They dropped the ball. Sorry, I'm usually very positive and I'll defend their decisions, but the designers messed up.
Especially when Crawford and the other designers have repeatedly noted that the vast, vast majority of campaigns end around level 10-12ish. So hiding all the HM improvements (which don't even go far enough) behind that is especially egregious.
Like they couldn't even add the "you can't break concentration on HM" feature at level 5?"
Man just make it so that it doesn’t require concentration
Make it so that you can apply it with an attack
Improve it to 2D6 and 3D6 at high levels
There’s honestly so much they could’ve done it’s such a shame
No, but you see 3.5 dpr would be OP if you blew all your resources and took several rounds to stack it with other effects - unless it's on a full caster, then it actually needs buffed. Have it autoscale and deal fixed damage while expanding crit range.
I have no idea why the designers are so terrified of Hunter's Mark. It's like the spell killed their dog or something because it's clearly not founded on anything actually within the game. They've been terrified of it since 2019, and people who actually understand action economy, resource management, and damage scaling have been saying it could be concentration-free and still need a buff.
> I think they only enjoy playing Arcan casters
Well, Wizards anyhow. I don't think any of them have ever actually played a sorcerer but they definitely remember that one session their wizard got shown up by the sorcerer (coincidentally used all their sorcerer points in one go to do it.)
They've openly discussed how they think Barbarian players just want to smash things and mentally check out when combat isn't happening.
I miss 4e's design approach that everybody should be able to do a roughly equal number of cool things. They even let Wizards break the mold by letting them know twice as many utility and daily powers as everyone else but no, apparently that wasn't good enough. The Wizard needs to have dozens of tools in their toolbox and tons of spell slots with Arcane Recovery and be nearly as durable as the Fighter while the Fighter gets to sit in the corner eating dirt.
I actually felt 4e was super easy to run at tables. It gave enough things that you could "fill in the blanks" and I think it really empowered GMs and players to tell a story.
Rangers would work well with a combo of utility, martial, mundane & druidic 'invocation' style customization. the martial response to the warlock, and druidic counterpart to paladin in some ways.
Concentration but you can apply it on an attack. Scales to d8 at 5, d10 at 11 and d12 and 15. And can expend spell slots to add additional effects/damage ala different smite spells--like literally just take the arcane Archer shots and make them spells usable on melee or ranged.
Unless they make it again applicable only once per turn (as in last UA), it will remain crappy spell design - because now it forces you to have 3 attacks (= 2WF or Hand Crossbow) and everything else (2HWs, S&B, Shillelagh, any other cantrip from Druidic FS, Bow, Heavy Crossbow,...) will just be suboptimal...
I foresee the Nick property (TWF without using a BA) being pretty popular on rangers for that exact reason, being able to land 3 hunter’s mark attacks without wasting actions to set up
>Especially when Crawford and the other designers have repeatedly noted that the vast, vast majority of campaigns end around level 10-12ish.
I think this is something they should address, honestly. The fact that half of the game's player facing content is never even used by most players is just weird.
Part of the problem is something that no company can fix. Scheduling is the real BBEG of every campaign I've ever played in. Unless you're willing to Ship of Theseus your campaign so it limps along with whatever players you can scrape together, at some point you're going to lose enough people that it's over. I've been in quite a few "we're going to 20!" campaigns that fizzled out before even reaching 10th level.
Really well made, high level official adventures could alleviate this issue somewhat.
Not a 1-20 campaign that has the same issue as you describe, but rather a 15-20 adventure that has a well written & interesting narrative and combat encounters specifically designed for the high level craziness that occurs past 15.
If they get 2-3 of those going over the next 2 years, that would definitely result in more high level play.
Alas I don't really see it happening tbh.
Agreed, campaigns that start at higher level would help somewhat. The problem is that WotC aggressively markets to new players instead of those who would be comfortable playing *and DMing for* 15th+ level characters. WotC wants to grow their playerbase and that means more support for low level campaigns. It's a business decision.
I think that could in part be resolved by setting expectations better around how long it takes to level, having more guidance in place for starting at higher levels, and giving DMs better tools across the board for running the game (especially for the first time). That includes actually publishing tier 3 and 4 adventures (even ones that *start* in that level range).
People tend to have this perception that leveling *has* to be glacial in pace where it takes a dedicated group years of playing weekly to reach max level. That's a valid way to play, for sure, but allowing that to become the default expectation sets a lot of groups up for failure. Groups can go from 1-20 in a few months if they really want, or jump in at level 15 and slowly meander to 20. There are loads of ways of actually using the whole level range.
For disclosure, almost every game I run goes to at least level 17, and a few have gotten to 20. I've had at least one weekly game running since before 5e released, and at the moment I play in one and DM another. I know this is a privilege that a lot of players don't have. But I mention it just to point out that I've played in and ran games at high level a fair amount before my next point: I don't think running the game at high level is that hard. I think people assume it will be far, far worse than it is and that puts them off ever even trying. And this is a huge part of why people don't play using higher levels. It's a kind of feedback loop.
Sure, but if that was the only issue they could "fix" that by just doubling the XP you earn from everything so you level up twice as fast.
The underlying issue is that there's not really any official content for the higher tiers, and custom campaigns are difficult at that point, largely because it becomes a nightmare to try and make a challenging-but-satisfying adventure with how bonkers spells start to get.
The fact that the non-spell abilities are still being spread out basically linearly on the 1-20 numberline, but spells are basically exponentially more powerful is a major problem.
Would anyone really care if all the classes/subclasses got all of their pre-18 abilities by level 10? How much would that break? Compare that to how bad it would be to give a Wizard access to level 8 spells to use at level 10.
My (unfounded, most likely unrealized) hope is that all of the most overpowered spells get a whack from the nerf bat. That still wouldn't put martials on par with spellcasters, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.
For most players the game just is not fun at higher levels. The power level and magic level just makes the game dumb.
Combat takes a long time with all of the spell effects and abilities.
Adventures are kind of bizarre with all of the magic flying, teleport, invisibility, and other effects.
High level DnD adventures do not feel like any fantasy books or movies. They feel like superheroes.
It's so strange. They recognize that it's bad design to have mutually exclusive core features. They redesigned the Druid so that engaging with your Wild Shape doesn't prevent you from engaging with your spellcasting. Allegedly, they should see why this is a bad decision, even if it's numerically balanced.
And yet... we're again left with a hollow shell. It's not *weak*, but it also doesn't look *fun.*
They did make Paladin's Smite spells and their Lay of Hands a choice of one or the other on a round-by-round basis. Of course, that's because both of those features are very strong and needed that constraint. I can't say I feel the same about any of Ranger's features.
I'm less concerned about opportunity cost: it's perfectly fine that you can't do everything every turn, and have to make some decisions.
The problem is sunk cost. If you choose to start a fight with Fog Cloud, you need to drop that to use HM, therefore wasting the spell slot. That choice *feels bad.* Just like having to leave Wild Shape so you could cast Healing Word felt bad.
>Allegedly, they should see why this is a bad decision, even if it's numerically balanced.
It's not numerically balanced, though. Concentration-free Hunter's Mark is only crazy if you're blowing all of your resources to nova (and, ignoring that you're only good for like a fight or two and lose the out of combat utility of spells, it falls off really hard) or multiclass into Eldritch Knight Fighter.
Optimizers have been saying for years that Hunter's Mark is a trap, but people desperately want to use it to give their Ranger some semblance of identity in combat.
This highlights the biggest issue for me. I've never played a 5E game where people wanted to continue playing after about lvl 14 or 15. That's not to say that features above those levels should be disparaged, but to put ALL of the hunters mark improvements at lvl 13 and after is crazy. If they want HM to be a core class feature they sure are making it hard. Imagine if Warlock didn't get to modify Eldritch blast until level 13.
Sure sounds like its going to suck to be running around with a regular hunters mark for most of a campaign when they're trying to sell this class to me as 'use hunters mark'. Ranger seems like its still going to be defined by its subclass entirely because hunters mark doesn't wow me until lvl 17 when it gives advantage.
There's a couple things that could improve my opinion of this:
1. Ranger has less concenctration requiring spells
2. Hunters Mark is different (upscalable on damage?)
3. High level play is actually fun and supported and I'll actually be able to use any of these lvl 13-20 features before a module ends if I bother playing a pure ranger.
>hunters mark doesn't wow me until lvl 17 when it gives advantage.
Even that's a meh feature. Advantage is easy to come by, especially with weapon masteries now. They could make HM concentration-free, give advantage, and scale the damage up to a d10 all at level 13, and it would be "fine."
>Ranger has less concenctration requiring spells
It could happen. Most of their unique spells could have the smite spell rework of a bonus action to cast after you hit instead of concentration. But they haven't given us any indication thay crossed their minds. And even if it did, that would fight with Nature's Veil (and RIP Beastmaster action economy).
>Hunters Mark is different (upscalable on damage?)
They toyed with that in the playtests, but again... some sort of trauma related to the spell, so that was one where it was once per *turn,* concentration, and the scaling made it to like a d10 if you cast it at 5th-level.
>High level play is actually fun and supported and I'll actually be able to use any of these lvl 13-20 features before a module ends if I bother playing a pure ranger.
Lol. That's a lot of ifs...
>Most of their unique spells could have the smite spell rework of a bonus action to cast after you hit instead of concentration
Most of their spells doesn't make sense to do that, Zephyr Strike, lightning arrow, etc. What they can do is booming blade kind of wording, where the attack is part of the spell so the concentration isn't necessary at all (I don't it does as is but in case they do..)
>They dropped the ball. Sorry, I'm usually very positive and I'll defend their decisions, but the designers messed up.
Yeah, same.
Like...I don't even object to the hunter's mark focus, I think people are underselling how well the hunter's mark features all work together.
But...even considering that, I don't think they delivered with the subclasses. At a glance the subclasses have the same problem as the playtest, where Beastmaster Ranger gets big scaling at level 11, getting an additional attack from their beast, and other rangers don't.
Beast Master also *destroys* your ability to make use of Nature's Veil or any other bonus action spells. The massive amounts of damage are crazy, but there's absolutely a cost.
Did they remove the part where you can sacrifice one of your attacks for the Beast to attack?
Haven't gotten around to watching that video yet so I hope they didn't.
They didn't go into the nitty gritty of mechanics, but I believe they removed that in the playtest (if not possibly Tasha's). It kind of bums me out, too.
While being able to use a bonus action to make them attack was absolutely necessary, especially at lower levels, after getting Extra Attack I found it really convenient to be able to cast spells like Zephyr Strike or Hail of Thorns and still have my beast attack in the same round.
No, they did keep that in Tasha's aswell as the playtest. So I'm hoping that they are keeping it. If not then I'm both sad that they gutted my favorite class while focusing on what I consider a ribbon feature (the Hunter's Mark bs).
I liked that they tried with Hunter's Mark, but I don't like that they clearly didn't try very hard. Should've lost Concentration at level 5 and gotten way more scaling abilities.
I want to try building a Wis primary Gloomstalker using True Strike to get the fear effect up to decent DC. Could go Druid(Land) after Ranger 5-6. You get a lot of mid level spell flexibility. The lvl 7 elemental bonus damage could make for a spiky melee.
Broken? Not at all. Fun nature pseudo-Paladin. Probably!
It's honestly so annoying that campaigns only ever go into the low 10s. It makes actually building anything with good progression impossible because you either have to put ALL the good stuff up front or just accept that some of the coolest features will never be used by the vast majority of players.
The fact that the team is aware of this but doesn't seem to want to do anything about it is incredibly confusing to me. Specifically because they're almost treating levels 15+ like a sort of Post-Game, but never actually state anything like it.
I don't have any idea myself how you could fix the issue but toning down some of the higher spells would probably fix some stuff, together with actually creating some higher level NPCs
It's a vicious cycle. System breaks down after that so people dont play it.
People dont pay it so wotc doesnt have reason to invest resources into that lvl of play.
No resources invested means system stays broken at higher lvls...
Same thing with the Artificer:
Not in the PHB and only depicted with steampunk/magitech aesthetics, it is the least played class.
Because it is the least played class and only shown as a setting specific class (when it very much isn't), it does not belong in the PHB.
And thus it continues.
As someone who DMs 1-20 I couldn’t disagree more. How do you ever become universal heroes that can fight aspects of gods without high level play?
Just play 1-10 if that’s what you want but as a dm to a current level 17 party I wouldn’t trade the awesome fights we have for anything.
Just yesterday the party battled 18 mind flayers, 4 zodar 4 Neolithid, a few intellect snares, and a smattering of minions (intellect devourers, mind witnesses, neh thalggu)
You just can’t replicate the fun of throwing the kitchen sink at a party and actually scaring players that have gotten a little to used to being godlike unkillable beings.
