You spend five hours building a kickass rogue, only to find yourself in an undead doomsday capmaign.
And Pathfinder Fixed it.
But then we get to the ranger, who faces the similar problem of enemy specification instead. Especially if you wnat to grab some juicy 'favored enemy' -feats that may never see the light of day.
So let's list some of the basix fixes;
1- Ask your DM.
Playing City of the Spider Queen? Pile up the Drow/Undead bonuses. I actually dislike this option. Yes, a small heads up might be OK, but turning not only does the Ranger get remarkably better in this type of monogamous campaigns, it also negates some of the games tension. Further it doesn’t address the real issue, rock in encounter A, backseat in B.
2- Reduce the Favored Enemy List.(*Credits to Greg Trombley)
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)
Savages (Giant, Goblinoid, Gnoll, Orc, …)
Humanoid (Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Human, …)
Outsider (This would include all Outsiders that are not in the Celestial, Elemental, or Fiend categories)
Undead (Remains Unchanged)
Bumps the whole feature up a notch, with an easy branching out to cover a lot of enemies.
Good option for those who like the ability, but then again, we can go a bit further.
3- Sneak Attack
Personal favorite of mine;
Every Favorite Enemy is replaced with +1d6 Sneak Attack.
Every Favorite Terrain is replaced with ‘Hunters Eye’ (+30 Ft Sneak Range)
Comment, suggestions or other alternatives for both favored enemy and Terrain are more then welcome.
W
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I've not encountered a DM that won't offer some guidance about what to choose for favored terrains/enemies, but even so it seems the ranger gets his favored enemy bonus for a brief time, usually right after he gains an increase to favored enemy.
For some time now our two games (with three rangers all together) have been using this method and it has worked out beyond expectations. It allows favored enemy versatility, but not on the level of instant gratification (by which I mean: as much use as the rangers now get out of their favored enemy, there are still plenty of occasions where they simply don't have time enough to refocus).
As to your other methods: Before the advent of favored terrains, we tried replacing favored enemy with favored sneak attack and it just never meshed for us.
So basically what the Dorkistan variant is that it's more so of a Researched Enemy.
Rather than favoured..
Hmmm. Perhaps it would be a good change, I'll look into it.
One option I've contemplated is having the favored enemy increase for every session where a favored enemy doesn't come up, but I'm not sure what rate would be fair.
One option I've contemplated is having the favored enemy increase for every session where a favored enemy doesn't come up, but I'm not sure what rate would be fair.
.... big....fat....HUH?
Do you mean the frequency in which the favored enemy appears, the bonus granted to the favored enemy, or the amount of favored enemies.
My opinion, ALL BAD IDEAS. EXCEPT for the frequency in which they appear
With regard to the Dorkistan solution, am I the only one who thinks that being able to retrain your FE bonuses daily, is simply too good.
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With regard to the Dorkistan solution, am I the only one who thinks that being able to retrain your FE bonuses daily, is simply too good.
I too am interested in people's feedback on this. When I initially presented these rules to my players, a similar concern was voiced. Since then, we (the three of us who are affected) have decided that the time constraints involved in refocusing a favored enemy do enough to hinder the ranger from having a favored enemy bonus at every fight.
But really that only addresses our play style, which consists of the same five players and two rotating GMs.
Do you mean the frequency in which the favored enemy appears, the bonus granted to the favored enemy, or the amount of favored enemies.
My opinion, ALL BAD IDEAS. EXCEPT for the frequency in which they appear
So be it. What I meant was something along the lines of 'Undead haven't appeared in the last 6 sessions, so your favored enemy bonus goes from +2 to +4'. How much of an increase, should it be linear, and how long should the extra bonus last? I dunno.
But the general idea is 'you get more bang if it hasn't come up recently.'
Since the thread title is alternatives, I post an alternative of my own. It is a shortened list of Categories. I worked it out a few weeks ago, but I have lost my notes and I think I am missing a category (maybe 2)
Aquatic Creatures- plant creatures, animals, humanoids and vermin found in aquatic environments.
Horrors- Aberrations, Monstrous Humanoids and Oozes.
Natural Creatures- surface dwelling animals, plant creatures and vermin.
Outsiders- Outsiders
Surface Dwellers (Civil)- Elves (incl. Half elves), Gnomes, Halflings, Humans.
