If you don't own the book, there are images of the Table Of Contents page out on the Internet, that'll tell you the names of every new player option that got in.
If you don't own the book, there are images of the Table Of Contents page out on the Internet, that'll tell you the names of every new player option that got in.
I totally forgot that you could do that. Thanks Saga and JD anyways.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Glad Twilight Cleric is official now, Sorcerer Transmutation meta magic is super OP, and having framework for you own custom race is really cool. The new spells are meh as well as the magic items but being able to change cantrips is a good thing. Not as good as Xanathar but not bad overall. Maybe we will get lucky with a book of magic with just new spells and items eventually.
I don't think it's worth the money. Some subclasses are nice (I like the twilight cleric and mercy monk), but the optional class feats are disappointing, the entire DM chapter seems more or less useless to me. Even the puzzles. I didn't read all of them but at least the first couple are somehow about finding specific words, which means I'll have to re-do the entire puzzle and handout if I want to run it for my german friends. There's a certain puzzle book on DMsguild that does a way better job about it.
All in all if there was an option to get a refund I would and try my luck with "Tashas Crucible of Everything Else" on Dmsguild instead.
In the other review thread, I came down as 'nothing great, nothing terrible, would borrow from friend or library.' In the ranger forum, you will see that I hate everything that the CFV as presented in Tasha's does. Canny now gives you less options to choose from for Expertise, Favored Foe is weaker than Hunter's Mark and still requires concentration, and they removed the most useful spells from Primal Awareness. I find the existing Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy really useful for working with the 'magical tracker' aesthetic -- the new Favored Foe is especially a turn from 'I can identify anything of this creature type and track it' to a reactive 'oh no a thing shot me I guess I'll do something about it.'
I've also seen a handful of people eyerolling over the session 0 part of chapter 4 -- if you're already doing this, then congratulations, you're probably also the people on this forum who tell newbies 'did you have a session 0?' This section is for all the people who aren't coming to forums like this, or who are new to the game! It's also probably, honestly, part of Wizards' attempt to be more welcoming to minority players. I'd really rather have that section in the book for somebody getting hassled to point to, or look at and realize 'that behavior that's making you uncomfortable doesn't have to be the only way to play the game.'
In the other review thread, I came down as 'nothing great, nothing terrible, would borrow from friend or library.' In the ranger forum, you will see that I hate everything that the CFV as presented in Tasha's does. Canny now gives you less options to choose from for Expertise, Favored Foe is weaker than Hunter's Mark and still requires concentration, and they removed the most useful spells from Primal Awareness. I find the existing Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy really useful for working with the 'magical tracker' aesthetic -- the new Favored Foe is especially a turn from 'I can identify anything of this creature type and track it' to a reactive 'oh no a thing shot me I guess I'll do something about it.'
I agree with your Favored Foe criticism, but I must point out that Canny actually gives you more options for expertise than it did in UA.
I easily find this the best supplement after Xanathars, mostly because I want rules from books as I can do all the fluff myself. That said, as with any release I think a few parts of this book will see heavy use and carry the rest that will only see very limited use.
In my opinion the best parts are: *Fully customizing stats, opening up for more interesting combinations without gimping your character. *Ranger gets a meaningfull boost, although one feature went from horrible to bad (the weak hunters mark thing) the rest are good. *Sorcerer got a serious buff none seem to talk about. They can now reroll counterspell/dispel checks for a measly 1 sorcery point (or reroll any skill check). That comes without downside. Personally I neven thought sorcerers were weak, but this certainly will be appreciated. *Barbarians got some straight up buffs I didn't know they needed, but its not like that class will even break anything. *Monks can finally use long-swords (katanas) without going into a highly debated class (Kensai). *Rogues get a use of their bonus action when up close and just stabbing people, as well as a reliable way of sneak attacking for free. *Psionics were well implemented, not creating a whole lot of uncessesary rules (new classes) to represent something that sorcerers already represent while still having some unique feel too it. *They found a good midle road when it comes to retraining. You can do it a little, but without swapping stuff on a daily basis. *Druids get some cool, and powerful subclasses - Stars and Wildfire comes to mind. *Some very cool magic items, for instance a thing making sorcerers teleport as a no-action almost at will. *They avoided removing racial restrictions, which would have made some combos very scary (Aasimar warlock with Elven accuracy etc.) *Fighting Initiate feat and Throwing fighting style both open up new meaningfull character designs.
