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Ranger

2018-07-17T04:39:43Z

2A01:CB15:140:9200:3C4A:9B50:840E:414E: Undo revision 506635 by 2A02:587:3A10:BF00:645D:F0B6:EA61:B9C1 (talk)

[[File:Elf ranger.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Eat a dick, Nature.]]

Rangers are usually nature-loving fellas, wielding either a bow or two swords. They are patterned after a certain copyrighted hero from a certain copyrighted fantasy [[The_Lord_of_the_Rings|book]]. They are warriors that are generally useful for tracking down enemies. They also are usually shitty divine magic users.

It is worth noting that one of the defining features of rangers is that they specialize in hunting down and killing members of specific races. From a pragmatic standpoint, this means they boil down to little more than racist serial killers who target by species (unless one of those species is their own, in which case they're probably some sort of bounty hunter). Being that race wars are one of the cornerstones of [[D&D]], this is unsurprising. They are rendered irrelevant by [[CoDzilla|druidzillas]], because rangers just can't compete with a guy who can turn into a giant bear that shoots giant bears out of his eyes while farting lightning and mauling things with its own overpowered pet grizzly bear. Rangers can get a half-assed pet grizzly bear, but because their animal companions are only as good as a druid that has half as many levels as he does, it's half-assed. [[Pathfinder]] gave them more fighting style options, made archery actually worth a damn, an animal companion that is only 3 levels behind the druids (which can be fixed with a feat), gave them better survivability and a couple of nifty spells, but the concept remained the same with all the same flaws.

==How Rangers Operate==
In the 1st and 2nd editions of Dungeons and Dragons, rangers were not able to sneak or fight properly in chainmail or better, or shields either. Armor was so key in melee under these versions that this led to the popular mocking party cry of "Ranger down!", heard during just about every battle. Rangers were thought to be the inspiration for the "At Death's Door" survival rule, since they would never survive a single session otherwise. They had ''some'' unique tricks, but they suffered from being essentially half-assed [[multiclassing|fighter-druid-thieves]] without really outshining any of their components all that well unless you were out in the wilderness or engaged in other very-specific situations.

Third edition made them a bit less useless, but it also ensured that their previously-somewhat-unique tricks, like dual-wielding weapons, tracking down enemies, or having cool animal companions, became things other classes could do too, and often, humiliatingly, do much better than the ranger. Druids in particular got a ''better'' animal companion than the ranger, and ''they'' could turn that pet into an unstoppable killing machine with buffing magic. Even [[Pathfinder]] barely helped the sad-sacks out, with a few buffs that other fighting classes generally got too anyway.

In 4e they get to mark their enemies, making them useful when you're fighting one tough thing and a bit crap against swarms. They can either slaughter one enemy, or irritate several, depending on what the situation calls for. Or they can completely miss with their most powerful once-per-milestone attack, and that's some fun. This edition removed the spellcasting abilities of earlier editions, since they had always been pretty shitty casters anyway and it was mostly a poor attempt to justify some of the more esoteric abilities of the class. The "spellcasting archer" archetype was eventually spun off into its own class, the [[Seeker]].<br />As each class had ways to specialize their abilities, so too did the ranger with the following:
*''Archer'' which just grants Defensive Mobility as a bonus feat so they get some extra AC vs Opportunity Attacks, which is decent.
*''Beast Mastery'', predictably, grants an animal companion. The issue with this is that it forces the Ranger to relying on either tandem attacking with the pet (Not always ideal for some pets) or focus on archery (Which sucks since all the pet-dependent powers rely on Strength and Prime Shot is gone, though the Horse does offer unbeatable mobility).
*''Hunter'' emphasizes switch-hitting by granting the Quick Draw feat as well as giving a better AC vs Opportunity attacks for shooting, so have fun using hand-crossbow and sword.
*''Marauder'' is the speedy two-weapon class with the Two-Weapon Defense feat, thus granting +1 AC/Reflex/Speed for using two weapons.
*''Two Blade'' is the offensive two-weapon class by only granting Toughness for bonus HP.
The ''Essentials'' book ''Heroes of the Forgotten Lands'' also provides two simplified Ranger subclasses to use: The '''Hunter''', which focuses exclusively on archery, and the '''Scout''', which brings the Ranger back to it's not-quite-Druid roots with actual magic and the ability to dual-wield. These two classes, as with most''Essentials'' classes, severely narrow down the choices available to the class, with most attack powers being mandatory.

