August 5, 2024 • 36 mins
In this episode of 'Hello, Adventurers,' hosts Jason Portizo, Joe McCall, and Jim Crocker dive into the intriguing concept of running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign where all players choose the same class—specifically, Rangers. They discuss the challenges and unique opportunities this approach offers, including handling spellcasting, favored enemies, and terrain. The team emphasizes creating a homebrew campaign tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of Rangers, and explores how this setup can lead to creative storytelling and dynamic gameplay. Listeners are given practical tips on rule adjustments from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and other sources to enhance their single-class adventures.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:22):
The podcast for role players paying game masters help level
up your game. We are your dungeon masters. I am
Jason Portiso, I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Jill McCall, and I'm Jim Crocker.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
And today we're gonna answer a question that comes up
pretty often. That's actually came up on Reddit maybe about
a week or so ago from the time of this recording,
and that this comes up like, you know, at the
diner or whatever diner facsimile exists in New Jersey. Now
it's a whole different podcast, but you know whatever, there's
this coffee or beer involved. We start talking about things
like what if everyone played the same class? Yeah, and
(00:57):
you know what I can hear.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
DM wasn't paying attention. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
And I just started a new home game with some
of my coworkers and some of them wanted to double
up on classes and they're like, oh, you can't really
do that. I'm like, you can, but you got to
do it right, yes, And they ends up not doing it,
so it's not really an issue. But well one went
pout in instead of cleric and it's really that different.
But this comes up a lot, and I've seen podcasts
through this. I know nappot did this as like a
side quest. I'm sure some others have, but we're gonna
(01:23):
talk about the the Oops All campaigns. Yeah, I love
oops All campaigns. Everyone picks the same main class and
you can go different subclasses, you can go different multi classes,
but at a core, you guys are all the same class.
And this does a couple of cool things. It kind
of grounds all the players in, like, Okay, we're all
doing this, and now we have to like find a
(01:46):
way to make these feel like different characters, Like, yeah,
we're all gonna channel divinity, but we'll maybe we all
have different deities all the like domain cleric is a
little bit better at healing and stuff like that. And
also like it really a lot of problems with backstory,
where like like, yeah, of course you guys don't know
each other. You all grew up in the same monastery
(02:07):
or woods or barbarian tribe. So yeah, I mentioned I
mentioned Natpot did this with Oops All Monks when they
did a yellow side campaign while one of their guys
was on paternity leave. And and of course I had
to mention the composer of the music for this show,
A Nick Spurrier, was the DM for a show called Bombarded,
and the whole premise of that show is they were
all barred multi classes. Yeah sure, and it took place
(02:30):
in their college. So Jim graciously volunteered to go first
because Joe and I couldn't be ours to write notes
this week peek behind the screen Yeah sorry, Yeah, and
I kind of wanted to save yours, Jim, because you
gotta you got the you got the hot take on
which one is the is the funnest one to play? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You know that I thought would be most interesting, the
most interesting challenge that I would want to play a
fire to do a campaign.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I'll let you kick in the door and then tell
us how you're gonna play.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oops All Rangers, Yes, yeah, Oops all Ranger. So, like,
I think this is the irony of you not being
prepared but me being prepared, because that's what Rangers do.
They're ready to go right there, the Ranger energy right there. Yeah,
they're the boy Scouts of the D and D world.
So but I just thought it would be interesting to
do to do a Ranger party. So the funny thing
(03:18):
about Rangers is that they get knocked for simultaneously being
too specialized and not specialized enough. When people think about
playing a ranger, whether you want a ranger in the party.
You know, they're like they can't get quite to the
damage dealing of a rogue or a barbarian that you
know is is you know, laying down, you know, rage
(03:40):
attacks or sneak attacks. They don't have enough spells to
really fully replace a cleric or a druid, and they
can't tank like a palatine or a fighter.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
You're really selling this gym.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
So but usually when when somebody takes a ranger, they
they kind of they envision it and the rest of
the party thinks of it as a support character, right
backing up the party with like missile support or harassment,
you know, using like like their their melee attacks with
a companion and stuff like this. But that's what makes
the idea of a campaign featuring a ranger conclave so
(04:14):
interesting to me is that, you know, like they're kind
of like a utility player. But what do you get
if you put them all together and have different kinds
of rangers. Can they support each other in a way
that makes for an interesting game. So the base ranger
out of the PHP is admittedly pretty well, it's pretty basic,
but the advent of the really interesting new rangers options
(04:38):
from Tasha's and Xanathar and even there's even like a
like a dragon specialized ranger in Fizzband's treasury. They really
open things up and they can make for an interesting
party full of rangers that all feel really different, if
that's what you want to do, if that's how you
want to go with it. So from the jump, like
to my mind, there's a couple of tweaks to the
(04:59):
core world that d M who wants to run. What
I'm thinking of in my head is a conclave campaign, right,
because that's what you call your whatever, like your ranger,
like like a bartic college or a you know, monastery.
The you know, the kind of the fifth edition calls
you know whatever, a gathering of rangers or the organization
of rangers a conclave. So if you want to run
(05:20):
a concerts.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
A murder like crows, it's funny it could be.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yes, yeah, it was a murder of rangers. It's a
conclave of rangers.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So I always thought it's it's a group of crows
is called a murder. A group of a group of
owls is called as like a like a scholar or
something like that, or and a group of any I
need something like that, but a group of any three
or more white guys in their thirties is called a podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, the speaking of boops, all yops, all podcasts. Sorry,
but I digress. So if you want to do that
Conclave campaign, there's a couple of tweaks that you can
make to the rules to make like the immediate objections
that people might have, or to some of those things
that I talked about at the beginning, where there's certain
roles that are going to be kind of tougher to
(06:07):
fill because you've got all the rangers and they have
some of those limitations. Kind of that got the kind
of jack of all trades, master of none thing going on.
So one of the things you can do, and the
first thing that I would do if I were dming
a campaign that had all rangers was that I would
simply house rule that any of the rangers that are
in the campaign, because they're all spell casters, right, they
(06:29):
gain the clerical ability to drop any spell slot and
cast cure wounds instead. So like you know, if you're
walking around and you've got an extra speak with animals
you're not using, but you just got in a fight,
you can drop it. You can use it to cast
cure wounds or any of the other you know, at
whatever level, just like a cleric typically can, so that
(06:50):
you don't have to worry about loading up your spell
list just with cure wounds, and that kind of helps
you deal with some of the issues of recovery and
you know, and healing that you might otherwise be worried
about if you didn't have any clerics along with you.
The other thing you can do that's really easy is
to just there's like half a dozen spells from the
cleric list that even just add to the ranger list,
(07:12):
make them available to your ranger characters, and that will
really open things up in terms of making them able
to stand on their own without having to bring a
you know, like a companion along with them or give
them extra healing potions and stuff like that. And the
ones top of my head that I came up with
are dispell Magic, mass healing, word, remove, Curse, Vivify, greater Restoration,
(07:36):
mask here wounds, and raise dead. You make those available
to rangers and you've pretty much got everything you need
to keep people on their feet, you know, without having
a cleric in the party because they can all do it.
You can kind of you know, this is a thing
where the fact that they're all okay at it, but
they're all okay at it, and by spreading it out
(07:57):
amongst them and giving them access to some of those
extra spells, and it's literally it's just half a dozen spells,
you can you can kind of deal with that issue
and not have to worry about it.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I'm looking at the Tasha's additional spells for Ranger in
the optional class abilities, and some of loads are on here,
so that adds in. I'll read the whole list. So
Tasha's Additional Ranger Spells gives you entangles, Searings, my Aid Enhanceability,
gust of Wind, magic weapons, someone Beast, elemental weapon, Melvin tistone.
