Hello, there, people.
I've been a fan of Ranger ever since I first played D&D.
Overall, I was very pleased by PF's changes to the class, but I still feel it's slightly underpowered, needing just a little push to be just as effective as Barbarians and Paladins, which are, IMHO, the two best martial classes, and among the best balanced too.
I love Inquisitors, but they pretty much stole the Ranger's thunder. Well, the Tanger does have a few things going for him, but not enough to compete, IMO, a Inquisitor with Feather Domain is basically a Ranger+.
So I wanted to buff Rangers so they become great hunters, trackers, infiltrators and all that jazz. This might cause this homebrew to step on the toes of Rogues and maybe Fighters. I don't really care about that, as they are quite limited anyway, and I do intend to buff them too.
So... Here is the improved Ranger (BTW, I suck at naming abilities, ignore that):
Wild Stalker: Starting at 2nd level, a Ranger adds half her levels in the Ranger class to all Perception, Stealth and Survival checks. Starting at 10th level, a Ranger is capable of tracking even creatures that are usually impossible to track (such as a druid with the Trackless Step ability), although the Ranger does suffers a -10 penalty to her tracking check. At 1th level, a Ranger can completely conceal her scent for as long as she chooses to do so; it becomes impossible to track or detect her by scent.
Keen Senses A Ranger's senses become more effective as she learns more about exploring and surviving in the wilds.
At 2nd level, the Ranger gains low-light vision (triple normal vision range in dim light if she already has low-light vision). At 6th level, she gains darkvision 60 feet (or adds 60 feet to the range of any darkvision already possessed), at 10th level, she gains Scent. At 14th level, she gains Blindsense 30ft. Finally, at 18th level, she gains Blindsight 30ft.
Hunter's Bond: Exactly the same, except the Ranger's effective Druid level is equal to her Ranger levels.
I also considered giving them Trackless Step (at 5th level), Fast Movement (at 8th level) and pretty much everything in the Trapper archetype (it's really not even close to being worth the loss of spell casting, and it's kinda weird that you need an archetype to make traps!), But dropped the idea as it seemed like overkill, and for now this is enough.
How well you think this guy fares compared to Barbarians, Paladins and Inquisitors?
Given a choice to play a ranger, barbarian or paladin with existing features, by preference I'd play a ranger everytime with paladin as a second choice, and I'd never play a barbarian even if it was changed to be more powerful.
I use the ranger as the default template for creating many new martial classes to fit specific niches I want to create, more than any other class. I'm perfectly happy with rangers as they exist now - no need to change them, IMO.
Rangers in either 3x or PF is the most played martial class in our group, more than fighter, rogue or anything else.
The wild stalker seems a bit OP, perception is the most used skill in the game. With this ability, I think invisible goblins with reduce person would be the only things able to hide from them. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but it's still pretty powerful. If it was allowed, I'd definately team up with a div spec wizard and rattling gunslinger and have everyone take that teamwork feat that can allow a full round action in the surprise round. Just hope your not fighting rangers.
That's is one thing I'm somewhat concerned about. But then again, Druids, Clerics and Inquisitors can all pick up the Feather domain, which not only grants a bonus to Perception, but also grants an Animal Companion and a +2 racial bonus to Intiative on surprise rounds.
It also gets better flight maneuverability. Add this to their superior spellcasting and likely higher Wisdom score, and suddenly it's doesn't look that powerful for rangers anymore.
So a Inquisitor with this domain adds half his level to:
Perception, Sense Motive, Intimidate and Survival (tracking only). Possibly Knowledge skill checks too, with the right feat.
Also, remember Invisibility is quite common (especially at higher levels, when the bonus is more likely to matter) and grants the character up to +40 to Stealth.
I do admit it's a pretty powerful ability, but I'm not sure it's game breaking or even too troublesome for GMs.
True, but rangers also get up to a +10 to perception against a favored enemy. It's an untyped bonus so it stacks with the untyped bonus you propose along with any racial bonus. The domain bonus is also racial so it does nothing for the first four levels for a few races (maybe just elf and goblin variant. At level 5 a goblin ranger could haver a + 22 to perception (not including wis bonus) against 1 favored enemy 20 against another, and 18 for everything else.
Sure this is a specific build with feat and trait bonuses added, but would you want it as an enemy against your stealth based rogue?My other concern would be an inquisitor, Druid, or cleric have to choose this domain, giving up other domains. Your ranger would just get it and loose nothing. This is in addition to the ranger having full BAB to the Druid, inquisitor, and clerics 2/3.
However, I'll admit that I am rather cautious when I'm looking at adding things to classes and I'd really have to play one to 20 before I could tell you the power level.
You make a valid point about the Perception against Favored Enemies. While Ranger should be amazing against them, they shouldn't be acapable of auto-detecting them everytiime. Would it be reasonable if the scaling bonus didn't stack with the Favored Enemy bonus?
About they giving up other domains, I don't agree with your logic.
A class shouldn't have an option that steps on the the toes of another class this hard (and that's pretty much what the Feather domain Inquisitor does).
It's like saying the Rogue is not obsolete because the Vivisectionist Alchemist had to give up his bombs, while the rogue gets Sneak Attack for free. It doesn't change the fact that the Vivisectionist still gets a lot more than the Rogue.
I don't really have anything helpful to suggest to improve the ranger, mechanically, though I will say my players found the ranger with the "skirmisher" archetype to be far more enjoyable than the standard ranger.
If they didn't stack then there would be no point in having the perception bonus against favored enemies since, except at low levels, the new bonus would be greater or equal to the favored.
Of course I forgot about the favored terrain bonus and I don't like to retype, so it is possible to have a greater bonus to a few creatures in some areas with that added but for most of them you would have a lower or equal bonus with just the favored at higher levels.I've not looked at the vivisectionist, so I can't comment. I'm also probably not the best person to judge this since I think rangers are ok. I haven't looked, but is there a ranger archtype that gets you a domain?
I did like the conceal scent and keen senses part, but I would add "when in their favored terrain" to keen senses.
Hmmm... I'll reevaluate the skill bonus. I think the easiest path is simply removing the bonus to Perception against Favored Enemies (since the new bonus works on everything), but I'm still not sure it's that much of a problem, anyway. I'll think about it.
But I don't see how Keen Senses could apply only in Favored Terrains. Why can the ranger see in a dark cave, but not in a dark alley or in the sewers (assuming sewers count as Urban terrain, not Underground)? Why can he smell approaching enemies in the mountains, but not in the desert? Besides, I don't think any of those senses is too powerful by the time the ranger gets them.
I think rangers are playable, and decent characters. But IMHO, they lack just a little something to push them up to Barbarian/Paladin tier.
Favored Enemy...
Combat Feats without pre-requisites...
Favored Terrain...
Animal Companion...
Evasion...
+2 bonus and auto-confirm crits on designated targets...
Good Fort and Reflex, and casting stat adds to Will...
How are they as not as good as Barbarians/Paladins?
If you pick your enemies and terrain right, you can easily rock encounters.
And yet, not one of my suggestions is about rocking encounters.
Well, maybe the increased effective druid level for animal companions, but that's more about helping the critter to survive than increasing the Ranger's offense.
All my suggestions were aimed to make Rangers more... I dunno... Ranger-ish.
They become better scouts, hunters, infiltrators and survivalists. Which is pretty much the main focus of the class, but as they are, any druid or inquisitor (and some clerics too) can easily outshine the ranger at his game.
With these changes, druids'll at least have to up their games.