Ranger PrC, Hunter of Karkathia

[The Souljourner]

Let me know what you think of this class.

The opulent city of Karkathia is sandwiched between two of the most dangerous stretches of terrain on the continent. The Darkfold Woods on one side and the Barren Wastes on the other. The city is famous for its beautiful sapphires, high, polished stone walls, and very wealthy citizens. However, it is perhaps most well known for a group of people as tough as the surrounding lands. The group is known as the Hunters of Karkathia, or more commonly, simply The Hunters. The Hunters are a highly trained group of veteran rangers who patrol the miles of terrain surrounding the city, keeping untold hoardes of monsters from overrunning the city walls. The job is thankless, neverending, and incredibly dangerous. Hunters live outside the city walls in well-hidden encampments, and rarely see the beauty of the city proper, and most of them like it that way.

Requirements: Extra Favored Enemy, Run, Stealthy, Wilderness Lore 9 ranks

BAB: fighter
Good Saves: Fort
Skill Points: 6 per level
Skills: as Ranger minus Concentration
Hit Die: d10

Level 1: Fast Movement, Favored Enemy
Level 2: Uncanny Dodge (dex bonus to AC)
Level 3: Detect Enemy
Level 4: Favored Enemy
Level 5: Fast Sneak
Level 6: Uncanny Dodge (can't be flanked)
Level 7: Favored Enemy
Level 8: Trackless Step
Level 9: Always Sneaky
Level 10: Favored Enemy

Fast Movement: Hunters have a lot of ground to cover every day, most of it through terrain too rough for most mounts, thus they are constantly training their bodies to run faster and longer. Hunters gain +10 movement while in light or no armor, and can walk overland twice as long as normal, can hustle overland using the normal overland rules for walking, and can run overland using the normal overland rules for hustling. Also, all terrain based movement penalties are reduced by 1/4 while in light or no armor.

Favored Enemy: As the Ranger ability.

Uncanny Dodge: As the Rogue ability.

Detect Enemy: As a Paladin's Detect Evil ability, except it detects any favored enemies and on the second round it detects what type they are (as well as location and strength on third round).

Fast Sneak: Hunters often need to move quickly without drawing attention to themselves. At 5th level when using Move Silently and Hide, the Hunter can move at his normal speed without suffering a penalty to those skills. He can hustle at -10 to his checks, and run at -20.

Trackless Step: As the druid ability.

Always Sneaky: At 9th level, a Hunter is always assumed to be hiding and moving silently. The Hunter is always taking 10 on Move Silently and Hide. Unless the Hunter wants to be seen or heard, make opposed Spot and Listen checks to detect his presence.

-Nate, aka The Souljourner

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

I like it. It definitely needs tweaking, though. Some of it is too good compared to, say, a Rogue. A couple of points:

1) I'd only give it 4+ skill points. (Skill list the same.)
2) Drop either Run or Stealthy
3) Make Hide and Move Silently skill requirements
4) I'd make the special abilities this:

Level 1: Favored Enemy
Level 2: Fast Movement
Level 3:
Level 4: Favored Enemy
Level 5: Trackless Step
Level 6:
Level 7: Favored Enemy
Level 8:
Level 9: Detect Enemy
Level 10: Favored Enemy


The reason why I got rid of Fast Sneak and Always Sneaky is because not even a Rogue PrC gets the ability to do that. Also, if you give UD, every Rogue in their right mind would go for this PrC (since buckets of SA doesn't really help at Epic Levels).

I know it looks like I just neutered your class, but lots of FEs is really neat. (Especially with Hunting weapons from the MotW, and Bane of Enemies at L21)

I'm looking at it in comparison to a normal ranger. You lose spells, and you gain an extra FE, trackless step, fast movement, and detect enemy. (I might be inclined to add on Evasion.)
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Also, this looks like when I combined the Ranger and the Barbarian in this:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28547

Keep in mind, however, that this was meant to replace the Barbarian and the Ranger base classes.

Since I posted the above link, I have since revised the concept and made the FE and Rage feats only available as special abilities to a Ranger. (You may instead take the feats on that list, if desired.)

 

[The Souljourner]

I'm actually not interested in having it balanced with a standard ranger. It's more or less there to make up for the fact that the standard ranger is fairly low on the balance scale.

And I was actually thinking of removing uncanny dodge... I'd like the class to have it, but it's just too much, unfortunately.

However, I think you removed too much. The always sneaky and fast sneak were stolen directly from Ninja of the Crescent moon, which also gets full sneak attack bonus, improved evasion, and some other cool abilities. So... I don't think it's all that bad to have them in this class.

Detect Enemy should not be a 9th level ability... it's not nearly good enough. It's nice, I'll give you that, but it's a first through third level ability, at best.

I'd rather have higher requirements and better abilities than lower requirements and lower abilities. You're right about hide and move silently requirements, though I doubt that'll be much of a sticking point for anyone who wants to take it... still, it'll keep out errant fighters and barbarians until late levels I guess.

I remember your ranger/barbarian class... liked it a lot. I'll take a look at it again and maybe see what I can do about fixing this class a little. Also keep in mind, I always make my PrCs better than I really think they should be, because I know no matter what I do, my DM is going to want to make it less powerful - so if I start off too powerful, it'll hopefully end up just about right.

-Nate, aka The Souljourner