Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Zardnaar Sep 16, 2015 3:05:00	With the outbursts of multiple ranger threads and arguments over the Rangers identity I think it turns out alignment restrictions were good for one thing.   The 1E Ranger and the 2E one had mandatory good alignment. That alignment helped define the class along with the favoured enemy thing for aorund half the MM it seemed for the 1E one with a large damage bonus to the class.    What is a ranger? A good aligned champion of the wilderness/borderlands area.     The fix for the ranger IMHO lies with merging the 1E and 3.5 Rangers togather . Favoured enemies adding your proficiney bonus to damage to your favoured enemies, a beast companion that attacks indepently and the 5E Ranger can already use heavy armor like the 5E ranger.     Just for good measure chuck the alignment thing back on it and give Drow the two weapon style as a racial ability as an added bonus (and advantage to hitand damage with scimitars wth).   1E favoured enemy list, 2E +4 bonus to hit (or advantage), and proficiney bonus to damage. Make hunters quarry a class ability that doesn't require a bonus action to move around so its ot tripping over using two weapons.     Break out the pet table from 3.5 and have the rangers pet a black panther by default as well and let it attack independently.     Drow Rangers for everyone FTW!!!!
#2 Thunaer Sep 16, 2015 4:47:22	While I understand this is satire one thing that both 1st and second editions did was keep the party spots somewhat balanced through min requirements for classes and multiclassing and for alignment restrictions for certain classes. It gave meaning to being pure classed and made some multiclassing rare.   Now we have things like Pally1/Rogue1/monk1/B17 in a party with Warlock3/Fighter 17, Barbarian1/ Monk 1/Druid 1/ Ranger 17, Sorcerer 3/Cleric 19, 1Paladin (Oath of Devotion)17/ Rogue (assasin)3 not because its necessary but because dipping makes the characters more powerful then the pure classes. Jack of all trades should never be better then someone who follows a single professon, more adaptable yes but not better at doing the same thing that a pure profession can do and I think that is one of the issues with the Ranger, when you mix and match everyone can do somethinbg better then the Ranger and anything intended to make the Ranger tougher or unique can do the same for other classes resulting in negation of the Ranger. Even givng proficency bonus to Favored enemy with the potential to be doubled when Ranger is favored terrain is something that to some degree can be taken to empower another class. Ranger 3 Assassin 17 for example might have less terrain knowledge but since his prof bonus is the same as a 20 Ranger.   Long story short: Multiclassing is slightly broken
#3 Granville7482 Sep 16, 2015 5:08:33	At level 1 if they wear a special hat, for the ranger class and ranger class only, they get +4 to Charisma checks while in the wilderness.
#4 shintashi Sep 16, 2015 7:47:11	well, the THAC0 and Hit Dice of 5e screwed up some of the aspects of game play for setting apart the classes. The freestyle multiclassing didn't help. The current multiclassing rules are designed to favor the Elminster storyline. Oddly, they also reflect the heroes listed in Deities and Demigods - rules the rest of us never got to play by until now. The max spell level rules are a bit broken in 5e though. A paladin should probably add half their level to a cleric total for the max spell level they can learn, not just spell slots. Similar is true of Ranger and Druid, or Wizard/Illusionist and Arcane Trickster.   I used to think the stat requirement and class prerequisite system was completely dumb - the one from first edition. Then i read an article in our school paper about a kid who went into liberal arts as a recreational side thing and was originally setup for engineering. He hated engineering and did really poor on it, but the school wouldn't let him change his major because while his grades in the new major were all 4.0s, his grades in the engineering major were not good enough. I realized that AD&D had accidentally or intentionally mirrored perfectly the university model. The "wizard" who wanted to dual class to "bard" was not permitted, because while his Charisma was high enough to meet the "bard" standards, his Intelligence wasn't high enough to meet the higher requisites of his wizard. Which made no sense, yet there it was.   When you took warrior Base Attack Bonus from the Warriors and removed it, then took the Wizard table and called it Proficiency Bonus and gave it to all living things - 5e completely removed one of the ways in which classes could distinguish themselves. When you took the d4 hit point characters and made them into d6s and d8s, and made all those d6s into d8s, you basically blurred the lines of all the classes further together.   D&D didn't accomplish balance by doing some of these changes. Instead, they simply produced new broken combinations. Combination classes are almost forced at this point. You are encouraged to change classes at many tables, especially if you aren't like a wizard or something. In many games, you literally will never make it to high level, so whatever penalties you were worried about by mixing classes - like loss of the 3rd or 4th attack, no 6th-9th level spells, etc., is banished completely. This means the game style changes for many people in ways probably never intended.   Most of you are making a huge mistake when talking about the ranger. Almost all of you are obsessed with what it looks like at 1st level, maybe 5th level. But I don't see people thinking about it in terms of 17th or 20th level. That's a problem. You want it balanced? Look at the fighter with his 4 attacks per round, and action surge to 8 attacks. Look at the wizard with their 40d6 meteor swarm. Look at that Bard who can instantly ressurect with a word, or that cleric who can heal 700 points of damage.   Where is your Ranger in this scene? Are they in the back ground petting their joke pet, chilling out with the Warlock's Thrall and the Knight's Retainers, adjusting the straps on the horses? I bet they are.
#5 DemoMonkey Sep 16, 2015 12:16:30	I wonder if people at ENword understand satire better.   Or, y'know. At all.
#6 Brock_Landers Sep 16, 2015 13:42:53	I actually like the idea of merging the 1st and 3rd Ed ranger into a 5th Ed baby-child!  Also, yes, Drow should have a racial ability to dual-wield.
(Reply to #4) CCS	shintashi wrote:
#8 Chaosmancer Sep 17, 2015 12:48:02	shintashi wrote: