Irongorn, the Heavy Ranger (ranger/pit fighter)

[comrade raoul]

I'd give up plate and go for bastard swords. Less armor, more accuracy, more speed--helps with blade cascade.

But that's mostly because I think twin bastard swords are cooler than twin battle axes. YMMV.

 

[OioO]

How are you hitting anything? The things you are facing at 16th have AC's from 29-35.

That's a pretty small percentage of successful strikes.

Its a nice combo you have there but things are too hard to hit in this edition. Its too easy to blow an encounter or daily power, which are the only things that can keep a player even with the monsters they face.

 

[Xzylvador]

Level 16: attack bonus: +8(level), weapon prof +2or3, stat bonus +5/6, flanking +2, warlord bonus +?, action surge +3,
Monster AC lowered by WisMod or WisMod+2 (about 4-6?)
Isn't THAT hard to hit... and wasn't there an item that lets you reroll 1's on melee attacks?

 

[Surgoshan]

Don't forget that level 16 is when +4 magic items start showing up.

And you're thinking of the gauntlets of destruction (level 18) that allow you to reroll any 1s that show up on a damage roll.

 

[Storminator]

I'd make a sample party and put them up against a purple worm to see if this really works before I'd call it broken.

It looks like you've got a ~50% chance of hitting once with Splinter, and less than that each hit with Blade Cascade, which means you're going to stop dealing damage way before you chop thru a purple worm's 800 hit points.

I'm sure you could chop down a soldier from a mixed encounter pretty well, but that means you've killed one monster with your daily attack.

PS

 

[Zaruthustran]

How are you hitting anything? The things you are facing at 16th have AC's from 29-35.

That's a pretty small percentage of successful strikes.

Its a nice combo you have there but things are too hard to hit in this edition. Its too easy to blow an encounter or daily power, which are the only things that can keep a player even with the monsters they face.

Well, his basic melee attack is +16.

With Deadly Payback and Action Surge, he adds +5 to all those attacks.

I didn't include magic weapons, but if you assume a level-appropriate +4 weapon that's another +4 to the attack roll.

With Armor Splinter he subtracts at least 4, and possibly 6, from the enemy's AC.

So call it +25 vs. the AC range you used (adjusted for Armor Splinter): 24-29 AC, or 22-27 AC.

Most of the time, he'll hit on a roll of 2 or higher.

Especially if he can get a buddy to give a flank, but involving other party members is usually considered bad form in character optimization discussions. I wonder if that will change in 4E? This new edition really encourages cooperation and party synergy.

I'd give up plate and go for bastard swords. Less armor, more accuracy, more speed--helps with blade cascade.

You can certainly do that. This build was originally an exercise to see if I could build a successful ranger that didn't rely on Dex. So I went heavy armor, which required me to bump up his Con, which opened up those painful Axe feats. But sure, you could go the traditional ranger route, dump Con for Dex, and swap those armor feats for bastard sword, TWF, and TWD. In that case add +1 attack and +1 damage to all those attack rolls.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Level 16: attack bonus: +8(level), weapon prof +3, stat bonus +6, flanking +2, warlord bonus +3 (tactical presence), action surge +3 (human), +4 magical weapon
Monster AC lowered by WisMod or WisMod+2 (lets say he only hits with one attack +3) (16wis)
To-hit = 8+3+6+2+3+3+4=29

Purple worm ac: 33, 30 after armor splinter.

Character needs 2 to hit. This gives a 51% chance of hitting the thing 13 times (0,95^13=0,51). The average damage was 22-40 or something? 31 average *13 = 403 average damage. Quite nice, but you have spent an encounter power, a daily and an action point. 10% of the time you actually only get two attacks. Which is a bit sad. On the other hand, you hit with 19 attacks 5% of the time too...

If you multiclass to warlock and take the utility power Dark One’s Own Luck (level 6 utility) you can reroll that one miss... Then you have got a 51% chance of hitting 26 times... Then the damage goes up to 806 damage.

 

[Jcosby]

Dwarven Ranger

This was done fairly fast at work... so, I'm not swearing every # is 100% correct.. but it's pretty darn close.

