Okay, so I recently played a Ranger from level 1 to level 8 in a 3.5 game. My first favored enemy (Orcs) was never used once. My second FE (Undead) was chosen because we were fighting undead at the time, I got to use it for two sessions, at which point we were pretty much done fighting undead.
So, in months of playing, I got to use the Ranger's iconic ability in two sessions, now, sure, it was pretty good* for those two sessions, but isn't it just ridiculous that a ranger can, theoretically, go from level 1-20 and NEVER get any use out of the ability if the DM doesn't decide to throw one of the handful of enemy types at you, or go in and alter the adventure path?
*And even when the Ranger is supposed to be getting his chance to shine against his favored enemy, the Barbarian is still getting his rage boost against those enemy's from rage, the PF Rogue can still sneak attack them, the PF Fighter still gets his new boosts as long as he keeps using his weapon, and the casters are still casting. So, really is the FE boost even doing anything more than, temporarily, bringing the Ranger up to par with what the other classes are doing all the time?
When I heard of Pathfinder I was sure that something would have been done to address this, but it seems not. Even the Ranger's new abilities like Quarry and Master Hunter seem to work off of Favored Enemy.
Shouldn't there be some other mechanic for the ability than waking up each morning and hoping that you face off against that one type of enemy you happen to be good against? For example, the ranger getting to mark X# enemies a day as his favored enemy the same way a Paladin gets a certain number of Smites, or the ability kicking in under some condition that the Ranger can actually control (like Sudden Strike or Skirmish)?
Is there some obvious balance thing that I'm missing that makes the Ranger's favored enemy more valuable than it seems relative to the other classes' abilities?
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Your problem is completely and utterly within the realm of your DM's control. If you're not seeing your favored enemy talk to them about it. If they create the adventures I'm sure if you let them know you want to see them more often they'll oblige. If the DM is running a pre-made mod or Adventure Path asking what would be good favored enemies to choose isn't out of bounds.
We're all here to have fun and the DM's job is to entertain both their friends and themselves for a couple hours a week.
--Vrock Footage
Well, I don't know precisely about what you're playing in, but - as an example - the current Council of Thieves Players' Guide has in the Ranger section a list of what favored enemies and what favored terrains are the ones to take for the campaign. If you stick with the pretty healthy variety of what they tell you, your class ability will apply plenty enough to pay dividends.
If you don't, well, that's your fault as the player if you are given some information to work with. In a homebrew campaign, perhaps you could petition your GM to retrain favored enemies as the campaign develops in ways that render your character's primary abilities basically moot?
I suspect this "player's guide advice" will remain the trend for classes looking at an AP with "specific use" abilities in the future.
I think that rangers are balanced on the assumption that you know you're going into City of the Spider Queen and have the opportunity to build a drow-fighter from level 1.
Or, alternately, on the assumption that you have a nice DM who will contrive ways of throwing your favored enemies into his plots.
Or that you are in a player-driven game, and that if you say "I want to go over to Orcville and get caught up in a plot fighting orcs!" your group will actually listen.
I'm not sure if any of those are good assumptions, but there you go.
The thing is, so much of the ranger archetype is based around familiarity, around the cunning old dude who knows his way around his woods and also knows how to kill the goblins who come into his woods. This archetype is great for literature, but in a game of prefabricated plots and far-flung exploration, well...
I do see your fustrations. I have to say however that a lot of the fault falls upon the GM. I'll take myself as an example, when I got a new group of players who had never palyed DND before (this was the the 3.5 ruleset) My best friend wanted to play an Archer type and took the Ranger as a class for obvious reasons. I told him about favored enemy but it took a while to decide what to take. Eventually I had go over the MM with him. Soon as he saw the Drow and was told what the hell they were he took it. Now first off that says something about that iconic bady, however my game was more about dragons and orcs. Mind you I didn't know that at first, I was going on the fly, but it really didn't pop into my mind that I wasn't giving a Ranger power its due. My fault not the players and not the systems fault. In fact it wasn't until he hit 12 level that he mentioned we had never even seen a drow yet, of course by then he put a lot into Dragons and Orcs.
