D&D (2024) What type of ranger would your prefer for 2024?

[Reef]

D&D is never going to make a Ranger Wilderness subsystem.

And no 3PP has ever made a good one that scales 20 levels.

The level-scaling is an excellent point. Wilderness travel of any sort usually gets negated as soon as a party gets access to reliable magic for travel and provisioning. Thereby negating the entire new subsystem.

 

[Incenjucar]

While there have been Wilderness details in past editions, I don't think that's needed here for a specific class. Rangers need additional tools, not just new rules to use their existing tools on.

 

[Minigiant]

The level-scaling is an excellent point. Wilderness travel of any sort usually gets negated as soon as a party gets access to reliable magic for travel and provisioning. Thereby negating the entire new subsystem.

Not really.

High level Wilderness is full of magical poopy that disrupts simple flight.

The issue is when someone says that rangers can cast Protection from Energy to resist the heat of the Demonforest or the cold of a plain tainted by an ancient white dragon, people complain that the ranger needs spells.

 

[Vaalingrade]

However, in reality, this isj just magic.

Nope.

Going to stop you right there.

This is the exact problem we're facing in D&D and it has to do with media literacy more than anything else: magical and fantastic are two entirely different things. A griffin is a strange animal not of our world, like a smerp or a bird. It is not magical. Hit points are a mechanical affectation that have no actual bearing on the world. They are not magical. Physical exercise and martial practice with things what are not katanas is alien to nerds. It is not magical. The inherent capabilities of creatures not of our Earth are likewise not magical.

Just because we have people bandying about the idea that anything you don't want to explain is 'magic' and lazy design deciding it's easier to just call everything a spell rather than face the fandom and admit that discreet abilities can be non-magical does not make either so.

 

[Shardstone]

Nope.

Going to stop you right there.

This is the exact problem we're facing in D&D and it has to do with media literacy more than anything else: magical and fantastic are two entirely different things. A griffin is a strange animal not of our world, like a smerp or a bird. It is not magical. Hit points are a mechanical affectation that have no actual bearing on the world. They are not magical. Physical exercise and martial practice with things what are not katanas is alien to nerds. It is not magical. The inherent capabilities of creatures not of our Earth are likewise not magical.

Just because we have people bandying about the idea that anything you don't want to explain is 'magic' and lazy design deciding it's easier to just call everything a spell rather than face the fandom and admit that discreet abilities can be non-magical does not make either so.

Sorry, I disagree entirely here. The desire to say that its legit just weaboo skill that lets the fighter do impossible things instead of magic does not actually reflect in media. Its relying on forces not found on Earth to do things we know we cant do. No matter how many different synonyms you want to call it, it is supernatural. How is skill with a sword so great it threatens god any different from being so skilled in gang signs I banish god to Hell?

 

[Minigiant]

Nope.

Going to stop you right there.

This is the exact problem we're facing in D&D and it has to do with media literacy more than anything else: magical and fantastic are two entirely different things. A griffin is a strange animal not of our world, like a smerp or a bird. It is not magical. Hit points are a mechanical affectation that have no actual bearing on the world. They are not magical. Physical exercise and martial practice with things what are not katanas is alien to nerds. It is not magical. The inherent capabilities of creatures not of our Earth are likewise not magical.

Just because we have people bandying about the idea that anything you don't want to explain is 'magic' and lazy design deciding it's easier to just call everything a spell rather than face the fandom and admit that discreet abilities can be non-magical does not make either so.

The reason why the community hasn't created the spell-less ranger is not the hang up on magic and lazy design but the hang up on the mechanical implementation.

WOTC has tried to give rangers nonmagical healing potions or poultices multiple times.

The issue always stemmed to the X/Day or the DC to collect ingredients or the amount of potions or some other stuff.

Because really Rangers would be the perfect candidate for a crafting class. Most ranger stuff can be reflavored as potion, poisons, traps, gadgets, gear and other craftable items. But no edition had a good craftable consumables system. The D&D crafter is the blatantly magical Artificer.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Sorry, I disagree entirely here. The desire to say that its legit just weaboo skill that lets the fighter do impossible things instead of magic does not actually reflect in media. Its relying on forces not found on Earth to do things we know we cant do. No matter how many different synonyms you want to call it, it is supernatural. How is skill with a sword so great it threatens god any different from being so skilled in gang signs I banish god to Hell?

If god is weak to being hit with a big honking piece of steel and the only non-Earth human thing the fighter is doing is being strong enough to lift and swing that big, honking bit of steel, what '=chronically online derogatory term= skill' is going on here? If it's dependent on whether or not it's something someone from Earth can do, what if the person doing the swinging is a Klingon? Is Star Trek magic? Is everything involving spec-Fic magic? What about urban fantasy stuff that does take place on Earth? Is bigfoot magic? What about 'magic' that's earthbound?

Again, there is a difference, even if decades of murdering media literacy has trained us to believe otherwise.

Magical is not fantastical, is not supernatural, is not preternatural. Like not every rectangle is not a square, but they are all polygons and all polygons are shapes without being polygons. This is like when people on Twitter say humans aren't mammals.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The reason why the community hasn't created the spell-less ranger is not the hang up on magic and lazy design but the hang up on the mechanical implementation.

WOTC has tried to give rangers nonmagical healing potions or poultices multiple times.

The issue always stemmed to the X/Day or the DC to collect ingredients or the amount of potions or some other stuff.

Because really Rangers would be the perfect candidate for a crafting class. Most ranger stuff can be reflavored as potion, poisons, traps, gadgets, gear and other craftable items. But no edition had a good craftable consumables system. The D&D crafter is the blatantly magical Artificer.

TBH, I'm not sure how this isn't lazy design.

But you are right that a crafty ranger is a great idea!

I think it goes back to step-by-step simulation. You have to force the crafter to get ingredients and spend time crafting and generally make it as much of a pain as possible, like what they've done to exploration. The PF alchemist showed us the way a LONG time ago: just let them make them off screen as a class feature.

 

[Minigiant]

TBH, I'm not sure how this isn't lazy design.

But you are right that a crafty ranger is a great idea!

I think it goes back to step-by-step simulation. You have to force the crafter to get ingredients and spend time crafting and generally make it as much of a pain as possible, like what they've done to exploration. The PF alchemist showed us the way a LONG time ago: just let them make them off screen as a class feature.

It not lazy design if the community doesn't like it or won't act in the way it should work.

The biggest issue for spell-less rangers are...

1) if not magical, their abilities don't work in dungeons or urban environments reliably.

2) many of their abilities when done without magic take long periods of time and in parts of the game groups skip.

And handwaving 1 & 2 ends up being near identical to casting a spell.

 

[Incenjucar]

Fantasy is a form of speculative fiction, which speculates things like "What if the understanding of the world of pre-industrial people was actually correct".

It's not just adding magic to the real world.