Thread 96463223

Why are they always the weakest class? Why do designers hate them so much?
>Have you tried not playing DND?
It's not just DND.

>>96463223 (OP)
>It's not just DND.
It pretty much is. Any game that has just a regular hunter as a class usually does absolutely fine, they are useful.
I guess, the more grounded the game is, the more useful the hunter-archetype becomes. Otherwise, you have DMs not caring much about tracking through wilderlands and magic just circumventing it anyway.

Rangers, who, as the name suggest, specialize in ranged combat get easily outmatched by wizards who specialize in deranged combat.

>>96463232
They're dookie in Pathfinder too.

>>96463244
>store-brand DnD
HYTNPDND

>>96463250
>HYTNPDND poster hypocritically claims every other game is still DND
You love to see it

>>96463232
The Dark Eye has no Ranger, but Hunter is strictly worse than Elf, because Elf can do all the outdoors stuff plus magic.

>>96463328
Well yes, it's an elf.

>>96463223 (OP)
>4E Ranger
>weakest class

>>96463298
Pathfinder is LITERALLY still D&D though

>>96463386
It's literally not

>>96463223 (OP)
>Artificer, am I a joke to you?
Yes, and it means that ranger isn't weakest.

>>96463404
1e is literally D&D 3.5e, there are no systemic differences between the two and it can only exist thanks to 3.5e's usage license.
2e is a bit more of a divergence, but is still much closer to D&D than almost any other game that isn't an outright clone.

>>96463328
Ranger is an occupation, elf is a species. You can just be an elf ranger.

>>96463460
The Dark Eye does the oldschool race-as-class thing for Elves and Dwarves, with wider selection of classes for Humans.

>>96463488
Ah, you were talking about an older version of TDE then.

>>96463223 (OP)
Ranger, paladin, and bard were just homages to fantasy heroes. The RPS combined arms strategy that slots infantry/ artillery/ infiltrators sees everything else as support characters.

>>96463223 (OP)
Fuck it. I'll bite.
What makes them weakest?

>>96463492
Yeah. How does the new one handle it? Do elves keep access to magic regardless of their class or is Elf Warrior their non-magical option.

>>96463524
being weaker than the rest

Rangers are always going to be weak because the concept of the class is "the guy who is good at surviving outside'" but most players don't actually care about this and ignore what scant survival mechanics out there; not to mention that as you progress, natural dangers become less and less of a thing to worry about even if you're bothering to track them

>>96463578
You didn't answer my question. List all of the weaknesses inside of their respectable editions.

>>96463595
>natural dangers become less and less of a thing to worry about even if you're bothering to track them
Only if you have a fogbrain DM who cannot fathom a survival event.

>>96463595
Except Druids don't have that problem.

>>96463886
No, no matter what you're doing, every class is going to get more and more tools to handle conventional natural events (or even the bulk to shrug them off) as you progress, unless you're venturing into the Elemental Planes or some other places with wholly unconventional natural dangers. And if you are, Rangers aren't equipped to handle them either, so you're not better off as one.

>>96463924
Yes, because Druids aren't "the guy who's good at surviving outside," they're "the nature wizard".

>>96463595
>Rangers are always going to be weak
The 4E Ranger is the single best class of its type and is top 3 among the entire system.

>>96463886
Most survival events boil down to sort of gear check. Food, water, cold weather clothes, ways to stay out of rain, tools to ford a river, climbing gear. Class build around substituting box of mundane items is doomed to fail.

>>96463953
Because 4E isn't a TTRPG, it's a skirmish wargame.

>>96463223 (OP)
Class?

>>96463995
Most adventurers would fall under "lumpenproletariat"

Have you tried designing rangers in a way that befits your game?

>>96463956
What about navigating the terrain? Mapping? Knowledge of local geography? Survival and movement across difficult terrain?

>>96464568
All very useful skills, but it all comes back to the problem of many groups just not giving a shit about those mechanics. A lot of the time they're here just to roleplay and fight, exploration is kind of a lost art form.

>>96464011
Nah they're nouveau riche, surviving your first adventure gets you more money than a typical peasant will see in his lifetime.

>>96463534
It's point buy with recquirements (from TDE4 onwards, anway).
In the current version, TDE5, which I am the most familiar with, it works like this: every elf must take the "magic user" advantage (which is in turn a recquirement for every magical ability) and the "elven magic tradition" abilty (basically, all spells in the game are ordered by traditions. To learn elven spells in chargen, you need the elven magic tradition.) So starting as an elf is pretty expensive compared to dwarves or humans (or whatever other races they added in newer books) as it comes with a bunch of expensive point sinks. So if you start as an elf, the system nudges you towards making a magic user, otherwise those point sinks would kind of go to waste.

For classes, they're a suggestion more than anything. Every character picks an "occupation" at chargen, which already distributes some of their points (picking a warrior will automatically allocate some points into straight swords, picking a baker will allocate some points into food preparation, etc.) but as it's point buy, you can distribute the remainder of your points in whatever way you like. There's a list of hundreds of occupations, but all of them are just pre-packaged point distribution spreads. Essentially they are lables, but they do not determine how you spend the rest of your points.

Basically, if you're gonna play an elf, you will always know some magic. What else your char can do dependss entirely on how you spend your remaining points. Class has no bearing on that.

>>96464568
I'm going to have to agree with >>96464608, but I'll expand on my own experiences as a GM. Of the dozen+ systems I've run that include a 'Ranger' type and wilderness survival/exploration, I find most systems are going to boil down to, "Beat the DC/Skill test number or all your friends suffer." Most games rarely have interesting or even useful rules for survival and I've yet to find any game that lends as much page space to survival against nature as it does about how to grapple someone. The only times people even engage with survival/exploration is when it provides a bonus, yet many situations only act to hinder, slow, and drain some resource from the party.

However, I'm open to new things and would love to see a game that does it differently. I'd take any recommendations just to see what could be.

>>96464568
>Mapping? Knowledge of local geography?
gear check for having a good map
>Survival and movement across difficult terrain?
rope, ladders, pitons, planks of wood to bridge unstable ground and so on

>>96463223 (OP)
CosmereRPG has the Hunter path, and it's got both pretty good archer and beastmaster specializations for the favored enemy/tracking stuff, but also eats a bit of Rogue's lunch by incorporating assassin and sneak attack abilities into their favored enemy equivalent.

>>96463223 (OP)
>Why are they always the weakest class?

Have you tried playing D&D? 4E D&D, rangers are probably the best DPS class.

>>96463886
Players do not care about survival mechanics they just want to be a ranger so that they can automatically succeed at those things because they think that makes them could. That or they want a pet like in World of Warcraft.

>>96464848
Cosmere's gay and nobody is going to play that shit unless they're a particularly annoying dork.

>>96464726
That's the worst way to do races in a point buy system I've ever seen.

>>96464568
All of that falls under Talents, which anyone can invest in.

>>96463973
That doesn't follow. There's no reason a skirmish wargame would naturally have better rangers .

>>96464907
As a particularly annoying dork, I will continue to enjoy it. It is still worth mentioning though because there is a generic version in the works that will be using the same framework.

>>96463223 (OP)
In GURPS, the traditional “ranger” (guy with bow and survival skills) can suck as it takes a while to reload a bow. This is not as much of a problem as it seems, however. It can be cut down to firing every other turn with a single skill, there are cinematic options like Heroic Archer that let you do a legolas style bow machinegun, and the main problem usually comes down to the GM not giving ranger characters engagements at ranges where a bow is more useful.

As for the survival/animal handling aspects of a ranger style character in GURPS, these are represented fairly well. GURPS Low Tech’s companions have detailed foraging and survival rules, and a talented hunter/tracker can be a major boon to a party trying to survive in the wilderness.

