Please step away from the 4th edition "effect everything" abilities.

[keterys]

I'd actually prefer if the next edition made such things matter even less. Hyperspecialization is a facet of the game that really derails things for me. "No undead in the campaign, bring a different healer than a cleric" "Campaign is all about undead, let's all be clerics". Bah.

I don't want Turn Undead as an ability most clerics get. It's either too pivotal, or it's probably crappy - either way it's swingy based on the campaign, and it stopped being special as soon as any jerk with a holy symbol could sneeze and make all the scary zombies stand around picking their nose (they share, very community-oriented, zombies)

Favored enemies ala 3e were really painful. Environment wasn't quite as bad.

Sneak attack when it didn't apply to most things? Not a fan. Then again, that was a different systemic problem. Since when can you not crit vampires, half of whose mythos is about how to crit them?

I will agree that I don't want the 4e "minor action quarry this guy for my extra di(c)e of damage" mechanic. But more because I dislike that mechanic and its implementation.

 

[FireLance]

I think base class features should be as generic as possible, but players should have the option to specialize their characters through alternate class features or other character customization options.

For example, the base ranger ability could be Hunter's Quarry, but a player could choose to swap that out for Favored Enemy if he wants to.

By doing that, the option to specialize becomes a deliberate decision on the part of the player (and maybe the DM, for allowing that option).

For those who care about such things (I know some of you don't, but i hope you have enough empathy to accept that it matters to some people even if it doesn't matter to you), having characters that are generically useful against all monsters makes it easier to balance encounters. That doesn't mean that all encounters are of the same difficulty. It just means that if the DM wants an easier encounter, he picks a lower level monster instead of a monster that the player's class ability is more effective against.

That said, back in 3e, I occasionally toyed with the idea of making Favored Enemy something that the ranger could change around on a daily basis (at a lower bonus, of course, to balance the flexibility). So, like a wizard, a prepared ranger is better able to deal with the challenges he expects to face. If he knows he is going to face giants, he adopts the giant-killing stance. If he will be fighting animals, he uses the beast-slayer technique. And so on. That puts the bonus more in the hands of the player, but still allowed for the possibility of the ranger facing an opponent that he isn't completely optimized to deal with.

 

[darkdragoon]

Favored enemy doesn't really work as a general feature and has bad implications. You have a bonus that either doesn't function or provides little benefit. Hardly special. Furthermore, the DM should never feel obligated to shoehorn their encounters because of one particular class feature or power. Frankly it could be handled with "If your quarry is ____" add-ons anyway.
Turn Undead at least could be boosted to ridiculous levels if you actually made turn checks. You know, instead of forming Devastator. I thought the Channel Divinity take was fine--you have powers XYZ but choose carefully. Smite Evil has similar issues, but evil is a far more ubiquitous category.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Over-rewarding or -punishing class choices based on circumstance is constraining. Both to the player's choices of class (if some classes are able to quickly adjust their speciality, like prepped casters in 3e, they become highly desireable, if a campaign is predictable, 'builds' customized to exploit that predictability are) and in the DM's choice of story elements. If you have an undead-smiting Van Helsing class, then the DM is both obligated to include some undead, so the 'doesn't feel useless,' and constrained from making an undead-centric campaign, because that character would dominate.

 

[The Human Target]

No thank you.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

You are actually looking at the class wrong. Favored Enemy is an extra of the class just like Sneak Attack is an extra for the rogue. You don't always get to flank an opponent so you don't always get to use Sneak Attack.

I realy do hope you're right, because my (albeit limited) experience with 4E leads me to think otherwise. We could well see Wizards calibrating the game at too high a level of optimization where 'smite evil' and other class equivalents are the assumed standard of power.

That would remove their special wow power and replace it with meh mundane.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Sounds to me like it will be able to Smite anything it deems unworthy.

I once had a character who defined evil alignment as 'anyone who has something we want'. Those gnomes have treasure, and we want it, so they are, by definition, evil.

 

[Tallifer]

This might be true if, without the favored enemy bonus, the ranger was a combatant comparable to other classes. He isn't. But I fear that now we may tangent off into a discussion of whether a ranger's skills and other out-of-combat abilities compensate for a lack in his combat abilities, which would really derail this thread.

I'll just say that I like the hunter's quarry ability because it rewards tactical play, something that I enjoy. I'm fine with favored enemy as long as it isn't the focus of the class and you have a way to make sure that the choices made stay relevant (choosing goblinoids at 1st means that it's useless by 20th, whereas choosing dragons early on so that you can stack up the bonuses for later levels means gimping yourself for the early levels, and no matter what you choose it isn't helpful if you never fight them).

I like the Ranger's Quarry, Warlock's Curse, Paladin's Divine Challenge and Rogue's Sneak Attack in the Fourth Edition. They were flexible and made combat interesting. They did not become useless because the dungeon master never used certain monsters or did not consider anything intrinsically aligned.

I will accept the old limited forms of Favoured Enemy and Smite Evil IF they are on top of the other more generally applicable class features, sort of delightful fluff in most situations like Turn Undead is.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I came here to XP the OP, but that was when I thought you were going to be refering to situations where the wizard is able to dominate the mindless ooze with a charm spell.

If they went back to a favored mechanic for rangers I hope it would be tied to a limited list of origins like 4E presented (natural, fey, aberrant, etc) and/or a limited number of terrain types (forest, mountain, swamp, etc) where the ranger's specialization comes into play. And I'd hope he'd get a chance to add additional categories along the way and/or retrain existing ones. This is whether or not other options like a more general hunter's quarry ability is available or not.

 

[dkyle]

I generally dislike "favored enemy" mechanics. They force class balance to be determined by the DM's adventure design, and can easily make the player feel screwed over, or pandered to. When they exist, I'd rather they be very broad (e.g., Undead for Turn Undead), and come from Themes, not classes. If the core classes are well balanced, it makes it much easier to lay things on top, and remain balanced. "Favored enemy" mechanics are very difficult to balance.

I love the idea of "Smite Evil" being based on the Paladin's beliefs about the target, and not some inherent Evilness of the target (mostly because I can't stand alignment as a quasi-physical property of things; it shouldn't be anything more than a broad description of beliefs and behavior patterns). That doesn't mean it's "Smite anything", though. The Paladin can still have a Code. If it turns out that he smote something undeserving, a Paladin should be wracked with guilt. Don't make him "fall" because some immaterial, unknowable force made him fall to punish him. He should fall because he comes to believe that he deserves to fall.

For Rangers, I could see favored enemy stuff in a theme (which means it wouldn't be exclusive to Rangers). For the class itself, I'd prefer they focus on archery, TWF, and minor nature magic. The non-magical Ranger really just ought to be Fighter with nature Themes and Backgrounds.