Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="marius4" data-source="post: 6763609" data-attributes="member: 6801481">Reading the 5e PHB ranger as it is, a 4th-level ranger with animal friendship, alarm or longstrider, and hunter's mark as spells known does not seem extremely magical or spellcastery to me.&nbsp; Although this is literally a selection of &quot;spells,&quot; per se, taken all together they feel more akin to special knacks the wilderness character has developed.&nbsp; I don't sense much burden to &quot;reflavor away the spellcasting&quot; to get the &quot;non-caster feeling,&quot; but that's just me.&nbsp; On the other hand, a ranger who has chosen cure wounds, ensnaring strike, and fog cloud or hail of thorns comes across as much more overtly magical.&nbsp; The fact that I can choose either group of spells seems pretty accommodating to me, at least on the surface.&nbsp; Perhaps the class description format just didn't present this in the best way(?).The same holds for a paladin who prepares compelled duel, divine favor, and heroism versus command, detect magic, and purify food and drink.&nbsp; The difference is that the paladin has the additional option to burn their spell slots entirely on generic divine smites; you (the player) don't even have to think about spells at all.&nbsp; In my survey response I pointed this difference out and suggested adding a &quot;burn&quot; option for the ranger as a possible improvement.&nbsp; I wonder if, for example, burning those pesky ranger spell slots to gain advantage/take 20/gain &quot;inspiration&quot;/etc. on Survival or Investigation checks made to track creatures (or something like that) would create enough of a non-spellcasting feel for those who prefer it.Tying back to the main thread question, I agree with 77IM in that I feel archetype is the bottom line for &quot;needing&quot; a class, but the next step is that the archetype should come across in a mechanically unique way (i.e. yes as some sort of schtick).&nbsp; For rangers, despite all the hullabaloo, I feel the archetype is fairly clearly &quot;the hunstman&quot; and the mechanic is fairly clearly mastery of the exploration pillar and tracking/investigating.&nbsp; Add a beast companion, make it urban, give it more/less spells, increase its combat toughness........that's mostly just window dressing in my eyes.&nbsp; Window dressing we should all be able to pick and choose from, but still window dressing.Also, FIRST POST, my nerdfriends!!&nbsp; Whare be th' emoticons??&nbsp; Have we no emoji here?!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="marius4, post: 6763609, member: 6801481"] Reading the 5e PHB ranger as it is, a 4th-level ranger with [i]animal friendship[/i], [i]alarm[/i] or [i]longstrider[/i], and [i]hunter's mark[/i] as spells known does not seem extremely magical or spellcastery to me. Although this is literally a selection of "spells," per se, taken all together they feel more akin to special knacks the wilderness character has developed. I don't sense much burden to "reflavor away the spellcasting" to get the "non-caster feeling," but that's just me. On the other hand, a ranger who has chosen [i]cure wounds[/i], [i]ensnaring strike[/i], and [i]fog cloud[/i] or [i]hail of thorns[/i] comes across as much more overtly magical. The fact that I can choose either group of spells seems pretty accommodating to me, at least on the surface. Perhaps the class description format just didn't present this in the best way(?). The same holds for a paladin who prepares [i]compelled duel[/i], [i]divine favor[/i], and [i]heroism[/i] versus [i]command[/i], [i]detect magic[/i], and [i]purify food and drink[/i]. The difference is that the paladin has the additional option to burn their spell slots entirely on generic divine smites; you (the player) don't even have to think about spells at all. In my survey response I pointed this difference out and suggested adding a "burn" option for the ranger as a possible improvement. I wonder if, for example, burning those pesky ranger spell slots to gain advantage/take 20/gain "inspiration"/etc. on Survival or Investigation checks made to track creatures (or something like that) would create enough of a non-spellcasting feel for those who prefer it. Tying back to the main thread question, I agree with 77IM in that I feel archetype is the bottom line for "needing" a class, but the next step is that the archetype should come across in a mechanically unique way (i.e. yes as some sort of schtick). For rangers, despite all the hullabaloo, I feel the archetype is fairly clearly "the hunstman" and the mechanic is fairly clearly mastery of the exploration pillar and tracking/investigating. Add a beast companion, make it urban, give it more/less spells, increase its combat toughness........that's mostly just window dressing in my eyes. Window dressing we should all be able to pick and choose from, but still window dressing. Also, FIRST POST, my nerdfriends!! Whare be th' emoticons?? Have we no emoji here?! [/QUOTE]

Verification