Outside of strict bow usage, taking a short or broadsword on a ranger character also works very well, as low encumbrance dodge builds do very good work in GURPS. A character who is great at all of these things might struggle pointwise, though.

Ugh!

>>96464568
Have you considered that with money people can buy maps

>>96464964
I’ll also add that at least in my group, something resembling the ranger archetype is one of the most common fixtures in anything but urban campaigns. Be it medieval hunters, late 19th century bushmen, modern survivalists, or a high tech explorer/settler in sci fi settings, we usually have one turn up.

>>96464911
How else would you do it? You pick the race, you get the stuff that the race automatically has. Just means the race is more expensive than races that don't come with baggage.

>>96464988
Do you think hazards like sinkholes and landslides show up on maps?

>>96464988
Most wilderness isn't exactly mapped out. Maps are for civilisation, to show you where the streets to the next town are. Wilderness won't have a map store.

>>96465037
By not having any specific rules for races at all, of course. It doesn't matter whether a power comes from your race, training, technology, or any other source. All that matters is what it does.

>>96464726
Speaking as a fellow pointbuy autist from a different system, I like putting Magery 0 in elven templates. It represents a natural connection to magic and the capacity to be good at it, but unless magery is levelled further you can’t really cast
spells.

>>96465053
This leads to the problem of races not really having distinct features compared to eachother, and everything just blends together. Racial template are a good way to give a player a discounted list of advantages and disadvantages that lets you include thematic/useful stuff that fits the race, but most people won’t take unprompted.

>>96463223 (OP)
Rangers are strong as hell for overland hexcrawl games where tracking, survival, hunting, etc matter a lot. They suck a billion dicks when played in battle focused games.

>>96463223 (OP)
I've been a Ranger-head since the 90s. The biggest problem with Rangers is that so much of their inherent usefulness is often taken away to make the RPG system easier to manage or that magic simply does it better. Most of these benefits often have nothing to do with combat either, which makes them even easier to ignore. Examples:

>Herbalism
Games often don't create medical conditions that can be cured solely by the Ranger. Think of Frodo being stabbed by a Morgul blade. Most RPGs will let you magic away the condition with a potion, spell, or trip to a temple. When they don't, the Ranger is often not the sole person responsible for fixing that situation, rather a quest given by some other NPC.

>Tracking
Again, another system the Ranger offers that can often be bested by a Locate Create spell or other divination magic

>Foraging & Hunting
Most DMs do not require players to manage food stores, and even when they do...it's often just abstracted into a random buff for the party rather than life or death. Ranger's should be critical to the party surviving long term in the wilderness.

>>96464608
>>96464730
>>96464812
>>96464893
>>96464988
>>96465110
>DM gives everything for free and completely nullifies a whole class
Damn those sound like some shit games

>>96465091
What do you mean? Of course they have distinct features. They can only not have distinct features if you don't design them to. Nothing blends together.

>>96465091
If there are options in your game that no one picks, that means the options are shit. Design better ones.

>>96465053
>By not having any specific rules for races at all, of course.
Then why have races at all?

>It doesn't matter whether a power comes from your race, training, technology, or any other source.
My man this is TDE, not GURPs. If there is one defining trademark of TDE, it is autistic lore.

>>96465135
You mean in exchange for money, which isn't free? Retard?

>>96465110
From my own experiences I can say this just comes down to high magic settings killing most non fighting non magical party roles. A character built to do first aid and medieval surgery is always gonna be worse than a healing spell. A hunter/tracked will always be made obsolete by a guy who can just make food using magic. A stealthy guy who opens locks will be outshined by a mage with invisibility and an open spell. For people who aren’t stuck playing DnD, this becomes a setting problem, rather than a rules one. My group rarely plays games with easily accessible, versatile magic because of how it invalidates these other roles. My preferred way to handle it in settings which should have magic is to make the magical solution usually more consistent (a hunter depends on there being game, a mage who can turn dirt into soup does not), but more difficult to pull off and expensive to learn. A ranged character in GURPS using a system like this could have 5-10 useful rangery skills for the price it takes to get 3-4 powerful spells as a mage, so even if theres overlap the ranger will have more things they can consistently achieve.

>>96465155
In-game money is essentially free.

>>96465149
Like I just said, you don't need to design explicit races. A good system allows the player to play whatever sort of creature she imagines, without unnecessary sub systems.

>>96465155
>"yeah, I think it's good idea to play that class"
>hey DM, can I just buy everything that my class can do?
>"sure buddy"
Pay2lose lmfao

>>96465164
Not at all.

>>96465172
lol dumb fuck

>>96465165
Well, the system The Dark Eye is specifically made for the lore of The Dark Eye. Why would it allow to make any races that do not exist within said lore?

I'm obviously not referring to setting specific systems. Why are you pretending to be stupid?

>>96465176
>hey can I buy a map?
>uh sure it's a nickle
>cool I'll sell you some of that ham from my ration bag for that map
>deal

96465195
lol dumb fuck

>>96465192
Then why are you responding to me describing how The Dark Eye 5 works?

>>96465202
I'm not, retard. I'm responding to the general discussion about race design. Jesus.

>>96465195
low iq fella cannot comprehend that by his logic everything can be bought with gold
>hey, wanna go on an adventure?
>"lmao, I'll give you 100 gp to hire someone else"

lol dumb fuck

>>96465217
>maps are 100gp
what kind of economy is this?

>>96465222
Are you illiterate?

>>96463244
They absolutely are fucking not!

>>96465215
You are responding to the section of said discussion that is about TDE5, my man.

>>96465172
>play class whose whole concept it that it does [things that gear can also do]
>wtf why am i outclassed by gear

>>96465227
Why are you comparing the price for a piece of paper to the price for an entire person?

>>96465231
Wrong.

>>96463240
I chuckled

Do PathFags really deny that it's D&D? It was a fucking reactionary creation utilizing the 3e OGL because buildtards were doing what EA is afraid people will do if a Sims 5 comes out: Throw a shitfit because now their 1000s of dollars worth of DLC is useless in a new system.
Pathfinder exists at all as D&D4e backlash LOL

Anyways, OP, you're mistaking nuD&D with all D&D again. Rangers were good back when the system was made for wilderness adventures and exploration was king.

>>96465110
Something people forget about tracking is that the DM wants to make it as easy as possible for you to find what he wants you to find. If he created a dungeon or encounter for you, he wants you to find it, and rather than risk you not finding it he will probably just have an NPC tell you exactly where it is so you can get there without issue. You could argue that maybe time constraints come into play and traveling through the wilderness for longer because you don't have a ranger has consequences, but at that point you're just perpetually punishing the party for not having a ranger and I don't think anyone will enjoy it.

>>96463240
>Rangers, who, as the name suggest, specialize in ranged combat get easily outmatched by wizards who specialize in deranged combat.
>specialize in ranged combat
1
a: the keeper of a British royal park or forest
b: forest ranger
2: one that ranges
3
a: one of a body of organized armed men who range over a region especially to enforce the law
b: a soldier specially trained in close-range fighting and in raiding tactics
Ranging, like Cruising in ships, was originally an activity more than a class. Note "close-range fighting and in raiding tactics".

>>96463223 (OP)
It's because Rangers are triple-dipping.
They're expected to be stealthy and good at ambushes, like Rogues. They're expected to be good at archery, like a Fighter. They're expected to have a bunch of survival tricks (often represented with nature magic), which ends up being like a Druid.

So the result is a character who is trying to be three different classes in a trenchcoat and falls flat at all of them.
Not helped by the fact that Fighter and Rogue often also end up somewhat lackluster, so the designers feel the need to tune it down even more so that 'guy with bow' and 'sneaky guy' aren't overshadowed by 'sneaky guy with a bow and nature magic'

>>96466515
>They're expected to be stealthy
Are they? They're just wilderness dudes, not "sneak up on a guy and slit his throat" stealthy.

