........... also your level 1 Ranger is not Sherlock Holmes, they are not THAT insightful about everything, favored enemy or not.
I am not sure this is a true statement. A basic level 1 hero/pc can fight more than than most common soldiers or at least on their level. A basic level 1 pc has more specific knowledge than most commoners or even non-adventuring professionals .
A group Adventurers are suppose to be the hero and the Protagonists in a story. They are the elite strike team. This means by default they are skilled and have the tools to succeed but the conflict gets in the way. This is where the dice tell the story and make it an epic or a tragedy. some times you have to justify the action post roll. you get a 20 and you have a flashback of the night your old trainer said something relevant. or you get a 20 and your mind won't let go of one detail until the pieces click together. We do this all the time with attacks skills are the same way. the inverse is also true we explain away why the expert wizard failed the Archana check but the barbarian knows what it actually is. This creates fun moments and narrative situations that make up the difference between roleplaying and simulation.
The main questions are
1. Is it possible this pc could have gained the information sometime in their travels?
2. are the ranger choices what would be narratively considered the expert in this situation?
3. adventure design interaction.
Is this information actively hidden for the adventure?
Is this information an auto win or just a slight advantage?
does revealing vs hiding the information show tell a different story?
is this a side reward or a core feature of the story?
should this information be free for certain backstories or characters living in the world?
Yep. Pit a level 1 anything against a commoner stat block. Fight. Knowledge checks. Survival. Whatever.
Here are two awesome videos about ways a DM can use PC’s knowledge checks to their (the DM) advantage.
Most of what you tell the PCs is based on those interactions, but sometimes stuff happens - player rolls a crit success, you(for rule or game reasons) don’t want to tell them everything as it changes the story too much so maybe you try to dodge out by having them make another roll and then they crit again. I’ve seen a player roll 10 crits in a row with a couple being % crits. Odds of that happening? More than a million to one but it did and yes it altered the game and character hugely. Mostly it’s up to the DM so trying to tell other DM’s How to run their games get in the way of the fun.
Basic summary - rangers don’t suck. The only thing they”suck” at ( with the exception of the gloomstalker) is nova damage. They can be difficult to play because they good at a lot of things so deciding how to play each instance can be problematic.
Basic summary - rangers don’t suck. The only thing they”suck” at ( with the exception of the gloomstalker) is nova damage. They can be difficult to play because they good at a lot of things so deciding how to play each instance can be problematic.
I would like to suggest that conjure animals could be considered nova damage, depending on how a person defines it. I do.
Basic summary - rangers don’t suck. The only thing they”suck” at ( with the exception of the gloomstalker) is nova damage. They can be difficult to play because they good at a lot of things so deciding how to play each instance can be problematic.
I would like to suggest that conjure animals could be considered nova damage, depending on how a person defines it. I do.
At level 5 when a druid gets it conjure animals could be nova damage, depending on how generous your DM is. At level 9 the martials are probably doing around 20 DPR (more is they are optimised), if the DM is mean you might have about a +3 to hit so you might get 3 hits each doing an average of about 4 non magical damage. If your DM is more generous you might get to double that but harly nova. At level 9 conjure animals are mostly a meat shield taking up the action economy of enemies without AOE damage. (Or providing disadvantage on ranged attacks against the party).
I think the "rangers suck" came up because they had a few features that were very situational. Natural Explorer is very powerful if the whole campaign is in your favoured terrain (OOTA) but usually you will spend little time in it , and if your DM keeps stum about what you can expect possibly no time at all. Favored enemy will rarely come up and when it does the benefit is very small. Hide in plain sight is virtually useless. However a useless feature is no worse than no feature at all and rangers were pretty good as a martial, though not as good as say a fighter, but had spell casting and extra skill proficiencies to make up for that. Tasha's improved all the very weak features making rangers a very good class (and also fixed the issue with beast master where you had to choose whether you acted on your turn or your beast did)
Four war horses or two dire wolves is not out of the question. I have never experienced or known anyone personally that has had these restrictive DMs, so it's confusing to me to hear that they exist. Either of those options exceed a paladin, fighter, rogue, or barbarian in damage output, just in their own. On subsequent turns the ranger is also shooting away, adding more damage. I think my experiences with other players as a DM and player lead me to only all positive opinions and thoughts.
