The Ranger's Guide to Adventure Paths

[Libertad]

Ranger by Greyhues of Deviantart

The concept of the mega-adventure is an increasingly popular one. From event-based Adventure Paths to sandbox megadungeons, there’s quite a few products in Pathfinder and 5th Edition meant to encompass an entire campaign.

Unfortunately, the nature of such published adventures means that most encounters are pre-designed to have a set amount of monsters. And beyond very obvious shticks (“gothic horror” or “lovecraftian invasion”) it’s not immediately obvious what kinds of favored enemy options are ideal for Rangers. Some campaigns which take place in a centralized location, such as the iconic city, further limit favored terrain.

The Ranger’s Guide to X is a multi-part series examining popular mega-adventures by what monster types and terrains feature most prominently in them. Chapter-by-chapter analysis is used as well, in case certain options only kick in later on in the adventure’s progression. Encounters with multiple enemies count as once for each type. Therefore, an encounter with humanoid (giants), outsider (evil), and undead would register into the entries as Humanoid (giant): 1, Outsider (evil): 1, and Undead: 1.

Generally speaking for these guides I assume that the PCs aren’t evil-aligned murderhobos who start fights at the drop of a hat. Sure the king who hired the PCs and his castle guard have stats for the incoming siege, but I’m only counting encounters and places which have a reasonable chance of causing combat.

As per Handbook standards, choices are graded by five shades of colors:

Purple: the very best choices are guaranteed to see a noticeable increase in your PC's power and/or versatility. Barring a self-imposed challenge run or an RP concept, there's no good reason not to take this choice.

Blue: Very good. You are unlikely to regret this choice.

Green: Alright. Not great, but a nice option to fall back on if you took the best choices already.

Orange: Poor. You can do better than this.

Red: Terrible. Avoid at all costs.

General Tips (3.5)

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General Tips (Pathfinder)

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General Tips (5th Edition)

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[Libertad]

Ranger's Guide to the Northlands Saga (Player's Section)

The Northlands Saga is a long-running (about 16 in-game years) epic in the Pathfinder system of how the PCs rise from humble beginnings to fabled heroes and leaders whose actions reverberate across the setting. The major book is half campaign setting, half set of 12 linked adventures, and six published side-adventures which can be played on their own or inserted into the main adventure path at various points. The setting portion has random encounter tables for regions as well as seasons, a few of which are referenced in individual adventures.

The setting is a rural fantasy Scandinavia where local technology is stuck around early medieval (crossbows and plate armor are going to be foreign imports) and there’s only one large town which can conceivably be called a city. Geographically it is a series of land with a central sea in the middle (picture the Mediterranean), and most domains heavily upon maritime activity for their livelihoods.

In terms of cosmology, the Northlands is part of Frog God Games’ broader Lost Lands setting, which is incredibly vague about the planes of existence beyond the obvious elemental/transitive. But the adventure path assumes a default Norse cosmology, and you visit a few of these locations at higher levels.

There are no orcs, goblins, kobolds, or low-level “monster cannon fodder.” That role is served by humans throughout most of the adventure path, and undead feature heavily in this role in the early parts. Giants, even “common” ones severed from their homes in Jotunheim, are another common choice, from frost and fire giants to ogres and trolls. Mundane animals and their dire versions are more common than in other games, especially as random encounters.

As a good portion of the Adventure Path incorporates wilderness travel, a ranger is a good thematic choice.

Favored Enemy Choices



Viking Kills Linnorm by TARGETE of Deviantart

Aberration: Norse mythology is full of all kinds of creatures, but Lovecraftian eldritch entities are a bit low on the list. This is a poor choice.

Animal: Animals are everywhere, appearing as encounters even in the later stages. Like in traditional Pathfinder the higher CR ones tends towards the giant variety at the upper end of the spectrum. An excellent choice.

Construct: Constructs are rare and sparse, and don't count on seeing more than one of them at best per adventure. Very poor choice.

