Teleportation magic isn't something a party is assumed to have
Yes it is, which is why so many classes have access to it: warlock, bard, wizard, sorcerer, druid & cleric. It would be quite a challenge to find a party that didn't include at least one of those.
Similarly, the game assumes that after a particular level travel / camping in normal wilderness environments is not a challenge. Which is generally around level 5, when most parties will have access to Tiny Hut and/or Goodberry and/or Create Food and Water. This can also been seen in monster design as most ordinary animals as well as typical "bandit"-type humanoids are CR 3 or less (i.e. not a significant threat to level 5+ PCs).
Foraging means not having to prepare and spend a spell slot on Goodberry.
Goodberry is a great spell, even if you have the best forager in the world it would be worth taking it for the out-of-combat healing potential. But even if it wasn't, having a 1st level spell be able to make the core concept of your class redundant is terrible game design.
It's a poor reader who blames a book for something they didn't understand when it's spelled out plainly.
LOL, this is a really poor argument: "the book says they are foragers & trackers therefore that is all they can ever be" when this whole discussion is about rewriting that very book to fix the problems with it. The concept of a character class specializing in surviving in the wilderness and tracking is a fundamentally a bad idea when Divination magic and food/shelter conjuring magic exists.
Teleportation magic isn't something a party is assumed to have
Yes it is, which is why so many classes have access to it: warlock, bard, wizard, sorcerer, druid & cleric. It would be quite a challenge to find a party that didn't include at least one of those.
Similarly, the game assumes that after a particular level travel / camping in normal wilderness environments is not a challenge. Which is generally around level 5, when most parties will have access to Tiny Hut and/or Goodberry and/or Create Food and Water. This can also been seen in monster design as most ordinary animals as well as typical "bandit"-type humanoids are CR 3 or less (i.e. not a significant threat to level 5+ PCs).
Foraging means not having to prepare and spend a spell slot on Goodberry.
Goodberry is a great spell, even if you have the best forager in the world it would be worth taking it for the out-of-combat healing potential. But even if it wasn't, having a 1st level spell be able to make the core concept of your class redundant is terrible game design.
It's a poor reader who blames a book for something they didn't understand when it's spelled out plainly.
LOL, this is a really poor argument: "the book says they are foragers & trackers therefore that is all they can ever be" when this whole discussion is about rewriting that very book to fix the problems with it. The concept of a character class specializing in surviving in the wilderness and tracking is a fundamentally a bad idea when Divination magic and food/shelter conjuring magic exists.
Once again, you're demonstrably bad at this.
Clerics don't have access to teleportation magic, and the closest the Druid has is Tree Stride. For everyone else, they can't simply swap them out every day. They either just know them or add them to their spellbook. If the intent was to assume players always had access to such spells, the players would simply be given the spells. In any case, they all have limitations. As I said previously, they're for revisiting places you've already been. They aren't for adventuring somewhere new without assuming risk.
It's a good thing, then, that a 1st-level spell is utterly incapable of making a core concept of a class redundant. I shouldn't have to say that, and I honestly can't tell if you actualy believe that tripe or if you're being deliberately hyperbolic. Either way, you're acting the fool.
You're making excuses for why the ranger shouldn't exist in the first place, not how it can fit into a fantastical world, and I find it asinine. Magic cannot solve all problems. Magic should not solve all problems. Spell slots are a resource that is not easily recovered. Anything which helps save the party resources, because Dungeons & Dragons is a game of resource management, is a good thing.
Teleportation magic isn't something a party is assumed to have
Yes it is, which is why so many classes have access to it: warlock, bard, wizard, sorcerer, druid & cleric. It would be quite a challenge to find a party that didn't include at least one of those.
Similarly, the game assumes that after a particular level travel / camping in normal wilderness environments is not a challenge. Which is generally around level 5, when most parties will have access to Tiny Hut and/or Goodberry and/or Create Food and Water. This can also been seen in monster design as most ordinary animals as well as typical "bandit"-type humanoids are CR 3 or less (i.e. not a significant threat to level 5+ PCs).
Foraging means not having to prepare and spend a spell slot on Goodberry.
Goodberry is a great spell, even if you have the best forager in the world it would be worth taking it for the out-of-combat healing potential. But even if it wasn't, having a 1st level spell be able to make the core concept of your class redundant is terrible game design.
It's a poor reader who blames a book for something they didn't understand when it's spelled out plainly.
LOL, this is a really poor argument: "the book says they are foragers & trackers therefore that is all they can ever be" when this whole discussion is about rewriting that very book to fix the problems with it. The concept of a character class specializing in surviving in the wilderness and tracking is a fundamentally a bad idea when Divination magic and food/shelter conjuring magic exists.
Once again, you're demonstrably bad at this.
Clerics don't have access to teleportation magic, and the closest the Druid has is Tree Stride. For everyone else, they can't simply swap them out every day. They either just know them or add them to their spellbook. If the intent was to assume players always had access to such spells, the players would simply be given the spells. In any case, they all have limitations. As I said previously, they're for revisiting places you've already been. They aren't for adventuring somewhere new without assuming risk.
It's a good thing, then, that a 1st-level spell is utterly incapable of making a core concept of a class redundant. I shouldn't have to say that, and I honestly can't tell if you actualy believe that tripe or if you're being deliberately hyperbolic. Either way, you're acting the fool.
