I think a lot of the frustration, and thus this discussion, is rooted in not fully grasping what the pillars are. Combat is easy enough to understand, but Exploration and Social Interaction?
In the PH, Rangers had tools to aid in both of those latter pillars. In fact, it might be the only class with features explicitly for all three pillars of the game. This, in turn, gives it something of a muddled identity. Its features are also dependent on DMs and players who care enough about something besides combat to adequately use those rules. But when fully utilized, the Ranger is one of the strongest classes in the game.
Exploration isn't just wilderness survival. And while a Ranger can be good at that, so can a Bard or Rogue. I do miss Natural Explorer and the various perks it brought to wilderness survival, and no it wasn't an auto-success feature. Exploration is identifying muddy boot prints at a crime scene, or the poison used on a noble. It's researching in a library, like Candlekeep. It's checking the walls for hidden doors and passages, or for a false bottom in a desk drawer. Investigation and Perception are both on their class skill list, so they can be built for this.
Social Interaction is similarly broad. Insight is on their class skill list, and Wisdom is suggested as their secondary statistic. Each ranger can be adept in this field. Combined with Favored Enemy, and the bonus languages it can grant, you have someone who can know a lot of languages to read allies and enemies alike. They might not be able to influence the actions of others, but they can study them and know when something is up. Social Interaction is more than just rolling Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion. It requires giving and taking. What the ranger can learn can then be shared with someone else and leveraged for advantage.
So, in other words, it's all about skills, which means that 1DnD ranger is simply better by grace of Expertise.
Its features are also dependent on DMs and players who care enough about something besides combat to adequately use those rules. But when fully utilized, the Ranger is one of the strongest classes in the game.
I hear this a lot: "if you actually use the rules, exploring is hard/playing an explorer class is rewarding!" I'm gonna push back on this here, because I usually don't bother.
I know these rules. I'm one of those weirdos who has read all my core rulebooks. I've used these rules. I've taught them to my friends. I've been on both sides of the screen with these rules.
They're not challenging. They're not interesting. They're not exciting, and they're not fun. (And they're terribly organized. These rules are scattered across so many chapters of so many books it's unreal.) Running the 5e exploration rules as written is tedious and pointless. It makes you roll a lot of dice, to slowly wiggle your way through near-identical branching paths, devoid of any content, until you eventually pop out at a near-identical endpoint. Any character can do it, and having good bonuses isn't important. You SHOULDN'T play with the exploration rules as written in 5e. You should fix them! And if you've had fun with exploration, which it sounds like you have, then you or your DM probably did just that.
I am usually the DM. If you're trudging through an empty map, then your DM has done a poor job of populating it. Every hex doesn't need a random encounter, but there should be something notable. And you might only see them during a short or long rest, but they should still be there. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say something controversial.
Not every rule has to be fun, and an emphasis on having fun above all else can actually hurt the game.
Every single kind of encounter you can imagine, in every single TTRPG, is an exercise in problem solving. Sometimes, that means imposing limitations. Encumbrance, and tracking ammunition, might not be fun. But it is necessary. Knowing how much you can carry and have on you is important. It lets you know how much you can do and how much you can take with you. And so is the tracking of spellcasting components. Most material components can be hand-waived, with the appropriate focus or a component pouch, but meeting all the vocal and somatic components are important too. An eldritch knight with a weapon in one hand and a shield on their other arm probably can't cast shield or absorb elements as a reaction. Not without War Caster or some other extra appendage capable of the meeting the somatic component for either spell. These limitations impose a narrative tension. They ratchet up the drama.
In economics, and we invoke the term action economy fairly regularly, this is called Opportunity Cost. What, if anything, do I have to give up to do what I want, or need, to do right now?
Wilderness survival is a slightly different exercise, but the basic premise is the same. Like every random encounter in a dungeon, they're designed to tax the party's resources. That might mean casting spells for food and water, or to sneak around a possible threat if you're traveling slowly enough to actually do that. Which means you might be racing against the clock; trying to balance arriving quickly enough to help without putting yourself in too much danger. Past a certain point in the game, that can stop being an issue. Something like goodberry is nice and all, but create food and water is so much better. Or you might have access to teleportation circle or some other means of conveyance. As you level up, your powers grow; you move up in the world and your priorities shift. You won't always be defending farmers and miners from goblinkin. It's why the tier structure is explicitly called out in the DMG. Sooner or later, you're going to get embroiled in national or even continental politics.
None of this might interest you. You might not think it's remotely enjoyable. It's all still an intended exercise within the game. And are free to change things for our games. We can excise and add to our heart's content without fear of anyone from WotC taking our books. But if our changes, even just ignoring something, make something else not work, then we only have ourselves to blame. It's not the designers fault if any of us don't play the game as intended.
And, honestly, if you have any fun wilderness survival or general exploration rules, I'd love to see them. Because "Perception is the most commonly rolled skill™" that everyone just takes for granted; even though it isn't fun and nobody ever complains about it.
Then why is PHB ranger largely considered the weakest class in 5e, so much that WotC made Tasha's to address it?
…
So, in other words, it's all about skills, which means that 1DnD ranger is simply better by grace of Expertise.
You're confusing ranger with monk and it's because people are silly. Rangers don't get a lot of combat-oriented features early on. And if you believe the loudest talking heads on the Internet, the features rangers do get are worthless because exploration and social interaction are bad. I've never seen a single optimization guide for either pillar of the game. Only for combat, and only in a vacuum where you don't have to care about the rest of the party. And WotC didn't make Tasha's to specifically address the ranger's alleged shortcomings. Everyone got something. Squeaky wheels just get more grease, is all. Those alternative features are still lateral shifts. Depending on the campaign, you might still prefer the core features.
Essentially, Tasha's (and now One D&D) allowed trading specialization away for more general utility. Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer were great, and I'd argue they still are. And if that's what you want, then more power to you. But I do believe the ranger is losing some of its identity to appease people who still won't be happy with it. Because players who love a class and want to play that class will look for opportunities to use their class features. And the people who refuse to play it because it's "weak" don't have opinions worth considering.
They're loud because this thing they don't care about exists. They want everything to cater to them. And how dare other people have differing tastes.
Its features are also dependent on DMs and players who care enough about something besides combat to adequately use those rules. But when fully utilized, the Ranger is one of the strongest classes in the game.
I hear this a lot: "if you actually use the rules, exploring is hard/playing an explorer class is rewarding!" I'm gonna push back on this here, because I usually don't bother.
I know these rules. I'm one of those weirdos who has read all my core rulebooks. I've used these rules. I've taught them to my friends. I've been on both sides of the screen with these rules.
They're not challenging. They're not interesting. They're not exciting, and they're not fun. (And they're terribly organized. These rules are scattered across so many chapters of so many books it's unreal.) Running the 5e exploration rules as written is tedious and pointless. It makes you roll a lot of dice, to slowly wiggle your way through near-identical branching paths, devoid of any content, until you eventually pop out at a near-identical endpoint. Any character can do it, and having good bonuses isn't important. You SHOULDN'T play with the exploration rules as written in 5e. You should fix them! And if you've had fun with exploration, which it sounds like you have, then you or your DM probably did just that.
This last part is true. I enjoy exploration, because it makes the world a real, living, wondrous place. Not just some vague colorful backdrop. I love showing the players abandoned ruins that tell the story of the world. Exotic plants that might be dangerous, or used as currency in that part of the world. The bones of a long dead adventurer with a map or key in their pockets. Physics-defying landscapes to try to navigate creatively. Lands changed by the presence of the villains, or its magical protectors.
