Favored Enemy made decent?

[SangoProduction]

So, I found a feat in Spheres of Might, which, for a move action, plus a swift action, you can make a single target count as your highest bonus Favored Enemy. I would imagine that this means that Favored Enemy is no longer a trash-tier ability (outside of specific campaigns where you know what type your enemy is).

But, how good would it make ranger, in actuality?

[Zaq]

Can’t speak about PF, but I’m always disappointed with the 3.5 ranger. Honestly, just turning FE into an always-on ability regardless of who you happen to be fighting wouldn’t break anything. At all.

If you MUST make the ranger unnecessarily situational, make the skill bonuses tied to critter type and leave the damage bonuses as unconditional.

As for the ability you mentioned, why does it cost both a move and a swift? Just a swift seems more appropriate to me. It’s not a design sin to let you get a damage bonus and a full attack in the same turn.

I freely admit to being biased here. The 3.5 ranger is very disappointing to me as written, and I’m perhaps a bit unnecessarily opinionated about it. But I feel like there’s plenty of room for improvement without breaking anything.

[awa]

not really favored enemy at that point just a bonus to damage

[SangoProduction]

As for the ability you mentioned, why does it cost both a move and a swift? Just a swift seems more appropriate to me. It’s not a design sin to let you get a damage bonus and a full attack in the same turn.

Because it requires the target to be Scouted (swift action) and then spending Martial Focus to switch the favored enemy to the target (which can be regained as a move action).

So, at the start of combat, it's actually just a swift action, and the move action cost is delayed. But that's a minor detail.

[Biggus]

I freely admit to being biased here. The 3.5 ranger is very disappointing to me as written, and I’m perhaps a bit unnecessarily opinionated about it. But I feel like there’s plenty of room for improvement without breaking anything.

I feel similar, although for me favored enemies are less the problem than their low caster level and weak animal companion, and the fact that 2WF sucks. I tend to borrow from the PF rules when I'm DMing to balance these things up.

[Psyren]

Pathfinder gives Rangers the Instant Enemy spell if you need the bonuses on the fly. This has no save/SR, lasts 10+ rounds and can be put on a wand. In addition, PF Favored Enemy applies to attack rolls AND damage, which results in a much larger DPR increase against level-appropriate foes.

How good such abilities make the ranger depends on the campaign. Ideally your best favored enemy should align to what the campaign is "about." e.g. you wouldn't pick FE Fey in an undead campaign. If a long campaign ends up changing your chief foes from what your character's original concept was, retraining is an option too.

[Vaern]

It's still a pretty meh ability. I suppose, unimpressive damage bonus aside, rangers have the distinction of being able to apply the bonus to every attack against their favored enemies as opposed to, say, a rogue who typically only gets to add their sneak attack damage once per round, or a sorcerer or wizard who can generally only cast one spell per round. If you focus on maxing out a single favored enemy and just use your sphere of might power to apply that bonus to everything else then at level 20, with 4 attacks per round (or 7 with GTWF), you're looking at a maximum potential of 40 (or 70) bonus damage in a round. It would be a nice bit of damage, if only you didn't have to land so many consecutive and increasingly difficult attacks to gain the full benefit of it.

[Ashtagon]

My favoured houserule for FE is that with an hour of study, you can swap your favoured enemies around and raise the studied creature to the top (all other must either stay the same or go down to accommodate).

I'm not sure how that would play out though. It still feels weak. But making it a near-instantly-adaptable ability to the extent that it is virtually always "on" feels boring in actual play.
Rangers definitely need something,. but FE is not a game-changer class ability.

[emulord]

1 hour retraining makes sense for a varied campaign and rewards scouting out future encounters.

Giving +FE bonuses to AC allows TWF rangers to actually be able to melee.

[AvatarVecna]

Favored Defense (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/favored-defense/) applies half your FE to AC and CMD. I also recommend getting a way to cast Enemy Insight frequently. This turns your first round into "swift scout a creature that shows up a lot in the encounter to come, move change your biggest FE to that, standard give 2 or more allies half your FE bonus against them for at least 7 rounds". Since you're scouting them anyway, you should probably look into the other Scout talents tied to that ability: Find Gap lowers their AC for you and Identify Rhythms gives you an AC bonus against them that'll stack with Favored Defense. If you're going Conscript with the "Favored Enemy" combat specialization, you could also go with the "Sphere Specialization: Scout" for +1 effective level for benefits, no penalty to Perception for scouting, and getting all the same info you'd get with a Knowledge check on that creature, effectively making Perception into Knowledge (any creature you have LoS)...which, if your DM is lenient, might be allowed to trigger Knowledge Devotion, heck maybe even qualify for it. (If you go that route, you could take the Scout talent "Identify Structural Hazards" to extend the "using Perception in place of Knowledge" schtick".)

