D&D 5E (2014) Convince me that the Ranger is a necessary Class.

[Horwath]

i'm wondering what the passives might be for the 14 creature types, though i don't think i really know enough about the design throughline of monsters well enough fill this list with appropriate bonuses, i'd probably give expertise in the most appropriate of Nature, Religion or Arcana for each to start with, a resistance to a damage type or status most commonly associated with them (fear for dragons, necrotic for undead, charm for fey...) and then something to act as a direct 'counter' (fiends would provide the sacred flame cantrip and PB free uses of branding smite,)

resistances work great.
maybe also save proficiencies.

IE:
favored enemy undead;
proficiency in CON saves
resistance to Necrotic damage
your HP max cannot be reduced.

favored enemy dragons;
Advantage on Dex saves
Advantage on saves vs fear
Resistance to one dragon damage type

favored enemy aberration;
telepathy 60ft
resistance to psychic damage
proficiency in INT saves

favored enemy giants;
advantage on STR saves
Enlarge form;
Bonus action, increase your size to Large, deal +1d6 damage once on your turn with your weapons attack.

...
...

 

[Micah Sweet]

The point is you are the minority.

2014 was designed for a minority.

At the time that was demonstrably not true. It became true as the game became more popular with people who inexplicable somehow don't like it even though a bunch if them bought it.

So, a "minority" of what? Humanity? It can't be a minority of D&D players, because the bulk of folks playing it now weren't when it was designed.

 

[Minigiant]

At the time that was demonstrably not true

West Marches fans and Hubtown fans were the minority of D&D fans in 2014. Adventure path and Campaign play were played WAY more often.

Few people played from a main party and ran secondary parties as their first one healed and did downtime stuff.

You did the downtime stuff and ran the main party again..

And that's kind of the issue because the reason why you would bring a ranger is because you as your party would say "hey we need to get over there. who has a ranger character in their backup to get us to point B from point A?" That's how Gary's gets table worked.

"Nobody" plays like that anymore.

 

[Gradine]

"Nobody" plays like that anymore.

It's nice to hear Odysseus's West Marches game is still going strong after all these centuries

 

[Micah Sweet]

West Marches fans and Hubtown fans were the minority of D&D fans in 2014. Adventure path and Campaign play were played WAY more often.

Few people played from a main party and ran secondary parties as their first one healed and did downtime stuff.

You did the downtime stuff and ran the main party again..

And that's kind of the issue because the reason why you would bring a ranger is because you as your party would say "hey we need to get over there. who has a ranger character in their backup to get us to point B from point A?" That's how Gary's gets table worked.

"Nobody" plays like that anymore.

I didn't like the way rangers in 5.0 ignored the exploration pillar for their party. That was not a choice made for me.

And as far as your last comment goes? Seems like you're just trying to under my skin with this. Do you have a reason?

 

[stonehead]

1) if ranges could ignore the rules that means the rules existed

2) Rangers could only ignore the rules in their favor to rain when outside their favorite terrain they have to follow. the rules. Which they would typically best at.

I think the point was that no one used these rules, so being able to ignore them is meaningless. I've never played in a game in which overland travel speeds or foraging for food played a significant role. To my knowledge, published adventures also don't emphasize them, which makes sense because they need to be playable even if the party doesn't have a ranger.

---

More generally, the Ranger's core concept, "The wilderness survivalist and tracker," doesn't seem like enough to justify its mechanical existence. Maybe if it leaned more into the "guy with an animal companion" there would be enough, but the past hundred pages of posts have showed that's not what most people think is the Ranger's thing. In point-buy terms, the wilderness abilities of the ranger would be worth probably less than 10% of its power budget.

It's like, imagine if there was a class called the Fire Resistor whose core concept should be self explainatory: "The guy who doesn't get burned by fire." The class gives fire resistance which scales to immunity and maybe they eventually heal when they would take fire damage. Fans complain that they don't get to do anything against monsters that don't deal fire damage, so in the next edition they can change incoming physical damage to fire damage a few times per day. Maybe they get some gimmicky abilities like summoning a fire elemental, or lighting themselves on fire to deal bonus fire damage. It's clear that this shouldn't be a full class. Something that comes up so rarely should be a sub-class, or maybe even a feat or two. "Wilderness Survival" is better than "Fire resistance" but it is still a class designed around something that doesn't come up very often.

