Ranger Class Ideas

[Beskytter]

It would be great if we could help buff up rangers a little more to make them interesting and somewhat better in battle. As they stand, they're okay in battle and after one has spent their time working hard to improve their skills they can be on par with most of the other classes bit it seems like they suffer a bit when it comes to armor class and even in the DPR category which should be their specialty.

Archane Archers are usually a prestige class, but as noted before it isn't really easy to write a class into existence let alone prestige ones. However, feats that could add the concept of an archane archer would be nice.

Here's a list of what I'm thinking:

Enhance Arrow Feat: Can take it up to 5 times. Each time increases a non-magical arrow (or bow, depending on how the code reads it) to a magical one of +<numFeatRank>. Ideally most rangers will take one or two ranks in this along with the rest of their normal feats since they also suffer from not getting as many feat points.

Imbue Arrow Feat: Can take it only once. This allows a specific arrow to be imbued with a spell (like a potion or scroll) w/restrictions on type of spell. The spell slot is expended but basically 'magic spell' arrows can be made. I can see a restriction on how many can be made, but it would also make fletching your arrows a lot of fun when you can also imbue them yourself.

Hail of Arrows Feat: Can take only once. Similar to the hitall skill for fighters, this feat allows an archer to shoot a single arrow at each enemy in the room using their standard bab. This foregoes their full round of attack and negates additional attacks during the immediate round following it. (Thus limited the concept of just spamming this until all are dead)

Phase Arrow Feat: Can take only once. An archer is able to select his next attack to be a phase arrow, which negates concealment/cover and armor bonuses for the hit. The arrow travels through obstacles and always hits, however an archer will invoke AOO from any enemies and this ability must recharge. (Not sure on the recharging, someone let me know if that's possible... perhaps it can similar to Turning Undead.)

Nature's Armor Feat: Can take 5 times. Each time taken adds a +1 natural armor bonus to rangers as representing their natural struggle to endure the elements as they travel and train. It toughens them a bit, making them harder to hurt.

Spells:

Hunter's Mercy: Next hit is automatically a critical.
Lay of the Land: Grants us an idea of what is going on within a forest zone.
Sniper Shot: Ignore range on the next attack.
Phantasmal Decoy: Creates a phantom decoy for your enemy to chase. (Or focus on hitting.)

[Parsley]

I don't think that making them beefier would be make them more interesting. Let me explain:

Rangers fill sort of a niche between fighters and rogues, with the later having even worse Armor Class (Rangers can cast barkskin & cat's grace, which really helps)

I believe that they also get for free dual-wield feats which means that you don't need to put many stats points in dexterity to train them. Which frees points that they can be put in strength. What would turn them into shredding machines.

They are not just a class for tanking, but with the buffs of a wizard/cleric additionally to being a shredding machine they have decent Armor Class.

In order to make a more a constructive argument, I would add that dealing damage is their area of expertise, an improved racial enemy trait closer to 3.5 with support feats for it and an animal companion would help them while also enhancing their RP.

My two copper

[Ungtar]

I don't think they get the free dual wield feats. I believe I saw someone complaining about that in the past.

Before we go too far with adding new archery stuff, ought we not to fix the existing archery feats? I've been told that some of them don't work and the likelihood of finding a magical bow to get you past 1d6 damage is next to nil.

[Beskytter]

Rangers actually lose armor proficiency on gaining the class and don't get any feats for free. It locks us into light armor period unless we expend a valuable point to get it back. They /can/ do really good damage if they're stacked right but ultimately they have to trade between Dexterity and Wisdom with their stats. The feats would help them forgo the higher level spells in order to gain improvements to what they do best, shooting at things.

As an aside, I didn't know any of the archery things weren't working. I knew about the massive inability to get a magic bow, the one mine uses is 1d8 but still no magic. That's where my idea for the Enhanced Arrows Feat comes in. It removes our reliance on magic made bows since we can trade dual wielding feat points, or spell casting feat points, for adding some magic to our archery.

Like I said, stacked right, buffed right, spent lots and lots and lots of time on (just like any class) and a Ranger is on par with most classes, but they're supposed to be one of your main DPRs in a group even though their class speaks about them mostly being a solo style concept.

[Ungtar]

Been told this so it's second-hand info. I didn't want to test the feats myself since a reimbursement would be unlikely.

Far shot, rapid shot, and precise shot supposedly either don't give the bonuses described or are severely underperforming.

I love the bow for its "pulling" ability. I can bring my group one mob and one mob only from some location deeper in the area or dungeon. It makes combat very tactical. However it's 1d6 and very meh in terms of awesomeness, arrows are heavy, and you go through them very fast.

[Zorinar]

Rangers and Druids need a lot of love here. The problem is that one of their most important aspects is missing completely and I really don't think that most people are aware of just how important that loss is.

Companions and summon animal spells.

Rangers and Druids should get an ability to call/summon a combat useful animal companion that either sticks around until it dies or that acts like a monster summon spell that has a limited duration then runs back home.

