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.

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[Ruin Explorer]

There is also the Ranger as a D&D trope all on its own like the first TSR published version of it and forwards. People playing it regardless of Aragorn etc and expecting a “D&D Ranger”.

My long experience is that Ranger is a popular class in D&D.

But the main people it's popular with are people new to D&D.

Not veterans. What you're describing only applies to veterans. People who already have their expectations precisely calibrated to D&D's peculiarities.

So what I've seen repeatedly is people read the Ranger description, which barely mentions magic (seriously, check it out), or have a Ranger described, and what they think is "I can be Katniss" or if they're older "I can be Aragorn!" (who is literally called a Ranger!), and the main thing they think they're getting is a "nature expert", who is at least pretty good with a bow.

And what I then have seen is that people who do keep playing, don't usually play Rangers much, because for it's just a disappointing class that isn't actually that good at "nature stuff" (a Druid or even a Wizard often wildly outperforms it in "nature stuff"), and when veterans do play Rangers, it's often exploit some peculiar mechanic, and often a multiclass thing rather than a single class.

It's not like Cleric, where Cleric has become its own whole thing.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Or you could just be a Rogue with a background that gives you survival. You now have a "Ranger" without spell casting.

What about my pet?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's exactly what the scout subclass for rogue does.

The big problem with Scout is that Rogue is completely the wrong chassis for the archetypical Ranger, who isn't some sort of backstabber/sneak attacker, and is the sort of person who is putting arrows downrange extremely rapidly. If there was a Fighter that ditched armour, got expertise, got nature-related abilities, and so on, that'd be a lot better. But that'd be what the Ranger is, except they gave it a ton of magic instead of actual abilities. It's even lost a bunch of abilities.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I agree, but I'm not sure what else they could do. What did you have in mind?

I'm a fan of Pathfinder 2's 4 tiers of proficiency: Trained, Expert, Master and Legendary. Moving from an action to a bonus action, crafting temp potions, poisons, advanced traps, as part of your daily prep. Lifting/throwing/jumping above human limits. Lots of the mini abilities that feats give should be included in advanced skill training. At expert level, intimidate might cause enemies to flee or at legendary they can die of fright. Master stealth could get the shadowdancers old "hide in plain sight" where they can hide while being observed or teleport through shadows at legendary.

This is off the cuff, but I think it should let you DO something cool rather than just have a slightly bigger number. If D&D adopted the degrees of success for skills (ie, a crit is 10 over DC) then bigger numbers might be intriguing, but with its (IMO outdated) binary pass/fail... meh.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The non-casting camp should win, IMNSHO. You can always add spells through subclass(es) or multiclassing, but you can’t take it away.

What about the "that's just a rogue in a green cloak" camp?

 

[Aldarc]

I really think they either need to do this or split the ranger into two classes - one that’s a caster and one that isn’t. There’s just no way a single class is going to satisfy what everyone wants from the ranger, especially when the casting and non-casting camps are so thoroughly entrenched.

So maybe like a Martial Ranger and a Primal Seeker?

 

[darjr]

My long experience is that Ranger is a popular class in D&D.

But the main people it's popular with are people new to D&D.

Not veterans. What you're describing only applies to veterans. People who already have their expectations precisely calibrated to D&D's peculiarities.

So what I've seen repeatedly is people read the Ranger description, which barely mentions magic (seriously, check it out), or have a Ranger described, and what they think is "I can be Katniss" or if they're older "I can be Aragorn!" (who is literally called a Ranger!), and the main thing they think they're getting is a "nature expert", who is at least pretty good with a bow.

And what I then have seen is that people who do keep playing, don't usually play Rangers much, because for it's just a disappointing class that isn't actually that good at "nature stuff" (a Druid or even a Wizard often wildly outperforms it in "nature stuff"), and when veterans do play Rangers, it's often exploit some peculiar mechanic, and often a multiclass thing rather than a single class.

It's not like Cleric, where Cleric has become its own whole thing.

I just ran a tier 3 game this weekend. A player there ran a Ranger. Very much disliked Drizzt. Loved his Ranger. He's been playing since the 80's.

I know a few more veterans playing the D&D Ranger.

I'll grant you one of them want's a spell less ranger. A couple of the others may too, I'm not sure.

I also run a lot of "new people" tables, to D&D and too 5e and too RPGS. Many of them have gone on to keep playing and I run into them occasionally. A lot of folks new since 5e, a lot. I don't recall any of them complaining about a Ranger bait and switch.

 

[Bill Zebub]

What about the "that's just a rogue in a green cloak" camp?

They should be publicly ridiculed until they quit RPGs in shame and spend the rest of their lives playing Hello Kitty: Island Adventure.

 

[TrainedMunkee]

What about my pet?

You can have one of my cats, really I am trying to get rid of those dudes. You could call him Guenhwyvar.

More seriously, there are no pet classes in the play test yet, who knows how that will pan out? It would it appear that it will be pretty easy to swap subclasses between classes.

I played a pet Ranger in a 5e game for awhile. I found it very dissatisfying. My wife's druid was much better with a pet.

 

[Minigiant]

The non-casting camp should win, IMNSHO. You can always add spells through subclass(es) or multiclassing, but you can’t take it away.

But the non-casting ranger tends to be describes 75% of time a "Fighter in a Green cloak who can Hunter's Mark." or a "Rogue in a Green Cloak who can Hunter's Mark."