D&D 5E (2014) Favored Enemy needs a simple Damage +2

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Do you even know what your trying to come across here?

Yes, I'm pointing out how poor of an argument your little "mechanics don't matter because REALY ROLEPLAYERS don't care about numbers - they play rangers because ummm.. rangers!" is. My advise is if you don't care about balance or mechanics, great! But probably stay out of balance/mechanics threads.

The thread is about whether its appropriate to give a favored enemy damage boost. Paladins effectively get double the favored enemy bonus for 2 common favored enemies that on top of the pile of awesome they get.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I have a feeling you're being obtuse for no reason, but I'll explain.

5E focuses on the three pillars of the game, Combat, Exploration and Social Interaction. All the classes are balanced not just for combat but for all three of them, making them more useful in different situations. For instance, a Bard isn't exactly the supreme master of all combat, but he is an excellent face for the party and is basically the ultimate skill monkey. Rangers, apart from doing damage, can track, use primeval awareness, have an animal companion, cast spells, and more. They aren't just damage dealers.

Anyone can track. Rangers only do it a bit better in their favored terrain.

Primeval awareness is an average at best ability. In any sizable town I expect there to be a fiend or undead within range. The fact that its debatably less useful in your favored terrain is weird design. If rangers got a number of free uses per day, I might be impressed. If it lasted longer than a minute you could reasonably use it to triangulate, and it would be good. As it stands, Divine Sense is probably more useful due to having a smaller radius and being usable Cha +1/day.

The animal companion is essentially a trap option, plain and simple. Paladins effectively get a better version at 5th level in "Find Steed" that has a 1 mile telepathic communication, can attack/help on its own, and most importantly doesn't cost them their entire subclass options. Plus the revolving door of dead pets makes your guy seem kind of a jerk. At least the familiar/steed that dies isn't some poor real animal you suckered into traveling with you.

Paladins, arcane tricksters, etc also "cast spells and more". They also aren't just damage dealers. Rangers aren't the worst class, but a favored enemy damage boost wouldn't put them over the top end classes either. Alternately, give them advantage on damage rolls against them. Same max damage, higher average.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes, I'm pointing out how poor of an argument your little "mechanics don't matter because REALY ROLEPLAYERS don't care about numbers - they play rangers because ummm.. rangers!" is. My advise is if you don't care about balance or mechanics, great! But probably stay out of balance/mechanics threads.

The thread is about whether its appropriate to give a favored enemy damage boost. Paladins effectively get double the favored enemy bonus for 2 common favored enemies that on top of the pile of awesome they get.

The issue is that many people kinda play the ranger wrong.
And that's why they get disappointed with the results.

The ranger doesn't just slay and smite the orcs like a fighter or paladin does.

The ranger is set up to sneak up to the orc camp with his stealth skills, listen to their plans with his knowledge of Orcish, track down the orc raiding party with his advantage to the check, and lead the ambush on them with his party and a small pack of conjured wolves.

 

[Coredump]

Yes, I'm pointing out how poor of an argument your little "mechanics don't matter because REALY ROLEPLAYERS don't care about numbers - they play rangers because ummm.. rangers!" is. My advise is if you don't care about balance or mechanics, great! But probably stay out of balance/mechanics threads.

The thread is about whether its appropriate to give a favored enemy damage boost. Paladins effectively get double the favored enemy bonus for 2 common favored enemies that on top of the pile of awesome they get.

I don't agree with the logic used.

Where does it end? You give the Ranger +2 because Paly has DS. Then you give Paly Archery fight style because Ranger has it. Then you give Ranger saving throw boosts, then give palys Summon Animals, then....

Different classes have different abilities, with different strengths and weaknesses.
Yes Palys get a combat boost against undead,but only when they Divine Smite, and gain no ability to track them. They also have lousy perception and stealth capabilities.

I am currently playing two characters... a Paladin, and a Ranger. When playing the Paladin, I often miss the Ranger capabilities... the opposite hardly ever happens.

