Easiest to hardest isn't a matter of perception or skill. I am simply looking at it in the most basic terms. If you took four average people, not a fantasy hero, and you put one in each area, the person in the city will last the longest, then the person in a natural setting like a forest, etc...
"Your putting a lot of personal biases into the way your breaking things up." Again, not really. I hardly think it is bias to say that someone can survive longer in a city than a desert.
Is a desert and the arctic the same, no, but you are waaay over analyzing this. Its a game, I created a way to group environments in a way that I feel makes sense from a gameplay logic and in a way that creates a number of possible options that fit the mold so that at level 17 you have all of them. If you want to create your own version of Favored Terrain that has 47 different possible terrains because surviving in each has its own list of crap go for it.
This is just an alternative for someone who wants to use Favored Terrain over Deft Explorer and feel like the choice is more impactful.
Overall it does the job.
I am not gonna bother rebuffing most of your points because again, you apply your own rules and assumptions to the scenario so there is little point and I will simply respond to the last statement. Clearly most players don't agree with that "[o]verall it does the job" and the fact that Wizards didn't tweak it but abandoned it all together, but you are free to disagree.
Actually. you can't prove that most players actually don't agree that it does the job overall. You can only prove that the vocal minority... much of which is all about combat and min-maxing doesn't agree with it. Even this thread shows that you can't make that Most Players argument because there are many players over the length of this thread that do not think it is bad overall. Just that they don't get to use it much. Which is very different from what your trying to argue here. Particularly since there are a lot of varied reasons as to why they didn't get to do it much that range from player choice to DM choices, to different focuses in their campaigns. But your just going to ignore all that of course. Because those don't fit the personal bias your going for or your supposed efforts to make things better.
I think the fact that Wizards replaced it with Deft Explorer shows that a bulk of the audience didn't like Favored Terrain. Yeah, you can argue that people on this forum have defended it, myself included, but then ask those defenders how many have switched? I know I did. And again, what is this "personal bias" nonsense?
Saying that a feature being entirely replaced rather than tweaked or reworked is a sign that it was a feature a lot of players did not like isn't personal bias, it is acknowledging reality. I don't think they would have developed, play tested, and introduced a major change to a class if only "a vocal minority" was the one asking for it. Deft Explorer is going to become the default for most rangers and I would bet that when 6e comes out the Ranger will have some form of it and they will completely abandon Favored Terrain.
Except they didn't outright replace it. It's an option that lets you personalize your experience. If you're playing primarily in an urban campain or manufactured dungeons, then Natural Explorer isn't really helpful.
The big reason people complained about this and Favored Enemy is because they weren't obviously applicable to combat. That's it. It's not that they were bad or didn't work as intended. Far from it. No, it was a vocal subset of the playerbase that simply didn't care for it. They didn't want to meet it on it's terms. They threw up their hands and shouted because it wasn't what they wanted.
Nevermind that you still can't find someone who can properly articulate what they were hoping for, or what kind of fix they think the features need. They simply didn't live up to artificial expectations.
Yeah - you can say they didn't outright replace it, but it is an 'Option' the way multiclassing and feats are 'options' - 90% of tables are going to use it and basically treat it as the defacto norm.
90% of Tables aren't going to use it. The reality is that about 50% of tables at best are going to use it. Your giving a percentage that you grabbed out of thin air based upon your bias. Not upon anything in reality.
Jounichi is actually right. Even When they are given other options people are still complaining. Your even arguing for fixes in this thread And changes to things even while your at the same time argueing that it's completely replaced and won't ever being used. Your showing your own inability to be satisfied even with the replacement and need to switch it up more because all you seem to want is change and no real direction in what that change is other than "better" and "More."
The Complaints are not the majority of the player base. As many times as it has been brought up in these forums and elsewhere the split seems to be about 50/50 at best. But people advocating for change are much louder and almost always spout numbers that make it seem like anybody that doesn't want it is some kind of unique anomoly when they aren't. Anybody willing to open their eyes and pay attention and track things that are said are going to notice the difference. The Loud Minority is just getting away with this kind of behavior because few bother to do that because they either don't care, don't have the problem the minority does, or Just simply have better things to do. That's reality.
Many tables are never going to bother to use Tasha's... And plenty of tables that do are going to mix and match heavily to their benefit. It's only going to be a small group that is going to throw out everything old for everything in Tasha's.
Okay....but I'm not dismissing the Investigation skill. Or the value of it for exploration. All I'm saying is that Wizards and Artificers specifically aren't necessarily guaranteed to take it because they only get two skills and have a lot of competition for them.
