D&D (2024) Ranger playtest discussion

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The DMG does not encourage the DM to sculpt the adventure, the setting and the campaign to the specific PCs presented, and IMO that's a good thing. Why would the world care about who decides they want to try to save it?

But it should. It absolutely, 100% should. Why should a player make a Ranger but never be allowed to use their core features (if their favored terrain is Arctic and favored enemies are beasts but neither of which appear in the campaign, for example)? Why should a player that made a Locathah lose their character in the first session because the DM didn't tell them that the game would take place in a desert? If the DM wants the campaign to take place in the Elemental Plane of Water at level 1, they'd better tell their characters that in Session 0 (or shape the campaign to accommodate their characters), or they'll end up with a TPK by mass drowning early in the campaign.

You're not playing "a world". You're playing a game. With friends (presumably). That you want to have fun (again, presumably). The players being screwed over by the DM because they didn't bother to tell them anything about the campaign isn't fun.

Tons of DMs shape the game to the players' characters. It makes for a better story. If the PC's background says that they killed their sibling, who turned into a Revanant that is now hunting them down, the DM shaping the campaign to involve that part of their backstory makes the campaign more interesting and encourages the player to be more engaged with the game and roleplay their character better/more. That's cool and fun. It introduces a challenge that engages the players. This "screw the players, the world doesn't care about them" mentality is hostile DMing.

I do this, and it's more compelling and interesting for the players. Matt Mercer does it, and it makes for a more interesting story. Most D&D Youtubers make this suggestion. Even Wizards of the Coast disagrees with you, too. The most recent full adventure books that they wrote (Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and The Wild Beyond the Witchlight) directly encourage the DM to shape the campaign to the PCs (Icewind Dale through the Character Secrets system and Witchlight through the Lost Things adventure hook).

Shaping a campaign to the Players and their PCs is just good DMing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But it should. It absolutely, 100% should. Why should characters make a Ranger but never be allowed to use their core features (if their favored terrain is Arctic and favored enemies are beasts but neither of which appear in the campaign, for example)? Why should a player that made a Locathah lose their character in the first session because the DM didn't tell them that the game would take place in a desert? If the DM wants the campaign to take place in the Elemental Plane of Water at level 1, they'd better tell their characters that in Session 0 (or shape the campaign to accommodate their characters), or they'll end up with a TPK by mass drowning early in the campaign.

You're not playing "a world". You're playing a game. With friends (presumably). That you want to have fun (again, presumably). The players being screwed over by the DM because they didn't bother to tell them anything about the campaign isn't fun.

Tons of DMs shape the game to the players' characters. It makes for a better story. If the PC's background says that they killed their sibling, who turned into a Revanant that is now hunting them down, the DM shaping the campaign to involve that part of their backstory makes the campaign more interesting and encourages the player to be more engaged with the game and roleplay their character better/more. That's cool and fun. It introduces a challenge that engages the players. This "screw the players, the world doesn't care about them" mentality is hostile DMing.

I do this, and it's more compelling and interesting for the players. Matt Mercer does it, and it makes for a more interesting story. Most D&D Youtubers make this suggestion. Even Wizards of the Coast disagrees with you, too. The most recent full adventure books that they wrote (Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and The Wild Beyond the Witchlight) directly encourage the DM to shape the campaign to the PCs (Icewind Dale through the Character Secrets system and Witchlight through the Lost Things adventure hook).

Shaping a campaign to the Players and their PCs is just good DMing.

That is one legitimate way to DM, yes. I'm not saying screw the players. By all means, go over the campaign parameters in session 0 and listen to the players, so no one makes a PC that won't work with the setting. But it not the DM's job to roll over and fit the world to their desires. The challenges will mean more to overcome when they're not custom designed to the PCs superpowers.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The challenges will mean more to overcome when they're not custom designed to the PCs superpowers.

Favored Terrain? Superpower?

Is that a LevelUp thing?

 

[Horwath]

But it should. It absolutely, 100% should. Why should characters make a Ranger but never be allowed to use their core features (if their favored terrain is Arctic and favored enemies are beasts but neither of which appear in the campaign, for example)? Why should a player that made a Locathah lose their character in the first session because the DM didn't tell them that the game would take place in a desert? If the DM wants the campaign to take place in the Elemental Plane of Water at level 1, they'd better tell their characters that in Session 0 (or shape the campaign to accommodate their characters), or they'll end up with a TPK by mass drowning early in the campaign.

You're not playing "a world". You're playing a game. With friends (presumably). That you want to have fun (again, presumably). The players being screwed over by the DM because they didn't bother to tell them anything about the campaign isn't fun.

Tons of DMs shape the game to the players' characters. It makes for a better story. If the PC's background says that they killed their sibling, who turned into a Revanant that is now hunting them down, the DM shaping the campaign to involve that part of their backstory makes the campaign more interesting and encourages the player to be more engaged with the game and roleplay their character better/more. That's cool and fun. It introduces a challenge that engages the players. This "screw the players, the world doesn't care about them" mentality is hostile DMing.

I do this, and it's more compelling and interesting for the players. Matt Mercer does it, and it makes for a more interesting story. Most D&D Youtubers make this suggestion. Even Wizards of the Coast disagrees with you, too. The most recent full adventure books that they wrote (Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and The Wild Beyond the Witchlight) directly encourage the DM to shape the campaign to the PCs (Icewind Dale through the Character Secrets system and Witchlight through the Lost Things adventure hook).

Shaping a campaign to the Players and their PCs is just good DMing.

Mostly this.

On a side note, the same is with items.

