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Orzel does not approve of your ranger. But that is another thing.

To me, the ranger and paladin as being a rarer fighter+ in the earlier editions was more a result of the limitations of those editions. With no real skill system and few core features, alignment and ability requirement with slower XP growth were used as balancers.

With those restrictions stripped, there was little effort put into describing what the D&D paladin and ranger were and how they differed from others. This causedthe confusion found now.

To me:
The fighter is the warrior who masters weapons combat. All of their class training goes to the weapon arts and nothing else.

The ranger is a warrior out of necessity. The ranger's focus is on their favored enemy or environment. That gets more of their time. But rangers do get in fights and will need to defend themselves.

The paladin is blessed warrior and sword of belief. They fight against the enemies of their belief system and are resistant to them.

My thoughts on this class writeup.

No companions are class features. Instead the companion modules would grant paladins the option of celestial mounts and rangers the option of animal companion.

2) I like Divine Power. I like the paladin being able to heal or damage on a point to point basis outside of spells. Also the defensive class features. A paladin should be the toughest to bring down normally. Save bonuses, resistances, and possibly immunities. I can see a basic "do this, reroll a saving throw" class feature.

3) As for ranger,  rangers are not rogues/fighters. They are survivors and adapters. I have 2 blog posts on them that describe my views. Especially on favored enemy.

@Garthanos

Rangers are frontier warriors not frontier fighters.

The nonexistant warrior class is now the base of weapons combatants. The fighter has evolved to be a better warrior. The ranger is the warrior plus nature and hunting abilities. The paladin is the warrior plus some strong divine aspect.

Oct 23, 2012 -- 8:30AM, Orzel wrote:

@Garthanos Rangers are frontier warriors not frontier fighters.

Nit picking I do like the word warrior, I dont know that we are getting a real benefit.

The classic Knight I learned about in high school was a horseman and a hunter trained in archery and hawking and mayhaps even the use of hounds.

Before the thief the fighter had sneaking, before the ranger they had tracking, before the paladin they were the knight.

Does the existance of the Paladin.. mean my fighter cant take oaths and join an order and aquire divine boons and blessings.

Does the existance of the Ranger mean my fighter cant learn nature skills and be able to deal with giants and similar things - the nerfing and requiring of feats for fighter abilities in 3e sounds largely to be because the assumptions were no.

I want things to be in terms of specializations... not sure what the Warrior specialized as Warrior means so much.


 

Oct 23, 2012 -- 9:33AM, Orzel wrote:

The issue is the way we see the classes. The way I imagine characters is like a schedule. 3 hours of Class Training 1 hour of Background and Racial Training 1 hour of Specialty training So your dual wielder knight fighter is doing 3 hours of combat practice a week in his off time compared to a warriors,ranger's, and paladin's 1 ½. Those classes cut into their combat training time for other stuff.

OR all three got weapon awesome of whatever flavor .. but they split on

• animal empathy and improved hunting animals
• general empathy and and religious hierarchy
• heraldry and diplomatics aka politics
• and still another fighter got streetwise and savvy with man traps.

I appreciate your well formatted and thoughtful post.

Paladin:
Seems pretty similar to previous versions (which I know was intended).
I do like the Paladin's Divine Power ability. I first thought The number of DP points may end up being too low at high levels. Then I realized you said it recharges after short rests. That's awesome.

Ranger:
I'm gonna defer to Orzel for the Ranger stuff. He speaks great wisdoms.