I think if we're going to go so far as to make yet another Thread about this. Then we're really going to have to do a couple of things.
One of those things is actually listing out the normal Skills at least that Can conceivably have Natural Explorer applied in some Way. There are 10 of them in Total. It's slightly more than Half of the Full List. Some of these once we set them out for All to See it's going to be easier to find reasons why it applies in various ways than others. But I'll just go down the list in Alphabetical Order. I will also make a couple of comments on certain ones. it's my Effort to try and clarify a couple things a little.
Animal Handling - This skill is pretty simple and immediate in scope. It's all about calming beasts, Controlling Mounts when spooked or during risky maneuvers like combat, Or being able to guess and understand an animals intentions when you run across it. It's basically our Wisdom Based limited Social Skill for Beasts.
Arcana - This is basically our Magic and Planes Knowledge Skill. It governs and represent a characters ability to recall lore about spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes. At first blush it seems like an odd one for Rangers. But this is one of the skills involved in Elementals, Demons, and Celestials.
History - This is basically what it's name says. it covers the Historical stuff. It's the Primary way to show an ability to recall lore about historical events, legendary people, ancient kingdoms, past disputes, recent wars, and lost civilizations. Not just for Humans but for All kinds of Races.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
Investigation - This is our Detailed Search and Deductive Reasoning Skill. this is the one we use to potentially deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse. Poring through ancient scrolls in search of a hidden fragment of knowledge might also call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check.
Medicine - This is our First Aid Skill. This is things like Diagnosing Poisoning and Illness or Stabilizing a Dying Person, or providing Extending Care. It's another Very Basic and mostly straight forward skill again.
Nature - This is the Knowledge about terrain, plants and animals, the weather, and natural cycles. This is the Bread and Butter of Natural Explorer. this is all the kind of knowledge that most anybody that thinks Ranger is thinking about. All basically wrapped up into a Single Knowledge. That's why there are few Rangers or Druids that don't take it. If There is a Skill where we should be asking why it doesn't apply rather than why it does apply. This is it all wrapped up in one place.
Perception - This is the skill that governs spotting things and is another very immediate skill. Honestly it may be one of the hardest to justify reasons to use it out of certain Terrains when it comes to Natural Explorer. It's whole thing is that it lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses. To Provide Terrain to that most of the time. your going to have to be in that Terrain.
Religion - This is the Skill that is all about the Knowledge about deities, rites and prayers, religious hierarchies, holy symbols, and the practices of secret cults.
Survival - if Nature is the Skill that encompasses everything that Rangers Know. This is the Skill that covers everything stereotypically seen as what Rangers Do. This is the Skill to follow tracks, hunt wild game, guide your group through frozen wastelands, identify signs that owlbears live nearby, predict the weather, or avoid quicksand and other natural hazards. This is again something that few Rangers and Druids Go without because it's physical application of interacting with Nature.
These 10 skills are all the Intelligence and Wisdom Based Skills that could end up with Expertise if a Ranger has Proficiency in them when it comes to Natural Explorer. Some of them have Very Obvious Usage. Some are a little more niche. But these are all the things we are talking about when it comes to Natural Explorer in Truth. We are not just talking about Mountains or Forests or Deserts And simply being in them. We Are Actually Talking about it the other way around. We are talking about These Skills Above and how they might be used or applied to various things about those Terrains, often regardless of where we are. These are our Basis for what can potentially be Done with Natural Explorer.
This is our Realistic and Objective Starting Point. This is what Natural Explorer builds off of. They don't care about Natural Explorer. Natural Explorer cares about them and what they do.
A PHB beasmaster ranger has both forests and beasts as favored enemy. They have a poisonous snake from their home forest. While their pet is sleeping (incapacitated) They should be able to attemt a harvest check. DC20 Poison kit check OR DC 20 nature check.( Per DMG) IF the character fails by 5 or more they take damage.
Situation 1: a lvl 14 assassin's rogue who has never seen a beast would have a minimum of 10 on their roll + expertise: poisoners kit would mean it would be impossible for them to miss an hurt themselves even if they have never interacted with the beast before. secondly Their skill would work on spiders, scorpions and even Poisonous daemon creatures or monstrosities.
Situation 2: the 14 ranger who owns the pet. who has generic survival training an may have been doing this their whole career . They should have their dc20 nature with advantage and double prof (forests) they can still fail enough to poison themselves. There skill is will not work on daemons or scorpions or creatures out side their NE (also FE)choices. However, even though the ranger's abbility has a danger element to it a theoretical benefit is they would get partial bonus On some extra skills.
And people claim situation 2 is overpowered and an abuse of the rules.
A PHB beasmaster ranger has both forests and beasts as favored enemy. They have a poisonous snake from their home forest. While their pet is sleeping (incapacitated) They should be able to attemt a harvest check. DC20 Poison kit check OR DC 20 nature check.( Per DMG) IF the character fails by 5 or more they take damage.
Situation 1: a lvl 14 assassin's rogue who has never seen a beast would have a minimum of 10 on their roll + expertise: poisoners kit would mean it would be impossible for them to miss an hurt themselves even if they have never interacted with the beast before. secondly Their skill would work on spiders, scorpions and even Poisonous daemon creatures or monstrosities.
Situation 2: the 14 ranger who owns the pet. who has generic survival training an may have been doing this their whole career . They should have their dc20 nature with advantage and double prof (forests) they can still fail enough to poison themselves. There skill is will not work on daemons or scorpions or creatures out side their NE (also FE)choices. However, even though the ranger's abbility has a danger element to it a theoretical benefit is they would get partial bonus On some extra skills.
And people claim situation 2 is overpowered and an abuse of the rules.
First of all. We're talking about slightly different sets of skills here.
Situation 1. This whole detail your putting in of never seen a beast. Everybody should call BS on this. Unless they live in a super clean futuristic robot city. Never having seen a beast is impossible. Second the Assassin with the Poisoners kit has particular knowledge of handling the dangerous nature of poisons specifically. Secondly. You put Expertise in there like it's something guaranteed. It's not. The only way they can get expertise is to either use 1 of their 4 expertises on it or to use Xanathar's and also have proficiency in nature. Since your establishing neither of these. The Assassin is actually now in a situation where all of their abilities still equal a failure unless you make a good reason why harvesting the poison is Dexterity when Really it's more of an Intelligence or Wisdom check. So Your looking at somewhere between a 15 and an 18 usually For the Rogue even with Reliable talent. Which ends up being somewhere between being saved by not being able to poison themselves and simply failing. This means that they will have to roll and likely need somewhere between a 12 and a 15 to just be barely successful. So in other words to make this an automatically successful thing this is going to require class resources to reach that point Either proficiencies in particular skills or using up one of their expertises or what have you to just barely succeed.
