While I understand that this may seem like blasphemy, my current group has a Zealot Barbarian playing the role of the Paladin, to amazing effect. My group has had Paladin PC’s before and the Zealot Barb fills the role of the self-sacrificing holy warrior far more effectively than Paladins ever did, both in combat and in RP.
This got me thinking about the Paladin and Rangers as classes. I honestly think that the Scout Rogue fills the role of the Ranger better than the Ranger class itself. Would it make more sense then to have 1DnD follow this and have Paladin and Ranger-esc Subclasses for Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue, instead of hybrid core classes? I honestly think so. We could have a Paladin subclass for Barbarian, maybe with a heavily nerfed Lay on Hands(a pool of 1 HP per Barb level instead of x5). Maybe have a Ranger subclass for Fighter, with Expertise in 1 skill, Hunter’s Mark as a class feature, and access to the Druid spell list.
What are your thoughts on this idea? I look forward to reading your responses. Thank you.
Edit: I appreciate the responses everyone! Even if you disagreed, your perspectives have been enjoyable to read and reflect on!
While I think that's an interesting idea, I strongly disagree. Paladins are very, very different from fighters, and rangers are a completely different build. Yes, there are many martials that can do some of the things paladins can, but paladins can also do numerous things they can't. In addition, removing paladins means people who want to play a martial will have far less options to choose from. Oh, and the practical reasons for WotC is that paladins are insanely popular.
Rangers are a very unique build, and in the actual medieval ages, archer-type warriors represent a massive portion of the given army, and had very different fighting styles then regular fighters. Yes, you can make an archer out of a fighter, but most people don't. If you have rangers as a subclass, you make it a lot harder for people to effectively emulate archers in D&D, which a subclass can't fully do. I think rangers, especially since they also have tracking and nature stuff going for them, shouldn't be crammed into a subclass. As I said previously, I think the same thing for paladins too.
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I think what you say highlights a general problem with the classes/subclasses and how people want to build characters, which may be in a more modular way than the class/subclass structure allows. I know when I choose classes, I am choosing based on the mechanics of the subclasses I will use in that character build, in conjunction with my concept for the character. These two elements have different weights for different characters. I mean to say that I sometimes really key in on the mechanics, like, some goal I want (like hyper-specialization in something), sometimes I am more focused on trying to find the subclass that best matches my character concept, and usually somewhere in between the two. The way things are currently structured would require endless subclasses, or rather the finite set that we end up with which won't fit every character concept people come up with. I think I would prefer a more modular system, something like a feat list for class features that are gated with level restrictions, ability score prerequisites, and in a few cases other prerequisites (like if a higher-level class feature is an "upgrade" of an earlier class feature), with tags on them linking them to the current classes/subclasses and to other relevant tags like divine/arcane/primal. Multiclassing would be more like the default mode of character advancement. Class features could have prerequisites like "must have at least 2 class features with the divine tag" or "does an extra xDy healing based on the number of divine tags you have" forcing more of a focus to get the more powerful class abilities and better scaling. And making a single-class character would be as easy as picking everything related to your class/subclass tag of choice. This would also help with not being able to multiclass into multiple subclasses of the same class, which I think is a gap that should be filled.
I've wanted to make a Samurai that was more physical-based like a Champion with an increased critical threat range instead of some of the more metaphysical abilities of the Samurai subclass. On a separate note, I like the idea of a fighter that has Sneak Attack. A gish should maybe not require picking a magic-focused subclass of Fighter and instead just be their own character without forcing them into a bucket.
I think the modular approach to character classes would help a lot with trying to recrate your favorite characters - and to create your original concepts - in D&D.
With respect, I think you may lack understanding of the game mechanics and common build issues that have arrived with the Ranger during mid and high tier play. Remember: the 5e Ranger class is a gish, a martial/caster hybrid. Their martial capabilities lag farrrr behind Archer Fighter and Archer Rogue builds in DPR past level 5. An effective 5e Ranger archer ends up being very MAD. You need to max your Dex, then Max your Wisdom to pad your half assed martial damage with spell casting, just to barely keep up to the other Ranged classes. The reality is that attempting to Min/Max a Ranger makes you far closer to a Druid than any sort of hyper competent Archer.
