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

[Vaalingrade]

It is a fantasy game. Magic is what the game should be about IMO.

Fantasy should be what the game should be about. Not just the one fantasy being the only one allowed because of lazy design goals and a fan base so unwilling to accept anything but magic being reliable they accepted Bounded Accuracy that makes it absolutely certain any and all skills are markedly unreliable.

 

[Horwath]

they accepted Bounded Accuracy that makes it absolutely certain any and all skills are markedly unreliable.

If you make reliable talent work for all that have proficiency to a degree then skills are OK
Also if you use 3d6 for skills.

I.E:
reliable talent
proficiency: min d20 roll is 5
expertise: min d20 roll is 7
7th level rogue with "expert talent" and proficiency: min roll is 10
7th level rogue with "expert talent" and expertise: min roll is 12

this will not affect hard or very hard DCs, but will prevent failing easy or moderate DCs on skills.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Like I said before it's lessthe fanbase likely higher fantasy and more a lot of DMs being lame, being, restrict, or otherwise unfun with wilderness stuff unless its blatantly magical.

"But I'm not unfun"

Statisacally, you likely wont let my level 20 ranger ask a squirrel a question without casting a spell first.

i think in addition to being a language druidic should function as a sort of permanent speak with plants/animals, maybe requiring a low skill check to translate, (and make sure rangers get the choice to learn it if they don't already).

however druidic would only available to take through feat or by something from one of your species/class/background explicitly granting you the ability to take it, as it stands it's so niche, theives cant is at least more widely applicable to be known and i think is sometimes used as a de-facto sign language which gives it use in stealth situations.

the speak with plants/animals spells are the sort of thing that i think the wizard ought to be able to know, but the druid and ranger should just be able to do, the wizard takes it weighing it as a risk niche spell they may not even have a chance to use, the druid and ranger can talk to every cat, dog, bird, bush and tree as they wish and it's a resource.

 

[CreamCloud0]

People climb Mount Everest regularly, and they represent some of the best mountain climbers in the world. But an overweight middle aged couch potato could do it better and easier by just teleporting up there if magic existed here. The game fiction should preserve the same kind of disparity between non-magic and magic methods. Magic is physicis-breaking. You should be able to accomplish things through magic that can't be attempted at all without magic and with magic, you should be able to do things that can be done faster, easier and better than any mortal could though non-magical means.

here's the thing, i think magic should be able to do things that are harder or impossible through mundane means, but the cost of that is you need precision, you need specific things, and it can go much more wildly wrong even if you do it all right.

teleporting with any degree of accuracy requires you to of been there, seen it, have something tied to that location or an established teleportation circle already established at your destination, if nobody's ever been there how is magic getting one of those? it's a catch 22, well maybe they can scry the peak but that's still a large margin of error left even with that so are you willing to risk it to not climb that mountain?

climbing the mountain you might fall down a crevace or get attacked by a bear, but teleporing you could end up 10,000 feet in the air, appear in solid stone, or not even on the same plane of existence (i don't know if that last one is an actual misfire consequence of teleport but i'm making a point about magic in general than teleport itself).

 

[Minigiant]

i think in addition to being a language druidic should function as a sort of permanent speak with plants/animals, maybe requiring a low skill check to translate, (and make sure rangers get the choice to learn it if they don't already).

however druidic would only available to take through feat or by something from one of your species/class/background explicitly granting you the ability to take it, as it stands it's so niche, theives cant is at least more widely applicable to be known and i think is sometimes used as a de-facto sign language which gives it use in stealth situations.

the speak with plants/animals spells are the sort of thing that i think the wizard ought to be able to know, but the druid and ranger should just be able to do, the wizard takes it weighing it as a risk niche spell they may not even have a chance to use, the druid and ranger can talk to every cat, dog, bird, bush and tree as they wish and it's a resource.

D&D still gives druids druidic and rogues thieves cant, but Beastspeech is still inst in the game.

Where a lot of fantasy and even normal media uses a trope that there is language all animals speak.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Because not you and not anybody else gets to decide what baseline D&D is or isn't.

Uh... yes, someone does get to decide what baseline D&D is-- the people who design the game. Baseline D&D is whatever appears written down in the books.

And my original question (made back on like Page 3 of this thread two weeks ago, which I was amused to see inspired you to reply despite the conversation having spiraled off from there a long time and almost 30 pages ago) was that if someone felt like D&D as written or as being revised required massive changes to the very fabric of the game in order to be worthwhile for them to play... was why are they even bothering to play it? "You can't make chicken salad out of chicken poop" I think is the idiom. And if someone really believes the baseline D&D 5E as written in the books is chicken poop... there's no amount of hope to the revisions coming in 5E24 that will make the game worthwhile for that person. At some point someone should just cut their losses and stop throwing good money after bad.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Simple question, do you prefer spell-less ranger or spellcasting ranger?

That is, if they could manage to make a decent spell-less ranger. They still need to make decent spellcasting ranger.

The issue with Rangers isn't that they need a spell-less version.

The issue with Rangers and Druids is that the DnD worlds need to make it more explicit how magical and dangerous the high-level threats in nature are.

No one seriously asks for a Spell-Less Paladin, because a Paladin's job is fighting demons, undead, and cultists. No one expects a paladin to have no magic, yet drive back Pit Fiends while crushing a Lich's skull.

One DnD MIGHT finally be getting on a correct track by positioning Druids as dealing with the Elemental Planes, which places Rangers in a similar situation. If Rangers are dealing with Elemental Portals, Archfey and the like, then it finally gives them a direction for their abilities.

 

[Chaosmancer]

i shouldn't be unable to use my trained skill to fire lots of arrows because of a counterspell or antimagic zone

It is almost like the problem is anti-magic fields....

 

[Incenjucar]

I in general find it depressing when people think that skill and athleticism are magic. It's like suggesting your character can't do algebra without a calculator.

 

[CreamCloud0]

It is almost like the problem is anti-magic fields....

that isn't what i said at all, i think antimagic has it's place and should be used (if lightly) because spellcasting is so OP, the issue is everything being magic.

i think anti-magic would be better served if it was more often used in more...tangible forms, rather than room blanketing fields, like, antimagic-water that prevents casting if you get wet, in pools on the floor that casters need carefully position themselves to avoid like bottomless pits else they loose casting for X turns, a sheet of dripping water that dispells everything that passes through it, barrels that can be thrown or burst to create an AoE...