Agreed. I will never use Favored Foe because it's shit, but I'm actually splitting Favored Terrain and Deft Explorer, my DM let me choose two terrains and one ability from DE. In other campaigns with other ranger builds I might possibly use Deft Explorer, but you couldn't pay me to waste my time with Favored Foe.
I like Natural Explorer and Deft Explorer both thematically and mechanically. If dipping into Ranger I think Deft Explorer is the better choice, maybe? I'm conflicted, NE is much wider in scope and has some very cool features, but DE gives me permanent expertise in one skill of my choice, two languages, extra movement, and a climb and swim speed by level 6, all things which really appeal to me.
I don't love Favoured Enemy thematically, I think the whole ability should be thrown away for good, but for me mechanically it works ok, and it gives me languages which I'm a sucker for. I'm incredibly disappointed by Favoured Foe, it is awful, just a stupid combat damage buff.
If I could take both NE and DE instead and not take either of FE or FF I'd be happy.
Yes, I’m using a lot both options and I do believe they are a great addition considering PHB vanilla Ranger is bad.
- Deft Explorer has been amazing in my campaigns. Whether Perception or Stealth. I usually ended up getting both at level 4 through Skill Expert and bringing the aforementioned skill-monkeyness from Rogues to Rangers. Climb and Swim speed at 6 are flavorful and useful. Never played higher level to use Tireless so far.
- Is Favored Foe perfect? No. Is it super powerful? Definitely no. Is it worthless? At least in my experience, not at all. If we compare against Hunters Mark from levels 1-4, we are talking about 1.5 less damage — but not using your bonus action. Not bad, right? It’s a great synergy for Horizon Walkers, Monster Slayers and Beastmasters who have plenty uses for bonus action. It’s even more friendly for Two-Weapon Fighters or Crossbow Experts, although HM can capitalize more damage against strong enemies after round 1. From level 5 onwards, the difference is more noticeable, but not that big — it is just 3.5 less damage. We had zero damage with Favored Enemy from PHB. For me this is a profit. Maybe I’m biased, my DM loves Gritty Realism rules and long-rests are hard to come in our campaigns, my group manages spell slots like bankers, and whenever my Ranger is unfortunate to lose his Concentration, Favored Foe is a good consolation prize to boost my damage.
Deft explorer is actually significantly less effective than natural explorer.
level 6. +5 walking speed. And climbing and swimming of your walking. Cool. Climbing and swimming are just as situational as a favored terrain is. So it’s basically a +5 walking speed boost. Now, in the situations where the deft applies there cool. But in situations where natural explorer applies. I can stealthily move full speed vs half, so going faster at stealth. I have much more than only 1 expertise skill if you know what you’re doing and how to check in your favored terrain. I am alert to danger while doing other activities. I can safely navigate an entire village through a forest without anyone getting lost. Etc etc etc.
and then level 10. Ooh wow... temp HP boost of 11-18 hp. Because. 18 hp is so helpful at level 10+. At level 10+ you might have Blackrazor as a weapon.
it’s a sad attempt to “improve” the COMBAT specifically aspect of ranger. At the expense of exploration and role play pillars. In my opinion. And sure it improves combat, by 5 speed. And temp HP of a small amount.
I’d rather have the natural explorer skills all day.
There are some Rangers I have that like the damage from Favored Foe (namely my Monster Slayer and my Tasha Beast Master,) but by and large almost without fail, I will take the advantage on Int and Tracking from Favored Enemy. All day; every day. And with humanoids as my first choice, the ability procs often enough to justify its presence on my Rangers. Plus, the mundane tracking pairs well with the magical tracking of Hunter's Mark, ensuring I get advantage on my tracking checks almost all the time. I won't sit here and say that Favored Foe is worthless. In fact, I've chosen it a few times and the ability to combine with subclass features to make me not need Hunter's Mark has its draw. And by level 20 it's basically a mini-4th attack. But far and away, I find Favored Enemy much more flavorful and more useful.
Between Deft Explorer and Natural Explorer...it's a bit of a toss-up. My currently active Rangers (a Horizon Walker, a Monster Slayer, and a Fey Wanderer) have Deft Explorer. But the Hunter, Gloomstalker, and Beast Master I have in my back pocket all took Natural Explorer instead. It really depends on the campaign I'm planning to use the Ranger on, the level range, and the idea I have for the Ranger in question. If my character concept is closely linked to some sort of landscape (such as my Hunter being a Desert Wanderer, or my Gloomstalker coming from the Underdark) or I want to lean into the traditional archetype role, I'll pick Natural Explorer for its myriad benefits. If the campaign won't be spending too much time on natural landscapes (like a Planescape or an urban fantasy campaign) or bounces around from place to place too much to be consistent, I might go Deft Explorer. This one is more 50/50.
Deft explorer is actually significantly less effective than natural explorer.
level 6. +5 walking speed. And climbing and swimming of your walking. Cool. Climbing and swimming are just as situational as a favored terrain is. So it’s basically a +5 walking speed boost. Now, in the situations where the deft applies there cool. But in situations where natural explorer applies. I can stealthily move full speed vs half, so going faster at stealth. I have much more than only 1 expertise skill if you know what you’re doing and how to check in your favored terrain. I am alert to danger while doing other activities. I can safely navigate an entire village through a forest without anyone getting lost. Etc etc etc.
and then level 10. Ooh wow... temp HP boost of 11-18 hp. Because. 18 hp is so helpful at level 10+. At level 10+ you might have Blackrazor as a weapon.
it’s a sad attempt to “improve” the COMBAT specifically aspect of ranger. At the expense of exploration and role play pillars. In my opinion. And sure it improves combat, by 5 speed. And temp HP of a small amount.
I’d rather have the natural explorer skills all day.
To argue that features that work when you are in ONE terrain type are "significantly better" than gaining Expertise, one of the BEST features in the entire game and at level 6 +5 feet of movement and climbing and swimming speed that work 100% of the time everywhere vs adding another terrain type is entirely opinion. You can say that climbing and swimming are "situational" but over the life of a campaign they will probably pay off more than the NE features which I look at below. Also, you can mock temp HP at level 10+ but I have seen temp HP be clutch in a fight and you ignored the fact that you can also recover from Exhaustion during a short rest. That can be pretty damn useful.
I think Deft Explorer is much more useful,
Expertise (one of the best features in the game), 2 languages (can be useful, but the expertise is the real value) +5 movement (giving you an extra step outside a lot of creatures move without a dash), swimming and climbing (making your ranger better everywhere in the world you have to climb a hill, building, cliff etc... or any time you are in water, a terrain NOT covered at all by NE) Temp HP and the ability to recover exhaustion with 1 hr.
breaking down the features of Natural Explorer
While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. (Nice feature but really only matters if you have a clock you are racing against, if not who cares if it takes extra time)
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. (You know the best way not to get lost, have a high Survival +, say from something like Expertise)
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. (this feature is so vague I have literally never used it or had it come up, also YOU being alert to danger does nothing for the other party members)
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. (big deal, how often are you traveling alone?)
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. (Good feature except that ANY player who took the Outlander background can find food for 5 in most environment and rangers have Goodberry so if food is a concern in the campaign you took Goodberry at level 2 so if you blow a Survival check, you know that skill you could have Expertise on, you aren't going to starve)
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. (ok, but a survival check can do a rough version of this which would probably be just as useful as the exact information.
So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day.
Favored Foe is also nice when conserving spell slots. It scales and can be applied to anybody, so that's neat. (makes lvl 20 feature more applicable, but still not a fan of Foe Slayer).
For Favored Enemy, The 'advantage on intelligence checks to recall information' on your favored enemies always seemed strange to me. I always felt that if they're your favorite enemy, that information should be something you already know. The tracking advantage equates to a +5 on those special occasions you're using it. Meh to me. I do however like the languages gained.
