This ability gives a jump start on everything that is travel and exploration based. Tracking, hunting, sealing, keeping watch, etc. The 1 mile is what makes it a wonderful outdoor ability. (How long and how many scout rogues would it take to gather that information?) Inside, underground, or at a urban city environment it’s even more powerful. Instant information! How many undead, dragons, aberrations, etc. are supposed to be in a civilized town/city area? None, hopefully. And as an action and the cheap cost of a level 1 spell slot a ranger can confirm this it set everyone on alert.
A mile is the size allowing narrowing down of a area the size of an estate building, opera house or small city district. Just know a daemon is at the local palace might be half the battle when they are attempting to hide.
Tashas is good but I can do most of it via ritual caster druid but primeval awareness is unique.
A mile is the size allowing narrowing down of a area the size of an estate building, opera house or small city district. Just know a daemon is at the local palace might be half the battle when they are attempting to hide.
Tashas is good but I can do most of it via ritual caster druid but primeval awareness is unique.
You wouldn't get Locate Creature or Speak with Plants from those feats so its not comparable.
Also the tashas ranger could get the same feat, get DIFFERENT rituals (find familiar, Alarm), and be able to cast the spells they get as rituals effectively doubling the value of the feat....so apples to apples Tasha's is still better.
EDIT: Turns out the feat does not allow you to cast the ritual spells you know as rituals....which makes the feat a lot worse overall....but If you picked Druid Ritual Caster I do not see a reasonable DM allowing you to NOT do this but RAW its not possible.
I really, really dislike the wording/rules on Primeval Awareness in particular "For 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend". So what does two minutes buy that one minute doesn't? "Oh man I am sorry you only get some of the information because you only spent 1 minute."
That is just an invitation for the DM not to actually let you use your ability.
I think there's merit in Grimus and Bill's argument that PHB primeval awareness provides low information for a spell slot. Note that the duration scales with slot level, which is at odds with the high range of the ability, as the larger the ability's range, the less useful it is to have a higher duration and exploit that duration by moving around to try and nail down where your quarry is. Bill's suggestion of pb/long rest or the Tasha's replacement on a conceptual level (one use for free, additional uses for a slot) would both improve the cost/benefit ratio.
Only bringing this up because we were just discussing Paladins vs Rangers, but let's compare the abilities the two get along these lines:
Ranger: Level acquired: 3. Uses per long rest: Consumes a spell slot. Action economy: 1 action. Duration: 1 minute per slot. Benefit: You learn if any creatures from 7 of the 13 types that exist are within a large (1 or 6 miles) distance of you.
Paladin: Level acquired: 1. Uses per long rest: Cha+1, no slot consumed. Action economy: 1 action. Duration: 1 round. Benefit: You learn if any creatures of 3 of the 13 types that exist are within a medium-sized (60 feet) distance of you; detected creatures reveal their type and location, so you also learn quantity. You also learn if any consecrated or desecrated objects are within range.
The bottom one is generally better, and a big part of why that is is that it doesn't cost a slot to do, so the information provided doesn't need to be particularly, well, informative, in order to warrant its cost. Primeval Awareness could be modified to be 1+Wis/long rest (just cut the duration to 1 minute or 1 round - the duration is nearly immaterial, given its range) and it would not be overpowered, which also means it could be pb/long rest, which would be weaker, without being overpowered.
This ability gives a jump start on everything that is travel and exploration based. Tracking, hunting, sealing, keeping watch, etc. The 1 mile is what makes it a wonderful outdoor ability. (How long and how many scout rogues would it take to gather that information?) Inside, underground, or at a urban city environment it’s even more powerful. Instant information! How many undead, dragons, aberrations, etc. are supposed to be in a civilized town/city area? None, hopefully. And as an action and the cheap cost of a level 1 spell slot a ranger can confirm this it set everyone on alert.
In a city, the ability will generally always respond "yes", because all 3 possible types for a wizard or druid's familiar are covered by the ability. If you're somewhere with a low enough population that there aren't any casters with familiars, the ability becomes more useful, so it's more useful the lower the local population density, and hence at maximum utility in untamed wilderness.
I really, really dislike the wording/rules on Primeval Awareness in particular "For 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend". So what does two minutes buy that one minute doesn't? "Oh man I am sorry you only get some of the information because you only spent 1 minute."
That is just an invitation for the DM not to actually let you use your ability.
