Ranger - likes and dislikes?

[Nyaricus]

Dang! Just about a perfect representation of my opinion of the fighter's role.

Indeed, Plane Sailing stole the words from my mouth, and said 'em better too!

If I'm second best in ALL roles, then, overall, I'm the best.

Riiight, remember that little class called the Bard? Exactly.

Fighters are battlefield dominators, yes, and they can do some amazing feats with their, erm, feats, but they are not the best fighting class. Their schitct is mastering the battlefield and keeping the party together as a unit while they whoop some ass. But they are not the best simply due to the fact they are second (or even third) best at everything combat-related.

 

[rounser]

I think this thread is stumbling over the "D&D rewards specialists" thing. 2nd to 3rd best in say three things doesn't have the same value as best at one thing under D&D rules, because 3rd best means you fail at those things you're 3rd best at constantly, compounded by such things often not coming up in play often, or overlapping with the "1 best thing" of another PC so you get constantly overshadowed if they are common.

This is especially the case when the one thing another class is best at is as useful as "fighting", which happens all the time, or "magic", which is useful almost all the time. A skill like tracking or information gathering is much more rarely useful when seen in those terms.

 

[Felon]

Something I don't understand about these recent spate of threads. Everyone compares these classes to fighters and then complains about how they don't stack up in a fight. The ONLY thing a fighter does well is fight. He has no spells, no special abilities, nothing. The only thing a fighter does better than anyone else is hit things. Why does everyone feel that classes that don't fight as well as fighters are somehow weaker?

I found this particularly puzzling with regard to the monk thread. It applies here as well.

I would, however, submit that a barb probably trumps a fighter in pure damage-dealing, although PHBII may have mitigated that somewhat.

 

[Steverooo]

Check the booby-trap section in the DMG2. Basically, you can scavenge the parts of a booby-trap from the wild with just a few minutes of work and, iirc, a Survival check.

Really? Haven't seen it. Can you give us a page number?

 

[Klaus]

Really? Haven't seen it. Can you give us a page number?

Sure.

DMG 2, page 41. 10 minutes and a DC 20 Survival check and you have the materials to put up a CR 1/2 booby trap (use Craft [trapmaking] to set up the trap). The ranger in my first 3e campaign had ranks in Craft [trapmaking], but alas, there were no rules or guidelines at the time, and the skill fell to oblivion.

 

[Steverooo]

...far as I'm concerned, the fighter should have a few more skill points and class skills, too.

I've always said that ALL Classes should have at least 4 skill points/level, and Fighters should have Profession (at least Bodyguard), Knowledge (History) & Knowledge (Architecture & Engineering), and possibly Knowledge (Local) & Knowledge (Nobility & Royalty).

 

[Steverooo]

DMG 2, page 41. 10 minutes and a DC 20 Survival check and you have the materials to put up a CR 1/2 booby trap (use Craft [trapmaking] to set up the trap). The ranger in my first 3e campaign had ranks in Craft [trapmaking], but alas, there were no rules or guidelines at the time, and the skill fell to oblivion.

CR 1/2?!? You're gonna hafta 'splain that, too...

Nice to know that the PHB II has it, though.

PS: What's the Craft (Trapmaking) DC?

 

[FireLance]

On the favored enemy ability being too DM-dependent:

I once considered implementing the house rule that rangers could change their favored enemy bonus daily. The theory behind that was rangers are trained to fight all types of creatures, and every day, they can meditate and call to mind specialized techniques for fighting specific creatures, depending on what they expect to meet that day. Under this variant, rangers get a total favored enemy bonus of +2 at 1st level, +4 at 5th level, +6 at 10th level, +8 and 15th level, and +10 at 20th level, which he can distribute among the various types of creatures as he wishes. For example, a 5th level ranger infiltrating the stronghold of a demon-summoning human necromancer could decide to assign a +2 bonus to undead, a +1 bonus to evil outsiders and a +1 bonus to humanoid (humans).

This leaves the ranger favored enemy ability no more DM-dependent than a divine spellcaster preparing spells or a soulknife deciding what abilities to add to his mindblade.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

On the favored enemy ability being too DM-dependent:

I once considered implementing the house rule that rangers could change their favored enemy bonus daily. The theory behind that was rangers are trained to fight all types of creatures, and every day, they can meditate and call to mind specialized techniques for fighting specific creatures, depending on what they expect to meet that day. Under this variant, rangers get a total favored enemy bonus of +2 at 1st level, +4 at 5th level, +6 at 10th level, +8 and 15th level, and +10 at 20th level, which he can distribute among the various types of creatures as he wishes. For example, a 5th level ranger infiltrating the stronghold of a demon-summoning human necromancer could decide to assign a +2 bonus to undead, a +1 bonus to evil outsiders and a +1 bonus to humanoid (humans).

This leaves the ranger favored enemy ability no more DM-dependent than a divine spellcaster preparing spells or a soulknife deciding what abilities to add to his mindblade.

Problem! I don't think you can compare the cleric's spells to favored enemy in terms of "changing per day".

A spell like prayer is useful every day. A ranger who picks aberrations as a favored enemy that day, and doesn't face any, completely wasted their ability.

Rangers don't get the ability to see the future.

 

[Question]

The thing is a ranger usually needs decent dex as they can only wear light armor, so you wouldnt have that much different from a fighter's 19 dex anyway.

They get no spells, true, i havent taken a hard look at the ranger spell list, so am not sure how useful they are.....evasion is useful, but not godlike, track is only useful if the DM requires you to errr track something. Worse skills, yea, agian depends on how much emphasis the DM places on skills.