I was recently looking over the Ranger class, trying to come up with ideas for a character idea for a future campaign, when I ran into an confusing situation that I'm not really sure how best to resolve.
The Guide archetype for the Ranger class replaces an ability called Hunter's Bond (which gives the Ranger's Favored Enemy bonus to the Ranger's allies or gives it an animal companion) with an ability called Terrain Bond (which gives the Ranger's allies bonuses within the Ranger's favored terrains).
However, what do you do if you want to use the Guide archetype, but you are also using another archetype that replaces Favored Terrain, since Terrain Bond does nothing without a Favored Terrain?
For a second, I thought that, maybe, a GM could rule that Terrain Bond just doesn't get replaced and you retain Hunter's Bond, but one part of Hunter's Bond depends on Favored Enemy, which the Guide archetype replaces with an ability called Ranger's Focus! So you'd be stuck with just an Animal Companion, which I know isn't a load, but not everyone wants an Animal Companion.
Is there a way to resolve this situation, because if there isn't, 4th level can potentially be a dead level (if you also have an archetype that replaces spell casting).
PS. As a point of reference, the character idea I was working with was a Guide/Skrimisher/Shapeshifer Ranger for a werewolf character.
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That's part of the cost of picking archetypes; you gotta give something to get something. Some combos don't work very well because one will give up a class feature that the other expands on.
Yeah, your GM could waive it, but you can't always get everything. Unless you play Gestalt, but that's just asking for a headache [in my book, anyway].