When I think of fantasy, the first three books that come to mind all heavily feature a Ranger who almost exclusively uses a longsword two-handed (Aragorn, Jon Snow, and Geralt). But in D&D, this choice just feels...bad, mechanically. You can get more damage by taking the Dueling fighting style and still get a shield, and even if you do take the Defense fighting style, you can get more damage from a greatsword. And that's if we ignore pure Dex (already a god stat in 5e, unfortunately).
It sucks that the D&D rules screw over such an iconic archetype, so if I want to play a character resembling the ones I mentioned—some of the most iconic in all fantasy—I'll feel intentionally underpowered. Does anyone have a way to improve or justify making a longsword-only Ranger?
When I think of fantasy, the first three books that come to mind all heavily feature a Ranger who almost exclusively uses a longsword two-handed (Aragorn, Jon Snow, and Geralt). But in D&D, this choice just feels...bad, mechanically. You can get more damage by taking the Dueling fighting style and still get a shield, and even if you do take the Defense fighting style, you can get more damage from a greatsword. And that's if we ignore pure Dex (already a god stat in 5e, unfortunately).
It sucks that the D&D rules screw over such an iconic archetype, so if I want to play a character resembling the ones I mentioned—some of the most iconic in all fantasy—I'll feel intentionally underpowered. Does anyone have a way to improve or justify making a longsword-only Ranger?
There are several ways to do this, depending on what you have in mind. For starters, neither Aragorn nor Jon Snow would be Rangers in 5E terms, since neither has any spells at all in any sense. I can see a strong argument for Geralt being built using the Ranger class, but it's certainly not necessary. The first step is deciding what you want: are you trying to model a specific character's skillset (and remember, Aragorn and Geralt will take you in wildly different directions), or are you making a Ranger specifically and using a character as inspiration for choices you make?
Similarly, the second step is divorcing yourself from what the rulebook says a "longsword" is. The real question to answer is what you're trying to achieve. Both of your sword examples are good ones: you could just make someone who specializes in greatswords and flavor your greatsword as a longsword, or you could do it with rapiers (for dexterity, dueling, whatever) and flavor that as a longsword. If you want to specifically wield a longsword, as in the D&D 5E item named "longsword", I only know of one class in the game that actually has a real use for the Versatile weapon property, and that's monk. You could certainly make a witcher using a monk chassis - they're known for their weapons and drugs, not their armor.
In terms of getting away from Dexterity as a must-have stat, the usual solutions include:
Being a Tortle will let you free yourself from Dexterity impacting your AC, if you aren't solving the problem with heavy armor.
Hexblade Warlocks (1 level, Charisma) and Battle Smith Artificers (3 levels, Intelligence) will, after the listed level investment, give you a passive, always-on combination of abilities guaranteeing you can use the listed ability to attack with instead of Dexterity (or Strength).
shillelagh will work for Wisdom, but you'd have to reflavor a stick as a sword, which means either a bludgeoning sword or a very permissive DM. It's available at Druid 1, Ranger 2, and Nature Cleric 1, or you can pick it up with a feat. Also, the cantrip has to be spammed every minute to keep it going, which you may be uncomfortable with.
Alternatively, I mentioned Monks. Monks can do the opposite, and coerce some Strength weapons to be Dex weapons for them. That's why Monks actually have a use for Versatile: a Monk wielding a longsword two-handed can swing for 1d10 using Dex, and that doesn't work with a rapier or greatsword.
I think it's very common to assume that a Ranger is meant to be a DEX fighter... most builds assume that they'll focus on Ranged combat, and DEX is, on average, more useful in D&D than STR. But there's nothing that says a Ranger needs to be DEX-based... with all 3 of the characters you used as examples, I would consider them all to lean heavier on STR than DEX.
Other than that, a Longsword becomes much more useful in games where the DM is stricter about drawing weapons, or keeping track of what you're carrying or whether or not you have both hands free. If you're grappling an opponent, climbing a rope, or doing anything that actively occupies one of your hands, it's nice to know that you can continue to use the weapon in your hand actively. It's a great choice for more dynamic players who do more than just walk up to the nearest enemy and swing their weapon until they fall, then march over to the next enemy and repeat.
That said... I know that many of these character's weapons are called "Longswords" within the text, but Anduril is about 5 feet long, and Geralt's sword looks even bigger... I think there's a solid argument to be made that these are Greatswords, even if the characters are seen wielding them one-handed at times.