Surface Dwellers (Foes)- Giants, Goblinoids, Gnolls, Orcs (incl. half orcs), Reptilians
Supernatural- Dragons, Fey, Magical Beasts
Underground Creatures- Dwarves, plant creatures, animals, humanoids and vermin found in underground environments.
Unliving- Constructs and Undead
Idea is to break up animals, plant creatures, humanoids and vermin into aquatic, surface dwelling and underground dwelling categories. This is because they are relatively common , run of the mill threats (except for the freakish plant creatures, which simply have to be stuffed in somewhere). Also for these types if there is a question whether x is a creature of this environment, or if it is of that environment, the bestiary entry determines the category or categories it falls into.
Other types are simply grouped together in convenient and somewhat sensible groups.
In the spirit of giving alternatives, here's what I'd replace favored enemies with:
Hunter's Mark
If you've observed a individual target for 5 rounds out of combat, or 2 rounds in combat, you may designate them as a Mark. Observation requires using your swift action for that round.
You gain a bonus to skills checks and damage (and attack?) against your target Mark (increases with level).
You may swap out a designated Mark by spending the time observing a new target.
Additionally, you may use a gather information or survival check to designate a target instead. This requires a check vs DC 10 + CR, and takes 1 hour of investigation.
Use diplomacy when designating a creature with an Intelligence of 3 or higher, and survival when designating creatures of lower Intelligence.
Hunter's Teaching
Spend one full round of communication to grant your allies (half bonus) towards your designated Mark. This bonus applies to damage (and attack?) only.
Hunter's Strike
You automatically confirm criticals against your designated Mark. At (later levels), you may also treat a single successful attack as a critical hit. This may be used only once per day (increases to maybe 2 or 3 times at later levels).
Hunters mark seems like an interesting idea, I'll have to think about stuff.
But... why did ya have to go with a WoW name ><
PATHFINDER IS JUST A REHASH OF WOW!
(cue 4e-style flamewars. ;)
More seriously...
Kaisoku: It seems more appropriate to me to use Knowledge skills to do Hunter's Mark, since that's the core 'identify stuff' skill.
Though I like the idea of, say, Sense Motive being a stand-in for creating the same effect for creatures with Int of 3 or more.
And then here's an alternative:
For each Favored Enemy, the normal Favored Enemy bonus is actually a bonus to identifying that enemy (and Humanoid is now just a general category). Additionally, the Knowledge skill involved with identifying that enemy is a class skill (if it isn't already).
Don't go there you'll just attract Scott Betts
But... why did ya have to go with a WoW name ><
This is actually a rough draft of what I proposed back on Monte Cook's boards back during the 3.0e days, years before WoW even came out.
It sucks when you come up with a decent name, and then someone comes along, being all wannabe cool 'n stuff, and takes that name as well.. ruining it for the rest of us.
Quite honestly, I created this ability for a character who wanted a Bounty Hunter style character... and so I designed this as a replacement for Favored Enemy. "Hunter" (instead of Bounty Hunter) makes it more universal in usage.
Kaisoku: It seems more appropriate to me to use Knowledge skills to do Hunter's Mark, since that's the core 'identify stuff' skill.
Though I like the idea of, say, Sense Motive being a stand-in for creating the same effect for creatures with Int of 3 or more.
I used the gather information (diplomacy) and survival checks because this is information about a specific individual, not an entire species or creature type.
In other words, you are learning how to better defeat your specific target by learning his specific movements, habits, vices, etc. It's not about precision damage, rather knowing his technique and anticipating his next move. Or to know how he'll respond to what you do (in both combat, and skill checks).
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However, if I were to create a Favored Enemy ability that was basically a "pick a creature type, change it with a skill check", then I'd go with the Knowledge skills.
Except maybe give the Ranger a class ability to roll a Ranger level check + (Int or Wis?) to determine creature and terrain info, as well as re-choose his favored enemy. That way he doesn't have all this excess of inappropriate knowledge (knowledge arcana just because he should know about dragons?).
Damn it, now I might need to change the way my rangers do things >.>
So the basic adjustment they need is more flexibility.
- Either on long term training to switch some bonuses around or when they LvL up.
OR
- As a studies skill check; taking a 1-3 rounds & a possible knowledge/survival/CMB check to gain the bonus against a specific target/ group.
As a matter of fact, I like the second option best. It gives them the whole 'Stalking Hunter' feel when studying someone/thing from hiding, before firing their bow. I spot some similarities with the paladins‘Smite Evil’ or the assasins 'Death Attack' ability here.
