lets face it, capstones are not the reason the ranger is complained about the most its just fuel that people add to the fire. So what if the capstone encourages one level dips at first glance.
The real problem is the abilities are hard to determine at first glance. Some players Like the sound of "ranger" but their understanding is vastly different from the mechanics. Many people don't look at the abilities and build a character. They have an idea for a character and assume the ranger is what they should use but it might not fit. Some of the ability terminology is confusing or vague also allowing for a wide range of interpretation.
5e tends to make players and dms want simple rules. rangers are the exact opposite. They give you a taste of everything but require careful attention to how the abilities and spells work. almost requiring a DM level of game interaction/ understanding. Try looking at the monster stats and just read the terrain assignments. It will give you a headache if you try and remember it all.
5e rules also are worded to account for careful exploits. this is to avoid abuse. The problem with the ranger is that the abuse controls are different than other classes. They make the abilities situational or avoid things that make a huge impact on damage. That doesn't mean they can't do good damage its just in different ways than first expected. The idea of exploits make people try to deny ranger abilities and simplify the open ended parts down to very strict interpretations.
Some people don't the situational aspect. Some some dms don't like how it ties to worldbuilding and their adventure setup. Some people just want to homebrew stuff and its an easy target.
There is also alot of generic shut down. The word useless is used in place of situational all the time. Unequal ability comparisons abound. miss information, strawman arguments, red herrings, "Poisoning the well" fallacies all just leave a bad taste in some peoples Mouths.
Many of these issues are addressed as options in Tasha's. I'm glad Tasha's exists. However, I would rather have situational expertise in all intelligence and wisdom checks than guaranteed expertise in just one. Some people disagree.
If the ranger didn’t have them (or primeval awareness) they would still be able to take proficiency in nature and survival. Proficiency is almost as good as expertise at lower levels. Like a 10 or 15 percent difference. Their spells supplement these proficiencies by allowing the ranger to speak with plants and animals, move unseen and unheard, teleport from tree to tree, hunt and track creatures, etc. The ranger chooses an entire subtype of creatures to know a lot about. All fiends, all monstrosities, etc. Yes, they can track them better. That’s fine. But the knowledge checks (any and all intelligence checks, proficiency not required) associated with them is the real strength of the ability. They aren’t only a killer of these creature types. They study them and know all about them. Then they pick one of the, what, eight land types in the game sans underwater and urban, to be extra familiar with. Anything related to that terrain, plants, animals, weather, food and water resources, traveling, they have expertise in without having to be in the land at all. They can be in a city and have expertise in checks about animals or plants from that land. If they are actually in that land they get these stupendous abilities far and away more than simple proficiency or expertise in two skills. As the ranger moves on they get more and more types of entire creatures types and additional land types to gain these benefits with. Of the eight land types, really four or five are going to be seen in a given adventure, and all creatures fall into on of the creature subtypes.
While you certainly succeed in making the features look much better than i originally gave them credit for, it doesn't change the fact that it is still a specialisation towards that one type of environment or monster. You can apply it in a broader way, sure, but is more trickle over from the specialisation than actual generalism. Simply the fact that you have to pick a terrain you prefer at all puts me off. While it might fit in the ranger i am currently playing, it doesn't fit at all in some of the other ranger concepts i have.
I feel like these feature would be much better at home if you could pick them up as half a feat on anyone who wants them, not just rangers. I might even see a watered down version of them appear as background feature. It might even be tied to a specific subclass, just not to the class in general. Actually, now that i think of it, some parts of these features are stuff that i just give my PC's for free anyway. If one of my players plays a wizard who has a backstory where he hunts dragons, i am not gonna have him make a check to determine if a footprint comes from a dragon or not. He would damn well recognize it as a dragon. The other party members would have to roll though.
I feel like one of the large differences between you and some other peoples on this topic is how the DM in your group rules the "related to your favored terrain" aspect. It is just so subjective how related something has to be to count. A mountain can be cold, have some grass, and have a few trees. Does this mean that a ranger with mountain terrain also has bonusses in arctic, forest and grassland? I suspect the answer to this question depends a whole lot on who you ask.
There is one more thing i want to point out about something you said earlier. Raw, you cannot use your favored enemy to use insight while dealing with a favored enemy as the feature explicitly states that it concerns intelligence checks to recall information, not gather information.
As a final note, I would like to ask you: "How do you feel about the tasha variant features? Especially deft explorer." Because for me, that one feature clearly steers the ranger away from a specialist towards a generalist.
I'll avoid the generous interpretation of the "related to your favored terrain" part. A rogue has expertise in two skills all of the time. While a ranger has proficiency in two skills all of the time. At level one the ranger has expertise and many other abilities beyond that in one terrain. Then two terrains. And finally three. For me the math "loss" of playing a ranger compared to a very specific rogue subclass is not much and greatly exceeded by the gains. Situational? Sure. But the ranger, and I'd say even more with a beast master, has their spells to really interact with the natural environment. Druids have the same thing going for them in that they aren't skill experts but they interact with nature through their spells. i just see the ranger of a little of class A and a little of class B.
You are correct about DM's giving information to their players for free. Or players knowing things that seep into their character knowing it. Or not using rules of the game that are baked into the ranger class. Ranger's abilities are a direct conduit between the character and the DMs world in regards to information about the land and fantastic creatures. The battle master has a little something for this at level 7, I believe. Difficult terrain is rarely used as much as it should be. That's a large part of the abilities of the mid level ranger.
To answer your question, I don't care for Tasha's much at all. Just for me, though. I know players like more subclasses and options, and WotC wants to sell books. But it's not for me. It's a little "creepy" and "bloaty".
There is one more thing i want to point out about something you said earlier. Raw, you cannot use your favored enemy to use insight while dealing with a favored enemy as the feature explicitly states that it concerns intelligence checks to recall information, not gather information.
I wholly disagree. I don't think you can call it RAW. Recalling information is defined as part of intelligence checks.
The game doesn't seem to subdivide memory from deduction. The mechanics actually group them together. I think it makes more logical senses that any time you use intelligence memory is a factor. Even if its deduction you still need to rely on basic knowledge of the subject you need to recall. Rangers that have more basic information giving them a benefit. This seems like basic forensics specialization to me.
All the time, I see dm's specifically give advantage for having a reasonable understanding of the subject. History or investigations for a town you grew up in. Sometimes they just give it out for free. A ranger it gives you class related justification for doing so. Its still up to dm adjudication.
