Sick of the ranger

[Saeviomagy]

and despite some less than kosher comments in this thread, he's good people.

I can even forgive him those. ONE POST IN and someone puts up a wall of text doing exactly what he asked people not to do...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, the thread did wander a bit off topic... lol.

As for getting rid of the TBF ranger style option. It won't have a big impact. Twin Strike with a bastard sword and a short sword for example isn't THAT much less potent than using 2 bastard swords. The second damage die drops down to 1d6 obviously, which will cut into his DPR by about 1 point. At level 1 it will be a modest decrease but most of the damage these guys are doing is more based on static damage bonuses anyway once they get some items and a few feats under their belt. Plus the other source of increase from TS is the doubled probability of getting quarry damage, and that won't be affected at all.

I think my main comment thus would be that eliminating TBF style won't really have a lot of impact. Players will probably just select beast master since essentially its just about the same thing but with the benefit of having a beast companion. BM style is already a good option, maybe even arguably better than TBF. It does also make Archer style a bit more tempting though IMHO it was always a decent option (yes there are arguments to the contrary, it really just depends on what you want to do with the character later on and how much you like Defensive Mobility).

 

[CrimsonHawk]

His requirements are pretty clear.

Don't turn the thread into an argument about whether the ranger is overpowered or not.

Do examine the effect that the proposed rule changes will have on the ranger.

There is no contradiction in his presentation. He's asking what effect some simple mechanical changes will have upon the game.

So, what you are saying is that the second poster is preternaturally stupid and, by virtue of his rampant stupidity, fully deserved to have hate messages and vulgarity slung at him, rather than having his confusion (which he admitted to having at the beginning of his post) addressed in a polite and friendly manner?

Consider yourself reported, good sir. Intellectual superiority will not be tolerated here while I am a welcome member of this board. I put up with too much of it when I was in the Camarilla.

 

[Umbran]

Both of you, cut it out.

Did someone misunderstand the thread's purpose? Yes, clearly missed the point.

Does that deserve profanity being thrown around? No. "Keep it civil" is the #1 rule around here.

Once the owner of the boards has spoken on the matter, should the two of you continue to publicly wrangle over it? Definitely not.

That aspect of the thread ends now. I hope that is clear.

 

[eamon]

I don't understand the purpose of the OP's request. If he finds the two-weapon build boring - well, there are 100 other builds you can play, including two other quite different ranger builds. Why remove a D&D staple just because you don't find it interesting?

If you're a player, there's no problem with just picking something else - and if you're a DM, well, what about the build is problematic? Without knowing what's problematic, it's not easy to come up with a fix.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I don't understand the purpose of the OP's request. If he finds the two-weapon build boring - well, there are 100 other builds you can play, including two other quite different ranger builds. Why remove a D&D staple just because you don't find it interesting?

If one option is percieved to be mechanically superior to others, then people may feel like they don't have a choice. I daresay that a lot of people who read forums would feel like the beastmaster option right now is not worth taking. I personally don't believe that's true, but it's what the online community in general seem to think.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If one option is percieved to be mechanically superior to others, then people may feel like they don't have a choice. I daresay that a lot of people who read forums would feel like the beastmaster option right now is not worth taking. I personally don't believe that's true, but it's what the online community in general seem to think.

Yeah, and I find that very puzzling. I think people haven't thought about it much. You give up Toughness feat and reduce off-hand damage from d10 to d6 by going beast master. The feat is pretty good, but not vital. The loss of about 1 from your DPR is not that big a deal and will be almost unnoticed at higher levels where its all about stacking static damage mods on top of 2 attacks a round.

In return you get a beast. Even assuming you do zilch with your beast it is still a freebie blocker that can have a pretty decent amount of hit points, etc. It requires no extra actions to move it around and you can make your OA with it as well. There are all kinds of other possible uses for thing, setting off traps, scouting, etc. If it dies, it costs 50gp to replace and a 4 hour ritual, not that big a deal. This is all not even factoring in some very nice powers you get access to, especially the minor action attacks at high levels.

Frankly anyone who thinks TBF rangers are overpowered pretty much logically must say the same about BM melee rangers as well.

 

[eamon]

Frankly anyone who thinks TBF rangers are overpowered pretty much logically must say the same about BM melee rangers as well.

Yeah, that's my conclusion too. And in any case, it's not exactly rare for various build options in classes to be not perfectly balanced. Any difference is going to be pretty small.

For that matter, though I think the ranger archer looks boring, it's certainly not underpowered - esp. once stuff like prime quarry get included.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Frankly anyone who thinks TBF rangers are overpowered pretty much logically must say the same about BM melee rangers as well.

But the thing is that plenty of players will follow the common wisdom without questioning it.

And if the two options are equal then banning that option has no effect on game balance at all. At that point banning an option for being boring or overly popular is fine.

 

[Skallgrim]

The question I'm asking is, if one does away with the Archer Fighting Style and Two-weapon Fighting Styles completely, and simply makes a ranger player choose between gaining Prime Shot or Beast Mastery, just how much of an impact will that ultimately have on the ranger's ability to do damage?

I don't think the impact on doing damage would be very much, but it would be kind of a lousy choice for some rangers.

If you wanted to play an archery ranger, then you are relatively fine. You have lost Defensive Mobility, but that's it.

If you want to play a beastmaster ranger, you know what you are picking.

If you want to play a melee ranger without a beast companion, you now have a feature which provides no benefit to you in your preferred combat arena. You CAN pick up feats which allow it to help you, but now you are one feat down on the other rangers.

I would think about giving Prime Shot and one choice of, say, Prime Punisher (if that's the feat where you can use prime shot benefits in combat) OR something useful to archery rangers (Defensive Mobility, whatever).

It would be very minor in terms of damage output, though. You'd lose some weapons as off-hand (many of which you could simply use Double Weapons (yuck) for instead).