D&D (2024) Ranger playtest discussion

[Bill Zebub]

Would make anti-magic fields a looooot more threatening.

"Mmmm....I suddenly got a craving for pineapple pizza..."
"You must be in an anti-magic field! Move!"

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think that would be pretty awesome. I find risk/reward tradeoffs like that to be a lot of fun.

Me too. I wish we were more representative of WotC's fans.

 

[Minigiant]

You think you need magic to be good at following the tracks of and finding a creature you've focused your attention on?

if its on a changeable duration, yes.

 

[Gammadoodler]

if its on a changeable duration, yes.

Like it's impossible to just... focus longer?

Clearly we disagree here.

To me Hunters Mark is "because I said so" magic rather than anything obviously supernatural. It's targeted barbarian rage without the damage resistance.

The amount of work to convert it from spell to mundane class feature would be astonishingly small.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I was thinking of a Hunters Mark that’s mechanically sort of like Reckless Attacks: you go into a kind of focused state, focus intently on one enemy, giving bonuses (whatever they might be), but at the cost of not paying attention to other enemies, who perhaps have advantage on attacks against you. Awesome against a single enemy, very dangerous against groups.

Either that or a giant, red magical arrow bobbing over the target’s head, showing everybody where he is, even from the other side of Warsong Gulch. ($&#% Hunters, ok?)

 

[Gammadoodler]

I was thinking of a Hunters Mark that’s mechanically sort of like Reckless Attacks: you go into a kind of focused state, focus intently on one enemy, giving bonuses (whatever they might be), but at the cost of not paying attention to other enemies, who perhaps have advantage on attacks against you. Awesome against a single enemy, very dangerous against groups.

Either that or a giant, red magical arrow bobbing over the target’s head, showing everybody where he is, even from the other side of Warsong Gulch. ($&#% Hunters, ok?)

I think the tradeoff makes sense thematically, but the bonus would need to be huge for that big of a penalty or the Ranger would need significantly more robust defensive options.

Barbarians get rage damage resistance and bonus damage with an option to reckless attack. Always on Reckless Attack without damage resistance would be suicidal (less so if monsters can't crit). Maybe add an easier ability to hide way earlier?

Maybe it could be slightly less hyper-focused and more just alert, keep exploration bonuses, reduce or eliminate damage bonus to attacks but offer some expanded reaction options (e.g ranged opportunity attack, reaction seek action, etc.) ?

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think the tradeoff makes sense thematically, but the bonus would need to be huge for that big of a penalty or the Ranger would need significantly more robust defensive options.

Barbarians get rage damage resistance and bonus damage with an option to reckless attack. Always on Reckless Attack without damage resistance would be suicidal (less so if monsters can't crit). Maybe add an easier ability to hide way earlier?

Maybe it could be slightly less hyper-focused and more just alert, keep exploration bonuses, reduce or eliminate damage bonus to attacks but offer some expanded reaction options (e.g ranged opportunity attack, reaction seek action, etc.) ?

Well, you wouldn't have to always use it. Like I said, against a single boss there's no downside. But even against a group, if you're shooting from range maybe there's still no downside. (It partially depends on whether the DM plays the monsters so that they know they'll have advantage against you.). Or maybe you pop it after the minions are dead. Against two enemies, maybe an ally has one of them preoccupied, so you focus on the other one. There's a whole range of possibilities, and I think part of the fun is figuring out when and how to use it.

What I like about designs like this is that it's not a no-brainer (does the double negative make it a "brainer"?).

But really I popped into the thread to say that I wish I, in real life, could cast speak with animals. Just once. I would really love to have a 10 minute conversation with my 6 month old pup, to explain some ground rules.

 

[Horwath]

here is my take on the Ranger:

Ranger a la carte; be the Ranger that you want to be...

Right now people want for Ranger to be everything and anything: A woodsman, a marksman, a tracker, a beastman, a dualwielding storm of swords, an expert, some kind of wilderness rogue, a naturalist healer, some level of druid-like spellcaster. Ranger can be all of those, but maybe not the same...

www.enworld.org

 

[Olrox17]

here is my take on the Ranger:

Ranger a la carte; be the Ranger that you want to be...

Right now people want for Ranger to be everything and anything: A woodsman, a marksman, a tracker, a beastman, a dualwielding storm of swords, an expert, some kind of wilderness rogue, a naturalist healer, some level of druid-like spellcaster. Ranger can be all of those, but maybe not the same...

www.enworld.org

That’s an interesting thought experiment, almost a “build your own class”. Makes me think even more that giving something similar to warlock invocations to the ranger would works well. Instead of spellcasting, of course, which could be reserved to subclasses.

 

[Horwath]

That’s an interesting thought experiment, almost a “build your own class”. Makes me think even more that giving something similar to warlock invocations to the ranger would works well. Instead of spellcasting, of course, which could be reserved to subclasses.

It is build your own class, but choice of abilities are mostly "rangery" in theme.