Ranger's favored enemy

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Hi all, I was wondering about people's preferred 'favored enemy' for their ranger.

I was wondering what to pick this time myself, and also started to think what would be best out of either role-play or power-gaming perspective.

What are your thoughts??

 

Trolls - There's plenty of them in the game.

 

Another thing that sprang to mind (and I don't want to open yet another topic..):

How would a ranger be different from a fighter/druid apart from the favored enemy, two-weapon and weapon spec. of the fighter? (Also in roleplaying and powergaming perspective)

 

Ranger:

• better AB progression
• better stealth skills
• Natural fit for a DEX-based Archer/Scout/Finesse character

Fighter/Druid:

• Much better divine casting
• Natural fit for a STR based melee/divine buffs character, which is probably a better power gaming option
• Less obvious RP-wise, but that leaves more scope to escape cliche!

 

Goblins. You need all the help you can get early in the game. Later on a +1 to hit won't matter that much anyway. Troll and Orc are also good choices if you are going to play a straight Ranger.

 

My chaotic-good drow ranger (quite familiar? uh-oh...) had 'Driders' as hated enemy for pure RPG wise. Being a drow that has rejected his race's standart ways, he has a special hatred for driders. (and it helped a lot in underdark)

AND you can choose more and more enemies as you level up but the first choices will have much more bonus.

 

The 'familiar' chaotic-good drow ranger, actually has goblins as favored enemy.

 

I did not know what was his 'favoured enemy' BUT I did make my ranger to hate drows and any drowish things SO driders were sensible choice.

(WOW did he really hate goblins? WHY?)

 

I believe that was the favoured enemy in BG I.

 

From a pratical point of view, it would be best to have as a favoured enemy, the monsters you are likely to have the most trouble with. And that depends on the the composition of your party at various stages of the game.

If I started with a solo ranger, I would make goblins my favoured enemy because the toughest part of the game would be the Palisades and the Horde Fortress.

If I was only introducing my ranger character later in the game to an existing party, I might go for Humans, Trolls, or Yuan-Ti. If the ranger was the main tank then Constructs might be the best choice.

But on balance for a ranger in a party that starts the game, trolls are a good choice.

 

Uncertain if the favored enemy is added corectlly to the game, but things like undead and constructions are immune to mst effects of favored enemy. so would normally be a poor choice. but as said, it depende upon how well it is implemented in the game, havent made nay test to it.

 

Surely not. You mean a golem is immune to the ranger's +1 attack bonus? I have never heard of that.

 

I agree, goblin at 1st level, but next FE should be human, with all those NPCs, monks, wizards, eic around, any little bit helps.

 

From the D&D 3rd ed. PHB, page 45, ranger, Favored Enemy:

Aka undead, constructions, plants etc. Same as rouge's sneak attack. but as said, i dont know how if they actually added this to the IWD game or not, probablly not, wich would mean more power to anti undead and golems.

Personally i have always picked favored enemy's dependent on the personality of the character i play.

 

^If the bonus does not apply for golems or undead, (which are virtually immune to the nasty effects of good old critical hits) what is the purpose of chhosing them as a favoured enemy? Wouldn't it be foolish? If we are allowed to choose them, I guess this means it works against them, at the very least in our valiant IWD2 who tries to convert spiffy 3E rules loosely into a PC game.

 

Well, in normal P&P there exist other kinds of bonuses than combat bonuses hard to imagine isn't it ?

3E favored enemy gives bonus to: Bluff, Listen, Sence motive, Spot and Wilderness Lore checks when using these skills against this type of creture.

And also the Damage bonus of corse.

And yeah, a golem would also be pretty much imune to any atempts at Bluff or Sence motive. beeing mostly mindless and all that. It's still there for RPG value i guess.

Amusingly enough, they "forget" to mention anything about this in the 3.5 edition so technically an undead could use favored enemy to do additional damage against a golem, irrelevant as iwd2 is baedon 3.0 anyways.

Wow this went offtopic ... in a way.

 

^It is possible that many people may be confused because of ever changing (for the good or bad) rules of 3.0-3.5 but I do believe you did a good job to clarify some thing.

So is there not an attack bonus in IWD2 for golems or undead if you choose them? Only damage bonus?

 

Favored Enemy should only give you DMG bonus by the rules of D&D. As i have said several times. IWD2 might have implemented it differentlly, i have not used favored enemy "activelly" when i have played as i have picked more as "rpg factor" choices.

If i can mnage to find my iwd2 manual again (that would be cool actually...) i could try to readup and see what they listed there.

But would be easier if anyone that actualy KNEW how IWD2 handles this, its not unkown for these games to completelly ignore whatever says in the books (granted Bioware was worse at that than Black Isle)

Also, i belive this has not as much changed as having been forgotten to add on to the 3.5 books. Rouge's sneak attack works in the same way. Anything thats immune to an critical hit, is immune to favored enemy bonuses and sneak attack. I am fairly certain they "forgot" to add that to the rouge in IWD2, so i imagine you could sneakattack a golem or undead right ? I was never a good user of sneakattack in the games so you will have ot pardon my lack of know-how on that part.

 

From the manual:

Only the gods know how this is implemented ingame.

 

As a side note you might want to consider choosing Orcs as your first favored enemy. I never had problems with any of the goblinoids in the game (save the last one), even with a solo Ranger. 'Twere the orcs that kept pawning the head of my poor CG Drow Ranger.