If you want your Ranger to be better at melee fighiting... then fine, do whatever you want. But I think if you want to play a better fighter... play a fighter. Rangers give you other, non-melee, abilities (stealth, perception, archery, spells, terrain knowledge, etc)

I posted this in a different thread:

If you want to make the Ranger better, fine. But don't do it by making him more like the Fighter, improve his *ranger* aspects.

Things Like:
Give him more favored terrains
Give him more (non-combat) advantages regarding favored enemies, perhaps stealth, or perception checks or... whatever
Have Primeval Awareness give a general direction, and/or some indication of power level.
Boost his known spells by 2-3 (over time)

IOW, boost the things that make him a Ranger.

 

[Sailor Moon]

It has always been about the numbers and always will be. Some of us have been optimizing and worrying about the numbers since 1e.

Wrong!

 

[Coredump]

The issue is that many people kinda play the ranger wrong.
And that's why they get disappointed with the results.

The ranger doesn't just slay and smite the orcs like a fighter or paladin does.

The ranger is set up to sneak up to the orc camp with his stealth skills, listen to their plans with his knowledge of Orcish, track down the orc raiding party with his advantage to the check, and lead the ambush on them with his party and a small pack of conjured wolves.

Yeah... my Paladin would *not* be able to do any of that. (well, except speak Orcish... 1/2 orc paly)

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah... my Paladin would *not* be able to do any of that. (well, except speak Orcish... 1/2 orc paly)

Paladins cannot conjure not befriend a pack of wolves.

That's the thing. A ranger gets the wilderness from the class and get the stronger versions of many of them. It's expensive to get them all elsewhere.

 

[Paraxis]

You are still missing the point.

In this edition, you pick a class because that is what you want to play. You don't pick a ranger then gripe and complain that the paladin does more damage. If you want to do more damage then play a paladin.

It's not about the numbers any more.

It has always been about the numbers and always will be. Some of us have been optimizing and worrying about the numbers since 1e.

Wrong!

Let's assume the part of my statement you think is wrong is "It has always been about the numbers and always will be.", because the second part is obviously my a statement of fact.

In your opinion the game is not about the numbers any more, in my opinion it always has been. So trying to back up your opinion with a declarative like "Wrong!" doesn't do much to sway me your opinion is the correct one.

The numbers always matter and always will because the numbers are essential to the "game" part of roleplaying game, you don't need good numbers for the first part but they don't hurt it either. You can roleplay the heck out of a character that is min/maxed and optimized just as much as you can roleplay a suboptimal one. What you can't do is feel successful in the "game" side of things when your numbers don't add up.

Paraxis, building characters not creating them since 1984.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Let's assume the part of my statement you think is wrong is "It has always been about the numbers and always will be.", because the second part is obviously my a statement of fact.

In your opinion the game is not about the numbers any more, in my opinion it always has been. So trying to back up your opinion with a declarative like "Wrong!" doesn't do much to sway me your opinion is the correct one.

The numbers always matter and always will because the numbers are essential to the "game" part of roleplaying game, you don't need good numbers for the first part but they don't hurt it either. You can roleplay the heck out of a character that is min/maxed and optimized just as much as you can roleplay a suboptimal one. What you can't do is feel successful in the "game" side of things when your numbers don't add up.

Paraxis, building characters not creating them since 1984.

You might have been trying to build characters by the numbers since whenever but the systems themselves weren't really about that till 3rd edition came around.

 

[Paraxis]

You might have been trying to build characters by the numbers since whenever but the systems themselves weren't really about that till 3rd edition came around.

I must have imagined all the dart specialists, blade singers, and broken stuff I did with skills & powers when that came out then.

Some people put numbers first, some don't. D&D and almost every other rpg in existence is prone to some kind of optimization and number crunching for the most part.

But to each their own, for about 5 years back in the 90's I was a huge white wolf fan, and did the same thing and got into the same discussions, about the game not being about the numbers when it clearly was you could totally break the math and abuse the mechanics of that game too and it was supposed to be a new age of "roleplaying".