Favored Enemy - How does the Ranger know?

[Flatus Maximus]

And this is kind-of where I'm coming from. A ranger knows how to fight an elf. He knows how they are weak, and the exploitation of this knowledge is expressed in game terms as a +2 to hit. But if he doesn't know whether or not a given enemy is an elf, why would he get this bonus? He doesn't know whether there is an elven weakness there to exploit.

Further, there is no rule that states that he automatically identifies creatures, and there IS a rule stating he gets a bonus to monster knowledge checks against his favored enemies. This seems to suggest that he still needs to make these checks to identify the monsters.

This came up the other night at our table. The Ranger has FE aberrations (I think) and they were interacting with a shapechanger. We ruled that FE gives advantages to detecting and fighting, but not auto-ID, just as you suggest above.

 

[frankthedm]

So, what then? You pass the Ranger player a note when his Spirit of the Hunt special ability tells him that this creature is Undead and then forbid him to tell the other players?

No, I'd calculate the bonuses behind the screen if the creature is disguised. If an attack is so close that the FE bonus made the difference between a hit or miss, i'd let the ranger know one of his totems is aiding his attack.

 

[gamerprinter]

I understand, but if the ranger has a supernatural ability that triggers when he fights undead, and he knows that it has triggered, there's no in-game reason why he could not communicate that. "Uh, guys, my Spirit of the Hunt only speaks when I fight the undead, and it's speaking!"

Bottomline though, it would have to be houseruled to be Supernatural. If we don't houserule it that way, your argument has no value - it's an Extraordinary power for the rest of us.

Given that, if you don't want to tell them, then the onus is on you the DM to ensure these bonuses are applied when the character faces an opponent against which he is entitled to a bonus.

And this is the best answer, if you the GM don't want the ranger revealing the fact that the monster is one of the ranger's favored enemies, then the GM must add the ranger's +2 modifier to all the rangers strikes at the monster without telling him. In other words, don't tell the ranger he's fighting a favored enemy, just calculate his attacks appropriately as they apply to his bonus.

Sure this makes things more complicated for the GM, but it's the GM who wants to hide this information from the players, thus it's his responsibility to include the modifiers in the ranger's attacks.

 

[Fooly_Cooly]

Given that, if you don't want to tell them, then the onus is on you the DM to ensure these bonuses are applied when the character faces an opponent against which he is entitled to a bonus.

+1. This would be the best way to do it if you don't want him to know that he is fighting a favored enemy. If you just dont give it to him its nerfing his class and being unfair to the player by disregarding his class ability.

 

[bulatzi]

As I mentioned earlier, but a bit more direct...

Screw stats. A ranger gains his bonuses because he is used to fighting creatures of that type for in character reasons. If your favored type of enemy was an alien of some sort, he would know to fight it because the heart is on the bottom left of his stomach, and he knew to attack there if he can. Or maybe he has an easily exposed artery in his leg or something.

He would know to fight elementals because if you attack in a certain way with certain weapons, it disrupts its connection with his elemental plane and dicks with his ability to remain as a single entity.

He would know that to fight orcs, you have to consider their anatomy. They take in the emotion of the moment, and their blood pumps super fast. So maybe the way to fight orcs is to make as many small cuts as possible all around its body, to maximize the bleeding.

And even if the character is stupid, he doesn't have to know why hurting a creature is as effective as it is. He just has to know that it works. Be it through intense study, observation, being trained by others who know how to fight the creature, or personal experience.

It isn't because of some supernatural "my weapons do more just cause" damage.

And the ranger shouldn't even have to roll to identify the creature. A DM and a player should be able to work together to make this as in character as possible.

A DM should include in his description of the enemy some red flags that lets the ranger know it is the enemy he is good at fighting. He and the player should go in detail about the behaviors of his favored enemies AS he takes them.

And if aforementioned DM doesn't ever tell the player it is his favored enemy, then that probably isn't a DM you want to play with anyway.

In short, screw stats. It isn't about numbers. It isn't about what type of ability having a favored enemy is. It is about in character knowledge.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

It is about numbers. By RAW all FE does is give you numbers, it doesn't ID creatures for you, that's a houserule. If a DM tried to let me "roleplay out" figuring out an enemy is a favored enemy over several rounds so I could then share that info with the group...but also didn't let me gain my FE bonuses against the foe until my little epiphany...I'd be "upset."
[sblock]"Upset" = screaming[/sblock]

Covertly adding in the bonus works fine, I suggested it in one of the very first posts in this thread.

That said, I would just tell the ranger any time he's facing a favored enemy, flat out. I'd consider part of the benefit of having a Ranger on your team not only to have a master archer (or TWF, mounted...whatever combat style he picked) and tracker, but to also have a "undead expert" or a "dragon expert" or an expert in whatever other creature he chose as favored enemy. He doesn't get to pick the whole Bestiary, even at level 20 he'll only be able to cover a small fraction of it. So the few creature types he decides to make FEs? Yeah, he's that damn good, he can instantly recognize them. Totally reasonable houserule IMO. (I don't consider Instant Enemy and similar spells that make a foe a favored enemy temporarily to be the same as it actually being one, so this wouldn't apply, those spells are just to gain the combat bonuses, it's not the same as long term devotion and study of that creature type)

 

[bulatzi]

It may very well be a house rule, but it is the way it should be. I really don't get this DM vs. PC mentality. It makes it stressful for the DM, and it makes players into rules lawyering douche bags.

