Best favored enemies?

[Dark Jezter]

Although favored enemy is very dependent upon the campaign you're playing, I'd have to say that Giants are a good favored enemy due to the fact that there are several giant types available to fight over the course of the game; from ogres, to trolls, to ettins, to hill/fire/frost giants, etc.

Goblinoids can be a good favored enemy if your DM loves to throw goblins/hobgoblins/bugbears at you. If you spend a lot of time in the underdark (if you are playing FR, that is), you may want to choose aberrations as a favored enemy.

Never choose undead, contructs, or oozes as a favored enemy, due to the fact that you won't get to apply the bonus damage to them. (Unless you house rule it)

But in the end, it's all dependent upon campaign setting.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Ehh... not so clear IMHO: sometimes I have read FE(Devils) and sometimes FE(Outsider[Evil]).

I think the reason why outsiders cannot be chosen is that they are to diverse to study them all, and that would extend to evil outsiders, since that could mean an evil geni, a devil, a demon, a yugoloth,.....

Another example of ambiguity is FE(Drow), very common in WotC material. But if Drow are an elven sub-race and share the MM entry with all other Elves, why not having just FE(Elves), which DOES include all sub-races? Or it doesn't? It's not that obvious...

That's another rule variant, which I wholehartedly support: an elf has every reason to take Drow as their favored enemy (especially worshippers of Solonor and Shaverash). Also, it's even more specialized than elf, so it should be OK. The only thing is that a non-evil elf would technically choose his own race (both are elves), but I think that the differences between sub-races are big enough to allow that.

So there would be:
elf(surface), elf(drow)
dwarf(duergar), dwarf (derro), dwarf ("normal").

Evil members of the races could of course take the whole race, so an evil drow ranger would get the bonuses against drow and all other elves.

Dragons, without a doubt.

They are some of the most dangerous creatures a party can face. If you have to fight them, you want every available advantage.

That depends. If your DM is a member of B.A.D.D. or has a similar outlook, than don't bother, at least if you think the dragons (chromatic and metallic) only, and don't consider wyverns and the like...

Because if you really take on a real dragon played by a DM that plays them right, you'll probably end up against an enemy whose CR is on par with your party level, and therefore should be a piece of cake, but is to powerful for its CR as is, and uses masterful tactics, uses it's lair and the terrain around, knows that you're coming and is prepared. And uses all of it's powers to the full...

 

[The Souljourner]

Re: Re: Best favored enemies?

Shouldn't the numbers be +2/+1/+1? Extra favored enemy starts at +1 when you take it, then the next time you level up and gain another favored enemy, your extra favored enemy goes up, too.

At 6th level you get a feat, I choose extra favored enemy. Then you receive class based benefits, including the 5th level ranger's favored enemy, which bumps all other up by one, making it +2/+2/+1. I checked the procedure for levelling up specifically to see if that worked the way I thought it did. Not bad, huh?

My DM decided to allow the damage to work against things that couldn't be critical hit, based on the fact that it's similar to specialization in power, and not allowing it to work would make it useless against several large groups.

Still, I don't know that I would take constructs or undead (and definitely not plants or oozes... too uncommon). It's really a question of frequency, more than anything else. Sure, taking dragon is pretty good, but really, how often do you fight dragons? Once or twice a campaign? Not that I feel the need to min/max, but getting to use my abilities at least fairly often would be nice.

I'll think about giants, since so many people seem to be pushing it.

I guess what I should really do is ask my DM for suggestions.

-The Souljourner

 

[Dr. Zoom]

Re: Re: Re: Best favored enemies?

At 6th level you get a feat, I choose extra favored enemy. Then you receive class based benefits, including the 5th level ranger's favored enemy, which bumps all other up by one, making it +2/+2/+1. I checked the procedure for levelling up specifically to see if that worked the way I thought it did. Not bad, huh?

Not bad, but not correct, either. The feat itself says, "When you advance beyond the level at which you gained Extra Favored Enemy, this bonus increases in the same way other favored enemy bonuses do." So you cannot increase this favored enemy bonus at the same level at which you gained the feat. You will have to wait until you reach Ranger 10 for your extra favored enemy bonus to increase to +2.

 

[The Souljourner]

Hrm. You may be reading too much into the wording. Then again, this may be the exact thing they were trying to prevent. If you are correct I'll just have to take barbarian 2 before I take ranger 5. Personally, I think that they likely didn't mean it as a restriction, they just didn't take into consideration a multiclass ranger. No other feat has a restriction like that, and this one's already neutered by the fact you have to have +5 BAB *and* it doesn't even bump up the rest of your favored enemies. Geez.

-The Souljourner

 

[Dr. Zoom]

Since you get a feat at 15th level and a ranger gets his 4th favored enemy at 15th level, I think that is the reason for the language, as well as for multiclassed rangers who take this feat at the same level where they get a regular favored enemy. I doubt very much they intended for someone to take this feat and jump immediately to a +2 bonus.