If the ability had radically lower range, duration would be incredibly useful, because you could use your personal mobility to move your sensor ping, and nail down the location of whatever you were looking for. You can still use it this way, but you'll be a mile (or 6 miles) away from where you nail down the target's location.
This ability gives a jump start on everything that is travel and exploration based. Tracking, hunting, sealing, keeping watch, etc. The 1 mile is what makes it a wonderful outdoor ability. (How long and how many scout rogues would it take to gather that information?) Inside, underground, or at a urban city environment it’s even more powerful. Instant information! How many undead, dragons, aberrations, etc. are supposed to be in a civilized town/city area? None, hopefully. And as an action and the cheap cost of a level 1 spell slot a ranger can confirm this it set everyone on alert.
In a city, the ability will generally always respond "yes", because all 3 possible types for a wizard or druid's familiar are covered by the ability. If you're somewhere with a low enough population that there aren't any casters with familiars, the ability becomes more useful, so it's more useful the lower the local population density, and hence at maximum utility in untamed wilderness.
The ability tells you yes/no for each creature type.
Its a mile in any direction though so its a full square mile or 27878400 square feet.
So it would be like knowing something is in Central Park in NY but not knowing where it is....
Its not super helpful IMO.
It's probably more spherical, which would be... ≈6.16581×10^11 cubic feet. You could, generally, halve that for things below ground; minus obstacles that take up space like buildings, changes in terrain, trees, and so forth. But the area is a red herring.
A mile is barely a 20 minute walk. It's less than half the time needed for a short rest. The exact where they are doesn't matter. It's how close they are in terms of time.
Is no one tired of finding (repeating) ways to find ways an ability doesn’t work? Primeval awareness is very good in game. The people who don’t like it seem to be the same people that don’t like things like natural explorer, overland travel, and wilderness exploration in general. That really makes me suspicious about whether it’s poor abilities or poor uses of abilities.
Here’s a different take. People think Paladins are “strong”. I find paladins boring, and think paladins need all of the little stuff they get because, one, their subclasses are also boring, and two, each thing covers for something they are pigeon holed into. Paladins are like bumper bowling D&D.
The rest of the ranger kit allows primeval awareness to be useful. I’m sorry several of you think it’s bad or useless.
Its a mile in any direction though so its a full square mile or 27878400 square feet.
So it would be like knowing something is in Central Park in NY but not knowing where it is....
Its not super helpful IMO.
It's probably more spherical, which would be... ≈6.16581×10^11 cubic feet. You could, generally, halve that for things below ground; minus obstacles that take up space like buildings, changes in terrain, trees, and so forth. But the area is a red herring.
A mile is barely a 20 minute walk. It's less than half the time needed for a short rest. The exact where they are doesn't matter. It's how close they are in terms of time.
Still a massive area to search...granted if you do find a way to track them it narrows the search a lot.
Overall as a DM and as a player I have literally never seen it work to do much other than frustrate players with the value.
It’s too bad rangers don’t have ways to ignore difficult terrain, have advantage tracking different creature types, have experience tracking and hunting in different terrain landscapes, have the ability to conjures 8 flying beasts that can be ridden, or have a loyal beast that can spy/scout for you that you can magical speak with or use it’s senses as your own.
It’s too bad rangers don’t have ways to ignore difficult terrain, have advantage tracking different creature types, have experience tracking and hunting in different terrain landscapes, have the ability to conjures 8 flying beasts that can be ridden, or have a loyal beast that can spy/scout for you that you can magical speak with or use it’s senses as your own.
Dang.
Yeah only if they could do this in every terrain or even a city! Oh wait.....
It’s too bad rangers don’t have ways to ignore difficult terrain, have advantage tracking different creature types, have experience tracking and hunting in different terrain landscapes, have the ability to conjures 8 flying beasts that can be ridden, or have a loyal beast that can spy/scout for you that you can magical speak with or use it’s senses as your own.
Dang.
Yeah only if they could do this in every terrain or even a city! Oh wait.....
No need. The amount of interaction, crossover, and symbiotic interaction between their abilities, features, and spells means that always have a couple of tools for the job.
It’s too bad rangers don’t have ways to ignore difficult terrain, have advantage tracking different creature types, have experience tracking and hunting in different terrain landscapes, have the ability to conjures 8 flying beasts that can be ridden, or have a loyal beast that can spy/scout for you that you can magical speak with or use it’s senses as your own.
