Optional replacements for favored enemy, natural explorer, primeval awareness, hide in plain sight?
So, what I've come to realize is that Tasha's Ranger isn't so much underpowered as it is unintuitive. You get a lot of small bonuses from different sources that add up to a surprisingly powerful package. But man, it's so hard to keep track of everything.
I'll use the Horizon Walker as an example since that is the character I'm currently playing:
Before 11th-level, everyone pretty much agrees that the Ranger (either version) can keep up with other martial classes in combat, but it's Common Knowledge that it "falls off a cliff" at higher levels, so let's focus on that. I'm also going to assume one has chosen all of the Tasha class features (my Horizon Walker personally kept Favored Enemy because tracking humans and elves is a big part of her character, but I digress.)
At 11th-level, the Horizon Walker will start out her adventuring day with 1d8 + Wis Temporary Hit Points (Deft Explorer: Tireless.) This already helps shore up some of her bulk since Rangers don't naturally get access to heavy armor. She can use this four times a day, and goes up to six by 20th. In addition, she can use her bonus action to turn all weapon damage to Force damage and deal an extra 2d8 on her first attack (Planar Warrior.) In addition to that, she can make three attacks every round if she is multi-targeting (Distant Strikes.) In addition to that, she can teleport 20-30 ft for free every round that she attacks (Distant Strikes.)
So now she's attacking 2-3 times per round, teleporting 20-30 ft, dealing the same damage as Improved Divine Smite, and has free Temporary Hit Points before pretty much every encounter. All of this and she still has her movement. Assuming a standard 30 ft, she actually gets 35 at this level (Deft Explorer: Roving), as well as a climbing and swimming speed (Deft Explorer: Roving.) So in practice, she's moving 55-65 ft every round for free. Going back to damage, she can proc Favored Foe --which at this point is a 1d6-- without interfering with Planar Warrior. So let's take a look.
At 11th-level, while expending practically zero resources --other than Favored Foe and Tireless uses-- we have a character who can move 55-65 ft every round, can make 2-3 attacks on the same round, deal additional 2d8 + 1d6 force damage every round, starts every battle with THP, can climb and swim to get the terrain advantage, and is completely unhindered by difficult terrain (Land's Stride.) And we haven't even dipped into her spells yet.
Honestly, it's not bad at all. If we look at what Fighters and Paladins are doing at this level, Fighters are making three attacks every round, unless they decide to blow their Action Surge, and --assuming Battlemasters-- using Superiority Dice to exert a small degree of battlefield control. Problem is Action Surge and Superiority Dice are precious resources the Fighter needs to expend. Without them (either through conservation or depletion,) the Fighter is stuck just making three attacks per round. The Paladin doesn't normally get additional attacks like the Fighter or Horizon Walker do. Instead, they get Improved Divine Smite, which grants them free 1d8 radiant damage on every hit. That's normally a 2d8 per round, which the Horizon Walker can match with Planar Warrior, and exceed with Favored Foe --and that's not counting the conditional third attack. In order for the Paladin to keep up, he has to start burning spell slots for Divine Smite. And he has to do this every round if he wants to outdo the Horizon Walker's DPR. Like the Fighter, that's another precious resource expenditure.
And the funny thing is this isn't even the best thing the Horizon Walker can do. We haven't even talked about her Spellcasting. Or Nature's Veil.
Let's assume you don't want your DM to strangle you, so we'll set Conjure Animals aside. Horizon Walkers get access to Haste at 9th-level. A Hasted Horizon Walker, then, will be making 3-4 attacks every round thanks to Distant Strikes, proccing Planar Warrior for 2d8, teleporting 30-40 ft (Distant Strikes again), moving 70 ft with a combination of Deft Explorer: Roving and Haste, making Dexterity Saves with advantage thanks again to Haste, gaining an additional +2 to their AC (Haste once again), climbing and swimming over any and every obstacle (Roving again,) ignoring any difficult terrain disadvantages because of Land's Stride, and starting every battle with THP from Deft Explorer: Tireless. And that's still not the strongest thing they can do. If they decide to give up their Planar Warrior 2d8, they can turn themselves Invisible through Nature's Veil, which imposes disadvantage on attacks against them and grants them advantage on attacks against other enemies. I've been leaving out feats so far but even assuming the Paladin and Fighter pick up Great Weapon Master/Polearm Master/Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter, a Horizon Walker with just GWM/Sharpshooter still has a better chance to proc the additional damage thanks to their Invisibility, which means that GWM/Sharpshooter is more reliable on her. Invisibility is also a great defensive buff.
Now, a Vengeance Paladin can also use Haste. So what makes the Horizon Walker any better than the Vengeance Paladin? Well, at this level, Horizon Walkers are basically immune to Opportunity Attacks for one (they get to teleport away before making their own attacks with Distant Strikes,) which can combine with the absolutely bonkers mobility (30-40 teleport, 70 ft movement, climb, swim, ignore difficult terrain) to let them position themselves wherever they want in the battlefield. They can get in and get out of melee range safely (or stick to the trees if they're archers,) and can move so far away as to be out of range for most attacks. Even AoE's (they can give up their BA to Misty Step too, so for those keeping score at home, that's 130-140 ft of movement in a single round.) Vengeance Paladins can withstand the attacks and not break concentration with their Aura of Protection, but every time they get hit it'll be a gamble. Horizon Walkers can attack safely and get into position all on the same round, preventing them from taking damage if needed. tl;dr: Paladins tank but Rangers skirmish. And not getting targeted means you're more likely to keep concentration on Haste. Also, the Horizon Walker uses the mobility from Haste better since the Paladin will just plant himself in the frontlines anyway.
