rangers favored enemy.

[Icedfate]

i was just looking at something.
so anyways, i played through the game as a demonslayer ranger, because people said it's a good beginner class, because it gives favored enemy against all 3 demon types. and i bet that's why my aeon has such an easy time hitting things with aeon bane. .

but then while leveling up arueshela, i was given the option to choose "outsiders" as a favored enemy.

now, the description, obviously pulled from tabletop says that if you pick outsiders or humanoids you then have to refer to a "table" and pick a specific type of outsider(or humanoid) from the table, but in this game, it didn't make me do that. it just let me pick outsiders as a favored enemy.

from my understanding, pretty much all demons are also "outsiders", as well as angels, elementals, deviils and pretty much anything else that's not from the material plane is an outsider.

wouldn't this make the generic ranger "better" than the demonslayer? or do i have it all wrong?

[Cutlass Jack]

You have it all wrong. At least as far as this game is concerned.
Outsiders only covers extraplanar enemies that are not covered under the 3 demon types.

Its understandable why owlcat made this change, because otherwise there would only be one choice to make.

Demonslayer's advantage is that it gets all 3 demon types as one. Every other ranger has to do it seperately. (Except Freebooter who doesn't get favored enemies)

With Arushalae I usually go one rank in each demon type and continually upgrade just the 'Demons of Magic' one. That way she can use her 'instant enemy' spell on anything for the best bonus. But she still has some bonus when not casting that.

[Schlumpsha]

Truthfully, Owlcat still threw a bone to Rangers by limiting demons to 'merely' 3 types. Originally there would have been 7 types: one for each Deadly Sin.

[Icedfate]

I would think that "outsiders" means any enemy in game that has "outsider" in their template.

like if you look at an air elemental it says "level 8 outsider"
if you look at a babau, it says " level 4 outsider"

so, if i have it wrong and favored enemy "outsider" doesn't work against these enemies, then what does favored enemy "outsider" work against?

it would be nice if the text in game matched what was going on under the hood, ya know?
couldn't they be bother to just change the text in the descriptions? how hard is that, like 5 minutes of coding to just delete some text and type something else in?

[Schlumpsha]

Simply put, Favored Enemy Outsider works against any "non-demon" outsiders. That includes elementals, demondands, devils, angels, axiomites, daemons, psychopomps and proteans.

The splicing up of the demons from the Favored Enemy groups was merely something Owlcat did to balance things. Given demons are the main hostiles you encounter ingame.

[Icedfate]

so it's "outsiders, but not all outsiders. . .any outsider except demons" but then "demons" don't actually say "demon" in their descriptions. they all say "outsider" , i mean, i dunno. it doesn't even tell you whether it's a "strength" or a "magic" demon.
what about the minotaurs? are those demons? their template says "monstrous humanoid", but then a couple of them say "outsider". they are minions of Baphomet and appear throughout the abyss. .

how in the Abyss is a player supposed to make an informed decision?

[Schlumpsha]

Their inspect entries (by pressing Y) do list whether they're demons of magic, demons of slaughter, or demons of strength. You might have to expand via right-click and scroll down a bit though. Also, high ranks in Lore (Religion) and Knowledge (Arcana) will help in identifying enemies from different planes for even more information.

Minotaurs are monstrous humanoids. The exceptions being half-fiend minotaurs (usually with wings), which are indeed outsiders. They're not demons, but so-called "native" outsiders. Not unlike tieflings.

[Icedfate]

okay, i'm looking in the encyclopedia in game and under features and abilities

a babau says : demon of slaughter
nabasu : demon of magic
vrock : demon of magic
kalavskus : demon of stregth

okay, but then, what exactly does count as an "outsider"?
at the top, babau says "lvl 7 outsider"
nabasu : level 9 putsider
vrock : level 9 outsider
kalavakus : level 10 outsider

are elementals outsiders?
small earth elemental : 2 outsider
under features and abilities, there's nothing that says "outsider"
is there a different favored enemy type for elementals? is elemental a favored enemy?
under features it says "extraplanar subtype". what does that mean? the demons say it too


i mean , if outsiders aren't "outsiders" , then what does "favored enemy outsider" do?

what about favored enemy humanoids? does that work on humans? or just the non human races like elves and dwarves?

[Cutlass Jack]

You are overthinking it. For Favored Enemy, If its a demon its one of the 3 demon options. If its not a demon its falls under Outsider. Its that simple.

The at the top stuff refers to spells and magical effects that affect certain types. For example a sword that does extra damage vs Evil Outsiders. It doesn't care about ranger subgroups. If its evil and an outsider it qualifies.

[Schlumpsha]

Elementals and demons are both of the outsiders type. The latter merely has its own favored enemy categories of subtypes instead of being bundled inside Favored Enemy Outsider. Elementals, like all the other kinds of non-demon outsiders, use Favored Enemy Outsider. You won't see Favored Enemy Elemental or Favored Enemy Angel for instance.
That's all there's to it.

