What do you think of the ranger & paladin in Complete Warrior?

[dagger]

The non magical variants of the Ranger and Paladin classes seem to be missing something. A couple of players in my gaming group have looked at those two options and think they are underpowered.

 

[Klaus]

They're not overpowered at all. The designers took the most useful/logical spell from each spell list and turned it into a class feature.

What I'd do would be to grant additional daily uses for these abilities based on Wisdom, since the character would be getting bonus spells from it.

But I think they're just fine.

 

[FireLance]

Of course the non-magical variant is less powerful. In D&D, magic is the equivalent of technology, and a telephone naturally works better than two cups connected by a wire.

 

[Nightfall]

I think I like 3.5 ranger...even though part of me wants the d10s back for their hit dice. Same for paladins, save for the pokemount. In any event, CW's versions...eh. I'll deal.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

What do I think of them? Meh.

 

[Voadam]

At first I didn't like them, but the concepts grew on me a little.

I was really looking for a nonmagical ranger though, not just one without a spell list but spell like abilities instead.

 

[Mercule]

I was really looking for a nonmagical ranger though, not just one without a spell list but spell like abilities instead.

Ditto. I use the CW Ranger because it works. I'm tempted to give it back the d10 HD, though, since I do think it falls a bit short.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think the CWar non-magic versions must be a mistake because... they're NOT non-magical! Unless one thinks that a spell-like ability is less magical than a spell

Now, by themselves they're not bad game-wise, they're just fine. They are worse than the core classes because of the loss in versatility (and probably in uses/day as well), but I couldn't really say underpowered... surely if I had to choose I would see no point at all to lose spellcasting in exchange for more restricted spell-like abilities.

But back to the first sentense, it sounds quite silly to pretend to make a non-magical class and give it spell-like abilities... especially considering that others (IIRC, in Rokugan) have suggested the easiest thing to do to have a non-magic ranger/paladin: give it a bonus combat feat each time it would gain a new spell level. I don't know how many would like this solution, but at least is IS non-magical!

 

[LostSoul]

I'm playing a Ranger with 8 Wis... I hope I'm not too underpowered!

I like the Feats idea. How does it work out in play? Could you extend it to Bards?

 

[Plane Sailing]

I agree completely with Li Shenron.

Taking away the spell list and giving them magical abilities - what on earth is going on there, eh?

What they *should* have done is create a genuinely non-magical version of each - after all, they have got tons of class features they could have drawn upon from classes they've designed for other games (e.g. Wheel of Time woodsman or algadsiswai class features) or available as OGL from other publishers (e.g. borderer from Conan).

My personal take on a nonmagical Paladin is to eliminate spells and give them the "inspire courage" ability of bardic music as a "heroic rallying cry" or something similar.

Cheers