D&D 5E Is favored enemy and natural explorer really that bad?

[Horwath]

Primeval Awareness is garbage.

The main problem with Ranger is that the 5e designers spent 90% of the class design time and focus of fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard. So every other class was thrown out without the playtesting and spitballing they should have.

Nothing is wrong with Favored Enemy or Natural Explorer. They are ribbon abilities.

The issue is that Ranger doesn't have it's equivalent of Paladin's Lay On Hands. A nonribbon 1st level class feature.

it's not the problem if they are ribbon abilities, problem is their reliability.

As paladin, you can use divine sense few times a day when you thing you have a "hunch" about something. And even if you detect nothing, there is still benefit from a negative result. You know that you are (relatively) safe in current location from a specific threat.

Same with divine health. Although, depending on setting YMMV on how much saving throws you avoided vs diseases.

 

[Minigiant]

it's not the problem if they are ribbon abilities, problem is their reliability.

As paladin, you can use divine sense few times a day when you thing you have a "hunch" about something. And even if you detect nothing, there is still benefit from a negative result. You know that you are (relatively) safe in current location from a specific threat.

Same with divine health. Although, depending on setting YMMV on how much saving throws you avoided vs diseases.

Divine Sense is as situational as both favored enemy and natural explorer. And more useless at level 1.

But Paladins have a 1st level scaling heal. So no one talks about how situational and rarely useful Divine Sense is.

 

[Horwath]

But Paladins have a 1st level scaling heal. So no one talks about how situational and rarely useful Divine Sense is.

This is true. Lay on hands is worth more than both Favored enemy and terrain and all their additional boosts.

also paladins get divine smite and rangers equivalent of that is .....

 

[Minigiant]

This is true. Lay on hands is worth more than both Favored enemy and terrain and all their additional boosts.

also paladins get divine smite and rangers equivalent of that is .....

Exactly.

Take Divine Smite and LOH from the Paladin and there would instantly be 100 threads on how bad Divine senses and Paladin are.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Well, we've come full circle back to this point, made much earlier:

A class feature which requires special DM attention to be useful is badly designed.

Sure. I could inject a group of demons for the ranger to track in Out of the Abyss, make him feel like it actually mattered that he has that ability. But I don't have to do that for anyone else, and that's kind of the point.

Adding extra demons to Out of the Abyss to cater to a Ranger who chose them as Favored Enemy is not the same as a DM making sure that the Exploration Pillar of Play gets its due.

Would you say Turn Undead is badly designed in that it might be rarely used in a campaign that features very few undead? Perhaps even more badly designed than Favored Enemy since it has no chance of evolving through play?

 

[Horwath]

Adding extra demons to Out of the Abyss to cater to a Ranger who chose them as Favored Enemy is not the same as a DM making sure that the Exploration Pillar of Play gets its due.

Would you say Turn Undead is badly designed in that it might be rarely used in a campaign that features very few undead? Perhaps even more badly designed than Favored Enemy since it has no chance of evolving through play?

Turn undead shares usage with domain features via channel divinity, so you can always use that resource. how can you use favored terrain forest while in underground?

 

[fearsomepirate]

Adding extra demons to Out of the Abyss to cater to a Ranger who chose them as Favored Enemy is not the same as a DM making sure that the Exploration Pillar of Play gets its due.

The issue here is that the 5e rules-writing team didn't give the Exploration Pillar its due. If 5e had a rich, robust exploration system, where having poor explorers meant your equipment tended to be in bad shape, you fatigued more easily, injuries lingered and festered, patrons tended to be displeased with your sluggishness and reward you less, etc, then sure, having a Ranger would be great. But 5e's exploration "rules" amount to "roll every so often to see if you get lost, which will generally be inconsequential, and uhhhh maybe track your rations if there's no druid?"

Would you say Turn Undead is badly designed in that it might be rarely used in a campaign that features very few undead? Perhaps even more badly designed than Favored Enemy since it has no chance of evolving through play?

I would say the cleric was badly designed if most of its class description centered on the undead, and a number of the features didn't engage with any actual rules.

Allow me to illustrate. Here's the cleric, with the ribbon abilities scribbled out (i.e. the stuff that has a reasonable likelihood of never, or perhaps very rarely, mattering at all):

Here's the Paladin:

Here's the Ranger:

It's about half of the Ranger's core class description. And, of course, much of it doesn't engage with any actual rules.

 

[NotAYakk]

A few ways I look at the Ranger:

* The Ranger is a Paladin with reduced combat abilities, who gains exploration ribbons.

* The Ranger is a Druid who loses half of its casting levels in exchange for 1 HP/level, extra attack, metal armor and exploration ribbons.

* The Ranger is a Fighter, who gives up on fighting abilities for exploration ribbons and half casting with mostly utility spells.

None of these reflect well on the Ranger.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Knowledge checks would be useful if the rules worked like 4e:

Instead, what we have is, "If the DM decides a knowledge check is appropriate, make a check using whatever skill the DM decides against whatever DC the DM has set. If you succeed, the DM will reveal to you whatever information the DM has decided is appropriate."

I generally favor the "rulings over rules" approach, but there's too much of this in the Ranger.

 

[auburn2]

I would say the cleric was badly designed if most of its class description centered on the undead, and a number of the features didn't engage with any actual rules.

Allow me to illustrate. Here's the cleric, with the ribbon abilities scribbled out (i.e. the stuff that has a reasonable likelihood of never, or perhaps very rarely, mattering at all):

So you think turn undead and destroy undead rarely matter, or am I misunderstanding you?