You're making excuses for why the ranger shouldn't exist in the first place, not how it can fit into a fantastical world, and I find it asinine. Magic cannot solve all problems. Magic should not solve all problems. Spell slots are a resource that is not easily recovered. Anything which helps save the party resources, because Dungeons & Dragons is a game of resource management, is a good thing.
1. Arcana Domain has teleportation circle, and all clerics have astral projection, plane shift, and Gate. I believe you meant Transport via Plants for the Druid spell and they also have plane shift. Teleportation Circle can take you to any place you have seen the circle for even if it’s a copy of the circle. So you can go new places with that if acquire a picture of a circle. Teleport definitely takes you new places at a risk, but can be greatly mitigated with a scrying spell. Also saying allows Transport via Plants to take you to new places. So they aren’t fr revisiting places you’ve already been. I think Word of Recall is the only one with that restriction hard coded into the spell. The others just need work to be done before you go to a new place with them.
2. Good Berry does make foraging obsolete, but it doesn’t matter since the game never put much stock in the travel, exploration pillar anyway.
3. D&D is not a resource management game. If it is, it’s a really bad one. Some classes have no resources to balance and others have lost of resources to balance. Also what you can do with those resources is unbalanced.
Clerics don't have access to teleportation magic, and the closest the Druid has is Tree Stride. For everyone else, they can't simply swap them out every day. They either just know them or add them to their spellbook. If the intent was to assume players always had access to such spells, the players would simply be given the spells. In any case, they all have limitations. As I said previously, they're for revisiting places you've already been. They aren't for adventuring somewhere new without assuming risk.
It's a good thing, then, that a 1st-level spell is utterly incapable of making a core concept of a class redundant. I shouldn't have to say that, and I honestly can't tell if you actualy believe that tripe or if you're being deliberately hyperbolic. Either way, you're acting the fool.
You're making excuses for why the ranger shouldn't exist in the first place, not how it can fit into a fantastical world, and I find it asinine. Magic cannot solve all problems. Magic should not solve all problems. Spell slots are a resource that is not easily recovered. Anything which helps save the party resources, because Dungeons & Dragons is a game of resource management, is a good thing.
Clerics have: Makes survival obsolete: Guardian of Faith, Temple of the Gods, Create Food & Water, Hero's Feast, Purify Food & Drink Teleportation: Word of Recall, Plane Shift, Gate
Druids have: Makes survival obsolete: Goodberry, Purify Food & Drink, Create/Destroy Water, (maybe) Meld into Stone, Hallucinatory Terrain, Druid Grove Teleportation/Longrange transport: Transport via Plants, Wind Walk, Plane Shift
Have you ever even played D&D? You need to seriously HB to get anything even close to a survival game, RAW survival against the elements is not a challenge.
If the definition of a ranger is one specializing in wilderness survival then yes it should not exist in D&D. However, the Ranger in D&D is not one specializing in wilderness survival but rather as a competent warrior with good maneuverability and versatility as well as a skilled explorer/infiltrator.
the etymology of the name ranger is 'travel/protect at range/large distances' not ranged combat.(although it helps). Ranger needs at least one traveling feature even if its a not part of the power budget.(AKA Ribbon)
One of the reasons I like Roving so much is that it makes Rangers excellent at ranging. If I had to give Ranger a single iconic ability it'd probably involve movement in some way. A ranger should be able to jump on their chosen target and stick to them like glue. If you run the ranger can run you down. If you try to hide the ranger can find you. If you try to flee the country the ranger can track you down to the ends of the earth. Abilities that limit the foe's capacity to escape should be baked into the class as well. If a ranger calls you out as their chosen prey you better be able to out-fight them because that is the only way you're getting out of this alive.
but that isn't ranging. that is mobility monks have always been good at the mobility space. A ranger that likes the boost still has longstrider and other spells to amplify it. combat movement is less important to a ranger than out of combat movement. Frankly, I could always get more useful movement further ignoring difficult terrain rather than extra movement.
similarly fighters get action surge for extra actions in combat but 2014 ranger was designed to give extra actions out of combat (2x foraging, 2 actions while traveling, 2x studying). now 2014 was convoluted to use (and possibly situational) and many people didn't like its implementation but its intended function is exactly what players wanted.
I feel like I could keep going about how rangers are designed to contrast most of the other classes but that's a side track I don't want to go on.
TLDR ; Having roving is not the same as Ranging.
Foraging is irrelevant from level 1 thanks to Goodberry (which Rangers can learn at level 2), and Traveling is completely irrelevant by tier 3 (if not before) because of teleportation spells. It is poor design to have the core of any class become utterly useless during the normal course of the game.
Foraging goes beyond just food. Aquiring Sellable goods and crafting supplies gives you "tools" to use to make yourself better.
For example:Tthe new bastion system this would allow harvesting 2 healing potions worth of herbs or poisons, or 100gp of food instead of 50gp.
Most of the teleportation magic options don't put you right on point and still require traveling from set location to "job sites"
Cunning Strikes is great, but it's just catching up with Pathfinder. And they still fail to understand why it rated so high and what barbarian and fighter are missing. If they did, they'd give these two classes something to do other then basic bonk as well.
If all your Fighter/Barbarian can do is "basic bonk" then you've built it very poorly, and maybe intentionally went with simpler options like Champion and Berserker when you should have gone with more complex ones like BM or Wildheart or something. WotC isn't to blame for that.
