talent by about level 11.
Another Part of this x factor is the surge in popularity. This brought along with it a change in Most common personalities playing the game. and as popularity grew more people who liked different styles of difficulty. Players who are more apposed to PC death. Narrative focused players tend to enjoy ranger and have no issue but people who are more into tactical simulations have a harder time placing value on certain abilities because you can't "white room" the value of knowing the exact number and time since an enemy has passed. Also the popularity growth led to drawing in younger audiences, trolls and streamers. I find it particularly interesting how few popular ranger role models there are in actual play media. I didn't notice bad reputation of rangers until critical role changed beastmaster and ranger abilities. Morgaine from acquisitions inc is a strong female but she is also kind of evil (A put off for some). Minsc and Boo are just silly sometimes he feels more like a barbarian with a purchased pet. Not to mention Rangers are bad is the perfect clickbait title for drawing in viewers.
I think we're talking parallel points. Mine is that WotC shouldn't concern themselves with how people elect to play the game. Players and DMs are going to jettison rules they don't like and invent rules they do. So, for example, if your style of gaming doesn't take advantage of the ranger's strengths, then the ranger is going to appear comparatively weak. Its features won't see use and the class will be dominated by so-called "dead levels". And this is under the mistaken belief by some subsect of the player-base who assume, wrongly, that every class is balanced and should be equally good in all situations.
Adventurer's League, for all its strengths, is also a culprit in perpetuating this line of thinking. The "meta" is obsessed with how to milk the most out of your character without regard for the party composition. And the pick-up games which comprise DDAL reinforce this line of thinking. It's made the game easier to play with other people, but it's also brought back a negative element of the community that WotC tried to do away with during 4e. The ranger, comparatively, looks more like a gamble of a class than a sure thing. But if you use the rules that complement its class features and choose wisely, then that gamble yields beaucoup rewards.
What are the "dead levels" for the ranger you are referring to? Do you mean the 3 levels where they get a new level of spellcasting power? The same 3 levels the paladin "gets nothing" too? Like the wizard's 8 "dead levels"?
DDAL meta is a real thing. I love it for opening the doors of D&D to so many people, but it is a toxic gaming environment.
We're lvl 3 atm, and our Gloom Stalker Mark of Finding Orc is facing a bit of competition both in and out of combat from our Outlander Monk. Outlander also makes Rangers less unique in general. A Paladin with the Outlander background and an appropriate Oath and Deity is likely to be a better Ranger than the Ranger.
I'm not sure why you think there's too much overlap with Outlander? Outlander only makes it easier to find food, and gives you a good memory for maps; it doesn't prevent you from getting lost, let you ignore difficult terrain, remain alert, move stealthily faster when alone, or get far more information out of tracking. It's also worth remembering that a Ranger can also be an Outlander for potentially enough for 12 creatures in favoured terrain (handy if your party has mounts).
In Tasha's Cauldron you can also swap Favoured Terrain for Deft Explorer, which gives more reliable benefits if that's a concern.
Hunter's Mark might have a higher ceiling than Divine Smite, but it is also less reliable and it has its cost frontloaded. Worst case scenario for smite is 1 spell slot for 2 damage. For Hunter's Mark, Ensnaring Strike and Hail of Thorns it is 1 spell slot and a bonus action for nothing.
While this might be technically true, the chances of missing with all of your attacks and then losing concentration immediately are pretty slim, especially if you're a ranged ranger, or mobile enough to move away after attacking (either way, less likely to be hit at all).
As Rangers have so many Concentration spells for combat, they really should've had Con as their strong save. It's poor design to force the class to pick a feat just to have a baseline reliability for its fundsmental game plan.
I don't think the intended play-style for Ranger is supposed to be trading blows and risking concentration loss every round, but rather avoiding being hit and striking as a skirmisher; some of the concentration spells are also ideally used in a surprise round/ambush rather than once things have fallen apart and enemies are nipping at your heels. Save proficiency is also most useful when you're taking smaller amounts of damage frequently; it's not much extra benefit when you take a lot of damage suddenly.
I don't know how it is with other groups, but we rarely play in a way where someone can just stand in the back and fight without any risks if they start putting out damage. A lot of enemies come with melee and ranged attacks, after all, or the speed needed to make a counterplay. If you're in a situation against enemies unable to perform better strategies than just trying to beat up the dude in plate and shield, I guess the following doesn't apply. But in that situation, you're probably winning anyway, no matter what damage consistency you have.
It's not that the Ranger's damage is too bad on paper, but there is a much higher degree of inconsistency for Ranger damage because you're more dependent on multiple rolls to make the ability you already spent a spell slot and bonus action on get an average result similar to a smite. You have to land 3 hits to match a lvl 1 smite against non-undead and fiends. 4 against them. That's 2 additional accuracy rolls to deal with compared to smite at minimum. Every miss postpones this and makes it more likely you either lose concentration or the enemy dies, likely dipping your damage as you reapply it because that is a bonus action too. With an average accuracy of 60-75%, that's a lot of places this can go wrong.
Ensnaring Strike, Hail of Thorns etc. also run into similar problems, being abilities with frontloaded costs dependent on following dice rolls.
Why is this important? Because it means just running the numbers won't reflect the efficiency of said abilities compared to one another. With +2 or +3 con, damage below the threshold still require you to roll 8 or 7. That's roughly 1/3 chance to have any stray damage (arrow, sword, spell etc) undo your effect. Against more, weaker enemies, which is supposed to be the rangers element, this can be quite problematic. And single, strong enemies are likely to knock concentration away anyway, if they hit you.
Smite is more than just its numbers; it's reliable. You don't spend any resources until after you're guaranteed to have at least some effect and you're only rolling for damage. It even has a "Favored Enemy" type mechanic built into it, with the bonus damage against undead and fiends.