>>96465562
There isn't anything the DM wants you to find. It's a game, not a book.

>>96466836
Hunting animals requires stealth, yes.

>>96466836
The ranger is either themed as a hunter, in which case the most basic hunting strategy is to sneak up on their prey and kill them before they are noticed. Or they are prototypical special forces like the rangers of Ithilien, in which case they should be gorilla warfare specialists. Either way stealth is a defining feature.

>>96464730
Red Markets is the only game I have seen that does survival well. But it is also a game that embraces the idea that your character is probably going to die eventually.

>>96466836
>Are they?
They've had stealth as a thing since AD&D. Either having better chances to ambush or outright getting access to a couple Thief skills when those were still a thing.
There's more to being stealthy than just being good at backstabbing and lockpicking.

Man, why are you dude's all such bitter, hostile, little cunts?

>>96467084
Basically every thread on tg is low effort bait intended to attract hate and vitriol. This thread included. The only options available are to address the bait thread sincerely and hope some poor fool reads it or contribute to the bait.

Some of the generals are ok.

>>96463244
They're completely functional in PF2e. Paizo just makes you jump through annoying hoops for the outdoor survival stuff.

>>96463223 (OP)
they're dependent on just how much WILDERNESS you plan to have in your adventure, just like how thieves are dependent on just how many locks you plan to have in your adventure
not all classes need to be guys who only want to fight, roleplaying doesn't really need to be that kind of game
and it would be nice if you had more video games that try to emulate that because people come into trpgs expecting the ranger to be some kind of expert sniper who is also good at blackening the sky with arrows

>>96463886
I suppose Ranger would make more sense if the system, and the settings, were strictly focused on the dungeon/grave robbing aspect instead of trying to create other kinds of roleplaying with it.

This is why I wish MtG had its own dedicated system that could probably reflect the world because, in spite of the shit tier lore of the failed Jacetice league, MtG seems to suit the sort of thing they want to do with bog standard D&D.

Also, it seems like the ranger would be better off if more focus was on making dungeon like environemts and forcing situations where you have to account for that sort of survival skill. Suddenly the Ranger is much more useful if dungeons were basically like ye Olden Backrooms where Rangers know how to move around spaces that would kill normal people.

>>96463223 (OP)
>Why are they always the weakest class
>2d8 HD at level 1
>weakest class
LMAO

>>96463223 (OP)
Has anyone actually played Ryuutama? With all this talk of rangers being useful when exploration matters, how good are Ryuutama hunters? These little potatoes should be strong given the system's goals, right?

>>96466855
This isn't true. I've spoken to both my DMs and they have expressed enthusiasm for when we stumble upon what they have planned for us. It seems you might not have that experience, and that's okay, our games are different.

The ranger's thematic gimmicks informs it's mechanical gimmicks and those are all over the place.

You have the base Ranger whose entire identity is centered around a spell that marks a target and the Hunter is the only subclass that literally does anything to modify it

Let's take Gloom Stalker for example, What if the Umbral Sight was changed so that, while you have Hunter's Mark, you can always see/track the marked target even in complete darkness.

Then again, stuff like this is one of the few ways I could imagine you could literally make all the different classes more unique with the current set-up without literally having to remake the game ans system from the ground up.

>>96463223 (OP)
>It's not just DND.
Playing a rebranded D&D clone is still playing D&D, kid.

>>96467913
They're as good as everybody else. Ryuutama is a perfect game for a raisin. But also thinking at all about power level and character optimization completely misses the point of playing Ryuutama.

>>96467913
When the other classes are things like Artisan or Farmer, it doesn't need as much to contribute.

>>96468498
Instead of making the class even more focused around the spell, they should just make that spell a class feature.
Even better, make it so that, like an actual hunter, you can use that feature on a enemy by finding its tracks, so then the ability to follow them perfectly or any other utility benefits would actually have a function.

As it stands, the spell makes you deal extra damage, and then if your target doesn't die and somehow escapes, you're better at tracking them for 1 hour.

>>96468574
It is dumb that they made them into spells but restrict them to only being accessible by the particular classes that use them. Not like it makes any difference if the text is in the class list.

As for the second bit, that goes for all the classes. Their presumed "base" subclasses should just be built into the base class itself.

As for other stuff to give Ranger aside from more ways to use Hunter's Mark. I would say unique ways of using certain fighting styles that uniquely fit them but that would require overhauling all the fighting styles (because they are shit) and creating several pages of unique abilities for each ones, which should be fine considering how many pages they waste on redundant spells.

>some people want Ranger to be a pet class
>others don't
How do you appease both while making both useful?

>>96468836
Their beast companion is just a modified familiar. There is not special reason it should work differently other than not being as frail as a wizard's familiar. I would opt to just get rid of beast master or make it modify your familiar.

>>96468866
>while making both useful

>>96463953
>if the devs wrote big numbers in the book, it's good design
come on man

>>96468836
If you were playing a classless system, this can just be a build choice.

Have you tried designing rangers in a way that befits your game?

>>96469203
I don't know, beastmaster in Savage Worlds is kinda ass without homebrew

>>96469296
Fair enough, I'm more thinking GURPS. You can make some damn good companion focused rangers with Ally.

>>96463223 (OP)
Shadow of the Demon Lord has strong rangers. They have several strong abilities and the most starting health of any core expert path.

>>96466515
they are probably most known for being able to have a pet so you have the beastmaster fantasy which is awkwardly inserted at best but makes sense for the survivalist to have that
the monster hunter aspect, but having advantage on specific monsters is super niche
and then the having some nature magic, which just seems wrong
also being really good at archery is a thing people think is related to them, but isn't even supposed to be "their thing" so people walk in thinking the fighter wouldn't be good with a bow and disappointed when the ranger is only kinda okay
all these identities aren't gracefully combined

An idea I just had would be to distinguish fighter/ranger/barbarian with how they handle wildlife and people.
Rangers are specialized in hunting wildlife and monsters, think like the Witcher. As they grow stronger they become more and more specialized in this, learning more about monsters and how to efficiently fight them. They know how to take advantage of monster behavior, have special tools they can use to counter them, and can navigate their home environments more easily. Essentially all monsters and wildlife are their favored enemy.
Fighters are the opposite, focused on fighting intelligent, usually humanoid entities. They will learn military tactics, how to deal with different weapons, how to pierce armor, how to feint, disarm, and more.
Barbarians, since they don't focus on any knowledge in particular, just raw strength, are fairly good against both monsters and humans, but they are not as powerful as either rangers or fighters in their niche.

>>96469560
>they are probably most known for being able to have a pet so you have the beastmaster fantasy which is awkwardly inserted at best but makes sense for the survivalist to have that
Honestly this concept should just be it's own class rather than be tacked on to the Jack-of-all-trades class

>>96469560
>and then the having some nature magic, which just seems wrong
I think part of it is that it's trying to draw on how Aaragorn used some special herbs to heal Frodo, but the simplest way to represent that mechanically in a fair way was just to give Ranger access to a bit of healing magic. And then while doing that, they just decided to toss on some other fitting spells in the process, until you get to the end point where Ranger is seen as at least a partial spellcaster.

It's weird, but it's also something that's just naturally evolved into part of the identity. And it's also part that meshes well with the idea of a beastmaster ranger, since nature magic helps to make an animal companion more robust or justify why a Ranger can easily revive or find a new pet.

And yeah, a lot of people assume Rangers are meant to be the best at archery, where if anything they got more bonuses to dual-wielding. But with them also being survivalists and hunters, it makes sense that people expect a bow.
But it does just end up being a pretty messy mashup because there are so many different ideas of what makes a Ranger a Ranger, and in what quantities.

That's probably why you see people saying that the Ranger class is a failure, because to some people just playing a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Fighter with a wilderness background is what they really want from the concept.