As I see it your right about the class but he nice thing about favored is that you either get divirsity or very very good at a single type of monster, both options have merit but unless their are story reason not too, such as 2nd Darkness where the Drow are efffectivly unknown to the world, one rally should give your players the heads up. Playing RoTRL, well gobins are a good options, but you know their are a lot of giants in the world. Or Orcs gonna be a focus, well your lands often face orcish hoards.
You could consider allowing the Ranger to change favored eneimes via a feat, explained by intense traning of some sort. Or have a house rule that if a enemy you've got hasn't shown up in 5 levels your allowed to swicth one past favored enemy to a new one.
Hope this helps some.
TTFN DRE
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I have to say it seems the dm could do a lot to help you here. Perhaps at character creation ask for some of the regions known menaces, or historical troublemakers for the people of the region. Also I as a dm don't mind giving a ranger those favored enemy battles they drool for every now and again. If they don't appear in the AP or premade stuff I'm running that's what random encounters are for :) wish you luck hope your rangers in the future get more Favored enemy goodness.
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"
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"
but isnt this the OP's point?
If a ranger is only really worthwhile when it gets to attack its favoured enemy is that not a problem with the class?
I mean they kinda fixed up sneak attack to make that more generally useful but chosen enemy is still very specific and it is a big part of the rangers arsenal.
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I don't think that the ranger is only worthwhile when facing favored enemies. I think that it is a spotlight moment for the ranger, and should be included. I also am not someone who looks to min/max or find the leet build for my characters. To be honest if that was what my main concern was I would probably stick to mmo's. I don't mean that in a harsh way. I just am a very story driven DM and player.
To be honest if that was what my main concern was I would probably stick to mmo's. I don't mean that in a harsh way. I just am a very story driven DM and player.
That's an old line. There's nothing wrong with it, mind, aside for the implied assumption that this makes you different. :)
Most games that I've seen are fairly story-driven when you get right down to it; game-balance issues are valid but secondary. If you're on an internet forum you're going to tend to talk as though the game begins and ends with game balance and mechanical effectiveness, but that doesn't mean these are the only things that matter (or even that they're a particularly big deal).
It's just that most of us don't need advice or feedback on how to find a place in a world, become engaged in a plot, and enjoy our characters.
I don't think that the ranger is only worthwhile when facing favored enemies. I think that it is a spotlight moment for the ranger, and should be included. I also am not someone who looks to min/max or find the leet build for my characters. To be honest if that was what my main concern was I would probably stick to mmo's. I don't mean that in a harsh way. I just am a very story driven DM and player.
worthwhile is perhaps the wrong word, but barbarians & fighters have always effective bonuses, rogues and paladins very nearly always effective bonues and rangers get 'please DM throw me a bone' effective bonuses. The Op 's issue as I understood it was to express disappointment that rangers do not have some sort of melee benefit that is more generically useful.
-and while I commend your story driven roleplaying style (and dont know what 'the leet build' is) I will assume you were not suggesting that by raising or agreeing with a balance issue for a class that one must therefore be a min/maxer, leet builder or mmo player; not a story driven roleplayer. That seems to be an implication made from time to time, but is not really the point.
If anyone is interested, I'm working on a tactics/ambush-driven ranger with a partial sneak-attack progression and "instinct" bonuses to various rolls, for whom favored enemy is only trimming (it's part of an elective ability pool, so you can build a ranger with or without it).
No guarantees on when that'll go up though; I'm polishing off my bard rewrite now.