I mean, let’s be real here: a Dex Fighter with a longbow can take the Magic Initiate feat to get Hunter’s Mark, and immediately have every Ranger’s DPR beat at every level. A Scout Rogue can do the same, all while having Expertise in Survival and Nature. A properly statted Scout Rogue with Magic Initiate is a better Ranger than the Ranger Core class, in literally every way.
That’s a very bad thing, one that should absolutely be addressed in 1DnD
The problem I see with your proposal (which it is very good to ask questions) is how D&D 5e does classes and sub-calsses as well as its focus on simplicity. What you are asking IMHO would take a lot more "stuff" and basic class "rules" to make work.
While a Fighter can be optimized to be a better archer than a ranger; a ranger is more than just an archer or at least they should be. The flavor of a ranger should and is different from just a simple archer; plus they can be built for melee as well. They have some mechanical issues and could use some buffs to the base class such simply knowing all their spells and preparing them like paladins do; rangers should be to druids like paladin is to clerics.
Paladins are also rather unique mechanically and are one of the best designed classes in the game. Honestly, aura of protection alone makes them a mechanical welcome in any party. Their frontline capacity in addition to their support capacity just feels good.
We have 4 non-magic classes, 4 half-casters / pact magic user, and 5 casters.
Reducing paladin to just "warrior with holy damage" misses their aura, their healing of others, their mount pets, their detection abilities, their favored enemies (undead and friends) etc.
Same with ranger - there's more going on here than just survival checks, archery and skirmishing. Did you know the main dissatisfaction of the PHB Ranger was the badly done Beastmaster? Not DPR. The pet. After that, it was the exploration abilities. Most were actually satisfied with ranger damage output.
Barbarians, paladins, and rangers were all fighter kits back in AD&D.
They work better as their own classes.
Finally, someone who remembers the roots. Yes, this is the case when former subclasses clearly work better as their own classes, they have a rather strong identity of their own.
Just because the current balance of the game missed the mark on making rangers a unique class experience doesn't mean the entire archetype deserves to be absorbed into another class. I actually agree that Scout Rogue does a LOT of what ranger should've been designed to do, but that doesn't mean we can just replace the ranger class with Scout Rogue. It means whoever designed Scout Rogue should probably have been put on ranger.
Something core ranger got right in 5e was that the ranger archetype is supposed to be an Exploration Pillar class that excels at maneuvering through difficult terrain, scouting ahead, and using a mix of martial and magical skills to get around enemies and traps. What it failed at was pigeonholing rangers into a very, very specific environment. Rogues are generally thought of more as masters of the urban environment, but their skill set doesn't just disappear when they leave a city.
If classes are being redesigned for DnD One I'd very much like ranger to be built more similar to rogue or bard in that they get a decent range of skills and access to expertise, as a major part of the ranger identity is being a highly skilled generalist with a lot of training and knowledge. If they still want there to be forest rangers, tundra rangers, coastal rangers, etc. that is fine and even flavorful, but whatever skills you get from your chosen terrain and preferred enemy options should just give you proficiencies, skills, and abilities that are universally applicable no matter where you are. After all, if I lived my life in a forest tracking animals there's no reason I should suddenly lose my animal tracking knowledge just because we moved from a forest to a grasslands.
And of course they need to put more work into the pet sub-classes of ranger, if not just make that a core class feature and make a petless ranger a sub-class (as I imagine it'd be easier to balance a sub-class around losing the pet than trying to tack on a pet to a class designed without one, but that's just me). A lot of people play ranger for the animal companion aspect and yet that style of ranger seems to be largely neglected with poor rules or weak flavor. It kind of feels like Wizards of the Coast just don't want to put in the effort of setting up a system where your animal companion levels up alongside you so they keep taking half-measures (like replacing weak pets with stronger ones as you level up or summoning a magic spirit that just LOOKS like an animal that has a very specific set of abilities).
Barbarians, paladins, and rangers were all fighter kits back in AD&D.
They work better as their own classes.
I think there is confusion here. The Kits did not come into play until AD&D 2nd edition and Paladins and Rangers both were core classes in first edition. I think the Barbarian started out as an article in the Dragon Magazine and it was in 2nd but I don't remember it in 1st but I could be wrong on that.