Dragon: Dragons are an okay choice, but should generally be reserved for taking as a favored enemy type until the higher levels (13 and up). But when they do appear, dragons are generally significant battles on their own and rarely if ever "mooks."

Fey: The absolute worst non-subtype choice. They appear with the same frequency as outsiders with the (law) subtype if that's any indication.

Humanoid: By Jove, Humanoid (giant) and Humanoid (human) are the two best choices you can pick for this adventure path. They are common and encountered at all levels of play.

Magical Beast: Overall a pretty good choice, being one of the five most common types. They appear more frequently in the adventure path's latter half, and animals still tend to outnumber them in the first half.

Monstrous Humanoid: While I would not put it on the level of the orange and red options, in that they show up quite a bit throughout the Saga. But in comparison to undead and giants they are sparse.

Ooze: Did skalds ever sing of the time Thor killed a giant protoplasm that isn't some obscure Marvel Comics issue? I didn't think so.

Outsider: Believe it or not, Outsiders with the (evil) subtype are pretty common at all levels of play. Like Humanoid you must select a subtype. The other subtypes, from elementals to chaos/good/law, are not worth your time.

Plant: Slightly more useful than ooze, but less than aberration as a choice. Don't bother.

Undead: This is a solid choice, for undead feature prominently in the first few adventures. However its usefulness peters off as the campaign progresses, but then becomes a good option again in the final adventures. Overall it'd be my #3 choice.

Vermin: Insects and creepy-crawlies are semi-common in comparison to the numerous humanoids, undead, and extraplanar evil entities. But generally speaking vermin in this AP are low-threat pests and rarely singular challenges or threatening forces.

Favored Terrain:

Although the Northland's largest city is a town of 4,000 souls, the Urban terrain is the most common. Why? Because this terrain covers buildings as well as streets and sewers, and this Adventure Path is no stranger to castles, keeps, and fortresses to plunder. The next most common terrain type is Mountains, followed by Forest, Swamp, and Underground. There's actually a bit of Cold terrain in the early AP, and you'd think it would be the best, but the region description seems to be specific type (icebergs, tundra, and blizzards). As Favored Terrain does not stack, it depends on how liberal your GM is feeling if a snowy forest counts. Don't except to visit hot climates like deserts or jungles. Long-term sea travel is usually random encounters between areas, so water is not that common surprisingly barring the the first few adventures. Plains and Planes you should not bother with, as they hardly ever show up for encounter locations.

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Ranger's Guide to the Northlands Saga, GM's Section

This section gives a breakdown of enemy and terrain types per adventure. Naturally, this section is going to be heavy on spoilers, both in the places PCs can go and certain enemies they might encounter.

NS0: Spears in the Ice Part One, Spring Rites

Set-Piece Encounters:

Humanoid (giant): 1
Humanoid (human): 4
Undead: 3

Random Encounters:

Animal: 2
Humanoid (human): 1

Terrain: Forest, Mountains, and Swamp comprise the entirety of the combat encounters. There’s some pre-combat role-playing in the farmland, which would count as Plains.

NS0: Wyrd of the Winter King

Set-Piece Encounters:

Animal: 1
Construct: 1
Dragon: 1
Monstrous Humanoid: 2
Outsider (Cold): 1
Outsider (Chaos/Evil): 1
Undead: 13

Random Encounters:

None

Obviously, undead dominate this adventure.

Terrain: The entirety of the adventure takes place on an iceberg with a castle. Depending on how liberal your GM is, the castle is technically a building, which falls into the Urban entry. Cold and Urban.

NS1: Vengeance of the Long Serpent

Set-piece Encounters:

Animal: 6
Construct: 1
Humanoid (human): 5
Outsider (cold): 5
Undead: 1 (may not end as combat)
Vermin: 1

Random Encounters:
Animal: 9
Dragon: 1 (intended as non-combat)
Humanoid (human): 1
Monstrous Humanoid: 1
Undead: 1
Vermin: 1

Humans and animals are the majority of enemies here.

Terrain: The first part of the adventure takes place on a longship voyage, the second part on the shores of an arctic region. Cold and Water.

