D&D (2024) Ranger playtest discussion

[Bill Zebub]

Indeed.

I also grew up on Arthurian myth. Galahad's strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure. Not because he woke up every day. looked in his spellbook, and cast Giant's Strength. When The Green Knight let his head be cut off and put it back it wasn't because he was using an anti-decapitation spell or a death ward. It was because he was who he was.

I also grew up on Greek myth. When Hercules tagged out Atlas and literally held up the world on his shoulders it wasn't because he cast either a super-strength spell or cast Telekinesis on the World. When he cleaned the Augean Stables by rerouting two rivers he didn't reroute them by casting Control Water. And yes he was a demigod - but so was Circe. If demigods aren't allowed for inspiration we should cut the wizards back to realistic inspirations as well.

I just don't get the desire to turn the back on D&D's inspirations and declare that anything going above and beyond the norm must be a spell.

Heracles also had a full on king of the gods for a dad. Might not be the best example.

 

[ersatzphil]

Previously on GoT, journeys and getting places were indeed a huge deal. Young people understood that and internalized that. When the show started acting more like a superhero show where travel is meaningless and people just pop up everywhere, that's when they started getting annoyed with it. When travel that previously took two-three episodes and weeks or months of in-show time suddenly took what appeared to be at most a few days, they really didn't like it.

That's a very fair point - I admittedly stopped watching GoT before season 6 for non-show-related reasons. I do still suspect that specifically the massive success of the MCU has changed what the average audience member expects from a player character.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You can, since Tasha's and the 3 skills maneuvers : battlemasters can be skill gods.

Nope. You can't just make stuff up dude. Battlemasters are one specific subclass of Fighter, and the Tasha skill manuevers only apply to 7 specific uses of skills, only 1 of which is relevant to this discussion - Stealth. The idea that this is a "fix" or "solution" is laughable.

 

[Neonchameleon]

You can, since Tasha's and the 3 skills maneuvers : battlemasters can be skill gods.

Skills should be (and in the hands of experts normally are) more than raw numbers. The ranger, for example, gets Rovin' for movement speed and climb and swim speeds while the thief's Fast Hands means they can use the brush pass pickpocketing in a way other classes can't, no matter how high their modifier. You need more than numbers to make a skill god.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's a very fair point - I admittedly stopped watching GoT before season 6 for non-show-related reasons. I do still suspect that specifically the massive success of the MCU has changed what the average audience member expects from a player character.

I just don't really believe it.

If anything, MCU characters act like RPG characters in terms of their behaviour, banter, sarcasm, jokes in the face of world-ending danger and so on.

I will say, modern action movies (which includes the MCU), and really every action movie since like, the late '90s, means people are much less accepting of "incompetent at action" PCs than they were. But that's not a recent change.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That's a key thing. You've played RPGs. Did you immediately think "THAT'S CORRECT!" about every class you read in every RPG? I never did. Jeez it took me YEARS to come to terms with how Clerics worked in D&D, and I'd never played an RPG before that, and only been playing videogames for two years (mostly pretty simple ones).

Just as a datapoint, literally today I was DMing for a new player, and when they ended up playing a ranger they specifically wanted to play the Tasha's ranger not the D&Done one because it was too magical. I didn't prompt them here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just as a datapoint, literally today I was DMing for a new player, and when they ended up playing a ranger they specifically wanted to play the Tasha's ranger not the D&Done one because it was too magical. I didn't prompt them here.

Yeah that's the sort of thing I've seen. Ranger is literally the only class I've ever seen people be annoyed by it also having magic. That's across a whole bunch of games and 30+ years. I've see stuff like people disliking how magic is implemented plenty, but just "that the class has it"? That's new. Well, not new, in that I've seen it with Rangers on and off for 30+ years. But it's the only class. Because it's the only one where them having magic runs counter to expectations and desires.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Heracles also had a full on king of the gods for a dad. Might not be the best example.

Circe and Medea (you know, the classic Enchantresses) were the grandchildren of Helios, the Sun Titan. Merlin's father was an Incubus. Middle Earth's Wizards are basically demigods/angels. The classic illusionist, Útgarða-Loki, is a giant as powerful as a god in Norse Mythology.

Spellcasters in mythology were demigod-like figures, too. It wasn't just the classic "martial" characters (Herakles, Cú Chulainn, etc).

 

[Neonchameleon]

I will say, modern action movies (which includes the MCU), and really every action movie since like, the late '90s, means people are much less accepting of "incompetent at action" PCs than they were. But that's not a recent change.

Part of this is that I don't think that anyone today is doing good "incompetent at action" PCs. No one's doing the 'Jackie Chan Underdog' nearly that well and people have got fed up with women being typecast as the Damsel In Distress.

The closest I can think of is Ryan Reynolds?

 

[Islayre d'Argolh]

Nope. You can't just make stuff up dude. Battlemasters are one specific subclass of Fighter, and the Tasha skill manuevers only apply to 7 specific uses of skills, only 1 of which is relevant to this discussion - Stealth. The idea that this is a "fix" or "solution" is laughable.

From your own statement Katniss is a great ranger because she's very good on survival and stealth (and deadly with a bow, i assume).

A Variant Human /Custom Lineage Dex Battlemaster can be expert in Survival and add a d8 to her (already good) Stealth checks.
And be deadly with a bow.

So a very good non-magical ranger.