Yeah… but your anecdotal evidence is just not supported. Because people ARE playing the ranger. If no one was playing the ranger than might be true, as the class being underpowered would actually be an issue. But since people do seem to happily be playing the class then it's apparently not a dealbreaker.
Maybe more people would play the class. But maybe not. It's fixing a theoretical issue. [/QUOTE
Since my Anecdote was for some people not liking the Ranger as is, you want to tell me that not everyone dislikes it. And because not everyone dislikes it I’m wrong that some people don’t like it, and since some people play it isn’t a real problem to fix.
Want to twist logic a bit more, we might actually end up having pretzels for brunch at midnight if we keep it up.
You are stating the premise of this debate (Some people don’t like the Ranger) as the solution to the debate (Some people don’t like the Ranger, so some people do like the Ranger, so it is perfectly fine) despite you yourself agreeing there are mechanical issues that need fixed.
Some people play with Homebrewed classes that can do 200 damage at will at level 3, doesn’t mean that is perfectly fine to let into the game just because some people like it.
Yeah, but it's still nothing compared to Reddit and Twitter and the Facebook groups.
Forums are the social media of the previous generation. Newer and younger players engage in the internet in other ways.
Looking at the D&D audience through the lense of forums is like looking at it through Usenet posts.
You can't look at a single audience and then believe that's representative. Focusing only on forums is focusing on one particularly loud vocal minority. Which is a bad idea. You can't get decent feedback just from the people complaining the loudest.
That's why WotC has the surveys and hires marketing companies. And looks at play data from partners like D&D Beyond, while also engaging with the fans on Twitter, Facebook, conventions, and more.
Wait, so now we need to talk about the Snapchat version of DnD? Wait, I know about Snapchat, clearly from an older generation, what’s the newest new thing?
Look, I get that there are other portions of the community. I’m not stupid, I can look at how many people are users of the forums and realize that it is a drop in the bucket. But, just because Facebook has more people than us doesn’t mean that A) the conversations on forums aren’t much more in-depth and B) That we are wrong C) We should be dismissed because we aren’t on the biggest platform this minute.
And, don’t you find it at all weird that when they are currently dismissing their old market research they are claiming “there was never a problem, just a vocal minority who thought there was a problem and tricked us into seeing a problem” We must have been really good to fool their surveys and marketing companies if it was all just a massive illusion.
But a problem is a problem, and stopping and reversing a fix that was called for just because a new audience joined doesn’t seem like something I want being done. It makes it seem like quality is less important than popularity, and that is not a road that leads to the best material.
Try hitting
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/ and
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/ or the D&D Facebook group for a while. Spend some time there rather than the forums. See what people are talking about on the #dnd hastag.
And I’ll learn what? Pulled up both, saw some people posting maps, a cake, some awesome fanart, someone asking about how to handle smoking at the table… Is this supposed to change my mind on Rangers?
But, let us be somewhat fair. I know how to search Reddit for more than just the front page.
Here is a post where someone was disappointed by their Beastmaster, lot of thread advice on going to the Revised Ranger instead
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/96pbou/fiancée_doesnt_like_her_level_3_bm_ranger_is_it/
Here is another 4 threads talking about the Ranger, why people don’t like it, what solutions there are, you know, essentially the thing we are doing here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/92xs13/my_personal_issues_with_the_revised_ranger_sage/
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/92tq6s/revised_ranger_there_is_one_ranger_the_one_in_the/
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/9at6nk/just_how_bad_is_the_phb_ranger_really/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/9139rb/why_is_the_ranger_5e_hated_so_much/
And what does all of this prove?
Exactly what I’ve been saying, which is not a massive logical leap, some people don’t like the PHB Ranger, specifically the Beastmaster, and there are legitimate problems with it that should be addressed.
I guess since some people on Reddit agree we are done now? Probably not, they aren’t the “majority” of Reddit users, and they are probably old people who are also on Forums, and they probably don’t even Tweet so…. I guess we ignore them as well?
Audiences change, especially depending on how they're introduced to the game.
The audience that started with D&D was introduced through the lense of wargaming. And the ones introduced via the novels and campaign settings in the late '80s and '90s saw the game entirely differently. And now we have streaming as a surprisingly large source of new players, and those games focus much more heavily on the storytelling and narrative side of the game
Unless you honestly think people's campaigns now are similar to how people played back in the '80s….