A player shouldn't have to find loop holes to ensure entitlement to something against the DM. And in my opinion, a DM is bad if he doesn't work with the players. It shouldn't be DM vs. PCs either.

Also, I didn't mean it would take several rounds. It would just be something that you could see right off, when the damage was relevant. Surely if you engaged something, it would be moving around enough to determine what it was right off. And its description wouldn't be subtle either. It may as well be the DM telling you what it is.

Not that I'm against the rules... but there are a few gray areas that deserve ruling in favor towards better characters. Not just a dude who has the magical ability to hurt zombies a little better for no reason.

But yeah, I don't mean to be driving my view on things into the ground like this. I just think it is the way to do things, and I wanted to spread it. But it does take a certain kind of DM to pull it off.

 

[tylermalan]

It may very well be a house rule, but it is the way it should be. I really don't get this DM vs. PC mentality. It makes it stressful for the DM, and it makes players into rules lawyering douche bags.

A player shouldn't have to find loop holes to ensure entitlement to something against the DM. And in my opinion, a DM is bad if he doesn't work with the players. It shouldn't be DM vs. PCs either.

Also, I didn't mean it would take several rounds. It would just be something that you could see right off, when the damage was relevant. Surely if you engaged something, it would be moving around enough to determine what it was right off. And its description wouldn't be subtle either. It may as well be the DM telling you what it is.

Not that I'm against the rules... but there are a few gray areas that deserve ruling in favor towards better characters. Not just a dude who has the magical ability to hurt zombies a little better for no reason.

But yeah, I don't mean to be driving my view on things into the ground like this. I just think it is the way to do things, and I wanted to spread it. But it does take a certain kind of DM to pull it off.

My initial drive behind starting this thread was twofold - first, I wanted to find out if there was a RAW way to handle the situation and second, failing that, to determine if there is a way that people think it should be played based upon various factors.

It is no secret that Pathfinder PCs are, by-and-large, significantly more powerful than their 3.5E counterparts. As I saw it, there was (is) no RAW reason to give this ability to the Ranger. The rules don't say that he automatically identifies creatures. As pointed out by Frank earlier, knowing the creature's type is powerful information.

At the same time, from a realistic standpoint, it doesn't seem like this would make sense. A magical beast has its heart in its leg. Attacking it there will do extra damage. But if you're fighting something that you THINK is a magical beast and attack it in its leg, and then it turns out that this is NOT a magical beast but is instead a creature with extra natural armor on its leg, it would actually be WORSE for you. Hitting the creature in the leg would be detrimental to your goal (of killing it) because it is actually more resilient in the legs than magical beasts.

But if you always automatically know whether or not every single creature you see is a magical beast, this doesn't matter.

 

[jkason]

First time posting in this forum, but this thread got my interest. Hopefully won't sound a fool...

It seems like the main thrust of the concerns are that knowing the creature type lets the party know about the strengths and weaknesses of the creature, when I'm not sure that's necessarily so. A ranger can know "this is an undead," but per RAW, all that does is give him his bonuses to attacks. Knowing "this is undead," doesn't come with any inherent knowledge of any of the traits of the undead type, nor any specific information about what kind of undead it is, what it's defenses and special attacks are, etc. All of that comes with a fail-able Know check.

Even in the case of humanoid FE, where you're winnowing things down to a subtype, just knowing "this is an elf" doesn't come with any special knowledge that, for example, that many elves are immune to sleep effects (or that those who aren't may be immune to light-based dazzle attacks, ect). You still have to roll Know (Local) -- or have specific other experience with elves -- to know that.

If the players hear "this is undead," and begin applying all their ooc knowledge from sourcebooks regarding how to treat undead, that seems to me to be another problem entirely, as you have players trying to metagame.

 

[gamerprinter]

Not that I'm against the rules... but there are a few gray areas that deserve ruling in favor towards better characters. Not just a dude who has the magical ability to hurt zombies a little better for no reason.

First of all it's not magical, its an extraordinary power, something many seem to forget. Knowing how to hurt zombies is an acquired skill. But knowing how to hurt zombies, doesn't mean the ranger has full information as to all a given monsters weaknesses, rather the ranger has an edge when facing such monsters, even if he doesn't know all it's monster features (and not something he can state to other PCs when in combat).

I think the best way to treat this is as a DM calculate the bonus damage and checks that the ranger would get since the monster they are attacking is a favored enemy, and not actually telling the player that such is the case. So he doesn't spread this hidden knowledge to the party at large.

It shouldn't take rounds of study by the ranger to identify his favored enemy, it's an advantage he should get with the first swing of his sword, or shot from his bow...