D&D 5E (2014) Revised Ranger Play Report... (level 3 to 4, beastmaster)

[Cyber-Dave]

Could you give some explanation as to how Primeval Awareness is "overpowered?"

For the record, he didn't say that Primeval Awareness is overpowered. He said that the ranger is overpowered. More specifically, he said that the devs have said that it is overpowered, and that they deliberately made it a little overpowered so that they could see what players complained about and fine tune the overall class based on those complaints. He is saying as much because, as I understand it, Mike Mearls said something along those lines over social media. I haven't seen the statement myself, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the claim.

I find the ability "problematic" because it is much more powerful than comparable abilities, including various limited resource abilities such as spells, and because it too easily disrupts a DMs preparation time and makes the game more difficult to prepare for. I would like some element of its features to survive. I would, however, like it to generate a more limited output of data, or at least generate the data that it does with more DM oversight. Pukunui can speak for himself. I don't want to assume I know what his issues with the power are, despite the fact that we obviously agree that the power can become annoying.

 

[pukunui]

Could you give some explanation as to how Primeval Awareness is "overpowered?"

I don't consider it overpowered so much as potentially disruptive in an annoying way. I share Dave's DM's concerns. I have not yet experienced it in play, but I do have a player who will be bringing in an 8th or 9th level revised ranger PC next session, so it is a concern of mine.

I happen to know that it has also concerned other people - I refer you to the actual discussion thread for the UA article itself, as there were others who expressed concern about the open-endedness of the ability. I don't like the potential to be "put on the spot" in terms of having to identify the number and location of certain creatures within 5 miles of the ranger.

Getting the ranger player to approach the ability's use with a specific goal in mind would certainly help in that respect. If they've chosen beasts as their favored enemy and they just ping a random wilderness area, I would probably be inclined to tell them simply that they detect any number of creatures all around them. I would bother telling them the number or location of any particular beast unless they specifically asked for bears or boars or whatever. If they wanted to know how many butterflies were around, I'd probably just say there were too many to count.

If they've got dragons as a (greater) favored enemy, and I haven't established if there are any in the area yet, I might say none ... but then if, later on, I decide there is one, I'd have to resort to saying that it was outside of the 5 mile radius at the time. Perhaps it was hunting or something.

Now, I suppose you could argue that I shouldn't put myself in a situation where I don't know what's in the area at least in general. I run an episodic campaign, which generally skips over the traveling through the wilderness segments, so when my ranger player uses this ability, I'll mostly be able to just tell her stuff relevant to the adventure.

It's still something to think about, though.

More specifically, he said that the devs have said that it is overpowered, and that they deliberately made it a little overpowered so that they could see what players complained about and fine tune the overall class based on those complaints. He is saying as much because, as I understand it, Mike Mearls said something along those lines over social media. I haven't seen the statement myself, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the claim.

Mearls and/or Crawford said something to that effect on Twitter. Can't be bothered looking for the quote right now, though.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

I'm not sure I follow this. Are you saying that because it's in the PHB it can't be "underpowered?" What if they struck it from the ranger's spell list in a future iteration?

I'm saying that, as a general rule, published material is the baseline by which we judge playtest/UA material. That should be a given. I am not sure why I need to explain that. I also don't hypothesize about what will happen. I only have the data in front of me. I can only judge "balance," a relational concept, based on that data. However, even if it was struck from the ranger's spell list, that would still leave this UA ranger with a power that is virtually the same as a much more powerful version of a spell that many full casters don't get until 7th level.

I'm not frustrated. I don't agree with your arguments, which have changed since the first post. If you just don't likes it, fine - I got nothing to say about that. But what you've offered as arguments against its current iteration or as solutions to the problems you perceive it has are lacking in my view. @Horwath on the other hand has provided a solid interpretation in my opinion where the types/tags are concerned which may be a viable solution to one aspect of the class feature that some complain about.

I didn't make any arguments in my first post. I provided some observations and one or two opinions. The observations and opinions in my fist post and the opinions and arguments I have provided since then are congruous. I'm not sure where you are interpreting an incongruity, but you are misreading something if you believe an incongruity exists. Or, at the very least, you are interpreting something I have written in a manner other than I had hoped it would be read.

Generally speaking, disagreeing with someone doesn't necessitate hostility. Laughing at a post that is not written in a humorous vein seems, to me, to be a form of passive hostility. Hostility in forums is usually a sign of frustration. So, I am sorry for misinterpreting these signals as frustration. I am not sure how else to interpret them. My goal here is not to frustrate you.

