Too Powerful: Nemesis Feat and Stalker of Kharash?

[dreaded_beast]

Not sure if this belongs in the Rules forum, so sorry in advance if it does

Both from the Book of Exalted Deeds:

Nemesis Feat - allows you to always sense your favored enemy within 60' as well as do and additional +1d6 points of damage.

Stalker of Kharash - you gain "evil" as your favored enemy.

Do you think this combination is too powerful or not meant to go together. As a player, I am contemplating getting this combo, but as a DM I can see why it would be frustrating.

IMO, since they both appear within the same book, it might be that they were meant to compliment each other as a combo.

What do you think?

 

[Crothian]

I don't think its that bad. One's a feat and ones a prestege class, both are obviously designed for the Ranger.

 

[Matafuego]

I think it's OK. It's only a permanent detect evil and some (small) damage. Exalted Characters should be able to do this kind of things after all, and it's some price you're paying!

 

[shilsen]

Does "evil" in the PrC description refer to evil alignments or the evil subtype? If it's the latter, that makes it much less powerful.

 

[Chun-tzu]

It applies to "evil creatures of all kinds." This allows the Favored Enemy bonus to come into play much more often, but the Stalker's favored enemy bonus does not increase at all as he gains levels. 10 levels of Stalker of Kharash also means the Ranger loses two favored enemies (but gains evil as one) and the accompanying +2 upgrade to any of his Favored Enemies bonus. So I'd say Nemesis plus Stalker of Kharash is fine.

Throw in Favored Power Attack and Improved Favored Enemy (+3 to damage against faored enemies) from Complete Warrior and you've finally got a melee Ranger who can compete with Fighters and Barbarians for damage.

 

[jabberwocky]

... but the Stalker's favored enemy bonus does not increase at all as he gains levels. 10 levels of Stalker of Kharash also means the Ranger loses two favored enemies (but gains evil as one) and the accompanying +2 upgrade to any of his Favored Enemies bonus. ..

But if you only take two levels of Stalker of Kharash, and then go back to ranger, the extra boosts from the ranger favored enemies can then be applied to the favored enemy: evil. Say you have a character who is a ranger at levels 1-4, druid at 5, stalker for 6-7, and then ranger for 8; at ninth level (when you can take the nemesis feat for evil) you can have a +1d6+6 damage against all evil creature, plus the detection ability. If you then take Harper Paragon (from PgTF), by 18th level you could have an extra 1d6+11 damage against all evil creatures. In epic levels, you can get bane of enemies and death of enemies, and apply them to all evil creatures.

This would be quite a bit more powerful than the standard ranger favored enemy - but I don't think it's hugely unbalancing - it's not a smackdown abuse or anything, and does require a great deal of feat investment to pull off.

 

[xazil]

Looks fairly standard from the point of the BoED. It seems to run a bit more powerful than than most WotC products.

Think of it like a Realms product, if everyone has it then the effects are more balanced.

 

[Lurker 2.0]

You can't pick Evil as a Ranger FE, even if you have 2 levels in Stalker. The "stacks with other FE bonuses" only means that if you're a FE: Dragons +4 Ranger/Stalker going up against a Red Dragon, you get +5 dmg. The combination of Nemesis/FE:Evil isn't really much better than Paladin, and Rangers need all the damage help they can get.

 

[FireLance]

Me, I wouldn't allow the Nemesis feat to work with the Stalker of Kharash's Favored Enemy (Evil), but YMMV.

 

[Crothian]

Me, I wouldn't allow the Nemesis feat to work with the Stalker of Kharash's Favored Enemy (Evil), but YMMV.

Why not?