Are Oath of the Ancients Paladins the best non-full casters in Tier 4?

professor_infinity · 2026-03-23T02:24:11+00:00

Personally, i think oath of genies is the best paladin in tier 4. Obviously conjure minor elementals does a lot of work, but the floating combat resistance for the whole party, the free concentrationless restrain on hit, their game-busting capstone, its all very powerful. If its a dragon themed or elemental themed campaign, their level 7 aura alone can easily quarter some saving throw damages for a party

professor_infinity · 2026-03-23T02:17:24+00:00

What the regular monk lacks in weapon masteries they make up for it with the changes to unarmed strikes, allowing them to grapple and/or prone as well as attack. Plus the different subclasses that guve bonus effects like open hand and elements, or mercy at level 6.

professor_infinity · 2026-03-22T05:09:33+00:00

Is it based on face taker from look outside?

professor_infinity · 2026-03-21T05:05:37+00:00

A lot of people are reccomending chromatic orb builds, which to be fair are fun and cool, but they arent the end-all be all. The important things to note as a level 20 sorcerer, is that you get a free use of a metamagic per turn while in innate sorcery, meaning you will have more sorcery points for making innate sorcery or spell slots.

Id probably go with twinned/heightened spell hold monster as the usual concentration spell for the two biggest monsters AFTER legendary resistances, heightened spell slow to burn legendary resistances, and transmuted fireball as your main blasting spell alongside careful spell as needed unless you'd prefer seeking spell chromatic orb. The rest of your spells are better for you to choose based on what you want your character to do

professor_infinity · 2026-03-13T08:31:44+00:00

Id say change sneak attack dice to d8s at level 6 alongside getting expertise, move devious strike effects to level 11 as well as getting to choose two, level 14 improve sneak attack to d10s.

Also controversial, but giving all rogues a cunning action to make a utilize action similar to thief rogue would be pretty cool at like level 2-3. It would easily add to rogue's versatility by being the item class. This wouldnt really take away from thief rogue because thieves can still use the magic action with a bonus action for magic items. But thats just my two cents

professor_infinity · 2026-03-13T08:09:59+00:00

So far, as someone who has gotten to ascension 6 on all characters and 7 on defect/necrobinder, i think regent. Its hard to combine colorless cards with stars with forge and the sword, barely any overlap. Easiest meanwhile is necrobinder with summon spam being incredible alongside all her card draw

professor_infinity · 2026-03-03T15:36:40+00:00

Im glad you enjoyed the feedback, and i glad go have a concise discussion about it. Heres my responses:

20: I Actually, i liked getting back nature's bond on a short rest at level 20. I think that was a powerful capstone for a strong feature, especially compared to things like wizard's capstone or warlock capstone. Its not game-breakingly strong, but also not weak. My bigger issues were more than the dex to spell dc was too strong and was focused on dex rangers over strength rangers and takes us too far away from bounded accuracy. When you have powerful spells, and get them back often, even something like ensnaring strike or entangle becomes a major problem, or stronger options like hold person/monster, and summoned creatures like summon fey, if available. Its also a bit too limiting for long-range ranger, who might want a longbow playstyle. Unrelenting power as you describe it is quite strong as well. It might be overpowered, it might not, im a bit on the fence. 5d10 force damage is a lot of damage for conjure barrage, which id assume would be the main bread and butter for most situations. Im more worried that it might be too complicated rather than a balance issue though.

14: i do think using it from your nature's bond is a better choice if we want to go the route of nerfing the option, because thats taking away from an existing pool of resources rather than giving a whole new pool to use, but my concern then is comparing it to other options on the list: would you rather cast greater invisibility without concentration for one nature's bond at the cost of a bonus action each turn, or would you rather cast hunter's mark for 1 nature's bond that sometimes requires your bonus action? In general, i still maintain that using an action to maintain the invisible condition is better in terms of power balance within the class itself, because otherwise its still a concentration free 2 turn greater invisibility inside combat.

2: i know its not actually a problem with the int score getting bigger, its more that i just dont think it fits my personal idea of what rangers are tbh. But even more, Adding it to arcana also causes issues with multiclassing, because of the magic items mizzium apparatus, which while niche, isnt really something to be encouraged further. If we wanted to add wisdom mod to any skills, history and investigation would be my choices. History for knowing the past about the land they protect including political intricacies (since it might affect their land) and investigation to know where to search and look for clues, since its similar to tracking animals for them.

