Appropriate substitution for Favored Enemy?

[Maraxle]

I am DMing a game in which one of my players plays a Ranger. At the start of the campaign, he chose his Favored Enemy. He chose a creature that was responsible for much harm on his homeland. He was basically trained to hunt these things down, and has had a lot of opportunities to do so throughout the campaign.

Now, he is at the level where he needs to choose another Favored Enemy. However, the player raised the concern that it didn't make sense for him to pick something else, as his character does not harbor any particular dislike for anyone/anything else, and has been concentrating his efforts on the original Favored Enemy. I agree, and as I do not want to punish my player for good roleplaying, I would like to substitute something else in its place. I was thinking maybe an extra feat, but I am not sure.

Any suggestions? Has anyone else done this before?

 

[Shallown]

I always liked the idea of favored terrain. Bonuses when in that terrain and such. A simple replacement with about the same usefullness.

Later

 

[smetzger]

Also, remind him that Favored Enemy doesn't necessarily mean that you have a great dislike for the given enemy. It just means that you know how to hit them where it hurts and how to deal with them better.

 

[Plane Sailing]

In Sagiro's story hour (and if you haven't read it, why not take an evening off and have a look - its great!) one of the players is a Ranger who takes on Orcs, and isn't really interested in taking on anything else. So Sagiro allowed the PC to take Orc as his second AND third favoured enemy, giving him a fantastic bonus against Orcs.

Hasn't hurt his campaign one iota.

So that is an option.


Another option is found in the DMG believe it or not. In one of the sections about customising classes, it gives an example of a ranger who doesn't want more than one favoured enemy, but would like a "paladins mount" style mount. The DM agrees and also stipulates that the ranger gets Detect Evil too since the Paladins mount doesn't quite match up to the favoured enemy. (The details may differ slightly from my recollection, but its all there)

So he could get a special mount and another weak power in place of favoured enemy.

Another option which is slightly more "out there". You could allow him a +1d6 sneak attack against his favoured enemy.

Cheers

 

[Voadam]

I like the favored terrain from WoT or many net rangers, and you could also allow him to double up on his favored enemy with teh MotW defensive option which gives a dodge bonus when fighting them.

 

[Gez]

I like to replace favored enemy with favored terrain (any climate/terrain combination, such as temperate plain or warm forest) OR with +1d6 sneak attack damage.

Similarly, I like replacing the dual-wield feats by archery feats that makes the ranger more like Robin Hood or William Tell. But that's just me.