Revised Ranger update

[Parmandur]

If you are going to pretend you don't know what criticism that is directed at the PHB Beastmaster, I don't understand what you're doing in this thread.




Bollocks. Don't you have an opinion? A critical mind of your own?

Sheesh.

It's not that I don't understand the criticism, I disagree with the criticism. I have seen the Beastmaster do well, and I have seen good cases made for the subclass as designed. Just because I disagree with a subjective argument doesn't mean that I don't understand it.

I have, if anything, an overly critical mind with my own opinions. My opinions are different from your opinions, and in the context of this forum set up to exchange ideas, I am sharing them.

 

[Parmandur]

I see, you must work for them then, no? Surely that's not a baseless assumption?

Third parties outside if Beyond or WotC have able to sort thru the publicly available data on Beyond, so it is reasonable to assume that WotC, using their big data resources, can do the same.

Indeed, the wide use of D&D Beyond is one of the big changes needed in the period where they abandoned the Ranger experiment.

 

[Parmandur]

And telling us this in every thread daring to find faults with WotC's material is exactly what I consider trolling.

Why are you even here?

I'm here to talk about D&D. WotC is, currently, making very good decisions and I do love their big data approach. It has been delightful to discover that my playstyle coincides with their majoritarian findings.

 

[Chaosmancer]

By "dominated" I meant that she laid out tremendous damage, and definitely contributed her fair share when the stakes we're high. She didn't want to put Trinket in danger, however, which goes to show how differently the designers and many Beastmaster inclined players were thinking.

Now, Crawford just mentioned the Ranger qua Ranger, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Beastmaster remains a steadily popular subclass, even if it is fiddley and convoluted. Narrative over optimization is how people make their characters, in general, and people love a pet story.

So... she did damage based off of her magic bow, magic bowstring, and Hunter's Mark. The fact of the matter is Trinket could have been a bear following the party with no mechanical ties to her class, and she would have been better off.

And I agree with you, people love a pet story. People might go for the Beastmaster Ranger despite it's flaws. That does not excuse it's flaws. I don't see how anyone could argue that. My old car didn't have working A/C, I still drove it and loved that car, that didn't mean I was happy with having no A/C. Just because people care more about the story than the mechanics doesn't mean that they don't care that the mechanics are not working properly.

Crawford didn't say they would not address the known issues with beastmaster rangers. He said he won't be offering an alternative version of the class. Not the same thing. And as many people in this thread have mentioned, just a few things like new fighting style and some new spells can go a huge way to fixing it, without the need for an alternative anything.

Except, RAW, spells are a terrible way to "fix" Rangers, because they get so few of them. And, I don't see how a fighting style can cover enough, even if it literally just rewrote the rule about taking the ranger's action to command the beast.

Had previously done so; per Crawford this has changed. Hence why they are not pursuing their experiments.

And changed because, suddenly millions of new players joined and decided that the fiddly and unintuitive nature of the Beastmaster was fine?

I don't get that. Playstyle is one thing, but the problems I see with this class go beyond playstyle, and no one is going to complain about getting a buff to their companion, especially an optional buff.

 

[lkj]

And where, exactly, was the second survey? Oh right, they didn't do one.
Just like you said would be insane to not do.

Mearls (and I think Crawford) have said they will be conducting another survey this year (I'm guessing in the fall). They are waiting until they have the results of that survey in hand before they move forward.

AD

 

[Mistwell]

Nobody's talking about 4E here, an obviously different game that noone really thought 5E would be directly compatible with.

Hey Cap, if you think this quote means something other than what it plainly says I'd love to know why you think that: " remember when they promised 5e would be modular enough to play any past edition?"

That's the quote I was responding to. 4e is part of "any past edition" right? He clearly is saying he thought they promised it would be modular enough to play 4e, and all the other past editions.

In the larger view, do you never tire of being a mouthpiece of WotC? Don't you think they should have to answer for themselves?

It would be great if you stopped personally attacking users here and just responded to our positions rather than the people themselves and what you suspect are our motives.

 

[Mistwell]

Except, RAW, spells are a terrible way to "fix" Rangers, because they get so few of them. And, I don't see how a fighting style can cover enough, even if it literally just rewrote the rule about taking the ranger's action to command the beast.

The fighting style I had proposed above included several elements. 1) Instead of using an attack action of yours to direct the beast to attack, you can use a bonus action, and 2) If an opponent you are adjacent to strikes your companion, you can re-direct that attack to yourself instead, and if it hits, you have resistance to the damage from that attack. I'd say that covers a fair bit of ground.

In terms of spells, they can be longer duration, and they can be low level. Resurrecting a beast easily seems pretty helpful, and shouldn't be needed many times per day.

I think those two additions would be enough. I've seen the beastmaster in play since it was published, and just those two tweaks would be more than enough in my experience to fix the issues with it.

 

[Satyrn]

The fighting style I had proposed above included several elements. 1) Instead of using an attack action of yours to direct the beast to attack, you can use a bonus action, and 2) If an opponent you are adjacent to strikes your companion, you can re-direct that attack to yourself instead, and if it hits, you have resistance to the damage from that attack. I'd say that covers a fair bit of ground.

In terms of spells, they can be longer duration, and they can be low level. Resurrecting a beast easily seems pretty helpful, and shouldn't be needed many times per day.

I think those two additions would be enough. I've seen the beastmaster in play since it was published, and just those two tweaks would be more than enough in my experience to fix the issues with it.

As a published solution to be used by various tables I like your fighting style. If I wanted instead to simply give that fighting style's mechanics to the beastmaster as a houserule, would that be reasonable?

I think I'd like to let the beastmaster still get one of the normal fighting styles. I know I don't want to introduce any fighting styles that the fighter doesn't also get . . . and a mounted paladin probably ought to get access to it, too, if it's a fighting style, and then it'd start feeling like the beastmaster is being left behind again.

 

[Mistwell]

As a published solution to be used by various tables I like your fighting style. If I wanted instead to simply give that fighting style's mechanics to the beastmaster as a houserule, would that be reasonable?

I think I'd like to let the beastmaster still get one of the normal fighting styles. I know I don't want to introduce any fighting styles that the fighter doesn't also get . . . and a mounted paladin probably ought to get access to it, too, if it's a fighting style, and then it'd start feeling like the beastmaster is being left behind again.

I think it would be perfectly reasonable to just give it (as a houserule). I also think the Ranger should get access to a Ranger-only feat that grants an additional fighting style. Possibly as a half-feat with a +1 ability boost. But of course that runs into feats being an optional rule issue.

 

[Satyrn]

Excellent. I'll add that to my notes as the "fix" to be implemented if my table ever actually has these issues with the beastmaster.