Rangers can be frontliners just fine with the TWF and Two-Handed combat trees.
Dunno if a Dex limited Archer who provokes when firing (I think) is your best bet for a frontliner. Or even a back liner.
"Capable" yes. "Excels at" no.
A ranger built as a tank can be a perfectly fine tank. A ranger built as an archer will not be as good as a dedicated tank of any class.
But that doesn't mean they CAN'T tank. Especially if the party is willing to provide some useful buffs.
You can get feats that deal with the issue of archer's provoking, although admittedly harder to do with a ranger than a fighter, due to the feat accessibility.
A Ranger in full plate also means blowing another feat on heavy armor prof.
So no, I don't think this is really going to work. Best to do an archer dedicated fighter.
But with the Full Plate their to-hit will be a lot lower, unless I'm misunderstanding the Dex mod cap. They'd effectively have 1d20+BaB to-hit, that's it.
Composite Bows don't help with attack rolls, just damage.
And don't Rangers lose a few class features in Heavy Armor?
The dex mod only applies to dex bonus for AC purposes.
Maximum Dex Bonus: This number is the maximum Dexterity bonus to AC that this type of armor allows. Dexterity bonuses in excess of this number are reduced to this number for the purposes of determining the wearer's AC. Heavier armors limit mobility, reducing the wearer's ability to dodge blows. This restriction doesn't affect any other Dexterity-related abilities.
But with the Full Plate their to-hit will be a lot lower, unless I'm misunderstanding the Dex mod cap. They'd effectively have 1d20+BaB to-hit, that's it.
Composite Bows don't help with attack rolls, just damage.
And don't Rangers lose a few class features in Heavy Armor?
Heavy armor is negated by mithral (which would make it medium) more cheese if you ask me. Mithral is spammed too much these days.
So the Ranger would just need to take the heavy armor proficiency (still needs the proficiency) but the armor counts as one step lower, so medium in this case.
Although depending on how you would rules lawyer the wording of the rangers combat style, you could limit/prohibit them from pulling this off ( I would , but technically, would limit the availability of mithral instead, to make the cost of building such armor a long, ardous task that far out costs the benefits of doing this..... I like to make cheese expensive, especially brie like this, good stuff, rare, should be pricey)
I'd limit it too.
So far as I know Mithral only takes down the ACP and Spell Failure chance to that of a lower step. Mithral Full Plate is still Heavy Armor, hence why you need the proficiency for it.
Mithral makes Heavy Armor count as Medium Armor for everything but Proficiency. So you could absolutely still use your Ranger bonus feats in Mithril Full Plate, RAW.
Well that's just silly.
Mithral makes Heavy Armor count as Medium Armor for everything but Proficiency. So you could absolutely still use your Ranger bonus feats in Mithril Full Plate, RAW.
Yea I know, it's RAW. but RAW doesnt tell you how plentiful or accessible mithral is. So could be limited by a DM.
And I think it's a cheesy use of the material, personally.
make the cost of building such armor a long, ardous task
Even someone with a +38 to Craft (Armor) takes more than one year to craft a single suit of mithral platemail, unless they have something like seven levels of Soul Forger Magus or some Amazing Tools of Manufacture. Building such armor is a long, arduous task.
Except for ninth-level wizards who can do it in six seconds.
Even with mitral full plate and a trait the ranger would have a -2 to all his attacks so he will ned a feat, losing a feat is relly bad for an archer build.
agreed. which is why i said it's much better/easier to do with a fighter who has more feats and already has access to heavy armor.
The "deal" for rangers comes at not needing the prerequisites to get the feats, which means not having as high a dex, or not getting some of the required earlier feats.
but in an archer build 1) you need the high dec for extra to hit 2) you usually need all the other feats anyway. 3) you need more feats than your combat style gives you and 4) a Fighter also gets armor training, coupled with that high dex so is going to have a better AC in Full Plate AND doesn't need it to be mithral because his feats dont require medium or less armor.
so in the world of arguing which is better for archer, ranger or fighter, the scales are tipped way in favor of fighter, when trying to use a ranger THIS way.