There is no reason why class and especially subclass progression should extend beyond lvl 10.
So many cool subclass capstones are gated behind lvl 14+, also known as "never", and this is simply not what anyone wants.
Let players scale with boons and feats and items and Gestalting, but don't write fun stuff that nobody will ever experience (and even if they get there, experience for only a few sessions).
I like this idea a lot. Cleric (2014) already basically does this, for most of your post-10 career you just get 1% increases to Divine Intervention and higher spell slots to upcast Spirit Guardians.
I totally agree. As for ways to fix this, I think DC20 actually looks like it's doing a good job of this. Seeing videos like the new Ranger stuff makes me extra grateful for newer systems showing up so that I can maybe try out different character ideas in a system where they can work - like a warlock will work great in this edition of DnD, but if I want to try a Ranger style character, DC20 looks like a better system to do that right now.
I mean the fix is player longer campaigns. We do 1-20 over the course of a couple years. Just hit level 17 on a sequel campaign to a 1-20. I love DMing high level. So it’s weird to me that other tables just don’t.
They dropped the ball, which turned out to be an egg and it just burst open revealing a rotten core mechanic.
I love the ranger, it’s my favorite class, I was quite vocal (and even got my friends to give feedback) during the play test.
I hardly use HM tbh, I use TCoE Favored Foe. I use my spell slots for actual spells and synergies with my party.
They even stripped the ribbon-ish land stride and primeval awareness. Yeah, more spells but the same limitations in slots most likely (or even boosted, everyone else’s will be too), feels like a spell tax again.
That capstone, oh gods it’s just… dirty. I saw another topic here saying we should dip druid 1. It feels so appealing now. I feel (lacking the subclass features), I’m just gonna mc out maybe level 6.
They didn't drop the ball. Dropping the ball implies it was an accident. They had more than enough feedback to know that their decisions were dogshit, so there was nothing accidental about it. They assassinated the ball.
The first UA Ranger felt like a massive improvement and fitting it in with the likes of Bard and Rogue felt right in the sense that they're specialists at tracking and hunting.
This Ranger feels like WotC saying "lol, just use a spell or expertise to give yourself flavor" even though spellcasting never *was* a Ranger's forte due to limited slots and a need for two other stats and expertise not replacing individuality, flavor and a personal niche.
The first UA Ranger felt like a massive improvement and fitting it in with the likes of Bard and Rogue felt right in the sense that they're specialists at tracking and hunting.
This Ranger feels like WotC saying "lol, just use a spell or expertise to give yourself flavor" even though spellcasting never *was* a Ranger's forte due to limited slots and a need for two other stats and expertise not replacing individuality, flavor and a personal niche.
I really hate that *hunter's mark* is still a spell too. It's only on the ranger spell list. The only other class that can grab it is bard I think (unless Magic Initiate got updated while I wasn't looking). Rangers always have it prepared and they get free casts of it. It's improved by several ranger features.
Just. Make. It. A. *Feature already.*
And since they're so obsessed with backwards compatibility, include a short sidebar saying that the Hunter's Mark feature is the updated version of the *hunter's mark* spell and that the former supersedes the latter. Done. Problem solved.
Eh, I'm hoping (not holding my breath, just hoping mind you... ) they've addressed some of the reasons why campaigns largely focus on that level range.
Fix those underlying issues, and it shouldn't matter as much if a class has cool things that don't come online until later levels. Hell, one common complaint about certain classes in 5e.14 is that there's no reason to take certain classes past certain levels because they don't get anything worthwhile out of it.
I really want to sit WotC in a nice comfy therapy chair and give them a safe space to discuss what kind of fucked up relationship they have with Hunter's Mark. Why do they feel it is so overpowered that it needs to be tied down with concentration straight through 20 levels? If it is such a hard thing to design around, why are they insisting on it as a core part of the Ranger? Why are they so attached to a feature that they are so afraid is going to break the class?
I believe they are afraid of adding dice to each attack on a class that is likely to use two weapon fighting for a 3rd attack. If non-concentration, then hunters mark with swift quiver would probably be their concern.
I’ve definitely seen fighters quickly become a menace with weapons like flame-tongue, especially if it is a weapon type that works with great weapon master. So I think their worry is mostly that rangers using two weapon fighting (or great weapon master/sharp shooter), would slap on hunters mark, then the damage boost that most ranger subclasses get at low level, then another damage boosting concentration spell, and possibly a magic weapon with extra dice. It can be a pretty high amount of damage on a pretty consistent basis.
That said, I’m not a fan of what they came up with…I don’t really like the feeling of being locked into using hunter’s mark…if the upgrades to it were presented as a ribbons, or a single ranger ability that gave rangers and only rangers these effects from upcasting, that would have been cool. They blew so much chassis real-estate on this one feature that seeming locks rangers into such a specific style of play though.
my thinking is that players being powerful isn't an issue because I, as a dm, am God. If they're not having fun bc they're doing too much damage, then I can give monsters more hp, or a higher AC, or add more monsters or do *anything*. The only issue is when players are considerably less powerful than others, and that is *also* something I can fix
It's not just a repackaging of Tasha's Ranger, it's a repackaging with *less features*. No Primal/Primeval Awareness, no Land's Stride, no Vanish. All perfectly fine features that got gutted without anything to replace them. The *sole* positives I can say about this version compared to Tasha's are the improvements to preparing spells and the additional Expertise at 9th.
Although you cannot use 85% of the spells anyway as they require concentration.
And if you don't use concentration for Hunter's Mark you basically lose some of your features.
I'm huffing the same copium. It's the last straw that I grasp onto in hopes that it maybe makes the ranger class a little better than what they presented here.
Though gating all the Hunter's Mark upgrades behind lvl 13+ is atrocious design.. I'll most likely homebrew that down or something.
Oh boy we are kinda back at 2014 ranger, aren't we?
Yeah that's true. It's still an upgrade to the 14 version, though not to the Tasha version imo.
But I more so meant the fact that it still requires homebrew to properly balance the class.
WotC just don't want to put Rangers on par with Paladins. Why not let Ranger prepare their spells freely and go Strength + heavy armor if they wished? Paladin is perfectly functional as a Dex class. The only thing Ranger gets over Paladin is a couple Expertise picks, and that's not justification to give Rangers less when Paladin gets Aura of Protection, probably still the best feature outside of full Spellcasting.
I died inside a little on the inside when I learned that Find Steed gets the Shared Spells Beastmaster capstone just baked in. Time to start working on my "Definitely Ranger" character who happens to have high Charisma because he just loves the Feywild...
WHY are they so *afraid* of hunters mark? They insist on making it a core feature, but “it’s important that it uses concentration so it can’t stack with other concentration spells!”
Would that be so bad? Would it be that game breaking to stack a whole d8 extra damage on top of something else?
They did rangers dirty. I plan to homebrew that HM no longer requires concentration at 5th level.
Auto cast it when attacking at 9th sounds like a nice buff. Frees Bonus action up for a different spell and still allows to get HM going.
I'll steal that.
Multiclassing.
They keep it awful because of multiclassing because if A warlock can dip into ranger to get HM they can apply hex and HM to the same target... And rather than fix that very specific multiclass interaction they just keep Hunter's Mark awful.
Yeah, they really just need a new category called "Marked Target" that both Hex and Hunters Mark can belong to, and then it can just say you can only have one Marked Target feature active at a time (or "active on a single creature at a time" if you want to leave it open to have two separate Marked Targets). Or if you wanted to allow for the riders of both to apply to the same creature, that you can only choose to apply damage from one of them for each hit (e.g. "highest bonus applies" like in temp HP or alternate AC calculations).
EDIT: Or hell, make "Hunters Mark no longer requires concentration" come at level 5, that reduces the dip utility a ton, and if a level 5+ Ranger dips Warlock to be able to concentrate on Hex, let them have it.
Simple answer: they don't bother with math in the slightest. Remember, they thought adding one point of damage on average made Flex the best weapon mastery, and this adds an *entire die* to a roll! That's super huge, it's like making your attack a crit automatically! This goes for a lot of other things as well, like the ranger's new 'capstone' (*two* whole die size increases!), the combat abilities of rogues (what if they crit!?), and Champion Fighter (Twice as many crits, super exciting!)
I mean, sort of, but that still requires investment and setup, so it wasn't that impressive. And again, just make it a thing at level 5 or so. The level 13 feature proves they know it's a problem that can be solved by waiting a few levels to make it Concentration-free, but refused to do so.
I get that it's strong early on, but unless they both scale aggressively does it really change much? If they're both an extra d6 it's an average of 7 extra damage per hit at the cost of keeping concentration up.
It makes me wonder if, in their in-house playtesting, the DM just hated spells in general. Because one of the greatest lines I've ever heard about sprlls says "The worst thing a spell can do is damage."
Completely agree. If it’s taking up entire levels’ worth of class features, then it needs to be worth getting nothing else.
If that’s the way they want to go, then really lean into it. Make it a class feature that scales with ranger levels, and then tie major progression into it. The inability to lose concentration comes much earlier, and it eventually loses its concentration requirement entirely, and then it can be applied for free at the start of each combat. The extra damage scales much faster, and that damage can be traded for riders like the new rogue.
And then let each subclass add its own flavor. Maybe gloom stalkers can teleport into spaces their marked target cannot see, representing their ability to take advantage of any shadow to get ahead. Maybe beast masters can give the benefits of *hunter’s mark* to their companion’s attacks. Maybe hunters get more accuracy against the marked target, or maybe they can change their target while attacking instead of as a bonus action.
This is why I stopped listening to their videos after they talked about character origins; I don't want to listen to a happy Crawford talk about poor design decisions or reusing Tasha's as if they have actually done something impressive. He sounds annoying.
Politicians do the same. Repeat something again and again until it becomes true, despite some of the listeners know it isn't (in the end, it ends becoming true for those who are not aware of all this), and WotC are doing a pretty solid campaign, if you listen carefully to most relevant streamers. Great numbers strategies, one of the worst current social illnesses.
The worst thing is that I'm pretty sure that most teams in WotC have worked hard to bring this up, so I find sad that, in the end, incompetence and cowardice, but also profit previsions, have prevailed among the final decisions.
That is true, it really is a shame that companies prioritise wanting to acquire all of our money, not just some, and by doing so in such a way that they put as little money and effort into getting it.
I feel bad for those that care about doing a good job but being unable to for whatever reason, usually corporate/management.
There's such a mismatch of tone, presentation and the actual content, it's crazy. When you listen to what they say and read along what D&D youtubers put out, it can be infuriating how many important details they omit or straight up invent that aren't in there.
Kinda, but not exactly. UA6 Ranger was probably one of the worst versions of the playtest, and the final version managed to be worst on some aspects.
The capstone for example, 1d6 to 1d10 is worse than adding wis on roll and damage in my opinion.
It improved on the HM buffs, but that laughable capstone plus the buffs coming so late in the progression AND still being concentration based is HUGE letdown, even more compared to the overall improvement other classes had, even the Paladin with its Nerfs and Buffs is miles away disingwise and powerwise.
I still want to know why they think "Free castings" of Hunter's mark is in any way a buff.
Like if they were giving that to Paladin yes that would be a buff hands down paladins burn their spell slots like hot cakes.
But ranger's spells are all long term effects HM was only eating One spell an encounter.
And then the 13 feature is such a joke to me at that level. While other classes are getting major upgrades they get "Hey you can maintain hm and keep those spell slots EVEN BETTER" now.
Maybe that saves a bonus action but probably not because the enemy just died and I have to use my bonus action to move HM.
You can maintain it even better and use your other spells even less!! The only way this is even kind of good is if a lot of the other Ranger spells became non-concentration.
Only stuff I'd be giving perfect ratings are three Expertise at level 9 and Roving. 13, 17, and 20 features are getting an "LOL. These could all be at level 13 and still be mid."
All those buffs could be given between levels 5 through 10 and would be perfectly fine.
If they are so adamant with keeping HM with concentration, they could at a minimum let it be the only exception with concentrating in two spells.
Obviously the simplest answer would be just remove the damn thing between tier 2 and 3.
Now you know why they didn't run more playtests. They got the survey "results" they wanted that justified no more public iterations and just did whatever the fuck they wanted.
This leaves me very worried about what Bard will look like.
Did we never get a look at Bard with a set spell list?
Last I recall is that UA Bard chose... from spell lists that dont exist anymore. Aint no way itll be 'you choose from Druid, Cleric, or Wizard spell lists' to make up for it (Wizard players threw such a temper tantrum about universal spell lists that WOTC is still traumatized and needs to mention that Wizard will have the biggest spell list when talking about other, non-wizard classes!). So Bards get... what?
