Worst dnd classes
We all know minmaxing to get the best most powerful character. But what would be the worst?
This isn't the worst one but we all know standard monks are WAAAAY too underpowered for how fucking cool they are. My table mitigates that a bit by running them with a d10 as hit dice and all martial arts dice scaled up since we don't like to use too much homebrew
Monks got buffed recently due +1 to +3 bracers
multiclass barbarian wizard
Rage fire ball
Monk
It’s monk, monk is mathematically super weak.
Ranger is bad if you don’t know how to build for them
Ranger is bad if you don’t know how to build for them
If we are talking specifically about 5e, the wrost class is and always has been the Rangers. Yes, they have gotten more comparable due to some particularly potent subclasses launched years after the edition came out, but the power level wasn't the main problem.
The main issue with Rangers is that they are still overly focused in ways that make them unsatisfying to play and frustrating to GM. A Ranger has to be good within a certain environment and against certain types of foes. If a Ranger is good at fighting fae monsters in swamps, the campaign will be about fighting undead in a desert. By the time the Ranger gets enough levels to also become good at hunting undead in deserts, everyone else in the game will be sick of undead and deserts, and DM will shift to dragons in a frozen tundra. The solution that groups have resorted to for the GM to revise most or all encounters around the one aranger character -- or more often players just don't touch the Ranger because it's too much trouble. Some groups have gotten so used to these issues that they don't even realize they are working these problems.
Revisions to the class (like the revised Ranger abilities in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) addressed this problem but didn't really fix it. It remains narratively narrow.
The Bloodhunter (an optional core class which has thus far only appeared in Unearthed Arcana) fills many of the same tropes and uses without these problematic first level abilities.
I haven't yet looked at the core abilities of new Ranger for 5.5e.
The main issue with Rangers is that they are still overly focused in ways that make them unsatisfying to play and frustrating to GM. A Ranger has to be good within a certain environment and against certain types of foes. If a Ranger is good at fighting fae monsters in swamps, the campaign will be about fighting undead in a desert. By the time the Ranger gets enough levels to also become good at hunting undead in deserts, everyone else in the game will be sick of undead and deserts, and DM will shift to dragons in a frozen tundra. The solution that groups have resorted to for the GM to revise most or all encounters around the one aranger character -- or more often players just don't touch the Ranger because it's too much trouble. Some groups have gotten so used to these issues that they don't even realize they are working these problems.
Revisions to the class (like the revised Ranger abilities in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) addressed this problem but didn't really fix it. It remains narratively narrow.
The Bloodhunter (an optional core class which has thus far only appeared in Unearthed Arcana) fills many of the same tropes and uses without these problematic first level abilities.
I haven't yet looked at the core abilities of new Ranger for 5.5e.
Ranger
The problem with Ranger is more that it's built for a different game. It specifies and requires settings where survival and travel mechanics are taken into consideration and beast type is important. For the first two, GMs typically handwave survival and travel. It simply isn't fun for most DM or even a party to manage their resources. It could be fun in certain games but in most cases it's ignored. (And if you don't ignore it, Outlander background feature carries non-rangers.) And beast type isn't something often discussed. For a campaign in the Underdark, an aberration hunter could be really fun. But most campaigns are pretty vast so humanoid is often taken instead.
It has an identity crisis, honestly. It mechanically doesn't suit bows or even melee characters. You'd genuinely be better off playing Aragorn as a fighter than a ranger. UA and UA variant are just strange versions of the same underpowered class. Only gloomstalker is worth playing, and it's still worse than fighter.
Monk does suck tho.
It has an identity crisis, honestly. It mechanically doesn't suit bows or even melee characters. You'd genuinely be better off playing Aragorn as a fighter than a ranger. UA and UA variant are just strange versions of the same underpowered class. Only gloomstalker is worth playing, and it's still worse than fighter.
Monk does suck tho.
