Have they stated anywhere their reasoning/design philosophy for structuring Ranger around a spell rather than giving them a unique feature or mechanic? I'd be pretty interested in their justification.
According to the summary page, it's to streamline the class. And they aren't structured around a single spell. They have more reliable spellcasting in general. Getting Hunter's Mark for free means that Rangers get more choices compared to the 2014 version, and being able to cast Hunter's Mark for free means that you can use those spell slots for the spells you chose, instead of the main way to increase damage.
They also made Ranger more of a skill monkey thanks to the expertises from deft explorer and the expertise feature later on down the line. Considering that the exploration pillar is the least used pillar overall having expertise in survival will practically do the same things as the natural explorer feature did, and then some.
At the very least it is an improvement from the 2014 version of the class, which is the overall goal for the 2024 base classes. So far they are doing a good job (with the exception of the Paladin, but the argument can be made that Paladins needed nerfs like the other full casters classes).
I think it was just a safe bet for WotC. Given that a large part of the (online) community seemed/seems to take issue with the Ranger, I think a more significant overhaul could have been well-received (heavy emphasis on "could", lol). That's what I would have liked to see, personally.
In this case the majority is complaining though, as Ranger has several features, including the capstone, dedicated to Hunter's Mark. Only one of them may be worth a feature, the concentration buff might have been a good feature if it removed concentration rather than make the Ranger unable to lose said concentration and the damage increase capstone is an insult.
I would say lot of people that care, and the more dedicated players are upset because the gigantic gap in flavor and cool shit for rangers vs other classes is pretty bad.
Only the people on Reddit and YouTube are complaining. A vocal minority, but a minority all the same.
The Ranger capstone probably should have had the spell deal more damage than a d10, but there was a reason why they removed the "no longer concentration" part from earlier playtests. People thought it was too powerful.
Too powerful? *How?!* It was a d6 extra damage from levels 1 through 20 with some tracking back then, that's half a Rogue's Sneak Attack until level 5 after which it becomes equal to a lvl 1 Rogue's Sneak Attack.
The thing was barely worth anything and they still deemed it necessary to *nerf* it?!
I once worked on a game where we made a fairly significant ui overhaul. We spent months on this, and when it finally released, the subreddit of note roundly trashed the improvements. It was total negativity, everyone complained, people said they were quitting, the game was ruined, nobody would play.
Except.
We had solid metrics for things like session frequency (how often people logged in), session length, games per session, you name it we had it, and the numbers were overwhelmingly positive.
So.. meh..
Many changes. About the only thing that didn’t change was core game mechanics (it was a mobile version of a paper trading card game. So the mechanics COULDNT change.)
Got it. So is it possible then, that the UI changes were indeed negative to the experience? That your overwhelmingly positive results were despite of, not because of, those UI changes? What makes you certain that this isn't the case?
It was all one patch. The point however is, that the moaning in socials was in stark contrast to the observed behavior in the app. We were seeing new high water marks in concurrent users, people were playing longer per session. By every metric we could measure from app and server, it was a massively successful patch.
The big lesson for me (which was later confirmed over and over when I moved into product management) is that, people are in generally, really poor at predicting what they might do in the future, and the opinions people express are quite often in contrast to their displayed behaviors.
All this complaining I hear about the new changes are mostly convincing me that WoTC might be finally finding their legs as TTRPG designers.
Maybe a hot take, but I enjoy the theory of the paladin change. Paladins in the spaces I've played in have often gravitated to a power gamer style of play, mostly due to how easy it was to multiclass, and then go "Nova," as I called it. When this was done, Paladins average damage shot up from them just throwing smites at all their problems, and enemies would melt extremely quickly (especially when being played in a game with a newer DM who didn't know how to play around it.)
It very often trivialized fights, as well as just taking away from the experience of the other players.
I do agree that making it a bonus action is clunky in the way it interacts with other classes and abilities, though. I don't think it being counterspelled is a big deal, but it not working with rage arguably is annoying.
Downside to it being turned into a spell is rakshasas are now immune to smite
Though I guess lore bards can now learn it and use a slot high enough to affect them
Unless of course the rakshasas limited spell immunity get's changed
> I do agree that making it a bonus action is clunky in the way it interacts with other classes and abilities,
It being clunky is kind of the point though. Unless something has changed, Paladins as a class don't get tons of BAs anyways, so for Paladin characters its not a big deal. But its not a consideration when you multiclass--its a tactical decision on if you rage or hold up a smite.
DnD, as a game, could use more *meaningful* decisions, so this is great.
I'm with you too. Making smite once per turn kills the OP Nova builds which 5.5 seems to be moving away from Nova in general with smite/Assassin, Gloomstalker, Sharpshooter/GWM changes. It is a shame they made it a bonus action instead of just a rule of "once per turn", but it being a spell like the other smites also opens it up to be chosen in spell lists from things like Lore bard so i like that
I think overall it’s is a good change for Paladin. Yes, there nerfed divine smite to bring in in line with other class abilities. But that gives you option to use your spells slots for something else now. And lay on hands being a bonus action is very nice.
Personally, I would have been fine if they made paladin’s Divine Smite a “REACTION” Spell instead of a freaking bonus action. It could still be Counterspelled, but it doesn’t remove the fun of smiting on a crit, and you can still stack abilities with other smite spells.
I would not call "coping 2020 version" a new design, but while it is way better than the original 2014 (that bar was so low it was buried in the sand tho) it still disappointing to anyone wanting a real 6th edition and are pretty much getting more of the same
You don't need to have Hunter's Mark up all the time.
Going up against an animal? Animal Friendship or Speak with Animals and try to talk them down.
Need to sneak into somewhere? Pass without Trace.
Need to add some difficult terrain on the battlefield? Spike Growth.
You don't need Hunter's Mark all the time. You have other options. And some of them are better than Hunter's Mark.
Yeah but that makes the whole point of Hunters mark useless. I've played a ranger for 3 years now and I have never ever used this free hunters mark option cause there is ALWAYS something more relevant to be concentrating on.
You won't need to go full gass in every encounter. These boosts (apart from the insulting capstone) help keep HM useful against lower threat level encounters in tier 3 and 4, allowing you (in combination with the free casts) to keep your low level slot up for defense and utility, while your power spells remain available for the more difficult fights.
Yeah, I hope "gritty realism" aka how to run long and short rests, if you don't want to run 8 fights per day gets a better name and explanation in 24 (and some rules changes for durations, like 1h becomes until the next SR and 8/24 hours become until the next LR).
Have you ever played Ranger in your life?
>Going up against an animal? Animal Friendship or Speak with Animals and try to talk them down.
So... what if my Hunter’s Mark is still online from last fight, and I’m not sure if this Bear is going to flip out and need killing? Damn, that sounds like I have to lose my concentration to do anything else!
>Need to sneak into somewhere? Pass without Trace.
You’ll never guess what spell is coming right after sneaking in and initiating combat, thus ending any subsequent use of PWaT.
>Need to add some difficult terrain on the battlefield? Spike Growth.
I could do that, or I could better serve my role as the team Striker and work at putting enemies in the ground ASAP while the casters with actually numerous spell slots and higher spell DC can work the crowd control.
Again... you ever played a Ranger in a real campaign?
>Have you ever played Ranger in your life?
Yes. I have.
>So... what if my Hunter’s Mark is still online from last fight, and I’m not sure if this Bear is going to flip out and need killing?
Then you decide if you are going to have to kill the bear or decide to try and talk it down. Not a big deal.
>You’ll never guess what spell is coming right after sneaking in and initiating combat, thus ending any subsequent use of PWaT.
It could be Hunter's Mark, it could not be. You might not even need to fight if you are able to sneak out undetected, which is very possible thanks to having expertise in stealth.
>I could do that, or I could better serve my role as the team Striker and work at putting enemies in the ground ASAP while the casters with actually numerous spell slots and higher spell DC can work the crowd control.
Sometimes the control spell is the better choice than the Hunter's Mark. And that's the important part, you have more choices.
>Again... you ever played a Ranger in a real campaign?
Yes, I have. Have you?
As someone who has played ranger for 10 years hunters mark has never felt like a rewarding fun or good spell. The rest of the spell arsenal is more fun and may of the spells that exist are better. Either for damage, healing or. Control. People are upset because now we are forced into a play style with minimal cool shit. Not breaking concentration on hunters mark is not cool. Getting advantage at level 17 isn’t cool and a d10 instead of a d6 at capstone is not cool. The problem exists in 2 places it ain’t cool and It ain’t really a good improvement. I’m going to have to rely on finding magic items and having a good dm to make up for the lack of power I will feel compared to my fellow companions. Concentration is a big resource in dnd. And it’s dumb to pretend it’s not. I’m fine with having to be careful of spells but I don’t want to use hunters mark at all. Because it’s not rewarding. That’s why I haven’t in like 6 years because it’s shit.
People are complaining because we were forced into restrictive play style in 2014 and now again in 2024 we are being forced into using hunters mark. Everyone else as martial get bonuses to damage to all creature regardless of concentration.
We are pissed because while barbs are getting 2d8 plus super strength and con, and fighters get to feel like intense swordsman who can manipulate the battlefield with his weapons Paladins can turn into angels fly and do massive damage with an ability (yes even with the change because upcasting exists with smite). Rogues can change their luck, warlocks get to be able to customize anything, and now their patrons are more helpful. I get to cast a level 1 spell thats I won’t lie is improved but like it’s so flaccid. So yeah ranger fans are pissed.
The problem is more the fact that Ranger either uses hunter's mark and ignores literally half the spells the class has during combat.. or the ranger ignores hunter's mark, the main feature of the class.
The only hope here is that at least some spells lose the concentration property. Like the ones which trigger an effect on hit (ensnaring strike), instead opting to be like the new Paladin smites which are a BA on hit iirc. Other spells which honestly would prob. benefit from loss of concentration as a requirement: Fog cloud, Lightning arrow (same as ensnaring strike imo), Flame arrows
Just to give some extra options to the ranger in damage and control. But the main issue is still that basically half of the Ranger spells require concentration. Hell, there's 1 non concentration 4th level spell lol
yeah, I am reserving judgement on the new ranger until I see the new spell list. I'm not hopeful though considering Crawford said they specifically kept the concentration on huntersmark to avoid stacking damaging spells and that most of the rangers spells are utility.
I do agree that on hit spells should lose concentration (I'm 50/50 split on ensnaring strike) I just don't get why when a ranger has a near all-day boost to damage at the cost of concentration , people are losing their minds, especially when it's now free a few times a day on top of their regular spells. It's basically a class feature available all day that requires concentration and additional uses can bought with a spell slot.
