The Gaming Den

Alright so we've got these classes, and each class kinda does a thing. We've got a lot of "core SRD" classes, and we've got a whole lot of extended classes. Some SRD Classes have been given a rewrite to boost them up into being a respectable class. A few more classes need somewhere from a slight boost (high level bard) to a heavy boost (paladin / ranger). Well, for a lot of classes, it's kinda clear what members of that class are doing in terms of both combat and non-combat. Well, what is the ranger's thing? The entire concept of Favored Enemy is pretty useless, and that was their big thing in the SRD, so they need a whole new thing.

Let's stop and review a second:

Class	Shtick
Barbarian	Rages into a super melee monster and hits things hard.
Bard	Sings and casts spells
Cleric	Casts divine spells of a mostly defensive and buff nature
Druid	Casts nature themed spells, turns into an animal, has a pet animal.
Fighter	Tactical "problem solver" guy that can foil any action
Monk	Unarmored Kung Fu guy with special stances that give benefits
Paladin	Fighting type that gets big bonuses against Evil creatures, also some healing probably.
Ranger	??? (probably an animal companion + other stuff)
Rogue	Sneaky guy that stabs things in the face really hard with sneak attack
Sorcerer	Limited spells / high slots caster with a theme based on path.
Wizard	High spells / limited slots caster that's usually "general", but sometimes a magic school theme.

So what sorts of class features should the Ranger be getting to be "ranger like"?

Wood-wise commando.

Archery and mobility in general.

Honestly, the Tome Fighter with a bow and the ranged combat feats handles it.

Generally when I think of Rangers, I think of the tracker, the hunter, the ghost in the trees. He's the guy who gets the party - rather than just himself - to their goal quickly and in stealth, facilitates ambushes, etc. So "sneaky, ranged guy with mobility-themed strategic abilities" would fit.

Nothing really that can't be handled by other classes. Just get rid of it.

(of course I do like playing as the Tome Ranger).

Yeah, that's the problem. A ranger is supposed to be like Aragorn, but Aragorn is kinda a Fighter4/Druid1 type of thing in tome Terms. I only say druid because he can do some healing stuff, which is all spells in LotR. Maybe he's even just a Fighter 5 with a special feat that lets him cast healing spells.

So like, what are some class features that a Ranger would have that would give them their own unique thing that a Fighter or Barbarian or Druid wouldn't do?

Favored enemy is a pretty unique mechanic, and tome ranger allows it you to gain certain abilities other than just pure numbers depending on what you take.

Also, Paladins are basically Cleric/Fighter, Bards (or pathfinders magus ) are basically wizard/fighters which means ranger being druid/fighter really isn't that strange.

Obviously a ranger ranges.

Favored Enemy is unique, but not big enough, and even if it were big enough the fact that it works against just a few creature types at a time makes it really stupid.

And being a Druid/Fighter is cool, but what's the hook for that? Paladins get a smite and mounted combat stuff, Bards get music stuff. What do Rangers do? I'm not trying to be difficult, I just wanna know what class features you'd write down in the Ranger class to make it a 20 level class with a unified theme and all that.

There's a "Tome Ranger" class that's 10 levels long and a little unrefined. It focuses a lot on spellcasting, but I have a feeling that most people wouldn't think that spellcasting is a major part of someone they'd call a "ranger".

We had a conversation about this over the winter... or last fall I think. ( edit: TRD Core Ranger conversation )

Ranger is, in fact, my favorite class, so I'm biased toward having it.

Putting that aside, though... It reads as a woodland skirmisher. Mobile hit and run fighting. More front line than rogue, less front line than barbarian, more mobile than a knight and archery to boot.

Rangers are largely a pregenerated multiclass template... which I think is okay. Where they fit combat-wise is a little difficult. If you broke down classes into a 9 celled grid for primal/arcane/divine and low/med/full bab ... barbarian already covers primal-full, fighter COULD cover arcane-full and paladin would cover divine-full. Leaving ranger at primal-med and more rogue-like skirmisher while less aragorn front line.

I've found it difficult to reconcile what I expect a Ranger to do (a lot) with a 'balanced' class.

What if Favoured Enemy was refluffed to "Expert Hunter" and instead of picking a type, you just made an appropriate knowledge check for the enemy you're fighting right then, and got the bonuses. Or a Bardic Music sort of thing keyed off of Knowledges to give you special attacks and manuevers?

Prak_Anima wrote:What if Favoured Enemy was refluffed to "Expert Hunter" and instead of picking a type, you just made an appropriate knowledge check for the enemy you're fighting right then, and got the bonuses. Or a Bardic Music sort of thing keyed off of Knowledges to give you special attacks and manuevers?

I was thinking something like this when I read the OP, that Favored Enemy needs to be rebuilt into something that doesn't require GM telepathy. In addition to the "roll knowledge to find their big red glowing spot" system, I would suggest a specialized use of Craft too, that lets them make things like silver-tipped arrows and zombie-repelling censer easier as well, so that, for things without glowing weak points to hit for massive damage can be prepped for.

Zord. The Ranger gets a Zord.

That could be the Favoured Enemy: Constructs ability. I'm 100% serious, allow rangers who are fighting constructs to "fight on their enemy's terms" by calling a nature-themed robot mech.

Ranger should be a leadership feat to get a pet, a feat to get favored enemy, and a feat that gives you wilderness skills that goes +6 into nature magic.

Fighter, barbarian, samurai, rogue are base classes that could use these feats.

