2) i think their critique of the system is less "we don't have enough clear guidelines/ enough rules" and more "the rules we already have does not interact with the ranger in a satisfactory way". Your DM might want to come up with something on-the-fly if you start spear fishing in a nearby river (clearly just a foraging roll, does not matter), but if all you are doing is tracking another creature well that is already covered by the DMG. There may be circumstances where you don't own that rulebook or cannot be bothered to look the rule up, but it is still there. (that and the whole idea of potentially being unable to effectively utilize your class features because of the creature types/ environments your DM throws at you i guess, or the potential of the DM focusing on aspects of the exploration pillar where the ranger class does not excell)
3) while the situations that will arise throughout the entire Exploration game pillar and how those situations get resolved can vary greatly, the scope of your class features are much more limited and can much more effectively tread on the ground of established rules. You cannot write every single theoretical situation where Favored enemy and terrain would apply, just like you cannot say everywhere you will be using a particular skill / abillity score. But you can have these two features interact with existing features, such as with tracking.
I think the biggest problem with the exploration pillar of the game is that it requires a lot of work to keep it interesting; combat at its simplest it's just throwing new monster types at the party, with some extra spice here and there (environmental, situational etc.), and with various tools for calculating difficulty it's very easy to come up with an encounter (plus most books have premade ones you can tweak). Social situations require NPCs, so that's a bit of work, but there are ways to retcon it a little (have a generic "infiltrate this place socially" template then adapt it to a warehouse, fancy party etc. and generate names as required).
Exploration can be harder to do as you want it to be more than just "roll to see if you start running out of food every day". Personally I prefer to ignore food/water management except in expansive wilderness (e.g- crossing a desert or mountain to get somewhere remote) and treat exploration as a mixture of a time trial (the longer it takes to get somewhere, the worse the situation might be when you arrive) and opportunity, i.e- reward the party with cool stuff if they take the time to travel and scout properly. It can also be crucial, for example, if you know an enemy is headed for a particular town, there is a temptation to just Teleport there, but what if that isn't actually where the enemy was headed? You could save journey time, only to realise you have to go even further to backtrack and pick up their trail again. The Wizard might try Scrying instead, only to realise they have no idea where their target is (or they're warded against divination) and so-on; even with all the magic in the world, sometimes you just have to put in the work.
But yeah, it can be a lot of extra work to do well, and even the keenest DM doesn't have infinite time. This is why it's great when adventure books include lots of premade exploration stuff for you to draw on, but I do sometimes think that, as interested as I am in Strixhaven, the Feywild etc., we could really do with a "Gargantuan Book o' Finding Cool Stuff" supplement that gives DMs lots of tables to roll on to quickly generate cool exploration related stuff to reward or punish players with for doing well/poorly (or bypassing the journey), plus a heap of cool new magical gear for rewards.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Replace your doors, walls, and ceilings with distances, mountains, forests, ravines, and oceans. Replace traps and puzzles with natural hazards, extreme weather, and overland travel challenges. Replace your rooms and hallways with set points on a map or wandering points on a map. Replace 6 second turns with 10 minute expiration phases and 4 hour journey legs. do not make the next location to advance the story a known point and/or be on a known route.
Ability checks in the game, on a fundamental level, can be used to adjudicate anything, especially in conjunction with saving throws and attack rolls. Everything in the game that isn’t an attack roll or saving throw is an ability check. Thinking of adjudicating situations with an ability check is the most baseline way I can think about the game. Some creatures have a better score than others for given abilities. Some creatures are proficient in specific skills related to a given ability. Some creatures have, can create, or confirm find ways of gaining advantage on some checks. And some creatures have permanent or conditional methods of gaining twice their proficiency modifier on a given check. And others have way of adding even more bonuses through abilities, magic, or what not.
Many situations in the game can re-create or surpass other situations in the game given the right choices, sacrifices, or situations. Other things in the game I specifically designed to do one or more things extremely well. There are mini instances of archetypical design throughout.
People complain that a Rogue, even a baseline Rogue that specifically focuses on exploration, is “better than a Ranger“ people say that archer Fighter at levels 11+ is a better archer than a ranger. Possibly true, especially given the biases or conditions being used to compare the two. The fact remains that a ranger and is thematically predisposed to focusing on the skills and combat style that those two other classes can focus on if they choose to. Plus, the game NEVER setups the party to fail because someone isn’t playing the correct class. There is always a way. No rogues? No wizards? No “healers”? No “tanks”? No “strikers”? No face if the party? Doesn’t matter. The game does not punish any of that.
Frank, I think we just need you to write us a module.
I'll put some money in
LOL! I didn’t take my meds today. Everyone morning I walk my dogs while reading D&D Beyond forum posts
Maybe a collection of the existing rules, consolidated, with thoughts on how to apply them in different ways with structure. It sounds like most folks want some or all of structure, meaningful purpose, and time saving presentation for travel/survival/exploration.
one of my thoughts as I was catching up was...... wizards supports social and exploration pillars as published adventures. Most social stuff is tied to individual character motivations and situational changes. The basic rules given in the dmg/PHB are then enhanced by the induvial adventures. The same is true of the exploration pillar of the game.
this concept if true means players using homebrew need to provide the social and exploration content themselves. So, no wonder some people feel like its under supported.
