D&D 5E Why are non-caster Ranger themes so popular?

[MarkB]

The problem is basically what Ive been saying from the beginning.

The community can more or less agree on when a ranger get a spell based ranger spell feature and how powerful it should be.

The community cannot agree at all when a ranger gets most nonspell ranger features nor how powerful they should be.

TIers of Rangery stuff that is not spells is unsettled and this week's a ranger without spells from being made unless you pull a 4e and strip "spell" from everyone and make use the same scales.

"The Community" rarely agrees on anything. That doesn't stop WotC or anyone else from making new classes or subclasses with abilities that aren't based upon spellcasting. Why would this be any more a problem for the Ranger than for any other class?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Look at the PHB ranger's "craft a ghillie suit" feature Hide in Plain Sight.
It takes a whole minute to put on and you can't move in it or it falls off. They get that junk at level 10

Hence my point. Many are imagining the fun of a nonpellcasting ranger from books and movies. Few are imagining the sack of trash that will have level 1 class features as level 10 class features. The low level ranger is a popular archetype. A mid level or high level ranger is a debate. Few are imagining 20 levels of ranger.

And this is before you figure out how to make at least 4 subclasses of it. Archer would be a bad subclass as anyone can be an Archer. Being a spellcasting Archer is what makes Archer Rangers unique. You don't see anyone calling for a Geology Ranger or Botany Ranger. And it would be hard to make those interesting without supernatural abilities or magic.

So much this. Their abilities are SO freakin bad. Then you have the order of the ancients paladin, who ruins the equivalent of bounded accuracy for saves, tossing out magic resistance, with a second level spell that summons a pet that can act independently just thrown in for funsies, and about as many bonus spells from their oath as the ranger can even know!

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Is that a problem with the concept though? The execution of Hide in Plain Sight is lackluster sure, but if your argument is that non-spellcasting abilities cannot inherently be interesting or useful, than there is a bigger problem than just a non-spellcasting ranger since we have 4 other core classes that do not have base spellcasting abilities.

Sadly the community has consistently rejected the idea that non-spellcasting abilities can be interesting or useful. See the backlash from 4E.

"Muh v-tude!" the grognards cried, as they witnessed the horror of non-magical healing. "How can you shout a hand back on?!", ignoring that HP loss doesn't cause loss of limbs (or any physical impairment). There is a sizable and VERY noisy contingent that refuses to accept non-magical as anything but less than.

 

[Shadowedeyes]

Those same people don't endorse giving spells to every single class, so ultimately they and WotC will have to find a middle ground. The ranger can keep it's spells in my opinion for what it is worth, but saying it is impossible to make a non-magical ranger is basically saying you can never make a non-magical class, which I certainly don't believe.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I guess that, as @Composer99 suggested, this may just be a matter of differing definitions. To me, an ability that allows taming of animals and monsters is basically an invitation to find combat-effective creatures and make them de facto animal companions, making it a de facto pet class.

Okay, but I didn't say they'd be able to tame anything beyond what a given DM would allow with any PC with Animal Handling. They'd probably have advantage on a lot of checks due to being to communicate more easily with beasts and then later other creatures, but if the DM doesn't allow that sort of thing anyway, this Ranger doesn't circumvent that.

I guess the fact that they could choose not to do so may make it technically not a pet class, but it certainly seems like it could be used as such.

I guess I'm also just not willing to nix design concepts because they could be used in a way that some people don't want to be forced to do if they play the thing. That's what we have here. You said you don't want to have to play a pet class in order to play a ranger. I'm saying, okay, you wouldn't have to.

I may have missed your earlier comments about not allowing taming of wild animals. The first post I saw from you that described the concept was the following:

I can see where the idea of taming came into it for you, but every single time I've replied to you about it I've reiterated that gaining a pet wouldn't be a necessary component of the concept.

To me, "befriending" creatures that the ranger can "turn to their side" sounds pretty much like taming, at least on a basic level. If you've stated elsewhere that this is not the case, I apologise for missing it.

And even if you could gain a pet, it would take time, it couldn't be brought back without burning the same magic you'd have to for a PC, and it would be dependent on either multiple skill checks or the use of spells (animal friendship, for instance). And that's if it was decided to even allow such a thing at all.

What is more likely, is a sidebar saying that if gaining a pet via Animal Handling is allowed in the campaign in general, the Ranger is better at it than others are.

Now, even if we ignored the desire of some to not play a pet class in any way, and said that the ranger could make critters fight for them, assuming we could even balance that without an unacceptable level of abstraction (which, once you reach a level where full casters can turn enemies against their allies, the balance is probably fine), it takes a long time to turn a creature into an actual pet, unless you're a Beastmaster. Even if you use spells, they only last for so long.

So, at most, we'd be looking at a class that can get low-int enemies to chill out and leave the party alone, and by then spending some time with a single critter, could befriend it and cause it to be friendly toward the ranger until the ranger gives it a reason not to be. If that creature is amenable to fighting, this could mean some limited combat help, while the ranger is in the creature's territory, roughly equivelent to animal friendship and various charm spells. At no point would the class give you a pet, outside of the BM subclass and/or an optional find familiar variant, and in a campaign where pets are generally allowed, the Ranger would just have some benefits to the checks involved to accomplish that, they wouldn't be guaranteed success.

