There are dozens of pages and thousands of discussions about the Range pros and cons. Pretty much a universal con though is the fact that all of their best spell options are concentration. The class variant features offered a fix for this, but in classic Wizards fashion, took it a bit too far, and made it a bit too powerful. Now thanks to leaks of the book, we pretty much have confirmed that they did replace Favored Enemy with Favored Foe, but we also know that they just made Favored Enemy look like a pretty solid feature, so good job I guess?
Favored foe will let you mark an enemy for 1 minute or until you loose concentration, to deal 1 time per turn a d4 until level 6 when it becomes a d6 and a d8 at 14. Who is going to give up Hunter's Mark for this? I hope the info I saw is wrong and it doesn't require concentration, because if it does - congratulations Wizards, you took the one thing people already universally hate about the Ranger and ADDED to it.
Who else thinks this sounds like a useless option no one will take?
If they are all concentration, it's normal, it's so that you have to choose. Otherwise there would not be any choice, you would always take both at the same time. Also, if I may, complaining in advance about rumours is a bit over the top...
lol, fair enough about complaining in advance, but welcome to the internet. Yes, I understand not letting them do both, the larger point is that turning Favored Foe into a feature that competes for the already overwhelmed concentration of a ranger is a bad idea that will lead people to never use the feature. It has lower damage than HM at every level. It starts at 1d4 vs 1d6, only reaches a d6 at level 6, when you’ve already been doing 1d6 per your two attacks since five and then is a d8 1 time vs 1d6 2 to 3 times depending on how you are playing.
So how did something like that even get considered? I do hope that the information I have is wrong, but I doubt it.
I wonder if the tireless feature is as the UA or will it get improved as it is being gated at level 10 or so? After seeing some of the other changing I can't help but think it will be something like 1d10+half proficiency mod temp hp using proficiency mod per long rest.
Just a thought, but not sure if it needs it's own thread.
I suppose when the designers made ranger, they wanted a class that buffs themselves with a spell and fights foes with their weapon. Not a class slinging spells. In other words the ranger is designed around having one spell up at a time while attacking with their weapon & subclass features. Sort of like a paladin, but their smites last longer than a round and instead of auras they got exploration & utility.
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if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
I read or saw a video where Crawford describes the ranger as more of fighter with some spells. The ranger spells are crazy broad in nature. If they had prepared casting they’d be a little over the top.
I kind of doubt that on the prepared as up until now every version of the spellcasting ranger was prepared, and the PHB subclasses still would not have extra spells like the more recent subclasses. And without expanded spell that would only give them access to at most 4 more spells prepared at a time rather than at most 11 known while having no built in way to recover slots without a long rest.
It’s not so much the amount of spells as the flexibility to change them out. I’m not saying I agree with it or know why they choose to have done it and continue to do it (the leak seems to have gotten rid of the flexible casting), but if a ranger could prepare spells it would offer a major power jump for them.
I would have to disagree on that the extra flexibility for more equate to a quality of life change than anything else, the overall limits already in place would not be nearly so high a power jump. I can only guess the decision to make the ranger a spell known had very little to do with balance and more to make it more different from the other half caster in the game the Paladin.
I suppose when the designers made ranger, they wanted a class that buffs themselves with a spell and fights foes with their weapon. Not a class slinging spells. In other words the ranger is designed around having one spell up at a time while attacking with their weapon & subclass features. Sort of like a paladin, but their smites last longer than a round and instead of auras they got exploration & utility.
I agree on that intend, however the spells really don't reflect that unfortunately considering we have several concentration spells that only apply to your next attack. So it's not like you cast a spell and keep it up while fighting unless it's Hunter's Mark or Zephyr Strike etc.
I suppose when the designers made ranger, they wanted a class that buffs themselves with a spell and fights foes with their weapon. Not a class slinging spells. In other words the ranger is designed around having one spell up at a time while attacking with their weapon & subclass features. Sort of like a paladin, but their smites last longer than a round and instead of auras they got exploration & utility.
I agree on that intend, however the spells really don't reflect that unfortunately considering we have several concentration spells that only apply to your next attack. So it's not like you cast a spell and keep it up while fighting unless it's Hunter's Mark or Zephyr Strike etc.
But that is exactly the intent, for a ranger to choose one concentration spell like Hunter's Mark or Zephyr Strike and maintain it throughout the fight.
