I would like to take a moment away from the capstone .... The ranger is not a full melee class, it is similar to paladin, yet is not made to destroy every person in sight. It is made to support, go from range and to make sure you help navigation and similar etc. Rangers should get something like the battle masters ability, where they suss out an opponent. It would be better if people looked at other things beside combat. The tracker feat (UA), should be some kind of ability, though pumped up a bit, and no wisdom increase. It just makes sense to me.
Though I would like to say about foe slayer.... If the amount of damage WITHOUT foe slayer is low, then the damage increase is higher. If you did this on a fighter, I'm sure it would be A LOT less of an increase, as they do more damage. I did read your stuff, and agree it is decent.
I completely agree with this, purely combat focused capstones are for the mr stabby man fighter, and so i propose a New capstone, one that is a Bit more thrilling:
Endless wanderer:
-your daily need for food and and water is divided by 10, and it takes four times as long for you to starve or die of dehydration
- you no longer need to sleep, and can finish a long rest by spending 5 hours of light activity
- travel is now light activity for you
- Whenever you finish a long rest, the terrain you are in becomes your favoured terrain untill the end of your next long rest. If you are on a plane of existance other than the material plane, that entire plane becomes your favoured terrain until the end of your next long rest instead
- while in your favoured terrain, the terrain itself sees you as a friend and adapts to suit you. While you are in your favoured terrain, you take no damage from the enviorment, and are immune to the lair actions of your favoured enemies
Basically with this feature you can travel at fast pace tracking your foes for a while and while you do so you are also doing short or long rests, and also lets you adapt to New enviorments even in planehopping campaigns, with this you can do the kind of exploits and nonsense an legendary ranger should be capable of
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 would like to take a moment away from the capstone .... The ranger is not a full melee class, it is similar to paladin, yet is not made to destroy every person in sight. It is made to support, go from range and to make sure you help navigation and similar etc. Rangers should get something like the battle masters ability, where they suss out an opponent. It would be better if people looked at other things beside combat. The tracker feat (UA), should be some kind of ability, though pumped up a bit, and no wisdom increase. It just makes sense to me.
Though I would like to say about foe slayer.... If the amount of damage WITHOUT foe slayer is low, then the damage increase is higher. If you did this on a fighter, I'm sure it would be A LOT less of an increase, as they do more damage. I did read your stuff, and agree it is decent.
I agree with your first point - Foe Slayer is definitely a very singularly focused capstone. It’s too bad there isn’t a Feat or two that are focused around getting more Favored Terrains or Favored Enemies, because this could make the Ranger FAR more valuable as well.
I liked what Pathfinder did with the Ranger, getting increasing numbers of favoured enemies and terrain as you leveled up. Increasing skill bonuses in your favoured terrain and increased attack and damage bonuses against the favoured enemies. It was situational sure, but if you were sensible then you made your choices based on campaign expectations and could make a very capable character.
The problem with trying to fix the ranger capstone ability is that even if you given them one that turns them into a demigod, it still doesn't address their lack of power for the previous 19 levels.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
The problem with trying to fix the ranger capstone ability is that even if you given them one that turns them into a demigod, it still doesn't address their lack of power for the previous 19 levels.
I agree. A capstone fix is needed, but it doesn't fix the greater problem at hand: Rangers suck. It needs fixes, and it needs them ASAP.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I am suprised the class has yet to make favoured enemy or favoured terrain interact with the lair mechanic some monsters posess, it would be a great way to showcase that your character is experienced and trained in dealing with a certain type of monster without resorting to boring static bonuses to hit and damage, let them use the regional effects produced by certain lairs (like the reality warp of an dreaming beholder and the dust devils that manifest at a Blue dragon lair) to determine your exact distance to the lair, give them advantage on saving throws against lair actions, let them make an nature check to determine what lair actions a creature has and what effects the lair has on the enviorment, or determine what type of creature dwells nearby by the effects its lair has on the enviorment, its one of the few things creatures can do to alter the exploration pillar of the game and it fits perfectly with what the ranger can do, let them fight their favoured enemy even when they are at their strongest
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 baseline I include does indeed include +3 weapons and Sharpshooter and maxxed Wisdom. All of which (except maybe the +3 weapons) are simple to attain in a normal character with point buy. The argument that a Ranger has a hard time getting maxxed Wis is kinda funny, especially when dual-stat classes are quite common in the game (and besides Sharpshooter what do you even need?) and they have no problem either. Add in some Hunter with Horde Breaker for five attacks... I didn’t even go there but the effect would be even more pronounced.
