Lemme go out on a limb and say it's a good mechanic EXCEPT when APs are used.
I don't think the original poster in this thread was playing in an adventure path. His particular home campaign just never got around to fighting orcs very often.
I still think that being able to retrain an unlucky choice made at a previous level is a good idea.
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(And, yes, being told at the start of Second Darkness that you should take ** spoiler omitted ** as a favored enemy is a rather big spoiler, as it ruins the reveal.)
I don't have issue with you, just the assertion that the FE mechanism is "Bad Mechanics".Lemme go out on a limb and say it's a good mechanic EXCEPT when APs are used. For 1e-style play, in which it takes years of adventuring through every type of adventure you can find in order to hit 11th level, then FE is an ideal mechanic -- because over that amount of adventuring, you have ample chance to use it, and also many situations in which you can't. It's that sort of scenario that the FE mechanic was designed for. When it breaks down is in the standard AP, in which an adventurer might rocket through his entire career in a few months, and which contains only a few adventures that share a common theme and common types of antagonists. In that kind of game play, FE is all too often either too good, or else useless.
I suppose for sections. But Second Darkness has a ton of ******* but almost all the modules have a pretty solid mix of challenges. The number is well under 50% of encounters in the climactic encounter. Legacy of Fire has a mix also. You can probably hit 2 of the main enemies in LoF fairly easily but then you have to spread your bonuses out and +4 or +6 damage isn't as impressive. Looking through Council you benefit in perhaps 30% of encounters.
To be honest I haven't played or GMed an AP all the way through so I'm just eyeballing the higher level ones.
Lemme go out on a limb and say it's a good mechanic EXCEPT when APs are used.I don't think the original poster in this thread was playing in an adventure path. His particular home campaign just never got around to fighting orcs very often.
I still think that being able to retrain an unlucky choice made at a previous level is a good idea.
I love the idea of retraining. One of the features I wish had made it into the Core book. (Fighters get to retrain their feats...)
I love the idea of retraining. One of the features I wish had made it into the Core book. (Fighters get to retrain their feats...)
Agree and it's logical.
If you fight orks all the time at level 1 and level 2 you're gonna be good at it. But if you haven't done it for 13 level but been fighting undeads, should you not be better at killing undeads than orks?
Perhaps there should be a general retraining rule for all class abilities that require choices. As a GM I have really no problem with that. Something for the Advanced Player's Guide, perhaps?
What it really needed was a good name like "retraining" to make the idea more appealing. Well done.
I know the thread is about just one ranger ability, and that's a problem. One thing that occurs to me is that you can't look at just one ability of the ranger in isolation and say the class has problems or even that the ability does. Numerous class abilities (or feats, or skills, or spells) have their usefulness limited by circumstance in any given adventure or series of adventures. Rangers have a suite of abilities, not just favored enemy. In the old days, if a cleric did not meet any undead to turn no one complained that clerics were useless or that the turn undead ability was a broken mechanic. A given class ability may be more or less useful on any given adventure, but that's not the sum of the character or his lifetime of adventure. Rangers have a role in adventures that goes beyond this one ability. This one ability does not have to be useful all the time.
If you're playing a given canned adventure or adventure path I'd say it's up to you to pick a character class that works for that adventure (or a favorite enemy that does). Or, get use to all of your particular class abilities not being terribly useful. If you're playing in a campaign, favorite enemy is going to be useful over time, but not all the time. The ranger is designed, as are all classes, to be good in a campaign that varies over time, not in every canned adventure. That's why commercial / tournament adventures used to come with suggested characters (I don't use them, so do they still?).
I know the thread is about just one ranger ability, and that's a problem. One thing that occurs to me is that you can't look at just one ability of the ranger in isolation and say the class has problems or even that the ability does. Numerous class abilities (or feats, or skills, or spells) have their usefulness limited by circumstance in any given adventure or series of adventures. Rangers have a suite of abilities, not just favored enemy. In the old days, if a cleric did not meet any undead to turn no one complained that clerics were useless or that the turn undead ability was a broken mechanic. A given class ability may be more or less useful on any given adventure, but that's not the sum of the character or his lifetime of adventure. Rangers have a role in adventures that goes beyond this one ability. This one ability does not have to be useful all the time.
If you're playing a given canned adventure or adventure path I'd say it's up to you to pick a character class that works for that adventure (or a favorite enemy that does). Or, get use to all of your particular class abilities not being terribly useful. If you're playing in a campaign, favorite enemy is going to be useful over time, but not all the time. The ranger is designed, as are all classes, to be good in a campaign that varies over time, not in every canned adventure. That's why commercial / tournament adventures used to come with suggested characters (I don't use them, so do they still?).
