"Ranger doesn't have as much in the social realm unless you pick the Fey one who gets some help with checks. "
but then rangers aren't really supposed to get much social - they are designed to be near loners that are not really social except on occasion or with those they know well. (think Mountain men here). Rangers are fight and exploration/wilderness survival, paladins are fight and social both can have a little extra healing as well when needed. And no we don't need to rehash the exploration/wilderness survival stuff we are all in fairly decent agreement that WotC needs to do som3e work in that area for us.
there are a number of spells that I think make sense to add to the list of ranger spells- things like Thunderwave - rangers are supposed to be loners really so being able to hit all the foes in a 15' cube around you at once when surrounded and driving them back 10 feet would make a lot of sense to me. A lot of rangers I play right now multiclass into sorceror early on for just that spell (along with Detect Magic). I don't think other spells like Fireball are appropriate however there should be a really good rational for any spell being added.
thunder wave doesn't actually work around you. it projects from you. a ranger does get a lot of aoe options though. conjure barrage or the hunter subclass are just some examples.
Rangers have many spells already, and several subclasses too, to deal with a multitude of enemies at once. Something fighters, paladins, and rogues can’t do.
yes it projects out from you - hitting and pushing all the foes in a 15' cube around you sorry if my phrasing wasn't satisfactory. it si a melee spell not a ranged spell and all the other L1 multi-attack spells are ranged. The sort of tricky part of Thunderwave is getting so that the enemy is within 15' of you but none of the party is as it is powerful enough to wipe out a low level party along wiht the foes if they are in range. (did that once before I realized it was pushing out in all directions)
I realize that they get other AoE spells at higher levels which Is why I didn't list any. To my mind adding spells to the ranger without being unbalancing is tricky for at least 2 reasons:
1. the spell is too powerful or conflicts too much with another class.
2. the spell is not really appropriate for a Ranger (often solo in the wilderness situations)
so while I might consider Lightning bolt as a L3 spell I would not normally consider fireball. Both are elemental and so somewhat appropriate for a ranger but lightning is far more of a "natural" phenomenon than a fireball is. I would not allow either in the end because these are Wizard's signature spells.
Choosing would be less about actually choosing but the number of terrains you could have invested in at one time.
You're effectively extending it to all terrains at all times though, as you can just stop and switch out for whatever one you're in, and it makes no thematic sense if it's not based on some reasonable amount of experience.
If you limit the party to only going where you are already good at...that's not really exploring is it?
Again you're thinking of everything in reverse; just because you can't get the full benefit of Natural Explorer in an area that isn't of your favoured terrain doesn't mean that you can't enter it. That's just the choice your party has to make; do you go around through the forest because the ranger can move faster/stealthier, forage etc. that way, or do you risk crossing the waste or climbing the mountain because you heard a rumour of a dungeon or such.
What you seem to want is for there to be no consideration whatsoever?
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I think it should be noted that the core rules and adventure modules should be treated like federal and state governments respectively. The former always applies and takes precedence unless the latter surpasses the former.
That's kind of the issue isn't it though?
WotC hardly if ever uses these rules and even if you do it does end up being more or less boils down to a few rolls per day.
The ask for the DM (and a lot of the time the player) is to create hours worth of content that serves only to make one class features feel worthwhile?
Like I've said combat and social situations evolve more naturally and every class has the ability to participate.
Rangers pillar is by every definition "extra" and is almost exclusively for their benefit. Sure other classes can participate but to a much lower extent then the others.
Not everyone has time to shoehorn these into the game or even wants to when you realize as I have how overtly shallow the experience is even with effort to include it...
It's just not fun to me and I shouldn't have to apologize for stating my experience bluntly.
In your defense, the “guidance” for travel in the jungles of Chult is considerably lacking from an exploration perspective. I believe the internet was to streamline the travel rules for this book. When I was a player in this adventure we had zero exploration pillar characters in the party. It was all DDAL. So everyone was playing paladins, warlocks, rogues, wizards, and clerics. We spent a dozen, at least, sessions trying to get through the jungle to our destinations, and in retrospect I’d argue the DM was going easy on us. Even someone with proficiency in survival would have helped. And a ranger with a favored terrain of forest would have literally saved days of real game play.
The fact that you had an underwhelming experience with that part of that book because you had someone that could bypass all of the troubles the jungle offers through any kind of exploration/travel abilities, although not sexy at all, demonstrates it’s effectiveness.
the goal with the book I think was to provide a simple path for those who don't want to focus on travel or exploration. and allow a group that understands travel encounters and pacing to fill in the gaps by reading between the lines. this seems to be a common Philosophy with most of their books. just look at the new raven loft book. some people will see very little content and others will be inspired.
I think thats the rub for me....
Combat and social set pieces are all there with lots of possible combat/social encounters. You get lore and backstory and history to have understanding so that you can have dialogue and you get new creatures with interesting abilities for combat.
For exploration you get.....a survival DC check once per day.
Ravenloft is a great example of this as the bestiary there is one of the best I have seen yet in a book. The lore behind each of the domains is enough I get a feel for the personality of the Dread Lord who owns it. You get new character options that can create tension and distrust in the party.
For survival I get: "Valachan provides the opportunity to exaggerate everything the players and characters know about the threats of nature. The Survival skill proves invaluable in navigating the rain forest, determining what kind of creature mauled a corpse, and understanding how different venoms afflict a jungle survivor."
A survival check.
So I am not exaggerating when I say most exploration comes down to a survival check....its just baked in that way.
Even in the "Encounters" section the more exploration focused encounters rely on....you guessed it.....a survival check.
If WotC would just invest at least SOME time in the exploration aspect I would find the PHB ranger to be a better bet...instead we get the easier approach of Deft Explorer as it just fits better into the system they have created.
All that lore that your praising. That's the Exploration pillar. That's things for both DM's and Players to latch onto to explore. That and the Beastiary entries don't touch heavily on the social pillar as you claim. Even gaining Allies through social skills while slowly appearing more often in certain things like Modules is mostly a creation of DM's and not the materials. Beastiary Entries do tend to help to do a lot towards Exploration building because they are full of the kinds of environments they live in, sometimes how they affect or work with that environment, and occasionally even some indication where those environments can be placed.
And I want to touch on another thing. Often many combat encounters do not really advance the plot. They fill space. Both on the map and in the time of the game sessions. But many of them are not all that high on the meter of Plot movement. Most of them tend to actually be just a mechanical way to wear down characters to increase tension by either slowing the parties movement or draining their resources. While this is story telling in it's own element it is not necessarily plot at all. The Plot Driving Combat encounters tend to just be a small part of the overall number of combats that Parties tend to have.
combat is not the Most Defined Portion of the Game because it is the meat and the Core of the Game. The game does involve Fighting but the Reality is this is where the most abuse and confusion that needs stability exists. This is why it is the most defined portion of the book. And it does not take up 80% of the book. It doesn't even take up 50% of the book. I've seen people claim a couple times in these messages saying numbers like this but they are just not true. At best you can say that Combat is 30% of the Book, And A decent part of that is either something that applies in general but also applies to combat or Is sprinkled throughout sections that have a heavy level of mixed focus (such as spell descriptions, And Everything to do with Classes and Subclasses) which quite possibly need their own large amount of definition of just what is and is not possible within it's provided framework for the sake of stability of the game.
