[3.5] Rangers lose medium armor!

[diaglo]

I take it you haven't seen a lot of Westerns?

Or Giants or Dragons or other creatures with big feet.

 

[jasamcarl]

Right, high-STR characters can't use weapons with an 18-20 threat range, and Expertise now has a DEX requirement, does it?

Of course, every single character with Weapon Finesse apparently gets Dodge and Mobility for free (when the high-STR oaf will never be able to have the enormous DEX of 13 needed to take them) and those AC boosting feats are the example of how precisely the high-DEX character strikes with his weapon.

Even assuming for the sake of argument that 13 is a high Dex score (seen the standard array lately?), the fact that you think two fighting styles (one of which requires a feat) are balanced not in and of themselves but because one of them allows you to take a couple of feats that are hardly everyone's first choice speaks volumes about your understanding of the situation.

Why can't you get this? The high str character Andy Collins was referring to was one that sought to maximize his damage output. Feats are part of that equation. If you insist on putting them out of the discussion, the topic wasn't really very interesting in the first place.

A high dex character who wanted to maximize AC while still being competitive with damage would wield either a shield or light weapon in the off hand. With a dex of 15 +, they could afford to take the TWF and dodge chains, both of which boost AC. They would be better served than the power attacking strength character in wielding a high crit weapon. This shouldn't be that difficult to understand, but sometimes i am amazed.

The 'two-fighting styles don't mean much outside the discussion of these feats. Limiting this debate to a figher with weapon finesse to one without is kinda pathetic and pretty much removes the context from AC's remark.

 

[MerricB]

There's a long martial tradition of mounted scouts; they're called light cavalry.

Absolutely.

The 3.5E is one type of ranger - I see no problem with another build (with completely different abilities) that has mounted combat skills.

However, the current set of abilities doesn't mesh very well with mounted combat. "Swift tracker" "Woodland stride" "Animal Companion" "Hide in plain sight"? Nope - not for me.

Cheers!

 

[drowdude]

The loss of medium armor is meaningless.

In my experience, no one in their right mind ever bothered to wear medium armor (unless it was mithral). Why would they?

They could simply wear a chain-shirt get a +4 AC (versus the max of +5 that med armor gave) and not lose 10' of their tactical speed. Not to mention the greatly reduced armor check penalty, and higher max dex rating.


As far as the changes to power attack go.... well, in short, I think they are unneccessary, and kind of suck to boot

 

[Zaruthustran]

He did. No change from 3.0.

Dodge: +1 AC, 1 target.
Off-hand attack: +0.5 str.

Really? Huh. I swear I saw +2 for Dodge somewhere. Oh well, my bad.

-z

 

[JoeGKushner]

yet, if you go the archer route. twf never comes up. so having a nice set of armor to protect you is nice.

I remember back in the days of 2nd ed this used to come up. I never liked the idea of someone in full plate being able to use a bow as efficiently as a lightly armored person and think that there were some rules in one of the Option books that helped curb this but allowed Crossbows to be used with full conuses the whole mechanical vs. skill thing in play.

 

[DonAdam]

I've thought about doing this for my group. Any problems with it?

Not one. Now we've got a pretty even mix of lightly, medium-ly(?), and heavily armored fighters among the PC's and NPC's.

 

[tetsujin28]

Rangers got the shaft!

 

[coyote6]

However, the current set of abilities doesn't mesh very well with mounted combat. "Swift tracker" "Woodland stride" "Animal Companion" "Hide in plain sight"? Nope - not for me.

Err, Animal Companion certainly fits -- your companion is your mount!

Swift tracker could work -- interpret it as allowing you to track from a moving horse.

Woodland stride -- well, if you can share special abilities with your companion, it could be really handy for a mounted ranger in a forest. OTOH, it's not so great in general -- perhaps it could be swapped for some kind of ability more useful to a mount -- increased speed, endurance, carrying capacity, etc.

Hide in plain sight -- again, if you can share abilities, hey, you'll be the only guy that'll be mounted after hiding from the army of high-level orcs. Otherwise, this could be swapped, too. Or, heck, quit taking levels of ranger before you get HiPS; go fighter or barbarian or some prestige class.

Some customization for a mounted ranger would be cool, but perhaps not absolutely necessary; it would be fairly easy to do, I think.

Probably easier than recreating the "urban ranger" variant . . .

 

[Ranger REG]

Oh, well. While I do like some of the new changes, I will houserule to allow their combat path to work with any armor he is proficient in, regardless if he get them free or has to acquire the proficiency with his feat allotment.