Curse of strahd is one example where the adventure is basically an exploration and social sandbox. If players do everything they will be way overpowered by the end. at the same time the wrong actions have direct consequences making your party become hunted too early in the adventure.
As one of those “tainted” old farts I take a certain exception to Fateless’ comments about us - I don’t need a +25 a solid +5 will do nicely 🤪😁
I will fully admit. The Way i wrote it was purposely written for Old Farts that might not have latched onto that or remember a time before those gigantic numbers became such a thing, Or the young idealists that put more emphasis on things like Role Playing rather than number crunching to take exception to, or in a sense call themselves out as Exceptions to that generality rather since they aren't fitting that norm. Though let's be honest. If your taking exception then your not really one of the Tainted ones are you? Since you resisted the lure of the Number Crunch and valuing everything by who's got the biggest number and what kind of stupidly ridiculous DC they can beat.
But yeah, it can be a lot of extra work to do well, and even the keenest DM doesn't have infinite time. This is why it's great when adventure books include lots of premade exploration stuff for you to draw on, but I do sometimes think that, as interested as I am in Strixhaven, the Feywild etc., we could really do with a "Gargantuan Book o' Finding Cool Stuff" supplement that gives DMs lots of tables to roll on to quickly generate cool exploration related stuff to reward or punish players with for doing well/poorly (or bypassing the journey), plus a heap of cool new magical gear for rewards.
A book with more ideas to draw upon would always be great. Even being able to use them to some extent to put something together. But I think just a bunch of complete tables would be a lot of people's excuse to just further strangle Exploration even while some would take them as an even better jumping off point. So my opinion would be that if they did make charts. have some relatively small or narrowly focused ones that are fully filled out and expressed within a bigger idea. But have other bigger broader ones that actually have some of their entries actually empty and force the DM's to fill them in with different things of their own to actually push creativity which is a cornerstone of the Exploration pillar. To at least make some extent and take some steps to definitively and visually show to some extent that these are not all there is and your not supposed to look at them and act like there is nothing outside of them and leave it at that like so many already do just because the information isn't all totally gathered in one place with a step by step rigid order to them like character classes and Much of Combat.
As one of those “tainted” old farts I take a certain exception to Fateless’ comments about us - I don’t need a +25 a solid +5 will do nicely 🤪😁
I will fully admit. The Way i wrote it was purposely written for Old Farts that might not have latched onto that or remember a time before those gigantic numbers became such a thing, Or the young idealists that put more emphasis on things like Role Playing rather than number crunching to take exception to, or in a sense call themselves out as Exceptions to that generality rather since they aren't fitting that norm. Though let's be honest. If your taking exception then your not really one of the Tainted ones are you? Since you resisted the lure of the Number Crunch and valuing everything by who's got the biggest number and what kind of stupidly ridiculous DC they can beat.
Oh I have few characters that are walking neon signs of magic but I found out back in those days that they are effectively unplayable and run them only as NPCs in my own world. ( just look at that sad example in my sig). Truth is you don’t need great numbers. - just decent ones and a good ability to role play and maybe some real world experiences to base that role play off of.
As one of those “tainted” old farts I take a certain exception to Fateless’ comments about us - I don’t need a +25 a solid +5 will do nicely 🤪😁
I will fully admit. The Way i wrote it was purposely written for Old Farts that might not have latched onto that or remember a time before those gigantic numbers became such a thing, Or the young idealists that put more emphasis on things like Role Playing rather than number crunching to take exception to, or in a sense call themselves out as Exceptions to that generality rather since they aren't fitting that norm. Though let's be honest. If your taking exception then your not really one of the Tainted ones are you? Since you resisted the lure of the Number Crunch and valuing everything by who's got the biggest number and what kind of stupidly ridiculous DC they can beat.
Oh I have few characters that walking neon signs of magic but I found out back in those days that they are effectively unplayable and run them only as nice in my own world. ( just look at that sad example in my sig). Truth is you don’t need great numbers. - just decent ones and a good ability to role play and maybe some real world experiences to base that role play off of.
Giant numbers is part of why I didn't like Pathfinder 2e - talk about number bloat, at the high end you have pluses over 40, forget that crap
As one of those “tainted” old farts I take a certain exception to Fateless’ comments about us - I don’t need a +25 a solid +5 will do nicely 🤪😁
I will fully admit. The Way i wrote it was purposely written for Old Farts that might not have latched onto that or remember a time before those gigantic numbers became such a thing, Or the young idealists that put more emphasis on things like Role Playing rather than number crunching to take exception to, or in a sense call themselves out as Exceptions to that generality rather since they aren't fitting that norm. Though let's be honest. If your taking exception then your not really one of the Tainted ones are you? Since you resisted the lure of the Number Crunch and valuing everything by who's got the biggest number and what kind of stupidly ridiculous DC they can beat.
Oh I have few characters that walking neon signs of magic but I found out back in those days that they are effectively unplayable and run them only as nice in my own world. ( just look at that sad example in my sig). Truth is you don’t need great numbers. - just decent ones and a good ability to role play and maybe some real world experiences to base that role play off of.
Giant numbers is part of why I didn't like Pathfinder 2e - talk about number bloat, at the high end you have pluses over 40, forget that crap
I think PF2e does a good job of balancing it at least as it has when magic items should be incorporated at which levels and once you get a feel for it does make sense.
