I realize the obvious and most common answer I'm likely to get from this thread will be "Just use Primal Awareness in Tasha's. It's better." But I'm still going to ask because, until 2024 arrives, we have and can use (many may ONLY use) primeval awareness for their ranger. This could be by preference or design/mandate by the DM.

With PC race choice having options for at least fey and fey as of this post, and rangers having access to a dragon companion as a subclass, how are you, your DM, and/or your table handling how primeval awareness works with these creatures types and possibly others in the future? 

I hadn’t actually thought about it as I haven’t used it much recently  but it does make it interesting. If you have a drakewarden you may want to ask them to shunt the companion away while you check so it doesn’t read it and does read dragons outside the party. A party member that is a Fey, or summoned Fey of any sort are somewhat more difficult. Summoned Fey should go if concentration is dropped and Fey companions can often be shunted away like the drake but a Fey party member is a completely different situation. Still you know your going to get a “ yes they are in range” for them helping very little but it’s still very useful for all the others so I would say it’s still a solid ability.

If by "shunt" you mean send away like a familiar then the drake can't be shunted away. The only way to get rid of it is to kill the drake or kill the ranger and even then to resummon it requires a cost.

 I believe there are still ways around it. The best uses for it is when traveling or as a end of day leftover slot spender(note you should think about night ambushes).  

In both theses cases the ranger could separate from the problematic party pretty easily. Traveling a ranger can usually move twice the speed as the rest of the group so scouting  is ok. I am going by  picking the range is raw until wizard actually makes a statement otherwise(which they wont because its raw). Scouting a mile ahead is kind of dangerous but most ranger builds have some way of seeing danger before it becomes a problem. At night you have to go a mile out of camp but that's the perfect time to hunt for dinner. 

again danger but this may be the time where the rule "don't split the party" is actually a failing not a helpful thing. two groups one setting up camp and dinner another out recon for the morning. each group just needs a way to hold out until they can meet back up.

Finally there are skill checks. If you are always detecting a type you immediately start using your other skills to try and find traces of the potential false positives.   

If all else fails Homebrewing a solution to ignore party members wont break anything as I don't believe wizards wants "Party racial compatibility" to be a thing at all.  Just saying ranger can ignore any thing in sight seems practical.(because they really didn't have this problem with PHB races only). Homebrewing non-detection or Nystuls magic aura  to work seems unfair cost wise but it is also a solution.

I hope a wording errata comes to this ability to at least have it exclude things in sight and actually make it clear its adjustable range at time of casting.

I am of the opinion that Primeval Awareness is one of the worst class features. Each individual part isn't bad on it's own but the totality of the feature is awful. Since it costs spell slots, lasts 5 minutes tops, and covers a massive area that can only get bigger if you are in favored terrain, and only tells you that they are in range. It's one real use that I could think of would be to maybe use it outside of some dungeon before a long rest for prepared casters to change spells, and that was probably it's intended purpose but that is kind of a niche use that isn't fun or engaging for the ranger (who is a known caster). Also, it lacks any impactful interaction, it's just used then a yay or a nay from the DM. It might have other effective uses but either I haven't heard of them or there are better options.

The uses you gave for it, such as checking for potential ambushes or while traveling are severely hindered by one aspect or another. As a leftover slot spender, since it only notifies you of half the creature types, doesn't tell you their locations, and even in favored terrain it's only 2 hours travel time for enemies to catch up to your group, so you would still need to do all the other anti-ambush precautions anyways. And if the ranger did travel far enough away from their group so other members don't trigger it then they would be unable to effectively notify you of a potential ambushes. As for traveling since it's duration is so short it might as well be instant and again because of the lack of location you can't even know if you are headed in the right direction. It's minimum area is only 3.14 miles, which is a lot, but in favored terrain it's coverage is about 113 total miles maximum, which is just too much coverage. You can't even use it as a detection method to see through a disguise, like Divine Sense can.

Primal awareness on the other hand give the range some free spells that they can use to actually have an impact on their immediate surroundings which is a lot more engaging. Plus you can use it every long rest to make your DM roleplay as a plant without spending spell slots.

Edit: After I hit enter I realized I was just complaining about it a lot because I just made a ranger and spent time weighing the possible uses of there different features.

If you want to use Primeval Awareness or can only use it, I suggest 2 homebrews for it. First, if in favored terrain the Ranger can sense the cardinal direction of the creatures, maybe even get rid of the range increase if you think it keeps it fair. Second, using a higher spell slot greatly increases the duration. Something like 1 hour for a 2nd level slot, 4 hours for a 3rd, 12 hours for a 4th, and 24 hours for a 5th. That will improve the rangers tracking ability, favored terrain feature, and spell slot efficiency while making the feature scale with the ranger.

I’m my experience, a player, DM, or combination of the two, that can’t make primeval awareness useful in a game isn’t going to be capable of making speak with animals, beast sense, or speak with plants useful in a game either. 

Sure it can be used to do things with, but that doesn't make it a good use of spell slots. It's not competing with Primal Awareness for usefulness, its competing with the Ranger's limited spell slots, which is a big part of why it's bad. 

There are other ways it can be used besides the ones already listed, but they are not great. That is unless the DM makes it's use have meaning in response, instead of it being used to engage with directly with the setting. If you are in the wilderness trying to find a creature, then you already know it's there and would just track it as normal, but if you don't know and are just checking randomly then the DM can just decide arbitrarily whether you find something or not. These are just generic circumstances that can happen in any campaign setting but there are some far more specific cases where it might be more useful. If you suspect that a Rakshasa is around then you could sense it's presence, but not its location. Maybe there is a fiend or a dragon disguising itself in the King's court, this could reveal that to you. Same problem though is now you need to do something else to actually find the targets, which you could have just done to begin with. A maybe great use is to gauge a potential dragon lair for occupancy but false positives (wyrmlings or psuedodragons and such) and humanoid dragon servants (kobolds etc.) would mean your party would still have to sneak in and treat it as though it's occupied.