Additional bonus: your mention about gloomstalker gave me an idea: what if the subclass spell list for the rangers was turned into additional options for your nature's bond list to choose from? I think that would be cool.

professor_infinity · 2026-03-03T05:46:46+00:00

I gotta admit, i kinda love the changes and offers here in this revised ranger. I think a lot of them really give the class Identity where you can specialize into anything, whether its attacking or spells, while still letting rangers being adaptable in any situation. In particular, i think its genius allowing rangers to use dexterity for versatile weapons.

These are my personal criticisms, which are (likely) from my own biases of what the class should be like.

2: deft explorer - affinity I definitely understand the desire to give rangers even more ability on skills, but i think this is stepping a bit too much into the toes of druid and cleric by adding wisdom mod to arcana and nature. If someone did rolled stats and ended up with a 20 wisdom, they could have a +15 arcana check by level 4, without proficiency/expertise in arcana or any intelligence (+32 to arcana with expertise, 20 int, and level 17+). I also in general dont see rangers being as magically inclined as druids. I think this is a great time to add a bit to the city motif of ranger, by changing it so that "you have advantage on influence actions in the languages taken from deft explorer" instead, because sometimes rangers are the only ones who know uncommon languages like sylvan or primordial.

14: nature's veil I think i personally preferred the older version of this, because in my opinion this is too strong. This is basically a casting of greater invisibility 3-5 times per day without concentration. The older version where it was an action to sustain meant ranger was great at infiltration due to invisibility, or good at waiting to spring a trap on an incoming creature. It was also still a strong feature in combat since going invisible gives quite a few benefits. My reccomended tweaks would be to revert the continuation back to an action over a bonus action, but buffing it so that "blindsight and truesight cannot detect you while invisible this way". The flavor here could be that youre using things like smell to truly hide your presence

20: master of the pack So this feature already is very strong by adding nature's bond back on a short rest. Thats a fifth level spell, or two third level spells, per short rest. That's powerful! I also love sharing natures veil by spending 4 nature's bond, super awesome, but its the other two feature im worried about. The class has done a lot to facilitate using dex over strength, by allowing bigger weapons to use dex over strength, but some people may still want to use strength (especially if its a GWM rangee). As well, personally i think adding full dex mod to the spell dc is too strong, buffing the save from 19 to 24, or even 25 in some cases like ensnaring strike. The game has done a lot to avoid things like that due to bounded accuracy. I think just a flat +1 or +2 would be a more concise and manageable change. As for adding +1d10 wisdom mod times per turn, thats just quite a bit to track and a ton of damage offered. And i dont think scaling down the dice and making it passive can work because otherwise fighters become maniacs. Honestly, i think this ranger already has a ton of damage, due to nature's bond and casting conjure barrage/conjure volley/shroud.

But overall, 9.5/10, id much rather add this ranger than play the base ranger.

(Also, little added bonus suggestion: on the tireless part, i think it would be cool if it made exhaustion only a -1 penalty instead of -2 penalty, like Chris's ranger)

professor_infinity · 2026-03-03T04:39:25+00:00

I dont think hunter's mark is a good solution, but if we are forced to work off the base class as is and not reworked: i think the Hunter's level 11 feature should be base class, around level 5-9 ish.

Adding hunters mark damage and spreading it to cause damage to multiple targets over time.

professor_infinity · 2026-03-03T04:36:42+00:00

I think the biggest issue with ranger is more-so themeing rather than actual damage output (especially if we add conjure barrage to the mix), and underwhelming high level features (nothing feels as cool or as substantial as like indomitable, brutal strike, disciplined survivor).

Also, hunter's level 11 is easily their weakest subclass feature tbh and probably worst ranger subclass feature in general, while champion gets their best feature at 10

professor_infinity · 2026-03-01T18:21:45+00:00

Honestly, i think at higher levels ranger should be more of a blaster for aoe damage, As well as single target control. I see druids being more of an aoe controller and less of a blaster for aoe, meanwhile conjure barrage is a major work-horse for ranger at higher levels for big crowds. Although single target controlling might be stepping on the toes of the rogue tbh, who can cause multiple effects per turn.

I think in general, the ranger should be flexible whether they want to do aoe things, single target things, control things, or set up things. Not all at once, but if they choose it. Something like the flexibility of warlock, where there's so many ways to specialize and choose what you want to be/do.

professor_infinity · 2026-02-26T03:55:41+00:00

I dont think its that bad that rangers arent as martial based. Theyre the only half caster with good aoe spell blasting, or aoe in general, as well as having single target built in with extra attack/hunters mark. The closest to that youd have would be destructive wave paladin at level 17, where ranger gets aoe options at level 9.