Dang.
Yeah only if they could do this in every terrain or even a city! Oh wait.....
No need. The amount of interaction, crossover, and symbiotic interaction between their abilities, features, and spells means that always have a couple of tools for the job.
Agree to disagree as I am not going down that pathway again that we clearly disagree on...
I will just say that Tasha's gives those tools and more so its moot overall for both of us I suspect.
It’s too bad rangers don’t have ways to ignore difficult terrain, have advantage tracking different creature types, have experience tracking and hunting in different terrain landscapes, have the ability to conjures 8 flying beasts that can be ridden, or have a loyal beast that can spy/scout for you that you can magical speak with or use it’s senses as your own.
Dang.
Yeah only if they could do this in every terrain or even a city! Oh wait.....
No need. The amount of interaction, crossover, and symbiotic interaction between their abilities, features, and spells means that always have a couple of tools for the job.
Agree to disagree as I am not going down that pathway again that we clearly disagree on...
I will just say that Tasha's gives those tools and more so its moot overall for both of us I suspect.
the extra time isn't actually harmful because it's an out of combat ability. The information is limited but unbeatable and unique.
And we have already shown rangers have the potential to not use up all their slots on a regular basis. The fact that its another spell slot option that can help next day adventurers is huge and rarely an actual waste.
I like the fact that rangers have so many rewards for saving resources to spend at the right time that help the next day or throughout the rest period.
Still a massive area to search...granted if you do find a way to track them it narrows the search a lot.
Favored Enemy is the way to track that narrows the search down a lot. If you have, say, fiends as your Favored Enemy, Primeval Awareness tells you there are fiends in the area and then you have advantage to tracking them from FE.
The idea of the Ranger features, specifically Favored Enemy/Natural Explorer/Primeval Awareness, was for each feature to proc the other one and for all three to work together to make you the best tracker in the game. Whether or not they succeed at this or not, I will leave open to interpretation.
I like the fact that rangers have so many rewards for saving resources to spend at the right time that help the next day.
I agree wit this. Rangers are great at conserving resources and getting the most out of a single spell slot. This helps them stay fresh and ready to keep adventuring in a given day compared to other classes.
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This ability gives a jump start on everything that is travel and exploration based. Tracking, hunting, sealing, keeping watch, etc. The 1 mile is what makes it a wonderful outdoor ability. (How long and how many scout rogues would it take to gather that information?) Inside, underground, or at a urban city environment it’s even more powerful. Instant information! How many undead, dragons, aberrations, etc. are supposed to be in a civilized town/city area? None, hopefully. And as an action and the cheap cost of a level 1 spell slot a ranger can confirm this it set everyone on alert.
A mile is the size allowing narrowing down of a area the size of an estate building, opera house or small city district. Just know a daemon is at the local palace might be half the battle when they are attempting to hide.
Tashas is good but I can do most of it via ritual caster druid but primeval awareness is unique.
Its a mile in any direction though so its a full square mile or 27878400 square feet.
So it would be like knowing something is in Central Park in NY but not knowing where it is....
Its not super helpful IMO.
You wouldn't get Locate Creature or Speak with Plants from those feats so its not comparable.
Also the tashas ranger could get the same feat, get DIFFERENT rituals (find familiar, Alarm), and be able to cast the spells they get as rituals effectively doubling the value of the feat....so apples to apples Tasha's is still better.
EDIT: Turns out the feat does not allow you to cast the ritual spells you know as rituals....which makes the feat a lot worse overall....but If you picked Druid Ritual Caster I do not see a reasonable DM allowing you to NOT do this but RAW its not possible.
I really, really dislike the wording/rules on Primeval Awareness in particular "For 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend". So what does two minutes buy that one minute doesn't? "Oh man I am sorry you only get some of the information because you only spent 1 minute."
That is just an invitation for the DM not to actually let you use your ability.
I think there's merit in Grimus and Bill's argument that PHB primeval awareness provides low information for a spell slot. Note that the duration scales with slot level, which is at odds with the high range of the ability, as the larger the ability's range, the less useful it is to have a higher duration and exploit that duration by moving around to try and nail down where your quarry is. Bill's suggestion of pb/long rest or the Tasha's replacement on a conceptual level (one use for free, additional uses for a slot) would both improve the cost/benefit ratio.
