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Wheldrake wrote:

PF1 had quick-draw shields. Shields are (arguably) weapons, so why not?

I wouldn't allow it to draw AND raise a shield in one action.

And since shields have a specific strap (CRB 273 table 6-2)it seems kinda weird mechanically.
Quickdraw works by it being draw and attack in one motion, the shield would be draw, strap, attack.

Yep this is why I asked him, glad he was more reasonable. :) Its really only a small difference between the two and it makes quick draw a bit more worth wile.

Made a new character the other day, thought I might try my hand at a Ruffian Rogue. Also interested in trying out shield combat a bit and as I made my character I ended up taking Quick Draw thinking it would be nice to get the weapon out a bit quicker. Asked my DM how he felt about me also using it to draw and ready my shield, he paused for a bit as he often does when I ask him anything not strictly RAW and said "sure sounds reasonable".

Figured for the fun of it I would see how you folks stand on the topic. Would you as a DM be cool with Quick Draw working also with drawing and readying a shield?

Thanks much for any input!

I *require* my players to use pencil and paper, for two reasons:

1. Creating a character for the first time, and having to level it up manually means you actually had to go look up the ability and write it down, and not just check a box. More than once I've had players not know what they can do because they had a tool put everything together automagically.

2. Phones, tablets, computers, game boys, iPods, Commodore 64s, and Babbage machines are not allowed at my table, nor are things like them. It's too easy to get distracted, and I'm not just talking about during combat. During role play interactions where the party is talking to Someone Important, inevitably I have to repeat myself because someone was playing on their Atari 2600 and not paying attention!!!

I realize this may seem Draconian to some, but I'm the Dragon Master!!! And these are my friends. If I was running Pathfinder Society stuff then I'd just roll more nat 20's against someone who wasn't paying attention :-P (not really, but I might threaten it)

Thank you for this, well said.

Wish they would have copied 4e's Familiar rules, PF2 really dropped the ball with its Familiars.

Hmmm think you need another wand and you point it at the broken wand and say something like "wandulas repairo", yeah that should do it.

Myself, I'd like the option to keep my animal companion small.

On the flip side your pony automatically turns into a horse when it becomes a Mature Animal Companion. (large pony?)

Was thinking of taking Snare Specialist on my Ranger with the idea of tossing out a trap early in a fight even right in front of an enemy. Then later if I crit with my Halberd I could just move the guy onto the trap, would this work? (5th level Ranger target is Hunted Prey)

Yeah its not large until you choose to make it Savage at level 8 or 10.

I like the fire resistance idea, but not the flavour behind it.

Sure, there would be dwarves in the desert, those poor fools are also cleanly shaven (I remember reading something along those lines for Dwarven monks in some desert).

But why would they have heat resistance where others don't? Id rather say it comes from years of working in the forges, being stubborn dwarves, I'm sure they just get used to the heat :)

I still think the poison resistance is the option for me. I had fun failing a save, but taking reduced damage, and recovering super fast from it in one of the sessions we played. It also helps with drinking.

Well said Skull, there is certainly something off with the flavor behind it, heat resistance from working the forge or working near lava seems more dwarven anyway.

I'm pretty sure that "Desert Dwarf" is to represent one of the Pahmet dwarves, who are important in Osiron which is deserty since it's fantasy Egypt.

Plus, when you dig way down in the earth it gets really hot down there.

Yeah I guess dwarves no longer know as a race how deep they are going, likely to tunnel right into the core, good point there.

I'm not down with all the small races being 25' and the Dwarves (a medium race) being only 20'. That seems pretty absurd.

I agree with this and think that this would be a great time for dwarves to rejoin the ranks of the small races.

Also lets swap Desert Dwarf and Arctic Elf, no self respecting dwarf is going to live in a desert, he would either go underground or head up into the mountains to get cool.

I really hope they go back to calling the damn things traps.

It was a stupid change that just makes the game sound dumb for not knowing what snare means. (Actually, seemingly arbitrary name changes like this seems pretty prevalent.)

I still think their class features should focus on what defines them.
Rangers are scouts and border defenders.
What does that really mean though.

Looking at military history (which predates the use of Rangers in fantasy literature) a ranger is a type of light infantry that specializes in scouting, raiding, and skirmishing. They are supposed to be more mobile than regular or heavy infantry. Their jobs often include patrolling and guerilla tactics. Their main military purpose is to go in, give the enemy a bloody nose and retreat before they know what hit them.

That is what their class features should be about. Their primary gimmick should be about increasing their ability strike fast and hard from unexpected directions while avoiding retaliation.

Previously I mentioned elsewhere that I thought all the terrain stuff should be optional, I'm retracting that and reversing my opinion. They should have more and stronger options to emphasize their mastery of hit-and-run tactics. All their specific combat options and powers beyond battlefield movement and avoiding reactions should be in their class feats.

That said, Hunt Target should be a feat.
Hunting is not intrinsic to the broad concept of a Ranger neither in fantasy nor history.

In place of the Hunt Target class feature, they should have Combat Style. It should work somewhat like a Barbarian's Totem or a Druid's Druidic Order. It grants you a bonus feat to start with (Hunt Target could be an option here), maybe training in a weapon group, and access to specific feats associated with your combat style as it originally did. All you have to do then is make sure that the feats you gain access too are mostly if not entirely unique to the ranger so as not to negate the usefulness of multi-classing builds.

I'll...

Thank you, I hope Paizo is reading this, this is exactly how I feel.

I like Rangers for many of the same reasons you do, with that said I would change a few things so I could love Rangers again.

