This is a fantasy game and I want to play someone that is close to a superhuman hero. If I want to play the average Jane/Joe, I would play an under defined NPC and die a miserable painful death of disease or starvation. Get murdered if I was lucky as then death would be quick and a better existence.
This is not a ranger problem and I do not see it as a problem at all. Commoners have a stats of 10 accross the board so any PC based on standard array or point buy (and 99.999%) based on rolled will be close to a superhuman hero, and you need room to develop as you level. If you want more powerful characters from level 1 just increase the point buy and allow buying of scores above 15.
I have not seen this conversation for paladins. If they could dump cha and use str for casting and powering their aura they would be overpowered. The ranger is probably a bit underpowered but I think the fix is improve their features rather than have dex based spell casting.
Yes it also provides chances at very powerfully stated PCs but the. Those types should be possible as PCs and your never going to get them with standard array.
Have you ever considered that even an ability score of 16 is exceptional? A PC that starts with even just one 18 is practically superhuman. The standard array is perfectly fine, you get all the scores you need, you just need to be smart about where you put them.
This is a fantasy game and I want to play someone that is close to a superhuman hero. If I want to play the average Jane/Joe, I would play an under defined NPC and die a miserable painful death of disease or starvation. Get murdered if I was lucky as then death would be quick and a better existence.
Contrast is important because it shows interesting comparisons. there's a reason "get good" skill based normal humans fight alongside superheroes like green lantern or superman. The design of rangers plays different and that's good because it gives a different feeling. Often the 2014 feeling is an everyman character who just knows his stuff and proceeds smart rather than "hulk smash" or cool tec/spells like iron man or strange. Just look at the plots for lone ranger, He Often wins by smart ambushes or knowing more or preparation. He rarely just wins by being better at shooting. Hawkeye or batman Often pull from the ranger fantasy in similar ways. Rangers make stat distribution interesting and unique to their own approach. I like this because it allows for a unique play experience no other class gets. Rangers can build with a weaker casting stat or a strong casting stat and it still functions.
I had a player ask me if he could use Wisdom as his Paladin stat instead of Charisma because old Paladins were heavily Wisdom based and I told him sure. IF I had a player who wanted to make Dexterity his casting stat I'd tell him no. If he wanted Intelligence to be his casting stat I'd probably say yes, though.
The OP wanted to discuss making rangers less MAD by making Dex the casting stat. I see several problems with this, some already covered. 1) Rangers are intended to be MAD, they are, when played properly, very powerful characters with strong melee, missile, casting and skill use abilities. No other class has the range of possibilities that the ranger does. For balance the cost of this is being MAD. Changing the casting stat to Dex eliminates this cost and shouldn’t happen for balance reasons. 2) yes somatic and material components exist but then they do so for all casting classes and none use Dex as the casting stat so that is a nonstarter really. 3) The idea of a non casting Ranger with Dex based “maneuvers” makes some sense but, I suspect, becomes fairly unwieldy as at each point you provide access to them you need to provide at least 2 different ones to choose from - a melee one and a missile one since both types of rangers exist with frequency. 4) I can see allowing a ranger to select a “mental” stat as their casting stat, especially if there were more elemental/energy type spells available. However Dex isn’t a mental stat so it’s use makes no sense except as a means of breaking the Ranger’s MADness so see #1.
No, you’re not going to get 20’s in all key stats with a ranger like you could with a nonMAD class. But then you’re not supposed to. With the exception of the Gish subclasses no other PC has the range of abilities that the Ranger does. That range has a price - MADness. So yes your going to need at least a 13 in at least 3 stats - Dex/Str, Con, Wis.
