"Ouch! My toes!" - Rangers & Druids

[Empirate]

It has recently been a bit of a topic in my gaming group: Druids step on the Ranger's toes. Big time. Both have the same area of expertise (the great outdoors), but Druids seem to do everything better. Don't read the following if you don't feel like digging through a wall of text, just bear in mind that's the problem.

My campaign is 3.5, E6 rules apply, and it's a homebrew world in which overland travel is difficult, climate is harsh, the environment unforgiving (approaching deadly) even when no monsters are about. Knowing about these features of the new campaign, the group (three players) decided to make doubly sure they were able to survive in the wilds. One rolled up a Druid, another a Ranger.

Fully aware of the overlap, and of the reasons why Druids are considered tier 1, while Rangers are tier 4 (and the third character is a Warlock), I established that Druids must take the Shapeshift variant from PHB2. I consider this to decrease their power and versatility by quite a bit, and I kind of like the variant thematically, as well.

Problem is, when I called for a bunch of Survival checks over the first few sessions, it was quickly becoming clear that only the Druid need roll: between Nature Sense and much better Wis, the Druid has four or five points on the Ranger even though both maxed out their Survival skill.

The Ranger's player, a little bit disgruntled about being sidelined in her supposed area of expertise, started a debate at another time. Her question is: in what ways are Rangers mechanically equal, let alone superior to (even Shapeshift) Druids?

At the low levels, base attack bonus doesn't matter too much yet (only a point or two difference);
combat style is just bonus feats which pigeonhole you into a certain in-combat role;
favored enemy is only useful against 10% of the creatures out there, and even then, the bonus it provides isn't felt too much;
Track is useful, but Druids get Scent as a spell...;
Endurance is an awful waste of a bonus feat, unless for prereqs (which doesn't apply in E6);
a Ranger's Animal Companion and spellcasting is pitiful compared to a Druid's. Even with the Shapeshift variant, a Druid's Trackless Step, Woodland Stride and Resist Nature's Lure taken together almost equal the usefulness of a Ranger's AC;
armor class for a Shapeshift Druid and a Ranger wearing light armor is roughly equal;
etc.

In a word, she felt her Ranger was largely redundant, without any real 'edge' that justified her place in a band of heroes.

Restart reading here if you skipped the above:

Now we all know that not all classes are created equal. However, I'd like to have less bad blood about class balance in my group, and moreover, neither of the players wants to redo their PC (huge back stories etc.... player ego stuff).
So what do I do about it? Given their similar areas of expertise, how can I challenge the PCs in such a way that the Ranger can contribute usefully, while the Druid takes a back seat for once? How can I accentuate each class's uniqueness?

Thoughts so far: the Shapeshift variant still seems like a good idea. If the Druid already had an animal companion to mess things up, that would hurt even more. OTOH, the group only just leveled up to 3rd, so for now, shapeshifting at will is much better than waiting a couple more levels for that one wildshape use/day...
I've thought about giving the Ranger full Animal Companion progression (instead of half), and of course a very cool unique specimen will cross her path at one point. But that's still a level or two away.

Have you had this situation? Did you do anything about it? BTW, Sword of the Arcane Order, Shooting Star Ranger, and Mystic Ranger are out for campaign reasons (no arcane casting here). Even Wildshape Ranger is out, because the Ranger's player possesses some decency and doesn't want to step on the Druid's thematical toes (or play copycat, I don't know which).

 

[Duke Arioch]

1) Give her spellcasting progression of a bard. But only progression, mind you, not spells. For 5th and 6th level, browse through druid and cleric spell lists from 4th to 7th lvl and add appropriate spells to hunter list (7th, because bards, paladins and rangers do similar thing eg. draconic might which is sor/wiz5, but pal4).
2) You could grant nature or travel devotion feat/feats instead of god-awful endurance.
3) Invent new combat styles for ranger: two-handed which grants power attack line of feats instead dual wield/archery, which reflects old-school AD&D rangers (Minsc FTW) or any other that comes to mind.
4) As you said, up the companion to that of a druid. IMHO, ranger should've always had more powerful companion than druid or, at least, on par.
5) Devotion aside, you could always give access to one domain that thematically fits and gives spells up to highest lvl ranger can cast (4 or if you implement point 1, 6)
6) Give ranger barbarian's fast movement, or evasion, or some other thing you might deem acceptable.
Hope these ideas help.

 

[kitcik]

Problem is, when I called for a bunch of Survival checks over the first few sessions, it was quickly becoming clear that only the Druid need roll: between Nature Sense and much better Wis, the Druid has four or five points on the Ranger even though both maxed out their Survival skill.

At the low levels, base attack bonus doesn't matter too much yet (only a point or two difference);
combat style is just bonus feats which pigeonhole you into a certain in-combat role;

OK, given druid is better, let me make a point on the Ranger's behalf:
If you are going to take into account a druid's superior Wis in comparing Survival, you should take into account a Ranger's superior Str in comparing BAB. The Ranger should have a fairly decent lead in melee at level 6 (which the druid could reverse at higher levels but maybe not in E6), and the combat style should help this.