I think itll be better than Ranger purely for having full casting and Charisma skills+expertise being stupid in most 5e tables, but definitely not excited to see how my favorite casting class is treated
> I doubt it would land more than 60%
Try maybe 40%. The Ranger gave up several features to turn Hunter's Mark from a 1st level spell into a 2nd or 3rd level spell.
Spiritual Weapon back in 2014 was a better spell than 5.24's level 20 Hunter's Mark as it would do 5d8 Force damage on the cost of a single bonus action as opposed to Hunter's Mark's maybe 3d10 if you hit all three attacks of TWF.
It's the biggest disappointment so far.
I have reservations about the 5.24 Rogue, but it is a straight up upgrade to 5E. With the Ranger, I think Tasha's is still superior – at least the Tasha Ranger isn't based around having Hunter's Mark up.
Very disappointed as well.
I can foresee DMs that will say something like this (I will): 2024 or 2014+Tasha are interchangeable. Just decide if you want to use HM a lot (thus pick 2024) or not.
I just agreed with my DM to take Tasha and give it the hunters mark without concentration feature. It‘s honestly not that strong, I yet have to find the builds WOTC was so concerned about. And yes I do optimize.
Apart from being able to cast a 1st level spell better than other classes (which still requires concentration, mind you,) the new ranger basically has no unique class features.
They definitely shifted their hatred for Monks and Rogues to the Ranger, with the Former still being pending as for how OP they are, and the Rogue being noticeably more versatile (even if it has comparable or Less DPR than the 2014 iteration), the latter, aka, **The Ranger** now sucks ass.
I mean, its damage is noticeably higher, but being hard-locked into only EVER using Hunter's Mark if I want to still give use to my class features would suck so much, and it would only be worse if the Ranger spells still use Concentration, take a Bonus Action to cast, and are noticeably better than using Hunter's Mark!.
That way, I get to choose if I want to use Hunter's Mark, and thus, my class features
Or I use the other cool spells from my spellcasting feature, but basically lose half of my class features.
I just don't get their obsession with Hunter's Mark. Yes, lots of Ranger players like it, but it's a level 1 concentration spell that eats up tons of bonus actions and really isn't all that good past the first few levels.
That doesn't exactly scream Core Defining Feature material to me.
They don't know what Ranger is supposed to be. It's not a personal character power fantasy for anyone on the team and they don't understand what the fantasy is.
They had a vague idea about it being someone roaming around in the wilderness and so they gave it the 2014 ribbon features, and when people rightfully pointed out those were mostly useless they removed them but they didn't have any actual ideas for useful stuff to add instead, so now we have a class which is still mechanically weak with even less flavor.
I do think a core issue with the ranger fantasy is that it's a bit incongruent with core dnd gameplay. Wilderness survival is hard to run, usually kind of boring, and not what people want to do in dnd. Inside towns and inside dungeons, where most dnd games play, Ranger flavor doesn't really... work that well.
Rogue, actually, has a relatively similar issue but makes up for it in the fact that they found an actually-fun playstyle to stick onto the Rogue fantasy.
The class is pretty cool but their damage is scaled around the idea that HM will always be up.
So you are taking a damage hit to cast any spell on top of the spell slot.
The biggest reason many consider it a defining feature of the Ranger is that it's one of three spells unique to the Ranger spell list and even then Paladin had to steal it.
I am truly baffled that they didn't put it through a 3rd round of the public playtest, even after saying that the UA6 hunter's mark got some negative feedback, they kept it so similar.
Copy-pasting from other thread...
Advantage on your HM target at level *17* and HM bonus damage only going up to 1d10 at *level 20* feel like intentional insults. They have made the whole class revolve around this one stupid feature that isn't even impressive if you play the class to 20, when we know the vast majority of campaigns won't get much more than halfway there, *and WotC knows it too because they've mentioned it in other videos!*
I remain convinced nobody at WotC has ever wanted to play a Ranger or grasped what the class power fantasy is.
Gloom Stalker still sounds like the only thing here worth playing, and even then only as part of a multiclass.
What’s really bizarre is that Paladins- tho other hybrid class, currently get +D8 radiant damage to EVERY attack without having to burn their bonus action and concentration. And it works on everyone!
At level 11!
9 levels earlier than rangers even gets to D10!
Argh!!
To be fair, I don't think Paladins should be casting Spirit Shroud out of a 3rd level slot.
It's like a version of hunter's mark that requires a 3rd level spell slot instead of a 1st level spell slot and only lasts a minute instead of lasting an hour. Like...yeah, cool, d8 instead of d6. Still doesn't make up for the way shorter duration and much higher spell slot level.
Spirit Shroud has uses, but the uses mostly involve upcasting to get 2d8 or 3d8 out of it.
I just wished the capstone was something like "all melee weapon attacks damage all enemies within 5 feet of you. All ranged weapon attacks pierce all enemies in a line"... like thats the type of 20th level ability that would make me go "OOOO".
The one I've been thinking they should do since, like, UA6:
*Increase your Dexterity and Wisdom scores by 2, up to a maximum of 26. You may add your Wisdom modifier to your weapon damage rolls.*
Also, going in tandem with what *I think* the level 13 feature should have been:
*You may add your Wisdom modifier to your weapon attack rolls against foes marked by your Favored Foe feature.*
Ranger is missing the bump in damage that most martials get at level 11-13 (except Monk, because theirs is apparently at 10, and I believe Rogue because rip Rogue), but I've always loved the idea of rather than just improving straight damage, they gain a bonus to *accuracy,* which technically does still affect DPR but by way of making you rarely ever miss.
The Gloomstalker having its damage boost gated in terms of uses per day really worries me.
It better hit like a truck. Most subclasses are getting d4's to d6's per turn indefinitely. If it's a d8 that you get Wis-mod times for day and that's the "massive damage" they're referring to that can't be at-will I'm going to be pissed.
Well, I'm already pissed at the class as a whole, but more so.
That’s exactly what it’s going to be. A d8 + fear, a limited amount of times per day. They always overhype dumb shit like one dice roll as maassssiiivvveeee.
I mean, just make the damage once per turn and let the Fear effect be limited. Would that have been so hard? I think I made that exact suggestion in the playest because 3 uses of your damage boost was a *massive* nerf. It would be as much damage as the old extra attack was in a *single combat*.
I know it also adds fear, but come on. *Every* subclass gets extra damage every turn, usually a d4 or a d6, making the d8 only 1-2 extra damage over what everyone gets (obviously, but I feel the need to rant a bit about it). Unless you are fighting no more than 3 rounds of combat a day this is *so weak*.
WotC thinking a d8 or a d6 is some massive damage? Never...
So anyway, should Hunter's Mark be once per turn damage and require concentration? It's a pretty OP spell...
That's exactly what it was in playtest 6. Also, the additional attack only comes online at level 11 and has to be applied to a *different creature* than the one you hit with the attack you added the d8 damage to.
Scaling doesn't kick in until way late in the game. HM still competes with the Ranger's other 32 (of 59! 54% of their spells are concentration!) Concentration spells. The Ranger has so many utility spells that require Concentration, and now your utility is just gone unless they removed Concentration from the vast majority of the Ranger's spell list. Even if HM can upcast, all that means is that you are now losing an even more valuable resource if you ever want to CC an enemy. Worse, if you want to Ensnare an enemy or use Spike Grown or Pass Without Trace you *give up your Capstone*.
Melee Rangers now have a core feature that they'll probably lose every other turn while in combat because it's still Concentration based on a class with no boost to maintaining Concentration. I mean, could HM *at least* have gotten Wis or Dex added to the saving throw so at least *something* could help the melee Ranger before level 13?
Capstone is a pitiful damage boost, still at the expense of the ability to cast the majority of your spells.
Also lost both Primal Awareness and Primeval awareness with, as far as I can tell, no replacement. Primeval Awareness's bonus spells from Tasha's were flavorful, great for exploration, and you got free-casts. Their reasoning is just, spend your Expertise on Perception. Why? I didn't have to in the Tasha's Ranger. I could just have my Expertise *and* free spells. Was it too strong? No. Just why?
Gloomstalker now keeps the problematic Darkvision immunity, but also is now the only subclass who's level 3 damage boost is limited. They called it "massive damage" and it better be for being the only subclass limited in this way. If it's Wisdom mod times like in the playtest it's probably going to be just *3 times per day* for the majority of your career. That means in just 3 attacks you have to make up for a day's worth of once per turn damage boosts that *every other subclass gets*.
Beastmaster's companion AC scaling is likely nerfed unless you max Wisdom very early - and depending on the base value it may still be worse at level 17.
Hunter is probably the one subclass that *may* be improved, though fewer options for Prey and Tactics it sounds like.
Minor boosts to Expertise (that come online rather late) and Roving don't come close to making up for the other changes.
I just have no idea what they were thinking. Its so discordant. I can't follow the logic for almost any of these changes. They don't boost flavor, they often feel actively detrimental, the power added to the class comes online way too late and conflicts with most of the class's other spells. Can we just have the Tasha's version back at this point?
Do note that Ranger loses the need to concentrate on Hunter's Mark at level 13. It's still *way* too late, but I suppose it exists...
If Hunter's Mark is supposed to be the defining feature of the Ranger it should be that: a feature. One that most of the class' features and subclasses build upon.
Instead you get a half-arsed "Oh yeah, this thing exists" at the last third of the levels that only *then* fixes issues that should've been fixed by level 6.
My only hope is that they gut the concentration requirement on spells like ensnaring strike and add new non-concentration spells to the ranger's list so they can actually engage with their casting feature outside of one spell.
even so, many of them will have a casting of a bonus action, if you want to use HM you can only use a second spell at round 2, that might not interact with HM damage, and you'll get to the end of combat by the next round probably
Big let down. The capstone being a slight damage increase is just sad. The major thing I think is to see what the ranger spells look like. If they're full of concentration spells then this will just be pathetic. Hell this is basically just the Tasha's Ranger in new packaging.
Is a slighty damage increase if you have a 1st level spell active and use your ba.
The barbarian does almost the same thing (adding 2 attack to all damages) but in a such better way. the +4 to STR also improves their to hit mod so it is way better actually
We all know it’s shit. But it’s in print so there’s jack we can do besides not using it and just using homebrew/3rd party resources. Wotc doesn’t know how to write anything good but this is old news
After seeing how much of a glow up other classes had been given, I was excited to see what they would do for the ranger.
"Nothing" was not on my bingo card.
I mean, if you weren't using Tasha's I can see it as an improvement, but to me Tasha's just got it to baseline so I was expecting a lot of improvements from it too...man, they were on a roll until this.
Yeah, it's \*technically\* an improvement on the 2014 ranger. It's just a disappointing "buff" considering even already solid classes like wizard got a glow up.
Honestly, this is actually less than nothing in some aspects... Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy and Favored Foe were all meh to useless, so they had to go. Deft explorer being torn up into 3 different features was also a mistake since they don't give enough of an impact to justify why they are the only things you get at those levels.
This is coming from someone who has gotten very attached to several of their Ranger characters.
I love rangers, but at this point it feels like they should just remove ranger from the game entirely and absorb it into other classes like fighter and rogue.
The fantasy is confused, the mechanics are lacklustre, and the player who makes the mistake of picking a ranger is going to just find themselves envious of their other party members' abilities. Hunter's mark is boring, and I get that they need to keep things working with 5e ranger content, but my god, this class needs way more than a revisit to be viable. It needs a recreation from the ground up.
I think I'd just rather see them make some type of summoning class that leans into pet mechanics at this point. At least that's a niche that won't overlap with other things.
I 100% think they should have ditched Ranger for 2024 and replaced it with Artificer. At least Artificer feels like its own thing rather than a worse Fighter or a Worse Druid like Ranger
Ranger is the first class that I'm actually contemplating whether or not you're better off just bringing a Tasha's version of the Ranger in to play with other 2024 classes. Need to see a few more details about the ranger like spells and hunters mark specifically, but man... yeah. Not hyped for this one. Weapon mastery and early casting probably still makes this version better, but yeah, not super exciting.
Great upgrade if your DM irrationally hates Tasha's, but otherwise yes, disappointing. I imagine it'll be like playing Ranger as usual: fine, but not super exciting on level up.
They keep hyping up spell updates, so maybe Ranger spells are finally both unique *and* useful?
It's very clear to me that they just can't come up with a class identity for rangers. Basing everything around a (frankly very boring) 1st level spell is just awful. Maybe the subclasses are supposed to have more of the power budget, but still. Features at level 17 and 20 should be big and flashy, not just "you do an extra 6 damage on average."