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk. Eldritch Knight might be on to something interesting, at least mixing up basic bonk with True Strike or Shocking Grasp. Barbarian? Almost all subclasses are still basic bonk. Look at Cunning Strikes, it's perfect. It's what I was asking for fighters for years. Core fighter might do with like 4-5 maneuvers so that even brain-dead amoeba of a new player won't get confused. And then subclasses would add their own options to the base mechanic, like Swashbuckler and Assassin do. There could be a commander subclass for things like commander's strike, bait and switch, and rally, a duelist that would add parry, riposte, and evasive footwork, etc.
the etymology of the name ranger is 'travel/protect at range/large distances' not ranged combat.(although it helps). Ranger needs at least one traveling feature even if its a not part of the power budget.(AKA Ribbon)
One of the reasons I like Roving so much is that it makes Rangers excellent at ranging. If I had to give Ranger a single iconic ability it'd probably involve movement in some way. A ranger should be able to jump on their chosen target and stick to them like glue. If you run the ranger can run you down. If you try to hide the ranger can find you. If you try to flee the country the ranger can track you down to the ends of the earth. Abilities that limit the foe's capacity to escape should be baked into the class as well. If a ranger calls you out as their chosen prey you better be able to out-fight them because that is the only way you're getting out of this alive.
but that isn't ranging. that is mobility monks have always been good at the mobility space. A ranger that likes the boost still has longstrider and other spells to amplify it. combat movement is less important to a ranger than out of combat movement. Frankly, I could always get more useful movement further ignoring difficult terrain rather than extra movement.
similarly fighters get action surge for extra actions in combat but 2014 ranger was designed to give extra actions out of combat (2x foraging, 2 actions while traveling, 2x studying). now 2014 was convoluted to use (and possibly situational) and many people didn't like its implementation but its intended function is exactly what players wanted.
I feel like I could keep going about how rangers are designed to contrast most of the other classes but that's a side track I don't want to go on.
TLDR ; Having roving is not the same as Ranging.
Foraging is irrelevant from level 1 thanks to Goodberry (which Rangers can learn at level 2), and Traveling is completely irrelevant by tier 3 (if not before) because of teleportation spells. It is poor design to have the core of any class become utterly useless during the normal course of the game.
Foraging goes beyond just food. Aquiring Sellable goods and crafting supplies gives you "tools" to use to make yourself better.
For example:Tthe new bastion system this would allow harvesting 2 healing potions worth of herbs or poisons, or 100gp of food instead of 50gp.
Most of the teleportation magic options don't put you right on point and still require traveling from set location to "job sites"
Mm.. yes.. that's SO useful when in a single combat against some enemies wearing armour easily lets you loot 3000gp worth of armour at the end of it. (sarcasm)
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk. Eldritch Knight might be on to something interesting, at least mixing up basic bonk with True Strike or Shocking Grasp. Barbarian? Almost all subclasses are still basic bonk. Look at Cunning Strikes, it's perfect. It's what I was asking for fighters for years. Core fighter might do with like 4-5 maneuvers so that even brain-dead amoeba of a new player won't get confused. And then subclasses would add their own options to the base mechanic, like Swashbuckler and Assassin do. There could be a commander subclass for things like commander's strike, bait and switch, and rally, a duelist that would add parry, riposte, and evasive footwork, etc.
Only because you refuse to use your imagination or creativity for even a second. 90% of D&D is not written on your character sheet. If all you do is parrot stuff that is written on your character sheet then of course your game is going to feel boring and lame.
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk.
The buttons your subclass gives you to press are NOT the only options your character has round-to-round. The sooner you and your DM come to grips with that the better off your games will be.
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk.
The buttons your subclass gives you to press are NOT the only options your character has round-to-round. The sooner you and your DM come to grips with that the better off your games will be.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
1) Bold is a much bigger category than the "basic bonk" crowd believe. Be creative.
2) I disagree that UA7 Battle Master "always wins." Yes, they have useful special attacks, but when it comes to buffing ability checks they have exactly two maneuvers to do so - Commanding Presence and Tactical Assessment, both drawing from the same limited resource pool as their other maneuvers, and both limited to checks that are situationally useful at best. UA7 Champion meanwhile gets permanent advantage on every Athletics check they make, and can grant themselves floating advantage on anything else every single round during combat. If you have a Champion in your party, everyone is going to be passing their excess Inspiration to him because he's guaranteed to generate more when a fight breaks out, and the Champion themselves will be encouraged to do stylish things to earn more of it too.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
1) Bold is a much bigger category than the "basic bonk" crowd believe. Be creative.
2) I disagree that UA7 Battle Master "always wins." Yes, they have useful special attacks, but when it comes to buffing ability checks they have exactly two maneuvers to do so - Commanding Presence and Tactical Assessment, both drawing from the same limited resource pool as their other maneuvers, and both limited to checks that are situationally useful at best. UA7 Champion meanwhile gets permanent advantage on every Athletics check they make, and can grant themselves floating advantage on anything else every single round during combat. If you have a Champion in your party, everyone is going to be passing their excess Inspiration to him because he's guaranteed to generate more when a fight breaks out, and the Champion themselves will be encouraged to do stylish things to earn more of it too.
Oh you mean the no damage on your turn Buttons that everyone gets. Those aren’t really fun when the Battle Master can do them while dealing damage. Actually while dealing additional damage, you know because it’s spending a resource. Oh yeah a resource that Champion doesn’t even have.
