Artificers and Rangers should be similar. Not really in mechanics, but in how they're used in the party. The ranger is supposed to be a utility class, like the artificer. If it's supposed to be utility based, they should actually be good at utility. They should be good at buffing the party, helping other people journey through the woods, make enemies less effective in combat. Rangers shouldn't be combat focused in my opinion, they should be utility based. Sure, there should be subclasses that are combat-based, like the Artificer, but the main class powers should be focused on utility.
100% this^ common misconception about rangers. But they are utility based. (Thats why they get pass without a Trace)
Yep. Let's go.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
Artificers and Rangers should be similar. Not really in mechanics, but in how they're used in the party. The ranger is supposed to be a utility class, like the artificer. If it's supposed to be utility based, they should actually be good at utility. They should be good at buffing the party, helping other people journey through the woods, make enemies less effective in combat. Rangers shouldn't be combat focused in my opinion, they should be utility based. Sure, there should be subclasses that are combat-based, like the Artificer, but the main class powers should be focused on utility.
100% this^ common misconception about rangers. But they are utility based. (Thats why they get pass without a Trace)
Yep. Let's go.
Exactly! I completely agree that the Ranger is conceptually more utility than combat, and many redesigns are focused on making it more powerful in combat when it should be focused on laying down the skill/support in the base class. I've been playing with some of the early features and personally here is what I would add/redo. Mostly brainstorming here.
FAVORED ENEMY:
Beginning at 1st level, you have significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to a certain type of enemy.
Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies.
You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them.
When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at all.
You choose one additional favored enemy, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 14th level. As you gain levels, your choices should reflect the types of monsters you have encountered on your adventures.
Alternatively, some Rangers take a more general approach instead of specializing towards a specific enemy. Whenever you can select a Favored Enemy from this feature, you can instead choose one of your skill Proficiencies. Your Proficiency Bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses one of the chosen Proficiencies.
NATURAL EXPLORER:
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. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you’re proficient in.
Additionally, you are an expert at preparing your party and yourself for expeditions through the wilderness. You gain the following benefits based on your favored terrain selection.
Arctic: Whenever you make a saving throw or ability check against being knocked prone, you have advantage on the roll. You and your allies are considered adapted to cold climates, as described in chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Coast: You have a swimming speed equal to your walking speed. If you already have a swimming speed, it increases by 10 feet. As long as the sky is visible to you for navigation, your group can’t become lost except by magical means.
Desert: You gain the ability to cast the spell Create or Destroy Water, but only as a ritual. You and your allies are considered adapted to hot climates, as described in chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Forest You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured. Difficult terrain does not slow your group’s travel.
Grassland: Your base walking speed increases by 5 feet. When calculating forced march, your party can add your Wisdom modifier to the total number of hours they can travel in a day, as described in chapter 8 of thePlayer’s Handbook.
Mountain: You have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. If you already have a climb speed, it increases by 10 feet. You and your allies are considered acclimated to high altitude, including elevations above 20,000 feet, as described in chapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Swamp: You have advantage on Saving Throws against poison and disease. You and your party can add your Wisdom modifier to any saving throw against becoming poisoned or diseased.
Underdark: You gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. If you already have darkvision from your race, its range increases by 30 feet. You and your party add your Wisdom modifier to their passive perception as they remain alert to danger.
You choose additional favored terrain types at 6th and 10th level.
PRIMEVAL AWARENESS:
Beginning at 3rd level, you can use your action to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you: aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. You can also use it again by expending a spell slot of 1 level or higher.
Thanks. My philosophy on Ranger revisions is to do the most by changing the least amount possible. I want the class features chart to remain the exact same, but certain things within the features are adjusted to do what they thematically should be doing, but mechanically fall on their face currently (by being too bland or meaningless). For example, the only other two features I would probably touch in the base class are Hide in Plain Sight and Foe Slayer (which really is a capstone and doesn't have to be touched, but its fun to think up fun stuff for a 20th level Ranger). Again, with the theme of being helpful to the team in mind...
HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT:
Starting at 10th level, you can camouflage yourself, your allies, and your camp to blend into the surroundings before taking a short or long rest. Creatures that attempt to detect your party take a penalty to their Wisdom (Perception) and Wisdom (Survival) checks to find or track you and your allies, which lasts until the end of the rest. This penalty is equal to your Wisdom modifier plus your Proficiency bonus. If this camouflage is against one of your Favored Enemies or related to one of your Favored Terrains, your proficiency bonus is doubled when calculating the penalty.