I think the reason it states it that way is to refence back to your knowledge of the enemy in a flavorful way reminding you it can only be used if a Favored enemy is involved. It also allows for the weird rules about "using other ability scores" such as medicine checks with intelligence which would rely more on knowledge than instinctive skill.
I'm sorry but you are wrong according to RAW Roscoeivan.
From favored enemy:
You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them.
When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at all.
These are the only mechanical benefits you gain from FE. Sure, nothing is stopping you from using insight as part of your tracker routine, but FE will not give you a mechanical advantage on said check in any way. To rule as such is DM fiat.
You even go on to say as such, that it is up to DM adjudication. You're missing the HUGE problem with that though. No other class requires DM fiat (and attention) to have their main low level class abilities have broadly applicable benefits. Or if they do in the case of something like Thieves' Cant, it comes alongside other more generally useful abilities. This point has been repeated ad nauseum at this point, and frankly has not been met with a meaningful rebuttal. Mentioning it works just fine in your campaign because of XYZ factors means nothing to the multitude of people that have experienced the opposite in their own campaigns.
And can we please all recognize just how niche the advantage from FE really is? This is not advantage on all survival checks and intelligence checks. This is advantage on two specific functions of those skill checks.
FrankReynoldsGaryGygax: I think your comparison of rogue expertise vs FE really misses the mark because of that. Rogue expertise effects all uses of the chosen skills. FE only benefits a small portion of the uses for those skills. Also, rogues get two more expertise at 6, so FE scaling up to effect more is not a unique feature to lean on.
Edit: I just realized you were comparing to NE, not FE, sorry! I'll keep my thought because I think its a solid point, but to address the comparison to NE, I think the scaling argument is still lacking because a rogue gets more expertise at 6. And again, NE is a pile of incredibly niche uses while expertise effects every function you can come up with for a skill.
And this is at the heart of what I don't like about these abilities. If a ranger wants to make use of their explorer skills like insight, perception, nature or even a non-tracking use of survival, they really aren't better than any other class with those proficiencies. And please, no more mentioning traveling faster and foraging for more food. Those are so niche as to need a term further down the ladder than "ribbon". Most campaigns ignore these elements or touch on them very sparingly. They are also not problems that are so difficult to overcome as to need a mechanical benefit to achieve.
You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them.
When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at all.
These are the only mechanical benefits you gain from FE. Sure, nothing is stopping you from using insight as part of your tracker routine, but FE will not give you a mechanical advantage on said check in any way. To rule as such is DM fiat.
You even go on to say as such, that it is up to DM adjudication. You're missing the HUGE problem with that though. No other class requires DM fiat (and attention) to have their main low level class abilities have broadly applicable benefits. Or if they do in the case of something like Thieves' Cant, it comes alongside other more generally useful abilities. This point has been repeated ad nauseum at this point, and frankly has not been met with a meaningful rebuttal. Mentioning it works just fine in your campaign because of XYZ factors means nothing to the multitude of people that have experienced the opposite in their own campaigns.
What is recalling information? the only place it is defined in the rules is the PHB on intelligence checks. The dm is only needed to determine if the benefit Of Information about your Chosen creatures actually applies to the check. (EDIT: I realized it was insight and not investigation but you can make an insight with intelligence if the dm allows )
Intelligence Checks
An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning. The Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion skills reflect aptitude in certain kinds of Intelligence checks.
You're missing the HUGE problem with that though. No other class requires DM fiat (and attention) to have their main low level class abilities have broadly applicable benefits.
Untrue statement that no other class relies on it. Not counting, the fact that the dm determines when every skill check applies. It all comes down to how reasonably the dm is about your abilities. You are right about it being a huge problem because that's where all these debates end up. Wild magic sorcerers are a prime example. the mechanics give the dm control incase you have someone surging at a really bad moment and potentially killing off other pc's but some dms take it too far and never allow "tides" to trigger.
Wild magic sorcerer:
Tides of Chaos
Starting at 1st level, you can manipulate the forces of chance and chaos to gain advantage on one attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. Once you do so, you must finish a long rest before you can use this feature again.
Any time before you regain the use of this feature, the DM can have you roll on the Wild Magic Surge table immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher. You then regain the use of this feature.
Mentioning it works just fine in your campaign because of XYZ factors means nothing to the multitude of people that have experienced the opposite in their own campaigns.
The same could be turned around and just because you have a XYZ situation that didn't work doesn't make it flawed. Maybe there is a wrong core understanding of how it works. maybe there is a open area with room for adjustment to make it work.
Ok. So, the scout rogue gets more expertise at level 6, for a total of six skills with expertise. That is really great! All the ranger gets is three skills with proficiency. Most other classes get two. Then backgrounds of course, and some races. So the ranger is as good as anyone else that, 1. has these skills available, and 2. chooses to take them instead of something else.
A rogue gets nothing else for wilderness exploration or travel. Nothing. I think that's fair. That's what a rogue does. If you want to build an outdoor wilderness explorer you can choose a scout rogue, an archer fighter, a druid, a ranger, or any other silly multiclass combination and have some real fun! If a ranger is never in their favored terrain, not once, for an entire campaign, they still have spells that are geared towards the same stuff. Food, water, scouting, travel, survival, and tracking, all through magic. When they are in their favored terrain they are not only as good but better than the scout rogue.
Ok. So, the scout rogue gets more expertise at level 6, for a total of six skills with expertise. That is really great! All the ranger gets is three skills with proficiency. Most other classes get two. Then backgrounds of course, and some races. So the ranger is as good as anyone else that, 1. has these skills available, and 2. chooses to take them instead of something else.
A rogue gets nothing else for wilderness exploration or travel. Nothing. I think that's fair. That's what a rogue does. If you want to build an outdoor wilderness explorer you can choose a scout rogue, an archer fighter, a druid, a ranger, or any other silly multiclass combination and have some real fun! If a ranger is never in their favored terrain, not once, for an entire campaign, they still have spells that are geared towards the same stuff. Food, water, scouting, travel, survival, and tracking, all through magic. When they are in their favored terrain they are not only as good but better than the scout rogue.
Because they don't need it. Expertise in the appropriate skills is all you need to feel like a competent explorer. And again, because expertise applies to all uses of the skills, you will end up feeling like a more diversely skilled explorer.
Rangers on the other hand have to resort to picking up expertise from an outside source, or DM fiat to have their explorer abilities have broad reaching applications. This isn't even about choosing the right enemy or terrain to me. That's just the first layer of the problem. This is about the inherent limitations on what aspects of exploration NE and FE benefit when you can use them.
I'd like to talk about Tool Proficiencies and mechanics that benefit them, because I believe that is what FE and NE are in disguise.