[Mato]

I would imagine that this means that Favored Enemy is no longer a trash-tier abilityFE isn't a trash ability. The core ranger's FE sucks but the Harper Paragon or Stalker of Kharesh versions of FE are great.

Specially when you combine it with other FE related effects, like you can UMD an enemy spirit pouch to spoof being a ranger and it applies to your favored enemy ability. So with a base of +1, the pouch, mark of the hunter, and Ghostwalk's wise to your ways, you gain up to a +7 bonus to all saves against the special abilities used by an evil creature as well as ignore their cover & concealment. I suppose if damage is a concern, favored critical and tiger claw's blood in the water stance can set you up for a nice NI loop that almost always works.

[AvatarVecna]

FE isn't a trash ability. The core ranger's FE sucks but the Harper Paragon or Stalker of Kharesh versions of FE are great.

Specially when you combine it with other FE related effects, like you can UMD an enemy spirit pouch to spoof being a ranger and it applies to your favored enemy ability. So with a base of +1, the pouch, mark of the hunter, and Ghostwalk's wise to your ways, you gain up to a +7 bonus to all saves against the special abilities used by an evil creature as well as ignore their cover & concealment. I suppose if damage is a concern, favored critical and tiger claw's blood in the water stance can set you up for a nice NI loop that almost always works.

Yeah PF's SoM feat is basically unnecessary if you're actually playing 3.5

[SimonMoon6]

I think it's a strange ability. It *either* has flavor or usefulness, but not both.

Either you have the flavor of "I hate this *one* race and only them" (adding extra hatreds later)... or... you have the usefulness of "Yesterday, I hated orcs with a white-hot passion for killing my parents and everyone in the village I grew up in, but I'm fighting a plant now, so I guess I hate plants just as much... and I don't hate orcs anymore."

You can't have both.

If you can't change who you hate, then the ability might never come up ("I hate orcs... at least I think I do... I've never actually met one") and even if the ability does come up in adventures, there's a sort of planned obsolescence ("I hate orcs... but after level 5, I never saw one again. Now we fight dragons and demons. I haven't learned to hate them yet.")

So, of course, to make the ability useful, people want to change who they hate. But that makes no sense to me from a flavor perspective. Especially if you change who you hate every round. "Now I hate YOU. Now I like you but hate THAT guy. Now I like that guy but I hate this other guy."

It might make the ability more useful but it's never going to be *incredibly* useful. A few small combat bonuses and a few bonuses to skills... that's okay, I guess.

Caveat: Favored enemy might not be "hate". It might be who you have "studied" to learn a lot about. That's still not something that should change in an instant, from a flavor perspective.

[StSword]

As for the ability you mentioned, why does it cost both a move and a swift? Just a swift seems more appropriate to me. It’s not a design sin to let you get a damage bonus and a full attack in the same turn.

Spheres of Might's options are based on not doing full attacks in the first place.

Combining with feats from the Vital Strike tree is a popular way to add extra bang for the buck.

[Serafina]

The best combination of Flavor and Function for Favored Enemy I've found is with the Reaper, and their Reaper Trophy (http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/reaper#toc7).

They actually have two Favored Enemies. One is always the same - they're just focussed on fighting against Undead or Aberrations or whatever. But the other can be switched by studying a trophy made from the remains of an enemy they've killed in battle for an hour.

This keeps combines the flavors of your character having a motivation to fight a certain threat - such as Undead, or Fey, or Werewolves - but also has the flavor or your character being capable of studying their enemies and learn their weak points.
It also gets rid of the greatest mechanical issue - "what if I choose the wrong favored enemy type/the campaign has diverse enemies". Sure, you're still better off if you have the right enemy type always - but you're not stuck if you're wrong. But it's not free to switch (it takes an hour, and you can't do it on enemies you've never defeated before), and switching doesn't get rid of the flavor of a favored enemy.


Something like this could easily be introduced as an alternate class feature/archetype, or as a feat. Simply switching out all the second/third favorite enemies you get for a swappable one would certainly make the Ranger stronger, but we already estblished that'd hardly break anything.

[Eldariel]

FE isn't a trash ability. The core ranger's FE sucks but the Harper Paragon or Stalker of Kharesh versions of FE are great.

