Unearthed Arcana: SyllaBear, the Lone Ranger

[Wilb]

New Unearthed Arcana is out! First thoughts anyone?






Link: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DX_0907_UA_RangerOptions.pdf

[TenaciousJ]

If Ambuscade stays at level 1, Ranger 1/Fighter 2/Assassin Rogue 3 is going to be quite strong for dumping lots of damage before anything else can attack.  It's a good feature but probably a bit much for level 1.

Skirmisher's Stealth has some pretty obvious synergy with Ambuscade and the above mentioned combo but probably is fine where it is.  It has a good "wilderness stalker who uses the terrain to his advantage" feel.

Spirit Path seems like Conjure Animal as a bonus action with a rider.  In a vacuum it's fine since it's once a day.  I'm intrigued how this will improve with higher levels and also what the Ranger will get to compensate for not having the companion all the time.  The HP scaling is a better choice than what the beastmaster has.  Wisdom instead of proficiency for the animal's bonuses will even out over levels.

e: I wonder if they intentionally left out the spellcasting feature.  That might drop the usefulness quite a bit.

[Nifft]

Link: http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DX_0907_UA_RangerOptions.pdf

It bugs me when the game's developers try to talk about the game's history and get it wrong (specifically, the idea that TWF was a Ranger thing in the "early days").

That said, Ambruscade is very reminiscent of the 1e Ranger's special surprise rules.

Skirmisher's Stealth is really interesting, but I don't know if it should be the default for all Rangers.


I don't like the spirit animal thing.

- Dire Wolf slashing is poorly defined. Can I take a bunch of Short Rests and charge up my whole party?

- Bear, Eagle, Wolf ... same 3 animals the Barbarian Totems use.

- Summon an animal 1/day for 1 minute and eats Concentration, yuck. That's an insult to my Hunter's Mark.

[TenaciousJ]

- Summon an animal 1/day for 1 minute and eats Concentration, yuck. That's an insult to my Hunter's Mark.

Right?  I thought it was a pretty neat feature until I realized this thing has no spellcasting.  It's just dip-bait if the whole thing is going to be focused on a feature that you use for 1 minute a day.

[Wilb]

- Summon an animal 1/day for 1 minute and eats Concentration, yuck. That's an insult to my Hunter's Mark.

Right?  I thought it was a pretty neat feature until I realized this thing has no spellcasting.  It's just dip-bait if the whole thing is going to be focused on a feature that you use for 1 minute a day.

Oh god, I though all that happened was just a swap of the features of the first 5 levels, the actual removal of spellcasting passed the radar undetected...

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Ambuscade is interesting, 2 conditions.
if Not Surprised then weaker Action surge
if Surprised then weaker Alert feat

Skirmishers Stealth ... hmm ...
gamingden has a hide/stealth hashout
going on right now, and this won't help.
 
4e Striker version of the good Rogue 2 ability.

**

Spirit Companion is < the Chain'lock pet , initially.
Conc on a frontliner ~iffy, +Wis to attack is decent.

Guardian's Shroud is in the ballpark of
Inspiring Leader feat to early 'Lock stuff.

Seeker's Eye is > the Barb 2 advantage ability.

Stalker's Fangs hands out Pally Smites.


Are these 1/encounter or 1/round ??

[TenaciousJ]

Are these 1/encounter or 1/round ??

There's conflicting wording in the Spirit Companion feature about how often the spirit can be summoned and/or its ability can be used. 

All rangers gain a spirit companion and the ability to invoke its magical power.  You regain your ability to call on your spirit companion in this way when you finish a short or long rest.

This part is vague about whether it's referring to the summoning of the spirit creature or the use of its special ability, but either way does not make much sense because of the next paragraph. If it's a short rest ability, that doesn't matter because the spirit can only be summoned once a day, as per the start of the next paragraph.

Once per day as a bonus action, you can command your spirit companion to materialize as a living creature, determined by the ranger path you choose.

Considering Mike Mearls has already had to do clarifications on twitter, and that the primeval awareness feature says to refer to the player's handbook, even though this ranger has no spell slots to fuel it, the intent is unclear as written and will need clarification by the designer.

