What do you all think about the 2024 Ranger so far?

Quote from Xalthu >>

Quote from crzyhawk >>

Quote from MyDudeicus >>

not every class fits every campaign, if exploration is not something you do at your table taking the exploration focused class isn't the best option and maybe the fighter is probably the better choice. 

 Building an entire class around a single leg of gameplay that's often hand waved, is poor design.  A class should be viable for nearly any game with some reflavoring.

 But, it doesn’t have to be hand-waved. If your table does, that’s a choice they are making (standard disclaimer that is a perfectly acceptable play style). In my game, we play it out. There are survival rolls to find the place we’re looking for, and to find a safe place to camp. We track rations and encumbrance (and we don’t have anyone around to cast goodberry 🙁) so it’s very, very good to have someone who can reliably find us food. Our last party I was playing a drakewarden ranger. There were numerous times when I was the star of the show because of my ranger abilities.

A lot of the problem comes down to, my group ignores all the problems the ranger is designed to solve, so the ranger feels like it has nothing to do. 

 and you're missing the point:  designing a class for stuff that's commonly not done is bad design.  Write for the audience you have, not the one you want.

Quote from crzyhawk >>

Quote from Xalthu >>

Quote from crzyhawk >>

Quote from MyDudeicus >>

not every class fits every campaign, if exploration is not something you do at your table taking the exploration focused class isn't the best option and maybe the fighter is probably the better choice. 

 Building an entire class around a single leg of gameplay that's often hand waved, is poor design.  A class should be viable for nearly any game with some reflavoring.

 But, it doesn’t have to be hand-waved. If your table does, that’s a choice they are making (standard disclaimer that is a perfectly acceptable play style). In my game, we play it out. There are survival rolls to find the place we’re looking for, and to find a safe place to camp. We track rations and encumbrance (and we don’t have anyone around to cast goodberry 🙁) so it’s very, very good to have someone who can reliably find us food. Our last party I was playing a drakewarden ranger. There were numerous times when I was the star of the show because of my ranger abilities.

A lot of the problem comes down to, my group ignores all the problems the ranger is designed to solve, so the ranger feels like it has nothing to do. 

 and you're missing the point:  designing a class for stuff that's commonly not done is bad design.  Write for the audience you have, not the one you want.

 That makes no sense to me. There are three Expert classes and each one is tailored to a specific pillar of the game. That one is not common in your experience is not a reason to not have a class cater to it; it is there for those who do engage with that pillar. If you don't play with tracking rations or scouting for a safe place to hunker down for the night, then you don't want a ranger to begin with. 

Ok, just to remind folks where my comments are coming from I am a ranger fan, always have been and the majority of my PCs over the years have been rangers or ranger based multiclasses. That said the ‘24 ranger is far from ideal. It’s a decent but limited caster, except it has far too many concentration based spells. It’s a solid martial, except it’s archery ability need some work as pointed out above. It’s got substantial skills and expertise, although it should probably get jack of all trades not bard and 2 expertises early not late. It can tie the scout rogue for nature, stealth and survival/tracking/etc ability - if you put your expertise in those three skills ( the scout rogue gets nature and survival expertise automatically). It’s playable and enjoyable despite its problems. The major downside for me is that the wilderness side of exploration has effectively been cut out of the game. While I would love a revised and improved ranger what is really needed is the creation of some low to medium level purely outdoor exploration modules that would help DMs get a feel for how to design there own such adventures or modify existing adventures to include much more of such activities. The ranger isn’t bad it’s just not great and has no real “home” in the game.

Quote from SaurianDruid >>

Quote from Dravaal28 >>

 

TL;DR: The base game rules care most about combat, so design is focused through combat, and it makes for hamstrung ranger design.

 

This is true, but I'd also say another mark against Exploration is that being good at it is more complicated than being good at its sister pillar, Social.

In a lot of ways, Social is just as bad off as Exploration. Not a lot of rule support, kept vague, very DM dependent. But people loooove making their meme bards or their politicking warlock or sorcerer. Social isn't usually considered a weak point of the game, and in a lot of ways, its freeform nature is to its benefit for storytelling. Where it has a leg up is in its ease of access.

To be good at the Social Pillar, you really just need high CHA and proficiency in Persuasion and maybe Deception. Expertise in either can make you great at the pillar. Social spells or taking Insight can make you even better at it. Warlocks, Sorcerers, Paladins, and especially Bards can all easily max out these skills and get spells to augment their social mastery.

