The Gaming Den

Ranger Lord

There are bad things in the lands beyond the Kingdom. Very bad things. So the monarch, in his benevolence, established the order of rangers to be his agents, patrolling the borders of his land, protecting from external threats, both natural threats and threats from the giants, necromancers, and other menaces.

Trained in magical arts by the Wizard's Guild, they wield sword and sorcery in the name of progress and civilization.

Races: Only races with stable agrarian society have Ranger Lords; most are human, elven, or halfling.

Alignment: Any Good

HD: D10
BAB: 1/1
Saves: Ref, Will
Proficiencies: All simple and martial weapons; light, medium, and heavy armor; shields and tower shields.
Skills: 6/sp per level: (as PHB ranger, but with diplomacy, sense motive, intimidate, gather information added)

1 Familiar, Woodland Stride, Trailblazer: Handle Animal
2 Sniper, Speak With Animals, Trailblazer: Listen
3 Rune of Dog, Animal Trance, Trailblazer: Swim
4 King's Bounty +1d6, Diminish Plants, Trailblazer: Ride
5 Rune of Horse, Trailblazer: Hide
6 Giant Slayer, Trailblazer: Climb
7 Rune of Eagle, Trailblazer: Knowledge (Nature)
8 King's Bounty +2d6, Trailblazer: Jump
9 Rune of Monkey, Trailblazer: Move Silently
10 Mage Slayer, Trailblazer: Spot

Trailblazer: (Ex) Any ally who can see you can use your ranks in these skills in place fo thier own.

Familiar: As a wizard, with the following options:

Riding Dog: +2 Will
Horse: +2 Fort
Monkey: +3 Climb (like a cat with a climb speed and hands)
Eagle: +3 Spot

Rune of Dog: (Sp) As Alarm, but the sound is a barking dog; at your option, the area may be patrolled by a *silent image* of a dog. At will.

Rune of Horse: (Sp) Phantasmal Horse, at will.

Rune of Eagle: (Sp) 1/day, create an incorporeal eagle through whose eyes you can see. It flies at 60 feet, uses your ranks in spot and hide (it is medium with 10 DEX and WIS), and as many hit points as you do.

Rune of Monkey: 3/day, telekinesis.

King's Bounty: Choose a creature type or humanoid/outsider subtype. You deal bonus damage against it. You can change this type whenever you rest for 8 hours.

I'm not sure how much I like the flavor of the class...honestly, I think it needs to be more generic. (Why must they be from this Kingdom?)

Here's how I see it:

Flavor is highly mutable. All of us know how to re-write flavor text, all of us like to create our own settings, and all of us are quite comfortable reflavorign and even revising classes.

So, writing some really generic flavor a la PHB doesn't really help much. It accomplishes the most basic need of class flavor -- it explains the character concept so people can judge whether the class does what it's meant to do. But it completely fails on the front of actually being interesting or informative.

Writing specific flavor, however, is actually a lot better for our purposes. It gives you an even clearer picture of what I imagine the character to be like. Furthermore, it has the potential to actually be interesting. If you don't like the Kingdom, you are entirely within your rights to reflavor the class without it. But maybe, just maybe, one reader will like the Kingdom so much that they'll put it into a game -- maybe even one who doesn't actually use my class.

In the meantime, I'll note that the Kingdom is vague enough that you can imagine it being almost anywhere or anything, and in fact, there's no reason every nation in your world can't have its own Ranger Lords, if your setting is culturally homogenous enough.

Do you have any other rangers in conception? Because I'm thinking about how to combine the 2 here (using spellcasting).

Yes -- I have one leftover flavor concept, and one leftover mechanic.

Ideologically, I've already done the ranger as "paladin of nature" and "champion of civilization" -- the next Ranger would be ideologically neutral -- someone who happens to be good in the woods, but not philosophically comitted to it.

My original idea was that this would be a less-magical class for those who just want to creep around in the woods sniping people. But I'm increasingly unsure we need one when Fighter and Wilderness Rogue already exist.

Also, I do intend to do a spellcasting ranger eventually. Actually, the Ranger Lord was originally going to be an arcane caster (with a lot of spells from the druid list) and 20 levels, but (a) that was more work to design, and I wanted to get it posted, (b) Once I hit on the idea of doing animal theme spell-likes, spellcasting seemed unnecessary, and (c) the only person I know who actually wanted a Tome ranger for an actual game needed it for a new player who doesn't want spells.

That said, I may well do a spellcaster with the Ranger lord flavor if people want it.

What kind of casting do we want for Rangers anyway? 4- or 6- level casting with lots of buffs and swifts, as a means to combat effectiveness? Or 6- to 9- level casting used for utility and crowd control?

For Ranger Lord, I'm seeing buffs as thier fighting ability... But maybe my third ranger variant should be a fey-themed ranger who throws down sleep and entangle before shooting people in the face.

Why not "6 levels, limited spells known, anything from druid/ranger"? That way, you can have either.

The quintessential ranger, in my mind, really is a 'wilderness rogue'. Her key skills are Survival, Search, Knowledge (nature, possibly others), Handle Animal, Heal, Craft, Spot, Listen, Hide, Ride, and Move Silently.
A ranger's classical weapons are the bow and (Aragorn notwithstanding) the axe.

I see abilities falling into two basic categories. There are the 'traveler' abilities of endurance and provisioning (endure elements+, goodberry/heroes feast+), and the 'hunting' abilities (camouflage, tracking, alertness, traps, weapons).