Oh and while Chanpion has advantage on Athletics checks Battle Master has another skill proficiency and a tool so BM is still winning the versatility game. When Champion is getting a second fighting style which could be could be cool, BM is getting “hunters lore” I mean “know your enemy” which is what rangers should have gotten in their base class, but that’s another topic. So yeah Champion getting Hero Warrior at 10th is cool, but still isn’t a cool button to press. It’s as Kamchatmonk would probably say, “it’s Bonk with advantage.” BM has choices to make each turn.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
1) Bold is a much bigger category than the "basic bonk" crowd believe. Be creative.
2) I disagree that UA7 Battle Master "always wins." Yes, they have useful special attacks, but when it comes to buffing ability checks they have exactly two maneuvers to do so - Commanding Presence and Tactical Assessment, both drawing from the same limited resource pool as their other maneuvers, and both limited to checks that are situationally useful at best. UA7 Champion meanwhile gets permanent advantage on every Athletics check they make, and can grant themselves floating advantage on anything else every single round during combat. If you have a Champion in your party, everyone is going to be passing their excess Inspiration to him because he's guaranteed to generate more when a fight breaks out, and the Champion themselves will be encouraged to do stylish things to earn more of it too.
No argument for the second one. However, for the first one, there’s nothing a martial can do outside of its bonk buttons that a caster can’t also do better. Sure, you can minmax a highly effective martial build - but that doesn’t mean in the average game that a martial will do better than a caster. Utility is covered by casters. Skill checks can be bypassed by magic. Not all of them, but too many. Even then, bards get expertise. Rogues, when not minmaxed, compete with martials for damage, and have much better out of combat utility. Fundamentally, the problem for martials is that as soon as you have their key features (action surge, rage, hunter’s mark, dread ambusher, improved critical, extra attack..) it’s mechanically better to multiclass out, for both in and out of combat, because it gives you better skills, better damage, better mobility, etc etc, and it’s just more fun to play when you aren’t just saying ‘I attack [X]’ turn after turn.
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk.
The buttons your subclass gives you to press are NOT the only options your character has round-to-round. The sooner you and your DM come to grips with that the better off your games will be.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
LOL, EK is the king of fighters in the 5eR. Battlemaster doesn't even come close in terms of versatility, offense nor defense. Sorry to burst your bubble but Battlemaster.. really ain't that good. I've DMed for 3 different Battlemasters and only one of them didn't get frustrated and swap class for something more powerful, and the one who stayed exclusively used Precise Attack to increase their ability to land Sharpshooter power attacks.
I don't understand why people think imposing conditions is some how "more fun" than just killing things. I'd much rather chop the head off a dragon than have a 50% chance to maybe make it frightened of me for 1 round. Martials are fun because you get to kill stuff, the problem with martials currently is that their ability to kill stuff stagnates really quickly beyond level 5-7 so you end up MCing to rack up more abilities that help you kill stuff better.
Magic does not negate the need for skill checks, it is frankly shocking to me that anyone believes this is the case. IMO this belief is actually toxic to the D&D community. I recently DMed a scene with 4x level 12 characters and it took them over 1 hour to retrieve a large stone mosaic from the floor of a ruined temple because all they could do was stare at their list of spells, and didn't think of you know: (1) using a shovel to dig through a collapsed tunnel (2) using a knife to scrape away the crumbling mortar around the edge of the mosaic (3) using a crowbar to pry up the mosaic (4) using a block & tackle to hoist up the mosaic (5) using a wheelbarrow to carry the mosaic away.
Instead they debated whether anyone had a spell that could deal with a collapsed tunnel for 20 minutes before resorting to using magical paints to paint it away b/c no one had prepared a dirt-moving spell.
Had to roll an Intelligence check to be told their character would know that if they want to not break a special gem in the mosaic then trying to pry that gem out is a bad idea and maybe they should try to take the whole mosaic instead.
Again used magical paint to paint away the surrounding floor to reveal the edge of the mosaic.
then spent 50 minutes trying to figure out how to teleport the mosaic out of there when it proved too heavy for any one of their characters to carry. And eventually ended up using 3 spells and two potions to buff their athletics check so that one of them could lift it and use Dimension Door to teleport it out of the temple. [They still haven't figured out how to get it back to their keep, since I had to call the session there.]
In a similar situation, in the game where I am a player we were level 3 characters and we came across a large empty bird's nest with a big golden egg inside of it. By the time the 3 casters were arguing about the third spell that might be helpful in this situation, I had to interrupt them to say my character just climbs the tree and picks it up and wouldn't you know? the DM didn't even ask for a roll b/c RAW climbing doesn't require a skill check unless it is something particularly difficult to climb.
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk.
The buttons your subclass gives you to press are NOT the only options your character has round-to-round. The sooner you and your DM come to grips with that the better off your games will be.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
LOL, EK is the king of fighters in the 5eR. Battlemaster doesn't even come close in terms of versatility, offense nor defense. Sorry to burst your bubble but Battlemaster.. really ain't that good. I've DMed for 3 different Battlemasters and only one of them didn't get frustrated and swap class for something more powerful, and the one who stayed exclusively used Precise Attack to increase their ability to land Sharpshooter power attacks.
I don't understand why people think imposing conditions is some how "more fun" than just killing things. I'd much rather chop the head off a dragon than have a 50% chance to maybe make it frightened of me for 1 round. Martials are fun because you get to kill stuff, the problem with martials currently is that their ability to kill stuff stagnates really quickly beyond level 5-7 so you end up MCing to rack up more abilities that help you kill stuff better.