Is Con saves going to save you from the mega crit? Not likely, but i don't think most hits are going to be that on a moment to moment basis. But it would make it much more consistent to keep concentration against regular hits. Which is precisely why i think a class that uses this many spells with concentration should have it standard.
Even if we changed nothing about the Ranger's potential damage output, I still think giving them an ability that behaves with similar reliability as smite would go a long way to improve game feel for the class. Constantly feeling at the mercy of the dice gets annoying. Giving them a "smite" that is usable with melee or ranged would also help their niche as skirmishers capable of adapting to the situation. And having something to unload unnecessary spell slots into during a hard fight would help too.
In general I also think that, while Rangers can be great at exploration, Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer are simply too DM dependant. The latter got an alright fix in Tasha's. The former i would rather see retired and replaced with some sort of expendable resource apart from spell slots. Paladins have the Healing Pool, Bards their Inspiration, Druids get Wild Shape etc.
As for Outlander, i bring it up because it handles the thing hardest to replicate; almost guarateed food with so roll needed. Maps, natural waypoints (both enhanced by Outlander) and compasses can go a long way to help with navigation. This background greatly lessens the need for a Rangers class talents.
Rangers have been in my top 3 favorite classes in every edition of dnd I've played and I've never been bothered by it not being "the best". But i am bothered by how unreliable and poorly stitched together it can often feel in 5e. Constantly fighting the dice and coordibating with DMs (when I'm not DMing myself that is) just to sometimes be on par with a pala doesn't make for a great game feel.
... I find it particularly interesting how few popular ranger role models there are in actual play media. ... Minsc and Boo are just silly sometimes he feels more like a barbarian with a purchased pet. ...
Most nominal rangers in media don't really evoke the stereotypical D&D ranger class. And that goes both for D&D characters and characters from other sources. Aragorn gets called "ranger" in LotR and he's the inspiration for the class in the first place, but in D&D terms he comes across as more of a paladin - particularly the movie version. Drizzt is supposedly the D&D ranger posterboy, but the focus is more on his fighting prowess than his survival skills, he certainly doesn't act like a half caster and his animal companion is a magical statue - he's a fighter with maybe a single ranger level (in 5E he could easily be a straight fighter with the Far Traveller or Outlander background) and a panther pokemon. When the Wheel of Time series comes out maybe al'Lan Mandragoran and warders in general might actually be a good fit, but even then I suspect the Warder bond will detract too much. Aiel aren't casters, so they won't give the Ranger class popular appeal either.
Rangers are half casters. Yes, it's a warrior class and they have survival skills and an animal companion if you want and all that, but they are also half casters. It's vanishingly rare to see popular characters in any media that really play up that aspect. It's not difficult to create a D&D character that's good a exploration and survival without even a single ranger level and characters from absolutely any class can be skill characters, there are several other warrior classes and a few of the non-warrior classes can be used for combat-centric characters as well. To really popularize the ranger class through well-known ranger role models, I think the magic part is indispensible.
What are the "dead levels" for the ranger you are referring to? Do you mean the 3 levels where they get a new level of spellcasting power? The same 3 levels the paladin "gets nothing" too? Like the wizard's 8 "dead levels"?
DDAL meta is a real thing. I love it for opening the doors of D&D to so many people, but it is a toxic gaming environment.
In this case, a "dead level" is any level where there is functionally no new ability gained. If your campaign doesn't value your Favored Enemies or your Natural Explorer, then those features are "dead" to you. So levels 1, 6, and 10 are considered useless. Arguably, 14 is as well. (The case there being that Vanish comes too late.) Levels 9, 13, and 17 are spared only because new levels of spellcasting are reached.
It's not a sentiment I agree with, but I get the frustration. The upper-levels of ranger do seem lackluster. Why not get their final Favored Enemy at 10, like Natural Explorer? Why is Vanish to late when rogues can do half of it at 2nd-level? Why is their capstone so weak and not flashy? Why doesn't their improvement track match the paladin, the other half-caster?
But, taken as a whole, it's still pretty solid. It's just not for optimizers, I think. And knowing when and how to optimize is a skill that I don't think a lot of those who do care to learn.
It's not that the Ranger's damage is too bad on paper, but there is a much higher degree of inconsistency for Ranger damage because you're more dependent on multiple rolls to make the ability you already spent a spell slot and bonus action on get an average result similar to a smite. You have to land 3 hits to match a lvl 1 smite against non-undead and fiends. 4 against them. That's 2 additional accuracy rolls to deal with compared to smite at minimum. Every miss postpones this and makes it more likely you either lose concentration or the enemy dies, likely dipping your damage as you reapply it because that is a bonus action too. With an average accuracy of 60-75%, that's a lot of places this can go wrong.
I feel like you're focusing a bit much on comparing Divine Smite (a core Paladin feature) to Hunter's Mark only when it's a spell a Ranger doesn't have to take at all.
Even so, Divine Smite only works in melee, so if you want to compare it in as like for like a way as possible then you need to compare against a melee Ranger build. If they're aiming to use Hunter's Mark then they are most likely to be a two weapon fighter (with the corresponding fighting style).
So, okay, there's some bonus action competition here meaning you'll drop the extra attack in the first round, but with two to three attacks per turn the chances of missing entirely are extremely slim, and your average damage from Hunter's Mark will be solid (two hits is an average of 7 extra damage, compared to a Divine Smite's average of 9 against non-undead) and that's before factoring in other damage bonuses (Collosus Slayer etc.). So it can take only a single turn in practice to get reasonable value out of Hunter's Mark, every extra turn you get is gravy; and remember this is a spell that can last for an hour, if you get multiple combats in that time then it's value is potentially huge.