>>96463404
it literally is, it is D&D 3.5 but with some names swapped out

>>96468836
>>96468866

The smart thing is to detach pet/companion/hireling features from the classes. You can then create various companions that synergize with various classes while also having them be independent for calculating encounter balance. 4 PC each with a companion (8 entities) is easier to create an encounter for compare to trying to balance 4 PC with classes than might or might not have companions.

>>96470291
No it isn't

>>96468836
First problem is having pets at all, most systems start grinding to halt or completely falling apart the moment number of combatants reaches double digits, having pets adds up to that.
And no, this isn't specifically just DnD problem, I'd rather re-do my whole college entrance exam than calculate ricochet of projectile blind-fired into furnished densely populated room in GURPS ever again.
That said, if you wanna have pets anyway, there's two ways to go about it - individualized pet with deep personal connection, that will always be your +1 and never more than +1 (like Drizzt's panther). Or random number of disposable ad-hoc shock troops that are only available sometimes (like Squirrel Girl's gimmick, or any random crazy cat lady). The prior runs into a problem of narrative justification of making the pet persistent and always available - even in urban areas, or in the middle of a dungeon - and some amount of handwaving of bringing it back should it ever fall in battle (or into a pit trap). The latter is more difficult to balance and can easily become useless or too damn busted. Flock of eagles won't do much good underground, but could be excellent counter for flying enemy.
Ranger thematically fits the ad-hoc summons, but most players will usually want a persistent pet then piss and moan when it eats one too many fireballs.

>>96470526
Best compromise is invincible companion that hits like a pool noodle

>>96468498
that art on pic is very silly. I like it.

>>96469763
But...anon...they are already like that in 3.5e

>>96470780
No, it's not all monsters. You have to choose overly specific types and hope the dm doesn't dick you.

>>96470850
It's only specific when it comes to humanoids but other groups are very wide

>>96469111
Except we do have badly designed strikers in 4e to compare it to (like the vampire or the essentials stuff) so we can see it is one of the best designed classes. Even the least "numbers" subclass, the beastmaster ranger puts the 5e version to shame.

>>96467084
Why do you insist on having wrong opinions?

>>96467381
>he thinks hit points matter
kek

>>96467913
buy an ad

>>96468836
I fixed it by dropping class based trash. Now the people who want pets can get pets, and the ones that don't, don't.

>>96467084
If you can't handle people criticizing a product you like, you know where you can go instead.

>>96470741
Hardly.

>>96463223 (OP)
They're fighters, casters *and* skill monkeys, which means they aren't allowed to be the best at any of those things, and they'll be in a party with characters who are. Also their most iconic ability is being good at fighting a specific kind of creature, something that's useless whenever you aren't doing that.

>>96471341
>It does something
>Doesn't do too much
>No crying about it dying
Where's the problem?

>>96471392
Why would you put an option in the game that doesn't do anything?

>>96471423
That's what we're trying to figure out this whole thread.

>>96468836
If you don't want an animal companion you don't have to take one.
>but then I'll be weeeeaaaker
Price of being a contrarian.

>>96469838
i like to think of the ranger as being the the rural counterpart to rogue's urban utility
perhaps being not great at fighting should be the point, i mean the rogue isn't really suppose to be great at fighting except specific subclasses so same should apply for them

i think people just have less imagination for utility necessary on in the wilderness compared to just placing a bunch of locks and traps everywhere

applying nature magic to them seems like an attempt to make it more exciting for them to be someone who is really good at harvesting herbs, taming animals, or having really good senses

>>96474144
>rogue isn't really suppose to be great at fighting except specific subclasses
Backstab multiplier/Sneak Attack bonus lets rogue do pretty decent damage with relatively little setup as long as the target isn't immune to the ability

>>96474144
Personally I think that'd be a fine approach, but it also sort of raises the question of why Ranger would need to be its own class instead of a Rogue subclass or variant.

There isn't really a strict need to have two mundane skill specialist classes if sneak attacks are still a flavorful fit for both.

Have you tried designing rangers in a way that befits your game?

>>96474343
i guess same reason why there needs to be a fighter and barbarian

>>96463223 (OP)
Why are you playing a game that has classes in it? Are you a time traveler from the 80s?

>>96463223 (OP)
It's been solved

>>96463223 (OP)
Think of every class design as having a certain number of points. Fighters put all points into fight good. Wizards put all points into cast good. Rangers put a lot of points into their survival skills, tracking, and specializing into hunting a flavor of monster that they kind of suck if not in that situation. Now remember that a LOT of DMs gloss over survival and tracking mechanics meaning a lot of those points are basically wasted and they're just a situationally useful fighter.

They're not bad as a class idea, just bad when they're not in their element.

>>96468836
Do something like how Druids in Pathfinder can get an animal companion, a domain, or the free ability to create herbal potions. Three equally powerful options. PF Rangers also have a similar choice, but granting half your favored enemy bonus is kind of lame compared to fucking action economy in the ass.

>>96475051
Did this book remove classes?

>>96468836
>>96475159
Really that seems like a fair split. Either you have a pet for an extra body, or you get the extra health throughout the day from free potions.

Either way it's adding to the party's overall durability, and both of them fit the Ranger's theme just fine.
A domain might be more reliant on the spellcasting skills the Ranger has though, so might not be as strong as it is for the Druid.

>hit points
why are d&d players still falling for this meme after 30 years?

>>96475380
Who are you quoting?

>>96475159
>>96475346
>Druid gets to be cool and fun in almost every iteration
>Not even just DnD but ubiquitously everywhere that has it.
It's not fair bros.

Who are you quoting?

>>96463223 (OP)
>Why are they always the weakest class?
They're not
>Why do designers hate them so much?
>>Have you tried not playing DND?
>It's not just DND.
It basically is because if something is using the D&D classes, it's basically just D&D.

But I'm going to take you back a few years. One edition back. And I'm going to introduce you to something called Twin Strike. Twin Strike was one of the basic powers that a 4th edition range can get. It is widely considered one of the most powerful at-will attacks in the game

>powerful
>just deals hp damage
kek

>>96475538
>It basically is because if something is using the D&D classes, it's basically just D&D
Sword World has rangers, isn't DND and hey look rangers suck ass in Sword World too. To put it in context, they have some of the same skills as scouts (rogue equivalent) but not as many, the one they do have only work in wilderness while scouts work everywhere. They also cost the same xp to raise. Nothing to compensate, just work scouts that are literally useless when not touching grass. Designers around the world hate rangers.

>>96475654
Everyone seems to love the idea of a woodsman hunter but never seem to make the idea work in mechanics. Their mechanics are always tied to contextual stuff like needing to be in a forest so they just end up being worse overall and on par in their niche.

Man just let them be cool all the time. Just because you specialize in hunting giants in forests doesn't mean your knowledge is completely useless against other creatures in other environments.

Hey guys what class should we put in this game about fighting monsters in dungeons?

I know, how about a class that fights animals in the outdoors!

Of course, people aren't aberrations, undead, dragons, constructs, elementals, oozes, outsiders, or plant creatures. So they're NOT SHIT THAT YOU FIGHT IN DUNGEONS.

>>96474303
in combat rangers can act as the more support/passive counterpart to the more active role the rogues have in combat
rogues get the sneak attack with a guaranteed crit on first strike and have high crits themselves
rangers play the long game, and get the advantage on marked targets, also giving some extra crit to the party
outside of combat they're flipped
rogues disable traps, rangers set traps
rogues sneak around, rangers see who's sneaking

>>96475986
Rogues set traps, and have perception expertise. They're better at most of the stuff rangers do than rangers are.

