# Favored Terrain & Favored Enemy



## dagger (Aug 10, 2010)

I am still against the way Pathfinder handles rangers favored enemy....its the same as 3/3.5.




   1. First of all, it is a pain to keep track of (to us).
   2. Second, they have added Favored Terrain, which adds to the annoying factor.
   3. Third, they might rarely kick in if ever.....

Now if you like the system that is great, but we don't.

I am thinking about morphing them both into maybe one ability, like the way rangers are handled in 1st edition with a flat damage bonus to certain monster types (Giant Kin).

Thoughts?


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## Kaisoku (Aug 10, 2010)

A looooong time ago (possibly during 3.0e days), and back when I was posting on Monte Cook's boards, I created a variant Ranger that could pick up "Ranger Talents" (to use Pathfinder's current Rogue to give a perfect example of what I did).

In it, I had the old Favored Enemy options, but then also had some different options.. like the following:

- The ability to pick creatures from the bestiary (instead of a creature type) to have bonuses against. They were added to a list, capped by your ranks in Knowledge (nature).
The ability to swap them out with time and a skill check, and feats for expanding your max known were available.
This was typically more relevant since you could wait and choose creatures (with a skill check) as you encountered them.

- The ability to gain a bonus against a specific target. To get this bonus, you needed to observe the target in combat (similar to the assassin), or out of combat (took longer), or even the option of Survival checks (reading tracks) or Gather Information checks (word of mouth, typically for humanoids but also "local legends") to gain the bonus before even meeting the creature face to face.
This was more of a Hunter type of ability, so was automatically relevant all the time, as long as you invested time/checks into it. This also had additional options with the ability to have multiple targets, quicker learning about the target, etc.
Basically Quarry, but as a more "main ability" type thing.

- Similar ability with favored terrains, where you spend time and skill checks to adjust your "survival training" for the current environment, and adjust your ghillie suit to gain proper camouflage, etc.
Get extra stuff in line with more movement, reroll perception checks or never surprised, etc.
"Hunter's Bond" effect of allowing you to give your allies a little fast movement and ignore terrain penalties screams "ranger" to me too.

Since most of these abilities were more uniform, I went with more "gain extra crit range or multiplier" or "cause status effect" or "ignore penalties or gain retries" stuff, instead of just pure attack and damage, or skill bonus. That way you didn't always have +10 to attack and damage or skill against a particular creature/terrain or set of creatures in combat, but you could get a +5 bonus to those, and deal crippling effects, or gain fast movement and "act on surprise rounds" in terrains, etc.

This sound like the kind of stuff you are talking about?


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## StreamOfTheSky (Aug 10, 2010)

The thing that most pisses me off about the new favored terrains is that PF actually NERFED several high level Ranger class features like Camouflage to ONLY function in favored terrains.


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## dagger (Aug 10, 2010)

Kaisoku said:


> This sound like the kind of stuff you are talking about?





Thanks for the ideas.

Yea we are looking at various ways to change it, and we might just end up not messing with it.


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## dagger (Aug 10, 2010)

StreamOfTheSky said:


> The thing that most pisses me off about the new favored terrains is that PF actually NERFED several high level Ranger class features like Camouflage to ONLY function in favored terrains.





Yea that something else I had not considered.


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## Voadam (Aug 11, 2010)

When I was running Pathfinder Beta I adopted some 4e stuff including the concept that rangers are high damage low AC vulnerable striker/skirmishers. I made the favored enemy bonus a flat bonus and did not restrict it by type of target. 

I also gave the ranger in the party the choice of a flat skill bonus to one of the normal skill categories for favored enemy or a knowledge skill for a type of creature knowledge. That way it could be, "I'm the thief hunter" with sense motive or survival for tracking as the skill bonus, or "I'm the demon hunter" with knowledge planar as the bonus.

I felt these changes worked out very well in defining the ranger niche.


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## Mon (Aug 11, 2010)

We reduced the RAW favoured enemy bonuses by half (+1 at 1st, 5th, 10th, etc) and shifted the other half across to a "prey" ability which works the same way but the creature type can be changed once per day (representing a new hunting focus).

This way the ranger can spread his bonus around a bit if he has some inkling of what he might be up against or, since prey and favoured enemy stack, focus on his "real nemesis" and receive the full bonus that a RAW ranger gets.


