Favored Enemy, as I understand it, represents A) your hatred for a certain race/creature and B) the amount of research you've done, because of that hatred, on how to kill said creature.
Though, I've never really liked how restricting the Favored Enemy trait can be. In my last campaign, we made it to 7th level and I ended up taking "Animal" and "Undead" because that's what we were fighting at the time. But after about 3rd level, we stopped seeing animal-type enemies. And the Undead-type enemies only lasted a couple of sessions.
This just really irks me. In my opinion, the Ranger ought to have some other (similar) ability. Take for example, the 'Instant Enemy' spell for 3rd level Rangers. If this was, instead, a Class Ability that let you declare a single creature-type as you Favored enemy a day (a number of times equal to your level + Wis or Int?), it might be a bit easier for the Ranger to get along with the Fighters and Rogues of the party.
Though, I'd probably increase the bonuses of the Spell-turned-ability to match the original Favored Enemy ability.
Thoughts?
Instant Enemy Spell
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/spells/instantEnemy.html
The ranger starts a "spellbook" or creaturs he has defeated in combat, and studies it to keep his edge. The notes on goblins and orcs only take a page apiece, ogres and driders take a few, and demons and dinosaurs take several. Okay, maybe thats just crazy talk...
What about the ranger spends 8 hours stalking his intended foes - watching their habits and looking for weaknesses. Att the end of this time, he chooses one or more creatures or creature types, depending on his level? Sound like a lot of work!
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I like Favored Enemy as-is, but it can be irksome if your GM isn't working with you, or uses a large variety of creatures.
A new item from the ACG might give an interesting solution. The Bloodstained Gloves let you deal extra attack/damage versus creatures of a certain type that you've soaked the fingers in blood for.
Expanding that, perhaps allowing the Ranger to set a Favored Enemy after fighting a creature would be worthwhile.
EX, you fight a zombie. After fighting the zombie for a round, or killing it, whichever comes first, you adapt your fighting style to better fight it. For the next 24 hours, your Favored Enemy is Undead.
The progression proceeds as normal, except you can choose how much of your FE bonus to allocate at any one time. EX you fight said zombie, and have a +6 FE, a +4, and a +2. You can choose to apply any of the 3 to Undead, in case you expect to fight, say, dragons more often later, you can save your +6 for the big enemy that day.
It's still dependent on planning, but more on a day-to-day basis than a campaign-long interval.
I would then disallow Instant Enemy...but perhaps instead allow a spell like Know The Enemy to let you apply Favored Enemy bonuses to a creature you make a Knowledge check for instead.
Unlike Instant Enemy it can't be used in combat (1 minute casting time), and allows the Ranger to use his stealth and tracking skills (or his companion's scrying or something) to adapt his fighting style to an enemy he knows a lot about, but hasn't faced in combat today.
Quite honestly, it fits the flavor of a Ranger in my head more. Rather than being a super racist, essentially, he is simply a master of fighting all manner of creatures, and need only switch up his fighting style to better take them down.
Design Manager
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it's a powerful ability.
what if, in exchange for taking away the bonus to attack (but keep the bonus to damage), we allowed the ranger to retrain his favored enemy at some interval?
like, after a week of study, he can re-assign the slots?
This, and what Rynjin suggested, are excellent paths towards ways to make this ability a little easier to use. Allowing the Ranger to redesignate his Favored Enemy after successfully tracking and/or combating a creature of the type he wants to change to would be appropriate.
Also, the categories as currently divided are stupid. I can take Favored Enemy (Undead) and gain bonuses against ghosts, vampires, and zombies (all drastically different creatures with different strengths, weaknesses, and tactics), but I need separate training for each of elves, humans, orcs, dwarves, gnomes, etc. Really? An incorporeal ghost has more in common with a blood drinking vampire than humans and orcs have in common with each other? I'm fairly certain that every half-orc ever would disagree.
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You have just insulted every living dwarf by your insinuation that they can be hunted like a common elf.
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Design Manager
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You have just insulted every living dwarf by your insinuation that they can be hunted like a common elf.
