Terrain Dominance how do I know when something is native?

[Rilos]

I'm looking into playing a Horizon Walker and Terrain Dominance says I get my favored terrain bonus as a favored enemy bonus versus natives to my terrain choice. Sounds great but how do I know when something is a native.

An Example issue: We are fighting a roaming band of nomad raiders that are jumping between terrains. We fought them at sea and in a desert, on the plains and they even raided a town in a forest. They are mostly humans and I keep seeing that humans are urban on the forums but these people don't ever live in a city so how do I know what they are native too?

[gnoams]

100% GM fiat. I would urge you to talk to your GM before deciding to play a horizon walker so that you can both be on the same page with your expectations.

[David knott 242]

Most monsters have environment entries that say what sort of terrain they are native to. These entries are least useful for human foes, of course.

For these nomads, if I were the GM, I would go with wherever they spend the most time -- probably the plains unless they have a major encampment elsewhere.

[VoodistMonk]

Like most everything else, it's completely up to the GM.

And with the cheese I have seen in a lot of Horizon Walker builds, I wouldn't be surprised if you suddenly found that NONE of the enemies are native to ANY of your favorite terrains.

[gnoams]

Yup. The biggest problem with terrain dominance is that it is too easy to get ridiculously high bonuses using it, making your GM upset.

[Scavion]

VoodistMonk wrote:

Like most everything else, it's completely up to the GM.

And with the cheese I have seen in a lot of Horizon Walker builds, I wouldn't be surprised if you suddenly found that NONE of the enemies are native to ANY of your favorite terrains.

It used to be even more awesome :( but they nerfed it in the Ultimate Combat errata.

[VoodistMonk]

Scavion wrote:

VoodistMonk wrote:

Like most everything else, it's completely up to the GM.

And with the cheese I have seen in a lot of Horizon Walker builds, I wouldn't be surprised if you suddenly found that NONE of the enemies are native to ANY of your favorite terrains.

It used to be even more awesome :( but they nerfed it in the Ultimate Combat errata.

That is why you should ALWAYS ignore erratas.

Always.

Anytime I am searching for something and come across an errata version, I immediately start searching for the pre-errata version.

I avoid everything they have touched with the nerfbat. Pre-errata versions are almost always better.

[Rilos]

David knott 242 wrote:

Most monsters have environment entries that say what sort of terrain they are native to. These entries are least useful for human foes, of course.

For these nomads, if I were the GM, I would go with wherever they spend the most time -- probably the plains unless they have a major encampment elsewhere.

The GM is saying the Environment Tag is just used to help understand where you can run into creatures not that they count as native to that area.

I'm trying to see if there is any errata or a Developers post that says to use the tag or tells me how and when the Terran Dominance turns on it's Favored Enemy buff. I have searched the forums almost ten years back and can't find a thing either way.

[VoodistMonk]

The good news is that certain Outsiders are Native by type. Lol.

If your GM isn't going to go off the obvious ecology listing in the monster's entry, then the GM is already determined to undermine your ability to make use of Terrain Dominance. Roll a new character.

[Rilos]

gnoams wrote:

100% GM fiat. I would urge you to talk to your GM before deciding to play a horizon walker so that you can both be on the same page with your expectations.

I did this months before going into the class. Showed the mechanics on how it works read it all out and even discussed very clearly the potential numbers I could get to damage and skill wise. I even waited and took four more levels in Ranger then I needed to because the party needed a tracker and Ranger is better at it than HW. I took one level in HW and NOW I need to show errata and a Developer post on how it works.