The OP wanted to discuss making rangers less MAD by making Dex the casting stat. I see several problems with this, some already covered. 1) Rangers are intended to be MAD, they are, when played properly, very powerful characters with strong melee, missile, casting and skill use abilities. No other class has the range of possibilities that the ranger does. For balance the cost of this is being MAD. Changing the casting stat to Dex eliminates this cost and shouldn’t happen for balance reasons. 2) yes somatic and material components exist but then they do so for all casting classes and none use Dex as the casting stat so that is a nonstarter really. 3) The idea of a non casting Ranger with Dex based “maneuvers” makes some sense but, I suspect, becomes fairly unwieldy as at each point you provide access to them you need to provide at least 2 different ones to choose from - a melee one and a missile one since both types of rangers exist with frequency. 4) I can see allowing a ranger to select a “mental” stat as their casting stat, especially if there were more elemental/energy type spells available. However Dex isn’t a mental stat so it’s use makes no sense except as a means of breaking the Ranger’s MADness so see #1.
No, you’re not going to get 20’s in all key stats with a ranger like you could with a nonMAD class. But then you’re not supposed to. With the exception of the Gish subclasses no other PC has the range of abilities that the Ranger does. That range has a price - MADness. So yes your going to need at least a 13 in at least 3 stats - Dex/Str, Con, Wis.
1. Rangers are not the most powerful class. Wizards are, by a wide margin. Given that Wizards outclass every other in terms of power by a long shot, it does not make sense to reject increasing Ranger power. Even giving the Ranger this bump in capability, it doesn't even come close to the power of the Wizard. Rangers use wisdom for casting because their spells overlap with the Druid, as wisdom caster.
2. This is an appeal to tradition. There is a plethora of fiction that use somatic components as their means of casting spells in a vast variety of media. Rejecting it because it breaks tradition is a poor reason to reject it.
3. This assumes that these maneuvers must adhere to a melee/ranged dichotomy. They do not. Every attack maneuver can simply do what smites do, "When you hit with an attack, you can do X as a bonus action". Any effect a ranged attack can apply can be applied by a melee attack.
4. This, again, is an appeal to tradition. Just because it has never been done, does not mean that it is bad.
"That range has a price - MADness." This is a poor argument, because replacing the ranged weapon with a melee weapon removes the cited advantage but does not eliminate the disadvantages imposed by the MADness. To entertain the argument, it would imply that you must use ranged weapons to avoid being further weakened as a class.
The Paladin gets around its MADness because a lot of their best features don't rely on their modifier to be effective. Rangers do not enjoy the same luxury.
This is a fantasy game and I want to play someone that is close to a superhuman hero. If I want to play the average Jane/Joe, I would play an under defined NPC and die a miserable painful death of disease or starvation. Get murdered if I was lucky as then death would be quick and a better existence.
This is not a ranger problem and I do not see it as a problem at all. Commoners have a stats of 10 accross the board so any PC based on standard array or point buy (and 99.999%) based on rolled will be close to a superhuman hero, and you need room to develop as you level. If you want more powerful characters from level 1 just increase the point buy and allow buying of scores above 15.
I have not seen this conversation for paladins. If they could dump cha and use str for casting and powering their aura they would be overpowered. The ranger is probably a bit underpowered but I think the fix is improve their features rather than have dex based spell casting.
The Paladin doesn't need to use STR as a casting stat. They don't need high CHA to make the most of their features.
This is a fantasy game and I want to play someone that is close to a superhuman hero. If I want to play the average Jane/Joe, I would play an under defined NPC and die a miserable painful death of disease or starvation. Get murdered if I was lucky as then death would be quick and a better existence.
This is not a ranger problem and I do not see it as a problem at all. Commoners have a stats of 10 accross the board so any PC based on standard array or point buy (and 99.999%) based on rolled will be close to a superhuman hero, and you need room to develop as you level. If you want more powerful characters from level 1 just increase the point buy and allow buying of scores above 15.
I have not seen this conversation for paladins. If they could dump cha and use str for casting and powering their aura they would be overpowered. The ranger is probably a bit underpowered but I think the fix is improve their features rather than have dex based spell casting.
The Paladin doesn't need to use STR as a casting stat. They don't need high CHA to make the most of their features.
Aside Beastmaster, does the Ranger use Wisdom for most of his features?
I have issues with Beastmaster, for sure, but it's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that utilizes Wisdom for one of their features. And you can just take wisdom independent spells if you want to dump it to 13 or whatever.
Note that I'm against using Dexterity as a casting stat.
