These are situations and active decisions you are making for your gamer as the DM and imposing on your players as a DM. There is zero support for these opinions in the game, or at any reasonable table.
Are these still you just stating your opinion?
I have never stopped.
My opinion is that if you give the ranger the advantage for all the biomes mentioned in the book for Chult because they picked forest that would be very much not the intention as they went to the trouble of listing out said biomes.
I would also say that jungle is far enough away from forest that they technically should not get it at all...hence the need for a "scout" in game.
However, I could see letting them have forest = jungle perhaps but certainly not forest = coast as that is a separate option for rangers anyway. Lakes, rivers, and what not would also not be covered by forest as the biomes are different.
If you are going to extend the entirety of Chult to them simply for picking forest why not just let them change their NE choice? It would be the same difference but at least give them some interaction and potential RP of swapping them out.
I do not think its unreasonable at all to suggest that you follow the rules regarding NE and restrict to the biomes you chose if to go that route.
The game only has the listed biomes in the game, and they are the most common categories of biomes. Also, biomes doesn't appear in the rules, just so everyone knows.
Forest is the terrain used n the ToA book. Trees. If all of the biomes you mentioned mention in the book had mechanical weight like that it would use game terms. It doesn't.
frank I disagree the monster manual and dmg have specific biomes/terrains assigned to creatures this is a mechanical fact in the rules.
a jungle has a mix of both forest and swamp entities. so its both.
also focusing on terrain is not about the power level of the ranger.
These are situations and active decisions you are making for your gamer as the DM and imposing on your players as a DM. There is zero support for these opinions in the game, or at any reasonable table.
Are these still you just stating your opinion?
I have never stopped.
My opinion is that if you give the ranger the advantage for all the biomes mentioned in the book for Chult because they picked forest that would be very much not the intention as they went to the trouble of listing out said biomes.
I would also say that jungle is far enough away from forest that they technically should not get it at all...hence the need for a "scout" in game.
However, I could see letting them have forest = jungle perhaps but certainly not forest = coast as that is a separate option for rangers anyway. Lakes, rivers, and what not would also not be covered by forest as the biomes are different.
If you are going to extend the entirety of Chult to them simply for picking forest why not just let them change their NE choice? It would be the same difference but at least give them some interaction and potential RP of swapping them out.
I do not think its unreasonable at all to suggest that you follow the rules regarding NE and restrict to the biomes you chose if to go that route.
Your opinions of the interaction between flavor text, mechanics of the game, narrative descriptions in an adventure book, and class feature RAI are not even in the same solar system as myself or anyone I have ever played at a table with, read the words of on the internet, or watched listened to on a live play session.
Either by RAW, RAI, or RAF, you fail, in my opinion.
The game only has the listed biomes in the game, and they are the most common categories of biomes. Also, biomes doesn't appear in the rules, just so everyone knows.
Forest is the terrain used n the ToA book. Trees. If all of the biomes you mentioned mention in the book had mechanical weight like that it would use game terms. It doesn't.
frank I disagree the monster manual and dmg have specific biomes/terrains assigned to creatures this is a mechanical fact in the rules.
a jungle has a mix of both forest and swamp entities. so its both.
Exactly....and coast and mountains and swamps.....they are all there and different choices for NE.
These are situations and active decisions you are making for your gamer as the DM and imposing on your players as a DM. There is zero support for these opinions in the game, or at any reasonable table.
Are these still you just stating your opinion?
I have never stopped.
My opinion is that if you give the ranger the advantage for all the biomes mentioned in the book for Chult because they picked forest that would be very much not the intention as they went to the trouble of listing out said biomes.
I would also say that jungle is far enough away from forest that they technically should not get it at all...hence the need for a "scout" in game.
However, I could see letting them have forest = jungle perhaps but certainly not forest = coast as that is a separate option for rangers anyway. Lakes, rivers, and what not would also not be covered by forest as the biomes are different.
