Rangers w/out spells

[bweenie]

What ideas are there to balance a ranger by taking away spells...
I was thinking to allow a player to take a feat each time he would have gotten a new spell level. IE, treat each new spell level as a seperate feat...

 

[Eternalknight]

The Complete Warrior from Wizards of the Coast has a variant ranger that doesn't have spells. However, I don't have the book with me so can't tell you any specifics.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Midnight also has a Ranger-like class, the "Wildlander", which doesn't have access to any spells...

 

[cimbrog]

For a house rule, each time the Ranger would normally gain a new spell level he gained a +1d6 Ambush (essentially a Sneak Attack that didn't work with flanking). It seemed to work well with the nature of the 3.5 ability set.

 

[Dark Jezter]

What ideas are there to balance a ranger by taking away spells...
I was thinking to allow a player to take a feat each time he would have gotten a new spell level. IE, treat each new spell level as a seperate feat...

Complete Warrior has a ranger variant that does not cast spells. He is identical to the regular ranger, except for the following...

The ranger does not cast any spells (of course).

At 6th level, the ranger's movement speed increases by 10. This ability works exactly the same as a Barbarian's fast movement ability.

At 11th level, the ranger gets Nature's Blessing, which allows him to boost his Constitution, Dexterity, or Wisdom by +4 for 1 minute per ranger level. This ability can be used once per day and is considered a supernatural ability.

At 13th level, the ranger can cast neutralize poison or remove disease at a caster level equal to one-half his ranger level. This ability is called Healing Touch and can be used once per day, it is considered a spell-like ability.

At 16th level, the ranger can cast Freedom of Movement upon himself once per day as a spell-like ability. His caster level is equal to one-half his ranger level.

 

[Belegbeth]

For a house rule, each time the Ranger would normally gain a new spell level he gained a +1d6 Ambush (essentially a Sneak Attack that didn't work with flanking). It seemed to work well with the nature of the 3.5 ability set.

That is a cool house rule! (The archer ranger = sniper.) And better, I think, than the version provided in the Complete Warrior (which mainly replaces spells with spell-like abilities).

 

[bweenie]

Complete Warrior has a ranger variant that does not cast spells. He is identical to the regular ranger, except for the following...]

thanks

 

[Snoweel]

What ideas are there to balance a ranger by taking away spells...
I was thinking to allow a player to take a feat each time he would have gotten a new spell level. IE, treat each new spell level as a seperate feat...

I clicked on this thread with the intention of suggesting exactly this.

iirc, it's Rokugan (AEG) that suggests treating rangers this way.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

At 13th level, the ranger can cast neutralize poison or remove disease at a caster level equal to one-half his ranger level. This ability is called Healing Touch and can be used once per day, it is considered a spell-like ability.

Hmmm... I'm sure that a lot of people still cry foul because it is a "Spell Like Ability". Think about Aragorn in Fellowship of the Ring. You could say that Neutralize Poison and Remove Disease are not supernatural in any way but are due to his knowledge of herblore. D&D really kind of missed out on the whole idea of using curative herbs in their game and made pretty much all healing a divine power. MERP used it as did Palladium.

 

[silburnl]

Think about Aragorn in Fellowship of the Ring. You could say that Neutralize Poison and Remove Disease are not supernatural in any way but are due to his knowledge of herblore.

Or you could say that he was doing magic. There is a strong implication in the book that Athelas does what it does because Aragorn is a member of the royal line of Gondor. Dunno if this backed up by Silmarillion and other background docs, but it jibes with the generally low-key magic in Middlearth.

Regards
Luke