Why are they subpar? Why is the gloomstalker the only arguably playable subclass? Why can’t Wizards get this right? Why are all of their class options so situational and often useless? I’m thinking about building a homebrew class for them that makes them more relevant.
The most recent UA for rangers was a solid step towards giving them a useful class feature that stemmed from their flavor but Tasha’s completely changed it and made it significantly worse.
In general, classes serve an overall theme for anyone falling under the category, speaking to general use and loose traits surrounding the pillars of gameplay. Then, subclasses define the niche, creating the nuts and bolts of specific design choices that allow players to tailor their characters to extend into very specific, moment to moment playstyles.
Rangers struggle with this.
Their class abilities are very defined and have limited use during much of the gameplay. Though seemingly wide-sweeping, every class ability has to be tailored to your campaign which takes away the ability to create a character that serves a wider purpose and limits customization.
Unfortunately, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything at best doesn’t do anything to fix this, and in reality kinda makes this worse.
I love rangers in Western Fantasy. They kinda define the expanse, freedom, mysticism, and wild of the way many western fantasy is presented. It’s just too bad that it doesn’t come across that way at all in 5e.
So let’s discuss how this class can be rebuilt to serve the idea of a ranger who wanders the wild, revels in nature magic, becomes one with their natural surroundings, fights with bow and blade, serves the natural order, and probably smells really bad...
The answer is because new players pick beastmaster, then they double-down on that poor life choice by picking poor animal companions. Beastmaster gives rangers a bad name.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Everything folks think they don't like about the rangers or why folks think rangers are subpar is because they, their DM, or the table they play at doesn't use the parts of the game rangers are meant to shine in. Knowledge based ability and skill checks, exploring, overland travel, survival, encumbrance, difficult terrain, using spell components correctly, restricted or limited amounts of resting, and combat against multiple targets at once.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Sounds like two very different types of games we are playing.
Nothing the ranger has in it's kit trivializes the game. It can keep up with the basic stuff in the game just fine. Hitting BBEGs, counting gold, healing, multiclassing, using feats, you know, the basic stuff. When folks get into a broader playstyle of the game the ranger rises to the top of the heap pretty quickly. There's only so much a paladin and a wizard can do.
yeah, and all the things that you listed off like encumbrance, exhaustion, and difficult terrain are drags. Not once have i ever heard someone in my group complain that we don't track those things, and they certainly wouldn't do it just so that a ranger can feel useful.
I started out in the old days, and I mapped my dungeons tracked my ammo, rations encumbrance and all that. I do not miss it at all.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
You come from the old days, so you'll know what I'm talking about. I enjoy all of the "little bits" of the game. I like using spell components, tracking encumbrance, NOT being able to rest all the time so almost every battle is a full health party against the likes of Tiamat, searching for things, getting lost, going up "against the odds", monsters that get to make death saving throws and will hit a PC when they're KO'd. Turning all of that off is the difference between playing chess and checkers to me.
It doesn't even NEED to be for the ranger. I love the idea of a fighter or paladin deciding if they should or should not wear their full plate mail before the party trapes into the swamp. Or if the wizard is going to take everything they own or not even though they can barley carry it. I like the idea of skills and magic being a necessity to survive a long journey, and not having either means a swift death.
We should all take our favorite stories, books, movies, plays, or shows and make a pie chart as too how much of the story, how much of the adventure, of the struggle and overcoming the struggle, how much of the tension and release, takes place in just the finding out where to go and the getting there.
It certain sucks to realise that part of your class is ment to deal with an aspect of the game that your table doesn't even use to begin with... It's like "ooh.. I was supposed to be good at forraging? I didn't even know we needed to to keep track of food"
Personally I kinda like those little things about the game.. weight. food ect.. But I can def see how a lot of tables may not bother with tracking tha kinda stuff.. Which leaves some characters with pointless features.
Perhaps a way to deal with this as a DM, is to look at the benefit the class should have given to the party, and give them a an ability with a similar flavor / power level so that the player doesn't feel cheated out of an ability.
For all of the folks that skip the "little fiddley bits" of the game, Tasha's has your back. It replaces these silly exploration class features with stuff that is directly used in combat.
