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AnimatedPaper wrote: Yes actually. Follow the leader doesn't hinder your speed, so having the party tail along behind the ranger is useful. I've yet to see any PFS content care about foot speed when not in combat. This was true for PF1 as well. And honestly, it's not surprising. Forcing the GM to carefully/meticulously determine the rate at which the party is traveling for any portion of a scenario is going to be tedious. So it's not like I'm asking PFS to do it. I am not. I don't think that's going to make my game experience better. I'd rather just not have any need for Swift Tracker (which is exactly how I feel things are currently).
Quote: The free stride when entering combat is more useful than the speed boost though, and is probably how they justified it to themselves as a class feat. I think that was the wrong call, and that it needs more to actually be worth picking up as a class feat. I agree with your first sentence. I'd forgotten about the free move at the start of combat. I can totally see how Paizo thinks that's great for a Flurry Ranger. In retrospect, I could almost agree that what looks like an afterthought on the free move, is actually the main reason to take the ability. I do have some major issues with it, however.
1. I have two Rangers in PFS 2. The number of times I've been able to track a creature into combat has been like once or twice in about 30 encounters. Tracking things into combat was never a thing in PFS1, so old habits die hard. The aforementioned Bounty does actually tell the GM that a Ranger can use Hunt Prey on the creature tracks. Perhaps one other scenario in the entire 1st season mentions Hunt Prey? Do any APs bring it up?
2. If Swift Tracker allowed you to just Stride, but not ONLY "toward" your Prey, but away from it, then I would almost agree it's worth a look. I might have even taken it. A free move to get distance at the start of combat would be great for a longbow wielding Ranger.
3. You can get yourself into a a lot of trouble with this Feat as a melee Ranger. Mainly because you do not want to be the only person standing next to the boss when the boss gets its turn. Swift Tracker would actually be useful because it lets you save a move to move away. You just have to hope the boss doesn't have an AoO. Having Swift Tracker on my Flurry Ranger would mean that about once ever 15 encounters, I'd get an extra Flurry attack.
So reconsidering the free move used in conjunction with kiting, the feat goes from "totally pointless" to "having value", but, ime, it would be at such a low frequency, that I can't see taking it. Let me get a free move in any direction, and I would change my tune and probably take the feat on both Rangers...maybe.
And yes, given the free move, I think you are technically correct in saying it gives an "even bigger bonus." I will concede the technical accuracy of that statement.
Quote: To re-emphasize, I agree with you that overall, it is a low power feat, way too low to be a 6th level class feat. I actually had forgotten it was so high (I houseruled it to level 1 basically first thing, and took out the Experienced Tracker requirement) Yes, the Experienced Tracker requirement is just piling on Feat tax for a feat that is going to have a minor impact, if any at all. Paizo must have overestimated how often you get to track a creature into combat.
Quote: I want to say Favored Terrain too, but I'm less sure on that one).. Favored Terrain at level 1, I think, would have addressed Eraden's concerns. I think it would have had a huge psychological impact on helping the Ranger feel like a Ranger with adding almost no combat value and not infringing on any other class. The only issue is not making it part of the Dedication.
shroudb wrote: N N 959 wrote: shroudb wrote: well.... you track people/creatures. Is this homebrew? it is the rules. I'm asking if the adventures that you cited as examples of "tracking" are from homebrew vs published content.
I've been reading this thread from the beginning. Ranger has been my favourite class and I've played one in every edition since D&D 2nd Edition.
I've wanted to believe the Ranger is already in a good place to play because I don't want to admit my favourite class is not as good as it should be (and therefore will be less fun to play for me).
But N N 959's points are too compelling. To me, the Ranger is missing vital parts of the chassis that make it feel like a Ranger. I want my PC to be the best tracker (Swift Tracker, Ephemeral Tracker etc), but when it has such minimal affect on actual play, and means you cant take cool combat feats, it is too hard to justify.
I desperately hope the Ranger will be given some upgrades for the second printing of the CRB. E.g. make Swift Tracker more compelling as discussed above. Or remove the prerequisite of unrelated lower level Warden Spells when taking higher level Warden Spells (how does Gravity Weapon or Heal Companion have ANY connection to Ephemeral Tracking?!?).
If there is any plan to upgrade the Alchemist in the second printing, the Ranger should get a small upgrade as well. Not saying either will/can happen, just hoping. I feel doing to upgrades to classes will be WAY better than not doing upgrades for any argument of invalidating the first printing.
