APG Ranger Questions

[Hawkson]

Shapeshifter Str 10
Combat Feats
2nd Aspest of the beast (wild Instinct)
6th Improved Natural Weapon (Claws)
10th Rending Claws
14th Eldrich Claws (or Fang ?)
18th Weapon Focus (Claws)
I can take these w/ out normal prerequisites but can "not use" till she gain 20th level & Beast Shape to gain "Real" Claw attacks? Is this right?

[Phasics]

Hawkson wrote:

Shapeshifter Str 10

Combat Feats
2nd Aspest of the beast (wild Instinct)
6th Improved Natural Weapon (Claws)
10th Rending Claws
14th Eldrich Claws (or Fang ?)
18th Weapon Focus (Claws)
I can take these w/ out normal prerequisites but can "not use" till she gain 20th level & Beast Shape to gain "Real" Claw attacks? Is this right?

correct

a wizard could polymorph you into an animal with claws and you could use those feats earlier

or ideally take somthing to give yourself claw attacks and not have dead feats for 20 levels

[Hawkson]

Sick if me yet?
Can a Ranger or Druid Animal Companion (or any other Animal Companion)take a teamwork feat & gain the bonus as long as the master has the same feat? Are animals "Smart" enough to "teamwork" w/ a master above what is assumed w/ in the class? After all they do in real life (the Wolf Pack).

[Heymitch]

Phasics wrote:

Heymitch wrote:

Phasics wrote:

3)
can you use normal feats to take combat style feats
No.

Can you use normal feats to take combat style feats? Absolutely, yes! Provided you meet the prerequisites.

honestly thats like saying you can take fighter bonus feats using normal feats if you meet the prerequites... ummm yeah was there ever any doubt ?

lets make the statement nice and clear

you cannot use a normal feat to take a combat style feat you do not meet the prerequites for.

would you agree with that ?

Of course I'd agree with that. As I've said several times, Aspect of the Beast introduces a mechanic in its text that other feats don't have. Other combat style feats can be taken as a regular feat only if you meet the prerequisites. But they can be taken as a regular feat.

It was only ever in doubt because someone said "can you use normal feats to take combat style feats...No".

[Heymitch]

Hawkson wrote:

Sick if me yet?

Can a Ranger or Druid Animal Companion (or any other Animal Companion)take a teamwork feat & gain the bonus as long as the master has the same feat? Are animals "Smart" enough to "teamwork" w/ a master above what is assumed w/ in the class? After all they do in real life (the Wolf Pack).

A Ranger or Druid Animal Companion can take teamwork feats provided they have an Int score of 3 or higher, and they may very well be highly appropriate. Remember that Animal Companions do get ability score increases (in addition to their improvement in Str/Dex scores)that you can use to make them smart enough to qualify.

Animal Companions with an Int score of 2 or less are limited to selections from the Animal Feats list on p.53 of the Core Rulebook.

[Mandreth]

Just a quick question Joe;

The way I'm interpreting your posts...it seems you think it's poor design that the Shapeshifter ranger gets Multiattack as a bonus feat, but cannot use it without meeting other pre-reqs (aka, another natural weapon), right?

Going by this train of thought...Is it "poor design" that a player could take this feat as one of his normal Feat selections, but still not use it until he gets the appropriate number of natural weapons? (Not including the weapon + natural weapon combo)

[xJoe3x]

Mandreth wrote:

Just a quick question Joe;

The way I'm interpreting your posts...it seems you think it's poor design that the Shapeshifter ranger gets Multiattack as a bonus feat, but cannot use it without meeting other pre-reqs (aka, another natural weapon), right?

Going by this train of thought...Is it "poor design" that a player could take this feat as one of his normal Feat selections, but still not use it until he gets the appropriate number of natural weapons? (Not including the weapon + natural weapon combo)

Not quite. This is an ability offered as a line by a class, yet the class provides no direct way to make use of it. You have to jump through hoops to do so. I think such class abilities should have a chain or other built in class mechanic to make such offers applicable. That is the case with every other class (All other ranger selections, monk bonus feats, as well as many other class mechanics). It just leaves a feeling like it is incomplete to me.

[Kaisoku]

There is a direct way of using it: when it's used as a secondary natural attack.

If a Ranger uses unarmed strike or a weapon, he can make iterative attacks with it, and then add his claw as an extra attack. This extra attack is treated as a secondary natural weapon (even if it's normally a primary weapon).

So a Ranger who intended to get the most attacks in a round would be using a weapon with one hand, and a claw as a secondary attack. Multiattack effectively gives an extra +3 to hit on that attack (from -5 penalty to only -2)... three times better than weapon focus, but for a specific situation.

It might not be the most completely useful usage of the feat, but it's not a dead feat choice at all, and has it's place.
As noted, a Ranger with unarmed strike and claws would get a LOT of use out of an Amulet of Mighty Fists.

The example was given multiple times. Your lack of responding to those posts, and instead responding to and getting very defensive against the toll remarks made me feel like you were being a bit negative for negativity's sake.
I try to give the benefit of the doubt though, so I'm going to assume you missed this inherent class usage in your out-of-hand dismissal. I hope this helps make the class option make more sense for you.

[Trout]

Kaisoku wrote:

There is a direct way of using it: when it's used as a secondary natural attack.