Exploration, though? First, you absolutely need Perception. You need to see the environment to interact with it. Then you need Survival for tracking, mapping, and foraging. Then, you need Stealth for scouting and Sleight of Hand for getting past locked obstacles like doors, chests, and desk drawers. You're also going to want to grab Athletics for dealing with physical obstacles and for Climbing and Jumping checks. And that's just the basics. You'll also want Investigation for solving problems and specialized Knowledge skills to recall information about environmental hazards, creatures, or arcana.

And to compound this, the premier explorers are Rogue and Ranger, who are not full casters and so just aren't as good as a magic user that didn't even specialize in the pillar in the first place. Rangers have some magic, but their limited slots and inability to modify their prepared list make them just worse than Wizards at their own niche. 

 Very excellent points, the barrier to entry for exploration is much higher, which makes it far harder to build a class for it.

And yes, you get to the point where the casters start to be able to in some instances negate the exploration aspects of the game (certainly not all, but a significant enough amount), which is another design flaw in itself.

I'd love to see better rules for social and exploration encounters beyond the current skill check centric design, but I struggle to think how to make it feel interesting and involve the whole party.

Quote from Wi1dBi11 >>

Ok, just to remind folks where my comments are coming from I am a ranger fan, always have been and the majority of my PCs over the years have been rangers or ranger based multiclasses. That said the ‘24 ranger is far from ideal. It’s a decent but limited caster, except it has far too many concentration based spells. It’s a solid martial, except it’s archery ability need some work as pointed out above. It’s got substantial skills and expertise, although it should probably get jack of all trades not bard and 2 expertises early not late. It can tie the scout rogue for nature, stealth and survival/tracking/etc ability - if you put your expertise in those three skills ( the scout rogue gets nature and survival expertise automatically). It’s playable and enjoyable despite its problems. The major downside for me is that the wilderness side of exploration has effectively been cut out of the game. While I would love a revised and improved ranger what is really needed is the creation of some low to medium level purely outdoor exploration modules that would help DMs get a feel for how to design there own such adventures or modify existing adventures to include much more of such activities. The ranger isn’t bad it’s just not great and has no real “home” in the game.

I can honestly say that in actual play I have not had any of these issues. I find myself switching pretty seamlessly between martial and caster, providing good Control or Support with my Concentration spell. "Too many " concentration spells isn't an issue when you usually have one that will address an issue the party is facing at the moment. My Ranger is the ultimate in practical problem solving in the group and I've never found myself faced with a situation which I couldn't contribute. I have so many useful spells for potential problems that I'm having a little bit of decision stress picking a spell to swap out at my Long Rests. On the martial side I provide some consistent damage at various ranges.

If the class is fun in actual play, then I don't see what the problem is except people making up some sort of mythical "ideal" that the class falls short of.

I'm playing in a combat heavy partial hexcrawl and I have been extremely useful in both aspects.

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Rangers can swap one spell per long rest.

Yes,  but why are they limited to just one? No other Divine caster has this limitation. In the UA Rangers were fully prepared casters, and this was great. It meant the Ranger could choose their spell loadout every day to tune their magical strategy to their new environment and circumstances. Incredibly flavorful and mechanically strong without being overpowered because of the limited spell list and the niche, circumstantial nature of most of their spells. Not only is it "like" their spell list was designed to be prepared, we KNOW their spell list was designed to be prepared because like 70% of the Ranger spell list came from the Druid class.

That's ultimately most people's issue with the 2024 Ranger. It's a functional class, but there are a lot of small design decisions like this that seem to do nothing but make the class somewhat worse by creating friction with its own mechanics. Especially compared to other classes. It's kind of silly that Bard, a full caster, gets more Expertise than Ranger does.

Quote from SaurianDruid >>

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Rangers can swap one spell per long rest.

 

Yes,  but why are they limited to just one? No other Divine caster has this limitation. In the UA Rangers were fully prepared casters, and this was great. It meant the Ranger could choose their spell loadout every day to tune their magical strategy to their new environment and circumstances. Incredibly flavorful and mechanically strong without being overpowered because of the limited spell list and the niche, circumstantial nature of most of their spells. Not only is it "like" their spell list was designed to be prepared, we KNOW their spell list was designed to be prepared because like 70% of the Ranger spell list came from the Druid class.

That's ultimately most people's issue with the 2024 Ranger. It's a functional class, but there are a lot of small design decisions like this that seem to do nothing but make the class somewhat worse by creating friction with its own mechanics. Especially compared to other classes. It's kind of silly that Bard, a full caster, gets more Expertise than Ranger does.

