D&D (2024) What type of ranger would your prefer for 2024?

[Minigiant]

I'm personally firmly on the side of spellcasting for Ranger, but something I've been trying to pin down for a while now is, what's a good answer for where the Ranger's magic comes from exactly. In particular, what satisfactorily distinguishes them from Druids (and to a lesser extent Barbarians where applicable) in terms of magic, if anything. Because I do think it ought to be something, in the same way that while Clerics and Paladins have some overlap, they are distinct expressions of their corner of magic.

I'm sure this has come up and been discussed already, but. Hell, it's a lot to sift through at this point.

Ive been a fan of the Ranger being a magical pragmatist. The ranger the world and learn magic from here and there throughout their travel, snagging what they think is best for hunting and surviving.

Hunter's Mark from their master.
Speak with Animals form a druid they meet
Goodberry from their fey ex
Pass without Trace from communing with nature
Ashardalon's Stride from the party wizard
Cure Wounds from the party cleric
CWB from a ranger they conversed with

 

[R_J_K75]

Get rid of the class, and while we are at it axe the druid too. I've always found that I had to shoehorn them into a game whenever a player made a character with those classes. Just give them a lawn mower and some hedge clippers then call them an NPC.

 

[Rocker26a]

Ive been a fan of the Ranger being a magical pragmatist. The ranger the world and learn magic from here and there throughout their travel, snagging what they think is best for hunting and surviving.

Hunter's Mark from their master.
Speak with Animals form a druid they meet
Goodberry from their fey ex
Pass without Trace from communing with nature
Ashardalon's Stride from the party wizard
Cure Wounds from the party cleric
CWB from a ranger they conversed with

I do like this school of thought as an aspect of their flavour, but I will say it feels like only part of the answer.

What allows a Ranger to learn and apply these lessons in a way that the other classes never will?

I think the default 5E Ranger spell list is/was frustratingly limited for drawing this kind of inspiration from. If they got just a handful more spells from the other pools, you could potentially spin some interesting stuff. One idea I like is, Rangers reverse-engineering the magic of other creatures through their own instinct or meditation or whatever. Learning Blur from hunting Displacer Beasts, learning Misty Step from running with Blink Dogs etc. Those might not be the most interesting examples necessarily, but hopefully the idea at least makes a degree of sense.

 

[Minigiant]

What allows a Ranger to learn and apply these lessons in a way that the other classes never will?

Lack of dedication

Basically every other casters has to put their all into something to get magic.

• A wizard and arcane study
• A sorcerer and training in their origin
• A cleric to a god's faith
• A paladin to their oath's tenets
• A bard to their craft
• A druid to natural meditation.

A ranger....
A ranger realized the only witnesses in the forest are animals and plants. So they learn Speak with Animals and Speak with Plants. From a druid. Form a fey. From a dragon. From a wizard. They don't care from who and how. They will go to Hell and torture a demon if they need fire magic. They need it for the mission.

Like Batman. Everything for the Mission.
Rangers are the Batman class to me. That's why everyday Ithink more and more that they should get infusions over spells.

 

[Rocker26a]

Lack of dedication

Basically every other casters has to put their all into something to get magic.

• A wizard and arcane study
• A sorcerer and training in their origin
• A cleric to a god's faith
• A paladin to their oath's tenets
• A bard to their craft
• A druid to natural meditation.

A ranger....
A ranger realized the only witnesses in the forest are animals and plants. So they learn Speak with Animals and Speak with Plants. From a druid. Form a fey. From a dragon. From a wizard. They don't care from who and how. They will go to Hell and torture a demon if they need fire magic. They need it for the mission.

Like Batman. Everything for the Mission.
Rangers are the Batman class to me. That's why everyday Ithink more and more that they should get infusions over spells.

I agree that Batman is close to the class fantasy for a Ranger in my mind, despite incongruencies of theme n' all that. "technically artificer is a better fit but also monk because punching" etc. Yeah, that is how I see Rangers generally. Ideally. Creatures of intuition, superior reaction, sharpened senses, pragmatism.

However, I dislike the notion that it's a "lack of dedication" that sits at a Ranger's core. Or that Practical Incarnation of the Nameless One style pragmatism is inherent to them. Or at least that that's the case for all of them. Obviously it's fine for individual characters. But y'know, like in the case of your Batman example, he absolutely does care "from who and how"... Most of the time. Unless a notably crazy writer has gotten hold of him.

But yeah. I'd sooner have it be the case that, a Ranger's power is drawn from a truth, a way of seeing the world and their place in it, that's unique to them against the other classes. Or something like that, leastways. I feel like this is one of those "I don't know what I want, but I know what I don't want" things. Frustrating.

