Favored Enemy: Arcane Caster


Rules Questions


Is there such a thing out there somewhere?

In my homebrew, I have a group that specializes in hunting down arcane casters, basically a religious sect that sees all magic that comes from a source other than divine as heretical. None of the PCs have this ability, but they'll be running into some of their fanatics soon. Just thought I'd check to see if one of the various supplement books has come out with something like this that I missed. I don't think I've missed it, but just in case . . .

Other than that, they have the Inquisitor feat from the Nyambe campaign setting.


There is a barbarian rage power witch hunter that does this. Other than that I don't know.


Favored enemy is for Types/Subtypes only. No luck there.

For barbarians, Witch Hunter is a thing, however.


Check out this old thread on anti magic army design which contains lots of neat ideas for mundane anti spellcaster tactics.

If you're allowing divine magic for anti-arcane that opens up a lot of additional options like spell breaker inquisitors with the spell killer inquisition.

See also this thread


In addition to the Witch Hunter rage power, barbarians can also get Spell Sunder rage power, which lets them dispel evil arcane magic by cutting it in half!

You can also have a couple Inquisitors with the Witch Hunter archetype for tracking down apostate casters, and at higher levels, fighters with the Spell Breaker feat.

Clerics can cast Spell Immunity on their allies if they know which of the evil magics the arcane casters favor.

These are all abilities which start kicking in around levels 6-10 though, so if your party is a lower level than that I'm not sure there's much you can do.


This is your homegrown setting. There is no problem in making a ranger or slayer archtype that get extra bonus vs. Arcane casters.
Rangers Can put it on favored enemy.
Slayers can spend a slayer talent on getting +2 on favored target if the target Can cast arcane spells or have SLAs.
Somthing like that.

Grand Lodge

If you're okay with 3.5 material, you can give them Arcane Hunter from Complete Mage. It's an alternate class feature (think an archetype that only replaces one thing) that requires at least 1 rank in Knowledge (Arcana) and swaps your usual first level Favored Enemy choice for Favored Enemy (Arcanist), which is any creature that can cast any kind of arcane spell.

Grand Lodge

In a home game I do not think I would alow favored enemy Arcane Caster but I would alow you to favored enemy a class if you like. This is a little more restictive then the first one as the first one you realy alowe you to get all humanions by have favored enemy Arcane Caster, Divine Caster, Non Caster.

Scarab Sages

There is the Blood-Hunting enchantment that is Bane against sorcerer bloodlines.


That is an option presented in here as well as other anticaster options.


There are a number of Inquisitor archetypes you'll probably find to fit well with the theme you have going on.


Cheapy wrote:
There are a number of Inquisitor archetypes you'll probably find to fit well with the theme you have going on.

especially if you go with non paizo sources like this one


Thanks for all of the replies. I don't see the Inquisitor very much at my table, so I wasn't aware of the options there.

I don't really have a problem with granting FE Arcane Caster to my home campaign but I do like to make sure I'm sticking to the rules as much as possible (ie minimum house rules). However, I this sect is rare and rather fanatical so they aren't well represented in my world. As a counter balance, there is also a group that is extremely opposed to the "immortals" and their divine servants, who have similar powers.


A couple of the similar options have language that says they have to know what you are (i.e. make a spellcraft/Know(arcana) check) to see you are casting arcane spells as opposed to divine.

I would give them spellcraft/know arcana as class skills (replacing Know(nature) and Survival), and giving the tracking bonus to those skills instead, and make it a ranger archetype ability.

Inquisitor already has that with the Iconoclast, Spellbreaker, and Witch Hunter archetypes, as well as with the Spellkiller Inquisition.

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