Ranger and the Hateful Rager

[Major_Blackhart]

Hey, I'm wondering about the viability of a multiclass of these two, but the thing that jumps to mind most is does the Ranger's favored enemy stack with the Hateful Rager's?
I would think yes, but I'm not really certain. The reason that I'm not certain is that they're derived from different origins. I Hateful rager utilizes his hatred, anger, and fury to focus and make him more brutal and effective against those enemy types. A Ranger has practiced hunting them to the point where he knows their weaknesses.
I didn't see anything explicitly written in the rules one way or another about it, so I'm wondering if the two favored enemy rules stack.

If they do stack, then my next question is to what level?
What I mean is, if they stack, does that mean that the powers a barbarian has stacks with them? (i.e. the bonuses to Intimidating Glare) and can he pass the favored enemy bonuses on to his allies i.e. Hunter's Bond? If so, it would appear that taking a Ranger to 6 then doing the rest with Hateful Rager might be a bit nasty, but I'm unsure how it would all work out on paper. I'd have to work out the mechanics a bit more, but if the favored enemy rules stack, then there's a good possibility you could have a really damaging character on your hands. I dunno know for certain tho.

[Seriphim84]

Careful with the hateful rager archetype. I don't know if they stack (i think they do but have no evidence) but with poorly selected types, you can murder your own party.

[Cheapy]

I don't think they'd stack as they are the same ability. Even if there was some strange rule that let them work, I sort of doubt it was the intent of the author.

[Grick]

Cheapy wrote:

I don't think they'd stack as they are the same ability.

Doesn't it kind of depend on what he means by stacking?

There's adding the levels of both classes together for purposes of determining how the ability works, and there's having both abilities apply independently of each other.

If you have Barbarian(2) Favored Enemy (Ex) undead, and Ranger(1) Favored Enemy (Ex) undead, those bonuses are untyped, so wouldn't you get +4 against undead?

And if you are Barbarian(2) FE Undead and Ranger(5) FE Undead and Dragon, you would get +6 against undead and +2 against dragons.

I don't think there's any way that you add your Barbarian and Ranger levels together to determine FE bonuses, especially since they have different upgrade paths, but just treating them like two completely separate abilities seems reasonable.

[Cheapy]

I was referring to the first case, where you have favored enemy (undead) from both and are trying to get +4 against them.

I'll see about poking the author on this question.

[David knott 242]

Maybe they could stack in the sense of counting occurrences of the ability? In that case, a Hateful Rager 2/Ranger 5 would have 3 occurrences of that ability and thus would have favored enemy bonuses equivalent to those of a 10th level ranger.

If they don't stack, then the character gets the initial +2 bonus 3 times and then adds an additional +2 (for a total of +4) to any one of the three selected favored enemies, since the initial +2 in the second class requires you to pick a new favored enemy and not add +2 to the existing favored enemy bonus.

[Grick]

David knott 242 wrote:

If they don't stack, then the character gets the initial +2 bonus 3 times and then adds an additional +2 (for a total of +4) to any one of the three selected favored enemies, since the initial +2 in the second class requires you to pick a new favored enemy and not add +2 to the existing favored enemy bonus.

I don't really understand what you're saying here.

If the class levels don't stack, but the bonuses you get do, then a barbarian2/ranger5 would get +2 from barbarianFE, and +4 from RangerFE, for a total of +6 against that FE, assuming the first one chosen by ranger and barbarian is the same.

[Major_Blackhart]

Alright, I asked a good one.
So then nobody really knows for certain if they are treated as the same ability and progress normally (i.e. You select human at ranger, and it's treated as if you selected human with hateful rager already and must select something else), if they are separate abilities and the bonuses stack (i.e. human for ranger and human for rager and the bonuses stack), or they are separate abilities and treated separately (i.e. the worst case scenario type one where you choose human for Rager and Human for Ranger and only get a +2).

I want to avoid that last one at all costs, because it gives you no reason to take the Ranger for a Hateful Rager Barbarian.

Has anyone found out what the developers have said on this matter? In any situation with similar abilities in other classes?

[Major_Blackhart]

I hate to be a pain and bump, but I am wondering about this one still, and I'd rather not have a DM rule on it.

Does anyone know how to bug a developer enough to get them to answer it definitively?

I did a quick check, and I think that, rules wise, it's the same ability. Both are called favored enemy, and function similarly enough to be considered the same thing.
The only difference is that Hateful Rager makes that class's favored enemy function differently than the Ranger when Raging, and then only slightly.
Other than that, despite the fact that they are derived from different perspectives background wise (hate vs preferred quarry), RAW I think they're essentially the same. Meaning that the Barbarian's Favored enemy is simply the next step in the Favored enemy tier.

Still, I'd love to get a dev's opinion on the matter.

[Frustaro]

Most probably since some bonuses never stack they will not. So that barbarian 2 ranger 5 would have +4 / +2, so he better took another enemy.
This is my opinion as GM and for what I know of rules and how they generally work.

[Grick]

Major_Blackhart wrote:

Does anyone know how to bug a developer enough to get them to answer it definitively?

For a proper official response, click the FAQ request button.

Depending on how official you need it to be, and what you consider "dev" to encompass, you can ask James Jacobs in the "Ask JJ anything" thread, which he responds to regularly.

[Major_Blackhart]

Cool, thanks. Did the FAQ button at the top of the thread.
Is there some rate at which they release FAQ's or is it just whenever?

[Cheapy]

Ok! Made good on my promise. I asked the author about his original intent. Unfortunately, this was off forums, so I can't just link to it :) Originally, they stacked in levels, but used the slower progression. So a level 2 ranger / level 2 hateful rager would have 4 levels, but wouldn't get a second favor enemy until their combined levels were 8, since that's the slower progression. This got slashed in development, and now there's nothing really addressing it.

[Cheapy]

Major_Blackhart wrote:

Cool, thanks. Did the FAQ button at the top of the thread.

Is there some rate at which they release FAQ's or is it just whenever?

It's basically whenever. For reference, I made a post once that got 78+ FAQs (not sure why. it was hardly an important question.) and it took about 10 months for a FAQ about it to hit. So it may be a while :)