Check out the player's guide. They put lists for rangers in them for recommended favored enemies without giving spoilers.
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Play a guide; they always get value out of it. Or at level 10 go Instant Enemy, and start with Human; there's always people about.
Honestly you want to ALWAYS choose Human as your first favored enemy in every AP. It's the most common opponent type in the game and is the #1 encounter type for non-combat situations (shopping, gather information, negotiation & law enforcement).
The better question you should ask is who should you pick for your second favored enemy?
@Thalin
i looked up the guide, but in my opinion the ranger loses more than he gains by choosing to be a guide. The loss of evasion for example is painful. In addition i would lose the animal companion.
@Mathwei
I thought as much :)
But my GM told me, that only an evil ranger can take human as FE.So what would be your recommendation regarding the second favored enemy?
My Kingmaker elven ranger went with fey. It is a choice based on background, along with my trait, Treerazer's Bane. The choice has served me well. The added damage helps when you don't have cold iron weapons to overcome fey DR.
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@Thalin
i looked up the guide, but in my opinion the ranger loses more than he gains by choosing to be a guide. The loss of evasion for example is painful. In addition i would lose the animal companion.
@Mathwei
I thought as much :)
But my GM told me, that only an evil ranger can take human as FE.So what would be your recommendation regarding the second favored enemy?
I reccomend that your GM stop looking at 3.0 rules and get with the 10 year old change that removes the completely assanine requirement of being evil.
Favored Enemy is horribly named. They are creatures you have studied, not hate.
I'd say Human, at least for the first adventure, is the way to go. We are probably 2/3 of the way done, and more than half the fights have involved humans, usually of the bandit persuasion. And unless Kingmaker is totally unusual, I'm sure you can find plenty of humans to use it on in every other book.
Fey probably wouldn't hurt as your second fav enemy given the tone of the campaign, as others have mentioned.
Pick something that is logical to your background...
Sure, Human is always a good one, but if you're a hunter it will most likely be "animal".. If you're a bounty hunter, might be "human" and if you're a bodyguard/merc it depends on the region where you are a lot.
People, look at it like favored terrain.. PIck something that is logical, and learn to live without the bonus...
And REJOICE when you finally get that bonus ^^
Honestly you want to ALWAYS choose Human as your first favored enemy in every AP.
In Rise if the Runelords you are probably a lot better off with choosing humanoid (giant), except for the first third of the AP.
I would suggest choosing your first FE based on the character's background, and then choosing future FE's based on the challenges you have faced in the adventure.
I would suggest choosing your first FE based on the character's background, and then choosing future FE's based on the challenges you have faced in the adventure.
What he said.. And what I said ^^
Just makes more sense that your next would be "Fey" if you had trouble fighting them... Or "Animal" if you encounter quite a lot of them..(Perhaps keep track of which ones you kill?)
The fey hint is rather useful, thanks.
Until i get my second FE, i can stack some cold iron arrows for emergencies. ;)If you have some other, more general tipps regarding an efficient ranger build, all help is greatly appreciated. I was going for treantmonks "switch hitter" build.
I found the two-handed-weapon approach rather interesting, especially with the shield of swings-feat. This is a great tactical feat, if survival is more important at some point than massive damage.
A +4 shield AC bonus is not bad at all :)
I thought about taking it at Level 3. I think an AC of 23 is not bad for a shieldless ranger.
Any thoughts?
Of course feys will feature quite prominently among your enemies, but also among your allies and frankly, none of them was a serious threat HP/damage-wise. Get a decent cold iron (back up?) weapon.
This was also discussed elsewhere in this subforum, where someone who had apparently played more or less the whole AP recommended: human, undead, evil outsiders and then constructs. I will propably take evil outsiders as third, but constructs is to "meta" for me, unless it developes naturally. Didn´t really see the point of undead, i have to say, though i think i should have by now.I´d strongly recommend giants for second FE, your character will propably pretty soon hear why or at least in time , but TALK TO YOUR GM !
Big fan of Shield of swings,too, absolutely great, other than that:
PowerAttack, Cleave, Furious Focus!, Vital Strike ( with a greatsword at least + leaden blades and for ranged attacks + gravity bow).
Have fun
I think we are about half way through book 2 in kingmaker, but haven't seen any fey yet. It's weird.
Mostly they are quite deep in the forest, later in the AP and the first you´ll propably encounter are of the purposefully annoying kind, so maybe your DM skipped them.
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I think we are about half way through book 2 in kingmaker, but haven't seen any fey yet. It's weird.
I know what you mean and you still have a ways to go.
Trust me on this, Fey should be the last Favored Enemy you take for this AP (if you even take it at all).
My personal recommendation for favored enemy order is pretty straightforward
1st; Human (dump every level advance into it)
2nd; Undead
3rd; Giant or Magical Beast or Fey
To get the most from FE bonus you want to maximize the opportunities to use it so really only worry about your first and second choices, they are the important ones.
Kingmaker (and most AP's) have a dirty half-dozen of creatures that you will run into the most and are usually the sources of conflict that you will need that bonus the most.
The best options will always include these choices and choosing anything else is a big risk to you. Here's the list in the order it is HIGHLY recommended
1st Human (You deal with these at the beginning of any AP 80% of the time and will ALWAYS be a part of high level play)
2nd Undead (The second highest concentration of creature in the Beastiary, expect to see them reasonably often)
3rd Magical Beast (these are mid level challenge creatures and high level pet creatures for the BBEG. Expect them at least twice per book from 3rd book and on)
4th Evil Outsider (Come on, do I really need to explain this one?)