Specially when you combine it with other FE related effects, like you can UMD an enemy spirit pouch to spoof being a ranger and it applies to your favored enemy ability. So with a base of +1, the pouch, mark of the hunter, and Ghostwalk's wise to your ways, you gain up to a +7 bonus to all saves against the special abilities used by an evil creature as well as ignore their cover & concealment. I suppose if damage is a concern, favored critical and tiger claw's blood in the water stance can set you up for a nice NI loop that almost always works.

Mark of the Hunter is pretty **** TBH, it's a standard action medium range Will negates against a single target that doesn't even kill the target. It's not even a SoL, it's a SoBeSlightlyInconveniencedAgainstMeButNotMyAllies, which is rarely worth a 3rd level slot, and a standard action. You're generally much better off just deadifying them (as a Ranger, you should have little trouble dealing enough damage with a full attack particularly with Arrowsplit & co. which are much better use of your spell slots) unless they specifically have something that makes deadifying them impossible, in which case +4 is unlikely to be of much help. Nemesis [BoED], OTOH, is pretty good as an enemydar vs. Arcanists or Evil and Enemy Spirit Pouch is pretty free so there's little reason not to have it. Wise to your Ways is cute but MotH only seems to work with it against the specific enemy you've Marked which drops the utility notably.

[liquidformat]

I always like taking Arcane Hunter from CM to pickup favored enemy (arcanists), it is a very powerful choice.

[Mato]

Mark of the Hunter is pretty **** TBH,It depends on your goal. Like if you want damage, then I'd like to point out wasting a 3rd level slot for a chance of an average +300% damage gain is significantly worse than using a 1st level spell to cast hunter's mercy with an x4 critical weapon. Arrow storm with a splitting weapon is my personal preferred route through. Pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, everyone in a hundred feet (or a lot more) is probably dead.

Wise to your ways is "cute", if you mean that in like an anime girl sort of way. With just the base +1 from FE:evil and the pouch alone you're up +3 on all three of your saves against the abilities of most of the enemies you face which isn't something to scoff at. And MotH increasing this to +7 is the save-or-die. A comparative ranger only fears failure on a 1, can reliably snipe you in melee, ignores the wizard's CC on the target, and ignores the target's miss-related buffs. The damage bonus? I mean honestly if you are only a running a +7 damage bonus after MotH, you probably are not very interested in your some of damage modifiers anyway. Like maybe you're using favored critical & splitting for something like up to octuple the normal damage output or something. Besides, the bonuses can go higher if you need it.

Nemesis is ok through, for it's detection trait through it's benefit is somewhat lessened if you have FE:E because both of the classes that grant it already give you at-will detect evil. But at least you can pretend you are a paladin. Except you pusdo-smite on every attack and people don't hear you coming from a mile away. Plus if you entered using mystic ranger, your spellcasting is better too.

[gkathellar]

Caveat: Favored enemy might not be "hate". It might be who you have "studied" to learn a lot about. That's still not something that should change in an instant, from a flavor perspective.

Alternately, it's who you are currently prepared to fight. You've picked the right tools, done the image training, and made the necessary plans.

[Sereg]

I rule that all your favoured enemies have their bonus maximised and immunity to precision damage just halves the bonus damage

[Rynjin]

Favored Enemy is fine in PF (which this thread should be marked as, since a lot of people are discussing 3.5 FE right now) as long as your GM properly communicates the theme of his campaign to you.

Instant Enemy is icing on the cake, but not a necessary fixture, same as this SoM Feat.

[schreier]

I think it works well with Swift Hunter - but not on its own.

[Eldariel]

It depends on your goal. Like if you want damage, then I'd like to point out wasting a 3rd level slot for a chance of an average +300% damage gain is significantly worse than using a 1st level spell to cast hunter's mercy with an x4 critical weapon. Arrow storm with a splitting weapon is my personal preferred route through. Pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, pew pew, everyone in a hundred feet (or a lot more) is probably dead.

Hunter's Mercy is a standard action, Arrowsplit a swift one. Considering the extra resources to use Hunter's Mercy as a swift action, I'd generally take Arrowsplit. Further, Arrowsplit works with e.g. Woodland Archer and in general stuff that cares about hits (poison, special abilities, etc.) while crit does not, and applies against crit immune enemies. Arrowstorm is very situational compared to a full attack; it requires a fair number of enemies before you'd rather Arrowstorm than full attack with Rapid Shot. But yes, when Arrowstorm is good, it's very good. Splitting bow is obviously a granted and works the same for just about everything here.