From Xanathar's:
Tools and Skills Together
Tools have more specific applications than skills. The History skill applies to any event in the past. A tool such as a forgery kit is used to make fake objects and little else. Thus, why would a character who has the opportunity to acquire one or the other want to gain a tool proficiency instead of proficiency in a skill?
Bolded for relevance. FE is essentially giving advantage to the use of a tracking tool. It doesn't effect the use of survival and intelligence checks in all their forms, it gives advantage on a specific function of said skills. NE is also essentially a mechanical boost to an explorer's tool. The listed functions are broader than FE, but still fail to encompass all of what can be done with the appropriate "explorer" skills.
NE and FE are much closer to getting expertise in two tools than it is to getting expertise in skills.
It is common knowledge that tools (and boosts to them) are worth less than skills and skills boosts. The devs themselves recognize it in that passage from Xanathar's by trying to answer their OWN question, why would someone care about tools over skills. These are the ONLY unique class abilities a Ranger gets at level 1. The rogue comparison keeps being used, but because it is so poignant. Just the two expertise that they get compares incredibly favorably to NE and FE when you realize they are little more than tool bonuses. And then you have sneak attack and thieves' cant. The ranger simply does not get enough at level one when compared to every other class in the game. No other class gets anything as weak as two tool improvements as their only level 1 class abilities. Having one extra skill than the rest of the d10 martials does not make up for it.
"And please, no more mentioning traveling faster and foraging for more food. Those are so niche as to need a term further down the ladder than "ribbon". Most campaigns ignore these elements or touch on them very sparingly. They are also not problems that are so difficult to overcome as to need a mechanical benefit to achieve."
This is a big issue for the ranger! This, difficult terrain, information (knowledge checks), resting, travel, exploration, etc. All of this is skipped over in most games, it seems. People want combat and gold and gaining new levels. So all of the adventure stuff is skipped. The new Tasha's ranger replacements surely do add options that make the ranger more combat focused. Which is good for the most people.
My brain is starting to wear out. Most of you obviously play a kind of D&D that I don't. The situations and uses (or lack thereof) of abilities and rules you provide me are confusing at best to me.
When someone says DM fiat is bad, I here what a great class to work so closely with the DM. The DM isn't the enemy. Why is that seen as such a horrible thing?
I'm fine with not combat focused abilities. I actually think favored enemy and natural terrain would be fairly good abilities if there were no choices involved. As it is stands they're too situational. And you're right in a previous comment where you said that the ranger had spells that can do similar things. To me that just further makes me view these abilities as redundant and not very good.
I think at this time we should all just agree to disagree. Frank and surely others like the PHB ranger. That's good for them. The rest of us think there are some problems but there are new options in Tasha's that at least to a point alleviates some of those problems. That's good for the rest of us.
Even in the area of combat, The unique tracking abilities allows you to know exact numbers and a time line for when they passed through is useful. It has made the difference determining if the party could do planning and prep for several combat encounters. Sometimes allowing the group to take on much more dangerous situations than they could have otherwise.
Also the spells that replicate other abilities allow for customization if you couldn't arrange your base stats to where your covered you have a backup or you can diversify and have extra "tools" to use for various situations. not all rangers can have max wis, int and dex but the spells choices can make up for whichever one you didn't.
My last campaign had to have been one of the lowest resource, logistically grueling campaigns ever to campaign. To give you an idea, we started at level 1 with NO equipment. None. I was a diviner wizard with no spellbook or component pouch. I had to roll to see if I could stow away a piece of animal fat during a prison meal to have the material component to cast Grease. I have never played in a campaign that cared as much about food and travel as this one did.
This was a campaign set in the underdark with a gloomstalker ranger on the team.
I can count on one hand how many times the ranger rolled to track something in a year and a half of gameplay.
Food was covered by Goodberry. Or not overly difficult to find as to need to double the foraging.
The ranger was no better or even worse at many wisdom/intelligence checks than other party members while in its favored terrain because of worse mental stats.
Find Familiar made a better (because its expendable) scout, even when compared to a gloomstalker in the underdark
The rangers ability to sneak alone rarely came up. It was either too risky (send in the familiar) or made superfluous because Pass without Trace was already up because the whole team needed to be good at stealth. Furthermore, splitting the party is not something that will happen regularly in every campaign. It certainly didn't happen much in this one. When your DM is making every aspect of the game grueling splitting up is generally not a good strategy.
Ignoring difficult terrain doesn't eliminate problems. It means the DM comes up with different ones to face when focusing on exploration. Problems that challenge the ranger.
With literally everything you can have in the game lining up to have NE and FE useful they were still rarely used.
Roscoeivan, yes NE gives a boost to a broader spectrum of uses. But it is still limited in use by the terrain mechanic. It is also limited by something hidden in the way Rangers are built. Your mental stats are not your primary stats, and so as I said above, you are not guaranteed to be any better at using those skills than someone else in the party even when you are in your element.
FE and NE are boosting what amount to tool proficiencies and nothing more.
Untrue statement that no other class relies on it. Not counting, the fact that the dm determines when every skill check applies. It all comes down to how reasonably the dm is about your abilities. You are right about it being a huge problem because that's where all these debates end up. Wild magic sorcerers are a prime example. the mechanics give the dm control incase you have someone surging at a really bad moment and potentially killing off other pc's but some dms take it too far and never allow "tides" to trigger.
I mean if you want to nitpick on my use of hyperbolic language in one sentence to try and pick a hole in my argument then fine. But you don't even do it well. Tides of Chaos has a base use that is incredibly broad in its use. The only thing that mentions DM fiat is having the ability to use it again. That's like giving the barbarian text that says "the DM can make you roll on an effect table to gain a use of rage". It doesn't make the base ability reliant on the DM.
But you're really missing my point. If another class had only situation abilities as class features it wouldn't stop it from being a problem for the Ranger.
My brain is starting to wear out. Most of you obviously play a kind of D&D that I don't. The situations and uses (or lack thereof) of abilities and rules you provide me are confusing at best to me.
When someone says DM fiat is bad, I here what a great class to work so closely with the DM.The DM isn't the enemy. Why is that seen as such a horrible thing?
Then you're hearing things that nobody is saying. Listen to people's words and what they say they mean, not what you think they mean. You literally just made something up out of nowhere that absolutely no one is expressing because you needed a new argument since all of your others up to this point have failed to hold any weight.
I work with every single one of my players very closely regardless of class. I try to work with every DM if I am a player, regardless of class, and I am disappointed when the DM doesn't engage. This is not what people are complaining about in regards to the Ranger.