5th Construct (this is a corner case, you will only really see them in high level games with a spellcaster BBEG. I recommend it for the FE bonus to knowledge's and to help with the DR)
6th Aberration (a catch all category that ranges all across the CR spectrum. Never a early choice but towards end game expect to run into them a lot)
Now there are several Iconic choices I would say you should NEVER take as a Ranger you will regret them within 2 levels of taking them.
Why did I pick these as bad choices? Easy answer, frequency of encounter.
Each of these four choices only occupy a very narrow window of character level and you will rarely if ever get that bonus again.
Animal (from 1-3 a great challenge, after that you will either never see them or using your bonus on them will be the worst kind of overkill, wasted)
Humanoid (other than Human or Giant) (these last longer then animal but they rarely if ever continue to provide enough have of a challenge or occur in high enough numbers that you will need any extra bonus to defeat them)
Dragon (these are strictly late game challenges and at most occur 1-3 times over a whole AP. By the time you encounter one you SHOULD have instant enemy so it's pointless to bother taking one as a FE)
Fey (Worst of the Worst choice. Even in Kingmaker these are either so rare as to never get the chance to use this FE bonus OR they are so weak you laugh and run through them like wet cardboard).
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Hi,
we played yesterday, and i have to say it was the worst session i ever had. My first char died a painful story-death(i was switching characters from a non-combat cleric to the ranger we discussed) and then my ranger was killed in the first battle.
*Warning: spoilers*
We entered the lost temple of Erastil to fight the guardian (a pseudo-direbear).
My charge missed and despite my ok AC of 19 i was hit for 7 points of damage. Next 2 rounds i missed too. In the following round i rolled a fumble, draw a card from the fumble deck and my armor was damaged. In the same round the DM rolled a 20(crit) and a 19 for the attacks made by the bear.
So i took 31 points of damage, and was instantly killed.That was a great start. :( (fortunately the DM found a way to revive me)
Now i'm thinkig about revising the char. I took power attack and cleave as my first 2 feats. Maybe i should replace cleave with shield of swings?
In the situation above this feat would not have saved me, but it increases the chance of survival in other, less brutal battles.
What do you think?
Should i switch the second feat from Cleave to Shield of swings?
Thanx!
EDIT: Thank you for the tipps regarding FE. I took human, and undead will be next. :)
Yes, I know that Bear well. He's fun to throw at a party and watch em run.
You have Treantmonks guide, follow it, that's 90% of everything you need right there.
The rest is tactics, fill your target with Arrows until it comes to you THEN you melee it.
Tough luck, the guardian-bear was also responsible for our first death.
Cleave is obviously for fights against two or more enemies at once, preferably low-powered. Shield of swings gets really interesting later, when you deal so much damage, that even with it, your hurting somebody.
I´d rather change Cleave for Furious Focus, to improve the chances of your power-attack actually connecting, though this also gets more interesting with power-attack -2. Maybe best to take it at third level and pick shield of swings as combat-style feat next level.
Edit: oh right, switchhitter is supposed to take Archery as combat-style
1st; Human (dump every level advance into it)
2nd; Undead
3rd; Giant or Magical Beast or Fey2nd Undead (The second highest concentration of creature in the Beastiary, expect to see them reasonably often)
4th Evil Outsider (Come on, do I really need to explain this one?)
Have to say i´m still not convinced about undead, for this AP, that is.
Care to explain, because
As for the evil outsiders, V.´s piscodaemon convinced me already, but could you elaborate none the less? Without spoilers;)
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1st; Human (dump every level advance into it)
2nd; Undead
3rd; Giant or Magical Beast or Fey2nd Undead (The second highest concentration of creature in the Beastiary, expect to see them reasonably often)
4th Evil Outsider (Come on, do I really need to explain this one?)
Have to say i´m still not convinced about undead, for this AP, that is.
Care to explain, because ** spoiler omitted **
Well I'll break this answer into two parts.
First is generic AP answer. EVERY AP will have numerous undead encounters at various levels. Whether skeleton/zombies at low level up through Liches and Vampires at high level play. They are the most common entry in the Beastiary, over the largest CR range and with the standard suite of powers they have the FE bonus is really going to make a difference against them.
Actually the first undead you meet is in book 1 at nettles crossing where you meet Davik Nettles.
In book 2 you need to clear out the Lonely Barrows which is FILLED with Undead.
Book 3 is all about Vordakai and all his Dread Zombies.
4th Book is a bit light but you have the Bog Mummies & Bloody Skeletal Champions.
In book 5 you have the Gardner (your most dangerous Undead opponent) as well as the Warsworn Siege Towers.
In book 6 all the guards in Nyrissa's mansion are ghosts.
This is just the minimum number of undead you'll meet before factoring in the Cleric/Wizards who have animate dead in their spell lists and the random encounter the DM drops at you. Undead are always a safe choice to pick. You are guaranteed to meet them at least once in every book of every AP. Should they be your first choice, nope and you can leave the bonus on them low. But it's a good bet that you will never look back and say you never run into them and it was a waste of a FE choice.
Really what we are recommending for FE's is NOT where it's going to maximize your damage the most. It's all about increasing the chances to use your bonus the most.
Would you rather use your bonus on all of book 2 of an AP and then never use it again or would you rather have it for 20% of every book of every AP made?