Adaptive Explorer: An alternative to Natural Explorer for 1st-level Rangers

[Gladius Legis]

Adaptive Explorer

This feature replaces Natural Explorer at 1st level. Your experience and training in wilderness settings have honed your most utilized skills beyond what most others can accomplish. Pick one skill you have proficiency in from among the following: Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, or Survival. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check that you make with that skill. You choose one additional skill from the aforementioned list you have proficiency in to receive this benefit at 6th and 10th level.

In addition, your familiarity with one type of natural environment has sharpened your survival and combat aptitude in a unique way that you can adapt wherever your paths take you. Choose one type of favored terrain from the list below. You gain the abilities associated with your favored terrain. You choose one additional favored terrain type at 6th and 10th level.

• Arctic. You gain resistance to cold damage. You do not consider slippery ground (such as ice, oily floor or the effects of a grease spell) to be difficult terrain, and you are immune to the effects of grease. Your experience in this terrain has made you better able to endure extreme cold conditions and maneuver on slippery ground.
• Coast. You have advantage on Constitution checks when trying to hold your breath. Fighting underwater does not give you disadvantage on your attack rolls on any melee weapon attack or on any ranged weapon attack within the weapon's normal range. Your experience in this terrain has helped you survive and fight in deep water.
• Desert. You have advantage on Constitution checks when trying to march or labor for hours without rest and when trying to survive without food or water. You have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) checks against illusions and the effects of spells of the Illusion school, where applicable. Your experience in this terrain has made you better able to survive strenuous activity and sparse food and water, as well as to keep your senses in the presence of mirages.
• Forest. You can take the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. Your experience in this terrain has made you quicker to take advantage of your surroundings.
• Grassland. You add your proficiency bonus to initiative rolls. Your experience in this terrain has made you readier to act.
• Mountain. You have advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made when climbing and on Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks when trying to keep your balance. Your experience in this terrain has made you better at navigating treacherous situations involving heights.
• Swamp. You gain resistance to acid damage. You ignore difficult terrain. Your experience in this terrain has made you better able to withstand the effects of acid and to maneuver in terrain that hinders most others.
• The Underdark. Enemies that you cannot see do not have advantage when making attack rolls against you. Your experience in this terrain has made you better able to survive dangers in dark conditions.

In addition, you are skilled at navigating the wilderness. You gain the following benefits when traveling for an hour or more:

• Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.
• Your group can’t become lost except by magical means.
• Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.
• If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
• When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
• While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Concept explanation

The Natural Explorer feature in the PHB is hot garbage, that much is obvious. In many campaigns, Rangers may never see the benefits of it. It is simply too restrictive and campaign- and DM-dependent.

The version of Natural Explorer from the Revised Ranger is definitely an improvement in a lot of ways. In fact, in some ways, it's too much of an improvement, giving you some really strong features all at 1st level, making it multiclass-bait.

As much as the Revised Ranger version of Natural Explorer made it more effective, it also removed a couple of concepts from the PHB version that I actually liked, but that the PHB version just failed miserably to execute: namely, (a) the ability to get double proficiency bonus, and (b) favored terrain.

This alternative class feature keeps the theoretically skilled aspect of the Ranger by simply turning the PHB's double proficiency feature into just basically Expertise. The Ranger can't get this Expertise in as many skills as the Rogue or Bard, but even with the lesser number of Expertised skills, the Ranger should find themselves rolling double proficiency more often than before in their best skills, and anywhere they travel, too.

Favored terrain is a concept that I've always liked, but again, the PHB version was a failure in execution. Instead, I imagined favored terrain giving the Ranger a constant and unique benefit that can apply wherever they go, based on the favored terrain they selected.

They pick a terrain at 1st, 6th and 10th levels, which also neatly solves the overpowered at 1st level problem of the Revised Ranger's version of Natural Explorer. Now a Ranger gets one feature at a time at those levels, eventually getting their full complement at 10th level.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

Not begin totally familiar with Rangers yet, this still seems OP to me for Level 1. It grants lots of benefits and to my mind would make dipping into the Ranger class more likely.

First, I would remove the free choice skill expertise (double proficiency bonus). Make it a choice of History, Nature, or Survival maybe if you are going to keep it. I would NOT include Stealth, just because I see it being the first option too many times.

Arctic: you gain advantage against cold damage (so it isn't automatic) and advantage to keep your footing on slippery surfaces (helping the save vs. Grease).

Coast: looks ok.

Desert: also good.

Forest: you gain advantage on Perception checks in light obscurement (dim light, light fog, misty rain, light-medium foliage, etc.). you also gain advantage on Stealth checks to move silently or hide yourself in this terrain (only).

Grassland: a bit too much but understandable. I would change it to you add your Wisdom modifier to your Initiative checks. You can attempt to hide without disadvantage in the low grasses and shallow dips of the terrain maybe?

Mountains: no problem.

Swamp: again, you have advantage (not resistance) on checks to avoid Poison damage (it could be a Dex or Con save for instance, doesn't matter). you ignore difficult terrain.

Underdark: also ok.

Those are my suggestions, hope they help.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Arctic: you gain advantage against cold damage (so it isn't automatic) and advantage to keep your footing on slippery surfaces (helping the save vs. Grease).