Sitation 2. Yes it's a DC20 nature check for the Ranger with what you gave. But here's some things to keep in mind. Failure is possible But it's not easy For the Ranger. And it only works on a few animals if Forest is your Favored Terrain (Desert is actually a better terrain). Such as the pet you've found that has poison. There are a few. But the things it only works on those few. But let's really look at it mathematically. the Functional Expertise in Nature that the Ranger has is already a +10. Intelligence could easily be a +1 or +2. Advantage would require a Favored Foe of beasts as well. So the Ranger needs to roll only an 8 or 9 and they have Advantage on the roll so they take the better of 2 rolls assuming you do actually line up all of these various details to make it all work. This means that they have to roll the dice twice and still get a 7 or less. But poisoning themselves is almost impossible and is extremely bad luck. Because you have to have 2 rolls that are effectively 2 or 3 at their highest on both rolls. so we're almost talking double 1's on advantage rolls territory. It's not impossible but it's extremely rare. So functionally the Ranger is also immune to taking poison damage from doing harvesting Poison for the most part. But this also only works on a small handful of creatures when everything is put together as well. Without the Advantage from Favored Foe there is marginally more chance to actually be poisoned and is a completely possible scenario but it's still fairly low because it still takes a very low dice roll.
Realistically there are potentially easier ways to get some or most of scenerio 2 quite easily and perhaps with more general usage than taking all of that effort to harvest what is basically going to be a weak and easily resisted poison.
A PHB beasmaster ranger has both forests and beasts as favored enemy. They have a poisonous snake from their home forest. While their pet is sleeping (incapacitated) They should be able to attemt a harvest check. DC20 Poison kit check OR DC 20 nature check.( Per DMG) IF the character fails by 5 or more they take damage.
Situation 1: a lvl 14 assassin's rogue who has never seen a beast would have a minimum of 10 on their roll + expertise: poisoners kit would mean it would be impossible for them to miss an hurt themselves even if they have never interacted with the beast before. secondly Their skill would work on spiders, scorpions and even Poisonous daemon creatures or monstrosities.
Situation 2: the 14 ranger who owns the pet. who has generic survival training an may have been doing this their whole career . They should have their dc20 nature with advantage and double prof (forests) they can still fail enough to poison themselves. There skill is will not work on daemons or scorpions or creatures out side their NE (also FE)choices. However, even though the ranger's abbility has a danger element to it a theoretical benefit is they would get partial bonus On some extra skills.
And people claim situation 2 is overpowered and an abuse of the rules.
First of all. We're talking about slightly different sets of skills here.
Situation 1. This whole detail your putting in of never seen a beast. Everybody should call BS on this. Unless they live in a super clean futuristic robot city. Never having seen a beast is impossible. Second the Assassin with the Poisoners kit has particular knowledge of handling the dangerous nature of poisons specifically. Secondly. You put Expertise in there like it's something guaranteed. It's not. The only way they can get expertise is to either use 1 of their 4 expertises on it or to use Xanathar's and also have proficiency in nature. Since your establishing neither of these. The Assassin is actually now in a situation where all of their abilities still equal a failure unless you make a good reason why harvesting the poison is Dexterity when Really it's more of an Intelligence or Wisdom check. So Your looking at somewhere between a 15 and an 18 usually For the Rogue even with Reliable talent. Which ends up being somewhere between being saved by not being able to poison themselves and simply failing. This means that they will have to roll and likely need somewhere between a 12 and a 15 to just be barely successful. So in other words to make this an automatically successful thing this is going to require class resources to reach that point Either proficiencies in particular skills or using up one of their expertises or what have you to just barely succeed.
Sitation 2. Yes it's a DC20 nature check for the Ranger with what you gave. But here's some things to keep in mind. Failure is possible But it's not easy For the Ranger. And it only works on a few animals if Forest is your Favored Terrain (Desert is actually a better terrain). Such as the pet you've found that has poison. There are a few. But the things it only works on those few. But let's really look at it mathematically. the Functional Expertise in Nature that the Ranger has is already a +10. Intelligence could easily be a +1 or +2. Advantage would require a Favored Foe of beasts as well. So the Ranger needs to roll only an 8 or 9 and they have Advantage on the roll so they take the better of 2 rolls assuming you do actually line up all of these various details to make it all work. This means that they have to roll the dice twice and still get a 7 or less. But poisoning themselves is almost impossible and is extremely bad luck. Because you have to have 2 rolls that are effectively 2 or 3 at their highest on both rolls. so we're almost talking double 1's on advantage rolls territory. It's not impossible but it's extremely rare. So functionally the Ranger is also immune to taking poison damage from doing harvesting Poison for the most part. But this also only works on a small handful of creatures when everything is put together as well. Without the Advantage from Favored Foe there is marginally more chance to actually be poisoned and is a completely possible scenario but it's still fairly low because it still takes a very low dice roll.
Realistically there are potentially easier ways to get some or most of scenerio 2 quite easily and perhaps with more general usage than taking all of that effort to harvest what is basically going to be a weak and easily resisted poison.
The phrase " never had seen a beast" was confusing. I intended to say a specific beast as a generic term. examples would be "Never seen a giant constrictor" or "never seen a scorpion". I still think the grammar was correct but highly misleading. My bad. Ultimately it was not a major detail except to show limited interaction with Venom harvesting.
The point was the poisoners kit basically gets free training with with creatures in general for harvesting poison even though they have no defined affinity for it. Yes the expertise was assumed as a poisoner build but that was just so we could have comparable builds. (weather or not you assume they are good builds is kind of irrelevant) I picked it an example to show how mechanics and theme interact. The choices made to be a good poisoner don't care about the individual types (Harvested vs crafted). The mechanical skill associations come first then the fiction not the other way around. So the rogue training just assumes they know how to deal with the animal. Maybe they learned from books or had a mentor or had actual practice. So, if the rouge assumes an broad interpretation why shouldn't the ranger?
The whole scenario was designed to show FT is a necessity to work on beasts and that the game dose not care where the skills come from. it only cares how they apply. In the end you didn't like the build but agreed with the main point. They are comparable and the ranger should both get a bonus from both FT(Doubled prof) and FE(advantage)
IF one were to take the assumption that favored enemy and Favored terrain were incompatible it greatly reduces the effectiveness of natural explorer.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
I am gonna toss this one out unless you can give me a scenario that makes sense as I can't think of any way that NE would apply to insight
Situation 2: the 14 ranger who owns the pet. who has generic survival training an may have been doing this their whole career . They should have their dc20 nature with advantage and double prof (forests) they can still fail enough to poison themselves. There skill is will not work on daemons or scorpions or creatures out side their NE (also FE)choices. However, even though the ranger's abbility has a danger element to it a theoretical benefit is they would get partial bonus On some extra skills.
And people claim situation 2 is overpowered and an abuse of the rules.
Advantage because of FE yes, expertise because of NE no. Harvesting poison from a snake is not related to the forest. Harvesting poison is not something that happens in nature, it is an entirely artificial process. You want NE on the nature check to identify what killed an animal or a traveler, sounds good, you want advantage because it was an animal, you got it.
Now if I am playing in that game and the DM gives NE and FE, I am not going to object, they can make that decision.
