Apathy towards the Ranger

[Fennris]

This is going to be long so buckle down. It appears that the ranger class has been an after thought in some of the recent RPGs. Much like 5e ranger, this new ranger appears to have been just thrown together with just a hodgepodge of random feats and skills that don’t synergize at all. Not to mention the main staples of the class are paltry compared to other classes.
First, lets look at hunt target. It looks OK at first glance but when you look deeper you realize it doesn’t give you much of anything. The first part gives you a +1,+2 on your second and third strikes respectively. Not bad, but you will only occasionally get a second strike and rarely ever a third. Especially if you are taking the animal companion feat route. Which is really the only one worth taking. This also costs an action so no matter what you are only getting at most two attacks in the first round. More than likely it will only be one if you’re melee focused. The only way to get 2 ranged is by using a bow. Of course, the ranger gets no feats for bow use. The crossbow feats are OK but using them you’re only getting 1 attack every other round with a heavy or one a round with a light.
Second benefit it gives you is you do not suffer the second range increments. Sounds nice, but hunt target has a max range of 100 feet. There is only the short bow that has a range of less than 100ft. Again, we get no feats for bows, so makes this pretty pointless.
Thirdly the +2 to seek and track. Great fluff, but little else. You may use that 3 maybe 4 times in an entire campaign.
The fighter can get the benefits of your +1, +2 just by taking a feat. He can also use it on any target and split attacks how he sees fit. He also is doing it better than you because he is better trained in weapons and has the feats to back it up. So, the staple ability of the class is done better by another class just by taking a feat. Awesome.
You would have to add something to the hunt target to make it remotely decent. Possibilities are doing an extra die of damage, or set number of extra damage per hit, make weapons keen against the target, or make your attacks deadly.
The feats in general a ranger can take are atrocious. You have random two weapon attacks mixed with crossbow and snare feats. Not enough of any of them build out your character. I will say the animal companion feat tree is worthwhile. If you want rangers to use crossbows you need to add a feat allowing them to reduce the reload time by one. Snare feats or worthless because snares in combat or even traveling and resting are ineffective at best.
The abilities at lvl 5, 9, and 11 are to situational and underpowered to the same level abilities other classes get. Trackless step, no one cares use survival to cover your tracks. Natures edge even with snares is to situational to matter. Wild stride would be OK if you are unhindered by all forms of difficult/hazardous terrain normal or magical. This is supposed to be a lvl 11 ability.
The best way to make a ranger is to pump all the feats you can into multiclass fighter and take the animal companion feats when you cant take fighter feats.
TLDR: Rangers are again on the bottom rung and need a complete overhaul

[Kerobelis]

You are not alone.

Hunt target doesn't synergize well with the animal companion or crossbow options. Snares are pretty terrible. Maybe they should have made snares spell like powers. Then they could be cast quickly and have non monetary costs. It may then be an interesting area control technique. And where is the bow support?

I am hopeful it will get some love from the developers

[Vlorax]

Only thing I'd disagree with is the +2 to Seek not being used. The Seek action will probably come up almost every fight unless the NPCs just stand in the open and never fight in dark areas or with cover.

[BeatenPinata]

Yeah, I'm in agreement with what's being said here as well. I've always thought of rangers as being really cool and adaptable but most of the feats seem underwhelming.

I theorycrafted a goblin ranger and found myself looking into multiclassing any time there wasn't a feat option around the animal companion.

Having something useful to use a reaction on would be nice. One requires your target to be hunting you and the other is later levels and has a prerequisite.

Leaning into snares I think would be a fun magicless route. Combat deployment of them and upgrades to make them 4X4 or a line of 4 squares would be very useful. Maybe jury-rig one on the end of an arrow?

Also, while I'm fine with rangers being magicless, a way to heal your companion would be nice. They're supposed to be in the thick of it with you and I'd be worried to have to replace a companion a few times at lower levels. Though, I haven't played it yet.

[N N 959]

Seek only works on something that is Unseen. So all other states of visibility use flat checks. Worse, at level 14, you can get a feat that automatically let's you find Unseen, so that part of HT becomes 100% useless. Now, if that Seek could be applied to the flat checks, it might be usable.

[Erik Mona]

Kerobelis wrote:

I am hopeful it will get some love from the developers

I am certain it will. ;)

[N N 959]

Erik Mona wrote:

Kerobelis wrote:

I am hopeful it will get some love from the developers

I am certain it will. ;)

Would be great to have a dialogue with you guys about why things are set up the way they were. I want to love P2. That hope is tied to the Ranger. I'd really appreciate an open dialogue so we can see what you guys are thinking and why.

