SHARK
First Post
Greetings!
You know, in thinking about the Ranger, though my players are quite happy with the Ranger as per the PHB, I have taken it upon myself to design several variant Ranger classes for my campaigns, to better accomodate variety in the class itself.
For example, I don't think that all Rangers should have spells, as I think the PHB Ranger actually fits the mythological elves very well, but it doesn't necessarily fit the human barbarian tribes that might have Rangers as well, or any number of other races that have Rangers. Thus, I have a the standard Ranger available for most elven kingdoms, and a few orders of Rangers in some human kingdoms, like the Vallorean Empire. I also have non-magical Rangers that have bonus feats and special abilities to make up for the loss of spells, and they are available for most everyone else. Then, of course, there are also special prestige classes for Rangers throughout different cultures and societies.
The Ranger is inherently a very flexible character, and there isn't anything really *wrong* with the character as presented in the PHB, except for not necessarily fitting into broader campaign themes like the one I mentioned above.
Having said that, there is some problems though with the fact that a Rogue can be superior to the Ranger in all of the niche skills and abilities providing the Rogue spends his skill points and such with an eye toward operating in the wilderness. There is a rather frustrating aspect that if you approach character design in this fashion, if you were to say, take a 18th level Ranger, and line it up against a 6th level Ranger/12th level Rogue, that the multiclassed character would be significantly superior at wilderness exploration, sabotage, and covert operations than the pure Ranger. Now, indeed, the pure Ranger has the advantage in this case of spells, and a superior animal companion, and a slight advantage in BAB and hit points, but in *The skills and operations that are supposed to be the Ranger's bread and butter* the multiclassed character would be significantly superior. There is something wrong in that, and I believe that my friend mmadsen is certainly on to something with his own analysis.
In the end, the Ranger class is good, but I think that the Ranger could actually be made to be closer to the Rogue in skill points, sneak attack, and such, and would be an overall superior class to excel in the kinds of operations that everyone seems to want the Ranger to fulfill in spades.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
You know, in thinking about the Ranger, though my players are quite happy with the Ranger as per the PHB, I have taken it upon myself to design several variant Ranger classes for my campaigns, to better accomodate variety in the class itself.
For example, I don't think that all Rangers should have spells, as I think the PHB Ranger actually fits the mythological elves very well, but it doesn't necessarily fit the human barbarian tribes that might have Rangers as well, or any number of other races that have Rangers. Thus, I have a the standard Ranger available for most elven kingdoms, and a few orders of Rangers in some human kingdoms, like the Vallorean Empire. I also have non-magical Rangers that have bonus feats and special abilities to make up for the loss of spells, and they are available for most everyone else. Then, of course, there are also special prestige classes for Rangers throughout different cultures and societies.
The Ranger is inherently a very flexible character, and there isn't anything really *wrong* with the character as presented in the PHB, except for not necessarily fitting into broader campaign themes like the one I mentioned above.
Having said that, there is some problems though with the fact that a Rogue can be superior to the Ranger in all of the niche skills and abilities providing the Rogue spends his skill points and such with an eye toward operating in the wilderness. There is a rather frustrating aspect that if you approach character design in this fashion, if you were to say, take a 18th level Ranger, and line it up against a 6th level Ranger/12th level Rogue, that the multiclassed character would be significantly superior at wilderness exploration, sabotage, and covert operations than the pure Ranger. Now, indeed, the pure Ranger has the advantage in this case of spells, and a superior animal companion, and a slight advantage in BAB and hit points, but in *The skills and operations that are supposed to be the Ranger's bread and butter* the multiclassed character would be significantly superior. There is something wrong in that, and I believe that my friend mmadsen is certainly on to something with his own analysis.
In the end, the Ranger class is good, but I think that the Ranger could actually be made to be closer to the Rogue in skill points, sneak attack, and such, and would be an overall superior class to excel in the kinds of operations that everyone seems to want the Ranger to fulfill in spades.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
