so there has been a huge focus on DPR/ damage numbers lately. But that is only a portion of the game. This has got me thinking about how to measure Ribbon, skill and other combat adjacent features. The best way I can come up with an adventurer measurement tool is a Thought experiment of how do each Class/subclass/Build measure up to each of a select group of scenarios. I think most parties should go through at least half of these across their career.
Combat from afar. enemies with range attacks that are around 60' or more away from the party{and not just on the ground reachable}
the tank beast. A creature designed to avoid hits via high AC and or saving throws
The anti mage scenario - a scene with elements to stop casters(anti-magic fields )
the anti- Normal damage scenario.
The trap and puzzle maze. Death without enemies. Skills and creative solutions a must. (bonus points for a 10min sudoku that incinerates you if you don't win. )
The punching bag. ---- Hit it hard hit it alot have fun DPR fans.
Enemy glass cannon.
the damage by a thousand cuts horde. 1 hit 1 kill for the party while the enemies just try and wear the party down.
The threat beyond your level. kite-ing tools or run or figure out the killer clue to stop the threat.
Underwater adventure.
the social encounter. Detective work and assassins'.
Setting up an ambush.
surviving an ambush.
the debuff zone. normal enemies lots of fee debuffs. Blindness, frightened, stunned.
Capture the enemy alive
NO or limited equipment.
Babysitting an individual
disaster response team. Deal with healing, disease, looting. stopping natural problems
The carry weight problem. Inventory management/ how much treasure can you take back home?
A stealth mission. Leave no evidence.
The never ending day. (go as long as possible without a long rest and limited short ones)
the nova day
Now there are probably more feel free to suggest some?
Is there a better way to quantify Any of these game functions mathematically?
Do you also think a ranger can solve most of these without a problem?
So can we design a good white room test for any of these that a class could measure against?
Example Range attacks are pretty easy as 30' 60' 120' 180' 320' and 600 ft matches an A--F scale. May need adjustments for features synergy.
It's still combat focused, but Cody on the D4 YouTube channel does builds for control and taking and he (I think) has some kind of metric for measuring both.
Also combat related, but you did mention it already. I really feel like the terms of (combat) engagement, specifically surprise and starting encounter distance, are not talked about enough, and certainly not valued enough. So many comments talk in terms of round one damage or even "pre round prep" (which isn't a thing typically). I rarely see a combat start with all parties involved within 30' of each other, and that is a huge game changer.
I think information is highly underrated too. Knowledge skills and ability checks are great fun. Places, creatures, history, how things work, all of it is very much good times.
Finally for now, time. This is a big one for me. Time is so important for me at a D&D table, both as a player and a DM. Without it we are literally just skipping ahead to the next combat encounter. Deadlines and wander encounters coincide with time as means of pressure. So too resource management.
So can we design a good white room test for any of these that a class could measure against?
Example Range attacks are pretty easy as 30' 60' 120' 180' 320' and 600 ft matches an A--F scale. May need adjustments for features synergy.
It's still combat focused, but Cody on the D4 YouTube channel does builds for control and taking and he (I think) has some kind of metric for measuring both.
Also combat related, but you did mention it already. I really feel like the terms of (combat) engagement, specifically surprise and starting encounter distance, are not talked about enough, and certainly not valued enough. So many comments talk in terms of round one damage or even "pre round prep" (which isn't a thing typically). I rarely see a combat start with all parties involved within 30' of each other, and that is a huge game changer.
I think information is highly underrated too. Knowledge skills and ability checks are great fun. Places, creatures, history, how things work, all of it is very much good times.
Finally for now, time. This is a big one for me. Time is so important for me at a D&D table, both as a player and a DM. Without it we are literally just skipping ahead to the next combat encounter. Deadlines and wander encounters coincide with time as means of pressure. So too resource management.
Again combat focused isn't always a problem. DPR or damage focus can be. Good points though. I also realized I forgot one of the most important tests - the horde of low HP monsters. It will be added to the list.
I like using the 3 failures vs 3 successes {at most 5v5} Skill challenge for a lot of scenarios as it seems a decent way to have room to change and get clever if things are going sour. things like court cases or alliance parties are great for this but it can be applied to almost any type of check.
Another think I like to do to value the importance of skill success VS failure is Hold the final number for longer periods (possibley the whole adventure with maybe allowing a passive for non clue stuff} IF you pass the history check you shouldn't be constantly doing more for a random set of information that's is expert sometimes and incompetent at others even though they are related. By stabilizing checks a bit the narrative seems more consistent and taking good skill choices feel more rewarding.
Interesting, but I feel we could probably avoid talking about full casters, since they can kind of be built to do just about anything.
Ok so Combat from afar, Best classes: Fighter, and then it is probably between Rogue, ranger, and artificer. The worst martials are probably Monk, Barbarian and Paladin.
