On Budly now Im going to teach Peraga a bit about his profession. I myself as a person do not know very much of their knowledge beside what the sheet says.

What can I do not to make it boring? How should I RP this? What really do favoured enemy mean? How much do one know? What do a ranger know?

I also always wondered how to RP a wizard having a pupil. So I gladly listen to any advice on how to have pupils and make it proper and not boring and "Budly shows plants". Feels so boring if I cannot make it feel like the character knows what they know and is not as clueless as I am, for the pupil and the pupil players case I think they deserve to have some proper RP.

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Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.

I mean, it does depend a bit on what exactly you are trying to teach. Some stuff is not too hard to research and then transfer over to the game, such as basic stealth, or have established lore you can grab and put in in turn.. Or don't have any at all and you'll need to make stuff up - which I have myself when my AA taught another. Mostly it just needs to be comprehensive. It does not have to be 100% perfect and I would sincerely hope no one wants to learn actual RL skills from this and understands that what is taught may not be the end all be all and not everyone may agree with it. In some cases it is even absolutely clear that different techniques can lead to the same result, such as with bards.
All in all I would not sweat it too much and just concentrate on it making generally sense. And ultimately, so everyone involved has fun!

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Playing as:
Aleana Xiloscient: Wherever the winds take her.
Jealesyl Truesong: A voice in the dark
DM Prometheus: Bringing you fire

For stuff I don't know, that my character should rightfully know, I look it up.
For example, I typed in 'anatomy of a longbow', and found an image of a bow, with all the parts labeled. I still use it for reference when Crow teaches rangers.
On other things, I may use a more general description, and let imagination fill in the gaps.
For example, when teaching tracking, Crow might say "Look at the depression of the track, it helps you determine size and weight, or the speed of travel." I might not say exactly 'how', unless of course I've looked it up, and can weave that into my RP.
That's just me though, and I like to use as much realism and facts as I can, without being modern.

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For the favoured enemy, I reckon you could have quite a lot with that. Its not just you "Hate" or "Dislike" a certain race, for whilst it does give a combat bonus, it goes further than that. In NWN you get Listen, Spot and Taunt bonuses.... in pen and paper you get bluff, sense motive, and Survival for tracking bonuses too. That is a lot of indepth knowledge you have about a type of creature to get those sorts of bonuses. For example, Favoured Enemy:Orc, its not just a "I know how to kill orcs better" class ability... its a you know how an orc moves, how an orc thinks, how an orc fights and how to counter that, where he would want to hide, the signs to look for to mark their passing, the sounds he makes when he is trying to sneak up of a foe, in short, pretty much everything about your stereotypical orc. You know how to hunt them, how to avoid them, how to find them; Although the bonuses may start off small, a ranger with favoured enemy should be the thing which wakes their favoured enemy in the middle of the night drenched in a cold sweat. That sort of knowledge should take a lot of experience, a lot of observation and a lot of study to accomplish; ideal for RP I would say.

However, from my experience of teaching, I would find some small aspect of what your character can do that you know about, something that you can build upon. Been on a camping weekend? Been in the scouts and learnt a bit of knots and field signs? Great! Those things can be built upon to make a facsmile of what your character may know. From there, I generally sprinkle a bit of established lore, for there is quite a bit out there that you can copy, twist or alter to suit your purposes, and then simply blag the rest. The person on the other end of the interaction knows you are not a ranger, knows you haven't hunted evil critters from the age of 9 or what have you. In my experience people are fairly forgiving for such things, its all about the RP.

My example for this process is similar to Tarnus, with teaching peoples characters to be Arcane archers. My Kernal of truth for this was the fact that I am an archer and whilst I haven't picked up a bow in many years, it is still stored above my wardrobe, I still know the parts of the bow, the parts of the arrow, and the general mechanics of how to shoot. I may not be the best shot in real life... but then again, I am not an arcane archer either... so it is not my job to be so. Then I took existing lore, came up with a process which I think worked, and something which worked better for sorcerer and bard based AA's than Wizard based AA's but it worked. Then I just blagged the rest. There is much Blagging.

But yes! The most important thing, is to make it fun, not only for you but everyone who partakes. That is, after all... what is most important.

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Avatar Picture from Brinawilliamson.com

Player of:
- Whurak Thunderhammer
King of Barak Runedar and all round Vengeful Dwarf
- Alvian Tegleiwalla
Nerdy Painter Elf with a Silly hat

Masters of the Wild - A Guidebook to Barbarians, Druids and Rangers sourcebook has some stuff that might be of interest to you, explaining both how a ranger might view things and more details about their class abilities.

