Warden Spells for Ranger

[PrimalWyld]

For snare hopping it says that you need warden spells as a prerequisite. As a ranger does that mean you need to take either Gravity Weapon or Heal companion before you can get snare hopping or magic hide?

I see the warden spells side bar on http://2e.aonprd.com/Classes.aspx?ID=9 it comes up as a class feature but in the APG it doesn't appear to be that way.

Does anyone know if warden spells are a class feature or just something you get when you get your first one?

[AnimatedPaper]

Both sort of. Warden Spells is the technical name for Ranger Focus spells, as all classes have an individual name for their focus spells. Once you get your first one, you count as having Warden spells for the purpose of prerequisites.

So, yes, at the moment to pick up any of the later warden spells, you need to get either Gravity Weapon or Heal Companion. I'm willing to bet there will be more Warden Spells with no prerequisites at some point, but for now those two are it.

[lemeres]

The are basically putting up a set of feats and focus spells to give rangers the same deal that monks have with ki spells.

I like this direction of giving martial characters focus spells instead of trying to give everything spell slots.

[N N 959]

lemeres wrote:

The are basically putting up a set of feats and focus spells to give rangers the same deal that monks have with ki spells.

I like this direction of giving martial characters focus spells instead of trying to give everything spell slots.

I don't like the juxtaposition with Class Feats. Let me use Skill or General Feats. The Ranger is particularly screwed over in this manner because Paizo commoditized a lot of the Ranger's narrative abilities as Class Feats. So this is forcing a Ranger who wants spells to give up even more of its Ranger-esque feats and/or its combat viability. This is exacerbated by the fact that you have to choose a 1st lvl Focus spell to get any other Focus spell.

Maybe this is true for the Monk and Champion, as well, but I haven't looked into Focus Spell for the other classes.

[N N 959]

AnimatedPaper wrote:

So, yes, at the moment to pick up any of the later warden spells, you need to get either Gravity Weapon or Heal Companion. I'm willing to bet there will be more Warden Spells with no prerequisites at some point, but for now those two are it.

That's the way I understand it as well. If you want any of the Warden spells, you have to pay a feat Tax at 1st level....unless the only spell you want is Heal Companion or Gravity Bow.

[Kendaan]

The thing I can't figure out as well, do their spellcasting progress beyond trained? I can't seen anything about that, though it should progress in the same way as Monks & Champions?

[N N 959]

Kendaan wrote:

The thing I can't figure out as well, do their spellcasting progress beyond trained? I can't seen anything about that, though it should progress in the same way as Monks & Champions?

It looks like it was unintentionally omitted as part of the APG. The other classes started with Focus spells, so it was part of the original class description. I'm sure they'll Errata that at some point.

[Kendaan]

Yeah I hope so, though admitedly it is only useful for Ranger's Bramble & to avoid the buff being dispelled. All in All these are loking good imo!

[AnimatedPaper]

N N 959 wrote:

Maybe this is true for the Monk and Champion, as well, but I haven't looked into Focus Spell for the other classes.

Pretty much. You get your Champion devotion spell as part of your initial cause, but monks do have to select Ki Rush or Ki Strike to get any follow on spells.

[lemeres]

N N 959 wrote:

Kendaan wrote:

The thing I can't figure out as well, do their spellcasting progress beyond trained? I can't seen anything about that, though it should progress in the same way as Monks & Champions?

It looks like it was unintentionally omitted as part of the APG. The other classes started with Focus spells, so it was part of the original class description. I'm sure they'll Errata that at some point.

I had to do serious searching to even find out if their spell DC even mattered, given the fact that the majority of their spells are buffs, heals, or terrain based.

The only spells where it seemed to matter are healing mist (when hitting undead, in the rare case where it would be better than just hitting them) and ranger's bramble (DC to escape).

[Gortle]

N N 959 wrote:

AnimatedPaper wrote:

So, yes, at the moment to pick up any of the later warden spells, you need to get either Gravity Weapon or Heal Companion. I'm willing to bet there will be more Warden Spells with no prerequisites at some point, but for now those two are it.

