YARV 1.3 Design Notes

by ImFromNASA

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YARV 1.3 Ranger Design Notes

FPC: Frequent Points
           of Contention

Why is Ranger a Spellcaster?

Historically, the answer is roughly: it was the easiest way to tack on nature abilities to a fighter.

But as the identity of ranger developed (or diverged) from this early answer, two camps appeared. One that kept the spellcasting ("like a druid does") and the other that didn't.

I'm not in either camp. As usual, I use a compromise.

While I agree with the spell-less ranger folks that I don't think druidic magic is essential to the identity of ranger, as I developed my ideal vision of a ranger, I quickly decided that practical magic is. For me, the ranger is a spellcaster for exactly one reason:

Magic is a tool to keep you alive.

Do you think if Lewis and Clark had access to magic, they wouldn't have used it? Every survivalist I know would use whatever practical magic was at their disposal, just as they use whatever food, shelter, weapons, plants, or animals they can find and horde along the way.

Sometimes that means praying to the spirits of nature for spells like a druid would, but more often than not, it'd be buying and using whatever arcane rituals or enchantments you could get your hands on. So to answer the next question, is a ranger arcane or divine? Both. It depends on the spell.

Why a Core Animal Companion?

Both the PHB and RR animal companions are broken, but not for the reasons most people think. They're not unbalanced: They're broken in flavor.

While there's a certain suspension of disbelief required for leveling up in general (oh boy oh boy, I can now suddenly sense invisible creatures because I killed enough goblins in that last room), the way animal companions were introduced unceremoniously at 3rd-level has always irked me. I started by addressing that with my Trainer aspect of the Ranger of the Wild feature, leading into the companion at 3rd level, but it still wasn't enough. When I finally settled on how to implement Beast Attack without breaking combat math, and that the Shaman subclass really wanted to improve an existing feature instead of implementing one right out, I realized that Animal Empathy had to come first.

I limited what creatures could be bonded with (a la Pokemon ranger), and scaled it with level as well as making them "cowardly" until you make a choice at 3rd/5th. Having the 1/3/5/6/14 scaling on the beast abilities also felt like it was spaced out correctly (the upgrades on 6 for beast CR and the extra language were moved from 5 because that gives both Extra/Beast Attack and SL2 spells already).

 

Neat! So what's new in 1.3?

Proficiencies & Equipment

Starting in 1.3, several changes which were suggested by users have been incorporated into the class.

  • YARV now has access to Medicine as a skill. This is to promote the 'herbalist' playstyle and provide better lead-in for those abilities. The total skills to choose from is now 9, as compared to most class's 6, rogue's 11, and bard's 18.
  • YARV gets a hunting trap in its default starting equipment to better work with the Trapper aspect of the Ranger of the Wild feature.

Animal Empathy

In order to keep the power of yarv's animal companion options in line with other ranger variants without stepping over the line, the stat bonuses to the companion have been moved from the Shaman Path to the main ability.

In addition, the Help action has been added to the list of available actions at level 1 and the flavor updated to reflect this. A clause has been added to clarify that the beast can perform attacks of opportunity as intended.

Finally, in order to better balance the beast companion options against one another, the hit point maximum of the beast has been updated to reflect the hit dice of the creature. Smaller creatures with weaker Constitutions will now have fewer hit points than larger creatures with higher ones.

Ranger of the Wild

Clarifications have been made in Trapper. Tracker has been buffed to give 'stonecunning'-style expertise so as not to be outclassed by rogues and bards.

Herbal Remedies

Since this ability scaled so poorly, it has been upgraded to now set a healing floor of half the max hit die roll for creatures that are tended to. References to the Medicine skill were removed to compensate.

Rugged Endurance

Gives constitution saving throw proficiency now.

Advanced Martial Instincts

Have been moved to the ranger paths. This was done to allow any existing ranger subclass (including XGE subclasses) to be used verbatim with YARV (up to level 19). You pick one of two features at 11 and get the other at 15, along with the normal 15th level feature.

Rugged Authority

Now also applies to plant creatures. Flavor updated a bit.