But, the thing is, classes don't exist for only mechanical reasons. Classes raise the minimum amount of flavor a character can have. When we play a lot, like the kinds of people who post on forums do, I think it's easy to forget the benefit of that. The least interesting character you can build in a point-buy system is literally a stat block. The least interesting character you can build in a class-based system is the trope that inspired the class. (Obviously you can build a less interesting character if you try to, I'm assuming no bad actors, just inexperienced/uncreative players).

I saw an example first hand recently when I got a group of friends who hadn't played before into a new campaign. One of my players was struggling to come up with a character concept until we saw the list of backgrounds. All of a sudden, it was like "Acadamy Dropout? That'd be cool. Oh, Runaway Noble, I want to do that. Wait, maybe I could play a Librarian who..." I think that is the value of the Ranger, it's to instill ideas of the kinds of characters who would fit in a DnD world. Is that worth the dozen pages it takes up? Hard to say, it's left as an excercise to the reader.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think the point was that no one used these rules, so being able to ignore them is meaningless. I've never played in a game in which overland travel speeds or foraging for food played a significant role. To my knowledge, published adventures also don't emphasize them, which makes sense because they need to be playable even if the party doesn't have a ranger.

---

More generally, the Ranger's core concept, "The wilderness survivalist and tracker," doesn't seem like enough to justify its mechanical existence. Maybe if it leaned more into the "guy with an animal companion" there would be enough, but the past hundred pages of posts have showed that's not what most people think is the Ranger's thing. In point-buy terms, the wilderness abilities of the ranger would be worth probably less than 10% of its power budget.

It's like, imagine if there was a class called the Fire Resistor whose core concept should be self explainatory: "The guy who doesn't get burned by fire." The class gives fire resistance which scales to immunity and maybe they eventually heal when they would take fire damage. Fans complain that they don't get to do anything against monsters that don't deal fire damage, so in the next edition they can change incoming physical damage to fire damage a few times per day. Maybe they get some gimmicky abilities like summoning a fire elemental, or lighting themselves on fire to deal bonus fire damage. It's clear that this shouldn't be a full class. Something that comes up so rarely should be a sub-class, or maybe even a feat or two. "Wilderness Survival" is better than "Fire resistance" but it is still a class designed around something that doesn't come up very often.

But, the thing is, classes don't exist for only mechanical reasons. Classes raise the minimum amount of flavor a character can have. When we play a lot, like the kinds of people who post on forums do, I think it's easy to forget the benefit of that. The least interesting character you can build in a point-buy system is literally a stat block. The least interesting character you can build in a class-based system is the trope that inspired the class. (Obviously you can build a less interesting character if you try to, I'm assuming no bad actors, just inexperienced/uncreative players).

I saw an example first hand recently when I got a group of friends who hadn't played before into a new campaign. One of my players was struggling to come up with a character concept until we saw the list of backgrounds. All of a sudden, it was like "Acadamy Dropout? That'd be cool. Oh, Runaway Noble, I want to do that. Wait, maybe I could play a Librarian who..." I think that is the value of the Ranger, it's to instill ideas of the kinds of characters who would fit in a DnD world. Is that worth the dozen pages it takes up? Hard to say, it's left as an excercise to the reader.

We used the overla d speed rules once i. 2014 rules to rescue refugees.

They outpaced the baddies and got them to safety.
Players got creative.

 

[Kannik]

In any case, like I said ages ago when this thread started, the trouble with ranger is not actually the class, it is that the game as it is currently is basically has no structured mechanics for exploration, foraging, travel etc. These are things ranger should be an expert on, but there is no mechanical depth to attach the features to.

To which I would again say "the ranger ought not to be a class." I would much prefer exploration/travel/tracking/etc expert to be open to any class, not pigeonholed to a specific class. Why can't your band of merry men, featuring a cleric, warrior, and say a druid (the very class of nature personified!) not all be able to understand and thrive in the wilderness, tracking their foes and covering great distances?

