"Yeah, no. People typically uphold negative experiences more than positive experiences."
"Negative experiences overrule positive ones, especially when the negative experiences are so plentiful."
I will respectfully disagree with these above statements. Personal experiences either count and factor in bias not, or they don't and it's all hard math.
You can disagree all you want, but that is basic psychology.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
"Yeah, no. People typically uphold negative experiences more than positive experiences."
"Negative experiences overrule positive ones, especially when the negative experiences are so plentiful."
I will respectfully disagree with these above statements. Personal experiences either count and factor in bias not, or they don't and it's all hard math.
You can disagree all you want, but that is basic psychology.
Seconded. My first job was in a grocery store and, during a training seminar, I learned something.
Statistically, when a customer has a good experience they'll tell two people. For every bad experience, they'll tell five.
As much as we might not want to, we carry that negativity with us. And we push it on to people, even if we don't mean to.
I just see that as a greater reason to look past it and the bias it created.
Then you're missing the point. Those experiences, both good and bad, are all anecdotal. They always have been. I've played in and run campaigns where rogues didn't get to use Favored Enemy or Natural Explorer. Those choices, mechanically, felt like a waste and were disappointing. One of those campaigns was also an urban cult intrigue campaign where the ranger was an MVP with their wolf companion and awesome spell selection. And I had another player choose scout rogue over ranger (in Curse of Strahd, no less) because he didn't want to cast spells. So the disappointment isn't just there; it's palpable.
We can theory-craft until the cows come home after Ragnarok, but none of that matters until you sit down to play. And just as we shouldn't let our negative experiences pollute our understanding, nor should we allow our positive ones. I run campaign audits once every season (13 weeks). We go over notes, talk about our feelings, and troubleshoot problem areas. If my players have a really bad session, we take a week off of play to run a post-mortem. Below are some of the topics we discuss:
What went right?
What went wrong?
What can we all do to be better next time?
How do we want to proceed going forward?
It's hard work to realize potential. You have to be patient with yourself and with others who aren't there yet.
As just a note on Favored Foe... It can be useful as an "Extra" weaker Hunter's Mark for long adventuring days when you have few or no long rests. I think it's fine in that regard; As a Gloom Stalker Ranger in my first campaign playing a Ranger, my opening turn often (at level 3) already outdamages almost my entire party in any given combat encounter from a single cast of Hunter's Mark. Hunter's Mark is definitely the better version, but I can see uses for Favored Foe on a long adventuring day.
The builds that will benefit most are the ones that have multiple concentration spells they might want to switch between, as more resources mean you don't run out as fast. In fact for things like Lightning Arrow Favoured Foe has an interesting interaction in that you can trigger it after the Lightning Arrow hits, enabling you to stack it (since your concentration on Lightning Arrow is ending anyway). You can do the same with Zephyr Strike if you don't mind losing the mobility once you do your bonus force damage. In this kind of use-case it's about resources; it doesn't matter if one is worse, more is more, which matters on a half caster with limited resources.
A player in a campaign I DM just tried to pull this with lightning arrow, and I disallowed it. RAW, it might be okay, but I think it defies the intent of Favored Foe requiring concentration.
To the other points, I consider Favored Foe to be a great resource that falls short of the damage potential for hunter's mark (as it should) but frees up that precious bonus action that is so vital to most of the ranger subclasses. Aside from the rogue's Sneak Attack (and, technically, the barbarian's Rage), I don't think any other martial class gets any extra damage automatically baked into their weapon attacks. If you really need to get that Hunter's Mark/TWF combo going, the Hunter (and to a lesser degree, the Monster Slayer and Swarmkeeper) is still a great option for that. The ranger was never really lacking for the means to inflict damage, and without concentration, Favored Foe would be a broken class feature.