[Secret Wizard]

Erik Mona wrote:

Kerobelis wrote:

I am hopeful it will get some love from the developers

I am certain it will. ;)

Once, I was a sucker for Rangers...

Can PF2E convert this Monk fanboi into a Drizzt-clone once more?

[doctor_wu]

Honestly double slice seems to work a lot. I also wonder how hunt target works with double slice with two agile weapons on a target. Given some of the agile twf weapons now are also thrown such as the hatchet instead of being handaxe and throwing axe. I wish there was something like double slice for thrown weapons. The removing the first range increment penalty does have use if say you are using two hatchets and throw one at someone (or light hammers).

[Laik]

By now, i have a seen double-slice ranger and crossbow ranger actually tested and played.

Double-slice one does not use HT at all; in most cases, it is tight on actions and does Stride+Double-slice routine, or Double-Slice+ Twin Parry. The build feels strong, a good martial option.

Crossbow ranger does use HT, mostly because of other ranger feats that enhance the effects (getting +2 to heat or ignoring screening is good stuff, for instance). Overall, the crossbow ranger feels like having weaker damage output, and even greater range and uabiulity against flying opponents and the like does not make it feel on par with the double-slice version.

[N N 959]

I played an archery Ranger with an AC in a PFS playtest, level 1 Rose Street Revenge. The damage was horrible. I kept a total over four encounters. We had a goblin Fighter w/Power Attack, sword and board human paladin, a sorcerer, and my human Ranger. Here's the damage output:

Over four encounters -

GF - 118 points

Paladin - 69

Sorcerer - 29

Ranger + AC = 23. 16 of my 23 points occured in one round where I got a crit on a zombie with the bear using Work Together. So I think the actual damage is lower because the GM never told us the DR. The first three encounters, I got zero damage on account of having to use action to move the Bear or get into position and getting one attack. Or, I'd hit things like skeletons and do zero damage because...shortbow. However, I did use a Nature check to neutralize some bats...so maybe that counts as a kill?

I had Monster Hunter--completely and totally worthless--and the bear Companion. I tried to us HT. Several times the GM let me invoke it on sound alone. As soon as the target comes into view, it's killed in one round or it's not the target in my face and I can't use it.

At some point I'll try and do a write-up, but the archery Ranger is a joke. Being forced to use a shortbow on account of Volley and the fact that HT is giving a +1 on an attack that is at -5 adds up to about nothing.

Monster Hunter? ROFL. Did it occur to Paizo that it's impossible for a Ranger to get a critical success on any creature that's not Nature unless you roll a 20? Untrained, the Ranger is -2 on all non-Nature Recall Knowledge checks. Remember, the RK checks scale with character level, so Untrained the Ranger is never closing the gap. Even on Nature checks, you essentially need to roll a 18-20.

That Ranger needs a major overhaul. We really need to get spells back, or Spell Points or something for free. All these people posting about "yeah the Spell-less ranger." Really? Okay, what did we get in place of spells?

[Igor Horvat]

I see a patern with ranger in recent years

D&D 3.0 - ranger sucks
D&D 3.5/PF1 - ranger is good class
D&D 5e - ranger sucks
D&D 5e UA rework - ranger is a good class
PF2 playtest - ranger sucks

PF2 release - we will see if pattern continues...

[LordVanya]

I'm getting the same impressions from the Ranger as everyone else.

I mentioned in another thread that I would be trying out a Rogue build of my very first Pathfinder character for the play test.

I also mentioned that the Ranger, as is, makes it impossible to even attempt my Second character who is based on Megaman.

Like many others, I don't mind magic-less Ranger. However, that is only with the understanding that if you are going to take away a major class feature tradition, you should get something in it's place that is equally fun, if not quite as powerful or versatile.

Nth, my current 1e Ranger was a Galvanic Saboteur + Skirmisher, and I recently retrained his Skirmisher archetype into Trapper.

Skirmisher and Trapper work because you get something useful and interesting in place of spells. 2e Ranger doesn't get anything like Hunter Tricks and the cost of snares seems like someone on the design team forgot that the game was shifting to a silver economy instead of gold.

The lack of bow feat options for the Ranger also seems completely nonsensical. They're called "RANGE"rs aren't they?

And the way the Animal Companion works seems like a huge step down from what it used to be, and not only does it not synergize with the other abilities of the Ranger, it sabotages them due to the new action economy. Further, if the Ranger is going to share a major feature option with the Druid, then I say the Ranger should do it better since they aren't spending all their time studying magic.