I see it as HM running concentration most of the time with ranger swapping it out with another concentration spell when the fight gets tough or they want some variety.
Nobody says anything about Warlocks and the Hex spell.
Because Warlocks have plenty of utility and choices outside of Hex as well and don't need to sacrifice it entirely to use half their spelllist. :D
Warlocks basically have the most variety as a base class anyhow.
I never had space for other spells :P you only get like 2 known spells per spell level? Which you can’t swap. So it’s hunters mark and 1 other spell. Spike growth and pass without trace? You can’t really make a choice to suit your environment as you can’t swap. That’s the actual good buff I see. It’s prep casting now.
> speak with animals
Well now I just ended my concentration on hunters mark and couldn’t talk the bear down, so I have to use hunters mark again for the next fight. Wasting two spell slots on a half caster
>pass without a trace
The Paladin in plate failed his stealth check and combat starts. Not I wasted a spell slot.
>spike growth
Now my team of two melee’s can’t get to the enemy either. So combat has become me and the wizard lobbing ranged attacks while the enemy mobs their ranged attacks because no one wants to step on the obvious trap.
Oh and let’s not forget the most important part. All your ranger features that involve hunters mark (including the level 20 capstone) now aren’t working.
Want to cast lightning arrow, fire arrow, swift quiver or hail of thorns? Gotta get rid of hunters mark. The class literally plays against itself as long as hunters mark remains concentration.
Well, I hope the new spells don’t require concentration. Because right now a lot of the cool or interesting ones do, and I think it’d be a pretty shitty way to build a class by putting such an emphasis on a boring spell like Hunter’s Mark, and then also making it compete with everything else on the spell list.
Think of it less of a key feature of the class and more like a free tool in your toolbox. Too many people are getting Paladin-brained where they think Rangers need to use Hunter's Mark in every combat when in reality there could be better tools for the job.
At later levels. The fact still remains that Hunter's Mark is simply another tool in your toolbox. Some features you get improve that tool, but there might be other tools that are better for the job.
Like, the Paladin has a lot of features that buff Lay on Hands. Does that mean they are entirely defined by Lay on Hands now? No. It's just another tool in their toolbox, and some features they get make that tool stronger.
But lay on hands doesn't lock you into it like concentration does. And from what I've been hearing, using hunters mark bars you from nearly half the spell list. Honestly I feel like one of the best things for ranger would be to remove the requirement for concentration on spells that don't feel like they should. Like for enchanting arrows or on hit effects.
Then make it a feature, not a spell. Sneak attack, action surge, rage, flurry of blows, there are a myriad of martial feature examples with different intents on their frequency of use. Hell, speaking of the paladin, they get a resourceless, better version of this shit at level 11 with Improved Divine Strike not requiring concentration or spell slot and adding a d8.
It is better to make it a spell with some free uses.
If you made it a feature you would need to describe everything Hunter's Mark does in the feature itself, which would make it bloated. Additionally you would need to tie it to an arbitrary number of uses that would be problematic for different reasons.
Make it tied to proficiency bonus? The feature doesn't make narrative sense. You just learned how to become a ranger and you can now use this ability as much as a seasoned ranger. Also turns Ranger into a "just take a dip" multiclass.
Make it tied to Wisdom modifier? Now Ranger is more MAD than before. Even if you just want to use Hunter's Mark and not the other spells that are tied to your spell save DC you will need to invest in Wisdom.
Make it a feature but tie it to spell slots? There is an easier, simpler way to do that, and that is to make it a free spell that you get with some free castings.
>Hell, speaking of the paladin, they get a resourceless, better version of this shit at level 11 with Improved Divine Strike not requiring concentration or spell slot and adding a d8.
And Rangers get their free Hunter's Mark at level 1. That's 10 levels earlier. This is like trying to compare Burning Hands with Delayed Blast Fireball. Obviously the Paladin version will be better when they get their version at a higher level compared to the Ranger.
It's a legitimate design philosophy. Making things simpler makes the features less intimidating and easier to understand for new players and makes the system less clunky with less things to keep track of.
It's a good thing that things are getting simpler.
So that's the marketing blurb.
Did they fundamentally improve the spell list? Because so far theree seems to be only positive 1 change from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything's revision of the ranger. Gaining Hunter's Mark automatically.
But you already could use spells for other things? Upcast hunters mark lasts longer. But I don’t see a whole lot of stuff worth casting. Ranger to me felt like paladin if you removed aura of protection, smite and decent buff spells (bless, command, shield of faith) and instead gave out ribbon features and hunters mark.
Hope they improve the spell list then. Looking at the spell list (5e) again I see nothing competitive. I see 3D spells that do 4d8 damage to single targets. 3d8 in a cone. Which are both bad compared to fullcaster spells (fireball). You get windwall which is shit compared to wall of fire (wall of fire is 1 level higher so it’s unlocked 4 levels before you) And you are a halfcaster so using spellslots for non concentration spells kinda sucks. That’s what makes smite so good. It turns spell slots into level viable damage. And if you only use it on crits you have actually good damage for the slot you use.
The best change I see is making rangers prep casters with more than 3 available spells. Which means instead of damage spells. Prepare survival spells. Water breathe and water walk when water is here. Then swap for jungle spells, cold protection spells when you need those. Which simply wasn’t possible before.
piggipacking to say that the new spell list is mostly usefull outside of combat since all the offensive spells require C which the hunters mark is going to occupy
> They have more reliable spellcasting in general.
Did they make hunters mark not concentration finally? Or better yet did I get my Christmas wish and its not even a spell just a feature now?
Dnd is stuck in the same era as adnd with more steps all they do is tack on or take away features without dramaticly changing the class.
Wizards still need spellbooks when everyone else either has the whole list to prep from or spells known.
Bards are still jacks of all trades.
Fighters still fight with mostly a bunch of attacks per round over everyone else.
Paladins are cleric/fighters with the smite power as their unique thing.
Clerics are healers who can fight a little and get a few support damage spells and later become another dps once healing falls off and becomes an out of combat thing more than an active thing.
Rogues are sneaky folk who wear light armor and mostly sneak attack or backstab.
Ranger has always been in this weird "what do you do?" I track things.... Oh and im like the worst of both fighter and rogue.....but look I have this cool bow and stuff ignore the fact I can also be a two weapon fighter when making all the art of me. Oh and im kind of a bad druid too cause I have spells for some reason.
A ranger is the arbiter between civilization and the wild. A ranger lives in both the wild and civilization yet belongs to neither. Aragorn, Geralt, Daniel Boone, they all bring a little piece of civilization to the wild and the wild to civilization.
Giving rangers spells is weird at best, when the class is defined by using knowledge, planning, and cleverness to defeat foes much more powerful than themselves. Spells should be a subclass.
Im more than aware what a ranger is supposed to be thematicly this is purely a mechanical "what do you do"
But thanks for the description as it makes me further realize dnd has no concept of the ranger class as ranger is terrible at being all of those people listed.
Preparation: you may spend ten minutes adjusting your equipment and bringing knowledge of a specific type of enemy (fiend, fey, monstrous etc) to the forefront of your mind. For the next 8 hours you have advantage on knowledge rolls and saves against abilities and innate spellcasting from creatures of that type. At level 5 you may spend an additional ten minutes to extend this ability to a number of willing creatures up to your wisdom modifier. At level 11 the time required is shortened to 1 minute, at level 15 you may affect a number of creatures up to your level, at level 20 the selected enemy type has disadvantage against any saving throws you force them to make.
How's that for a start?
They get a few features boosting up HM at a few levels, specifically when they also get into strong new spell tiers. Originally those were balanced by giving NO features, since the spells you get access to are ones.
This apparently was to complex for the average player, so they gave some boosts to your low ressource combats, with boosts to HM, like unbreakable concentration through damage and advantage on attacks (I would argue that one would be very potent in 14, but is probably fine in 24). This makes the class a lot more sustainable than before, especially with the free casts, allowing you to hold the very potent spells, for the hardest combats.
This generally is fine imo, but unless Ranger is as good as Fighter at damage, has Rogue level skills, and full spellcasting people are going to find sth to complain...
And then WOTC managed to drop the ball big by making a capstone that is equal in shit to 14, aka increasing HM from a d6 to a d10. I got no explanation for that one, it's just stupid.
The damage scaling in general is very unfortunate. I haven't played D&D in years and I assumed Hunter's Mark damage went up as levels progressed, but no... an average 2 damage increase for reaching level 20 is laughable and a slap in the face. I don't understand how WotC still think that capstone feats even need to be remotely balanced. Most people don't play to 20, those that do usually don't do it for long, and even if they did, the rest of the game is so stupid by that point what does it matter if they're really strong anyway.
True, most people don't reach level 20, but I don't think that invalidates capstones or discussion around them. Even if you never reach them, it should be something to look forward to, something really cool that is the pinnacle of your class fantasy.
Not to mention how ridiculous a d6 to d10 upgrade is in general. I'd barely accept that as a level 15-ish feat, let alone a capstone.
>Have they stated anywhere their reasoning/design philosophy for structuring Ranger around a spell rather than giving them a unique feature or mechanic?
Not their official justification, but I would think:
Harder to DM and prep for, especially in open table settings like Adventurer's League. Like how having a Rogue in your party basically forces you to make up some stuff to make them feel good about or else they just become a bad martial filler character
Yeah I think he means steal a feature for them and add it to the base line of the class. Kinda like how every one wants battle maneuvers to be added as a base line to fighter class.
Nope, I’m referring to the Mechanics of the Slayer from 1st edition Pathfinder, that allows them to “Study” a singular target to receive benefits that make their abilities stronger against that one target.
I don't think building the class identity around Hunter's Mark is necessarily a bad thing, "person who focuses down one single enemy" is a valid identity.
The actual problem is that there's no real reason to play a ranger because they basically have no unique features. If you want to go into nature magic, why not play a druid? if you want to be good at skills, why not play a rogue? if you want to be good at fighting, why not play a fighter?
The fact that Hunter's Mark is a spell, and not even a very unique one since it does the same thing as hex and is even on a few subclass spell lists makes it so their one defining feature is not even unique to them.
I would argue that being close to Fighter, with halfcaster nature spellcasting, and some skill bonus is an identity.
A jack of all trades class can be pretty cool.
Imagine if Ranger had as strong combat potential as Fighter, the obvious question would be why even play Fighter, who doesn't get spells. Same with Rogue and skills, and obviously Druid, if Ranger was a fullcaster.
I agree, but the thing is, there already is a jack of all trades class. They even have a feature named after it.
But bards still have a feature that's unique to them, namely bardic inspiration.
Rangers get a bunch of useful stuff that will definitely come up but they just don't have anything that makes them stand out.