The OP wanted to discuss making rangers less MAD by making Dex the casting stat. I see several problems with this, some already covered. 1) Rangers are intended to be MAD, they are, when played properly, very powerful characters with strong melee, missile, casting and skill use abilities. No other class has the range of possibilities that the ranger does. For balance the cost of this is being MAD. Changing the casting stat to Dex eliminates this cost and shouldn’t happen for balance reasons. 2) yes somatic and material components exist but then they do so for all casting classes and none use Dex as the casting stat so that is a nonstarter really. 3) The idea of a non casting Ranger with Dex based “maneuvers” makes some sense but, I suspect, becomes fairly unwieldy as at each point you provide access to them you need to provide at least 2 different ones to choose from - a melee one and a missile one since both types of rangers exist with frequency. 4) I can see allowing a ranger to select a “mental” stat as their casting stat, especially if there were more elemental/energy type spells available. However Dex isn’t a mental stat so it’s use makes no sense except as a means of breaking the Ranger’s MADness so see #1.
No, you’re not going to get 20’s in all key stats with a ranger like you could with a nonMAD class. But then you’re not supposed to. With the exception of the Gish subclasses no other PC has the range of abilities that the Ranger does. That range has a price - MADness. So yes your going to need at least a 13 in at least 3 stats - Dex/Str, Con, Wis.
1. Rangers are not the most powerful class. Wizards are, by a wide margin. Given that Wizards outclass every other in terms of power by a long shot, it does not make sense to reject increasing Ranger power. Even giving the Ranger this bump in capability, it doesn't even come close to the power of the Wizard. Rangers use wisdom for casting because their spells overlap with the Druid, as wisdom caster.
2. This is an appeal to tradition. There is a plethora of fiction that use somatic components as their means of casting spells in a vast variety of media. Rejecting it because it breaks tradition is a poor reason to reject it.
3. This assumes that these maneuvers must adhere to a melee/ranged dichotomy. They do not. Every attack maneuver can simply do what smites do, "When you hit with an attack, you can do X as a bonus action". Any effect a ranged attack can apply can be applied by a melee attack.
4. This, again, is an appeal to tradition. Just because it has never been done, does not mean that it is bad.
"That range has a price - MADness." This is a poor argument, because replacing the ranged weapon with a melee weapon removes the cited advantage but does not eliminate the disadvantages imposed by the MADness. To entertain the argument, it would imply that you must use ranged weapons to avoid being further weakened as a class.
The Paladin gets around its MADness because a lot of their best features don't rely on their modifier to be effective. Rangers do not enjoy the same luxury.
1) I didn’t say they were the most powerful, I said that they were very powerful given their combination of melee, ranged combat, casting and skills. Further that the combination of so many different modes needed a mechanical cost which is their MADness.
2) no this is a description of the game mechanic - all casting is based on “ mental” stats not physical so trying to use the presence of somatic and material components as an excuse to disregarded this is very problematic.
3) please take a good look at the spells - a number of them convert single target ranged attacks into AOE ranged attacks, there are no AOE melee attacks that I am aware of. So a “one size fits all” maneuver/ability as a substitute doesn’t really work for at least some of the spells.
4) Again, not an appeal to “ tradition” but to basic game balance. Further your “just because it hasn’t been done …” argument is specious cndiering I was actually suggesting something that hasn’t been done.
5) you misunderstood my argument I was not talking about ranged weapons but about the range of abilities the ranger has available it is that range of abilities that has the price of MADness. Yes Paladins are powerful with their class abilities and ability to convert spells to smites but I believe 2024 limited that somewhat because they had been found to be somewhat overpowered. Still, like the ranger they are exceptionally powerful because of the combination of martial and magical abilities and so they too are MAD characters.
1. You were implying that this would give the Ranger more power than can be justified. I countered that the Wizard puts all other classes to shame in terms of power and versatility. You also implied that the MADness somehow keeps the Ranger balanced. It doesn't. The class that needs balancing the least is the Ranger.