You're putting words in my mouth. Please stop.
I am just asking for clarity:
what has been your experience with the clear and defined differentiation between perception and investigation? It might be you have had only experiences where DMs used perception for everything basically when that shouldn’t be the case. And that is a subconscious factor for your comment on investigation?
The standard array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. I can see a ranger dumping charisma WAAAY before dumping intelligence, and even dumping constitution or strength if the build is a ranged one. So assuming you put the 8 in charisma, at minimum you are looking at a 10 in intelligence, and more likely a 12 or 13 before racial modifiers.
I would argue that anyone dumping Con in favor of Int is doing it wrong, even if they are ranged.
I would argue anyone who has never dumped con. Only really cares about the combat pillar.
The standard array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. I can see a ranger dumping charisma WAAAY before dumping intelligence, and even dumping constitution or strength if the build is a ranged one. So assuming you put the 8 in charisma, at minimum you are looking at a 10 in intelligence, and more likely a 12 or 13 before racial modifiers.
I would argue that anyone dumping Con in favor of Int is doing it wrong, even if they are ranged.
I would argue anyone who has never dumped con. Only really cares about the combat pillar.
low con makes for interesting characters.
Yeah. If you are shooting from 200 feet away constitution is not a prime requisite. Perhaps "dump" is too strong a word. "Not maxed" out be a better term. They have a d10 hit die and no requirement to be effective in combat via melee.
From a purely mechanical standpoint, sure. But I've seen players with negative Con scores before. I, myself, have played as characters with terminal illnesses. John Henry "Doc" Holliday was a friend of Wyatt Earp, a participant in the gunfight at the OK corral, and was slowly dying of tuberculosis the entire time.
We saw the storytelling potential and wanted to see where it would take us. There's nothing wrong with that.
One of my players wanted to play a tabaxi monk. After assigning ability scores, they wound up with only 12 Constitution. They didn't have a lot of hit points, and they went down a few times, but it was all fine.
Okay....but I'm not dismissing the Investigation skill. Or the value of it for exploration. All I'm saying is that Wizards and Artificers specifically aren't necessarily guaranteed to take it because they only get two skills and have a lot of competition for them.
You're putting words in my mouth. Please stop.
I am just asking for clarity:
what has been your experience with the clear and defined differentiation between perception and investigation? It might be you have had only experiences where DMs used perception for everything basically when that shouldn’t be the case. And that is a subconscious factor for your comment on investigation?
Why on Earth does everyone keep insisting that I'm somehow dunking on Investigation? I'm not. Insisting that I somehow have a bias against the skill is putting words in my mouth. Stop. It.
All I said was that the two Int classes (note, I didn't talk about Int-based subclasses at all,) have other important skills competing for their two slots too. I'm saying that them taking Investigation isn't a guarantee when they have other important skills like Arcana, History, and Sleight of Hand competing for those two slots.
I like the Investigation skill, for ****'s sake. So for the love of God, actually read my post and stop making a straw man argument. This is not amusing. If y'all want a straw man to argue against, go right ahead. But leave me out of it.
I'm playing a gnome beast master ranger with a 10 in constitution right now.
@envoyofwater, I hear you. The intelligence based classes aren't known for, or optimized for, skill checks in general, let alone investigation. You were very clear.
If anything, the Ranger is more likely to make use of Investigation than the Wizard because Wizards are not skill monkeys and only get two skills from their class.
Meanwhile, if the Ranger gets proficiency in investigation then they can turn it into expertise with Favored Terrain.
There's more incentive for a Ranger to take the skill than for a Wizard, despite the Wizard using Int as their primary skill.
If anything, the Ranger is more likely to make use of Investigation than the Wizard because Wizards are not skill monkeys and only get two skills from their class.
Meanwhile, if the Ranger gets proficiency in investigation then they can turn it into expertise with Favored Terrain.
There's more incentive for a Ranger to take the skill than for a Wizard, despite the Wizard using Int as their primary skill.
I will say in favor of Water here... That having DM'ed a fair bit. My personal experience is that Wizards in 5e primarily only take int based skills if they apply in some way to their focus as a character. Otherwise they tend to rely on their modifier to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. Because their maxed intelligence makes them just as good as those that put proficiency in them anyway. So I see a lot more Arcana or nature or the like than I see Investigation. Partly because these things tend to let them identify their enemies.
