D&D 5E Where to Now?

[Fenris-77]

Like locusts, a plague.

In hordes, they sweep down from the north. On hairy feet and with greedy hands they raid the larders of the city. With smacking lips they consume all your buns and sausages. And then, like an ephemeral wisp of mist, in a moment, they are gone.

Fisher Tel-Sollial
Legends of the First Age​

 

[Undrave]

No, it wouldn't. I'm fine with "here's a new and prettier version of the book you own, but don't feel obligated to buy it" scenarios. In fact, that's basically what the black cover reissued 2e core books were... and I never bought them. But they didn't bother me- I just wasn't a good target audience for them.

I'd be much more inclined to buy a book in the style of 3e's Unearthed Arcana, that was crammed full of cool alternate takes on all kinds of rules that you could stick in your game if you wanted to- something that adds new stuff, that gives us the dials and customization that a lot of D&D Next's design goals ended up having to put aside. I think that's a better choice than a 5.1 version of the PH, personally.

Personally, I would love an Alt PHB. It's just the same rules and same base class, but all the subclasses are new. Instead of the Champion, it's the Brute, instead of the Eldritch Knight, it's the Psi Knight, instead of Arcane Trickster it's a Shadowdancer, and even if they double down a bit on fluff, like a Sun Domain instead of Light Domain, it still feels different enough.

And it includes the errata and probably a different spell list that incorporate stuff from all book to better match the available themes in the book.


But brand wise it would be confusing and they probably wouldn't go for it :/

 

[Undrave]

It aren't many ways to do cool stuff now. A lot of cool stuff that is iconic for the ranger likeanimal messengers, talking to plants and animals, passing without trace, gaining supernatural enhancement require descriptions too big without being or refering to magic of taking up tons of book space. Many a spell-less rangers are terrible rangers.

Iconic in what way? Most of the 'Iconic Ranger' stuff people talk about seem to exist only within DnD itself. The DnD Ranger is practically a tautology.

And there's way to include spells without making the character a full on spell caster with slots and stuff. You could give them rituals (and expand rituals), for exemple and certain abilities X amount of time per day that are focused on their subclass specialties. The Beast Master could get Animal Messager, Talking to Animal and Locate Animals, for exemple. And then you have design space for a caster subclass like the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster.

 

[Minigiant]

Iconic in what way? Most of the 'Iconic Ranger' stuff people talk about seem to exist only within DnD itself. The DnD Ranger is practically a tautology.

Iconic to ranger. The default D&D setting is an anomaly in fiction.

Most fantasy settings are either really low magic and low power or really high magic and high power. In low magic settings, the setting's rangers rarely use magic if at all as the challenges are more grounded and can be defended with basic skill and expert weapon play. In high power magic settings,rangers are practically wizards wielding weapons.

The DnD ranger is the iconic ranger for the medium level setting. At low levels, rranger don't really need any magic to hunt, track, sneak, travel,and animal animals. Howevereveryone know the default assumption for D&D is that after a certain point, magic starts popping up everywhere and you need magic to counter the magic. If you are a caster,you already have magic. If you are primarily a warrior, you get magic weapons or become supernatural (like paladins). But skill users, you need guaranteed magic items, spells of you own, or brokenly high skill mods.

And there's way to include spells without making the character a full on spell caster with slots and stuff. You could give them rituals (and expand rituals), for exemple and certain abilities X amount of time per day that are focused on their subclass specialties. The Beast Master could get Animal Messager, Talking to Animal and Locate Animals, for exemple. And then you have design space for a caster subclass like the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster.

Hate to break it to you but rituals are still spells.
Making a ranger a ritualist still makes him a spellcaster. It just looks and works different.
And a lotofthat seems like a convolutedway to have a customizable list of spells that follow a resource system but not call it spell casting.

Is Rangers being spellcasters so bad that people what to add 2-5 pages in a book to do the same thing under a new name?

Once skill power was finally dissaciated from classin 5e, people should just play the Fighters with Stealth and Survival they always wanted to instead ofwanting a new book with a new class that is "fighter with stealth and survival."