Here's your revivify. Yeah, there we some and fay Dominique Beast,
(08:30):
some elemental and a fifth level greater Restoration.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah. I didn't think to go through to look for
that for the extra for the additional spells, but you know,
if it's canon, if it's already in there, clearly I'm
thinking the right way. Because the very designers of D
and D were like, yeah, Ranger should probably have access
to this.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So Tash did there for off Brunch every spell class
and kind of gave additional spells that it's just like
the fit the theme of that class, especially with the
new subclasses that were in that book. So like, yeah,
I just brought that up while you were talking about it,
but yeah, that's really helped. And I like the ones
that you added on there for that reason. So yeah, yeah,
and you.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Know, like like you should have access to dispel magic
if you're not going to have wizards, you know, and
if you want to as the DM, you can like
you know, you can decide Okay, they can do dispel magic,
but it's only as a ritual, right, you know, not
in combat or something like that. So if there's some
kind of you know whatever, like like cursed thing that
they need to deal with, they can use dispel magic
(09:26):
on it, you know, if they take some time and
skin it as some kind of nature ritual or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Exactly I was going to say, because with a wizard,
it's like it's them taking ten minutes to study the
spell and kind of undo it piece by piece, and
with a ranger it's ten minutes of communing with nature
and letting, you know, letting the natural world take over
the magical world.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Or something like that. And you know, you could have
different you could maybe require that they've got to like
spend a little time scrounging some natural components or something
like that. You can do whatever you want with whatever
happens in those ten minutes is between you and a ranger, Yes, exactly,
between you and and guys or yes for.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You the ranger or whatever deity they chose exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, yeah, and all the.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Other weird deities watching.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
But if you've got that, and like, there's not a
ton of other things I can think of, like from
the wizard spell list or anything like that you necessarily
need to add. I think if you've got those spells
from the clerk list, you're pretty much good to go
and you can kind of cover all the situations that
you need to, like that.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Kind of like Minor Minor. I don't know whether it's
on the Ranger's list off the top of my head,
but I'd like to see you making sure that we
have like arrow themed damage spells. I don't know if
they get melf sassed arrow.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Or you know, like if you want to if you
want to give them magic missile and and say that
you know, the the material component is is is a
bow and an arrow that you you know, you imbue
it with some kind of magic and that allows you
to fire an unerring bolt from it. You know that
that that that seeks its target wherever you can do
do that however you want. But but but there's you know,
(10:52):
like like you can tweak it so that and you
can do as little or as much of that as
you want. But I think that it's it's really easy
to set it up. You know. My principal concern was
like keeping people on their feet the healings that that's
kind of what I was looking to. But you can
also add.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I just did a quick starch for a swift quiver
to make sure that they that they can get it.
And I'm like, oh, only rangers can get that spells
I get yeh, yeah, I guess, yeah, I say my
concerns are assuaged.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
They have They also have Cordona Varro's at second level
transmutation spell and then flame Arrows and Lightning arrow for
which are both thirty good.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, they've added some and and some of the other Yeah.
The additional books have added cooling ring for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
The spells are there exactly for them, specifically exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So beyond that, the other thing that you can do
is be flexible in terms of favorite enemies and like
favorite terrain, and maybe what you do is you allow
each of the PCs to swap those out when they
level up or maybe when you move to a new
region on the map or something like that. You know,
if they before you had giants and you move to
(12:03):
a part of the campaign where you're principally going to
be fighting undead, you know, have them describe a training
montage or going back to their you know, their ranger
conclave to you know, get all the lore about fighting
these beasts or something like that, and then let them
swap those out, because that's one of the frustrations that
you can run into with rangers is you pick up
the favorite enemy right and then the DM you know,
(12:25):
you go three levels without seeing a beast or whatever,
an abomination or something like that. But there's there's absolutely
ways to do that, and the easiest way is to
just be generous in terms of allowing people to swap
out with that if.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
They want to.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I feel like, unless you're playing like sorry, I feel
like unless you're playing like a Dragon campaign, right, and
then the ranger knows like, okay, take that as my
favorite enemy. You kind of kind of you have to
kind of handwave that will be because you don't.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Want to just frustrate to spend the entire campaign just
fighting one type of enemy or you know, like stuck
in one region. That might be fun. You know, maybe
you decide you want to do like we're doing the
Viking campaign and we're going to go level one to
twenty in the art dink or something like that. But
like it's nice to switch things up and by allowing
them to take you know, to change favored terrain when
(13:12):
you you know, when you switch, you know the place
where you're at, as long as you're doing it in
a in a kind of reasonable way and not in
a okay, it's the middle of the encounter and I've
decided to change what my favorite enemy is, you know,
now that we're fighting you know whatever, some gnolls or
something like that. But if you do that in a
reasonable way where you're kind of keeping keeping pace with
the campaign, that's a great way to make sure everybody
(13:35):
stays involved in that and that those abilities are useful
throughout the whole part.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, maybe you can actually do where there's a material
component and a ritual that has to be done, you know,
as you cross from one terrain to or one area
to another.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Or I'm going to draw your attention back to Tasha's.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, there we go, which probably anticipated day.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yes, So, Jim, I have three copies of Tasha. I'm
gonna send you one. So favorite enemy has been replaced
with favored foe. Yeah, okay, yeah, and it's a very
short description. I was going to read the whole thing
when you it is replaces favorite enemy and works with
the fast layer feature. When you hit a creature with
an attack role, you can call in your mystical bond
with nature to mark the target as your favorite enemy
(14:14):
for one minute or until you lose your concentration the
first time on each of your turn is. If you
hit the favorite enemy and deal damage to it, including
when you market, you can increase that damage by one
D four. You can use this feature to mark a
favorite enemy a number of times equals to your proficiency bonus,
and you regain all expended uses when you finish a
long rest features Additional damage increases when you reach levels
six and fourteenth, that goes to a D six and
(14:37):
a D eight.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So it is kind of borrowing.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
It's basically a free hunter's mark that replaces favorite enemy
and is a thousand times better. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yes, yeah, this is kind of borrowing from the fourth edition.
You know, like when you mark somebody and you can,
you know, do different effects based on that mark that
you've gotten on them, kind of something like the Avenger
class where you say, that's the person that I I'm
focused on, and so I'm going to get extra damage
against them. I like that. Yeah, yeah, that's that's a
really cool way to do that. But even if you
(15:07):
want to use the old style, you can, you can
still stick with that. But you know, as long as
you're flexible about it, it will work, as long as
you are willing to let people, you know, kind of
swap out in a reasonable kind of way.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, and these are optional rules. They're called they're called
optional rules. So if you're going into a dragon slaying
campaign or a ghost hunting campaign and you know exactly
what you're up against, then sure, go ahead. But otherwise,
I know, favorite Foe is just like like an instant
switch for most Ranger builts.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, and so like when it comes time to actually
run the game, and a lot of this, I think,
and I think one of the things that we want
to pull back the curtain on is kind of is
presume that if you're going to run something like this,
this is you know, we talked about like beginning level
DM things, you know whatever, intermediate at the end, it's
like an advanced DM thing. I think if you want
(15:56):
to do this and to really do it properly, it's
you probably want to run your own campaign, you know,
what we might call a home brew campaign, right because
the default, all the default five E stuff assumes you're
running like a balanced party right out of you know
that has a fighter and a wizard and a cleric
and all that kind of stuff and everything, and so
(16:18):
you're going to need to do probably almost as much
modification to that and kind of tweaking it on the
fly as if you were to just do up your
own campaign. And I think it would just be much
more interesting to do up your own campaign because you're
going to be designing encounters that keep in mind the
strengths and weaknesses of Rangers as a class. So you
(16:39):
want to think carefully about focusing fights on probably mostly
on melee, right, with a lot of terrain challenges and
like ways to use cover and mobility being an important
part of those fights as opposed to you know, just
like having some great big bag of hit points wide
in and get tanked by the palette in while you
(17:00):
know people are pounding on it kind of thing like that.
