Hello eversione.

I’m a relatively new player in the d&d world and I would like to try “mastering” the ranger class, despite the many prejudices people has against this class.

My intuition tells me that this is a really good class, versatile both in and out of combat, and I really like its base concept.

However I’m not Sure as to how I should approach it, to be a good scout/support and long-Range dealer for my party.

I’m also trying to use only the basic player manual, at least for now.

Does anyone have and good tips as to how I should build or play it to make the most out of it? 

Thank you in advance.

High dex, wisom, and con. I find the archer style allows me to shine in combait. The high dex helps with bows and with finesse weapons for duel weilding. It gives you help with your AC, initative bonus, stealth. The Wisdom helps with many skills and your spell casting. if you can get a decent Con as well it helps you survive. Talk to your DM about the campaign and what might make good favored enemies.

Hi!

I'm also relatively new so probably not the best person to ask, but just wanted to say I'd echo what Leaf_Onwind said!

I'm playing a ranger just now (although I'm about to multiclass into druid).  My main focus is archery, so dex is a big one for me there for the attack bonus. With my longbow range I can do decent and consistent damage while keeping far enough away that it's hard for many enemies to get close enough to do much to me in return. I help pick off/wear down enemies before they can reach my party.

I think any class though, it's your character as a person that makes them good - who they are, how they think and act, what drives them etc.  It's them and their personality/choices that will drive what/how you do in RP and combat.  I feel like if you have a good handle on who your character is as a person, and work with your DM on the rest as Leaf_Onwind said, you'll be grand - good luck and I hope you have fun! :)

Ranger works best when your DM works with you. If you're using the PHB, that means you have the Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer features. Work with your DM to ensure that you pick enemies that are going to show up with some frequency, and terrains you'll actually be in. There are any number of ways that they can do this that won't spoil any surprises they have planned (like giving you a top 8 or top 3 list to pick from), and it's just like how they would plan loot to include scrolls if there's a wizard in the party, or certain magic items or spell components, depending on who's in the party.

Amen!!

Ranger is actually a very strong class - but because it has so many options it’s a complex class. As others have said start by focusing on Dex, con and wisdom (it’s questionable whether it should be Dex, wisdom, con or Dex, Con, Wisdom but I favor how I listed it. Dex will impact your Ac and, with finesse and missile weapons your attack as well as abilities like stealth and acrobatics. Con grants extra HP and improved concentration checks on continuing spells and most of your best spells call for concentration. You don’t actually have many attack or save/suck spells so, to me, wisdom is less mportant than Con. Light weapons allow you to use two weapon fighting without the fighting style and dual wielding allowing you to go archery fighting style at L2 and still have decent melee capability. Definitely talk to your DM about terrains and favored enemies but at L1 humanoids is generally the best choice with one being the  low CR one the DM likes to use at L1-5. For the other I frequently take elves as that gives another common foe as well as bbegs and Drow at higher levels. I like to take a scimitar (think Machete) and a shortsword along with a dagger, and Handaxe as “field tools”. Other things to talk over with your DM include taking the scalemail then selling it back and buying studded leather getting some additional cash along the way, can you subdivide things like ball bearings (also how big are they in the DM’s world).

Thank you all so much, for your advices! It actually helped me a lot!

With a PHB Ranger Pay close attention to what you can do and what you can't.    There are a lot of lies about PHB Ranger that get swept under concepts of  'Situational' or 'DM issues'

One big lie is that you have to be in your favored terrain to use your skills. -----The 'expertise' is always on as long as its related. So when cooking or crafting use materials from your chosen terrain.    

another big lie is that rangers terrain skills don't help combat But if you are using your travel time wisely it will. travel can often be treated as ranger  as  'free time'. Sometimes its smarter to let other characters guide the group.  Forage session you have extra resources To sell or craft something useful. (like healing potions).  Solo scouting (at faster speeds)means low stealth or perception players won't ruin The player side of an ambush. Harvesting local poisons can be free damage.

the Core 2014 ranger gameplay loop is:

1. study/Plan

2. use skills to acquire an advantage and make adjustments to plan

3. complete goal and move on to the next .

