I hear Rangers suck. Is this true?

[Kaptain_Kantrip]

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.

 

[Agamon]

Hehe, and here I thought I was going to be original with my joke about how the Rangers are a bunch of underachieving, overpaid la-hoosers. Darn, beat to the punch!

Go, Habs, Go!

 

[fba827]

Please give me some ideas on how to use his skills, feats, best favored enemies, and most used spells. Please list some strategies I may use as well. Rangers are new to me, and I don't want to start to think they suck too soon

My thoughts?

* Just because you get Two-weapon fighting and ambidexterity doesn't mean you have to use them. Maybe keep the extra weapon around for some low ac cannon fodder but that's it

* Because lots of your abilities are good in light armor (fewer armor penalties to some key stealth skills and the two weapon ambidex virtual feats) then think about finding ways to pick off enemies from a distance before they get close enough to hit you in your less-than-plate-mail armor (ie have missle weapons, possibly even point blank shot and maybe rapid shot)

* The PHB assortmet of Ranger spells is a little skimpy (and I normally don't say that about spells) so if can use some of these other sources, take a look at what they have to offer (camoflage is quickly becoming a favorite of the ranger in my group). I really can't say the cure spells for the ranger are all that helpful - by that level there are no doubt much better ways to be doing the curing (a ranger doing 1d8+5 is really not much when everyone has 75+ hp)

*don't take an "all around" animal companion - take one that is exceptionally good in one particualr role - combat or scouting. And, if you do go the combat route for the companion, don't make it a frontline fighter. Always have it hang back to guard someone, perhaps the group's mage or someone else who is not very combat oriented... course, this means you go to pick your animal tricks taught carefully.. again, it depends on the route or combat vs scouting that you choose

* in terms of skills, keep your wilderness lore maxed out (great for tracking and for finding campsites or food in the outdoors). stealth skills may be next on the list (hide / move silently) presuming that you do not already have someone to fill the "scout" role in the group ...

okay, that's it for the moment.. 'cause i'm tired. will add more in the morning if i think of anything.

But, in a nut shell, as one person already said, rangers don't suck, per se, they just have a very specialized niche. And, frankly, if you're never in the wilderness and never run against the enemies you choose as your favored enemies, well, then you're SOL.



PS. If you do have a favored enemy that you know you'll be up against, and you can use feats from MotW, I say go for favored Critical. It's basically improved critical for any weapon against a specificed favored enemy.. couple other caviates in there about what it does and does not stack with, but , overall, quite handy ;-)

 

[Frostmarrow]

If I played a ranger I'd choose a greatsword as my primary weapon and a composite longbow as my secondary. I'd steer clear of that Ambi/TWF-combo. It's just too much of a hassle to switch from longbow to two weapons. Even with Quick Draw it takes 1 round. First you draw one weapon as part of movement and then you draw one weapon for free. In the first round you have already lost one attack. On the other hand if you carry a greatsword you can wait until the bad guys charge you and draw your greatsword for free and then whack them with a full round attack action. For even more punch you pick Hold the Line instead of any of those two weapon boosting feats.

If my DM would allow me to drop spellcasting for 2 extra skillpoints per level I would. Moreover I would exploit Wilderness lore as much as humanly possible. I'd roll checks all the time arguing that it should allow me to know stuff about my Favored Enemies; Special Qualities and Special Attacks. Knowledge (arcane) allows a spellcaster to know those things about a golem, for example, so I think it's only reasonable that a hunter knows that bears have Improved Grab. An undead hunter ought to know some things about destroying vampires, don't you think? I don't think a wolf nomad should become surprised when a wolf trips him...

With this recipe I think a ranger might be worth playing from a powerplay perspective. From a role-playing perspective the ranger is always worth it, which is proven by it's popularity in spite of it's capillary qualities.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Unfortunately, I don`t play a "full ranger", only a Ranger/Fighter. But even a poor Ranger can be very good.
Don`t underestimate having a spell list at all - you can use a wand of cure light, a wand of polymorph self. Yes, this costs some bucks, but at 10th level, at least the cure light wand is okay.
The Ring of Animal Friendship will give you 12 Extra Hit Dies for Animal Companions - that`s a terrible high number, and allows you to even have 2 companions, one for scouting, one for combat. (My Ranger uses currently 2 Dogs)

If you are allowed to get the Shield Expert Feat, than you will have no problems using a shield as an offhand weapon with virtual two weapon fighting.
My Ranger/Fighter does use it, but his primary weapon is a Spiked Chain (no Two Weapon Fighting, sorry...), and only seldomly he uses his two weapons. (Sometimes I consider Shield Expert a waste...)

A Ranger in the wilderness is a very useful character - probably the most useful...

The MotW does have two interesting prestige class - the beastmaster and the animal lord, I believe, can be useful for a ranger. (Even if they are originally made for druids).

I like Rangers. They are a bit too front-loaded, it might seem, but they don`t suck.

 

[Ron]

I like rangers and I have played several characters from this class. As a matter of fact, I'm playing one right now (although is Monte Cook's version). Despite my love for the class it is slightly underpowered compared to others. There aren't as many skill points as necessary to raise scout like abilities, TWF is very limited, as favors a single kind of combat style, and favored enemy is not that good and also a weird thing, at least as my personal concept of rangers go.