This is a big issue for the ranger! This, difficult terrain, information (knowledge checks), resting, travel, exploration, etc. All of this is skipped over in most games, it seems. People want combat and gold and gaining new levels. So all of the adventure stuff is skipped. The new Tasha's ranger replacements surely do add options that make the ranger more combat focused. Which is good for the most people.
Again making stuff up. You're not responding to the argument being made that you quoted. The majority of those are roleplay.
Difficult terrain: Trivial, but no one says you skip difficult terrain. It is still a small benefit vs a niche travel mechanic. The only requirement to implement difficult terrain is for the DM to say "because of difficult terrain, it takes two extra days of travel" or "because of the Ranger in their favored terrain, you manage to make good time through the difficult terrain." There is nothing else to add to that scenario. With or without being skipped, it takes no time whatsoever to implement and is not such a great boon to be considered an amazing class feature by itself.
Information: No one has said information is trivial or gets skipped. But when that information is so intrinsically tied to niche applications or manner of execution, it becomes far less useful. Then it is primarily roleplay after that. No one complains about a Knowledge Clerics expertise in knowledge skills because you get two which are always active and you get all the spellcasting that comes with being a level 1 Cleric. Spells that can be used anytime, anywhere.
Resting: Roleplay and trivial. Set up camp or find a tavern.
Travel: How long does it take to get there? That's it. That's the end of anything that can possibly be done for travel. The Ranger decreases travel time, so now the DM says, "it takes you 3 days instead of 6." There is nothing else to add to traveling. If ANYTHING happens during traveling, then it ceases to be traveling and turns into the other things that happen.
Exploration: Roleplay with an investigation, MAYBE a perception check. You find it or you don't. Some overlap with traveling. This isn't being skipped in any game. You say where you want to go, and you go there. You act as if the game was designed to account for every step taken along the way and have to roll for whether or not they trip every 30 feet.
What's being skipped is food. Because of how trivial it is to say "I bought 5 days of food, I use 3 days of food while traveling." Because if you micromanage all of that you're going to spend 30 minutes every session counting copper and silver to figure out how much to spend on your rations. Why not roll to see if it is spoiled, too?
There is a very handy chart for players to use to determine general upkeep and living expenses. The highest it goes is a few gold per week. I tell my players when a week has passed, decide how much you want to spend on your upkeep and living expenses for the next week based on those charts. If a DM skips that, fine, no big loss.
What's being skipped in regards to travel is the DM saying "You travel one hour, nothing happens. You travel for another hour, nothing happens. You travel for the third hour, nothing happens." Because the DM is going to save time by rolling and saying "Nothing happens for the entire day" or "After X hours you come across a _______, what do you do?"
Like, where is your argument going to go by saying "resting" is a big issue for the Ranger? Every night in the wilderness the DM asks for the party to set up a watch. The DM rolls for encounters or brings out a prepared scenario. Where does Ranger make such a huge mechanical difference in these scenarios and in such a way that absolutely no other class can fill that role.
At best the Ranger gets to act on a surprise round, but that is only at a generous DM's discretion and likely with a successful perception check (no bonuses RAW) seeing as how WotC couldn't even give the Ranger that much in plain text. And I mean with a VERY generous interpretation of "Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger."
The adventure is roleplaying. The adventure is the DMs narration, the players interacting with the world. The Ranger doesn't hold any sway over that any more than any other class.
Diam fiat: For the purposes of this discussion it is essentially synonymous with DM's discretion or "because the DM decided to."
No one is saying they don't like working with the DM.
The point is people don't want to be forced to before a campaign even starts to get the most out of their class. If you don't mind this, not a problem. But saying so is not a counter argument. Whether you enjoy needing to work with the DM before the campaign is not something that can be proven in any meaningful way. It's all just personal opinion. But what can be argued is whether the Ranger's abilities are overly niche or not. Not to 100% certainty of course, but it is at least something that can use comparison and analysis to debate.
What abilities have been ignored? I think there have been a number of thorough breakdowns of what these abilities (especially NE and FE) are capable of and why people think they are overly niche.
Also the spells that replicate other abilities allow for customization if you couldn't arrange your base stats to where your covered you have a backup or you can diversify and have extra "tools" to use for various situations. not all rangers can have max wis, int and dex but the spells choices can make up for whichever one you didn't.
I was not using tool in the general sense of the word. I was comparing NE and FE to the DnD specific term TOOL. As in thieves' tools. Considering that both NE and FE benefit specific functions of skills, and that TOOLS are said to do the same in Xanathar's makes this an apt comparison in my mind. This was done to point out how weak NE and FE are compared to expertise and illustrate that the Ranger does not get enough at level 1.
All you have to do is look at the artificer to know the game recognizes this balance.
Tool Expertise
Starting at 6th level, your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses your proficiency with a tool.
Compared to the rogue getting expertise in two specific skills, this ability gives you expertise in ALL tool proficiencies you have. They needed to do something to make this ability reach the level of practical use that two skill expertise have.
My brain is starting to wear out. Most of you obviously play a kind of D&D that I don't. The situations and uses (or lack thereof) of abilities and rules you provide me are confusing at best to me.
When someone says DM fiat is bad, I here what a great class to work so closely with the DM.The DM isn't the enemy. Why is that seen as such a horrible thing?
Then you're hearing things that nobody is saying. Listen to people's words and what they say they mean, not what you think they mean. You literally just made something up out of nowhere that absolutely no one is expressing because you needed a new argument since all of your others up to this point have failed to hold any weight.
I work with every single one of my players very closely regardless of class. I try to work with every DM if I am a player, regardless of class, and I am disappointed when the DM doesn't engage. This is not what people are complaining about in regards to the Ranger.
This is a big issue for the ranger! This, difficult terrain, information (knowledge checks), resting, travel, exploration, etc. All of this is skipped over in most games, it seems. People want combat and gold and gaining new levels. So all of the adventure stuff is skipped. The new Tasha's ranger replacements surely do add options that make the ranger more combat focused. Which is good for the most people.
Again making stuff up. You're not responding to the argument being made that you quoted. The majority of those are roleplay.
Difficult terrain: Trivial, but no one says you skip difficult terrain. It is still a small benefit vs a niche travel mechanic. The only requirement to implement difficult terrain is for the DM to say "because of difficult terrain, it takes two extra days of travel" or "because of the Ranger in their favored terrain, you manage to make good time through the difficult terrain." There is nothing else to add to that scenario. With or without being skipped, it takes no time whatsoever to implement and is not such a great boon to be considered an amazing class feature by itself.
