New Ranger (not monte)

[Strider The Ranger]

My bit on the ranger

I too thought the Ranger was a bit weak and too much relied on a change you will come across a favored enemy. So here's what I did. It's similar to yours, perhaps you will like this one better, I don't know. But, as always, it's open to criticism.

The “Classic” Ranger

Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1 +1 +2 +2 +0 Path of the Ranger, Track, Hunter’s Knowledge
2 +2 +3 +3 +0 Nature Sense, Resist Nature’s Lure
3 +3 +3 +3 +1 +1 Hunted Foe, Detect Hunted Foe
4 +4 +4 +4 +1 Detect Plants and Animals
5 +5 +4 +4 +1
6 +6/+1 +5 +5 +2 Woodland Stride, Trackless Step
7 +7+2 +5 +5 +2 +2 Hunted Foe
8 +8/+3 +6 +6 +2 Improved Critical vs. Hunted Foe
9 +9/+4 +6 +6 +3
10 +10/+5 +7 +7 +3 Run, Endurance
11 +11/+6/+1 +7 +7 +3 +3 Hunted Foe
12 +12/+7/+2 +8 +8 +4
13 +13/+8/+3 +8 +8 +4 Felling Blow
14 +14/+9/+4 +9 +9 +4
15 +15/+10/+5 +9 +9 +5 +4 Hunted Foe
16 +16/+11/+6/+1 +10 +10 +5
17 +17/+12/+7/+2 +10 +10 +5 Improved Felling Blow
18 +18/+13/+8/+3 +11 +11 +6 +5 Hunted Foe
19 +19/+14/+9/+4 +11 +11 +6
20 +20/+15/+10/+5 +12 +12 +6 +6 Hunted Foe

HD= d8
Has access to simple and martial weapons and light and medium armor. He is restricted from heavy armor and must purchase it via the feat if he wishes to wear it. The ranger gains 4+ Int modifier skill points per level. He has access to the same skill list presented in the PHB.
Special Abilities:

Path of the Ranger- The Ranger receives a +4 competence bonus to Wilderness Lore, Intuit Direction, Knowledge: Nature, Hide, and Move Silently. These increases reflect the Ranger’s aptitude for surviving in the wild.

Track- The Ranger can follow the trails of creatures and characters across most types of terrain (as the feat).

Hunter’s Knowledge- The Ranger knows a considerable amount regarding his hunted foe both as a whole and individually. This operates similarly to Bardic Knowledge but only applies to his hunted foe. Examples of viable questions include, but are not limited to, the following: What environment do they live in? What do they eat? Nocturnal or not? Carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore? Etc.

Nature Sense- (as per Druid ability). The Ranger can identify plants and animals with perfect accuracy. The Ranger can also determine whether or not water is safe to drink.

Resist Nature’s Lure- (as per Druid ability). The Ranger is not easily influenced by the fey and gains a +4 on saving throws against spells, and spell-like abilities of creatures of the fey type.

Hunted Foe- The Ranger gains a + X bonus to all rolls relating to his hunted foe. Examples include: attack rolls, damage rolls, tracking rolls, skill checks, etc. This bonus, + X, increases in level. See the stat bar above for the specific bonus. In addition, this Hunted Foe must be taken from the Favored Enemy list (PHB pg 45) per day. For example, Voless the Ranger decides to have his Hunted Foe be Giants for this day. Then, after fighting a horde of zombies, he decides to make his Hunted Foe be Undead for the next day.

Detect Hunted Foe- The Ranger gains the ability to detect his Hunted Foe as a spell-like ability once per ranger level per day. Thus a 5th level Ranger would be able to do this 5 times per day. This ability operates identically to the spell Detect Undead except that it detects his Hunted Foe.

Detect Plants and Animals- The Ranger can use the Detect Plants and Animals spell as a spell-like ability at will.

Woodland Stride, Trackless Step- (as per Druid ability). The ranger can make his way quickly through almost any terrain and is not easily tracked himself.

Improved Critical vs. Hunted Foe- This ability functions similar to the feat, Improved Critical but it applies to all weapons used vs. the Ranger’s Hunted Foe for the day. This ability does not grant the feat Improved Critical in a way that could be used for prestige classes etc. If the Ranger does not meet the prerequisites for this feat, treat the Ranger as though he meets the minimum requirements.

Run, Endurance- (as the feat). The Ranger is used to running far and wide, hunting his quarry across the land. These feats reflect the Ranger’s ability to do so without tiring as early as a common man.