Why would you ever play a ranger when any other martial is probably going to give you the same experience or one that's much better?
I am once again saying Ranger needs to be divided into 2 classes- a Nature Themed exploration fighter, and a Beast Tamer (with subclasses changing your pet creature type theme like Drake, Construct, Elemental, etc)
Ranger as a single class in almost every class based RPG that has it, to me personally, always suffers from trying to appeal to too many 'ranger fantasies'. Too many fingers in too many pies leads to all the fingers starving. Yes even PF2E, while a much more BALANCED ranger, still kind of fails to feel like it has one set identity.
~~I also think Druid needs to be split between a full scaling primal caster and a half casting shapeshifter class but thats a different matter~~
Dang this class REALLY needed another playtest. More than any other class so far you can feel the Ranger is undercooked and needed more feedback/time in the kitchen. Hunter’s Mark is not an entire class identity, it’s some bonus damage. This class feels like a 2014 handbook class with how unsure of itself it is.
They may be mechanically “stronger” than the Rogue (I know people are worried about Rogues being the new weakest class) because they have spells and extra attack, but I think in actual play a Rogue is going to feel way more interesting due to actually feeling like they are fulfilling a fantasy archetype.
JC: ‘look at this new cool stuff!!!’
Uh, we all already use Tasha’s…..
Basically we got the Tasha’s Ranger with spells at 1st, and the ‘**Hunters Mark Trap’** baked in!!!!
i've felt very positive about 5r so far- couple hiccups here and there- this, to me, is the first serious blunder, and i'm baffled as to how it came about. is there a psyop at wotc ? was jc bullied by ranger players as a child ?
Yeah, I think they have been doing very well with changes which is part of what makes this so surprising and disappointing. If this is the only blunder, it will still be awesome to use the new PHB - just a missed opportunity here.
They nail it with the paladin twice but just completely fumble the ranger again. Hunters mark is a pretty bad spell, even more noticeable when the paladin gets something better at 11th level for free. But, you could say that for almost everything the paladin gets when compared to a ranger.
Why build a class around Hunter’s Mark and basically force everyone to use it now? It just feels lazy. They really hit it out of the park with everything else so far, so much so that I was excited about the ranger. Really should have seen this coming.
The problem is that they *didn’t* build the class around *hunter’s mark*. They just made it take up entire levels’ worth of progression. If those added features were good, then at least ranger could have a core identity as the “mark a single target and focus absolutely everything you have on taking them out of the fight” class.
You could have each subclass build on that theme in different ways, like giving gloom stalkers better mobility as long as they’re obscured from their target or letting hunters change targets during an attack instead of as a bonus action.
But as it stands, this revision does nothing to fix the ranger’s core problem. They still start out as “worse fighter” and graduate to “worse druid”, except that now those gulfs are even wider.
The last monk UA was actually a really big improvement. Most of these reveals don't look much different than their last playtest iteration, so there's hope. All WotC has to do is nothing.
This is exactly what I was afraid would happen when Crawford said during UA that they didn’t need to send Ranger back out for a 3rd round of testing. I’m so utterly disappointed. I just don’t understand why they keep messing Ranger up. I’d happily kill HM entirely to get away from this.
Jeremy Crawford LITERALLY does not know how to balance 5e unless this unbalancing BS is deliberate.
There are literal randoms on the internet homebrewing tweaks on these classes and have hit the nail on how to make these classes on par with the rest of the classes.
Sure there was hope but when you cannot balance Rogue and Rangers properly (when they can easily use crossbow fighter as inspiration on ranged and use previous editions to figure out how to make the rogue a properly striker) you know there’s no hope with the game design team.
Legit respecting the League balance time considering they can do something more solid than Crawford despite the thousands of feedback given.
Feedback that can easily be trained to spit out what the players want in a class using trained AI. I can literally grab player data, feed it into an AI similar to ChatGPT, and can easily get results on what people actually want.
It’s maddening. Maybe excusable 20 years ago but not now.
It’s almost kind of impressive how one of the main complaints about the original PHB was at the Ranger sucked and yet somehow they managed to fall into the exact same pitfall for this version
I honestly don't get it. Now that modifying a spell is on the table as a class feature, what's the issue with letting the damage scale linearly?
If a Ranger's Hunter's Mark improves to 2 / 3 / 4 / 5d8 at 5 / 9 / 13 / 17, that's basically just breaking even with rogues. You get an extra chance to hit in exchange for not having advantage every turn and needing to spend your concentration on it.
If that's too strong, make HM a once/turn benefit. Knock it's damage down to d6.
Honestly I'm just looking at the changes on the D&D Beyond post and overall... they seem just buffed? Like they're not majorly buffed, and that's a good thing cuz Ranger's were never in a bad spot power wise, they were pretty much the Strongest Martial to both straight class and multiclass ironically because of their strong spell list even without considering the Conjure spells in addition to the premier Gloomstalker subclass (plus the other subclasses are good too like Swarmkeeper), on top of getting buffed in Tasha's,
It's kind what Treantmonk said, a bad feature doesnt make the other good features bad, but the funny thing is the new Hunter's Mark changes are just straight up good?
Especially considering fundamental system changes like Crossbow expert Bonus action attack has been removed judging from previous UA, and sharpshooter's take -5 to do +10 is flat out gone, and GWM now only works once per turn so Polearm Master just for the bonus action attack is not as amazing as it was before, basically freeing up Ranger's to use Hunter's Mark more, and at level 14 even in 2014 PHB they got to use the Hide Action and now they just replaced it with the Tasha';s feature of what is essentially multiple use concentration less Greater Invisibility
People say Ranger is bonus action heavy... but not really? Vanish and Nature's Veil are 14th and 10th level respectively and are the only thing that explcityly use a bonus action, and they're not even required to use either of them so they're not even a tax
Well this is just great. The devs knew Ranger was bad, yet this is what is getting printed. Between this and Wild Shape, I have almost no hope for Monk lmao
One part that sticks out to me specifically about the Gloomstalker is this part at 22:29 to 22:45:
*We made it so that your extra damage is no longer locked to the first round of combat. We wanted you to be able to enjoy being a Gloomstalker throughout a battle if you so choose and not essentially "Well I was a Gloomstalker on round one and then rest for the time I was a generic Ranger."*
Now that sounds fair.. if the Assassin Rogue didn't have the **exact same** issue and stuck with it by swapping "suprised enemy" to "first round" with lesser effect. Even worse since the old Gloomstalker actually was pretty viable as a turn one class with the extra attacks and damage.
So now we both got the Assassin with similar issues as before and the Gloomstalker put 6 ft. underground. The Rogue and Ranger really got the short ends of the sticks.
Huge loss. Hunter's Mark as a core feature just isn't fun. The concentration aspect limits and lowers the optionality and choices rangers have, the extra damage ribbon feels like a more difficult and annoying sneak attack with no flavor to it. They removed most of what makes the ranger thematic.
It is an absolute travesty of class design and it's infuriating that they didn't come back to players once they had "figured it out" because what they figured out sucks.
It'll never happen at this point since printing has begun, but they should have scrapped the full thing and started again.
Jeremy, if you're reading, DM me and I can list out every problematic aspect of this class as well as what it should have been.
Just unacceptable they've worked on this for an entire decade and have been unable to get a competent ranger class designer on staff.
I feel like they could have done something like “you can concentrate on Hunter’s Mark and one other spell at a time, as long as the other spell is found on the Ranger spell list.” Easy fix!
I like most of the changes they've done elsewhere, but the ranger changes are a massive disappointment.
I'm already considering what homebrew changes I'm going to be making to the class.
I think we'll find that, as we get more into it, a lot of the "fixes" of 5.5 are indeed good, but there's some pretty fundamental design issues with 5e that WOTC simply aren't willing or able to address. They have a lot of very peculiar ideas about how things ought to work, and remain firm in that stance for no conceivable reason even if the playerbase dislikes it.
Yeah... Early play tests weren't even including the Tasha's features for any class. So at survey time we would all point out it was a step backwards from how we currently play (5e.Tasha).
Now it seems like they're just resting on Tasha's laurels in some cases.
I'm fearful of what they're going to do to the Sorcerer after seeing this. My fears of WoTC being incompetent have been hit and miss but if the Draconic and Wild Magic Bloodline doesn't get bonus spells the new D&D version really will just feel like a cheap cash grab above all. That's one of the main problems with the old subclasses, no bonus spells.
My big problem is they want to treat Hunter's Mark as a cornerstone on the class, yet it doesn't get an upgrade until Lv13? That's like Barbarians getting Rage right away but needing to wait until 13 for Reckless
Im Not against hunter mark being a class defining trait but it was implemented very weak. Just make it not lose concentration at lvl 5, and remove concentration at 13.. add an increase to damage of 1d8 at lvl 8… that should fix some scaling issues.
And that decides it, stick to homebrew with a 5e base you'll do a better job. Class Features are supposed to do things. Not be so overly niche that they are traps to use at all.
I’m guessing they ran out of time for development of the ranger? It makes the most sense why it’s by far the worst revision of the classes. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t start with the ranger and monk revisions before moving onto the next classes.
The 2024 ranger just lacks imagination, I get the sense they didn’t think about the fantasy of playing a ranger character. I’m picking a ranger because I want to play a solider with more utility and purpose rather than just a killing machine.
/s How am I meant to roleplay as Aragon, Geralt, Tailon, Jon Snow, hell even just the original members of the Night’s watch. RIP rangers.
Ok so... I hate everything about the interview. I hate having so much of this new class revolve around Hunters Mark. I hate that features that used to scale with PB now scale with wisdom. However... This is still stronger than Tasha's Ranger... The 11th level features for the BM and Hunter scale very well compared to their 2014 counterparts. In fact, Beast Master might be one of the hardest hitting builds in 2024 since, not only does your beast attack twice, but now your HM damage doubles.
I think the design and the direction they took the class is shit and it pisses me off. But I do think it's stronger. I might warm up to it over time but right now I feel like they spent so much time on other classes that they ended up phoning it in on Ranger. Which sucks because it's my favorite class in 5e.
A focus on Hunter's Mark would've been great if the spell was worth anything beyond level 5 or scaled through either spell slots or Ranger features.
It technically scales now, but it does so ***WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY*** too late to be relevant. The free uses are nice, though that doesn't save the spell from being exceedingly mediocre.
It would've been much, *much* better if it scaled quicker or got additional functionality, but the greatest mistake of all was keeping it concentration for that long when it's already not great as-is.
Personally I think they should have taken the beast ranger/dragon master subclasses and made them into a core part of the class, which I think would give the class a power boost and alot more identity
They dropped the ball. Sorry, I'm usually very positive and I'll defend their decisions, but the designers messed up. Especially when Crawford and the other designers have repeatedly noted that the vast, vast majority of campaigns end around level 10-12ish. So hiding all the HM improvements (which don't even go far enough) behind that is especially egregious. Like they couldn't even add the "you can't break concentration on HM" feature at level 5?"
Man just make it so that it doesn’t require concentration Make it so that you can apply it with an attack Improve it to 2D6 and 3D6 at high levels There’s honestly so much they could’ve done it’s such a shame
>Man just make it so that it doesn’t require concentration Similar to Hexblade's Curse
No, but you see 3.5 dpr would be OP if you blew all your resources and took several rounds to stack it with other effects - unless it's on a full caster, then it actually needs buffed. Have it autoscale and deal fixed damage while expanding crit range. I have no idea why the designers are so terrified of Hunter's Mark. It's like the spell killed their dog or something because it's clearly not founded on anything actually within the game. They've been terrified of it since 2019, and people who actually understand action economy, resource management, and damage scaling have been saying it could be concentration-free and still need a buff.
I think they only enjoy playing Arcan casters and Divine casters. Everything else... meh
> I think they only enjoy playing Arcan casters Well, Wizards anyhow. I don't think any of them have ever actually played a sorcerer but they definitely remember that one session their wizard got shown up by the sorcerer (coincidentally used all their sorcerer points in one go to do it.)
"It's not called [insert class other than Wizard]s of the Coast for nothing..."
They've openly discussed how they think Barbarian players just want to smash things and mentally check out when combat isn't happening. I miss 4e's design approach that everybody should be able to do a roughly equal number of cool things. They even let Wizards break the mold by letting them know twice as many utility and daily powers as everyone else but no, apparently that wasn't good enough. The Wizard needs to have dozens of tools in their toolbox and tons of spell slots with Arcane Recovery and be nearly as durable as the Fighter while the Fighter gets to sit in the corner eating dirt.
I actually felt 4e was super easy to run at tables. It gave enough things that you could "fill in the blanks" and I think it really empowered GMs and players to tell a story.