As you can see from my freaking dissertation, an 11th-level Horizon Walker can do a great many things on her turn, and all at once even. She can attack, teleport, turn invisible, and have enough movement to make the Monk jealous. But just look at all the different class features that have to come together to make that happen. By contrast, a Battlemaster Fighter just needs to focus on his attacks, superiority dice (if applicable), and the odd Action Surge. A Vengeance Paladin can replicate the Haste effect and only needs to keep track of his attacks, Improved/Smites, Auras, and the odd Lay on Hands. Both the Fighter and the Paladin are powerful classes, but more importantly, they're highly streamlined (the Fighter perhaps to a fault.) The Horizon Walker's power is distributed in a number of seemingly disparate class features and you need to keep careful track of them in order to get the most out of her power. There's also an element of choice with the Horizon Walker that isn't present in the Fighter and Paladin classes. Do I proc Planar Warrior, do I turn Invisible, or do I Misty Step away? Do I activate Favored Foe, Hunter's Mark, or Haste?
(contented sigh) Envoyofwater, that is beautifully presented. And that is just doing the basic stuff! If you add in other spells cast, in combat and out, awesome. Fun too! Not just “Hit with sword. Repeat.”
Rasmus_Haugen_Sandvik, that isn’t mathematically accurate. Levels 6-10 rangers are leading the pack in DPR. Remember that rangers get damage from their subclass where paladins get damage from their core class. Crunch the numbers subclass versus subclass, ranger versus paladin, fighter, whatever, and you’d be surprised. Factor in to-hit calculations to. Also, if you only look at single round damage classes that don’t have nova will be represented inaccurately. Look at damage over 3, 4, or 5 rounds (a typical combat encounter length) and rangers are the winners much if the time, even at levels 11+.
(contented sigh) Envoyofwater, that is beautifully presented. And that is just doing the basic stuff! If you add in other spells cast, in combat and out, awesome. Fun too! Not just “Hit with sword. Repeat.”
Rasmus_Haugen_Sandvik, that isn’t mathematically accurate. Levels 6-10 rangers are leading the pack in DPR. Remember that rangers get damage from their subclass where paladins get damage from their core class. Crunch the numbers subclass versus subclass, ranger versus paladin, fighter, whatever, and you’d be surprised. Factor in to-hit calculations to. Also, if you only look at single round damage classes that don’t have nova will be represented inaccurately. Look at damage over 3, 4, or 5 rounds (a typical combat encounter length) and rangers are the winners much if the time, even at levels 11+.
There's a lot of fun stuff you can do with the Ranger once you realize how the Ranger's power is scattered around. It gets better once you start mix-and-matching PHB and Tasha features. For me, I have a blast just connecting the dots and seeing what I can come up with. For instance, let's take that same Horizon Walker but let's bump her up to 14th-level and swap out Nature's Veil with Hide in Plain Sight.
A Horizon Walker with Expertise in Stealth from Deft Explorer: Canny and maximum Dexterity will have +15 to her Stealth checks. Combined with Pass without Trace, this goes up to 25. Combine that further with Hide in Plain Sight and you get a +35 bonus to your Stealth. Along with Vanish at 14-level, she can attack twice, use her functional 55 ft of movement to find cover (a tree? A rock wall?) and Hide as a bonus action, which she will pretty much auto-succeed because did I mention the +35 to stealth? If this sounds like overkill, just imagine if our Ranger was a Gloomstalker instead. That's just reaching absurdist levels.
But wait, it gets better. If you want to be a complete ghost, you can cast Nondetection on yourself at the start of the adventuring day (making you immune to magical tracking) which combines with Vanish (making you immune to non-magical tracking) to make sure your enemies will never see you coming. As a Gloomstalker --or if we go back to Nature's Veil-- you can also turn invisible on top of that.
Another fun, noncombat thing you can do with the Ranger is take Favored Enemy and put Deft Explorer: Canny's expertise in Survival instead. You now have expertise and advantage on survival checks to track your Favored Enemies. This might sound situationally very useful, but you can game the system to allow this benefit on a majority of creatures just by taking smart Favored Enemy choices (protip: at level 1, Humans and Elves are probably going to be your best bet.) Throw in Hunter's Mark for creatures that aren't your Favored Enemies, and you get advantage and expertise on tracking pretty much everybody. Then, take Primal Awareness and effectively use your environment as your eyes and ears. Speak with Animals/Plants,Beast Sense and Locate Creature will get you a metric ton of info if used correctly. And it won't even cost a spell slot to use them once.
The fun thing is that while these may sound niche, they don't actually conflict with your effectiveness in combat. The Horizon Walker we detailed above can still do all of the things she could do before, plus become a ghost outside of combat plus track like the freaking Predator. Mind you, she'll have to pick between stealth and survival, as well as between Nature's Veil and Hide in Plain Sight, but ultimately, the choice won't hinder her too much if she's smart. For instance, even without Stealth Expertise and HiPS, she still gets a +20 to her stealth (which is enough to pass most checks,) can't be tracked magically or non-magically, and still has both advantage and expertise in tracking, all the while being as consistent in combat as stated above.
So she's great both in combat and out, but the problem --once again-- is that all of these bonuses come from disparate sources. To summarize, she needs Favored Enemy/Foe, Canny: Stealth/Survival, Roving, Tireless, Primal Awareness, Nature's Veil/HiPS, Vanish, Planar Warrior, Distant Strikes, and spells like Hunter's Mark, Pass Without Trace, Nondetection, and Haste. And they're all working in concert with each other. That is a lot to keep track of.
Few people would actually argue that Gloom stalker or horizon walker are underpowered but Even the PHB beast master can keep up with high damage output if you use appropriate Pets. It can even potentially exceed them using harvesting rules which is a less popular opinion.
