I like the pathfinder ranger, but I think somethings are missing:
1)ranger should have athletics skill (no jumping over chasms or rivers?!)
2)There should be an option for the ranger to give up his spells and have a full animal companion like the druid's.
3)animal companions should benefit from favored enemy and/or terrain. It makes sense (as it hunts with the ranger all the time) and makes for a better animal companion, since you want to keep the ranger's companion weaker than the druid's.
4)armor restriction on ranger combat style should be removed, it dosent make sense, and the ranger would have to spend feats to learn medium and heavy armor, so why deny then some class features for spending his feats in armor trainning?
Agnusthemagi wrote: I like the pathfinder ranger, but I think somethings are missing:
1)ranger should have athletics skill (no jumping over chasms or rivers?!)
Check out Acrobatics.
Agnusthemagi wrote: 2)There should be an option for the ranger to give up his spells and have a full animal companion like the druid's. Core rules don't support a full swap out of class abilities. It would be better to have a feat that allows to boost the companion..
Agnusthemagi wrote: 3)animal companions should benefit from favored enemy and/or terrain. It makes sense (as it hunts with the ranger all the time) and makes for a better animal companion, since you want to keep the ranger's companion weaker than the druid's. Check Hunter’s Bond's first effect vs. second effect.
Agnusthemagi wrote: 4)armor restriction on ranger combat style should be removed, it dosent make sense, and the ranger would have to spend feats to learn medium and heavy armor, so why deny then some class features for spending his feats in armor trainning? The class features are tied to him being unimpeded in his movements.
Locworks wrote:
Check out Acrobatics. Not a class skill for Rangers, but that is not nearly the hardship in Pathfinder that it was in 3.5. There is no added cost for non-class skills, you just don't get the +3 bonus.
Locworks wrote:
Core rules don't support a full swap out of class abilities. It would be better to have a feat that allows to boost the companion..
I would say this is arguable as there are options for some classes to choose between two options for a class ability. The 3.5 SRD also has alternate class features. Of course there is the question "Is making the Rangers effective Druid level for animal companion equal to his Ranger level instead of 1/2 equal to his spell casting ability that he would be giving up." I don't believe it is, and I favor non-spellcasting rangers.
Locworks wrote:
Check Hunter’s Bond's first effect vs. second effect.
Hunter's bond as written is a choice (see point above) between two effects, Sharing your Favored Enemy bonus with allies OR having an animal companion. "This bond can take one of two forms." If you take the animal companion you do NOT have the ability to share your Favored Enemy bonus. I actually agree with Agnusthemagi that if the Ranger is treated as 1/2 level for animal companion advancement that their companion should share the Ranger's Favored Enemy and Terrain Bonuses.
Locworks wrote:
The class features are tied to him being unimpeded in his movements. I believe the armor restrictions to rangers should stay also, but to offset the fact that for the Ranger's Combat Style Feats (PFA3 p36) "He can choose these feats, even if he does not have the normal prerequisites." which is a rare ability for a reason. Now adding a feat that allowed them their Combat Style Feats in Medium Armor wouldn't be a problem to me.
I will admit I find the lack of acrobatics for Rangers a bit odd. I mean, clearly, they're not a tumbling type class, but they should be pretty damn good at jumping and balancing, what with all the rough terrain they run around in.
What is the ranger missing? Two words: Trackless Step.
Kirth Gersen wrote: What is the ranger missing? Two words: Trackless Step. A good idea, which arises a new idea in it's own right: shouldnt a ranger be able to track someone with trackless step (lv 10-15 class ability maybe)? It would be a worth addition.
About animal companion and spells: I dont personaly think either it's worth to give up spellcasting altogether for a full animal companion. As I remember, in ad&d rangers where the companion's class, not the druid. Maybe for balance reasons keeping 1/2 HD animal companion for ranger is good, but it also makes for an diminished "animal ranger" archetype.
Maybe animal companion expansion could be a thirdy option for combat styles? Or extra animal companions as a combat style option?
My point about companions is: the ranger is the archetypal animal companion hunter/warrior, there could be some more options in that regard: improving animal companions or acquiring additional companions (not only trained beasts with the use of handle animal). Ok, you can say I could do it all with handle animal, but then the beasts are extremely fragile and as the campaign gets to medium and highter levels the usefulness of trained animals gets greatly diminished as they cant scout , enter combat or even serve as mounts whithout being easly killed by all foes the party faces or the ranger stalks.
Giving an option to buy use of combat style feats with medium armor is the same as is: you can buy the feats with levels, but then you would have then 2 times. Even mages can cast in armor nowadays, that wasnt even permited a while back, but rangers must remain in light armor or they lose their combat styles.
