airwalkrr
Adventurer
My character class variants continue! In this installment, the ranger is one class I have always found lacking. His high level abilities were improved in 3.5, but I consider it a proud nail that there is still very little to look forward to for a high level ranger. The dead levels article by Liquette gave me some ideas, but I wanted to elaborate upon them. I had two goals in this design: 1) eliminate dead levels by giving rangers useful flavorful abilities at each level and 2) make rangers both supreme masters of the outdoors and give them a little more flexibility.
In the process I decided that I would revamp the favored enemy ability just a little. The ranger now gets it more often, but it has had its power reduced a bit. The new version allows a ranger to specialize in only one favored enemy if he likes and does not require him to select more favored enemies if he does not wish to. However, for this flexibility, I reduced the potential bonuses a ranger could accrue by 20th level.
Additionally, I felt the combat styles should allow the ranger a little more flexibility, as well as have a 16th level ability (the progression stops at 11th, when naturally, it seems like it ought to continue). Now a ranger can choose from a list of bonus feats when he gets his combat styles and he can choose a feat at 16th level as well. Of course, the core rules are a poor source for feats that improve either archery and two-weapon fighting, so expanding the available feats to include any feat that has PBS or TWF as a prerequisite is recommended. I also moved the combat style feat back to 1st level. Some might be concerned that this encourages cherry-picking the ranger class, but given that two-weapon fighting is not considered to be as viable of an option in 3.5, I doubt it will be much of a concern. I feel the skill points are a more attractive reason to dip into the class personally.
I also used several of Liquette's ideas in the Dead Levels article, but felt the need to make them available earlier. I then added a few crowning abilities of my own, which, much like the capstone ability of the variant bard I proposed here are very flavorful, but largely mundane in terms of actual power since by that level characters usually have many other means at their disposal to accomplish similar things.
So take a look and tell me what you think.
In the process I decided that I would revamp the favored enemy ability just a little. The ranger now gets it more often, but it has had its power reduced a bit. The new version allows a ranger to specialize in only one favored enemy if he likes and does not require him to select more favored enemies if he does not wish to. However, for this flexibility, I reduced the potential bonuses a ranger could accrue by 20th level.
Additionally, I felt the combat styles should allow the ranger a little more flexibility, as well as have a 16th level ability (the progression stops at 11th, when naturally, it seems like it ought to continue). Now a ranger can choose from a list of bonus feats when he gets his combat styles and he can choose a feat at 16th level as well. Of course, the core rules are a poor source for feats that improve either archery and two-weapon fighting, so expanding the available feats to include any feat that has PBS or TWF as a prerequisite is recommended. I also moved the combat style feat back to 1st level. Some might be concerned that this encourages cherry-picking the ranger class, but given that two-weapon fighting is not considered to be as viable of an option in 3.5, I doubt it will be much of a concern. I feel the skill points are a more attractive reason to dip into the class personally.
I also used several of Liquette's ideas in the Dead Levels article, but felt the need to make them available earlier. I then added a few crowning abilities of my own, which, much like the capstone ability of the variant bard I proposed here are very flavorful, but largely mundane in terms of actual power since by that level characters usually have many other means at their disposal to accomplish similar things.
So take a look and tell me what you think.