Ranger is and was fine for the first 5 levels, at which point it starts falling behind in a combat situation. Fighter gets more feats by then, more attacks etc. while paladin smites.
problem with UA was that it lumped even more stuff into the first levels where rangers were totally fine, making them totally overpowered in the beginning (I have played it both with and without ua).
personally I think the ranger could get a third attack at some point and it would be fixed.
beastmasters, horizon walkers and to a lesser extent hunter rangers and gloom stalker already get thrid attack equivalents at 11th level, just play one of those (also everything has been nerfed since the UA, especially Favoured Foe)
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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
A Horizon Walker with Expertise in Stealth from Deft Explorer: Canny and maximum Dexterity will have +15 to her Stealth checks. Combined with Pass without Trace, this goes up to 25. Combine that further with Hide in Plain Sight and you get a +35 bonus to your Stealth. Along with Vanish at 14-level, she can attack twice, use her functional 55 ft of movement to find cover (a tree? A rock wall?) and Hide as a bonus action, which she will pretty much auto-succeed because did I mention the +35 to stealth? If this sounds like overkill, just imagine if our Ranger was a Gloomstalker instead. That's just reaching absurdist levels.
Vanish and Hide in Plain Sight just straight up do not work together, as Hide in Plain Sight requires a few minutes of prep time that is not possible when you are trying to hide in seconds, not to mention Hide in Plain Sight is intended to work when you do not have cover at all since you are literally hiding in plain sight, camoflauged to look like the nearest surface, if you wanna hide mid-combat you should probably be looking at Nature's Veil instead, although being invisible is not the same as being Hidden for Mechanical reasons (or so i've heard, no idea what that entails ask someone who actiually knows shit about the stealth rules)
Another fun, noncombat thing you can do with the Ranger is take Favored Enemy and put Deft Explorer: Canny's expertise in Survival instead. You now have expertise and advantage on survival checks to track your Favored Enemies. This might sound situationally very useful, but you can game the system to allow this benefit on a majority of creatures just by taking smart Favored Enemy choices (protip: at level 1, Humans and Elves are probably going to be your best bet.) Throw in Hunter's Mark for creatures that aren't your Favored Enemies, and you get advantage and expertise on tracking pretty much everybody.
a fun side effect of this setup is that you get an absurd amount of languages at level 1, especially when combined with a race that gets a lot of languages at level 1 such as half-elves, githyanki, changelings or Verdan, going for a background that gives you two extra languages such as Sage, and later picking the Linguist feat you can be the person in the party that speaks all the languages. Extra fun if you do not waste your time with survival and instead specialize in some kind of lore skill to be some kind of knowledgable sage of monster lore, this does require that you pick a subclass that does not particularly rely on wisdom or forcing saving throws but it might work out ya' know?
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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
I know we’ve spoken about this before. So at the risk of sounding like a broken record...
Hide in plain sight can be used in combat. It does have a setup, but this is so it can only be used once in combat. This has been my reading since the beginning, and that reading has only strengthened in my mind since Tasha’s considering those ability “replacements” are meant to be equally powered. The ability has two parts, separated by completely different paragraphs. A smart ranger spends the minute applying this camouflage while other classes are casting a ritual spell or short resting. Even while traveling in the wild the ranger can take the time to apply as they ignore difficult terrain at these levels
Hide in Plain Sight
Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage.
Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. You gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit.
This ability also works just like the halfling and wood elf racial trait in that they circumvent the general hiding rules about needing ti not be seen to do so. Very powerful? Yes. Hence the required setup.
So then a few levels later hide in plain sight does work with vanish. Very nicely in fact. If you’ve done the setup beforehand you can, in combat, while in line of sight, take a bonus action to hide with an extra +10 modifier.
Tasha’s suggested optional replacement for this ability also strengthens my resolve.
Thanks to EnvoyofWater - you make my point in a couple of other threads - Ranger is not an under powered class; it is an underplayed class. While we often think of Aragorn as the classic ranger he is really a fighter with some nature skills. A better view would be Daniel Boone - able to do lots of different things well even if not exceptionally well. His fighting style is not stand there toe to toe and duke it out with the gang leader hoping to take him out before moving on to the next. It’s more like the monk - move and strike move and strike and keep the entire gang off balance until they are worn out and run or drop from accumulated damage. Played well a ranger is an awesome character, played poorly it sucks. The problem is not the class, it’s the player or the player’s style of play with the ranger class.
I think PF2e did the ranger perfect....you get to mark a creature that is your Hunted Prey and you get feats to decide what to do with that mark. At baseline you get bonus to seek and track them but can later do additional attacks, bonus to recall information about the creature, move when they move, etc....
No worries about picking the wrong enemy or terrain type...just bonus. You get so many options on what you want to do to....do you want to do a lot of attacks? or just one big one per turn?
Beast Master in PF2e is better as well as the creature you get scales better with the feats you take to the point it is terrifying on its own vs. the PHB BM creature is not very hardy.
I think PF2e did the ranger perfect....you get to mark a creature that is your Hunted Prey and you get feats to decide what to do with that mark. At baseline you get bonus to seek and track them but can later do additional attacks, bonus to recall information about the creature, move when they move, etc....
No worries about picking the wrong enemy or terrain type...just bonus. You get so many options on what you want to do to....do you want to do a lot of attacks? or just one big one per turn?
Beast Master in PF2e is better as well as the creature you get scales better with the feats you take to the point it is terrifying on its own vs. the PHB BM creature is not very hardy.
i agree on all of this but cannot add any new details without it turing into rambling about the nifty things in that system and thus going quite far off topic
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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
I think PF2e did the ranger perfect....you get to mark a creature that is your Hunted Prey and you get feats to decide what to do with that mark. At baseline you get bonus to seek and track them but can later do additional attacks, bonus to recall information about the creature, move when they move, etc....