Now that's not in any way saying that Investigation isn't valuable. it just seems to be how many Wizards purely in my experience deal with the limited proficiency and no skill points at each level to spend issues. You all may have experienced differently in your games, or may do things differently as players and I accept that. but it is something I've run across.
One more time for everyone: I never made any qualitative judgments about the Investigation skill. I never said it was a bad skill. I never said it wasn't valuable.
All I said is that Wizards and Artificers have *other* valuable skills (Arcana, History, Religion, Sleight of Hand) that are competing for two spots. So that them taking Investigation over any of those isn't always the case.
What if I want to make a “Doc Holliday” character? He clearly had low con.
what if want to make a character with a frail constitution who only travels via mounts or carried in a litter by hirelings like they are Xerses. Because of a frail con?
It’s not always a bad idea. It’s just sub optimal for COMBAT.
Okay....but I'm not dismissing the Investigation skill. Or the value of it for exploration. All I'm saying is that Wizards and Artificers specifically aren't necessarily guaranteed to take it because they only get two skills and have a lot of competition for them.
You're putting words in my mouth. Please stop.
I am just asking for clarity:
what has been your experience with the clear and defined differentiation between perception and investigation? It might be you have had only experiences where DMs used perception for everything basically when that shouldn’t be the case. And that is a subconscious factor for your comment on investigation?
Why on Earth does everyone keep insisting that I'm somehow dunking on Investigation? I'm not. Insisting that I somehow have a bias against the skill is putting words in my mouth. Stop. It.
All I said was that the two Int classes (note, I didn't talk about Int-based subclasses at all,) have other important skills competing for their two slots too. I'm saying that them taking Investigation isn't a guarantee when they have other important skills like Arcana, History, and Sleight of Hand competing for those two slots.
I like the Investigation skill, for ****'s sake. So for the love of God, actually read my post and stop making a straw man argument. This is not amusing. If y'all want a straw man to argue against, go right ahead. But leave me out of it.
Settle down. I was asking for clarification. You explained it. Although you explained it well enough that I’ll never ask you to clarify anything again.
If anything, the Ranger is more likely to make use of Investigation than the Wizard because Wizards are not skill monkeys and only get two skills from their class.
Meanwhile, if the Ranger gets proficiency in investigation then they can turn it into expertise with Favored Terrain.
There's more incentive for a Ranger to take the skill than for a Wizard, despite the Wizard using Int as their primary skill.
I will say in favor of Water here... That having DM'ed a fair bit. My personal experience is that Wizards in 5e primarily only take int based skills if they apply in some way to their focus as a character. Otherwise they tend to rely on their modifier to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. Because their maxed intelligence makes them just as good as those that put proficiency in them anyway. So I see a lot more Arcana or nature or the like than I see Investigation. Partly because these things tend to let them identify their enemies.
Now that's not in any way saying that Investigation isn't valuable. it just seems to be how many Wizards purely in my experience deal with the limited proficiency and no skill points at each level to spend issues. You all may have experienced differently in your games, or may do things differently as players and I accept that. but it is something I've run across.
Off topic:
how often do you see the need for wizards to investigate through libraries and such to find scrolls or spell books or spells. Vs them just being “gifted” a spell book by the graciousness of a DM?
If anything, the Ranger is more likely to make use of Investigation than the Wizard because Wizards are not skill monkeys and only get two skills from their class.
Meanwhile, if the Ranger gets proficiency in investigation then they can turn it into expertise with Favored Terrain.
There's more incentive for a Ranger to take the skill than for a Wizard, despite the Wizard using Int as their primary skill.
I will say in favor of Water here... That having DM'ed a fair bit. My personal experience is that Wizards in 5e primarily only take int based skills if they apply in some way to their focus as a character. Otherwise they tend to rely on their modifier to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. Because their maxed intelligence makes them just as good as those that put proficiency in them anyway. So I see a lot more Arcana or nature or the like than I see Investigation. Partly because these things tend to let them identify their enemies.
Now that's not in any way saying that Investigation isn't valuable. it just seems to be how many Wizards purely in my experience deal with the limited proficiency and no skill points at each level to spend issues. You all may have experienced differently in your games, or may do things differently as players and I accept that. but it is something I've run across.
Off topic:
how often do you see the need for wizards to investigate through libraries and such to find scrolls or spell books or spells. Vs them just being “gifted” a spell book by the graciousness of a DM?