I would like to reiterate(from a long way back) that you do not need a campaign in your favored terrain to use the "skill/tool bonuses" of your favored terrain. The most versatile part is often thrown out when taking ft's usefulness into account. Tools are especially easy to use outside of your terrain if you plan along a ranger's narrative.
Favored enemy is also easy to manipulate so you have access to available types. As long as you remember favored enemies are what you prefer to do skill checks on(not nessecarily fight)..... most parties have beast mounts no matter what race they are.....and your party probably will as well.
Hips is poorly written but no matter what interpretation you use you can at least use it to start camp ambushes (long/short rests) hidden and it only improves from there just by having a honest discussion with your dm and party.
The way I see it, the ranger suffers on both parts of a class design: Abilities and Narrative
Any class in D&D can be boiled down into these two parts. Narrative being the inherent class identity and base idea of a class, and the abilities, of course being their abilities.
Some classes do great at both, weaving together abilities and narrative to create a really great class. My personal favorite example is Cleric, whose class abilities not only make sense with their class identity of harnessing the power of their faith, but also are really well designed. Some classes, like the Bard, lean more towards narrative (their class identity of using the power of music is incredibly interesting, but there's next to nothing about bards that is intrinsically tied to music) and some, like Fighters, lean more towards abilities (their abilities are all fairly well-designed, but they have such a broad identity that it's hard to pin them down).
Rangers fail on both fronts. In terms of abilities, they're extremely poorly designed. Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy are situational by design, and are just underpowered to begin with. Spellcasting is mediocre at best, given that many of your spells are concentration-based, meaning you will only have 1 running at a time. Narratively, Rangers' class identity feels a little all over the place. Some think they're the outdoorsman class, some think they're the archer class, some think they're the pet class, and so on. Rangers have so many abilities that try to cover all of these bases that the class identity gets lost in the confusion.
Of course, I could be wrong, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
TLDR; rangers suffer from a lack of cohesive class identity and poorly designed class features
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DaggerGaming, an aspiring Youtuber, author, gamer, game designer, and, um... baker.
Some classes are very tightly put together so that they basically do one thing pretty much one way. Fighters are an example, monks are another. Paladins are a third. this makes them very easy to play but often fairl boring as the they have nothing to do outside of their specialty. Other classes are broadly designed. They have multiple ways to do things and many different paths they can follow in their design hence the wide range of subclasses. The ranger and rogue are prime examples of this. They are, in fact, very strong classes but can seem weak if you are looking for them to be one thing all the time. They are generalists not specialists. Solidly competent at all their different abilities but not tied to any one ability and skill for their power. They are not blasters as casters but more focused on area control and enhanced melee/missile/movement combat. They are harder to play because they call for more planning and thought about how you play them - and that will change as they level up. At low levels the are far more combat specialists while at higher levels they become more spell oriented - if they have selected their spells well. Rangers can be problematic - when you haven’t thought your concept thru and been careful with your spell selection. Spells like shield and absorb elements are typically more of a problem for rangers as they burn the limited spell slots extremely quickly. Concentration based spells that stay up for extended times doing both damage and/or area control (entangle/web/spiked growth/conjure animals etc) are generally far better choices. Hunter’s mark is a double edged sword - the extra damage on each hit is a substantial deal especially at higher levels but having it up is a block for most other good spells. The UAs limit hunter’s mark damage which helps in deciding it isn’t the go to spell. Realistically WotC missed a solid improvement when they backed off the UA2 ranger and gave us slightly modified 2014 ranger in UA7. The biggest help for rangers may actually be allowing all classes a feat at level 1. Think about the ranger with the magic indicate feat and taking warlock - 2 cantrips (Eldritch blast and ?) and a L1 spell. No bow but still an archer with up to 5 shots a round for 1D10 damage from level 1.
