Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Mike Mearls Discusses Possible Alternate Class Features for the Ranger on Happy Fun Hour 11/20
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7526254" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>I won't comment much on the mechanics of these alternate class features because they are still WIP.</p><p></p><p>But I am definitely on board with the whole idea of alternate class features (for <em>all classes</em>). It's a fantastic idea because:</p><p></p><p>- they introduce more freedom and flexibility in character design without necessarily adding whole new subclasses (which need their own strong enough identities, and more design work than just a single alternate feature)</p><p></p><p>- they do not invalidate existing characters, make PHBs obsolete or cause a split in the gaming community like a class revision or version 2.0 would do</p><p></p><p>- they can help people fix their pet peeve about a class, such as those who always wanted a spell-less Ranger, without affecting everyone else who was fine with it</p><p></p><p>However, IMHO the WotC designers should really try as much as possible to identify the SMALLEST number of frequent complaint for each class, and then distribute their alternate class features design effort on all classes, so that the general feeling will be to give everyone 1-2 variants, instead of making it feel like there is one or two "wrong" classes in the game.</p><p></p><p>Starting with an alternate feature to replace the Ranger's spellcasting might be the hardest, but at least it's going to cater to many people, so IMO it's a brave choice. And I must say that I really like the sample "exploits" presented here, because they don't look like copycats of Fighter's Maneuvers, in fact they look more like abilities coming from a Ranger's experience in rough situations, rather than techniques learned by practicing. This is really good, because it helps differentiate and strengthen the identity of the two classes, Fighter = professionally trained at combat techniques VS Ranger = driven by first-person life experience.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There is always someone dissatisfied by "favoured-based" abilities. If you make them better, you have to make them <em>narrower</em> to avoid them being too good, and then people starts whining "but my DM is not throwing enough undead at me".</p><p></p><p>The 5e designers did a great job when they decided to actually dilute the concept of "favored" and turned it into the <strong>Hunter</strong> abilities such as Colossus Slayer and Horde Breaker. If they made a (small) mistake, is that they still put the "favored" label on other stuff which is minor, almost ribbon abilities, and so people are still looking at Favored Enemy instead of looking at the Hunter subclass as the one which is specialized against specific <em>types</em> of enemies.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree on everything, except perhaps that I am not even convinced that the Ranger is among the 4-5 least played classes. I don't remember the statistics, but it could be more popular than that. The truth is that the class has a very cool identity and is <em>powerful</em> already. Most whining is on the action economy of the Beastmaster's companion, which a lot of people would like to be broken because their true desire is to play one-character-and-a-half rather than one.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 7526254, member: 1465"] I won't comment much on the mechanics of these alternate class features because they are still WIP. But I am definitely on board with the whole idea of alternate class features (for [I]all classes[/I]). It's a fantastic idea because: - they introduce more freedom and flexibility in character design without necessarily adding whole new subclasses (which need their own strong enough identities, and more design work than just a single alternate feature) - they do not invalidate existing characters, make PHBs obsolete or cause a split in the gaming community like a class revision or version 2.0 would do - they can help people fix their pet peeve about a class, such as those who always wanted a spell-less Ranger, without affecting everyone else who was fine with it However, IMHO the WotC designers should really try as much as possible to identify the SMALLEST number of frequent complaint for each class, and then distribute their alternate class features design effort on all classes, so that the general feeling will be to give everyone 1-2 variants, instead of making it feel like there is one or two "wrong" classes in the game. Starting with an alternate feature to replace the Ranger's spellcasting might be the hardest, but at least it's going to cater to many people, so IMO it's a brave choice. And I must say that I really like the sample "exploits" presented here, because they don't look like copycats of Fighter's Maneuvers, in fact they look more like abilities coming from a Ranger's experience in rough situations, rather than techniques learned by practicing. This is really good, because it helps differentiate and strengthen the identity of the two classes, Fighter = professionally trained at combat techniques VS Ranger = driven by first-person life experience. There is always someone dissatisfied by "favoured-based" abilities. If you make them better, you have to make them [I]narrower[/I] to avoid them being too good, and then people starts whining "but my DM is not throwing enough undead at me". The 5e designers did a great job when they decided to actually dilute the concept of "favored" and turned it into the [B]Hunter[/B] abilities such as Colossus Slayer and Horde Breaker. If they made a (small) mistake, is that they still put the "favored" label on other stuff which is minor, almost ribbon abilities, and so people are still looking at Favored Enemy instead of looking at the Hunter subclass as the one which is specialized against specific [I]types[/I] of enemies. I agree on everything, except perhaps that I am not even convinced that the Ranger is among the 4-5 least played classes. I don't remember the statistics, but it could be more popular than that. The truth is that the class has a very cool identity and is [I]powerful[/I] already. Most whining is on the action economy of the Beastmaster's companion, which a lot of people would like to be broken because their true desire is to play one-character-and-a-half rather than one. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Mike Mearls Discusses Possible Alternate Class Features for the Ranger on Happy Fun Hour 11/20
Top