Unfortunately, in 5e, they are generally considered the weakest class in the game for a wide number of extremely good reasons. A ranger isn't ''useless'', but outside of a few niche roles involving tracking things, there is very little they can do that other classes can't do better. And a lot of their abilities are just ''wretched'', with very limited utility (rangers are good at tracking... and that's about it), probably the ''worst'' first-level benefits in the game, plenty of "dead levels" with no gains to ''anything'' but proficiency bonus and spell levels, and heavy reliance on an extremely-limited selection of spells to even function on par with other martials. They share many of these problems with [[paladins]], but paladins actually have some class abilities that scale naturally as they level and don't need to spend spell slots for ''some'' of their class features. Rangers don't, and, humiliatingly, get a cut-down, useless version of the paladin's divine sense ''at a higher level'' that ''eats a spell slot''.

And while the decision to remove virtually all combat benefits from preferred enemy and terrain might've been ''intended'' to make them less serial killer-ish and prevent the DM from not including any of the ranger's favored enemies in the campaign, in practice it just means there's little benefit to it whatsoever short of picking up a free language if it's a talking kind of enemy. To add insult to injury, the "capstone" level 20 class ability is ''extremely'' weak, and contains a combat benefit to preferred enemy that everyone and their mother agrees should've been a part of the class at level 1. They ''tried'' to fold it all into the ''hunter's mark'' spell... but rangers are absolutely ''starved'' for spell slots just to keep up anyway, and a fighter's comparative abilities recharge every short rest. Nobody likes being compelled to burn precious resources and gish when they can so clearly remember not having to. Again, problems largely shared with paladins (the half-casters really got the shaft this edition), but paladins have a few tricks to make their lives easier that rangers don't. Plus, that ''hunter's mark'' eats a bonus action, so while they do okay with ranged weapons, good luck trying to two-weapon fight like so many "iconic" ''D&D'' rangers have in the past.

And, of course, there's the much-maligned animal companion, available as an archetype benefit, that wanders derpily around unless you burn your own actions to let it use them. ''Everyone'', even the class's defenders, will admit this is at best unnecessarily limiting, given the way spellcasters can throw summons around, and at worst completely nonsensical. In the rules as written, a dying ranger's animal companion will stand around like a statue while its partner bleeds out! (An Ask the Sage article did later specify that a ranger's animal can still use actions when he's incapacitated, restrained, etc., but still!)

Again, they aren't ''useless''... just completely outclassed by many other classes that can do their jobs better than they can.

They regained their spellcasting knack in this edition, although an Unearthed Arcana on the WoTC includes a non-caster Ranger variant/Ranger class option as part of its example on custom-brewing new class stuff for 5e. This version of the Ranger instead gets the ability to cook up herbal healing poultices, resistance to poison (and ability to use a poultice to cure poisoning in a friend), a non-magical ability to persuade local critters to fight for them temporarily, and automatically getting a superiority dice under the right circumstances. Non-spellcasting rangers with animal companions get the ability to halve damage enemies deal to their pets instead of the ability to share spells. It's... well, it's ''nice'', but not having ''hunter's mark'' hurts like a sonofabitch, and those poultices that replace half your spells taking a minute to work is just uncalled for.

[http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DX_0907_UA_RangerOptions.pdf A recent Unearthed Arcana] based around the ranger addressed player feedback that the ranger felt a bit weak, with many unsatisfying elements. In particular, it mentions that companions in general are a bitch and a half to manage: too strong, and the player effectively gets two characters to play at the same time and, at worst, an unmanageable long-term advantage, but too weak and who gives a shit about that critter you have to burn actions to get moving and attacking? (Potential parallels to long-term, well-known, and well-documented issues regarding casters and summoning spell abuse were, naturally [[CoDzilla| ignored with an almost religious fervor]].)

The result was probably considerably more powerful, but a lot less popular, with lame-brained attempts to reflavor the ranger into a kind of nature paladin, while actively poo-poohing the fixes ''everyone'' asks for (more low-level combat benefits, either more spells or less-heavy reliance on them, combat attachments to preferred enemy, etc.). It was a decent class, perhaps, but a terrible ranger. Overwhelmingly negative response caused them to halfheartedly mutter some guff about maybe putting the animal companion in further down-level, before skipping past it.

Common wisdom (heh!) is that, whatever their success with the rest of the edition, the 5e designers are hopelessly lost when it comes to the ranger, unhealthily fixated on correcting things that aren't broken while ignoring very basic issues that should require very little effort to resolve. Gentlemen, start your homebrews.

Then, an Unearthed Arcana released the [[Scout (D&D)|Scout]] archetype for the [[Fighter]], who basically has the ranger's best-flavor class feature with superior mechanics backing it up. [[Derp]].

