Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder: Fixing the TWF Ranger

[roguerouge]

The 3.5 TWF ranger, in my opinion, was pretty badly designed. Did Pathfinder do enough to fix the Ranger?

Here's the issues with the 3.5 version:

Everything he does, someone else can do better: he's a poor spell caster, his animal companion is weak, rogues and bards do as well or better at skills, his combat suffers from lagging in BAB due to the TWF penalty. He's a bard with better marketing.

The enemies whom he can hit regularly are the low AC brute monsters. Those brute monsters, of course, can pummel him quickly, taking advantage of his poor AC and mediocre HP.

And he's got a scorching case of MAD. He needs dexterity (for AC), constitution (to compensate for d8s), strength (for melee damage), Intelligence (for skills), and Wisdom (so that he can have 2-3 spells at 7th level). The Monk is NOT the poster child for MAD; the TWF ranger is.

The favored enemies schtick is incredibly dependent on DM fiat and favor. Choose poorly and you get to wait a long, long time to use that ability: until 5th level. If the game goes in a different direction than the DM intends, if communication's less than perfect, then this ability goes right down the drain.

Ah, but what about the wilderness, you say? Tracking works poorly in adventure paths and modules, because the authors have to assume that parties don't necessarily have a tracker in the party, so it provides extra information, but not essential information. And it does so maybe once or twice a story. And if your DM hand waves this stuff or does the requisite "one wandering monster encounter" satirized by Order of the Stick, then this is much ado about nothing. And, again, barbarians and druids do this just as well as the ranger.

What about skills? There are at least five skills you want to keep maxed out as a 3.x ranger: survival, spot, listen, hide, move silently. (And, maxing out those five skills lets you do three things, not five.) That leaves 1 point plus the points from INT and race left. We haven't even dealt with the Handle Animal skill. That undermines the "rangers are versatile" argument.

And don't even get me started on what the Scout's done to this class.

So. Those were the problems. Did terrain mastery and skill telescoping and other hacks do enough to make the TWF viable again?

 

[Grymar]

Can you give a quick summary of the pathfinder changes? I haven't had a chance to look over the rules after the first release which didn't include the ranger.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I guess he would save 2 skill points with Hide/MS rolled into Stealth and Listen/Spot rolled into Perception.

The "new way" that PF skills work also greatly benefit characters who can spread skill points around to a lot of class skills. He can leap out to +4 from ranks alone very quickly in a lot of skills.

MAD: I think you are overstating the case a bit. Everybody needs CON, and the ranger is certainly no farther behind the other fighting classes in regards to needing CON. The d8 hit die is not crippling by any means. (PF also moves him up to a d10 I assume.) You can drop INT off the list. That's not needed, you're just being greedy. In fact, I've often used INT as a dump stat for rangers, because they get so many skill points they can actually afford to lose 1.

The ranger needs DEX and STR and no more than a 14 WIS, ever. That's not that tall a request.

Of all the things you mentioned favored enemy is the biggest, and I think you're spot on. Some way to delay that choice and/or change it later would be nice.

 

[Laurefindel]

well, versatility always came at the price of specialisation. If you want a fighting machine, make a fighter. If you want a skill specialist, make a rogue. If you want spells all-galore, play a druid (or cleric for that matter). The fact that the ranger does all three, albeit not as good as any other, is already good enough IMO. And it has 2 good save...

That being said, the ranger is a good BAB class, so it receives d10 hit points under PF. Listen and Spot are now a single skill: Perception. So are hide and move silently merged as stealth.

Like the bard, it is a "flavor" character Flavor character do not fit every campaign, nor every DMing style. I liked the way it was, I find it even better now.

 

[Wicht]

The PF Alpha Ranger has d10 Hd and 6+ skill points.

He recieves +2 against a favored enemy attack and damage and skills. He picks a new favored enemy as usual at 5th, 10th 15th and 20th. he also can add a new +2 bonus to any of his favored enemies, including the one just chosen.

In addition to the normal 3.5 ranger abilities, he gains favored terrains, gaining a bonus on skills while in that terrain and a bonus to initiative. As he gains new favored terrains, he gains extra bonuses to one other favored terrain as in the favored enemy ability.

He can choose to form a bond either with an animal as normal or else to form a bond with his traveling companions, granting them bonues against his favored enemies.

He can at 11th level start picking quarries, gaining a bonus on tracking one particular target he can see. In addition he recieves bonuses to attack his quarry and automatically confirms criticals against them.

At 20th level, as a Master hunter he can follow tracks at full speed and favored enemies struck by one of his blows must make a fortitude save or die. They must only make the save once and are not affected the rest of the day by this ability (i.e. for the rest of the fight)

 

[roguerouge]

MAD: I think you are overstating the case a bit. Everybody needs CON, and the ranger is certainly no farther behind the other fighting classes in regards to needing CON. The d8 hit die is not crippling by any means. (PF also moves him up to a d10 I assume.) You can drop INT off the list. That's not needed, you're just being greedy. In fact, I've often used INT as a dump stat for rangers, because they get so many skill points they can actually afford to lose 1.