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## gamerprinter (Aug 12, 2010)

As a DM when a player is rolling up their Ranger and gets to Favored Enemy, the player asks what they should pick - and I offer them suggestions based on the kinds of enemies found in the region of the world that the game is taking place. I suggest specific humanoids that are prevalent, will be enemies they run into and so. If undead are common, I suggest that. If giants same thing. While the party could run into anything and not every combat will contain a ranger's favored enemy, I do try and insert a ranger's FE fairly often. If you're DM is just never putting those kinds of FE choices as opponents, then he's being a dick.

Since I'm the DM in my games, my rangers never have a problem with their favored enemies not showing up.

Regarding favored terrain, I like the fact that the Jungle ranger can't camoflage himself in dessert terrain, it makes sense - something I didn't think 3.5 make sense in the use of that ability.

GP


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## Maidhc O Casain (Aug 12, 2010)

gamerprinter said:


> As a DM when a player is rolling up their Ranger and gets to Favored Enemy, the player asks what they should pick - and I offer them suggestions based on the kinds of enemies found in the region of the world that the game is taking place. I suggest specific humanoids that are prevalent, will be enemies they run into and so. If undead are common, I suggest that. If giants same thing. While the party could run into anything and not every combat will contain a ranger's favored enemy, I do try and insert a ranger's FE fairly often. If you're DM is just never putting those kinds of FE choices as opponents, then he's being a dick.
> 
> Since I'm the DM in my games, my rangers never have a problem with their favored enemies not showing up.
> 
> ...




This - all of it.


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## Kaisoku (Aug 13, 2010)

Well, to me.. it felt like the Ranger was using a ghillie suit. In which case, he'd just have to spend a little time adjusting it for his new environment and blammo, useable in any natural terrain really.

The only problem I see with asking the DM in advance is twofold:

In a sandbox game, where the DM is making the encounters, the player will know if the DM is adding enough creatures for his favored enemy bonus or not. When it gets to different levels of bonus... the DM will feel like he's specifically tailoring his encounters for this one character.
Do I put a creature that he gets his full bonus for? Or a lower bonus? If I do put it, it might make things too easy, and if I don't, he'll begrudge me for leaving one out.
Yeah, in a game where everyone is mature, it's not so bad (and a DM can try to focus on putting what makes sense, instead of pandering). When you are playing with people who are new to your group, the DM gets saddled with some decision making, and the player has far too much transparency on the DM's encounter building process.
Some people dislike the idea that in a homebrew, a DM has to worry about a class demanding his attention like this.

In the second scenario, with published adventures, the DM has to read far enough ahead to know if this _permanent_ choice will be worth it for the character, and potentially reveal some elements of the adventure path that perhaps should have been more of a surprise.
People can decide to not act on meta-game knowledge, but it still ruins the feel, even if only a little.

I can very much see the desire for a more uniform, or changeable system that lets the ranger still get his focus, but not get screwed out of bad choices or ruined by metagame knowledge.

I'm partial to the "spend time and skill checks to change your choices" alternative approach.


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## gamerprinter (Aug 13, 2010)

Not always, but I design about half my encounters with the PCs in mind always. I've got paladin types who want fight evil outsiders and undead, I've got Rangers who want to fight giants and monstrous humanoids, I've got rogues who want to find guys with lots of gold in their pockets - when I design an encounter I look for opportunities to allow each player to shine above the rest.

I tailor my encounters half the time to one player or another - always. Sometimes I deliberate create a non-applicable to specific encounter to keep them on my toes. I feel its my job to entertain and challenge my gamers and that means letting them fight who they want to from time to time.

What's the problem with that? Why wouldn't you do that?

GP

PS: I see a ghillie suit as great for bog lands, since its a Scottish hunter camo thing, but when you think of modern snipers that change with their terrain well they get to see more terrain in modern day, than most locals centuries ago. In other words someone from Scottland is unlikely to know anything about a dessert, so shouldn't have a natural affinity to hiding in it. Its not smart to use modern analogies to medieval times - they are apples and oranges in mindset, they don't apply.


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## Kaisoku (Aug 13, 2010)

Comparing D&D to medieval times is a big no-no as well. The game replaces technology with magic, and makes the world far and beyond anything like a medieval setting (most people in D&D are likely not dying of thirst or small injuries, similar to today, with how easy some of this magic is accessed).

The simple fact is these adventurers _are_ traveling to such a wide variety of terrains (one AP I'm running has desert, cold, plains, mountains, underground, swamp and forest all in a fairly small area).
Why couldn't a Ranger, especially a 12th level ranger who's already picked 2 terrains, have experienced a wide variety of landscapes, such that he could learn how to apply his new found concept against more than the specific terrains he decided to excel at.

