All of those abilities you listed range from rarely used to crazy powerful. The table has more to do with people’s disappointment with the class than the class itself. If favored enemy and natural explorer are so terrible things like the knowledge cleric and scout rogue would never be played. Primeval awareness does more in combination with other ranger abilities than it does on it’s own. It’s a sleeper ability. Saying that having a wizard present negates a ranger ability adds to the list of what a tanger can do in a party. So now we have wizard, druid, fighter, and rogue. That’s a lot of territory overlap, none of which then classes can overlap with any of the others. Value is of personal use, biase, and preference.
There's no real way to build a pre-Tasha's Ranger in a useful way without losing out on significant chunks of the class - even if you picked a particularly common Favored Enemy, like Monstrosity, you could count on the ability virtually never coming up, and the actual odds of a Natural Explorer terrain coming up in a given campaign are such a crapshoot you can basically ignore it as well. Primeval Awareness was particularly useless with a Wizard anywhere nearby, since the answer would just be Yes (the Wizard's familiar), and it's worse now that there are UA races that count as undead as well as humanoid, setting the answer to just permanently Yes.
Hide in Plain Sight is the only pre-Tasha's Ranger ability where I can see a serious case for the argument that a veteran gamer could make it perfectly useful.
Well, this is untrue.
First off, the most common Favored Enemy is humanoids (humans, to be precise) and in 99% of campaigns, picking humans and elves as your 1st-level Favored Enemy will get you your money's worth. It's not an 'always on' ability --which is what people really want-- but it is an 'on often enough' ability with the right choices. Similarly, assuming you somehow missed the entire plot of the campaign you're playing and have no idea what to pick for your other Favored Enemies, Undead and Fiends will get you a lot further than Monstrosities. With Humans/Elves, Undead, and Fiends as your standard choices, you'd be surprised how much mileage you'll get out of Favored Enemy. That is, assuming you somehow slept through the entire plot of the campaign and have absolutely zero clue what your DM is setting up as the main antagonists of their campaign by levels 6 and 14. And even then, Humans and Elves are so ubiquitous in a majority of settings that even at those higher levels you can bet advantage on intelligence and tracking checks for them will come up.
As for Natural Explorer, you can get by most of the time with Mountains, Forests, and Grasslands as your Favored Terrains. Also Underdark if your DM rules that this covers most dungeons. Again, it's not an 'always on' ability but it will be used often enough to justify its presence. Remember that the Expertise isn't just for when you're traveling within that terrain. It's for any Int and Wis check related to that terrain. Bonus points if your DM rules that cities and other humanoid settlements located within a given terrain count as part of that terrain (i.e. a coastal city counts as Coast) but it's not necessary to still get use of that ability. Also keep in mind that locations can have more than one terrain at once, such as a forest atop a mountain in the frigid north. In this sense, choosing any of Forest, Mountain, or Arctic will net you the Natural Explorer bonuses. I will agree that Deft Explorer is generally superior, though. It still gives you that outdoorsman and explorer vibe while also being an 'always on' ability, so you don't have to worry about keeping track of whether or not you get your bonuses. And the bonuses it does provide are generally rather strong.
I will agree that Primeval Awareness is pretty bad tho. And HiPS has its uses, but Nature's Veil is generally the superior option.
There's no real way to build a pre-Tasha's Ranger in a useful way without losing out on significant chunks of the class - even if you picked a particularly common Favored Enemy, like Monstrosity, you could count on the ability virtually never coming up, and the actual odds of a Natural Explorer terrain coming up in a given campaign are such a crapshoot you can basically ignore it as well. Primeval Awareness was particularly useless with a Wizard anywhere nearby, since the answer would just be Yes (the Wizard's familiar), and it's worse now that there are UA races that count as undead as well as humanoid, setting the answer to just permanently Yes.
Hide in Plain Sight is the only pre-Tasha's Ranger ability where I can see a serious case for the argument that a veteran gamer could make it perfectly useful.
Well, this is untrue.
First off, the most common Favored Enemy is humanoids (humans, to be precise) and in 99% of campaigns, picking humans and elves as your 1st-level Favored Enemy will get you your money's worth. It's not an 'always on' ability --which is what people really want-- but it is an 'on often enough' ability with the right choices. Similarly, assuming you somehow missed the entire plot of the campaign you're playing and have no idea what to pick for your other Favored Enemies, Undead and Fiends will get you a lot further than Monstrosities. With Humans/Elves, Undead, and Fiends as your standard choices, you'd be surprised how much mileage you'll get out of Favored Enemy. That is, assuming you somehow slept through the entire plot of the campaign and have absolutely zero clue what your DM is setting up as the main antagonists of their campaign by levels 6 and 14. And even then, Humans and Elves are so ubiquitous in a majority of settings that even at those higher levels you can bet advantage on intelligence and tracking checks for them will come up.
feels like you will need more data than just a claim for such a bold statement, like this can vary massively depending on the style of the campaign and the setting, if you picked humans in the out of the abyss module i am pretty sure you would have absolutely no luck (no humans in the underdark, only elves), if you'd be playing lost mine of phandelver no lore about humans or elves would ever show up etc, especially if the baddies specifically are neither humans nor elves and there is no massive lore that relates to humans as a species or elves as a species then that choice would be pretty much worthless
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There's no real way to build a pre-Tasha's Ranger in a useful way without losing out on significant chunks of the class - even if you picked a particularly common Favored Enemy, like Monstrosity, you could count on the ability virtually never coming up, and the actual odds of a Natural Explorer terrain coming up in a given campaign are such a crapshoot you can basically ignore it as well. Primeval Awareness was particularly useless with a Wizard anywhere nearby, since the answer would just be Yes (the Wizard's familiar), and it's worse now that there are UA races that count as undead as well as humanoid, setting the answer to just permanently Yes.