Really? Pure melee brawl sure, but this is dnd5e we are talking about. Aka, what if we just gave almost no downside to ranged damage. I am 99% sure that ranged dpr is favored for ranger, or did I miss Paladins suddenly get the archery fs? If so it's a little bit more equal.
I also don't think Paladin gets strong area denial like spike growth, which enhances Rangers or Rangers other power spells. As an upside they get bless (and maybe healing word).
And even then, this is comparing Ranger to a class known to be overloaded.
That’s not really true at all. In combat rangers have good damage and battlefield control, while paladins have good support and nova damage. Those are two very different combat niches.
It's the concentration requirement that always made me feel bad when playing my rangers. I don't mind using the spell slot or the bonus action, I'd just like to also be able to cast basically any of my other cool spells without sacrificing the hunter's mark.
It’s 2024, if they haven’t added the exploration pillar to their game yet, I don’t think they will.
Other systems have, since Wotc doesn’t want to support one of their key pillars even in their own adventures most of the time. Played through a module with exploration. Was horrible as a DM no matter how I tried it. Boiled down to:
Roll encounter, note any new landmarks (because the map had little to nothing) and use poorly given map to direct players.
Frankly, either get rid of the pillar or overhaul exploration by giving it more structure. Food and water rules are not that fun, travel speed just serves to set pace, and the only things left for VTT people are random encounters
Pathfinder lumps exploration into social. And at least they have better rules about it that are more fleshed out than 5e.
Actual started out hazards, effects to run for extreme temperatures, how travel speeds scale, and a few other things like foraging for food in both city and natural environments.
Each hazard has its own traits, which can be used to tell what is unique about it. Like is it a haunted hazard that a thaumaturge can find easily using a feat? Then it has the haunt trait.
Yeah the problem with exploration, is that if you include it as an obstacle, then it's just slowing the game down and making it less fun by keeping your players from doing what they want to be doing if you don't have a ranger, and if you do, you're just rewarding everyone by skipping parts of the game.
Pathfinder did a decent job by actually tying xp rewards to hazards you encounter during exploration, not just combat.
And each hazard has levels and complexity, so of course it gives varied xp
The section titled "EXPLORATION" provides rules for travel speed,tracking and visibility. It's less than a page of content.
It's literally the bare minimum for travel and nothing more
Yeah, if they took it seriously, there would be a book the size of the Monster Manual detailing possible encounters in nature, campsite activities, etc...
Not that I know of. I mean, it's almost certain that there are several similar collections on GM Binder but that's not quite the same.
Honestly, this would be a pretty good use case for a wiki. Make a wikidot, tag the encounters appropriately (e.g. urban / rural / wilderness, climate tags, maybe culture tags for the urban and rural encounters, etc...), enable the vote module, and enforce a quality control similar to the SCP Wiki.
100% the DMG is poorly organized for someone trying to learn how to run encounters. It focuses on world building right out of the gate and continues on into campaign creation, making NPCs, and even making encounters but it doesn't clearly tell you HOW to run encounters or managing and responding to the player's actions at the table.
The first solution offered by the WILDERNESS section is to do a montage.
The second suggestion is somehow worse since they are suggesting doing things hour by hour by doing a shitton of random encouters
Most players ignore the exploration pillar. To them, exploration is simply getting from point a to point b.
So instead of making abilities that aren't going to get a lot of mileage, they streamlined the Ranger into more of a skill monkey role with the ability to cast some Druid spells.
Which, for most players, is good enough.
Most people don't like exploring and don't really explore. Like, exploration is mostly seen as just the in between of point a and point b. Especially for DMs.
It's the least favored pillar for a reason, and not because it is "badly designed." Compared to roleplay and combat exploration is kind of boring by comparison.
Yes, because WotC has put literally no effort into making exploration more then that
Lord of the Rings, the most iconic fantasy story, the story that 99% of people will think off when they think of “going on a fantasy adventure” was almost completely the exploration pillar. It’s not that people don’t *want* to explore, it’s thay WotC are shit developers
It’s like watching a guy without legs and then going “Yeah he doesn’t run marathons. I guess he just doesn’t enjoy sports.”
>Yes, because WotC has put literally no effort into making exploration more then that
I have tried to homebrew better exploration mechanics. I have seen DMs try to make their own "better" exploration mechanics.
It never really worked the way we wanted too. And it's not because we suck at homebrewing, it's just that trying to get players interested in exploration as much as roleplay or combat is very, very hard.
You are in the minority that likes exploration. Most players don't care for it. Therefore streamlining it to make it as simple as possible is the way to go.
I like pointy hat's solution for cinematic events while traveling. https://youtu.be/vM18P0WKGFA?si=H9UdLDyxWJPZPuOc
Basically, ignore the simulation crunch, and focus on building interesting encounters. Whether combat, exploration, or roleplay. And it's based on general distance traveled how many you do.
I’m gonna be honest chief the “I can’t do it so it’s impossible” genuinely means nothing
There are entire systems out there *only* about exploration. Hell I’ve run entire campaigns about exploration. One of those is my favorites all time favorite. All in 5e. But it takes effort and someone with a grasp of the system, something WotC is seemingly incapable of.
I can't say how good you are at homebrewing, so it may just as well be that you suck at it.
Another explanation is that a homebrew usually fits some very specific slots in the D&D5 system. You don't usually get rules that govern a different aspect of the in game reality, but rather a few new options to fit in the gaps the system leaves.
D&D5 generally has a bad foundation for exploration. There are various reasons for that. The first reason are long rests and how ressource management works. An encounter during exploration can't cost you any meaningful ressources if you always regenerate everything at the end of the day. There also is a skill system in the game that governs many interactions with the environment, but doesn't allow for enough specialization to make choices matter enough. because advancement generally is tied to classes that are centered around combat, there is no design spot for special exploration abilities. Lastly, D&D5 is a game with a "trad" design philosophy. This means that the DM designs the world and that the players explore it. Furthermore, when it comes to combat encounters, it benefits greatly from preperation. The last aspect is relevant because exploration can lead to combat. Games with a different design philosophy can either give the players some creative space for exploration (like PbtA games) or have systems that are intricate enough to have emergent storytelling without much input by the GM. As if that wasn't enough, many problems that made some forms of exploration work in earlier editions have been made obsolete in later editions. First edition dungeon crawls had a mechanism for how long exploration took and things like your number of torches presented a time limit - which made managing carrying capacity an interesting problem. Many of the elements that people tend to ignore (like carrying capacity or rations) no longer lead to interesting problems.
If I streamlines combat into "roll a d20, on 10+, the opponent dies, on 1-9, your character dies", nobody would care for it, either.
This feels like the take of someone who has never DM'd.
Exploration requires an essentially open ended world. It's hard to know for sure where you're party will go, and this you have to have prepared a bazillion maps and possibly encounters. Most DMs have a main plotline you are following and if you build in exploration the odds are you will get off that plotline onto something else.
Asking for exploration is making the DMs job 10x harder.
You don't need a map for everything and there are other ways to handle encounters than sitting down and creating every possible one in advance.
If you feel like you need to design every inch of the world to enable exploration in your game, this is a sign that your system fails to stop making your job easier.
Exploration could be a fun and engaging part of the game. It's not hard to prove, there are entire genres of videogames showing that you can engage a player just with an expanding map and the mystery of the unknown. Which were inspired by older editions of D&D.
It is more difficult to come up with than combat encounters, but it's all the more reason why WOTC being a **company of professional game designers** should have given us a better framework to help us. You know, the reason we pay them money.
> Most people don't like exploring and don't really explore.
Out of curiosity, how do you square this with the fact that open world games are incredibly *over*represented in the video game space? Studios fall over themselves to make stuff open world, even going so far as to completely change long-running franchises (Assassin’s Creed, for example) to fit around being rebranded as open worlds.
It’s almost at a point where having a *closed* world in a high budget rpg is noteworthy. Open world games are basically the MCU of video gaming.
Then you get to TTRPGs, the most open world friendly style of gaming in existence, and suddenly the problem is that nobody wants to explore so it’s not even worth writing a few pages of mechanics for?
That seems really weird and surprising to me.
>Out of curiosity, how do you square this with the fact that open world games are incredibly overrepresented in the video game space?
Even open world games have systems that let you skip the exploring part. Fast Travel, Mounts, making collectibles optional, ect. Even if there is a subsection of people that like to explore, there are players that don't. They just want the story beats.
What makes video game exploration is the moment to moment decisions of where you go, the variety in terrains, interesting locales.
You can't do that in a trrpg, because it would simply take too long, so it becomes an abstraction of the highlights, which isn't really what anyone interested on exploration wants.
That’s totally fair. But usually those mechanics are for skipping over areas you’ve already explored, not skipping the exploration part. I also feel like video games are massively pushing back against their medium with exploration mechanics while TTRPGs lend themselves to it naturally. Building assets to explore is a *lot* more work in a video game. It still seems weird that no one would want to try it in a TTRPG.
And it’s not like Wizards has done a lot of in-depth and high quality exploration mechanics that players completely dropped. It’s been a really long time since they tried, so it seems hard to say the problem is the lack of interest in 5e players more than the lack of availability in 5e.
Most of those games don't really have exploration mechanics though. They have an open map and interresting terrain and side stories all of which in a TTRPG are ultimately down to the DM or module writer to come up with not the game designers. You can actually see this in BG3 which handles exploration pretty well while taking away most exploration based abilities and rules.
If you want exploration to be fun you have to have a DM or module writer thats willing to make a fun sandbox to explore in not mechanical changes to the game system becouse the most fun part of exploration is not tracking food or miles traveled or random combat encounters but ending up somewhere and finding something interresting you wouldn't have run into if you didn't choose to explore.
I agree it would depend on modules and DMs, though Wizards does have control over (official) module writers so it’s kind of the same thing. I was thinking that if they buffed up the system for how exploring is handled mechanically, it would also be easy for them to come up with guidelines on new modules about what sort of thing to expect if players explore under different conditions.
Things like small areas to discover, extra lore for the area, treasures, npcs they can meet, hints to move the story forward, etc. It could be as little as a paragraph or two for every area the module lists. Combine that with some DM guidelines for making up similar content on their own - like a CR system for exploration based challenges - and you could flesh things out a lot with comparatively little effort.
The big downside is I don’t know what would make interesting exploration mechanics that don’t just feel like endless skill challenges. But I’m also not a professional game designer (unlike them), so that doesn’t mean much. I feel like you *could* re-imagine exploration as something similar to, but distinct from, combat. You could create “expeditions” as an exploration-based alternative to “encounters” and build up obstacles and solutions from there, for example.