They've often gone and found somebody that works in the library. and then often done something like persuade them to help them find what they need. They've rarely gone searching on their own though I've usually been prepared for it. But I've never just gifted spell books. They are either rewards off of hard fought enemies or they buy access to them. Occasionally I might give them knowledge in a single spell that they want or something like that or potential to buy scrolls.
Does anyone remember this paragraph from Unearthed Arcana 08: Ranger?
The ranger has been a part of Dungeons & Dragons since almost the beginning, and it remains one of the most popular classes in the game. However, feedback on fifth edition D&D has shown that the ranger lags behind the other classes in terms of power and player satisfaction.
This is early on, and the assumption is that this is referencing the PHB Ranger specifically, which unfortunately should be the baseline of any discussion. Maybe it was the dreaded vocal minority that some posters on here desperately need to blame that passed this feedback on, maybe Wizards actually did a survey, maybe it was further playtesting? Regardless, we can't discuss this further without Unearthed Arcana 18: The Ranger, Revised
Over the past year, you’ve seen us try a number of new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at addressing the class’s high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D’s weakest class by a significant margin.
In the first 18 Unearthed Arcana, two (2)! were dedicated to the Ranger. And not just Ranger options, these were reworkings of the Ranger class. Fun fact, of the other classes present in D&D5E at the time there were zero (0) others who got this treatment. In fact the first UA that I can think of dedicated to an entire class was 20, which was extra Barbarian Primal subclasses.
I think at this point it is fair to say that the PHB Ranger was likely considered by more than just a vocal minority to be underpowered and more importantly unsatisfying to play. Wizards acknowledged this and as a result they looked at ways to improve the experience of the Ranger. To be clear, I am not saying that everyone felt this way, but a significant amount of players and not just, as someone so unhelpfully put earlier, the whiny power gamers.
Now, I'm going to make some key assumptions here:
Everyone has access to the Player's Handbook.
Not everyone has access to further material, be it Tasha's, Xanathar's, or otherwise.
A significant amount of players are new to either D&D, or new to Role Playing Games in general (is it fair to say that D&D is a gateway to RPGs?).
The majority of posters in this thread/forum are arguing from a position of power/more information (for instance I have access to all the Sourcebooks on D&D Beyond, some will have all the adventures too, some will have a selection from both).
The sample size of active people on this forum, and others, discussing these things is likely a small pool compared to the actual amount of people playing. Your playing group, your experiences, and your interactions with the community do not necessarily represent the overall view of the most likely vastly silent majority. Therefore it is actually impossible to say with any certainty what the community thinks without actual proper surveys, so pretty much everything we're spouting (including myself) is just an opinion.
Assumption one is pretty explanatory, in most instances players have, or have access to, the PHB, and therefore the classes and subclasses within. For me the Beast Master is the more appealing of the two Ranger subclasses, the Hunter holds zero appeal to me.
Assumption two is that some people only have access to the PHB, and if either of the two subclasses doesn't do what you want your Ranger to do then you're probably going to have a bad time. If you don't like the Beast Master or the Hunter thematically of course you'll be biased against them.
Why assumption three? I have read, no reliable sources so feel free to either produce some or correct me if I'm wrong, that 5E is in terms of player numbers far beyond other editions. If player uptake is far larger then the amount of beginners will be much larger. I think 5E is the most accessible edition of D&D and that's the main reason we see this. This is important because a lot of the Ranger's toolkit is slightly more complex and open to interpretation than other classes, some of it requires more creative roleplaying, some of it requires more DM interaction, some of it requires time and experience to get the most out of. Some of this means that new players will be more likely to not enjoy their experience with the Ranger, or are going to see other players not enjoying it.
I think Wizards have made great strides with their Ranger subclasses, and the newer ones are frontloaded nicely and some to me, thematically, are far more interesting and appealing. I think most posters on here will have access to either Xanathar's, or Tasha's, or both, which in my opinion are excellent resources to not only provide more interesting subclass options and variant options, but more insight on how to utilise Ranger strengths and make the roleplaying experience more rewarding than ever before. But people argue as if everyone is on the same playing field, which we just can't know is the case. I'll compare it to the video game Civilisation V. The base game is good, it is fun, but it has flaws, and for me a lot of these flaws were ironed out and better features added in the major expansions released. I can't fully compare my experience to someone who has only ever played the base game, except to say I think it is better now. The breadth of choice available now certainly makes up for a lot of failings in 5E.
