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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[MoonSong]

Not too shabby. I can't help feeling a little disappointed in the Favored Soul--perhaps I'm just holding it to too high a standard, but compared to a melee Warlock or (especially) a Paladin, it feels like a second-best combatant, and compared to either form of Bard it feels like a second-best caster. In other words, it comes across as "the new 3e Bard": the class that dabbles in everything and is thus good at nothing. I suppose I haven't been considering the metamagic stuff and ways that (for instance) Cleric domain spells could be creatively applied with that, mostly because the article glosses over the universal Sorcerer features. I do think it's kind of a copout to copy two different features from the Dragon Sorcerer, though I will accede that one of them was already part of what a Favored Soul got in 3.5e (the wings). I can agree on the HP issue--the Favored Soul appears pretty squishy, even with Medium armor. No other class that "expects" to go toe-to-toe with enemies has such a low hit die (and, in fact, only Wizards and Chaos Sorcerers currently have that small a die!)

The Spell-less Ranger seems like a good effort, but I would have preferred a custom (or at least partially custom) maneuver list. For example, a maneuver that replicates the Hunter's Mark, or whatever that spell is that lets you fire lots of arrows at once. Plenty of the maneuvers could be copied over as-is, but some would be nice to leave solely for the Battlemaster and it would be equally cool if the Ranger had some unique stuff all to itself. I also feel like the Spell-less Ranger loses a lot more "exploration" type stuff than it gains, and would've liked to see at least a little something to help take care of that, but I guess there are already a few features that apply (and the "once per short/long rest" change to Primeval Awareness certainly doesn't hurt.)

The favored soul can be a little underwhelming as a frontliner. But on the flipside it's kind of buffy as a sorcerer, all simple weapons and access to extra spells -ten extra spells known!! from a better list!!- go a long way to fix it. As a sorcerer player it makes me a happy bunny.

As for the range maneuvers. You can have these custom maneuvers (part of my effort on my own superiority dice ranger, which is now mostly moot) I already mentioned them in the other thread on the same subject by the same poster with the same time.

Adrenaline rush.- When you kill or incapacitate an enemy, you can expend a martial die to roll a hit die and heal that amount of hp as a free action. Add the martial die to the gained hp.

Aggressive sidestep.- Spend a Martial die, you can Dash as an Extra action.

Evasive Counter Attack. When an enemy makes a melee attack, you use your reaction and spend a Martial die to move 5' and make a weapon attack against that enemy. Roll the die and add the result to your attack roll.

Manyshot.- When you make a weapon ranged attack, you can expend a Martial die to shoot an extra arrow, bolt or bullet with the same attack. If you hit, roll the die and add it to the damage.

Mark Prey.- As an Extra action, spend a Martial die and mark an enemy. The next attack that hits it, causes extra damage equal to the Martial die result.

Opportune Interruption.- When an enemy attacks an ally of yours, you can expend your reaction and a Martial die to attack that enemy, if you hit, the enemy has disadvantage on that attack.

Shroud in shadows.- When you are hiding, spend a Martial die, roll it and add it to your Stealth.

Unexpected Slash.- You can spend a Martial die to make an attack with a melee weapon as an Extra action. If you hit, roll the die and use it for damage instead of the weapon damage die.

Twin slashing.- You need to hold two melee weapons. As an action, expend a Martial die to attack the same enemy with each weapon -make one attack roll per weapon- if both attacks hit, add the Martial die to damage.

Wild empathy.- You can spend a Martial die, roll it and add it to any Cha check you make when interacting with animals.

 

[Uchawi]

Overall, I believe it will be much easier to modify a class with spells, versus one without. Or in other words it is easier to dumb down versus build up complexity. I would be more interested in making a champion more interesting, or have maneuvers available to all martial classes.

 

[Staffan]

Calling the ranger example "Ranger with No Spells" is driving me crazy. Some primal part of me just finds it unsatisfying for no good reason. Call it "Battle Ranger", "Grounded Ranger", or "Traditionalist Ranger."

If it's OK to have a horse with no name, it should be OK to have a ranger with no spells. And a horse with no name can get you through the desert, so there's that.

 

[Minigiant]

If there are two rangers in a party, and one is slain, can the second one pick up the first one's poultices, or will that also trigger explosions? This is a good example of a limit meant to serve a game purpose (prevent rangers from loading up on poultices) without enough thought given to how it affects the fictional world.
.

There can't be two rangers in a party unless they are both 8th level or above. At that point, the poultices of the dead ranger instantly degrade and spontaneously combust.

 

[Superchunk77]

What's the difference between that and the assassin rogue?

I'm running Dark Sun using 5e right now, and the Dark Sun bard is easily created using the Assassin Rogue archetype with the Entertainer background.

Used the tempest domain and elemental evil spells to create four elemental cleric domains.

Oath of Vengeance paladins and warlocks both make decent Templars. Or just use clerics with domains based on the sorcerer king they serve. Either way they are usually NPC's so not a huge issue here.

Created a Psion from a sorcerer origin. Otherwise psionics are very similar to spells in my game, just without components and usually the damage is psychic.

Spell-less ranger works for me in dark sun.

Wizards can use a defiling mechanic based off of an Arcana check and the surrounding land type. This gives them sorcery points similar to a sorcerer that they can use on metamagic effects for their spells or to gain additional spell slots.

I created dwarf, elf and halfling subraces for Dark Sun. Goliaths are half-giants, aarakocra, humans and half-elves are used as is. Dragonborn are dray, and half-orcs are muls.