- Dex and Wisdom are both Primary Saves. Maxing then out is actually a good thing as every point into these ability scores means a LOT against the kinds of spells they will be up against. So it’s actually not a waste of ASIs to up them both .
- The percentage increase works, regardless of how low your damage is. It just works way better with Hunters Mark, Flame Arrows, Horde Breaker, Swift Quiver and Sharpshooter. And ridiculously so. Arguments about “it only gives you a small amount of damage increase” are actually quite baseless.
- “But what about if you miss by more than 5 on each attack and then your last attack missed!” Again, didn’t bother to look at the sheet. The chance of that happening is so small that it’s nearly irrelevant but then again... not surprised from armchair analysts that never bothered to check the actual numbers in the sheet.
- The real conversation is always about Favored Enemies, and that’s fair. I contend that if you’re in tune with your DM and the campaign, you’ll likely have a 30% likelihood of getting to use it, but your mileage will always vary.
After considering it a bit more, I don't think attack with greater accuracy using Foe Slayer is bad per se, but it's not a good capstone. A Sharpshooter build that maxes DEX and WIS and spends nothing on any other feats is little more than a one-trick pony character who is also good at Survival and Perception checks. I'm sure there are some people who enjoy such builds, but a capstone for Rangers in general should not favor a particular kind of play style. A melee-focused Ranger with Great Weapon Master would still likely miss out on the maxing WIS b/c getting War Caster or Resilient - CON is probably a higher priority to maintain spells.. Not to mention the obvious temptation of other useful feats like Sentinel or Mobile.
If someone had written Foe Slayer as a 10th level feature, I would look at it differently than as a 20th level feature. Though being tied to Favored Enemy, well, still not something I would generally cheer about.
On the note of melee builds and Ranger effectiveness, I am disappointed that the melee range Rangers aren't discussed here. For a class that is so reliant on concentration spells, Rangers should have been given some way to boost their saving throws to maintaining spells or CON saves in general due to the nature-y survival theme of the class combined with martial prowess.
I am suprised the class has yet to make favoured enemy or favoured terrain interact with the lair mechanic some monsters posess, it would be a great way to showcase that your character is experienced and trained in dealing with a certain type of monster without resorting to boring static bonuses to hit and damage, let them use the regional effects produced by certain lairs (like the reality warp of an dreaming beholder and the dust devils that manifest at a Blue dragon lair) to determine your exact distance to the lair, give them advantage on saving throws against lair actions, let them make an nature check to determine what lair actions a creature has and what effects the lair has on the enviorment, or determine what type of creature dwells nearby by the effects its lair has on the enviorment, its one of the few things creatures can do to alter the exploration pillar of the game and it fits perfectly with what the ranger can do, let them fight their favoured enemy even when they are at their strongest
I think that’s an awesome idea! Even though a Lair is special because of the nature of the monster distorting the natural landscape around where they live, I still think that would be a great way of representing a Ranger’s deep connection to nature and the land. Sort of like the nature now distorted trying to assist the Ranger in purging the area of the source of corruption. Or, maybe at least the Ranger’s ability to use their extensive relationship with the land to overcome the effects of that corruption. Something. It would also be a unique mechanic.
Though I’m sure the common opinion would be that people dislike it because it’s “too niche” and they “don’t want a feature that only works some of the time.” You know, the common complaint about the Ranger features. But maybe redesigning the class to have such a vast and varied array of various features like that would mean that at least one or more out of the lot would come into play in any given situation.
I think that would be cool.....
Too bad that, judging by the majority of feedback WotC seems to get (or at least discuss publicly) that “the majority of players” don’t like things that complicated. 🙄 Heaven forbid someone might actually have to track multiple things. Especially when they have been provided with a handy blank form to use that has been specifically designed to track that stuff. And it is readily available in various different formats and mediums. *sighs* So much work, those poor lambs. 😒
- Foe Slayer calculations again shouldn’t assume 20 Wisdom. It is not common to have this if using standard array. Even if you are a Wood Elf. It would take every ability score improvement to achieve this and have sharpshooter. You wouldn’t have any other selections. What if you want to play another race that isn’t optimized for Ranger? You would end at 16 or 18 for Wisdom, especially if you wanted another feat or a better Con than 13. I’d say your average Ranger would be closer to a +3 for Foe Slayer.
