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Instant Enemy. Fighters, read it and weep.Weapon Training + Gloves of Dueling (+Greater Focus/Specialization). Rangers, read it and weep. :pRanger/Horizon Walker + Instant Enemy = +20 to hit & +20 damage & +20 initiative.
Fighters, read it and weep. <Channelling Nelson> HA HA
"When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures.This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy."
I don't think Instant Enemy combines with that by RAW...
You're looking at it wrong.
Pick a creature of a type that isn't your favored enemy then cast instant enemy on it so that you can treat it as the TYPE of one of your FE. Choose the type that is native to the terrain that you have stacked for your Terrain Dominance.This fulfills all the requirements to get that +20 (or higher, buy the boots) for Dominance.
Profit.
That is...brilliant. Wow, HW just went from situationally awesome to guaranteed awesome, wow...again!
Still expensive for the pearls, and the level payoff is high to both have 3rd level ranger spells and be a decent bit into HW. Might be better off just buying wands of Instant Enemy instead of waiting on reaching the spell level... It allows no save or SR and lasts far longer than you would ever need to vaporize someone, so poor DC and CL doesn't actually matter...
Best to take many of the optimization posts here with a grain of salt.I've always been curious if most games had higher wealth than mine. I've almost never written up a wizard, or played one, and felt I had enough extra gold even for a few spell scrolls, let alone pearls. Reading the boards, everyone casts spells from scrolls and pearls daily, has one or more metamagic rods, and this is in conversations about 2nd and 3rd level spells.Each 3rd level pearl costs 9000 gp.I just gotta ask.... how is "instant enemy" not the cheesiest spell ever? I mean it's awesome enough if it were a standard action, but it's even a swift action!
Pocketful of pearls of power and everything I fight is an "instant enemy"
It's a question of priorities. My druid is in a pretty medium wealth campaign, and most of that wealth was from our last loot haul, but she's had two level 1 pearls of power and one level 2 pearl of power for a long time. Her next purchase will be a level 3 pearl of power.
Spellcasters cast spells. That's their thing. Being able to cast more spells is the single most important power boost they can have. 9,000 gold is a lot for a level 8 character, but not a lot for a level 10 character.
The other thing my spellcasters tend to spend gold on as a high priority are metamagic rods.
A ranger, who has to purchase weapons and armor, might find it harder to scrape together 9,000g at level 11 for a pearl of power, but again, it's a matter of priority. Up until now my ranger has never had a reason to buy one. But this single spell has now made it a high priority. You can bet he'll be buying one now. Or two.
Ok, so thinking about the Instant Enemy + HW thing... it's interesting. You need to pick a favored enemy type that ALWAYS comes from the same terrain type (evil or chaotic outsiders isn't a sure thing to get Abyss, for example). But, that's only half the trickiness. You also want a favored enemy type that is as uncommon as possible. Because Instant Enemy, as written, only works on creatures that aren't already your favored enemy. The last thing you want is something you picked for FE and have a piddly +2 against becoming immune to Instant Enemy and the horrors it brings. So, I had always wondered why FE (gnolls) existed, why would anyone ever take such a small, obscure group of creatures as FE?
I think I finally have an answer to that question. :)
You do have to convince your DM that "all purposes" in "treat the target as if it were that type of favored enemy for all purposes", the wording in instant enemy, means "including treating it like something native to the terrain that the favored enemy chosen is native to", which technically falls under the umbrella of "all purposes", but is a pretty indirect trait. There's way more direct, clearly defined mechanical traits that I think most people would agree don't get carried over from the chosen type when you use instant enemy. Using Instant Enemy on a human and choosing "animal" for the type probably shouldn't cause you to treat it as if it has no weapon proficiencies, even though that's a property of animals, and a much more clearly defined one in the rules than living in a particular sort of terrain is. Once you start veering into saying that Instant Enemy - even though it says "for all purposes" - makes the creature count as a member of the chose type for any purpose other than "things that specifically check if something is your favored enemy", things start to get pretty hazy.
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So, how does your Ranger do significant damage, when Favoured Enemy doesn't apply? I'm mostly interested in archery rangers, although TWF Rangers are interesting too (I guess the TWF tree and maybe Power Attack). Otherwise, how do they keep up with Rogue, Fighter, smiting Paladin, etc?