If you are going to extend the entirety of Chult to them simply for picking forest why not just let them change their NE choice? It would be the same difference but at least give them some interaction and potential RP of swapping them out.
I do not think its unreasonable at all to suggest that you follow the rules regarding NE and restrict to the biomes you chose if to go that route.
Your opinions of the interaction between flavor text, mechanics of the game, narrative descriptions in an adventure book, and class feature RAI are not even in the same solar system as myself or anyone I have ever played at a table with, read the words of on the internet, or watched listened to on a live play session.
Either by RAW, RAI, or RAF, you fail, in my opinion.
I mean there is guidance for biomes as previously stated you wouldn't get the benefit on the coast of chult because well...you picked forest not coast.
If you want to play it differently that is of course your choice but its pretty clear that the intention was for you to pick one and have a limited amount of places that it applies.
I do not believe many would say because you have forest that you should also get coast, mountain, or swamp simply because the majority of the landmass is forest. The different biomes exist for a reason.
The game only has the listed biomes in the game, and they are the most common categories of biomes. Also, biomes doesn't appear in the rules, just so everyone knows.
Forest is the terrain used n the ToA book. Trees. If all of the biomes you mentioned mention in the book had mechanical weight like that it would use game terms. It doesn't.
frank I disagree the monster manual and dmg have specific biomes/terrains assigned to creatures this is a mechanical fact in the rules.
a jungle has a mix of both forest and swamp entities. so its both.
Exactly....and coast and mountains and swamps.....they are all there and different choices for NE.
which blows your one choice of terrain math out of the water as wrong. now they all work in chult. a ranger will always be in or near their terrain. thanks for seeing the light and undermining your own argument. you just proved the game intended over lap.
The game only has the listed biomes in the game, and they are the most common categories of biomes. Also, biomes doesn't appear in the rules, just so everyone knows.
Forest is the terrain used n the ToA book. Trees. If all of the biomes you mentioned mention in the book had mechanical weight like that it would use game terms. It doesn't.
frank I disagree the monster manual and dmg have specific biomes/terrains assigned to creatures this is a mechanical fact in the rules.
a jungle has a mix of both forest and swamp entities. so its both.
Exactly....and coast and mountains and swamps.....they are all there and different choices for NE.
What they’re saying, Optimus, is Chult is a jungle that has all of that in said jungle. Jungle is forest.
The game does bot break down to a level of forest, grove, woods, rain forest, jungle, etc. It is, are there trees? Yes. Forest.
The rules in the DMG and MM have the terrains listed in the ranger ability plus they add hills and underwater. That’s it. They are general, large swaths of categories covering general basics of land types.
The game only has the listed biomes in the game, and they are the most common categories of biomes. Also, biomes doesn't appear in the rules, just so everyone knows.
Forest is the terrain used n the ToA book. Trees. If all of the biomes you mentioned mention in the book had mechanical weight like that it would use game terms. It doesn't.
frank I disagree the monster manual and dmg have specific biomes/terrains assigned to creatures this is a mechanical fact in the rules.
a jungle has a mix of both forest and swamp entities. so its both.
Exactly....and coast and mountains and swamps.....they are all there and different choices for NE.
which blows your one choice of terrain math out of the water as wrong. now all 3 work in chult. thanks for seeing the light and undermining your own argument.
Yes. If anything it is MORE generous for the ranger.
The game only has the listed biomes in the game, and they are the most common categories of biomes. Also, biomes doesn't appear in the rules, just so everyone knows.
Forest is the terrain used n the ToA book. Trees. If all of the biomes you mentioned mention in the book had mechanical weight like that it would use game terms. It doesn't.
frank I disagree the monster manual and dmg have specific biomes/terrains assigned to creatures this is a mechanical fact in the rules.
a jungle has a mix of both forest and swamp entities. so its both.
Exactly....and coast and mountains and swamps.....they are all there and different choices for NE.
