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MonsterEnvy posted:Also Eberron hardcover setting book is coming. oh god yes
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May 20, 2019 07:13
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Glagha posted:Y'all are talking past each other on this strength thing, you all know the rules but are misunderstanding each other's intent. Weirdly everyone seems to get the functionality of how jumping works, but no one is grumpy about the actual rules fail, that rolling a 1 does anything different than rolling a 2 besides being one lower. The whole "if they roll a 1 when jumping a chasm, they swan dive down the middle of it doing the goofy yell" is the houserule bit.
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May 20, 2019 15:02
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So did the 5.5 announcement happen yesterday?
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May 20, 2019 16:06
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Schadenboner posted:So did the 5.5 announcement happen yesterday? No it was an Eberron Setting Hardcover announcement.
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May 20, 2019 18:40
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Cool, I’ll have to order the slipcase three book core then.
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May 20, 2019 19:31
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MonsterEnvy posted:Also Eberron hardcover setting book is coming. Gimmie them shifter feats.
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May 20, 2019 19:44
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Schadenboner posted:So did the 5.5 announcement happen yesterday? Can you tell me what this is, or what you hope it is?
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May 20, 2019 22:33
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Firstborn posted:Can you tell me what this is, or what you hope it is? They had heard rumors or something of a 5.5 edition being announced and was wondering if they should buy the core books, as I think they found a deal on them. I said that if 5.5 was going to be announced soon it would be during the surprise announcement on Sunday.
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May 20, 2019 22:50
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I was hoping that they'd just redo the Ranger completely and maybe make a few QoL changes to the Sorcerer and warlock.
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May 20, 2019 22:55
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Oh hey that Avrae discord bot was bought by DDB and they hired its author. Might eventually get decent bot support for Beyond character sheets and stat blocks.
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May 20, 2019 23:01
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Actually going into 5.5 with a Ranger rework would be hilarious. Continue the tradition of printing awful rangers and then revise them next edition with a slightly less terrible version. I kinda wonder why it is Ranger always ends up getting shafted. (arrow pun I didn't notice until after I wrote it lol)
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May 20, 2019 23:13
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I really like the idea of no-magic Ranger if it can be different from a Fighter or Rogue. I also really like the idea of a magic-less Paladin, though, and have played Fighters with more grey codes of honor that are definitely knights. More Aragorn less Legolas for Rangers would help a little, too... More I think of it, Ranger is barely even a concept that can't be filled by a Fighter or Rogue  E: Every Ranger I've had in one of my groups always sheepishly says how it would be TOTALLY CHEAP to pick the enviornment or enemy I've alluded to when I'm selling them on campaigns. Just pick it dude, I don't care. I say, "I'm running this crazy viking frozen hell", and it's like, "well... picking Arctic as my favored terrain would be too meta, huh?" No, dude, Ranger needs help. It's ok. Firstborn fucked around with this message at 23:33 on May 20, 2019 |
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May 20, 2019 23:23
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Glagha posted:I kinda wonder why it is Ranger always ends up getting shafted. (arrow pun I didn't notice until after I wrote it lol) I mean I know we're unofficially memory holing 4E just to keep the peace, but drat
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May 20, 2019 23:28
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Sodomy Hussein posted:I mean I know we're unofficially memory holing 4E just to keep the peace, but drat 4e Ranger was less of a good class than a particularly good At-Will with some neat stuff adjacent.
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May 21, 2019 01:11
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I'm going to say one thing about the 4e ranger: archery style ranger was a great class for the mechanically/tactically disinclined. "Ok, your job is to hunters mark, then shoot as many arrows as possible." Fully contributing to the fight, very few actual decisions. Better than all the simplified essentials classes, at least. Makes me think of the Diablo 2 beginner's necromancer build: get a bunch of skeletons, throw around amplify damage from time to time, and as soon as an enemy dies, mash Corpse Explosion until the field is cleared. It's how I got my mom into video games. I would like a ranger that actually hit that "melee AND ranged" thing. Kinda a martial version of the Bard. If a martial character can do it, the ranger won't be the best at it, but would be pretty strong. I just have no idea how to make that work without lots of spellcasting and still tie it to the current system for abilities scores.