What I see as the bad part: *Something that annoys me somewhat is that some stuff is even more front loaded than before. Twilight cleric is a powerhouse as a 1 level dip. 300 ft. darkvision, advantage on initiative, heavy armor proficiency and all martial proficiencies on top of spellcasting. That might even beat the previous record-holder Hexblade. *The book still don't address weak core designs such as gaining extra attack from two sources yielding no benefit. That is such a big setback that a lot of players will rather multiclass into something else than say fighter5/paladin5 (Rogue 5/paladin5 is a much better option). Giving a feat instead would be such an elegant solution, but instead we get a lot of niche stuff. *Would have liked to see more spells and more feats. *Druids and rangers still dont have Find Familiar and Find Greater Steed even though they are the prime candidates for those spells. *The way many abilities now key of proficiency makes me think that should also be changed for previous content, or that these new abilities should scale with class level instead. Anything keying of proficiency makes them very dippable. *Artificer Initiate is poorly designed. It should obviously grant an infusion instead of some measly spells. *There are some rather meaningless feats such as Shadow Touched and Fey Touched that feels like a developer made something they needed in one spesific campaign into a feat. Those concepts were already covered by existing feats. *Poison master solves the action economy problem of poisons, but still doesn't solve the problem of fixed save DC.
All in all, well worth it but still a lot of design space for another book ;)
I suppose it's down to how you look at it. The listed proficiencies you could choose from in the UA included proficiencies that you couldn't pick up from the Ranger class. If you take the printed version as allowing also racial or background proficiencies, then maybe, but only maybe.
In the other review thread, I came down as 'nothing great, nothing terrible, would borrow from friend or library.' In the ranger forum, you will see that I hate everything that the CFV as presented in Tasha's does. Canny now gives you less options to choose from for Expertise, Favored Foe is weaker than Hunter's Mark and still requires concentration, and they removed the most useful spells from Primal Awareness. I find the existing Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy really useful for working with the 'magical tracker' aesthetic -- the new Favored Foe is especially a turn from 'I can identify anything of this creature type and track it' to a reactive 'oh no a thing shot me I guess I'll do something about it.'
I've also seen a handful of people eyerolling over the session 0 part of chapter 4 -- if you're already doing this, then congratulations, you're probably also the people on this forum who tell newbies 'did you have a session 0?' This section is for all the people who aren't coming to forums like this, or who are new to the game! It's also probably, honestly, part of Wizards' attempt to be more welcoming to minority players. I'd really rather have that section in the book for somebody getting hassled to point to, or look at and realize 'that behavior that's making you uncomfortable doesn't have to be the only way to play the game.'
The languages and specificity of favored enemy are cool but I don't think they come up often enough, at least in my experience. Unless you're choosing humanoid races, I guess. It is worth noting that the favored foe ability gets better with levels and essentially just eclipses hunter's mark at a certain point, but I don't know if any high level ranger will be using hunter's mark over a different spell that requires concentration. The primal/primeval awareness features are both highly situational and really up to player choice. Do you want to be able to be really good at tracking extraplanar things, or do you want to tap into the magic of nature a bit more? I don't mind that the spell list is reduced since they're free spells and I wouldn't have used primeval awareness that often in most of my campaigns. All in all, my only real gripe with the official version is that favored foe is both weaker AND requires concentration. I would rather it be weaker and not require concentration, or just learn hunter's mark for free. I think I'd actually take favored enemy over it in this case, since the bonuses from that are so much more consistent and flexible based on your choices, if a little situational. Everything else is fine, but like we've all been saying, the Ranger kit really depends on what you want your ranger to be and your setting allowing you to take advantage of its features.
