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

[Shardstone]

This thread makes me think, "Witch" should be in the list of Ranger partial identies, as an archetype or core thing. By witch I mean, collector of curios, creator of potions and poisons, communer with spirits. Would be interesting to frame the Ranger's magic as a wisdom allowing for witchcraft vs being mini-Druids.

 

[James Gasik]

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.

I'm imagining stuff like the old Horizon Walker got. Your mastery of this environment eventually gives you quasi-magical abilities. Maybe you can use the heat of the desert to gain the benefit of blur or gain actual cold resistance due to acclimation to the cold northern lands. Blindsight for those who have hunted in the deep caverns of the Underdark, that sort of thing.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

I don't think much of it requires magic.

But it's not our opinions that matter.


Saying rangers are immune to fire, cold, lightning, acid, poison, and thunder damage without a spell or rituals would not fly with many D&D fans.

THEN you get into play. Without "summoning of nature" via magic, you can fall into the ranger trap of only being good in their environment. Therefore you would be forced to lessen their dependency/potency, increase the number of foes/terrains they have, or discover a way to make their static features general enough apply to all or most situations. Something D&D has notoriously difficulty doing.

 

[Zardnaar]

Wilderness warrior is about the best you'll get. There's no definitive ranger as they've changed the class every edition.

Dual wielding, bows, pets and spells seem to be the most common tropes for it along with favored enemy type mechanic.

 

[Shardstone]

Tbh, after going back and forth on it for years, I like the ranger being baseline magical ala Paladin.

To me, it makes a lot of sense for D&D specifically. D&D is, much to some people's consternation, largely about magic and the cool things it can do. The ranger's wisdom giving them access to spellcraft born from their understanding of the world and deconstructing it to figure out magic spells is, to me, very interesting and fun. Though the spell list suffers from an absolutely stupid and asinine amount of concentration spells, and while they aren't spells known for some god-forsaken reason, the spells themselves have proven to be deceptively fun.

 

[Shardstone]

The alternative, the pure-martial ranger, just strikes me as uninteresting. There isn't enough there beyond "beast tamer" to make the Ranger interesting enough to not be a bararian, fighter, or worse yet, a series of mediocre feats you'll never get to pick. And on top of that, I don't really want to have to be a beast tamer. Its a lot to keep up with and kind of anxiety-inducing wondering when my crappy CR 1/4th panther is gonna be one-shot post 4th-level (spoiler: every combat lol).

A magical Ranger not only has a lot more juice to draw on, it actually deserves to be a seperate class. Like really, what is a pure martial ranger if literally not just a fighter? There isn't a significant difference. I don't even think there is a difference at all

...But give that dog some spellcasting? WHEW BOY! Now my ranger is also the witch of the wilds and there's a reason to be seperate.

 

[James Gasik]

Not that dual wielding is really a ranger trope. It just sort of happened one day, and we've been stuck with it ever since.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Maybe the artificer has the right of it:
half-caster, most of them pet-based, some more caster than others, can cunningly craft stuff on the spot. Just lean more on a primal/nature theme rather than magic/science. Let them cast through Herbalism's Kit or Hunter's kit (it doesnt exist, but it should) to refluff their spells has magical survivalism instead of hocus-pocus spellcasting.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm imagining stuff like the old Horizon Walker got. Your mastery of this environment eventually gives you quasi-magical abilities. Maybe you can use the heat of the desert to gain the benefit of blur or gain actual cold resistance due to acclimation to the cold northern lands. Blindsight for those who have hunted in the deep caverns of the Underdark, that sort of thing.

Yeah, that’s pretty cool.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't think much of it requires magic.

But it's not our opinions that matter.


Saying rangers are immune to fire, cold, lightning, acid, poison, and thunder damage without a spell or rituals would not fly with many D&D fans.

THEN you get into play. Without "summoning of nature" via magic, you can fall into the ranger trap of only being good in their environment. Therefore you would be forced to lessen their dependency/potency, increase the number of foes/terrains they have, or discover a way to make their static features general enough apply to all or most situations. Something D&D has notoriously difficulty doing.

Yeah, I don’t think you and I have the same expectations for what a ranger should be able to do.