please rate my version of ranger class

[Technik4]

Just one more opinion on the ranger topic. I dont like favored terrain. I like favored enemy as a feat, but not at +2/+2 (way overpowered imo). I think the feat as a +2 competence damage bonus is decent enough, as damage bonuses are hard to come by, this also simulates weapon specialization but isnt nearly as powerful. Finally, I dont think it should be a fighter feat.

When I think of a ranger I think of an unknown, someone extremely knowledgable about all manner of things, someone whos been around. Maybe you could make a Ranger Knowledge skill (like bardic knowledge) that can be used to glean info about monsters youre fighting. Also, they seem very skillfull, like maybe 6 skill points/level. I dont like animal companions in general, and the rangers are usually too weak. I think spells are important to a ranger, it simulates his knowledge.

Overall I think the ranger is a cultured woodsman, with a great deal more knowledge of the world in general, who specializes in attacking certain groups.

My fav enemy feat:

Favored Enemy [General]
Prereq: BAB +1
Benefit: You gain a +2 competence damage bonus against any of the favored enemies you may choose in the phb. If you have a racial attack bonus against that enemy, the attack bonus is raised to +2. For instance a dwarf who takes favored enemy orc gets his racial +2 to hit, and +2 damage against an orc.
Special: You may take this feat more than once, but not again until your BAB has improved by 1 point.

I have made a ranger as an advanced class, but I went with pretty tried-and-true ranger abilities.

Technik

 

[Dr. Zoom]

I never liked favored terrain for some reason. When i think of wilderness, I think of the wild in all it forms in many differant terrains. That's why I think rangers should get more skill points. I give them 6 in my games (along with bards).

I have also increased the ranger's caster level to ranger level -3. This makes him a better caster and allows him to have better animal companions.

Finally, I increased his favored enemy bonuses to begin at +2 instead of +1. This seems to put a little more teeth into the ability. Anything else can be taken care of with the class customization rules found in the PH.

 

[Stalker0]

My problem, Buddha with your idea, is that most people want to replace the original ranger, not both the ranger and the barb. But hey, to be fair to the posters above we should stay focused on the ranger idea above, and give ConcreteBuddha a different thread to debate his idea.

Well, the Barbarian without his rage is a lackluster fighter imo, and there are ways of taking out his rage. Monks are easy to stop with good DR, wizards and sorcs with antimagic.

And the paladin has more than just smite evil. Many of his spells are against evil, and the palys spells are much better than the ranger ones. And of course turning. But that's not the heart of this argument...which is..

There are ways to take out the key abilities of all of these classes except the fighter whose feats work practically everywhere, this is the difference between the general fighter and the others.But as been shown before, its usually easier and more frequent to take out the rangers advantages of favored terrain and enemies, which puts him behind the other classes.

Perhaps you could change favored enemy to work in all wilderness areas flat out. Even on many planes, wilderness areas could exist for the ranger to use. This would be a small bonus that the ranger could get when in these areas. Or you can focus on other areas of the ranger, like giving him bonuses to perception skills and infiltration skills. Either way, there's still lots of work to do.

 

[Stalker0]

I did a little bit more thinking about how the others classes work, and there's a fairly common trend.

Each class has a "class-defining" ability, and then a few secondary abilities.

The Barbarian is known as a Raging Warrior, but even without rage it has fast movement, DR, and uncanny dodge.

Paladin are casted as Holy Mounted Warriors, so they have smite and the mount as their class abilities, but also have divine grace, health, and spells as secondaries.

Rogues have sneak attack, but also have skills, uncanny dodge evasion.

Monks have unarmed strike, and of course everything else

I'm thinking the ranger needs the same thing. An ability like the others that defines him as a class. The phb ranger uses favored enemy, which is far too weak to be good. In addition, the ranger needs good secondary abilities to fall back on when the first ability is useless.

 

[Khorod]

Version 2 Rewrite, to explore de-emphasizing favored terrain and new & interesting powers.

GAME RULE INFORMATION
Attack: As Fighter.
Good Saves: Fort & Ref.
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d8.

