Rangers bonus feats - Bonus or virtual?!

[greycastle]

It would seem that if the rangers bonus feats only work when they wear light armour or none, then they are not as 'worth-while' as if done otherwise...considering a fighter could much quicker gain the same feats 'permanently'. Now also considering most rangers already wear light armour, why the restriction? And why not, at worst, simply give them a slight penalty for the much more restrictive nature of heavy armour...though on that point, if heavy armour restricts your ability to use two weapons, how is it that you gain your entire dex bonus on attacks with a bow? Amazons (either in truth or myth) used to even cut off their shooting arm breast respectfully, to Not suffer disadvantages from shooting a bow. Now while i'm not suggesting female characters now should suffer penalties to bows, or that characters in heavy armour should gain penalties (good gods no!), why is it that the ranger feats are virtual and not simply bonus, as the fighter recieves?

If i'm wrong on any points, please feel free to correct me.

 

[Li Shenron]

...why is it that the ranger feats are virtual and not simply bonus, as the fighter recieves?

Why should they be? Other classes have the same restrictions on other abilities, the only difference being that those abilities are not equivalent to existing feats.

I think it makes sense, it was a choice to keep the Ranger close to the 3.0 idea of being a lightly-armored fighter. Now the class has drifted towards being a skill-using hunter, but I see no problems in keeping the lightly-armored style.

Not that it wouldn't make sense to be otherwise, if they were plainly free feats it would be even easier, it would be fine as well. But it's not a must.

Eventually the only consequence is that if you really wanted a heavily-armored Ranger, you are going to lose those feats' benefits. Then don't be a heavily-armored Ranger, or spend more feats to achieve a charater concept which is somehow astray from typical. I have never heard of armored Monks either, and few complains about it.

Why would you like so much to be a heavily-armored or "mediumly-armored" Ranger? Is there any RP reason? What's the RP difference between a light and a heavy armor? Because if the reason is strictly the aim to get higher AC, there's plenty of ways to get that without any armor at all. I just don't see why this is so important for you...

 

[Darklone]

At least the virtual feats allow a char who does not meet the prerequisites (though light armour with low dex is suicide) to get the feats somehow.

 

[greycastle]

i personally don't want to wear heavy or even medium armour. I'm honestly simply debating the point of making them virtual feats rather than bonus feats. With the statement about the monk, i can't answer that, though i havnt' truly thought about it...

Though from a personal view, i believe a monk in heavy armour (lets say they are not wearing it for protection purposes) should Still gain her wisdom to her AC, do only slightly less damage, take only some penalty to striking 'unarmed', and still run much faster than the average knight in heavy armour...while it may not be part of their training (the reason thye lack the proficiencies and have currently been made to suffer great 'penalties') they are generally taught to become the perfect self (e.g. diamond body, Ki strikes, Perfect self etc etc).