If you want to pull off the archer tank, your much more well equipped to do so as the fighter, not the archer archetype. You lose gloves of dueling access and AC loss from the archetype. The actual fighter class, will have the proficiency, and con boost, as well as the higher HD to compensate.
Since they have so many feats, spend them on Point blank master, snap shot and imp. snapshot. Greater is not needed. If you want to threaten a large area bigger than 15'... than the combat patrol feat ,which needs mobility and dodge, you can threaten to roughly 25'. Throw into the mix that makes all this even sweeter, the Pin down feat, which does work for archery, and you stop people from 5' steps, withdraws, and make AOO's out to 25'...
I play a switch hitting ranger we are level 11 now I think. I do okay as primary melee, but I know the casters do alot of battlefeild control. I would do a lot better if I was a straight melee ranger or a class with heavy armor.
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Mithral makes Heavy Armor count as Medium Armor for everything but Proficiency. So you could absolutely still use your Ranger bonus feats in Mithril Full Plate, RAW.Yea I know, it's RAW. but RAW doesnt tell you how plentiful or accessible mithral is. So could be limited by a DM.
And I think it's a cheesy use of the material, personally.
I think you have a silly usage of the word "cheesy" because that's 100% the intended use for Mithril armors. If they didn't want to make it so that heavier armors counted as lighter armors, it wouldn't say so.
I agree that the accessibility of it should absolutely be up to the DM, but I also don't believe it's the rarest metal in the world of fantasy.
Mithral full plate is cheese when the build depends on having it to get around a restriction of the core class.
I must have it. Becomes everyone must have it, because this build rocks. Becomes mithral is everywhere in huge doses. Becomes Players B*%Cing when the DM says or suggests that mithral might be rare or wants to restrict it.
Different people play different games and they are all named Pathfinder. Yes the rules explains how Mithral works they even have a system for what should be normally available. But if a GM thinks that every small town having access to rare metals and the process to forge them is a stretch then that is a choice they make at their table.
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And I don't disagree with that. The DM is absolutely able to say "This small hamlet doesn't have access to Mithril at all" and no one can complain about it.
In larger villages and cities, where traders come for frequently? I think it would be safe to say you can generally find some there.
Really, I just don't see how it's cheesy to use things exactly as they are designed to be used. Mithril armor is highly sought after because it's good. Do you have a problem with people wanting +1 weapons, too?
It's not that it's bad because it's good, it just seems like it defeats the entire purpose of armor restrictions for class features.
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It's not that it's bad because it's good, it just seems like it defeats the entire purpose of armor restrictions for class features.
Yeah, for the low low price of like 11500 gold for a suit of Mithril Full Plate. And that doesn't count enchanting it or anything.
And Celestial Full Plate might indeed be the sort of thing the OP is looking for, though it's not necessarily the only option, and is quite an expensive option as well.
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Screw the mithral fullplate, be a dwarf ranger and wear a Mithral Agile Breastplate with an armored Kilt.
Equals +7 Armor with much better dexterity cap and you didn't blow a feat.
Ride your Anklosaurus mount and shoot everybody.
Can you explain the reasoning behind choosing a dwarf? I do like that you managed to get a +7 armor, which is just 2 lower than the full plate, and it can be made up for by the higher dex.
Probably because of their whole "Not slowed by encumbrance" feature.
Though it really wouldn't affect the Ranger since they don't get faster movement or anything and any other race would move at 20 feet with Medium armor.
well take a guy with a 20 deX.
Full plate limits you to a +1 for AC bonus so you're 'stuck' at 10. Mithral brings that up by 2, so you get an extra 2 AC (the OP is trying to tank.) total =12
The Same guy in breast plate gets a 6 AC and a total of 3 max dec, so 9 , mithral would make that 11. Which is your best bet really, because as a ranger, why blow the feat for the 1 ac?