The best ranger class I haven seen so far is Whell of Time's Woodsman. As your DM will not go with it, let me sugest you to use Masters of the Wild's King/Queen of the Wild Prestige Class. This is what rangers should be first place. Instead of receiving extra abilities based in their enemies, they receive extra goods based on the kind of terrain they are familiar with.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Hehe, and here I thought I was going to be original with my joke about how the Rangers are a bunch of underachieving, overpaid la-hoosers. Darn, beat to the punch!

Go, Habs, Go!

As a diehard Rangers fan, all I can say is.....harsh. Very harsh.

But as for your Habs...Saku Koivu's return must have given them a tremendous lift. I give my blessing to their upsetting the Bruins...

Poor, poor Rangers...will we get Hitchcock to be a butt-kicker on the bench? No more of this will you see:

 

[Frostmarrow]

The best ranger class I haven seen so far is Whell of Time's Woodsman. As your DM will not go with it, let me sugest you to use Masters of the Wild's King/Queen of the Wild Prestige Class. This is what rangers should be first place. Instead of receiving extra abilities based in their enemies, they receive extra goods based on the kind of terrain they are familiar with.

Hi Ron

You'll have to excuse me but I never understood why a ranger should get Favored Terrain from a gameplay point of view. Naturally, I understand that it's appropriate from a real world perspective but in an adventure game I simply don't get it. I mean, no one is going to suggest that a rogue's ability to disarm traps should be better in furnished rooms than in a natural cave. Moreover, if one we're to introduce FT instead of Favored Enemy we end up in the same position. I.e the DM will decide when we get to use it.

One other thing about FT and it's various incarnations I've seen on the net is that 'Dungeon' is never an alternative. We can always choose between arctic and desert but we can't pick city or dungeon. This is rather strange since most adventuring in 3ed is done in dungeons. Remember the motto of the edition is "Back to the dungeon". Perhaps the reason for dungeon to be omitted is that all rangers would pick it if it was available.

Oh. I don't mean to be all negative, I like reading about the ranger and terrain is an obvious sub-topic. If you like FT go for it but I don't think it makes for a better ranger than the one we've got.

 

[Plane Sailing]

So I need some help. I need to know how to build a Ranger to prove to the others in my gaming group that Rangers don't suck?

Please give me some ideas on how to use his skills, feats, best favored enemies, and most used spells. Please list some strategies I may use as well.

I'll attempt to be as positive & helpful as I can in my response.

1. Talk to the DM about favoured enemy. You will have one at +3, one at +2 and one at +1. I suggest that you go for enemies which are subject to critical hits. If the DM will have draconic types then perhaps go Dragons +3, giants +2, monstrous humanoids +1 (or orcs, or something like that). Be guided by the DM though. Even if he doesn't want to give away campaign secrets he should be able to give you good advice about what will be useful favoured enemies.

2. A suggested combat feat combination: Start with Exotic(Bastard Sword) and Quickdraw. Then when you have a standard attack you can fight with the bastard sword two-handed, and when you get a full attack you can whip out your secondary weapon and attack with that too. Perhaps take "Expertise" at 3rd level, "Improved Trip" at 6th, "Improved Two Weapon fighting" at 9th (or whatever other group of feats you fancy. Improved trip is good when you have multiple attacks because you can bring a foe down and then bash him to bits. Another good 9th level choice is improved critical(bastard sword). Crits make more advantage of your favoured enemy bonus. You could even fight with two bastard swords if you didn't mind the -4/-4 attack penalty

3. I would suggest a good intelligence to maximise skills. Wis no higher than 14 to allow eventual access to 4th level spells, and to help with spot and listen a bit). If you can get 14+ Int then I suggest spot, listen, move silently, hide, heal, handle animal. Don't bother with more than 5 points of wilderness lore because you'll be using it so rarely. Str is more important to you than Dex unless you want to use mostly missile weapons and I recommend at least Str 14 if you can. Basically *all* attributes are important to Rangers Pick 'em well.

4. Animal Friendship is OK, but only OK. At 10th level you would have a 5HD companion hanging around with you. A much better bet is to agree with the DM that prior to this adventure you have been using your animal handling skills to train and raise a group of animals. If your handle animal skill is 13 ranks, and you had a +2 Cha bonus (and 9+ ranks in animal empathy) you would get 27 when taking 10 to handle animals. This would enable you to have reared 12HD wild animals (such as a Dire Bear) or 7HD beasts to serve you. An interesting possibility is that the DM could allow you to use some of your "starting money" to have purchased a yound pegasus which you could have trained and ride (perhaps mounted combat and ride-by attack would be useful in that case, and some ranks in Ride). Otherwise a small pack of Deinonychus would be a useful addition to the party. With a slightly higher Cha you would be able to train 8HD megaraptors with ease. - A ranger is very strong in skills. Some of them are even better than available spells, so take full advantage of them.

For spells I guess I would go for Entangle, Resist Elements as 1st level and CLW, Protection from Elements from 2nd level. If there are better spells in MotW then go for them - the Ranger list is extraordinarily crummy!


Cheers,

 

[Zappo]

A 10th level ranger's caster level is 5. So, the maximum HD of an animal companion is 5. That's not enough for a fighter at 10th level play. I suggest choosing a scout-type companion.

You can boost a lot your healing power by purchasing a few wands of cure light wounds. At 750 GP they are very cheap and there's 50d8+50 HP worth of healing in each of them.

If you want to spend the money, you can get a wand of polymorph self - whenever a tough fight comes up, turn into a polar bear, grab the enemy, and eat him. 50 charges last a lot, trust me.