Actually, a 15th level human lore warden can have +8 vs all maneuvers, +23 vs sunder/disarm. That's just from class abilities and class-specific FCB.I always hate seeing lore warden brought up in these discussions. It's an archetype from a splat book that was recently replaced and specifically left the lore warden out, and it's also something the designers of the game have specifically called out as poor design.
Replaced by what? when? where?!
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I'm still trying to figure out how a class that gives up armor proficiencies and armor training is 'all about not getting hit'... and can we all recognize that combat maneuvers are woefully overrated as a combat option?
Not really true when you bring things like the Lore Warden into play. The only really viable Fighter options I've seen have been centered around combat maneuvers. Bastards of Golarion introduced a feat called Dirty Trick Master that makes the Dirty Fighter archetype one of the best battlefield control specialists in the game.
The Lore Warden, whose class abilities alone can give him up to a +14 on weapon-based maneuvers, before adding in feats and BAB, can absolutely annihilate a battlefield with combat maneuvers like Trip, Dirty Trick, Disarm (situational but often a death-blow for weapon-using enemies), even Steal can cause some havoc.
It also has an incredibly small number of uses per day and requires you to take two terrible pre-reqs.Eh, I like Spellbreaker, unless you're giving all of your NPC casters so much of their casting stat that they can cast any spell defensively no matter what. But if you're doing that, you're running a world you probably shouldn't have any martials in regardless, because when your casters can literally wipe out a horde of Balors by themselves with no particular threat to them ... no martial in the game can compete.
Do not think only in the main BBEG. Minion caster can still ruin your day and they have bigger chances to fail their concentration.
Brawler+step up and strike+disruptive+spellbreaker+teleporttactician for the win.
Now I'm actually curious. Let's look at the extensive splitting of Wealth to be required to have a decently useful animal companion. >_>
At 8th level, our Ranger with no feats invested into Boon Companion or anything like that has a 5HD HD animal. Since I like mounts let's go with a Horse.
Horse
Starting Statistics: Size Large; Speed 50 ft.; AC +4 natural armor; Attack bite (1d4), 2 hooves* (1d6); Ability Scores Str 16, Dex 13, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6; Special Qualities low-light vision, scent. *This is a secondary natural attack, see Combat for more information on how secondary attacks work.
4th-Level Advancement: Ability Scores Str +2, Con +2; Special Qualities combat trained (see the Handle Animal skill).
So our horse has 5d8 HD (37.5 HP), Speed 50 ft., 19 Str, 14 Dex, 17 Con, 2 Int, 12 Wis, 6 Cha, with a +1 floating point (from it's 4th HD) which could be put into Str (for offense/carrying capacity) or Con (for more HP / saves) or Int (making your horse sentient). The horse has a base AC of 17 (+2 dex, +6 natural, -1 size). Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +2, Evasion, Share Spells, Link. Offense includes 1 bite and 2 hooves at +6 with a +4 to damage; 5 skill points; and 3 feats.
That's our horse naked and without counting feats. For 250 gp we can put our horse in masterwork studded leather to knock his AC up to 20 with no loss of speed or attack penalties. If we don't mind the attack penalties or speed reduction we can just load him down with some heavier armor such as some 600 gp chainmail, bringing his AC to 23, and now he's just an armored tank that we ride on for better action economy and use to provide flanking and cover.
That's less than the cost of a potion of fly and you can reuse the armor if Old Blanchy snuffs it.
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EDIT: Also, don't appeal to SKR of all people for authority. Like don't do it ever anyway, but if you must, don't do it with SKR.
I'd much rather appeal to one of the best and most experienced game designers out there as opposed to Some Random Guy on the Internet.
The Pathfinder Society Field Guide was taken out of print when the Pathfinder Society Primer was released. It is still legal for PFS though, so if you have a PFS character using it as a resource you're still good.
Replaced by what? when? where?!
Ok. it woudl have been the most atrocious martial nerf ever.
I'm still trying to figure out how a class that gives up armor proficiencies and armor training is 'all about not getting hit'... and can we all recognize that combat maneuvers are woefully overrated as a combat option?Not really true when you bring things like the Lore Warden into play. The only really viable Fighter options I've seen have been centered around combat maneuvers. Bastards of Golarion introduced a feat called Dirty Trick Master that makes the Dirty Fighter archetype one of the best battlefield control specialists in the game.
