Show the math??? Look at the number of Class Features that don't get used when not using Hunter's Mark??????? I've shown that SO MANY TIMES. Level 1, occasionally partially level 3 because of subclass, level 13, level 17, and level 20. At minimum, that's a 5th, at max, it can be a 4th. Idk how that math is so hard to understand.
I'm not talking about the count of features that go unused. I'm talking about your assertion that not using those features "makes you weaker than every other class." I even bolded it to make it clear what I was referring to. So if you want to support that assertion, show math.
because the defining feature is a concentration bonus action spell. like I've said, in other comments again, using Rage doesn't prevent you from using class options presented unless you decide to to multiclass into a spellcaster with spells that require concentration. Also, I never said Hunter's Mark makes Rangers weaker than other classes. It doesn't. requiring HM to use a 5th of your classes does make it weaker than other classes. I'm fine with playing the new ranger to give it a go, as I've always liked the idea of Rangers, but neither the thematic abilities of the 2014 edition, nor the streamlined abilities of the 2024 edition, give way to a unique class that feels different. Sure, you can now give the Ranger more spells, let them change spells, and give them Expertise...that doesn't make them different than the Bard or Rogue. The special things they get access to that make them different are, what, Roving to gain more movement speed with a climb and swim speed, reducing Exhaustion on short rests and gaining temporary hit points with Tireless, bonus action to straight up turn invisible with Nature's Veil, and Blindsight at level 18 with Feral Sense. Maybe it's enough for others, and that's completely ok, but it's just sad that everything else "unique" to the class is just class features that other classes can get, especially the survival, navigator type abilities (i.e. Expertise and Spells).
Also, like I've said before (jesus, it feels like I've said that many times already. I wonder why?), if you build around Hunter's Mark, your damage is similar to Rogue's with Sneak Attack, so damage has never been an issue.
I don't really care that Rage doesn't prevent a barbarian from using class options because the barbarian is not a gish; it has almost no use for their bonus action at all. At least we agree that devoting several features to augmenting the class defining feature is not a bad thing though.
How is the ranger weaker because its design is around Hunter's Mark? It seems to me that it is pretty powerful.
The 2024 ranger is the first ranger that I have been interested in playing, so from my standpoint, it does feel pretty different. What makes the new ranger different than the rogue is the inclusion of spellcasting and being more hardy. What makes the new ranger different from the bard is that it can deliver much higher martial ability and is far more mobile and durable.
Other members of the Expert Group can be highly skilled in survival and navigator type abilities, but will they? Sometimes, maybe, but I would certainly think that a member of the Expert Group should be able to be polymaths; they were meant to be at the very least. What the rogue and the bard cannot do even with that is take on the harshness of the environment like the ranger can. That is still locked into the ranger's thematic and functional lane.
it's more power IF a Ranger decides to play with Hunter's Mark and not other abilities. Like I've said and others have said in this thread, the Rangers damage keeps up with the Rogue, which is nice, but only IF they use Hunter's Mark. If they don't and decide to use other spells and focus on them, then they are weaker.
Also, the new Ranger doesn't have ANY class features that help them "take on the harshness of the environment." The feature's that do anything of the sort are just spells and expertise, which other classes get access to. What, reducing exhaustion? Gaining a Climb or Swim speed? The "theme" isn't even there.
Show the math??? Look at the number of Class Features that don't get used when not using Hunter's Mark??????? I've shown that SO MANY TIMES. Level 1, occasionally partially level 3 because of subclass, level 13, level 17, and level 20. At minimum, that's a 5th, at max, it can be a 4th. Idk how that math is so hard to understand.
I'm not talking about the count of features that go unused. I'm talking about your assertion that not using those features "makes you weaker than every other class." I even bolded it to make it clear what I was referring to. So if you want to support that assertion, show math.
Oh my god. they have class features to use. not even just less. they miss out on, I'll say it one last time and hopefully you'll read it, One 5th of the classes class features, at minimum.
Like I've said and others have said in this thread, the Rangers damage keeps up with the Rogue, which is nice, but only IF they use Hunter's Mark. If they don't and decide to use other spells and focus on them, then they are weaker.
