D&D 5E Rewriting Favored Enemy/Favored Foe

[Xeviat]

I'm not really following what peoples' beef with the new Favored Foe is. Honestly I think it's kind of perfect. It gives them an out from having to rely so much on Hunter's Mark without making Hunter's Mark totally useless.

I don't like that it doesn't support their exploration pillar like favored enemy did.

Way back when 5E was released, my idea for changing favored enemy was allowing it to be changed on some kind of time scale. Then, at 6th and 14th, that time scale would get smaller. But, as I played more and more, I wanted to see Hunter's Mark be a class ability, like Smite is a class ability for the Paladin.

 

[RangerWickett]

Great for Watsonians, but terrible for Doylists.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean.

 

[dave2008]

How about:

Favored Adversary
Beginning at 1st level, you have significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, fighting, and even talking to a certain type of enemies.

Choose a two types of Favored adversaries: Aberrations, Beasts, Celestials, Constructs, Dragons, Elementals, fey, Fiends, Giants, Monstrosities, oozes, Plants, or Undead. Alternatively, you can select six races of Humanoid (such as Gnolls and orcs) as Favored adversaries, or one type and three races of Humanoid.

You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your Favored adversaries, as well as on Intelligence Checks to recall information about them.

When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your Favored adversaries, if they speak one at all.

When you attack a favored adversary, you can choose to do additional damage equal to your proficiency bonus on a hit. You can inflict this additional damage a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus before needing a long rest.

You choose two additional Favored adversaries, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 14th level. As you gain levels, your choices should reflect the types of Monsters you have encountered on your Adventures.

 

[ScuroNotte]

Hi everyone. It's been a while since I started a Ranger thread. I really like the changes to Natural Explorer, Primeval Awareness, and Hide in Plain Sight. I don't particularly care for the changes to Favored Enemy, though. I don't like that Favored Foe uses your concentration. I don't like that Favored Foe offers no exploration benefits; it has no survival or perception bonuses attached like Favored Enemy has.

So, I'd like to discuss a new version here. I don't want to discuss a whole new Ranger here, just a replacement ability for Favored Enemy. Here are my thoughts on the replacement ability:

• The ability is usable Wisdom mod per long rest. Like the Paladin's Divine Sense, this locks in that the Ranger is supposed to have a good Wisdom score, and better facilitates their For Slayer capstone and spellcasting features.
• At 1st level, as an action or as part of an attack, you can declare a target to be your favored foe. You roll advantage on wisdom (survival) to track it, wisdom (perception) to locate it, and intelligence checks to determine information about it. (I'm uncertain about duration, it will likely scale with level).
• At 2nd level, I was thinking of baking Hunter's Mark into the ranger class. The paladin's smite doesn't compete for their concentration slot like Hunter's Mark does. This favored enemy replacement, though, does half of what Hunter's Mark does. I playtested a spell slot to add a once per round damage rider (+1d6 for first level, 1d8 for 2nd, up to 1d12 for 4th level), since +1d6 over 3 rounds is 10.5 and that's around the 9 points of 2d8 smite's, but the spread out nature didn't make it feel as good as smite. I wouldn't want to just steal smite, but smite is a well designed ability ...

*Favored Enemy normally has improvements (additional enemies) at 6th and 14th. My thought for 6th is letting you mark a target by studying its tracks, not requiring you to see the target. At 14th, it could get a more epic improvement.

Thoughts?

For increase damage output, why not just have the 3rd level subclass feature bonus damage be applied to each attack, similar to the Paladins improved divine smite. Example Hunter’s 1d8 nice per turn to each attack at 11th level

For the tracking/perception, offer expertise in Survival and perception if proficient in those skills

 

[FireLance]

I would start with the basic Favored Enemy ability, but to ensure that it comes into play more often, at 1st level, the ranger gains all "natural" creatures - beasts, fey, giants, humanoids, monstrosities, oozes, and plants - as favored enemies, and can choose one more. The ranger gains additional favored enemies at 6th and 14th level.

Then, starting 1st level, I'd allow a ranger to cast hunter's mark on a favored enemy Proficiency Modifier times per long rest. A ranger regains one expended use of this ability when they finish a short rest. When used against a favored enemy, hunter's mark does not require concentration.

 

[Horwath]

Favored Foe is fine to a degree.

If we want some exploration utility, why not just make it last until your next long rest and give advantage on Perception and Survival against the target.
Also option that you can "mark" the target as a Bonus action if you do not want to attack them, but just to follow them.

It still uses concentration so you cannot use your nice exploration spell with that active.