Good Fort, full BAB, D8 HD, and 8 skill points/level are probably a good place to start. The ranger has pretty much full MAD, with charisma being the only true dump. I'd be hesitant to make the character into another barbarian/monk (that is, Con + Wis warrior).

Really incomplete ability lists:

Camouflage

• pass without trace 1/day
• pass without trace at will
• Woodland stride
• Camouflage
• Hide in plain sight

Endurance

• endure elements 1/day
• endure elements at will

Hunting

• Track
• snare at will

Provisioning

• goodberry 1/day
• goodberry at will
• greater magic weapon on an axe or bow 1/day
• secure shelter 1/day
• greater magic weapon on an axe or bow at will
• heroes feast 1/day

Bigode --

Magic is either used offensively or it isn't. There are a whole bunch of requirements before magic can effectively be used offensively:

Full Caster Level
High Casting Stat
Decent Spell Levels or other DC boosters.

So if we want the Ranger to be casting offensive magic, we know that he will crank his WIS (or other casting stat), reducing his ability ot have natively high physical stats. Also, he will shun multiclassing because he can't afford to get off the DC and caster level train. The class might need DC -- boosting class features.

If he's just going to buff and gish out, the offensive spells might as well not even be there. He can multiclass, keed a low to mid wisdom, etc.

The party role, possible multiclasses, and many other things are dependant on whether he's casting spells on himself, his enemies, or both. Both is a possible answer -- either because all rangers will do both, or because allr angers will buff, with the offensive spells balanced just precisely so that some but not all will use them. However, for simplicity's sake, I'd rather just decide what the magic is for and write that.

You already gave enough Wis-based stuff that it's an important ability, battlefield control doesn't care all that much about save DCs, and I wouldn't ever entertain not using full CL. Thus, the only possible problem's "some idiot picked a save-based druid spell", and I don't think it's enough of a concern to cut it off from the other interesting spells from lots of books by confining it to a pre-set spell list; also, the concept's open enough to deserve this freedom (IMO).

I also thought it should be more generic, and attempted to combine the 2 Boolean Rangers (bonus points if we could make a pun on it with some ability) - also important that both might've needed more cowbell. And don't forget, flavor is mutable: for some characters, a "spirit" might not even be a spirit, for example.

HD: D8
BAB: Good
Saves: Ref
Skills: 6/level (whatever)
Proficiencies: all simple and martial weapons, light armor, shields (+ whatever)

1 First Spirit, Trailblazer, Woodland Stride (Woodlore?)
2 Animal Trance, Speak with Animals, Trackless Step
3 Animal Messenger, Woodland Grace
4 Diminish Plants, Facestab +1d6
5 Second Spirit
6 Herbalist (better)
7 Evasion
8 Facestab +2d6
9 Tree Stride
10 Third Spirit
11 X
12 Facestab +3d6
13 Y
14 Z
15 Fourth Spirit
16 Facestab +4d6
17 A
18 B
19 C
20 Facestab +5d6, Fifth Spirit

Facestab: I was thinking sneak attack, but you don't need to meet any conditions against chosen creature types.

Alarm/Rune of Dog -> becomes an aspect
Rune of Eagle -> becomes a spell

Spellcasting: Divine, as Bard (no more than 3 slots/level), Wis-based, Druid/Ranger (as if 1 level higher) lists.

If too strong, convert the other at-will SLAs into aspects (I'm taking the cue from terror).

As for the lettered abilities, stuff like improved evasion, hide in plain sight, your "lord" ideas, and possibly a feat progression (though I'd be against fixed feats; let's give the spear hunter some love).

You realize the spirit ranger was pretty competitive *without spells*, right? go ahead and playtest this, but I think it'll be a little much.

Draft Material:

Ranger Lord:

BAB: Good; Saves: Fort, Will
Proficiencies: Simple and MArtial Weapons, shields, heavy armor
Skills: 6/level

1 Familiar,
2 Trailblazer
3 First Rune
4 Trailblazer
5 Second Rune
6 Trailblazer
7
8 Third Rune
9
10
11 Fourth Rune
12
13
14 Fifth Rune
15
16
17 Last Rune
18
19
20



Spellcasting: The Ranger spontaneously casts arcane spells without spell failure, based on charisma, knowing *all* the spells on the following list, using the bard spell progression.

Trailblazer: Choose a skill from the following list: Spot, Listen, Hide, Move Silently, Climb, Swim, Jump, Ride, Handle Animal: All allies who can see you use your ranks in the skill in place of thier own.

Rune of Dogs:

Rune of Monkeys: Mage Hand, Telekinesis (level 4)

Rune of Horses: Mount, Phantom mount

Rune of Eagles: The following spells are aded to your list: Prying Eyes, Fly, Air Walk

1 Calm Animals, Cure Light Wounds, Detect Animals or Plants, Detect Snares and Pits, Endure Elements, Pass without Trace, Resist Energy, Speak with Animals
2 Animal Trance, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Diminish Plants, Eagle's Splendor, Delay Poison, Hold Animal,
3 Anitplant Shell, Command Plants
4 Freedom of Movement, Spike Stones
5 Commune with Nature, Control Winds, Stoneskin, Tree Stride, Wall of Thorns
6 Antilife Shell, Find the Path, Ironwood, Repel Wood, Transport via Plants, Wall of Stone