I can see how and why they did it, but I can also see how it can work in a wider concept (such as back in 3.5e).

Honestly, the ghillie suit isn't that big a feat of engineering... rather, it's simply a new way of thinking (make a suit that can easily be adjusted to add bits of your terrain). Considering what a 12th level character is capable of, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief that he can come up with a suit that he can adjust to a given natural terrain.

Considering it's an extraordinary ability, and not supernatural or spell-like, so he isn't going all "chameleon" like, the only way this makes sense is if he knows how to make his appearance look like his surroundings. Since that is the basic concept of the suit... comparison to modern is quite valid here.

.

Regarding the "pandering to a specific class", you really didn't address the concerns I posited.
I'm talking about letting players know in advance what's coming up (and possible metagame issues around it), and forcing the DM to make his encounters _obviously_ about one player (oh, that orc is there because of my class ability, etc). If a DM doesn't pander to the class for whatever reason (forgetful, not part of the story, etc), then it automatically weakens the character, and can cause hurt feelings in the more immature.


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## Maidhc O Casain (Aug 13, 2010)

It's a balancing act for sure. And you get two types of players - those that don't mind a little metagame knowledge to inform their choices, and those that flat out don't want to know. Those that don't want to know usually (in my experience) aren't the types to complain when their choices go awry.

I've been a subscriber to the APs since Legacy of Fire. In the Player's Guide for Legacy of Fire the author's didn't make specific recommendations for Rangers' favored enemies. But that was also the last Players Guide that was also a beefy regional guide, and they DID come right out and say "Gnolls are the most common monsters in Katapesh, and arguably the most dangerous." If that's not an invitation for Rangers to jump right on, I don't know what is. In every Players' Guide since then, the authors come right out and give a list of the best choices for Favored Enemies. Not just one or two; there are a lot to choose from and no Ranger's gonna get 'em all.

I personally like this approach - actually the entire idea of a player's guide for the AP and all of the information in them. It allows players to make characters relevant to the adventure, with useful skill sets and other choices. And the AP is _*plenty*_ big enough to throw a variety of encounters in - some will be right up the Ranger's alley, some will cater more to the casters, some to the skill monkeys.

I don't see anything wrong with GMs 'catering' to their players - in this regard at least - as long as each character gets his or her turn to be 'catered' to.


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## gamerprinter (Aug 13, 2010)

I don't see it as metagame knowledge, I see it as the ranger's knowledge of where he/she lives. Isn't it possible that her town/tribe gets regularly raided by orcs and giants, and the town has been raided 4 times by each during her lifetime. So now all grown up and ready to be a ranger, wouldn't that person be aware of what major threats are found in the region? Thus orcs and giants become her first two choices. She can learn the other threats as she gains experience to know what her next selection will be.

If the campaign is constructs and undead, if the existence of them occurs at the start of the campaign so none of the locals could be prepared for that, recommending constructs and undead would be metagame knowledge - that might be an exception to such foreknowledge.

It really depends on the setting, the intended campaign, the prepublished adventure used, but except for extraordinary circumstances such as what is mentioned in the previous paragraph, I wouldn't consider it metagame knowledge for the ranger to guess ahead of time the major threats.

If the player is brand new to the setting that real person won't be able to guess the surrounding threats, so I provide that as background information, something that would be known to the ranger.

Is that metagaming? I don't think so.

GP

PS: the point is I pander to all members of the party, and allow each to shine in their moment ahead of the other characters, sometimes I don't pander to anyone and keep it mixed. But I never exclude a party member by limiting the encounters to strengths they don't have - that is wrong/bad/fun to any gaming party. I don't screw over my players.

PPS: its like having a rogue in the party, but as a DM I never put any traps or locked doors or only include monsters with uncanny dodge, now the rogue will never be able to do what their designed for, same applies to a Ranger's FE, a Paladin's smite evil (not having evil monsters only neutral ones, for example.) I don't see this as pandering to anyone, I see this is creating adventures that are fun for the classes the Players chose.


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## gamerprinter (Aug 13, 2010)

Kaisoku said:


> Comparing D&D to medieval times is a big no-no as well.




I see your point, but then I design my own settings and create my own maps - my worlds tend to be heavily influenced by earth-history analogs, and my worlds make geographic/geologic sense, even when I include magically altered terrain and such - there's a logic to the world. I don't place tundra next to desert, next to jungle. Some whacko places in the FR might do that, but none of my settings.