Class Skills
The ranger’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are: Animal Empathy (Cha, exclusive skill), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Intuit Direction (Wis), Jump (Str), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Use Rope (Dex), and Wilderness Lore (Wis). See Chapter 4: Skills of Core Rulebook I for skill descriptions.

Skill Points at 1st Level: (6 + Int modifier) x 4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 6 + Int modifier.

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the ranger.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A ranger is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, light armor, and shields. Note that armor check penalties for armor heavier than leather apply to the skills Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, hide, Jump, move Silently, Pick Pocket, and Tumble. Also, Swim checks suffer a -1 penalty for every 5 pounds of armor and equipment carried.

Animal Companions (Ex): The ranger’s use of the Animal Empathy skill to 'befriend an animal' allows him to maintain a number of animal companions whose Hit Dice total no more than his ranger level (though the demands of adventuring generally restrict a character to half that number). This ability presumes the SRD spell animal friendship is not valid, at least not in its current state.

Ranging Lore: As rangers wander the world, they accumulate all manner of information on survival, animals peaceful or marauding, and countless details about the landscape of distant corners of the world. This ability is an Intelligence based skill that includes aspects of Knowledge[geography, local, nature, and monsters]. Rangers gain a standard 1 rank in this skill per level, and may pay skill points to max it out. Additionally, the Favored Terrain ability (see below) grants terrain-specific bonuses to this skill.

Track: Ranger's gain track as a bonus feat at 1st level.

Favored Terrain (Ex): At first level and every 3rd level thereafter (4th, 7th, 10th, etc.) the ranger gains a Favored Terrain. Each time he must choose a particular terrain type from the following list: Artic, Cavern, Desert, Forest, Hills, Jungle, Mountains, Plains, or Swampland. At the GM’s option Aberrant (corrupted or cursed land), Aerial, Planar (choose one), Slums, Undersea, and Urban will also be available. Due to his extensive study of his chosen terrain the ranger gains a +2 bonus to Balance, Climb, Hide, Intuit Direction, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Spot, and Wilderness Lore checks while in his chosen terrain. (Rules for being in terrain as per first post).

Bonus Feat: At 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level the ranger gains a bonus feat chosen from the following list: Alertness, Ambidexterity, Combat Reflexes, Dodge (Mobility, Spring Attack), Endurance, Expertise (Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Whirlwind Attack), Favored Enemy**, Improved Initiative, Mounted Combat (Mounted Archery, Trample, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge), Point Bank Shot (Far Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Shot on the Run), Power Attack (Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Sunder, Great Cleave), Run, Toughness, Two-Weapon Fighting (Improved Two-Weapon Fighting).

Survival Instinct (Ex): At 3rd level, when the ranger is in wilderness terrain (any valid terrain type except urban/slum), he gains a +1 insight bonus to AC and a +2 insight bonus to Initiative. This bonus is lost at any time the character would lose their Dexterity bonus to AC. At 11th level this bonus increases to +2 AC/+4 Init, and at 18th to +3 AC/+6 Init.

Pathfinding (Ex): At 5th level the ranger can move through the wilderness at great speeds. When crossing through a Favored Terrain the ranger moves through trackless terrain as though it were a trail and moves through trails and roads as if they were highways. If mounted the ranger extends this ability to his mount. Of course the restriction that trails cannot be used by vehicles remains (see pg. 143 of Core Rulebook I).
Extra creatures can be guided as per first post. However, if tracking checks are successfully made in excess of 10, following trackers can match the ranger's speed.

Wilderness Stride (Ex): At 6th level, the ranger is no longer hampered by rough or overgrown terrain in favored terrain. If moving through wilderness the ranger may move through natural (but not enchanted or magically manipulated) thorns, briars, overgrown areas, snow, mud, loose rocks, and similar terrain at his normal speed and without suffering damage or other impairment. He cannot extend this ability to a mount or other travelers.

Improved Track (Su): At 9th level the ranger’s skill at hunting and stalking begins to transcend physical limitations. He can now track a creature moving under the influence of pass without trace or a similar effect, albeit at a -10 circumstance penalty to his Wilderness lore checks.
It would be nice if pass without trace was conducive to making this a +30 bonus to tracking checks.