Finally, remember that people are allowed to have an opinion on something, that their experience will be different to yours and just because they disagree with you doesn't necessarily make either view wrong on something which is ultimately subjective. Just because I don't like a certain song doesn't invalidate someone's opinion who does like the song. None of us likely have enough data to make an informed decision on these things, so just consider all the factors before jumping to conclusions. Maybe the vocal minority on this forum are those who think the 5E Ranger is the best of all time? We just don't know.
TL;DR: An opinion piece on how people's opinions get in the way of constructive conversation.
There's just one hiccup with your theory. After announcing the death of the Revised Ranger, Jeremy Crawford said in a(n admittedly now-deleted) Tweet:
What's funny is that the Ranger isn't even in the bottom third when it comes to class popularity. Frankly, the revised ranger helped feed an internet-fueled view of the class that doesn't align with the majority of players. I wasn't sorry to end it.
So it looks like Jeremy Crawford has conflicting data.
Does anyone remember this paragraph from Unearthed Arcana 08: Ranger?
The ranger has been a part of Dungeons & Dragons since almost the beginning, and it remains one of the most popular classes in the game. However, feedback on fifth edition D&D has shown that the ranger lags behind the other classes in terms of power and player satisfaction.
This is early on, and the assumption is that this is referencing the PHB Ranger specifically, which unfortunately should be the baseline of any discussion. Maybe it was the dreaded vocal minority that some posters on here desperately need to blame that passed this feedback on, maybe Wizards actually did a survey, maybe it was further playtesting? Regardless, we can't discuss this further without Unearthed Arcana 18: The Ranger, Revised
Over the past year, you’ve seen us try a number of new approaches to the ranger, all aimed at addressing the class’s high levels of player dissatisfaction and its ranking as D&D’s weakest class by a significant margin.
In the first 18 Unearthed Arcana, two (2)! were dedicated to the Ranger. And not just Ranger options, these were reworkings of the Ranger class. Fun fact, of the other classes present in D&D5E at the time there were zero (0) others who got this treatment. In fact the first UA that I can think of dedicated to an entire class was 20, which was extra Barbarian Primal subclasses.
I think at this point it is fair to say that the PHB Ranger was likely considered by more than just a vocal minority to be underpowered and more importantly unsatisfying to play. Wizards acknowledged this and as a result they looked at ways to improve the experience of the Ranger. To be clear, I am not saying that everyone felt this way, but a significant amount of players and not just, as someone so unhelpfully put earlier, the whiny power gamers.
Now, I'm going to make some key assumptions here:
Everyone has access to the Player's Handbook.
Not everyone has access to further material, be it Tasha's, Xanathar's, or otherwise.
A significant amount of players are new to either D&D, or new to Role Playing Games in general (is it fair to say that D&D is a gateway to RPGs?).
The majority of posters in this thread/forum are arguing from a position of power/more information (for instance I have access to all the Sourcebooks on D&D Beyond, some will have all the adventures too, some will have a selection from both).
The sample size of active people on this forum, and others, discussing these things is likely a small pool compared to the actual amount of people playing. Your playing group, your experiences, and your interactions with the community do not necessarily represent the overall view of the most likely vastly silent majority. Therefore it is actually impossible to say with any certainty what the community thinks without actual proper surveys, so pretty much everything we're spouting (including myself) is just an opinion.
Assumption one is pretty explanatory, in most instances players have, or have access to, the PHB, and therefore the classes and subclasses within. For me the Beast Master is the more appealing of the two Ranger subclasses, the Hunter holds zero appeal to me.
Assumption two is that some people only have access to the PHB, and if either of the two subclasses doesn't do what you want your Ranger to do then you're probably going to have a bad time. If you don't like the Beast Master or the Hunter thematically of course you'll be biased against them.
Why assumption three? I have read, no reliable sources so feel free to either produce some or correct me if I'm wrong, that 5E is in terms of player numbers far beyond other editions. If player uptake is far larger then the amount of beginners will be much larger. I think 5E is the most accessible edition of D&D and that's the main reason we see this. This is important because a lot of the Ranger's toolkit is slightly more complex and open to interpretation than other classes, some of it requires more creative roleplaying, some of it requires more DM interaction, some of it requires time and experience to get the most out of. Some of this means that new players will be more likely to not enjoy their experience with the Ranger, or are going to see other players not enjoying it.
