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

[Shardstone]

Some of it is. Some of it isn't.

Normal people can't speak to plants, see through the eyes of beasts, call fairies, summon thorns, walk on water, leave a wake of fire, or teleport through trees.

And again ranger used to have more.

Part of the D&D ranger, and the ranger of many modern high fantasy setting, is wielding some supernatural cow excrement that normal people don't know how to do to survive, protect their range, and hunt their foes.

The class fantasy of the spellcasting ranger is a warrior who placed a hunting trap that encases the one that trigger it in a block of ice. Then when the victims buddies huddle around them to chip him or her out, an arrow hits their shoulder and explodes in Primal fire. Which of course pulls the ranger, his party, and a couple beasts out of invisibility to pounce of the softened survivors.

Yeah that's actually not what I want to do.

 

[Minigiant]

Absolutely not.

Not at all. I'd consider myself extremely familiar with all rangers and ranger-like characters in Warhammer Fantasy in various formats.

They have not a single one of the powers you mentioned.

Doesn't Alith Anar shoot magically accurate arrows and can summon darkness?

Sure it comes from his wargear but gear in other series is spells in D&D.

Orion can summon Hound spirits and is covered in barkskin.

 

[Shardstone]

Problem is, most of the spellcasting ranger's spells are just to do things normal people can do that has to be a spell because D&D players and designers have a horrifically limited experience pool.

The 'class fantasy' of the spellcasting ranger is 'to do what normal people can do, only with artificial limits on how often you can do it', or 'things you would be able to do with skills if they weren't terribly designed out of feat of adding more than two numbers together'.

This does convince me that the Ranger should be an at-will class.

 

[Incenjucar]

This conversation goes in circles endlessly, solutions, either drafted up or proposed, get left behind in order to repeat the same tired arguments again and again and again and again and again. Yeesh. Everyone has their opinions and no one wants to try it someone else's way. It isn't that its hard to make a compromise ranger, it's that people don't want to compromise at all and want their vision to be the only vision.

It's pretty trivial to just make a ranger that has spells as an option with other options also available. It's been done by other designers. 13th Age does it.

 

[Shardstone]

Absolutely not.

Not at all. I'd consider myself extremely familiar with all rangers and ranger-like characters in Warhammer Fantasy in various formats.

They have not a single one of the powers you mentioned.

And no, I'm very familiar with "popular fantasy gaming series", and again, no, their rangers do not typically have these things. It's basically Warcraft (including Warcraft 3) and stuff that's deriving directly from Warcraft (like DotA).

Rangers in Dragon Age, for example, do not have any of these powers (they do have some others, but not these ones).

As "modern fantasy comics" and "animated works", which ones SPECIFICALLY are you referring to? Name them, please.

You're sounding awfully like the people I used to have deal with who constantly claimed things like "Most modern fantasy novels have orcs, dwarves and halflings in!", which was abjectly and demonstrably false. It was funny how they always relied on generalizations and could never, ever come up with specifics.

If you can't come up with specifics, I feel like we must dismiss your claims here entirely.

TBH when I think contemporary Ranger, I think Witcher, and would be much happier with a Witcher class vs a Ranger class these days.

 

[Shardstone]

It's pretty trivial to just make a ranger that has spells as an option with other options also available. It's been done by other designers. 13th Age does it.

I don't know what your response is getting at in relation to what I said, but yes, I agree.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

TBH when I think contemporary Ranger, I think Witcher, and would be much happier with a Witcher class vs a Ranger class these days.

That is an interesting point, and it's notable Critical Role created a Witcher-style class with Blood Hunter precisely for that reason.

It is kind of weird there's no Witcher-like Ranger subclass in 5E, it would seem a natural fit.

Doesn't Alith Anar shoot magically accurate arrows and can summon darkness?

Sure it comes from his wargear but gear in other series is spells in D&D.

Alith Anar has magic items, as you say and no, the idea that magic items = D&D spells is nonsense. Magic items = D&D magic items. Come on.

Orion can summon Hound spirits and is covered in barkskin.

HE'S A DEMI-GOD!

He's not a bloody ranger. He's a literal demi-god! He's dead most of the year, for goodness sake.

If anything, class-wise, he's just an extremely butch Druid, but the main thing is, he's a demi-god. And has massive magic powers and vastly superhuman prowess.

 

[Minigiant]

It's pretty trivial to just make a ranger that has spells as an option with other options also available. It's been done by other designers. 13th Age does it.

It's pretty trivial to just make a ranger that has spells as an option.
It's pretty hard to make a ranger that enhances their skills and weapon attacks with magic.

That fine line between "I use magic once every 4-5 encounters" to ""I use magic once every other encounter" is the problem.

Even WOTC noticed it. That's why they first offered concentrationless Hunter's Mark then now more uses of Hunter's Mark. The WOTC D&D ranger is expected to use some magic often.

 

[Minigiant]

Alith Anar has magic items, as you say and no, the idea that magic items = D&D spells is nonsense. Magic items = D&D magic items. That's a crazy thing to suggest.

Aragorn's abilities are ranger spells and D&D had FIFTY YEARS under 2 companies to change that and NEVER DID.

Other Media abilities being Spells is D&D's MO under TSR and WOTC.

Give Rangers spells, Give rangers infusions, or create the item/herbalogy/crafting/woodcraft subsystem.

Put smokebombs and bola in the game or Rangers cast Darkness and Fog Cloud and Entangle.

 

[Incenjucar]

It's pretty trivial to just make a ranger that has spells as an option.
It's pretty hard to make a ranger that enhances their skills and weapon attacks with magic.

That fine line between "I use magic once every 4-5 encounters" to ""I use magic once every other encounter" is the problem.

Even WOTC noticed it. That's why they first offered concentrationless Hunter's Mark then now more uses of Hunter's Mark. The WOTC D&D ranger is expected to use some magic often.

All still trivial. 5E is not very complex. I don't know why you feel it's hard, but as a game developer who has been in D&D since the 90s I assure you it's not.