Not Even 80% of a proper sheet is even Devoted to Combat. Again numbers like this is an over Exaggeration. The reality is that somewhere between 25 and 50% of the sheet is combat depending on which version of a sheet your using. There are very simplified 1 page Sheets that does lean towards that 50% but the 2 or even 4 page sheets(not sure this one exists for 5e) The number becomes dramatically less. With the Combat stuff only being found on parts of a couple pages. Most often having somewhere between a quarter and the third of the front page (all of the rest being taken up by general or non-combat stuff that may or may not be useful in combat) and usually something on a second page but that is often intermixed with or along other general stuff of a simular nature, such as your inventory being split up between Armor and Weapons, and the Rest of your gear. or a place to detail out key points about class features and Feats which tend to be mixed between combat and non-combat stuff. Separated out only if you the player choose to list them in such a way.
Again. I'm going to restate it. Everything to do with the Exploration Pillar is being mis-stated, mis-represented and flat out ignored despite being right in front of people and people such as Optimus are even pointing to them as proof of other things while willfully ignoring their importance to the Exploration pillar.
I think it should be noted that the core rules and adventure modules should be treated like federal and state governments respectively. The former always applies and takes precedence unless the latter surpasses the former.
That's kind of the issue isn't it though?
WotC hardly if ever uses these rules and even if you do it does end up being more or less boils down to a few rolls per day.
The ask for the DM (and a lot of the time the player) is to create hours worth of content that serves only to make one class features feel worthwhile?
Like I've said combat and social situations evolve more naturally and every class has the ability to participate.
Rangers pillar is by every definition "extra" and is almost exclusively for their benefit. Sure other classes can participate but to a much lower extent then the others.
Not everyone has time to shoehorn these into the game or even wants to when you realize as I have how overtly shallow the experience is even with effort to include it...
It's just not fun to me and I shouldn't have to apologize for stating my experience bluntly.
In your defense, the “guidance” for travel in the jungles of Chult is considerably lacking from an exploration perspective. I believe the internet was to streamline the travel rules for this book. When I was a player in this adventure we had zero exploration pillar characters in the party. It was all DDAL. So everyone was playing paladins, warlocks, rogues, wizards, and clerics. We spent a dozen, at least, sessions trying to get through the jungle to our destinations, and in retrospect I’d argue the DM was going easy on us. Even someone with proficiency in survival would have helped. And a ranger with a favored terrain of forest would have literally saved days of real game play.
The fact that you had an underwhelming experience with that part of that book because you had someone that could bypass all of the troubles the jungle offers through any kind of exploration/travel abilities, although not sexy at all, demonstrates it’s effectiveness.
the goal with the book I think was to provide a simple path for those who don't want to focus on travel or exploration. and allow a group that understands travel encounters and pacing to fill in the gaps by reading between the lines. this seems to be a common Philosophy with most of their books. just look at the new raven loft book. some people will see very little content and others will be inspired.
I think thats the rub for me....
Combat and social set pieces are all there with lots of possible combat/social encounters. You get lore and backstory and history to have understanding so that you can have dialogue and you get new creatures with interesting abilities for combat.
For exploration you get.....a survival DC check once per day.
Ravenloft is a great example of this as the bestiary there is one of the best I have seen yet in a book. The lore behind each of the domains is enough I get a feel for the personality of the Dread Lord who owns it. You get new character options that can create tension and distrust in the party.
For survival I get: "Valachan provides the opportunity to exaggerate everything the players and characters know about the threats of nature. The Survival skill proves invaluable in navigating the rain forest, determining what kind of creature mauled a corpse, and understanding how different venoms afflict a jungle survivor."
A survival check.
So I am not exaggerating when I say most exploration comes down to a survival check....its just baked in that way.
Even in the "Encounters" section the more exploration focused encounters rely on....you guessed it.....a survival check.
If WotC would just invest at least SOME time in the exploration aspect I would find the PHB ranger to be a better bet...instead we get the easier approach of Deft Explorer as it just fits better into the system they have created.
All that lore that your praising. That's the Exploration pillar. That's things for both DM's and Players to latch onto to explore. That and the Beastiary entries don't touch heavily on the social pillar as you claim. Even gaining Allies through social skills while slowly appearing more often in certain things like Modules is mostly a creation of DM's and not the materials. Beastiary Entries do tend to help to do a lot towards Exploration building because they are full of the kinds of environments they live in, sometimes how they affect or work with that environment, and occasionally even some indication where those environments can be placed.
And I want to touch on another thing. Often many combat encounters do not really advance the plot. They fill space. Both on the map and in the time of the game sessions. But many of them are not all that high on the meter of Plot movement. Most of them tend to actually be just a mechanical way to wear down characters to increase tension by either slowing the parties movement or draining their resources. While this is story telling in it's own element it is not necessarily plot at all. The Plot Driving Combat encounters tend to just be a small part of the overall number of combats that Parties tend to have.
combat is not the Most Defined Portion of the Game because it is the meat and the Core of the Game. The game does involve Fighting but the Reality is this is where the most abuse and confusion that needs stability exists. This is why it is the most defined portion of the book. And it does not take up 80% of the book. It doesn't even take up 50% of the book. I've seen people claim a couple times in these messages saying numbers like this but they are just not true. At best you can say that Combat is 30% of the Book, And A decent part of that is either something that applies in general but also applies to combat or Is sprinkled throughout sections that have a heavy level of mixed focus (such as spell descriptions, And Everything to do with Classes and Subclasses) which quite possibly need their own large amount of definition of just what is and is not possible within it's provided framework for the sake of stability of the game.
Not Even 80% of a proper sheet is even Devoted to Combat. Again numbers like this is an over Exaggeration. The reality is that somewhere between 25 and 50% of the sheet is combat depending on which version of a sheet your using. There are very simplified 1 page Sheets that does lean towards that 50% but the 2 or even 4 page sheets(not sure this one exists for 5e) The number becomes dramatically less. With the Combat stuff only being found on parts of a couple pages. Most often having somewhere between a quarter and the third of the front page (all of the rest being taken up by general or non-combat stuff that may or may not be useful in combat) and usually something on a second page but that is often intermixed with or along other general stuff of a simular nature, such as your inventory being split up between Armor and Weapons, and the Rest of your gear. or a place to detail out key points about class features and Feats which tend to be mixed between combat and non-combat stuff. Separated out only if you the player choose to list them in such a way.
Again. I'm going to restate it. Everything to do with the Exploration Pillar is being mis-stated, mis-represented and flat out ignored despite being right in front of people and people such as Optimus are even pointing to them as proof of other things while willfully ignoring their importance to the Exploration pillar.
Combat is for sure at least 75% of the sheet....I am not sure where you are getting 50% but I just flatly disagree. Rules for combat make up about 75% of the character in general so it makes sense.
Choosing would be less about actually choosing but the number of terrains you could have invested in at one time.
You're effectively extending it to all terrains at all times though, as you can just stop and switch out for whatever one you're in, and it makes no thematic sense if it's not based on some reasonable amount of experience.
If you limit the party to only going where you are already good at...that's not really exploring is it?
Again you're thinking of everything in reverse; just because you can't get the full benefit of Natural Explorer in an area that isn't of your favoured terrain doesn't mean that you can't enter it. That's just the choice your party has to make; do you go around through the forest because the ranger can move faster/stealthier, forage etc. that way, or do you risk crossing the waste or climbing the mountain because you heard a rumour of a dungeon or such.
What you seem to want is for there to be no consideration whatsoever?
I think it makes more thematic sense that the ranger is just more in tune with the world than most and can learn about it quicker than most.
Swapping for me would require that you spend at least a day (negotiable) in the terrain before you can swap.