I think Wizards have made great strides with their Ranger subclasses, and the newer ones are frontloaded nicely and some to me, thematically, are far more interesting and appealing. I think most posters on here will have access to either Xanathar's, or Tasha's, or both, which in my opinion are excellent resources to not only provide more interesting subclass options and variant options, but more insight on how to utilise Ranger strengths and make the roleplaying experience more rewarding than ever before. But people argue as if everyone is on the same playing field, which we just can't know is the case. I'll compare it to the video game Civilisation V. The base game is good, it is fun, but it has flaws, and for me a lot of these flaws were ironed out and better features added in the major expansions released. I can't fully compare my experience to someone who has only ever played the base game, except to say I think it is better now. The breadth of choice available now certainly makes up for a lot of failings in 5E.
Finally, remember that people are allowed to have an opinion on something, that their experience will be different to yours and just because they disagree with you doesn't necessarily make either view wrong on something which is ultimately subjective. Just because I don't like a certain song doesn't invalidate someone's opinion who does like the song. None of us likely have enough data to make an informed decision on these things, so just consider all the factors before jumping to conclusions. Maybe the vocal minority on this forum are those who think the 5E Ranger is the best of all time? We just don't know.
TL;DR: An opinion piece on how people's opinions get in the way of constructive conversation.
Wizards has stated they want a roughly 70-80% on satisfaction surveys. Where rangers get roughly 50%. Wizards new Tasha's optional rules allow the satisfaction rates to basically merge a whole new group into that 50% as an attempt to raise it closer to their expected goal without alienating the people already satisfied.
In a board game or videogame if you get 50% satisfaction from all players on all Builds/classes its a miracle. Not all overwatch players will be satisfied playing both Mercy And Roadhog. Every civ player will have preferred victory styles. few are good at every victory type. When balancing these types of scenarios, weight is given to how often the class is played and how successful/skilled they are at those types of play. Wizards surveys can't actually account for that data. Also I think the high satisfaction stats (that don't take into account player personality) have driven up the power creep in 5e significantly.
The ranger class is so dependent on dm materials that even if the player doesn't own the monster statistics the dm should provide them. There are Examples with other classes as well. Mostly summoning spells and wild shapes. Even the most basic dm materials include great options for beastmasters willing to engage with the mechanics Tactically.
Wizards has stated they want a roughly 70-80% on satisfaction surveys. Where rangers get roughly 50%. Wizards new Tasha's optional rules allow the satisfaction rates to basically merge a whole new group into that 50% as an attempt to raise it closer to their expected goal without alienating the people already satisfied.
In a board game or videogame if you get 50% satisfaction from all players on all Builds/classes its a miracle. Not all overwatch players will be satisfied playing both Mercy And Roadhog. Every civ player will have preferred victory styles. few are good at every victory type. When balancing these types of scenarios, weight is given to how often the class is played and how successful/skilled they are at those types of play. Wizards surveys can't actually account for that data. Also I think the high satisfaction stats (that don't take into account player personality) have driven up the power creep in 5e significantly.
The ranger class is so dependent on dm materials that even if the player doesn't own the monster statistics the dm should provide them. There are Examples with other classes as well. Mostly summoning spells and wild shapes. Even the most basic dm materials include great options for beastmasters willing to engage with the mechanics Tactically.
Thanks for sharing that, very interesting to hear the numbers. Do you have the numbers for the other classes out of interest, or the source? Admirable that they're trying to hit such a high satisfaction rate with each class at least.
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90% of Tables aren't going to use it. The reality is that about 50% of tables at best are going to use it. Your giving a percentage that you grabbed out of thin air based upon your bias. Not upon anything in reality.
Jounichi is actually right. Even When they are given other options people are still complaining. Your even arguing for fixes in this thread And changes to things even while your at the same time argueing that it's completely replaced and won't ever being used. Your showing your own inability to be satisfied even with the replacement and need to switch it up more because all you seem to want is change and no real direction in what that change is other than "better" and "More."
The Complaints are not the majority of the player base. As many times as it has been brought up in these forums and elsewhere the split seems to be about 50/50 at best. But people advocating for change are much louder and almost always spout numbers that make it seem like anybody that doesn't want it is some kind of unique anomoly when they aren't. Anybody willing to open their eyes and pay attention and track things that are said are going to notice the difference. The Loud Minority is just getting away with this kind of behavior because few bother to do that because they either don't care, don't have the problem the minority does, or Just simply have better things to do. That's reality.
Many tables are never going to bother to use Tasha's... And plenty of tables that do are going to mix and match heavily to their benefit. It's only going to be a small group that is going to throw out everything old for everything in Tasha's.
There's likely no way to know for sure either way unless there is some kind of survey.
I am just asking for clarity:
what has been your experience with the clear and defined differentiation between perception and investigation? It might be you have had only experiences where DMs used perception for everything basically when that shouldn’t be the case. And that is a subconscious factor for your comment on investigation?