Ranged: Rapid Shot, Manyshot, and Deadly Aim. If you don't have these feats, you are not an Archer.
Melee: Power Attack and Cleave.
Also, the 3rd level spell: Instant Enemy :)
Since we use 3.5 feats in my current game, my Ranger also has: Improved Rapid Shot (screw the -2!), Improved Favored Enemy (+3 damage), and Favored Power Attack (really sick with a 2-handed weapon).
Instant Enemy. Fighters, read it and weep.Weapon Training + Gloves of Dueling (+Greater Focus/Specialization). Rangers, read it and weep. :p
Actually you should probably check your what again ;-)
Level 15 fighter vs. level 15 ranger.
fighter: 16 feats, +7 to attack, +8 to damage. 4 feats spent to specialize in one weapon.
Ranger: 12 feats: +8 to attack, +8 to damage. No feats to specialize in one weapon. On top of this he as 6 skills per level, two good saves, lots of cool abilities, and is far more versatile. At this point we haven't even included weapon focus or spells like Gravity Bow.
Fighter got to use all his precious feats just to keep up with the ranger and when all is done the ranger still has 12 feat. Just as many as the fighter has.
...and +8 to hit and damage is regardless of weapon used and with Instant enemy it is regardless of enemy.
I feel as though in this and other threads, Instant Enemy is treated like it's a globally always-on spell or something. It's not. Rangers get the power to cast it at level 10/11 depending on their Wis score, and can cast it a very limited number of times each day. You can get a wand of it earlier - CL doesn't really matter for the spell, and there's no save or SR (The range is the only thing that usefully scales with level - archer rangers usually can attack from further than a close-range spell's range) - but then it eats a standard action in combat, and except against crazy solo monsters or unusually tough or hard-to-hit monsters, you're probably better using that turn to just make N attacks rather than giving yourself a 2N bonus to hit and damage. It's still good under those conditions, of course, and if you've chosen your favored enemies appropriately than you often don't need it, but it's not a universal Ranger class feature. Don't get me wrong - Rangers are awesome, Instant Enemy is awesome, and the Wand of Instant Enemy is awesome. It's just not without cost.
So, how does your Ranger do significant damage, when Favoured Enemy doesn't apply? I'm mostly interested in archery rangers, although TWF Rangers are interesting too (I guess the TWF tree and maybe Power Attack). Otherwise, how do they keep up with Rogue, Fighter, smiting Paladin, etc?
My third level human ranger switch hitter has turned out to be quite a good damage dealer. He normaly does better then the the other characters(barbarian, oracle, cleric and magus).
His main stats are str. 18, dex 14 and con. 15 and weapons are +1 falchion and a might composite longbow.
Feats are power attack, cleave, rapid shot and deadly aim.
I normaly start a battle with two shots from the bow (rapid shot) + 3 to hit 1d8+4 damage each arrow (without favored ememy bonuses). Then when he gets up close and personal one swing from the falchion using Power attack is +7 to hit 2d4+10 damage (without favored enemy bonuses)and another if there is an adjacent foe. And dont forget Crit. range for a falchion is 18-20(yay)!!!
Once I can I will take manyshot and improved crit(15-20 crit range double yay).
good stuff
True the ranger isn't just Instant Enemy. Paizo did a great work on the ranger. They also pointed out that a little meta gaming isn't bad.
A GM can and should tell a player what favored Enemy he/she should focus on. Their player's guide also have a list of what favored Enemies to pick. But the urban ranger, the guide and Instant Enemy really changed a lot. And to be honest, the Instant Enemy doesn't really come with a great cost.
I play rangers almost exclusively and absolutly love them.
I didnt read everything in the post so please forgive me if I am going over something already stated but my rangers tend to focus on hitting less than damage.
once you get clustered shots hitting as much as possible seems to be more important than the specific bonus when you hit. for this reason I never take deadly aim (at least not till late game) before that I am more focused on bonuses that let me hit more often or make my hits count for more (such as critical focus) note my most used spells are aspect of the falcon and cats grace. when I get high enough i use instant enemy on every big fight.
By medium levels, you can afford to have a bunch of circumstantial arrows sitting around. Piles of random mundane arrows (very cheap), special material arrows, and even +1 (property) arrows are nice things to have a few of, and are only 160 gp each for most, which isn't something you want to be throwing out willy nilly, but which can be worth having in your back pocket.
