I think the main problem ranger has had is that it's unique design is based around exploration which is generally the least used of the "three pillars." This combined with several base features being highly specialized means that even when exploration came up there was a good chance that your features might not be helpful. When it comes to combat, rangers have always been at least a decent martial class that was dragged down by early beast master and a lack of other subclass choices
I concur. I think there are a few main problems that really drag the Ranger down. 1. Definitely beastmaster. Everyone got so distracted they ended up hating on the rest of the class. 2. As far as I can tell most people don't lean into survival in 5e. So a lot of their features feel useless. 3. Flavored foe feels toothless. Because it doesn't give any combat modifiers. Pretty much every other additions version of it did. I don't really know about 1st or 4th. But I know that 2e gave them increased damage, and 3.5 increase chance to hit. 4. Since 5e is terrified about giving anyone penalties. Meaning that things that they used to be good at. By avoiding the penalties. Everyone's good at now because those penalties don't exist. Two weapon fighting for example. Everyone else used to get penalties for doing it. But one of the rangers features was that they sidestep these. In short if you really want to see a better version of the Ranger. Take a look at the 3.5 one.
I still think there should be penalties to certain species, or extra bonuses given for general traits. The world's strongest mouse would still get torn apart by an average cat. Similarly, a kobold or halfling shouldn't be in the same ballpark as the average half orc or goliath.
TELL THEM TO SEND OUT MONK INFORMATION PLEASE!!! Sorry to yell. It's been a while and some classes have had a lot of info and feedback! We have been asking on the Discord for a while to no avail.
The ranger was always far less of a problem than the monk. If wotc spent half as much effort fixing the monk as they did the ranger it would have been a great class now. The ranger wasnt great, it was ok, the monk however still fails to do what its supposed to. The ranger now is among the stronger classes in the game
I agree with their take that the Ranger's core features are not iconic enough, or in other words, they do not match the class fantasy. I would rather play a Rogue, Fighter or multiclass of both to get a 'Ranger flavor' with my character now. But I think the solution lies in the Paladin's halfcaster design and trying to mirror it. The Paladin excels at single target damage and aura's/buff spells for his allies. Perhaps it should be better at or focusing on AoE damage and aura debuffs (e.g. difficult terrain) for enemy targets? The Ranger should also be able to exploit weaknesses and bring down a foe efficiently by noticing and/or ignoring resistances, immunities, etc. If you double down on that, it could counter or delay monster abilities like Recharge or Innate Spellcasting. Then it should have features or create potions to heighten its senses (e.g. temporary blindsight, tremorsense or other special traits) to help during exploration or combat.
There's nothing wrong with saying that the dwarf race is good in swinging axes. If you are a dwarf raised at halfling society and never had contact with dwarves, you clearly are an EXCEPTION. There's no need to change a whole system to facilitate exceptions, because you already could (with DM approval).
Except that it isn't because they're a dwarf, it's because of the dwarf society they were raised in. It makes perfect sense that your background and class would influence those kinds of things, not your race. Because it's not even a case of if you were raised by halflings- what if you are a dwarven wizard who refused to participate in your society? Or despite your people trying to train you to use axes, they never clicked with you? Why is it that the shrimpy nerdy wizard that went to private school at level 1 could be as capable with their axe as the fighter who dedicated their life to studying warfare? It's not just one exception, there are many *many* exceptions to this rule, to the point where it just makes no sense to keep it as the rule.
I agree with OP. You need a norm to base things on in the base book. If you have no norm, then what makes your character (in this case biologically) special? Making exceptions to the norm is either done in character creation or as homebrew (if the GM wants to go that route). Making something optional be mandatory just adds unnecessary steps to things, and adding extra steps facilitates choice paralysis in new players. The reason dwarves are traditionally good at swinging axes is the same reason they are good at swinging maces, and hammers; they have stout, heavily muscled physiques for their size. In fantasy or reality, muscles help you move yourself and things in your environment. The more you have, the more force you can exert. This is not a new concept. An example of fundamental differences in physicality: humans are noticeably larger than chimpanzees, but due to their greater muscle to size ratio, a chimp can literally tear a human's arm off under the right circumstances. This is just one fundamental difference between humans and chimps, so why would it be considered to be farfetched for the majority of dwarves to be stronger than most humans? Any that defy that norm would be exceptional, but it would not detract from the set norm. And if you want to redefine what a dwarf, human, elf, kobold, etc. is by saying "in this campaign setting, this race/lineage does not have the same biological capabilities as pop culture has told you to expect" that is fine, but you could've done it at any time without insisting that an entire sourcebook be rewritten just so you don't have to put forth any effort in figuring out your own homebrew. You need a solid foundation so whatever you build atop it can withstand the fickle winds that can knock down ramshackle construction.