Eh, the adventure paths are designed to fit a range of party formations, so its not that bad.
And people aren't so much saying that the ranger is useless, but that one its core mechanics, has a pretty big weakness. And even in campaigns, its possible to never get the full benefit from favored enemy.
And people aren't so much saying that the ranger is useless, but that one its core mechanics, has a pretty big weakness. And even in campaigns, its possible to never get the full benefit from favored enemy.
And you can say that for a lot of class abilities. That's my point. Favored enemy is not unusual among class abilities for being situationally useful. Some are more generally useful, others less so. Look at everything else in the ranger class abilities and it isn't a make or break ability.
And people aren't so much saying that the ranger is useless, but that one its core mechanics, has a pretty big weakness. And even in campaigns, its possible to never get the full benefit from favored enemy.And you can say that for a lot of class abilities. That's my point. Favored enemy is not unusual among class abilities for being situationally useful. Some are more generally useful, others less so. Look at everything else in the ranger class abilities and it isn't a make or break ability.
Mmmm, an ability you can make it to level 20 and never, ever use is unusual among class abilities, especially in PF. Yes, rangers get other abilities, but looking at it, you can make a better archer/twf with a fighter, druids get better animal companion and tracking and favored terrain are good, but hardly class defining at that point. Sneaking about is shared by rogues and bards, so yeah, once you start looking at it, Favored Enemy, for better or worse, is one of, if not the, class defining feature of the ranger. For it to be possible to go from level 1 to 20 and never get to use it, yeah, I can see peoples problems.
Mmmm, an ability you can make it to level 20 and never, ever use is unusual among class abilities, especially in PF. Yes, rangers get other abilities, but looking at it, you can make a better archer/twf with a fighter, druids get better animal companion and tracking and favored terrain are good, but hardly class defining at that point. Sneaking about is shared by rogues and bards, so yeah, once you start looking at it, Favored Enemy, for better or worse, is one of, if not the, class defining feature of the ranger. For it to be possible to go from level 1 to 20 and never get to use it, yeah, I can see peoples problems.
By the time you hit level 20 you have multiple favored enemies. If you haven't managed to find any useful enemies by then your character has bigger problems than any one class ability :)
You hit on the combination of things that make the ranger special. You might be better in any one area with a different class, but I don't think you'll find any other class that has that range of abilities at the level of ability a ranger does.
Mmmm, an ability you can make it to level 20 and never, ever use is unusual among class abilities, especially in PF. Yes, rangers get other abilities, but looking at it, you can make a better archer/twf with a fighter, druids get better animal companion and tracking and favored terrain are good, but hardly class defining at that point. Sneaking about is shared by rogues and bards, so yeah, once you start looking at it, Favored Enemy, for better or worse, is one of, if not the, class defining feature of the ranger. For it to be possible to go from level 1 to 20 and never get to use it, yeah, I can see peoples problems.By the time you hit level 20 you have multiple favored enemies. If you haven't managed to find any useful enemies by then your character has bigger problems than any one class ability :)
You hit on the combination of things that make the ranger special. You might be better in any one area with a different class, but I don't think you'll find any other class that has that range of abilities at the level of ability a ranger does.
OK, I was just trying to explain what problem people were having. You don't see it as one, thats fine by me. Personally, I DM more than I play a lot, and I try to make sure the ranger gets to encounter his fair share of favored enemies. Bt even so, theres a limit to that. So a thread like this, that explores ways to make it usable a bit more often, or with less handwaveum by the DM (me!!!) is of interest.
OK, I was just trying to explain what problem people were having. You don't see it as one, thats fine by me. Personally, I DM more than I play a lot, and I try to make sure the ranger gets to encounter his fair share of favored enemies. Bt even so, theres a limit to that. So a thread like this, that explores ways to make it usable a bit more often, or with less handwaveum by the DM (me!!!) is of interest.
It could be useful, I agree but it's not an overwhelming issue imo. I haven't done anything but DM in the last 20 years myself (I've played since 1974). Generally my players have made choices that proved useful in the campaign. And, yes, it doesn't hurt to take their choices into account when possible. Sometimes however, this ability, like many others, is on the bench.