You're going to have a lot of you know, you
want to put up your pound stand exactly, sorry, you
want to put encounters where people are moving around, and
you want to put up encounters or mobility is important
where people are moving around, where they're taking advantage of
those you know, like you say, the marks and things
like that. And there's also ways to do to take
(17:24):
a look at what the character's favorite enemies are and
tweak the campaign in such a way that those favorite
enemies are coming up more often than they otherwise might,
simply by re skinning things to sort of fit the
mold of that favorite enemy. Right, so for some reason,
somebody decides that they want Oozes as their favorite enemy.
(17:46):
Then you look at that encounter where you're going to
put a bunch of orcs and you say, hmm, okay,
So instead of orcs. They are dead orcs that have
been colonized by you know, sentient mold, and they're now
they're on their feet like zombies lat and so they
use the stats of the orcs. But we let this
(18:07):
ranger get their favorite enemy against them. Something like that.
You can come up with all kinds of cool stuff
like that simply by sort of re skinning what type
the monsters are, but just keeping those same stats that
you've got.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, this is this is a common thing even without
having to do that, if we've not without needing the
the ranger ability is like you know, we use the
phrase flavor is free. And sometimes you just want something
to just fit the setting that you set up and
use a monster that wouldn't normally belong there. You know,
we're in the middle of the forest, of course I
want rest monsters.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Sure, yeah, they're just actual bugs now and yeah, like
just as an aside here and the good good chance
to point out that like the although it's called a
rule book, like I feel like it's more guideline. It's
a book of full of guidelines that like help guide
you in the right direction. But if it's going to
be cooler by changing that a little bit and giving
(19:03):
a different flavor. Like that's why we play the game, right,
is to have fun.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So have fun.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, And as long as I mean it's and I mean,
the rules are the rules because they're a common vocabulary
that we all understand, you know, like everybody at the
table needs to be on the same page about how
advantage works. Right. But you know, if the but if
the book says you give advantage under these conditions, you
(19:32):
know you can say, well, I don't love that it
does it under this condition, So we're going to strike that.
We're going to add these couple of other times where
you can get advantage. You know, Like the common thing
there that a lot of people do is they'll give advantage.
Like there's no there's nothing in the book about flanking,
right about if you have either you know, enemies on
(19:53):
either side of a combatant. But I like, I know
a lot of people that homebrew advantage a flanking into
the game.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
It was in the previous edition things or if you
just interpret.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
But as long as everybody at the table understands that's
how it works, then you're good. Yeah, absolutely, and you're
going to go do what you want or not as
long as as long as we've got the you know.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Never doing oops all rogues and you're looking for you know,
any any excuse you can get to give them advantage,
than sure, yeah, totally yeah, And that's a few five
y one shots at like game stores and stuff where
like you know, if they were using miniatures on the table,
they were absolutely using flanking.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah sure, sure, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
That would argue you're they're technically hidden.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Keep it in mind, technically you are more.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Correct, Joe. And so that's that's fun.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
But that's where I'm saying, like it's really more of
a loose interpretation of those rules, like yeah, I'm not
going to be so hard fast, like, well you're not hidden.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Hello Adventurers, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
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We appreciate your listening.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Now back to the show.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Finally, the thing to think about that I think is
most interesting from a DM standpoint is to create a campaign.
And this is why you want to do a homebrew campaign.
Create a campaign. Think about a world where a party
full of rangers makes sense, where it's a logical thing
that these rangers are walking, you know, are walking around together,
(21:49):
and they don't have a cleric with them, they don't
have a fighter with them, and maybe it's a world
that doesn't have barbarians or rogues or wizards in the
sense that you would normally understand them. The only wizards
are like, you know, crazy people that are raising the
dead and stuff like that, and then you know, anybody
walking around. Because sometimes people will be like, I want
to run a campaign where you know, our Kane magic
(22:12):
is forbidden and stuff like that, and like that's cool,
but don't run that campaign in a party that has
wizards in it, because that just makes it a pain
in the ass for the people that are playing wizards.
You know, do something, do something that makes that makes
sense in terms of the player characters. So that would
be that world would be a place where ranger conclaves
(22:33):
have real power or mystique or prestige, and rangers are
like the default heroic archetype. Right when people think of adventurers,
they think of rangers as opposed to, you know, are
you a wizard or are you a fighter or whatever,
and that that is the kind of you know, what
the world thinks of when they think of heroic characters.
(22:54):
Get into the politics of those conclaves, you know, do
like doom whatever, doom Walker rangers and beast Master rangers.
Do they get along? Do they not? Why do they
have these different ideas about you know, what the proper
way to fight evil is and stuff like that. And
you know, and you can get into some really interesting
stuff there when you are thinking about those gatherings of rangers,
(23:19):
those conclaves as political actors in your world, right, as
powerful forces that are you know, up there helping influence
what's going on in the you know, with with kings
and you know and whatever merchant guilds and stuff like that.
You know, maybe the rangers are important because they're the
only people that can guide the merchants through the big
(23:39):
forest or over the mountains or something like that, and
so they have a lot of influence for that reason.
And I think that if you're if you want to
see what a world like that looks like, there's a
video game that you can get on Steam. It's a
text adventure that's called road Wardens, where you play a
ranger and at the beginning you start out, it says like, Okay,
(24:01):
are you like, you know, a like get shit done
with your axe ranger? Are you a ranger that knows
a little bit about magic, you know, kind of folk
magic and that's what you rely on. Are you a
ranger who's a little shiftier and maybe you know, willing
to like pick a pocket or two. And it's really
fast and you can kind of do multiple playthroughs of
that game, but basically, what's your plane is a ranger.
(24:23):
You show up in town and people are like, oh,
you're the road warden that keeps the road safe and
roams around from town to town and you know, and
like the mayor of one town may really like you,
the mayor of another town may not. And a playthrough
that game is a really good I think gives would
give you a good grounding of what it might look
(24:45):
like in a world where the rangers are the protagonists,
right where they're the most important.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I said a quick starch for is at the time
of this recording it is on Stalever half off.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah, it's a great shop. Is that The Postman starring
Kevin Costner.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Sure, it's got a little bit of that going on,
so that that movie is not great, but the book
is fantastic. The original David bryn book is a.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Real, really easy a Postman in a water themed post
apoculation in the world with no heroes, one hero in
the world with one Postman, water World with one Kevin Costner.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, the I mean the Okay, Yeah, I'm going to
make a case for the original David Britain novel, which
is really a lot of one novel and does not
does not really resemble the.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Movie Money a dry read.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Kids, there's a movie called water World back in the
late nineteen hundreds from the man named Kevin.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Costner, speaking of being a dad movie.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Also had another dad movie called Dances with Wolves. So, Jim,
if you were to if I'm going to try desperately
to bring it back on the rail, sorry, I don't
want to work us back to the rails here. Yes, yes,
is dialogue. So if you were to try to balance
a party of say like four Rangers, maybe even five,
(26:17):
is there a subclass makeup that you would that you
would pick?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I mean not really, I don't think. I don't think
you necessarily to. I mean other than like, you know,
whatever you want. You want one weapon Master, maybe you
want one weapon master, you want one beast Master, you
want one what do they call like the the planes
walking ones that can like do the you know, like
like turn Ethereal and stuff like this. You know, just
mix it up. Let the players take what that like.