Looking forward to playing my blind fighting gloom stalker though, not going to lie.
I easily find this the best supplement after Xanathars, mostly because I want rules from books as I can do all the fluff myself. That said, as with any release I think a few parts of this book will see heavy use and carry the rest that will only see very limited use.
In my opinion the best parts are: *Fully customizing stats, opening up for more interesting combinations without gimping your character. *Ranger gets a meaningfull boost, although one feature went from horrible to bad (the weak hunters mark thing) the rest are good. *Sorcerer got a serious buff none seem to talk about. They can now reroll counterspell/dispel checks for a measly 1 sorcery point (or reroll any skill check). That comes without downside. Personally I neven thought sorcerers were weak, but this certainly will be appreciated. *Barbarians got some straight up buffs I didn't know they needed, but its not like that class will even break anything. *Monks can finally use long-swords (katanas) without going into a highly debated class (Kensai). *Rogues get a use of their bonus action when up close and just stabbing people, as well as a reliable way of sneak attacking for free. *Psionics were well implemented, not reating a whole lot of uncessesary rules (new classes) to represent something that sorcerers already represent while still having some unique feel too it. *They found a good midle road when it comes to retraining. You can do it a little, but without swapping stuff on a daily basis. *Druids get some cool, and powerful subclasses - Stars and Wildfire comes to mind. *Some very cool magic items, for instance a thing making sorcerers teleport as a no-action almost at will. *They avoided removing racial restrictions, which would have made some combos very scary (Aasimar warlock with Elven accuracy etc.) *Fighting Initiate feat and Throwing fighting style both open up new meaningfull character designs.
What I see as the bad part: *Something that annoys me somewhat is that some stuff is even more front loaded than before. Twilight cleric is a powerhouse as a 1 level dip. 300 ft. darkvision, advantage on initiative, heavy armor proficiency and all martial proficiencies on top of spellcasting. That might even beat the previous record-holder Hexblade. *The book still don't address weak core designs such as gaining extra attack from two sources yielding no benefit. That is such a big setback that a lot of players will rather multiclass into something else than say fighter5/paladin5 (Rogue 5/paladin5 is a much better option). Giving a feat instead would be such an elegant solution, but instead we get a lot of niche stuff. *Would have liked to see more spells and more feats. *Druids and rangers still dont have Find Familiar and Find Greater Steed even though they are the prime candidates for those spells. *The way many abilities now key of proficiency makes me think that should also be changed for previous content, or that these new abilities should scale with class level instead. Anything keying of proficiency makes them very dippable. *Artificer Initiate is poorly designed. It should obviously grant an infusion instead of some measly spells. *There are some rather meaningless feats such as Shadow Touched and Fey Touched that feels like a developer made something they needed in one spesific campaign into a feat. Those concepts were already covered by existing feats. *Poison master solves the action economy problem of poisons, but still doesn't solve the problem of fixed save DC.
All in all, well worth it but still a lot of design space for another book ;)
Yea I pretty much agree with what you've said here.
I do find it odd that druid and ranger don't have find familiar, but I suppose they gave druid a similar, albeit temporary version in the class variants, and ranger has several classes devoted to having a magic pet, so maybe they didn't feel like putting the spell in there? Twilight Cleric is also an insanely strong first dip, I completely agree. The only argument I could have against it being better than hexblade is that it doesn't grant access to the holy grail of attack cantrips.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
In the other review thread, I came down as 'nothing great, nothing terrible, would borrow from friend or library.' In the ranger forum, you will see that I hate everything that the CFV as presented in Tasha's does. Canny now gives you less options to choose from for Expertise, Favored Foe is weaker than Hunter's Mark and still requires concentration, and they removed the most useful spells from Primal Awareness. I find the existing Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy really useful for working with the 'magical tracker' aesthetic -- the new Favored Foe is especially a turn from 'I can identify anything of this creature type and track it' to a reactive 'oh no a thing shot me I guess I'll do something about it.'
