Sick of the ranger

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have to agree, I am just not sure what all the point of this whole thread IS.

You want to nerf rangers?

A) Why do they need to be nerfed? It may seem obvious to you, but it is a mystery to the rest of us.

B) Why suggest a manner of nerfing which does barely anything? Removing TBF benefits (or archer style benefits either) has marginal impact. Beast Master ranger already attests to that, they have neither of these features and instead gain a new feature which overall is not massively powerful, yet even this mediocre added feature is more than enough to compensate for what was lost.

There are plenty of things one can level against rangers (boring), but they do form the basis for the archetypal bow armed hero.

 

[Morrus]

If you wanted to argue your point, then make your own goddamned thread, stop shitting in mine.

Profanity. No.

 

[Flipguarder]

No, truly, I'm over it.

This isn't a thread about whether or not the ranger is overpowered, so please don't make it one.

The question I'm asking is, if one does away with the Archer Fighting Style and Two-weapon Fighting Styles completely, and simply makes a ranger player choose between gaining Prime Shot or Beast Mastery, just how much of an impact will that ultimately have on the ranger's ability to do damage?

I figure the archer ranger doesn't really lose anything since Defensive Mobility is close to useless for them anyway, so I guess the real question is about the TWF ranger.

TWF rangers could still take up the TWF feats and since there's no rule about wielding two weapons, a 1st-level ranger isn't really penalised in a sense since they can still grab a longsword and a dagger and roll their TWF attacks as if using the longsword for the damage.

There are very few powers which actually state which weapon you use for the damage, most just state that you have to be wielding two weapons.

As inflammatory and ridiculous as this thread is, Ill respond to it honestly...

Removing the archer style class feature would do VERY little to hinder the ranged rangers ability to do damage, as the feature only provides a feat.

Removing the TWF class feature would actually probably bring the TWF (using a main hand and an offhand) down to about the damage level of the beast master ranger. Personally I think the BM ranger is too weak in comparison to other builds, but if that is your goal, that side works out pretty well.



And you probably don't care but I'll mention it anyway (because I feel it's important information for you to have):

This thread is not reasonable because it takes the idea that rangers are overpowered and simply assumes it. Not enough of the ENworld community belives this to make a coherent thread. All this will do is incite arguments to that basic assumption. If that's what you wish to discuss, then make a thread about that. But to make a thread that simply assumes an opinion you hold as fact and attempts a discussion based on that fact will usually end badly.

 

[mkill]

Looks like the OP fails to come up with a coherent explanation about what this thread is about. Too bad.

Removing the TWF class feature would actually probably bring the TWF (using a main hand and an offhand) down to about the damage level of the beast master ranger. Personally I think the BM ranger is too weak in comparison to other builds, but if that is your goal, that side works out pretty well.

Except that it doesn't.

You need to look at actual 2WF Ranger builds and analyze where their damage output comes from.

Stormwarden - Wizards Community

Level 30
Twin Strike: 2 attacks, +36 vs. AC (+39 if no other creatures are adjacent to the target)
Main Hand: 2d10+21 damage, reroll all 1's (2d10+45, reroll all 1's with Bloodclaw and Reckless)
Main Hand, Critical: 7d6+41 damage, reroll all 1's (7d6+65, reroll all 1's with Bloodclaw and Reckless)
Off Hand: 2d10+20 damage, reroll all 1's (2d10+44, reroll all 1's with Bloodclaw and Reckless)
Off Hand, Critical: 7d8+40 damage, reroll all 1's (7d8+64, reroll all 1's with Bloodclaw and Reckless)
Basic Melee, Two-Weapon Opening: 3d10+33 damage, reroll all 1’s (3d10+57, reroll all 1's with Bloodclaw and Reckless)
Basic Melee, Two-Weapon Opening, Critical: 7d8+63 damage, reroll all 1’s (7d8+97, reroll all 1's with Bloodclaw and Reckless)
Quarry: +3d8 damage
Rending Tempest: +1d10 damage
Blade Storm: 8 damage
Twin-Blade Storm: 8 lightning damage to two targets