I won't hold my breath though.
I like what N N 959 said about "Favored Terrain". He's right, it would make rangers feel more "rangery" to me.
N N 959 wrote: Favored Terrain at level 1, I think, would have addressed Eraden's concerns. I think it would have had a huge psychological impact on helping the Ranger feel like a Ranger with adding almost no combat value and not infringing on any other class. The only issue is not making it part of the Dedication. Should the wild stride portion be a feat still, as it doesn't kick in until level 11 anyways? Or baked into Wild Stride?
Either way, I think a little more is still safe to give, something like critical failures count as just failures while in your Favored Terrain.
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Mythraine wrote: But N N 959's points are too compelling. To me, the Ranger is missing vital parts of the chassis that make it feel like a Ranger. To be fair, my points are valid from a legacy perspective. If you've never played Pathfinder/D&D before, the Ranger will most likely feel different and "outdoorsy." This is primarily done with just Nature and Survival.
I stand by my points about the feats being kind of a mess and conflicting with each other and the Flurry concept. But it seems that if you take the Precision Edge, you'll avoid a lot of the action economy penalties that were obviously intended to undermine Flurry.
Quote: I want my PC to be the best tracker (Swift Tracker, Ephemeral Tracker etc), but when it has such minimal affect on actual play, and means you cant take cool combat feats, it is too hard to justify. Yes, being superlative at Tracking is largely a waste. Or, perhaps more accurately, the published content simply doesn't support its use in a way that you'd expect. For example, Ephemeral Tracking is something a published scenario or AP isn't going to anticipate. Don't take it and expect to track the flying dragon back to its lair, or be able to track an NPC coded to escape via flight or teleportation. In a homebrew game, it might be fun, but then you might be putting unwanted pressure on the GM to have to contemplate you tracking creatures that no one normally tracks.
Quote: I desperately hope the Ranger will be given some upgrades for the second printing of the CRB. As you said, don't hold your breath. But...the only way Paizo's going to do that is if you play the class and then post about it. Paizo is in this to make money, and if they think changing these things will improve their bottom line without adversely affecting the game then maybe they'll make some adjustments. To wit, Paizo did, it would seem, take a bunch of my suggestions from the Playtest. I don't know if they are still receptive to changes, but if you don't post, then they won't have any reason to update it.
For all my griping, let me offer some positives:
1. This is all mental. It's all in our heads. So, don't' take my word for it. What I say is true, primarily based on my own experiences. There are definitely posters who feel differently because they come to the class with different expectations.
2. Warden spells have made a HUGE difference in recapturing some of the Ranger essence. I think Animal Feature is gold at 8th level (if I am understanding how it works correctly). And it's really not about the numeric benefit, but the psychological feel of having that spell utility. I don't think Paizo really understood that, but at least they added spells based on a Survey that I feel they jury rigged to convince themselves they Ranger didn't need spells.
3.. I think the Blind - Fight /Sense the Unseen can be difference makers. I think Master Monster Hunter is a strong feat chain, though not as world beating as it first appeared, mainly because the Investigator's 1st level Known Weakness totally trumps MMH at 10. Adding Hunter's Luck might really help it out, especially if you add Monster Warden, but the sacrifice is huge and probably not worth it on a pure efficacy basis..
4. There is some wisdom in Paizo's Feat-Starving the classes. That wisdom is that the class is more replay-able than it was in PF1. Because you will not get everything you wanted, you are going to want to play the class again and try a different build. And, as I said above, if you aren't carrying the baggage from PF1, you won't feel as frustrated with what you're not getting.
AnimatedPaper wrote: Should the wild stride portion be a feat still, as it doesn't kick in until level 11 anyways? Or baked into Wild Stride? Not sure I understand the question.
When I look at FT + Terrain Master + Wild Stride, it's certainly a nice perk. These set up really well to let a Ranger go to any terrain and get some Rangery benefits. But the opportunity cost is just too high, imo. It's something I would want, but can't afford.
Quote: Either way, I think a little more is still safe to give, something like critical failures count as just failures while in your Favored Terrain. Sure, but the ethos of PF2 is that most feats do very little. So I would be reluctant to beef up feats. I think Paizo has made a concercted effort to really nerf the total PC agency. At least that's how it feels, but I have not looked in-depth into the other classes.