Amusingly, even post-rework, they don't make great two-weapon fighters, since they rarely have the bonus action free to hit a bad guy with when they need to activate their class features or spells, a problem they share with the [[rogue]]. And this is even though one of their restricted list of Fighting Styles is two-weapon fighting.

Perhaps as an apology for the weak initial class, the first set of new archetypes post-rework (helpfully explaining that both get Extra Attack if using the reworked ranger) are both quite potent. The Horizon Walker is a ranger that battles extraplanar threats to protect the material world, and to that end gains a pile of new spells, free damage-reduction bypass and bonus damage as a bonus action, and the ability to sense portals at level 3. From there, they can become etherial for a turn as a bonus action at level 7, teleport around while attacking at level 11, and get what amounts to Uncanny Dodge with cooler flavor text at level 15, for an archetype that's about on-par with the others.

The other one, the Primeval Guardian, is clearly intended to be the "tanky" ranger, and the adaptation of the [[Warden]] class. It can assume a tree-like form as a bonus action, causing it to increase in size and gain reach and a regenerating supply of temporary hitpoints as a bonus action, staying in it until K.O.'d or he ends it as another bonus action, then gains the ability to also increase its HP total by twice its ranger level once per short rest while doing it at 7th level, turn the area within 30 ft of it into difficult terrain for its enemies, and finally giving the whole party regeneration up to half their HP total equal to half its ranger level while in tree form, effectively telling both the Champion, who gets less regeneration at a ''higher'' level that only affects himself, and the Banneret, that can only give out that kind of healing to a set number of people during a short rest, to eat shit. The one downside is that being in treeform sets his speed to 5 ft., and even this can be worked around with spells or timing. It also gets a pile of spells and an extra d6 piercing damage from magical thorns on one attack per turn at 3rd level, also no action required.

===Fix It, 5e!===
[[Image:Rangerwithowl.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Hoot Hoot, motherfucker.]]
Never let it be said that WotC doesn't know how to listen for the call of potential money. In September 2016, [http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_RevisedRanger.pdf a whole new "Ranger, Revised" Unearthed Arcana] was released. It's a complete revamp from the ground up, basing itself extensively off of a poll about the Ranger's "essential traits" concocted by WotC and with a large prelude explaining that, yes, this will eventually lead to a "Ranger Mk 2" getting a formal release, and no, that won't invalidate the original Ranger if you still want to keep playing it. (what's wrong with you?)

So, what's the different about the Revised Ranger? Well...

Natural Explorer is even more awesome than before, no longer limited to a specific terrain type and incorporating many higher-level benefits, like ignoring difficult terrain, right out of the box, along with all the sweet, sweet flavor it always had.

Favored Enemy now grants a +2 damage bonus at level 1 (scaling to +4 damage bonus and advantage on saving throws vs. their attacks at level 6) plus a free language of your choice, with instructions to try to keep it thematic. But you only get to pick twice, once from the "common" enemy types at 1st level, once from a list of "big game" (Aberrations, Celestials, Constructs, Dragons, Elementals, Fiends or Giants).

Extra Attack is gone, but it's a component of every archetype but the Beast Conclave.

Primeval Awareness has gone from a useless joke of a class feature to an extremely powerful one, allowing the Ranger to sense any of his favored enemies and a great deal of information about them within a five-mile radius by spending a minute meditating - no spell-slot required!

Instead of Land's Stride, which is now baked right into Natural Explorer, you gain Fleet of Foot at eighth level, which lets you Dash as a bonus action.

Hide in Plain Sight works about the same, but no longer requires a full minute to set up.

Foe Slayer is still the capstone, and now works on anyone, rather than just Favored Enemies. Still not great, but better.

The Hunter Conclave is literally identical to the Hunter path, with the only difference being that it gets Extra Attack to make up for the base class ''not'' getting it.

The Stalker Conclave is about the same as the Deep Stalker, though with a few tweaks. Its 3rd level ability allows it to evade darkvision while hiding rather than giving it the bonus hide action early when it got off an ambush, the mechanics of its own bonus darkvision got heavily tweaked, it gains an extra attack like the Hunter, the language on its Flurry got shifted around a bit, and it can Dodge ''after'' seeing whether or not a hit would connect. Otherwise, it is largely exactly the same.