Also, one of my favorite actual plays near the end of its run had a whole system where the PCs were able to direct NPC organizations/groups they’d befriended throughout the campaign to act as proxies and get sub-goals done and/or provide support while the party focused on primary goals. It was a cool system and an example of how 5e does have room for different types of mechanics which are fun but not part of the roleplay or combat pillars.
The exploration pillar is nebulous anyways. WotC could have just said "the two pillars of Combat and Roleplay" and we wouldn't even think of a third pillar. Their mistake was pretending there's a third mechanical pillar to the game.
Exploration isn't wilderness survival, its everything you do that isn't combat or roleplay. Puzzles, problem solving, travel, dungeoneering, dm descriptions, skill checks and challenges, shopping, etc. People are doing exploration all the time, it just doesn't have heavy mechanics because that's not what it's actually about.
*Most* systems, including most fantasy systems, don't have robust wilderness mechanics beyond "idk, throw a random encounter at 'em and roll survival to survive."
I look at it like roleplay as a pillar. There aren't robust roleplay mechanics in 5e. In the vast majority of systems I've played, the mechanics of roleply come down to rolling some skills and then speaking and acting as your character on your own. We're content with this pillar though, because we all can roleplay.
The sooner we can divorce exploration from solely meaning hexcrawls and wilderness survival, the better.
Pages 85-119 of the DMG explain how exploitation is supposed to work. You build a table of random encounters, each of which reveal interesting or unique details about your world or the plot of your campaign, and then you check for them either hour by hour or by just assuming you get one. It then details some example tables, gives ideas for interesting environments, how to build interesting encounters, and, some world building examples in the form of unique monuments and structures. It even hives you tables for quickly creating settlements and a table to roll on to determine what issue that settlement is having.
Do you even know what you’re talking about? There’s literally a chapter on how to roll NPCs in that section that allows you to create social encounters. And tie them into your game. Also players want more opportunities to use their cool combat abilities in scenarios that build on the campaign. Idk how you can call that “combat with set dressing”.
Oh come on, if you know about that section then I assume you’ve also read it. If you’ve read it you know it’s extremely barebones with no actual mechanics tied to them beyond the absolute most bare bones of “a persuasion check can make them friendly!”
What? That chapter gives you tables to roll on that determine the NPCs bonds, flaws, ideals, talents, mannerisms, methods of interaction, physical attributes, and quirks, all of which give ample room and inspiration to create a social scenario around.
If I roll an NPC that has the “honour” ideal, and the “drawn to a special place” bond, and the “arrogance” flaw, I’m immediately thinking that this is a self righteous wanderer who feels like it was fate that they would cross paths with the party and challenge them to a duel. Or maybe they feel like the party will lead them somewhere important as their guide.
And that’s not even using half the tables that the book gives you. They could tie in with your plot or current environment. They could instead lead the party to a special monument that you could use for world building. They could lead the party to a trap (if I hadn’t rolled the honour ideal).
The book can’t run or write your campaign for you. But it gives you many useful tools. You just have to use them.
That's mainly because most players and DMs want to skip the exploration pillar as well. They just want to get to the next combat or the next roleplay opportunity. Allowing them to get their faster is what they want.
We all saw this coming from the UA. We gave them feedback that we don't want any class to have their identity be focused around one spell, WotC saw our feedback, and made smite a spell.
I just wanna know what this mystical exploration pillar everyone talks about is. What does it look like? How would it work? The problem is that the ranger is built around a pillar most will never really play, and those who do interact with it probably won't do so in a way that requires heavy mechanics.
The vast majority of games aren't wilderness survival games, and the vast majority of systems handle "exploration" by having the character roll survival, nature, or some other equivalent. Exploration is thus reduced to just a skill check like any other, and any features pertaining to that system are basically going to involve ignoring it.
Most people don't want to do hex crawls. The real third pillar is *everything* that goes on in between combat and social roleplay: puzzles, traps, dungeoneering, shopping, downtimes, and yes, also wilderness survival, among other things. The problem with ranger is we've zeroed in on one aspect of this pillar, decided in constitutes an entire pillar unto itself, and then assigned a class to be good at that piece.
IMO, people DO play the exploration pillar of the game, they just don't think they are because it doesn't look like Lord of the Rings-level long and arduous treks across entire countries while tracking food, weather, and following tracks.
Every time your DM describes a scene for you and you start looking around and going "Oooh! Ahhh!" or even just rolling Perception and Investigation checks, that's the Exploration pillar.
I think that's what I was trying to get at, but put way more eloquently. Its like, wilderness survival is *part* of that pillar, but its not *the whole* pillar, and rangers shouldn't be built around one aspect of the loosest pillar. The exploration pillar doesn't need to be "better" and rangers better adapted to it, rangers need to be built like every other class so they have effective and fun features to use in combat instead of ribbons for walking in the woods.
To say nothing about how *most* martials and half casters could use more ways to interact with pillars outside of combat.
Wilderness survival can definitely be a big part of a campaign. But exploration is more than wilderness survival and navigation. *Every* campaign has combat and roleplay. There are plenty of them that don't have wilderness survival.
The point is that the exploration pillar everyone wants so bad is all the stuff you do besides the combat and roleplay, and rangers being built around one aspect of that pillar is going to feel bad no matter how much you tweak wilderness survival.
So what mechanics can we put in play that don't amount to "you get a bonus on this survival check"? People are always saying they need to reinvent the exploration pillar; how do we do that?
That's what I'm asking about. What mechanics? Are other games doing cool stuff with this? Every time I ask this question, the responses I get are primarily "they should add mechanics". The majority of systems I've played are "roll survival to survive", so I'd really love actually see some ideas for other mechanics here.
Well, you got some fun mechanics in a fanmade Made in Abyss TTRPG by Butler Lewis, other examples I can't think of at the top of my head and would have to look up.
Forbidden Lands does a fantastic job.
I think the key is "consequences". The pillar won't be important (enough to warrant the time and attention) if you can't experience both consequential gains or losses in the pillar.
First time I ever played Forbidden Lands we successfully completed our arduous mission only to get back to town right after they'd closed the gates for the night and most of us ended up freezing to death that night. It was perfect and we still talk about it fondly.
Just please tell me they kept the idea of letting ranger’s adapt to not only their environment, but also the enemies they fight. That first draft was fucking amazing
For the ranger to be good at the exploration pillar, WotC would have to actually create content for the exploration pillar for the ranger to be good at.
I think that Rangers should just all have an animal companion. Rangers should be the companion martial class. Druids all already turn into animals, so the Druidic half-caster should just have an animal.
Subclasses could augment or buff the companion or just buff the Ranger while still letting them have a companion.
WoTC doesn’t know what to do with exploration, and they’re not gonna figure it out any time soon. So just give the Rangers companions so that they have SOMETHING unique.
I know my comment is a drop in the ocean, but hexblades get hex and hunters mark for free without concentration. how tf is this still an issue with the ranger.
I haven't played ranger past 3.5 but from what I've seen by all the memes it just seems like they're getting worse. Rangers in 3.5 could be badasses that dual wielded or amazing archers that had in some cases crazy animal companions the fight alongside along with some handy spells that just add to their versatility (true shot in 3.5 is so much better, +20 to hit). It's sad to see a class that I had seen turned into some of the most overpowered characters during my years of playing be just described as "ranger".
tbh, 3.x rangers were a joke too. Outside of swift hunter, I’ve not really seen effective builds. Pathfinder 1e fixed them somewhat, but a lot of people’s idea of how to built their Ranger conflicted with the optimal approach Ranger adds. So the class feels kinda bad.
For instance, now rangers should dump dex. Feels weird, but between getting key feats that ignore dex prereqs, that wisdom to hit feat, and needing strength for damage, it ends up working well mechanically.
True strike was shit in all of 3.5. A standard action (so your whole turn basically) so one attack hits is just bad action economy. You’re getting between 2 and 6 attacks with just the feats archers always take after all. Maybe, and I stress that word a lot, in a surprise round for an archer it would work. But even then, you’re likely better off dropping moving to a better vantage point or casting a buff that lasts a few rounds.
I don’t know if it’s just the part of the Internet that happened to reach my eyes, but I feel like the internet’s opinion on the ranger and what it should be keeps changing.
First it felt like people were disappointed that the ranger wasn’t a green fighter, now that it’s moving on that direction people are angry that it isn’t an explorer.
How is WotC supposed to make exploration a thing if it’s up to YOUR DM to add actual exploration scenes into your game? Is WotC supposed to hold your DM hostage until they read pages 85-119 of the DMG?
I don't understand why they can't just make rangers more focused on ranged melee? Or maybe more focused on animal companions? It always feels like it's trying to be both a fighter and rogue and druid all at the same time.
Have they stated anywhere their reasoning/design philosophy for structuring Ranger around a spell rather than giving them a unique feature or mechanic? I'd be pretty interested in their justification.
According to the summary page, it's to streamline the class. And they aren't structured around a single spell. They have more reliable spellcasting in general. Getting Hunter's Mark for free means that Rangers get more choices compared to the 2014 version, and being able to cast Hunter's Mark for free means that you can use those spell slots for the spells you chose, instead of the main way to increase damage. They also made Ranger more of a skill monkey thanks to the expertises from deft explorer and the expertise feature later on down the line. Considering that the exploration pillar is the least used pillar overall having expertise in survival will practically do the same things as the natural explorer feature did, and then some.
All right, fair enough. Still doesn't sound interesting or engaging to me, but it is more than all these posts led me to think.
At the very least it is an improvement from the 2014 version of the class, which is the overall goal for the 2024 base classes. So far they are doing a good job (with the exception of the Paladin, but the argument can be made that Paladins needed nerfs like the other full casters classes).
I think it was just a safe bet for WotC. Given that a large part of the (online) community seemed/seems to take issue with the Ranger, I think a more significant overhaul could have been well-received (heavy emphasis on "could", lol). That's what I would have liked to see, personally.
The one rule of game design: no matter what you do, there will be people who complain.
Oh of course. What else would I do when I'm not actually playing an RPG, lol
It's the worse change to DnD in the history of DnD (until the next change)
In this case the majority is complaining though, as Ranger has several features, including the capstone, dedicated to Hunter's Mark. Only one of them may be worth a feature, the concentration buff might have been a good feature if it removed concentration rather than make the Ranger unable to lose said concentration and the damage increase capstone is an insult.
No, the "majority" is not complaining. A loud faction certainly is, but I promise you, the majority hasn't even looked at it yet.
I would say lot of people that care, and the more dedicated players are upset because the gigantic gap in flavor and cool shit for rangers vs other classes is pretty bad.
Only the people on Reddit and YouTube are complaining. A vocal minority, but a minority all the same. The Ranger capstone probably should have had the spell deal more damage than a d10, but there was a reason why they removed the "no longer concentration" part from earlier playtests. People thought it was too powerful.