The most beneficial reading of all these rules for intent is that you regain the ability to summon the spirit companion on a short rest and its special ability is usable as a bonus action for as long as you can concentrate on the spirit.  The other way to read it is that the spirit can only be summoned once a day and the first quote must then refer to the use of the special ability, which would effectively be once a day because you can't summon the spirit as often as the special ability would refresh.

e:  Or maybe the companion doesn't have to be summoned to invoke it's magical ability once per short rest, in which case the features go back to underwhelming considering the lost spellcasting.

[sambojin]

Yo dawg, I heard you liked Animonks. So we added.......

And we bought you a dawg, too!

[awaken_D_M_golem]

That's about what my subconscious thought.
Skim read gets the iffy interactions, goes what?
I don't exactly thrive  on precision ... 

How do these make the other Rangers any stronger?
 

[sambojin]

Free first round is nice, especially if you've got some way of triggering bonus action attacks off an attack action or have a hefty spell pre-cast on you. No surprise is good too (although some encounters require auto-surprise anyway). Auto-hide vs 1 is nice, but seems to want a dip of something else to make it shine.

The spirit stuff is just weird and badly worded. It's potentially "kind of cool", but it's hard to work out just what it does.

I'm not really sure if it would make them too good, but if someone was going mono-ranger, I'd be tempted to tell them "Your Ranger has all the PHB stuff, and the UA stuff, combined. But no spirit thingy. Or doubles of stuff."

So +Ambuscade, +Skirmishers Stealth, +Everything Rangers normally get.

You couldn't dip for it, but it would make mono-ranger right up there with the rest of the top classes. No one would ever complain about them being a weak class again, they'd just be a very front-loaded class.

[Nifft]

In terms of making Ambruscade less front-loaded, it could scale up with level, something like...

At level 1, if you would normally be surprised at the start of an encounter, you are not surprised, but you don't get any extra actions (see below).

At level 3, if you wouldn't normally be surprised, you may take a move action at the start of combat, before regular initiative starts. If multiple, in initiative order, etc.

At level 5, if you wouldn't normally be surprised, you may move or make a single attack at the start of combat, before regular initiative starts. If multiple, in initiative order, etc.

At level 11, if you wouldn't normally be surprised, you may take a full round of actions at the start of combat, before regular initiative starts. If multiple, in initiative order, etc.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

hmm I like it.  Gives a nod to the 4e surprise round too.


Forgot in my posts above, reminded by SorO's crosspost,
the new Ranger goes to 2d6.  That's a decent but minor bump. 
Not functionally different for official play 7=7 on barbs 1d12. 
But dice rollers will see a stronger bottomside and safety zone
regardless of bad rolls.  Ok  I'll take it. 

[Nunkuruji]

CO Alpha striking was already a bad enough problem in 3.5e with optimized initiative.

But to continue to fuel that

Ambuscade / Dex Bard 2 (Jack of All Trades) will probably take 2 actions before most enemies.

Probably go down the road of Assassin + better-archer-than-a-ranger build.

[sambojin]

Yeah. It stacks nicely with plenty of stuff. Assassin is the perfect though. But JOAT, Guidance or an inspiration die all help pip in an extra round of awesome. Or AS.

Especially AS+Assassin stab.

That's mostly what I don't like about the UA. It's like they're saying "We know Rangers are kind of crappy, but look how awesome a one or two level dip in Ranger is. For ANYONE!"

Cue a billion "Ranger" builds, that aren't really anything to do with Rangers, they're just to do with alpha strikes. Which makes encounters harder to design that are fun for non-alpha-strikers when you've got one or two "rangers" in a party, with the rest actually following initiative rules.

It doesn't really fix Rangers. It just opens up more awesome builds.

But mono-rangers with ambuscade/skirmisher's stealth/option for dungeon as a favoured terrain/all the normal PHB stuff, sort of does fix the class.

[SorO_Lost]

It doesn't really fix Rangers. It just opens up more awesome builds.