Well, not really. There are a lot of spells out there. If a ranger wants to snap off a Lightning Arrow attack, is the ranger really weaker, or did they just want to chain an attack to another target?
Also, the new Ranger doesn't have ANY class features that help them "take on the harshness of the environment." The feature's that do anything of the sort are just spells and expertise, which other classes get access to. What, reducing exhaustion? Gaining a Climb or Swim speed? The "theme" isn't even there.
Tireless objectively accomplishes what I said here. Not only can you just will yourself to have extra hitpoints, but you can reduce exhaustion caused by the environment that other classes cannot do without taking a long rest. Though you may be right about flavor; as it can address all-cause exhaustion, not just that imposed on the ranger because of environmental factors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Tireless does help them take on the harshness of the environment, because things like intense heat/cold, starvation, rigorous travel, and lack of long rests are just a few things that can cause Exhaustion, and the ranger can just shrug it off. If that is not helping them deal with the harshness of the environment, I am not sure what you are expecting.
Gaining a climbing and swim speed that others would not be able to match is another feature that helps the ranger deal with the environment. Sure, other classes can overcome those same obstacles with magic, but they have to cast those spells, in some cases can only select a couple of targets, and the ranger just gets it. Fly is a great example of this. It only allows you to apply it to one target at a third level casting and it would allow someone to easily soar over, say, a rushing river, but it would require upcasting to give to other targets and that would get expensive quickly. Depending on the situation, it can also be a great waste of a spell slot.
I do not see why rangers can only be good if they corner some niche that no other class can even function in. There should be overlap and different ways for different classes to deal with most situations. This is a collaborative game and not every party will have a ranger.
Oh my god. they have class features to use. not even just less. they miss out on, I'll say it one last time and hopefully you'll read it, One 5th of the classes class features, at minimum.
So zero math supporting "makes you weaker than every other class." Didn't think so.
Oh my god. they have class features to use. not even just less. they miss out on, I'll say it one last time and hopefully you'll read it, One 5th of the classes class features, at minimum.
So zero math supporting "makes you weaker than every other class." Didn't think so.
Considering you didn't read my response, again, proves my point. You're either not reading a very simple sentence, OR you're choosing to ignore it. It's your perogative, my guy.
The new HM can be compared to the barbarians rage. When you want to do your most and be the strongest, use HM/rage. Youre going to be useful even if you dont.
But nobody is mad that a bunch of the Barbarians features are tied to Rage.
The new HM can be compared to the barbarians rage. When you want to do your most and be the strongest, use HM/rage. Youre going to be useful even if you dont.
But nobody is mad that a bunch of the Barbarians features are tied to Rage.
While rage has limitations, not the least of which is a similar inability to concentrate on anything else (technically not concentrating on the rage but still precludes concentration on spells), it does not use spell slots nor do barbarians have anything else they need concentration for (or need spell slots for, for that matter). It does not preclude the use of other barbarian abilities. HM does preclude the use of other ranger abilities.
That would be why Rage does not get the same level of concern.
Like I've said and others have said in this thread, the Rangers damage keeps up with the Rogue, which is nice, but only IF they use Hunter's Mark. If they don't and decide to use other spells and focus on them, then they are weaker.
Well, not really. There are a lot of spells out there. If a ranger wants to snap off a Lightning Arrow attack, is the ranger really weaker, or did they just want to chain an attack to another target?
Also, the new Ranger doesn't have ANY class features that help them "take on the harshness of the environment." The feature's that do anything of the sort are just spells and expertise, which other classes get access to. What, reducing exhaustion? Gaining a Climb or Swim speed? The "theme" isn't even there.
Tireless objectively accomplishes what I said here. Not only can you just will yourself to have extra hitpoints, but you can reduce exhaustion caused by the environment that other classes cannot do without taking a long rest. Though you may be right about flavor; as it can address all-cause exhaustion, not just that imposed on the ranger because of environmental factors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Tireless does help them take on the harshness of the environment, because things like intense heat/cold, starvation, rigorous travel, and lack of long rests are just a few things that can cause Exhaustion, and the ranger can just shrug it off. If that is not helping them deal with the harshness of the environment, I am not sure what you are expecting.