2. No, you're justifying the adherence to using "mental" stats for spells simply because that is the way it has always been done in 5E. Appeals to tradition/convention are not a valid argument. Just because it has always been done that way does not imply it must be done that way. I fail to see how monsters failing more saves against the Ranger's vastly weaker AOE effects is going to make the Ranger too strong. They have, at most, 15 spell slots that requires a full 20 level investment to access. How many times the Ranger can cast these ostensibly powerful spells is limited by the fact that the Ranger is a half-caster.
3. I have looked at the spells. A large number of them have saving throws attached to them. Saddling the Ranger with a weak DC and giving them multiple AOE spells with saving throws is just absurd. The Ranger is not built to go 100% into spell casting. Forcing them to have a weak DC on top of it just makes their spells even weaker. It's silly to be concerned with a Ranger having an AOE with a higher DC when a Wizard can drop a level 9 fireball that absolutely dwarfs any amount of damage a Ranger can do. The Ranger is also a half caster and will never access its 5th level spells unless sticking with the class well into 4 tier play. The MADness is not justified.
4. No, you're not defending balance. The argument for balance goes out the window with the existence of the Wizard. You're defending tradition. Secondly, you didn't suggest something that hasn't been done. I suggested it, and you opined on it. Have some integrity.
5. No matter how versatile you might believe Ranger is, that doesn't make it more powerful. It merely makes it more varied. If anything, it enables members of an entire party of Rangers to serve different functions in the party.
Despite the 2024 rules, the Paladin is still powerful enough to negate its own MADness. Paladin's are not nearly as dependent on their DC as the Ranger is. A Ranger without spells is just a less capable archery style Fighter.
Greevar, the wizards don’t toss the balance of anything out the window, or if you prefer it is sufficiently out of balance as to be useless for comparison. The ranger is competitive with the fighter up to L11 and possibly beyond. He is nearly as skilled as the rogue (or bard), and while he is by no means as powerful a caster as the full casters he is also, by far, the most powerful of the partial casters. This breadth of capacity is why rangers are MAD. Yes wizards are hugely powerful but then that comes from the breadth of their spells but they are really ne trick ponies - they cast arcane spells. Their skills are minimal, they are useless in a martial role so they boy need one stat - Intel. Fighters are similar - they fight. They need either strength or dexterity, depending on fighting styles, and they need Con. Clerics can fight - sort of - but, like mages they basically cast spells. They need Wisdom and Con (Druids included). Rogues need Dex and really Intel (for skills like nvestigation). Bards start to be MAD needing Dex ( for defense if nothing else) con for HP and Charisma for casting and influencing folks. All the one stat ( or really 2 stat since Con) classes are basically one trick ponies. Bards and rangers are the MAD classes because they can do so much more - bards focus on magic as full casters but respectable skills and limited martial ability, rangers are initially mostly martial but have respectable skills and solid if limited casting ability. A really solid Ranger needs 4 or 5 solid stats (13+) - Strength or Dex for melee combat, Dex for missile combat, wisdom for casting, con for HP, intel for skills and Charisma for dealing with folks. I don’t have a problem with a non casting ranger that uses Dex for “maneuvers” but I just don’t see making Dex a casting stat just make it easier to make a ranger.
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Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
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This is not a ranger problem and I do not see it as a problem at all. Commoners have a stats of 10 accross the board so any PC based on standard array or point buy (and 99.999%) based on rolled will be close to a superhuman hero, and you need room to develop as you level. If you want more powerful characters from level 1 just increase the point buy and allow buying of scores above 15.
I have not seen this conversation for paladins. If they could dump cha and use str for casting and powering their aura they would be overpowered. The ranger is probably a bit underpowered but I think the fix is improve their features rather than have dex based spell casting.
Contrast is important because it shows interesting comparisons. there's a reason "get good" skill based normal humans fight alongside superheroes like green lantern or superman. The design of rangers plays different and that's good because it gives a different feeling. Often the 2014 feeling is an everyman character who just knows his stuff and proceeds smart rather than "hulk smash" or cool tec/spells like iron man or strange. Just look at the plots for lone ranger, He Often wins by smart ambushes or knowing more or preparation. He rarely just wins by being better at shooting. Hawkeye or batman Often pull from the ranger fantasy in similar ways. Rangers make stat distribution interesting and unique to their own approach. I like this because it allows for a unique play experience no other class gets. Rangers can build with a weaker casting stat or a strong casting stat and it still functions.
