Ranger Beast Master: errata will add new features to your animal companion!

[Pauln6]

That's not how the dying rules work. The DM isn't supposed to artificially invoke Instant Death, unless it's reasonably certain that the dying creature will receive no assistance. It's a fair call for monsters that you've just eradicated, but it's not a fair call for party members or pets.
That aura is a band-aid on the broken saving throw rules, where normal characters would otherwise fall off the bottom of the d20 roll. because making a DC 21 save would be impossible. It's not an elegant fix, by any means, but it's the only thing that keeps the promise of Bounded Accuracy alive.
Wisdom governs both Perception and Survival, which are the two most important aspects of exploration. I would say that a ranger contributes to exploration as well as a paladin contributes to socialization, except the ranger also has a lot of other class features that put them way out ahead. Rangers are amazing out of combat. It's possibly the one thing that they have, which puts them ahead of a fighter in any way.

Yes I found the Ranger was awesome outside of combat, which is why I think tweaks to the ranger should be conservative. Paladins are generally terrible at stealth.

 

[Stalker0]

That aura is a band-aid on the broken saving throw rules, where normal characters would otherwise fall off the bottom of the d20 roll. because making a DC 21 save would be impossible.

A lich, CR 21 spellcaster ... has spell DC of 20. So we are talking near top of the chain, and that's a DC 20. The DCs you are noting just don't happen that often.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A lich, CR 21 spellcaster ... has spell DC of 20. So we are talking near top of the chain, and that's a DC 20. The DCs you are noting just don't happen that often.

The last campaign I ran spent a lot of time at high levels, and a CR 17 adult red dragon has DC 21 on its dragon breath. Even a 20 is out of range for anyone with a single stat below average, though, let alone anyone with an actual weakness.

 

[Pauln6]

True but that ensures that a dragon like that's ALWAYS a threat. PCs need to use magic and teamwork to overcome this legendary creature not ways to make a Wolf more resistant as standard.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

True but that ensures that a dragon like that's ALWAYS a threat. PCs need to use magic and teamwork to overcome this legendary creature not ways to make a Wolf more resistant as standard.

There's a difference between "always a threat" and something that is literally impossible for a legendary hero to achieve. A level 20 fighter is supposed to be the most powerful fighter in the world, heralded across the world, fully capable of beating up a titan before breakfast.

Literally impossible is supposed to be off-the-table for things like this. That was the whole point of Bounded Accuracy - that you shouldn't need to specialize in order to have a chance to succeed. But Bounded Accuracy fails entirely when it comes to high-end saving throws.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

A lich, CR 21 spellcaster ... has spell DC of 20. So we are talking near top of the chain, and that's a DC 20. The DCs you are noting just don't happen that often.

What, you don't find a +15 save vs DC 20 to be balanced?! I'm utterly shocked! Oh, don't forget the 1d4 from Bless!

I reworked mine to just have the paladin auras to grant proficiency. Slapping a +5 on a character's already good save is some ridiculous crap that should have been left behind in 3rd edition/pathfinder.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Yes I found the Ranger was awesome outside of combat, which is why I think tweaks to the ranger should be conservative. Paladins are generally terrible at stealth.

Their class features are mainly ribbons no one cares about. Sure, they can find clean water easier! And if the vast amounts of magic nearly all PC classes wield didnt instantly solve all these issues it might be valuable once or twice an entire campaign! Unfortunately than shooting a bow twice a round, essentially anything a ranger can do, a druid can do, and often better. The revised ranger was looking pretty good both in combat and out... I don't get why they axed it, particularly if they're going to issue errata anyways.

Also group checks typically make it OK for Paladins to be terrible at stealth.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What, you don't find a +15 save vs DC 20 to be balanced?! I'm utterly shocked! Oh, don't forget the 1d4 from Bless!

The thing is, +16 is just about the highest that a save can reasonably get, and even that has a chance of failure against at-level challenges. A paladin with +16 to save, +1d4 from bless, with Advantage on the roll, still has a chance to fail against DC 20. A fighter without paladin assistance, making a Charisma save with their barely-below-average Charisma, does not have a chance to succeed or fail against DC 20.

The latter issue is a problem, because it violates the premise of Bounded Accuracy, which is that everyone should have a chance. The former may be a different issue, related to monsters being too weak in general, but it's perfectly fine under Bounded Accuracy.

I reworked mine to just have the paladin auras to grant proficiency.

That also works. Really, the best possible fix would be to just give everyone proficiency with every save, but tying it to a paladin accomplishes the same thing (as long as the group has a paladin).

 

[Ristamar]

The latter issue is a problem, because it violates the premise of Bounded Accuracy, which is that everyone should have a chance. The former may be a different issue, related to monsters being too weak in general, but it's perfectly fine under Bounded Accuracy.

Bounded Accuracy, as far as I can recall, has always been largely used to describe the relative flattening of the "Bonus To Hit vs AC" curve with scaling damage as PCs level. It also flattened out some of the math for ability checks and saves. However, I've never seen any mention of hard barriers in regard to the numbers, and I don't recall the above (e.g "You'll NEVER automatically fail a Saving Throw because it's too difficult") ever being an expressed goal of the designers.

If you have a source that I may have missed, please share.

 

[Pauln6]

I think the issue with saves is minor compared to previous editions but I do think there should be more varied ways to improve saves.

My group faced off against an ancient red dragon at level 13. They were lucky enough to win the initiative and the battlemaster blew action surge and manoeuvres to do as much damage as possible as well as manoeuvres to help the others pass saves. He actually had a suit of dragonscale armour from a previous kill and to intimidate the dragon with advantage into thinking he was a big, dangerous dragon killer.

He had some lucky rolls admittedly but only nutters try to kill dragons and then cry about how much they got burned afterwards ;-p

We've adopted the 6 save houserule to spread saves out more evenly, however.