 On Paladins changing spells:

Changing Your Prepared Spells. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can replace one spell on your list with another Paladin spell for which you have spell slots.

The ‘24 ranger is playable and enjoyable for the vast majority of folks interested in playing it. Now that we are past the end of the intro shock period of last year what we are really seeing ( I think) is that we are seeing the places where (we think) it could be even stronger and more enjoyable than it currently is. Most of what we seem to be talking about are alterations or improvements not full rewrites.

Quote from SaurianDruid >>

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Rangers can swap one spell per long rest.

Yes,  but why are they limited to just one?

Seemingly to normalize them with the other PHB half caster, Paladin.

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Seemingly to normalize them with the other PHB half caster, Paladin.

So it's an arbitrary change because they wanted Ranger to match the Paladin in this specific way. At least it's a reason, I suppose.

Quote from Wi1dBi11 >>

The ‘24 ranger is playable and enjoyable for the vast majority of folks interested in playing it. Now that we are past the end of the intro shock period of last year what we are really seeing ( I think) is that we are seeing the places where (we think) it could be even stronger and more enjoyable than it currently is. Most of what we seem to be talking about are alterations or improvements not full rewrites.

At least for me specifically, a lot of it is minor stuff that was lost over the editions. No longer being immune to Difficult Terrain, losing various tracking and scouting bonuses, everything now scales off WIS, so it's even harder to play a STRanger.

The class is still playable. It's a bit overblown as to how bad it is. But there are just a lot of minor pain points that bother me that didn't have to be there. One more pass during the UA might've been enough.

Or, at the very least, more Ranger spells, which I don't think anyone would be mad if we got.

It still doesn't make much sense due to the fact that the Paladin is far more powerful than a Ranger. In fact, the Paladin is more powerful than a lot of classes, since it's the default choice to multiclass with other Charisma based classes. Not only that, but its most powerful spell is available at level 1. So, WoTC failed with the Ranger, as it has nothing that compares to justify the limitation. The closest spell to compare to Divine Smite is Ensaring Strike, which is a waste of a spell slot when the creature passes the save. 

So yeah, they put a similar limitation on the Ranger as the Paladin, but it lacks any of the advantages that mandates that limitation.

Quote from Greevar >>

It still doesn't make much sense due to the fact that the Paladin is far more powerful than a Ranger. In fact, the Paladin is more powerful than a lot of classes, since it's the default choice to multiclass with other Charisma based classes. Not only that, but its most powerful spell is available at level 1. So, WoTC failed with the Ranger, as it has nothing that compares to justify the limitation. The closest spell to compare to Divine Smite is Ensaring Strike, which is a waste of a spell slot when the creature passes the save. 

So yeah, they put a similar limitation on the Ranger as the Paladin, but it lacks any of the advantages that mandates that limitation.

Limitation!? You do realize this change is an improvement, right? Rangers never had the ability to swap spells on a Long Rest before. Are you just looking for things to complain about?

I think the issue for the Ranger is two-fold.

1) Building around a 1st Level Concentration spell that doesn't scale until Level 20. If the spell scaled or had various effects like at Level 5 the character has to make a save or be knocked prone, at Level 9 the damage scales, at Level 13 in addition to unbreakable concentration if you hit the foe it has to make a save or be Frightened, then scale the damage again at Level 17 and then have a capstone that makes it worth playing straight Ranger all the way through.

2) There needs to be more Ranger specific spells. Right now there there is one 1st Level Ranger spell that the Ranger has alone: Hail of Thorns. 2nd Level Cordon of Arrows, 3rd level Conjure Barrage, 4th Level none and 5th Level Conjure Volley. Meanwhile Paladin has Divine Favor and all of its smites that are almost all exclusive to the Paladin. If there were more Ranger specific spells that only Rangers got then I think it would make it more worthwhile to play.

Quote from Kithanias >>

I think the issue for the Ranger is two-fold.

1) Building around a 1st Level Concentration spell that doesn't scale until Level 20. If the spell scaled or had various effects like at Level 5 the character has to make a save or be knocked prone, at Level 9 the damage scales, at Level 13 in addition to unbreakable concentration if you hit the foe it has to make a save or be Frightened, then scale the damage again at Level 17 and then have a capstone that makes it worth playing straight Ranger all the way through.