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May 21, 2019 02:02
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I would just like a ranger that made any kind of thematic sense. It's easily the least coherent of all the core classes.
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May 21, 2019 02:15
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inthesto posted:I would just like a ranger that made any kind of thematic sense. It's easily the least coherent of all the core classes. Pretty sure ranger is 4 THF into scout then go ranger whatever. That way you're actually good in the wilderness and poo poo.
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May 21, 2019 06:45
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inthesto posted:I would just like a ranger that made any kind of thematic sense. It's easily the least coherent of all the core classes. the problem is that the Ranger was a discordant class from the very beginning - it was basically an attempt at emulating Aragorn from LOTR, but it had so much of an overlap with the Fighter that it was also supposed to be a straight upgrade from the Fighter that you could only access if you rolled well enough to meet the minimum stat requirement and so when D&D finally moved into this design space where each class is supposed to stand on its own, it barely has any legs to stand on. If anything, the whole Beastmaster / Hunter archetype split resembles more of the WoW Hunter's Beastmaster / Marksman spec than anything else
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May 21, 2019 07:03
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From the people who brought you a 5e-compatible Warlord, Schwalb Entertainment released the Warden class today!
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May 21, 2019 07:15
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gradenko_2000 posted:the problem is that the Ranger was a discordant class from the very beginning - it was basically an attempt at emulating Aragorn from LOTR, but it had so much of an overlap with the Fighter that it was also supposed to be a straight upgrade from the Fighter that you could only access if you rolled well enough to meet the minimum stat requirement I've also seen the idea articulated quite well - I believe in this very forum, if not this thread - that the Ranger's had identity problems since 3E because the Druid has become increasingly powerful and versatile. Fighty Druids have become more viable, Druids have become increasingly good as generalist nature guys (who get all the mundane nature skills, animal companions, etc apart from spellcasting), and they've gradually sloughed off the thematic restrictions they used to have - on spell schools/spheres, weapon and armor choices, etc - leading to a scenario where they just totally obviate the Ranger class even beyond the norm for caster supremacy.
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May 21, 2019 08:16
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I think the niche the Ranger feels like it should have is 'archer'. The Fighter has always felt like 'MELEE fighter' to me, whereas the Ranger is the guy with the bow. And it's interesting that Aragorn is the inspiration cited for the Ranger, when it's Legolas that is the direct inspiration for its common skills - two weapon fighting and bow use.
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May 21, 2019 08:45
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thespaceinvader posted:I think the niche the Ranger feels like it should have is 'archer'. The Fighter has always felt like 'MELEE fighter' to me, whereas the Ranger is the guy with the bow. While I don't disagree at all, this also requires that D&D lean-in hard to the idea that certain classes are intended to use certain weapons, because right now what happens is that the Fighter can use a bow because "well, he's a Fighter, of course he knows how to use every weapon!", which then means the Fighter also gets class abilities that allow them to specialize in using a bow, which then means that any attempt to turn the Ranger or one of its subtypes into "The Archer Class" ends up having to compete with what the Fighter can do with a bow. (and this sort of mentality leads to a complaint I've heard of 4e in which that game was apparently less customizable and too pigeon-hole-y because you could no longer make a ranged Fighter)
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May 21, 2019 09:01
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The weapon thing is a fundamental clash between thematic identities and mechanical identities; the Fighter's thematic identity is that he's the master of war, the badass mundane who doesn't know a lick of magic and doesn't beg, borrow, or steal power from gods and devils, but is a born-and-honed soldier who's the party rock when poo poo hits the fan because he can kick your rear end six ways, whoever you are and whatever he has at hand. It's a thematic identity that makes perfect sense in an RPG where combat isn't the main focus or, if say, you have like three classes - guys who mess with magic, clever little men, and fighters - but it's weird and becomes a problem in the actual situation D&D is in, which is that 2/3rds of the rules are about fighting monsters and there's a bunch of different classes whose "thing" is being terrifying in a scrap.
