TheCosmicKid
Hero
Do you honestly not realize the effect your attitude has on the tone of a conversation?
Don't you just give them XP?
D&D 5E What is/should be the Ranger's "thing"?
- Thread starter Hriston
- Start date
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
Well yes. Normally, the DM just factors in any NPCs (including friends, hirelings, pets, raised undeads, or so on) when determining the challenge of an encounter and the distribution of XP points.
But I would like to see a simpler way of handling such NPCs. For example, I would like it to be easy to incorporate NPCs who are different levels. If possible.
I want a routine that makes these NPCs a normal part of D&D. For example, if someone who has a warhorse that can fight and deal damage in combat, I would like an easy way to factor this in. Or say, a powerful NPC happens to get caught up in a fight. Or even if there are PCs who are different levels. Something easy to be able to routinely do this. Currently, I focus on completion of a number of encounters per level and guestimate whether the challenge was too easy or too hard.
A lot of what the Ranger has is appropriate. Choosing a fighting style, getting favored terrain bonuses, etc. When I think of a Ranger, I think of a Hunter/Tracker who lives in the wilderness, uses a chosen weapon to great effect, and often will guide and help others through the wild.
But what separates the Ranger from the Druid is this last point. A Druid is focused on protecting the Wilderness from people, while the Ranger will protect people from the Wilderness. They both love the wild, but the Ranger is about protecting others from its dangers. And the Ranger should have abilities that reflect that.
The big thing for me is that a Ranger should get abilities to explicitly help his allies. It's been said many times in this thread that Aragorn is the prototypical Ranger, and Aragorn is constantly using his abilities to shield, hide, and protect his companions.
So make the Ranger's niche making his companions kick ass in the Wilderness.
Give the Rangers the ability to grant bonuses / advantage to allies on things like Stealth checks, Perception checks, Athletics checks, healing, etc. when in the wilderness. A party with a Ranger in it should simply be MORE EFFECTIVE at doing things in the wild than a party without one.
But what separates the Ranger from the Druid is this last point. A Druid is focused on protecting the Wilderness from people, while the Ranger will protect people from the Wilderness. They both love the wild, but the Ranger is about protecting others from its dangers. And the Ranger should have abilities that reflect that.
The big thing for me is that a Ranger should get abilities to explicitly help his allies. It's been said many times in this thread that Aragorn is the prototypical Ranger, and Aragorn is constantly using his abilities to shield, hide, and protect his companions.
So make the Ranger's niche making his companions kick ass in the Wilderness.
Give the Rangers the ability to grant bonuses / advantage to allies on things like Stealth checks, Perception checks, Athletics checks, healing, etc. when in the wilderness. A party with a Ranger in it should simply be MORE EFFECTIVE at doing things in the wild than a party without one.
bedir than
Full Moon Storyteller
If an NPC takes part in the conflict why wouldn't they get xp? Use a commoner system if they are a commoner.
Animals have a slightly different issue. We have a cleric of a nature god (so a psuedodruid) in the party for the homeworld. He has a bear cub that will become a full grown bear at 5th level. His companion is like a cantrip in that way.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
On your first point, the NPC who helps in battle should get xp. The problem is, this makes xp calculations more complex.
Moreover, NPCs can be at different levels and contributing to the combat with different degrees of helpfulness. One powerful NPC might only be defending oneself while refusing to help the party. One low level NPC might be earnestly trying to help with some degree of success.
An animal is often like a low-level NPC. An adventurer who has a bear cub as a pet, is like a low-level NPC.
Do NPCs at different levels advance at different rates? Xp rules suggest they should. Personally, I would try ‘flatten’ the levels as soon as it seems plausible, so everyone in the party is the same level.
Including NPCs in the party makes obvious sense. The only difficulty is the math becomes more complicated for DMs who care about precise xp.
Personally, I use xp to create encounters. But adventurers advance depending on number of encounters. A separate assessment decides if a particular encounter was really challenging enough to count, or perhaps too challenging.
In some sense, the pet NPC gets xp.
On the second point, a Fighter too might have a bear cup as a pet. In the case of a Fighter it is nothing like a cantrip.
steeldragons
Steeliest of the dragons
Apparently not.
A few people posted "we want animal companion as the central defining feature".
I said, in essence, "No. That would be bad. leave it an option, not the default"...emphatically...to the IDEA, not any specific person or attack. I voiced my preferences and concerns...a valid and honest as anyone else's.
What "attitude" or "tone" is it you are gleaning within this conversation?...and the fact you essentially agree with me, whether or not you agree with the "how I'm saying it", makes this whole tangential discussion rather moot.
Hriston
Dungeon Master of Middle-earth (He/him)
Well, it was just this...
It's just not true, which is what I pointed out in my post. Maybe you didn't actually read it? They also had the possibility of attracting a hippogriff or a pegasus as a mount.
I brought this up to point out that from close to the beginning (not sure about the Dragon magazine Ranger) some Rangers, not all by any means but some, did have what we'd call animal companions. I don't think ignoring that moves the discussion forward.
It was far more likely, however, for a Ranger to attract followers of a more mundane sort, and since 5E generally doesn't grant followers as a class feature (the Paladin's warhorse being the notable exception) I think we can agree that the "pet" should not be the default choice, and is not central to making the Ranger what it is, so we can probably cross it off the list.
I don't mind it being a subclass, however, due to how it interacts with what I think is central to the Ranger, which is his identity as a loner. The Ranger is solitary by default, and even when he is with a party, something should set him apart. There is the rest of the party, and then there is the Ranger, the outsider. Think Batman with the Superfriends. He doesn't really need the Superfriends, and he definitely isn't going to ask Superman for help. He is self sufficient and, in fact, he has his own super-group, Batman and Robin, if he ever did need to work with backup. That's what the Ranger's companion is, the distraction, the decoy he sends into harm's way and may have to end up rescuing. By default, however, Batman works alone. So it is with the Ranger.
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TheCosmicKid
Hero
I'm not sure this identity is viable in an intrinsically team-based game like D&D. And lots of rangers are team players - scouts and pathfinders whose whole job is helping other people survive the wilderness. Aragorn certainly didn't give the Hobbits a dramatic growl of "I work alone." He was from the beginning a guide, teacher, and leader.
Also, side note, it has been noted on many occasions that Batman is the World's Worst Loner. He's surrounded himself with the Bat-Family and shows up on every single DC superhero team. (Runner-up for World's Worst Loner: Wolverine.)