Do people use the spell Gravity Bow, at all (primarily at low levels)? For typical-sized arrows it seems to me that at low level (when the basic arrow damage is basically all the damage) it pays if combat lasts three rounds or more.It's a buffing action. If you think the combat is going to last 5+ rounds, it's a nice spell. The combats I've seen almost never go that long, so you get more damage by just shooting than by casting the spell. Remember, part of being an archer is that you get your full round attack in the first round, when everyone else is moving into position. Take advantage of that. There is a ranger spell that lets you treat an enemy as your max favored enemy and is a swift action to cast- that spell is nice.
+1
High dex build = high stealth. A dex ranger can and should scout.
If your party just stumble into fights every time and can buff, then Gravity Bow may not be an obvious choice, but if you got time to buff Gravity Bow is rock solid. Versatile weaåpon a also a good spell if you have time to buff. Get a wand from a bard.
Have you considered the spells Abundant Ammunition and Named Bullet?
To my way of reading, it appears that they should stack, and it wouldn't be too expensive to build an item that was constantly under the effects of abundant ammunition. Meaning you could essentially make a single casting of Named bullet reusable (although only as many times per round as you'd cast Named Bullet).
I was totally sure that it didn't work, I checked and by RAW it seems to me that all the arrows are affected by named bullet.
...
Ok, I had a nice dream where I used this combo. Now I can go back to reality and forget it, since no sane GM would allow it.
Instant Enemy. Fighters, read it and weep.Weapon Training + Gloves of Dueling (+Greater Focus/Specialization). Rangers, read it and weep. :pRanger/Horizon Walker + Instant Enemy = +20 to hit & +20 damage & +20 initiative.
Fighters, read it and weep. <Channelling Nelson> HA HA
"When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures.This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy."
I don't think Instant Enemy combines with that by RAW...
You're looking at it wrong.
Pick a creature of a type that isn't your favored enemy then cast instant enemy on it so that you can treat it as the TYPE of one of your FE. Choose the type that is native to the terrain that you have stacked for your Terrain Dominance.
This fulfills all the requirements to get that +20 (or higher, buy the boots) for Dominance.
Profit.
Seems wrong. The creatures still have to be native to that terrain, or?
If you get to boots or not doesn't really matter if the creature isn't native to that terrain. Can you explain in to me?
Why does everyone keep saying that the higher BAB helps to offset the attack penalty of Deadly Aim. The attack penalty scales with BAB! The more you have, the more the penalty is. It basically wipes out the difference from full BAB and medium BAB.
Seems wrong. The creatures still have to be native to that terrain, or?
If you get to boots or not doesn't really matter if the creature isn't native to that terrain. Can you explain in to me?
Instant Enemy treats the target as your highest bonus favored enemy for all purposes. This would include what terrain it's considered native of. So you match up your favored enemy selection to be one that is only ever native to the specific terrain you take terrain dominance for, then cast instant enemy to treat something else entirely as if it were that creature for all purposes. Including being from that specific terrain. And then it dies. Painfully.
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Instant Enemy. Fighters, read it and weep.Weapon Training + Gloves of Dueling (+Greater Focus/Specialization). Rangers, read it and weep. :pRanger/Horizon Walker + Instant Enemy = +20 to hit & +20 damage & +20 initiative.
Fighters, read it and weep. <Channelling Nelson> HA HA
"When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures.This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy."
I don't think Instant Enemy combines with that by RAW...
You're looking at it wrong.
Pick a creature of a type that isn't your favored enemy then cast instant enemy on it so that you can treat it as the TYPE of one of your FE. Choose the type that is native to the terrain that you have stacked for your Terrain Dominance.
This fulfills all the requirements to get that +20 (or higher, buy the boots) for Dominance.
Profit.Seems wrong. The creatures still have to be native to that terrain, or?
If you get to boots or not doesn't really matter if the creature isn't native to that terrain. Can you explain in to me?
You really need to read the intant enemy spell to get this.
With this spell you designate the target as your favored enemy for the remainder of its duration. Select one of your favored enemy types. For the duration of the spell, you treat the target as if it were that type of favored enemy for all purposes.
I bolded the important part. When you use this spell whatever your target is it is now considered of the type you choose INCLUDING what terrain it is native too.
