D&D (2024) Ranger playtest discussion

[gorice]

The real test of the ranger's wilderness abilities is going to be how skills interact with changes to the exploration rules (if at all). Personally, I much prefer design where the designer trusts an existing system (i.e. skills) and makes it work across multiple situations, rather than adding lots of finicky ribbon abilities.

It's underwhelming and flavorless. Hunters mark will turn into an action tax. Round 1 you cast hunters mark while everybody else attacks.

I really hate it when they design abilities that are just buttons you have to push in order to push other buttons. Like, what actually is a hunter's mark? Or a smite, for that matter? It's a button youh push to make numbers go up. There's no flavour, and no interaction with the fictional world.

Anyway, I think PF2 nailed the feel of the ranger pretty nicely. Note that the ranger is not a spellcaster, but has the option to choose feats that give them weird but subtle (for Pathfinder) nature magic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You know the number one reason why this won't happen you wouldn't like it if they did this.

If you get nonspell ranger features, guess

who chooses which nature features you get
how many features you get
how often you get to use it
how often your options are updated in new books....


WOTC tied a nonspell ranger twice, the community hated it.

Level Up did it, and it's great.

 

[Mort]

It's underwhelming and flavorless. Hunters mark will turn into an action tax. Round 1 you cast hunters mark while everybody else attacks.

It's a bonus action, so you can cast it AND attack - that's the appeal. It's what rangers have been doing anyway. At least now it's less of a spell tax (it's always known and always prepared) and it no longer takes concentration.

 

[Gladius Legis]

As for the Hunter's Multiattack, this new one obviously sucks, but it's not like the old one was great, either. They really just need to make it a meaningful expansion of the Attack Action, so that Multiattacking doesn't cancel out things that specifically only work with Attack Actions. Like, something simple like you can use your Attack Action to attack up to 4 times as long as each attack is against a different target, or something like that.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I've always felt that Geralt would be a Ranger in D&D, except that his spells are very much based on Arcane spells like Burning Hands, Thunderwave and Shield.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've always felt that Geralt would be a Ranger in D&D, except that his spells are very much based on Arcane spells like Burning Hands, Thunderwave and Shield.

AD&D rangers used arcane spells too.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

For the Hunter if they're going to lean on using Conjure Barrage for shooting off volleys of arrows, maybe they should be allowed to cast it as a Bonus Action or as an Attack in the Action Action.

 

[billd91]

To heck with the community. Particularly the community of the time. We have a new community of D&D players now, let’s let rangers do those things without magic.

Yes, we have a new community of D&D players... that has been playing rangers with magical abilities throughout 5e's increasingly popular tenure, more magic than the 1e-3e time frame. So, why would you expect them to want a magicless ranger?

 

[niklinna]

I mean, they really need to get rid of spellcasting.

It's not like most of the things the spells can do fit Rangers thematically or are at all interesting. The vast majority of people who actually play Rangers aren't going to miss them, I'd suggest.

You know what they actually need to do? Bring back Wardens. Spellcasting Rangers should become Wardens, the weird Druid-hybrid class. Spell-less Rangers become Katniss Everdeen and her ilk.

Rangers should just be the warlocks of martials, with a shopping list of special abilities that you only get to pick 8 from, and at least three of them are viewed as mandatory upgrades to your basic bow & arrow or two-weapon fighting ability. Oh and you only get two attacks per short rest but they do maximum damage. ;-)

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Four of those are combat cantrips, and in my opinion none of the combat ones are on-theme for the Ranger, nor are Druidcraft or Message.

Message seems exactly the sort of thing a scout type character should have. Druidcraft is just lame all around though, particularly compared to prestidigitation.