Scout Path

Added Urban as a favored terrain. Allows a character to gain an additional terrain type from their beast companion. Bloodhound updated in light of the changes to Tracker. Also, make Relentless much less janky and hard to track. Updated Skirmisher wording to play better with it.

Shaman Path

Spiritual Companion is nerfed to disallow ANY CR companions. Instead your companion gains a legendary action. Added cool new art too.

 
Design Goals—Ranger should:
  • "feel like a ranger."
  • be no more complex than the paladin.
  • have the same page length as paladin (7 pages).
  • follow the general rules for full martials.
  • have sensible and unique spellcasting flavor.
So, What Defines a Ranger?
Skills

Animal Handling
Herbalism
Tracking
Wilderness Survival (Hunting, Trapping)
Exploration

  • Martial Prowess
  • Two Weapon Fighting, Archery
  • Savage, Skirmisher, Stalker, Guardian, Ambusher
  • Magic
  • Call/Control Animals
  • Transportation/Terrain Abilities
  • Magical Archery
  • Magical Creature Abilities

About the Crunch

Hit Points

  • Hit Dice: 1d10 per ranger level—As hardy as Fighters and Paladins, less hardy than Barbarians.

Proficiencies

  • Armor: Light armor, medium armor, shields—No heavy armor because it's not easily scraped together in the wild.
  • Weapons: Simple weapons, martial weapons—Rangers fight with whatever is handy. They are full martials.
  • Tools: Herbalism kit—Druids get this, and it makes sense for rangers too. It helps with the trial-and-error feel for the ranger's working knowledge of nature, as opposed to a druid's innate connection with it.
  • Saving Throws: Strength, Dexterity—If I could give them Dex and Con I would, because those fit best for a determined half-caster (just like Dex and Wis make sense for a monk), but alas, you only get one strong save. I wish the saves frequencies and severities were more balanced so that they could be distributed evenly to classes as directed by flavor. /end rant
  • Skills: Choose three from Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival.—These are mostly the same as the PHB gives. It did a pretty good job with those.

Baby Rangers: 1st & 2nd lv

Evaluating YARV Ranger

1st-Level

The first level of any class should really do two things:

  1. Establish Class Identity
    • Skills, Competencies, Flavor
  2. Establish Primary Role in Combat
    • Martial Combatant, Spellcaster, etc.

Animal Empathy — Your innate connection with animals allow you to easily befriend them.

This feature is a stepping stone towards the eventual Archetype features related to bonding with the spirit of an animal. It also scratches an itch in the PHB ranger, namely, where did the animal companion at 3rd level come from? This acts as a bridge.

Ranger of the Wild — You are a wanderer of the wilds, ranging far afield to distant and uncivilized lands, and learning to survive in any climate.

This has six separate abilities related to: Animal Handling, Exporation, Tracking, and Wilderness Survival. If you count the herbalism kit proficiency, these abilities let us hit all 5 of the ranger-defining skills in the first level. As a level 1 ranger, you should have already mastered the basic skills a ranger needs.

2nd-Level

Where the first level of ranger definied the skills in an effort to drive home the feel, the second level is where the mechanics begin to kick in.

Fighting Style — In the wilds, you must fight to survive. You learn to use your favorite weapons and armor through trial-and-error.

I only give ranger the same four options available in the PHB. I don't like taking queues from the PHB ranger, but if ranger follows the theme of fighter and paladin and gets fighting styles, it shouldn't have more options than paladin. Either restrict both or restrict neither. It's easy for a DM to allow other fighting styles, so even if the restriction feels arbitrary to some, I'm not too concerned about this.

Spellcasting — You are wise with the ways magic and know instictively which tools are useful and which are wasteful. You understand enough about magic to emulate what you see or that which you are taught, but rarely dwell on the complexities that underlie your unique mix of the arcane and divine.

The flavor of ranger spellcasting has always been a little strange for me, in that it was mostly absent. It has always been a tacked-on way of mechanically producing interesting feats of wilderness mastery, not a consistent magical discipline.