About Acrobatics: ok, I wanst aware of the cost for cross class skills lowered, then it's fine, as it dosent really is a ranger calling to do acrobatics (but jumping was).
Ranger's getting an ability to track the trackless would be right on the money, and in with their theme. If it's a balance issue, tie it to favored terrain I guess...
Of course then we develop the problem of having to rename Trackless Step to Step That Cannot Be Tracked Easily, But Can Be Tracked By A Ranger Of Sufficient Level, And Maybe Some Other Prestige Classes Down The Road. Oh, and Maybe Even Bears. Why not?.
:)
Nameless wrote: Of course then we develop the problem of having to rename Trackless Step to Step That Cannot Be Tracked Easily, But Can Be Tracked By A Ranger Of Sufficient Level, And Maybe Some Other Prestige Classes Down The Road. Oh, and Maybe Even Bears. Why not?. Much like discern location in 3e was, or maybe wasn't, discern location on anyone without an active mind blank spell, or maybe even people with one.
Agnusthemagi wrote: I like the pathfinder ranger, but I think somethings are missing:
There is something else missing that's been bothering me since 3.0. How do you adjudicate rangers knowing things about their favored enemies? Yes, they get +2 to Bluff, Spot, Survival, etc..., but what about knowing whether or not to use cold iron, silver, or magic weapons against specific creatures? A ranger would likely know that information about a favored enemy. Unless you want to rule that they just automatically know all pertinent information about favored enemies, I propose that rangers can roll the appropriate Knowledge check to know information about a favored enemy, with a bonus equal to 1/2 ranger level + Int bonus + any ranks they already have in that particular Knowledge skill.
Huh. I thought I had killed this thread good.
Anyway, I'm actually not against having someone with the Trackless Step ability be trackable by a very good tracker. It just seems like we're tracking too much complexity onto the tracking ability and I don't think tracking is common enought to warrant this level of complexity, since only characters who take Track as a feat and Rangers who gain Track for free get to enjoy tracking the tracks of trackable foes.
re: the Animal Companion,
There's a Feat "Nature Bond" (in C. Adventurer, I believe) that gives anyone with the Animal Companion class ability +3 effective level for determining the power of their companion, up to total character level. It's useful enough (for Rangers & multi-classed Druids) that it'd be nice to see a Pathfinder-ized version.
The thing is, I think alot of stuff like this will not necessarily make it into core PRPG, but will go into a future PF Companion or whatnot that has both flavor/content along with mechanics to complement it....
So perhaps we'll see a Pathfinder-ized Urban Ranger when the Absalom Chronicles is released.
Nameless wrote: It just seems like we're tracking too much complexity onto the tracking ability and I don't think tracking is common enought to warrant this level of complexity, since only characters who take Track as a feat and Rangers who gain Track for free get to enjoy tracking the tracks of trackable foes. There is no Track feat in Pathfinder; anyone with ranks in Survival can track just fine (although rangers get a bonus to tracking as a class feature).
As a note, I think the ranger not getting to use his abilities in heavier armor is somewhat important. Everyone things of Rangers as being heavy dex people, but because they get to ignore the pre-reqs for their combat feat tree, you can have a 20str, 10dex, ranger wielding a battle axe and a hand axe and right now their only penalty is that their AC would suck. You let that ranger strap on some full plate and thats pretty scary times.
-Tarlane
Heavy armor just doesn't cut it with stealthy woodsmen type people. It would cut down on it's ability to move with a number of minor nuances just for being in the outdoors nearly 24/7.
The fact that the animal companion is weak is always been a little bit of a problem since this creature is pretty much your only companion in the wilds fighting against favored enemies and other monster alike. These creatures that have bonded with the ranger are usually in for a very short life span if they are used in combat. They just can't deal or absorb damage with the rest of the team.
With the skill of track being available to all classes now you think the class that mastered it would get something more then just a measly +2 to the check but that is just me.
I think that both druid and ranger should be able to summon their animal when they need it from astral plane(like a drow ranger's cat heh), make it a magical beast that they can summon when needed and unsummon if getting beat down to heal. if it dies it cant reform for 1 week. that makes it still useful and not so weak IMO, i think i i will try this in my game
Hello to all crew
As far as I read the Ranger seems fairly balanced to me the only change that I would suggest is that he (she) could get the armor training as the fighter. Of course in light armor only. That way (s)he be able to use the abilities and not be forced to foregos them for a better armor class, whenever an encounter is to tough to handle (higher levels etc)
i see that a ranger's animal companion is quite weak as is. because of that i've come up with an alternative method of determining the ranger's effective druid level. just start counting levels regularly (i.e. Class level -3) once he gets the animal comp class feature. by the way, i do the same for caster level. works just fine for my group and me.
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