Has favored terrain vanished from Ranger? I can't seem to find it...
You say that like favored terrain is consistently useful and not reliant on the dm making the map a certain way, which would make it useless 85% of the time if the dm didn’t cater specifically to it and potentially 100% in the wrong campaign.
Sorry sorry! Didn't mean to step on any toes! I'm a new DM, with a new Ranger player thinking about trying out the playtest, and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
Has favored terrain vanished from Ranger? I can't seem to find it...
You say that like favored terrain is consistently useful and not reliant on the dm making the map a certain way, which would make it useless 85% of the time if the dm didn’t cater specifically to it and potentially 100% in the wrong campaign.
Sorry sorry! Didn't mean to step on any toes! I'm a new DM, with a new Ranger player thinking about trying out the playtest, and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
You didn’t offend me in any way, just that favored terrain is near useless. You do lose it in the playtest, it’s just not a serious loss.
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Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Has favored terrain vanished from Ranger? I can't seem to find it...
You say that like favored terrain is consistently useful and not reliant on the dm making the map a certain way, which would make it useless 85% of the time if the dm didn’t cater specifically to it and potentially 100% in the wrong campaign.
Unless they do something similar to what they did to Favored Foe. (make it a bit more general so that it can be applied a bit more widely). That would reduce it to what maybe 50%?
King of charge,
Where are these made up percentages coming from. Without better data the "situational excuse" has always been weak and seem hyperbole and reverse justification. If I am an expert on demons or terrain I am 100% of the time. It's my job too see how that might help in any given senario.
Many tables had no problem finding uses for favored terrain and favored enemy. Wotc could have cleared up the wording instead of just throwing It out.
Has favored terrain vanished from Ranger? I can't seem to find it...
You say that like favored terrain is consistently useful and not reliant on the dm making the map a certain way, which would make it useless 85% of the time if the dm didn’t cater specifically to it and potentially 100% in the wrong campaign.
Sorry sorry! Didn't mean to step on any toes! I'm a new DM, with a new Ranger player thinking about trying out the playtest, and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
You didn’t offend me in any way, just that favored terrain is near useless. You do lose it in the playtest, it’s just not a serious loss.
still would be nice if they did something with/for the exploration pillar seeing as they pretty much glossed over it in the last two iterations.
Has favored terrain vanished from Ranger? I can't seem to find it...
You say that like favored terrain is consistently useful and not reliant on the dm making the map a certain way, which would make it useless 85% of the time if the dm didn’t cater specifically to it and potentially 100% in the wrong campaign.
Sorry sorry! Didn't mean to step on any toes! I'm a new DM, with a new Ranger player thinking about trying out the playtest, and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
You didn’t offend me in any way, just that favored terrain is near useless. You do lose it in the playtest, it’s just not a serious loss.
still would be nice if they did something with/for the exploration pillar seeing as they pretty much glossed over it in the last two iterations.
I would be all for that. But it should be less situational than favored terrain was.
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Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
still would be nice if they did something with/for the exploration pillar seeing as they pretty much glossed over it in the last two iterations.
Well, taking Expertise in Survival generally accomplishes a lot of what favored terrain used to do.
I had not thought of that... now that you point it out... Still it does eat up one of your first two Expertise. (not optimal). Maybe grant it as a freebie?
Has favored terrain vanished from Ranger? I can't seem to find it...
You say that like favored terrain is consistently useful and not reliant on the dm making the map a certain way, which would make it useless 85% of the time if the dm didn’t cater specifically to it and potentially 100% in the wrong campaign.
I don't know that I agree with this. It depends on the game. If I am playing out of the abyss I can be pretty certain underdark as favored terrain will be extremely use, Tomb of Annihilation - whatever your DM says passes for Jungle (forrest?, swamp?), Rime of the Frostmaiden - Arctic, Saltmarsh-Coastal, Dungeon of the Mad Mage - underdark.
I agree in some campaigns it may not be that predictable, but in a lot of them it will be.
Has favored terrain vanished from Ranger? I can't seem to find it...
You say that like favored terrain is consistently useful and not reliant on the dm making the map a certain way, which would make it useless 85% of the time if the dm didn’t cater specifically to it and potentially 100% in the wrong campaign.