Deft explorer is actually significantly less effective than natural explorer.
level 6. +5 walking speed. And climbing and swimming of your walking. Cool. Climbing and swimming are just as situational as a favored terrain is. So it’s basically a +5 walking speed boost. Now, in the situations where the deft applies there cool. But in situations where natural explorer applies. I can stealthily move full speed vs half, so going faster at stealth. I have much more than only 1 expertise skill if you know what you’re doing and how to check in your favored terrain. I am alert to danger while doing other activities. I can safely navigate an entire village through a forest without anyone getting lost. Etc etc etc.
and then level 10. Ooh wow... temp HP boost of 11-18 hp. Because. 18 hp is so helpful at level 10+. At level 10+ you might have Blackrazor as a weapon.
it’s a sad attempt to “improve” the COMBAT specifically aspect of ranger. At the expense of exploration and role play pillars. In my opinion. And sure it improves combat, by 5 speed. And temp HP of a small amount.
I’d rather have the natural explorer skills all day.
To argue that features that work when you are in ONE terrain type are "significantly better" than gaining Expertise, one of the BEST features in the entire game and at level 6 +5 feet of movement and climbing and swimming speed that work 100% of the time everywhere vs adding another terrain type is entirely opinion. You can say that climbing and swimming are "situational" but over the life of a campaign they will probably pay off more than the NE features which I look at below. Also, you can mock temp HP at level 10+ but I have seen temp HP be clutch in a fight and you ignored the fact that you can also recover from Exhaustion during a short rest. That can be pretty damn useful.
I think Deft Explorer is much more useful,
Expertise (one of the best features in the game), 2 languages (can be useful, but the expertise is the real value) +5 movement (giving you an extra step outside a lot of creatures move without a dash), swimming and climbing (making your ranger better everywhere in the world you have to climb a hill, building, cliff etc... or any time you are in water, a terrain NOT covered at all by NE) Temp HP and the ability to recover exhaustion with 1 hr.
breaking down the features of Natural Explorer
While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. (Nice feature but really only matters if you have a clock you are racing against, if not who cares if it takes extra time)
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. (You know the best way not to get lost, have a high Survival +, say from something like Expertise)
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. (this feature is so vague I have literally never used it or had it come up, also YOU being alert to danger does nothing for the other party members)
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. (big deal, how often are you traveling alone?)
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. (Good feature except that ANY player who took the Outlander background can find food for 5 in most environment and rangers have Goodberry so if food is a concern in the campaign you took Goodberry at level 2 so if you blow a Survival check, you know that skill you could have Expertise on, you aren't going to starve)
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. (ok, but a survival check can do a rough version of this which would probably be just as useful as the exact information.
So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day.
This is such a biased, one sided, worst case scenario representation of NE it makes me sick.
Deft explorer is actually significantly less effective than natural explorer.
level 6. +5 walking speed. And climbing and swimming of your walking. Cool. Climbing and swimming are just as situational as a favored terrain is. So it’s basically a +5 walking speed boost. Now, in the situations where the deft applies there cool. But in situations where natural explorer applies. I can stealthily move full speed vs half, so going faster at stealth. I have much more than only 1 expertise skill if you know what you’re doing and how to check in your favored terrain. I am alert to danger while doing other activities. I can safely navigate an entire village through a forest without anyone getting lost. Etc etc etc.
and then level 10. Ooh wow... temp HP boost of 11-18 hp. Because. 18 hp is so helpful at level 10+. At level 10+ you might have Blackrazor as a weapon.
it’s a sad attempt to “improve” the COMBAT specifically aspect of ranger. At the expense of exploration and role play pillars. In my opinion. And sure it improves combat, by 5 speed. And temp HP of a small amount.
I’d rather have the natural explorer skills all day.
To argue that features that work when you are in ONE terrain type are "significantly better" than gaining Expertise, one of the BEST features in the entire game and at level 6 +5 feet of movement and climbing and swimming speed that work 100% of the time everywhere vs adding another terrain type is entirely opinion. You can say that climbing and swimming are "situational" but over the life of a campaign they will probably pay off more than the NE features which I look at below. Also, you can mock temp HP at level 10+ but I have seen temp HP be clutch in a fight and you ignored the fact that you can also recover from Exhaustion during a short rest. That can be pretty damn useful.
I think Deft Explorer is much more useful,
Expertise (one of the best features in the game), 2 languages (can be useful, but the expertise is the real value) +5 movement (giving you an extra step outside a lot of creatures move without a dash), swimming and climbing (making your ranger better everywhere in the world you have to climb a hill, building, cliff etc... or any time you are in water, a terrain NOT covered at all by NE) Temp HP and the ability to recover exhaustion with 1 hr.
breaking down the features of Natural Explorer
While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. (Nice feature but really only matters if you have a clock you are racing against, if not who cares if it takes extra time)
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. (You know the best way not to get lost, have a high Survival +, say from something like Expertise)
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. (this feature is so vague I have literally never used it or had it come up, also YOU being alert to danger does nothing for the other party members)
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. (big deal, how often are you traveling alone?)
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. (Good feature except that ANY player who took the Outlander background can find food for 5 in most environment and rangers have Goodberry so if food is a concern in the campaign you took Goodberry at level 2 so if you blow a Survival check, you know that skill you could have Expertise on, you aren't going to starve)
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. (ok, but a survival check can do a rough version of this which would probably be just as useful as the exact information.
So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day.
If you have all 3 natural terrains. And you are not utilizing your spells such as plant growth. To CREATE YOUR FAVORED TERRAIN wherever you want. You are not utilizing all of your ranger abilities.
you are harping how great expertise in 1 skill is. Cool. Expertise. Still 1 roll. Versus ADVANTAGE on rolls using Skills- plural. Any intelligence or wisdom check. So, that’s straight wisdom, straight intelligence, arcana (magic forest/feywild ) religion. (Druid deity, nature god, etc) nature, animal handling, survival, investigation (does it originate from X terrain?), perception....
every single one of those skills. Advantage. Versus.... 1 skill having expertise. Which is not even as great as advantage, until your proficiency mod is a +5.
2 languages. Okay. you get plenty from favored enemy. And typically I never was in a campaign long running enough to need to be fluent in 11 languages.
so again. You bring up the +5 movement. Which only has more benefit in combat. I detailed this already. You either agree to disagree or didn’t bother to read it because you are dead set on deft explorer is better. Or you don’t really care/use all the non combat uses. Or you don’t have DMs that have stuff happen like orc raiding parties of 200 orc warriors coming to a small village of 50 and you literally have to safely, if able, evacuate an entire village of people. Some fights are not winnable.
the exhaustion thing I admit I did not see. That is a very good feature. Very helpful. All situations.I will retract deft explorer is significantly worse. To, deft explorer is usually going to be worse, unless you are in an exhaustion heavy campaign.
Deft explorer is actually significantly less effective than natural explorer.
level 6. +5 walking speed. And climbing and swimming of your walking. Cool. Climbing and swimming are just as situational as a favored terrain is. So it’s basically a +5 walking speed boost. Now, in the situations where the deft applies there cool. But in situations where natural explorer applies. I can stealthily move full speed vs half, so going faster at stealth. I have much more than only 1 expertise skill if you know what you’re doing and how to check in your favored terrain. I am alert to danger while doing other activities. I can safely navigate an entire village through a forest without anyone getting lost. Etc etc etc.
and then level 10. Ooh wow... temp HP boost of 11-18 hp. Because. 18 hp is so helpful at level 10+. At level 10+ you might have Blackrazor as a weapon.
it’s a sad attempt to “improve” the COMBAT specifically aspect of ranger. At the expense of exploration and role play pillars. In my opinion. And sure it improves combat, by 5 speed. And temp HP of a small amount.
I’d rather have the natural explorer skills all day.