Felling Blow- The Ranger knows where to strike to cripple his Hunted Foe. This ability functions similar to a coup-de-grace attack but instead of killing the target, the creature must succeed a saving throw (Fort DC 10 + damage dealt) or fall helpless to the ground. Should the creature be flying when the Felling Blow occurs, the creature incurs all normal damage from falling This attack does not automatically hit as does the coup-de-grace nor does the Ranger need to be adjacent to the target. In addition, creatures that are immune to critical hits to not suffer critical hit damage (instead they take normal damage). Note that the target of this ability need not be helpless as it does for a Coup-de-Grace and also that this does not provoke an AoO in itself. This ability functions as a full-round action.

Improved Felling Blow- This functions exactly as Felling Blow but now it does deal critical hit damage to creatures normally immune to critical hits.

PS- this is posted from my word file, so forgive the sloppiness in the conversion.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Strider- I like that for the most part. But I would think the Resist Nature's Lure ability would be higher level than that for a Ranger. After all, he's not much of a spellcaster, and his will saves aren't his best.

Also, while Favored Enemy is grossly underpowered, the ability to change hunted foe essentially at will feels like it would be a bit too powerful. Have you played it at all?

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

Also, while Favored Enemy is grossly underpowered, the ability to change hunted foe essentially at will feels like it would be a bit too powerful.

Perhaps you could require the Ranger to take a rank in Knowledge('Enemy') before he is allowed to designate a particular foe as the chosen enemy of the day?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Perhaps you could require the Ranger to take a rank in Knowledge('Enemy') before he is allowed to designate a particular foe as the chosen enemy of the day?

I like that. Intelligent Rangers could be potentially much more versatile that way. Would it be too powerful if it were scaled somwhat like the Favored Enemy ability? i.e. your bonus vs. a given enemy = ranks in Knowledge('Enemy') to a maximum of +5. It seems to me that skill points are a precious enough resource to the Ranger that you won't see characters with 20 or 30 points pumped into this, so it may be reasonably balanced. Most characters would favor flexibility over pumping their damage against one or two enemies. Thoughts?

 

[Strider The Ranger]

Ranger

In response to Canis' first question, "has it been played at all?" I answer "yes". This is currently the character class I am using for my ranger in a friend's campaign. No, the campaign is not unbalanced by the Hunted Foe ability. It really isn't all that powerful. When you think about it, all it is is Favored Enemy with a little more versatility. For instance, a PHB ranger chooses favored enemies and they can't be changed back. In addition, you aren't necessarily going to encounter them. With the Hunted Foe ability, it reflects the ranger's vast knowledge of the wilds and the creatures of the world. In all my playtesting (he's up to 10th level right now) the Hunted Foe ability really wasn't as powerful as you might think. I changed the Favored Enemy to this ability because it give the player just a bit more flexibility without disrupting the game.
Please note that this post is not made in bitterness towards you for providing criticism. Thanks for giving me something to think about.

P.S. the Hunted Foe ability is not at will. The Ranger can only change his Hunted Foe from one thing to another once per day.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Why don't you add an introductory paragraph to describe what role the ranger has, what his purpose his, how he is differentiated from other classes before diving into mechanics?

I think this is particularly important to get valuable feedback on alternate ranger classes, since different people have quite a wide range of expectations of the class. Part of the point of alternate ranger classes is often to more clearly focus the core class concept!

Regards

 

[Strider The Ranger]

Well I don't have a whole lot of time right now, so this intro to my ranger class will be a bit brief...i hope it works alright.
The ranger is a master of the wilderness. He sleeps amongst the trees and where he lays his head is home. A ranger is an expert tracker and hunter, surpassing all in his talents. He can identify the beasts and plants in the wilderness with perfect accuracy, oftentimes serving as a guide to travellers passing through. With the knowledge he possesses, he serves others and tries to protect hamlets and towns nearby. It is not rare for a ranger to serve as a watcher over a country, travelling far and wide while warding the people from harm.
Thats about all i have time for right now..but if you need some more stuff to think about, think of Strider's role in LOTR..the role of the rangers (without the kingly stuff behind it...just the forester type)

 

[Jalkain]

Why don't you add an introductory paragraph to describe what role the ranger has, what his purpose his, how he is differentiated from other classes before diving into mechanics?

I think this is particularly important to get valuable feedback on alternate ranger classes, since different people have quite a wide range of expectations of the class. Part of the point of alternate ranger classes is often to more clearly focus the core class concept!

Regards

Very well said. Some people think of Strider, some think of Robin Hood, some just want a generic character with some decent woodland skills. I think there are two parts to this discussion, and I shall divide my post accordingly...