What they’re saying, Optimus, is Chult is a jungle that has all of that in said jungle. Jungle is forest.
The game does bot break down to a level of forest, grove, woods, rain forest, jungle, etc. It is, are there trees? Yes. Forest.
The rules in the DMG and MM have the terrains listed in the ranger ability plus they add hills and underwater. That’s it. They are general, large swaths of categories covering general basics of land types.
And I did agree that you could do jungle = forest but I disagreed that you would get all the others as part of that just by virtue of being in Chult.
The game only has the listed biomes in the game, and they are the most common categories of biomes. Also, biomes doesn't appear in the rules, just so everyone knows.
Forest is the terrain used n the ToA book. Trees. If all of the biomes you mentioned mention in the book had mechanical weight like that it would use game terms. It doesn't.
frank I disagree the monster manual and dmg have specific biomes/terrains assigned to creatures this is a mechanical fact in the rules.
a jungle has a mix of both forest and swamp entities. so its both.
Exactly....and coast and mountains and swamps.....they are all there and different choices for NE.
which blows your one choice of terrain math out of the water as wrong. now all 3 work in chult. thanks for seeing the light and undermining your own argument.
There are also wasteland, rivers, lakes so 5 total
Jungle = Forrest
Swamp = Swamp
Coast = Rivers/Lakes
Wasteland = Desert
Mountain = Mountain
So you would still be behind quite a bit the expertise rogue as they would have all 5 at level 1 and you would have 1.
This is nuts to me. This is not how the game deals with terrains and not how the natural explorer ability works.
This idea that, even if all of these subtypes of land existed in the game (they don’t), that somehow your ability switches off instantly when you step one foot over the made up line that separates these made up subsets of subtypes of land is crazy and wrong as per the rules of the core game and the ranger ability. This argument is the reason why the ranger ability says “related to” for the skills portion of the natural explorer ability and says “while traveling in” for the rest.
This is nuts to me. This is not how the game deals with terrains and not how the natural explorer ability works.
This idea that, even if all of these subtypes of land existed in the game (they don’t), that somehow your ability switches off instantly when you step one foot over the made up line that separates these made up subsets of subtypes of land is crazy and wrong as per the rules of the core game and the ranger ability. This argument is the reason why the ranger ability says “related to” for the skills portion of the natural explorer ability and says “while traveling in” for the rest.
Well I mean if you are making a survival check in mountains it makes sense that you would not get the expertise if you had picked forest right? It's two different biomes.
This is nuts to me. This is not how the game deals with terrains and not how the natural explorer ability works.
This idea that, even if all of these subtypes of land existed in the game (they don’t), that somehow your ability switches off instantly when you step one foot over the made up line that separates these made up subsets of subtypes of land is crazy and wrong as per the rules of the core game and the ranger ability. This argument is the reason why the ranger ability says “related to” for the skills portion of the natural explorer ability and says “while traveling in” for the rest.
Well I mean if you are making a survival check in mountains it makes sense that you would not get the expertise if you had picked forest right? It's two different biomes.
What is the survival check for? Tracking? Navigation? I’d give the expertise. But we are talking about a swampy mountainous jungle. It is all the same. Related. Intertwined.
Optimus, this is literally trying to help your side of an argument you took once. Instead of making up new rules for the ranger abilities (like switching favored terrains) just play the ability as written with a generous heart instead of activity choosing to nerf it.
This is nuts to me. This is not how the game deals with terrains and not how the natural explorer ability works.
This idea that, even if all of these subtypes of land existed in the game (they don’t), that somehow your ability switches off instantly when you step one foot over the made up line that separates these made up subsets of subtypes of land is crazy and wrong as per the rules of the core game and the ranger ability. This argument is the reason why the ranger ability says “related to” for the skills portion of the natural explorer ability and says “while traveling in” for the rest.
Well I mean if you are making a survival check in mountains it makes sense that you would not get the expertise if you had picked forest right? It's two different biomes.
