D&D 5E 5th edition Ranger: Why does every class have to have it's own schtick?

[TheCosmicKid]

There are rules for crafting. It costs resources of a gold amount.

It doesn't, actually. You can find them on PHB p. 187.

It takes a lot to live alone a true D&D wilderness.

And no true Scotsman salts his porridge.

I think we're done here.

 

[Minigiant]

It doesn't, actually. You can find them on PHB p. 187.

It says you have to expend resources up to half its gold cost. There is no rule to gather resources. Your DM has to make that up.

Otherwise you must buy them

And no true Scotsman salts his porridge.

I think we're done here.

I'm just going based on the creatures list in the DMG ps 302-305. Many of the ones after CR 2 would require being higher level or magic to defeat alone on a regular basis.

I said already if your wilderness lacks then, an outlander of any class could deal with them. But if you bring the full expected weight of the MM's and DMG's wilderness threats to an individual, you'll need magic or a town to resupply from because that's the only ways to get them core.

My group treks back to the nearby city all the time every since they let their druid PC and the hermit NPC shaman/ranger die. And I just roll monsters and place it in the forest and the swamp randomly.

Anytime I roll high, they run back to the city for supplies.

Seems to me that it depends on each individual game. There are scenes in fiction I could see playing out in a similar manner in a D&D game.

An assassin catching their target using the jakes.

Sneaking into a castle through the jakes.

Getting into a walled city through the sewer.

Identifying scat in the wilderness.

Tyrion shooting his father with a crossbow while on the toilet. (Game of Thrones)

Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez) serving a warrant in an outhouse...by shooting him while he's relieving himself. (Young Guns)

Buckshot Roberts (Brian Keith) taking refuge in an outhouse during a gunfight, then taking the opportunity for a Constitutional... (also Young Guns)


As long as it's a potty point plot point, seems to me it could have a major impact.

I said pooping isn't major.
However outhouses, sewers, and toilets are.

 

[Greg K]

When 3e took out the "run away from anything scary" element of low level D&D, they had to give everyone a boost. Mages could choose spells. Fighter got feats. Rogue damage became reliable and usuable multiple times. And paladins and rangers got their magic early..

Lol. We must have different 3e DMGs. In the tailor vs status quo encounter section of my 3e, mine talks about Status Quo encounters in which things are where they are because it makes sense in the world not character level. It even mentions the choice of using just status quo encounters. In the discussion of CR and ECL for encounter design, it mentioned including some encounters from which players must run or die.
So, I would say don't blame 3e, but rather many dms if that was your experience.

 

[Hussar]

Wading in a bit late.

People talk about Robin Hood as a ranger archetype. Fair enough, I can buy that. But, it's not a particularly good archetype for D&D considering that Robin Hood lived in a non-magical world. Robin didn't have anything supernatural because no one in the setting had anything supernatural. He couldn't.

OTOH, if you look at Ranger archetypes in other settings, they generally do get supernatural powers. Tarzan, IMO, is an archetypal ranger - he could talk to and control animals. Mewgli from The Jungle book, could talk to animals and had several strong animal companions. Jack the Giant Killer is the obvious inspiration for the 1e rangers favoured enemies and has several magic items to help him fight. If you look at the inspirations for Rangers, you can see quite clearly how they differ from Druids.

Druids are all about preserving nature and are essentially nature clerics. Rangers aren't particularly concerned with nature, at least from a preservation perspective. They live in the wilds, on the borders and fringes of society, but, aren't there to save the spotted Owlbear. They're just as likely to kill, skin and eat the spotted Owlbear as they are to protect it.

Druids revere nature. Rangers USE nature.

The idea that having a pet is somehow WOW inspired is ridiculous on its face. Rangers have had a long, long history in the game of having animal companions. Heck, even if you don't like Drizz't, he still predates WOW by a couple of decades. Never minding characters like the aforementioned Tarzan or Mowgli.

