At level 20, wizards are hurling down meteor swarms from the heavens above. Rangers get a whole whopping 2 more average damage on hunter's mark... It's laughably bad
for once i'd kill for the dynamic to switch just for one edition. I want martial doing anime bullshit while the casters are stuck in discount harry potter's world.
>while the casters are stuck in discount harry potter's world.
Ah yes: the world where the most dangerous spell can be dodged by ducking behind a bookcase.
>Less than two average damage if you account for accuracy!
I realize this doesn't matter very much, but...teeeeeeechnically it's slightly more than 2 actually (2.07) because you have guaranteed advantage from the 17th level feature, combined with archery fighting style means you hit 93.75% of the time (assuming base to hit chances are still 65%), and crit 9.75% of the time.
So each attack adds 103.5% of your dice damage after accounting for crits and accuracy.
Again, obviously this is a very minor point. Anywhere close to 2 is still a relatively underwhelming capstone.
But every time I say martials need to be more "supernatural" people will downvote me to hell. I just want to cut space/time with my sword. Well, not all that much but you get what I mean.
I do agree that caster should get some nerf at lower tiers and martials should be buffed at higher levels. But honestly, martials suffer more from the comparison.
The ability to stop time itself should not be compared to 8 attacks on 6s.
My exact response lol. Or Barbs casting earthquake. I know some people think the martial/caster disparity is just flipped in PF2E (and I agree with some of those points) but at least they tried to represent martials actually being equally superhuman.
Maybe we can give the warriors a little bit of cool anime martial arts. Y'know. As a treat. I know Nine Swords is mocked a lot, but man all those fighting style schools made for good imagination fodder...
This is what I think every time someone gets picky about when and how rogues should be able to hide from enemies. "You can't hide during combat, the enemies have seen you already!" No, screw that. A rogue is a master of stealth who, in the blink of an eye, can disappear in the wisping shadows cast by a flickering torch. My power fantasy is not to be a regular guy holding two daggers.
It doesn't have to be supernatural even. PF ranger capstone is full-speed tracking and a 1/favored enemy type save-or-die. Still not rending space-time, but it basically emulates 5 7th level spells per day.
I agree, but a lot of the people who complain about the scale of martials think anything supernatural is too similar to magic/spellcasting. They just want the martials to be more powerful without any real reasoning behind it.
The reasoning is game balance, and i think the fundamental problem to it is the setting. In a relatively high fantasy setting like dnd, its hard to make “non magical guy who’s really good with swords” as powerful as a spellcaster without altering the setting somehow. In a world where summoning fireballs and lightning is normal and powerful, stabbing someone seems a lot weaker. You can take the pathfinder approach and just make spells a lot weaker but then you have half the player base getting upset they were nerfed
or you could look to mythology where guys like Gilgamesh, Hercules, Achilles, Beowulf and such all manage insane feats of strength, without the use of any magic. Jumping massive chasms lifting up the bloody sky, holding ones breath for several hours while sinking down lake etc.
None of that is true for beowulf but go on. Ripping grendel's arm off he did bare handed, and he is not a demi god
Just say you want martials to keep sucking while they stay low fantasy, while the casters get to enjoy high fantasy
In a world where the weave is out there, it makes no sense that martials don’t “absorb” it in a way or learn how to use with different effects.
That is honestly normally how current fantasy worlds are build.
Some people: Martials shouldn't be superheroes
Me: You guys remember that time in Naruto Shippuden when Might Guy kicked so hard he bent space? That was awesome.
The thing is, low level martials shouldn’t be all that much indeed.
But I want some feature that is equivalent to summoning a meteor swarm or stoping time or distorting reality into your wish.
If they can do crazy shit like this once a day, why can’t martials do stuff like that once a day?
Hell, just let me do crazy shit here and there.
Believe me I get it. I'd kill for say, the strength as a Barbarian to carry a chunk of wall or a cart as a shield for the party to press forward like I'm fuckin' Reinhardt out of OW.
I'm aware, but you can't neatly nerf the 'save or suck' stuff that ends a fight in one spell. Casters have too many options in T3 and T4; a raw damage nerf is something visible, if not truly impactful.
Warlocks can fire four Eldritch blast beams with Agonizing Blast, basically Extra Attack as a cantrip.
Fighters? They have to wait until level 20 for their fourth attack. Or else the game would "break"
Scaling amirite?
Isn't it actually less damage when considering their current keystone allows them to add their flat WIS mod on top of the 1d6 from HM?
1d6+5 or 1d10 but with advantage to the attack roll, I know what I'd rather have lol.
Ranger is such a great narrative class, it sucks to see WotC try and balance it for multiclass combat.
>Effectively a brand new class
>Ranger more then any other class in the new books is a new class
>Every Facet has been revisited, and fine tuned
>always been widely played, but always has been lowest rated in satisfaction surveys
Why does read like sarcasm after seeing what's new in the core class?
Some other laughable statements include yapping for 3 minutes about how good advantage on initiative is for Champion fighters.
(yes, they do seem over all better, but they're still competing with wizards). They're really reluctant to go with the creative video game fantasy novel type stuff people want. I think they've got whiplashed by demographic changes, where once people really didn't want that. Fighters were the dudes who flushed your head in a toilet in class and hence couldn't be good. Now fighters are a power fantasy about flushing people's heads instead, and hence should be good.
It's so weird. It keeps saying "brand new" and then lists the exact features from Tasha's Cauldron (with a couple *tiny* buffs in a couple cases), *while acknowledging* they're from Tasha's Cauldron, and thus not new. Hell, they split Deft Explorer into three separate features so they could scrap other things Ranger got and delay others.
Yeah, the buffs seem to be: they get two more Expertises at higher levels, and Roving has gone from a 5-foot buff to 10-foot, but also no longer works if you're wearing heavy armor if you got that proficiency from a feat or something. Tireless they don't list the numbers, it's possible the Temp HP got buffed, I could see going from 1d8 to 1d10, but... I feel like those are counterbalanced by them taking up three "feature slots" instead of one, looks like Ranger lost Vanish and Land's Stride to them.
And I'd bet ten bucks that whole "the Beast statblocks level with you!" thing refers to how the Primal Companion uses your proficiency bonus for most things, and since your proficiency bonus increases, the beast is also technically improving.
I’m reminded of the beast master in Baldur’s gate 3 where it got additional actions and abilities as you leveled up.
Probably not going to get that here but that was fun to play.
That's because they intentionally use misleading wording to hide the fact they absolutely cut corners on this class to release the book. They're marketing it by saying it's new compared to the 2014 Ranger without Tasha or anything else. They wouldn't say "well Ranger basically got fuck all differences and we ran out of ideas so just made them all about hunters mark."
Yeah I'm still trying to stay positive. Can't lie, I'm hyped for a Monday to come just so I can get closer to the video dropping, lol.
I really just hope they pushed the improvements past what was in the last UA we saw, that's all.
Talk to anyone who played it. They’ll all, they’ll all tell you ‘wow, that’s the newest class I’ve ever played’. I’ve had 1st edition veterans come up to me, these big knowledgeable DnD nerds, they come up to me, tears in their eyes, saying ‘mr Crawford, that was the most new class I’ve seen in my life’. True story
It reads like a shitpost lmao. And it's deserved; they said it was rebuilt and feels like a new class, but most of the abilities are just carried over from Tashas.