Yep.

Ranger is a dip, an even shorter one than Rogue, and everyone can benefit but it's still the Fighter's cup of tea.

But dice rollers will see a stronger bottomside and safety zone regardless of bad rolls.  Ok  I'll take it.

Technically it's superior.

When it comes to a Short Rest, you expend things per die and add your Constitution Modifier. So early on and during heavy damage, the sheer HD difference is palatable. For example, level 2 the Barbarian can only regain HP twice per day no matter the number of Short Rests, so 2d12+(ConMod*2) or say 14 Con for 17 HP. The Ranger can already benefit up to four Short Rests per day or 4d6+8 or 22 HP.

Basically, at the really low levels the Ranger has more HP per day than the Barbarian. It later evens out in the averages (even that's a lie, 5d12+5*4=150 vs 10d6+5*4=160) but it's a really nice boon that tips the scale from the balanced side.

[sambojin]

On fixing the Ranger class, I'd even be tempted to make Favoured Enemy (Humanoid) to do exactly what it says. ALL humanoids are your favoured enemy, and you learn a free language of any of them (even highly specific or exotic ones).

It'd probably be a first pick every time. But it's actually a pretty weak class feature anyway. You could branch out into more specific roles after that.

I'm looking forward to where they go with the class, but with all my suggested changes, Rangers would be worth a look-in as a mono-class. Maybe just add the caveat that Ambuscade only works if Ranger is your highest class level, and it unbreaks the dipping problem for multiclassing too. Just some waffle about having to be properly focused on being a hunter-type-dood for it to function fully.

[sambojin]

I actually do wonder where they're going with UAs and splat. Both the Ranger and Mystic UAs have been a "Well, duh?" pick/dip, whereas the waterborne UA wasn't that bad.

But waterborne didn't exactly get *rabble rabble* going. So is UA both a testing and marketing idea?

Because I'll probably buy the splats to see how unbroken they became, rather than the other way around. The play-test of Next had heaps of busted in it, but it ended up not too bad as 5th. With a bit of stuff left over for minmaxers to pick apart.

UA seems similar, but is it on purpose?

You need the hype. But birdmen made it through to EE. So it really does leave it as an open question.
---------


So yeah. Fighter 2/ Rogue Assassin 3/ UA Ranger 1/ UA Immortal Mystic (Celerity) 1. Not necessarily in that order.

Sure, it's 7 levels. But it's a horrible mix of UA badness. Screw it, he's a birdman as well
Only one more level for an ASI/feat, skirmisher's stealth and an extra fighting style, fighter paths, or MOAR Psi! Your choice. 13 Dex, 13 Wis, and you're good to go.

There. Done. Broken.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

... When it comes to a Short Rest, you expend things per die and add your Constitution Modifier. So early on and during heavy damage, the sheer HD difference is palatable. For example, level 2 the Barbarian can only regain HP twice per day no matter the number of Short Rests, so 2d12+(ConMod*2) or say 14 Con for 17 HP. The Ranger can already benefit up to four Short Rests per day or 4d6+8 or 22 HP ...

I like it.
I was also pretty sure they didn't think that through.
They've already posted a tweet-rata saying it isn't supposed to work that way.
At least with the 5 level classes, they're tipping their hand
that they aren't finished with them at all, and time for edits.

Tweet-ratas ...  ... What Would Gygax Do ?!

[SorO_Lost]

They've already posted a tweet-rata saying it isn't supposed to work that way.

Unfortunately at this time the PHB disagrees with them.

This is what happens when someone does something stupid, they should have just used a d12 or if some smartass was thinking double dice per level might be something to try, they should have worded it not to be based on per die but per level. IE expand 12 levels of Barbarian for 12d12+ConMod or 12 levels of UA Ranger for 24d6+ConMod.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

Y'know if they keep it, and hey why not,
they could do a similar 2d4 for Monks.
That would feel-good-tingle some 1e grogs
(and would only need a little Elements bump).

Mellored chimed in with Ambuscade at level 11 like Nifft's idea,
and a possible roll in ;  so that's good company.