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I don't think it makes me different. I think it makes me like a lot of the people on these forums. I clarified with that statement in the hopes that what I said would not be read in a overtly hostile, or high handed way. I just find that when someone makes statements that imply a class is worthless due to X, or if Y isn't done then whats the point it is a disservice to the concept of this is a game about the story created, not the numbers on the page that allow you to resolve conflict with in the story. I apologize if you feel my statements are high handed for that is not the intent. I was originally trying to give the op some tips on how he might better get some use out of his abilities by speaking with his dm.
If anyone is interested, I'm working on a tactics/ambush-driven ranger with a partial sneak-attack progression and "instinct" bonuses to various rolls, for whom favored enemy is only trimming (it's part of an elective ability pool, so you can build a ranger with or without it).
No guarantees on when that'll go up though; I'm polishing off my bard rewrite now.
I would be interested in all both of these ideas as i am working madly on a bunch of houserules myself-- I do prefer the most minimal changes possible though.
and Dorgar- no sweat, point taken.
I don't think it makes me different. I think it makes me like a lot of the people on these forums. I clarified with that statement in the hopes that what I said would not be read in a overtly hostile, or high handed way. I just find that when someone makes statements that imply a class is worthless due to X, or if Y isn't done then whats the point it is a disservice to the concept of this is a game about the story created, not the numbers on the page that allow you to resolve conflict with in the story. I apologize if you feel my statements are high handed for that is not the intent. I was originally trying to give the op some tips on how he might better get some use out of his abilities by speaking with his dm.
I disagree about what makes a class "worthless"; after all, if I want to play a serene but ruthless woodsman, I can use almost any class I want. The ranger class is only good insofar as it makes my character stats match the character I want.
That said though, your last post really wasn't high-handed or hostile at all, nor were you really implying that you were the only story-driven DM around. That was my assumption and totally my bad.
I would be interested in all both of these ideas as i am working madly on a bunch of houserules myself-- I do prefer the most minimal changes possible though.
The bard is getting a serious overhaul over the Pathfinder version. I'm writing a dozen or so bardsongs, balanced against eachother, and letting him choose freely between them (rather than "these songs at 1st level, then this song at that level, then this one a few levels later", etc).
I'm trying to keep all the old abilities for the ranger, but most of them are being thrown into a pool of elective abilities (so he can choose them if he wants but they don't come automatically).
Favored Enemy is an iconic ability of the ranger. It is indeed useful in campaigns where your favored enemy is frequent to uncommon. As most of suggested here, you should have spoken to your GM, told him/her of your plan to play a ranger, and ask for some suggestions for useful favored enemies. If your GM is not willing to tell you, then firstly your GM is being a putz, and second I'd recommend playing a different class.
I just started playing a ranger in a 3.5 campaign, and I must say, not having an attack bonus on my favored enemies is annoying, as is not being able to pick a "combat style feat".
The PFRPG ranger is now a good solid class option, even if their favored enemies are not too frequent.
The thing is, when I want to make a ranger I often start with the thing I hate, then say "Why don't I grab a ranger level or four in order to hate that thing more effectively."
I rarely decide to play a ranger and then find myself pondering the favored enemy list. I may or may not be alone here.
The bard is getting a serious overhaul over the Pathfinder version. I'm writing a dozen or so bardsongs, balanced against eachother, and letting him choose freely between them (rather than "these songs at 1st level, then this song at that level, then this one a few levels later", etc).
This is similar to the barbarian powers, and something Paizo should have done. *shakes fist in bard-ish anger at Paizo* Anyways... back to the original topic of this thread...
but isnt this the OP's point?
If a ranger is only really worthwhile when it gets to attack its favoured enemy is that not a problem with the class?
*shrug* it's not an issue for our group. You could say the same about sorcerers. If you build a sorcerer who is focused on Enchantment and Illusion and you go on an adventure that is 80% undead and constructs you are going to suck something awful. Rangers are definitely the most prone to it but most of the classes are subject to one degree or another.
Jason gave the rangers favored terrain to help them with that but ultimately it boils down to a the GM. This is nothing new and it's not something that they could really have changed.
