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

[ScuroNotte]

The problem is that its always about damage.

Think about it. Why do people want to have concentrationless HM? The answer can be distilled down to damage.

If you break concentration on your HM for Lightning Arrow, you'll have to either continue the fight without HM or recast it. Either way, you're losing damage on the spell slot you used for HM. But if you take the actual opportunity costs, you're far more likely to benefit from Lightning Arrow at an instant than just keeping HM up.

I should have clarified that I never had issue with damage output. It was the overall class features.
The alternative to adding a core combat feature, why can’t you just use the example of the Paladin’s Improved Divine Smite. Take the subclass damage bonus at 3rd level that is applied once per turn and add an addendum that at 11th level you can apply said damage to each attack.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Fireball is essentially supposed to invalidate burning hands. Many spells build themselves up from a lesser version to a more higher-level version.

Burning hands->fireball because they're both AoE pure damage spells that force dex saves. Then fireball->delayed blast fireball.

This doesn't mean total invalidation, but unless you're on a serious resource crunch, there's no reason to cast burning hands over fireball.

I don't think this is true at all. Both have different effects for a reason, because scenarios are different. If you're in a dungeon or other indoors environment, fireball loses its effectiveness a lot, whereas burning hands is still really useful because it doesn't also flame the heck out of your own people.

Just like this ranger ability. Yeah, it's "hunter's mark lite", but it doesn't use up a spell slot, so instead of thinking hunter's mark replaces it, think that it allows a lot more flexibility to the ranger because now they can use the same spell slots that went towards hunters mark towards others based on situation.

 

[Sacrosanct]

At this point, I'm kind of wondering a few things:
1) Why does the DM not know what his ranger player is capable of doing?
2) Why does he think that interesting things only happen if dice rolls can be thrown/failed?
3) Why is he being a dick and not coming up with really interesting things on the journey that actually involve choices rather than fishing for dice roll failures?

Indeed. I suppose instead of how Don described it, I'd describe it as thus:

"The jungle is oppressive at every corner. The heat feels like it's literally pressing down on you, but you hardly notice because your attention is focused on the deluge of stinging insects. Your only respite is getting lost in your own mind, shutting out some of your senses to maintain your sanity. Grar (the cleric) doesn't even notice that he's about to step into the quicksand, but Terigaria (the ranger) quickly grabs his shoulder and steers him to safety."

"Exiting the jungle at last, you come upon a village carved out of hill. The villagers look upon you with surprise. 'We are shocked to see you!' exclaims the elder. 'No one who is not of our village has survived the jungle. Most got lost and the jungle swallowed them up. Others couldn't hack their way through the jungle before exhaustion set in. How did you do it?'" "I have...certain skills" replied Terigaria.

That is, don't just narrate it as "OK, you pass the jungle, now you're at the village. Narrate it so that those abilities have a tangible feel to the story of the adventure, and highlight what would have happened if the ranger wasn't there. That is what makes those abilities feel useful.

 

[Undrave]

Even without considering its effectiveness I think the new Favored Foe is pretty poor design. There are just too many moving parts. We have:

• A trigger
• a limitation on how often it can be used per day
• a limitation on how often it can be used per turn
• concentration, on something that isn't a spell

All this for a tiny bit of extra damage per turn...

I'm wondering if WotC's designers are starting to feel the limitiatons of the 5e design space. If it continues like this 6e might not be as far away as we think.

Or they're over-valuing the bonus to damage too much.

Indeed. I suppose instead of how Don described it, I'd describe it as thus:

"The jungle is oppressive at every corner. The heat feels like it's literally pressing down on you, but you hardly notice because your attention is focused on the deluge of stinging insects. Your only respite is getting lost in your own mind, shutting out some of your senses to maintain your sanity. Grar (the cleric) doesn't even notice that he's about to step into the quicksand, but Terigaria (the ranger) quickly grabs his shoulder and steers him to safety."

"Exiting the jungle at last, you come upon a village carved out of hill. The villagers look upon you with surprise. 'We are shocked to see you!' exclaims the elder. 'No one who is not of our village has survived the jungle. Most got lost and the jungle swallowed them up. Others couldn't hack their way through the jungle before exhaustion set in. How did you do it?'" "I have...certain skills" replied Terigaria.

That is, don't just narrate it as "OK, you pass the jungle, now you're at the village. Narrate it so that those abilities have a tangible feel to the story of the adventure, and highlight what would have happened if the ranger wasn't there. That is what makes those abilities feel useful.

So DM fiat? That still doesn't mean the Ranger player did anything, they just sat back and became a NPC for a bit. Sure, it sounds cool, but that's not something they earned.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So DM fiat? That still doesn't mean the Ranger player did anything, they just sat back and became a NPC for a bit. Sure, it sounds cool, but that's not something they earned.

If that's your hang up, then have the player describe how their character got out of all of those scenarios. I'm getting the impression that unless you think the player actually rolls dice for things, then nothing happens and it's all just handled behind the scenes. And if that's how you handle things, it's fine, but that's not a design issue. That's a "you and your preferences" issue.

*I'm also confused by your use of "earned". What is earned? dice rolls aren't earned. It's random chance. And a dice roll that's called up by a rule, nothing the player actually works towards earning.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think natural explorer is really poor rule. Outside your favoured terrain it does nothing and in it it basically lets you auto-bypass any possible challenges. Whilst expertise in rangery skills might seem somewhat boring, I think it would be far more sensible method of representing the mastery of wilderness within the framework of the fifth edition.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Action economy. You're forgetting the action economy.

Nope.

your calculations do leave out that Favored Foe is more likely than HM to hit one enemy once or twice, they die, and FF is now just gone unless used again. You can’t swap targets.

HM can just be on for an hour, switching targets when it is sensible to do so. Against targets that will die in one or two hits either way, don’t use either one. But FF is only good for single big targets, while HM is also good for multiple beefy targets.

 

[Undrave]

If that's your hang up, then have the player describe how their character got out of all of those scenarios. I'm getting the impression that unless you think the player actually rolls dice for things, then nothing happens and it's all just handled behind the scenes. And if that's how you handle things, it's fine, but that's not a design issue. That's a "you and your preferences" issue.

*I'm also confused by your use of "earned". What is earned? dice rolls aren't earned. It's random chance. And a dice roll that's called up by a rule, nothing the player actually works towards earning.

Even if the character describes it it's still a foregone conclusion. There's no choice involved, there's no risk the Ranger overcomes by using the right ability. Not even using the right spell. That's the big problem.

 

[Asisreo]

I should have clarified that I never had issue with damage output. It was the overall class features.
The alternative to adding a core combat feature, why can’t you just use the example of the Paladin’s Improved Divine Smite. Take the subclass damage bonus at 3rd level that is applied once per turn and add an addendum that at 11th level you can apply said damage to each attack.

I'm unsure what you're saying. Paladin's Improved Divine Smite is a damage ability, so its still about the damage unless I'm missing something.

 

[ScuroNotte]

I'm unsure what you're saying. Paladin's Improved Divine Smite is a damage ability, so its still about the damage unless I'm missing something.

Sorry, I looked at another post about damage, and obviously I just answered you and the other post together as I am completely focused....not.