Unless they do something similar to what they did to Favored Foe. (make it a bit more general so that it can be applied a bit more widely). That would reduce it to what maybe 50%?
King of charge,
Where are these made up percentages coming from. Without better data the "situational excuse" has always been weak and seem hyperbole and reverse justification. If I am an expert on demons or terrain I am 100% of the time. It's my job too see how that might help in any given senario.
Many tables had no problem finding uses for favored terrain and favored enemy. Wotc could have cleared up the wording instead of just throwing It out.
You are good on terrain A 100% of the time, but there are terrains B-H to worry about, and the feature is useless in them. Situational. Until you level up, and 3 levels are devoted to features that aren’t always active. You can be an expert on fiends, aberrations, and monstrosities, but what now when you are facing a dragon? Or a giant? You can master forest, mountains, and desert, but what happens when you are underground? Or in a grassland? If a feature isn’t always active, it needs to be stronger when it is active. I don’t think phb ranger level 1 features are strong enough to justify that. And they are certainly not strong enough to justify consuming 3 levels worth of features to still not always be active. Something similar but less situational would be better. As for the percentage, it is not exact. If a campaign features all terrains in the phb evenly, it’s literally 12.5% at level 1. If your terrain is more common in your campaign, it will be active more often. If it’s less common, it will be active even less often. If you pick underdark in a nautical campaign, it might never activate.
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Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Oh yeah, you’re right it is a minor nerf. Unless someone was a master of getting opportunity attacks or had a battle master with them that would use that horrible commander strike maneuver I’m going to say it’s niche. Still a slight nerf. I’m going to say 6th level sub class features will be better or at least on par with evasion. Thief’s is equal in my opinion now that it’s all stealth checks, the arcane tricksters is better if it stays the same, and I hope the assassin’s gets reworked.
I don't think any subclass feature is going to be close to evasion, especially when you consider a Rogue has both proficiency in dex saves and a high dexterity. This means he will usually take no damage at all from some of the most damaging affects of the game.
Playing Rise of the Drow we had a demon that put out an AOE that did 20d20 damage against 15th level characters. It one shot the Ranger and the Paladin. My Rogue with a 10 constitution was unscathed. With absorb elements he would have been dead even with resistance to the damage.
Has favored terrain vanished from Ranger? I can't seem to find it...
You say that like favored terrain is consistently useful and not reliant on the dm making the map a certain way, which would make it useless 85% of the time if the dm didn’t cater specifically to it and potentially 100% in the wrong campaign.
I don't know that I agree with this. It depends on the game. If I am playing out of the abyss I can be pretty certain underdark as favored terrain will be extremely use, Tomb of Annihilation - whatever your DM says passes for Jungle (forrest?, swamp?), Rime of the Frostmaiden - Arctic, Saltmarsh-Coastal, Dungeon of the Mad Mage - underdark.
I agree in some campaigns it may not be that predictable, but in a lot of them it will be.
And in those campaigns, it works. But should you really need to play a specific campaign for your level 1 features, the core of many classes, to be consistently useful the way other level 1 features are?
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Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Oh yeah, you’re right it is a minor nerf. Unless someone was a master of getting opportunity attacks or had a battle master with them that would use that horrible commander strike maneuver I’m going to say it’s niche. Still a slight nerf. I’m going to say 6th level sub class features will be better or at least on par with evasion. Thief’s is equal in my opinion now that it’s all stealth checks, the arcane tricksters is better if it stays the same, and I hope the assassin’s gets reworked.
I don't think any subclass feature is going to be close to evasion, especially when you consider a Rogue has both proficiency in dex saves and a high dexterity. This means he will usually take no damage at all from some of the most damaging affects of the game.
Playing Rise of the Drow we had a demon that put out an AOE that did 20d20 damage against 15th level characters. It one shot the Ranger and the Paladin. My Rogue with a 10 constitution was unscathed. With absorb elements he would have been dead even with resistance to the damage.
Yeah but they didn’t lose Evasion they are getting it later. Their 9th level feature has taken the 6th level spot. The feature will be used more than evasion and for most subclasses it’s something you get to actively do or effects something you actively do. Evasion just happens on dex saves. You will be able to use that class feature a lot more. Especially arcane tricksters if it doesn’t change.