Draxle Ironworks, the spelunking Ranger.

Dwarven Ranger
Paragon path: Pit Fighter
Stats at 1st level: Stats at 16th level:
Str 17 Str 22
Con 13 Con 14
Dex 13 Dex 14
Int 10 Int 11
Wis 17 Wis 22
Cha 8 Cha 9

Skills: Athletics (STR), Dungeoneering (WIS), Endurance (CON), Heal (WIS), Perception (WIS), Streetwise (CHA, From Fighter),

Feats
Ranger bonus: Toughness (+5 Hps (1st, 11th, 21st)
1st level: Dwarven Weapon Training (+2 Damage)
2nd level: Chainmail (+3 AC)
4th level: Lethal Hunter (d8)
6th level: Two-Weapon Fighting (+1 Damage)
8th level: Scalemail (+1 AC, No Skill Check Negative)
10th level: Fighter multiclass (+1 Hit Encounter, Streetwise)
11th level: Deadly Axe (19-20 Crit Range)
12th level: Devastating Critical (1d10 extra Crit Damage)
14th level: Two-Weapon Defense (+1 AC, +1 Reflex)
16th level: Blood Thirst (+1 Dam Vs Bloodied)

Essential Equipment
Scalemail,
Twin Battle Axes (Vicious Battle Axe / Flame Burst)

Defenses
AC 27 (10 base, +8 level, +7 armor, +1 Pit Fighter, +1 TWD)
Fort: 25 (10 base, +8 level, +1 class, +6 STR)
Reflex: 21 (10 base, +8 level, +1 class, + 1 Dex, + 1 TWD)
Will: 24 (10 base, +8 level, + 6 Wis)

At-Will, Encounter, Daily and Utilities power could be pretty much the same. Both builds are trying to maximize STR + WIS synergy with in the powers. The Human get’s a 28 AC while the Dwarf opting for only Scalemail gets an AC of 27 but suffers no Skill Check penalty and no movement penalty which is big for a hit and move striker like the Ranger. Also with the +6 Wis Mod the Dwarf has much more flexibility when it comes to pre and post combat moving and shifting.

If 3.5 the extra feat by the human would be much more powerful but the feats in 4.0 aren’t nearly as powerful and when you really look at the second half of the Paragon tree and the Epic tree they aren’t very impressive at all. Also if you really wanted to you could get Platemail with your 20th level feat after putting a point into CON giving you the 15 needed. I don’t think the 1 AC is worth it though.

Also at level 21 I would exchange Dwarven Weapon Training for Weapon Focus: Battle Axe, or I could do this anytime after level 11 when Weapon Focus becomes as good as Dwarven Weapon Training. In the end the builds are very similar I think the Dwarf shines a bit more with over all consistency and more flexibility with the +6 Wis Mod. (Which is odd because he’s ends up with much better movement and movement options even though he’s a dwarf.. Kind of goes against the old school dwarf mentality.)

JBC

 

[daddystabz]

Is Jcosby's build perfectly legal and is it any better than the original version?

 

[Zaruthustran]

Draxle's base stats aren't legal (he's at 23 point buy instead of 22) and he starts out with a lower Str--and won't ever catch up. So he'll always be -1 attack compared to Irongorn. The bonus to Wis means that after 16th level he'll be doing the same damage (trading +1 Str bonus for +1 Wis bonus). The advantage from Dwarven Weapon training washes out after 11th level.

There is no difference in speed; human base speed is 6 (lowered to 5 for heavy armor) and dwarf base speed is 5 (and isn't lowered by armor). The Wis advantage, though, will give one extra square of shift for those powers that allow you to shift a number of squares = Wis. I don't think that's a big deal, though. I just don't think one square of movement will matter very often.

The real loss is the racial feat "Action Surge", which gives the +3 on attacks when you spend an action. All your attacks for the entire round, so start your round by spending a free action on an action point attack to get the most out of that benefit.

I think +3 attack to all your attacks is a big deal, especially for the ranger--that class just gets so many attacks. So I don't think Draxle is better, but as a change in flavor to the general theme of "heavy-armor ranger multi'd into pit fighter" he works out just fine.