I'm not sure what else I can constructively say to you on this subject. If you don't think it is pertinent that a 3rd level power, which expends no resources, is much more powerful than a spell which no other character can cast until level 7, so be it. If you don't understand why many DMs find it frustrating when the sheer level of detail provided by the current version of Primeval Awareness is handed out after nothing more than 1 minute of concentration, or don't find that frustration justifiable, so be it. If you don't understand why some players would want to mitigate that frustration by giving the DM a little more hands on control over what data the 3rd level ability provides, that's cool. I agree with Horwath's interpretation, and that interpretation doesn't invalidate or resolve the core issue I have developed or that my DM has complained about. Yes, it obviates my poor example. So be it. It was a poor example. The central problem, however, persists, at least to me. I get it isn't a problem for you. I respect that! It still is for me. I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Different gaming groups have different needs and all that jazz! I'll let WotC's market research inform their opinions. I don't have much else to say on this subject right now.

 

[iserith]

I find the ability "problematic" ... because it too easily disrupts a DMs preparation time and makes the game more difficult to prepare for. I would like some element of its features to survive.

I don't see why that is so or why an ability check to track down the tiefling of your earlier example makes it any less problematic. Further, how often does a challenge come up in your DM's games that Primeval Awareness trivializes? In a recent game where a ranger used it, the benefit was that they had additional time to prepare for the arrival of a shadow white dragon. No big deal. In a previous game, they were able to use it to narrow down the possibility on whether a given NPC was a disguised fiend. Also no big deal.

we obviously agree that the power can become annoying.

Is it the class feature that's annoying or the manner in which a player uses it? Because it seems to me it's the latter and so far as I can tell that only becomes annoying when the player is spamming it for no good reason - or rather, no good reason that is apparent to the DM. And in some cases, it can be a sign that the player is bored with the content that is being presented which is good for the DM to know in my view. "Interviewing the tenth cagey, quirky NPC in a row is getting boring, time to go find me a tiefling to fight."

 

[iserith]

I'm saying that, as a general rule, published material is the baseline by which we judge playtest/UA material. That should be a given. I am not sure why I need to explain that. I also don't hypothesize about what will happen. I only have the data in front of me. I can only judge "balance," a relational concept, based on that data. However, even if it was struck from the ranger's spell list, that would still leave this UA ranger with a power that is virtually the same as a much more powerful version of a spell that many full casters don't get until 7th level.

It seems fair to me that a core feature of a class can only be accomplished (or nearly so) by another class at a later level and/or at a cost of resources, if at all. Striking what amounts to a weaker version of the class feature off the ranger's spell list does seem reasonable to me.

I'm not sure what else I can constructively say to you on this subject. If you don't think it is pertinent that a 3rd level power, which expends no resources, is much more powerful than a spell which no other character can cast until level 7, so be it. If you don't understand why many DMs find it frustrating when the sheer level of detail provided by the current version of Primeval Awareness is handed out after nothing more than 1 minute of concentration, or don't find that frustration justifiable, so be it. If you don't understand why some players would want to mitigate that frustration by giving the DM a little more hands on control over what data the 3rd level ability provides, that's cool. I agree with Horwath's interpretation, and that interpretation doesn't invalidate or resolve the core issue I have developed or that my DM has complained about. Yes, it obviates my poor example. So be it. It was a poor example. The central problem, however, persists, at least to me. I get it isn't a problem for you. I respect that! It still is for me. I guess we will have to agree to disagree. Different gaming groups have different needs and all that jazz! I'll let WotC's market research inform their opinions. I don't have much else to say on this subject right now.

I'm trying to drill down on what structure, content, or DM/player behaviors in your games makes it frustrating. Because maybe it's not the class feature that is the issue. If you don't care to examine this angle, that's okay. It's usually where I start when I have issues with something.

 

[discosoc]

Primeval awareness tells you if any of your enemies are in radius and what are they.

By any, I read the total of two that you can have at lvl6.

So it would read humanoids, but humanoids as broad group, no definition of human,elf,orc,etc...

if you had humanoids and aberations, it would detect if you had any of those two, not subclasses of any.

It also tells you how many of each favored enemy, and you'd be able to tell by separate groups. So if do this, the GM has to respond with something like 12 humanoids about 3 miles north of you, 4 humanoids about half a mile west of that group, 9 aberations are 20 feet to your left somewhere in that cliff, and there's a group of 26 humanoids at the very edge of your perception to the east.