Tank beast is interesting. Best one is probably Paladin with Heavy armor and ability to add charisma to all saves. Followed by some artificers with absorb elements, shield, heavy armor and infusions. Monk has lower health then others but has a lot of save immunities and if they take the dodge action they can be super hard to hit. Some fighter and some Ranger subclasses gain wisdom saves or bonuses to wisdom saves/ immunities to charm which is important, but fighters have heavy armor access and rangers only have medium. Barbarians reckless attack means they git hit more, better health and resistance mean they take less damage when they get hit, but lack of protection against wis is rough. Rogue lower health, but have evasion and uncanny dodge but still not as good as the monk in this regard.
Anti-mage favors character that have no magic, but usually smite still works in anti-magic fields so fighter, paladin, rogue, barbarian, monk all have advantages over ranger and artificer. With some artificer builds really suffering the most here.
Anti-normal damage. Artificer is probably best here, followed by some subclasses of each class, acendant dragon monk is happy, eldritch knight is happy, Paladin converts to radiant damage, Horizon Walker can convert 1 attack to force damage. Barbarians not sure which helps here, rogue probably needs soul knife or something to be relevant here. Most part Artificer and Paladin are fine, others better hope they have a subclass that helps them out, or a magic item.
Trap and puzzle maze: Rogue is best, everyone else depends on the puzzles and the skills they need. Artificers, Rangers, monks and fighters have a slight advantage here. Monks because of step of the wind and wisdom/dex skills. Ranger wis/dex skills as well as deft explorer expertise, some spells may help out if you took them. Fighter, extra ASI can be used on more skills and expertise as well or even some spell based feats for problem solving like TK, and artificers can solve with both infusions as well as skills and spells that they can change during a long rest. Since no enemies, unless the traps are set on timers, being able to change spells on a long rest can really help. Barbarians and Paladins probably struggle a little more here, but Paladin spells are also all known and just change on a long rest, so if a spell can solve same thing as artificer.
Enemy glass canon? (isn't this just tanky ranking combined with dpr?)
Horde: AOE helps the most here, any subclass that can hit an area is going to do great. Inherent to class specific, artificer has built in AOE damage spells really early on. Monks get the most attacks, rangers get spike growth pretty early which can help shut down movement or kill a lot. Sub classes for fighter, monk, rogue, and Barbarian all have ways to add AOE, but I think Ranger and fighter have the best ways to add larger AOE. Of course, this can also be solved by certain race combinations for anyone.
Threat beyond level, Probably similar to skills page. Rogue and artificer are top dogs here, followed by monk thanks to it's mobility, then followed by Ranger, Fighter and Paladin depending on build and creative thinking.
Underwater adventure. Pretty sure this is just 100% build dependent. Most classes have a decent "Sea" build.
Social Encounters, these are going to go to Paladin, Rogue, Artificer as the top dogs followed by some subclasses of fighter, ranger, and monk. Poor barbarian, really getting the short end in a lot of these. Maybe I need to focus more on them and really dig to see what can be done with them more. I feel like I may not be fairly analyzing them.
Setting up an ambush, Rogue, Ranger and Artificer are top dogs here, followed by some subclasses of monk and fighter. Followed last by Paladin and Barbarians.
Surviving an ambush, again largely tanky tanky ranking.
Debuff zone, is interesting. It both fits the tanky stuff, but it brings ranger up a smaller amount thanks to lesser restoration. But for the most part, it is still basically just the tanky tanky ranking again.
Capture the enemy alive, can't everyone just do "non-lethal damage".
No or limited equipment: Monk is number 1 here I feel obviously, Fighter and barbarians with the right build do well, Ranger with the right build does well. Paladin is interesting but probably lower. Rogue probably has some problems, and artificer is probably the most reliant since they can't even use their spells without their tools.
Baby sitting: Healing is great, so top 3 is Paladin, Artificer and Ranger. Protection is also great, so this is followed by some builds of fighter and barbarian. Creative thinking could probably have some use for monk or rogue. This one is interesting.
Disaster response team: Kind of the healing thing again, artificer and ranger are both top here for other problem solving, This is definitely a group thing though and because of that rogue goes up much higher thanks to the skills becoming much greater valued. But still kind of the baby sitting, just slightly different.
Inventory management. Artificer is best (bag of holding anyone). Followed by barbarian, Paladin, Fighter, and strength rangers. Monks don't carry a lot so maybe they can carry other extra things.
Stealth, Top of the line is rogue, followed by Ranger, Fighter, Artificer and monk. Barbarian and pally struggle a bit here.
Never ending day, rest dependent Pally's, Rangers and Artificers suffer a bit. Short rest classes like monk suffer even more. At will abilities are really the bread and butter here making Barbarians, fighters and rogues the best?
Nova Day: Depends on how many rounds, but probably Pally, followed by fighter, followed by Artificer, Ranger and monk in no particular order. Last being barbarian and rogue.
Looking more at this later.
Edit: Also may want to add, the "slow day, never ending day" wave on wave of enemies but enough time for a short rest after every wave.
just for sake of ease of comprehension and responses. A post should probably be limited to only a couple of topics at a time.