(26:43):
And that's also a thing I think where you very
much want to, like, you know, if you're pitching this
to your table and they're interested, you got to just
let people take what they want and then kind of
build the campaign after that, you know, based on what.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
The arrangers in particular. Yes, yeah, because when we when
we were talking about this this episode series, I know,
first thing I thought was like Claric some Paladins and stuff,
where like the subclasses play so differently from each other
that they really can't balance each other without having to
change a campaign around it. So that was my thought
I thought. There. But if you think you know, if
if the way to do a Rangers campaign is to
(27:19):
build a campaign around the Rangers rather than building Rangers
around the campaign, where in other classes we'll probably have
the opposite results.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah. Interesting, And this is also where I'm going to say,
if we're going to be purists about this, if you're
really going to do it, and I mean, and you
want it to be interesting and be a challenge, every
level they take is ranger. Yeah, if it's if you're
like multi classing, then that turns it into kind of
like just a sort of a regular campaign, and I
(27:48):
think it really dilutes the focus on it. What I'm
talking about here is no kidding. You know, everybody, when
you level up, you take another level or ranger, And
this is what if it's oops, all Ranger, it's no kidding,
it's all Rangers start to finish. So that that, I
think is a is a thing that's important to mention.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
If you're if you're tailoring the campaign around the Ranger stuff,
then then yeah, then that could be that could be
a stipulation of the campaign.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Well, there's kind of no point in doing it unless
you're gonna do it right, because otherwise you could just
you could just agree take a level of ranger anyway,
and then the rest of them and fighter or whatever
you were gonna do.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, yeah, well that's that's going to be in if
you're if the point of the campaign is to do
oops all, then I think in good faith of the player,
it's like, hey, I'm still gonna be going to be
a ranger, but now I get to rage because it
works with this other ability.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Okay, so you're saying like more for a setting reason.
But see, then that's something that I'm like, well, you
could just handle that like you're a fighter, but like
you're at this ranger school, but you're really more of
a fighter type and you can kind of give them
some of those.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I don't necessarily want to go down this rabbit hole.
But if I'm dming a game that is all rangers, yeah,
everybody's going to be ringers and all their levels are
going to be a ranger, and that's going to be
that That's going to be the interesting challenge, you know,
kind of the puzzle that we're all going to solve
together at the table is how to make that work
and make sure that that's fun all the way through.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
So when are you running this game, Jim.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
You know when the seasons changed, we you know, go
over the Panta Mountain to the valley or some kind
of thing like that.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
It's whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
So ten years ago. Got it, Cools at the brewery.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
We'll see if a bunch of people that.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Never played make a new d of the players play Rangers.
That's that's how you keep people in the house. Yeah, Oh,
do you print the same thing out? Nope. I don't
really have anything else to add to this. No, I
think not this particular one. I think you answered everything
I needed, Thanks, Jim. So yeah, so your your preferred
(29:57):
method of oops all Rangers is to keep a class,
keep it, you know, you use U use a lot
of Tasha's and call it your own idea. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Sure, well but but I mean but that's I mean
joking aside. That tells you that that like that's kind
of out there as as Rangers.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Were like the booty class at the time, and like
Tasha's came in there and like really made Ranger as possible,
like like like like PHB Beastmaster Ranger, like the classic
well I guess, I guess say the Hunter Ranger would
be like the class Ranger. But the best Master Ranger
in PHB is pretty bad. Yeah, it's and it's clunky,
it's it's like, it's real complicated. It was like it's
(30:40):
bad and not fun, which is like the wornation.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah it's it's it's it's yeah, it's it's a bunch
of extra rules that don't actually get you a lot
of likeical advantage for engaging with them.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, for sure, it plays great, it's fun, and it's
mechanically just better in every step of the way. In fact,
as soon as Tasha's came out and Joe was putting
his campaign together, that was the first like character acts
too seriously was my It was was my beast Master,
and so like, yeah, Tasha's came in there, and if
you get so, if you're gonna do Rangers, do Tasha's Ranger,
use all the optional stuff, use the subs there.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
For sure, I played it. I played a pH B
Ranger once and I hated it.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, it's just it was such a slot that wouldn't
they deserve the hate that they and now Monks of
the New Rangers, but wait for those to get revamped.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I mean, I always had fun playing playing Rangers in
five y, but it was always because I was, like,
you know, playing the Rangers, like the fifth or sixth
you know PC in the party, right, just doing that
support stuff, running around the edge of the battle, just
filling people with arrows or you know, popping in with
my you know whatever with my wolf to take a
couple of bites and then pop back out while the
(31:46):
Balladin stands there getting banged and banged on.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So in Thebourber games and I'm running, one of my
pregen characters is a these are level threes is a
fay Wanderer Ranger and the and I tell the new
the new players all the times they listen to take
Ranger because they are consistent. You're never going to have
the big like thirty forty damage turn that the Barbarian
is going to have. You're never going to create nearly
as many times as the fighter will. You're not going
(32:09):
to have like no, you're not going to sling fireballs
like the Wizard is not level three either, but you
know what I mean. But you're never going to have
the huge, big, grandiose turn. You're never going to create
on a on a on a divine smite for like
seventy five d eight. Every single turn at level three,
you're going to go twelve damage, twelve damage, twelve damage,
twelve damage.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, And the other thing that some people like is
like I'm gonna do twelve damage here, boom, and then
I'm gone and I go over to this guy and
I do twelve damage over here, boom and move on.
And then that mobility is one of the things that's
fun about being a ranger. That's also kind of you
know that that's also the reason people will play monks,
even though they're you know, suboptimal and in other ways,
is because they just like being able to haul ass
(32:49):
around the back.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
We did we did a play test of a of
a new one shot that done I'm writing the other night,
and the player took a monk and you know, at
level five when he's rolling with four attacks per turn,
he's having he's having a sweet time. M h. Meanwhile,
this is my name be in the episode. But the
we had to play test with six six PCs for
the note just for what I was about to run,
And so everybody played two characters and one took two marshals,
(33:11):
one took one marshall, one caster, and one took two casters.
And she just like fried her brain playing a wizard
and a cleric at the santime.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
You can do that. And you know what, I guess
this is the other thing where something you just said
just reminded me of something, Jason, which is this absolutely
is a campaign where like just out of the gates,
start everybody at third level. Oh yeah, you know, because
that's when you're the good ranger. All of the good
ranger stuff kicks in when when you can start to
(33:42):
cast spells and stuff like that. I mean, whether whatever
you can start to You can start to cast spells
at second but like you know, you get three first
level spells at third level, and and like that first
and that's where you actually make some choices about what
kind of ranger you want to.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Start getting your fighting styles and most important in your subclasses.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, and that's a and that's that's absolutely a thing.
We're just just jump right to third level, just start
there and that that that'll probably engage everybody more than
if they got to you know, because they're going to
be real samey saving it first and second.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Level, depending on how long you plan this campaign to go.
I'm a big fan now and and I used to
like not like this, But the more I think about it,
the more I like it is doing like session one,
if you're gonna start a first level you know, session one,
first level level.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Up on session one, yeah, and then session two session to.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Your level two, and then you you go to three
at the end of session two, and then basically session
three is kind of where things really start, so you
kind of do two sessions as some backstory there and.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, and that that one and two almost feel like
you're kind of playing flashbacks.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
So you're the same year you're introducing NPCs, you're introducing
the world, and like, you know, it's it's is it
that different from starting at three? No, And it's just like,
is this gonna be a long term game? And you
want to just like, you know, just lay the ground
rules and let them make those decisions at one and.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Two naturally, sure you meet each other.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
That's that's my Like it's gonna counterpoints an additional album.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Like a yeah, it's it's it's a little.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Different point the point one of your point. Like you said, Flivors,
I always had nothing else to add, and then we
added another couple of minutes to that, so now I had
nothing to add because I'm actually out Joey got anything, Nope,
he's gonna go go be a ranger now. Yeah, I
kind of want to run the OOP Soul Arrange campaign.
I feel like at the end of every one of these,
(35:25):
we're gonna be like, Okay, now I need to go
run this thing. Yeah, which means we're gonna have thirteen
simultaneous campaigns going on, each with a dedicated class. Oh
so every every other month, I'll have something to do.
