D&D (2024) Ranger playtest discussion

[Ruin Explorer]

They don't have that D&D brand, and no one's made a movie.

There is actually a movie - by Studio Ghibli no less - but it doesn't have much to do with Earthsea, and presents it more as generic fantasy than what Earthsea was. Also the TV series was similarly a disaster and as a bonus made one of the few early non-white fantasy characters into a generic white guy (and played by, I'm sorry, but it's a true, a terrible actor so merit isn't even an excuse).

 

[Islayre d'Argolh]

Who could equally depicted as a Fighter by your own logic. Why accept him and not Katniss?

Put me in charge of 5.5 and Rangers & Paladins will be Fighter Archetypes in the minute.

My point about Katniss is : by using the Fighter or the Rogue classes the right way, we can now build very good non-magical "rangers".
That's why the official Ranger class have to be this difficult-to-balance Fighter/Rogue/Druid multiclass (magical ranger) : because the game already allow us to build Aragorn/Katniss with two of the non-magical classes.

 

[Haplo781]

I actually disagree and it's not random, I have a significant piece of evidence that runs directly against what you're saying:

The popularity of Game of Thrones, and the specific criticisms made of Game of Thrones - particularly by young people - about Season 6/7/8.

So, we can all hopefully agree Game of Thrones was a hugely popular fantasy TV series (however mad people were about the end, which is still only about 50% as mad as people were about the Sopranos ending, but w/e), particularly with people in their twenties and thirties (so the same people who play D&D, for the most part).

And what was one of the major criticisms people had of season 6/7/8? That suddenly the characters started "teleporting around".

Previously on GoT, journeys and getting places were indeed a huge deal. Young people understood that and internalized that. When the show started acting more like a superhero show where travel is meaningless and people just pop up everywhere, that's when they started getting annoyed with it. When travel that previously took two-three episodes and weeks or months of in-show time suddenly took what appeared to be at most a few days, they really didn't like it.

So whilst I agree young people today have read less "older fantasy" (even the '90s being older) than any previous generation, I don't agree that they don't think travel is important/difficult.

They were teleporting after 5 seasons of travel taking significant time, in a low-magic setting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's why the official Ranger class have to be this difficult-to-balance Fighter/Rogue/Druid multiclass (magical ranger) : because the game already allow us to build Aragorn/Katniss with two of the non-magical classes.

Hard disagree.

You can't reach the same levels of competence as an Expert by burning all your Feats to get small amounts of Expertise.

There's no "has to be". What they're doing here is bizarre and doesn't match their own polling. If this Ranger had a pet, then maybe you could argue the "has to be", but because it does not, you cannot.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Previously on GoT, journeys and getting places were indeed a huge deal. Young people understood that and internalized that. When the show started acting more like a superhero show where travel is meaningless and people just pop up everywhere, that's when they started getting annoyed with it. When travel that previously took two-three episodes and weeks or months of in-show time suddenly took what appeared to be at most a few days, they really didn't like it.

So whilst I agree young people today have read less "older fantasy" (even the '90s being older) than any previous generation, I don't agree that they don't think travel is important/difficult.

I just want to put a little context on this. In 2022 if I'm willing to spend the money then other than border crossings I can get to almost anywhere in the world inside a day - and if Tony Stark can move slightly faster it's only slightly. If we go back to say 1950 that might also be technically true but it's a whole lot harder and more expensive (all those articles on "when flying was fun" boil down to "when flying was only for rich people"). The travel times in GoT were a big part of showing how it was a fantasy land and not like the real world and breaking it was the obvious place that the specific fantasy world broke.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

They were teleporting after 5 seasons of travel taking significant time, in a low-magic setting.

Sure. But the point is audiences, younger audiences, understood. There has been no fundamental change in how people think about travel in fantasy.

You can see this in a lot of recent fantasy stuff. Travel is a big deal. People get that. Even in higher-magic settings.

The claim was that AUDIENCES have fundamentally shifted their view of fantasy. I've presented a major piece of evidence against that, and there's more out there.

With superheroes, not caring about travel has been a constant since at least the 1970s.

The travel times in GoT were a big part of showing how it was a fantasy land and not like the real world and breaking it was the obvious place that the specific fantasy world broke.

Definitely. My point is just that audience understood and appreciated that. The claim was they've fundamentally changed their thinking.

 

[Charlaquin]

The non-spellcasting 4e Ranger was the only time the Ranger truly felt fun to me. You can make valid arguments it lacked the exploration features a Ranger needs, but it was at the very least very good at its role, and it successfully recreated the feeling of being Legolas, so it recreated one archetypal Ranger, which is more than you can say for most of the D&D iterations.

The Essentials ranger was my favorite. It had a few primal powers (which were basically spells) that you could take if you wanted that, but you could also just always take the martial powers. Dip you could choose exactly how magical you wanted your ranger to be.

 

[Neonchameleon]

With superheroes, not caring about travel has been a constant since at least the 1970s.

Definitely. My point is just that audience understood and appreciated that. The claim was they've fundamentally changed their thinking.

I think what might be happening is that audiences have changed their expectation. Being able to turn up almost anywhere after a few hours is considered unexceptional because real people can do that if they want. So if nothing is set up then they'll accept that even in fantasy worlds. Meanwhile audiences haven't changed in considering consistent worldbuilding a positive.

 

[Islayre d'Argolh]

Hard disagree.

You can't reach the same levels of competence as an Expert by burning all your Feats to get small amounts of Expertise.

You can, since Tasha's and the 3 skills maneuvers : battlemasters can be skill gods.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Maybe my claim of "majority" is a bit of an exaggeration, but clearly, to a huge chunk of the player base, the only version of the Ranger they have experienced is the Half-Casting Ranger in 5e.

That doesn't mean they think it's right.

That's a key thing. You've played RPGs. Did you immediately think "THAT'S CORRECT!" about every class you read in every RPG? I never did. Jeez it took me YEARS to come to terms with how Clerics worked in D&D, and I'd never played an RPG before that, and only been playing videogames for two years (mostly pretty simple ones).

And I've introduced people to RPGs with 5E (not as many as 4E but w/e), and they are often mildly vexed by the fact that Rangers use spells, because they don't expect it, and it doesn't make sense to them. They have a pre-existing, pre-D&D notion of what a Ranger is. D&D "getting wrong" doesn't change that.

I agree that the ranger is a poorly defined mess. However, I don't think that spellcasting is the reason for that.

It demonstrably is the reason for that. It's the reason Rangers don't really have abilities or any kind of consistent identity, and it doesn't even match their own lore, which barely mentions magic.

I don't think that the majority of players would want a non-Half-Casting Ranger.

Uh-huh, and your reasoning for this is deeply flawed as I've illustrated.

I think the issue is that some players do like Rangers with magic - but even of them, the 5E Ranger is sometimes seen as excessively magical/magic-heavy. And a lot of what the Ranger can/can't do is because it has magic.

I think if we had a Ranger that only had fairly subtle magic, and wasn't doing stuff like being utterly reliant on magic for combat prowess (as the 1D&D Ranger 100% is), then there'd be less of an issue.

Also, according to all surveys WotC's done, the Ranger needs a pet. It's a huge part of what people expect from a Ranger. And yet it doesn't have one.