The ranger suffers from lack of flavor because the flavor it DID have is no longer a part of play. It's simply not a thing the mechanics usually care for. Nobody cares about ration and survival, an half the time people forget terrain rules unless they're long time players/DM's. It's a casualty of rue simplification.
I think that's true, but I actually think One D&D would be a good way for them to make travel and exploration easier to use and more fun to implement. I think the reason a lot of players skip it is because it's mostly just paperwork... you're going from point A to point B... all the stuff the DM prepared is at point B. There's no characters to interact with in the travel between, and if the players do well on some rolls there aren't even any combats. The DM is, if anything, probably just going to roll on an encounter table to determine what happens in the meantime.
I don't necessarily know what the solution should be. But I think the main issue is that there's far less to interact with in exploration/travel than in combat or diplomacy. If you build a character who specializes in diplomacy you end up with in-depth conversations with NPCs, perhaps some counter-rolls for bluffs or arguments. Combat, of course, is the most complex part of the game and where most character abilities are utilized. However, if you have a character built for exploration... it mostly just gives you the ability to skip the exploration part of the game entirely. Roll a high enough Survival check and boom, you just fast-traveled to where ever you were trying to go.
It would help if the OneD&D Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide actually had more sample exploration encounters; preparing exploration encounters isn't that hard, but you need to know how, because they're either going to be mandatory, or potentially missable.
In the first case you need to still somehow reward the characters using exploration to their benefit, e.g- give them ambush opportunities against an enemy force heading the other way on the same road, because by scouting ahead you have time to prepare, or found a spot to observe them unseen etc.
In the latter case, it's important to prepare missable encounters such that you can always use them later. This is good to get into the habit of doing for any encounter that your party is likely to bypass somehow, because it means that the time spent preparing isn't waste, because you can always use the encounter another time, such as a return journey, or transplant it into a different location etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Gloomstalker was op it is fine as it is now, you can make decent comparison with the new hunter. For the assassin it's not less powerfull at all. If I had one complaint I would say to force the poison thematic is problematic. The level 3 with 2 masteries offered option with disguise, the new lvl 13 is just forcing for a generic subclass.
I wouldnt say Gloomstalker was op, It was though the only good subclass because the others were totally lackluster. The hunters extra damage should never have a 1/round limit for instance.
as aleays, when discussion if something is op we must compare to full casters who are leading the pack, not to other sub-par options.
No, we should definitely compare to sub-par options. Saying that a subclass is only OP if it blows full casters out of the water is ridiculous. A subclass is OP if it invalidates the ability to choose subclasses by simply being better than all other options (like Gloom Stalker).
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Why is that? If we dont care about overall power balance we might as well not care about balance at all. After all, Gloomstalker was basically the only reason to pick a ranger to begin with (avoiding invalidating the whole class). Without it I suspect we will see even fewer rangers, and those who want the ranger “feeling” will make rogue/fighter multiclasses instead (or just plain rogues).
If Gloom Stalker was the only reason to pick a Ranger, then that's obviously a problem with the base class. If there were numerous subclasses that brought Ranger up to par, then there wouldn't really be a balance problem, and subclasses besides those would be seen as too weak instead of the more powerful ones being seen as overpowered.
Like, imagine there's a fighting style that lets you choose any other 3 fighting styles and gain the benefits of all of them. Even if that wouldn't put any martials above casters, it would still be overpowered as hell on account of being the only real option. On the other hand, if you add a bunch of other fighting styles that are roughly equal to three of the existing fighting styles alongside it, it becomes an internally balanced way to increase the power of a class.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
3RD LEVEL: ASSASSINATE You are adept at getting the drop on a target, granting you the following benefits: Initiative. You have Advantage on Initiative rolls. Surprising Strikes. During the first round of each combat, you have Advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn. Exploit Weakness. When you hit a creature that has one of the following Conditions: Blinded, Paralyzed, Poisoned, Incapacitated, Restrained, Stunned, Surprised, or Unconscious, you may choose to make the hit a critical hit and the creature takes additional damage equal to your rogue level. You may use the exploit weakness portion of this feature once and regain the ability to use it again when you complete a short or long rest. As you gain levels in this class you gain additional uses of this part of the feature, at 11th level you can use it twice before needing to rest, and at 17th level you can use it 3 times before needing to rest.
