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DISCLAIMER1: I’m a complete newbie when it comes to D&D and Pathfinder, having started by career only four months ago. However, I’ve been a RPG gamer for 20+ years, so RPG mechanics in general are familiar to me so I have something to reflect my Pathfinder experiences on. If I misinterpret Pathfinder rules or flat out write falsehoods, it’s due to my inexperience. Sorry!
DISCLAIMER2: I'm posting this also in my blog, so sorry for all the Captain Obvious statements and links you all probably are quite familiar with - the blog readers should learn of the same resources though!
Having browsed and searched the forums here looking for general experiences about gameplay with the spell-less ranger (SLR) class in particular, I regret there are very little in the way of good discussion outside the paizo.com's “official” thread for Q&A about the class here. I’m hoping to change that by opening a thread were I discuss my personal experiences about playing (and roleplaying!) a spell-less ranger. I call other spell-less ranger players to join me in the discussion, and of course, comments from non-players are welcome as well.
If you are unfamiliar with the SLR, read more here or here, or bug Marc Radle, the class developer. In very short, the SLK exchanges spell-casting abilities for ranger talents (resembling rogue talents, but specifically designed with the ranger in mind), stealth attack (more or less the same as sneak attack, but can be only performed against favored enemies or in favored terrains) and an animal companion that has the same level as the ranger itself (normal ranger’s companion’s level is -3 to the ranger’s).
As a short brief, I’ve been playing a SLR called Alpharius in a RotRL campaign for the past four months or so (read about the campaign through Alpharius’ eyes in his personal journal here or here). Alpharius is a loner, bounty hunter and ex-slave half-elf from Molthune on a quest to find his twin brother (not called Omegon, for you 40k fans!) and had the (mis-)fortune to be swept into a riveting adventure with other fantastic characters. The first defining moment in his life took place when he was nine, when slavers raided his home village and took him and his twin brother as slaves, and later when he was eighteen, when the head of the slaver family sent his brother to a suicide mission, whereupon Alpharius decided to escape to find him - right after he had assassinated the head of the family in cold retribution. He is now 25, and has spent the last years on the run, looking for his brother. The funniest thing is that Alpharius really isn't a ranger per se, but a bounty hunter by training - who just happens to have the skillset of a spell-less ranger! I love it how the class allows this!
DISREGARDING COMBAT STYLE OPTIMIZATION AND HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE THE STEALTH ATTACK AND FAVORED ENEMIES & TERRAINS
From the start I envisioned Alpharius’ brother as the heavy hitter of the family with a huge blade and Alpharius himself as the more traditional ranger with the longbow and arrow. But, due to a) his past as a slave hunting other slaves, thiefs, assassins and killing people his master wanted to have killed and b) his owner family owning and maintaining a cadre of gladiators, I wanted him to be proficient with two-weapon fighting, namely the gladii. To me, it didn't make sense to have a bounty hunter character trained by gladiators and assassins that focused on archery only, and that was when Rule of Cool made an entry. When I was coming up with him, I quickly realized my personal code when it came to RPing was Rule of Cool > Roleplaying > Powergaming. At level2, the ranger chooses a combat style specialization, wherein he can choose combat feats from a list specific to that combat style at regular intervals, and can choose to disregard the normal feat prerequisites. Given my vision how I wanted to roleplay Alpharius, and what his story was, I chose Archery (and the Precise Shot feat) as his speciality.. but at third level, instead of starting to optimize his archery skills, I took two-weapon fighting to reflect his skill with the twin blades. Because having a character wielding two gladii is just so f*cking badass. This duality became a very defining trait for my character, and while it offers awesome roleplaying possibilities, I was afraid it would hurt his contribution as a team member in combat encounters, i.e. Alpharius would suck at both and become a bystander while the big boys and girls dished and took the damage.
Ah boy, did he suck in the beginning. Measly 1d8 DAM for arrows (if he happened to hit) and 1d6+2 DAM for gladius. To his left and right, an elemental sorceress was blasting away with ~20 DAM spells and a barbarian was pummeling enemies to the ground with 10-15 DAM hits.
