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

[Minigiant]

I mean, in 3.5e we had wizard and fighter as perfect examples of that.
one had no spells and lot of bonus feat slots, other had spells and fewer bonus feat slots.

I've yet to see a company publish a system that works that way and is successful in getting sales.

The typical drawback of classes systems or low class systems is that you struggle to make abilities and features of different archetypes equal in power or scope that they are all valid choices when creating characters. So players and game Masters who really want to dig into specific archetypes typically are not able to. It's typically a struggle to balance a barbarian's rage with an assassin sneak attack and a paladin smite if they're all equally choosable feats.

 

[Horwath]

sure, but they weren't exactly the only classes that existed in that edition were they? and the list of feats the fighter could take were a bunch of fightery things intended to serve as your class features within a theme, the fighter couldn't just take wildshape could they? plus, i suspect many of us don't really want to see the return of excessive feat trees, something i believe was born out of the fighter's 'build it out of feats' design.

classes are feat treas, but you do not have a say what feats are in that tree.
they are just preselected for your convenience. And for, ehem, "balance", hahaha!

I do not say get rid of classes, they are iconic.
but class features should be designed around being in power level of a half-feat or full-feat. All of them.

Then you can have classes and you can have open system if you want to.
just have most feats with level and/or other prerequirements.

 

[Horwath]

I've yet to see a company publish a system that works that way and is successful in getting sales.

I'm saying, keep the classes and leave options open for a custom class.

The typical drawback of classes systems or low class systems is that you struggle to make abilities and features of different archetypes equal in power or scope that they are all valid choices when creating characters. So players and game Masters who really want to dig into specific archetypes typically are not able to. It's typically a struggle to balance a barbarian's rage with an assassin sneak attack and a paladin smite if they're all equally choosable feats.

we had that is 5E, but it required abomination of a multiclass.
you could Rage, sneak attack and smite with same attack.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm saying, keep the classes and leave options open for a custom class.

we had that is 5E, but it required abomination of a multiclass.
you could Rage, sneak attack and smite with same attack.

That's the point.

In order to get a satisfactory version of Rage, sneak attack, and smite, you have to make them difficult to be used together.

You can either have the water down version which can be freely combined or the archetypal versions that cannot and they are on their own tracks.

 

[Horwath]

That's the point.

In order to get a satisfactory version of Rage, sneak attack, and smite, you have to make them difficult to be used together.

why?

You can either have the water down version which can be freely combined or the archetypal versions that cannot and they are on their own tracks.

every "class" has finite amount of "power budget" or "feat slots".
if you take Rage, Smite and sneak attack, those are two opportunities to improve one of those by 2 steps or to take some new features that would be more powerful.

That is the problem with multiclass, you need to hope that the synergy of your low level features will compensate for missing out on high level features.

in 5E we had Assassin 3/Gloomstalker 3/Paladin 2/fighter 2 and then one of the martials taken rest of the levels for alpha-strike build.
It was just the question, what after 1st round when you failed to kill anyone?
lets say that it was ranger at 5th level. That is minimum 12 levels before it comes really online.
and you have ONE feat. vs. 3 for a "normal" character.
and it will be good for a level or two when single class get their 13/14 level abilities/spells.

 

[Minigiant]

why?

Because Rage is worth more than Sneak Attack but less than Smite.

That's the issue. You can't make an Action, Rage, SA, FE, and Smite of equal strength. That's why they are siloed in classes.

 

[Rocker26a]

Splintering off a bit here, but. I don't think signature class features have to be equally strong necessarily, but I would advocate for them being comparably nice. Y'know, you don't necessarily think of a Barbarian as lacking Action Surge, because they have Rage!

I mention it specifically because, Ranger lacking a signature feature comparably nice to those of other classes has been a sticking point for me for a long while. Attempts to make Favoured Enemy into one of those sorts of features have had yielded mixed results, and I think it's proved more trouble than it's worth.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Splintering off a bit here, but. I don't think signature class features have to be equally strong necessarily, but I would advocate for them being comparably nice. Y'know, you don't necessarily think of a Barbarian as lacking Action Surge, because they have Rage!

I mention it specifically because, Ranger lacking a signature feature comparably nice to those of other classes has been a sticking point for me for a long while. Attempts to make Favoured Enemy into one of those sorts of features have had yielded mixed results, and I think it's proved more trouble than it's worth.

and as much as '24 seems to be trying to convince us of it, hunter's mark is not 'it.'

 

[Laurefindel]

and as much as '24 seems to be trying to convince us of it, hunter's mark is not 'it.'

No, it’s too late for that. But it could (should?) have been ‘it’ from the start.

 

[Rocker26a]

and as much as '24 seems to be trying to convince us of it, hunter's mark is not 'it.'

Indeed not!

No, it’s too late for that. But it could (should?) have been ‘it’ from the start.

Right, I think a lot of Ranger's problems come from this sort of place. Like, it's most clear in hindsight what the issues are, and now it's too late to course correct because of issues that've been grandfathered in.