Wise to your ways is "cute", if you mean that in like an anime girl sort of way. With just the base +1 from FE:evil and the pouch alone you're up +3 on all three of your saves against the abilities of most of the enemies you face which isn't something to scoff at. And MotH increasing this to +7 is the save-or-die. A comparative ranger only fears failure on a 1, can reliably snipe you in melee, ignores the wizard's CC on the target, and ignores the target's miss-related buffs. The damage bonus? I mean honestly if you are only a running a +7 damage bonus after MotH, you probably are not very interested in your some of damage modifiers anyway. Like maybe you're using favored critical & splitting for something like up to octuple the normal damage output or something. Besides, the bonuses can go higher if you need it.

Okay, there are three problems with this:
1. You're a Ranger. You get 3rd level spells so late the save DC is pretty pitiful unless you're a Mystic Ranger.
2. You still spent a standard action. You have a party (probably) who is not least bit helped by your stuff. What makes you think the enemy is even going to target you? A proper SoL would remove the threat immediately instead of giving the enemy a full round to do as they please.
3. Generally you aren't that high on Wis as a Ranger anyways so the save DC really leaves a lot to be desired compared to actual SoLs.

Overall, it's just way too situational a spell to generally prepare even with WtyW, except in perhaps a solo game and even there, you should be able to come up with better ways to use that action. Miss-related buffs and such are just Seeking away from being trivial and that's a +1 ability everyone should have on their bow anyways, since it doesn't require failed saves or any other nonsense.


Nemesis is ok through, for it's detection trait through it's benefit is somewhat lessened if you have FE:E because both of the classes that grant it already give you at-will detect evil. But at least you can pretend you are a paladin. Except you pusdo-smite on every attack and people don't hear you coming from a mile away. Plus if you entered using mystic ranger, your spellcasting is better too.

Well, Detect Evil is nice, but Nemesis adds quite the value on top of that. Detect Evil takes time for more precise information (3 rounds to pinpoint locations makes it extremely impractical in combat) and is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt. That's very nice compared to normal vision but Nemesis works through any obstacles making far superior to that as well. It's particularly amazing in dungeon settings but also against incorporeal things lurking in walls and such that might otherwise be extremely difficult to pinpoint.

[Anthrowhale]

It looks like you could combine Favored Enemy, Travel Devotion(Complete Champion), Swift Hunter (Complete Scoundrel), Improved Skirmish (Complete Scoundrel), Nemesis (BoED) and archery attacks to make a pretty good scout/striker that is primarily a ranger. Particularly on sneak attack immune foes, this could be superior to a rogue, even if they have the penetrating strike ACF.

[liquidformat]

Nemesis is ok through, for it's detection trait through it's benefit is somewhat lessened if you have FE:E because both of the classes that grant it already give you at-will detect evil. But at least you can pretend you are a paladin. Except you pusdo-smite on every attack and people don't hear you coming from a mile away. Plus if you entered using mystic ranger, your spellcasting is better too.
You seem to be missing the fact that detect evil is limited to detecting evil whereas Nemesis lets you choose any of your favored enemy types as you wish. So no this ability can't be easily replaced by detect evil, also detect evil doesn't give you a blanket damage adder either...

[Mato]

Hunter's Mercy is a standard action,And triggers bursts and other unique critical hit bonuses, which may work even if the target is immune, as well as dealing damage values a normal ranger may not see for another twelve levels.

And arrowsplit says nothing about duplicating poison and I think you're reading to far into what part is the arrow. Like if you persisted several spells on your self, they don't automatically get duplicated when you cast simulacrum anymore than the caster's soul does. The spell says it creates a masterwork arrow, and nothing about duplicating magic or poison, mid-flight after being fired out of an object that only grants enhancements on projectiles it actually fired. It's why it doesn't work with woodland archer's adjust either.

As for the rest, I think it comes down to a prospective. If you look at the ranger and think dumb fighter should attack every single turn you're going to hate using your standard action on anything else and you're going to dislike putting any resources into your character's mental attributes. And while you can say the ranger's dual-class nature, or it's ten level primary caster variant, is enough to look and play it differently than that. This thread is about FE and I have been talking about FE:E while acknowledging the ranger's version sucks. A zen archery druid that dips harper paragon and prestige ranger isn't outside of my realm of limitations. So if you're digging for a win, yes I will agree that I wouldn't try to build a ranger that casts MotH.

[Eldariel]

And triggers bursts and other unique critical hit bonuses, which may work even if the target is immune, as well as dealing damage values a normal ranger may not see for another twelve levels.

That's fair, but bursts are generally not worth it even on crits. Prismatic Burst is something of an exception but generally you're better off just jamming more bonuses or something like Collision that's actually multiplied on Crit on your weapon instead.