It certain sucks to realise that part of your class is ment to deal with an aspect of the game that your table doesn't even use to begin with... It's like "ooh.. I was supposed to be good at forraging? I didn't even know we needed to to keep track of food"
Personally I kinda like those little things about the game.. weight. food ect.. But I can def see how a lot of tables may not bother with tracking tha kinda stuff.. Which leaves some characters with pointless features.
Perhaps a way to deal with this as a DM, is to look at the benefit the class should have given to the party, and give them a an ability with a similar flavor / power level so that the player doesn't feel cheated out of an ability.
In my eyes, it's a matter of the game designers not understanding how players play the game. In my group, when we started together back in the 4e days we had a conversation about whether we wanted to track ammo, food and things like that. I'd always done it, so I was in support of doing it. The vote was against me (I also voted against 4e) but in both cases I found I liked the new way better than the old. I didn't want to transition to 5e either, but I am sure glad I did as it's better than any of the previous versions I have tried.
There's room for both game styles. It's sad to see rangers just laid on the altar of your class features all filling niches that many modern parties just don't bother with. Rangers would be better off imo, if 5e had a travel system similar to Adventures in Middle Earth. i think those rules looked really interesting, even if I wouldn't be super interested in a Middle Earth game (no casters makes me a sad panda. I'm martial'd out.)
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I'm not familiar with that system, but If I understand you right.. The idea is to have sort of a "travel mode" that's more core to how the game is played.. That way it's easier to implement survival focused features and make sure they're being used? In the same sense that we know combat abilities will be used because combat has a clear ruleset, where as the survival aspect does not.
I don't have my books at the present (at work) but IIRC each player has a role that the perform, and you make skill checks based on your roll which influence how difficult the journey is. If you all do well, there are benefits, if you all do poorly, there are drawbacks. I don't know how well it works in practice, but it looked interesting.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
We should all take our favorite stories, books, movies, plays, or shows and make a pie chart as too how much of the story, how much of the adventure, of the struggle and overcoming the struggle, how much of the tension and release, takes place in just the finding out where to go and the getting there.
Or we could make a pie chart about how often those "fiddly bits" factored into those famous adventures. How many times did Gandalf struggle with his encumbrance? How often did Legolas stop in the middle of battle to count his arrows? How often did Aragorn forage for food? The answer is zero. Zero times did those things happen. The kind of exploration that made stories like LOTR great can be played out just fine with no Ranger in the party, or now with a Ranger that doesn't have the "exploration" features which really mostly boil down to advantage on checks the Ranger was already good at and could possibly get advantage on from another source the same way every other class handles exploration.
Making the game more focused on exploration because there's a Ranger in the party causes some DM metagaming to show from behind the curtain. I can't think of any other class where you need to alter the structure of an adventure solely because X class is in the party. The other relevant bit of metagaming here is that the party wants to get to their destination and they know the DM wants them to get to their destination so even if they're bad at exploration, the DM will eventually relent and let them get there because otherwise the game isn't really happening. You can talk about preparing random encounters and whatnot but we all know that's not the story most campaigns are trying to tell. But let's say you're okay with that - that it's the journey and not the destination that matters. If being lost is just as fun as getting there, why bother getting there? What value is the Ranger actually bringing?
At any rate, to answer OP, I disagree that Tasha's made Ranger worse. I don't hate Favored Foe as much as anyone else and everything else was a straight upgrade. Ranger has gone from something I wasn't interested in playing to something I can't wait to try out. No more shoehorning a Fighter or Rogue build into the archetype.
We should all take our favorite stories, books, movies, plays, or shows and make a pie chart as too how much of the story, how much of the adventure, of the struggle and overcoming the struggle, how much of the tension and release, takes place in just the finding out where to go and the getting there.
Or we could make a pie chart about how often those "fiddly bits" factored into those famous adventures. How many times did Gandalf struggle with his encumbrance? How often did Legolas stop in the middle of battle to count his arrows? How often did Aragorn forage for food? The answer is zero. Zero times did those things happen. The kind of exploration that made stories like LOTR great can be played out just fine with no Ranger in the party, or now with a Ranger that doesn't have the "exploration" features which really mostly boil down to advantage on checks the Ranger was already good at and could possibly get advantage on from another source the same way every other class handles exploration.
