Ok i'm no expert on 5e mechanics, but the ranger doesn't seem like it deserves the hate it's getitng around here. I mean some of those arrow and quiver spells are right nasty.
I'm playing a rogue/ranger PC inspired by the demon hunter from Diablo III. I've also been teaching my 8 y.o. daughter to play D&D, and her PC's mother is a ranger and is teaching her how to be one too. So I've been seeing the ranger in play quite a bit lately. The only thing I don't really like about it is Primeval Awareness, which is a cool concept that seems fairly useless as written. It needs beefing up somehow, but there's a whole separate thread for that.
rampant wrote:
1) The class is Very dependent on Hunters Mark for damage
2) Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer require DM setup to work. They literally do nothing if the DM does not help you. They are also too few and not retrainable without house rule so they are useless if your party travels a lot or does any city adventures.
3) Primeval Awareness in near useless with DM aid.
4) Hide in Plain Sight is a solo class feature but D&D is a team game.
5) Rangers have too few spells know to use both combat spells and exploration spells at the same time.
6) Rangers have few combat buff spells and they don't scale.
7) Although the archer hunter rocks, the melee ranger is not so hot.
8) The beastmaster hunter requires taking a feat tax or is useless.
If you're playing a city game, take Favored Enemy: Humans and another humanoid race, then keep adding humanoids. You're halfway there.
However, the fact that Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer are mostly non-combat abilities means that a Ranger outside of his or her element isn't really much worse off, so they fight the same regardless of terrain.
2Chlorobutanal wrote:
There's a few features that needs tweaking.
Primal awarness being the biggest one.
Beastmaster is fine really, it's just not what people expect, and people need to play it smartly.
Having seen a LvL 11 Hunter ranger in play i cant call the ranger a bad class, His Bow that generates infinite arrows was called Horde slayer within minutes, His ability to fire a shot an arrow at any creature withing 10 feel of a point is so handy in real play. his single target dmg isnt too shabby either. compare 2d8+2d6+1d8+10+4 = 34.5 to a fighters 3d8 +15+6 = 34.5. Both the fighter and the ranger get a 20 dex and a longbow +2 in my games the ranger nearly always has huntersmark availible, His colossus slayer also occors quite often. I dont see how an archer fighter is going to out dpr an archer hunter Ranger before the fighter gets his 4th attack. ( champions increased crit range wil do it)
opposed to a warlock shooting eldritch blasts with the right invocations it gets more complicated due to the ranger getting a weapon style (+2 to hit) and colossus slayer but the warlock gets a 3rd attack at lvl 11 and gets a spell similair to Hunters mark in Hex. assuming to hit is irrelevant all attacks hit but nothing crits. for arguements sake i give the warlock a wand that fbasically works a s a +2 weapon on his eldritch blast. if i did not the ranger's to hit would be 4 points higher... i just assume an item like this will be in the DMG) a warlock would do 3d10+ 3d6+15+6 = 48dmg with a packt bow it would be 2d8+2d6+10+4+8 = 38 (cha + dmg due to life drinker invocation is +4 cuzz icant get it a 20 in cha untill lvl 16)
so my over simplified comparison means that the best archer is:
0 eldritch blast spamming Warlock..............................................................................................................(3d10+ 3d6+15+6=48)
1 pact weapon warlock ...................................................................................................................................(2d8+2d6+10+4+8=38)
2 Hunter Ranger ..............................................................................................................................................(2d8+2d6+1d8+10+4=34.5)
3 the Figher ......................................................................................................................................................(3d8 +15+6=34.5)
4 the rogue .......................................................................................................................................................(1d8+6d6+5+2=32.5)
5 Beast master ranger ...................................................................................................................................(2d8+2d6+10+4=30)
6 the valor bard / bard / paladin / non pack weapon warlock / barbarian..............................................(2d8+10+4=23)
7 Life, trickery, war, nature cleric ...................................................................................................................(1d8+1d8+5+2=16)
8 tome/ chain Warlock.....................................................................................................................................(1d8+1d6+5+2=15)
9 Lore bard / wizzard / sorcerer / monk / druid .........................................................................................(1d8+5+2=11.5)
Conclusion the hunter ranger can be a great archer.
p.s. i assume that all classes are wood elf so they get proficient with long bows with a dex of 20 and a long bow rangers/ warlocks have huntersmark/hex active) i ignored to hit or crit + any other spells (haste curse etc. etc.)