The problem, however, with giving out free feats is that it starts to impact Archetypes and other classes. By withholding FT from the Ranger as a free feat, it allows Paizo to then give it out for the Horizon Walker archetype.
Despite my displeasure with some aspects of PF1 and PF2, I rarely will use house-rules. I think Paizo has put far more thought into balance than I have or can and I am thus more wanting to playa class as is, and suffer the bad with the good.
I think part of the problem here is that people who really liked the ranger class in previous editions, really liked the FLAVOR ("rangeryness") of the class and it seems to be difficult to get across to others the notion that the flavor is EXTREMELY important for those of us who gravitate to this class. If we just wanted big beat sticks we would have rolled up fighters. I would hope that there is some way to give some of that flavor back without boosting or nerfing any of the ranger's combat abilities. I've seen some suggestions here. They do look interesting. I also might have a closer look at those Warden spells that N N 959 pointed out. All in all, it would seem that folks are starting to come together to meet in the middle on this issue. This thread has been a fine thread to read. I like seeing folks discuss issues and find common ground. We need more of this in real life!
I think mechanically this might be my favorite version of the ranger. Specifically "favored enemy/terrain" are a terrible (IMO) mechanic to base a class around, and I prefer things like "spells" and "animal friends" to be opt-in rather than stuff you needed to train away.
I think people's concerns about how certain ranger abilities shouldn't compete with other feats are valid, but I find that "this class could use a couple more feats" to be a thing I find in a lot of classes, particularly the martial ones. I think this is in part because Pathfinder 2e is walking a tight rope between being approachable for new players by not giving people too many moving parts that they are overwhelmed, and veteran players who want all the bells and whistles.
So I'd be genuinely curious if variants like "free archetype" or "double class feats" do anything to assuage people's concerns about their ranger, since these are both really fun (and easy to implement) variants.
People have said multiple time that those variants specially double class feats help a lot.
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N N 959 wrote: Yes, being superlative at Tracking is largely a waste. Or, perhaps more accurately, the published content simply doesn't support its use in a way that you'd expect. For example, Ephemeral Tracking is something a published scenario or AP isn't going to anticipate. Don't take it and expect to track the flying dragon back to its lair, or be able to track an NPC coded to escape via flight or teleportation. In a homebrew game, it might be fun, but then you might be putting unwanted pressure on the GM to have to contemplate you tracking creatures that no one normally tracks. I'm normally lurking on these sorts of threads, but just jumping in to comment here. This point seems a little strange to me - surely this is true for many classes? Published content cannot assume almost any class-specific abilities are present, and so will always be written without them in mind, but that doesn't make them useless. For comparison to spells available at a similar level, no published content will support your using Animal Vision to scout a location in a form that is relatively unobtrusive, rarely will the support your using of levitation to bypass hazards and obstacles, Clairaudience to listen in on conversations you're not supposed to hear, or using Show the Way to catch up with parties who are supposed to out-run you. Despite this, I've never seen the argument made that these abilities aren't worth taking - the GM is expected to determine how they interact with the story already written, and proceed to a (hopefully interesting) conclusion. This is even true in the most strict of published content - PFS; if someone has a legally chosen ability, a PFS GM should do their best to fairly determine how it impacts the story of the scenario. Why is this any different for a Ranger's advanced tracking options?
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N N 959 wrote: AnimatedPaper wrote: Should the wild stride portion be a feat still, as it doesn't kick in until level 11 anyways? Or baked into Wild Stride? Not sure I understand the question. N N 959 wrote: The problem, however, with giving out free feats is that it starts to impact Archetypes and other classes. By withholding FT from the Ranger as a free feat, it allows Paizo to then give it out for the Horizon Walker archetype. Slight misunderstanding here. I wasn't talking about giving the class the feat for free, I meant just giving the class the first half of the feat as part of the level 1 chassis. Which is a distinction with little difference, I admit. A minor ribbon like that is still within the bounds of a martial chassis without heading into overpower territory. The skill boost I designated can be combined with it and, given how seldom tracking is used as an exploration ability, still count as a ribbon instead of an actual boost to class power.
That would leave the level 10 half of the feat, the various speed boosts that kick in once you have Wild Stride, still available to be made into a higher level feat, or simply made part of Wild Stride.
Hadn't thought of the Horizon Walker archetype, but it could change to "You gain the Ranger Favored terrain ability" instead of getting a feat. Rangers, as they already have the ability, would get to choose a second favored terrain and get the +10 speed boost and other benefits while in either.