2) There needs to be more Ranger specific spells. Right now there there is 1 Ranger spell that the Ranger has alone: Hail of Thorns. 2nd Level Cordon of Arrows, 3rd level Conjure Barrage, 4th Level none and 5th Level Conjure Volley. Meanwhile Paladin has Divine Favor and all of its smites that are almost all exclusive to the Paladin. If there were more Ranger specific spells that only Rangers got then I think it would make it more worthwhile to play.

I agree, ill add that i think most classes need more class specific spells and they should almost never hand them out in sub classes etc. 

Quote from MyDudeicus >>

Quote from Kithanias >>

I think the issue for the Ranger is two-fold.

1) Building around a 1st Level Concentration spell that doesn't scale until Level 20. If the spell scaled or had various effects like at Level 5 the character has to make a save or be knocked prone, at Level 9 the damage scales, at Level 13 in addition to unbreakable concentration if you hit the foe it has to make a save or be Frightened, then scale the damage again at Level 17 and then have a capstone that makes it worth playing straight Ranger all the way through.

2) There needs to be more Ranger specific spells. Right now there there is 1 Ranger spell that the Ranger has alone: Hail of Thorns. 2nd Level Cordon of Arrows, 3rd level Conjure Barrage, 4th Level none and 5th Level Conjure Volley. Meanwhile Paladin has Divine Favor and all of its smites that are almost all exclusive to the Paladin. If there were more Ranger specific spells that only Rangers got then I think it would make it more worthwhile to play.

 

I agree, ill add that i think most classes need more class specific spells and they should almost never hand them out in sub classes etc. 

 I agree also, but I do like the winter walker having other powers that key off casting hunters mark. It makes the spell more interesting and can help give a subclass a bit more distinctive flavor. I hope they keep that up in the future, and really wish they’d done more with it in the PHB subclasses. 

Ranger isn't built around Hunter's Mark, is a neat feature that has situational uses, but you can also ignore it and still play just fine. 

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Limitation!? You do realize this change is an improvement, right? Rangers never had the ability to swap spells on a Long Rest before. Are you just looking for things to complain about?

 

If we're only looking at 5e, you'd be right. But rangers were prepared casters in 3.5e, and I'm pretty sure they were in the previous editions too. The UA looked to be giving this back to the class, but then turned around and didn't.

That's correct. I just leafed through my old 3.5e Player's Handbook to be sure, and on page 48 it clearly states that a ranger gets to, "choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation". 

I would also note that the spell 'Hunter's Mark' did not exist back then. A ranger got to choose a certain number of Favored Enemies, and whenever you hit such a creature with an attack, you added +2 to the damage roll. And that damage bonus would increase at certain levels as well. And I much prefer that version. Making Hunter's Mark a spell was a mistake, in my completely irrelevant opinion. Rangers didn't do extra damage because of magic. They did that extra damage because they had spent time studying those creatures, tracking them, learning how they move and how they fight. You learned how to hit them where it hurts. That's not magic! That's a skill! 

Buff ranger

Quote from AnzioFaro >>

That's correct. I just leafed through my old 3.5e Player's Handbook to be sure, and on page 48 it clearly states that a ranger gets to, "choose which spells to prepare during his daily meditation". 

I would also note that the spell 'Hunter's Mark' did not exist back then. A ranger got to choose a certain number of Favored Enemies, and whenever you hit such a creature with an attack, you added +2 to the damage roll. And that damage bonus would increase at certain levels as well. And I much prefer that version. Making Hunter's Mark a spell was a mistake, in my completely irrelevant opinion. Rangers didn't do extra damage because of magic. They did that extra damage because they had spent time studying those creatures, tracking them, learning how they move and how they fight. You learned how to hit them where it hurts. That's not magic! That's a skill! 

I had a lot of fun playing a Dwarf Ranger with Goblinoids as a Favored Foe, running around the tunnels of a huge mountain and slaying bugbears with a crossbow like a small, mountain-dwelling Rambo.

I really like the flavor of the old and iconic Favored Enemy rules, even the 5e version. The problem wasn't the abilities themselves; it was that the bonuses you got only applied to those enemies. If they gave generally applicable bonuses based on what you hunt, on top of specific bonuses when you run into the creature, I think it'd be better received. I liked that my Lizardfolk Ranger had a taste for Dragonflesh and was really good at tracking and hunting dragons. I just wish his skill in hunting dragons carried over to other things, like an increased Move and Climb speed to reach the dragon's lair and resistance to the fear condition. Maybe Expertise in Insight to see through the dragon's lies. Stuff like that.