No worries about picking the wrong enemy or terrain type...just bonus. You get so many options on what you want to do to....do you want to do a lot of attacks? or just one big one per turn?
Beast Master in PF2e is better as well as the creature you get scales better with the feats you take to the point it is terrifying on its own vs. the PHB BM creature is not very hardy.
i agree on all of this but cannot add any new details without it turing into rambling about the nifty things in that system and thus going quite far off topic
Yeah my main point would be making Favored Foe a free thing rangers get to target a creature. While its active you get ADV to track the creature and then can do one of the following:
Use a BA to activate Hunters Mark on the creature. Damage is 1d4 extra per attack on the creature and never increases. It is concentration based.
Use a BA to Recall information on the target. You get to roll ADV on a Nature/Arcana/Religion/History check to recall information about the creature. You can do this multiple times but the DC gets harder the more times you do it.
Or subclass specific features.
Like Gloomstalker you could use a BA to impose DIS on perception checks to find you (-5 to passive perception then).
Monster Hunter when you recall information on the target successfully you can make one attack as part of that same BA (uses = Wis Mod per day)
Fey Ranger you use a BA to teleport within 5ft of the target (Uses = Wis Mod per day)
Beast Master you use a BA to have your beast move their speed towards the target.
It would have been a better base mechanism for features IMO
I think PF2e did the ranger perfect....you get to mark a creature that is your Hunted Prey and you get feats to decide what to do with that mark. At baseline you get bonus to seek and track them but can later do additional attacks, bonus to recall information about the creature, move when they move, etc....
No worries about picking the wrong enemy or terrain type...just bonus. You get so many options on what you want to do to....do you want to do a lot of attacks? or just one big one per turn?
Beast Master in PF2e is better as well as the creature you get scales better with the feats you take to the point it is terrifying on its own vs. the PHB BM creature is not very hardy.
i agree on all of this but cannot add any new details without it turing into rambling about the nifty things in that system and thus going quite far off topic
Yeah my main point would be making Favored Foe a free thing rangers get to target a creature. While its active you get ADV to track the creature and then can do one of the following:
Use a BA to activate Hunters Mark on the creature. Damage is 1d4 extra per attack on the creature and never increases. It is concentration based.
Use a BA to Recall information on the target. You get to roll ADV on a Nature/Arcana/Religion/History check to recall information about the creature. You can do this multiple times but the DC gets harder the more times you do it.
Or subclass specific features.
Like Gloomstalker you could use a BA to impose DIS on perception checks to find you (-5 to passive perception then).
Monster Hunter when you recall information on the target successfully you can make one attack as part of that same BA (uses = Wis Mod per day)
Fey Ranger you use a BA to teleport within 5ft of the target (Uses = Wis Mod per day)
Beast Master you use a BA to have your beast move their speed towards the target.
It would have been a better base mechanism for features IMO
That seems overly complicated, and keeping HM as concentration is the main problem have with it. I would bet that 6e HM is just going to be something Rangers get, like the Rogue sneak attack, but it triggers every attack, starts as a d4, goes up a dice to a d6 at 5, d8 at 11 and a d10 at 17.
I think PF2e did the ranger perfect....you get to mark a creature that is your Hunted Prey and you get feats to decide what to do with that mark. At baseline you get bonus to seek and track them but can later do additional attacks, bonus to recall information about the creature, move when they move, etc....
No worries about picking the wrong enemy or terrain type...just bonus. You get so many options on what you want to do to....do you want to do a lot of attacks? or just one big one per turn?
Beast Master in PF2e is better as well as the creature you get scales better with the feats you take to the point it is terrifying on its own vs. the PHB BM creature is not very hardy.
i agree on all of this but cannot add any new details without it turing into rambling about the nifty things in that system and thus going quite far off topic
Yeah my main point would be making Favored Foe a free thing rangers get to target a creature. While its active you get ADV to track the creature and then can do one of the following:
Use a BA to activate Hunters Mark on the creature. Damage is 1d4 extra per attack on the creature and never increases. It is concentration based.
Use a BA to Recall information on the target. You get to roll ADV on a Nature/Arcana/Religion/History check to recall information about the creature. You can do this multiple times but the DC gets harder the more times you do it.
Or subclass specific features.
Like Gloomstalker you could use a BA to impose DIS on perception checks to find you (-5 to passive perception then).
Monster Hunter when you recall information on the target successfully you can make one attack as part of that same BA (uses = Wis Mod per day)
Fey Ranger you use a BA to teleport within 5ft of the target (Uses = Wis Mod per day)
Beast Master you use a BA to have your beast move their speed towards the target.
It would have been a better base mechanism for features IMO
That seems overly complicated, and keeping HM as concentration is the main problem have with it. I would bet that 6e HM is just going to be something Rangers get, like the Rogue sneak attack, but it triggers every attack, starts as a d4, goes up a dice to a d6 at 5, d8 at 11 and a d10 at 17.
It being a free resource with concentration ( you can always use it but its lower damage) is one way to go. Making it always on with every attack and no concentration is pretty big deal....I assume you would limit it to a certain amount of uses per day?
That seems overly complicated, and keeping HM as concentration is the main problem have with it. I would bet that 6e HM is just going to be something Rangers get, like the Rogue sneak attack, but it triggers every attack, starts as a d4, goes up a dice to a d6 at 5, d8 at 11 and a d10 at 17.
It being a free resource with concentration ( you can always use it but its lower damage) is one way to go. Making it always on with every attack and no concentration is pretty big deal....I assume you would limit it to a certain amount of uses per day?