That's when exploration is actually fun. And that's all pretty much stuff that I make up myself. The rules give a little inspiration, but not much in the way of mechanics that actually improve a player's enjoyment of the world. And yes, DnD is a game first. It should be fun.
Or to put it a better way, why would you want to have no fun doing something, when there is a fun way to do it instead?
Look at what the rules say for foraging, since that's fresh on my mind:
You can forage for food if you travel at a normal or slow pace. Every character that wants to help rolls a Suvival check. The DM sets the difficulty at 10, 15, or 20 based on the environment. Each character that fails finds nothing. Each that succeeds gets 1d6+WIS pounds of food and 1d6+WIS gallons of water. There is no guidance on how long this takes, or how often you can try. A character needs 1 pound of food and 1 gallon of water each day to survive without problems (described elsewhere, but sadly not referenced).
So you're paying the game, going through the wilderness, and you forgot your rations. You say 'I want to forage,' and the DM tells you to roll. Everyone helps. 4 players roll Survival. Let's assume half succeed. You gather 2d6+2xWIS number of days of supplies for 1 person. On average, you get probably 10 units of food and 10 of water. By doing nothing but asking to make a roll, you just supplied your party for the next 2 and a half days. Longer if you make them stretch a bit. Even if you only get to try once a day, you'll end up at the next town with baskets full of surplus.
The old Ranger gets to double her amount foraged. So let's say they collectively bring back 16 units instead with her help. Okay you're good for 4 days now. Pretty nice.
The new Ranger gets expertise and the possibility of advantage with the right tools. She is more likely to succeed. So your back to just 10 units, but much more consistently. It all pretty much balances out.
Was it fun for anyone?
Not really. The rolls alone hardly mean anything in most games, where your next quest location is most likely within a week's walk until you get teleport or a boat, etc. You can easily pack that much rations. It's mildly interesting if you need to do it. You're happy to have your ranger either way.
But the real fun comes from describing what happens. If you leave it to nothing but the roll, it's just bookkeeping. If you describe the search as leading to a wild boar fight, or uncovering a lost ruin, or avoiding dangerous mushrooms, then that's fun. That's all stuff you have to make up as a DM.
The rules for getting lost are even worse. They say that sometimes a DM might decide to make you roll to avoid getting lost. The DC is comically low, and can be made even lower by going slowly. The old Ranger just doesn't get lost. The new Ranger almost always succeeds. The only penalty for failure is 1d6 hours finding your way again.
If the DM has nothing to say about that time, it's just more bookkeeping and counting easily replaced resources. It's up to the DM to make it interesting. So I do it by asking the person leading the way to make a Survival roll each day. That's usually the ranger, but it could be a druid, a barbarian, or anyone that focused on that. In my current group it's the monk with good survival and the pirate captain that's good with mapmaking. It's cool that they work together.
If they roll well, then they know which way they are going, and I describe what I had planned on the path already.
If they roll poorly, then maybe the jungle becomes too thick or the fey woods too confusing. I describe what that feels like. I ask them how they want to solve the problem. They come up with creative solutions. They get invested in the narrative. They might encounter a dangerous local beast to avoid, or meet a friendly fey creature that will help, for an unusual price. Whatever happens, it has to build onto the story and the wonder of that part of the world.
If it doesn't do that, then it's just a boring roll and moving a timer ahead.
The new Ranger is just as good at these obstacles, but better in every other situation outside of their preferred terrain. I don't mean better from a power standpoint (which they also are. ) I mean even better because they get to feel like a Ranger, and contribute meaningfully, in every environment. They are truly masters of the hunt.
Its features are also dependent on DMs and players who care enough about something besides combat to adequately use those rules. But when fully utilized, the Ranger is one of the strongest classes in the game.
I hear this a lot: "if you actually use the rules, exploring is hard/playing an explorer class is rewarding!" I'm gonna push back on this here, because I usually don't bother.
I know these rules. I'm one of those weirdos who has read all my core rulebooks. I've used these rules. I've taught them to my friends. I've been on both sides of the screen with these rules.
They're not challenging. They're not interesting. They're not exciting, and they're not fun. (And they're terribly organized. These rules are scattered across so many chapters of so many books it's unreal.) Running the 5e exploration rules as written is tedious and pointless. It makes you roll a lot of dice, to slowly wiggle your way through near-identical branching paths, devoid of any content, until you eventually pop out at a near-identical endpoint. Any character can do it, and having good bonuses isn't important. You SHOULDN'T play with the exploration rules as written in 5e. You should fix them! And if you've had fun with exploration, which it sounds like you have, then you or your DM probably did just that.
This last part is true. I enjoy exploration, because it makes the world a real, living, wondrous place. Not just some vague colorful backdrop. I love showing the players abandoned ruins that tell the story of the world. Exotic plants that might be dangerous, or used as currency in that part of the world. The bones of a long dead adventurer with a map or key in their pockets. Physics-defying landscapes to try to navigate creatively. Lands changed by the presence of the villains, or its magical protectors.
That's when exploration is actually fun. And that's all pretty much stuff that I make up myself. The rules give a little inspiration, but not much in the way of mechanics that actually improve a player's enjoyment of the world. And yes, DnD is a game first. It should be fun.
Or to put it a better way, why would you want to have no fun doing something, when there is a fun way to do it instead?
Look at what the rules say for foraging, since that's fresh on my mind:
You can forage for food if you travel at a normal or slow pace. Every character that wants to help rolls a Suvival check. The DM sets the difficulty at 10, 15, or 20 based on the environment. Each character that fails finds nothing. Each that succeeds gets 1d6+WIS pounds of food and 1d6+WIS gallons of water. There is no guidance on how long this takes, or how often you can try. A character needs 1 pound of food and 1 gallon of water each day to survive without problems (described elsewhere, but sadly not referenced).
So you're paying the game, going through the wilderness, and you forgot your rations. You say 'I want to forage,' and the DM tells you to roll. Everyone helps. 4 players roll Survival. Let's assume half succeed. You gather 2d6+2xWIS number of days of supplies for 1 person. On average, you get probably 10 units of food and 10 of water. By doing nothing but asking to make a roll, you just supplied your party for the next 2 and a half days. Longer if you make them stretch a bit. Even if you only get to try one a day, you'll end up at the next town with baskets full of surplus.
The old Ranger gets to double her amount foraged. So let's say they collectively bring back 16 units instead with her help. Okay you're good for 4 days now. Pretty nice.
The new Ranger gets expertise and the possibility of advantage with the right tools. She is more likely to succeed. So your back to just 10 units, but much more consistently. It all pretty much balances out.
Was it fun for anyone?
Not really. The rolls alone hardly mean anything in most games, where your next quest location is most likely within a week's walk until you get teleport or a boat, etc. You can easily pack that much rations. It's mildly interesting if you need to do it. You're happy to have your ranger either way.
But the real fun comes from describing what happens. If you leave it to nothing but the roll, it's just bookkeeping. If you describe the search as leading to a wild boar fight, or uncovering a lost ruin, or avoiding dangerous mushrooms, then that's fun. That's all stuff you have to make up as a DM.
The rules for getting lost are even worse. They say that sometimes a DM might decide to make you roll to avoid getting lost. The DC is comically low, and can be made even lower by going slowly. The old Ranger just doesn't get lost. The new Ranger almost always succeeds. The only penalty for failure is 1d6 hours finding your way again.
If the DM has nothing to say about that time, it's just more bookkeeping and counting easily replaced resources. It's up to the DM to make it interesting. So I do it by asking the person leading the way to make a Survival roll each day. That's usually the ranger, but it could be a druid, a barbarian, or anyone that focused on that. In my current group it's the monk with good survival and the pirate captain that's good with mapmaking. It's cool that they work together.