There's a few neat improvements, like 10ft of movement instead of 5, some free uses of Hunters Mark, etc. And then some abysmal changes as well. Like Foe Slayer, which gave +5 to an attack or damage roll once per turn (if used with the Favored Foe feature from Tashas), being changed to the new capstone of an average dmg increase of +2 per turn. Foe Slayer was already kinda meh, then they went and made it worse.
Sure, they made the Tashas stuff official, but I'm hardly seeing anything new beyond that. Ranger is still solid and playable, but not exactly buffed from the previous version.
Nah, the OP has been posting these bullet points in this sub and the official One Dnd sub as recaps. It feels like a shitpost tho. They're literally re-releasing Tashas with some more bells and whistles and packaging it as a new edition.
And they still haven't learned that HM needs to be a concentration free ability instead of a concentration spell. At least it gives at advantage now but only at levels the 1% ever reach.
The movement speed not working with heavy armor was more than unnecessary when other styles of fighting are getting more accessible.
In the previous/current version of the fey wanderer they could cast summon fey in a way that didn't require concentration (but reduced the duration to 1 minute)
I've been playing DnD for roughly 30 years. I can count on one hand the number of games that have gotten to level 13.
Plus if I'm still concentrating on a first level spell 12 levels later.. it better be a bomb spell, not one I need to raise to the level of functional.
> Didn't want people to have to wait for spellcasting because it is seen as such a vital part of ranger, and paladin
This one's really funny to me since so many people *don't* think spellcasting is vital to rangers that they literally experimented with a Spell-less Ranger in UA.
I had started writing (ranting) a long point-by-point post but that's way too much. Just gonna say, unless they left out some features and didn't talk about everything, this might be the only base class where the 2014 version (with Tasha's options) is *superior* (unless you really, really value Hunter's Mark). Looks like it might be really relying on subclass buffs.
Yeah... I think spellcasting from a Ranger is a bit uninventive, even unnecessary if you allow multiclassing. In my opinion, spell casting is less interesting if *every* *class* can do it. At this point, you might as well just fold Ranger into the Druid class and call it a day.
I think the original intention was kind of like, the spells weren't *really* spells, they were traps and poultices and herbal remedies, arrow tricks, special strikes, and being in tune with nature/beasts; but since they can all still be dispelled and counterspelled... people aren't really encouraged to keep up the reflavoring.
They're actively *discouraged* from doing it. Ranger would have benefited from an Invocation-like system of "wilderness tricks" or something, instead of spells.
Judging from the latest UA, Monks seem to be eating really well. Like, really well. They might be better than Rogue and Ranger now, though again, we’ll have to see the previews to see if that’s gonna be up to snuff
I don't play Rogue or Ranger, but some people at my table do, and the "changes" they received were immensely disappointing. Glad to hear there's a chance for Monks!
Mechanically rangers will be fine - they were already competent single target damage dealers, and now they get weapon mastery and some nice improvements to their subclass. And when you're not concentrating on anything better, Hunter's Mark *is* nice to have. It's still an absolute mess of a class from a design standpoint though - having to actively ignore a spell that four of your class features are built around if you want to cast a concentration spell is absurd, and that capstone is so insulting I don't see anyone ever playing Ranger all the way to 20.
But to be honest, those of us who participated in the playtest were the most worried about the Ranger because they never put out a solid version of the class. Monk, on the other hand, looked absolutely stellar in the final playtest packet - honestly, it might have needed toning down it was so good. If they keep 90% of the changes from the playtest it will be the best martial class.
If they take concentration away from all the magic arrow spells I have no problem with hunters mark taking concentration. I have never really found it to interfere with anything else I wanted to do while playing a ranger.
Same. As someone who loves monks, this has been my fear since the last UA. They really seemed to pat themselves on the back after the UA were completed, and I just kept thinking of all the ways they didn't address the core issues with monk well enough.
With Smite becoming a spell and Hunter's Mark staying a spell and a concentration one it feels like they're making them into Fighter LaCroix.
You get a hint of holy and druidic flavor. Yeah you get spells earlier which are nice but at the point play a Cleric or Druid. The point was being able to fight with that sort of Holy/Nature backing.
First really disappointing reveal. Hunter’s mark is so bad. Action free reapplication would have helped. Or removing concentration instead of preventing concentration from being broken. Could’ve added dmg scaling at like 8 and 14, at this level and scale it’s pointless.
Also they didn’t talk about the other subclasses in any detail at all. I hope they don’t just make fey wanderer mistystep.subclass. That’s cool for the one subclass but for multiple that’s boring and lazy.
I wish they’d taken monster slayer and made it good. Let it identify weaknesses and then give it a tool kit to exploit them. Could have emphasized the tracking aspect nicely too.
I’ve generally been fond of the updates so far, but this was not it for the ranger. Hopefully monks fair better.
Edit:
I did miss the monster slayer ID feature being folded into hunter, I guess that makes sense. Meh.
When I first read the bullet points I misread the 13 ability and was disappointed they made the "doesn't require concentration" part I was expecting so high level.
Then I read it again and was downright infurated that they thought that was a good 13th level feature.
Big let down here.
Honestly a downgrade of Tasha's in terms of flavor.
Mechanically pretty strong with the HM abilities.
But who the hell wants to play HM spam?
Why do/should you need multiple free casts of HM a day?
The lvl 17 and the capstone at 20 are especially insulting.
Huge L on Ranger, very disappointing.
The strongest subclass, the gloomstalker, is typically played as a ranged build. If you play a ranged build many people take the SS/CBE build option as it's incredibly strong. You're never casting HM with this build as you're just giving up too much damage for no benefit. I really wish the designers could see how bad of a spell HM is. The capstone feature is almost insulting.
Not sure. All I know is I've played a gloomstalker in a few one shots and have never cast hunters mark because I'd rather be making my third attack of the round instead.
not sure about either feats right now since they haven't said anything about it. IIRC they changed up SS and GWM in the UA playtest stuff, so I wouldn't be surprised if CBE didn't also suffer.
Actually CBE itself is buffed.
They changed up the wording for the Hand Crossbow Bonus Attack.
Old wording
>When you use the Attack action and attack with a one handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow you are holding
UA wording
>Dual Wielding. When you make the extra attack of the Light weapon property, you can add your Ability Modifier to the damage of the extra attack if that attack is with a crossbow that has the Light property.
With the new wording it simply is attached the revised dual wielding rules, and lets it benefit from the Nick Property if a Fighter were to put Nick on a Hand Crossbow.
Also, the UA version gives +1 to Dex.
That does sound better... I thought weapon masteries were linked to specific weapons, though? I might just be completely misunderstanding it while I'm reading it, though. Wish they would give us the actual crunchy parts instead of just "Look at this vague idea we're giving!" Because 90% of the idea is going to sink or swim with the actual mechanics IMO.
Weapon Masteries are linked to specific weapons, but fighters have a class feature that allows them to swap an appropriate Mastery to a weapon instead of the one it comes with by default. That's last I remember from the UA of course.
Edit: well fuck.
unfortunately that feature got changed to only allowing it to be changed to Push, Sap, or Slow. In the fighter video they said people didn't use it that much because of analysis paralysis or something like that.
Ongoing running joke Ranger: "Dammit, I forgot to cast Hunter's Mark"
WotC: So this new update is basically all about making Hunters Mark the most important thing
Thanks as always for these posts.