>>96475654
I think Ranger is "ok" in Savage Worlds. The mystic powers from Fantasy companion really help. But the big issues are is that boost trait only applies to shooting and not fighting. And that it requires d8 survival, which compared to the other five mystic powers is quite niche. Survival can be used to make poison, which is quite good. But in the raw rules 1 vile of poison applies to as many tiny arrows as it does a greataxe, as in one, it poisons just one arrow. Effectively making the poisoner edge useless on it.
I want to SWADE but this system goes out of its way to be nofunallowed at every opportunity it possible.

>>96463223 (OP)
1e AD&D rangers are super broken and OP because it turns out doing too many things competently ruins class balance

>>96474123
Pathfinder 'solved' this by making the companion Ranger a subclass, essentially, although other design choices they made at the same time means this eats into your PC's identity an awful lot since its also competing with your outdoorsman stuff.

>>96463223 (OP)
>Why why why why why why why why why why why why why

Jesus Christ it would be easier trying to talk about this shit on fucking /pol/.

>>96476319
maybe an alternative way a ranger can be thought as is a primarily martial person who has a loose magical connection without it being tied to outside sources, or some kind of magical blood
A shonen protagonist can be thought of like this
rangers don't necessarily need to use archery

>>96476552
Some kind of shooting/ranged skill and ability should always be part of the ranger's identity. That said, I see no need why dual wielding specifically needs to regardless of Drizzt and the 3.5 Ranger iconic

>>96476688
I don't mibd making rangers a full-on Jack-of-all-trades who's passable at melee, ranged, and light degrees of magic. But I've found most systems never make it worthwhile to invest into both ranged and melee.

Ranger, Health 5, Edge 12, Resolve 4

Might 4d, Agility 6d, Toughness 5d
Willpower 4d, Intellect 5d, Perception 6d

Academics 2d, Charm 4d, Command 3d
Covert 5d, Investigation 4d, Medicine 5d
Professional 4d, Science 2d, Streetwise 3d
Survival 5d, Technology 2d, Vehicles 2d

Armor 5d - Item
Blast 8d - Bows
Animal Empathy
Attuned - Wilderness
Blending
Blind 8d - Pocket Sand, Item, Charges x3
Danger Sense 7d
Darkness - Smoke Bomb, Item, Charges x3
Danger Sense 7d
Strike 7d - Melee Weapons
Animal Companion - Terrordactyl

Gee, that was tough.

>>96465522
What sort of stuff could they do back then?

>>96476688
There is generally an assumption that Rangers can fall back to melee as needed. But because shields don't quite fit the vibe, nor do bigger two-handed weapons, giving them a bonus to dual-wielding so that they can have a pair of lighter melee weapons seems to be the best fit.

I wouldn't say it's crucial, but it doesn't hurt to have as a bonus. Especially if it means that a player can choose if they want to focus on archery, melee, or just swap as needed.

Thank god no two rangers have to specialize in the same tactics or weapons.

>>96477125
I've found in more point build systems, dedicated melee rangers typically go for dual weapons well the more generalist type get keep a single melee as a backup

>>96477125
Why should a ranger have to choose a single type of melee weapon to specialize in?

>>96477207
Where did I say that they should?

>>96477217
When you said that they should have a bonus to dual wielding, retard.

>>96477222
Dual wielding doesn't entail a single type of melee weapon.

>>96477226
Oh, you can dual wield bows and two-handed greatswords?

>>96477230
Ah yes, the three types of melee weapons: bows, greatswords, and dual-wielding.

>>96477238
Thanks for agreeing that some kinds of weapons can't be dual wielded, and therefore dual wielding does, in fact, imply specific types of weapons. Dumbass.

>>96477244
>types
Yep. Glad you agree that I never said they should have to choose a single type.

>>96477248
Glad you agree that you did.

>>96477125
>>96477143
fighters get to specialize in their kind of weapon
wizards get to specialize in their kind of magic school
rangers get to specialized in one of these random aspects that have been tied to them

Nah. Fighters can use any weapon and wizards can use any magic. Specialization, if it exists at all, is a choice for each individual player of a class.

>>96477302
Exactly. Just like how Rogues are stuck being specialized in daggers or other weapons that they can backstab or sneak attack with.
Some classes cover broader concepts than others.

>>96477401
the more i look into classes, it seems FIGHTER is the one that should be retired or replaced since barbarian, ranger, paladin, and even rogue can cover the things you'd want out of your fighter anyways

>>96463223 (OP)
>Why are they always the weakest class?
combination of MAD and their main gimmicks being part of the game that most players and dms want to handwave

>>96477426
It goes back to how Ranger struggles to carve out a niche because Fighter exists.
If Ranger is just a better Fighter with more skills/magic, then there's less reason to play a Fighter. So instead Ranger ends up getting stuck with less combat options to compensate.

>>96477498
barbarians works as the brutish warrior
paladin works as the heavy plated knight
ranger works as the medium plated dexterous warrior
even rogue's swashbuckler acts as the wise cracking duelist

fighter is really just "everyone else". and most people probably go into fighter thinking they want to make a heavy plated dude but don't want them to be religious which paladin doesn't need to be

>>96477426
IMO there's more reason to get rid of the other classes and bring them into fighter than the other way around. Barbarian only really sticks around because it's grandfathered in and the only d12 class. There is ZERO reason why you can't give a subclass or archtype Barb features.

>>96463223 (OP)
Rangers have the same problem martails have in reliance of gear but they also have shit for spells in D&D and it's orbiters AND shitty animal companion choices as well.

>>96463223 (OP)
they're not, the hivemind is just made up of morons like you

>>96465163
Well, DnD play is often guilty of ignoring the limits of magic even then. Full casters have every incentive to not track specifics like what it takes to cast their spell so long as they DM doesn't ask. Classes that rely on spells aren't SUPPOSED to be 100% dependable. You want the guy around who can do a thing without a long list of conditions that have to have already gone right an hour ago. Except, success is so fickle in DND that you can't have your martials walking around essentially naked anyway. There's only one bad roll between you and a TPK on a good day. So you're going to let the casters sit down after unloading everything on one combat. The DM is going to let you because they don't feel like killing you the long way today. Then we all walk away pretending this isn't a miserable way to do things.

>>96466515
I think people underestimate how viciously against DnD has been towards being able to do more than one thing per character. 3.5 was a total bastard about it in particular, and ranger never really lived down it's rep from then. It HATES you doing more than one thing. It's why fighters get no skills. It's why rogues get a major class feature that doesn't work against crit immunes. It's why dex builds are wank tier. It's why monks are bad. Casters are a brain hole drilled through the designer's skull because technically you can only prepare well for a specific situation at a time. Technically. It's why crafting is not really a thing they actually want you doing. How dare you rise above your station, you filthy animal. It's why even the classes who only do one thing have only the one build that performs up to appropriate level encounters. You wanted to play a different kind of fighter this time? The fever dream of the utterly deranged. You have to fully commit to one bit or you will find your build can't actually perform.

Then we all pretend to be shocked house rules are so dreadfully common.

>>96477125
Maybe DnD should loosen it's asshole about smaller weapons being good instead.

>>96477426
The irony of fighter existing as a PC class in DnD is the archetype it seeks to mimic are all rogues or rangers instead.

The typical protagonist swordsman isn't some 50 IQ idiot who can only swing their sword. Narratively, that's shit. They tend to be more clever fighters and have skills they use to carry things. Which is the realm or rogues or rangers. We can go further. What does the big rival of this character typically have? Or maybe the midboss that challenges their way of fighting the hardest before they get to move on to the rest of the plot? The guy who is even better at JUST SWORD than they are, and that's all they can do. They tend to be meat houses too. If they have armor or not depends. I've seen it go both ways. They tend to be so big and strong it puts the protag's skills to the test. Do they REALLY work against just hitting it harder like a meathead? You don't typically get the classic fighter or barbarian. Even Conan is more of a rogue in his writing. He's just a strength rogue. Which made more sense as a thing to do back before WOTC made the terrible mistake of making dex to damage a basic feature.

