What is favored enemy worth?

[0bsolete]

Sorry, been away for a day. Anyways, this particular player is fairly new and while I do try and remind him frequently, I am also a fairly new GM and I don't want to end up having to remind every player of their circumstantial bonuses every combat session while still balancing out a group of enemies against them, etc.

As for why he didn't take the fighter thug variant or the sneaky fighter variant: he wants to be fairly decent at stealth. What he is making is more of an urban bounty hunter character. He was originally going to go with a full fighter, but the rest of the party was focusing to some degree on stealth and subtlety and since he is going to be generally pulling the front lines, he wants to be able to stay in the front instead of hiding in the back and then trying to catch up if things fall apart. No I am not going to give him sneak attack though.

Oh, one thing I thought about was allowing him to put in a feat to get hide and another to get move silently as a class skill as opposed to a cross class. Would this be overpowered? That way he could play his originally intended class without being a hindrance to the party.

 

[Folly]

If you did the region option as a replacement, then it would be easier for the player to remember. It is easy to remember that you get bonus damage while in a city, rather than having to see if what you hit is a specific creature. Thus in any given combat you only have to do the think about it once.

 

[Derro]

Oh, and NO way he gets sneak attack IMO.

Why? If the character gets 1d6 sneak attack for each level of favored enemy he only ever end up with 5d6 and that's at 20th level. Without presuming anything about the OPs game it won't rise above 3d6 at the sweet spot (6th-12th). Is it TWF and sneak attack that throws you? I've seen plenty of TWF rogues. More competent melee fighter with SA? It is an acceptable variant for fighters in UA.

It does outstrip Favored enemy in combat but favored enemy extends to skill use as well which is lost entirely with sneak attack.

 

[Slaved]

Do you have access to the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords? If so a feat in that book gives Hide as a Class Skill and another benefit. Also one of the Classes in that book might be more to his liking as a Character!

 

[Folly]

It does outstrip Favored enemy in combat but favored enemy extends to skill use as well which is lost entirely with sneak attack.

To further this, while it does give more damage, it does have stricter requirements to get the damage, and as Derro said it does not gain the additional benefit to skills that FE does.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Favored enemy is a class ability that is highly dependent upon what the DM uses in game.

I am running Red Hand of Doom at the moment, modified a bit by me using Draconians instead of Dragonspawn. I have a Ftr 2 / Rngr 7 in my current game, and he opted for Favored Enemy Goblin and Favored Enemy Dragon. He is currently getting +2 against every Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Bugbear he runs into, and +4 against Dragons and Draconians. (Lucky bastard picked Dragons before the Draconians started to show up). That extra damage is huge for him right now.

But if I were running an adventure that used Orcs, and undead instead of Hobgoblins, and Draconians? It would not have nearly the same impact. Powers that are only useful against a limited range of enemies generally are not as useful as abilities that can apply in every situation.

I would be hesitant to swap out the Favored Enemy feature for a feat since the class power shows up at a few different levels, and starts to blur the line between Fighter and Ranger a bit more than makes sense. I would look at giving him one new replacement class ability that he could advance / improve in place of favored enemy.

- Let him have both the Archery and Dual weapon bonus feats (if he went with archer, advance the dual weapon 1 step at each point where you would otherwise advance his favored enemy)
- Give him the Skirmish attack from the Scout class (Complete adventurer)

END COMMUNICATION

 

[moritheil]

As for why he didn't take the fighter thug variant or the sneaky fighter variant: he wants to be fairly decent at stealth. What he is making is more of an urban bounty hunter character. He was originally going to go with a full fighter, but the rest of the party was focusing to some degree on stealth and subtlety and since he is going to be generally pulling the front lines, he wants to be able to stay in the front instead of hiding in the back and then trying to catch up if things fall apart. No I am not going to give him sneak attack though.

Oh, one thing I thought about was allowing him to put in a feat to get hide and another to get move silently as a class skill as opposed to a cross class. Would this be overpowered? That way he could play his originally intended class without being a hindrance to the party.

Well, if you let him play thug, I believe he should get stealth skills in-class.

In terms of the feat, ONE feat should be worth adding two in-class skills to one class . . . having to pay a feat each skill is too expensive, given that a single level of cleric would do it (and give him minor magical abilities in addition.) If you look at feats like Education, it's pretty clear that two skills is reasonable for one feat (and if he took Able Learner and a level of anything with those two skills, he'd get them in-class for life.)

 

[irdeggman]

Oh, one thing I thought about was allowing him to put in a feat to get hide and another to get move silently as a class skill as opposed to a cross class. Would this be overpowered? That way he could play his originally intended class without being a hindrance to the party.

Heck have him have a single level of ranger (then for max ranks purposes Hide and MS are class skills) and if he is human - Able Learner feat (at 1st level) from Races of Destiny (then all skills cost 1 sp each) and viola you have what you want with some other benefits - like the ability to use wands from the ranger spell list, track (or urban tracking if using the urban ranger variant) and wild empathy and 1 favored enemy (which can be an organization if using urban ranger variant).

 

[Folly]

Heck have him have a single level of ranger (then for max ranks purposes Hide and MS are class skills) and if he is human - Able Learner feat (at 1st level) from Races of Destiny (then all skills cost 1 sp each) and viola you have what you want with some other benefits - like the ability to use wands from the ranger spell list, track (or urban tracking if using the urban ranger variant) and wild empathy and 1 favored enemy (which can be an organization if using urban ranger variant).

I like this idea. Though I would suggest 2 levels of ranger for the feats.

 

[0bsolete]

Heck have him have a single level of ranger (then for max ranks purposes Hide and MS are class skills) and if he is human - Able Learner feat (at 1st level) from Races of Destiny (then all skills cost 1 sp each) and viola you have what you want with some other benefits - like the ability to use wands from the ranger spell list, track (or urban tracking if using the urban ranger variant) and wild empathy and 1 favored enemy (which can be an organization if using urban ranger variant).

Thank you very much, this is perfect.