I sometimes don't keep in mind the intended setting someone else might be playing in might make absolutely no sense - my worlds aren't like that. So I don't think like that.

My latest setting intended for publication is set in an analog Europe set in the Iron Age - so I always think in historic terms and it works perfectly for the worlds I design. I'm sure the typical D&D setting and what I create are apples and oranges.

So excuse my logic, it works different than even the majority, I think.

Regarding your point about injuries and health care. Cleric spells cost money, most people are poor, most people don't receive the care of a cleric and die of injury, illness and disease on a regular basis - like the real world. Sure magical healing exists, and those in power and those who are adventurers are the exception to the rule. Modern health care doesn't exist in most fantasy worlds I'm familiar, and I'm not even including the ones I design.

GP


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## Maidhc O Casain (Aug 13, 2010)

gamerprinter said:


> PS: the point is I pander to all members of the party, and allow each to shine in their moment ahead of the other characters, sometimes I don't pander to anyone and keep it mixed. But I never exclude a party member by limiting the encounters to strengths they don't have - that is wrong/bad/fun to any gaming party. I don't screw over my players.
> 
> PPS: its like having a rogue in the party, but as a DM I never put any traps or locked doors or only include monsters with uncanny dodge, now the rogue will never be able to do what their designed for, same applies to a Ranger's FE, a Paladin's smite evil (not having evil monsters only neutral ones, for example.) I don't see this as pandering to anyone, I see this is creating adventures that are fun for the classes the Players chose.




Thank you! My points exactly - in fact, I almost put a paragraph in my previous post along the same lines as your Rogues and traps point.

I'd give you XP, but apparantly I've done so for another post recently enough that I can't quite yet.


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## Kaisoku (Aug 14, 2010)

The difference between a Rogue's trapfinding or a Paladin's smite evil is that these are far, _far _broader in application compared to the Favored Enemy.

The Paladin gets a normal bonus against _anything evil_. That's basically 90% of what you'll be fighting if you are playing a Paladin (usually).
The bonus against Dragons, Undead and Outsiders are also quite a large spread, but that's just a "small extra" too.

In a world built around normal expectations, traps and trapped things will come up on a regular basis. Now, this could depend on the campaign... but then a campaign focused around surviving on a deserted island (a la Lost), gives plenty of warning to not waste your time training certain skill sets.

The Ranger on the other hand, needs to pick a specific creature type (and in the case of Outsiders or Humanoids, a specific aligned or subtype).
It's really, really easy to simply never have a single Gnoll in an entire campaign, but the Ranger could easily pick that as a background thing, and now the DM is stuck.

Granted, there's ways to try and get around that... but the fact that you _have_ to have ways around it is why some of us don't like the ability.

It's not that you have to accommodate the class/character at all that's at issue.. it's the degree of accommodation that's needed, and it all ties into the inflexibility and specificity of the ability.

_
To put it simply: I can build a fairly believable world, focusing on the story elements and verisimilitude without having to resort to worrying over most classes' abilities.
With some (such as Favored Enemy), I have to pay special attention. With a simple change in the mechanic, I wouldn't have to.

You suggest fixing it at the DM/Player discussion side. We are suggesting that there's also the option of fixing it from the game mechanics side.


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## gamerprinter (Aug 14, 2010)

Oh and while I agree that the Ranger's favored enemy is very specific, unlike the Paladin's smite evil or Rogue's trapfinding - I honestly didn't realize you were talking about changing the ranger's class feature until your last post.

Still, as I said previously it depends on the world you're playing in or adventure you choose. Besides my players generate their characters in front of me and if the player writes down 'gnoll' as I watch them - I will say with metagame intentions, "oh, don't pick gnoll, there are no gnolls in such and such place." So if a player brings a ranger to the table with a monster that won't ever appear, I tell them that. In fact I'll tend them to erase their FE monster choices and suggest some primary ones in the game they're playing. It might only show up 1 in 10 encounters, but I do guide them to realistic selections. I usually recommend FE: Humanoid (human) as the first choice, as human encounters will be the most common, unless it is a goblin campaign or construct campaign, etc.

My campaigns are never vanilla, so general monster choices from the Bestiary don't serve as a guide to my rangers. I describe the typical monsters that are available and ensure to mention two or three times the FE choices. 15 different expected monsters (though there may yet be many more, these are the most common). A ranger can only pick five so will never hit all encounters, but is guaranteed to run into their choices sometimes.

If you want to change the ranger class feature, that's fine and really up to you, but as I say, I think its a decent class feature.