To argue that features that work when you are in ONE terrain type are "significantly better" than gaining Expertise, one of the BEST features in the entire game and at level 6 +5 feet of movement and climbing and swimming speed that work 100% of the time everywhere vs adding another terrain type is entirely opinion. You can say that climbing and swimming are "situational" but over the life of a campaign they will probably pay off more than the NE features which I look at below. Also, you can mock temp HP at level 10+ but I have seen temp HP be clutch in a fight and you ignored the fact that you can also recover from Exhaustion during a short rest. That can be pretty damn useful.
I think Deft Explorer is much more useful,
Expertise (one of the best features in the game), 2 languages (can be useful, but the expertise is the real value) +5 movement (giving you an extra step outside a lot of creatures move without a dash), swimming and climbing (making your ranger better everywhere in the world you have to climb a hill, building, cliff etc... or any time you are in water, a terrain NOT covered at all by NE) Temp HP and the ability to recover exhaustion with 1 hr.
breaking down the features of Natural Explorer
While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. (Nice feature but really only matters if you have a clock you are racing against, if not who cares if it takes extra time)
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. (You know the best way not to get lost, have a high Survival +, say from something like Expertise)
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. (this feature is so vague I have literally never used it or had it come up, also YOU being alert to danger does nothing for the other party members)
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. (big deal, how often are you traveling alone?)
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. (Good feature except that ANY player who took the Outlander background can find food for 5 in most environment and rangers have Goodberry so if food is a concern in the campaign you took Goodberry at level 2 so if you blow a Survival check, you know that skill you could have Expertise on, you aren't going to starve)
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. (ok, but a survival check can do a rough version of this which would probably be just as useful as the exact information.
So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day.
If you have all 3 natural terrains. And you are not utilizing your spells such as plant growth. To CREATE YOUR FAVORED TERRAIN wherever you want. You are not utilizing all of your ranger abilities.
you are harping how great expertise in 1 skill is. Cool. Expertise. Still 1 roll. Versus ADVANTAGE on rolls using Skills- plural. Any intelligence or wisdom check. So, that’s straight wisdom, straight intelligence, arcana (magic forest/feywild ) religion. (Druid deity, nature god, etc) nature, animal handling, survival, investigation (does it originate from X terrain?), perception....
every single one of those skills. Advantage. Versus.... 1 skill having expertise. Which is not even as great as advantage, until your proficiency mod is a +5.
2 languages. Okay. you get plenty from favored enemy. And typically I never was in a campaign long running enough to need to be fluent in 11 languages.
so again. You bring up the +5 movement. Which only has more benefit in combat. I detailed this already. You either agree to disagree or didn’t bother to read it because you are dead set on deft explorer is better. Or you don’t really care/use all the non combat uses. Or you don’t have DMs that have stuff happen like orc raiding parties of 200 orc warriors coming to a small village of 50 and you literally have to safely, if able, evacuate an entire village of people. Some fights are not winnable.
the exhaustion thing I admit I did not see. That is a very good feature. Very helpful. All situations.I will retract deft explorer is significantly worse. To, deft explorer is usually going to be worse, unless you are in an exhaustion heavy campaign.
Ironically:
the deft explorer giving you expertise in the 1 skill vs the natural explorer...is basically being half as good as a rogue scout. Deft explorer actually weakens the argument of ranger over rogue scout.
This poll is weighted in favor of The new Tasha's options. I think there needs to be a 4th or 5th option for each.
will Not use regularly OR only under certain circumstances
possibly also. A option for "I am 50/50"
My Main dm currently feels most of Tasha's is to overpowered to play without further study. However the beastmaster is one he might consider.
They are biased in favor of Tasha's because the Poller is biased. If you go to the later pages of the Why Ranger's Suck thread you'll see he's one of a few of the stance that everybody is just using the Tasha's and nobody is using the old stuff.
This Poll is his way of trying to win the argument despite the fact it won't cover even close to all players of the game. And it won't cover various caveats and exceptions already showing up to some extent in people's posts.
This poll is weighted in favor of The new Tasha's options. I think there needs to be a 4th or 5th option for each.
will Not use regularly OR only under certain circumstances
possibly also. A option for "I am 50/50"
My Main dm currently feels most of Tasha's is to overpowered to play without further study. However the beastmaster is one he might consider.
They are biased in favor of Tasha's because the Poller is biased. If you go to the later pages of the Why Ranger's Suck thread you'll see he's one of a few of the stance that everybody is just using the Tasha's and nobody is using the old stuff.
This Poll is his way of trying to win the argument despite the fact it won't cover even close to all players of the game. And it won't cover various caveats and exceptions already showing up to some extent in people's posts.
Actually the poll is this way because I made it with the options I felt covered the discussion and I added another version with the requested options since I can't seem to edit the original.
This poll is weighted in favor of The new Tasha's options. I think there needs to be a 4th or 5th option for each.
will Not use regularly OR only under certain circumstances
possibly also. A option for "I am 50/50"
My Main dm currently feels most of Tasha's is to overpowered to play without further study. However the beastmaster is one he might consider.
They are biased in favor of Tasha's because the Poller is biased. If you go to the later pages of the Why Ranger's Suck thread you'll see he's one of a few of the stance that everybody is just using the Tasha's and nobody is using the old stuff.
This Poll is his way of trying to win the argument despite the fact it won't cover even close to all players of the game. And it won't cover various caveats and exceptions already showing up to some extent in people's posts.
I don't think it was intentional. I think it's just a form of tunnel vision (a core concept in most ranger debates). In fact He was the first voter and I saw with one vote he was against one of the Tasha's options. It just starts from a Pro- tasha's perspective you will still get people who disagree.
That being said because the wording starts from the perspective of Assuming Tasha's is used, You have to actively disagree to be in favor of PHB. That would make people with slightly less strong feelings question their choices. Thankfully most people in the ranger thread are not timid with their opinions. There is a weird thing where at first 2/3 rds sounded Tasha's positive so even if each got a vote for every three voters Tasha's would still come out ahead.
Writing polls is not easy there are whole (as in multiple) organizations just studying poll writing and wording Bias and priming. Even I didn't communicate well how to fix the problem as I only have limited exposure to studying it. I still believe the information in this thread is valuable but it needs to be taken with "a grain of Salt"
But going back to the topic at hand, I think the ranger as a whole needs to be seen as one class. I'M Glad both Tashas and PHB are valid options. Even though, If i can I will choose PHB most of the time.
If you have all 3 natural terrains. And you are not utilizing your spells such as plant growth. To CREATE YOUR FAVORED TERRAIN wherever you want. You are not utilizing all of your ranger abilities
you are harping how great expertise in 1 skill is. Cool. Expertise. Still 1 roll. Versus ADVANTAGE on rolls using Skills- plural. Any intelligence or wisdom check. So, that’s straight wisdom, straight intelligence, arcana (magic forest/feywild ) religion. (Druid deity, nature god, etc) nature, animal handling, survival, investigation (does it originate from X terrain?), perception....
every single one of those skills. Advantage. Versus.... 1 skill having expertise. Which is not even as great as advantage, until your proficiency mod is a +5.
2 languages. Okay. you get plenty from favored enemy. And typically I never was in a campaign long running enough to need to be fluent in 11 languages.
so again. You bring up the +5 movement. Which only has more benefit in combat. I detailed this already. You either agree to disagree or didn’t bother to read it because you are dead set on deft explorer is better. Or you don’t really care/use all the non combat uses. Or you don’t have DMs that have stuff happen like orc raiding parties of 200 orc warriors coming to a small village of 50 and you literally have to safely, if able, evacuate an entire village of people. Some fights are not winnable.
the exhaustion thing I admit I did not see. That is a very good feature. Very helpful. All situations.I will retract deft explorer is significantly worse. To, deft explorer is usually going to be worse, unless you are in an exhaustion heavy campaign.
Plant growth would not change the environment you are in. If you are in a desert and cast Plant Growth, you are not now in "the forest" and can claim "I am in a favored terrain." Also, even if you had a DM that bought into that wildly liberal request, you are talking about a 3rd level spell that you don't get until level 9.