But getting a balgura to lead you to a safe place and stand watch while you rest would be awesome enough to be worth the class feature at higher levels.

 

[niklinna]

Those same people don't endorse giving spells to every single class, so ultimately they and WotC will have to find a middle ground. The ranger can keep it's spells in my opinion for what it is worth, but saying it is impossible to make a non-magical ranger is basically saying you can never make a non-magical class, which I certainly don't believe.

Or even a magical non-spellcasting class. Look at the Rune Knight. Gobs of magic, cool flavor with an interesting and distinct feel, not done by waving your hands around and babbling. Rangers could have gotten the ability to craft magical weapons/ammo that have elemental damage types or that ensnare for a round on a hit, or a magical ghillie suit that doesn't fall off if you move, or magical traps that are better than a 1-action spell because they take time to craft. Those would have been thematic & cool.

 

[Greg K]

Rangers could have gotten the ability to craft magical weapons/ammo that have elemental damage types or that ensnare for a round on a hit, or a magical ghillie suit that doesn't fall off if you move, or magical traps that are better than a 1-action spell because they take time to craft. Those would have been thematic & cool.

Personally, I don't find it cool, but it if were an availble option and not forced on the class as a whole I would be fine with its inclusion.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I'm saying most DM have no experience in natural adventure, man hunting, nor outdoorsmanship. So with no guidance, you are setting most DMs up to fail as they have to make stuff up with no knowledge.

What kinds of traps can a 1st level ranger craft?

... We do agree mostly on spells and we have guidance, tables, and manuals on spells. So WOTC used spells.

We can't even agree on which level a ranger should be able to flawlessly tame a wild animal.

...

Look at the PHB ranger's "craft a ghillie suit" feature Hide in Plain Sight.
It takes a whole minute to put on and you can't move in it or it falls off. They get that junk at level 10

Hence my point. Many are imagining the fun of a nonpellcasting ranger from books and movies. Few are imagining the sack of trash that will have level 1 class features as level 10 class features.

...

Hunting traps are tier 1 and there are no tables or rules to help DMs adjudicate stronger traps. The problem is basically what Ive been saying from the beginning. The community can more or less agree on when a ranger get a spell based ranger spell feature and how powerful it should be. The community cannot agree at all when a ranger gets most nonspell ranger features nor how powerful they should be.

I was out for my walk and had some thoughts come, as they do while one is out walking. One problem is the classic idea of Ranger features a lot of exploration/journey stuff, which is outside the turn by turn thrill of combat & encounters. Most 5E classes are built more around combat & encounters, after all. Also, several of those Rangers features just bypass the exploration/journey challenges rather than making them more interesting or solvable in different ways. Rests are an in-between space there, normally just used for bookkeeping.

I think Minigiant and Niklinna highlight the issues well. Unlike Minigiant, I believe that we can make an interesting non-magical ranger. This, however, presupposes that non-magical fighters and rogues are interesting.

They point out rightly that the ranger has a strong wilderness exploration theme with very poor support for wilderness exploration in the rules. Yes, it is there, but very simplified to have a class wholly devoted to that theme. Minigiant's question of how much damage or what effect a ranger's trap should do at various levels is quite reasonable as well. My initial answer is to figure that out, write it down so that it is consistent, and adjust as the game progresses. (Plan, Do, Check, Adjust)* Don't wait for WotC. But, not everyone has the opportunity to do that. And, yes, using spells as a measuring stick to make sure a class fits the power curve for other classes is reasonable. But, again, I feel that we should have more non-spell using classes, and the ranger is an ideal candidate for that.

In many ways, the ranger is a fighter / thief who is really good friends with the druids. A good way to differentiate between rangers and rogues is theming; rangers are wilderness while rogues are urban. Martially fighters are weaponmasters and captains of troops where rangers are survivors and in tune with the rhythms of nature. Where can that take you?

Lastly, if the question is what will the high level ranger do without spells, my answer is what do the high level fighters and rogues do at that point as well? That can be inspiration for the non-magical (but uncanny) ranger.

* That I immediately thought of some Lean Leadership training as a tool to solve this problem made my Gen-X rebellious soul wither a bit.

 

[Minigiant]

Those same people don't endorse giving spells to every single class, so ultimately they and WotC will have to find a middle ground. The ranger can keep it's spells in my opinion for what it is worth, but saying it is impossible to make a non-magical ranger is basically saying you can never make a non-magical class, which I certainly don't believe.

It not that.

It's just that the D&D community has to buckle down and state what a nonmagical ranger unlocks access to and get high success in at each tier of play.

Saying "I wanna be a nonmagical outdoorsman" doesn't mean anything. The community mostly leans on a nebulous dream and doesn't let anything be concrete enough to compare with the challenges and allies at different levels.

But WOTC (and TSR before them) lack that luxury.

What can a Novice nonmagical ranger do?
What can a Heroic nonmagical ranger do?
What can a Paragon/Master nonmagical ranger do?
What can an Epic nonmagical ranger do?

Few answer. And that's the problem.

 

[niklinna]

Personally, I don't find it cool, but it if were an availble option and not forced on the class as a whole I would be fine with its inclusion.

What would you like to see?