If they roll well, then they know which way they are going, and I describe what I had planned on the path already.
If they roll poorly, then maybe the jungle becomes too thick or the fey woods too confusing. I describe what that feels like. I ask them how they want to solve the problem. They come up with creative solutions. They get invested in the narrative. They might encounter a dangerous local beast to avoid, or meet a friendly fey creature that will help, for an unusual price. Whatever happens, it has to build onto the story and the wonder of that part of the world.
If it doesn't do that, then it's just a boring roll and moving a timer ahead.
The new Ranger is just as good at these obstacles, but better in every other situation outside of their preferred terrain. I don't mean better from a power standpoint (which they also are. ) I mean even better because they get to feel like a Ranger, and contribute meaningfully, in every environment. They are truly masters of the hunt.
Exactly.... When you actually parse out the rules for survival it's extremely underwhelming.
Exploration is basically survival checks which until Tashas came out a rogue with expertise in survival was better at in the majority of biomes compared to a ranger.
That and Goodberry exists... So food is an afterthought for most groups from the get go.
Even the poison thing is silly imo as rangers dump INT so your nature check (even with ADV +expertise) is probably better left to the wizard. Especially since they can do Enhance Ability and get advantage on the check anyway.
Plus the poison would have to be included in your biome to be eligible which it might not be.... especially exotic poisons
You're confusing ranger with monk and it's because people are silly. Rangers don't get a lot of combat-oriented features early on. And if you believe the loudest talking heads on the Internet, the features rangers do get are worthless because exploration and social interaction are bad. I've never seen a single optimization guide for either pillar of the game. Only for combat, and only in a vacuum where you don't have to care about the rest of the party. And WotC didn't make Tasha's to specifically address the ranger's alleged shortcomings. Everyone got something. Squeaky wheels just get more grease, is all. Those alternative features are still lateral shifts. Depending on the campaign, you might still prefer the core features.
Essentially, Tasha's (and now One D&D) allowed trading specialization away for more general utility. Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer were great, and I'd argue they still are. And if that's what you want, then more power to you. But I do believe the ranger is losing some of its identity to appease people who still won't be happy with it. Because players who love a class and want to play that class will look for opportunities to use their class features. And the people who refuse to play it because it's "weak" don't have opinions worth considering.
They're loud because this thing they don't care about exists. They want everything to cater to them. And how dare other people have differing tastes.
The reason you've never seen an optimization guide for exploration or social pillars is because, well, there's nothing to optimize, that's a sad reality of things. This game started out as a pure dungeon crawler, and gained these aspects decades after its inception, so no wonder they're still feeling rudimentary. Most DMs, as far as I can tell, still relegate the whole social aspect to just Persuasion checks, and I take this as a personal insult because I'm probably as passionate about intrigue and social pillar as you are about exploration, and I'm trying to make the ideas from this article a bare minimum in the games I'm in. Because of how underdeveloped the exploration pillar is, the class itself feels underdeveloped.
However, I personally think that making a class that specifically aims at one pillar of the game is a bad idea. People complain about fighter because fighter has barely anything to do outside combat. But look at bards. They're supposed to be the face of the party, and they're good at that, they're also solid in combat, but what features of bard class are actually aimed at social pillar? None! Only Eloquence and Whispers get stuff that directly specializes in social interactions. Bards get flavor through spells and how they use them. Ranger now has access to primal spellcasting, including cantrips and rituals - that alone adds a lot of utility and flavor that helps exloration and evokes that feeling of being Aragorn of the party. Stegodorkus' feedback reinforces this impression, though it is, of course, a matter of personal experience.
I think it's important to admit when we're wrong. I've played all the new classes through level 5 now. And I was wrong.
Is the ranger prefect? No. I still think that it's most thematic abilities come online way too late (but the same is true of all 3 classes.) I still think Roving should be a first level feature. Hunter's Mark is too strong at low levels. And rangers largely make Rogues feel obsolete. I'll be noting all of that in the survey.
But.
My fears about the ranger losing its flavor were largely unfounded. When making the character, I took the skills, equipment, and spells it suggested and it already felt pretty good. I underestimated how much the Primal spell list adds to a Ranger's theme. Only one other class gets these spells, and having more access to them really helps a Ranger do what feels right. The skills available for expertise are thematic. They came in handy both in the Exploration phase of the games, AND the dungeon crawls.
And I think that last point was the most important one. The Ranger felt like a Ranger, even while exploring a cave or castle. They were equipped to act as the scout, the trap finder, the monster slayer, and the beast friend. Our Ranger stealthed ahead in ruined castles, located dangerous traps, climbed through sketchy tunnels, and befriended wild animals.
It was... honestly pretty great. Having a Ranger that filled the theme even outside of his native wilderness. I was wrong. I want to thank everyone who disagreed with me for making me take a long hard look at it. And I highly suggest playtesting as much as your time allows. Even rolling up some characters can change your outlook on them better than any theorizing can.
Thanks everyone! I look forward to the next UA release!
You're confusing ranger with monk and it's because people are silly. Rangers don't get a lot of combat-oriented features early on. And if you believe the loudest talking heads on the Internet, the features rangers do get are worthless because exploration and social interaction are bad. I've never seen a single optimization guide for either pillar of the game. Only for combat, and only in a vacuum where you don't have to care about the rest of the party. And WotC didn't make Tasha's to specifically address the ranger's alleged shortcomings. Everyone got something. Squeaky wheels just get more grease, is all. Those alternative features are still lateral shifts. Depending on the campaign, you might still prefer the core features.
Essentially, Tasha's (and now One D&D) allowed trading specialization away for more general utility. Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer were great, and I'd argue they still are. And if that's what you want, then more power to you. But I do believe the ranger is losing some of its identity to appease people who still won't be happy with it. Because players who love a class and want to play that class will look for opportunities to use their class features. And the people who refuse to play it because it's "weak" don't have opinions worth considering.
They're loud because this thing they don't care about exists. They want everything to cater to them. And how dare other people have differing tastes.
The reason you've never seen an optimization guide for exploration or social pillars is because, well, there's nothing to optimize, that's a sad reality of things. This game started out as a pure dungeon crawler, and gained these aspects decades after its inception, so no wonder they're still feeling rudimentary. Most DMs, as far as I can tell, still relegate the whole social aspect to just Persuasion checks, and I take this as a personal insult because I'm probably as passionate about intrigue and social pillar as you are about exploration, and I'm trying to make the ideas from this article a bare minimum in the games I'm in. Because of how underdeveloped the exploration pillar is, the class itself feels underdeveloped.
However, I personally think that making a class that specifically aims at one pillar of the game is a bad idea. People complain about fighter because fighter has barely anything to do outside combat. But look at bards. They're supposed to be the face of the party, and they're good at that, they're also solid in combat, but what features of bard class are actually aimed at social pillar? None! Only Eloquence and Whispers get stuff that directly specializes in social interactions. Bards get flavor through spells and how they use them. Ranger now has access to primal spellcasting, including cantrips and rituals - that alone adds a lot of utility and flavor that helps exloration and evokes that feeling of being Aragorn of the party. Stegodorkus' feedback reinforces this impression, though it is, of course, a matter of personal experience.
No one is saying any class should be aimed at a single pillar of the game. Every class is capable of interacting with every pillar; to varying degrees. So why you'd go there makes absolutely zero sense. Especially when I've already explained how the Exploration and Social Interaction pillars are far bigger than most are willing to admit.
And people can optimize their characters for these other two pillars. The reason we don't see guides for them isn't because it's impossible. It's because the people who write optimization guides, as I've previously stated, only care about combat. And they only do so from the perspective of the individual. They don't value tools or the majority of skill proficiencies. They don't even care about working as a team; presumably because you can't reliably count on what other characters you'll be playing with. Functionally, they're writing for a few Adventurer's League players. But you'll never see them admit it.