Information: No one has said information is trivial or gets skipped. But when that information is so intrinsically tied to niche applications or manner of execution, it becomes far less useful. Then it is primarily roleplay after that. No one complains about a Knowledge Clerics expertise in knowledge skills because you get two which are always active and you get all the spellcasting that comes with being a level 1 Cleric. Spells that can be used anytime, anywhere.
Resting: Roleplay and trivial. Set up camp or find a tavern.
Travel: How long does it take to get there? That's it. That's the end of anything that can possibly be done for travel. The Ranger decreases travel time, so now the DM says, "it takes you 3 days instead of 6." There is nothing else to add to traveling. If ANYTHING happens during traveling, then it ceases to be traveling and turns into the other things that happen.
Exploration: Roleplay with an investigation, MAYBE a perception check. You find it or you don't. Some overlap with traveling. This isn't being skipped in any game. You say where you want to go, and you go there. You act as if the game was designed to account for every step taken along the way and have to roll for whether or not they trip every 30 feet.
What's being skipped is food. Because of how trivial it is to say "I bought 5 days of food, I use 3 days of food while traveling." Because if you micromanage all of that you're going to spend 30 minutes every session counting copper and silver to figure out how much to spend on your rations. Why not roll to see if it is spoiled, too?
There is a very handy chart for players to use to determine general upkeep and living expenses. The highest it goes is a few gold per week. I tell my players when a week has passed, decide how much you want to spend on your upkeep and living expenses for the next week based on those charts. If a DM skips that, fine, no big loss.
What's being skipped in regards to travel is the DM saying "You travel one hour, nothing happens. You travel for another hour, nothing happens. You travel for the third hour, nothing happens." Because the DM is going to save time by rolling and saying "Nothing happens for the entire day" or "After X hours you come across a _______, what do you do?"
Like, where is your argument going to go by saying "resting" is a big issue for the Ranger? Every night in the wilderness the DM asks for the party to set up a watch. The DM rolls for encounters or brings out a prepared scenario. Where does Ranger make such a huge mechanical difference in these scenarios and in such a way that absolutely no other class can fill that role.
At best the Ranger gets to act on a surprise round, but that is only at a generous DM's discretion and likely with a successful perception check (no bonuses RAW) seeing as how WotC couldn't even give the Ranger that much in plain text. And I mean with a VERY generous interpretation of "Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger."
The adventure is roleplaying. The adventure is the DMs narration, the players interacting with the world. The Ranger doesn't hold any sway over that any more than any other class.
Diam fiat: For the purposes of this discussion it is essentially synonymous with DM's discretion or "because the DM decided to."
You are so aggressive. Are you upset? What is wrong with you? Right or wrong your tone towards me is rough, to say the least. I'm telling you that the ranger plays differently in my experience and estimation. Nothing you offer in retort is math or hard facts. Just your opinion.
I have to admit that you make a lot of very strong, well thought out arguments. I have to agree with you across the entire line except for one part. I feel like you are putting a lot of weight on FS's bonus to damage while i feel like it's main selling point is the bonus to to hit. Let me be clear here, I am no longer arguing that FS is good. Instead, I am arguing that the to hit bonus is it's important part. At level 20 a standard attack from a ranger can deal quite some damage. 1d8 + 3 + 1d6 + 5 + 10 = 26 (longbow, +3 weapon, hunter's mark, 20 dex, sharpshooter. All seem pretty standard assumptions to me). This is disregarding stuff like poisoned arrows, better legendary weapons, bracers of archery or subclass damage bonusses. Assuming a wisdom of 18, this means that you have a 1/5 chance that this ability can turn a miss into a hit. That means a 1/5 chance of adding 26 damage to your turn. This 1/5 chance gets repeated for each continuous shot. You might argue that it is only a 1/5 chance but hey, if your shot misses by more than that, you wouldn't have benefited from any other class either. You can still try again for your next shot since nothing is wasted. If your initial shot would in fact have hit, you now have to choice to either add 4 free damage to your shot or keep this as insurance for your next shot. Compared to that, adding an average of 3.5 damage to your turn does seem a lot less appealing. I'm just saying, making sure your attack actually hits is much more important than adding some damage to it.
But yeah, the versatility and other added features of the rogue do still seem very compelling against the power in the narrow niche this provides
Yes, I definitely didn't express very well the differences between a + to hit vs DMG.
A lot of it boils down to your last line "making sure your attack actually hits is much more important than adding some damage to it."
Providing Foe Slayer to Favored Enemies at level 1 would have gone such a long way in improving the Ranger's design. It's still just as niche, just as reliant on being in a lucky campaign or DM fiat.
If the DM can account for a player making sure their Ranger features are not underutilized then they can also account for making sure it isn't overutilized as well. Which is actually another problem. Now there is the concern that if my DM thinks a level one Foe Slayer is too powerful, then they may reduce the number of encounters with my FE to curb that, and why moving Foe Slayer to level 1 still isn't good enough on its own, just a big boost.
In my current campaign 5th level Ranger has never faced his Favored Enemy. Switched out to Favored Foe last session and used it two or three times. I have used Survival (in multiple ways including tracking) with expertise. Its glorious and makes the character start to feel like they are doing something instead of just skipping what you do best or ignoring it.
Of note pairing Favored Foe and Foe Slayer means you will actually be able to use Foe Slayer in any given fight. That at least takes the situationality out of the ability. Its still underpowered, and it wouldn't make me regret taking a level (or 3 or more) dip in Rogue, Fighter, Cleric, or Druid, but it is an improvement.
I have to admit that you make a lot of very strong, well thought out arguments. I have to agree with you across the entire line except for one part. I feel like you are putting a lot of weight on FS's bonus to damage while i feel like it's main selling point is the bonus to to hit. Let me be clear here, I am no longer arguing that FS is good. Instead, I am arguing that the to hit bonus is it's important part. At level 20 a standard attack from a ranger can deal quite some damage. 1d8 + 3 + 1d6 + 5 + 10 = 26 (longbow, +3 weapon, hunter's mark, 20 dex, sharpshooter. All seem pretty standard assumptions to me). This is disregarding stuff like poisoned arrows, better legendary weapons, bracers of archery or subclass damage bonusses. Assuming a wisdom of 18, this means that you have a 1/5 chance that this ability can turn a miss into a hit. That means a 1/5 chance of adding 26 damage to your turn. This 1/5 chance gets repeated for each continuous shot. You might argue that it is only a 1/5 chance but hey, if your shot misses by more than that, you wouldn't have benefited from any other class either. You can still try again for your next shot since nothing is wasted. If your initial shot would in fact have hit, you now have to choice to either add 4 free damage to your shot or keep this as insurance for your next shot. Compared to that, adding an average of 3.5 damage to your turn does seem a lot less appealing. I'm just saying, making sure your attack actually hits is much more important than adding some damage to it.