@derekstein6193 Literally no one is saying you shouldn't have a norm. Just that the cultural norms of a society should come from your background and the lineage's description.
The ranger in tov sounds a bit more like a bounty hunter. I thought the ideal ranger is really a Witcher. Is it fair to say that the 2014 ranger is good if the player and DM work together to match the rangers builds with the general story.
i mostly just want a type of ranger that leans into the fantasy of being really, really good at ranged combat with bows, crossbows and such. And along with the things mentioned in the blog here.
Never understood the argument that stats shouldn't be tied to race or lineage. You're not saying orks have a strength of 16. You'll have orks with a strength of 12, or 18. You are saying orks are on average stronger than humans. Take the bell curve of ork strengths VS the bell curve of human strengths and you should see a difference of 2. You're still going to have orks that are stronger and orks that are weaker. But overall you'll see higher strength scores.
PCs aren't average though so even if that's the case, it's still pointless for heroic character creation. You can make most orc NPCs/commoners stronger than most human NPCs/commoners without affecting PC character creation rules. WotC, Paizo and now KP are all independently coming to the same conclusion that decoupling these stats from race should be the default rule.
@@PsyrenXY WotC made the change after hiring sensitivity advisors to look through the game and find anything problematic. The advisors told them that fixed racial modifiers looked like race essentialism, so the took them out. (Even though "race" in DnD is completely different than the way we use the term in real life.) This happened during the height of the uproar over DnD being "racist" because of orcs and drow "supposedly" being stand-ins for African Americans. (Even though there are numerous examples of humans in DnD lore of differing ethnicities all being considered roughly equal.) Paizo followed suit MUCH later, and Kobold Press later still, because, if X mechanic is considered problematic and you don't change X mechanic, then you are going to look insensitive. There are also quite a few companies that will explicitly decide whether or not to invest in your company based on what is being called a "social credit score". As for PCs not being average, this is true, but if I want to play my Orc Barbarian and my friend wants to play a Halfling Fighter at the same game, and both of us want to pump STR as high as possible, it's going to feel bad when my Orc (a species known for it's brute strength) is just as strong as my friend's Halfing (a species known for being physically weak). It kinda breaks the immersion. It also makes playing in-trope and out-of-trope characters less meaningful.
I have a contention with the way they explain ability scores tied to race (or species, or whatever). Yeah, it IS ridiculous to say every human is exactly the same, but that's where your Point Buy/Rolling for stats comes in. The way you assign your stats encompasses your individual upbringing. Each stat has a range of 8 to 15 at level 1 (3 to 18 with rolling). Racial modifiers just tweak the average for different fantasy races. Saying, "all orcs are strong" isn't accurate and never was accurate (as far back as I remember playing DnD). Orcs are stronger than humans ON AVERAGE is the correct statement. A +2 to STR for being an orc doesn't automatically make you "strong". All the +2 does, is bump up the range of possible scores for that attribute. You can easily have a 10 STR orc and a 15 STR halfling in the same party without stripping one of the biggest factors that makes the races feel different. The first game I DM'd for had a Half Orc Wizard. In 3.5, Half Orcs had a +2 to STR and a -2 to INT. This wizard was "sub optimal" but it was an interesting character. It was quite funny when a goblin rushed the wizard for an "easy kill" only to get bonked by the not-so-frail wizard's staff.
Most of the people in the comments of the TOV Tuesday blog said that they preferred to have the ability score bonuses tied to 'race' in some sort of way. Although I'm not sure what discord is saying because they now require your phone number in order to be a part of their discord channel. I had been a daily visitor to the their discord but had to delete the channel after this requirement. There is no way in hell I'm giving them my personal cell phone number. Sorry, lost a follower.
I think the main problem ranger has had is that it's unique design is based around exploration which is generally the least used of the "three pillars." This combined with several base features being highly specialized means that even when exploration came up there was a good chance that your features might not be helpful. When it comes to combat, rangers have always been at least a decent martial class that was dragged down by early beast master and a lack of other subclass choices
I concur. I think there are a few main problems that really drag the Ranger down.