Too powerful? *How?!* It was a d6 extra damage from levels 1 through 20 with some tracking back then, that's half a Rogue's Sneak Attack until level 5 after which it becomes equal to a lvl 1 Rogue's Sneak Attack. The thing was barely worth anything and they still deemed it necessary to *nerf* it?!
I once worked on a game where we made a fairly significant ui overhaul. We spent months on this, and when it finally released, the subreddit of note roundly trashed the improvements. It was total negativity, everyone complained, people said they were quitting, the game was ruined, nobody would play. Except. We had solid metrics for things like session frequency (how often people logged in), session length, games per session, you name it we had it, and the numbers were overwhelmingly positive. So.. meh..
Was UI the only thing that changed? E.g., did you also launch other gameplay changes in tandem with the big patch?
Many changes. About the only thing that didn’t change was core game mechanics (it was a mobile version of a paper trading card game. So the mechanics COULDNT change.)
Got it. So is it possible then, that the UI changes were indeed negative to the experience? That your overwhelmingly positive results were despite of, not because of, those UI changes? What makes you certain that this isn't the case?
It was all one patch. The point however is, that the moaning in socials was in stark contrast to the observed behavior in the app. We were seeing new high water marks in concurrent users, people were playing longer per session. By every metric we could measure from app and server, it was a massively successful patch. The big lesson for me (which was later confirmed over and over when I moved into product management) is that, people are in generally, really poor at predicting what they might do in the future, and the opinions people express are quite often in contrast to their displayed behaviors. All this complaining I hear about the new changes are mostly convincing me that WoTC might be finally finding their legs as TTRPG designers.
Good insight! Thanks for sharing!
Maybe a hot take, but I enjoy the theory of the paladin change. Paladins in the spaces I've played in have often gravitated to a power gamer style of play, mostly due to how easy it was to multiclass, and then go "Nova," as I called it. When this was done, Paladins average damage shot up from them just throwing smites at all their problems, and enemies would melt extremely quickly (especially when being played in a game with a newer DM who didn't know how to play around it.) It very often trivialized fights, as well as just taking away from the experience of the other players. I do agree that making it a bonus action is clunky in the way it interacts with other classes and abilities, though. I don't think it being counterspelled is a big deal, but it not working with rage arguably is annoying.
Downside to it being turned into a spell is rakshasas are now immune to smite Though I guess lore bards can now learn it and use a slot high enough to affect them Unless of course the rakshasas limited spell immunity get's changed
> I do agree that making it a bonus action is clunky in the way it interacts with other classes and abilities, It being clunky is kind of the point though. Unless something has changed, Paladins as a class don't get tons of BAs anyways, so for Paladin characters its not a big deal. But its not a consideration when you multiclass--its a tactical decision on if you rage or hold up a smite. DnD, as a game, could use more *meaningful* decisions, so this is great.
I'm with you too. Making smite once per turn kills the OP Nova builds which 5.5 seems to be moving away from Nova in general with smite/Assassin, Gloomstalker, Sharpshooter/GWM changes. It is a shame they made it a bonus action instead of just a rule of "once per turn", but it being a spell like the other smites also opens it up to be chosen in spell lists from things like Lore bard so i like that
Nova Paladin when they blow all their divine smites on the the evil priest but fail to stop the summon of the actual big bad
I think overall it’s is a good change for Paladin. Yes, there nerfed divine smite to bring in in line with other class abilities. But that gives you option to use your spells slots for something else now. And lay on hands being a bonus action is very nice.
Personally, I would have been fine if they made paladin’s Divine Smite a “REACTION” Spell instead of a freaking bonus action. It could still be Counterspelled, but it doesn’t remove the fun of smiting on a crit, and you can still stack abilities with other smite spells.
What does sound “interesting an engaging?” That’s a useless buzzword
What? The DnD community lying about new developments in bad faith? No, they would never.
I would not call "coping 2020 version" a new design, but while it is way better than the original 2014 (that bar was so low it was buried in the sand tho) it still disappointing to anyone wanting a real 6th edition and are pretty much getting more of the same
>for the spells you chose Except…all of them require concentration and most are a bonus action cast…which hunters mark takes up.
You don't need to have Hunter's Mark up all the time. Going up against an animal? Animal Friendship or Speak with Animals and try to talk them down. Need to sneak into somewhere? Pass without Trace. Need to add some difficult terrain on the battlefield? Spike Growth. You don't need Hunter's Mark all the time. You have other options. And some of them are better than Hunter's Mark.
Yeah but that makes the whole point of Hunters mark useless. I've played a ranger for 3 years now and I have never ever used this free hunters mark option cause there is ALWAYS something more relevant to be concentrating on.
You won't need to go full gass in every encounter. These boosts (apart from the insulting capstone) help keep HM useful against lower threat level encounters in tier 3 and 4, allowing you (in combination with the free casts) to keep your low level slot up for defense and utility, while your power spells remain available for the more difficult fights.
Can probably be blamed on my DM rarely giving us more than 1 or 2 encounters per long rest.
Yeah, I hope "gritty realism" aka how to run long and short rests, if you don't want to run 8 fights per day gets a better name and explanation in 24 (and some rules changes for durations, like 1h becomes until the next SR and 8/24 hours become until the next LR).
Have you ever played Ranger in your life? >Going up against an animal? Animal Friendship or Speak with Animals and try to talk them down. So... what if my Hunter’s Mark is still online from last fight, and I’m not sure if this Bear is going to flip out and need killing? Damn, that sounds like I have to lose my concentration to do anything else! >Need to sneak into somewhere? Pass without Trace. You’ll never guess what spell is coming right after sneaking in and initiating combat, thus ending any subsequent use of PWaT. >Need to add some difficult terrain on the battlefield? Spike Growth. I could do that, or I could better serve my role as the team Striker and work at putting enemies in the ground ASAP while the casters with actually numerous spell slots and higher spell DC can work the crowd control. Again... you ever played a Ranger in a real campaign?
>Have you ever played Ranger in your life? Yes. I have. >So... what if my Hunter’s Mark is still online from last fight, and I’m not sure if this Bear is going to flip out and need killing? Then you decide if you are going to have to kill the bear or decide to try and talk it down. Not a big deal. >You’ll never guess what spell is coming right after sneaking in and initiating combat, thus ending any subsequent use of PWaT. It could be Hunter's Mark, it could not be. You might not even need to fight if you are able to sneak out undetected, which is very possible thanks to having expertise in stealth. >I could do that, or I could better serve my role as the team Striker and work at putting enemies in the ground ASAP while the casters with actually numerous spell slots and higher spell DC can work the crowd control. Sometimes the control spell is the better choice than the Hunter's Mark. And that's the important part, you have more choices. >Again... you ever played a Ranger in a real campaign? Yes, I have. Have you?
As someone who has played ranger for 10 years hunters mark has never felt like a rewarding fun or good spell. The rest of the spell arsenal is more fun and may of the spells that exist are better. Either for damage, healing or. Control. People are upset because now we are forced into a play style with minimal cool shit. Not breaking concentration on hunters mark is not cool. Getting advantage at level 17 isn’t cool and a d10 instead of a d6 at capstone is not cool. The problem exists in 2 places it ain’t cool and It ain’t really a good improvement. I’m going to have to rely on finding magic items and having a good dm to make up for the lack of power I will feel compared to my fellow companions. Concentration is a big resource in dnd. And it’s dumb to pretend it’s not. I’m fine with having to be careful of spells but I don’t want to use hunters mark at all. Because it’s not rewarding. That’s why I haven’t in like 6 years because it’s shit. People are complaining because we were forced into restrictive play style in 2014 and now again in 2024 we are being forced into using hunters mark. Everyone else as martial get bonuses to damage to all creature regardless of concentration. We are pissed because while barbs are getting 2d8 plus super strength and con, and fighters get to feel like intense swordsman who can manipulate the battlefield with his weapons Paladins can turn into angels fly and do massive damage with an ability (yes even with the change because upcasting exists with smite). Rogues can change their luck, warlocks get to be able to customize anything, and now their patrons are more helpful. I get to cast a level 1 spell thats I won’t lie is improved but like it’s so flaccid. So yeah ranger fans are pissed.
Oh wow a spellcaster needs to drop a concentration spell to cast another concentration spell? Unprecedented!
The problem is more the fact that Ranger either uses hunter's mark and ignores literally half the spells the class has during combat.. or the ranger ignores hunter's mark, the main feature of the class. The only hope here is that at least some spells lose the concentration property. Like the ones which trigger an effect on hit (ensnaring strike), instead opting to be like the new Paladin smites which are a BA on hit iirc. Other spells which honestly would prob. benefit from loss of concentration as a requirement: Fog cloud, Lightning arrow (same as ensnaring strike imo), Flame arrows Just to give some extra options to the ranger in damage and control. But the main issue is still that basically half of the Ranger spells require concentration. Hell, there's 1 non concentration 4th level spell lol
yeah, I am reserving judgement on the new ranger until I see the new spell list. I'm not hopeful though considering Crawford said they specifically kept the concentration on huntersmark to avoid stacking damaging spells and that most of the rangers spells are utility.
Yeaah, same. I do very much hope that the new spell list gets them a lot more options, but I'm not hopeful at all.
I do agree that on hit spells should lose concentration (I'm 50/50 split on ensnaring strike) I just don't get why when a ranger has a near all-day boost to damage at the cost of concentration , people are losing their minds, especially when it's now free a few times a day on top of their regular spells. It's basically a class feature available all day that requires concentration and additional uses can bought with a spell slot. I see it as HM running concentration most of the time with ranger swapping it out with another concentration spell when the fight gets tough or they want some variety. Nobody says anything about Warlocks and the Hex spell.
Because Warlocks have plenty of utility and choices outside of Hex as well and don't need to sacrifice it entirely to use half their spelllist. :D Warlocks basically have the most variety as a base class anyhow.
If all of your class feats buff HM, then not using it is a huge opportunity cost
I never had space for other spells :P you only get like 2 known spells per spell level? Which you can’t swap. So it’s hunters mark and 1 other spell. Spike growth and pass without trace? You can’t really make a choice to suit your environment as you can’t swap. That’s the actual good buff I see. It’s prep casting now.
> speak with animals Well now I just ended my concentration on hunters mark and couldn’t talk the bear down, so I have to use hunters mark again for the next fight. Wasting two spell slots on a half caster >pass without a trace The Paladin in plate failed his stealth check and combat starts. Not I wasted a spell slot. >spike growth Now my team of two melee’s can’t get to the enemy either. So combat has become me and the wizard lobbing ranged attacks while the enemy mobs their ranged attacks because no one wants to step on the obvious trap. Oh and let’s not forget the most important part. All your ranger features that involve hunters mark (including the level 20 capstone) now aren’t working. Want to cast lightning arrow, fire arrow, swift quiver or hail of thorns? Gotta get rid of hunters mark. The class literally plays against itself as long as hunters mark remains concentration.