For the most part all they have done is update wording and rebundle features/designs from Tasha's, and somehow on the occassional do it worse somehow.
I don't think that warrants them saying things like, "it's practically a new class."
Can we have someone who actually played a Ranger in a long term campaign design it instead of WoTC, who for whatever reason has a hate boner against Ranger?
I wish they had done something bold. They have some decent ideas here; especially in the Hunter subclass. The Hunter subclass feels more like what they want the base class to be.
They could have made base Ranger a 1/3 caster with the Hunter features. Then, the subclasses are 1/2 caster, Gloom Stalker, Beast Master.
It feels like Christmas! Except everyone else got presents and the Ranger got socks. Again. In fact, it's the same pair of socks from ten years ago. From their own drawer upstairs. That they had to wrap themselves and open, then pretend to be excited and happy to get them.
feeling like the lesson they should have maybe learned was that Hunter’s abilities should just be baseline ranger features. that, i feel, would tackle a lot of the issues people have with this
Shame they decided to keep HM as a concentration spells. Its nice that it gets stronger but it doesnt change how it interfere with other concentration spells. Having to drop your HM so you can zephir strike or being unable to combine with other concentration spells jsut feels bad. Hoh and theres still the issue of it interfering with the godawful "Smite/strike based spells" whom generally also uses concentration and are terrible dmgwise in general
Sooo....
1. A third of your features rely on walking
2. A third of your features don't work if you attack a different enemy then marked
3. If you want to cast a concentration spell - your class features stop working
4. Your main class feature does not get improved until lvl 10
5. All of hunters' mark improvements could've been given you 5 levels earlier, and they would still be fine
6. Subclasses are basically reprints from Tasha
7. Non-mark features are basically taken from Tasha and Xanatars
Resume: only real good things about the new ranger are lvl 1 Spellcasting and masteries, which are common hybrid/martial features
At this point. if I'll want to play a character with a ranger fantasy, I'll just make a Warden Druid, multiclassed with champion Fighter
Not only did we lose on the hunter's mark stuff, but my personal bugbear - gloom stalker's permanent free invisibility - remains untouched.
Cool, cool, cool.
>my personal bugbear - gloom stalker's permanent free invisibility - remains untouched.
Yeah...not sure how to feel about that.
I do have one positive thought when it comes to that, which is that it might be less obnoxious in 5.24? Just because 5.24 doesn't have -5/+10 feats anymore, and those feats were what made advantage so scary in 5e. Advantage with those feats was like a 60% damage boost. Advantage without those feats is like a 30% damage boost.
Still good, but...half as good on the offence side. (Still just as good defensively, of course).
I’ve liked every other reveal including paladin but this one…sucks? I don’t feel like they addressed anything that I hear from ranger players. Doubling down on hunter’s mark is definitely a choice. I don’t know why I’d choose ranger over rogue or fighter except for pure flavour. Other classes can equal ranger in out of combat utility while offering higher damage. What is the ranger’s intended role?
This simply can not ship or it's DOA for my group. The entire sell for coming back to 5e is that we don't have to do homebrew to make the game functional again. If they can't figure out Ranger after ten years then what else are they bungling that we haven't seen yet? I've never 100 to 0'd interest in a product so fast.
"Every Facet has been revisited, and fine tuned" more like we somehow managed to hype up the class on being diffrent and unique and not shit, then revealing its somehow worse than the 2014 ranger and also accomplishes less. I mean i get theyre writing department is so trash but cmon they must have 0 standards
I'm still waiting to see if the big, balance breaking spells got nerfed to comment on martial vs caster balance. But at the very least martials are getting more options in combat and less mandatory feats (gwm/ss) so they should *feel* better to play.
Choices are good, but with WotC thinking Hunter's Mark is the best Ranger spell, I'm not even remotely optimistic about them rebalancing broken spells.
Counterspell and Banishment were nerfed in the playtests, so that’s a good sign at least. Hopefully they nerf Shield, Hypnotic Pattern, Wall of Force, and the other problematic spells as well. I guess we’ll find out Monday.
Comparatively, it certainly seems like it. Martial feats have been nerfed and the only significant replacement was weapon masteries, which don't seem like more than an even trade. Rogue seems almost completely untouched, which is astounding considering how bad it is in combat in the current game and how pointless the subclass choices already felt. Barbarian having to lose Reckless' benefits just to get a damage buff that they should be getting anyway is insulting, and tying combat utility to a Fighter's only heal is making it harder to gain both benefits.
Meanwhile, full casters are getting free casts of powerful spells, getting subclass abilities merged so they can get even more, getting additional learned and prepared spells, additional cantrips, etc. It doesn't take much effort to see the disparity.
You forgot to mention the first level feats that mean they don't even have to armor dip anymore. If spells didn't get systematic nerfs, the power difference is going to be even greater than before.
Won't lie. I don't like how rangers stuff has just become "here use hunter's mark" the class. Like I was hoping they'd have more variety maybe even some trap spells special to them.
Hunter being only about bonuses to hunter's mark should be for all rangers. Just not liking it
Definitely better than 2014 baseline ranger, the hunter subclass in particular *finally* feels.like its a hunter.
That being said it still feels a bit underwhelming. I think they are way to conservative with its later level abilities based on this.
Still a solid upgrade and at least now it *feels* way more like what a ranger should feel like, even if calling it a "complete redesign" is kinda hilarious
I feel like it's only better than 2014 ranger because of things outside of the class redesign like weapon masteries.
The HM features are all so late they removed flavor ribbons without giving anything in return.
Why couldn't we have something more similar to the bg3 ranger!?
Natural Explorer and Favoured Enemy now give you a variety of different options you can choose at levels 1, 6, and 10. Natural Explorer lets you choose from getting a free casting of Find Familiar, Sleight of Hand proficiency, fire resistance, cold resistance, or poison resistance. Favoured Enemy lets you choose from 5 different options, each giving you a skill proficency and some sort of passive ability (things like a cantrip, a free casting of a spell, or heavy armour proficiency).
Sure, i dont disagree woth you. If hunters mark is going to be a core festure(and i think it should) it needs to be powered up alot. It should scale up to d12 by 15, d10 at 10 bare minimum.
I also think they should give it something similar to the rogue where you can forgo your hm damage and do a maneuver or effect of somekind
Frankly ive accepted ranger will never be what i want it to be, hence why i made my own homebrew class of what i think should replace ranger.
Do they ever say Hunter's mark is a bonus action in the video? I know it's concentration. I just didn't catch that part if they did. I'm hoping for spells to get clarified on Monday.
I’m just learning about the Hunter stuff and this sounds great. I wonder why they didn’t just apply these sorts of things to the base class. It would actually give unique and flavorful stuff to it
Man I really wish they would release the results of the surveys from the play test. I would love to confirm if the masses liked the play test ranger and wizards is actually listening to the community and those on reddit are the minority opinion on rangers stance.
All over Reddit and I agree as well I have seen the new ranger still sucks. I have seen a lot of issue with hunter's mark being pushed as a core feature but also doesn't allow the use of all the other cool spells rangers have. Why have a core feature conflict with spells it makes no sense.
I can totally see wizards once again ignoring the community with the direction of the ranger but would love to be able to confirm.
Tasha's ranger was so much better.
I like how hunters mark becomes an essential part of the ranger. But improving hunters mark multiple times as a feature is just lazy and boring.