FOE SLAYER:
At 20th level, you become an unparalleled Hunter of your enemies. Once on your turn, after you hit a creature with an attack, you can mark a creature’s weaknesses for your allies. Until the start of your next turn, your allies can add your Wisdom modifier to the Attack rolls and damage rolls against your marked enemy.
Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest. You can also use it again by expending a spell slot of 3 level or higher.
Again, my idea is that we can't boost the power of Hide in Plain Sight (making the base Ranger + new subclasses too powerful), but we can make it more generally applicable, meaningful, and sometimes very useful in the right scenarios. Foe Slayer was already a combat ability, I just changed it to something more fun.
These revisions, personally would fix most of my problems with the Ranger. The final piece of the puzzle that I would address is giving the players a reason to stay Ranger after 11th level. Assuming Foe Slayer isn't changed or taken into account since its the end of the game, most players have no reason to stay in the class. Its far better to go Rogue and get Sneak, Expertise, Cunning Action, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion than whatever you get by staying Ranger. I think they need to vastly improve the selection of 4th and 5th level spells to keep the Ranger in the class. If you could pepper in a few more spells per level that are better than using Hunter's Mark, I bet people would stay with it.
Because 5e is mostly a power fantasy and the ranger is the bastard child of druids and fighters and unlike the jack of trades they are masters of none. I had a look at the 3.5 ranger and they knew their turf and they pray honestly rangers can be good only if you work with your dm but if you change lands a lot a lot of your abilities are wasted, not that they could do a lot anyways. IMO if they treated the rangers like the land druids it would be better
Hide in Plain Sight should just be replaced with a free casting of Pass without Trace that takes 1 minute. It would satisfy that same amount of time needed for PHB's HiPSight but instead be useful every adventuring day. Make it refresh on a long rest.
While i agree that most of what's lacking in the base Ranger is a lack of utility, I would still say that Hunter's Mark is not such a powerful spell that it cannot be cast without requiring concentration, especially after 5th level. What if you changed it so that the Ranger could upcast HMark as a spell not requiring concentration by expending a 3rd level spell slot and it occurred only after the PC gets to 10th level or so? Anyone else would only get access to the regular HMark.
Hide in Plain Sight should just be replaced with a free casting of Pass without Trace that takes 1 minute. It would satisfy that same amount of time needed for PHB's HiPSight but instead be useful every adventuring day. Make it refresh on a long rest.
While i agree that most of what's lacking in the base Ranger is a lack of utility, I would still say that Hunter's Mark is not such a powerful spell that it cannot be cast without requiring concentration, especially after 5th level. What if you changed it so that the Ranger could upcast HMark as a spell not requiring concentration by expending a 3rd level spell slot and it occurred only after the PC gets to 10th level or so? Anyone else would only get access to the regular HMark.
well that first thing just sounds like an direct downgrade from the previous feature since hide in plain sight was an at will thing that could be stacked with the pass without trace spell and does not require concentration, and is on top of that infinitely more flavourful.
Getting a single extra 2nd level spell slot with a bunch of caveats attached is not an worthwhile 10th level feature, especially when compared to what you got in terms of spell casting the level before
second thing seems fair, shure why not have hunter's mark not require concentration, would be an awkward class feature to write but yeah
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
The original Hide in Plain Sight is hardly useful because you have to be completely still, taking no actions or moving, in order to benefit from it. You also need plant debris around for it to even work. It's far too situational to be practical in most campaigns.
The original Hide in Plain Sight is hardly useful because you have to be completely still, taking no actions or moving, in order to benefit from it. You also need plant debris around for it to even work. It's far too situational to be practical in most campaigns.
the "and" in "you must have access to mud, dirt, plants, soot and other naturally occurring materials to create your disguise" is probably meant to be "or", especially in places where plants are not native, and besides it does not need much time to set up and works in almost any non-urban environment, if you are in a situation were you are able to set up an ambush it is perfect and makes you practically invisible, if you want you could adress the fact that its not available in every environment by perhaps letting the player use an 1st level spell slot to ignore the normal requirements and letting them do it in 5 turns, shifting the color of their skin and clothing to match their surroundings like an chameleon, but the feature is quite fine as is, one of the few good class abilities they get
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
The original Hide in Plain Sight is hardly useful because you have to be completely still, taking no actions or moving, in order to benefit from it. You also need plant debris around for it to even work. It's far too situational to be practical in most campaigns.
the "and" in "you must have access to mud, dirt, plants, soot and other naturally occurring materials to create your disguise" is probably meant to be "or", especially in places where plants are not native, and besides it does not need much time to set up and works in almost any non-urban environment, if you are in a situation were you are able to set up an ambush it is perfect and makes you practically invisible, if you want you could adress the fact that its not available in every environment by perhaps letting the player use an 1st level spell slot to ignore the normal requirements and letting them do it in 5 turns, shifting the color of their skin and clothing to match their surroundings like an chameleon, but the feature is quite fine as is, one of the few good class abilities they get
You or I could say that the "and" in that sentence should be replaced with "or", but that is not the text in the PHB. There are a lot of ways a DM can work with a player to strengthen the base Ranger. I have argued for changes at the tables I play at. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. Frankly, I would much rather get a free casting of a spell that is frequently useful to both myself and to the party rather than invisibility that takes a minute to set up but that doesn't allow me to move or take actions to maintain that invisibility.
