D&D General Favored Foe Help

[Indagare Nogitsune]

So I was developing my own Ranger class, and looking over things and for the Favored Foe Knack (an option Rangers can take starting at 3rd level) I had:

You are especially adept at studying, tracking, and hunting a specific type of enemy.

Choose two specific species of humanoids (such as elves and orcs), or one creature type (from among aberration, beast, celestial, construct, dragon, elemental, fey, fiend, giant, monstrosity, ooze, plant, or undead), or one organization (a thieves’ guild, evil cult, gang of pirates, or similar) as your Favored Foe.

Whenever you make a Wisdom check to hunt or track, or an Intelligence check to recall knowledge about a Favored Foe, you can treat a roll of 9 or lower (including a 1) on the d20 as a 10.

You can choose to learn this Knack more than once, but you must choose a new Favored Foe each time you do so.

I was trying to figure out why humanoids as a group can't be a Favored Foe. They, realistically, shouldn't be any different than the others: there's a huge difference between wolves and bears, for instance, but those are both Beasts. Or, if it's two very specific species (regardless of type) whether that causes a major issue with this. People can argue it's one thing to hunt Beasts in general but quite another to hunt Humanoids (since those tend to be the PC species). Still, I'm not convinced that two Humanoids aren't more alike than, say a raven and a rabbit.

It also occurred to me that someone might want to specialize. For instance, a vampire ravaged the PC's town and now the PC specifically hunts vampires and dhampirs. Or, perhaps, the PC has a grudge against specific types of Giants (Ice and Fire, for instance) or so on. If they do limit themselves like that, should there be some particular specialization bonus (perhaps the proficiency bonus), but which comes with some kind of drawback (knowing so much about vampires means knowing less about ghouls, for instance)?

Suggestions?

 

[DEFCON 1]

They don't use the Humanoids as single category to specialize in because of the shear number of total enemies that are Humanoid. Most parties probably face off against Humanoids easily more than any other group so if you are talking what Favored Foe would be the most useful, Humanoid would get selected every time if you could take the entire category.

As far as specializing in a very narrow feature of a category in order to get bonuses... you pretty much are just hamstringing yourself for 99% of the campaign just for a select massive moment to shine in that 1% when the DM finally throws you a bone by presenting enemies that fall within your select category. This is why things like Favored Enemy usually aren't considered great features to begin with... because you only get the bonuses for such a short amount of time, while also assuring the DM HAS to make occasional encounters that throw the creatures at you just to make that feature mean something.

 

[Horwath]

any bonuses to specialization must have broad effect and be more effective vs. specific foe.

you mentioned vampires and lest put undead as a whole in here.

Benefits:
one or all of following:

Proficiency in Con saves
Resistance to Necrotic damage
Immunity to ability drain/damage and max HP reduction

 

[Clint_L]

They don't use the Humanoids as single category to specialize in because of the shear number of total enemies that are Humanoid. Most parties probably face off against Humanoids easily more than any other group so if you are talking what Favored Foe would be the most useful, Humanoid would get selected every time if you could take the entire category.

As far as specializing in a very narrow feature of a category in order to get bonuses... you pretty much are just hamstringing yourself for 99% of the campaign just for a select massive moment to shine in that 1% when the DM finally throws you a bone by presenting enemies that fall within your select category. This is why things like Favored Enemy usually aren't considered great features to begin with... because you only get the bonuses for such a short amount of time, while also assuring the DM HAS to make occasional encounters that throw the creatures at you just to make that feature mean something.

Agreed. If they can just take "humanoid" as an option, they clearly should. It'll make the ability way better. In general, I don't like ability; I think it is flawed design because it depends so heavily on setting. But you could say that about the Ranger class in general.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In general, I don't like ability; I think it is flawed design because it depends so heavily on setting. But you could say that about the Ranger class in general.

Although when one thinks about it... Paladins also fall into the same basic problem Rangers do, and yet they don't have nearly the same amount of complaints. Paladins are basically Rangers who have "Undead" and "Fiends" as their Favored Foes and those are their only two options. But because they have the thematic layering of "knight" and "slaying evil creatures" and "protector of the innocent" over them, I think more people are accepting of it. The "Knight In Shining Armor" trope is so strong that we willingly accept that a good part of their focus is on demons, devils, and the undead, even though that also is very much dependent on setting.

Rangers have the thematic issue though of being tied to both a set of creatures (whatever the player has chosen as their foes to "hunt") and a set location ("the wilderness"), which means they have twice as many ways to get trapped by setting. If Paladins got focused toward urban centers and were considered "way out of their element" out in the wilds... they'd probably get seen as a lesser class too.

 

[Indagare Nogitsune]

They don't use the Humanoids as single category to specialize in because of the shear number of total enemies that are Humanoid. Most parties probably face off against Humanoids easily more than any other group so if you are talking what Favored Foe would be the most useful, Humanoid would get selected every time if you could take the entire category.

As I mentioned, none of the other categories are any less broad (a shark is not an eagle is not a wolf yet all are Beasts; Earth, Wind, and Fire are all a great band different substances but all Elementals).

As far as specializing in a very narrow feature of a category in order to get bonuses... you pretty much are just hamstringing yourself for 99% of the campaign just for a select massive moment to shine in that 1% when the DM finally throws you a bone by presenting enemies that fall within your select category. This is why things like Favored Enemy usually aren't considered great features to begin with... because you only get the bonuses for such a short amount of time, while also assuring the DM HAS to make occasional encounters that throw the creatures at you just to make that feature mean something.

Yes, this is where the problem lies. The broad categories are much better options overall since it's very likely you'll encounter at least one example of it in a given campaign (especially Humanoid and Undead), but a particular type of enemy could provide great plot-hooks: The Ranger is dedicated to eradicating the Vampire who killed/turned the Rangers parents/sibling/love/etc. so the DM can play that up and provide clues or similar.