D&D (2024) There needs to be a 4th spell list.

[Pedantic]

Level Up has online tools too.

Oh totally and during that brief outage I very much missed a5e.tools, especially for paladin archetype spells in this context, but WotC clearly has them beat with Beyond.

Really though, atomized spell lists actually make even more sense for WotC's strategy pushing online tools, because they make it even more convenient to use their character generator.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

If they made the ranger actually match (or even approach) the fantasy archetype in pop culture, you wouldn't have this argument.

Trouble is, everyone has their own idea of ranger more than any other class. You have:

• Aragorn style ranger. Not really magical, but a pure martial with lots of survival abilities. (could be a fighter subclass)
• Drizzt Duel wielder.
• Sneaky Forest Marksman. (scout rogue does this)
• Beast Tamer (should be its own thing with a summoner class imo).
• And finally the primal half caster.

And these features are just so broad that it ends up trying to do them all, and satisfying no 'what ranger should be' camps at all.

Sort of happened in 4e, when they were given the role of "Leader" that Clerics got.

It solved the Jack of All Trades but Master of None problem the Bard got.

It's sort of stuck in 5e, Bards are mostly supposed to be a support class even if they can dabble in other things like control or second-line melee combat.

I've always thought that the best way to deal with a class being two half things is to make both halves work together at the same time. Paladin is the perfect example of this. On paper it sounds like it's just half a cleric and half a fighter. As implemented it feels like its own thing, and is able to focus its divine flavoured abilities into its weapon strikes and auras.

Imo something like this should have happened with bard, keeping it jack of all trades, but allowing its abilities to work in sync with each other. However that ship has sailed almost 2 editions ago now. And it sounds like bard is just going more and more into this full casting priest niche.

Would probably be better to make a dedicated jack of all trades class than to try to drag bard back from where it is now.

 

[Marandahir]

Trouble is, everyone has their own idea of ranger more than any other class. You have:

• Aragorn style ranger. Not really magical, but a pure martial with lots of survival abilities. (could be a fighter subclass)
• Drizzt Duel wielder.
• Sneaky Forest Marksman. (scout rogue does this)
• Beast Tamer (should be its own thing with a summoner class imo).
• And finally the primal half caster.

And these features are just so broad that it ends up trying to do them all, and satisfying no 'what ranger should be' camps at all.


I've always thought that the best way to deal with a class being two half things is to make both halves work together at the same time. Paladin is the perfect example of this. On paper it sounds like it's just half a cleric and half a fighter. As implemented it feels like its own thing, and is able to focus its divine flavoured abilities into its weapon strikes and auras.

Imo something like this should have happened with bard, keeping it jack of all trades, but allowing its abilities to work in sync with each other. However that ship has sailed almost 2 editions ago now. And it sounds like bard is just going more and more into this full casting priest niche.

Would probably be better to make a dedicated jack of all trades class than to try to drag bard back from where it is now.

Except Aragorn also has healing hands like a Paladin, and a lot of Ranger spells are only semi-spells - that is to say, they're like magical berries or enchantments of their arrows and whatnot. So it's actually a lot closer to Aragorn as is than one might think…

 

[Neonchameleon]

Since when are bards meant to be the dedicated party healer?

At this point their identity is so far removed from their early incarnations in 2e and 3e that it's unrecognisable. What happened to that jack of all trades, dabble in skills and magic while not being the master of either class from earlier editions?

In D&Done the class you're looking for that does that is the ranger...

 

[Neonchameleon]

Except Aragorn also has healing hands like a Paladin, and a lot of Ranger spells are only semi-spells - that is to say, they're like magical berries or enchantments of their arrows and whatnot. So it's actually a lot closer to Aragorn as is than one might think…

Except that "The hands of a king are the hands of a healer" is a metaphor and it's not almost instant the way a paladin is.

And the problem with the ranger isn't that they get some coincidental spells. It's that the class is being drowned in them to the point it's hard to see anything else. What the ranger needs if we're to walk this path is a "spell dump" the way the paladin in practice might have a ludicrous number of spell slots but actually just uses most of them to smite before third level spells.

 

[Krachek]

1DD Ranger has a niche?

No he have a group!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If they made the ranger actually match (or even approach) the fantasy archetype in pop culture, you wouldn't have this argument.

D&D practically invented the fantasy archetype of the Paladin. It can do so with the Ranger, too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D practically invented the fantasy archetype of the Paladin. It can do so with the Ranger, too.

That was nearly 50 years ago.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That was nearly 50 years ago.

And people will still be playing D&D in 50 years.

 

[Neonchameleon]

D&D practically invented the fantasy archetype of the Paladin. It can do so with the Ranger, too.

How can D&D invent the archetype of the ranger? Paladins were more or less made up from very obscure sources. There are three major differences here:

• Aragorn both predates D&D and is famous
• Rangers are a real world thing - both Forest Rangers and Army Rangers.
• The All Magic Ranger wouldn't be invented by D&D so much as D&D fifth edition. Or by D&Done.

No I don't believe D&D can invent the archetype of the ranger.