You've stacked all your favored terrain bonuses for one terrain (and wearing boots of that terrain as well) so now that terrain bonus is your new favored enemy bonus vs that specific opponent.You should be rocking a +20 to a +24ish bonus on hit, damage, Survival, perception, Sense Motive, Bluff and Knowledge vs the target of this spell. And if you are actually in that terrain at the time you get that bonus to your initiative as well.
For more uberness take the Guide archetype and add an additional +6 to hit and damage as well.
@streamofsky, 9 times out of ten what ever you choose as your favored enemy is going to be native to the terrain you took as favored terrain (stack your bonuses man) so you don't need to cast IE, you're already rocking those bonuses already and you can save the spell.
Realistically the best thing to do is take favored enemy=Human & favored terrain=Urban. Then like 60% of the time you are rocking your bonuses against anything you fight. Everything else gets instant enemy and then QUICKLY dies.
Why does everyone keep saying that the higher BAB helps to offset the attack penalty of Deadly Aim. The attack penalty scales with BAB! The more you have, the more the penalty is. It basically wipes out the difference from full BAB and medium BAB.
If you take a look at total "to hit" vs the typical AC you will see that you can easily afford the penalty from deadly aim, provided you have optimized you bonuses to attack.
Everyone knows that the penalty from deadly aim scales with bab, but thanks to the bab being high in the first place that penalty is offset by the bonus to damage. If the bab were lower deadly aim would not be such a good choice (it's the same with medium bab classes and power attack for those who fights one-handed), that's what everyone is saying.Archery in particular makes it easy to obtain high attack bonuses (just PBS and bracers of armory gives you a +3) so for an archer (that has trouble at making every single hit hurts) deadly aim is a really good choice more often than not (as pointed out in another thread you are better off without it only if you need more than a 17-18 on the highest attack roll to hit your enemy).
For more uberness take the Guide archetype and add an additional +6 to hit and damage as well.
The guide does not have the favored enemy class feature so the trick does not work with it by raw.
That's why I'd pick something for FE as narrow as utterly possible. Like FE Humanoid (Gnoll). ;)
Why does everyone keep saying that the higher BAB helps to offset the attack penalty of Deadly Aim. The attack penalty scales with BAB! The more you have, the more the penalty is. It basically wipes out the difference from full BAB and medium BAB.
If you take a look at total "to hit" vs the typical AC you will see that you can easily afford the penalty from deadly aim, provided you have optimized you bonuses to attack.
Everyone knows that the penalty from deadly aim scales with bab, but thanks to the bab being high in the first place that penalty is offset by the bonus to damage. If the bab were lower deadly aim would not be such a good choice (it's the same with medium bab classes and power attack for those who fights one-handed), that's what everyone is saying.Archery in particular makes it easy to obtain high attack bonuses (just PBS and bracers of armory gives you a +3) so for an archer (that has trouble at making every single hit hurts) deadly aim is a really good choice more often than not (as pointed out in another thread you are better off without it only if you need more than a 17-18 on the highest attack roll to hit your enemy).
Yeah, you also get more damage, which helps raise the "minimum avg. damage to make deadly aim a bad deal" level. But for the argument that full BAB helps offset the attack penalty, that's a bit to the side. Yes, due to the way BAB progresses vs. deadly aim's penalties, you'll basically be +1 attack bonus ahead of medium BAB most levels. That's not much difference.
I agree, it's a nice option to have against low AC opponents. And it is good at lower levels. But at higher levels, if you've been trying to raise your damage well, there will be significant amounts of time where it basically pulls even or is worse for you than not using it. And you can choose to not use it. But if I'm not going to benefit from it all the time, it drops on my priority list behind other useful feats I can use basically all the time. And archers are strapped for feats...
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For more uberness take the Guide archetype and add an additional +6 to hit and damage as well.The guide does not have the favored enemy class feature so the trick does not work with it by raw.
Horizon Walker uses it's Favored Terrain Bonus as Favored Enemy bonus (and overwrites your favored enemy bonus if you have one anyway) so you DO have it and it will stack with the Guides Focus target ability.
