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Ok, I've never exactly liked my rangers to be casters. Just never felt right. I've accepted that they're going to stay that way in PfRPG, and I'm OK with that, but I'm wondering if anyone has any house rules for rangers with no spellcasting ability? I don't like the "spell-like ability" rules that CW proposes (can I mention that product here?) Anyhow, thanks for fixing just about everything else paizo! Keep it coming!
hehe, no problem! Just have your ranger have a WIS of 10 or lower!
Although its a bit of a different system, I'm running a ranger from the Book of Experimental Might, and he has no spells. He's basically the same as a ranger with spells.. .as the BOXM disciplines have effecs similar to many of the basic ranger spells (nature's movement basically replaces longstrider, for example).
Hrm, I also played an Urban Ranger once... not sure what that was from, but basically just lost spells, animal companion, knowledge nature and some stuff, gained gather info, knowledge local, ... and something else, It's been a real long time...
Anyway, i'm sure you could tweak the ranger to a spell-less variant if you wanted. But to be honest, I think my first suggestion might be the easiest, just have wisdom be your dump stat and save your points/good rolls for other stats. There, a non-casting ranger.
There is an ranger alternate class feature from Complete Champion that removes spellcasting and adds feats at 4th, 8th, 11th, and 14th. These feats are from a ranger specific list. I've used it and liked it.
Complete Warrior also had a variant Ranger without spellcasting, he gained 4 new class abilities at 6th, 11th, 13th, and 16th levels.
Complete Warrior also had a variant Ranger without spellcasting, he gained 4 new class abilities at 6th, 11th, 13th, and 16th levels.
That was a total bait-and-switch deal. The 16th level ability, for example, was freedom of movement 1/day, IIRC. Basically, you gave up your spells for a set spell-like ability of the same level useable 1/day, but only 1 per spell level, and they were pre-selected. It was the worst deal you can imagine, except for rangers with low wisdom.
Try the Scout from the Complete Adventurer. Woodsy, with no spells and some nifty abilities. They track, hide, sneak around and go running through their enemies slicing and dicing (skirmish attack). No "enemys" list though :)
Scout is my favorite class of all time. It feels like a hybrid ranger-rogue since you get a form of precision damage but you can focus on bow attacks.
Some of the feats from Complete Scoundrel also let you combine levels for purposes of determining the scout's sneak attack damage and the ranger's favored enemies, so sometimes I'll build up a multiclassed scout-ranger without losing favored enemy bonuses or skirmish damage.
I was kind of hoping that pathfinder's ranger would be more scout-esque, but I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens in future supplements.
Oh and if you ever want some good prestige archer classes there are tons in the various FR books and online.
I just let the Ranger trade in his spells for a full animal companion progression and I let the animal have full HP and apply the rangers favored enemy bonuses. I guess for pathfinder you could also let the animal have the favored terrain bonus as well.
Yeah, I really didn't like the Complete Warrior version. Now that I look at it, and now that feats are more useful in 3.P, the Champion of the Wild looks like a good basis. Thanks everybody!Welcome. :)
Step on my toes, why don't you. Hah
Two best classes I've seen for alternative Rangers was
1. Ranger form book of Hollowed Might, but that one gave more spells earler.
For Spell-less I use the Ranger from GR The Black Company. That book might be hard to find nowadays, but you might be able to get the PDF, if that's still around with all the D20 stuff going on.
The Black Companies Ranger is very much like Pathfinders, but striped of Spells, slightly differnt favored terrians and foes, as well as an expanded fighting system. You can pick from
Archery
Two-Weapon Fighting
Clavery Fighting
and something else I can't recal, I'll add soemthing when I get hope and can look at the book.
BTW I agree with you, never liked Rangers with spells, but too many players do, so I kept standard Rangers restricted to western and Elven lands, but Black Co. Rangers to Eastern and Human lands.
TTFN Dre
Why make everyone use the same build? There are several sets of customization rules out there; some of them are even free.