A melee oriented Ranger should also have a decent CON bonus, so unless you take a lot of damage the chances of failing a basic concentration check are already fairly low. For a ranged Ranger, the chances of being hit in the first place are even lower, so getting your 2+ turns out of it should be even easier.
This is all perfectly fine for an optional spell that works on both melee and ranged attacks; it shouldn't be surprising that a melee only ability can be better, or can do more damage up front than a concentration over time effect, but time is the factor on concentration spells and it feels like you're focusing on one extreme only (immediately losing it) when the chances of doing so are not high. If you don't like the risk, don't build around Hunter's Mark.
Ensnaring Strike, Hail of Thorns etc. also run into similar problems, being abilities with frontloaded costs dependent on following dice rolls.
While the chances of losing concentration can (situationally) increase over time, the reverse is also true; you're less likely to lose concentration after only one or two turns, especially since the concentration element only really kicks in at all if you miss with all of your attacks on the first turn.
Ensnaring Strike works on both melee and ranged attacks, and Hail of Thorns is specifically ranged only. With a longbow you could be reliably hitting enemies from 150 feet away; if enemies are right on top of you, you have the option of not using any spell you think might be interrupted if the risk is too great.
And really they're pretty balanced for a half-caster spell; Hail of Thorns does solid damage against clustered enemies (potentially outstripping Divine Smite with only two enemies in its area), while Ensnaring Strike can have huge damage potential when either you or your allies (preferably both) can follow up by making use of the advantage it gives (if a Fighter would have missed, but hit instead because of you, then that's Ranger damage, not Fighter damage 😝)
Even if we changed nothing about the Ranger's potential damage output, I still think giving them an ability that behaves with similar reliability as smite would go a long way to improve game feel for the class. Constantly feeling at the mercy of the dice gets annoying. Giving them a "smite" that is usable with melee or ranged would also help their niche as skirmishers capable of adapting to the situation. And having something to unload unnecessary spell slots into during a hard fight would help too.
In general I also think that, while Rangers can be great at exploration, Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer are simply too DM dependant. The latter got an alright fix in Tasha's. The former i would rather see retired and replaced with some sort of expendable resource apart from spell slots. Paladins have the Healing Pool, Bards their Inspiration, Druids get Wild Shape etc.
Rangers have been in my top 3 favorite classes in every edition of dnd I've played and I've never been bothered by it not being "the best". But i am bothered by how unreliable and poorly stitched together it can often feel in 5e. Constantly fighting the dice and coordibating with DMs (when I'm not DMing myself that is) just to sometimes be on par with a pala doesn't make for a great game feel.
To be clear, I'm not saying I don't think Ranger could be improved; it could be massively streamlined without harming the flavour in any meaningful way. But I don't think making it a ranged Paladin or tweaking proficiencies are good solutions when the key problem is that you could have a DM that won't accommodate a Ranger.
The only real way to "fix" that problem would be with a major new release of the game, where WotC needs to treat a class' combat and non-combat abilities as entirely separate things, and balance them against each other separately on that basis, so every class has roughly the same combat potential (whether damage, control, buffing etc.) and roughly the same out of combat utility (for coercion, breaking and entering, stealth, social stealth, problem solving etc.).
But that's a whole change in design philosophy specifically aimed at removing DM bias from the equation, but it's one D&D 5e could have done with as Rangers aren't the only class that suffers from it; Monks too can lose out if a DM doesn't give them the mobility and enemy variety to skirmish properly for example. But I don't consider those problems with the Monk or Ranger as such, but with how DM's are taught to run a game; the only alternative fix really would be to provide a new DM's guide with a bit more structure to how to run a game so that a DM following this should cater to everybody, but that may be too complex (especially since it would clash with a lot of already released modules).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
It's not that the Ranger's damage is too bad on paper, but there is a much higher degree of inconsistency for Ranger damage because you're more dependent on multiple rolls to make the ability you already spent a spell slot and bonus action on get an average result similar to a smite. You have to land 3 hits to match a lvl 1 smite against non-undead and fiends. 4 against them. That's 2 additional accuracy rolls to deal with compared to smite at minimum. Every miss postpones this and makes it more likely you either lose concentration or the enemy dies, likely dipping your damage as you reapply it because that is a bonus action too. With an average accuracy of 60-75%, that's a lot of places this can go wrong.
I feel like you're focusing a bit much on comparing Divine Smite (a core Paladin feature) to Hunter's Mark only when it's a spell a Ranger doesn't have to take at all.
Even so, Divine Smite only works in melee, so if you want to compare it in as like for like a way as possible then you need to compare against a melee Ranger build. If they're aiming to use Hunter's Mark then they are most likely to be a two weapon fighter (with the corresponding fighting style).
So, okay, there's some bonus action competition here meaning you'll drop the extra attack in the first round, but with two to three attacks per turn the chances of missing entirely are extremely slim, and your average damage from Hunter's Mark will be solid (two hits is an average of 7 extra damage, compared to a Divine Smite's average of 9 against non-undead) and that's before factoring in other damage bonuses (Collosus Slayer etc.). So it can take only a single turn in practice to get reasonable value out of Hunter's Mark, every extra turn you get is gravy; and remember this is a spell that can last for an hour, if you get multiple combats in that time then it's value is potentially huge.
A melee oriented Ranger should also have a decent CON bonus, so unless you take a lot of damage the chances of failing a basic concentration check are already fairly low. For a ranged Ranger, the chances of being hit in the first place are even lower, so getting your 2+ turns out of it should be even easier.
