Kenji3108 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:01 amAll of my rangers are required to be within the acceptable alignment range as the deities they choose.
At the same time, none of them have picked Nature deity and their "nature" spells still work (For archers anyways).
TBH, this is how it should be as Rangers aren't Druids after all. They are serial killers who focus on studying the anatomy of their chosen enemies rather than serving a deity's interest in regards to nature.
The nature deity requirement for nature spellcasting thing might not be working as of now, but it's a step-up for both RP and mechanical interpretation of the class.
Opustus wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:21 amKenji, the lore and restrictions on ranger spellcasting are more concerned with the source and type of their magic, which is, according to a rather simple and very general reading of canon lore, divine magic, which always comes from a deity or a planar power. If rangers could cast spells without the patronage of a nature deity, the lore of how they get their spells in the first place would have to be renegotiated, which I think is not something that Arelith would be keen to do. And nor should we; remaking well-established rules is just messy and unnecessary and takes some time to learn and spread to become the new norm. I think that removing the nature deity restriction would make the ranger class just an outdoorsy hunter class that is granted nature-themed spells for some strange reason by deities who have nothing to do with nature.
Or maybe it would just open the option of rangers being roleplayed as something else as you suggest and the classic understanding of the class would prevail for the most part, not changing the theme significantly. Dunno?
I can't argue against the lore and divine deity, it's written clearly in the sourcebooks and what not.
And it is perfectly fine to play a vengeful serial killer or champions of a certain deity's tenenets! I play my rangers as neither, but the things I am more worried about the Ranger class, in general, is they get binned into the same category as Paladins/Blackguards.
With more restriction on "nature", there would be a mechanical restriction on the deity they serve. This, in turn, restricts the RP interpretation of the class even further. However, Rangers are still a lot more flexible than the aforementioned. Playing a ranger's who is all doom and gloom leaves little room for character growth, and it's very one-track progression much like RPing a paladin. Of course, it's totally fine if a player wants to play this type of roleplay, and I personally dislike deviating from the norm. That is also not to say that this limits the storytelling, if anything, a lot of the great confrontation stemmed from this type of roleplay!
Another argument that could be made here is to say that "Just pick a nature deity and RP as believing in something else". If we look at the write-ups in Ranger Wiki as well as Roleplay Rule, it's fairly obvious that we need to take whatever mechanical choice and character sheet into consideration when roleplaying. Now, I'm not saying every line and margin needs to be met, of course, but restricting Rangers into something similar to a paladin is a wasted opportunity.
A proposal for this would be:
Let other classes have the Archer path (Fighter, barbarian, rogue), too! Why restrict it to just the rangers who can be archers and reap the benefits from the path?
This way, Rangers can truly be what they were intended for in the original settings.
Or another proposal would be to remove the nature deity requirement and come up with something else.
Going against sourcebook material is always cringe-worthy at first thought, but keep in mind that occasionally DMs have to make that call in PnP where balancing is concerned or something doesn't ring right with the settings. I imagine the same can be and has been done here on Arelith.
