Lookinf for ideas to make favored enemy more useful

[jk7275]

Hello

I am joining a group that is trying 5th for the first time and I have a little experience with 5th. I have a ranger and favored enemy looks so lackluster. I am looking for ideas or suggestions that preferable do not increase damage or replace it with something else

As a concept I like favored enemy but IMO 3.x/Pathfinder made it too strong and 5th made it too weak

[Kane0]

Erm, you're looking for ways that change it to be more useful without changing it?

What is your DM going to allow on this?

[Maelynn]

It greatly depends on what you expect to encounter in your setting, but what you could do is focus on other races of humanoids.

Say you're a Human, and you choose Elves as favoured enemy. You automatically learn Elvish and you get advantage on the checks to track/recall information about them. That makes it quite useful if you expect to encounter Elves as possible enemies. The same goes for Tieflings, Orcs, whatever.

Talk about this with your DM and see if they're willing to work with you a bit here - it'd be a shame if you pick a race and they never show up as enemies. Or worse, valued allies...

[sithlordnergal]

Hello

I am joining a group that is trying 5th for the first time and I have a little experience with 5th. I have a ranger and favored enemy looks so lackluster. I am looking for ideas or suggestions that preferable do not increase damage or replace it with something else

As a concept I like favored enemy but IMO 3.x/Pathfinder made it too strong and 5th made it too weak

Hrmmm, if you don't want damage, then I would have it double your proficiency bonus, or add double your proficiency bonus, to any tracking, Intelligence, or intimidation check made on/against your Favored Enemy. As it is written, you're better off being a Rogue and having an ally give you the Aid action for advantage.

[Nagog]

I assume you're referring to Revised Ranger, considering OG Ranger's Favored enemy granted arbitrary bonuses and doesn't include damage at all (And therefore can probably be ignored entirely). If not, these suggestions may still come in handy, just... less so.

I'd work with your DM and look into broadening the categories a bit to include more enemy types. As is, the Humanoids being limited to 2 types (typically races) means it may come up once or twice per campaign, whereas if it were broadened to "Humanoids" in general, would come into play half the time. Perhaps another group could be "Magical Creatures", to include the likes of Fey, Dragons, and Aberrations, which would come up arbitrarily less often, but moreso than the specific type of "Fey". In other words, broadening the categories to include a larger swath of enemies would greatly increase the viability of the feature.

[JohnnyBoy]

How about having the categories be extremely narrow, but chosen on a long rest? That way you'll probably get it for the majority of the encounters but weird stuff can surprise you. Alternatively you can select the boss monster's type in order to get an advantage in a difficult fight but then you'll be worse off in the normal ones.

This is inevitably a big buff to the ability, so it might require a bit of balancing to find the sweet spot.

[Damon_Tor]

Hello

I am joining a group that is trying 5th for the first time and I have a little experience with 5th. I have a ranger and favored enemy looks so lackluster. I am looking for ideas or suggestions that preferable do not increase damage or replace it with something else

As a concept I like favored enemy but IMO 3.x/Pathfinder made it too strong and 5th made it too weak

Like most of the Ranger's unique features, it comes down entirely to the DM's style.

For example, I think most DMs would, when inclined to have the party face a pack of wolves, would straight up call them "wolves" when describing them to their players. And why wouldn't they? All of your players know what wolves are, they've seen nature documentaries, so tell them they're facing wolves and they know exactly the image to conjure in their minds.

But your characters have maybe never seen a wolf before. You could describe slavering, man-sized monsters encircling the party, and never use the word "wolf" at all... unless a player passes a knowledge check. A party unsure of what they're facing is more likely to overreact, using limited resources they maybe didn't have to. Having a someone along able to make knowledge checks reliably is valuable in such a situation because it allows you to correctly judge how hard of a fight you're facing. You might even give a high check a special insight: have him correctly identify the alpha wolf, and tell him you can more easily run off the others by killing it.

[NNescio]

Like most of the Ranger's unique features, it comes down entirely to the DM's style.

For example, I think most DMs would, when inclined to have the party face a pack of wolves, would straight up call them "wolves" when describing them to their players. And why wouldn't they? All of your players know what wolves are, they've seen nature documentaries, so tell them they're facing wolves and they know exactly the image to conjure in their minds.

But your characters have maybe never seen a wolf before. You could describe slavering, man-sized monsters encircling the party, and never use the word "wolf" at all... unless a player passes a knowledge check. A party unsure of what they're facing is more likely to overreact, using limited resources they maybe didn't have to. Having a someone along able to make knowledge checks reliably is valuable in such a situation because it allows you to correctly judge how hard of a fight you're facing. You might even give a high check a special insight: have him correctly identify the alpha wolf, and tell him you can more easily run off the others by killing it.

Bear Lore Wolf Lore
A character knows the following information with a successful Nature Check:

DC15: Wolves hunt together in packs.
DC20: Wolves like to attack with their natural weapons.

(Sorry, couldn't resist. :smalltongue:)