Ranger Favored Enemy

[DM Papa.DRB]

If a ranger character takes Favored Enemy (elf), does he get his bonus against a zombie elf?

Normally I would say no, since a ranger can also have Favored Enemy (undead) but the "Type:" entry is causing me to question that.

According to the zombie entry in the bestiary:

Type: The creature's type changes to undead. It retains any subtype except for alignment subtypes (such as good) and subtypes that indicate kind. It does not gain the augmented subtype. It uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

So it is a "medium undead (augmented humanoid, elf)".

-- david

[Falcar]

So long as the zombie keeps the elf subtype the ranger gains favored enemy against it. This does mean that it can get a little confusing if you throw a group of zombies of various races at him.

[Jeff Merola]

You don't get the bonus. You don't have Favored Enemy (Elf), you have Favored Enemy (Humanoid (Elf)), which doesn't apply to a creature that has the type Undead (Elf).

[Jeff Merola]

Also I just reread the type line of the zombie template and it doesn't even keep the Elf subtype, so a Zombie Elf is just Undead, not Undead (Elf).

[Avoron]

"subtypes that indicate kind" is absurdly broad.

It looks to me like you'd keep
Acid, Air, Aquatic, Cold, Earth, Extraplanar, Electricity, Fire, Gravity, Incorporeal, Mythic, Native, Shapeshifter, Swarm, Time, Water
and not much else.