I've also seen a handful of people eyerolling over the session 0 part of chapter 4 -- if you're already doing this, then congratulations, you're probably also the people on this forum who tell newbies 'did you have a session 0?' This section is for all the people who aren't coming to forums like this, or who are new to the game! It's also probably, honestly, part of Wizards' attempt to be more welcoming to minority players. I'd really rather have that section in the book for somebody getting hassled to point to, or look at and realize 'that behavior that's making you uncomfortable doesn't have to be the only way to play the game.'
The languages and specificity of favored enemy are cool but I don't think they come up often enough, at least in my experience. Unless you're choosing humanoid races, I guess. It is worth noting that the favored foe ability gets better with levels and essentially just eclipses hunter's mark at a certain point, but I don't know if any high level ranger will be using hunter's mark over a different spell that requires concentration. The primal/primeval awareness features are both highly situational and really up to player choice. Do you want to be able to be really good at tracking extraplanar things, or do you want to tap into the magic of nature a bit more? I don't mind that the spell list is reduced since they're free spells and I wouldn't have used primeval awareness that often in most of my campaigns. All in all, my only real gripe with the official version is that favored foe is both weaker AND requires concentration. I would rather it be weaker and not require concentration, or just learn hunter's mark for free. I think I'd actually take favored enemy over it in this case, since the bonuses from that are so much more consistent and flexible based on your choices, if a little situational. Everything else is fine, but like we've all been saying, the Ranger kit really depends on what you want your ranger to be and your setting allowing you to take advantage of its features.
Looking forward to playing my blind fighting gloom stalker though, not going to lie.
How much Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy come up is usually a factor of how much your DM works with you to incorporate it into the story. I'm very lucky in that my DM does just that -- they gave me a map of the world with what types of terrains are where, and we worked together to pick creature types that make sense with the story, and the she used them again in other situations -- I have monstrosities and dragons, with the former being from my background and the latter from story reasons. We just got our own warded underground lair by tracking a harpy that was acting as a delivery messenger for a death tyrant. None of that would have worked if I only had Favored Foe. Which does not get better than Hunter's Mark -- you can only use it once per turn, so at level 14 (which is getting near the max of what many campaigns run) you do an additional 1d8 per round, versus Hunter's Mark 2d6 (or 3d6, if you have a bonus action or hasted attack). I'm playing a Monster Hunter ranger, and at level 14 I'm using my Slayer's Prey first because of how it ties into other subclass features, but unless I'm fighting a BBEG, Hunter's Mark still comes out on round two.
As to the spells, I agree that they're pretty situational, but the spells they dropped were the ones that had greater utility. I really liked being able to cast Detect Magic and not having to use up a spell slot (or wait 10 minutes if I also wanted to waste an ASI on the ritual feat).
Detect Magic being lost was indeed a tragedy. I really would've liked if it stayed in the list personally, but I can't say I'm completely upset at the change. I can only assume they didn't want the Ranger flatly beating the pure spellcasters at magical detection without some cost. Hunter's Mark damage doesn't upscale though, the time it stays on does. It's strictly just 1d6 no matter what level it's cast at. In terms of tracking an enemy, HM is definitely better, but favored foe does do more damage eventually, but like I said, why bother concentrating on that instead of a stronger spell at those levels (Though I know full well that not every enemy is worth casting flame arrow and that FF frees up a spell option).
Also that thing with the harpy is pretty awesome, and it really does depend on your DM for sure. I try to work in things for my players to use if I can (to the point where I regularly use thieves cant so my rogue can actually pick up on things), but I know plenty of people who'd just go "Well ok you hate draconids. That might eventually come up I guess." and never bring it up again. The feature isn't terribly bad, it just requires your DM to actively engage with it sometimes, and that might not happen at every table. It would help if you asked a DM what creatures would be showing up in the campaign, but not every player has the foresight to ask that and then tailor their background to fit their favored enemy.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
Hunter's Mark damage starts at 1d6, and it's for every hit, so it upscales as your number of attacks upscale. So after level 5, when you get multiattack, it becomes 2d6 without having to cast at a higher level. Favored Foe doesn't get to 1d6 until level 6. Your only chance of doing better damage comes in at level 14, and the average of 2d6 (or 3d6 with a bonus action attack for melee fighters or a hasted action for ranged fighters) is higher than the average of 1d8. If you roll low on all your d6s and high on the d8 you could possibly get higher damage occasionally, but not on average.