I think the quick impressions were great but is shows the weakness of my lack of definitions. i will try and go more indepth as each topic is broached.
So for capture. speed and distance are going to be highly valued but also how much its repeatable or draining to complete. I could see escaped creatures at the zoo. Collecting stolen or released pets in the wild or golden stag, muse ,unicorn for a wish type scenarios.
So capturing things alive is fun and any melee weapon will be able to do non lethal but there are distinct downsides or incompatible options. Long range is pretty much limited to spells, so sleep will be king {of course} but so restrain debuff's are going to be important. spells and features that add elemental damage are going to be a huge disadvantage. Certain harvestable poisons could help. meaning a harvester build has a big boon almost on the level of sleep. So a ranger with Favored enemy beasts or a poisoner rouge build Are for K'Os. of the casters only twilight cleric or wizard really shine because they can get sleep at a lower Choice cost than others. long range restrain is a lot easier so that leaves most classes that can do so in the B or C range without any other tools. barbarians and artificers{taking the brilliant weapon helps} are going to have a hard time solving this with less than a days notice they will usually rely on catch-up options and then try and hit hard for melee.
What about if you extend it to say several rounds of having to catch creatures Like a zoo escape? who has the most endurance? a wizard with sleep will still be high on the list but a beastmaster is the only class that can get the non-lethal on the regular at range. Actually also the monk and rogue because they can probably close the distance between targets better than a lot of others. and their damage is usually fine for pulling back.
some points and clarifications. A full anti-mage scenario is no fun for almost any class long term but short term its a good challenge. there is actually a whole tower in one adventure that the party cannot cast spells in at all. There are anti-magic domes that even exclude smites and other magical features or prevent deities from interfering. and there are areas where specific components are shut down. verbal - underwater{with caveats of course } or in silence areas or even the gruesome tongue cut out. line of sight is also kind of huge having ways of dealing with fog or smoke or darkness and blindness really help. somatic could just be as simple as having your hands used for other things or cuffs or even trapped without movement in your hands.
Now in the worst case absolutely no magic a arcane trickster rogue can still function, and a barbarian probably wouldn't even notice a change. now ranger and paladin are both going to be hurting but I think many ranger options still have fall back features of handling the situation even if its just tools to hide out and slowly wear the enemy down with hit and run. The paladin will be relying on possibly Devine intervention and hoping to tank their way through. {some feats help but not a significant difference in martial classes}
Rangers also have one of the few really good "Denial of sight" options via beast sense its one of the few ways you can see without using your action. Trap/coerce/tame a bat or a spider and you can have 30' or 60' blindsight usable with targeting spells.
I think a significant low-hanging fruit for setting white-room standards for something Rangers are expected to be good at is scouting. I propose the following standards for now, using the Crime rules from Xanathar's, with some modifications:
*The scout will roll one Dexterity (Stealth) check at the outset and keep it (for all PCs, the more you have to roll the more your DM is guaranteeing your failure, so we're setting the standard assuming it's possible to successfully scout), meaning we care about their average check. If we change to rolling every time the scout moves, only their minimum check matters, as they'll roll it eventually.
*The scout will likewise roll one Wisdom (Perception) and one Intelligence (Investigation) check.
*Assume all checks are the same DC as each other. For each difficulty from 1 to 6, assign a DC of 5*difficulty For each difficulty, determine a success rate of Stealth success * (1+Perception success*(1+Investigation success))*difficulty, with each success chance based on the appropriate DC. Sum those values up across the difficulties. That's your white-room scout rating, a number from 0 to 18. The success formula looks weird to represent dependent probability: you can't scout at all if you're caught and you can't investigate something you don't notice.
I think a significant low-hanging fruit for setting white-room standards for something Rangers are expected to be good at is scouting. I propose the following standards for now, using the Crime rules from Xanathar's, with some modifications:
*The scout will roll one Dexterity (Stealth) check at the outset and keep it (for all PCs, the more you have to roll the more your DM is guaranteeing your failure, so we're setting the standard assuming it's possible to successfully scout), meaning we care about their average check. If we change to rolling every time the scout moves, only their minimum check matters, as they'll roll it eventually.
*The scout will likewise roll one Wisdom (Perception) and one Intelligence (Investigation) check.
*Assume all checks are the same DC as each other. For each difficulty from 1 to 6, assign a DC of 5*difficulty For each difficulty, determine a success rate of Stealth success * (1+Perception success*(1+Investigation success))*difficulty, with each success chance based on the appropriate DC. Sum those values up across the difficulties. That's your white-room scout rating, a number from 0 to 18. The success formula looks weird to represent dependent probability: you can't scout at all if you're caught and you can't investigate something you don't notice.
I must say this is interesting. I cant help but think of how it graphs for even a dc 10 and when viewed it show how increasing # checks to solve a part of the adventure encourages failure eventually. Now there are also spells and pets/summons that could increase viability. and resource cost also complicates things. still I love the effort and will Try to refence "Quin's three-dependent skill" formula when ever I get a chance.