In a way they already do this with the added terrains over time its just painfully slow to me.
Rangers got known spells and less of them, (compared to the paladin I guess, because that’s what everyone compares them to for some reason) because I’m a one for one basis ranger spells tend to be “better” than paladin spells, more game changing/shaping, and longer lasting through concentration or a lack there of.
Best to think of ranger spells as long rest class features.
I would disagree that ranger spells are better.
Paladins get some really good spells particularly from their oath like Spirit Guardians, Haste, and Misty Step.
Yes! And that is 90% of what paladins have an impact on in the game. Unlike rangers, paladins are hyper focused on that pillar, and their spells only double down on that in general and within them self.
The Ranger spell has a much larger scope of form and function, and affects all three pillars in a much more impactful way.
Social is a big paladin thing too as they have the CHA to back it up.
That with Zone of Truth and they function as the stick in the ol "Carrot or the Stick" approach.
Ranger doesn't have as much in the social realm unless you pick the Fey one who gets some help with checks.
(Tried shortening the chain a bit)
Paladins do not truly excell in the social pillar tho (at least not in the same way a ranger could excell at exploration), the choice of insight, intimidation and persuasion as your social skills from class is incedebly limited (and insight does not even use charisma, and you can only choose two).
Zone of truth may prevent the target from lying, but it does not prevent simply not speaking, or simply presenting missleading information that technically isin't wrong.
And that's it? The oath of redemption can use channel divinity to give themselves +5 to a charisma (persuasion) check and a oath of heroisim could get advantage on all cha checks by the time you reach 20th level. Maybe you could pick up guidance for yourself instead of a useful fighting style.
You could almost say non-fey wanderer rangers get potency in the social interaction pillar on-par with a paladin depending on options chosen, you can get insight as one of your class skills (and since you get three proficiencies from your class instead of two choosing it has lower opportunity cost, even if there are more good skills to choose from). Insight keys primarily of wisdom, something that is helpful. Also helpful is the extra languages you can gain from Favoured Enemy and Deft Explorer, Guidance (something paladins and rangers both get via fighting style) and Enhance Abillity, oh yeah and also Deft Explorer can give you expertise in Insight or some cha skill gained via background/ race or whatever.
And if you count interactions with mundane animals as part of the Interaction game pillar, then speak with animals and animal handling are gonna come in handy, also the benefits to int checks from favoured enemy/ terrain could help give the main cha character advantage as per pg 245 of the dmg
(Not to say that these features alone make a ranger the "face" of the party trying to woo everything, but it would make the ranger potent in this pillar)
Conversely, what can the paladin do in the exploration pillar? They are pretty much limited exclusively to curing poison / disease / whatever with spells or lay on hands and the benefits to con saves from aura of protection, while at the same time most likely being a burden to the group in terms of stealth due to a lack of dexterity, lack of proficiency in stealth and favouring heavy armor
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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.
Except the Rogues not doing that at all. Because they have none of those terrains and your ignoring very valuable key details. Should the Ranger Wish to. They can get general expertise too. There are a few ways to do that in the game now really.
But a General Rogue is also wasting one of their valuable Expertise options on Survival and Losing out on other things that might be more valuable and useful to the party to do something that the Ranger Does already. And on a Skill that they don't naturally get Proficiency in. Bringing up Rogues is a bad example. It's only one subclass that even naturally gets Proficiency and the ability to put Expertise in Survival without outside factors besides class. This is a strawman example that really needs burned down to the ground. It doesn't actually equate like people pretend it does. The Rogue Also does not get as good of Ranged Weapons, Potentially the same level of armor, or a host of other things naturally from their class selection. Not even as a Scout. This comparison between the two and trying to depend it's all based around a single skill and somehow that single skill makes that Rogue superior kind of needs to stop.
Also something tangential to that. Expertise does not necessarily give you the same benefits that Natural Explorer would. one fine example is the matter of foraging for food and water. They are not going to get the same amount out of Foraging by what's printed in the DMG. 5th edition doesn't work on a system where the higher you roll over the DC that's an additional mouth you feed. You get a 1d6+Wisdom in pounds of food and a second 1d6+Wisdom in gallons of water. That's it. So that is all the Rogue is going to get. however. The Ranger from level 1 will always get double that amount in their favored terrains and they will get that amount in any other Terrain for being successful. This means that the Rogue's player is now going to have to invest in wisdom. He can't just rely on the Expertise to make up for a low stat to have an adequate score because that +4 doesn't equal more food. So the Rogue's now going to have a +5 or a +6, which makes the DC20 difficulty of food being scarce easier to reach at low level, but he's only going to pull out an average of 5lbs of food and 5 gallons of water. This is enough for an average party of 4 or one animal and that's it. If you all have horses your going to need to supplement more. If you have a larger party then to feed them reliable, your going to need more. Many people like to shoot back "Just use spell slots". Ok You can use spell slots but they come not only with the issue that you've just spent resources in the form of those spell slots, some as high as third level, but they may have other issues. Like Create food and Water makes plenty of food but unless you have a real large party. Most of it is either going to go to waste or has to be carried with you to make use of and/or have a lot of it go to waste each time you cast the spell. And it has the issue that it doesn't supply the same amounts of food and water. Actually creating more food than it does water.
On the matter of getting lost. People like to throw this one away. Just like a lot of the exploration Pillar gets thrown away. But even the Scout still has to make the roll. And people go well it's not exploration if you can just succeed on the roll. But they ignore the fact that any failed roll can be as much as a quarter of a day of travel lost. Luckily for the Scout this is a roll where Expertise helps. but the Ranger does have that natural tendency to put points into Wisdom even in outside of it's favored Terrains so unless the Scout is investing in Wisdom the Ranger is going to be just as good without doing anything special or being a special subclass at least until the mid-level tier of the game. They gloss over this stuff and actually devalue this on the Ranger by inadvertently giving it to everybody in their rush to smash heads and then complain about how it's dumb and useless on the ranger.
People discount things like Difficult terrain when traveling and how not having to deal with it is no big deal. But the truth is that traveling through most types of terrain unless your following a road may actually be and often quite likely is difficult terrain. This means automatically double the time it takes every time you leave the beaten path. Even though most adventurer's jobs is to leave the beaten path. This gets glossed over a lot but actually can be an issue to keep in mind. Specially when people are having to search for a location.
And Another Big one. The Ranger can make Perception rolls, or have their Passive Perception be useful even when they are doing all that foraging or tracking while they travel. The Rogue, not even the Scout, can actually do that. It's either Forage/Track or pay attention. People often over power Passive Perception. But it's only really usable when your not all that actively paying attention to anything. But if your attention is fully buried in something then your not getting that skill. This frustrates some new DM's because they mistakenly think of it as basically always happening and it's not. There are lots of times and lots of things that can make it not work. Many players don't help this because plenty older players propagate and take advantage of this misrepresentation of the skill, and many newer players don't realize it's any different and just reap the benefits.
If you really want to talk about how much of the books is actually given over to particular Pillars. Let's look at the DMG. It's so obvious it didn't even dawn on me to say it before now. But the DMG in particular has whole chapters just dedicated to the Pillar of Exploration. Parts of Chapter 1 and Basically all over Chapters 2, 3, and 5 are basically dedicated to different Versions of the Exploration tree from the small scale terrains to the big swaths of area that might be used in a campaign. Chapter 5 in particular has all kinds of details to be used in those spaces between adventure points to help DM's. And I can hear it now. "That's just world building stuff..." And my response is.. "Welcome to the Exploration Pillar." But there is all kinds of stuff in there that the ranger can help avoid, help deal with, Or to overcome.