The Lore Warden, whose class abilities alone can give him up to a +14 on weapon-based maneuvers, before adding in feats and BAB, can absolutely annihilate a battlefield with combat maneuvers like Trip, Dirty Trick, Disarm (situational but often a death-blow for weapon-using enemies), even Steal can cause some havoc.
And this is what I mean about woefully over-rated. Every Combat Maneuver is so incredibly situational (Trip against Flyers, Disarm against natural weapon users, etc.) and each specific one requires a substantial feat investment just to be moderately viable... all of them together still pale in comparison to something like Dazing Assault, and at higher levels, no matter how high your bonuses, its very difficult to overcome the CMD of boss-type foes.
The vast majority of the time, all of the feats and actions spent trying to pull off a combat maneuver would just be better spent trying to make an enemy dead.
Dirty Trick is about the only one of them I'd consider worth the investment and even still only as a gimmick... and it requires, what - five feats to be useful? Even Dirty Trick Master is a trap because it requires two successful applications and most of the time people apply the Blind condition on the initial one, which of course is the only effect not worsened by DTM.
An archetype is poor design if it's too good not to take.
Then it must not be poor design, since I see many more Fighters who aren't Lore Wardens than Fighters who are...
An archetype is poor design if it's too good not to take. Especially if the options it gives up to trade for it's benefits, have no negative impact.I always hate seeing lore warden brought up in these discussions. It's an archetype from a splat book that was recently replaced and specifically left the lore warden out, and it's also something the designers of the game have specifically called out as poor design.So if it was poor design why is it one of the most popular fighter archetypes currently out there? It gave them massively more utility and is kind of the bar for where a lot of players want the fighter to be power wise.
I guess i see it as an awesome option while the devs see it as giving the fighter something nice that was not in line with how they saw the fighter.
Pfff, the lore warden is not good to not to take. I would say that if an abilityis so pointless that basically you can forget it ever existed that is poor design, *cough* bravery *cough*
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And this is what I mean about woefully over-rated. Every Combat Maneuver is so incredibly situational (Trip against Flyers, Disarm against natural weapon users, etc.) and each specific one requires a substantial feat investment just to be moderately viable... all of them together still pale in comparison to something like Dazing Assault, and at higher levels, no matter how high your bonuses, its very difficult to overcome the CMD of boss-type foes.
The vast majority of the time, all of the feats and actions spent trying to pull off a combat maneuver would just be better spent trying to make an enemy dead.
Dirty Trick is about the only one of them I'd consider worth the investment and even still only as a gimmick... and it requires, what - five feats to be useful? Even Dirty Trick Master is a trap because it requires two successful applications and most of the time people apply the Blind condition on the initial one, which of course is the only effect not worsened by DTM.
The Dirty Fighter archetype is dazing enemies with a single hit by level 13, and he can potentially whirlwind attack to do it to an entire group of enemies. A Lore Warden has a +34 to trip at level 20 before adding in magic weapons, buffs, stat modifiers, etc. A +5 magic weapon, +5 STR (not very much at all, they'll likely have more), and Improved and Greater Trip means he has a 90% chance to put a Balor on its ass, and Dirty Trick to Pin him can keep him from flying to avoid it. I would say that 2 rounds with a 90% chance of success is pretty viable, especially considering it only takes about 1/2 a Fighter's bonus feats to pull off.
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And how come you skipped over the part of my post where I pointed out I was actually playing the fighter you seem to regard as a Schroedinger's?
I didn't say anything about Schrodgnir's. I said that the lion's share of the people that go on about Fighters being great generally list tons of stuff that have diddly with being a Fighter. Just like you did.
Let's examine...
Want to make a wand specialist fighter? No problem - a human can have Cha 8 and still get Dangerously Curious, Magical Aptitude and Skill Focus (UMD) for a total +9 to his roll at 1st level, a 50/50 shot at a wand. And since he's still got his Str 18, Dex 14 and Con 14 (20 pt buy) plus Power Attack, he's got plenty of damage and hit points to take care of business. A ranger, on the other hand, is "supposed" to be good at woodcraft, meaning he has to take Survival, Stealth, Handle Animal and so on - not to mention, of course, using his two racial feats for whatever the groundwork is for his combat style.
