D&D 5E Convince me that the Ranger is a necessary Class.

[CleverNickName]

Put your money where your mouth is: design me a fighter that can emulate a warrior of shadow monk in only 5 subclass levels. No feats. Let's see how little a shadow-monk suffers...

You can do the homework if you want, I stand by what I said.

 

[Remathilis]

You can do the homework if you want, I stand by what I said.

I'll take that as "I can't".

 

[Shardstone]

Making the Ranger into a half-caster was the best thing that ever happened to that class. Like it or not, but in 5E, spells just Fantasy powers. That's why a bunch of monsters use spells to represent their various supernatural and paranormal abilities. Ergo, anything supernatural a character is doing, they're doing it with spells, or something damn near similar. I used to hate it, but I realized I really just hate how streamlined all the spells are; all cast the same way, with the same resource. Working on changing that for my own 5E spin off but at the end of the day, spells are an easy to read format for conveying a supernatural power and its mechanics to someone.

In this schema, supernatural is anything that cannot be done on IRL Earth.

 

[Emberashh]

I'll make sure to tell Issac Asimov that.

Asimov's Fantasy stories weren't sci-fi pretending to be fantasy, however, so one has to take that quote with a grain of salt. He was talking about the dynamics of pushing sci-fi beyond the near future or super realistic.

 

[ezo]

Let's see how little a shadow-monk suffers...

The shadow-monk would suffer, of course...

You're asking to to put not only a subclass into a different class, but emulate all the monk's features within those subclass features as well.

You could make a different shadow-monk--- perhaps in theme similar to what we have, but of course without all the "bells and whistles" you might want.

In my opinion, it's just as necessary as the paladin, monk, and barbarian. Which is to say: Nah, not really. It could be made a subclass of Fighter and the game wouldn't suffer for it.

This, I believe, was @CleverNickName's point. Your shadow-monk might suffer, but of course the game really won't. There could still be a new "different" shadow-monk to feed that itch, if that is your think.

Of course, you could get even closer with a redo of the Fighter chassis, so it is less restrictive, and could support more versatility in designs via subclasses... and then get even closer to the current shadow-monk.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'll take that as "I can't".

Take it however you like; it's my opinion. I don't know why it matters so much to you.

The odds of me successfully proving to you that it can be done, are about the same as the odds of you successfully proving to me that it can't be done, so I don't really see the point in arguing about it. I don't mind if you disagree with me.

 

[Mecheon]

Take it however you like; it's my opinion. I don't know why it matters so much to you.

The odds of me successfully proving to you that it can be done, are about the same as the odds of you successfully proving to me that it can't be done, so I don't really see the point in arguing about it. I don't mind if you disagree with me.

You're either saying the Fighter is so generic you can build anything from it (which is. Not true), and you're also indirectly taking pot-shots at folks who like monks, pallies and barbarians, saying their class doesn't have enough weight to it to stand by themselves. Which uh, yeah, I'm gonna argue strongly against that one, they would be utter trash if you extrapolated from this idea. Fighter isn't a generic Build Everything That Isn't Magic class and you'd absolutely ruin those other classes by trying this, especially monk and barbarian. It didn't work in 1E, its not going to work today.

Regardless, yeah, Ranger is absolutely necessary. The one D&D character who's actually hit pop culture, Dritz, is a Ranger. Its that simple. Ranger is more justified as a class than Wizard is, because Dritz is more popular than Eliminster

 

[CleverNickName]

This, I believe, was @CleverNickName's point. Your shadow-monk might suffer, but of course the game really won't. There could still be a new "different" shadow-monk to feed that itch, if that is your think.

Yep, pretty much. I haven't had anyone choose to play a Ranger for years, and the game works just fine, so how "necessary" can it be?

I'd love it if all of the classes were subclasses of the "Core Four" classes. Like maybe Warrior (barbarian, fighter, monk, ranger), Priest (cleric, druid, paladin), Sneak (monk, ranger, rogue), and Mage (artificer, bard, wizard, warlock, and sorcerer). But unfortunately we would have to resolve dozens--maybe hundreds by now, they keep adding more--of different subclasses right out of the gate. And as @Remathilis points out, that's a huge obstacle. It can be done, but hoo boy.

So while I'd still like to see it, and I still insist such a thing is possible, I acknowledge it's not coming anytime soon. Instead I've been looking for other ways to streamline the game. Right now I'm using something I call "The Players Decide" which I've written about in another thread.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Is the Ranger a necessary Class?

There is no such thing as a necessary class.

There are useful classes for various things. The Ranger is a useful class. There's an argument for including it.

"Niche" is not a reason for a class.

 

[Vaalingrade]

A better question is why is taking classes away from people necessary?

Can someone explain that one to me?