D&D General Chris just said why I hate wizard/fighter dynamic

[Minigiant]

I'm sort of between you and DND_Reborn here. To me, they seem to keep things safe for civilization while at the same time being very much pro-nature.

I'm not saying Rangers are Anti-Nature.
But the original point of the ranger class is to protect humaniods in civilization from stuff in the wild.

Well, I know it's there in 5E... but not in 1E or 2E that I can recall (I actually just re-read the flavor text before posting prior).

Rangers have always had a love of the wilderness and respect for its power, trying to keep evil/wicked humanoids and even the "good folk" from over cutting lumber, encroaching on wildlife, over hunting, etc. They prefer seclusion and the outdoors to civilization, and try to educate civilized folk of the errors of their ways when they act in a way harmful to nature.

That is how pretty much every ranger I've ever seen, in any edition of D&D, played. YMMV of course.

The orignal ranger class was a clone of Dunadain rangers especially of Aragorn.
They weren't bunch of treehugging hippie environmentalists. They murderdeathkilled anything that came out the wild close to a human town or halfling village.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I'm not saying Rangers are Anti-Nature.

LOL and I'm not saying Rangers are Anti-Civilization.

The orignal ranger class was a clone of Dunadain rangers especially of Aragorn.

Who preferred to stay away from towns and cities and lived mostly in the wild.

They weren't bunch of treehugging hippie environmentalists. They murderdeathkilled anything that came out the wild close to a human town or halfling village.

Fortunately, you can be a "treehugging hippie environmentalist" and still "murderdeathkill anything that came out the wild close to a human town or halfling village."

The protect Nature from Civilization, but also respect Civilizations place in the world and work to protect it when needed.

Finally, you aren't going to convince me otherwise, we can agree to disagree. A class can be many things within its framework, if you want to follow the flavor text of 5E, cool, but that doesn't make the class what it is--how you play your character determines what the class is and does.

 

[Minigiant]

LOL and I'm not saying Rangers are Anti-Civilization.


Who preferred to stay away from towns and cities and lived mostly in the wild.


Fortunately, you can be a "treehugging hippie environmentalist" and still "murderdeathkill anything that came out the wild close to a human town or halfling village."

The protect Nature from Civilization, but also respect Civilizations place in the world and work to protect it when needed.

Finally, you aren't going to convince me otherwise, we can agree to disagree. A class can be many things within its framework, if you want to follow the flavor text of 5E, cool, but that doesn't make the class what it is--how you play your character determines what the class is and does.

Agree the class can be many things.

My point is the default lore of rangers from0e-5e is that rangers protect Civilization for the bad parts of Nature and not protecting Nature from the Bad parts of Civilization. The latter was added and became more popular, But the former was the original lore.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm sort of between you and DND_Reborn here. To me, they seem to keep things safe for civilization while at the same time being very much pro-nature.

This is where I am with Rangers as well.

 

[Mordhau]

And that is the interesting thing... both 3e and 5e were complete re-works - Yet they both did absolutely nothing about the underlying issues of LFQW.

Magic users be popular...

The dirty secret of D&D is that almost every other game has recognised that the D&D magic system is fundamentally broken and just gives too much power to casters.

Yet, the game continues to be popular not despite the fundamentally broken nature of it's magic but because of it.

Players enjoy having the buttons to push that just give explicit permission to do things. When you introduce players to games that fix the issues, like 13th age, many players feel something is missing.

Similarly when you try to give people the buttons to push but make them more narrative so they don't explicitly need to be tied to magical effects a lot of players tend to rebel then as well.

 

[Lanefan]

Since 3e WotC has gradually gotten rid of many of the checks that there used to be on casters power without really addressing the spell lists to compensate.

Fewer spells at early levels. Fewer spells known overall.
Learning spells was a roll. Spells found was GM/campaign fiat. Same with what spells were available to learn and when.
TSR D&D had segment casting times, interruption during combat was more of a thing.
And spell components were actually supposed to be a thing...

All of that is gone.

Yes Charm and sleep have kinda been nerfed... But that has more to do with players complaining abut those spells being used on them! Not with addressing LFQW.

For all of its influences on popular media the one thing from D&D that has never made the translation was hardcore vancian magic. Players want to be spell slingers, not "one trick ponies".

Over the past few editions WotC has catered to those desires. And it has created a situation where they will have a hard time addressing the real root of the problem: The Spell List.

To really address LFQW - the Spell List needs to be gone over with a fine toothed comb and be redesigned from the ground up. Specifically taking into account that the checks previously imposed on magic users are not there anymore.

I agree with everything you say here except your final answer just above: in my view the answer is not to redesign the spell list but to instead put all those removed checks back in. That said...

This will not happen. Ever.

Never ever?

Never ever.

Why? Because "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMMMMMYYYYWWWIIZZAARRRDDDDHHAASSBBEENN NERFED!!!" "DEATH TO WOTC!!"

...doing so will doubtless lead to this same result. Very sad.

WotC just doesn't want to hear it. The overwhelming majority of games never go past 10th level, and most other groups seem to just more or less make it work.

It's seen as not worth the headache that they'd get from that part of the fanbase to fix what should have been addressed with 3e. Especially considering that in my opinion; some of the D&D devs are part of the fanbase that like magic users just how they are, thank you very much...

I agree that it certainly appears as if the majority of the designers today (and by 'today' I mean since 1999) are disaffected MU players from the 0e-1e-2e era looking to remove the barriers to their awesomeness.

 

[Scars Unseen]

I agree that it certainly appears as if the majority of the designers today (and by 'today' I mean since 1999) are disaffected MU players from the 0e-1e-2e era looking to remove the barriers to their awesomeness.

Well they ain't Rangers of the Coast.

 

[Nefermandias]

Isn't the artificer an item-based class?

This edition was clearly designed to keep the access to magic items tightly in the DM's hands. We are better off ignoring the artificer's existance and the half baked crafting rules presented in the DMG and XGE imo.

 

[Yaarel]

This edition was clearly designed to keep the access to magic items tightly in the DM's hands. We are better off ignoring the artificer's existance and the half baked crafting rules presented in the DMG and XGE imo.

When a class has magic item features, there is no problem, because then it is built into the calculations of class balance.

Designs like Artificer, and perhaps a future Fighter with a special magic weapon feature, work fine.

No one has been complaining about the Artificer being overpowered.

 

[Nefermandias]

When a class has magic item features, there is no problem, because then it is built into the calculations of class balance.

Designs like Artificer, and perhaps a future Fighter with a special magic weapon feature, work fine.

No one has been complaining about the Artificer being overpowered.

Artifices get easy access to bags of holding and armor capable of ignoring stealth penalties. They might not be "overpowered" but they surely can trivialize a lot of things that I consider vital to a satisfactory game. I allowed a player to play one in my current campaign and I regret that greatly.