The builds that will benefit most are the ones that have multiple concentration spells they might want to switch between, as more resources mean you don't run out as fast. In fact for things like Lightning Arrow Favoured Foe has an interesting interaction in that you can trigger it after the Lightning Arrow hits, enabling you to stack it (since your concentration on Lightning Arrow is ending anyway). You can do the same with Zephyr Strike if you don't mind losing the mobility once you do your bonus force damage. In this kind of use-case it's about resources; it doesn't matter if one is worse, more is more, which matters on a half caster with limited resources.
A player in a campaign I DM just tried to pull this with lightning arrow, and I disallowed it. RAW, it might be okay, but I think it defies the intent of Favored Foe requiring concentration.
Why would you though? It doesn't add a lot of extra damage and it's still costing a limited resource to use this; Favored Foe very specifically is triggered by hitting with an attack, which is when concentration on Lightning Arrow ends. Obviously it's your game so it's your call, but this feels like an unnecessary nerf to me; they're spending one of their higher level spell slots and a limited resource.
Agreed, nothing about having it hit together with Lightning Arrow would be broken. The damage is rather low and the uses of Favored Foe are extremely limited as is anyway. Whenever the Ranger wants to use one of their spells it's likely they're going to require to reactivate Favored Foe again anyway which would cost them yet another use of it, considering like 80% of the useful Ranger spells require concentration.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
The 2 changes to favored foe I’ve considered are making it concentrationless ( which I see folks here don’t like so I’m not going to restart that) and changing it from recharging on a long rest to recharging on a short rest. Still limited but far less so.
The 2 changes to favored foe I’ve considered are making it concentrationless ( which I see folks here don’t like so I’m not going to restart that) and changing it from recharging on a long rest to recharging on a short rest. Still limited but far less so.
I'd be personally fine with either but together it feels a bit redundant and probably too much.
The 2 changes to favored foe I’ve considered are making it concentrationless ( which I see folks here don’t like so I’m not going to restart that) and changing it from recharging on a long rest to recharging on a short rest. Still limited but far less so.
(Personally I wouldn’t mind concentrationless as long as it didn’t stack with Hunter’s Mark.) For the rest-shift, if your table only takes 1 short rest per day then that wouldn’t be a overkill until Tier-4 and most campaigns end in Tier-3, so it shouldn’t be a serious issue. If they take the 2 short rests that things are balanced around then it might be a bit on the Munster side of things. But if they take as many as 3 short rests then i think it’ll pro’ly be a bit much. When I try to consider it I’m most concerned about intra-party balance. Having something like that suddenly jumping from 2/day to 6-8/day at 1st level, or from 4/day to 12-16/day later in the campaign…. That’s a lot. What about a 1/2 PB recharge on a short rest 1ce/day like a Favored Foe version of Arcane Recovery? Then it’s still more, but not gonzo more. What do you think?
One I have been considering is changing it from “The first time on each of your turns that you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it…” to “Once per turn when you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it….” What does anybody think about that?
Yeah, it could add up in terms of DPR if the bonus gets applied to Opportunity Attacks. However, in order to really, really take best advantage of it would require building into it, lke as a specifically melee Ranger, or through feats for stuff like War Caster/PAM. Plus, I don’t think it would get excessively high until at least the end of Tier-3 when it becomes 1d8. Especially since most campaigns will likely either be already over or about to end anyway. Well? Too much?
I honestly really don't worry about the DPR increase with Favored Foe. It's so little, really.
On average it's just 2.5 additional DPR at level 1-5, 3.5 at 6-13 and 4.5 at 14-20. Hell Barbarians get the same damage increase (minus 0.5) by raging plus resistances and advantage on STR checks and STR saving throws and it lasts a whole minute (or until they're out of combat) without concentration on a class that doesn't need concentration anyway.
I know there are plenty people who are all about the min-maxing and try to squeeze out every little point of damage to a degree where 0.5 DPR seems to matter for them but in my experience it ... just doesn't matter. Is it nice to have slightly bigger numbers? Sure. Does it actually change things? Most of the time it doesn't.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
I honestly really don't worry about the DPR increase with Favored Foe. It's so little, really.