That only covers a small amount of all the Ranger's concentration spells though. If you could keep one of them up and still use the other smite-like ones nobody would really complain about the concentration issue the Ranger has.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
I suppose when the designers made ranger, they wanted a class that buffs themselves with a spell and fights foes with their weapon. Not a class slinging spells. In other words the ranger is designed around having one spell up at a time while attacking with their weapon & subclass features. Sort of like a paladin, but their smites last longer than a round and instead of auras they got exploration & utility.
I agree on that intend, however the spells really don't reflect that unfortunately considering we have several concentration spells that only apply to your next attack. So it's not like you cast a spell and keep it up while fighting unless it's Hunter's Mark or Zephyr Strike etc.
But that is exactly the intent, for a ranger to choose one concentration spell like Hunter's Mark or Zephyr Strike and maintain it throughout the fight.
That only covers a small amount of all the Ranger's concentration spells though. If you could keep one of them up and still use the other smite-like ones nobody would really complain about the concentration issue the Ranger has.
If a Ranger could maintain Hunter's Mark and also cast Lightning Arrow it would be a bit broken, as Lightning Arrow deals your normal weapon damage (so Hunter's Mark would stack on top of it), same with some of the other concentration conflicts people complain about. But Rangers also have alternative spells in many cases, for example you can also use Conjure Barrage to deal area damage without interrupting (or stacking on top of) Hunter's Mark.
Lightning Arrow is very clearly concentration on purpose to prevent it from stacking, while Conjure Barrage seems intended not to break concentration; if you're a ranged Ranger take both so you've got options, if you only sometimes do ranged, take Conjure Barrage.
And for the premise of the thread; while I've agreed in the past that the concentration issue is a main one for the Ranger, I don't agree that it's a problem as such. If you take a load of concentration spells then can't cast them all at once, then that's your own fault; either take spells that don't interrupt or accept that you'll need to burn some kind of resource to juggle them. In that respect this new Favoured Foe does "fix" the concentration issue, in that it gives you another resource you can use instead of the spell slots you need to burn on Hunter's Mark; I'd have preferred it to still be free castings of Hunter's Mark (with none of the extra bells and whistles of the UA version) but it's still a decent ability if you're planning to build a Ranger with a lot of the concentration options, as it makes juggling them easier, plus it behaves in a slightly different way to Hunter's Mark that makes it very interesting (no bonus action to activate it).
Ultimately though choosing between concentration effects is supposed to be a tricky decision, that's the whole point of them, and it's part of what makes the Ranger a very strategic class to play, and a fun class to play if you can accept that you're not going to get everything you want for free.
I suppose when the designers made ranger, they wanted a class that buffs themselves with a spell and fights foes with their weapon. Not a class slinging spells. In other words the ranger is designed around having one spell up at a time while attacking with their weapon & subclass features. Sort of like a paladin, but their smites last longer than a round and instead of auras they got exploration & utility.
I agree on that intend, however the spells really don't reflect that unfortunately considering we have several concentration spells that only apply to your next attack. So it's not like you cast a spell and keep it up while fighting unless it's Hunter's Mark or Zephyr Strike etc.
But that is exactly the intent, for a ranger to choose one concentration spell like Hunter's Mark or Zephyr Strike and maintain it throughout the fight.
That only covers a small amount of all the Ranger's concentration spells though. If you could keep one of them up and still use the other smite-like ones nobody would really complain about the concentration issue the Ranger has.
If a Ranger could maintain Hunter's Mark and also cast Lightning Arrow it would be a bit broken, as Lightning Arrow deals your normal weapon damage (so Hunter's Mark would stack on top of it), same with some of the other concentration conflicts people complain about. But Rangers also have alternative spells in many cases, for example you can also use Conjure Barrage to deal area damage without interrupting (or stacking on top of) Hunter's Mark.
Lightning Arrow is very clearly concentration on purpose to prevent it from stacking, while Conjure Barrage seems intended not to break concentration; if you're a ranged Ranger take both so you've got options, if you only sometimes do ranged, take Conjure Barrage.
And for the premise of the thread; while I've agreed in the past that the concentration issue is a main one for the Ranger, I don't agree that it's a problem as such. If you take a load of concentration spells then can't cast them all at once, then that's your own fault; either take spells that don't interrupt or accept that you'll need to burn some kind of resource to juggle them. In that respect this new Favoured Foe does "fix" the concentration issue, in that it gives you another resource you can use instead of the spell slots you need to burn on Hunter's Mark; I'd have preferred it to still be free castings of Hunter's Mark (with none of the extra bells and whistles of the UA version) but it's still a decent ability if you're planning to build a Ranger with a lot of the concentration options, as it makes juggling them easier, plus it behaves in a slightly different way to Hunter's Mark that makes it very interesting (no bonus action to activate it).