So I made it one. By making it a mix of arcane and divine, depending on spell choice, and giving them ritual casting, I tried to create a unique and interesting niche for rangers in the 5e magical ecosystem that moves beyond "they kind of use druid magic."

I also adjusted them to use prepared spells like Paladin does. I say this almost like it is no big deal, but it's a serious buff to the out-of-combat spell-casting of the class. This, combined with ritual caster allows ranger to be more effective explorers. It also makes Wisdom a bigger priority as a pickup which is something I try to do repeatedly.

To go into a bit more depth about giving rangers explicit ritual casting, doing so actually opens a lot of doors for them and fixes a hole in the class. There are a lot of ranger spells that are often ignored by players who prioritize damage over exploration. By allowing them to fill the extra spell slots they get from shifting to prepared spells with rituals, it gives them flexibility to explore the full magical arsenal instead of just using hunter's mark every fight.

Herbal Remedies — You learn to enhanse the natural healing of the body though traditional herbal remedies created from common plants and fungi.

This is the ranger's core healing mechanic (without using spells). Both spellcasting and this feature scale with Wisdom, which should make improving the stat more viable when you take ASI's.

How it all fits together —The Fighting Style emphasises the ranger's combat role as a martial damage dealer, while Spellcasting (especially Ritual Casting) and Herbal Remedies give ranger some more identity as something different than just a fighter with the Outlander background.

Note that Spellcasting still gives ranger the hunter's mark spell, as the spell list is unchanged from the PHB ranger. Using this spell represents a significant boost in damage if used correctly, and though designing it was probably a mistake, it is so ingrained in the damage statistics and balance for the class, that even I wouldn't dare to change it.

Teenage Mutant Ranger Paths: 3rd Level

3rd-Level

Where all rangers up to this point are only differentiated from one another by their chose of companion, their fighting styles, and spell selection, 3rd level is where the wide variability of the class becomes apparent. The three subclasses lead to very different looks and feels for the class, but attempt to do so without significantly altering the class's role in combat or the group dynamic. But first thing's first: a ribbon (a crunchy ribbon).

Wilderness Guide — You learn to guide others through the rough wilderness.

This slightly-more-than-a ribbon gives several useful upgrades for traveling as a group in the wilderness which may be situationally relevant for handling random encounters. They're mostly things that ranger "should be able to do," but are much too verbose and awkward anywhere else. Since 3rd level is where most classes really hit their stride, this is probably the best place to drop them in.

—Slight Aside— In general, I believe that classes should be built with modification in mind so that you can easily make them to work for you and your setting. Despite PHB Ranger's failings, I think it does a fairly good job of this with the following exception: deciding what items were core to the identity of ranger and which were specializations.

I've taken some of the more egregious examples of features that pidgeonhole ranger players instead of empowering them (favored enemy and favored terrain) and moved them into specializations, and I've taken both the Hunter and Beast Master abilities and split them up among the three base ranger paths and the core class features. Then I created three new specializations which focus on how you wish to play your ranger and where your powers come from (roughly: foe-focused determination, land-focused magic and training, and spirit-focused communion with nature).

—Slightly Farther Aside—I only decided to call them "Ranger Paths" as I was writing the flavor text for "Ranger Archetype." "Path" makes way more sense to me. They're rangers... they literally follow different paths from one another. #Duh

Ranger Path — Your chosen Path reflects your take on the powers and duties of a ranger, as well as the direction in which you focus your attention and talents for surviving in any situation.

The ranger paths give features at 3, 7, 15, and 20. This exactly mirrors the paladin, though that wasn't the intent at the onset. Each path gets two different features at 3rd level (like both Rogue and Bard do).

For analyzing the paths, I'll do so piece by piece, at each level where you'd get abilities, I'll analyze them there.

Slayer—You focus on the specific techniques for defeating a few certain kinds of enemies to the exclusion of others—depth over breadth.