I think the OP is cherry picking here. We seem to pick certain abilities that one has to focus that class on foregoing normal abilities that a rogue or barbarian would get and then just hand waiving away every feature or option one could take with a Ranger class.
Rangers don't do damage, the Hunter archetype gets 1d8 extra damage plus collosal strije and giant killer that makes them very effective.
You state terrain is limiting but by 10th level you get three of them and if you do not like that you can choose the optional deft explorer feature and get the canny ability at 3rd level that allows you to double your proficiency check for a chosen skill. One archetype lets you have a dragon companion.
One of the ranger abilities allows you to detect if a class of creature is within one mile of him. That can be fiends, celestials, undead, aberrations, what have you.
You can even change out the favored enemy for the optional feature that allows you to select a creature that the extra damage applies so with the Hunter class this adds d8 +d4 just 'cause.
As to the Martial stuff, they seem to have as many selections as the fighter and get the extra attack and one archetype (I think the hunter) grants benefits when multiattacked
Is it as damaging as the barbarian, no but then again the barbarian does not get to cast 5th and 6th level druid based spells some dedicated to the class
All of these options cannot be fit into a subclass as the ranger has several subclasses itself.
Now I am new to 5e but I have played D&D since Gygax put out the initial Dungeons and Dragons boxed sets where clerics did not get spells to 2nd level. I don't know what cheese they added to the rogue or the fighter but I press X to doubt on the claim that either can out ranger the ranger. But I could be wrong!
I hear that, and allow me to clarify: my main motivation for Paladins and Rangers being changed to subclasses comes purely from a game design perspective. If you strip away the RP flavour elements of Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues, you find that their mechanics are well designed in how they scale. The Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster are great examples of how naturally adaptable those structures are.
A 1/3rd caster Fighter with access to the cleric spell list, Paladin-specific Smite spells, Auras and LoH is a Paladin.
A 1/3rd caster Fighter with access to the Druid spell list, Ranger-specific spells like Hunter’s Mark and Hail of Thorns, and some of the revised Ranger rules from TCOE(Deft Explorer, Primal Awareness) is suddenly a very recognizable Ranger, with a far more stable Core class underneath. As someone else previously mentioned, it’s a modular design
And where do we shove all the existing paladin and ranger class features? And what about their subclasses? What you're suggesting implies that a lot simply won't fit and will be discarded, and there will be only one type of ranger and type of paladin. I agree that there's a little redundancy, and especially that scouts are better rangers than rangers, but that's a matter of poor ranger tuning. Paladins are best martials in the game right now.
I hear that, and allow me to clarify: my main motivation for Paladins and Rangers being changed to subclasses comes purely from a game design perspective. If you strip away the RP flavour elements of Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues, you find that their mechanics are well designed in how they scale. The Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster are great examples of how naturally adaptable those structures are.
A 1/3rd caster Fighter with access to the cleric spell list, Paladin-specific Smite spells, Auras and LoH is a Paladin.
A 1/3rd caster Fighter with access to the Druid spell list, Ranger-specific spells like Hunter’s Mark and Hail of Thorns, and some of the revised Ranger rules from TCOE(Deft Explorer, Primal Awareness) is suddenly a very recognizable Ranger, with a far more stable Core class underneath. As someone else previously mentioned, it’s a modular design
Having a 3 base class system (or maybe more) and then adding custom blocks reminds me of what Pathfidner II tried to do and I was not impressed with that system. Can that idea work, yes I think it could in a game that had much more detail then 5e or 1D&D does because you need many things to trade off one another for it to work.
The best way is to have a class for each broad area, so the standard plus all of the 1/2 of this classes and keep the ideas as separate as possible. So fighter magic user would be a class and if you had a fighter class an a subclass that was magic user or magic user with subclass of fighter it would not stray into the fighter magic user class.
In general subclass's would not be able to have as drastic changes as they do now. The changers would be more focused in nature.