Gaining a climbing and swim speed that others would not be able to match is another feature that helps the ranger deal with the environment. Sure, other classes can overcome those same obstacles with magic, but they have to cast those spells, in some cases can only select a couple of targets, and the ranger just gets it. Fly is a great example of this. It only allows you to apply it to one target at a third level casting and it would allow someone to easily soar over, say, a rushing river, but it would require upcasting to give to other targets and that would get expensive quickly. Depending on the situation, it can also be a great waste of a spell slot.
I do not see why rangers can only be good if they corner some niche that no other class can even function in. There should be overlap and different ways for different classes to deal with most situations. This is a collaborative game and not every party will have a ranger.
Oh my god. they have class features to use. not even just less. they miss out on, I'll say it one last time and hopefully you'll read it, One 5th of the classes class features, at minimum.
Okay, setting aside how baffling an idea it is that you would absolutely never use Hunter's Mark, you seem really attached to this point that one fourth fifth of the Ranger's kit is devoted to this one feature. But that isn't even true. You took the number of levels at which the Ranger gets Hunter's Mark improvements (4) and divided it into the total number of levels (20) to get 1/5... But the Ranger gets other things at almost all those levels.
At level 1, they get HM, Spellcasting, and weapon mastery. If we want to be very simplistic about it, we could call that 1/3 of a level devoted to HM.
The next HM improvement is at level 13, which is the same level the Ranger gets access to 4th level spells. So that's 1/2 a level devoted to HM, putting us at 5/6 of a level overall.
Next HM improvement is at 17th, again split with a Spellcasting improvement for 1/2 the level dedicated to HM, putting us at 1-1/3 levels.
Finally, at level 20 Foe Slayer is fully an HM improvement; this is the only level in the game at which the Ranger only gets an HM improvement, putting us at a total of 2-1/3 levels out of 20 dedicated to the feature, or slightly more than 1/9th of the Ranger's feature space. This is about the same amount of space the 2014 Druid dedicates to Wild Shape, and less space than the 2014 Fighter dedicates to Indomitable.
Tireless objectively accomplishes what I said here. Not only can you just will yourself to have extra hitpoints, but you can reduce exhaustion caused by the environment that other classes cannot do without taking a long rest. Though you may be right about flavor; as it can address all-cause exhaustion, not just that imposed on the ranger because of environmental factors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Tireless does help them take on the harshness of the environment, because things like intense heat/cold, starvation, rigorous travel, and lack of long rests are just a few things that can cause Exhaustion, and the ranger can just shrug it off. If that is not helping them deal with the harshness of the environment, I am not sure what you are expecting.
Gaining a climbing and swim speed that others would not be able to match is another feature that helps the ranger deal with the environment. Sure, other classes can overcome those same obstacles with magic, but they have to cast those spells, in some cases can only select a couple of targets, and the ranger just gets it. Fly is a great example of this. It only allows you to apply it to one target at a third level casting and it would allow someone to easily soar over, say, a rushing river, but it would require upcasting to give to other targets and that would get expensive quickly. Depending on the situation, it can also be a great waste of a spell slot.
I do not see why rangers can only be good if they corner some niche that no other class can even function in. There should be overlap and different ways for different classes to deal with most situations. This is a collaborative game and not every party will have a ranger.
It's odd that, with all Ranger loses, Tireless is somehow so valuable. It's a rather piddling amount of temporary HP, that requires an action and thus is impractical to use in combat. Exhaustion is typically something that can affect the entire party, and doesn't always come up to begin with, so it isn't much of a help if only one party member can deal with such easily.
That is somehow an appropriate "niche" for the Ranger, though? It's not about creating a "niche", it's about the idea that a Ranger should have unique abilities that enable them to do certain things better than a Bard...without magic being the only option for them to do so.
The ranger isn't losing anything of mechanical value from the 2014 rules. For 20 pages, lovers of the 2014 rules have been outraged over losing flavor features that did practically nothing at all. Tireless is not some mechanical wonder either, nor was it intended to be and nor was I suggesting that it is. I was merely saying that it is a feature that helps a ranger deal with the harshness of the environment in ways that other classes simply do not get. I also stated that it makes the ranger more hardy. Both of these statements are objectively true.