PART 1

I get the impression that whenever people want to create any character with woodland skills, they assume they have to do it using a ranger. I reckon that you can do it by making the class skill system more flexible. A forester is basically just a commoner or expert with wilderness lore as a class skill. Give a fighter/rogue some woodland skills and you have Robin Hood.

I think that any character who spends a lot of time in woodlands or other wilderness areas should be able to have wilderness skills as class skills, regardless of their actual class. The mechanics would need working out - you might have to swap out other standard class skills to keep things balanced. But such a system would allow everyone to easily create woodcutters and bandits in the forest, without resorting to special wilderness classes. That in turn allows us to concentrate on tweaking the ranger to more fully embrace the concept outlined in the PHB.

Which brings us to...

PART 2

The best stereotype for the wilderness protector/hunter concept used in the PHB Ranger class is probably Strider and his men. They watched over the Shire and surrounding lands, roamed the wilderness, lived off the land, and hunted maruading orcs. You can argue about specific class features, but I think the concept matches the PHB flavour text quite well.

So what class features don't match that concept?

A lot of people are unhappy about dual wielding and divine spell casting as class features. While we might expect some rangers to have such skills, they aren't so generic that we would expect all rangers to have them Personally, I think that dual wielding and magic seem most appropriate for elven rangers, although if you extend dual wielding to include the quartertaff then it might be more widely practised. Other ranger groups might have archery feats or Alertness/Endurance instead of dual wielding. I'm not sure the spells make much of a difference to the class.

I don't think we should be giving rangers bonus feats like fighters, nor druid abilities. All that does is water down the distinctions between classes. I assume that if we are playing DnD then we are happy playing a class based system. Feats and skills, together with the multi-classing system, afford plenty of flexibility to develop particular character concepts.

Finally, the argument about favoured enemy not coming into play is something I personally find unconvincing. The DM should take class abilities into account when designing adventures, but in any case, favoured enemy is no more situation specific then turn undead. If you want to run into your favoured enemy on a regular basis then you may just have to go out and hunt them! That's what rangers do, remember?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Finally, the argument about favoured enemy not coming into play is something I personally find unconvincing. The DM should take class abilities into account when designing adventures, but in any case, favoured enemy is no more situation specific then turn undead. If you want to run into your favoured enemy on a regular basis then you may just have to go out and hunt them! That's what rangers do, remember?

Unfortunately, I think you're assuming that good DMs grow on trees. Not all of us have had that experience.

For what it's worth, I agree heartily with Plane Sailing, and I'll post my Ranger concept here tomorrow. Not surprisingly, it's similar to Strider's brief one.

 

[EarthsShadow]

another ranger...not

Isn't there enough rangers out in the world? I mean, my god. None of us are happy with the PHB ranger, it doesn't get the ranger emphasis down. It has too many holes in it.

So we have created our own versions of the ranger. I have created mine, I posted it a while back and got some good review and some bad reviews, as I expected.

If we took the question: What should all rangers have in common? What answers would we get? And I am asking all who are reading these posts to come up with some general answers that all rangers should have.

First, wilderness skills. All rangers live out in the wilderness and therefore should have wilderness related skills.

Second, wilderness class abilities. They travel all over the place, usually don't do to much in towns or cities for the traditional ranger. However, flip the coin and you could very possibly have what are Urban rangers who have the same abilities and skills but only urban related. In this case the ranger would have two sides, the Wilderness and the Urban.

Three, Do all rangers need spells? the answer to that should be a unanimous NO. Rangers shouldn't get spells. That is the domain of Clerics and Druids. If you want to get some spells, take a level as a cleric or druid, it would make more sense. But, depending on the kind of campaign world, I could see some rangers getting spells, but if they did, the way they used spells should work more along the lines of Sorcerors and their ability to use a select few without preparation of any kind rather than they do now.

Four, should they get bonus feats as a replacement of spells? yes but only a select few feats and definately not as potent as what the fighter could get. The feats should be related to his wilderness abilities or adventuring abilities but definately not all combat related.

Five, should rangers get the dual weapon ability for free at first level? That depends on the character idea in mind. As a standard for the class, I think that there are many many ranger variants that use a modified version of that, providing options for the ranger that could take the place of TWF and Ambidexterity. I think that is what would be needed in a all new general ranger class. What kind of options, well, let's discuss and see what we come up with.

Six, favored enemy? should it stay there. I think it should.

What else do you think a everyday ranger should have?