Hide in Plain Sight is the only pre-Tasha's Ranger ability where I can see a serious case for the argument that a veteran gamer could make it perfectly useful.
Well, this is untrue.
First off, the most common Favored Enemy is humanoids (humans, to be precise) and in 99% of campaigns, picking humans and elves as your 1st-level Favored Enemy will get you your money's worth. It's not an 'always on' ability --which is what people really want-- but it is an 'on often enough' ability with the right choices. Similarly, assuming you somehow missed the entire plot of the campaign you're playing and have no idea what to pick for your other Favored Enemies, Undead and Fiends will get you a lot further than Monstrosities. With Humans/Elves, Undead, and Fiends as your standard choices, you'd be surprised how much mileage you'll get out of Favored Enemy. That is, assuming you somehow slept through the entire plot of the campaign and have absolutely zero clue what your DM is setting up as the main antagonists of their campaign by levels 6 and 14. And even then, Humans and Elves are so ubiquitous in a majority of settings that even at those higher levels you can bet advantage on intelligence and tracking checks for them will come up.
feels like you will need more data than just a claim for such a bold statement, like this can vary massively depending on the style of the campaign and the setting, if you picked humans in the out of the abyss module i am pretty sure you would have absolutely no luck (no humans in the underdark, only elves), if you'd be playing lost mine of phandelver no lore about humans or elves would ever show up etc, especially if the baddies specifically are neither humans nor elves and there is no massive lore that relates to humans as a species or elves as a species then that choice would be pretty much worthless
In those situations, the DM should have let the players know ahead of time what campaign they were playing and the Ranger can make their choices accordingly.
Session Zero is a thing. I am assuming the campaign is some generic fantasy kitchen sink. All things being generically equal, Humans/Elves, Undead, and Fiends are your best generic choices for these features because the former span the vast majority of generic kitchen sink worlds and the latter two have the biggest number of monsters in the MM and run the gamut of CR's. Even the example you provided (Out of the Abyss) used Elves, which I pointed out are the other most common race in generic fantasy settings. Or at least, the other most common one that actually has a tangible effect on the world.
If you're playing a Pirate campaign, obviously pick Coast for your Favored Terrain. But again, that's information the DM should be giving the entire party ahead of time. And no, I'm not referring to the Ranger player taking the DM aside and asking them for extra info to make their specific choices. I'm talking about the most basic level of communication between a DM and their players.
Having a ranger start with some in character choices for their favored enemy and natural explorer is not meta gaming, bad, or a stain on the class. In fact, rangers are one of the more immersive classes for a campaign. Character creation has this type of information based choice across all classes.
What confuses me is how so many people sing the praises of the bard or eldritch knight yet criticize the ranger.
I think this can be summed up to 9th level spells and 4 attacks. Personally I am no fan of Eldritch knight, and would rather have a Battlemaster11/Caster9 but the bard is rock solid, in particular the bladebard who gets +1d6 ac every round, 2 attacks, and full casting including wish.
You are talking about level 17 (once) and level 20 stuff.
Well what level should we discuss? The ranger is great up until level 5, and fair until 11. The problems come lategame when I dont see any reason not to multiclass to rogue to become more ranger than a ranger.
Levels 2-10 archer rangers are dealing top tier consistent damage output exceeding that of most other martial (ranged and melee), while using similar resources, and using minimum resources. They get a significant damage boost from their subclass as well, from PHB beast master to hunter and gloom stalker.
Their base abilities, either PHB for natural exploration and knowledge skills or Tasha’s for skirmishing, are unmatched by any other class. Even the scout rogue is only 10% or 15% better at two skills, some of the time, if they commit and devote their entire subclass to that function.
Ranger base spells choices, even being limited in number and castings, are powerful, dramatically and positively effect the entire party, and shape the direction and function of the ranger. Spell choice has more impact on a ranger than most consider, and that underpowers them. Hunter’s mark, fog cloud, goodberry, spike growth, speak with animals, beast sense, conjure animals, plant growth, hail of thorns, pass without, would all be considered VERY powerful if they were abilities for a fighter or rogue. Through their spell choice players can shape their ranger in a way similar to the hunter’s number of choices as they level. Paladins are more flexible casters, but most of their spell slots will be burnt with smite and what they do cast is mostly in one of three categories: damage, healing, and protection, with others being variants of one of the same three.
The reason to stick with ranger after level whatever (7, 10, 12) instead of multiclassing into rogue (although multiclassing is a great move if you want to mostly play the sneaky ranger that focuses on dealing single target bow damage) is is mostly spells, again being very powerful in being cast. Ranger third level spells are game changers in general, but un equaled by others martial characters. All rangers get some kind of a combat focused buff at level 11.