Shit, even the BBEG of Baldur's Gate 1 was a fighter, and boy could 2E fighters be nasty once they got all their attacks.

It may be an actual thing to do. Well, we'd want to make rogues a little more independent if we did. With no flanking partners they can then claim the effort of, it's a bit rough. Then again, even in the straight jacket that is 3.5, there's nothing stopping a rogue from using power attack and twohanding a longsword.

>>96463244
They are shit in Pathfinder 2e, yes, because everything is shit in Pathfinder 2e. I don't even mean in comparison to everything else, which would also be true, since it's so "well balanced." The problem is that everything is balanced to suck and be extremely unsatisfying. Pathfinder 2e is a mediocre tactics game at best, overcomplicated by including a gigantic amount of rules for things that allow it to pretend to be a roleplaying game. 5e is better, and that's saying something.

>>96469380
What makes them the strongest? Do they have some ability that lets them dip their arrows in poop to do poison damage? Maybe they have excellent tracking skills that involve smelling poop, with a bonus if you manage to eat a little? Perhaps you can be a stealth expert by smearing yourself in poop to blend in with your surroundings, and there's a bit of resource management because different kinds of poop are better in certain circumstances. I'm guessing you probably have poop-based traps, an ability that gives you a bonus to throwing poop into the mouth of your favored creature type since you know its anatomy so well, and possibly even a specialization for survival in the Plane of Poop.
Shadow of the Demon Lord really thinks of everything.

>>96478098
That is a lot of typing for such a stupid opinion.

>>96478127
This is some "dare you enter my magical realm shit". Serious, dude. Keep your fetishes to yourself.

>>96478143
I think maybe you're not familiar with Shadow of the Demon Lord.

>>96478139
All the classic heroic swordsman of fiction are rangers, rogues, or even bards. DnD failed to understand it's archetyping from the outset. The empty-headed strong arm was always the one meant to fall to the clever fighter.

>>96478154
D&D understood this archetyping, it just got bastardized much further down the line, initially for monetization/business model purposes, then when Wizards of the Coast acquired it, the separation of characters into micro classes for the purpose of character "builds," like from a video game, got baked into the design.
What you're saying is nonsense, but you don't really understand why, likely because you've only played D&D from 3e or later, and have probably played a lot of video games as well. It's more like "fighting man" or "warrior" was meant to be a much broader class that a lot of these things (what you're calling rangers and rogues) should have already been covered by. Now it's just pointless arguing over classification, which is one of the most boring and useless things one can do.

>>96478143
Nah it's pretty spot on for a SotDL post lol

>>96476319
>But the big issues are is that boost trait only applies to shooting and not fighting.
This is another thing that fucks up Ranger design on the regular.
>Range is in the name so Rangers should only be ranged!
Unironically seen this argument all the time. Wasn't Aragorn primarily a swordsman? Just another schizo design issue that crops up every time.

>>96476988
What's a good place to add points if you drop the companion?

>>96478154
Read some of the fiction of the day and adjust yourself. The whole "fighters are supposed be be twinkish agile, gymnasts with hairless chests, limp wrists, and shaved legs who cleverly think way out of their problems" thing you are into is purely a recent phenomenon. Fighting men were just that. Men. Grit. Determination. Facing your problems head on and coming out on top in spite of the odds. All the things the man of action represented as an archetype were things that were valued. You hate it cause you ain't it.

>>96478179
>twinkish agile, gymnasts with hairless chests, limp wrists, and shaved legs who cleverly think way out of their problems
Hot

>>96478154
From the outset, there was an assumption that fighters could do those things, because skills weren't a thing in the same way in the earliest days of D&D. You had Thief instead of Rogue, and Bard itself was more akin to a prestige class.

Fighter becoming more of a generic bruiser with no ability to contribute outside of a fight was the result of changes to how skills themselves were handled. It's where you get this weird trend where getting more skill utility corresponds to a sacrifice in combat ability.

>>96478197
>It's where you get this weird trend where getting more skill utility corresponds to a sacrifice in combat ability.
You don't get it! It needs to be perfectly balanced! Like a video game! What if, after thousands of hours of playtesting, it turns out one character class has a slight aggregate advantage over another? People would think that's TERRIBLE design! Everything needs to be quantified properly, then distributed equally, otherwise you just have a bad game!

>>96478179
>"fighters are supposed be be twinkish agile, gymnasts with hairless chests, limp wrists, and shaved legs who cleverly think way out of their problems"
Look at all the you are literally the only one claiming this.

>>96478162
First became aware of DND with Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 back in the day. Didn't get a chance to play DnD tabletop till 3.x though. That would be correct. I am vaguely aware even 2E fighters were supposed to have a lot more going for them, but I'm not so old that I ever could have played any of this myself anyway.

>>96478205
The problem is that they don't even do that. There's no point in splitting hairs over the exact combat/skill balance of Fighters and Rogues when a Cleric is off summoning a horde of angels.
It's why balancing other weapon-wielding classes around Fighter ends up dragging everything down. Because instead of just letting those classes all have cool shit, it's treated as a careful balancing act, as if mundane skill utility or dealing slightly better damage is going to be the thing that breaks the game.

>>96478240
Cute girl

>>96478242
I don't think that's actually the problem, but you're right that they don't actually manage to do that (well). I think there is some sort of quantifying that occurs and that things are "balanced" around that, for example they probably have some reason why a Cleric doing that is somehow equal, but that's not the core reason.
The actual reason is that roleplaying games aren't board games or video games, and shouldn't be designed like they are. Trying to make classes "balanced" in this way is antithetical to "good" RPG design, unless your goal is to design a mediocre "lifestyle" game with a tactics subgame that only aspies will argue about. They've achieved that just fine, along with a lot of other design goals I'm sure they had. This all relates to the ranger issue, which is a result of trying to design in this forced classification paradigm.
A good RPG is focused more on other elements, but I won't derail too much in this thread.

>>96478271
Yeah, calling it the problem wasn't the best way to put it.
Either way, I'd certainly agree that caring too much about making everything perfectly even can get in the way of just making sure classes are cool and fun to play.

>>96478271
>>96478282
It's not fun being massively undertuned though

>>96478287
Designing a game where classes need to be "tuned" is already antithetical to good RPG design. It would be bad if this were a video game or a war game or a board game, but it's not.

>>96478290
>"I want to play Class X. It's just like Class Y, but worse!"
What in tarnation?

>>96465037
>You pick the race, you get the stuff that the race automatically has.
That is all well and good, except for
>Just means the race is more expensive than races that don't come with baggage.
Instead of getting it as a feature, it is instead a mandatory point sink. This raises a pertinent question; why choose one race over the others when all that makes it unique is a detriment with no upside? If they truly wanted forced choices for races, why not have those choices cost less than they would for other races, IE "magic user" advantage would cost 4 for a human but 2 for an elf with the condition of being mandatory

>>96478230
Naw. I can smell the bitch on you. Why not put on a dress and play a wizard, ya fuckin nancyboy.

The levels of psychological projection on display here are astounding

>>96463223 (OP)
Rangers - like most rpg "classes" - can't justify not just being an ability of a fighter/warrior class. There's not enough potential design space there, so designers are forced to fill it up with garbage.

In class/feat based rpgs, everything can be collapsed into the four main archetypes and don't need to exist:
The melee fighter
The ranged fighter
The offensive magic user
The defensive magic user

>>96463223 (OP)
They were pretty good in MERP

>>96478418
Breaking it into four is unnecessary and arbitrary. Fighter and Mage will suffice.

>>96463223 (OP)
It's not just DND.

>>96463244
>D&D
>Other D&D
>Other other D&D
>All of the day bro!

