Rangers and spellcasting - somewhat random thought

[ChimericDream]

I was looking at the ranger class today and reading some vehement forum posts (at a few different places) about the power, or lack thereof, of the ranger. A thought struck me. What if rangers were given spells the same as a warmage? I don't mean picking from the same list, but what I'm thinking is that their spells are spontaneously cast (would be interesting enough for a divine caster) and they simply have access to the whole ranger spell list at a time.

Considering they wouldn't outshine any support or dedicated casters with this, and their relative (debatable) weakness when compared to a classes fighter or barbarian, I don't think this would throw things out of whack too much.

Opinions?

 

[Kmart Kommando]

You'd probably have to dump many of their abilities, to balance them. No need for combat trees if they can cast arrow storm anytime they want. The mystic ranger variant would do quite well if you use that one for the base of your casting variant.

 

[ChimericDream]

I'm not sure it would unbalance all that much. Rangers only get a very small amount of spells per day, and if they really want more spells, they have to spend a lot of effort to get a high Wisdom score. When they already need to focus on Str, Dex, and Con, I think adding the Wis to it gives them more options, but it would come at the expense of something else.

Perhaps changing this ability out with the animal companion as an alternate progression would work. Both abilities start at the same level, and both are less-used features of the class (at least in my xp).

 

[Kmart Kommando]

I think it's PHB2 that has the option to swap out an animal companion for the ability to cause whatever you hit, ranged or melee, to count as flanked until someone else attacks it or your next turn. That alone makes you the rogue's best friend.

Unless you're a UA prestige ranger, your animal companion is toast in any battle anyway.

 

[ChimericDream]

I think if the PHB2 has an option like that, it would be fairly balanced to instead swap out the animal companion for the ability to cast spontaneously. I think it's about as balanced as allowing every hit giving his allies a +2 to hit certain enemies (and letting rogues sneak attack).

I think I'll offer this in my next campaign as an option for the ranger and see what happens.

 

[ChimericDream]

*bump*

Any other opinions? I'd still like to get feedback on this, since my next campaign won't start for about a month.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

I think if the PHB2 has an option like that, it would be fairly balanced to instead swap out the animal companion for the ability to cast spontaneously. I think it's about as balanced as allowing every hit giving his allies a +2 to hit certain enemies (and letting rogues sneak attack).

I think I'll offer this in my next campaign as an option for the ranger and see what happens.

If we had a ranger, he'd be all over that. Our dwarf rogue (and barbarian, in mithril fullplate) just burned 2 feats for martial maneuver and martial stance for Shadow Jaunt and Island of Blades, so anywhere around the target counts as flanking.

Hmm, that just made me remember the rules for rogue's evasion.. she's been using it in medium armor. oops.