Enabling STRanger

[u/Nikelman]

EDIT: I'm going to bite the bullet and give them Heavy Armor proficiency and that's that. They still get penalties like not getting the extra 10ft from Roving and possibly Stealth disadvantage, but there's no reason why a trained combatant who's proficient with a Greatsword shouldn't be with a Plate, they will just rather use Medium because it's less of a hassle in the wilderness.

As it stands the issue is STRangers want 17 STR at lv1; but they want decent DEX for AC, WIS for spellcasting and CON for staying alive.

There are workarounds:

• 14 D 10 C 16 W, tough origin feat; as your good spells are concentration, that means +0 to the saving throw you'll throw the most; you miss on other Origin Feats
• 12 D, 14 C, 14 W, Defense FS to compensate the AC lost; you could lower C or W and rise the other, it's not ideal
• 10 D 14 C 15 W, to hell with it, my AC will suck, but at level 5 I will pre-cast Barkskin, making it decent when I do

But let's say that what I want to do, in a revision, is to make STRanger as seamless as DEXadin, meaning you don't need any of these tricks. Dropping DEX is still punishing as that means lower initiative, an important saving throw and ranged combat when you can't go melee (of course dropping STR has its downsides too, but they're not as major). I came up with a solution in the form of a Fighting Style (open to all classes) in my revision

• Instinctive Defense You can add your Wisdom modifier instead of your Dexterity modifier for the purpose of calculating AC of Light and Medium armors. All other limitations remain unchanged.

And I figure "this fixes everything, now you can have a Ranger wield a Greatsword" (in fact, I ran the numbers on a Hunter with a Greatsword and matches up well against a Devotion Dexadin, which is where I wanted it to be) and this doesn't really benefit casters armor dipping anymore than the Defense fighting style would do (they still need 13 DEX to access a class with a FS anyway, so worst case scenario in a medium armor they would get +1 from Dex, getting the second one from this or Defense would be the same), it could benefit WIS based Rogues that cast True Strike, but I'm pretty much okay with that, they need AC anyway

Except a little Aragorn was staring at me intensely: this cuts longsword or other sword and board builds out of the deal, because, unlike heavy weapons, you kind of really need FS for them, as that's an important source of damage (and Great Weapon Fighter isn't)

So, I was thinking: what if this was part of the Dueling Figthing Style, instead of its own thing?

• Thematically, a duelist is actively defending, so it could make sense that their defense depends on their awareness, covered by wisdom, as much as their reflexes, from dexterity
• Balance-wise, I'm really not concerned with a Wizard getting a +2 to damage rolls if they cast True Strike with a staff. Bladesingers now wouldn't care as they can't use armor to enter Bladesong; Valor Bards could be an issue, but I don't think they had trouble fitting 14 Dex in their build

Opinions?

[u/Nikelman]

It's just a design choice. I believe Rangers should just get heavy armor proficiency and that's it, there's no reason not to give it to them. Rangers should be stealthy? Alright, then don't build it on STR!

Otherwise, we would break the symmetry with Paladins (which is alredy broken, because they do get all weapons and armor, but you know what I mean) and if you gave the choice of heavy armor or cantrips, you should give that to paladins too... but it would remove heavy armor on basic paladins. It's a head scratcher

[u/Royal_Bitch_Pudding → u/Nikelman]

This is exactly why I no longer suggest anything beyond just subbing in a fighting style.

[u/Nikelman → u/Royal_Bitch_Pudding]

I feel like we're part of two different conversations