D&D General What is the Ranger to you?

[doctorbadwolf]

The PH ranger was archer or TWF. The Marauder & (e)Scout were TWF, the Hunter and, well, (e)Hunter were Archers. That leaves the Beastmaster, which is fine for, well, Beastmaster(Dar?), but not so great for Conan.I can't pretend I ever took a deep dive into the Ranger class, it was a striker, the role doesn't much interest me.
I do recall a /few/ single-attack powers, but that'd be really limiting your selections.
And, for what? Some woodsiness? Slightly higher DPR than the Fighter?

Skills, being a fast moving skirmisher with some meat. Survival is the main thing that sets Conan apart from a soldier early on. But while it’s been a while, I’m absolutely sure rangers don’t have to be dual wielders to be melee, at all.

I take all kinds of exception to that. The 3.x fighter design was downright elegant - can't say that about any other D&D class design. Extremely customizeable, and 3.5 fighter-bonus feats weren't bad - not whacktastic crazy-broken like everything having anything to do with Tier 1 casters, but /good/.

IMO for that kind of design to be elegant, the actual bits you’re choosing have to be elegant. Feats aren’t in any edition, 3.5 least of all.

Whats more, the Fighter is built for a whole different game than the rest of the classes. IME, people dipped Fighter for extra feats because the feat system was so full of garbage feat tax chains to get to cool stuff.

More than one class, was the point. You can't wring much versatility from a class system unless you start mixing classes.

3.x Conan, Barbarian for initial concept, Fighter to snag Great Cleave early, Scout or Rogue (and/or those first 3 levels of non-casting Ranger) for skills through his time with Red Sonja, back to fighter, or likely a PrC, in Aquilonia.

I got your point, I just disagree for any edition other than 3.5.

In 5e, a tough intimidating rogue subclass would do the trick. In 4e, at most you’d want some extra powers for the ranger. Eventually a warlord MC feat, and in 5e you might want the Skilled Feat. Tough/ness feat, for extra meat.

Either way, no Barbarian or Fighter class required.

 

[Garthanos]

Sounds like a class that is versatile and gets decent skills. So, almost anything but fighter.

Before explicit skills it was ironically the most skilled character but the thief stole that

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Before explicit skills it was ironically the most skilled character but the thief stole that

You know, that kinda speaks to my issue with the fighter. When he was the “fighting man”, he was literally “everything that isn’t a mage or an elf”, or whatever.

thats fine for such an incredibly basic game, I guess, but I don’t think that the Fighter needs to exist just because it has existed.

IMO, the only reason the Fighter is worth keeping is to have that simple on ramp.

 

[Garthanos]

You know, that kinda speaks to my issue with the fighter. When he was the “fighting man”, he was literally “everything that isn’t a mage or an elf”, or whatever.
.

I liked the class descriptions in 2e the Warrior was a Parent Classification, and its children were if i recall Ranger,Paladin,Fighter (Warrior Lord) The description very much included the Warlord archetype. mentioning both Strategy and Tactics along with the Weapon Mastery

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I liked the class descriptions in 2e the Warrior was a Parent Classification, and its children were if i recall Ranger,Paladin,Fighter (Warrior Lord) The description very much included the Warlord archetype. mentioning both Strategy and Tactics along with the Weapon Mastery

See, if they’d made the Fighter a level 1 Archetype class in 5e, I’d be more behind the class. Because then I wouldn’t be playing a “fighter”, whatever the hell that even is. I’d be playing an Eldritch Knight (name explains the concept, and the rules follow through), or a Champion (lame name, but works as a fundamentals-focused soldier, and honestly the game benefits from this simple on ramp that has no identity to get in the way. It just shouldn’t take up as much space as the Fighter does), or a Battle Master (defined by what they can do, a fighting style in a broader sense than the Fighting Style), or a Cavalier, Samurai, Arcane Archer, or whatever comes out in future.

 

[CapnZapp]

(OK, also to be fair, "Tank" and Defender are not the same thing. Defender is more active with mechanical support, Tank just connotes toughness, which the Slayer had in ample degree.)

Tank definitely includes active abilities to ensure all that toughness actually sees use.

Simplest example: aggro management in WoW. Those monsters didn't keep hammering the Warrior because they wanted to, but because the Warrior used its abilities judiciously and forced them to.

 

[CapnZapp]

Also, as an aside, the idea that a class can be identified by "being the best at straight up combat" is so completely unteneble to me that it boggles me that the Fighter continues to exist. That isn't a concept, on any level or axis.

In a game where combat is just one out of many secondary activities, sure, I can see that, no problem.

The only problem is when someone is talking about D&D where it is utterly obvious the realism in "trained fighters are better than fighting than anyone else" completely falls flat.

Since combat is the main activity, by far.

Since many years, every class in D&D is designed to be good at combat, and they all have a specific niche of combat they excel at. Sadly, there are exceptions.

But as long as you speak in the context of D&D then yes, I agree: the notion that the Fighter should get all the good combat stuff may be realistic in real life, but is utterly untenable in D&D.

 

[CapnZapp]

thats fine for such an incredibly basic game, I guess, but I don’t think that the Fighter needs to exist just because it has existed.

IMO, the only reason the Fighter is worth keeping is to have that simple on ramp.

That ship sailed a long time ago. Fighter will be in every edition always. As the most undiluted Hero class with the fewest distractions, it will always be popular.

 

[CapnZapp]

Returning to the thread topic, all WotC needs to do is pick one or two Ranger concepts, and develop those into actual good and desirable abilities. The rest should be dropped; or at least not stand in the way of the main abilities. So far, being given half-arsed capacity in five different areas only make the result a compromised design.

Make it good and the players will come. Then we can leave the endless discussions about "Rangers should do N. No, Rangers are defined by M!" to obscurity...

It *does not* matter whether Rangers do spells, or companions, or two blades, or archery, or whatever... Just as long as it does it *better than anyone else*.

Each class needs to take an aspect of combat and be the go-to guy when you want to do that better than any other party member.

This is why we're discussing the weakness or failure of the Ranger class: it gets a lot of doodads, but it amounts to very little in DPS excellence, all the while struggling to not have it's various subsystems trip over each other.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But as long as you speak in the context of D&D then yes, I agree: the notion that the Fighter should get all the good combat stuff may be realistic in real life, but is utterly untenable in D&D.

I was under the impression that this thread was about DnD specifically, so yeah, that's the context I'm speaking in. I'm not interested in whether or not the "combat guy? is interesting in the game where combat is a small part of the game. We are discussing a game where every single class and subclass has combat application, and at least half of them involve weapon use. The fighter's place in that scheme is purely traditional.