The problem with D&D Rangers

welcome to dnd with a twist how do you do i'm antonio demico and this is the show where i take a d d thing maybe it's a class maybe it's a race maybe it's a monster and maybe it's something else give you the four one one on what that thing is and i give that thing a different spin and you take a new twist if you will it's like you know in shows when they do that thing when the clothes change like super quick like a quick change yeah like that i'm slowly but steadily running out of things to compare this show to oh god so when i think of rangers i think [Music] ranger is the class for doomsday preppers and horse girls okay so first things first i gotta do the thing ranger bad [Music] thank you thank you thank you guys you guys are terrific thank you like teenage boys after watching one too many bear grylls shows rangers are the survival experts of the dnd world they are the lovechild of druids and fighters inheriting the druid's love of nature and the fighter's love of hitting stuff real hard rangers are famous for a bunch of things so they are hard to define they are really good hunters following tracks finding monsters and beasties and killing them but don't get it twisted these hippies love nature and their goal is to protect the wilderness from monsters and people encroaching on the lands to build strip malls or something like in the hannah montana movie oh man crowley died and let the town the meadows but we don't exactly have enough for the taxes so i've been helping organize a fundraiser or two rangers don't bring the highest dps to the table by a long shot and they don't bring the most utility either but they sure are versatile they get spells some nature themed skills and they get a metric ton of abilities a whole bunch oh boy let's take a look favored enemy lets you pick a type of enemy like beasts undead dragons accountants from ohio your own mother and become better attracting them you can pick humanoid races so you could be like in theory a ranger that specializes in sniffing out goblins seems strange anyway you also gain a language if you pick a favorite enemy that speaks a language you don't know you dare speak to me in that total voice boy i'm not gonna lie chief this is a weird ass feature i guess it could be good if you play a campaign when you're constantly tracking the same type of enemy like i don't know picking fiend as your favorite enemy in a health themed campaign maybe from what i've seen when playing with rangers this barely comes up if ever fortunately you can replace this ability with favored foe which just lets you pick one enemy in the battlefield and say you specifically to them you inflict more damage with every attack against that specific guy much more useful but it makes it feel like the ranger is more of an assassin than a hunter and a tracker continuing the theme of rangers being picky natural explorer lets you pick a natural environment where you are king [Music] you choose the terrain you feel most at home with the forest the desert the walmart parking lot at 4am on a tuesday and you get an insane amount of bonuses when you are in that terrain like difficult terrain not being a thing for you not being able to get lost always being able to find a parking spot everything you could think of this ability sort of has the same issue as favorite enemy in that it's only useful when you're in that specific terrain but the bonuses you get are way better oh and you can also replace this one apparently with something called deft explorer with depth explorer you get several stuff at different levels at first level you get an additional proficiency at six level your walking speed increases at 10th level you give yourself extra 10 hp as you can see this is less situational but much like favorite foe it kind of loses the flavor of ranger like if you told me this was a fighter subclass ability i would believe you at second level you get a fighting style just like the fighter your choices are archery bow arrow bow and arrow throwing the arrow with the bow throwing the bow with the arrow underwater basket weaving and fine guess you can pick something other than bows why are you playing a ranger then you also get spell casting although you are a half caster which means you get one spell slot and a half every 72 hours or so so use it wisely most of your spells are arrow themed and depend on you using a ranged weapon your spell list is also very very small but you do get healing spells so that's something to rub in the wizard's face next time they make fun of you and then you get eight other abilities jesus christ and those abilities have optional abilities too i don't have time for this lightning round primeval awareness spidey sense but make it worse tells you if enemies are nearby but not how many or where primal awareness oh god another optional ability gets you more spells at certain levels less situational but less rangery so pick your poison landstride makes you really good at walking through plants and also good at avoiding magical plants i'm sure this will come up a lot in your games hide in plain sight you smear yourself with whatever you can find in the garden section of home depot to give you a boost to stealth a la peta hunger games this comes with a thousand caveats though so good luck using it nature's veil oh god again jeez an optional feature to replace the previous one this one just makes you flatter invisible until your next turn less situational but less rangery you get it feral senses allows you to attack a creature you can't see without disadvantage and lets you see invisible creatures within 30 feet this one is pretty cool actually good job and finally oh god finally at level 20 you get your capstone ability foes later which adds your wisdom mod to all your damage roles against your favorite enemy and that's it those are all of them thank you lord we made it boy those are all the 372 abilities for rangers that's a lot of abilities and a lot of optional abilities to replace those abilities almost as if the core idea behind the class is either not very clear or doesn't lend itself well to the game so if while i was going through all those abilities the only thing you could think of is wait aren't rangers the ones with the animals well you were sort of correct they are or rather they were rangers in 5th edition do get an animal companion but only if you pick a certain subclass these subclasses are called ranger conclave conclaves one second oh okay okay um anyway let's take a look at a couple of these ranger vip rooms first up the