Enter levels 3 and 5 - 1st favored terrain and 2nd favored enemy, respectively. Granted, Alpharius didn't really face humans (his natural 1st Favored enemy) at the first stages of his career, but expanding the base where he could utilize stealth attack really started to make the difference. Now, at lvl 7, a fight in the forest and urban areas (as I took an additional favored terrain for Alpharius' 7th level ranger talent, to reflect the fact he had trained mostly in the city as a teenager) is a welcome encounter. Honest to his persona and style, Alpharius can and always looks to approach in stealth and surprise his enemies with arrows - and given how the fight is going, he can reliably and credibly switch to melee (just as he has "always" done in his past) and flank his enemies to provide satisfactory 1d6+2+2d6 DAM per attack.
In my experience, especially with this particular character, this allows roleplaying favored terrains and enemies in a manner unlike typical rangers - instead of forcing the character to have "ranged" the terrains with the intent of becoming a killer extraordinaire of particular types of enemies in said terrains, here we can roleplay characters that have simply grown up in this areas, and have been trained to kill certain enemies - that need not to be native to said terrains.
But from a powergaming and game mechanics standpoint, I'm afraid the character's reliance on favored terrains and enemies forces me to maximise them - just to keep up with the other characters as we progress in levels. But time will tell.
Comments? Ideas? Questions? Own experiences? Let's talk!
In terms of the Pathfinder system this sounds very similar to the Slayer alternate class in the Advanced Class Guide Playtest - no spells, no animal companion but sneak attack and additional talents including rogue talents. You can find the document here for comparison.
*Edit* The SLR may not give up the Animal Companion, but they're not as class-specific as one would think. With a 3-feat chain anyone can gain a full-progression AC. Nature Soul->Animal Ally->Boon Companion means that any PC can obtain one. I was initially thinking of one for a Rogue as a means to more-or-less guarantee flanking.
Thanks Corvino, the Slayer indeed sounds very familiar and quite intriguing - something I might have considered originally had I known about it.
The SLR's animal companion is, for my character and for my gaming, a very important, almost vital part, especially due to flanking you mentioned and simply as more hitpoints and attacks to shove at the enemy. And if I've come to love the stealth attack, favored enemies and terrains, I've REALLY come to love the AC.. But I'll spare that for another longer post :)
I just play the Trapper Ranger.
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The Slayer, which is obviously relatively new does indeed have quite a few similarities to the Spell-less Ranger, which was published about two years ago :)
Just saying :)
It's nice to see this discussion on the Spell-less Ranger, by the way! We should actually probably keep other similar classes out of the discussion and stay focused on the OP's topic though ...
From GM's perspective, I'd say the initial impression of being left in the shadows at combat was partially result of the inexperience and lack of better judgement on character creation. It was easy to tell the barbarian that he needs STR and sorcerer that she needs CHA and beyond those let them feel free to experiment on 15 point buy, where as SLR (the way Alpharius is) would need both DEX & STR to hit home with arrows and blades. Obviously not a strong power gaming choice, but then again that's not something you were going for.
Favored enemies, terrain and ACompanion certainly have fixed that with stealth attack applying when suitable. If only you could improve your dice rolls ;)
Ranger talents, those that replace spells and start to set SLR really apart from original Ranger seem to have huge swings from GET THIS to useless-ish. I'd say more levels will show how those work out for you.
Beyond combat thou, I guess SLR is same to original Ranger and gives plenty of room to shine as a skill monkey.
I got to test drive SLR for a skull & shackles campaign and used it to leverage the heck out of favored terrain - water. He was enjoyable to build and play, but ultimately "went down with the ship" that was a dog-with-fleas of a adventure path experience.
Translation - the class was the right tool for the job. The AP stunk.