I had a player ask me if he could use Wisdom as his Paladin stat instead of Charisma because old Paladins were heavily Wisdom based and I told him sure. IF I had a player who wanted to make Dexterity his casting stat I'd tell him no. If he wanted Intelligence to be his casting stat I'd probably say yes, though.
The OP wanted to discuss making rangers less MAD by making Dex the casting stat. I see several problems with this, some already covered.
1) Rangers are intended to be MAD, they are, when played properly, very powerful characters with strong melee, missile, casting and skill use abilities. No other class has the range
of possibilities that the ranger does. For balance the cost of this is being MAD. Changing the casting stat to Dex eliminates this cost and shouldn’t happen for balance reasons.
2) yes somatic and material components exist but then they do so for all casting classes and none use Dex as the casting stat so that is a nonstarter really.
3) The idea of a non casting Ranger with Dex based “maneuvers” makes some sense but, I suspect, becomes fairly unwieldy as at each point you provide access to them you need to provide at least 2 different ones to choose from - a melee one and a missile one since both types of rangers exist with frequency.
4) I can see allowing a ranger to select a “mental” stat as their casting stat, especially if there were more elemental/energy type spells available. However Dex isn’t a mental stat so it’s use makes no sense except as a means of breaking the Ranger’s MADness so see #1.
No, you’re not going to get 20’s in all key stats with a ranger like you could with a nonMAD class. But then you’re not supposed to. With the exception of the Gish subclasses no other PC has the range of abilities that the Ranger does. That range has a price - MADness. So yes your going to need at least a 13 in at least 3 stats - Dex/Str, Con, Wis.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
1. Rangers are not the most powerful class. Wizards are, by a wide margin. Given that Wizards outclass every other in terms of power by a long shot, it does not make sense to reject increasing Ranger power. Even giving the Ranger this bump in capability, it doesn't even come close to the power of the Wizard. Rangers use wisdom for casting because their spells overlap with the Druid, as wisdom caster.
2. This is an appeal to tradition. There is a plethora of fiction that use somatic components as their means of casting spells in a vast variety of media. Rejecting it because it breaks tradition is a poor reason to reject it.
3. This assumes that these maneuvers must adhere to a melee/ranged dichotomy. They do not. Every attack maneuver can simply do what smites do, "When you hit with an attack, you can do X as a bonus action". Any effect a ranged attack can apply can be applied by a melee attack.
4. This, again, is an appeal to tradition. Just because it has never been done, does not mean that it is bad.
"That range has a price - MADness." This is a poor argument, because replacing the ranged weapon with a melee weapon removes the cited advantage but does not eliminate the disadvantages imposed by the MADness. To entertain the argument, it would imply that you must use ranged weapons to avoid being further weakened as a class.
The Paladin gets around its MADness because a lot of their best features don't rely on their modifier to be effective. Rangers do not enjoy the same luxury.
The Paladin doesn't need to use STR as a casting stat. They don't need high CHA to make the most of their features.
Aside Beastmaster, does the Ranger use Wisdom for most of his features?
I have issues with Beastmaster, for sure, but it's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that utilizes Wisdom for one of their features. And you can just take wisdom independent spells if you want to dump it to 13 or whatever.
Note that I'm against using Dexterity as a casting stat.
1) I didn’t say they were the most powerful, I said that they were very powerful given their combination of melee, ranged combat, casting and skills. Further that the combination of so many different modes needed a mechanical cost which is their MADness.
2) no this is a description of the game mechanic - all casting is based on “ mental” stats not physical so trying to use the presence of somatic and material components as an excuse to disregarded this is very problematic.
3) please take a good look at the spells - a number of them convert single target ranged attacks into AOE ranged attacks, there are no AOE melee attacks that I am aware of. So a “one size fits all” maneuver/ability as a substitute doesn’t really work for at least some of the spells.