Yeah, I am "harping" about how great expertise is because it is, they have 2 feats that grant it and people take class dips in Rogue and Bard all the time to get it, but you are overselling "ADVANTAGE on rolls using Skills- plural" I have never heard of a DM giving advantage on "straight wisdom, straight intelligence, arcana (magic forest/feywild )"
I will admit that there are a lot of skills that MIGHT benefit NE, nature, animal handling, survival, investigation, and I suppose perception IF you are in a favored terrain. But given that Advantage is a +5 and that expertise starts at +4 and is a +6 by level 5, reaching a +12 and it functions EVERYWHERE - the edge easily goes to Expertise. Also once again I would emphasize the fact that, at best, you get 3/8 areas and given that Urban and Dungeons, two areas you spend a large amount of time that NE doesn't give you, it can be pretty limited.
I have one current game that I am playing a Ranger, out of the available options I would say that we have been in arctic 0%, coast 0%, desert 0%, forest 12% (probably over estimating), grassland 5%, mountain 1%, swamp 0%, or the Underdark 0.5% (2 combats, 1 in an underground tunnel and 1 in a mine). The acrobatics on the other hand that I took expertise in I couldn't count how many times I have used. So using my personal experience (the only thing I CAN base my opinions on) Deft explorer has been much more useful than NE would have been. Other games in the past were pre-Tasha's so I can't really evaluate them.
You want to disregard +5 feet of movement because it only really affects combat. Well given that combat makes up 40-50% of the play time, I would say that having a combat focused option is ok.
I appreciate your passion for NE, but you can't keep calling my expression of Deft Explorer bias, it isn't. I wish NE was a more useful option, but the reality is that Deft Explorer over the life of most campaigns will be more useful, especially when playing in a homebrew campaign. Are there pre-made campaigns that primarily keep you in one or two terrain types? Maybe, I haven't played most of the Wizards campaign and most games I am in are homebrew. If you have played a lot of pre-made stuff maybe you can say that 90% of an adventure takes place in one type of environment, but I would be surprised.
In everything I have played which is mostly homebrew, Deft Explorer is the better option. The longest pre-made session I played in was about halfway, maybe a little more (65%?) through Stormkings Thunder over a year until the DM got a change in duty station and it fell apart after going to online. What I remember of it we spent time in everykind of environment. I had a Dungeon of the Mad Mage that we played for 6 or so weeks before that online group fell apart and it was entirely dungeon based, which isn't in NE. I have a game now that we just started for Waterdeep Dragon Heist which takes place (I would guess) entirely in the city of Waterdeep, so no NE value there.
Deft explorer is actually significantly less effective than natural explorer.
level 6. +5 walking speed. And climbing and swimming of your walking. Cool. Climbing and swimming are just as situational as a favored terrain is. So it’s basically a +5 walking speed boost. Now, in the situations where the deft applies there cool. But in situations where natural explorer applies. I can stealthily move full speed vs half, so going faster at stealth. I have much more than only 1 expertise skill if you know what you’re doing and how to check in your favored terrain. I am alert to danger while doing other activities. I can safely navigate an entire village through a forest without anyone getting lost. Etc etc etc.
and then level 10. Ooh wow... temp HP boost of 11-18 hp. Because. 18 hp is so helpful at level 10+. At level 10+ you might have Blackrazor as a weapon.
it’s a sad attempt to “improve” the COMBAT specifically aspect of ranger. At the expense of exploration and role play pillars. In my opinion. And sure it improves combat, by 5 speed. And temp HP of a small amount.
I’d rather have the natural explorer skills all day.
To argue that features that work when you are in ONE terrain type are "significantly better" than gaining Expertise, one of the BEST features in the entire game and at level 6 +5 feet of movement and climbing and swimming speed that work 100% of the time everywhere vs adding another terrain type is entirely opinion. You can say that climbing and swimming are "situational" but over the life of a campaign they will probably pay off more than the NE features which I look at below. Also, you can mock temp HP at level 10+ but I have seen temp HP be clutch in a fight and you ignored the fact that you can also recover from Exhaustion during a short rest. That can be pretty damn useful.
I think Deft Explorer is much more useful,
Expertise (one of the best features in the game), 2 languages (can be useful, but the expertise is the real value) +5 movement (giving you an extra step outside a lot of creatures move without a dash), swimming and climbing (making your ranger better everywhere in the world you have to climb a hill, building, cliff etc... or any time you are in water, a terrain NOT covered at all by NE) Temp HP and the ability to recover exhaustion with 1 hr.
breaking down the features of Natural Explorer
While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. (Nice feature but really only matters if you have a clock you are racing against, if not who cares if it takes extra time)
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. (You know the best way not to get lost, have a high Survival +, say from something like Expertise)
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. (this feature is so vague I have literally never used it or had it come up, also YOU being alert to danger does nothing for the other party members)
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. (big deal, how often are you traveling alone?)
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. (Good feature except that ANY player who took the Outlander background can find food for 5 in most environment and rangers have Goodberry so if food is a concern in the campaign you took Goodberry at level 2 so if you blow a Survival check, you know that skill you could have Expertise on, you aren't going to starve)
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. (ok, but a survival check can do a rough version of this which would probably be just as useful as the exact information.
So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day.
This is such a biased, one sided, worst case scenario representation of NE it makes me sick.
Your response makes me laugh, like really dude? It was THAT bad? Feel free to tell me how anything I said in my evaluation of the features is wrong. I would be happy to hear you out.
Also, that would be my evaluation of NE if Deft Explorer didn't exist. I am not saying what I said because I am trying to make DE look better, I said it because NE has always been, in my opinion, kind of a crap feature.
If you have all 3 natural terrains. And you are not utilizing your spells such as plant growth. To CREATE YOUR FAVORED TERRAIN wherever you want. You are not utilizing all of your ranger abilities
you are harping how great expertise in 1 skill is. Cool. Expertise. Still 1 roll. Versus ADVANTAGE on rolls using Skills- plural. Any intelligence or wisdom check. So, that’s straight wisdom, straight intelligence, arcana (magic forest/feywild ) religion. (Druid deity, nature god, etc) nature, animal handling, survival, investigation (does it originate from X terrain?), perception....
every single one of those skills. Advantage. Versus.... 1 skill having expertise. Which is not even as great as advantage, until your proficiency mod is a +5.
2 languages. Okay. you get plenty from favored enemy. And typically I never was in a campaign long running enough to need to be fluent in 11 languages.
so again. You bring up the +5 movement. Which only has more benefit in combat. I detailed this already. You either agree to disagree or didn’t bother to read it because you are dead set on deft explorer is better. Or you don’t really care/use all the non combat uses. Or you don’t have DMs that have stuff happen like orc raiding parties of 200 orc warriors coming to a small village of 50 and you literally have to safely, if able, evacuate an entire village of people. Some fights are not winnable.
the exhaustion thing I admit I did not see. That is a very good feature. Very helpful. All situations.I will retract deft explorer is significantly worse. To, deft explorer is usually going to be worse, unless you are in an exhaustion heavy campaign.
Plant growth would not change the environment you are in. If you are in a desert and cast Plant Growth, you are not now in "the forest" and can claim "I am in a favored terrain." Also, even if you had a DM that bought into that wildly liberal request, you are talking about a 3rd level spell that you don't get until level 9.
Yeah, I am "harping" about how great expertise is because it is, they have 2 feats that grant it and people take class dips in Rogue and Bard all the time to get it, but you are overselling "ADVANTAGE on rolls using Skills- plural" I have never heard of a DM giving advantage on "straight wisdom, straight intelligence, arcana (magic forest/feywild )"
I will admit that there are a lot of skills that MIGHT benefit NE, nature, animal handling, survival, investigation, and I suppose perception IF you are in a favored terrain. But given that Advantage is a +5 and that expertise starts at +4 and is a +6 by level 5, reaching a +12 and it functions EVERYWHERE - the edge easily goes to Expertise. Also once again I would emphasize the fact that, at best, you get 3/8 areas and given that Urban and Dungeons, two areas you spend a large amount of time that NE doesn't give you, it can be pretty limited.