What are the rest of the party playing?  Synergy  is important and depending on the group and your playstyle a strength based ranger might be viable.  

It has been a very long time since I posted on these forums. Most of which was because of my enjoyment of the ranger class and the constantly feeling like I had to defend it against what seemed like intentional spreading lies and sour opinions based on experiences that meshed poorly with the Internet. 

Let me start by suggesting not even bothering with Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer. Meaning, don't get into that yet. They are great for those that understand and use the parts of the game they are so strong in. Many folks on the internet, the most active perhaps, don't play a game beyond long stereotypical combats in between light role play. Whatever. It is a combat game most of all for many. Sobeit. 

Let's start with the combat, and specifically what so many folks hyper fixate on. Damage output. Many people look at the base class chassis for each class and compare thinking they should be equal. They are not. Some classes have their combat "punch" mostly from their base class, gaining little to nothing from their subclass. Think paladin and warlock. Others are opposite. Think ranger, fighter, monk, and barbarian. Rangers get so much from their spells. Spellcasting specifically. And get that from use that is not directly written in the rules. It's a lot to get into, which others in this thread have already done, and others will do in the future. But here are some examples.

Using just the class, subclass, and hunter's mark will, of course fall short in the damage output department about level 8. Fall short is, of course, subjective, as they are about third or forth in damage output over all of the classes. Ranger spells like hail of thorns, conjure animals, and ensnaring strike, all provide not only damage output for the ranger matching or exceeding that of others, but offers additional "secret" benefits, like added cover, added hit point soaking from enemies, area of effect damage, knocking enemies prone, grappling enemies, and restraining enemies. While some classes and subclasses deal a very measurable amount of high single target, rangers enough, or more than most, all while stacking on extra tactical, offensive, and defensive bonus. Fog cloud and pass without trace allow an entire party to avoid combats, or get a powerful upper hand. Many tables don't use stealth, perception, hiding, and surprise well, or at all. That is a shame for the rangers power and reputation. Getting "action surge" for your entire party is...strong. Rangers also deal ranged combat very well. Characters that focus on melee combat are already behind the eight ball if they are more than 35' away. 

I could, and have, go one. But I won't. I'll let others chime in. There is a strong group of ranger advocates in the thread above. 

Good to see you back  Its good to remember that Ranger and there spells can make some very tactical decisions.  Simple Hunter's Mark while a reasonable first approach is not as poewrful as some of their spell powers. Conjure animals at 9th level can be as big of a tactical change as any other martial class gets at that level.

how to ranger: 
1. pick archery fighting style 
2. go gloom stalker-- it's just head and shoulders above the other rangers in terms of combat power
3. take sharp shooter early on. 

aaaaand done. you're now a pro 1337 ranger

If you stick with just the players handbook, ranger is a bit underwhelming.  I would choose the hunter ranger before beastmaster.

I have been playing a drakewarden ranger, and LOVE the options it provides.  Who doesn't like to have a dragon to command?  Eventually you can ride it and then fly on it.  In combat I typically stay near the back and use longbow, and command the drake on my bonus action.  Drake can attack, grapple, dodge to keep enemy occupied, among other things.  At 5th level, I took summon beast spell, so I can command a beast ( large bear ) , shoot longbow twice, and command drake.  There are just so many options for controlling the battlefield.  

If you can switch out favored enemy for favored foe, I think that allows pretty much the same damage and keeps a spell slot open from not using hunters mark.  

Spike growth is an awesome 2nd level battlefield control spell. In one encounter we had hill giants coming at us from some high ground. Some simply jumped down to our level, but 2 of them came down a slope. I cast it on the slope. One of the giants who was already damaged did not survive the trip down the slope when the DM ruled that he tripped and rolled. The other was pretty beat up by the time he made it down.