 

[IchneumonWasp]

I really like this a lot. First thing I'm doing when I'm back to my books is check for interesting domain options for the Favored Soul!

 

[Staffan]

I'm a bit torn on how to do defilers in Dark Sun actually, partially because the lore itself is somewhat ambiguous.

Originally in 2e, defilers were just wizards with a faster XP table and when they cast spells they killed all nearby plant life (radius depending on how fertile the area was - in a jungle, you'd only defile a yard or two, but in the sandy wastes the radius could be dozens of yards). In revised 2e they changed it so they defiled when memorizing spells, which I thought was a stupid idea (because the lore often had farming villages having a preserver in their midst because they wouldn't want to destroy their own land, but raiding tribes would have defilers because they wouldn't be casting at home anyway). Lore-wise, on one hand it was said that defiling was easier which is why they had the faster XP table, but on the other it was described as a more recent invention that allowed the users to supercharge their magic. The novels had one of the main character wobble between defiling and preserving (mostly being a preserver, but occasionally defiling when in dire straits), which of course didn't work in game because classes.

4e, IIRC, made "Defile" a power available to any arcane caster, allowing them to reroll an attack at the cost of hurting nearby allies or something like that. That sort of works better with the way it was described in the Prism Pentad (as a "runtime" option), but meshes poorly with other lore.

My guess is that if and when they make a defiler for 5e, it will be closer to the 4e version. Perhaps as a tradition that has the option to gain advantage on spell attacks/inflict disadvantage on saves when defiling. I do hope never to see the idea of defiling when preparing spells again though, because that made no sense.

 

[Von Ether]

We don’t want the ranger to outshine the Battle Master fighter

This, I think, is one bit that's over looked for custom classes. If your party doesn't have a Battle Master, then there's no need to protect a niche that doesn't exist in your campaign.

On the other hand, a GM should be aware of what's doing to avoid future crossover.

I can understand that some players dig making up their own mechanical features though.

UA articles are GM territory. The idea of players making their own classes. * shudder *

 

[Psikerlord#]

That's it, the favored soul is THE SORCERER, this is how the class should have been from day 1.
.
The only thiing that bothers me, is the effort I made was wasted: I worked on a spelless ranger option that used superiority dice (they started at 1d4 and scaled over time to be d10s and in number went from 3 to 7)

I even worked some unique maneuvers (inspired by 4e exploits) that were available to the ranger to aid in exploration and combat (replace martial die for superiority die):

Adrenaline rush.- When you kill or incapacitate an enemy, you can expend a martial die to roll a hit die and heal that amount of hp as a free action. Add the martial die to the gained hp.

Aggressive sidestep.- Spend a Martial die, you can Dash as an Extra action.

Evasive Counter Attack. When an enemy makes a melee attack, you use your reaction and spend a Martial die to move 5' and make a weapon attack against that enemy. Roll the die and add the result to your attack roll.

Manyshot.- When you make a weapon ranged attack, you can expend a Martial die to shoot an extra arrow, bolt or bullet with the same attack. If you hit, roll the die and add it to the damage.

Mark Prey.- As an Extra action, spend a Martial die and mark an enemy. The next attack that hits it, causes extra damage equal to the Martial die result.

Opportune Interruption.- When an enemy attacks an ally of yours, you can expend your reaction and a Martial die to attack that enemy, if you hit, the enemy has disadvantage on that attack.

Shroud in shadows.- When you are hiding, spend a Martial die, roll it and add it to your Stealth.

Unexpected Slash.- You can spend a Martial die to make an attack with a melee weapon as an Extra action. If you hit, roll the die and use it for damage instead of the weapon damage die.

Twin slashing.- You need to hold two melee weapons. As an action, expend a Martial die to attack the same enemy with each weapon -make one attack roll per weapon- if both attacks hit, add the Martial die to damage.

Wild empathy.- You can spend a Martial die, roll it and add it to any Cha check you make when interacting with animals.


Well, at least the dragonrider variant is still kosher....

... I think the Favored Soul is quite OP. It's a full caster sorceror, with a smattering of divine spells which from memory will include healing, plus medium armour & shield (this is waaaay better than dragon sorceror's armour, which apparently it was meant to compare with - which means it should have been light armour only. With human feat at 1st you have a sorceror with full armour & shield) and 2 melee attacks from 6th. Favored Soul demonstrates to me that the devs sometimes get it wrong too.

On the other hand, the spell-less ranger looks great. And generally speaking, I love that they are encouraging tweaking your game to best suit your table.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Good stuff in this one. I love the new take on the favored soul. The spell-less ranger is also excellent.

I do have a quibble with the ranger's "Herbal Poultices" ability, which is the limit that you can only carry a number of poultices equal to your Wisdom mod. What, do they reach critical mass and explode if you carry too many? Do we need a poultice miscibility table to resolve what happens? If there are two rangers in a party, and one is slain, can the second one pick up the first one's poultices, or will that also trigger explosions? This is a good example of a limit meant to serve a game purpose (prevent rangers from loading up on poultices) without enough thought given to how it affects the fictional world.

I would write it a bit differently:

As you travel, you keep an eye out for healing herbs. Each day you spend in a wilderness or rural area, you find enough herbs to create a number of poultices equal to your Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). These herbs, and any poultices made from them, lose their potency 24 hours after being harvested.

Accomplishes the same goal, but makes a lot more sense in terms of the fiction.

Yes I agree. The way the dev tried to limit poultices was clumsy. Yours is better!