I mean they kinda fixed up sneak attack to make that more generally useful but chosen enemy is still very specific and it is a big part of the rangers arsenal.
Ranger got quite a bit of improvement. Favored terrain, better combat trees, medium armor, feat consolidation seriously helps them, better spellcasting, better animal companion progression (and an option if you want to skip it), Favored Enemy is even better with the bonus applying to attack rolls. Arguably ranger got a much bigger improvement than the rogue.
Favored Enemy is one of the things that makes the ranger the ranger... might as well suggest the bard's performance should have been ditched.
The thing is, when I want to make a ranger I often start with the thing I hate, then say "Why don't I grab a ranger level or four in order to hate that thing more effectively."
I rarely decide to play a ranger and then find myself pondering the favored enemy list. I may or may not be alone here.
I have done this for roleplaying reasons, and am usually disappointed. I guess it depends on the game the GM is running too. In a story-rich campaign, this is not a big deal. In a combat heavy campaign, then this can be an annoyance, as it does start to feel like a wasted class feature.
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If your GM is not willing to tell you, then firstly your GM is being a putz, and second I'd recommend playing a different class.- and -
The PFRPG ranger is now a good solid class option, even if their favored enemies are not too frequent.
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That about sums it up. If your GM thinks it's not appropriate DL the (free) Council of Thieves players guide and highlight the section where it spells out plain as day suggested favored enemies (and terrains) and ask him for some similar hints.
A few things. Yes, from a mechanical perspective, the fact that the Ranger player basically has no control over whether or not he gets to use his favored enemy ability is something of an issue to me. Pretty much every other class gets to trigger their ability on their terms, the Ranger, unless he's in a sandbox type setting where he can say, "I'm going to go kill some Orcs to continue on the ancestral blood feud my great grandfather swore against them after they killed his only son, any of you guys want to come with?" doesn't have that control.
As for my GM, well, he's the sort of guy who would consider it "cheating" to tell a player what he's going to be fighting out of the game (and I'd agree to an extent). He'd want the characters to figure it out in the game itself, by scouting, gathering information, finding clues, whatever. Which is fine for, say, the wizard, who can always change his spells after resting, the Ranger, not so much, (which is a bit ironic since there's a good chance that he'll actually be the one scouting ahead to get a good idea of what the party will be facing).
As for him being a "putz" my DM's also a pretty busy guy (he's a single dad with two kids), so I can understand why he's not going through the adventure and editing in a bunch of Orcs or undead and trying to make sense of their presence there.
It just seems to me that, at best Favored Enemy is an ability that requires the DM building the game around one particular character in order for it to be useful, which just seems like poor design to me.
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It just seems to me that, at best Favored Enemy is an ability that requires the DM building the game around one particular character in order for it to be useful, which just seems like poor design to me.
Ranger is a funny class. It has to get intel ahead of time in order to truly figure out how effective its going to be. Now, to say that certain creature types are going to show up, I could agree to an extent that is cheating.
However, as a GM I also feel guilty when a lot of my monsters are gifted with true sight, and the Beguiler is stuck in the cold because half her tricks don't work. (True Story Demons and Undead don't help that much.)
However, by the same token, by asking for suggestions, or asking for a chance to ask the local hunters, perhaps that can help. The main problem however, still remains that if you never see an Orc, or don't get the preffered enemy to show up at all, you're hosed.
Thats probably where the terrains come in.
You should talk about this with your DM about kicking in some "meat" for you ar to give you a chance to replace favored enemies.
Alternatively, you could exchange fav enemy for more fav terrain and even at lvl5 get 3 fav terrains and always getting some skill and init bonuses.
