Sword Coast Legends Survey; Plus Ranger Feedback Results!

Interesting stuff on the ranger.

But a whole survey on Sword Coast Legends. Hm. I don't even know what it is, really. And said as much when I answered.

 

[Minigiant]

Of course, its not like people just haven't played any number of other games that have Rangers where pets are a significant feature of the class, especially any number of video games.

Sadly, I don't see a pet class ever working outside of a video game. This is because the pets are completely devoted to only one element of the game: combat or exploration.

Hunters in WC3, WoW, Hearthstone, and HotS all spam Kill command or its equivalent. Those pets are 99% combat pets and suck up 30-60% of the master's actions.

Most MMOs and CRPGs follow this model. The beast is a pokemon and the master shoots over its head.

 

[Nikosandros]

They should also take into account that those might have been the two most played editions.

It's very likely that more people played 2e or 3e rather than older editions (and maybe some older editions didn't even have Rangers?), and we know that part of the 3e fanbase skipped 4e.

Well, AD&D 1e far outsold 2e, so I'm rather sure that it was played by more people than 2e. Also, rangers have been part of the game since the 2nd issue of The Strategic Review, published in the Summer of '75.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I feel your pain, replace ranger with sorcerer and exactly what I feel.

They refuse to risk invalidating anything on the phb, let alone rewriting it.



No, sorcerers have no access to find familiar, for some reason designers decided that the class with inborn magic could just get no access to them (or anything that wasn't frying stuff).

Doesn't need a rewrite. Just a few clarifications or corrections.
In the case of the ranger, just use of the downtime rules and a sidebar.

 

[Uchawi]

I'm sure WotC is or already has considered that option. It's just the one that I like!

A companion sub-system or constant revisiting of class archetypes, it's system complexity one way or the other. A single, universal sub-system separate from classes seems cleaner to me, and allows any character to select a companion.

I agree.

 

[Uchawi]

The best solution would be to just have the animal companion be an NPC run by the DM, but with a 'favourite' PC that can give it commands. No added complexity to the rules, can be dropped into any game any time without changes.

That depends on what perspective you are taking. As a DM who wants simplicity just adding a pet as a NPC is one of the best options for simplicity, but from a player perspective it is one of the worse, because the pet is under the arbitration of the DMs whims. At least with spell casters, if you consider an illusionist, the player can choose different spells if the DMs interprets specific ones to be less valuable. I believe a player that likes a pet wielding class wants as much control as possible over what the pet is able to do.

 

[Cyvris]

You might like a subclass in an upcoming EN5ider article I wrote. It's not a Ranger subclass but does take a lot of inspiration from the Warden's ability to be a weapon warrior that assumes certain aspects (particularly the daily powers that allowed them to assume a "form" of certain parts of the environment). Unfortunately I don't know at this stage when it's going to be published though. Although I'm sure it will be mentioned here when it is

I'll have to compare it against the homebrew subclass I was toying with. Mine probably ended up with a little too much of the 4e mentality, as I made the various Aspects pretty easy to achieve (hint my idea was to make it a Barbarian subclass) and toyed with making it a limited caster.

 

[Ristamar]

That's not having an animal companion, it's summoning creatures. And it could be as simple as adding just one new spell to the Ranger's list.

Well, it wasn't part of my previous post, but I was assuming they'd have more utility with a different limiter than duration, nor would they use the basic monster stats For instance, companion abilities could be dictated by its role (Scout, Guardian, Hunter, etc). They'd have certain features based on that role and the Ranger's corresponding class level. The actual type of animal would be mostly irrelevant in terms of mechanics, serving largely as a skin.

 

[neobolts]

I hope animal companion as a core feature never happens. Even WoW finally understood that forcing people to have a companion in order to play the nature warrior archetype is a bad thing, WotC can do better than that. Talking about making it core so it can be more powerful almost makes me think that they believe the current version is good enough.

To each its own. I actually really enjoy pet-based classes and the whole flavor or man and beast working in harmony, in the vein of London's Call of the Wild. That said, I thought the archer and pet paths in 5e were a reasoned compromise. I haven't seen the complaints about 5e ranger firsthand as no one at our gaming table has played one yet.

Side note: I enjoyed pet classes in WoW as well, and thought movement away from pets was a misstep. My favorite pet class in WoW is the demo 'lock, and I've been pleased to hear they are moving demo away from demon form and putting the focus back on the pet mechanics.

 

[Jester David]

I am a little irked that wild empathy still didn't rate a mention. The ranger is the guy good with all animals, not just their pet.

 

[MoonSong]

I wish this was true, but I have the opposite feeling!

To me they seem to be preparing the grounds for a complete 5.5 revision, so that we all once again have to buy the books to keep up with AL and so on. There is always going to be a 'least favourite class', now it's the Ranger, tomorrow is the Sorcerer, then who knows... once they have re-done 3-4 of them significantly, they'll sprinkle minor changes everywhere to justify a half-edition, boosting everyone a little bit to encourage players to switch over.

That was the reason the designers gave to nerf the storm sorcerer -bonus spells would invalidate the phb subclasses-. I'm not sure if it is from the heart or just a justification to not give new toys to sorcerers. But from what I get phb is set in stone no matter what, so no, just making changes to the ranger we already have is not an option.