Unlike the majority of the most vocal people in the General Discussion forums, I really like the Ranger and I have a player wanting to be one.
I am curious, have any of you ran a game with a Ranger? How did it work? Did it feel like they were contributing as much as the other characters? I would assume yes unless you specifically try to run a game that doesn't play on the Ranger's strengths, but I haven't ran one yet and as thus do not really know.
I am asking this here as I am wondering what they are like from a DM perspective, and I also don't expect borderline trolling/baiting, especially trolling/baiting that's obvoiusly trolling but not bad enough to have ORCs remove... Ya'll are much more sane here!
Yes, I ran a a version of Lost Mine of Phandelver for a pickup group that included a wood elf ranger. He was clutch in a lot of situations - tracking goblins, avoiding goblin traps, sneaking the group into position for ambushes, trying to tame a wolf, etc. He did well in combat and even rolled max hit points when he leveled up, heh. Quite a mobile character, too. On a grid, that really matters, and I almost always run on grids.
The player had a bit of an issue with wanting to "push" rolls (e.g. "I'd like to make a Nature check to..."), so I had to break him of that. But all in all, it was a very effective character. The player was even inspired to draw and post a picture of his ranger the day after the session. I wish my regular players were so artistic!
The best artist I ever met, we've been close friends since age 7. He's wanting to play a Tiefling Barbarian/Paladin, who starts life as a Barbarian, finds out he's destined to be a Paladin, and lives the rest of his life as a Paladin of Vengeance. I can't wait to see what he draws for this.
And thanks for the fast response. I am very curious to hear other's experiences.
I am a bit tired of all the gloom and doom, especially for the ranger, in the main forums, almost all of which are from players who have not played a ranger and haven't even been in a game that had one. I do love to hear personal experiences from a DM perspective too.
I'm DMing for my son and his friends (they're all 10). One is playing an 5th level ranged hunter elf ranger in the Legolas mold. Combat, they're just OK (the horde breaker is a good power). Out of combat, the ranger is excellent. Lots of skills (mostly skills no one takes like animal handling or survival) plus good synergy with skill and attributes, and most of the ranger spells are non-combat spells. If you're running a high-powered hack n' slash, they may feel underpowered compared to some of the other classes.
I'm running a LMoP game right now that includes a high elf ranger. She's been just as much a contributer so far as anyone else, and seems to be enjoying the character.
TheLyons wrote:
iserith wrote:
I've had a 5th level ranger in my group. He has been very effective with his bow and spells to augment his attacks. I have not seen an issue with the class at all at least at this level at least.
A now 7th level Beastmaster (my younger son) is doing just fine at our table, keeping up with other players and contributing very well. It helps that there is a lot of wilderness travel in a dangerous part of the world, and he is the only 'wilderness' type character.
At another table at my local gaming store, a halfling riding his pteradon mount is sounding very fun as well.
My only struggle with the ranger is in level 20 Capstone being underwhelming; but we are no where near that level in our local game so no worries.
I'm not the DM but I play in a group with a ranger. We converted from 4E to 5E and so this character is a Hunter converted to a Ranger with Horde Breaker. (We converted by taking 2/3 level and then rebuilding the characters from the ground up. Seemed to work.)The player misses dishing statuses, though that's not as big of a thing in 5E, but likes the increased staying power that higher hit dice represent. The old character had a glass jaw. We all like the massively increased speed of 5E. In short, I don't think the ranger appears weak, although being a pure class ranger might end up being weaker compared to some multiclass that you could work out.
I just started DMing a "Lost Mine..." campaign with a group of friends. None of us has played in YEARS (in my case, 20... yeesh!). So we're all entering fairly cold and without too many pre-conceived notions re: character classes. (Or, in my case, only pre-conceived notions that are so wildly out-of-date as to be pointless!)
One of my players is playing a half-orc ranger and so far, I think the character is doing pretty well. As iserith mentioned higher up, the character has been decent in combat but has really saved the day in many other circumstances. Tracked the goblins, found their traps, tamed the wolves... If not for a few HORRIBLE dice roles, he'd probably have come out of the first day's adventuring without too many scratches. (But oh, those really, REALLY bad roles... lol.)
Coincidentally, this friend of mine is also a fantastic artist and was the first to show up with a drawing of his character. What is it with players who can draw and like to play rangers? 
All in all, I've always liked the class -- this is going back to 1st/2nd edition AD&D, so yeah, that's how out of the loop I've been! -- and so far I've been cool with what I've seen. As time goes on I suppose I'll get a better sense of its strengths and weaknesses, but in the hands of a smart, creative player, I don't really see any problems.
(Full disclosure: I used to often play rangers back in the day, so maybe I'm a little biased!)
TheLyons wrote:
If you look at most of those posts, they are Theorycraft - meaning people knee-jerking to the descriptions of Rangers and not having actually played Rangers for a while and found them lacking. That tends to happen a lot on forums - people analyzing the crap out of theoretical problems that 9 times out of 10 don't mainfest in actual play.
I think the best advice is to ignore forum complaints about an issue until you have experienced that issue yourself and are specifically looking for alternatives or solutions. Otherwise, you are letting a few vocal people cloud your own experience before it even starts.
I recall having at least one ranger at PAX Prime at my table. I don't recall anything memorable but I don't recall any suck either.
Ansbach wrote:
In one of my games I am DM'ing a Ranger. The characters have reached 3rd level and so far the Ranger is a beast. Granted it is a very experienced player but he has yet to be hit and has dished out good damage. His biggest helps though are out of combat skills. There is no doubt that he can track, forge sneak and basically mess up the monsters before combat begins. This is the strongest aspect of the class that you cannot quantify with theory crafting. I've always liked Rangers and this gets me stoked to play a Varient Human Beastmaster in another campaign.
I think the "problem" with rangers is that people don't understand what the character is supposed to be. In 4th ed rangers were double bastard sword twin-striking hellstorms of dps for those who didn't like memorizing what their powers actually did. In 5th edition they are fair fighters hybrid with a significant caster progression (including healing) and significant non-combat utility. When they are not OMGdps bombs-without-really-trying anymore people fail to see the compensating strengths they now have.
It never seemed to me that the light-armored skirmishing aspect of the 4E Ranger meshed well with h/h powers' focus on melee attacks (I like the Fifth edition version better).
I think the criticism that the ranger is quite niche is valid. In the campaign I made one of the players wanted to play a ranger, before I even knew that I had put in a quest with a white monstrosity with a supposably very soft and valuable pelt that roams through the woods. My players are all new to table top RPGs to the point where only one of them really knew what D&D is (they played video game RPGs though) so I made the character for him and simply gave him Favored Enemy: monstrosities, Favored Terrain: forest.
I do think the ranger has to work with the DM to make him really as useful as other classes, especially when wilderness travel isn't a big part of the campaign. If you do that, however, I think the ranger should be a really fun class to play that will really feel like it's filling a role that only he/she can fulfill.
I agree, class features that can't be used are no class features at all. I think Rogues and Bards are also niche classes. I’ve DM’d for many rangers over the years. During that time I’ve learned to modify my campaign to play to the strengths of the characters not force the players to make characters suited to my game. Lots of traps and locked things for the rogue, lots of NPC’s and organizations for the bard, and lots of tracking and animals for the ranger.