If your DM isn't using half of the DMG. You might want to start asking why... And what you might be actually missing.
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.
Except the Rogues not doing that at all. Because they have none of those terrains and your ignoring very valuable key details. Should the Ranger Wish to. They can get general expertise too. There are a few ways to do that in the game now really.
But a General Rogue is also wasting one of their valuable Expertise options on Survival and Losing out on other things that might be more valuable and useful to the party to do something that the Ranger Does already. And on a Skill that they don't naturally get Proficiency in. Bringing up Rogues is a bad example. It's only one subclass that even naturally gets Proficiency and the ability to put Expertise in Survival without outside factors besides class. This is a strawman example that really needs burned down to the ground. It doesn't actually equate like people pretend it does. The Rogue Also does not get as good of Ranged Weapons, Potentially the same level of armor, or a host of other things naturally from their class selection. Not even as a Scout. This comparison between the two and trying to depend it's all based around a single skill and somehow that single skill makes that Rogue superior kind of needs to stop.
Also something tangential to that. Expertise does not necessarily give you the same benefits that Natural Explorer would. one fine example is the matter of foraging for food and water. They are not going to get the same amount out of Foraging by what's printed in the DMG. 5th edition doesn't work on a system where the higher you roll over the DC that's an additional mouth you feed. You get a 1d6+Wisdom in pounds of food and a second 1d6+Wisdom in gallons of water. That's it. So that is all the Rogue is going to get. however. The Ranger from level 1 will always get double that amount in their favored terrains and they will get that amount in any other Terrain for being successful. This means that the Rogue's player is now going to have to invest in wisdom. He can't just rely on the Expertise to make up for a low stat to have an adequate score because that +4 doesn't equal more food. So the Rogue's now going to have a +5 or a +6, which makes the DC20 difficulty of food being scarce easier to reach at low level, but he's only going to pull out an average of 5lbs of food and 5 gallons of water. This is enough for an average party of 4 or one animal and that's it. If you all have horses your going to need to supplement more. If you have a larger party then to feed them reliable, your going to need more. Many people like to shoot back "Just use spell slots". Ok You can use spell slots but they come not only with the issue that you've just spent resources in the form of those spell slots, some as high as third level, but they may have other issues. Like Create food and Water makes plenty of food but unless you have a real large party. Most of it is either going to go to waste or has to be carried with you to make use of and/or have a lot of it go to waste each time you cast the spell. And it has the issue that it doesn't supply the same amounts of food and water. Actually creating more food than it does water.
On the matter of getting lost. People like to throw this one away. Just like a lot of the exploration Pillar gets thrown away. But even the Scout still has to make the roll. And people go well it's not exploration if you can just succeed on the roll. But they ignore the fact that any failed roll can be as much as a quarter of a day of travel lost. Luckily for the Scout this is a roll where Expertise helps. but the Ranger does have that natural tendency to put points into Wisdom even in outside of it's favored Terrains so unless the Scout is investing in Wisdom the Ranger is going to be just as good without doing anything special or being a special subclass at least until the mid-level tier of the game. They gloss over this stuff and actually devalue this on the Ranger by inadvertently giving it to everybody in their rush to smash heads and then complain about how it's dumb and useless on the ranger.
People discount things like Difficult terrain when traveling and how not having to deal with it is no big deal. But the truth is that traveling through most types of terrain unless your following a road may actually be and often quite likely is difficult terrain. This means automatically double the time it takes every time you leave the beaten path. Even though most adventurer's jobs is to leave the beaten path. This gets glossed over a lot but actually can be an issue to keep in mind. Specially when people are having to search for a location.
And Another Big one. The Ranger can make Perception rolls, or have their Passive Perception be useful even when they are doing all that foraging or tracking while they travel. The Rogue, not even the Scout, can actually do that. It's either Forage/Track or pay attention. People often over power Passive Perception. But it's only really usable when your not all that actively paying attention to anything. But if your attention is fully buried in something then your not getting that skill. This frustrates some new DM's because they mistakenly think of it as basically always happening and it's not. There are lots of times and lots of things that can make it not work. Many players don't help this because plenty older players propagate and take advantage of this misrepresentation of the skill, and many newer players don't realize it's any different and just reap the benefits.
If you really want to talk about how much of the books is actually given over to particular Pillars. Let's look at the DMG. It's so obvious it didn't even dawn on me to say it before now. But the DMG in particular has whole chapters just dedicated to the Pillar of Exploration. Parts of Chapter 1 and Basically all over Chapters 2, 3, and 5 are basically dedicated to different Versions of the Exploration tree from the small scale terrains to the big swaths of area that might be used in a campaign. Chapter 5 in particular has all kinds of details to be used in those spaces between adventure points to help DM's. And I can hear it now. "That's just world building stuff..." And my response is.. "Welcome to the Exploration Pillar." But there is all kinds of stuff in there that the ranger can help avoid, help deal with, Or to overcome.
If your DM isn't using half of the DMG. You might want to start asking why... And what you might be actually missing.
Survival checks make up 90% of the suggested exploration rules in the books...So its very applicable.
You would need to adopt the optional DMG rules to make it applicable....which I don't see a ton of DMs do because they are a bit janky and not well organized.
"Ranger doesn't have as much in the social realm unless you pick the Fey one who gets some help with checks. "
but then rangers aren't really supposed to get much social - they are designed to be near loners that are not really social except on occasion or with those they know well. (think Mountain men here). Rangers are fight and exploration/wilderness survival, paladins are fight and social both can have a little extra healing as well when needed. And no we don't need to rehash the exploration/wilderness survival stuff we are all in fairly decent agreement that WotC needs to do som3e work in that area for us.
Rangers should have a decent Wisdom score, and Insight is on their class' skill list. Favored Enemy can also be used to grant them additional languages. To sum up, rangers can absolutely have a place in social encounters.
The idea that rangers must be loners is, quite frankly, a myth. The archetypal ranger is the bulwark between civilization and the wilds, but this can take on many forms. Is civilization venturing too far into the wilds and encroaching on hunting grounds that could cause them to brush up against predatory animals? Is deforestation going to bring down the ire of elves? Has a new dragon in the region displaced goblins who now are clashing with human settlements on the outskirts for resources? Are dwarves digging too greedily and too deep; enough to wake a sleeping Balor? A ranger can be useful in all of these situations.
But because of their, arguably, overly-broad flexibility people have a hard time knowing what to do with them. And it doesn't help that there isn't much in the way of official guidance for running exploration and social interaction encounters. I understand wanting to get away from the restrictive "there is a rule for everything" and just letting people play. But people have to know how to play first. Everyone making it up as they go has a very B/X OD&D vibe. It's exciting, but it's also frustrating and head-scratching.
The ranger, as presented in the PHB, is perhaps the best example of the designers taking for granted the knowledge they had and assumed their players would have. How many got started with AD&D 2nd edition (when it was first really playable) or earlier? I turned 12 in '95, which sort of is the minimum age for the game, but I didn't begin playing until 3rd edition. They've been playing for so long, they kind of forgot how to teach others how to play.
Caveat: the Dungeon Masters Guides for 4th Edition are fantastic. Say what you want about that edition of the game and how it actually played, but there is some solid advice and actual instruction for some of the newer mechanics they tried to introduce.