Or it can all just be handed over as a bonus feat. 4.5 classes get Shield Block as a bonus feat on top of their normal class budget, so there is precedent there. Rangers seem to get the 2 extra skill bumps instead, but Swashbucklers get both the bumps and the feat AND 2 additional class features, so Rangers can get a little greedy if they like.
Edit: Adding my analysis of class features by level. Ignore the medium and magus, those are my homebrew versions. I'll get around to adding the Magus and Summoner to this at some point.
PossibleCabbage wrote: I think mechanically this might be my favorite version of the ranger. Specifically "favored enemy/terrain" are a terrible (IMO) mechanic to base a class around, and I prefer things like "spells" and "animal friends" to be opt-in rather than stuff you needed to train away.
I think people's concerns about how certain ranger abilities shouldn't compete with other feats are valid, but I find that "this class could use a couple more feats" to be a thing I find in a lot of classes, particularly the martial ones. I think this is in part because Pathfinder 2e is walking a tight rope between being approachable for new players by not giving people too many moving parts that they are overwhelmed, and veteran players who want all the bells and whistles.
So I'd be genuinely curious if variants like "free archetype" or "double class feats" do anything to assuage people's concerns about their ranger, since these are both really fun (and easy to implement) variants.
To NN's point, while those are both fine for home games, neither option is really available in PFS. Even some of the stuff that is core, like the actual rules for tracking that would make the Hunt Prey mechanic slightly more useful, doesn't really apply to PFS due to their own "houserules."
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Arcaian wrote: I'm normally lurking on these sorts of threads, but just jumping in to comment here. This point seems a little strange to me - surely this is true for many classes? I will attempt to answer this with clarity, But it results from the convergence of several factors; The binary nature of tracking, the paradigms used in published content and general encounter construction, the nature of of game play, and the implementation of the skill itself. As a result the answer will be long.
Quote: Published content cannot assume almost any class-specific abilities are present, and so will always be written without them in mind, but that doesn't make them useless. Let's clear one thing up first off, I said "superlative" tracking is essentially worthless. That's different than saying "all" Tracking is worthless.
All mechanics require the content to contemplate their use. You can't use Fly or Disable Device, unless the person writing the content provides an opportunity for those to be useful/have a non-trivial impact. Alternatively, you need the inherent game structure to support that mechanic e.g. Perception, Recall checks, etc.
Tracking, historically, is one of those things that published content hardly ever contemplates. This isn't a PF2 thing it's a Paizo thing. Granted, I've seen more nods to Tracking doing "something" in one season of PF2 than I have in 10+ of Pathfinder, but the impact is, imo, minimal, if not negligible. To put to put it another way, I doubt any individual would perceive a statistical significance between always succeeding at your Tracking checks and never succeeding at them.
Quote: For comparison to spells available at a similar level, no published content will support your using Animal Vision to scout a location in a form that is relatively unobtrusive, rarely will the support your using of levitation to bypass hazards and obstacles, Clairaudience to listen in on conversations you're not supposed to hear, or using Show the Way to catch up with parties who are supposed to out-run you. You're presenting a disanalogy when you use Spells. It is the vey nature of utility spells to be of limited use The reason is that the spells can generally be swapped out. The opportunity cost of choosing any individual spell to a character is far less than choosing and training a skill. I think a Ranger can only get two skill to Legendary. So taking/raising Survival to Track represents a huge commitment, compared to Darkvision, or Fly.
Quote: Despite this, I've never seen the argument made that these abilities aren't worth taking - Spell investment =/= As Skill investment. But let's use a different skill, like Medicine? Wait...that' gets used a ton. How about Pick A Lock (Thievery) ?
The nominal use case of a Tracking, is that you find tracks and you find the creature. But published content can't do this for reasons several people have already stated. So right out of the gate, the fundamental use of Tracking to find something, is taken off the table. The very basic idea of progressing the story via tracking, is not something published content uses. Sure, there might be an AP side quest that requires tracking, but that would be the exception not the rule, and I've never seen it in PFS.
To compensate, scenarios try and give some type of benefit e.g. better Init, rre-combat prep, etc. But these bonuses are usually small.. Maybe a +2 on an Init roll. It's not like you find the creature sleeping and get to coup-de-grace.
Let's look at the benefit of Tracking based on outcome:
Tracking p252 wrote:
Success You find the trail or continue to follow the one you’re already following.