Situation 2: the 14 ranger who owns the pet. who has generic survival training an may have been doing this their whole career . They should have their dc20 nature with advantage and double prof (forests) they can still fail enough to poison themselves. There skill is will not work on daemons or scorpions or creatures out side their NE (also FE)choices. However, even though the ranger's abbility has a danger element to it a theoretical benefit is they would get partial bonus On some extra skills.
And people claim situation 2 is overpowered and an abuse of the rules.
Advantage because of FE yes, expertise because of NE no. Harvesting poison from a snake is not related to the forest. Harvesting poison is not something that happens in nature, it is an entirely artificial process. You want NE on the nature check to identify what killed an animal or a traveler, sounds good, you want advantage because it was an animal, you got it.
Now if I am playing in that game and the DM gives NE and FE, I am not going to object, they can make that decision.
Harvesting poison from the Snake could apply if it's a creature natural of the Forest. So that you would better know how to deal with it to be able to extract that venom.
Harvesting Poison is not entirely artificial. In Fact. Most poisons harvested from animals without killing them actually involves the natural processes of the animal to do it. Such as getting them to stab into a membrane on a vial and inject their venom themselves.
And Harvesting Poisons when you kill the animals requires the proper knowledge of the animals anatomy (which is covered by nature) to be able to extract the appropriate glands and such to be able to gather the poison.
Your insistance that this knowledge is somehow vacuumed away and has nothing to do with knowledge of the animal and the regions they are in is incorrect. Because part of knowing that environment is knowing all about the creatures and plants in it. This is exactly what Nature Does. All NE is doing is providing a narrower specialization that you are more adept in. Such As forest Animals, Desert Animals, or Arctic Animals when combined with Nature.
The separation you keep forcing into things does not exist. This is because it's what the skill lets you do modified by the increased knowledge and ability with a subset of them. You cannot say that the Skill Cannot do it just because NE is involved. And you cannot say the subset does not apply when it does. If it happens to be a Forest Spider or a Forest Snake with Poison and you want to collect it. Then your going to be more aware of how to safely handle those creatures for a variety of purposes. Because of your general familiarity and your specialized familiarity.
If your Trying to Repair a car And your Specialty is German Cars. When it comes time to Change the Tires or replace the windshield wipers on your BMW. I don't get to tell you that your Specialty in German Cars doesn't apply because it's not part of the Engine. But this is exactly what your doing in this situation.
But this is what your effectively doing when your saying our increased Familiarity to these creatures does not apply when it's part of the Knowledge base of the skill to start with. There is nothing about Natural Explorer or the Skill that says anywhere that They do not apply to certain usages of the skill. it is all of the skill and then it's extra because it's all of the skill applied to a something that the skill already does that is also tied to a particular subset, which in the case of Natural Explorer is a particular kind of area.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
I am gonna toss this one out unless you can give me a scenario that makes sense as I can't think of any way that NE would apply to insight
Really? What is the cutoff point for all of these? Logic? Stepping on the rogues toes? What if it was in the forest or swamp? Would that make a difference to you?
The skill is "...determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when...predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, ...and changes in mannerisms..." If someone is insightful they are insightful. Their experiences and training would lend itself to this function. Jane Goodall was very insightful regarding gorillas in and out of their natural habitat. Tribal peoples of the rain forest are very insightful regarding everything in their known world. Actual park rangers can be extremely insightful in regards to the living creatures of their park. The dog whisperer and crocodile hunter are very insightful in regards to their chosen beasts.
Some of these I could see an argument being made regarding it being favored enemy, and I agree. But some of them are more related to their terrain of origin than the beast specifically. Plus, the favored enemy ability covers something different and in a different way. It says "...advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them." It doesn't even cover the other wisdom based abilities. Those that are experts in an animal, like Jane Goodall, blend intelligence based information AND extreme insightfulness for the creatures. She is known for her work academically on gorillas AND her compassion, communication, and insightfulness into them, their culture, body language (literally), and mannerisms.
In fact, I would argue strongly that insight and animal handling are not only proficiencies of the above listed real life types of people, but they are literally experts in these skills.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
I am gonna toss this one out unless you can give me a scenario that makes sense as I can't think of any way that NE would apply to insight
Here's your problem. You don't get to arbitrarily toss them out if you actually want to talk about this in depth. These are the skills that are within the scope of Natural Explorer. You have to give reasons why it doesn't work.
But if you really need Ways that this can be used. Insight is the Skill that is actually used to Realize that Danger may be happening up ahead (A common story trope often triggered by ranger-esque characters in stories) because the way animals are acting. Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments for your NE skills... Or the creatures are from your appropriate environments.
Which again. All beasts have (Aside from a few un-naturally made ones that mostly don't appear naturally anyway). Pretty much any beast you look up is going to have an Entry in the Environment column here on DDB and that is for a reason. That is their natural habitat and part of the "Terrain" that they would most often be found in, interact with, and have an affect on which is what the Ranger knows all about with NE for that Terrain. Ignoring this plain sight entry that also appears on the bottom of the details page or statblock of Many Things well past just animals as Well doesn't make it go away or not apply. This is the most obvious thread about things that NE can tell you about and be useful for where ever you might encounter them.
How about A party is traveling through a forest and Meets a broken down wagon. The cleric driving the wagon is named Schrodinger. He starts telling the tale about how a certain creature stalked the wagon and then describes the actual attack. Is he lying or telling the truth?
The rangers Knowledge can provide insight into the story signaling red flags. Wait this terrain is too rocky for tracks to get that deep over a 10min rainstorm the ground wouln't be soft enough? Wait you said a creature attacked when the plant right next to the wagon irritates the sinus of said creature?
They could also confirm some ridiculous part that is true. the bright sunny day where the cleric claims it rained but the only wet spot is next to some broken casks. His knowledge of the mud/clay in the area would allow quick estimates to if the rainstorm out of nowhere timeline is reasonable.
Harvesting poison from the Snake could apply if it's a creature natural of the Forest. So that you would better know how to deal with it to be able to extract that venom.
Harvesting Poison is not entirely artificial. In Fact. Most poisons harvested from animals without killing them actually involves the natural processes of the animal to do it. Such as getting them to stab into a membrane on a vial and inject their venom themselves.
And Harvesting Poisons when you kill the animals requires the proper knowledge of the animals anatomy (which is covered by nature) to be able to extract the appropriate glands and such to be able to gather the poison.
Your insistance that this knowledge is somehow vacuumed away and has nothing to do with knowledge of the animal and the regions they are in is incorrect. Because part of knowing that environment is knowing all about the creatures and plants in it. This is exactly what Nature Does. All NE is doing is providing a narrower specialization that you are more adept in. Such As forest Animals, Desert Animals, or Arctic Animals when combined with Nature.
The separation you keep forcing into things does not exist. This is because it's what the skill lets you do modified by the increased knowledge and ability with a subset of them. You cannot say that the Skill Cannot do it just because NE is involved. And you cannot say the subset does not apply when it does. If it happens to be a Forest Spider or a Forest Snake with Poison and you want to collect it. Then your going to be more aware of how to safely handle those creatures for a variety of purposes. Because of your general familiarity and your specialized familiarity.
