D&D (2024) Ranger playtest discussion

[Ruin Explorer]

the lowering the spell slot intrigues me

I think if you 'down cast' fireball down to a 2nd level spell cut the AoE down and lower the damage 2d it would STILL be good.

But note that's because Fireball is, by design, overpowered. It's intentional and acknowledged as such by the designers. If you do it to non-OP spells it gets a bit less cool. But it's an interesting concept.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't understand why it is a spell not just a multi attack feature.

I honestly wonder if they're trolling, in the sense of pushing the Ranger far in the "magic ranger" direction to see how people react.

 

[Stalker0]

I think this is a scenario where people are focusing on the abilities....and ignoring the spells. The spells are what make this class, even if you don't like a spelled ranger, you HAVE to include that in your assessment.

Rangers now have Expertise AND Guidance along with the Enhance ability spell they already had....they are skill gods.

Rangers can now change their spells EVERY SINGLE DAY. That is a huge boost in flexibility.

They now get a barkskin that doesn't suck. They get heat metal now. Healing word is on the menu now.

To me the biggest "issue" is the loss of explore abilities. They don't have any exploring type stuff anymore...like at all.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I miss primal intuition... I liked that in tasha's guide.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think this is a scenario where people are focusing on the abilities....and ignoring the spells. The spells are what make this class, even if you don't like a spelled ranger, you HAVE to include that in your assessment.

Rangers now have Expertise AND Guidance along with the Enhance ability spell they already had....they are skill gods.

Rangers can now change their spells EVERY SINGLE DAY. That is a huge boost in flexibility.

They now get a barkskin that doesn't suck. They get heat metal now. Healing word is on the menu now.

To me the biggest "issue" is the loss of explore abilities. They don't have any exploring type stuff anymore...like at all.

Perfectly good points. The trouble is that the spells make the class into... not a Ranger.

Like, there's a conception of what a Ranger is, even in a D&D sense, and it's not a dude who casts a bunch of spells to buff his skills, or has awesome combat magic. Even though they do now. What we have here is a weird mess. There are, as you point out, ways to exploit that mess and make it effective. They're not what people would expect or necessarily want from the class, but they do exist.

And yeah as you say, their environment-related abilities are now pretty much entirely gone, and because of the way subclasses are designed, there's not a great deal of room to bring them back there.

 

[Weiley31]

I don't understand why it is a spell not just a multi attack feature.

Perhaps under this new way of system thinking with the new UA, Experts aren't really mult-attackers. That would be more of a Warrior grouping thing.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Perhaps under this new way of system thinking with the new UA, Experts aren't really mult-attackers. That would be more of a Warrior grouping thing.

maybe buy the Ranger is already dipping into the warrior group with fighting style (and I assume extra attack)

 

[Digdude]

I think this is a scenario where people are focusing on the abilities....and ignoring the spells. The spells are what make this class, even if you don't like a spelled ranger, you HAVE to include that in your assessment.

Rangers now have Expertise AND Guidance along with the Enhance ability spell they already had....they are skill gods.

Rangers can now change their spells EVERY SINGLE DAY. That is a huge boost in flexibility.

They now get a barkskin that doesn't suck. They get heat metal now. Healing word is on the menu now.

To me the biggest "issue" is the loss of explore abilities. They don't have any exploring type stuff anymore...like at all.

Hope that is not a preview of the death of the exploration pillar.

 

[Weiley31]

maybe buy the Ranger is already dipping into the warrior group with fighting style (and I assume extra attack)

Which would/does fit into the Paradigm of the classes withing the Expert Grouping will be known for "borrowing" things from other groupings.

 

[Haplo781]

why is the multi attack feature a spell... then again a lot of things are spells I think should just be 'things rangers can do'

Because muh realism