Favoured Enemies for Age of Worms


Age of Worms Adventure Path

Sovereign Court

First, let me start by saying that any adventurer playing in the Age of Worms might want to consider purchasing an undead bane weapon and rangers should always max out undead as their favoured enemy. However, after undead, what are the next best choices?

Wondering which monsters were encountered the most, I tallied up every encounter from all twelve adventures in the Age of Worms adventure path. Creatures were assigned scores ranging from 1 to 4. 1's were the equivalent of an encounter below the average party level, such as a CR 1/2 skeleton for a group of 2nd level PC's. 2's were roughly equal to the average party level. 3's were tough encounters a bit higher than the party level. And 4's were boss monsters. Another thing to keep in mind was the frequency of encounters. Having a sword of reptilian humanoid bane might be useful in the 3rd adventure, but will be totally useless throughout the rest of the adventure path.

Here's a breakdown of each creature type's score by adventure:

Whispering Cairn:

Undead - 13
Elementals - 12
Aberrations - 9
Humans - 9
Vermin - 9
Animals - 6
Constructs - 3
Orcs - 3
Magical Beasts - 3

Three Faces of Evil:

Monstrous Humanoids - 33
Humans - 21
Kenku - 17
Undead - 11
Native Outsiders - 7
Animals - 5
Evil Outsiders - 4
Aberrations - 2
Orcs - 1

Encounter at Blackwall Keep

Reptilian Humanoids - 70
Undead - 6
Monstrous Humanoids - 4
Aberrations - 2
Plants - 1

Hall of Harsh Reflections

Monstrous Humanoids - 27
Aberrations - 18
Elves - 13
Elementals - 4
Plants - 4
Undead - 4
Animals - 3
Chaotic Outsiders - 3
Evil Outsiders - 3
Humans - 2
Magical Beasts - 2

Champion's Belt

Undead - 24
Humans - 13
Dwarves - 6
Native Outsiders - 6
Elves - 5
Aberrations - 4
Oozes - 4
Chaotic Outsiders - 4
Evil Outsiders - 4
Gnolls - 3
Constructs - 2

Gathering of Winds

Elementals - 15
Undead - 8
Constructs - 6
Earth Outsiders - 6
Dragons - 4
Chaotic Outsiders - 4
Evil Outsiders - 4
Oozes - 3
Magical Beasts - 3
Fire Outsiders - 2

Spire of Long Shadows

Undead - 23
Aberrations - 15
Lawful Outsiders - 8
Evil Outsiders - 6
Vermin - 6
Good Outsiders - 4
Magical Beasts - 3
Chaotic Outsiders - 2

Prince of Redhand

Undead - 4
Dragons - 4
Evil Outsiders - 4
Goblinoids - 2
Constructs - 1

Library of Last Resort

Undead - 25 (all in inconsequencial final encounter)
Magical Beasts - 19
Orcs - 10
Monstrous Humanoids - 6
Plants - 6
Fey - 4
Humans - 4
Chaotic Outsiders - 4
Native Outsiders - 4
Animals - 3
Evil Outsiders - 2
Fire Outsiders - 2
Lawful Outsiders - 2
Kenku - 2

Kings of the Rift

Dragons - 47
Ginats - 15
Aberrations - 3
Dwarves - 3
Undead - 3
Chaotic Outsiders - 2
Evil Outsiders - 2
Oozes - 1
Magical Beasts - 1

Into the Wormcrawl Fissure

Undead - 31
Aberrations - 16
Magical Beasts - 7
Dragons - 4
Monstrous Humanoids - 2

Dawn of a New Age

Undead - 74
Evil Outsiders - 20
Lawful Outsiders - 12
Magical Beasts - 12
Aberrations - 4 (final encounter)

Summary (# of adventure appearances. Undead are the only creature type to appear in all twelve adventures)

Undead - 226 (12)
Aberrations - 73 (9)
Monstrous Humanoids - 72 (5)
Reptilian Humanoids - 70 (1)
Dragons - 59 (4)
Magical Beasts - 52 (9)
Evil Outsiders - 49 (9)
Humans - 49 (5)
Elementals - 31 (3)
Lawful Outsiders - 22 (3)
Chaotic Outsiders - 19 (6)
Kenku - 19 (2)
Elves - 18 (2)
Animals - 17 (4)
Native Outsiders - 17 (3)
Vermin - 15 (2)
Giants - 15 (1)
Orcs - 14 (3)
Constructs - 12 (4)
Plants - 11 (3)
Dwarves - 9 (2)
Oozes - 8 (3)
Earth Outsiders - 6 (1)
Fire Outsiders - 4 (2)
Good Outsiders - 4 (1)
Fey - 4 (1)
Gnolls - 3 (1)
Goblinoids - 2 (1)
Aquatic Humanoids - 0
Gnomes - 0
Halflings - 0
Air Outsiders - 0
Water Outsiders - 0

Granted, this scoring system is arbitrary at best. Certain encounters such as the spawnlings from Encounter at Blackwall Keep were difficult to score and I didn't take into account the ineffectiveness of the Challenge Rating system at higher levels. Still, DM's might want to warn Dwarf-aspiring players that they're not going to get much use of their racial foe abilities and that the Greatsword of Gnoll Slaying at half price isn't such a great deal after all.

