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Is WotC over-thinking the Ranger?
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<blockquote data-quote="Kichwas" data-source="post: 6705570" data-attributes="member: 891"><p>I suspect people who pick Beastmaster are most likely trying to recreate their Hunter from years of playing WoW. And the class... probably should respect that - because that's a very enjoyable playstyle for a lot of people (I was never really one of them, but it probably accounts for half of all WoW subs).</p><p></p><p>WoW, Guild Wars 2, and a number of other MMOs have all created versions of this playstyle. There is no reason it cannot be done right in a table top RPG...</p><p></p><p>Some basic 'theorycraft' not yet thought through:</p><p>- Allow Rangers to amp up the kind of animal they can train as they level. And the pet they have gains in power as they level.</p><p>- Allow them to give the animal a fighting style - offensive, defensive, or agile. The animal would then get a few tweaks to its combat based on the choice.</p><p>- Allow for MMO style 'commands' - command your "pet" into guardian, 'passive', or 'guard that' modes. In guardian mode it protects you, an attacks anything you attack. In passive mode your pet is away from the keyboard getting soda for this fight..., in 'guard that' mode you pet moves to guard someone or something an attacks anything that attacks that thing or tries to 'handle / take/ break / mess with' it.</p><p></p><p>- The pet, after that, is either DM played or the player can control it within those commands if the player is the sort who can be trusted to not give it a magical ability to come up with new commands on its own... <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p>- Changing the command style would be an action.</p><p></p><p>- these are just the basics seen in any MMO pet class. All of it lacking numbers so it could be balanced to a table top game with relative ease.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>10 years of playing MMOs in the time I've been away from table top gaming informs me that no, its not inherently unbalancing as a concept. You just need to actually design for its being present when that class is around.</p><p></p><p>Of course some of the MMO gimmicks used to make it pass those 3 tests you have there might raise some eyebrows with table-toppers. Specifically moves like the WoW patch that caused pets to only take 10% of damage from any area attack. And the ressurect-in-combat ability pet classes in both WoW and Guild Wars 2 have with regards to their pets. But other solutions can be found for the same problems.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yep. Anyone who has ever played any of the various Cyberpunk-genre RPGs that were around before the wider public got internet access, ie, before the mid 90s... knows this all too well. Everytime the character that was the 'decker / hacker / whatever we're calling a person with a web-browser and dial-up this time' turned on his Commodore-64-equiv-PC and went 'Tron-Mode' all the other players could basically go out for pizza. Not call delivery, but just take off and come back in a few hours... because the game was now on hold (especially in the games that made typing on a keyboard into a 300-baud modem 10x faster than reality for... reasons... so your hacker could play out an entire campaign before the other players got to lift a single plastic caltrop and throw it at you for letting that guy play that character, again...).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Kichwas, post: 6705570, member: 891"] I suspect people who pick Beastmaster are most likely trying to recreate their Hunter from years of playing WoW. And the class... probably should respect that - because that's a very enjoyable playstyle for a lot of people (I was never really one of them, but it probably accounts for half of all WoW subs). WoW, Guild Wars 2, and a number of other MMOs have all created versions of this playstyle. There is no reason it cannot be done right in a table top RPG... Some basic 'theorycraft' not yet thought through: - Allow Rangers to amp up the kind of animal they can train as they level. And the pet they have gains in power as they level. - Allow them to give the animal a fighting style - offensive, defensive, or agile. The animal would then get a few tweaks to its combat based on the choice. - Allow for MMO style 'commands' - command your "pet" into guardian, 'passive', or 'guard that' modes. In guardian mode it protects you, an attacks anything you attack. In passive mode your pet is away from the keyboard getting soda for this fight..., in 'guard that' mode you pet moves to guard someone or something an attacks anything that attacks that thing or tries to 'handle / take/ break / mess with' it. - The pet, after that, is either DM played or the player can control it within those commands if the player is the sort who can be trusted to not give it a magical ability to come up with new commands on its own... :) - Changing the command style would be an action. - these are just the basics seen in any MMO pet class. All of it lacking numbers so it could be balanced to a table top game with relative ease. 10 years of playing MMOs in the time I've been away from table top gaming informs me that no, its not inherently unbalancing as a concept. You just need to actually design for its being present when that class is around. Of course some of the MMO gimmicks used to make it pass those 3 tests you have there might raise some eyebrows with table-toppers. Specifically moves like the WoW patch that caused pets to only take 10% of damage from any area attack. And the ressurect-in-combat ability pet classes in both WoW and Guild Wars 2 have with regards to their pets. But other solutions can be found for the same problems. Yep. Anyone who has ever played any of the various Cyberpunk-genre RPGs that were around before the wider public got internet access, ie, before the mid 90s... knows this all too well. Everytime the character that was the 'decker / hacker / whatever we're calling a person with a web-browser and dial-up this time' turned on his Commodore-64-equiv-PC and went 'Tron-Mode' all the other players could basically go out for pizza. Not call delivery, but just take off and come back in a few hours... because the game was now on hold (especially in the games that made typing on a keyboard into a 300-baud modem 10x faster than reality for... reasons... so your hacker could play out an entire campaign before the other players got to lift a single plastic caltrop and throw it at you for letting that guy play that character, again...). [/QUOTE]
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