cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/37339147
The Ranger may actually be my favourite class because of its mesmerizing blend of warrior tropes, nature-themed abilities and pet (sub-)classes being my jam in every game I play. That being said, I find the DnD rendition of this iconic class an aimless and uninspired mishmash of dull features that never quite manage to differentiate it from other classes, thus resulting in the Ranger playstyle feeling like a mix of Fighter, Rogue and Druid, while never reaching the heights of any of those classes.
Things didn’t improve with DnD 2024, which scrapped most of its unique features and replaced them with spell-like effects in an attempt to fix the quirkiness of the original class (which had, admittedly, a lot of features that never amounted to much because of how narrow and restrictive they were)When I decided I’d finally play as a Ranger, I set out to create a homebrew class that would tick all my boxes and give it a unique identity of its own. From the combined efforts of a friend and myself, the Pathfinder was born.
The main feature distinguishing the Pathfinder from the Ranger is the inclusion of the pet right off the bat at 2nd level, now a part of the core class instead of being relegated to a single subclass: this was done as I felt the pet was THE defining feature that set the Ranger apart. The pet’s capabilities were also expanded with 10 distinct stat blocks that should allow for much greater customizability than the generic “Beast of the Land/Sea/Sky” from DnD5e, which often feel as amorphous blobs with little thought given to the animal they’re meant to represent.
From there, we focused on salvaging and enhancing its nature-themed features to further define the Pathfinder as an intrepid explorer and expert survivalist.The class has not yet been playtested, but I will report back once I do and update the class accordingly.
PDF DOWNLOAD: https://mega.nz/file/WU8nHJoI#eii47dPmBNTYQrSC9IucIpdlX0IObzc1sI2e9emkW2M
HOMEBREWERY LINK: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/3_tXaVnD67LxOr open the spoiler below to read the class directly from Lemmy (it may take a while to load):
spoiler
I don’t have time to peruse this in-depth at the moment, but, presentation-wise, this is a very nice product.
Admittedly, I’ve never played a ranger, so most of my info is second hand at best, but I’ve long heard that it could use some TLC. I had heard that Tasha’s optional rules and the 2024 update went some way towards addressing the common complaints, though clearly not far enough in this author’s opinion.
I do wonder if the denigration of the Survival / Exploration pillar of DnD has contributed to the ranger’s bad reputation among 5e players. It feels like a lot of the crunchy bits that come with wilderness exploration mechanics (travel speed, terrain type, consumable rationing, getting lost, etc) have fallen out of favor. Or, perhaps, such mechanics never been in favor with fans whose early DnD memories were Critical Role campaigns rather than filling out a map one hex grid at a time.
I don’t care to argue which style of campaign is better than the other (each has their own pros and cons), but it does seem like a table with a laissez-faire attitude towards exploration and survival doesn’t have much of a call for a ranger, unless, as OP indicated, you REALLY want to play the pet class.
The main problem is that DnD5e cannot be played as a survival/exploration game, because too many features ignore or bypass those kind of challenges: spellcasters being able to cast light, conjure food and water, and create safe havens for a few spell slots, any expert class adding abnormally high bonuses to skill checks because of the poor math behind expertise, etc…
Even if you were to play it the way the designers intended and got a 2014 Ranger in your party, all of its features are basically a bunch of “ignore any kind of survival/exploration challenge as long as you’re in your favourite terrain”, which again incentivize the DM to look elsewhere to challenge their party.
The complete lack of DM support for that kind of content (food, encumbrance, travel speed, etc) further exasperates the issue, as most DM just don’t care to waste time homebrewing all of that stuff.
Most of those features went unused, which made the 2014 Ranger feel useless or less capable than other classes of equal level; consequently, WotC’s fix has been to remove them and simply substitute them with spell-like effects: instead of specializing in hunting down specific kind of creatures with Favourite Enemy, you cast Hunter’s Mark; instead of camouflage, you gain a few uses of magical Invisibility.
The 2024 Ranger is not bad, it’s just boring. Subclasses do a lot of heavy lifting to add flavour and variety into the build, but they only go so far.