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May 21, 2019 09:10
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gradenko_2000 posted:the problem is that the Ranger was a discordant class from the very beginning - it was basically an attempt at emulating Aragorn from LOTR, but it had so much of an overlap with the Fighter that it was also supposed to be a straight upgrade from the Fighter that you could only access if you rolled well enough to meet the minimum stat requirement No. 1 Apartheid Fan posted:I've also seen the idea articulated quite well - I believe in this very forum, if not this thread - that the Ranger's had identity problems since 3E because the Druid has become increasingly powerful and versatile. Fighty Druids have become more viable, Druids have become increasingly good as generalist nature guys (who get all the mundane nature skills, animal companions, etc apart from spellcasting), and they've gradually sloughed off the thematic restrictions they used to have - on spell schools/spheres, weapon and armor choices, etc - leading to a scenario where they just totally obviate the Ranger class even beyond the norm for caster supremacy. It's a mix of these two. Basically, the Ranger has been a different class in every goddamn edition for those two reasons. So in AD&D, Ranger is a straight up upgrade to the fighter, and is also Aragorn. It is not Legolas, who is an elven fighter focused on archery, it is Aragorn writ large to the point of having a special ability where they can use magical items based on scrying. Beyond being Literally Aragorn, the general theme of the ranger is that they were the wilderness special ops guy who kept civilization safe, and this is a definition that matters more as we get into other editions. They were not the friendly happy hippy animal guys - they were the opposite, gaining a bonus towards specifically Giant based enemies because they lived in the wilderness to keep it out, and were not "of" the wilderness. They also don't get an inherent bonus to dual wielding; instead, they get a bonus weapon proficiency for a "woodsman-esque" weapon like a hatchet or knife, and in AD&D, that in a roundabout way means you're going to be dual wielding, as those are the only two weapons you can actually use in your offhand. Druids can talk to animals and pass through forests without a trace, rangers can hunt and track foes and survive in the wilderness on their own cunning. Again, this difference matters. Also it's important to note that only humans can be rangers at this point. Once again, thematically, they are very specific. In AD&D2e, all that Aragorn stuff is dropped, but rangers go even harder on the "defenders of civilization from the wilderness" front. Rather then just giants, rangers now choose exactly what threat they hunt to keep civilization safe in the form of their special species enemy. Again, this is not a hated foe, this is the monster type they've chosen to defend everyone else from. It's still only humans who can be rangers, because in AD&D2e, much as with AD&D1e, the assumption was that cities = humans and humans = cities. Elves live in the wilderness and are fey weirdos, dwarves live deep in the mountains, halflings smoke their weed out in bucolic farmlands, and humans = civilization, which rangers defend. Mechanically, they lose the ability to cast a strange mishmash of spells and use Aragorn-esque magic items, but instead become more capable as scouts as part of their wilderness special ops thing; if they use light armor, they gain dual wielding (likely as a nod to the popularity of dual wielding them in AD&D1e) and a move silently / hide in shadows score, but can always put on heavy armor and use a proper sword and shield or big ol' two hander. What's important here is to note the difference between the ranger and the druid. First, here are the druid powers: they can perfectly identify plants and animals, they can pass through undergrowth, they can talk to "woodland creatures," they are immune to "woodland creatures" casting charm, and they can shapechange. That's it. I mean, they also get all their druid spells, but that's all they have outside of that. Here's what rangers have in turn: automatic dual wielding while in lighter armor, Move Silently/Hide in Shadows while in lighter armor, free proficiency in tracking that auto-improves, a big bonus to track and kill their chosen enemy species, animal empathy (different from talking to them!), and the ability to attract followers which includes animals. So, hopefully, the thematic differences are kinda clear here: druids are your "of the wilds" hippy priests who talk to animals and are super chill with strange fey weirdos and know what the best weed is, whereas rangers hunt evil, fight against monstrous hordes, and tame animals both to keep others safe from them and, eventually, to teach them to join them in hunting evil. They also get druid spells but this is largely incidental. 