This is all perfectly fine for an optional spell that works on both melee and ranged attacks; it shouldn't be surprising that a melee only ability can be better, or can do more damage up front than a concentration over time effect, but time is the factor on concentration spells and it feels like you're focusing on one extreme only (immediately losing it) when the chances of doing so are not high. If you don't like the risk, don't build around Hunter's Mark.
Ensnaring Strike, Hail of Thorns etc. also run into similar problems, being abilities with frontloaded costs dependent on following dice rolls.
While the chances of losing concentration can (situationally) increase over time, the reverse is also true; you're less likely to lose concentration after only one or two turns, especially since the concentration element only really kicks in at all if you miss with all of your attacks on the first turn.
Ensnaring Strike works on both melee and ranged attacks, and Hail of Thorns is specifically ranged only. With a longbow you could be reliably hitting enemies from 150 feet away; if enemies are right on top of you, you have the option of not using any spell you think might be interrupted if the risk is too great.
And really they're pretty balanced for a half-caster spell; Hail of Thorns does solid damage against clustered enemies (potentially outstripping Divine Smite with only two enemies in its area), while Ensnaring Strike can have huge damage potential when either you or your allies (preferably both) can follow up by making use of the advantage it gives (if a Fighter would have missed, but hit instead because of you, then that's Ranger damage, not Fighter damage 😝)
Even if we changed nothing about the Ranger's potential damage output, I still think giving them an ability that behaves with similar reliability as smite would go a long way to improve game feel for the class. Constantly feeling at the mercy of the dice gets annoying. Giving them a "smite" that is usable with melee or ranged would also help their niche as skirmishers capable of adapting to the situation. And having something to unload unnecessary spell slots into during a hard fight would help too.
In general I also think that, while Rangers can be great at exploration, Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer are simply too DM dependant. The latter got an alright fix in Tasha's. The former i would rather see retired and replaced with some sort of expendable resource apart from spell slots. Paladins have the Healing Pool, Bards their Inspiration, Druids get Wild Shape etc.
Rangers have been in my top 3 favorite classes in every edition of dnd I've played and I've never been bothered by it not being "the best". But i am bothered by how unreliable and poorly stitched together it can often feel in 5e. Constantly fighting the dice and coordibating with DMs (when I'm not DMing myself that is) just to sometimes be on par with a pala doesn't make for a great game feel.
To be clear, I'm not saying I don't think Ranger could be improved; it could be massively streamlined without harming the flavour in any meaningful way. But I don't think making it a ranged Paladin or tweaking proficiencies are good solutions when the key problem is that you could have a DM that won't accommodate a Ranger.
The only real way to "fix" that problem would be with a major new release of the game, where WotC needs to treat a class' combat and non-combat abilities as entirely separate things, and balance them against each other separately on that basis, so every class has roughly the same combat potential (whether damage, control, buffing etc.) and roughly the same out of combat utility (for coercion, breaking and entering, stealth, social stealth, problem solving etc.).
But that's a whole change in design philosophy specifically aimed at removing DM bias from the equation, but it's one D&D 5e could have done with as Rangers aren't the only class that suffers from it; Monks too can lose out if a DM doesn't give them the mobility and enemy variety to skirmish properly for example. But I don't consider those problems with the Monk or Ranger as such, but with how DM's are taught to run a game; the only alternative fix really would be to provide a new DM's guide with a bit more structure to how to run a game so that a DM following this should cater to everybody, but that may be too complex (especially since it would clash with a lot of already released modules).
While HM and similar spells are technically optional, they are also the only ways for the Ranger to improve their damage beyond just regular attacks. Which means you basically need to count at least one of them when comparing to other martials for them to keep up at all.
Btw, I would not rule 7 damage for 1 spell slot, concentration and a bonus action as "solid" when the other half-caster get 9 for only the spell slot. Being at range only helps with concentration, when it is an option.
Also, Divine Favor let's the pala do alright ranged damage. So does Bless, while also boosting allies.
Ranger's reliance on concentration and damage over time, the mostly internally exclusive combat spells due to said concentration and lack of anything other than staying at range (which is often not an option) to deal with said concentration makes them less reliable* than palas. They also lack a general purpose spammable to use when spell slots don't need to be saved.
*+3 con save is still ~1/3 chance if any damage disrupting concentration.
Seeing as the current Ranger seem to still have the lowest player satisfaction and many (i would say rightly) consider their non-combat ability too DM dependent, giving the class a damage ability without concentration (again, no need to boost effective damage output) with high reliabilty would probably go a long way to help with the former. Tasha's mostly fixed the latter with Expertise and the other stuff in Deft Explorer or what it was called.
And, hey, Swords Bards and Bladelocks all have variations on smite already. It's clearly a mechanic that has been implemented with success already.
What i would add for a quick fix without needibg to rewrite most of the class is something like this:
Optional feature: Nature Strike (lvl 2)
When you hit an enemy with a weapon attack, you can spend a spellslot to deal 2d6 damage and ensnare the target (str save against spell DC). Ensnared targets are restrained and take 1d6 damage at the beginning of their turn. Creatures can use their action to try to break free on their turn or cut the vines with a slashing weapon.
Creatures that are Large or larger have advantage on the saving throw.
Higher levels: Using higher level spell slots increases the ensnare damage by 1d6 per spell level. (Not initial damage)
Or this:
Optional Feature: Unrelenting Hunter (lvl 2)
The Ranger adds the the Hunter's Mark spell to their spell list and can cast it without expending spell slots a number of times equal to their wisdom modifier (minimum of 1). Long rest recharge.
Fun Fact: In the D&D Next playtest, the ranger spell hail of thorns did not require concentration and functioned like divine smite in that you activate the spell on a hit.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I think this highlights some of the problems.
1) The balance of a class should not be that dependant on the whims of DMs. As someone who does DM I can't promise any one player to cater to their class above all others. I give info about terrain etc ahead of time though and allow both Revised and BG3 style Rangers.
