The Exploration Pillar

[Nonah_Me]

In reading about another thread's multiclass cutoff point for rangers, someone said that the ranger is built to excel at the exploration part of the game, but that part is often ignored or under developed by many DMs.

My question is, what are some ideas that allow for a ranger (and druid, and any other exploration character) to shine in that part of the game? What do DMs need to do in order to make exploration a big part of the game? The DMG talks alot about hexes and maps, should there be a map exploration component in the game?

[Naanomi]

In many games the 'exploration' componant is urban or underground rather than in the wild; where rangers excel. Rogues and bards dominate the urban/underground comparatively, and wizard do so in planar settings. Rangers excel at a tiny piece of the exploration pillar

[MrStabby]

So I also find that exploration is a pretty broad pillar. I also find that many aspects of it are achieved better through divination spells than by other, more conventional means.

At one end you have spells such as arcane Eye, a very effective scout for locations such as caves, sewers etc.. At the more abstract end you have exploration through inference which is better achieved through divination spells like commune.

Even in terms of simple scouting an rogue can more easily get a better stealth bonus than a ranger and even at higher levels better perception.

Furthermore, if exploration means discovering things about the world, I find knowledge skills as important as any others - something that the ranger doesn't support.



In my games exploration is a pretty major pillar and has a profound impact on social interactions and combat, BUT exploration is pretty broad and the Ranger is not that good at it.

[Specter]

A few wilderness exploration challenges:

- Tracking an enemy/prisoner/creature in the wild (maybe for days according to the prey's speed)
- Navigating through harsh terrain (like swamps or volcanoes, finding safe ground)
- Finding a specific plant for rare medicine, or an animal for poison
- Finding decent food and water in a tainted area
- Making/finding quality shelter in a desolate place
- Making a trail in the wild for animals/peoples to cross more easily

Trouble is, by 15th level or so the party has teleportation magic and/or is traveling through planes, so these lose relevancy.

[Specter]

Even in terms of simple scouting an rogue can more easily get a better stealth bonus than a ranger and even at higher levels better perception.

With Pass Without Trace, nothing beats the Ranger's Stealth roll.

[mephnick]

The exploration pillar completely depends on the group and DM. Our ranger has been quite useful in terms or travel and exploration, but I run a hexmap where travel and exploration are a main focus. If you can't travel without getting lost, or are too slow, you may fail quests. He's had to track, he's had to speak with animals, he's used Primeval Awareness a lot (We fixed it to make it not-awful). He's probably been the most important party member so far at level 10. Of course, as we go higher in levels he may be needed less and less.

In some other campaigns that didn't focus on travel and exploration the ranger loses a lot of his strengths and becomes near useless. I've played in plenty of groups where exploration and travel amount to "Ok you travel a few days or whatever and now you're at the City of _____". Don't play a ranger in these games. Unfortunately you really have to pander to the ranger's strengths to make him the right choice for a player. Some campaigns do this naturally (hex-crawl) but most don't. Even your general "wilderness encounters" can be solved by anyone with some knowledge or survival skills, you don't need a ranger for those.

TL:DR - Yes, IMO you almost need a hexcrawl type campaign to make "exploration" classes shine. They also definitely work better in a lower level, grittier campaign.

[INDYSTAR188]

The exploration pillar completely depends on the group and DM.

In some other campaigns that didn't focus on travel and exploration the ranger loses a lot of his strengths and becomes near useless. I've played in plenty of groups where exploration and travel amount to "Ok you travel a few days or whatever and now you're at the City of _____".

Unfortunately you really have to pander to the ranger's strengths to make him the right choice for a player. Some campaigns do this naturally (hex-crawl) but most don't. Even your general "wilderness encounters" can be solved by anyone with some knowledge or survival skills, you don't need a ranger for those.

I completely agree with this post. I do think this is the true to a certain extent of most classes though. Everybody has their thing that they do and if it's not explicitely a combat thing then it might need to be setup and encouraged by the DM; like things for the Barbarian to break or magical/divine things that need investigated.

For exploration, one thing I like to use is terrain encounters during travel, especially if it includes some kind of mystical/magical element.

[Waazraath]

In reading about another thread's multiclass cutoff point for rangers, someone said that the ranger is built to excel at the exploration part of the game, but that part is often ignored or under developed by many DMs.

My question is, what are some ideas that allow for a ranger (and druid, and any other exploration character) to shine in that part of the game? What do DMs need to do in order to make exploration a big part of the game? The DMG talks alot about hexes and maps, should there be a map exploration component in the game?

In one of the games I play in, we use a converted 2e setting (Al Qadim), what is Zakhara in 5e Forgotten Realms. It's basicly one big desert. The ranger's natural explorer / favored terrain feature comes into play a lot of the time, which is really nice, especially when tracking.

In dungeons, in my experience a large part of exploration is less class based, and more player based (who draws the map, takes the lead, takes risks to go in the part of the environment that seems not neccesarily very attractive to check out, solving riddles to open a magical sealed door), and can be more about other skills then traditionally are the forte of the ranger (investigation to find the secret door, or arcana, religion or history skills to find the riddle to open the magical sealed door).

If you have a ranger in the party, have 'em encounter some of its favoured enemies, and some of its favoured terrain, and involve some tracking, and it should all work out imo.