Why the Dev's created the Ranger the way they did? No idea. Why in XgtE did they give all but the PhB Rangers additioanl spells? No idea. Why was the first UA article a Revised Ranger? Probably because this was a very talked about question.
I'd recommend checking out the Ranger forum, there is a lot of discussion about it there.
There's nothing wrong with the Ranger class itself. The Beast Master subclass is fairly weak relative to the other subclasses and a lot of people aren't happy about that. The Hunter subclass and the XGtE subclasses are solid.
Beast Master is more the problem than Ranger as a whole. Hunter is kind of ridiculous for damage output (my sister is playing one right now), so that's pretty stellar. I play a Horizon Walker in another campaign and I'm at the top of the group damage-wise, plus I took mostly utility-based spells to buff in certain situations, so I do pretty well. Melee ranger with Zephyr Strike, that the Druid has cast Haste on is pretty legit...
If you read through the Dev's comments on the The Ranger: "Over the past year, you’ve seen us try a number of new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at addressing the class’s high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D’s weakest class by a significant margin." They still haven't put out an official Revised Ranger yet.
The Hunter Ranger is fine for damage output, but it's other abilities are just terrible compared to the Revised Ranger. Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer just pale in comparison, in every possibly way.
Primeval Awareness required spending an action and a spell slot, and for 1 min/lvl you could sense creatures within 1 or 6 miles of you, but not direction or number. Just "there or not there", which isn't very useful and is even less useful in favored terrain. The Revised version doesn't cost a spell slot, but does take a full minute. Only works on your Favored Enemy, which makes sense, and gives numbers, directions, and range for up to 5 miles. Meaning it allows the Ranger to actually stalk their prey above a Survival Check.
Land Stride is replaced, because it's first power you get at 1st lvl instead of 8th and don't get the Adv on plant based spells, because that's so very constrained to be almost silly. Fleet of Foot instead gives Dash as a bonus action, so it's a lesser form of Cunning Action.
Hide in Plain Sight takes 1 Action instead of 1 Minute in the Revised Ranger, and works slightly differently.
Vanish is the same, Ranger gets 2/3rds of Cunning Action.
If you read through the Dev's comments on the The Ranger: "Over the past year, you’ve seen us try a number of new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at addressing the class’s high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D’s weakest class by a significant margin."
Just because it's perceived as the weakest class doesn't mean it is though. Champion is one of the most popular Fighter subclasses even though mechanically it's the worst. Also, Jeremy said on Dragon Talk either this year or late last year that most of the dissatisfaction was with the Beast Master subclass and that's where they're focusing their efforts.
The Hunter Ranger is fine for damage output, but it's other abilities are just terrible compared to the Revised Ranger. Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer just pale in comparison, in every possibly way.
The UA Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer were total overkill. UA content is notorious for being overpowered and not balanced for multiclassing.
Tbh I think Primeval Awareness was the only big issue there. The spell slot cost was silly when Rangers have so few slots in general. Making it take time, be limited to favoured enemy(/ies) was a perfect fix. UA Natural Explorer is definitely OP, as someone who played UA Ranger for the first couple levels.
I disagree about the UA content being OP. Compared to the OG Ranger, it of course might look OP, because it's just soooo bad.
Also talk about Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy separately.
The OG Ranger's Natural Explorer was a joke of an ability. You have to pick a favored terrain at 1st, 6th, and 10th. IF you're in a Favored Terrain and traveling with a group means difficult terrain doesn't slow group travel, can't be lost except by magic, the Ranger gets a bonus "while traveling" action in addition to Perception, forage twice as much food, better tracking, and double proficiency bonus for Wis/Int checks. So now the ranger is either really good at finding food or navigating, but s/he can't do both at the same time.
S/he can also move stealthily at normal pace if alone, but when is THIS going to be useful?
Compared to the Revised Natural Explorer. You: Ignore difficult terrain, advantage on initiative rolls, and advantage on attacks in the 1st turn before others act. I'll actually give the initiative stuff the closeted to OP in it. The rest of the ability is the same, but you don't have to pick a "favored terrain", because the usefulness of these abilities is so random it is silly to gate them off. Unless the GM tells the ranger ahead of time it's likely to be useless. I mean if you didn't pick Underdark and you're playing Out of the Abyss or forest in Tomb of Annihilation, you'll never use it.
