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.

 

[Li Shenron]

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.

It is totally up to each gaming group to decide how much the player has control over it.

And that's true whether you have a 'pet' as an NPC, or the current Ranger's animal companion. The book doesn't force a specific degree of control, it never mentions that. Even now, it tells you that the Ranger commands the animal companion, but it doesn't say much about the details or how much it obeys.

 

[Li Shenron]

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.

Well the bonus spells did not 'invalidate' existing material, but instead they (presumably) made the Storm Sorcerer too much more attractive when compared with the existing subclasses

They basically said "we don't want to create new options that are so much better than the core options, that everyone will only want to play the new options". But that's exactly what they did with the 3.5 revision, they boosted every class a little bit (except the Sorcerer) so that everyone only wanted to play the 3.5 versions, and therefore buy all the books a second time.

 

[thexar]

Strider - original "Ranger from the North" had no animal companion, didn't dual-wield, or was much of an archer (when Legolas was around).

I think the Ranger class should be done away with. Like Ninja, everyone has their own idea what they want the ranger to be. Anyone wanting to play "ranger" should multi-class warrior, rogue, and druid to the degrees they want their ranger to be.

 

[MoonSong]

Well the bonus spells did not 'invalidate' existing material, but instead they (presumably) made the Storm Sorcerer too much more attractive when compared with the existing subclasses

They basically said "we don't want to create new options that are so much better than the core options, that everyone will only want to play the new options". But that's exactly what they did with the 3.5 revision, they boosted every class a little bit (except the Sorcerer) so that everyone only wanted to play the 3.5 versions, and therefore buy all the books a second time.

And a ranger that was just a slightly improved version of the current class would be way more attractive...

 

[mellored]

One of the concerns I have is that if rangers become the "pet class" than any character who should have a powerful pet is going to somehow be shoehorned into being a ranger.

I disagree.

If anything, once they make the ranger pet (and get it right) that opens the door for other pet sub-classes. Possibly a prestige class, feat, or both.

Maybe I want a warlock who gets more powerful fiendish allies, or a fighter who attracts loyal fellow-fighters, or a druid who runs with a pack of wolves or a rogue who gets lackey or two or....

Warlocks would be easy, just make conjure fiendish ally a spell. There's also a familiar option already.

Druids also have spells making it easy for them. Possibly a sub-class that let's you expend a spell slot to get pets for 24 hours.

Fighters and rogues would be more difficult. Unless there was a warlord class of some kind.

In 2e, it was "animal empathy" - making pals with random assorted beasts you meet in your travels and not getting murdered by them.

I see 2 options, both can coexist easily enough, possibly as sub-classes.

1: Animal Empathy - Make allies out of animals as you find them. Get better pets by finding bigger and badder animals (say... upto CR 1/3 your level). Switching out animals to have the right one for the job.

2: Animal Bond - Have long term pet that grows with you. The wolf pup you were raised with is your life long companion. He becomes more powerful and gains new abilities as you level and fights seamlessly with you. However, he is irreplaceable.

 

[Reinhart]

I find it interesting that this thread has gone 6 pages based pretty much only on Ranger. Or course, it's not surprising, because that's the only part of this update that's really relevant to the people here.

Doesn't it seem weird they're polling SCL players on the dnd.wizards.com website? Popping over to swordcoast.com and the game's steam page, there's no mention of that survey. This is not the most reassuring sign that they know or care how to market or manage the D&D brand.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I find it interesting that this thread has gone 6 pages based pretty much only on Ranger. Or course, it's not surprising, because that's the only part of this update that's really relevant to the people here.

Doesn't it seem weird they're polling SCL players on the dnd.wizards.com website? Popping over to swordcoast.com and the game's steam page, there's no mention of that survey. This is not the most reassuring sign that they know or care how to market or manage the D&D brand.

I think they are under the mistaken assumption that there's a much larger crossover between the tabletop crowd and the CRPG crowd than is really there. My experience has been that the venn diagram where tabletop and computer gaming intersects is really thin....on the other hand, if they want positive feedback on the game I don't know where they can turn to, because the regular CRPG crowd seems to be even harsher toward the game than the tabletop guys like me who are just unhappy its not an actual model of D&D 5E with turn-based combat.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I look at so many people saying they should remove the ranger class or make it a fighter subclass and remember Mike Mearls revealing that the ranger is the 5th most popular class in their surveys, just behind the classic combo of fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue. Seriously guys, we can improve the discussion by keeping our feet on the ground. The ranger class is not going anywhere, and this is a good thing, because removing very popular elements of something you want to sell is dumb.

 

[Jessica]

I look at so many people saying they should remove the ranger class or make it a fighter subclass and remember Mike Mearls revealing that the ranger is the 5th most popular class in their surveys, just behind the classic combo of fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue. Seriously guys, we can improve the discussion by keeping our feet on the ground. The ranger class is not going anywhere, and this is a good thing, because removing very popular elements of something you want to sell is dumb.

It strikes me as really weird that Cleric is one of the most popular classes in this edition. I almost never see Clerics at any of our tables and when we do that player tends to bring something different the next week. Going off of anecdata, I'd rate Cleric down towards the bottom with Warlock and Paladin.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The original ranger (for context, and to clarify any assumptions of what the ranger "was originally inspired by"):

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