What it does do tho is make it impossible for a level 3 creature to hurt you at some point.... Which honestly I'm fine with as a regular goblin ko'ing a demi god makes no sense
As one of those “tainted” old farts I take a certain exception to Fateless’ comments about us - I don’t need a +25 a solid +5 will do nicely 🤪😁
I will fully admit. The Way i wrote it was purposely written for Old Farts that might not have latched onto that or remember a time before those gigantic numbers became such a thing, Or the young idealists that put more emphasis on things like Role Playing rather than number crunching to take exception to, or in a sense call themselves out as Exceptions to that generality rather since they aren't fitting that norm. Though let's be honest. If your taking exception then your not really one of the Tainted ones are you? Since you resisted the lure of the Number Crunch and valuing everything by who's got the biggest number and what kind of stupidly ridiculous DC they can beat.
Oh I have few characters that walking neon signs of magic but I found out back in those days that they are effectively unplayable and run them only as nice in my own world. ( just look at that sad example in my sig). Truth is you don’t need great numbers. - just decent ones and a good ability to role play and maybe some real world experiences to base that role play off of.
Giant numbers is part of why I didn't like Pathfinder 2e - talk about number bloat, at the high end you have pluses over 40, forget that crap
I think PF2e does a good job of balancing it at least as it has when magic items should be incorporated at which levels and once you get a feel for it does make sense.
What it does do tho is make it impossible for a level 3 creature to hurt you at some point.... Which honestly I'm fine with as a regular goblin ko'ing a demi god makes no sense
PF2 does that because it's primarily 3.5/PF After a heavy revision. They tried to keep all of the high powered gaming and number crunchiness and remove some of the bloat of the things that as far as they could tell Didn't get used as much or were too hard to build for (sometimes trying to just simplify the builds) And then to make it unique enough to try to stand out they shifted some core mechanics to non-traditional calculations to help it along. I like some of the non-traditional calculations ideas in theory. A few of them I don't like in practice.
And in 5e. Creatures don't have levels. Keep in mind how CR is calculated. CR is on the basis that under the stipulation of their balancing point. A Creature of that CR (or occasionally small group of them if they are designed to be in groups. Which is not many that I can think of in 5e) Should be an average challenge for a group of any 4 random PC's for hopefully 2 to 3 rounds at that point give or take a bit of difficulty based upon the ways you can attack it vs it's strong or weak defenses. There are a few that miss the mark a bit but not too many overall. Most don't know this challenge level of the monsters however because quite a few players refuse to play level 1 because it's boring and they don't have awesome powers to number crunch with and because they base everthing around damage. yet I've seen plenty of these characters that practically fall down in many skill heavy scenario's and just hoping one of the other characters in the party is minmaxed to incidentally cover a bunch of those and that the checks are not somehow individual or required from multiple party members.
I've literally challenged a couple groups built like this simply by turning something into a group challenge. or created a situation like having to get into a Lord's ball each on their individual merits. With only really good results on The social skills against the guard getting in maybe 1 or 2 others depending on the guard. This creates an interesting skill test and Rp scenerio because usually half the party isn't good at stealth and isn't good at social stuff. So they have to either go through more suspicion and checks and maybe not get all that fancy stuff they were trying to sneak in into the party, or potentially have to find another way in that's a bit easier.
Doing this we had one fighter that was just plain unlucky with his rolls. Couldn't stealth through lower passages and stuff. Rolled a 1 on his persuasion roll with the guards at the door. But he has a great athletics skill mostly because it was incidentally boosted. So he actually had what at first seemed like boring climb like he was going to miss things that became an adventure of swimming across the moat in a less patrolled spot on the castle (He got lucky on his perception roll and it was high). Climbing the castle walls around guards climbing around through windows and things and trying desperately to find a place where he could get down to join the party. (his other perception rolls weren't so good). He was present for all the most interesting and juiciest bits of this whole thing. Managed to get some of his wishes into things through clever usage of silent spell and sending stone from like ridiculous places like in the rafters above the chandeliers and overall took in the party from a dimension and direction that I hadn't planned for and completely had to scramble and make up on the fly.
A group that I'm just a payer in does it differently. They tend to like having a group challenge or two as we're traveling to places. The General style is that we need a set number of successful rolls. Usually a bit lower if it's set DC or if the party is small and a higher if the party is large that night or the difficulty is variable. But higher if it's variable DC. And what we have to do is pick one of our skills, or sometimes a spell, Say how we are using that particular skill (or spell) to help the entire party on the task. If it's variable difficulty we also pick usually easy, medium, or hard. Which sets the difficulty. With a set DC obviously each success is 1 success on the tally. On a variable difficulty. Easy is usually 1, Medium is usually 2, and Hard is usually 3. But even more importantly the party can only use one skill and difficulty once in a challenge if it's variable difficulty. If it's set difficulty it's usually once every 1 or 2 turns though we've done "until every skill is used" at least once. We usually set the order we declare what we skills we are using in by a roll of some kind. Often initiative but occasionally something else because it randomizes the order things are done in.
