Update #71: The Heavy Hitters: Rogues and Rangers

[J.E. Sawyer]

Not quite. I learnt on OD&D and 1st Edition and vanilla 3E is IMO the best iteration of the ruleset, before it got killed by splat-books.

 

The Rogue idea isn't my cup of tea, as others have said the word 'Rogue' isn't evocative of 'Brute Fighter' but that's just me. The whole point of a rogue in my mind is a flexible class that allows you to use skills to forge the type of rogue you want to play (swashbuckling dandy through to traps / MacGuyver dude / Ninja stealth monkey) not the DPS tank Sawyer wants you to play. I do like the special move that allows you to swap places with an enemy... if the tactical engine works right that could be fun.

 

Video killed the tabletop game and all that.

 

The Ranger looks interesting, but as others have said archer-with-pet is slightly MMO and again the class concept is fixed. Where did my tank-ranger go? My stealth-ranger? As the other guy said, my lost-a-pet-now-I-use-a-musket ranger. People like messing around with classes and going against the grain. Where is the scope for that here?

 

Again we are playing the class Sawyer wants us to play, the archetypes look too rigid. If I'm being unfair am happy to be corrected but I'm not seeing a load of class flexibility here.

 

My favourite classes, melee fighters, are now mob-crushers.

 

FWIW I am implacably hostile to 4E and MMO type systems. I didn't back a game based on the original infinity engine series to play one.

 

Please dissuade me otherwise.

 

 

I think your view of rangers as a class in A/D&D is skewed.  In 1st edition core, rangers excelled at one thing in combat: killing giants.  With UA, they could get weapon specialization and double specialization.  Really, that and access to low-level druid spells (and wands, at higher levels) were the main things they had going for them (and outside of combat, tracking).

 

In 2nd Ed. core, this changed.  2nd Ed. rangers no longer gained their +1 damage/level against giant-class creatures (replaced with a flat +4 attack bonus against a hated enemy).  The ranger also gained two-weapon fighting but at the cost of wearing any seriously heavy armor. In 2nd Ed., being restricted to lighter armor was Not Good.  Many of the benefits of advanced weapon specialization, (mastery, etc.) were restricted to single-class fighters.  Unless the rangers were in their element fighting their hated enemies (and boy, you really hoped your DM made sure there were some in the campaign), they generally did not shine in combat.  

 

In 3E core, this changed again.  You could pick favored enemies, dual-wield (or not) or use a bow (or not), and have an animal companion (as a standard class feature) but the characters generally were sub-par in fights that didn't include their favored enemies.  Did you really play 3E tank rangers using core rules?  They have d8 hit dice and combat paths that encourage you not to use a shield.  That puts them in a better position for melee than a bard, but behind fighters and barbarians, certainly.  In my (and Bobby's) experience, players who try to tank (or even off-tank) a core ranger get their faces pounded in.  Your stealth ranger is still right here (it's one of their two automatic skill bonuses).  Your ranger without a pet technically doesn't exist in core 3E above 3rd level because ranger pets are a standard 3E class feature.  I guess you could not take a pet in core 3E, but you don't get anything in exchange for it.

 

The classes I "want you to play" are ones that are good in combat and are distinctive from other classes.  Core RAW rangers and rogues in 3E are distinctive, but they aren't great in combat.  We've said from the beginning (or near the beginning) that we're not making "skill classes".   The main difference between a PoE swashbuckling rogue and a core/RAW 3E swashbuckling rogue is that the PoE will be much more effective in combat (if about as fragile -- not sure where you got the idea that they tank).  Sneak attack is at the core of the idea of rogues as vicious combatants, even in 3E.  In Pathfinder, this goes further, with additional combat-oriented Talents opening up as they gain levels.  I don't think expanding this concept makes rogues "not roguey", unless being bad in combat is essential to one's concept of what a rogue is.

[Clean&Clear]

As many others have said, I am concerned about the flexibility of the classes.

 

From what we are presented, it seems they are quite bound to their given role and there isn't much room for variability. Hope there will be many more abilities to choose from (like non-combat abilities and such), which we are not presented yet, that will give characters the desired possibility to destinguish from other characters of same class and make room for defining your own playstyle with the class.

 

But not to be just negative, I'm glad the game is taking shape and the artwork looks really great, good work!