Edit: With more thought into this, I think the only reason Foe Slayer looks good is because of the specific combinations of numbers and feats. Let’s put it simply. Foe Slayer is only good if it turns a would be miss into a hit. These moments also statistically need to only happen once a turn. For example, Swift Quiver doesn’t get as large of a benefit, increase to 58% vs 54% because the chances of missing did go up, but capped. If you have 50% chance to miss and 4 attacks, you could have gotten two Foe Slayer usages but it’s only usable once a turn, so it’s benefits drop off. Players best option (which Someone could do the math) is to sharpshooter only while you haven’t used Foe Slayer, then once used switch to normal attacks. But sharpshooter is why Foe Slayer is good. For non-sharpshooter characters, For Slayer is only usable against an AC 20 Target 15% per attack, because they would miss on a 2, 3, 4, or 5 with the +14 to hit. Foe Slayer can’t save natural 1s and it wouldn’t save the natural 2. So once every 6-7 attacks. Depending on Swift Quiver that is once every round maybe (just giving a +3 to damage if not), or every 2-3 if not using that spell.
- Natural Explorer expertise is only added to skills in which you are proficient; not all Int and Wis skills. Assuming you took stealth or other dex skills, you probably only have 2-3 wis and int skills you are proficient in. This is basically a 1st level Rogue expertise, except theirs is on all the time and they get a total of 4 by 6. You still only have the 2-3 and they turn on more often at 6.
Again, didn’t read my previous post.
With Point Buy, +4 Wis is simple to get and also allows you to get a second feat outside of Sharpshooter. That is, unless you take a race that doesn’t even get a Dex or Wisdom bonus at all, in which case anything you build is going to be ******. We don’t discuss Yuan-ti Barbarians much on this site either, but you’re free to play one.
Your analysis is wrong. Foe Slayer makes Sharpshooter better, but not using Sharpshooter is a waste of time with or without Foe Slayer. If your Attack Bonus is +14 then you should use Sharpshooter ALWAYS until you hit AC 24.75 (as per Sharpshooter Spreadsheet found online).
And then again... you quoted some stats without even using the sheet once again. I’m not sure if this is just meant to be trolling or what, but I addressed Swift Quiver already and your percentages are irrelevant when compared to the totality of the spreadsheet which takes into account rounds with any number of hits and misses each round.
So let’s assume you’re playing the absolute most-underpowered Ranger ever. An Orc Ranger that uses a longbow +1, never got the Sharpshooter Feat and only spent 3 Feats to get Dex to 20 and Wisdom to 16:
With Hunters Mark, damage goes from 21 to 27.02 per round (28% increase).
With Swift Quiver it goes from 31.5 to 39.13 per round (24% increase).
Congrats, you found a scenario that makes Foe Slayer somewhat underpowered. I mean, 21 damage per round is already absolutely abysmal at Level 20, but that’s what you wanted to prove your point. Of course we left 2 Feats on the table because you wanted to make this point.
But let’s say we use those 2 leftover Feats and take Sharpshooter and take Wis to +4...
Hunters Mark goes from 24 to 34.84 (45% increase)
Swift Quiver goes from 41 to 55.11 (34% increase).
So there you go - a non-standard Race, with only a +4 Wis, still gets more than a 45% increase with their 1st level spell and 34% increase with their 5th level spell. That’s very substantial.
I’m saying there is a problem here, and while at work on my phone I can’t pinpoint it exactly. Someone needs to check some things..
First, the AC shouldn’t matter because the chances of using Foe Slayer remains the same between AC 16 to 30 enemies. Because Foe Slayer can be used after a roll is made, it is “waiting” for certain ranges of rolls. These ranges have an equal chance of popping up and are arbitrary. If you are fighting a dragon with a 27 AC and you gave a +14 to hit, you are waiting to roll a 9-12 (if +4 Wisdom). If you always use sharpshooter then that range is just 5 less, and you are waiting to roll those numbers. Either way it’s a 20% chance to trigger a good reason for Foe Slayer. Your damage increase you get from triggering a hit from Foe Slayer is equal to your damage of an attack.
