I am a DM and if a ranger in my party has a favored enemy of humanoids. The party is about to come across a murder scene (think slain farmers in an outlying farm). The party will have no idea who did it but does know a human family lived there. They will not have any idea who the killer is, whether the killer is humanoid, essentially the ranger would have no idea who to track. The killer does happen to be humanoid, but is the ranger able to track them in that situation?
Its entirely up to you as DM if the culprit can be tracked or not. Favored Enemy would only give them advantage on the check.
Ability checks in D&D don't come with critical success or failures. If the DM decides the task is impossible they simply deny the roll.
Your Ranger might ask to search for tracks and without asking them to roll you can simply tell them the killer's tracks are too mixed in with others to determine exactly which set belong to the killer. Depending on certain circumstances, you might allow something along the lines or tracking the killer's progress through the crime scene but not outside of it.
BUT. Please note the following from the Favored Enemy table: "Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies."
The ranger can't simply select "humanoid" and have it apply to all humanoids. They would need to select up to two humanoid races, such as Human and Dwarf.
tracking is tracking no matter what you are tracking. The ranger may no know what they are tracking but they are looking at the signs they would follow to track.
I am a DM and if a ranger in my party has a favored enemy of humanoids. The party is about to come across a murder scene (think slain farmers in an outlying farm). The party will have no idea who did it but does know a human family lived there. They will not have any idea who the killer is, whether the killer is humanoid, essentially the ranger would have no idea who to track. The killer does happen to be humanoid, but is the ranger able to track them in that situation?
Why would that be problem? You follow whatever tracks you can successfully pick up, if that leads to the correct place/creature is a different question.
And yes the favoured enemy feature should kick in but if you don't want to give the player that extra (meta)knowledge then you could just secretly change the DC to track it, disadvantage/advantage is usually considered to adjust a DC or roll by +/-5.
I assume this is just about not giving away information on the quarry's identity by letting the player know they can roll with advantage.
In cases where the DM feels the roll itself would give away information, they can roll it themselves in secret and just narrate the results. Or you could just have them roll twice and not tell them whether you're taking the first roll or the highest roll.
Tracks are physical evidences that can be followed independently if you know who made them or if it's completely unknown to you. If the humanoid that left those tracks happen to also be one of the races that is Ranger's Favored Enemy, then you have advantage on the Wisdom (Survival) checks to do so, automatically telling tou it's one of them, even possibly which one depending on DM.
I’m sure anyone can track via the survival skill. And your ranger can track and have advantage on the check if it is a Humanoid it has chosen as its favored enemy. I don’t think you should penalize them for using their class features. What does it hurt to let them use their abilities? If it is important that they don’t track them maybe the trail will fade due to weather or maybe the tracks just stop leaving a mystery of how that happened for the group to look into.
If you don't want to reveal any information, but would still like a roll, then one trick is to simply have them roll two dice whenever they do any kind of tracking; this way you can apply advantage without revealing that they're tracking a favoured foe, while the rest of the time you just ignore the second dice.
If the advantage does result in a success, then I'd probably reveal that the prints are of a favoured enemy, as once they know they've succeeded they might be able to work that out anyway (if the first roll was terrible but the second wasn't, it's a pretty safe bet advantage was applied).
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Anyone can try to follow tracks. The reason a Ranger has advantage to track his favored enemy is because it has significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to such creature, so being able to recognize its tracks should be a given, hiding this fact to the player character or even that it has advantage on the check itself despite his feature is counter-intuitive to me.
I am a DM and if a ranger in my party has a favored enemy of humanoids. The party is about to come across a murder scene (think slain farmers in an outlying farm). The party will have no idea who did it but does know a human family lived there. They will not have any idea who the killer is, whether the killer is humanoid, essentially the ranger would have no idea who to track. The killer does happen to be humanoid, but is the ranger able to track them in that situation?
Thanks!
If the meta knowledge is not something you want to give. As others suggest. Fiddle with the DC, And n stead of advantage treat the roll as either a + 5 or the DC as a -5 before the roll, your choice. And just because you do well tracking at the initial scene, does not mean you do well to continue to follow the tracks, or that the trail doesn’t just up and end. (Misty steps. Invisibility. Too many tracks all trails are worthless. Etc.)