OK, I was just trying to explain what problem people were having. You don't see it as one, thats fine by me. Personally, I DM more than I play a lot, and I try to make sure the ranger gets to encounter his fair share of favored enemies. Bt even so, theres a limit to that. So a thread like this, that explores ways to make it usable a bit more often, or with less handwaveum by the DM (me!!!) is of interest.
Alternate abilities are always cool. I know a lot of people want to talk about giving the ranger either sneak attack or skirmish instead of FE but there are already classes that do those things and they are already quite close to the ranger as is (Scout already steps on the ranger's toes quite a bit).
One thing that might be worth considering is making Favored Enemy a short term ability. Once per week a ranger could change his favored enemy out for a new one. The Favored enemy bonuses would be +1 plus +1 per 5 levels and the ranger could only have one favored enemy at a time.
This would pretty much guarantee the ranger gets a chance to use his ability on a regular basis but seriously limits the upside to it. As a bonus it would help with Kirth's concern that rangers get overpowered in adventures with a fairly consistent set of enemies.
So just to mention it again, what do people think the balance implications would be if a ranger got half his Favored Enemy bonus to types which shared the same Knowledge skill category? e.g., +4 vs. Aberrations = +2 vs. Oozes.
No stacking from picking more than one in the same group, of course.
Perhaps there should be a general retraining rule for all class abilities that require choices. As a GM I have really no problem with that. Something for the Advanced Player's Guide, perhaps?
What it really needed was a good name like "retraining" to make the idea more appealing. Well done.
I don't see this being in a player's option book. It would be something you'd really really have to clear with your DM first if it were.
I have to agree, I am not a fan of the Rangers favored enemy or favored terrain. For 18 years I have only played in the forgotten realms campaign setting and I recently started playing with a new group.
They use there own world based off of "Arklash" which I believe was a table top game similar to warhammer?
The character I have been playing is a "Wolfen" Ranger and im currently lvl 4. So far I have yet to fight 1 of my favored enemies and we are always switching terrain from dungeons to city and that skill has almost become useless also.
I would have to say your better off choosing a Fighter or another melee class unless your playing a campaign that you know your going to mainly be fighting "orcs" or "giants". Also im really disappointed with track, now everyone gets this feature and yet making the ranger more useless.
This is a great idea if a GM feels it's cheating to drop hints about what the players would be facing this would give the player some leverage from his favored terrain while he figures out what's going on. Of course I think most folks feel FE is the stronger of the 2 and delaying its onset and later boost is a hit to the power of the class. Regardless, a good option for players.Switch the order of Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain. After all, at first level it may be obvious where the adventure is being set, but it might take a few levels to figure out who you are fighting.
In our Second Darkness game I am playing a ranger. As a PLAYER we knew the campaign would be heavily drow, but as a CHARACTER at first level there was no way to know that. now meta gaming I could have chosen drow anyway at first level, but I worked with the GM told her what I eventually wanted to do and for first level I chose aberrations which is a general threat almost any game runs into and it makes sense for a ranger to dislike them.
I believe that a good GM makes the game fun for all players, and deliberately making your choices subpar or doing nothing to help you succeed isn't good sportsmanship. Echoing some of what was said above, generally if I'm running a game I let a player who's doing a ranger know what sorts of creatures/humanoids that s/he is likely to have clashed with in the past and what is a problem in the area. That will almost always come in handy for the first few levels, and by the time they chose thier second enemy they have an idea of what the rest of the campaign will be about and can make a choice for further levels
I guess it is all pretty much at the whim of the DM. I mean if wanted to a paladin's smite evil can be useless if all your enemies tend to neutral. Undead, constructs and oozes use to limit a rogues combat prowess as well as any bardic ability. Spell resistance can slow down most mages. I guess it comes down to knowing the game one is in and what to expect and what not to expect.
Lemme go out on a limb and say it's a good mechanic EXCEPT when APs are used.
Now, I'd be inclined to say it's a good mechanic for APs because a good GM, knowing the path's directions, can provide the foreshadowing and advice the ranger player can use to make good FE choices.
I'm sorry you feel I made a personal attack against you, sometimes I get my back up and choose my words poorly. I don't have issue with you, just the assertion that the FE mechanism is "Bad Mechanics".
That's not a problem. Same thing happens to me at times. It's why I decided to take a break from this thread for a few days.
(And, yes, being told at the start of Second Darkness that you should take ** spoiler omitted ** as a favored enemy is a rather big spoiler, as it ruins the reveal.)** spoiler omitted **
Hence my thread on the surprise value of pdfs.