Favored Enemy just adds a +2 damage bonus against the favored enemy, which is a nice bonus but not crazy. Also means if you pick Humanoid you don't have to "guess" as which might be useful in the campaign. In the OG Ranger humanoid requires picking 2 sub-races. I also do like that in Greater Favored Enemy they gate off the higher levels. So you only get 1 "scary" monster pick here, and the damage bonus goes to +4. Because both are boosted, you never get a 3rd Favored Enemy.
The revised ranger advantage on initiative, advantage on attacks first turn is seriously brutally overpowered when combined with gloom stalker, especially if dual-wielding. In our campaign the ranger started with the normal version and was on par with everyone else. Then the DM let him switch to revised version and now he's an overpowered machine. The DM actually regrets this but will not make him change back, it's not his way so he has to jack up all enemy HP beyond normal just so they have even the slightest chance of surviving the first round or adding extra enemies because he knows one is basically guaranteed to be instantly destroyed by the ranger at the start.
Rangers also get 1 extra skill proficiency relative to Fighter and Paladin, and Land's Stride lets them move through nonmagical difficult terrain (including allies) without movement penalties.
Compared to the Revised Natural Explorer. You: Ignore difficult terrain, advantage on initiative rolls, and advantage on attacks in the 1st turn before others act.
Yes, and that's ridiculous as a 1st level feature. Other than Beast Master, all Ranger subclasses already have really strong combat features. Advantage on initiative is already much better than a numerical bonus since it almost guarantees you'll roll in the top half of the initiative list, and advantage on attacks on top of that makes it overkill. It's also way too good of a 1-level-dip when multiclassing.
Favored Enemy just adds a +2 damage bonus against the favored enemy, which is a nice bonus but not crazy.
But it's also unnecessary, because the PH Ranger is already balanced without a damage bonus to favored enemies.
I'll grant you there's room for improvement in the PH Ranger. Primeval Awareness is niche at best and useless at worst. The distinction between lesser and greater favored enemies in the UA version was better than the hodgepodge approach the PH has, where you can pick dragon as a favored enemy at 1st level. Still, for all its flaws, the class still fulfills its role as an exploration-centric fighter variant and keeps up in combat just fine.
I think the Wizard has to disagree on having the best spell list in those categories. Also the Ranger is the class that gets the least ammount of spells prepared every day, as they get to know 11 spells and no cantrips, with no way to change them if not when they level up, while Paladins can change them after every long rest, and thier spell list includes divination spells too, such as Detect Magic, Detect good and evil, Locate object and creature, and all sorts of utility such as Find Steed, Zone of truth, Create food and water, etc... But the best part is that if a Paladin needs a situational spell from their list, they just need to wait for a long rest, and then prepare it, while the Ranger is stuck with what they got.
The Ranger has a problem of identity, the niche they fit in is so easy to take over by any number of other classes, due to the main class abilities regarding out of combat being ribbons at best: a Valor Bard can fill the role, a scout rogue, a fighter with the outlander background can almost do the same, just throw one of the extra 2 ASIs he gets into Skilled and you got your wilderness combattant.
All the talk about traveling pace, gathering food, not getting lost, is something that may happen once or twice per campaign, or in a campaign accomodated for such scenarios, like OotA. But what about a dungeon crawl? what about a politcal intrigue? Some classes might get a bit of downplay in these cases, but a Ranger gets whole class features rendered useless.
The reason why the notion of the Ranger beiing underperforming is not that widespread, is all thanks to the system, that dosen't require you extreme optimization to have a capable character, but it was still acknowledged by a big majority of the comunity, because there are issues. The reason why the Champion, the 4E Monk, or any other subclasses considered weaker don't make sooo much noise, is because they are backed up by good classes, so even if the subclasses features are a bit meh, you still get to use a big number of good abilities.
The Ranger, instead, with every level, gets ribbon after ribbon. The good features come with the subclasses, which don't interact AT ALL with the features from the main class, another proof of how lackluster they are.
I think the Wizard has to disagree on having the best spell list in those categories.
I never said they're the best, and they're not competing with wizards anyways.