On average it's just 2.5 additional DPR at level 1-5, 3.5 at 6-13 and 4.5 at 14-20. Hell Barbarians get the same damage increase (minus 0.5) by raging plus resistances and advantage on STR checks and STR saving throws and it lasts a whole minute (or until they're out of combat) without concentration on a class that doesn't need concentration anyway.
I know there are plenty people who are all about the min-maxing and try to squeeze out every little point of damage to a degree where 0.5 DPR seems to matter for them but in my experience it ... just doesn't matter. Is it nice to have slightly bigger numbers? Sure. Does it actually change things? Most of the time it doesn't.
Agree... Honestly the extra damage isn't an issue for me even if it stracked with HM simply because it would only be for one target before you lost the FF and had to use a new one.
Since it is limited and only recharges on a long rest it's not something that is resource efficient to use a lot.
My big gripe with it is how bad the concentration factor pairs with Foe Slayer.... You either get your capstone one enemy at a time OR you can use a concentration spell.
Agreed, how about with a house rule that FF is not concentration an the uses are per short rest not long rest.
let me add that the damage is not my concern either - rather it’s the limited interaction between FF and FS and the inability to add spells into the actions.
Agreed, how about with a house rule that FF is not concentration an the uses are per short rest not long rest.
let me add that the damage is not my concern either - rather it’s the limited interaction between FF and FS and the inability to add spells into the actions.
Since it was clarified about bonus action spells during the last video event, this logic could carry over to mean that Favored Foe is not a concentration spell and thus does not break the effects of a concentration spell.
As to those saying "but that breaks the balance of the game!", they must understand that the Ranger was unbalanced and suboptimal so adding favored foe as a way to give the Ranger two concentration effects allows them to come to par with the other classes.
Since it was clarified about bonus action spells during the last video event, this logic could carry over to mean that Favored Foe is not a concentration spell and thus does not break the effects of a concentration spell.
As to those saying "but that breaks the balance of the game!", they must understand that the Ranger was unbalanced and suboptimal so adding favored foe as a way to give the Ranger two concentration effects allows them to come to par with the other classes.
Congrats on your first DDB Post. Welcome to the intresting world of ranger design theory, we are all very passionate about our personal takes.
I think your "clarifications" need a direct quote for the rest of us to analyze if your conclusion is valid and doesn't contain any hidden loopholes or accidental mistakes.
Second point. Opinion: most of the desingers arent worried about it breaking a single class ranger........ they are worried about multiclass builds. this is where I see problems. Maybe it could be solved by having a line about while active you cant concentrate on any non ranger spell or feature. Even then it is my personal oppinon that the concentration portion is not really the problem with HM or FF.
Since it was clarified about bonus action spells during the last video event, this logic could carry over to mean that Favored Foe is not a concentration spell and thus does not break the effects of a concentration spell.
As to those saying "but that breaks the balance of the game!", they must understand that the Ranger was unbalanced and suboptimal so adding favored foe as a way to give the Ranger two concentration effects allows them to come to par with the other classes.
Ranger really wasn't unbalanced when it comes to damage output per round at all. They deal good damage, especially in longer fights. Don't confuse unbalanced with unsatisfying and clunky.
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I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
I didn't do GWF or Sharpshooter and I had no problem keeping up with damage from a Battlemaster GWF for 12 levels. With polearm master on a gnome with a shield I was able to keep up just fine. In general, the Battlemaster would do more in the first combat and then by the second he would be out of BM maneuvers and pretty mediocre. Also as soon as we went up against a high AC foe the GWF would end up a missing a lot.
My ranger on the other hand had consistent damage and if we got more combats without a short rest he had hunter's mark to fall back on. On top of that shield, breastplate, and defensive fighting style had me for a long section of the game with a much better AC (19). The Battlemaster had a hell of a time keeping his HP up and if we were stuck with 3 or 4 combats between short rests he was in deep trouble and lot more useless on the back line.
