Revised Ranger update

[Gadget]

Well, I can't say I'm surprised. The demographics do seem to have changed a bit over the past couple of years, and WOTC is extremely reluctant to change, revise or errata any of the PHB material in an effort to keep it 'evergreen.'

I've never cared for the Beastmaster, as I don't generally like "pet" classes, but I've thought the Hunter could use a couple of tweaks. Like make their spellcasting follow the paladin model: they know all their spells and just get to choose how to fill out the slots. Hunter's Mark feels like a class ability masquerading as a spell. At least give them the ability to ignore concentration checks on the spell or something along those lines. Unlike many others, I heartily approve of reducing "favored enemy" to a ribbon ability; that was an intentional design decision to get away from the mother-may-I feel of many abilities (though the whole 'favored terrain' feature does seem to double down on this). The more generally applicable Colossus Slayer, Hoard Breaker, and Giant Killer are the real replacements for the favored enemy of yesteryear.

 

[Valetudo]

Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but it seems to infer that older players and grognards are the biggest optimizers, and the biggest complainers of the ranger when it came out. I like to see your evidence of that, because it seems completely wrong to me.

In fact, if I had to pick one, I’d say optimizers really came into play in 3e because the system was designed to cater to that playstyle. That’s the first edition when there was a focus on builds and was the first edition that brought a lot more customization to the classes, and was almost assumed every PC would be multiclassed with things like prestige classes.

Needless to say, I also disagree with your later assertion that new players like story more than older players. I’d like to see some evidence for that as well. IME, the number of players who liked story, mechanics, or other aspects have been pretty much the same throughout the years.

while I do agree with you that 3rd is where powergaming hit its stride, you cant really call 3rd edition players new or young anymore for the most part. They are more of gronards in some ways than adnd players.

 

[lkj]

I think, perhaps relevant to this conversation, is that it's NOT that they are already certain that everyone is satisfied with the ranger and that they shouldn't offer adjustments. Rather, I think it's these factors:

1) The idea of having an alternate version of the Ranger has high potential to cause confusion among casual players, particularly if the alternative is strictly more effective. This became abundantly clear after they released that UA. (I think Crawford expresses that frustration in a tweet where he says something to the effect that he's glad to see idea of a completely alternate version of the class die.) Therefore, before making any changes to a core class, they decided they needed to tread carefully. Do it in a way to minimize confusion. That's where the idea of alternate 'swappable' class features comes from. And once you've decided to do that for the ranger, why not consider it for other classes?

2) And since we're treading carefully, is the ranger so bad off that it really needs a fix? (I mean that as a real question, not a statement that it doesn't). Despite early feedback, plenty of people are playing the ranger. So it's probably not terrible. On top of that, we have a lot of new players since we first got our feedback. Also, we released Xanathar's with additional subclasses. So, maybe some of these issues have already been addressed by Xanathar's. And maybe the player base as a whole doesn't really see the problem.

So, given those things, what's the logical next step? It's to gather more ( and more up to date) data. Hence, they do a survey in the fall. They combine that with info from various other sources. Then they decide what to do. If anything.

To some extent I'm speculating. But it's informed speculation, as I'm only slightly extrapolating what the designers have said already.

AD

 

[Sacrosanct]

Grognards are people who play older versions of games despite newer versions being available. Fans of 3e and4e would be “grognards” now...



Critical Role is massive. It’s had live viewing numbers in the six digits, and has even earned billboards. Their studio is lit by $30,000 lights. When the second campaign strarted, it caused a spike in people playing tieflings on DnDBeyond. Their campaign setting book is outselling some D&D books on Amazon.
And that’s just the one show. There’s Dice Camera Action, Maze Arcana, Force Grey, and sooooo many more.
Streaming is HUGE.

WotC isn’t working with streamers for fun.


We had fantasy movies in the 2000. You might have heard of them. Lord of the Rings. Won a few Oscars, made a few careers.
And yet that didn’t lead to a spike in D&D.


There’s a massive difference in knowing someone who plays D&D and being able to google a video at any time . The hardest part of D&D has been explaining how the game works, and streamed games are amazing examples of actual play. You don’t need to find a friend to watch them play or hunt down a group to teach you this game you’ve heard about in passing or just seen on store shelves.

Also, the campaigns are different. Vastly. Watching a DM at home is a very different experienced. More cross table chatter and side conversations, and time spent taking recent films or about your day. A streamed show is two to four hours with much of that entirely in-character. Maybe a single short combat

Which is my point. A whole new generation of gamers is being introduced and they view D&D primarily through the lense or long strengthens or role playing and talking in character rather than building a complex character for multiple battles or methodically working through a trap and puzzle filled funhouse dungeon.

I'm not saying that twitch isn't big. But you have yet to show any convincing argument that players today care more about story. Watching a livestream, or ease of access to that information, doesn't prove it unless you can show that watching a D&D session in person is LESS about story, and good luck with that. Bringing up crosstalk in no way means that gamers cared more about the mechanics of the game than story.

And yes, I'm aware of fantasy movies in the 2000s. I didn't say there weren't. But in the early 80s, there was a huge resurgence in the number of fantasy movies/media that came out. It was all over the place. And for every reference to Amazon you make, I can come back and say that D&D books and boxed sets were in every mainstream store, like Krogers/Fred Meyer, and Toys 'r us. There was a saturday morning cartoon.

So yes, streaming has helped grow the game, but there is no evidence that because of streaming, new gamers care more about story than older gamers did. You're just guessing.

 

[SkidAce]

Grognards are people who play older versions of games despite newer versions being available. Fans of 3e and4e would be “grognards” now...

Where did that definition come from?

 

[Sacrosanct]

I swear, this conversation feels like a guy is saying, "I'm totally old school, because when I wanted to make a call, I had to flip my phone open first." And everyone else is rolling their eyes because we had to actually go into the kitchen and spin the dial to each # we wanted in the phone #. And stay in the kitchen for the whole conversation.

 

[SkidAce]

In the preamble to the Revised Ranger, they write: "in the past year, you've seen us try a number of new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at addressing the class's high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D's weakest class by a significant margin."

It seems weird to me that these two things (high levels of player dissatisfaction and ranking as weakest class) are apparently no longer of any concern...oh, well. It makes me wonder if they'll be of concern in future products as well, though.

After seeing Crawford's tweet, I had gone back and noticed that also.

Thought about bringing it up, but its not that important an issue to me.

 

[Jester David]

Where did that definition come from?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grognard
https://www.definitions.net/definition/grognard
http://www.yourdictionary.com/grognard
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grognard

 

[SkidAce]

I swear, this conversation feels like a guy is saying, "I'm totally old school, because when I wanted to make a call, I had to flip my phone open first." And everyone else is rolling their eyes because we had to actually go into the kitchen and spin the dial to each # we wanted in the phone #. And stay in the kitchen for the whole conversation.

Well to be honest, if I wanted to use the phone I had to wait until the neighbor got off the party line.....


hehe...

 

[Satyrn]

I swear, this conversation feels like a guy is saying, "I'm totally old school, because when I wanted to make a call, I had to flip my phone open first." And everyone else is rolling their eyes because we had to actually go into the kitchen and spin the dial to each # we wanted in the phone #. And stay in the kitchen for the whole conversation.

Ooh. I'm a grognard when it comes to phones.

Phonegnard?