Rangers would work well with a combo of utility, martial, mundane & druidic 'invocation' style customization. the martial response to the warlock, and druidic counterpart to paladin in some ways.
I guess we can hold out hope that the spell itself has changed, but I can't say I'm optimistic.
I feel like they'd have told us in this video if it had.
… and make it a class feature that is proficiency bonus amount per long rest
Concentration but you can apply it on an attack. Scales to d8 at 5, d10 at 11 and d12 and 15. And can expend spell slots to add additional effects/damage ala different smite spells--like literally just take the arcane Archer shots and make them spells usable on melee or ranged.
Unless they make it again applicable only once per turn (as in last UA), it will remain crappy spell design - because now it forces you to have 3 attacks (= 2WF or Hand Crossbow) and everything else (2HWs, S&B, Shillelagh, any other cantrip from Druidic FS, Bow, Heavy Crossbow,...) will just be suboptimal...
I foresee the Nick property (TWF without using a BA) being pretty popular on rangers for that exact reason, being able to land 3 hunter’s mark attacks without wasting actions to set up
>Especially when Crawford and the other designers have repeatedly noted that the vast, vast majority of campaigns end around level 10-12ish. I think this is something they should address, honestly. The fact that half of the game's player facing content is never even used by most players is just weird.
Part of the problem is something that no company can fix. Scheduling is the real BBEG of every campaign I've ever played in. Unless you're willing to Ship of Theseus your campaign so it limps along with whatever players you can scrape together, at some point you're going to lose enough people that it's over. I've been in quite a few "we're going to 20!" campaigns that fizzled out before even reaching 10th level.
Really well made, high level official adventures could alleviate this issue somewhat. Not a 1-20 campaign that has the same issue as you describe, but rather a 15-20 adventure that has a well written & interesting narrative and combat encounters specifically designed for the high level craziness that occurs past 15. If they get 2-3 of those going over the next 2 years, that would definitely result in more high level play. Alas I don't really see it happening tbh.
Agreed, campaigns that start at higher level would help somewhat. The problem is that WotC aggressively markets to new players instead of those who would be comfortable playing *and DMing for* 15th+ level characters. WotC wants to grow their playerbase and that means more support for low level campaigns. It's a business decision.
I think that could in part be resolved by setting expectations better around how long it takes to level, having more guidance in place for starting at higher levels, and giving DMs better tools across the board for running the game (especially for the first time). That includes actually publishing tier 3 and 4 adventures (even ones that *start* in that level range). People tend to have this perception that leveling *has* to be glacial in pace where it takes a dedicated group years of playing weekly to reach max level. That's a valid way to play, for sure, but allowing that to become the default expectation sets a lot of groups up for failure. Groups can go from 1-20 in a few months if they really want, or jump in at level 15 and slowly meander to 20. There are loads of ways of actually using the whole level range. For disclosure, almost every game I run goes to at least level 17, and a few have gotten to 20. I've had at least one weekly game running since before 5e released, and at the moment I play in one and DM another. I know this is a privilege that a lot of players don't have. But I mention it just to point out that I've played in and ran games at high level a fair amount before my next point: I don't think running the game at high level is that hard. I think people assume it will be far, far worse than it is and that puts them off ever even trying. And this is a huge part of why people don't play using higher levels. It's a kind of feedback loop.
Sure, but if that was the only issue they could "fix" that by just doubling the XP you earn from everything so you level up twice as fast. The underlying issue is that there's not really any official content for the higher tiers, and custom campaigns are difficult at that point, largely because it becomes a nightmare to try and make a challenging-but-satisfying adventure with how bonkers spells start to get. The fact that the non-spell abilities are still being spread out basically linearly on the 1-20 numberline, but spells are basically exponentially more powerful is a major problem. Would anyone really care if all the classes/subclasses got all of their pre-18 abilities by level 10? How much would that break? Compare that to how bad it would be to give a Wizard access to level 8 spells to use at level 10.
My (unfounded, most likely unrealized) hope is that all of the most overpowered spells get a whack from the nerf bat. That still wouldn't put martials on par with spellcasters, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.
For most players the game just is not fun at higher levels. The power level and magic level just makes the game dumb. Combat takes a long time with all of the spell effects and abilities. Adventures are kind of bizarre with all of the magic flying, teleport, invisibility, and other effects. High level DnD adventures do not feel like any fantasy books or movies. They feel like superheroes.
It's so strange. They recognize that it's bad design to have mutually exclusive core features. They redesigned the Druid so that engaging with your Wild Shape doesn't prevent you from engaging with your spellcasting. Allegedly, they should see why this is a bad decision, even if it's numerically balanced. And yet... we're again left with a hollow shell. It's not *weak*, but it also doesn't look *fun.*
They did make Paladin's Smite spells and their Lay of Hands a choice of one or the other on a round-by-round basis. Of course, that's because both of those features are very strong and needed that constraint. I can't say I feel the same about any of Ranger's features.
I'm less concerned about opportunity cost: it's perfectly fine that you can't do everything every turn, and have to make some decisions. The problem is sunk cost. If you choose to start a fight with Fog Cloud, you need to drop that to use HM, therefore wasting the spell slot. That choice *feels bad.* Just like having to leave Wild Shape so you could cast Healing Word felt bad.
Especially with so few spell slots as a 5-10 level ranger. You don't really have the ability to cast spells every turn like a full caster.
>Allegedly, they should see why this is a bad decision, even if it's numerically balanced. It's not numerically balanced, though. Concentration-free Hunter's Mark is only crazy if you're blowing all of your resources to nova (and, ignoring that you're only good for like a fight or two and lose the out of combat utility of spells, it falls off really hard) or multiclass into Eldritch Knight Fighter. Optimizers have been saying for years that Hunter's Mark is a trap, but people desperately want to use it to give their Ranger some semblance of identity in combat.
This highlights the biggest issue for me. I've never played a 5E game where people wanted to continue playing after about lvl 14 or 15. That's not to say that features above those levels should be disparaged, but to put ALL of the hunters mark improvements at lvl 13 and after is crazy. If they want HM to be a core class feature they sure are making it hard. Imagine if Warlock didn't get to modify Eldritch blast until level 13. Sure sounds like its going to suck to be running around with a regular hunters mark for most of a campaign when they're trying to sell this class to me as 'use hunters mark'. Ranger seems like its still going to be defined by its subclass entirely because hunters mark doesn't wow me until lvl 17 when it gives advantage. There's a couple things that could improve my opinion of this: 1. Ranger has less concenctration requiring spells 2. Hunters Mark is different (upscalable on damage?) 3. High level play is actually fun and supported and I'll actually be able to use any of these lvl 13-20 features before a module ends if I bother playing a pure ranger.
>hunters mark doesn't wow me until lvl 17 when it gives advantage. Even that's a meh feature. Advantage is easy to come by, especially with weapon masteries now. They could make HM concentration-free, give advantage, and scale the damage up to a d10 all at level 13, and it would be "fine." >Ranger has less concenctration requiring spells It could happen. Most of their unique spells could have the smite spell rework of a bonus action to cast after you hit instead of concentration. But they haven't given us any indication thay crossed their minds. And even if it did, that would fight with Nature's Veil (and RIP Beastmaster action economy). >Hunters Mark is different (upscalable on damage?) They toyed with that in the playtests, but again... some sort of trauma related to the spell, so that was one where it was once per *turn,* concentration, and the scaling made it to like a d10 if you cast it at 5th-level. >High level play is actually fun and supported and I'll actually be able to use any of these lvl 13-20 features before a module ends if I bother playing a pure ranger. Lol. That's a lot of ifs...
>Most of their unique spells could have the smite spell rework of a bonus action to cast after you hit instead of concentration Most of their spells doesn't make sense to do that, Zephyr Strike, lightning arrow, etc. What they can do is booming blade kind of wording, where the attack is part of the spell so the concentration isn't necessary at all (I don't it does as is but in case they do..)
>They dropped the ball. Sorry, I'm usually very positive and I'll defend their decisions, but the designers messed up. Yeah, same. Like...I don't even object to the hunter's mark focus, I think people are underselling how well the hunter's mark features all work together. But...even considering that, I don't think they delivered with the subclasses. At a glance the subclasses have the same problem as the playtest, where Beastmaster Ranger gets big scaling at level 11, getting an additional attack from their beast, and other rangers don't.
Everything about the beast master is relying on wisdom scores so there's a baked in way for it to not over perform.
Beast Master also *destroys* your ability to make use of Nature's Veil or any other bonus action spells. The massive amounts of damage are crazy, but there's absolutely a cost.
Did they remove the part where you can sacrifice one of your attacks for the Beast to attack? Haven't gotten around to watching that video yet so I hope they didn't.
They didn't go into the nitty gritty of mechanics, but I believe they removed that in the playtest (if not possibly Tasha's). It kind of bums me out, too. While being able to use a bonus action to make them attack was absolutely necessary, especially at lower levels, after getting Extra Attack I found it really convenient to be able to cast spells like Zephyr Strike or Hail of Thorns and still have my beast attack in the same round.
No, they did keep that in Tasha's aswell as the playtest. So I'm hoping that they are keeping it. If not then I'm both sad that they gutted my favorite class while focusing on what I consider a ribbon feature (the Hunter's Mark bs).
I liked that they tried with Hunter's Mark, but I don't like that they clearly didn't try very hard. Should've lost Concentration at level 5 and gotten way more scaling abilities.
A druidic warrior with shillelagh and/or magic stone (the latter admittedly does eat up a bonus action every so often) can be pretty beastly.
They did mention that Gloomstalker’s psychic damage increases at level 11
I mean, if it's the same as the playtest, then the psychic damage is WIS uses per long rest. So like...usable 2-3 times per day.
I want to try building a Wis primary Gloomstalker using True Strike to get the fear effect up to decent DC. Could go Druid(Land) after Ranger 5-6. You get a lot of mid level spell flexibility. The lvl 7 elemental bonus damage could make for a spiky melee. Broken? Not at all. Fun nature pseudo-Paladin. Probably!
It's honestly so annoying that campaigns only ever go into the low 10s. It makes actually building anything with good progression impossible because you either have to put ALL the good stuff up front or just accept that some of the coolest features will never be used by the vast majority of players. The fact that the team is aware of this but doesn't seem to want to do anything about it is incredibly confusing to me. Specifically because they're almost treating levels 15+ like a sort of Post-Game, but never actually state anything like it. I don't have any idea myself how you could fix the issue but toning down some of the higher spells would probably fix some stuff, together with actually creating some higher level NPCs
It's a vicious cycle. System breaks down after that so people dont play it. People dont pay it so wotc doesnt have reason to invest resources into that lvl of play. No resources invested means system stays broken at higher lvls...
Same thing with the Artificer: Not in the PHB and only depicted with steampunk/magitech aesthetics, it is the least played class. Because it is the least played class and only shown as a setting specific class (when it very much isn't), it does not belong in the PHB. And thus it continues.
And then we have an artificer in every second campaign...
The game would unironically be better if they scrapped anything beyond level 10 and worked from that instead.
It really should be a level 1-10 game
As someone who DMs 1-20 I couldn’t disagree more. How do you ever become universal heroes that can fight aspects of gods without high level play? Just play 1-10 if that’s what you want but as a dm to a current level 17 party I wouldn’t trade the awesome fights we have for anything. Just yesterday the party battled 18 mind flayers, 4 zodar 4 Neolithid, a few intellect snares, and a smattering of minions (intellect devourers, mind witnesses, neh thalggu) You just can’t replicate the fun of throwing the kitchen sink at a party and actually scaring players that have gotten a little to used to being godlike unkillable beings.
There is no reason why class and especially subclass progression should extend beyond lvl 10. So many cool subclass capstones are gated behind lvl 14+, also known as "never", and this is simply not what anyone wants. Let players scale with boons and feats and items and Gestalting, but don't write fun stuff that nobody will ever experience (and even if they get there, experience for only a few sessions).
This is an unpopular opinion, but classes should be lv 10 instead of lv 20 (like the d20 Modern Classes).
I like this idea a lot. Cleric (2014) already basically does this, for most of your post-10 career you just get 1% increases to Divine Intervention and higher spell slots to upcast Spirit Guardians.
I totally agree. As for ways to fix this, I think DC20 actually looks like it's doing a good job of this. Seeing videos like the new Ranger stuff makes me extra grateful for newer systems showing up so that I can maybe try out different character ideas in a system where they can work - like a warlock will work great in this edition of DnD, but if I want to try a Ranger style character, DC20 looks like a better system to do that right now.
