D&D 5E Revised Ranger Play Report... (level 3 to 4, beastmaster)

[iserith]

A class ability that lets the entire party passively ignore difficult terrain just means one more mechanic stripped away from the game.

Just as an aside, that only applies to traveling for an hour or more which is generally going to mean the party gets from Point A to Point B in less time. That probably means less random encounters depending on how you set up your checks (see DMG 86) - no big deal in my view. Many campaigns in my experience don't even emphasize time as a valuable resource some increase in overland travel speed probably isn't a big deal either. In a combat (or exploration situation where it matters), the rest of the party is on their own. I think that works pretty well.

Even spells like Goodberry bother me for the same basic reason.

I find I don't get a lot of return from really emphasizing food and water consumption in a regular game of D&D. I even tried to make it a concern in my Delve game to not much effect. But that's likely due to the short amount of time spent on a given expedition. It's scenario specific in my view and those are the games you hold off until someone doesn't have goodberry. Good for some scenarios, bad or pointless in others.

I think some people use the reading of "Up to ten berries" as rolling 1d10 to determine how many berries you get. That seems like a good solution for concern over this spell. And anyway, at least it's one less hunter's mark or druid's thunderwave, right?

 

[iserith]

Honestly, both my DM and I are or were really worried about coordinated attack. Yet, we plan to use it as written to see how it plays out for ourselves. (Moreover, I am a little less worried, as the modifications I need to make to my playstyle in order to avoid stepping on the toes of the cleric will end up drastically reducing my actual as opposed to theoretical DPR. Likewise, if I wasn't worried about our cleric getting annoyed, then the overall group action economy that is keeping my current playstyle going is lowering our overall group DPR virtually as much as my beast is raising it. I think coordinated attack will continue to play into my observation.) My DM is worried about some of the higher level abilities that don't bother me at all. He is still willing, if we ever end up playing that level, checking out the way they work for himself. Even this ability, which he has warned me might not always work as per the rules as written, has up to now. Do some people jump to theorycrafting fears? Yes. I don't think that is the case here. The power is ripe for abuse. The only thing that hasn't made it a pain already is that I am not trying to abuse it. Making it less ripe for abuse is all people want. Because, sometimes, constantly trying to ward off potential or accidental abuses makes the game less fun in and of itself. Using the ability is less fun for me because I constantly have to worry about making the game less fun for my DM. I see that as an issue, and I don't see it as being his fault.

What sort of abuse could there be with this power? It seems very innocuous to me both as written and from what I've seen in actual play. I recall a lot of posters, perhaps the majority at that time if not now, believed the original version of PA was useless. The radius was smaller outside of your favored terrain or bigger than the UA version within it. You could sense 7 different types of creatures; the UA ranger can only detect one or two. The original version did take a spell slot and didn't reveal the creatures' location or number. I just don't see this as much better than the original - certainly better in some ways, but otherwise still not ripe for abuse as I see it.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

What sort of abuse could there be with this power? It seems very innocuous to me both as written and from what I've seen in actual play. I recall a lot of posters, perhaps the majority at that time if not now, believed the original version of PA was useless. The radius was smaller outside of your favored terrain or bigger than the UA version within it. You could sense 7 different types of creatures; the UA ranger can only detect one or two. The original version did take a spell slot and didn't reveal the creatures' location or number. I just don't see this as much better than the original - certainly better in some ways, but otherwise still not ripe for abuse as I see it.

Honestly, if you haven't figured it out from what people have said already, you aren't going to no matter what I type. I don't know what I can say to make it more explicit. You might not agree, but by now you should understand. Let's just say, while you think it isn't a big deal that the new version provides exact number, direction, and distance, and that all this information is now gained with no spell slot expenditure, I think it is a huge deal. If this information was gained at the cost of a spell slot, I wouldn't care. If this information wasn't automatically learned but required some sort of check, I wouldn't care. If less information was gathered, I wouldn't care. If the exact quantity of knowledge was, outside of some specific set of criteria which meaningfully limit the ability, largely chosen by DM fiat, I wouldn't care. As is, I care. What you see as innocuous, I see as problematic. Our values diverge. Beyond that, sorry, I'm ok to let this dog lie. I'm out.

 

[iserith]

Does anyone else think the power is rife for abuse? If so, what sort of abuse does knowing the location and number of favored enemies in a given radius invite?