Druids/Rangers should also be getting summon animal spells of various power depending on the spell level of the spell being cast.

On a side note, Druids also are not getting decent shapechange forms like they should, especially Treant and Elemental shape. The skill goes up so slowly that it is useless even if you do get those shapes later on. Shapechange needs to scale with level, not with skill ups. I personally have -NEVER- seen a shapechange hit on my druid.

The current companions that you can purchase just don't measure up. They are useless unless you uber-buff them with stoneskin, dragonskin, animal growth, Magic Fang and etc... Their damage is bad, and their AC/Hp are more like that of a goblin from HP. in DnD, the companions actually get stronger as the character levels up, both in AC and HP. I bought a dire wolf that actually lost its leg to the first bandit it met on a road, and the next bandit killed it. (It lost all its stamina just walking to the road from the forest where I bought it and I couldn't get off the road after it lost its poor leg. He lasted me all of 10 minutes from time of purchase to time of death.)

The problem is that the companions are a vital part of both classes and the spells of a Druid/Ranger are designed for having the companion, -even here on FK-. You have the Animal growth spells, magic fang spells and you have the heal animal companion spells on FK but no decent companion to go along with them. Both classes suffer in AC due to armor restrictions. in DnD, Druids get ironwood platemail available to them through spells to make up for the AC issue, but they don't have that here. Other classes also have AC issues but they have an offset, like the Thief (That does mega damage with backstab) and like the Bard (Has lots of spells and buffing songs). Currently, the Ranger/Druid classes don't have the damage output required to down their foes any faster than the counterpart Fighter/Priest but have all the AC woes of a thief. Animal companions help to offset this by giving extra damage source, and possibly a tank for those classes.

I really don't see either class fitting in balance-wise unless some of their core abilities are put in game. Right now, the ranger = slightly weaker fighter with terrible AC, and the Druid = Priest with really weak (buggy?) offensive spells and terrible AC and lacking the buffing capacity of a priest to boot.

[Gwain]

At one point there was massive abuse with the shapechange skill and polymorph, so I think it was nerfed collectively. I would suggest removing the current skill from the game and making it an a skill/spell you can apply for once trust is earned or making it strong again and having a policy of logging it's use in areas so that it can be removed by imms if it is judged to be abusive. No one should be using polymorph or shapechange to solo the underdark or equivalent places.

[Ungtar]

At one point there was massive abuse with the shapechange skill and polymorph, so I think it was nerfed collectively. I would suggest removing the current skill from the game and making it an a skill/spell you can apply for once trust is earned or making it strong again and having a policy of logging it's use in areas so that it can be removed by imms if it is judged to be abusive. No one should be using polymorph or shapechange to solo the underdark or equivalent places.

Polymorph simply isn't powerful enough to be massively abused at its current state. Whatever nerf it received in the past seems more than effective. It's a good skill for leveling as a mid-level mage, but I'd say there's a dozen other skills equally as awesome such as stone skin or invisibility.

[Ungtar]

Rangers and Druids need a lot of love here. The problem is that one of their most important aspects is missing completely and I really don't think that most people are aware of just how important that loss is.

I've got two druids, one of Malar and one of Chauntea, so I've seen both sides of the fence here. Druids have always been my favorite in every game I've played, and in FK they are fleshed out more than some of the other muds I have played which had them. However, still some stuff missing.

I don't feel like I'm missing any "power" by the less than full implementation of druids in FK. They are extremely powerful in terms of combat ability already just due to some of the spells they get. The ability to stack up stoneskins and heals on top of dragonskin is not to be underestimated.

I feel the love that's missing though is the other things druids get that aren't available in FK (at least not in code). Going by the druid handbook and the supplemental books, the specialist druids are amazingly cool. Wild shape druids? Yes, please! Weather control and nature summoning? Oh yeah! These things are sort of rolled up into a one-size-fits-all toolkit for FK druids that I have found difficult to really put into practice. I guess it's just the nature of the druid that they really shine with specialization and environment and that isn't something the existing code really supports.

What I would have liked to have seen would be more of the intangibles that make druids so cool in tabletop. Having animals come to tell you about something going on in a nearby forest, or adopting a specific region as your own and being absolute master there. That's what I miss.

[Woror]

This is a simplification, but in essence the warrior classes follow these guidelines.

Fighter -> Always powerful when using their signature weapon (by spending feats improving a particular weapon type).
Ranger -> Very Powerful when fighting their favored enemies, otherwise just ok (Favored enemy progression)
Barbarian -> Very powerful when raging, otherwise just ok (Rage progression)

[Yemin]

Apart from animal companions, Rangers do seem to be missing a bunch.
Do they currently get the chance to train Evasion as a feat as rogues?
It says they get evasion on the SRd.... so yeah.

Favoured enemy and terrain are also big ones as well as:
Woodland Stride (Ex): Starting at 7th level, a ranger may move through any sort of undergrowth (such as natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at his normal speed and without taking damage or suffering any other impairment.
However, thorns, briars, and overgrown areas that are enchanted or magically manipulated to impede motion still affect him.
From this, i guess it sounds like rangers should be having reduced stamina drain in the wilds or at least in their favoured terrains.