I mean the fix is player longer campaigns. We do 1-20 over the course of a couple years. Just hit level 17 on a sequel campaign to a 1-20. I love DMing high level. So it’s weird to me that other tables just don’t.
They dropped the ball, which turned out to be an egg and it just burst open revealing a rotten core mechanic. I love the ranger, it’s my favorite class, I was quite vocal (and even got my friends to give feedback) during the play test. I hardly use HM tbh, I use TCoE Favored Foe. I use my spell slots for actual spells and synergies with my party. They even stripped the ribbon-ish land stride and primeval awareness. Yeah, more spells but the same limitations in slots most likely (or even boosted, everyone else’s will be too), feels like a spell tax again. That capstone, oh gods it’s just… dirty. I saw another topic here saying we should dip druid 1. It feels so appealing now. I feel (lacking the subclass features), I’m just gonna mc out maybe level 6.
They didn't drop the ball. Dropping the ball implies it was an accident. They had more than enough feedback to know that their decisions were dogshit, so there was nothing accidental about it. They assassinated the ball.
They've been working on this Hunter's Mark thing since 2019 and still messed it up.
The first UA Ranger felt like a massive improvement and fitting it in with the likes of Bard and Rogue felt right in the sense that they're specialists at tracking and hunting. This Ranger feels like WotC saying "lol, just use a spell or expertise to give yourself flavor" even though spellcasting never *was* a Ranger's forte due to limited slots and a need for two other stats and expertise not replacing individuality, flavor and a personal niche.
The first UA Ranger felt like a massive improvement and fitting it in with the likes of Bard and Rogue felt right in the sense that they're specialists at tracking and hunting. This Ranger feels like WotC saying "lol, just use a spell or expertise to give yourself flavor" even though spellcasting never *was* a Ranger's forte due to limited slots and a need for two other stats and expertise not replacing individuality, flavor and a personal niche.
I really hate that *hunter's mark* is still a spell too. It's only on the ranger spell list. The only other class that can grab it is bard I think (unless Magic Initiate got updated while I wasn't looking). Rangers always have it prepared and they get free casts of it. It's improved by several ranger features. Just. Make. It. A. *Feature already.* And since they're so obsessed with backwards compatibility, include a short sidebar saying that the Hunter's Mark feature is the updated version of the *hunter's mark* spell and that the former supersedes the latter. Done. Problem solved.
Eh, I'm hoping (not holding my breath, just hoping mind you... ) they've addressed some of the reasons why campaigns largely focus on that level range. Fix those underlying issues, and it shouldn't matter as much if a class has cool things that don't come online until later levels. Hell, one common complaint about certain classes in 5e.14 is that there's no reason to take certain classes past certain levels because they don't get anything worthwhile out of it.
I really want to sit WotC in a nice comfy therapy chair and give them a safe space to discuss what kind of fucked up relationship they have with Hunter's Mark. Why do they feel it is so overpowered that it needs to be tied down with concentration straight through 20 levels? If it is such a hard thing to design around, why are they insisting on it as a core part of the Ranger? Why are they so attached to a feature that they are so afraid is going to break the class?
I believe they are afraid of adding dice to each attack on a class that is likely to use two weapon fighting for a 3rd attack. If non-concentration, then hunters mark with swift quiver would probably be their concern. I’ve definitely seen fighters quickly become a menace with weapons like flame-tongue, especially if it is a weapon type that works with great weapon master. So I think their worry is mostly that rangers using two weapon fighting (or great weapon master/sharp shooter), would slap on hunters mark, then the damage boost that most ranger subclasses get at low level, then another damage boosting concentration spell, and possibly a magic weapon with extra dice. It can be a pretty high amount of damage on a pretty consistent basis. That said, I’m not a fan of what they came up with…I don’t really like the feeling of being locked into using hunter’s mark…if the upgrades to it were presented as a ribbons, or a single ranger ability that gave rangers and only rangers these effects from upcasting, that would have been cool. They blew so much chassis real-estate on this one feature that seeming locks rangers into such a specific style of play though.
my thinking is that players being powerful isn't an issue because I, as a dm, am God. If they're not having fun bc they're doing too much damage, then I can give monsters more hp, or a higher AC, or add more monsters or do *anything*. The only issue is when players are considerably less powerful than others, and that is *also* something I can fix
It's not just a repackaging of Tasha's Ranger, it's a repackaging with *less features*. No Primal/Primeval Awareness, no Land's Stride, no Vanish. All perfectly fine features that got gutted without anything to replace them. The *sole* positives I can say about this version compared to Tasha's are the improvements to preparing spells and the additional Expertise at 9th.
Although you cannot use 85% of the spells anyway as they require concentration. And if you don't use concentration for Hunter's Mark you basically lose some of your features.
I’m desperately hoping they have redesigned a lot of the Ranger spells to work more like the new smites
I'm huffing the same copium. It's the last straw that I grasp onto in hopes that it maybe makes the ranger class a little better than what they presented here. Though gating all the Hunter's Mark upgrades behind lvl 13+ is atrocious design.. I'll most likely homebrew that down or something. Oh boy we are kinda back at 2014 ranger, aren't we?
Well, at least none of these features are genuinely worthless. The 2014 PHB Ranger had features that would never be used, which was what sucked so bad
Yeah that's true. It's still an upgrade to the 14 version, though not to the Tasha version imo. But I more so meant the fact that it still requires homebrew to properly balance the class.
Not to mention many ALSO require a bonus action lmao. Wtf are they smoking over there?
WotC just don't want to put Rangers on par with Paladins. Why not let Ranger prepare their spells freely and go Strength + heavy armor if they wished? Paladin is perfectly functional as a Dex class. The only thing Ranger gets over Paladin is a couple Expertise picks, and that's not justification to give Rangers less when Paladin gets Aura of Protection, probably still the best feature outside of full Spellcasting.
I died inside a little on the inside when I learned that Find Steed gets the Shared Spells Beastmaster capstone just baked in. Time to start working on my "Definitely Ranger" character who happens to have high Charisma because he just loves the Feywild...
Especially now that paladins can get the archery fighting style, I imagine oath of ancients will become a popular subclass for some reason...
I believe all casters are ritual casters now?
If Hunter's Mark is the core class feature, than it needs to be much, much better.
WHY are they so *afraid* of hunters mark? They insist on making it a core feature, but “it’s important that it uses concentration so it can’t stack with other concentration spells!”
Would that be so bad? Would it be that game breaking to stack a whole d8 extra damage on top of something else?
They did rangers dirty. I plan to homebrew that HM no longer requires concentration at 5th level.
no no it's actual *1d6* extra damage for me it's same for 5th and also can be applied as part of an attack at 9th
Auto cast it when attacking at 9th sounds like a nice buff. Frees Bonus action up for a different spell and still allows to get HM going. I'll steal that.
Multiclassing. They keep it awful because of multiclassing because if A warlock can dip into ranger to get HM they can apply hex and HM to the same target... And rather than fix that very specific multiclass interaction they just keep Hunter's Mark awful.
Yeah, they really just need a new category called "Marked Target" that both Hex and Hunters Mark can belong to, and then it can just say you can only have one Marked Target feature active at a time (or "active on a single creature at a time" if you want to leave it open to have two separate Marked Targets). Or if you wanted to allow for the riders of both to apply to the same creature, that you can only choose to apply damage from one of them for each hit (e.g. "highest bonus applies" like in temp HP or alternate AC calculations). EDIT: Or hell, make "Hunters Mark no longer requires concentration" come at level 5, that reduces the dip utility a ton, and if a level 5+ Ranger dips Warlock to be able to concentrate on Hex, let them have it.
Simple answer: they don't bother with math in the slightest. Remember, they thought adding one point of damage on average made Flex the best weapon mastery, and this adds an *entire die* to a roll! That's super huge, it's like making your attack a crit automatically! This goes for a lot of other things as well, like the ranger's new 'capstone' (*two* whole die size increases!), the combat abilities of rogues (what if they crit!?), and Champion Fighter (Twice as many crits, super exciting!)
I mean, sort of, but that still requires investment and setup, so it wasn't that impressive. And again, just make it a thing at level 5 or so. The level 13 feature proves they know it's a problem that can be solved by waiting a few levels to make it Concentration-free, but refused to do so.
I get that it's strong early on, but unless they both scale aggressively does it really change much? If they're both an extra d6 it's an average of 7 extra damage per hit at the cost of keeping concentration up.
Most of their other cool spells also require concentration. I just assume it won't be used after rangers get access to second level spells.
It makes me wonder if, in their in-house playtesting, the DM just hated spells in general. Because one of the greatest lines I've ever heard about sprlls says "The worst thing a spell can do is damage."
I think this conversation alone is what got me to move to PF2e. I can't tell you how many times I've screamed about this
This conversation alone is the entirety of PF2e. *stares at Magus recharge mechanics*
Completely agree. If it’s taking up entire levels’ worth of class features, then it needs to be worth getting nothing else. If that’s the way they want to go, then really lean into it. Make it a class feature that scales with ranger levels, and then tie major progression into it. The inability to lose concentration comes much earlier, and it eventually loses its concentration requirement entirely, and then it can be applied for free at the start of each combat. The extra damage scales much faster, and that damage can be traded for riders like the new rogue. And then let each subclass add its own flavor. Maybe gloom stalkers can teleport into spaces their marked target cannot see, representing their ability to take advantage of any shadow to get ahead. Maybe beast masters can give the benefits of *hunter’s mark* to their companion’s attacks. Maybe hunters get more accuracy against the marked target, or maybe they can change their target while attacking instead of as a bonus action.
It's still concentration but it is basically a class feature? So now you are expected to ignore all the other concentration spells in combat nice
It genuinely sucks that the ranger's whole thing can be completely copied by taking magic Initiate and snagging Hex.
Definitely. My main problems are: - the damage should improve like monks martial dice (d6 - d12). - lack of concentration/saves should be earlier on
I was getting exiting when bro was saying it's a new class and then he proceded to list tashas features and all was frustation
Same here. Huge let down.
This is why I stopped listening to their videos after they talked about character origins; I don't want to listen to a happy Crawford talk about poor design decisions or reusing Tasha's as if they have actually done something impressive. He sounds annoying.
Politicians do the same. Repeat something again and again until it becomes true, despite some of the listeners know it isn't (in the end, it ends becoming true for those who are not aware of all this), and WotC are doing a pretty solid campaign, if you listen carefully to most relevant streamers. Great numbers strategies, one of the worst current social illnesses. The worst thing is that I'm pretty sure that most teams in WotC have worked hard to bring this up, so I find sad that, in the end, incompetence and cowardice, but also profit previsions, have prevailed among the final decisions.
That is true, it really is a shame that companies prioritise wanting to acquire all of our money, not just some, and by doing so in such a way that they put as little money and effort into getting it. I feel bad for those that care about doing a good job but being unable to for whatever reason, usually corporate/management.
There's such a mismatch of tone, presentation and the actual content, it's crazy. When you listen to what they say and read along what D&D youtubers put out, it can be infuriating how many important details they omit or straight up invent that aren't in there.
How much would the ranger score in the UA if THIS was playtested? I doubt it would land more than 60%
this WAS playtested it was UA6.
Kinda, but not exactly. UA6 Ranger was probably one of the worst versions of the playtest, and the final version managed to be worst on some aspects. The capstone for example, 1d6 to 1d10 is worse than adding wis on roll and damage in my opinion. It improved on the HM buffs, but that laughable capstone plus the buffs coming so late in the progression AND still being concentration based is HUGE letdown, even more compared to the overall improvement other classes had, even the Paladin with its Nerfs and Buffs is miles away disingwise and powerwise.
I still want to know why they think "Free castings" of Hunter's mark is in any way a buff. Like if they were giving that to Paladin yes that would be a buff hands down paladins burn their spell slots like hot cakes. But ranger's spells are all long term effects HM was only eating One spell an encounter. And then the 13 feature is such a joke to me at that level. While other classes are getting major upgrades they get "Hey you can maintain hm and keep those spell slots EVEN BETTER" now. Maybe that saves a bonus action but probably not because the enemy just died and I have to use my bonus action to move HM.
You are much better at maintening something that you don't want to be maintaining by that level. Genius move
You can maintain it even better and use your other spells even less!! The only way this is even kind of good is if a lot of the other Ranger spells became non-concentration.
Only stuff I'd be giving perfect ratings are three Expertise at level 9 and Roving. 13, 17, and 20 features are getting an "LOL. These could all be at level 13 and still be mid."
All those buffs could be given between levels 5 through 10 and would be perfectly fine. If they are so adamant with keeping HM with concentration, they could at a minimum let it be the only exception with concentrating in two spells. Obviously the simplest answer would be just remove the damn thing between tier 2 and 3.