TL;DR Hunter Rangers make really great Archers!
mellored wrote:
Orzel wrote:
THat makes no sense.
Feats being optional does not negate the threat of feat tax, if anything it makes it worse.
I would like to know how the beast master requires a feat tax though.
My main problem is that Whirlwind is mostly superfluous and doens't compete well with either Volley or Extra Attack, meaning melee-oriented Hunter rangers are substandard. I won't comment on the Beastmaster.
rampant wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Orzel wrote:
UngeheuerLich wrote:
You wouldn't want Cat's Grace or Boar's Endurance in this version (part of the Enhance Ability spell). They just affect ability checks, not attack rolls.
rampant wrote:
NimrodVanHall wrote:
I think there's some good, some bad things about the ranger class and subclasses:
They get good hit points, weapons, armor and saves. 3 skills is better than most of the other classes I think.
Some of the wording is squirrely to me. In their defense, I'm dumb. But things like:
Natural Explorer the 3rd bullet point:
* Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating or tracking) you remain alert to danger.
I'm not sure if that means you can also use Perception to look out for ambushes in addition to other skills without getting any penalties; or what.
As most everyone pointed out Primeval Awareness. I don't understand how it can even remotely be considered useful at all.
It's neat in concept; but ruined by the last sentence in the description.
You expend a spell slot and for 1 minute you can detect within 1 or 6 miles the presence of various critters. The last sentence states: "This feature doesn't reveal the creatures' location or number."
Sooooo you can tell that there's a fey creature in the forest within 6 miles of every direction; but you don't know where or how many..... I cannot wrap my pea brain around how that could possibly be useful in any way. If anyone has any idears, please tell me as that would be greatly appreciated! 
Most of the benefits of Land's Stride seems redundant with Natural Explorer. Well, by most I mean the part where it says nonmagical difficult terrain doesn't cost you extra movement. Which Natural Explorer already does that.
Hide in Plain Sight:
I think isn't very helpful if you can't move at all. If you could stay hidden and move up to 1/2 speed then I would approve. Actually, the rules for Hiding in general in all the editions has sucked. haha.
I love Horde Breaker though for Hunter. You technically could get 3 attacks / round at 3rd level if you're using 2 weapon fighting. So that's pretty sexy.
The other problems with the Beast Master thing I assume anyways is that you have to waste your own actions for an inferior creature to attack. And the animal companions most likley aren't going to have the Hit Points and AC to hang very long with characters. At least in my experience in previous editions where you received animal companions, they got ghosted pretty easily.
Another pet peeve is that doesn't seem that you can pick any of the races like orc, goblin, etc for your favored enemy.
All in all, they wouldn't be that bad if those features weren't so useless. I'd still rather play a Ranger than a Druid though. woot woot. :D
My suspicion is that a bunch of WoW players are finally coming back to TTRPGs, but they've kept the "omg my class is 3% behind on dps IT IS USELESS" mentality.
There is a huge difference between a game (like WoW) in which you attack once every 1.5 seconds for hours on end....and a tabletop RPG where you attack at most a couple dozen times a week. You might play your Ranger for a year and never notice that you are being out-DPR'd by a warlock. And hopefully you'll have a blast playing a class you love.
Elfcrusher wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
awogaman wrote:
awogaman wrote:
Beastmaster isn't too bad, especially if you find a way to make good use of both you and the companion's reaction consistently.
That being said, there are many points to pick on for the ranger. Some are mentioned above; and I'd add a lackluster capstone to that list. I know level 20 isn't everything but still can be disappointing seeing that you are aiming for a small damage boost and even more MAD than before at the end.
Orzel wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
2Chlorobutanal wrote: