The WHOLE D&D community and and the community of adjacent games that broke off official D&D
D&D General What spells should be on the rangers list?
- Thread starter Shades of Eternity
- Start date
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
The relative success of spell-less ranger variants, both in alternate 5e games like Level Up and in articles like WotC's Unearthed Arcana, show that you are overstating your case.
It's weaker.
The class only has a fewer exploration features and knacks over Tier 1. Mostly replicating 1st level spells. A5e redesigns it's entire skill and adventure system to scale Rangers. But if you don't use A5E's Adventure book, you lose all of that scaling.
The ranger's issue was always scaling. Most games just abandon exploration and utility scaling for more damage.
A5e rewrote exploration to not require magic.
UA Ranger never printed.
Daggerheart Ranger is magical.
OSR rarely goes past low tier and often requires magic spells or items to do rangery effects.
Fans still want those effects. Only a few games were willing to rewrite their system to allow them without magic.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
So for the sake of debate - what is the Ranger fantasy as you would define it?
for me "Skilled Hunter and Guide thriving on the borders between civilisation and wilderness"
and personally, I dont see anything in that ranger fantasy that requires it cast spells - it does need a better exploration system though and still encompasses the fantastic where the "wilderness" is the natural home of Spirits and Monsters
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
My solution is (obviously) to just use A5e's adventure book.
Mine is similar
A Skill Hunter and Survivalist who thrives in civilization, the wilderness, and the borderlands between.
Again going at it backwards.
The Ranger does not require casting spells.
Most of the things a Ranger requires are only available as magic spells or magic item in D&D.
Magic arrows, magic eyewear, stealth cloaks, environmental clothing, potions, poisons, traps, special blades, shoes for different modes of travel, detection gear, trackers. tracker removal
These are all magic spells or magic items in D&D and 90% of high fantasy games.
Again, I'd prefer Rangers use infusions and crazy personal magic items.
I do like the Skill Hunter and Survivalist who thrives in civilization, the wilderness, and the borderlands between.
But I don't want them to be all mundane, I want a magical fantasy ranger.
I want a ranger that can....
*Touch an animal corpse and learn how it died, if it was hunted for food or just killed for some other reason
*Speak with animals, plants and nature
*Be able to sense "unnatural" things
*help, heal, cure natural things
And in general have magical skills beyond the mundane
But I don't want them to be all mundane, I want a magical fantasy ranger.
I want a ranger that can....
*Touch an animal corpse and learn how it died, if it was hunted for food or just killed for some other reason
*Speak with animals, plants and nature
*Be able to sense "unnatural" things
*help, heal, cure natural things
And in general have magical skills beyond the mundane
Corinnguard
Hero
True, an A5e Fighter could pick up a proficiency in any two combat traditions at 1st level, including the ones that an A5e Ranger can likewise become proficient in. But they can't lose their subclass any more than a 5.0 or a 5.5 Fighter could. And if someone did decide to role-play an A5e Fighter without the subclass (Narrator permitting), they would lose a chance to pick up a third Combat tradition proficiency. Why would you want to nerf the A5e Fighter anyway? They're a lot better than their 5.0 and 5.5 counterparts thanks to the addition of the exploration and social interaction features.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
depending on the age of the carcass I can do that in the real world with just a few minutes of examination. One of my big issues with DnD is when things that should just be skills get turned into spells.
Even the idea of communing with spirits while fantastic is still mundane in a world were the wilderness is full of active spirits who can interact with people, they dont need to be always hostile.
Corinnguard
Hero
If we somehow found ourselves transported into a fantasy setting, things like magic and dragons would seem fantastical to us. However, to someone who grew up and lived in a fantasy setting, the stuff we consider fantastical would be seen as 'mundane' by them.
A fantasy Ranger would see themselves as ordinary. 