On a side note; if the subgroups are drastically broadened, should the bonus stay the same or drop to +1?
I prefer the second option as well myself, and onto the next little thingy.
If the categories are drastically broadened.. I'd DEFINITELY say to reduce the bonus.
Aside from that, yeah second option reminds me of the assassins death attack. >.>
I'd say make the bonus similar to fighter weapon focus, something like level/5 round down.
This would make the ranger's bonus as good as the fighter, plus a skill bonus, but only after the ranger analyzes the target. That seems fair to me.
Back when they let slip that Giants were no longer a type of their own, but rather a subtype.. it really got me thinking of reorganizing the creature types into a more patterned system (instead of having the arbitrary system holdover from previous editions).
Here's how I broke down the system:
There are Types, and Subtypes. A creature type determines a set of physiological expectations, whereas a subtype modifies the main type in some way.
Aberration: These creatures are of alien physiology or mind. Do not necessarily conform to any particular standard.
Animal: Any non-humanoid mammal, fish, reptile, or insect. This includes dinosaurs and "dire animals".
No limitations on intelligence, however they do not automatically know languages, and physically might lack the ability to speak.
Construct: Crafted entities made of non-living materials. This can include dead flesh, as long as it wasn't given life through necromantic magic (ie, using alchemy or other arcane magic to make a Flesh Golem).
Dragon: More than just a Magical Reptilian, or Fey, or Animal. It's physiology allows for breathing elemental energy and flight despite a large heavy frame.
Elemental: Entities that are the embodiment of the elements.
Fey: Creatures that exist in harmony with nature, or as embodiment of nature itself.
Humanoid: Any warm-blooded, red blooded mammal of primarily human shape (1 head, two arms and two legs).
Goblinoid: Any warm-blooded, green blooded creature of primarily human shape.
Ooze: Amorphous masses that are virtually non-sentient. Typically act like a cell (absorb to eat, and divide to reproduce).
Outsider: Creatures that are the embodiment of the Outer planes. Must have an aligned subtype.
Plant: Creatures that have plant physiology (immunities, photosynthesis instead of regular eating, etc).
Reptilian: Any cold-blooded creature of primarily human shape.
Undead: Non-living creatures that were created through necromantic power.
Alignment (Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic): Applies to Outsiders only, and indicates their driving essence. May have one of Good or Evil, and one of Lawful or Chaotic, although they only require having one alignment.
Air: Indicates a creature that exists or who's primary mode of travel is through the air. Must have a fly speed and maneuverability, and often has reduced land speed.
Aquatic: Indicates a creature that exists, or who's primary mode of travel is through water. Must have a swim speed (), and often has reduced or no land speed.
Cold: Indicates immunity to cold temperatures and energy, and weakness to fire.
Earth: Indicates a creature who can travel through varying levels of earth. Has a burrow speed, with varying limitations on types of material (from top soil to stone melding).
Fire: Indicates an immunity to hot temperatures and fire energy, and weakness to cold.
Giant: Creatures that are larger than the normal, and who's physiology is stronger to support a larger frame.
Incorporeal: Creatures who exists, wholly or partially, in the Ethereal plane.
Insectoid: Indicates an insect-like physiology or mind.
Magical: Creatures that have abilities that are magical in source (supernatural or spell-like), including magical shapeshifting.
Monstrous: Creatures that have different or animalistic features than is normal for their creature type. This includes additional body parts, or atypical additions to animals.
Usually indicates abilities of an extraordinary source (non-magical source).
Swarm: Indicates that the entity is actually comprised of multiple creatures working together in some fashion, however still treated as a single unit. Usually instinctive sentience.
These changes let us lump a lot of "similarly themed" creatures into the same pile.
So instead of having a Vermin type, they are just an Animal, with any combination of Insectoid, Giant or Swarm.
Instead of having animals, and then magical beasts.. you now just have Animals with the Magical or Monstrous subtype.
What this does (other than making things easier to classify), is let the Ranger pick up one creature type or subtype as his Favored Enemy, and have it apply to a spectrum of creatures.
Pick up the Magical subtype as your Favored Enemy, and suddenly you have: Chromatic Dragons, Lamia, Rust Monsters, Ogre Mages, etc.
Pick up Monstrous, and you've got the dire animals, gnolls, manticores, and even the Ettin (two heads = Humanoid (Giant, Monstrous)).
