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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Souljourner" data-source="post: 427982" data-attributes="member: 1622">This is a really good point.  Specialization is based on the idea that you spend a lot of time focusing (heh) on a weapon, and eventually you become better at using it than other weapons.  If we just transfer that logic to the favored enemy bonus, we could look at it as Foe Specialization, you've fought them so much you just become better at damaging them than normal people.  For the undead case - it's not that they don't have weaknesses, they just don't have specific organs or soft spots you can hit to cause shock and do substantially more damage that a usual blade hit.  Weapon specialization works on them because the fighter knows just how to twist the blade at the end of the swing so it rips through a little more muscle.  Doesn't matter that it's undead muscle, he's just better at using the sword.  It's not like you're putting a knife into the zombie's lung... it doesn't care about that.  For a ranger, you could envision him knowing that if you aim for a skeleton's pelvis with your mace, you can crack one of the largest bones in its body and weaken the magic that holds it together.  For zombies, you aim for the limbs and try to slip your sword between the bones and hack off an arm.The main difference between favored enemy bonus and criticals is the scale of damage.  A critical can be an amazingly large amount of damage, generally assumed to be caused by a hit to the head or a vital organ.  THough your sword isn't really tearing through any more flesh than usual, the flesh it's tearing is more valuable.  With things such as specialization and favored enemy damage, it's only a small amount of damage being added on.  You're not going to be crippling someone with a single blow simply because of this damage, it's just that it makes you more effective in the long run.So yeah, I think favored enemy damage should be treated just like specialization.  I mean, f*ck, it's far MORE specialized than specialization, you'd think it would at least work as well.-The Souljourner</blockquote>

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