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<blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 8972200" data-attributes="member: 7635">So let's say you want to make a Conan rip-off. But you don't think rage is appropriate. Conan was no mindless berserker, after all! But the D&amp;D barbarian is defined by rage and has been since 3e (the less said about 1e's barbarian, the better) so if I want to be the archetype barbarian, I'm forced to build around a feature I don't want or need. You can tell me to play a fighter instead, but a fighter is not a barbarian.That's how debates around the ranger and spells feel to me. The ranger gets a class feature that doesn't emulate all the iconic rangers of media, but it's part of its niche in D&amp;D. To demand ranger magic be removed or relegated to a subclass is no different than demanding rage be removed or moved from barbarian. And you can do that with the other classes I mentioned. Lots of thieves and rogues never used anything resembling sneak attack, but the Rogue class is built around it. There are plenty of nature priests that don't turn into animals, holy knights without divine smite, and minstrels who don't cast a single spell. We could make the rogue, druid, paladin, and bard all generic enough that they can support any version of those archetypes found in media, but at a certain point they become generic customizable classlike lumps with no defining features. At that point, why not just go classless and let the player decide what a &quot;ranger&quot; or &quot;bard&quot; is?Mind you, I'm not advocating for classless D&amp;D. I'm pointing out that at the end of the day, we have three options: accept D&amp;D Davey Crockett has magic, accept he's not a ranger but some other class/build like rogue/scout, or accept that you can never have a ranger that will fit all the various rangers in media and abandon the notion of classes.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Remathilis, post: 8972200, member: 7635"] So let's say you want to make a Conan rip-off. But you don't think rage is appropriate. Conan was no mindless berserker, after all! But the D&D barbarian is defined by rage and has been since 3e (the less said about 1e's barbarian, the better) so if I want to be the archetype barbarian, I'm forced to build around a feature I don't want or need. You can tell me to play a fighter instead, but a fighter is not a barbarian. That's how debates around the ranger and spells feel to me. The ranger gets a class feature that doesn't emulate all the iconic rangers of media, but it's part of its niche in D&D. To demand ranger magic be removed or relegated to a subclass is no different than demanding rage be removed or moved from barbarian. And you can do that with the other classes I mentioned. Lots of thieves and rogues never used anything resembling sneak attack, but the Rogue class is built around it. There are plenty of nature priests that don't turn into animals, holy knights without divine smite, and minstrels who don't cast a single spell. We could make the rogue, druid, paladin, and bard all generic enough that they can support any version of those archetypes found in media, but at a certain point they become generic customizable classlike lumps with no defining features. At that point, why not just go classless and let the player decide what a "ranger" or "bard" is? Mind you, I'm not advocating for classless D&D. I'm pointing out that at the end of the day, we have three options: accept D&D Davey Crockett has magic, accept he's not a ranger but some other class/build like rogue/scout, or accept that you can never have a ranger that will fit all the various rangers in media and abandon the notion of classes. [/QUOTE]

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