Like pottery

>>96478306
Yeah, that's actually the problem with approaching classes that way in the first place.

they are pretty good in Daggerheart though they heavily feel like the WoW Hunterclass. DND 5e ranger is god awful and 2024 edition is even worse. A campaign i was in last year i made a drakewarden ranger, i really liked having a drake pet, found out i could not use him as a mount until lvl fucking 16 but my allies could? Campaigns rarely ever reach that point so essentially i was locked out of the core feature fantasy

>>96478418
a fighter bein split between the ranged and melee version is also arbitrary
no reason why they can't have both weapons at their disposal

also classes being only split around combat only works for games that are entirely focused on combat, which trpgs are not

combat focused rpgs push the fighter into being primarily heavy armor striker so the rogue can focus on being the light armor striker. when the rogue is more of a utility expert who hates combat
also pushes the fighter into melee focused so ranger can exist as more of the archer instead of being a survivalist to distinguish them

it even pushes the cleric to be more of a defensive magic user, instead of being a holy warrior so they are more distinguishable from the paladin who ends up being the jackest of jack of all trades

this is limiting when your only view on these classes is for them to be based around fighting

>>96478463
At that point, why even have two classes? Just make it one guy who can take whatever.

>>96463876
not OP, but a lot of people's problems with Rangers stems from Hunter's Mark, Favored Terrain and Favored Enemy. the reason is because the moment you're not in your favored terrain, no fighting your favored foe and not doing the things you're specilized in doing, you just suck major fucing ass

>>96463942
Great Value Radagast.

>>96463973
D&D is a skirmish wargame with a thin coat of rpg paint. Its rules are almost entirely devoted to combat, in every edition.

>>96478491
Care to share a name where we can see this "good Rangers" in "non D&D"?

They should theme Rangers around the cowboy aesthetic. Then ranger could join monk in their weird corner and stare awkwardly at each other. Could even make him the gun guy for an unassailable niche.

>>96478205
Yes, retard.

>>96478179
lol force cage

>>96478174
What are your priorities?

>>96479381
lol
I'd ask why you even play RPGs but then I remembered what board we're on, you don't

>>96478290
No it isn't.

>>96479115
you know what? yeah, I want this
Clearly no one apreciates Tolkien's rangers, when people complain that they took the flavor away they seem to assume raners are just angry druids. So just turn them into Texas Rangers, just as out of place as wuxia monks are.

>>96479421
lol dumb fuck

>>96479466
They are out of place because WotC refuses to give them one. Even if there is shit stuffed away in some corner of setting book it doesn't show in the main books which is where 99% of most people's exposure to D&D will ever come from.

>>96478503
It's not an approach, retard. It's a fundamental aspect of any system that has rules.

>>96478179
You can just say you like twinks and femboys. You don't have to hide.

>>96479433
>>96479492
>>96479501
Retards who play board games and think they're playing RPGs. I bet you look at the rules and your character sheets, poring over your character "builds" to decide what to do, too lol

>>96478752
Sure, right here.
>>96476988

>>96479522
lol he's scared of rules

>>96479524
I use the rules to actually roleplay
Sub 40 IQ retards don't understand this and play RPGs like they play World of Warcraft

>>96479522
Sounds like someone doesn't understand RPG design. It's okay, someone has to have the sub-80 in the room, I'm sorry it always has to be you though.

>>96479533
No you don't

>>96479534
White hot NIGGER irony

>>96479539
Yes, your posts are ironic.

>>96479543
I have but only one updoot to give, gentlesir!

lol seething

>>96479581
It's quite obvious you are, yes lol

yep you are reply if mad :)

>>96476988
>>96479402
What system even is this?

>>96479810
Prowlers and Paragons, of course.

Ranger
Min CON 9, Min WIS 9
Prime Requisite STR
Hit Dice 1d8
Max lvl 14
Armour Leather, chainmail, shields
Weapons Any
Languages Alignment, Common

Awareness - only surprise on a roll of 1 (d6)
Divine Magic - 8th lvl ranger receives druidic magic
Foraging and Hunting - forage 2-in-6, find prey 5-in-6
Limited Possessions - a ranger may keep only possessions that can be kept on their person or mount. Excess must be donated to worthy causes (not other PCs!)
Pursuit - opposing party chance of evasion reduced by 10%
Stealth - hide in wilderness 3-in-6, move silently in wilderness 3-in-6
Tracking - Ranger can identify tracks
2d12 beings of Nature join 10th lvl ranger as followers.

Here is ranger. Now if I use this in my game, I must make wilderness relevant. There should be something to hunt, something to hide from and a reason to go there. Then there should be consumption of food, because why hunt if you already got unlimited food. There should be a random table for all the kind of berries and fruits a ranger might find in the wilderness.
Also there should be some ambushes so PCs may be surprised and also opportunities for the PCs to lay ambushes. There should be stealth missions or an incentive for the ranger to scout ahead and sneak around. There may even be a magic item that lets ranger to stay awake whole night and keep watch.

None of this sounds cool? Maybe don't include rangers in your game at all.

YIKES.

>>96480691
Nope, correct ranger was already posted, sorry.

>>96480723
that's right

>>96478287
The way classes end up undertuned is due to that obsession with balance. If your starting point is 'generic warrior', and every interesting thing a character does requires removing points from 'generic warrior', then the result is that every character who does something unique or interesting is gimping themselves in terms of combat capability.

The way to resolve that is to focus on making something enjoyable first, and only then worry about making sure nothing is wildly more or less powerful.

>>96478306
And if you're running into the problem where Class X or Class Y are constantly competing or one feels like a worse version of the other, then you just need to scrap one of the classes if you can't figure out something unique enough for them to do. Flattening them out until they're equally balanced, boring, and identical just ensures that neither is going to be fun.

>>96479115
what is a cowboy but a ranger in the desert?

>>96478098
>rogue
retarded zoomzoom who has never actually read conan. the modern "rogue" is an invention of everquest and wow. thieves are not combatants. they have d4 hit dice and an attack progression on par with crusaders. they are THIEVES NOT FUCKING ROGUES FUCK YOU FAGGOT QUIT TRYING TO QUOTE ADND

>>96481451
>crusaders
clerics rather
my ACKS was showing

>>96481222
Nah.

>>96479115
I mean, cowboys are just rangers but configured in a way that is useful and actually coherent for once? They wear gear that is prepared for all kinds of weather be it hot, cold, or wet. They are expected to drive cattle over very long distances. They are familiar with how to handle animals and train them. They live out in the wilderness for long periods tied to nothing but their horse and chuck wagon following along. They are the most dangerous man you will meet in your life. They are prepared for dangers both human and not human alike, and know no one will come to help in the middle of nowhere.

Honestly, calling them rangers is demeaning to the cowboy. Since cowboys are actually cool and good at what they do. Not tied down to this favored enemy slop, and their animal companion is actually useful (mount). They aren't relegated to only know their shit in the same one-and-a-half-acre area. Have a unique skill that is actually useful (rope handling/lassoing from horseback). Their role has a focused coherent purpose. You'd probably actually want one around rather than wishing the glue eater was some other class.

>>96481451
The era of DnD outside of WOTC is long gone, old man.

>>96481451
nope :)

>>96479402
Being combat effective

>>96482574
In that case, the animal companion is excellent, as it gives you extra health, and an extra action for combat stunts, defending others, and other options.

>>96482648
I don't know the system, is it one of those where the companion gets pineapple'd by a stiff breeze?

>>96482883
Obviously not.

>>96479115
I like this idea a lot but now I'm sad rangers are so shit.

Ranger will never be a real class, because going outside wearing leather armor is something most people can already do. Aragorn knew first aid and Drizzt had a pet. The concept barely makes sense for games without elaborate skill systems, but in games with elaborate skill systems it's just cargo cultism, adding rangers because D&D always* had rangers. Grow up.