I don’t know who you are playing with unless all your games start at level 10 and go to 20 BM is killing things way faster than EK. Lol BM is easily the King. Even Looking at the nice upgrade EK has in 5eR it’s still behind BM in single target make that thing dead now damage. It’s funny because you are the numbers guy, so I expected you to know this. Lmao.
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk.
The buttons your subclass gives you to press are NOT the only options your character has round-to-round. The sooner you and your DM come to grips with that the better off your games will be.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
LOL, EK is the king of fighters in the 5eR. Battlemaster doesn't even come close in terms of versatility, offense nor defense. Sorry to burst your bubble but Battlemaster.. really ain't that good. I've DMed for 3 different Battlemasters and only one of them didn't get frustrated and swap class for something more powerful, and the one who stayed exclusively used Precise Attack to increase their ability to land Sharpshooter power attacks.
I don't understand why people think imposing conditions is some how "more fun" than just killing things. I'd much rather chop the head off a dragon than have a 50% chance to maybe make it frightened of me for 1 round. Martials are fun because you get to kill stuff, the problem with martials currently is that their ability to kill stuff stagnates really quickly beyond level 5-7 so you end up MCing to rack up more abilities that help you kill stuff better.
I don’t know who you are playing with unless all your games start at level 10 and go to 20 BM is killing things way faster than EK. Lol BM is easily the King. Even Looking at the nice upgrade EK has in 5eR it’s still behind BM in single target make that thing dead now damage. It’s funny because you are the numbers guy, so I expected you to know this. Lmao.
You might want to check that again. 5eR lets them swap a cantrip for 1 attack at level 7 which means they are adding a minimum of 1d8 to every Action all day long. Plus they get Adv on their first attack every turn from Find Familiar. Meanwhile BM gets 5d10s per SR. People whine endlessly about the monk's limited resources but BM is far worse, it's dead easy for a BM to expend all their SDs in the first round of combat.
Teleportation magic isn't something a party is assumed to have
Yes it is, which is why so many classes have access to it: warlock, bard, wizard, sorcerer, druid & cleric. It would be quite a challenge to find a party that didn't include at least one of those.
Similarly, the game assumes that after a particular level travel / camping in normal wilderness environments is not a challenge. Which is generally around level 5, when most parties will have access to Tiny Hut and/or Goodberry and/or Create Food and Water. This can also been seen in monster design as most ordinary animals as well as typical "bandit"-type humanoids are CR 3 or less (i.e. not a significant threat to level 5+ PCs).
Foraging means not having to prepare and spend a spell slot on Goodberry.
Goodberry is a great spell, even if you have the best forager in the world it would be worth taking it for the out-of-combat healing potential. But even if it wasn't, having a 1st level spell be able to make the core concept of your class redundant is terrible game design.
It's a poor reader who blames a book for something they didn't understand when it's spelled out plainly.
LOL, this is a really poor argument: "the book says they are foragers & trackers therefore that is all they can ever be" when this whole discussion is about rewriting that very book to fix the problems with it. The concept of a character class specializing in surviving in the wilderness and tracking is a fundamentally a bad idea when Divination magic and food/shelter conjuring magic exists.
Once again, you're demonstrably bad at this.
Clerics don't have access to teleportation magic, and the closest the Druid has is Tree Stride. For everyone else, they can't simply swap them out every day. They either just know them or add them to their spellbook. If the intent was to assume players always had access to such spells, the players would simply be given the spells. In any case, they all have limitations. As I said previously, they're for revisiting places you've already been. They aren't for adventuring somewhere new without assuming risk.
It's a good thing, then, that a 1st-level spell is utterly incapable of making a core concept of a class redundant. I shouldn't have to say that, and I honestly can't tell if you actualy believe that tripe or if you're being deliberately hyperbolic. Either way, you're acting the fool.
You're making excuses for why the ranger shouldn't exist in the first place, not how it can fit into a fantastical world, and I find it asinine. Magic cannot solve all problems. Magic should not solve all problems. Spell slots are a resource that is not easily recovered. Anything which helps save the party resources, because Dungeons & Dragons is a game of resource management, is a good thing.
1. Arcana Domain has teleportation circle, and all clerics have astral projection, plane shift, and Gate. I believe you meant Transport via Plants for the Druid spell and they also have plane shift. Teleportation Circle can take you to any place you have seen the circle for even if it’s a copy of the circle. So you can go new places with that if acquire a picture of a circle. Teleport definitely takes you new places at a risk, but can be greatly mitigated with a scrying spell. Also saying allows Transport via Plants to take you to new places. So they aren’t fr revisiting places you’ve already been. I think Word of Recall is the only one with that restriction hard coded into the spell. The others just need work to be done before you go to a new place with them.
2. Good Berry does make foraging obsolete, but it doesn’t matter since the game never put much stock in the travel, exploration pillar anyway.
3. D&D is not a resource management game. If it is, it’s a really bad one. Some classes have no resources to balance and others have lost of resources to balance. Also what you can do with those resources is unbalanced.
Are you for real?
I'm not even going to answer the first parts. D&D is absolutely a resource management game. If I'm the only person sane enough to see that, then I'm bowing out. No point sticking around, whatsoever.
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk.