This is a great topic and it illustrates how powerful, versatile and fun Rangers can be.
Damage wise is more than proved that Rangers are a top-notch class. On exploration pillar, the class has several built-in features that make them excel on that.
But in my personal opinion, I really like how versatile the class can be in other roles. Need a healer? Goodberry juggling is one the most effective and cheap ways of healing. Need battlefield control? Ensnaring Strike, Entangle and Swarmkeeper abilities. Social bullshit? Fey Wanderer. Spy and intell collection? Free cast of Speak with Animals and Beast Bond, or you can transform your party, even the pesky heavily armored allies, into a deadly ninja squad with Pass Without a Trace. Do you want to completely disable enemies’ spellcasters? Our lovely Silence spell says hello.
This is a great topic and it illustrates how powerful, versatile and fun Rangers can be.
Damage wise is more than proved that Rangers are a top-notch class. On exploration pillar, the class has several built-in features that make them excel on that.
But in my personal opinion, I really like how versatile the class can be in other roles. Need a healer? Goodberry juggling is one the most effective and cheap ways of healing. Need battlefield control? Ensnaring Strike, Entangle and Swarmkeeper abilities. Social bullshit? Fey Wanderer. Spy and intell collection? Free cast of Speak with Animals and Beast Bond, or you can transform your party, even the pesky heavily armored allies, into a deadly ninja squad with Pass Without a Trace. Do you want to completely disable enemies’ spellcasters? Our lovely Silence spell says hello.
Thanks for your participation. I encourage you to pick a specific white room scenario and Justify why you think a ranger is Going to have a main role in solving the "Problem." possibly with some other class comparisons to help set a baseline.
* Environmental hazards during an enemy attack. A classic being the room with traps that the party is "pushed" into b/c of overwhelming numbers by foes. Or the "rope bridge" scenario made popular by Indiana Jones.
* the Siege. Potentially, but not necessarily a variation on Combat from Afar. Wherein the party is part of an (under-resourced) army laying siege to a well-defended castle or similar building. This may present an engineering problem to the party to solve that has to happen at the same time as dealing with attacks from above.
* Environmental hazards during an enemy attack. A classic being the room with traps that the party is "pushed" into b/c of overwhelming numbers by foes. Or the "rope bridge" scenario made popular by Indiana Jones.
* the Siege. Potentially, but not necessarily a variation on Combat from Afar. Wherein the party is part of an (under-resourced) army laying siege to a well-defended castle or similar building. This may present an engineering problem to the party to solve that has to happen at the same time as dealing with attacks from above.
Both scenarios could be solved by casting Fog Cloud upon the foes pushing you to the trap or the army protected by the fortified construction. Upcasting Fog Cloud gives you a better area and as a Ranger, you can easily accommodate your concentration slot in this spell, different from full casters who probably have better spells to cast.
* Environmental hazards during an enemy attack. A classic being the room with traps that the party is "pushed" into b/c of overwhelming numbers by foes. Or the "rope bridge" scenario made popular by Indiana Jones.
* the Siege. Potentially, but not necessarily a variation on Combat from Afar. Wherein the party is part of an (under-resourced) army laying siege to a well-defended castle or similar building. This may present an engineering problem to the party to solve that has to happen at the same time as dealing with attacks from above.
Scenario 1:
other environmental hazards can be resisted by using absorb elements as well.{say something like the "fire swamp" from princess bride}
favored terrain could also help you figure the timing or creative ways of resisting environmental hazards.
Conjure spells can help shove and position turning the enemies advantage into your own or use them as an escape route.
scenario 2:
I love the idea where the whole party has to do support/survive during a siege Not solve it.
Conjuring animals for dirt removal/placement or enemy distractions or even "extra weight" to cause things to tip in your favor.
favored enemy for understanding construction methods of a particular race/creature to repair or test structures.
just for sake of ease of comprehension and responses. A post should probably be limited to only a couple of topics at a time.
I think the quick impressions were great but is shows the weakness of my lack of definitions. i will try and go more indepth as each topic is broached.
So for capture. speed and distance are going to be highly valued but also how much its repeatable or draining to complete. I could see escaped creatures at the zoo. Collecting stolen or released pets in the wild or golden stag, muse ,unicorn for a wish type scenarios.
So capturing things alive is fun and any melee weapon will be able to do non lethal but there are distinct downsides or incompatible options. Long range is pretty much limited to spells, so sleep will be king {of course} but so restrain debuff's are going to be important. spells and features that add elemental damage are going to be a huge disadvantage. Certain harvestable poisons could help. meaning a harvester build has a big boon almost on the level of sleep. So a ranger with Favored enemy beasts or a poisoner rouge build Are for K'Os. of the casters only twilight cleric or wizard really shine because they can get sleep at a lower Choice cost than others. long range restrain is a lot easier so that leaves most classes that can do so in the B or C range without any other tools. barbarians and artificers{taking the brilliant weapon helps} are going to have a hard time solving this with less than a days notice they will usually rely on catch-up options and then try and hit hard for melee.
