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

[Stalker0]

That doesn't excuse them asking for saving throws which are impossible, though, because that's an inelegant solution to the problem at hand. You should never tell a player to roll a die, if the outcome of the die roll is irrelevant because every outcome leads to an identical result.

I will disagree to a point here. Again, we are talking about a creature that is supposed to be extremely difficult, maybe nigh impossible for a party to defeat. This to me is the equivalent of a party asking for a god's personal password and wondering why the knowledge check DC is outside of their possible values.

Further, an "impossible" roll does serve a few functions. One, it lets other party members feel special when they can beat the save because "they are just that good". And....players often have a number of abilities and circumstance that can help them beat a save. I will often call for a save, and my players will call up X ability that I had completely forgotten about it. So I never assume a save is impossible, characters, especially high level ones, often can surprise you.

 

[CapnZapp]

That doesn't excuse them asking for saving throws which are impossible, though, because that's an inelegant solution to the problem at hand. You should never tell a player to roll a die, if the outcome of the die roll is irrelevant because every outcome leads to an identical result. As a designer with control over every variable and every parameter of the game, you shouldn't allow for that situation to happen, let alone as the standard progression of the game unless players do something exceptional to mitigate it.

As the central design conceit of Bounded Accuracy, the designers don't expect you to raise any of your stats. If you do choose to raise a stat, then it's supposed to make you better at something. There's not supposed to be a minimum investment that's required of everyone before they can even participate in a die roll.

Exactly - and bleedingly obviously so.

Thank you Saelorn.

 

[Laurefindel]

I must say that I agree with @Saelorn too,

I believe in the gaming principle that dice are to be rolled only if the outcome of a challenge is uncertain, and that if a player is allowed/enforced to roll, there should always be a chance, however small that is, to succeed on the task at hand. I was very happy that D&D 5e (at last!) embraced that principle but somewhat disappointed that there wasn't a blanket "1 is always a failure and 20 is always a success" underlying rule.

Let one peasant out of twenty resist the full scale of the magical effect, and let the hero have its 5% chance of escaping the bad guy's "gotcha!" button. It's not going to break the game and IMO, it's one instance when simplicity and consistency win over complexity and diversity. I don't see how the game is much better with the possibility to auto-fail on a save, or auto-succeed on a skill check.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I will disagree to a point here. Again, we are talking about a creature that is supposed to be extremely difficult, maybe nigh impossible for a party to defeat. This to me is the equivalent of a party asking for a god's personal password and wondering why the knowledge check DC is outside of their possible values.

The difference is that guessing a god's personal password is a crazy plan that nobody should expect to work, while trying to dodge a breath weapon is the primary way that characters are expected to interact with breath weapons. It's fine if the party has zero chance at the former, because the designers can't anticipate it as a probable course of action, but they anticipate the latter with such certainty that they put it right in the stat block.

 

[Eubani]

This largely seems to be an issue of style. One camp wants a more "heroic" style where there is always a chance regardless how small, the other camp once some with more "realism" where sometimes you cannot succeed no matter what you do. I think the failure of the designers here is largely not providing a toggle to go which way suits the style. This is suppose to be the "toolbox" edition but there are some areas where there is only 1 tool.

The mechanical setting in this discussions is the you cannot always succeed camp. All that was needed to satisfy the other camp (most of them at any rate) was an optional rule that said something like half proficiency bonus to non proficient saves or a "20" always saves. By not doing this they have failed in one of the main points of 5e which is to be inclusive of differing styles and to provide options that allow the tailoring of the game.

I think that there is enough good ideas floating around and enough time has passed to see what work and what could work better to make a book of optional rules and class abilities. This could plug holes or help style issues without making previous books obsolete.

TLDR: Designers failed to be inclusive on different styles and it is an easy fix.

 

[lkj]

In case anyone is interested, Mearls is working on the alternate class features for the Ranger in his Happy Fun Hour right now (11/20/2018).

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[Jefe Bergenstein]

In case anyone is interested, Mearls is working on the alternate class features for the Ranger in his Happy Fun Hour right now (11/20/2018).

AD

Why aren't they just using the revised ranger from UA? It was actually decent and more than just a sad collection of ribbons.

 

[lkj]

Why aren't they just using the revised ranger from UA? It was actually decent and more than just a sad collection of ribbons.

Short answer: Too big a change to introduce a whole new class. (It's more nuanced than that, but I don't have time to type that much).

However-- This alternate class feature approach is not small tweaking. He addresses exactly your point-- That the ranger choice points don't feel meaningful and that class feature like powers are buried in spells. His suggestions for alternate class features are very substantial changes. Worth taking a look at the stream.'

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[Pauln6]

Why aren't they just using the revised ranger from UA? It was actually decent and more than just a sad collection of ribbons.

I thought the UA Ranger needed a lot more work to balance the class more. The problem for the ranger is more that the paladin is too strong rather than the ranger is too weak, issues with beast companions notwithstanding.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I thought the UA Ranger needed a lot more work to balance the class more. The problem for the ranger is more that the paladin is too strong rather than the ranger is too weak, issues with beast companions notwithstanding.

But the UA ranger wasn't even as strong as the paladin. Or an EK. I really don't see an issue. Their abilities actually DID stuff, rather than just mildly improve the stuff most everyone handwaves away (and would still be better solved by a druid).

Really that's the problem. They're basically just a druid that loses half their spell progression and wildshape to shoot a bow twice a round.