1. Definitely beastmaster. Everyone got so distracted they ended up hating on the rest of the class.
2. As far as I can tell most people don't lean into survival in 5e. So a lot of their features feel useless.
3. Flavored foe feels toothless. Because it doesn't give any combat modifiers. Pretty much every other additions version of it did.
I don't really know about 1st or 4th. But I know that 2e gave them increased damage, and 3.5 increase chance to hit.
4. Since 5e is terrified about giving anyone penalties. Meaning that things that they used to be good at. By avoiding the penalties. Everyone's good at now because those penalties don't exist.
Two weapon fighting for example. Everyone else used to get penalties for doing it. But one of the rangers features was that they sidestep these.
In short if you really want to see a better version of the Ranger. Take a look at the 3.5 one.
I still think there should be penalties to certain species, or extra bonuses given for general traits. The world's strongest mouse would still get torn apart by an average cat. Similarly, a kobold or halfling shouldn't be in the same ballpark as the average half orc or goliath.
TELL THEM TO SEND OUT MONK INFORMATION PLEASE!!!
Sorry to yell. It's been a while and some classes have had a lot of info and feedback! We have been asking on the Discord for a while to no avail.
I'm glad to see you're covering Tales of the Valiant again. I've missed your coverage of this project with so much passion and dedication behind it.
The Mechanist concept sounds amazing. I have an Artificer in a game right now, and I wish we had made him a mechanist instead.
I’d love to see you review the Final Fantasy XIV TTRPG releasing in May.
I'm looking forward to ToV, but in the meantime, I'm starting A5e. Heritage and Culture used in A5e. Not stat bonus from the heritage.
The ranger was always far less of a problem than the monk. If wotc spent half as much effort fixing the monk as they did the ranger it would have been a great class now. The ranger wasnt great, it was ok, the monk however still fails to do what its supposed to. The ranger now is among the stronger classes in the game
Yes Please any updates on Tales of the Valiant Please share asap. Mechanist seems like it could be pretty fun.
If TOV doesnt fix the monk they are a waste of time
I agree with their take that the Ranger's core features are not iconic enough, or in other words, they do not match the class fantasy. I would rather play a Rogue, Fighter or multiclass of both to get a 'Ranger flavor' with my character now.
But I think the solution lies in the Paladin's halfcaster design and trying to mirror it. The Paladin excels at single target damage and aura's/buff spells for his allies. Perhaps it should be better at or focusing on AoE damage and aura debuffs (e.g. difficult terrain) for enemy targets? The Ranger should also be able to exploit weaknesses and bring down a foe efficiently by noticing and/or ignoring resistances, immunities, etc. If you double down on that, it could counter or delay monster abilities like Recharge or Innate Spellcasting. Then it should have features or create potions to heighten its senses (e.g. temporary blindsight, tremorsense or other special traits) to help during exploration or combat.
There's nothing wrong with saying that the dwarf race is good in swinging axes. If you are a dwarf raised at halfling society and never had contact with dwarves, you clearly are an EXCEPTION. There's no need to change a whole system to facilitate exceptions, because you already could (with DM approval).
Except that it isn't because they're a dwarf, it's because of the dwarf society they were raised in. It makes perfect sense that your background and class would influence those kinds of things, not your race.
Because it's not even a case of if you were raised by halflings- what if you are a dwarven wizard who refused to participate in your society? Or despite your people trying to train you to use axes, they never clicked with you? Why is it that the shrimpy nerdy wizard that went to private school at level 1 could be as capable with their axe as the fighter who dedicated their life to studying warfare?
It's not just one exception, there are many *many* exceptions to this rule, to the point where it just makes no sense to keep it as the rule.
@@The_Crimson_Witch hard agree
Upbringing shouldn't limit your abilities.
I agree with OP.
You need a norm to base things on in the base book. If you have no norm, then what makes your character (in this case biologically) special? Making exceptions to the norm is either done in character creation or as homebrew (if the GM wants to go that route). Making something optional be mandatory just adds unnecessary steps to things, and adding extra steps facilitates choice paralysis in new players.
The reason dwarves are traditionally good at swinging axes is the same reason they are good at swinging maces, and hammers; they have stout, heavily muscled physiques for their size. In fantasy or reality, muscles help you move yourself and things in your environment. The more you have, the more force you can exert. This is not a new concept.
