I hear Rangers suck. Is this true?

[Nightfall]

Well even so, I cannot believe he WON'T allow Forgotten Realms stuff. Divine Champion works WELL with rangers. Not as great as paladins I'll grant you, BUT still a good 5 level Pr-class.

Master of the Wild eh? King of the Wood or Foe Hunter then. Worse comes to worse, I'd get a couple Pr-classes from Dragon then.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Is it this guy's fault that Rangers suck and will miss the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season?

Possibly...they've given him the boot. Maybe next season Rangers won't suck.

I sure hope not.

 

[Psyduck]

Well even so, I cannot believe he WON'T allow Forgotten Realms stuff. Divine Champion works WELL with rangers. Not as great as paladins I'll grant you, BUT still a good 5 level Pr-class.

Master of the Wild eh? King of the Wood or Foe Hunter then. Worse comes to worse, I'd get a couple Pr-classes from Dragon then.

He's probably not allowing these because he's familiar with all of the d&d stuff.

 

[Crothian]

The ranger also gets favored enemy, which I consider to be of no value, because there's a good chance you'll never meet your favored enemy.

They also get TWF, which is of little use, since using a shield or a two handed weapon is usually better.

Favored Enemy is controled by the character and the DM. If you never run into it, then either the DM is doing something wrong by not allowing you to use your abilities or the PC isn't trying to go after these creatures. When I DM Rangers, they don't always fight their favored eneimiess, but they do fight them. By not having Rangers fight their Favored Enemy is like never allowing a Wizard access to scrolls or spellbooks or research libraries, so the only way a Wizard gets new spells is the automatic two per level.

As for the fighting style. 2WF is great since you get the feats free. It's less worth it if you have to selct the feats. THere has been countless speculation on which style is the best and personally, none have every been rated the best over all.

 

[Number47]

Don't forget that your Ranger can start off with an animal companion, too! I think rangers are pretty cool, but you have to be careful what you pick for your favored enemy. The humanoid list is far too restrictive. At your level though, maybe abberations and dragons? Remember that half-dragons are dragons too!

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Rangers do not necessarily suck, but I think they have a few issues. My main complaint is the character class is unnecessarily narrow in design, not that it is necessarily underpowered.

Low level Rangers work great. They have good HPs, attack, and skills. TWF works well for low level characters where extra attacks rolls makes you damage steadier, even if its average lags behind the two-handed weapon wielder in the party.

High level Rangers work great. Good HPs and attacks. Polymorph Self into a bear and slash away.

Medium levels Rangers have issues. It is not that the class doesn't work, but most focused versions of the Ranger can be recreated in a more effective form by multiclassing.

Like the steathiness but don't care about animal skills or animal companions? A Ranger/Rogue has even more skills, the SA works wells with TWF, Tumble & Evasion more than make up for a few less HPs.

Like brawling? Ranger/barbarian makes a solid mobile grunt with a good mix of skills.

Like finesse fighting? Ranger/Fighter gives you a broad selection of feats. You lose in skills but you still can keep 2-3 of your favorites up real high.

Like animals? Just play a Druid and pick up a level or two of Ranger, Figher, Barbarian or Rogue to buttress your favorite fighting style. Or just play a stright Druid.

In conclusion, I can't really say that straight Ranger is a good choice of not without knowing what role in the party you expect him to play. 10th level is still "medium" level. If you stick with Ranger until 4th level spells I think you will have plenty of fun.

 

[Voadam]

If you don't mind giving up the ranger spells then an effective multiclass is the ranger/rogue, you get full stealth skill advancements, and you can get better attacks than a straight rogue. You give up some of the sneak attack but you get a ranger with uncanny dodge. Rangers can also go into assassin just as quickly as rogues.

For the favored enemy aberrations, humanoid human, (if you are evil or nonhuman) and elf are good choices (drow seem to pop up often).

 

[Caliban]

I hear Rangers suck. Is this true?

I hear Rangers suck. Is this true?

Well, it depends on the ranger.

There was this half-elf ranger named Bambi that I met once...

 

[Voadam]

Dear story hour,

I always thought the posts here were made up. I certainly never thought I would be posting here myself but recently I had an encounter that made me a believer. Last Saturday while adventuring in the deep woods I met this ranger named Bambi and ...

 

[billd91]

My opinion is that the ranger class is poorly conceived in 3E. It stacks too many of it's benefits at first level (making it the multi-classing munchkin's dream) and then gives out very few powers later on other than advancement of a modest spell list. The distributon of favored enemy bonuses is also pretty weak though kind DMs can continue to make early choices relevant thanks to the flexibility of 3E and monsters gaining levels.
As the class currently sits, there is a huge incentive for picking up 1 level as a ranger (for the 3 bonus feats). THere is also an incentive for picking a favored enemy that's useless to low levels so that it'll be suitably high when the PC is high enough in level to take the monsters on.
I can think of a couple of improvements that I don't think would seriously damage the ranger's balance. Give them 6 skill points per level. Hey, 4 is nice but it's still hard to maintain move silently, hide, search, spot, listen, animal empathy, and wilderness lore without a really high intelligence. They get more skill points than a fighter, but they really need to use them to differentiate themselves from the fighter.
Give them a bonus fighter feat every 5 levels. It won't be much (fighters get them every 2 levels) but it will help.
Change the way they get favored enemy bonuses. The ultimate total of their bonuses is +20. Currently, at 1st level they get 1 point (+1 vs enemy A). At 5th level they gain net 2 (+2 vs enemy A, +1 vs enemy B, for a net change of 2 points in bonuses) . At 10th level, they gain 3, at 15th they gain 4, and at 20th they gain 5. We can spread that out a bit and give them more choices so that their original enemy isn't necessarily the one with the highest bonus at the end (which could reflect a major change in priorities for the ranger character as to which enemy is most dangerous).
So, give them a +1 each level, must pick 1 new enemy every 3 levels until they have reached a max of 5 (at 12th level), no enemy's bonus may be greater than +5.
Well, that last one is just an idea and is a little more complicated. But I really think the ranger is out of whack compared to other classes in the long run.