This means that over 20 Attacks, Foe Slayer is getting a boost equal to your average damage 4 times. You then can break down the rounds. If you are not using Swift Quiver, you get 2 Attacks a round. You are increasing a damage roll by 4 on the other 6 rounds then. Assuming 24 average damage with sharpshooter.... that is 120 damage increased over 10 rounds or 12/round. That’s getting dangerously close to sneak attack.
Now where it gets ahead is Swift Quiver, I’ll give you that. Because 4 Attacks in a turn makes Foe Slayer come up more often in a round, which means it’s more likely to turn a miss into a hit and not default to increasing the damage roll.
EDIT: the reason I am pointing out why it looks good under your circumstances is because +5 Wisdom means 25% chance to trigger Foe Slayer. And Swift Quiver gives you 4 Attacks. This is the perfect scenario for it because you get to guarantee an extra attack worth of damage on average every turn in this way, and add sharpshooter to it. I would point out that this obviously isn’t even on all the time. Sneak Attack you get off most rounds and ranges between 3.5-17.5 extra damage a round depending on your level in Rogue (and fires off on reactions, so doubles on opportunity attacks), and is controlled by the player when it goes off, not the DM and creature types.
...First, the AC shouldn’t matter because the chances of using Foe Slayer remains the same between AC 16 to 30 enemies...
No. You are right, foe slayer is a static bonus, but your hitchance depends on the targets AC. Higher AC means less base damage, resulting in an increased relative amount of damage foe slayer adds to your overall damage.
EDIT: the reason I am pointing out why it looks good under your circumstances is because +5 Wisdom means 25% chance to trigger Foe Slayer...
In that case please provide the circumstances and calculations in which you think it dosn't look good. (except for fighting non-favoured enemies, everyone seems to be on the same side here)
Foe slayer only works once per turn as well.. but rangers should NOT have a combat based capstone. Exploration is the big picture.
Exploration is the most ignored pillar of the game. Exploration focused themes are a big part of the reason rangers are considered to suck.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
I am suprised the class has yet to make favoured enemy or favoured terrain interact with the lair mechanic some monsters posess, it would be a great way to showcase that your character is experienced and trained in dealing with a certain type of monster without resorting to boring static bonuses to hit and damage, let them use the regional effects produced by certain lairs (like the reality warp of an dreaming beholder and the dust devils that manifest at a Blue dragon lair) to determine your exact distance to the lair, give them advantage on saving throws against lair actions, let them make an nature check to determine what lair actions a creature has and what effects the lair has on the enviorment, or determine what type of creature dwells nearby by the effects its lair has on the enviorment, its one of the few things creatures can do to alter the exploration pillar of the game and it fits perfectly with what the ranger can do, let them fight their favoured enemy even when they are at their strongest
I would be fine with that. Though, for a capstone, it should still be a little more useful than only in boss fights that happen to take place in a lair.
As others have said, exploration needs to count for more if the current Ranger is to be seen as viable outside of a few niche campaigns. Part of that would need to include more officially produced exploration-focused campaigns as well as better fleshed out rules that make exploration more interesting and challenging. I played Tomb of Annihilation, for example, and the jungle stuff was mostly just scenery. No swarms of plague-bearing mosquitoes. No piranhas. No thick mud that would severely impair movement. No severe rainstorms. Some OP magic items that cheesed the food requirements of the party that was traveling far from any city once the party found it. Absolutely no need to interact with the environment itself outside of buying rafts to navigate the river and killing a few beasties. Survival checks were hardly needed. At the same time, there was no particular beauty to the environment either. It was like somebody wrote the module without bothering to do research on jungle environments and the day-to-day experiences of folks living in that kind of place.
I am suprised the class has yet to make favoured enemy or favoured terrain interact with the lair mechanic some monsters posess, it would be a great way to showcase that your character is experienced and trained in dealing with a certain type of monster without resorting to boring static bonuses to hit and damage, let them use the regional effects produced by certain lairs (like the reality warp of an dreaming beholder and the dust devils that manifest at a Blue dragon lair) to determine your exact distance to the lair, give them advantage on saving throws against lair actions, let them make an nature check to determine what lair actions a creature has and what effects the lair has on the enviorment, or determine what type of creature dwells nearby by the effects its lair has on the enviorment, its one of the few things creatures can do to alter the exploration pillar of the game and it fits perfectly with what the ranger can do, let them fight their favoured enemy even when they are at their strongest
I would be fine with that. Though, for a capstone, it should still be a little more useful than only in boss fights that happen to take place in a lair.