[Tsuga C]

 

FWIW I am implacably hostile to 4E and MMO type systems. I didn't back a game based on the original infinity engine series to play one.

 

Please dissuade me otherwise.

 

 

Amen to that, brother!  Apparently Obsidian needs to dust off their AD&D collection and spend an evening reacquainting themselves with the roots of the IE series of games.

[Monte Carlo]

Josh, you haven't addressed the core issue... say I want a ranged rogue who can sneak attack with a bow. In the IE iteration of 2E AD&D you could easily tank with a ranger and benefit from a selection of clerical spells (and druidical, albeit by mistake).

 

Please address the point - you say distinct, I say rigid.

 

Edit: What makes my rogue different from anyone else's? I might honestly be missing the point, but they all look pretty similar to me.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Monte Carlo

[IndiraLightfoot]

Josh: For those of us old enough to have gone through all D&D versions, we do remember (more or less vaguely), the class changes and how they first often upset us, and then usually became bearable, only to become great later on.

 

 

The classes I "want you to play" are ones that are good in combat and are distinctive from other classes.  Core RAW rangers and rogues in 3E are distinctive, but they aren't great in combat.  We've said from the beginning (or near the beginning) that we're not making "skill classes".   The main difference between a PoE swashbuckling rogue and a core/RAW 3E swashbuckling rogue is that the PoE will be much more effective in combat (if about as fragile -- not sure where you got the idea that they tank).  Sneak attack is at the core of the idea of rogues as vicious combatants, even in 3E.  In Pathfinder, this goes further, with additional combat-oriented Talents opening up as they gain levels.  I don't think expanding this concept makes rogues "not roguey", unless being bad in combat is essential to one's concept of what a rogue is.

 

And classes good in combat and distinctive from other classes are great starting points. I, personally, don't demand any full recognition of earlier implementations of classes in CRPGs (especially in D&D, even if it's nice with some kind of fuzzy similarity), but I do wish for as much diversity as possible. The new info you just revealed about the rogue makes it a versatile class, it seems. But I simply must ask: Will there be further divisions via choices after a few levels where there are subclasses or prestige classes of these "distincitive classes". And if so, can you give us an example or two?

 

Cheers!

Edited January 29, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Wirdjos]

 I don't think expanding this concept makes rogues "not roguey", unless being bad in combat is essential to one's concept of what a rogue is.

 

I think that concept just might be. Not counting the mention in the post you quoted, here are two other posts that point to a 'bad in combat' mentality.

 

They call Rogues "heavy hitters". WOW calls them "DPS Kings". But in the IE games, and of course in D&D, they were nothing of the sort. They were the sneaks and the scouts. They were the lock pickers, trap disarmers, trap setters and pickpockets. In combat, they weren't the heaviest hitters. Not by a long shot. They could backstab for massive damage but only on occasion. They used the lower tier weapons, like Daggers and short swords. Not the big guns that the true heavy hitters used, like massive swords and greataxes.

 

Even when D&D rules were too complexes and useless sometimes (I played pen and paper role),  there were 2 important design aspects about D&D that helped in its success: 1. Not every class must be good in combat. You could help your team to battle by healing, protecting or so, but in a 1v1 fight you were lost. Today players would call that a "support" role. 2. Non-combat abilities make the "role" part far more interesting. In there, those "weak" characters shined. 

 

Perhaps instead of talking about another couple of classes next update, there could be a new update about noncombat skills and their relation to character builds?

[JFSOCC]

let's give Josh a chance to go through the thread first before we start replying to his replies.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Josh, you haven't addressed the core issue... say I want a ranged rogue who can sneak attack with a bow. In the IE iteration of 2E AD&D you could easily tank with a ranger and benefit from a selection of clerical spells (and druidical, albeit by mistake).

 

Please address the point - you say distinct, I say rigid.

 

You can sneak attack with a bow (or crossbow, gun, wand, etc.) in PoE.  And yes, in 2nd Ed. AD&D you could tank as a ranger, though you were typically mathematically worse at it than a comparable fighter (not as bad in the IE games due to dual-wield/armor tradeoffs).  But there's nothing in the core/RAW ranger's class description or abilities that suggests they are especially good at avoiding being hit or taking damage -- other than their d10 hit die.