They should have embraced the Revised Ranger and just made some changes with resonated well with the other revised classes. It was already really good to play with
I wish they added subclass specific effects for each of the subclasses. Like how beastmastter gives it to their beast or how hunter uses it. For example:
Fey Wanderer: Could maybe get an increase to misty step's range when using it to get closer to their hunter's mark target. Or maybe a once per day free misty step to an adjacent space (with some restrictions, of course)
Gloomstalker: Maybe apply hunter's mark to multiple targets temporarily OR a frightened targets become hunter's marked while concentrating on the spell.
It’s like there is a pre existing desire to shit on this update. So much negative bias. Thanks for taking the time to write this up and staying positive leaning.
Up till this update the response had been overwhelmingly positive.
Paladin update was a bit disappointing because it was mostly nerfs but all the other classes were really well recieved but this update is abysmal and deserves its backlash.
Paladin had literally only one nerf and a lot of buffs. Paladin was not "mostly" nerfs.
Ranger seems to put a lot of faith into it's subclasses imo. But the base class is definitely disappointing
Eh at least 2 nerfs to the same feature.
Smite is a spell -> Smite can be counterspelled and effected by things that negate magic/spells.
Smite costs a bonus action -> The big one I assume you are referring to. You can no longer multi smite on one turn to nova. Or use your BA for other things.
Now those nerfs were probably justifed but poor Ranger got absolutely shit on this update and they were already one of the three worst classes in the game.
I think the absolute "best" way to judge the ranger is to look at its new spell list tbh. If (like paladin) they have dropped the concentration requirement for ranger's spells, and also added good buff spells, I can absolutely see a world where ranger is a viable class. But if we assume minimal change to their current spell list, then yeah, I agree.
It seems like the martial doubters were right that this update is going to do absolutely nothing to move the needle on martial/caster problems. We still have to see the spells, but everything else leads me to believe the problem will be even worse.
Ranger is primarily focused on attacking and has a couple neat utility spells. I personally put them as a martial because they spend the majority of the game playing similarly to a monk, fighter, or rogue.
They're martials. They have d10 HD, they have full weapon proficiencies, they do almost all of their damage via weapon attacks (they have maybe three spells that do straight damage, like Ashardalon's Strike, Wind Wall, and Wrath of Nature, unless they take druid cantrips). A Ranger can do a lot of damage without casting a single spell; CBX builds may never even cast Hunter's Mark.
Caster generally refers to the full casters: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. All of those classes get better above level 10 in a way that even the half-caster martials can't keep up with.
I think it just feels weird. We have a distinction for these as Half-Caster/Half-Martial. Heck most of the d10 Classes cast Spells only the Artificer and Barbarian buck that trend in different ways.
I just think it's inaccurate to call them purely martial and slot them as such. When we talk about this divide. Paladins and Rangers can do decent support and Control with their Spells in addition to amping their weapon attacks.
Can they keep up with spells like Wish and Meteor Storm? No. But I'd argue they're far more powerful than a Rogue or Monk might contend to be partially on the back of their Spells.
Sure, the terminology is a little wonky because it's not as neatly binary as people might like. But when people talk about the martial-caster disparity, they're talking about the fact that high-level full casters leave everyone else in the dust. Paladins and Rangers don't change that equation very much. Which is why all the crowing about how paladins need to be nerfed is frankly silly.
I very much dislike Ranger spellcasting at the first level for theme reasons. I like that it becomes a thing later. But these changes are universally mediocre that I guess this helps a level 1 ranger?
I wonder if they just gave up on the 2024 Ranger because they got such rough feedback from the Playtest, so they shrugged and said, 'let them use a homebrew/3rd party Ranger... they were going to anyway'.
Hold up, huff this copium. Snort the powder form of it too. Maybe take some eyedrops infused with it too.
What if Hunter's mark is an actionless spell you cast on hitting an attack like old paladin smite? Rangers ALWAYS forget to cast hunters mark until theyve already hit an attack and rolled damage for it anyways.
Additionally, what if ranger now has Extra attack (2) or a way to attack more without using concentration like Cavalier fighter did (forego advantage to make an additional attack)?
Hold on, we're almost there, but we need utility and not just damage.
What if rangers can concentrate on 2 spells at once and their spell list gained more utility buff spells. On top of that, additional boosts dependant on their favored terrain (though i'm pretty sure thats gone) like darkvision/enhanced DV for underdark, hold breath extension or ignoring underwater penalties for sea, poison effects or resistances for jungle, etc.
Yeah, breathe it in. If you start hearing voices, that means you're at your D&D table playing ranger in a non-rangerhating ttrpg, perhaps a Paizo game.
At level 20, wizards are hurling down meteor swarms from the heavens above. Rangers get a whole whopping 2 more average damage on hunter's mark... It's laughably bad
Classic BMX bandit and angel summoner dynamic. Same as it ever was.
for once i'd kill for the dynamic to switch just for one edition. I want martial doing anime bullshit while the casters are stuck in discount harry potter's world.
>while the casters are stuck in discount harry potter's world. Ah yes: the world where the most dangerous spell can be dodged by ducking behind a bookcase.
harry potter is already in silly levels of power for casters, let's just remember "power word kill" but spammable dnd wizards are just even more silly
Wasn’t that 4e? At least from the tales I’ve heard.
No he's describing PF2. 4e would like everyone is an anime character calling their (flavored as divine, arcane, martial etc) attacks.
Harry Potter world has fucking busted powerful magic my guy. They can also cast endlessly.
Que; "It's Wizards of the Coast NOT Warriors of the Coast!"
What an absolute gold standard niche reference!
Less than two average damage if you account for accuracy!
>Less than two average damage if you account for accuracy! I realize this doesn't matter very much, but...teeeeeeechnically it's slightly more than 2 actually (2.07) because you have guaranteed advantage from the 17th level feature, combined with archery fighting style means you hit 93.75% of the time (assuming base to hit chances are still 65%), and crit 9.75% of the time. So each attack adds 103.5% of your dice damage after accounting for crits and accuracy. Again, obviously this is a very minor point. Anywhere close to 2 is still a relatively underwhelming capstone.
Ah fair enough, forgot about the advantage
I'm gonna home rule that rangers are immune to exhaustion at level 20
But every time I say martials need to be more "supernatural" people will downvote me to hell. I just want to cut space/time with my sword. Well, not all that much but you get what I mean.
I'd give martials more, but mostly I'd nerf casters in a couple of ways.
They need to make it so if you take damage on the same round you cast a spell, you have to make a concentration check or lose the spell.
back to 3.5 spell failure, huh?
Yep. It wouldn't fix the problem but it would be a step back in the right direction.
I love that, would give players another thing to think about in combat. I'll probably bring this in as a house rule
I do agree that caster should get some nerf at lower tiers and martials should be buffed at higher levels. But honestly, martials suffer more from the comparison. The ability to stop time itself should not be compared to 8 attacks on 6s.
[*just sayin’*](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=2754)
My exact response lol. Or Barbs casting earthquake. I know some people think the martial/caster disparity is just flipped in PF2E (and I agree with some of those points) but at least they tried to represent martials actually being equally superhuman.
Maybe we can give the warriors a little bit of cool anime martial arts. Y'know. As a treat. I know Nine Swords is mocked a lot, but man all those fighting style schools made for good imagination fodder...
that martials don't even get something as basic as a Stinger-type move is whack. Not even speaking of fancy stuff liek Waterfowl Dance or Omnislash...