Also the Ranger is the class that gets the least ammount of spells prepared every day, as they get to know 11 spells and no cantrips, with no way to change them if not when they level up
Yes, that's how all spellcasting classes that don't prepare spells work. Ranger isn't alone in that regard. Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters are locked into the spells they know as well, and Paladins don't get cantrips either.
while Paladins can change them after every long rest, and thier spell list includes divination spells too, such as Detect Magic, Detect good and evil, Locate object and creature, and all sorts of utility such as Find Steed, Zone of truth, Create food and water, etc...
Ranger gets most of those divination spells too. Their utility is still limited relative to exploration spells like Darkvision and Pass Without Trace or battlefield control spells like Silence and Spike Growth. The XGtE subclasses also add more spells that they normally wouldn't have access to and don't count against their spells known.
But the best part is that if a Paladin needs a situational spell from their list, they just need to wait for a long rest, and then prepare it, while the Ranger is stuck with what they got.
Yes, and Paladins are afforded that luxury because their utility spells are much more limited. In practice they get to decide how much emphasis they're putting on offense, tanking, and healing. Paladins have their niche as a tank and close-range combatant, Rangers have their niche in exploration and long-range skirmishing.
The Ranger has a problem of identity, the niche they fit in is so easy to take over by any number of other classes, due to the main class abilities regarding out of combat being ribbons at best: a Valor Bard can fill the role, a scout rogue, a fighter with the outlander background can almost do the same, just throw one of the extra 2 ASIs he gets into Skilled and you got your wilderness combattant.
A Fighter and a Scout aren't the same thing as a Ranger. The subclasses at their disposal matter. The Ranger's Spellcasting matters.
All the talk about traveling pace, gathering food, not getting lost, is something that may happen once or twice per campaign, or in a campaign accomodated for such scenarios, like OotA. But what about a dungeon crawl? what about a politcal intrigue? Some classes might get a bit of downplay in these cases, but a Ranger gets whole class features rendered useless.
Not all class features are created equal. Natural Explorer and Favored Terrain aren't intended to be the Ranger's bread and butter any more than a Battle Master's proficiency with artisan's tools is theirs.
The Ranger, instead, with every level, gets ribbon after ribbon. The good features come with the subclasses
That's how clerics work. That's how sorcerers work. It's a design decision, not a bug. Some classes lean harder on their subclasses than others. It's the whole package that counts.
I never said they're the best, and they're not competing with wizards anyways.
Sorry i misread, but still, you got Druids and Clerics queing up to complain now. Unless you mean the Ranger spell list is competing only with the Paladin's.
Yes, that's how all spellcasting classes that don't prepare spells work. Ranger isn't alone in that regard. Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters are locked into the spells they know as well, and Paladins don't get cantrips either.
Yeah, they have their choices locked too, but by having more spells known and/or cantrips, they get more wiggle room in what to get, this way they can slip in the situational utility spell or two without losing out so much.
The XGtE subclasses also add more spells that they normally wouldn't have access to and don't count against their spells known.
Like all Paladins Oaths have always done? I mean, Paladins can get Hunter's Mark too!
You know why the Ranger subclasses in the XGtE got those expanded spell lists? Due to people complaining about how few spells the Ranger had avaiable.
Yes, and Paladins are afforded that luxury because their utility spells are much more limited. In practice they get to decide how much emphasis they're putting on offense, tanking, and healing. Paladins have their niche as a tank and close-range combatant, Rangers have their niche in exploration and long-range skirmishing.
It dosen't matter if you have hundreds of utility spells in your spell list if you can only acces few of them. Are you telling me you are going to choose Locate Object as one of the spells you know? how many times are you gonna use that? The Paladin dosen't have this issue! "hey tomorrow we go search the stolen McGuffin" "ok i'll prepare Locate Object", and the day after? back to the old spells. Now, with the new subclasses this is less of a problem, but Hunters and Beast Masters are very limited in spell selection.
A Fighter and a Scout aren't the same thing as a Ranger. The subclasses at their disposal matter. The Ranger's Spellcasting matters.
Why are they not the same? because they don't have spell casting? is that what defines a Ranger? if we go look at Paladins, they got all sort of things going on, they got their Auras, they have Divine Smite, Lay on Hands. Their identity is more of that of a Cleric/Fighter Multiclass. Can you say the same about the Ranger?