Subtle Step (Ex): At 9th level, the ranger is skilled at moving through all terrains without leaving much of an impression. He may add his level to the DC of all attempts to track him. (He may also use forthcoming rules to hide his trail...) This is a notion to replace Trackless Step.

On the Fast Track (Ex): At 12th level, the ranger moves at 3/4 speed while tracking.
lifted from Morgenstern's ranger in Steveroo's thread

Infallible Compass (Su): At 15th level, the ranger's sense of direction is nearly infallible. He no longer gets lost, and is immune to magic that would play havoc with this internal compass.
I would consider an earlier ability providing a nice bonus to retaining sense of direction as well.

Master of All Terrains (Su): At 20th level, the ranger's superior abilities in understanding and living with nature allow him to apply Pathfinding and Wilderness Stride to any wilderness environment, instead of just favored terrain. Additionally, the ranger gains the sum of all Favored Terrain bonuses to be applied in any wilderness environment- for a +14 bonus to all relevant skills.
This is a solid 20th level goal, and a reasonable reason to pursue the class to 20th.

**Favored Enemy[General]
Prerequisites: Att +1, Int 13+
Benefit: You understand the tactics and physical weaknesses of a particular creature/culture. You gain a +1 to attack and damage rolls.
Special: This feat does not stack. Each time it is taken, a new creature or culture must be selected.

Edit: Survival Instinct- replaced reflex with initiative.

 

[argo]

Hello again. I'd like to thank everyone for their comments, which are all helpful, and I'm sorry I haven't been by in a couple of days. That said I have a few thoughts to add to the discussion.

First, concerning the question of Favored Terrain and weither or not it made the ranger over-specalized. Concrete Buddha you had this comment.

originally posted by Concrete Buddha
Every other class is not required to specialize to remain effective.

I have to disagree with you there. IMHO specialization is built in to the system at a very basic level. Even the fighter is specalized after a fashion as every level of fighter he takes is a level of wizard he didn't. And I think that this is a Good Thing as it both encourages cooperation between players and gives them all a chance to stand out at the same time. Everybody deserves a chance to "shine" when they are in their element, requires a moment of weakeness when they need to rely on the other party members, and should have a lot of time in between where they are very busy adding valuable contributions to the party but are not single handedly saving the day. I think that my ranger's moment of weakness will be the same as for most other meele types, when the enemy spellcaster is throwing magic around and all he can do is hunker down and wait for the party wizard to pull out the artillery. So that leaves us with the question; does he "shine" when no other can and does he contribute the rest of the time (ie: will his player get bored)? Here is what I was thinking when I was working on the class: he needs a strong "core" of talents that will keep working regardless of external circumstances, then he needs some special abilities that will, under the right conditions, really put him over the top and make him the hero of the day, and finally he needs a few abilities which are not that powerful but are really cool and make him feel that being a ranger is somethng special (bonus points if those abilities help out the party so that the other members also think that you are special for being a ranger). IMO this is how that worked out (please feel free to point out where I went wrong).

First the "core" of this class is in his fighters BAB, and his 6 skill points per level plus a skill list which includes the most used skill in the game, spot, as well as the ever popular hide and move silent. His two good saves (Fort and Ref) round him out as a tough and canny opponent. When not in combat this guy should always be busy using skill checks to look out for his companions in any number of ways, wheras the fighter is standing around thinking about how much he likes swords. Beyond simple tracking/scouting who is the guy that is going to climb the cliff to lower the rope for the rest of the party, get them safely out of the storm, and set snares around the campsite before going to bed? Once the killing starts it is true that the fighter will take over, but I think that his good BAB should keep him plenty busy as the number 2 man in any combat. He also gets a handfull of bonus feats to round out his combat persona.

