yet another Ranger class
- Thread starter Kyramus
- Start date
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
I would say the problem with giving this Ranger the unarmed fighting is it takes a way from a lot of the flavor and uniqueness that is the Monk.
The skill point increase, while I don't particularly like it, I can understand the reasoning. Makes sense for this concept of the Ranger.
The idea with Saves that was addressed before is that all Fighter style classes in d20(okay, most) have a good Fort Save, and a BAD Will Save. This is the opposite for dedicated casters(...well, Arcane casters). Its really a balance issue so the class isn't too good on all points. Iron Will as a bonus feat could work fine though.
Truthfully, I have no problem at all with the current Ranger in the PHB. It may be a little frontloaded, but other than that you can do anything you want with it...just like any other class, its only a starting point for your character. You take it where you want from there. Just don't expect to get only praise about your version of the Ranger, because(despite what the numbers seem to say) a lot of us DO like the Ranger as is.
The skill point increase, while I don't particularly like it, I can understand the reasoning. Makes sense for this concept of the Ranger.
The idea with Saves that was addressed before is that all Fighter style classes in d20(okay, most) have a good Fort Save, and a BAD Will Save. This is the opposite for dedicated casters(...well, Arcane casters). Its really a balance issue so the class isn't too good on all points. Iron Will as a bonus feat could work fine though.
Truthfully, I have no problem at all with the current Ranger in the PHB. It may be a little frontloaded, but other than that you can do anything you want with it...just like any other class, its only a starting point for your character. You take it where you want from there. Just don't expect to get only praise about your version of the Ranger, because(despite what the numbers seem to say) a lot of us DO like the Ranger as is.
"Granted the will save is factoring in that the Rangers push forward against all odds, I could easily substitute this with iron will and be done with it."
Just about any warrior can easily be said to "Push against all odds." I don't think there's anything about being a woodsman that makes you more likely to be strong willed than a soldier, or a holy warrior, but using Iron Will is deifnitey better than giving them a good Will save.
"Kyramus: hmmm people have been changing things in any version. Just because I change something to add to this particular Ranger, doesn't make me right or wrong. Its just me making a more logical ranger."
Of course it makes you wrong. You don't give core classes the unique abilities of other core classes. That's the whole point of having a class system to begin with.
"Unarmed fighting vs Animal friendship. By level 10 the ranger's animal friendship total is 10 HD. let's see. What's the difference?"
The difference is that first of all, a 10th level ranger only gets 5HD worth of animal companions... And being able to make FOUR attacks for 1d10+STR damage at will is a lot more powerful than that.
"oh sure, Unarmed fighting is TOOOOO powerful to be used to replace 2 feats of two weapon fighting and ambidexterity as well as the spell capacity."
Sarcasm works better when what you say actually isn't self-evident.
Who's repalcing spellcasting and Ambidex/TWF with Unarmed Fighting? You're replacing Ambidex/TWF with Flurry of Blows, Improved Unarmed Strike, and one other feat (forgot the name, lets you stay conscious longer.)
That means you're replacing the potential spellcasting ability with a better Will save, more skill points, an extra feat (since it only takes two to make up for Ambidex/TWF, although it's a stretch to say those are actually worth anything), and an absurdly powerful (Fighter BAB, monk iterative attack progression and damage die, lets you wear armor) unarmed combat ability.
There's not even a semblance of balance... And it's not going to get better as long as you insist on giving one core class the unique ability of another.
Just about any warrior can easily be said to "Push against all odds." I don't think there's anything about being a woodsman that makes you more likely to be strong willed than a soldier, or a holy warrior, but using Iron Will is deifnitey better than giving them a good Will save.
"Kyramus: hmmm people have been changing things in any version. Just because I change something to add to this particular Ranger, doesn't make me right or wrong. Its just me making a more logical ranger."
Of course it makes you wrong. You don't give core classes the unique abilities of other core classes. That's the whole point of having a class system to begin with.
"Unarmed fighting vs Animal friendship. By level 10 the ranger's animal friendship total is 10 HD. let's see. What's the difference?"
The difference is that first of all, a 10th level ranger only gets 5HD worth of animal companions... And being able to make FOUR attacks for 1d10+STR damage at will is a lot more powerful than that.
"oh sure, Unarmed fighting is TOOOOO powerful to be used to replace 2 feats of two weapon fighting and ambidexterity as well as the spell capacity."
Sarcasm works better when what you say actually isn't self-evident.
Who's repalcing spellcasting and Ambidex/TWF with Unarmed Fighting? You're replacing Ambidex/TWF with Flurry of Blows, Improved Unarmed Strike, and one other feat (forgot the name, lets you stay conscious longer.)
That means you're replacing the potential spellcasting ability with a better Will save, more skill points, an extra feat (since it only takes two to make up for Ambidex/TWF, although it's a stretch to say those are actually worth anything), and an absurdly powerful (Fighter BAB, monk iterative attack progression and damage die, lets you wear armor) unarmed combat ability.
There's not even a semblance of balance... And it's not going to get better as long as you insist on giving one core class the unique ability of another.