It used to be that traveling overland, from one location to the next, was its own game. You literally had to go out and buy that and use those rules. Whether you're crawling over hexes or dungeon tiles, you're playing a very specific kind of game. It's not like combat, or weathering a storm at sea from aboard a ship, or convincing a local ruler to back your company's noble cause. And I think that's the disconnect. D&D isn't just one thing, no matter how much some people might want it to be. It's a lot of seemingly disparate activities relying on shared mechanics to facilitate a contiguous experience.
I'm still not convinced this nebulously defined "other" are really the true enemy, or even exist in the way being described by some people in this thread. What we have is lots of people playing D&D differently, which is a good thing, and it feels a little backwards to talk about how D&D isn't just one thing, then construct a scapegoat of people playing D&D "wrongly" to lay blame for all our problems at. The whole premise is missing the point, even.
D&D isn't just one thing, but as far as I can tell no one has claimed that it is or should be? Rather than some great duel between 'optimizers' and 'real D&D players' isn't this just a case of different people having different ideas about how a mechanic should look or feel? We've seen many players of many dfiferent backgrounds and playstyles professing a number of different opinions, and that's fine, good even.
IDK I think it's okay to simply like or dislike something without trying to turn it into some high concept culture war.
The reason you've never seen an optimization guide for exploration or social pillars is because, well, there's nothing to optimize, that's a sad reality of things.
I wouldn't agree that there's no room for optimization, but there's a couple classes of problems that make optimizing for it of limited use
A lot of it just amounts to 'play the right class'. There no realistic way that a barbarian is going to compete with a druid in exploration or a bard in social.
A lot of it is pretty specific 'have the right tool for this special situation', or else super generic skill checks.
Exploration and Social aren't very inclusive, which makes DMs want to not focus on them. It's rare for the answer to "How can my character help in this fight" be "by staying out of the way", but it's quite common for exploration and social.
As a DM, it's somewhat hard to handle failures at exploration (Guess no adventure tonight, you failed to find the dungeon) or social (yeah, the townsfolk have a problem, but you look like scruffy disreputable vagabonds so they're not about to ask you to solve it, or even tell you what it is), which means the DM often makes failure impossible. Which means your skill doesn't matter.
Every class, every skill or tool proficiency is part of the exploration part of the game. Same with the social pillar.
Just because some players don't want to barter you don't take such extra features out. But they shouldn't be a requirement either.
A barbarian solves exploration often the same ways they usually do... rush in and trust their strength or constitution to help pull through. Every now and then they have the one skill or tool to do the job.
The bard also solves exploration via the skills and spells they have. Inspire others, bribes, coherenision or just taking chances with Jack of all trades.
This can be done for every class.
Sometimes people go looking for "exploration" like "art". Meaning the seach for the ideal makes you miss all the beautiful parts right there from the start.
To answer the original question "what happened to the exploration pillar?" Memes, trolls, and the reduction of specialized play. (Jeremy has stated in dragon talk that base ranger actually had ok satisfaction until they released revised ranger due to a vocal minority)
How is it fixed? Involve all players, classes at a engagement level that makes their interests and choices meaningful.
Right now 1dnd seems to remove a common set of choices many rangers have found fun and part of their ranger play. Others never use them but that doesn't make it meaningless to have them.
No one is saying any class should be aimed at a single pillar of the game. Every class is capable of interacting with every pillar; to varying degrees. So why you'd go there makes absolutely zero sense. Especially when I've already explained how the Exploration and Social Interaction pillars are far bigger than most are willing to admit.
And then there's the fighter class, which can hit things with sword, and a part of community that wants fighter to stay this way because tradition.
And people can optimize their characters for these other two pillars. The reason we don't see guides for them isn't because it's impossible. It's because the people who write optimization guides, as I've previously stated, only care about combat. And they only do so from the perspective of the individual. They don't value tools or the majority of skill proficiencies. They don't even care about working as a team; presumably because you can't reliably count on what other characters you'll be playing with. Functionally, they're writing for a few Adventurer's League players. But you'll never see them admit it.
It used to be that traveling overland, from one location to the next, was its own game. You literally had to go out and buy that and use those rules. Whether you're crawling over hexes or dungeon tiles, you're playing a very specific kind of game. It's not like combat, or weathering a storm at sea from aboard a ship, or convincing a local ruler to back your company's noble cause. And I think that's the disconnect. D&D isn't just one thing, no matter how much some people might want it to be. It's a lot of seemingly disparate activities relying on shared mechanics to facilitate a contiguous experience.
Comparing skill proficiencies to the abundance of mechanics designed for combat is... strange. Wandering around during travel is a kind of sandbox thing and it requires a lot of improvisation, because it either is the plot, or just a temporary derailment from the plot, like when you roam around the map in MMORPG just grinding random mobs between actual quests. Making it meaningful and fun requires a lot of work on DM's part, I think that's one of the reasons why it's not a popular thing.
There are three reasons you don't see optimization guides for exploration. First, yes, generally audiences don't click on them, so the incentive to create them is low. Second, it's very obvious how to optimize for exploration. You just grab the survival, perception, nature, and animal handling skills, and any spells that mention food, water, or finding things. Why write instructions for something so simple? Third, and this is the kicker, nobody needs such a guide, because even a character with no spells and huge penalties to all those skills will still be absolutely fine, as I described earlier. You really can't fail at exploration.
But hey, you hardly fail in combat really, so it's not like optimization guides are chiefly to keep you from failing -- they're to help you excel. What does excellence look like in exploration? Whoa, with your sick combo you managed to gather even more surplus food..! We would've had more than we needed anyway, but now we can sell it for, like, 20 extra silver pieces!
Where's the appeal? It exists only in imagined potential. Not in actuality.
But hey, you hardly fail in combat really, so it's not like optimization guides are chiefly to keep you from failing -- they're to help you excel. What does excellence look like in exploration? Whoa, with your sick combo you managed to gather even more surplus food..! We would've had more than we needed anyway, but now we can sell it for, like, 20 extra silver pieces!
Where's the appeal? It exists only in imagined potential. Not in actuality.
If we ever get a guide focused around the Exploration pillar, it would be great if there was a chapter on what salvaging from monsters looks like and how it plays with the crafting rules for making certain goods. Giving the DM more details beyond just their imagination for what a player could potentially harvest from aberrations, dragons, giants, etc. could go a long way in making even random wilderness encounters feel potentially rewarding.
Granted, that kind of resource harvesting is a bit more crunchy than what 5e usually aims for.
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But hey, you hardly fail in combat really, so it's not like optimization guides are chiefly to keep you from failing -- they're to help you excel. What does excellence look like in exploration? Whoa, with your sick combo you managed to gather even more surplus food..! We would've had more than we needed anyway, but now we can sell it for, like, 20 extra silver pieces!
Where's the appeal? It exists only in imagined potential. Not in actuality.
If we ever get a guide focused around the Exploration pillar, it would be great if there was a chapter on what salvaging from monsters looks like and how it plays with the crafting rules for making certain goods. Giving the DM more details beyond just their imagination for what a player could potentially harvest from aberrations, dragons, giants, etc. could go a long way in making even random wilderness encounters feel potentially rewarding.
Granted, that kind of resource harvesting is a bit more crunchy than what 5e usually aims for.
Now see... that is a book I would Buy in an instant as a DM let alone as a player.
No one is saying any class should be aimed at a single pillar of the game. Every class is capable of interacting with every pillar; to varying degrees. So why you'd go there makes absolutely zero sense. Especially when I've already explained how the Exploration and Social Interaction pillars are far bigger than most are willing to admit.