Favored Enemy Humanoid on the other hand is again spliced up into subtypes. Here you must pick between Favored Enemy Humans, Favored Enemy Elves, Favored Enemy Dwarves, and so on and so forth. Half-elves count for Favored Enemy Elves, and half-orcs for Favored Enemy Orcs.

The Extraplanar subtype applies to any creature leaving their home plane. Say, a babau in Kenabres gets the extraplanar subtype slapped on it. But a babau inside the Abyss is considered native to the plane and thus doesn't have that. Just like a human crusader from Mendev would be considered as extraplanar if he or she winds up inside the Abyss. (That said, the video game isn't scripted to actually give you the subtype if you leave Golarion.)

[Icedfate]

you're saying i'm overthinking it, but the point of my post was that the demonslayer ranger specifically gets favored enemy towards the 3 types of demons,

while a generic ranger "could" just take outsiders for all their favored enemies, and "outsiders" seems like it "should" cover the gamut of all enemies that are "outsider" type.

and yes, i understand that's not how it would work in tabletop, because in the description, it says that if you pick outisers, you have to pick a specific subtype, because it would be overpowered and broken to be abke to just take "outsiders" and suddenly be able to hit everything with outsider on it.

but, when i took outsider, the game just lets me take outsider and doesn't force me to specify and how am i supposed to be able to tell what is an outsider and what isn't when specific outsideres are excluded?

yes, you explaine dit to me, it excludes the 3 types that the demonslayer gets. so then does taking outsider give a bonus to ALL other outsiders except the 3 types of demons? but then how would the player know that based on the descriptions?

are elementals outsiders or are they elementals? i noticed vescavores have the outsider template. does favored enemy outsider work against vescavores?
does favored enemy outsiders even work against anything at all?
if it didn't work, what would even be the point of taking favored enemy outsiders then?

[Schlumpsha]

Originally posted by Icedfate:

so then does taking outsider give a bonus to ALL other outsiders except the 3 types of demons?

Precisely.

Originally posted by Icedfate:

are elementals outsiders or are they elementals?

Both. Outsider is their creature type and Elemental their subtype. Similarly, humans are both of the Humanoid type and have the Human subtype.

Originally posted by Icedfate:

i noticed vescavores have the outsider template. does favored enemy outsider work against vescavores?

Indeed. Given they're outsiders. Plus they aren't of the Demon subtype. So yeah, Favored Enemy Outsider works against them.

Originally posted by Icedfate:

does favored enemy outsiders even work against anything at all?
if it didn't work, what would even be the point of taking favored enemy outsiders then?

*Todd Howard voice on* It Just Works! *Todd Howard voice off*

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Schlumpsha:

Truthfully, Owlcat still threw a bone to Rangers by limiting demons to 'merely' 3 types. Originally there would have been 7 types: one for each Deadly Sin.

I completely disagree. Owlcat splitting up the demon types is another case of them needlessly punishing the players compared to tabletop. However, as you said later, I can see why they did it since that's THE major enemy type of the campaign. And no, Demons would not be split into seven sin types. That's not really how favored enemy and demons are arranged.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger

Outsiders are split into alignments and elements plus native. I'd argue that splitting up the elemental outsiders is needlessly complex and Owlcat combining them makes normal sense. But taking favored enemy Outsider (Evil) would cover all Demons, Deamons, and Devils. Admittedly, all of those are comparatively rare in normal campaigns. You'd probably run into way more Elementals than Evil Outsiders.

Yeah, your breakdown in the post right before this one looks correct for WotR.

[Schlumpsha]

Originally posted by fox5s:

And no, Demons would not be split into seven sin types. That's not really how favored enemy and demons are arranged.

Not in terms of the Favored Enemy class feature, I agree. But they are categorized into demons of lust, greed, pride, envy, gluttony, sloth and wrath inside the Pathfinder setting. An example of a sloth demon would be omox. Whereas succubus is a lust demon. Daeran even talks about the subject a bit ingame.

My point was Owlcat homebrewing the demon of magic, demon of strength and demon of slaughter categories instead of going with the pre-existing lore subtypes was indeed the less taxing decision for Rangers in the end.

As a side note, Owlcat did also deviate from tabletop concerning oozes. Instead of forming their own creature type and creating a Favored Enemy Oozes to combat them specifically, the devs went easy on the class by simply making oozes into aberrations instead. I can see where they were coming from, given there are less than a handful of aberrations ingame. But it's still a pet peeve of mine...

[Drake]

No, in pnp the outsider type is divided in 9 subtypes, the 4 elements, the 4 alignments and the native subtype.
Owlcat homebrewed because otherwise everyone would pick the evil outsider type.

[fox5s]

Originally posted by Drake:

No, in pnp the outsider type is divided in 9 subtypes, the 4 elements, the 4 alignments and the native subtype.
Owlcat homebrewed because otherwise everyone would pick the evil outsider type.

That's literally what I already said AND linked. And your second sentence is basically what @Schlumpsha and I are agreeing on.

Welcome to the party.