I'm looking to build a new PFS char and would dig a ranger.
I was looking into Sword and Board with the new trait that makes heavy shields light weapons but while such a build has awesome defenses the damage output would a bit on the low side.
Anyways with so many options for Rangers having popped up in the last few books are there any gems I've missed?
wadda ya mean low side
you could wield a large heavy shield as a one handed weapon, and shield spikes lets you treat it as a huge heavy shield. thats a HUGE boost to damage by level two.
guide ranger works well in this combination, but you could feasibly go wild stalker.
as for new combinations...
toxophile makes rangers good at sniping again and grants them a fair bit of utility
divine tracker can expand the list of tricks of a ranger greatly, especially with the darkness blessing and the moonlight stalker featline.
Well, pummeling style makes unarmed strikes rather viable for nonmonks/brawlers. And rangers are rather good at taking advantage of all of its little tricks. Why?
First, pummeling style lets you stuff DR into a locker after giving it a swirly. DR/20 is DR/3 if you hit with 7 attacks. So that takes care of one of the major problems of unarmed strikes.
It also means that you do not necessarily need an amulet of mighty fists since you are not worried about DR. So instead, you can use enhancements that do not affect DR, such as greater magic fang or greater magic weapon (you only need 1 casting to cover all your unarmed strikes, according to FAQs).
Rangers are rather good in the role of a pummel user. They can cast greater magic fang on themselves (letting you take care of your weapon enhancement without any actual cost) and they get TWF feats without needing to qualify for prerequisites. Combine that with class features that use a static bonus to each hit to highly encourage TWF, and distill that into a haymaker, and you can do rather well for yourself.
Unfortunately, you cannot get pummeling charge at a convenient level in PFS (monks/brawlers get it at level 8/9, while everyone else gets it at +12 BAB, which is level 12 for a ranger).
@Lemeres: Hmm that sounds interesting the Irori Style and the Divine Tracker would prolly be good here I'd assume?
My plan for a Sword and Board dude was to pick up the Shield Trained trait and fight with a longsword and Heavy shield from level 2 that lets me start of with a 22 AC. As to Archetypes I was considering a combination of Wild Hunter (Love the versatility of Animal Focus and dislike Favored Enemy) and Divine Tracker (for the Destruction Blessing but I'm not sold on it).
Stats
STR 18 DEX 16 CON 12 WIS 12 INT 8 CHA 8 or so...
Feats: Shield Bash, TWF, Shield Slam, Spiked Destroyer and then not so sure...
@Lemeres: Hmm that sounds interesting the Irori Style and the Divine Tracker would prolly be good here I'd assume?
My plan for a Sword and Board dude was to pick up the Shield Trained trait and fight with a longsword and Heavy shield from level 2 that lets me start of with a 22 AC. As to Archetypes I was considering a combination of Wild Hunter (Love the versatility of Animal Focus and dislike Favored Enemy) and Divine Tracker (for the Destruction Blessing but I'm not sold on it).
Stats
STR 18 DEX 16 CON 12 WIS 12 INT 8 CHA 8 or so...
Feats: Shield Bash, TWF, Shield Slam, Spiked Destroyer and then not so sure...
Irori style is unfortunately not the best way to do unarmed. It gives you TWF, but not Improved TWF, or rend. You would have to take those normally. Which means DEX...which defeats the purpose of the style, and still has your spending the same or more feats as just going TWF style and just picking up improved unarmed strike with a regular feat.
Divine tracker can be cool though. Who doesn't like domains (although I am not experienced enough to tell whether warpriest domains are as good as cleric ones)? Law and knowledge seem like good choices (law because hey, summoning sla for up to 13 uses per day, and the restriction is not that bad since most of the good options are lawful anyway; knowledge since you can play skill monkey with knowledge skills and get an easy +2 to attacks and saves).
In the context of PFS where Pummeling Charge is never gonna happen I'm not really seeing why unarmed Strikes should be such a great option for rangers. Access to Brawling armor is awesome but greater Magic Fang doesn't come online before level 10 or so. On the flip side your weapon is only dealing 1d4 damage and your standard enhancements via AoMF are way more expensive. I mean if you were raging and could get a ferocious AoMF that it would look better but just Pummeling Style doesn't really convince me.