Ultimately though choosing between concentration effects is supposed to be a tricky decision, that's the whole point of them, and it's part of what makes the Ranger a very strategic class to play, and a fun class to play if you can accept that you're not going to get everything you want for free.
Just to clarify, I'm not arguing from a balancing PoV. There are several levers to balance specific spells and combinations of things. I'm arguing from a design PoV where the two types of concentration spells, the ones that are supposed to be running for several rounds and the smite-like ones, clash with eachother. If Hunter's Mark and Lightning Arrow stacking were too strong (which I don't necessarily agree with, especially since you seem fine to stack it with the new Favoured Foe anyway) then there are other ways to balance it instead of having one interrupt the concentration of the other.
As for the last part of your post, no the Ranger isn't particularly more strategic than other classes and the decision most of the time isn't tricky but rather restrictive. Overall it's a frustrating interaction between all the concentration based features/spells and less fun.
A 1st level spell slot spent on a smite gets a paladin an extra 9 average damage. The same spell slot spent on hunter’s mark gets a ranger an extra 7 to 14 average damage depending on if the spell remains for one round of combat or two.
A 3rd level spell a lot spent on a smite gets a paladin an extra 18 average damage. The same spell slot spent on a hail of thorns spell (hitting two targets with a 50% successful saving throw) gets a ranger an extra 24.75 (17.75 if you factor in the loss of hunter’s mark damage) average damage, and on a lightning arrow spell (main target and two additional targets making their save 50% of the time) gets a ranger an extra 27.5 (20.5 if you factor in the loss of hunter’s mark damage) average damage.
As leaked, favored foe can be added to the damage of either hail of thorns or lightning arrow (activating it the same moment the spell hits) and maintained thereafter, adding 2.5 to 4.5 to either AoE spell casting and for a round or two after for another 2.5 to 4.5 each round with no spell slot expended.
Two weapon fighting would still be clunky with a concentration free hunter’s mark as each time you down a target you have to set it up again with a bonus action. Favored foe gets a little more damage for that fighting style (level 10 hunter 33.5 average damage) while still giving the option to hunter’s mark a big boss for bigger damage.
What I wish is that the favored foe effect would stay as leaked but be able to be moved to a new target after the first was killed within a minute, just like hunters mark.
Just to clarify, I'm not arguing from a balancing PoV. There are several levers to balance specific spells and combinations of things. I'm arguing from a design PoV where the two types of concentration spells, the ones that are supposed to be running for several rounds and the smite-like ones, clash with eachother. If Hunter's Mark and Lightning Arrow stacking were too strong (which I don't necessarily agree with, especially since you seem fine to stack it with the new Favoured Foe anyway) then there are other ways to balance it instead of having one interrupt the concentration of the other.
As for the last part of your post, no the Ranger isn't particularly more strategic than other classes and the decision most of the time isn't tricky but rather restrictive. Overall it's a frustrating interaction between all the concentration based features/spells and less fun.
The "smite-like" spells are supposed to conflict with long running concentration, they're that way by design. And it is strategic; you can't complain "boohoo I hate concentration" then pretend there are no choices to make in how you play; if you can't handle managing concentration, don't take any short-lived concentration spells, take the many other options you have available.
If you do want to use the short-lived concentration spells then suck it up and learn how to manage that properly, this new feature will make it easier than ever. This is on top of a wealth of ambush and scouting options that you can also use, it's a very strategic class that people who whine about it don't seem to understand how to play.
Plenty of spellcasting classes have access to loads of concentration options; you can't use them all at once. It's a very basic spellcasting mechanic, and it's not unique to Rangers or Ranger spells; and as I've pointed out multiple times now they have spells that don't require concentration.
Does it require a little bit of thought before you can get the most out of it? Absolutely. But it's only a problem if you go out of your way to make it a problem for yourself.
Haravikk, until folks stop comparing other martial classes to the paladin no one will every be happy. The smite mechanic is just too easy to be too effective with for most folks to accept that everything else is not trash in comparison. The situations and scenarios that folks present when defending the merits of the paladin class would make anyone wonder why choose anything else, EVER! Compared to paladins all other martials pale in comparison. Barbarians, fighters, rangers, monks, and rogues all suck when compared to the paladin.