It gives the Ranger a more themed set of creatures to fight, and a slightly bigger list (since a lot of extraneous creature types were moved into an existing type with a new subtype to differentiate them).
I have not had a chance to put this to practice yet, however I do not expect any major hiccups. Classifying a creature is simply a matter of what it most resembles (humanoid or not, any other existing types) and what abilities it gets (spells? add the magical subtype, Ex abilities and atypical limbs? add the monstrous type, "big version"? add Giant).
Alternatives
I don't seem to be able to edit the first post, thus a recap is placed here;
I’ve divided them in three major lines of thinking.
1 Avoiding the problem
-Ask Your DM.
-Reduced Fav Enemy List (optional; also reducing the bonus)
2 Flexibility
-Refocusing (http://www.dorkistan.com/PFRPG/classes/ranger.htm)
-Rearanging at LvL-up, day training/bonus, …
3 Alternative Ability
-Sneak Attack (Replace Fav enemy with +1d6/ optional changing Fav -Terrain in range increments)
-Hunters Mark (Gain bonus after #rounds study/Skill triggered)
Personal Choice
Further a first attempt at a combination of my preferred line of thinking
Hunter’s Mark; (This ability replaces the Favorite Enemy Ability)
‘Hunter’s mark +2’ replaces the current favorite enemy ability.
Gain this cumulative bonus after a study of the mark for 5 rounds out or 3 round in combat (as a move action).
Hunter’s Secret; (This ability replaces the Favorite Terrain Ability)
Gain one of the next secrets.
-Fast Mark (Study becomes a Swift action)
-Critical Strike (Auto confirm Crits on Mark)
-Saves (Gain bonus on Saves Vs Mark)
-AC (Gain Dodge bonus on AC Vs Mark)
-Tactical (Gain bonus on CMB & D Vs Mark)
-Cripling (Halve movement of Mark with successful Attack)
-Bleeding (Bestow Bonus as Bleeding damage on successful strike)
-Keen (Increase Crit range Vs Mark)
…
More original ideas or balance issues appreciated.
After some reading the above and my own ideas, I would go with:
Aquatic: Those of the Aquatic & Reptilian subtypes
Horrors: Aberrations & Oozes
Celestials: All Outsiders with the Good subtype, including aasimar, half-celestials and couatls
Elementals: All Outsiders with the Air, Cold, Elemental, Earth, Fire and Water subtypes, including janni and genasi
Fiends: All Outsiders with the Evil subtype, including tieflings, half-fiends, rakshasas and ogre magi
Dwarves: Dwarves, duergar, derro
Elves: Elves, half-Elves, drow
Primitives: Bugbears, goblins, gnolls, hobgoblins, half-orcs, orcs
Humans: Humans, half-Elves, half-orcs
Small Folk: Gnomes, svirfneblin. halflings
(Other types unchanged)
Or you can allow a Knowledge Check to enable a +1 Favored Enemy bonus against any Foe for every 5 of the roll. It's balanced, scales, and doesn't stack with the existing class feature, but invokes it's wording.
Then again, we'd make our hardcore, outdoor ranger into a Loremaster. Planes, Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, Religion, ... Hell, even local goes for humanoids.
Not to mention, he'd get a decent bonus at every encounter. Especially in the early LvL's. Lucky 20? + 4 know? +1 Int? +5 at LvL 1. A +3 on average. Even if you make it a Full Round Action, this would be worth it.
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I personally think the Hunter's Mark thing seems the best option and most interesting. Have it be a move action with a Knowledge check of the appropriate type for the creature and gain the favored enemy bonus if you succeed. This bonus could either last for a number of rounds equal to 3 + your Int bonus and it is against all creatures associated with the knowledge check. It should also require a full round action to recover and be usable again.
Having it scale with the check result would be even better. Something like this: DC 10 check to gain a bonus +1. For every 5 points the check exceeds the DC you gain an additional +1 bonus.
This would make it so that a first level ranger with a 14/16 Int have a base skill bonus of 6/7 (needing a roll of 9/8 to gain a +2 bonus, max bonus of +4) now if they had skill focus it would be a 9/10 (needing only a roll of 6/5 to get the +2 bonus, max bonus of +4/+5), and if you use the feature below it would be 8/9 (needing a roll of 7/6 for a +2, max bonus of +4) or 11/12 (needing a roll of 4/3 to get the +2 bonus, max bonus of +5) with skill focus if it was also your chosen skill.
