Okay, I know there's been a bunch of discussion on rangers already, but - as I read through the PHB - I find myself wishing for a purely martial ranger.
I know D&D rangers are traditionally (weak) spellcasters in addition to everything else that they do. It's not how I picture rangers, though. It leaves me wanting to mod the class. Pull out spellcasting and pump up the combat and nature skills, probably with some martial version of Hunter's Mark thrown in.
If nothing else, this would give me a chance to slightly rebalance a class that a lot of people seem to think is relatively underpowered - although that's a point I'm not completely sold on. Maybe I need to play an unadjusted ranger to see how it feels outside the realm of theorycrafting. (It's too bad most of us don't have time to play every class we want to try, huh?)
Anyway, pulling spellcasting out would seem to be such a big change that I have no idea of how to effectively balance it without having time to playtest it. Anyone have any cool ideas? Is this a version of the ranger that anyone else would be interested in seeing?
My expectation is that I'm probably going to have to wait for the DMG and hope there will be guidelines enough to make this build.
Alternatively there are many ranger spells that don't have flashy overt magical effects.
I mean lightning arrow is probably right out, but quick quiver could be passed off as martial skill most of the time.
If you look at the spells, many of them they're aren't your typical wand-wavey wizardy stuff (although some are). If you choose them carefully, you can roleplay them as the ranger exerting his expertise and enginuity, rather than "magic" -- calling them "spells" is simply an abstraction to work within the framework of the rules.
CCS wrote:
rampant wrote:
Or just use those spells, and don't go crazy until afterwards.
rampant wrote:
I have hig hopes that with the sub class system we'll see this build sometime in the future 
I agree with Rampant and RCanine; the Ranger's spell (for the most part) aren't overtly "magical", in releation to the traditional Ranger abilities. I think I will do my best to play Rangers this way (since I am also in preference to a less magical Ranger class).
I like the way 5th Edition has loosened the casting requirements for some classes; leaving the most restrictive, book-like requirements for the "scholarly" wizard. It feels appropriate.
Convert all your spell slots into hunter's mark castings (or Primeval Awareness). This give you more damage and solves most of the issue of not casting spells, aside from maintaining your concentration (which is not something strictly related to spells anyway- some other classes' non-spell class features use concentration as well).
If they had maneuvers to divy up the non-magic side class ability, then you could fine tune martial classes so there was some overlap, just like casters with spells.
If you want to remove the ranger's spellcasting feature as a whole, you could replace it with additional fighting styles and the additional attacks of the fighter, so that they get 4 attacks at high level with one action.
Or as suggested above, you could transform some spells as martial features for the ranger. Some of them are easily explained without magic.
Don't know if it would make your spell-less Ranger the way you'd want it, but going fighter and background Wanderer and the right feat combo would make a Ranger-like effect. Made this guy durring the playtesting:
Therrend.pdf
I agree spell less ranger in 5E would be better built as a fighter. If you could trade armor proficiency for skill proficiency that would be all you need.
I think that spells in 5E is a big thing for a ranger in comparison to 3.5E where they were just a tertiary feature and was traded for ACF more often than not.
The features of the beastmaster and the hunter are probably on par with the battlemaster and the champion. So the key is to look at the levels where fighters get something special, not counting level 1 since rangers don't have spells there. They get action surge at levels 2 and 17, an extra attack at 11, and bonus feats at 6 and 14.
Using that as a model, here is a way to go:
Level Two: Gain Hunter's Mark as an at-will class feature.
Level Six: Gain either Sharpshooter or Dual-wielder as a bonus feat.
Level Eleven: Make three attacks instead of two each time you take the attack action.
Level Fourteen: It is likely that by the time the character reaches this level, a new book will have come out with chain feats for Sharpshooter and Dualwielder, so those would go here as bonus feat options.
Level Seventeen: Increase the damage of your Hunter's Mark class feature to 2d6.
The system isn't perfect since levels 9 and 13 are dead levels, but you can move the Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy improvements to those levels if you want them to be more exciting.
Easy.
1. Take the Fighter class. Choose the Archery fighting style.
2. Put your stat priority in Dexterity and Wisdom.
3. Take the Outlander background (or make up something similar that gives you the skills you'll want).
4. Call yourself a "ranger".
Done.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
You know, I look at this discussion, and it reminds me of Monty Python's Spam sketch.
Wife: Have you got anything without spam?Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wife: I don't want ANY spam!
Man: Why can't she have egg bacon spam and sausage?
Wife: THAT'S got spam in it!
Man: Hasn't got as much spam in it as spam egg sausage and spam, has it?
Vikings: Spam spam spam spam... (Crescendo through next few lines...)
Wife: Could you do the egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam then?
Waitress: Urgghh!
Wife: What do you mean 'Urgghh'? I don't like spam!
Vikings: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
Waitress: Shut up!
Vikings: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
Waitress: Shut up! (Vikings stop) Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam.
Wife: I don't like spam!
Just play a Fighter or a Rogue and refluff for nature stuff, no need to re-write the Ranger class.
You could do a Fighter with Survival and Handle Animal.
Or a Fighter X/Ranger1 (pre spells, so you get favored enemy and a terrain advantage)
Or just flavor your Ranger spells that you take as being really really cool but not actually magical (Since SO MANY of their spells basically use cool arrow tricks, this is super easy to re-flavor). Heck, you can call them "Martial Tricks" instead of "Divine Spells" 
But to be honest, I imagine a pure Archer will manifest itself as a sub-fghter Archetype. Eventually.
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
BadMike wrote:
BadMike wrote: