Non-Spellcasting Ranger?

[wargear]

What benefits would you suggest be granted to a Ranger class to compensate loss of Spellcasting ability? More feats? Some Special abilities (eg. Pass Without Trace, Speak with ANimals, etc)? An extra skill point per level? An animal companion more in line with druids or a wizards familiar?

Suggestions please. Or a book reference if you have seen a published version.

 

[Simm]

the complete warrior published one (pg. 13), along with a non spellcasting Paladin. It's not really worth it though, it picks up +10' movement at level 6; +4 to con, dex, or wis for 1 minute once a day at level 11; neutralize poison or remove disease 1 per day at level 13, and freedom of movement once per day at level 16.

 

[Nifft]

Ranger spell list is actually really good. When you consider how useful wands are for a Ranger, it's hard to put a price on the sheer flexibility... from jump to cure light wounds to tree stride to freedom of movement. That's some good stuff.

-- N

 

[dagger]

The best one from WoTC I have seen is now actually in Complete Champion. You get extra bonus feats at 4th, 8th, 11th, and 14th level. The feats are chosen from a special list based on whether you are a Ranged or Two Weapon type.

Benefit: You no longer gain spells as a ranger, but you can
now select a bonus feat at 4th, 8th, 11th, and 14th levels. You
can choose any feat from the following list for which you
meet the prerequisites: Blind-Fight, Combat Expertise, Eyes
in the Back of Your Head (CW), Improved Disarm, Improved
Favored Enemy (CW), Improved Feint, and Improved Trip, as
well as from one of the following lists, depending on your
combat style.

Archery: Far Shot, Improved Precise Shot, Improved
Rapid Shot (CW), Manyshot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot,
Ranged Disarm (CW), Ranged Pin (CW), Ranged Sunder (CW), Sharp-
Shooting (CW) and Shot on the Run.

Two-Weapon Combat: Greater Two-Weapon Defense (CW),
Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon
Defense (CW), Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon
Defense, Weapon Finesse.

 

[Meeki]

What benefits would you suggest be granted to a Ranger class to compensate loss of Spellcasting ability? More feats? Some Special abilities (eg. Pass Without Trace, Speak with ANimals, etc)? An extra skill point per level? An animal companion more in line with druids or a wizards familiar?

Suggestions please. Or a book reference if you have seen a published version.

Being a fighter would be one.

Well taking away spell casting severely limits the rangers flexibility, which is what the class is about. Nature dwelling hunter.

Some changes you could make would to make the ranger less nature and more hunter like. With the favored enemy class ability and many stalking skills the ranger is inherently a hunter, but as written he has some magical tricks up his sleeve. Below I suggested a few changes for giving up spell casting:

1. Allow the ranger to take Kn(Arcana), Kn(Relgion), Kn(The Planes)
-Reasoning behind this is to play off of the favored enemy angle. The ranger not only knows how to fight his favored opponent but now can find out information based upon a Kn(x) roll against the creatures hit dice +10. Arcana includes constructs, dragonkin, and magical beasts; relgion is for undead and the planes for outsiders and elementals.

2. Locate Creature (sp) 1/day at 12th or 14th level. CL=Ranger levels. Must be used to locate a favored enemy creature type only. Any classes that count as ranger levels for the purpose of any ranger abilities also counts towards this ability.

3. Sympathy (sp) 1/week at 19th level. CL=Ranger levels. Same restrictions as Locate creature.

4. Animal Companion is equal to full ranger levels rather than half as far as advancement goes. Basically its just like a druid. If this is too powerful (which I do not forsee) you could do an amount of animal companions with total HD of all companions equal to your ranger level and no single companion can have more HD than your ranger level.

This may be a bit loaded towards the higher levels of ranger, but there are plenty of special abilities the ranger obtains early on anyways.

I believe these abilities may be a bit weaker than the ranger giving up spell casting, however this is what i have for now anyone else have ideas?

 

[Wolf72]

dagger's version (from WotC) looks like the Black Company CS version (or vice versa) ... much better combat tree ... better feats/bonus feats

 

[Meeki]

To me that version seems to make the ranger too powerful. Effectively a 20 ranger will have 9 feats from his class (including 3 combat styles, track, and endurance), favored enemy x5, hide in plane site, an awesome skill set, two good saves, evasion, tracking abilities, a near worthless animal companion.

Compare this to a fighter who will get 1 hitpoint more per level if they have the same con, 2 more feats from fighter (11 total), crappy skills, only one good save, access to more equipment and fighter feats (weapon spec line).

The ranger will now probably be on par with the fighter in terms of damage dealer (assuming they fight a favored enemy), with only 20 less hit points at lvl 20 and probably less armor. This seems a bit powerful for the ranger class. Especially since the ranger will be dumping his stat points into physical stats instead of balancing between physical and mental. Definitely not really flavored as a ranger IMO.

 

[Vrecknidj]

I would suggest going with something campaign-specific. If you are imagining a campaign where rangers are simply non-spellcasters, and that's that, then, yes, it would make sense to buff them up a little. The Complete Champion suggestion is good. Meeki's suggestion about the Knowledge skills is so right-on that I'm immediately going to make that a house rule for rangers (i.e. if the ranger takes a Favored Enemy, then he gains the appropriate Knowledge skill as a class skill).

But, if you imagine rangers as having a high speed in forests (for example), then give them +10 to their speed, like a barbarian, as a class ability. Or if you imagine rangers in some other way, add that in.

Dave

 

[Darklone]

To me that version seems to make the ranger too powerful. ...

Looking at the silly Two Weapon Defense feats and others...

The ranger would have to choose most of these extra feats from a very suboptimal list (and some couldn't be chosen at all, Endurance?). While the fighter enjoys WS and Melee Weapon Mastery and other nice things. So I don't agree that this would make the ranger too strong in regard to melee... TWF is suboptimal by it's own.

About the Favored Enemy... the ranger is supposed to be better than a fighter against his Favored enemies. What's the problem there?

 

[Flynn]

http://www.liquidmateria.info/wiki/Ultimate_Ranger

This is part of the "Ultimate Classes" collection, and seems to be pretty good at first blush.

Hope this helps,
Flynn