beastmaster conclave veganism companionship love the bees master is the ranger subclass that lets you have an animal companion in this subclass you make friends with a little beast and it sort of becomes your little pokemon oh man wouldn't it be neat if someone made a video about how to make pokemon into dnd that'd be cool anyway this subtest is all about fighting alongside your animal companion your little beast goes into battle with you and grows stronger as you become stronger too gaining hit points damage and ac as your proficiency bonus increases the biggest problem about this one is that you have to use your entire action to command it so if your beast is attacking you're not attacking on the same turn until you get an extra attack and that's not until you reach level 5. i'm assuming that before then you just have to stand there and yell at your dog to bite the thing in front of it like you're some sort of fantasy ash ketchum [Music] also another issue is that well your beast has less hp than you and it's in the thick of battle so you know accidents can happen but don't worry you can just go into the forest and replace your companion with whatever random animal crosses your path first completely interchangeable great honestly i get why this is like this because if your companion dies it's not like you can just give up on having a subclass but it does make the whole animal friend that grows with you and fights alongside you as your comrade part ring a little hollow if you can just grab the nearest subway rat and turn it into a death machine during your lunch break and that's it that's the beast master ranger moving on to the wait no way another optional ability in a subclass okay so primal companion is basically the same thing except your animal companion is not an animal but like a nature spirit honestly this one is straight up a pokemon but it does fix the whole beast dies and gets replaced by a random creature part by making your companion a sort of spirit that you can bring back to life with a spell slot or just summon again after a while like a familiar this does make it feel more like a druid thing than a ranger thing but that's just basically true of all the optional abilities so at least it's on theme aside from all the weirdness around death and the whole wait until level 5 for you and your companion to attack at the same time the subclass is really fun your beast does get stronger getting magical attacks multiple attacks and even sharing your spells which makes it a bit more useful than whatever animal the party has decided to torture this week by making it their pet how much is that doggy in the window i do hope that dog is for sale all in all it does feel very rangery another very interesting subtitles that sort of plays with the animal companion theme is the swarm keeper they following me ma they're following me this one is more magic themed having some strong witch vibes you're basically able to summon a swarm of spirits that take the form of insects or birds or any tiny creature you want they envelop you and help you in battle giving you some huge bonuses like extra damage the ability to straight up be pushed 15 feet away in any direction or to move you five feet without attacks of opportunity you also get extra debuffing spells at certain levels at one point your swarm can actually give you a flying speed you get half cover by being enveloped by the swarm you can knock creatures prone when you attack them and at level 15 you attain full gross insect witch powers and are basically able to dissipate into your swarm and reform away from the enemy it's just it's really cool this one is awesome of course there are many others the gloom stalker i am vengeance i am the knight i am batman the drake warden how to train your dragon the monster slayer and the fey one so we've looked at ranger abilities ranger subclasses and all that is well and good mostly but what if we gave rangers a new twist so you wanna make a ranger i'm in the interior of the vast pennsylvania wilderness i am totally alone right now rangers are bull wielding hippies that want you to get out of their lawn rangers are also confused get ready children because it's time for antonio's opinion i think that rangers out of all the dnd classes are both one of the least distinct and most niche rangers are a mishmash of like five different concepts whereas the other classes tend to be one very straightforward idea wizards are studious magic practitioners bars cast magic through performance fighters hit stuff real good but ragers well it's less defined some people think animal companion but not all people it's not even the core feature some people think bows but not all people it's not even required some people think forest dweller but not all people once again it's not even a requirement no ranger embodies all of these or is a spin on all of these they are a mix of widely different concepts rather than a solid simple idea it feels like rather than starting from an archetype to create the class they started with like a fictional character in mind like the thought process was more wouldn't it be cool to play aragorn rather than wouldn't it be cool to play this type of character and i think that that's why people don't connect as easily with the class and feel like the current iteration of the ranger class is bad because whatever wizards of the coast writes for rangers will match what some people see rangers at but not everybody because nobody can agree as to what a ranger is exactly it's just a bunch of small concepts in the rough shape of a class i think this also shows in the design of the class because most of the things rangers can't do another class can't just do better this confusion is also extremely apparent in the amount of optional abilities that replace other abilities it feels like the designers had a hard time committing to one idea because there's not one idea to commit to the ranger is just a bunch of very different ideas mashed into the shape of a class i also think that the baseline idea of a ranger is not very well suited for actually playing d d let me explain rangers defend a specific natural place as in a forest and 99 of the time is a forest notice that i didn't say rangers defend nature because they don't it's a specific place a specific forest a specific mountain a specific denny's parking lot but in d d you generally don't stay in one specific place for very long you travel you go on adventures you move that's why all those ranger abilities feel situational because they are tied to a specific place not