If a Ranger uses unarmed strike or a weapon, he can make iterative attacks with it, and then add his claw as an extra attack. This extra attack is treated as a secondary natural weapon (even if it's normally a primary weapon).

So a Ranger who intended to get the most attacks in a round would be using a weapon with one hand, and a claw as a secondary attack. Multiattack effectively gives an extra +3 to hit on that attack (from -5 penalty to only -2)... three times better than weapon focus, but for a specific situation.

It might not be the most completely useful usage of the feat, but it's not a dead feat choice at all, and has it's place.
As noted, a Ranger with unarmed strike and claws would get a LOT of use out of an Amulet of Mighty Fists.

The example was given multiple times. Your lack of responding to those posts, and instead responding to and getting very defensive against the toll remarks made me feel like you were being a bit negative for negativity's sake.
I try to give the benefit of the doubt though, so I'm going to assume you missed this inherent class usage in your out-of-hand dismissal. I hope this helps make the class option make more sense for you.

Out of curiosity, does that (a ranger using a weapon in one hand and claws for his natural with the Multi-attack feat) essentially replicate TWF?

[xJoe3x]

Kaisoku wrote:

There is a direct way of using it: when it's used as a secondary natural attack.

If a Ranger uses unarmed strike or a weapon, he can make iterative attacks with it, and then add his claw as an extra attack. This extra attack is treated as a secondary natural weapon (even if it's normally a primary weapon).

So a Ranger who intended to get the most attacks in a round would be using a weapon with one hand, and a claw as a secondary attack. Multiattack effectively gives an extra +3 to hit on that attack (from -5 penalty to only -2)... three times better than weapon focus, but for a specific situation.

It might not be the most completely useful usage of the feat, but it's not a dead feat choice at all, and has it's place.
As noted, a Ranger with unarmed strike and claws would get a LOT of use out of an Amulet of Mighty Fists.

The example was given multiple times. Your lack of responding to those posts, and instead responding to and getting very defensive against the toll remarks made me feel like you were being a bit negative for negativity's sake.
I try to give the benefit of the doubt though, so I'm going to assume you missed this inherent class usage in your out-of-hand dismissal. I hope this helps make the class option make more sense for you.

While that works it certainly does not fit that great, as the class only offers claws which come as 2 claws which then play against using a weapon, it is just a way of figuring out how to make someone get some use out of it.

"Some people have been nice enough to contribute some actual ways to make use of it. I thank them for that, while I still think the variant is a bit problematic some very specific builds really lessen that. (Again thanks to those that actually gave builds for normal races that give a way to make use of the abilities)"

The troll remark was rude, I took offense to it. I did not respond to every post, nor did I respond directly to others. Some of them were other questions people had about the ranger as well.

I still think the class seems to be missing the tools it should have, it still seems ill-designed. I am not trying to be negative, the only two complaints I have about the decisions of pazio's staff are this and the APG final changes to the summoner. They really do a wonderful job. This however just seems like it was not completely thought out.

[Gorbacz]

There are people who play monster PCs. There are several options for those people in APG, be it Natural Weapon ranger style or the Barbarian natural weapon archetype, whatever its name was.

[Phasics]

Heymitch wrote:

It was only ever in doubt because someone said "can you use normal feats to take combat style feats...No".

which you read as you can't take those feats period

and I intended as you can't use a general feat choice to pick a feat from that combat list gaining the don't need pre-req benefit by doing so

eh the limitation of forums what can ya do. :)

[Hawkson]

Anyone have an idea on what a Shapeshifter - Ranger does w/ "Hide in Plain Sight"? They give up Favored Terrain?

[The black raven]

Phasics wrote:

lets make the statement nice and clear

you cannot use a normal feat to take a combat style feat you do not meet the prerequites for.

would you agree with that ?

Yes, except for Rangers with the natural weapon combat style who can take the Aspect of the Beast feat as any of their feats (whether normal feat or combat style feat) without meeting the prerequisites (p151 of the APG).

Can we agree with this ?

[The black raven]

Hawkson wrote:

Anyone have an idea on what a Shapeshifter - Ranger does w/ "Hide in Plain Sight"? They give up Favored Terrain?

Maybe they get it back through the use of Boots of Friendly Terrain (APG, p 301)

[warpi9]

Hawkson wrote:

Anyone have an idea on what a Shapeshifter - Ranger does w/ "Hide in Plain Sight"? They give up Favored Terrain?

I was wondering the same thing.

[Hawkson]

The black raven wrote:

Hawkson wrote:

Anyone have an idea on what a Shapeshifter - Ranger does w/ "Hide in Plain Sight"? They give up Favored Terrain?

Maybe they get it back through the use of Boots of Friendly Terrain (APG, p 301)

.....Buy a magic item to use a class feature??? I fail to see the point of a "USALBE CLASS FEATURE" if you need an item to make it work? Otherwise, yes they "could" use it through the boots, but....

On the boots could a driud use them to become a Natures Warden (272 APG).

[TGMaxMaxer]

For the favored terrain situation, it was ruled that since the form shift takes the spot of favored terrain, you can use Hide in Plain Sight anytime you are shifted... in -any- terrain... which is killer if u toss in a couple of rogue levels.

It's in a FAQ/errata somewhere, read it a couple days ago.

[gourry187]

For Joe

I consider the reason for the shapeshifter to have multiattack as a potential bonus feat because they will at their highest level havethe ability to change into a creature which may have secondary attacks such as when turning into a dragon.