"the "and" in "you must have access to mud, dirt, plants, soot and other naturally occurring materials to create your disguise" is probably meant to be "or"...
Hopefully, but it's not written like that. It does not sound like you find the original hide in plain sight usefull if you have to change it...
"the "and" in "you must have access to mud, dirt, plants, soot and other naturally occurring materials to create your disguise" is probably meant to be "or"...
Hopefully, but it's not written like that. It does not sound like you find the original hide in plain sight usefull if you have to change it...
there is a difference between rules as written and rules as intended, clearly what an ranger is actiually doing when they are using hide in plain sight is using whatever local materials are at hand to camouflage themselves into their surroundings, thus in places where no plants are native it would not exactly make sense for a person to be using plants to disguise themselves, they would instead use some other local materials as a substitute, or by simply sinking into the sand or mud and only letting your face be seen. Similarly an ranger proficient in the disguise kit could likely use it to make up for the lack of necessary components for an convincing disguise
The original Hide in Plain Sight is hardly useful because you have to be completely still, taking no actions or moving, in order to benefit from it. You also need plant debris around for it to even work. It's far too situational to be practical in most campaigns.
the "and" in "you must have access to mud, dirt, plants, soot and other naturally occurring materials to create your disguise" is probably meant to be "or", especially in places where plants are not native, and besides it does not need much time to set up and works in almost any non-urban environment, if you are in a situation were you are able to set up an ambush it is perfect and makes you practically invisible, if you want you could adress the fact that its not available in every environment by perhaps letting the player use an 1st level spell slot to ignore the normal requirements and letting them do it in 5 turns, shifting the color of their skin and clothing to match their surroundings like an chameleon, but the feature is quite fine as is, one of the few good class abilities they get
You or I could say that the "and" in that sentence should be replaced with "or", but that is not the text in the PHB. There are a lot of ways a DM can work with a player to strengthen the base Ranger. I have argued for changes at the tables I play at. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. Frankly, I would much rather get a free casting of a spell that is frequently useful to both myself and to the party rather than invisibility that takes a minute to set up but that doesn't allow me to move or take actions to maintain that invisibility.
why make yourself come to your prey, when your prey can come to you? it is an fantastic feature for setting up an ambush, eavesdropping on your opponent or evading capture, as long as you use it creatively
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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’m actually still a fan of vanilla Rangers - but it requires that you play a DM that includes exploration, overland travel, and other organic non-combat elements.
As for the capstone, it’s important to understand that with the right combination of Favored Enemies, you will have the use of Foe Slayer (FS) for at least a third of your BBEG battles. And it’s important to understand that FS statistically adds about 50%+ to your damage output per round to your basic attacks. If you need the stats sheet for this proof, let me know. This is not a trivial amount!
Because of this, the Ranger gets vastly underestimated. Theorycrafting leads us to use a “white room” comparison to other classes. This white room removes terrain, exploration, and situational effects that bring value to the Ranger class as a whole.
The only bad part is that it often is completely out of the players control if it will do anything. Thats probably why the class feature variants UA changes favored enemy.
As for the capstone, it’s important to understand that with the right combination of Favored Enemies, you will have the use of Foe Slayer (FS) for at least a third of your BBEG battles. And it’s important to understand that FS statistically adds about 50%+ to your damage output per round to your basic attacks. If you need the stats sheet for this proof, let me know. This is not a trivial amount!
This is assuming that your Ranger picked the "right" Favored Enemy types all along. Like too many of the Ranger features, it assumes a close enough relationship between the Ranger's player and the DM for this to be in your favor. You only get three total Favored Enemy choices, by RAW. If the DM doesn't allow you to switch them as you go up in level or if you are playing as a guest at a con or in a new campaign, there can be a lot of mismatch.
In addition, "Once on each of your turns" means that it only applies to the effects of one attack or damage roll. Without a build to maximize crit possibility, that is not much use. It's not like you can dip Champion Fighter, since you've invested all your levels into Ranger just to get that far. If it affected all attack or damage rolls on your own turn, then it would be actually significant.
