The description of Primeval Awareness seems incomplete. It states that for 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend, you can sense certain types of creatures within 1 mile (FT: 6 miles). What is the benefit of expending a spell slot higher than first level? I know that we, as DMs, can creatively fill in this gap, but why was so blaring a gap permitted?
I could imagine that expending a spell slot higher than first level could either:
i) increase the range of detection by 1 mile (FT: 6 miles) per additional minute;
ii) permit you to detect one additional creature type per minute (yes, this would be a nerf), the order of which is TBD;
iii) permit you to identify an additional piece of information per minute, such as direction, distance, general number (e.g., singular (1), few (2-10), many (11-50), or legion (51+)), and how powerful (challenge rating) [5 spell slots, 5 different pieces of information]; or
iv) any combination of the above.
I would be willing to expend a 5th level spell slot for something of comparable value. I believe that what I suggest above is closer to that value than the current reading of Primeval Awareness.
What do you think?
1 minute per spell slot level
Though, it's kind of a crappy feature by itself, so i approve a houserule for it.
MaximumHavoc wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
I agree that Primeval Awareness is useless as written. Whether I'm trying to find a dragon or run away from it, sacrificing one of my precious few daily spell slots merely so I can know that the dragon is somewhere within a specific distance from my location just isn't worth it. They either need to get rid of the spell slot cost, or make it so you can, at the very least, learn the general direction, so that you can at least know if you're heading towards or away from it. Even then, I see no reason to expend a higher level spell slot to make it last longer when there is no real benefit to doing so. Even having it last a minute seems pointless.
I guess maybe the idea is that you turn it on and then start walking in a certain direction and if, after a minute or so, you no longer sense something, that means you're moving away from it. Pretty dumb if you ask me. It would be much better if it was on a par with the paladin's divine sense. In fact, it would also be nice if you could choose one of the different creature types at a time instead of being forced to sense them all at once.
pukunui wrote:
MaximumHavoc wrote:
pukunui wrote:
To save time maybe?
pukunui wrote:
I... guess? But wouldn't a spell slot be more valuable?
Personally I think it should be a ritual that gives you general numbers, approximate range, approximate azimuth, and approximate elevation.
Whatever is done, they need be careful not to be redundant with Natural Explorer: tracking.
Maybe add a Concentration tag to the ability and allow the Ranger to know the relative direction (and perhaps approximate distance) of the targets? Does the Ranger even have other spells which require concentration to compete with this? Also, damage would force a check; is that enough of a drawback?
Shirebrok wrote:
Proin wrote:
I too struggle to see the efficacy of this ability (and divine sense initially), and posted about it here.
I agree it needs to do quite a bit more for it to make sense to spend a spell slot on it, considering that there are so many other cheaper ways to discern the information (and perhaps even better information). Asking NPCs, using SURVIVAL or NATURE or speaking to an animal (via a spell or ability), using your familiar to scout etc. This information is usually something the DM wants you to discover, so you can get on with the adventure, so making this information so vague as to be useless and on top of that make it costly, seems counter intuitive.
I like the absoluteness of not getting lost with a ranger in your party. They know the land. They understand nature craft. It's like having Ray Mears in your party. The wilderness is their home. I'd make the ability to "sense" a creature also absolute. They can just do it. It's something that requires time instead of a spell slot. I'd treat it more like an uber tracking skill. They have to examine the environment to pick up on the practically invisible cues and signs that their quarry is nearby. I'd give direction, and number, but not necessarily distance... but time since last in this location. Maybe they can pick a favoured creature type, and with that type they can get even more information (distance, strength, reasons for being in the area - foraging, being hunted, hunting, whether wounded or not, etc...).
The point of this ability, from my perspective, is to make the ranger a bad-ass tracker/hunter. The player will feel cool to tell his party, "look i got this, the undead unicorn went that away". I personally prefer making it "not" magical per se, but if your tastes run that way, ask for a spell slot.
Fenstrider wrote:
It is an out of combat bonus for the exploration pillar. Just use a slot at the end of the day when you rest up or just wait an extra day if you want the slot back. If you know there is a Dragon there you can use other abilities to find it and try and find out what colour it is.
MaximumHavoc wrote:
thorbardin wrote:
edwin_su wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
For me it's got nothing to do with the ranger as a class. It's got everything to do with it being a dumb ability.
Imagine the rogue gets trap sense, favored construction stone. He can now detect traps in a 6 mile radius made of stone. Not how many, nor actually where, or how it is made... Just that they are stone traps. Whoopee. But it's not free, he has to give up his cunning action for the day.
imagine the wizard gets magic sense, favored type green flame. He can now detect any green flame magic within a 6 mile radius. Not how many green flames, nor where... Just that green flame magic exists in a 12 mile diameter circle. Awesome.