NS2: Beyond the Wailing Mountains

Set-piece Encounters:

Humanoid (giant): 1
Humanoid (humans): 4
Monstrous Humanoid: 3
Outsider (chaos): 1
Outsider (evil): 2
Undead: 2

Random Encounters:

Animal: 9
Construct: 1
Dragon: 1
Humanoid (giant): 3
Humanoid (human): 2
Magical Beast: 2
Monstrous Humanoid: 1
Outsider (evil): 1
Outsider (native): 1

Humans are still predominant, and there’s quite a lot of animals, but we see 4 encounters involving monstrous humanoids and 4 with giant subtype. There’s a bit of outsiders, too.

Terrain: arctic tundra over mountains and a city. Cold, Mountains, and Urban.

NS3: The Death Curse of Sven Oakenfist

Set-Piece Encounters:

Animal: 2
Dragon: 2
Humanoid (giant): 1
Humanoid (goblinoids): 1
Humanoid (human): 2
Outsider (evil): 1
Undead: 3

Random Encounters:

The random encounters for seabound travel make reference to the North Sea-Winter table in the setting portion of the book. The forest section references Seagestreland: Coastal Forest-Winter table. These encounter tables will be handled as their own entry.

Adventure-specific encounter table:
Animal: 1 (encounters are very easy)
Vermin: 7 (encounters are very easy)

This adventure has the most variables, although humans still win out by a small margin. Technically vermin is the winner here, but the encounters in question are relatively trivial and situational so it would be a waste of Favored Enemy. Undead are the most common after humans.

Terrain: This is by far the most versatile adventure yet. The major mode of travels involves the North Sea, with some rocky islands, a cave and barrow, and forests and marshes. Forest, Mountain (most likely interpretation of a rocky island), Swamp, Underground, and Water. The majority of random encounters will take place on the sea and in the forest/swamp portion.

NS4: Blood on the Snow

Enemies: For set-piece events, the first encounter can be a mix-up of random enemies, but generally speaking they are humanoids (human), monstrous humanoids, outsiders (evil, lawful), magical beasts, and fey. So the opponent’s true make-up may vary and is not counted below


Set-Piece Encounters:

Animal: 2
Construct: 2
Dragon: 1
Fey: 1
Humanoid (giant): 6
Humanoid (human): 10
Magical Beast: 3
Monstrous Humanoids: 3
Plant: 1
Undead: 1

SPOILERS: If the PCs fuck up big time, there’s an outsider (chaos, evil), but it is far beyond their capabilities to conceivably fight at this level.

Random Encounters:

Animal: 2
Aberration: 1
Dragon: 1
Fey: 1
Humanoid (giant): 2
Humanoid (Human): 3
Magical Beast: 2
Monstrous Humanoid: 1
Outsider (evil, lawful): 1
Outsider (fire): 1
Plant: 1


Humans and giants win, with some magical beasts and monstrous humanoids in a respectable tie for third place.

Terrain: A trek through the forests to a town under siege, then marshes. Forest, Swamp, and Urban.

NS5: Raven Banners over Gatland

Set-piece Encounters:

Aberration: 2
Dragon: 1
Fey: 1
Humanoid (giant): 4
Humanoid (human): 5
Monstrous Humanoid: 1
Ooze: 1
Outsider (native): 1
Outsider (just extraplanar): 1
Outsider (evil): 2
Outsider (lawful): 1
Plant: 2
Undead: 1
Vermin: 2

Random Encounters:

The adventure uses the North Sea-Summer encounter table for the first chapter.

Aberration: 2 (1 is a hazard and not monster proper)
Humanoid (giant): 1
Humanoid (human): 1
Plant: 1
Vermin: 2

Surprisingly humans are not nearly as common as an enemy type, with a smattering of creepy crawly denizens of darkness. Humans are 6, giants are 5, vermin 4, aberrations 4, plants 3 and the rest 2 or lower.

Terrain: The very first encounter takes place on a beach. From then on, the terrain involved includes sea travel, caves, and a fortress. Underground, Urban, and Water.