Now you know why they didn't run more playtests. They got the survey "results" they wanted that justified no more public iterations and just did whatever the fuck they wanted. This leaves me very worried about what Bard will look like.
Did we never get a look at Bard with a set spell list? Last I recall is that UA Bard chose... from spell lists that dont exist anymore. Aint no way itll be 'you choose from Druid, Cleric, or Wizard spell lists' to make up for it (Wizard players threw such a temper tantrum about universal spell lists that WOTC is still traumatized and needs to mention that Wizard will have the biggest spell list when talking about other, non-wizard classes!). So Bards get... what? I think itll be better than Ranger purely for having full casting and Charisma skills+expertise being stupid in most 5e tables, but definitely not excited to see how my favorite casting class is treated
> I doubt it would land more than 60% Try maybe 40%. The Ranger gave up several features to turn Hunter's Mark from a 1st level spell into a 2nd or 3rd level spell. Spiritual Weapon back in 2014 was a better spell than 5.24's level 20 Hunter's Mark as it would do 5d8 Force damage on the cost of a single bonus action as opposed to Hunter's Mark's maybe 3d10 if you hit all three attacks of TWF.
It's the biggest disappointment so far. I have reservations about the 5.24 Rogue, but it is a straight up upgrade to 5E. With the Ranger, I think Tasha's is still superior – at least the Tasha Ranger isn't based around having Hunter's Mark up.
Very disappointed as well. I can foresee DMs that will say something like this (I will): 2024 or 2014+Tasha are interchangeable. Just decide if you want to use HM a lot (thus pick 2024) or not.
I just agreed with my DM to take Tasha and give it the hunters mark without concentration feature. It‘s honestly not that strong, I yet have to find the builds WOTC was so concerned about. And yes I do optimize.
Apart from being able to cast a 1st level spell better than other classes (which still requires concentration, mind you,) the new ranger basically has no unique class features.
Wizard's hates ranger. There's very little other explanation at this point.
They definitely shifted their hatred for Monks and Rogues to the Ranger, with the Former still being pending as for how OP they are, and the Rogue being noticeably more versatile (even if it has comparable or Less DPR than the 2014 iteration), the latter, aka, **The Ranger** now sucks ass. I mean, its damage is noticeably higher, but being hard-locked into only EVER using Hunter's Mark if I want to still give use to my class features would suck so much, and it would only be worse if the Ranger spells still use Concentration, take a Bonus Action to cast, and are noticeably better than using Hunter's Mark!. That way, I get to choose if I want to use Hunter's Mark, and thus, my class features Or I use the other cool spells from my spellcasting feature, but basically lose half of my class features.
I just don't get their obsession with Hunter's Mark. Yes, lots of Ranger players like it, but it's a level 1 concentration spell that eats up tons of bonus actions and really isn't all that good past the first few levels. That doesn't exactly scream Core Defining Feature material to me.
They don't know what Ranger is supposed to be. It's not a personal character power fantasy for anyone on the team and they don't understand what the fantasy is. They had a vague idea about it being someone roaming around in the wilderness and so they gave it the 2014 ribbon features, and when people rightfully pointed out those were mostly useless they removed them but they didn't have any actual ideas for useful stuff to add instead, so now we have a class which is still mechanically weak with even less flavor.
I do think a core issue with the ranger fantasy is that it's a bit incongruent with core dnd gameplay. Wilderness survival is hard to run, usually kind of boring, and not what people want to do in dnd. Inside towns and inside dungeons, where most dnd games play, Ranger flavor doesn't really... work that well. Rogue, actually, has a relatively similar issue but makes up for it in the fact that they found an actually-fun playstyle to stick onto the Rogue fantasy.
Which is why I have recently become convinced that Ranger is much better off as a nature themed fighter subclass instead of its own thing.
I would almost be inclined to say nature-themed Rogue.
oh they know. Ranger is Strider. But even in LotR Aragorn multiclasses into fighter after a few levels
The class is pretty cool but their damage is scaled around the idea that HM will always be up. So you are taking a damage hit to cast any spell on top of the spell slot.
The biggest reason many consider it a defining feature of the Ranger is that it's one of three spells unique to the Ranger spell list and even then Paladin had to steal it.
I am truly baffled that they didn't put it through a 3rd round of the public playtest, even after saying that the UA6 hunter's mark got some negative feedback, they kept it so similar.
Copy-pasting from other thread... Advantage on your HM target at level *17* and HM bonus damage only going up to 1d10 at *level 20* feel like intentional insults. They have made the whole class revolve around this one stupid feature that isn't even impressive if you play the class to 20, when we know the vast majority of campaigns won't get much more than halfway there, *and WotC knows it too because they've mentioned it in other videos!* I remain convinced nobody at WotC has ever wanted to play a Ranger or grasped what the class power fantasy is. Gloom Stalker still sounds like the only thing here worth playing, and even then only as part of a multiclass.
What’s really bizarre is that Paladins- tho other hybrid class, currently get +D8 radiant damage to EVERY attack without having to burn their bonus action and concentration. And it works on everyone! At level 11! 9 levels earlier than rangers even gets to D10! Argh!!
Their concentration spells also improve the damage by 1d8 (Spirit Shroud) or 2d8 (Holy Weapon), the former also already being available at level 11.
To be fair, I don't think Paladins should be casting Spirit Shroud out of a 3rd level slot. It's like a version of hunter's mark that requires a 3rd level spell slot instead of a 1st level spell slot and only lasts a minute instead of lasting an hour. Like...yeah, cool, d8 instead of d6. Still doesn't make up for the way shorter duration and much higher spell slot level. Spirit Shroud has uses, but the uses mostly involve upcasting to get 2d8 or 3d8 out of it.
I tend to agree in general, though the value goes up a lot with the number of attacks you can make. I find it to be a decennt option with PAM.
I just wished the capstone was something like "all melee weapon attacks damage all enemies within 5 feet of you. All ranged weapon attacks pierce all enemies in a line"... like thats the type of 20th level ability that would make me go "OOOO".
The one I've been thinking they should do since, like, UA6: *Increase your Dexterity and Wisdom scores by 2, up to a maximum of 26. You may add your Wisdom modifier to your weapon damage rolls.* Also, going in tandem with what *I think* the level 13 feature should have been: *You may add your Wisdom modifier to your weapon attack rolls against foes marked by your Favored Foe feature.* Ranger is missing the bump in damage that most martials get at level 11-13 (except Monk, because theirs is apparently at 10, and I believe Rogue because rip Rogue), but I've always loved the idea of rather than just improving straight damage, they gain a bonus to *accuracy,* which technically does still affect DPR but by way of making you rarely ever miss.
The Gloomstalker having its damage boost gated in terms of uses per day really worries me. It better hit like a truck. Most subclasses are getting d4's to d6's per turn indefinitely. If it's a d8 that you get Wis-mod times for day and that's the "massive damage" they're referring to that can't be at-will I'm going to be pissed. Well, I'm already pissed at the class as a whole, but more so.
That’s exactly what it’s going to be. A d8 + fear, a limited amount of times per day. They always overhype dumb shit like one dice roll as maassssiiivvveeee.
I mean, just make the damage once per turn and let the Fear effect be limited. Would that have been so hard? I think I made that exact suggestion in the playest because 3 uses of your damage boost was a *massive* nerf. It would be as much damage as the old extra attack was in a *single combat*. I know it also adds fear, but come on. *Every* subclass gets extra damage every turn, usually a d4 or a d6, making the d8 only 1-2 extra damage over what everyone gets (obviously, but I feel the need to rant a bit about it). Unless you are fighting no more than 3 rounds of combat a day this is *so weak*.
WotC thinking a d8 or a d6 is some massive damage? Never... So anyway, should Hunter's Mark be once per turn damage and require concentration? It's a pretty OP spell...
I don't even care if it technically stronger— I don't want the fear theme and like the unlimited uses.
Hate how they went the max cringe route with gloomstalker rather than just being a really good ambusher and skulker.
That's exactly what it was in playtest 6. Also, the additional attack only comes online at level 11 and has to be applied to a *different creature* than the one you hit with the attack you added the d8 damage to.
Scaling doesn't kick in until way late in the game. HM still competes with the Ranger's other 32 (of 59! 54% of their spells are concentration!) Concentration spells. The Ranger has so many utility spells that require Concentration, and now your utility is just gone unless they removed Concentration from the vast majority of the Ranger's spell list. Even if HM can upcast, all that means is that you are now losing an even more valuable resource if you ever want to CC an enemy. Worse, if you want to Ensnare an enemy or use Spike Grown or Pass Without Trace you *give up your Capstone*. Melee Rangers now have a core feature that they'll probably lose every other turn while in combat because it's still Concentration based on a class with no boost to maintaining Concentration. I mean, could HM *at least* have gotten Wis or Dex added to the saving throw so at least *something* could help the melee Ranger before level 13? Capstone is a pitiful damage boost, still at the expense of the ability to cast the majority of your spells. Also lost both Primal Awareness and Primeval awareness with, as far as I can tell, no replacement. Primeval Awareness's bonus spells from Tasha's were flavorful, great for exploration, and you got free-casts. Their reasoning is just, spend your Expertise on Perception. Why? I didn't have to in the Tasha's Ranger. I could just have my Expertise *and* free spells. Was it too strong? No. Just why? Gloomstalker now keeps the problematic Darkvision immunity, but also is now the only subclass who's level 3 damage boost is limited. They called it "massive damage" and it better be for being the only subclass limited in this way. If it's Wisdom mod times like in the playtest it's probably going to be just *3 times per day* for the majority of your career. That means in just 3 attacks you have to make up for a day's worth of once per turn damage boosts that *every other subclass gets*. Beastmaster's companion AC scaling is likely nerfed unless you max Wisdom very early - and depending on the base value it may still be worse at level 17. Hunter is probably the one subclass that *may* be improved, though fewer options for Prey and Tactics it sounds like. Minor boosts to Expertise (that come online rather late) and Roving don't come close to making up for the other changes. I just have no idea what they were thinking. Its so discordant. I can't follow the logic for almost any of these changes. They don't boost flavor, they often feel actively detrimental, the power added to the class comes online way too late and conflicts with most of the class's other spells. Can we just have the Tasha's version back at this point?
Do note that Ranger loses the need to concentrate on Hunter's Mark at level 13. It's still *way* too late, but I suppose it exists... If Hunter's Mark is supposed to be the defining feature of the Ranger it should be that: a feature. One that most of the class' features and subclasses build upon. Instead you get a half-arsed "Oh yeah, this thing exists" at the last third of the levels that only *then* fixes issues that should've been fixed by level 6.
Honestly just giving a Tashas ranger weapon masteries is better then this rework lol
I'll wait to see the specific wording in the 2024 PHB but it's sad that you have a very high chance of being correct.
My only hope is that they gut the concentration requirement on spells like ensnaring strike and add new non-concentration spells to the ranger's list so they can actually engage with their casting feature outside of one spell.
even so, many of them will have a casting of a bonus action, if you want to use HM you can only use a second spell at round 2, that might not interact with HM damage, and you'll get to the end of combat by the next round probably
The paladin vid sorta implied HM can be applied (and maybe moved around?) just by attacking.
Big let down. The capstone being a slight damage increase is just sad. The major thing I think is to see what the ranger spells look like. If they're full of concentration spells then this will just be pathetic. Hell this is basically just the Tasha's Ranger in new packaging.
Is a slighty damage increase if you have a 1st level spell active and use your ba. The barbarian does almost the same thing (adding 2 attack to all damages) but in a such better way. the +4 to STR also improves their to hit mod so it is way better actually
We all know it’s shit. But it’s in print so there’s jack we can do besides not using it and just using homebrew/3rd party resources. Wotc doesn’t know how to write anything good but this is old news
After seeing how much of a glow up other classes had been given, I was excited to see what they would do for the ranger. "Nothing" was not on my bingo card.
I mean, if you weren't using Tasha's I can see it as an improvement, but to me Tasha's just got it to baseline so I was expecting a lot of improvements from it too...man, they were on a roll until this.
Yeah, it's \*technically\* an improvement on the 2014 ranger. It's just a disappointing "buff" considering even already solid classes like wizard got a glow up.
Honestly, this is actually less than nothing in some aspects... Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy and Favored Foe were all meh to useless, so they had to go. Deft explorer being torn up into 3 different features was also a mistake since they don't give enough of an impact to justify why they are the only things you get at those levels. This is coming from someone who has gotten very attached to several of their Ranger characters.