I have one current game that I am playing a Ranger, out of the available options I would say that we have been in arctic 0%, coast 0%, desert 0%, forest 12% (probably over estimating), grassland 5%, mountain 1%, swamp 0%, or the Underdark 0.5% (2 combats, 1 in an underground tunnel and 1 in a mine). The acrobatics on the other hand that I took expertise in I couldn't count how many times I have used. So using my personal experience (the only thing I CAN base my opinions on) Deft explorer has been much more useful than NE would have been. Other games in the past were pre-Tasha's so I can't really evaluate them.
You want to disregard +5 feet of movement because it only really affects combat. Well given that combat makes up 40-50% of the play time, I would say that having a combat focused option is ok.
I appreciate your passion for NE, but you can't keep calling my expression of Deft Explorer bias, it isn't. I wish NE was a more useful option, but the reality is that Deft Explorer over the life of most campaigns will be more useful, especially when playing in a homebrew campaign. Are there pre-made campaigns that primarily keep you in one or two terrain types? Maybe, I haven't played most of the Wizards campaign and most games I am in are homebrew. If you have played a lot of pre-made stuff maybe you can say that 90% of an adventure takes place in one type of environment, but I would be surprised.
In everything I have played which is mostly homebrew, Deft Explorer is the better option. The longest pre-made session I played in was about halfway, maybe a little more (65%?) through Stormkings Thunder over a year until the DM got a change in duty station and it fell apart after going to online. What I remember of it we spent time in everykind of environment. I had a Dungeon of the Mad Mage that we played for 6 or so weeks before that online group fell apart and it was entirely dungeon based, which isn't in NE. I have a game now that we just started for Waterdeep Dragon Heist which takes place (I would guess) entirely in the city of Waterdeep, so no NE value there.
I think your core Idea of favored terrain includes assumptions different from most NE supporters .
I am not sure about the whole "created terrain argument", I think it distracts from the discussion. So, I'll ignore that for now.
Points of variance( I think you should consider each if they are true or false and if they would have altered your experience by changing sides)
knowledge and skills about favored terrain do not include creatures. - don't Try and tell me an underdark ranger wouldn't know how to treat Spider venom bites.
There is no consideration for terrain overlap - Plants grow in multiple biomes, tracking skills are often similar in different terrains.
Imperfect knowledge won't provide a bonus. -A tree expert knows how to study trees and even if its a "cousin plant" the knowledge may be helpful but its not guaranteed. it just needs enough of a connection to provide skill Bonus. In the end, its still d20 dependent.
Creatures and plants can be displaced (non-magically) - A herbalist (or posioner) will buy plants and materials from other biomes to use locally. The rich and powerful like to show off by owning things that are not from local environments just to show off.
The dungeon of the mad mage (AKA Undermountain provides) no bonus to mountains or under-dark.
The value of harvested materials and collecting is unused. Food, ingredients for potions and cures, harvested Poisons and venoms.
Deft explorer is actually significantly less effective than natural explorer.
level 6. +5 walking speed. And climbing and swimming of your walking. Cool. Climbing and swimming are just as situational as a favored terrain is. So it’s basically a +5 walking speed boost. Now, in the situations where the deft applies there cool. But in situations where natural explorer applies. I can stealthily move full speed vs half, so going faster at stealth. I have much more than only 1 expertise skill if you know what you’re doing and how to check in your favored terrain. I am alert to danger while doing other activities. I can safely navigate an entire village through a forest without anyone getting lost. Etc etc etc.
and then level 10. Ooh wow... temp HP boost of 11-18 hp. Because. 18 hp is so helpful at level 10+. At level 10+ you might have Blackrazor as a weapon.
it’s a sad attempt to “improve” the COMBAT specifically aspect of ranger. At the expense of exploration and role play pillars. In my opinion. And sure it improves combat, by 5 speed. And temp HP of a small amount.
I’d rather have the natural explorer skills all day.
To argue that features that work when you are in ONE terrain type are "significantly better" than gaining Expertise, one of the BEST features in the entire game and at level 6 +5 feet of movement and climbing and swimming speed that work 100% of the time everywhere vs adding another terrain type is entirely opinion. You can say that climbing and swimming are "situational" but over the life of a campaign they will probably pay off more than the NE features which I look at below. Also, you can mock temp HP at level 10+ but I have seen temp HP be clutch in a fight and you ignored the fact that you can also recover from Exhaustion during a short rest. That can be pretty damn useful.
I think Deft Explorer is much more useful,
Expertise (one of the best features in the game), 2 languages (can be useful, but the expertise is the real value) +5 movement (giving you an extra step outside a lot of creatures move without a dash), swimming and climbing (making your ranger better everywhere in the world you have to climb a hill, building, cliff etc... or any time you are in water, a terrain NOT covered at all by NE) Temp HP and the ability to recover exhaustion with 1 hr.
breaking down the features of Natural Explorer
While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. (Nice feature but really only matters if you have a clock you are racing against, if not who cares if it takes extra time)
Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. (You know the best way not to get lost, have a high Survival +, say from something like Expertise)
Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. (this feature is so vague I have literally never used it or had it come up, also YOU being alert to danger does nothing for the other party members)
If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. (big deal, how often are you traveling alone?)
When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. (Good feature except that ANY player who took the Outlander background can find food for 5 in most environment and rangers have Goodberry so if food is a concern in the campaign you took Goodberry at level 2 so if you blow a Survival check, you know that skill you could have Expertise on, you aren't going to starve)
While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. (ok, but a survival check can do a rough version of this which would probably be just as useful as the exact information.
So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day.
This is such a biased, one sided, worst case scenario representation of NE it makes me sick.
Your response makes me laugh, like really dude? It was THAT bad? Feel free to tell me how anything I said in my evaluation of the features is wrong. I would be happy to hear you out.
Also, that would be my evaluation of NE if Deft Explorer didn't exist. I am not saying what I said because I am trying to make DE look better, I said it because NE has always been, in my opinion, kind of a crap feature.
You are stating that you "feel" deft explorer is better. Deft explorer is a combat focused selfish replacement ability for an exploration group ability. They aren't equivalent. If you said that a longbow is much better to use in combat than carpenter's tools, I couldn't not refute your statement, as silly of a statement that would be. The whole first paragraph of your post proves that you don't even understand the natural explorer ability. The expertise of NE has NOTHING to do with being IN ONE of the terrains. NOTHING. Make me a list of what you think the nature and survival skills are used for, please.
I like deft explorer. It's a great option. But no the ranger has options with their class abilities similar to how a martial has options for fighting styles or a caster has options for spells to prepare. One does not supersedes the other 100% without a doubt no questions asked all of the time. That is nonsense. They do COMPLETELY different things. Just say you like DE better because you prefer combat more than anything else.
You said, "Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. (Nice feature but really only matters if you have a clock you are racing against, if not who cares if it takes extra time)" Right. And feather fall only matters when you are falling. Straw man argument. Silly. This is campaign saving when needed.
You said, "Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. (You know the best way not to get lost, have a high Survival +, say from something like Expertise)" Right. Like the ranger would have at this time. Again you are comparing something all rangers have to a character taking a specific background, a specific class, a specific subclass, and investing in two specific ability scores to do something a little better than any ranger some of the time (expertise over proficiency is 5%-20% better in tiers 1 and 2). That is one hell of an investment. Plus, rogues are better at any skills they focus on. That is what rogues do. It would be pathetic and sad if someone invested that much into a rogue and they weren't pretty good at it.