You're not wrong, though... if you want to just deal more damage, a Greatsword is a better choice. If you're not prioritizing damage it's probably a good idea to carry a shield, although that does give you a bit of a hassle if you're spellcasting in combat, since you need a free hand for somatic and material components.
When I think of fantasy, the first three books that come to mind all heavily feature a Ranger who almost exclusively uses a longsword two-handed (Aragorn, Jon Snow, and Geralt). But in D&D, this choice just feels...bad, mechanically. You can get more damage by taking the Dueling fighting style and still get a shield, and even if you do take the Defense fighting style, you can get more damage from a greatsword. And that's if we ignore pure Dex (already a god stat in 5e, unfortunately).
It sucks that the D&D rules screw over such an iconic archetype, so if I want to play a character resembling the ones I mentioned—some of the most iconic in all fantasy—I'll feel intentionally underpowered. Does anyone have a way to improve or justify making a longsword-only Ranger?
With or without a house rule regarding two-weapon fighting?
Just do whatever you think is more mechanically advantageous and imagine or explain your doing something else.
you could do great weapon fighting and just say it’s a long sword.
yiu could even say your two handing a sword while dueling and using a shield but convey the AC bonus as you being more defense oriented in stance.
just make sure you limit yourself in a mechanically appropriate way if you want to make use of grappling or anything requiring multiple hands. This includes somatic/material components required for casting.
I think it's very common to assume that a Ranger is meant to be a DEX fighter... most builds assume that they'll focus on Ranged combat, and DEX is, on average, more useful in D&D than STR. But there's nothing that says a Ranger needs to be DEX-based... with all 3 of the characters you used as examples, I would consider them all to lean heavier on STR than DEX.
Other than that, a Longsword becomes much more useful in games where the DM is stricter about drawing weapons, or keeping track of what you're carrying or whether or not you have both hands free. If you're grappling an opponent, climbing a rope, or doing anything that actively occupies one of your hands, it's nice to know that you can continue to use the weapon in your hand actively. It's a great choice for more dynamic players who do more than just walk up to the nearest enemy and swing their weapon until they fall, then march over to the next enemy and repeat.
That said... I know that many of these character's weapons are called "Longswords" within the text, but Anduril is about 5 feet long, and Geralt's sword looks even bigger... I think there's a solid argument to be made that these are Greatswords, even if the characters are seen wielding them one-handed at times.
You're not wrong, though... if you want to just deal more damage, a Greatsword is a better choice. If you're not prioritizing damage it's probably a good idea to carry a shield, although that does give you a bit of a hassle if you're spellcasting in combat, since you need a free hand for somatic and material components.
I’d say the multiclassing requirement including dexterity without strength, along with the plethora of spells that specify ranged weapons and ammunition use would skew the ranger toward dexterity. There’s also the greatweapon fighting style being missing from the PHB options along with it not being added in Tasha’s. A lack of heavy armor too.
there’s an expectation to be able to climb and swim which makes use of athletics, but little other features that actually reward it.
That's a good point... there's definitely some important mechanical details that push the Ranger toward being DEX-focused, but nothing that makes it an absolute requirement. Outside of multiclassing, you could play with a -3 DEX modifier... it just kind of makes a decent chunk of the Ranger spells kind of useless.
Some suggestions (most of which have been mentioned here already, so please just consider this "up votes" for those)...
1. If you take defense fighting style using a longsword with two hands make a lot of sense because it is all gain with no loss (like you would if you had the dueling fighting style). I would argue people like Aragorn and John Snow are survivors more than strikers so it is very likely that they took defense over an offensive fighting style. But why not use a shield? You should, unless you're a ranger that might want to draw a dagger to two weapon fight for a bit (yes, I do know that you'd need a feat for this), or to make a short ranged attack with a thrown dagger that triggers many of the great ranger spells like hail of thorns or ensnaring strike. Strength is very useful in the game when it is focused on. Dexterity works for many things clearly and passively, but strength is useful for things like shoving (think of the scene when Aragorn is knocking enemies off of the bridge). Both Aragorn and John Snow strike me as having more of a balanced start spread as well. Instead of STR 18, DEX 10, CON 16, I bet they have more like STR14, DEX 14, CON 14. On top of that, Aragorn is very wise, smart, and is a fine leader, so he likely had decent positive scores in each stat. His elf and dwarf traveling companions were more of the strikers in the group. Aragorn is the leader.
2. If you're going strength then greatsword is a fine option. You can swing it to attack and use one hand to cast spells with S, shove, or thrown a dagger.