4) Again, not an appeal to “ tradition” but to basic game balance. Further your “just because it hasn’t been done …” argument is specious cndiering I was actually suggesting something that hasn’t been done.
5) you misunderstood my argument I was not talking about ranged weapons but about the range of abilities the ranger has available it is that range of abilities that has the price of MADness.
Yes Paladins are powerful with their class abilities and ability to convert spells to smites but I believe 2024 limited that somewhat because they had been found to be somewhat overpowered. Still, like the ranger they are exceptionally powerful because of the combination of martial and magical abilities and so they too are MAD characters.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
1. You were implying that this would give the Ranger more power than can be justified. I countered that the Wizard puts all other classes to shame in terms of power and versatility. You also implied that the MADness somehow keeps the Ranger balanced. It doesn't. The class that needs balancing the least is the Ranger.
2. No, you're justifying the adherence to using "mental" stats for spells simply because that is the way it has always been done in 5E. Appeals to tradition/convention are not a valid argument. Just because it has always been done that way does not imply it must be done that way. I fail to see how monsters failing more saves against the Ranger's vastly weaker AOE effects is going to make the Ranger too strong. They have, at most, 15 spell slots that requires a full 20 level investment to access. How many times the Ranger can cast these ostensibly powerful spells is limited by the fact that the Ranger is a half-caster.
3. I have looked at the spells. A large number of them have saving throws attached to them. Saddling the Ranger with a weak DC and giving them multiple AOE spells with saving throws is just absurd. The Ranger is not built to go 100% into spell casting. Forcing them to have a weak DC on top of it just makes their spells even weaker. It's silly to be concerned with a Ranger having an AOE with a higher DC when a Wizard can drop a level 9 fireball that absolutely dwarfs any amount of damage a Ranger can do. The Ranger is also a half caster and will never access its 5th level spells unless sticking with the class well into 4 tier play. The MADness is not justified.
4. No, you're not defending balance. The argument for balance goes out the window with the existence of the Wizard. You're defending tradition. Secondly, you didn't suggest something that hasn't been done. I suggested it, and you opined on it. Have some integrity.
5. No matter how versatile you might believe Ranger is, that doesn't make it more powerful. It merely makes it more varied. If anything, it enables members of an entire party of Rangers to serve different functions in the party.
Despite the 2024 rules, the Paladin is still powerful enough to negate its own MADness. Paladin's are not nearly as dependent on their DC as the Ranger is. A Ranger without spells is just a less capable archery style Fighter.
Greevar, the wizards don’t toss the balance of anything out the window, or if you prefer it is sufficiently out of balance as to be useless for comparison. The ranger is competitive with the fighter up to L11 and possibly beyond. He is nearly as skilled as the rogue (or bard), and while he is by no means as powerful a caster as the full casters he is also, by far, the most powerful of the partial casters. This breadth of capacity is why rangers are MAD. Yes wizards are hugely powerful but then that comes from the breadth of their spells but they are really ne trick ponies - they cast arcane spells. Their skills are minimal, they are useless in a martial role so they boy need one stat - Intel. Fighters are similar - they fight. They need either strength or dexterity, depending on fighting styles, and they need Con. Clerics can fight - sort of - but, like mages they basically cast spells. They need Wisdom and Con (Druids included). Rogues need Dex and really Intel (for skills like nvestigation). Bards start to be MAD needing Dex ( for defense if nothing else) con for HP and Charisma for casting and influencing folks. All the one stat ( or really 2 stat since Con) classes are basically one trick ponies. Bards and rangers are the MAD classes because they can do so much more - bards focus on magic as full casters but respectable skills and limited martial ability, rangers are initially mostly martial but have respectable skills and solid if limited casting ability. A really solid Ranger needs 4 or 5 solid stats (13+) - Strength or Dex for melee combat, Dex for missile combat, wisdom for casting, con for HP, intel for skills and Charisma for dealing with folks. I don’t have a problem with a non casting ranger that uses Dex for “maneuvers” but I just don’t see making Dex a casting stat just make it easier to make a ranger.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.