You said, "Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. (this feature is so vague I have literally never used it or had it come up, also YOU being alert to danger does nothing for the other party members)" So here it looks like you don't know or follow the rules for travel. A creature can't do everything all the time. A creature can't use perception in all directions all the time, they can't track and do anything else, they can't scout and do anything else. Safety in numbers. But a ranger can do one thing AND use perception. In multiple directions if they are a beast master. This is just action economy at this point. Just like combat.
You said, "If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. (big deal, how often are you traveling alone?)" How often?! How about when you are...scouting!!! Your scout rogue reference has it in their name! Again, the beast master can do this with their critter that is somewhere in the 18-21 passive perception range as well. Normal speed while moving stealthily with pass without trace and hide in plain sight? Natural environment infiltrator expert!
You said, "When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. (Good feature except that ANY player who took the Outlander background can find food for 5 in most environment and rangers have Goodberry so if food is a concern in the campaign you took Goodberry at level 2 so if you blow a Survival check, you know that skill you could have Expertise on, you aren't going to starve)" Wow. Goodberry is amazing and covers any environment. Out at sea? On Avernus? In a desert? Also, the background ability reads, "In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.". You still have to make the check to find the food and water. The DMG gives DCs and rules for foraging. Your argument is another straw man argument. A ranger with the background feature can also do this...times 2!
You said, "While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. (ok, but a survival check can do a rough version of this which would probably be just as useful as the exact information." No. That is not how tracking works. Again, in the DMG. Being overly generous and not as intended with a rule doesn't make the rule awful. People complain that monopoly takes too long, but they all use rules that they made up and aren't part of the game make the game longer.
You said, "So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day." Look in the DMG. It gives DCs for things and places. You are looking at DCs that are mostly in the 10 and 15 spot. Saying a scout rogue is better than a ranger while not in one of their terrains is like saying a paladin is better at killing kobolds than a ranger because they have smite. If the DC is fifteen and the ranger not in a terrain rolls a 17 the rogue would roll a 20. Also almost all adventures take place in one or two environments. Of all of the environments, only a few are ones where you would even need a check at all. Plains? Hills? Coast? Nope. And again, the expertise doesn't have to be in that environment at all. Predicting weather, making a fire, hunting, tracking, or anything else related to one environment can be done in others.
I like deft explorer, but it isn't an upgrade or direct replacement for natural explorer. They are two different things. Scout rogues are a joke. If someone or a table doesn't use the rules at all or correctly that are part of an ability it isn't that abilities fault.
It has become apparent to me. That Aaron at this point. Is not someone that can be talked to.
Plant growth. Read the spell. You give me, finding a water source, which, doable. Ranger. Natural explorer. Not an issue.
you give me a world that is capable of finding plants at all. And I will find seeds/pollens/other ways plants reproduce.
Plant growth. First you grow your small area. Then you cast it over 8 hours to completely enrich the land. A ranger can create their favored terrain ANYWHERE.
you are 100% obsessed with only combat. And that is why frank and others are saying you have a bias and your things are subjectively skewed.
there’s more to most campaigns. Any non-one shots, than combat.
I see combat only, and exhaustion heavy campaigns. Deft explorer could be better. In most normal campaigns. It is worse. And not slightly. But enough so. That it’s laughable.
if you love DE. That’s cool. That works for you, and how you play.
that would not work for me, how I play, or the tables I like to play at or run. I try and do campaigns that are not a bunch of for over simplification, Leroy Jenkins, murder hobos, me-me-me players, or hero syndrome people. That absolutely need to always be the main hero and doing some combat heroics at all times.
but that’s how I enjoy the game. You enjoy the game how you do. Opinions can differ. But you need to open up your mind and broaden your horizons before you can truly make a good objective comparison. And it is disingenuous to try and create new rules/abilities to “upgrade” or “replace” others... when you do not understand completely how those abilities 1. Are used. 2. Can be used. 3. Effect other party members 4. Effect the world. 5. Effect enemy actions and behaviors 6. Effect NPC actions and behaviors.
your lack of understanding plant growth alone. Also show to me. You do not understand just how terrifyingly powerful high level druids both as PCs and BBEGs can be.
a little druidcraft, a little create food and water a little plant growth and a little control weather. And a Druid can literally change the entirety of a continents landscape and ecosystem and population. Without being seen or found.
There has been a debate about the Ranger and the Favored Terrain option.
This poll is weighted in favor of The new Tasha's options. I think there needs to be a 4th or 5th option for each.
My Main dm currently feels most of Tasha's is to overpowered to play without further study. However the beastmaster is one he might consider.
Agreed. I will never use Favored Foe because it's shit, but I'm actually splitting Favored Terrain and Deft Explorer, my DM let me choose two terrains and one ability from DE. In other campaigns with other ranger builds I might possibly use Deft Explorer, but you couldn't pay me to waste my time with Favored Foe.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
I like Natural Explorer and Deft Explorer both thematically and mechanically. If dipping into Ranger I think Deft Explorer is the better choice, maybe? I'm conflicted, NE is much wider in scope and has some very cool features, but DE gives me permanent expertise in one skill of my choice, two languages, extra movement, and a climb and swim speed by level 6, all things which really appeal to me.
I don't love Favoured Enemy thematically, I think the whole ability should be thrown away for good, but for me mechanically it works ok, and it gives me languages which I'm a sucker for. I'm incredibly disappointed by Favoured Foe, it is awful, just a stupid combat damage buff.
If I could take both NE and DE instead and not take either of FE or FF I'd be happy.
Yes, I’m using a lot both options and I do believe they are a great addition considering PHB vanilla Ranger is bad.
- Deft Explorer has been amazing in my campaigns. Whether Perception or Stealth. I usually ended up getting both at level 4 through Skill Expert and bringing the aforementioned skill-monkeyness from Rogues to Rangers. Climb and Swim speed at 6 are flavorful and useful. Never played higher level to use Tireless so far.
- Is Favored Foe perfect? No. Is it super powerful? Definitely no. Is it worthless? At least in my experience, not at all. If we compare against Hunters Mark from levels 1-4, we are talking about 1.5 less damage — but not using your bonus action. Not bad, right? It’s a great synergy for Horizon Walkers, Monster Slayers and Beastmasters who have plenty uses for bonus action. It’s even more friendly for Two-Weapon Fighters or Crossbow Experts, although HM can capitalize more damage against strong enemies after round 1. From level 5 onwards, the difference is more noticeable, but not that big — it is just 3.5 less damage. We had zero damage with Favored Enemy from PHB. For me this is a profit. Maybe I’m biased, my DM loves Gritty Realism rules and long-rests are hard to come in our campaigns, my group manages spell slots like bankers, and whenever my Ranger is unfortunate to lose his Concentration, Favored Foe is a good consolation prize to boost my damage.
Deft explorer is actually significantly less effective than natural explorer.
level 6. +5 walking speed. And climbing and swimming of your walking. Cool. Climbing and swimming are just as situational as a favored terrain is. So it’s basically a +5 walking speed boost. Now, in the situations where the deft applies there cool. But in situations where natural explorer applies. I can stealthily move full speed vs half, so going faster at stealth. I have much more than only 1 expertise skill if you know what you’re doing and how to check in your favored terrain. I am alert to danger while doing other activities. I can safely navigate an entire village through a forest without anyone getting lost. Etc etc etc.
and then level 10. Ooh wow... temp HP boost of 11-18 hp. Because. 18 hp is so helpful at level 10+. At level 10+ you might have Blackrazor as a weapon.
it’s a sad attempt to “improve” the COMBAT specifically aspect of ranger. At the expense of exploration and role play pillars. In my opinion. And sure it improves combat, by 5 speed. And temp HP of a small amount.
I’d rather have the natural explorer skills all day.