 

These class overviews do not exhaustively list every ability that classes receive, nor do they list any Talents (because Talents are being designed last).  And more importantly, the abilities aren't final, so input about specific things you want to see is valuable.  Gfted1 and a few others really wanted a Smite-type ability for paladins, so they got it.  Do people really like the idea of a melee-oriented ranger?  Apparently a good number do, so it's worthwhile for us to consider how their abilities could apply to melee as well as ranged combat.  Having an animal companion (or not) is something that is unlikely to make everyone happy.  If you mostly know rangers from the IE games, then there's no expectation of animal companions.  If you mostly know rangers from 3E, then there's probably a very big expectation of animal companions.  As an effective permanent additional party member, it's not really the sort of thing we can go halfway on and I don't think it's a good idea to make it optional because it shifts a ton of abilities away to Talent land.

[J.E. Sawyer]

 

 

Amen to that, brother!  Apparently Obsidian needs to dust off their AD&D collection and spend an evening reacquainting themselves with the roots of the IE series of games.

 

 

I refer to older A/D&D rulebooks almost daily.

 

 

 I don't think expanding this concept makes rogues "not roguey", unless being bad in combat is essential to one's concept of what a rogue is.

 

I think that concept just might be. Not counting the mention in the post you quoted, here are two other posts that point to a 'bad in combat' mentality.

 

They call Rogues "heavy hitters". WOW calls them "DPS Kings". But in the IE games, and of course in D&D, they were nothing of the sort. They were the sneaks and the scouts. They were the lock pickers, trap disarmers, trap setters and pickpockets. In combat, they weren't the heaviest hitters. Not by a long shot. They could backstab for massive damage but only on occasion. They used the lower tier weapons, like Daggers and short swords. Not the big guns that the true heavy hitters used, like massive swords and greataxes.

 

Even when D&D rules were too complexes and useless sometimes (I played pen and paper role),  there were 2 important design aspects about D&D that helped in its success: 1. Not every class must be good in combat. You could help your team to battle by healing, protecting or so, but in a 1v1 fight you were lost. Today players would call that a "support" role. 2. Non-combat abilities make the "role" part far more interesting. In there, those "weak" characters shined. 

 

Perhaps instead of talking about another couple of classes next update, there could be a new update about noncombat skills and their relation to character builds?

 

 

I am very aware of the mentality, but we've never considered skill classes for PoE and have been consistent about stating so.   We've previously talked about skills in an early update:

 

https://eternity.obsidian.net/news/update-7-non-combat-skills-with-tim-cain

 

But we could probably give another update on them in the near future.  That said, like the IE games (save IWD2), PoE's skill list is relatively small.  A lot of skill-oriented things (like dialogue checks and pickpocketing) are handled with attribute checks rather than dedicated skills.

[Crowmeat]

Josh, you haven't addressed the core issue... say I want a ranged rogue who can sneak attack with a bow. 

You can do this.  Play a rogue, give them a bow.  Congrats, you have a ranged rogue who can sneak attack with a bow! You want to have a smoothtalking rogue with a rapier?  Go for it, nothing in the class description says you can't.  In fact, if you use just a rapier and no shield, you'll get a nice accuracy bonus, which translates to more crits, which translates to a great swashbuckler.  Its almost like everything you're asking for you can do with the rogue, and you're mad because someone else can put their rogue in heavier armor and have them be in the front lines. You're also still stuck on the idea that rogues are skillmonkeys, which I'm glad they're not.  But you want your rogue to sneak?  Lucky for you, they start with points in sneak.  Want them to lay traps?  Lucky for you, they start with points in mechanics.  But maybe you want to play a dirty fighter.  Now you can.  Fighters are mob-crushers, yes.  Fortunately, there is still a class for those people who want to lay down the hurt on one person in a straight-up brawl:  the rogue.  (It can just do a lot of other things too, if you want it to).

 

 

 

Did you really play 3E tank rangers using core rules?  They have d8 hit dice and combat paths that encourage you not to use a shield.

3E rangers had d10 HD.  It wasn't until 3.5 that they got dropped to d8.  Also, in 3.0, they were utterly boring classes that had few skills, got free (but fewer) feats than a fighter of equivalent level, and eventually got utterly worthless druid spells.  You could build a better "ranger" by multiclassing fighter/druid with a few rogue levels.  All you missed out on were favored enemies, which was a spectacularly boring ability anyhow.  3.0 rangers were awful.  3.5 rangers, on the other hand, had the animal companions, a bunch of skills, some outdoor related feats, and some...rather boring druid spells.  They felt like a unique class, like the paladin, rather than "fighter that gets druid spells I guess" that they were in 3.0.  Anything that makes rangers different from their 3.0 incarnation is good in my book.  