Seriously though, I’d say rangers are a bit more like clerics or wizards in the regard of concentration and spells. Actually paladin have the same issue but they rarely use their slots for spells in that manner (yeah yeah, and have the saving throw bit).
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There are dozens of pages and thousands of discussions about the Range pros and cons. Pretty much a universal con though is the fact that all of their best spell options are concentration. The class variant features offered a fix for this, but in classic Wizards fashion, took it a bit too far, and made it a bit too powerful. Now thanks to leaks of the book, we pretty much have confirmed that they did replace Favored Enemy with Favored Foe, but we also know that they just made Favored Enemy look like a pretty solid feature, so good job I guess?
Favored foe will let you mark an enemy for 1 minute or until you loose concentration, to deal 1 time per turn a d4 until level 6 when it becomes a d6 and a d8 at 14. Who is going to give up Hunter's Mark for this? I hope the info I saw is wrong and it doesn't require concentration, because if it does - congratulations Wizards, you took the one thing people already universally hate about the Ranger and ADDED to it.
Who else thinks this sounds like a useless option no one will take?
lol, fair enough about complaining in advance, but welcome to the internet. Yes, I understand not letting them do both, the larger point is that turning Favored Foe into a feature that competes for the already overwhelmed concentration of a ranger is a bad idea that will lead people to never use the feature. It has lower damage than HM at every level. It starts at 1d4 vs 1d6, only reaches a d6 at level 6, when you’ve already been doing 1d6 per your two attacks since five and then is a d8 1 time vs 1d6 2 to 3 times depending on how you are playing.
So how did something like that even get considered? I do hope that the information I have is wrong, but I doubt it.
At best it is "useful" until level 5 if you do 3+ combats per long rest, otherwise it is simply inferior, but to each their own I suppose.
I wonder if the tireless feature is as the UA or will it get improved as it is being gated at level 10 or so? After seeing some of the other changing I can't help but think it will be something like 1d10+half proficiency mod temp hp using proficiency mod per long rest.
Just a thought, but not sure if it needs it's own thread.
I suppose when the designers made ranger, they wanted a class that buffs themselves with a spell and fights foes with their weapon. Not a class slinging spells. In other words the ranger is designed around having one spell up at a time while attacking with their weapon & subclass features. Sort of like a paladin, but their smites last longer than a round and instead of auras they got exploration & utility.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
I read or saw a video where Crawford describes the ranger as more of fighter with some spells. The ranger spells are crazy broad in nature. If they had prepared casting they’d be a little over the top.
I kind of doubt that on the prepared as up until now every version of the spellcasting ranger was prepared, and the PHB subclasses still would not have extra spells like the more recent subclasses. And without expanded spell that would only give them access to at most 4 more spells prepared at a time rather than at most 11 known while having no built in way to recover slots without a long rest.
It’s not so much the amount of spells as the flexibility to change them out. I’m not saying I agree with it or know why they choose to have done it and continue to do it (the leak seems to have gotten rid of the flexible casting), but if a ranger could prepare spells it would offer a major power jump for them.
I would have to disagree on that the extra flexibility for more equate to a quality of life change than anything else, the overall limits already in place would not be nearly so high a power jump. I can only guess the decision to make the ranger a spell known had very little to do with balance and more to make it more different from the other half caster in the game the Paladin.
🤷♂️
I agree on that intend, however the spells really don't reflect that unfortunately considering we have several concentration spells that only apply to your next attack. So it's not like you cast a spell and keep it up while fighting unless it's Hunter's Mark or Zephyr Strike etc.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
That only covers a small amount of all the Ranger's concentration spells though. If you could keep one of them up and still use the other smite-like ones nobody would really complain about the concentration issue the Ranger has.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
If a Ranger could maintain Hunter's Mark and also cast Lightning Arrow it would be a bit broken, as Lightning Arrow deals your normal weapon damage (so Hunter's Mark would stack on top of it), same with some of the other concentration conflicts people complain about. But Rangers also have alternative spells in many cases, for example you can also use Conjure Barrage to deal area damage without interrupting (or stacking on top of) Hunter's Mark.
Lightning Arrow is very clearly concentration on purpose to prevent it from stacking, while Conjure Barrage seems intended not to break concentration; if you're a ranged Ranger take both so you've got options, if you only sometimes do ranged, take Conjure Barrage.