3. In old school D&D, like the Moldvay box, all weapons did a d6 damage. I would't worry about that too much in 5E. Use a rapier and call it a longsword. If that keeps you up at night, ask you're DM if you can have a rapier that does slashing damage. I have a guess as to the reason why all finesse weapons do piercing damage, and I think it is there for a good reason, but don't let that stand in the fun at the table I say.
This is the problem with forums and subreddits for a game. The popular tropes and opinions get overshadowed by short-sighted comments like “Dex is a god stat”.
Play a longsword-wielding Ranger. Take Defense Fighting Style. Then focus on something simple build-wise: the Grappler Feat (Expertise in Athletics helpful but optional). Fight two-handed against any strong baddie, and grapple and beat up the smaller/weaker ones. The fun part is you get to play multiple ways instead of unilaterally when you use great swords.
A great sword-wielder only has one option - attack and attack.
By contrast, a Shield-Master shield-wielder is going to be able to shove, but still can’t grapple without sheathing the sword and become ineffective again.
Stop trying to make this a game about DPR and instead look for unique ways to play. If you’re anything like me, just rolling dice each round and doing the same thing all the time is boring, and that’s where a lot of the “martial classes suck” threads come from; unimaginative/uber-optimized builds.
As for strength builds - ask your DM to play with the shove-aside or overrun Combat Option in the DMG. Walking through and moving baddies around the battlefield is a lot of fun (and gives you some cool bonus action maneuvers to do in battle).
Later on, take Slasher. Now, when you grapple with Grappler feat, you’ll have advantage on your attacks. And for every crit, the enemy will have disadvantage on their attacks. 2 attacks at adv will give you a 18.55% chance of a crit each round, and a great way to lockdown a hard hitting enemy.
3. In old school D&D, like the Moldvay box, all weapons did a d6 damage. I would't worry about that too much in 5E. Use a rapier and call it a longsword. If that keeps you up at night, ask you're DM if you can have a rapier that does slashing damage. I have a guess as to the reason why all finesse weapons do piercing damage, and I think it is there for a good reason, but don't let that stand in the fun at the table I say.
Scimitar and whip would like a word about all finesse weapons dealing piercing damage.
To the topic, if you want to play a certain way, have a discussion with your group and see if they'd all like to play with builds that are more fun than optimized. If everyone is playing with builds that aren't stressing about 1-2 average damage loss with a weapon choice, then there will be less onus on feeling like you need to be optimized yourself.
The downside to going Strength-based is more than just DPR. Dexterity is far more useful overall. WIth a Dex build you have better initiative rolls, which is a bigger deal than many people realize. A much bigger and better pool of skill proficiencies, such as stealth and acrobatics (things a Ranger would likely want). Also Dex saves are huge in this game. They come up a lot, and they often have huge damage you're trying to avoid.
The downside to going Strength-based is more than just DPR. Dexterity is far more useful overall. WIth a Dex build you have better initiative rolls, which is a bigger deal than many people realize. A much bigger and better pool of skill proficiencies, such as stealth and acrobatics (things a Ranger would likely want). Also Dex saves are huge in this game. They come up a lot, and they often have huge damage you're trying to avoid.
Dex saves are often the easiest to mitigate, though, because cover applies to them and 100% of all creatures provide cover.
The downside to going Strength-based is more than just DPR. Dexterity is far more useful overall. WIth a Dex build you have better initiative rolls, which is a bigger deal than many people realize. A much bigger and better pool of skill proficiencies, such as stealth and acrobatics (things a Ranger would likely want). Also Dex saves are huge in this game. They come up a lot, and they often have huge damage you're trying to avoid.
Dex saves are often the easiest to mitigate, though, because cover applies to them and 100% of all creatures provide cover.
Maybe in your games, never in mine. Fireball, Dragon breath, whatever. You make a straight up Dex save. Always. Are there rules for partial cover adjusting the save DC?
The downside to going Strength-based is more than just DPR. Dexterity is far more useful overall. WIth a Dex build you have better initiative rolls, which is a bigger deal than many people realize. A much bigger and better pool of skill proficiencies, such as stealth and acrobatics (things a Ranger would likely want). Also Dex saves are huge in this game. They come up a lot, and they often have huge damage you're trying to avoid.
Dex saves are often the easiest to mitigate, though, because cover applies to them and 100% of all creatures provide cover.
Maybe in your games, never in mine. Fireball, Dragon breath, whatever. You make a straight up Dex save. Always. Are there rules for partial cover adjusting the save DC?
