Rangers favoured enemy

[ancient_ones]

Yeah that to me is a bit more reasonble limiting it to an alignment or organization.

 

[LuYangShih]

I don't see why you should restrict the favored enemy at all in that regard. A Ranger could be argued to simply have more experience dealing with Humans than anything else if the campaign world was overflowing with them, so much so that it would be strange for him not to have it.

Favored Enemy really isn't that powerful, so any boost it gets is appreciable. I won't be surprised if they greatly increase it's effectiveness in 3.5E. Also, as other players have said, hating your favored enemy really doesn't make sense. Why would you be better at Bluffing something you really really hate?

 

[Merlion]

Good point. Though I personaly dont get why rangers get bonuses to Bluff and Sense Motive since those arent class skills for them and dont really seem rangery to me. Well I get the reason...familiarity with the enemy..but it just doesnt seem very helpful

 

[ancient_ones]

I don't see why you should restrict the favored enemy at all in that regard. A Ranger could be argued to simply have more experience dealing with Humans than anything else if the campaign world was overflowing with them, so much so that it would be strange for him not to have it.

Favored Enemy really isn't that powerful, so any boost it gets is appreciable. I won't be surprised if they greatly increase it's effectiveness in 3.5E. Also, as other players have said, hating your favored enemy really doesn't make sense. Why would you be better at Bluffing something you really really hate?

Yeah to me that sounds more like the role of an assassin than a ranger. Maybe it's just me and I have the ranger stereotyped. Now I could see it if the character was someone that lived in the woodlands all his/her life and had no contact with humanity besides ones that were tearing down his/her beloved forest to build thier cities. But even then that would only encompass those that abuse nature and not all humans.

 

[LuYangShih]

A Ranger is a Hunter, really, in it's current incarnation. Favored Enemy simply means the Ranger has spent time studying/fighting/interacting with that species to the point where he now understands key weakensses that can be exploited. Thus the skill and damage bonuses. The damage bonus is a good indicator of how the ability is meant, flavorwise, as it does not apply it's damage bonus to creatures like Undead or Golems.

The reason is that the Ranger gains the damage bonus from better knowledge of his Favored Enemies vital spots, where to hit, how to hit, etc. Since Undead, Golems and similar creatures have no weak spots in that regard, the Ranger gains no damage bonus when he takes them as Favored Enemies.

 

[Celebrim]

The reason sense motive and bluff are part of favored enemy is that Ranger made a big move from 'good aligned wilderness fighter' towards 'bounty hunter' in 3rd edition, and for my part that is a completely welcome change. For one things, it vastly opens up the range of character types for which 'Ranger' is appropriate: bounty hunters, law officers, thief catchers, military scouts, big game hunters, slayers, mercenaries, assassins, serial killers, and yes rangers.

I just didn't think they went far enough with it. There are lingering 'woodsy' elements, lingering spell caster elements, and so forth.

I'd 'fix' ranger for 3.5 as follows. Divorse it _completely_ from any flavor concepts. Change the name to 'Hunter'. You ought to be able to play an 'urban ranger' without need for a separate class.

I personally think that the spells need to be completely stripped off. Clearly, not everyone who is a 'ranger' now is going to learn to be in touch with nature. If you want to play a spell casting Hunter, take a few levels of Druid, Cleric, or what not. Worse come to worse, put Ranger back in as a prestige class with half spell progression if only to satisfy the folks that are used to 'rangers' being a feature of campaigns and want to play them in the tradiational fashion.

Bump up the power of 'favored enemy'. In particular, favored enemy should always work against things normally immune to critical hits. A feat that lets someone with favored enemy do critical hits to thier favored enemy isn't a bad idea either. That way, you can have an 'Undead Slayer' character concept or whatever without having to resort to a whole other non-core class.

Replace the bonus feats for two weapon fighting with a list of choices for combat feats, retaining the same 'not in heavy armor' restriction to keep hunter separated somewhat from fighter.

Add a few more bonus feats (taken from a flavor appropriate list) to make up for the long periods when a 'Hunter' is waiting for his favored enemy bump, round out the class, and make up for the loss of spell casting abilities.

 

[ancient_ones]

True I guess it all boils down the DM and his setting. To me if you choose to hunt the "good" aligned races elves,dwarves,halfings,etc.. then to me it's would be considered evil but then that would depend on the setting. It appears that it was left open in the rule book for such an interpertation so the DM can have more to work with for his/her setting.

 

[Apok]

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.

Actually, it depends alot on the campaign world. If humans are the dominant species and non-humans (elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, mind-flayers, flumphs, whatever) are rare, it would make more sense for a Ranger to have Human as his favored enemy since that's what he is fighting more often than not. What good to the populace is a Ranger specializing in hunting a race that is never encountered?

In a society dominated by humans, I would expect more Rangers to take human as their favored enemy.