Some of that we can attribute to the sudden popularity of not just the game itself but the hobby as a whole. There are more people now playing every game than ever before. A lot of those players are fresh, and their fresh eyes are zeroing in on some of the game's weaknesses. Old biases and prejudices we didn't used to think much on are being challenged, and rightfully so. And the amount of abstract, arguably lateral, thinking the ranger requires is a far more than most any other class.
I don't think the class is underpowered. I've DMed for several ranger players in Tier 2. I played one in Tier 3. And then there are people like Dan Dillon who have played a PHB Beast Master, without house rules, all the way to 20 and didn't personally have a problem. Anecdotal, yes, but no less truthful.
What the class needs, more than anything else, is love. It needs fans, on both sides of the screen, who see its potential and want to get the most out of it.
Rangers got known spells and less of them, (compared to the paladin I guess, because that’s what everyone compares them to for some reason) because I’m a one for one basis ranger spells tend to be “better” than paladin spells, more game changing/shaping, and longer lasting through concentration or a lack there of.
Best to think of ranger spells as long rest class features.
I would disagree that ranger spells are better.
Paladins get some really good spells particularly from their oath like Spirit Guardians, Haste, and Misty Step.
Yes! And that is 90% of what paladins have an impact on in the game. Unlike rangers, paladins are hyper focused on that pillar, and their spells only double down on that in general and within them self.
The Ranger spell has a much larger scope of form and function, and affects all three pillars in a much more impactful way.
Social is a big paladin thing too as they have the CHA to back it up.
That with Zone of Truth and they function as the stick in the ol "Carrot or the Stick" approach.
Ranger doesn't have as much in the social realm unless you pick the Fey one who gets some help with checks.
(Tried shortening the chain a bit)
Paladins do not truly excell in the social pillar tho (at least not in the same way a ranger could excell at exploration), the choice of insight, intimidation and persuasion as your social skills from class is incedebly limited (and insight does not even use charisma, and you can only choose two).
Zone of truth may prevent the target from lying, but it does not prevent simply not speaking, or simply presenting missleading information that technically isin't wrong.
And that's it? The oath of redemption can use channel divinity to give themselves +5 to a charisma (persuasion) check and a oath of heroisim could get advantage on all cha checks by the time you reach 20th level. Maybe you could pick up guidance for yourself instead of a useful fighting style.
You could almost say non-fey wanderer rangers get potency in the social interaction pillar on-par with a paladin depending on options chosen, you can get insight as one of your class skills (and since you get three proficiencies from your class instead of two choosing it has lower opportunity cost, even if there are more good skills to choose from). Insight keys primarily of wisdom, something that is helpful. Also helpful is the extra languages you can gain from Favoured Enemy and Deft Explorer, Guidance (something paladins and rangers both get via fighting style) and Enhance Abillity, oh yeah and also Deft Explorer can give you expertise in Insight or some cha skill gained via background/ race or whatever.
And if you count interactions with mundane animals as part of the Interaction game pillar, then speak with animals and animal handling are gonna come in handy, also the benefits to int checks from favoured enemy/ terrain could help give the main cha character advantage as per pg 245 of the dmg
(Not to say that these features alone make a ranger the "face" of the party trying to woo everything, but it would make the ranger potent in this pillar)
Conversely, what can the paladin do in the exploration pillar? They are pretty much limited exclusively to curing poison / disease / whatever with spells or lay on hands and the benefits to con saves from aura of protection, while at the same time most likely being a burden to the group in terms of stealth due to a lack of dexterity, lack of proficiency in stealth and favoring heavy armor
2 of the 4 CHA Skills is limiting?
Throw in the one with a background and you have all three of the major ones (Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation)
Disease has more information/material in Tome of Annihilations than the navigation section....so immunity from disease and being able to cure it in others is pretty big for that adventure.
Dexadins are also a thing that works perfectly fine so you do not need to worry about heavy armor and can be just as stealthy as the ranger.
Rangers are generally not incentivized to take CHA at all...in fact most would suggest you dump that one as INT would be more beneficial to you with your expertise in INT checks regarding your terrain. Unless you buck the trend and go with CHA you are likely not going to have it much higher than 12 on most builds assuming standard array or point buy.
Interacting with animals is a curious one though....would you count that as social or exploration? seems like a bit of both to be honest so I see that point.
Overall I agree with you though as you mention the new Tasha's options a lot helping the ranger out which I fully agree with. I think that with those options in mind the ranger can do a lot more!
Yes. It isn’t ever a 1/5, or 2/5 situation. Chult was a great example you game. The map says it all.
In terms of weight, arctic, desert, underdark, and perhaps even swamp do NOT carry a full share of frequency. You’re looking at half as frequent, tops. Forest, mountain, and coast are going to show up above the rest big time in all but the campaigns where you are in a specific environment like Rime or Abyss.
Grassland is a joke. And hills aren’t an option. For me those two are non land types as you either wouldn’t need to make any kind of survival check or any survival check would be so easy that it doesn’t matter.
And that’s another consideration. Pick a land type that you would WANT to make tough checks. Harsh environments is where the DC would be higher anyway. A 10% or 15% better chance from expertise is almost moot if the DC is 10. So a ranger that chooses swamp and mountain as favored terrain is 15% less likely to make a DC 10 survival check to hunt or navigate while traveling hills, grasslands, or open roads.
Actually. Most of The Terrains do something interesting... With the Exception of Arctic and Desert. Those that are easier to navigate are generally the ones that are harder to find food and water in. Those that are easy to find food and water in are harder to navigate. Arctic and Desert kind of break this a bit because They aren't easy to forage for supplies in but because of special circumstances they aren't entirely the easiest to navigate either. Their big trade off is that when you do run into them. They tend to be either small avoidable (or special circumstances) patches, Or they tend to be so vast that they can basically cover much of if not all of most campaigns.
it's a detail most people miss if they aren't really looking at things. But it is an interesting little detail.
I think it should be noted that the core rules and adventure modules should be treated like federal and state governments respectively. The former always applies and takes precedence unless the latter surpasses the former.
That's kind of the issue isn't it though?
WotC hardly if ever uses these rules and even if you do it does end up being more or less boils down to a few rolls per day.
The ask for the DM (and a lot of the time the player) is to create hours worth of content that serves only to make one class features feel worthwhile?
Like I've said combat and social situations evolve more naturally and every class has the ability to participate.
Rangers pillar is by every definition "extra" and is almost exclusively for their benefit. Sure other classes can participate but to a much lower extent then the others.
Not everyone has time to shoehorn these into the game or even wants to when you realize as I have how overtly shallow the experience is even with effort to include it...
It's just not fun to me and I shouldn't have to apologize for stating my experience bluntly.
In your defense, the “guidance” for travel in the jungles of Chult is considerably lacking from an exploration perspective. I believe the internet was to streamline the travel rules for this book. When I was a player in this adventure we had zero exploration pillar characters in the party. It was all DDAL. So everyone was playing paladins, warlocks, rogues, wizards, and clerics. We spent a dozen, at least, sessions trying to get through the jungle to our destinations, and in retrospect I’d argue the DM was going easy on us. Even someone with proficiency in survival would have helped. And a ranger with a favored terrain of forest would have literally saved days of real game play.
The fact that you had an underwhelming experience with that part of that book because you had someone that could bypass all of the troubles the jungle offers through any kind of exploration/travel abilities, although not sexy at all, demonstrates it’s effectiveness.
the goal with the book I think was to provide a simple path for those who don't want to focus on travel or exploration. and allow a group that understands travel encounters and pacing to fill in the gaps by reading between the lines. this seems to be a common Philosophy with most of their books. just look at the new raven loft book. some people will see very little content and others will be inspired.
