Favored Enemy: Love of Hate?

[Teapot Salty]

Hey guys. Both mechanically and roleplaying wise, how do you guys feel about favored enemy?

For me mechanically it's meh. I would prefer something more versatile and less powerful. Or just more versatile. Like a bonus feat or something.

Roleplaying is odd for me. On one hand the whole "I hate this, now I kill it" and such is pretty cool. And it opens a lot of doors for roleplaying. But too often it seemingly forces a: "My family was killed by [insert creature type here] and now I'm going to hunt them all down/protect people from them/destroy them wherever I see them"

And as always, go nuts.

[The Oni]

Vengeance is always a good explanation for favored enemy, but there are other routes. Maybe the character was trained from birth to fight them, or perhaps placed under a geas to destroy all of monster type [X]. In the case of less-than-sympathetic PCs, maybe they're just racist.

Full Disclosure: never actually played a ranger.

[squiggit]

Roleplay wise it can be cool. Vengeance is always a good motivation and it creates sort of a catalyst for players to develop a motivation. You can model it in other ways too, as whatever you're familiar hunting or trained against. Can be annoying if you're not looking for that RP angle.

Mechanically I find it annoying. You either get used to some really sweet benefits fighting your target enemy... or the DM forgets to throw any of them in the campaign and suddenly you're missing a class feature.

The mechanics there also make having any out-of-the-box favored enemies a bad idea. Me having some backstory about fighting abberations is all well and good but picking the wizards or orcs or goblins or undead that we're going to be fighting every other encounter is still always going to be the right choice.

[Talya]

Roleplay wise it can be cool. Vengeance is always a good motivation and it creates sort of a catalyst for players to develop a motivation. You can model it in other ways too, as whatever you're familiar hunting or trained against. Can be annoying if you're not looking for that RP angle.

Mechanically I find it annoying. You either get used to some really sweet benefits fighting your target enemy... or the DM forgets to throw any of them in the campaign and suddenly you're missing a class feature.

The mechanics there also make having any out-of-the-box favored enemies a bad idea. Me having some backstory about fighting abberations is all well and good but picking the wizards or orcs or goblins or undead that we're going to be fighting every other encounter is still always going to be the right choice.

I hate most mechanical elements like that...Abilities should always work. Like DR... what's the use of having DR that can only be beaten by one thing - then you've got a character that's vastly differently powered depending on whether the DM gives that one thing to the enemy. It's like Superman and Kryptonite. I hate it. DR should be beaten by doing more damage than the DR can soak, and that's it.

[Keneth]

You don't have to hate the enemy, but more often than not, that's what happens. Most of my ranger characters don't have some deep-seated hate for their favored enemies, I just think of it as specializing to combat certain creature types in the same way a fighter specializes in fighting with a particular weapon (or group thereof).

Mechanically, I quite like it. It's a decent bonus, if a bit limited. In my games, Humanoids is a single favored enemy group, which generally makes it the primary choice if it's not a very focused campaign, and it ensures that the class feature sees a reasonable amount of use. But as far as 3.5 RAW goes—yeah, "meh" is the word.

[Talya]

Humanoid (Elves) is a single group. I think most elf rangers probably take that... because it includes Drow.

[Teapot Salty]

Do you guys think it would be op if it was always granted? (I.E favored enemy:everything)

[Flickerdart]

Do you guys think it would be op if it was always granted? (I.E favored enemy:everything)
Not even remotely.

[Gnome Alone]

So, uh, how wrong is it that I kinda wanna play a human with Favored Enemy: Humans in a d20 Modern campaign?

[holywhippet]

I'm not sure if I'd consider the 2nd edition version to be better or worse. On the plus side it gave you +4 to hit. On the minus side you had to pick a specific monster like orc, goblin etc. So once you'd gone past a certain level of experience you'd likely never face an enemy of that species ever again.

[Keneth]

Do you guys think it would be op if it was always granted? (I.E favored enemy:everything)

No, but how are you gonna explain that? It's just combat mastery then, and you get a better bonus than both fighters and barbarians. While far from overpowered, that's not the rangers' shtick.

It would be more reasonable to make it Favored Terrain instead (combined with the like-named feature from Pathfinder's ranger), and have it apply a +1 bonus at 1st and every 5th level against all enemies while in that terrain.

