I finally understand what Favored Terrain should emulate

[Rukelnikov]

As a lot of people these days I've spent quite a lot of hours of these past weeks playing Elden Ring, and pretty much the whole game's pve difficulty is balanced not as much agaist your stats/gear, but agaisnt your knowledge of the land.

You would get to a new zone, get ambushed, get lost, take fights in compromising positions because you don't know how to get to the advantageous position (like a ledge over the enemies where you can safely snipe them or we). In all Raya Lucaria, I think I only leveled up like 4 or 5 levels (70-75 or somewhere around that), but the knowledge of the academy's layout meant I went from having trouble in the first fights to clearing almost the entire dungeon without resting.

So the thing is, Favored Terrain for me used to be the kind of feature which I understand what it should be representing, but it was always fuzzy, playing ER I just got repeatedly hit in the face with the effects knowing the terrain can have in travel and combat.

Now that I understand what I'd want the feature to emulate, I'm having trouble coming up with how to codify it in the system. The most obvious thing is just an initiative buff, cause in general knowing the terrain means you get to pick how the fight will start, but it seems lazy, boring and lame.

More on a tangent, there's usually talk about what a Ranger should represent, and it usually eventually devolve into, well aragorn could just be a fighter with rogue levels, but for me, instead of trying to look for a character after which to model the class, we can look at "roles" or "modus operandi" if you will, to me the ranger should feel, like a character from a metroidvania, or Shadow of War, where the knoweledge of the land and its inhabitants is what makes you strong. So if games can evoke the feeling rangers go for, why are they so hard to evoke in dnd?

[Kane0]

Well as an initiative thing, perhaps when initiative is rolled select one creature other than yourself to get advantage or disadvantage on their check? Or when you roll initiative and you arent surprised you can move up to half your speed?

Maybe a reverse of the find traps effect (or how it is supposed to work), instead of noticing intentional hazards you notice environmental/incidental ones.

[Rynjin]

There's a pretty decent Ranger archetype in Pathfinder called Guide, it gets this ability:


Terrain Bond (Ex)
At 4th level, the guide forms a bond with the land itself, enabling him to direct others in such terrain. When in his favored terrain, the Ranger grants all allies within line of sight and that can hear him a +2 bonus on initiative checks and Perception, Stealth, and Survival skill checks. Also, as long as they travel with him, the Ranger’s allies leave no trail and can’t be tracked. The Ranger can choose for the group to leave a trail, or even specific members of the group to leave a trail if he so desires.

This ability replaces hunter’s bond.

This is identical to the bonuses granted by Favored Terrain to the Ranger at 3rd level when they get it, but doesn't scale.


Favored Terrain (Ex)
At 3rd level, a ranger may select a type of terrain from Table: Ranger Favored Terrains. The ranger gains a +2 bonus on initiative checks and Knowledge (geography), Perception, Stealth, and Survival skill checks when he is in this terrain. A ranger traveling through his favored terrain normally leaves no trail and cannot be tracked (though he may leave a trail if he so chooses).

At 8th level and every five levels thereafter, the ranger may select an additional favored terrain. In addition, at each such interval, the skill bonus and initiative bonus in any one favored terrain (including the one just selected, if so desired), increases by +2.

If a specific terrain falls into more than one category of favored terrain, the ranger’s bonuses do not stack; he simply uses whichever bonus is higher.

In general, look at how Pathfinder handled Ranger for ideas. It's a really good class in that system.

[LordShade]

@OP - I like your ideas.

Part of the problem is that 5e doesn't make "knowledge of the land and its inhabitants" relevant. If random encounters were a thing, we could have a mechanic where the ranger knows what's likely to be encountered that day so the spellcasters can prepare accordingly. Or, if resting didn't refill resources so quickly, the ranger might be able to help the party avoid fights in the wilderness so that they don't get worn down over time. If finding safe places to rest was difficult (e.g. Tiny Hut and Rope Trick didn't exist), then knowledge of the land might matter. If spells like Goodberry didn't exist, or if a 40-pound halfling with 10 strength couldn't carry 100 pounds of equipment without any issues, finding sources of food and fresh water might matter. If crafting and gathering was a thing, rangers would be able to harvest resources from the terrain to provide short-term advantages against specific creatures ("there are Frost Salamanders in this area, but I can make a poultice out of Risian gooseberries that will give us a few minutes of protection from their ice breath"), etc. All of this is related to how WOTC basically ignores the exploration pillar of the game, which is a well-known issue.

One mechanical buff that we might be able to include in the current system is giving a ranger some kind of knowledge of when and where a fight is likely to happen. Effectively, it would be like the "Tactics" skill from Heroes of Might and Magic. If the Ranger succeeds in some kind of skill roll, and the battle is being fought on a grid, the Ranger gets to freely arrange where on the map the PCs start the encounter, yielding a positioning advantage. Alternately, or in conjunction, the Ranger could predict when a fight is likely to happen, giving the party a free round or more to cast buffs and prepare actions. Kind of like Initiative-plus.

[Miele]

I'd suggest for who's interested in improving the exploration pillar, thus making classes such as Ranger and Druid more interesting, to have a look at the old AD&D book "Wilderness Survival Guide". It gave a lot of options for outdoor traveling. There is also a Dungeoneer Survival Guide. Both books were first published in 1986, for AD&D, pretty much when I started playing, well... slightly earlier :D