Well, I've already established previously the rogue should be like Desert Punk so the ranger should be kinda like... Jin-Roh: The wolf Brigade with a naturalistic bent. They're well armed and armed special forces types they grant bonuses to allies, commune with pack animals like they're part of the group, debuff opponents, maybe gain traits based on magic beats through their intensive and specialized training.

I would say: the Ranger is a woodsy Rogue. He seems more like civilization than the Rogue because he's on the background of monster-infested wilderness instead of a city or something.

Nature magic, Animal Companion, Track... all of these are just ways of making him feel more woodsy. (It doesn't need to technically be woods; any sort of "wild" biome is good)

OgreBattle wrote:Ranger should be a leadership feat to get a pet, a feat to get favored enemy, and a feat that gives you wilderness skills that goes +6 into nature magic.

Fighter, barbarian, samurai, rogue are base classes that could use these feats.

Yep. Could just boil it down to some feats. A combat feat with favored enemy schtick (if you cared about favored enemy... I don't really), the Track [Skill] feat and a Beast Master [Skill] feat.

Beast Master [Skill]
You are the alpha.
Handle Animal ranks:
0: You have Animal Empathy. This allows you to use your Handle Animal check for Diplomacy with animals.
4: Animal Companion. This ability functions like the druid ability of the same name. A beast master may select from the alternative lists of animal companions just as a druid can with his effective druid level equal to his character level. Like a druid, a beast master cannot select an alternative animal if the choice would reduce his effective druid level below 1st.
9: You can Speak with Animals at will as a spell-like ability.
14: Magical Beast Companion. Your alternative Animal Companion may now instead of being an animal may be a Magical Beast. The requisite effective druid level for a magical beast is equal to its CR-4 (to a minimum of 1). Remainder effective druid levels give additional bonuses as with alternative Animal Companions.
19: Animals come when your need is greatest. As a spell like ability you may Summon Nature's Ally VII to summon animal entries only, once per day.

[edit: changed 14:'s Awaken Animal Companion to Magical Beast Companion.

In the video games, I assumed Ranger was a 5-7 level class that is used as an entry platform into Blackguard (and Assassin and similar crap). It didn't even occur to me that you might go beyond that.

So as long as it has Full BAB and Hide as a Class Skill, you're golden.

I think there's a space for a WardenRanger like the Kantian Paladin - a little bit thug, a little bit utility caster, something extra and unique to keep them level appropriate - just with druid spells and nature themes instead of cleric ones. You could update the favored enemy thing to provide useful combat styles or options (rather than pigeonhole bonuses), or you could let them call on the spirits of the ancients, or whatever.

But if you just want a nature boy going commando, use the Fighter or Soldier with appropriate gear and feats instead.

Originally, the Ranger was just the munchkin class. Got the best Thief skills, an extra hit die, Fighter attacks and saves and weapons and armour, and also Druid and Wizard spells at higher levels. Reduced surprise chance, crazy good magical companions, basically if there was a mechanic for things the Ranger could do it, and often better than you. On top of that, they got +1 damage per level against half the monster manual (all humanoids and giants) back when a Storm Giant had under 60 hp.

They're basically what a Fighter would be if people let them not suck, back in 1977. A dude who can kill the monsters with swords while having skills and also some basic support spells.


If you can't one-round storm giants by level 11, cast invisibility and entangle before surprising enemies with a storm of strongbow arrows, and also have Owlbears and Pixies as friends, then your Ranger design is worse than what people did at the dawn of time. You are, for the sake of tradition, encouraged to make it multi-attribute dependant to ease balance concerns.

Well, out of combat/utility is pretty easy. Rangers are woodsmen, so at low levels they should get stuff like stealth, tracking, survival skills, animal-themed abilities, etc. Basically what they already get in D&D (if skills worked). At higher levels they should get nature themed magic, so at the very least higher level spells than what they get in 3e, maybe also some nature-magic themed class features.

The real problem is their combat niche, because it isn't entirely clear what that is supposed to be. Their only distinctive ability is favoured enemy, which makes them into a sort of hunter class, so let's go with that. In the real world hunters don't enter melee with large animals, that doesn't make sense, and it doesn't make much more sense for high fantasy hunters to enter melee with dragons. So drop the two-weapon fighting option, rangers should have ranged attack and mobility based abilities and should probably also use reach weapons (eg spears) since that is pretty thematic for a hunter.

Another thing hunters do is set traps. It would be cool if rangers had some sort of trap-themed battlefield control. Not like DMG traps, something you can set up just before or even during combat. At higher levels their traps would be supernatural in nature.

Hunters have hunting companions, like dogs and horses. Unlike the druid, I see no thematic reason why this should have to be an animal companion. Mid/high level rangers could have griffon, manticore, or wyvern companions for example. Obviously they should get a companion at first level.

Honestly I think the hunter archetype is a rather rich source of inspiration, the only reason that isn't more obvious is because the 3e mechanics make the ranger little more than a fighter/druid, that isn't really inherent in the concept.

3e, maybe also some nature-magic themed class features.

Maybe he could get those "horizon walker" like problems powers.

Hunting is really just an exercise in "How do I catch X?" and superior mobility is only one of many potential answers, and it's often not even a particularly good one in D&D land. That's why it has long really bothered me that Rangers can't shut down invisibility or transportation tricks for their hunting party. I don't really give a shit if Rangers can summon nymphs or not but I find it pretty dumb that a spell casting class that's ostensibly good at physically murdering magical beasts never gets Blindsight, Invisibility Purge or Dimensional Anchor. When someone asks "Fucking blink dogs, how do they work?" a high level ranger should be able to provide an answer.

Why not just remove the fighter and make the ranger a more nature themed fighter, similar to how the barbarian/monk/paladin are fighters with a theme.