Rangers are the best and most well rounded at wilderness exploration and survival, and are at the top of their game when in their favored terrain (Expertise in two skills does not a survivor make. I’m looking at you scout rogues.).
not really, bar the natural explorer feature that only works in certain terrains and that can be replaced by some expertise the ranger gets almost no love in the exploration department despite that being their niche, we have land's stride at 8th level that helps a bit, we have vanish at 14th level that is cool as all hell but few campaigns make it that far and i guess you might count one or two spells they have access to like good berry that negates the need to keep track of hunger for the rest of campaign, a ranger who chooses the deft explorer feature will not be any significant amount better at survival and exploration than a rouge who picks stealth, survival and outlander
my grievances here are akin to my grievances with the artificer, they are supposed to be the masters of making magic items but outside infusions that are not permanent items and a single 10th level features that applies to common and uncommon items they got nothin', they also supposed to be the ones primarily dealing with constructs and the few other ways of making a construct for an player is with spells so a wizard gets to use tiny servant, the summon construct spell from tasha's and use an manual of golems before the artificer gets hold of those tools, and get's to create an humonculus at 11th level like the artificer can with one of his infusions, the only thing they got in that department is that battle smith's at least got the token pet as part of their subclass, but that is about it in terms of construct-related things in the artificer class
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The second part of natural explorer only works while in that type of terrain. And when it is “on” nothing does what it does for the entire party. Nothing. The first part of the ability, the part people claim rogue scouts do better, works while outside of one of their favored terrain (3 total before level 11, while most campaigns deal with one to three major terrain types, and most campaigns end by levels 10-13). It can apply in all kinds if situations. And while in one of their favored terrains it is identical to the scout rogue subclass major feature. By level 11 rangers will be using their natural explorer much or most if the time when overland travel is used at all.
Then their other abilities, subclass abilities, and spell add to their travel, survival, and exploration kit. Primeval awareness, conjure animals, the beast master companion, goodberry, pass without trace, speak with animals, beast sense, and hide in plain sight, are all things a rogue with a focused subclass with a focused background will never be able to even think about.
The second part of natural explorer only works while in that type of terrain. And when it is “on” nothing does what it does for the entire party. Nothing. The first part of the ability, the part people claim rogue scouts do better, works while outside of one of their favored terrain (3 total before level 11, while most campaigns deal with one to three major terrain types, and most campaigns end by levels 10-13). It can apply in all kinds if situations. And while in one of their favored terrains it is identical to the scout rogue subclass major feature. By level 11 rangers will be using their natural explorer much or most if the time when overland travel is used at all.
if you had understood what i said you would have noticed that i said that natural explorer is the one ranger abillity i think makes the ranger good at exploration compared to other classes, and it is an abillity that is useful when a ranger chooses to have it, in their element there is no doubt that the ranger is the king of exploration, it is just that they had to make it terrain specific and then also let you replace it with a bunch of combat focused features instead
Then their other abilities, subclass abilities, and spell add to their travel, survival, and exploration kit. Primeval awareness, conjure animals, the beast master companion, goodberry, pass without trace, speak with animals, beast sense, and hide in plain sight, are all things a rogue with a focused subclass with a focused background will never be able to even think about.
Primeval awareness sucks, conjure animals is primarily a combat spell where you have absolutely no control over what kind of creatures will appear, the beast master animals is helpful but does not scale and you must choose one, goodberry is negated if you are sucessfully able to forage for food while traveling or if you just brought enough rations to begin with, speak with animals and beast sense could both be cast by an rogue with the ritual caster (druid) feat, hide in plain sight has nothing to do with exploration at all, and the subclass features of the ranger are almost all exclusively targeted at the interaction/ combat pillars of the game, with the few exceptions being umbral sight, detect portal and maybe the shitty fly speed of the swarmkeeper ranger, same principle regarding the spells subclasses grant, most of them are either in interaction or combat, not in exploration.
the only valid one here is pass without trace, and that one is only really useful either if you are either being followed by someone or something or if your entire dumbass party needs to sneak through an area full of hostile monsters, rogues already get to be the sneakiest and most slippery fellows ever
and what is more, i had a look at the playtest document for the ranger pre- player's handbook and i see that this whole nonsense with terrain and creature type specific features was not there before, and instead we had this:
Tracking. You can spend 1 minute to track other creatures. You succeed automatically, except in the following circumstances:
More than 24 hours have passed since thec reatures passed.
The creatures intentionally obscured their trail.
Weather, such as snow or heavy rain, has obscured the trail.
The terrain, such as a river or hard rock, makes discerning a trail difficult.
Many creatures have traveled through the area, such as along a road or inside a city.
In such circumstances, a successful Wisdom check against a DC set by the DM is required to track. If you track successfully, you discern whether creatures have passed through the area within 100 feet of you. You learn the number of creatures and their sizes, when they passed through, and the direction they were traveling. Based on the age and arrangement of the tracks, you can tell the difference between separate groups. If you successfully navigate while exploring, you can also follow tracks
Favoured Enemy
At 2nd level, you choose the sort of enemy you are dedicated to hunting: colossal monsters like dragons or hordes of orcs, hobgoblins,and similar creatures. Your choice leads you on the path of the Colossus Slayer or the Horde Breaker. Each option is detailed at the end of the ranger section. Your choice grants you features at certain ranger levels, as noted in the Ranger table.