So with that group On a variable difficulty. Many people like to use their best skills first. But that can be hard to do if they don't get to go first. So people are sometimes scrambling going "what DC do I feel i can reasonably make and what skill can I work into this group narrative to help the group". And it's worked pretty well. And you start keeping a list. So the first player might do like Perception Medium and describe how they are watching out for things. The Next person might say Nature Hard because they've got a really good score in it and describe how thye are using their knowledge of nature to help (One of our two rangers when they are there often goes pretty high in the order and does this). Another might use Survival Easy trying to pick up obvious tracks and clues of passage. The Next might use History Medium because they know a lot about the area and events that took place in it to try and use thta knowledge to try to remember paths or places that people could retreat to where they are safe that had been used well in the past.
And it just goes on from there until we either hit our total or Hit our usually 3 to 4 round limit. (2 if it's something that needs to be really fast paced). hitting Our Total usually gets us to the next thing. Hitting it really well, might allow a couple more people to go after our total for fairness if they wish and maybe Alter the next scenario slightly based upon whether they succeed or fail like being able to get a surprise round, Being able to pick from an improved starting location into the next map or perhaps slightly rearranges the enemies because we caught them with good timing. Failing it usually comes with penalties. We get inflicted with a status condition for the first round or two of combat, the enemies are prepared for us. There are more than we thought there were, or if we're really unlucky they've left by the time we got there or something like that.
It's surprisingly stressful and nerve wracking while also rewarding and fun for something that is primarily "just some skill checks" when you get down to the core of it. but it does not favor some of those "OP" builds running around at all. Our non-minmaxed members often tend to do far better at many of them.
As one of those “tainted” old farts I take a certain exception to Fateless’ comments about us - I don’t need a +25 a solid +5 will do nicely 🤪😁
I will fully admit. The Way i wrote it was purposely written for Old Farts that might not have latched onto that or remember a time before those gigantic numbers became such a thing, Or the young idealists that put more emphasis on things like Role Playing rather than number crunching to take exception to, or in a sense call themselves out as Exceptions to that generality rather since they aren't fitting that norm. Though let's be honest. If your taking exception then your not really one of the Tainted ones are you? Since you resisted the lure of the Number Crunch and valuing everything by who's got the biggest number and what kind of stupidly ridiculous DC they can beat.
Oh I have few characters that walking neon signs of magic but I found out back in those days that they are effectively unplayable and run them only as nice in my own world. ( just look at that sad example in my sig). Truth is you don’t need great numbers. - just decent ones and a good ability to role play and maybe some real world experiences to base that role play off of.
Giant numbers is part of why I didn't like Pathfinder 2e - talk about number bloat, at the high end you have pluses over 40, forget that crap
I think PF2e does a good job of balancing it at least as it has when magic items should be incorporated at which levels and once you get a feel for it does make sense.
What it does do tho is make it impossible for a level 3 creature to hurt you at some point.... Which honestly I'm fine with as a regular goblin ko'ing a demi god makes no sense
it seems a lot of that number bloat is merely due to how attack, skill and save bonuses are calculated using your level as a bonus, and there is a variant rules that straight up removes that, albeit a variant hidden somewhere within the DMG equivalent. If your one problem with the system is that the numbers get ludicrisly big, then that one variant sort of fixes that (at abillity score + bonus between 2 and 8). Of course there are other reasons to not like that system, and this thread is not really about pathfinder 2e so eh whatever.
while i generally agree that you don't need a optimized character, it is very satisfying when you make an optimized character or even just one based first and foremost on a mechanical concept and then their story, personality and mannerisms just sort of "click" from there. Maybe it's not a very universal experience, but it is something i personally have experienced a couple of times.
An example from 3.5e (note that i have never played 3.5e, i just made this character build thing for funsies a couple years ago):
made a build in 3.5e that was like an half- orc who managed to get an +20 bonus to intimidate by level 2 or some shit. Seeing as to how he would coincidentally get good at bluff checks are a result of the build options i gave him, and the fact that he would not be that good at combat anyways*, so his frightening nature is sort of the result of a careful act that he has spent a lifetime perfecting, where he has spent considerable time perfecting his posture to make him seem taller and more imposing, making his voice sound deeper and meaner, his glare even angrier etc.
Since a considerable amount of his intimidation bonus comes from a feat and a special "racial paragon class" available only to half-orcs, the prejudice and other societal pressures he faced as a half-orc living in these civilized human settlements accounts for much of the reasons as to why he decided to develop these skills and why he became so good at them, partly becuase he deliberatly embraces the "look" of his orcish heritage by prominently displaying scars and facial tatoos and partly becuase when he angrily glares at you and tells you to bugg off before he does something really terrible with this knife, he channels years of bottled up anger to do so.
Oh yeah and another large chunk of his intimidation bonus comes from having a single level in the warlock class and specifically the "beguiling influence" invocation, so either one of his ancestors made the pact and that just sort of contributed to the shit he faced growing up or he himself made the pact specifically seeking to make himself even more frightening. While using this power, others get the sense that there is something otherworldy / supernatural about him, like he has some sort of uncanny aura around him, and his eyes become more yellow and yet more soul-piercing. He might tap into people's fear of the unknown and warlocks in particular by neither confirming nor denying rumors that he can perform foul magic and sometimes subtly imply that he can curse someone with a glance with the things he says.
oh yeah and because i would be forced to dump wisdom. he'd be very easily frightened by others using spells praying on his will save or even just the intimidate skill, something that sort of makes sense given his lacking combat abilities and the fact his frightening demeanor is all just a facade. He may be good at hiding it and appearing confident, but he is also constantly terrified, especially of level 3+ paladins of that edition, who were immune to fear and undead/ constructs for similar reasons.