Spend a spell slot. (It would actually be more like the wizards detects conjuration magic... Green flame magic is far too specific for this ability)
the bard gets detect musical instrument, favored type lute. He can now detect lutes in a... I'm sure the party is just dying to know that yes indeed, there be lutes in the village up ahead.
it's just silly, and redundant as written.
divine sense at least has a very short range, and seems by those in the know of the forums, to be used to detect shape shifted fiends and evil doers. That could be useful... I see that.
detecting CLASSES of monsters... Not actual monsters mind you just the genus, and this doesn't extend to humanoids, giants, beasts, monstrosities, oozes, plants or constructs. So you cannot detect a village of orcs ahead, but you can pick up a quasit 6 miles away, although you'd never know that as you'd just be told YES to a search on fiends. It's the worlds most useless search engine.
The choice of which types one can sense and which types one cannot sense seems arbitrary. Especially beasts being left off? Man of the woods cannot magically detect bears but some how has his finger on the pulse of fiends. I don't get it.
Then the ability does two other strange things. 1) it rewards the player for not being in his favored terrain by making the area smaller, which if you are playing Marco Polo, a binary YES within 1 mile is easier to stumble into than 6 miles, and 2) allow the player to spend higher spell slots to extend the duration of the spell... Because those extra minutes could tell you something different.... Somehow.
player: I wish to use primeval presence to detect fey in the forest, my favored terrain. I'm going to expend a 5th levels slot to to get 5 minutes.
dm: ok. First minute yes. Second minute yes. Third minute yes, fourth minute yes, fifth minute yes.
Good thing is that it's easy to fix.
It is more or less a freebie ability. You get it at level 3 in addition to your ranger path, the fighter for example only gets his sub class abilities and thats it.
Its not a great ability but it is basically a throw in and it is better than nothing. Its effect is a clue for roleplaying and exploration IMHO.
The bard's "throw away" freebie ability (those abilities granted at 3rd level together with that classes path choice) is expertise. Double the prof bonus for two skills. Seems quite nice. and I you get another two skills at 10th.
The monk's is deflect missiles. Deflect, catch and possibly shoot back missiles fired at you.
the paladin's is divine health. Immune to disease.
All of these freebies are much better than the rangers.
thorbardin wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
If it gave the direction of the monster I think that would help the ability. As is, it makes the adventure go something like this...
Leader: "You sense a Dragon nearby?"
Ranger: "Yep."
Leader: "Which way is it?"
Ranger : "No clue."
Leader :"Arn't you a Ranger."
Ranger:"I get that alot."
At least with a direction the ability would be useful. When I run a game I think I will do that.
StuleBrown wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
They should have stuck with the playtest version of Primeval Awareness. It worked more like the paladin's Divine Sense in that it told you the creatures' locations within the radius, with the difference being that you gave up a spell slot in order to have a much greater range and no need for line of sight (the paladin's sense is blocked by total cover, so he can't sense if there's an undead mummy inside a sealed sarcophagus, whereas the ranger can).
Either that, or they should have just made it a spell. Or a modification of the locate animals or plants spell.
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
I'm certainly not a power gamer, I'm quite the opposite in fact. I try to wrap all the abilities in flavour to help understand how it works cinematically (in my mind). I just personally cannot imagine this ability being useful in any way that makes the player go "cool this makes me helpful to the group".
Aragorn thinks for a minute, draining some of his mojo, to determine that there are DRAGONS nearby. Although he's uncertain if it's a guard drake, a faerie dragon or an ancient red somewhere in the 3,151,374,336 foot area. (that's 3 billion with a B).
Hot on the tail of a beholder, the party are pretty sure it's in this foggy swamp. The ranger PINGS for aberrations and gets a hit, Hooray the party thinks, never knowing that they're also picking up will-o-wisps, carrion crawlers and a rust monster. They decide to press in deep and 6 miles in, they PING again... yet another yes. Maybe it's moving ahead of them they think to themselves, or it could be 6 miles back the way they have come. Undaunted they press on, and next morning 6 miles later, PING again for another hit - yes it's moving! How is this creature moving so fast? Oh wait, maybe we're just getting results of all abberations in the area. Beholder's like "see ya!"
Take a look at the two diagrams of multiple uses of this ability (so not one spell slot but 3 within a day) to actually try and find something. The first shows multiple red dots, representing members of the target species. Aberrations are fun because they are so many types, but it could be undead, fey... whatever. The green dots are the ranger pinging his environment. The green overlay circles are the 6 miles. Note that every time he uses his ability the result is YES. So, with multiple types of the same monster type, the ability is useless if you're trying to determine if one of specific monster is in the area. Note that the ranger only gets YES in an area, nothing else. So he doesn't know that the top most circle of effect has the most hits for example, or if he's getting results from previous pings.