It would get stupidly worse if the player had chosen beasts as a favored enemy.

I'm actually had high hopes for the revised ranger, based on the introduction talking about listening to feedback and recognizing the old problems. How in the world did they let an ability like that even hit the table?

 

[pukunui]

I'm actually had high hopes for the revised ranger, based on the introduction talking about listening to feedback and recognizing the old problems. How in the world did they let an ability like that even hit the table?

Because they're playtesting. It's easier to go overboard and make stuff too powerful then pare it back than it is to start off too underpowered and try to build up from there.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

I don't see why that is so or why an ability check to track down the tiefling of your earlier example makes it any less problematic. Further, how often does a challenge come up in your DM's games that Primeval Awareness trivializes? In a recent game where a ranger used it, the benefit was that they had additional time to prepare for the arrival of a shadow white dragon. No big deal. In a previous game, they were able to use it to narrow down the possibility on whether a given NPC was a disguised fiend. Also no big deal.

It is not that an ability check makes it less problematic. I gave a number of different possible resolutions to that scenario. Only one of them ended in an ability check. One of them had the DM giving away the information automatically. You are cherry picking data and missing the point as a result. The DM's ability to choose whether the power would work, and to make that choice based on the needs of his/her story, is what makes the power less problematic. The example was a bad example, as the rules as written don't seem to provide any more detail than "humanoid" one way or the other. The (subjective) issue and resolution it was meant to represent, however, still exist (at least to me). A specific problem has not arisen as of yet. That, however, isn't the issue. The issue is that its open ended nature *could* become problematic (and in many groups, likely would). For example, if the quest ever has us hunting down and eliminating enemies in a complex, maze like, but small area, and real failure is meant to be an option (which would then affect a future series of events), I could see a DM getting frustrated with this ability.

Is it the class feature that's annoying or the manner in which a player uses it?

That is a false dichotomy. The answer is both. The class feature is annoying, as there are too many open ended ways in which it can be used which would become annoying. The manner in which a player uses it is annoying, as it would be the specific use which would highlight why the open ended list of potentially annoying uses is annoying. And, your notion that the problem only occurs when a player is bored is pretty much an affective fallacy. It can happen for any number of reasons. Maybe boredom. Maybe not. Even when not, the player's use could create frustration on the part of a DM due to all the additional factors he has to consider when preparing the game. Making the amount of data that the ability automatically provides more acute, and giving the DM greater oversight over what the power could potentially reveal, would help alleviate my issue with the power.

 

[Cyber-Dave]

I'm actually had high hopes for the revised ranger, based on the introduction talking about listening to feedback and recognizing the old problems. How in the world did they let an ability like that even hit the table?

I still have high hopes. Overall, I really like the changes and find the class very fun. They let an ability like that hit the table because this is a playtest, and as you can see, there are differing opinions about whether the power is problematic or not. They need to test the power's reception in the community to figure out the best structure for the power. Nothing wrong with that. It's part of the design process.

 

[iserith]

The DM's ability to choose whether the power would work

The DM always has that choice no matter how a class feature is written. The number of fictional circumstances that would not allow for the class feature to work seems to me to be vanishingly small so as not to be much of a consideration, however, unless the DM was specifically creating a challenge to obviate or complicate the use of the class feature. But at the point a DM is doing that, one wonders why he or she doesn't just create different challenges altogether rather than worry about a tracking challenge the ranger's class feature trivializes. Let the ranger have that moment to shine, I say. It's what they do.

A specific problem has not arisen as of yet.

It sounds like you've created a solution to a problem that doesn't exist then, at least where your own table is concerned.

That, however, isn't the issue. The issue is that its open ended nature *could* become problematic (and in many groups, likely would). For example, if the quest ever has us hunting down and eliminating enemies in a complex, maze like, but small area, and real failure is meant to be an option (which would then affect a future series of events), I could see a DM getting frustrated with this ability.

Why isn't it the DM's fault for creating that kind of challenge in the first place? Or, having done so, not feeling okay with the ranger - a character class that is good at tracking favored enemies - resolving the challenge with little to no effort?

And, your notion that the problem only occurs when a player is bored is pretty much an affective fallacy. It can happen for any number of reasons. Maybe boredom. Maybe not.

I won't go back and review every post I've made, but I'm pretty sure I offered player boredom as a possibility, not as a certainty. If I did not do so in every case, then take this as my clarification on that point.