And i had something written up about him liking to use his powers for good and believing/ claiming that evil-doers only exist because "they have not learned to truly fear the gods", something he intends to fix. And he had like a strength score of 16
*(@ 2nd level he would have a d8 hit dice and a d6 hit dice, only have light or maybe medium armor available, mediocre +1 modifiers in dex and con and 0 feats or features benefiting melee combat ability if we discount Demoralize actions, later levels into barbarian and warlock later improve his raw melee combat abillity he'd never reach the potential of "true" melee combatants)
an shorter, easier to explain example from 5e:
an Zariel tiefling blood hunter belonging to The Order of the Profane Soul (Fiend pact) and who picks the Flames of Phlegethos feat, has the Green-Flame-Blade spell (Str build with like a greatsword).
during combat, they can spam that one cantrip as an action, make an second melee attack as a bonus action and reroll 1's and 2's to your rite of the flame damage, your greatsword damage and your cantrip's fire damage, and thanks to the feat you are surrounded with an aura of fire dealing fire damage to anyone who hits you in melee, so it's pretty decent in the damage department.
But beyond that, everything you have sort of has a theme. You can use the innate spellcasting to cover your weapon in fire, drawing on your fiendish bloodline. You can use a blood rite to cover your sword in fire, and that blood rite becomes more potent becuase of a pact you made with a fiend. The Flames of Pheletegros feat says that you "learn to call on hellfire to serve your commands" so it's assumed that all the spells you cast that deal fire damage and thus benefit from the feat are indeed composed of hellfire, and you of course also learned the spell itself as part of a pact with a fiend.
so like in short, all of your abillities boil down to drawing on the power of your blood as a means of calling oppon hellish fire to cover your blade with and make it more effective.
(I was really tempted to play this build in an decent into avernus game but felt that there might be problems in playing a character who specializes in fire damage in a module that heavily features fiends that are either resistant or immune to fire. It could probably work and be an rather interesting challenge by using that one Blood Curse and possibly elemental adept (even if you get way less out of elemental adept when you already have the tiefling racial feat and would be forced to take it at level 8))
point is while you don't need big numbers and should never think that, a sufficiently stupid character build can be a good narrative aid for helping you come of with neat story opportunities. At the very least If your build contains several weird choices and is able to do X ludicrous thing, coming up with the reason as to why you spent years of your life in devotion to developing the specific set of skills you needed to do that could be fun (and that reason probably says a lot about who your character is).
So, in conclusion: Ranger is not really underpowered and never was. The real problem was it's features interacting with a part of the rules that most DMs gloss over. So talk to your DM and you should be Gucci.
But, even if you do still consider the Ranger to be underpowered, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has provided alternatives to the most controversial class features that, by and large, address the issues most people had with the class. If you don't like the PHB version, use Tasha's. Or mix and match.
At the end of the day, Ranger is a good class to take.
Cool. Close thread.
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I think the biggest problem with the exploration pillar of the game is that it requires a lot of work to keep it interesting; combat at its simplest it's just throwing new monster types at the party, with some extra spice here and there (environmental, situational etc.), and with various tools for calculating difficulty it's very easy to come up with an encounter (plus most books have premade ones you can tweak). Social situations require NPCs, so that's a bit of work, but there are ways to retcon it a little (have a generic "infiltrate this place socially" template then adapt it to a warehouse, fancy party etc. and generate names as required).
Exploration can be harder to do as you want it to be more than just "roll to see if you start running out of food every day". Personally I prefer to ignore food/water management except in expansive wilderness (e.g- crossing a desert or mountain to get somewhere remote) and treat exploration as a mixture of a time trial (the longer it takes to get somewhere, the worse the situation might be when you arrive) and opportunity, i.e- reward the party with cool stuff if they take the time to travel and scout properly. It can also be crucial, for example, if you know an enemy is headed for a particular town, there is a temptation to just Teleport there, but what if that isn't actually where the enemy was headed? You could save journey time, only to realise you have to go even further to backtrack and pick up their trail again. The Wizard might try Scrying instead, only to realise they have no idea where their target is (or they're warded against divination) and so-on; even with all the magic in the world, sometimes you just have to put in the work.
But yeah, it can be a lot of extra work to do well, and even the keenest DM doesn't have infinite time. This is why it's great when adventure books include lots of premade exploration stuff for you to draw on, but I do sometimes think that, as interested as I am in Strixhaven, the Feywild etc., we could really do with a "Gargantuan Book o' Finding Cool Stuff" supplement that gives DMs lots of tables to roll on to quickly generate cool exploration related stuff to reward or punish players with for doing well/poorly (or bypassing the journey), plus a heap of cool new magical gear for rewards.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Replace your doors, walls, and ceilings with distances, mountains, forests, ravines, and oceans. Replace traps and puzzles with natural hazards, extreme weather, and overland travel challenges. Replace your rooms and hallways with set points on a map or wandering points on a map. Replace 6 second turns with 10 minute expiration phases and 4 hour journey legs. do not make the next location to advance the story a known point and/or be on a known route.