I think thats the rub for me....
Combat and social set pieces are all there with lots of possible combat/social encounters. You get lore and backstory and history to have understanding so that you can have dialogue and you get new creatures with interesting abilities for combat.
For exploration you get.....a survival DC check once per day.
Ravenloft is a great example of this as the bestiary there is one of the best I have seen yet in a book. The lore behind each of the domains is enough I get a feel for the personality of the Dread Lord who owns it. You get new character options that can create tension and distrust in the party.
For survival I get: "Valachan provides the opportunity to exaggerate everything the players and characters know about the threats of nature. The Survival skill proves invaluable in navigating the rain forest, determining what kind of creature mauled a corpse, and understanding how different venoms afflict a jungle survivor."
A survival check.
So I am not exaggerating when I say most exploration comes down to a survival check....its just baked in that way.
Even in the "Encounters" section the more exploration focused encounters rely on....you guessed it.....a survival check.
If WotC would just invest at least SOME time in the exploration aspect I would find the PHB ranger to be a better bet...instead we get the easier approach of Deft Explorer as it just fits better into the system they have created.
All that lore that your praising. That's the Exploration pillar. That's things for both DM's and Players to latch onto to explore. That and the Beastiary entries don't touch heavily on the social pillar as you claim. Even gaining Allies through social skills while slowly appearing more often in certain things like Modules is mostly a creation of DM's and not the materials. Beastiary Entries do tend to help to do a lot towards Exploration building because they are full of the kinds of environments they live in, sometimes how they affect or work with that environment, and occasionally even some indication where those environments can be placed.
And I want to touch on another thing. Often many combat encounters do not really advance the plot. They fill space. Both on the map and in the time of the game sessions. But many of them are not all that high on the meter of Plot movement. Most of them tend to actually be just a mechanical way to wear down characters to increase tension by either slowing the parties movement or draining their resources. While this is story telling in it's own element it is not necessarily plot at all. The Plot Driving Combat encounters tend to just be a small part of the overall number of combats that Parties tend to have.
combat is not the Most Defined Portion of the Game because it is the meat and the Core of the Game. The game does involve Fighting but the Reality is this is where the most abuse and confusion that needs stability exists. This is why it is the most defined portion of the book. And it does not take up 80% of the book. It doesn't even take up 50% of the book. I've seen people claim a couple times in these messages saying numbers like this but they are just not true. At best you can say that Combat is 30% of the Book, And A decent part of that is either something that applies in general but also applies to combat or Is sprinkled throughout sections that have a heavy level of mixed focus (such as spell descriptions, And Everything to do with Classes and Subclasses) which quite possibly need their own large amount of definition of just what is and is not possible within it's provided framework for the sake of stability of the game.
Not Even 80% of a proper sheet is even Devoted to Combat. Again numbers like this is an over Exaggeration. The reality is that somewhere between 25 and 50% of the sheet is combat depending on which version of a sheet your using. There are very simplified 1 page Sheets that does lean towards that 50% but the 2 or even 4 page sheets(not sure this one exists for 5e) The number becomes dramatically less. With the Combat stuff only being found on parts of a couple pages. Most often having somewhere between a quarter and the third of the front page (all of the rest being taken up by general or non-combat stuff that may or may not be useful in combat) and usually something on a second page but that is often intermixed with or along other general stuff of a simular nature, such as your inventory being split up between Armor and Weapons, and the Rest of your gear. or a place to detail out key points about class features and Feats which tend to be mixed between combat and non-combat stuff. Separated out only if you the player choose to list them in such a way.
Again. I'm going to restate it. Everything to do with the Exploration Pillar is being mis-stated, mis-represented and flat out ignored despite being right in front of people and people such as Optimus are even pointing to them as proof of other things while willfully ignoring their importance to the Exploration pillar.
Combat is for sure at least 75% of the sheet....I am not sure where you are getting 50% but I just flatly disagree. Rules for combat make up about 75% of the character in general so it makes sense.
Go Look at a Proper sheet again. Attributes Are General. Not combat specific. Skills are mostly non-combat and actually take up a large portion of a single page character sheet. usually opposite of the Attributes and Saving Throws, both of which are general and used as much outside of combat as they are inside of combat. Perhaps even more so. HP are technically a general thing as well because there are lots of ways to take damage that are non-combat but I'l give you that one. This leaves you with your Weapons and Armor stuff and potentially certain attacks.
Even go through a Sheet here on DDB. If you Consider it's default Position of being on the Actions Tab. Which tends to be dominated first and foremost by attacks. That is still less than 50% of the single page sheet that we are presented with. When you actually start considering other Tabs in place of Actions. Which on a multi-page sheet would be included. You actually start finding thta most of the things listed on those other tabs is not combat specific material.
So your number of at least 75% is massively overblown.
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"Ranger doesn't have as much in the social realm unless you pick the Fey one who gets some help with checks. "
but then rangers aren't really supposed to get much social - they are designed to be near loners that are not really social except on occasion or with those they know well. (think Mountain men here). Rangers are fight and exploration/wilderness survival, paladins are fight and social both can have a little extra healing as well when needed. And no we don't need to rehash the exploration/wilderness survival stuff we are all in fairly decent agreement that WotC needs to do som3e work in that area for us.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
thunder wave doesn't actually work around you. it projects from you. a ranger does get a lot of aoe options though. conjure barrage or the hunter subclass are just some examples.
Rangers have many spells already, and several subclasses too, to deal with a multitude of enemies at once. Something fighters, paladins, and rogues can’t do.
yes it projects out from you - hitting and pushing all the foes in a 15' cube around you sorry if my phrasing wasn't satisfactory. it si a melee spell not a ranged spell and all the other L1 multi-attack spells are ranged. The sort of tricky part of Thunderwave is getting so that the enemy is within 15' of you but none of the party is as it is powerful enough to wipe out a low level party along wiht the foes if they are in range. (did that once before I realized it was pushing out in all directions)
I realize that they get other AoE spells at higher levels which Is why I didn't list any. To my mind adding spells to the ranger without being unbalancing is tricky for at least 2 reasons:
1. the spell is too powerful or conflicts too much with another class.
2. the spell is not really appropriate for a Ranger (often solo in the wilderness situations)
so while I might consider Lightning bolt as a L3 spell I would not normally consider fireball. Both are elemental and so somewhat appropriate for a ranger but lightning is far more of a "natural" phenomenon than a fireball is. I would not allow either in the end because these are Wizard's signature spells.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
You're effectively extending it to all terrains at all times though, as you can just stop and switch out for whatever one you're in, and it makes no thematic sense if it's not based on some reasonable amount of experience.
Again you're thinking of everything in reverse; just because you can't get the full benefit of Natural Explorer in an area that isn't of your favoured terrain doesn't mean that you can't enter it. That's just the choice your party has to make; do you go around through the forest because the ranger can move faster/stealthier, forage etc. that way, or do you risk crossing the waste or climbing the mountain because you heard a rumour of a dungeon or such.
What you seem to want is for there to be no consideration whatsoever?
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.
All that lore that your praising. That's the Exploration pillar. That's things for both DM's and Players to latch onto to explore. That and the Beastiary entries don't touch heavily on the social pillar as you claim. Even gaining Allies through social skills while slowly appearing more often in certain things like Modules is mostly a creation of DM's and not the materials. Beastiary Entries do tend to help to do a lot towards Exploration building because they are full of the kinds of environments they live in, sometimes how they affect or work with that environment, and occasionally even some indication where those environments can be placed.