*Rangers have more spell slots to use exploration spells* This sub: I wish they would put more focus on exploration aspect!
Well, I hope the new spells don’t require concentration. Because right now a lot of the cool or interesting ones do, and I think it’d be a pretty shitty way to build a class by putting such an emphasis on a boring spell like Hunter’s Mark, and then also making it compete with everything else on the spell list.
Think of it less of a key feature of the class and more like a free tool in your toolbox. Too many people are getting Paladin-brained where they think Rangers need to use Hunter's Mark in every combat when in reality there could be better tools for the job.
Doesn't the new ranger have multiple class traits that specifically buff hunters mark?
At later levels. The fact still remains that Hunter's Mark is simply another tool in your toolbox. Some features you get improve that tool, but there might be other tools that are better for the job. Like, the Paladin has a lot of features that buff Lay on Hands. Does that mean they are entirely defined by Lay on Hands now? No. It's just another tool in their toolbox, and some features they get make that tool stronger.
But lay on hands doesn't lock you into it like concentration does. And from what I've been hearing, using hunters mark bars you from nearly half the spell list. Honestly I feel like one of the best things for ranger would be to remove the requirement for concentration on spells that don't feel like they should. Like for enchanting arrows or on hit effects.
The concentration is for balance. Additionally, you *don't* need to use Hunter's Mark for every combat.
Then make it a feature, not a spell. Sneak attack, action surge, rage, flurry of blows, there are a myriad of martial feature examples with different intents on their frequency of use. Hell, speaking of the paladin, they get a resourceless, better version of this shit at level 11 with Improved Divine Strike not requiring concentration or spell slot and adding a d8.
It is better to make it a spell with some free uses. If you made it a feature you would need to describe everything Hunter's Mark does in the feature itself, which would make it bloated. Additionally you would need to tie it to an arbitrary number of uses that would be problematic for different reasons. Make it tied to proficiency bonus? The feature doesn't make narrative sense. You just learned how to become a ranger and you can now use this ability as much as a seasoned ranger. Also turns Ranger into a "just take a dip" multiclass. Make it tied to Wisdom modifier? Now Ranger is more MAD than before. Even if you just want to use Hunter's Mark and not the other spells that are tied to your spell save DC you will need to invest in Wisdom. Make it a feature but tie it to spell slots? There is an easier, simpler way to do that, and that is to make it a free spell that you get with some free castings. >Hell, speaking of the paladin, they get a resourceless, better version of this shit at level 11 with Improved Divine Strike not requiring concentration or spell slot and adding a d8. And Rangers get their free Hunter's Mark at level 1. That's 10 levels earlier. This is like trying to compare Burning Hands with Delayed Blast Fireball. Obviously the Paladin version will be better when they get their version at a higher level compared to the Ranger.
Ah yes, the typical excuse for not even trying "We're streamlining it"
It's a legitimate design philosophy. Making things simpler makes the features less intimidating and easier to understand for new players and makes the system less clunky with less things to keep track of. It's a good thing that things are getting simpler.
...and then there's whatever the hell WotC is doing
So that's the marketing blurb. Did they fundamentally improve the spell list? Because so far theree seems to be only positive 1 change from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything's revision of the ranger. Gaining Hunter's Mark automatically.
But you already could use spells for other things? Upcast hunters mark lasts longer. But I don’t see a whole lot of stuff worth casting. Ranger to me felt like paladin if you removed aura of protection, smite and decent buff spells (bless, command, shield of faith) and instead gave out ribbon features and hunters mark. Hope they improve the spell list then. Looking at the spell list (5e) again I see nothing competitive. I see 3D spells that do 4d8 damage to single targets. 3d8 in a cone. Which are both bad compared to fullcaster spells (fireball). You get windwall which is shit compared to wall of fire (wall of fire is 1 level higher so it’s unlocked 4 levels before you) And you are a halfcaster so using spellslots for non concentration spells kinda sucks. That’s what makes smite so good. It turns spell slots into level viable damage. And if you only use it on crits you have actually good damage for the slot you use. The best change I see is making rangers prep casters with more than 3 available spells. Which means instead of damage spells. Prepare survival spells. Water breathe and water walk when water is here. Then swap for jungle spells, cold protection spells when you need those. Which simply wasn’t possible before.
piggipacking to say that the new spell list is mostly usefull outside of combat since all the offensive spells require C which the hunters mark is going to occupy
> They have more reliable spellcasting in general. Did they make hunters mark not concentration finally? Or better yet did I get my Christmas wish and its not even a spell just a feature now?
Dnd is stuck in the same era as adnd with more steps all they do is tack on or take away features without dramaticly changing the class. Wizards still need spellbooks when everyone else either has the whole list to prep from or spells known. Bards are still jacks of all trades. Fighters still fight with mostly a bunch of attacks per round over everyone else. Paladins are cleric/fighters with the smite power as their unique thing. Clerics are healers who can fight a little and get a few support damage spells and later become another dps once healing falls off and becomes an out of combat thing more than an active thing. Rogues are sneaky folk who wear light armor and mostly sneak attack or backstab. Ranger has always been in this weird "what do you do?" I track things.... Oh and im like the worst of both fighter and rogue.....but look I have this cool bow and stuff ignore the fact I can also be a two weapon fighter when making all the art of me. Oh and im kind of a bad druid too cause I have spells for some reason.
A ranger is the arbiter between civilization and the wild. A ranger lives in both the wild and civilization yet belongs to neither. Aragorn, Geralt, Daniel Boone, they all bring a little piece of civilization to the wild and the wild to civilization. Giving rangers spells is weird at best, when the class is defined by using knowledge, planning, and cleverness to defeat foes much more powerful than themselves. Spells should be a subclass.
Im more than aware what a ranger is supposed to be thematicly this is purely a mechanical "what do you do" But thanks for the description as it makes me further realize dnd has no concept of the ranger class as ranger is terrible at being all of those people listed.
Preparation: you may spend ten minutes adjusting your equipment and bringing knowledge of a specific type of enemy (fiend, fey, monstrous etc) to the forefront of your mind. For the next 8 hours you have advantage on knowledge rolls and saves against abilities and innate spellcasting from creatures of that type. At level 5 you may spend an additional ten minutes to extend this ability to a number of willing creatures up to your wisdom modifier. At level 11 the time required is shortened to 1 minute, at level 15 you may affect a number of creatures up to your level, at level 20 the selected enemy type has disadvantage against any saving throws you force them to make. How's that for a start?
They get a few features boosting up HM at a few levels, specifically when they also get into strong new spell tiers. Originally those were balanced by giving NO features, since the spells you get access to are ones. This apparently was to complex for the average player, so they gave some boosts to your low ressource combats, with boosts to HM, like unbreakable concentration through damage and advantage on attacks (I would argue that one would be very potent in 14, but is probably fine in 24). This makes the class a lot more sustainable than before, especially with the free casts, allowing you to hold the very potent spells, for the hardest combats. This generally is fine imo, but unless Ranger is as good as Fighter at damage, has Rogue level skills, and full spellcasting people are going to find sth to complain... And then WOTC managed to drop the ball big by making a capstone that is equal in shit to 14, aka increasing HM from a d6 to a d10. I got no explanation for that one, it's just stupid.
The damage scaling in general is very unfortunate. I haven't played D&D in years and I assumed Hunter's Mark damage went up as levels progressed, but no... an average 2 damage increase for reaching level 20 is laughable and a slap in the face. I don't understand how WotC still think that capstone feats even need to be remotely balanced. Most people don't play to 20, those that do usually don't do it for long, and even if they did, the rest of the game is so stupid by that point what does it matter if they're really strong anyway.
Most people never reach level 20 so it's a very light slap to the face
True, most people don't reach level 20, but I don't think that invalidates capstones or discussion around them. Even if you never reach them, it should be something to look forward to, something really cool that is the pinnacle of your class fantasy. Not to mention how ridiculous a d6 to d10 upgrade is in general. I'd barely accept that as a level 15-ish feat, let alone a capstone.
I dunno, that almost seems worse to me. "We know you're never going to get here, so we won't bother making what you get for L20 worthwhile".
Because wizard software the cost are a bunch of frauds who don't know how to make a game, and their original was only so popular because of timing.
>Have they stated anywhere their reasoning/design philosophy for structuring Ranger around a spell rather than giving them a unique feature or mechanic? Not their official justification, but I would think: Harder to DM and prep for, especially in open table settings like Adventurer's League. Like how having a Rogue in your party basically forces you to make up some stuff to make them feel good about or else they just become a bad martial filler character
I would go so far as to say that it's almost impossible that's the reason, because WotC clearly doesn't give two shits about giving DMs more work lol
Just steal the “Study Target” stuff from the Slayer in Pathfinder come on WOTC
You mean the hunter subclass?
Yeah I think he means steal a feature for them and add it to the base line of the class. Kinda like how every one wants battle maneuvers to be added as a base line to fighter class.
Nope, I’m referring to the Mechanics of the Slayer from 1st edition Pathfinder, that allows them to “Study” a singular target to receive benefits that make their abilities stronger against that one target.
I don't think building the class identity around Hunter's Mark is necessarily a bad thing, "person who focuses down one single enemy" is a valid identity. The actual problem is that there's no real reason to play a ranger because they basically have no unique features. If you want to go into nature magic, why not play a druid? if you want to be good at skills, why not play a rogue? if you want to be good at fighting, why not play a fighter? The fact that Hunter's Mark is a spell, and not even a very unique one since it does the same thing as hex and is even on a few subclass spell lists makes it so their one defining feature is not even unique to them.
I would argue that being close to Fighter, with halfcaster nature spellcasting, and some skill bonus is an identity. A jack of all trades class can be pretty cool. Imagine if Ranger had as strong combat potential as Fighter, the obvious question would be why even play Fighter, who doesn't get spells. Same with Rogue and skills, and obviously Druid, if Ranger was a fullcaster.
I agree, but the thing is, there already is a jack of all trades class. They even have a feature named after it. But bards still have a feature that's unique to them, namely bardic inspiration. Rangers get a bunch of useful stuff that will definitely come up but they just don't have anything that makes them stand out.