And yet knowing how to fight a dwarf is completely different from knowing how to fight a gnome... If nothing else there should be much broader categories like a humanoid (shortfolk/stoutfolk) that includes dwarves, gnomes, halflings and related species, and a humanoid (tallfolk) with elves, humans, orcs, etc.
Though really, all humanoids have hearts, livers, knees, eyes, need to breathe, need to eat, etc., and so have much more in common with each other than a ghost has with a zombie, or even than a vampire has with a vargouille.
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Well I for one believe that Octopi and Squid have more in common with aberrations than they do with cows.
Favored Enemy, as I understand it, represents A) your hatred for a certain race/creature and B) the amount of research you've done, because of that hatred, on how to kill said creature.
Though, I've never really liked how restricting the Favored Enemy trait can be. In my last campaign, we made it to 7th level and I ended up taking "Animal" and "Undead" because that's what we were fighting at the time. But after about 3rd level, we stopped seeing animal-type enemies. And the Undead-type enemies only lasted a couple of sessions.
This just really irks me. In my opinion, the Ranger ought to have some other (similar) ability. Take for example, the 'Instant Enemy' spell for 3rd level Rangers. If this was, instead, a Class Ability that let you declare a single creature-type as you Favored enemy a day (a number of times equal to your level + Wis or Int?), it might be a bit easier for the Ranger to get along with the Fighters and Rogues of the party.
Though, I'd probably increase the bonuses of the Spell-turned-ability to match the original Favored Enemy ability.
Thoughts?
Instant Enemy Spell
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/spells/instantEnemy.html
Many GM's will help a player out by letting them know what types of enemies will be showing up the most
I do like the idea of retraining favored enemies. I might add it as a house rule.
Maybe something like "at every at which you would gain a new favored enemy you may change all of your favored enemies". I would spell it out better for an actual game, but I think the intention is clear enough for his discussion.
I actually hate "at x level you may switch out y" mostly because it forces a need to level to do an exchange. I prefer retraining, but for level abilities I think it would be better suited if they were replaced with an actual time such as day, week, or month, but that's just a particular nitpick.
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another idea,
there are up to five favored enemy slots: +2, +4, +6, +8, +10
a ranger can perform one of three actions to advance a favored enemy slot
1) Study independently for a week (succeed on a Knowledge check)
2) Track it and study it for a day (succeed on a Survival check)
3) Defeat it in combat (this may be repeated)
he may retard a step at will, in order to make room for other creatures to occupy the slot
edit: btw i think it's important to remember to trade out power for versatility - take away the bonus to hit, keep the bonuses to everything else. let's not get that lost in the discussion.
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I'll say it right now, I hate Favored Enemy. Its limited in a way that makes me feel like a racist serial killer if I choose humanoid and I need to know at least some meta knowledge to make it worthwhile or really hope that the GM uses a few kinds of enemies very often. If you're in the long haul it gets worse.
But I'm very biased against the Ranger. I dislike it for a lot of thematic reasons.
I like the Monster Lore abilitiy much better in terms of being a beast hunger type of character. If I had my way Ranger would get monster lore and if he correctly identifies a creature's weakness he'd get buffs.
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I really like the ranger's favored enemy ability. The slayer has the easy to use version of it, but it's just so boring to me to have something that gives you a small effect constantly rather than a huge boost in the right circumstances. The ranger also doesn't need to be fighting a favored enemy to be effective, he has a lot of other stuff going for him. When you find an evil outsider or undead or aberration and start hitting them with +6 to attack and damage rolls, that's much more rewarding to me than having a +1 or +2 against everything.
While I'm all about persuing new directions, I find myself - somewhat to my surprise - in agreement with DocShock. Don't get me wrong, I think some of the groupings are downright silly and could use some retooling.
I like some of the concepts above, though I'd make it a part of the skirmisher archetype (spell-less ranger). A new talent requiring a knowledge check to temporarily substitute in a favored enemy would be ideal, at a reduced value, since normally only Rangers with spell-lists can do so, which, in my opinion, means most Rangers don't need the extra help (ie you wanna switch your FE bonus, select the spell).
My opinions, of course.