Rangers are the only class that doesn't have any personality in 5e.The detractors of Monk and Warlock should recognize that at least they have their own identity and are functional, but Rangers are nothing more than weaker fighters full of spells with damage below average in relation to their level and features that, even when good, don't say anythingabout what class means.In battle, they don't work because they don't evolve well in terms of damage and depend (pathologically) on Hunter's Mark (much more than Monks depend on Stunning Strike) and feats, with the subclasses being responsible for guaranteeing additional damage in some way (which in itself It's a great idea by guaranteeingindividuality if these damages were significant, but unfortunately they are not).And outside of battle, things really improved for Tasha, although I still don't understand why this class learns so much language but doesn't know how to use a tool to help him.In theory, the tools should help the ranger become a master of survivality, but in practice this is not what happens.And Primeval Awareness would be a much better feature if it gave free wisdom times per day, didn't require concentration, told the type of any creature, as well as gave advantage on knowledge checks and visual analysis to identify and know how to fight against it.
All of the "problems" folks have are not problems with the ranger class, they are problems with folks either not playing the game in its entirety and/or assuming the ranger is something else that they've cooked up as an expectation in their own head.
Agreed! The ranger is a very powerful class but it is also a complex class to play well. Many folks who try it and don’t play it well choose to blame the class rather than admit it was their play that was the problem. I’ve been playing rangers since 1979 and every one of them has been one of the key members of their party.
It is 100% true. Situations, conditions, and level varies results. Rangers absolutely have access to abilities and spells that put them in the top tier of damage dealing.
Rangers don’t get the great weapon fighting style so comparisons agains that dont necessarily match as well but otherwise rangers do pretty much as well as fighters with missile and melee damage up to L11 where fighters get their third attack. Given that most campaigns don’t go much past L12 I would call that comparable. Starting at L11 spells like conjure animals start taking over a major part of the battlefield control and damage for the ranger making direct comparisons to fighters harder but they still definitely pull at least their own weight.
Any time we compare a melee damage dealer verses a ranged damage dealer we must account for the melee combatant not making attacks every round. If we start talking about feats and multiclass situations then the conversation is mute as these are no longer the classes themselves. Ranger's subclass abilities and spells put them over fighters and paladins under many situations. Especially melee fighter and paladins. A flying dragon comes to mind. Conjure animals, plant growth, hunter's mark, spike growth, hail of thorns, and ensnaring strike are all spells that give the ranger ways to deal more damage than others. Goodberry and conjure woodland beings makes them better healers at higher levels than a paladin too. Even past level 10 rangers bring the goods. Group stealth, perception, and surprise in combat make for (basically) action surge for the entire party. A high level fog cloud with their bonus action hide makes them assassins at high level. Beast masters also get 3 attacks starting at level 11. A wolf or a snake deals as much damage as a sword attack. A wolf or fog makes for possible advantage for the ranger and others.
Rangers are top tier damage dealers. At times more so than fighters. Why are you throwing out claims like this that are flat wrong?
Not even you believe that.
No actually. He's objectively correct.
Even when we don't take into account the battlefield control and utility provided by the Ranger spell list - which is objectively better than the Paladin's and hell, Fighters don't even get one (seriously, Fighters wish they could do 1/10th of what Rangers can with their spells) - Rangers can still outperform Fighters in terms of damage sustained over time.
At levels 1-10, Rangers, Paladins, and Fighters all get the same number of attacks. Except Paladins can smite and Fighters can Action Surge for the occasional nova. However, they can't exactly spam this due to the resource cost. So whenever they're not spiking, the Ranger out-damages them by virtue of their level 3 subclass dpr bump, whether that's Planar Warrior, Dreadful Strikes, Slayer's Prey, a pet attack, etc. One attack + 1d4 (assuming Dreadful Strikes) is still more damage than the Fighter's one attack every round outside of nova. And that's not even counting Hunters Mark.