Yeah good, Yeah, there you go. Awesome, Jim, thanks much,
Thanks for thanks doing the research, Thanks for doing your
homework because Joe and I gonn't be bothered. But I'm
(35:45):
just gonna wrap it up for today. Guys, thank you
so much for listening to Hello Adventurers. We are your
host Jason Portiso, Jim Crocker, and Joe McCall, producer, editor
and engineer Jason Portiso and music by Knicks Berrior, art
work by CHRISTM. Proderct. You can reach out to us
with any feed Becker suggestions by emailing Hello Adventurers Podcast
at gmail dot com. Hello Adventures is a j t
P Audio production.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Good good Bye Adventurers, Bye Adventurers.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
H
The podcast for role players paying game masters help level
up your game. We are your dungeon masters. I am
Jason Portiso, I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Jill McCall, and I'm Jim Crocker.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
And today we're gonna answer a question that comes up
pretty often. That's actually came up on Reddit maybe about
a week or so ago from the time of this recording,
and that this comes up like, you know, at the
diner or whatever diner facsimile exists in New Jersey. Now
it's a whole different podcast, but you know whatever, there's
this coffee or beer involved. We start talking about things
like what if everyone played the same class? Yeah, and
(00:57):
you know what I can hear.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
DM wasn't paying attention. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
And I just started a new home game with some
of my coworkers and some of them wanted to double
up on classes and they're like, oh, you can't really
do that. I'm like, you can, but you got to
do it right, yes, And they ends up not doing it,
so it's not really an issue. But well one went
pout in instead of cleric and it's really that different.
But this comes up a lot, and I've seen podcasts
through this. I know nappot did this as like a
side quest. I'm sure some others have, but we're gonna
(01:23):
talk about the the Oops All campaigns. Yeah, I love
oops All campaigns. Everyone picks the same main class and
you can go different subclasses, you can go different multi classes,
but at a core, you guys are all the same class.
And this does a couple of cool things. It kind
of grounds all the players in, like, Okay, we're all
doing this, and now we have to like find a
(01:46):
way to make these feel like different characters, Like, yeah,
we're all gonna channel divinity, but we'll maybe we all
have different deities all the like domain cleric is a
little bit better at healing and stuff like that. And
also like it really a lot of problems with backstory,
where like like, yeah, of course you guys don't know
each other. You all grew up in the same monastery
(02:07):
or woods or barbarian tribe. So yeah, I mentioned I
mentioned Natpot did this with Oops All Monks when they
did a yellow side campaign while one of their guys
was on paternity leave. And and of course I had
to mention the composer of the music for this show,
A Nick Spurrier, was the DM for a show called Bombarded,
and the whole premise of that show is they were
all barred multi classes. Yeah sure, and it took place
(02:30):
in their college. So Jim graciously volunteered to go first
because Joe and I couldn't be ours to write notes
this week peek behind the screen Yeah sorry, Yeah, and
I kind of wanted to save yours, Jim, because you
gotta you got the you got the hot take on
which one is the is the funnest one to play? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You know that I thought would be most interesting, the
most interesting challenge that I would want to play a
fire to do a campaign.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I'll let you kick in the door and then tell
us how you're gonna play.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oops All Rangers, Yes, yeah, Oops all Ranger. So, like,
I think this is the irony of you not being
prepared but me being prepared, because that's what Rangers do.
They're ready to go right there, the Ranger energy right there. Yeah,
they're the boy Scouts of the D and D world.
So but I just thought it would be interesting to
do to do a Ranger party. So the funny thing
(03:18):
about Rangers is that they get knocked for simultaneously being
too specialized and not specialized enough. When people think about
playing a ranger, whether you want a ranger in the party.
You know, they're like they can't get quite to the
damage dealing of a rogue or a barbarian that you
know is is you know, laying down, you know, rage
(03:40):
attacks or sneak attacks. They don't have enough spells to
really fully replace a cleric or a druid, and they
can't tank like a palatine or a fighter.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
You're really selling this gym.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
So but usually when when somebody takes a ranger, they
they kind of they envision it and the rest of
the party thinks of it as a support character, right
backing up the party with like missile support or harassment,
you know, using like like their their melee attacks with
a companion and stuff like this. But that's what makes
the idea of a campaign featuring a ranger conclave so
(04:14):
interesting to me is that, you know, like they're kind
of like a utility player. But what do you get
if you put them all together and have different kinds
of rangers. Can they support each other in a way
that makes for an interesting game. So the base ranger
out of the PHP is admittedly pretty well, it's pretty basic,
but the advent of the really interesting new rangers options
(04:38):
from Tasha's and Xanathar and even there's even like a
like a dragon specialized ranger in Fizzband's treasury. They really
open things up and they can make for an interesting
party full of rangers that all feel really different, if
that's what you want to do, if that's how you
want to go with it. So from the jump, like
to my mind, there's a couple of tweaks to the
(04:59):
core world that d M who wants to run. What
I'm thinking of in my head is a conclave campaign, right,
because that's what you call your whatever, like your ranger,
like like a bartic college or a you know, monastery.
The you know, the kind of the fifth edition calls
you know whatever, a gathering of rangers or the organization
of rangers a conclave. So if you want to run
(05:20):
a concerts.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
A murder like crows, it's funny it could be.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yes, yeah, it was a murder of rangers. It's a
conclave of rangers.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So I always thought it's it's a group of crows
is called a murder. A group of a group of
owls is called as like a like a scholar or
something like that, or and a group of any I
need something like that, but a group of any three
or more white guys in their thirties is called a podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, the speaking of boops, all yops, all podcasts. Sorry,
but I digress. So if you want to do that
Conclave campaign, there's a couple of tweaks that you can
make to the rules to make like the immediate objections
that people might have, or to some of those things
that I talked about at the beginning, where there's certain
roles that are going to be kind of tougher to
(06:07):
fill because you've got all the rangers and they have
some of those limitations. Kind of that got the kind
of jack of all trades, master of none thing going on.
So one of the things you can do, and the
first thing that I would do if I were dming
a campaign that had all rangers was that I would
simply house rule that any of the rangers that are
in the campaign, because they're all spell casters, right, they
(06:29):
gain the clerical ability to drop any spell slot and
cast cure wounds instead. So like you know, if you're
walking around and you've got an extra speak with animals
you're not using, but you just got in a fight,
you can drop it. You can use it to cast
cure wounds or any of the other you know, at
whatever level, just like a cleric typically can, so that
(06:50):
you don't have to worry about loading up your spell
list just with cure wounds, and that kind of helps
you deal with some of the issues of recovery and
you know, and healing that you might otherwise be worried
about if you didn't have any clerics along with you.
The other thing you can do that's really easy is
to just there's like half a dozen spells from the
cleric list that even just add to the ranger list,
(07:12):
make them available to your ranger characters, and that will
really open things up in terms of making them able
to stand on their own without having to bring a
you know, like a companion along with them or give
them extra healing potions and stuff like that. And the
ones top of my head that I came up with
are dispell Magic, mass healing, word, remove, Curse, Vivify, greater Restoration,
(07:36):
mask here wounds, and raise dead. You make those available
to rangers and you've pretty much got everything you need
to keep people on their feet, you know, without having
a cleric in the party because they can all do it.
You can kind of you know, this is a thing
where the fact that they're all okay at it, but
they're all okay at it, and by spreading it out
(07:57):
amongst them and giving them access to some of those
extra spells, and it's literally it's just half a dozen spells,
you can you can kind of deal with that issue
and not have to worry about it.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
I'm looking at the Tasha's additional spells for Ranger in
the optional class abilities, and some of loads are on here,
so that adds in. I'll read the whole list. So
Tasha's Additional Ranger Spells gives you entangles, Searings, my Aid Enhanceability,
gust of Wind, magic weapons, someone Beast, elemental weapon, Melvin tistone.
