D&D General What is the Ranger to you?

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

I mean, I know at least a dozen people just in my social web that didn't like 4e because in their opinion it literally didn't feature a Ranger, so I don't really buy the idea that as long as it's exceptional at something people will flock to it.

It's "thing it's the best at" has to be something iconic to the Ranger concept.

The biggest problem with the ranger is that they overvalued several of it's abilities. The class is much, much, more popular in terms of people playing it than it is in terms of satisfaction levels. Meaning people are playing it even though they aren't satisfied with it. Because it evokes the right thematic elements, and has an identiry they grok, it just lacks power compared to other classes, particularly at low levels, and particularly compared to the number of low level choices you have to make.

Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy need to do everything they already do, AND provide benefits to all types of scenarios. Natural Explorer needs to provide benefits like improved movement, ignoring difficult terrain, the ability to help the whole team mitigate environmental hazards, advantage to saves against things, etc, that are usable in areas outside of travel.
Favored Enemy needs to eat the Hunter's gimmick, and provide tactical advantages in ways that make fighting your FE easier, but aren't actually specific to that enemy. Dragons might provide advantage against elemental damage and fear, and/or the ability to slow flying targets. Giants might provide the ability to hide more effectively against creatures 2 sizes or more larger than yourself, and/or the ability to deal extra damage against larger creatures. Fiends might provide the ability to negate damage resistance temporarily. Humanoids might provide bonus damage when you attack multiple targets.

The particulars could be hashed out with playtest so I'm not going to engage in any way with debate over them. The point is that the class doesn't need any kind of overhaul, it just needs it's existing features to have more oomph.

Oh, and more known spells. Like, 1 extra at level 2, and then increase again roughly every time you get a new spell level. Or just keep it inline with what a Paladin who starts with Cha 14-15, and increases it to 18-20 by level 20 would have.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I mean, I know at least a dozen people just in my social web that didn't like 4e because in their opinion it literally didn't feature a Ranger, so I don't really buy the idea that as long as it's exceptional at something people will flock to it.

You need to take a swifter to that social cobweb.

It's "thing it's the best at" has to be something iconic to the Ranger concept.

Nothing is iconic to the ranger concept, there /is no ranger concept/, it's a grab-bag of stuff a little bit like things Aragorn did, a kludge necessitated by fighters not having access to anything remotely resembling skills.

The biggest problem with the ranger is that they overvalued several of it's abilities.

Really? How much does a ranger give up relative to a fighter to get those abilities?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You need to take a swifter to that social cobweb.

Snide remarks about someone else's social network are inappropriate and beneath you.

Nothing is iconic to the ranger concept, there /is no ranger concept/, it's a grab-bag of stuff a little bit like things Aragorn did, a kludge necessitated by fighters not having access to anything remotely resembling skills.

Complete unsalvageable nonsense, from start to finish. You know all the counter arguments to this rubbish, and have never bothered to address them. You've constructed what you think is an unassailable vision of how the ranger came to be and what it is, but very nearly no one agrees with you.

Really? How much does a ranger give up relative to a fighter to get those abilities?

What are you even trying to say, here? The ranger needn't "give something up" for an ability to be overvalued. The ranger gets several ribbons in the first few levels that were clearly accounted for as full class features by the designers. Mearls has literally directly and explicitly confirmed this.

And again, the class is getting played. A lot. While also being described as unsatisfactory in survey data. The concept isn't the problem, it's the execution.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Snide remarks about someone else's social network are inappropriate and beneath you.

Apologies. The Web/cobweb thing just struck me.

Complete unsalvageable nonsense, from start to finish.

We are talking about the Ranger, yes.

What are you even trying to say, here? The ranger needn't "give something up" for an ability to be overvalued.

What's the currency it's valued in, then, if not relative to other features?

And again, the class is getting played. A lot.

So's the fighter, does that change your opinion of it?

 

[generic]

What do you think? What is the Ranger to you?

A piece of dirt on the bottom of my Paladin's boot.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Apologies. The Web/cobweb thing just struck me.

fair enough

We are talking about the Ranger, yes.

hilarious

What's the currency it's valued in, then, if not relative to other features?

I’ve addressed this.

So's the fighter, does that change your opinion of it?

Different cases. The Ranger has an identity and concept. Also, the Fighter works mechanically, and does its job well. The Ranger has terrible mechanical execution because ribbon features are treated as full features.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

I was responding to "the Fighter needs to be the one good at fighting" argument. Maybe I replied to the wrong post.

As for your argument, just being good at fighting in a game where everyone is good at fighting, well - can't help you here, there will always be a huge demand for a hero that essentially has nothing complicated going on.

At least choosing Fighter in 5E is much less of a trap choice than in previous editions (Pathfinder, 3.x, AD&D...)!

 

[CapnZapp]

It's "thing it's the best at" has to be something iconic to the Ranger concept.


The point is that the class doesn't need any kind of overhaul, it just needs it's existing features to have more oomph.

Generally we're in agreement. Just two nitpicks

1) I never argued they should invent something new and un-inconic. Literally every feature I want them to choose from will be something people consider as iconic.

2) That's literally the meaning of an overhaul!

Look, they will never admit the PHB class is simply underpowered. That's why I'm arguing they should drop some abilities to strengthen others, and that the important point is to make it actually best at *something*. Just amping up everything would probably be both easiest and best, but won't happen - they're going to make it difficult for themselves by offering alternatives that only open the door to criticism that point out the inevitable shortcomings: "Sure my spellcasting and favored enemy is much better now, but what about the weaker [insert faux-critical ability here]"

At least if there was one Ranger alternative that did two weapon fighting right, one that did archery right, and one that did beastmastering right, despite not doing those other five or six rangery things particularly well, enough of us players would be able to move on for these threads to slow down...!

 

[CapnZapp]

Really? How much does a ranger give up relative to a fighter to get those abilities?

Oh boy are you in the wrong thread if that's supposed to mean you think the ranger is fine, Tony

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Generally we're in agreement. Just two nitpicks

1) I never argued they should invent something new and un-inconic. Literally every feature I want them to choose from will be something people consider as iconic.

2) That's literally the meaning of an overhaul!

not really. An overhaul isn’t the same thing as tweaking a couple features. An overhaul would be a major change to several features, making effectively a new class. Which isn’t needed for the 5e Ranger.

At least if there was one Ranger alternative that did two weapon fighting right, one that did archery right, and one that did beastmastering right, despite not doing those other five or six rangery things particularly well, enough of us players would be able to move on for these threads to slow down...!

I don’t know about that. The Ranger has a clear ID, and it ain’t “has advanced fighting styles”.

I think what what we will see with upcoming Ranger related playtesting will be similar to what Mearls showed on the happy fun hour, and that will be enough. Groups that wanna can just add those features, rather than treating them as alternate options, and give BM and Hunter rangers bonus spells.

But it I’m not interested in rebuilding the class. More known spells, and upgrading Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy to real features, is all the class needs.