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Shield Master is pretty awesome for PFS; a +3 Shield gives you 5 AC and a +3 weapon, and you can put "Keywords" on the shield spike eventually (Holy, etc). That works well with the "cost availability"; a +3 weapon is 18K, a +3 shield is 9K. Eventually you'll have an early +5 Holy Weapon (43K in two seperate components can be had ~level 10).
And Sword-and-board rangers are the first to possibly get that (Level 6).
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Irori style is unfortunately not the best way to do unarmed. It gives you TWF, but not Improved TWF, or rend. You would have to take those normally. Which means DEX...which defeats the purpose of the style, and still has your spending the same or more feats as just going TWF style and just picking up improved unarmed strike with a regular feat.
You take Irori Style for Monastic Legacy without monk levels, not for TWF. You would still want a dip of MoMS for access to Pummeling Charge and possibly Boar Style to replace Two Weapon Rend. It's a superior rend for unarmed users that doesn't have the feat taxes that TWR does.
In the context of PFS where Pummeling Charge is never gonna happen I'm not really seeing why unarmed Strikes should be such a great option for rangers. Access to Brawling armor is awesome but greater Magic Fang doesn't come online before level 10 or so. On the flip side your weapon is only dealing 1d4 damage and your standard enhancements via AoMF are way more expensive. I mean if you were raging and could get a ferocious AoMF that it would look better but just Pummeling Style doesn't really convince me.
Oh, I hardly meant that unarmed builds are particularly good for rangers, just that rangers are one of the best non monk/brawler/that one warpriest archetype for using unarmed (again, TWF, decent static bonuses, and spells).
At least if you are playing higher level games...which unfortunately does not apply so much to PFS.
Also, I do not see monastic legacy as being as valuable as ITWF and two weapon rend (neither of which deal with prerequisites when gained from your style).
In the context of PFS where Pummeling Charge is never gonna happen I'm not really seeing why unarmed Strikes should be such a great option for rangers. Access to Brawling armor is awesome but greater Magic Fang doesn't come online before level 10 or so. On the flip side your weapon is only dealing 1d4 damage and your standard enhancements via AoMF are way more expensive. I mean if you were raging and could get a ferocious AoMF that it would look better but just Pummeling Style doesn't really convince me.
Oh, I hardly meant that unarmed builds are particularly good for rangers, just that rangers are one of the best non monk/brawler/that one warpriest archetype for using unarmed (again, TWF, decent static bonuses, and spells).
At least if you are playing higher level games...which unfortunately does not apply so much to PFS. I just liked the idea of it as a distant possibility.
Also, I do not see monastic legacy as being as valuable as ITWF and two weapon rend (neither of which deal with prerequisites when gained from your style). The extra hit (with a decent enough hit chance) just means too much for a class that focuses so on static bonuses on every hit. With rend backing it up, I just do not see too much value in Irori style besides a few tricks.
Shield Master is pretty awesome for PFS; a +3 Shield gives you 5 AC and a +3 weapon, and you can put "Keywords" on the shield spike eventually (Holy, etc). That works well with the "cost availability"; a +3 weapon is 18K, a +3 shield is 9K. Eventually you'll have an early +5 Holy Weapon (43K in two seperate components can be had ~level 10).
And Sword-and-board rangers are the first to possibly get that (Level 6).
Shield Master must be one of the best melee feats of all at least at level 6. I hadn't even fully considered the the full economic implications of however. How would you go about constructing the ideal shield post shield master? I assume Bashing then is no longer of any use as you just want the highest possible static bonus?
Been thinking about the MoMS dip and I could combine it nicely with Monk of the Iron Mountain and Kata Master. This makes for one hell of a dip.
Not quite sure which ranger archetype to best pair an unarmed build with however.
There's the cat thrower ranger, nothing beats it honestly....
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Cat Thrower?
Cat Thrower?
You don't want to know.......
But essentially It's a catch off guard/throw anything build involving cats and beast master ranger.......
Then you throw them
And it hits against dexless
I'm sorry
You can use the new magus thrown weapon archetype and dogs to make it worse
So sorry
That depends if the GM allows you to use a cat as an improvised weapon. I would have no hesitation in calling shenanigans on that.
That depends if the GM allows you to use a cat as an improvised weapon. I would have no hesitation in calling shenanigans on that.
It's a build for fun really, it can be potent with a few of the animals on the Animal ally list (Such as dogs)
but i envision a crazy cat lady.
How many cats can you fit onto a Blinkback Belt?