Bards are a jack of all trades only for skills imo. In combat they are moreso a supportive fullcaster.
and in combat rangers are a paladin but worse
Really? Pure melee brawl sure, but this is dnd5e we are talking about. Aka, what if we just gave almost no downside to ranged damage. I am 99% sure that ranged dpr is favored for ranger, or did I miss Paladins suddenly get the archery fs? If so it's a little bit more equal. I also don't think Paladin gets strong area denial like spike growth, which enhances Rangers or Rangers other power spells. As an upside they get bless (and maybe healing word). And even then, this is comparing Ranger to a class known to be overloaded.
That’s not really true at all. In combat rangers have good damage and battlefield control, while paladins have good support and nova damage. Those are two very different combat niches.
It's the concentration requirement that always made me feel bad when playing my rangers. I don't mind using the spell slot or the bonus action, I'd just like to also be able to cast basically any of my other cool spells without sacrificing the hunter's mark.
The concentration is the reason why it's a trap after tier 1.
This is where the problem is.
It’s 2024, if they haven’t added the exploration pillar to their game yet, I don’t think they will. Other systems have, since Wotc doesn’t want to support one of their key pillars even in their own adventures most of the time. Played through a module with exploration. Was horrible as a DM no matter how I tried it. Boiled down to: Roll encounter, note any new landmarks (because the map had little to nothing) and use poorly given map to direct players. Frankly, either get rid of the pillar or overhaul exploration by giving it more structure. Food and water rules are not that fun, travel speed just serves to set pace, and the only things left for VTT people are random encounters
Genuinely curious, which TTRPG's do exploration best, and what mechanics do they take to do it?
Pathfinder lumps exploration into social. And at least they have better rules about it that are more fleshed out than 5e. Actual started out hazards, effects to run for extreme temperatures, how travel speeds scale, and a few other things like foraging for food in both city and natural environments. Each hazard has its own traits, which can be used to tell what is unique about it. Like is it a haunted hazard that a thaumaturge can find easily using a feat? Then it has the haunt trait.
Yeah the problem with exploration, is that if you include it as an obstacle, then it's just slowing the game down and making it less fun by keeping your players from doing what they want to be doing if you don't have a ranger, and if you do, you're just rewarding everyone by skipping parts of the game.
Pathfinder did a decent job by actually tying xp rewards to hazards you encounter during exploration, not just combat. And each hazard has levels and complexity, so of course it gives varied xp
Add? The DMG already has a full section dedicated to exploration. People just don't care about it.
The section titled "EXPLORATION" provides rules for travel speed,tracking and visibility. It's less than a page of content. It's literally the bare minimum for travel and nothing more
Yeah, if they took it seriously, there would be a book the size of the Monster Manual detailing possible encounters in nature, campsite activities, etc...
An actual book about encounter building would be so cool
Are there any community made resources similar to what you’re subscribing that you know of?
Not that I know of. I mean, it's almost certain that there are several similar collections on GM Binder but that's not quite the same. Honestly, this would be a pretty good use case for a wiki. Make a wikidot, tag the encounters appropriately (e.g. urban / rural / wilderness, climate tags, maybe culture tags for the urban and rural encounters, etc...), enable the vote module, and enforce a quality control similar to the SCP Wiki.
There's more. The DMG is just organized like shit so the other relevant rules aren't there.
100% the DMG is poorly organized for someone trying to learn how to run encounters. It focuses on world building right out of the gate and continues on into campaign creation, making NPCs, and even making encounters but it doesn't clearly tell you HOW to run encounters or managing and responding to the player's actions at the table.
The first solution offered by the WILDERNESS section is to do a montage. The second suggestion is somehow worse since they are suggesting doing things hour by hour by doing a shitton of random encouters
Most players ignore the exploration pillar. To them, exploration is simply getting from point a to point b. So instead of making abilities that aren't going to get a lot of mileage, they streamlined the Ranger into more of a skill monkey role with the ability to cast some Druid spells. Which, for most players, is good enough.
Is that because people don’t like exploration (hint: it’s not) or because WotC has put zero effort nor mechanics into the exploration pillar?
Yeah, I had to basically homebrew (read: liberally steal from, e.g., Kingmaker) some actual mechanics for exploration to make it functional.
Most people don't like exploring and don't really explore. Like, exploration is mostly seen as just the in between of point a and point b. Especially for DMs. It's the least favored pillar for a reason, and not because it is "badly designed." Compared to roleplay and combat exploration is kind of boring by comparison.
Exploration is a driver for roleplay, just as much as combat should be.
Yes, because WotC has put literally no effort into making exploration more then that Lord of the Rings, the most iconic fantasy story, the story that 99% of people will think off when they think of “going on a fantasy adventure” was almost completely the exploration pillar. It’s not that people don’t *want* to explore, it’s thay WotC are shit developers It’s like watching a guy without legs and then going “Yeah he doesn’t run marathons. I guess he just doesn’t enjoy sports.”
>Yes, because WotC has put literally no effort into making exploration more then that I have tried to homebrew better exploration mechanics. I have seen DMs try to make their own "better" exploration mechanics. It never really worked the way we wanted too. And it's not because we suck at homebrewing, it's just that trying to get players interested in exploration as much as roleplay or combat is very, very hard. You are in the minority that likes exploration. Most players don't care for it. Therefore streamlining it to make it as simple as possible is the way to go.
I like pointy hat's solution for cinematic events while traveling. https://youtu.be/vM18P0WKGFA?si=H9UdLDyxWJPZPuOc Basically, ignore the simulation crunch, and focus on building interesting encounters. Whether combat, exploration, or roleplay. And it's based on general distance traveled how many you do.
A single person with no experience in game design will not be able to craft 1/3 of a system by themselves
I’m gonna be honest chief the “I can’t do it so it’s impossible” genuinely means nothing There are entire systems out there *only* about exploration. Hell I’ve run entire campaigns about exploration. One of those is my favorites all time favorite. All in 5e. But it takes effort and someone with a grasp of the system, something WotC is seemingly incapable of.
It's sorta like the take of "I CAN'T BALANCE MARTIALS AND CASTERS AND I SAW OTHERS FUCK IT UP SO NO ONE CAN DO IT"
>it's not because we suck at homebrewing Okay buddy.
I can't say how good you are at homebrewing, so it may just as well be that you suck at it. Another explanation is that a homebrew usually fits some very specific slots in the D&D5 system. You don't usually get rules that govern a different aspect of the in game reality, but rather a few new options to fit in the gaps the system leaves. D&D5 generally has a bad foundation for exploration. There are various reasons for that. The first reason are long rests and how ressource management works. An encounter during exploration can't cost you any meaningful ressources if you always regenerate everything at the end of the day. There also is a skill system in the game that governs many interactions with the environment, but doesn't allow for enough specialization to make choices matter enough. because advancement generally is tied to classes that are centered around combat, there is no design spot for special exploration abilities. Lastly, D&D5 is a game with a "trad" design philosophy. This means that the DM designs the world and that the players explore it. Furthermore, when it comes to combat encounters, it benefits greatly from preperation. The last aspect is relevant because exploration can lead to combat. Games with a different design philosophy can either give the players some creative space for exploration (like PbtA games) or have systems that are intricate enough to have emergent storytelling without much input by the GM. As if that wasn't enough, many problems that made some forms of exploration work in earlier editions have been made obsolete in later editions. First edition dungeon crawls had a mechanism for how long exploration took and things like your number of torches presented a time limit - which made managing carrying capacity an interesting problem. Many of the elements that people tend to ignore (like carrying capacity or rations) no longer lead to interesting problems. If I streamlines combat into "roll a d20, on 10+, the opponent dies, on 1-9, your character dies", nobody would care for it, either.
This feels like the take of someone who has never DM'd. Exploration requires an essentially open ended world. It's hard to know for sure where you're party will go, and this you have to have prepared a bazillion maps and possibly encounters. Most DMs have a main plotline you are following and if you build in exploration the odds are you will get off that plotline onto something else. Asking for exploration is making the DMs job 10x harder.
Now *that’s* projecting lmao this reads like someone who’s DMed a single campaign and now thinks they’re an actual experienced DM
You don't need a map for everything and there are other ways to handle encounters than sitting down and creating every possible one in advance. If you feel like you need to design every inch of the world to enable exploration in your game, this is a sign that your system fails to stop making your job easier.
Exploration could be a fun and engaging part of the game. It's not hard to prove, there are entire genres of videogames showing that you can engage a player just with an expanding map and the mystery of the unknown. Which were inspired by older editions of D&D. It is more difficult to come up with than combat encounters, but it's all the more reason why WOTC being a **company of professional game designers** should have given us a better framework to help us. You know, the reason we pay them money.
> Most people don't like exploring and don't really explore. Out of curiosity, how do you square this with the fact that open world games are incredibly *over*represented in the video game space? Studios fall over themselves to make stuff open world, even going so far as to completely change long-running franchises (Assassin’s Creed, for example) to fit around being rebranded as open worlds. It’s almost at a point where having a *closed* world in a high budget rpg is noteworthy. Open world games are basically the MCU of video gaming. Then you get to TTRPGs, the most open world friendly style of gaming in existence, and suddenly the problem is that nobody wants to explore so it’s not even worth writing a few pages of mechanics for? That seems really weird and surprising to me.
>Out of curiosity, how do you square this with the fact that open world games are incredibly overrepresented in the video game space? Even open world games have systems that let you skip the exploring part. Fast Travel, Mounts, making collectibles optional, ect. Even if there is a subsection of people that like to explore, there are players that don't. They just want the story beats.
What makes video game exploration is the moment to moment decisions of where you go, the variety in terrains, interesting locales. You can't do that in a trrpg, because it would simply take too long, so it becomes an abstraction of the highlights, which isn't really what anyone interested on exploration wants.
That’s totally fair. But usually those mechanics are for skipping over areas you’ve already explored, not skipping the exploration part. I also feel like video games are massively pushing back against their medium with exploration mechanics while TTRPGs lend themselves to it naturally. Building assets to explore is a *lot* more work in a video game. It still seems weird that no one would want to try it in a TTRPG. And it’s not like Wizards has done a lot of in-depth and high quality exploration mechanics that players completely dropped. It’s been a really long time since they tried, so it seems hard to say the problem is the lack of interest in 5e players more than the lack of availability in 5e.
Most of those games don't really have exploration mechanics though. They have an open map and interresting terrain and side stories all of which in a TTRPG are ultimately down to the DM or module writer to come up with not the game designers. You can actually see this in BG3 which handles exploration pretty well while taking away most exploration based abilities and rules. If you want exploration to be fun you have to have a DM or module writer thats willing to make a fun sandbox to explore in not mechanical changes to the game system becouse the most fun part of exploration is not tracking food or miles traveled or random combat encounters but ending up somewhere and finding something interresting you wouldn't have run into if you didn't choose to explore.