And arrowsplit says nothing about duplicating poison and I think you're reading to far into what part is the arrow. Like if you persisted several spells on your self, they don't automatically get duplicated when you cast simulacrum anymore than the caster's soul does. The spell says it creates a masterwork arrow, and nothing about duplicating magic or poison, mid-flight after being fired out of an object that only grants enhancements on projectiles it actually fired. It's why it doesn't work with woodland archer's adjust either.

The spell says "The arrow splits into N identical arrows..." so I don't think it's possible to argue that e.g. poison shouldn't be replicated. Magical effects are trickier but anything mundane is certainly a-go.


As for the rest, I think it comes down to a prospective. If you look at the ranger and think dumb fighter should attack every single turn you're going to hate using your standard action on anything else and you're going to dislike putting any resources into your character's mental attributes. And while you can say the ranger's dual-class nature, or it's ten level primary caster variant, is enough to look and play it differently than that. This thread is about FE and I have been talking about FE:E while acknowledging the ranger's version sucks. A zen archery druid that dips harper paragon and prestige ranger isn't outside of my realm of limitations. So if you're digging for a win, yes I will agree that I wouldn't try to build a ranger that casts MotH.

Well, it has to be a rather specific scenario for MotH to be on the table and even in those cases, if you actually are a full Druid, you can use the same action for something like Cone of Euphoria for an AOE Will SoL instead. Straight Ranger has less direct competition but again, other issues to work with it. Zen Archer Mystic Ranger might be in a position to make use of it occasionally but I'm not convinced it's worth the opportunity cost even if the opponent always fails the save. Standard action (or resources to Quicken it) and offensive bonuses being limited to +4 damage/+4 hit is just...not all that. I'm all for a castery Ranger with arrows in the side when going Mystic Ranger (hell, I built Saarvith from RHoD as a pseudo-Druid summoner on the Ranger chassis) but even there, the spell is...meh.

[Tallyn]

Just curious.. why do people think Favored Enemy is trash tier? Potential +10 to hit/damage (among other bonuses), especially in the hands of an Archer ranger seems fairly good to me. *shrug*

[Psyren]

Just curious.. why do people think Favored Enemy is trash tier? Potential +10 to hit/damage (among other bonuses), especially in the hands of an Archer ranger seems fairly good to me. *shrug*

There's a lot of conflation happening here between 3.5 and PF which is muddying the discussion.

In 3.5, FE is mediocre without specific PrCs/builds. It only adds to damage, plus archery and TWF are weaker in general (again, you need specific PrCs/builds to change that), and it's a lot harder to make the bonuses matter if you go up against something that isn't your specialty.

In PF, archery is a lot stronger baseline, favored enemy adds to attack rolls too (which also means maneuver checks), plus there are options to add it to your defenses too, and more ways to apply the bonus where it is needed. Switch-hitting is also easier, e.g. dual-wielding Agile weapons and the like.

When people are saying FE is weak, they're generally referring to 3.5.

[Tallyn]

There's a lot of conflation happening here between 3.5 and PF which is muddying the discussion.

In 3.5, FE is mediocre without specific PrCs/builds. It only adds to damage, plus archery and TWF are weaker in general (again, you need specific PrCs/builds to change that), and it's a lot harder to make the bonuses matter if you go up against something that isn't your specialty.

In PF, archery is a lot stronger baseline, favored enemy adds to attack rolls too (which also means maneuver checks), plus there are options to add it to your defenses too, and more ways to apply the bonus where it is needed. Switch-hitting is also easier, e.g. dual-wielding Agile weapons and the like.

When people are saying FE is weak, they're generally referring to 3.5.

Ahh ok that makes sense then.

I guess in a vacuum it is not always applicable.. but I usually find in campaigns I'll discuss with the GM if there will be a primary enemy type, so that it will fit the theme of the campaign. Usually works out ok for me :smallsmile:

[Psyren]

Ahh ok that makes sense then.

I guess in a vacuum it is not always applicable.. but I usually find in campaigns I'll discuss with the GM if there will be a primary enemy type, so that it will fit the theme of the campaign. Usually works out ok for me :smallsmile:

Yes, exactly - that's good information to have if you plan to be a Ranger, and a reasonable GM should provide it.

With that said. campaigns can change too - e.g. you deal with the orc warlord and now the next big bad is the necromancer cult, making your Ranger's FE Orc primary much less useful. At worse, hopefully you knew this ahead of time when you picked your secondary. But even if you didn't, hopefully the GM allows use of the retraining rules too.

