What's a Monte Ranger?

[malichai]

Just saw it mentioned in another thread, what's a Monte Ranger? Did Monte Cook come up with a Ranger variant? What's the source for the ranger?

This is from the Ideal Party Make-up, poster kingpaul:

human fighter 5/sor 2
human ranger (monte) 4/fighter 3
human sor 6/cleric of misanthropy 1
halfling rog 4/wiz 3
halfling ranger (monte) 3/rog 4

 

[Hakkenshi]

Yep, he did.

 

[ForceUser]

Monte once posted an alt.ranger on his boards because he was unsatisfied with the ranger in the PHB. IIRC, the alt.ranger has a d8 hit die, 6 skill points per level, a variant spell list, and six bonus feats over the lifetime of the character instead of automatic Ambidexterity and Two-weapon fighting. The class also sported a variant Favored Enemy ability. All in all, it's neat, but the alt.ranger is less a front-line tank and more of a scout. After playing around with it for a while, we went back to the good ol' PHB ranger. There's no place like home.

 

[Hakkenshi]

All in all, it's neat, but the alt.ranger is less a front-line tank and more of a scout. After playing around with it for a while, we went back to the good ol' PHB ranger. There's no place like home.

We did that until we read the woodsman class in the Wheel of Time d20 book. Then that took over.

Seriously, with a couple tweaks (WoT is much lower in power than standard D&D), it's the best ranger class, and best of all, it has NO SPELLS!

 

[Crothian]

We did that until we read the woodsman class in the Wheel of Time d20 book. Then that took over.

Seriously, with a couple tweaks (WoT is much lower in power than standard D&D), it's the best ranger class, and best of all, it has NO SPELLS!

I think people grossly underestimate the spell ability of a Ranger. Yet, for some reason they don't with a Paladin.

I'm currently playing A ranger of Monte's variety. So far, it's working out perfect and we are all very happy with it.

 

[ForceUser]

We did that until we read the woodsman class in the Wheel of Time d20 book. Then that took over.

Seriously, with a couple tweaks (WoT is much lower in power than standard D&D), it's the best ranger class, and best of all, it has NO SPELLS!

I was VERY tempted by the woodsman, but ultimately went with the standard ranger for my OA campaign. I was looking at only nine classes instead of the regular eleven

barbarian
fighter
monk
no-sheng
ranger
rogue
shaman
sorcerer
wu jen

and I noticed that if I went with the WoT woodsman, I'd be kind of short on spellcasting classes. So I stuck with the PHB ranger.

 

[Hakkenshi]

I think people grossly underestimate the spell ability of a Ranger. Yet, for some reason they don't with a Paladin.

I'm not saying I dislike the ranger's spell list, I'm saying I don't want the class to have spells!

Honestly, it doesn't fit every ranger. It's much easier to imagine a woodsman taking a few levels in druid to learn a few nature spells than it is to picture your standard ranger casting spells.

 

[Tsyr]

If you like the Woodsman, pick up the FFG Fighter/Ranger/Paladin/Monk book they just released... they have a varient core class that is very similar to the Woodsman in some ways, but, IMHO, better done.

 

[greymarch]

The PHB ranger is slightly under-powered. The Monte Cook ranger is slightly over-powered. The Wheel of Time Woodsman is blasphemey as far as I am concerned. A ranger should have some kind of limited spell capacity. I would play the Monte Cook ranger, but my gaming group only allows official WOTC products in our campaign, so I am stuck with the PHB ranger.

 

[Tsyr]

The Wheel of Time Woodsman is blasphemey as far as I am concerned. A ranger should have some kind of limited spell capacity.

Why?

I don't mean to be rude or anything, but... where do you get the idea that a ranger is supposed to be a spellcaster from? I'm asking this honestly, not trying to mock you. I cannot think of any pre-dnd Ranger archtypes that had ANY spellcasting ability (Aragorn, Legolas, Robin Hood (Ok, so robin hood was probably a rogue, even still...), and truth be told, many archtypical rangers in post DnD (Jon Winter, for example) and even DnD-brand fiction evidence no spellcasting ability (Despite, sometimes, their official stats showing they have them)... Drizzt and Tannis both come to mind for that.

To me, a ranger with spells is a druid with more focus on fighting than casting, not a ranger. A ranger, IMHO, is so "special" BECAUSE they don't need magic to survive in the wild.