Wood Elf Swords Bard as Ranger replacement.

[Willie the Duck]

I have noticed:
1) Most people talking somewhat along the lines of, 'why is the ranger class even a thing? You can just...' tend to go towards a spell-less ranger (or perhaps a Druid-spelled Eldritch Knight analogue). I'm wondering what would happen if you went the other way. This is combined with a second observation:

2) When discussing the martial bards variants (College of Valor, College of Swords), the line of reasoning tends to be roughly, 'The Valor Bard's inspiration ability sucks and War Caster ends up being a always-necessary (if going sword and board), but at least they get all weapons and shield proficiency. Swords bards get blade flourish which can give the gish AC and a speed boost, but no shield and being pigeonholed into 2twf is awfully limiting.' That, plus the MAD issues with playing a Str-based Bard means that what I end up seeing in actual play is a bunch of valor bard archers.

That leads me to think about a wood-elf swords bard ranger-alike -- Take wood elf (using Tash stat swap can make it Dex/Cha) for longbow proficiency and access to Wood Elf Magic (druid cantrip: Guidance, Longstrider, Pass Without Trace) as a feat. Take that feat, plus Fey Touched (Hunter's Mark, Misty Step). To me, that fulfills the bare necessities of a Ranger character: multiattack, decent outdoors skills (Mask of the Wild and Guidance boosted, to make up for the loss of Natural Explorer, etc.), and iconic Ranger spells like Pass Without Trace and Hunter's Mark. Now obviously it isn't as solid a damage output machine as a Ranger or spell-less Ranger concepts, and takes a long time to come online (L8), but I thought conceptually it might be fun -- kind of the elven equivalent to a skald with lots of spells (including plenty of enchantments and illusions and other stuff with which elves at least once were associated), and some decent dodge and mobility effects.

Thoughts? Ideas for improvement? Open contempt?

[RogueJK]

The biggest issue I see is that your first two ASIs are eaten up with feats, yet it's a MAD build, needing a good DEX and CHA, plus a moderate CON, plus a moderately high WIS if you want to take anything other than a utility cantrip for your Wood Elf Magic Druid cantrip.

That's not really doable with Point Buy. And you can't get a free 1st level feat to help, since it requires being a Wood Elf.


Swords bards get blade flourish which can give the gish AC and a speed boost, but no shield and being pigeonholed into 2twf is awfully limiting.'[/I] That, plus the MAD issues with playing a Str-based Bard means that what I end up seeing in actual play is a bunch of valor bard archers.

If you're wanting a STR-based version of this, consider a 1 level Cleric dip (if you can swing the 13+ WIS on an already MAD build).

Nature Cleric would be fitting, and gets you Medium and Heavy Armor and Shields, plus some Nature-y domain spells, a Nature-related skill proficiency, and a Druid cantrip.

This can dump DEX in lieu of STR, using Heavy Armor, a shield, and a Longsword with the Dueling fighting style. (Or Medium Armor if you can also spare the 14 DEX on an already very MAD build.)

And Jack of All Trades helps to offset the Initiative penalty from your low DEX, since you can apply half your Proficiency Bonus to your Initiative roll.

But it's still MAD, just like the Longbow version, just with STR/CHA/CON/WIS instead of DEX/CHA/CON/WIS. And you're not going to be very stealthy, except for that 1 hour per day when you can utilize Pass Without Trace, when you'd be just okay at Stealth instead of being actively bad at Stealth.

Also doable with a 1 level Fighter dip, which is more reasonable without being quite as MAD (since there's no WIS requirement), but which puts you behind in spellcasting, and you miss out on the Nature-related skill/spells.



If you can talk your DM into letting all your Bard stuff key off WIS, the "Nature Cleric 1/Swords Bard X as a Quasi-Ranger" becomes much more doable. But that might be a bit of a stretch.

[Droppeddead]

Thoughts? Ideas for improvement? Open contempt?

It could work. Personally I think the Ranger is fine, especially after Xanathar's and even more so with Tasha's.

That said, I really like the idea of playing around with classes and what they could do. For example, in my game world there will be a league of government assassins who are mechanically sword bards.

Your idea is an interesting take on the whole "outdoors-y fighter type" and I don't see any problem with it. Sure, it doesn't get to some of the good stuff until level 8 but it certainly works more or less from the get-go. Not sure if you even need pass without a trace since you already have invisibility, but both works.

All in all, nice work. However, if I personally would make a non-ranger ranger (that wasn't a Rogue Scout) I'd probably go for a battle smith artificer. :)

[RogueJK]

Not sure if you even need pass without a trace since you already have invisibility, but both works.

