Man I was having so much fun playing the UA Favored Foe ranger Free hunters marks Wis time per day no concentration. Then Wizards went a ruined it for no good reason. All the fun rangers spells take concentration. And you should probably be casting hunters mark most of the time in combat. Just sad and upset. They had a chance to fix the ranger and failed to stick the landing. I would rather they just get rid of hunters mark so I would have a reason to cast the other concentration spells.
Lv1 Favored Foe replaces Favored Enemy feature and works with foe slayer, When you hit a creature with an attack roll you may mark it as your favored enemy for 1 min or until you lose concentration, first time you hit it each turn you do 1d4 damage, 1d6 at lv6 and 1d8 at lv14, you can use this PB time per LR
I am a fan of the PHB ranger class, beast master subclass, and all of the abilities therein, so this is meant to be a little bit tongue and cheek of a response, not starting a fight or argument.
Considering so many people say that favored enemy is such a terrible ability, is this not an appropriate replacement for it? I mean, this is replacing the ability to track (some creatures) a little better and (maybe) an extra language with something that is used in combat, works well with the level 20 ability, and free up spell slots.
I mean yeah the ability is much better, no argument. I just thought they had it perfect before in UA and I am sad they changed it. I could have hunters mark up and still use spells like ensnare strike, hail of thorns, zephyr strike, or fog cloud. It was a lot of fun since I wasn't using up spells slots or concentration for hunters mark. I think the changes they made will make the ranger less fun to play
If it wouldn't require concentration it would be acceptable. Still not great but acceptable. As it is however it really sucks imo. I don't think I'll ever use it over Hunter's Mark.
For those who haven't seen it yet, this is what Tasha's is going to give us:
Favored Foe
1st-level ranger feature, which replaces the Favored Enemy feature and works with the Foe Slayer feature
When you hit a creature with an attack roll, you can call on your mystical bond with nature to mark the target as your favored enemy for 1 minute or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell)
The first time on each of your turns that you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it, including when you mark it, you can increase that damage by 1d4.
You can use this feature to mark a favored enemy a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
This feature's extra damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class: to 1d6 at 6th level and to 1d8 at 14th level.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
This totally nerfed it, I'll be sticking with Hunter's Mark -- Hunter's Mark does more damage since it works on both attacks, and has the ability to upcast if I do need to track it for longer than a minute. Also this doesn't appear to allow me to move Favored Foe like I can with Hunter's Mark, so I'm more likely to run out of uses before the end of the day.
Plus, honestly, I find the Survival and INT checks that Favored Enemy gives useful -- the CFV Favored Foe only works once you can see and hit a target. I'd prefer to know stuff about the ancient black dragon before I try and attack it, or be able to track a monstrosity to its lair.
Gaining Wisdom modifier free uses of Concentrationless Hunter's Mark per day at level 1 was very powerful (probably overpowered), and was not well balanced for multi-classing, however, this version of the ability is pathetic.
I don't mind the concentration so much and the fact that it is applied for free (i.e. not a Bonus Action) means it at least synergises somewhat with TWF and the bonus damage features of the Fey Wanderer (assuming unchanged), Horizon Walker, Monster Slayer and Swarmkeeper (assuming unchanged) subclasses. I also like that the damage scales at levels 6 and 14, when you would normally gain an additional Favoured Enemy option, something the UA version lacked.
However, I dislike the fact that it only applies to one attack per round (*) and is limited to PB applications per long rest. The reddit thread does not state any means of moving the "mark", which means you can easily burn through your day's uses in a single fight. If the leaked rules are indeed true then this is definitely worse than Hunter's Mark and as such I'm not sure it is worth choosing over Favoured Enemy. If the leak had mentioned being transferrable like Hunter's Mark, or did not have any usage limitations I would maybe consider it worth taking.
(*) This is an issue I have with pretty much all of the Ranger's extra damage features in general. For a multi-attacking class I would much rather have a smaller die applied to all my attacks than a single large die applied one, even if the expected damage output is the same as it is easier to track.
For those of us who don't have access to the leaked feature (the link doesn't work for me), can someone post a picture of it or copy its text?
If you are referring to the new Favored Foe variant feature for the Ranger, I believe that is what sfPanzer posted a few posts up. If you are referring to the reddit leaks link, that might be in the Tasha's thread in the general chat.