Horizon Walker uses it's Favored Terrain Bonus as Favored Enemy bonus (and overwrites your favored enemy bonus if you have one anyway) so you DO have it and it will stack with the Guides Focus target ability.For more uberness take the Guide archetype and add an additional +6 to hit and damage as well.The guide does not have the favored enemy class feature so the trick does not work with it by raw.
It stack with Favored Enemy if you have one.
Edit:
Horizon Walker don't grant you any Favored Enemy. So you got to have Favored Enemy bonus do start with. Guide don't grant you a Favored Enemy, so no Favored Enemy bonus. And you can't play a guide and multi class as a ranger.
Horizon Walker is a rather weak class unless you are a ranger WITH a Favored Enemy bonus or a barbarian.
Yeah, you also get more damage, which helps raise the "minimum avg. damage to make deadly aim a bad deal" level. But for the argument that full BAB helps offset the attack penalty, that's a bit to the side. Yes, due to the way BAB progresses vs. deadly aim's penalties, you'll basically be +1 attack bonus ahead of medium BAB most levels. That's not much difference.
I agree, it's a nice option to have against low AC opponents. And it is good at lower levels. But at higher levels, if you've been trying to raise your damage well, there will be significant amounts of time where it basically pulls even or is worse for you than not using it. And you can choose to not use it. But if I'm not going to benefit from it all the time, it drops on my priority list behind other useful feats I can use basically all the time. And archers are strapped for feats...
I see where you are coming from, it's a reasonable concern. However, I've run a lot of numbers and I can assure you that unless you GM put you against an enemy of a much higher CR or an enemy specifically geared for being near unhittable, using deadly aim is always a good choice.
If you concentrate on stacking bonus to damage in a way or another and neglect your "to hit", such as making your bow flaming, shock, corrosive or anything fancier that a good ol' enhancement bonus, you will find yourself better off without deadly aim, but that would be a mistake in the first place.Deadly aim is generally good, one should ascertain on a case by case basis it's worth in those cases where doubt is legitimate: for example, if you have another player using aura of justice (so, extremely high bonus to damage and no bonus to attack) you are almost certainly better off without deadly aim. As a rule of thumb, use it unless you hit less than 25% of the time.
orizon Walker don't grant you any Favored Enemy. So you got to have Favored Enemy bonus do start with. Guide to grant you a Favored Enemy bonus. And you can't play a guide and multi class as a ranger.
I suppose you wanted to write that Guide DO NOT grant you a favored enemy bonus.
Yes. Edited my post.
I agree, I don't think guide archetype would work with this. If you lack any FE at all, you cannot use the spell to treat a creature as your non-existent FE.
As for 3E to PF...the Point Blank Master* and Clustered Shots feats, Manyshot now STACKING with your rapid shot routine, more feats in general + archery feats not getting split up like the maneuver ones did helping with massive feat starvation, and various classes getting IPS at level 6 instead of 11 all had a big impact on the effectiveness of archery. Deadly Aim was only a small part of the change in usefulness from 3E.
*Of course, if you had access to the splat book Arrow Mind spell, it was basically like Snap Shot + Point Blank Master all in one (except better; Snap Shot is adjacent, Arrow Mind let you threaten the entirety of your natural reach) and this point becomes invalid. Just noting to be fair.
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That's why I'd pick something for FE as narrow as utterly possible. Like FE Humanoid (Gnoll). ;)
So you are trying to not benefit from your FE bonus at all until about 10th level? Seems like a bad trade to me.
The point of this trick is to maximize the damage you do as often as possible, if you pick gnolls you are going to really $uck until 11th level then be awesome 1-2 a day. Pick something like human (and dump the rest of your FE choices into something you never see) allows you to be great about half the time and when you get Horizon Walker 3 or instant enemy you rock whenever you want.
Really, if you just take the Guide archetype you just rock ALL THE TIME (you get into HW faster, you always get your focus off when you want it, you never have to tank a FE bonus, it's just better all a round).
Remember, the Horizon Walker favored terrain bonus overwrites the Favored Enemy bonus (if it's better) all the time so it doesn't matter what your favored enemy choice is as long as it's terrain type matches your Favored Terrain.
Instant Enemy is for choosing Terrains not types.
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You all should actually read the Prestige class.
At 3rd level, a horizon walker learns total dominance over one terrain he has already selected for terrain mastery. When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures. This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy.