 

[Undrave]

Hate to break it to you but rituals are still spells.
Making a ranger a ritualist still makes him a spellcaster. It just looks and works different.
And a lotofthat seems like a convolutedway to have a customizable list of spells that follow a resource system but not call it spell casting.

Is Rangers being spellcasters so bad that people what to add 2-5 pages in a book to do the same thing under a new name?

Oh they would still be spells, but I feel like the whole tracking of spell slots and the large spell list thing feels too... Formal you know? Like, the Ranger should feel like they pick up magic left and right as boons to make their main job easier, but they're not out there taking Spellcasting 101 classes. It's supplementary tricks, it shouldn't be such a huge chunk of their core identity, especially since that tradition evolved out of the supremacy of casters in the past.

It just feels like 'slap a Paladin's progression on it' was a quick band-aid and kinda... boring and unoriginal. A good base Ranger should feel like the intersection of the Totem Barbarian and Scout Rogue... at least to me.

 

[Lanefan]

Like locusts, a plague.

The Hobbits would loudly object, except they're all too busy eating...

 

[Minigiant]

Oh they would still be spells, but I feel like the whole tracking of spell slots and the large spell list thing feels too... Formal you know? Like, the Ranger should feel like they pick up magic left and right as boons to make their main job easier, but they're not out there taking Spellcasting 101 classes. It's supplementary tricks, it shouldn't be such a huge chunk of their core identity, especially since that tradition evolved out of the supremacy of casters in the past.

It just feels like 'slap a Paladin's progression on it' was a quick band-aid and kinda... boring and unoriginal. A good base Ranger should feel like the intersection of the Totem Barbarian and Scout Rogue... at least to me.

I think it isn't formal enough. After the Wizard, Fighter, Paladin, and Cleric, the Ranger is the next most formally trained class.

The Ranger isn't a druid. They learned magic for enhancement for the job. The original ranger was a part of an organization who used magic user spells. If you pretend Aragon didn't exist,the OD&D looks like a member of a military organization out to exterminate the evil tribes and willing to do anything to kill them all "Goblin Slayer". The popular training background for rangers are members of a military branch, apprentices of another rangers, part of an order of rangers, subcontracters of a druid circle, or employees of an otherworldly patron like a fey king.

I'm suprised they don't get a ritual book. The lore practically stats that ranger training is academic. If anything rangers should have spellbooks.

 

[Blue]

I wouldn't say it's balance neutral with the PHB druid, but I'd hardly hold up the PHB druid as a particularly balanced example anyway. Whether maintaining balance neutrality with PHB options is worthwhile is something I'd classify as user specific.

The PHB druid is considered one of the more powerful of the classes. So something not "balance neutral" but more powerful is further off the centerline of the classes.

And I disagree, an attempt for classes to be of roughly equal power is not just a "user specific" request that some might have, but a design point for the classes. It's a big part of why they tore down the quadratic caster so much.

 

[TwoSix]

And I disagree, an attempt for classes to be of roughly equal power is not just a "user specific" request that some might have, but a design point for the classes. It's a big part of why they tore down the quadratic caster so much.

To clarify, I mean there's no consensus requirement that a revised option be of the same power level as the PHB option it's attempting to revise. (I'd argue that there's much more of a consensus that material not be introduced that's better than already top-tier options like paladins or sorlocks.) It's OK for a revised ranger to be flat out better than the PHB ranger, because there's a fair amount of agreement that the PHB ranger is problematic.

Personally, I find druid to be on the lower end of the full casters, balance-wise. (Where casters stand balance-wise compared to non-casters is something I don't think there's strong agreement on, so I'll ignore that aspect for this discussion.) The only problematic parts of Druid, as I see it, are Tier 1 Moon druids, and the extremely problematic 20th level capstone. There are possibly some shenanigans around Conjure X spells, but those are fairly easy to remedy by simply applying the Crawford interpretation of allowable summons. But again, just my opinion.

I don't really think it's particularly necessary to discuss hypothetical tradeoffs of features, I've already provided a link to the finished product which can be evaluated holistically. Then specific balance concerns can be raised rather than hypothetical ones.