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"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
1st-level ranger feature, which replaces the Favored Enemy feature and works with the Foe Slayer feature
When you hit a creature with an attack roll, you can call on your mystical bond with nature to mark the target as your favored enemy for 1 minute or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell)
The first time on each of your turns that you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it, including when you mark it, you can increase that damage by 1d4.
You can use this feature to mark a favored enemy a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
This feature's extra damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class: to 1d6 at 6th level and to 1d8 at 14th level.
This is definitely an improvement from Favored Enemy, but it doesn't improve rangers a whole ton. I definitely wish that rangers could get hunter's mark for free like the Favored Foe CFV UA. This basically is a worse hunter's mark for free, still with concentration, but it scales slowly to higher damage.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
1st-level ranger feature, which replaces the Favored Enemy feature and works with the Foe Slayer feature
When you hit a creature with an attack roll, you can call on your mystical bond with nature to mark the target as your favored enemy for 1 minute or until you lose your concentration (as if you were concentrating on a spell)
The first time on each of your turns that you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it, including when you mark it, you can increase that damage by 1d4.
You can use this feature to mark a favored enemy a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
This feature's extra damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class: to 1d6 at 6th level and to 1d8 at 14th level.
This is definitely an improvement from Favored Enemy, but it doesn't improve rangers a whole ton. I definitely wish that rangers could get hunter's mark for free like the Favored Foe CFV UA. This basically is a worse hunter's mark for free, still with concentration, but it scales slowly to higher damage.
It only scales to higher damage if you never hit more than once per turn. 2d6/3d6 > 1d8.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
I don’t think it’s bad at all. The action economy saving is great! I wish/hope it can be switched to a new target after a kill like hunter’s mark.
Beast masters (the new one can use your bonus action for beast attacks and the original only used hunter’s mark once a turn anyway) and a couple of the XGtE subclasses have damage stuff that take a bonus action a lot. This is just applied. It will even out two weapons fighting hunters a lot too, putting them back in the mix as a legitimate option (from level 8 on they can do 32.5 [(1d6 + 5)*3 + 1d8 + 1d4], without the feat!) This is just free damage and no spell cost for a beast master using there beast to attack ESPECIALLY at levels 11+!
It also works well in many ways as, 1. it’s not a spell, so rage works with it, 2. casting and hitting with a spell like hail of thorns and then using this for the second attack in the same turn works well (and hits harder than hunter’s mark), 3. no magic suppression, counter spell, or spell slot uses, 4. relies on proficiency bonus so you can still play a low wisdom ranger, 5. scales (appropriately) for two weapon fighting (not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels.
It also works well in many ways as, 1. it’s not a spell, so rage works with it, 2. casting and hitting with a spell like hail of thorns and then using this for the second attack in the same turn works well (and hits harder than hunter’s mark), 3. no magic suppression, counter spell, or spell slot uses, 4. relies on proficiency bonus so you can still play a low wisdom ranger, 5. scales (appropriately) for two weapon fighting (not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels.
Well, never mind about the rage interaction. Apparently that doesn’t work.
It also works well in many ways as, 1. it’s not a spell, so rage works with it, 2. casting and hitting with a spell like hail of thorns and then using this for the second attack in the same turn works well (and hits harder than hunter’s mark), 3. no magic suppression, counter spell, or spell slot uses, 4. relies on proficiency bonus so you can still play a low wisdom ranger, 5. scales (appropriately) for two weapon fighting (not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels.
Well, never mind about the rage interaction. Apparently that doesn’t work.
The Tasha's Favored Foe is concentration, so you a. can't combine it with Hail of Thorns, b. it won't hit harder than Hunter's Mark until 14th level, and even then it's a hard maybe. I also wouldn't call 'not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels' good scaling.
It also works well in many ways as, 1. it’s not a spell, so rage works with it, 2. casting and hitting with a spell like hail of thorns and then using this for the second attack in the same turn works well (and hits harder than hunter’s mark), 3. no magic suppression, counter spell, or spell slot uses, 4. relies on proficiency bonus so you can still play a low wisdom ranger, 5. scales (appropriately) for two weapon fighting (not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels.
Well, never mind about the rage interaction. Apparently that doesn’t work.