Not all class features are created equal. Natural Explorer and Favored Terrain aren't intended to be the Ranger's bread and butter any more than a Battle Master's proficiency with artisan's tools is theirs.
...What? How come the features a class gets at level 1 aren't supposed to be their bread and butter? i mean they should be at least the bread, and the butter comes at level 2.I mean look at all the other classes: Rage isn't a barbarians bread and butter? Sneak attack and expertise for the Rogue? Martial Arts? Bardic Inspiration? Spellcasting for the full casters? And why you should compare the ONLY features a Ranger gets at level 1 with the side-ribbon a subclass gets a level 3? because the battlemaster at lv3 gets one of the strongest feature of all fighter subclasses. That's why Tool proficency isn't their core feature, because that is just a flavorful addition, shouldn't the first thing you get in a class somewhat important too?
That's how clerics work. That's how sorcerers work. It's a design decision, not a bug. Some classes lean harder on their subclasses than others. It's the whole package that counts.
Nope. Clerics, Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers get more diverse abilities from their subclasses than from the main class because their spellcasting is extremely potent, and provides enough options within the core class. That's why some of their levels are without new features, because they get higher level spells, and that is considered good enough. The Ranger, on the other hand, is the only martial class that would be lacklustre without their subclass, because most of the main class features are pretty bad. Trying to make up with a subclass dosen't sound as a feature to me.
Now, Underpowered is not the right term to address the state of the class, because IN COMBAT they can perform pretty well, still, A LOT of feature the class provides, their identity and relevance within a party oustide of combat (which is important for a Ranger), are, in my opinion, the opposite of solid.
Sorry i misread, but still, you got Druids and Clerics queing up to complain now. Unless you mean the Ranger spell list is competing only with the Paladin's.
I could've worded that a bit better. Let me put it differently: spellcasters with similar spell lists aren't competing with each other as long as they each have their own story and niche. There's no problem with Rangers having spells from the Druid and Wizard spell lists because a Ranger can't out-Druid a Druid or out-Wizard a Wizard. On the contrary, they complement each other; the Ranger can pick spells the Druid isn't picking (and vice-versa), and even when they share spells, that's one more person capable of maintaining concentration.
Yeah, they have their choices locked too, but by having more spells known and/or cantrips, they get more wiggle room in what to get, this way they can slip in the situational utility spell or two without losing out so much.
That's true, but fixing problems with niche spells isn't the Ranger's thing (that's more of a wizard thing, really). Spells like Pass Without Trace and Spike Growth enhance the party's tactics in major ways and having a small number of tricks like those is enough. If they could pick and choose whatever they need like Druids while also pulling double duty as a fighter-like class they'd be too versatile.
You know why the Ranger subclasses in the XGtE got those expanded spell lists? Due to people complaining about how few spells the Ranger had avaiable.
Or because the story for that subclass calls for it, which we know is what drives design. It makes sense for a Monster Hunter to have spells Protection From Evil and Good and Banishment. The Hunter subclass leans more on the physical side of the Ranger.
It dosen't matter if you have hundreds of utility spells in your spell list if you can only acces few of them. Are you telling me you are going to choose Locate Object as one of the spells you know? how many times are you gonna use that? The Paladin dosen't have this issue! "hey tomorrow we go search the stolen McGuffin" "ok i'll prepare Locate Object", and the day after?
Yes, and that's about the extent of the utility the Paladin's spell list brings to the table. Again, almost everything they get is combat-oriented with a smattering of niche cleric divination spells.
Why are they not the same? because they don't have spell casting? is that what defines a Ranger? if we go look at Paladins, they got all sort of things going on, they got their Auras, they have Divine Smite, Lay on Hands. Their identity is more of that of a Cleric/Fighter Multiclass. Can you say the same about the Ranger?
Yes.
...What? How come the features a class gets at level 1 aren't supposed to be their bread and butter? i mean they should be at least the bread, and the butter comes at level 2.I mean look at all the other classes: Rage isn't a barbarians bread and butter? Sneak attack and expertise for the Rogue? Martial Arts? Bardic Inspiration? Spellcasting for the full casters?
Bread and butter isn't the same as important. Something can be unreliable, but important nonetheless (e.g. Divine Intervention.) Like the classes you mentioned, the Ranger also gets their "butter" at 2nd level.
