Every Ranger has a particular creature for which he harbors a deep loathing. Even an otherwise pacifistic ranger has no reservations about harming this creature. In fact, he may actively seek it out for the express purpose of destroying it.
The creature that a ranger opposes above all others is called his species enemy. A ranger gains special combat modifiers when encountering his species enemy, reflecting both his knowledge of the creature and his intense emotions.
The player must choose his ranger's species enemy before the character advances to 2nd level. The DM has final approval of the choice. Once the species enemy is determined, it never changes; the ranger retains the same species enemy for the duration of his career.
A species enemy should be based on the ranger's personal history (the DM may assign). The player may use a DM's choice of a species enemy to fill in some details about the character's early life. Here are a few ways a species enemy might reflect a ranger's background:
The species enemy was responsible for a personal tragedy in the ranger's youth. The enemy may have killed a ranger's friend or sibling, or may have destroyed the ranger's village and everyone in it. - The ranger has vowed to avenge himself against the hated creature.
- The ranger had an intense phobic reaction against a particular creature, perhaps as a result of a childhood trauma. When the ranger was an infant, for example, a snake may have slithered into his crib and tried to swallow him. After years of struggle, the ranger eventually overcame his phobia. In the process, the creature became his species enemy.
A lord or king hired the ranger as a young man to rid the region of a particular creature. What began as a job became a personal vendetta, and the ranger has come to regard the creature as his species enemy.
A ranger receives the following modifiers in regard to his species enemy:
Attack Bonus. Because of his special understanding of the species enemy's vulnerabilities and combat strategies, the ranger receives a +4 bonus to his attack rolls when fighting the creature. This bonus is in addition to any other bonuses the ranger normally receives.
Reaction Penalty. So intense is the ranger's emotional response to the species enemy that it's nearly impossible for him to conceal it. For this reason, the ranger suffers a -4 penalty to all encounter reactions with the species enemy.
Combat Preference. In most combat situations, the ranger will actively seek out his species enemy as the object of his attacks to the exclusion of all other potential opponents. If the party encounters three orcs and a troll, and the troll is the ranger's species enemy, the ranger will attack the troll and leave the orcs to his companions. If the ranger spots a troll in the wilderness, he may feel compelled to attack the troll unless his companions convince him otherwise or forcibly restrain him. This compulsion doesn't automatically override the ranger's good judgment or sense of duty. If a species enemy accidentally falls into a bottomless pit, the ranger won't jump in after it. If he hears rumors that a species enemy was sighted in a distant village, he won't abandon his party to investigate, although he may argue strongly for the party to check it out. If a companion cries for help, he will abandon his fight against a species enemy to come to the companion's aid, resuming his attacks against the species enemy when the companion is safe.
The modifiers apply wherever the ranger encounters his species enemy, not just in the ranger's primary terrain. A ranger whose primary terrain is Desert and whose species enemy is the blue dragon will receive a +4 combat bonus regardless of whether he meets a blue dragon in the desert, mountains, or anywhere else.
Further, the modifiers apply only to the specific creature (or creatures) designated as the species enemy, including any leaders, nobles, shamans, etc. If the species enemy is a blue dragon, the modifiers don't apply to black dragons, red dragons, or dragons of any other color. However, the modifiers affect blue dragons of all ages, from hatchlings to great wyrms. The ogre species enemy includes ogre leaders, shamans, and chieftains, but not ogre mages or merrows. (As a rule of thumb, if a variant creature has a separate listing in its Monstrous Compendium entry, it's not included as a species enemy).
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