The Tasha's Favored Foe is concentration, so you a. can't combine it with Hail of Thorns, b. it won't hit harder than Hunter's Mark until 14th level, and even then it's a hard maybe. I also wouldn't call 'not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels' good scaling.
It only requires you to hit to activate so you can technically use the hit of Hail of Thorns to activate it. Having it active before and then casting Hail of Thorns (or similar) will still interrupt though so if you want to do this more than once to initiate the fight you are going to very quickly burn through your 2-6 daily charges for a rather minimal effect.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
This current version of Favored Foe is so bad that I would give it to normal Rangers in addition to Favored Enemy, and give the UA version as the alternate to that combination.
It also works well in many ways as, 1. it’s not a spell, so rage works with it, 2. casting and hitting with a spell like hail of thorns and then using this for the second attack in the same turn works well (and hits harder than hunter’s mark), 3. no magic suppression, counter spell, or spell slot uses, 4. relies on proficiency bonus so you can still play a low wisdom ranger, 5. scales (appropriately) for two weapon fighting (not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels.
Well, never mind about the rage interaction. Apparently that doesn’t work.
The Tasha's Favored Foe is concentration, so you a. can't combine it with Hail of Thorns, b. it won't hit harder than Hunter's Mark until 14th level, and even then it's a hard maybe. I also wouldn't call 'not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels' good scaling.
You can apply favored foe on the second hit after hail of thorns hits on the first attack of the same turn.
This isn’t for a vanilla ranger or hunter doing rapier or long bow fighting. Hunter’s Mark is still better for that. It’s for two weapon fighting rangers, beast masters, and the other subclasses that have their own unique bonus action abilities.
A level 10 rapier wielding vanilla ranger with hunters mark does 30 average damage per turn. A level 10 two weapon fighting vanilla ranger with favored foe does 29 average damage.
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Man I was having so much fun playing the UA Favored Foe ranger Free hunters marks Wis time per day no concentration. Then Wizards went a ruined it for no good reason. All the fun rangers spells take concentration. And you should probably be casting hunters mark most of the time in combat. Just sad and upset. They had a chance to fix the ranger and failed to stick the landing. I would rather they just get rid of hunters mark so I would have a reason to cast the other concentration spells.
Lv1 Favored Foe replaces Favored Enemy feature and works with foe slayer, When you hit a creature with an attack roll you may mark it as your favored enemy for 1 min or until you lose concentration, first time you hit it each turn you do 1d4 damage, 1d6 at lv6 and 1d8 at lv14, you can use this PB time per LR
I am a fan of the PHB ranger class, beast master subclass, and all of the abilities therein, so this is meant to be a little bit tongue and cheek of a response, not starting a fight or argument.
Considering so many people say that favored enemy is such a terrible ability, is this not an appropriate replacement for it? I mean, this is replacing the ability to track (some creatures) a little better and (maybe) an extra language with something that is used in combat, works well with the level 20 ability, and free up spell slots.
I mean yeah the ability is much better, no argument. I just thought they had it perfect before in UA and I am sad they changed it. I could have hunters mark up and still use spells like ensnare strike, hail of thorns, zephyr strike, or fog cloud. It was a lot of fun since I wasn't using up spells slots or concentration for hunters mark. I think the changes they made will make the ranger less fun to play
If it wouldn't require concentration it would be acceptable. Still not great but acceptable. As it is however it really sucks imo. I don't think I'll ever use it over Hunter's Mark.
For those who haven't seen it yet, this is what Tasha's is going to give us:
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
This totally nerfed it, I'll be sticking with Hunter's Mark -- Hunter's Mark does more damage since it works on both attacks, and has the ability to upcast if I do need to track it for longer than a minute. Also this doesn't appear to allow me to move Favored Foe like I can with Hunter's Mark, so I'm more likely to run out of uses before the end of the day.
Plus, honestly, I find the Survival and INT checks that Favored Enemy gives useful -- the CFV Favored Foe only works once you can see and hit a target. I'd prefer to know stuff about the ancient black dragon before I try and attack it, or be able to track a monstrosity to its lair.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
Gaining Wisdom modifier free uses of Concentrationless Hunter's Mark per day at level 1 was very powerful (probably overpowered), and was not well balanced for multi-classing, however, this version of the ability is pathetic.