Making the game more focused on exploration because there's a Ranger in the party causes some DM metagaming to show from behind the curtain. I can't think of any other class where you need to alter the structure of an adventure solely because X class is in the party. The other relevant bit of metagaming here is that the party wants to get to their destination and they know the DM wants them to get to their destination so even if they're bad at exploration, the DM will eventually relent and let them get there because otherwise the game isn't really happening. You can talk about preparing random encounters and whatnot but we all know that's not the story most campaigns are trying to tell. But let's say you're okay with that - that it's the journey and not the destination that matters. If being lost is just as fun as getting there, why bother getting there? What value is the Ranger actually bringing?
At any rate, to answer OP, I disagree that Tasha's made Ranger worse. I don't hate Favored Foe as much as anyone else and everything else was a straight upgrade. Ranger has gone from something I wasn't interested in playing to something I can't wait to try out. No more shoehorning a Fighter or Rogue build into the archetype.
Gandalf didn't fiddle with encumbrance because he was freaking Odin. He also ran a side business from his cart, which could carry a lot. Legolas didn't stop mid-battle to count arrows, but he did police afterward to resupply. Aragon literally foraged for food in the film version when he brought the hobbits a deer on the way to Weathertop. And the company had Bill the Pony in tow from Bree to the gates of Moria.
Dump on the class all you want, but for the love of Eru Ilúvatar learn to pick your battles better.
The isue is that Rangers gets Flavor and Fluff instead of a real Class feature, while everyone else gets Class features that works around their Themes and fluff...
Imagine this, instead of Rogues getting Sneak attack, they ONLY get Thiefs Cant...
And thats the issue with rangers.
Ranger " Yeah i can forage for food and make our travels through the wilds easierthanks to my Class Feature!"
Other players "Dude we are playing Waterdeep..., we will be in the city for the whole campaign..."
Ranger"...-_-..."
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Rangers get two abilities that people think are fluff. Thdy aren’t fluff. They can and should be used in situations other than “traveling in the woods”. They are knowledge skills. This isn’t a video game. I’m sure folks have the same issues with the knowledge domain cleric. Super powerful, just not “in combat”. So I suppose most people think it’s a piece of crap subclass. Rangers are useful in a city setting. In fact, many of their in combat abilities and spells shine in cramped close quarters environments. Other than fighting, in dragon heist, level 1 to 5, what does a fighter, barbarian, or paladin bring to the table? Nothing. After dragon heist we have dungeon of the mad mage which features most types of terrains and creatures from the base game. That is a ranger’s dream job. By level level 10 rangers have access to some of the best knowledge based skills in the game on multiple terrain types and monster types, and another at 14. Using these skills, this knowledge, in game takes creativity and effort. It can be done. It’s easy, just not well known or understood. If all someone does is fight like rock’em sock’em robots, counting hit points going up and down like a cat toy, then I’m sure rangers feel underpowered. But they deal as much damage as the other classes, fill unique rolls in combat others don’t, and have a skill set that a paladin and fighter don’t even begin to touch.
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Let’s talk about Rangers.
Why are they subpar? Why is the gloomstalker the only arguably playable subclass? Why can’t Wizards get this right? Why are all of their class options so situational and often useless? I’m thinking about building a homebrew class for them that makes them more relevant.
The most recent UA for rangers was a solid step towards giving them a useful class feature that stemmed from their flavor but Tasha’s completely changed it and made it significantly worse.
In general, classes serve an overall theme for anyone falling under the category, speaking to general use and loose traits surrounding the pillars of gameplay. Then, subclasses define the niche, creating the nuts and bolts of specific design choices that allow players to tailor their characters to extend into very specific, moment to moment playstyles.
Rangers struggle with this.
Their class abilities are very defined and have limited use during much of the gameplay. Though seemingly wide-sweeping, every class ability has to be tailored to your campaign which takes away the ability to create a character that serves a wider purpose and limits customization.
Unfortunately, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything at best doesn’t do anything to fix this, and in reality kinda makes this worse.