As others have said, exploration needs to count for more if the current Ranger is to be seen as viable outside of a few niche campaigns. Part of that would need to include more officially produced exploration-focused campaigns as well as better fleshed out rules that make exploration more interesting and challenging. I played Tomb of Annihilation, for example, and the jungle stuff was mostly just scenery. No swarms of plague-bearing mosquitoes. No piranhas. No thick mud that would severely impair movement. No severe rainstorms. Some OP magic items that cheesed the food requirements of the party that was traveling far from any city once the party found it. Absolutely no need to interact with the environment itself outside of buying rafts to navigate the river and killing a few beasties. Survival checks were hardly needed. At the same time, there was no particular beauty to the environment either. It was like somebody wrote the module without bothering to do research on jungle environments and the day-to-day experiences of folks living in that kind of place.
Yes. I would hope that Rime of the Frostmaiden will be exploration heavy, and so it can be fun. I mean, it is going to be wise arctic expanse... It's either going to be amazing scenery, or 'there is lots of snow and trees'. I would help that if a Runeterra sourcebook came out, it would have ixtal or Ionia adventure. Then it could be really amazing description of the scenery, and give some better encounters with it. Ionia would be really fun... I am trying to promote exploration in my games, as my ranger loves it, and he likes my descriptions.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
Foe slayer only works once per turn as well.. but rangers should NOT have a combat based capstone. Exploration is the big picture.
Exploration is the most ignored pillar of the game. Exploration focused themes are a big part of the reason rangers are considered to suck.
That is not a problem with the ranger, that is a problem with the system. Exploration is meant to be what makes the ranger special, without it you are just an fancy fighter with some druid spells, they need more features that improves exploration not less.
As for what can be done to improve it, a rulebook with more rules and advice for wilderness travel kind of like that one UA would be nice, as would making example obstacles and providing some kind of unique benefit or reward for exploration on the players part
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
You can't rely on DMs adding that to games. I'm in two 100% separate groups, and we've never done anything exploration related. I've not done any of that crap since 2e 20 years ago. The fact is, that a lot of people just don/t /want/ to do that, so having a class that is 100% defined by that is never going to work.
As far as rules, the Adventures in Middle Earth books have some interesting rules for overland travel, but if groups don't USE the stuff, ranger as a class is dead in a way no other class really is. What should be looked at is making class features for the games that people actually play.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Exploration can't become a vital part of the game due to the way things are right now. Because doing so would necessitate having a ranger in the party who either does little when the party isn't exploring (boring for the ranger's player) or is the only one doing anything (boring for everyone else).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
To be fair, exploration doesn't have to be something that only occurs in the wilderness. Exploration can also include caves, sewer systems, unusual city scapes, and any non-Material Plane environments.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I completely agree with this, purely combat focused capstones are for the mr stabby man fighter, and so i propose a New capstone, one that is a Bit more thrilling:
Endless wanderer:
-your daily need for food and and water is divided by 10, and it takes four times as long for you to starve or die of dehydration
- you no longer need to sleep, and can finish a long rest by spending 5 hours of light activity
- travel is now light activity for you
- Whenever you finish a long rest, the terrain you are in becomes your favoured terrain untill the end of your next long rest. If you are on a plane of existance other than the material plane, that entire plane becomes your favoured terrain until the end of your next long rest instead
- while in your favoured terrain, the terrain itself sees you as a friend and adapts to suit you. While you are in your favoured terrain, you take no damage from the enviorment, and are immune to the lair actions of your favoured enemies
Basically with this feature you can travel at fast pace tracking your foes for a while and while you do so you are also doing short or long rests, and also lets you adapt to New enviorments even in planehopping campaigns, with this you can do the kind of exploits and nonsense an legendary ranger should be capable of
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 agree with your first point - Foe Slayer is definitely a very singularly focused capstone. It’s too bad there isn’t a Feat or two that are focused around getting more Favored Terrains or Favored Enemies, because this could make the Ranger FAR more valuable as well.
I liked what Pathfinder did with the Ranger, getting increasing numbers of favoured enemies and terrain as you leveled up. Increasing skill bonuses in your favoured terrain and increased attack and damage bonuses against the favoured enemies. It was situational sure, but if you were sensible then you made your choices based on campaign expectations and could make a very capable character.