The same goes for Dual Wielding and Archery. If the Fighter is also going to have the options to focus on those areas, then the Ranger should be able to do the same. One should only be better than the other depending on how many feats the player is willing to invest into them.

Hunt Target feels like a far less useful version of Studied Target without the bulk of its ancillary bonuses. Now, if it was in addition to a modified version Favored Enemy + Monster Lore then it would become a much more interesting and useful core feature.

On a side note: Why change the names of Traps to Snares? That sounds silly. A snare is a specific type of trap and most of the traps in the rule book aren't snares at all.

In conclusion, I have to echo some of the other sentiments being expressed. This Ranger seems like it was thrown in at the last minute with little thought put into it in comparison to the care taken to make other classes better than ever.

Thanks for reading! Can't wait to see where all of this goes.

[Darkorin]

N N 959 wrote:

I had Monster Hunter--completely and totally worthless--and the bear Companion. I tried to us HT. Several times the GM let me invoke it on sound alone. As soon as the target comes into view, it's killed in one round or it's not the target in my face and I can't use it.

Monster Hunter is getting useful with Master Monster Hunter at lvl10, which enables you to have bonus on success and to use Nature to identify any kind of monster. What you could do is don't take Monster Hunter at first, and at 10th level do some retraining to take both class feats.

[kaid]

I do find it kinda odd that the feats rangers get in the playtest make you want to do double slice or crossbows but neither of those seems like it synergizes well with the bonuses from on the hunt. Double slicers if it is your first move are not taking any real penalties to hit they are just swinging twice then moving or doing something else.

Crossbows get a bit of use out of it but due to their reload speeds are not getting a huge boost from the on the hunt bonuses.

Honestly I think on the hunt probably should get changed to a free action. That way at least on the rangers turn they can direct their Ire wherever they want without gimping their actions.

[Forgember]

Since 3.0 Ranger has been my favorite class, I don't understand why folks want spell less rangers, just play a fighter or rogue if that's your thing.

I would like to see a return of Favored Enemy as a class feature or feat choice. Rangers aren't just folks out hunting game in the woods, they are specialized combatants against creatures and or specific "ancestries" they have trained to fight. Its really part of the meat of what has been such a wonderful class for so many years.

Would like to see an ability to heal their animal companion especially if spell less pans out in the end.

Lastly it would be nice to see extra feat options for bows, crossbows and even single/two handed weapons, two weapon fighting is a cool option but that should not be the focus.

[N N 959]

Darkorin wrote:

Monster Hunter is getting useful with Master Monster Hunter at lvl10, which enables you to have bonus on success and to use Nature to identify any kind of monster. What you could do is don't take Monster Hunter at first, and at 10th level do some retraining to take both class feats.

So the answer is game the system? Mark Seifter made a comment that Paizo's goal with multi-classing in P2 was to make sure that someone playing F6/W6 because it sounded cool wasn't penalized. So they give Rangers a skill at 1st level that supposedly works with Hunt Target, but is nearly worthless from 1-9?

At 2nd level Paizo gives us Monster Warden, +1 to saves against the HT target. For that to actually convey a benefit:

1) Ranger has to use HT first before said creature triggers any save.

2) Ranger has to critically identify using Recall Knowledge (essentially a 5% chance against anything not Nature and any non-common Nature creatures).

3) Target has to live long enough to actually do something that subsequently requires a save.

4) Your allies have to miss their Saving Throw by 1 on the d20.

What do you think are the probabilities for each of those happening and then happening all together to actually benefit from Monster Hunter?

Quote:

What you could do is don't take Monster Hunter at first, and at 10th level do some retraining to take both class feats.

So what you're saying is that Paizo gave us a Feat choice that no one should choose? Because if I choose that and see that at level 10, I only need Nature, then I have to carry this thing around and get almost zero benefit from it for half my PCs career. What do you think is the over/under on PCs that die before actually getting any actually benefit from Monster Hunter/Warden before they die? (well, since Dying is really hard, it might not be a fair test, but still.)

Honestly, Monster Hunter at level 1 should do what it does at lvl 10.

Also, what happens if I identify a creature before I use HT on it? No benefit? So I just ignore all other creatures and my ability to help the party fight them so I can hope I get a chance to us Monster Hunter on it after I HT? I don't get it.

[Igor Horvat]

Forgember wrote:

Since 3.0 Ranger has been my favorite class, I don't understand why folks want spell less rangers, just play a fighter or rogue if that's your thing.