If Gloom Stalker was the only reason to pick a Ranger, then that's obviously a problem with the base class. If there were numerous subclasses that brought Ranger up to par, then there wouldn't really be a balance problem, and subclasses besides those would be seen as too weak instead of the more powerful ones being seen as overpowered.
Like, imagine there's a fighting style that lets you choose any other 3 fighting styles and gain the benefits of all of them. Even if that wouldn't put any martials above casters, it would still be overpowered as hell on account of being the only real option. On the other hand, if you add a bunch of other fighting styles that are roughly equal to three of the existing fighting styles, it becomes an internally balanced way to increase the power of a class.
Sure, which is why I also advocate for increasing the power of other ranger subclasses. For instance removing the 1/round clause of the extra damage of hunter. I really don't think other weak subclasses should be the benchmark for the Gloomstalker though. I have played it extensively, and it surely never broke the game - although in one case he really took the spotlight due to his invisiblity ability - as it should be (and which the update doesnt suggest removing).
3RD LEVEL: ASSASSINATE You are adept at getting the drop on a target, granting you the following benefits: Initiative. You have Advantage on Initiative rolls. Surprising Strikes. During the first round of each combat, you have Advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn. Exploit Weakness. When you hit a creature that has one of the following Conditions: Blinded, Paralyzed, Poisoned, Incapacitated, Restrained, Stunned, Surprised, or Unconscious, you may choose to make the hit a critical hit and the creature takes additional damage equal to your rogue level. You may use the exploit weakness portion of this feature once and regain the ability to use it again when you complete a short or long rest. As you gain levels in this class you gain additional uses of this part of the feature, at 11th level you can use it twice before needing to rest, and at 17th level you can use it 3 times before needing to rest.
I think this looks rather fine from a balance perspective, maybe a bit strong in actual play since you can use the ability easier and get the initiative on top. I would still prefer the old model though because of the following:
Getting abilities "at will" feels cool, and makes martial characters different from spellcasters in how they operate, and it lended itself well to both single-and multiclassing. At the same time, it is extrely rare you actually get to use assassinate often, so the theoretical power it brings is in reality low. In other words you get a lot of cool, with little impact on actual practical game-balance. That is in my view the best possible fit, when something feels super-cool without affecting balance in a problematic way.
As said, I do think your take would work if Wizards absolutely have to make the entire game into a X/round or long rest computer game model.
I think what I would do is still limit the auto-crits to a number of times per day, but I'd add language that adding your Rogue level to your damage happens automatically when you hit a surprised creature. Hmmm... maybe make it twice your rogue level. Either way, I think that tying it to your Rogue level specifically helps to keep it from being too overused as a multiclass dip, while still giving a way to output that big burst of surprise damage that an Assassin needs. So for games where it's really hard to get surprise... like if you're playing with a large group and you're basically never going to get everyone at the table rolling well on stealth regularly, or where there's just no opportunity to sneak off on your own, you still have the 1-3x/day auto-crit, but if you're good at finding ways to surprise your enemies you're still rewarded with a pretty hefty boost to your first round damage output.