As for a feature 'requiring the DM to actively engage with it,' I kinda see that as a big part of the whole game, and it goes for every class -- druids need to get opportunities to see new beasts they can learn for wildshape, wizards are designed with the intent that they'll find new spells as loot so DMs need to remember to drop those on occasion or make sure players are aware it's a magic-light world, etc.
How much Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy come up is usually a factor of how much your DM works with you to incorporate it into the story. I'm very lucky in that my DM does just that -- they gave me a map of the world with what types of terrains are where, and we worked together to pick creature types that make sense with the story, and the she used them again in other situations -- I have monstrosities and dragons, with the former being from my background and the latter from story reasons. We just got our own warded underground lair by tracking a harpy that was acting as a delivery messenger for a death tyrant. None of that would have worked if I only had Favored Foe.
It totally could have worked. A ranger with FF can still track. It can still get advantage or bonuses on tracking from other things. And if your DM worked with you for this, what's to stop your DM working with you to get that lair even without special Ranger abilities? This stuff boils down to whether your DM wants you to have something or not and that is independent of your class features.
I'm not sold on FF, but I do want to point out that it's actionless and Rangers often have plenty to do with their bonus aciton.
Did we just circle back to "The importance of a session 0"?
Also, fair enough, I wasn't counting extra attacks as a part of that potential damage. That's my oversight. I don't really want to focus on this specific feature too much because I don't particularly care for Hunter's Mark-like spells in general, and would rather take Favored Enemy, but the major upside to FF compared to HM seems to be resource management and action economy. A weaker version of the spell that can be used with slots independent from your half-caster spell slots, and cast as a part of the attack required to land it. Definitely not useless, but it's no where near as flatly powerful as the original Favored Foe in the UA. I'll take it or leave it, meh. Early game it might be nice, I guess.
I would've removed the Concentration requirement of Favored Foe, but I suppose having it constantly stacked with Hunter's Mark would've been annoying. I actually like the original idea of Rangers who specialize in dealing with specific types of monsters, even with the uncertainty of when you'd encounter those monsters. It requires some cooperation from the DM to avoid making it feel useless, but the idea of a Ranger who's known as a "Giant Killer", a "Dragon Slayer" or something similar is a fun idea. The big problem for me was the lack of a combat benefit when fighting your Favored Enemies. The Revised Ranger UA addressed that, though I think it would've been better to split the damage bonus in half and make one half of it an attack bonus(+1/+1 & +2/+2 instead of +2 & +4). Being able to just mark a specific creature similar to Hunter's Mark is okay I guess, but I think it's a bit underpowered.
I have to say, I'll be interested to see if anyone takes a 1-level dip in ranger to get a d10 hit die, expertise in something, and a good range of proficiencies for armor and weapons. Might be tempting for some druids or clerics.
That would be pretty worth it, yea. Expertise outside of Rogue is always welcome.
What's everyone's opinion on the Druidic/Holy Warrior fighting styles? I do like them flavor wise, but I can't deny that they are likely not as functional as just getting a normal fighting style, at least in terms of a flat out fight. I will say that Guidance and aoe cantrips like Word of Radiance make for an enticing prospect in my opinion. Also Thorn Whip maybe?
Sorry, I wasn't clear. The feats from this UA.
https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020_Feats.pdf
This is the one that had Tracker in it.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I know the UA they came from, I was asking about which feats you’re actually asking about. Tracker did not make it in.
If you don't own the book, there are images of the Table Of Contents page out on the Internet, that'll tell you the names of every new player option that got in.
I totally forgot that you could do that. Thanks Saga and JD anyways.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Glad Twilight Cleric is official now, Sorcerer Transmutation meta magic is super OP, and having framework for you own custom race is really cool. The new spells are meh as well as the magic items but being able to change cantrips is a good thing. Not as good as Xanathar but not bad overall. Maybe we will get lucky with a book of magic with just new spells and items eventually.
