Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Leander2000 Dec 05, 2014 18:03:09	Woo first topic i think this would go in this section. I have to say I love fifth ediiton as we swapped over from first edition. The only problem was trying to keep the first ed ranger feel mostly.  Our group has done a few home brew rules for the ranger as it felt like a half baked class. One of the first fixes was we combined the 2 archetypes as one and the rangers pet can attack as a bonus action. I am rocking the wolf as the high passive perception covers the first edition feel of being hard to be surprised.  Another change was favored enemy and natural explorer happens at 1st, 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and finaly at 20th level. Natural explorer is unchanged but favored enemy is adjusted to be 1d6 bonus damage vs the first one and as you select your next enemys your dice increas to d8 and so on.  In exchange for this the ranger looses all the ensnaring strikes and hunters quary off of his spell list. Wich works out as it forces his spell list back into the fist edition support style. My group was going to work on retooling the spell list to be as such.  Another change was that the ranger cna wear magic heavy armor only and a final one comming up is the DM thinks primevil awarness is to meta gamey so it was going to be changed to a +2 skills +1 tool prof.    I was just looking on some advice as this has been a combined efford of trying to make the changes to make a switch hitting ranger with enough skils to be sort of like first ed ranger/aragorn/ geralt from the witcher. Any help would appreciated in feed back for just what was a bunch of edits to the class.    Thanks guys
#2 colemcm Dec 05, 2014 20:55:38	I'd probably go with a Fighter (Battle Master) to make Aragorn, since he's not exactly a magical character. He displays some abilities that might seem magical, like using the athalas plant, which Sam says is a weed, to counteract the effects of the Nazgul weapon on Frodo, but he's generally just a melee/ranged combatant. Even as a ranger I think it can be done decently well though. Just select spells that create effects that could be explained as being non-magical, like Pass Without Trace.   For the ranger's favored enemy and natural explorer, we opened up natural explorer to simply work in any environment and changed favored enemy to allow a ranger to declare a single target as their quarry and receive advantage on Survival and Investigation checks made to locate them. Their capstone ability at 20th level works against their quarry. They can designate a new quarry after they finish a short rest.   As far as Geralt of Rivia goes, I'd make a Fighter (Eldritch Knight) for him. I think the magic of an EK suits him better than a ranger's magic. Give him some Investigation and Survival skills and you're good to go.
#3 Mephi1234 Dec 06, 2014 5:36:02	Frankly, it sounds rather... powerful.    The ranger has always been a powerful class in 5e.    The vast majority of gripes people have is that its boring.   Favored enemy, plus bow, plus pet?   That's a lot of damage right there.    Pets are awesome in utility situations, helping with foraging, tracking, even social situations.   ("Oh, he's so adorable, can I pet him?")    Frankly, you just gave the ranger huge boosts in power in combat (seriously, heavy armor?  on the dex- and stealth-happy ranger?).  So, you got rid of hunter's marks... but you just put it on favored enemy anyways, then gave enough picks to make it virutally always applicable.   Its even no longer Concentration, making it objectively -better-.      Neither Aragon nor Geralt have pets, so right there, you're clearly not making a ranger like them.     I see Geralt of Rivia using flasy evocations, so I can't really say why you're trying to build a ranger like him when you also want to force the ranger spell list to be all support spells.   That seems to be a contradiction.   Aragorn didn't really use magic, except healing, which is truthfully not hard to pull off with the ranger as is.   Though, honestly, I would put Aragorn as a fey paladin, giving his healing powers and holy sword, over the modern ranger.       Why do you need to force the spell list anyways?   Just -pick- support spells.  Its not like anyone is twisting your arm to take the others.     Truthfully, it feels like you tried to mix everything powerful about editions 1 through 3 ranger into one class, then toss it into the blender.   This is clearly a labor of love, but it unfortunately is showing a strong case of rose tinted glasses.  Its inconsistant, overpowered, and, from my perspective, not matching your quoted examples even remotely close.