And I want to touch on another thing. Often many combat encounters do not really advance the plot. They fill space. Both on the map and in the time of the game sessions. But many of them are not all that high on the meter of Plot movement. Most of them tend to actually be just a mechanical way to wear down characters to increase tension by either slowing the parties movement or draining their resources. While this is story telling in it's own element it is not necessarily plot at all. The Plot Driving Combat encounters tend to just be a small part of the overall number of combats that Parties tend to have.
combat is not the Most Defined Portion of the Game because it is the meat and the Core of the Game. The game does involve Fighting but the Reality is this is where the most abuse and confusion that needs stability exists. This is why it is the most defined portion of the book. And it does not take up 80% of the book. It doesn't even take up 50% of the book. I've seen people claim a couple times in these messages saying numbers like this but they are just not true. At best you can say that Combat is 30% of the Book, And A decent part of that is either something that applies in general but also applies to combat or Is sprinkled throughout sections that have a heavy level of mixed focus (such as spell descriptions, And Everything to do with Classes and Subclasses) which quite possibly need their own large amount of definition of just what is and is not possible within it's provided framework for the sake of stability of the game.
Not Even 80% of a proper sheet is even Devoted to Combat. Again numbers like this is an over Exaggeration. The reality is that somewhere between 25 and 50% of the sheet is combat depending on which version of a sheet your using. There are very simplified 1 page Sheets that does lean towards that 50% but the 2 or even 4 page sheets(not sure this one exists for 5e) The number becomes dramatically less. With the Combat stuff only being found on parts of a couple pages. Most often having somewhere between a quarter and the third of the front page (all of the rest being taken up by general or non-combat stuff that may or may not be useful in combat) and usually something on a second page but that is often intermixed with or along other general stuff of a simular nature, such as your inventory being split up between Armor and Weapons, and the Rest of your gear. or a place to detail out key points about class features and Feats which tend to be mixed between combat and non-combat stuff. Separated out only if you the player choose to list them in such a way.
Again. I'm going to restate it. Everything to do with the Exploration Pillar is being mis-stated, mis-represented and flat out ignored despite being right in front of people and people such as Optimus are even pointing to them as proof of other things while willfully ignoring their importance to the Exploration pillar.
Combat is for sure at least 75% of the sheet....I am not sure where you are getting 50% but I just flatly disagree. Rules for combat make up about 75% of the character in general so it makes sense.
I think it makes more thematic sense that the ranger is just more in tune with the world than most and can learn about it quicker than most.
Swapping for me would require that you spend at least a day (negotiable) in the terrain before you can swap.
In a way they already do this with the added terrains over time its just painfully slow to me.
combat at is flushed out because it has to be.
Combat fills a huge portion of the character sheet, and these days most of the new subclasses, which is sad.
A small percentage of combat is meaningful, however. And a party with the proper exploration kit can bypass many combats.
I agree I'm just saying it's the state of the system and why I personally want MORE official Exploration content
(Tried shortening the chain a bit)
Paladins do not truly excell in the social pillar tho (at least not in the same way a ranger could excell at exploration), the choice of insight, intimidation and persuasion as your social skills from class is incedebly limited (and insight does not even use charisma, and you can only choose two).
Zone of truth may prevent the target from lying, but it does not prevent simply not speaking, or simply presenting missleading information that technically isin't wrong.
And that's it? The oath of redemption can use channel divinity to give themselves +5 to a charisma (persuasion) check and a oath of heroisim could get advantage on all cha checks by the time you reach 20th level. Maybe you could pick up guidance for yourself instead of a useful fighting style.
You could almost say non-fey wanderer rangers get potency in the social interaction pillar on-par with a paladin depending on options chosen, you can get insight as one of your class skills (and since you get three proficiencies from your class instead of two choosing it has lower opportunity cost, even if there are more good skills to choose from). Insight keys primarily of wisdom, something that is helpful. Also helpful is the extra languages you can gain from Favoured Enemy and Deft Explorer, Guidance (something paladins and rangers both get via fighting style) and Enhance Abillity, oh yeah and also Deft Explorer can give you expertise in Insight or some cha skill gained via background/ race or whatever.
And if you count interactions with mundane animals as part of the Interaction game pillar, then speak with animals and animal handling are gonna come in handy, also the benefits to int checks from favoured enemy/ terrain could help give the main cha character advantage as per pg 245 of the dmg
(Not to say that these features alone make a ranger the "face" of the party trying to woo everything, but it would make the ranger potent in this pillar)
Conversely, what can the paladin do in the exploration pillar? They are pretty much limited exclusively to curing poison / disease / whatever with spells or lay on hands and the benefits to con saves from aura of protection, while at the same time most likely being a burden to the group in terms of stealth due to a lack of dexterity, lack of proficiency in stealth and favouring heavy armor
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 see. Sorry. I thought you wore advocating the opposite. Lost in translation.
Except the Rogues not doing that at all. Because they have none of those terrains and your ignoring very valuable key details. Should the Ranger Wish to. They can get general expertise too. There are a few ways to do that in the game now really.
But a General Rogue is also wasting one of their valuable Expertise options on Survival and Losing out on other things that might be more valuable and useful to the party to do something that the Ranger Does already. And on a Skill that they don't naturally get Proficiency in. Bringing up Rogues is a bad example. It's only one subclass that even naturally gets Proficiency and the ability to put Expertise in Survival without outside factors besides class. This is a strawman example that really needs burned down to the ground. It doesn't actually equate like people pretend it does. The Rogue Also does not get as good of Ranged Weapons, Potentially the same level of armor, or a host of other things naturally from their class selection. Not even as a Scout. This comparison between the two and trying to depend it's all based around a single skill and somehow that single skill makes that Rogue superior kind of needs to stop.
Also something tangential to that. Expertise does not necessarily give you the same benefits that Natural Explorer would. one fine example is the matter of foraging for food and water. They are not going to get the same amount out of Foraging by what's printed in the DMG. 5th edition doesn't work on a system where the higher you roll over the DC that's an additional mouth you feed. You get a 1d6+Wisdom in pounds of food and a second 1d6+Wisdom in gallons of water. That's it. So that is all the Rogue is going to get. however. The Ranger from level 1 will always get double that amount in their favored terrains and they will get that amount in any other Terrain for being successful. This means that the Rogue's player is now going to have to invest in wisdom. He can't just rely on the Expertise to make up for a low stat to have an adequate score because that +4 doesn't equal more food. So the Rogue's now going to have a +5 or a +6, which makes the DC20 difficulty of food being scarce easier to reach at low level, but he's only going to pull out an average of 5lbs of food and 5 gallons of water. This is enough for an average party of 4 or one animal and that's it. If you all have horses your going to need to supplement more. If you have a larger party then to feed them reliable, your going to need more. Many people like to shoot back "Just use spell slots". Ok You can use spell slots but they come not only with the issue that you've just spent resources in the form of those spell slots, some as high as third level, but they may have other issues. Like Create food and Water makes plenty of food but unless you have a real large party. Most of it is either going to go to waste or has to be carried with you to make use of and/or have a lot of it go to waste each time you cast the spell. And it has the issue that it doesn't supply the same amounts of food and water. Actually creating more food than it does water.
