Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Modifying Classes & Spell-less Rangers

WotC's Rodney Thompson takes a look at how to customize and modify character classes in the latest Unearthed Arcana article, including an example of a spell-less ranger similar to Lord of the Rings' Strider (an often asked-for class option). There are aslo notes about each of the other classes, discussing what to be careful about changing.

The article is here.

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[SkidAce]

...Also the new Ranger abilities replace both spellcasting and the Hunter/Beastmaster paths...

Do they?I thought it modded the base class, thereby allowing you to still choose a subclass.

 

[Gadget]

I must say I am impressed with the new class & subclass takes. They feel interesting and even a little elegant. As for the Ranger Poultice, it sounds like an excellent feature that really captures the utility and flavor of the Ranger. I don't see it as being exclusive to the Ranger, others probably know how to do similar things, but it is exclusive to the Ranger among adventuring classes. There are probably herbalists and healers throughout the world that have similar lore or abilities, but they are not adventurers, and the sick and injured brought to them usually have the benefit of a long rest, which ameliorates the need for such 'band-aids' as the Ranger's ability only deals with Hit Points and they are rather abstract. Sure the Druid may know a thing or two about using herbs and plants to treat injuries, but he does not need the practical application of such as he has spells to do it and while the Barbarian is usually out in nature, that does not mean he has the lore and skill to do what the Ranger does, he is focused on other things. Sure his tribal shaman/wise-man/witch doctor may have the same or similar ability, but that is not something he focused on.

This also underlies why they probably went with the spell-casting Ranger as a base in the first place: it allows them to give out nice, flavorful abilities in pre-packaged chunks that are relatively balanced and contained; without having to give excessive rules and tables or (to some) unsatisfactory hand-wavy explanations of why this mundane-ish ability only works once every so long, or always works no matter the environment, etc. 4e kind of burned them there I guess. I think if they would have done this in the PH, they probably would have added more Ranger like maneuvers to represent some of the utility magic taken away from them, but this is a good start. It does kind of undermine the Ranger in a small way as to why they are a separate class and not a subclass of Fighter, but it is tolerable.

I think the Sorcerer is a real start to making the class better. It is at the same time more generic and more flavorful, largely because the choice of domain spells gives the player much more leeway in building their PC. It may require more Hit Points in addition to more armor and weapons to really make a utility, mix it up gish type, but time will tell.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Do they?I thought it modded the base class, thereby allowing you to still choose a subclass.

You thought correctly.

 

[asorel]

I think the Sorcerer is a real start to making the class better. It is at the same time more generic and more flavorful, largely because the choice of domain spells gives the player much more leeway in building their PC. It may require more Hit Points in addition to more armor and weapons to really make a utility, mix it up gish type, but time will tell.

If you give the Sorcerer/Favored Soul a larger base hit die, it starts to become more and more like the Cleric, and eroding its identity as an individual class. Additionally, giving the Favored Soul more HP in addition to medium armor, simple weapons, and 10 more spells will unbalance the archetype significantly. Some would argue that it's already unbalanced as it is.

 

[famousringo]

If you give the Sorcerer/Favored Soul a larger base hit die, it starts to become more and more like the Cleric, and eroding its identity as an individual class. Additionally, giving the Favored Soul more HP in addition to medium armor, simple weapons, and 10 more spells will unbalance the archetype significantly. Some would argue that it's already unbalanced as it is.

Yeah, I like the tradeoff as it is. Favoured Soul enjoys the best armour, martial prowess, and most versatile spell selection, but lacks in other defenses (including HP), skill utility, and raw magical output compared to other sorcerers.

 

[steeldragons]

Do they?I thought it modded the base class, thereby allowing you to still choose a subclass.

It does. You're correct.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Just use google. Far quicker and easier to search the whole web with a search engine than to find stuff manually on the wotc site....I can't help but be simultaneously amazed and disappointed by this fact.

That's usually what I do as well. Silly me, I thought with such a new series and only three articles that maybe they'd be a little consistent. I was also somewhat curious and tried to figure out how the web developer wanted me to find content. The design has been out for several months now. Surely, I thought, WotC will have most of the bugs ironed out.

Then again, WotC still doesn't have a freaking URL re-writer for their old content. If you search for the quintessential Bounded Accuracy article, you're still likely to find this link:

http://dnd.wizards.com/go/article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604

Which remains broken since they changed the site. To fix it, you have to do one thing:

Change http://dnd.wizards.com/go/article.aspx to http://archive.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx

That gives you this link:

http://archive.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604

Which works perfectly.

That's it. Literally all WotC has to do is create a freaking redirect that would take about 10 minutes to write, test and deploy, and every broken link everywhere on the Internet to old D&D content would then magically work.

It's absolutely shameful that they haven't done this. They have no excuse other than trying to push people to 5e, but they should have learned from 4e that pushing people by removing previously free content is a great way to alienate your customers and drive them to your competition permanently.

 

[jhingelshod]

That's usually what I do as well. Silly me, I thought with such a new series and only three articles that maybe they'd be a little consistent. I was also somewhat curious and tried to figure out how the web developer wanted me to find content. The design has been out for several months now. Surely, I thought, WotC will have most of the bugs ironed out.

<SNIP>
It's absolutely shameful that they haven't done this. They have no excuse other than trying to push people to 5e, but they should have learned from 4e that pushing people by removing previously free content is a great way to alienate your customers and drive them to your competition permanently.

I've not really looked stuff up on the wizards site for a while. One of the reasons I cancelled my insider sub was, after the redesign of the webpage, it became almost impossible to find where to sign in when the page randomly decided to ignore my instruction to keep signed in.

I've now found and bookmarked the archived articles index http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/Archive.aspx where can be found the DDI sign in article which contains this gem..

" Instead of wizards.com/dnd, simply navigate here to archive.wizards.com/dnd. In addition, dndinsider.com will direct you to the DDI Tools page of this archived site.

Our goal has been to archive D&D Insider as seamlessly as possible, and without affecting access."

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's absolutely shameful that they haven't done this. They have no excuse other than trying to push people to 5e, but they should have learned from 4e that pushing people by removing previously free content is a great way to alienate your customers and drive them to your competition permanently.

That'd only matter if there was competition offering 4e content.

 

[hbarsquared]

Ranger Poultice: awesome, flavorful class feature. Maybe a kink to work out in the wording and usage per day, but it's a perfect fit for a spell-less ranger.

Also, someone brought up the point of starting with a spellcasting ranger in the PHB. It is far easier to pull back spells and replace with features than the other way around. The reverse house-ruling pricess would be a mess.

Take the full caster Bard and modify to a half-caster with swashbuckling? Easy! The reverse, not so much.

Also, as has often been noticed un 5e - you know what they say when 50% say it's overpowered and 50% say underpowered.... The Ranger and Favored Soul need tweaks and development, of course, but they are definitely on the right track!