And why you should compare the ONLY features a Ranger gets at level 1 with the side-ribbon a subclass gets a level 3? because the battlemaster at lv3 gets one of the strongest feature of all fighter subclasses. That's why Tool proficency isn't their core feature, because that is just a flavorful addition, shouldn't the first thing you get in a class somewhat important too?
Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer are somewhat important (they define your Ranger's identity further and come up in exploration and interaction.) They're just not mechanics the Ranger class depends on.
Nope. Clerics, Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers get more diverse abilities from their subclasses than from the main class because their spellcasting is extremely potent, and provides enough options within the core class.
A wizard's subclass is nowhere near as impactful for them as a cleric's or sorcerer's is. Specialist wizards are far less distinct from each other than sorcerers with different origins are. Which ties back to my earlier point: they're not created equal. The rules designers don't strive to maintain arbitrary symmetries. Everything is designed according to its story and purpose.
Now, Underpowered is not the right term to address the state of the class, because IN COMBAT they can perform pretty well, still, A LOT of feature the class provides, their identity and relevance within a party oustide of combat (which is important for a Ranger), are, in my opinion, the opposite of solid.
Again, I don't deny there's room for improvement, but to point to a couple of niche features when most of their out-of-combat utility comes from their spell list, or comparing arbitrary metrics like how many class features are ribbons is short-sighted.
It isn’t underpowered, even if you play PHB version you will be dealing high damage. I honestly think anyone who thinks the Ranger is underpowered is doing it wrong.
The ranger can deal out good damage every round but it doesn’t have game mechanism to a lot of damage to a single foe in one round. Hunter’s Mark helps but without a way to make more attacks, it’s 2 or 3d6 per turn. Fighter’s action surge and paladin smite give them that ability. Rangers however can deal out some damage to a lot of foes in one turn. This makes the ranger better in fights with a large number of weaker foes rather than against one stronger foe. This could be part of why the PHB ranger is viewed as underpowered.
In previous editions of d&d, if you wanted to make an archer, it didn’t make much sense to go with any other class. Ranger had everything you needed and a bunch of other rangery stuff too. If the rangery stuff was weak or didn’t really make sense for your character, no big deal. You just didn’t use it or you got the DM to let you trade it for something more in character. Now that you can make excellent archers from several different classes, the ranger spells and class abilities become more important to making a ranger character work.
Using those spells and abilities to good effect can be campaign and DM dependent. In campaigns without a ranger PC, a DM might just handwave some of the wildness adventuring and other things rangers are good at.
Example: In a city adventure the bard wouldn’t have any trouble using her performance skill to help change the attitudes of a group locals at the inn to help get some information. The cleric uses his church connections to do the same. The ranger “I cast speak with animals and talk to sewer rats”. Most adventures don’t bother detailing sewer rat gossip so the DM would probably have to wing it.
The ranger can deal out good damage every round but it doesn’t have game mechanism to a lot of damage to a single foe in one round. Hunter’s Mark helps but without a way to make more attacks, it’s 2 or 3d6 per turn. Fighter’s action surge and paladin smite give them that ability. Rangers however can deal out some damage to a lot of foes in one turn. This makes the ranger better in fights with a large number of weaker foes rather than against one stronger foe. This could be part of why the PHB ranger is viewed as underpowered.
Example: In a city adventure the bard wouldn’t have any trouble using her performance skill to help change the attitudes of a group locals at the inn to help get some information. The cleric uses his church connections to do the same. The ranger “I cast speak with animals and talk to sewer rats”. Most adventures don’t bother detailing sewer rat gossip so the DM would probably have to wing it.
I think you are underestimating their output. At low levels (2-4) You are doing 1d8+1d6+dex as a base, that doesn’t include extra damage from your subclass, at lvl 5 you have extra attack giving you 2d8+2d6+dex. As a Gloom Stalker you can do 3d8+3d6+dex.
Additionaly Rangers have spells that flesh out their combat options making them versatile so that they can be effective against one or ten enemies. Yes paladins can Smite, but it takes a spell slot each time. One cast of Hunters Mark last an hour. Action surge happens once.