I've even created a new class and given favored enemy as one of its class features, because I think its that good, rather than 'that bad' as in your opinion. And I make it mandatory that the first FE is human for that class. The class is the Celtic Clan Warrior and the enemy clan they feud with or the 'Roman' like human race is the specific clan enemy and not humans in general. Clan Warrior is the primary class in that campaign.

GP


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## Starbuck_II (Aug 14, 2010)

You could let them for a rounds a day, change your FE to anoyther type.
Hunter's Quarry: At level 4, as a swift action, you can add a FE to your list of FE. This lasts for Ranger lv in rounds each day (does not need be consecutive). Can be ended as a swift action.
The new temporary FE gets bonuses as the highest FE bonus you currently have.
Example, Frodo the halfing Ranger has a Favored Enemy of Orcs (granting +2 hit/damage to them). His party encounters a group of Gnolls.

He activates as a swift action, his Hunter's Quarry. It last for up to 4 rounds that day. His adds Gnolls to his favored Enemies (granting +2 hit/damage to them).
The battle ends after 3 rounds so he ends the ability as a swift action. He has 1 rd left that day. But he is glad he had that bonus even temporarily.

You could grant this instead of Hunter's Bond or in addition.


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## Maidhc O Casain (Aug 14, 2010)

Starbuck_II said:


> You could let them for a rounds a day, change your FE to anoyther type.
> Hunter's Quarry: At level 4, as a swift action, you can add a FE to your list of FE. This lasts for Ranger lv in rounds each day (does not need be consecutive). Can be ended as a swift action.
> The new temporary FE gets bonuses as the highest FE bonus you currently have.
> Example, Frodo the halfing Ranger has a Favored Enemy of Orcs (granting +2 hit/damage to them). His party encounters a group of Gnolls.
> ...




I like this - have to give it some thought, but I may start using it as a house rule. Thanks!


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## Xendria (Aug 14, 2010)

Starbuck_II said:


> You could let them for a rounds a day, change your FE to anoyther type.
> Hunter's Quarry: At level 4, as a swift action, you can add a FE to your list of FE. This lasts for Ranger lv in rounds each day (does not need be consecutive). Can be ended as a swift action.
> The new temporary FE gets bonuses as the highest FE bonus you currently have.
> Example, Frodo the halfing Ranger has a Favored Enemy of Orcs (granting +2 hit/damage to them). His party encounters a group of Gnolls.
> ...




They added a spell in the APG that basically does this, which I think fixed the entire problem (not that I even thought there was one, but anyways ...).



			
				Advanced Player's Guide page 229 said:
			
		

> School enchantment; Level ranger 3
> Casting Time 1 swift action
> Components V, S
> Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
> ...




Granted a ranger doesn't get this ability until 10th level assuming he has a decent wisdom, 11th level otherwise. But I honestly don't see the problem. A Paladin isn't always 100% effective, and that's ok. Because even without Evil Outsiders or Favored Enemies Rangers and Paladins can still do damage. Without them they are subpar to the Fighter, with them they are better than a fighter, and I think that is perfectly fair. If you want to play something that always shines in combat, play a Fighter. Class skills only give a +3 so you could even play a Fighter almost exactly like a Ranger. 

Overall, I think the Ranger is fine the way it is. He is similar to the paladin but can specialize himself into anything as opposed to just Evil Outsiders and Undead. I completely agree with the previous posters that players should be informed based on the region as they are in the player's guide for the AP's. This isn't meta gaming at all because you're just giving them information they should already know. Anyone can tell you there are no Tigers in NYC (apart from zoo's) but if you go to Africa there are Lions. No metagaming, just informing.

/endrant


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## Voadam (Aug 25, 2010)

Favored enemy is like lots of class powers in being very target specific. D&D classes are full of them.

Its like sneak attack doesn't work against constructs or undead or elementals or plants . . . oh wait they changed that in pathfinder for rogues' sneak attack powers to work more broadly.

Its like turning undead only affecting undead and nothing else . . . oh wait they changed that to being able to heal people as well which is a combat ability always useful in combat.

Its a lot like smite evil which only affects things with an evil alignment which still leaves out most summoned creatures, brute beasts, and constructs plus all the good people and angels and dragons heroic D&D types keep fighting. Smite evil also has the even narrower extra bonus against [Evil], undead, and evil dragons. So yeah, its sort of like the paladin's smite evil.

Its also similar to some spells being target specific like mind-affecting spells not affecting creatures immune to mind-affecting effects. Or person spells working only on all humanoids.


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