Options for ranger, looking for best role playing best character.

[Dr Matt Destruction]

Hi, Im decide to start archer-ranger in our new campagin (4 lvl at start). My question is: could you help me and list me advantages and disadvantages of pure ranger compared to beastmaster? I cant decide what class should i choose or mayby there are better options for cool archery ranger build?
Im afraid about lack of feats, if i choose beastmaster I should spend 6th lvl feat to beastmaster skill, and another one feat for boon "companion"- it is worth of that? Or just focus on pure ranger from this build:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=11JBYSqZhVxgKCPjYJBhH13k73j6fUoeFnV CKwutC42M&pli=1

ps.
beastmaster sound amazing regardings his similarity to game of thrones Wargs :)

[Garbage-Tier Waifu]

The only feats you really need are Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim, and probably in that order. The first two are the only ones you need to play an archer effectively at all (so you don't take that annoying -4 penalty from shooting into melee, which could equate a -8 if there is also cover), so you get those first. Therefore, you probably don't need your 6th level feat if you didn't want it. That said, Improved Precise Shot is a pretty damn handy tool, and you get it far earlier than anyone else.

The problem is mostly than animal companions are already kind of weak at later levels, and having multiple weaker animal companions that also take a level penalty is not great. You won't get an additional companion for some time. More or less, your companions are going to end up dead. A lot. And that's pretty disappointing. If you wanted to focus on animal companions, the Hunter is much better and even has a similar archetype, the Packmaster, that also boosts your animal companion's effectiveness as a team. I think this does the job fair better.

[Dr Matt Destruction]

Garbage-Tier Waifu wrote:

If you wanted to focus on animal companions, the Hunter is much better and even has a similar archetype, the Packmaster, that also boosts your animal companion's effectiveness as a team. I think this does the job fair better.

Hmmm sounds interesting, do you really think that even beastmaster pet is weak? MY plan is using pet as mount (wolf, lion, roc) or some bird as recon. I even choose trapper profession to catch new animals :D

[Garbage-Tier Waifu]

Sadly the aerial scout is done better by a familiar, so probably just stick to a mount. Which you can get out of the vanilla ranger, and keep your 6th level feat.

Unfortunately, just by the way it works, it seems like it would be too much trouble to get to function, and you can't do tricks like getting Boon Companion for each companion to increase their effective level like you can with either Druid or Hunter. Don't get me wrong, companions are great, but I think one powerful companion is better than multiple very weak companions, and utility isn't exactly what the ranger needs (they have plenty from spells like Speak with Animal, which can let you ask wild animals to scout for you)

[My Self]

Besides what has already said, Beastmaster will require more bookkeeping and more game time per turn. This will probably prove frustrating to both you, your other party members, and the GM, so keep this in mind. Also, it may require you to occasionally take 24 hours of uninterrupted prayer to recover the weaker one when it dies, which will further aggravate your GM and other party members.

[Dr Matt Destruction]

So, maybe http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/ranger/archetypes/paizo---rang er-archetypes/falconer ? It just exchange "wolf" to bird with few additional stuffs. Maybe it could be better than typical wolf build. Anyone have experience with Falconer?