Yes, that would mean developing a separate overlay for characters than class -- let's call it a Profession. So each character would chose a Class and a Profession. Opens up more options and more character concepts. And to me it "solves the issue" that some classes have more baked-in connotations than others... a fighter can be anything from a ruffian to a guard to a shining knight or samurai. A cleric can follow their gods in many ways. But a ranger is heavily tied to the concept of the outdoorsman (with some urban ranger variations).

As noted by others, the other thing about Rangers is that the concept has become so broad that it's tough to accommodate all under one class (and trying to do so, fitting it in with the wilderness angle, locks off some other character concepts that don't want the wilderness thing). Archers, or two weapon skirmishers, or druidic paladin-equivalent, or scouts, or beastmaster/animal companion type, or insert your take on it here... some can be more readily handled by existing classes or by multi-classing, as well as by new (sub)classes, if the "master of tracking and survival" can be handled elsewhere. This would allow for non-magic rangers, or heavily magic-rangers, for beastmasters to not be tied to having to be a wilderness warrior (a desert city ruffian with their pet scorpion!), and all sorts of variations therein.

So is the ranger a necessary class? I say no, not specifically... AND the game ought to support all the variations of what falls under the current ranger archetypes. Which therefore likely includes multiple necessary classes, sub-classes, and the like. And even better if there's a profession-like overlay to handle the non-combat portions.

 

[Minigiant]

More generally, the Ranger's core concept, "The wilderness survivalist and tracker," doesn't seem like enough to justify its mechanical existence. Maybe if it leaned more into the "guy with an animal companion" there would be enough, but the past hundred pages of posts have showed that's not what most people think is the Ranger's thing. In point-buy terms, the wilderness abilities of the ranger would be worth probably less than 10% of its power budget.

It's like, imagine if there was a class called the Fire Resistor whose core concept should be self explainatory: "The guy who doesn't get burned by fire." The class gives fire resistance which scales to immunity and maybe they eventually heal when they would take fire damage. Fans complain that they don't get to do anything against monsters that don't deal fire damage, so in the next edition they can change incoming physical damage to fire damage a few times per day. Maybe they get some gimmicky abilities like summoning a fire elemental, or lighting themselves on fire to deal bonus fire damage. It's clear that this shouldn't be a full class. Something that comes up so rarely should be a sub-class, or maybe even a feat or two. "Wilderness Survival" is better than "Fire resistance" but it is still a class designed around something that doesn't come up very often.

I think the point is less "how do make a class whose specialty is Wilderness Survival come up all the time"

And more "Our world has Rangers. What does a Ranger bring to the table".

Like a Ranger talks to animals. And they might push the animals to do things. Fight for them. Send messages. Act as spies. And the same for plants. And rocks.

Druids have too much respect of nature to exploit it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

i'm wondering what the passives might be for the 14 creature types, though i don't think i really know enough about the design throughline of monsters well enough fill this list with appropriate bonuses, i'd probably give expertise in the most appropriate of Nature, Religion or Arcana for each to start with, a resistance to a damage type or status most commonly associated with them (fear for dragons, necrotic for undead, charm for fey...) and then something to act as a direct 'counter' (fiends would provide the sacred flame cantrip and PB free uses of branding smite,)

I’ve thought about it from a different angle, more like the 2014 hunter turned up to 11.

But, if we go by official creature types, it’s tough because few of them have unifying mechanics, but…here’s a try with no attempt to balance

Beasts - Ability to communicate with beasts and predict their behaviors, prof animal handling, speak with animals and find familiar always prepared

Constructs - prof 2 artisans tools, extra damage against constructs and objects?

Fey - advantage against charm, ability to shut down teleportation and Shapeshifting?

Fiends - Ability to temporarily shut down damage resistance and absolutely not adding an attack cantrip. Like guys….the class is a warrior. Add attack cantrips doesn’t do it any practical good. Give it the ability to do radiant damage with weapon attacks if you want to to strike out with holy fire.

Undead - Divine Favor and an attack spell that has a rider that is a show target turn undead.

Tbh give the ranger the ability to make their extra damage (hunters mark or a replacement feature) deal any damage type. Not Force, but any of them, so they can hit those rare vulnerabilities too. That’s a big step toward them being the weapon using class that can hit enemies where they’re weak like casters can.