Watch me on twitch
I would argue anyone who has never dumped con. Only really cares about the combat pillar.
low con makes for interesting characters.
Watch me on twitch
Yeah. If you are shooting from 200 feet away constitution is not a prime requisite. Perhaps "dump" is too strong a word. "Not maxed" out be a better term. They have a d10 hit die and no requirement to be effective in combat via melee.
Never dump CON....just always a bad idea
From a purely mechanical standpoint, sure. But I've seen players with negative Con scores before. I, myself, have played as characters with terminal illnesses. John Henry "Doc" Holliday was a friend of Wyatt Earp, a participant in the gunfight at the OK corral, and was slowly dying of tuberculosis the entire time.
We saw the storytelling potential and wanted to see where it would take us. There's nothing wrong with that.
One of my players wanted to play a tabaxi monk. After assigning ability scores, they wound up with only 12 Constitution. They didn't have a lot of hit points, and they went down a few times, but it was all fine.
Why on Earth does everyone keep insisting that I'm somehow dunking on Investigation? I'm not. Insisting that I somehow have a bias against the skill is putting words in my mouth. Stop. It.
All I said was that the two Int classes (note, I didn't talk about Int-based subclasses at all,) have other important skills competing for their two slots too. I'm saying that them taking Investigation isn't a guarantee when they have other important skills like Arcana, History, and Sleight of Hand competing for those two slots.
I like the Investigation skill, for ****'s sake. So for the love of God, actually read my post and stop making a straw man argument. This is not amusing. If y'all want a straw man to argue against, go right ahead. But leave me out of it.
I'm playing a gnome beast master ranger with a 10 in constitution right now.
@envoyofwater, I hear you. The intelligence based classes aren't known for, or optimized for, skill checks in general, let alone investigation. You were very clear.
If anything, the Ranger is more likely to make use of Investigation than the Wizard because Wizards are not skill monkeys and only get two skills from their class.
Meanwhile, if the Ranger gets proficiency in investigation then they can turn it into expertise with Favored Terrain.
There's more incentive for a Ranger to take the skill than for a Wizard, despite the Wizard using Int as their primary skill.
I will say in favor of Water here... That having DM'ed a fair bit. My personal experience is that Wizards in 5e primarily only take int based skills if they apply in some way to their focus as a character. Otherwise they tend to rely on their modifier to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. Because their maxed intelligence makes them just as good as those that put proficiency in them anyway. So I see a lot more Arcana or nature or the like than I see Investigation. Partly because these things tend to let them identify their enemies.
Now that's not in any way saying that Investigation isn't valuable. it just seems to be how many Wizards purely in my experience deal with the limited proficiency and no skill points at each level to spend issues. You all may have experienced differently in your games, or may do things differently as players and I accept that. but it is something I've run across.
One more time for everyone: I never made any qualitative judgments about the Investigation skill. I never said it was a bad skill. I never said it wasn't valuable.
All I said is that Wizards and Artificers have *other* valuable skills (Arcana, History, Religion, Sleight of Hand) that are competing for two spots. So that them taking Investigation over any of those isn't always the case.
What if I want to make a “Doc Holliday” character? He clearly had low con.
what if want to make a character with a frail constitution who only travels via mounts or carried in a litter by hirelings like they are Xerses. Because of a frail con?
It’s not always a bad idea. It’s just sub optimal for COMBAT.
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Settle down. I was asking for clarification. You explained it. Although you explained it well enough that I’ll never ask you to clarify anything again.
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Off topic:
how often do you see the need for wizards to investigate through libraries and such to find scrolls or spell books or spells. Vs them just being “gifted” a spell book by the graciousness of a DM?
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They've often gone and found somebody that works in the library. and then often done something like persuade them to help them find what they need. They've rarely gone searching on their own though I've usually been prepared for it. But I've never just gifted spell books. They are either rewards off of hard fought enemies or they buy access to them. Occasionally I might give them knowledge in a single spell that they want or something like that or potential to buy scrolls.
Does anyone remember this paragraph from Unearthed Arcana 08: Ranger?
This is early on, and the assumption is that this is referencing the PHB Ranger specifically, which unfortunately should be the baseline of any discussion. Maybe it was the dreaded vocal minority that some posters on here desperately need to blame that passed this feedback on, maybe Wizards actually did a survey, maybe it was further playtesting?