To be honest, I think that between the Favored Enemy and Beastmaster archetypes, 5e really did nail down what a ranger is. The trick is, the mechanics are a bit... lacklustre. But, I don't think we need to rework the classes too much. Just some tweaks - maybe a bit more combat oomph for Favored Enemy and a bit more fiddling with the Beastmaster. Heck, you could drop the animal companion and make it a summonable Spirit companion, similar to a druids Summon Animals spell. If my 5th level Druid can drop two Summon Animal spells per day, I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't kill Rangers to do something similar. Maybe summon a smaller number of animals more times per day. I dunno. Someone else can figure that out.

A non-magical ranger is just a fighter with a background. That's it. You could easily, easily make Robin Hood with a fighter. There's no need for a class to do that. We have that. Making Tarzan, though, is a bit beyond a fighter. So, we need a class.

 

[Greg K]

Robin didn't have anything supernatural because no one in the setting had anything supernatural. He couldn't.

While not part of the original ballads, magic has been part of the Robin Hood tales going back to at least to the early 17th Century with Jonson's play the Sad Shepard (1641) with a continuation by Waldron. It just was not in the hands of the protagonists, but characters such as an evil witch and Puck-Hairy. The Magic has also been seen in several versions since the 1990's (e.g. HBO's Robin of Sherwood).

But yeah, I would make Robin Hood a fighter with a noble background (for those stories where he was a noble). Then, I would, probably, create a new fighter subclass for him or multi-class him.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

There is no rule to gather resources. Your DM has to make that up.

Otherwise you must buy them

That's patently absurd. Where do you think they come from? Somebody had to gather them. Are you trying to tell me that if your PCs were in a forest, and one of them said, "I chop down a tree to get some lumber", you'd say, "No, you have to go back to town to buy lumber"?

I said already if your wilderness lacks then, an outlander of any class could deal with them.

But I didn't say my wilderness lacks them. You're assuming my wilderness lacks them because your argument depends on it. In fact my party ran into a green dragon at 4th level and escaped with no loss of life. Don't try to tell me they need magic to do that, because I know for certain that that is not true.

I said pooping isn't major.
However outhouses, sewers, and toilets are.

No rules for those either.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

But yeah, I would make Robin Hood a fighter with a noble background (for those stories where he was a noble). Then, I would, probably, create a new fighter subclass for him or multi-class him.

Are you kidding? Rogue. All the way. Robin Hood stories are not about surviving the harsh wilderness or winning fights -- Sherwood comes across as almost ridiculously hospitable and he actually tends to lose fights. They're all about tricking the authorities and stealing stuff.

 

[Azurewraith]

Are you kidding? Rogue. All the way. Robin Hood stories are not about surviving the harsh wilderness or winning fights -- Sherwood comes across as almost ridiculously hospitable and he actually tends to lose fights. They're all about tricking the authorities and stealing stuff.

Have to agree Robin would be a rogue more over a thief.

Anyone else noticed that even after all this conversation not just in this thread but all the others no one can agree on the rangers schtik or what it should be, or what a ranger even is for that matter?

 

[Greg K]

Are you kidding? Rogue. All the way. Robin Hood stories are not about surviving the harsh wilderness or winning fights -- Sherwood comes across as almost ridiculously hospitable and he actually tends to lose fights. They're all about tricking the authorities and stealing stuff.

No, I am not kidding. In many stories Robin was a noble and fought in the Crusades. He returns to find his family land stolen by Prince John. So at the start he is a fighter. Notice that I also said that I would create a subclass or multiclass him ( if I multiclass him it would be as a rogue or I might do a swashbuckler figher subclass). His fighting skill and how much he loses depends on the version you use as your source.
Now, if I go with the versions where is not a noble and never fought in the Crusade, yeah, rogue all the way!

 

[Azurewraith]

I prefer the cunning like a fox robin. I do believe the the most recent robin I saw was the Nobel no magic variant was in 2010 by ridley Scott with Russ crowe