Here's your revivify. Yeah, there we some and fay Dominique Beast,
(08:30):
some elemental and a fifth level greater Restoration.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah. I didn't think to go through to look for
that for the extra for the additional spells, but you know,
if it's canon, if it's already in there, clearly I'm
thinking the right way. Because the very designers of D
and D were like, yeah, Ranger should probably have access
to this.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
So Tash did there for off Brunch every spell class
and kind of gave additional spells that it's just like
the fit the theme of that class, especially with the
new subclasses that were in that book. So like, yeah,
I just brought that up while you were talking about it,
but yeah, that's really helped. And I like the ones
that you added on there for that reason. So yeah, yeah,
and you.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Know, like like you should have access to dispel magic
if you're not going to have wizards, you know, and
if you want to as the DM, you can like
you know, you can decide Okay, they can do dispel magic,
but it's only as a ritual, right, you know, not
in combat or something like that. So if there's some
kind of you know whatever, like like cursed thing that
they need to deal with, they can use dispel magic
(09:26):
on it, you know, if they take some time and
skin it as some kind of nature ritual or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Exactly I was going to say, because with a wizard,
it's like it's them taking ten minutes to study the
spell and kind of undo it piece by piece, and
with a ranger it's ten minutes of communing with nature
and letting, you know, letting the natural world take over
the magical world.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Or something like that. And you know, you could have
different you could maybe require that they've got to like
spend a little time scrounging some natural components or something
like that. You can do whatever you want with whatever
happens in those ten minutes is between you and a ranger, Yes, exactly,
between you and and guys or yes for.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You the ranger or whatever deity they chose exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, yeah, and all the.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Other weird deities watching.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
But if you've got that, and like, there's not a
ton of other things I can think of, like from
the wizard spell list or anything like that you necessarily
need to add. I think if you've got those spells
from the clerk list, you're pretty much good to go
and you can kind of cover all the situations that
you need to, like that.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Kind of like Minor Minor. I don't know whether it's
on the Ranger's list off the top of my head,
but I'd like to see you making sure that we
have like arrow themed damage spells. I don't know if
they get melf sassed arrow.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Or you know, like if you want to if you
want to give them magic missile and and say that
you know, the the material component is is is a
bow and an arrow that you you know, you imbue
it with some kind of magic and that allows you
to fire an unerring bolt from it. You know that
that that that seeks its target wherever you can do
do that however you want. But but but there's you know,
(10:52):
like like you can tweak it so that and you
can do as little or as much of that as
you want. But I think that it's it's really easy
to set it up. You know. My principal concern was
like keeping people on their feet the healings that that's
kind of what I was looking to. But you can
also add.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
I just did a quick starch for a swift quiver
to make sure that they that they can get it.
And I'm like, oh, only rangers can get that spells
I get yeh, yeah, I guess, yeah, I say my
concerns are assuaged.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
They have They also have Cordona Varro's at second level
transmutation spell and then flame Arrows and Lightning arrow for
which are both thirty good.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, they've added some and and some of the other Yeah.
The additional books have added cooling ring for sure.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
The spells are there exactly for them, specifically exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So beyond that, the other thing that you can do
is be flexible in terms of favorite enemies and like
favorite terrain, and maybe what you do is you allow
each of the PCs to swap those out when they
level up or maybe when you move to a new
region on the map or something like that. You know,
if they before you had giants and you move to
(12:03):
a part of the campaign where you're principally going to
be fighting undead, you know, have them describe a training
montage or going back to their you know, their ranger
conclave to you know, get all the lore about fighting
these beasts or something like that, and then let them
swap those out, because that's one of the frustrations that
you can run into with rangers is you pick up
the favorite enemy right and then the DM you know,
(12:25):
you go three levels without seeing a beast or whatever,
an abomination or something like that. But there's there's absolutely
ways to do that, and the easiest way is to
just be generous in terms of allowing people to swap
out with that if.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
They want to.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I feel like, unless you're playing like sorry, I feel
like unless you're playing like a Dragon campaign, right, and
then the ranger knows like, okay, take that as my
favorite enemy. You kind of kind of you have to
kind of handwave that will be because you don't.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Want to just frustrate to spend the entire campaign just
fighting one type of enemy or you know, like stuck
in one region. That might be fun. You know, maybe
you decide you want to do like we're doing the
Viking campaign and we're going to go level one to
twenty in the art dink or something like that. But
like it's nice to switch things up and by allowing
them to take you know, to change favored terrain when
(13:12):
you you know, when you switch, you know the place
where you're at, as long as you're doing it in
a in a kind of reasonable way and not in
a okay, it's the middle of the encounter and I've
decided to change what my favorite enemy is, you know,
now that we're fighting you know whatever, some gnolls or
something like that. But if you do that in a
reasonable way where you're kind of keeping keeping pace with
the campaign, that's a great way to make sure everybody
(13:35):
stays involved in that and that those abilities are useful
throughout the whole part.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, maybe you can actually do where there's a material
component and a ritual that has to be done, you know,
as you cross from one terrain to or one area
to another.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Or I'm going to draw your attention back to Tasha's.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, there we go, which probably anticipated day.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yes, So, Jim, I have three copies of Tasha. I'm
gonna send you one. So favorite enemy has been replaced
with favored foe. Yeah, okay, yeah, and it's a very
short description. I was going to read the whole thing
when you it is replaces favorite enemy and works with
the fast layer feature. When you hit a creature with
an attack role, you can call in your mystical bond
with nature to mark the target as your favorite enemy
(14:14):
for one minute or until you lose your concentration the
first time on each of your turn is. If you
hit the favorite enemy and deal damage to it, including
when you market, you can increase that damage by one
D four. You can use this feature to mark a
favorite enemy a number of times equals to your proficiency bonus,
and you regain all expended uses when you finish a
long rest features Additional damage increases when you reach levels
six and fourteenth, that goes to a D six and
(14:37):
a D eight.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So it is kind of borrowing.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
It's basically a free hunter's mark that replaces favorite enemy
and is a thousand times better. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Yes, yeah, this is kind of borrowing from the fourth edition.
You know, like when you mark somebody and you can,
you know, do different effects based on that mark that
you've gotten on them, kind of something like the Avenger
class where you say, that's the person that I I'm
focused on, and so I'm going to get extra damage
against them. I like that. Yeah, yeah, that's that's a
really cool way to do that. But even if you
(15:07):
want to use the old style, you can, you can
still stick with that. But you know, as long as
you're flexible about it, it will work, as long as
you are willing to let people, you know, kind of
swap out in a reasonable kind of way.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yeah, and these are optional rules. They're called they're called
optional rules. So if you're going into a dragon slaying
campaign or a ghost hunting campaign and you know exactly
what you're up against, then sure, go ahead. But otherwise,
I know, favorite Foe is just like like an instant
switch for most Ranger builts.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, and so like when it comes time to actually
run the game, and a lot of this, I think,
and I think one of the things that we want
to pull back the curtain on is kind of is
presume that if you're going to run something like this,
this is you know, we talked about like beginning level
DM things, you know whatever, intermediate at the end, it's
like an advanced DM thing. I think if you want
(15:56):
to do this and to really do it properly, it's
you probably want to run your own campaign, you know,
what we might call a home brew campaign, right because
the default, all the default five E stuff assumes you're
running like a balanced party right out of you know
that has a fighter and a wizard and a cleric
and all that kind of stuff and everything, and so
(16:18):
you're going to need to do probably almost as much
modification to that and kind of tweaking it on the
fly as if you were to just do up your
own campaign. And I think it would just be much
more interesting to do up your own campaign because you're
going to be designing encounters that keep in mind the
strengths and weaknesses of Rangers as a class. So you
(16:39):
want to think carefully about focusing fights on probably mostly
on melee, right, with a lot of terrain challenges and
like ways to use cover and mobility being an important
part of those fights as opposed to you know, just
like having some great big bag of hit points wide
in and get tanked by the palette in while you
(17:00):
know people are pounding on it kind of thing like that.
You're going to have a lot of you know, you
want to put up your pound stand exactly, sorry, you
want to put encounters where people are moving around, and
you want to put up encounters or mobility is important
where people are moving around, where they're taking advantage of
those you know, like you say, the marks and things
like that. And there's also ways to do to take
(17:24):
a look at what the character's favorite enemies are and
tweak the campaign in such a way that those favorite
enemies are coming up more often than they otherwise might,
simply by re skinning things to sort of fit the
mold of that favorite enemy. Right, so for some reason,
somebody decides that they want Oozes as their favorite enemy.
(17:46):
Then you look at that encounter where you're going to
put a bunch of orcs and you say, hmm, okay,
So instead of orcs. They are dead orcs that have
been colonized by you know, sentient mold, and they're now
they're on their feet like zombies lat and so they
use the stats of the orcs. But we let this
(18:07):
ranger get their favorite enemy against them. Something like that.