What about if you extend it to say several rounds of having to catch creatures Like a zoo escape? who has the most endurance? a wizard with sleep will still be high on the list but a beastmaster is the only class that can get the non-lethal on the regular at range. Actually also the monk and rogue because they can probably close the distance between targets better than a lot of others. and their damage is usually fine for pulling back.
While I agree with you that Rangers (if they took Animal Handling or chose Beasts as favored enemies going by the PHB version) may have some nice tricks for for capturing creatures alive, I don't know that they are necessarily the best. A lot of Rangers don't pick Animal Handling and don't pick Beasts for their Favored Enemy. And if they didn't pick a Speak with Animals-type spell, they can't just learn it with 8 hours of rest the way that Druids and Nature Clerics can.
Regarding non-lethal damage, Barbarians and Fighters with Athletics make decent, sometimes even great, grapplers. Grappling can be used to first restrain and then tie up/incapacitate the beastie. Granted, not all Barbs or Fighters are built for that, but not all Rangers are built to communicate with/tame Beasts either.
just for sake of ease of comprehension and responses. A post should probably be limited to only a couple of topics at a time.
I think the quick impressions were great but is shows the weakness of my lack of definitions. i will try and go more indepth as each topic is broached.
So for capture. speed and distance are going to be highly valued but also how much its repeatable or draining to complete. I could see escaped creatures at the zoo. Collecting stolen or released pets in the wild or golden stag, muse ,unicorn for a wish type scenarios.
So capturing things alive is fun and any melee weapon will be able to do non lethal but there are distinct downsides or incompatible options. Long range is pretty much limited to spells, so sleep will be king {of course} but so restrain debuff's are going to be important. spells and features that add elemental damage are going to be a huge disadvantage. Certain harvestable poisons could help. meaning a harvester build has a big boon almost on the level of sleep. So a ranger with Favored enemy beasts or a poisoner rouge build Are for K'Os. of the casters only twilight cleric or wizard really shine because they can get sleep at a lower Choice cost than others. long range restrain is a lot easier so that leaves most classes that can do so in the B or C range without any other tools. barbarians and artificers{taking the brilliant weapon helps} are going to have a hard time solving this with less than a days notice they will usually rely on catch-up options and then try and hit hard for melee.
What about if you extend it to say several rounds of having to catch creatures Like a zoo escape? who has the most endurance? a wizard with sleep will still be high on the list but a beastmaster is the only class that can get the non-lethal on the regular at range. Actually also the monk and rogue because they can probably close the distance between targets better than a lot of others. and their damage is usually fine for pulling back.
While I agree with you that Rangers (if they took Animal Handling or chose Beasts as favored enemies going by the PHB version) may have some nice tricks for for capturing creatures alive, I don't know that they are necessarily the best. A lot of Rangers don't pick Animal Handling and don't pick Beasts for their Favored Enemy. And if they didn't pick a Speak with Animals-type spell, they can't just learn it with 8 hours of rest the way that Druids and Nature Clerics can.
Regarding non-lethal damage, Barbarians and Fighters with Athletics make decent, sometimes even great, grapplers. Grappling can be used to first restrain and then tie up/incapacitate the beastie. Granted, not all Barbs or Fighters are built for that, but not all Rangers are built to communicate with/tame Beasts either.
firstly the best capture alive abilities will always be paralysis or sleep related. no question. the point wasn't for a ranger build to be the best but have a decent chance of success with as many categories as possible.
but even a ranger with range focus can still use a net or dex based melee weapon. and if you didn't take some of those beast spells you will probably still have distance closing spells to catch up and get your hit even with fast moving creatures.
rangers might not be the "best" option but overall rank decent. and certainly not in the place where say a caster with only spells as damage could do nothing. Ive seen players complain when asked to "keep it alive" because they had no valid options.
With Survival expertise and a few materials, Rangers are great at trapping , too. And i agree that Rangers are quite versatile. There is a lot of similarity between Rangers and Druids. Not coincidentally, a well played Druid can adequately confront most of the challenge scenarios you listed as well.
I agree druids are very versatile and I consider them one of the best 5e classes(personally I think better than wizards). they have so many problem solving options that they can change out daily.
any one who plays a ranger or druid and cant figure out one way to solve a adventure problem probably is just suffering from tunnel vison.
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so there has been a huge focus on DPR/ damage numbers lately. But that is only a portion of the game. This has got me thinking about how to measure Ribbon, skill and other combat adjacent features. The best way I can come up with an adventurer measurement tool is a Thought experiment of how do each Class/subclass/Build measure up to each of a select group of scenarios. I think most parties should go through at least half of these across their career.
Now there are probably more feel free to suggest some?
Is there a better way to quantify Any of these game functions mathematically?
Do you also think a ranger can solve most of these without a problem?
Sign me up for this thread. I’m so sick of how much damage is talked about and over valued.
So can we design a good white room test for any of these that a class could measure against?
Example Range attacks are pretty easy as 30' 60' 120' 180' 320' and 600 ft matches an A--F scale. May need adjustments for features synergy.
