[3.5] Rangers lose medium armor!

[MerricB]

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 . . .

Look, by this stage with all these "revised" abilities to work with the horse as well, you are describing something that is not the ranger of 3.5E (or any edition, in fact).

Not only that, but you are treading on the toes of the paladin.

At this point, I also begin to wonder about balance: is the mounted combat feat path better than the archery or twf paths... and my instinct is "yes, it is".

As a result, the mounted ranger/scout would be far better implemented as a separate class, rather than trying to shoehorn the existing class into fitting it.

Cheers!

 

[Kai Lord]

A wizard can take Martial Weapon Prof and use a sword.

A ranger that takes Medium Armor Prof looses his main class abilities.

Very different situations

Good point. After all, a Wizard who takes Medium Armor Prof doesn't lose any of his class abilities (okay maybe the ability to cast all his spells, but come on, that's more a flavor thing, we all know Wizards live and die by their pet muskrats) and the Ranger who spends the feat to get heavier armor loses three virtual feats and is albeit crippled with only a +10 damage vs. one species, +2 to four others, four levels of divine spells unhampered by his new armor, two good saves, an animal companion, the ability to become effectively invisible in the wild, and almost as many skills as a Rogue.

Pathetic, worthless Rangers. They're animals! And they should be slaughtered like animals! And not just the male rangers, but the women...and the children...I HATE THEM!

And do you know what else I hate about rangers? All the in' SAND! Its so rough and course and it gets everywhere!!

 

[Staffan]

At this point, I also begin to wonder about balance: is the mounted combat feat path better than the archery or twf paths... and my instinct is "yes, it is".

Not so sure about that. As shown in the threads about paladins and their summonable mount in 3.5, mounts can be a serious liability as well as an asset. When you are mounted, the mounted combat feats are quite powerful, but you're going to be able to use archery or twf feats far more often.

 

[bret]

I realized recently that the change to Ranger weapon proficiencies does have one effect. It is now much more impractical to use this class to qualify for SpellSword.

The most obvious way to get the weapons and armor proficiencies for this PrC is Fighter or Paladin. It used to be that by taking Barbarian or Ranger and spending a feat on Heavy Armor, you could still qualify. Now it would take two feats (Medium and Heavy Armor) in order to qualify.

 

[Imperialus]

after reading most of this thread I decided to try my hand at creating a light cavelry horseman/scout useing 3.0 rules, fighter to be specific. My own character was killed last gameing session and I've been combing my brain trying to come up with a character idea that appeals to me. Anyhow here he is at 7th level useing the 28 point buy method.

Race: Elf
HP: 68
STR: 10 Dex: 18 Con: 12 Int: 14 Wis: 10 Cha: 12

Feats: Point Blank Shot, Track, Improved Init, Weapon Finness saber (gotta clear that with the DM but I don't see any real problems... it has the same stats as a rapier, it just fits the character better), Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, Ride By Attack.

His skills mirror that of a single classed ranger (that's why I put 14 into INT, those extra skill points were a godsend). I won't go into detail on them though. Naturally I pimped out his animal handeling and ride skills and gave him good ranks in search, spot, wilderness lore ect.

I equiped him with a +1 chain shirt, a buckler, and an amulet of natural armour +1, that gives him a total of 21 AC, more than sufficant for a support fighter, we already have a fighter barbarian serveing as a tank. I gave him a +1 composite longbow some +1 arrows and a +2 saber. I also gave him a light warhorse with leather barding and horseshoes of speed. He can hold his own in combat on or off the horse, but seeing as how a great deal of the campaign takes place out of the traditional dungon setting he should have at least reasonable oppertunities to put his mounted combat skills to the test. Anyhow first session with him is Saturday, unfortunatly it will be in a large part dungon crawling but I'll let you know how he holds up.

 

[Darklone]

Actually, we had quite some chars with medium armours. Since we used no point buy but dice rolling for stats... some chars had a dex mod of +2 or +3, making a breastplate+large shield interesting. Especially for bards or any chars with high dex but not high enough to use light armours.

The others... bought heavy armours as soon as they had cash.

 

[MerricB]

Not so sure about that. As shown in the threads about paladins and their summonable mount in 3.5, mounts can be a serious liability as well as an asset. When you are mounted, the mounted combat feats are quite powerful, but you're going to be able to use archery or twf feats far more often.

What you have is a campaign-dependent special ability.

Either it's underpowered, or it's terribly overpowered.

One that is balanced in the right campaign, or underpowered otherwise is not that bad - but one that is overpowered in the right campaign isn't good.

Cheers!

 

[Staffan]

Not even sure it's overpowered in the "right" campaign. Even one where you don't crawl around in dungeons all the time will have plenty of opportunities where you won't be able to use your mount to full advantage.

Not to mention that the mount is also quite vulnerable - though this may be slightly lessened by having it be an animal companion. Still, a smart enemy could probably take out the mount pretty quick (OK, the Mounted Combat feat probably negates one attack each round, but it's not exactly uncommon for there to be more than one) leaving the formerly mounted person with useless feats.

 

[hong]

At this point, I also begin to wonder about balance: is the mounted combat feat path better than the archery or twf paths... and my instinct is "yes, it is".

At low levels, being on a horse is probably a bit better than being on foot. This is reasonable however; if being mounted didn't confer any benefits, noone would have bothered to invent cavalry.

At high levels, a mount with 4d8 (+Con bonus) hit points is a liability.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

My biggest problem is the following:

1. The Ranger is still not a class that stands on its own in a group like the Paladin or Fighter, both of which can fill a role interchangeably. That of the main fighting component of a balanced adventuring group.

Not just because of the Medium Armor, but also the d8 hit points and limited feat selection.

When they decided to change the Ranger, I was hoping for a class that could be the main fighting component of a group for folks who would rather play a Ranger than a Fighter or Paladin.

2. They claimed the change was made to discourage multi-classing.

Do an analysis. The Ranger is now an even better multi-class character than previously.

Fighter takes two levels of Ranger:

Pros:

Gains Track.
Still keeps his Base Attack as a Fighter.
Gains two levels of favorable skill points and access to a better skill set.
Gains +3 on his Reflex Save.
Gains +3 on Fort Save rather than +1

Cons:
Loses one bonus feat.
Loses up to 4 hit points.

Rogue takes two levels of Ranger:

Pros:
Gains +2 Base Attack
Gains Track
Gains Two Weapon Fighting or Point Blank Shot free
Gains +3 on Reflex save rather than +1.
Gains +3 on Fortitude Save
Gains 2 d8 Hit Dice.

Cons:
Loses 4 skills points.
Loses 1 level of Sneak Attack


They made multi-classing a Ranger even more attractive.

Andy Collins, Ed Stark, and the rest of the design team,

What was the reason for changing the Ranger again? I can't seem to remember looking at this version of the Ranger.