If your Trying to Repair a car And your Specialty is German Cars. When it comes time to Change the Tires or replace the windshield wipers on your BMW. I don't get to tell you that your Specialty in German Cars doesn't apply because it's not part of the Engine. But this is exactly what your doing in this situation.
But this is what your effectively doing when your saying our increased Familiarity to these creatures does not apply when it's part of the Knowledge base of the skill to start with. There is nothing about Natural Explorer or the Skill that says anywhere that They do not apply to certain usages of the skill. it is all of the skill and then it's extra because it's all of the skill applied to a something that the skill already does that is also tied to a particular subset, which in the case of Natural Explorer is a particular kind of area.
"Harvesting poison from the Snake could apply if it's a creature natural of the Forest. So that you would better know how to deal with it to be able to extract that venom." - maybe, but once again, the vague nature of "related to your favored terrain" means that it is entirely subjective as to what does and doesn't relate, and I don't think knowing how to harvest poison would relate to terrain.
"Harvesting Poison is not entirely artificial. In Fact. Most poisons harvested from animals without killing them actually involves the natural processes of the animal to do it. Such as getting them to stab into a membrane on a vial and inject their venom themselves." - but it is a man made creation. It's not like raccoons are out there harvesting poison. My point is that it isn't something found in nature. Yes knowing that the snake is poisonous is one thing, knowing how to collect the poison is well within what a ranger would know and they would get adv off of FE, but I don't consider harvesting poison as relating to any terrain.
"And Harvesting Poisons when you kill the animals requires the proper knowledge of the animals anatomy (which is covered by nature) to be able to extract the appropriate glands and such to be able to gather the poison." - this you miss-interpreted what I meant, I mean if you came across a dear and want to know what killed it, you discover fangs and you determine that it was a giant poisonous snake and you could identify the poison around the wound.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
I am gonna toss this one out unless you can give me a scenario that makes sense as I can't think of any way that NE would apply to insight
Really? What is the cutoff point for all of these? Logic? Stepping on the rogues toes? What if it was in the forest or swamp? Would that make a difference to you?
The skill is "...determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when...predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, ...and changes in mannerisms..." If someone is insightful they are insightful. Their experiences and training would lend itself to this function. Jane Goodall was very insightful regarding gorillas in and out of their natural habitat. Tribal peoples of the rain forest are very insightful regarding everything in their known world. Actual park rangers can be extremely insightful in regards to the living creatures of their park. The dog whisperer and crocodile hunter are very insightful in regards to their chosen beasts.
Some of these I could see an argument being made regarding it being favored enemy, and I agree. But some of them are more related to their terrain of origin than the beast specifically. Plus, the favored enemy ability covers something different and in a different way. It says "...advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them." It doesn't even cover the other wisdom based abilities. Those that are experts in an animal, like Jane Goodall, blend intelligence based information AND extreme insightfulness for the creatures. She is known for her work academically on gorillas AND her compassion, communication, and insightfulness into them, their culture, body language (literally), and mannerisms.
The cutoff in the case of insight is that I can't see an instance where you would call for an insight roll that would have any connection to terrain at all. Most of the examples you provide above are talking knowing the intentions of an animal, in all of those cases I would call for either perception, nature, or animal handling depending on the situation. So unless you can provide a specific situation where you think you would use insight I am calling this one out.
I think you are hung up too much on the terrain part of the ability and making everything about the dirt and trees.
The books list examples of what each skill can/should be used for. Insight, nature, animal handling, and perception all have some conceptual crossover, but they are very different.
What the ranger “losses” of the “always on” scout style expertise they gain with the open application of others skills to the wild.
If a bear comes through the trees and stops to look at you, it is wisdom making the decisions at that point, not intelligence.
Nature is knowing its a bear.
Perception is you seeing the bear.
Insight is gleaming it’s intention and/or next move.
And you aren’t handling any bear unless you first get past it killing you or not.
See? This is where the ranger is different than the rogue. The rogue is hyper focused on a select few skills. It’s the skills themselves that the rogue is an expert at. The ranger is skillful with things related to the terrains they are an expert on.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
I am gonna toss this one out unless you can give me a scenario that makes sense as I can't think of any way that NE would apply to insight
Here's your problem. You don't get to arbitrarily toss them out if you actually want to talk about this in depth. These are the skills that are within the scope of Natural Explorer. You have to give reasons why it doesn't work.
But if you really need Ways that this can be used. Insight is the Skill that is actually used to Realize that Danger may be happening up ahead (A common story trope often triggered by ranger-esque characters in stories) because the way animals are acting. Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments for your NE skills... Or the creatures are from your appropriate environments.
Which again. All beasts have (Aside from a few un-naturally made ones that mostly don't appear naturally anyway). Pretty much any beast you look up is going to have an Entry in the Environment column here on DDB and that is for a reason. That is their natural habitat and part of the "Terrain" that they would most often be found in, interact with, and have an affect on which is what the Ranger knows all about with NE for that Terrain. Ignoring this plain sight entry that also appears on the bottom of the details page or statblock of Many Things well past just animals as Well doesn't make it go away or not apply. This is the most obvious thread about things that NE can tell you about and be useful for where ever you might encounter them.
I am not arbitrarily tossing it, I said if anyone can provide a valid reason for it to be considered, but so far I haven't heard one. I disagree that "Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments" - I would say that that if the question was "do I think I know why that bear is being aggressive?" I would say 'make either a nature or animal handling check'
"Insight - Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms."
"true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie" is clearly only for humanoids, as for "predicting someone’s next move" I can see why you could argue that this could apply to animals, but part of animal handling literally says "intuit an animal’s intentions" - so I would say that is the BETTER way to determine that. So still waiting for when you would use this.
Harvesting poison from the Snake could apply if it's a creature natural of the Forest. So that you would better know how to deal with it to be able to extract that venom.
Harvesting Poison is not entirely artificial. In Fact. Most poisons harvested from animals without killing them actually involves the natural processes of the animal to do it. Such as getting them to stab into a membrane on a vial and inject their venom themselves.
And Harvesting Poisons when you kill the animals requires the proper knowledge of the animals anatomy (which is covered by nature) to be able to extract the appropriate glands and such to be able to gather the poison.
Your insistance that this knowledge is somehow vacuumed away and has nothing to do with knowledge of the animal and the regions they are in is incorrect. Because part of knowing that environment is knowing all about the creatures and plants in it. This is exactly what Nature Does. All NE is doing is providing a narrower specialization that you are more adept in. Such As forest Animals, Desert Animals, or Arctic Animals when combined with Nature.
The separation you keep forcing into things does not exist. This is because it's what the skill lets you do modified by the increased knowledge and ability with a subset of them. You cannot say that the Skill Cannot do it just because NE is involved. And you cannot say the subset does not apply when it does. If it happens to be a Forest Spider or a Forest Snake with Poison and you want to collect it. Then your going to be more aware of how to safely handle those creatures for a variety of purposes. Because of your general familiarity and your specialized familiarity.
