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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StGabriel" data-source="post: 426062" data-attributes="member: 8225">Rangers ... blahIt's not that ranger spells are worthless, it's just that they're nearly so at the rate they are given.  Yes, you can tell me the virtues of hunter's mercy and entangle, but when those are your ONLY spells at level 7 I'm just not that impressed.  It's not that rangers are bad skills, they're ok.  But they can't really support the int for high skills, and 3/4ths of their base points are already spoken for (hide, move silently, wilderness lore).It's not that ambidexterity and TWF suck, it's just that they're definitely not amazing without sneak attack and being decked out with nice weapons.  It's that the class gets three feats at level 1, and ever after only only has TWO special abilities, neither of which are that great.  Both sides of that point to the fact that rangers end up being used for exactly one level by most any person who cares to min/max even a smidgeon.Favored enemy is nice, anywhere from 1 to 3 encounters out of 20 or so.  It's a toy ability.  Fun to have, but only barely enhances the class.All in all, everything measures up to being blah and mediocre.  The class is forced.  It gets arbitrary combat feats that don't really make sense.  It uses other classes spells, and gets them really slowly.  It has one unique ability that isn't very powerful.  If anything, it has no style.  Sure, you can bring a lot of style to the class yourself, but you're not getting any help by the rules.  There is a very broad selection of fiction featuring very interesting ranger types to draw on, and the PHB ranger hardly draws from any of it.  In campaigns I've played in, I have watched several rangers struggle both to feel basically competent in combat, and to feel that their character had abilities that matched what they wanted their character to be.It's no coincidence that on Icewind Dale 2 boards I have seen person after person give the same advice: 1 level in ranger is great, more than one is stupid.  Min/max and balance really comes out in that setting and though the ranger was fairly faithfully rendered in the game, it just isn't up to snuff. Monte's ranger goes on to have other problems.  Firstly, it's overpowered.  Secondly, it just tries to make up things for the ranger by giving it more.  Not really interesting stuff, but just more feats, more skills, and more saves.  To do the ranger right will require giving the class more original content and more inherent style.---StGabriel, the Taoist saint.</blockquote>

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