Once they hit Tier 3, Fighters get another Extra Attack, Paladins get Improved Divine Smite, and Rangers get nothing. Except oh wait, no. That's not true. They're still getting a third attack. It's a conditional (and as such far more interesting and flavorful) one through their subclass. But it's there. Whether that's yet another pet attack, a dragon breath AoE, Distant Strikes, a free Summoned Fey, etc. So they're still keeping up in terms of dpr by virtue of that. Again, on every turn a Fighter isn't Action Surging or a Paladin isn't smiting, the Ranger will out-damage them with higher consistent dpr.
But wait, there's more. Conjure Animals, Conjure Woodland Beings, Swift Quiver, Conjure Volley, Steel Wind Strike. Hell, even Conjure Barrage (which by all accounts is garbage) all provide the Ranger with much higher overall dpr than Fighter or Paladin on average. The summon spells add multiple pets (for an average of an hour each, making them a more consistent presence than Action Surge or Divine Smite), all of which add their dpr to the Ranger's own. Swift Quiver and Steel Wind Strike allow the Ranger to perform even more attacks to let them keep up with Fighter and Paladin. Even an unoptimized Sharpshooter Ranger with Swift Quiver is performing as many or more attacks as a Sharpshooter/CBE Fighter before level 20 (Ragner: 2 attacks + 2 BA Swift Quiver attacks + lvl 3 subclass dpr bump + T3 subclass dpr bump; Fighter: 3 attacks + 1 BA CBE attack). Finally, you get your AoE's like the Conjure spells or the Drake Warden's breath weapon. And while it's true that the Ranger's AoE's pale in comparison to some of the stronger AoE spells in the game like Fireball, Cone of Cold, etc., it's also true that at least the Ranger actually gets AoE's, which no Fighter can do on average, period. 17th-level Paladins get Circle of Power, but that's it. Rangers get more options and at lower levels.
So yes. Rangers can do more damage than Fighters (and Paladins) on every single round that the aforementioned aren't going nova. And even when they are, a well-timed Conjure Animals can match - if not exceed - a Fighter using Action Surge or maybe even a Paladin with high-level smites. And this is both in terms of focus fire and spread damage.
And then we get to talk about utility and control. Entangle, Spike Growth, and Plant Growth will do more to contribute to a combat than a simple Action Surge ever will. Cure Wounds, Healing Spirit (even after the nerf), and Goodberry will provide a lot more support to the party than lol Second Wind (admittedly Paladins surpass Rangers in this area.) Pass Without Trace, Vanish, and Nature's Veil make Rangers objectively better at sneaking than anything the Rogue could ever do, etc.
Basically, while we can debate all the live-long day whether Paladin or Ranger is better (Paladins gets Smites, better healing, and - most importantly - Aura of Protection; Rangers get better spells, not being locked into melee, better skills and non-combat utility), there is no contest when comparing Rangers to the four martial classes. Rangers simply run circles around Fighters(/Rogues/Monks/Barbarians) just by virtue of having a spell list at all. And that's not even counting everything else in their kit.
Now, you're probably thinking "if we're taking into account the resource cost of Action Surge, we should also take into account the resource cost of spell slots." And that's true. Rangers can't spam Entangle or Conjure Volley all day, just like Fighters can't spam Action Surge. Couple things though. First, in 5e, action economy is king. Which is why battlefield control and AoE spells are so much more useful than single target damage. In order to have an encounter that even slightly challenges the players, there have to be multiple enemies, which increases the value of spells and abilities that can hit multiple targets. So a single Conjure Barrage (lol) already has more value than a single Action Surge just by virtue of the possibility of taking out multiple weaker enemies. And a single Entangle can effectively take out multiple enemies from the fight in one go (and set them up for the Fighter while we're at it). So Rangers get way more bang for their buck with a single spell slot than a Fighter with a single Action Surge. Second, on average - and depending on the amount of short rests your party takes - Rangers will get more spell slots to throw AoE's around than a Fighter will get Action Surge. Even if we were to equalize them somehow, Rangers being able to hit potentially 5+ targets with one control or AoE spell is way more impactful than Fighter hitting one dude four times (or four dudes one time each, whichever.)