Now take a character with a higher ac, let's say he has a deX item that gives him +2 so his total dex mod is +6 (a 22 deX)
the Ranger will never be able to realize his full DEX bonus, but a fighter, in mithral full plate, with a 22 DEX and 11th level to get armor training 3 and you get a total of 15 AC.
The Ranger is stuck down at 11 AC (6+5) while the fighter has 15 (9+6), after level 11, a few point in AC stops meaning so much because monsters just blow your AC away anyway, unless you start focusing on AC builds, which require shields as well.
So an Archer Ranger tanking, isn't going to do the deed.
The fighter also has 11 feats to pull off the arching as well as the other stuff he will need to do the above mentioned things like not trigger AoOs.
An 11th level Ranger has 3 combat style feats and 6 regular feats to deal with it, so he is two feats short.
As an in melee tank the ranger is going to fall short.
A player in my group is 'kinda' making something like this, it's a "legolas" build. She is using Ronin as a mounted archer mostly, and took expertise in katana. Which she is calling TWF with a bow. If she gets in close she can quick draw the katana to do the dirty knife work and then resheath without having to put down her bow.
that also puts the ranger at a distinct monetary disadvantage too, spending more money on armor, spending a feat to wear it, and less money available for his primary weapon.... it just doesnt wash for the ranger to pull it off.
In fact if I havent said this already, I think the whole build concept is a pile of poop.
I personally try to limit flying in my games.... hate celestial armor...
most casters never choose it as spell, had one witch choose the hex and had one randomly rolled flying carpet (first one in 20 plus years! it was so odd we never randomly rolled one i let him have it.)
but by and large i dont like un restricted flying... but then again I really dont like 22 (or more) in stats for pcs...
The Ranger is stuck down at 11 AC (6+5) while the fighter has 15 (9+6), after level 11Realistically though, would a tank fighter actually put up numbers like 22 Dex by level 11? The archer ranger most definitely would, given the range attack specialization, but I don't see it happening for the fighter in full plate. The numbers would be a bit closer, though still definitely in favor of the fighter.
Still, comparing it to, say, a paladin, at level 11 we'd be looking at still a 12 AC vs 11 AC, right? Granted, a paladin can heal himself, making him more survivable, but a ranger would have an animal companion helping him out as well, so he's not without resources.
we arent talking about standard builds, or AC builds, we are talking about an archer tank.
With DEX being both an AC stat and the Archers Primary stat, WHY would the fighter NOT put as much as he could into DEX?
another thing that is being over looked, is the ranger looses his evasion in medium or heavier armor, this is key ability over a fighter, and by trying to chase the fighter in AC, he loses it.
So by level 11, a Ranger is really actually limited to Elven Chain (or celestial chain), but considering the same exact stats for both classes... the ranger will always lose in The AC race.
He will tie the fighter for HP (same stats and HD) so he really makes a worse 'tank' than a fighter.
Although with abilities like evasion, Id argue his overall survivability is going to be better.
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Don't forget rangers also get some spells they can use to self-buff that fighters can't cast.
My advice to the original poster is unchanged. A ranger archer tank is not optimized, but there is no reason that it can't work. Too many players have fallen prey to the notion that if there is a better way to obtain a specific goal, then every other option is pointless.
If you want to have a ranger archer tank, then work on optimizing a ranger archer to be a tank and go out and have fun. You might not be as good as a fighter in the same role, but you should be good enough, if you are part of a decent party who will support you.
I say no.
I love ranged classes and play them well but the biggest weakness is that a bow user is not going to get attacks of opportunity vs sunder/grapple/disarm attempts.
even with the 5ft step all they have to do is step in and take your bow.
cant use bow with locked gauntlet (at least I would not allow it as a GM) and also most bows are relatively low on the STR rating....
i mean... can it be doen? yes... can it be great.. I think not as long as the enemy are half way intelligent.
there are feast for that, it's just that the ranger is less feat healthy.