In addition, "Once on each of your turns" means that it only applies to the effects of one attack or damage roll. Without a build to maximize crit possibility, that is not much use.
Did you check Brewksys calculations, showing +30 to +60% dmg/turn? How's that not much use?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Yep. Let's go.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
But it does have the small benefit of working on any creature, no matter whether or not they've taken damage yet.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Yes, though it requires you to use your bonus action on a target within 60 feet of you. It's also only an average difference of 1 point of damage.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Exactly! I completely agree that the Ranger is conceptually more utility than combat, and many redesigns are focused on making it more powerful in combat when it should be focused on laying down the skill/support in the base class. I've been playing with some of the early features and personally here is what I would add/redo. Mostly brainstorming here.
FAVORED ENEMY:
Beginning at 1st level, you have significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to a certain type of enemy.
Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies.
You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them.
When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at all.
You choose one additional favored enemy, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 14th level. As you gain levels, your choices should reflect the types of monsters you have encountered on your adventures.
Alternatively, some Rangers take a more general approach instead of specializing towards a specific enemy. Whenever you can select a Favored Enemy from this feature, you can instead choose one of your skill Proficiencies. Your Proficiency Bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses one of the chosen Proficiencies.
NATURAL EXPLORER:
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. When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you’re proficient in.
Additionally, you are an expert at preparing your party and yourself for expeditions through the wilderness. You gain the following benefits based on your favored terrain selection.
You choose additional favored terrain types at 6th and 10th level.
PRIMEVAL AWARENESS:
Beginning at 3rd level, you can use your action to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you: aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest. You can also use it again by expending a spell slot of 1 level or higher.
I like that a lot. Pretty good.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
Thanks. My philosophy on Ranger revisions is to do the most by changing the least amount possible. I want the class features chart to remain the exact same, but certain things within the features are adjusted to do what they thematically should be doing, but mechanically fall on their face currently (by being too bland or meaningless). For example, the only other two features I would probably touch in the base class are Hide in Plain Sight and Foe Slayer (which really is a capstone and doesn't have to be touched, but its fun to think up fun stuff for a 20th level Ranger). Again, with the theme of being helpful to the team in mind...
HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT:
Starting at 10th level, you can camouflage yourself, your allies, and your camp to blend into the surroundings before taking a short or long rest. Creatures that attempt to detect your party take a penalty to their Wisdom (Perception) and Wisdom (Survival) checks to find or track you and your allies, which lasts until the end of the rest. This penalty is equal to your Wisdom modifier plus your Proficiency bonus. If this camouflage is against one of your Favored Enemies or related to one of your Favored Terrains, your proficiency bonus is doubled when calculating the penalty.
FOE SLAYER:
At 20th level, you become an unparalleled Hunter of your enemies. Once on your turn, after you hit a creature with an attack, you can mark a creature’s weaknesses for your allies. Until the start of your next turn, your allies can add your Wisdom modifier to the Attack rolls and damage rolls against your marked enemy.
Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest. You can also use it again by expending a spell slot of 3 level or higher.
Again, my idea is that we can't boost the power of Hide in Plain Sight (making the base Ranger + new subclasses too powerful), but we can make it more generally applicable, meaningful, and sometimes very useful in the right scenarios. Foe Slayer was already a combat ability, I just changed it to something more fun.
These revisions, personally would fix most of my problems with the Ranger. The final piece of the puzzle that I would address is giving the players a reason to stay Ranger after 11th level. Assuming Foe Slayer isn't changed or taken into account since its the end of the game, most players have no reason to stay in the class. Its far better to go Rogue and get Sneak, Expertise, Cunning Action, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion than whatever you get by staying Ranger. I think they need to vastly improve the selection of 4th and 5th level spells to keep the Ranger in the class. If you could pepper in a few more spells per level that are better than using Hunter's Mark, I bet people would stay with it.
Because 5e is mostly a power fantasy and the ranger is the bastard child of druids and fighters and unlike the jack of trades they are masters of none. I had a look at the 3.5 ranger and they knew their turf and they pray honestly rangers can be good only if you work with your dm but if you change lands a lot a lot of your abilities are wasted, not that they could do a lot anyways. IMO if they treated the rangers like the land druids it would be better
Hide in Plain Sight should just be replaced with a free casting of Pass without Trace that takes 1 minute. It would satisfy that same amount of time needed for PHB's HiPSight but instead be useful every adventuring day. Make it refresh on a long rest.
