How to Build a Better Scout?

[Darklone]

Ehem.... Take a look at the Brigand class in the Kalamars Players guide. There will be a 3.5 revision soon.

He's got:
- approx Fighter BAB (prolly full).
- weak will save
- evasion, uncanny dodge, sneak attack (less than rogue)
- cha based feats
- medium skill points, d8 hitpoints

Not exactly a scout (but good class skills for a scout if you've got Int), definitely a better fighter than any rogue.

 

[Garnfellow]

Oh, it's not that bad. It's the only class besides rogue that has both evasion and uncanny dodge, for example; and it gets two good saves, which can be invaluable at high levels. Bump it up to fighter BAB and it should be quite reasonable.

Yeah, I agree that this class probably needs a fighter BAB to be viable for PCs.

My least desired option was to build my own core class. But after looking at a bunch of these alternate core classes and variant rangers over the last couple of days, I'm really starting to see some common parameters that make sense to me:

SCOUT
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d8.
Class Skills: Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (6 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Int modifier.
BAB Progression: As fighter
Saves: Good Fortitude and Reflex

The real trick is in the amount and distribution of class abilities. For whatever reason, it seems really easy with this concept to end up with something either much too weak or much too strong.

 

[AeroDm]

SCOUT
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d8.
Class Skills: Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (6 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Int modifier.
BAB Progression: As fighter
Saves: Good Fortitude and Reflex

The real trick is in the amount and distribution of class abilities. For whatever reason, it seems really easy with this concept to end up with something either much too weak or much too strong.

I would not give both good Fort and good Reflex. I know that the 3.5 ranger has both, but then I think he is a little overpowered.

If you go with just one good save, then I'd suggest granting it similar abilities. If you go Fort, give it woodsman abilities that allow it to survive (ala favored terrain of WoT woodsman). If you go Reflex, give it dex type abilities like Evasion and Uncanny Dodge. I found that when the Ranger had both fort and reflex people tended to try and give it both grouping of abilities. The end result was that they either overpowered it by giving it all of both, or underpowred it by giving it conservative doses of both. Focus on one thing and make him good at it.

The WoT woodsman and the Warcraft scout are not the same.

 

[Nightfall]

Garmfellow,

While I can't say with certainity, I don't believe so. I don't believe that Woodsman in WoT can channel, so there might be similiarities there. But I don't believe the Woodsman has evasion or hide in plain sight abilities.

 

[Grayhawk]

Garnfellow, it seems that a tweaked 3.5 Ranger is closest to what you're looking for, judging by your own Scout write-up above.

If you choose to make a spell less Ranger, I have one observation that I haven't seen anybody else make:

When compensating for the loss of spells I often see people go overboard. Keep in mind that you need a Wis of 14 to be able to cast 4th level spells, and if you don't use some very generous way of generating stats, that is quite expensive.

Therefore, my own Alt.Ranger (which propably isn't what you're looking for, as he's closer to the 3.0 than the 3.5 Ranger) can choose to be spell less and instead pick abilities from a list, each time he would have otherwise qualified for a new spell level.

This way you can't dump your Wis and receive a lot of special abilities or feats instead of the spells you wouldn't have gotten anyway.

Example: With a Wis of 12 a Ranger can choose to get Trackless Step (or Alertness or whatever other abilities you deem appropriate) at 4th level, when he would otherwise have gotten 1st level spells.

If he only had a Wis of 11 he wouldn't get this until 6th level, etc.

To me, this makes for a more balanced alternative to spell casting, but ultimately it's up to you to make it balanced with your own game by choosing which abilities goes on the list.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm not sure my player would take such a big hit in combat abilities in exchange for skills, though.

At Fighter 8/Scout 2, you'll have sacrificed 1 point of BAB, 2 hit points, and one Fighter Feat in exchange for 8 extra skill points and putting a class skill ceiling on all the skills you want. Not wanting to lose some Fighter abilities in exchange for Skillsy stuff is wanting something for nothing. As it is, this character still has a better BAB than a Rogue or Cleric of his level, has five Fighter bonus Feats, and plenty of hit points.

Sample Guy
Human Fighter 7/Expert 3
Ability Scores: Str 14, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 8.
Feats: Track, Alertness, Point Blank Shot, Stealthy, Self-Sufficient, Endurance, Precise Shot, Improved Initiative, Rapid Shot
Skills:
Climb 4, Ride 5, Swim 4, Survival 8, Knowledge (Nature) 5, Listen 4, Spot 2,
Move Silently 4, Hide 4
Hit points: 69
BAB: +9, melee +11, ranged +12
Base saves: Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +5

 

[Garnfellow]

Garnfellow, it seems that a tweaked 3.5 Ranger is closest to what you're looking for, judging by your own Scout write-up above.

If you choose to make a spell less Ranger, I have one observation that I haven't seen anybody else make:

When compensating for the loss of spells I often see people go overboard. Keep in mind that you need a Wis of 14 to be able to cast 4th level spells, and if you don't use some very generous way of generating stats, that is quite expensive.

Therefore, my own Alt.Ranger (which propably isn't what you're looking for, as he's closer to the 3.0 than the 3.5 Ranger) can choose to be spell less and instead pick abilities from a list, each time he would have otherwise qualified for a new spell level.

This way you can't dump your Wis and receive a lot of special abilities or feats instead of the spells you wouldn't have gotten anyway.

Example: With a Wis of 12 a Ranger can choose to get Trackless Step (or Alertness or whatever other abilities you deem appropriate) at 4th level, when he would otherwise have gotten 1st level spells.

If he only had a Wis of 11 he wouldn't get this until 6th level, etc.

To me, this makes for a more balanced alternative to spell casting, but ultimately it's up to you to make it balanced with your own game by choosing which abilities goes on the list.

This is a pretty important observation. I think most of the rangers I've seen have put their best ability scores into either Dex or Con.

 

[ConspiracyAngel]

Rogue/Ranger and Harper Scout

Well... Rogue/Ranger Elf works just fine for my scout. On question of prestige classes available... if anyone even wants to go there... the Forbidden Realms offers a "Harper Scout".

 

[Zhure]

I'd go with a Barbarian. Get Cosmopolitan to pick up Spot as a class skill. Treat Rage as "Combat training."

The other option I like is Monk, with Cosmopolitan to get Survival as a class skill. Until mid-levels, there aren't many supernatural abilities. Use a quarterstaff or daggers for the flurry. Daggers are especially good as military weapons, very commando-like.

Greg

 

[Garnfellow]

First, thanks to everyone who posted -- the range of responses offered was outstanding, and my player and I carefully considered them all.

In the end, we decided that his character concept was really much closer to a fighter who could do some forester things, rather than a forester who could do some fighting. Based on this, the player used the Versatile feat to get several skills as class skills, and then he chose a series of skill enhancing feats. We had our first game this last weekend, and we were both *much* more satisfied with the new character build. An EnWorld success story!

Based on all this input, I reached a few additional conclusions:

(1) For NPC foresters, a few levels of Expert mixed with Warrior or Fighter work very well.

(2) There is a real need for a balanced, non-magical version of the ranger core class, and lots of people would also like to see one without the favored enemy or weapon path abilities.

(3) There also seems to be a real need for a way within the core rules that would allow fighters a way to pick up new class skills. And not just fighters who want to track and hunt. How about those poor vikings that would like to be good at Profession (sailing)? A feat like Versatile seems like it would do the trick.