[squiggit]

I hate most mechanical elements like that...Abilities should always work. Like DR... what's the use of having DR that can only be beaten by one thing - then you've got a character that's vastly differently powered depending on whether the DM gives that one thing to the enemy. It's like Superman and Kryptonite. I hate it. DR should be beaten by doing more damage than the DR can soak, and that's it.

It's not about that it should "always work" it's about how you can end up guessing wrong on the direction of the campaign and never have it work. Ever. So all that cool RP potential and mechanical fun just never comes up.

The superman analogy would only really work if we were talking about giving everyone he'll ever fight kryptonite weapons... in which case I do think that would be lame, yes.

[AugustNights]

My friends and I have a house rule for favored enemy that allows a Ranger to change out the Enemy type each morning, or at different intervals, depending on who is running the game.
I like to set up a progression with the ranger class that allows it to eventually be changed with 5 minutes of concentration/study.

We call it [Favored Enemy]s? There ain't nuthin' I hate more than [Favored Enemy]s.

[The Oni]

It's not about that it should "always work" it's about how you can end up guessing wrong on the direction of the campaign and never have it work. Ever. So all that cool RP potential and mechanical fun just never comes up.

The superman analogy would only really work if we were talking about giving everyone he'll ever fight kryptonite weapons... in which case I do think that would be lame, yes.

I like that DR can be overcome because otherwise, why fight the thing in the first place? It gives you more than one way to beat the opponent. Do you invest in a Cold Iron broadsword or just ambush & bumrush for as much damage as possible? DR that can't be overcome might as well be AC.

[Flickerdart]

No, but how are you gonna explain that? It's just combat mastery then, and you get a better bonus than both fighters and barbarians. While far from overpowered, that's not the rangers' shtick.
The fighter knows his weapon and armour. The barbarian knows his muscles. The ranger knows his enemies. All three are parts of making sure the other guy ends up dead. Why would murdering things be any less his shtick than theirs?

[HaikenEdge]

RP-wise, I tend to think of Favored Enemy as familiarity, rather than hatred; that's to say, I tend to take Favored Enemy (Humans) a lot, even with Human rangers; my explanation is simply, "The ranger has been around Humans more than any other species, and thus has the most experience interacting with them."

[NoACWarrior]

So, uh, how wrong is it that I kinda wanna play a human with Favored Enemy: Humans in a d20 Modern campaign?
Its not wrong, but the PHB says you should be evil because you are hunting your own race.


I'm not sure if I'd consider the 2nd edition version to be better or worse. On the plus side it gave you +4 to hit. On the minus side you had to pick a specific monster like orc, goblin etc. So once you'd gone past a certain level of experience you'd likely never face an enemy of that species ever again.
This is what retrain quests are for.


Roleplay wise it can be cool. Vengeance is always a good motivation and it creates sort of a catalyst for players to develop a motivation. You can model it in other ways too, as whatever you're familiar hunting or trained against. Can be annoying if you're not looking for that RP angle.

Mechanically I find it annoying. You either get used to some really sweet benefits fighting your target enemy... or the DM forgets to throw any of them in the campaign and suddenly you're missing a class feature.

The mechanics there also make having any out-of-the-box favored enemies a bad idea. Me having some backstory about fighting abberations is all well and good but picking the wizards or orcs or goblins or undead that we're going to be fighting every other encounter is still always going to be the right choice.

Picking undead, while good for the other OoC abilities doesn't usually help in combat. The case being that favored enemy is precision based and that most undead with the undead type are immune to critical hits (meaning that all precision based effects don't harm the undead). Unless you grab the particular spell which MIGHT help (it lets you sneak undead, convince your DM its the same as allowing all precision based effects but not crit hits).

Same goes for most constructs, though I think theres an item to let you sneak attack a construct (I know theres a feat and a spell) and I'd argue that the item would also enable favored enemy.

As for the mechanics, they are troublesome, its all good bad and meh at the same time. Good for the Metagame - You instantly apply it to creatures or encounters of a particular type giving you immediate hints on how to shut that encounter down (won't solve the encounter though without the application of a bit of force). Bad for the limitations - Favored enemy is precision based, meaning you can't use it in many cases where you couldn't crit, even versus very specific favored enemies (undead and construct). Meh for the damage - The damage just doesn't hold up to other class features which are also always on and grant bonus damage or damage by itself, this is your favored enemy you are supposed to hit it harder and kill it faster than other classes!