Failure You lose the trail but can try again after a 1-hour delay.
Critical Failure You lose the trail and can’t try again for 24 hours.
So you make your roll and you either find tracks, or keep following them. That's it. There are NO hardcoded benefits beyond that. Any Init bonus, or prep bonus, or whatever, the player is entirely dependent on the content to provide.
And remember what I said about "superlative" tracking? You'll notice there is no Crit Success entry. You don't get a free Recall check, you don't get any creature statistics. Technically, there isn't even a rule that says you know what you're tracking.
And recognize that the Crit Fail bonus will never stop you from having a combat encounter the scenario wants you to have. It might cause an extra one via house-rule, but that might be a plus for some players.
Contrast that with Pick a Lock. What's the nominal case? You pick the lock and get the treasure, you open the door, you find the clue.. Pick a Lock unequivocally pays that off. What's more, "locks" are a staple of the genre. Tracking creatures through dungeons, is surprising not a trope.
Tracking creatures through the outdoors seems tropish, right? But recall the binary nature of Tracking means it can never be used to progress the story. If you've got to track the creature through the woods, you will encounter the creature whether you track it successfully or not.
Quote: the GM is expected to determine how they interact with the story already written, and proceed to a (hopefully interesting) conclusion. So you're looking right past the inherent problem with that response. Any feature that consistently requires a GM to ad lib a benefit is broken. A design mechanic that is heavily dependent on the GM to give value to a skill is broken in the context of the other skills providing substantive benefits.
As someone who has two Rangers in PF1 and two in PF2, I can give you anecdote after anecdote of tracking not even being contemplated in obvious situations. In one PF2 scenario, you get ambushed outdoors be some traps. Obviously someone made the traps and it had to have been made fairly recently. When I tried to track the creatures, the GM said there's nothing about that. To his credit, he offered to make something up, but that meant we were missing the content we were meant to play. The scenario wanted us to continue along the road, there was nothing for tracking an obvious situation.
In another PF2 scenario, you have to confont the BBEG in its cave. I tell the GM, I want to look for tracks of what might be in there. Obviously the BBEG is in there, but I get nothing else. Later, when we try and lay a trap for it, the BBEG has some four legged minions, but none of that was available through tracking. And for those wondering, yes, I Hunt Prey'd on it, but that worked to my disadvantage as I had to deal with the minion first.
The list goes on.
Quote: This is even true in the most strict of published content - PFS; if someone has a legally chosen ability, a PFS GM should do their best to fairly determine how it impacts the story of the scenario. Again, that's way too much burden to put on a GM, especially in PFS. GMs aren't vetted, they having experience all over the gamut. Tracking should have been implemented in a way that was easy to adjudicate extra benefits or outcomes not anticipated by the authors.
Quote: Why is this any different for a Ranger's advanced tracking options? Really? If you think scenarios have trouble anticipating tracking things on foot, as yourself how many authors/editors are going to consider tracking by sea and air?
The problem with Tracking, as compared to other skills, is that it requires a lot more contingencies and that means cost in producing the content. What happens if you're find tracks on Day/Hour 1, but not Day/Hour 2? What if you don't find Tracks until Day/Hour 3?
Authors already have a lot of experience accounting for Disable Device, any Recall check, Climb checks, etc. You fail to Disable the Device, then you can use Athletics, or Diplomacy, or simply avoid it. Or, it hits you. Tracking doesn't have that obvious and easy set of outcomes.
If you really want to get frustrated playing published content, take Ephemeral Tracking. Who knows, maybe Paizo/PFS will read this post and start working it in. But don't hold your breath. And even if it crops up once or twice. It won't stick. Its just going to be too rare for Paizo to want to spend money adequately contemplating it.
That's my .02
AnimatedPaper wrote: To NN's point, while those are both fine for home games, neither option is really available in PFS. Even some of the stuff that is core, like the actual rules for tracking that would make the Hunt Prey mechanic slightly more useful, doesn't really apply to PFS due to their own "houserules." Since the upcoming AP "Strength of Thousands" is an official Paizo product which uses the "free archetype" rule, I wonder if PFS won't do things like this on a case by case, or season by season, basis.
But something like PFS should be expected to operate in the most "friendly to someone just giving this a try to see what it's all about" newcomer friendly fashion. Since it's already going to be built to accommodate pick-up games with characters built largely at random and parties with no synergy, it's not really the be all and end all.
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