The buttons your subclass gives you to press are NOT the only options your character has round-to-round. The sooner you and your DM come to grips with that the better off your games will be.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
LOL, EK is the king of fighters in the 5eR. Battlemaster doesn't even come close in terms of versatility, offense nor defense. Sorry to burst your bubble but Battlemaster.. really ain't that good. I've DMed for 3 different Battlemasters and only one of them didn't get frustrated and swap class for something more powerful, and the one who stayed exclusively used Precise Attack to increase their ability to land Sharpshooter power attacks.
I don't understand why people think imposing conditions is some how "more fun" than just killing things. I'd much rather chop the head off a dragon than have a 50% chance to maybe make it frightened of me for 1 round. Martials are fun because you get to kill stuff, the problem with martials currently is that their ability to kill stuff stagnates really quickly beyond level 5-7 so you end up MCing to rack up more abilities that help you kill stuff better.
I don’t know who you are playing with unless all your games start at level 10 and go to 20 BM is killing things way faster than EK. Lol BM is easily the King. Even Looking at the nice upgrade EK has in 5eR it’s still behind BM in single target make that thing dead now damage. It’s funny because you are the numbers guy, so I expected you to know this. Lmao.
You might want to check that again. 5eR lets them swap a cantrip for 1 attack at level 7 which means they are adding a minimum of 1d8 to every Action all day long. Plus they get Adv on their first attack every turn from Find Familiar. Meanwhile BM gets 5d10s per SR. People whine endlessly about the monk's limited resources but BM is far worse, it's dead easy for a BM to expend all their SDs in the first round of combat.
But Dnd is a game of Burst damage. You say it all the time. “Damage now is better than damage later.” Lmao. I can literally go pull a post were you say that word for word. What’s your other one. Dead is the best status condition. Lol. I finally agree with you about something and you don’t even agree with yourself. Lmao
Teleportation magic isn't something a party is assumed to have
Yes it is, which is why so many classes have access to it: warlock, bard, wizard, sorcerer, druid & cleric. It would be quite a challenge to find a party that didn't include at least one of those.
Similarly, the game assumes that after a particular level travel / camping in normal wilderness environments is not a challenge. Which is generally around level 5, when most parties will have access to Tiny Hut and/or Goodberry and/or Create Food and Water. This can also been seen in monster design as most ordinary animals as well as typical "bandit"-type humanoids are CR 3 or less (i.e. not a significant threat to level 5+ PCs).
Foraging means not having to prepare and spend a spell slot on Goodberry.
Goodberry is a great spell, even if you have the best forager in the world it would be worth taking it for the out-of-combat healing potential. But even if it wasn't, having a 1st level spell be able to make the core concept of your class redundant is terrible game design.
It's a poor reader who blames a book for something they didn't understand when it's spelled out plainly.
LOL, this is a really poor argument: "the book says they are foragers & trackers therefore that is all they can ever be" when this whole discussion is about rewriting that very book to fix the problems with it. The concept of a character class specializing in surviving in the wilderness and tracking is a fundamentally a bad idea when Divination magic and food/shelter conjuring magic exists.
Once again, you're demonstrably bad at this.
Clerics don't have access to teleportation magic, and the closest the Druid has is Tree Stride. For everyone else, they can't simply swap them out every day. They either just know them or add them to their spellbook. If the intent was to assume players always had access to such spells, the players would simply be given the spells. In any case, they all have limitations. As I said previously, they're for revisiting places you've already been. They aren't for adventuring somewhere new without assuming risk.
It's a good thing, then, that a 1st-level spell is utterly incapable of making a core concept of a class redundant. I shouldn't have to say that, and I honestly can't tell if you actualy believe that tripe or if you're being deliberately hyperbolic. Either way, you're acting the fool.
You're making excuses for why the ranger shouldn't exist in the first place, not how it can fit into a fantastical world, and I find it asinine. Magic cannot solve all problems. Magic should not solve all problems. Spell slots are a resource that is not easily recovered. Anything which helps save the party resources, because Dungeons & Dragons is a game of resource management, is a good thing.
1. Arcana Domain has teleportation circle, and all clerics have astral projection, plane shift, and Gate. I believe you meant Transport via Plants for the Druid spell and they also have plane shift. Teleportation Circle can take you to any place you have seen the circle for even if it’s a copy of the circle. So you can go new places with that if acquire a picture of a circle. Teleport definitely takes you new places at a risk, but can be greatly mitigated with a scrying spell. Also saying allows Transport via Plants to take you to new places. So they aren’t fr revisiting places you’ve already been. I think Word of Recall is the only one with that restriction hard coded into the spell. The others just need work to be done before you go to a new place with them.
2. Good Berry does make foraging obsolete, but it doesn’t matter since the game never put much stock in the travel, exploration pillar anyway.
3. D&D is not a resource management game. If it is, it’s a really bad one. Some classes have no resources to balance and others have lost of resources to balance. Also what you can do with those resources is unbalanced.
Are you for real?
I'm not even going to answer the first parts. D&D is absolutely a resource management game. If I'm the only person sane enough to see that, then I'm bowing out. No point sticking around, whatsoever.
Bow out, because right now we are debating Battlemaster, Eldritch Knight, and Champion Fighter and that alone proves my point about resources. They are all fighters and interact wildly differently with resources. Actually the Champion has none. DND can be many different things but to call it a resource management game is bad, because every player is literally playing a different game. Y’all have so many jokes today.
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Yes it is, which is why so many classes have access to it: warlock, bard, wizard, sorcerer, druid & cleric. It would be quite a challenge to find a party that didn't include at least one of those.