[Mato]

Well, it has to be a rather specific scenario for MotH to be on the tableLike this one where the topic is about FE and since MotH provides the single largest bonus to FE. If someone is serious about making FE work, they will learn to make MotH work too. Like googling how to optimize CL after reading owl's insight in the SpC or how useful chain spell is over quicken spell.

I get it's a selfish buff with a save DC, I really do. It's not a 4th level spell and it's the kind of spell you'd throw in a spell storing arrow and argue about the usage of "identical" in relation to things that are not an arrow. But it has more purpose in this thread than prismatic burst does if you catch my drift.


Just curious.. why do people think Favored Enemy is trash tier? Potential +10 to hit/damage (among other bonuses), especially in the hands of an Archer ranger seems fairly good to me. *shrug*Sounds like PF since in 3rd FE doesn't grant an attack bonus. Normal FE is circumstantial and it shines when it applies. But since the game persuades DMs into the table top version of feature creep it often doesn't. And no one wants to get stuck with a junk ability that's useless a majority of the time.

A really great parallel thought to consider is how great a wizard is for his ability to choose his spells daily opposed to how a sorcerer must slowly make his choices over several levels. Now consider how the ranger must pick his choice before he even starts playing and without retraining it never changes.

[Rynjin]

Sounds like PF since in 3rd FE doesn't grant an attack bonus.

Yeah, as has been mentioned, the thread could use a Pathfinder tag. it's talking about PF only 3rd party options.


Normal FE is circumstantial and it shines when it applies. But since the game persuades DMs into the table top version of feature creep it often doesn't. And no one wants to get stuck with a junk ability that's useless a majority of the time.

A really great parallel thought to consider is how great a wizard is for his ability to choose his spells daily opposed to how a sorcerer must slowly make his choices over several levels. Now consider how the ranger must pick his choice before he even starts playing and without retraining it never changes.

It's also worth keeping in mind that in Pathfinder, the ranger as a whole has a better package than the 3.5 Ranger.

PF Ranger gets an Animal Companion at level-4 instead of half level (and Boon Companion boosts it to full level). They can also eschew the AC entirely for the ability to give the entire party half their Favored Enemy bonus.

Instead of getting Combat Style at 2 and 11, with heavily locked Feats, you get Feats at 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18, all of which are chosen from a list of about 12 options per Combat Style (of which there are over 20 at this stage) and ignore ALL prerequisites on them. Rangers get a lot of 11 BaB or higher Feats with other tacked on prerequisites at 6th level. Shield Master is a big one, effectively giving you a character that upgrades their offhand weapon for 50% of the cost, takes no penalties for TWFing, and adds part of their AC to attack and damage at 6th level.

Their spell list doesn't suck.

The Ranger is a great class even without Favored Enemy, it's just a nice bonus, in other words.

[Eldariel]

TBH 3.5 Ranger spell list is really good once you add all the auxiliary sources as well. It's just the core spell list that's basically just a "really bad Druid list"; with Spell Compendium, PHBII and Champions of Ruin in particular you get a lot of really good stuff there that actually augments what you do and doesn't depend on CL/saves though. There's a number of great Ranger-only (or well, Ranger and some PRCs) spells in the game. Nothing quite as bonkers as Named Bullet (but then, that's better on casters in PF anyways).

[Psyren]

It's also worth keeping in mind that in Pathfinder, the ranger as a whole has a better package than the 3.5 Ranger.

PF Ranger gets an Animal Companion at level-4 instead of half level (and Boon Companion boosts it to full level). They can also eschew the AC entirely for the ability to give the entire party half their Favored Enemy bonus.

Instead of getting Combat Style at 2 and 11, with heavily locked Feats, you get Feats at 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18, all of which are chosen from a list of about 12 options per Combat Style (of which there are over 20 at this stage) and ignore ALL prerequisites on them. Rangers get a lot of 11 BaB or higher Feats with other tacked on prerequisites at 6th level. Shield Master is a big one, effectively giving you a character that upgrades their offhand weapon for 50% of the cost, takes no penalties for TWFing, and adds part of their AC to attack and damage at 6th level.

Their spell list doesn't suck.

The Ranger is a great class even without Favored Enemy, it's just a nice bonus, in other words.

Level -3 actually :smallcool: Agreed with the rest though.

I'll add some of PF's structural changes too. Archery is much stronger for a few reasons, e.g. a +5 bow bypasses most forms of DR, Deadly Aim is Power Attack with bows, Cyclonic arrows to deal with wind etc.

They also got some interesting tertiary abilities. Favored Terrain can be campaign-dependent but it's a flat initiative boost a lot of the time. Quarry is fun for bosses. But even if those aren't helpful, you can use archetypes like Infiltrator or Shapeshifter to trade them out for more generally useful things.