To echo everyone here. The main difference in damage for a Ranger vs. a Fighter is spell choice vs. the 6th level feat for fighter. Used properly either can reach higher damage than the other. Vs. Paladin its an easier analysis where Paladins will outdamage with their smites in low encounter/long rest scenarios and worse in high encounter/long rest scenarios. Vs. Barbarian the only advantage the Barbarian really has is reckless attack which comes with its own balance. Rage damage vs. hunter's mark is essentially a wash.
Its easier to build a str based fighter/barbarian/paladin than it is a Ranger, but I have seen a number of devastating str Rangers. On a ranged character, the Ranger tends to work extremely well and certainly outdamages everyone but the fighter. Even then the Ranger's ability to lock down enemies with their spells gives them advantages. Sometimes its harder to see on the spreadsheet, but in play its there.
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Yep. Pit a level 1 anything against a commoner stat block. Fight. Knowledge checks. Survival. Whatever.
Here are two awesome videos about ways a DM can use PC’s knowledge checks to their (the DM) advantage.
https://youtu.be/KjwSlYHdxc8
https://youtu.be/3qdemNbuWxQ
Most of what you tell the PCs is based on those interactions, but sometimes stuff happens - player rolls a crit success, you(for rule or game reasons) don’t want to tell them everything as it changes the story too much so maybe you try to dodge out by having them make another roll and then they crit again. I’ve seen a player roll 10 crits in a row with a couple being % crits. Odds of that happening? More than a million to one but it did and yes it altered the game and character hugely. Mostly it’s up to the DM so trying to tell other DM’s How to run their games get in the way of the fun.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Well, deft explorer and favored foe with gloom stalker ranger. boom.
Basic summary - rangers don’t suck. The only thing they”suck” at ( with the exception of the gloomstalker) is nova damage. They can be difficult to play because they good at a lot of things so deciding how to play each instance can be problematic.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I would like to suggest that conjure animals could be considered nova damage, depending on how a person defines it. I do.
At level 5 when a druid gets it conjure animals could be nova damage, depending on how generous your DM is. At level 9 the martials are probably doing around 20 DPR (more is they are optimised), if the DM is mean you might have about a +3 to hit so you might get 3 hits each doing an average of about 4 non magical damage. If your DM is more generous you might get to double that but harly nova. At level 9 conjure animals are mostly a meat shield taking up the action economy of enemies without AOE damage. (Or providing disadvantage on ranged attacks against the party).
I think the "rangers suck" came up because they had a few features that were very situational. Natural Explorer is very powerful if the whole campaign is in your favoured terrain (OOTA) but usually you will spend little time in it , and if your DM keeps stum about what you can expect possibly no time at all. Favored enemy will rarely come up and when it does the benefit is very small. Hide in plain sight is virtually useless. However a useless feature is no worse than no feature at all and rangers were pretty good as a martial, though not as good as say a fighter, but had spell casting and extra skill proficiencies to make up for that. Tasha's improved all the very weak features making rangers a very good class (and also fixed the issue with beast master where you had to choose whether you acted on your turn or your beast did)
Four war horses or two dire wolves is not out of the question. I have never experienced or known anyone personally that has had these restrictive DMs, so it's confusing to me to hear that they exist. Either of those options exceed a paladin, fighter, rogue, or barbarian in damage output, just in their own. On subsequent turns the ranger is also shooting away, adding more damage. I think my experiences with other players as a DM and player lead me to only all positive opinions and thoughts.
I would like to reiterate(from a long way back) that you do not need a campaign in your favored terrain to use the "skill/tool bonuses" of your favored terrain. The most versatile part is often thrown out when taking ft's usefulness into account. Tools are especially easy to use outside of your terrain if you plan along a ranger's narrative.
Favored enemy is also easy to manipulate so you have access to available types. As long as you remember favored enemies are what you prefer to do skill checks on(not nessecarily fight)..... most parties have beast mounts no matter what race they are.....and your party probably will as well.
