D&D 5E 70% standard and the Ranger options

[Dausuul]

A lot of those problems are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many of them are variations on a theme. Suppose the beastmaster gets stripped of spells and instead given a pet which can act freely without costing the ranger's action: That makes the "spell-less ranger," "stronger beastmaster," "pet action economy," and "more DPS" people happy, all at once.

I'm fairly sure that the number of people who will insist on a Revised Ranger that solves their problems, and only their problems, and only in the way that they identified, is way less than 30%.

 

[Leatherhead]

Which preview did they drop the 70% number in? I can never find it despite everyone quoting it.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

That's because the Ranger isn't "a woodsman". He's the ultimate resourceful survivor. A ranger knows spells not because he needs them to do "his job" or because he worships nature/a nature god. He gets spells because anyone in a D&D setting who wanted to always have "one more contingency" would definitely learn a few bits of mystic lore.

Magic exists in the DC Universe, but Batman doesn't cast spells.

 

[Parmandur]

Which preview did they drop the 70% number in? I can never find it despite everyone quoting it.

I believe Mearls either tweeted that and/or stated it at a Con recently.

 

[Mercule]

Magic exists in the DC Universe, but Batman doesn't cast spells.

But, he makes extremely heavy use of advance tech. Some corollary of Clark's Law may apply.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

But, he makes extremely heavy use of advance tech. Some corollary of Clark's Law may apply.

So maybe the ranger should get artificer stuff instead of magic?

 

[jodyjohnson]

Which preview did they drop the 70% number in? I can never find it despite everyone quoting it.

Sorry I remembered the medium but the wrong video. Jeremy eludes to it during the D&D Beyond videos but Mike says it three time in a Nerdarchy video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld6bS3ptYws

Oct 19, 2017.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Favored terrain and favored enemy should be removed and something general put in in their place.

No class suffers from "DMs charity" as a ranger.

Funny thing is, Scout rogue is everything a ranger needs/wants to be...

Well I see the ranger as intrinsically a mystical wilderness warrior...so the scout really doesn't fit that bill. That said, I don't mind the scout subclass inclusion. Nothing wrong with a wilderness rogue.

If it was 90+%, nothing would have ever been published. You'd have a hard time getting 90+% of a large group to agree that the sun comes up in the east, much less that a D&D should have Vancian spellcasting and an alignment system and dragonborn.

Based on what they said about the playtest surveys, it apparently worked fine for the PHB.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Well I see the ranger as intrinsically a mystical wilderness warrior...so the scout really doesn't fit that bill. That said, I don't mind the scout subclass inclusion. Nothing wrong with a wilderness rogue.

What exactly makes mysticism intrinsic to the ranger? Because it can't be the original ranger of Tolkien's fiction in all his non-mystical glory. It can't be all the other popular non-mystical wilderness warrior characters, often described as "rangers", in fantasy and adventure media. It can't be the distinctly non-mystical ranger characters in flagship D&D adaptations. It can't be the non-mystical-til-8th rangers of 1E or 2E, the non-mystical-til-4th rangers of 3E, or the non-mystical-period rangers of 4E. It can't even be the three non-mystical character blurbs 5E uses as introduction to the class. (Seriously, they wrote the rogue and fighter intros more magical than the ranger's. Check it out.)

There is nothing wrong with writing a ranger class that can actually encompass all the, y'know, rangers. Much healthier than insisting on an "intrinsic" definition that somehow encompasses almost none of them.

Based on what they said about the playtest surveys, it apparently worked fine for the PHB.

Source? My current hypothesis is that you are misremembering something they said, and hypothesis B is that WotC fudged the numbers. 90% is not a believable figure, here any more than in a third-world election result.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

What exactly makes mysticism intrinsic to the ranger? Because it can't be the original ranger of Tolkien's fiction in all his non-mystical glory. It can't be all the other popular non-mystical wilderness warrior characters, often described as "rangers", in fantasy and adventure media. It can't be the distinctly non-mystical ranger characters in flagship D&D adaptations. It can't be the non-mystical-til-8th rangers of 1E or 2E, the non-mystical-til-4th rangers of 3E, or the non-mystical-period rangers of 4E. It can't even be the three non-mystical character blurbs 5E uses as introduction to the class. (Seriously, they wrote the rogue and fighter intros more magical than the ranger's. Check it out.)

No spells until 8th level in 1e was similar to the paladin. Same through 2e and 3e (where that level got progressively lower). They’ve always been in that same category of magically touched warriors. (I didn’t agree with 4e’s intentional departure from that tradition.) Spell casting at any point in a base class progression chart is saying it’s an essential part of the class for me. You never had the choice to not pick up spellcasting at the appropriate level. In Basic, 1st level clerics didn’t even cast spells. I recognize that 8th level and 2nd level are not the same thing, but I do think it expresses the same concept. Classes don’t always hand out all of the defining traits at 1st level.

And I’m assuming that the reason they have always traditionally been mystical is because Aragorn did weird stuff that seemed magical, and he was essentially the sole inspiration for the class.

Source? My current hypothesis is that you are misremembering something they said, and hypothesis B is that WotC fudged the numbers. 90% is not a believable figure, here any more than in a third-world election result.

What I remember was when they were discussing feedback results and saying if more than 5%-10% of people answered “Dissatisfied” or “Very Dissatisfied” on a game element they considered that an area they needed to work more on. I also recall them saying that they aimed to reach that 90%-95% approval rating (I don’t recall the exact number, but it was at least 90%). I’m sure there is room for interpretation to some degree, but I don’t remember it seeming unclear at the time.