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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[Jeff Albertson]

Nice, and funnily enough I just converted the Favoured Soul last week (as a whole base class). I, like some others, think it was inspired to use the Sorcerer as the base, and now I have 2 versions for my payers to use.

The big seller of 5th Ed for me is: conversion, I have been having a blast converting classes (factotum, hexblade, spirit shaman, etc), races (bauriar, dvati, ultra, etc), monsters (archons, eladrin, modrons, daemon/yugoloths, rilmani, guardinals, astral dreadnought, etc), and spells to 5th Ed.

 

[Psikerlord#]

That's correct. It's a "base class" rewrite, in that it doesn't (technically) touch any of the subclasses, it only rewrites the "chassis" upon which the subclasses sit.

I say "technically" there because, as the article notes, some of the Ranger subclass features depend on having spells (specifically the high-level Beastmaster one). They gave a recommended fix for that, so it's very clear that the "spell-less Ranger" is intended to take one of the subclasses in addition to the abilities that replace spells.

It's unfortunate that we don't have a nice, solid term for "the thing that subclasses slot into" that doesn't implicitly include the subclasses themselves.

oh right sorry yes, it is a base ranger rewrite, also impacting on the subclasses.

 

[Leatherhead]

Worth the read for insight on how the classes were made alone. The rest is just gravy.

 

[pemerton]

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.

I'm not sure. Why all and only WIS mod of herbs per day, whether lush forest or desert, never before harvested or your home base?

 

[Dausuul]

I'm not sure. Why all and only WIS mod of herbs per day, whether lush forest or desert, never before harvested or your home base?

Mostly because it didn't seem worth adding that much detail to the rules. You could say that circumstances which favor the ranger (familiar territory, spending extra time searching) allow him or her to find up to double the amount of herbs, and unfavorable circumstances (traveling at a fast pace, barren or unfamiliar territory) limit him or her to half the usual amount.

 

[Leatherhead]

I'm not sure. Why all and only WIS mod of herbs per day, whether lush forest or desert, never before harvested or your home base?

Wisdom is the stat that governs your ability to search for things.

As for the normalization in any environment, that is because it is unnecessarily punitive to make such a distinction, especially when the primary concern is mechanical balance. If you want some fluff, it's because not every plant has medicinal qualities, and sustainable healing would be created using a combination of agricultural skills and alchemy feats, as opposed to the enhanced form of survival that this ability represents.

 

[Zaukrie]

This should have been in the DMG. This is what we expected. And yes, the website is terrible for finding stuff. Awful. Horrible. One of the worst. The content 9f this article is awesome, too bad no one will even know it is there in a week or two.

 

[evilbob]

The favored soul looks pretty cool, and sorcerers (and druids and rangers) have way too few options, so that is great.

The ranger one is actually pretty bad. From my initial reading, it actually makes one of the weakest classes even worse. The ranger gets straight-up less effective in combat, and only gains back some situational and restricted use of their best spells. However, Primeval Awareness should have been once per short/long rest from the start; that's a change you can apply right now.

Very glad for the rest of the write-up, though. Looking forward to more content like this!

 

[Bera]

If you think that 10 bonus domain spells is too powerful, you could always make the F. Soul choose only one of the two. Possibly rewrite it so that the domain spells are added to the sorcerer list for the character, and they choose one of the two as a bonus spell. That way they could take all of them, but only get 5 bonus spells.

But I'd like to see it in play still.

 

[Mephista]

I think the whole "extra spells from the domain" is supposed to work like the Warlock Patrons. You add those spells to your spell list, and then pick them with your usual spell choices. You don't suddenly add the lot to your spells known. That was my first thought upon reading it.