Half-cover gives +2 on DEX saving throws. In a crowd this is because it is easier to duck behind the person standing in front of you to avoid the flames of a dragon breath.
Three-quarters cover gives +5 on DEX saving throws. If only your head is looking around the corner, then it doesn't take much effort to drag it back out of sight when the dragon starts breathing.
Yes. Half and three quarters cover provides +2 and +5 to dexterity saving throws, respectively. Dodging also gives advantage to dexterity saving throws. Quindraco is correct. Dexterity saving throws are the easiest to mitigate.
You can probably make it work, the issue is that you can't really afford to dump dex unless you have something to make up the defense. I recommend taking a dip into cleric to get heavy armor, barbarian is an option but rage is probably not worth losing access to spell casting while channel divinity and extra spells is always good. Paladin is probably out of your reach due to ability score requirements. You can also take a feat for it but there are some really good feats and the one for heavy armor only gives you that so try to avoid that.
Gloom stalker is a great sub class to make up for a lack of dex in initiative and get some extra damage. After you've got what you want from gloom stalker I'd consider going back to cleric. The cleric has some good spells to supplement melee and work great for multi class like spiritual guardians and spiritual weapon.
The new drake warden also looks good and you could probably take that straight.
I'm always dissatisfied with the "reflavor your rapier as a longsword" advice. I prefer to reflavor things when I'm trying to do something not fully covered by the game rules, or to reflavor lore to fit a character.
Unfortunately, that leaves the solution for me as just hope for really good stats so you can have good strength without tanking Dex.
If only strength was good for more than just attacking, the occasional saving throw, and encumbrance rules nobody uses...
The downside to going Strength-based is more than just DPR. Dexterity is far more useful overall. WIth a Dex build you have better initiative rolls, which is a bigger deal than many people realize. A much bigger and better pool of skill proficiencies, such as stealth and acrobatics (things a Ranger would likely want). Also Dex saves are huge in this game. They come up a lot, and they often have huge damage you're trying to avoid.
Dex saves are often the easiest to mitigate, though, because cover applies to them and 100% of all creatures provide cover.
Maybe in your games, never in mine. Fireball, Dragon breath, whatever. You make a straight up Dex save. Always. Are there rules for partial cover adjusting the save DC?
Half-cover gives +2 on DEX saving throws. In a crowd this is because it is easier to duck behind the person standing in front of you to avoid the flames of a dragon breath.
Three-quarters cover gives +5 on DEX saving throws. If only your head is looking around the corner, then it doesn't take much effort to drag it back out of sight when the dragon starts breathing.
I wasn’t aware of that for Dex saves, thanks. But Dex saves are important enough that I still consider that situational, and not something you should depend on. That Rangers have proficiency in Dex saves does help. Still, I would much rather have my Dex score higher even if it’s just for saves, even setting aside the other benefits.
All said, I agree you can make a Strength based Ranger that is very playable. It just comes with a fair bit of sacrifices.
Also, many Dex save attacks go around corners like Fireball, I would rule you can’t have partial cover on those cases.
When I think of fantasy, the first three books that come to mind all heavily feature a Ranger who almost exclusively uses a longsword two-handed (Aragorn, Jon Snow, and Geralt). But in D&D, this choice just feels...bad, mechanically. You can get more damage by taking the Dueling fighting style and still get a shield, and even if you do take the Defense fighting style, you can get more damage from a greatsword. And that's if we ignore pure Dex (already a god stat in 5e, unfortunately).
It sucks that the D&D rules screw over such an iconic archetype, so if I want to play a character resembling the ones I mentioned—some of the most iconic in all fantasy—I'll feel intentionally underpowered. Does anyone have a way to improve or justify making a longsword-only Ranger?
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
There are several ways to do this, depending on what you have in mind. For starters, neither Aragorn nor Jon Snow would be Rangers in 5E terms, since neither has any spells at all in any sense. I can see a strong argument for Geralt being built using the Ranger class, but it's certainly not necessary. The first step is deciding what you want: are you trying to model a specific character's skillset (and remember, Aragorn and Geralt will take you in wildly different directions), or are you making a Ranger specifically and using a character as inspiration for choices you make?
Similarly, the second step is divorcing yourself from what the rulebook says a "longsword" is. The real question to answer is what you're trying to achieve. Both of your sword examples are good ones: you could just make someone who specializes in greatswords and flavor your greatsword as a longsword, or you could do it with rapiers (for dexterity, dueling, whatever) and flavor that as a longsword. If you want to specifically wield a longsword, as in the D&D 5E item named "longsword", I only know of one class in the game that actually has a real use for the Versatile weapon property, and that's monk. You could certainly make a witcher using a monk chassis - they're known for their weapons and drugs, not their armor.
