The Scout Class: How is it in play?

[JRRNeiklot]

Exposition, metaphor, description, that's what I call it.




I'm not going to say that there's no chance that he can't use spells, but it doesn't seem so clear cut to me. Many of Aragorn and Faramir's potential powers can be easily explained as them being skilled, willful people and/or their Numenorean blood. Aragorn is also Isildur's heir.

Sure, but it CAN be interpreted as spell use, and was, as is apparrent in the 1e ranger. It's just as valid to call them spells as not, and I like my rangers to be tough, hardy, mystical wanderers. Not fireball dodging wilderogues. The Swashbucker has a higher hit die than the ranger? Bleh.

 

[Pants]

Sure, but it CAN be interpreted as spell use, and was, as is apparrent in the 1e ranger.

And it CAN be interpreted as him being a skillful Numenorean who's also the hier of Isildur. If you want to say it's spell use, fine with me, I'm just pointing out that it's not as clear cut as it seems.

It's just as valid to call them spells as not, and I like my rangers to be tough, hardy, mystical wanderers. Not fireball dodging wilderogues. The Swashbucker has a higher hit die than the ranger? Bleh.

Good for you, you've made your point, now stop crapping in threads with senseless off-topic comments please.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Hey, I apologized earlier for the thread hijack, I wasn't the one who kept bringing it back up. I dropped the subject, but when someone responds to my posts with a rebuttal, I feel it neccessary to reply in kind.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry for cluttering the thread up, but kindly can the attitude.

 

[Krug]

Yes, lets talk about... THE SCOUT from now on.

 

[Feldspar]

Burned some feats to use a spiked chain (described for our campaign as a whip made of rough chain ... My characters moves back 5ft. and attacks the target. The target closes the 5 ft, provoking an AoO. Repeat as needed.

Time to revise your tactics: "You can move 5 feet in any round when you don’t perform any other kind of movement. Taking this 5-foot step never provokes an attack of opportunity."

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I was reading through this and I was thinking "now why would I pick a ranger vs. a rogue or this scout class, which sounds pretty cool?" Then I remembered: really good BAB.

 

[BSF]

Time to revise your tactics: "You can move 5 feet in any round when you don’t perform any other kind of movement. Taking this 5-foot step never provokes an attack of opportunity."

Macbeth has kind of miscommunicated his tactics here. Actually, he has done quite a good job moving from target to target each round trying to get his skirmish in. It's kind of interesting to watch what this has done to the party tactics. His previous character wasmobile as well. But mostly in getting to the enemy immediately and keeping them far away from the spellcasters. So the party lost the proactive sandbag and gained the bouncing chain of death. Fortunately it has worked out so far. But sooner or later he is going to need to really hold a line and won't get all the skirmish damage. I will be really interested in how it works out once I manage to orchestrate that scenario.

 

[ashockney]

Scout

I have a player playing a Scout in a campaign I'm running, and I've been pleased with how he's performed. The skirmish is a cool addition, and works great up until at least 10th level. The 10' movement, typically works in the favor of the Scout's tactics (firing from a bow), and consistently finding tactically advantageous positions to fire from.

I'm a little surprised that nobody's mentioned the really terrific component of the Scout that we've seen in our campaign. That is that they are great...well, SCOUTS! The scout from our party is TERRIFIC at hiding, moving silent, spotting, listening, and searcing for traps, and has a good init bonus. He has consistently put the party in a better position throughout the campaign (preventing surprise, sometimes granting the party surprise). It's also resulted in some funny instances, such as last night, of the Scout high-tailing it from 30' in front of the party to the back of the party). The Scout's combat effectiveness starts to take a real hit above 10th level. Fighting more creatures immune to sneak, and therefore skirmish, really limits his effectiveness (such as undead), and creatures like constructs that have DR in addition to immunity to crits, render them almost useless in a combat. Finally, giving up the second and third attack for the additional skirmish damage will start to take a toll at these levels as well. The ability to camoflage was VERY well used by the player in my group, as well, again with the whole "scouting" angle, and getting access to information that others wouldn't simply be unable to achieve easily. There is another rogue (actually a ninja) in the party who can disable traps, so that hasn't been a problem. If there weren't, and our party was more typical of a four person group, the scout would have HAD to invest at least a level in rogue to build up the disable device. A bit of a hassle.

The Scout in my present campaign has taken a level of sorcerer and is looking to go down an arcane archer path, which looks like it could be interesting.

 

[Particle_Man]

Haven't played one, but the guy in our party that did seemed to enjoy it. Good at scouting ahead (duh!), good at archery attacks in the wilderness, not so much in cramped dungeon rooms when the tanks are at the front and there is a danger of hitting one of them with an arrow, but no class is all things for all people.

 

[Macbeth]

Time to revise your tactics: "You can move 5 feet in any round when you don’t perform any other kind of movement. Taking this 5-foot step never provokes an attack of opportunity."

Ah yes, I should have been clearer. There is more then one target involved, and I ment to say 'more then' before '5 ft.' Sorry About that. But BSF has it right.