>>96483143
Have you ever actually tried to wear leather and go outside? I have and it is super challenging in a way that your little brain obviously can't comprehend. My girlfriend made her gym instructor take me for a walk just the other day and he tied me up outside CVS while he went in to buy condoms. There I was in that heat in full leather with people staring and calling the cops. Some teenagers threw a slushee at me and it made me shrivel up something awful when it got under my cage. You just clearly have no idea.

I exclusively play rangers and, honestly, I am really representative of everyone who has ever wanted to play a ranger, so believe me when I tell you that I know what I am talking about here.

>>96463240
ok, u won

>>96463223 (OP)
what is an antibully ranger

>>96484559
A ranger whose player wants people to stop laughing at him.

>>96484584
why is he playing a little anime girl

>>96484594
Cause he wants to be President of the United States.

>>96478179
>The whole "fighters are supposed be be twinkish agile, gymnasts with hairless chests, limp wrists, and shaved legs who cleverly think way out of their problems"
>Entirely unprompted
You're a homosexual, aren't you?

>>96478179
I just ask because I found your description titillating and was wondering if you would like to roleplay with me. I often fantasize about getting held down by a rough trick named Billy Boy and having him fill me like my various toys never could. Do you have what it takes to make me squirm?

>>96481607
This nigga be spitting bars.
Yeah, basically Cowboys are what 5e Rangers wish they could be.

>>96463244
They are fantastic in PF2e

>>96484892
Someone else covered it, but it's worth repeating.

DnD has this weird internal logic it doesn't advertise that's obvious when pointed out. Every class is made of a set of invisible 'build points' that make up what they can do. If you want to do more than your one gimmick, you lose points from it to shuffle in to a new thing. Other than this being a horrifically abusive logic in the first place, it misses the point that a feature existing does not make it useful. 3.5 was particularly filthy with classes who lost actual useful potential to this kind of feature creep.

What actually needs to happen is for the various parts to be stronger than you think they should be by half again because they are not directly synergistic in the first place or replace an existing default class feature with something that needs effort to make use of. Wisdom to AC for monks for instance is super guilty of this. You lose armor for a feature that requires extra commitment to even use. When ranger is subject to something like having favored enemy/marked target or whatever slop, that comes out of it's hide directly. You don't get it for free. You are less good in general for a meme feature.

but such taxes to classes really don't need to happen at all. It's garbage design philosophy in the first place.

>>96485545
Yeah, the problem with most DND class comes down to the fact like you and many people say. You have "build points" and many classes. Especially those with no or limited spell pools basically need to maximize their points and stats.

Classes with many spells can just pick and choose what they might need at the time and it's not as bad. Especially since most DM don't enforce spell components, or often any inventory management. Many they can easily magic away any basic issue a ranger skill would have done, if they even bother much of anything outside of attacking monsters during their travels. Plus the idea of a ranger as an adventurer should mean they are basically leading and guiding the others less skilled in wilderness survival. Like the Thief/Rouge, the idea is not to be a major combat role but the tracker, hunter, guide to getting to the next area of interest. However most people now don't bother with that and just "fast travel."

>>96485607
Spell components really need to be pitched out and magic rebalanced accordingly if no one is going to use it anyway.

That said, cutting the excess fat on the typical idea of the ranger would help. Get rid of any notions of favored enemy, terrain, or hunters marks or anything like that. They don't add flavor in a way that is useful and are just subpar replacements for just being competent at damage. No spell casting. We don't need a druid version of a paladin. Even paladins only became something you'd want to play as of 5E. Shore up the actual useful stuff that's left so you can focus on them better. If you really want to represent wilderness herbology stuff, just give them the medicine skill and maybe count as always having a healing kit. This is a minor feature anyway so it being minorly useful is fine. Bogging it down in spellcasting that's too shit to use but too potent not to trade other stuff for is bad.

>>96485713
>>96485607
Oh and yes they should be the martial ranged DPS class.

100%. I think it's fine. We don't need some off brand fighter that's just worse at hitting people but also dabbles in a form of ranged DPS that's just bad. Make them specialists. If you don't want to lean in being a ranged martial, play a fighter and ask for appropriate skill packs to represent survival and tracking. Making rangers do the ONE THING makes justifying being really good at it much easier.

Have you tried playing 4e, where rangers are strong?

>>96479810
Dungeons: the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition.

>>96485760
Give it a rest, anon. 4E isn't real.

>>96463223 (OP)
Rangers have never been the weakest class in 5E, nogames. Monks were easily the worst, even before the ranger update in tasha's.

>>96485545
Big titties

>>96484916
>They are fantastic in PF2e
Proofs?

>>96463223 (OP)
Why don't you just play a game where they're equally useful as any other character type?

>>96486628
It's not just DND

>>96479115
Wanna know a secret about the pic you posted? That's the Pathfinder 1e gunslinger iconic, but whats really fun is that the ranger isn't prohibited from using guns in PF. In PF2e rangers can use even more guns and can easily fulfill certain gun toting archetypes that the gunslinger class doesnt cover. Hell, a ranger/
gunslinger multiclass, or vice versa, does some very interesting things.

>>96481607
>Not tied down to this favored enemy slop, and their animal companion is actually useful (mount)
A first level ranger in PF2e can get revolvers, a rifle, a horse (or other riding beast) companion they can ride, and easily fulfill the cowboy archetype. Because they have none of the idiocy of standard ranger in PF1e or D&D that isn't 4e.

>>96485607
>>96485713
>Get rid of...hunters marks
>subpar replacements for just being competent at damage
Unless that "hunters mark" is a class defining feature that enhances their damage capabilites and isn't a silly spell. PF2e ranger has Hunt Prey, an ability where they designate a specific opponent to focus on which gives them bonuses to tracking and shooting. Additionally they get a "subclass" Hunters Edge which defines how they "hunt", whether many attacks, stealth attacks, single big hits, or divine retribution.

Herbology? Medicine plus Nature skill training. Spellcasting? Only if they decide to take warden spell feats. Animal companion? Class feat they can ignore. Guns instead of bows for cowboys? Guns & Gears.

Its remarkably easy to make a witcher, a cowboy and his trusty horse, or Aragorn with the class.

>>96486699
That's not what I asked. Why don't you answer the question?

Well?

Well?

Well?

>>96487346
>>96488260
>>96489282
Quit being a bumpfag

>>96489499
It would have been funnier if you had said "Well?"

>>96489499
It is over 300 posts retard. The thread can't be bumped.

>>96463524
NTA but I can say in 2024 D&D it boils down to:
>The class lacks a clear identity; it ostensibly is the magical archer but you can play it melee. This is also present in PF2e.
>Hunter's Mark requires Concentration. This makes it a problematic feature on Ranger because Ranger has other spells to concentrate on, so you either use your core feature or a spell.
>Hunter's mark's damage scales poorly. It doesn't bump up to a d8 until the teens, 17 if I recall, around there. It's horrible.
>Most of its features are basically ribbon abilities in most situations. The class itself doesn't get any strong, unique abilities to define it.

I'd argue Rogue is still very close, but it at least has a bit more going for it with the earlier Reliable Talent and the new ways to use your Sneak Attack dice for powerful pseudo-maneuvers, even if I'd still say Bard is the better skill monkey.

>>96489557
Llew?

>>96489567
Good riddance.

What was the overall lesson we learned from this thread?

>>96490300
Cowboys are cooler than rangers.

>>96490345
Noted

>>96489499
No. Answer the question.

>>96490300
Classless is better than class based, by far.

>>96490300
Ranger is a very broad class that everyone else has a different idea on how it should play. Often it's most alluring traits being its most problematic.

>>96463223 (OP)
Why don't you just play a game where they're equally useful as any other character type?

Have you tried designing rangers in a way that befits your game?