I love rangers in Western Fantasy. They kinda define the expanse, freedom, mysticism, and wild of the way many western fantasy is presented. It’s just too bad that it doesn’t come across that way at all in 5e.
So let’s discuss how this class can be rebuilt to serve the idea of a ranger who wanders the wild, revels in nature magic, becomes one with their natural surroundings, fights with bow and blade, serves the natural order, and probably smells really bad...
Or wait until Tasha's is out, then discuss Ranger power balance :)
The answer is because new players pick beastmaster, then they double-down on that poor life choice by picking poor animal companions. Beastmaster gives rangers a bad name.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Everything folks think they don't like about the rangers or why folks think rangers are subpar is because they, their DM, or the table they play at doesn't use the parts of the game rangers are meant to shine in. Knowledge based ability and skill checks, exploring, overland travel, survival, encumbrance, difficult terrain, using spell components correctly, restricted or limited amounts of resting, and combat against multiple targets at once.
That's not true. Those features are implemented in such a way that trivalizes those things so that even though you excel at them, it's not adding fun.
The other stuff is just not fun to track. Why should everyone else has to suffer because Billy picked a ranger?
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Sounds like two very different types of games we are playing.
Nothing the ranger has in it's kit trivializes the game. It can keep up with the basic stuff in the game just fine. Hitting BBEGs, counting gold, healing, multiclassing, using feats, you know, the basic stuff. When folks get into a broader playstyle of the game the ranger rises to the top of the heap pretty quickly. There's only so much a paladin and a wizard can do.
yeah, and all the things that you listed off like encumbrance, exhaustion, and difficult terrain are drags. Not once have i ever heard someone in my group complain that we don't track those things, and they certainly wouldn't do it just so that a ranger can feel useful.
I started out in the old days, and I mapped my dungeons tracked my ammo, rations encumbrance and all that. I do not miss it at all.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
You come from the old days, so you'll know what I'm talking about. I enjoy all of the "little bits" of the game. I like using spell components, tracking encumbrance, NOT being able to rest all the time so almost every battle is a full health party against the likes of Tiamat, searching for things, getting lost, going up "against the odds", monsters that get to make death saving throws and will hit a PC when they're KO'd. Turning all of that off is the difference between playing chess and checkers to me.
It doesn't even NEED to be for the ranger. I love the idea of a fighter or paladin deciding if they should or should not wear their full plate mail before the party trapes into the swamp. Or if the wizard is going to take everything they own or not even though they can barley carry it. I like the idea of skills and magic being a necessity to survive a long journey, and not having either means a swift death.
We should all take our favorite stories, books, movies, plays, or shows and make a pie chart as too how much of the story, how much of the adventure, of the struggle and overcoming the struggle, how much of the tension and release, takes place in just the finding out where to go and the getting there.
It certain sucks to realise that part of your class is ment to deal with an aspect of the game that your table doesn't even use to begin with... It's like "ooh.. I was supposed to be good at forraging? I didn't even know we needed to to keep track of food"
Personally I kinda like those little things about the game.. weight. food ect.. But I can def see how a lot of tables may not bother with tracking tha kinda stuff.. Which leaves some characters with pointless features.
Perhaps a way to deal with this as a DM, is to look at the benefit the class should have given to the party, and give them a an ability with a similar flavor / power level so that the player doesn't feel cheated out of an ability.
I'm being difficult, I know. I'm sorry, everyone.
For all of the folks that skip the "little fiddley bits" of the game, Tasha's has your back. It replaces these silly exploration class features with stuff that is directly used in combat.
In my eyes, it's a matter of the game designers not understanding how players play the game. In my group, when we started together back in the 4e days we had a conversation about whether we wanted to track ammo, food and things like that. I'd always done it, so I was in support of doing it. The vote was against me (I also voted against 4e) but in both cases I found I liked the new way better than the old. I didn't want to transition to 5e either, but I am sure glad I did as it's better than any of the previous versions I have tried.
There's room for both game styles. It's sad to see rangers just laid on the altar of your class features all filling niches that many modern parties just don't bother with. Rangers would be better off imo, if 5e had a travel system similar to Adventures in Middle Earth. i think those rules looked really interesting, even if I wouldn't be super interested in a Middle Earth game (no casters makes me a sad panda. I'm martial'd out.)