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You can disagree all you want, but that is basic psychology.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
Seconded. My first job was in a grocery store and, during a training seminar, I learned something.
Statistically, when a customer has a good experience they'll tell two people. For every bad experience, they'll tell five.
As much as we might not want to, we carry that negativity with us. And we push it on to people, even if we don't mean to.
I just see that as a greater reason to look past it and the bias it created.
Then you're missing the point. Those experiences, both good and bad, are all anecdotal. They always have been. I've played in and run campaigns where rogues didn't get to use Favored Enemy or Natural Explorer. Those choices, mechanically, felt like a waste and were disappointing. One of those campaigns was also an urban cult intrigue campaign where the ranger was an MVP with their wolf companion and awesome spell selection. And I had another player choose scout rogue over ranger (in Curse of Strahd, no less) because he didn't want to cast spells. So the disappointment isn't just there; it's palpable.
We can theory-craft until the cows come home after Ragnarok, but none of that matters until you sit down to play. And just as we shouldn't let our negative experiences pollute our understanding, nor should we allow our positive ones. I run campaign audits once every season (13 weeks). We go over notes, talk about our feelings, and troubleshoot problem areas. If my players have a really bad session, we take a week off of play to run a post-mortem. Below are some of the topics we discuss:
It's hard work to realize potential. You have to be patient with yourself and with others who aren't there yet.
So what if you’re using Druidic focus
As just a note on Favored Foe... It can be useful as an "Extra" weaker Hunter's Mark for long adventuring days when you have few or no long rests. I think it's fine in that regard; As a Gloom Stalker Ranger in my first campaign playing a Ranger, my opening turn often (at level 3) already outdamages almost my entire party in any given combat encounter from a single cast of Hunter's Mark. Hunter's Mark is definitely the better version, but I can see uses for Favored Foe on a long adventuring day.
A player in a campaign I DM just tried to pull this with lightning arrow, and I disallowed it. RAW, it might be okay, but I think it defies the intent of Favored Foe requiring concentration.
To the other points, I consider Favored Foe to be a great resource that falls short of the damage potential for hunter's mark (as it should) but frees up that precious bonus action that is so vital to most of the ranger subclasses. Aside from the rogue's Sneak Attack (and, technically, the barbarian's Rage), I don't think any other martial class gets any extra damage automatically baked into their weapon attacks. If you really need to get that Hunter's Mark/TWF combo going, the Hunter (and to a lesser degree, the Monster Slayer and Swarmkeeper) is still a great option for that. The ranger was never really lacking for the means to inflict damage, and without concentration, Favored Foe would be a broken class feature.
Why would you though? It doesn't add a lot of extra damage and it's still costing a limited resource to use this; Favored Foe very specifically is triggered by hitting with an attack, which is when concentration on Lightning Arrow ends. Obviously it's your game so it's your call, but this feels like an unnecessary nerf to me; they're spending one of their higher level spell slots and a limited resource.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
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Agreed, nothing about having it hit together with Lightning Arrow would be broken. The damage is rather low and the uses of Favored Foe are extremely limited as is anyway. Whenever the Ranger wants to use one of their spells it's likely they're going to require to reactivate Favored Foe again anyway which would cost them yet another use of it, considering like 80% of the useful Ranger spells require concentration.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
The 2 changes to favored foe I’ve considered are making it concentrationless ( which I see folks here don’t like so I’m not going to restart that) and changing it from recharging on a long rest to recharging on a short rest. Still limited but far less so.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I'd be personally fine with either but together it feels a bit redundant and probably too much.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
(Personally I wouldn’t mind concentrationless as long as it didn’t stack with Hunter’s Mark.) For the rest-shift, if your table only takes 1 short rest per day then that wouldn’t be a overkill until Tier-4 and most campaigns end in Tier-3, so it shouldn’t be a serious issue. If they take the 2 short rests that things are balanced around then it might be a bit on the Munster side of things. But if they take as many as 3 short rests then i think it’ll pro’ly be a bit much. When I try to consider it I’m most concerned about intra-party balance. Having something like that suddenly jumping from 2/day to 6-8/day at 1st level, or from 4/day to 12-16/day later in the campaign…. That’s a lot. What about a 1/2 PB recharge on a short rest 1ce/day like a Favored Foe version of Arcane Recovery? Then it’s still more, but not gonzo more. What do you think?