Hips is poorly written but no matter what interpretation you use you can at least use it to start camp ambushes (long/short rests) hidden and it only improves from there just by having a honest discussion with your dm and party.
The way I see it, the ranger suffers on both parts of a class design: Abilities and Narrative
Any class in D&D can be boiled down into these two parts. Narrative being the inherent class identity and base idea of a class, and the abilities, of course being their abilities.
Some classes do great at both, weaving together abilities and narrative to create a really great class. My personal favorite example is Cleric, whose class abilities not only make sense with their class identity of harnessing the power of their faith, but also are really well designed. Some classes, like the Bard, lean more towards narrative (their class identity of using the power of music is incredibly interesting, but there's next to nothing about bards that is intrinsically tied to music) and some, like Fighters, lean more towards abilities (their abilities are all fairly well-designed, but they have such a broad identity that it's hard to pin them down).
Rangers fail on both fronts. In terms of abilities, they're extremely poorly designed. Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy are situational by design, and are just underpowered to begin with. Spellcasting is mediocre at best, given that many of your spells are concentration-based, meaning you will only have 1 running at a time. Narratively, Rangers' class identity feels a little all over the place. Some think they're the outdoorsman class, some think they're the archer class, some think they're the pet class, and so on. Rangers have so many abilities that try to cover all of these bases that the class identity gets lost in the confusion.
Of course, I could be wrong, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
TLDR; rangers suffer from a lack of cohesive class identity and poorly designed class features
DaggerGaming, an aspiring Youtuber, author, gamer, game designer, and, um... baker.
Some classes are very tightly put together so that they basically do one thing pretty much one way. Fighters are an example, monks are another. Paladins are a third. this makes them very easy to play but often fairl boring as the they have nothing to do outside of their specialty. Other classes are broadly designed. They have multiple ways to do things and many different paths they can follow in their design hence the wide range of subclasses. The ranger and rogue are prime examples of this. They are, in fact, very strong classes but can seem weak if you are looking for them to be one thing all the time. They are generalists not specialists. Solidly competent at all their different abilities but not tied to any one ability and skill for their power. They are not blasters as casters but more focused on area control and enhanced melee/missile/movement combat. They are harder to play because they call for more planning and thought about how you play them - and that will change as they level up. At low levels the are far more combat specialists while at higher levels they become more spell oriented - if they have selected their spells well. Rangers can be problematic - when you haven’t thought your concept thru and been careful with your spell selection. Spells like shield and absorb elements are typically more of a problem for rangers as they burn the limited spell slots extremely quickly. Concentration based spells that stay up for extended times doing both damage and/or area control (entangle/web/spiked growth/conjure animals etc) are generally far better choices. Hunter’s mark is a double edged sword - the extra damage on each hit is a substantial deal especially at higher levels but having it up is a block for most other good spells. The UAs limit hunter’s mark damage which helps in deciding it isn’t the go to spell. Realistically WotC missed a solid improvement when they backed off the UA2 ranger and gave us slightly modified 2014 ranger in UA7. The biggest help for rangers may actually be allowing all classes a feat at level 1. Think about the ranger with the magic indicate feat and taking warlock - 2 cantrips (Eldritch blast and ?) and a L1 spell. No bow but still an archer with up to 5 shots a round for 1D10 damage from level 1.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Rangers are the only class that doesn't have any personality in 5e. The detractors of Monk and Warlock should recognize that at least they have their own identity and are functional, but Rangers are nothing more than weaker fighters full of spells with damage below average in relation to their level and features that, even when good, don't say anything about what class means. In battle, they don't work because they don't evolve well in terms of damage and depend (pathologically) on Hunter's Mark (much more than Monks depend on Stunning Strike) and feats, with the subclasses being responsible for guaranteeing additional damage in some way (which in itself It's a great idea by guaranteeing individuality if these damages were significant, but unfortunately they are not). And outside of battle, things really improved for Tasha, although I still don't understand why this class learns so much language but doesn't know how to use a tool to help him. In theory, the tools should help the ranger become a master of survivality, but in practice this is not what happens. And Primeval Awareness would be a much better feature if it gave free wisdom times per day, didn't require concentration, told the type of any creature, as well as gave advantage on knowledge checks and visual analysis to identify and know how to fight against it.