My critique of the ranger rests mostly on the TWF ranger, as archery tends to be fairly powerful in 3E and respectable in 3.5E; hitting people who can't hit back is always going to have some power. If you've had lots of combat fun with archer-rangers, this isn't about that. And, I would guess, those legions of satisfied ranger players I hear so much about were playing Legolas rather than Drizzt.
I know the thread is about just one ranger ability, and that's a problem. One thing that occurs to me is that you can't look at just one ability of the ranger in isolation and say the class has problems or even that the ability does.
A fair point when it comes to PRPG, which solved the solvable problems with the class. In 3E, Favored Enemy was supposed to make up for a large suite of problems with the melee ranger, rather like how Sneak Attack is the linchpin to the rogue being playable in combat sessions. With the old iconic TWF ranger, you had the following problems:
* TWF meant that you doubled your cash outlay on magic weapons, which you had to do, because that style meant that you missed a lot against high AC foes, which become more numerous as you hit high levels. It also meant that you weren't able to play the Power Attack game at high levels and keep up with the casters in damage dealing.
* Light armor and d8s meant that you were incredibly fragile in combat. Medium armor was unattractive for movement, skills and dex reasons. So that's more money devoted to AC just to get up to average.
* Combine those two and you're most likely to hit low AC monsters, who are either mooks (best killed with a single evocation) or brute types who can squash you like a bug.
* Multiple Ability Score dependency: All but charisma are important to your character: strength for melee, dex due to light armors, con due to d8 HP, intelligence 'cause you're a skill monkey, and wisdom is your casting stat.
* Skill overlap: MS/Hide and Spot/Listen chew up 2/3 your starting skill points while letting you do two things. And that's before you get to the suite of physical skills you were expected to have to fill the archetype: climb, balance, swim, jump, survival, handle animal, and ride.
* The game does not support physical scouting well, according to a thread on these very boards that I started after our third scout got destroyed in 1-2 rounds while scouting in Paizo modules. Basically, one failure leads to you vs. an opponent suitable to challenge your entire party. Instead of EL+2, it's now EL+5 until the non-stealthy and those with poor spot/listens figure out what's going on and come help. Scouting works best outdoors, but many more modules are set in tight quarters.
* Fluffy IX: see problems with familiars and squishability.
* Track was a worthless feature, as the DM and module authors invariably would allow PCs without the feat to do the same thing with the Search skill. If the information is mission-critical, the feat was pointless. If the information was not mission-critical, Track was a frill that sucked up valuable skill points.
Favored Enemy was supposed to make up for these problems by making you awesome against certain foes. It was the peak to make up for the valleys. So, yes, I find problems with favored enemy to be part of the problems with the class itself.
Now, as far as what Pathfinder did: they made medium armors more attractive (helping AC), they boosted their HPs, they dialed down the brute's power attack, and eliminated skill overlap. Favored Terrain helps some of the peaks and valleys problems with the class. I find that favored enemy and MASD problems remain, but at least they're not part of a broad swath of problems with class.
And I'd still say that a scout is the more mechanically sound ranger, at least at low-mid levels.
A long time ago (back in 3.0e days.. so maybe not too long for some of you), I had run into the Favored Enemy issue presented in this thread and came up with some alternative abilities, which eventually lead to rewriting the Ranger into a different class.
I took the idea that the Ranger was learning about his enemy to gain certain bonuses, and decided to get to the basics of that concept.
What I ended up with was an ability where the Ranger could observe a target for a set amount of time (longer out of combat, quicker in combat), and gain a bonus against them. This was a single target however, not a whole group of creatures.
So basically, the Ranger would scout ahead, spot the enemy, figure out which would be "his mark", and then spend a few rounds observing the target (I think I had them roll a Sense Motive check or something to that effect).
Then he could report back to the group, and when they entered combat, he could more quickly take down the target he had observed.
To use a 4e term here, I was making the ability more "Striker" oriented.
I also had some variations to that (with feat choices, or options built into the class), where you could use something like Gather Information to get details about your mark and gain the bonus that way. I had one player make a Bounty Hunter type of character with this variation, and ran an Assassin NPC with this as well.
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Another thing I've been doing recently (in my effort to make Knowledge skills more uniform in mechanical value), was to rework the creature types.
Creature types were defined more on the physical attributes of the creature, instead of "how many there are" or "are they tribal instead of civilized".
I'm not going to post the whole list here, however it takes the Pathfinder idea of the "Giant" as a subtype, and applied it to other areas.
So now you wouldn't have a Humanoid (Gnoll) choice... rather, he'd be a Humanoid (Monstrous). A Doppleganger would be considered a Humanoid (Magical, Monstrous).
