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I’m working with a DM’s approval to help a player choose a favored enemy for a UA revised ranger without spoiling the player on Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. In this agreement, I’m doing to spoiler-seeing work.

I am trying to find what would be the best choice of favored enemy for this player’s revised Ranger, based on what’s in DotMM. I’ve found a list of the population by level on reddit, which could help.

I'm looking for which enemy type is the most common and which enemy type poses the most threat to players in this module. Reasons to choose one or the other as favored enemy are also appreciated.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I don't see this question as opinion based. It should be fairly simple based on a list of encounters to choose the enemy type that will provide the greatest overall benefit throughout the module. Whether the most dangerous or most common enemy is more useful would be part of a well supported answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – linksassin ♦
    Oct 23, 2019 at 22:36
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    \$\begingroup\$ @MarkWells I'm assuming most useful from an optimisation standpoint. As in most likely to get you out of the dungeon alive. But yes without clarification the question is unclear, but I don't see it as opinion based. @ maniaque can you clarify what you mean by "best" so that we can reopen the question? \$\endgroup\$
    – linksassin ♦
    Oct 24, 2019 at 0:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ Please remember to not be a jerk and not deliberately try to scare people with a different playstyle than you away. We accept all playstyles here, or at least we used to. \$\endgroup\$
    – Please stop being evil
    Oct 24, 2019 at 6:39

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The most numerous Favoured Enemy is Humanoids, and the most numerous Greater Enemy is Constructs in DOTMM

Using the link you provided for the population per level, I made a table of how often each unique creature appears on each level with the DOTMM. I did not include the number of each creature as I thought this may tilt the count towards types with more lower CR creatures in them.

enter image description here

Favoured Enemy

As you can see from the chart above, Humanoids are by far the most numerous Favoured Enemy Type in DOTMM, with Undead second, and Monstrosities third. In my opinion, either one of these three would be fine to pick, as there is a larger number of Humanoids that you may not even fight, as this list includes all possible encounters. A large number of these humanoids you can choose to just ignore, or possibly talk your way out of a fight.

It is also important to remember that only the Revised Ranger is able to pick Humanoid as it's Favoured Enemy. For anyone playing a regular ranger, you will be unable to pick Humanoids.

The BBEG is also a humanoid, so that may make Humanoids obviously more enticing than the other types. You will most likely find this out fairly early on depending on how your DM runs it/you guys play it.

Also, some of these enemies are low CR, so may just be blown up by a well placed fireball before your ranger gets to attack.

Undead includes a large number of Liches/Undead Beholders which can be quite tough.

Greater Favoured Enemy

The Greater Favoured Enemy list is much closer in terms of the top three, which are Constructs, Aberrations, and Fiends. Each have a similar distribution of CR levels as well, so this one really comes down to personal preference. There is a slightly higher number of high CR Fiends, though not enough to make it obviously better to pick Fiends over Constructs of Aberrations.

Ultimately, it depends on what the player prefers

It is quite hard to pick one obviously right choice, as what you encounter ultimately depends on what your DM throws at you, and which paths/places the party spends more time in. In my opinion, any one of the top three for each group of favoured enemy will be your best choices.

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    \$\begingroup\$ May want to note that only revised rangers can pick the humanoid type as their favored enemy. \$\endgroup\$
    – Please stop being evil
    Oct 25, 2019 at 2:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ Is your count the number of encounters that contain one or more of that creature type? If so it may be worth elucidating that a bit more, as it took me a few rereads to parse your first paragraph. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kyyshak
    Oct 25, 2019 at 9:57

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