Yo! so with the 2024 ranger out IMO it seems no one knows what a Ranger is anyone everyone has their own ideas of what it is. Some say its a fighter who tracks and others say its the animal class and yada yada. So i ask, would a Warlock invocation style system work better for the ranger? if no one can agree on it why not give them the "build a bear" treatment like Warlocks got?
PS This is not a discussion on if the new ranger is good or bad just using it and the recent debates as an example
given I am a warlock fan because of invocations, it's a concept I could get behind for sure.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
So far Ranger still feels like a class with idendity issues.
It used to be a fighter with terrain ribbon features. I honestly like the terrain stuff but the execution feels too situational. Right now it still has terrain stuff but super generalized in terms of movement speed and exhaustion.
I wish it has mechanics like Land Druid, while being in a DESERT isn't unlikely, it should still have something beneficial, something like that. So I guess that kinda sounds like invocations
I think a full-blown invocation system is unnecessary - but some way for all Rangers to get a dedicated scaling pet similar to Pact of the Chain could be interesting, along with an alternative for the ones who want to stay pet-less.
Imo, no. A substantial reason why Warlocks have invocations is to cover their general utility abilities when they have a small pool of spell slots. Rangers have a larger pool to work with, so they can simply use their lower level slots for utility. The Ranger identity is being the most comprehensive jack of all trades; they've got expertise and an extra starting prof, they've got extra attack and fighting styles, and they've got spells that let them essentially make AoE weapon attacks in addition to healing, utility, and control options. Artificers get their Infusions, but if you check the table they can have 3 running at a time at 10th level vs 5 Invocations 2014 or 7 Invocations 2024, and instead of bonuses to core skills their extra profs and expertise are aimed at the considerably more niche tools, so that comparison is pretty "instead of" rather than "in addition to".
I think a full-blown invocation system is unnecessary - but some way for all Rangers to get a dedicated scaling pet similar to Pact of the Chain could be interesting, along with an alternative for the ones who want to stay pet-less.
It's hard to find the space for something like that, though. Really what they'd have to do is yank the Beastmaster class altogether and try to incorporate elements of that as part of a modular set of class features, at least if you want something that truly scales. Otherwise this would probably just be another case of giving a class Find Familiar via a feature.
Not invocations specifically, but a similar mechanic that allows the ranger to diversify in what they focus on would be nice.
I've long advocated for Favored Foe and Favored Terrain to remain as mechanics, but instead of giving you generic bonuses when fighting your favored foe and exploring your favored terrain, you get unique bonuses that can be used anywhere based on what your choices are.
So say you choose Fey as your Favored Foe. You might get Detect Magic or See Invisibility as an always-prepared spell or maybe Advantage when making a save against the Charmed condition. These things would make you very good at fighting Fey but also have use outside of fighting your specific specialization.
Similarly, if your Favored Terrain is Forest maybe you have a Climb Speed and expertise in Acrobatics to represent your skill at maneuvering through tall trees like an elven scout. But these skills transfer easily to even an urban environment, allowing you to parkour across rooftops too.
Then at higher levels you either get access to more Favored Foes and Favored Terrains and thus pick up a wider assortment of boosts or you get to grab more advanced abilities based on your initial choice. Like maybe Favored Foe: Fey gives you Detect Magic initially, then at level 7 or whatever you get the Charmed defense.
This way we can still have things like winter rangers from the northern tundra who hunt giants as their primary quarry, but they'd actually be valuable in any campaign because as it turns out; being resilient against intense cold and having skill at fighting massive creatures makes for a pretty good skillset for an adventurer.
Imo, no. A substantial reason why Warlocks have invocations is to cover their general utility abilities when they have a small pool of spell slots. Rangers have a larger pool to work with, so they can simply use their lower level slots for utility. The Ranger identity is being the most comprehensive jack of all trades; they've got expertise and an extra starting prof, they've got extra attack and fighting styles, and they've got spells that let them essentially make AoE weapon attacks in addition to healing, utility, and control options. Artificers get their Infusions, but if you check the table they can have 3 running at a time at 10th level vs 5 Invocations 2014 or 7 Invocations 2024, and instead of bonuses to core skills their extra profs and expertise are aimed at the considerably more niche tools, so that comparison is pretty "instead of" rather than "in addition to".