#4 TheLoneRanger1979 Dec 06, 2014 6:09:56	This sounds like something i am trying to do for my first 5E campaing, only instead of going to the 1E Ranger, i wento for 2E Ranger Justifier - a more combat oriented ranger, at some expense of spell casing and skill picks. My idea was to actually MC the thing into something like 12R/8F(battle master) or 12F/8R, depending on the flavor i wanted more. Hoever if i can coax my DM, i would actually try to blend the hunter ranger with the fighter war master, into something that would resemble a 2E MC ir 4E hybrid. With the class gaining some of the ranger feaures but losing others. I.E. it would gain a total of 3 attacks and 6 stat increases at lvl20, in contrast to figher's 4 attacks and 7 stats increases and ranger's 2/5. But it would lose the ranger's multi attack feature and would start gain casting ability at least 2 levels later. Also i am thinking of removing some of the more offensive spells from the list (quarry, lighting arrow) and stick to support (healing, vanishing). For balancing reasons, i think it would be a good idea to not give him cap feature either as the class already seams powerful in its own right. One final thing, i consider role playing some of the spells as actual skills (keeping hte mechanics though), like C o r d o n o f A r r ow s in example, instead of a spell, i would actually consider my ranger to have constructed a trap like device and deplyed it at the start of the battle or immediately before.  Does this build feel close to what you invision for your ranger? Regardless of all this, i agree with most of the posts above, the pet seams out of place with either a Geralt or Aragorn archetype. Even if we do take Geralt to be a ranger instead of an arcane type of fighter.
(Reply to #4) Leander2000	Thanks for the feed back. We have just been play testing the ranger as it goes. I was trying to go closer with no pet and just first edition but the DM ended up mixing the classes. The loss of conjuring spells and damage dealing spells were meant to  turing it strait support for the class. In regaurds to the favored enemy it was meant to try and go back down to the old school ranger who did his lvl in bonus damage to evil humanoids and giants. The dm thought that to broad and decided to remove hunters quary and put it onto the favored enemy and follow the amount the 3.5 ranger got.  So for fixes would you guys think that the heavy armor should be removed and the favored enemy reduced?  From the jump i was mostly hoping to get most of the firts ed ranger over. The idea was along the lines of arragorn but not like 100% It seems the hard part is to get the old school ranger over it may need to be a compleatly custom made class from level 1. basicly a different type of ranger not like the one that exists now.
#6 TheLoneRanger1979 Dec 07, 2014 16:47:51	Did you go for the d8 hit dice and doubled at lvl1? Also i don't see any harm in the heavy armor, especially as it limits the use of yoru dex based skills.
#7 Daydreamer80 Dec 07, 2014 17:54:58	Rangers are awesome, beastmaster subclass is what sucks.
#8 NirvanS Dec 08, 2014 18:00:36	What would you reccomend to correct the Foe Slayer. It is extremely weak and limited. Only vs favored enemy and add Wisdom modifier only once per turn.   How about changing it to he/she is no longer able to cast Hunters Mark. Instead it is an ability usable twice until a long rest. Requires no concentration and only lasts for ONE combat encounter.
#9 Stormborn20 Dec 08, 2014 18:32:37	NirvanS wrote:
#10 NirvanS Dec 08, 2014 19:30:46	Trying to think of a non-OP ability for 20th level. As it stands now, Foe Slayer is weak and limited What would you suggest? Having it in addition to the spell? Thought offering it as a non-concentrating ability was good as at higher levels, greater chance for losing concentration. Also can't think of many times I am in hot pursuit of my target and need to concentrate on my spell vs concentrate on where I  going and not being surprised or ambushed
#11 colemcm Dec 09, 2014 9:23:40	If you don't play with feats, it's not too good. If you do play with feats, it's useful for negating the attack penalty on Sharpshooter and GWM.
#12 TheLoneRanger1979 Dec 09, 2014 14:33:19	I just gave mine an extra attack at lvl20, thus capping at 3 in contrast to fighter's 4. I did rob my ranger of the multi attack though...