Other classes also don't have to deal with this. Smite is fundamentally useful, even if it is better against undead. So are Auras. Sneak Attack is also always applicable, as is Expertise.
We're lvl 3 atm, and our Gloom Stalker Mark of Finding Orc is facing a bit of competition both in and out of combat from our Outlander Monk. Outlander also makes Rangers less unique in general. A Paladin with the Outlander background and an appropriate Oath and Deity is likely to be a better Ranger than the Ranger.
2) All classes should have a solid niche both in and out of combat. Rogues, for example, are skill specialists, but they still put out very good damage in combat, both melee and ranged.
Hunter's Mark might have a higher ceiling than Divine Smite, but it is also less reliable and it has its cost frontloaded. Worst case scenario for smite is 1 spell slot for 2 damage. For Hunter's Mark, Ensnaring Strike and Hail of Thorns it is 1 spell slot and a bonus action for nothing.
As Rangers have so many Concentration spells for combat, they really should've had Con as their strong save. It's poor design to force the class to pick a feat just to have a baseline reliability for its fundsmental game plan.
I find it to be a cop out to excuse less reliability in combat with references to non combat situations. D&D ruleset mostly revolves around fighting mechanics and non-combat is much more up to the DM.
There are several simple fixes I believe could work. Make Hunter's Mark an At Will ability at lvl 2 or 3, letting the Ranger spend their spell slots on other things. Or make Ensnaring Stike more like Divine Smite; a free addition to an attack after confirming a hit. Maybe 2d6 base damage + the ensnare and spell slots scale ensnare damage like now. Just something available in the core kit to give the Ranger options where RNG can be mitigated.
Of course, I'd rather go the Pathfinder 2 route of separating spellcasting from the core class to focus on the martial abilities and instead have an archetype that is a Druid variant of Eldritch Knight. Or have a class variant like the old Freebooter Ranger. Or the d8 variant of Ranger in 3.5 that was closer to a Rogue than Fighter.
The outlander background, skill proficiencies, and skill expertise are all things that let other classes do something the does but are all things the ranger can also do. You are saying a paladin with the outlander background is a better ranger than the ranger. False. 1. If the ranger took the outlander background they to can find more food. 2. The ranger’s abilities and spells are unequaled or duplicated by any class or subclass. Scout rogue included.
Most classes can answer the question “What does your character do?” with a few answers. “I sneak attack and use skills.” “I smite and heal.” “I tank and do damage.” The ranger touches on all of these things. If you think the ranger’s abilities are situational, it’s not the class for you. That is what makes the ranger what it is and why it’s great.
I'm not sure why you think there's too much overlap with Outlander? Outlander only makes it easier to find food, and gives you a good memory for maps; it doesn't prevent you from getting lost, let you ignore difficult terrain, remain alert, move stealthily faster when alone, or get far more information out of tracking. It's also worth remembering that a Ranger can also be an Outlander for potentially enough for 12 creatures in favoured terrain (handy if your party has mounts).
In Tasha's Cauldron you can also swap Favoured Terrain for Deft Explorer, which gives more reliable benefits if that's a concern.
While this might be technically true, the chances of missing with all of your attacks and then losing concentration immediately are pretty slim, especially if you're a ranged ranger, or mobile enough to move away after attacking (either way, less likely to be hit at all).
I don't think the intended play-style for Ranger is supposed to be trading blows and risking concentration loss every round, but rather avoiding being hit and striking as a skirmisher; some of the concentration spells are also ideally used in a surprise round/ambush rather than once things have fallen apart and enemies are nipping at your heels. Save proficiency is also most useful when you're taking smaller amounts of damage frequently; it's not much extra benefit when you take a lot of damage suddenly.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Ranger's answer to the question "What does your character do?"
"I hunt monsters and explore the wild."
That's one way to build the ranger.
Nah, its not one way. Its literally the defining theme of the entire class. Like, read the opening description of the class, and it literally tells you, right there, that's what the ranger is, that is what the ranger does. Its literally in black and off-white.
I mean, they can't be more clear about it. Its even the two sub headings, bolded and large sized. "Deadly Hunter" and "Independent Adventurer"
I agree.
No one, not even me, can say that the ranger class is “well written”. Someone said it earlier, but it reads like it was written by “someone different” then wrote all the other classes. To this day I believe that it was written hastily and submitted just in time for publication. The last version of the ranger class in the play test material looks, reads, and plays nothing like the final version in the PHB.
Flavor text aside, mechanically speaking, the ranger can and does fill a much wider scope of party roles than a paladin, fighter, or rogue. And you can build a ranger to do different party roles much more than the other three classes as well.
I think the ranger was written to appeal to a different personality type. Someone who is creative and open but also technical. It generally puts me in a DMing mindset when I play it. It has a lot of bits to pay attention to. I also think they based it on certain expectations that the community quickly shied away from. Dms don't use custom monsters as much as expected. Dm encounter designs and player interactions led to needing more specific wording. Many of the vague background abilities are super powerful but just ignored in game, showing a trend towards disliking the wording. When ranger was written the plans for future books was a lot more vague. Would more monster manuals sell? would adventures? What spell additions would be made to the game? what magic items would be made to the game? how much player/class cooperation would there be? They had to make something that accounted for all these areas because the ranger interacts with these areas more so than any other class.
The game designers indicated people needed to be careful with adding extra reactions, concentration, attunement and size/ Field, other action economy changes space but then they added a ranger subclass that could potentially break all of those. When asked in various mediums the have implied the ranger is mechanically sound but acknowledge the high rate of dissatisfaction but also a large group of satisfied players. This left them in a hard place to even actually address the issue because if the community meta changed it could potentially create more problems.