[Monte Carlo]

@ Josh: Thanks for that because it answers some of my question.

 

I think folks would accept the animal companion, for example, if it came with a melee *and* ranged iteration. I'm sure finding some parity with the skills / benefits between melee / ranged is do-able (for example, an attack bonus is an attack bonus, right... or a Legolas style melee-bow dude even at very high level).

 

This distinctiveness is enjoyable from a number of perspectives, not just mechanical.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I will look into melee opportunities for rangers.  Thanks.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Do people really like the idea of a melee-oriented ranger?  Apparently a good number do, so it's worthwhile for us to consider how their abilities could apply to melee as well as ranged combat.  Having an animal companion (or not) is something that is unlikely to make everyone happy.  If you mostly know rangers from the IE games, then there's no expectation of animal companions.  If you mostly know rangers from 3E, then there's probably a very big expectation of animal companions.  As an effective permanent additional party member, it's not really the sort of thing we can go halfway on and I don't think it's a good idea to make it optional because it shifts a ton of abilities away to Talent land.

 

 

For me, I see melee-Rangers as gimped fighters, especially in the IE games. If the animal companion is taken more from 3E, then no problem. But I would like to have both a melee and ranged character to use with my animal companion. I think it could work with both builds with your animal companion to help you. But is that turning the Ranger into a Fighter/Rogue with an animal pet? It really comes down to the different characters skills. And the melee ranger's skills and a ranged ranger's skills.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[J.E. Sawyer]

3E rangers had d10 HD.  It wasn't until 3.5 that they got dropped to d8. 

 

That is true.  I forgot about that.  Thanks for reminding me.

[Tsuga C]

I'd very much like to hear a bit more regarding Talent Land as it firms up over the next few months as everything thus far has been about combat, combat, combat.  There's not much roleplaying to be enjoyed while fighting and roleplaying, not combat, is #1 in my book.  Combat has its merits and is a great underpinning for the adventure, but I'm at least as keen on what's known as non-combat skills & feats in D&D 3.X and Pathfinder.

 

And thanks for the reply!

Edited January 29, 2014 by Tsuga C

[PIP-Clownboy]

 a Legolas 

 

Well at least you didn't use Drizzt. 

[rnd]

cool update... here my point

 

- in the infinity engine games i like that there are some items (regeneration ring for example)

that allow make it completely viable to play solo for example or with a party without a healer.

 

I hope there will be some good items that allow playtroughs with solo or partys that do not contain specific classes.

 

Especially such items can make the player feel more unique about his character, like its his character

and not just some statistics .. so i hope there will be many unique items that can be found ;-)

[Monte Carlo]

 

 a Legolas 

 

Well at least you didn't use Drizzt. 

 

 

I'm sorry I don't hit your high standards of hipness and originality.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

I like 4th edition. Sure having superpowers as a fighter is silly and MMO-ish, but auto-attacking as a fighter is worse than MMO-ish. So there. I said it.

 

 

EDIT: That said, having the entire party have tons of abilities sounds like a lot of work, so when controlling a party I don't mind some people only autoattacking.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Lord of Lost Socks

[Azmodan]

Had anyone else noted preconceptions in some posters' comments in regard to PoE specifically being a re-implementation of a favoured D&D edition?

AD&D was great, especially for Campaign Settings, but rule-wise 3E with some tightened rules from 3.5 was far more accessible, without loss of intricacy. But I don't expect either of these in PoE. If PoE is closer to the GURPS mechanics (like Fallout), I wouldn't see that as a problem, as long as the Campaign Setting is fully fleshed out.

 

Tweaking and re-adjusting class roles and the fight dynamic can happen in Alpha. So what's the point of disliking in advance something you haven't played yet?

 

I hope Obsidian takes everything they read on the forums with a serving of salt (a grain is not enough), and just build the game as they originally envisioned it. I suspect design by committee will average out originality into blandness.

 

Thank you, Josh, for the updates!

