Ridiculous Favored Enemy Restriction

[Kai Lord]

Despite humans often being representative of the most evil and powerful villains in any given fantasy setting, a human ranger who chooses them as a favored enemy has to be evil as per the official rules. This same ranger can choose universally good celestials as his favored enemy and still be good himself.

Similarly, a duergar, orc, or drow ranger who turns against his evil race can't choose them as his favored enemy without being evil himself. In a setting where wizards can now wield two-handed swords this is just dumb.

 

[Valicor]

Agreed, favcored enemy is a sloppy ability. Wotc somewhat apologized for this when they ade the ranger feats in MotW, but then the slapped us again with their terribly shabby, ranger varient.

Awell back to Dual Weilding Scimitars, wait that gives me -4, damnit screwed again.

 

[AvarielAvenger]

Rule Zero is there for a reason. It is a pointless requirement, especially in games where Favored Enemy is treated as knowledge of the Favored Enemy and their specific weaknesses, not hatred.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I recommend ditching the pointless restriction.

Similarly, I recommend classifying the damage bonus as a "morale" bonus rather than a "sneak attack" bonus as it currently is (de facto). After all, why nullify this minor class ability against constructs and undead? Seems like a stupid limitation to put on a minor ability. The "morale" classification would prevent it stacking with any bardic song bonus that was going around, but really seems to make sense to me.

Cheers

 

[the Jester]

Well, you can allow a subgroup of your own type (an elf ranger can take drow as a favored enemy without being evil; this is even mentioned in the ancestral avenger write-up in Dragon, or a human could take agents of an enemy state or maybe even evil humans as a favored enemy).

Keep in mind the "defensive favored enemy bonus" for a way of making oozes, undead and constructs decent choices for favored enemy. In my game you can choose whether each favored enemy will be offensive or defensive.

 

[Ferret]

How a bout opposing alignments?

N can take any, and good can take evil races and vice versa

 

[Kai Lord]

Well, you can allow a subgroup of your own type (an elf ranger can take drow as a favored enemy without being evil; this is even mentioned in the ancestral avenger write-up in Dragon, or a human could take agents of an enemy state or maybe even evil humans as a favored enemy).

Can't say I agree with this. "Hey I've discovered the weakness of the humans of Blackmoor! It hurts when you kick them in the balls! Too bad I have to wait a few levels before I can choose the dark humans of Darkland as a favored enemy, then maybe I can learn that their balls are weak too."

I think the rule would best have been written by saying that any ranger who uses his favored enemy bonuses against a good-aligned member of his race must be evil.

 

[Gromm]

I always found the groups idea a little hard to swallow.
Lets say Joe the Fighter is a mercanary, he fights Bob the Ranger. Later they meet again, just the other day Joe the Fighter joined The Order of Badness, fortunately Bob has them as a favored enemy so he knows Joe's secret weaknesses that he gains from wearing the Order of Badness Badge.
What?

Oh and everyone else in TOoB all share in some big pool of weaknesses, be they human, ogre, demon, dragon, or halfling. They all gain a flaw that can be exploited by Bob now.

Huh?

This doesn't make sense to me, or really fit with the idea that Favored Enemy is knowledge of a race that allows you to exploit thier weaknesses.

Alignments are also iffy since its even more general than a group. What do Red Dragons and Orcs have in common? I don't know but I get +3 to a bunch of rolls against both of them so evidently something.

 

[Rhael]

Originally posted by Gromm
Alignments are also iffy since its even more general than a group. What do Red Dragons and Orcs have in common? I don't know but I get +3 to a bunch of rolls against both of them so evidently something.

Say what? You get +3 against both Orcs and Red Dragons? What sort of weird grouping rules is your GM using?

The favoured enemy stuff has never really been an issue for my ranger/cleric- the bonuses in our game are treated as if they result from training and knowledge of the enemy.

Obviously (or maybe not so much considering it is D&D), maybe some common sense has to be applied to the rules. Subgroups should only be used when they are necessary and don't result in an unecessary watering down of what is already a not-massively-useful class ability.

I don't think my GM would have let me take something as all-pervasive as humans in the first place (even if I was evil) - although I haven't asked him.

If we're talking about Rangers in general, Monte Cook's alternate ranger is a pretty good substitute and does make up for the general uselessness of the favoured enemy ability.

 

[kreynolds]

Similarly, I recommend classifying the damage bonus as a "morale" bonus rather than a "sneak attack" bonus as it currently is (de facto).

Now that's a really good idea! Anyone else tried this?