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

[Undrave]

Except the Fighter gets to use those features exactly once between rests so... not every time on demand.

Once per short rest.

Plus, a Fighter starts with their Fighting Style so they get an additional 'always on' ability. Some of them even give you an extra action option to consider.

First two levels of Rogue? They get Expertise (meaning they could actually beat you at your own skill), the ribbon ability Thieve's Cant, mothereffin' SNEAK ATTACK (an ability who's whole point is finding ways to trigger it) and then Cunning Action.

Those are some impactful levels.

The Ranger's second level is pretty great, not gonna lie, even if their spell casting is pretty underwhelming.

Maybe it would have made sense to switch Fighting Style and Favored Enemy? Then you can just pick the enemy your encountering as your favoured enemy? That would make some semblance of sense.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Maybe it would have made sense to switch Fighting Style and Favored Enemy? Then you can just pick the enemy your encountering as your favoured enemy? That would make some semblance of sense.

Good call - I like this solution

 

[el-remmen]

As I have mentioned in this thread (and elsewhere) save for a minor tweak I have no problem with Rangers (and don't allow stuff from Tasha's), but I wonder if rangers were a fighter subclass as a kind of "wilderness warrior" that'd make sense. Heck, part of me wishes for a form of D&D that goes back to four core classes and everything else being sub-classes - you could even have multiple versions, so for example - there could bard(ish) subclasses both for rogues and wizards.

 

[fearsomepirate]

You literally said “The only way to know ... is to read the adventure ahead of time, something most DMs frown upon.” Sounded like cheating to me. Sorry for the misinterpretation.

Yes, that would be cheating. The following two statements are not equivalent:

1. The only way to positively know that Giants is a bad choice is to cheat.
2. If a player chooses any Favored Enemy other than Giants, he must be cheating.

I said (1), not (2) nor does (2) logically follow.

A point worth considering: no character is guaranteed to be maximally effective with all their abilities out of the gate. Characters’ abilities evolve through play and the Ranger’s Favored Enemy/Terrain are no exception. The Favored Enemy section even says: “As you gain levels, your choices should reflect the types of monsters you have encountered on your adventures.” Not every Ranger needs to have the most common enemy in a campaign as the Favored from the get go. It won’t render them useless if they choose something else. The DM’s only responsibility here is to ensure the spotlight is shared, not to bend the campaign to one or two niche character abilities.

The issue is that Ranger's character sheet is cluttered with garbage that is presented in the books as thematically central to the class, but has a high probability of uselessness. Favored Enemy, Favored Terrain, Natural Explorer, and even Primeval Awareness aren't presented as 1-line throwaway features. A lot of page real estate is wasted on this junk. Exciting the player's imagination with a bunch of features that he only discovers are useless slowly, over the course of the game leads to player disappointment due to building up unfulfilled expectations. That makes it bad design.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

there could bard(ish) subclasses both for rogues and wizards.

I like that:

Fighter-bard -> Skald
Wizard-bard-> Beguiler
Rogue-bard-> Bard
Cleric-bard-> Song/Lore/Charm/Knowledge domain, whatever.

Fighter-ranger -> Ranger
Wizard-ranger -> Sojourner (movement, teleportation, transport-mage)
Rogue-ranger -> Scout
Cleric-ranger -> Nature/Travel/Druid Domain

Fighter-paladin -> Cavalier
Wizard-paladin -> Swordmage (arcane defender)
Rogue-paladin -> Avenger/holy slayer/covenant assassin
Cleric-paladin -> Holy/Good/War Domain

Fighter-warlock -> Hexblade
Wizard-warlock-> Witch (ritual/moon magic/primal magic)
Rogue-warlock -> Warlock/Spellthief
Cleric-warlock -> Trickery/Shadow/Darkness Domain

Fighter-barbarian -> Berserker
Wizard-barbarian -> Sorcerer (!)
Rogue-barbarian -> Skirmisher/Dervish/Hurler
Cleric-barbarian -> War/Spirit/Runes Domain

etc

 

[Swarmkeeper]

The issue is that Ranger's character sheet is cluttered with garbage that is presented in the books as thematically central to the class, but has a high probability of uselessness. Favored Enemy, Favored Terrain, Natural Explorer, and even Primeval Awareness aren't presented as 1-line throwaway features. A lot of page real estate is wasted on this junk. Exciting the player's imagination with a bunch of features that he only discovers are useless slowly, over the course of the game leads to player disappointment due to building up unfulfilled expectations. That makes it bad design.

I don’t think anyone can rightly claim those abilities are universally “useless” or “garbage”. Some DMs will feature exploration more than other DMs in their campaigns. I feel we’re looking at a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein a DM doesn’t feature much exploration and so exploration features become “useless”.
Quite obviously, YMMV

 

[fearsomepirate]

I don’t think anyone can rightly claim those abilities are universally “useless” or “garbage”. Some DMs will feature exploration more than other DMs in their campaigns. I feel we’re looking at a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein a DM doesn’t feature much exploration and so exploration features become “useless”.
Quite obviously, YMMV

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.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

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

I agree with the badly designed designation.

For some weird reason people seem extremely reluctant to admit that things are badly designed if they either enjoy them or don't have a problem with them. It's okay to enjoy something badly designed/made. I certainly have fond childhood memories of plenty of really poor quality movies and video games!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I just let the ranger have both Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer, and Favored Foe and Whatever the other one is called.

If you add every “replace” feature from Tasha’s to the ranger as an enhancement, the class is still just in the upper middle of the power band of the phb.

 

[Minigiant]

I don’t think anyone can rightly claim those abilities are universally “useless” or “garbage”. Some DMs will feature exploration more than other DMs in their campaigns. I feel we’re looking at a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein a DM doesn’t feature much exploration and so exploration features become “useless”.
Quite obviously, YMMV

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.