I'm going to start a campaign that take place mostly in hell and his layers.
One of the player want to do a ranger and, by rules, he can just take "Hell" as a favored terrain and be good wherever he go in hell.
This just don't seem right to me, the layers of hell are vastly different from each others, and they also have city.
Are there some rules i don't know regarding this kind of thing?
Thanks in advice for any help.
Good question. If yes, because it is a single plane, then why not "the prime material" because it is a single plane?
You could always ask him how many times his character has been to Hell before hand.
By RAW, yes, he would be allowed to pick "Hell" as a favored terrain and gain the appropriate bonuses regardless of which layer the group is on.
If you want to be more strict than that and go for a little more realism... well, you are the DM. Your way or the highway.
I am running almost the exact same scenario. I have a party of 17th level characters that are working their way layer by layer through Hell now. One of the players is a ranger and he has maxed out Hell as his favored terrain (and evil outsiders as his favored enemy).
I have let him use it in almost every instance, but if I feel that he's in a terrain that is more specific than being generally Hellish I restrict the bonus. For example, the city of Dis applied his bonus to urban environments because it was more urban than Hellish. You might consider allowing half his bonus in very specific less-Hellish environments.
But in general I let the bonus apply most of time and so far it hasn't been unbalancing. It just means his character is particularly alert in this environment. His companions are a celestial sorcerer, a half-orc paladin, and a CG human cleric.
My feeling is that having these bonuses helps keep him on par with the spellcasters and the paladin who are all insanely powerful at this level.
So my advice is let it apply. It's not going to make him overpowered and it will allow him to excel in exactly the places that a ranger should (fast reactions, high perception, stealth, and survival/tracking).
Remember that unless he's lawful evil Hell is also applying a penalty to Int, Wis, and Cha checks which will counter many of his Favored Terrain bonuses (Perception, Know (geography), and Survival). Unless of course he has a cleric friend available to cast Planar Adaptation everyday like mine does.
Good luck with this, our campaign has been a blast so far.
Thanks to all for the advice! After all that you said i think i will let him do it unless him being in some specific area.
I am running almost the exact same scenario. cut...
That's interesting!Do you any other advice for me? It's an intriguing setting but it's my first planar adventure so any warning from more experienced master are welcome!
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One important pint you'll need to watch out for if you do do this. Make sure your Ranger isn't preparing to go Horizon Walker Prestige Class. If he is you are going to be in for a a world of pain once his bonuses kick in.
His terrain dominance ability will let him add that stacking bonus to hit, damage, perception and initiative (+20 is doable) against every creature you throw at him. He'll never be surprised always go first and every attack will ignore the targets DR.
He'll be a murder machine against everything on that plane.
Be careful.
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Well since you asked :)
The most important thing I've found so far is to not treat Hell as one monolithic den of villainy with a common purpose. In each layer there need to be factions with conflicting agendas (this duke wants the other duke's territory or harbors a grudge of some kind) and so on. Also conflicts between layers can be food for much adventure and intrigue. These factions may want to manipulate, bargain with, or outright help the PCs if they are moving against one of their political enemies within Hell. Otherwise your adventures will become repetitive battles against a single empire.
Also don't be afraid to have large numbers of non-lawful evil encounters. Visitors from other planes, mercenaries hired by a duke of Hell, celestial or demonic spies, and so on. I have almost as many neutral evil bad guys roaming around Hell as lawful evil, the idea being that these neutral evil creatures are just one step away from belonging so Hell encourages them to visit in the hopes of winning them over to a lawful evil perspective.
Also remember the environment, part of the fun of adventuring in Hell is that Hell is vastly different from the Prime Material plane. So try to find ways to use the environment to make travel and combat unique (fireballs falling from the sky, poison gases erupting from the ground, etc).
Along those lines is the issue of travel magic. If your plan is a quest through Hell it can be made way too easy by spells like plane shift and teleport. In my campaign I decided that each layer is considered a separate plane for purposes of plane shift (so they need a special rod attuned to each layer to be able to plane shift to it) and that no one can teleport from one layer to another layer unless they have already been to that layer. So once the party reaches a layer for the first time they attune a rod to it, they can also then teleport back to anywhere they've already been and return to their current position.
Also because of the endless hordes of enemies that are ahead of them stealth has been important in my campaign. To aid in that I have a houserule that modifies the aid another action with regard to skills. I let the best member of the party make a skill check with a -2 penalty for each creature that he is aiding. The people he aids then only need to make a DC 10 check to use the result of the primary skill user. That usually winds up being my ranger helping the paladin, cleric, and sorceror with stealth checks, but it also applies to climbing and other reasonable activities. This way the investment of a few points in stealth (or other skill) is still worthwhile (the paladin has a natural stealth bonus of -3 due to armor check penalty) without requiring them to spend everything they have to be mildly competent.
My players have shown no interest in prestige classes because they like the base Pathfinder classes so much, so I can't help you there, but do watch out for extremely Hell specific combos and don't be afraid to say no to something that will affect the enjoyment of the other party members.
Hope that helps. If I think of anything else I'll post it here.
Well since you asked :)
Thank you very much!
These are some very good advice!
Regarding the magic travel i orginally thought to make something planescape-like (i recently started reading the setting and i love it, still using the pathfinder cosmology anyway) so that plane shift simply don't work and the group have to found and use a portal to move to one layer to another (or from a plane to another); but i really like your idea so i migh reconsider it :), i was also wondering how to handle "the endless hordes of enemies" and you solved my problem!.
Thanks again!