The number of hitpoints is good enough. It is between 2-3 times what you might get from False Life, depending on what your wisdom modifier is. You aren't really meant to use it in combat, just like you aren't really meant to burn an action in combat for False Life. You do it before and after combat because it lasts until you long rest. It amounts to taking one or two hits and, in keeping with the other features, allows the ranger to shrug it off.
Exhaustion will definitely affect the entire party, but to say that having one party member fresh while others have 1st and 2nd level exhaustion is pretty silly. When your entire party is half as functional as it normally is, having one person who is fresh is actually really great. The only reason why I think the feature isn't that spectacular, based on my own experience, is that exhaustion doesn't come up too often. However, having gone through a blazing desert already in a party without a 2024 ranger, I can tell you that when the party is cracked with 2 levels of Exhaustion and a 3rd level looming, having someone who can still perform at 100% is deeply valuable. It is one of those things where it doesn't seem like such a big deal until you don't have it.
The ranger does have unique abilities that allow it to do certain things better than a bard though, so I guess we agree that the 2024 ranger is solid.
Considering you didn't read my response, again, proves my point. You're either not reading a very simple sentence, OR you're choosing to ignore it. It's your perogative, my guy.
I'm reading your non-arguments just fine. When you figure out how to support them one day, let me know.
Tireless objectively accomplishes what I said here. Not only can you just will yourself to have extra hitpoints, but you can reduce exhaustion caused by the environment that other classes cannot do without taking a long rest. Though you may be right about flavor; as it can address all-cause exhaustion, not just that imposed on the ranger because of environmental factors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Tireless does help them take on the harshness of the environment, because things like intense heat/cold, starvation, rigorous travel, and lack of long rests are just a few things that can cause Exhaustion, and the ranger can just shrug it off. If that is not helping them deal with the harshness of the environment, I am not sure what you are expecting.
I don't think Tireless actually defeats exhaustion from starvation/thirst, since the rule specifies that nothing can remove that kind of exhaustion besides actually eating and drinking. (Monk is a different matter since they just don't get exhausted from those to begin with.) But that's pretty moot on a class that gets Goodberry anyway. I agree with the rest of your points.
It's odd that, with all Ranger loses, Tireless is somehow so valuable. It's a rather piddling amount of temporary HP, that requires an action and thus is impractical to use in combat. Exhaustion is typically something that can affect the entire party, and doesn't always come up to begin with, so it isn't much of a help if only one party member can deal with such easily.
That is somehow an appropriate "niche" for the Ranger, though? It's not about creating a "niche", it's about the idea that a Ranger should have unique abilities that enable them to do certain things better than a Bard...without magic being the only option for them to do so.
What things, specifically, do you think a Ranger should be able to do better than a Bard?
Tireless objectively accomplishes what I said here. Not only can you just will yourself to have extra hitpoints, but you can reduce exhaustion caused by the environment that other classes cannot do without taking a long rest. Though you may be right about flavor; as it can address all-cause exhaustion, not just that imposed on the ranger because of environmental factors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Tireless does help them take on the harshness of the environment, because things like intense heat/cold, starvation, rigorous travel, and lack of long rests are just a few things that can cause Exhaustion, and the ranger can just shrug it off. If that is not helping them deal with the harshness of the environment, I am not sure what you are expecting.
I don't think Tireless actually defeats exhaustion from starvation/thirst, since the rule specifies that nothing can remove that kind of exhaustion besides actually eating and drinking. (Monk is a different matter since they just don't get exhausted from those to begin with.) But that's pretty moot on a class that gets Goodberry anyway. I agree with the rest of your points.
Good catch. I missed that. Like I said, Exhaustion conditions have not been something I have encountered too much of, so my knowledge on them isn't the best.
Considering you didn't read my response, again, proves my point. You're either not reading a very simple sentence, OR you're choosing to ignore it. It's your perogative, my guy.
I'm reading your non-arguments just fine. When you figure out how to support them one day, let me know.