In terms of getting away from Dexterity as a must-have stat, the usual solutions include:
Alternatively, I mentioned Monks. Monks can do the opposite, and coerce some Strength weapons to be Dex weapons for them. That's why Monks actually have a use for Versatile: a Monk wielding a longsword two-handed can swing for 1d10 using Dex, and that doesn't work with a rapier or greatsword.
I think it's very common to assume that a Ranger is meant to be a DEX fighter... most builds assume that they'll focus on Ranged combat, and DEX is, on average, more useful in D&D than STR. But there's nothing that says a Ranger needs to be DEX-based... with all 3 of the characters you used as examples, I would consider them all to lean heavier on STR than DEX.
Other than that, a Longsword becomes much more useful in games where the DM is stricter about drawing weapons, or keeping track of what you're carrying or whether or not you have both hands free. If you're grappling an opponent, climbing a rope, or doing anything that actively occupies one of your hands, it's nice to know that you can continue to use the weapon in your hand actively. It's a great choice for more dynamic players who do more than just walk up to the nearest enemy and swing their weapon until they fall, then march over to the next enemy and repeat.
That said... I know that many of these character's weapons are called "Longswords" within the text, but Anduril is about 5 feet long, and Geralt's sword looks even bigger... I think there's a solid argument to be made that these are Greatswords, even if the characters are seen wielding them one-handed at times.
You're not wrong, though... if you want to just deal more damage, a Greatsword is a better choice. If you're not prioritizing damage it's probably a good idea to carry a shield, although that does give you a bit of a hassle if you're spellcasting in combat, since you need a free hand for somatic and material components.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
With or without a house rule regarding two-weapon fighting?
Just do whatever you think is more mechanically advantageous and imagine or explain your doing something else.
you could do great weapon fighting and just say it’s a long sword.
yiu could even say your two handing a sword while dueling and using a shield but convey the AC bonus as you being more defense oriented in stance.
just make sure you limit yourself in a mechanically appropriate way if you want to make use of grappling or anything requiring multiple hands. This includes somatic/material components required for casting.
I’d say the multiclassing requirement including dexterity without strength, along with the plethora of spells that specify ranged weapons and ammunition use would skew the ranger toward dexterity. There’s also the greatweapon fighting style being missing from the PHB options along with it not being added in Tasha’s. A lack of heavy armor too.
there’s an expectation to be able to climb and swim which makes use of athletics, but little other features that actually reward it.
That's a good point... there's definitely some important mechanical details that push the Ranger toward being DEX-focused, but nothing that makes it an absolute requirement. Outside of multiclassing, you could play with a -3 DEX modifier... it just kind of makes a decent chunk of the Ranger spells kind of useless.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Some suggestions (most of which have been mentioned here already, so please just consider this "up votes" for those)...
1. If you take defense fighting style using a longsword with two hands make a lot of sense because it is all gain with no loss (like you would if you had the dueling fighting style). I would argue people like Aragorn and John Snow are survivors more than strikers so it is very likely that they took defense over an offensive fighting style. But why not use a shield? You should, unless you're a ranger that might want to draw a dagger to two weapon fight for a bit (yes, I do know that you'd need a feat for this), or to make a short ranged attack with a thrown dagger that triggers many of the great ranger spells like hail of thorns or ensnaring strike. Strength is very useful in the game when it is focused on. Dexterity works for many things clearly and passively, but strength is useful for things like shoving (think of the scene when Aragorn is knocking enemies off of the bridge). Both Aragorn and John Snow strike me as having more of a balanced start spread as well. Instead of STR 18, DEX 10, CON 16, I bet they have more like STR14, DEX 14, CON 14. On top of that, Aragorn is very wise, smart, and is a fine leader, so he likely had decent positive scores in each stat. His elf and dwarf traveling companions were more of the strikers in the group. Aragorn is the leader.
2. If you're going strength then greatsword is a fine option. You can swing it to attack and use one hand to cast spells with S, shove, or thrown a dagger.
3. In old school D&D, like the Moldvay box, all weapons did a d6 damage. I would't worry about that too much in 5E. Use a rapier and call it a longsword. If that keeps you up at night, ask you're DM if you can have a rapier that does slashing damage. I have a guess as to the reason why all finesse weapons do piercing damage, and I think it is there for a good reason, but don't let that stand in the fun at the table I say.