And then there's the fighter class, which can hit things with sword, and a part of community that wants fighter to stay this way because tradition.
Sorry, but I don't follow. Even if the fighter is the best at making melee attacks, it can still participate in other pillars of the game. It's not difficult.
And people can optimize their characters for these other two pillars. The reason we don't see guides for them isn't because it's impossible. It's because the people who write optimization guides, as I've previously stated, only care about combat. And they only do so from the perspective of the individual. They don't value tools or the majority of skill proficiencies. They don't even care about working as a team; presumably because you can't reliably count on what other characters you'll be playing with. Functionally, they're writing for a few Adventurer's League players. But you'll never see them admit it.
It used to be that traveling overland, from one location to the next, was its own game. You literally had to go out and buy that and use those rules. Whether you're crawling over hexes or dungeon tiles, you're playing a very specific kind of game. It's not like combat, or weathering a storm at sea from aboard a ship, or convincing a local ruler to back your company's noble cause. And I think that's the disconnect. D&D isn't just one thing, no matter how much some people might want it to be. It's a lot of seemingly disparate activities relying on shared mechanics to facilitate a contiguous experience.
Comparing skill proficiencies to the abundance of mechanics designed for combat is... strange. Wandering around during travel is a kind of sandbox thing and it requires a lot of improvisation, because it either is the plot, or just a temporary derailment from the plot, like when you roam around the map in MMORPG just grinding random mobs between actual quests. Making it meaningful and fun requires a lot of work on DM's part, I think that's one of the reasons why it's not a popular thing.
Plot is just things that happen─the sequence of events that transpire. It can happen around the player characters, to them, be caused by them, and then some. NPCs should still be actively up to something, even when the PCs aren't around. So a sandbox adventure, trudging through the wilderness, is never a derailment. Players, and their characters, can never lose the plot. Traveling between the nearest town or city and the dungeon of choice was an adventure unto itself; rife with its own challenges. There were monsters. There were threats. You survived not by your class abilities, but by your tools and your wits. Your classes and levels simply gave you more tools to solve the problem at hand. And, fundamentally, D&D is still this.
Making things memorable and fun always takes effort on the part of the DM. And the players, if we're being honest, but that's a topic for another thread. The thing is, and I've said this before, D&D isn't just one game. The current iteration tries to be several different games; with mixed success.
Can you run a dungeon crawl? Yes, technically, you can. But I personally wouldn't call 200 feet (twenty 10-foot squares) per minute a crawl. Over its decades of publication, the game has gradually shifted away from basically survival horror to faux medieval superheroes. But it has yet to completely abandon those old trappings. I suspect this is because WotC still wants people who like that style of play, such as myself, to be able to continue playing that way. Unfortunately, this means D&D isn't about anything in the same way other games are. Look at PbtA and WoD games, which I enjoy, and how they have a strong sense of identity and theme. D&D does not, and it has given that up for the sake of mass appeal. With D&D, I have to graft stuff on or else it comes across bland.
And this doesn't have to be a bad thing. I think it's great that so many people can find something to love about it and play it. And having what are essentially unfinished adventures leaves tremendous room for customization, and I dare say even encourages creative writing. I just also think the rules should continue to support that old style of play as the game broadens its horizons to embrace other styles of play. And the changes, so far, made to the ranger disappoint me in this regard.
But hey, you hardly fail in combat really, so it's not like optimization guides are chiefly to keep you from failing -- they're to help you excel. What does excellence look like in exploration? Whoa, with your sick combo you managed to gather even more surplus food..! We would've had more than we needed anyway, but now we can sell it for, like, 20 extra silver pieces!
Where's the appeal? It exists only in imagined potential. Not in actuality.
If we ever get a guide focused around the Exploration pillar, it would be great if there was a chapter on what salvaging from monsters looks like and how it plays with the crafting rules for making certain goods. Giving the DM more details beyond just their imagination for what a player could potentially harvest from aberrations, dragons, giants, etc. could go a long way in making even random wilderness encounters feel potentially rewarding.
Granted, that kind of resource harvesting is a bit more crunchy than what 5e usually aims for.
Now see... that is a book I would Buy in an instant as a DM let alone as a player.
There are many wonderful 3rd party books that cover exactly these kinds of things. That's one of the greatest things about DnD opening their license for other people to use. These books definitely exist and you should check them out. The creators deserve support for their passion and hard work.
As someone who has played many different RPGs, with various levels of 'crunch' for things like this, I know it's not really for me. My groups have all gone through these stages, where we want more detail and complexity. We've found it in different games, or written it ourselves. In my personal experience, it does very little to actually add to the story. At best, you find yourself tracking a bunch of numbers to get to the same ultimate outcome. At worst, it derails the whole campaign, as your characters run off to another part of the world to collect materials for a few months. Or when one character needs half of the game time to do their pet projects, while everyone else just wants to get on with the plot. Like the player that wants to shop for an hour every game.
Can it be fun still? Certainly. If the whole table is on board. It can lead to whole adventures on its own. It can be exactly the style of game your players want sometimes.
But for me, it's just not worth being the default rules. For me, no encounter should be random. They should all be telling the greater story of the campaign. Exploration should add to the tapestry of the world. That's a lot harder to write guides for, or break down into numbers. I wish DnD could better explain the Exploration and Social pillars to new players and DMs, without relying on codifying it in tables and rolls. But I do feel the current mechanics cover them just fine.
With a little shift of perspective, you could hypothetically say the Barbarian is OP in all pillars of the game. They excel at combat. A high Athletics total and HP means they can overcome all manner of natural obstacles. And who needs to charm an NPC when you can pick them up with one hand and growl at them? A barbarian only needs one skill and their base stats to trivialize every pillar of the game!
Of course this is silly. But it does illustrate a point. Not everything in a game needs a new intricate rule to make a character feel good at doing it. A barbarian is useful in every part of the game. But because people look for numbers and ability descripions to tell them what they can do, it's sometimes hard to see. We need to be better at showing everyone that an RPG means an infinite world of possibilities.
There are three reasons you don't see optimization guides for exploration. First, yes, generally audiences don't click on them, so the incentive to create them is low. Second, it's very obvious how to optimize for exploration. You just grab the survival, perception, nature, and animal handling skills, and any spells that mention food, water, or finding things. Why write instructions for something so simple? Third, and this is the kicker, nobody needs such a guide, because even a character with no spells and huge penalties to all those skills will still be absolutely fine, as I described earlier. You really can't fail at exploration.
The 'exploration' pillar isn't wilderness survival, it's mostly the scout/reconnaissance role. Which rangers and rogues are in fact good at, though druids with wildshape, wizards with familiars, and a bunch of spells that gather information (various sorts of divination), allow for stealth (invisibility and pass without trace, mostly), or bypass obstacles (flight, teleportation, gaseous form, etc) are prone to stepping on their shtick.
There are three reasons you don't see optimization guides for exploration. First, yes, generally audiences don't click on them, so the incentive to create them is low. Second, it's very obvious how to optimize for exploration. You just grab the survival, perception, nature, and animal handling skills, and any spells that mention food, water, or finding things. Why write instructions for something so simple? Third, and this is the kicker, nobody needs such a guide, because even a character with no spells and huge penalties to all those skills will still be absolutely fine, as I described earlier. You really can't fail at exploration.
The 'exploration' pillar isn't wilderness survival, it's mostly the scout/reconnaissance role. Which rangers and rogues are in fact good at, though druids with wildshape, wizards with familiars, and a bunch of spells that gather information (various sorts of divination), allow for stealth (invisibility and pass without trace, mostly), or bypass obstacles (flight, teleportation, gaseous form, etc) are prone to stepping on their shtick.
