Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The Ranger - Favoured Enemy

Ok, some context, things that should all know or info is easy to get. When creating a ranger at some point you have to chose your favoured enemy from the following choices:

Bounty Hunter
Gain proficiency in Investigation and learn the Thieves' Cant passive. Creatures you Restrain have a harder time escaping.

Keeper of the Veil
You specialise in hunting creatures from other planes of existence. You gain proficiency in Arcana, and can cast Protection from Evil and Good

Mage Breaker
You have a history of battling spellcasters. Gain proficiency with Arcana and the True Strike cantrip, which gives you advantage on attack rolls against a creature.

Ranger Knight
You have sworn to serve a crown or nation and seek to bring its foes to ruin. Gain proficiency with History and Heavy Armour.

Sanctified Stalker
You swore to hunt the enemies of a holy or druidic order. Gain proficiency in Religion and the Sacred Flame cantrip, which deals 1d8 Radiant.

I highlighted the proficiency you gain following your choice.

Question: Since the main stats for the Ranger are Dex and Wisdom, then why ALL those proficiencies requires Intelligence roll checks ? Why can't they be Wisdom check instead or pick something that is wisdom check ? Is it another weird thing from that "5th Edition" again .. ? Who's idea was that ?!

-S

I suspect they've done this because the favoured enemy text is about recalling information about your targets... so they went with information-based skills. You're correct in that it is a weird way to handle it, and it's not particularly fitting.

[/quote]
Yes, here's some rational from the 5th edition that I just looked up, following your reply (thanks):
https://5thsrd.org/character/classes/ranger/#ranger-archetypes


[/quote]ok, so let's jump on the 5e forum and have that changed

-S

They are intelligence checks because those skills are governed by intelligence. Just because DEX and WIS are your primary stats doesn't mean every skill your class gives you will key off those stats. Rogues are chiefly DEX but can grab skills from INT or CHA just as easily.

It seems like Larian tried to make the ranger more of a skill monkey like rogue and bard, but without expertise they'll never be especially good at it which is a shame.

Granted ranger is a pretty solid class right now. The favored enemy skills are more like ribbons than things that majorly define the class. Which might change. We don't know what Larian has in mind for the ranger as they get more levels. Favored enemy is a class feature so it should get improvements as you level up.

Might be just me, but I don't like characters that are build soley on primary attributes, so I actually really like that those proficiencies go on intelligence. I usually spread the proficiencies a bit based on the background and not attributes. It feels a lot more natural to me (but I'm also the guy that always has his rangers with higher intelligence attributes than constitution).


I must admit though I miss the favoured enemy doing additional damage. Was it 3.5e and Pathfinder? For me the subclasses are the actual problem with the ranger. I would love to see the new Beast Master from Tasha's Cauldron and Gloom Stalker (as perfectly fitting for an Underdark campaign) implemented. But besides that I really like Larian's adjustments.

There's far too much wrong with ranger as they've implemented it right now to really say much positive about it as a whole, unfortunately. They've floated some 'different' ideas because, I suppose, they'd heard from other people that ranger struggled comparatively to others, but so much of what they've done is either self-crippling, lacking in synergy, clashes with other aspects of character creation, or just plain doesn't work or doesn't do what it says it should. After the next patch, or once I'm done with animation analyses, whichever comes first, I'm intending to dive into individual class focus reports... it's going to be messy, unfortunately, unless the next patch does a lot in that department.

(For the record, favoured enemy absolutely should be tied to knowledge-related things, but giving an esoteric assortment of flat skill proficiencies is not a good way to do it)

Finally we have another use for the 18 INT circlet, I was starting to worry that it's actually as useless as I thought it was.

I think is coherent. I am a ranger who fights wizards, pretty sure i have to understand how the weave function, wich are the spells used by mages, learn about their uses and battle strategies, understand how to recognize magic traps and so on. That is the dominion covered by the Arcana profiency.

Instead if i am concerned of fighting the devils I likely would study whom they are, what are the differences between the different kind of demons and devils, how to protect myself from them, how to recognize a devil that disguise themselve as some other race. That is I'll probably increase my arcana lore and learn the protection from evil and good spell (I would add the reveal evil and good spell too).

If I am a bounty hunter I'll probably like to know how to follow hints and clues, how to extract information from people by interrogation, I would also try to have connections with the underworld thus learning their code, and probably i would be sure that the target has to struggle to free themseves from my traps and so on.


I get that rpg now are more about built than backgrounds and that DnD specially is influenced by this kind of approach. But not everything that doesn't align with that kind of approach has to be an error or something did in a half assed way, like in this case.