It's still combat focused, but Cody on the D4 YouTube channel does builds for control and taking and he (I think) has some kind of metric for measuring both.
Also combat related, but you did mention it already. I really feel like the terms of (combat) engagement, specifically surprise and starting encounter distance, are not talked about enough, and certainly not valued enough. So many comments talk in terms of round one damage or even "pre round prep" (which isn't a thing typically). I rarely see a combat start with all parties involved within 30' of each other, and that is a huge game changer.
I think information is highly underrated too. Knowledge skills and ability checks are great fun. Places, creatures, history, how things work, all of it is very much good times.
Finally for now, time. This is a big one for me. Time is so important for me at a D&D table, both as a player and a DM. Without it we are literally just skipping ahead to the next combat encounter. Deadlines and wander encounters coincide with time as means of pressure. So too resource management.
Again combat focused isn't always a problem. DPR or damage focus can be. Good points though. I also realized I forgot one of the most important tests - the horde of low HP monsters. It will be added to the list.
I like using the 3 failures vs 3 successes {at most 5v5} Skill challenge for a lot of scenarios as it seems a decent way to have room to change and get clever if things are going sour. things like court cases or alliance parties are great for this but it can be applied to almost any type of check.
Another think I like to do to value the importance of skill success VS failure is Hold the final number for longer periods (possibley the whole adventure with maybe allowing a passive for non clue stuff} IF you pass the history check you shouldn't be constantly doing more for a random set of information that's is expert sometimes and incompetent at others even though they are related. By stabilizing checks a bit the narrative seems more consistent and taking good skill choices feel more rewarding.
Interesting, but I feel we could probably avoid talking about full casters, since they can kind of be built to do just about anything.
Ok so Combat from afar, Best classes: Fighter, and then it is probably between Rogue, ranger, and artificer. The worst martials are probably Monk, Barbarian and Paladin.
Tank beast is interesting. Best one is probably Paladin with Heavy armor and ability to add charisma to all saves. Followed by some artificers with absorb elements, shield, heavy armor and infusions. Monk has lower health then others but has a lot of save immunities and if they take the dodge action they can be super hard to hit. Some fighter and some Ranger subclasses gain wisdom saves or bonuses to wisdom saves/ immunities to charm which is important, but fighters have heavy armor access and rangers only have medium. Barbarians reckless attack means they git hit more, better health and resistance mean they take less damage when they get hit, but lack of protection against wis is rough. Rogue lower health, but have evasion and uncanny dodge but still not as good as the monk in this regard.
Anti-mage favors character that have no magic, but usually smite still works in anti-magic fields so fighter, paladin, rogue, barbarian, monk all have advantages over ranger and artificer. With some artificer builds really suffering the most here.
Anti-normal damage. Artificer is probably best here, followed by some subclasses of each class, acendant dragon monk is happy, eldritch knight is happy, Paladin converts to radiant damage, Horizon Walker can convert 1 attack to force damage. Barbarians not sure which helps here, rogue probably needs soul knife or something to be relevant here. Most part Artificer and Paladin are fine, others better hope they have a subclass that helps them out, or a magic item.
Trap and puzzle maze: Rogue is best, everyone else depends on the puzzles and the skills they need. Artificers, Rangers, monks and fighters have a slight advantage here. Monks because of step of the wind and wisdom/dex skills. Ranger wis/dex skills as well as deft explorer expertise, some spells may help out if you took them. Fighter, extra ASI can be used on more skills and expertise as well or even some spell based feats for problem solving like TK, and artificers can solve with both infusions as well as skills and spells that they can change during a long rest. Since no enemies, unless the traps are set on timers, being able to change spells on a long rest can really help. Barbarians and Paladins probably struggle a little more here, but Paladin spells are also all known and just change on a long rest, so if a spell can solve same thing as artificer.
Enemy glass canon? (isn't this just tanky ranking combined with dpr?)
Horde: AOE helps the most here, any subclass that can hit an area is going to do great. Inherent to class specific, artificer has built in AOE damage spells really early on. Monks get the most attacks, rangers get spike growth pretty early which can help shut down movement or kill a lot. Sub classes for fighter, monk, rogue, and Barbarian all have ways to add AOE, but I think Ranger and fighter have the best ways to add larger AOE. Of course, this can also be solved by certain race combinations for anyone.
Threat beyond level, Probably similar to skills page. Rogue and artificer are top dogs here, followed by monk thanks to it's mobility, then followed by Ranger, Fighter and Paladin depending on build and creative thinking.
Underwater adventure. Pretty sure this is just 100% build dependent. Most classes have a decent "Sea" build.
Social Encounters, these are going to go to Paladin, Rogue, Artificer as the top dogs followed by some subclasses of fighter, ranger, and monk. Poor barbarian, really getting the short end in a lot of these. Maybe I need to focus more on them and really dig to see what can be done with them more. I feel like I may not be fairly analyzing them.