But yeah, the versatility and other added features of the rogue do still seem very compelling against the power in the narrow niche this provides
The biggest problem with foe slayer is that it's at 20th level. Lets say you slapped Foe Slayer down to a level 2 ability. Does it get overpowered? It's still situational, but you gain more than story benefit with favored enemy and with favored foe you get 2 targets(concentrated) per long rest at that level. If they somehow had 20 dex and 20 wisdom at that level, they'd have a +14 to hit(with archery and no magic weapon) with the best possible accuracy being 95% chance to hit(cause of nat 1s). It can be used more for adding damage at lower levels, and still, can only be used once a turn.
I'm not trying say to say Foe Slayer is bad, I'm saying this is like making the paladins smite a level 20 capstone. It gives the class it's opportunity to shine in combat which 5e is most heavily balanced for.
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lets face it, capstones are not the reason the ranger is complained about the most its just fuel that people add to the fire. So what if the capstone encourages one level dips at first glance.
The real problem is the abilities are hard to determine at first glance. Some players Like the sound of "ranger" but their understanding is vastly different from the mechanics. Many people don't look at the abilities and build a character. They have an idea for a character and assume the ranger is what they should use but it might not fit. Some of the ability terminology is confusing or vague also allowing for a wide range of interpretation.
5e tends to make players and dms want simple rules. rangers are the exact opposite. They give you a taste of everything but require careful attention to how the abilities and spells work. almost requiring a DM level of game interaction/ understanding. Try looking at the monster stats and just read the terrain assignments. It will give you a headache if you try and remember it all.
5e rules also are worded to account for careful exploits. this is to avoid abuse. The problem with the ranger is that the abuse controls are different than other classes. They make the abilities situational or avoid things that make a huge impact on damage. That doesn't mean they can't do good damage its just in different ways than first expected. The idea of exploits make people try to deny ranger abilities and simplify the open ended parts down to very strict interpretations.
Some people don't the situational aspect. Some some dms don't like how it ties to worldbuilding and their adventure setup. Some people just want to homebrew stuff and its an easy target.
There is also alot of generic shut down. The word useless is used in place of situational all the time. Unequal ability comparisons abound. miss information, strawman arguments, red herrings, "Poisoning the well" fallacies all just leave a bad taste in some peoples Mouths.
Many of these issues are addressed as options in Tasha's. I'm glad Tasha's exists. However, I would rather have situational expertise in all intelligence and wisdom checks than guaranteed expertise in just one. Some people disagree.
I'll avoid the generous interpretation of the "related to your favored terrain" part. A rogue has expertise in two skills all of the time. While a ranger has proficiency in two skills all of the time. At level one the ranger has expertise and many other abilities beyond that in one terrain. Then two terrains. And finally three. For me the math "loss" of playing a ranger compared to a very specific rogue subclass is not much and greatly exceeded by the gains. Situational? Sure. But the ranger, and I'd say even more with a beast master, has their spells to really interact with the natural environment. Druids have the same thing going for them in that they aren't skill experts but they interact with nature through their spells. i just see the ranger of a little of class A and a little of class B.
You are correct about DM's giving information to their players for free. Or players knowing things that seep into their character knowing it. Or not using rules of the game that are baked into the ranger class. Ranger's abilities are a direct conduit between the character and the DMs world in regards to information about the land and fantastic creatures. The battle master has a little something for this at level 7, I believe. Difficult terrain is rarely used as much as it should be. That's a large part of the abilities of the mid level ranger.
To answer your question, I don't care for Tasha's much at all. Just for me, though. I know players like more subclasses and options, and WotC wants to sell books. But it's not for me. It's a little "creepy" and "bloaty".
I'm sorry but you are wrong according to RAW Roscoeivan.
From favored enemy:
These are the only mechanical benefits you gain from FE. Sure, nothing is stopping you from using insight as part of your tracker routine, but FE will not give you a mechanical advantage on said check in any way. To rule as such is DM fiat.
You even go on to say as such, that it is up to DM adjudication. You're missing the HUGE problem with that though. No other class requires DM fiat (and attention) to have their main low level class abilities have broadly applicable benefits. Or if they do in the case of something like Thieves' Cant, it comes alongside other more generally useful abilities. This point has been repeated ad nauseum at this point, and frankly has not been met with a meaningful rebuttal. Mentioning it works just fine in your campaign because of XYZ factors means nothing to the multitude of people that have experienced the opposite in their own campaigns.
And can we please all recognize just how niche the advantage from FE really is? This is not advantage on all survival checks and intelligence checks. This is advantage on two specific functions of those skill checks.
FrankReynoldsGaryGygax: I think your comparison of rogue expertise vs FE really misses the mark because of that. Rogue expertise effects all uses of the chosen skills. FE only benefits a small portion of the uses for those skills. Also, rogues get two more expertise at 6, so FE scaling up to effect more is not a unique feature to lean on.
Edit: I just realized you were comparing to NE, not FE, sorry! I'll keep my thought because I think its a solid point, but to address the comparison to NE, I think the scaling argument is still lacking because a rogue gets more expertise at 6. And again, NE is a pile of incredibly niche uses while expertise effects every function you can come up with for a skill.
And this is at the heart of what I don't like about these abilities. If a ranger wants to make use of their explorer skills like insight, perception, nature or even a non-tracking use of survival, they really aren't better than any other class with those proficiencies. And please, no more mentioning traveling faster and foraging for more food. Those are so niche as to need a term further down the ladder than "ribbon". Most campaigns ignore these elements or touch on them very sparingly. They are also not problems that are so difficult to overcome as to need a mechanical benefit to achieve.
Korbin_Orion: Loving the horizontal line work.
What is recalling information? the only place it is defined in the rules is the PHB on intelligence checks. The dm is only needed to determine if the benefit Of Information about your Chosen creatures actually applies to the check. (EDIT: I realized it was insight and not investigation but you can make an insight with intelligence if the dm allows )
Intelligence Checks
An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning. The Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion skills reflect aptitude in certain kinds of Intelligence checks.