[NoACWarrior]

Hey guys. Both mechanically and roleplaying wise, how do you guys feel about favored enemy?

For me mechanically it's meh. I would prefer something more versatile and less powerful. Or just more versatile. Like a bonus feat or something.

Roleplaying is odd for me. On one hand the whole "I hate this, now I kill it" and such is pretty cool. And it opens a lot of doors for roleplaying. But too often it seemingly forces a: "My family was killed by [insert creature type here] and now I'm going to hunt them all down/protect people from them/destroy them wherever I see them"

And as always, go nuts.

While I ranted about other's posts I didn't help the OP :/

In any case - making favored enemy more versatile would be an excellent idea, but the power itself is kinda meh.

For RP sake, yes the whole family getting killed is kinda old, think about it HaikenEdge suggested, simply familiarity. The favored enemy idea comes to me something like wizard spell slots, prepared once per level, and the choices can't change, with a single choice getting a +1 CL buff. RP wise you would simply study creature's anatomy, background, and other things to understand how to combat them better.


But back to making favored enemy generally more useful and making sure the power is there but changed in function so it is less noticeable but more significant. There have been many fine people with DnD who have tried this before me, and I can't gaurente my suggestions are as good as thiers - but I'll try.

Favored Enemy (Feat) - study a "creature book" at the beginning of the day to "understand" on creature type, for the rest of the day when dealing with the creature type, you gain a +1 competence bonus on all skill checks (involving the creature type), saving throws (versus racial effects), dodge bonus (vs racial attacks), attack rolls, and 1d6 on damage rolls. If this is taken by a ranger, increase the bonus by the ranger's level divided by 5 (with the damage increased by one die). You may take this feat more than once, but for every Favored Enemy feat past the first you can study one additional "creature book" per day, you cannot study the same creature type twice to gain the benefits again.

Also give the ranger a free bonus feat of favored enemy at every level he/she would have gotten favored enemy additions. Make the creature books purchasable as well at a certain cost per average CR - but this is more work that the DM would need to do (around 5 gold times the CR squared seems alright to me for this effect).

[Troacctid]

Picking undead, while good for the other OoC abilities doesn't usually help in combat. The case being that favored enemy is precision based and that most undead with the undead type are immune to critical hits (meaning that all precision based effects don't harm the undead). Unless you grab the particular spell which MIGHT help (it lets you sneak undead, convince your DM its the same as allowing all precision based effects but not crit hits).

Same goes for most constructs, though I think theres an item to let you sneak attack a construct (I know theres a feat and a spell) and I'd argue that the item would also enable favored enemy.

Pretty sure Favored Enemy isn't precision damage. It works just fine against constructs and undead.

[NoACWarrior]

Pretty sure Favored Enemy isn't precision damage. It works just fine against constructs and undead.

While many DMs allow it to work, it is precision damage in 3.5.


Creatures blinded by darkness lose the ability to deal extra damage due to precision (for example, a ranger's favored enemy or a sneak attack).
Thats just from darkness... which was updated from 3.0 to 3.5.

The only other reference I can find about precision-based damage was in the ELH manyshot feat - but it was updated in PHB and favored enemy was actually not included as an example (not a definite taken off the precision based damage list).
The issue is defining precision based damage - theres only a few hints at it with a crude form of Sudden strike, Sneak attack, Skirmish, Point blank shot, and favored enemy. (there are a few more but just bringing more things up which qualify isn't going to help the issue)

If you want to apply Favored enemy damage vs constructs and undead, thats up to you and your DM, frankly rangers get a raw deal on them anyways.

Just don't forget its there. Just like fire doing 1.5x damage to most undead with cold immunity as cold immunity also grants fire vulnerability (its really messed up I know, but its there in RAW).

[Arbane]

It has some decided whackiness. Like the fact that Flumphs and Aboleths (both FE: Aberrations) apparently have more in common than, say, Humans and Elves.

[TuggyNE]

While many DMs allow it to work, it is precision damage in 3.5.


Thats just from darkness... which was updated from 3.0 to 3.5.