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Design Manager
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While I'm all about persuing new directions, I find myself - somewhat to my surprise - in agreement with DocShock. Don't get me wrong, I think some of the groupings are downright silly and could use some retooling.
I like some of the concepts above, though I'd make it a part of the skirmisher archetype (spell-less ranger). A new talent requiring a knowledge check to temporarily substitute in a favored enemy would be ideal, at a reduced value, since normally only Rangers with spell-lists can do so, which, in my opinion, means most Rangers don't need the extra help (ie you wanna switch your FE bonus, select the spell).
My opinions, of course.
A skirmisher variant of Instant Enemy using Knowledge checks or something similar would be cool. And (as mentioned above) very much agreed that the groupings need a retooling. If nothing else, Humanoid needs to be collapsed into 1 or 2 categories so it's not 12 different groupings.
If nothing else, Humanoid needs to be collapsed into 1 or 2 categories so it's not 12 different groupings.
I agree 100%. In a way, it's already separated into Humanoid and Monstrous Humanoid. So many of them are blankets, as you point out above, that I find it interesting only two groups are split up like this (Humanoid & Outsiders).
One could argue that it is due to the number of creatures in these groups; one could argue, as well, that groups such as Aberrations, Fey, and Undead are just as large. If this argument holds true, then the divide in these two groups is based on, what? They ran out of options and split these two as filler?
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Aberration (squares)
Aberration (circles)
Aberration (triangles)
Fey (pink)
Fey (purple)
Fey (green)
Undead (sad)
Undead (angry)
Undead (hungry)
good luck with breaking those down further.
i remember a ranger thread that had actually done the opposite - further consolidated the lists - which again i think is a good fix that is on the table IF AND ONLY IF the power of favored enemy is scaled back.
proposal 2:
consolidate the list to 8 types of FE (as the thread does)
remove the FE bonus to hit
keep FE bonus to damage, but make it special precision damage (does not crit-multiply) - 'special' as in yes it applies to oozes and non-discernable anatomies
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Just to clarify...I know of nowhere in the book where it defines the Ranger's 'Favored Enemy' as the Ranger hating a certain group of creatures. One could easily interpret it as the Ranger is just more knowledgeable when operating against a particular group of enemies.
Also, I am pretty sure all Ranger's do not hate their Favored Terrain...just sayin...
yknow… whats wrong with playing an oathsworn dragon slaying paladin who doesn't fight a dragon EVERY adventure.
If your ranger ends up tangling with ogres for three levels does he say "no fair, my favored enemy is goblins"
the idea/concept of the character shouldn't be perfectly mated to the exact ongoing dialogue of the campaign.
The Ranger DOES get multiple chances to choose a FE….
"I must be optimized for all situations" is just a bit lame and a whole lot of meta game.
Favored Enemy does, in fact, blow.
First off, of course, is the idea many people get that it means you hate the chosen type. No ... it's based on knowledge. Most of the rangers I have historically played take FE (their own race) because of being in the constabulary. Probably the least annoying aspect of it.
Second off is the mechanics of it, since it works by RAW even if you have no idea what it is you're facing. Dragon shapeshifted into a human? If you have FE (Dragon), then you get your bonuses even if you're totally unaware of the situation.
Third, of course, is the metagame aspect of needing to ask the GM what monsters are going to be prevalent, but that's been gone over multiple times.
I would prefer something more akin to the Quarry mechanic instead of FE. FE is the main reason I've no desire to play a ranger (well, that and spells, but that's an easy fix), or something maybe like the Slayer's studied target. A lesser bonus, but one that is applicable far more frequently.
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yknow… whats wrong with playing an oathsworn dragon slaying paladin who doesn't fight a dragon EVERY adventure.
If your ranger ends up tangling with ogres for three levels does he say "no fair, my favored enemy is goblins"
the idea/concept of the character shouldn't be perfectly mated to the exact ongoing dialogue of the campaign.
The Ranger DOES get multiple chances to choose a FE….
"I must be optimized for all situations" is just a bit lame and a whole lot of meta game.
Having a character's main class feature be invalidated for, in your example, several levels (so, what, 15 sessions or more?) is good design to you?