An Ogre Mage is Goblinoid (Giant, Magical), while an Ettin is Humanoid (Giant, Monstrous).
Magical Beast creature types are just Animal (Magical). Dire animals are Animal (Monstrous). Vermin are Animal (Insectoid) and likely with either the Giant or Swarm subtypes.
If this is done, and the Ranger simply chooses a type each time, it would open things up for the class.
If he has one of the creature's types or subtypes in his "Favored Enemy" list, he gets a half bonus (+1 instead of +2). If he has all the types, he gets the full bonus. (Think of it like Damage Reduction in meeting requirements, only you get half benefit for meeting it partway).
Pick the highest bonus in a bonus mismatch situation (has +2 against Humanoids, and +4 against Giants, so he gets +4 against a Stone Giant, +2 against a Human, and +2 against an Ogre).
I mean, picking Humanoid or Goblinoid to start off, and then moving into Giant, Magical, Monstrous subtypes would allow you to have your bonus in a lot of situations by the time you hit the higher levels. You might not always get your full bonus, but you'll see it in play more frequently.
And while making the list shorter seems like he'll always get a good bonus, there's still lots of types to pick from. There's still Aberrations, Dragons, Oozes, Outsiders, Elementals, Undead, etc, all as base creature types.
Basically, the Ranger's favored enemy would turn into a "usually a +5 bonus" by the end levels, with the occasional +10 against some targets, and once in a while a +0 when meeting something completely out there.
Well as has been said... ranger's power is very dependent upon the GM and the adventure you are playing. If your GM won't clue you in at least a little... you might want to play something else. Players guides for the APs usually clue you in quite a bit about FEs... Council of Thieves comes out and says it. Legacy of fire just has a bunch of traits and feats and talks a lot about Gnolls.
When I GMed Red Hand of Doom I made a point of clueing the characters in "Pick any favored enemy you want as long as it rhymes with bob dublin or flagon"
Yeah, the players guide for the STAP was a real help with all the hints it dropped about demons >_>
Ultimately the Ranger is probably the weakest of the "fighting" classes, since it is only the equal of the primaries (Barb, Fighter, Pal) when fighting his favorite enemies, and isn't ever better.
I guess it is all pretty much at the whim of the DM. I mean if wanted to a paladin's smite evil can be useless if all your enemies tend to neutral. Undead, constructs and oozes use to limit a rogues combat prowess as well as any bardic ability. Spell resistance can slow down most mages. I guess it comes down to knowing the game one is in and what to expect and what not to expect.
I think the general feeling about the Ranger Favored Enemy ability is that it's not like these cases, where a general ability has one or two unique situations where they are limited... but rather, that the ability only applies to one or two unique situations.
Yeah, you don't pick a Rogue for a mostly undead game (in 3.5e), and you don't pick a Wizard in a magically neutered game.
However, those two situations are extreme. I've never played in a Magically inert game that didn't have a completely different class writeup for the "wizard" type classes.
An ability that's useful in 90% of situations is a far cry different than one that's useful in 10% of situations. Should the Ranger ability be 9x stronger*? Or should maybe the % of situations it's useful be upped instead?
What I ended up with was an ability where the Ranger could observe a target for a set amount of time (longer out of combat, quicker in combat), and gain a bonus against them. This was a single target however, not a whole group of creatures.
Sounds like you might be interested in a class similer to the exceutioner from Iron Heroes. It pretty much does as you say, grant sneak attack and various other bonuses, and they improved if the character pauses to examine his foes (requiring a sense motive check).
It does, however, put too much emphasise on a "Point" system similer to the Beta barbarian, so if your group disliked that they might not be too fond of it. It wouldn't stop you, however, taking a few ideas from it.
Perhaps give the ranger the option to occasionally make a sense motive check or some such, and if succesful he/she can apply certain benifits to his/her attack, like sneak attack or slownig the foe down.
Sounds like you might be interested in
I had written that stuff up back in 2002. I'm not currently looking for anything for a ranger right now. :)
However, those are some good mechanics ideas for those looking for more alternatives.
The best way to deal with this problem, as I'm sure you've heard before, is to talk to your DM about either which enemies would be best for that campaign or to throw in your F.E's a bit more often.
One way to remedy this is to use the Infiltrator Archetype from the Adv. Players Guide. You give up Favored Terrains but you can adopt the unnusual traits of your enemies- like Orc Darkvision or the Dwarves immunity to poison and disease, etc.