Also, I've never had the pleasure of fighting alongside a druid here. On tabletop, their wild shape i.e. shape change gets overused so even after sevral years in dnd. i don't really have a good idea / image of what a druid really looks like in terms of abilities that would seperate them from a cleric.

[Ungtar]

Druids stack up pretty admirably in terms of sheer power.

The lack of heavy plate is mitigated by dragonskin + cats grace. Plus, no domain spells, so if I want to stack up 14 stone skins and 18 heals then nothing is stopping me. A regular cleric with stone skin as a domain spell gets what, 5 stone skins? As for insta-death spells, drown works at least as often as phantasmal killer and probably slightly less often than power word kill.

Druids are well-coded and I don't feel like they're particularly weak in PVE. Of course in PVP they aren't as powerful as a cleric, but I suppose that's not really what they are made for.

I consider the druid to be sort of a self-buffing, healing, stoneskinning warrior and play that accordingly. They could be a lot more, of course, but killing things seems to be my gameplay no matter what class I pick.

The measure of power for me has been how easily a class deals with wyverns, purple worms, and hill giants. The druid does easily as well as any of my clerics or my warrior. I feel like they lack utility, not depth of raw power.

A big part of that is the campaign setting. Greenwood never treated druids properly, favoring instead the mages and such. If you read the druid's handbook then you'll be left wondering if Greenwood ever heard of it.

Druids are supposed to be tied to the land and a geographic location and their power is IN that land. Don't even get me started on the hierophants which are almost godlike druids.

Sorry to derail the ranger thread talking about druids. I'm just happy to talk about the nature classes.

[Yemin]

Thanks for the info. See honestly, before reading that. My image of druid was turn one, turn into bear, or elephant. turn two, stomp. Fight over.

Nature classes aren't really my thing but I do enjoy them in stories and novels.

[Ungtar]

Thanks for the info. See honestly, before reading that. My image of druid was turn one, turn into bear, or elephant. turn two, stomp. Fight over.

Nature classes aren't really my thing but I do enjoy them in stories and novels.

In other campaign settings, druids tend to be extremely non-confrontational. If you go to the forest to kill a druid, you'll find the forest confuses you and the path leads you right back out without you ever finding the druid. Vines ensnare the feet, birds squawk and fly at our eyes, and still can't find the druid.

Except for certain specialties of druid, the shapechanging wasn't used much to fight but rather to watch and observe events and intruders. They're the kings and queens of plots and schemes.

Greenwood took the druidic concept of "nature" and then split it all into pieces and had the pieces become theologically opposed to each other. I think Greenwood must have gotten poison ivy as a child and hated nature.

But imagine if you, as a druid, could pull all of that off in a FK campaign setting? You see what I mean about how their awesomeness doesn't really come across in a spell or ability?

[Hrosskell]

At one point there was massive abuse with the shapechange skill and polymorph, so I think it was nerfed collectively. I would suggest removing the current skill from the game and making it an a skill/spell you can apply for once trust is earned or making it strong again and having a policy of logging it's use in areas so that it can be removed by imms if it is judged to be abusive. No one should be using polymorph or shapechange to solo the underdark or equivalent places.

Even the most powerful stages of polymorph of old would not compare to the destructive capability of a properly built fighter today--unless of course the base races were updated as well to have Spell Resistance/Damage Reduction. That would be the only reason not to give wizards and druids love in this area--it's a valid playstyle, one that takes as much dedication to master as grinding auto attacks.

I remember wanting to be a treant or an elemental so bad on my druid long ago. Taking the shape of raw nature, actual guardians of the ethos, is a wonderful capstone for a character and something that I think druids especially deserve. It's not an easy path to walk in RP or in code, and should be rewarding.

[hasryn]

I was wondering if we might see the spell water breathing added to the rangers spell list? It would be something to go along with water walk which isn't a game available in game. It would add to the classes utility and repetoire for the better.

Also what are others thoughts on the skill grip? It's not a skill in 3.5 at all but it would be one of those things that would fit for the class. As they are about there swordsmanship and bowmanship. Others thoughts and opinions?

[Yemin]

I'm of the opinion that all warrior classes, ranger's included should get grip as a skill.
They along with paladins might get the perks of spells and special abilities, areas or other skills, but I think the lost of feat points is a big enough detractor on its own.

[hasryn]

I agree wholeheartedly

[Vaemar]

I agree as well, since the skill is something any warrior would likely do. After all fighting is their main focus.

As for the ranger class I have stated already elsewhere my opinion is that it should be given what it has in tabletop 3.5 edition.

In short:
-the 3 bonus feats for the chosen combat style
-5 favoured enemies by level 50
-hide anywhere
-evasion

Which, in my opinion, makes sense, since already in the srd that makes the class appealing but not overpowered.

[hasryn]

Rangers do have evasion it's given automatically at around 30ish?