I don't think it's worth the money. Some subclasses are nice (I like the twilight cleric and mercy monk), but the optional class feats are disappointing, the entire DM chapter seems more or less useless to me. Even the puzzles. I didn't read all of them but at least the first couple are somehow about finding specific words, which means I'll have to re-do the entire puzzle and handout if I want to run it for my german friends. There's a certain puzzle book on DMsguild that does a way better job about it.
All in all if there was an option to get a refund I would and try my luck with "Tashas Crucible of Everything Else" on Dmsguild instead.
In the other review thread, I came down as 'nothing great, nothing terrible, would borrow from friend or library.' In the ranger forum, you will see that I hate everything that the CFV as presented in Tasha's does. Canny now gives you less options to choose from for Expertise, Favored Foe is weaker than Hunter's Mark and still requires concentration, and they removed the most useful spells from Primal Awareness. I find the existing Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy really useful for working with the 'magical tracker' aesthetic -- the new Favored Foe is especially a turn from 'I can identify anything of this creature type and track it' to a reactive 'oh no a thing shot me I guess I'll do something about it.'
I've also seen a handful of people eyerolling over the session 0 part of chapter 4 -- if you're already doing this, then congratulations, you're probably also the people on this forum who tell newbies 'did you have a session 0?' This section is for all the people who aren't coming to forums like this, or who are new to the game! It's also probably, honestly, part of Wizards' attempt to be more welcoming to minority players. I'd really rather have that section in the book for somebody getting hassled to point to, or look at and realize 'that behavior that's making you uncomfortable doesn't have to be the only way to play the game.'
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
I agree with your Favored Foe criticism, but I must point out that Canny actually gives you more options for expertise than it did in UA.
I easily find this the best supplement after Xanathars, mostly because I want rules from books as I can do all the fluff myself. That said, as with any release I think a few parts of this book will see heavy use and carry the rest that will only see very limited use.
In my opinion the best parts are:
*Fully customizing stats, opening up for more interesting combinations without gimping your character.
*Ranger gets a meaningfull boost, although one feature went from horrible to bad (the weak hunters mark thing) the rest are good.
*Sorcerer got a serious buff none seem to talk about. They can now reroll counterspell/dispel checks for a measly 1 sorcery point (or reroll any skill check). That comes without downside. Personally I neven thought sorcerers were weak, but this certainly will be appreciated.
*Barbarians got some straight up buffs I didn't know they needed, but its not like that class will even break anything.
*Monks can finally use long-swords (katanas) without going into a highly debated class (Kensai).
*Rogues get a use of their bonus action when up close and just stabbing people, as well as a reliable way of sneak attacking for free.
*Psionics were well implemented, not creating a whole lot of uncessesary rules (new classes) to represent something that sorcerers already represent while still having some unique feel too it.
*They found a good midle road when it comes to retraining. You can do it a little, but without swapping stuff on a daily basis.
*Druids get some cool, and powerful subclasses - Stars and Wildfire comes to mind.
*Some very cool magic items, for instance a thing making sorcerers teleport as a no-action almost at will.
*They avoided removing racial restrictions, which would have made some combos very scary (Aasimar warlock with Elven accuracy etc.)
*Fighting Initiate feat and Throwing fighting style both open up new meaningfull character designs.
What I see as the bad part:
*Something that annoys me somewhat is that some stuff is even more front loaded than before. Twilight cleric is a powerhouse as a 1 level dip. 300 ft. darkvision, advantage on initiative, heavy armor proficiency and all martial proficiencies on top of spellcasting. That might even beat the previous record-holder Hexblade.
*The book still don't address weak core designs such as gaining extra attack from two sources yielding no benefit. That is such a big setback that a lot of players will rather multiclass into something else than say fighter5/paladin5 (Rogue 5/paladin5 is a much better option). Giving a feat instead would be such an elegant solution, but instead we get a lot of niche stuff.
*Would have liked to see more spells and more feats.