An example of fundamental differences in physicality: humans are noticeably larger than chimpanzees, but due to their greater muscle to size ratio, a chimp can literally tear a human's arm off under the right circumstances. This is just one fundamental difference between humans and chimps, so why would it be considered to be farfetched for the majority of dwarves to be stronger than most humans? Any that defy that norm would be exceptional, but it would not detract from the set norm. And if you want to redefine what a dwarf, human, elf, kobold, etc. is by saying "in this campaign setting, this race/lineage does not have the same biological capabilities as pop culture has told you to expect" that is fine, but you could've done it at any time without insisting that an entire sourcebook be rewritten just so you don't have to put forth any effort in figuring out your own homebrew.
You need a solid foundation so whatever you build atop it can withstand the fickle winds that can knock down ramshackle construction.
@derekstein6193 Literally no one is saying you shouldn't have a norm. Just that the cultural norms of a society should come from your background and the lineage's description.
The ranger in tov sounds a bit more like a bounty hunter. I thought the ideal ranger is really a Witcher. Is it fair to say that the 2014 ranger is good if the player and DM work together to match the rangers builds with the general story.
Thanks! So much going on, it's damned near impossible to stay on top of everything, so videos like this are greatly appreciated.
i mostly just want a type of ranger that leans into the fantasy of being really, really good at ranged combat with bows, crossbows and such. And along with the things mentioned in the blog here.
I love ALL Nerd Immersion videos!
Never understood the argument that stats shouldn't be tied to race or lineage.
You're not saying orks have a strength of 16. You'll have orks with a strength of 12, or 18.
You are saying orks are on average stronger than humans.
Take the bell curve of ork strengths VS the bell curve of human strengths and you should see a difference of 2.
You're still going to have orks that are stronger and orks that are weaker. But overall you'll see higher strength scores.
PCs aren't average though so even if that's the case, it's still pointless for heroic character creation. You can make most orc NPCs/commoners stronger than most human NPCs/commoners without affecting PC character creation rules.
WotC, Paizo and now KP are all independently coming to the same conclusion that decoupling these stats from race should be the default rule.
@@PsyrenXY WotC made the change after hiring sensitivity advisors to look through the game and find anything problematic. The advisors told them that fixed racial modifiers looked like race essentialism, so the took them out. (Even though "race" in DnD is completely different than the way we use the term in real life.)
This happened during the height of the uproar over DnD being "racist" because of orcs and drow "supposedly" being stand-ins for African Americans. (Even though there are numerous examples of humans in DnD lore of differing ethnicities all being considered roughly equal.)
Paizo followed suit MUCH later, and Kobold Press later still, because, if X mechanic is considered problematic and you don't change X mechanic, then you are going to look insensitive. There are also quite a few companies that will explicitly decide whether or not to invest in your company based on what is being called a "social credit score".
As for PCs not being average, this is true, but if I want to play my Orc Barbarian and my friend wants to play a Halfling Fighter at the same game, and both of us want to pump STR as high as possible, it's going to feel bad when my Orc (a species known for it's brute strength) is just as strong as my friend's Halfing (a species known for being physically weak). It kinda breaks the immersion.
It also makes playing in-trope and out-of-trope characters less meaningful.
I have a contention with the way they explain ability scores tied to race (or species, or whatever).
Yeah, it IS ridiculous to say every human is exactly the same, but that's where your Point Buy/Rolling for stats comes in. The way you assign your stats encompasses your individual upbringing. Each stat has a range of 8 to 15 at level 1 (3 to 18 with rolling). Racial modifiers just tweak the average for different fantasy races.
Saying, "all orcs are strong" isn't accurate and never was accurate (as far back as I remember playing DnD). Orcs are stronger than humans ON AVERAGE is the correct statement. A +2 to STR for being an orc doesn't automatically make you "strong". All the +2 does, is bump up the range of possible scores for that attribute. You can easily have a 10 STR orc and a 15 STR halfling in the same party without stripping one of the biggest factors that makes the races feel different.
The first game I DM'd for had a Half Orc Wizard. In 3.5, Half Orcs had a +2 to STR and a -2 to INT. This wizard was "sub optimal" but it was an interesting character. It was quite funny when a goblin rushed the wizard for an "easy kill" only to get bonked by the not-so-frail wizard's staff.
so in this same way for stats a grizzy shouldnt automaticaly be stronger then a fox
Daggerheart coverage please!
Most of the people in the comments of the TOV Tuesday blog said that they preferred to have the ability score bonuses tied to 'race' in some sort of way. Although I'm not sure what discord is saying because they now require your phone number in order to be a part of their discord channel. I had been a daily visitor to the their discord but had to delete the channel after this requirement. There is no way in hell I'm giving them my personal cell phone number. Sorry, lost a follower.