The problem with trying to fix the ranger capstone ability is that even if you given them one that turns them into a demigod, it still doesn't address their lack of power for the previous 19 levels.
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.
I agree. A capstone fix is needed, but it doesn't fix the greater problem at hand: Rangers suck. It needs fixes, and it needs them ASAP.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
If the ua class feature variants' Favored Foe become official the hunters mark target will count as favoured enemy:
Seems to me like no other fix is needed as the damage is great.
This^^^
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I am suprised the class has yet to make favoured enemy or favoured terrain interact with the lair mechanic some monsters posess, it would be a great way to showcase that your character is experienced and trained in dealing with a certain type of monster without resorting to boring static bonuses to hit and damage, let them use the regional effects produced by certain lairs (like the reality warp of an dreaming beholder and the dust devils that manifest at a Blue dragon lair) to determine your exact distance to the lair, give them advantage on saving throws against lair actions, let them make an nature check to determine what lair actions a creature has and what effects the lair has on the enviorment, or determine what type of creature dwells nearby by the effects its lair has on the enviorment, its one of the few things creatures can do to alter the exploration pillar of the game and it fits perfectly with what the ranger can do, let them fight their favoured enemy even when they are at their strongest
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
After considering it a bit more, I don't think attack with greater accuracy using Foe Slayer is bad per se, but it's not a good capstone. A Sharpshooter build that maxes DEX and WIS and spends nothing on any other feats is little more than a one-trick pony character who is also good at Survival and Perception checks. I'm sure there are some people who enjoy such builds, but a capstone for Rangers in general should not favor a particular kind of play style. A melee-focused Ranger with Great Weapon Master would still likely miss out on the maxing WIS b/c getting War Caster or Resilient - CON is probably a higher priority to maintain spells.. Not to mention the obvious temptation of other useful feats like Sentinel or Mobile.
If someone had written Foe Slayer as a 10th level feature, I would look at it differently than as a 20th level feature. Though being tied to Favored Enemy, well, still not something I would generally cheer about.
On the note of melee builds and Ranger effectiveness, I am disappointed that the melee range Rangers aren't discussed here. For a class that is so reliant on concentration spells, Rangers should have been given some way to boost their saving throws to maintaining spells or CON saves in general due to the nature-y survival theme of the class combined with martial prowess.
I think that’s an awesome idea! Even though a Lair is special because of the nature of the monster distorting the natural landscape around where they live, I still think that would be a great way of representing a Ranger’s deep connection to nature and the land. Sort of like the nature now distorted trying to assist the Ranger in purging the area of the source of corruption. Or, maybe at least the Ranger’s ability to use their extensive relationship with the land to overcome the effects of that corruption. Something. It would also be a unique mechanic.
Though I’m sure the common opinion would be that people dislike it because it’s “too niche” and they “don’t want a feature that only works some of the time.” You know, the common complaint about the Ranger features. But maybe redesigning the class to have such a vast and varied array of various features like that would mean that at least one or more out of the lot would come into play in any given situation.
I think that would be cool.....
Too bad that, judging by the majority of feedback WotC seems to get (or at least discuss publicly) that “the majority of players” don’t like things that complicated. 🙄 Heaven forbid someone might actually have to track multiple things. Especially when they have been provided with a handy blank form to use that has been specifically designed to track that stuff. And it is readily available in various different formats and mediums. *sighs* So much work, those poor lambs. 😒
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I’m saying there is a problem here, and while at work on my phone I can’t pinpoint it exactly. Someone needs to check some things..
First, the AC shouldn’t matter because the chances of using Foe Slayer remains the same between AC 16 to 30 enemies. Because Foe Slayer can be used after a roll is made, it is “waiting” for certain ranges of rolls. These ranges have an equal chance of popping up and are arbitrary. If you are fighting a dragon with a 27 AC and you gave a +14 to hit, you are waiting to roll a 9-12 (if +4 Wisdom). If you always use sharpshooter then that range is just 5 less, and you are waiting to roll those numbers. Either way it’s a 20% chance to trigger a good reason for Foe Slayer. Your damage increase you get from triggering a hit from Foe Slayer is equal to your damage of an attack.