In the second diagram, the party is in luck, there is only one type of the creature being pinged. However, the ranger has to be extraordinarily lucky to be able to have his target at the intersection of his three PINGS. If that red dot was anywhere else, he's just not finding it. So, even tracking a solitary member of the species, the ability provides no useful information to the party, other than what they most likely know... yes there are fey in the woods, yes there are aberrations in the swamps, yes there are undead in the hills, yes there are dragons in the mountains, etc.
I'm also not convinced of this minor versus major label that you're putting on abilities Zardnaar, if that is to say that it's a minor ability and therefore it's okay it's mostly useless. Every ability should be useful, otherwise just don't have it in the book. And more to the point, abilities should make you feel cool about you character choices. Not in the uber powergamer sense of optimisation, but in the sense there is no ability that is so circumstantial as to be mostly irrelevant for any class, as it's poor mechanics pull you out of the character.
But hey, each to their own. I'm certainly house ruling this ability in my games.
The cool Venn diagrams of awesome:
I think it can be quite powerful, and good for out of combat scenarios.
Brock_Landers wrote:
thorbardin wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
That's traditionally been given to the players by the DM for free in the intro to the session he's prepared.
"you've heard reports of XXXXXXX in the area. You should investigate."
Now it could be:
"the ranger senses XXXXXXXX in the area. You should investigate." that's the DM providing the pc with almost the same knowledge just via a different source. It's not the same because the former would most likely contain the word vampire, the latter would contain the word undead. Which do you think is more helpful to the party? For the tone of the adventure? What if it's a ghoul? A wraith? A lich? A skeleton? That the ranger is detecting.
But I doubt the player is going to check for XXXXXXXX at the start of an adventure, and then even if he does, the DM most likely has something else prepared. Player: "I check for dragons". DM: "no dragons, as I was saying, the merchant wants guards for the caravan." So, as a player centric ability, I don't imagine it's going to spawn too many scenarios.
thorbardin wrote:
thorbardin wrote:
Intro, as in introduction or introductory hook for the players to pick up and run with.
thorbardin wrote:
thorbardin wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
[quote="TheGimper"]
Zardnaar wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
thorbardin wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Fenstrider wrote:
You are all ignoring the fact the ability cut's through ANY spell inteference against scrying or other forms of magical detection protection.
Additionally, if the target doesn't move (i.e. it's gone to ground or has a lair) and you have a map - using a basic search grid you will eventually narrow down it's location to the point the Ranger can concentrate their tracking and search efforts usefully..
Also - combined with the tracking ability a Ranger essentially get's a sense of whether the tracked target is within a day's striking distance if it is on it's own in the area.
It's also a snapshot threat assessment tool if you use it sensibly;
"Hey Jed - any undead in this town?"
"Erm... no - looks like the Church of Pelor haven't been slacking..."
Just like the Beastmaster, this class feature is being critiqued in isolation to the possibilities and synergies available to the Ranger, and it is being mislabelled as useless.
I don't understand the higher spell slot expenditure either. That seems like they were going somewhere with it and forgot to fix it before publishing. I expect errata.
I could see Primeval Awareness being quite useful in a Hexploration game (also known as hexcrawls). Hexes are typically 5 or 6 miles which might explain how this ability works with regard to the ranger's favored terrain. In this type of game, there isn't often an overarching plot, just players choosing to explore in this direction or that, running into random encounters, hazards, and uncovering points of interest along the way. To that end, Primeval Awareness can be used to ping a hex (or part of one) and get a sense of the "unnatural" creatures in that area. Then, you could use something like the Outlander background feature that allows the character to recall the general layout of terrain and whatnot and try to determine if there are any likely places for such monsters to hang out.
Ranger: I focus on the land and use a bit of magic to garner some primeval awareness of unnatural creatures in this area.
DM: An image of a dark shadow, long, serpentine, and winged passing over some foothills forms in your mind. It is followed by a terrible, echoing roar.
Ranger: Foothills. Echoes. As an outlander, I draw upon my knowledge of the terrain to recall where in this area I might find that kind of terrain - foothills, canyons, or ravines. Something like that.
DM: You know that you're near Blackfang Gulch - it's just on the other side of those hills.
Ranger: Let's head over in that direction and see if I can't find some tracks or the like... keep your eyes skyward, lads.
Caliburn101. wrote:
You need a grid of rangers, to triangulate.
That's why you had the old rule against having too many rangers in the same party. It left a hole in the awareness grid!
Caliburn101. wrote:
The problem is not that Primeval Awareness is useless, it is that it is near useless for the cost.
By costing a spell slot, something rangers have few of, Primeval Awareness with almost never be casted without the DM hinting its usefulness.
Especially since ranger are very dependent on spells as is,, the class feature gets too much competetion for those netter spells.
If it was once per rest or once per long rest, maybe it is used.
My ruling is, on a rest regain all spell slots used on Primeval Awareness. The Wild gives you back the magic to sacrificed to her.