Everything you mentioned here has 0% to do with being a Fighter. You have listed 2 traits and a non-combat feat as benefits of him being a Fighter. Meanwhile you try to make it sound like the Ranger having more skills than you and being able to more is somehow a "bad thing" or somehow a disadvantage.
Now what did I say again?
Pro-Fighter: Have 20+ PB, Max UMD, grab lots of wands, spend all your non-fighter feats on saving throw boosting feats, make sure you have these specific optional system traits...
Like I said. This happens every time. We talk about what Rangers do because they are Rangers and all the Pro-Fighter people come in and start talking about what they can do in spite of being Fighters, with above-standard point buy, and optional rules like Traits. None of which is inherent to the Fighter class. Literally nothing that you posted at all was because he was a Fighter, it was in spite of being one.
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Pfff, the lore warden is not good to not to take. I would say that if an abilityis so pointless that basically you can forget it ever existed that is poor design, *cough* bravery *cough*
The Lore Warden is numerically better than the Fighter by a large margin. He's poor design in that he ignores the core chassis of the class and flips it the bird as he disappears into the distance(the same way that the Musket Master and Pistolero are poor design because they're vastly better than the core Gunslinger). It doesn't mean that they're not good additions to the game (at least the Lore Warden's not), but it means that they don't belong in the same discussion as the class they used to be. When you're talking about what a Fighter can do, the Lore Warden isn't a valid point of comparison because it outstrips every other Fighter archetype, gets capstone abilities early, trades defensive for offensive abilities, etc. The Lore Warden undermines how badly balanced to its peers the core Fighter chassis is; people can point at it and say "OH, I don't think Fighters are so bad, we had a Lore Warden in our group who was great". That has nothing to do with the Fighter, that has to do with the Lore Warden who is really a completely different class all together. If you lay the Lore Warden side-by-side with the Fighter he's actually more different from the Fighter than the Ninja is from the Rogue, and the Ninja got his own class entry (which really, the Lore Warden should have, but they don't want him in the core product line).
The Dirty Fighter archetype is dazing enemies with a single hit by level 13, and he can potentially whirlwind attack to do it to an entire group of enemies. A Lore Warden has a +34 to trip at level 20 before adding in magic weapons, buffs, stat modifiers, etc. A +5 magic weapon, +5 STR (not very much at all, they'll likely have more), and Improved and Greater Trip means he has a 90% chance to put a Balor on its ass, and Dirty Trick to Pin him can keep him from flying to avoid it. I would say that 2 rounds with a 90% chance of success is pretty viable, especially considering it only takes about 1/2 a Fighter's bonus feats to pull off.And this is what I mean about woefully over-rated. Every Combat Maneuver is so incredibly situational (Trip against Flyers, Disarm against natural weapon users, etc.) and each specific one requires a substantial feat investment just to be moderately viable... all of them together still pale in comparison to something like Dazing Assault, and at higher levels, no matter how high your bonuses, its very difficult to overcome the CMD of boss-type foes.
The vast majority of the time, all of the feats and actions spent trying to pull off a combat maneuver would just be better spent trying to make an enemy dead.
Dirty Trick is about the only one of them I'd consider worth the investment and even still only as a gimmick... and it requires, what - five feats to be useful? Even Dirty Trick Master is a trap because it requires two successful applications and most of the time people apply the Blind condition on the initial one, which of course is the only effect not worsened by DTM.
Dazing with a single hit? I must have missed that somewhere... and for the record, Dazing Assault CAN Daze with a single hit and can be used with Whirlwind Attack by 11th level, again without the exhaustive feat requirements.
Do you really think trying to Trip a Balor is the way a 20th level Fighter should be contributing to his team? That trying to 'Dirty Trick' a Balor is the best use of your feats and actions? Besides, we're not talking about 20th level play, are we? We're talking about 6th - 12th level play for the most part...