Tireless objectively accomplishes what I said here. Not only can you just will yourself to have extra hitpoints, but you can reduce exhaustion caused by the environment that other classes cannot do without taking a long rest. Though you may be right about flavor; as it can address all-cause exhaustion, not just that imposed on the ranger because of environmental factors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Tireless does help them take on the harshness of the environment, because things like intense heat/cold, starvation, rigorous travel, and lack of long rests are just a few things that can cause Exhaustion, and the ranger can just shrug it off. If that is not helping them deal with the harshness of the environment, I am not sure what you are expecting.
I don't think Tireless actually defeats exhaustion from starvation/thirst, since the rule specifies that nothing can remove that kind of exhaustion besides actually eating and drinking. (Monk is a different matter since they just don't get exhausted from those to begin with.) But that's pretty moot on a class that gets Goodberry anyway. I agree with the rest of your points.
I swear...any time I see anyone pushing for some kind of terrain feature benefits, I vomit a little.
Seriously, this!
"Hey DM, do you think we'll be in any deserts this campaign?" What other class needs to ask that? It's ridiculous 😮💨
I've shown the math every time and it's very basic lmao again, on you for either not reading or understanding considering how many times I've explained it 🤷♂️
The 2014 (and earlier) rangers had a number of dedicated "ribbon" abilities for dealing with the wilderness. These were unfortunately limited by the restrictions on terrains and foes that the ranger effectively got expertise with. the scout rogue established a new level of outdoor skill by being outright granted expertise in nature and survival on top of the 4 expertise's that a rogue got. this made the abilities of the ranger weak in comparison. The UA2 and 2024 rangers did away with all the ribbon features granting the ranger enough expertise's to be able to match the woodcraft abilities of the scout rogue (Nature, Survival, & Stealth) making essentially any such abilities superfluous. Roving and tireless together grant the ranger the only other remaining potential problems with overland travel by increasing their speed and granting them climbing and swimming speeds which change the rules on how they handle climbs and swimming/underwater action while tireless grants a reserve in HP and a way to neutralize (for the ranger anyway) any excessive travel/fighting. While it would be nice if HM did away with concentration at L13 (or earlier) its nearly a moot point as most campaigns top out at that point anyway. As I pointed out on P17 much of the discussion about being centered on HM is really a bogus discussion as HM really only applies to fighting against high AC and HP foes and the boosts it gets are useful there. for all other foes other spells and tactics (besides just wading in wailing with a weapon) (I once effectively killed a young black dragon by entangling it in the seaweeds in its pool so others could get enough rounds to kill it before it could flee our assaults - a much better use of a concentration spell than anything HM then or now could have done in 1 round). Rangering, and especially ranger spell use, is really about creative solutions to problems from a limited set of spells and abilities. the 2024 ranger is a solid class, it's a definite improvement over the 2014 ranger even if its not quite as good as a level reworked UA2 ranger would have been. if you want to further improve the 2024 ranger 's outdoor abilities you pretty much need to grant it outright advantage on nature and survival skill checks - this would put it on a par with the scout rogue with reliable talent.
I'm not talking about the count of features that go unused. I'm talking about your assertion that not using those features "makes you weaker than every other class." I even bolded it to make it clear what I was referring to. So if you want to support that assertion, show math.
it's more power IF a Ranger decides to play with Hunter's Mark and not other abilities. Like I've said and others have said in this thread, the Rangers damage keeps up with the Rogue, which is nice, but only IF they use Hunter's Mark. If they don't and decide to use other spells and focus on them, then they are weaker.
Also, the new Ranger doesn't have ANY class features that help them "take on the harshness of the environment." The feature's that do anything of the sort are just spells and expertise, which other classes get access to. What, reducing exhaustion? Gaining a Climb or Swim speed? The "theme" isn't even there.
Oh my god. they have class features to use. not even just less. they miss out on, I'll say it one last time and hopefully you'll read it, One 5th of the classes class features, at minimum.
Sure, but why wouldn't a ranger use the spell that is designed for their class?
Well, not really. There are a lot of spells out there. If a ranger wants to snap off a Lightning Arrow attack, is the ranger really weaker, or did they just want to chain an attack to another target?