Right. Exploration is even more than that too. A Rogue or Ranger scouting ahead in a dungeon is exploring. A familiar spying on an enemy is exploring. Turning into a bug to slip under a door is exploring.
But a barbarian climbing a cliff for a better view is also exploring. A fighter pushing aside a boulder from a cave mouth is exploring. Investigating a crime scene is exploring. Searching a city for the shop you need is exploring. Deciphering letters in an unknown language is exploring. Solving the riddle on a sealed door is exploring. Swimming to the bottom of a dark pool is exploring.
Literally everything that isn't fighting or talking to people is exploring. And even in those situations, exploration can be involved. Every class has tools for every pillar. They just aren't always so obvious because these pillars aren't so easily stuck in a small box as combat.
But a barbarian climbing a cliff for a better view is also exploring. A fighter pushing aside a boulder from a cave mouth is exploring. Investigating a crime scene is exploring. Searching a city for the shop you need is exploring. Deciphering letters in an unknown language is exploring. Solving the riddle on a sealed door is exploring. Swimming to the bottom of a dark pool is exploring.
Literally everything that isn't fighting or talking to people is exploring. And even in those situations, exploration can be involved. Every class has tools for every pillar. They just aren't always so obvious because these pillars aren't so easily stuck in a small box as combat.
When the best example you can give of class tools is "climbing a cliff" or "pushing on a boulder", you might as well be saying "this class is terrible at exploration".
A semi -old video about travel (which is a part of exploration) youtube re-recomended probably because of its spying tools.
Imo exploration is just "world building meets mechanics" and sometimes those subtle details matter even if it's just a minute or two just to say this is how we did "the thing". It bridges the ideas making it Role-playing vs game rails.
But a barbarian climbing a cliff for a better view is also exploring. A fighter pushing aside a boulder from a cave mouth is exploring. Investigating a crime scene is exploring. Searching a city for the shop you need is exploring. Deciphering letters in an unknown language is exploring. Solving the riddle on a sealed door is exploring. Swimming to the bottom of a dark pool is exploring.
Literally everything that isn't fighting or talking to people is exploring. And even in those situations, exploration can be involved. Every class has tools for every pillar. They just aren't always so obvious because these pillars aren't so easily stuck in a small box as combat.
When the best example you can give of class tools is "climbing a cliff" or "pushing on a boulder", you might as well be saying "this class is terrible at exploration".
Haha that's fair. I was agreeing with your points, but I didn't put a lot of thought into the details. Maybe 'being strong' isn't the best example of a great exploration feature. But it's still useful.
Fighters get good skill options for different kinds of exploration - Acrobatics, Athletics, History, Perception, and Survival
And for social situations - Animal Handling, History, Insight, Intimidation.
And there is crossover between them too. A display of athletic prowess can impress a crowd. And animal handling can help you survive the wilds.
Barbarians get a similar range, with Nature instead of History.
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Then why is PHB ranger largely considered the weakest class in 5e, so much that WotC made Tasha's to address it?
So, in other words, it's all about skills, which means that 1DnD ranger is simply better by grace of Expertise.
I am usually the DM. If you're trudging through an empty map, then your DM has done a poor job of populating it. Every hex doesn't need a random encounter, but there should be something notable. And you might only see them during a short or long rest, but they should still be there. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say something controversial.
Not every rule has to be fun, and an emphasis on having fun above all else can actually hurt the game.
Every single kind of encounter you can imagine, in every single TTRPG, is an exercise in problem solving. Sometimes, that means imposing limitations. Encumbrance, and tracking ammunition, might not be fun. But it is necessary. Knowing how much you can carry and have on you is important. It lets you know how much you can do and how much you can take with you. And so is the tracking of spellcasting components. Most material components can be hand-waived, with the appropriate focus or a component pouch, but meeting all the vocal and somatic components are important too. An eldritch knight with a weapon in one hand and a shield on their other arm probably can't cast shield or absorb elements as a reaction. Not without War Caster or some other extra appendage capable of the meeting the somatic component for either spell. These limitations impose a narrative tension. They ratchet up the drama.
In economics, and we invoke the term action economy fairly regularly, this is called Opportunity Cost. What, if anything, do I have to give up to do what I want, or need, to do right now?
Wilderness survival is a slightly different exercise, but the basic premise is the same. Like every random encounter in a dungeon, they're designed to tax the party's resources. That might mean casting spells for food and water, or to sneak around a possible threat if you're traveling slowly enough to actually do that. Which means you might be racing against the clock; trying to balance arriving quickly enough to help without putting yourself in too much danger. Past a certain point in the game, that can stop being an issue. Something like goodberry is nice and all, but create food and water is so much better. Or you might have access to teleportation circle or some other means of conveyance. As you level up, your powers grow; you move up in the world and your priorities shift. You won't always be defending farmers and miners from goblinkin. It's why the tier structure is explicitly called out in the DMG. Sooner or later, you're going to get embroiled in national or even continental politics.
None of this might interest you. You might not think it's remotely enjoyable. It's all still an intended exercise within the game. And are free to change things for our games. We can excise and add to our heart's content without fear of anyone from WotC taking our books. But if our changes, even just ignoring something, make something else not work, then we only have ourselves to blame. It's not the designers fault if any of us don't play the game as intended.
And, honestly, if you have any fun wilderness survival or general exploration rules, I'd love to see them. Because "Perception is the most commonly rolled skill™" that everyone just takes for granted; even though it isn't fun and nobody ever complains about it.
You're confusing ranger with monk and it's because people are silly. Rangers don't get a lot of combat-oriented features early on. And if you believe the loudest talking heads on the Internet, the features rangers do get are worthless because exploration and social interaction are bad. I've never seen a single optimization guide for either pillar of the game. Only for combat, and only in a vacuum where you don't have to care about the rest of the party. And WotC didn't make Tasha's to specifically address the ranger's alleged shortcomings. Everyone got something. Squeaky wheels just get more grease, is all. Those alternative features are still lateral shifts. Depending on the campaign, you might still prefer the core features.
Essentially, Tasha's (and now One D&D) allowed trading specialization away for more general utility. Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer were great, and I'd argue they still are. And if that's what you want, then more power to you. But I do believe the ranger is losing some of its identity to appease people who still won't be happy with it. Because players who love a class and want to play that class will look for opportunities to use their class features. And the people who refuse to play it because it's "weak" don't have opinions worth considering.
They're loud because this thing they don't care about exists. They want everything to cater to them. And how dare other people have differing tastes.
This last part is true. I enjoy exploration, because it makes the world a real, living, wondrous place. Not just some vague colorful backdrop. I love showing the players abandoned ruins that tell the story of the world. Exotic plants that might be dangerous, or used as currency in that part of the world. The bones of a long dead adventurer with a map or key in their pockets. Physics-defying landscapes to try to navigate creatively. Lands changed by the presence of the villains, or its magical protectors.
That's when exploration is actually fun. And that's all pretty much stuff that I make up myself. The rules give a little inspiration, but not much in the way of mechanics that actually improve a player's enjoyment of the world. And yes, DnD is a game first. It should be fun.
Or to put it a better way, why would you want to have no fun doing something, when there is a fun way to do it instead?
Look at what the rules say for foraging, since that's fresh on my mind:
You can forage for food if you travel at a normal or slow pace. Every character that wants to help rolls a Suvival check. The DM sets the difficulty at 10, 15, or 20 based on the environment. Each character that fails finds nothing. Each that succeeds gets 1d6+WIS pounds of food and 1d6+WIS gallons of water. There is no guidance on how long this takes, or how often you can try. A character needs 1 pound of food and 1 gallon of water each day to survive without problems (described elsewhere, but sadly not referenced).