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Like I said. This happens every time. We talk about what Rangers do because they are Rangers and all the Pro-Fighter people come in and start talking about what they can do in spite of being Fighters, with above-standard point buy, and optional rules like Traits. None of which is inherent to the Fighter class. Literally nothing that you posted at all was because he was a Fighter, it was in spite of being one.
*sigh* Which is my point.
Fighters can do whatever the hell they want, because they have all this stuff lying around they don't need to do their jobs. Like skill points. And the feats they get for leveling.
Like I said. This happens every time. We talk about what Rangers do because they are Rangers and all the Pro-Fighter people come in and start talking about what they can do in spite of being Fighters, with above-standard point buy, and optional rules like Traits.
Traits originally came out of the Advanced Players guide, the same as "Instant Enemy," which every Ranger apparently has a wand of, based on earlier comments in the thread.
Like I said. This happens every time. We talk about what Rangers do because they are Rangers and all the Pro-Fighter people come in and start talking about what they can do in spite of being Fighters, with above-standard point buy, and optional rules like Traits.Traits originally came out of the Advanced Players guide, the same as "Instant Enemy," which every Ranger apparently has a wand of, based on earlier comments in the thread.
Traits are presented as an alternate rules set/add on, like hero points. Spells and wands are not.
@ Rory - That's one example of why the Fighter is a great dip. I mean you're front-loaded with feats. You get 3 bonus feats in the first 4 levels of the class, and you're rewarded for taking those levels later if you can (since you will qualify for more feats later).
That said you also forgot to list the benefit that Rangers do not have to meet the prerequisites, and their early access to things like Improved Precise Shot or Pinpoint Targeting (which is kind of amusing when you realize it's essentially a touch attack that isn't a touch attack, making it a fine attack to use with Deadly Aim against highly armored targets :P).
But Rangers get more "feats" than Fighters. For example, the Ranger effectively gains Lightning Reflexes x3, Open-Minded x4, 5 "free" combat feats, endurance, and if we counted each of his level of his spells as a feat that would be +4 more "feats".
Similarly, it's impossible to ever ambush an arcane caster because of Emergency Force Sphere from Cheliax.
In all of these discussions, people are constantly pulling from whatever resource benefits their argument. Restrict it to CRB only and you'll have a completely different discussion.
Traits are presented as an alternate rules set. Spells and wands are not.Like I said. This happens every time. We talk about what Rangers do because they are Rangers and all the Pro-Fighter people come in and start talking about what they can do in spite of being Fighters, with above-standard point buy, and optional rules like Traits.Traits originally came out of the Advanced Players guide, the same as "Instant Enemy," which every Ranger apparently has a wand of, based on earlier comments in the thread.
This. Exactly this. Spells are a standard part of the game.
Comparing Favored Enemy to Traits is akin to comparing it to Piecemeal Armor, Called Shots, Wounds and Vigor, or Armor as Damage reduction.
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Dazing with a single hit? I must have missed that somewhere... and for the record, Dazing Assault CAN Daze with a single hit and can be used with Whirlwind Attack by 11th level, again without the exhaustive feat requirements.
Do you really think trying to Trip a Balor is the way a 20th level Fighter should be contributing to his team? That trying...
Dazing Assault imposes a -5 penalty to your attack rolls and allows a Fortitude save. The Dirty Fighter will actually have a bonus to his attempts, and can inflict conditions multiple times with a single application, allowing him to scale to Dazed with his first hit, and there's no save for the enemy.
And yeah, if the 20th level Fighter is taking the Balor completely out of the fight in one to two rounds, I think that that's exactly waht he should be doing.
And if we're talking about levels 6-12, that's before the curve where combat maneuvers start requiring brutally intense investment to stay viable without archetypes, so the point applies doubly. I have seen combat maneuvers destroy encounters, and lockdown specialists like the Tetori, Lore Warden, and Dirty Fighter are probably the best martial options out there. The same argument that always comes up in the martial vs. caster threads applies "If you can effectively take an enemy out of the fight in one round through status effects or special means, it really doesn't matter how much damage you can do".