I would make them subclasses of Cleric and Druid respectively if we did that. Give them both extra attack as a subclass feature. I think Druid and Cleric are the only full casters that don't already have a subclass that does extra attack. \
Then roll their spell lists into the larger cleric and druid lists respectively, the smite spells would replace smites for paladins. Here is a preview:
Ranger Circle:
Level 2: Fighting Style, proficiency in martial weapons and proficiency in one Ranger skill
Level 6: Extra Attack
Level10: Evasion
Level14: Nature's Veil
Paladin Domain:
Level 1: Fighting Style, proficiency in heavy armor and martial weapons
Level 2: Lay on Hands as Channel Divinity
Level 6: extra attack
Level 8: Blessed Strikes
Level17: Allies within 50 feet add Wisdom Bonus to saves
I think that makes more sense than Fighter or Barbarian
While I understand that this may seem like blasphemy, my current group has a Zealot Barbarian playing the role of the Paladin, to amazing effect. My group has had Paladin PC’s before and the Zealot Barb fills the role of the self-sacrificing holy warrior far more effectively than Paladins ever did, both in combat and in RP.
This got me thinking about the Paladin and Rangers as classes. I honestly think that the Scout Rogue fills the role of the Ranger better than the Ranger class itself. Would it make more sense then to have 1DnD follow this and have Paladin and Ranger-esc Subclasses for Barbarian, Fighter, and Rogue, instead of hybrid core classes? I honestly think so. We could have a Paladin subclass for Barbarian, maybe with a heavily nerfed Lay on Hands(a pool of 1 HP per Barb level instead of x5). Maybe have a Ranger subclass for Fighter, with Expertise in 1 skill, Hunter’s Mark as a class feature, and access to the Druid spell list.
What are your thoughts on this idea? I look forward to reading your responses. Thank you.
Edit: I appreciate the responses everyone! Even if you disagreed, your perspectives have been enjoyable to read and reflect on!
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.I think what you say highlights a general problem with the classes/subclasses and how people want to build characters, which may be in a more modular way than the class/subclass structure allows. I know when I choose classes, I am choosing based on the mechanics of the subclasses I will use in that character build, in conjunction with my concept for the character. These two elements have different weights for different characters. I mean to say that I sometimes really key in on the mechanics, like, some goal I want (like hyper-specialization in something), sometimes I am more focused on trying to find the subclass that best matches my character concept, and usually somewhere in between the two. The way things are currently structured would require endless subclasses, or rather the finite set that we end up with which won't fit every character concept people come up with. I think I would prefer a more modular system, something like a feat list for class features that are gated with level restrictions, ability score prerequisites, and in a few cases other prerequisites (like if a higher-level class feature is an "upgrade" of an earlier class feature), with tags on them linking them to the current classes/subclasses and to other relevant tags like divine/arcane/primal. Multiclassing would be more like the default mode of character advancement. Class features could have prerequisites like "must have at least 2 class features with the divine tag" or "does an extra xDy healing based on the number of divine tags you have" forcing more of a focus to get the more powerful class abilities and better scaling. And making a single-class character would be as easy as picking everything related to your class/subclass tag of choice. This would also help with not being able to multiclass into multiple subclasses of the same class, which I think is a gap that should be filled.
I've wanted to make a Samurai that was more physical-based like a Champion with an increased critical threat range instead of some of the more metaphysical abilities of the Samurai subclass. On a separate note, I like the idea of a fighter that has Sneak Attack. A gish should maybe not require picking a magic-focused subclass of Fighter and instead just be their own character without forcing them into a bucket.
I think the modular approach to character classes would help a lot with trying to recrate your favorite characters - and to create your original concepts - in D&D.
With respect, I think you may lack understanding of the game mechanics and common build issues that have arrived with the Ranger during mid and high tier play. Remember: the 5e Ranger class is a gish, a martial/caster hybrid. Their martial capabilities lag farrrr behind Archer Fighter and Archer Rogue builds in DPR past level 5. An effective 5e Ranger archer ends up being very MAD. You need to max your Dex, then Max your Wisdom to pad your half assed martial damage with spell casting, just to barely keep up to the other Ranged classes. The reality is that attempting to Min/Max a Ranger makes you far closer to a Druid than any sort of hyper competent Archer.
