Rangers favoured enemy

[ancient_ones]

Forgive me if this has been posted before but my playes and I were discussing this possiblity one game session,jokingly of course. Say for example you play a half orc and you choose human as you favored enemy. I don't see how that character could function in a game world dominated by humans. To me it seems to be quite a bad twisting of the rules. How do you interpert the rules on favored enemy can the ranger resist the urge to not outright kill his favored enemy? Does it make him nearly suicidal?

 

[Mali]

Favoured enemy does not really work like that anymore, all it really means now is that you have had extra training in hunting and fighting that particular type of creature. Of course most people that take this also hate the creatures but, as I said, what it really represents is extra training against that type of creature. Of course this is just how I play it, you can play it anyway you want. Although to take your own species as a favoured enemy you have to be evil or justify it to your DM

 

[Murrdox]

"Favored Enemy" doesn't necessarily mean that all members of the species are your worst enemies whom you always kill on sight.

A lawful good Ranger isn't about to kill a Gold Dragon, even if his favored enemy is Dragons.

Favored enemy entails tracking bonuses and other things in addition to the damage bonus. He'd be really sick at TRACKING all humans, but it doesn't mean every human would recognize him as a "human-killer".

A half-orc ranger who has to, for example, track a group of 15 thieves through a forest to recover what they stole, and this particular mission involved tracking the nomadic group for several weeks, and finally finding and slaying them all.... I'd say you've learned enough at that point to make humans a favored enemy.

 

[Celebrim]

I very much like the direction that they took with Ranger to divorse it from its rather muddled roots, and define it more in terms of how it is played and what role they perform. But I don't think that they took the class nearly far enough (leaving aside an arguement of whether they aren't well balanced).

For my own part, I see no reason why a good ranger can't have his own race as favored enemy. Aren't thier members of his race who are evil? Aren't there innocents who need and desire protection from these villians? There is absolutely no reason that a magistrate, a bounty hunter, or a scout can't be good aligned. I would simply insist as I would with any good aligned character that they use no more force than the situation demands.

 

[Murrdox]

I agree with you. What about a Ranger who makes a living protecting a forest from evil poachers who constantly are trying to capture the Fey or Unicorns hiding in its depths? If you're actively hunting humans and such, then you should get them as a favored enemy. As a DM, though... if you wanted to do this, I'd probably make you justify why you wanted your own race as a favored enemy.

A half-orc ranger could get it if he grew up warring with a neighboring tribe of half-orc barbarians... there are tons of scenarios where you could "hunt" members of your own species without being evil.

 

[Merlion]

Just as a note there are rules for rangers taking parts of there own race as a favored enemy regardless of alignment in Masters of the Wild. So they did, rightly, acknowledge the idea

 

[Murrdox]

Ah.. I haven't read through the non-druid parts of Masters of the Wild.

Cool Beans that they removed that restriction though

 

[Merlion]

Its a sidebar I think mainly discusses orginzations tribes etc within ones own race iirc

 

[ancient_ones]

Good points, it seems rather munchkiny to me for a player to take that in a human dominated society. I'd have a hard time allowing it but then again it depends on the player.

 

[Merlion]

Well if it was me, I would probably allow the use of alignment as a factor. Favored enemy: Evil humans for instance.
Or even proffesion/accupations. Smuggler. Poacher. Etc.
Barring that like I said MotW and the FR setting allow for orginzations and the like(Church of Bane, Cult of the Dragon etc)