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There are some Rangers I have that like the damage from Favored Foe (namely my Monster Slayer and my Tasha Beast Master,) but by and large almost without fail, I will take the advantage on Int and Tracking from Favored Enemy. All day; every day. And with humanoids as my first choice, the ability procs often enough to justify its presence on my Rangers. Plus, the mundane tracking pairs well with the magical tracking of Hunter's Mark, ensuring I get advantage on my tracking checks almost all the time. I won't sit here and say that Favored Foe is worthless. In fact, I've chosen it a few times and the ability to combine with subclass features to make me not need Hunter's Mark has its draw. And by level 20 it's basically a mini-4th attack. But far and away, I find Favored Enemy much more flavorful and more useful.
Between Deft Explorer and Natural Explorer...it's a bit of a toss-up. My currently active Rangers (a Horizon Walker, a Monster Slayer, and a Fey Wanderer) have Deft Explorer. But the Hunter, Gloomstalker, and Beast Master I have in my back pocket all took Natural Explorer instead. It really depends on the campaign I'm planning to use the Ranger on, the level range, and the idea I have for the Ranger in question. If my character concept is closely linked to some sort of landscape (such as my Hunter being a Desert Wanderer, or my Gloomstalker coming from the Underdark) or I want to lean into the traditional archetype role, I'll pick Natural Explorer for its myriad benefits. If the campaign won't be spending too much time on natural landscapes (like a Planescape or an urban fantasy campaign) or bounces around from place to place too much to be consistent, I might go Deft Explorer. This one is more 50/50.
To argue that features that work when you are in ONE terrain type are "significantly better" than gaining Expertise, one of the BEST features in the entire game and at level 6 +5 feet of movement and climbing and swimming speed that work 100% of the time everywhere vs adding another terrain type is entirely opinion. You can say that climbing and swimming are "situational" but over the life of a campaign they will probably pay off more than the NE features which I look at below. Also, you can mock temp HP at level 10+ but I have seen temp HP be clutch in a fight and you ignored the fact that you can also recover from Exhaustion during a short rest. That can be pretty damn useful.
I think Deft Explorer is much more useful,
Expertise (one of the best features in the game), 2 languages (can be useful, but the expertise is the real value)
+5 movement (giving you an extra step outside a lot of creatures move without a dash), swimming and climbing (making your ranger better everywhere in the world you have to climb a hill, building, cliff etc... or any time you are in water, a terrain NOT covered at all by NE)
Temp HP and the ability to recover exhaustion with 1 hr.
breaking down the features of Natural Explorer
While traveling for an hour or more in your favored terrain, you gain the following benefits:
So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day.
Deft Explorer all day. I do not miss NE at all.
Favored Foe is also nice when conserving spell slots. It scales and can be applied to anybody, so that's neat. (makes lvl 20 feature more applicable, but still not a fan of Foe Slayer).
For Favored Enemy, The 'advantage on intelligence checks to recall information' on your favored enemies always seemed strange to me. I always felt that if they're your favorite enemy, that information should be something you already know. The tracking advantage equates to a +5 on those special occasions you're using it. Meh to me. I do however like the languages gained.
This is such a biased, one sided, worst case scenario representation of NE it makes me sick.
If you have all 3 natural terrains. And you are not utilizing your spells such as plant growth. To CREATE YOUR FAVORED TERRAIN wherever you want. You are not utilizing all of your ranger abilities.
you are harping how great expertise in 1 skill is. Cool. Expertise. Still 1 roll. Versus ADVANTAGE on rolls using Skills- plural. Any intelligence or wisdom check. So, that’s straight wisdom, straight intelligence, arcana (magic forest/feywild ) religion. (Druid deity, nature god, etc) nature, animal handling, survival, investigation (does it originate from X terrain?), perception....
every single one of those skills. Advantage. Versus.... 1 skill having expertise. Which is not even as great as advantage, until your proficiency mod is a +5.
2 languages. Okay. you get plenty from favored enemy. And typically I never was in a campaign long running enough to need to be fluent in 11 languages.
so again. You bring up the +5 movement. Which only has more benefit in combat. I detailed this already. You either agree to disagree or didn’t bother to read it because you are dead set on deft explorer is better. Or you don’t really care/use all the non combat uses. Or you don’t have DMs that have stuff happen like orc raiding parties of 200 orc warriors coming to a small village of 50 and you literally have to safely, if able, evacuate an entire village of people. Some fights are not winnable.
the exhaustion thing I admit I did not see. That is a very good feature. Very helpful. All situations.I will retract deft explorer is significantly worse. To, deft explorer is usually going to be worse, unless you are in an exhaustion heavy campaign.
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Ironically:
the deft explorer giving you expertise in the 1 skill vs the natural explorer...is basically being half as good as a rogue scout. Deft explorer actually weakens the argument of ranger over rogue scout.
lol.
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They are biased in favor of Tasha's because the Poller is biased. If you go to the later pages of the Why Ranger's Suck thread you'll see he's one of a few of the stance that everybody is just using the Tasha's and nobody is using the old stuff.
This Poll is his way of trying to win the argument despite the fact it won't cover even close to all players of the game. And it won't cover various caveats and exceptions already showing up to some extent in people's posts.
Actually the poll is this way because I made it with the options I felt covered the discussion and I added another version with the requested options since I can't seem to edit the original.
I don't think it was intentional. I think it's just a form of tunnel vision (a core concept in most ranger debates). In fact He was the first voter and I saw with one vote he was against one of the Tasha's options. It just starts from a Pro- tasha's perspective you will still get people who disagree.
That being said because the wording starts from the perspective of Assuming Tasha's is used, You have to actively disagree to be in favor of PHB. That would make people with slightly less strong feelings question their choices. Thankfully most people in the ranger thread are not timid with their opinions. There is a weird thing where at first 2/3 rds sounded Tasha's positive so even if each got a vote for every three voters Tasha's would still come out ahead.
Writing polls is not easy there are whole (as in multiple) organizations just studying poll writing and wording Bias and priming. Even I didn't communicate well how to fix the problem as I only have limited exposure to studying it. I still believe the information in this thread is valuable but it needs to be taken with "a grain of Salt"
But going back to the topic at hand, I think the ranger as a whole needs to be seen as one class. I'M Glad both Tashas and PHB are valid options. Even though, If i can I will choose PHB most of the time.
Plant growth would not change the environment you are in. If you are in a desert and cast Plant Growth, you are not now in "the forest" and can claim "I am in a favored terrain." Also, even if you had a DM that bought into that wildly liberal request, you are talking about a 3rd level spell that you don't get until level 9.
Yeah, I am "harping" about how great expertise is because it is, they have 2 feats that grant it and people take class dips in Rogue and Bard all the time to get it, but you are overselling "ADVANTAGE on rolls using Skills- plural" I have never heard of a DM giving advantage on "straight wisdom, straight intelligence, arcana (magic forest/feywild )"
I will admit that there are a lot of skills that MIGHT benefit NE, nature, animal handling, survival, investigation, and I suppose perception IF you are in a favored terrain. But given that Advantage is a +5 and that expertise starts at +4 and is a +6 by level 5, reaching a +12 and it functions EVERYWHERE - the edge easily goes to Expertise. Also once again I would emphasize the fact that, at best, you get 3/8 areas and given that Urban and Dungeons, two areas you spend a large amount of time that NE doesn't give you, it can be pretty limited.
I have one current game that I am playing a Ranger, out of the available options I would say that we have been in arctic 0%, coast 0%, desert 0%, forest 12% (probably over estimating), grassland 5%, mountain 1%, swamp 0%, or the Underdark 0.5% (2 combats, 1 in an underground tunnel and 1 in a mine). The acrobatics on the other hand that I took expertise in I couldn't count how many times I have used. So using my personal experience (the only thing I CAN base my opinions on) Deft explorer has been much more useful than NE would have been. Other games in the past were pre-Tasha's so I can't really evaluate them.
You want to disregard +5 feet of movement because it only really affects combat. Well given that combat makes up 40-50% of the play time, I would say that having a combat focused option is ok.