Obviously the attributes the gained skills rely on are not those of the class. But again how many of us rely in every days life only in a single aspect of our abilities?

@bufotenina, I like the way you shape the rational around RPG/Role play. It makes sense (at least to me).

@Niara, I believe you are right, this is EA and the ranger seems to be under a revamp. I can't wait read on your individual class focus reports

@SaurianDruid, The rogue (or thief) as always been about Dex and Int, it seems. Just reading on different editions as well as Neverwinter nights, though not sure about charisma - that would be a bard thing, i.e Dex + Int + Cha.

But the more abilities you requires to run your character the more generalist (and complex) it becomes, considering you only have 27 points to allocate. For Ranger class that would be Dex + Wis + Int (?), well if you run with 3 abilities, then the other 3 will suffer. Or your character becomes average.


-S

Rangers actually need more CON but I digress.

The point of skills is not that you should be the best. It’s to provide some flexibility. Rangers aren’t known for high INT but that doesn’t mean they should all be dumb and uneducated.

The backgrounds are just saying these types of rangers have some training in this field. They may not be the best students of the field but they received some exposure hence the proficiency bonus.

Remember Nature would be considered a key ranger skill but it’s a INT check. Not all skills need to be under DEX and WIS.

Rogues have a lot of flexibility in what attributes they focus on. DEX is the only mandatory one (and even then STR rogues can be made if you really want to). INT can be a secondary skill to stack, but you don't need to take INT skills for your expertise. You could just double down on DEX with stealth, acrobatics, and sleight of hand or go for charisma and be a smooth talking con artist who has expertise in persuasion and deception.

Ranger, in this context, wouldn't need INT to be a major stat because it still only governs skill checks, not combat tricks. You just might not want to dump INT to an 8 if you want to get more out of your favored enemy checks. It also helps that a ranger can drop WIS pretty easily if they just don't worry about damage spells. Gehk, my Githyanki ranger, has only 12 WIS and works just fine with Longstrider and Fog. I stacked my INT to 14 with the racial bonus, so he's pretty good at Arcana checks, and have his STR, DEX, and CON high enough to still be effective in combat.

But my other ranger, this one a dwarf, has only 10 INT and took the Bounty Hunter favored enemy to get Investigation. That is still a +2 to investigation even if I didn't invest much in INT, which gives him a decent backup check if Gale rolls low on his own investigation. And it'll get better as you level up even without investing points into raising your INT because of how proficiency works. He'll never be a specialized detective but he can be a decent Watson to someone else's Holmes.

That isn't to say I think Larian's ranger is perfect though. There's a fair bit I'd change and I've been considering doing a revision write up for it for a while. But the skills you get from favored enemy are mostly ribbon features. The extra proficiencies like Heavy Armor or the cantrips are what you're really after.

The problem is just that some of the cantrips are garbage for a ranger. Like... Why would I ever use Sacred Flame? For the rare times an enemy is behind a wall? I'd rather have the Light cantrip or something useful for helping me explore crypts and evil temples where I might find the sort of foes the Sacred Stalker hunts.

I would love to see a "favored of the wilds" choice that gave you nature proficiency and your choice of a druid cantrip. Then you could take shillelagh and build a WIS ranger.

The sacred flame cantrip should be changed to your choice of a cleric cantrip. Ranger's already have a bow if they want a ranged attack. I could see it being alright if you were going as a STR ranger, but then getting heavy armor is already so much stronger of an optimal choice. We could instead pick up something useful like guidance.

I wouldn’t mind an undead stalker with perception and chill touch cantrip.

I agree sacred stalker needs a better cantrip. Guidance or light is better.

The idea that there isn't a "Favored Foe: Beast Hunter" is crazy to me. A ranger who hunts dangerous monsters in the woods is probably the most iconic sort of ranger but you can't actually DO that currently.

Nature proficiency and a cantrip like Bonfire might be interesting for a beast slayer ranger. Or give them one use of Faerie Fire as a 1st level spell so you can track your beastly foes easier. Or heck, give it True Strike as a cantrip.

Then give Mage Hunter a spell that is more thematically useful to the slaying of mages like Detect Magic that doesn't use up a spell slot once per long rest.

The point of Larian's favored foe is to give your character a couple tools that show their experience and skill fighting a certain enemy that can be more widely applied to a lot of situations. This, to me, is how ranger should always have been designed. It is just a bit clunky in implementation currently.

Aragorn: