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[Kagus]

So, question... Well, couple questions, actually.

In 5e, would you say that the ranger's/druid's favored terrain: Coast would count while the party is out at sea? Say, on a boat? It's not technically a "coast" as such, but coastal terrain seems like an extremely limited biome compared to the others, so I don't exactly see that little allowance being overpowered.


Also, how would you go about making a pirate-themed character? Xanathar's has stuff like the Swashbuckler archetype for rogues, which certainly matches from a titular standpoint, and a general rogueish nature does tie in with a piratical nature... But it's not particularly nautical. And also it requires Xanathar's, and I've been trying to limit myself to basic PHB for theorycrafting lately.

Rangers aren't particulary good in PHB, but you do get access to a favored terrain to make it seem like you actually know what you're doing when out on the open waters. The "Your group can’t become lost except by magical means" point in particular seems like it could be fairly useful/abusable in such a setting. You could even double down on your class's mediocrity by picking the Beast Master archetype, painting a raven in vivid colors and calling it a parrot.

Alternatively, call yourself a Bard and pull out an accordion for some shanties. Be brave, motherfuckers! You're not exactly the best melee fighter, but you do get rapier and hand crossbow proficiency (no scimitars cutlasses, though), as well as all the usual nonsense that spellcasting affords you... Plus, College of Lore even has insult swordfighting! Doesn't really get more piratical than that, now does it?


You could probably also do a coast-favored druid of the land and flavor it as some sort of sea-witch, but that's sea-witches and not pirates.

[IcyTea31]

Make a dexterity-based fighter with the sailor background, grab a scimitar and call it a cutlass, done. There isn't a lot of crunch to support a naval-themed character, so you just create a regular character and come up with the fluff yourself.

Also, if your campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms, fluff says that Storm Sorcerers are often hired on ships to keep the weather calm, so there's the obvious option for a spellcaster.

[Trekkin]

In 5e, would you say that the ranger's/druid's favored terrain: Coast would count while the party is out at sea? Say, on a boat? It's not technically a "coast" as such, but coastal terrain seems like an extremely limited biome compared to the others, so I don't exactly see that little allowance being overpowered.

I would, yes, if I couldn't just add "aquatic" outright by fiat for some reason. That said, an aquatic ranger sounds more like a wayfinder than a pirate.

I'd probably use rogue with a sailor background for a stereotypically piratical pirate, with bards for the more technical members of the crew.

[Cruxador]

In 5e, would you say that the ranger's/druid's favored terrain: Coast would count while the party is out at sea? Say, on a boat? It's not technically a "coast" as such, but coastal terrain seems like an extremely limited biome compared to the others, so I don't exactly see that little allowance being overpowered.

Seems to me, if you're in sight of land it's basically coastal sailing. I'd consider extending it beyond that to be houseruling. As for whether it's OP, depends on your campaign. If you're doing a super salty sea dog pirate campaign that only comes on land to bury treasure or exchange gold for rum, yes it's OP. If most of the adventure is on land and boats are only for transport, then definitely not OP. If you're doing a Voyage of the Dawn Treader type thing, then it depends how much the importance of terrestrial content is compared to marine encounters, but it should be fine since you can still use magical phenomena if you have something cool that requires the party to be temporarily lost.

I've been trying to limit myself to basic PHB for theorycrafting lately.

There is literally no reason to do this.

Rangers aren't particulary good in PHB

Yeah, don't use the PHB version. They were revised for a reason.

You could probably also do a coast-favored druid of the land and flavor it as some sort of sea-witch, but that's sea-witches and not pirates.

Sea witches and pirates go together at least as well as land witches and adventurers.

[IcyTea31]

What about sandwiches and desert raiders? Bringing some food on a long, hot journey seems smart to me.

[Trekkin]

What about sandwiches and desert raiders? Bringing some food on a long, hot journey seems smart to me.

Do you want Fedaykin? Because that's how you get Fedaykin.

[Kagus]

I've been trying to limit myself to basic PHB for theorycrafting lately.

There is literally no reason to do this.

There is if you're feeling around for character ideas for a campaign that's only running PHB. Like, yeah, I could be using the expansions to think something up, but I'm not in a position to use any of those character concepts. Might as well keep myself in the "zone" of PHB-compatible design for the time being.

Seems to me, if you're in sight of land it's basically coastal sailing. I'd consider extending it beyond that to be houseruling. As for whether it's OP, depends on your campaign. If you're doing a super salty sea dog pirate campaign that only comes on land to bury treasure or exchange gold for rum, yes it's OP. If most of the adventure is on land and boats are only for transport, then definitely not OP. If you're doing a Voyage of the Dawn Treader type thing, then it depends how much the importance of terrestrial content is compared to marine encounters, but it should be fine since you can still use magical phenomena if you have something cool that requires the party to be temporarily lost.

Well, favored terrain is always going to be of variable usefulness depending on the campaign, but most of the other terrain options are a lot more dynamic as far as inserting them into the setting. Forest, grassland, mountains, swamp, all of those are standalone environments that can be easily plopped into the path of the party. Desert and arctic are more climate-dependent, but both can still count for very large swaths of terrain. Underdark is a bit bizarre and is likely going to be all-or-nothing depending on whether or not you're in an Underdark campaign, but I suppose there's an argument to be made for classifying large caves as "Underdark".

Coast isn't really an environment, it's a transition between two environments. It'd be like if you had a "foothills" favored terrain and got a bonus in the region between mountains and grassland, but not in either of those places on their own... Except foothills would probably still cover a larger area than "coast". In and of itself, favoring coast terrain basically means you're really good at traversing the beach. Not the ground above the beach, and not the water beyond the beach. Which is extremely limiting as far as what you can do with it.