I don't mind the concentration so much and the fact that it is applied for free (i.e. not a Bonus Action) means it at least synergises somewhat with TWF and the bonus damage features of the Fey Wanderer (assuming unchanged), Horizon Walker, Monster Slayer and Swarmkeeper (assuming unchanged) subclasses. I also like that the damage scales at levels 6 and 14, when you would normally gain an additional Favoured Enemy option, something the UA version lacked.
However, I dislike the fact that it only applies to one attack per round (*) and is limited to PB applications per long rest. The reddit thread does not state any means of moving the "mark", which means you can easily burn through your day's uses in a single fight. If the leaked rules are indeed true then this is definitely worse than Hunter's Mark and as such I'm not sure it is worth choosing over Favoured Enemy. If the leak had mentioned being transferrable like Hunter's Mark, or did not have any usage limitations I would maybe consider it worth taking.
(*) This is an issue I have with pretty much all of the Ranger's extra damage features in general. For a multi-attacking class I would much rather have a smaller die applied to all my attacks than a single large die applied one, even if the expected damage output is the same as it is easier to track.
For those of us who don't have access to the leaked feature (the link doesn't work for me), can someone post a picture of it or copy its text?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
If you are referring to the new Favored Foe variant feature for the Ranger, I believe that is what sfPanzer posted a few posts up. If you are referring to the reddit leaks link, that might be in the Tasha's thread in the general chat.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Homebrew - Circle of the Living Machines Druid, Path of the Dragon Soul Barbarian
My hombrew Great Wyrm Dragons
Ah, sorry. I guess I missed that.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
It's all good!
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Homebrew - Circle of the Living Machines Druid, Path of the Dragon Soul Barbarian
My hombrew Great Wyrm Dragons
This is definitely an improvement from Favored Enemy, but it doesn't improve rangers a whole ton. I definitely wish that rangers could get hunter's mark for free like the Favored Foe CFV UA. This basically is a worse hunter's mark for free, still with concentration, but it scales slowly to higher damage.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
It only scales to higher damage if you never hit more than once per turn. 2d6/3d6 > 1d8.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
Seems like another case of can not have nice things on a ranger because other classes exist.
I don’t think it’s bad at all. The action economy saving is great! I wish/hope it can be switched to a new target after a kill like hunter’s mark.
Beast masters (the new one can use your bonus action for beast attacks and the original only used hunter’s mark once a turn anyway) and a couple of the XGtE subclasses have damage stuff that take a bonus action a lot. This is just applied. It will even out two weapons fighting hunters a lot too, putting them back in the mix as a legitimate option (from level 8 on they can do 32.5 [(1d6 + 5)*3 + 1d8 + 1d4], without the feat!) This is just free damage and no spell cost for a beast master using there beast to attack ESPECIALLY at levels 11+!
It also works well in many ways as, 1. it’s not a spell, so rage works with it, 2. casting and hitting with a spell like hail of thorns and then using this for the second attack in the same turn works well (and hits harder than hunter’s mark), 3. no magic suppression, counter spell, or spell slot uses, 4. relies on proficiency bonus so you can still play a low wisdom ranger, 5. scales (appropriately) for two weapon fighting (not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels.
Well, never mind about the rage interaction. Apparently that doesn’t work.
The Tasha's Favored Foe is concentration, so you a. can't combine it with Hail of Thorns, b. it won't hit harder than Hunter's Mark until 14th level, and even then it's a hard maybe. I also wouldn't call 'not super powered at really early levels and weak at later levels' good scaling.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
It only requires you to hit to activate so you can technically use the hit of Hail of Thorns to activate it. Having it active before and then casting Hail of Thorns (or similar) will still interrupt though so if you want to do this more than once to initiate the fight you are going to very quickly burn through your 2-6 daily charges for a rather minimal effect.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
This current version of Favored Foe is so bad that I would give it to normal Rangers in addition to Favored Enemy, and give the UA version as the alternate to that combination.
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You can apply favored foe on the second hit after hail of thorns hits on the first attack of the same turn.
This isn’t for a vanilla ranger or hunter doing rapier or long bow fighting. Hunter’s Mark is still better for that. It’s for two weapon fighting rangers, beast masters, and the other subclasses that have their own unique bonus action abilities.
A level 10 rapier wielding vanilla ranger with hunters mark does 30 average damage per turn. A level 10 two weapon fighting vanilla ranger with favored foe does 29 average damage.