Personally, as long as you avoid looking at the Beastmaster, the other ranger archetypes are actually pretty great. Lots of extra damage, and access to getting some nice utility on top of it. Seriously, look at the ranger archetypes and just imagine them on say, a fighter. Ranger's base class does suffer though, it kinda just sucks at all the "rangering" type of stuff like tracking, and too many campaigns can't be bothered to deal with that stuff anyway. The recent class feature options UA does a LOT to correct the flaws of ranger though, and combined with it's spell list actually is one of the better martial options.
Beastmaster just sucks though, no scaling, worse than actually just buying a pet since those aren't limited in what they get to do. UA variant actually helps solve those problems though, and while I am doubtful WotC will actually put it in a book (though I wish they would) I would personally allow most of it at my tables.
Now the problem with using a Giant Poisonous Snake is the Poison damage becomes less and less effective as you level up. Constitution tend to be one of the better saves for most higher CR creatures and the are many that are resistant to poison or are just out right immune. At lower levels it is pretty good to be sure, but it has all the same issues that Beast Master Companions have. The higher you get in level, the more vulnerable and useless it becomes. A the Ranger themselves gets better and better as they level and using one of their attacks on their pet becomes less and less appealing.
yeah but still, even if the target suceeds, wich you can already assume, the poisonous snake still deals more damage per attack than what you do unless you have some seriously powerful magic items to level the playing field, so if it does more with their attacks than what you do it is not at all a waste, at least not in my eyes, especially at 11th level where the beast makes two attacks and you make one (remember you still get to make one attack when your beast takes the attack action), it is replacing one attack you normally do with two attacks that might be even stronger than what you are capable of, so i'd say using one of your attacks becomes more and more appealing as you gain levels and your proficiency bonus reaches very high amounts, by the time you reach the endgame it should be 1d4 + 10 piercing and 3d6 + 6 poison, if the target suceeds on their save but has no particular resistance or immunity should lead to an average of 20 damage, in the unlikely event they fail they deal an average of 28 damage.
That is of course until you meet a bunch of undead. or elementals. or constructs. or devils.... yeah come to think of it there are a bunch of things that do in fact have immunity to poison, but hey there are still more monsters not resistant or immune to poison than there are monsters resistant or immune to poison
and yes their hit points are kinda low, but at the same time their armor class holds up pretty well, compared to the unarmored defense ac of an point buy monk with 16 dex 16 wisdom and giant poisonous snake with studded leather or normal leather armor has much better armor class than one, their to hit bonus should be as high as an character with 20 in an abillity score and an +1 weapon
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Personally, as long as you avoid looking at the Beastmaster, the other ranger archetypes are actually pretty great. Lots of extra damage, and access to getting some nice utility on top of it. Seriously, look at the ranger archetypes and just imagine them on say, a fighter. Ranger's base class does suffer though, it kinda just sucks at all the "rangering" type of stuff like tracking, and too many campaigns can't be bothered to deal with that stuff anyway. The recent class feature options UA does a LOT to correct the flaws of ranger though, and combined with it's spell list actually is one of the better martial options.
Beastmaster just sucks though, no scaling, worse than actually just buying a pet since those aren't limited in what they get to do. UA variant actually helps solve those problems though, and while I am doubtful WotC will actually put it in a book (though I wish they would) I would personally allow most of it at my tables.
i'd still argue that depending on what beast you get beast master can be really really powerful, and also not every beast can be purchased and trained so easily, and not every beast will grow with you in level, but hey admittedly it is a fair bit weaker than the pretty damm cool other subclasses
the ranger is only good-er at tracking when using hunters mark, when in favoured terrain or when dealing with favoured enemy, just giving them sobe better options or generalzing a lot of natural explorer features to work for multiple terrains while giving each favoured terrain a diffrent small exploration benefit like no diasvnatage on perception in dim light for underdark, immunity to nonmagical disease for swamp or resistance to extreme heat and not increasing water demand due to hot weather for dessert, each terrain should give ranger a diffrent abillity.
also literally everyone loved the new classvariants unearthed arcana article, nobody has anything but good things to say about it and i would honestly be suprised if it does not in some form get published in an official book.
also what the **** do you mean with no scaling? the beast master gets to add their proficiency bonus to almost everythin the beast does, including things where it is added on top of the beasts proficiency bonus and to things that you normally dont see passive buffs to like armor class
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
What kind of Ranger are you playing that can’t do better than 1d4+10 damage/attack by level 11?!? With a +4 Dex mod, a +1 longbow, Sharpshooter, and the Archery Fighting style a Ranger could do 1d8+17/attack, and that doesn’t even include bonuses from subclasses or Hunter’s Mark which could add a stack of d6s on top of that.
The companions if you choose the correct one, can deal quite a bit of damage, but they die quickly, especially at later levels. Then you have to wait until you get to a specific area to get it back, which again is extremely bad design, compared to the Battle Smith's Steel Defender.
