Simple question, what do you see as the Fighter's niche that the Ranger is unable to imitate?
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Get 11 bonus feats is probably the only answer.
Heavy Armor Damage Sponge?
Bonus feats, increasing flat modifiers to attack/damage that aren't related to the enemy that they're attack, and heavy armor.
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They have less fear to things due to bravery.
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Weapon specialization
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Don heavy armor and suck at everything other than standing still and full-attacking.
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2 bonus feats at the first two levels making the fighter a better dip than ranger.
Even that's a bit arguable, since the ranger's combat style bonus feats ignoring prerequisites can open up some options you wouldn't have access to with the fighter.
I don't see how heavy armor really means anything.
3 more AC wont save you enough from a monster swinging at +30.
The fighter will deal more consistent damage than a ranger and can hyper special and still be decent at other things.
However, the ranger will contribute outside of combat with skills. Against their favored enemies or when using Instant Enemy will do more damage than the fighter, they can buff themselves with spells reducing their reliance on others for success. They can use wands of Cure Light Wounds.
On average, the fighter will be somewhat better at dealing damage than the ranger. However, the ranger will contribute more overall to the party and when facing their favored enemy will deal more damage than the fighter does.
pass that fortitude save to not die from massive damage and survive massive damage ( granted the barbarian has better hit points generally)
If you're actually using that rule you have a lot more to worry about. Like what happens when you're wizard gets hit by the same attack and fails the fort save. Or, even in the event that they pass the save (which requires a minimum of 50 points of damage to invoke) they are still going to die very soon and the whole party will be up a creek without a paddle.
They can move at full speed in heavy armor, and they can use a higher DEX mod to their AC in heavy armor.
Those bonus feats don't have to be dedicated solely to DPR, but most optimization boards will call it heresy otherwise.
The big thing about the fighter is the overall consistent DPR, he is dependable where the ranger has to guarantee he is going to fight his favored enemy, either with Hunter's Howl or Instant Enemy, and at that the ranger is wasting resources that could be used on other things. Granted, for the ranger, it is actually a valid use of said resources considering how he is using them.
The main thing about fighters that everyone seems to get pissed about is the skill ranks per level, because they want to be able to complete some yet undescribed task. Profession (soldier) is a good skill to look at for tactical insight and mass combat rules, Intimidate is Intimidate. They get a couple of knowledges as well. Rangers don't get Engineering so they've got that going for them, for however much you think that's worth.
Those bonus feats don't have to be dedicated solely to DPR, but most optimization boards will call it heresy otherwise.
Pfff, if you are not taking Iron will (or steel sould if you can)you are not optimizing a fighter.
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Short answer: Nothing.
The Fighter doesn't do anything the Ranger can't do. He just does it better.
The Fighter is simply better at combat. He is the definitive martial expert. He can master multiple styles of combat and move at full speed in heavy armor.What about when you face one of the ranger's favoured enemies or he casts instant enemy?So what? So maybe the ranger gets in some extra damage in a situational case. I can turn that back on you. What happens when the Ranger is facing an enemy who's not favored, and doesn't quite fit in with his favored combat style? Two can play at that game.
Rangers are hobby casters, they actually don't have that many spell slots to play with.
Most of the time you will want to invest in a wand of it, for sure. You will also see a lot of switch hitters who can change their combat style on the fly to accommodate for an enemy's tactics.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in support of "fighters only suck because you think they suck," but let's not cut the ranger short on things the class actually does very well.
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So what? So maybe the ranger gets in some extra damage in a situational case. I can turn that back on you.
We have a problem right there.
So, the ranger is allowed to outdamage the fighter even if it just a couple of times at day. But the fighter is NEVER allwoerd to have more out of combat utility than the ranger, EVER. The sitautions is bltantly unbalanced.
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Let me see how fast your Ranger is running in Heavy armor and what your armor checks are like and come back to me again.Short answer: Nothing.
The Fighter doesn't do anything the Ranger can't do. He just does it better.
Before or after I buy mithral celestial plate armor?
I dont particularly care for either class, but a fighter's baseline numbers will be higher when dealing with his prefered method of combat. Thats about it. He also has more flexibility in terms of feat choice.
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And then the superstitious, invulnerable rager runs up and roflstomps them both...at the same
time :/
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While your Ranger is spending his extra dough on getting pixie armor, my Fighter will take that same gold for the extra costs of your fairy armor and spend it on items to improve his capabilities and open up other options.Before or after I buy mithral celestial plate armor?Let me see how fast your Ranger is running in Heavy armor and what your armor checks are like and come back to me again.Short answer: Nothing.