Nope, the only limit is that you can only have one active target marked, but you can BA to apply it to any target, otherwise it just is something they can do
That seems overly complicated, and keeping HM as concentration is the main problem have with it. I would bet that 6e HM is just going to be something Rangers get, like the Rogue sneak attack, but it triggers every attack, starts as a d4, goes up a dice to a d6 at 5, d8 at 11 and a d10 at 17.
It being a free resource with concentration ( you can always use it but its lower damage) is one way to go. Making it always on with every attack and no concentration is pretty big deal....I assume you would limit it to a certain amount of uses per day?
Nope, the only limit is that you can only have one active target marked, but you can BA to apply it to any target, otherwise it just is something they can do
Seems a bit crazy with other spells or MC then as you could pick up Hex with shadow touched and do 2d6 damage pretty much all the time....
I think PF2e did the ranger perfect....you get to mark a creature that is your Hunted Prey and you get feats to decide what to do with that mark. At baseline you get bonus to seek and track them but can later do additional attacks, bonus to recall information about the creature, move when they move, etc....
No worries about picking the wrong enemy or terrain type...just bonus. You get so many options on what you want to do to....do you want to do a lot of attacks? or just one big one per turn?
Beast Master in PF2e is better as well as the creature you get scales better with the feats you take to the point it is terrifying on its own vs. the PHB BM creature is not very hardy.
i agree on all of this but cannot add any new details without it turing into rambling about the nifty things in that system and thus going quite far off topic
Yeah my main point would be making Favored Foe a free thing rangers get to target a creature. While its active you get ADV to track the creature and then can do one of the following:
Use a BA to activate Hunters Mark on the creature. Damage is 1d4 extra per attack on the creature and never increases. It is concentration based.
Use a BA to Recall information on the target. You get to roll ADV on a Nature/Arcana/Religion/History check to recall information about the creature. You can do this multiple times but the DC gets harder the more times you do it.
Or subclass specific features.
Like Gloomstalker you could use a BA to impose DIS on perception checks to find you (-5 to passive perception then).
Monster Hunter when you recall information on the target successfully you can make one attack as part of that same BA (uses = Wis Mod per day)
Fey Ranger you use a BA to teleport within 5ft of the target (Uses = Wis Mod per day)
Beast Master you use a BA to have your beast move their speed towards the target.
It would have been a better base mechanism for features IMO
The recall information bit is just a bit too arbitrary, you should always be able to make int checks to see if you can recall specific information, it is not something you need a class feature to tell you to do,
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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
I think PF2e did the ranger perfect....you get to mark a creature that is your Hunted Prey and you get feats to decide what to do with that mark. At baseline you get bonus to seek and track them but can later do additional attacks, bonus to recall information about the creature, move when they move, etc....
No worries about picking the wrong enemy or terrain type...just bonus. You get so many options on what you want to do to....do you want to do a lot of attacks? or just one big one per turn?
Beast Master in PF2e is better as well as the creature you get scales better with the feats you take to the point it is terrifying on its own vs. the PHB BM creature is not very hardy.
i agree on all of this but cannot add any new details without it turing into rambling about the nifty things in that system and thus going quite far off topic
Yeah my main point would be making Favored Foe a free thing rangers get to target a creature. While its active you get ADV to track the creature and then can do one of the following:
Use a BA to activate Hunters Mark on the creature. Damage is 1d4 extra per attack on the creature and never increases. It is concentration based.
Use a BA to Recall information on the target. You get to roll ADV on a Nature/Arcana/Religion/History check to recall information about the creature. You can do this multiple times but the DC gets harder the more times you do it.
Or subclass specific features.
Like Gloomstalker you could use a BA to impose DIS on perception checks to find you (-5 to passive perception then).
Monster Hunter when you recall information on the target successfully you can make one attack as part of that same BA (uses = Wis Mod per day)
Fey Ranger you use a BA to teleport within 5ft of the target (Uses = Wis Mod per day)
Beast Master you use a BA to have your beast move their speed towards the target.
It would have been a better base mechanism for features IMO
The recall information bit is just a bit too arbitrary, you should always be able to make int checks to see if you can recall specific information, it is not something you need a class feature to tell you to do,
Unfortunately its not a base action or an expectation that you can do this....likely for the sake of simplicity.
That seems overly complicated, and keeping HM as concentration is the main problem have with it. I would bet that 6e HM is just going to be something Rangers get, like the Rogue sneak attack, but it triggers every attack, starts as a d4, goes up a dice to a d6 at 5, d8 at 11 and a d10 at 17.
It being a free resource with concentration ( you can always use it but its lower damage) is one way to go. Making it always on with every attack and no concentration is pretty big deal....I assume you would limit it to a certain amount of uses per day?
Nope, the only limit is that you can only have one active target marked, but you can BA to apply it to any target, otherwise it just is something they can do
Seems a bit crazy with other spells or MC then as you could pick up Hex with shadow touched and do 2d6 damage pretty much all the time....
Not really. You can pick up a level of rogue and add 2d6 pretty much all the time right now, so, under my proposed HM, if a level 6 character (because it isn't a d6 until 5) wants to take 5 levels of Ranger, and somehow has a 13 CHA to grab a level of Warlock to get 2 d6 on their attacks, and lose the ability to use any other concentration spell like Hail of Thorns then go for it
That seems overly complicated, and keeping HM as concentration is the main problem have with it. I would bet that 6e HM is just going to be something Rangers get, like the Rogue sneak attack, but it triggers every attack, starts as a d4, goes up a dice to a d6 at 5, d8 at 11 and a d10 at 17.
It being a free resource with concentration ( you can always use it but its lower damage) is one way to go. Making it always on with every attack and no concentration is pretty big deal....I assume you would limit it to a certain amount of uses per day?