As for single-classed rangers and their favoured enemies, I recommend the following:

1) +2 vs. Undead
5) +4 vs. Undead, +2 vs. Aberrations
10) +6 vs. Undead, +2 vs. Magical Beasts
15) +8 vs. Undead, +2 vs. Dragons
20) +10 vs. Undead, +2 vs. Evil Outsiders


i told the ranger in my group to take undead as a favoured enemy at first lvl because i didnt want him to waste the ability in the early adventures( he usually takes goblins). from now though im gonna let him decide what to choose, hopefully making his decision based on past encounters.

Dark Archive

I know the general practice at these forums isn't to make a post that's solely to praise fan-created material, but...

OUTSTANDING!

Thank you.

Sovereign Court

My players thought I had a little bit too much free time on my hands... My group is currently playing Shackled City. I'll be running Age of Worms once we're done with that (in a year or so) and I'm slowly preparing myself. I made the list so as to better inform my players about character choices. If one of them is itching to play a radiant servant of Pelor, this campaign will probably be a good time to do it.

My only regret is that I didn't think of adding traps to the list until after I was finished. I know the Whispering Cairn and a Gathering of Winds are trap heavy, but what about the others?


Let me just tell you: a ranger with all undead favored enemy and an undead-bane composite longbow and multishot/rapid shot is absolutely SICK in this campaign. One full attack action took the Apostle of Kyuss down about 80 HP at range.


Hagen wrote:
My only regret is that I didn't think of adding traps to the list until after I was finished. I know the Whispering Cairn and a Gathering of Winds are trap heavy, but what about the others?

I don't have Dawn of a New Age with me at work, but here are the traps for the other 11 modules.

AoW Trap List

The Whispering Cairn
Sarcophagus Trap Magical Cr2
False Elevator Mechanical Cr2
The Face in Darkness Magical Cr4
Slab Trap Mechanical Cr2
Hail of Iron Spheres Mechanical Cr2

Three Faces of Evil
Inflict Light Wounds Magical Cr2

Encounter at Blackwall Keep
Snare Magical Cr?

Hall of Harsh Reflections
Wide Mouth Spiked Pit Mechanical Cr7
Devious Spiked Pit Magical & Mechanical Cr8
Wide Spiked Pit Mechanical Cr4
Poisoned Ceiling Spear Mechanical Cr6
Glyph of Warding Magic Cr5

The Champions Belt
Greater Glyph of Warding Magic Cr7
Dreams of Kyuss Magical Cr10
Symbol of Fear Magical Cr7

A Gathering of Winds
Windspike Magical Cr5
Poison Gas Magic Cr10
Falling Pillar Magic Cr8
The Word of Law Magical Cr8
Energy Drain Magical Cr10
Tempest Globe Magical Cr10
Collapsing Tunnel Mechanical Cr10

The Spire of Long Shadows
No Traps

The Price of Redhand
No Traps

The Library of Last Resort
No Traps

Kings of the Rift
Brain Juice Shower Mechanical Cr10
Cube Trap Mechanical Cr12

Into the Worm Crawl Fissure
Deathtrap Magical Cr12
Wormcall Magical Cr15

Dawn of a New Age
?

-BS

Scarab Sages

Hagen wrote:
First, let me start by saying that any adventurer playing in the Age of Worms might want to consider purchasing an undead bane weapon and rangers should always max out undead as their favoured enemy. However, after undead, what are the next best choices?

One problem I find with rangers, are that they are the sort of class one cherry-picks a few levels from, since the higher-level abilities are few and far between, and there is a long period between improvements in what should be the ranger's iconic ability, Favoured Enemy. An increase every 5 levels is insufficient to keep some players' interest. Also, the benefits of enemy choice can vary wildly; if the choice matches the campaign, it can be too effective, but if it doesn't, the player can feel cheated, or saddened that they have created a sub-optimal character.

My revised version of the ranger attempts to avoid PCs or NPCs having inordinately large bonuses vs. 2 or 3 specific categories of creatures, which can create several unbalancing or unsatisfying effects.

