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

[Minigiant]

Because some people would rather swing weapons at people than play a full caster.

For that matter, some full caster players would rather swing weapons at people than cast spells all the time too.

Answer the first question first.

Because a Druid can swing weapons.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Are paladin's incompetent Clerics who use weapons to compensate? Is that the paladin identity?

Because if that is how you see our argument, then that is how you see the paladin.

I mean... half casters are all basically this.

They have only a partial dose of the ability the devs care about with something else (usually martial combat) slapped on to compensate.

Paladin does better because it managed to hang on to a butt-load of actually useful ribbons thanks to tradition. If Paladin was just devved ten years ago, they would suuuuuck. Rangers have just traditionally not been very good because they are the intersection of identity crisis, Mother May I mechanics and support for the worst pillar.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Let me ask you a question. A potential pair.

What does a Ranger do Naturewise better than a Druid?

If Nothing, why aren't potential rangers just druids instead?

If I must pick something or be hung until dead, I'd say tracking.

Much like Clerics traditionally stay in the town or city, and the Paladin goes crusading, the Druid traditionally stays in a location and like a grove or an oasis, and the Ranger goes Hunting. I would also honestly add stealth, though that isn't neccessarily "naturewise" but it fits the aesthetic. Ranger's Hunt, so stealth is important to their kit, while Druids mainly "hide" by going somewhere no one wants to be or take the form of an animal.

Edit: I should clarify. By "Hunting" I don't mean it in the terms of "I'm going to go catch some deer for dinner". I mean it in terms of "I am actively going to go and seek something which must be destroyed for the prosperity of the world."

 

[Chaosmancer]

I mean... half casters are all basically this.

They have only a partial dose of the ability the devs care about with something else (usually martial combat) slapped on to compensate.

Paladin does better because it managed to hang on to a butt-load of actually useful ribbons thanks to tradition. If Paladin was just devved ten years ago, they would suuuuuck. Rangers have just traditionally not been very good because they are the intersection of identity crisis, Mother May I mechanics and support for the worst pillar.

So Paladins are just incompetent clerics, but that's okay because they have good and useful abilities? But Rangers don't have any good abilities, so they can't be incompetent Druids and must be made into something else so they are allowed to have good and useful abilities?

Vaal.... I think you have your argument mixed up. This doesn't sound like an argument to split Rangers from Druids and never the twain shall meet. This sounds like an argument to give Rangers actually good and useful abilities, so they can fill their niche like Paladins fill theirs.

 

[Minigiant]

If I must pick something or be hung until dead, I'd say tracking.

Much like Clerics traditionally stay in the town or city, and the Paladin goes crusading, the Druid traditionally stays in a location and like a grove or an oasis, and the Ranger goes Hunting. I would also honestly add stealth, though that isn't neccessarily "naturewise" but it fits the aesthetic. Ranger's Hunt, so stealth is important to their kit, while Druids mainly "hide" by going somewhere no one wants to be or take the form of an animal.

Edit: I should clarify. By "Hunting" I don't mean it in the terms of "I'm going to go catch some deer for dinner". I mean it in terms of "I am actively going to go and seek something which must be destroyed for the prosperity of the world."

That's not enough to base a class on.
That's the issue.

Tracking is not enough to build a class on. Many group skep this.

If Ranger and Druids both share Nature and Rangers and Rogues bother share Stealth, the Ranger needs to have its own approach to both or they are wasting space that a multiclass can fulfill.

Traditionally rangers had different approaches and mechanics to Stealth and Nature.

Fans roleplayed these out.

And surprise surprise they roleplayed out all the uniqueness out of rangers in lore and mechanics.

Give the ranger nothing unique. Don't be surprised it is bland.

 

[James Gasik]

Answer the first question first.

Because a Druid can swing weapons.

I'm going to be honest, I don't really see anything a Ranger can do that a Druid could not, outside of having better fighting abilities, and well, in 5e design, that should really make Ranger a Druid subclass more devoted to combat (like the 3.5 Druidic Avenger found in Unearthed Arcana). Put another way:

Fighter with a focus on wilderness skills and stealth.
Rogue with a focus on wilderness skills.
Druid with a focus on combat and stealth.
Oath of the Ancients Paladin with wilderness skills and stealth (maybe allowed to smite with a bow?).

Any three of these could be a viable substitute for the Ranger class. Because here's the thing; even if you buff the exploration tier to make wilderness skills more important, you're still going to need other kinds of characters to interact with it. So you end up with the Rogue, who sure, they can use thieves' tools, find traps, and sneak about really well, but so can other characters.

So even the "Wilderness Warrior" some people want wouldn't be the unrivaled master of exploration and survival- they really couldn't be, because that design would make having a Ranger necessary for play, which isn't the way 5e is (supposedly) built.

I've played Rangers, I don't mind Rangers, I even like the archetype- but there's nothing really unique about them, other than being, in effect, a multiclass character who isn't actually multiclassed.*

(EDIT: you know, like the Bard. Or to paraphrase Order of the Stick: "I'm a multiclassed Fighter/Rogue/Enchanter!" Bard: "Don't you find that overly complicated?" "I didn't until this very moment, no.")

I feel the same about the Paladin, to be honest. Sure, the Paladin has more identity and some really nice abilities, but there's no reason, in my mind, that you couldn't make a Divine 1/3 caster Fighter subclass akin to Eldritch Knight, or a Cleric subclass that actually gets Extra Attack (why War doesn't when Bards and even Wizards can have Extra Attack still boggles my mind) and call it a Paladin/Champion/Holy Warrior/Templar/what have you- but obviously that wouldn't fly because players want a Paladin class. That's the only reason we still have a Ranger, as near as I can tell. Not having a Ranger class doesn't "feel like" D&D, even though we really don't need it.

 

[Incenjucar]

It is a severe failure of design for druids and rangers to be at all interchangable.

 

[Emberashh]

We don't need Wizards. Just play a Fighter and pretend your sword is a wand.

 

[Minigiant]

It is a severe failure of design for druids and rangers to be at all interchangable.

That's a community problem.

Like I said what the difference between rangers and druids in the lore.

Multiple posters said they don't want that then bemoan that rangers mechanically as reject druids or fighters in green.

Eat Cake. Have Cake.

 

[Yaarel]

In my eyes, the main meanings of "ranger" are:

• military covert ops (= mobility)
• remote border patrol (= survivalist)
• hunter
• forest protector (= Druid-ish ecologist)

The Ranger class may or may not use spellcasting for any of these themes.

For ops, spells might feature mobility spells like flight and teleport, perhaps stealth spells like invisibility and shapeshift as well.

Remote border patrol is about being an effective warrior far from civilization.

The Hunter - the Ranger class handles this well enough, albeit there can easily be a noncaster version of this. Essentially, the same skillset for hunting has dual use for combat.

The ecologist "wilderness witch" focuses on elemental Earth, Plant, and Beast. It has much like the Druid in flavor, but lacks the fully elemental magic of the Druid. The Druid can function as a "weather witch" whereas the Ranger not really.