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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SCMrks" data-source="post: 2882049" data-attributes="member: 41061">There are several issues about the 3.5 Ranger that I dislike. To start, the concept of the Ranger has been changed. In "the Ranger Design Notes" by Andy Collins it says that the image of a ranger was that of a hardy, self-sufficient wilderness warrior. This is my image of a ranger and that of my gaming friends. Mr. Collins explains how the 3rd edition ranger fell short of that image and how the barbarian actually filled the image better. So many people did not like the 3rd edition ranger. But when Mr.Collins revised the ranger for 3.5 he did not improve it to meet the image most people had of the ranger. Instead Mr.Collins decided that the ranger would no longer fill this image but would be a skirmisher instead.He gives 3 main reasons for changing the image of the ranger. One reason is that the ranger uses light armor so his AC isn't high enough to be on the frontlines. Another reason is that two weapon fighting gave the ranger -2 to attack so he hit less often. Third, two weapon fighting ment the ranger used lighter weapons so he did less damage with each it.So Mr.Collins decided these disadvantages made it too hard for a ranger to be a frontline warrior and instead of revising him to fit the wilderness warrior image the ranger was changed into a skirmisher. The ranger's hit die was changed to a d8 to make everyone else accept the new "default view" of the ranger.Another dislike I have about the ranger is that metagame thinking was used to design it. The DM's guide says metagame thinking is bad and should be avoided always but it seems to have been used to design the ranger class. In lowering the hit die to d8 Mr.Collins realized the ranger would not last as long in combat because it will have fewer hit points now. So Mr.Collins says, "In part to make up for that loss, we gave the ranger a good reflex save." The ranger did not get a good reflex save because he is seen as a lightning quick person but because he needed a way to last longer in combat. Even the acrobatic warrior/rogue Swashbuckler class did not get a good reflex save.Why did the ranger get evasion? Not because it fits the image but because with a high reflex save it was a "no brainer" to multi-class with rogue to get evasion. Mr.Collins wanted to reduce the frequency of rangers dipping into rogue so he just gave the ranger evasion. Again, not even the Swashbuckler gets evasion and the Ninja doesn't get it until level 12. The ranger doesn't even have tumble as a class skill but he has better reflex and evasion skills than these two acrobatic classes. Granted they did come out after the ranger was revised.The third reason I dislike the ranger is that his abilities don't make sense. Why can a ranger wear studded leather armor and a 70 pound backpack and fight with his bow or two weapons but if he takes off the backpack and puts on a 50 pound breastplate (medium breastplate armor is described as studded leather with a breastplate) he doesn't fight as well? Or while wearing a chain shirt he fights just fine but if he puts chain pants on with it his arms don't fight as well?Just how does camouflage and hide in plain sight work? I always assumed that camouflaging yourself was part of the hide skill. Can a ranger in bright red and yellow clothing hide in an open meadow/field? And can Bozo the ranger stand 5 feet from you in this open meadow and just disappear from sight while you're watching him? These abilities are not described well enough.Also I dislike the ranger having divine spells. In a world rich in magic like a D&D world I can see rangers learning spells as another tool to assist their survival skills but I don't think every ranger has to be so religious. Atleast in Forgotten Realms a ranger has to follow a nature god to get spells. I see the ranger spells more like mimicing the magic of the fey. The ranger survives in the wild where dryads, pixies, sprites, etc live so he picks up nature magic to survive the way the fey have magic, not by service to a god.Finally, back to the skirmisher concept. Now that the Scout class is out the ranger is not the best choice for a wilderness skirmisher. If the barbarian replaced the ranger as the hardy wilderness warrior then the scout replaces the ranger as the skilled wilderness skirmisher. Mr.Collins changed the ranger because he felt a warrior in light armor should not be encouraged to be on the frontline by having a d10 hit die. Yet now we have the swashbuckler and hexblade who are light armor warriors with d10 hit die.Mr.Collins felt the ranger was not capable of filling a role with the fighter, paladin, and barbarian so he put it in a role with the monk and rogue, a role the scout now fills also. My preference is that I dislike the ranger in that new role. I would like the ranger to be put back up in a warrior role in the ranks of the swashbuckler and hexblade.</blockquote>

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