Finally, the reason for like 75% of this whole rework, the Beast Conclave, which ''is'' extensively modified from its base version in a number of different ways. For starters, your animal companion is now set (your choice of ape, black bear, boar, giant badger, giant weasel, mule, panther or wolf) rather than being chosen from "any creature with CR 1/4" like in the corebook. It can be restored to life if slain by a ritual that costs 25GP of materials and which takes 8 hours. Although a companion beast loses its Multiattack ablity (something justified in a sidebar as being to avoid making it outshine the party's fighter or [[barbarian]]), it finally can strike under its own initiative; you can command what it does, but if you can't directly command it, then it'll work things out for itself. It uses your proficiency bonus, is proficient in two skills of your choice gains in hit dice when you gain levels, and increases its own ability scores when you gain a level-based Ability Score Increase. It also adds its proficiency to a number of non-standard things, like AC and damage.

At 5th level, your Coordinated Attack feature means that your companion can use its reaction to make an attack if it sees you use the Attack action during that turn. Likewise, the 7th level feature, Beast's Defense (companion has advantage on all saving throws) doesn't work unless it can see you. No such weakness applies to its 11th and 15th level features; Storm of Claws and Fangs lets it use its Attack action to dish out a melee strike against every creature within 5 feet of it, whilst Superior Beast's Defense lets it spend its reaction to halve damage from an attack it takes.

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Krieg

2018-07-16T13:36:28Z

2A01:CB15:140:9200:3C4A:9B50:840E:414E: Then come to talk page

[[File:Krieg (planet).jpg|right|]]
'''Krieg''' (quite literally German for "war") was once a relatively nice [[Hive World]], a thriving hub of commerce and manufacturing that was home to billions, but that all changed in 433.M40 when the High Autocrat [[Heresy | declared their independence]] from the [[Imperium of Man]]. A global civil war broke out and the heretical separatists swiftly exerted dominance over much of the world and its planetary defense network. The loyalist [[Imperial Guard]] 83rd regiment under the command of Colonel Jurten staged a coup, taking control of Hive Ferrograd, however they were under siege and no outside aid was coming to help them retake the world. Alone and with orders to retaliate and reclaim the world at all costs, the loyalists [[Exterminatus | fired their atomic rockets into the heretic hives]], annihilating them, preventing Krieg from falling to [[Chaos]]. This Purging resulted in the surface of Krieg becoming a [[Grimdark | blasted, uninhabitable]] [[Death World]], trapped in an [[Fallout|eternal nuclear winter]]; only the underground bunkers and deepest depths of its former hive cities were capable of supporting any kind of life.

The Purge wrought two changes in the psyche of the Kriegers: first, they had a debt to discharge, in order to make up for their Autocrat's heresy, and second, they got very used to digging underground and building bunkers and forts. Thus, the [[Death Korps of Krieg]] were born, an army of fatalistic siege-warrior clones. Visually, they are styled after WWI soldiers, with a propensity for trench-digging and hazmat gear. Fierce and callous, the Kriegers vowed to retake their world even if Imperial [[Administratum|pencil pushers]] had already written it off as a loss. The Purge had merely evened the odds. The civil war raged on generation after generation as the loyalist's descendants purged the heretics trench to trench and tunnel by tunnel and after 500 years of warfare Krieg was finally retaken for the Imperium and for [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Big E]].

In 949.M40 Krieg finally rejoined the Imperium with little fanfare. The only ones who really took notice were the [[Departmento Munitorum]], who were annoyed that Krieg had skimped out on its tithe of recruits to the Imperial Guard for the 500 years they had been at war and demanded an entire regiment to make up for it. Krieg sent them twenty regiments, all already equipped and trained, and demanded they be sent to the most dangerous warzones, because war is how Krieg rolls.

==On [[/tg/]]==
For some reason, fa/tg/uys are enamored of the Death Korps of Krieg; there is a minor [[meme]] in which urgent shipments are found to have been replaced with Kriegers, who are ready to take orders and, absent any pressing duties, spend their spare time building earthwork fortifications (even in places where earth is nowhere to be found, like starships), based on an actual stereotype about Germans during their vacation in other countries ([http://i.imgur.com/ybsIci1.png no seriously]). It strays a bit towards nazi [[wet dreams]] given the whole [[/pol/]] thing but you didn't read that here.

Also it needs to be said that in current non-jokey 40k canon there is an in universe romance novel about Kriegers titled "My Wish to Produce Children with you is Exceeded Only by my Love for Him."

==See Also==
[[Love and Krieg]]

{{40k-Planets}}

[[Category:Imperial]]

Krieg

2018-07-16T11:52:48Z

2A01:CB15:140:9200:3C4A:9B50:840E:414E: Is this just to be as close as your username as possible ?

Krieg

2018-07-16T11:31:54Z

2A01:CB15:140:9200:3C4A:9B50:840E:414E: Undo revision 506495 by SaltyMan (talk)go put that HFY elsewhere