If your Trying to Repair a car And your Specialty is German Cars. When it comes time to Change the Tires or replace the windshield wipers on your BMW. I don't get to tell you that your Specialty in German Cars doesn't apply because it's not part of the Engine. But this is exactly what your doing in this situation.
But this is what your effectively doing when your saying our increased Familiarity to these creatures does not apply when it's part of the Knowledge base of the skill to start with. There is nothing about Natural Explorer or the Skill that says anywhere that They do not apply to certain usages of the skill. it is all of the skill and then it's extra because it's all of the skill applied to a something that the skill already does that is also tied to a particular subset, which in the case of Natural Explorer is a particular kind of area.
"Harvesting poison from the Snake could apply if it's a creature natural of the Forest. So that you would better know how to deal with it to be able to extract that venom." - maybe, but once again, the vague nature of "related to your favored terrain" means that it is entirely subjective as to what does and doesn't relate, and I don't think knowing how to harvest poison would relate to terrain.
"Harvesting Poison is not entirely artificial. In Fact. Most poisons harvested from animals without killing them actually involves the natural processes of the animal to do it. Such as getting them to stab into a membrane on a vial and inject their venom themselves." - but it is a man made creation. It's not like raccoons are out there harvesting poison. My point is that it isn't something found in nature. Yes knowing that the snake is poisonous is one thing, knowing how to collect the poison is well within what a ranger would know and they would get adv off of FE, but I don't consider harvesting poison as relating to any terrain.
"And Harvesting Poisons when you kill the animals requires the proper knowledge of the animals anatomy (which is covered by nature) to be able to extract the appropriate glands and such to be able to gather the poison." - this you miss-interpreted what I meant, I mean if you came across a dear and want to know what killed it, you discover fangs and you determine that it was a giant poisonous snake and you could identify the poison around the wound.
Harvesting Poison being a man made process in any way doesn't matter. The Poison is still natural and still comes from a natural source. There are many man made processes or impacts on environments that still would apply to understanding those environments. Because we are not magically separate from those environments either. There is plenty that a ranger is going to do or going to use or going to come up against that is man made. If your looking for snare traps... which are man made, it's still going to help to know the environment your looking for them in to understand what is out of place to narrow down what the traps are going to be. Which is completely within the Rangers Wheel House despite the fact that the very most basic thing we are talking about is the man made snare trap. Conversely the Ranger may actually be the one laying the traps. And the traps are going to perform better by understanding where to best put them. Though still technically we're talking about setting a man-made trap it's in conjunction with understanding of the environment as well.
I did not misinterpret anything. I gave you exactly what harvesting poisons is and how it is done.
But your example of coming across the deer and noticing that it's fang marks and it died by poison. That's a different application viable over the same matters. But it has nothing to do with harvesting poison which was your complaint. Which is what I addressed. Both in an animal friendly way and in a more invasive way. All of my stuff abuot knowing the creatures anatomy to gather the right glands to gather the poison is true. it's actually one of the examples listed for harvesting poisons. I happen to know about the animal friendly way because of outside matters. i also know that poison harvesting is the best way to get anti-venoms because they are usually based off of the poisons from the animals. Which is part of the reason that Poison Harvesting is even a thing to begin with. And the way they did that is by knowing the animals and understanding the animals and then through that understanding getting them to bite things that would be able to hold the poison long enough for them to study. This whole idea of using poisons to attack things is just a different application separate from the harvesting process. Natural Explorer wouldn't help you with using the poison. There is no reason it should. Nor is what I ever argued for in any way. But it is a point where knowing the environment and knowing the animal would not help you to poison another person better or make it stick to a blade or other device better for delivery. That's a different kind of knowledge.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
I am gonna toss this one out unless you can give me a scenario that makes sense as I can't think of any way that NE would apply to insight
Here's your problem. You don't get to arbitrarily toss them out if you actually want to talk about this in depth. These are the skills that are within the scope of Natural Explorer. You have to give reasons why it doesn't work.
But if you really need Ways that this can be used. Insight is the Skill that is actually used to Realize that Danger may be happening up ahead (A common story trope often triggered by ranger-esque characters in stories) because the way animals are acting. Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments for your NE skills... Or the creatures are from your appropriate environments.
Which again. All beasts have (Aside from a few un-naturally made ones that mostly don't appear naturally anyway). Pretty much any beast you look up is going to have an Entry in the Environment column here on DDB and that is for a reason. That is their natural habitat and part of the "Terrain" that they would most often be found in, interact with, and have an affect on which is what the Ranger knows all about with NE for that Terrain. Ignoring this plain sight entry that also appears on the bottom of the details page or statblock of Many Things well past just animals as Well doesn't make it go away or not apply. This is the most obvious thread about things that NE can tell you about and be useful for where ever you might encounter them.
I am not arbitrarily tossing it, I said if anyone can provide a valid reason for it to be considered, but so far I haven't heard one. I disagree that "Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments" - I would say that that if the question was "do I think I know why that bear is being aggressive?" I would say 'make either a nature or animal handling check'
"Insight - Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms."
"true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie" is clearly only for humanoids, as for "predicting someone’s next move" I can see why you could argue that this could apply to animals, but part of animal handling literally says "intuit an animal’s intentions" - so I would say that is the BETTER way to determine that. So still waiting for when you would use this.
I provided a perfectly reasonable example with the cart in the woods but to further ensure no other checks are involved, assume the ranger is actually listening to the story in a tavern where there is no possibility of actually examining the site before deciding to believe them or not.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
I am gonna toss this one out unless you can give me a scenario that makes sense as I can't think of any way that NE would apply to insight
Here's your problem. You don't get to arbitrarily toss them out if you actually want to talk about this in depth. These are the skills that are within the scope of Natural Explorer. You have to give reasons why it doesn't work.
But if you really need Ways that this can be used. Insight is the Skill that is actually used to Realize that Danger may be happening up ahead (A common story trope often triggered by ranger-esque characters in stories) because the way animals are acting. Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments for your NE skills... Or the creatures are from your appropriate environments.
Which again. All beasts have (Aside from a few un-naturally made ones that mostly don't appear naturally anyway). Pretty much any beast you look up is going to have an Entry in the Environment column here on DDB and that is for a reason. That is their natural habitat and part of the "Terrain" that they would most often be found in, interact with, and have an affect on which is what the Ranger knows all about with NE for that Terrain. Ignoring this plain sight entry that also appears on the bottom of the details page or statblock of Many Things well past just animals as Well doesn't make it go away or not apply. This is the most obvious thread about things that NE can tell you about and be useful for where ever you might encounter them.
I am not arbitrarily tossing it, I said if anyone can provide a valid reason for it to be considered, but so far I haven't heard one. I disagree that "Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments" - I would say that that if the question was "do I think I know why that bear is being aggressive?" I would say 'make either a nature or animal handling check'
"Insight - Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms."
"true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie" is clearly only for humanoids, as for "predicting someone’s next move" I can see why you could argue that this could apply to animals, but part of animal handling literally says "intuit an animal’s intentions" - so I would say that is the BETTER way to determine that. So still waiting for when you would use this.