Tireless objectively accomplishes what I said here. Not only can you just will yourself to have extra hitpoints, but you can reduce exhaustion caused by the environment that other classes cannot do without taking a long rest. Though you may be right about flavor; as it can address all-cause exhaustion, not just that imposed on the ranger because of environmental factors. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Tireless does help them take on the harshness of the environment, because things like intense heat/cold, starvation, rigorous travel, and lack of long rests are just a few things that can cause Exhaustion, and the ranger can just shrug it off. If that is not helping them deal with the harshness of the environment, I am not sure what you are expecting.
Gaining a climbing and swim speed that others would not be able to match is another feature that helps the ranger deal with the environment. Sure, other classes can overcome those same obstacles with magic, but they have to cast those spells, in some cases can only select a couple of targets, and the ranger just gets it. Fly is a great example of this. It only allows you to apply it to one target at a third level casting and it would allow someone to easily soar over, say, a rushing river, but it would require upcasting to give to other targets and that would get expensive quickly. Depending on the situation, it can also be a great waste of a spell slot.
I do not see why rangers can only be good if they corner some niche that no other class can even function in. There should be overlap and different ways for different classes to deal with most situations. This is a collaborative game and not every party will have a ranger.
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So zero math supporting "makes you weaker than every other class." Didn't think so.
Considering you didn't read my response, again, proves my point. You're either not reading a very simple sentence, OR you're choosing to ignore it. It's your perogative, my guy.
man i should really make some popcorn this is funny
The new HM can be compared to the barbarians rage. When you want to do your most and be the strongest, use HM/rage. Youre going to be useful even if you dont.
But nobody is mad that a bunch of the Barbarians features are tied to Rage.
While rage has limitations, not the least of which is a similar inability to concentrate on anything else (technically not concentrating on the rage but still precludes concentration on spells), it does not use spell slots nor do barbarians have anything else they need concentration for (or need spell slots for, for that matter). It does not preclude the use of other barbarian abilities. HM does preclude the use of other ranger abilities.
That would be why Rage does not get the same level of concern.
I swear...any time I see anyone pushing for some kind of terrain feature benefits, I vomit a little.
I love the new identity of the Ranger. With a custom background I can see a Str stat distribution looking like
Str - 15 (+1) Dex - 13 (+1) Con - 12 Wis - 15 (+1) int cha -8
Getting Tough as a 1st lvl feat makes having Con at 12 not hurt as much. Not being able to lose concentration on HM is great for STRangers.
Human STRanger with Tough and Magic Inititate is looking pretty good at lvl 1.
You do have a point when it comes to Tireless lol
im still of the HB fix to just take away HM concentration at 13th level (if it doesnt scale in damage or anything like that)
We will have to see how much that concentration matters when wee see all the spell changes.
Okay, setting aside how baffling an idea it is that you would absolutely never use Hunter's Mark, you seem really attached to this point that one
fourthfifth of the Ranger's kit is devoted to this one feature. But that isn't even true. You took the number of levels at which the Ranger gets Hunter's Mark improvements (4) and divided it into the total number of levels (20) to get 1/5... But the Ranger gets other things at almost all those levels.At level 1, they get HM, Spellcasting, and weapon mastery. If we want to be very simplistic about it, we could call that 1/3 of a level devoted to HM.
The next HM improvement is at level 13, which is the same level the Ranger gets access to 4th level spells. So that's 1/2 a level devoted to HM, putting us at 5/6 of a level overall.
Next HM improvement is at 17th, again split with a Spellcasting improvement for 1/2 the level dedicated to HM, putting us at 1-1/3 levels.
Finally, at level 20 Foe Slayer is fully an HM improvement; this is the only level in the game at which the Ranger only gets an HM improvement, putting us at a total of 2-1/3 levels out of 20 dedicated to the feature, or slightly more than 1/9th of the Ranger's feature space. This is about the same amount of space the 2014 Druid dedicates to Wild Shape, and less space than the 2014 Fighter dedicates to Indomitable.
