Favored Terrains and Planar Travel

[GingerDiceHoarder]

Apologies if this has been asked and answered.

Has there ever been any further clarification beyond the Core Rulebook as to how the Ranger's Favored Terrain feature (and other equivalent abilities) actually works in regard to adventures on planes that aren't the Material Plane? Other than the single line "If a specific terrain falls into more than one category of favored terrain, the ranger’s bonuses do not stack; he simply uses whichever bonus is higher.", and the inclusion of "Planes (pick one, other than Material Plane)" on the list of Favored Terrain options, I haven't been able to find any details in the rules, which leads me to a couple of related questions:

-Do FT bonuses from non-planar terrains work anywhere outside the Material Plane? For example, does a ranger with "Forest" as a FT gain the benefits when in forests/forest analogues in Elysium or the Fey World?

-Does "pick one" mean an entire plane, or a single layer of a plane? Does a ranger who selects "The Abyss" as a FT gain the bonuses on every single layer of the Abyss, despite one layer being wildly different from the next, or do they only gain the bonuses on one specific layer? (If the latter, can they select the same plane multiple times to get bonuses in more than one layer?)

-Presuming a ranger does pick an extraplanar FT, does Knowledge(geography) actually do any good on another plane? Do they just essentially not get that bonus because it's completely useless? Would it make more sense to swap the bonus to Knowledge(planes) checks to navigate instead?

Some of those questions it's pretty easy to figure out the RAW answer, but I'm also wondering if Paizo has ever clarified them in terms of RAI.

[I grok do u]

Planar adventures:

Some classes, like the ranger, interact directly with terrain, and class abilities like favored terrain can become complicated in a plane-hopping campaign. In games that are largely limited to the Material Plane, the planes terrain category works fine, but if you intend to run a game set on another plane, you should consider breaking up that category into specific planes (thus, a ranger would choose Heaven or Ethereal Plane, or even a demiplane like Leng as a favored terrain), or simply doing away with the planes category entirely. With this latter solution, you should work with ranger players to help them anticipate the terrains featured in your upcoming campaign, with new categories like crystalline (for realms in the Plane of Earth or under Elysium, where immense crystal formations are common), living (for truly sentient realms like portions of the Abyss), or void (for empty reaches in the Astral Plane or the energy planes) potentially becoming new options for rangers to select from.

So base intent is to choose one entire plane: Hell, Heaven, Abyss, Abaddon, Elysium, Nirvana, Axis, Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Ethereal, Astral, Boneyard, Negative, Positive, various demiplanes. However, the advice is for the GM to coordinate with the PC on a fair basis.

For example, if most of the campaign will be in Hell, then the different layers of Hell should each be a separate favored terrain, likewise for the different domains of the Abyss. Or if most is taking place in a single plane, then the different terrains within the plane would be appropriate as if it were the Material plane.

By RAW the FT benefits knowledge (geography), however there is an Elemental Envoy archetype that replaces knowledge(geography) with knowledge (planes). As a houserule, in a campaign with considerable planar travel or time spent in another plane, it wouldn't be unreasonable for the GM to allow the swap, or to simply allow the geography check in place of knowledge (planes)

For FT (forest) or other material plane default terrain, the GM is the arbiter of whether it would apply in another plane.

[Claxon]

1) As a GM, I would probably say no, Favored Terrain Forest doesn't apply to Forrest in Elysium or First World planes. They might look at a bit like forest you're used to on the material plane, but they are not the same.

2) Generally pick one is taken to mean an entire plane. However, as a GM if the majority of a campaign is set in single out plane, I'm going to break it into chunks. My theory is that the expectation that planar travels would be limited and so they focused on a number of diverse terrains on the material plane, but let you get a whole other plane of existence because it would kind of be punishing otherwise. But if your campaign is mostly set on another plane of existence, then I'd probably break it up but you could get "material plane" as a favored terrain if the campaign were primarily set in the plane of fire.

3) I would let the player roll knowledge geography to know about "lands/terrain/climate/people". Knowledge planes might also know about those things, but probably with different DCs. And the kind of information is probably very different between them. Like Knowledge geography might tell you "that is a city full of Efrerti" and you might even know Effrerti are immune to fire. But I wouldn't let you identify individual kinds of outsiders or even in general special abilities outsides of ones that incredibly well known/obvious.

I wouldn't swap the bonus to knowledge(planes). Just let knowledge geography do the things it normally should do.

[Diego Rossi]

It is one of those things where a "hard" rule would require pointing at least a page for each separate layer of the plane.
With a 666-page book for the Abyss alone. ;-)

As the others have said, it is best to work with your GM.

A forest on Elysium will be like a forest on Golarion for most matters, with something requiring Favored terrain Elysium (from what I recall, a lot of animals will be Awakened, changing their type to magical beast (augmented animal)).
I would allow players to use Favored terrain Forest unless they are interacting with some specific feature of the plane.

When interacting with a forest of fire trees on the plane of fire, the favored terrain forest would not work, the environment is too different. Favored terrain Plane of FIre will work.

Depending on your campaign, favored terrain can be very useful or almost useless. Trying to make it a bit more useful if you travel a lot isn't a bad idea.

[Mysterious Stranger]

I would say the favored terrain would normally apply to the whole plane by default. Not all planes have multiple layers and, in all fairness, picking the Abyss as your favored terrain should give you as much benefit as picking Limbo.

The rules state if the terrain falls into more than one category you only get the largest bonus. Why should the fact the terrain is a plane make any difference. If the ranger has favored terrain mountain +2 and favored terrain forest +4 he gets +4 in a mountain forest. If the ranger has favored terrain Elysium +2, and favored terrain forest +4 he should get +4 while in a forest in Elysium.

Other knowledge skills still work on other planes when dealing with what the knowledge skill covers, so why should geography be any different. Can a character with knowledge Arcana not use it to identify a magic creature on another plane? Can someone with a knowledge engineering not gain information about fortification on other planes? Does Knowledge religion not work on extraplanar undead? Why should knowledge geography be different. But knowledge geography would not apply to any planar features, just normal geography.

If knowledge geography does not apply that also increases the value of knowledge planes. Now instead of needing knowledge of nature and geography all you need on another plane is knowledge planes.