Well, given how game companies work, and the size of the team, i wouldn't be too surprised if we had a couple different people work on different classes. Actually, I would be more surprised if we had a single person do all twelve classes.
Ehhh.... I'm going to disagree with you on the simple premesis that you seem to be vastly underestimating the flexibility and abilties of these other classes. While rangers do touch on a lot of different areas, depending on the build, I can easily say the same thing about various builds from other classes as well.
I mean, it just feels weird to say that a Ranger is touching on being "smiting and healing" when I didn't take any healing or smite spells, but I can't have a sneaky, skill focused paladin or fighter.
Not really? The writers determined that there are three major pillars in d&d. Combat, exploration, and social interaction. They also decided that things like magic items would not be considered part of the default game balance between classes and between PCs / monsters, and their business model would involve primariy producing adventures to sell (which incldues pregenerated monsters) - surveys showed DMs didn't have time for custom monsters and less time for custom plot. The writers also decided they wanted far less book bloat. Thus, only one non-adventure book per year decision. This was decided at the start, and we've mostly kept to it.
In terms of the pillars... Fighters, as the feat-heavy class, can take social and exploration feats easier than anyone else, plus there's battle maneuvers with social and exploration effects. Paladins are known for their charisma, plus come with a boatload of Detect X type spells for exploration. Barbarians have natural survival and trap based skills. Social Rogues are a thing, as well as being sneaky and dealing with traps in dungeons. Monks get a lot of mobility for going around exploring places. And those are just the more martially inclined classes.
The Ranger does get a lot of ability when it comes to wilderness exploration (less so with urban, which is generally where the rogue shines instead), but we can't honestly say that the ranger is unique in all the areas it touches.
------------
One trend I notice between the twelve classes is that they seem to be divided into four groups of three. Fighters, paladins and barbarians are more tanky; rangers, rogues an monks tend to have a lot of support towards mobility and skirmishing; clerics, druids and bards are healers (by virtue of all the healing spells) wizards, warlocks and sorcerers are more blaster / control effects.
We have one tanky half-caster, one skirmisher half-caster. We have a point-based tank (barbarian) and a point based skirmisher (monk), as well as point-based sorcerer and bards with their inspirations. Clerics are half-tanky with their spells and armor that encourages them to hang out in melee range, while warlocks arer kind of half-skirmish-y with their magic archery-like Eldritch Blasting builds.
Its kind of interesting to see the patterns that emerge when we look at the classes. Anways, what this means is that we have a couple different classes we can compare the Ranger to, depending on which aspect we want to compare.
I believe it's a mistake to think in terms of, or make assumptions about, the "community meta". Not only is it incredibly hard, if not impossible, to pin down, but any attempt at labeling likely won't cover enough people to make correct assumptions. The closest we can likely get is the sometimes-published DDB statistics of which characters are made on their servers. But this isn't indicative of which ones are played actually played. Some of us just like to make characters.
100%
My point was that it was kind of impossible to predict but in hind sight in can be accounted for as an X Factor. This x factor is an explanation as to why there is dissonance between ranger feeling bad and actually mechanical analysis. But at the same time the trend could move back and forth just like the design on summoned creatures. My understanding is, Original play testing had generic stat blocks for ranger pets and summoned creatures. Then the community asked for the monster stat blocks and it got higher acceptance ratings. Now, its back to the original style and community feedback has changed positively.
People say Ranger is so badly designed when wizards would had a hard time accounting for the x Factor change. Things like the term "Related" has become such a matter of debate. (When in other RPG systems used similar methods with no issue ) To some it seems obviously open ended but others see it as highly restrictive. My personal belief is they intended the ranger core abilities to be comparable to Rogues expertise/ reliable talent by about level 11.
Another Part of this x factor is the surge in popularity. This brought along with it a change in Most common personalities playing the game. and as popularity grew more people who liked different styles of difficulty. Players who are more apposed to PC death. Narrative focused players tend to enjoy ranger and have no issue but people who are more into tactical simulations have a harder time placing value on certain abilities because you can't "white room" the value of knowing the exact number and time since an enemy has passed. Also the popularity growth led to drawing in younger audiences, trolls and streamers. I find it particularly interesting how few popular ranger role models there are in actual play media. I didn't notice bad reputation of rangers until critical role changed beastmaster and ranger abilities. Morgaine from acquisitions inc is a strong female but she is also kind of evil (A put off for some). Minsc and Boo are just silly sometimes he feels more like a barbarian with a purchased pet. Not to mention Rangers are bad is the perfect clickbait title for drawing in viewers.
I think we're talking parallel points. Mine is that WotC shouldn't concern themselves with how people elect to play the game. Players and DMs are going to jettison rules they don't like and invent rules they do. So, for example, if your style of gaming doesn't take advantage of the ranger's strengths, then the ranger is going to appear comparatively weak. Its features won't see use and the class will be dominated by so-called "dead levels". And this is under the mistaken belief by some subsect of the player-base who assume, wrongly, that every class is balanced and should be equally good in all situations.
Adventurer's League, for all its strengths, is also a culprit in perpetuating this line of thinking. The "meta" is obsessed with how to milk the most out of your character without regard for the party composition. And the pick-up games which comprise DDAL reinforce this line of thinking. It's made the game easier to play with other people, but it's also brought back a negative element of the community that WotC tried to do away with during 4e. The ranger, comparatively, looks more like a gamble of a class than a sure thing. But if you use the rules that complement its class features and choose wisely, then that gamble yields beaucoup rewards.
What are the "dead levels" for the ranger you are referring to? Do you mean the 3 levels where they get a new level of spellcasting power? The same 3 levels the paladin "gets nothing" too? Like the wizard's 8 "dead levels"?
