D&D 5E It's official, WOTC hates Rangers (Tasha's version of Favored Foe is GARBAGE)

[TheSword]

It scales damage with level and doesn’t cost bonus action (so can be used alongside two weapon fighting). What’s not to love!

 

[Gladius Legis]

It scales damage with level and doesn’t cost bonus action (so can be used alongside two weapon fighting). What’s not to love!

The concentration part of it, mainly.

 

[Gladius Legis]

The video game creators also have the distinct advantage of knowing how many of every enemy a Ranger could meet.

BG3's take on Favored Enemy actually makes that feature much less dependent on how many enemies of a given type you're going to meet.

 

[TheSword]

The once per turn thing doesn’t really matter much even when you have two attacks per round.

Miss both attacks : has no problem
Hit first/miss second : no problem
Miss first/hit second : no problem
Hit Both : only time it’s a problem... plus you just hit twice, so what’s your problem??!!

 

[Bacon Bits]

Essentially WOTC doesn't know how to balance TSR's Fighter and Ranger without angering people. THEN you have the Druid, Bard, and Rogue sneaking in the conversation.

And Barbarian! The other wilderness fighterey guy that also has to worry about colonialism problems.

The design space for ranger is significantly smaller than it used to be.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I don't see the problem with this feature, either. I think it's quite well done.

• It's better than Favored Enemy essentially as often as Fireball is better than Ice Storm.
• It makes the class DO SOMETHING at level 1.
• It doesn't invalidate Hunter's Mark. Yeah, I think that's a significant positive.
• It still takes pressure off requiring the class to always use every spell slot on Hunter's Mark.

 

[Don Durito]

The only thing I don't understand is why it requires concentration.

 

[Gradine]

Designing the perfect Ranger:

• It must excel at wilderness exploration (in a game system that models wilderness exploration poorly, when at all)
• It must cast Druid spells
• It must have a useful animal companion, that does not break the action economy, but is also powerful, but also not too powerful, but also-
• Eww NOT Drizz't
• It must not cast spells
• It must excel at bows and dual wielding, but not bows and dual wielding
• It must be stronger than a Fighter, but not as strong as a Fighter
• Herbs, I guess?
• Drizz't

 

[Lanefan]

Or neither archer nor two-weapon, beastmaster is optional, you can go all-in on casting or be a non caster...

I mean, rangers have always had archery, two-weapon fighting and animal companions.

"Always" here being relative: in 1e Rangers didn't tend to do archery or two-weapon fighting very well* and animal companions didn't exist as a thing.

The whole two-weapon high-dex thing comes from Drizz't and people (for some unfathomable reason) wantign to play Drizz't.

* - usually; mostly because those things require decent Dex and by the time you'd put four decent stats into Str, Int, Wis and Con to qualify for the class you usually didn't have much left to put into Dex.

 

[SkidAce]

Favored enemy should be deleted from writers minds, permanently.
It was a dumb idea few editions ago, and it is dumb now.

an extra tool proficiency in addition to language would be more useful than favored enemy.
Sad thing is that extra language is best part of favored enemy.
At least you can RP a smart guy that knows how to speak in many cultures.

Its hasn't been "dumb" for all the editions where people wanted to play a character that specialized in a certain foe or type of foes.

You may argue for/against certain mechanics, but there is a place for the concept.