This means that over 20 Attacks, Foe Slayer is getting a boost equal to your average damage 4 times. You then can break down the rounds. If you are not using Swift Quiver, you get 2 Attacks a round. You are increasing a damage roll by 4 on the other 6 rounds then. Assuming 24 average damage with sharpshooter.... that is 120 damage increased over 10 rounds or 12/round. That’s getting dangerously close to sneak attack.
Now where it gets ahead is Swift Quiver, I’ll give you that. Because 4 Attacks in a turn makes Foe Slayer come up more often in a round, which means it’s more likely to turn a miss into a hit and not default to increasing the damage roll.
EDIT: the reason I am pointing out why it looks good under your circumstances is because +5 Wisdom means 25% chance to trigger Foe Slayer. And Swift Quiver gives you 4 Attacks. This is the perfect scenario for it because you get to guarantee an extra attack worth of damage on average every turn in this way, and add sharpshooter to it. I would point out that this obviously isn’t even on all the time. Sneak Attack you get off most rounds and ranges between 3.5-17.5 extra damage a round depending on your level in Rogue (and fires off on reactions, so doubles on opportunity attacks), and is controlled by the player when it goes off, not the DM and creature types.
Foe slayer only works once per turn as well.. but rangers should NOT have a combat based capstone. Exploration is the big picture.
'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!
No. You are right, foe slayer is a static bonus, but your hitchance depends on the targets AC. Higher AC means less base damage, resulting in an increased relative amount of damage foe slayer adds to your overall damage.
In that case please provide the circumstances and calculations in which you think it dosn't look good. (except for fighting non-favoured enemies, everyone seems to be on the same side here)
Exploration is the most ignored pillar of the game. Exploration focused themes are a big part of the reason rangers are considered to suck.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I would be fine with that. Though, for a capstone, it should still be a little more useful than only in boss fights that happen to take place in a lair.
As others have said, exploration needs to count for more if the current Ranger is to be seen as viable outside of a few niche campaigns. Part of that would need to include more officially produced exploration-focused campaigns as well as better fleshed out rules that make exploration more interesting and challenging. I played Tomb of Annihilation, for example, and the jungle stuff was mostly just scenery. No swarms of plague-bearing mosquitoes. No piranhas. No thick mud that would severely impair movement. No severe rainstorms. Some OP magic items that cheesed the food requirements of the party that was traveling far from any city once the party found it. Absolutely no need to interact with the environment itself outside of buying rafts to navigate the river and killing a few beasties. Survival checks were hardly needed. At the same time, there was no particular beauty to the environment either. It was like somebody wrote the module without bothering to do research on jungle environments and the day-to-day experiences of folks living in that kind of place.
Yes. I would hope that Rime of the Frostmaiden will be exploration heavy, and so it can be fun. I mean, it is going to be wise arctic expanse... It's either going to be amazing scenery, or 'there is lots of snow and trees'. I would help that if a Runeterra sourcebook came out, it would have ixtal or Ionia adventure. Then it could be really amazing description of the scenery, and give some better encounters with it. Ionia would be really fun... I am trying to promote exploration in my games, as my ranger loves it, and he likes my descriptions.
'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!
That is not a problem with the ranger, that is a problem with the system. Exploration is meant to be what makes the ranger special, without it you are just an fancy fighter with some druid spells, they need more features that improves exploration not less.
As for what can be done to improve it, a rulebook with more rules and advice for wilderness travel kind of like that one UA would be nice, as would making example obstacles and providing some kind of unique benefit or reward for exploration on the players part
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 can't rely on DMs adding that to games. I'm in two 100% separate groups, and we've never done anything exploration related. I've not done any of that crap since 2e 20 years ago. The fact is, that a lot of people just don/t /want/ to do that, so having a class that is 100% defined by that is never going to work.
As far as rules, the Adventures in Middle Earth books have some interesting rules for overland travel, but if groups don't USE the stuff, ranger as a class is dead in a way no other class really is. What should be looked at is making class features for the games that people actually play.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Exploration can't become a vital part of the game due to the way things are right now. Because doing so would necessitate having a ranger in the party who either does little when the party isn't exploring (boring for the ranger's player) or is the only one doing anything (boring for everyone else).
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.
To be fair, exploration doesn't have to be something that only occurs in the wilderness. Exploration can also include caves, sewer systems, unusual city scapes, and any non-Material Plane environments.