How situational was the Ranger's Favored Enemy intended to be?

[Arrowhawk]

Are you thinking of the Swift Hunter feat for Ranger/Scouts, maybe? One of its benefits is that you can deal skirmish damage even to things normally immune to it if they are a favored enemy:

"In addition, your skirmish extra damage applies against any creature you have selected as a favored enemy, even if it is normally immune to extra damage from critical hits or skirmish attacks."

Ironically, I suppose that means you could end up doing skirmish damage but not FE damage to an incorp. enemy even though having FE on it in the first place is what's allowing you to deal skirmish.



I've never heard this before. Why on earth would you not get it in those conditions? FE is NOT precision damage, and being aware you're fighting a favored enemy is not a requirement for getting the benefit.

Maybe I was looking at the Swift Hunter feat.

FE is NOT precision damage,

That's actually exactly what the DMG calls FE damage. Check page 302.
Regarding FE damage against inviso's, DMG: page 295.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

...Wow. I hope that's just an accidental holdover from 3.0 when ranger's favored enemy basically was precision damage (didn't work on undead and such). Cause in 3.5 it works on every creature type, even those immune to precision damage. Those DMG entries contradict favored enemy rules. FE lists absolutely no restrictions or requirements for the damage, unlike sneak attack. You just plain get the damage. If conditions could prevent that, the ability itself should delineate them. Or at the very least give some sort of vague "sometimes your abilities may fail you" line, but it doesn't even have that.

The darkness, the invisibility, the incorporeality, all of that doesn't make sense...
*Adds houserules*

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Was there errata? The d20srd still has the same text for invisibility and incorporeality, but the darkness text (the entry that actually erroneously called FE precision damage) is different:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#darkness

"•Creatures blinded by darkness lose the ability to deal extra damage due to precision (for example, a sneak attack)."


Still don't like FE not working for no apparent reason on Invis and Incorp, and making it so invisible enemies are not subject to FE but foes you cannot see due to darkness are is also a contradiction...

 

[Arrowhawk]

The DMG Errata file I have doesn't say anything about FE. I'm not sure why you think it wouldn't be precision damage. FE stems from the "hunter hunting his quarry" paradigm. Precision damage is consistent with the nature of the Ranger getting better as he levels up.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Because precision isn't just some adjective in 3E, it has a very distinct meaning. Anything that is precision damage does not work on crit immune foes, which would make choosing certain creature types as favored enemy extremely suboptimal at best and downright pointless at worst. That's how it was in 3.0 and WotC changed FE specifically to address that imbalance. Counting it as precision damage means completely undoing that change and reverting back to 3.0. I really don't think that was their intent...

 

[Arrowhawk]

I really don't think that was their intent...

Under Polymorph, it states that if a FE changes form, you no longer get the bonus damage. It stand to reason if you can't see what you're fighting, then how do you know where to attack it such that you're exploiting its weaknesses?

As far as FE being pointless against some subtypes, even if FE is not precision damage, things like Bluff, SM, etc are still pointless against thing like plants. While agree with the notion that 3.5 did away with a lot of the grittiness of previous versions, clearly they tried to hang on to somethings.

For me, it's totally plausible that FE damage would apply to things like Plants or Undead. I never understood why knowing how creatures work wouldn't help you be more effective against them. I can also separate this from Sneak Attack which could be rationalized as the art of attacking vital organs or typical anatomies, which plants or Undead don't have. But I'm not sure what logic one uses to argue that FE damage should apply even if the Ranger doesn't know what he's fighting? Yeah, you can just say it is so, but then it just seems illogical.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Polymorph actually changes your physical form, and (iirc) creature type. So it makes sense you no longer get FE bonuses -- it's a different creature now. If disguise self prevented FE it would make a better case for what you're saying, since it that case you just appear differently but are still the same physical form.

And again, no where does it say the Ranger needs to be aware he's fighting a favored enemy to get the bonuses. If he did, he'd need all knowledge skills just to properly use his main class feature. How does it work? I don't know, the idea of techniques that are super effective against ALL members of a creature type no matter how different two members of it are, and also those skills not transferring over to other creatures ever...is a clunky mechanic. What exactly are you doing that hurts evil outsiders but not chaotic outsiders or evil extrplanar creatures (who aren't outsiders, just have the extraplanar subtype)?

Far as I've read, the attacks a ranger learns to use against favored enemies work just fine for normal damage against anything else, so it's not even a case of knowing when to apply said attacks. The ranger's literally just doing the same techniques 24/7, and when it happens to actually end up hitting a favored enemy, it's a happy coincidence.

 

[Arrowhawk]

And again, no where does it say the Ranger needs to be aware he's fighting a favored enemy to get the bonuses.

In fact...

A ranger’s favored enemy bonus is based on knowing what the
foe is, so if a creature that is a ranger’s favored enemy polymorphs
into another form, the ranger is denied his bonus.​

DMG 297.

The only way to interpret this is that FE damage results from having studied the creature over time and knowing how to kill it. For example, Skeletons are weaker at the hips, Ghouls have soft skulls, Ghasts have brittle bones, etc. If the enemy were disguised with an illusion to have a completely different form, I would rule no FE damage or other bonuses. One way to think of it is if a baseball were disguised to look like a football, an outfielder would not use his mit to catch the ball properly. If you think you are talking to an Orc, you're not looking for the same clues you would be if you were talking to a Dwarf.

If he did, he'd need all knowledge skills just to properly use his main class feature.

lol. I think that's exactly why he gets the bonus as a Ranger and not because a Ranger told him how to do it. It also takes 5 levels to gain another +2 so it's not that easy to improve or to acquire a new FE

What exactly are you doing that hurts evil outsiders but not chaotic outsiders or evil extrplanar creatures (who aren't outsiders, just have the extraplanar subtype)?

Well, if such a thing actually existed, maybe I could tell you. But I'm sure big game hunters in Africa know the material differences between killing a rhino versus a zebra.

Far as I've read, the attacks a ranger learns to use against favored enemies work just fine for normal damage against anything else, so it's not even a case of knowing when to apply said attacks. The ranger's literally just doing the same techniques 24/7, and when it happens to actually end up hitting a favored enemy, it's a happy coincidence.

That's a very odd perspective. If the FE ability were Su instead of Ex, maybe I'd share that opinion.

EDIT:
Let me quote you the PHB

But more cunning and
powerful than these monsters is the
ranger, a skilled hunter and stalker. He
knows the woods as if they were his
home (as indeed they are), and he
knows his prey in deadly detail.​

Perhaps you have not considered the ranger as a hunter?

 

[RogueInRouge]

FE damage results from having studied the creature over time and knowing how to kill it. For example, Skeletons are weaker at the hips, Ghouls have soft skulls, Ghasts have brittle bones, etc.

That's how I've always pictured it. And you can extend that line of reasoning to behavioral tendencies too, not just anatomical weaknesses. Maybe constructs tend to repeat the same attack motions precisely, fey creatures are distracted by even the simplest of feints, animals always charge straight in, etc.

 

[Dandu]

If you chose FE: Evil Outsiders, and are fighting a succubus who has assumed the form of a comely young woman, but do not know she is a succubus, do you get FE damage?