I provided a perfectly reasonable example with the cart in the woods but to further it assume the ranger is actually listening to the story in a tavern where there is no possibility of actually examining the site before deciding to believe them or not.
Also Things like Dragons, Beholders, Elementals, and Djinn can all lie to you but none of them are humanoids. So the argument clearly only for humanoids goes bust right htere. There are just too many creatures that aren't humanoid that verbal and non-verbal communication is capable with for it to just be about humanoids. If it was just about humanoids they wouldn't have bothered with the word Creature in the first place. The whole thing in that sentence about lies or knowing something's next move are also just placeholder examples. They are not the be all and End All of uses for that particular part of insight.
Edit: Also. Overlap in skills capabilities also does not invalidate a use of a skill. it just creates a situation where there are two ways to approach the same thing and both may be applicable. This is not unheard of in D&D and is actually accepted as possible in the rules in many ways.
This is a long running conversation continuation from the below and is focused on NE.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/class-forums/ranger/59728-why-does-ranger-suck?page=32#c638
I think if we're going to go so far as to make yet another Thread about this. Then we're really going to have to do a couple of things.
One of those things is actually listing out the normal Skills at least that Can conceivably have Natural Explorer applied in some Way. There are 10 of them in Total. It's slightly more than Half of the Full List. Some of these once we set them out for All to See it's going to be easier to find reasons why it applies in various ways than others. But I'll just go down the list in Alphabetical Order. I will also make a couple of comments on certain ones. it's my Effort to try and clarify a couple things a little.
Animal Handling - This skill is pretty simple and immediate in scope. It's all about calming beasts, Controlling Mounts when spooked or during risky maneuvers like combat, Or being able to guess and understand an animals intentions when you run across it. It's basically our Wisdom Based limited Social Skill for Beasts.
Arcana - This is basically our Magic and Planes Knowledge Skill. It governs and represent a characters ability to recall lore about spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, the planes of existence, and the inhabitants of those planes. At first blush it seems like an odd one for Rangers. But this is one of the skills involved in Elementals, Demons, and Celestials.
History - This is basically what it's name says. it covers the Historical stuff. It's the Primary way to show an ability to recall lore about historical events, legendary people, ancient kingdoms, past disputes, recent wars, and lost civilizations. Not just for Humans but for All kinds of Races.
Insight - This is one of the social skills on the list but it does actually apply to Rangers in a few different ways since Favored Foes are a thing. But i want to note this applies to creatures in General. Not just Humanoids so things like Dragons and all those other things can be viable for this skill too. This Skill governs whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms.
Investigation - This is our Detailed Search and Deductive Reasoning Skill. this is the one we use to potentially deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse. Poring through ancient scrolls in search of a hidden fragment of knowledge might also call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check.
Medicine - This is our First Aid Skill. This is things like Diagnosing Poisoning and Illness or Stabilizing a Dying Person, or providing Extending Care. It's another Very Basic and mostly straight forward skill again.
Nature - This is the Knowledge about terrain, plants and animals, the weather, and natural cycles. This is the Bread and Butter of Natural Explorer. this is all the kind of knowledge that most anybody that thinks Ranger is thinking about. All basically wrapped up into a Single Knowledge. That's why there are few Rangers or Druids that don't take it. If There is a Skill where we should be asking why it doesn't apply rather than why it does apply. This is it all wrapped up in one place.
Perception - This is the skill that governs spotting things and is another very immediate skill. Honestly it may be one of the hardest to justify reasons to use it out of certain Terrains when it comes to Natural Explorer. It's whole thing is that it lets you spot, hear, or otherwise detect the presence of something. It measures your general awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses. To Provide Terrain to that most of the time. your going to have to be in that Terrain.
Religion - This is the Skill that is all about the Knowledge about deities, rites and prayers, religious hierarchies, holy symbols, and the practices of secret cults.
Survival - if Nature is the Skill that encompasses everything that Rangers Know. This is the Skill that covers everything stereotypically seen as what Rangers Do. This is the Skill to follow tracks, hunt wild game, guide your group through frozen wastelands, identify signs that owlbears live nearby, predict the weather, or avoid quicksand and other natural hazards. This is again something that few Rangers and Druids Go without because it's physical application of interacting with Nature.
These 10 skills are all the Intelligence and Wisdom Based Skills that could end up with Expertise if a Ranger has Proficiency in them when it comes to Natural Explorer. Some of them have Very Obvious Usage. Some are a little more niche. But these are all the things we are talking about when it comes to Natural Explorer in Truth. We are not just talking about Mountains or Forests or Deserts And simply being in them. We Are Actually Talking about it the other way around. We are talking about These Skills Above and how they might be used or applied to various things about those Terrains, often regardless of where we are. These are our Basis for what can potentially be Done with Natural Explorer.
This is our Realistic and Objective Starting Point. This is what Natural Explorer builds off of. They don't care about Natural Explorer. Natural Explorer cares about them and what they do.
A simple question to establish context.
A PHB beasmaster ranger has both forests and beasts as favored enemy. They have a poisonous snake from their home forest. While their pet is sleeping (incapacitated) They should be able to attemt a harvest check. DC20 Poison kit check OR DC 20 nature check.( Per DMG) IF the character fails by 5 or more they take damage.
Situation 1: a lvl 14 assassin's rogue who has never seen a beast would have a minimum of 10 on their roll + expertise: poisoners kit would mean it would be impossible for them to miss an hurt themselves even if they have never interacted with the beast before. secondly Their skill would work on spiders, scorpions and even Poisonous daemon creatures or monstrosities.
Situation 2: the 14 ranger who owns the pet. who has generic survival training an may have been doing this their whole career . They should have their dc20 nature with advantage and double prof (forests) they can still fail enough to poison themselves. There skill is will not work on daemons or scorpions or creatures out side their NE (also FE)choices. However, even though the ranger's abbility has a danger element to it a theoretical benefit is they would get partial bonus On some extra skills.
And people claim situation 2 is overpowered and an abuse of the rules.
First of all. We're talking about slightly different sets of skills here.
Situation 1. This whole detail your putting in of never seen a beast. Everybody should call BS on this. Unless they live in a super clean futuristic robot city. Never having seen a beast is impossible. Second the Assassin with the Poisoners kit has particular knowledge of handling the dangerous nature of poisons specifically. Secondly. You put Expertise in there like it's something guaranteed. It's not. The only way they can get expertise is to either use 1 of their 4 expertises on it or to use Xanathar's and also have proficiency in nature. Since your establishing neither of these. The Assassin is actually now in a situation where all of their abilities still equal a failure unless you make a good reason why harvesting the poison is Dexterity when Really it's more of an Intelligence or Wisdom check. So Your looking at somewhere between a 15 and an 18 usually For the Rogue even with Reliable talent. Which ends up being somewhere between being saved by not being able to poison themselves and simply failing. This means that they will have to roll and likely need somewhere between a 12 and a 15 to just be barely successful. So in other words to make this an automatically successful thing this is going to require class resources to reach that point Either proficiencies in particular skills or using up one of their expertises or what have you to just barely succeed.