As one of those why actually like the ranger and exploration let me flip things around a bit. I’m not going to comment on the rogues and bards as I don’t play them enough to have a solid judgement ( I will use the scout rogue for comparison however). First I find the gloomstalker actually one of the weaker ranger subclasses - precisely because it’s so round 1 loaded. It’s great at nova damage but then what? The UA6 ranger is a bad return to the PHB ranger but the UA2 ranger was actually a solid improvement (even if it didn’t get evokaction spells). The problem with the ranger really started with the coming of the scout rogue and the lack of explanations on creating exploration/travel “dungeons”. The ranger was the best at exploration with its terrain expertises and favored enemies until the scout rogue showed up with straight expertise in nature and survival granted automatically giving it basically all terrains and all enemies making it better than any ranger at the ranger’s basic game. The 4 expertises of the UA2 ranger allow it the same feature eliminating the need for natural explorer/deft explorer and favored enemy. It would be nice if those features came back giving advantage on top of expertise to the ranger but with more terrains and enemy types at L3,6 & 14 so they actually ended up with a majority (at least) of them at high level. I agree it would be nice if the 1/turn extra damage was 1/hit but I can live with it as is. Hunter subclass has the problem that it has a bunch of either/or choices for abilities that shouldn’t be permanent but should be round by round choices. That would make the hunter a far better subclass and a good standard bearer for the ranger. As for the travel/exploration leg I find folks are treating it wrong. If you think of the trip/exploration as a dungeon instead of a road it starts to make sense. You design a series of interactions either along the trail and for places nearby that could be gotten to either from becoming lost or from info in earlier interactions. Same thing for exploration only more so as the it’s less of a straight line with digressions and more of a large complex dungeon with many rooms and multiple paths the party could follow along with multiple different encounters and “treasures” . They don’t have to be major difficulties or interactions just something interesting and potentially useful. Examples: you have character with herbalism and along a stream flood plain you find a large patch of mandrakean herbalist could collect to make a healing potion (or 3). Another place you come across a pair of giant venomous snakes in a mating “dance”, you could leave them be (druidchoice) or kill them and extract 2-4 doses of poison for a rogue or ranger in the party. Somewhere else you discover thr remains of an ancient tower inhabited by a banshee - you could destroy it (maybe) or talk with it and get a history of the area and an idea of what might be found locally as well as a possible friend. Somewhere else you discover an orc village and the ranger is able to overhear plans to attack a nearby elven village, etc, etc, etc turn the exploration into the adventure not just a transit to the adventure.
As one of those why actually like the ranger and exploration let me flip things around a bit. I’m not going to comment on the rogues and bards as I don’t play them enough to have a solid judgement ( I will use the scout rogue for comparison however). First I find the gloomstalker actually one of the weaker ranger subclasses - precisely because it’s so round 1 loaded. It’s great at nova damage but then what? The UA6 ranger is a bad return to the PHB ranger but the UA2 ranger was actually a solid improvement (even if it didn’t get evokaction spells). The problem with the ranger really started with the coming of the scout rogue and the lack of explanations on creating exploration/travel “dungeons”. The ranger was the best at exploration with its terrain expertises and favored enemies until the scout rogue showed up with straight expertise in nature and survival granted automatically giving it basically all terrains and all enemies making it better than any ranger at the ranger’s basic game. The 4 expertises of the UA2 ranger allow it the same feature eliminating the need for natural explorer/deft explorer and favored enemy. It would be nice if those features came back giving advantage on top of expertise to the ranger but with more terrains and enemy types at L3,6 & 14 so they actually ended up with a majority (at least) of them at high level. I agree it would be nice if the 1/turn extra damage was 1/hit but I can live with it as is. Hunter subclass has the problem that it has a bunch of either/or choices for abilities that shouldn’t be permanent but should be round by round choices. That would make the hunter a far better subclass and a good standard bearer for the ranger. As for the travel/exploration leg I find folks are treating it wrong. If you think of the trip/exploration as a dungeon instead of a road it starts to make sense. You design a series of interactions either along the trail and for places nearby that could be gotten to either from becoming lost or from info in earlier interactions. Same thing for exploration only more so as the it’s less of a straight line with digressions and more of a large complex dungeon with many rooms and multiple paths the party could follow along with multiple different encounters and “treasures” . They don’t have to be major difficulties or interactions just something interesting and potentially useful. Examples: you have character with herbalism and along a stream flood plain you find a large patch of mandrakean herbalist could collect to make a healing potion (or 3). Another place you come across a pair of giant venomous snakes in a mating “dance”, you could leave them be (druidchoice) or kill them and extract 2-4 doses of poison for a rogue or ranger in the party. Somewhere else you discover thr remains of an ancient tower inhabited by a banshee - you could destroy it (maybe) or talk with it and get a history of the area and an idea of what might be found locally as well as a possible friend. Somewhere else you discover an orc village and the ranger is able to overhear plans to attack a nearby elven village, etc, etc, etc turn the exploration into the adventure not just a transit to the adventure.
Very well said. I don't know why the scout is a rogue archetype, outside of the rogue being the one that sneaks around a lot, and typically in a dungeon, "rogues go first", because of stealth.