Heck, you can hear con organizer and former AL bigwig Paige Leiteman discuss the changing audiences here:
http://slyflourish.com/streaming_changes_op_paige_leightman.html
With this tweet being telling:
https://twitter.com/PaigeLeitman/status/1032270919115235328
So, let me make sure you are certain about this claim.
People who were introduce to DnD through novels, you know, stories, care less about storytelling and the narrative side of the game than people who were introduced via streaming.
How the heck do you plan on backing that one up? Seriously, give me some evidence of that one, cause it makes zero sense to me.
1) Have you introduced 10,000 people to D&D? Because that'd be a representative sampling of the audience.
So because I haven’t introduced enough people I can’t have experience in how new players act or think? Well, good to know we are all useless in understanding new players, since no one has introduced 10,000 people to the game by sitting them down and making characters.
2) Don't you think, that as you're introducing them to the game, YOU might be influencing their tastes and how they approach the game?
Of course, and guess what I love to emphasis? Story. I’m a frustrated writer at heart, I love the story of the game. But, I also make sure that people’s expectations are in the right place. If someone wants to play a bard, I’ll make sure to tell them “hey, you aren’t going to be doing a lot of direct damage early on, this class is definitely more about buffing and debuffing” “Hey, you want to play a warlock, you’re only going to get like 2 big spells at time, so be prepared to rely more on your at-will abilities than those big bombs you can throw”
And I do that because I’ve seen people quit because they felt useless as a Bard (they wanted to kill things with magic) or drop a warlock character (They felt too constrained by the limited slots and short rests). I don’t want people unhappy because their mechanics don’t match the story in their head.
Regardless, at the end of the day… if people REALLY think the beast master is broken… they can just house rule it for their tables. Use one of the dozen on the DMsGuild or the UA one. Take what they want from the options given.
There are options out there. WotC doesn't need to do anything more.
I agree, except for the point that WoTC doesn’t need to do anything. Because they decided to declare that all of that DMGuild and UA material is invalid. Sure, they don’t have the authority to take it away from me, but if they want to claim the Beastmaster is fine, they need to prove it beyond “well, some people like it”
Like I said, if they had said they weren’t going to print the Revised Ranger, but it was still a valid option, I wouldn’t be so incensed, but no, they declared “There is one Ranger. The one in the PHB” and that brought about a very different response.
A standard wizard has 22 hit points at that level
In 1e they had 12 hit points at that level.
And is a Wizard supposed to be a frontline combatant like the companion?
More accurate to compare it to the Fighter who will have closer to 44 hp.
We've had a beastmaster ranger in our party since the book was released. His companion has never died, and he uses it in combat sometimes. Many people in this thread report they've never had an issue with them dying too often. So at what point does white room theorizing give way to actual experience?
I agree the beastmaster could use a boost (and I proposed some). I don't agree the companions actually die as often as people who have literally never played them or seen them played keep speculating will happen.
Wouldn’t people who had seen them played have actual experience? At that point you have actual experience versus actual experience, which is where theorizing can be useful to see which scenario is more likely to occur, since both have been observed.
Animal companions of beastmaster rangers have hit dice. It's right in the text.
Some of the better companions also have things like fly-by attack like the Pteranodon, which while not "ranged" is effectively like being ranged attackers.
Kind of hard to find their HD if you don't know where to look, and since we are usually talking about 1 or 2 dice, it is very different from the 5 dice a player has and is expected to use.
And Flyby attack is great, as long as you don't care about damage since owls and Pteranodon's have pretty low damage. Also, until the enemy readies an attack to knock them out of the sky since they generally have poor AC and Hp too.
But yeah, it is a good ability.
Almost all the ones people actually use have 2 HD with a con bonus or 3 hit dice. Often the only reason you'd use a 1HD animal is if your last one died and the only thing you can find in the mean time is a 1HD animal.
I agree they could use more HD, equal to your Ranger level. A feat could do that.
*Sarcasm* Another tax upon the ranger, let’s give them feats to allow them to heal their companions better too. *End Sarcasm*
And, those 1 HD animals include some of those with Flyby attack, like the flying snake, which is kind of a cool companion to have. Of course, having something for the good of the story is against the ranger’s ethos right?
It’s almost like people are arguing different points based upon which point is better for the moment of defending the status quo.
Look, I don’t disagree with you guys on everything. I agree about giving death saves to the companion as a standard move for example, but we seem to just be circling around and around on a lot of this.