To yank that violently back on subject, that's one thing the Fighter can do that the Ranger can't, or at least not as well; get good enough at combat maneuvers to shut down fights almost as fast as they can start. The Ranger can't get single attack lockdowns like the Dirty Fighter (won't even touch the Lore Warden for reasons I've gone on about at length).
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Comparing Favored Enemy to Traits is akin to comparing it to Piecemeal Armor, Called Shots, Wounds and Vigor, or Armor as Damage reduction.
Or not, because none of the rest of those have had roughly 1/3 of another core RPG line book dedicated to them, or have new options released with literally every setting book that is released.
At this point, it's more "akin to comparing it to" archetypes. Which we all appear to be okay with.
Similarly, it's impossible to ever ambush an arcane caster because of Emergency Force Sphere from Cheliax.
In all of these discussions, people are constantly pulling from whatever resource benefits their argument. Restrict it to CRB only and you'll have a completely different discussion.
Yeah, in CRB-only the ranger utterly destroy the Fighter because the feats that are hard to get without extensive chains SUCK.
In core the fighter taps out at +4 from weapon training. Meanwhile the Ranger still deals comparable damage, has a mini-smite, more versatility, better defenses, and in-class access to things like freedom of movement, delay/neutralize poison, remove disease, etc. They also get some solid anti-infantry AoE spells, good buffs, and access to a wide variety of useful wands/scrolls via their spell list.
Likewise, they get the best feats early. In core, the best archery feats are things like Improved Precise Shot which a Fighter has to wait until 11th level to take (no cover / concealment benefits sans total cover) which is a massive benefit (Fighter can take Manyshot at 6th, but Ranger gets it at 7th if they want it instead of Craft Wondrous Items).
Seriously Fighters in core-rulebook-only are even worse because the pro-fighter folks can't even boast things Snap Shot and Combat Patrol (which are legitimately cool things but don't make up for their woefully painful shortcomings in other areas).
Pro-Rangers talk about Ranger-stuff.
Pro-Fighters talk about everything else.
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I'd much rather appeal to one of the best and most experienced game designers out there as opposed to Some Random Guy on the Internet.
EDIT: Also, don't appeal to SKR of all people for authority. Like don't do it ever anyway, but if you must, don't do it with SKR.
Outside these boards, the popular opinion of SKR is... rather negative.
But if you want to follow his logic to its conclusion, here it goes:
- People doing non-magical things need to be held to the non-magical rules of the real world. For example, the Crossbow will just never be as good as the Longbow, because it doesn't fire as fast.
- Paizo is not obliged to make self-evidently inferior character concepts, such as the water balloon thrower, or the blind warrior mechanically viable.
- Fighters have no magic. Not just no spellcasting, but no supernatural abilities at all. Paladins, Barbarians, Rangers, even Monks get them. Good thing too, because if we're going by the first rule, a man with no weapons and no armor will just get demolished by someone with weapons and armor, barring extreme differences in skill and fitness.
- Beyond the low levels, magic is ubiquitous. Most enemies have some sort of magical abilities. Many obstacles are made much more difficult, if not impossible, to overcome without magic. Spellcasters gain enough endurance to be able to cast a useful spell on every round of combat, and a few outside it as well. You're at a severe disadvantage in games of intrigue and manipulation if you can't read minds or influence them with magic.
- Magic > Not Magic, just as surely as Bow > Crossbow, and Can See > Cannot See. The Fighter will never be good, as long as it remains mundane. So either give it Charles Atlas Superpowers or make the class end at level 6, with appropriate Prestige options.
Comparing Favored Enemy to Traits is akin to comparing it to Piecemeal Armor, Called Shots, Wounds and Vigor, or Armor as Damage reduction.Or not, because none of the rest of those have had roughly 1/3 of another core RPG line book dedicated to them, or have new options released with literally every setting book that is released.
At this point, it's more "akin to comparing it to" archetypes. Which we all appear to be okay with.
It's more like comparing them to feats. Archetypes are a restructuring of the class essentially, bordering on a new class. Kind of like Sohei or Zen Archer is to monk, they're similar but they are not the monk in the same sense.
Notice I've made no complaints about people suggesting Fighter builds involving non-Core Rulebook feats. Those are just expanded content rather than changes or variants to the ruleset itself.