I prefer that it was a ranger subclass, however, and as such, it could probably breathe some life back into an archetype that's been abused.
I also agree with you about the wilderness as an adventure. It reminds me of the survivalist and hex crawl games.
i DON'T think many people these days have a grasp on the type of games like that from the 80's and 90's (ok, the survival hex game I remember would be typically terrain drawn out on a hex grid. There was typically a gorge and a stream and densely wooded areas and other terrains. you were given a time frame and had to accomplish some tasks, and each time you moved a grid space, situations would change.
(part of me misses my pre-teen years with my uncles being SUPER geeky and introducing me to all the weird old war games they would play.. There's one that I'm perpetually trying to figure out, and this is as close as I can get to describing it, but it's not right :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTF_2187, but enough reminiscing...)
The scout rogue exists , imo, because there were a lot of rogue enthusiasts that wanted an “outdoor” rogue and a lot of ranger folks that have never really been happy with the spell casting and this (the scout rogue) gave them both something they could play. Generally over the 40+ years I’ve been playing campaigns don’t typically go past L12-15 the pile epic level characters I have are really the exception not the rule. Something to remember is that the 5e ranger is very different from the 1e. That was a fighter subclass that didn’t get spells till around L10 so for most of its normal play it had no magic. The ranger has never really had a place of its own but then the game started as a war game that tried adding magic so it really only had fighters and mages everything else has sort of grown out of that and been trying to find its own space in the game ever since.rangers and paladins were fighter subclasses, bards and monks (sort of) were rogue subclasses and Druids were a cleric subclass. Now they are classes of their own and fighting for space in concept not all that much bigger than it was in the 1970s so they are doing a lot of overlapping and that makes for competition over the same game terrain.
Yeah scout rogue was originally in the UA as scout fighter, but ended up a rogue. It was to appease the spelless Ranger archetype. While expertise in nature and survival doesn’t do everything natural explore did it does cover the majority of what people remembered to use it for. You could do history checks with Natural Explorer, but I can’t remember anyone using it for that. Technically I think it would have worked for animal handling checks too, but again never once seen someone use it for that. Any Int or Wis check related to the terrain can be made with basically expertise. A good trick that again no one used would b to ask the DM if a creature or similar creature was native to one of their terrains that way they expertise on the check if it’s true.
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It would help if the OneD&D Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide actually had more sample exploration encounters; preparing exploration encounters isn't that hard, but you need to know how, because they're either going to be mandatory, or potentially missable.
In the first case you need to still somehow reward the characters using exploration to their benefit, e.g- give them ambush opportunities against an enemy force heading the other way on the same road, because by scouting ahead you have time to prepare, or found a spot to observe them unseen etc.
In the latter case, it's important to prepare missable encounters such that you can always use them later. This is good to get into the habit of doing for any encounter that your party is likely to bypass somehow, because it means that the time spent preparing isn't waste, because you can always use the encounter another time, such as a return journey, or transplant it into a different location etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Gloomstalker was op it is fine as it is now, you can make decent comparison with the new hunter.
For the assassin it's not less powerfull at all.
If I had one complaint I would say to force the poison thematic is problematic.
The level 3 with 2 masteries offered option with disguise, the new lvl 13 is just forcing for a generic subclass.
I wouldnt say Gloomstalker was op, It was though the only good subclass because the others were totally lackluster. The hunters extra damage should never have a 1/round limit for instance.
as aleays, when discussion if something is op we must compare to full casters who are leading the pack, not to other sub-par options.
No, we should definitely compare to sub-par options. Saying that a subclass is only OP if it blows full casters out of the water is ridiculous. A subclass is OP if it invalidates the ability to choose subclasses by simply being better than all other options (like Gloom Stalker).
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Why is that? If we dont care about overall power balance we might as well not care about balance at all. After all, Gloomstalker was basically the only reason to pick a ranger to begin with (avoiding invalidating the whole class). Without it I suspect we will see even fewer rangers, and those who want the ranger “feeling” will make rogue/fighter multiclasses instead (or just plain rogues).
