Author Topic: Are there "most useful favored enemy choices" for adventure paths?  (Read 2341 times)

Libertad

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I was thinking of making a "Ranger's Guide to X" series where I look over popular adventures for 3.X/PF/5e and tally up the monster types on a per-encounter basis to find which ones are most useful for Rangers to take and at what stages in the campaign.

The idea would be for a "player-friendly" section devoid of spoilers where I just go over the creature types and say which ones are good and which ones are hot garbage. The second "DM's Eyes Only" section would have a breakdown of hard numbers by chapter/stage in the mega-adventures.

Someone did this for Age of Worms, and I'm just about done for the Northlands Saga (nordic 3rd party AP), but didn't see any for Pathfinder's Kingmaker or popular 5e adventures like Curse of Strahd.

Is this a worthy goal or waste of time?

Solo

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Re: Are there "most useful favored enemy choices" for adventure paths?
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2017, 02:20:51 AM »
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”



It's all a waste of time, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.

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SorO_Lost

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Re: Are there "most useful favored enemy choices" for adventure paths?
« Reply #2 on: June 22, 2017, 02:59:17 AM »
I was thinking of making a "Ranger's Guide to X" series where I look over popular adventures for 3.X/PF/5e and tally up the monster types on a per-encounter basis to find which ones are most useful for Rangers to take and at what stages in the campaign.
It's pretty circumstantial.

If you know what enemy will be common in the campaign you should just pick that, it's honestly kind of a dick move for the DM to suggest taking Plants and then run nothing but Orcs because it makes an entire Class Feature totally worthless. When second guessing types without any information, probably because the DM plans to be diverse or ad-hoc things there is a level consideration, like higher level adventurers will run into Evil Outsiders quite a bit since the game turns to a more interplanar scale but a 1st level Ranger taking that as their Favored Enemy is probably a mistake.

The more generic choices are ArcanistCM or Undead given the prevalence of the number of creatures that can fall under those unless your starting near level 8 in which case Harper Paragon or Stalker of Kharash is strictly better since they gain FE:Evil. Otherwise, it costs 2,100gp for a Ranger to buy a new Favored Enemy type, normally +2 damage really isn't worth that but the Ranger will probably already own some FE-based stuff, like Favored Critical, which can make it worth picking up.

"If you cannot defeat your enemy with the weapon you do have, then imagine one with which you could." ~King of Heroes, he can totally kick Ozymandia's ass.
I'm working on the rest, it'll be up soon.

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Garryl

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Re: Are there "most useful favored enemy choices" for adventure paths?
« Reply #3 on: June 22, 2017, 03:22:30 AM »
Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde: Humanoid (goblinoid, elf, and gnoll) are decent picks, depending on which section you're in. There isn't much overlap between the three dungeons.

Red Hand of Doom: Humanoid (goblinoid) and Magical Beast. You can also pick up Dragon for the big boss fights.

Tomb of Horrors: Your favored enemy should be whichever jerk convinced you to play this aptly named module.
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Stratovarius

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Re: Are there "most useful favored enemy choices" for adventure paths?
« Reply #4 on: June 22, 2017, 03:12:48 PM »
To jump in on this - anyone feel like running one of those APs? We've got to christen our PbP forum somehow...

Samwise

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Re: Are there "most useful favored enemy choices" for adventure paths?
« Reply #5 on: June 22, 2017, 10:27:20 PM »
Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde: Humanoid (goblinoid, elf, and gnoll) are decent picks, depending on which section you're in. There isn't much overlap between the three dungeons.

And that's what happens in a lot of APs - there may be some overlap between the segments, but often the primary threat critters change completely.

RHoD is a rare extended adventure where three favored enemies cover a good 90% of what you can expect to ever fight.

As it goes, and from what SorO said about DM dick moves, I'd consider favored enemies to be like sorcerer spells - swappable every couple of levels, if not outright retrainable on a continuing basis.