Untrue statement that no other class relies on it. Not counting, the fact that the dm determines when every skill check applies. It all comes down to how reasonably the dm is about your abilities. You are right about it being a huge problem because that's where all these debates end up. Wild magic sorcerers are a prime example. the mechanics give the dm control incase you have someone surging at a really bad moment and potentially killing off other pc's but some dms take it too far and never allow "tides" to trigger.
Wild magic sorcerer:
Tides of Chaos
Starting at 1st level, you can manipulate the forces of chance and chaos to gain advantage on one attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. Once you do so, you must finish a long rest before you can use this feature again.
Any time before you regain the use of this feature, the DM can have you roll on the Wild Magic Surge table immediately after you cast a sorcerer spell of 1st level or higher. You then regain the use of this feature.
The same could be turned around and just because you have a XYZ situation that didn't work doesn't make it flawed. Maybe there is a wrong core understanding of how it works. maybe there is a open area with room for adjustment to make it work.
Ok. So, the scout rogue gets more expertise at level 6, for a total of six skills with expertise. That is really great! All the ranger gets is three skills with proficiency. Most other classes get two. Then backgrounds of course, and some races. So the ranger is as good as anyone else that, 1. has these skills available, and 2. chooses to take them instead of something else.
A rogue gets nothing else for wilderness exploration or travel. Nothing. I think that's fair. That's what a rogue does. If you want to build an outdoor wilderness explorer you can choose a scout rogue, an archer fighter, a druid, a ranger, or any other silly multiclass combination and have some real fun! If a ranger is never in their favored terrain, not once, for an entire campaign, they still have spells that are geared towards the same stuff. Food, water, scouting, travel, survival, and tracking, all through magic. When they are in their favored terrain they are not only as good but better than the scout rogue.
Because they don't need it. Expertise in the appropriate skills is all you need to feel like a competent explorer. And again, because expertise applies to all uses of the skills, you will end up feeling like a more diversely skilled explorer.
Rangers on the other hand have to resort to picking up expertise from an outside source, or DM fiat to have their explorer abilities have broad reaching applications. This isn't even about choosing the right enemy or terrain to me. That's just the first layer of the problem. This is about the inherent limitations on what aspects of exploration NE and FE benefit when you can use them.
I'd like to talk about Tool Proficiencies and mechanics that benefit them, because I believe that is what FE and NE are in disguise.
From Xanathar's:
Bolded for relevance. FE is essentially giving advantage to the use of a tracking tool. It doesn't effect the use of survival and intelligence checks in all their forms, it gives advantage on a specific function of said skills. NE is also essentially a mechanical boost to an explorer's tool. The listed functions are broader than FE, but still fail to encompass all of what can be done with the appropriate "explorer" skills.
NE and FE are much closer to getting expertise in two tools than it is to getting expertise in skills.
It is common knowledge that tools (and boosts to them) are worth less than skills and skills boosts. The devs themselves recognize it in that passage from Xanathar's by trying to answer their OWN question, why would someone care about tools over skills. These are the ONLY unique class abilities a Ranger gets at level 1. The rogue comparison keeps being used, but because it is so poignant. Just the two expertise that they get compares incredibly favorably to NE and FE when you realize they are little more than tool bonuses. And then you have sneak attack and thieves' cant. The ranger simply does not get enough at level one when compared to every other class in the game. No other class gets anything as weak as two tool improvements as their only level 1 class abilities. Having one extra skill than the rest of the d10 martials does not make up for it.
D&D = DM fiat
My brain is starting to wear out. Most of you obviously play a kind of D&D that I don't. The situations and uses (or lack thereof) of abilities and rules you provide me are confusing at best to me.
When someone says DM fiat is bad, I here what a great class to work so closely with the DM. The DM isn't the enemy. Why is that seen as such a horrible thing?
I'm fine with not combat focused abilities. I actually think favored enemy and natural terrain would be fairly good abilities if there were no choices involved. As it is stands they're too situational. And you're right in a previous comment where you said that the ranger had spells that can do similar things. To me that just further makes me view these abilities as redundant and not very good.
I think at this time we should all just agree to disagree. Frank and surely others like the PHB ranger. That's good for them. The rest of us think there are some problems but there are new options in Tasha's that at least to a point alleviates some of those problems. That's good for the rest of us.
Denying or Ignoring abilities is bad form.
Even in the area of combat, The unique tracking abilities allows you to know exact numbers and a time line for when they passed through is useful. It has made the difference determining if the party could do planning and prep for several combat encounters. Sometimes allowing the group to take on much more dangerous situations than they could have otherwise.
Also the spells that replicate other abilities allow for customization if you couldn't arrange your base stats to where your covered you have a backup or you can diversify and have extra "tools" to use for various situations. not all rangers can have max wis, int and dex but the spells choices can make up for whichever one you didn't.
My last campaign had to have been one of the lowest resource, logistically grueling campaigns ever to campaign. To give you an idea, we started at level 1 with NO equipment. None. I was a diviner wizard with no spellbook or component pouch. I had to roll to see if I could stow away a piece of animal fat during a prison meal to have the material component to cast Grease. I have never played in a campaign that cared as much about food and travel as this one did.
This was a campaign set in the underdark with a gloomstalker ranger on the team.
With literally everything you can have in the game lining up to have NE and FE useful they were still rarely used.
Roscoeivan, yes NE gives a boost to a broader spectrum of uses. But it is still limited in use by the terrain mechanic. It is also limited by something hidden in the way Rangers are built. Your mental stats are not your primary stats, and so as I said above, you are not guaranteed to be any better at using those skills than someone else in the party even when you are in your element.
FE and NE are boosting what amount to tool proficiencies and nothing more.
I mean if you want to nitpick on my use of hyperbolic language in one sentence to try and pick a hole in my argument then fine. But you don't even do it well. Tides of Chaos has a base use that is incredibly broad in its use. The only thing that mentions DM fiat is having the ability to use it again. That's like giving the barbarian text that says "the DM can make you roll on an effect table to gain a use of rage". It doesn't make the base ability reliant on the DM.
But you're really missing my point. If another class had only situation abilities as class features it wouldn't stop it from being a problem for the Ranger.
I love these ranger battles :)
But, my ignorance question for today...what is DM fiat?
Then you're hearing things that nobody is saying. Listen to people's words and what they say they mean, not what you think they mean. You literally just made something up out of nowhere that absolutely no one is expressing because you needed a new argument since all of your others up to this point have failed to hold any weight.
I work with every single one of my players very closely regardless of class. I try to work with every DM if I am a player, regardless of class, and I am disappointed when the DM doesn't engage. This is not what people are complaining about in regards to the Ranger.