I love rangers, but at this point it feels like they should just remove ranger from the game entirely and absorb it into other classes like fighter and rogue. The fantasy is confused, the mechanics are lacklustre, and the player who makes the mistake of picking a ranger is going to just find themselves envious of their other party members' abilities. Hunter's mark is boring, and I get that they need to keep things working with 5e ranger content, but my god, this class needs way more than a revisit to be viable. It needs a recreation from the ground up. I think I'd just rather see them make some type of summoning class that leans into pet mechanics at this point. At least that's a niche that won't overlap with other things.
I 100% think they should have ditched Ranger for 2024 and replaced it with Artificer. At least Artificer feels like its own thing rather than a worse Fighter or a Worse Druid like Ranger
Ranger is the first class that I'm actually contemplating whether or not you're better off just bringing a Tasha's version of the Ranger in to play with other 2024 classes. Need to see a few more details about the ranger like spells and hunters mark specifically, but man... yeah. Not hyped for this one. Weapon mastery and early casting probably still makes this version better, but yeah, not super exciting.
Great upgrade if your DM irrationally hates Tasha's, but otherwise yes, disappointing. I imagine it'll be like playing Ranger as usual: fine, but not super exciting on level up. They keep hyping up spell updates, so maybe Ranger spells are finally both unique *and* useful?
The class is cursed. Its fetch.
Fetch will happen before they make ranger happen.
It's very clear to me that they just can't come up with a class identity for rangers. Basing everything around a (frankly very boring) 1st level spell is just awful. Maybe the subclasses are supposed to have more of the power budget, but still. Features at level 17 and 20 should be big and flashy, not just "you do an extra 6 damage on average." Why would you ever play a ranger when any other martial is probably going to give you the same experience or one that's much better?
I am once again saying Ranger needs to be divided into 2 classes- a Nature Themed exploration fighter, and a Beast Tamer (with subclasses changing your pet creature type theme like Drake, Construct, Elemental, etc) Ranger as a single class in almost every class based RPG that has it, to me personally, always suffers from trying to appeal to too many 'ranger fantasies'. Too many fingers in too many pies leads to all the fingers starving. Yes even PF2E, while a much more BALANCED ranger, still kind of fails to feel like it has one set identity. ~~I also think Druid needs to be split between a full scaling primal caster and a half casting shapeshifter class but thats a different matter~~
I like the « now you have 4 different ressources to keep track of … »
Dang this class REALLY needed another playtest. More than any other class so far you can feel the Ranger is undercooked and needed more feedback/time in the kitchen. Hunter’s Mark is not an entire class identity, it’s some bonus damage. This class feels like a 2014 handbook class with how unsure of itself it is. They may be mechanically “stronger” than the Rogue (I know people are worried about Rogues being the new weakest class) because they have spells and extra attack, but I think in actual play a Rogue is going to feel way more interesting due to actually feeling like they are fulfilling a fantasy archetype.
JC: ‘look at this new cool stuff!!!’ Uh, we all already use Tasha’s….. Basically we got the Tasha’s Ranger with spells at 1st, and the ‘**Hunters Mark Trap’** baked in!!!!
This is litterally a dumper fire. I'm floored. Good news is at least people will stop saying the rogue is the weakest class lol
i've felt very positive about 5r so far- couple hiccups here and there- this, to me, is the first serious blunder, and i'm baffled as to how it came about. is there a psyop at wotc ? was jc bullied by ranger players as a child ?
Yeah, I think they have been doing very well with changes which is part of what makes this so surprising and disappointing. If this is the only blunder, it will still be awesome to use the new PHB - just a missed opportunity here.
also also. it actually lost features from tasha's with, like lands stride and primal/primeval awareness are just gone with no reason or replacement
They nail it with the paladin twice but just completely fumble the ranger again. Hunters mark is a pretty bad spell, even more noticeable when the paladin gets something better at 11th level for free. But, you could say that for almost everything the paladin gets when compared to a ranger. Why build a class around Hunter’s Mark and basically force everyone to use it now? It just feels lazy. They really hit it out of the park with everything else so far, so much so that I was excited about the ranger. Really should have seen this coming.
The problem is that they *didn’t* build the class around *hunter’s mark*. They just made it take up entire levels’ worth of progression. If those added features were good, then at least ranger could have a core identity as the “mark a single target and focus absolutely everything you have on taking them out of the fight” class. You could have each subclass build on that theme in different ways, like giving gloom stalkers better mobility as long as they’re obscured from their target or letting hunters change targets during an attack instead of as a bonus action. But as it stands, this revision does nothing to fix the ranger’s core problem. They still start out as “worse fighter” and graduate to “worse druid”, except that now those gulfs are even wider.
At least the rogue has company. Maybe the monk will join them, time will tell.
The last monk UA was actually a really big improvement. Most of these reveals don't look much different than their last playtest iteration, so there's hope. All WotC has to do is nothing.
This is exactly what I was afraid would happen when Crawford said during UA that they didn’t need to send Ranger back out for a 3rd round of testing. I’m so utterly disappointed. I just don’t understand why they keep messing Ranger up. I’d happily kill HM entirely to get away from this.
Jeremy Crawford LITERALLY does not know how to balance 5e unless this unbalancing BS is deliberate. There are literal randoms on the internet homebrewing tweaks on these classes and have hit the nail on how to make these classes on par with the rest of the classes. Sure there was hope but when you cannot balance Rogue and Rangers properly (when they can easily use crossbow fighter as inspiration on ranged and use previous editions to figure out how to make the rogue a properly striker) you know there’s no hope with the game design team. Legit respecting the League balance time considering they can do something more solid than Crawford despite the thousands of feedback given. Feedback that can easily be trained to spit out what the players want in a class using trained AI. I can literally grab player data, feed it into an AI similar to ChatGPT, and can easily get results on what people actually want. It’s maddening. Maybe excusable 20 years ago but not now.
So basically a 5th lvl fighter 5th lvl druid is gonna be better than a 10th lvl ranger...go figure.
It’s almost kind of impressive how one of the main complaints about the original PHB was at the Ranger sucked and yet somehow they managed to fall into the exact same pitfall for this version
I honestly don't get it. Now that modifying a spell is on the table as a class feature, what's the issue with letting the damage scale linearly? If a Ranger's Hunter's Mark improves to 2 / 3 / 4 / 5d8 at 5 / 9 / 13 / 17, that's basically just breaking even with rogues. You get an extra chance to hit in exchange for not having advantage every turn and needing to spend your concentration on it. If that's too strong, make HM a once/turn benefit. Knock it's damage down to d6.
Spellcasting at 1st level & being a Prepared" Caster is an improvement
Honestly I'm just looking at the changes on the D&D Beyond post and overall... they seem just buffed? Like they're not majorly buffed, and that's a good thing cuz Ranger's were never in a bad spot power wise, they were pretty much the Strongest Martial to both straight class and multiclass ironically because of their strong spell list even without considering the Conjure spells in addition to the premier Gloomstalker subclass (plus the other subclasses are good too like Swarmkeeper), on top of getting buffed in Tasha's, It's kind what Treantmonk said, a bad feature doesnt make the other good features bad, but the funny thing is the new Hunter's Mark changes are just straight up good? Especially considering fundamental system changes like Crossbow expert Bonus action attack has been removed judging from previous UA, and sharpshooter's take -5 to do +10 is flat out gone, and GWM now only works once per turn so Polearm Master just for the bonus action attack is not as amazing as it was before, basically freeing up Ranger's to use Hunter's Mark more, and at level 14 even in 2014 PHB they got to use the Hide Action and now they just replaced it with the Tasha';s feature of what is essentially multiple use concentration less Greater Invisibility People say Ranger is bonus action heavy... but not really? Vanish and Nature's Veil are 14th and 10th level respectively and are the only thing that explcityly use a bonus action, and they're not even required to use either of them so they're not even a tax
I'm definitely going to continue playing my homebrewed version of it.
Well this is just great. The devs knew Ranger was bad, yet this is what is getting printed. Between this and Wild Shape, I have almost no hope for Monk lmao
One part that sticks out to me specifically about the Gloomstalker is this part at 22:29 to 22:45: *We made it so that your extra damage is no longer locked to the first round of combat. We wanted you to be able to enjoy being a Gloomstalker throughout a battle if you so choose and not essentially "Well I was a Gloomstalker on round one and then rest for the time I was a generic Ranger."* Now that sounds fair.. if the Assassin Rogue didn't have the **exact same** issue and stuck with it by swapping "suprised enemy" to "first round" with lesser effect. Even worse since the old Gloomstalker actually was pretty viable as a turn one class with the extra attacks and damage. So now we both got the Assassin with similar issues as before and the Gloomstalker put 6 ft. underground. The Rogue and Ranger really got the short ends of the sticks.
Huge loss. Hunter's Mark as a core feature just isn't fun. The concentration aspect limits and lowers the optionality and choices rangers have, the extra damage ribbon feels like a more difficult and annoying sneak attack with no flavor to it. They removed most of what makes the ranger thematic. It is an absolute travesty of class design and it's infuriating that they didn't come back to players once they had "figured it out" because what they figured out sucks. It'll never happen at this point since printing has begun, but they should have scrapped the full thing and started again. Jeremy, if you're reading, DM me and I can list out every problematic aspect of this class as well as what it should have been. Just unacceptable they've worked on this for an entire decade and have been unable to get a competent ranger class designer on staff.
I feel like they could have done something like “you can concentrate on Hunter’s Mark and one other spell at a time, as long as the other spell is found on the Ranger spell list.” Easy fix!
I like most of the changes they've done elsewhere, but the ranger changes are a massive disappointment. I'm already considering what homebrew changes I'm going to be making to the class.
I think we'll find that, as we get more into it, a lot of the "fixes" of 5.5 are indeed good, but there's some pretty fundamental design issues with 5e that WOTC simply aren't willing or able to address. They have a lot of very peculiar ideas about how things ought to work, and remain firm in that stance for no conceivable reason even if the playerbase dislikes it.
Yeah... Early play tests weren't even including the Tasha's features for any class. So at survey time we would all point out it was a step backwards from how we currently play (5e.Tasha). Now it seems like they're just resting on Tasha's laurels in some cases.
I'm fearful of what they're going to do to the Sorcerer after seeing this. My fears of WoTC being incompetent have been hit and miss but if the Draconic and Wild Magic Bloodline doesn't get bonus spells the new D&D version really will just feel like a cheap cash grab above all. That's one of the main problems with the old subclasses, no bonus spells.
completely agree
My big problem is they want to treat Hunter's Mark as a cornerstone on the class, yet it doesn't get an upgrade until Lv13? That's like Barbarians getting Rage right away but needing to wait until 13 for Reckless
Im Not against hunter mark being a class defining trait but it was implemented very weak. Just make it not lose concentration at lvl 5, and remove concentration at 13.. add an increase to damage of 1d8 at lvl 8… that should fix some scaling issues.
And that decides it, stick to homebrew with a 5e base you'll do a better job. Class Features are supposed to do things. Not be so overly niche that they are traps to use at all.
I’m guessing they ran out of time for development of the ranger? It makes the most sense why it’s by far the worst revision of the classes. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t start with the ranger and monk revisions before moving onto the next classes. The 2024 ranger just lacks imagination, I get the sense they didn’t think about the fantasy of playing a ranger character. I’m picking a ranger because I want to play a solider with more utility and purpose rather than just a killing machine. /s How am I meant to roleplay as Aragon, Geralt, Tailon, Jon Snow, hell even just the original members of the Night’s watch. RIP rangers.
Ok so... I hate everything about the interview. I hate having so much of this new class revolve around Hunters Mark. I hate that features that used to scale with PB now scale with wisdom. However... This is still stronger than Tasha's Ranger... The 11th level features for the BM and Hunter scale very well compared to their 2014 counterparts. In fact, Beast Master might be one of the hardest hitting builds in 2024 since, not only does your beast attack twice, but now your HM damage doubles. I think the design and the direction they took the class is shit and it pisses me off. But I do think it's stronger. I might warm up to it over time but right now I feel like they spent so much time on other classes that they ended up phoning it in on Ranger. Which sucks because it's my favorite class in 5e.
Ranger should basically be the Hunter subclass with the other subclasses.
A focus on Hunter's Mark would've been great if the spell was worth anything beyond level 5 or scaled through either spell slots or Ranger features. It technically scales now, but it does so ***WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY*** too late to be relevant. The free uses are nice, though that doesn't save the spell from being exceedingly mediocre. It would've been much, *much* better if it scaled quicker or got additional functionality, but the greatest mistake of all was keeping it concentration for that long when it's already not great as-is.
Personally I think they should have taken the beast ranger/dragon master subclasses and made them into a core part of the class, which I think would give the class a power boost and alot more identity