This is the problem with forums and subreddits for a game. The popular tropes and opinions get overshadowed by short-sighted comments like “Dex is a god stat”.
Play a longsword-wielding Ranger. Take Defense Fighting Style. Then focus on something simple build-wise: the Grappler Feat (Expertise in Athletics helpful but optional). Fight two-handed against any strong baddie, and grapple and beat up the smaller/weaker ones. The fun part is you get to play multiple ways instead of unilaterally when you use great swords.
A great sword-wielder only has one option - attack and attack.
By contrast, a Shield-Master shield-wielder is going to be able to shove, but still can’t grapple without sheathing the sword and become ineffective again.
Stop trying to make this a game about DPR and instead look for unique ways to play. If you’re anything like me, just rolling dice each round and doing the same thing all the time is boring, and that’s where a lot of the “martial classes suck” threads come from; unimaginative/uber-optimized builds.
As for strength builds - ask your DM to play with the shove-aside or overrun Combat Option in the DMG. Walking through and moving baddies around the battlefield is a lot of fun (and gives you some cool bonus action maneuvers to do in battle).
Later on, take Slasher. Now, when you grapple with Grappler feat, you’ll have advantage on your attacks. And for every crit, the enemy will have disadvantage on their attacks. 2 attacks at adv will give you a 18.55% chance of a crit each round, and a great way to lockdown a hard hitting enemy.
Scimitar and whip would like a word about all finesse weapons dealing piercing damage.
To the topic, if you want to play a certain way, have a discussion with your group and see if they'd all like to play with builds that are more fun than optimized. If everyone is playing with builds that aren't stressing about 1-2 average damage loss with a weapon choice, then there will be less onus on feeling like you need to be optimized yourself.
The downside to going Strength-based is more than just DPR. Dexterity is far more useful overall. WIth a Dex build you have better initiative rolls, which is a bigger deal than many people realize. A much bigger and better pool of skill proficiencies, such as stealth and acrobatics (things a Ranger would likely want). Also Dex saves are huge in this game. They come up a lot, and they often have huge damage you're trying to avoid.
Dex saves are often the easiest to mitigate, though, because cover applies to them and 100% of all creatures provide cover.
Maybe in your games, never in mine. Fireball, Dragon breath, whatever. You make a straight up Dex save. Always. Are there rules for partial cover adjusting the save DC?
Half-cover gives +2 on DEX saving throws. In a crowd this is because it is easier to duck behind the person standing in front of you to avoid the flames of a dragon breath.
Three-quarters cover gives +5 on DEX saving throws. If only your head is looking around the corner, then it doesn't take much effort to drag it back out of sight when the dragon starts breathing.
Yes. Half and three quarters cover provides +2 and +5 to dexterity saving throws, respectively. Dodging also gives advantage to dexterity saving throws. Quindraco is correct. Dexterity saving throws are the easiest to mitigate.
You can probably make it work, the issue is that you can't really afford to dump dex unless you have something to make up the defense. I recommend taking a dip into cleric to get heavy armor, barbarian is an option but rage is probably not worth losing access to spell casting while channel divinity and extra spells is always good. Paladin is probably out of your reach due to ability score requirements. You can also take a feat for it but there are some really good feats and the one for heavy armor only gives you that so try to avoid that.
Gloom stalker is a great sub class to make up for a lack of dex in initiative and get some extra damage. After you've got what you want from gloom stalker I'd consider going back to cleric. The cleric has some good spells to supplement melee and work great for multi class like spiritual guardians and spiritual weapon.
The new drake warden also looks good and you could probably take that straight.
I'm always dissatisfied with the "reflavor your rapier as a longsword" advice. I prefer to reflavor things when I'm trying to do something not fully covered by the game rules, or to reflavor lore to fit a character.
Unfortunately, that leaves the solution for me as just hope for really good stats so you can have good strength without tanking Dex.
If only strength was good for more than just attacking, the occasional saving throw, and encumbrance rules nobody uses...
I wasn’t aware of that for Dex saves, thanks. But Dex saves are important enough that I still consider that situational, and not something you should depend on. That Rangers have proficiency in Dex saves does help. Still, I would much rather have my Dex score higher even if it’s just for saves, even setting aside the other benefits.
All said, I agree you can make a Strength based Ranger that is very playable. It just comes with a fair bit of sacrifices.
Also, many Dex save attacks go around corners like Fireball, I would rule you can’t have partial cover on those cases.