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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 8253909" data-attributes="member: 6704184">I mean, some other classes get full spellcasting and an archetype at level 1, so I'm not sure I agree on that. That said, I really like your thoughts here, and I think that even if we don't find a compromise, our end results will be better for the discussion.I don't think these need to be separate features. I'd just keep the name Natural Explorer, and make Wilderness Expertise a subheading, just like ritual casting is under spellcasting. I also wouldn't gate mundane terrains. Why not let a dwarf or gnome or whatever ranger start out with subterranean, or let a ranger start out knowing settlements and cities and the roads between them? I do like gating the fantastical realms, though I would add them as early options for characters like Fey Wanderer Rangers and Horizon Walker Rangers. It's possible that we have different outlooks on how "regular" and mundane characters should be at level 1, though.I don't like having 3 tiers of creatures like that. In many campaigns, fiends or aberrations would come up much sooner than that, potentially having been solved by the time 14 is reached. In my friend's campaign, we have been fighting undead and fiends since the first session, and our rangers both picked up fiend at level 6 as a result. I also think that either favored enemy or natural explorer should have such level gating, not both, and creature types come in much wider range of CRs than fantastical terrains do, IME, so I'd keep terrain as the one with some amount of level gating, and leave enemy to a single list. On Bane: As I said in my last post, I didn't plan on a damage bonus at all, but I think maybe a simple Bane that could be a "You gain the Hunter's Bane and a bane from the list for your favored enemy. You gain 2 more Bane options every time you choose a favored enemy, which can be chosen from any of the options for any of your favored enemies." type option, that simply makes your attacks count as magical as long as the target is under the effect. Other Banes would be stuff like hobbling flight, reducing regeneration or later negating it entirely, and other debuffs that make anyone who attacks the target more effective by bypassing a defense or crippling a powerful strategy of a type of creature. I have a theme here, though, which I haven't explicitly expressed, which is to make the Ranger a team enabler as a secondary role. When I work out new spells, many of them will be team buffs, and my ideas for my changes to Natural Explorer are largely about making the team as a whole more effective while still requiring rolls to do things.Okay, I like some of the changes here, and some I don't. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Arctic - Heat Metal is really powerful, but it does make sense. Fair enough. It's weird that there isn't an Endure Elements in 5e. Perhaps there should be. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Coastal - Why calm emotions? Gust of Wind I chose because it can be used to help with sailing, but I don't see what Calm Emotions has to do with being from a coastal region. I had thought Alter Self for like, diving and such?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Desert - I like it</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Forest - Fair enough, though I feel like that is sort of generic to all terrains, it feels most iconic here.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mountain - Featherfall rather than Jump is interesting. More about surviving, rather than moving quickly,which spiderclimb also covers, and featherfall can be used on others and upcast to more targets, potentially saving the whole team. Done.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Wetlands - Lesser Restoration makes sense here, yeah. More general than just poison.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Subterranean - Darkvision makes sense, I just wish 5e had less proliferated darkvision in the playable races. Low-light vision would have been perfectly easy to include. Oh well. Yeah, barring an "aha!" moment for something else, yeah, makes sense.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Urban - Perfect. I really wish there was like a...group parkour spell, but since there isn't, yep, makes sense.</li> </ul>So stealing the Bards magical secrets, and applying it to ranger ritual casting. Not a bad idea, though perhaps it could be simpler. Did you not like the idea of the Ranger being able to cast ritual spells as rituals above their normal spellcasting level? I thought it was a rather good idea.I really don't like the idea of having that many decision points that each do that few things all at low level, and I don't like the idea of favored enemy giving specific spells.I relaly think it's better for the player to just pick a favored terrain and get an extra spell at level 2, and then another at level 5. So, right now, with my proposal mixed with what we agree on in yours, you'd pick favored terrain and enemy, and one of two Bane options (the second being a generic Bane that temporarily conveys magical status to weapon attacks against the target, and at higher level probably upgrades to creating a vulnerability or reducing an immunity to resistance) at level 1. Then, at level 2, you pick a fighting style and your spells prepared, and at level 3 you pick your archetype. I think that is a good amount of choices at low level.</blockquote>

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