If Gloom Stalker was the only reason to pick a Ranger, then that's obviously a problem with the base class. If there were numerous subclasses that brought Ranger up to par, then there wouldn't really be a balance problem, and subclasses besides those would be seen as too weak instead of the more powerful ones being seen as overpowered.
Like, imagine there's a fighting style that lets you choose any other 3 fighting styles and gain the benefits of all of them. Even if that wouldn't put any martials above casters, it would still be overpowered as hell on account of being the only real option. On the other hand, if you add a bunch of other fighting styles that are roughly equal to three of the existing fighting styles alongside it, it becomes an internally balanced way to increase the power of a class.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Think I figured out how to fix Assassinate.
3RD LEVEL: ASSASSINATE
You are adept at getting the drop on a target, granting you the following benefits:
Initiative. You have Advantage on Initiative rolls.
Surprising Strikes. During the first round of each combat, you have Advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn.
Exploit Weakness. When you hit a creature that has one of the following Conditions: Blinded, Paralyzed, Poisoned, Incapacitated, Restrained, Stunned, Surprised, or Unconscious, you may choose to make the hit a critical hit and the creature takes additional damage equal to your rogue level. You may use the exploit weakness portion of this feature once and regain the ability to use it again when you complete a short or long rest. As you gain levels in this class you gain additional uses of this part of the feature, at 11th level you can use it twice before needing to rest, and at 17th level you can use it 3 times before needing to rest.
Sure, which is why I also advocate for increasing the power of other ranger subclasses. For instance removing the 1/round clause of the extra damage of hunter. I really don't think other weak subclasses should be the benchmark for the Gloomstalker though. I have played it extensively, and it surely never broke the game - although in one case he really took the spotlight due to his invisiblity ability - as it should be (and which the update doesnt suggest removing).
I think this looks rather fine from a balance perspective, maybe a bit strong in actual play since you can use the ability easier and get the initiative on top. I would still prefer the old model though because of the following:
Getting abilities "at will" feels cool, and makes martial characters different from spellcasters in how they operate, and it lended itself well to both single-and multiclassing. At the same time, it is extrely rare you actually get to use assassinate often, so the theoretical power it brings is in reality low. In other words you get a lot of cool, with little impact on actual practical game-balance. That is in my view the best possible fit, when something feels super-cool without affecting balance in a problematic way.
As said, I do think your take would work if Wizards absolutely have to make the entire game into a X/round or long rest computer game model.
I think what I would do is still limit the auto-crits to a number of times per day, but I'd add language that adding your Rogue level to your damage happens automatically when you hit a surprised creature. Hmmm... maybe make it twice your rogue level. Either way, I think that tying it to your Rogue level specifically helps to keep it from being too overused as a multiclass dip, while still giving a way to output that big burst of surprise damage that an Assassin needs. So for games where it's really hard to get surprise... like if you're playing with a large group and you're basically never going to get everyone at the table rolling well on stealth regularly, or where there's just no opportunity to sneak off on your own, you still have the 1-3x/day auto-crit, but if you're good at finding ways to surprise your enemies you're still rewarded with a pretty hefty boost to your first round damage output.
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As one of those why actually like the ranger and exploration let me flip things around a bit. I’m not going to comment on the rogues and bards as I don’t play them enough to have a solid judgement ( I will use the scout rogue for comparison however). First I find the gloomstalker actually one of the weaker ranger subclasses - precisely because it’s so round 1 loaded. It’s great at nova damage but then what? The UA6 ranger is a bad return to the PHB ranger but the UA2 ranger was actually a solid improvement (even if it didn’t get evokaction spells). The problem with the ranger really started with the coming of the scout rogue and the lack of explanations on creating exploration/travel “dungeons”. The ranger was the best at exploration with its terrain expertises and favored enemies until the scout rogue showed up with straight expertise in nature and survival granted automatically giving it basically all terrains and all enemies making it better than any ranger at the ranger’s basic game. The 4 expertises of the UA2 ranger allow it the same feature eliminating the need for natural explorer/deft explorer and favored enemy. It would be nice if those features came back giving advantage on top of expertise to the ranger but with more terrains and enemy types at L3,6 & 14 so they actually ended up with a majority (at least) of them at high level. I agree it would be nice if the 1/turn extra damage was 1/hit but I can live with it as is. Hunter subclass has the problem that it has a bunch of either/or choices for abilities that shouldn’t be permanent but should be round by round choices. That would make the hunter a far better subclass and a good standard bearer for the ranger.