(Reply to #12) NirvanS	TheLoneRanger1979 wrote:
#14 NirvanS Dec 09, 2014 15:38:34	The way 20 th level ability stands, rather do 1 level of fighter for an additional fighting style and weak action surge, or Barbarain for rage and unarmored defense. Anything is better than current Foe Slayer
#15 Mephi1234 Dec 10, 2014 5:33:11	NirvanS wrote:
#16 Einlanzer Dec 12, 2014 14:00:57	Rangers are kind of a mess. It's not that they're really terrible, they're just very sloppy in design compared to other classes (Colossus Slayer vs Giant Killer - lolwut?).   I've considered giving them a 3rd attack as well, although my preference was to give them the option between multiattack (both volley + whirlwind) or a third regular attack at level 11.  This of course doesn't help beastmasters much, though, so they would probably need something different.  I also 1/2 Wis score is more appropriate than Wis mod for Foe Slayer.
(Reply to #12) ScuroNotte	TheLoneRanger1979 wrote:
#18 TheLoneRanger1979 Jan 18, 2015 19:52:54	ScuroNotte wrote:
#19 Illithidbix Jan 18, 2015 19:58:45	One of my players has rolled a Ranger, after a slight incident with the party's paladin decapitating her previous character over ethics in video game journalism... or was it ethics in treating prisoners... one of the two.   The only real thing I've done to change is have Hunter's Mark as a free spell. Since for combat at least it looks just far better than anything else and Rangers get a pathetic number of known spells.   I was going to run the maths past people at a later date but currently Rangers look to me to outshine fighters in damage at levels 2-5, then basically remain static until Level 17 when they get Swift Quiver.   2nd level = Fighting Style & Hunter's Mark 3rd Level = Colossus Slayer (or Horde Breaker) 5th Level = Extra Attack.
(Reply to #18) ScuroNotte	[quote="TheLoneRanger1979" I replaced it with an ability improvement, though at a one level later (IIRC at lvl 12). My goal was a hybrid of the sorts, somehting you would get if you MC but without having to worry about the number of levels you would have to take in a row. Unfortunately i didn't get the chance to play test it. Our adventure got postponed, so i only have it on paper for the time being. If you want i can copy-paste the detailed level progression along with the skill/stat/features list i had in mind? Maybe it can give you an inspiration for your own experiment? [/quote]   If you could, I would appreciate that. Love to see another build for the ranger. I guess the MC build is a ranger/fighter hybrid? I agree, I would rather play a class/character from beginning to end vs alternating.   First time playing the ranger class Hunter branch and like it so far, but looking ahead (if character survives) at the abilities, some can use adjustments. The DM immediately gave Primeval awareness general direction. She also raised my spells known to 13. Those were the only changes made. Everything  else has been great. At level 7 now, but find level 20 unappealing, especially after I took a forum writer suggestion of seeing Favored Enemy as Creature/Humanoid Lore and not as purely an enemy.
(Reply to #19) ScuroNotte	Illithidbix wrote:
(Reply to #19) Coredump00	Illithidbix wrote:
#23 TheLoneRanger1979 Jan 19, 2015 9:38:34	ScuroNotte wrote:
#24 Illithidbix Jan 19, 2015 15:46:50	ScuroNotte wrote:
#25 guachi Jan 19, 2015 16:43:55	Illithidbix wrote:
(Reply to #25) ScuroNotte	I would also add Hunter's Mark as a free known spell. It's a spell I would bet 100% of Rangers take, so just make it free. There is ample precedence for giving classes free prepared spells. [/quote]   Why not increase number of spells known by Ranger from 11 to 13 or 15. They are considered half-casters when you look at MC, while Eldritich Knights and Arcane Tricksters are seen as third casters, but they know 13 spells in addition to 3 and 4 cantrips, respectively.   My opinion would be to increase to 13 spells minimum. The number 15 I consider as a realistic possibility as Rangers do not have cantrips.   I realize Paladins don't have cantrips and are half casters as well, but through charisma and oath, they can know over 20 spells in addition to bring able to change them. But they gain their spells from their gods, so they have/are exceptions.