Instant Enemy + Horizon Walker?

[Shinken]

I've seen several times it being mentioned that Instant Enemy allows a Horizon Walker to apply their terrain mastery bonus against all favored enemies. It doesn't look like it does, though - Instant Enemy changes creature type for favored enemy purposes, but creature type does not dictate native terrain. How does that work? Am I missing something?

[gartius]

from what i can gather terrain dominance allows you to treat favoured terrain as favoured enemy for creatures native to that terrain type. as it counts as a favoured enemy that should then allow you to use instant enemy to allow your best terrain bonus against the enemy.

[Shinken]

from what i can gather terrain dominance allows you to treat favoured terrain as favoured enemy for creatures native to that terrain type. as it counts as a favoured enemy that should then allow you to use instant enemy to allow your best terrain bonus against the enemy.

But creature types don't have listed environments. Individual creatures do.
Let me give you an example. You have favored terrain (forests). You meet a red dragon. You use instant enemy on it dragon to treat his type as fey (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey). However, as you can see, the fey type has nothing to do with forests. Plenty (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/brownie) of (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/dryad) fey (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/grimstalker) have "forests" listed in their environments, but some (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/kelpie) do (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/lampad) not (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/nuckelavee). Even if all creatures under the type fey had the same environment listed, however, it would still not matter - type does not dictate environment, it's the creature's bestiary entry that does. Your red dragon would keep it's listed environment (mountains, IIRC), then, and therefore you would not be able to use your terrain dominance (forests) bonus as your favored enemy bonus against it.

[Yanisa]

But creature types don't have listed environments. Individual creatures do.
Let me give you an example. You have favored terrain (forests). You meet a red dragon. You use instant enemy on it dragon to treat his type as fey (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey). However, as you can see, the fey type has nothing to do with forests. Plenty (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/brownie) of (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/dryad) fey (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/grimstalker) have "forests" listed in their environments, but some (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/kelpie) do (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/lampad) not (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/fey/nuckelavee). Even if all creatures under the type fey had the same environment listed, however, it would still not matter - type does not dictate environment, it's the creature's bestiary entry that does. Your red dragon would keep it's listed environment (mountains, IIRC), then, and therefore you would not be able to use your terrain dominance (forests) bonus as your favored enemy bonus against it.

That seems to be a general flaw with Terrain Dominance and the line "When dealing with creatures native to that terrain"... Nativity is described by outsiders and their creature types, but non-outsiders are not native as in the rule term. Well they are native to the material plane... but there are no way to determine whether a random Goblin is native to the desert, or if it is a migrated forest goblin. :smalltongue:

In any case, Terrain Bond (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/terrain-bond) is the spell that works better among the lines you described. It makes you treat the current terrain as your favorite terrain, and with Terrain Dominance that also means those "native creatures" become your favored enemies. Not sure why Instant Enemy would be called out for that...

[Shinken]

In any case, Terrain Bond (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/terrain-bond) is the spell that works better among the lines you described. It makes you treat the current terrain as your favorite terrain, and with Terrain Dominance that also means those "native creatures" become your favored enemies. Not sure why Instant Enemy would be called out for that...
Even Terrain Bond only works with creatures native to that terrain, so you wouldn't be able to get it to work on a red dragon that's stalking you on the plains, for example. But yeah, Terrain Bond scrolls actually do something for a Horizon Walker, I'm just trying to understand why so many times people have been saying that Instant Enemy is good for HW when it doesn't seem to be the case.

[Yanisa]

I said better, not perfect. :smalltongue:

Best I found

The idea with instant enemy is to pick a favored enemy that is native to a terrain you have dominance in. Since you treat them as your favored enemy for all purposes, you treat them as though they are native to that terrain, allowing you to use the higher bonus.

Combined with terrain bond and some planning, you can get this bonus on creatures from your selected terrain, creatures native to the terrain you're in, and anything you cast instant enemy on. While that isn't every enemy you'll face, it should be a fair number of them.

Here is an example of how it works, lets say our character is a ranger 8/rogue 2/terrain Walker 10 facing off against a dragon in the middle of the woods.
Our character has favored enemy, Human (+4) and Favored Terrain, Urban (+20). We point our wand of instant enemy at the Dragon and declare it Human. We could either get a +4 from favored enemy OR since humans are native to Urban Terrain get the +20 to hit, damage and init OR we can cast Charm person on it since it is now considered a human for all purposes and our terrain dominance lets us cast charm person on humans.

With only the slightest amount of planning you can devastate anything that gets in your way.
Source (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ohph?Horizon-walker-build#12). Especially look for posts from "Mathwei ap Niall", he is a strong defender of the argument.

It also comes back to the line from Instant Enemy that states: "For the duration of the spell, you treat the target as if it were that type of favored enemy for all purposes."

Even then, it still sounds dubious to me, especially because a general statement as "all humans are native to urban" don't work, nativity is not described within the rules other then planes.

[Sayt]

I always interpreted Terrain Dominance/Instant Enemy's interaction somewhat differently.

THe way I read Terrain dominance, was that when you acquire Terrain Dominance[Forest], (for instance) you also gain Favored Enemy[Creatures native to forests]

So when you come across the Dragon, the Ranger casts Instant Enemy and declares the the Dragon to count as [Creatures native to forests].

On the other hand, Rogue 17/Horizon Walker 3 with maxed UMD and a Wand of Instant Enemy, spending all of it's Rogue Talents on Terrain Mastery and feats on Extra Rogue Talent is extremely dumb.

[Shinken]

I said better, not perfect. :smalltongue:

Best I found


Source (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ohph?Horizon-walker-build#12). Especially look for posts from "Mathwei ap Niall", he is a strong defender of the argument.

It also comes back to the line from Instant Enemy that states: "For the duration of the spell, you treat the target as if it were that type of favored enemy for all purposes."

Even then, it still sounds dubious to me, especially because a general statement as "all humans are native to urban" don't work, nativity is not described within the rules other then planes.

That's the argument as I knew it, but it does not make sense. Creature types don't have an environment line and thus can't be native to any environment.

[Yanisa]

That's the argument as I knew it, but it does not make sense. Creature types don't have an environment line and thus can't be native to any environment.

If you pick Outsider(native) instead humanoid(human) then it would work even better, because then you are using the term "Native" as it is defined by the rules and avoid the ambiguity. :smalltongue: I would still call it dubious though.

[Giddonihah]

Its a trick that can be shut down or allowed via GM interpretation.
I think under the strictest viewing it doesnt work, but a GM might see that the intention fits enough to allow it to work anyways.