If you have party of rogues and 2handed GWM barbarians, I'm sure not going to give out magic longswords, even if printed campaigns said that it is that loot.
For what?
So the players can have "epic adventure" of selling a sword?
Such quality time...

nothing is more disappointing for both PCs and DMs as when you get magic items and whole party decides that you are going to sell the lot of them.


DM, should look at PC abilities and add encounters that play to their strengths, and sometimes sprinkle in characters with little resistance/immunities to those abilities just to give PCs a wake up call that they are not omnipotent.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Favored Terrain? Superpower?

Is that a LevelUp thing?

I didn't say anything about favored terrain. By superpowers I was referring to the laundry list of class features and spells all PCs get. It was more of a general point.

 

[Staffan]

Here we agree and it was a very poor choice.

It was, however, one Tasha's reversed. Both the two Tasha's sorcerer subclasses and the Tasha's ranger with a Xanathar's or Tasha's subclass know more spells than an equivalent spells prepared caster can prepare.

The sorcerers yes, but with two spells per spell level fixed. That's a situation similar to the cleric, who still has more spells prepared than the sorcerer has known.

The ranger no, at least when compared to the paladin. The Primal Awareness spells and the subclass spells only make up for the paladin's Oath spells.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Mostly this.

On a side note, the same is with items.

If you have party of rogues and 2handed GWM barbarians, I'm sure not going to give out magic longswords, even if printed campaigns said that it is that loot.
For what?
So the players can have "epic adventure" of selling a sword?
Such quality time...

If the enemy knight uses longsword and shield, why should he have a magical greatsword in his backpack?

I think it is a mix of custom items and items that make sense for the story.

Also, a barbarian can use a longsword just fine. Can use it in two hand, can use it with a shield.
Does not make him worse if they are not hyper specialized with polearm mastery and GWM.
Actually the more specialized your character is, the more you risk not getting your magic item first.

I have had an adventure where a hyperfocussed optimized ranged ranger in 3.0/3.x started to become dual wielder because an intelligent longsword chose him (and a hook horror broke his magical bow).

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That is one legitimate way to DM, yes.

It is the considerate way to DM. Not doing this is being anti-player.

I'm not saying screw the players.

Yes, you are. "The world doesn't care about the people who decide to save it. That player that made a Ranger whose favored terrain is Tundra needs to suck it up! We're playing an Underdark campaign!" That is 100% a "screw the players" mentality. And that's bad.

By all means, go over the campaign parameters in session 0 and listen to the players, so no one makes a PC that won't work with the setting. But it not the DM's job to roll over and fit the world to their desires. The challenges will mean more to overcome when they're not custom designed to the PCs superpowers.

It's the DMs job to engage the players. And the players won't be engaged if they feel like the DM is against them. And saying "screw them, they world doesn't care about them" is the absolute worst way to make the players feel like you're with them. I'm not saying that the DM can't challenge their players or that every situation in the campaign has to be designed to support their choices, but I'm saying that parts of the campaign should be designed with the players' character choices in mind. If the Ranger chooses Undead as their Favored Enemies, it would be really awesome of the DM to include undead fairly frequently in the campaign. If the campaign takes place underwater, it would be really great for the DM to let all of the members of the party participate in the adventure.

The DMs job is to make the game possible, and the purpose of the game is to have fun. And it's really hard for the players to have fun if they feel like you don't care about the things they put into their characters.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Mostly this.

On a side note, the same is with items.

If you have party of rogues and 2handed GWM barbarians, I'm sure not going to give out magic longswords, even if printed campaigns said that it is that loot.
For what?
So the players can have "epic adventure" of selling a sword?
Such quality time...

nothing is more disappointing for both PCs and DMs as when you get magic items and whole party decides that you are going to sell the lot of them.


DM, should look at PC abilities and add encounters that play to their strengths, and sometimes sprinkle in characters with little resistance/immunities to those abilities just to give PCs a wake up call that they are not omnipotent.

Yeah, this too! I had one campaign where I just rolled for random loot whenever the party got magic items and it was really unfair to certain members of the party. There's basically nothing that you can roll that a Monk can use. You definitely should take into consideration the characters' classes before dishing out magic items. You don't always have to, but every once in a while it would be nice the monk got an Eldritch Claw Tattoo instead of another magical greatsword or set of chainmail that they can't use.

 

[Islayre d'Argolh]

This actually made me think a little.

I think there should be a place for the non-magical outdoorsman. I also think there's room for the magical one.

I also don't think there's all that much room for variation (in the sub-class sense) in the non-magical version. So perhaps that's better left to a fighter subclass, a rogue sub-class, or either. Which would then leave the ranger as the magical version, with subclasses leaning in different magical directions. What I would like to see, to perhaps prevent this kind of argument from being a constant nuisance over the next decade, is that they put the non-magical Scout (or whatever they decide to call it) in the PHB, so there's something to point to when people want to play a non-magical outdoorsperson.

The way i see it the Rogue (Scout) in Xanatar's is the official non-magical Ranger (and i agree it should have been in the PHB).

But, let's face it, we have now a lot of ways to build a "non-magical ranger" in 5e :

PHB only, i think a Rogue (Thief) with the proper Background (Folk Hero or Outlander) can do the job* : after all Second-story work is a very ranger-y feature and the Fast hands/Healer feat combo gives very good results.

And as i said before, with the Tasha's and the Ambush maneuver you can now build a really stealthy Battlemaster. Add the Archery fighting style and expertise in Survival with one feat or another (Prodigy or Skill expert) and you're good to go.

Finally, from my point of view, a Wood Elf Monk (Kensei) with a longbow could be an awsome non-magical ranger, especially since Tasha's and the Ki-fueled attack/Focused aim combo (deadly with a bow indeed).

*And one can argue about an Arcane Trickster for something close to the "fey ranger".