  • Favored Enemy—This is not a core ranger feature. But it is a ranger feature. There were a few decisions make here:
    • The extra damage from RR is redundant with Hunter's Prey.
    • You get two. That's it. Each race of humanoid counts as 1/2 effectively.
    • Your skills are at adv. against them (I haven't seen this done cleanly in other implemen-tations, I tried to keep is simple).
  • Hunter's Prey—The text of this feature is only slightly changed from the phb Hunter Archetype feature to make it more concise. It fits better in a path than in core because the flavor is being good at fighting a specific kind of enemy.

Scout—You focus on becoming a master of your domain. You let the land itself teach you to survive.

  • Stalker—Directly taking from the ranger role list. Gives three situational buffs, one skill-based, one action economy-based, and one damage-based.
    • Bloodhound. Use animals to track better.
    • Spotter. Find hidden creatures better.
    • Relentless. Punish fleeing creatures. This one is the direct damage buff, but it is very situational. It incentivises moving around the battlefield and staying at range. Both of which are scout-like things to do.
      This feature may be revised. It has been.
  • Favored Terrain—I combined the normal ranger feature with a baby version of the circle of the land druid's spell-based land feature. It feels really thematic to have them work together. You pick a terrain: Arctic, Coast, Desert, Forest, Grassland, Mountain, Swamp, Urban, or Underdark. You can hide in that terrain really well. You also get some spells. Your companion choice becomes more important since it gives you an extra terrain.

—Controversial Aside— This next one is going to be by far the most controversial change I make to ranger. A lot of people want a "Shaman" but I bet most of them couldn't agree with each other on what that would look like if you paid them. Sound familiar? Yes, that was rhetorical, the answer is that that is how people talk about ranger. A shaman is a term that is probably best used for a ranger-cleric-druid multiclass. That said, I think it also fits here.

Shaman—You focus on growing close to the great animal spirits. By respecting them, as animals do, a part of you can survive even death itself.

  • Spirit Animal—You get a spirit buddy. You also get a flesh-and-blood pet that also happens to be an incarnation of your spirit buddy. It gets bonus statistics, not because you're anything special, but because it is. That's the way it should be. If it dies, it gets reincarnated the next day. Maybe the form is a bit different, but the spirit is the same. This is the best way to pull off a Beast Attack ranger, but not the only way.
  • Animal Aspect—Eventually, this will have Bear, Eagle, Elk, Tiger, and Wolf. For now it just has the three from PHB totem barbarian. You and your spirit buddy both get certain bonuses. Together, you're almost a totem barbarian! Congrats.
    • Bear. Be tougher, but not as tough as a barbarian. Mix in a bit of werewolf flavor. I like to hint that a lot of magical creature stories and origins exist within classes. That's the reason for the silvered clause.
    • Eagle. Be faster. This is again a little weaker than what barbarian gets because you have to use the Dash to get the OA benefit.
    • Wolf. Be stronger together. This really incentivizes ganging up on an enemy. It is once again a bit harder to pull of than barb's and it doesn't apply to self.

Mid-Levels: 4-9

4th-Level

Ability Score Improvement —This is standard. I've considered extending it to the companion, but that is more math that I think we need.

5th-Level

Martial Insticts—is a choice between these:

1) Extra Attack

There are quite a few people out there who say that this feature, if included in ranger at all, should be in a subclass.

That's wrong.

It's there because all classes with access to a full suite of martial weapons at level 1 also get this feature at level 5. Barbarian, fighter, paladin, monk, and ranger all have it. Along with the hit points and a few other things I'll mention it's part of how 5e expresses general martial competency.

Patterns exist in class design for reasons. Balance reasons, consistency reasons. Ranger shouldn't stand out from other martials in weird ways just because it can. That's a mistake that lots of homebrewers make, and not just for Ranger.

You'll also notice something about each of these classes. None of them get cantrips in the base class. Cantrips scale automatically at level 5 in order to keep up with extra attack. Extra Attack doesn't belong in a subclass at level 5 because it is a core D&D class design to have it in the main class for martial combantants at level 5 and in a subclass for full-casters who want to gish at level 6.

The reason that people put it in a subclass is often to accomodate a beastmaster, when really, they're tying to design Beast Attack.

