[3.5] Rangers lose medium armor!

[Joseph Elric Smith]

Wow that all sounds great to me
ken

 

[jasamcarl]

It's not that I care about medium armor, I just think they hardly improved the class at all, while making it even more restrictive.

I also have serious issues with all this pushing to make Rangers high-Dex, low-STR when that's a severely sub-optimal way to design a warrior, and the fact that the guy who lead this re-design continues to show he doesn't know what he's talking about.

"If, as you say, you're playing a low-Str, high-Dex, weapon-finesse character, you've made the choice to favor accuracy and AC over damage. There's nothing wrong with that choice, but you should allow that if you're accepting a low Str, something has to give. "

Favor accuracy over damage? Since when does using Weapon Finesse make anyone any more accurate than a character with STR equivalent to your Dex?

And AC? What AC? D&D armor is intentionally designed so that a high-Dex guy in light armor and a low-Dex guy in heavy armor have comparable AC, so again, you're not getting any gains here.

The trade-off is between doing less than half as much damage as someone with high STR and being worthless against damage resistance vs. movement and armor check penalty, which is why so few non-rogues bother with it...

Uh no. He is high precision because it is not optimal to use power attack and thus the TWF dex fighter would only attack at his full bonus. The high AC comes from the dodge and expertise feat chains which allow for high AC bonuses. But of course, you couldn't take the time to actually look at feats before launching your rant, so.....

 

[Darklone]

*Curses*

I don't care for the lost Med Armour prof.
I don't care for the virtual feats. IMHO giving a player virtual feats who does not have the prerequs is ok.

I do care about a ****ing game designer not having a clue about how TWF is inferior to twohanded weapon twinks. He's done the math? He needs a new calculator.

Precision and AC? Somebody please tell him how D&D works, he's got no idea.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Just out of interest (and not meaning any offence), what do you think about the virtual feats ignoring prereqs? (assuming they still do). Doesn't that make them a little better than the standard feats? Or is it that even so it is not an overpowering issue for the ranger?

Just interested, Thanks!

You know, I almost (gasp!) agree with Psion here ... except for the ignoring pre-reqs thing.

Now that they've taken the medium armor proficiency away from the ranger, there's almost no reason not to make the feats real -- why dip two levels into ranger for free TWF when one level of fighter will do the same for you -- except for the fact that you don't have to meet the prereqs (Dex 15 for TWF, PBS for Rapid Shot) to get the benefits.

I'm not sure what the better recommendation is, unfortunately -- only that "virtual" anything is a bit of a kludge. Maybe the ranger's feats could be different feats with almost the same effects -- that way they'd be real feats, but couldn't be used as prerequisites for other feats; eg, if rangers gained "Double Strike" at 2d level, you couldn't take 2 levels of ranger, then go to another class and pick up ITWF later, because you don't have the required "Two Weapon Fighting" feat. But that seems pretty awkward to have two feats that do the same thing with different names.

 

[Nine Hands]

Re: Re: [3.5] Rangers lose medium armor!

Sure, leather, studded or a chain shirt fits one version of the ranger: the woodsy guy who runs around in the forest. But what about the half-dozen or so other ranger types? What about, for example, the dwarven cave ranger who is at home in the wilds of the Underdark? A breastplate seems right up his alley. Or the horse riding steppe ranger? Why is he out of place in a breastplate or chain mail? Why is one, limited version of the class being made the one and only possibility and all things about the class being tailored to that version, and that version only?

You could always multi-class into a single level of Fighter, which sounds right up this dwarves alley. As long as all of the abilities of the Ranger are not nullified when in armor heavier than light there should not be a problem.

I like this change since fighter type multiclassing works well in D&D.

 

[Psion]

Just out of interest (and not meaning any offence), what do you think about the virtual feats ignoring prereqs? (assuming they still do). Doesn't that make them a little better than the standard feats? Or is it that even so it is not an overpowering issue for the ranger?

That's a good question, and one worth considering. I don't have all the prereqs in front of me, but the only sticking point seems to be TWF, which has a dex 15+ requirement.

So I have two choices with this approach:
- Waive the requirement for that feat only.
- Live with it, and limit TWF style rangers to those with 15+ dex.

Neither take would bother me, really, but the former would make me more consistant with published product. I'm gambling for PC purposes, it won't make much difference, as I bet most PCs will make dex their first or second highest score.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

[B
Precision and AC? Somebody please tell him how D&D works, he's got no idea. [/B]

Well somebody here has no idea.
besides, he didn;t say the Ranger was supposed to be high dex low strength, that was a different tangent, dealing with TWF and power attack.
Every ones games play out differently depending upon the player in the D.M. so personal experiences differ. It has been my experience though that TWF is more often then naught superior to fighting with one weapon or fig with a two handed weapon,but then again the ones in my experience who go the TWF path, have made sure that every thing stacks in their favour, other wise they don't; walk the path, and chose another, so in my game if you see one of th players fighting with the TWF style, it is usually a warning sign he is a tough one.
I myself liek the changes as I think they really help the ranger come out into his own, and make him a core class, as opposed to just a class every one dips into.
ken

 

[Henry]

I do care about a ****ing game designer not having a clue about how TWF is inferior to twohanded weapon twinks. He's done the math? He needs a new calculator.

Precision and AC? Somebody please tell him how D&D works, he's got no idea.

Except that the nature of two weapon fighting is itself changing, thanks to the feats added, as the 3.5 changes are telling us. By high levels, they will lose the penalties entirely, about the time that two-handed fighters are getting pretty good with their damage. It has been shown through a couple of math-heavy theads in the Rules Forum that average damage will work out close to the same.

I myself am eager to see how the end result plays.

EDIT - I stand corrected on the part about them losing penalties. I got confused between that and the monk's ability. Even so, the ability to perform massive numbers of attacks will end up compensating for the two-handers' adventage in the long run.

 

[Darklone]

Ok. Right. I forgot to optimize all the chars for roleplaying. Sorry, I forgot

I'll see if they have AC changes for dex fighters in light armour (right now nothing beats the heavy AC plus shield twink).

 

[hong]

That's a good question, and one worth considering. I don't have all the prereqs in front of me, but the only sticking point seems to be TWF, which has a dex 15+ requirement.

So I have two choices with this approach:
- Waive the requirement for that feat only.
- Live with it, and limit TWF style rangers to those with 15+ dex.

Neither take would bother me, really, but the former would make me more consistant with published product. I'm gambling for PC purposes, it won't make much difference, as I bet most PCs will make dex their first or second highest score.

You know, good Fort and Ref... d8 HD... ftr BAB... stacks of skills... light armour only... and now bonus feats... it's starting to sound remarkably like a certain class....