Swamp: again, you have advantage (not resistance) on checks to avoid Poison damage (it could be a Dex or Con save for instance, doesn't matter). you ignore difficult terrain.

Advantage against damage types is not a thing. It's either resistance (1/2 damage) or immunity (no damage).

 

[Yunru]

This... addresses most of the problems I had.
The double proficiency seems a bit strong, even when limited to a skill you are already proficient in. I'd swap it for granting Expertise in one of a set number of skills.

Other than that, I'm shamelessly integrating this.

 

[Gladius Legis]

EDIT: I limited the options for the Expertise-esque part of this feature to Animal Handling, Athletics, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, or Survival. So, basically, the Ranger class skill list.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I stole the advantage in 1st round part from the Revised Ranger's Natural Explorer and made it the Forest feature. I sympathize with those who feel it may be a bit too strong regardless, though. It does step on the Assassin's toes.

Thinking of changing it to Hide as a bonus action, perhaps? Which makes the Ranger able to get 1/3 of the Rogue's Cunning Action 1 level early, as opposed to 12 levels late with Vanish, which has long been a beef of mine with that feature ...

It'd make the iconic longbow archer a build with a distinct reason for existing vis a vis the Crossbow Expert from the very beginning.

EDIT: Yup. Changed Forest to bonus-action hide.

 

[5ekyu]

Concept explanation

The Natural Explorer feature in the PHB is hot garbage, that much is obvious. In many campaigns, Rangers may never see the benefits of it. It is simply too restrictive and campaign- and DM-dependent.

The version of Natural Explorer from the Revised Ranger is definitely an improvement in a lot of ways. In fact, in some ways, it's too much of an improvement, giving you some really strong features all at 1st level, making it multiclass-bait.

As much as the Revised Ranger version of Natural Explorer made it more effective, it also removed a couple of concepts from the PHB version that I actually liked, but that the PHB version just failed miserably to execute: namely, (a) the ability to get double proficiency bonus, and (b) favored terrain.

This alternative class feature keeps the theoretically skilled aspect of the Ranger by simply turning the PHB's double proficiency feature into just basically Expertise. The Ranger can't get this Expertise in as many skills as the Rogue or Bard, but even with the lesser number of Expertised skills, the Ranger should find themselves rolling double proficiency more often than before in their best skills, and anywhere they travel, too.

Favored terrain is a concept that I've always liked, but again, the PHB version was a failure in execution. Instead, I imagined favored terrain giving the Ranger a constant and unique benefit that can apply wherever they go, based on the favored terrain they selected.

They pick a terrain at 1st, 6th and 10th levels, which also neatly solves the overpowered at 1st level problem of the Revised Ranger's version of Natural Explorer. Now a Ranger gets one feature at a time at those levels, eventually getting their full complement at 10th level.

Been running that favored terrain is one picked and then the familiar locale (neighborhood) you are in after a long rest spent in the new terrain. It's getting the lay of the land, not a single type of experience.

That way, there is a bit of downtime as you travel into new areas but a lot of uptime after that.

Works out well with little in the way of new rules.

If the problem is not getting to use it, just let them use it more - not invent brand new stuff to replace it, right ?

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=68748]Gladius Legis[/MENTION]: This is a cool idea. Thanks for sharing.

It's a new year so new campaign for one of my groups, and I've decided to be brave and actually house rule the ranger a little bit. I've replaced the default Favored Enemy feature with the Favored Enemy / Greater Favored Enemy feature from the UA revised ranger.

I've also made it so Natural Explorer doesn't require the picking of favored terrains. Its benefits apply to all terrain types. However, because I'm also wanting to implement AiME's Journey rules, I'm going to enforce the idea that a ranger can only be doing one activity at a time (foraging *or* navigating *or* tracking). If the ranger isn't actively navigating, the group can still get lost. If the ranger isn't actively foraging, they don't find extra food. And so on.

Your post has made me realize that I inadvertently nixed the disguised Expertise part of Natural Explorer. I might just do what you've done and make it so they get Expertise in one ranger class skill of their choice at 1st level, then another at 6th level, and another at 10th level. That seems fine to me.

Advantage against damage types is not a thing. It's either resistance (1/2 damage) or immunity (no damage).

You can have advantage on saving throws against things that inflict various damage types, though. So the Arctic terrain type could grant you advantage on saves against spells and other effects that inflict cold damage (e.g. the cone of cold spell). It's a bit kludgy and doesn't necessarily make sense but is nevertheless a possibility. I prefer resistance myself.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

Advantage against damage types is not a thing. It's either resistance (1/2 damage) or immunity (no damage).

Sorry for the misunderstanding... I meant advantage on the checks against cold damage. Most cold damage sources grants a save of some type, and you would have advantage on that. As I stated, I think resistance is too strong simply because it is automatically half damage, with a save usually allowed for reducing that again. But, if you want to keep it, that is your choice obviously. If I borrow this for my own group, I'll tailor it anyway.

I'm glad you changed the skills, but still think Stealth is basically a no-brainer for most applications IME.

Anyway, looking good!