This post is probably going to include a lot of things other people have already said. It will probably include things WOTC employees have said behind closed doors. However, these things bare repeating because of what has NOT been accomplished.
Very few people who like D&D dislike the concept of the ranger. Many inspirations that are deeply rooted in the fantasy genre amalgamate into this concept we call “ranger.” The idea of a combat-capable survivalist who would rather live in the wild off of practical skills will never not be cool. There are a lot of layers we could analyze for why we find this cool, but that is not the point of this post. We shall summarize: Nature and wilderness are cool, creative problem solving in stressful, resource-limited situations is cool, and gritty, tooth and claw fighting is cool. In short, the idea of a ranger is super cool.
SO WHY DOES A D&D RANGER ALWAYS SUCK?
Excellent question. Because the things that make D&D cool are counterintuitive to what makes the concept of a ranger cool. They are fundamentally incompatible.
D&D is cool because it is themed around epic magic and superhuman martial prowess. Level gaining, min maxing, power scaling, challenge rating, wish spells, resurrection spells, meteor swarm, barbarian rage, fighters that can kill giant monsters with just a sword at (unreasonable) melee ranges, etc., etc., etc. all paint a picture where no one needs a ranger. In the logic of the Forgotten Realms, any given commoner can readily access the magical or martial resources necessary to solve major problems. They therefore likely possesses a basic knowledge of those things, enough that mundane problems like feeding themselves, staying warm at night, and identifying plants, etc., are NOT SPECIAL SKILLS. That means that no one in that world would EVER HAVE NEED OF A SPECIALIST TO PERFORM THOSE SKILLS. On a more meta level, those kinds of conflicts and obstacles will always pale in tedious comparison with the thematic elements promoted by the mechanics and lore of D&D. Why would anyone ever bother spending a 2 hour game session discussing campsites and mushroom stew when they could instead spend it discussing plausible solutions and strategies for the mystery and eventual confrontation with a recently turned dracolich? TTRPGs condense stories into digestible timeframes, which means the unnecessary content is discarded in favor of focusing on the details that the system has deemed important. The Dungeons and Dragons system from its conception deemed the ranger’s thematic wheelhouses as completely unimportant.
“But if I write my campaign carefully, I can refocus on the elements that give rangers relevance.” Yes. You can shoehorn those concepts back into Dungeons and Dragons, but because of the power scaling you can’t really do that without holding back the rest of the party. Can it be interesting? Sure. Should you just play a game that is BUILT to tell that kind of story? Yes.
SOME EXAMPLES TO EMPHASIZE MY POINT:
Aragorn from Lord of the Rings can be built more effectively by multiclassing fighter/cleric.
Will or Halt from Ranger’s Apprentice can be built more effectively as fighter/rogues.
Jon Snow can’t be done as a beast master because a dire wolf is not a rules-legal animal companion. It would be better to build a fighter and take a druid dip for conjuration spells. I’ll come back to this in a second.
Even Drizzt, the unfailing poster boy of the Forgotten Realms, can be built as a beast master ranger, but would be more optimized as a fighter with a ranger dip.
The Dungeons and Dragons ranger will ALWAYS pale in comparison to a fighter/druid multiclass, because that is what all rangers would logically be in the context of D&D settings and power scaling.
SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO? HOW CAN WE SAVE THE RANGER?
The most reasonable option is that we don’t. The answer is already baked into the game. Just play a fighter/druid instead. It’s the same flavor with a more system-compatible texture. With the advent of artificers being fully supported within the system, they can afford to let it take the ranger’s place in the twelve-seat pantheon of core classes. 6th edition, when it eventually arrives, should include artificer as a core class and just delete the ranger altogether. The Dungeons and Dragons system shouldn’t bother trying to accomplish a task it isn’t built for while other games exist that handle it practically perfectly. Games like Forbidden Lands, Runequest, Cairn, Zweihander, etc., are already themed compatibly with the ranger’s themes.
Inevitably, some traditionalists will gnash their teeth over this. They will beg for a second opinion to save the ranger from euthanasia, or “mercy killing” as a ranger would call it. Some marketing analyst might even be able to show that it’s better for WOTC’s bottom line to include a ranger, even a crappy one, just to appease the traditionists. Some people will complain about it online either way, ultimately fueling the fire and boosting WOTC sales.
So what’s the second best option after killing the ranger? Obviously, it is to beef it. If it’s gonna be unbalanced either way, you might as well make it fun, so beef it. Trust me, the digital troglodytes deep in the internet caves will complain either way so there is nothing to lose from beefing it. And beef it how you ask? All I can say from here on is what I would do. There are infinite right answers down this rabbit hole, but I will submit to you here what I think would be the most fun for the D&D 6E ranger.
A FEASABLE 6E RANGER COULD INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
- All rangers get an animal companion and archery. Dich the dual wielding gimmick, they can dip into fighter if they want it that bad.
- Beef the animal companion and leave the PC squishy. Let the animal companion be the real star of the show here. If the ranger is going to be a ranged combatant anyways, use class features to encourage mobility and maintaining distance. They can have HP similar to a rogue.
- They pick their subclass at level 1, and it determines what kind of animal companion they get: Tank, Scout, or middle-grounder
- Because they are squishy and rely on their animal companion, give them better spells. Another weird inconsistency (in my opinion) with D&D is the lack of support spells. Let the ranger be a useful support spellcaster.
- Because all rangers have spells and archery, make them a default arcane archer/spell sniper. It also isn’t a crazy idea to offer a subclass that forgoes the animal companion in favor of better spellcasting. That would make multiclassing into ranger more interesting for players trying to think outside of the box. Either way, the pathfinder magus class is lots of fun and not too overpowered (again, my opinion), and letting the ranger be a squishy, ranged magus with a super cool pet would likely achieve a similar scale. It would at least make the ranger less underpowered than it currently is.
I’m taking a lot of inspiration from the eidolist by H.J. Puffinstuff, available here on dmsguild. I think this models a lot of how a ranger could actually make sense in a D&D context. While I feel this class concept as written is still a little underpowered, the central idea that leveling up grants your companion new magical traits, and that you can choose from a list based on what makes sense for the campaign you’re playing, is absolutely awesome. Props to Puffinstuff, you truly inspire me, and I sincerely hope you similarly inspire WOTC to stop trying to fit a square ranger into a round Dungeons and Dragons.
Thank you.