In practice, either these creatures do not appear often enough to justify the choice, thus negating one of the key features of the class (and leaving the player dissatisfied with what he/she sees as an underpowered character), or else they are the main focus of a scenario or campaign, and thus the player can seem to have an unfair advantage, sailing through encounters that would otherwise prove challenging.

It can also appear unrealistic for a ranger to suddenly gain a large bonus against a category of creatures that he/she has shown no interest in before, especially if that category has very few unifying features (eg aberrations).

It can also be frustrating for players when the DM introduces a major new threat to the campaign world, just after the ranger PCs have chosen their new favoured enemies at levels 5, 10, etc, and will not get another chance for another 5 more levels.

Players creating replacement characters midway through a campaign can (sometimes rightly) be accused of meta-gaming or abusing player knowledge if they choose to have a high bonus vs. the optimum opponent, especially if it is a secretive type, not commonly known to be in the campaign area.

Problems can also occur when PCs face opponents with ranger levels, whose favoured enemies all 'happen' to be the common PC races, leading to accusations of bias, and being a ‘killer DM’. The fact that an NPC is legal is no consolation to a player who lost a well-loved PC to a Manyshot attack, each shot of which dealt double-figure HP before any weapon damage dice were rolled (sorry, Mike!).

This revised version of the class therefore attempts to address the above, by smoothing the acquisition of, and putting a cap of (+4) on, any individual favoured enemy bonus. To compensate for this, more than 5 categories of enemy may be chosen, and individual bonuses are granted earlier and more often (whilst still granting the same total bonuses/5 levels as before). I hope this encourages more players to keep taking ranger levels, and spreading out their favoured enemy bonuses, so they grant a moderate bonus, more often, rather than the hit-or-miss situation currently in place.

Level Class Abilities

1 Favoured Enemy 1, Track, Wild Empathy
2 Combat Style
3 Endurance, Favoured Enemy 2
4 Animal Companion
5 Favoured Enemy 3
6 Improved Combat Style
7 Favoured Enemy 4, Woodland Stride
8 Swift Tracker
9 Evasion
10 Favoured Enemy 5
11 Combat Style Mastery
12
13 Camouflage, Favoured Enemy 6
14
15 Favoured Enemy 7
16
17 Hide in Plain Sight
18 Favoured Enemy 8
19
20 Favoured Enemy 9

Background, Abilities, Alignment, Hit Die, Skill Points & Spells: As per PHB

Class Features:
Favoured Enemy: As per PHB, except that instead of a large increase to a small number of categories every 5 levels, there is now a new enemy chosen more often. Each time favoured enemy is granted, the ranger either gains a +2 bonus to a new category of enemy, or an existing bonus is raised (to a maximum of +4).

All other class features as per the PHB.

Any comments welcome.


The ranger in my group took levels in Stalker of Karash from Exalted Deeds. His first favored enemy was undead (after my hint that there would be a lot of undead monsters in this campaign). He chose construct at 5th level, and when he started taking Stalker levels, evil became his next favored enemy. When battling evil undead, he's very effective, especially with a two-handed weapon, power attack, leap attack, and favored power attack. ;-)


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

A ranger could start with either aberrations (a good tie-in to the Bronzewood Lodge) or undead as their first favored enemy and get frequent use out of it. Undead are definitely the focus of the AP, but after that aberrations, evil outsiders, and magical beasts (to include most summoned monsters) will give the most "bang for the buck." Dragons are fairly common in the second half of the AP, as well. Most of the rest of the choices will see limited use.

Alternately, you could use the Favored Environment variant from the SRD.

Sovereign Court

Well, one of my players is playing an 11th-level ranger/scout with the feat which allows him to combine scout and ranger levels to determine favoured enemies and skirmish. So far he followed my advice and has been raising his bonuses against undead every five levels, as well as picking up aberrations and magical beasts at levels 5 and 10. On top of that he is using the elf ranger substitution levels from Races of the Wild and the Improved Favoured Enemies feat which raises his damage bonus to +12 vs. undead (+18 by level 20). With his newly purchased +1 undead bane bow, he has been very effective damage wise.


Rodney Thompson wrote:
Let me just tell you: a ranger with all undead favored enemy and an undead-bane composite longbow and multishot/rapid shot is absolutely SICK in this campaign. One full attack action took the Apostle of Kyuss down about 80 HP at range.

I agree completely. My group has an Artificer (in Greyhawk, don't ask) that, with preparation, can give any bane property to any weapon in the party. With an elf-bane property added to his bow, the party ranger took down the leader of Arcane Auriga in the the first round of the Free City Arena competition before she was able to fire a shot in anger. However, the Apostle's flailing cilia prevented him from doing the same thing to it. He goes through most undead like a knife thru butter. His nickname after the Free City Arena games has been Machine-Gun Kelly....

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