While i agree that most of what's lacking in the base Ranger is a lack of utility, I would still say that Hunter's Mark is not such a powerful spell that it cannot be cast without requiring concentration, especially after 5th level. What if you changed it so that the Ranger could upcast HMark as a spell not requiring concentration by expending a 3rd level spell slot and it occurred only after the PC gets to 10th level or so? Anyone else would only get access to the regular HMark.
well that first thing just sounds like an direct downgrade from the previous feature since hide in plain sight was an at will thing that could be stacked with the pass without trace spell and does not require concentration, and is on top of that infinitely more flavourful.
Getting a single extra 2nd level spell slot with a bunch of caveats attached is not an worthwhile 10th level feature, especially when compared to what you got in terms of spell casting the level before
second thing seems fair, shure why not have hunter's mark not require concentration, would be an awkward class feature to write but yeah
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
The original Hide in Plain Sight is hardly useful because you have to be completely still, taking no actions or moving, in order to benefit from it. You also need plant debris around for it to even work. It's far too situational to be practical in most campaigns.
the "and" in "you must have access to mud, dirt, plants, soot and other naturally occurring materials to create your disguise" is probably meant to be "or", especially in places where plants are not native, and besides it does not need much time to set up and works in almost any non-urban environment, if you are in a situation were you are able to set up an ambush it is perfect and makes you practically invisible, if you want you could adress the fact that its not available in every environment by perhaps letting the player use an 1st level spell slot to ignore the normal requirements and letting them do it in 5 turns, shifting the color of their skin and clothing to match their surroundings like an chameleon, but the feature is quite fine as is, one of the few good class abilities they get
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
You or I could say that the "and" in that sentence should be replaced with "or", but that is not the text in the PHB. There are a lot of ways a DM can work with a player to strengthen the base Ranger. I have argued for changes at the tables I play at. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. Frankly, I would much rather get a free casting of a spell that is frequently useful to both myself and to the party rather than invisibility that takes a minute to set up but that doesn't allow me to move or take actions to maintain that invisibility.
Hopefully, but it's not written like that. It does not sound like you find the original hide in plain sight usefull if you have to change it...
there is a difference between rules as written and rules as intended, clearly what an ranger is actiually doing when they are using hide in plain sight is using whatever local materials are at hand to camouflage themselves into their surroundings, thus in places where no plants are native it would not exactly make sense for a person to be using plants to disguise themselves, they would instead use some other local materials as a substitute, or by simply sinking into the sand or mud and only letting your face be seen. Similarly an ranger proficient in the disguise kit could likely use it to make up for the lack of necessary components for an convincing disguise
why make yourself come to your prey, when your prey can come to you? it is an fantastic feature for setting up an ambush, eavesdropping on your opponent or evading capture, as long as you use it creatively
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’m actually still a fan of vanilla Rangers - but it requires that you play a DM that includes exploration, overland travel, and other organic non-combat elements.
As for the capstone, it’s important to understand that with the right combination of Favored Enemies, you will have the use of Foe Slayer (FS) for at least a third of your BBEG battles. And it’s important to understand that FS statistically adds about 50%+ to your damage output per round to your basic attacks. If you need the stats sheet for this proof, let me know. This is not a trivial amount!
Because of this, the Ranger gets vastly underestimated. Theorycrafting leads us to use a “white room” comparison to other classes. This white room removes terrain, exploration, and situational effects that bring value to the Ranger class as a whole.
Why would you talk about the Spreadsheet without providing the link? https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612195-Foe-Slayer-Damage-Calculation-Spreadsheet for everyone to check and play around with. Foe slayer gets even better with sharpshooter as it increases in efficiency with lower accuracy.
The only bad part is that it often is completely out of the players control if it will do anything. Thats probably why the class feature variants UA changes favored enemy.
Touché! I forgot where I had posted it haha!
Oh wow, that was you! Great work, thanks!
This is assuming that your Ranger picked the "right" Favored Enemy types all along. Like too many of the Ranger features, it assumes a close enough relationship between the Ranger's player and the DM for this to be in your favor. You only get three total Favored Enemy choices, by RAW. If the DM doesn't allow you to switch them as you go up in level or if you are playing as a guest at a con or in a new campaign, there can be a lot of mismatch.
In addition, "Once on each of your turns" means that it only applies to the effects of one attack or damage roll. Without a build to maximize crit possibility, that is not much use. It's not like you can dip Champion Fighter, since you've invested all your levels into Ranger just to get that far. If it affected all attack or damage rolls on your own turn, then it would be actually significant.
Did you check Brewksys calculations, showing +30 to +60% dmg/turn? How's that not much use?