Sitation 2. Yes it's a DC20 nature check for the Ranger with what you gave. But here's some things to keep in mind. Failure is possible But it's not easy For the Ranger. And it only works on a few animals if Forest is your Favored Terrain (Desert is actually a better terrain). Such as the pet you've found that has poison. There are a few. But the things it only works on those few. But let's really look at it mathematically. the Functional Expertise in Nature that the Ranger has is already a +10. Intelligence could easily be a +1 or +2. Advantage would require a Favored Foe of beasts as well. So the Ranger needs to roll only an 8 or 9 and they have Advantage on the roll so they take the better of 2 rolls assuming you do actually line up all of these various details to make it all work. This means that they have to roll the dice twice and still get a 7 or less. But poisoning themselves is almost impossible and is extremely bad luck. Because you have to have 2 rolls that are effectively 2 or 3 at their highest on both rolls. so we're almost talking double 1's on advantage rolls territory. It's not impossible but it's extremely rare. So functionally the Ranger is also immune to taking poison damage from doing harvesting Poison for the most part. But this also only works on a small handful of creatures when everything is put together as well. Without the Advantage from Favored Foe there is marginally more chance to actually be poisoned and is a completely possible scenario but it's still fairly low because it still takes a very low dice roll.
Realistically there are potentially easier ways to get some or most of scenerio 2 quite easily and perhaps with more general usage than taking all of that effort to harvest what is basically going to be a weak and easily resisted poison.
The phrase " never had seen a beast" was confusing. I intended to say a specific beast as a generic term. examples would be "Never seen a giant constrictor" or "never seen a scorpion". I still think the grammar was correct but highly misleading. My bad. Ultimately it was not a major detail except to show limited interaction with Venom harvesting.
The point was the poisoners kit basically gets free training with with creatures in general for harvesting poison even though they have no defined affinity for it. Yes the expertise was assumed as a poisoner build but that was just so we could have comparable builds. (weather or not you assume they are good builds is kind of irrelevant) I picked it an example to show how mechanics and theme interact. The choices made to be a good poisoner don't care about the individual types (Harvested vs crafted). The mechanical skill associations come first then the fiction not the other way around. So the rogue training just assumes they know how to deal with the animal. Maybe they learned from books or had a mentor or had actual practice. So, if the rouge assumes an broad interpretation why shouldn't the ranger?
The whole scenario was designed to show FT is a necessity to work on beasts and that the game dose not care where the skills come from. it only cares how they apply. In the end you didn't like the build but agreed with the main point. They are comparable and the ranger should both get a bonus from both FT(Doubled prof) and FE(advantage)
IF one were to take the assumption that favored enemy and Favored terrain were incompatible it greatly reduces the effectiveness of natural explorer.
I am gonna toss this one out unless you can give me a scenario that makes sense as I can't think of any way that NE would apply to insight
Advantage because of FE yes, expertise because of NE no. Harvesting poison from a snake is not related to the forest. Harvesting poison is not something that happens in nature, it is an entirely artificial process. You want NE on the nature check to identify what killed an animal or a traveler, sounds good, you want advantage because it was an animal, you got it.
Now if I am playing in that game and the DM gives NE and FE, I am not going to object, they can make that decision.
Harvesting poison from the Snake could apply if it's a creature natural of the Forest. So that you would better know how to deal with it to be able to extract that venom.
Harvesting Poison is not entirely artificial. In Fact. Most poisons harvested from animals without killing them actually involves the natural processes of the animal to do it. Such as getting them to stab into a membrane on a vial and inject their venom themselves.
And Harvesting Poisons when you kill the animals requires the proper knowledge of the animals anatomy (which is covered by nature) to be able to extract the appropriate glands and such to be able to gather the poison.
Your insistance that this knowledge is somehow vacuumed away and has nothing to do with knowledge of the animal and the regions they are in is incorrect. Because part of knowing that environment is knowing all about the creatures and plants in it. This is exactly what Nature Does. All NE is doing is providing a narrower specialization that you are more adept in. Such As forest Animals, Desert Animals, or Arctic Animals when combined with Nature.
The separation you keep forcing into things does not exist. This is because it's what the skill lets you do modified by the increased knowledge and ability with a subset of them. You cannot say that the Skill Cannot do it just because NE is involved. And you cannot say the subset does not apply when it does. If it happens to be a Forest Spider or a Forest Snake with Poison and you want to collect it. Then your going to be more aware of how to safely handle those creatures for a variety of purposes. Because of your general familiarity and your specialized familiarity.
If your Trying to Repair a car And your Specialty is German Cars. When it comes time to Change the Tires or replace the windshield wipers on your BMW. I don't get to tell you that your Specialty in German Cars doesn't apply because it's not part of the Engine. But this is exactly what your doing in this situation.
But this is what your effectively doing when your saying our increased Familiarity to these creatures does not apply when it's part of the Knowledge base of the skill to start with. There is nothing about Natural Explorer or the Skill that says anywhere that They do not apply to certain usages of the skill. it is all of the skill and then it's extra because it's all of the skill applied to a something that the skill already does that is also tied to a particular subset, which in the case of Natural Explorer is a particular kind of area.
Really? What is the cutoff point for all of these? Logic? Stepping on the rogues toes? What if it was in the forest or swamp? Would that make a difference to you?
The skill is "...determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when...predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, ...and changes in mannerisms..." If someone is insightful they are insightful. Their experiences and training would lend itself to this function. Jane Goodall was very insightful regarding gorillas in and out of their natural habitat. Tribal peoples of the rain forest are very insightful regarding everything in their known world. Actual park rangers can be extremely insightful in regards to the living creatures of their park. The dog whisperer and crocodile hunter are very insightful in regards to their chosen beasts.
Some of these I could see an argument being made regarding it being favored enemy, and I agree. But some of them are more related to their terrain of origin than the beast specifically. Plus, the favored enemy ability covers something different and in a different way. It says "...advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them." It doesn't even cover the other wisdom based abilities. Those that are experts in an animal, like Jane Goodall, blend intelligence based information AND extreme insightfulness for the creatures. She is known for her work academically on gorillas AND her compassion, communication, and insightfulness into them, their culture, body language (literally), and mannerisms.
In fact, I would argue strongly that insight and animal handling are not only proficiencies of the above listed real life types of people, but they are literally experts in these skills.
Here's your problem. You don't get to arbitrarily toss them out if you actually want to talk about this in depth. These are the skills that are within the scope of Natural Explorer. You have to give reasons why it doesn't work.
But if you really need Ways that this can be used. Insight is the Skill that is actually used to Realize that Danger may be happening up ahead (A common story trope often triggered by ranger-esque characters in stories) because the way animals are acting. Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments for your NE skills... Or the creatures are from your appropriate environments.