Only bringing this up because we were just discussing Paladins vs Rangers, but let's compare the abilities the two get along these lines:
Ranger: Level acquired: 3. Uses per long rest: Consumes a spell slot. Action economy: 1 action. Duration: 1 minute per slot. Benefit: You learn if any creatures from 7 of the 13 types that exist are within a large (1 or 6 miles) distance of you.
Paladin: Level acquired: 1. Uses per long rest: Cha+1, no slot consumed. Action economy: 1 action. Duration: 1 round. Benefit: You learn if any creatures of 3 of the 13 types that exist are within a medium-sized (60 feet) distance of you; detected creatures reveal their type and location, so you also learn quantity. You also learn if any consecrated or desecrated objects are within range.
The bottom one is generally better, and a big part of why that is is that it doesn't cost a slot to do, so the information provided doesn't need to be particularly, well, informative, in order to warrant its cost. Primeval Awareness could be modified to be 1+Wis/long rest (just cut the duration to 1 minute or 1 round - the duration is nearly immaterial, given its range) and it would not be overpowered, which also means it could be pb/long rest, which would be weaker, without being overpowered.
In a city, the ability will generally always respond "yes", because all 3 possible types for a wizard or druid's familiar are covered by the ability. If you're somewhere with a low enough population that there aren't any casters with familiars, the ability becomes more useful, so it's more useful the lower the local population density, and hence at maximum utility in untamed wilderness.
If the ability had radically lower range, duration would be incredibly useful, because you could use your personal mobility to move your sensor ping, and nail down the location of whatever you were looking for. You can still use it this way, but you'll be a mile (or 6 miles) away from where you nail down the target's location.
The ability tells you yes/no for each creature type.
It's probably more spherical, which would be... ≈6.16581×10^11 cubic feet. You could, generally, halve that for things below ground; minus obstacles that take up space like buildings, changes in terrain, trees, and so forth. But the area is a red herring.
A mile is barely a 20 minute walk. It's less than half the time needed for a short rest. The exact where they are doesn't matter. It's how close they are in terms of time.
Is no one tired of finding (repeating) ways to find ways an ability doesn’t work? Primeval awareness is very good in game. The people who don’t like it seem to be the same people that don’t like things like natural explorer, overland travel, and wilderness exploration in general. That really makes me suspicious about whether it’s poor abilities or poor uses of abilities.
Here’s a different take. People think Paladins are “strong”. I find paladins boring, and think paladins need all of the little stuff they get because, one, their subclasses are also boring, and two, each thing covers for something they are pigeon holed into. Paladins are like bumper bowling D&D.
The rest of the ranger kit allows primeval awareness to be useful. I’m sorry several of you think it’s bad or useless.
Still a massive area to search...granted if you do find a way to track them it narrows the search a lot.
Overall as a DM and as a player I have literally never seen it work to do much other than frustrate players with the value.
It’s too bad rangers don’t have ways to ignore difficult terrain, have advantage tracking different creature types, have experience tracking and hunting in different terrain landscapes, have the ability to conjures 8 flying beasts that can be ridden, or have a loyal beast that can spy/scout for you that you can magical speak with or use it’s senses as your own.
Dang.
Yeah only if they could do this in every terrain or even a city! Oh wait.....
No need. The amount of interaction, crossover, and symbiotic interaction between their abilities, features, and spells means that always have a couple of tools for the job.
Agree to disagree as I am not going down that pathway again that we clearly disagree on...
I will just say that Tasha's gives those tools and more so its moot overall for both of us I suspect.
Ok. Truce.
the extra time isn't actually harmful because it's an out of combat ability. The information is limited but unbeatable and unique.
And we have already shown rangers have the potential to not use up all their slots on a regular basis. The fact that its another spell slot option that can help next day adventurers is huge and rarely an actual waste.
I like the fact that rangers have so many rewards for saving resources to spend at the right time that help the next day or throughout the rest period.
Favored Enemy is the way to track that narrows the search down a lot. If you have, say, fiends as your Favored Enemy, Primeval Awareness tells you there are fiends in the area and then you have advantage to tracking them from FE.
The idea of the Ranger features, specifically Favored Enemy/Natural Explorer/Primeval Awareness, was for each feature to proc the other one and for all three to work together to make you the best tracker in the game. Whether or not they succeed at this or not, I will leave open to interpretation.
I agree wit this. Rangers are great at conserving resources and getting the most out of a single spell slot. This helps them stay fresh and ready to keep adventuring in a given day compared to other classes.