The ranger isn't losing anything of mechanical value from the 2014 rules. For 20 pages, lovers of the 2014 rules have been outraged over losing flavor features that did practically nothing at all. Tireless is not some mechanical wonder either, nor was it intended to be and nor was I suggesting that it is. I was merely saying that it is a feature that helps a ranger deal with the harshness of the environment in ways that other classes simply do not get. I also stated that it makes the ranger more hardy. Both of these statements are objectively true.
The number of hitpoints is good enough. It is between 2-3 times what you might get from False Life, depending on what your wisdom modifier is. You aren't really meant to use it in combat, just like you aren't really meant to burn an action in combat for False Life. You do it before and after combat because it lasts until you long rest. It amounts to taking one or two hits and, in keeping with the other features, allows the ranger to shrug it off.
Exhaustion will definitely affect the entire party, but to say that having one party member fresh while others have 1st and 2nd level exhaustion is pretty silly. When your entire party is half as functional as it normally is, having one person who is fresh is actually really great. The only reason why I think the feature isn't that spectacular, based on my own experience, is that exhaustion doesn't come up too often. However, having gone through a blazing desert already in a party without a 2024 ranger, I can tell you that when the party is cracked with 2 levels of Exhaustion and a 3rd level looming, having someone who can still perform at 100% is deeply valuable. It is one of those things where it doesn't seem like such a big deal until you don't have it.
The ranger does have unique abilities that allow it to do certain things better than a bard though, so I guess we agree that the 2024 ranger is solid.
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I'm reading your non-arguments just fine. When you figure out how to support them one day, let me know.
I don't think Tireless actually defeats exhaustion from starvation/thirst, since the rule specifies that nothing can remove that kind of exhaustion besides actually eating and drinking. (Monk is a different matter since they just don't get exhausted from those to begin with.) But that's pretty moot on a class that gets Goodberry anyway. I agree with the rest of your points.
Seriously, this!
"Hey DM, do you think we'll be in any deserts this campaign?" What other class needs to ask that? It's ridiculous 😮💨
What things, specifically, do you think a Ranger should be able to do better than a Bard?
Good catch. I missed that. Like I said, Exhaustion conditions have not been something I have encountered too much of, so my knowledge on them isn't the best.
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I've shown the math every time and it's very basic lmao again, on you for either not reading or understanding considering how many times I've explained it 🤷♂️
The 2014 (and earlier) rangers had a number of dedicated "ribbon" abilities for dealing with the wilderness. These were unfortunately limited by the restrictions on terrains and foes that the ranger effectively got expertise with. the scout rogue established a new level of outdoor skill by being outright granted expertise in nature and survival on top of the 4 expertise's that a rogue got. this made the abilities of the ranger weak in comparison. The UA2 and 2024 rangers did away with all the ribbon features granting the ranger enough expertise's to be able to match the woodcraft abilities of the scout rogue (Nature, Survival, & Stealth) making essentially any such abilities superfluous. Roving and tireless together grant the ranger the only other remaining potential problems with overland travel by increasing their speed and granting them climbing and swimming speeds which change the rules on how they handle climbs and swimming/underwater action while tireless grants a reserve in HP and a way to neutralize (for the ranger anyway) any excessive travel/fighting. While it would be nice if HM did away with concentration at L13 (or earlier) its nearly a moot point as most campaigns top out at that point anyway. As I pointed out on P17 much of the discussion about being centered on HM is really a bogus discussion as HM really only applies to fighting against high AC and HP foes and the boosts it gets are useful there. for all other foes other spells and tactics (besides just wading in wailing with a weapon) (I once effectively killed a young black dragon by entangling it in the seaweeds in its pool so others could get enough rounds to kill it before it could flee our assaults - a much better use of a concentration spell than anything HM then or now could have done in 1 round). Rangering, and especially ranger spell use, is really about creative solutions to problems from a limited set of spells and abilities. the 2024 ranger is a solid class, it's a definite improvement over the 2014 ranger even if its not quite as good as a level reworked UA2 ranger would have been. if you want to further improve the 2024 ranger 's outdoor abilities you pretty much need to grant it outright advantage on nature and survival skill checks - this would put it on a par with the scout rogue with reliable talent.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.