The ranger needs DEX and STR and no more than a 14 WIS, ever. That's not that tall a request.

Certainly, I think streamlining hide/MS and spot/listen makes dumping INT more viable. Previously, dumping INT meant that you basically could ONLY scout, stand guard, and survive at full capacity, and even then, you need to fall behind somewhere to get a few precious ranks in handle animal. You're right about INT now and I won't argue about INT then. It's 5th of 5 for me.

The ranger and the monk are further behind the other melee classes in needing CON. They have the worst melee hit die and the lowest AC, due to their armor proficiencies and lack of shields. They need CON more than anyone, even the wizard, who's not in melee and can get mage armor and shield up fast.

Wasting points in Wisdom is a big deal, depending on how much of a stickler your DM is. Technically, you need an ability score of 14 to cast your highest level spells, not a WIS 10 with a +4 enhancement bonus by item. (Some DMs hand-wave that, however.) That requirement of a score of 14 hurts, requiring either an investment of a big score early in Wisdom or the placement of most of your ability score boosts there. And, let's not forget that if you don't have the 12, you wait until 10th level to get 1 2nd level spell per day. And don't forget that Will saves are your Achilles heel.

So, at best, we're down to 4 abilities for MAD. That's still at the level of the Paladin and the Monk, while the Wizard (Int and Con) and the Druid (Wis only, as the wild shape ability and "Shape of.." spells make the physical stats obsolete by mid levels) are kicking their primary stats sky high.

In standard array games, this doesn't matter so much. But in point buy games...

The Deft Shield feat, does that make up for some of the MAD needs?

 

[Voadam]

Wasting points in Wisdom is a big deal, depending on how much of a stickler your DM is. Technically, you need an ability score of 14 to cast your highest level spells, not a WIS 10 with a +4 enhancement bonus by item. (Some DMs hand-wave that, however.) That requirement of a score of 14 hurts, requiring either an investment of a big score early in Wisdom or the placement of most of your ability score boosts there. And, let's not forget that if you don't have the 12, you wait until 10th level to get 1 2nd level spell per day. And don't forget that Will saves are your Achilles heel.

So, at best, we're down to 4 abilities for MAD. That's still at the level of the Paladin and the Monk, while the Wizard (Int and Con) and the Druid (Wis only, as the wild shape ability and "Shape of.." spells make the physical stats obsolete by mid levels) are kicking their primary stats sky high.

In standard array games, this doesn't matter so much. But in point buy games...

I played an 8 wis ranger many times. You don't need a minimum wisdom to use wands and his wands of cure light wounds came in very handy at both low and high level games. The loss of a few low level spells a day was never really missed.

I like the PHII option of ditching animal companion to get ranged flanking, no need for any handle animal.

I also played many rangers who could not sneak, saves two skill points/level to put in other neat things.

 

[Ruslanchik]

Ranger is a class that will always be more successful in an appropriate campaign. Campaigns set mostly in wilderness environments or involving a high percentage of your favored enemies can make a Ranger the star of the group.

Making a successful Ranger is also dependent upon rolling good ability scores or playing in a high point-buy game. This has been the case since 1e, where building a Ranger requires ridiculous luck in rolling ablity scores. In 1e you are really rewarded for this as a Ranger is much stronger than a Fighter (2d8 HD at 1st level, anyone?). With the attempt to balance the classes in 3e, Rangers lost out a little bit.

I don't think Pathfinder changes any of this. The addition of d10 HD certainly helps and the combining of skills benefits the Ranger more than many other classes, but you are still at the mercy of your DM to give you favored enemies or create plots in your favored terrains. The lack of the Search skill will always make a Ranger a secondary option as skill monkey.

I do like the idea of offering options for the animal companion, though granting bonuses to allies doesn't really fit the flavor of Ranger in my mind. Aren't Rangers supposed to work alone? Trading animal companion for something that makes a Ranger more of a loner would have been better. (Maybe something like a more powerful Dodge feat--Ranger gains Class level/3 bonus to AC vs. one enemy. This would be useful for TWFers and reward successful use of sneaking.)

In the end, Pathfinder could have really reinvented the class like they have with sorcerer, but they just added more of the same. This leaves the Ranger with the same strengths and weaknesses as before. I still like the class, but it could definitely be more appealing.

 

[JoelF]

One thing to keep in mind is that favored terrains include urban, underground (dungeons) and underground (caves). All three of these cover most campaigns most of the time, so the ranger doesn't really need to be hindered by the DM's choices on that front. It should be pretty easy to know what your DM favors - wilderness, urban, or dungeon and select accordingly.

Sure, if you want to insist that your ranger is a master of the desert, but you know the campaign is ocean based and exploring lost tombs from ancient civilizations, you're screwed, but that's then due to poor player choices instead of being at the mercy of the DM.

 

[Voadam]

The lack of the Search skill will always make a Ranger a secondary option as skill monkey.

Huh? 3.5 rangers have search as a class skill and PF folds search into perception, which PF rangers have as a class skill.