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

[Reef]

Or we can just stop shackling ourselves to the assumed whims of ghosts we can neither reason nor negotiate with.

Yeah, but we need a chart to tell us the DC for Unshackling! And Ghosts are bound to make it even harder!

 

[Minigiant]

That depends on what the PC doing to try to spot or escape the whirlpool.

Exactly.

If the DM and Player doesn't know how whirlpools work, the DM will likely make an extremely unrealistic ruling.
If the DM doesn't know but any Player does, the DM's unrealistic adjudication will clash with that Player's knowledge.

The stuff that people don't know about that come up in D&D which have serious implications have rules and guidelines. Like Traps, Stealth, Speaking.

Wilderness is a part of the game that can be impactful that no one knows about.
That's the point of the ranger. The ranger knows stuff normal people don't.

 

[Charlaquin]

Exactly.

If the DM and Player doesn't know how whirlpools work, the DM will likely make an extremely unrealistic ruling.

I don’t think realism matters. Especially when we’re talking about electromagnetic whirlpools or whatever other mid-high level challenges that don’t even exist in real life.

If the DM doesn't know but any Player does, the DM's unrealistic adjudication will clash with that Player's knowledge.

The player knows about electromagnetic whirlpools…?

The stuff that people don't know about that come up in D&D which have serious implications have rules and guidelines. Like Traps, Stealth, Speaking.

Wilderness is a part of the game that can be impactful that no one knows about.
That's the point of the ranger. The ranger knows stuff normal people don't.

Great, this is a good argument for rangers having hard-coded class features that don’t rely on DM fiat. It is not an argument that those features need to be spells.

 

[Minigiant]

Great, this is a good argument for rangers having hard-coded class features that don’t rely on DM fiat. It is not an argument that those features need to be spells.

That was always my argument.

My problem was with people who said rangers don't need hard coded wilderness features and can "just roll Nature or Survival vs DC 15 to do forage" at level 15.

EDIT
ie Most write-ups and description of spell-less rangers are walking bowls of "Mother May I" when they walk into the wild because 90% their class power is fighter/rogue combat stuff and they don't have actual class feature that aid tracking, survival, escape, avoidance, and hunting.. Just fighters with nonmagical Hunter's Mark and Survival Expertise.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Yeah, but we need a chart to tell us the DC for Unshackling! And Ghosts are bound to make it even harder!

Jacob Marley certainly had a hard time with them!

 

[Charlaquin]

That was always my argument.

My problem was with people who said rangers don't need hard coded wilderness features and can "just roll Nature or Survival vs DC 15 to do forage" at level 15.

Are people saying that? I sure am not.

 

[Minigiant]

Are people saying that?

Yes.

90% of spell-less ranger homebrew is just fighters with nonmagical Hunter's Mark and Survival Expertise.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes.

90% of spell-less ranger homebrew is just fighters with nonmagical Hunter's Mark and Survival Expertise.

Let me rephrase: are people saying that here?

 

[Minigiant]

Let me rephrase: are people saying that here?

I've seen a few.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The problem with doing that is the first thing that will happen is every player will descend on those tables and take them as gospel for exactly the actions that are possible within the game to take with precise DCs they can optimize for.

It won't provide guidance to the DM. It will give players a program to execute. Pages of rules to browbeat DMs with.

Then in 2 years time, players will be clamoring for WotC to release new tables with "fixed" DCs and more corner cases and for abilities they can imagine that aren't in the script.

Seeing nothing but positives here.