Ranger Reworks are almost a dime a dozen but I thought I would take a swing at creating a class I feel best encapsulates what a Ranger should be. I have drawn from other peoples' work including the offical WotC no magic ranger for Class feature ideas (i.e Poulstices). As I do not want to pass off other peoples' ideas as entirely my own.
I feel the Ranger should be represented as a Martial class with access to magical abilities such as Haste through a mechanic I have called "focus". I have created "focus" which draws from aspects of other classes to create what I hope is a unique flavourful way that makes the Ranger satisfying in a way other Classes cannot provide.
The Ranger uses their knowledge, powers of deduction and determination of will to perform remarkable feats. In the chaos of battle they remain calm and undetered from their foe and use quickly identify ways in which they can exploit their weaknesses. In essence they are the polar opposite of a Barbarian and their Rage. Or when out in the wilderness they use their vast wealth of knowledge to see what others cannot.
This is definitely what I would call a first draft but complete enough to gauge interest or feedback.
I'll take a better look later, but a couple of things jump out:
1) Learning new favoured terrains through study, the duration of which being at the DM's discretion, would be annoying. It's difficult to find a fair balance between allowing a player to use this, as it's part of his abilities, and not knowing what will happen with the party later on. Requiring a month of study is likely prohibitive early on (and the DM would arguably have to set some kind of time spent on a daily basis requirement as well), but if the DM doesn't want the ranger to rack up a handful of terrain types quickly lengthy downtime later on becomes impossible. I wouldn't mind really if this was largely a flavour ability, but the first two benefits are pretty darn strong.
2) Speaking of which, would a Wisdom (Perception) check while in favoured terrain count as related to that terrain? That's a big one.
3) If I read it right Bastion allows the ranger to make an extra attack without spending focus every turn he foregoes movement, from 2nd level on. That's massively strong, and Fighting Style + Vigilant Gaze are nothing to sneeze at at 2nd level either. Archers will be making two attacks most turns from level 2 on, three from level 5. Dual wielders will need to move more often, but they can be at four attacks in a turn by level 5. Comparing that to Fighters, for who combat should be their bread and butter, that seems over the top.
edit: on a more general note, your entire description kind of screams "fighter archetype with some wilderness abilities thrown in almost as an afterthought", more so since you throw everything and the kitchen sink at this in terms of Fighting Styles. Especially since the game would normally base a bunch of archetypes off of this class, I don't know if it's good for the game to create another warrior class and remove what I think should be more of a fighter/druid hybrid.
1) I can understand where you are coming from perhaps like the vanilla class there should be options to choose additional terrains when you reach certain levels or having a limitation to the amount of terrains a Ranger can know.
2) A perception check would apply. As there are already ways to get passive perceptions to 25+ I don't feel that is as big of an issue.
3) I agree with that and extra actions are very dangerous for the action economy. Perhaps giving it a cost of 1 or 2 focus points could fix this.
4) i was pretty lazy with the fighting styles, getting rid of protection and defence would help with this not being so similar to fighter.
I think by making a martial class there will always be a danger of similarities to a Fighter. Although I do think that enough flavour has been given so that it isn't just a Fighter variant.
I am currently working on a 1/3rd spell casting subclass for my ranger which should satisfy the fighter/druid archetype. Although I think we may just have different presumptions on what a Ranger should be.
Although I think we may just have different presumptions on what a Ranger should be.
I'm sure we do, but maybe that's besides the point. I'm not really interested in creating a class that corresponds with what a ranger supposedly is, I want a class that's somewhere between fighter and druid without being so close to either an archetype could do the job as well.
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https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/str8Y3Ae5pIR
Ranger Reworks are almost a dime a dozen but I thought I would take a swing at creating a class I feel best encapsulates what a Ranger should be. I have drawn from other peoples' work including the offical WotC no magic ranger for Class feature ideas (i.e Poulstices). As I do not want to pass off other peoples' ideas as entirely my own.
I feel the Ranger should be represented as a Martial class with access to magical abilities such as Haste through a mechanic I have called "focus". I have created "focus" which draws from aspects of other classes to create what I hope is a unique flavourful way that makes the Ranger satisfying in a way other Classes cannot provide.
The Ranger uses their knowledge, powers of deduction and determination of will to perform remarkable feats. In the chaos of battle they remain calm and undetered from their foe and use quickly identify ways in which they can exploit their weaknesses. In essence they are the polar opposite of a Barbarian and their Rage. Or when out in the wilderness they use their vast wealth of knowledge to see what others cannot.
This is definitely what I would call a first draft but complete enough to gauge interest or feedback.
C&C's are not only welcome but encouraged!
I'll take a better look later, but a couple of things jump out:
1) Learning new favoured terrains through study, the duration of which being at the DM's discretion, would be annoying. It's difficult to find a fair balance between allowing a player to use this, as it's part of his abilities, and not knowing what will happen with the party later on. Requiring a month of study is likely prohibitive early on (and the DM would arguably have to set some kind of time spent on a daily basis requirement as well), but if the DM doesn't want the ranger to rack up a handful of terrain types quickly lengthy downtime later on becomes impossible. I wouldn't mind really if this was largely a flavour ability, but the first two benefits are pretty darn strong.
2) Speaking of which, would a Wisdom (Perception) check while in favoured terrain count as related to that terrain? That's a big one.
3) If I read it right Bastion allows the ranger to make an extra attack without spending focus every turn he foregoes movement, from 2nd level on. That's massively strong, and Fighting Style + Vigilant Gaze are nothing to sneeze at at 2nd level either. Archers will be making two attacks most turns from level 2 on, three from level 5. Dual wielders will need to move more often, but they can be at four attacks in a turn by level 5. Comparing that to Fighters, for who combat should be their bread and butter, that seems over the top.
edit: on a more general note, your entire description kind of screams "fighter archetype with some wilderness abilities thrown in almost as an afterthought", more so since you throw everything and the kitchen sink at this in terms of Fighting Styles. Especially since the game would normally base a bunch of archetypes off of this class, I don't know if it's good for the game to create another warrior class and remove what I think should be more of a fighter/druid hybrid.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Thanks for the initial feedback!
1) I can understand where you are coming from perhaps like the vanilla class there should be options to choose additional terrains when you reach certain levels or having a limitation to the amount of terrains a Ranger can know.
2) A perception check would apply. As there are already ways to get passive perceptions to 25+ I don't feel that is as big of an issue.
3) I agree with that and extra actions are very dangerous for the action economy. Perhaps giving it a cost of 1 or 2 focus points could fix this.
4) i was pretty lazy with the fighting styles, getting rid of protection and defence would help with this not being so similar to fighter.
I think by making a martial class there will always be a danger of similarities to a Fighter. Although I do think that enough flavour has been given so that it isn't just a Fighter variant.
I am currently working on a 1/3rd spell casting subclass for my ranger which should satisfy the fighter/druid archetype. Although I think we may just have different presumptions on what a Ranger should be.
I'm sure we do, but maybe that's besides the point. I'm not really interested in creating a class that corresponds with what a ranger supposedly is, I want a class that's somewhere between fighter and druid without being so close to either an archetype could do the job as well.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].