Setting up an ambush, Rogue, Ranger and Artificer are top dogs here, followed by some subclasses of monk and fighter. Followed last by Paladin and Barbarians.
Surviving an ambush, again largely tanky tanky ranking.
Debuff zone, is interesting. It both fits the tanky stuff, but it brings ranger up a smaller amount thanks to lesser restoration. But for the most part, it is still basically just the tanky tanky ranking again.
Capture the enemy alive, can't everyone just do "non-lethal damage".
No or limited equipment: Monk is number 1 here I feel obviously, Fighter and barbarians with the right build do well, Ranger with the right build does well. Paladin is interesting but probably lower. Rogue probably has some problems, and artificer is probably the most reliant since they can't even use their spells without their tools.
Baby sitting: Healing is great, so top 3 is Paladin, Artificer and Ranger. Protection is also great, so this is followed by some builds of fighter and barbarian. Creative thinking could probably have some use for monk or rogue. This one is interesting.
Disaster response team: Kind of the healing thing again, artificer and ranger are both top here for other problem solving, This is definitely a group thing though and because of that rogue goes up much higher thanks to the skills becoming much greater valued. But still kind of the baby sitting, just slightly different.
Inventory management. Artificer is best (bag of holding anyone). Followed by barbarian, Paladin, Fighter, and strength rangers. Monks don't carry a lot so maybe they can carry other extra things.
Stealth, Top of the line is rogue, followed by Ranger, Fighter, Artificer and monk. Barbarian and pally struggle a bit here.
Never ending day, rest dependent Pally's, Rangers and Artificers suffer a bit. Short rest classes like monk suffer even more. At will abilities are really the bread and butter here making Barbarians, fighters and rogues the best?
Nova Day: Depends on how many rounds, but probably Pally, followed by fighter, followed by Artificer, Ranger and monk in no particular order. Last being barbarian and rogue.
Looking more at this later.
Edit: Also may want to add, the "slow day, never ending day" wave on wave of enemies but enough time for a short rest after every wave.
just for sake of ease of comprehension and responses. A post should probably be limited to only a couple of topics at a time.
I think the quick impressions were great but is shows the weakness of my lack of definitions. i will try and go more indepth as each topic is broached.
So for capture. speed and distance are going to be highly valued but also how much its repeatable or draining to complete. I could see escaped creatures at the zoo. Collecting stolen or released pets in the wild or golden stag, muse ,unicorn for a wish type scenarios.
So capturing things alive is fun and any melee weapon will be able to do non lethal but there are distinct downsides or incompatible options. Long range is pretty much limited to spells, so sleep will be king {of course} but so restrain debuff's are going to be important. spells and features that add elemental damage are going to be a huge disadvantage. Certain harvestable poisons could help. meaning a harvester build has a big boon almost on the level of sleep. So a ranger with Favored enemy beasts or a poisoner rouge build Are for K'Os. of the casters only twilight cleric or wizard really shine because they can get sleep at a lower Choice cost than others. long range restrain is a lot easier so that leaves most classes that can do so in the B or C range without any other tools. barbarians and artificers{taking the brilliant weapon helps} are going to have a hard time solving this with less than a days notice they will usually rely on catch-up options and then try and hit hard for melee.
What about if you extend it to say several rounds of having to catch creatures Like a zoo escape? who has the most endurance? a wizard with sleep will still be high on the list but a beastmaster is the only class that can get the non-lethal on the regular at range. Actually also the monk and rogue because they can probably close the distance between targets better than a lot of others. and their damage is usually fine for pulling back.
For the anti-mage scenario
some points and clarifications. A full anti-mage scenario is no fun for almost any class long term but short term its a good challenge. there is actually a whole tower in one adventure that the party cannot cast spells in at all. There are anti-magic domes that even exclude smites and other magical features or prevent deities from interfering. and there are areas where specific components are shut down. verbal - underwater{with caveats of course } or in silence areas or even the gruesome tongue cut out. line of sight is also kind of huge having ways of dealing with fog or smoke or darkness and blindness really help. somatic could just be as simple as having your hands used for other things or cuffs or even trapped without movement in your hands.
Now in the worst case absolutely no magic a arcane trickster rogue can still function, and a barbarian probably wouldn't even notice a change. now ranger and paladin are both going to be hurting but I think many ranger options still have fall back features of handling the situation even if its just tools to hide out and slowly wear the enemy down with hit and run. The paladin will be relying on possibly Devine intervention and hoping to tank their way through. {some feats help but not a significant difference in martial classes}
Rangers also have one of the few really good "Denial of sight" options via beast sense its one of the few ways you can see without using your action. Trap/coerce/tame a bat or a spider and you can have 30' or 60' blindsight usable with targeting spells.
I think a significant low-hanging fruit for setting white-room standards for something Rangers are expected to be good at is scouting. I propose the following standards for now, using the Crime rules from Xanathar's, with some modifications:
*The scout will roll one Dexterity (Stealth) check at the outset and keep it (for all PCs, the more you have to roll the more your DM is guaranteeing your failure, so we're setting the standard assuming it's possible to successfully scout), meaning we care about their average check. If we change to rolling every time the scout moves, only their minimum check matters, as they'll roll it eventually.