Regardless, we can't discuss this further without Unearthed Arcana 18: The Ranger, Revised
In the first 18 Unearthed Arcana, two (2)! were dedicated to the Ranger. And not just Ranger options, these were reworkings of the Ranger class. Fun fact, of the other classes present in D&D5E at the time there were zero (0) others who got this treatment. In fact the first UA that I can think of dedicated to an entire class was 20, which was extra Barbarian Primal subclasses.
I think at this point it is fair to say that the PHB Ranger was likely considered by more than just a vocal minority to be underpowered and more importantly unsatisfying to play. Wizards acknowledged this and as a result they looked at ways to improve the experience of the Ranger. To be clear, I am not saying that everyone felt this way, but a significant amount of players and not just, as someone so unhelpfully put earlier, the whiny power gamers.
Now, I'm going to make some key assumptions here:
Assumption one is pretty explanatory, in most instances players have, or have access to, the PHB, and therefore the classes and subclasses within. For me the Beast Master is the more appealing of the two Ranger subclasses, the Hunter holds zero appeal to me.
Assumption two is that some people only have access to the PHB, and if either of the two subclasses doesn't do what you want your Ranger to do then you're probably going to have a bad time. If you don't like the Beast Master or the Hunter thematically of course you'll be biased against them.
Why assumption three? I have read, no reliable sources so feel free to either produce some or correct me if I'm wrong, that 5E is in terms of player numbers far beyond other editions. If player uptake is far larger then the amount of beginners will be much larger. I think 5E is the most accessible edition of D&D and that's the main reason we see this. This is important because a lot of the Ranger's toolkit is slightly more complex and open to interpretation than other classes, some of it requires more creative roleplaying, some of it requires more DM interaction, some of it requires time and experience to get the most out of. Some of this means that new players will be more likely to not enjoy their experience with the Ranger, or are going to see other players not enjoying it.
I think Wizards have made great strides with their Ranger subclasses, and the newer ones are frontloaded nicely and some to me, thematically, are far more interesting and appealing. I think most posters on here will have access to either Xanathar's, or Tasha's, or both, which in my opinion are excellent resources to not only provide more interesting subclass options and variant options, but more insight on how to utilise Ranger strengths and make the roleplaying experience more rewarding than ever before. But people argue as if everyone is on the same playing field, which we just can't know is the case. I'll compare it to the video game Civilisation V. The base game is good, it is fun, but it has flaws, and for me a lot of these flaws were ironed out and better features added in the major expansions released. I can't fully compare my experience to someone who has only ever played the base game, except to say I think it is better now. The breadth of choice available now certainly makes up for a lot of failings in 5E.
Finally, remember that people are allowed to have an opinion on something, that their experience will be different to yours and just because they disagree with you doesn't necessarily make either view wrong on something which is ultimately subjective. Just because I don't like a certain song doesn't invalidate someone's opinion who does like the song. None of us likely have enough data to make an informed decision on these things, so just consider all the factors before jumping to conclusions. Maybe the vocal minority on this forum are those who think the 5E Ranger is the best of all time? We just don't know.
TL;DR: An opinion piece on how people's opinions get in the way of constructive conversation.
There's just one hiccup with your theory. After announcing the death of the Revised Ranger, Jeremy Crawford said in a(n admittedly now-deleted) Tweet:
So it looks like Jeremy Crawford has conflicting data.
Wizards has stated they want a roughly 70-80% on satisfaction surveys. Where rangers get roughly 50%. Wizards new Tasha's optional rules allow the satisfaction rates to basically merge a whole new group into that 50% as an attempt to raise it closer to their expected goal without alienating the people already satisfied.
In a board game or videogame if you get 50% satisfaction from all players on all Builds/classes its a miracle. Not all overwatch players will be satisfied playing both Mercy And Roadhog. Every civ player will have preferred victory styles. few are good at every victory type. When balancing these types of scenarios, weight is given to how often the class is played and how successful/skilled they are at those types of play. Wizards surveys can't actually account for that data. Also I think the high satisfaction stats (that don't take into account player personality) have driven up the power creep in 5e significantly.
The ranger class is so dependent on dm materials that even if the player doesn't own the monster statistics the dm should provide them. There are Examples with other classes as well. Mostly summoning spells and wild shapes. Even the most basic dm materials include great options for beastmasters willing to engage with the mechanics Tactically.
Thanks for sharing that, very interesting to hear the numbers. Do you have the numbers for the other classes out of interest, or the source? Admirable that they're trying to hit such a high satisfaction rate with each class at least.