D&D 5E (2014) [+] Rangers should have monster fighting spells equivalent to Paladin's Smite spells. Discuss!

[Corinnguard]

Paladin and Ranger are peer classes, they mirror or parallel eachother in several ways.

How so? Conceptually, they are quite different from each other.

 

[Rocker26a]

How so? Conceptually, they are quite different from each other.

They're half-caster spins on a full caster that particularly back up martial prowess with magical power, and their core theme can be characterized as an off-shoot of that of the full caster they're related to. Artificer is a late addition to this, they form a trinity in these ways. Maybe some other things that I'm forgetting, but yeah.
And then beyond that, they're diagonally opposite from eachother. Paladins (generally) favour being a stalwart tank, Rangers (generally) favour being light on their feet. Paladin's signature combat technique is going Nova, Ranger's are associated with consistent damage over the course of a fight, etc.
I think it could be neat to lean into this interaction further, and I think a counterpoint to the Smite spells could be a good way to.

 

[Horwath]

Paladins (generally) favour being a stalwart tank, Rangers (generally) favour being light on their feet.

This is because paladins come in with heavy armor and then players feel that if they do not utilize heavy armor they do not use everything that the class gives.
If heavy armor can be traded for extra skill or two or some tools and languages, we might see more stealthy versions of paladins.
maybe medium armor can be traded also.

 

[Rocker26a]

This is because paladins come in with heavy armor and then players feel that if they do not utilize heavy armor they do not use everything that the class gives.
If heavy armor can be traded for extra skill or two or some tools and languages, we might see more stealthy versions of paladins.
maybe medium armor can be traded also.

That is certainly a reason, but it's also just the historical association they have. They are correlated to "Holy Knights".
I'm not saying these are absolute, unshakable facts of both classes, those are just their leanings and the mechanics have keyed off of those leanings.

 

[CreamCloud0]

while hunter's mark/favoured foe mark is not a spell/feature that im currently at all inclined to use myself, i feel like there is some good potential if it was actually focused on and supported with 'ranger invocations' in the same way that eldritch blast was for the warlock, being able to customise it to do things like target multiple opponents with it, enhanced damage, prevent regen, restrict movement and all the other typical ranger stuff being talked about here.

 

[Shardstone]

Well, if we remove half the mechanics that make them spells, and then invent brand-new spells that work in ways spells don't, then the only real element that remains of "spellcasting" is that it's chunky bits of power that you gain both more of, and stronger versions of, as you gain levels.

At that point, you've ripped out almost enough of the "spellcasting" that it barely merits the name anymore, so sure, I can get behind that. You will have done about half the work of making it not actually spells in the first place.

This is a + thread

 

[Corinnguard]

What if a Ranger was more like a warlock whose patron was Nature itself? A Primal Warlock.

 

[Remathilis]

This is because paladins come in with heavy armor and then players feel that if they do not utilize heavy armor they do not use everything that the class gives.
If heavy armor can be traded for extra skill or two or some tools and languages, we might see more stealthy versions of paladins.
maybe medium armor can be traded also.

As an aside, I HATE this kind of thinking. The "I'm not going to use this, so it's wasted and I should be able to trade it out for something else" thinking. If you want to be a stealthy paladin, then don't wear heavy armor. You don't get to trade it in for skills or feats. That's part of a class based system. Once you start being able to chop up classes and swap around parts (I want to swap armor for skills, and spellcasting for maneuvers) you're just playing a classless system with extra steps.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And that's what I'm stressing. That these spells should be made more universally useful or it would not see play over the others.

More broad than “anti undead” sure. Universally useful in every fight? Absolutely not.

I'm not saying "this can't work". I am saying that if you focus on the traits of monsters, then you also need to redesign the monsters.

And I’ve already pointed out how that isn’t true.

Because 5e wasn't built on the idea of monster type uniformity like 1e-3e or monster roles or tags 4e. So you'd either have to contain multiple options in single spells or focus on universally seen traits like size or flight.

Or redesign the monsters.


But you don't fight a dragon everyday. And that poor design of undead is what I'm talking about. Undead don't share anything, so an anti-undead spell would be forced to focus on undead creature type.

Or we redesign the monsters.

As I literally already stated to you, and discussed with OP who agreed, you just don’t worry about targeting undead.

So, yeah, I do feel like this is ripping out essentially everything but the resource mechanic of spells...at which point, if you're already doing that much work and designing these spells meant to have 3-6 stripped away from them, why not simplify the process by just...making up new class features instead?