NS6: Plague in Trotheim

Set-piece Encounters:

Animal: 1 (may or may not be combative based on circumstance)
Construct: 1
Dragon: 2
Humanoid (elf): 1
Humanoid (giant): 3
Humanoid (human): 4
Magical Beast: 3
Outsider (no subtype): 2
Outsider (evil, law): 1
Outsider (chaos, good): 1
Undead: 1
Vermin: 1

Random Encounters:

The first chapter takes place in a city with a Danger of +5. Depending on your GM the random encounter table for cities from the Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide may be in use.

The second chapter uses the Western Andøvan Mountains table in the setting section.

4 humans, 3 giants, and 3 magical beasts, are the most common. Technically outsiders tie with humans, but their various kinds puts a damper on the usefulness.

Terrain: The Northlands’ largest city, along with mountain vales and an extradimensional space. Too bad planes of existence require specific kinds for favored terrain, and the plane in question is more of a “go there once” kind of deal. Mountains and Urban.

NS7: The Return of [NPC X]

Set-piece Encounters:

Aberration: 1
Animal: 3
Construct: 2
Dragon: 1
Humanoid (giant): 17
Humanoid (human): 1
Humanoid (sasquatch): 1
Magical Beast: 6
Monstrous Humanoid: 3
Outsider (air): 1
Outsider (earth, water): 1
Plant: 1
Undead: 1
Vermin: 4

In addition to the set-piece encounters, Chapter 3 has a roster of enemies which are scattered about the crannog, all of which are humanoid (giant)

Random Encounters:

Animal: 2
Humanoid (sasquatch): 1
Magical Beast: 6
Outsider (air): 1
Outsider (earth, water): 2
Plant: 2
Undead: 1
Vermin: 2 (one of which are CR ½ pushovers)

Seriously, the amount of giants in this one’s stupendous. Giant-hunter PCs are going to be in high heaven in this adventure, [SPOILERS]Or feel like genocidal fuckwads because the giants in question are trollish Native American stand-ins[/SPOILERS]. Otherwise we got a respectable amount of magical beasts, some vermin, and a little bit of everything.

Terrain: A brief ocean voyage is followed by a heavily forested and swampy land with mountains in the east. The second chapter of the adventure is a sandbox, the third in the mountains. Forest, mountains, swamp, and urban.

NS8: the Hallburners

Set-piece Encounters:

There are 3 sets of recurring enemy groups as set-piece encounters. Without exception, they are all human (counted in the below entries), although the ranger has a wolf animal companion.

Animal: 3
Dragon: 1
Humanoid (giant): 5
Humanoid (human): 10
Magical Beast: 2
Ooze: 1
Outsider (earth): 1
Outsider (evil, lawful): 1

In terms of set-piece encounters, 1 involves humans and animals, 1 involves a humanoid (giant) and a magical beast with a summoned outsider (earth), 1 involves an outsider (evil, lawful) joining one of the top enemy groups, 8 involve humans, 1 involves animals, 1 involves humans and humanoids (giants), 2 involve humanoids (giant), 1 involves dragons, 1 involves oozes, 1 involves magical beasts, and 1 involves humanoid (giants) and animals.

Random Encounters:

Chapter 2 uses Storstrøm Vale- Waldron Mountains encounter table for random encounters.

In short, a boatload of humans, a good number of giants, a few animals, and a smattering of other creature types.

Terrain: A race across the plains, then into mountains and a fortress with a cave complex beneath it and ends up in the city of Trotheim. Mountains, Plains, Urban, and Underground.

NS9: Daughter of Thunder and Storm

Set-piece Encounters:

Animal: 1
Construct: 1
Dragon: 7
Humanoid (giant): 21
Humanoid (goblinoid): 3
Humanoid (human): 3
Magical Beast: 7
Monstrous Humanoid: 4
Ooze: 3
Outsider (air, water): 2
Outsider (chaos): 3
Outsider (evil): 7
Outsider (fire): 3
Outsider (giant, oni): 1
Outsider (lawful): 2
Outsider (native): 3
Undead: 8

SPOILERS: the final battle’s creature type depends on how the PCs role-played up to this point. It can be an outsider (native), outsider (giant, native, oni), humanoid (giant), a fey, or monstrous humanoid

Random Encounters

The random encounters in chapter 4 draw upon already existing areas of the dungeon, so they are not included.