Rangers are top tier damage dealers. At times more so than fighters. Why are you throwing out claims like this that are flat wrong?
All of the "problems" folks have are not problems with the ranger class, they are problems with folks either not playing the game in its entirety and/or assuming the ranger is something else that they've cooked up as an expectation in their own head.
Agreed! The ranger is a very powerful class but it is also a complex class to play well. Many folks who try it and don’t play it well choose to blame the class rather than admit it was their play that was the problem. I’ve been playing rangers since 1979 and every one of them has been one of the key members of their party.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Not even you believe that.
It is 100% true. Situations, conditions, and level varies results. Rangers absolutely have access to abilities and spells that put them in the top tier of damage dealing.
Rangers don’t get the great weapon fighting style so comparisons agains that dont necessarily match as well but otherwise rangers do pretty much as well as fighters with missile and melee damage up to L11 where fighters get their third attack. Given that most campaigns don’t go much past L12 I would call that comparable. Starting at L11 spells like conjure animals start taking over a major part of the battlefield control and damage for the ranger making direct comparisons to fighters harder but they still definitely pull at least their own weight.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Any time we compare a melee damage dealer verses a ranged damage dealer we must account for the melee combatant not making attacks every round. If we start talking about feats and multiclass situations then the conversation is mute as these are no longer the classes themselves. Ranger's subclass abilities and spells put them over fighters and paladins under many situations. Especially melee fighter and paladins. A flying dragon comes to mind. Conjure animals, plant growth, hunter's mark, spike growth, hail of thorns, and ensnaring strike are all spells that give the ranger ways to deal more damage than others. Goodberry and conjure woodland beings makes them better healers at higher levels than a paladin too. Even past level 10 rangers bring the goods. Group stealth, perception, and surprise in combat make for (basically) action surge for the entire party. A high level fog cloud with their bonus action hide makes them assassins at high level. Beast masters also get 3 attacks starting at level 11. A wolf or a snake deals as much damage as a sword attack. A wolf or fog makes for possible advantage for the ranger and others.
No actually. He's objectively correct.
Even when we don't take into account the battlefield control and utility provided by the Ranger spell list - which is objectively better than the Paladin's and hell, Fighters don't even get one (seriously, Fighters wish they could do 1/10th of what Rangers can with their spells) - Rangers can still outperform Fighters in terms of damage sustained over time.
At levels 1-10, Rangers, Paladins, and Fighters all get the same number of attacks. Except Paladins can smite and Fighters can Action Surge for the occasional nova. However, they can't exactly spam this due to the resource cost. So whenever they're not spiking, the Ranger out-damages them by virtue of their level 3 subclass dpr bump, whether that's Planar Warrior, Dreadful Strikes, Slayer's Prey, a pet attack, etc. One attack + 1d4 (assuming Dreadful Strikes) is still more damage than the Fighter's one attack every round outside of nova. And that's not even counting Hunters Mark.
Once they hit Tier 3, Fighters get another Extra Attack, Paladins get Improved Divine Smite, and Rangers get nothing. Except oh wait, no. That's not true. They're still getting a third attack. It's a conditional (and as such far more interesting and flavorful) one through their subclass. But it's there. Whether that's yet another pet attack, a dragon breath AoE, Distant Strikes, a free Summoned Fey, etc. So they're still keeping up in terms of dpr by virtue of that. Again, on every turn a Fighter isn't Action Surging or a Paladin isn't smiting, the Ranger will out-damage them with higher consistent dpr.