As for your “example” you are deliberately finding a weak and odd option. My Ranger walks into the city and can use his background feature “ear to the ground” or he can use his tracking ability, or he can use his favored enemy, or he can use one of his three skills (more than most get). So no, talking to rats isn’t the only thing a Ranger can do in a city.
It isn’t underpowered, even if you play PHB version you will be dealing high damage. I honestly think anyone who thinks the Ranger is underpowered is doing it wrong.
I wouldn’t say it’s underpowered in combat (except beast), because the subclasses are designed to boost it up. If you ignore XGtE, since it wasn’t out during the last survey, the Hunter traits are what helps the class out. Spellcasting is also the only important trait in the first 4 levels... and people keep arguing this is a valid balancing tool for combat effectiveness. The problem is you have two half spellcasters, so hypothetically you should be able to compare them....
But look at Paladin (Divine Health, Divine Smite, Divine Sense, Lay on Hands) vs Ranger (Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer, Primeval Awareness) and you will see a clear imbalance in not “power” but plain usefulness. If Ranger got something they could use as utility (Expertise in Relevant Skills, Constant boosts to tracking, heals etc) that should be fine! The problem is I would give up all 3 of the skills listed and it wouldn’t change how I play my Ranger in most sessions. They mechanically fail to add appropriate narrative flair to the class.
I personally don’t think they are underpowered, I was suggesting some of the factors that make some players feel they are underpowered. I think most ranger players feel a little envy when the fighter uses action surge to take down the bad guy in one turn and some probably wonder if they should multiclass to get that ability.
In my example, I was trying to point out that the usefulness of the ranger’s abilities and spells can be limited by the context of the campaign and by the how DM lets a ranger use those abilities. I was suggesting that a ranger who tries to use those abilities in some situations can be at the mercy of the DM being able to figure out on the fly how to role play it. Good DM’s can do this seamlessly while I know I sometimes have had trouble when a player creates a situation that I hadn’t considered before hand. Those situations are usually the most memorable.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I keep reading that the ranger is the most underpowered class in the game, but I can't find out why. Can someone here explain it for me?
Thanks.
::: Smellhole
::: It's better to have loved and lost than to never have had a good pair of speakers.
Why the Dev's created the Ranger the way they did? No idea.
Why in XgtE did they give all but the PhB Rangers additioanl spells? No idea.
Why was the first UA article a Revised Ranger? Probably because this was a very talked about question.
I'd recommend checking out the Ranger forum, there is a lot of discussion about it there.
There's nothing wrong with the Ranger class itself. The Beast Master subclass is fairly weak relative to the other subclasses and a lot of people aren't happy about that. The Hunter subclass and the XGtE subclasses are solid.
Beast Master is more the problem than Ranger as a whole. Hunter is kind of ridiculous for damage output (my sister is playing one right now), so that's pretty stellar. I play a Horizon Walker in another campaign and I'm at the top of the group damage-wise, plus I took mostly utility-based spells to buff in certain situations, so I do pretty well. Melee ranger with Zephyr Strike, that the Druid has cast Haste on is pretty legit...
If you read through the Dev's comments on the The Ranger: "Over the past year, you’ve seen us try a number of new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at addressing the class’s high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D’s weakest class by a significant margin."
They still haven't put out an official Revised Ranger yet.
The Hunter Ranger is fine for damage output, but it's other abilities are just terrible compared to the Revised Ranger.
Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer just pale in comparison, in every possibly way.
Primeval Awareness required spending an action and a spell slot, and for 1 min/lvl you could sense creatures within 1 or 6 miles of you, but not direction or number. Just "there or not there", which isn't very useful and is even less useful in favored terrain.
The Revised version doesn't cost a spell slot, but does take a full minute. Only works on your Favored Enemy, which makes sense, and gives numbers, directions, and range for up to 5 miles. Meaning it allows the Ranger to actually stalk their prey above a Survival Check.
Land Stride is replaced, because it's first power you get at 1st lvl instead of 8th and don't get the Adv on plant based spells, because that's so very constrained to be almost silly.
Fleet of Foot instead gives Dash as a bonus action, so it's a lesser form of Cunning Action.
Hide in Plain Sight takes 1 Action instead of 1 Minute in the Revised Ranger, and works slightly differently.
Vanish is the same, Ranger gets 2/3rds of Cunning Action.
