AudioGoose's page

In reply to the OP: The best character deaths are ones that were the result of a player mistake. As a GM, if I do my job correctly in balancing encounters, then the only player deaths are due to player mistakes. And the biggest mistake I've seen players make, over and over again, is failing to make the decision to turn, and run when the odds are not in their favor.

Honestly, if they split the party, run the encounter as intended. The only punches you should pull is maybe the occasional smudged roll behind the GM screen, however experienced players will pick up on this, especially if they've ever GM'ed before.

Me personally, if I was the player (considering the type of character I prefer to play) and the encounter happened on the ship, I would wish Bill the best of luck and find the quickest escape route. Failing that, I'm going to set the flying ship on fire and take as many of the assassins with me. But that's me; encounters like that is stuff my characters would typically live for.

Depending on the animal, some will flank naturally. For examples wolf packs will have a wolf attacking the front while another goes around and grabs the ankle from behind. It's not unreasonable for a wolf or similar animal companion to do the same with a druid/ranger.

According to RAW the druid/ranger has to role a handle animal check and the AC has to have the trick. If the animal has the flank trick, then it can flank on an order pending the skill check. Since AC's don't have great intelligence, it shouldn't be making intelligent battlefield decisions such as advantageous tactical positioning outside of what its master directs.

I have not played in about 3 years now and I am coming back playing a class I am unfamiliar with. All previous characters have been melee or casters.

No experience with bows or animal companions.

I'll be playing in a campaign in a couple days as a level 5 Ranger Sky Stalker and with the DMs approval he has Homebrewed the fact I can use a Griffin instead of a hippogriff.

My overall goal is to have my companion do all the work and I stay back ranged. And at one point ride the Griffin and fire arrows off his back.

What feats should I be looking at to achieve this?

Rapid Shot and Manyshot are the two minimum feats you need to pick up. Gravity Bow is a spell, that when I use to play Rangers, was a spell that I would spam the crap out of. Combine all of the above with a composite longbow. My old ranger character, at level 9, was putting out stupid amounts of damage at range. He would get two attacks because of BAB (the first of which rolled two damage dies) and get a third attack because of rapid shot. If all of them hit, the ranger would get, with Gravity bow, 8d6 of damage plus bonuses. At this points, my ranger was dealing more damage than the party's blasting wizard. Then, if we were going up against a favored enemy, I saw additional damage due to favored enemy bonuses.

In addition, a friend of mine have always had this debate of archery fighters versus rangers. Rangers have two advantages here:

1) Ranger bonus feats related to their combat style can be taken without meeting pre-reqs, as long as you take the feat as a bonus feat.

2) Rangers get favored enemy bonuses. If you have a gm that favors one type of enemy, then this is a huge plus and a very nice bonus to damage.