D&D 4E What abilities and paragon paths would you like to see for the 4e ranger?

[metal71dog]

Please God (or Hasbro as the case may be) let the 4e Ranger have the option of an archery talent tree that lets him use his bow in melee without penalty or provoking an attack of opportunity. Let him be awesome with the bow. May he have access to a really cool Bounty Hunter prestige class that is also available to Fighters and Rogues. May his Tracking skill actually be better than a Rogue who takes Track as a feat and may he Hide in Plain Sight at nineth level like a human Shadowdancer can and not at seventeenth cause thats way too long to wait. Also Lord (or Wizards of the Coast as the case may be) no one would complain if he got the Darkstalker feat (from Lords of Madness) for free or Immunity from Fatigue like the Horizon Walker in the DMG. I'm just saying. Traceless Tracking would also be a cool option. And you know if he can Hide in Plain Sight why not let him move silently at full speed as well. But most of all as I first mentioned make him really really awesome with the bow and if you have to give him the option between the bow and twf that's ok too. Cause some people like that.

Thank You

 

[FireLance]

I'd like the various aspects of the ranger to be separated out into different talent trees.

Bow mastery? One tree.
Two weapon fighting? Another tree.
Wilderness warrior? One more tree.
Animal empathy/companion? Yet another.
Spellcasting? Another tree, or perhaps specific power selections.

That way, everyone can have something close to the ranger they want without coming up with their own variants.

 

[Sitara]

I completely concur with Firelance.

In SAGA all classes get 4 tree's each per class: I'm hoping dndn 4E will bump it up to 5-6 tree's at least. Also, I don't think we need a tree for TWF; that should be handled by feats. Also, instead of a wilderness warrior tree, we coulod have a general wilderness lore/woodsman/survivalist type of tree which has all sorts of wilderness coolness, such as a herbalist talent, fighting in the wilds talent (bonus to AC and attack rolls in forests and stuff), etc etc.


Oh and @ the OP: I think you meant the bountyhunter paragon path. PRC's are no longer in 4e. )

 

[bgaesop]

Wilderness warrior? One more tree.
Animal empathy/companion? Yet another.

I think you could combine these two pretty easily.

 

[FireLance]

I think you could combine these two pretty easily.

Good point. I was thinking that some players might want a wilderness-focused ranged but might not want an animal companion, but that would still be possible if they were different talents in the same tree.

 

[Darth Cyric]

A Ranger's "spellcasting" is going to be divided into at-will, per-encounter, and per-day "powers." Hey, just like everyone else. Even the Fighter. But since the Fighter is Martial, his "powers" are not "spells," but "maneuvers." The Ranger is also likely Martial, so his "powers" will also likely be "maneuvers."

In R&C, the Ranger is described as never being caught by surprise, even turning the seeming advantage of an enemy into a liability. For that reason, I see them inheriting a lot of the Diamond Mind maneuvers from ToB, in some form or another.

Other maneuvers that I'd like to see from a Ranger are trick shots that serve as debuffs, and maneuvers that mimic the few good archery spells 3.5 Rangers had like Arrow Mind, Hunter's Mercy and Arrow Storm, and the like.

As for talents, he's already been described as mugging the Scout and taking his stuff, so he's getting Skirmish, and probably some enhanced speed, blindsense, and such.

I'd appreciate NOT having Two-Weapon Fighting an inherent class feature of the Ranger. That was a mistake since the development of 2e, when TSR, caught up in the Drizzt craze, forgot that Drizzt was a dual-wielder because he was a DROW, NOT because he was a Ranger. Dual-wielding should be accessible by Rangers, Fighters, Rogues and perhaps Paladins equally.

 

[Zweischneid]

I'd appreciate NOT having Two-Weapon Fighting an inherent class feature of the Ranger. That was a mistake since the development of 2e, when TSR, caught up in the Drizzt craze, forgot that Drizzt was a dual-wielder because he was a DROW, NOT because he was a Ranger. Dual-wielding should be accessible by Rangers, Fighters, Rogues and perhaps Paladins equally.

Almost certainly Drizzt was dual-wielding because he's a ranger. Besides that.. racial genetic weapon proficiencies are pretty much the one thing even more silly than woodsmen with in-build ambidexterity.

 

[Zweischneid]

I'd like the various aspects of the ranger to be separated out into different talent trees.

Bow mastery? One tree.
Two weapon fighting? Another tree.
Wilderness warrior? One more tree.
Animal empathy/companion? Yet another.
Spellcasting? Another tree, or perhaps specific power selections.

That way, everyone can have something close to the ranger they want without coming up with their own variants.

This many trees kinda defeats the point of talent trees. Might aswell just give em a dozend abilities to pick and choose.

 

[Darth Cyric]

Almost certainly Drizzt was dual-wielding because he's a ranger. Besides that.. racial genetic weapon proficiencies are pretty much the one thing even more silly than woodsmen with in-build ambidexterity.

Uh, no, you're wrong. Very wrong.

Look up the 1e Ranger and then the Drow in the 1e Fiend Folio and get back to me.

EDIT: And the Drow entry in the Fiend Folio made no reference as to whether it was genetic or not. It was more than likely assumed that Drow were described as such because they get trained from childhood to fight with two weapons, and they also have the Dexterity needed to do so.

 

[FireLance]

This many trees kinda defeats the point of talent trees. Might aswell just give em a dozend abilities to pick and choose.

Based on what I've seen from SWSE, talent trees are more a system of grouping thematically-related powers together than a collection of powers with a common prerequisite. It helps the player who approaches character creation from the "come up with a concept and pick the best mechanical interpretation" angle by narrowing down the broad categories of what abilities the class is able to provide. A player who wants to focus his character on the archery aspect, for example, might just ignore the other talent trees.