Ability checks in the game, on a fundamental level, can be used to adjudicate anything, especially in conjunction with saving throws and attack rolls. Everything in the game that isn’t an attack roll or saving throw is an ability check. Thinking of adjudicating situations with an ability check is the most baseline way I can think about the game. Some creatures have a better score than others for given abilities. Some creatures are proficient in specific skills related to a given ability. Some creatures have, can create, or confirm find ways of gaining advantage on some checks. And some creatures have permanent or conditional methods of gaining twice their proficiency modifier on a given check. And others have way of adding even more bonuses through abilities, magic, or what not.
Many situations in the game can re-create or surpass other situations in the game given the right choices, sacrifices, or situations. Other things in the game I specifically designed to do one or more things extremely well. There are mini instances of archetypical design throughout.
People complain that a Rogue, even a baseline Rogue that specifically focuses on exploration, is “better than a Ranger“ people say that archer Fighter at levels 11+ is a better archer than a ranger. Possibly true, especially given the biases or conditions being used to compare the two. The fact remains that a ranger and is thematically predisposed to focusing on the skills and combat style that those two other classes can focus on if they choose to. Plus, the game NEVER setups the party to fail because someone isn’t playing the correct class. There is always a way. No rogues? No wizards? No “healers”? No “tanks”? No “strikers”? No face if the party? Doesn’t matter. The game does not punish any of that.
Frank, I think we just need you to write us a module.
I'll put some money in
LOL! I didn’t take my meds today. Everyone morning I walk my dogs while reading D&D Beyond forum posts
Maybe a collection of the existing rules, consolidated, with thoughts on how to apply them in different ways with structure. It sounds like most folks want some or all of structure, meaningful purpose, and time saving presentation for travel/survival/exploration.
I also like your card / random encounter suggestion
one of my thoughts as I was catching up was...... wizards supports social and exploration pillars as published adventures. Most social stuff is tied to individual character motivations and situational changes. The basic rules given in the dmg/PHB are then enhanced by the induvial adventures. The same is true of the exploration pillar of the game.
this concept if true means players using homebrew need to provide the social and exploration content themselves. So, no wonder some people feel like its under supported.
Curse of strahd is one example where the adventure is basically an exploration and social sandbox. If players do everything they will be way overpowered by the end. at the same time the wrong actions have direct consequences making your party become hunted too early in the adventure.
Ok. I am starting a place to talk about this stuff in what might hopefully be a more permanent and constructive format.
https://discord.gg/J9ng87gMu9
I will fully admit. The Way i wrote it was purposely written for Old Farts that might not have latched onto that or remember a time before those gigantic numbers became such a thing, Or the young idealists that put more emphasis on things like Role Playing rather than number crunching to take exception to, or in a sense call themselves out as Exceptions to that generality rather since they aren't fitting that norm. Though let's be honest. If your taking exception then your not really one of the Tainted ones are you? Since you resisted the lure of the Number Crunch and valuing everything by who's got the biggest number and what kind of stupidly ridiculous DC they can beat.
A book with more ideas to draw upon would always be great. Even being able to use them to some extent to put something together. But I think just a bunch of complete tables would be a lot of people's excuse to just further strangle Exploration even while some would take them as an even better jumping off point. So my opinion would be that if they did make charts. have some relatively small or narrowly focused ones that are fully filled out and expressed within a bigger idea. But have other bigger broader ones that actually have some of their entries actually empty and force the DM's to fill them in with different things of their own to actually push creativity which is a cornerstone of the Exploration pillar. To at least make some extent and take some steps to definitively and visually show to some extent that these are not all there is and your not supposed to look at them and act like there is nothing outside of them and leave it at that like so many already do just because the information isn't all totally gathered in one place with a step by step rigid order to them like character classes and Much of Combat.
Oh I have few characters that are walking neon signs of magic but I found out back in those days that they are effectively unplayable and run them only as NPCs in my own world. ( just look at that sad example in my sig). Truth is you don’t need great numbers. - just decent ones and a good ability to role play and maybe some real world experiences to base that role play off of.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Giant numbers is part of why I didn't like Pathfinder 2e - talk about number bloat, at the high end you have pluses over 40, forget that crap
I think PF2e does a good job of balancing it at least as it has when magic items should be incorporated at which levels and once you get a feel for it does make sense.
What it does do tho is make it impossible for a level 3 creature to hurt you at some point.... Which honestly I'm fine with as a regular goblin ko'ing a demi god makes no sense
Conversely I am a huge fan of bounded accuracy, and wish they would have tightened the constraints even more.
I am also very interested in trying out some variation of epic six in the dungeons and dragons 5E system.
Fifth Edition doesn't handle Epic Six very well. You're just comparatively so much stronger.
Good to know. I haven’t tried it yet.
Thanks!
I slapping together a playable prototype little by little.
PF2 does that because it's primarily 3.5/PF After a heavy revision. They tried to keep all of the high powered gaming and number crunchiness and remove some of the bloat of the things that as far as they could tell Didn't get used as much or were too hard to build for (sometimes trying to just simplify the builds) And then to make it unique enough to try to stand out they shifted some core mechanics to non-traditional calculations to help it along. I like some of the non-traditional calculations ideas in theory. A few of them I don't like in practice.