The way id imagine it is for a ranger player to build the ranger they think is a "real ranger" allow them to go deeper into the pet stuff, fighting stuff, tracking, or nature stuff. its the only way currently i can think of for rangers not to have such a huge identity crisis. While you feel they are just another jack of all trades class alot of people dont just showing how messed up the ranger is. Iv had some people tell me the ranger should only be a tracker/ guide for the party and others tell me its the pet class.
I had never considered the idea presented for more all around buff types from favored foes and/or terrain. That would have been a wonderful option to be considered. Kinda wish I had that thought when they were doing all the beta testing. Aberrations maybe getting resistance to psychic damage ore something along those lines. Urban terrain granting some of the social skills (persuasion/intimidate/deception). That could have been really nifty.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Not invocations specifically, but a similar mechanic that allows the ranger to diversify in what they focus on would be nice.
I've long advocated for Favored Foe and Favored Terrain to remain as mechanics, but instead of giving you generic bonuses when fighting your favored foe and exploring your favored terrain, you get unique bonuses that can be used anywhere based on what your choices are.
So say you choose Fey as your Favored Foe. You might get Detect Magic or See Invisibility as an always-prepared spell or maybe Advantage when making a save against the Charmed condition. These things would make you very good at fighting Fey but also have use outside of fighting your specific specialization.
Similarly, if your Favored Terrain is Forest maybe you have a Climb Speed and expertise in Acrobatics to represent your skill at maneuvering through tall trees like an elven scout. But these skills transfer easily to even an urban environment, allowing you to parkour across rooftops too.
Then at higher levels you either get access to more Favored Foes and Favored Terrains and thus pick up a wider assortment of boosts or you get to grab more advanced abilities based on your initial choice. Like maybe Favored Foe: Fey gives you Detect Magic initially, then at level 7 or whatever you get the Charmed defense.
This way we can still have things like winter rangers from the northern tundra who hunt giants as their primary quarry, but they'd actually be valuable in any campaign because as it turns out; being resilient against intense cold and having skill at fighting massive creatures makes for a pretty good skillset for an adventurer.
This is brilliant! It fits so thematically, but makes them useful even outside of their Favored Terrain and Favored Foe. This is what Ranger always should have been....you have solved it!!
I do not feel they need an invocation mechanics. I do however think they should have addressed concentration issues with their casting and extra damage. Their concept to keep up on damage with fighters and paladins was hunters mark, which does not really hold weight when they need to hold concentration on it to do their utility support spells. Where paladins can still smite and get bonus damage on every attack at 11. They probably should of given rangers less free Hunter Marks, per day, but on the free cast versions they could of done it only last a minute with no concentration in the same fashion they did a lot of other class abilities with in the new edition.
I do not feel they need an invocation mechanics. I do however think they should have addressed concentration issues with their casting and extra damage. Their concept to keep up on damage with fighters and paladins was hunters mark, which does not really hold weight when they need to hold concentration on it to do their utility support spells. Where paladins can still smite and get bonus damage on every attack at 11. They probably should of given rangers less free Hunter Marks, per day, but on the free cast versions they could of done it only last a minute with no concentration in the same fashion they did a lot of other class abilities with in the new edition.
It's not just Hunter's Mark; three of the four subclasses in the new PHB have features for bonus damage on weapon hit independent of any spell. One is simply once per turn; one is once per turn when you hit a creature with less than max HP, and one is WIS mod times per LR but is significantly stronger than the other two. Beastmasters make their pet attack with a bonus action, which combos well with Nick TWF. And that's setting aside the DPR spikes Rangers can have with their AoE spells over Fighters and even Paladins. Hunter's Mark is a supplement to Ranger damage, but it's not a cornerstone.
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Yo! so with the 2024 ranger out IMO it seems no one knows what a Ranger is anyone everyone has their own ideas of what it is. Some say its a fighter who tracks and others say its the animal class and yada yada. So i ask, would a Warlock invocation style system work better for the ranger? if no one can agree on it why not give them the "build a bear" treatment like Warlocks got?
PS
This is not a discussion on if the new ranger is good or bad just using it and the recent debates as an example
given I am a warlock fan because of invocations, it's a concept I could get behind for sure.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
So far Ranger still feels like a class with idendity issues.
It used to be a fighter with terrain ribbon features. I honestly like the terrain stuff but the execution feels too situational.
Right now it still has terrain stuff but super generalized in terms of movement speed and exhaustion.
I wish it has mechanics like Land Druid, while being in a DESERT isn't unlikely, it should still have something beneficial, something like that. So I guess that kinda sounds like invocations
I think a full-blown invocation system is unnecessary - but some way for all Rangers to get a dedicated scaling pet similar to Pact of the Chain could be interesting, along with an alternative for the ones who want to stay pet-less.