You can come up with all kinds of cool stuff
like that simply by sort of re skinning what type
the monsters are, but just keeping those same stats that
you've got.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, this is this is a common thing even without
having to do that, if we've not without needing the
the ranger ability is like you know, we use the
phrase flavor is free. And sometimes you just want something
to just fit the setting that you set up and
use a monster that wouldn't normally belong there. You know,
we're in the middle of the forest, of course I
want rest monsters.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Sure, yeah, they're just actual bugs now and yeah, like
just as an aside here and the good good chance
to point out that like the although it's called a
rule book, like I feel like it's more guideline. It's
a book of full of guidelines that like help guide
you in the right direction. But if it's going to
be cooler by changing that a little bit and giving
(19:03):
a different flavor. Like that's why we play the game, right,
is to have fun.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So have fun.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Yeah, And as long as I mean it's and I mean,
the rules are the rules because they're a common vocabulary
that we all understand, you know, like everybody at the
table needs to be on the same page about how
advantage works. Right. But you know, if the but if
the book says you give advantage under these conditions, you
(19:32):
know you can say, well, I don't love that it
does it under this condition, So we're going to strike that.
We're going to add these couple of other times where
you can get advantage. You know, Like the common thing
there that a lot of people do is they'll give advantage.
Like there's no there's nothing in the book about flanking,
right about if you have either you know, enemies on
(19:53):
either side of a combatant. But I like, I know
a lot of people that homebrew advantage a flanking into
the game.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
It was in the previous edition things or if you
just interpret.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
But as long as everybody at the table understands that's
how it works, then you're good. Yeah, absolutely, and you're
going to go do what you want or not as
long as as long as we've got the you know.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Never doing oops all rogues and you're looking for you know,
any any excuse you can get to give them advantage,
than sure, yeah, totally yeah, And that's a few five
y one shots at like game stores and stuff where
like you know, if they were using miniatures on the table,
they were absolutely using flanking.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah sure, sure, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
That would argue you're they're technically hidden.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Keep it in mind, technically you are more.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
Correct, Joe. And so that's that's fun.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
But that's where I'm saying, like it's really more of
a loose interpretation of those rules, like yeah, I'm not
going to be so hard fast, like, well you're not hidden.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Hello Adventurers, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
If you enjoy the show, the absolute best thing you
can do to support us is to subscribe so you'll
be notified when new episodes are released.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
You can also leave us a review five stars. Of course,
that will help us get seen by more D and
D players.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
And more than anything else, just tell your friends about us.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
If you like what we're doing here, that there's a
good chance that your DM or your players will enjoy
it too, and.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
You don't need to loop gold to do any of that.
We appreciate your listening.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Now back to the show.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Finally, the thing to think about that I think is
most interesting from a DM standpoint is to create a campaign.
And this is why you want to do a homebrew campaign.
Create a campaign. Think about a world where a party
full of rangers makes sense, where it's a logical thing
that these rangers are walking, you know, are walking around together,
(21:49):
and they don't have a cleric with them, they don't
have a fighter with them, and maybe it's a world
that doesn't have barbarians or rogues or wizards in the
sense that you would normally understand them. The only wizards
are like, you know, crazy people that are raising the
dead and stuff like that, and then you know, anybody
walking around. Because sometimes people will be like, I want
to run a campaign where you know, our Kane magic
(22:12):
is forbidden and stuff like that, and like that's cool,
but don't run that campaign in a party that has
wizards in it, because that just makes it a pain
in the ass for the people that are playing wizards.
You know, do something, do something that makes that makes
sense in terms of the player characters. So that would
be that world would be a place where ranger conclaves
(22:33):
have real power or mystique or prestige, and rangers are
like the default heroic archetype. Right when people think of adventurers,
they think of rangers as opposed to, you know, are
you a wizard or are you a fighter or whatever,
and that that is the kind of you know, what
the world thinks of when they think of heroic characters.
(22:54):
Get into the politics of those conclaves, you know, do
like doom whatever, doom Walker rangers and beast Master rangers.
Do they get along? Do they not? Why do they
have these different ideas about you know, what the proper
way to fight evil is and stuff like that. And
you know, and you can get into some really interesting
stuff there when you are thinking about those gatherings of rangers,
(23:19):
those conclaves as political actors in your world, right, as
powerful forces that are you know, up there helping influence
what's going on in the you know, with with kings
and you know and whatever merchant guilds and stuff like that.
You know, maybe the rangers are important because they're the
only people that can guide the merchants through the big
(23:39):
forest or over the mountains or something like that, and
so they have a lot of influence for that reason.
And I think that if you're if you want to
see what a world like that looks like, there's a
video game that you can get on Steam. It's a
text adventure that's called road Wardens, where you play a
ranger and at the beginning you start out, it says like, Okay,
(24:01):
are you like, you know, a like get shit done
with your axe ranger? Are you a ranger that knows
a little bit about magic, you know, kind of folk
magic and that's what you rely on. Are you a
ranger who's a little shiftier and maybe you know, willing
to like pick a pocket or two. And it's really
fast and you can kind of do multiple playthroughs of
that game, but basically, what's your plane is a ranger.
(24:23):
You show up in town and people are like, oh,
you're the road warden that keeps the road safe and
roams around from town to town and you know, and
like the mayor of one town may really like you,
the mayor of another town may not. And a playthrough
that game is a really good I think gives would
give you a good grounding of what it might look
(24:45):
like in a world where the rangers are the protagonists,
right where they're the most important.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
I said a quick starch for is at the time
of this recording it is on Stalever half off.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah, it's a great shop. Is that The Postman starring
Kevin Costner.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Sure, it's got a little bit of that going on,
so that that movie is not great, but the book
is fantastic. The original David bryn book is a.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Real, really easy a Postman in a water themed post
apoculation in the world with no heroes, one hero in
the world with one Postman, water World with one Kevin Costner.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, the I mean the Okay, Yeah, I'm going to
make a case for the original David Britain novel, which
is really a lot of one novel and does not
does not really resemble the.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Movie Money a dry read.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Kids, there's a movie called water World back in the
late nineteen hundreds from the man named Kevin.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Costner, speaking of being a dad movie.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Also had another dad movie called Dances with Wolves. So, Jim,
if you were to if I'm going to try desperately
to bring it back on the rail, sorry, I don't
want to work us back to the rails here. Yes, yes,
is dialogue. So if you were to try to balance
a party of say like four Rangers, maybe even five,
(26:17):
is there a subclass makeup that you would that you
would pick?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
I mean not really, I don't think. I don't think
you necessarily to. I mean other than like, you know,
whatever you want. You want one weapon Master, maybe you
want one weapon master, you want one beast Master, you
want one what do they call like the the planes
walking ones that can like do the you know, like
like turn Ethereal and stuff like this. You know, just
mix it up. Let the players take what that like.
(26:43):
And that's also a thing I think where you very
much want to, like, you know, if you're pitching this
to your table and they're interested, you got to just
let people take what they want and then kind of
build the campaign after that, you know, based on what.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
The arrangers in particular. Yes, yeah, because when we when
we were talking about this this episode series, I know,
first thing I thought was like Claric some Paladins and stuff,
where like the subclasses play so differently from each other
that they really can't balance each other without having to
change a campaign around it. So that was my thought
I thought. There. But if you think you know, if
if the way to do a Rangers campaign is to
(27:19):
build a campaign around the Rangers rather than building Rangers
around the campaign, where in other classes we'll probably have
the opposite results.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah. Interesting, And this is also where I'm going to say,
if we're going to be purists about this, if you're
really going to do it, and I mean, and you
want it to be interesting and be a challenge, every
level they take is ranger. Yeah, if it's if you're
like multi classing, then that turns it into kind of
like just a sort of a regular campaign, and I
(27:48):
think it really dilutes the focus on it. What I'm
talking about here is no kidding. You know, everybody, when
you level up, you take another level or ranger, And
this is what if it's oops, all Ranger, it's no kidding,
it's all Rangers start to finish. So that that, I
think is a is a thing that's important to mention.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
If you're if you're tailoring the campaign around the Ranger stuff,
then then yeah, then that could be that could be
a stipulation of the campaign.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Well, there's kind of no point in doing it unless
you're gonna do it right, because otherwise you could just
you could just agree take a level of ranger anyway,
and then the rest of them and fighter or whatever
you were gonna do.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, yeah, well that's that's going to be in if
you're if the point of the campaign is to do
oops all, then I think in good faith of the player,
it's like, hey, I'm still gonna be going to be
a ranger, but now I get to rage because it
works with this other ability.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Okay, so you're saying like more for a setting reason.
