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

[Charlaquin]

Conjure Volley can be decided by the DM to be a martial ability that rangers can do, making it work in antimagic fields, etc, and it'd literally change nothing about the game mechanically because the game is literally all spells top from bottom.

Great, so why isn’t it?

Next, there's this weird idea in D&D discourse about magic. Apparently Fantasy worlds that have people doing superhuman things classifies said things not as magic, just as natural biology. Somehow, through some mysterious force or a quirk of esoteric physics unknown and undivinable, a fighter can attack 8 times and do as much damage as a literal meteor swarm against a single target. Somehow, by processes natural and totally mundane, a Barbarian can fall 500 feet and just get up and say "lol." But the moment we call these superhuman feats "magical" everyone loses their minds.

However, in reality, this isj just magic. In Fantasy realms, the magical nature of the world enables superhuman feats. But because we apparently aren't allowed to call magic "magic" in all cases, we have to dance around what's going on. It's like, just say it's magic. Because it is. Rage isn't mundane, it's magic. YOu can pretend like its mundane, you can wear that aesthetic, but you can't look me in my face and tell me that getting so mad that you literally hulk out, become resistant to all weapon damage, etc etc, isn't a form of magic...because it is.

So long as the Community headbutts the brick wall that is the term "magic" and refuses to acknowledge the fact that D&D is a game with most of its complexity in SPELLS, we'll be stuck repeating this nauseous discourse until the end of time.

Clearly this indicates that there is demand in the community for a way to do magic other than by casting spells. And if it can all be balanced as spells without affecting the game in any way, why not do that, since about half the players seem to want it?

 

[Charlaquin]

I feel like the entire argument that's been dominating this thread can be resolved by just:

A) Let Rangers cast spells without any components.

B) Give them the Rogue's Reliable Talent feature.

Or, barring that,

C) Play a Fighter/Rogue, then on your character sheet, scratch out those words and write "Ranger."

Not quite. What you’d really need to do is give the ranger class features that do the same things their spells do, but don’t call them spells. Because that’s what this is ultimately about.

 

[Horwath]

True, but you said walking speed. Around 3-6 kph

And Bolt reached a top running speed of 43.99 kph with shoes.

 

[Minigiant]

Except literally everyone who says they want a spelless ranger also says that a fighter or rogue with some nature skills doesn’t satisfy what they want from a spelless ranger. So, no, they would clearly not be happy with just a fighter/rogue multiclass. If they would, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Except the same people don't want the ranger class page to be 15 pages long.

Because creating and integrating a ranger into a mechanically dense wilderness system requires at least 10 pages of DMG and 5 pages of ranger.

 

[Incenjucar]

True, but you said walking speed. Around 3-6 kph

As in, not flying speed or burrowing speed.

Presumably you can also dash with your swim speed.

 

[Charlaquin]

Heh. Is the Ranger class heading for a Sorcerer-like existential identity crisis?

Heading for? Has the ranger class ever not been in such an identity crisis?

 

[Emberashh]

I feel bad for the character who takes the foraging skill. Like... do you even goodberry?

Pointing at one of the prime examples of terrible game design in 5es magic system isn't really the quip you think it is.

All of the exploration ribbons that the ranger does is handwaived by magic anyways to get to the fireworks factory rather than dealing with counting sticks, bars of hard tack, etc.

Again, bad game design isn't the argument you think it is, but you're also assuming that having to track certain things is always badwrongfun and can't possibly be bridged in such a way that it can actually be both super fun and desirable to engage with such mechanics.

You're also inappropriately conflating Survival with Exploration. They aren't the same thing.

I think a better area of focus would be on using terrain in interesting ways, ambushes, countering monster abilities and creating/exploiting weaknesses.

You'll notice in the design notes I posted earlier that I actually agree with that idea. Its not an either/or.

The skill system is shallow because there aren't mythic/legendary applications of skills, and only binary pass/fail, not because skills arent broken up into even more options for people to pick something the DM never calls for.

Its comments like this that make me question if people actually read what I say in my posts or if they just skip it after a point.

 

[Charlaquin]

This old man remembers when you just had an animal companion and didn't have to call it into being every time you wanted it.

To be fair, I think the calling it into being part is to avoid the question of what happens when your animal companion that’s an actual animal dies. If it’s a spirit or some such, you can just summon it again.

 

[Vaalingrade]

To be fair, I think the calling it into being part is to avoid the question of what happens when your animal companion that’s an actual animal dies. If it’s a spirit or some such, you can just summon it again.

Teach DMs not to be horse-slaying PF goblins and the problem vanishes on its own.

 

[Charlaquin]

Now, I know I've been talking a lot of smack about the idea, but what about a truly martial Ranger that does something like this?

A Ranger that gains access to new Actions and shares them with their allies is the core idea. Essentially, the Ranger's knowledge opens up new ways of doing things, focused mainly on exploration firstly and combat secondly (this coming through their subclass, to match the current subclass-focused power budget). For example, depending on your terrain (keeping the fact you can have multiple at a time), you can have [bonus] actions (ambuscade, escaping restraints without rolling, attacking every creature in a cone) or passives (blindsight, ignore difficult terrain, dig speed) or even reactions (evasion, interrupting enemy spells, preventing poison and avoiding the saving throw) that you enjoy and grant to your party.

This makes the Ranger a character that's focused on knowledge, using that knowledge (wisdom) to help others, and reflects the eclectic information base rangers tend to have. It also gives them a unique martial-support angle that the game doesn't really support beyond Paladin auras right now. And, you can add magi-- sorry, fantastical abilities to the bonus abilities so you can have options to opt into a more...m-m-m-magical ranger.

A design like this would take a good bit of testing, but I don't see why it couldn't be made to work. You basically would have packages of abilities/kits and you choose the kits you wanna give to your team. Also gives you the vibe of making your party into a makeshift band of rangers, which I think is a VIBE.

This is exactly the kind of thing people want from a non-spellcasting ranger, yes.