Favored Enemy Ranger 3.5

[ohil]

So in my game we were fighting and tracking this guy for a while and half way in to combat I finally found out that he is an arcane user. So I asked my dm have I been getting my bonuses against him, like the spot and listen when we were tracking him, or my damage against him for every time I hit. He said no because I didn't know that he was an arcane user and only get bonuses if I know the creature is that type. So I would have to identify that he is a arcane magic user before I can get any bonuses. This seems bad because it takes away a lot of the uses for skills. But my dm is fair if I can show him a ruling on it in the books or errata he will probably give it to me the next time it happens. So was this clarified anywhere. Is it an automatic bonus or do I have to roll my spell craft to determine if it's a divine or arcane spell. Or roll a knowledge to determine if something is undead or not.

Also a problem because Rangers don't get spell craft or any knowledge besides nature.
3.5 Ranger Fav

[eggynack]

The rules for this are pretty clear cut in you favor. They just say that you get a bonus when dealing with creatures of the type you've indicated. They say nothing about you knowing that they're creatures of that type. It might not seem to be an intuitive result, because of the nature of your DM's misgivings, but the rules just give you the bonus, and that is how the game works. He also probably shouldn't houserule this to fit in with his reasoning, because rangers aren't all that strong without some optimization, and because favored enemy isn't very strong at all.

[ericgrau]

Well it should be survival to track. Besides the rules being strictly in your favor the fluff could be the type of tracks they leave and their weak spots. Which makes more sense when it's by creature type. And also tells you what the creature is.

It makes no sense at all to use it for anything ever on an arcane user... even to get bonus damage right after you see him cast a spell it still makes no sense to find a better weak point to stab. So if the DM is going to allow you such an ability in the first place then it must be magical in some way to work at all. You magically detect the magical aura trail of the arcane user (and then you know he's an arcane user since you found a magical trail). And you magically do more damage from something you do to his magical juju. Again that's only the made up fluff. The rules already say yes you get the bonus.

[eggynack]

It makes no sense at all to use it for anything ever on an arcane user... even to get bonus damage right after you see him cast a spell it still makes no sense to find a better weak point to stab. So if the DM is going to allow you such an ability in the first place then it must be magical in some way to work at all.
I can't tell if you're aware, but favored enemy (arcanist) is an actual thing in the game, and it can be found in complete mage, page 32. The ability doesn't cite any change to ability type, so as it was Ex before, so too is it Ex now, and thus pretty unmagical.

[ericgrau]

I wasn't sure if it was splatbook or not, but it's the same fluff either way. If it's Ex then it's a non-magical way to detect or interact with magic. Last I checked magic users had the same physical foot prints and soft spots as commoners.

Or you could say this is what the rules say and I don't care if no part of the ability makes any sense, neener neener. But since his DM seems to be trying to explain things, it could make him feel better.

[Prime32]

Spot and Listen are for noticing enemies sneaking up on you. Ask your DM why, if Favored Enemy only works when you know you're fighting an arcanist, that it would grant you a bonus that only applies when you don't know that the arcanist is there.

[eggynack]

Or you could say this is what the rules say and I don't care if no part of the ability makes any sense, neener neener. But since his DM seems to be trying to explain things, it could make him feel better.
I'd probably go with this "solution". The ability doesn't make all that much sense, as you don't even need to know anything about orcs to get your favored enemy bonus against them. It's a bit of a silly ability in that fashion. I just don't think that this silliness is sufficient to warrant a rules change, especially considering the fact that the ability isn't too great.

[ericgrau]

There's that too. DMs, nerfing already weak strategy-based classes because their abilities "don't make sense" since 2001.

[Grayson01]

This is one of my biggest arguments for why Rangers should have the Knowlegde class of their favored enemy. Because logically it doesn't make any sense how do they know that the creature is one of these creatueres they know how to kill so well. I can understand the Spot and listen as they can have a unquie way of moving or sound. Okay sorry for ranting.

RAW the rule is not valid. The Bonus just is, no need to identify them. Nor should it be. No where does it specifically say that the bounse is applied after the the idenification.

[eggynack]

There's that too. DMs, nerfing already weak strategy-based classes because their abilities "don't make sense" since 2001.
Pretty much. Basically, the way to really make it work, if you want to make it make sense, is to put the rules change in the form of a buff. So, maybe instead of granting relevant knowledges to the ranger, you just give the ranger perfect and automatic knowledge of any of their favored enemies, or maybe you actually do add some magic sensing ability, as you've indicated. Otherwise, you could just use limitations, making it make sense with the current ability, but you up the bonuses until the ability is mostly better than it was before. There are ways to make it work, I think.