Chill out, get off the "Roleplay don't rollplay lol optimizations is teh evulz" horse for a minute, and actually think about that for a sec.
I've had this thought mulling around in my head, I don't think I'll ever actually implement it in a pathfinder game, but I might as well share. What if instead of making the favored bonus such a pick and choose kind of thing, all with the same effect, they differed depending on what you were hunting. I mean when is the last time you bluffed a cat, a gibbering mouther, or a zombie?
What if instead, you got different effects depending on the favored enemy. So if it were humanoids, maybe an effect to actually blend in and infiltrate enemy factions. Or if you took favored enemy (animal) and it synergized with your ability to provide food to the party and actually capture animals to use as allies. Or if you took favored enemy demons and it gave you the ability to speak abyssal and/or some defensive bonuses.
In a past thread "100 Books Found in a Strange Library" there was this powerful item that dealt with Favored Enemy.
443. I Hate Everyone But I Hate You the Most
This rather heavy tome seems to be composed of various other books whose pages have been violently erased, mended, and then bound together to create a ugly Frankenstein of a book. It radiates moderate magic and smells of old garbage, worms, and depressing anger.
It was written recently by the famous Ranger Oscar Crouch who was famous due to the fact that every creature/monster/person in the world was his species enemy. The contents are written in small, tight handwriting and each word pressed very deeply into the thick pages.
Any Ranger who reads the entire 200 pages receives the ability to changes his speciens enemy(ies) at the start of each day to whatever he chooses. He must also make a DC 14 Fortitude whenever he uses this abiltity or lose 2 points of Charisma for 24 hours.
That thread has some great books in it.
"Roleplay don't rollplay lol optimizations is teh evulz"yknow… whats wrong with playing an oathsworn dragon slaying paladin who doesn't fight a dragon EVERY adventure.
If your ranger ends up tangling with ogres for three levels does he say "no fair, my favored enemy is goblins"
the idea/concept of the character shouldn't be perfectly mated to the exact ongoing dialogue of the campaign.
The Ranger DOES get multiple chances to choose a FE….
"I must be optimized for all situations" is just a bit lame and a whole lot of meta game.
I don't even know what that says.
Ranger gets to choose THREE FEs by level 10 and TWO terrains… if he hasn't figured out the best choices by then, i realiy don't know what to say.
In almost any case, Human is the best choice if you're playing in Golarion or an AP, because it's Human-o-centric.
By level ten you can get a good fix on what the other two should be.
The armchair theory crafting thing gets real real old, really it does,
alternatively, a spell less, companionless ranger, that switches his FEs and terrains similar to martial flexibility wouldn't be bad.
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I don't even know what that says.Ranger gets to choose THREE FEs by level 10 and TWO terrains… if he hasn't figured out the best choices by then, I really don't know what to say.
Wow! Three whole FEs!?!?
Of, what, 20+?
Unless your GM is working with you (which many scoff at as being metagaming), it's hard to "figure out" what's going to be the main enemy in the future, especially if your GM likes to switch it up (which is cool, not saying anything against that).
In almost any case, Human is the best choice if you're playing in Golarion or an AP, because it's Human-o-centric.
Humano-o-centric in population, perhaps, but not in enemy distribution. Of the APs I've played or run (Serpent's Skull, Carrion Crown, Rise of the Runelords, Skull and Shackles, and a brief run at Reign of Winter), only Skull and Shackles would have potentially been a decent choice for FE: Human, and even then, S&S swaps it up pretty regularly, or has stuff like crews of hobgoblins (which FE: Human wouldn't work on because reasons I guess) instead of humans.
The armchair theory crafting thing gets real real old, really it does,
The baseless assumption that I'm doing nothing but theorycrafting gets old, it really does.
I've played Rangers before. If your GM works with you, or you've played the AP before, it can be all right. Taking FE: Monstrous Humanoids in Serpent's Skull is a no-brainer, likewise FE: Undead in Carrion Crown, or Giants in Runelords.
But in campaigns that switch it around, especially homebrews where the GM may not even know what you'll be facing in a few levels, it becomes lackluster at best.