Natural Explorer
Starting at 5th level, while exploring wilderness environments, you and any creature you choose that follows your lead, does so at twice the normal rate. When you navigate, you and those who travel with you cannot become lost. When you scout, you can scout twice as far as normal. When you forage, you automatically find one day’s worth of food for yourself and up to ten other people, plus an equal number of mounts, unless the region is unusually desolate
(side note: in the table natural explorer was listed as the only feature given at level 6 so it is safe to say the 5 was just a typo by wizards of the coast)
there, i could genuniely see someone make the argument that a rogue or a druid with one level of rogue does not outdo the ranger's wilderness exploration becuase that would just objectively be the case if these rules were used, no rogue would ever get as much info and succeed as frequently when tracking, and there would need to be no lengthy pre-game talk about the enviorments and creatures that you will encounter becuase the "favoured enemy" of this version was just your subclass, what would eventiually become the Hunter subclass, and you got new exploration features over time each of whom was completely passive and worked all the time.
If they had just done this there would be no ******* debate over the validity of the class, no ******* debate about how good they actiually are at exploration, and i cannot comprehend why they (in hindsight) ruined the feature
They also had a way OP version of the vanish feature:
Master Stalker
At 14th level, at the end of each of your turns if you are conscious and can take actions you can make a Dexterity (Stealth) check to hide without using an action; all normal restrictions on being able to hide from another creature still apply. Additionally, you can choose to make absolutely no noise when you move, you cannot be tracked, you cannot be detected with tremorsense, and you cannot be detected with magic by creatures that cannot see you
"...if you had understood what i said you would have noticed that i said that natural explorer is the one ranger abillity i think makes the ranger good at exploration compared to other classes..." I'm sorry for jumping the gun. I apologize.
"Primeval awareness sucks..." It doesn't suck. It just isn't obviously useful. This works for me as a Star Wars "I sense a disturbance in the force." or Spiderman's "spidey sense". When you need or want this information it is great and cheap.
"...conjure animals is primarily a combat spell where you have absolutely no control over what kind of creatures will appear..." Having control over what appears or not is table dependent. I have never had or been a DM that didn't allow the player to choose what appears. The SAC is there to circumvent the conjure woodland beings pixie nonsense and power gamers destroying the game using RAW as an excuse.
"...the beast master animals is helpful but does not scale and you must choose one..." Does not scale? How so? Both versions of the subclass scales. In fact the PHB wolf and blood hawk have passive perceptions of 21 starting at only level 3. And that goes all the way up to 25 in tier 4.
"...goodberry is negated if you are sucessfully able to forage for food while traveling or if you just brought enough rations to begin with..." Goodberry alleviates much encumbrance. I realize most tables ignore encumbrance completely, but if you play by the RAW and especially if a table uses the variant encumbrance, goodberry is amazing, and that's just out of combat. Yes you can forage for food. Maybe that's what the scout rogue with their expertise in survival can do during travel since by RAW each character (except for the ranger in their favored terrain and/or with an animal companion) can only do one thing at a time.
"...speak with animals and beast sense could both be cast by an rogue with the ritual caster (druid) feat..." You only get one spell with that feat and only a first level spell to boot. Beast sense is very powerful for exploration and is a second level spell. And now we have a rogue that dedicates their background, subclass, and a feat to do a little of what a baseline ranger can do.
"...hide in plain sight has nothing to do with exploration at all..." Maybe. Infiltration. Spying. Keeping watch. With a minute of prep you can literally disappear from sight.
"...the subclass features of the ranger are almost all exclusively targeted at the interaction/ combat pillars of the game, with the few exceptions..." That is pretty accurate I guess.
A good player can make use of any creature the dm throws in to the frey with Conjure animals. Rangers require understanding of game mechanics and tactics to be effective. Even crappy animals have a use in the Numbers game. IF all else fails ask if you can have a stirge. They are present in most environments and no dm is going to accuse you of being OP And at the very least you've waisted alot of enemy actions/attacks.
Primeval awareness has hidden potential. The problem is most people don't realize, It's for preparation not something reactive to a situation. You cast it on a traveling day or the camping night before the big battle. Those days where you have extra spell slots. just like divination magic It allows you to ask the right questions and prepare. If you wait until your inside a dungeon your probably too late.(side note: the phrase "UP TO" certain distances is huge and a game changer allowing for potential distance calculation.) once you know what to look for your other skills make it likely you get the important information early.
Skill over lap is a good thing Both in class skills or with other pc's. say you forage and fail if you still have good berry you can fix the problem but now the failure cost you a spell slot instead of potential starvation/exhaustion/ or other penalties.
A rogue can take ritual caster druid. Great. You know who else can take ritual caster druid, a ranger. In fact rangers turn several "subpar" feat choices into amazing ones. its all about paying attention to the choices you have already made. If you want the extra druid stuff take it.