*The scout will likewise roll one Wisdom (Perception) and one Intelligence (Investigation) check.
*Assume all checks are the same DC as each other. For each difficulty from 1 to 6, assign a DC of 5*difficulty For each difficulty, determine a success rate of Stealth success * (1+Perception success*(1+Investigation success))*difficulty, with each success chance based on the appropriate DC. Sum those values up across the difficulties. That's your white-room scout rating, a number from 0 to 18. The success formula looks weird to represent dependent probability: you can't scout at all if you're caught and you can't investigate something you don't notice.
I must say this is interesting. I cant help but think of how it graphs for even a dc 10 and when viewed it show how increasing # checks to solve a part of the adventure encourages failure eventually. Now there are also spells and pets/summons that could increase viability. and resource cost also complicates things. still I love the effort and will Try to refence "Quin's three-dependent skill" formula when ever I get a chance.
This is a great topic and it illustrates how powerful, versatile and fun Rangers can be.
Damage wise is more than proved that Rangers are a top-notch class. On exploration pillar, the class has several built-in features that make them excel on that.
But in my personal opinion, I really like how versatile the class can be in other roles. Need a healer? Goodberry juggling is one the most effective and cheap ways of healing. Need battlefield control? Ensnaring Strike, Entangle and Swarmkeeper abilities. Social bullshit? Fey Wanderer. Spy and intell collection? Free cast of Speak with Animals and Beast Bond, or you can transform your party, even the pesky heavily armored allies, into a deadly ninja squad with Pass Without a Trace. Do you want to completely disable enemies’ spellcasters? Our lovely Silence spell says hello.
Thanks for your participation. I encourage you to pick a specific white room scenario and Justify why you think a ranger is Going to have a main role in solving the "Problem." possibly with some other class comparisons to help set a baseline.
Another two scenarios for the list:
* Environmental hazards during an enemy attack. A classic being the room with traps that the party is "pushed" into b/c of overwhelming numbers by foes. Or the "rope bridge" scenario made popular by Indiana Jones.
* the Siege. Potentially, but not necessarily a variation on Combat from Afar. Wherein the party is part of an (under-resourced) army laying siege to a well-defended castle or similar building. This may present an engineering problem to the party to solve that has to happen at the same time as dealing with attacks from above.
Both scenarios could be solved by casting Fog Cloud upon the foes pushing you to the trap or the army protected by the fortified construction. Upcasting Fog Cloud gives you a better area and as a Ranger, you can easily accommodate your concentration slot in this spell, different from full casters who probably have better spells to cast.
Scenario 1:
other environmental hazards can be resisted by using absorb elements as well.{say something like the "fire swamp" from princess bride}
favored terrain could also help you figure the timing or creative ways of resisting environmental hazards.
Conjure spells can help shove and position turning the enemies advantage into your own or use them as an escape route.
scenario 2:
I love the idea where the whole party has to do support/survive during a siege Not solve it.
Conjuring animals for dirt removal/placement or enemy distractions or even "extra weight" to cause things to tip in your favor.
favored enemy for understanding construction methods of a particular race/creature to repair or test structures.
While I agree with you that Rangers (if they took Animal Handling or chose Beasts as favored enemies going by the PHB version) may have some nice tricks for for capturing creatures alive, I don't know that they are necessarily the best. A lot of Rangers don't pick Animal Handling and don't pick Beasts for their Favored Enemy. And if they didn't pick a Speak with Animals-type spell, they can't just learn it with 8 hours of rest the way that Druids and Nature Clerics can.
Regarding non-lethal damage, Barbarians and Fighters with Athletics make decent, sometimes even great, grapplers. Grappling can be used to first restrain and then tie up/incapacitate the beastie. Granted, not all Barbs or Fighters are built for that, but not all Rangers are built to communicate with/tame Beasts either.
firstly the best capture alive abilities will always be paralysis or sleep related. no question. the point wasn't for a ranger build to be the best but have a decent chance of success with as many categories as possible.
but even a ranger with range focus can still use a net or dex based melee weapon. and if you didn't take some of those beast spells you will probably still have distance closing spells to catch up and get your hit even with fast moving creatures.
rangers might not be the "best" option but overall rank decent. and certainly not in the place where say a caster with only spells as damage could do nothing. Ive seen players complain when asked to "keep it alive" because they had no valid options.
With Survival expertise and a few materials, Rangers are great at trapping , too. And i agree that Rangers are quite versatile. There is a lot of similarity between Rangers and Druids. Not coincidentally, a well played Druid can adequately confront most of the challenge scenarios you listed as well.
I agree druids are very versatile and I consider them one of the best 5e classes(personally I think better than wizards). they have so many problem solving options that they can change out daily.
any one who plays a ranger or druid and cant figure out one way to solve a adventure problem probably is just suffering from tunnel vison.