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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9486967" data-attributes="member: 6790260">If I may extend my previous post a bit, here are some ideas for what different classes could get that take the mechanical place of spells, but are not themselves spells.<h3>Paladin</h3>AurasThis already exists, you know what stuff it can do. I just think it should be expanded. Paladins are really the only class in the game that uses auras, so make it a fully-fleshed feature rather than an afterthought! We've already got a few good ones, so it would be nice to have more interesting ones, and perhaps to open up some design space e.g. maybe you can invest in auras to make their radius larger at a point earlier than near-max-level.LitaniesA litany is an effect that must be sustained, generally as a Bonus Action. It is a ritual behavior--spoken, gestured, sung, etc.--which evokes a particular effect. Perhaps we could bring back the 3e-era idea of "rounds of X," where a Paladin can sustain so many rounds of litanies per day, scaling with class level (perhaps three rounds per?) This adds a modicum of required mechanical engagement, but seems to me like it would give much more potential for interesting gameplay. You could also have Oath-specific litanies.BenisonsStraight-up stealing from PF1e, I think that game calls them "Graces"? It's stuff Paladins can do by expending points from their Lay on Hands pool. 5e already contains a trace of this, since you can spend LoH points to remove the Poisoned condition IIRC, but it's otherwise not really there. Of course, I'd prefer that Lay on Hands actually spend Hit Dice (and that Paladins get bonus hit dice from hitting certain levels), but I won't quibble about that element here. Point being, PF1e Paladins can cleanse all sorts of problems and even give buffs to their allies rather than purely using LoH for healing, which is cool and thematic and doesn't at all work the way spells work.<h3>Ranger</h3>Lores"Wilderness lore" is absolutely a thing Rangers have been associated with, and this hearkens back to Strider/Aragorn and his knowledge of healing herbs and such. Lores would provide one passive, always-on effect for the Ranger (e.g. "training in Medicine" or "blindsight to 15 feet" or "10' increased movement speed" or "you gain a swim speed equal to half your Speed" etc.), and one active action/effect with appropriate limitations (e.g. "at the end of a rest, when allies spend HD, they can roll each HD twice and take the better result", "once per day, you can enter an Ethereal Trance which makes you immune to the Blinded condition, allows you to see creatures or objects that are invisible, and allows you to attack creatures that are out of phase or etheral as though they were physically manifested", etc.)KnacksSimilar to the idea of Invocations, these would be various discrete actions (not so much passive effects, which fall under Lores) that you can do. Tricksy things, wise things, etc. "What do your elven eyes see" type stuff, where you have to actively do it, but not stuff that would be as limited as Lore-derived actions would be. I imagine the Beast Master would have several animal-related Knacks to pick from.SpecialtiesThis is where stuff like favored terrains, favored enemies, exploration focuses, and tricksy combat stuff would fall. This is probably something a dual-wielding and/or archery-focused Ranger would invest a lot into. Trick Shots would probably be an example of a specialty, for example, as would fancy special ammunition. I think most, though not all, of the suggestions made in the OP would fall under specialties, possibly (I'd argue likely) getting combined together into weightier packages, e.g. I could see a "Fey Courts" specialty that provided Autumn Blades, Greenwood Limb, Heatsight, and Exploding Arrow, for Autumn, Spring, Winter, and Summer courts.And--notably!--all of these things can include both purely-supernatural and mostly-mundane stuff, meaning that you can have a Ranger that doesn't really do much of anything "magical" (like Aragorn, where any "magic" he performs is extremely subtle) or another that is almost purely supernatural, or one that mixes the two together, like some interpretations of characters like Green Arrow (where the high-tech arrows become supernatural effects instead).[HR][/HR]From there, you can have different subclasses that lean into one or more of the above, or which give only the baseline amount of bespoke features and instead provide spellcasting. My proposed "Oath of the Quill", alongside a Ranger subclass like, I dunno, "Spellwarden" or the like, would thus preserve the option of a spellcasting Ranger for those who really really want that.Other, not-currently-extant classes that would work in a similar fashion could be Avenger, Assassin, Monk, Swordmage, and Psion. Swordmage and Psion would be two very very close to the dividing line between spells and supernatural class features, just as Artificer and, to a lesser extent, Warlock are close but lying on the spellcaster side.And then we already know what Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue look like for the "non-supernatural but not necessarly 100% mundane" collection of classes would generally look like. Barbarian is very close to what I'd want to see from that general group of things, though I'd want to see a bit more iteration, ideally deepening the Rage mechanic just a little bit (perhaps genericizing the Totem Warrior and letting the Path of the World Tree take its place as the "spiritualist" Barb). New classes fitting into this niche would be "Machinist" (again, not a name I really love), Alchemist, and Warlord.</blockquote>

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