That isn’t simpler. A paragraph of class feature text in that class’ spellcasting feature is vastly less work than designing a new feature that; fills the same place in the power budget as spellcasting, fills the same tactical role of giving the Ranger a toolkit of options that will differ from Ranger to Ranger, give effects similar to existing spells without being spells, be balanced, and not just feel like it’s been invented just because someone dislikes spells as such.

It is vastly simpler to just say, “you are able to perform spellcasting in a quiet and subtle enough manner that doing so only reveals you location while hidden if the spell affects another creature, just like using any other action, you can use your weapons as spellcasting focus, and (this is a terrible idea but whatever) your spells cannot be counterspelled.

The spell list will need curating to account for the last part, because that’s a big deal, but otherwise it’s not a big deal to make it so your Spellcasting isn’t loud and flashy lol

Like that is literally barely above a ribbon.

I don't know that that's accurate? 3 would almost certainly still apply, 4 you say yourself that 5E is more lenient about it already, 5 I'm still stewing on it, 6 is more just, I echo the sentiment of "it can be frustrating to be expected to adhere rigidly to the idea of verbal or somatic components when they don't fit your character very well". I'm not necessarily advocating for these spells having no components.

Yeah tbh some folks just hate rangers casting spells so much that they’ll go overboard in insisting that any idea bare no relation at all to spells.

Like I spent a thread trying to explain that spell slots can just power a feature that isn’t spells and was yelled at repeatedly that it was still Spellcasting, even to the point of insisting that my proposal would still involve rangers casting spells, when I literally had explicitly laid out a proposal in which they don’t.

The framework I'm suggesting I'd prefer working from with these, is Hunter's Mark/Bane! Those are spells you cast at creature(s), and they do stuff, and some of that stuff happens each time you hit the target! Not inflicted on-hit like the Smite spells!

Makes sense. My Bane idea was similar to a hunters mark without concentration, with effects tuned to shut down certain traits or bypass certain resistences or immunities, etc. I had them be at-will with the ability to empower them by spending a spell slot when using them.

My Ranger homebrew levelling table is already packed! And plus, these aren't gonna be right for every Ranger.

Indeed.

Once added to the class spell list, would your plan be to also have a favored enemy feature that grants some of them as bonus spells (ie spells that don’t count against number of spells known/prepared)?

Bc if that is the case, I’d be happy to use such a thing at my table.

 

[Rocker26a]

Makes sense. My Bane idea was similar to a hunters mark without concentration, with effects tuned to shut down certain traits or bypass certain resistences or immunities, etc. I had them be at-will with the ability to empower them by spending a spell slot when using them.

That is very similar to how I'm imagining it (besides them being spells and I think at least some of them being multi-target could make sense/be good), it's just. Ironing out the details is tricky.

Indeed.

Once added to the class spell list, would your plan be to also have a favored enemy feature that grants some of them as bonus spells (ie spells that don’t count against number of spells known/prepared)?

Bc if that is the case, I’d be happy to use such a thing at my table.

I haven't fully decided yet, if they're not granted specifically by a feature on the levelling table, I was considering the notion of working it into their spell preparing directly. Maybe not as a mechanic that specifically serves this idea, but a rising tide that lifts all boats. I think I mentioned it in a previous post, the idea that some of their spells can be "hot-swapped". Just for example maybe, "You can exchange a number of spells from your list of prepared spells equal to your Wisdom modifier over the course of a short rest, or by meditating for 10 minutes (as if ritually casting a spell)"? Something that could suggest, Rangers aren't as absolutely rigid as other magic users, they can better adapt as the situation changes. As I say, not entirely sure yet, need to think on it some more.

But beyond that, I've been trying to set it up that, there are certain bases that Ranger always has covered, so they can actually prepare the fun/situationally useful stuff without sweating about not bringing their daily drivers. That other thing I said in a previous post, there are certain spells that a Ranger will always be expected to have, so they might as well just get them. I think Primal Awareness was the original inspiration behind it, I just didn't have much attachment to the spells that feature offered. There was that, and the thing of "Warlocks always take EB so why even pretend".

AND, every Conclave now gets 2 spells added per spell level they unlock, the fact that they only get 1 usually is silly to me (nevermind the PHB subclasses getting sweet F.A.). Particularly since Paladins get 2 per spell level, and they don't even worry about casting spells (as much), since they're Smiting! Like I genuinely don't know why they did that, they're the only half-caster who gets, uh. Half.