The Fighter doesn't do anything the Ranger can't do. He just does it better.
The problem with that is it's not too difficult or prohibitively expensive for a ranger to buy armour that simulates a fighter's mobility in heavy armour. For a fighter to purchase items that simulate a ranger's class abilities, I believe it is a different story altogether.
Does an item exist that gives Hide in Plain Sight? What is its cost? How about the ability to ignore feat prerequisites? 4 levels of spells? An animal companion? 2 good saves instead of 1? The ability to track? More skill points? And prolly a bunch of other things that I have forgotten the ranger can do because I rarely play them. But you get my drift. What equipment can a fighter buy to simulate a ranger's class abilities and at what cost?
While your Ranger is spending his extra dough on getting pixie armor, my Fighter will take that same gold for the extra costs of your fairy armor and spend it on items to improve his capabilities and open up other options.Before or after I buy mithral celestial plate armor?Let me see how fast your Ranger is running in Heavy armor and what your armor checks are like and come back to me again.Short answer: Nothing.
The Fighter doesn't do anything the Ranger can't do. He just does it better.
The problem with that is it's not too difficult or prohibitively expensive for a ranger to buy armour that simulates a fighter's mobility in heavy armour. For a fighter to purchase items that simulate a ranger's class abilities, I believe it is a different story altogether.
Does an item exist that gives Hide in Plain Sight? What is its cost? How about the ability to ignore feat prerequisites? 4 levels of spells? An animal companion? 2 good saves instead of 1? The ability to track? More skill points? And prolly a bunch of other things that I have forgotten the ranger can do because I rarely play them. But you get my drift. What equipment can a fighter buy to simulate a ranger's class abilities and at what cost?
I know that one of the Variant Wayfinder abilities allows you to gain a favored enemy. Most of the time they tell you to max out UMD which means any wands or scrolls are useable. A scroll of Greater Invisibility pretty much surpasses hide in plain sight, and what other spells are you worried about missing out on? Using your Wayfinder and a wand of instant enemy you can actually get all the DPR that the ranger gets plus more from being a fighter.
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Fighter over the Ranger, 10th level
Cons
1/3 the skill points with an inferior skill list
No Favored Terrain
No Favored Enemy
Bonus Feats require pre-requisites
No innate casting ability
No Animal Companion
Doesn't get the Track package(Track, Endurance, Woodland Stride, Swift Tracker)
Poor Reflex Save without EvasionPros
3 Additional Feats
+1 or +2 with Weapon Training
Armor Training
Modest increase to Will Save against Fear effects:/
COns, expanded
NO ability to buff with class features for boss fights.Combat BOnuses fall rapidly with secondary weapons.
Doesn't get bonus spells for having a high Wisdom.
Weapon Style feats are gained earlier then a fighter.
Heavy Armor prof and Armor Training nets out to a +1 AC bonus for 4 levels of class features.
No ability to heal himself or remove conditions.
Takes twice as many feats and skill points to make magic items.
Can't change his build (spells) to take advantage of downtime.
Has no th/damage bonuses at level 1-3.
Actually has to meet all level and stat pre-reqs for combat feats. The Ranger doesn't for his Weapon Style.
Including the Track package, gets no more Feats pre-10th then a Ranger.
Generally won't have the Dex to take advantage of Armor Training until extremely high levels.
Not only fewer skill points, but fewer Class Skills.
Pros
Don't have to worry about changing your build...you're always the same. And it takes 4 levels to remove a mistake, so you don't need to worry about it.
Same
Hit points.
Will save (but Rangers get spells for wis, too!)
Fort Save
Weapon Profs
==Aelryinth
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I know that one of the Variant Wayfinder abilities allows you to gain a favored enemy. Most of the time they tell you to max out UMD which means any wands or scrolls are useable. A scroll of Greater Invisibility pretty much surpasses hide in plain sight, and what other spells are you worried about missing out on? Using your Wayfinder and a wand of instant enemy you can actually get all the DPR that the ranger gets plus more from being a fighter.While your Ranger is spending his extra dough on getting pixie armor, my Fighter will take that same gold for the extra costs of your fairy armor and spend it on items to improve his capabilities and open up other options.Before or after I buy mithral celestial plate armor?Let me see how fast your Ranger is running in Heavy armor and what your armor checks are like and come back to me again.Short answer: Nothing.
The Fighter doesn't do anything the Ranger can't do. He just does it better.
The problem with that is it's not too difficult or prohibitively expensive for a ranger to buy armour that simulates a fighter's mobility in heavy armour. For a fighter to purchase items that simulate a ranger's class abilities, I believe it is a different story altogether.