3e trips over itself on the way in and gives 90% of that to druids. Animal companion? Druids get that now. Animal empathy? Druids. Nature sense bonus to survival? Druid! In fact, some of those get taken away from Rangers. 3e is the first edition where rangers have a clear identity crises. They're no longer the woodland special ops defenders of civilization and humanity. Now ANYONE can be a ranger, not that you'd want to be, and they get pidgeonholed hard into just dual wielding or archery - and even then, it's not that they excel at it, they're just forced to do one of the other with no major bonuses to it. Gone is their ability to armor up when it's time to fend off the evil monster raids, animal empathy is nerfed hard for rangers, and they're now a distant second fiddle on animal companions to druids. There's no way around it: 3e rangers, like all 3e martial classes, loving suck. There's been plenty spoken on how 3e was blatantly the spellcaster edition, and while people like to point at fighters vs wizards, the real big comparisons are fighters vs clerics and rangers vs druids. There's no escaping that rangers were clearly truncated in order to make druids way more powerful. In the process, rangers lost all identity as a class; now they're just vague woodsmen, who aren't quite as woodsy as druids are, and in return, gently caress off. They also get druid spells and this continues to be largely incidental. 4e side steps this a lot by focusing on making rangers hunters again. They automatically get trained in Nature and are now a wisdom secondary class, but beyond that, most of the work is put into giving them a proper mechanical niche. Now rangers are cuisinart processors, dumping ungodly amounts of attacks on an enemy all at once. They're a purely martial class too, abandoning the druid casting that didn't tend to matter in the first place. There isn't much else to say about rangers here - they still didn't have a strong thematic place, but at least they were now unabashedly the best at archery and dual wielding, rather then "oh and they do that I guess." They immediately lose this in the move to 5e, which abhors 4e's existence with a pathetic passion. So where are they in 5e? Back to where they were in 3e. As lovely fighters, that are also lovely druids. And nothing more.
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May 21, 2019 09:59
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The way forward is to finally give the one player that never ever gets what they want in D&D what they want and make a ranger that tames every animal and has a special doggo fremd that does cool tricks and bites all the bad guys. It's the remaining ranger-appropriate niche once you forget about feral shamans, weird hippies, aragorn, and stuff that's really just skills or backgrounds on a fighter or rogue. Animal trainer. You get a pet or pets. They do stuff. There are different archetypes. One is "you have one assistance doge who is a very good boy" (leaning fighter), another is "you have a bunch of trained creatures who do different tasks for you" (leaning rogue), and maybe the third is the lite-caster that focuses on familiars and fills the eldritch knight or arcane trickster niche for pet havers or maybe you don't need that, I dunno. e: and no, the "you get a pet and it's poo poo and also takes up your turn" thing doesn't cut it. You and your pet/s are a team and you do teamwork moves that occur on your turn. You share hitpoints and stuff. You're a character. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:57 on May 21, 2019 |
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May 21, 2019 11:54
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Halle Berry's character in the latest John Wick
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May 21, 2019 11:56
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I hate the idea of making them purely a pet class, but I don't see really see how to make them unique when Fighter is a thing. I've always likened Paladin <> Cleric, Druid <> Ranger... like Ranger is a nature paladin. Pick one to lean more martial, the other more spellcasting. Then Oath of the Ancients came out... Bleah.
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May 21, 2019 13:08
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gradenko_2000 posted:Halle Berry's character in the latest John Wick But yeah pet trainer is the way to go.
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May 21, 2019 13:32
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Toplowtech posted:She got multiple dogs, something the d&d designers are super against for action economy reason. Extra Doggo Beginning at 5th level you have one extra doggo so they bite the bad guys one extra time when you take the attack action on your turn. The number of doggoes increases to 3 when you reach 11th level in this class and 4 when you reach 20th level in this class.