"...speak with animals and beast sense could both be cast by an rogue with the ritual caster (druid) feat..." You only get one spell with that feat and only a first level spell to boot. Beast sense is very powerful for exploration and is a second level spell. And now we have a rogue that dedicates their background, subclass, and a feat to do a little of what a baseline ranger can do.
you are mixing up ritual caster (druid) and magic initiate (druid),
magic initiate give you two cantrips and a single 1st level spell that you cast normally 1/ long rest
ritual caster gives you two 1st level spells that you can cast only as rituals at-will, plus you can scribe any spell of a level lower than half your character level rounded up (so for instance a 3rd level character gets to have 2nd level spells) can be scribed over the course of 1 hour and 50 gp per level of the spell. It is entirely possible for a rogue to learn both spells and to cast them often
"...the beast master animals is helpful but does not scale and you must choose one..." Does not scale? How so? Both versions of the subclass scales. In fact the PHB wolf and blood hawk have passive perceptions of 21 starting at only level 3. And that goes all the way up to 25 in tier 4.
what i meant by that is that any special abillities that the pet has, blind sight, darkvision, keen senses, amphibious, spider climb, alternate movement modes etc will remain the same across all your levels, and you cannot get more pets, yes you do get to add your ever-increasing proficiency bonus to it's check but that increase is slow and there is not much difference between passive perception 21 and 25, both are higher than what most monsters will roll most of the time
A good player can make use of any creature the dm throws in to the frey with Conjure animals. Rangers require understanding of game mechanics and tactics to be effective. Even crappy animals have a use in the Numbers game. IF all else fails ask if you can have a stirge. They are present in most environments and no dm is going to accuse you of being OP And at the very least you've waisted alot of enemy actions/attacks.
A rogue can take ritual caster druid. Great. You know who else can take ritual caster druid, a ranger. In fact rangers turn several "subpar" feat choices into amazing ones. its all about paying attention to the choices you have already made. If you want the extra druid stuff take it.
i think you are missing some important context here:
i was not refuting conjure animal's effectiveness if all you want to do is kill a fool, combat is what the spell is designed for, what i AM refuting is it's ability to be used in an exploration context, where exactly the beast you get will affect how useful it is
point was that those two spells are in fact not "things a rogue with a focused subclass with a focused background will never be able to even think about" and that the difference in exploration skill between an scout rouge and an ranger is not really that great, particularly for rangers who do not get natural explorer
"...goodberry is negated if you are sucessfully able to forage for food while traveling or if you just brought enough rations to begin with..." Goodberry alleviates much encumbrance. I realize most tables ignore encumbrance completely, but if you play by the RAW and especially if a table uses the variant encumbrance, goodberry is amazing, and that's just out of combat. Yes you can forage for food. Maybe that's what the scout rogue with their expertise in survival can do during travel since by RAW each character (except for the ranger in their favored terrain and/or with an animal companion) can only do one thing at a time.
if you are playing using variant encumberance, the party is probably going to be more interested in features such as bags of holding, the goliath, bear totem barbarians, etc, and even creatures who are indeed encumbered will not slow the party's travel pace RAW, plus again not everyone is going to use encumbrance, let alone variant encumbrance
"...hide in plain sight has nothing to do with exploration at all..." Maybe. Infiltration. Spying. Keeping watch. With a minute of prep you can literally disappear from sight.
had to actiually double check how they define the exploration pillar and it seems that wizards of the coast intend for it to mean "Literally anything that is not a social encounter or an combat encounter" instead of like, travelling the land, discovery, survival. Sitting still for hours on end does not exactly feel like exploration ya' know?
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I think my view can be summed up to rangers falling into two categories - ranger5/rogue15 (the sneaky skirmisher nature guy, often an archer) and Fighter11/druid9 (the warrior who casts nature spells). In no case do I really see myself choosing to go full ranger20 even when the consept is litterally «ranger». Add subclasses as preferred.
I think my view can be summed up to rangers falling into two categories - ranger5/rogue15 (the sneaky skirmisher nature guy, often an archer) and Fighter11/druid9 (the warrior who casts nature spells). In no case do I really see myself choosing to go full ranger20 even when the consept is litterally «ranger». Add subclasses as preferred.
That's great at levels 17 or 20. What about at levels 4, 6, or 10?
I think my view can be summed up to rangers falling into two categories - ranger5/rogue15 (the sneaky skirmisher nature guy, often an archer) and Fighter11/druid9 (the warrior who casts nature spells). In no case do I really see myself choosing to go full ranger20 even when the consept is litterally «ranger». Add subclasses as preferred.
That's great at levels 17 or 20. What about at levels 4, 6, or 10?
As mentioned before, ranger is totally fine at early levels so its not really much of a debate there. At lv 5 its among the better imo with two attacks and second level spells. At level 10 i would instead have a fighter5/druid5, a ranger5/rogue5.
I think my view can be summed up to rangers falling into two categories - ranger5/rogue15 (the sneaky skirmisher nature guy, often an archer) and Fighter11/druid9 (the warrior who casts nature spells). In no case do I really see myself choosing to go full ranger20 even when the consept is litterally «ranger». Add subclasses as preferred.
That's great at levels 17 or 20. What about at levels 4, 6, or 10?
