Possible 3rd Ranger Path

jester47 · Sep 13, 2004

In 3.5 rangers have the option of picking up a weapon style path of either bow or two weapon fighting. What if you want neither? How do you do this? What do you give a ranger that persues sword and board as his specialty?

Aaron.

ForceUser · Sep 13, 2004

In my campaign I allow a third path I call mighty fighting. It consists of Cleave at 2nd, Great Cleave at 6th, and Combat Brute (from Complete Warrior) at 11th. Alternately, a ranger in my campaign can forego combat styles altogether and gain wild shape as a druid (Small and Medium creatures only) instead.

fba827 · Sep 13, 2004

hmm.. i'll have to see if i can find the thread (if i had it bookmarked or something) but there was a thread a while back about other possible "paths" for a ranger. not all were developed but they did provide a good starting point ... some were basically skill based, some were feat based, etc. ..

CRGreathouse · Sep 13, 2004

I was working on a spear path: Combat Reflexes, etc. I can't immedately recall what all of the feats were, though.

Staffan · Sep 14, 2004

I was considering giving rangers a Mounted path, but when I checked the feats available I noticed that all the mounted feats were low-level feats - a fighter could have them all by level 4 or so. The interesting thing about the ranger paths in the PHB is that the higher-level feats really are high-level feats, requiring BAB +6 and +11 in addition to Dex 17 and 19. To be worthwhile, I think other paths should follow the same pattern, and since I couldn't think of any mounted feats that would require really high BAB, I decided to scrap the idea.

handforged · Sep 14, 2004

This thread should probably be in House Rules, and might get better responses there. I think that the Mighty Fighting path sounds pretty good except perhaps switching Combat Brute to 6th level to maintain the earliest possible BAB idea. I like the idea of a spear path, as well as a speed based path, starting with Improved Initiative.

~hf

Saeviomagy · Sep 14, 2004

jester47 said:
In 3.5 rangers have the option of picking up a weapon style path of either bow or two weapon fighting. What if you want neither? How do you do this? What do you give a ranger that persues sword and board as his specialty?

Aaron.

Take two-weapon fighting, and get shield expert. No sword-and-board fighter should neglect shield bashing.

uzagi_akimbo · Sep 14, 2004

FFG's "Wilderness" supplement (a severlyunderrated book) features several additional styles, some of them combat oriented, some exploration-themed, some more druidic

among them : Spear Fighter, Ranger Knight (board and shield), Outrider, Loremaster, Explorer, 2-handed Master and Slayer

Most have rather unique (not duplicaple through feats ) abilities. They see pretty heavy use IMCs, as most 2 weapon builds rely heavily on fighter levels, as do archers.
The book also features additional fighting style abilities for rangers foregoing spell-use, with three more manouevres per style for higher levels.