There are 11 terrain types, so in theory a random favored terrain should come up 9% of the time. In practice this can vary extensively based on the campaign, many campaigns will spend more than half the game in a single terrain type, so if you ask the DM what terrain types are likely to be common, and he gives you an accurate answer, favored terrain can become significantly more valuable. On the other side of things, if the DM decides to run some sort of surprise campaign (e.g. the DM tells you that it's a Baldur's Gate campaign and it's actually Descent Into Avernus) your favored terrain may prove totally useless.
There are 11 terrain types, so in theory a random favored terrain should come up 9% of the time. In practice this can vary extensively based on the campaign, many campaigns will spend more than half the game in a single terrain type, so if you ask the DM what terrain types are likely to be common, and he gives you an accurate answer, favored terrain can become significantly more valuable. On the other side of things, if the DM decides to run some sort of surprise campaign (e.g. the DM tells you that it's a Baldur's Gate campaign and it's actually Descent Into Avernus) your favored terrain may prove totally useless.
If it’s Avernus your favorite terrain shouldn’t help anyway even if you knew ahead of time. That’s a terrain that isn’t really selectable and doesn’t make sense. how your character would know much about it as a Ranger. Wildspace is one that isn’t covered by the books. The 5e verision of Natural Explorer is cool that it just gives you expertise on some checks but really just giving them expertise in Nature and Survival covers most of what Natural explorer did and works on all terrains including Avernus and wildspace. What I saw someone else ask is, why would I waste my expertise on those?” Well because you want to play a Ranger who does Ranger stuff. lol. Maybe they will have to force that first expertise to be survival or nature just to make Rangers be Rangers. Favored enemy is honestly a waste in 5e in my experience. I’ve theory crafted ways it should be used but I’ve never seen it used other than to gain languages.
The thing I hated most about Favored Terrain is that, if you are playing a story like Rime of the Frostmaiden or Out of the Abyss, then you pick the right terrain at the start, and then you get nothing from every other Favored Terrain level. Talk about dead levels.
Here we go again with favored terrain and favored enemy let’s take them seperately
Favored enemy - the 1dnd version is an acceptable upgrade, not perfect but acceptable. If the L6 Hunter feature had been rolled into it as an upper level upgrade it would be even better. ( I hear a “And what does he hunter get at L6 then?” - how about the conjur barrage multi attack and then get the old whirlwind attack at L10 so rangers have 2 ways to multi attack?)
Favored Terrain - my big complaint, like most folks, was that the PHB version allowed only 3 terrains max and that was really way to low. My second biggest co plaint was all the BS about “random selection” any one after the first should have involved in game experience in that terrain and more than a session or three. The only “random” one was the first and should never be random. It should always have been selected in consultation with the DM. So it should always have been useful at low level. At the very worst it should have been selected based on the L1 character’s back story so if it was useless it was specifically because the PC had chosen to shift areas and was learning Terrain #2. Now, with that rant out of the way -
How do we bring Favored Terrain back into play? How WOTC will do it I have no idea, but I have a few suggestions: 1) proficiency in Nature grants you grants you an intimate knowledge of one of the eleven terrains, proficiency in survival does the same while proficiency in both grants you a third. 2) Expertise in Nature and/or Survival does the same so a ranger with expertise in both would know 6 terrains. 3) a actual rule about learning skills in game is needed at least for selected skills like terrains, herbalism, animal control, etc. perhaps [ at every level where you gain a feat you can also add a skill that you have been attempting in.game with some regularity - you may add this skill to your list of proficient skills and can add your PB to rolls for that skill. This includes adding terrain types to nature /survival skills.] For this, I think, rangers (& Druids) should be superior to scout rogues or other scout types from other classes. How to do it? Simple make the bonus terrains for having both skills available only to rangers and Druids. Scout rogues get the 1 for each but they max out at 4 terrains unless they specifically work on learning more while rangers and Druids get 6.
If I were redoing Favored Terrain I would make something like Adaptable a 1st level Ranger feature, where spending a long rest in a terrain gets you the benefits of Favored Terrain. Then at level 3 or so I would show the choice of an always Favored Terrain and let that upgrade to more terrains at certain levels.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
If I were redoing Favored Terrain I would make Adaptable a 1st level Ranger feature, where spending a long rest in a terrain grants the benefits of Favored Terrain. Then at level 3 or so I would allow a choice for an always Favored Terrain, upgrading at certain levels to allow more.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
If I were redoing Favored Terrain I would make Adaptable a 1st level Ranger feature, where spending a long rest in a terrain grants the benefits of Favored Terrain. Then at level 3 or so I would allow a choice for an always Favored Terrain, upgrading at certain levels to allow more.