As mentioned before, ranger is totally fine at early levels so its not really much of a debate there. At lv 5 its among the better imo with two attacks and second level spells. At level 10 i would instead have a fighter5/druid5, a ranger5/rogue5.
Even with the ranger's third level spells, 11th level subclass abilities, and 8th and 10th level class abilities?! You must be playing like a super focused killer archer build, huh?
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All of those abilities you listed range from rarely used to crazy powerful. The table has more to do with people’s disappointment with the class than the class itself. If favored enemy and natural explorer are so terrible things like the knowledge cleric and scout rogue would never be played. Primeval awareness does more in combination with other ranger abilities than it does on it’s own. It’s a sleeper ability. Saying that having a wizard present negates a ranger ability adds to the list of what a tanger can do in a party. So now we have wizard, druid, fighter, and rogue. That’s a lot of territory overlap, none of which then classes can overlap with any of the others. Value is of personal use, biase, and preference.
Well, this is untrue.
First off, the most common Favored Enemy is humanoids (humans, to be precise) and in 99% of campaigns, picking humans and elves as your 1st-level Favored Enemy will get you your money's worth. It's not an 'always on' ability --which is what people really want-- but it is an 'on often enough' ability with the right choices. Similarly, assuming you somehow missed the entire plot of the campaign you're playing and have no idea what to pick for your other Favored Enemies, Undead and Fiends will get you a lot further than Monstrosities. With Humans/Elves, Undead, and Fiends as your standard choices, you'd be surprised how much mileage you'll get out of Favored Enemy. That is, assuming you somehow slept through the entire plot of the campaign and have absolutely zero clue what your DM is setting up as the main antagonists of their campaign by levels 6 and 14. And even then, Humans and Elves are so ubiquitous in a majority of settings that even at those higher levels you can bet advantage on intelligence and tracking checks for them will come up.
As for Natural Explorer, you can get by most of the time with Mountains, Forests, and Grasslands as your Favored Terrains. Also Underdark if your DM rules that this covers most dungeons. Again, it's not an 'always on' ability but it will be used often enough to justify its presence. Remember that the Expertise isn't just for when you're traveling within that terrain. It's for any Int and Wis check related to that terrain. Bonus points if your DM rules that cities and other humanoid settlements located within a given terrain count as part of that terrain (i.e. a coastal city counts as Coast) but it's not necessary to still get use of that ability. Also keep in mind that locations can have more than one terrain at once, such as a forest atop a mountain in the frigid north. In this sense, choosing any of Forest, Mountain, or Arctic will net you the Natural Explorer bonuses. I will agree that Deft Explorer is generally superior, though. It still gives you that outdoorsman and explorer vibe while also being an 'always on' ability, so you don't have to worry about keeping track of whether or not you get your bonuses. And the bonuses it does provide are generally rather strong.
I will agree that Primeval Awareness is pretty bad tho. And HiPS has its uses, but Nature's Veil is generally the superior option.
There's a table?
feels like you will need more data than just a claim for such a bold statement, like this can vary massively depending on the style of the campaign and the setting, if you picked humans in the out of the abyss module i am pretty sure you would have absolutely no luck (no humans in the underdark, only elves), if you'd be playing lost mine of phandelver no lore about humans or elves would ever show up etc, especially if the baddies specifically are neither humans nor elves and there is no massive lore that relates to humans as a species or elves as a species then that choice would be pretty much worthless
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
In those situations, the DM should have let the players know ahead of time what campaign they were playing and the Ranger can make their choices accordingly.
Session Zero is a thing. I am assuming the campaign is some generic fantasy kitchen sink. All things being generically equal, Humans/Elves, Undead, and Fiends are your best generic choices for these features because the former span the vast majority of generic kitchen sink worlds and the latter two have the biggest number of monsters in the MM and run the gamut of CR's. Even the example you provided (Out of the Abyss) used Elves, which I pointed out are the other most common race in generic fantasy settings. Or at least, the other most common one that actually has a tangible effect on the world.
If you're playing a Pirate campaign, obviously pick Coast for your Favored Terrain. But again, that's information the DM should be giving the entire party ahead of time. And no, I'm not referring to the Ranger player taking the DM aside and asking them for extra info to make their specific choices. I'm talking about the most basic level of communication between a DM and their players.
Having a ranger start with some in character choices for their favored enemy and natural explorer is not meta gaming, bad, or a stain on the class. In fact, rangers are one of the more immersive classes for a campaign. Character creation has this type of information based choice across all classes.
Well what level should we discuss? The ranger is great up until level 5, and fair until 11. The problems come lategame when I dont see any reason not to multiclass to rogue to become more ranger than a ranger.
4th and 5th level spells, for starters.
Levels 2-10 archer rangers are dealing top tier consistent damage output exceeding that of most other martial (ranged and melee), while using similar resources, and using minimum resources. They get a significant damage boost from their subclass as well, from PHB beast master to hunter and gloom stalker.
Their base abilities, either PHB for natural exploration and knowledge skills or Tasha’s for skirmishing, are unmatched by any other class. Even the scout rogue is only 10% or 15% better at two skills, some of the time, if they commit and devote their entire subclass to that function.