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May 21, 2019 13:51
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I want to play a Pokemon trainer. My dude doesn't do poo poo except tell my pet(s) what to do.
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May 21, 2019 14:01
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Why not just solve the issue the same way Druid did? All rangers get 1 critter(s) of 1/4 CR or something and if you Beast Guy that CR number gets upped greatly, with the number of beasts you can split it between determined by your Ranger level.Libertad! posted:From the people who brought you a 5e-compatible Warlord, Schwalb Entertainment released the Warden class today! I don't know if this is a well made class, but it is definitely a Warden, right down to me showing my group and immediately getting the "you could just play a Ranger/Druid" argument going. Jonas Albrecht fucked around with this message at 15:20 on May 21, 2019 |
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May 21, 2019 15:14
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Level 1 Ranger starts with a Minor pet, like a hawk or lizard. You can communicate with it, replace it, blah blah blah. Then at level 2 you get your Major pet, the combat-focused one. Possible specs: Sniper, focuses on your Minor pet and archery; Hunter, focuses on working with your Major pet as a fighting unit; and of course Beastmaster which goes all in on your pets- bigger, tougher, more of them, whatever.
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May 21, 2019 15:21
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Question for the thread: I'm looking at possibly starting to DM 5e (finally) and I was just wondering, which monster book is the most useful to have, if you wanna homebrew a campaign?
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May 21, 2019 16:01
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Toplowtech posted:She got multiple dogs, something the d&d designers are super against for action economy reason. Unless you use a spell slot.
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May 21, 2019 16:33
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So my ravnica character might be turning into a slime woman. The DM originally intended for it to be a plot arc about finding a cure, but both I and my PC are pretty chill with it. Her goal in life was ultimately 'transcend my mortal body and become immortal', so her hair turning slimy and dripping and her arms being kinda off and stretchy doesn't bother her much. Said DM reacted to her being chill about it by going 'oh no, all my plans, all my notes'
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May 21, 2019 16:33
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Firstborn posted:I hate the idea of making them purely a pet class, but I don't see really see how to make them unique when Fighter is a thing. I've always likened Paladin <> Cleric, Druid <> Ranger... like Ranger is a nature paladin. Pick one to lean more martial, the other more spellcasting. Then Oath of the Ancients came out... Bleah. Steal a bit of design from Warlocks. Rangers should chose subclass and not-a-pact. You have a pet not-a-pact, a melee not-a-pact and a spells not-a-pact.
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May 21, 2019 16:46
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Toplowtech posted:She got multiple dogs, something the d&d designers are super against for action economy reason. Firstborn posted:I hate the idea of making them purely a pet class, but I don't see really see how to make them unique when Fighter is a thing. I've always likened Paladin <> Cleric, Druid <> Ranger... like Ranger is a nature paladin. Pick one to lean more martial, the other more spellcasting. Then Oath of the Ancients came out... Bleah. Infinite Karma fucked around with this message at 16:55 on May 21, 2019 |
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May 21, 2019 16:51
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P.d0t posted:Question for the thread: Just for amount of options, Monster Manual. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes has a whole lot of higher-level monsters, and Volo's Guide to Monsters has a bunch of alternate and enhanced versions of stuff in the Monster Manual, but half of each of those books is filled with lore and articles and stuff instead of actual monsters. It's all very interesting, but your best bet is the MM.
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May 21, 2019 16:53
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99 CENTS AMIGO posted:Just for amount of options, Monster Manual. Thanks for this!  If Volo's is basically the 5e equivalent of Monster Vault, then that's probably what I'll go for. Having working math sorta trumps having greater amount/variety of monsters, for my tastes.
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May 21, 2019 17:06
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Yeah I only bought the player’s handbook and monster manual when I started DMing, as long as you have a setting or story in mind it should be fine.
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May 21, 2019 17:07
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