One I have been considering is changing it from “The first time on each of your turns that you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it…” to “Once per turn when you hit the favored enemy and deal damage to it….” What does anybody think about that?
Yeah, it could add up in terms of DPR if the bonus gets applied to Opportunity Attacks. However, in order to really, really take best advantage of it would require building into it, lke as a specifically melee Ranger, or through feats for stuff like War Caster/PAM. Plus, I don’t think it would get excessively high until at least the end of Tier-3 when it becomes 1d8. Especially since most campaigns will likely either be already over or about to end anyway. Well? Too much?
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I honestly really don't worry about the DPR increase with Favored Foe. It's so little, really.
On average it's just 2.5 additional DPR at level 1-5, 3.5 at 6-13 and 4.5 at 14-20. Hell Barbarians get the same damage increase (minus 0.5) by raging plus resistances and advantage on STR checks and STR saving throws and it lasts a whole minute (or until they're out of combat) without concentration on a class that doesn't need concentration anyway.
I know there are plenty people who are all about the min-maxing and try to squeeze out every little point of damage to a degree where 0.5 DPR seems to matter for them but in my experience it ... just doesn't matter. Is it nice to have slightly bigger numbers? Sure. Does it actually change things? Most of the time it doesn't.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
Agree... Honestly the extra damage isn't an issue for me even if it stracked with HM simply because it would only be for one target before you lost the FF and had to use a new one.
Since it is limited and only recharges on a long rest it's not something that is resource efficient to use a lot.
My big gripe with it is how bad the concentration factor pairs with Foe Slayer.... You either get your capstone one enemy at a time OR you can use a concentration spell.
It's horrible synergy with your capstone.
Agreed, how about with a house rule that FF is not concentration an the uses are per short rest not long rest.
let me add that the damage is not my concern either - rather it’s the limited interaction between FF and FS and the inability to add spells into the actions.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Agreed
Suboptimal? Hardly.
Congrats on your first DDB Post. Welcome to the intresting world of ranger design theory, we are all very passionate about our personal takes.
I think your "clarifications" need a direct quote for the rest of us to analyze if your conclusion is valid and doesn't contain any hidden loopholes or accidental mistakes.
Second point. Opinion: most of the desingers arent worried about it breaking a single class ranger........ they are worried about multiclass builds. this is where I see problems. Maybe it could be solved by having a line about while active you cant concentrate on any non ranger spell or feature. Even then it is my personal oppinon that the concentration portion is not really the problem with HM or FF.
Ranger really wasn't unbalanced when it comes to damage output per round at all. They deal good damage, especially in longer fights. Don't confuse unbalanced with unsatisfying and clunky.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
I didn't do GWF or Sharpshooter and I had no problem keeping up with damage from a Battlemaster GWF for 12 levels. With polearm master on a gnome with a shield I was able to keep up just fine. In general, the Battlemaster would do more in the first combat and then by the second he would be out of BM maneuvers and pretty mediocre. Also as soon as we went up against a high AC foe the GWF would end up a missing a lot.
My ranger on the other hand had consistent damage and if we got more combats without a short rest he had hunter's mark to fall back on. On top of that shield, breastplate, and defensive fighting style had me for a long section of the game with a much better AC (19). The Battlemaster had a hell of a time keeping his HP up and if we were stuck with 3 or 4 combats between short rests he was in deep trouble and lot more useless on the back line.