1. Change the name of Hunt Target to almost anything else (Mark, Quarry, Kill, Enemy, Prey, Apple, Penguin you get the idea) and make it a free action.

2. This class needs some spell options, at the very least give it the Heal Animal power Druids have and Power Points equal to Wis mod.

3. I would like to see the return of Favored Enemy even if its just in a feat tree format like the animal companion options.

Ranger is not a generic hunter out there to catch a meal, this is a specialized infiltrator/defender. These are the guys you send out to guard your realm from invasion with a handful every 100 miles. They don't need to carry 8 Bulk worth of snares because they have spells for that and if they didn't have spells they would make the snares from the world around them.

Also, back in 3.x there was a book that added Infusions as a thing for Rangers. A sort of wilderness packet of herbs that could be used as a potion. It was absurdly awkward and time consuming to make them from scratch in that book but PF2 could do it right! Would work great with the new downtime system.

Think this is one of the things they just left up to the DM. If it where up to me I'd say sure for the darts and shurikens and 50% for the ammunition.

Yeah I was thinking of giving the awful snares a shot for my first Ranger character until I read the Bulk 8 snare kit thing. Anyone notice the crazy Bulk 1 for any musical instrument? Some of the bulk stuff is just down right silly.

Would also be nice if you could have the option to keep your animal companion small. I enjoy having a dog companion and there are plenty of dogs that remain small when "full-grown".

Favored enemy is worst idea for a ranger.

It's metagamey to a fault.

It depends on DM's charity for you to use it or you need to read the adventure in advance so to make some use of it.

Either FE need to have broad effect or it need to be cut out.

Examples of broad effects:

FE dragons; bonuses on reflex and fear, arcana
FE undead; bonuses on religion and resist energy drain/negative energy, fortitude
FE humanoids; bunus languages, bonus deception, society
FE animals/beasts; bonus nature/survival
FE demons; bonus will, religion, occult,

If you don't like it you don't have to take the feat, the way 2E is set up everything is optional. I believe they should start with the things rooted in a class and then move forward. Taking things away, especially things iconic to a class and giving them nothing in return is "the worst idea for ranger".

Since 3.0 Ranger has been my favorite class, I don't understand why folks want spell less rangers, just play a fighter or rogue if that's your thing.

I would like to see a return of Favored Enemy as a class feature or feat choice. Rangers aren't just folks out hunting game in the woods, they are specialized combatants against creatures and or specific "ancestries" they have trained to fight. Its really part of the meat of what has been such a wonderful class for so many years.

Would like to see an ability to heal their animal companion especially if spell less pans out in the end.

Lastly it would be nice to see extra feat options for bows, crossbows and even single/two handed weapons, two weapon fighting is a cool option but that should not be the focus.

This is a silly change and I hope in the final product they use race once again. Its so nice that this is just a playtest and we can work out what is and isn't worth changing beforehand.

At the very least it should be on all the time and not a reaction.

1.Dwarf

2.Changeling(Dwarf)

3.Gnome

I enjoy most the 6th level casters, Hunter more specifically, if I had to go 9th level caster for some reason I'd go Sorcerer. These days I pretty much always prefer some kind of caster even the 4th level ones.

Used to be Martial for me all the way, mostly Rangers, however I have recently been introduced to the new class Hunter (at least new to me) and it seems Caster will be my choice going forward.

So a rogue with a REALLY good set of bluff and sleight of hand checks?

I think you are confusing "magic magic" with "real world magic", did you read the post by Senko?

After reading the post by Senko I would like to change my answer to "magic magic".

I'd go with Divine, mostly because I lean towards Ranger/Hunter for my favorite classes.

I think it would be way cooler if you told the rest of the party and not him. Sounds crazy I know but follow me here, over the course of the next few adventures drop hints to the other party members that something is off with the possessed PC. To me this would be great because without knowing hes possessed he'll totally deny anything is wrong and in fact nothing for him would be wrong, maybe even drop a hint to him that the other party members are acting strange, muahhahahhaahhahahhah this is just great stuff.

As someone who has played mainly Rangers in Pathfinder I gotta say I am quickly falling in love with Hunter. All the things that bugged me about Ranger are gone (no spells at start, no companion at start, weaker companion when I did get one, and the overrated favored enemy/terrain business) and the stuff I loved got better (more nature spells, more companions to chose from, more versatility with Animal Focus). Finally I can ride gloriously into battle atop my trained war llama (Undersized Mount+Muleback Cords) like a dwarven ranger always should have.

Gonna toss my vote in for Camel, fight for ya, mount, pack mule, good stats and to top it all off its got a crazy cool spit attack.

High con caster with Toughness and the extra 1HP per level of favored class is gonna have a fairly burly familiar.

Onyx Dog figurine of wonderous power cept in your case its a Bronze Raccoon. :)

Does the "constrict" damage include Str bonus damage? For example: A level 7 constrictor snake companion with a 26 str would deal 1d4+12 with its basic attack. Also if you where to take Improved Natural Attack for your constrictor snake companion would that raise the "constrict" die?

Yeah your probably right about RAW there, just has always seemed to me that "trying to hit someone who is jumping around, swinging weapons and shields, and so closely engaged with an enemy that the two are sometimes intertwined as their weapons" = cover bonus/negative.

If you really wana do it on the cheap just pick up a few extra waterskins and fill em with air, 3 to 5gp tops.

I don't think you even need Precise Shot if you have Improved Precise Shot. Granted only a ranger can skip taking both(that I know of) but seems to me the penalty for shooting into melee is already a cover penalty. Taking Improved by itself should be enough.