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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 8244489" data-attributes="member: 6777737">Favored Enemy has a wide range of problems. First, you've got to lock in the creature type. That means you have to make a guess what the campaign or DM is going to feature (e.g., fiends in Avernus, giants in Storm King, etc.). Creature types weren't designed to be keyed like this, so they're not balanced. Oozes, plants, and fey are extraordinarily rare. Dragons and fiends are largely late game. Giants are early to mid game. Elementals and constructs are almost always guardians or summoned. Humanoids are extremely narrow. Being so narrow is fine, but it means that the benefits should be fairly significant. (Spoiler: They aren't.)Second, it gives you advantage on tracking. There was a time when tracking was a very common skill to use in D&D, but my experience based on the current modules I've played, read, and run for 5e... it's just not a skill that comes up very often. The real problem with tracking is that it's kind of like opening a locked door. If it's critical to the campaign that you succeed, you will. Or there will be alternative way to continue, in which case still it wasn't essential. If it's not critical, it's not a problem if you fail. And that's just tracking, not a bonus to tracking only your favored enemy. This ability could give you advantage on tracking everything and it wouldn't be that great. Further, there are some creature types you'll never track. If you pick dragon, you're unlikely to ever be able to track one. The same with air elementals, incorporeal undead, plants, etc.Third, it gives advantage on Int checks to recall information. So, knowledge skills. Maybe it's just me, but I'd put Int as the fifth or sixth stat for Rangers. It's behind Dex, Con, and Wis, certianly, and Str and Cha are probably both better, too. So, it's a dump stat. Nothing keys to it except this. With a standard array, you'll have an 8 or 10 Int, and you're unlikely to pick up a knowledge skill (because Int isn't your bag) so you won't be proficient. So you're getting advantage on a narrow subset of a skill that you're unlikely to have a bonus on anyways. So your checks are still likely to not succeed (this is the same problem Fighter's Indomitable has). Even if you do succeed, it may not be a meaningful benefit. The result of a knowledge check is very nebulous. So, it's fairly unlikely to come up, you don't know what success on the check might do, and when it does come up the benefit gives you advantage on a check that you're the worst in the game at. That is not a benefit.Fourth, the actual, tangible, predictable benefit of Favored Enemy is that it means you speak more languages than any other class in the game. Setting aside that that isn't actually very Ranger-like and it's basically the same as the locked door problem, it's still not that great. If you pick aberration, beast, construct, monstrosity, ooze, plant, or undead -- half the list -- you don't get the free language. You also can't learn both abyssal and infernal, or both aquan and ignan. Oh, and of course you get them at 1st, 6th, and 14th level. Other classes are picking up 7th level spells. You're getting a single language. Natural explorer is powerful. The problem with this ability is that nothing happens. That is, when natural explorer works, you typically don't have an easy encounter or an encounter with an easier challenge. You typically have no encounter at all. Which is to say, when this ability works, you get no XP.Sure, conceptually your PCs are skipping encounters so that you have more resources later. However, (a) that's not really how resting works in 5e, and (b) the DM knows you have this ability so this isn't going to count against your encounters per day.Further, in most cases you can hire a guide. And the ability is only marginally better than just having a high bonus in Survival skill, which works in any terrain. And then there's the Wanderer background feature, which also works in any terrain.Frankly, Deft Explorer: Canny (Survival) is probably just better. You should have a +2 Wis or better, and a +6 Survival increasing to a +14 Survival is going to be good enough. If it's not, you were probably working against magic anyways. Survival works in all terrains, too, and it helps with tracking.</blockquote>

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