 

[PHDungeon]

I am CyberDave's GM (for context). When I first was reading this power, I think I was misreading it a little, specifically this line:

"This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present, their numbers, and the creatures’ general direction and distance (in miles) from you."


The part where it says "which" of your favored enemies are present, I was taking to mean that it would give very specific information such as which types of "humanoids" were within 5 miles (e.g. x number of orcs, gnolls, humans etc...). It seems that the "which" more applies to having multiple favored enemies and doesn't actually give you that level of detail. This makes it less problematic than I originally thought. I was thinking that if I had a large dungeon type situation, I'd have to go through all my notes for each room and figure out the numbers of each type of humanoid (in Dave's case), which would be very tedious and would give away so much information that it would really ruin a lot of the fun surprises of exploring the area.

I still think that a five mile radius is a little too big to be gathering specific numbers. I feel like the ranger should maybe be able to detect the presence of his favoured enemy within five miles, but more specific numbers and details should be reserved for a significantly closer range.

As the power is currently written, I still think it can be a bit annoying if a GM forgets a detail or wants to make a change to his story on the fly, but that might be more my personal taste than an actual problem with the power. I'm personally not a big fan of really any divination type magic, and I much prefer characters getting their information in the more traditional ways, so divination magic and powers tend to rub me the wrong way no matter what. For example, I've never liked abilities like "detect evil," and most people wouldn't consider them particularly broken.

Here's an example, let's say that as the GM I've decided that there is a band of 12 orcs waiting in the woods that the party is approaching. The ranger sees the forest up ahead, gets a bit paranoid and uses his ability. He detects 12 humanoids and I give him that info. Now they might decide to detour around the forest, which negates an encounter I spent time prepping (I use roll 20, so there is a good chance I spent a bunch of time prepping a battle map, setting up tokens etc...). I don't want to railroad players, but I also don't want to waste time prepping encounters that don't get used. But let's say they do go warily into the forest, despite knowing that they might be about to be ambushed. They are attacked by the orcs and seem to be winning handily. If they didn't have this power, I could easily decide on the fly that there are some more orcs nearby in reserve to throw at them as reinforcements to make the encounter more fun and challenging, but this power s with my ability to do that because I've already told them that there are only 12 humanoids nearby.

Thus, my main issue with the ability is that it ties my hands in terms of my ability to improvise. My job is to make the game as entertaining as possible and I don't welcome powers that have potential to hinder my ability to do that.

My preference for the final version of the class would be for that part of the power to be removed entirely, but it is probably not as problematic as I initially thought it might be.

 

[iserith]

I am CyberDave's GM (for context). When I first was reading this power, I think I was misreading it a little, specifically this line:

"This feature reveals which of your favored enemies are present, their numbers, and the creatures’ general direction and distance (in miles) from you."

The part where it says "which" of your favored enemies are present, I was taking to mean that it would give very specific information such as which types of "humanoids" were within 5 miles (e.g. x number of orcs, gnolls, humans etc...). It seems that the "which" more applies to having multiple favored enemies and doesn't actually give you that level of detail. This makes it less problematic than I originally thought. I was thinking that if I had a large dungeon type situation, I'd have to go through all my notes for each room and figure out the numbers of each type of humanoid (in Dave's case), which would be very tedious and would give away so much information that it would really ruin a lot of the fun surprises of exploring the area.

I still think that a five mile radius is a little too big to be gathering specific numbers. I feel like the ranger should maybe be able to detect the presence of his favoured enemy within five miles, but more specific numbers and details should be reserved for a significantly closer range.

As the power is currently written, I still think it can be a bit annoying if a GM forgets a detail or wants to make a change to his story on the fly, but that might be more my personally taste than an actual problem with the power. I'm personally not a big fan of really any divination type magic, and I much prefer characters getting their information in the more traditional ways, so divination magic and powers tend to rub me the wrong way no matter what. For example, I've never liked abilities like "detect evil," and most people wouldn't consider them particularly broken.

Here's an example, let's say that as the GM I've decided that there is a band of 12 orcs waiting in the woods that the party is approaching. The ranger sees the forest up ahead, gets a bit paranoid and uses his ability. He detects 12 humanoids and I give him that info. Now they might decide to detour around the forest, which negates an encounter I spent time prepping (I use roll 20, so there is a good chance I spent a bunch of time prepping a battle map, setting up tokens etc...). I don't want to railroad players, but I also don't want to waste time prepping encounters that don't get used. But let's say they do go warily into the forest, despite knowing that they might be about to be ambushed. They are attacked by the orcs and seem to be winning handily. If they didn't have this power, I could easily decide on the fly that there are some more orcs nearby in reserve to throw at them as reinforcements to make the encounter more fun and challenging, but this power s with my ability to do that because I've already told them that there are only 12 humanoids nearby.