That's the way I understand it as well. If you want any of the Warden spells, you have to pay a feat Tax at 1st level....unless the only spell you want is Heal Companion or Gravity Bow.

I don't mind that there are more good level 1 class feats to take. It gives humans a bit of a boost with Natural Ambition.

[N N 959]

That's a valid observation I hadn't considered. Thank you for pointing it out.

[Amaya/Polaris]

A scaling Primal proficiency may not matter very much for Rangers by themselves at present, but it gives them a natural advantage over other martials and Arcane/Divine/Occult casters when taking an archetype with Primal spellcasting. That's a nice thing to have given Monks and Champions, so I do hope that Rangers are intended to scale their proficiency right alongside them.

[RCJak]

N N 959 wrote:

lemeres wrote:

The are basically putting up a set of feats and focus spells to give rangers the same deal that monks have with ki spells.

I like this direction of giving martial characters focus spells instead of trying to give everything spell slots.

I don't like the juxtaposition with Class Feats. Let me use Skill or General Feats. The Ranger is particularly screwed over in this manner because Paizo commoditized a lot of the Ranger's narrative abilities as Class Feats. So this is forcing a Ranger who wants spells to give up even more of its Ranger-esque feats and/or its combat viability. This is exacerbated by the fact that you have to choose a 1st lvl Focus spell to get any other Focus spell.

Maybe this is true for the Monk and Champion, as well, but I haven't looked into Focus Spell for the other classes.

A concise but poignant critique of the ranger, and one I've largely seen building several and seeing several played. Ranger was perhaps the class I was watching most closely in the new edition, partially because D&D 5e's absolutely disastrous treatment of the class that it retains meme status even into 2020, and that the path to 'competitive' contribution in Pathfinder 1e felt so...particular, in a word.

Ranger seems to have been introduced into the game, generally, as a martial that rubs elbows with the now-dubbed 'primal' classes. Where Paladin did so with the divine, Ranger was the answer for folks that dug druids and fey and nature/wilderness. I think Pathfinder 2e set itself up for a very tricky situation by making the Ranger solely a 'wilderness hunter' type. While there is design space here, many of the elements that made ranger unique were jettisoned to shore up a very narrow kind of character. Many of the most ranger-y things are now feat locked or were absent pre-APG.

Don't get me wrong, Hunter's Edge makes the Ranger a fine class mechanically; they can be competitive and effective when it comes to the math going into game systems, but their flavor is simply subpar. The fact that warden spells occupied such a large design space in ranger's 'update' implies that Paizo realized this absence was a misstep that had to be remedied quickly. I feel like there's simply not a lot of space left for the hunter archetype to expand anymore than it already has, and the fact that so many things that make a ranger a ranger in the first place are feats means accessing the class's flavor is a matter of taxation. The warden spells are more of the same.

Take the tax out of the equation. I've seen plenty of panels, updates and interviews that the team gives saying they're trying to distance themselves from arbitrary feat taxes the likes of which made 1e something of a nightmare for new players. Why is gravity bow the entrance to focus spellcasting? Heal companion? What if my ranger doesn't use an animal companion? It's arbitrary and unnecessary. And Rangers don't even get spellcasting progression, to boot, so bramble or soothing mist used offensively are bound to be wastes after a certain level threshold. The entire endeavor seems either last minute or not very well thought out for precisely these issues. I look forward to the errata, at the very least.

[lemeres]

Part of the problem is that rangers inherited a rather...stacked set of mechanics from D&D.

They were a melee class with perfectly good attack and damage- it was a bit swingy with favored/nonfavored enemies, but it worked. It then got extra feats on top of that to help it pull of its style. But it also got an animal compannion. And also spells. And a bunch of skills.

While some of those (coughtskilscought) got undue weight in early D&D editions, it still meant that later designers would be encouraged to give it options to support for those abilities (such as level up abilities that gave bonuses to tracking, or various options that boosted things like that).

When you take the total amount of that all together, it is hard to make something new that hits all of that without also risking bloat. Druids also suffered a similar issue with full casting, companion, and wildshape that could pull it close to martial (making it one of the "-zilla" classes back in the day). Compare that to early rogues and fighters in terms of options, and you could seriously feel that the lions' share of "having things to do" went to those classes.