They will go to Hell and torture a demon if they need fire magic.

Also Demons don't live in the Hells, silly!

 

[Vaalingrade]

I am not sure if you guys have heard about the GenCon Unearthed Arcana panel this weekend. Apparently, they had a huge OneD&D subsystem planned for wilderness exploration and adventure for the Ranger class to interact with that got scrapped for being too complicated.

Ah, simplification. The up and coming new Final Boss of making the game worse after Verisimilitude.

 

[Horwath]

That and subclasses sucking up design space

That's why ranger got theirs at third. Rangers are Martial + Combat + Magic. They get Martial and Skill at 1st. Then Magic and the rest of Martial at 2. There was no space for subclass until 3.

With magic at level 1 now, there is even less space for Subclass.

I mean, it is clear why all the classes that used to get subclass at level 1 were full spellcasters.

Sure, subclasses take design space,
but it could be split into levels 1 and 3.
1st level subclass features should be bonus proficiencies and bonus spells known if any, then at 3rd level more powerful features,
this is especially important for subclasses that give bonus armor/weapon proficiencies.
You get your start gear at 1st level and then you HAVE to get a new set when you reach 3rd level.
Sure, gear can be found/bought, but you will probably get 3rd level before getting back to town and shop around.

The Gloomstalker can get:
1st level: Umbral sight
3rd level: Dread ambusher

Rogue Scout can get:
1st level: Proficiency in Nature and Survival
3rd level: Expertise in Nature and Survival, Skirmisher movement.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I do like this school of thought as an aspect of their flavour, but I will say it feels like only part of the answer.

What allows a Ranger to learn and apply these lessons in a way that the other classes never will?

I think the default 5E Ranger spell list is/was frustratingly limited for drawing this kind of inspiration from. If they got just a handful more spells from the other pools, you could potentially spin some interesting stuff. One idea I like is, Rangers reverse-engineering the magic of other creatures through their own instinct or meditation or whatever. Learning Blur from hunting Displacer Beasts, learning Misty Step from running with Blink Dogs etc. Those might not be the most interesting examples necessarily, but hopefully the idea at least makes a degree of sense.

Thinking about it... I think Rangers are the generic one's here. Phrasing, to explain, Clerics draw on divine power (generic) whereas Paladins draw on divine power, or on their oaths, but it is fully this fervor and belief that drives paladins (specific)

I think Rangers are the generic ones in this relationship. They draw on natural, primal magic. Maybe from a wide variety of sources and being a general "spirit friend". Meanwhile, Druids go through a specific style of ritual to bind their soul to the forces of the natural world. The specifics of the ritual might change, but all Druids are bound to the power of the planet they are on. This explains why every single druid can turn into animals.

This also sort of makes sense meta-textually. Clerics serve many different gods and have many different powers, but Druids ALL serve "Nature" and mostly have the same powers, their only differences coming from which ASPECT of nature they are particularly embodying. Paladins become more specific because every paladin has a unique drive of morals and goals, seperate from any god or divine power, paladins are in general highly unique individuals. Rangers though are the more generic group, covering a wide range of abilities and motivations.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ah, simplification. The up and coming new Final Boss of making the game worse after Verisimilitude.

Ya know, this is a crazy thought, because we are only talking about professionals with decades of experience with their craft and massive amounts of data on their audience... but they could have been right too. Like, they could have actually been correct that the system they were working on was getting too complicated to be reasonable to include. That's also a possibility.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sure, subclasses take design space,
but it could be split into levels 1 and 3.
1st level subclass features should be bonus proficiencies and bonus spells known if any, then at 3rd level more powerful features,
this is especially important for subclasses that give bonus armor/weapon proficiencies.
You get your start gear at 1st level and then you HAVE to get a new set when you reach 3rd level.
Sure, gear can be found/bought, but you will probably get 3rd level before getting back to town and shop around.

The Gloomstalker can get:
1st level: Umbral sight
3rd level: Dread ambusher

Rogue Scout can get:
1st level: Proficiency in Nature and Survival
3rd level: Expertise in Nature and Survival, Skirmisher movement.

I think where this misses the point is easiest explained with a recent conversation I had.

I have a new job, found some people to eat lunch with, and one them mentioned they wanted to get into DnD but they weren't sure what class to pick.

Do you think it is more reasonable to present and talk about 13 options, or 65 options, over a short lunch conversation? Do you honestly think you could reasonably present and discuss 65 different options and their pros and cons in anything resembling a quick conversation?