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I'm not familiar with that system, but If I understand you right.. The idea is to have sort of a "travel mode" that's more core to how the game is played.. That way it's easier to implement survival focused features and make sure they're being used? In the same sense that we know combat abilities will be used because combat has a clear ruleset, where as the survival aspect does not.
I don't have my books at the present (at work) but IIRC each player has a role that the perform, and you make skill checks based on your roll which influence how difficult the journey is. If you all do well, there are benefits, if you all do poorly, there are drawbacks. I don't know how well it works in practice, but it looked interesting.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Or we could make a pie chart about how often those "fiddly bits" factored into those famous adventures. How many times did Gandalf struggle with his encumbrance? How often did Legolas stop in the middle of battle to count his arrows? How often did Aragorn forage for food? The answer is zero. Zero times did those things happen. The kind of exploration that made stories like LOTR great can be played out just fine with no Ranger in the party, or now with a Ranger that doesn't have the "exploration" features which really mostly boil down to advantage on checks the Ranger was already good at and could possibly get advantage on from another source the same way every other class handles exploration.
Making the game more focused on exploration because there's a Ranger in the party causes some DM metagaming to show from behind the curtain. I can't think of any other class where you need to alter the structure of an adventure solely because X class is in the party. The other relevant bit of metagaming here is that the party wants to get to their destination and they know the DM wants them to get to their destination so even if they're bad at exploration, the DM will eventually relent and let them get there because otherwise the game isn't really happening. You can talk about preparing random encounters and whatnot but we all know that's not the story most campaigns are trying to tell. But let's say you're okay with that - that it's the journey and not the destination that matters. If being lost is just as fun as getting there, why bother getting there? What value is the Ranger actually bringing?
At any rate, to answer OP, I disagree that Tasha's made Ranger worse. I don't hate Favored Foe as much as anyone else and everything else was a straight upgrade. Ranger has gone from something I wasn't interested in playing to something I can't wait to try out. No more shoehorning a Fighter or Rogue build into the archetype.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I can tell you’ve never played a ranger.
Gandalf didn't fiddle with encumbrance because he was freaking Odin. He also ran a side business from his cart, which could carry a lot. Legolas didn't stop mid-battle to count arrows, but he did police afterward to resupply. Aragon literally foraged for food in the film version when he brought the hobbits a deer on the way to Weathertop. And the company had Bill the Pony in tow from Bree to the gates of Moria.
Dump on the class all you want, but for the love of Eru Ilúvatar learn to pick your battles better.
The isue is that Rangers gets Flavor and Fluff instead of a real Class feature, while everyone else gets Class features that works around their Themes and fluff...
Imagine this, instead of Rogues getting Sneak attack, they ONLY get Thiefs Cant...
And thats the issue with rangers.
Ranger " Yeah i can forage for food and make our travels through the wilds easierthanks to my Class Feature!"
Other players "Dude we are playing Waterdeep..., we will be in the city for the whole campaign..."
Ranger"...-_-..."
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
Rangers get two abilities that people think are fluff. Thdy aren’t fluff. They can and should be used in situations other than “traveling in the woods”. They are knowledge skills. This isn’t a video game. I’m sure folks have the same issues with the knowledge domain cleric. Super powerful, just not “in combat”. So I suppose most people think it’s a piece of crap subclass. Rangers are useful in a city setting. In fact, many of their in combat abilities and spells shine in cramped close quarters environments. Other than fighting, in dragon heist, level 1 to 5, what does a fighter, barbarian, or paladin bring to the table? Nothing. After dragon heist we have dungeon of the mad mage which features most types of terrains and creatures from the base game. That is a ranger’s dream job. By level level 10 rangers have access to some of the best knowledge based skills in the game on multiple terrain types and monster types, and another at 14. Using these skills, this knowledge, in game takes creativity and effort. It can be done. It’s easy, just not well known or understood. If all someone does is fight like rock’em sock’em robots, counting hit points going up and down like a cat toy, then I’m sure rangers feel underpowered. But they deal as much damage as the other classes, fill unique rolls in combat others don’t, and have a skill set that a paladin and fighter don’t even begin to touch.