I would like to see a return of Favored Enemy as a class feature or feat choice. Rangers aren't just folks out hunting game in the woods, they are specialized combatants against creatures and or specific "ancestries" they have trained to fight. Its really part of the meat of what has been such a wonderful class for so many years.

Would like to see an ability to heal their animal companion especially if spell less pans out in the end.

Lastly it would be nice to see extra feat options for bows, crossbows and even single/two handed weapons, two weapon fighting is a cool option but that should not be the focus.

Favored enemy is worst idea for a ranger.

It's metagamey to a fault.

It depends on DM's charity for you to use it or you need to read the adventure in advance so to make some use of it.

Either FE need to have broad effect or it need to be cut out.

Examples of broad effects:

FE dragons; bonuses on reflex and fear, arcana
FE undead; bonuses on religion and resist energy drain/negative energy, fortitude
FE humanoids; bunus languages, bonus deception, society
FE animals/beasts; bonus nature/survival
FE demons; bonus will, religion, occult,

[supaflyza]

My friends and I made our characters last night and I made an Elf Ranger, which I've been wanting to try out for a while now.
I have to agree with Fennris on the issues they've raised.
The more I read up, the more I feel that the Ranger class is unpolished and needs some better features.
It seems to be set up to make sure you are either dual-wielding daggers or using a crossbow. If you want to be potent with a bow, it's much harder to achieve in 2e as a Ranger. It seems that taking the Fighter class and using a bow would be a better option, even though you don't have the flavour of the Ranger class in terms of skills.

[Qstor]

LordVanya wrote:

I'm getting the same impressions from the Ranger as everyone else.

Same here. I hope it's retooled.

[Secret Wizard]

One of my recommendations to improve on the Ranger was adding this feature:

Hunter's Instincts – Xth
You are trained in Instinct, a special Wisdom-based skill that can be used only to Recall Knowledge, but can be used to Recall Knowledge on any enemy creature. If you are legendary in Survival or Perception, you become an expert in Instinct, but you can’t increase your proficiency rank in Instinct by any other means.

This way, the Ranger would have a unique monster hunter vibe.

[BeatenPinata]

Igor Horvat wrote:

Forgember wrote:

Since 3.0 Ranger has been my favorite class, I don't understand why folks want spell less rangers, just play a fighter or rogue if that's your thing.

I would like to see a return of Favored Enemy as a class feature or feat choice. Rangers aren't just folks out hunting game in the woods, they are specialized combatants against creatures and or specific "ancestries" they have trained to fight. Its really part of the meat of what has been such a wonderful class for so many years.

Would like to see an ability to heal their animal companion especially if spell less pans out in the end.

Lastly it would be nice to see extra feat options for bows, crossbows and even single/two handed weapons, two weapon fighting is a cool option but that should not be the focus.

Favored enemy is worst idea for a ranger.

It's metagamey to a fault.

It depends on DM's charity for you to use it or you need to read the adventure in advance so to make some use of it.

Either FE need to have broad effect or it need to be cut out.

Examples of broad effects:

FE dragons; bonuses on reflex and fear, arcana
FE undead; bonuses on religion and resist energy drain/negative energy, fortitude
FE humanoids; bunus languages, bonus deception, society
FE animals/beasts; bonus nature/survival
FE demons; bonus will, religion, occult,

I completely agree with everything said here. I generally don't like favored enemy but these kinds of broad effects are actually pretty cool if they decide to bring it back.

[Forgember]

Igor Horvat wrote:

Favored enemy is worst idea for a ranger.

It's metagamey to a fault.

It depends on DM's charity for you to use it or you need to read the adventure in advance so to make some use of it.

Either FE need to have broad effect or it need to be cut out.

Examples of broad effects:

FE dragons; bonuses on reflex and fear, arcana
FE undead; bonuses on religion and resist energy drain/negative energy, fortitude
FE humanoids; bunus languages, bonus deception, society
FE animals/beasts; bonus nature/survival
FE demons; bonus will, religion, occult,

If you don't like it you don't have to take the feat, the way 2E is set up everything is optional. I believe they should start with the things rooted in a class and then move forward. Taking things away, especially things iconic to a class and giving them nothing in return is "the worst idea for ranger".

[VinDrago]

I agree with Fennris. The Ranger is a hot mess. I love the idea of a "monster hunter" but the feat is all but useless and the follow on "feat tree" is at best weak. That coupled with a weak core ability in "Hunt Target" and a combat useless set of feats built around "expensive" snares and you have reduced what should be a tough, resourceful wilderness warrior to a glorified animal handler.

However, I do like the perception boosts. That is in keeping with an ever watchful hunter.