The Swarmkeeper is easily my favorite Ranger subclass, simply because of how varied it can be in flavor _by design._ -Desert ranger who commands swarms of locusts or scarabs -A true Rat King, commanding the rats better than any Pied Piper -Disney Princess who weaponizes her woodland critter friends -A Simic biologist from Ravnica that garbs themselves in a torrent of slime -Crazy Cat Lady -A swarm of butterflies turned into a person to defend a fleeing Archfey, left to your own devices -Escaped magical mental patient surrounded by the summoned figments of your troubled mind (or they were real all along, and they only locked you up because they thought you mad) -Yuan-ti snake charmer -Toymaker whose creations come to life -Infernal cultist blessed and cursed by omnipresent flies/centipedes -A wizard's experimental "living hive" weapon escaped containment
Yeeeeees! The swarmkeeper lit my brain on fire with possibilities, and I love all yours too! An Eldritch Larva Mage, a horde of cranium rats in a trench coat, even the Monster Manuals have creatures you can become!
I am playing a Halfling Beast Master who uses her Primal Companion as a mount, and it is amazing. Also, my first Ranger was a Drakewarden, and they are a lot of fun.
Nice! haven't gotten a chance to play a drake warden, but from what I've seen they look really fun! And yeeeeees, my first ever character a halfling riding a giant boar as a mount. Different edition, but same concept, and the primal companion makes it really fun!
If you ever plant to video on Cyclopes, I had anencounter education idea. One has allied himself with a group of orcs and fights for them as their poweful giant champion. Considering how orcs fanatically and superstitiously worship one-eyed gruumsh, I'd immagine cyclopes to look somewhat holy to them, just like froghemoth do for bullywugs.
Ah, the suffering. I love the commentary on Favored Terrain - really puts my irritation with the class features to words. Also, and I have no idea why, but TH-cam just constantly does strange things with your videos. Odd pauses, audio drops, etc. And for some reason it's only this channel and I have no idea why. Did you get cursed somewhere in the past? Did I? The DM won't answer.
I've been getting drops on youtube lately too, and you caught the video minutes after upload, so that makes sense. Though I am known among my friends as a terrifying embodiment of murphy's law, so it makes sense regardless! I've made people who vehemently hate the concept of luck to concede I have horrible luck :D Though with the pauses, unless you're talking about like buffering or something, that might actually be me. I have a speech impediment combined with a burning desire to make these as good as I can!...which is why there are about 500 spoken clips in this. There's often multiple takes spliced together per sentence. Audio editing takes up more time than the rest of the process combined, sadly. On the bright side, I'm improving rather quickly! At the start that would've been easily over 700 for an episode this size. Now I can actually consistently get good takes, just have work on breath control so I don't have pauses and my voice stops dying XD
I know people rag on the niche-ness of Favored Foe, but I have a Social Saboteur Drow Swarmkeeper that really enjoys the advantage on rumor gathering and dirt digging Favored Foe grants her ( e.g. advantage on intelligence check to recall information, like investigation). Admittedly, the expertise from Canny really helps on that front.
You give examples how things might not work but never if it all aligns anyway because a good dm lets them know ahead of time and use everyone's feats in the game regularly. Like normal people would.
Even if the DM does restrict themselves to your terrain and favored foes, you're honestly not getting much benefit. Advantage on tracking a foe isn't really good to begin with, because lets be real you're GOING to find the creature. Hinging the plot on someone passing a check just isn't good. and the terrain bonuses just don't come up at all with how most people play. That's assuming that they can modify the game (you're not playing an adventure module, or with the league, or clashing with someone else's needs) and are willing to. Even then, I don't like systems reliant on the DM's memory, as we don't always remember things thanks to all we're balancing. No malice, just human mistake. I'm an advocate for checking with the group to see what the plan for the campaign is and planning accordingly, but that's assuming there is a plan (open world west march games are valid) and that the plan doesn't change/go off the rails. That's why I prefer things that either make sure the benefits are firmly in the player's hand or are at least large enough that the ranger is gunning to keep the situation in their playing field.