Nope, the only limit is that you can only have one active target marked, but you can BA to apply it to any target, otherwise it just is something they can do
Seems a bit crazy with other spells or MC then as you could pick up Hex with shadow touched and do 2d6 damage pretty much all the time....
Not really. You can pick up a level of rogue and add 2d6 pretty much all the time right now, so, under my proposed HM, if a level 6 character (because it isn't a d6 until 5) wants to take 5 levels of Ranger, and somehow has a 13 CHA to grab a level of Warlock to get 2 d6 on their attacks, and lose the ability to use any other concentration spell like Hail of Thorns then go for it
2d6 once per round not per attack which is much different and also takes two levels of rogue to get there vs a single feat....
No MC needed to get Hex just shadow touched.
A v human could start with it with no additional class investment
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So, what I've come to realize is that Tasha's Ranger isn't so much underpowered as it is unintuitive. You get a lot of small bonuses from different sources that add up to a surprisingly powerful package. But man, it's so hard to keep track of everything.
I'll use the Horizon Walker as an example since that is the character I'm currently playing:
Before 11th-level, everyone pretty much agrees that the Ranger (either version) can keep up with other martial classes in combat, but it's Common Knowledge that it "falls off a cliff" at higher levels, so let's focus on that. I'm also going to assume one has chosen all of the Tasha class features (my Horizon Walker personally kept Favored Enemy because tracking humans and elves is a big part of her character, but I digress.)
At 11th-level, the Horizon Walker will start out her adventuring day with 1d8 + Wis Temporary Hit Points (Deft Explorer: Tireless.) This already helps shore up some of her bulk since Rangers don't naturally get access to heavy armor. She can use this four times a day, and goes up to six by 20th. In addition, she can use her bonus action to turn all weapon damage to Force damage and deal an extra 2d8 on her first attack (Planar Warrior.) In addition to that, she can make three attacks every round if she is multi-targeting (Distant Strikes.) In addition to that, she can teleport 20-30 ft for free every round that she attacks (Distant Strikes.)
So now she's attacking 2-3 times per round, teleporting 20-30 ft, dealing the same damage as Improved Divine Smite, and has free Temporary Hit Points before pretty much every encounter. All of this and she still has her movement. Assuming a standard 30 ft, she actually gets 35 at this level (Deft Explorer: Roving), as well as a climbing and swimming speed (Deft Explorer: Roving.) So in practice, she's moving 55-65 ft every round for free. Going back to damage, she can proc Favored Foe --which at this point is a 1d6-- without interfering with Planar Warrior. So let's take a look.
At 11th-level, while expending practically zero resources --other than Favored Foe and Tireless uses-- we have a character who can move 55-65 ft every round, can make 2-3 attacks on the same round, deal additional 2d8 + 1d6 force damage every round, starts every battle with THP, can climb and swim to get the terrain advantage, and is completely unhindered by difficult terrain (Land's Stride.) And we haven't even dipped into her spells yet.
Honestly, it's not bad at all. If we look at what Fighters and Paladins are doing at this level, Fighters are making three attacks every round, unless they decide to blow their Action Surge, and --assuming Battlemasters-- using Superiority Dice to exert a small degree of battlefield control. Problem is Action Surge and Superiority Dice are precious resources the Fighter needs to expend. Without them (either through conservation or depletion,) the Fighter is stuck just making three attacks per round. The Paladin doesn't normally get additional attacks like the Fighter or Horizon Walker do. Instead, they get Improved Divine Smite, which grants them free 1d8 radiant damage on every hit. That's normally a 2d8 per round, which the Horizon Walker can match with Planar Warrior, and exceed with Favored Foe --and that's not counting the conditional third attack. In order for the Paladin to keep up, he has to start burning spell slots for Divine Smite. And he has to do this every round if he wants to outdo the Horizon Walker's DPR. Like the Fighter, that's another precious resource expenditure.
And the funny thing is this isn't even the best thing the Horizon Walker can do. We haven't even talked about her Spellcasting. Or Nature's Veil.
Let's assume you don't want your DM to strangle you, so we'll set Conjure Animals aside. Horizon Walkers get access to Haste at 9th-level. A Hasted Horizon Walker, then, will be making 3-4 attacks every round thanks to Distant Strikes, proccing Planar Warrior for 2d8, teleporting 30-40 ft (Distant Strikes again), moving 70 ft with a combination of Deft Explorer: Roving and Haste, making Dexterity Saves with advantage thanks again to Haste, gaining an additional +2 to their AC (Haste once again), climbing and swimming over any and every obstacle (Roving again,) ignoring any difficult terrain disadvantages because of Land's Stride, and starting every battle with THP from Deft Explorer: Tireless. And that's still not the strongest thing they can do. If they decide to give up their Planar Warrior 2d8, they can turn themselves Invisible through Nature's Veil, which imposes disadvantage on attacks against them and grants them advantage on attacks against other enemies. I've been leaving out feats so far but even assuming the Paladin and Fighter pick up Great Weapon Master/Polearm Master/Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter, a Horizon Walker with just GWM/Sharpshooter still has a better chance to proc the additional damage thanks to their Invisibility, which means that GWM/Sharpshooter is more reliable on her. Invisibility is also a great defensive buff.
Now, a Vengeance Paladin can also use Haste. So what makes the Horizon Walker any better than the Vengeance Paladin? Well, at this level, Horizon Walkers are basically immune to Opportunity Attacks for one (they get to teleport away before making their own attacks with Distant Strikes,) which can combine with the absolutely bonkers mobility (30-40 teleport, 70 ft movement, climb, swim, ignore difficult terrain) to let them position themselves wherever they want in the battlefield. They can get in and get out of melee range safely (or stick to the trees if they're archers,) and can move so far away as to be out of range for most attacks. Even AoE's (they can give up their BA to Misty Step too, so for those keeping score at home, that's 130-140 ft of movement in a single round.) Vengeance Paladins can withstand the attacks and not break concentration with their Aura of Protection, but every time they get hit it'll be a gamble. Horizon Walkers can attack safely and get into position all on the same round, preventing them from taking damage if needed. tl;dr: Paladins tank but Rangers skirmish. And not getting targeted means you're more likely to keep concentration on Haste. Also, the Horizon Walker uses the mobility from Haste better since the Paladin will just plant himself in the frontlines anyway.