But see, then that's something that I'm like, well, you
could just handle that like you're a fighter, but like
you're at this ranger school, but you're really more of
a fighter type and you can kind of give them
some of those.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I don't necessarily want to go down this rabbit hole.
But if I'm dming a game that is all rangers, yeah,
everybody's going to be ringers and all their levels are
going to be a ranger, and that's going to be
that That's going to be the interesting challenge, you know,
kind of the puzzle that we're all going to solve
together at the table is how to make that work
and make sure that that's fun all the way through.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
So when are you running this game, Jim.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
You know when the seasons changed, we you know, go
over the Panta Mountain to the valley or some kind
of thing like that.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
It's whatever.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
So ten years ago. Got it, Cools at the brewery.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
We'll see if a bunch of people that.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Never played make a new d of the players play Rangers.
That's that's how you keep people in the house. Yeah, Oh,
do you print the same thing out? Nope. I don't
really have anything else to add to this. No, I
think not this particular one. I think you answered everything
I needed, Thanks, Jim. So yeah, so your your preferred
(29:57):
method of oops all Rangers is to keep a class,
keep it, you know, you use U use a lot
of Tasha's and call it your own idea. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Sure, well but but I mean but that's I mean
joking aside. That tells you that that like that's kind
of out there as as Rangers.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Were like the booty class at the time, and like
Tasha's came in there and like really made Ranger as possible,
like like like like PHB Beastmaster Ranger, like the classic
well I guess, I guess say the Hunter Ranger would
be like the class Ranger. But the best Master Ranger
in PHB is pretty bad. Yeah, it's and it's clunky,
it's it's like, it's real complicated. It was like it's
(30:40):
bad and not fun, which is like the wornation.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah it's it's it's it's yeah, it's it's a bunch
of extra rules that don't actually get you a lot
of likeical advantage for engaging with them.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah, for sure, it plays great, it's fun, and it's
mechanically just better in every step of the way. In fact,
as soon as Tasha's came out and Joe was putting
his campaign together, that was the first like character acts
too seriously was my It was was my beast Master,
and so like, yeah, Tasha's came in there, and if
you get so, if you're gonna do Rangers, do Tasha's Ranger,
use all the optional stuff, use the subs there.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
For sure, I played it. I played a pH B
Ranger once and I hated it.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, it's just it was such a slot that wouldn't
they deserve the hate that they and now Monks of
the New Rangers, but wait for those to get revamped.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I mean, I always had fun playing playing Rangers in
five y, but it was always because I was, like,
you know, playing the Rangers, like the fifth or sixth
you know PC in the party, right, just doing that
support stuff, running around the edge of the battle, just
filling people with arrows or you know, popping in with
my you know whatever with my wolf to take a
couple of bites and then pop back out while the
(31:46):
Balladin stands there getting banged and banged on.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
So in Thebourber games and I'm running, one of my
pregen characters is a these are level threes is a
fay Wanderer Ranger and the and I tell the new
the new players all the times they listen to take
Ranger because they are consistent. You're never going to have
the big like thirty forty damage turn that the Barbarian
is going to have. You're never going to create nearly
as many times as the fighter will. You're not going
(32:09):
to have like no, you're not going to sling fireballs
like the Wizard is not level three either, but you
know what I mean. But you're never going to have
the huge, big, grandiose turn. You're never going to create
on a on a on a divine smite for like
seventy five d eight. Every single turn at level three,
you're going to go twelve damage, twelve damage, twelve damage,
twelve damage.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, And the other thing that some people like is
like I'm gonna do twelve damage here, boom, and then
I'm gone and I go over to this guy and
I do twelve damage over here, boom and move on.
And then that mobility is one of the things that's
fun about being a ranger. That's also kind of you
know that that's also the reason people will play monks,
even though they're you know, suboptimal and in other ways,
is because they just like being able to haul ass
(32:49):
around the back.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
We did we did a play test of a of
a new one shot that done I'm writing the other night,
and the player took a monk and you know, at
level five when he's rolling with four attacks per turn,
he's having he's having a sweet time. M h. Meanwhile,
this is my name be in the episode. But the
we had to play test with six six PCs for
the note just for what I was about to run,
And so everybody played two characters and one took two marshals,
(33:11):
one took one marshall, one caster, and one took two casters.
And she just like fried her brain playing a wizard
and a cleric at the santime.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
You can do that. And you know what, I guess
this is the other thing where something you just said
just reminded me of something, Jason, which is this absolutely
is a campaign where like just out of the gates,
start everybody at third level. Oh yeah, you know, because
that's when you're the good ranger. All of the good
ranger stuff kicks in when when you can start to
(33:42):
cast spells and stuff like that. I mean, whether whatever
you can start to You can start to cast spells
at second but like you know, you get three first
level spells at third level, and and like that first
and that's where you actually make some choices about what
kind of ranger you want to.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Start getting your fighting styles and most important in your subclasses.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, and that's a and that's that's absolutely a thing.
We're just just jump right to third level, just start
there and that that that'll probably engage everybody more than
if they got to you know, because they're going to
be real samey saving it first and second.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Level, depending on how long you plan this campaign to go.
I'm a big fan now and and I used to
like not like this, But the more I think about it,
the more I like it is doing like session one,
if you're gonna start a first level you know, session one,
first level level.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Up on session one, yeah, and then session two session to.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Your level two, and then you you go to three
at the end of session two, and then basically session
three is kind of where things really start, so you
kind of do two sessions as some backstory there and.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Yeah, and that that one and two almost feel like
you're kind of playing flashbacks.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
So you're the same year you're introducing NPCs, you're introducing
the world, and like, you know, it's it's is it
that different from starting at three? No, And it's just like,
is this gonna be a long term game? And you
want to just like, you know, just lay the ground
rules and let them make those decisions at one and.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Two naturally, sure you meet each other.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
That's that's my Like it's gonna counterpoints an additional album.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Like a yeah, it's it's it's a little.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Different point the point one of your point. Like you said, Flivors,
I always had nothing else to add, and then we
added another couple of minutes to that, so now I had
nothing to add because I'm actually out Joey got anything, Nope,
he's gonna go go be a ranger now. Yeah, I
kind of want to run the OOP Soul Arrange campaign.
I feel like at the end of every one of these,
(35:25):
we're gonna be like, Okay, now I need to go
run this thing. Yeah, which means we're gonna have thirteen
simultaneous campaigns going on, each with a dedicated class. Oh
so every every other month, I'll have something to do.
Yeah good, Yeah, there you go. Awesome, Jim, thanks much,
Thanks for thanks doing the research, Thanks for doing your
homework because Joe and I gonn't be bothered. But I'm
(35:45):
just gonna wrap it up for today. Guys, thank you
so much for listening to Hello Adventurers. We are your
host Jason Portiso, Jim Crocker, and Joe McCall, producer, editor
and engineer Jason Portiso and music by Knicks Berrior, art
work by CHRISTM. Proderct. You can reach out to us
with any feed Becker suggestions by emailing Hello Adventurers Podcast
at gmail dot com. Hello Adventures is a j t
P Audio production.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Good good Bye Adventurers, Bye Adventurers.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
H
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com