But wait, there's more. Conjure Animals, Conjure Woodland Beings, Swift Quiver, Conjure Volley, Steel Wind Strike. Hell, even Conjure Barrage (which by all accounts is garbage) all provide the Ranger with much higher overall dpr than Fighter or Paladin on average. The summon spells add multiple pets (for an average of an hour each, making them a more consistent presence than Action Surge or Divine Smite), all of which add their dpr to the Ranger's own. Swift Quiver and Steel Wind Strike allow the Ranger to perform even more attacks to let them keep up with Fighter and Paladin. Even an unoptimized Sharpshooter Ranger with Swift Quiver is performing as many or more attacks as a Sharpshooter/CBE Fighter before level 20 (Ragner: 2 attacks + 2 BA Swift Quiver attacks + lvl 3 subclass dpr bump + T3 subclass dpr bump; Fighter: 3 attacks + 1 BA CBE attack). Finally, you get your AoE's like the Conjure spells or the Drake Warden's breath weapon. And while it's true that the Ranger's AoE's pale in comparison to some of the stronger AoE spells in the game like Fireball, Cone of Cold, etc., it's also true that at least the Ranger actually gets AoE's, which no Fighter can do on average, period. 17th-level Paladins get Circle of Power, but that's it. Rangers get more options and at lower levels.
So yes. Rangers can do more damage than Fighters (and Paladins) on every single round that the aforementioned aren't going nova. And even when they are, a well-timed Conjure Animals can match - if not exceed - a Fighter using Action Surge or maybe even a Paladin with high-level smites. And this is both in terms of focus fire and spread damage.
And then we get to talk about utility and control. Entangle, Spike Growth, and Plant Growth will do more to contribute to a combat than a simple Action Surge ever will. Cure Wounds, Healing Spirit (even after the nerf), and Goodberry will provide a lot more support to the party than lol Second Wind (admittedly Paladins surpass Rangers in this area.) Pass Without Trace, Vanish, and Nature's Veil make Rangers objectively better at sneaking than anything the Rogue could ever do, etc.
Basically, while we can debate all the live-long day whether Paladin or Ranger is better (Paladins gets Smites, better healing, and - most importantly - Aura of Protection; Rangers get better spells, not being locked into melee, better skills and non-combat utility), there is no contest when comparing Rangers to the four martial classes. Rangers simply run circles around Fighters(/Rogues/Monks/Barbarians) just by virtue of having a spell list at all. And that's not even counting everything else in their kit.
Now, you're probably thinking "if we're taking into account the resource cost of Action Surge, we should also take into account the resource cost of spell slots." And that's true. Rangers can't spam Entangle or Conjure Volley all day, just like Fighters can't spam Action Surge. Couple things though. First, in 5e, action economy is king. Which is why battlefield control and AoE spells are so much more useful than single target damage. In order to have an encounter that even slightly challenges the players, there have to be multiple enemies, which increases the value of spells and abilities that can hit multiple targets. So a single Conjure Barrage (lol) already has more value than a single Action Surge just by virtue of the possibility of taking out multiple weaker enemies. And a single Entangle can effectively take out multiple enemies from the fight in one go (and set them up for the Fighter while we're at it). So Rangers get way more bang for their buck with a single spell slot than a Fighter with a single Action Surge. Second, on average - and depending on the amount of short rests your party takes - Rangers will get more spell slots to throw AoE's around than a Fighter will get Action Surge. Even if we were to equalize them somehow, Rangers being able to hit potentially 5+ targets with one control or AoE spell is way more impactful than Fighter hitting one dude four times (or four dudes one time each, whichever.)
To echo everyone here. The main difference in damage for a Ranger vs. a Fighter is spell choice vs. the 6th level feat for fighter. Used properly either can reach higher damage than the other. Vs. Paladin its an easier analysis where Paladins will outdamage with their smites in low encounter/long rest scenarios and worse in high encounter/long rest scenarios. Vs. Barbarian the only advantage the Barbarian really has is reckless attack which comes with its own balance. Rage damage vs. hunter's mark is essentially a wash.
Its easier to build a str based fighter/barbarian/paladin than it is a Ranger, but I have seen a number of devastating str Rangers. On a ranged character, the Ranger tends to work extremely well and certainly outdamages everyone but the fighter. Even then the Ranger's ability to lock down enemies with their spells gives them advantages. Sometimes its harder to see on the spreadsheet, but in play its there.