Since rangers have a lot of abilities, I made it a habit to review my character sheet thoroughly before each session. It reduces the number of "Why didn't I remember?" moments.

If you're using the PHB features only, then picking your Favored Terrains and Favored Enemies will likely be your biggest hangups. You could base your choices on where your Ranger is from, or focus on where your Ranger is now. If you have ways for your Ranger to research the part of the world they're in, that might be a way for the DM to supply information that could guide your choices. Visit a city's library, or a local cartographer, maybe see if an adventurer's guild hall or a hunter's lodge has information, that sort of thing. A good DM will appreciate you having your character put in the work instead of you just reading the Monster Manual. You could also just pick what you want and let fate(i.e. the DM) decide if your "particular set of skills" will come in handy. The alternatives for those features in Tasha's can make your Ranger's abilities less situational, so it's up to you which way you want to go. 

Wisdom-based skills like Perception and Survival will definitely be in your wheelhouse, so be the one looking for tracks and other ways to help the party figure out what they're up against before they come face to face with whatever it is. You'll likely be pretty good at Stealth too, so you should be good at scouting ahead, especially if there's no Rogue in the party. 

Rangers can be effective in melee or at range, but I love playing them as archers primarily. The +2 to attack rolls from the Archery fighting style means you could possibly wait on your first Dexterity increase to focus elsewhere, be it Wisdom, Constitution, or picking a feat early on. 

There are plenty of interesting Ranger subclasses to choose from, pay no mind to the people who insist that Gloom Stalker is the only subclass worthwhile :) 

If your party includes a tank in plate armor, Pass Without Trace will become your best friend :)

The damage boost from Hunter's Mark can make you good at focusing fire on the boss monster, especially if you're dual-wielding and making more attacks than others. Of course, once you put Hunter's Market on the boss, you can't move it until they're dead. So another option would be to try and thin out the weaker enemies, transferring it from one to the other as you pick them off. If you go that route, I would suggest prioritizing minions that your fellow party members are already fighting. The sooner each one drops, the sooner you can move Hunter's Mark to a new target. 

Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert are both very compelling feats for an archer, though you might not have time to take both. If you find yourself being able to stay out of melee but are often firing into it, Sharpshooter's definitely the priority. But if you're fighting in cramped quarters a lot and have a hard time keeping your distance, definitely go for Crossbow Expert first. If your DM is good about using your party's Passive Perception scores, then Observant can also be a fun choice. 

Because those that love high damage PCs think gloomstalker is the way to play a ranger let’s actually look at it more closely before looking at other comments and ideas. At level 1&2 you’re just a ranger like any other. While it’s possible to go strength and melee based I generally agree that you are better off going Dex and archery fighting style ( then taking a scimitar and short sword as additional melee weapons so you can use TWF when in melee). At L3 you get your first subclass features: umbral sight (darkvision +30’) which is always useful; dread ambusher which gives you 3 things: 1) a wisdom bonus to initiative, 2) a 10’ speed bonus for 1 round, 3) an extra attack and an extra d8 damage on 1 attack - in round 1 ONLY! So you get the potential for doing 3 D8 +2x Dex bonus in round 1 and then your back to 1D8 + DB for the rest of the fight, ie a single nova burst each combat. The 10’ speed bonus is also only good for rnd 1 of any combat. That means the best part of the feature is actually the bonus to initiative. Granted that if you manage to get a 20 in both Dex and wisdom that means your initiative will be between 11&30 at tier 5, at tier 1 it’s probably only a +1 or +2 - useful but overpowering. It’s a good subclass but not the end all and be all that some folks think it is. 

As Frank and Elfdope point out the combat abilities of rangers start to be super seceded by their casting abilities at the end of tier 2 and the begining of tier 3. And are significant even in tier 1. One really needs to think of rangers from L3 on more as casters that can fight than as fighters that can cast.