Endurance is an awful waste of a bonus feat, unless for prereqs (which doesn't apply in E6);

If Endurance is useless in E6, I suggest allowing an alternative. Classes were not designed for E6.

So what do I do about it? Given their similar areas of expertise, how can I challenge the PCs in such a way that the Ranger can contribute usefully, while the Druid takes a back seat for once? How can I accentuate each class's uniqueness?

Give the Ranger a wider selection of allowed feats (druid = core, ranger = all WOTC).

 

[Grogg of the North]

Some quick thoughts:

1) The biggest thing the ranger has is the Favored Enemy. Let your ranger's favored enemy be very common. This lets their distinguishing class feature be more important and lets them shine a little bit.

2) Rangers have more skills and skill selection. With survival, knowledge geography, and a few others your ranger could be the scout and leader of the group, always knowing where to go and how to get there safely. Plus with the ranger having track, it frees your druid to select a different spell if they want.

3) Role, role, and role. While you said both your characters have big back stories, it might be prudent to play up the roleplaying. Has your druid spent most of their life in their grove while the ranger has been traversing the wilds by himself countless times? The townsfolk may know about the ranger and more willing to listen to him/her and offer him/her supplies and other services.

4) Lastly, I'd suggest you and your party sit down and talk. Find out what roles your ranger and druid want to fill and how you can help them each be distinct and have their moments to shine.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

As the DM, provide your Ranger with more powerful weapons that capitalize on the combat style. The Druid cannot match melee weapon prowess.
Frost sword in one hand, Shock in the other? Wait, weak against fire? Got it covered.
Switch to the Bane version of the Favored Enemy, with a companion +2 Vampiric weapon.
Become a collector of swords, the right tool for the right occasion, everytime!
Or did the Ranger go Archer? There are TONS of creative arrows, bows that impart abilities to the shots, and even custom quivers that enhance the arrows.
Find weapon combos that suit your Ranger's needs to grant a combat versitility the Druid will not match in an E6 campaign.

 

[Empirate]

Thanks for the great suggestions so far. I grok some of you may have thought about this before...

I like the idea of swapping out bonus feats for more useful ones. Travel or Animal or Plant Devotion instead of Endurance is good. However, this is E6, so after a while, the PCs will have all the feats they ever want...

I'll definitely play up the Ranger's broader skill selection, and let the group stumble across a lot of Favored enemies (animals, which can easily be fairly common, but may become boring to fight after a while).

I expect the Ranger to become a much better warrior than the Druid at 6th level, when the BAB difference really kicks in. However, the Shapeshift forms grant bonuses to Str and Dex, so the Druid can more-or-less keep up in attack bonus even though her physical stats aren't too great. Still, the Ranger IS the better warrior.

More spellcasting isn't really where I want to go - and I believe the player chose the less-magical Ranger because she wants to keep it more or less mundane. I'd thought this wouldn't be too much of a problem in E6 (with no arcanists to boot), but OTOH, spellcasting is where power is to be found in D&D... that said, granting a fitting Domain might be a good idea! Perhaps when the Ranger gets his spells, I could grant a Domain along with it, including a domain spell slot.

I'm totally of the opinion that sticking half AC progression on a Ranger instead of a Druid was a grave mistake. Glad to see others share my feelings on this. I'm thinking about making the reversal a general houserule in all my 3.5 campaigns!


Another thing just came to mind: spellcasters get pretty awesome capstone feats in E6, and Druids in particular can pick a large animal to wildshape into. Do you have any suggestions for more powerful capstone feats than the existing ones for a Ranger? And how about a capstone feat for a Shapeshift variant Druid (maybe assume Avenger form a fixed number of rounds/day)?


EDIT: more came up while typing...

Roleplaying is already a big part of my attempted solution. The Ranger simply is the more interesting character in this case, with the Druid being rather standard - I'll try and capitalize on this. However, the problem felt by the players was purely mechanical.

Equipment is no solution in this case, either. First off, this is a more-or-less stone age world, and secondly, this is E6, so holy or frost weapons etc. are out...

 

[kitcik]

Additional Ranger Capstone: Allow the Ranger's levels to count as full initiator levels for purposes of taking Martial Study and Martial Stance feats from ToB, and waive the other prerequisites (i.e. "you must know 3 tiger claw maneuvers" or whatever). Give him the warblade's refresh mechanism.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I think you and your players have come to the obvious conclusion that the Druid is simply better than the Ranger in pretty much everything.

Your only options then appear to be to change the Ranger class with the suggestions here and other ideas by adding abilities to the class that the class does not normally have.

...Or abuse Anti-magic fields.

 

[emanresu]

what were doing is replacing favored enemy with favored terrian as per the ranger varient of the Un Arc. This HELPS big time! They now get a +2 in all same categories in that terrian. Sounds more like what the original Ranger was intended

 

[Empirate]

Hmm. Haven't thought about that variant, and I must say, it sounds good. I'll propose this to the player.