D&D General Besides Nimble, are there other stripped down versions of 5e...

[Reynard]

Exactly. I remember the follower table in 2e was filled with wild stuff.

I still think the 2e version of the class is the best take. In a world where the stealth skill or two-weapon fighting were class features, it was a great design. 3e's universal mechanics undermined that.

I feel like the modern ranger suffers from the same problem as the modern druid: an incidental, almost ribbon ability has become their whole personality.

 

[Tessarael]

[Moldvay] I think the social encounter structure stuff he's added here is pretty brilliant! It's a streamlined spin on the sort of thing Draw Steel! did with negotiations, but broader and more interesting in some ways (and a little less mechanical). I think the emphasis on having NPCs actively oppose player's attempts to Influence them is really interesting, and far more naturalistic without leaving the "RP thumbs up" to GM Fiat.

This sounds good.

I wrote up something for Vampire the Masquerade V5, with a range of outcomes depending on whether the PCs or opponents won 0, 1/3, 2/3, or 3/3 out of 3 social combat rounds. If they won 0 - they owe a major boon, or need to perform some task; 1 - owe a minor boon; 2/3 - gain a minor boon; 3/3 - gain a major boon. It worked okay, though quite few of the players were reluctant to engage in social combat, while happy to wade into physical combat. Perhaps this was because a number of them are introverts, and the VtM V5 core rules didn't codify the risks/rewards clearly - I only introduced this relatively late in my VtM campaign.