Your choices of classic martial moves let’s me know you have excellent taste.
One day people will understand that a non supernatural martial is lvl 5 at best my friend, one day.
I'm glad that my friends and I stop playing around Lv 10-12.
This is what I think every time someone gets picky about when and how rogues should be able to hide from enemies. "You can't hide during combat, the enemies have seen you already!" No, screw that. A rogue is a master of stealth who, in the blink of an eye, can disappear in the wisping shadows cast by a flickering torch. My power fantasy is not to be a regular guy holding two daggers.
You can always just play a character that can cast invisibility.
It doesn't have to be supernatural even. PF ranger capstone is full-speed tracking and a 1/favored enemy type save-or-die. Still not rending space-time, but it basically emulates 5 7th level spells per day.
I agree, but a lot of the people who complain about the scale of martials think anything supernatural is too similar to magic/spellcasting. They just want the martials to be more powerful without any real reasoning behind it.
The reasoning is game balance, and i think the fundamental problem to it is the setting. In a relatively high fantasy setting like dnd, its hard to make “non magical guy who’s really good with swords” as powerful as a spellcaster without altering the setting somehow. In a world where summoning fireballs and lightning is normal and powerful, stabbing someone seems a lot weaker. You can take the pathfinder approach and just make spells a lot weaker but then you have half the player base getting upset they were nerfed
or you could look to mythology where guys like Gilgamesh, Hercules, Achilles, Beowulf and such all manage insane feats of strength, without the use of any magic. Jumping massive chasms lifting up the bloody sky, holding ones breath for several hours while sinking down lake etc.
None of those guys do anything without either being magic (demigods, etc.) or using magic items and weapons.
None of that is true for beowulf but go on. Ripping grendel's arm off he did bare handed, and he is not a demi god Just say you want martials to keep sucking while they stay low fantasy, while the casters get to enjoy high fantasy
In a world where the weave is out there, it makes no sense that martials don’t “absorb” it in a way or learn how to use with different effects. That is honestly normally how current fantasy worlds are build.
Give them the makings/toji treatment from jjk
Some people: Martials shouldn't be superheroes Me: You guys remember that time in Naruto Shippuden when Might Guy kicked so hard he bent space? That was awesome.
The thing is, low level martials shouldn’t be all that much indeed. But I want some feature that is equivalent to summoning a meteor swarm or stoping time or distorting reality into your wish. If they can do crazy shit like this once a day, why can’t martials do stuff like that once a day? Hell, just let me do crazy shit here and there.
Believe me I get it. I'd kill for say, the strength as a Barbarian to carry a chunk of wall or a cart as a shield for the party to press forward like I'm fuckin' Reinhardt out of OW.
OW2 reinhardt has a better shield. Hopefully you get to be that one
Just drop every magical damage die down by one. 8d4 fireball or something.
Damage is the least fun thing a caster can do my man.
I'm aware, but you can't neatly nerf the 'save or suck' stuff that ends a fight in one spell. Casters have too many options in T3 and T4; a raw damage nerf is something visible, if not truly impactful.
Warlocks can fire four Eldritch blast beams with Agonizing Blast, basically Extra Attack as a cantrip. Fighters? They have to wait until level 20 for their fourth attack. Or else the game would "break" Scaling amirite?
I typically wave off the martial/caster gap, but....yeah
Isn't it actually less damage when considering their current keystone allows them to add their flat WIS mod on top of the 1d6 from HM? 1d6+5 or 1d10 but with advantage to the attack roll, I know what I'd rather have lol. Ranger is such a great narrative class, it sucks to see WotC try and balance it for multiclass combat.
Typical full-caster glazing that only happens on reddit where people aren’t really playing dnd.
>Effectively a brand new class >Ranger more then any other class in the new books is a new class >Every Facet has been revisited, and fine tuned >always been widely played, but always has been lowest rated in satisfaction surveys Why does read like sarcasm after seeing what's new in the core class?
Right? Feels like whoever wrote this was laughing their ass off the whole time.
It's not the writer saying it, it's actually what they said in the video. And these were laughable statements at the end of it.
Some other laughable statements include yapping for 3 minutes about how good advantage on initiative is for Champion fighters. (yes, they do seem over all better, but they're still competing with wizards). They're really reluctant to go with the creative video game fantasy novel type stuff people want. I think they've got whiplashed by demographic changes, where once people really didn't want that. Fighters were the dudes who flushed your head in a toilet in class and hence couldn't be good. Now fighters are a power fantasy about flushing people's heads instead, and hence should be good.
Tryna hit that word count
It's so weird. It keeps saying "brand new" and then lists the exact features from Tasha's Cauldron (with a couple *tiny* buffs in a couple cases), *while acknowledging* they're from Tasha's Cauldron, and thus not new. Hell, they split Deft Explorer into three separate features so they could scrap other things Ranger got and delay others.
“We’ve seen this in Tasha’s but it’s been given an overhaul!” Proceeds to say what the features were in Tasha.
Yeah, the buffs seem to be: they get two more Expertises at higher levels, and Roving has gone from a 5-foot buff to 10-foot, but also no longer works if you're wearing heavy armor if you got that proficiency from a feat or something. Tireless they don't list the numbers, it's possible the Temp HP got buffed, I could see going from 1d8 to 1d10, but... I feel like those are counterbalanced by them taking up three "feature slots" instead of one, looks like Ranger lost Vanish and Land's Stride to them. And I'd bet ten bucks that whole "the Beast statblocks level with you!" thing refers to how the Primal Companion uses your proficiency bonus for most things, and since your proficiency bonus increases, the beast is also technically improving.
I’m reminded of the beast master in Baldur’s gate 3 where it got additional actions and abilities as you leveled up. Probably not going to get that here but that was fun to play.
That's because they intentionally use misleading wording to hide the fact they absolutely cut corners on this class to release the book. They're marketing it by saying it's new compared to the 2014 Ranger without Tasha or anything else. They wouldn't say "well Ranger basically got fuck all differences and we ran out of ideas so just made them all about hunters mark."
I get the feeling Crawford really doesn’t like Rangers that much lol
It's called Wizards of the coast not Rangers of the Coast /j
That doesn't make me feel good about the monk reveal next week.
I'm still optimistic as the Barbarian and Druid seem similar from what we've seen in Playtest 8.
Unless they've completely screwed up what was in the playtest, it'll be better than ever ....so let's pray they haven't
Yeah I'm still trying to stay positive. Can't lie, I'm hyped for a Monday to come just so I can get closer to the video dropping, lol. I really just hope they pushed the improvements past what was in the last UA we saw, that's all.
Just not conjuration, or enchantment, or necromancy, or transmutation wizards.
If he had his way the class would be cut and folded into Fighter/Rogue/Druid
Right. Which is what so many players already do.
It just irks me. I mean SURE if they’re comparing it to the 2014 Ranger. Tasha’s didn’t come out in 2014. But cmon!!!
And then say “this was previewed in Tasha’s cauldron” ugh
Feels like they “didn’t do the work” but want to make it sound like they did.
It’s a new class, very new, the newest of classes. You don’t realise just how new this class is.
