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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gromm" data-source="post: 197321" data-attributes="member: 2245">In all the time I've been playing 3e, noone has yet to make, or want to make a Ranger. The reasons for this are painfully obvious compared to the other classes.1) All cool Ranger abilities take forever to get and have limited use, or are achievable with a single level of Ranger. Two weapon fighting, Ambidex, Tracking, Imp Two Weapon.. they are given at 1st level or require something not related to the class (BAB). Why take more than one Ranger level? Not for the abilities.2)Rangers can't fight as well as Fighters or Barbarians unless they multiclass- which for this thread defeats the purpose of the class. The class abilities don't compare to a Paladins- all Paladin abilites get better with levels (lay on hands, mount, etc). It takes 5 levels to get a mere +1 bonus for a favor enemy. Assuming you're even fighting that enemyFighters get Specialization and tons of Feats, not to mention heavy armor. Barbarians get 1d12hps, Rage, Fast movement and Damage Reductio; not to mention fairly good skills. Paladins get decent skills, great saves, lay on hands, a mount,and immunity to fear/disease.Rangers admittedly have the best skills of the 4 fighting classes, and arguably the better spell list with later books (though Paladins have some amazing spells like Holy Sword). The skills are nice, but ones probably better served with Rogue levels since you get even more points, sneak attack, and a host of other possible Rogue abilities in the long run vs a couple more favored enemies and maybe a couple points of BAB (which could be gotten with say Ftr or Brb levels just as easily for more gain).I might have overlooked a couple of things, but these seem to me to be the two big reasons noone plays Rangers. They're better fighters than say Rogues, but not that much better, and Rogues get sneak attack which really evens the playing field in most ways. The only reason to really play them is all the virtual feats, but you get all of those with one level of Rgr- why bother with 2 levels?  It seems like Rangers are some sort of mix of Druids, Rogues, and little Fighter- only they aren't too good at any of it. A level 1 Ranger gets 3 virtual feats. A level 2 Ranger gets +1 BAB. Same for Lvl3. And 4. At 5 they get another favored enemy (a very iffy ability anyway, much less 1 whole point of damage at level 5). At 6... nothing. And so on until level 9 where they get ITWF, but they get that if they took Ftr levels the whole way after 1 too.Compared to every other class they seem to be underpowered and washed out. Other than single level to reap the benefits of the feats has anyone ever really played the character much? I really want to believe that all the classes are equal in thier own way, but it seems like WotC didn't bother to play test the poor old ranger.I'm looking for some Ranger lovers to renew my faith in the class (not counting Monte's alternative).</blockquote>

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