Just because it's perceived as the weakest class doesn't mean it is though. Champion is one of the most popular Fighter subclasses even though mechanically it's the worst. Also, Jeremy said on Dragon Talk either this year or late last year that most of the dissatisfaction was with the Beast Master subclass and that's where they're focusing their efforts.
The UA Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer were total overkill. UA content is notorious for being overpowered and not balanced for multiclassing.
Tbh I think Primeval Awareness was the only big issue there. The spell slot cost was silly when Rangers have so few slots in general. Making it take time, be limited to favoured enemy(/ies) was a perfect fix. UA Natural Explorer is definitely OP, as someone who played UA Ranger for the first couple levels.
I disagree about the UA content being OP. Compared to the OG Ranger, it of course might look OP, because it's just soooo bad.
Also talk about Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy separately.
The OG Ranger's Natural Explorer was a joke of an ability.
You have to pick a favored terrain at 1st, 6th, and 10th.
IF you're in a Favored Terrain and traveling with a group means difficult terrain doesn't slow group travel, can't be lost except by magic, the Ranger gets a bonus "while traveling" action in addition to Perception, forage twice as much food, better tracking, and double proficiency bonus for Wis/Int checks.
So now the ranger is either really good at finding food or navigating, but s/he can't do both at the same time.
S/he can also move stealthily at normal pace if alone, but when is THIS going to be useful?
Compared to the Revised Natural Explorer.
You: Ignore difficult terrain, advantage on initiative rolls, and advantage on attacks in the 1st turn before others act.
I'll actually give the initiative stuff the closeted to OP in it.
The rest of the ability is the same, but you don't have to pick a "favored terrain", because the usefulness of these abilities is so random it is silly to gate them off. Unless the GM tells the ranger ahead of time it's likely to be useless. I mean if you didn't pick Underdark and you're playing Out of the Abyss or forest in Tomb of Annihilation, you'll never use it.
Favored Enemy just adds a +2 damage bonus against the favored enemy, which is a nice bonus but not crazy. Also means if you pick Humanoid you don't have to "guess" as which might be useful in the campaign. In the OG Ranger humanoid requires picking 2 sub-races.
I also do like that in Greater Favored Enemy they gate off the higher levels. So you only get 1 "scary" monster pick here, and the damage bonus goes to +4.
Because both are boosted, you never get a 3rd Favored Enemy.
The revised ranger advantage on initiative, advantage on attacks first turn is seriously brutally overpowered when combined with gloom stalker, especially if dual-wielding. In our campaign the ranger started with the normal version and was on par with everyone else. Then the DM let him switch to revised version and now he's an overpowered machine. The DM actually regrets this but will not make him change back, it's not his way so he has to jack up all enemy HP beyond normal just so they have even the slightest chance of surviving the first round or adding extra enemies because he knows one is basically guaranteed to be instantly destroyed by the ranger at the start.
My Homebrew: Races | Subclasses | Backgrounds | Spells | Magic Items | Feats
Need help with Homebrew? Check out this FAQ/Guide thread by IamSposta
See My Youtube Videos for Tips & Tricks using D&D Beyond
Or the UA ranger is overpowered and it makes the PH Ranger look bad by comparison.
Doesn't matter. Being on your favored terrain is just a bonus. Rangers already have one of the best spell lists for recon, exploration, tracking, survival and utility: Alarm, Absorb Elements, Detect Magic, Cure Wounds, Hunter's Mark, Goodberry, Jump, Fog Cloud, Speak With Animals, Find Traps, Darkvision, Pass Without Trace, Silence, Daylight and Nondetection to name a few. The XGtE subclasses have expanded spell lists on top of that. In contrast, the Paladin spell list is mostly composed of combat spells.
Rangers also get 1 extra skill proficiency relative to Fighter and Paladin, and Land's Stride lets them move through nonmagical difficult terrain (including allies) without movement penalties.
Yes, and that's ridiculous as a 1st level feature. Other than Beast Master, all Ranger subclasses already have really strong combat features. Advantage on initiative is already much better than a numerical bonus since it almost guarantees you'll roll in the top half of the initiative list, and advantage on attacks on top of that makes it overkill. It's also way too good of a 1-level-dip when multiclassing.