What is the survival check for? Tracking? Navigation? I’d give the expertise. But we are talking about a swampy mountainous jungle. It is all the same. Related. Intertwined.
....mountain is literally one of the other types you can pick:
"You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark."
Why give them both mountain and forest then? You might as well just give them all of them?
Optimus, this is literally trying to help your side of an argument you took once. Instead of making up new rules for the ranger abilities (like switching favored terrains) just play the ability as written with a generous heart instead of activity choosing to nerf it.
That's not how the ability is written and honestly I have a completely different perspective on it if you just give them ALL terrains at level 1...that is completely different and changes how I perceive the ability.
Optimus, this is literally trying to help your side of an argument you took once. Instead of making up new rules for the ranger abilities (like switching favored terrains) just play the ability as written with a generous heart instead of activity choosing to nerf it.
That's not how the ability is written and honestly I have a completely different perspective on it if you just give them ALL terrains at level 1...that is completely different and changes how I perceive the ability.
That’s not exactly what I’m saying.
You expertise on proficient skills related to your favored terrain. That is my extremely generous take on an unrelated topic. Let’s stick to the point on hand.
I have a question for you. You you prefer the natural explorer ability worked everywhere all the time, stayed the same, or something else? I ask because we all know your preference is the Tasha’s replacement (hooray!), but what is your fix for the ability? You’ve said the ranger is either overpowered or useless depending on terrain, but also seem to see no value in the travel and exploration portion of the game to begin with.
This is nuts to me. This is not how the game deals with terrains and not how the natural explorer ability works.
This idea that, even if all of these subtypes of land existed in the game (they don’t), that somehow your ability switches off instantly when you step one foot over the made up line that separates these made up subsets of subtypes of land is crazy and wrong as per the rules of the core game and the ranger ability. This argument is the reason why the ranger ability says “related to” for the skills portion of the natural explorer ability and says “while traveling in” for the rest.
Well I mean if you are making a survival check in mountains it makes sense that you would not get the expertise if you had picked forest right? It's two different biomes.
What is the survival check for? Tracking? Navigation? I’d give the expertise. But we are talking about a swampy mountainous jungle. It is all the same. Related. Intertwined.
....mountain is literally one of the other types you can pick:
"You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark."
Why give them both mountain and forest then? You might as well just give them all of them?
If you have forest on a mountain you have both terrains not neither or one or the other.
Optimus, this is literally trying to help your side of an argument you took once. Instead of making up new rules for the ranger abilities (like switching favored terrains) just play the ability as written with a generous heart instead of activity choosing to nerf it.
That's not how the ability is written and honestly I have a completely different perspective on it if you just give them ALL terrains at level 1...that is completely different and changes how I perceive the ability.
That’s not exactly what I’m saying.
You expertise on proficient skills related to your favored terrain. That is my extremely generous take on an unrelated topic. Let’s stick to the point on hand.
I have a question for you. You you prefer the natural explorer ability worked everywhere all the time, stayed the same, or something else? I ask because we all know your preference is the Tasha’s replacement (hooray!), but what is your fix for the ability? You’ve said the ranger is either overpowered or useless depending on terrain, but also seem to see no value in the travel and exploration portion of the game to begin with.
I'm saying the ability would be a lot better if you had the option to swap terrain.
Like if you spent a day or so in the underdark you pick it up faster than most and could swap to underdark.
This fixes the "useless" part of it as you are adaptable and dynamic.
Granted it does not fix the "handwave" portion but that requires a much larger fix to the whole exploration system.
Optimus, this is literally trying to help your side of an argument you took once. Instead of making up new rules for the ranger abilities (like switching favored terrains) just play the ability as written with a generous heart instead of activity choosing to nerf it.
That's not how the ability is written and honestly I have a completely different perspective on it if you just give them ALL terrains at level 1...that is completely different and changes how I perceive the ability.
That’s not exactly what I’m saying.