2) Beast Attack

This makes every ranger capable of living the beastmaster dream. It scales about the same as extra attack or a little worse until the later levels when you start getting good CR 1 beast companions which can consistently wreck face.

2nd-Level Spell Slots—It's worth noting that these are here even though they're not a feature per se because it bolsters my point about design patterns. Having your "martial damage" scale isn't usually enough for a martial class at 5th level.

Barbarian gets Fast Movement. Monk gets Stunning Strike. Fighter gets... awkwardly, "nothing" (because Action Surge already causes any recurring extra damage to scale beyond what it can for other martial characters). Paladin and Ranger? They get 2nd level spells. Because of this, as long as your ranger remains a half-caster, adding other features to Level 5 for ranger is probably over-budget. I see that mistake a lot in even non-ranger half-caster brews.

6th-Level

Rugged Endurance —Your time in the wilds has honed your fortitude to avoid and overcome injury.

Once again, a pattern. All full martial combatants get improved physical saves: barbarian gets Danger Sense, fighter gets Indomidable, monk gets Purity of Body and Diamond Soul, paladin gets Aura of Protection. PHB ranger doesn't. I think this was a gross oversight. I don't know for sure if this is the right place for it, but I think it makes total sense.

In this feature, I tie the 'bonus physical save' of Constitution directly to the Constitution modifier itself, rather than just granting proficiency. This keeps it at a slightly lower maximum value and also allows it to stack with things that grant proficiency later. I argue that this gives the player a more meaningful choices at ASI time, but I stand to be convinced otherwise. Giving Con prof is much clearer and more idiomatic.

The ability also grants bonus HP when short-rest healing. I think it is flavorful and is essentially a fixed version of the 2d6 hit die that some ranger variants have attempted.

7t-Level

Ranger Path feature—The main thing to say about the 7th level path features is that they need to be good. They need to be a flowering of the flavor of the path and something that is felt immediately.

  • (Slayer) Deadly Condemnation—This is good against anyone, but especially good against Favored Enemies. It's similar to Vengence Paladin's abjure enemy, but shorter duration and longer range.
  • (Scout) Skirmisher—Options for ranged opportunity attacks and reaction movement to flee an approaching enemy.
    This feature may be revised.

Shaman actually gets two features this level.

  • (Shaman) Spirit Strikes—Your companion's attacks are magical. This doesn't do anything if you didn't pick Beast Attack (except for Attacks of Opportunity or ones from abilities or whatever).
  • (Shaman) Primal Aspect—Similar format to the 3rd-level items, but these ones are all explicitly direct physical animalistic alterations to the ranger's person.
    • Bear. Extra hit points.
    • Eagle. Better eyesight and perception.
    • Wolf. Extra movement speed while near.

8th-Level

Ability Score Improvement —This is standard.

9th-Level

(3rd-Level Spells)

High-Levels: 10-20

10th-Level

Evasion—This is a feature of every martial class with a Dexterity saving throw proficiency. Monk and Rogue get this at 7, but since we have a class feature there, it needs to be pushed back. I move it to 10th-level and place it alongside a ribbon which also partially mechanically deals with Dexterity.

Natural Explorer—You get a bunch of ribbons similar to the ones you get at level 1 including: magical gps, your Strider ability extends to magical terrain, you ignore damage from magical plant terrain, and are good at evading enemy plants (that was a weird sentence to write). You also get magical air conditioning for yourself. It's mostly small stuff, but things that naturally follow from your level 1s.

11th-Level

Advanced Martial Insticts—These are the 11th-level multi-attack feature options from the PHB Hunter subclass. They're very well done, and very very cool. That said, I still couldn't resist cleaning up the wording to avoid the "attack, move, attack, move, attack, move" cheese with Whirlwind Attack and then applying that wording to Volley as well. I added a third option simply because I thought it was a very cool ability and it fits as an upgraded Giant Killer.

- Volley—Legolas-style arrow volley from a single draw. I imagine half a dozen arrows being nocked at once and I can't help but smile. - Whirlwind Attack—Melee spin attack against all the creatures near you. Great with cleaving rules. - Felling Blow—Single powerful melee attack that is even better against creatures that are bigger than you. It's the hamstring strike. Moved to Paths Though, the notes still apply broadly.