You do need both. Invisibility isn't "auto-stealth". You can still be detected while Invisible (through sounds, smells, or other signs of your passing like footprints or bumping into things), and you must therefore utilize the Stealth skill to remain undetected even while Invisible.

Invisibility just makes it easier to Hide and utilize your Stealth skill, since you're always "visually concealed" and don't need a separate means of visual obscurement in order to attempt to Hide and move stealthily.

[Droppeddead]

You do need both.

Well, no. You obviously don't need both. Rangers don't even have invisibility on their spell list. And there is no requirement for Rangers to take PWAT if they don't want to. Heck you can be a non-stealthy ranger if that's your thing. Anyway, the point was that the idea presented works even without taking a feat for teh sole reason to get PWAT, since the character would have plenty of sneakiness already.

[RogueJK]

Okay. Semantics.

You can be stealthy without Invisibility. But just Invisibility with poor Stealth isn't very useful.

And even a character with a high Stealth will routinely whiff a Stealth roll, which makes PWAT a near-requirement for times when Stealth is vital.

It's one of the shortcomings of Stealth in 5E, where even a higher level character that's good at Stealth has +8 or +10 Stealth bonus (without Expertise) and can roll low and fail spectacularly to even not-very-Perceptive enemies, thus necessitating something like PWAT or Reliable Talent as a safety net. And Stealth failure is even more common for lower-level Stealth attempts, where even with an 18 DEX and Stealth proficiency you're looking at a +6 or +7 to Stealth, contested by a Passive Perception of 10-13ish for even average enemies, meaning even a very Stealthy character has a 1 in 4 or 5 chance of failing miserably every time they roll a Stealth check. (Granted, less of an issue for Rogues and Bards thanks to being able to take Expertise in Stealth, but a big hassle for DEX-based Fighters/Rangers/etc. that want to try to be Stealthy too.)

Thus all the various attempts to fix it through "Passive Stealth" house rules and the like.

[Willie the Duck]

Overall I think 5e had a nice idea with concepts like 'criminal background fighter with stealth skill' and the like, but +6 or +7 to a roll (or even 8-10, if you max out Dex) does make for some failed rolls. Mind you, I think the game works better without sure things, but it does mean that players won't bother choosing certain character concepts.

That said, this character could get by without PWaT -- they will have expertise at level 3, and if they didn't get WEM, they would grab Fey Touched early and have a nice 35' move, Misty Step, and bardic inspiration speed boost to help them run back to safety quickly. WEM makes sense because 1) PWaT does make it a nearly sure thing, 2) it can be shared, 3) Guidance (plus if you are going to go elf for the longbow proficiency, you might as well grab the ranger-esque qualities you can get along with it).

[da newt]

"You can be stealthy without Invisibility. But just Invisibility with poor Stealth isn't very useful."

Could you elaborate on what you mean with the above?

An unseen attacker has ADV, and unseen targets cannot be targeted by many spells and can only be targeted w/ DISADV for weapon attacks. Sure - if you are invisible but not hidden then you can be located, but being INVISIBLE is still VERY USEFUL, (although hidden and invisible is better).

[Willie the Duck]

:smallfrown:I know you have no control over such things once you launch a thread into the æther, but can we please not do this in the middle of my nice little thread about a niche concept? We all know the limitations of invisibility on inhibiting base detection, and we know that invisibility is still useful regardless. There are so many other places to repetitively relitigate such things.

[Droppeddead]

Okay. Semantics.

Well, not really, you were just wrong. Which is ok, by the way. But to reiterate, there is nothing that says you must have good sneak skills to get the feel of an outdoors-y fighter type (ie, a ranger). And even so, failing every now and then is just part of the game (unless you enjoy playing with some kind of god mode on). That said, there is always the "sometimes you don't need to roll" principle that should be in play. If your super-sneaky wood elf rogue is sneaking through an old folks' home inhabited solely by comatose blind and deaf people, you probably don't need to roll. :)

Anyway, back to OP. Like I said, this is certainly a concept that could work. Most of teh actual "work" is going to be teh right skill selection and roleplaying, really. Since bards traditionally cast spells through song or music, what kind of music does this character use? The tunes of bird song? A smallwhistle made from a willow reed? What stories do they tell? That sort of things.

[Quietus]

You know, I really like this one. I don't know that I'd worry about wood elf magic, specifically - longstrider is already on your list, if you really want PWT I'd consider taking it as a magical secret. Fey Touched is really good for this, though, getting two spells that aren't on your list, plus the +1 ASI. It's a shame this wouldn't work in AL or I would absolutely go for it.