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

[Flamestrike]

I added a small damage bonus to Favored enemy and some minor tweaks to the groups that could be chosen.

Rangers dont need more damage. They're top tier as is in that regard.

They need a reason to stick with the class beyond the first few levels.

You want improvements to Favored enemy at 6th, 11th and 20th (a better favored foe).

 

[Shiroiken]

My issue with them has largely been the limited number. Favored enemy having no combat potential is also a problem IMO. I solved this by granting proficiency modifier to damage once/turn against favored enemy and increasing how often you get them. By the end, a 20th level ranger would have all the terrains and most of the non-humanoid foes.

A common complaint with them is that they are very DM dependent, since if you never see your foe or explore in your terrain, the abilities are completely worthless. These issue should be easily resolved with session 0, and if not, you're better off finding a new DM anyway.

 

[DEFCON 1]

There is no consensus on the viability or non-viability of the Ranger. For every person who says it's a POS, another one says it is fine. For every person that says the Ranger makes things trivial, another one says it's necessary to get anything done.

As is always the case... it entirely comes down to how your DM runs their game, which pillars they focus on, the manner they build encounters and scenarios, and how the player plays the Ranger character. And the only way you'll discover how viable the Ranger is will be for someone to actually play one.

 

[Retreater]

Maybe. I can say TOA was a lot more fun after we had a Ranger. It was almost impossible to get anything done before that. The DM was running it like the campaign book said to I think.

I can totally understand that. When I was DMing ToA they were bogged down in the hexcrawl portion for months, and it was getting tedious. Eventually I handwaved it since they didn't have a ranger.
And even that action partially supports my statement. If a character's ability allows a "not fun" part of the game to be avoided, then that's not a good ability - the DM should strike that element from the game regardless.
Consider if there was a character class called the gravity controller. One of its main abilities is to negate encumbrance effects on the party. The players hate tracking detailed encumbrance. While that's an important part of some games, as a DM you shouldn't make someone take that class so you can not have encumbrance play a major role in the game. Just be rid of it.

 

[el-remmen]

Rangers dont need more damage. They're top tier as is in that regard.

They need a reason to stick with the class beyond the first few levels.

You want improvements to Favored enemy at 6th, 11th and 20th (a better favored foe).

I guess I'll see if that is the case as my campaign develops. So far, haven't seen ranger do more damage than anyone else on average - but the party is only 4th verging on 5th.

 

[TwoSix]

Consider if there was a character class called the gravity controller. One of its main abilities is to negate encumbrance effects on the party. The players hate tracking detailed encumbrance. While that's an important part of some games, as a DM you shouldn't make someone take that class so you can not have encumbrance play a major role in the game. Just be rid of it.

That's the main reason small bags of holding are common magic items in my games. No one really wants to make encumbrance a thing, but making cheap magic items to handle it lets those players who care about it give a fist-bump to verisimilitude.

 

[TwoSix]

Ranger is a lot more satisfying (and not over-powered) if you give them all of the alternate features in addition to the standard features.

Except for Primeval Awareness. That ability needs to die in the dumpster fire from which it was birthed.

 

[el-remmen]

I have to wonder if people's views on a class like ranger (or other options/sub-classes people can't come to a consensus about) is because of differences in style of play (something DEF CON suggested above). I don't play with people who try to maximize efficiency of every move, action, option, or choice. Nor am I of the GMing philosophy that every encounter (heck, not even every full adventure) should necessarily give every character the opportunity to do what they are best at. Those situations obviously come up, but for me being middling at something and working towards strategic opportunities to try what you're best at or make the best of what you're only average at is where the fun and challenge of the game lies.

Like, I can't help but ask the question, how often should a favored enemy come up in the course of a campaign to be "fair?" Every few levels? Once per adventure? Once per adventuring day? Once per encounter? Should they automatically become a major antagonist of the campaign? I don't think there is a right answer to these questions and I honestly I don't want the game to tell me either. (For the record, my answer would be somewhere between the first and second options).

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I added a few clauses to both 1st level ranger's features:

Favored terrain:

• start with 2. Can change 1 at level up.
• While in the favored terrain, a ranger can also:

1) replace 1 spell known for another after a long rest.
2) replace 1 favored foe for another after a long rest.

- While in a favored terrain, the ranger is always considered to have a component pouch and all components that are not consumed upon casting for the purpose of spellcasting.

Favored foe:
Gain advantage on all Wis/Cha/Int skills against a favored foe.


As for the DM side:
I consider that the actual terrain can be both type if need be, like an underwater cave could be both Coastal and Underdark. A city like Dale, built in them mountains would be considered Mountain, no need to add an extra Urban terrain.

 

[Horwath]

Yes.

problem with both is that they 100% depend on DM charity for your character only.

also when you compare Ranger to Paladin, you see how bad those features are.