to something the ranger can do i think this is also why it's kind of hard to get a ranger character out of the place they have to defend the options are limited raise your hand if you have played a ranger that had to leave their forest because some evil magic was killing the trees or whatever thought so so what is a poor ranger to do well it's obvious give it a twist let's start by making a ranger using the existing class and subclasses that deviates from the ranger norm that you can use as an npc or inspiration for your next character what if we took the swarm keeper and made it spooky ever since he was little the children in the village made fun of grigori and called him a vampire living as the noble heir in a derelict castle on top of a cliff surrounded by dark forests did not help much in dispelling the vampire rumors his dead mother having been an actual honest-to-god vampire before she died also didn't help things much either while not a true vampire his mother's vampiric blood gave grigori specific gifts the most obvious being the swarm of bats that followed him around constantly initially terrified of them grigori came to see his bats and the undead servants of his mother's ancestral castle as his only friends one night a blood red bat flew into grigori's room through the open window he had only seen a red bat once before in the swarm that encircled his previously thought dead mother hiding his swarm of bats in his billowing cape and saying goodbye to the servants that had raised him since infancy he set out with only one goal in mind to find his mother and find out why she had abandoned him all these years make his swarm bats that fly around him and attack his enemies in combat and safely hide in the underside of his cape when traveling his swarm being bats also means he'll be able to do that cool thing vampires do in movies where they just dissolve into a swarm of bats it's so cool i want to do that you could flavor his favorite enemy and other ranger abilities as his bats using equal location to tell him information about the enemy or terrain give him a high wisdom because of his vampiric senses high decks because of his enhanced vampiric reflexes may be decent to high intelligence because of that private school education and a big fat negative charisma score because of that hikikomori shut in backstory and you're good i haven't seen many vampiric rangers so i would say this is a pretty fun twist so we've done some stuff with what the ranger gives us but what if we could incorporate the whole disjointed feel of the ranger into a brand new subclass that complements that design what if we found something that is also a mishmash of very different concepts that have little to do with each other but that match the rangers selection of other unrelated concepts hear me out cowboys [Music] okay think about it wouldn't a cowboy subclass fit so well with the whole idea of rangers just as rangers are a mishmash of many different disparate concepts cowboys are the same cowboys are known for their incredible marksmanship with ranged weapons pistols just like rangers are with their bows they are known for their knowledge over animals like rangers are even if cowboys are more associated with horses and well cows and they are both known for being amazing survivalists that have learned to adapt to harsh unforgiving nature it's a match made in heaven a cowboy subclass could center its damaging abilities on being really really good at guns giving the often forgotten god weapons the shine they deserve and their utility abilities could be centered around taming beasts and maybe even using them as mounts making it a shoe-in for that mounted combat feat it'd be so cool and guess what i made it the cowboy conclave is a new ranger subtest designed and illustrated by me that you can access right now for free in the description of this very video go and live your cowboy life in all of your dnd adventures but never forget the cowboy code be rooting be tootin and by god be shooting but most of all be kind bop it lock it and welcome partners to the end of the video this one was a tough one because i don't like rangers that much i don't know when i made the connection in my mind that cowboys and rangers had a lot in common that's what made this video happen i've tried the cowboy conclave and a bunch of little adventures here and there and it's really really fun so i hope you like it i think it's a cool mix of cowboy tropes and high fantasy d d shenanigans like how fun is it to have a magic cowboy that can't cast spells their capstone abilities to shoot magic bullets like come on that's cool i think i'm right it is cool i'm really happy with it and i hope you are too oh one cool thing that i'm planning is you know i release every two weeks i'm thinking about streaming during the week i don't release any videos i thought it'd be really really fun to go over d d horror stories you know like people's horrible experiences at the table we could have cool guests we could read horror stories from chad and we could give advice to see how not to fall in the same traps that made those experiences awful let me know if that sounds like something fun that you would like to see in the comments and speaking of the comments thank you so so much everybody literally no one especially me expected the super fast growth we've had here on the channel and y'all have been so incredibly kind and supportive and cool i really do mean it thank you so much and you know keep it up because this is a ton of work and i still read every single comment and i've been told by smarter youtube people that comments and views and subscribing and all that all those things help the video so please do that that'll be cool if you did thank you so much for doing it to those that have and i don't know show me your favorite cowboy boomer emoji in the comments that's all i have to say i'll see you guys in two weeks for another round of d mess be kind to the horse girls in your life be careful when horse riding the little girl in gone with the wind died because of it so you know be careful what a weird way to end the video anyway [Music]

Channel: Pointy Hat

Views: 976,701

Keywords: DnD, D&D, DnD with a twist, 5e, TTRPG, How to, Illustration, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D with a twist, d&d battle music, pointy hat, animation, rant, rangers, ranger, legolas, aragorn, beastmaster, hat, cowboy, cowboys, cowboys in D&D, dnd cowboy, dnd western, d&d western, d&d cowboy

Id: Ltt9MIj5UDw

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 10 2022