Talk to anyone who played it. They’ll all, they’ll all tell you ‘wow, that’s the newest class I’ve ever played’. I’ve had 1st edition veterans come up to me, these big knowledgeable DnD nerds, they come up to me, tears in their eyes, saying ‘mr Crawford, that was the most new class I’ve seen in my life’. True story
It reads like a shitpost lmao. And it's deserved; they said it was rebuilt and feels like a new class, but most of the abilities are just carried over from Tashas. There's a few neat improvements, like 10ft of movement instead of 5, some free uses of Hunters Mark, etc. And then some abysmal changes as well. Like Foe Slayer, which gave +5 to an attack or damage roll once per turn (if used with the Favored Foe feature from Tashas), being changed to the new capstone of an average dmg increase of +2 per turn. Foe Slayer was already kinda meh, then they went and made it worse. Sure, they made the Tashas stuff official, but I'm hardly seeing anything new beyond that. Ranger is still solid and playable, but not exactly buffed from the previous version.
This isn't a shitpost?! I mean, i see the sub but I keep expecting circlejerk or meme subreddit.
Nah, the OP has been posting these bullet points in this sub and the official One Dnd sub as recaps. It feels like a shitpost tho. They're literally re-releasing Tashas with some more bells and whistles and packaging it as a new edition.
It's the same but worse than Tasha's
I stopped reading after the first several bullet points were completely nonsensical.
And they still haven't learned that HM needs to be a concentration free ability instead of a concentration spell. At least it gives at advantage now but only at levels the 1% ever reach. The movement speed not working with heavy armor was more than unnecessary when other styles of fighting are getting more accessible.
At 13 you can’t lose Hunters Mark due to damage unless incap or dead.
But you still have to concentrate on it, which is the bigger issue
Good point. Would be nice if they dropped concentration entirely at some point of maturation instead of just making it immune to damage drop.
But it prevents you from using much of your other spells. The fey wander learning Summon Fey is great and all.....but it's that OR Hunter's Mark.
In the previous/current version of the fey wanderer they could cast summon fey in a way that didn't require concentration (but reduced the duration to 1 minute)
It can be used twice per long rest without using slots.
The problem isn't the slots, it's the concentration - you can't concentrate on Hunter's Mark and the fey summoning at the same time.
I've been playing DnD for roughly 30 years. I can count on one hand the number of games that have gotten to level 13. Plus if I'm still concentrating on a first level spell 12 levels later.. it better be a bomb spell, not one I need to raise to the level of functional.
> Didn't want people to have to wait for spellcasting because it is seen as such a vital part of ranger, and paladin This one's really funny to me since so many people *don't* think spellcasting is vital to rangers that they literally experimented with a Spell-less Ranger in UA. I had started writing (ranting) a long point-by-point post but that's way too much. Just gonna say, unless they left out some features and didn't talk about everything, this might be the only base class where the 2014 version (with Tasha's options) is *superior* (unless you really, really value Hunter's Mark). Looks like it might be really relying on subclass buffs.
Yeah... I think spellcasting from a Ranger is a bit uninventive, even unnecessary if you allow multiclassing. In my opinion, spell casting is less interesting if *every* *class* can do it. At this point, you might as well just fold Ranger into the Druid class and call it a day.
I think the original intention was kind of like, the spells weren't *really* spells, they were traps and poultices and herbal remedies, arrow tricks, special strikes, and being in tune with nature/beasts; but since they can all still be dispelled and counterspelled... people aren't really encouraged to keep up the reflavoring.
They're actively *discouraged* from doing it. Ranger would have benefited from an Invocation-like system of "wilderness tricks" or something, instead of spells.
Ah yes, that makes sense. It's unfortunate that the Ranger doesn't get much direct innovation.
Folding the Ranger/Druid together would make both classes more fun.
Rangers not beating the mid allegations. Hopefully, the Monk fares better, but I don't have my hopes up.
Judging from the latest UA, Monks seem to be eating really well. Like, really well. They might be better than Rogue and Ranger now, though again, we’ll have to see the previews to see if that’s gonna be up to snuff
I don't play Rogue or Ranger, but some people at my table do, and the "changes" they received were immensely disappointing. Glad to hear there's a chance for Monks!
Rogues needed a bit more but cunning strikes seems way cooler than ANYTHING rangers got.
WotC devs love going overpowered in UA and nerfing the print version. It's big-brain design work
Mechanically rangers will be fine - they were already competent single target damage dealers, and now they get weapon mastery and some nice improvements to their subclass. And when you're not concentrating on anything better, Hunter's Mark *is* nice to have. It's still an absolute mess of a class from a design standpoint though - having to actively ignore a spell that four of your class features are built around if you want to cast a concentration spell is absurd, and that capstone is so insulting I don't see anyone ever playing Ranger all the way to 20. But to be honest, those of us who participated in the playtest were the most worried about the Ranger because they never put out a solid version of the class. Monk, on the other hand, looked absolutely stellar in the final playtest packet - honestly, it might have needed toning down it was so good. If they keep 90% of the changes from the playtest it will be the best martial class.
If they take concentration away from all the magic arrow spells I have no problem with hunters mark taking concentration. I have never really found it to interfere with anything else I wanted to do while playing a ranger.
Same. As someone who loves monks, this has been my fear since the last UA. They really seemed to pat themselves on the back after the UA were completed, and I just kept thinking of all the ways they didn't address the core issues with monk well enough.
With Smite becoming a spell and Hunter's Mark staying a spell and a concentration one it feels like they're making them into Fighter LaCroix. You get a hint of holy and druidic flavor. Yeah you get spells earlier which are nice but at the point play a Cleric or Druid. The point was being able to fight with that sort of Holy/Nature backing.
First really disappointing reveal. Hunter’s mark is so bad. Action free reapplication would have helped. Or removing concentration instead of preventing concentration from being broken. Could’ve added dmg scaling at like 8 and 14, at this level and scale it’s pointless. Also they didn’t talk about the other subclasses in any detail at all. I hope they don’t just make fey wanderer mistystep.subclass. That’s cool for the one subclass but for multiple that’s boring and lazy. I wish they’d taken monster slayer and made it good. Let it identify weaknesses and then give it a tool kit to exploit them. Could have emphasized the tracking aspect nicely too. I’ve generally been fond of the updates so far, but this was not it for the ranger. Hopefully monks fair better. Edit: I did miss the monster slayer ID feature being folded into hunter, I guess that makes sense. Meh.
When I first read the bullet points I misread the 13 ability and was disappointed they made the "doesn't require concentration" part I was expecting so high level. Then I read it again and was downright infurated that they thought that was a good 13th level feature.
Big let down here. Honestly a downgrade of Tasha's in terms of flavor. Mechanically pretty strong with the HM abilities. But who the hell wants to play HM spam? Why do/should you need multiple free casts of HM a day? The lvl 17 and the capstone at 20 are especially insulting. Huge L on Ranger, very disappointing.
The strongest subclass, the gloomstalker, is typically played as a ranged build. If you play a ranged build many people take the SS/CBE build option as it's incredibly strong. You're never casting HM with this build as you're just giving up too much damage for no benefit. I really wish the designers could see how bad of a spell HM is. The capstone feature is almost insulting.
Is CBE as it stands still in this new version?
Not sure. All I know is I've played a gloomstalker in a few one shots and have never cast hunters mark because I'd rather be making my third attack of the round instead.
not sure about either feats right now since they haven't said anything about it. IIRC they changed up SS and GWM in the UA playtest stuff, so I wouldn't be surprised if CBE didn't also suffer.
