Editing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (section)

====The Troubled Development of the Ranger====
The "Designing Class Variants" UA article on the WotC website includes a "Magic-free Ranger" alternate class, for those who want a more Martial Ranger. It gets Combat Superiority (access to Fighter maneuvers), the ability to create Poultices (healing potions that also cure poison once you hit the proper level), venom resistance, the ability to summon animals from your surroundings 1/day, and an inability to run out of superiority dice. Beastmasters built from this variant get to halve damage their companion takes instead of sharing spells since, y'know, no spells to share.

The September 2015 UA article on WotC was dedicated to a revised low-level (1-5) Ranger class, based apparently on WoTC noting a lot of players were giving them the feedback that the Ranger was kind of weak and unsatisfying to play, with many class features feeling restrictive or difficult. This version of the Ranger gets Ambuscade (you get a special extra turn to Attack or Hide when you roll initiative) and Natural Explorer at level 1, Skirmisher's Stealth (a Ranger can choose one target to stay hidden from, no matter what else they do, during a turn, if they start that turn in hiding, and they can make a fresh Hide check at the end of their turn) at level 2, and a new mystical "Paladin of the woods" branching class feature at level 3. These Rangers can pick between the Guardian (dish out temporary hit points as a bonus action), Seeker (force a target to confer advantage) or Stalker (buff yourself or an ally to do extra damage with melee attacks). It also retains the Fighting Style, Natural Explorer, Primeval Awareness, Ability Score Improvement and Extra Attack class features from the vanilla [[Ranger]]. However, it has ''no'' spellcasting of any kind.

In September 2016, WotC published an Unearthed Arcana called "The Ranger, Revised", officially admitting that they were aware that people didn't like the Ranger and they were using playtesters to try and find a more agreeable format that they would <s>eventually print and publish in an official book, although they emphasized that this wouldn't invalidate the original ranger</s>. It has the same three subclasses as the original ranger, including the Deep Stalker, as "Ranger Conclaves," though only the beastmaster has been hugely remade. Notably, extra attack was excised from the class proper and given to every archetype ''but'' the beastmaster, favored enemy now comes with a baked-in damage bonus but only offers ''two'' choices in the class's entire lifespan, and Natural Explorer now works in any terrain. Some of their derpier abilities have had their cost reduced or been generally-reworked to be more useful.

In July 2018, Jeremy Crawford announced via Twitter (and would later make the same statements on Youtube in videos that have since had their comments turned off) that the Ranger would not get a revision, simply stating that if you have a problem with the class that the players and DM should "add class levels to the animal companion as found in rules in the DMG" or to play a different class.

Unsurprisingly, the November 2019 "Class Feature Variants" Unearthed Arcana article gave Rangers more extra options than any other class and significantly boosted their viability.  They got more spells and a better version of Natural Explorer (giving one of three major benefits), Favored Enemy (Essentially casting Hunter's Mark but not without using spellslots), and Primeval Awareness.  The Beastmaster also got some elemental companions that scale with level better. "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" keeps the Natural Explorer replacement, though it is now in a static progression path with no choice in the matter. The Favored Enemy replacement essentially remains as-is, though the damage it deals starts off weaker before improving in exchange for any non-combat uses. The Primeval Awareness and Hide in Plain Sight replacements are the only ones that actually remained the same. Sadly though, these ultimately only make the Ranger ''better'' rather than ''good''.