D&D 5E It's official, WOTC hates Rangers (Tasha's version of Favored Foe is GARBAGE)

[Lanefan]

Natural Explorer is expertise in Perception and Survival. It's also expertise in Nature, Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, History, Investigation, and Arcana so long as you have the required proficiency first.

The caveat is needing it to relate to your favored terrain. The good news is that it easily can if you're aware of what "related" means.

If you face a hobgoblin and need to make an insight check in the artic but your favored terrain is desert, you still get the expertise because hobgoblins are naturally related to desert environments. If you need to craft a trap, so long as it relates to your favored terrain, the skill check required for it still uses expertise.

It's an important distinction that the expertise don't activate when its in your favored terrain, it activates when its related to your favored terrain.

Which sounds even to me like it'd involve a lot of DM-wrangling on the part of the player, to slowly expand the 'related' strike zone such that it applies often enough to be relevant.

I'd far prefer the Ranger to be good at fighting - as good as a non-specialized fighter - with the tracking and exploration pieces tacked on. Then, when the Ranger's in the woods she can be very useful and the rest of the time she's still a reasonably competent warrior. Open up all armour and weapon types to the class, tone down the spellcasting (or delay it until high level), get rid of the pets (which, if any class must have them, make more sense with Druids anyway), and make Con its prime stat.

For added fun, and to give the Ranger a niche to call its own, one can add the concept of magical herbs to the game. Rangers are by far the best at finding them and in many cases are the only ones who can successfully apply or use them. And there's tons of design space for what herbs can do - curatives (all kinds), hallucinogens (which can verge into divinations), poisons, nature lore, woodland-creature summoning, etc., etc.

There was an article in an ancient Dragon magazine that vaguely waved at this concept. We've homebrew-expanded it greatly since then.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Because otherwise it would stack with Hunters Mark.

The Ranger is already an offensive DPR powerhouse over the 1st five levels of the game. Layering more damage on that would be a bad design choice.

Take a TWF Hunter Ranger 3. Presuming Hunters mark is already on the target, with two shortswords, colossus slayer, hunters mark AND favored foe, and an attack stat of 16, he's dealing 4d6+1d8+1d4+6 damage each round.

But the Hunters Mark using ranger is strictly better off, dealing 1d6 damage on most attacks, only failing to do so in the occasional round where they have to switch targets.

if it’s concentration and 1/round, it should deal 1d6 to start with.

 

[Asisreo]

Natural Explorer just says you don't have any problems and everything goes smoothly. Therefore there is little opportunity to be awesome.

When you make an Intelligence or Wisdom check related to your favored terrain, your proficiency bonus is doubled if you are using a skill that you’re proficient in.

It does more than you suggest, it's just that people like to skip paragraphs and instantly look at bullet points.

 

[Islayre d'Argolh]

Every other class in 5e not mentioned stinks at Rangering.

From my point of view a Rogue (Thief) Outlander with the Healer feat is totally decent Ranger.

 

[TheSword]

It’s concentration, and it replaces a feature that is fun and flavorful (and should just a damn minor enhancement feature like half the other classes got), and it isn’t actually better than just learning Hunters Mark.

Except hunters mark is using up your bonus actions, which are precious in many ways.

How many things does a ranger need concentration for?

 

[Gladius Legis]

How many things does a ranger need concentration for?

Literally 29 of the currently 56 spells on their class list.

 

[Aldarc]

Well I imagine some who would prefer their Ranger not to be focused around any of those things are thinking of...

Am I doing this right?

Fine. Then Warlord should also be a Fighter Subclass.

shrug I would not mind if the Warlord was a Fighter Subclass depending upon the design space of a game, i.e., if the Barbarian, Paladin, and Ranger were also Fighter subclasses, though I would also consider making the Ranger a Rogue subclass.

 

[TheSword]

Literally 29 of the currently 56 spells on their class list.

Of which you get only a handful a day, several of which are used outside combat, not to mention the useful spells that aren’t concentration.

Compared to say, getting an extra attack every round, or using one of the many many useful and regular uses of bonus actions.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Except hunters mark is using up your bonus actions, which are precious in many ways.

How many things does a ranger need concentration for?

Every single weapon attack boosting spell, for a start. The Ranger had a ton of concentration spells. Every single ranger player I’ve ever seen has been frustrated by how most of the spells they want to learn and use have concentration.

Hunters Mark uses up a few Bonus Actions per combat, leaving plenty for other things.

 

[Charlaquin]

Except hunters mark is using up your bonus actions, which are precious in many ways.

How many things does a ranger need concentration for?

Actually, there are quite a few ranger spells that require concentration, and because of that never get used over Hunter’s Mark. That was part of why a lot of folks were excited about the UA version giving you concentration-free Hunter’s Mark.

I think the more significant advantage this ability has is the fact that it doesn’t cost a spell slot. Rangers only get a few of those a day, so using this instead of Hunter’s Mark can free you up for extra Goodberries, Cure Wounds, Fog Clouds, Longstriders, etc, or if you actually upcast Hunter’s Mark, an extra Conjure Barrage or Conjure Volley.

Would be nice if it also freed you up to use some cool ranger spells like flame arrows, lightning arrow, or swift quiver, but oh well I guess.