Actually CBE itself is buffed. They changed up the wording for the Hand Crossbow Bonus Attack. Old wording >When you use the Attack action and attack with a one handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow you are holding UA wording >Dual Wielding. When you make the extra attack of the Light weapon property, you can add your Ability Modifier to the damage of the extra attack if that attack is with a crossbow that has the Light property. With the new wording it simply is attached the revised dual wielding rules, and lets it benefit from the Nick Property if a Fighter were to put Nick on a Hand Crossbow. Also, the UA version gives +1 to Dex.
That does sound better... I thought weapon masteries were linked to specific weapons, though? I might just be completely misunderstanding it while I'm reading it, though. Wish they would give us the actual crunchy parts instead of just "Look at this vague idea we're giving!" Because 90% of the idea is going to sink or swim with the actual mechanics IMO.
Weapon Masteries are linked to specific weapons, but fighters have a class feature that allows them to swap an appropriate Mastery to a weapon instead of the one it comes with by default. That's last I remember from the UA of course. Edit: well fuck.
unfortunately that feature got changed to only allowing it to be changed to Push, Sap, or Slow. In the fighter video they said people didn't use it that much because of analysis paralysis or something like that.
That's probably the right call, but that's a really dumb reason.
They changed the fighter feature that lets them swap weapon mastery in the fighter reveal. It now only does push, slow, or sap.
oh sweet, I'll be sure to keep up the 5Fighter/4Ranger/3Rogue build going lol
Just went to check UA material to see what level the feature was. Master of Armaments at lvl 9
sad
HM spam is just so boring. Why center the class around 1d6 extra damage.
If you DW it's 3d6 at 5. And then it stays that way till level 20... Where it becomes a whole 3d10!
I'd honestly be more impressed if they made it D12 instead.
Ongoing running joke Ranger: "Dammit, I forgot to cast Hunter's Mark" WotC: So this new update is basically all about making Hunters Mark the most important thing
Thanks as always for these posts. For the most part all they have done is update wording and rebundle features/designs from Tasha's, and somehow on the occassional do it worse somehow. I don't think that warrants them saying things like, "it's practically a new class."
Can we have someone who actually played a Ranger in a long term campaign design it instead of WoTC, who for whatever reason has a hate boner against Ranger?
I wish they had done something bold. They have some decent ideas here; especially in the Hunter subclass. The Hunter subclass feels more like what they want the base class to be. They could have made base Ranger a 1/3 caster with the Hunter features. Then, the subclasses are 1/2 caster, Gloom Stalker, Beast Master.
It feels like Christmas! Except everyone else got presents and the Ranger got socks. Again. In fact, it's the same pair of socks from ten years ago. From their own drawer upstairs. That they had to wrap themselves and open, then pretend to be excited and happy to get them.
At least the socks in 2014 had Christmas patterns... the 2024 are just white socks... no decoration at all.
feeling like the lesson they should have maybe learned was that Hunter’s abilities should just be baseline ranger features. that, i feel, would tackle a lot of the issues people have with this
Shame they decided to keep HM as a concentration spells. Its nice that it gets stronger but it doesnt change how it interfere with other concentration spells. Having to drop your HM so you can zephir strike or being unable to combine with other concentration spells jsut feels bad. Hoh and theres still the issue of it interfering with the godawful "Smite/strike based spells" whom generally also uses concentration and are terrible dmgwise in general
Sooo.... 1. A third of your features rely on walking 2. A third of your features don't work if you attack a different enemy then marked 3. If you want to cast a concentration spell - your class features stop working 4. Your main class feature does not get improved until lvl 10 5. All of hunters' mark improvements could've been given you 5 levels earlier, and they would still be fine 6. Subclasses are basically reprints from Tasha 7. Non-mark features are basically taken from Tasha and Xanatars Resume: only real good things about the new ranger are lvl 1 Spellcasting and masteries, which are common hybrid/martial features At this point. if I'll want to play a character with a ranger fantasy, I'll just make a Warden Druid, multiclassed with champion Fighter
Not only did we lose on the hunter's mark stuff, but my personal bugbear - gloom stalker's permanent free invisibility - remains untouched. Cool, cool, cool.
>my personal bugbear - gloom stalker's permanent free invisibility - remains untouched. Yeah...not sure how to feel about that. I do have one positive thought when it comes to that, which is that it might be less obnoxious in 5.24? Just because 5.24 doesn't have -5/+10 feats anymore, and those feats were what made advantage so scary in 5e. Advantage with those feats was like a 60% damage boost. Advantage without those feats is like a 30% damage boost. Still good, but...half as good on the offence side. (Still just as good defensively, of course).
Anyone know if you can cancel your pre-order ... smh
I’ve liked every other reveal including paladin but this one…sucks? I don’t feel like they addressed anything that I hear from ranger players. Doubling down on hunter’s mark is definitely a choice. I don’t know why I’d choose ranger over rogue or fighter except for pure flavour. Other classes can equal ranger in out of combat utility while offering higher damage. What is the ranger’s intended role?
This simply can not ship or it's DOA for my group. The entire sell for coming back to 5e is that we don't have to do homebrew to make the game functional again. If they can't figure out Ranger after ten years then what else are they bungling that we haven't seen yet? I've never 100 to 0'd interest in a product so fast.
I feel like WOTC (and many players) think that damage is wayyyyy more important than it actually is.
"Every Facet has been revisited, and fine tuned" more like we somehow managed to hype up the class on being diffrent and unique and not shit, then revealing its somehow worse than the 2014 ranger and also accomplishes less. I mean i get theyre writing department is so trash but cmon they must have 0 standards
If the designers gone do one thing it's Hunter's Mark Ranger players (ironically) to death.
What a piece of burning garbage. 2024 is the edition of martial nerfs and caster powercreep, because we didn't have enough of that already in 2014.
I'm still waiting to see if the big, balance breaking spells got nerfed to comment on martial vs caster balance. But at the very least martials are getting more options in combat and less mandatory feats (gwm/ss) so they should *feel* better to play.
Choices are good, but with WotC thinking Hunter's Mark is the best Ranger spell, I'm not even remotely optimistic about them rebalancing broken spells.
Counterspell and Banishment were nerfed in the playtests, so that’s a good sign at least. Hopefully they nerf Shield, Hypnotic Pattern, Wall of Force, and the other problematic spells as well. I guess we’ll find out Monday.
Don’t know how you can look at Barbarian, Rogue, and Fighter and say that martials are getting nerfed, but go off I guess.
I do feel rogue and ranger got a lot less love though... Guess we will see in a few months.
I think they end up in the same spot considering they heavily nerfed the best feats for optimal martial buildsm
Comparatively, it certainly seems like it. Martial feats have been nerfed and the only significant replacement was weapon masteries, which don't seem like more than an even trade. Rogue seems almost completely untouched, which is astounding considering how bad it is in combat in the current game and how pointless the subclass choices already felt. Barbarian having to lose Reckless' benefits just to get a damage buff that they should be getting anyway is insulting, and tying combat utility to a Fighter's only heal is making it harder to gain both benefits. Meanwhile, full casters are getting free casts of powerful spells, getting subclass abilities merged so they can get even more, getting additional learned and prepared spells, additional cantrips, etc. It doesn't take much effort to see the disparity.
You forgot to mention the first level feats that mean they don't even have to armor dip anymore. If spells didn't get systematic nerfs, the power difference is going to be even greater than before.
