Favored Enemy via Terrain Dominance and Critters with no Native Terrain


Rules Questions


Terrain Dominance: At 3rd level, a horizon walker learns total dominance over one terrain he has already selected for terrain mastery. When dealing with creatures native to that terrain, the horizon walker treats his favored terrain bonus for that terrain as a favored enemy bonus (as the ranger class feature) against those creatures.This bonus overlaps (does not stack with) bonuses gained when fighting a favored enemy.

So what happens when a critter, like a human or elf, has a native terrain of 'any'?
What happens when a critter has a native terrain listed as ruins (like undead or construct) which has not corresponding favored terrain listing?

Liberty's Edge

We have the usual problem of imprecise terminology.
What is a creature native to X terrain?
I assume that what matters is what is listed under Environment in the creature entry in the Bestiary. Otherwise, we would have to speak of where the single creature was actually born, and a bear born into a zoo would be treated differently from one born into the wild.

Any is tricky, as it can be read as "has no favored terrain", but RAW, it means that the creature has all kinds of terrain as its favored terrain.
I would say that is how it works. If you fight a Human Skeleton, Environment any, you can apply your best favored terrain bonus.

Humans and elves don't have a Bestiary entry, and the race description doesn't have an Environment entry, so where have you found that they have an Environment of "any"?

When the only Environment listed has no corresponding favored terrain listing, you do the same thing you do if your available favored enemies do not apply to an opponent. You don't get any bonus.

The Exchange

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GM discretion is, of course, the answer.

If you are asking for some reasonable interpretations, here's a couple off the top of my head.
1) A gang (of humans) from the city has kidnapped the prince and fled into the snowy mountains - not native to cold.
2) A group of yak herders (humans) takes offense to you chasing the gang through their territory and attacks you - native to cold.
3) For creatures listed as native to "ruins" it is a matter of where the ruins are located. If the ruins are in a jungle, they would count as jungle native for Terrain Dominance. Similar for underground ruins, forest ruins, etc. If you encounter them outside of ruins (like a construct guarding an active wizard's tower) then probably no bonus.

Unlike Diego, I'm OK with considering a single creature's background. As long as you're being reasonable about it. A polar bear is native to cold no matter where it was actually born; don't try to mess with your players. If it's not blindingly obvious from the Bestiary (fire elemental!) then individual creatures' backgrounds matter.

Like Diego, I'm also comfortable saying "Terrain Dominance isn't going to apply to this creature here. It doesn't really fit any of the 'native' categories."


Most humanoids live in some sort of settlements. You could consider that most humanoids are native to the urban terrain. That would cover most of the core races, most other humanoids do have bestiary entries.


I agree with Belafon.

From my perspective, letting any terrain mastery apply a bonus to all humans might be a little too good (the interpretation that any terrain means all terrain). Instead I would consider where that human nominally resides. Same for other humanoid races that say any terrain.

Unfortunately this is one of those class features that requires a fair amount of GM adjudication.

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