I could've worded that a bit better. Let me put it differently: spellcasters with similar spell lists aren't competing with each other as long as they each have their own story and niche. There's no problem with Rangers having spells from the Druid and Wizard spell lists because a Ranger can't out-Druid a Druid or out-Wizard a Wizard. On the contrary, they complement each other; the Ranger can pick spells the Druid isn't picking (and vice-versa), and even when they share spells, that's one more person capable of maintaining concentration.
agree. The beastmaster just has issues.
It isn’t underpowered, even if you play PHB version you will be dealing high damage. I honestly think anyone who thinks the Ranger is underpowered is doing it wrong.
The ranger can deal out good damage every round but it doesn’t have game mechanism to a lot of damage to a single foe in one round. Hunter’s Mark helps but without a way to make more attacks, it’s 2 or 3d6 per turn. Fighter’s action surge and paladin smite give them that ability. Rangers however can deal out some damage to a lot of foes in one turn. This makes the ranger better in fights with a large number of weaker foes rather than against one stronger foe. This could be part of why the PHB ranger is viewed as underpowered.
In previous editions of d&d, if you wanted to make an archer, it didn’t make much sense to go with any other class. Ranger had everything you needed and a bunch of other rangery stuff too. If the rangery stuff was weak or didn’t really make sense for your character, no big deal. You just didn’t use it or you got the DM to let you trade it for something more in character. Now that you can make excellent archers from several different classes, the ranger spells and class abilities become more important to making a ranger character work.
Using those spells and abilities to good effect can be campaign and DM dependent. In campaigns without a ranger PC, a DM might just handwave some of the wildness adventuring and other things rangers are good at.
Example: In a city adventure the bard wouldn’t have any trouble using her performance skill to help change the attitudes of a group locals at the inn to help get some information. The cleric uses his church connections to do the same. The ranger “I cast speak with animals and talk to sewer rats”. Most adventures don’t bother detailing sewer rat gossip so the DM would probably have to wing it.
I think you are underestimating their output. At low levels (2-4) You are doing 1d8+1d6+dex as a base, that doesn’t include extra damage from your subclass, at lvl 5 you have extra attack giving you 2d8+2d6+dex. As a Gloom Stalker you can do 3d8+3d6+dex.
Additionaly Rangers have spells that flesh out their combat options making them versatile so that they can be effective against one or ten enemies. Yes paladins can Smite, but it takes a spell slot each time. One cast of Hunters Mark last an hour. Action surge happens once.
As for your “example” you are deliberately finding a weak and odd option. My Ranger walks into the city and can use his background feature “ear to the ground” or he can use his tracking ability, or he can use his favored enemy, or he can use one of his three skills (more than most get). So no, talking to rats isn’t the only thing a Ranger can do in a city.
I wouldn’t say it’s underpowered in combat (except beast), because the subclasses are designed to boost it up. If you ignore XGtE, since it wasn’t out during the last survey, the Hunter traits are what helps the class out. Spellcasting is also the only important trait in the first 4 levels... and people keep arguing this is a valid balancing tool for combat effectiveness. The problem is you have two half spellcasters, so hypothetically you should be able to compare them....
But look at Paladin (Divine Health, Divine Smite, Divine Sense, Lay on Hands) vs Ranger (Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer, Primeval Awareness) and you will see a clear imbalance in not “power” but plain usefulness. If Ranger got something they could use as utility (Expertise in Relevant Skills, Constant boosts to tracking, heals etc) that should be fine! The problem is I would give up all 3 of the skills listed and it wouldn’t change how I play my Ranger in most sessions. They mechanically fail to add appropriate narrative flair to the class.
I personally don’t think they are underpowered, I was suggesting some of the factors that make some players feel they are underpowered. I think most ranger players feel a little envy when the fighter uses action surge to take down the bad guy in one turn and some probably wonder if they should multiclass to get that ability.
In my example, I was trying to point out that the usefulness of the ranger’s abilities and spells can be limited by the context of the campaign and by the how DM lets a ranger use those abilities. I was suggesting that a ranger who tries to use those abilities in some situations can be at the mercy of the DM being able to figure out on the fly how to role play it. Good DM’s can do this seamlessly while I know I sometimes have had trouble when a player creates a situation that I hadn’t considered before hand. Those situations are usually the most memorable.