I mean, let’s be real here: a Dex Fighter with a longbow can take the Magic Initiate feat to get Hunter’s Mark, and immediately have every Ranger’s DPR beat at every level. A Scout Rogue can do the same, all while having Expertise in Survival and Nature. A properly statted Scout Rogue with Magic Initiate is a better Ranger than the Ranger Core class, in literally every way.
That’s a very bad thing, one that should absolutely be addressed in 1DnD
Feat trees... Fighter, pick Divine tree (locking you out of others), pick feats from there that route into different types of Pally.
The problem I see with your proposal (which it is very good to ask questions) is how D&D 5e does classes and sub-calsses as well as its focus on simplicity. What you are asking IMHO would take a lot more "stuff" and basic class "rules" to make work.
Barbarians, paladins, and rangers were all fighter kits back in AD&D.
They work better as their own classes.
While a Fighter can be optimized to be a better archer than a ranger; a ranger is more than just an archer or at least they should be. The flavor of a ranger should and is different from just a simple archer; plus they can be built for melee as well. They have some mechanical issues and could use some buffs to the base class such simply knowing all their spells and preparing them like paladins do; rangers should be to druids like paladin is to clerics.
Paladins are also rather unique mechanically and are one of the best designed classes in the game. Honestly, aura of protection alone makes them a mechanical welcome in any party. Their frontline capacity in addition to their support capacity just feels good.
We have 4 non-magic classes, 4 half-casters / pact magic user, and 5 casters.
Reducing paladin to just "warrior with holy damage" misses their aura, their healing of others, their mount pets, their detection abilities, their favored enemies (undead and friends) etc.
Same with ranger - there's more going on here than just survival checks, archery and skirmishing. Did you know the main dissatisfaction of the PHB Ranger was the badly done Beastmaster? Not DPR. The pet. After that, it was the exploration abilities. Most were actually satisfied with ranger damage output.
Finally, someone who remembers the roots. Yes, this is the case when former subclasses clearly work better as their own classes, they have a rather strong identity of their own.
Just because the current balance of the game missed the mark on making rangers a unique class experience doesn't mean the entire archetype deserves to be absorbed into another class. I actually agree that Scout Rogue does a LOT of what ranger should've been designed to do, but that doesn't mean we can just replace the ranger class with Scout Rogue. It means whoever designed Scout Rogue should probably have been put on ranger.
Something core ranger got right in 5e was that the ranger archetype is supposed to be an Exploration Pillar class that excels at maneuvering through difficult terrain, scouting ahead, and using a mix of martial and magical skills to get around enemies and traps. What it failed at was pigeonholing rangers into a very, very specific environment. Rogues are generally thought of more as masters of the urban environment, but their skill set doesn't just disappear when they leave a city.
If classes are being redesigned for DnD One I'd very much like ranger to be built more similar to rogue or bard in that they get a decent range of skills and access to expertise, as a major part of the ranger identity is being a highly skilled generalist with a lot of training and knowledge. If they still want there to be forest rangers, tundra rangers, coastal rangers, etc. that is fine and even flavorful, but whatever skills you get from your chosen terrain and preferred enemy options should just give you proficiencies, skills, and abilities that are universally applicable no matter where you are. After all, if I lived my life in a forest tracking animals there's no reason I should suddenly lose my animal tracking knowledge just because we moved from a forest to a grasslands.
And of course they need to put more work into the pet sub-classes of ranger, if not just make that a core class feature and make a petless ranger a sub-class (as I imagine it'd be easier to balance a sub-class around losing the pet than trying to tack on a pet to a class designed without one, but that's just me). A lot of people play ranger for the animal companion aspect and yet that style of ranger seems to be largely neglected with poor rules or weak flavor. It kind of feels like Wizards of the Coast just don't want to put in the effort of setting up a system where your animal companion levels up alongside you so they keep taking half-measures (like replacing weak pets with stronger ones as you level up or summoning a magic spirit that just LOOKS like an animal that has a very specific set of abilities).
I think there is confusion here. The Kits did not come into play until AD&D 2nd edition and Paladins and Rangers both were core classes in first edition. I think the Barbarian started out as an article in the Dragon Magazine and it was in 2nd but I don't remember it in 1st but I could be wrong on that.