Also the players handbook goes a bit into detail explaining it. And it's noteworthy that Favored enemy doesn't have "hate" mentioned a single time. it describes it as "Due to his extensive study on his chosen type of foe and training in the proper techniques for combatting such creatures, the ranger gains +2 bonus on bluff, listen, sense motive, spot and survival checks when using these skills against creatures of this type. Likewise, he gets +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls against such creatures" (And this increase with levels)

Meaning that the ranger not only knows how to best fight the enemy and where the weak points might be, but that they also know the techniques, strategies and other traits that might be associated with the creature, as you have a higher chance to fool them, hear, track and see them, discern their intentions and so on. As such I'd say that whatever your favored enemy is, and given your study of them it's natural for the ranger to have more knowledge on the creature than an average person who haven't studied them and I'd recommend looking up on some lore for your favored enemies as well, to help better RP the nuances of that.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

This is some great advice from everybody.

I need to look upp undead and demons then for Budly.

Masters of the Wild seems like an awesome book for this too, maybe drivethru RPGs got that one!

I always had issues with pupil RP, last time I played a mage and had pupils it was....very odd and weird. I want all parts included to have fun.

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Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.

They do $7.99 at the moment. I know this as it's sat in my basket with the rangers handbook waiting for purchase! heh

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When it rains, look for rainbows.
When it's dark, look for stars.

Just a quick heads up to you Budly: Peraga is not going to get Favoured Enemy

Spot and Discipline is where its at, but of course it's all about Ranger Skills in general.

I'd reckon learning what part of a shortbow you point at an enemy, how to use shields or even what to do with a weapon in your left, using weapons in general, although Peraga has some skills of a rogue, as shes been in a knive stabbing or two in her past. (I just realized, Budly doesn't really know this ICly, but still!)

EDIT: Spot is I think a major part. Knowing what to look out for, beeing on the lookout. Peraga is REALLY bad at this, and Budly would probably have noticed that ICly already. She literally walks into traps that an Infant could spot. (Spot on -1 atm, and Aiming for 25 after the rebuild with the Ranger level)

Also: Discipline. Peraga has absolutely no idea how to properly guard, most of the time she is not even sure what to do with her hands when she is idle not to talk about proper stance in Combat. THAT is another major part I think, but I think for IC purposes, Spot gives alot more fun variety in terms of what to do training wise.

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Nice! ^^ I check it out soon then!



Understood! We see about having some lessons for the basic parts

The Favoured Enemy part was something I needed the details on anyway! So I got that going

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Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.

Rangers get favored enemy at lvl 1, so if you pick one level, you get it

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I am not weird, I am limited edition

Not if you take your first (and only) Ranger Level in Epics. Nets you Epic Spell Focus instead

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*Cough* Of course *cough*. Never played a caster.

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I am not weird, I am limited edition

Actually, you can take Greater spell focus at level 1 too, if it's pre epic

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Occasionally seen as [DM] Raua, or playerside as...

AS previously adviced, have an understanding what your teaching. All skills and feats can be taught and there are myriad of ways to do it. Favored enemy, for example teaching race specific weakness, habits, behaviour stuff.. Wizard teaching a school, start with basic things.. What is divination about in general level.. What does the low circle spells do.. What are the main purposes of the schools. When reaching epics, swing into more 'scientific' way of teaching with hard terminology and build your own theorys that make sense. See what others have written about the topic in library section of Amia, or check what they have written about other topics. With tailoring RP, I tend to search a lot of words that are used in the businees/magazines.. kind of fashion terminology to make it sound like my character knows what she is doing.

The best part is that you can really make it your own and through your style teach it.


What comes to being boring, during one arcane research event the another player well asleep at her laptop. . . So, it can happen!

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http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/spells.htm

The PHB might not use 'hate' regarding Favored Enemy, but Masters of the Wild does, so they can progress to that level. Crow has a Favored Enemy that is now a Hated Enemy, can you guess which it is?

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... wolves... it's wolves isn't it!

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When it rains, look for rainbows.
When it's dark, look for stars.

Thanks folks! Now I have to round this up and make something nice out of it for the pupils

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Plays:
Sylveera : Sun Elven fury packed in an Arcane Archer, not a Drow, promise.
Tetrik : Greed incarnate in a Duergar.
Budly : Has gone to a better place.
Barrililath : Shadowy Drow, probably less Drow than Sylv ever be.