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

[le Redoutable]

... and a touristic guide

 

[le Redoutable]

I think spell using classes are favored to the detriment of the others;
Those days, shorts videos from YouTube show us that Olympics champions are completely off the road, for dancing acrobats , along with archers etc

 

[Yaarel]

Half casters, or the ranger and artificer at least, i wish had sharper spell slot progression, yes you only go up to 5th level spells but that doesn’t mean they have to only start getting 5th level slots at 16th level or whenever they get them

You could have them on the fullcaster spell tier progression but just have them not earn as many slots and none past fifth, their power boosts are more just getting to cast them more rather than getting to cast higher.

Getting more spells at earlier levels means having less design space for Martial features. So sacrifices would happen to get better spells.

That said, I wont go near part casters because of the problem of the spells becoming less useful by the level they become available, and shutting out access to the highest slots.

So at least my feeling is, the part casters are subpar. Clearly their magic is subpar. Whether their Martial features make up for it or not is of less interest to me.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is... this is pretty great, and approaches a fair swap. I'd drop in some salve/poultice abilities and travel buffs.

There's already the Rally maneuver for the Battlemaster:

Rally
On your turn, you can use a bonus action and expend one superiority die to bolster the resolve of one of your companions. When you do so, choose a friendly creature who can see or hear you. That creature gains temporary hit points equal to the superiority die roll + your Charisma modifier.

I don't think there would be much of any balance issue whatsoever to change it from THP to healing actual HP, and add your WIS mod rather than Charisma and call the ability 'Salve'. Again, easy, simple, effective.

 

[CreamCloud0]

That said, I wont go near part casters because of the problem of the spells becoming less useful by the level they become available,

i agree, i think the half caster progression often causes them to gain spells later than what would be their preferred tiers/levels of use, that was basically what sparked the idea of getting their higher level slots earlier, Horwath's suggested reshuffled slot progression really looks good, they're not increasing the number of slots the ranger gets just increasing the rate at which they gain access to the higher level slots at the cost of not having as many lower level slots.

then as they level up they just increase the number of slots available and spells known, rather than keep going higher.

 

[Yaarel]

Just for interest, here is what short-rest spell points might look like. The slot access is the current official one but could become accessible at an earlier level. The amount of spell points remains the same. Here, the cost of a spell is its slot. So, a slot 3 Plant Growth spell costs 3 points to cast.

L	Full SP	Slot	2/3 SP	Slot	Half SP	Slot
1	2	1st	1	1st	1 Ft Style	1st
2	3		2		−
3	4	2nd	3		2 Eldritch
4	5		−		−
5	6	3rd	4	2nd	3
6	7		−		−
7	8	4th	5		4	2nd
8	9		6		−
9	10	5th	7	3th	5
10	11		−		−
11	12	6th	8		6
12	13		−		−
13	14	7th	9	4th	7	3th
14	15		10		−
15	16	8th	11		8
16	17		−		−
17	18	9th	12	5th	9
18	19		−		−
19	20		13		10	4th
20	21		14		−

 

[Minigiant]

What? There was no design in the old-school ranger. Just looking at the 2E Ranger...

1. They had proficiency slots (like everyone did.)
2. They had Favored Enemy, which meant they had a +4 to attack one monster... for the rest of their careers. Choose orcs? That was great at low levels (if the DM used them), if you chose dragons, that was worthless until higher levels. They also had a built-in enmity that was hard to hide and made it hard to be friendly to a friendly version of that creature (like a friendly dragon). Thumbs down then, thumbs down now.
3. They had a scaling percentile for Hide in Shadows and Move Silently (translates to skills).
4. They had Animal Empathy for domestic or non-hostile animals, which was a saving throw (translates to skills).
5. At 8th level they got access to 1 "Priest" spell chosen from the Animal and Plant spheres. It scaled very slowly from there, up to 3rd level spells
6. At 10th level they got access to Strongholds and Followers. If you never reached the level to get spells, you never played with strongholds and followers. I know I never played in a game with Strongholds and Followers back in the day.

Also, you could only be a Human, Elf, or Half-elf.

I reeeally don't understand the fascination with ancient design that has long been left behind. It feels like people have a powerful nostalgia for their old games that contained some of their favorite stories, and they extrapolate that into assuming the rules were great because of it.

The rules did the bare minimum of helping with an identity, but looking back, they weren't "great". I loved my old-school ranger because of the stories I got to play with that character. The class rules brought almost nothing to the table.

The 1e and 2e Rangers were both just Fighters who could use special stealth for all of their nonmagical levels.

If someone wants that, they can get most of that by playing Fighter and choosing Stealth proficiency via background. You don't even need to be a rogue to get Expertise anymore.

 

[Emberashh]

I can only imagine the sheer uproar if people started dismissively suggesting people who like Paladins should just play a Fighter and pretend to pray. Or that people who like Sorcerers should just scratch the name off Wizard.

I don't know where the fixation on reduction ad absurdum comes from but good golly is it distasteful. Simple isn't a virtue.

 

[Charlaquin]

I chose Spellcasting. Rangers have had magic in some form or other for so long, I feel like it’s part of their identity. And, although I hate to be the first to say it, you all know someone is going to:

If I wanted a Magic-less Ranger, I can easily do so with a Fighter with the right background. Or a Rogue Scout. Or a combo of the two. There’s nothing I need from a “wilderness warrior” that either of those two wouldn’t give me.

What’s missing? Automatic Terrain successes? Extremely specific, hard to balance, and hardly worth basing an entire class around. It’s either too useful, or not useful at all.

If the spelless ranger was just a wilderness warrior, sure. But the ranger should be more than that. They’re a survivalist, a tracker, an ambusher, a monster hunter… And they should be preternaturally capable of all those things.

Ultimately I think this comes down to the same fundamental point of disagreement as any casters vs. martials argument does: should it be possible to exceed mundane limits without casting spells? If no, obviously the ranger should cast spells. If yes, then doing so without casting spells is going to be more thematically appropriate for the ranger.

 

[Charlaquin]

A spelless wizard would just be a book nerd...

No, a spelless wizard would still do magic. They would just do it by means other than casting spells.

That’s what this argument is ultimately about - should spells be the only way of doing magic? If your opinion is yes, then of course “spelless wizard” sounds absurd and “spelless ranger” sounds like a fighter with nature and survival. If your opinion is no, then not only do those things seem perfectly reasonable, but a spelless version of classes like the ranger who are known for doing magic but not necessarily for waving wands and chanting incantations seem like glaring omissions from the game.