D&D General What is a Ranger? A miserable pile of secrets! (+)

[Tales and Chronicles]

Classwise the combination for the ranger for me is fighter + rogue + druid, conceptually it’s ‘jack of all trades survivalist’ + ‘magic and nonmagic nature’ + ‘stealthy tracker’

Like a natury bard?

I could see the ranger going to 9th level spells and eating the druid (we already have nature clerics, just add a nature sorcerer and the druid is kinda redundant), with its class features being about supporting the group in exploration settings while the bard is more useful for social settings.

Double on the primal avenger with a lot of survival skills theme. Go with Hunters, Shifters and Beastmaster archetypes.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is both magical and nonmagical adaptations.

The desert ranger can nonmagically fight blind due to adapting to fighting in blinding sun and sand but would ensure that this Adaption is worth by blinding all his foes as well.

The forest ranger would magically summon thorns and bush then run through them unharmed.

The arctic ranger would bring the slowing chilling cold while being used to it herself.

“Environmental adaptation” on its own does not convey that though. It could just as easily mean entirely nonmagical adaptation.

 

[Undrave]

So long as Frontier includes INSIDE OF CITIES, I'm very much in favor of this.

That could be a thing, between different criminal organization for exemple, but I'd leave that to a supplement and not the core PHB

I think this sort of "high concept" approach to Rangers, rather than basic-ass "What do people actually want?" is exactly how a lot of D&D's Ranger designs got into trouble. And it's striking that generally other classes don't get this "WE NEED A FANCY HIGH CONCEPT!!!" applied to them.

Which is so weird, because Ranger is more of a real archetype that exists beyond D&D than, say, Cleric (though even Cleric is 100x more of an archetype beyond D&D now than it was in say, 1989), so why not just start with that archetype? I blame the designers!

The high concept is there to make it easier to design high level abilities as well as multiple subclasses. Honestly, all classes should have one but that's not here nor there.

A bunch of people want a bunch of things from the Ranger, it's a pile of stuff (like the Monk...). My high concept was mostly for the thematic aspect, and not the mechanics. While I personally HATE animal companions in D&D (they're either terrible or overpowered and they are always a drain on table time) I'm not going to deny it to someone else.

My version would just be more mix-and-match than what we have. While you have your 'Frontier' as a thematic anchor, the way you fight would be a dial. Any of the subclass could go from all-martial-special-forces, to martial-that-knows-nature-with-a-pet, to martial-with-druid-magic (and that one bringing the magical summon). I'm not a fan of Rangers as spell slot caster as a basis. I think it feels more flavourful if they pick up rituals (and treat the 'magical trap' type of spells, like Cordon of Arrows, as rituals so they can just DO them all the time, provided they have the time to plan in advance) and other non-combat stuff and let the swords and bows inflict damage in battle.

Also the 'favoured foe' thing should just be feats. Anybody can have a blood feud with Orcs, don't need to be a Ranger for that.

 

[Minigiant]

“Environmental adaptation” on its own does not convey that though. It could just as easily mean entirely nonmagical adaptation.

It is often difficult to get a plurality of D&D fans to allow the ranger to do things you'd expect them to be able to do without a magical source.

Especially since most edition and many fans simply go "Fighter + Druid" and don't give rangers it's own environmental mechanics.

 

[Dioltach]

Read The Book of Three, by Lloyd Alexander. Pay particular attention to Gwydion's scenes. Take notes.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is often difficult to get a plurality of D&D fans to allow the ranger to do things you'd expect them to be able to do without a magical source.

Depends on what you’d expect them to be able to do. I get the impression you and I have quite different opinions about that.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Like a natury bard?

I could see the ranger going to 9th level spells and eating the druid (we already have nature clerics, just add a nature sorcerer and the druid is kinda redundant), with its class features being about supporting the group in exploration settings while the bard is more useful for social settings.

Double on the primal avenger with a lot of survival skills theme. Go with Hunters, Shifters and Beastmaster archetypes.

Yeah, ranger is like the lowmagic primal equivalent to the highmagic arcane bard IMO, if ranger is fighter/rogue/druid then bard is like, wizard/rogue/cleric.

I think druid could still have a place if it leaned into the communing with spirits side of things more, turn it into the summoner class, ghosts, beasts, elementals...

Bluh my thoughts on this are still a mess but ranger core is ‘nature survival’ but ‘nature survival’ is a huge conceptual umbrella not centred in one specific area which includes:
Martial capabilities
Stealthiness and tracking
Healing and medicine
Nature knowledge and magic
Exploration and mastery of environment
Specialised foe knowledge

 

[Minigiant]

Depends on what you’d expect them to be able to do. I get the impression you and I have quite different opinions about that.

I suspect we aren't that far apart.

I suspect we are just talking about different tiers of play.

The 5th level ranger adapts to 5th level environments differently from how a 10th level ranger does with 10th level environments or a 15th level ranger adapts to 15th level environments.

 

[Deset Gled]

Hybrid druid/fighter.

 

[Charlaquin]

I suspect we aren't that far apart.

I suspect we are just talking about different tiers of play.

The 5th level ranger adapts to 5th level environments differently from how a 10th level ranger does with 10th level environments or a 15th level ranger adapts to 15th level environments.

I don’t know, if what you expect then to do requires magic, I don’t think it’s the same as what I expect them to do.