*Druids and rangers still dont have Find Familiar and Find Greater Steed even though they are the prime candidates for those spells.
*The way many abilities now key of proficiency makes me think that should also be changed for previous content, or that these new abilities should scale with class level instead. Anything keying of proficiency makes them very dippable.
*Artificer Initiate is poorly designed. It should obviously grant an infusion instead of some measly spells.
*There are some rather meaningless feats such as Shadow Touched and Fey Touched that feels like a developer made something they needed in one spesific campaign into a feat. Those concepts were already covered by existing feats.
*Poison master solves the action economy problem of poisons, but still doesn't solve the problem of fixed save DC.
All in all, well worth it but still a lot of design space for another book ;)
I suppose it's down to how you look at it. The listed proficiencies you could choose from in the UA included proficiencies that you couldn't pick up from the Ranger class. If you take the printed version as allowing also racial or background proficiencies, then maybe, but only maybe.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
The languages and specificity of favored enemy are cool but I don't think they come up often enough, at least in my experience. Unless you're choosing humanoid races, I guess. It is worth noting that the favored foe ability gets better with levels and essentially just eclipses hunter's mark at a certain point, but I don't know if any high level ranger will be using hunter's mark over a different spell that requires concentration. The primal/primeval awareness features are both highly situational and really up to player choice. Do you want to be able to be really good at tracking extraplanar things, or do you want to tap into the magic of nature a bit more? I don't mind that the spell list is reduced since they're free spells and I wouldn't have used primeval awareness that often in most of my campaigns.
All in all, my only real gripe with the official version is that favored foe is both weaker AND requires concentration. I would rather it be weaker and not require concentration, or just learn hunter's mark for free. I think I'd actually take favored enemy over it in this case, since the bonuses from that are so much more consistent and flexible based on your choices, if a little situational. Everything else is fine, but like we've all been saying, the Ranger kit really depends on what you want your ranger to be and your setting allowing you to take advantage of its features.
Looking forward to playing my blind fighting gloom stalker though, not going to lie.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
Yea I pretty much agree with what you've said here.
I do find it odd that druid and ranger don't have find familiar, but I suppose they gave druid a similar, albeit temporary version in the class variants, and ranger has several classes devoted to having a magic pet, so maybe they didn't feel like putting the spell in there?
Twilight Cleric is also an insanely strong first dip, I completely agree. The only argument I could have against it being better than hexblade is that it doesn't grant access to the holy grail of attack cantrips.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
How much Natural Explorer and Favored Enemy come up is usually a factor of how much your DM works with you to incorporate it into the story. I'm very lucky in that my DM does just that -- they gave me a map of the world with what types of terrains are where, and we worked together to pick creature types that make sense with the story, and the she used them again in other situations -- I have monstrosities and dragons, with the former being from my background and the latter from story reasons. We just got our own warded underground lair by tracking a harpy that was acting as a delivery messenger for a death tyrant. None of that would have worked if I only had Favored Foe. Which does not get better than Hunter's Mark -- you can only use it once per turn, so at level 14 (which is getting near the max of what many campaigns run) you do an additional 1d8 per round, versus Hunter's Mark 2d6 (or 3d6, if you have a bonus action or hasted attack). I'm playing a Monster Hunter ranger, and at level 14 I'm using my Slayer's Prey first because of how it ties into other subclass features, but unless I'm fighting a BBEG, Hunter's Mark still comes out on round two.
As to the spells, I agree that they're pretty situational, but the spells they dropped were the ones that had greater utility. I really liked being able to cast Detect Magic and not having to use up a spell slot (or wait 10 minutes if I also wanted to waste an ASI on the ritual feat).
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
Detect Magic being lost was indeed a tragedy. I really would've liked if it stayed in the list personally, but I can't say I'm completely upset at the change. I can only assume they didn't want the Ranger flatly beating the pure spellcasters at magical detection without some cost.