You don't NEED (or even want) a Favored enemy if you are going into the Horizon Walker Prestige Class. It gives you a better FE then rangers get AND gets a higher bonus faster too.
Really, if you just take the Guide archetype you just rock ALL THE TIME (you get into HW faster, you always get your focus off when you want it, you never have to tank a FE bonus, it's just better all a round).
Well, I play a Guide, I love it, but I think that it's better than vanilla ranger from level 1-10, after that the basic ranger is better, even only for the animal companion and evasion.
That's why I'd pick something for FE as narrow as utterly possible. Like FE Humanoid (Gnoll). ;)So you are trying to not benefit from your FE bonus at all until about 10th level? Seems like a bad trade to me.
The point of this trick is to maximize the damage you do as often as possible, if you pick gnolls you are going to really $uck until 11th level then be awesome 1-2 a day. Pick something like human (and dump the rest of your FE choices into something you never see) allows you to be great about half the time and when you get Horizon Walker 3 or instant enemy you rock whenever you want.
If I were doing HW, I'd be a Ranger 3 / Rogue 4 / HW 10 and have barely any FE bonus to speak of at all. It'd be about maximizing the Favored Terrain bonuses as much as possible. I'd have no spells, but still be able to use wands. I would purchase a wand of Instant Enemy. Since my actual FE bonus would only be +2, I don't particularly care about it. Far more important is selecting dominant terrains that I will encounter the most enemies possible from. So in that regard, ideally, my singular FE that exists solely to fuel Instant Enemy would be native to a terrain from whence many creatures spawn. But either way, you get 3 dominant terrains, the other 2 would certainly be chosen based on bulk.
Picking FE humans would just mean I'd get a +2 frequently. *shrug* Coordination w/ favored terrain is far more important than ever actually enjoying that tiny bonus.
What's the difference between archery in the two additions? The inclusion of the deadly aim feat. Ignore it at your own peril.
This! A thousand times, this. Deadly Aim does take away from your Attack roll, but it pays huge dividends when you're hitting with at least your first two attacks. Pump your DEX, buy some gloves and a belt to aid your Attack roll and yuu'll do well.
Kill the hu-mons!
You all should actually read the Prestige class.
At 3rd level, a horizon walker learns total dominance over one terrain he has already selected for terrain mastery. When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures. This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy.
You don't NEED (or even want) a Favored enemy if you are going into the Horizon Walker Prestige Class. It gives you a better FE then rangers get AND gets a higher bonus faster too.
Then Instant Enemy is useles.
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Then Instant Enemy is useles.You all should actually read the Prestige class.
At 3rd level, a horizon walker learns total dominance over one terrain he has already selected for terrain mastery. When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures. This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy.
You don't NEED (or even want) a Favored enemy if you are going into the Horizon Walker Prestige Class. It gives you a better FE then rangers get AND gets a higher bonus faster too.
Are you being intentionally obtuse?
Step 1: Pick one creature that is native to the terrain you have terrain mastery in. (let's say Human for Urban Terrain)
Step 2: Cast instant enemy against the target you are currently fighting and declare you consider it Human (this is valid since you have a favored enemy bonus against Humans)
Step 3: Apply your favored terrain bonus (+22 in this case)as a favored enemy bonus against that target (hit/damage/initiative/perception)
Step 3a: If you went guide then the following round (if it's still alive) declare it as your focus and add that bonus on top of the +22 you already have against it) and bring the pain again.
Remember, the only requirements IE has is that the target CANNOT be one of your favored enemies and that you "Select one of your favored enemy types".
Horizon walker treats EVERYTHING native to your chosen terrain as one of your favored enemies.
Inheriting arbitrary properties like native terrain as a result of using Instant Enemy is incredibly dubious. There are tons of properties that creature types have that are far better defined in the rules than "native terrain", and inheriting them makes things incredibly... ambiguous. Some of them are benign-ish, easy to read into RAW, and kind of cool - Instant Enemy (Undead) would let you use anti-undead material against the enemy. Some are - while still being a thousand times more RAW than inheriting native terrain - pretty ludicrous.
A fey has a good Will save. An Animal has a poor will save. If you Instant Enemy a fey creature into an animal, does that mean that you recalculate its will and fort saves for your purposes? After all, you're treating the Fey as an animal for all purposes, and "low will save" is an actual rule about a property animals have written directly into RAW, unlike native terrain. (Individual creatures have native terrains, but creature types do not.)
