D&D (2024) One D&D Expert Classes Playtest Document Is Live

The One D&D Expert Class playest document is now available to download. You can access it by signing into your D&D Beyond account at the link below. It contains three classes -- bard, rogue, and ranger, along with three associated subclasses (College of Lore, Thief, and Hunter), plus a number of feats.

Unearthed Arcana Playtest

Unearthed Arcana Playtest Materials Get Unearthed Arcana playtest content, try it out in your game, and provide feedback! Check back regularly for ...

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Bill Zebub]

It doesn't matter how you envision your character when you sit down to play?

Huh? Of course it does. And I get to envision it however I want, magical or non-magical. I don't feel bound by WotC's description, only their rules.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Apparently its brutally unfair to the poor spellcasters otherwise.

It's hard to take posts seriously when they drip with sarcasm and hyperbole.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The more this discussion goes on, the more it looks like the main issue is VSM components. I get it, nobody wants their Aragorn-like character to go abracadabra while they do weird gestures and toss bat crap everywhere.

I think that's one aspect. Certainly if you want to imagine your ability as non-magical, a requirement for VSM makes that harder to support.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Aragon is closer to the 5e Ranger than Van Helsing is to the Cleric.

I can see the "technically correct, the best kind of correct" angle here, but it's a very small margin at this point even for "technically correct".

Both of them are extremely distant from the originating concepts (Hammer Horror Van Helsing and Aragorn). The difference is that Cleric has been at a more-or-less consistent distance since OD&D, whereas Ranger was rather closer until 5E pushed it quite far away and then 1D&D even further. It's like yeah, Cleric has always 1.25 miles from Hammer Horror Van Helsing, but Ranger started like 0.25 miles from Aragorn, and at this point, they're 1.1 miles from him.

The big problem though is that there's been no particular pressure from either players or pop culture for Ranger to move this way. Pop culture has essentially two strands of Ranger - the Aragorn/Katniss-type (the reluctant super-skilled hero from the woods) and the Beastmaster type - and that's videogame beastmaster type, not the movie btw. This character is less survival/woodsy-oriented, often, but definitely has at least one serious large dangerous animal friend and likely multiple and can do magic to do with those animals (or of an animal theme) too.

And Ranger lore in D&D 5E/1D&D basically says they're Aragorn/Katniss-types with a truly brief mention of magic, not the sort of person who casts a spell on their main target virtually every round as a core component of their way of fighting, nor does it imply their woodsy ways are basically reliant on spellcasting.

So again we're back to "pick a lane" or "false advertising". D&D's Ranger is not what a lot of people expect, and further, the lore/advertising misleads people about what it is and what it does. If they want to go forwards with the absolutely magic-reliant Ranger we have in 1D&D, they need to edit the lore to reflect that. This isn't a character who is primarily a woodsman with a touch of magic - this is a character who is ineffective in combat without magic and not great outside it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I would have thought the Ranger as "monster hunter who makes the rest of the party more effective without casting spells" would have been a popular idea within the Warlord fan club.

 

[Remathilis]

The more this discussion goes on, the more it looks like the main issue is VSM components. I get it, nobody wants their Aragorn-like character to go abracadabra while they do weird gestures and toss bat crap everywhere.

To be fair, the notion of such things are pretty archaic to magic as well. Plenty of spellcasters in fiction do not rely on overt verbal or physical displays of casting, and material components are rare outside of wands, staves and plot mcguffins. If we're aiming for parallelity, I'd be perfectly fine with removing VSM (except for costly material components) as limiting factors.

Alternatively, I'd be fine with warriors assuming specific katas and yelling specific battle cries (hiiiii-yaaa!) before doing special "supernatural" effects that can be countered with effects like silence. Then warriors can do their fireball-strikes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Warlord fan club

I mean that's like two people at this point.

Even I let my membership lapse some years ago. Still keep sending me newsletters though.

Alternatively, I'd be fine with warriors assuming specific katas and yelling specific battle cries (hiiiii-yaaa!) before doing special "supernatural" effects that can be countered with effects like silence. Then warriors can do their fireball-strikes.

Welcome back to the Book of 9 Swords! Aka proto-4E.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

(In a more serious "How to make that work" sense it seems like for "supernatural" martial effects the main counter would be movement-preventers and slowers, rather than silence and concentration breaks - like, you can't cast a spell whilst Silenced, but you can't do a flying leap-chop whilst Slowed or Restrained or the like (whereas you could Misty Step). Those sort of effects are a bit more common than Silence of course, but you can balance around that.)

 

[Remathilis]

I mean that's like two people at this point.

Even I let my membership lapse some years ago. Still keep sending me newsletters though.

Welcome back to the Book of 9 Swords! Aka proto-4E.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I mean, I liked Bo9S, but I also accepted it as "fitan magic" that taps into "magic" the same way ki, psionics, incarnum, and spellcasting did. Absolutely nothing mundane about it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, I liked Bo9S, but I also accepted it as "fitan magic" that taps into "magic" the same way ki, psionics, incarnum, and spellcasting did. Absolutely nothing mundane about it.

No-one is saying stuff needs to be "mundane". I mean, leaping 30' and chopping off a dude's head is most certainly not "mundane", but it doesn't need to be "magic" let alone "a spell".

We can have stuff that is, I believe the term was "extraordinary" without it being "spell-like" or "a spell" or even indeed "magic".

Ki isn't magic even though it is clearly supernatural/extraordinary. I mean, a Monk in 1E didn't have their abilities stop working in an anti-magic zone, did they?

 

[Eric V]

Huh? Of course it does. And I get to envision it however I want, magical or non-magical. I don't feel bound by WotC's description, only their rules.

Right.

And WotC rules say that the ranger's abilities...

...need V,S,M components.
...can be dispelled.
...can be counter-spelled.
...are subject to anti-magic zones, issues with The Weave (is that still a thing in FR?), etc.
...legendary resistance (haven't gone through all the spells, may not be thing)
...are part of other casters' spell lists.

Fair amount of rules interfering in the envisioning. YMMV.