Aberration: 1
Fey: 1
Humanoid (giant): 1
Magical Beast: 1
Outsider (chaos, evil, native): 1
Undead: 1

A few of the random encounters in Chapter 5 draw upon existing areas, but a few are area-less true random encounters and are included in the above.

Giants galore, undead, outsiders, magical beasts, dragons, and more! At this point the Northlands is pulling no punches with fantastically terrible and mighty beasts of legend.

Terrain: First chapter takes place in a major building, the second cliffside caves, the third through a tundra and taiga forest, the fourth inside a mountain fortress, and the fifth in the dark extraplanar void known as the Ginnungagap. Cold, forest, mountains, underground, urban, and a specific plane of existence.

NS10: The Broken Shieldwall

Enemies

Set-piece Encounters:

Aberration: 2
Animal: 2
Construct: 3
Dragon: 3
Humanoid (dwarf): 1
Humanoid (giant): 10
Humanoid (gnoll): 1
Humanoid (goblinoid): 1
Humanoid (human): 13
Humanoid (reptilian): 5
Magical Beast: 2
Monstrous Humanoid: 2
Ooze: 1
Outsider (daemon): 4
Outsider (evil): 6
Outsider (fire, lawful): 2
Undead: 7
Vermin: 2

Random Encounter:

In terms of random encounters, Chapter 3 involves a semi-random encounter of undead but otherwise nothing else.

Overall, there’s 10 encounters with humans, 10 with giants, 8 undead, and 6 with outsiders (evil) as the most common types of foe.

Terrain: The terrain is quite varied. The first chapter involves a war meeting upon a hilltop, followed by a proving grounds in fighting an old monster in a cave. The warfare portion of the adventure involves fighting an army post in a swampy beachhead, as well as an assault against a Mulstahbin fortress and thwarting an assassination attempt at a castle back in Hrolfland. The final part of the adventure involves a great final battle on the fields of Mulstahba.

Desert, mountains, swamp, urban, and underground.

Regional Random Encounter Tables

The setting section of the Northlands Saga Complete has a great variety of terrain, but there are only 4 such tables which are referenced proper in the adventure path.

North Sea, Summer:

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North Sea, Winter:

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Seagestreland: Coastal Forest-Winter

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Storstrøm Vale- Waldron Mountains:

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Total Monster and Terrain Types

These do not include the regional random encounter tables.

Aberration: 9
Animal: 46
Construct: 12
Dragon: 22 (1 intended non-combat)
Fey: 4
Humanoid (dwarf): 1
Humanoid (giant): 76
Humanoid (gnoll): 1
Humanoid (goblinoid): 5
Humanoid (human): 69
Humanoid (reptilian): 5
Magical Beast: 34
Monstrous Humanoid: 18
Ooze: 6
Outsider (air): 4
Outsider (chaos): 8 (1 of which is an optional worst-case scenario)
Outsider (daemon): 4
Outsider (earth): 4
Outsider (evil): 24
Outsider (fire): 6
Outsider (good): 1
Outsider (lawful): 8
Outsider (native): 6
Outsider (water): 5
Plant: 8
Undead: 44
Vermin: 22 (9 of which are underpowered for their appearance in the AP)

Cold: 4
Desert: 0
Forest: 5
Jungle: 0
Mountain: 8
Plains: 2
Planes: 2
Swamp: 5
Underground: 5
Urban: 9
Water: 3

So overall by number alone, the top 5 most common enemy types are Humanoid (giant), Humanoid (human), Animal, Undead, and Magical Beast. Urban is the most common (perhaps due to buildings being included), followed closely by mountains (which also include hills), and then a three-way tie between forest, swamp, and underground.