Hello all. Back on the Paizo boards, and I read the alpha release. One thing from 3.5 that remains that jumped out from me is a problematic issue with the Ranger.
Is there any good mechanical reason that they cannot receive the Combat Style at first level? In my experience, they would not unbalance the game if they receive it at first instead. Furthermore, the 2nd level combat style actually works against a Ranger. Were it first level, he could invest his first feat(s) in improving his style, and embrace it. With it being second level, not only is it much harder for him to capitalize on his style and really take advantage of it, but at first level he is denied one of the fundamental, defining traits of the class- two weapons or archery.
I think it would be worthwhile to consider bumping combat style forward to 1st level, and allowing the Ranger to make it more useful.
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Hello all. Back on the Paizo boards, and I read the alpha release. One thing from 3.5 that remains that jumped out from me is a problematic issue with the Ranger.
Is there any good mechanical reason that they cannot receive the Combat Style at first level? In my experience, they would not unbalance the game if they receive it at first instead. Furthermore, the 2nd level combat style actually works against a Ranger. Were it first level, he could invest his first feat(s) in improving his style, and embrace it. With it being second level, not only is it much harder for him to capitalize on his style and really take advantage of it, but at first level he is denied one of the fundamental, defining traits of the class- two weapons or archery.
I think it would be worthwhile to consider bumping combat style forward to 1st level, and allowing the Ranger to make it more useful.
The ranger used to get this at 1st level in 3.0, same with the Rogue (evasion) and a few other classes as well.
This is what became known as "front loaded" classes, which encouraged people to dip into other classes just to get the mentioned benefit. 3.5 fixed this by bumping said benefits to 2nd level.
*nods*
There were many dual wield raging fighters running around because 1 level of barbarian, rogue, and ranger offered A LOT more then 3 levels of fighter in 3.0.
Seriously. In 3.5, I knew a couple of players who would forgo their ranger class ideas to play a two-weapon wielding fighter instead.
It just seems like a small tweak, with minimum mechanics impact, that would make the class more appealing.
There were many dual wield raging fighters running around because 1 level of barbarian, rogue, and ranger offered A LOT more then 3 levels of fighter in 3.0.
Honestly, that was (is) a problem with the Fighter class (other classes, including the ones that aren't considered frontloaded, give enough incentive not to delay taking levels - often via caster level, for instance). Changing the other classes to solve it was a really bad idea, IMO. Since the Fighter class was the problem, the Fighter class should have been changed. That didn't happen, with the result that the Fighter class is still problematic (even if level dipping is now less interesting) and a few other classes gained some extra problem issues of their own.