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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StreamOfTheSky" data-source="post: 4899191" data-attributes="member: 35909">Welcome to ENWorld!How much you should focus on melee probably depends on whether the ranger is archery or TWF.  The bard/fighter will likely be a secondary melee combatant already, so if the ranger's also in melee, you might not be needed too much for that role (a buffed cleric can also melee well).When you say low magic, do you mean only few magic items?  Or did the DM also weaken the spellcasting classes?  If the former...ouch...a lot of new DMs seem to think less magic items = low magic, when in reality it just hurts the non-casters the most, since they can't just provide magical effects from their class.  Specifically to you, your use magic device skill won't be nearly as useful as a normal game.  Normally, with UMD allowing you to apply sneak attack damage to touch spells and turn them into that spell's energy type (not to mention hitting flatfooted touch AC <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ), SA is a great thing to have.  Spell items can also help you get sneak attack to begin with -- Persistent Blade, a level 1 Spell Compendium spell that leaves the target flanked without a save for one round/level...Grease (if they don't have 5 balance ranks, a creature is flatfooted while balancing)....If you won't be able to stock up on scrolls and wands, you might consider dropping SA altogether, and instead getting <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue" target="_blank">Fighter bonus feats</a> (originally found in Unearthed Arcana).  You may not be able to get fighter-only feats like Weapon Specialization, but you can still use those plethora of feats to make a build focused on combat maneuvers like tripping, grappling, etc...  Many of these maneuvers hit touch AC or don't even have to roll to hit (bull rush, for example), so your medium BAB won't hurt.  All that really matters is being as large as possible, having a big strength score, and lots of feats to add stuff to your maneuver (like the extra attack from improved trip; or combining Knockback (Races of Stone, need a large race to take) with Shock Trooper (C.Warrior) to charge into someone, hit for massive power attack damage, "home run bat" him into another enemy, and knock them both down like you're bowling; and so on...)If it is a low magic items game, have you considered Facototem from Dungeonscape?  That's a rogue-like class with some minor spellcasting and lots of other side abilities that I think would do well in a no magic items game.  It has very poor sneak attack, though.  (It has an option to spend the class's per encounter resource, inspiration points, to get SA, but the amount is so woefully low it's never really worth it.)  Early on in the class, it lets you add int to all combat maneuvers, which could be interesting.</blockquote>

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