[Zaq]

Just curious.. why do people think Favored Enemy is trash tier? Potential +10 to hit/damage (among other bonuses), especially in the hands of an Archer ranger seems fairly good to me. *shrug*

First, as has been mentioned, in 3.5 it's not a bonus to hit.

Second, and more importantly, it's one of the least reliable abilities in the entire game when used as written. If the enemy you're up against doesn't happen to be your favored enemy, nothing in the ranger's power will make them be your favored enemy (until you start bringing in 3rd party material, as the OP did). You can't use clever tactics to make it work if it's not already working. It's not a reward for using your abilities intelligently—it's purely a gift given by the GM and not something that can be relied upon in any way. It's basically a flavor ribbon that, for some reason, WotC decided to treat as a primary class feature.

This isn't hyperbole: if the discussion isn't specifically about favored enemy, most of the time when discussing the ranger I actually forget that favored enemy exists. No joke. It's that unreliable. I basically mentally write it off because you can never control when it's going to work. Why assume a best-case scenario if you can't engineer it under your own power? Build for what you can control and for what you can adapt to. FE is neither.

Now, if you're not using it as written and you've got some degree of flexibility to make it actually come up? Eh. It's okay. The skill bonuses are noticeable. The damage bonuses are pretty puny, though. +2 per five levels? That's genuinely unimpressive when compared to actual CR-appropriate monster HP totals. Again, it's basically a flavor ribbon, but WotC seems to think that it's an acceptable primary damage source. (Run a few simulations. Figure out how many actual attacks per round you're gonna get, calculate a ballpark hit rate, and figure out how often getting the damage bonus against your primary favored enemy—let alone a secondary one—will change the number of rounds it takes for you to finish them off. Then remember that it's never in your control and that's a best-case scenario.)

That's why I'm saying it wouldn't be OP at all to just straight up give the damage bonus to literally everything the ranger fights. You sink ten levels (half an entire standard build, with the understanding that most campaigns never even get to 20) in ranger? I'm okay with you just getting a no-questions-asked +6 to weapon damage all day every day. That doesn't bother me at all. You invested five more precious levels? Sure, turn that +6 into a +8. You won't be overpowered, I promise. Not like you got a hell of a lot for those five levels. It's not like it turns you into a god among humanoids when it fires off and therefore it has to be carefully shepherded and put behind GM-controlled barriers. It's an extremely minor damage bonus.

If you wanted to keep something approximating the flavor, I say give rangers Knowledge Devotion for free at first level, then give them a mechanic where they don't have to spend all their skill points on Knowledge skills (maybe a bonus to Knowledge checks only to ID monsters based on class level, or something similar). That way there's a reasonable mechanical way to get some bonuses in place no matter what you're fighting, and if the player really, really cares about being specifically good against one kind of monster, they're free to invest actual skill points (and or other resources that give nickel-and-dime bonuses to the appropriate check) in getting better at that specific Knowledge check. You keep the flavor of "I know everything about this hated foe, and therefore I'm better prepared to fight against it than someone who's going in blind" without taking it entirely away from the player. (The skill bonuses could be a special class feature that only rangers get when using KD, or they could be kept as-is on top of the proposed KD solution because that doesn't really hurt anything, or maybe you could just swap in favored environment instead for the skill portion. Whatever.)

It wouldn't be so bad if rangers had other cool tricks to fall back on, but everything the RAW ranger gets (aside from wild shape, if using Unearthed Arcana, and that's an entirely different ball of wax) is small, limited, late, or pointlessly restricted.


FE is, as discussed, completely outside the player's control and pretty small even when it works.
The combat style is nice at 2nd level but tends to not really be meaningful as you level up, especially considering that it's just feats that anyone can take.
The animal companion is pointlessly nerfed and so underpowered as to be a nearly complete waste of time.
The spells are garbage in the PHB. While later books introduced some genuinely nice spells, the itty-bitty number of slots per day (and the hopelessly restricted caster level) seriously interfere with feeling like you've actually got enough magic to rely on it over and over.
Woodland stride is a flavor ribbon that for some reason you have to wait for 7 levels to get?
Evasion is nice at 2nd level and it's also nice at 9th level, but why does the ranger need to invest 9 levels to get it?
Camouflage and hide in plain sight are too late to matter, though they'd be acceptable if they were each ten or so levels earlier.


Anything I didn't mention is, at best, a flavor ribbon. So it'd be one thing if FE were just one ability out of many on an otherwise robust class, but that genuinely isn't what WotC presented, and that's a major reason why it's so frustrating.