Similarly, the game assumes that after a particular level travel / camping in normal wilderness environments is not a challenge. Which is generally around level 5, when most parties will have access to Tiny Hut and/or Goodberry and/or Create Food and Water. This can also been seen in monster design as most ordinary animals as well as typical "bandit"-type humanoids are CR 3 or less (i.e. not a significant threat to level 5+ PCs).
Goodberry is a great spell, even if you have the best forager in the world it would be worth taking it for the out-of-combat healing potential. But even if it wasn't, having a 1st level spell be able to make the core concept of your class redundant is terrible game design.
LOL, this is a really poor argument: "the book says they are foragers & trackers therefore that is all they can ever be" when this whole discussion is about rewriting that very book to fix the problems with it. The concept of a character class specializing in surviving in the wilderness and tracking is a fundamentally a bad idea when Divination magic and food/shelter conjuring magic exists.
Once again, you're demonstrably bad at this.
1. Arcana Domain has teleportation circle, and all clerics have astral projection, plane shift, and Gate. I believe you meant Transport via Plants for the Druid spell and they also have plane shift. Teleportation Circle can take you to any place you have seen the circle for even if it’s a copy of the circle. So you can go new places with that if acquire a picture of a circle. Teleport definitely takes you new places at a risk, but can be greatly mitigated with a scrying spell. Also saying allows Transport via Plants to take you to new places. So they aren’t fr revisiting places you’ve already been. I think Word of Recall is the only one with that restriction hard coded into the spell. The others just need work to be done before you go to a new place with them.
2. Good Berry does make foraging obsolete, but it doesn’t matter since the game never put much stock in the travel, exploration pillar anyway.
3. D&D is not a resource management game. If it is, it’s a really bad one. Some classes have no resources to balance and others have lost of resources to balance. Also what you can do with those resources is unbalanced.
Clerics have:
Makes survival obsolete: Guardian of Faith, Temple of the Gods, Create Food & Water, Hero's Feast, Purify Food & Drink
Teleportation: Word of Recall, Plane Shift, Gate
Druids have:
Makes survival obsolete: Goodberry, Purify Food & Drink, Create/Destroy Water, (maybe) Meld into Stone, Hallucinatory Terrain, Druid Grove
Teleportation/Longrange transport: Transport via Plants, Wind Walk, Plane Shift
Have you ever even played D&D? You need to seriously HB to get anything even close to a survival game, RAW survival against the elements is not a challenge.
If the definition of a ranger is one specializing in wilderness survival then yes it should not exist in D&D. However, the Ranger in D&D is not one specializing in wilderness survival but rather as a competent warrior with good maneuverability and versatility as well as a skilled explorer/infiltrator.
Foraging goes beyond just food. Aquiring Sellable goods and crafting supplies gives you "tools" to use to make yourself better.
For example:Tthe new bastion system this would allow harvesting 2 healing potions worth of herbs or poisons, or 100gp of food instead of 50gp.
Most of the teleportation magic options don't put you right on point and still require traveling from set location to "job sites"
And herein lies the problem - if you want options, your only option is to go Battlemaster. Champion only has basic bonk. Brawler only has basic bonk. Eldritch Knight might be on to something interesting, at least mixing up basic bonk with True Strike or Shocking Grasp. Barbarian? Almost all subclasses are still basic bonk. Look at Cunning Strikes, it's perfect. It's what I was asking for fighters for years. Core fighter might do with like 4-5 maneuvers so that even brain-dead amoeba of a new player won't get confused. And then subclasses would add their own options to the base mechanic, like Swashbuckler and Assassin do. There could be a commander subclass for things like commander's strike, bait and switch, and rally, a duelist that would add parry, riposte, and evasive footwork, etc.
Mm.. yes.. that's SO useful when in a single combat against some enemies wearing armour easily lets you loot 3000gp worth of armour at the end of it. (sarcasm)
Only because you refuse to use your imagination or creativity for even a second. 90% of D&D is not written on your character sheet. If all you do is parrot stuff that is written on your character sheet then of course your game is going to feel boring and lame.
The buttons your subclass gives you to press are NOT the only options your character has round-to-round. The sooner you and your DM come to grips with that the better off your games will be.
You only have the buttons everyone gets, the ones your main class gives you, the ones you subclass gives you, and the ones your feats give you. That’s it, any other buttons are homebrew. There is no reason to have a Battle Master vs Champion combat versatility debate. The Battle Master always wins. Even in a world with the new Weapon Masteries which do help the Champion catch up a bit. The Battle Master still sits on the throne of Fighters.
1) Bold is a much bigger category than the "basic bonk" crowd believe. Be creative.
2) I disagree that UA7 Battle Master "always wins." Yes, they have useful special attacks, but when it comes to buffing ability checks they have exactly two maneuvers to do so - Commanding Presence and Tactical Assessment, both drawing from the same limited resource pool as their other maneuvers, and both limited to checks that are situationally useful at best. UA7 Champion meanwhile gets permanent advantage on every Athletics check they make, and can grant themselves floating advantage on anything else every single round during combat. If you have a Champion in your party, everyone is going to be passing their excess Inspiration to him because he's guaranteed to generate more when a fight breaks out, and the Champion themselves will be encouraged to do stylish things to earn more of it too.