On the matter of getting lost. People like to throw this one away. Just like a lot of the exploration Pillar gets thrown away. But even the Scout still has to make the roll. And people go well it's not exploration if you can just succeed on the roll. But they ignore the fact that any failed roll can be as much as a quarter of a day of travel lost. Luckily for the Scout this is a roll where Expertise helps. but the Ranger does have that natural tendency to put points into Wisdom even in outside of it's favored Terrains so unless the Scout is investing in Wisdom the Ranger is going to be just as good without doing anything special or being a special subclass at least until the mid-level tier of the game. They gloss over this stuff and actually devalue this on the Ranger by inadvertently giving it to everybody in their rush to smash heads and then complain about how it's dumb and useless on the ranger.
People discount things like Difficult terrain when traveling and how not having to deal with it is no big deal. But the truth is that traveling through most types of terrain unless your following a road may actually be and often quite likely is difficult terrain. This means automatically double the time it takes every time you leave the beaten path. Even though most adventurer's jobs is to leave the beaten path. This gets glossed over a lot but actually can be an issue to keep in mind. Specially when people are having to search for a location.
And Another Big one. The Ranger can make Perception rolls, or have their Passive Perception be useful even when they are doing all that foraging or tracking while they travel. The Rogue, not even the Scout, can actually do that. It's either Forage/Track or pay attention. People often over power Passive Perception. But it's only really usable when your not all that actively paying attention to anything. But if your attention is fully buried in something then your not getting that skill. This frustrates some new DM's because they mistakenly think of it as basically always happening and it's not. There are lots of times and lots of things that can make it not work. Many players don't help this because plenty older players propagate and take advantage of this misrepresentation of the skill, and many newer players don't realize it's any different and just reap the benefits.
If you really want to talk about how much of the books is actually given over to particular Pillars. Let's look at the DMG. It's so obvious it didn't even dawn on me to say it before now. But the DMG in particular has whole chapters just dedicated to the Pillar of Exploration. Parts of Chapter 1 and Basically all over Chapters 2, 3, and 5 are basically dedicated to different Versions of the Exploration tree from the small scale terrains to the big swaths of area that might be used in a campaign. Chapter 5 in particular has all kinds of details to be used in those spaces between adventure points to help DM's. And I can hear it now. "That's just world building stuff..." And my response is.. "Welcome to the Exploration Pillar." But there is all kinds of stuff in there that the ranger can help avoid, help deal with, Or to overcome.
If your DM isn't using half of the DMG. You might want to start asking why... And what you might be actually missing.
Survival checks make up 90% of the suggested exploration rules in the books...So its very applicable.
You would need to adopt the optional DMG rules to make it applicable....which I don't see a ton of DMs do because they are a bit janky and not well organized.
Rangers should have a decent Wisdom score, and Insight is on their class' skill list. Favored Enemy can also be used to grant them additional languages. To sum up, rangers can absolutely have a place in social encounters.
The idea that rangers must be loners is, quite frankly, a myth. The archetypal ranger is the bulwark between civilization and the wilds, but this can take on many forms. Is civilization venturing too far into the wilds and encroaching on hunting grounds that could cause them to brush up against predatory animals? Is deforestation going to bring down the ire of elves? Has a new dragon in the region displaced goblins who now are clashing with human settlements on the outskirts for resources? Are dwarves digging too greedily and too deep; enough to wake a sleeping Balor? A ranger can be useful in all of these situations.
But because of their, arguably, overly-broad flexibility people have a hard time knowing what to do with them. And it doesn't help that there isn't much in the way of official guidance for running exploration and social interaction encounters. I understand wanting to get away from the restrictive "there is a rule for everything" and just letting people play. But people have to know how to play first. Everyone making it up as they go has a very B/X OD&D vibe. It's exciting, but it's also frustrating and head-scratching.
The ranger, as presented in the PHB, is perhaps the best example of the designers taking for granted the knowledge they had and assumed their players would have. How many got started with AD&D 2nd edition (when it was first really playable) or earlier? I turned 12 in '95, which sort of is the minimum age for the game, but I didn't begin playing until 3rd edition. They've been playing for so long, they kind of forgot how to teach others how to play.
Caveat: the Dungeon Masters Guides for 4th Edition are fantastic. Say what you want about that edition of the game and how it actually played, but there is some solid advice and actual instruction for some of the newer mechanics they tried to introduce.
Some of that we can attribute to the sudden popularity of not just the game itself but the hobby as a whole. There are more people now playing every game than ever before. A lot of those players are fresh, and their fresh eyes are zeroing in on some of the game's weaknesses. Old biases and prejudices we didn't used to think much on are being challenged, and rightfully so. And the amount of abstract, arguably lateral, thinking the ranger requires is a far more than most any other class.
I don't think the class is underpowered. I've DMed for several ranger players in Tier 2. I played one in Tier 3. And then there are people like Dan Dillon who have played a PHB Beast Master, without house rules, all the way to 20 and didn't personally have a problem. Anecdotal, yes, but no less truthful.
What the class needs, more than anything else, is love. It needs fans, on both sides of the screen, who see its potential and want to get the most out of it.
2 of the 4 CHA Skills is limiting?
Throw in the one with a background and you have all three of the major ones (Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation)
Disease has more information/material in Tome of Annihilations than the navigation section....so immunity from disease and being able to cure it in others is pretty big for that adventure.
Dexadins are also a thing that works perfectly fine so you do not need to worry about heavy armor and can be just as stealthy as the ranger.
Rangers are generally not incentivized to take CHA at all...in fact most would suggest you dump that one as INT would be more beneficial to you with your expertise in INT checks regarding your terrain. Unless you buck the trend and go with CHA you are likely not going to have it much higher than 12 on most builds assuming standard array or point buy.
Interacting with animals is a curious one though....would you count that as social or exploration? seems like a bit of both to be honest so I see that point.
Overall I agree with you though as you mention the new Tasha's options a lot helping the ranger out which I fully agree with. I think that with those options in mind the ranger can do a lot more!
One thing that well and truly pisses me off is when people reduce the Ranger to just a walking Survival/Nature machine.
Actually. Most of The Terrains do something interesting... With the Exception of Arctic and Desert. Those that are easier to navigate are generally the ones that are harder to find food and water in. Those that are easy to find food and water in are harder to navigate. Arctic and Desert kind of break this a bit because They aren't easy to forage for supplies in but because of special circumstances they aren't entirely the easiest to navigate either. Their big trade off is that when you do run into them. They tend to be either small avoidable (or special circumstances) patches, Or they tend to be so vast that they can basically cover much of if not all of most campaigns.
it's a detail most people miss if they aren't really looking at things. But it is an interesting little detail.
To be fair my entire criticism is regarding the PHB NE and FE features which I feel are the underwhelming sections of the PHB Ranger.
Otherwise ranger does fine for the most part.
Go Look at a Proper sheet again. Attributes Are General. Not combat specific. Skills are mostly non-combat and actually take up a large portion of a single page character sheet. usually opposite of the Attributes and Saving Throws, both of which are general and used as much outside of combat as they are inside of combat. Perhaps even more so. HP are technically a general thing as well because there are lots of ways to take damage that are non-combat but I'l give you that one. This leaves you with your Weapons and Armor stuff and potentially certain attacks.
Even go through a Sheet here on DDB. If you Consider it's default Position of being on the Actions Tab. Which tends to be dominated first and foremost by attacks. That is still less than 50% of the single page sheet that we are presented with. When you actually start considering other Tabs in place of Actions. Which on a multi-page sheet would be included. You actually start finding thta most of the things listed on those other tabs is not combat specific material.
So your number of at least 75% is massively overblown.