The Slayer's Favored Target (I refuse to call it Studied Target, just doesn't ring properly) is a much better mechanic.
I use quarry in place of favored enemy, but also give +1 FE to one type as an alternate favored class bonus (max +1/2 level for any 1 type), instead of the +1 hp or +1 skill point.
Many GM's will help a player out by letting them know what types of enemies will be showing up the mostUnfortunately many GM's don't know the long term enemies they'll likely face.
I know, which is why I am following this thread for alternate solutions. As a GM I would like for it to be more flexible.
I've been a fan of rangers since I started (3.0), and never had too much trouble with favored enemy. It's usually easy to find at least a few categories that are common in the area. Between monstrous humanoids, undead, humans, and evil outsiders, you can still get FE for many fights. Even without it, the ranger is still a capable fighter. FE is just a nice boost when it applies.
My PFS tengu ranger can still cut people up pretty well, he's just even better against humans and undead. And his strength is still only 16.
edit: There's a ranger archetype (Freebooter? Guide? something like that) that swaps favored enemy for a designated target, like you've been looking for. The bonuses are halved, but it's more versatile and you could share it with your companions.
I've been a fan of rangers since I started (3.0), and never had too much trouble with favored enemy. It's usually easy to find at least a few categories that are common in the area. Between monstrous humanoids, undead, humans, and evil outsiders, you can still get FE for many fights. Even without it, the ranger is still a capable fighter. FE is just a nice boost when it applies.
My PFS tengu ranger can still cut people up pretty well, he's just even better against humans and undead. And his strength is still only 16.
edit: There's a ranger archetype (Freebooter? Guide? something like that) that swaps favored enemy for a designated target, like you've been looking for. The bonuses are halved, but it's more versatile and you could share it with your companions.
Ranger prior to 3.0 only had bonuses vs giants…
power creep of everything is something I find annoying…
its not good enough, make it better, more more more. Bigger! Bigger!….
Ranger has been fun since 1E… I got a kick being able to be a non good ranger. USed be anything that was better thant the 4 basic classes, was restricted to NG, LG or CG.
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And in your day, you had to walk both ways uphill in the snow to get to the game shop too!
I'll just say "power creep" is an internal thing only. The power level of the game is higher than 1E, but that's sequel escalation, not power creep.
Adding options to the game that are superior to previous options in the same game is power creep.
Making things better for the sequel is just making a new game with a higher power scale.
So, basically, how the Ranger was in 1E is irrelevant. This is Pathfinder.
@Pendagast
You might want to keep in mind that this is the homebrew section, and the thread is asking for favored enemy rewrites.
Your comments feel more suited towards General or Advice thread conversations.
The OP is asking for more ideas to present alongside favored enemy. If you don't like the idea of that, and don't have anything else to say than "don't bother, it's good enough", it might be time to bow out of the thread.
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As for ideas regarding the OP.
Back in 3.5e, I had re-written the Ranger class to be more customizable; similar to a Fighter picking feats, the Ranger could pick "favored" options.
I had the basic Favored Enemy, and a "study your target and gain a temporary bonus" (although I included using gather information for the bounty hunter types).
I also had a third option, having a flat Favored bonus that applied against all creatures in a "list". Adding a creature to this list required study in combat, or learning about them in some way (later abilities allowed learning from tracks or gather information, etc).
You'd have to pick a specific creature, so a Red Dragon and White Dragon were two separate entries in your list, but you applied your bonus against all in your list equally.
Then you could boost your bonus in various ways (overall minor bonus, temporary large bonus, etc).
Since you were adding to your list as you encountered the enemies, and applied the bonus towards them all, it would be less prone to accidental worthlessness.
I had also tied it to Knowledge skills, gaining a bonus based on ranks in the skill, however it ended up being a little cumbersome, so I don't suggest it.
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Lately, I've been thinking of redoing the Pathfinder ranger, such that he can choose a different enemy more regularly, however it required first researching them before the become a selectable option, and only one chosen at a time.
If it takes time to switch who you are good against, you are deciding to waste rounds of combat to gain this advantage. The bonus wouldn't apply against all targets, all the time.