Spell-less Ranger confirmed by Mearls

[Haffrung Helleyes]

The other thing that Mearls has made clear is that 4e will be super-customizable. He says it'll be easy to play no-magic games (and it's probably safe to assume that means it'll be easy to play low-magic games as well), it'll be easy to play classless games, and it'll be easy to customize the base classes (eg. if you want a fighter who doesn't depend on heavy armor, just give him a flat AC bonus instead).

If that doesn't make the anti-4e crowd even just a little less anti-4e, then I don't think anything will ...

I completely agree with you.

This is one of the best things I've heard about 4E recently.

Ken

 

[pukunui]

He probably can't say at this point.

You're probably right.

He did say that many of the elements of character progression are unified. That right there is huge. If true, it shouldn't be very difficult to see what was done and "roll things back" as he put it.

True.

They're just not going to be going into any such thing in the books, which I can understand.

Me too actually. Otherwise it would be too easy to make your own game and try to sell it or something, eh? That's what the new GSL will probably be for.

 

[tecnowraith]

So most of the ranger spells that deal with ranged attacks found in Complete Adventure and Spell Compendium will now be the powers of at will, per encounter and per day list.

 

[I'm A Banana]

He did say that many of the elements of character progression are unified. That right there is huge. If true, it shouldn't be very difficult to see what was done and "roll things back" as he put it.

I think it might not be too hard to just 'customize' it.

What is a 'class' in 4e, anyway? A collection of talent trees? Some basic proficiencies? Sounds like you could easily cherry pick things. The hard part would be making sure what you cherry picked wasn't just the "best" of all options, but if you limit it to happening only as you advance, that might be mostly self-correcting....

Hurm....

 

[AZRogue]

I think it might not be too hard to just 'customize' it.

What is a 'class' in 4e, anyway? A collection of talent trees? Some basic proficiencies? Sounds like you could easily cherry pick things. The hard part would be making sure what you cherry picked wasn't just the "best" of all options, but if you limit it to happening only as you advance, that might be mostly self-correcting....

Hurm....

I'm thinking along the same lines. If most of your numbers are on a unified progression than, as the character gains levels and chooses abilities, allowing him to choose abilities available only to other classes won't necessarily be unbalancing. It will just blur the Roles and Classes as set forth in the book. It should be mostly self correcting. The Roles are what would pay the price, and not everyone is going to focus on them anyway.

Some interesting ideas.

 

[MaelStorm]

It also implies that roles and power sources are pure subjective terms, maybe... I like it!

Ahhh! Great news, indeed!

 

[outsider]

Fantastic change. I was really hoping they'd finally do this. Ranger has always been one of my favorite classes, and I always hated the casting aspects of it. Always felt like it was tacked on as a symptom of the "only magic gets to do cool things" mindset of earlier D&D.

 

[drothgery]

Most ppl, including me, want spellless rangers...AND PALADINS.

I don't think so. At least, paladins should have per day and/or per encounter methods of channeling divine power to do cool stuff. Which might not be technically spellcasting, but amounts to the same thing. The problem with paladin spellcasting (and paladin remove disease attempts) was that it was fairly useless (and paladin undead turning was only useful to power divine feats).

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Plus without any Divine-powers a Paladin is simply a fighter with a specific RP-slant.

I am wondering though, I hope the spell-less Ranger will still be able to gain a animal companion. I want my Aberration-hunting Ranger letting her rottweiler lose on the throat of mind flayers while picking off minor-aberrations with her bow

 

[HeinorNY]

I am wondering though, I hope the spell-less Ranger will still be able to gain a animal companion. I want my Aberration-hunting Ranger letting her rottweiler lose on the throat of mind flayers while picking off minor-aberrations with her bow

If they can have animal companions which are as cool and useful as WoW pets, I totally agree!