Thus, my main issue with the ability is that it ties my hands in terms of my ability to improvise. My job is to make the game as entertaining as possible and I don't welcome powers that have potential to hinder my ability to do that.

My preference for the final version of the class would be for that part of the power to be removed entirely, but it is probably not as problematic as I initially thought it might be.

Thanks for the feedback!

With regard to adding monsters on the fly, improvisation is a thing we have to do all the time, both as players and DMs, right? I think the easiest solution in this specific example is to just add a different monster type of the same CR. A desperate orc rushing behind some bushes to release a couple of rust monsters or cockatrices from bamboo cages sounds like a pretty awesome escalation to me. (Just make sure the monster is in the Roll20 SRD so that it's easy to set up the monster token during play!)

Anyway, if we know we have a character in the party with this ability, setting up contingencies like this shouldn't be very onerous, if the DM feels the need to do so at all ahead of time. Personally, if the players try to avoid the orcs and my prep goes unused, that's no big deal to me. The tokens I set up are probably going to be useful later in some other situation and the work is done. I think if the DM values not "railroading" the party and validating their choices, then at some level, he or she needs to be okay with some prep not getting used in that moment or not at all.

 

[Bawylie]

I have a UA Ranger playing in my CoS game.

I've had to point out that time passes. Between the time the ranger first uses this ability and the time the party arrives at where the favored enemy "pinged," time has passed. The enemy can move. It can leave that area, it can be joined by others. It can be joined by others who don't "ping."

The ability to detect these creatures is a snapshot in time, not a mandate that nothing changes after that information has been collected.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[happyhermit]

The intent of the playtest is to end up with a product that works great for as many people as possible, right? It is about making rules that work as well as possible for as many of the users play-styles as possible, right?

If a specific feature is a problem for a significant number of players, GMs, games, or play-styles, AND can be written in a way that doesn't cause as many problems then the best option is to simply rewrite the feature.

Analyzing the playstyles of those who don't like the feature is a fine activity if you want to understand how to best rewrite it, or decide if they are too far from the norm to shape the rules for, but that is secondary. The playtest is to shape the rules to the players while still maintaining an overall vision, not to shape the playstyles of the players.

Is anyone arguing that someone's game would be fundamentally diminished by wording or mechanics that were less absolute in this particular feature? If so, then why not apply the same gazing into their play-style to find the "problem".

 

[Blue]

I'm playing a 5th level UA Ranger (Hunter). I don't think Primeval Awareness is overpowered - it's a magical sense like a spell. But I can see how it could be annoying. "Okay, tell me every beast in a 5 mile radius" in a forest may not be something the DM is prepared for.

I like that the favored enemy categories are nice and wide so they should come up a few times per adventure though not consistently. Though almost every online actual play seems to take humanoid so maybe that one is a bit too broad. I mention that becasue changing the scope of FE would change what you can get from primeval awareness.

As a player I would be satisfied with "tell the CLOSEST group ..." with the additional caveat of "you may narrow your search". So Favored Enemy: Beasts could go for the closest beasts, or the closest wolves, or the closest deer ahead of us. I'd even be fine with "closest horses that aren't ours". That avoids the problem of the DM having to be able to detail everything while still giving useful information. It is a nerf since a closer X will block you from locating all farther X, but that perfect-information abilities sometimes take the fun out of things (on either side of the screen) so I'd be okay with that.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

I don't know that "humanoids" is too broad. I think they might just be the most common in standard campaigns. In Ravenloft, I would have chosen undead. I could see myself choosing beasts in a more wilderness/stone age themed game (ala "Far Cry: Primal"). Hell, the truth is, if I would have chosen beasts I would have gotten just as much benefit from my choice these past few sessions. Humanoids just fit better with my backstory (orc hunter/scalp taker). Monstrosities and Fey could work in some campaigns, but would be a waste in others. I think it just requires a bit of discussion with a DM before the campaign starts! I would be totally fine with your suggested change. I think it is a smart suggestion.