Ranger versus Scout

[Beale Knight]

Compared to Wilderness Rogue?

I haven't seen the Scout and would like to know how it compares to the Wildeness Rogue varient found in Unearthed Arcana. I've been playing one of those for a little over a year and have been really happy with how it fit the role of scout and hunter.

For those that don't have UA, or have it handy, here's the skinny on the Wilderness Rogue:

Wilderness Rogue
The Wilderness Rogue prefers to put her skills to use in the great outdoors, rather than in cramped alleys and dungeon corridors. In many ways, she is similar to the traditional ranger, though with less combat savvy and with none of he ranger’s divine link to the natural world.

Class Skills: Remove the following rogue class skills from the wilderness rogue’s class skill list: Appraise, Diplomacy, Decipher Script, Forgery, and Gather Information.
Add the following skills to the wilderness rogue’s class skill list: Handle Animal, Knowledge (Geography), Knowledge (Nature), Ride, and Survival.

Class Features
The wilderness rogue has all the standard rogue class features except as noted below.
Special Abilities: Add woodland stride (as the 7th level ranger ability), camouflage (as the 13th level ranger ability), and hide in plain sight (as the 17th level ranger ability, requires the rogue to already have the camouflage ability) to the list of special abilities that can be chosen by the wilderness rogue.

 

[Garnfellow]

Add me to the list of folks who vastly prefer the scout over all the alt. rangers, and the alt. rangers over the 3.5 ranger.

I looked long and hard for an acceptable spell-less ranger, and there are probably a good couple dozen candidates out there. Many came very close . . . but they were all either a /little/ too strong or just a /little/ too weak.

When I read the scout description, it seemed to hit the perfect pitch . . . just what I was looking for, and the skirmish ability is a elegant, innovative, but simple mechanic that really distinguishes the scout from the other base classes.

To me, the scout makes the ranger irrelevant. Most of the ranger's "signature" abilities derive from feat chains that are accessible to anyone. A little multiclassing with fighter, rogue, and druid levels could produce a close substitute for the 3.5 ranger.

Except . . . The one piece of the ranger class that cannot be currently be duplicated is the favored enemy ability, and part of me thinks favored enemy should be featable anyway. Why not have paladins sworn to battle a specific foe, or monks trained to defend their lands against a specific invader, or maybe even wizards who specialize in slinging spells on a hated enemy?

 

[JoeGKushner]

I personally enjoy the non-spellcasting rangers. THe variants from Iron Kingdoms to Path of the Sword to Wheel of Time, allow some better options.

 

[Felon]

I haven't seen the Scout and would like to know how it compares to the Wildeness Rogue varient found in Unearthed Arcana.

The scout co-opts some established class abilities: trapfinding (1st leve), uncanny dodge (2nd), fast movement (3rd), trackless step (3rd) ,evasion (5th), camouflage (7th), and hid-in-plain-sight (14th).

At every 4 levels, the scout gets a bonus feat. The feats basically involve sensing things (e.g. Alertness) or avoiding things (e.g. Mobility).

At 10th level the scout gets blindsense, and at 20th blindsight.

The ability that really defines the class is Skirmish, which allows the scout to rack up bonuses to damage and AC during any round where he moves at least 10 feet. It's an interesting new option, though it's not really rationalized all that well.

d8 hit points and 8 skill points a level make it an outstanding 1st-level choice. Medium BAB, good Reflex saves. Also get a "Battle Fortitude" ability that provides a bonus to Fort saves and initiative rolls (sort of like the CW swashbuckler, they want a class to have a medium-range saving throw).