Hunters mark has never been a good spell. A very small average damage increase at the cost of a 1st level spell slot (which could have beeen a goodberry, absorb elements, zephyr strike, etc.. ), your concentration (which could have been on spike growth, conjure animals, etc...) and most of your bonus actions during the combat (which could be used for crossbow expert or many subclass features) is not even close to being worth it. Same for Hex on warlock
The Swarmkeeper is easily my favorite Ranger subclass, simply because of how varied it can be in flavor _by design._
-Desert ranger who commands swarms of locusts or scarabs
-A true Rat King, commanding the rats better than any Pied Piper
-Disney Princess who weaponizes her woodland critter friends
-A Simic biologist from Ravnica that garbs themselves in a torrent of slime
-Crazy Cat Lady
-A swarm of butterflies turned into a person to defend a fleeing Archfey, left to your own devices
-Escaped magical mental patient surrounded by the summoned figments of your troubled mind (or they were real all along, and they only locked you up because they thought you mad)
-Yuan-ti snake charmer
-Toymaker whose creations come to life
-Infernal cultist blessed and cursed by omnipresent flies/centipedes
-A wizard's experimental "living hive" weapon escaped containment
Yeeeeees! The swarmkeeper lit my brain on fire with possibilities, and I love all yours too! An Eldritch Larva Mage, a horde of cranium rats in a trench coat, even the Monster Manuals have creatures you can become!
Good quips as always, thank you for your dedication to teaching in a fun way.
Awww, thanks! I do my best! 💚
I am playing a Halfling Beast Master who uses her Primal Companion as a mount, and it is amazing. Also, my first Ranger was a Drakewarden, and they are a lot of fun.
Nice! haven't gotten a chance to play a drake warden, but from what I've seen they look really fun! And yeeeeees, my first ever character a halfling riding a giant boar as a mount. Different edition, but same concept, and the primal companion makes it really fun!
If you ever plant to video on Cyclopes, I had anencounter education idea. One has allied himself with a group of orcs and fights for them as their poweful giant champion. Considering how orcs fanatically and superstitiously worship one-eyed gruumsh, I'd immagine cyclopes to look somewhat holy to them, just like froghemoth do for bullywugs.
Ah, the suffering. I love the commentary on Favored Terrain - really puts my irritation with the class features to words. Also, and I have no idea why, but TH-cam just constantly does strange things with your videos. Odd pauses, audio drops, etc. And for some reason it's only this channel and I have no idea why. Did you get cursed somewhere in the past? Did I? The DM won't answer.
I've been getting drops on youtube lately too, and you caught the video minutes after upload, so that makes sense. Though I am known among my friends as a terrifying embodiment of murphy's law, so it makes sense regardless! I've made people who vehemently hate the concept of luck to concede I have horrible luck :D
Though with the pauses, unless you're talking about like buffering or something, that might actually be me. I have a speech impediment combined with a burning desire to make these as good as I can!...which is why there are about 500 spoken clips in this. There's often multiple takes spliced together per sentence. Audio editing takes up more time than the rest of the process combined, sadly. On the bright side, I'm improving rather quickly! At the start that would've been easily over 700 for an episode this size. Now I can actually consistently get good takes, just have work on breath control so I don't have pauses and my voice stops dying XD
I know people rag on the niche-ness of Favored Foe, but I have a Social Saboteur Drow Swarmkeeper that really enjoys the advantage on rumor gathering and dirt digging Favored Foe grants her ( e.g. advantage on intelligence check to recall information, like investigation). Admittedly, the expertise from Canny really helps on that front.
You give examples how things might not work but never if it all aligns anyway because a good dm lets them know ahead of time and use everyone's feats in the game regularly. Like normal people would.
Even if the DM does restrict themselves to your terrain and favored foes, you're honestly not getting much benefit. Advantage on tracking a foe isn't really good to begin with, because lets be real you're GOING to find the creature. Hinging the plot on someone passing a check just isn't good. and the terrain bonuses just don't come up at all with how most people play. That's assuming that they can modify the game (you're not playing an adventure module, or with the league, or clashing with someone else's needs) and are willing to. Even then, I don't like systems reliant on the DM's memory, as we don't always remember things thanks to all we're balancing. No malice, just human mistake. I'm an advocate for checking with the group to see what the plan for the campaign is and planning accordingly, but that's assuming there is a plan (open world west march games are valid) and that the plan doesn't change/go off the rails. That's why I prefer things that either make sure the benefits are firmly in the player's hand or are at least large enough that the ranger is gunning to keep the situation in their playing field.
Hunters mark has never been a good spell. A very small average damage increase at the cost of a 1st level spell slot (which could have beeen a goodberry, absorb elements, zephyr strike, etc.. ), your concentration (which could have been on spike growth, conjure animals, etc...) and most of your bonus actions during the combat (which could be used for crossbow expert or many subclass features) is not even close to being worth it. Same for Hex on warlock