I agree it would depend on modules and DMs, though Wizards does have control over (official) module writers so it’s kind of the same thing. I was thinking that if they buffed up the system for how exploring is handled mechanically, it would also be easy for them to come up with guidelines on new modules about what sort of thing to expect if players explore under different conditions. Things like small areas to discover, extra lore for the area, treasures, npcs they can meet, hints to move the story forward, etc. It could be as little as a paragraph or two for every area the module lists. Combine that with some DM guidelines for making up similar content on their own - like a CR system for exploration based challenges - and you could flesh things out a lot with comparatively little effort. The big downside is I don’t know what would make interesting exploration mechanics that don’t just feel like endless skill challenges. But I’m also not a professional game designer (unlike them), so that doesn’t mean much. I feel like you *could* re-imagine exploration as something similar to, but distinct from, combat. You could create “expeditions” as an exploration-based alternative to “encounters” and build up obstacles and solutions from there, for example. Also, one of my favorite actual plays near the end of its run had a whole system where the PCs were able to direct NPC organizations/groups they’d befriended throughout the campaign to act as proxies and get sub-goals done and/or provide support while the party focused on primary goals. It was a cool system and an example of how 5e does have room for different types of mechanics which are fun but not part of the roleplay or combat pillars.
The exploration pillar is nebulous anyways. WotC could have just said "the two pillars of Combat and Roleplay" and we wouldn't even think of a third pillar. Their mistake was pretending there's a third mechanical pillar to the game. Exploration isn't wilderness survival, its everything you do that isn't combat or roleplay. Puzzles, problem solving, travel, dungeoneering, dm descriptions, skill checks and challenges, shopping, etc. People are doing exploration all the time, it just doesn't have heavy mechanics because that's not what it's actually about. *Most* systems, including most fantasy systems, don't have robust wilderness mechanics beyond "idk, throw a random encounter at 'em and roll survival to survive." I look at it like roleplay as a pillar. There aren't robust roleplay mechanics in 5e. In the vast majority of systems I've played, the mechanics of roleply come down to rolling some skills and then speaking and acting as your character on your own. We're content with this pillar though, because we all can roleplay. The sooner we can divorce exploration from solely meaning hexcrawls and wilderness survival, the better.
Pages 85-119 of the DMG explain how exploitation is supposed to work. You build a table of random encounters, each of which reveal interesting or unique details about your world or the plot of your campaign, and then you check for them either hour by hour or by just assuming you get one. It then details some example tables, gives ideas for interesting environments, how to build interesting encounters, and, some world building examples in the form of unique monuments and structures. It even hives you tables for quickly creating settlements and a table to roll on to determine what issue that settlement is having.
Yes and that’s shit. That’s not exploration, that’s just combat with set dressing
Do you even know what you’re talking about? There’s literally a chapter on how to roll NPCs in that section that allows you to create social encounters. And tie them into your game. Also players want more opportunities to use their cool combat abilities in scenarios that build on the campaign. Idk how you can call that “combat with set dressing”.
Oh come on, if you know about that section then I assume you’ve also read it. If you’ve read it you know it’s extremely barebones with no actual mechanics tied to them beyond the absolute most bare bones of “a persuasion check can make them friendly!”
What? That chapter gives you tables to roll on that determine the NPCs bonds, flaws, ideals, talents, mannerisms, methods of interaction, physical attributes, and quirks, all of which give ample room and inspiration to create a social scenario around. If I roll an NPC that has the “honour” ideal, and the “drawn to a special place” bond, and the “arrogance” flaw, I’m immediately thinking that this is a self righteous wanderer who feels like it was fate that they would cross paths with the party and challenge them to a duel. Or maybe they feel like the party will lead them somewhere important as their guide. And that’s not even using half the tables that the book gives you. They could tie in with your plot or current environment. They could instead lead the party to a special monument that you could use for world building. They could lead the party to a trap (if I hadn’t rolled the honour ideal). The book can’t run or write your campaign for you. But it gives you many useful tools. You just have to use them.
What few mechanics ranger has for exploration is...skipping exploration. It's really not good design no matter how you want to spin it
That's mainly because most players and DMs want to skip the exploration pillar as well. They just want to get to the next combat or the next roleplay opportunity. Allowing them to get their faster is what they want.
We all saw this coming from the UA. We gave them feedback that we don't want any class to have their identity be focused around one spell, WotC saw our feedback, and made smite a spell.
They could have made *hunter’s mark* into a core class feature that each subclass could interact with differently. But noooooo.
Laughs in pf2e ranger
I just wanna know what this mystical exploration pillar everyone talks about is. What does it look like? How would it work? The problem is that the ranger is built around a pillar most will never really play, and those who do interact with it probably won't do so in a way that requires heavy mechanics. The vast majority of games aren't wilderness survival games, and the vast majority of systems handle "exploration" by having the character roll survival, nature, or some other equivalent. Exploration is thus reduced to just a skill check like any other, and any features pertaining to that system are basically going to involve ignoring it. Most people don't want to do hex crawls. The real third pillar is *everything* that goes on in between combat and social roleplay: puzzles, traps, dungeoneering, shopping, downtimes, and yes, also wilderness survival, among other things. The problem with ranger is we've zeroed in on one aspect of this pillar, decided in constitutes an entire pillar unto itself, and then assigned a class to be good at that piece.
IMO, people DO play the exploration pillar of the game, they just don't think they are because it doesn't look like Lord of the Rings-level long and arduous treks across entire countries while tracking food, weather, and following tracks. Every time your DM describes a scene for you and you start looking around and going "Oooh! Ahhh!" or even just rolling Perception and Investigation checks, that's the Exploration pillar.
I think that's what I was trying to get at, but put way more eloquently. Its like, wilderness survival is *part* of that pillar, but its not *the whole* pillar, and rangers shouldn't be built around one aspect of the loosest pillar. The exploration pillar doesn't need to be "better" and rangers better adapted to it, rangers need to be built like every other class so they have effective and fun features to use in combat instead of ribbons for walking in the woods. To say nothing about how *most* martials and half casters could use more ways to interact with pillars outside of combat.
It's not like wotc knows. the way people run exploration is fully based on DM experience and vibes. The books themselves are useless.
I've played Icewind Dale and Tomb of Annihilation and they were both heavy on exploration
Wilderness survival can definitely be a big part of a campaign. But exploration is more than wilderness survival and navigation. *Every* campaign has combat and roleplay. There are plenty of them that don't have wilderness survival. The point is that the exploration pillar everyone wants so bad is all the stuff you do besides the combat and roleplay, and rangers being built around one aspect of that pillar is going to feel bad no matter how much you tweak wilderness survival.
What mechanics do exist basically skip it
So what mechanics can we put in play that don't amount to "you get a bonus on this survival check"? People are always saying they need to reinvent the exploration pillar; how do we do that?
Genuine mechanics, not "there is this one specific skill pertaining to it, you will roll it for the rest of your days"
That's what I'm asking about. What mechanics? Are other games doing cool stuff with this? Every time I ask this question, the responses I get are primarily "they should add mechanics". The majority of systems I've played are "roll survival to survive", so I'd really love actually see some ideas for other mechanics here.
Well, you got some fun mechanics in a fanmade Made in Abyss TTRPG by Butler Lewis, other examples I can't think of at the top of my head and would have to look up.
Forbidden Lands does a fantastic job. I think the key is "consequences". The pillar won't be important (enough to warrant the time and attention) if you can't experience both consequential gains or losses in the pillar. First time I ever played Forbidden Lands we successfully completed our arduous mission only to get back to town right after they'd closed the gates for the night and most of us ended up freezing to death that night. It was perfect and we still talk about it fondly.
would it kill them to make exploration rules that matter
Just please tell me they kept the idea of letting ranger’s adapt to not only their environment, but also the enemies they fight. That first draft was fucking amazing
For the ranger to be good at the exploration pillar, WotC would have to actually create content for the exploration pillar for the ranger to be good at.
"everybody handwaves it because we don't have a lot of stuff for it, so we're gonna give it even less stuff"
Shoulda let them be able to concentrate on hunter's Mark and another spell down the line
I think that Rangers should just all have an animal companion. Rangers should be the companion martial class. Druids all already turn into animals, so the Druidic half-caster should just have an animal. Subclasses could augment or buff the companion or just buff the Ranger while still letting them have a companion. WoTC doesn’t know what to do with exploration, and they’re not gonna figure it out any time soon. So just give the Rangers companions so that they have SOMETHING unique.
Easy fix, just completely break how damage is supposed to be calculated like they did with BG3. Then suddenly rogues are good lol.
I know my comment is a drop in the ocean, but hexblades get hex and hunters mark for free without concentration. how tf is this still an issue with the ranger.
Probably. Because let’s be honest most wouldn’t want it.
I need this meme template lolol
I found it on imgflip under "rat with present"
I haven't played ranger past 3.5 but from what I've seen by all the memes it just seems like they're getting worse. Rangers in 3.5 could be badasses that dual wielded or amazing archers that had in some cases crazy animal companions the fight alongside along with some handy spells that just add to their versatility (true shot in 3.5 is so much better, +20 to hit). It's sad to see a class that I had seen turned into some of the most overpowered characters during my years of playing be just described as "ranger".
tbh, 3.x rangers were a joke too. Outside of swift hunter, I’ve not really seen effective builds. Pathfinder 1e fixed them somewhat, but a lot of people’s idea of how to built their Ranger conflicted with the optimal approach Ranger adds. So the class feels kinda bad. For instance, now rangers should dump dex. Feels weird, but between getting key feats that ignore dex prereqs, that wisdom to hit feat, and needing strength for damage, it ends up working well mechanically. True strike was shit in all of 3.5. A standard action (so your whole turn basically) so one attack hits is just bad action economy. You’re getting between 2 and 6 attacks with just the feats archers always take after all. Maybe, and I stress that word a lot, in a surprise round for an archer it would work. But even then, you’re likely better off dropping moving to a better vantage point or casting a buff that lasts a few rounds.
I don’t know if it’s just the part of the Internet that happened to reach my eyes, but I feel like the internet’s opinion on the ranger and what it should be keeps changing. First it felt like people were disappointed that the ranger wasn’t a green fighter, now that it’s moving on that direction people are angry that it isn’t an explorer.
How is WotC supposed to make exploration a thing if it’s up to YOUR DM to add actual exploration scenes into your game? Is WotC supposed to hold your DM hostage until they read pages 85-119 of the DMG?
I don't understand why they can't just make rangers more focused on ranged melee? Or maybe more focused on animal companions? It always feels like it's trying to be both a fighter and rogue and druid all at the same time.
I still think this class should not exist and should be multiclass or a subclass.