My advice is to notmax any terrain, rather stick to the +4,+4,...+4,+2. bonuses
Now first off that says something about that iconic bady, however my game was more about dragons and orcs. Mind you I didn't know that at first, I was going on the fly, but it really didn't pop into my mind that I wasn't giving a Ranger power its due. My fault not the players and not the systems fault. In fact it wasn't until he hit 12 level that he mentioned we had never even seen a drow yet, of course by then he put a lot into Dragons and Orcs.
I accidentally did this once. I really intended for a home-campaign to revolve around undead. One of my players built a rather nice undead-hunter ranger. Then the campaign took a different twist before the undead plot thread was even revealed. Around 9th level (nearly a year) the player asked me what was going on, and I had to admit that I totally forgot.
I see what people are saying about the favored enemy and the simplification of the types. I have worked with my group of players and developed something of a fix and there are 3 ways you can go with this.
1) Alignment based favored enemies (Rangers ARE divine casters after all)
2) Studying the enemy for 1 round gives you the abilities (this includes surprise actions--which I found works well in small stealth based groups were they can get the drop on enemies) to the enemies that you study during that round (basically pick a race out of the enemies you see and apply the biggest bonus you would be able to, to them).
3) Make the favored enemy feature like that of a non-spontaneous caster and memorize a certain number of races in a day, each one with ranking so you can get the bonuses correct.
This is just what we came up with.
Some of the suggested fixes are pretty nice. However, what if you want to play a Society Ranger, where such house rules won't help?
In my experience somevery solid Favored Enemies to take are Giant (includes ogres and trolls), Human (because, really most BBEG's tend to be human) and yes, Undead (Nearly all campaigns run across undead once or twice at a minimum).
Of course there are never any guarentees, but those have proven to be pretty reliable choices for me in the past.
I found that working with the DM to shrink the list can help a great deal. The following is one I have used in the past and it works very well to make the favored enemy ability see more use.
Aberation (This would include some Monstrous Humanoids)
Beasts (This includes Animals, Dragons, Magical Beasts, and Vermin)
Celestial (This basicly makes up all good Outsiders)
Construct (This would include Oozes and some Plants)
Elemental (This makes up all Outsiders with an Elemental type)
Fey (This would include Giants and some Plants)
Fiend (This would include all Evil Outsiders)
Humanoid (This would make up all Humanoids, no subtypes)
Outsider (This would include all Outsiders that are not in the Celestial, Elemental, or Fiend catigories)
Undead (Remains Unchanged)This provides you with 10 different favored enemy choices instead of 32. You will now be much more likely to make use of the ability and some choices that almost never see the light of day now might get used. (I'm talking to you Oozes and Vermin.)
This is a pretty dang fine suggestion! The Humanoids group might be a little too inclusive now. I would probably suggesting breaking it up into:
Humanoid (common) Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Human
Humanoid (savage) Giant, Goblinoid, Gnoll, Orc, Reptilian
(I couldn't really think of good sub-category names).
OP:
Put simply, your GM is a jerk.
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When selecting FE's, you can usually get a hint from the general theme of the campaign. Just ask the DM for suggestions if it's not obvious.
If there's no help from the DM (which I find infuriating and would likely lead to me selecting FE:DM's face), select humanoid (human) as your first choice. They're the #1 monster! :) Follow that up with magical beasts & aberrations. You should be pretty well covered.
The ranger has certainly become a better class than in was in previous editions, though for some people the changes weren't quite good enough (which is surprising considering how good the ranger is nowadays). As has been pointed out previously, much of the fault lies with your GM and his lack of gaming sensitivity, which is something that you probably can't fix.
A ranger who chooses animals or goblins as his favored enemy at 1st-level will probably find plenty of opportunities to fight such creatures at lower levels, but by 10th level these foes might become virtually nonexistent. At these advanced levels the ranger is much more likely to be fighting powerful dragons, outsiders or undead, and his bonus against goblins becomes something of a dead ability. Because of that, I strongly believe that the ranger should be able to swap out favored enemies in favor of other favored enemies at lower levels. In other words, the ranger would be able to swap his 15th level favored enemy choice with his 1st level or 5th level favored enemy. This would also abrogate the need for expanded ranger enemy lists.