So you're paying the game, going through the wilderness, and you forgot your rations. You say 'I want to forage,' and the DM tells you to roll. Everyone helps. 4 players roll Survival. Let's assume half succeed. You gather 2d6+2xWIS number of days of supplies for 1 person. On average, you get probably 10 units of food and 10 of water. By doing nothing but asking to make a roll, you just supplied your party for the next 2 and a half days. Longer if you make them stretch a bit. Even if you only get to try once a day, you'll end up at the next town with baskets full of surplus.
The old Ranger gets to double her amount foraged. So let's say they collectively bring back 16 units instead with her help. Okay you're good for 4 days now. Pretty nice.
The new Ranger gets expertise and the possibility of advantage with the right tools. She is more likely to succeed. So your back to just 10 units, but much more consistently. It all pretty much balances out.
Was it fun for anyone?
Not really. The rolls alone hardly mean anything in most games, where your next quest location is most likely within a week's walk until you get teleport or a boat, etc. You can easily pack that much rations. It's mildly interesting if you need to do it. You're happy to have your ranger either way.
But the real fun comes from describing what happens. If you leave it to nothing but the roll, it's just bookkeeping. If you describe the search as leading to a wild boar fight, or uncovering a lost ruin, or avoiding dangerous mushrooms, then that's fun. That's all stuff you have to make up as a DM.
The rules for getting lost are even worse. They say that sometimes a DM might decide to make you roll to avoid getting lost. The DC is comically low, and can be made even lower by going slowly. The old Ranger just doesn't get lost. The new Ranger almost always succeeds. The only penalty for failure is 1d6 hours finding your way again.
If the DM has nothing to say about that time, it's just more bookkeeping and counting easily replaced resources. It's up to the DM to make it interesting. So I do it by asking the person leading the way to make a Survival roll each day. That's usually the ranger, but it could be a druid, a barbarian, or anyone that focused on that. In my current group it's the monk with good survival and the pirate captain that's good with mapmaking. It's cool that they work together.
If they roll well, then they know which way they are going, and I describe what I had planned on the path already.
If they roll poorly, then maybe the jungle becomes too thick or the fey woods too confusing. I describe what that feels like. I ask them how they want to solve the problem. They come up with creative solutions. They get invested in the narrative. They might encounter a dangerous local beast to avoid, or meet a friendly fey creature that will help, for an unusual price. Whatever happens, it has to build onto the story and the wonder of that part of the world.
If it doesn't do that, then it's just a boring roll and moving a timer ahead.
The new Ranger is just as good at these obstacles, but better in every other situation outside of their preferred terrain. I don't mean better from a power standpoint (which they also are. ) I mean even better because they get to feel like a Ranger, and contribute meaningfully, in every environment. They are truly masters of the hunt.
Exactly.... When you actually parse out the rules for survival it's extremely underwhelming.
Exploration is basically survival checks which until Tashas came out a rogue with expertise in survival was better at in the majority of biomes compared to a ranger.
That and Goodberry exists... So food is an afterthought for most groups from the get go.
Even the poison thing is silly imo as rangers dump INT so your nature check (even with ADV +expertise) is probably better left to the wizard. Especially since they can do Enhance Ability and get advantage on the check anyway.
Plus the poison would have to be included in your biome to be eligible which it might not be.... especially exotic poisons
The reason you've never seen an optimization guide for exploration or social pillars is because, well, there's nothing to optimize, that's a sad reality of things. This game started out as a pure dungeon crawler, and gained these aspects decades after its inception, so no wonder they're still feeling rudimentary. Most DMs, as far as I can tell, still relegate the whole social aspect to just Persuasion checks, and I take this as a personal insult because I'm probably as passionate about intrigue and social pillar as you are about exploration, and I'm trying to make the ideas from this article a bare minimum in the games I'm in. Because of how underdeveloped the exploration pillar is, the class itself feels underdeveloped.
However, I personally think that making a class that specifically aims at one pillar of the game is a bad idea. People complain about fighter because fighter has barely anything to do outside combat. But look at bards. They're supposed to be the face of the party, and they're good at that, they're also solid in combat, but what features of bard class are actually aimed at social pillar? None! Only Eloquence and Whispers get stuff that directly specializes in social interactions. Bards get flavor through spells and how they use them. Ranger now has access to primal spellcasting, including cantrips and rituals - that alone adds a lot of utility and flavor that helps exloration and evokes that feeling of being Aragorn of the party. Stegodorkus' feedback reinforces this impression, though it is, of course, a matter of personal experience.
No one is saying any class should be aimed at a single pillar of the game. Every class is capable of interacting with every pillar; to varying degrees. So why you'd go there makes absolutely zero sense. Especially when I've already explained how the Exploration and Social Interaction pillars are far bigger than most are willing to admit.
And people can optimize their characters for these other two pillars. The reason we don't see guides for them isn't because it's impossible. It's because the people who write optimization guides, as I've previously stated, only care about combat. And they only do so from the perspective of the individual. They don't value tools or the majority of skill proficiencies. They don't even care about working as a team; presumably because you can't reliably count on what other characters you'll be playing with. Functionally, they're writing for a few Adventurer's League players. But you'll never see them admit it.
It used to be that traveling overland, from one location to the next, was its own game. You literally had to go out and buy that and use those rules. Whether you're crawling over hexes or dungeon tiles, you're playing a very specific kind of game. It's not like combat, or weathering a storm at sea from aboard a ship, or convincing a local ruler to back your company's noble cause. And I think that's the disconnect. D&D isn't just one thing, no matter how much some people might want it to be. It's a lot of seemingly disparate activities relying on shared mechanics to facilitate a contiguous experience.
I'm still not convinced this nebulously defined "other" are really the true enemy, or even exist in the way being described by some people in this thread. What we have is lots of people playing D&D differently, which is a good thing, and it feels a little backwards to talk about how D&D isn't just one thing, then construct a scapegoat of people playing D&D "wrongly" to lay blame for all our problems at. The whole premise is missing the point, even.
D&D isn't just one thing, but as far as I can tell no one has claimed that it is or should be? Rather than some great duel between 'optimizers' and 'real D&D players' isn't this just a case of different people having different ideas about how a mechanic should look or feel? We've seen many players of many dfiferent backgrounds and playstyles professing a number of different opinions, and that's fine, good even.
IDK I think it's okay to simply like or dislike something without trying to turn it into some high concept culture war.
I wouldn't agree that there's no room for optimization, but there's a couple classes of problems that make optimizing for it of limited use
Every class, every skill or tool proficiency is part of the exploration part of the game. Same with the social pillar.
Just because some players don't want to barter you don't take such extra features out. But they shouldn't be a requirement either.
A barbarian solves exploration often the same ways they usually do... rush in and trust their strength or constitution to help pull through. Every now and then they have the one skill or tool to do the job.
The bard also solves exploration via the skills and spells they have. Inspire others, bribes, coherenision or just taking chances with Jack of all trades.
This can be done for every class.
Sometimes people go looking for "exploration" like "art". Meaning the seach for the ideal makes you miss all the beautiful parts right there from the start.
To answer the original question "what happened to the exploration pillar?" Memes, trolls, and the reduction of specialized play. (Jeremy has stated in dragon talk that base ranger actually had ok satisfaction until they released revised ranger due to a vocal minority)
How is it fixed? Involve all players, classes at a engagement level that makes their interests and choices meaningful.
Right now 1dnd seems to remove a common set of choices many rangers have found fun and part of their ranger play. Others never use them but that doesn't make it meaningless to have them.