Does an item exist that gives Hide in Plain Sight? What is its cost? How about the ability to ignore feat prerequisites? 4 levels of spells? An animal companion? 2 good saves instead of 1? The ability to track? More skill points? And prolly a bunch of other things that I have forgotten the ranger can do because I rarely play them. But you get my drift. What equipment can a fighter buy to simulate a ranger's class abilities and at what cost?
UMD is and has always been a copout. Now you're paying money and spending actions to try and emulate what a Ranger gets for free. It has nothing to do with the fighter class. You're trying to spend gold to replace what you can't do. That's a dead end cost-wise.
And I find it hard to believe that a fighter is going to try and get a +2 FE instead of having the Wayfinder give him the protective effect to cover his Will save with prot/evil's effect.
==Aelryinth
Well, charisma is a dump stat for most fighters, they only get 2 skill points (int often being their other dump stat) and UMD is not a class skill so, while it's prolly the best thing to do with a fighter, it doesn't really compare with 4 actual caster levels. All the wands and scrolls you'll be buying to simulate a ranger's casting ability aren't free. Hide in Plain Sight has no gold value cost for a ranger either.
I'm not saying there's no way for a fighter to simulate many of a ranger's class abilities, I'm just saying that it's not so cut and dry simple as LazarX made it sound a couple of posts back. Sure the ranger has to spend a fair bit of gold to simulate the mobility of a fighter in heavy armour but it's not like the fighter gets to have equipment to simulate a ranger's class abilities for free. I also don't believe it is possible to simulate all of the ranger's class abilities with items. He has many abilities for a fighter to simulate whereas the ranger only needs one set of armour to do what a fighter does well.
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UMD is definitely a copout.
You're telling me the fighter who likely has a cha of 7(-2) or 8(-1) is going to reliably activate any sort of magical item? Before level 11? BAH! You can't take 10, even outside of combat.
The fighter is going to spend half the campaign trying to activate magical items and failing, wasting his turn. Even when he finally gets a +10 bonus he only has a 50% chance of success. Pretty poor way to spend your time in combat.
While there are situations that the fighter will find especially problematic to deal with, like overly powerful spellcasters with range or reach, but at least in combat, a fighter is more a generalist, thus can be applicable in most any combat situation.
However, a ranger's primary weakness is under what circumstances the GM is putting him into. A ranger is more susceptable to getting screwed over by a GM. If a GM never confronts a party with a monster or enemy that also happens to be a ranger's favored enemy, no matter his bonuses, he may never get to use that ability (I have played a ranger, where the GM didn't want to specifically favor him in combat, his solution, was to never put a favored enemy as a possible threat, essentially ruining that class feature.)
The fighter is general enough not to put in many combat situations that he is at an especially more disadvantaged situation, than a fighter normally is in game. Whereas the ranger is at the mercy of the GM to a far greater degree.
While all character classess are susceptable to GM choices and forced situations, the fighter while generally disadvantaged compared to any class with out-of-combat utility or spellcasters in general, compared to many martials, lack of specialty, makes him more versatile no matter what the GM tries to do to disrupt class advantages.
Before or after I buy mithral celestial plate armor?Let me see how fast your Ranger is running in Heavy armor and what your armor checks are like and come back to me again.Short answer: Nothing.
The Fighter doesn't do anything the Ranger can't do. He just does it better.
Did you take the heavy armor proficiency to be able to wear that mithral celestial plate armor? Yes, it is considered medium armor, but you still need the heavy armor proficiency feat to not take the ACP to your attack rolls. Read the description for the Mithral special material if you don't believe me.
While your Ranger is spending his extra dough on getting pixie armor, my Fighter will take that same gold for the extra costs of your fairy armor and spend it on items to improve his capabilities and open up other options.Let me see how fast your Ranger is running in Heavy armor and what your armor checks are like and come back to me again.Before or after I buy mithral celestial plate armor?
Celestial Plate is only 25,000 GP (depending on caster level). That's not prohibitively expensive for +3 armor with an increased max dexterity bonus and a once/day fly spell. It's about the same cost as +3 plate armor and winged boots but it only takes up one slot.
Mithral certainly adds 9000 GP to the cost, but doesn't everyone get mithral armor at a certain point, anyway?
Did you take the heavy armor proficiency to be able to wear that mithral celestial plate armor? Yes, it is considered medium armor, but you still need the heavy armor proficiency feat to not take the ACP to your attack rolls. Read the description for the Mithral special material if you don't believe me.
Mithral + Celestial would make it light armor, and mithral celestial plate armor has a -0 ACP;-