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As for him being a "putz" my DM's also a pretty busy guy (he's a single dad with two kids), so I can understand why he's not going through the adventure and editing in a bunch of Orcs or undead and trying to make sense of their presence there.
It just seems to me that, at best Favored Enemy is an ability that requires the DM building the game around one particular character in order for it to be useful, which just seems like poor design to me.
It's not so much putting in some Orcs, so much as going through the adventure and editing the list.
I've done this now for 4 campaigns I've run. It literally takes me about 20 minutes, if that, and it's a good way to get ready for the game. And it doesn't really affect the game all that much. The list for Age of Worms, for instance, only had 5 edits (which I won't list for spoiler purposes). I even highlighted the major players.
Now, if you, the player, ignore said list and choose Orcs, the DM's not the putz anymore.
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True, but the rules should be set up in such a way that a GM has to TRY to be a jerk. With the Ranger Favored Enemy as it is in the rules, he can be a jerk without even meaning to. *Points to the above posts that mention GM's completely forgetting about Ranger favored enemies*
I see your point but I just don't think it's a huge deal. The GM should be working with the players to build characters, if the GM sees the character building an ineffective character he should say something... Period, end of story. If he's not then he needs to go to GM school or use Paizo's APs and their players guides because obviously he's not capable of effectively running his own stuff.
As for the GM/ player feeling it's "cheating", get over it. The professional game designers at Paizo feel this is appropriate stuff to divulge to players. They sell what are considered the best adventure paths in the industry. Maybe they know a little about what is appropriate?
In the PLAYERS GUIDE for Council of Thieves it has the following paragraphs:
A ranger’s best choices for favored enemies in Council
of Thieves are (listed alphabetically): humanoid (human),
outsider (lawful), outsider (evil), outsider (native), undead.
Good secondary choices include aberration, animal,
construct, fey, humanoid (giant), magical beast, and
monstrous humanoid. Opportunities to fight all monster
types occur in the Adventure Path, but the ones listed
above are most common.
A ranger’s best choice for favored terrains are urban
and underground. Good secondary choices include forest,
mountain/hills, swamp, or water. Other favored terrain
choices are poor selections for the Council of Thieves
Adventure Path.
If your GM still fails to see the light the above posters suggestion of FE(Human), FE(Giant), and FE(Undead) are generally good calls.
I get the point folks are trying to make about it being wonky and I used to feel that way but then I realized that this is a cooperative game and the GM is supposed to be helping the players make effective characters. Think of picking the characters first favored enemy as part of building his backstory.
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I'm a big fan of rangers and think that the Pathfinder version is just about the best version of the class yet (well, I think the variant version in the upcoming issue of Kobold Quarterly is even better ... but I'm a tad biased :)
I agree with many of the things that have been said so far. The DM is really obliged to give the players opportunities to have fun and shine. This can include undead for the cleric to turn, traps for the rogue to find and disarm and yes, favored enemies for the ranger to battle. Plus, it is certainly reasonable for the player to ask for advice regarding favored enemies that would be a good choice in the campaign AND it is certainly reasonable for the DM to offer that advice! I see it a little like a player of a cleric asking for advice on what Dieties are most common in the starting campaign area in order to help make the choice of patron deity.
Beyond that though, I think it is important to remember that the favored enemy ability really should be though of more as the cleric's ability to damage and destroy undead. Both are certainly iconic abilities, but they are not bread and butter, do it every day abilities. They are cool when they come up, but tend to not be common every day occurrences.
In the case of the ranger, one needs to remember that, even when not fighting a favored enemy, that combat feat tree is really what makes the ranger shine and hold his own in combat. Combine that with the favored terrains, which should certainly come in to play fairly often, and the ranger becomes a very well balanced class.