As you can see from my freaking dissertation, an 11th-level Horizon Walker can do a great many things on her turn, and all at once even. She can attack, teleport, turn invisible, and have enough movement to make the Monk jealous. But just look at all the different class features that have to come together to make that happen. By contrast, a Battlemaster Fighter just needs to focus on his attacks, superiority dice (if applicable), and the odd Action Surge. A Vengeance Paladin can replicate the Haste effect and only needs to keep track of his attacks, Improved/Smites, Auras, and the odd Lay on Hands. Both the Fighter and the Paladin are powerful classes, but more importantly, they're highly streamlined (the Fighter perhaps to a fault.) The Horizon Walker's power is distributed in a number of seemingly disparate class features and you need to keep careful track of them in order to get the most out of her power. There's also an element of choice with the Horizon Walker that isn't present in the Fighter and Paladin classes. Do I proc Planar Warrior, do I turn Invisible, or do I Misty Step away? Do I activate Favored Foe, Hunter's Mark, or Haste?
Again, sorry for the essay.
(contented sigh) Envoyofwater, that is beautifully presented. And that is just doing the basic stuff! If you add in other spells cast, in combat and out, awesome. Fun too! Not just “Hit with sword. Repeat.”
Rasmus_Haugen_Sandvik, that isn’t mathematically accurate. Levels 6-10 rangers are leading the pack in DPR. Remember that rangers get damage from their subclass where paladins get damage from their core class. Crunch the numbers subclass versus subclass, ranger versus paladin, fighter, whatever, and you’d be surprised. Factor in to-hit calculations to. Also, if you only look at single round damage classes that don’t have nova will be represented inaccurately. Look at damage over 3, 4, or 5 rounds (a typical combat encounter length) and rangers are the winners much if the time, even at levels 11+.
There's a lot of fun stuff you can do with the Ranger once you realize how the Ranger's power is scattered around. It gets better once you start mix-and-matching PHB and Tasha features. For me, I have a blast just connecting the dots and seeing what I can come up with. For instance, let's take that same Horizon Walker but let's bump her up to 14th-level and swap out Nature's Veil with Hide in Plain Sight.
A Horizon Walker with Expertise in Stealth from Deft Explorer: Canny and maximum Dexterity will have +15 to her Stealth checks. Combined with Pass without Trace, this goes up to 25. Combine that further with Hide in Plain Sight and you get a +35 bonus to your Stealth. Along with Vanish at 14-level, she can attack twice, use her functional 55 ft of movement to find cover (a tree? A rock wall?) and Hide as a bonus action, which she will pretty much auto-succeed because did I mention the +35 to stealth? If this sounds like overkill, just imagine if our Ranger was a Gloomstalker instead. That's just reaching absurdist levels.
But wait, it gets better. If you want to be a complete ghost, you can cast Nondetection on yourself at the start of the adventuring day (making you immune to magical tracking) which combines with Vanish (making you immune to non-magical tracking) to make sure your enemies will never see you coming. As a Gloomstalker --or if we go back to Nature's Veil-- you can also turn invisible on top of that.
Another fun, noncombat thing you can do with the Ranger is take Favored Enemy and put Deft Explorer: Canny's expertise in Survival instead. You now have expertise and advantage on survival checks to track your Favored Enemies. This might sound situationally very useful, but you can game the system to allow this benefit on a majority of creatures just by taking smart Favored Enemy choices (protip: at level 1, Humans and Elves are probably going to be your best bet.) Throw in Hunter's Mark for creatures that aren't your Favored Enemies, and you get advantage and expertise on tracking pretty much everybody. Then, take Primal Awareness and effectively use your environment as your eyes and ears. Speak with Animals/Plants, Beast Sense and Locate Creature will get you a metric ton of info if used correctly. And it won't even cost a spell slot to use them once.
The fun thing is that while these may sound niche, they don't actually conflict with your effectiveness in combat. The Horizon Walker we detailed above can still do all of the things she could do before, plus become a ghost outside of combat plus track like the freaking Predator. Mind you, she'll have to pick between stealth and survival, as well as between Nature's Veil and Hide in Plain Sight, but ultimately, the choice won't hinder her too much if she's smart. For instance, even without Stealth Expertise and HiPS, she still gets a +20 to her stealth (which is enough to pass most checks,) can't be tracked magically or non-magically, and still has both advantage and expertise in tracking, all the while being as consistent in combat as stated above.
So she's great both in combat and out, but the problem --once again-- is that all of these bonuses come from disparate sources. To summarize, she needs Favored Enemy/Foe, Canny: Stealth/Survival, Roving, Tireless, Primal Awareness, Nature's Veil/HiPS, Vanish, Planar Warrior, Distant Strikes, and spells like Hunter's Mark, Pass Without Trace, Nondetection, and Haste. And they're all working in concert with each other. That is a lot to keep track of.