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Personally, as long as you avoid looking at the Beastmaster, the other ranger archetypes are actually pretty great. Lots of extra damage, and access to getting some nice utility on top of it. Seriously, look at the ranger archetypes and just imagine them on say, a fighter. Ranger's base class does suffer though, it kinda just sucks at all the "rangering" type of stuff like tracking, and too many campaigns can't be bothered to deal with that stuff anyway. The recent class feature options UA does a LOT to correct the flaws of ranger though, and combined with it's spell list actually is one of the better martial options.
Beastmaster just sucks though, no scaling, worse than actually just buying a pet since those aren't limited in what they get to do. UA variant actually helps solve those problems though, and while I am doubtful WotC will actually put it in a book (though I wish they would) I would personally allow most of it at my tables.
yeah but still, even if the target suceeds, wich you can already assume, the poisonous snake still deals more damage per attack than what you do unless you have some seriously powerful magic items to level the playing field, so if it does more with their attacks than what you do it is not at all a waste, at least not in my eyes, especially at 11th level where the beast makes two attacks and you make one (remember you still get to make one attack when your beast takes the attack action), it is replacing one attack you normally do with two attacks that might be even stronger than what you are capable of, so i'd say using one of your attacks becomes more and more appealing as you gain levels and your proficiency bonus reaches very high amounts, by the time you reach the endgame it should be 1d4 + 10 piercing and 3d6 + 6 poison, if the target suceeds on their save but has no particular resistance or immunity should lead to an average of 20 damage, in the unlikely event they fail they deal an average of 28 damage.
That is of course until you meet a bunch of undead. or elementals. or constructs. or devils.... yeah come to think of it there are a bunch of things that do in fact have immunity to poison, but hey there are still more monsters not resistant or immune to poison than there are monsters resistant or immune to poison
and yes their hit points are kinda low, but at the same time their armor class holds up pretty well, compared to the unarmored defense ac of an point buy monk with 16 dex 16 wisdom and giant poisonous snake with studded leather or normal leather armor has much better armor class than one, their to hit bonus should be as high as an character with 20 in an abillity score and an +1 weapon
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
i'd still argue that depending on what beast you get beast master can be really really powerful, and also not every beast can be purchased and trained so easily, and not every beast will grow with you in level, but hey admittedly it is a fair bit weaker than the pretty damm cool other subclasses
the ranger is only good-er at tracking when using hunters mark, when in favoured terrain or when dealing with favoured enemy, just giving them sobe better options or generalzing a lot of natural explorer features to work for multiple terrains while giving each favoured terrain a diffrent small exploration benefit like no diasvnatage on perception in dim light for underdark, immunity to nonmagical disease for swamp or resistance to extreme heat and not increasing water demand due to hot weather for dessert, each terrain should give ranger a diffrent abillity.
also literally everyone loved the new classvariants unearthed arcana article, nobody has anything but good things to say about it and i would honestly be suprised if it does not in some form get published in an official book.
also what the **** do you mean with no scaling? the beast master gets to add their proficiency bonus to almost everythin the beast does, including things where it is added on top of the beasts proficiency bonus and to things that you normally dont see passive buffs to like armor class
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
What kind of Ranger are you playing that can’t do better than 1d4+10 damage/attack by level 11?!? With a +4 Dex mod, a +1 longbow, Sharpshooter, and the Archery Fighting style a Ranger could do 1d8+17/attack, and that doesn’t even include bonuses from subclasses or Hunter’s Mark which could add a stack of d6s on top of that.
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Not to mention that with only 44 Hit Points, the Companion drops pretty quickly regardless of AC.
as a side note... How do you put armor on a snake?
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It slithers in?
The companions if you choose the correct one, can deal quite a bit of damage, but they die quickly, especially at later levels. Then you have to wait until you get to a specific area to get it back, which again is extremely bad design, compared to the Battle Smith's Steel Defender.
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Barding just like a mount. Unless you mean how to physically attach it, in which case shhh... 🤫 just go with it.
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Maybe they just never get deep into 3rd-tear when it becomes extra apparent?
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do you mean tier?
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Yes, thank you. Spelling is not my strong suit.
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Ok sure, snake barding. Makes perfect sense.
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Magical Mithral snake barding, so it is light, and they can attack in it. Maybe it has to be chainmail?
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I have never really thought much about it, but Beast's don't have proficiency with armor. Do they have disadvantage on attacks if they wear barding?
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RAW, probably, but up to the DM. Can you train a snake how to use armor?
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Don’t you mean Scale Mail? 😉
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IRL I don't think you can train a snake to do anything lol
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I laughed way too hard at that
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*takes a bow with a flourish*
What do you call it when a guy who isn’t a dad yet makes a dad joke?
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"Come here Snakey!" I say while patting my lap, "Time to get into your armor."
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"Whose a good snake." takes out leash, "Time for walkies in the dungeon."
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