Like I said though, I'm a fan of the class.
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Whenever I'm thinking about a ranger, my first pick is always human. Even if you don't fight them, you will interact with them, and get those bonuses to social interaction.
Picking Human as a Favored Enemy is a great first choice if you want to be sure the ability comes into play often. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone complain that the campaign they are in never seems to encounter any humans!
Whenever I'm thinking about a ranger, my first pick is always human. Even if you don't fight them, you will interact with them, and get those bonuses to social interaction.Picking Human as a Favored Enemy is a great first choice if you want to be sure the ability comes into play often. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone complain that the campaign they are in never seems to encounter any humans!
Hooray for the drow compaigns :P
To the OP: You're now run into the biggest problem with the ranger class. It is the most circumstancial class in the entire game. Only under specicific circumstances does the class grant benfits based on it's main class feature.
Which is a shame, overall I like 3.5 ranger and even the PF version, both mecnahically (barring favoured enemy) and in terms of roleplay, but the "upgrade" doesn't fix the biggest and (in my opinion, only) problem within the class. If you dislike favoured enemy, I might surgest a few alternatives.
1. Change what favoured enemy does. Probably the less pratical option since it would require a bit of re-writing on your part. But changing what it does, you can make it more interesting. If the ranger, for instance, if the ranger favours fighting incorporeal creatures, give him bonuses to ignore miss-chance. If he favours fighting dragons, give him somthing like evasion (at an earlier level) so he can dodge breath weapons and the like more easily.
In giving out abilities in this fashion, you make the ranger good against specific foes, and in turn, the ranger can also take what he learns from fighting said foes and adapt it to other situations.
As said, this solution can make the class really interesting and flavourful, but also requires alot of work.
2. Consolidate the favoured enemies. Mix a few of the humaniod types together, combine some outsiders, maybe mix things ilke magical beasts and animals as one choice etc. If favoured enemies cover more bases, the class remains circumstancial, but less so depending on the extent of the consolidation.
While you might still experience the same problems with this fix, you'll experience it to a far lesser extent, and somthing like this requires little work to really pull off.
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Picking Human as a Favored Enemy is a great first choice if you want to be sure the ability comes into play often. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone complain that the campaign they are in never seems to encounter any humans!
It's kinda' weenie, but that's what I always do. Never a shortage of humans.
As an aside, given that I am currently playing a Taldan, I tried to think of what kind of human would be my favored enemy (in case a GM ever said that "human" was too broad). I decided that the most likely kind of human that I would despise enough to take as a favored enemy would be ... other Taldans :)
Evil Outsiders are another good choice.
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No, he's got a point. Good adventure design requires a variety of monsters to fight as they provide variety and challenge different class's strengths. The ranger's small number of favored enemies requires themed adventures where you fight the same type of creature frequently, which threatens to be quite boring to everyone else at the table.
And, even if the DM does toss you a bone and have one adventure focus on your favored enemies, what about the months spent on other modules that DON'T center the spotlight on you?
It's bad game design to have one of the two central class abilities go away for long swaths of real time. That's a core feature of playing a ranger and is one of the central reasons why Scouts are superior at the gaming table. I understand the backwards compatibility reasons for keeping favored enemy, but it was a bad class from the moment 3E started.
I barely returned to the forums and the Post Monster already ate my post...
So, basically, I think you could simply add "At each level multiple of X, the ranger can choose one Favored Enemy and trade for another kind", where X is equal to 1, 2, 3 or 4. In my games I use 2.
It works.
Whenever I'm thinking about a ranger, my first pick is always human. Even if you don't fight them, you will interact with them, and get those bonuses to social interaction.Picking Human as a Favored Enemy is a great first choice if you want to be sure the ability comes into play often. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone complain that the campaign they are in never seems to encounter any humans!
I was going to chime in with "pick human" but I see a coule people beat me to it. You make a great bounty hunter with pick human... or assassin.