Hunter's Mark damage doesn't upscale though, the time it stays on does. It's strictly just 1d6 no matter what level it's cast at. In terms of tracking an enemy, HM is definitely better, but favored foe does do more damage eventually, but like I said, why bother concentrating on that instead of a stronger spell at those levels (Though I know full well that not every enemy is worth casting flame arrow and that FF frees up a spell option).
Also that thing with the harpy is pretty awesome, and it really does depend on your DM for sure. I try to work in things for my players to use if I can (to the point where I regularly use thieves cant so my rogue can actually pick up on things), but I know plenty of people who'd just go "Well ok you hate draconids. That might eventually come up I guess." and never bring it up again. The feature isn't terribly bad, it just requires your DM to actively engage with it sometimes, and that might not happen at every table. It would help if you asked a DM what creatures would be showing up in the campaign, but not every player has the foresight to ask that and then tailor their background to fit their favored enemy.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
Hunter's Mark damage starts at 1d6, and it's for every hit, so it upscales as your number of attacks upscale. So after level 5, when you get multiattack, it becomes 2d6 without having to cast at a higher level. Favored Foe doesn't get to 1d6 until level 6. Your only chance of doing better damage comes in at level 14, and the average of 2d6 (or 3d6 with a bonus action attack for melee fighters or a hasted action for ranged fighters) is higher than the average of 1d8. If you roll low on all your d6s and high on the d8 you could possibly get higher damage occasionally, but not on average.
As for a feature 'requiring the DM to actively engage with it,' I kinda see that as a big part of the whole game, and it goes for every class -- druids need to get opportunities to see new beasts they can learn for wildshape, wizards are designed with the intent that they'll find new spells as loot so DMs need to remember to drop those on occasion or make sure players are aware it's a magic-light world, etc.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
It totally could have worked. A ranger with FF can still track. It can still get advantage or bonuses on tracking from other things. And if your DM worked with you for this, what's to stop your DM working with you to get that lair even without special Ranger abilities? This stuff boils down to whether your DM wants you to have something or not and that is independent of your class features.
I'm not sold on FF, but I do want to point out that it's actionless and Rangers often have plenty to do with their bonus aciton.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Did we just circle back to "The importance of a session 0"?
Also, fair enough, I wasn't counting extra attacks as a part of that potential damage. That's my oversight. I don't really want to focus on this specific feature too much because I don't particularly care for Hunter's Mark-like spells in general, and would rather take Favored Enemy, but the major upside to FF compared to HM seems to be resource management and action economy. A weaker version of the spell that can be used with slots independent from your half-caster spell slots, and cast as a part of the attack required to land it. Definitely not useless, but it's no where near as flatly powerful as the original Favored Foe in the UA.
I'll take it or leave it, meh. Early game it might be nice, I guess.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
I would've removed the Concentration requirement of Favored Foe, but I suppose having it constantly stacked with Hunter's Mark would've been annoying. I actually like the original idea of Rangers who specialize in dealing with specific types of monsters, even with the uncertainty of when you'd encounter those monsters. It requires some cooperation from the DM to avoid making it feel useless, but the idea of a Ranger who's known as a "Giant Killer", a "Dragon Slayer" or something similar is a fun idea. The big problem for me was the lack of a combat benefit when fighting your Favored Enemies. The Revised Ranger UA addressed that, though I think it would've been better to split the damage bonus in half and make one half of it an attack bonus(+1/+1 & +2/+2 instead of +2 & +4). Being able to just mark a specific creature similar to Hunter's Mark is okay I guess, but I think it's a bit underpowered.
I have to say, I'll be interested to see if anyone takes a 1-level dip in ranger to get a d10 hit die, expertise in something, and a good range of proficiencies for armor and weapons. Might be tempting for some druids or clerics.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
That would be pretty worth it, yea. Expertise outside of Rogue is always welcome.
What's everyone's opinion on the Druidic/Holy Warrior fighting styles?
I do like them flavor wise, but I can't deny that they are likely not as functional as just getting a normal fighting style, at least in terms of a flat out fight. I will say that Guidance and aoe cantrips like Word of Radiance make for an enticing prospect in my opinion. Also Thorn Whip maybe?
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.