Would following a river count as "coast" terrain? That would help give it some use elsewhere, but that doesn't really seem to make sense with the name. Presumably you could count the coast of a large freshwater lake and not just be locked to saltwater transitions...


If we consider "coast" as also applying to journeys at sea, then it's in the same boat (ha) as the Underdark specialization: It's either massively useful because the game spends a lot of time in that terrain, or it's useless because the campaign doesn't deal with that area at all. It's not really something the DM can just "slip in" on the normal route to give the ranger a chance to be useful before moving on with the scheduled programming.

If we don't consider coast favor as applying to the sea, then it's worse than Underdark. If your campaign featured time at sea, you'd only have a bonus when getting on or off the boat, you wouldn't be able to help out either inland or at sea. It'd be like an Underdark-heavy campaign where you're especially effective right at the transition between the overworld and the underground, but not beyond that line in either direction. Neither inside nor outside, but straddling the middle.

Basically, Favored Terrain: Cat.

[MrRoboto75]

Basically, Favored Terrain: Cat.

Favored Enemy: Mountains

[Cruxador]

a campaign that's only running PHB.

Subtly and respectfully tell the GM not to be such a fucking grognard.

Forest, grassland, mountains, swamp, all of those are standalone environments that can be easily plopped into the path of the party.

I mean, not really. Maybe it you're in a big karst mess like in south China, but even then it'll be weird to justify much.

Coast isn't really an environment, it's a transition between two environments.

All environments are transitional. Forests exist between valleys, with water tables too deep to sustain trees through dry seasons, and peaks, without soil for their roots. Mountains are the transitions, usually, from one plate to another. Swamps transition between land (or channelized river) and lake. Grasslands transition between forests and deserts.

A coast It'd be like if you had a "foothills" favored terrain and got a bonus in the region between mountains and grassland, but not in either of those places on their own... Except foothills would probably still cover a larger area than "coast". In and of itself, favoring coast terrain basically means you're really good at traversing the beach. Not the ground above the beach, and not the water beyond the beach. Which is extremely limiting as far as what you can do with it.

Foothills would be a fine zone, it's probably not included because they'll pretty much always be either grassy or forested, and because nobody really wants to adjudicate exactly where the foothills end and the mountain begins.

Coast presumably refers to the entire coastal zone, not just the beach, since it's called "coast" and not "beach". Which means it goes from the drop-off out at sea (potentially many miles) until the hills that lift the sea breezes. Also typically a fair few miles. It may tend to be narrow and linear compared to some potential regions, but you're still looking at an area that's going to take multiple days to cross on foot, in most places.

Would following a river count as "coast" terrain? That would help give it some use elsewhere, but that doesn't really seem to make sense with the name. Presumably you could count the coast of a large freshwater lake and not just be locked to saltwater transitions...

That would be a house-ruled addition, since it's "coast" and not "coastal, lacustrine, and riparian". Potentially appropriate for a non-coastal campaign, although then one wonders why you'd want that favored terrain in the first place.

If we consider "coast" as also applying to journeys at sea, then it's in the same boat (ha) as the Underdark specialization: It's either massively useful because the game spends a lot of time in that terrain, or it's useless because the campaign doesn't deal with that area at all. It's not really something the DM can just "slip in" on the normal route to give the ranger a chance to be useful before moving on with the scheduled programming.

I don't think it's at all unreasonable for it to be usable in coastal waters but not open ocean. Especially in a roughly medieval context before transatlantic voyages (and then even transpacific) became commonplace, taking your ship away from the coast would have been both rare and dangerous, making the ranger (who is presumably the ship's navigator) roll survival in that case is perfectly reasonable without invalidating his ability to navigate under normal circumstances.


tl;dr: I think you may be mixing up "coast" and "shore". The shore is the one that only goes from the low water mark to the high water mark, coastal regions are geographically extensive.

[scriver]

a campaign that's only running PHB.

Subtly and respectfully tell the GM not to be such a fucking grognard.

Iirc it's as fresh dm. I'm getting he wants it that way for simplicity.

[Cruxador]

a campaign that's only running PHB.

Subtly and respectfully tell the GM not to be such a fucking grognard.

Iirc it's as fresh dm. I'm getting he wants it that way for simplicity.

Does he know about 5etools.com?

[Persus13]

That website is an handy resource, but its A. piracy, and there's people who care about that, and B. its got literally everything on there and that can be super overwhelming, which is not simple at all.

[Cruxador]

It doesn't show literally everything by default, and I don't see any way the information could be presented more simply than in lists. It also seems to have tacit unofficial approval from WotC since they haven't had it taken down or interfered with it in any way and don't have any official product which does a similar thing. Of course, that could end at any time, but if you have legitimate access to the content anyway, then the aid in presenting it in an easily utilizable fashion is perfectly above board. It's also legally ambiguous exactly how much of the text represents mechanics, which can't be copyrighted and therefore can't be pirated, although if you're concerned about such things you may want not to use the info tabs (where applicable, e.g. For races) and stick to the parts that which do convey only mechanical information.

[scriver]

It doesn't show literally everything by default, and I don't see any way the information could be presented more simply than in lists.

The issue is more the volume than the presentation.

[Cruxador]

It doesn't show literally everything by default, and I don't see any way the information could be presented more simply than in lists.

The issue is more the volume than the presentation.

For older editions I'd agree, but 5e only has between a fifthnand a third (depending on option type you look at) of its current content outside of core anyway.