Imo, no. A substantial reason why Warlocks have invocations is to cover their general utility abilities when they have a small pool of spell slots. Rangers have a larger pool to work with, so they can simply use their lower level slots for utility. The Ranger identity is being the most comprehensive jack of all trades; they've got expertise and an extra starting prof, they've got extra attack and fighting styles, and they've got spells that let them essentially make AoE weapon attacks in addition to healing, utility, and control options. Artificers get their Infusions, but if you check the table they can have 3 running at a time at 10th level vs 5 Invocations 2014 or 7 Invocations 2024, and instead of bonuses to core skills their extra profs and expertise are aimed at the considerably more niche tools, so that comparison is pretty "instead of" rather than "in addition to".
It's hard to find the space for something like that, though. Really what they'd have to do is yank the Beastmaster class altogether and try to incorporate elements of that as part of a modular set of class features, at least if you want something that truly scales. Otherwise this would probably just be another case of giving a class Find Familiar via a feature.
Not invocations specifically, but a similar mechanic that allows the ranger to diversify in what they focus on would be nice.
I've long advocated for Favored Foe and Favored Terrain to remain as mechanics, but instead of giving you generic bonuses when fighting your favored foe and exploring your favored terrain, you get unique bonuses that can be used anywhere based on what your choices are.
So say you choose Fey as your Favored Foe. You might get Detect Magic or See Invisibility as an always-prepared spell or maybe Advantage when making a save against the Charmed condition. These things would make you very good at fighting Fey but also have use outside of fighting your specific specialization.
Similarly, if your Favored Terrain is Forest maybe you have a Climb Speed and expertise in Acrobatics to represent your skill at maneuvering through tall trees like an elven scout. But these skills transfer easily to even an urban environment, allowing you to parkour across rooftops too.
Then at higher levels you either get access to more Favored Foes and Favored Terrains and thus pick up a wider assortment of boosts or you get to grab more advanced abilities based on your initial choice. Like maybe Favored Foe: Fey gives you Detect Magic initially, then at level 7 or whatever you get the Charmed defense.
This way we can still have things like winter rangers from the northern tundra who hunt giants as their primary quarry, but they'd actually be valuable in any campaign because as it turns out; being resilient against intense cold and having skill at fighting massive creatures makes for a pretty good skillset for an adventurer.
The way id imagine it is for a ranger player to build the ranger they think is a "real ranger" allow them to go deeper into the pet stuff, fighting stuff, tracking, or nature stuff. its the only way currently i can think of for rangers not to have such a huge identity crisis. While you feel they are just another jack of all trades class alot of people dont just showing how messed up the ranger is. Iv had some people tell me the ranger should only be a tracker/ guide for the party and others tell me its the pet class.
I had never considered the idea presented for more all around buff types from favored foes and/or terrain. That would have been a wonderful option to be considered. Kinda wish I had that thought when they were doing all the beta testing. Aberrations maybe getting resistance to psychic damage ore something along those lines. Urban terrain granting some of the social skills (persuasion/intimidate/deception). That could have been really nifty.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
This is brilliant! It fits so thematically, but makes them useful even outside of their Favored Terrain and Favored Foe. This is what Ranger always should have been....you have solved it!!
I don’t know that that solves it but I could see something like invocations and pacts that tailor the subclasses.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I do not feel they need an invocation mechanics. I do however think they should have addressed concentration issues with their casting and extra damage. Their concept to keep up on damage with fighters and paladins was hunters mark, which does not really hold weight when they need to hold concentration on it to do their utility support spells. Where paladins can still smite and get bonus damage on every attack at 11. They probably should of given rangers less free Hunter Marks, per day, but on the free cast versions they could of done it only last a minute with no concentration in the same fashion they did a lot of other class abilities with in the new edition.
It's not just Hunter's Mark; three of the four subclasses in the new PHB have features for bonus damage on weapon hit independent of any spell. One is simply once per turn; one is once per turn when you hit a creature with less than max HP, and one is WIS mod times per LR but is significantly stronger than the other two. Beastmasters make their pet attack with a bonus action, which combos well with Nick TWF. And that's setting aside the DPR spikes Rangers can have with their AoE spells over Fighters and even Paladins. Hunter's Mark is a supplement to Ranger damage, but it's not a cornerstone.