I think the OP is cherry picking here. We seem to pick certain abilities that one has to focus that class on foregoing normal abilities that a rogue or barbarian would get and then just hand waiving away every feature or option one could take with a Ranger class.
Rangers don't do damage, the Hunter archetype gets 1d8 extra damage plus collosal strije and giant killer that makes them very effective.
You state terrain is limiting but by 10th level you get three of them and if you do not like that you can choose the optional deft explorer feature and get the canny ability at 3rd level that allows you to double your proficiency check for a chosen skill. One archetype lets you have a dragon companion.
One of the ranger abilities allows you to detect if a class of creature is within one mile of him. That can be fiends, celestials, undead, aberrations, what have you.
You can even change out the favored enemy for the optional feature that allows you to select a creature that the extra damage applies so with the Hunter class this adds d8 +d4 just 'cause.
As to the Martial stuff, they seem to have as many selections as the fighter and get the extra attack and one archetype (I think the hunter) grants benefits when multiattacked
Is it as damaging as the barbarian, no but then again the barbarian does not get to cast 5th and 6th level druid based spells some dedicated to the class
All of these options cannot be fit into a subclass as the ranger has several subclasses itself.
Now I am new to 5e but I have played D&D since Gygax put out the initial Dungeons and Dragons boxed sets where clerics did not get spells to 2nd level. I don't know what cheese they added to the rogue or the fighter but I press X to doubt on the claim that either can out ranger the ranger. But I could be wrong!
Rangers have good options too,
Thank you for your response. The way you framed it as modular is a far more eloquent expression of what I was rambling on about ^_^’
I hear that, and allow me to clarify: my main motivation for Paladins and Rangers being changed to subclasses comes purely from a game design perspective. If you strip away the RP flavour elements of Barbarians, Fighters, and Rogues, you find that their mechanics are well designed in how they scale. The Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster are great examples of how naturally adaptable those structures are.
A 1/3rd caster Fighter with access to the cleric spell list, Paladin-specific Smite spells, Auras and LoH is a Paladin.
A 1/3rd caster Fighter with access to the Druid spell list, Ranger-specific spells like Hunter’s Mark and Hail of Thorns, and some of the revised Ranger rules from TCOE(Deft Explorer, Primal Awareness) is suddenly a very recognizable Ranger, with a far more stable Core class underneath. As someone else previously mentioned, it’s a modular design
And where do we shove all the existing paladin and ranger class features? And what about their subclasses? What you're suggesting implies that a lot simply won't fit and will be discarded, and there will be only one type of ranger and type of paladin. I agree that there's a little redundancy, and especially that scouts are better rangers than rangers, but that's a matter of poor ranger tuning. Paladins are best martials in the game right now.
Having a 3 base class system (or maybe more) and then adding custom blocks reminds me of what Pathfidner II tried to do and I was not impressed with that system. Can that idea work, yes I think it could in a game that had much more detail then 5e or 1D&D does because you need many things to trade off one another for it to work.
The best way is to have a class for each broad area, so the standard plus all of the 1/2 of this classes and keep the ideas as separate as possible. So fighter magic user would be a class and if you had a fighter class an a subclass that was magic user or magic user with subclass of fighter it would not stray into the fighter magic user class.
In general subclass's would not be able to have as drastic changes as they do now. The changers would be more focused in nature.
I would make them subclasses of Cleric and Druid respectively if we did that. Give them both extra attack as a subclass feature. I think Druid and Cleric are the only full casters that don't already have a subclass that does extra attack. \
Then roll their spell lists into the larger cleric and druid lists respectively, the smite spells would replace smites for paladins. Here is a preview:
Ranger Circle:
Level 2: Fighting Style, proficiency in martial weapons and proficiency in one Ranger skill
Level 6: Extra Attack
Level10: Evasion
Level14: Nature's Veil
Paladin Domain:
Level 1: Fighting Style, proficiency in heavy armor and martial weapons
Level 2: Lay on Hands as Channel Divinity
Level 6: extra attack
Level 8: Blessed Strikes
Level17: Allies within 50 feet add Wisdom Bonus to saves
I think that makes more sense than Fighter or Barbarian