Something else that was updated was the ranger's actual class listing. You know what was removed from the 3.0 text?
The bonus doesn't apply to damage against creatures that are immune to critical hits.


The only other reference I can find about precision-based damage was in the ELH manyshot feat - but it was updated in PHB and favored enemy was actually not included as an example (not a definite taken off the precision based damage list).

For what it's worth, "precision damage" is not a term defined in Core, and it has no particular game effects there. If you go out of Core, you have to go with RC or something, which I suspect does not consider ranger FE to be precision damage.

[Gwendol]

It works. Most players I've encountered use it to gain a measly bonus against difficult opponents (undead, constructs, etc) others against targets they count on are quite common (human). Usually, there is a roleplaying component as in adding creatures to your FE list partly based on what type of enemies you encounter in-game.
We typically roleplay it as familiarity rather than some xenophobic hatred.

[some guy]

I prefer the pathfinder version over the 3.5. That bonus on attacks really helps with two-weapon fighting, rapid shot or power attack and the ranger can at least make knowledge checks against it's enemy.

I always allow my players to roll on a table with the most common enemy types in a region or campaign (with a re-roll), that way they won't know what the camapign will be filled with but their favored enemy will come up fairly regularly.

I liek the idea of a specialised hunter, maybe not as much hatred as training.

[Vhaidara]

In one of my campaigns the DM allowed the use of a slight variant where you can pick an organization, and if it is a smaller group then the bonus is bigger. And the more specific you are, the bigger the bonus gets. So, for example
Our Swift Hunter is a Satyr (Homebrew for no RHD and only +1LA) whose forest was corrupted by a cult of Talona. He took Favored Enemy (Cult of Talona). It works on increments of +3 instead of +2.
In this rules set, the ranger who had been betrayed by a close friend who then ruined his life would be able to pick that specific friend. He then gets +6 increments, but only against that individual. Ideally you get to retrain into a less specific afterwards.

The things that FE is VERY useful for is Swift Hunter: You can Skirmish your FE regardless of their immunity to precision damage (so undead, constructs, plants, etc).

[Keneth]

All three are parts of making sure the other guy ends up dead.

And somehow knowing your enemy amounts to more than weapon mastery and superhuman strength? And you don't actually need to Know the enemy? I'm not buying it.


Why would murdering things be any less his shtick than theirs?

Well, that's easy. Take away favored enemy. Did the class lose a vital part of its concept? Nope. Rangers should be able fighters, but knowing how to butcher that one particular beastie isn't really that integral to most ranger concepts.

On a related note: Give rangers Knowledge Devotion as a bonus feat at first level, and you can replace favored enemy with something else.

[Fouredged Sword]

See, I think the whole thing should be treated like knowledge devotion. In fact, we could just give them the knowledge devotion feat and maybe a bonus to knowledge checks (including knowledge devotion checks) at each increment of favored enemy.

There, done. You know about X because you are trained to know about X. In doing so, you are a better fighter when fighting X.

[BWR]

RP-wise I like the favored enemy. You are just that good against something because of your focus and training. For whatever reason: hate, necessity, career choice, etc. it doesn't matter.
Mechanics-wise I think it's a bit weird. You have Enire categories like Aberration, which individually are some of the most diverse and weird types of creatures, yet you get a standard bonus against them. Compare that with the half-dozen or so Humanoid categories. Are we to believe an Illithid is more similar to a grell than an elf is to a human? And how you had no special ability against a living horse, but an undead horse suddenly works. I don't buy that for a moment. Sure, it's there for 'balance', but I don't like it at all.

I've toyed with simply giving rangers all Knowledge skills that allow you to identify creatures, and if you successfully do so, you also find a some weak spots that grant you the Favored Enemy bonus against them in combat.
As for the skill bonuses that come with FE, just grant rangers a flat bonus to things like Perception and Survival.

[Vhaidara]

Acually, I might give Rangers Knowledge Devotion and a unique set of Knowledges.
Knowledge (Beasts): Animals, Magical Beasts, Vermin, Plants
Knowledge (People): Humanoids, Monstrous Humanoids, Giants, Fey
Knowledge (Magical): Constructs, Undead, Aberration, Dragon, Ooze
Knowledge (Planar): Elemental, Outsider