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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rodrigo Istalindir" data-source="post: 447073" data-attributes="member: 2810">It comes down to  how often you could be expected to encounter a particular favored enemy, and how powerful that would make a significant damage and skill bonus.Most players don't encounter a owlbears or beholders often enough that even a +5  bonus against abberations would be unbalancing (and I double-dog dare you to try and bluff the beholder!).  A +2 against any humanoid, however, would be almost the equivalent of multiple feats (weapon specialization, skill focus X, etc), since I suspect in most campaigns the majority of interaction takes place against humanoids.In the cases of giants, dragons, and some of the other  categories, the additional benefits of the FE bonus are acceptable when considering the challenge presented by those monsters.The bigger problem with the FE bonus is that it ends up functioning in reverse.  Taking 'goblinoids' as your first favored enemy makes sense, since you will likely be facing them often at low levels.  By the time that bonus gets to +5, it's pretty useless.  Conversely, +1 for your last FE taken against demons or dragons is also pretty useless.  The system foolishly encourages you to take as your first FE things you expect to be fighting at 20th level.I've generally done one of two things:  1. House-rule that the favored enemy bonus advances independent of the categories.  For example, your first FE is goblins, and you have a +1.  At 5th level, your bonus against all FE's is +2, and you get to add a second category.  This encourages the player to take things as FE's that are level appropriate, and helps make the class ability useful throughout his career.2. Mixing the purely numeric bonuses with other feats that apply. For example, I used to add a version of 'improved critical' that only applied to the FE (l now use the Favored Critical feat from MotW), Also, as Monte Cook put it. "I was always worried about the ranger. The fact that his abilities kick in when the DM wants them to (when the adventure contains his favored enemies) rather than when the player wants them to, like the barbarian, always seemed to me to be a drawback"</blockquote>

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