It's one of the reasons that when I post builds (such as when helping someone make a character) I post a 15 PB build with no traits, no words of power, no vitality/wounds, no piecemeal armor, no emphasis on making called shots, etc. I will however use feats, spells, and class options (IE - rogue talents, combat styles, rage powers, arcane discoveries, alchemist discoveries, etc) from books like the APG, UC, UM, and UE unless those sources are noted as unavailable.
My complaint with this nonsense at the moment is still to this moment most people pushing for Fighters being awesome list precious little that is good about the Fighter. It always involves a higher point buy, two traits and a bag of chips, and in many cases niche options like racial-only feats or alternate class features.
Meanwhile there's people like me are are just dealing with RANGER and RANGER THINGS... >_>
Dazing with a single hit? I must have missed that somewhere... and for the record, Dazing Assault CAN Daze with a single hit and can be used with Whirlwind Attack by 11th level, again without the exhaustive feat requirements.
Do you really think trying to Trip a Balor is the way a 20th level Fighter should be contributing to his team? That trying...
Dazing Assault imposes a -5 penalty to your attack rolls and allows a Fortitude save. The Dirty Fighter will actually have a bonus to his attempts, and can inflict conditions multiple times with a single application, allowing him to scale to Dazed with his first hit, and there's no save for the enemy.
And yeah, if the 20th level Fighter is taking the Balor completely out of the fight in one to two rounds, I think that that's exactly waht he should be doing.
And if we're talking about levels 6-12, that's before the curve where combat maneuvers start requiring brutally intense investment to stay viable without archetypes, so the point applies doubly. I have seen combat maneuvers destroy encounters, and lockdown specialists like the Tetori, Lore Warden, and Dirty Fighter are probably the best martial options out there. The same argument that always comes up in the martial vs. caster threads applies "If you can effectively take an enemy out of the fight in one round through status effects or special means, it really doesn't matter how much damage you can do".
Its my opinion that you're vastly over-stating the effectiveness and applicability of combat maneuvers, and my experience has born that out. That's fine though - there's no such thing as 'badwrongfun' in my book and if its working for you then great. I still don't see where the 'single hit daze' takes place though.
While the debate as to whether combat maneuvers are worth pursuing can rage on, I will readily admit that yes, Fighters in general and in particular specific archetypes (including one that only an Orc can play) are certainly better at them than Rangers are.
My complaint with this nonsense at the moment is still to this moment most people pushing for Fighters being awesome list precious little that is good about the Fighter. It always involves a higher point buy, two traits and a bag of chips, and in many cases niche options like racial-only feats or alternate class features.
Meanwhile there's people like me are are just dealing with RANGER and RANGER THINGS... >_>
Actually, most of the "Pro-Fighters" people in this thread are making arguments about Fighters being able to do anything better than a Ranger. It's been a fairly ridiculous thread.
"Fighters get to use better armor."
"NOT TRUE, CELESTIAL PLATE MAIL!"
"Fighters can do equal damage to all enemies in all terrain."
"NOT TRUE, WAND OF INSTANT ENEMY!"
Very few people arguing for Fighters have said that Rangers are a bad class (they're not), or that Fighters are more powerful in absolute terms than Rangers. Numerous people arguing against Fighters are basically of the opinion that it's a useless class (it's not) that will only ever be deadweight to a party, and that if you ever think about playing Fighter, you should just play Ranger instead; in fact, Fighter is completely useless at all levels of play and should just be removed from the game.
Most of the people putting together a Fighter build are trying to leverage the main advantage a Fighter could have (more feats, with a few Fighter specific ones) to make interesting builds that a Ranger would have trouble duplicating. Since most feats are available to anyone, why would you be surprised they're not talking about Fighter-specific things (excepting picking a large # of feats).
Just a query, why are Rangers sucking at Combat manuvers when their FE bonus applies for CM, and Instant Enemy still allows them to pick their highest FE bonus? I'm thinking +4 to +10 on all CM bonuses is better then a Lore Warden of the same level?
==Aelryinth
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Ashiel, I've already posted 2 builds based on only feats.