And in 5e. Creatures don't have levels. Keep in mind how CR is calculated. CR is on the basis that under the stipulation of their balancing point. A Creature of that CR (or occasionally small group of them if they are designed to be in groups. Which is not many that I can think of in 5e) Should be an average challenge for a group of any 4 random PC's for hopefully 2 to 3 rounds at that point give or take a bit of difficulty based upon the ways you can attack it vs it's strong or weak defenses. There are a few that miss the mark a bit but not too many overall. Most don't know this challenge level of the monsters however because quite a few players refuse to play level 1 because it's boring and they don't have awesome powers to number crunch with and because they base everthing around damage. yet I've seen plenty of these characters that practically fall down in many skill heavy scenario's and just hoping one of the other characters in the party is minmaxed to incidentally cover a bunch of those and that the checks are not somehow individual or required from multiple party members.
I've literally challenged a couple groups built like this simply by turning something into a group challenge. or created a situation like having to get into a Lord's ball each on their individual merits. With only really good results on The social skills against the guard getting in maybe 1 or 2 others depending on the guard. This creates an interesting skill test and Rp scenerio because usually half the party isn't good at stealth and isn't good at social stuff. So they have to either go through more suspicion and checks and maybe not get all that fancy stuff they were trying to sneak in into the party, or potentially have to find another way in that's a bit easier.
Doing this we had one fighter that was just plain unlucky with his rolls. Couldn't stealth through lower passages and stuff. Rolled a 1 on his persuasion roll with the guards at the door. But he has a great athletics skill mostly because it was incidentally boosted. So he actually had what at first seemed like boring climb like he was going to miss things that became an adventure of swimming across the moat in a less patrolled spot on the castle (He got lucky on his perception roll and it was high). Climbing the castle walls around guards climbing around through windows and things and trying desperately to find a place where he could get down to join the party. (his other perception rolls weren't so good). He was present for all the most interesting and juiciest bits of this whole thing. Managed to get some of his wishes into things through clever usage of silent spell and sending stone from like ridiculous places like in the rafters above the chandeliers and overall took in the party from a dimension and direction that I hadn't planned for and completely had to scramble and make up on the fly.
A group that I'm just a payer in does it differently. They tend to like having a group challenge or two as we're traveling to places. The General style is that we need a set number of successful rolls. Usually a bit lower if it's set DC or if the party is small and a higher if the party is large that night or the difficulty is variable. But higher if it's variable DC. And what we have to do is pick one of our skills, or sometimes a spell, Say how we are using that particular skill (or spell) to help the entire party on the task. If it's variable difficulty we also pick usually easy, medium, or hard. Which sets the difficulty. With a set DC obviously each success is 1 success on the tally. On a variable difficulty. Easy is usually 1, Medium is usually 2, and Hard is usually 3. But even more importantly the party can only use one skill and difficulty once in a challenge if it's variable difficulty. If it's set difficulty it's usually once every 1 or 2 turns though we've done "until every skill is used" at least once. We usually set the order we declare what we skills we are using in by a roll of some kind. Often initiative but occasionally something else because it randomizes the order things are done in.
So with that group On a variable difficulty. Many people like to use their best skills first. But that can be hard to do if they don't get to go first. So people are sometimes scrambling going "what DC do I feel i can reasonably make and what skill can I work into this group narrative to help the group". And it's worked pretty well. And you start keeping a list. So the first player might do like Perception Medium and describe how they are watching out for things. The Next person might say Nature Hard because they've got a really good score in it and describe how thye are using their knowledge of nature to help (One of our two rangers when they are there often goes pretty high in the order and does this). Another might use Survival Easy trying to pick up obvious tracks and clues of passage. The Next might use History Medium because they know a lot about the area and events that took place in it to try and use thta knowledge to try to remember paths or places that people could retreat to where they are safe that had been used well in the past.
And it just goes on from there until we either hit our total or Hit our usually 3 to 4 round limit. (2 if it's something that needs to be really fast paced). hitting Our Total usually gets us to the next thing. Hitting it really well, might allow a couple more people to go after our total for fairness if they wish and maybe Alter the next scenario slightly based upon whether they succeed or fail like being able to get a surprise round, Being able to pick from an improved starting location into the next map or perhaps slightly rearranges the enemies because we caught them with good timing. Failing it usually comes with penalties. We get inflicted with a status condition for the first round or two of combat, the enemies are prepared for us. There are more than we thought there were, or if we're really unlucky they've left by the time we got there or something like that.
It's surprisingly stressful and nerve wracking while also rewarding and fun for something that is primarily "just some skill checks" when you get down to the core of it. but it does not favor some of those "OP" builds running around at all. Our non-minmaxed members often tend to do far better at many of them.
it seems a lot of that number bloat is merely due to how attack, skill and save bonuses are calculated using your level as a bonus, and there is a variant rules that straight up removes that, albeit a variant hidden somewhere within the DMG equivalent. If your one problem with the system is that the numbers get ludicrisly big, then that one variant sort of fixes that (at abillity score + bonus between 2 and 8). Of course there are other reasons to not like that system, and this thread is not really about pathfinder 2e so eh whatever.
while i generally agree that you don't need a optimized character, it is very satisfying when you make an optimized character or even just one based first and foremost on a mechanical concept and then their story, personality and mannerisms just sort of "click" from there. Maybe it's not a very universal experience, but it is something i personally have experienced a couple of times.