[AvatarVecna]

Favored Enemy is such trash that in PF one of the classes they made that wasn't just 3.5 material with a PF sticker slapped on it was the Slayer, which got the Studied Target ability, which is basically "spend a swift action to make somebody you can see into your favored enemy", with comparable max FE bonus and the ability to SA their studied target. The "Instant Enemy" spell is a large part of what will keep ranger relevant in the high levels in PF, and 3.5 doesn't really have an equivalent.

[Rynjin]

Favored Enemy is such trash that in PF one of the classes they made that wasn't just 3.5 material with a PF sticker slapped on it was the Slayer, which got the Studied Target ability, which is basically "spend a swift action to make somebody you can see into your favored enemy", with comparable max FE bonus and the ability to SA their studied target. The "Instant Enemy" spell is a large part of what will keep ranger relevant in the high levels in PF, and 3.5 doesn't really have an equivalent.

Studied Target actually gets half the bonus as Favored Enemy. Less, actually, since FE scales faster; Studied Target is more akin to "Weapon Training with every weapon" since it uses the same scaling.

[AvatarVecna]

Studied Target actually gets half the bonus as Favored Enemy. Less, actually, since FE scales faster; Studied Target is more akin to "Weapon Training with every weapon" since it uses the same scaling.

Ah, my bad, I forgot it doesn't render the ranger completely irrelevant, just mostly. So it's only better than ranger for the 90+% of cases where ranger's FE doesn't apply, and is worse the 10-% when it does.

[Rynjin]

Ah, my bad, I forgot it doesn't render the ranger completely irrelevant, just mostly. So it's only better than ranger for the 90+% of cases where ranger's FE doesn't apply, and is worse the 10-% when it does.

Ranger has quite a lot going for it over Slayer. Better late game scaling for one; even 4 levels of casting is better than a bit of Sneak Attack and some crappy Talents.

Favored Enemy not working in "90% of cases" is hyperbole as well. Generally speaking you should know the general theme of your campaign. If you're doing a lot of dungeon delving, Undead and Aberrations are always safe picks even picking blindly. If you're in a classic "save the world" plot, Evil Outsiders is a hugely broad category. So on and so forth.

Outside of that, there's quite a few safe bets even in any non-themed campaign. Let's face it; Undead, (especially), Outsiders (Evil particularly, Chaotic as a distant second), Aberrations, and Magical Beasts make up the vast majority of real threats, both raw numerically in how many slots they take up in a given Bestiary, and their average threat level.

FE: Vermin, Plant, or Humanoid (egregiously limited subtype) are almost always going to be the wrong choice, because of a combination of enemies of that type being rare and being relatively nonthreatening. Constructs and Dragons are usually threatening, but you'll fight 1-2 per campaign most time.

That really leaves Elementals as the only wild card where in SOME campaigns they show up a lot, and are usually threatening.

[Anthrowhale]

Anything I didn't mention is, at best, a flavor ribbon. So it'd be one thing if FE were just one ability out of many on an otherwise robust class, but that genuinely isn't what WotC presented, and that's a major reason why it's so frustrating.
Hide/Move Silently/Spot/Listen are all nice skills, and Tumble / Sense Motive are available via skilled city dweller (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a). All of these can be used with 6+Int skills without really suffering from MAD issues. They aren't formally a class feature but they may contribute more than most of what was mentioned.

[Zaq]

Hide/Move Silently/Spot/Listen are all nice skills, and Tumble / Sense Motive are available via skilled city dweller (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a). All of these can be used with 6+Int skills without really suffering from MAD issues. They aren't formally a class feature but they may contribute more than most of what was mentioned.

True. I thought I'd thrown in a line about the basic class chassis being the nicest part of the ranger (full BAB, 6 + INT skills, and two good saves? Hard to beat that even with d8 for HP), but it seems that I neglected to actually include it.

[gooddragon1]

This thread is one of the two reasons I recently homebrewed the Strike Ranger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?588543-Strike-Ranger-3-5-Ranger-Variant-Simple&p=23949243#post23949243).

The first character I ever played (outside of some sort of event WotC was holding at stores around the country which featured a bezekira and a gargoyle and stuff) was a ranger. I wanted to play an archer character.

The ranger has archery feats for free... I didn't know any better.

I quickly discovered why favored enemy had problems. As well as how DR 5/Bludgeoning can be a problem when you're just using a bow and arrows (carry a sling...).

I'm not sure about favored enemy for twf, but for ranged I think that consolidating the damage is better against DR. In tandem with just using a smaller bonus that applies to weapons in general.