You expertise on proficient skills related to your favored terrain. That is my extremely generous take on an unrelated topic. Let’s stick to the point on hand.
I have a question for you. You you prefer the natural explorer ability worked everywhere all the time, stayed the same, or something else? I ask because we all know your preference is the Tasha’s replacement (hooray!), but what is your fix for the ability? You’ve said the ranger is either overpowered or useless depending on terrain, but also seem to see no value in the travel and exploration portion of the game to begin with.
I'm saying the ability would be a lot better if you had the option to swap terrain.
Like if you spent a day or so in the underdark you pick it up faster than most and could swap to underdark.
This fixes the "useless" part of it as you are adaptable and dynamic.
Granted it does not fix the "handwave" portion but that requires a much larger fix to the whole exploration system.
Got it.
How is that different than just having everything on all of the time, in your opinion?
Optimus, this is literally trying to help your side of an argument you took once. Instead of making up new rules for the ranger abilities (like switching favored terrains) just play the ability as written with a generous heart instead of activity choosing to nerf it.
That's not how the ability is written and honestly I have a completely different perspective on it if you just give them ALL terrains at level 1...that is completely different and changes how I perceive the ability.
That’s not exactly what I’m saying.
You expertise on proficient skills related to your favored terrain. That is my extremely generous take on an unrelated topic. Let’s stick to the point on hand.
I have a question for you. You you prefer the natural explorer ability worked everywhere all the time, stayed the same, or something else? I ask because we all know your preference is the Tasha’s replacement (hooray!), but what is your fix for the ability? You’ve said the ranger is either overpowered or useless depending on terrain, but also seem to see no value in the travel and exploration portion of the game to begin with.
I'm saying the ability would be a lot better if you had the option to swap terrain.
Like if you spent a day or so in the underdark you pick it up faster than most and could swap to underdark.
This fixes the "useless" part of it as you are adaptable and dynamic.
Granted it does not fix the "handwave" portion but that requires a much larger fix to the whole exploration system.
Got it.
How is that different than just having everything on all of the time, in your opinion?
Well everything all at once all the time means that you can benefit instantly in a new environment. While I do not think this is a bad thing overall it would make the feature a lot more powerful....and honestly I am OK with that.
Honestly if I was going to go that approach I would just do the following instead since it would just be easier:
Gain Expertise in two of the following: Nature, Perception, Survival, Animal Handling, or Investigation.
I have never stopped.
My opinion is that if you give the ranger the advantage for all the biomes mentioned in the book for Chult because they picked forest that would be very much not the intention as they went to the trouble of listing out said biomes.
I would also say that jungle is far enough away from forest that they technically should not get it at all...hence the need for a "scout" in game.
However, I could see letting them have forest = jungle perhaps but certainly not forest = coast as that is a separate option for rangers anyway. Lakes, rivers, and what not would also not be covered by forest as the biomes are different.
If you are going to extend the entirety of Chult to them simply for picking forest why not just let them change their NE choice? It would be the same difference but at least give them some interaction and potential RP of swapping them out.
I do not think its unreasonable at all to suggest that you follow the rules regarding NE and restrict to the biomes you chose if to go that route.
frank I disagree the monster manual and dmg have specific biomes/terrains assigned to creatures this is a mechanical fact in the rules.
a jungle has a mix of both forest and swamp entities. so its both.
also focusing on terrain is not about the power level of the ranger.
Your opinions of the interaction between flavor text, mechanics of the game, narrative descriptions in an adventure book, and class feature RAI are not even in the same solar system as myself or anyone I have ever played at a table with, read the words of on the internet, or watched listened to on a live play session.
Either by RAW, RAI, or RAF, you fail, in my opinion.
Exactly....and coast and mountains and swamps.....they are all there and different choices for NE.
I mean there is guidance for biomes as previously stated you wouldn't get the benefit on the coast of chult because well...you picked forest not coast.
If you want to play it differently that is of course your choice but its pretty clear that the intention was for you to pick one and have a limited amount of places that it applies.