Edited January 29, 2014 by Azmodan

[Ffordesoon]

I've been thinking about how the Ranger's pet fits into things for a little while, and I have a couple of questions:

 

1) If all Rangers get pets, and the Ranger's pet is more or less an extra party member, what's the drawback to being a Ranger? Even if Rangers and their pets share a pool of health, starting with two characters instead of one seems like a distinct advantage the Ranger has over every other class. What's the disadvantage that balances that out? In other words, why would I take another class over the Ranger?

 

2) Related to that, if Sagani (who I'm assuming is the Ranger companion, but swap out the Ranger companion for her if I'm wrong) has a pet, too, why would I want to take other party members before her, especially if I'm a Ranger with a pet too? It seems like you're getting three or four party members for the price of two in that scenario, and eventually having a party of seven or eight instead of a party of six would seem to make Sagani a "must take" character, no?

 

I suspect I could correctly guess the answer to both of these questions without too much trouble, but I'd be interested in an official response nonetheless.

[Yonjuro]

cool update... here my point

 

- in the infinity engine games i like that there are some items (regeneration ring for example)

that allow make it completely viable to play solo for example or with a party without a healer.

 

I hope there will be some good items that allow playtroughs with solo or partys that do not contain specific classes.

 

Especially such items can make the player feel more unique about his character, like its his character

and not just some statistics .. so i hope there will be many unique items that can be found ;-)

 

 I guess we're a little off topic but I am interested in the question of smaller parties/solo runs too. Related to that is this question:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/65037-experience-split-between-party-members/?p=1412664

 

 Is XP divided among party members like it was in the IE games? There were interesting tradeoffs in using a smaller party that leveled faster. 

[AndreaColombo]

About the update—I generally like it, although I am also very happy that Josh would consider melee opportunities for rangers. I like the ranger concept presented here, but having the additional option to make a stronger melee ranger build can only be good.

 

Area art is very pretty and very reminiscent of the IE style with a more modern look—and that portrait is freaking AMAZING!

 

About what to put in the next update—I'm very curious about both priests/chanters and wizards/druids. If the latter comes packed with spell previews, then that's what I'm rooting for. Otherwise, either one of them suits me fine (but really, the update on fighters would be totally cool, too).

 

Question for the devs—Since my mind is already made up about increasing my pledge, I would like the extra money to also count against the additional stretch goals for more companions and wilderness areas in case you decided to go for them. Hence, I have not finalized my pledge on the backer portal yet. Are you going to need every pledge to be finalized before the time you estimate you'll be making a decision on extra stretch goals, or is it fine to wait?

[Stun]

I think your view of rangers as a class in A/D&D is skewed.  In 1st edition core, rangers excelled at one thing in combat: killing giants.  With UA, they could get weapon specialization and double specialization.  Really, that and access to low-level druid spells (and wands, at higher levels) were the main things they had going for them (and outside of combat, tracking).

Hey Josh. Something didn't ring true to my eyes when I read this, so, I dusted off my old 1st edition Player's Handbook and looked up Rangers.

 

And what you're saying here is Hardly an accurate picture of combat skills 1st edition Rangers got. First of all, their bonus damage vs. Giants is not some throwaway skill. It's a Huge thing. A game changer. AD&D 1st edition defines the Giant class as: Bugbears, Ettins, Giants (Hill, Stone, Frost, Fire and Storm), Gnolls, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Ogres, Ogre Magi, Orcs and Trolls. That's a pretty large pool of opponents, wouldn't you say? And considering how much the Ranger bonus damage is against those creatures (+1 per level with no cap, and that's in addition to every other bonus they get, like strength modifiers and weapon enchantments)

 

They also surprise opponents 50% of the time. And they get mage spells in addition to their druid spells. In fact, at 17th level, a Ranger's spell casting is pretty formidable, considering they're part of the fighter class. Mirror Image, Call Lightning, Entangle, Heat metal, Invisibility, levitate. etc. When augmented with their already top-tier fighting prowess (they're better with weapons than every class except other fighters), this gives them a unique edge.

 

You can "Front line", "Heavy Hit" and "Mob Rule" at the same time with a Ranger in 1e AD&D. They were borderline overpowered.

Edited January 29, 2014 by Stun

[Tsuga C]

Keep in mind, though, that to actually achieve 17th level and all of that power in a PnP group wasn't all that common. It's a different story in a cRPG where such rarified heights ain't so rare.