Ranger base spells choices, even being limited in number and castings, are powerful, dramatically and positively effect the entire party, and shape the direction and function of the ranger. Spell choice has more impact on a ranger than most consider, and that underpowers them. Hunter’s mark, fog cloud, goodberry, spike growth, speak with animals, beast sense, conjure animals, plant growth, hail of thorns, pass without, would all be considered VERY powerful if they were abilities for a fighter or rogue. Through their spell choice players can shape their ranger in a way similar to the hunter’s number of choices as they level. Paladins are more flexible casters, but most of their spell slots will be burnt with smite and what they do cast is mostly in one of three categories: damage, healing, and protection, with others being variants of one of the same three.
The reason to stick with ranger after level whatever (7, 10, 12) instead of multiclassing into rogue (although multiclassing is a great move if you want to mostly play the sneaky ranger that focuses on dealing single target bow damage) is is mostly spells, again being very powerful in being cast. Ranger third level spells are game changers in general, but un equaled by others martial characters. All rangers get some kind of a combat focused buff at level 11.
not really, bar the natural explorer feature that only works in certain terrains and that can be replaced by some expertise the ranger gets almost no love in the exploration department despite that being their niche, we have land's stride at 8th level that helps a bit, we have vanish at 14th level that is cool as all hell but few campaigns make it that far and i guess you might count one or two spells they have access to like good berry that negates the need to keep track of hunger for the rest of campaign, a ranger who chooses the deft explorer feature will not be any significant amount better at survival and exploration than a rouge who picks stealth, survival and outlander
my grievances here are akin to my grievances with the artificer, they are supposed to be the masters of making magic items but outside infusions that are not permanent items and a single 10th level features that applies to common and uncommon items they got nothin', they also supposed to be the ones primarily dealing with constructs and the few other ways of making a construct for an player is with spells so a wizard gets to use tiny servant, the summon construct spell from tasha's and use an manual of golems before the artificer gets hold of those tools, and get's to create an humonculus at 11th level like the artificer can with one of his infusions, the only thing they got in that department is that battle smith's at least got the token pet as part of their subclass, but that is about it in terms of construct-related things in the artificer class
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 second part of natural explorer only works while in that type of terrain. And when it is “on” nothing does what it does for the entire party. Nothing. The first part of the ability, the part people claim rogue scouts do better, works while outside of one of their favored terrain (3 total before level 11, while most campaigns deal with one to three major terrain types, and most campaigns end by levels 10-13). It can apply in all kinds if situations. And while in one of their favored terrains it is identical to the scout rogue subclass major feature. By level 11 rangers will be using their natural explorer much or most if the time when overland travel is used at all.
Then their other abilities, subclass abilities, and spell add to their travel, survival, and exploration kit. Primeval awareness, conjure animals, the beast master companion, goodberry, pass without trace, speak with animals, beast sense, and hide in plain sight, are all things a rogue with a focused subclass with a focused background will never be able to even think about.
if you had understood what i said you would have noticed that i said that natural explorer is the one ranger abillity i think makes the ranger good at exploration compared to other classes, and it is an abillity that is useful when a ranger chooses to have it, in their element there is no doubt that the ranger is the king of exploration, it is just that they had to make it terrain specific and then also let you replace it with a bunch of combat focused features instead
Primeval awareness sucks, conjure animals is primarily a combat spell where you have absolutely no control over what kind of creatures will appear, the beast master animals is helpful but does not scale and you must choose one, goodberry is negated if you are sucessfully able to forage for food while traveling or if you just brought enough rations to begin with, speak with animals and beast sense could both be cast by an rogue with the ritual caster (druid) feat, hide in plain sight has nothing to do with exploration at all, and the subclass features of the ranger are almost all exclusively targeted at the interaction/ combat pillars of the game, with the few exceptions being umbral sight, detect portal and maybe the shitty fly speed of the swarmkeeper ranger, same principle regarding the spells subclasses grant, most of them are either in interaction or combat, not in exploration.
the only valid one here is pass without trace, and that one is only really useful either if you are either being followed by someone or something or if your entire dumbass party needs to sneak through an area full of hostile monsters, rogues already get to be the sneakiest and most slippery fellows ever
and what is more, i had a look at the playtest document for the ranger pre- player's handbook and i see that this whole nonsense with terrain and creature type specific features was not there before, and instead we had this:
Tracking.
You can spend 1 minute to track other creatures. You succeed automatically, except in the following circumstances:
In such circumstances, a successful Wisdom check against a DC set by the DM is required to track. If you track successfully, you discern whether creatures have passed through the area within 100 feet of you. You learn the number of creatures and their sizes, when they passed through, and the direction they were traveling. Based on the age and arrangement of the tracks, you can tell the difference between separate groups. If you successfully navigate while exploring, you can also follow tracks
Favoured Enemy
At 2nd level, you choose the sort of enemy you are dedicated to hunting: colossal monsters like dragons or hordes of orcs, hobgoblins,and similar creatures. Your choice leads you on the path of the Colossus Slayer or the Horde Breaker. Each option is detailed at the end of the ranger section. Your choice grants you features at certain ranger levels, as noted in the Ranger table.