Again making stuff up. You're not responding to the argument being made that you quoted. The majority of those are roleplay.
What's being skipped is food. Because of how trivial it is to say "I bought 5 days of food, I use 3 days of food while traveling." Because if you micromanage all of that you're going to spend 30 minutes every session counting copper and silver to figure out how much to spend on your rations. Why not roll to see if it is spoiled, too?
There is a very handy chart for players to use to determine general upkeep and living expenses. The highest it goes is a few gold per week. I tell my players when a week has passed, decide how much you want to spend on your upkeep and living expenses for the next week based on those charts. If a DM skips that, fine, no big loss.
What's being skipped in regards to travel is the DM saying "You travel one hour, nothing happens. You travel for another hour, nothing happens. You travel for the third hour, nothing happens." Because the DM is going to save time by rolling and saying "Nothing happens for the entire day" or "After X hours you come across a _______, what do you do?"
Like, where is your argument going to go by saying "resting" is a big issue for the Ranger? Every night in the wilderness the DM asks for the party to set up a watch. The DM rolls for encounters or brings out a prepared scenario. Where does Ranger make such a huge mechanical difference in these scenarios and in such a way that absolutely no other class can fill that role.
At best the Ranger gets to act on a surprise round, but that is only at a generous DM's discretion and likely with a successful perception check (no bonuses RAW) seeing as how WotC couldn't even give the Ranger that much in plain text. And I mean with a VERY generous interpretation of "Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger."
The adventure is roleplaying. The adventure is the DMs narration, the players interacting with the world. The Ranger doesn't hold any sway over that any more than any other class.
Diam fiat: For the purposes of this discussion it is essentially synonymous with DM's discretion or "because the DM decided to."
No one is saying they don't like working with the DM.
The point is people don't want to be forced to before a campaign even starts to get the most out of their class. If you don't mind this, not a problem. But saying so is not a counter argument. Whether you enjoy needing to work with the DM before the campaign is not something that can be proven in any meaningful way. It's all just personal opinion. But what can be argued is whether the Ranger's abilities are overly niche or not. Not to 100% certainty of course, but it is at least something that can use comparison and analysis to debate.
What abilities have been ignored? I think there have been a number of thorough breakdowns of what these abilities (especially NE and FE) are capable of and why people think they are overly niche.
I was not using tool in the general sense of the word. I was comparing NE and FE to the DnD specific term TOOL. As in thieves' tools. Considering that both NE and FE benefit specific functions of skills, and that TOOLS are said to do the same in Xanathar's makes this an apt comparison in my mind. This was done to point out how weak NE and FE are compared to expertise and illustrate that the Ranger does not get enough at level 1.
All you have to do is look at the artificer to know the game recognizes this balance.
Compared to the rogue getting expertise in two specific skills, this ability gives you expertise in ALL tool proficiencies you have. They needed to do something to make this ability reach the level of practical use that two skill expertise have.
FE and NE have no such balance in place.
You are so aggressive. Are you upset? What is wrong with you? Right or wrong your tone towards me is rough, to say the least. I'm telling you that the ranger plays differently in my experience and estimation. Nothing you offer in retort is math or hard facts. Just your opinion.
I have to admit that you make a lot of very strong, well thought out arguments. I have to agree with you across the entire line except for one part.
I feel like you are putting a lot of weight on FS's bonus to damage while i feel like it's main selling point is the bonus to to hit. Let me be clear here, I am no longer arguing that FS is good. Instead, I am arguing that the to hit bonus is it's important part.
At level 20 a standard attack from a ranger can deal quite some damage. 1d8 + 3 + 1d6 + 5 + 10 = 26 (longbow, +3 weapon, hunter's mark, 20 dex, sharpshooter. All seem pretty standard assumptions to me). This is disregarding stuff like poisoned arrows, better legendary weapons, bracers of archery or subclass damage bonusses. Assuming a wisdom of 18, this means that you have a 1/5 chance that this ability can turn a miss into a hit. That means a 1/5 chance of adding 26 damage to your turn. This 1/5 chance gets repeated for each continuous shot. You might argue that it is only a 1/5 chance but hey, if your shot misses by more than that, you wouldn't have benefited from any other class either. You can still try again for your next shot since nothing is wasted. If your initial shot would in fact have hit, you now have to choice to either add 4 free damage to your shot or keep this as insurance for your next shot. Compared to that, adding an average of 3.5 damage to your turn does seem a lot less appealing. I'm just saying, making sure your attack actually hits is much more important than adding some damage to it.
But yeah, the versatility and other added features of the rogue do still seem very compelling against the power in the narrow niche this provides
Yes, I definitely didn't express very well the differences between a + to hit vs DMG.
A lot of it boils down to your last line "making sure your attack actually hits is much more important than adding some damage to it."
Providing Foe Slayer to Favored Enemies at level 1 would have gone such a long way in improving the Ranger's design. It's still just as niche, just as reliant on being in a lucky campaign or DM fiat.
If the DM can account for a player making sure their Ranger features are not underutilized then they can also account for making sure it isn't overutilized as well. Which is actually another problem. Now there is the concern that if my DM thinks a level one Foe Slayer is too powerful, then they may reduce the number of encounters with my FE to curb that, and why moving Foe Slayer to level 1 still isn't good enough on its own, just a big boost.
In my current campaign 5th level Ranger has never faced his Favored Enemy. Switched out to Favored Foe last session and used it two or three times. I have used Survival (in multiple ways including tracking) with expertise. Its glorious and makes the character start to feel like they are doing something instead of just skipping what you do best or ignoring it.
Of note pairing Favored Foe and Foe Slayer means you will actually be able to use Foe Slayer in any given fight. That at least takes the situationality out of the ability. Its still underpowered, and it wouldn't make me regret taking a level (or 3 or more) dip in Rogue, Fighter, Cleric, or Druid, but it is an improvement.
The biggest problem with foe slayer is that it's at 20th level. Lets say you slapped Foe Slayer down to a level 2 ability. Does it get overpowered? It's still situational, but you gain more than story benefit with favored enemy and with favored foe you get 2 targets(concentrated) per long rest at that level. If they somehow had 20 dex and 20 wisdom at that level, they'd have a +14 to hit(with archery and no magic weapon) with the best possible accuracy being 95% chance to hit(cause of nat 1s). It can be used more for adding damage at lower levels, and still, can only be used once a turn.
I'm not trying say to say Foe Slayer is bad, I'm saying this is like making the paladins smite a level 20 capstone. It gives the class it's opportunity to shine in combat which 5e is most heavily balanced for.