Air elemental ranger variant - advice?

[DamionW]

I've given some more thought to Kisanji's two combat styles, and I was thinking of combing some of those features with a feat chain. Here's what I believe might work:

Spring Breeze: At 2nd level, the windstalker gains the Precise Shot feat. She also may spend two rounds studying the air around her opponent (while taking -3 to her AC) to then deny her opponent a dexterity bonus to AC on her next ranged attack action.

At 6th level, the windstalker gains the far shot feat, and the time needed to study her opponent drops to one full round action, and the AC penalty drops to -2.

At 11th Level, the windstalker gains the Improved Precise Shot feat, and the time needed to study drops to one standard action, and the AC penalty drops to -1.

Autumn Cyclone: At 2nd level, the windstalker gains the Dodge feat. Also, the windstalker can perform midair tumbles 1/day for every 3 ranks in tumble. This drops the DC for tumbling through threatened squares from 15 to 10, and the DC for tumbling over opponents drops from 25 to 15.

At 6th level, the windstalker gains the Mobility feat, and may also take 10 on balance, tumble and jump checks.

At 11th level, the windstalker gains the whirlwind attack feat. She also may make a leaping charge. After moving at least 10 ft, the windstalker can make a DC 20 Jumo check to spring into the air, traveling up to 20 ft forward and/or 6 ft vertically to land within one square of her target opponent. On landing, she can attack with a melee weapon at 1.5 her Str modifier, and takes the standard modifiers for a charge (+2 to attack, -2 AC). The windstalker loses her Dex bonus to AC for one round while she regains her stance.

As always, combat styles are only effective in light or no armor.

So, those are my proposed alterations. If those are too powerful, I think I'd give up camouflage and/or Hide in Plain Sight to let the windstalker have it. Also, I'd remove the improved initiative at 3rd level and instead give the run feat. I just like the idea of twinning a wind flavored special ability with a feat chain to produce the combat styles. What do you guys think?

 

[Kisanji Arael]

Looks awesome and a lot more creative than the PHB's. Oh, and remember that the phrase "whether or not he meets the requirements for this feat" is always good.

 

[DamionW]

Looks awesome and a lot more creative than the PHB's. Oh, and remember that the phrase "whether or not he meets the requirements for this feat" is always good.

Yeah, good point, and will be included in my official write-up.

 

[DamionW]

Okay, the monk is up: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=154663. It's not fleshed out, but I put out some options for us to look at.

 

[DamionW]

So, as I was working on the Earth monk, I realized two things:

a) Air is the fastest element, but I don't picture them really hiding much with camouflage or HiPS
b) Earth is slow and deliberate, but blending in with their environment is a good tactic for the monks to ambush.

So the epiphany came to me to just swap those progressions. The windstalker should get the blazing fast speed boost the monk gets. Now my question is, how to balance that if I still want the Ranger to have access to martial weapons and armor. Part of the reason the speed boost worked for the monk is they had not much else going for them. They either needed to close in to use their unarmed strikes or they needed to flee their enemies.

So, what would I need to sacrifice to give the windrangers such a powerful ability as the fast movement progression. There's several routes I see:

1. Already the camo and HiPS go on the chopping block as the first step.
2. I could half the progression so that you only get 5' bonus every 3 levels, maxing out at +30'
3. Give the ranger an average BAB instead of good
4. Limit the selection of martial weapons they can use. For flavor reasons, I didn't picture them using axes or warhammers anyway, those are Fire and Earth weapons, respectively, so I was willing to shave down their weapon proficiency list.

It's a sticky balance question, but combined with the modified combat styles, I just picture these guys zooming across the plains, firing pop shots of arrows as they go or charging up to you in a whirl of blades. So, how do we go about it?