An example from 3.5e (note that i have never played 3.5e, i just made this character build thing for funsies a couple years ago):
made a build in 3.5e that was like an half- orc who managed to get an +20 bonus to intimidate by level 2 or some shit. Seeing as to how he would coincidentally get good at bluff checks are a result of the build options i gave him, and the fact that he would not be that good at combat anyways*, so his frightening nature is sort of the result of a careful act that he has spent a lifetime perfecting, where he has spent considerable time perfecting his posture to make him seem taller and more imposing, making his voice sound deeper and meaner, his glare even angrier etc.
Since a considerable amount of his intimidation bonus comes from a feat and a special "racial paragon class" available only to half-orcs, the prejudice and other societal pressures he faced as a half-orc living in these civilized human settlements accounts for much of the reasons as to why he decided to develop these skills and why he became so good at them, partly becuase he deliberatly embraces the "look" of his orcish heritage by prominently displaying scars and facial tatoos and partly becuase when he angrily glares at you and tells you to bugg off before he does something really terrible with this knife, he channels years of bottled up anger to do so.
Oh yeah and another large chunk of his intimidation bonus comes from having a single level in the warlock class and specifically the "beguiling influence" invocation, so either one of his ancestors made the pact and that just sort of contributed to the shit he faced growing up or he himself made the pact specifically seeking to make himself even more frightening. While using this power, others get the sense that there is something otherworldy / supernatural about him, like he has some sort of uncanny aura around him, and his eyes become more yellow and yet more soul-piercing. He might tap into people's fear of the unknown and warlocks in particular by neither confirming nor denying rumors that he can perform foul magic and sometimes subtly imply that he can curse someone with a glance with the things he says.
oh yeah and because i would be forced to dump wisdom. he'd be very easily frightened by others using spells praying on his will save or even just the intimidate skill, something that sort of makes sense given his lacking combat abilities and the fact his frightening demeanor is all just a facade. He may be good at hiding it and appearing confident, but he is also constantly terrified, especially of level 3+ paladins of that edition, who were immune to fear and undead/ constructs for similar reasons.
And i had something written up about him liking to use his powers for good and believing/ claiming that evil-doers only exist because "they have not learned to truly fear the gods", something he intends to fix. And he had like a strength score of 16
*(@ 2nd level he would have a d8 hit dice and a d6 hit dice, only have light or maybe medium armor available, mediocre +1 modifiers in dex and con and 0 feats or features benefiting melee combat ability if we discount Demoralize actions, later levels into barbarian and warlock later improve his raw melee combat abillity he'd never reach the potential of "true" melee combatants)
an shorter, easier to explain example from 5e:
an Zariel tiefling blood hunter belonging to The Order of the Profane Soul (Fiend pact) and who picks the Flames of Phlegethos feat, has the Green-Flame-Blade spell (Str build with like a greatsword).
during combat, they can spam that one cantrip as an action, make an second melee attack as a bonus action and reroll 1's and 2's to your rite of the flame damage, your greatsword damage and your cantrip's fire damage, and thanks to the feat you are surrounded with an aura of fire dealing fire damage to anyone who hits you in melee, so it's pretty decent in the damage department.
But beyond that, everything you have sort of has a theme. You can use the innate spellcasting to cover your weapon in fire, drawing on your fiendish bloodline. You can use a blood rite to cover your sword in fire, and that blood rite becomes more potent becuase of a pact you made with a fiend. The Flames of Pheletegros feat says that you "learn to call on hellfire to serve your commands" so it's assumed that all the spells you cast that deal fire damage and thus benefit from the feat are indeed composed of hellfire, and you of course also learned the spell itself as part of a pact with a fiend.
so like in short, all of your abillities boil down to drawing on the power of your blood as a means of calling oppon hellish fire to cover your blade with and make it more effective.
(I was really tempted to play this build in an decent into avernus game but felt that there might be problems in playing a character who specializes in fire damage in a module that heavily features fiends that are either resistant or immune to fire. It could probably work and be an rather interesting challenge by using that one Blood Curse and possibly elemental adept (even if you get way less out of elemental adept when you already have the tiefling racial feat and would be forced to take it at level 8))
point is while you don't need big numbers and should never think that, a sufficiently stupid character build can be a good narrative aid for helping you come of with neat story opportunities. At the very least If your build contains several weird choices and is able to do X ludicrous thing, coming up with the reason as to why you spent years of your life in devotion to developing the specific set of skills you needed to do that could be fun (and that reason probably says a lot about who your character is).
makes sense given how powerful 5e feats are compared to the meager 3.5e feats
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
So, in conclusion: Ranger is not really underpowered and never was. The real problem was it's features interacting with a part of the rules that most DMs gloss over. So talk to your DM and you should be Gucci.
But, even if you do still consider the Ranger to be underpowered, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything has provided alternatives to the most controversial class features that, by and large, address the issues most people had with the class. If you don't like the PHB version, use Tasha's. Or mix and match.
At the end of the day, Ranger is a good class to take.
Cool. Close thread.