I would make it so you're still better at traveling/surviving in your Favored Terrain, but you get other benefits from being adapted to it that work outside of it (Cold Resistance for Arctic, Fire Resistance for Desert, hold breath and swimming speed for Ocean, limited darkvision for Underdark, climbing speed for Mountains, et cetera).
Natural Explorer could have been really cool in your Favored Terrain and still really good in campaigns were you never visit your favored terrain if it had more mechanical oomph and better benefits.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Sorry sorry! Didn't mean to step on any toes! I'm a new DM, with a new Ranger player thinking about trying out the playtest, and just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
You didn’t offend me in any way, just that favored terrain is near useless. You do lose it in the playtest, it’s just not a serious loss.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
King of charge,
Where are these made up percentages coming from. Without better data the "situational excuse" has always been weak and seem hyperbole and reverse justification. If I am an expert on demons or terrain I am 100% of the time. It's my job too see how that might help in any given senario.
Many tables had no problem finding uses for favored terrain and favored enemy. Wotc could have cleared up the wording instead of just throwing It out.
still would be nice if they did something with/for the exploration pillar seeing as they pretty much glossed over it in the last two iterations.
I would be all for that. But it should be less situational than favored terrain was.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
Well, taking Expertise in Survival generally accomplishes a lot of what favored terrain used to do.
I had not thought of that... now that you point it out... Still it does eat up one of your first two Expertise. (not optimal). Maybe grant it as a freebie?
I don't know that I agree with this. It depends on the game. If I am playing out of the abyss I can be pretty certain underdark as favored terrain will be extremely use, Tomb of Annihilation - whatever your DM says passes for Jungle (forrest?, swamp?), Rime of the Frostmaiden - Arctic, Saltmarsh-Coastal, Dungeon of the Mad Mage - underdark.
I agree in some campaigns it may not be that predictable, but in a lot of them it will be.
You are good on terrain A 100% of the time, but there are terrains B-H to worry about, and the feature is useless in them. Situational. Until you level up, and 3 levels are devoted to features that aren’t always active. You can be an expert on fiends, aberrations, and monstrosities, but what now when you are facing a dragon? Or a giant? You can master forest, mountains, and desert, but what happens when you are underground? Or in a grassland? If a feature isn’t always active, it needs to be stronger when it is active. I don’t think phb ranger level 1 features are strong enough to justify that. And they are certainly not strong enough to justify consuming 3 levels worth of features to still not always be active. Something similar but less situational would be better. As for the percentage, it is not exact. If a campaign features all terrains in the phb evenly, it’s literally 12.5% at level 1. If your terrain is more common in your campaign, it will be active more often. If it’s less common, it will be active even less often. If you pick underdark in a nautical campaign, it might never activate.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
I don't think any subclass feature is going to be close to evasion, especially when you consider a Rogue has both proficiency in dex saves and a high dexterity. This means he will usually take no damage at all from some of the most damaging affects of the game.
Playing Rise of the Drow we had a demon that put out an AOE that did 20d20 damage against 15th level characters. It one shot the Ranger and the Paladin. My Rogue with a 10 constitution was unscathed. With absorb elements he would have been dead even with resistance to the damage.
And in those campaigns, it works. But should you really need to play a specific campaign for your level 1 features, the core of many classes, to be consistently useful the way other level 1 features are?
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
Yeah but they didn’t lose Evasion they are getting it later. Their 9th level feature has taken the 6th level spot. The feature will be used more than evasion and for most subclasses it’s something you get to actively do or effects something you actively do. Evasion just happens on dex saves. You will be able to use that class feature a lot more. Especially arcane tricksters if it doesn’t change.