But to answer your question. No matter what unless you decide there’s absolutely no evidence of any kind via investigation or survival. Then yes. Not just the ranger but ANYONE can *try* to track them. overall, this is “the rangers thing” would you stop a barbarian from raging in a combat? Would you stop a rogue from sneaking and hiding? Would you stop a Druid from wildshaping?
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Hello,
I am a DM and if a ranger in my party has a favored enemy of humanoids. The party is about to come across a murder scene (think slain farmers in an outlying farm). The party will have no idea who did it but does know a human family lived there. They will not have any idea who the killer is, whether the killer is humanoid, essentially the ranger would have no idea who to track. The killer does happen to be humanoid, but is the ranger able to track them in that situation?
Thanks!
Its entirely up to you as DM if the culprit can be tracked or not. Favored Enemy would only give them advantage on the check.
Ability checks in D&D don't come with critical success or failures. If the DM decides the task is impossible they simply deny the roll.
Your Ranger might ask to search for tracks and without asking them to roll you can simply tell them the killer's tracks are too mixed in with others to determine exactly which set belong to the killer. Depending on certain circumstances, you might allow something along the lines or tracking the killer's progress through the crime scene but not outside of it.
BUT. Please note the following from the Favored Enemy table:
"Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies."
The ranger can't simply select "humanoid" and have it apply to all humanoids. They would need to select up to two humanoid races, such as Human and Dwarf.
tracking is tracking no matter what you are tracking. The ranger may no know what they are tracking but they are looking at the signs they would follow to track.
Why would that be problem? You follow whatever tracks you can successfully pick up, if that leads to the correct place/creature is a different question.
And yes the favoured enemy feature should kick in but if you don't want to give the player that extra (meta)knowledge then you could just secretly change the DC to track it, disadvantage/advantage is usually considered to adjust a DC or roll by +/-5.
I assume this is just about not giving away information on the quarry's identity by letting the player know they can roll with advantage.
In cases where the DM feels the roll itself would give away information, they can roll it themselves in secret and just narrate the results. Or you could just have them roll twice and not tell them whether you're taking the first roll or the highest roll.
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
Tracks are physical evidences that can be followed independently if you know who made them or if it's completely unknown to you. If the humanoid that left those tracks happen to also be one of the races that is Ranger's Favored Enemy, then you have advantage on the Wisdom (Survival) checks to do so, automatically telling tou it's one of them, even possibly which one depending on DM.
I’m sure anyone can track via the survival skill. And your ranger can track and have advantage on the check if it is a Humanoid it has chosen as its favored enemy. I don’t think you should penalize them for using their class features. What does it hurt to let them use their abilities? If it is important that they don’t track them maybe the trail will fade due to weather or maybe the tracks just stop leaving a mystery of how that happened for the group to look into.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
If you don't want to reveal any information, but would still like a roll, then one trick is to simply have them roll two dice whenever they do any kind of tracking; this way you can apply advantage without revealing that they're tracking a favoured foe, while the rest of the time you just ignore the second dice.
If the advantage does result in a success, then I'd probably reveal that the prints are of a favoured enemy, as once they know they've succeeded they might be able to work that out anyway (if the first roll was terrible but the second wasn't, it's a pretty safe bet advantage was applied).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Anyone can try to follow tracks. The reason a Ranger has advantage to track his favored enemy is because it has significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to such creature, so being able to recognize its tracks should be a given, hiding this fact to the player character or even that it has advantage on the check itself despite his feature is counter-intuitive to me.
If the meta knowledge is not something you want to give. As others suggest. Fiddle with the DC, And n stead of advantage treat the roll as either a + 5 or the DC as a -5 before the roll, your choice. And just because you do well tracking at the initial scene, does not mean you do well to continue to follow the tracks, or that the trail doesn’t just up and end. (Misty steps. Invisibility. Too many tracks all trails are worthless. Etc.)
But to answer your question. No matter what unless you decide there’s absolutely no evidence of any kind via investigation or survival. Then yes. Not just the ranger but ANYONE can *try* to track them.
overall, this is “the rangers thing” would you stop a barbarian from raging in a combat? Would you stop a rogue from sneaking and hiding? Would you stop a Druid from wildshaping?
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