Also have it so that the Favored Enemy feature instead gives a bonus to a chosen knowledge check (arcana, dungeoneering, local, nature, planes, and religion) this bonus could be the normal favored enemy bonus and work the same. +2 when you get it and an increase of +2 at each interval. But this bonus is only for the purposes of Hunter's Mark (or whatever it ends up being called)
It would also be a good idea to make all of the knowledge skills that give information about creatures class skills for the ranger, so arcana, dungeoneering, local, nature, planes, and religion.
Overall this way can be a bit more powerful against a specific group (with the sacrifice of feats and skill points into Knowledge skills and skill focuses for those skills), but allows for a more varied ability to gain a smaller bonus to everything.
Kaisoku:
I'm not sure I agree with some of the divisions you've made....
Specifically, there is (or used to be in 3rd edition) a humanoid that was a bipedal insect. Would it be Humanoid (insectoid or monstrous)? Or maybe goblinoid or reptilian? I'm not exactly sure what you used as the reason behind making reptilians be a type and insectoid a subtype.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have the type be Humanoid, being anything bipedal, sentiant with language and culture?
This is awesome feedback, thanks for bringing this to my attention. This was a rough draft that I was going to eventually use, so it's good to hear things like this.
You are right, you know. I started making the division at the beginning with starting races, rather than creature types. Then, when I made my whole list and moved on to creatures, I was thinking about swarms and such, and felt insectoid as a subtype made the most sense, exactly because a humanoid insectoid would be the Thri-kreen, and an animal insectoid would be a giant ant or something.
I'd probably move the Goblinoid and Reptilian to subtypes, and simply be about their "blood".
I never liked that Goblinoid meant "savage culture", since that really didn't make sense from a phenotype point of view (and games like Eberron break that tradition in some ways).
So subtype "Goblinoid" would simply mean the creature is "green-blooded", making them affected by spells slightly differently (if there are any spells that don't affect goblinoids but do affect humans, etc).
And Reptilian would simply mean a cold-blooded creature, which could apply to animals and humanoids equally.
Dragons should still be their own entry though. They are part of the "arcana" knowledge, and fit better as a "warm-blooded" reptile oddity. It also places them outside of any animal or humanoid type.
I like the idea that Kobolds like to "say" they are descended from Dragons, but don't actually share their creature type, like it's a big lie to make them feel important, heh.
However, if you are tired of Dragons being a special case, then I'd put them as Animal (Giant, Reptilian, Magical, [Air/Aquatic/Earth/Fire]), with a couple having other features (pseudodragons won't have Giant, etc).
I pick Animal because a) my entry for animals don't limit intelligence, b) their body structure doesn't fit humanoid as a base, and they do fit animal, c) none of the other base creatures fit for what a Dragon would get.
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Regarding how a Ranger's bonuses would work, I'd do it this way:
A ranger can pick a base type or a subtype as they desire. Each will give a list of creatures that they can apply a bonus against. If you have one of a creature's types, you get half bonus (+1/5 levels), if you have two or more of the creature's types, you get a full bonus (+2/5 levels). If the creature has only one type (Humans only have Humanoid), then you get the full bonus if you have that type.
This gives creatures with additional types bonuses against Rangers, however Rangers can have a larger list of enemies because they can pick subtypes instead. I feel this balances things out nicely.
Oh, and the Ranger can't pick "Outsider", he instead picks an alignment subtype instead. Since an outsider can't not have an alignment type, if they have no other subtypes (like the Fire subtype), the ranger gets full bonus.
Hunter's Mark feels too much like an MMORPG ability.
To be honest, "they stole the idea from me".
It is definately different from the Ranger's ability, and changes how one would play a Ranger. It is actually more of a "Bounty Hunter" style of mechanic, or even "Assassin", and keep in mind I originally created it (before WoW btw, so none of that MMO business please) for a player who wanted a Bounty Hunter character in 3.0e days.
However, that is the reason I mentioned the creature type changes too. It's not meant to work with the Hunter's Mark thing, and is a proposed general change to the Bestiary with a side effect of changing Favored Enemy.
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Regarding the Dragon type: If you are keeping Dragons as unique, then you might not want a Ranger knowing reptiles getting a bonus against Dragons.
What I said still stands though, if you don't want Dragons to be "that special snowflake" then giving them reptilian subtype opens them to a greater list of Ranger favored enemy.