- Extra damage on melee attacks from items, such as from Iron Armbands of Power
- Extra attacks on crit
- Extra attacks from stances
- Extra static damage from class features such as Stormwarden

The off-hand damage die is just a drop in the bucket. Reducing that to a d6 or d4 is not going to change much. As I already wrote in the first post that noone read, you can easily circumvent that with

- Double weapons, which are in fact broken instead of the Ranger
- Using daggers and going daggermaster

In the end, the OP is wrong on 3 levels:
1. Dealing high damage as a striker is broken
2. The Ranger class itself is the source of the Ranger's high damage output
3. Removing the TWF class features will change this.

 

[Flipguarder]

And circle gets the square. Thanks for the clarification, that makes a LOT of sense.

On a side note, the idea of lowering the dpr of the ranger by getting rid of the archer fighting style class feature is humorous to me.

 

[Starfox]

The question I'm asking is, if one does away with the Archer Fighting Style and Two-weapon Fighting Styles completely, and simply makes a ranger player choose between gaining Prime Shot or Beast Mastery, just how much of an impact will that ultimately have on the ranger's ability to do damage?

To return to the original question; as the thread has shown this has minimal impact on Archer and BM rangers and little impact on TW rangers. Despite all the aggro in this tread, there has been some soild information and your question has been answered.

What I think this will do is make people think twice about TW rangers, probably opting for the other selections, unless they have made an analysis similar to the one here.

Depending on what you want, this might be good.

If you want more archer and BM rangers, this might work.

If what you don't want is a two-bastard-sword ranger looking ridiculous, then this might be the way to go, possibly adding a damage bonus to rangers using genuine off-hand weapons.

If what you want are rangers wielding double weapons, this is definitely the way to go (personally, I banned these in my game).

if you want to nerf 2WF ranger damage, this might do less than you expected.

 

[Aramax]

If you do away w/the archery then you are left without ANY archers

 

[Garthanos]

If you do away w/the archery then you are left without ANY archers

Any old fighter can (and arguably should pick up a bow)... but the Archer Ranger is a Robinhood or a William Tell, or (movie) Legalos and supposed to be quite astounding... thing is some consider the results of multi-attacks after you add all the static damage mind you... too mechanically astounding.

 

[Starfox]

Any old fighter can (and arguably should pick up a bow)... but the Archer Ranger is a Robinhood or a William Tell, or (movie) Legalos and supposed to be quite astounding... thing is some consider the results of multi-attacks after you add all the static damage mind you... too mechanically astounding.

A fighter should pick up a javelin. Or possibly a throwing axe. A bow? Even a Dex fighter is likely to be 2-3 points worse off using that.

 

[Garthanos]

A fighter should pick up a javelin. Or possibly a throwing axe. A bow? Even a Dex fighter is likely to be 2-3 points worse off using that.

Ah true other ranged weapons will work better in some situations (yeah technically the Ranger is the true Dex fighter)... ... I guess pinned down and unable to reach your enemies is too "realistic" as the number of times the answer to both DM's and PC to strategic conundrums ends up being... include more ranged capable enemies ... or include more ranged capable pcs seems remarkable. An archetypal fantasy example ... I seem to recall every fighting member of the company of the ring was outfitted with a ranged weapon (were even the hobbits after picking up blades? and Bilbo considered himself quite expert with a simple thrown stone.).

I can see why Paladins and Avengers would be against archetype ;-),
I guess a ranged Defender doesnt work too great....

I guess a holy bowman champion of pelor.. Ranger multiclassed cleric? or maybe just reskinning the radiant beams as arrows... but maybe we need something like a divine translation of the Bard Paragon path...
A feat I just was inspired to
Perceptive Targeting : you may use Wisdom in place of Dex for ranged attacks (could be fun for my Strength Wisdom Paladin - or at least nice for any divine). --- when your god is a sun god being squeamish about ranged or having problems with a bow when your god is the moon doesnt make any sense).

More archery not less ;-0