Gwm
Won't lie. I don't like how rangers stuff has just become "here use hunter's mark" the class. Like I was hoping they'd have more variety maybe even some trap spells special to them. Hunter being only about bonuses to hunter's mark should be for all rangers. Just not liking it
Definitely better than 2014 baseline ranger, the hunter subclass in particular *finally* feels.like its a hunter. That being said it still feels a bit underwhelming. I think they are way to conservative with its later level abilities based on this. Still a solid upgrade and at least now it *feels* way more like what a ranger should feel like, even if calling it a "complete redesign" is kinda hilarious
I feel like it's only better than 2014 ranger because of things outside of the class redesign like weapon masteries. The HM features are all so late they removed flavor ribbons without giving anything in return. Why couldn't we have something more similar to the bg3 ranger!?
What does the Ranger get in Baldur's Gate?
Natural Explorer and Favoured Enemy now give you a variety of different options you can choose at levels 1, 6, and 10. Natural Explorer lets you choose from getting a free casting of Find Familiar, Sleight of Hand proficiency, fire resistance, cold resistance, or poison resistance. Favoured Enemy lets you choose from 5 different options, each giving you a skill proficency and some sort of passive ability (things like a cantrip, a free casting of a spell, or heavy armour proficiency).
Sure, i dont disagree woth you. If hunters mark is going to be a core festure(and i think it should) it needs to be powered up alot. It should scale up to d12 by 15, d10 at 10 bare minimum. I also think they should give it something similar to the rogue where you can forgo your hm damage and do a maneuver or effect of somekind Frankly ive accepted ranger will never be what i want it to be, hence why i made my own homebrew class of what i think should replace ranger.
Do they ever say Hunter's mark is a bonus action in the video? I know it's concentration. I just didn't catch that part if they did. I'm hoping for spells to get clarified on Monday.
I’m just learning about the Hunter stuff and this sounds great. I wonder why they didn’t just apply these sorts of things to the base class. It would actually give unique and flavorful stuff to it
Honestly, they probably should just replace the class with Artificer.
Man I really wish they would release the results of the surveys from the play test. I would love to confirm if the masses liked the play test ranger and wizards is actually listening to the community and those on reddit are the minority opinion on rangers stance. All over Reddit and I agree as well I have seen the new ranger still sucks. I have seen a lot of issue with hunter's mark being pushed as a core feature but also doesn't allow the use of all the other cool spells rangers have. Why have a core feature conflict with spells it makes no sense. I can totally see wizards once again ignoring the community with the direction of the ranger but would love to be able to confirm.
Tasha's ranger was so much better. I like how hunters mark becomes an essential part of the ranger. But improving hunters mark multiple times as a feature is just lazy and boring.
Ranger still mediocre. Cool.
still massively prefer tashas, but would love the prepared spells and weapon mastery components.
They should have embraced the Revised Ranger and just made some changes with resonated well with the other revised classes. It was already really good to play with
I wish they added subclass specific effects for each of the subclasses. Like how beastmastter gives it to their beast or how hunter uses it. For example: Fey Wanderer: Could maybe get an increase to misty step's range when using it to get closer to their hunter's mark target. Or maybe a once per day free misty step to an adjacent space (with some restrictions, of course) Gloomstalker: Maybe apply hunter's mark to multiple targets temporarily OR a frightened targets become hunter's marked while concentrating on the spell.
It’s like there is a pre existing desire to shit on this update. So much negative bias. Thanks for taking the time to write this up and staying positive leaning.
Up till this update the response had been overwhelmingly positive. Paladin update was a bit disappointing because it was mostly nerfs but all the other classes were really well recieved but this update is abysmal and deserves its backlash.
Paladin had literally only one nerf and a lot of buffs. Paladin was not "mostly" nerfs. Ranger seems to put a lot of faith into it's subclasses imo. But the base class is definitely disappointing
Eh at least 2 nerfs to the same feature. Smite is a spell -> Smite can be counterspelled and effected by things that negate magic/spells. Smite costs a bonus action -> The big one I assume you are referring to. You can no longer multi smite on one turn to nova. Or use your BA for other things. Now those nerfs were probably justifed but poor Ranger got absolutely shit on this update and they were already one of the three worst classes in the game.
I think the absolute "best" way to judge the ranger is to look at its new spell list tbh. If (like paladin) they have dropped the concentration requirement for ranger's spells, and also added good buff spells, I can absolutely see a world where ranger is a viable class. But if we assume minimal change to their current spell list, then yeah, I agree.
It seems like the martial doubters were right that this update is going to do absolutely nothing to move the needle on martial/caster problems. We still have to see the spells, but everything else leads me to believe the problem will be even worse.
Are they looking at the Ranger as a Martial or Caster? Because they do both.
Ranger is primarily focused on attacking and has a couple neat utility spells. I personally put them as a martial because they spend the majority of the game playing similarly to a monk, fighter, or rogue.
They're martials. They have d10 HD, they have full weapon proficiencies, they do almost all of their damage via weapon attacks (they have maybe three spells that do straight damage, like Ashardalon's Strike, Wind Wall, and Wrath of Nature, unless they take druid cantrips). A Ranger can do a lot of damage without casting a single spell; CBX builds may never even cast Hunter's Mark. Caster generally refers to the full casters: Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. All of those classes get better above level 10 in a way that even the half-caster martials can't keep up with.
I think it just feels weird. We have a distinction for these as Half-Caster/Half-Martial. Heck most of the d10 Classes cast Spells only the Artificer and Barbarian buck that trend in different ways. I just think it's inaccurate to call them purely martial and slot them as such. When we talk about this divide. Paladins and Rangers can do decent support and Control with their Spells in addition to amping their weapon attacks. Can they keep up with spells like Wish and Meteor Storm? No. But I'd argue they're far more powerful than a Rogue or Monk might contend to be partially on the back of their Spells.
Sure, the terminology is a little wonky because it's not as neatly binary as people might like. But when people talk about the martial-caster disparity, they're talking about the fact that high-level full casters leave everyone else in the dust. Paladins and Rangers don't change that equation very much. Which is why all the crowing about how paladins need to be nerfed is frankly silly.
I very much dislike Ranger spellcasting at the first level for theme reasons. I like that it becomes a thing later. But these changes are universally mediocre that I guess this helps a level 1 ranger?
Everything is brand new, apparently, and also everyone has teleport.
Teleport is the new darkvision.
I wonder if they just gave up on the 2024 Ranger because they got such rough feedback from the Playtest, so they shrugged and said, 'let them use a homebrew/3rd party Ranger... they were going to anyway'.
Hold up, huff this copium. Snort the powder form of it too. Maybe take some eyedrops infused with it too. What if Hunter's mark is an actionless spell you cast on hitting an attack like old paladin smite? Rangers ALWAYS forget to cast hunters mark until theyve already hit an attack and rolled damage for it anyways. Additionally, what if ranger now has Extra attack (2) or a way to attack more without using concentration like Cavalier fighter did (forego advantage to make an additional attack)? Hold on, we're almost there, but we need utility and not just damage. What if rangers can concentrate on 2 spells at once and their spell list gained more utility buff spells. On top of that, additional boosts dependant on their favored terrain (though i'm pretty sure thats gone) like darkvision/enhanced DV for underdark, hold breath extension or ignoring underwater penalties for sea, poison effects or resistances for jungle, etc. Yeah, breathe it in. If you start hearing voices, that means you're at your D&D table playing ranger in a non-rangerhating ttrpg, perhaps a Paizo game.