Spellless Ranger is a cool concept, but there are so many cool Ranger spells... I feel bad giving them up. :P
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As some folks have correctly pointed out, the Spell-less Ranger is still, at its heart, a ranger. That means that you still have the core class concepts of favored enemies and favored terrains (and all the positives and negatives that come with them)
As for spells, some people really like their rangers casting spells and that's cool! Many others would rather NOT have rangers cast spells, and that's cool too. That's why the Spell-less Ranger was created! And, although there are some pretty nice ranger spells out there, I'd like to think that the various things the Spell-less Ranger gains in place of spells (stealth attack, nature's healing, ranger talents etc) more than make up for the elimination of spells.
Regarding those that see the ranger's (and, of course, the spell-less ranger as well) tight reliance to favored enemies and favored terrains as a negative, I'd point to the two spell-less ranger archetypes (which, incidentally, work with the core ranger as well!) as nice ways to lessen that reliance. The Dual-Style Ranger only gets a single favored enemy but gains a second combat style, making him a much more versatile and deadly combatant in all situations. The Companion-Bound Ranger trades all but a single favored terrain and instead gets a vastly more powerful animal companion that can coordinate and fights extremely well with the ranger.
Although not directly related to this particular topic, I'd also point out that the New Paths Compendium also has a brand new alternate version of the Spell-less Ranger, the Skin-Changer, which replaces things like hunter's bond, favored enemy and combat styles for the abilities to wild shape right from level 1 and a very effective animal combat style.
DISCLAIMER: I'm posting this also in my blog, so sorry for all the Captain Obvious statements you all probably are quite familiar with - my blog readers might not be however!
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ANIMAL COMPANION - A MUST HAVE FOR THE SPELL-LESS RANGER?
One thing the spell-less ranger (SLR) retains from the original ranger is the ability to choose an animal companion, albeit from a very limited range of different animals. Personally, from a Rule of Cool AND powergaming point of view, I’d choose every time either a wolf, a cat (small) or a bird. Or a horse. Sadly, no big cats, bears and dinosaurs are available for the spell-less ranger (oh why?).
A crucial element of a SLR’s melee game are stealth attacks -lovely xd6 extra damage per hit – which the SLR can perform against flat-footed enemies or when flanking (either favoured enemies or enemies in SLR’s favoured terrain). In my earlier post I talked about how crucial favoured terrains and favoured enemies have become for the SLR compared to the normal ranger, especially in regards to dishing out damage. Ultimately, if you want to deal stealth damage, without magic your SLR will be forced to rely on flanking – it’s great if you always surprise your enemies or win every initiative roll and get to attack before everyone else goes – all the other times, it’s all about flanking baby.
Enter the animal companion who knows the flanking trick. Granted, a typical party will include heavy hitters like fighters and barbarians who will be there in the melee providing ample opportunities for the SLR to flank the enemies, but having a beast under your personal command providing you endless opportunities for flanking is just beautiful. For me, with my character Alpharius nearing lvl8, it is becoming a key ingredient of his battle tactics. The animal companion doesn’t even need to know the flanking trick: Alpharius typically remains in the back, shooting arrows for the first round of battle, and lets his beast charge and draw the attention of the foe, and slips to the back (skill bonus in Acrobatics of nearly +20 helps) himself. There have been instances were this combo/tactic has given Alpharius to outshine the party’s heavy hitter (a fighter) in melee combat!
To me it seems choosing anything but the animal companion seems outright crazy (given how the AC also brings his/her extra attacks and hitpoints to the table [EDIT: and is at the same level with the SLR!!]). Granted, my experience with the SLR is limited, but the performance already is irrefutable. What are your thoughts?
My favorite archetype for the ranger also gives up spells. In exchange you get Hunter's Tricks that aid the party, use your animal companion better, or make you better in combat. You obviously don't give up your animal companion. I like because it fits my ranger's character well. He's a simple man who works as a constable for his small, forest village. I never really understood how exactly rangers got spells in the first place and with the archetype I don't have to explain it. (It's not magic; I don't have to explain it. :P)