Oh you mean the no damage on your turn Buttons that everyone gets. Those aren’t really fun when the Battle Master can do them while dealing damage. Actually while dealing additional damage, you know because it’s spending a resource. Oh yeah a resource that Champion doesn’t even have.
Oh and while Chanpion has advantage on Athletics checks Battle Master has another skill proficiency and a tool so BM is still winning the versatility game. When Champion is getting a second fighting style which could be could be cool, BM is getting “hunters lore” I mean “know your enemy” which is what rangers should have gotten in their base class, but that’s another topic. So yeah Champion getting Hero Warrior at 10th is cool, but still isn’t a cool button to press. It’s as Kamchatmonk would probably say, “it’s Bonk with advantage.” BM has choices to make each turn.
No argument for the second one. However, for the first one, there’s nothing a martial can do outside of its bonk buttons that a caster can’t also do better. Sure, you can minmax a highly effective martial build - but that doesn’t mean in the average game that a martial will do better than a caster. Utility is covered by casters. Skill checks can be bypassed by magic. Not all of them, but too many. Even then, bards get expertise. Rogues, when not minmaxed, compete with martials for damage, and have much better out of combat utility. Fundamentally, the problem for martials is that as soon as you have their key features (action surge, rage, hunter’s mark, dread ambusher, improved critical, extra attack..) it’s mechanically better to multiclass out, for both in and out of combat, because it gives you better skills, better damage, better mobility, etc etc, and it’s just more fun to play when you aren’t just saying ‘I attack [X]’ turn after turn.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
LOL, EK is the king of fighters in the 5eR. Battlemaster doesn't even come close in terms of versatility, offense nor defense. Sorry to burst your bubble but Battlemaster.. really ain't that good. I've DMed for 3 different Battlemasters and only one of them didn't get frustrated and swap class for something more powerful, and the one who stayed exclusively used Precise Attack to increase their ability to land Sharpshooter power attacks.
I don't understand why people think imposing conditions is some how "more fun" than just killing things. I'd much rather chop the head off a dragon than have a 50% chance to maybe make it frightened of me for 1 round. Martials are fun because you get to kill stuff, the problem with martials currently is that their ability to kill stuff stagnates really quickly beyond level 5-7 so you end up MCing to rack up more abilities that help you kill stuff better.
Magic does not negate the need for skill checks, it is frankly shocking to me that anyone believes this is the case. IMO this belief is actually toxic to the D&D community. I recently DMed a scene with 4x level 12 characters and it took them over 1 hour to retrieve a large stone mosaic from the floor of a ruined temple because all they could do was stare at their list of spells, and didn't think of you know:
(1) using a shovel to dig through a collapsed tunnel
(2) using a knife to scrape away the crumbling mortar around the edge of the mosaic
(3) using a crowbar to pry up the mosaic
(4) using a block & tackle to hoist up the mosaic
(5) using a wheelbarrow to carry the mosaic away.
Instead they debated whether anyone had a spell that could deal with a collapsed tunnel for 20 minutes before resorting to using magical paints to paint it away b/c no one had prepared a dirt-moving spell.
Had to roll an Intelligence check to be told their character would know that if they want to not break a special gem in the mosaic then trying to pry that gem out is a bad idea and maybe they should try to take the whole mosaic instead.
Again used magical paint to paint away the surrounding floor to reveal the edge of the mosaic.
then spent 50 minutes trying to figure out how to teleport the mosaic out of there when it proved too heavy for any one of their characters to carry. And eventually ended up using 3 spells and two potions to buff their athletics check so that one of them could lift it and use Dimension Door to teleport it out of the temple. [They still haven't figured out how to get it back to their keep, since I had to call the session there.]
In a similar situation, in the game where I am a player we were level 3 characters and we came across a large empty bird's nest with a big golden egg inside of it. By the time the 3 casters were arguing about the third spell that might be helpful in this situation, I had to interrupt them to say my character just climbs the tree and picks it up and wouldn't you know? the DM didn't even ask for a roll b/c RAW climbing doesn't require a skill check unless it is something particularly difficult to climb.
I don’t know who you are playing with unless all your games start at level 10 and go to 20 BM is killing things way faster than EK. Lol BM is easily the King. Even Looking at the nice upgrade EK has in 5eR it’s still behind BM in single target make that thing dead now damage. It’s funny because you are the numbers guy, so I expected you to know this. Lmao.
You might want to check that again. 5eR lets them swap a cantrip for 1 attack at level 7 which means they are adding a minimum of 1d8 to every Action all day long. Plus they get Adv on their first attack every turn from Find Familiar. Meanwhile BM gets 5d10s per SR. People whine endlessly about the monk's limited resources but BM is far worse, it's dead easy for a BM to expend all their SDs in the first round of combat.
Are you for real?
I'm not even going to answer the first parts. D&D is absolutely a resource management game. If I'm the only person sane enough to see that, then I'm bowing out. No point sticking around, whatsoever.
But Dnd is a game of Burst damage. You say it all the time. “Damage now is better than damage later.” Lmao. I can literally go pull a post were you say that word for word. What’s your other one. Dead is the best status condition. Lol. I finally agree with you about something and you don’t even agree with yourself. Lmao
Bow out, because right now we are debating Battlemaster, Eldritch Knight, and Champion Fighter and that alone proves my point about resources. They are all fighters and interact wildly differently with resources. Actually the Champion has none. DND can be many different things but to call it a resource management game is bad, because every player is literally playing a different game. Y’all have so many jokes today.