There are 11 terrain types, so in theory a random favored terrain should come up 9% of the time. In practice this can vary extensively based on the campaign, many campaigns will spend more than half the game in a single terrain type, so if you ask the DM what terrain types are likely to be common, and he gives you an accurate answer, favored terrain can become significantly more valuable. On the other side of things, if the DM decides to run some sort of surprise campaign (e.g. the DM tells you that it's a Baldur's Gate campaign and it's actually Descent Into Avernus) your favored terrain may prove totally useless.
If it’s Avernus your favorite terrain shouldn’t help anyway even if you knew ahead of time. That’s a terrain that isn’t really selectable and doesn’t make sense. how your character would know much about it as a Ranger. Wildspace is one that isn’t covered by the books. The 5e verision of Natural Explorer is cool that it just gives you expertise on some checks but really just giving them expertise in Nature and Survival covers most of what Natural explorer did and works on all terrains including Avernus and wildspace. What I saw someone else ask is,
why would I waste my expertise on those?” Well because you want to play a Ranger who does Ranger stuff. lol. Maybe they will have to force that first expertise to be survival or nature just to make Rangers be Rangers. Favored enemy is honestly a waste in 5e in my experience. I’ve theory crafted ways it should be used but I’ve never seen it used other than to gain languages.
The thing I hated most about Favored Terrain is that, if you are playing a story like Rime of the Frostmaiden or Out of the Abyss, then you pick the right terrain at the start, and then you get nothing from every other Favored Terrain level. Talk about dead levels.
Here we go again with favored terrain and favored enemy let’s take them seperately
Favored enemy - the 1dnd version is an acceptable upgrade, not perfect but acceptable. If the L6 Hunter feature had been rolled into it as an upper level upgrade it would be even better. ( I hear a “And what does he hunter get at L6 then?” - how about the conjur barrage multi attack and then get the old whirlwind attack at L10 so rangers have 2 ways to multi attack?)
Favored Terrain - my big complaint, like most folks, was that the PHB version allowed only 3 terrains max and that was really way to low. My second biggest co plaint was all the BS about “random selection” any one after the first should have involved in game experience in that terrain and more than a session or three. The only “random” one was the first and should never be random. It should always have been selected in consultation with the DM. So it should always have been useful at low level. At the very worst it should have been selected based on the L1 character’s back story so if it was useless it was specifically because the PC had chosen to shift areas and was learning Terrain #2. Now, with that rant out of the way -
How do we bring Favored Terrain back into play? How WOTC will do it I have no idea, but I have a few suggestions:
1) proficiency in Nature grants you grants you an intimate knowledge of one of the eleven terrains, proficiency in survival does the same while proficiency in both grants you a third.
2) Expertise in Nature and/or Survival does the same so a ranger with expertise in both would know 6 terrains.
3) a actual rule about learning skills in game is needed at least for selected skills like terrains, herbalism, animal control, etc. perhaps [ at every level where you gain a feat you can also add a skill that you have been attempting in.game with some regularity - you may add this skill to your list of proficient skills and can add your PB to rolls for that skill. This includes adding terrain types to nature /survival skills.]
For this, I think, rangers (& Druids) should be superior to scout rogues or other scout types from other classes. How to do it? Simple make the bonus terrains for having both skills available only to rangers and Druids. Scout rogues get the 1 for each but they max out at 4 terrains unless they specifically work on learning more while rangers and Druids get 6.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
If I were redoing Favored Terrain I would make something like Adaptable a 1st level Ranger feature, where spending a long rest in a terrain gets you the benefits of Favored Terrain. Then at level 3 or so I would show the choice of an always Favored Terrain and let that upgrade to more terrains at certain levels.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
If I were redoing Favored Terrain I would make Adaptable a 1st level Ranger feature, where spending a long rest in a terrain grants the benefits of Favored Terrain. Then at level 3 or so I would allow a choice for an always Favored Terrain, upgrading at certain levels to allow more.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Don’t forget that most areas are a combination of terrain types. A wooded highlands is both forest and hills for example.
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I would make it so you're still better at traveling/surviving in your Favored Terrain, but you get other benefits from being adapted to it that work outside of it (Cold Resistance for Arctic, Fire Resistance for Desert, hold breath and swimming speed for Ocean, limited darkvision for Underdark, climbing speed for Mountains, et cetera).
Natural Explorer could have been really cool in your Favored Terrain and still really good in campaigns were you never visit your favored terrain if it had more mechanical oomph and better benefits.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
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