Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Trance-Zg Sep 14, 2014 3:42:57	There is a lot of concern about ranger proformance and its general role and niche in 5th edition. out of 3 pillars of the game ranger should be focused on: exploration combat social interaction as lowest priority. Unfortunately, proficiencies and abilities of the class do not follow that focus 100%.   So, what should be changed about that:   Armor and skill proficiencies: Medium armor and shield proficiency removed, ranger will be good at dealing damage to a degree but will have limited damage mitigation abilities. Also stealth and armor dont mix. Skills: ranger gets proficiency in Survival, Perceprion, Stealth and Nature at lvl1 if he didn't get it from race/background(if he did he can choose instead one or more skills from ranger class skills). In adition to that ranger get's 1 more skill from the list of ranger class skills(Athletics, Acrobatics, Investigation, Animal handling, Medicine, Insight). Fighting style: moved to 1st level do define rangers focus from get go. As medium armor and shield was removed, it gives no reson to have defence and dueling styles included. So they get removed. Greatweapon style added instead. Favored enemy: This is iconic ranger ability and IMO more or less well made for a minor class ability, it requires very little tinkering: You get one at lvl1(or two if you pick humaniod sub-category). you get their racial language, if any. you get advantage on survival checks for tracking and recalling information as stated, but now for added abilities: you get advantage on perception check to notice favored enemies, and advantage on insight against their subterfuge. you get proficiency bonus to damage vs. favored enemies. you get new enemies at a little slow pace but that is least of the class problem. Natural explorer(aka Favored terrain): This is defining ranger ability, or it should be. It is somewhat well designed, but requires few buffs and little flexibility. You start knowing 2 favored terrains at lvl1. You can learn favored terrains by spending atleast 30 days in a new terrain. The days do not need to be in one month, but you must be atleast 3 days in a row to have them count and all 30 days must be completed in 3 months. After every long rest you can change favored terrains you are attuned. You simply choose one terrain that will give you bonuses that day or until you change them. For changing terrain you must be in the new terrain and perform 10 min ritual to commune with the land. At level 6 you can be attuned to 2 terrains at a time. At level 10 you can be attuned to 3 terrains at a time. Attuning must be done seperately for evere terrain. Now for bonuses: the PHB bonuses are really good so it will require little work to change them, so here it goes:   You gain expertise on several skills while you're in your favored terrain: stealth, perception, survival, nature(for that terrain only themes), investigation, animal handling(animals native to that terrain), medicine(for plant usage from that terrain), Difficult terrain doesn't slow your group travel. Your group cant get lost except by magical means. You dont get Perception penalty for moving at fast pace. If you travel alone you can move stealthy at normal pace. When you forage you find double amount of food and water. You can track, forage, navigate and remain alert to danger. While tracking you know, exactly the number, size and how long they passed through the area. you get proficiency bonus to initative in your favored terrain. Global benefit from favored terrain: In addition to bonus in your favored terrain, I would add global benefit(in all terrains), on the basis of currently attuned terrain: Arctic: advantage vs. cold effects and resistance vs. cold damage. Also you get advantage on saves vs. starvation Coast: advantage on all swim checks, you can hold your breath 2 times as long, advantage on Con saves vs. suffocation. You can use all weapons underwater without penalty. Desert: advantage vs. fire effects and resistance vs.fire damage. Advantage on saves for being with out water and you can get 3 days without water without making saves. Forest: You ignore difficult terrain that isn't magically created. you ignore partial cover on your attacks. Grassland: your speed is increased by 10 ft. you can move with your group overland at Very fast pace: 500ft in one minute. 