As for the travel/exploration leg I find folks are treating it wrong. If you think of the trip/exploration as a dungeon instead of a road it starts to make sense. You design a series of interactions either along the trail and for places nearby that could be gotten to either from becoming lost or from info in earlier interactions. Same thing for exploration only more so as the it’s less of a straight line with digressions and more of a large complex dungeon with many rooms and multiple paths the party could follow along with multiple different encounters and “treasures” . They don’t have to be major difficulties or interactions just something interesting and potentially useful. Examples: you have character with herbalism and along a stream flood plain you find a large patch of mandrakean herbalist could collect to make a healing potion (or 3). Another place you come across a pair of giant venomous snakes in a mating “dance”, you could leave them be (druidchoice) or kill them and extract 2-4 doses of poison for a rogue or ranger in the party. Somewhere else you discover thr remains of an ancient tower inhabited by a banshee - you could destroy it (maybe) or talk with it and get a history of the area and an idea of what might be found locally as well as a possible friend. Somewhere else you discover an orc village and the ranger is able to overhear plans to attack a nearby elven village, etc, etc, etc turn the exploration into the adventure not just a transit to the adventure.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Very well said. I don't know why the scout is a rogue archetype, outside of the rogue being the one that sneaks around a lot, and typically in a dungeon, "rogues go first", because of stealth.
I prefer that it was a ranger subclass, however, and as such, it could probably breathe some life back into an archetype that's been abused.
I also agree with you about the wilderness as an adventure. It reminds me of the survivalist and hex crawl games.
i DON'T think many people these days have a grasp on the type of games like that from the 80's and 90's
(ok, the survival hex game I remember would be typically terrain drawn out on a hex grid. There was typically a gorge and a stream and densely wooded areas and other terrains. you were given a time frame and had to accomplish some tasks, and each time you moved a grid space, situations would change.
you know what? just here:
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2022/01/retrospective-outdoor-survival.html
https://oldschoolfrp.tumblr.com/post/55183481246/map-board-from-outdoor-survival-avalon-hill
It's actually brutally hard to do, but it's probably adaptable to 5e.
Hex crawls are slightly different.
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46020/roleplaying-games/5e-hexcrawl but those are also an option.
(part of me misses my pre-teen years with my uncles being SUPER geeky and introducing me to all the weird old war games they would play.. There's one that I'm perpetually trying to figure out, and this is as close as I can get to describing it, but it's not right :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTF_2187, but enough reminiscing...)
The scout rogue exists , imo, because there were a lot of rogue enthusiasts that wanted an “outdoor” rogue and a lot of ranger folks that have never really been happy with the spell casting and this (the scout rogue) gave them both something they could play. Generally over the 40+ years I’ve been playing campaigns don’t typically go past L12-15 the pile epic level characters I have are really the exception not the rule. Something to remember is that the 5e ranger is very different from the 1e. That was a fighter subclass that didn’t get spells till around L10 so for most of its normal play it had no magic. The ranger has never really had a place of its own but then the game started as a war game that tried adding magic so it really only had fighters and mages everything else has sort of grown out of that and been trying to find its own space in the game ever since.rangers and paladins were fighter subclasses, bards and monks (sort of) were rogue subclasses and Druids were a cleric subclass. Now they are classes of their own and fighting for space in concept not all that much bigger than it was in the 1970s so they are doing a lot of overlapping and that makes for competition over the same game terrain.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Yeah scout rogue was originally in the UA as scout fighter, but ended up a rogue. It was to appease the spelless Ranger archetype. While expertise in nature and survival doesn’t do everything natural explore did it does cover the majority of what people remembered to use it for. You could do history checks with Natural Explorer, but I can’t remember anyone using it for that. Technically I think it would have worked for animal handling checks too, but again never once seen someone use it for that. Any Int or Wis check related to the terrain can be made with basically expertise. A good trick that again no one used would b to ask the DM if a creature or similar creature was native to one of their terrains that way they expertise on the check if it’s true.