Which again. All beasts have (Aside from a few un-naturally made ones that mostly don't appear naturally anyway). Pretty much any beast you look up is going to have an Entry in the Environment column here on DDB and that is for a reason. That is their natural habitat and part of the "Terrain" that they would most often be found in, interact with, and have an affect on which is what the Ranger knows all about with NE for that Terrain. Ignoring this plain sight entry that also appears on the bottom of the details page or statblock of Many Things well past just animals as Well doesn't make it go away or not apply. This is the most obvious thread about things that NE can tell you about and be useful for where ever you might encounter them.
There is a reason why beasts have low intelligence but decent wisdom.
Insight
How about A party is traveling through a forest and Meets a broken down wagon. The cleric driving the wagon is named Schrodinger. He starts telling the tale about how a certain creature stalked the wagon and then describes the actual attack. Is he lying or telling the truth?
The rangers Knowledge can provide insight into the story signaling red flags. Wait this terrain is too rocky for tracks to get that deep over a 10min rainstorm the ground wouln't be soft enough? Wait you said a creature attacked when the plant right next to the wagon irritates the sinus of said creature?
They could also confirm some ridiculous part that is true. the bright sunny day where the cleric claims it rained but the only wet spot is next to some broken casks. His knowledge of the mud/clay in the area would allow quick estimates to if the rainstorm out of nowhere timeline is reasonable.
"Harvesting poison from the Snake could apply if it's a creature natural of the Forest. So that you would better know how to deal with it to be able to extract that venom." - maybe, but once again, the vague nature of "related to your favored terrain" means that it is entirely subjective as to what does and doesn't relate, and I don't think knowing how to harvest poison would relate to terrain.
"Harvesting Poison is not entirely artificial. In Fact. Most poisons harvested from animals without killing them actually involves the natural processes of the animal to do it. Such as getting them to stab into a membrane on a vial and inject their venom themselves." - but it is a man made creation. It's not like raccoons are out there harvesting poison. My point is that it isn't something found in nature. Yes knowing that the snake is poisonous is one thing, knowing how to collect the poison is well within what a ranger would know and they would get adv off of FE, but I don't consider harvesting poison as relating to any terrain.
"And Harvesting Poisons when you kill the animals requires the proper knowledge of the animals anatomy (which is covered by nature) to be able to extract the appropriate glands and such to be able to gather the poison." - this you miss-interpreted what I meant, I mean if you came across a dear and want to know what killed it, you discover fangs and you determine that it was a giant poisonous snake and you could identify the poison around the wound.
The cutoff in the case of insight is that I can't see an instance where you would call for an insight roll that would have any connection to terrain at all. Most of the examples you provide above are talking knowing the intentions of an animal, in all of those cases I would call for either perception, nature, or animal handling depending on the situation. So unless you can provide a specific situation where you think you would use insight I am calling this one out.
I think you are hung up too much on the terrain part of the ability and making everything about the dirt and trees.
The books list examples of what each skill can/should be used for. Insight, nature, animal handling, and perception all have some conceptual crossover, but they are very different.
What the ranger “losses” of the “always on” scout style expertise they gain with the open application of others skills to the wild.
If a bear comes through the trees and stops to look at you, it is wisdom making the decisions at that point, not intelligence.
Nature is knowing its a bear.
Perception is you seeing the bear.
Insight is gleaming it’s intention and/or next move.
And you aren’t handling any bear unless you first get past it killing you or not.
See? This is where the ranger is different than the rogue. The rogue is hyper focused on a select few skills. It’s the skills themselves that the rogue is an expert at. The ranger is skillful with things related to the terrains they are an expert on.
I am not arbitrarily tossing it, I said if anyone can provide a valid reason for it to be considered, but so far I haven't heard one.
I disagree that "Insight is also the Skill used to Realize that An Animal is only acting Aggressive because it's protecting it's Young that you dont' readily see. This could come into play either because your in the appropriate environments" - I would say that that if the question was "do I think I know why that bear is being aggressive?" I would say 'make either a nature or animal handling check'
"Insight - Your Wisdom (Insight) check decides whether you can determine the true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie or predicting someone’s next move. Doing so involves gleaning clues from body language, speech habits, and changes in mannerisms."
"true intentions of a creature, such as when searching out a lie" is clearly only for humanoids, as for "predicting someone’s next move" I can see why you could argue that this could apply to animals, but part of animal handling literally says "intuit an animal’s intentions" - so I would say that is the BETTER way to determine that. So still waiting for when you would use this.
Harvesting Poison being a man made process in any way doesn't matter. The Poison is still natural and still comes from a natural source. There are many man made processes or impacts on environments that still would apply to understanding those environments. Because we are not magically separate from those environments either. There is plenty that a ranger is going to do or going to use or going to come up against that is man made. If your looking for snare traps... which are man made, it's still going to help to know the environment your looking for them in to understand what is out of place to narrow down what the traps are going to be. Which is completely within the Rangers Wheel House despite the fact that the very most basic thing we are talking about is the man made snare trap. Conversely the Ranger may actually be the one laying the traps. And the traps are going to perform better by understanding where to best put them. Though still technically we're talking about setting a man-made trap it's in conjunction with understanding of the environment as well.
I did not misinterpret anything. I gave you exactly what harvesting poisons is and how it is done.
But your example of coming across the deer and noticing that it's fang marks and it died by poison. That's a different application viable over the same matters. But it has nothing to do with harvesting poison which was your complaint. Which is what I addressed. Both in an animal friendly way and in a more invasive way. All of my stuff abuot knowing the creatures anatomy to gather the right glands to gather the poison is true. it's actually one of the examples listed for harvesting poisons. I happen to know about the animal friendly way because of outside matters. i also know that poison harvesting is the best way to get anti-venoms because they are usually based off of the poisons from the animals. Which is part of the reason that Poison Harvesting is even a thing to begin with. And the way they did that is by knowing the animals and understanding the animals and then through that understanding getting them to bite things that would be able to hold the poison long enough for them to study. This whole idea of using poisons to attack things is just a different application separate from the harvesting process. Natural Explorer wouldn't help you with using the poison. There is no reason it should. Nor is what I ever argued for in any way. But it is a point where knowing the environment and knowing the animal would not help you to poison another person better or make it stick to a blade or other device better for delivery. That's a different kind of knowledge.
I provided a perfectly reasonable example with the cart in the woods but to further ensure no other checks are involved, assume the ranger is actually listening to the story in a tavern where there is no possibility of actually examining the site before deciding to believe them or not.
Also Things like Dragons, Beholders, Elementals, and Djinn can all lie to you but none of them are humanoids. So the argument clearly only for humanoids goes bust right htere. There are just too many creatures that aren't humanoid that verbal and non-verbal communication is capable with for it to just be about humanoids. If it was just about humanoids they wouldn't have bothered with the word Creature in the first place. The whole thing in that sentence about lies or knowing something's next move are also just placeholder examples. They are not the be all and End All of uses for that particular part of insight.
Edit: Also. Overlap in skills capabilities also does not invalidate a use of a skill. it just creates a situation where there are two ways to approach the same thing and both may be applicable. This is not unheard of in D&D and is actually accepted as possible in the rules in many ways.