5 miles in one hour. 40 miles in one day. You get advantage on con saves vs. forced march. Mountans: you get advantage on climb, jump and balance checks. You have advantage on con saves vs. elevation sickness. Underdark: you gain darkvision of 60ft or your darkvision increases by 60ft. Swamp: you gain advantage on saves vs. disease and poison and gain resistance vs. its damage. Primeval awareness: moved to level 2. As a one minute ritual you commune with the land and in radius of 1 mile(6 miles in your favored terrain) you sense presence of abberations, celestials, dragons, elementals, feys, dragons, undead, fiends and any of your favorite enemies if they are not on this list. You sence your favored enemies at double that radius. The duration is as long as you commune with the land(you must be kneeling and touching the ground with atleast one hand and have -5 penalty on passive perception) You must complete short or long rest before you can use this ability again. you can activate this ability as an action and ignoring the rest requirement in you use 1st or higher level spell slot. you can spend 1st level slot to determine aproximative direction(not distance) of single type of creature you are detecting. The direction is in 30°degree angle. you can spend 2nd level slot to determine aproximative location of every creature of a single type of creature. the location is within half a mile of exact location. If you spend 3rd level slot you know exact location of every creature of a chosen type and its chalange rating. If you spend 4th level slot you can form a link with an animal within 500ft to share it's senses to spy on one of the chosen targets that you know its challenge rating. you can mantain the link as long as you want but up to the radius on the ability. And ofcourse the animal has to have ability to follow the target if needed. If you spend 5th level slot you can have the force of nature impeed targets movement by half(or by 2/3 if allready in dificult terrain) by manipulating terrain and weather; quick sand opens, ice ravines crack under foot, gusts of wind, swarm of insects, bird attacks, falling branches, sudden fog, rain, snow, dust storms, water currents, minor quakes,(you can choose any target seen by animal spy and all in their proximity or simply all creatures of one type inside the radius). Targets can get a intelligence save vs your spell DC to realise that this is magical phenomenon. Rangers and druids get advantage on the save. You have to incrementally spend 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th level slot to gain more powerfull effects. additionaly, you can spend spell slots to increase the radius of effect by 1 mile per spell level(2 miles for fovored terrain). Maximum of 10 added miles(20 for favored terrain). spell levels can be in any combination.
#2 Lharn Sep 14, 2014 8:39:34	I would simplify it:   Favored enemy- bonus language + add proficiency bonus to damage 1/turn. Select additional enemies at 6th and 14th level.   Natural explorer- double prof bonus on nature and survival checks. At 6th level advantage on nature ans survival. At 14th level "take 10" on nature and survival.   just get rid of favoered terrain altogether.
#3 arderkrag Sep 14, 2014 8:42:35	If this keeps up, ranger threads will be the katana threads of this edition.
#4 mellored Sep 14, 2014 11:19:51	Natrual explorer should be expertise on survial, with advantage in some terrains.   Primal Awareness should give more knowlage, paticularly with a higher slot cost.   Giant Killer needs something.     Other then that, they are doing fine.
#5 Macv12 Sep 14, 2014 22:14:27	Yeah, my problems with these changes:   1) Way more minutia than I want to keep track of.   2) Too dependent on campaign style. If you're out in the wild exploring, it works great. If your DM doesn't have you trekking through all different kinds of terrain off-road and tracking down specific types of creatures, none of these features will come into play. Currently, the Ranger has some unique fighting features, and a bunch of nature-y and stealth abilities. The non-combat features already risk being ignored (they pretty much were in my campaign as a Ranger). Pushing the class even further into that corner by removing combat utility would be detrimental, to my eyes.   3) No class is the combat class, or the social class. A Wizard can focus on illusions and be good at social and utility rolls, or be an evoker with only destructive spells. The Ranger you have here is basically only good at exploration, and so extremely good at it that they can handle the whole role alone, with only supplementary abilities in case they get in a fight.   But exploration is fundamentally different from combat. Combat involves strategic choices, different roles for each member, picking targets, using the right abilities, handling resources, etc. Exploration is generally just "pick a skill and roll," and you succeed or don't, to varying degrees. Other party members can make other checks, but it's just roll-skill/pass-fail with different numbers. Someone could design an Exploration module that makes it as involved as fighting, but currently it isn't. As it is, this Ranger variant is basically a highly specialized skill monkey with special magic abilities to find people. A Bard or Rogue who uses their Expertise to take Survival and such would work fine in most cases.   4) Woudn't this work better as a class path, selectable by people who really want to be Nature-based skill monkeys and trackers?
#6 Trance-Zg Sep 15, 2014 7:22:29	Yes, ranger would be best at exploration, that is kind of what rangers do.   But good exploration abilities give good combat advantage, because you can set up fight as you want it. And with experitise to various skills in favored terrain you can hide in combat and prevent others from hiding.   and ranger still has good damage and good spells for combat.