Rules Question - Ranger's Focus and Slayer's Knack
 

Hello,

Please excuse me if this has come up on a previous thread. I made a token search, but did not find anything yet. I wanted to address a slight contradiction in the rules and try and get a general sense of how to resolve it.

The Ranger archetype Guide has an ability called Ranger's Focus that replaces Favored Enemy. It provides the same bonuses, but just changes the application of those bonuses. Instead of picking a creature type or subtype and applying those bonuses to all creatures of that type, Ranger's Focus allows you to pick one foe of any race and type and gain a bonus to hit and damage against it.

By the RAW, feats that modify a Ranger's Favored Enemy ability, such as Slayer's Knack, cannot be taken, because they only apply to the Favored Enemy ability. However, unlike other archetypes that replace Favored Enemy, the Guide archetype does not also replace the ranger's Master Hunter ability. Master Hunter allows for a death attack that can be used against any of the ranger's favored enemies.

There is a contradiction here, and to be fair, that does happen often in games where there are multiple rules books and additions. After all, it is often hard to envision how a new feat or ability will affect every single other feat and/or ability. That's what these forums are for, and hopefully they get brought to the attention of the right person and an official response can be made. But, until then, I am trying to decide on what path to take with this issue.

It seems to me that the designers saw the Ranger's Focus ability as a type of Favored Enemy ability, and probably intended it to apply the same way, meaning that the Master Hunter ability, which was not replaced, would apply, but only to the creature that was the current target of the Ranger's Focus. Similarly, I think that because of this intention, a feat such as Slayer's Knack should be allowed, and similarly, only apply to whichever creature is the target of the guide's Ranger's Focus ability.

However, if it is decided that these abilities and feats should NOT apply to the guide's Ranger's Focus ability, then a change should be applied to the Master Hunter ability - it should be replaced with something appropriate. This, however, is a much larger implementation of house rules than simply allowing feats to apply to the Ranger's Focus ability, and would require much more thought.

My goal is to find a simple solution that does not require too many changes. As with any problem that arises from the RAW, we are left with the question as to whether or not we should follow the RAI (as we see it), or do we dig in and make larger changes?

Anyway, these are my thoughts and questions on this issue. What do you guys think?

I recommend posting rules questions on Paizo's forum, rather than ours. That's a beter place to discuss rules interpretations. Once you have an official answer, you can post a link to that post here, and we'll make the change.

Thank you. I did do just that, I'm just waiting for some response. I thought that while I was waiting for when/if a reply came, I'd see what the people here think, since many of them also peruse the Paizo messageboards as well.