And for the premise of the thread; while I've agreed in the past that the concentration issue is a main one for the Ranger, I don't agree that it's a problem as such. If you take a load of concentration spells then can't cast them all at once, then that's your own fault; either take spells that don't interrupt or accept that you'll need to burn some kind of resource to juggle them. In that respect this new Favoured Foe does "fix" the concentration issue, in that it gives you another resource you can use instead of the spell slots you need to burn on Hunter's Mark; I'd have preferred it to still be free castings of Hunter's Mark (with none of the extra bells and whistles of the UA version) but it's still a decent ability if you're planning to build a Ranger with a lot of the concentration options, as it makes juggling them easier, plus it behaves in a slightly different way to Hunter's Mark that makes it very interesting (no bonus action to activate it).
Ultimately though choosing between concentration effects is supposed to be a tricky decision, that's the whole point of them, and it's part of what makes the Ranger a very strategic class to play, and a fun class to play if you can accept that you're not going to get everything you want for free.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
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Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
Just to clarify, I'm not arguing from a balancing PoV. There are several levers to balance specific spells and combinations of things. I'm arguing from a design PoV where the two types of concentration spells, the ones that are supposed to be running for several rounds and the smite-like ones, clash with eachother. If Hunter's Mark and Lightning Arrow stacking were too strong (which I don't necessarily agree with, especially since you seem fine to stack it with the new Favoured Foe anyway) then there are other ways to balance it instead of having one interrupt the concentration of the other.
As for the last part of your post, no the Ranger isn't particularly more strategic than other classes and the decision most of the time isn't tricky but rather restrictive. Overall it's a frustrating interaction between all the concentration based features/spells and less fun.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
What does a spent resource get a class?
A 1st level spell slot spent on a smite gets a paladin an extra 9 average damage. The same spell slot spent on hunter’s mark gets a ranger an extra 7 to 14 average damage depending on if the spell remains for one round of combat or two.
A 3rd level spell a lot spent on a smite gets a paladin an extra 18 average damage. The same spell slot spent on a hail of thorns spell (hitting two targets with a 50% successful saving throw) gets a ranger an extra 24.75 (17.75 if you factor in the loss of hunter’s mark damage) average damage, and on a lightning arrow spell (main target and two additional targets making their save 50% of the time) gets a ranger an extra 27.5 (20.5 if you factor in the loss of hunter’s mark damage) average damage.
As leaked, favored foe can be added to the damage of either hail of thorns or lightning arrow (activating it the same moment the spell hits) and maintained thereafter, adding 2.5 to 4.5 to either AoE spell casting and for a round or two after for another 2.5 to 4.5 each round with no spell slot expended.
Two weapon fighting would still be clunky with a concentration free hunter’s mark as each time you down a target you have to set it up again with a bonus action. Favored foe gets a little more damage for that fighting style (level 10 hunter 33.5 average damage) while still giving the option to hunter’s mark a big boss for bigger damage.
What I wish is that the favored foe effect would stay as leaked but be able to be moved to a new target after the first was killed within a minute, just like hunters mark.
The "smite-like" spells are supposed to conflict with long running concentration, they're that way by design. And it is strategic; you can't complain "boohoo I hate concentration" then pretend there are no choices to make in how you play; if you can't handle managing concentration, don't take any short-lived concentration spells, take the many other options you have available.
If you do want to use the short-lived concentration spells then suck it up and learn how to manage that properly, this new feature will make it easier than ever. This is on top of a wealth of ambush and scouting options that you can also use, it's a very strategic class that people who whine about it don't seem to understand how to play.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
Let's agree to disagree there then.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
No.
Plenty of spellcasting classes have access to loads of concentration options; you can't use them all at once. It's a very basic spellcasting mechanic, and it's not unique to Rangers or Ranger spells; and as I've pointed out multiple times now they have spells that don't require concentration.
Does it require a little bit of thought before you can get the most out of it? Absolutely. But it's only a problem if you go out of your way to make it a problem for yourself.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
Haravikk, until folks stop comparing other martial classes to the paladin no one will every be happy. The smite mechanic is just too easy to be too effective with for most folks to accept that everything else is not trash in comparison. The situations and scenarios that folks present when defending the merits of the paladin class would make anyone wonder why choose anything else, EVER! Compared to paladins all other martials pale in comparison. Barbarians, fighters, rangers, monks, and rogues all suck when compared to the paladin.
Seriously though, I’d say rangers are a bit more like clerics or wizards in the regard of concentration and spells. Actually paladin have the same issue but they rarely use their slots for spells in that manner (yeah yeah, and have the saving throw bit).