I appreciate your passion for NE, but you can't keep calling my expression of Deft Explorer bias, it isn't. I wish NE was a more useful option, but the reality is that Deft Explorer over the life of most campaigns will be more useful, especially when playing in a homebrew campaign. Are there pre-made campaigns that primarily keep you in one or two terrain types? Maybe, I haven't played most of the Wizards campaign and most games I am in are homebrew. If you have played a lot of pre-made stuff maybe you can say that 90% of an adventure takes place in one type of environment, but I would be surprised.
In everything I have played which is mostly homebrew, Deft Explorer is the better option. The longest pre-made session I played in was about halfway, maybe a little more (65%?) through Stormkings Thunder over a year until the DM got a change in duty station and it fell apart after going to online. What I remember of it we spent time in everykind of environment. I had a Dungeon of the Mad Mage that we played for 6 or so weeks before that online group fell apart and it was entirely dungeon based, which isn't in NE. I have a game now that we just started for Waterdeep Dragon Heist which takes place (I would guess) entirely in the city of Waterdeep, so no NE value there.
Your response makes me laugh, like really dude? It was THAT bad? Feel free to tell me how anything I said in my evaluation of the features is wrong. I would be happy to hear you out.
Also, that would be my evaluation of NE if Deft Explorer didn't exist. I am not saying what I said because I am trying to make DE look better, I said it because NE has always been, in my opinion, kind of a crap feature.
I think your core Idea of favored terrain includes assumptions different from most NE supporters .
I am not sure about the whole "created terrain argument", I think it distracts from the discussion. So, I'll ignore that for now.
Points of variance( I think you should consider each if they are true or false and if they would have altered your experience by changing sides)
You are stating that you "feel" deft explorer is better. Deft explorer is a combat focused selfish replacement ability for an exploration group ability. They aren't equivalent. If you said that a longbow is much better to use in combat than carpenter's tools, I couldn't not refute your statement, as silly of a statement that would be. The whole first paragraph of your post proves that you don't even understand the natural explorer ability. The expertise of NE has NOTHING to do with being IN ONE of the terrains. NOTHING. Make me a list of what you think the nature and survival skills are used for, please.
I like deft explorer. It's a great option. But no the ranger has options with their class abilities similar to how a martial has options for fighting styles or a caster has options for spells to prepare. One does not supersedes the other 100% without a doubt no questions asked all of the time. That is nonsense. They do COMPLETELY different things. Just say you like DE better because you prefer combat more than anything else.
You said, "Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel. (Nice feature but really only matters if you have a clock you are racing against, if not who cares if it takes extra time)" Right. And feather fall only matters when you are falling. Straw man argument. Silly. This is campaign saving when needed.
You said, "Your group can’t become lost except by magical means. (You know the best way not to get lost, have a high Survival +, say from something like Expertise)" Right. Like the ranger would have at this time. Again you are comparing something all rangers have to a character taking a specific background, a specific class, a specific subclass, and investing in two specific ability scores to do something a little better than any ranger some of the time (expertise over proficiency is 5%-20% better in tiers 1 and 2). That is one hell of an investment. Plus, rogues are better at any skills they focus on. That is what rogues do. It would be pathetic and sad if someone invested that much into a rogue and they weren't pretty good at it.
You said, "Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger. (this feature is so vague I have literally never used it or had it come up, also YOU being alert to danger does nothing for the other party members)" So here it looks like you don't know or follow the rules for travel. A creature can't do everything all the time. A creature can't use perception in all directions all the time, they can't track and do anything else, they can't scout and do anything else. Safety in numbers. But a ranger can do one thing AND use perception. In multiple directions if they are a beast master. This is just action economy at this point. Just like combat.
You said, "If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace. (big deal, how often are you traveling alone?)" How often?! How about when you are...scouting!!! Your scout rogue reference has it in their name! Again, the beast master can do this with their critter that is somewhere in the 18-21 passive perception range as well. Normal speed while moving stealthily with pass without trace and hide in plain sight? Natural environment infiltrator expert!
You said, "When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would. (Good feature except that ANY player who took the Outlander background can find food for 5 in most environment and rangers have Goodberry so if food is a concern in the campaign you took Goodberry at level 2 so if you blow a Survival check, you know that skill you could have Expertise on, you aren't going to starve)" Wow. Goodberry is amazing and covers any environment. Out at sea? On Avernus? In a desert? Also, the background ability reads, "In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.". You still have to make the check to find the food and water. The DMG gives DCs and rules for foraging. Your argument is another straw man argument. A ranger with the background feature can also do this...times 2!
You said, "While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area. (ok, but a survival check can do a rough version of this which would probably be just as useful as the exact information." No. That is not how tracking works. Again, in the DMG. Being overly generous and not as intended with a rule doesn't make the rule awful. People complain that monopoly takes too long, but they all use rules that they made up and aren't part of the game make the game longer.
You said, "So yeah, even discounting the fact that NE gives you only 3/8 possible terrains and that those 8 don't even encompass all the environments you could be in - the features that you get while in one are either mostly useless or are all Survival checks meaning your Ranger will be outmatched by a Rogue with expertise in survival or a Ranger who took Deft Explorer and choose Survival, either of which can now achieve the most important parts of that list literally everywhere. The ranger who chose Deft Explorer also knows two more languages, moves 5 feet faster, can climb and swim just as fast, can give themselves temp hp and can stand watch by themselves all night long and have no exhaustion by the time your group has finished eating breakfast and planning the day." Look in the DMG. It gives DCs for things and places. You are looking at DCs that are mostly in the 10 and 15 spot. Saying a scout rogue is better than a ranger while not in one of their terrains is like saying a paladin is better at killing kobolds than a ranger because they have smite. If the DC is fifteen and the ranger not in a terrain rolls a 17 the rogue would roll a 20. Also almost all adventures take place in one or two environments. Of all of the environments, only a few are ones where you would even need a check at all. Plains? Hills? Coast? Nope. And again, the expertise doesn't have to be in that environment at all. Predicting weather, making a fire, hunting, tracking, or anything else related to one environment can be done in others.
I like deft explorer, but it isn't an upgrade or direct replacement for natural explorer. They are two different things. Scout rogues are a joke. If someone or a table doesn't use the rules at all or correctly that are part of an ability it isn't that abilities fault.
It has become apparent to me. That Aaron at this point. Is not someone that can be talked to.
Plant growth. Read the spell. You give me, finding a water source, which, doable. Ranger. Natural explorer. Not an issue.
you give me a world that is capable of finding plants at all. And I will find seeds/pollens/other ways plants reproduce.
Plant growth. First you grow your small area. Then you cast it over 8 hours to completely enrich the land. A ranger can create their favored terrain ANYWHERE.
you are 100% obsessed with only combat. And that is why frank and others are saying you have a bias and your things are subjectively skewed.
there’s more to most campaigns. Any non-one shots, than combat.
I see combat only, and exhaustion heavy campaigns. Deft explorer could be better. In most normal campaigns. It is worse. And not slightly. But enough so. That it’s laughable.
if you love DE. That’s cool. That works for you, and how you play.
that would not work for me, how I play, or the tables I like to play at or run. I try and do campaigns that are not a bunch of for over simplification, Leroy Jenkins, murder hobos, me-me-me players, or hero syndrome people. That absolutely need to always be the main hero and doing some combat heroics at all times.
but that’s how I enjoy the game. You enjoy the game how you do. Opinions can differ. But you need to open up your mind and broaden your horizons before you can truly make a good objective comparison. And it is disingenuous to try and create new rules/abilities to “upgrade” or “replace” others... when you do not understand completely how those abilities 1. Are used. 2. Can be used. 3. Effect other party members 4. Effect the world. 5. Effect enemy actions and behaviors 6. Effect NPC actions and behaviors.
your lack of understanding plant growth alone. Also show to me. You do not understand just how terrifyingly powerful high level druids both as PCs and BBEGs can be.
a little druidcraft, a little create food and water a little plant growth and a little control weather. And a Druid can literally change the entirety of a continents landscape and ecosystem and population. Without being seen or found.
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