Natural Explorer
Starting at 5th level, while exploring wilderness environments, you and any creature you choose that follows your lead, does so at twice the normal rate. When you navigate, you and those who travel with you cannot become lost. When you scout, you can scout twice as far as normal. When you forage, you automatically find one day’s worth of food for yourself and up to ten other people, plus an equal number of mounts, unless the region is unusually desolate
(side note: in the table natural explorer was listed as the only feature given at level 6 so it is safe to say the 5 was just a typo by wizards of the coast)
there, i could genuniely see someone make the argument that a rogue or a druid with one level of rogue does not outdo the ranger's wilderness exploration becuase that would just objectively be the case if these rules were used, no rogue would ever get as much info and succeed as frequently when tracking, and there would need to be no lengthy pre-game talk about the enviorments and creatures that you will encounter becuase the "favoured enemy" of this version was just your subclass, what would eventiually become the Hunter subclass, and you got new exploration features over time each of whom was completely passive and worked all the time.
If they had just done this there would be no ******* debate over the validity of the class, no ******* debate about how good they actiually are at exploration, and i cannot comprehend why they (in hindsight) ruined the feature
They also had a way OP version of the vanish feature:
Master Stalker
At 14th level, at the end of each of your turns if you are conscious and can take actions you can make a Dexterity (Stealth) check to hide without using an action; all normal restrictions on being able to hide from another creature still apply. Additionally, you can choose to make absolutely no noise when you move, you cannot be tracked, you cannot be detected with tremorsense, and you cannot be detected with magic by creatures that cannot see you
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
"...if you had understood what i said you would have noticed that i said that natural explorer is the one ranger abillity i think makes the ranger good at exploration compared to other classes..." I'm sorry for jumping the gun. I apologize.
"Primeval awareness sucks..." It doesn't suck. It just isn't obviously useful. This works for me as a Star Wars "I sense a disturbance in the force." or Spiderman's "spidey sense". When you need or want this information it is great and cheap.
"...conjure animals is primarily a combat spell where you have absolutely no control over what kind of creatures will appear..." Having control over what appears or not is table dependent. I have never had or been a DM that didn't allow the player to choose what appears. The SAC is there to circumvent the conjure woodland beings pixie nonsense and power gamers destroying the game using RAW as an excuse.
"...the beast master animals is helpful but does not scale and you must choose one..." Does not scale? How so? Both versions of the subclass scales. In fact the PHB wolf and blood hawk have passive perceptions of 21 starting at only level 3. And that goes all the way up to 25 in tier 4.
"...goodberry is negated if you are sucessfully able to forage for food while traveling or if you just brought enough rations to begin with..." Goodberry alleviates much encumbrance. I realize most tables ignore encumbrance completely, but if you play by the RAW and especially if a table uses the variant encumbrance, goodberry is amazing, and that's just out of combat. Yes you can forage for food. Maybe that's what the scout rogue with their expertise in survival can do during travel since by RAW each character (except for the ranger in their favored terrain and/or with an animal companion) can only do one thing at a time.
"...speak with animals and beast sense could both be cast by an rogue with the ritual caster (druid) feat..." You only get one spell with that feat and only a first level spell to boot. Beast sense is very powerful for exploration and is a second level spell. And now we have a rogue that dedicates their background, subclass, and a feat to do a little of what a baseline ranger can do.
"...hide in plain sight has nothing to do with exploration at all..." Maybe. Infiltration. Spying. Keeping watch. With a minute of prep you can literally disappear from sight.
"...the subclass features of the ranger are almost all exclusively targeted at the interaction/ combat pillars of the game, with the few exceptions..." That is pretty accurate I guess.
you are mixing up ritual caster (druid) and magic initiate (druid),
what i meant by that is that any special abillities that the pet has, blind sight, darkvision, keen senses, amphibious, spider climb, alternate movement modes etc will remain the same across all your levels, and you cannot get more pets, yes you do get to add your ever-increasing proficiency bonus to it's check but that increase is slow and there is not much difference between passive perception 21 and 25, both are higher than what most monsters will roll most of the time
i think you are missing some important context here:
if you are playing using variant encumberance, the party is probably going to be more interested in features such as bags of holding, the goliath, bear totem barbarians, etc, and even creatures who are indeed encumbered will not slow the party's travel pace RAW, plus again not everyone is going to use encumbrance, let alone variant encumbrance
had to actiually double check how they define the exploration pillar and it seems that wizards of the coast intend for it to mean "Literally anything that is not a social encounter or an combat encounter" instead of like, travelling the land, discovery, survival. Sitting still for hours on end does not exactly feel like exploration ya' know?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
I think my view can be summed up to rangers falling into two categories - ranger5/rogue15 (the sneaky skirmisher nature guy, often an archer) and Fighter11/druid9 (the warrior who casts nature spells). In no case do I really see myself choosing to go full ranger20 even when the consept is litterally «ranger». Add subclasses as preferred.
That's great at levels 17 or 20. What about at levels 4, 6, or 10?
As mentioned before, ranger is totally fine at early levels so its not really much of a debate there. At lv 5 its among the better imo with two attacks and second level spells. At level 10 i would instead have a fighter5/druid5, a ranger5/rogue5.
Even with the ranger's third level spells, 11th level subclass abilities, and 8th and 10th level class abilities?! You must be playing like a super focused killer archer build, huh?