Second is making the ranger shine. This is where favored terrain and animal companions come in. Yes they are useless in many situations (that was intentional) but when they are there they should elevate the ranger to be something above his normal power level (or at least I think that they do, I could be overestimating them). And when they are gone they do not impare the ranger's core abilities due to their absence. It is true that if someoen plays in a game where they begin every session at the entrance to a dungeon and all they see after that is 10' corridors then they will get a lot less mileage out of this class. But in such a scenario the same can be said for the Bard and Monk and just about all the classes aside from the basic four. And as far as being good in terrains other than his favored terrain; Wilderness Lore and Knolwedge [nature] still apply everywhere and I still expect the ranger to max out his ranks in them, it is just that in his home terrain he will be _really good_

Third are the "flavor' abilities. These are tracking and trailblazing/pathfinding. You probably won't need them unless the DM makes a point of it and he probably won't do that unless there is a ranger in the group but I think they are important nonetheless. BTW I am still curious if anyone has suggestions for other abilities that are cool, not very powerful, and not a knock-off of another class ability.

So that is how I see this class in comparrison to others. I could be wrong but it seems to make sense to me. Concrete Buddha, if you still think that the ranger being pigeonholed is a problem perhaps you cold explain it to me in terms of the logic I used above?

Now to reply to a few more specific comments:

Originally posted by Khorod
Home in the Wilds: You gain a +2 bonus to Balance, Climb, Hide, Intuit Direction, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Spot, and Wilderness Lore checks while in the wilderness. At 5th level this bonus increases to +4/, at 10th +6, at 15th +8, and at 20th +10.

I don't know. It doesn't seem to me to make much sense that the ranger walks outside and suddenly he becomes just plain better at all those things. I mean he is still getting those 6 skill points per level so we can expect him to have good Spot, Wilderness Lore, etc. checks anyways. This feels like we are doing the work for him. Besides it is more realistic to have a ranger who is really incredible at home and simply good everywhere else. (which he will be with max ranks in Wilderness Lore).

Survival Instinct: At 3rd level, when in wilderness terrain (see Home in the Wilds) the ranger may add his Wisdom bonus as an insight bonus to Dodge and Reflex saves.

If we do keep Favored Terrain as is then the dodge bonus to AC there is more than enough and I still think that feels more "realistic". Hey! How about this:

Survival Instinct: At 3rd level the ranger may add his Wisdom bonus as an insight bonus to his initative.

I think that is not too powerful and is in keeping with the "fast" archtype I have been pushing.

Should Improved Track be gained at 12th level and Trackless Step at 15th or 16th, or something like that?

Nah, they are pretty minor abilites and I don't see a need to make the player wait _that_ long.

One worry now is defenaetly the issue of being over powered. The class in the origional post was already getting a Favored Terrain/feat/special ability every other level. This is almost starting to look like the monk's list of special abilities now. I wonder how the balance will hold? Comments?

One last thing and then I'm done. What about adding tumble to the skill list since this ranger gets only light armor? Should it remain cross class or shold he be able to bounce past opponents?

Thats all for now. I'll check back in later.

 

[Khorod]

I just reworked my rewrite. In your absence Concrete Buddha pulled me to a sort of middle position, so I decided to play around with some things. See, I realized when I thought about why I was arguing against him that my campaign I was going to use this in would be shuffling the party around so much, that any given terrain would probably only be important in one or two adventurers for the forseeable future.

I suggest y'all take a look at what I redid, since I did a bunch of things. I particularly like the Master of All Terrains bit I put in as a 20th level power. This version looks even more Monk-like. Spooky.

One of the goals of this was to play with de-emphasizing the importance of being in your own terrain- so I took the dodge bonus idea, and made 'Survival Instinct'. A few other things here and there, and walla. Its currently overbalanced, but I think parts of it might improve the original class.

 

[Khorod]

Argo writes:

Survival Instinct: At 3rd level the ranger may add his Wisdom bonus as an insight bonus to his initative.

Outside Improved Init I've never been fond of anything that just increases Initiative. I've always felt that if reaction time is boosted, then reflex saves should also get a bump- though maybe not as much.

The idea of survival instinct is that when the stuff hits the fan, the ranger can hit the ground running, not that he necessarily has a 6th sense for danger. (The reason why no evasion or uncanny dodge).