DDAL meta is a real thing. I love it for opening the doors of D&D to so many people, but it is a toxic gaming environment.
I don't know how it is with other groups, but we rarely play in a way where someone can just stand in the back and fight without any risks if they start putting out damage. A lot of enemies come with melee and ranged attacks, after all, or the speed needed to make a counterplay. If you're in a situation against enemies unable to perform better strategies than just trying to beat up the dude in plate and shield, I guess the following doesn't apply. But in that situation, you're probably winning anyway, no matter what damage consistency you have.
It's not that the Ranger's damage is too bad on paper, but there is a much higher degree of inconsistency for Ranger damage because you're more dependent on multiple rolls to make the ability you already spent a spell slot and bonus action on get an average result similar to a smite. You have to land 3 hits to match a lvl 1 smite against non-undead and fiends. 4 against them. That's 2 additional accuracy rolls to deal with compared to smite at minimum. Every miss postpones this and makes it more likely you either lose concentration or the enemy dies, likely dipping your damage as you reapply it because that is a bonus action too. With an average accuracy of 60-75%, that's a lot of places this can go wrong.
Ensnaring Strike, Hail of Thorns etc. also run into similar problems, being abilities with frontloaded costs dependent on following dice rolls.
Why is this important? Because it means just running the numbers won't reflect the efficiency of said abilities compared to one another. With +2 or +3 con, damage below the threshold still require you to roll 8 or 7. That's roughly 1/3 chance to have any stray damage (arrow, sword, spell etc) undo your effect. Against more, weaker enemies, which is supposed to be the rangers element, this can be quite problematic. And single, strong enemies are likely to knock concentration away anyway, if they hit you.
Smite is more than just its numbers; it's reliable. You don't spend any resources until after you're guaranteed to have at least some effect and you're only rolling for damage. It even has a "Favored Enemy" type mechanic built into it, with the bonus damage against undead and fiends.
Is Con saves going to save you from the mega crit? Not likely, but i don't think most hits are going to be that on a moment to moment basis. But it would make it much more consistent to keep concentration against regular hits. Which is precisely why i think a class that uses this many spells with concentration should have it standard.
Even if we changed nothing about the Ranger's potential damage output, I still think giving them an ability that behaves with similar reliability as smite would go a long way to improve game feel for the class. Constantly feeling at the mercy of the dice gets annoying. Giving them a "smite" that is usable with melee or ranged would also help their niche as skirmishers capable of adapting to the situation. And having something to unload unnecessary spell slots into during a hard fight would help too.
In general I also think that, while Rangers can be great at exploration, Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer are simply too DM dependant. The latter got an alright fix in Tasha's. The former i would rather see retired and replaced with some sort of expendable resource apart from spell slots. Paladins have the Healing Pool, Bards their Inspiration, Druids get Wild Shape etc.
As for Outlander, i bring it up because it handles the thing hardest to replicate; almost guarateed food with so roll needed. Maps, natural waypoints (both enhanced by Outlander) and compasses can go a long way to help with navigation. This background greatly lessens the need for a Rangers class talents.
Rangers have been in my top 3 favorite classes in every edition of dnd I've played and I've never been bothered by it not being "the best". But i am bothered by how unreliable and poorly stitched together it can often feel in 5e. Constantly fighting the dice and coordibating with DMs (when I'm not DMing myself that is) just to sometimes be on par with a pala doesn't make for a great game feel.
Most nominal rangers in media don't really evoke the stereotypical D&D ranger class. And that goes both for D&D characters and characters from other sources. Aragorn gets called "ranger" in LotR and he's the inspiration for the class in the first place, but in D&D terms he comes across as more of a paladin - particularly the movie version. Drizzt is supposedly the D&D ranger posterboy, but the focus is more on his fighting prowess than his survival skills, he certainly doesn't act like a half caster and his animal companion is a magical statue - he's a fighter with maybe a single ranger level (in 5E he could easily be a straight fighter with the Far Traveller or Outlander background) and a panther pokemon. When the Wheel of Time series comes out maybe al'Lan Mandragoran and warders in general might actually be a good fit, but even then I suspect the Warder bond will detract too much. Aiel aren't casters, so they won't give the Ranger class popular appeal either.
Rangers are half casters. Yes, it's a warrior class and they have survival skills and an animal companion if you want and all that, but they are also half casters. It's vanishingly rare to see popular characters in any media that really play up that aspect. It's not difficult to create a D&D character that's good a exploration and survival without even a single ranger level and characters from absolutely any class can be skill characters, there are several other warrior classes and a few of the non-warrior classes can be used for combat-centric characters as well. To really popularize the ranger class through well-known ranger role models, I think the magic part is indispensible.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
In this case, a "dead level" is any level where there is functionally no new ability gained. If your campaign doesn't value your Favored Enemies or your Natural Explorer, then those features are "dead" to you. So levels 1, 6, and 10 are considered useless. Arguably, 14 is as well. (The case there being that Vanish comes too late.) Levels 9, 13, and 17 are spared only because new levels of spellcasting are reached.
It's not a sentiment I agree with, but I get the frustration. The upper-levels of ranger do seem lackluster. Why not get their final Favored Enemy at 10, like Natural Explorer? Why is Vanish to late when rogues can do half of it at 2nd-level? Why is their capstone so weak and not flashy? Why doesn't their improvement track match the paladin, the other half-caster?
But, taken as a whole, it's still pretty solid. It's just not for optimizers, I think. And knowing when and how to optimize is a skill that I don't think a lot of those who do care to learn.
I feel like you're focusing a bit much on comparing Divine Smite (a core Paladin feature) to Hunter's Mark only when it's a spell a Ranger doesn't have to take at all.