12th-Level

Ability Score Improvement —This is standard.

13th-Level

(4th-level Spells)

Herbal Remedies improvements—Monk has immunity to disease at 10th level. Paladin gets immunity at 3rd and can cure them in themselves or others from 1st. Rangers being able to cure diseases through herbal remedies makes sense, but there isn't really a whole lot of room before this. Originally this also removed exhausion, but that was too much for something that really wanted to be a ribbon. I updated this to only cure nonmagical diseases to prevent lycanthopy cheese.

14th-Level

Animal Rugged Authority—This takes the most useful parts of PHB ranger's Primeval Awareness (at least with dealing with animals), removes the mystical aspects which make the feature feel out of place, and then adds the ability to boss around beasts. UPDATED TO WORK WITH PLANTS

I did this because I enjoy the image of it. Plant creatures are kind of rare, but they're also basically just primitive animals in the way they think and act. In a world where they exist, they'd probably be treated as such.

I'd allow them as companions if they were balanced mechanically for that. :(

15th-Level

Ranger Path feature—There's not really a lot that unites the three 15th-level options in terms of design. I want to replace parts of Zealous Resistance to work in a more general case, but I'm not sure what that would look like yet.

  • (Slayer) Zealous Resistance—This will probably be the single most situationally powerful 15th-level feature in the game. It is pretty devastating in a campaign based around a single favored-enemy creature type, but absolutely useless in a situation where the favored-enemy is not present. This feature may be revised.
  • (Scout) Hide in Plain Sight—It's important to remember that the 3rd-level feature gets better as you level ranger. Because of this, the other features should be slightly less potent than the Slayer and Shaman features. This particular feature was awful in the PHB ranger, so I buffed it a bit. That said, it is still not particularly great outside of it's specific use-case. And that's okay.
  • (Shaman) Spiritual Aspect—These options are primarily magical in nature to represent the 'spiritual' side of the animal aspects.
    • Bear. Protector. Hit those who hit ya bros.
    • Eagle. Ambusher. Hit from high in the sky.
    • Wolf. Pact-Leader. Make some friends.

The Other Martial Instincts Option

I give this because it doesn't actually increase power that much. 11-15 is quite a ramp, with 11 acting as the de facto level cap for most campaigns. Most of the options are fairly mutually-exclusive in terms of use, so I'm not too worried about doing so, though: This is one to watch for balance.

16th-Level

Ability Score Improvement —This is standard.

17th-Level

(5th-level Spells)

18th-Level

Feral Senses—This is taken directly from the PHB. I think it's a good feature, if somewhat late in the progression, but very situationally powerful.

19th-Level

Ability Score Improvement —This is standard.

20th-Level

Ranger Path feature—Ah yes. The capstones. These is one of the biggest changes I made for the progression of ranger paths. I wanted to closely mirror the paladin when possible, but even beyond that, rangers are so diverse that a single 'foe-slayer' capstone for them is beyond absurd.

  • (Slayer) Foe Slayer—Actually. Slays. Foes. The numbers are essentially a single-target weapon-based fireball. I added the ability for it to deal poison damage in addition to the b/p/s types because it was flavorful to do so. I also limited it to only trigger once per turn per enemy.
  • (Scout) Ambuscade—An upgraded version of one of the most controversial abilities from the WoTC reworks. It mirrors the Theif Rogue capstone, but starts the first turn at count 20.
  • (Shaman) Spiritual Companion—For a class dedicated to staying alive. I think it's poetic for the spiritual route to create something that lasts forever. I think that this capstone has significant in-universe implications about the origins of certain magical creatures and legends. I love it. I am a bit worried about coming up with some guidelines for the legendary creatures that they make to act as companions. I think maybe CR 10 would be an acceptable max CR for their choices, with CR 4-9 being the average range. This is fully DM dependent, which at this point, the companion should be anyway. Yeah, that was pretty broken, legendary actions are better.