And then there's the fighter class, which can hit things with sword, and a part of community that wants fighter to stay this way because tradition.
Comparing skill proficiencies to the abundance of mechanics designed for combat is... strange. Wandering around during travel is a kind of sandbox thing and it requires a lot of improvisation, because it either is the plot, or just a temporary derailment from the plot, like when you roam around the map in MMORPG just grinding random mobs between actual quests. Making it meaningful and fun requires a lot of work on DM's part, I think that's one of the reasons why it's not a popular thing.
There are three reasons you don't see optimization guides for exploration. First, yes, generally audiences don't click on them, so the incentive to create them is low. Second, it's very obvious how to optimize for exploration. You just grab the survival, perception, nature, and animal handling skills, and any spells that mention food, water, or finding things. Why write instructions for something so simple? Third, and this is the kicker, nobody needs such a guide, because even a character with no spells and huge penalties to all those skills will still be absolutely fine, as I described earlier. You really can't fail at exploration.
But hey, you hardly fail in combat really, so it's not like optimization guides are chiefly to keep you from failing -- they're to help you excel. What does excellence look like in exploration? Whoa, with your sick combo you managed to gather even more surplus food..! We would've had more than we needed anyway, but now we can sell it for, like, 20 extra silver pieces!
Where's the appeal? It exists only in imagined potential. Not in actuality.
If we ever get a guide focused around the Exploration pillar, it would be great if there was a chapter on what salvaging from monsters looks like and how it plays with the crafting rules for making certain goods. Giving the DM more details beyond just their imagination for what a player could potentially harvest from aberrations, dragons, giants, etc. could go a long way in making even random wilderness encounters feel potentially rewarding.
Granted, that kind of resource harvesting is a bit more crunchy than what 5e usually aims for.
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Now see... that is a book I would Buy in an instant as a DM let alone as a player.
Sorry, but I don't follow. Even if the fighter is the best at making melee attacks, it can still participate in other pillars of the game. It's not difficult.
Plot is just things that happen─the sequence of events that transpire. It can happen around the player characters, to them, be caused by them, and then some. NPCs should still be actively up to something, even when the PCs aren't around. So a sandbox adventure, trudging through the wilderness, is never a derailment. Players, and their characters, can never lose the plot. Traveling between the nearest town or city and the dungeon of choice was an adventure unto itself; rife with its own challenges. There were monsters. There were threats. You survived not by your class abilities, but by your tools and your wits. Your classes and levels simply gave you more tools to solve the problem at hand. And, fundamentally, D&D is still this.
Making things memorable and fun always takes effort on the part of the DM. And the players, if we're being honest, but that's a topic for another thread. The thing is, and I've said this before, D&D isn't just one game. The current iteration tries to be several different games; with mixed success.
Can you run a dungeon crawl? Yes, technically, you can. But I personally wouldn't call 200 feet (twenty 10-foot squares) per minute a crawl. Over its decades of publication, the game has gradually shifted away from basically survival horror to faux medieval superheroes. But it has yet to completely abandon those old trappings. I suspect this is because WotC still wants people who like that style of play, such as myself, to be able to continue playing that way. Unfortunately, this means D&D isn't about anything in the same way other games are. Look at PbtA and WoD games, which I enjoy, and how they have a strong sense of identity and theme. D&D does not, and it has given that up for the sake of mass appeal. With D&D, I have to graft stuff on or else it comes across bland.
And this doesn't have to be a bad thing. I think it's great that so many people can find something to love about it and play it. And having what are essentially unfinished adventures leaves tremendous room for customization, and I dare say even encourages creative writing. I just also think the rules should continue to support that old style of play as the game broadens its horizons to embrace other styles of play. And the changes, so far, made to the ranger disappoint me in this regard.
There are many wonderful 3rd party books that cover exactly these kinds of things. That's one of the greatest things about DnD opening their license for other people to use. These books definitely exist and you should check them out. The creators deserve support for their passion and hard work.
As someone who has played many different RPGs, with various levels of 'crunch' for things like this, I know it's not really for me. My groups have all gone through these stages, where we want more detail and complexity. We've found it in different games, or written it ourselves. In my personal experience, it does very little to actually add to the story. At best, you find yourself tracking a bunch of numbers to get to the same ultimate outcome. At worst, it derails the whole campaign, as your characters run off to another part of the world to collect materials for a few months. Or when one character needs half of the game time to do their pet projects, while everyone else just wants to get on with the plot. Like the player that wants to shop for an hour every game.
Can it be fun still? Certainly. If the whole table is on board. It can lead to whole adventures on its own. It can be exactly the style of game your players want sometimes.
But for me, it's just not worth being the default rules. For me, no encounter should be random. They should all be telling the greater story of the campaign. Exploration should add to the tapestry of the world. That's a lot harder to write guides for, or break down into numbers. I wish DnD could better explain the Exploration and Social pillars to new players and DMs, without relying on codifying it in tables and rolls. But I do feel the current mechanics cover them just fine.
With a little shift of perspective, you could hypothetically say the Barbarian is OP in all pillars of the game. They excel at combat. A high Athletics total and HP means they can overcome all manner of natural obstacles. And who needs to charm an NPC when you can pick them up with one hand and growl at them? A barbarian only needs one skill and their base stats to trivialize every pillar of the game!
Of course this is silly. But it does illustrate a point. Not everything in a game needs a new intricate rule to make a character feel good at doing it. A barbarian is useful in every part of the game. But because people look for numbers and ability descripions to tell them what they can do, it's sometimes hard to see. We need to be better at showing everyone that an RPG means an infinite world of possibilities.
The 'exploration' pillar isn't wilderness survival, it's mostly the scout/reconnaissance role. Which rangers and rogues are in fact good at, though druids with wildshape, wizards with familiars, and a bunch of spells that gather information (various sorts of divination), allow for stealth (invisibility and pass without trace, mostly), or bypass obstacles (flight, teleportation, gaseous form, etc) are prone to stepping on their shtick.
Right. Exploration is even more than that too. A Rogue or Ranger scouting ahead in a dungeon is exploring. A familiar spying on an enemy is exploring. Turning into a bug to slip under a door is exploring.
But a barbarian climbing a cliff for a better view is also exploring. A fighter pushing aside a boulder from a cave mouth is exploring. Investigating a crime scene is exploring. Searching a city for the shop you need is exploring. Deciphering letters in an unknown language is exploring. Solving the riddle on a sealed door is exploring. Swimming to the bottom of a dark pool is exploring.
Literally everything that isn't fighting or talking to people is exploring. And even in those situations, exploration can be involved. Every class has tools for every pillar. They just aren't always so obvious because these pillars aren't so easily stuck in a small box as combat.
When the best example you can give of class tools is "climbing a cliff" or "pushing on a boulder", you might as well be saying "this class is terrible at exploration".
https://youtu.be/qzATtrpK6pE
A semi -old video about travel (which is a part of exploration) youtube re-recomended probably because of its spying tools.
Imo exploration is just "world building meets mechanics" and sometimes those subtle details matter even if it's just a minute or two just to say this is how we did "the thing". It bridges the ideas making it Role-playing vs game rails.
Haha that's fair. I was agreeing with your points, but I didn't put a lot of thought into the details. Maybe 'being strong' isn't the best example of a great exploration feature. But it's still useful.
Fighters get good skill options for different kinds of exploration - Acrobatics, Athletics, History, Perception, and Survival
And for social situations - Animal Handling, History, Insight, Intimidation.
And there is crossover between them too. A display of athletic prowess can impress a crowd. And animal handling can help you survive the wilds.
Barbarians get a similar range, with Nature instead of History.