Few people would actually argue that Gloom stalker or horizon walker are underpowered but Even the PHB beast master can keep up with high damage output if you use appropriate Pets. It can even potentially exceed them using harvesting rules which is a less popular opinion.
beastmasters, horizon walkers and to a lesser extent hunter rangers and gloom stalker already get thrid attack equivalents at 11th level, just play one of those (also everything has been nerfed since the UA, especially Favoured Foe)
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
Vanish and Hide in Plain Sight just straight up do not work together, as Hide in Plain Sight requires a few minutes of prep time that is not possible when you are trying to hide in seconds, not to mention Hide in Plain Sight is intended to work when you do not have cover at all since you are literally hiding in plain sight, camoflauged to look like the nearest surface, if you wanna hide mid-combat you should probably be looking at Nature's Veil instead, although being invisible is not the same as being Hidden for Mechanical reasons (or so i've heard, no idea what that entails ask someone who actiually knows shit about the stealth rules)
a fun side effect of this setup is that you get an absurd amount of languages at level 1, especially when combined with a race that gets a lot of languages at level 1 such as half-elves, githyanki, changelings or Verdan, going for a background that gives you two extra languages such as Sage, and later picking the Linguist feat you can be the person in the party that speaks all the languages. Extra fun if you do not waste your time with survival and instead specialize in some kind of lore skill to be some kind of knowledgable sage of monster lore, this does require that you pick a subclass that does not particularly rely on wisdom or forcing saving throws but it might work out ya' know?
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
I know we’ve spoken about this before. So at the risk of sounding like a broken record...
Hide in plain sight can be used in combat. It does have a setup, but this is so it can only be used once in combat. This has been my reading since the beginning, and that reading has only strengthened in my mind since Tasha’s considering those ability “replacements” are meant to be equally powered. The ability has two parts, separated by completely different paragraphs. A smart ranger spends the minute applying this camouflage while other classes are casting a ritual spell or short resting. Even while traveling in the wild the ranger can take the time to apply as they ignore difficult terrain at these levels
Hide in Plain Sight
Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage.
Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. You gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions. Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit.
This ability also works just like the halfling and wood elf racial trait in that they circumvent the general hiding rules about needing ti not be seen to do so. Very powerful? Yes. Hence the required setup.
So then a few levels later hide in plain sight does work with vanish. Very nicely in fact. If you’ve done the setup beforehand you can, in combat, while in line of sight, take a bonus action to hide with an extra +10 modifier.
Tasha’s suggested optional replacement for this ability also strengthens my resolve.
Thanks to EnvoyofWater - you make my point in a couple of other threads - Ranger is not an under powered class; it is an underplayed class. While we often think of Aragorn as the classic ranger he is really a fighter with some nature skills. A better view would be Daniel Boone - able to do lots of different things well even if not exceptionally well. His fighting style is not stand there toe to toe and duke it out with the gang leader hoping to take him out before moving on to the next. It’s more like the monk - move and strike move and strike and keep the entire gang off balance until they are worn out and run or drop from accumulated damage. Played well a ranger is an awesome character, played poorly it sucks. The problem is not the class, it’s the player or the player’s style of play with the ranger class.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I think PF2e did the ranger perfect....you get to mark a creature that is your Hunted Prey and you get feats to decide what to do with that mark. At baseline you get bonus to seek and track them but can later do additional attacks, bonus to recall information about the creature, move when they move, etc....
No worries about picking the wrong enemy or terrain type...just bonus. You get so many options on what you want to do to....do you want to do a lot of attacks? or just one big one per turn?
Beast Master in PF2e is better as well as the creature you get scales better with the feats you take to the point it is terrifying on its own vs. the PHB BM creature is not very hardy.
i agree on all of this but cannot add any new details without it turing into rambling about the nifty things in that system and thus going quite far off topic
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
Yeah my main point would be making Favored Foe a free thing rangers get to target a creature. While its active you get ADV to track the creature and then can do one of the following:
Use a BA to activate Hunters Mark on the creature. Damage is 1d4 extra per attack on the creature and never increases. It is concentration based.
Use a BA to Recall information on the target. You get to roll ADV on a Nature/Arcana/Religion/History check to recall information about the creature. You can do this multiple times but the DC gets harder the more times you do it.
Or subclass specific features.
Like Gloomstalker you could use a BA to impose DIS on perception checks to find you (-5 to passive perception then).
Monster Hunter when you recall information on the target successfully you can make one attack as part of that same BA (uses = Wis Mod per day)
Fey Ranger you use a BA to teleport within 5ft of the target (Uses = Wis Mod per day)
Beast Master you use a BA to have your beast move their speed towards the target.
It would have been a better base mechanism for features IMO
That seems overly complicated, and keeping HM as concentration is the main problem have with it. I would bet that 6e HM is just going to be something Rangers get, like the Rogue sneak attack, but it triggers every attack, starts as a d4, goes up a dice to a d6 at 5, d8 at 11 and a d10 at 17.
It being a free resource with concentration ( you can always use it but its lower damage) is one way to go. Making it always on with every attack and no concentration is pretty big deal....I assume you would limit it to a certain amount of uses per day?
Nope, the only limit is that you can only have one active target marked, but you can BA to apply it to any target, otherwise it just is something they can do
Seems a bit crazy with other spells or MC then as you could pick up Hex with shadow touched and do 2d6 damage pretty much all the time....
The recall information bit is just a bit too arbitrary, you should always be able to make int checks to see if you can recall specific information, it is not something you need a class feature to tell you to do,
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
Unfortunately its not a base action or an expectation that you can do this....likely for the sake of simplicity.
Not really. You can pick up a level of rogue and add 2d6 pretty much all the time right now, so, under my proposed HM, if a level 6 character (because it isn't a d6 until 5) wants to take 5 levels of Ranger, and somehow has a 13 CHA to grab a level of Warlock to get 2 d6 on their attacks, and lose the ability to use any other concentration spell like Hail of Thorns then go for it
2d6 once per round not per attack which is much different and also takes two levels of rogue to get there vs a single feat....
No MC needed to get Hex just shadow touched.
A v human could start with it with no additional class investment