I do not believe many would say because you have forest that you should also get coast, mountain, or swamp simply because the majority of the landmass is forest. The different biomes exist for a reason.
which blows your one choice of terrain math out of the water as wrong. now they all work in chult. a ranger will always be in or near their terrain. thanks for seeing the light and undermining your own argument. you just proved the game intended over lap.
What they’re saying, Optimus, is Chult is a jungle that has all of that in said jungle. Jungle is forest.
The game does bot break down to a level of forest, grove, woods, rain forest, jungle, etc. It is, are there trees? Yes. Forest.
The rules in the DMG and MM have the terrains listed in the ranger ability plus they add hills and underwater. That’s it. They are general, large swaths of categories covering general basics of land types.
Yes. If anything it is MORE generous for the ranger.
And I did agree that you could do jungle = forest but I disagreed that you would get all the others as part of that just by virtue of being in Chult.
There are also wasteland, rivers, lakes so 5 total
Jungle = Forrest
Swamp = Swamp
Coast = Rivers/Lakes
Wasteland = Desert
Mountain = Mountain
So you would still be behind quite a bit the expertise rogue as they would have all 5 at level 1 and you would have 1.
This is nuts to me. This is not how the game deals with terrains and not how the natural explorer ability works.
This idea that, even if all of these subtypes of land existed in the game (they don’t), that somehow your ability switches off instantly when you step one foot over the made up line that separates these made up subsets of subtypes of land is crazy and wrong as per the rules of the core game and the ranger ability. This argument is the reason why the ranger ability says “related to” for the skills portion of the natural explorer ability and says “while traveling in” for the rest.
Well I mean if you are making a survival check in mountains it makes sense that you would not get the expertise if you had picked forest right? It's two different biomes.
What is the survival check for? Tracking? Navigation? I’d give the expertise. But we are talking about a swampy mountainous jungle. It is all the same. Related. Intertwined.
Optimus, this is literally trying to help your side of an argument you took once. Instead of making up new rules for the ranger abilities (like switching favored terrains) just play the ability as written with a generous heart instead of activity choosing to nerf it.
....mountain is literally one of the other types you can pick:
"You are particularly familiar with one type of natural environment and are adept at traveling and surviving in such regions. Choose one type of favored terrain: arctic, coast, desert, forest, grassland, mountain, swamp, or the Underdark."
Why give them both mountain and forest then? You might as well just give them all of them?
That's not how the ability is written and honestly I have a completely different perspective on it if you just give them ALL terrains at level 1...that is completely different and changes how I perceive the ability.
That’s not exactly what I’m saying.
You expertise on proficient skills related to your favored terrain. That is my extremely generous take on an unrelated topic. Let’s stick to the point on hand.
I have a question for you. You you prefer the natural explorer ability worked everywhere all the time, stayed the same, or something else? I ask because we all know your preference is the Tasha’s replacement (hooray!), but what is your fix for the ability? You’ve said the ranger is either overpowered or useless depending on terrain, but also seem to see no value in the travel and exploration portion of the game to begin with.
If you have forest on a mountain you have both terrains not neither or one or the other.
I'm saying the ability would be a lot better if you had the option to swap terrain.
Like if you spent a day or so in the underdark you pick it up faster than most and could swap to underdark.
This fixes the "useless" part of it as you are adaptable and dynamic.
Granted it does not fix the "handwave" portion but that requires a much larger fix to the whole exploration system.
Got it.
How is that different than just having everything on all of the time, in your opinion?
Well everything all at once all the time means that you can benefit instantly in a new environment. While I do not think this is a bad thing overall it would make the feature a lot more powerful....and honestly I am OK with that.
Honestly if I was going to go that approach I would just do the following instead since it would just be easier:
Gain Expertise in two of the following: Nature, Perception, Survival, Animal Handling, or Investigation.
Pick two more of the above expertise at level 10.