Just admit that the rangers are balanced in many ways and the fighters can only do only one. Where is the problem in that?
The problem is that they give up everything else to supposedly be the best at their one thing, and generally, they're not.
You can tout high AC/CMD, but that doesn't actually make you a better tank than a guy who can create his own terrain obstacles with spells, gain initiative bonuses to move first and interpose himself between vulnerable party members and the enemy, or even gain the services of a companion who can help him cover even more of the battleground. It definitely doesn't help when that guy is rewarded for shoring up his one weak point (to your two) by getting even more spells and bonuses. That guy's also a lot less likely to be taken down by damaging spell effects or dropped into magical pits, so... I think that saying the Fighter is a better tank the Ranger is a statement that 's really hard to back up, because AC is probably least important aspect of actually being an effective tank, and it's not terribly difficult for the Ranger to close the gap between his AC and the Fighter's anyways.
You can be the guy who does the most damage, but is he really doing noticeably more than the guy who can cast spells to boost the damage die of his attacks, add damaging effects, or give himself up to +5/+5 vs. any enemy? The guy who can go all out in combat with a full attack, whil ehis animal companion does the same thing and a conjured spirit fires arrows for him?
How much better the Fighter is at the things he's supposedly the best at is actually pretty debatable, but the margin's not very wide, if it even exists. What's not debatable is that the Ranger is indisputably better at literally everything else. It's not much of a trade-off for the Fighter, who's maybe fractionally superior at dealing damage, but has to hyper-specialize to be able to simulate battlefield control that every Ranger gets out of the box, and can't match the Ranger's facility in any other area even with an extreme focus on specialization.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Fighter, and I've noted a few things he can do that the Ranger can't (or at least can't do as soon), but there's no getting around the fact that he just generally isn't as good at anything beyond consistent dpr as almost any other class.
The Lore Warden is numerically better than the Fighter by a large margin.Pfff, the lore warden is not good to not to take. I would say that if an abilityis so pointless that basically you can forget it ever existed that is poor design, *cough* bravery *cough*
Does the lore warden is numerically better than the fighter in AC?
*Sigh*
No, you're right Deth. SKR is infallible.
That said you also forgot to list the benefit that Rangers do not have to meet the prerequisites, and their early access to things like Improved Precise Shot ...
That get balanced because if the ranger ignore the prerequisite of improved precise shot then hi will be fairly below the fighter DPR for 4 levels. due to manyshots.
Just a query, why are Rangers sucking at Combat manuvers when their FE bonus applies for CM, and Instant Enemy still allows them to pick their highest FE bonus? I'm thinking +4 to +10 on all CM bonuses is better then a Lore Warden of the same level?
==Aelryinth
Ok. SHow it. FOr example the entire hamatula strike build that ends in rapid grapple before level 10.
Or the whirlwind strike + greater trip chain.
That get balanced because if the ranger ignore the prerequisite of improved precise shot then hi will be fairly below the fighter DPR for 4 leveles. due to manyshots.
That said you also forgot to list the benefit that Rangers do not have to meet the prerequisites, and their early access to things like Improved Precise Shot ...
I'm really confused by this. The Ranger can get Improved Precise Shot, a feat that requires 11 BAB normally, at level 6 and this somehow stops him from picking up Manyshot at level 7, one level behind the fighter?
I'm really confused by this. The Ranger can get Improved Precise Shot, a feat that requires 11 BAB normally, at level 6 and this somehow stops him from picking up Manyshot at level 7, one level behind the fighter?That get balanced because if the ranger ignore the prerequisites of improved precise shot then hi will be fairly below the fighter DPR for 4 leveles. due to manyshots.
That said you also forgot to list the benefit that Rangers do not have to meet the prerequisites, and their early access to things like Improved Precise Shot ...
Not if he ignores point blank shot, wich perhaps I should have said more clearly.
Pretty sure no archer ignores Point Blank Shot just because everything needs it. The only archery Rangers that do that are switch hitters. No, the real benefit of the Ranger feats are ignoring things like BAB requirements for early access and not needing tons of Dex for two weapon fighting, though skipping useless feats is nice too, but that seems mostly for the shield style.