This last one is more of a stratch, but let's hope that whatever you used Instant Enemy (Humanoid (Aquatic)) on has the amphibious subtype, because otherwise now it's drowning. Or rather, you treat the target as if it can't breathe air. Whatever that means.
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Inheriting arbitrary properties like native terrain as a result of using Instant Enemy is incredibly dubious. There are tons of properties that creature types have that are far better defined in the rules than "native terrain", and inheriting them makes things incredibly... ambiguous. Some of them are benign-ish, easy to read into RAW, and kind of cool - Instant Enemy (Undead) would let you use anti-undead material against the enemy. Some are - while still being a thousand times more RAW than inheriting native terrain - pretty ludicrous.
A fey has a good Will save. An Animal has a poor will save. If you Instant Enemy a fey creature into an animal, does that mean that you recalculate its will and fort saves for your purposes? After all, you're treating the Fey as an animal for all purposes, and "low will save" is an actual rule about a property animals have written directly into RAW, unlike native terrain. (Individual creatures have native terrains, but creature types do not.)
This last one is more of a stratch, but let's hope that whatever you used Instant Enemy (Humanoid (Aquatic)) on has the amphibious subtype, because otherwise now it's drowning. Or rather, you treat the target as if it can't breathe air. Whatever that means.
None of this has anything to do with the discussion and is completely out of left field. NOTHING in the Instant Enemy spell or the Favored Enemy/Terrain powers states that it changes the target in any way.
Treating something as a low will save animal doesn't actually change it's will save or force it to breathe water if you treat it as aquatic. The spell has a target but it only places an EFFECT on YOU.The ONLY thing this spell does is allow YOU to treat the target as a different type for your favored enemy and effect it with YOUR abilities.
Translation, you can use your favored enemy bonus on it as well as cast spells on it that affect that type of critter even if the target would normally be immune to it.
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Then Instant Enemy is useles.You all should actually read the Prestige class.
At 3rd level, a horizon walker learns total dominance over one terrain he has already selected for terrain mastery. When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures. This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy.
You don't NEED (or even want) a Favored enemy if you are going into the Horizon Walker Prestige Class. It gives you a better FE then rangers get AND gets a higher bonus faster too.
Are you being intentionally obtuse?
Step 1: Pick one creature that is native to the terrain you have terrain mastery in. (let's say Human for Urban Terrain)
Step 2: Cast instant enemy against the target you are currently fighting and declare you consider it Human (this is valid since you have a favored enemy bonus against Humans)
Step 3: Apply your favored terrain bonus (+22 in this case)as a favored enemy bonus against that target (hit/damage/initiative/perception)
Step 3a: If you went guide then the following round (if it's still alive) declare it as your focus and add that bonus on top of the +22 you already have against it) and bring the pain again.
Remember, the only requirements IE has is that the target CANNOT be one of your favored enemies and that you "Select one of your favored enemy types".
Horizon walker treats EVERYTHING native to your chosen terrain as one of your favored enemies.
intentionally obtuse? Drop the hostile attitude will you.
If you are right, then fine. My gut feeling tells me this is not the intention of the rules.
I will hit the FAQ. The spell is called instant enemy, not instant terrain.
But if terrain = FE and FE = terrain, then any creature belonging to a terrain you have chosen can't be targeted by your spell since it is already a FE since it already belongs to a terrain you have chosen.
The art of having A = B it when you can profit from it, but not having A = B when you don't profit from it, have always struck me a cheesy.
There are sane GMs?Have you considered the spells Abundant Ammunition and Named Bullet?
To my way of reading, it appears that they should stack, and it wouldn't be too expensive to build an item that was constantly under the effects of abundant ammunition. Meaning you could essentially make a single casting of Named bullet reusable (although only as many times per round as you'd cast Named Bullet).
I was totally sure that it didn't work, I checked and by RAW it seems to me that all the arrows are affected by named bullet.
...
Ok, I had a nice dream where I used this combo. Now I can go back to reality and forget it, since no sane GM would allow it.
Unfortunately yes. I tried mentioning it yesterday evening but my GM just laughed and said no. The kind of no that remind you that an asteroid can always fall on your head and kill you, no matter how powerful you are.