Last edited:
mmu1 said:
giving one core class the unique ability of another. hmmm why should we have prestige classes then? which is usually passing unique abilities around. Take for example the dragon disciple, after the transformation he's better off as a fighter than as a wizard. hmmm I'm not insisting on giving one core class unique ability to another, it's already being done.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Kyramus said:
That actually is different. The CORE classes don't trade abilities around to give each Class its own unique place. PrCs on the other hand, are diverse and show a specialization or some other more focussed path. They have thier own special abilities, AND some from the major Core classes...but not ALL. Biggest example off the top of my head is the Monk's Unarmed Attack Bonus...how many classes, PrC or Core, do you see with this? None. Why? Its something that can be VERY powerful and it seperates the Monk from everyone.
There's no point in having this discussion if you're determined to misrepresent the rules to make your argument.
Adventuring Druids and Rangers only get animal companions with hit dice equal to their caster level. It's in the SRD. Having animal companions with HD equal to 2 x Caster Level is the exception, not the rule.
As for the rest of it:
1. Your numbers are worthless, since you're not actually calculating average damage, you're just massaging them in convenient ways to try to "prove" the lion does more damage... If he hits with his +7 bite, and then connects with both rear claws, that is. Not that how much damage the Lion does actually proves anything about the relative usefulness of that Unarmed Strike and Animal Friendship through levels 1-20, anyway.
2. Animal friendship is that great, eh? The Intelligence 2 Dire Lion that weighs 3500 pounds and is 20 feet long, but only has an AC of 15 and 60hp is going to crawl through the dungeons with you, and charge into combat to provide flanking?
The reality of the matter is that it's too big to be able to adventure along with a party (most of the time), doesn't have enough AC and hit points to survive at level 10 (learned that through experience), and is as dumb as a rock. It's not a party member, it's cannon fodder, which is why most Rangers end up leaving them behind... They're inconvenient and it's bad role-playing to constantly let them get mauled or killed.
Finally, giving away Core class abilities... First of all, I'm talking about CORE classes, and you're talking about PRESTIGE CLASSES. Second, last time I checked PrC's weren't in the habit of giving Fighters full arcane spellcasting abilities and familiars, giving Druids Bardic Music, giving monks Weapon Specialization, Favored Enemy and Rage, etc, all on top of their current class abilities. I'm sorry if you can't understand the difference.
Adventuring Druids and Rangers only get animal companions with hit dice equal to their caster level. It's in the SRD. Having animal companions with HD equal to 2 x Caster Level is the exception, not the rule.
As for the rest of it:
1. Your numbers are worthless, since you're not actually calculating average damage, you're just massaging them in convenient ways to try to "prove" the lion does more damage... If he hits with his +7 bite, and then connects with both rear claws, that is. Not that how much damage the Lion does actually proves anything about the relative usefulness of that Unarmed Strike and Animal Friendship through levels 1-20, anyway.
2. Animal friendship is that great, eh? The Intelligence 2 Dire Lion that weighs 3500 pounds and is 20 feet long, but only has an AC of 15 and 60hp is going to crawl through the dungeons with you, and charge into combat to provide flanking?
The reality of the matter is that it's too big to be able to adventure along with a party (most of the time), doesn't have enough AC and hit points to survive at level 10 (learned that through experience), and is as dumb as a rock. It's not a party member, it's cannon fodder, which is why most Rangers end up leaving them behind... They're inconvenient and it's bad role-playing to constantly let them get mauled or killed.
Finally, giving away Core class abilities... First of all, I'm talking about CORE classes, and you're talking about PRESTIGE CLASSES. Second, last time I checked PrC's weren't in the habit of giving Fighters full arcane spellcasting abilities and familiars, giving Druids Bardic Music, giving monks Weapon Specialization, Favored Enemy and Rage, etc, all on top of their current class abilities. I'm sorry if you can't understand the difference.
Last edited:
What you seem to have done is thought of everything that you think a U.S. Army ranger trains to do and given them every ability that seems to relate to that training. The problem is that the sum of all of those abilities is probably greater than the balance of a given core class. I would agree that making their unarmed attack better than that of the monk is a bad idea, unless perhaps your campaign has no monks. I would also change the Will save and the skill points back to the original. After all, 4 skill points per level is as good as anyone except rogues and better than a bunch of classes (including fighters and paladins). I think the biggest problem with modelling the ranger after the US Army Rangers is that the perception is that these are the best soldiers. Therefore, your tendency is to give them better abilities than fighters, and therefore you make them unbalanced relative to other fighting classes.
As far as the argument about spells, remember that rangers don't get very many of those at any given level. They're also less likely to take Scribe Scroll or Brew Potion, so they don't generally rely on their spells. Yes, there are a lot of useful spells, but a) the ranger is getting them at higher levels than a druid would, and hence they won't be as effective as they were for a first level druid, and b) the ranger can only prepare a small number of spells.
You also made a reference to Aragorn never casting spells. He does, however, use a lot of magical abilities that I believe are the reason spells were added to the ranger class in the first place.
--Axe
As far as the argument about spells, remember that rangers don't get very many of those at any given level. They're also less likely to take Scribe Scroll or Brew Potion, so they don't generally rely on their spells. Yes, there are a lot of useful spells, but a) the ranger is getting them at higher levels than a druid would, and hence they won't be as effective as they were for a first level druid, and b) the ranger can only prepare a small number of spells.
You also made a reference to Aragorn never casting spells. He does, however, use a lot of magical abilities that I believe are the reason spells were added to the ranger class in the first place.
--Axe
Similar Threads