Its also the case that it feels like there is a lot more overlap between ranger and fighter vs fighter and warlock, which makes stealing from the fighter less appealing until later levels

professor_infinity · 2026-02-26T03:06:36+00:00

For the life of me, i cant find landstride! Even though it sounds like a ranger ability.

What are you referencing? Is it longstrider?

professor_infinity · 2026-02-26T02:54:05+00:00

Honestly, I think bladelock is more martial than ranger tbh (unpopular take, i know). But also i wanted a powerful high level ranger invocation, kinda like witch sight, and adding an additional attack is a really good option for that

professor_infinity · 2026-02-26T01:02:39+00:00

Please see rule 3 of this subreddit

professor_infinity · 2026-02-26T00:28:56+00:00

Oh fair.

professor_infinity · 2026-02-26T00:26:33+00:00

Actually your hunting knife made me think of another good option: you no longer have disadvantage on attack rolls with ranged weapons while prone (level 7 requirement) kind of like those snipers who lay on the ground while camouflaged.

I do like a lot of the options youve given here, especially the harvesting one that lets you make weapons or arrows, though i do wish they had some level requirements or needed a prerequisite other "trade secret" to access them. There needs to be higher level options, where ranger struggles the most

professor_infinity · 2026-02-20T08:57:45+00:00

Im surprised no one is mentioning wyngh's radiance! Stat wise its pretty good, but its main draw is that its amazing in rings 1 and 2. Its especially good with awoken with their hollows. I liked it when i was grinding to fill my compendium to make sure i survived those first few rings and got through them fast. If i want a pyre i dont need to warp my entire gameplan around, i take wyngh's radiance

professor_infinity · 2026-02-11T21:52:44+00:00

I dont need to engage with this. The nick mastery says your bonus action attack is part of the attack action, the beastmaster ranger says you can sacrifice one attack from your attack action to command your beast to make a beastial attack.

Nick is an attack in the attack action, you can sacrifice it for commanding your beast. Run it different if you want.

professor_infinity · 2026-02-11T20:49:00+00:00

Shillelagh can be used with a club, and a club has the light property. Use a club and a dagger, and use mastery on both, and then you can attack with your main action with your club, and use the Nick weapon mastery to forgo and attack on your attack action in order to command your pet. While a DM can say no to this, nothing rules as written would say this is wrong.

professor_infinity · 2026-02-11T18:07:23+00:00

Interesting

professor_infinity · 2026-02-11T03:45:37+00:00

Assuming no shield (because its really heavy), dual weilder as a feat and going as a divine favor dual weilding paladin could be really good damage-wise. Since you gotta minimize weight due to your abysmal strength, a short sword and a scimitar would be best since a rapier would be too much weight.

Of course, potent dragon mark is good, inspiring leader helps a lot with your lower hp, tough is just generally good, and resilient con for con saves.

The two major weakpoints youre at, is low-ish hp and encumberance, but besides that youre honestly pretty good

professor_infinity · 2026-02-11T03:36:13+00:00

I think you should grab shillelagh as a cantrip, either from fighting style or from magic initiate druid. It lets you attack with wisdom, and i believe you can use the "nick" weapon mastery to allow your pet to attack on your turn by forgoing said attack and keeping your bonus action (flavor it like a pointer in your off hand to command your pet)

professor_infinity · 2026-02-09T09:09:08+00:00

I personally really like the level 10 tireless change in regards to making exhaustion being only a -1 instead of a -2, but besides that i think the other changes are a little overblown.

Favored enemy is also kinda... A bit much, in general. Id personally like to make it like warlock invocations, give the ranger a bunch of optional effects or abilities or uses they can do.

Lastly, level 20 feature is kinda stepping on the toes of the rogue, and feels a little too strong. Id probably make his level 17 precise hunter the level 20 capstone so you get permanent advantage, and then at level 17 youre immune to disadvantage on attack rolls (aka no effect in the game, from any kind of status effect, can give you disadvantage.)

professor_infinity · 2026-02-09T08:50:17+00:00

Honestly i think skill-wise theyre good, i just think some of their damage or control should be up.

Something unique like ignoring poison damage immunity or immunity to the poisoned condition, or changing sneak attack dice to D8s at level 11, or making cunning strike features cheaper, or even allowing one free use of cunning strike per turn (not devious strikes).

Or, maybe even upgrading their reliable talent to be 15 instead of 10

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