To me, any real useful advantage gained from it would be borderline metagaming. My ranger would never use it before a long rest because it's not effective enough at scouting an area to make sure it's safe, there could be bears, bandits, or worse. He wouldn't use to track something because it's not effective enough, and he would know, he is an expert at tracking . He would possibly use it to get a sense of what possible creatures might be lurking ahead before entering someplace seemingly dangerous, but I felt that was too specific to use spell slots for and not enough benefit (because it only works on have of the creature types) so I opted out of it. He will however use Speak with Animals to ask about the happenings in the surrounding area, if the animals are experiencing a lack of food or water, or if they would be willing to assist with scouting in exchange for some food or maybe even a bauble if it's the right type of animal.

I heard some DM advice recently that simply said “Shoot the monk.” It sounded odd at first, but after listening to the explanation it makes all the sense in the world. There’s millions of combinations of things a party of PCs can do with their characters, both individually and collectively. It is literally part of the DMs job to play into the PCs that the players create. As much as players need to have buy in with the DMs world, the DM needs to have buy in with their characters.

1. This is not really what this thread is about. It was meant for people who use the ability in combination with some new optional rules offered by the publisher of the game.

2. I know it isn’t the sexiest or most powerful ability, but those of us that use it and enjoy it find it very engaging, useful, and appropriate for the ranger and D&D in general. So please don’t use this thread to bash this ability. We can start a brand new thread for that, and I’ll discuss primeval awareness with you, with all of its faults, till the cows come home. 

My current Monster Slayer forwent Primal Awareness in favor of Primeval Awareness. The way the campaign is structured, I didn't have much use for the extra spells. Primeval Awareness has actually worked really great for me so far. It's let me discern secrets that other players or even the DM weren't necessarily ready to share.

Way my DM has it work is that he makes me roll a Survival Check along with using the ability to be able to discern distance and direction. If I roll high enough, he tells me exactly where the creatures are relative to me. If I don't, he just tells me that I  can sense the presence of x, y, or z creatures around.

I've actually gotten a lot of good use out of the feature. Which is interesting considering that part of the campaign's conceit is that our characters only have access to their class abilities some of the time.

I actually really like the thematic use of Primeval Awareness and really wanted to take it because it would have fit the ranger much better than primal awareness. However the gaps in the ability would mean it couldn't fulfill the way I am trying to play him, which is a protector. I joined a new group and didn't think about asking for some homebrew improvements at to it character creation or I would be using it. That's why I made the suggestion of it giving a cardinal direction in favored terrain, or Envoy's survival checks to gain distance and direction. Instead of trying to work around the fey and dragons in your party, give the feature a way to interact with it to allow the player to use it in engaging way. Also I am of the opinion that pointing out somethings flaws is how you can improve it.

The "Shoot the Monk" Advice is good for two reason. The first is it engages in a class feature making the player experience better. Second, not shooting the monk is straight metagaming. Monks are perfect targets for ranger attackers, they are usually the fastest on the battlefield which makes them a large threat, and they are unarmored which makes them a perfect target.

If you’re looking for a DM ruling on primeval awareness that isn’t even necessarily homebrew, try going for direction. The ability reads “This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.” so could, as far as I’m concerned, be able to give the ranger the direction of these creature types. Is this how the ability is supposed to be used? I don’t think so, nor care that much. I like the ability just fine the way it is. But it’s not unreasonable or broken to read it that way. I’m fact, twice they have had this ability as giving the location of the creatures, in the alpha draft of the play handbook and in the revised ranger UA. Given the scope and “power” of Tasha’s primal awareness, I think primeval awareness sits just about right. Letting the ranger keep tabs on the natural order of things with a quick action and single spell slot.

I also read primeval awareness as, when I’m your favored terrain you can choose a distance of anywhere from 1 mile up to 6 miles. The ranger gains greater control over the effect. The ranger, of course, gets the answer to the question about each creature type listed.

A tweak that a DM and I used once that was immensely fun and thematic was to have the DM control when this ability triggered. It still cost a spell slot, but the DM told me when it happens whenever the “state” of the makeup of the creature types within the area changed. So like a “I sense a disturbance in the Force.” kind of thing. Everything is fine. Then all of a sudden, the ranger gets a ping in their 6th sense that aberrations have drawn near. It was fun for me as a player because the ability only happened when it mattered, and it was fun for the DM because they didn’t have to always be thinking about what was nearby EXCEPT when it was happening. And the DM was able to use it as a built in plot device. 

Quote from FrankReynoldsGaryGygax >>

I’m my experience, a player, DM, or combination of the two, that can’t make primeval awareness useful in a game isn’t going to be capable of making speak with animals, beast sense, or speak with plants useful in a game either. 

 That's a very strange set of conditionals. 

Quote from Squiggit >>

Quote from FrankReynoldsGaryGygax >>

I’m my experience, a player, DM, or combination of the two, that can’t make primeval awareness useful in a game isn’t going to be capable of making speak with animals, beast sense, or speak with plants useful in a game either. 

 That's a very strange set of conditionals. 

 I think it comes down to focus and fun for a particular function of the game for certain folks.