The thing you did NOT like about the PHB Ranger

[Jack Daniel]

*BZZZZ* Wrong...

A character who remains in the ranger class gains the same benefit the bard does: single-classed versatility, resulting in a far less dramatic drop in power. If you want to take one level as a ranger and then switch to another class, great. It's within the rules. You define your specialty and get really good in that area, but you don't get it all. A ranger 1/fighter 9 can't sneak. A ranger 1/rogue 9 can't fight. A ranger 1/druid 9 can cast really good spells, but he won't be very stealthy if he's not morphed and fighting with druid weapon/armor restrictions bites.

 

[ASH]

I don't really agree with alot that anyone has been saying
I think that you can play a ranger just as well as you are going to play any class, for example wizard:
Sure the wizard gets to disintegrate, at higer levels but the ranger can get 5 attacks at higher levels
i mean done correctly a ranger can be just as dymanic as any other class. Seriously how can anyone think that a ranger is boring at any level. You get the benifit of a fighter and the divine magic of a cleric and the wilderness knowhow of a woods man
and the feats that come with the class first off do not have to be used and are balanced by the fact that to use them you have to wear light armor. And thanks to the open ended rules of the game you and your dm can adapt what you do not like and perhaps substiute other feats such as alertness or ranged weapon feats.
And the favored enemy is to help the ranger have reason and purpose. And this can really be worked in to the back ground of a character to give the ranger a personality. Like dwarves who really hate orcs. this kind of emotion can give bland players something to do when coming across there favored enemy.
I mean sure, perhaps the first idea of wizard was supposed to come from gandalf, but was haplo anything like gandalf ?
And all rangers do not have to be what drizzt is either.
The game is ment to be fun and if that means, going in and hacking every thing to bits, or getting really in to the character creation and background the ranger works either way.
The idea of multiclassing does make sence but then, the exp penalty, and the light armor does come in to play most of the time.
with every class there is a down side and a up side
Every person prefers to play one class as opposed to another
that definatly does not mean that on is better than the other

Anyway that is how i feel about
it
if any one cares i play a 6lvl cleric,4thlvl ranger, and 2nd lvl hunter of the dead and i have never had a more fun character.

 

[EOL]

IMHO Rangers are one of the classes best suited for an eventual prestige class. Unfortunately they are going to end up being the one of the last classes to get full prestige class treatment by WoTC.

That being said I think that the TWF-AMBI should have been handled more like the fighters bonus feats, so that rangers could have been given a choice what to specialize in.

 

[Mortaneus]

The Ranger? Not versitile? Ummm....wrong.

The ranger is the single most versitile of the combat classes. The fighter, no matter what feats he picks up, is still a soldier. A professional death machine. Nothing else.

The barbarian is a big raging monster.

The paladin is a holy warrior.

The ranger is every other combative type out there.

True, the AMB and TWF feats are stupid, and the class is VERY frontloaded, and the Favored Enemy power is pathetic...

BUT....

Compared to the other d10 hd and +1/lvl bab classes, the ranger has the SINGLE best skill list. Only the rogue has a list as good as his.

Think about it. Spot, Listen, and Search....yup. He notices everything.

Hide and Move Silently....nope, you don't notice him.

Wilderness Lore....a VERY powerful skill, especially when combined with track, which he happens to get for free....

If you play a hack-and-slash style of game, true, the ranger is weak.

If you play a more role-playing intensive game, with sneaking around and detective work, the Ranger is practically more valuable to the party than the Cleric!

 

[Schmoe]

I'd like to chime in here. While I think that the ranger has a few problems, I also think it provides capabilities not otherwise available. The party that I DM has two rangers. One is a fighter/ranger, and the other is a druid/ranger, and I have to say that the two of them have proven VERY capable and have really made things easier for the party. The druid/ranger is a tracking fiend, and the fighter/ranger is a stealthy combat machine. Between the two of them, they have made life quite difficult for any villains who would like to escape or ambush the party, and they have been instrumental in getting the drop on enemies.

Although I have provided a house rule that allows rangers the choice of virtual feats at first level (Ambidexterity/Two-weapon Fighting; Point-blank Shot/Far Shot; Improved Initiative/Alertness), both of them stuck with the "stereotypical" two-weapon combat, and neither has had any complaints.

What's more, I play a Ranger/Barbarian in another campaign, and while I am very excited about the abilities my barbarian levels have offered (fast movement, rage, uncanny dodge), I still somewhat regret the loss of some skills and spells.

To reiterate: while the ranger could have been done better (a trailblazing ability would be spiffy), the current version is far from useless/broken/front-loaded/shafted.

 

[Squire James]

Perhaps those characters you mentioned would be better counter-examples of "front-loaded" rangers if they weren't all multiclassed. As they are, they look like good examples of the principle to me. None of those guys wanted to stay a ranger!

 

[Dravin]

Perhaps those characters you mentioned would be better counter-examples of "front-loaded" rangers if they weren't all multiclassed. As they are, they look like good examples of the principle to me. None of those guys wanted to stay a ranger!

Do you know the levels involved? All we know are the classes. They could just as easily be 1 Ranger/5 Fighter as 5 Ranger/1 Fighter or 3 Ranger/3 Fighter. Not knowing how the classes are distributed you can't say they are examples of how front loaded the class may or may not be.

 

[Plane Sailing]

While we were waiting for dribbles of 3e news to appear at Erics unofficial 3e news, way back when, each character class that had new info appearing left people saying "wow, I can't wait to play fill-in-the-blank". The only exception was the ranger, which pretty much left people saying "is that all?". They were the only class that didn't recieve significant improvements in their abilities from previous levels.

They are the only class that doesn't get a major ability at 2nd level (except for Sorcerers, perhaps). Nearly all the other classes get something good at 2nd level to encourage you to stick with the class, Rangers don't.

Ranger spells are pretty much as boring as could be (a far cry from the early days of the ranger, who got unrestricted access to clerical and wizard spells!). Especially compared with his near-neighbour the Paladin. At least the Paladin had some unique spells on his list.

The Ranger class, more than any others, seems to lack a clear, defining concept. It seems like a mish-mash of ideas that nobody really cared about during playtesting.

I'm not saying that people can't have fun playing a ranger. I'm not saying that people can't be successful playing a ranger. Of course they can. it is just astonishing that they could make a character class that is so Blah.

FWIW in my next campaign I'll be replacing the ranger entirely with the Woodsman class from Wheel of Time. I think this is what the D&D Ranger should have been. They actually use pretty much the same opening paragraph to describe the class, but in this case the class deserves the introduction.

Cheers

 

[EOL]

The Ranger? Not versitile? Ummm....wrong.

Think about it. Spot, Listen, and Search....yup. He notices everything.

Hide and Move Silently....nope, you don't notice him.

Wilderness Lore....a VERY powerful skill, especially when combined with track, which he happens to get for free....

But as was mentioned earlier with only 4 skill points a level it's difficult for him to take advantage of his great skill list. To take full advantage of all the skills you mentioned (and no others) he'd have to have an Int of at least 14, plus a good Str, Dex and Con for all the other stuff he needs to do, plus a decent wisdom for Spot, Listen and Wilderness Lore. Yeah, obviously he can get by without some of this, but essentially in order to be as flexible as you're saying he needs to make some difficult stat choices.

 

[DMaple]

I voted other.

This is because I think the Ranger gets too many of its abilities at first level then doesn't get much of a bonus in later levels. If your going to give the Ranger those virtual feats it would have been better to spread them over the first few levels. At the moment the ranger class is abused by taking just one level of it.