Even so, Divine Smite only works in melee, so if you want to compare it in as like for like a way as possible then you need to compare against a melee Ranger build. If they're aiming to use Hunter's Mark then they are most likely to be a two weapon fighter (with the corresponding fighting style).
So, okay, there's some bonus action competition here meaning you'll drop the extra attack in the first round, but with two to three attacks per turn the chances of missing entirely are extremely slim, and your average damage from Hunter's Mark will be solid (two hits is an average of 7 extra damage, compared to a Divine Smite's average of 9 against non-undead) and that's before factoring in other damage bonuses (Collosus Slayer etc.). So it can take only a single turn in practice to get reasonable value out of Hunter's Mark, every extra turn you get is gravy; and remember this is a spell that can last for an hour, if you get multiple combats in that time then it's value is potentially huge.
A melee oriented Ranger should also have a decent CON bonus, so unless you take a lot of damage the chances of failing a basic concentration check are already fairly low. For a ranged Ranger, the chances of being hit in the first place are even lower, so getting your 2+ turns out of it should be even easier.
This is all perfectly fine for an optional spell that works on both melee and ranged attacks; it shouldn't be surprising that a melee only ability can be better, or can do more damage up front than a concentration over time effect, but time is the factor on concentration spells and it feels like you're focusing on one extreme only (immediately losing it) when the chances of doing so are not high. If you don't like the risk, don't build around Hunter's Mark.
While the chances of losing concentration can (situationally) increase over time, the reverse is also true; you're less likely to lose concentration after only one or two turns, especially since the concentration element only really kicks in at all if you miss with all of your attacks on the first turn.
Ensnaring Strike works on both melee and ranged attacks, and Hail of Thorns is specifically ranged only. With a longbow you could be reliably hitting enemies from 150 feet away; if enemies are right on top of you, you have the option of not using any spell you think might be interrupted if the risk is too great.
And really they're pretty balanced for a half-caster spell; Hail of Thorns does solid damage against clustered enemies (potentially outstripping Divine Smite with only two enemies in its area), while Ensnaring Strike can have huge damage potential when either you or your allies (preferably both) can follow up by making use of the advantage it gives (if a Fighter would have missed, but hit instead because of you, then that's Ranger damage, not Fighter damage 😝)
To be clear, I'm not saying I don't think Ranger could be improved; it could be massively streamlined without harming the flavour in any meaningful way. But I don't think making it a ranged Paladin or tweaking proficiencies are good solutions when the key problem is that you could have a DM that won't accommodate a Ranger.
The only real way to "fix" that problem would be with a major new release of the game, where WotC needs to treat a class' combat and non-combat abilities as entirely separate things, and balance them against each other separately on that basis, so every class has roughly the same combat potential (whether damage, control, buffing etc.) and roughly the same out of combat utility (for coercion, breaking and entering, stealth, social stealth, problem solving etc.).
But that's a whole change in design philosophy specifically aimed at removing DM bias from the equation, but it's one D&D 5e could have done with as Rangers aren't the only class that suffers from it; Monks too can lose out if a DM doesn't give them the mobility and enemy variety to skirmish properly for example. But I don't consider those problems with the Monk or Ranger as such, but with how DM's are taught to run a game; the only alternative fix really would be to provide a new DM's guide with a bit more structure to how to run a game so that a DM following this should cater to everybody, but that may be too complex (especially since it would clash with a lot of already released modules).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
While HM and similar spells are technically optional, they are also the only ways for the Ranger to improve their damage beyond just regular attacks. Which means you basically need to count at least one of them when comparing to other martials for them to keep up at all.
Btw, I would not rule 7 damage for 1 spell slot, concentration and a bonus action as "solid" when the other half-caster get 9 for only the spell slot. Being at range only helps with concentration, when it is an option.
Also, Divine Favor let's the pala do alright ranged damage. So does Bless, while also boosting allies.
Ranger's reliance on concentration and damage over time, the mostly internally exclusive combat spells due to said concentration and lack of anything other than staying at range (which is often not an option) to deal with said concentration makes them less reliable* than palas. They also lack a general purpose spammable to use when spell slots don't need to be saved.
*+3 con save is still ~1/3 chance if any damage disrupting concentration.
Seeing as the current Ranger seem to still have the lowest player satisfaction and many (i would say rightly) consider their non-combat ability too DM dependent, giving the class a damage ability without concentration (again, no need to boost effective damage output) with high reliabilty would probably go a long way to help with the former. Tasha's mostly fixed the latter with Expertise and the other stuff in Deft Explorer or what it was called.
And, hey, Swords Bards and Bladelocks all have variations on smite already. It's clearly a mechanic that has been implemented with success already.
What i would add for a quick fix without needibg to rewrite most of the class is something like this:
Optional feature: Nature Strike (lvl 2)
When you hit an enemy with a weapon attack, you can spend a spellslot to deal 2d6 damage and ensnare the target (str save against spell DC). Ensnared targets are restrained and take 1d6 damage at the beginning of their turn. Creatures can use their action to try to break free on their turn or cut the vines with a slashing weapon.
Creatures that are Large or larger have advantage on the saving throw.
Higher levels: Using higher level spell slots increases the ensnare damage by 1d6 per spell level. (Not initial damage)
Or this:
Optional Feature: Unrelenting Hunter (lvl 2)
The Ranger adds the the Hunter's Mark spell to their spell list and can cast it without expending spell slots a number of times equal to their wisdom modifier (minimum of 1). Long rest recharge.
Does not count towards Ranger spells known.
Fun Fact: In the D&D Next playtest, the ranger spell hail of thorns did not require concentration and functioned like divine smite in that you activate the spell on a hit.