As a result of this large number of features, rangers and druids were some of the classes hardest hit by the parred down design of PF2e. I will say, in the class's defense, that a lot of the non-weapon style options are much easier to take advantage of if you are a precise edge ranger. They are made to do their main gimmick- one big hit- from the get go, so they are fine with grabbing caster or companion feats.

[N N 959]

NN959 pulls up his chair, cracks his knuckles, and leans back with smirk

Yes, let us talk about the PF2 Ranger, shall we?

RCJak wrote:

Ranger was perhaps the class I was watching most closely in the new edition...

Ranger was the only class I was watching. For me, my experience with the Ranger will determine whether I spend any money on PF2 products. I've come across other PF1 players who will not play PF2 because of what Paizo has done to the Ranger. Of course, I'm sure that's true of other classes as well.

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...partially because D&D 5e's absolutely disastrous treatment of the class that it retains meme status even into 2020, and that the path to 'competitive' contribution in Pathfinder 1e felt so...particular, in a word.

WotC has publically acknowledge how badly they screwed up the Ranger. And as a result, they've apparently tried to fix it with Unearthed Arcana. They've improved its spell capability and other things.

What surprises me is how badly both AD&D-based versions have screwed over this class with their initial offerings. The Playtest version of the Ranger was borderline unplayable and probably worse than the 5e version. This PF2 release version is better, but only mechanically, and only a little. Narratively, it's painful. I don't get it. Well, I kind of get it, but it was totally unnecessary for Paizo to so totally screw over this class, especially given how weak it was in PF1.

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Ranger seems to have been introduced into the game, generally, as a martial that rubs elbows with the now-dubbed 'primal' classes.

I guess, but the Ranger's here because it was a core class of AD&D. Nevertheless, I believe Paizo felt reinventing it was the easiest path for them.

Quote:

I think Pathfinder 2e set itself up for a very tricky situation by making the Ranger solely a 'wilderness hunter' type. While there is design space here, many of the elements that made ranger unique were jettisoned to shore up a very narrow kind of character.

I think that's some of it. I think it may have been a bit more complex:

1. They wanted to get rid of all the custom spells list. This alone put the Ranger behind the 8-ball for Core. Rather than devote the time and resources to really fleshing out how the Ranger could keep its spells like the Paladin, Paizo convinced themselves that everyone wanted a spellless Ranger. If this gamble were true (and the post-Playtest survey proved them wrong despite them heavily biasing the questions) then it would have saved them the energy to add them.

2. They wanted to stop the dipping/pilfer (really want to use the r-word here) of the Ranger that was rampant in PF1. This, I totally supported. The innumerable builds I saw with Ranger 2 / xxx was ridiculous and made a mockery of the game. So the way you do that is you take out all the baked in bonus feats/narrative abilities and force people to buy them.

The problem is that Paizo juxtaposed these narrative abilities (and now spells) with combat, which makes me resent the build process. Leveling now, has the experience of what am I going to give up as opposed to what am I getting. It's an annoying experience and for lack of a better phrase, it's just not fun.

3. The Ranger's pivot is what in PF2? I've harped on this before and I'll repeat it: Why have a Ranger in your party? What does the Ranger due that is unique and of substantive value to the party in terms of normative game play? Nothing. The Ranger's only marque is that it has different combat mechanics: companion play and preoccupation with single target combat. None of that is Ranger.

To be fair, PF1 had this exact same problem. But it was somewhat mollified by the tremendous skill and utility advantage a Ranger had over the other martials. Well...that's been eroded. I think ALL the martial classes got more Trained Skills during the Playtest, except the Ranger (well, the Rogue didn't get more). The Ranger lost its spells (and more importantly, the tremendous utility from wand use) and got nothing for it. Paizo didn't compensate the class with anything, unless they are going to point to Saves? Perception?

So while the Fighter was distancing itself from the Ranger, in combat, Paizo allowed the class to close the gap in Skills. Sure, ....why not. I play the class and I feel annoyed at how there's nothing in what I can do that makes me feel like a Ranger. Anyone can be Trained in Survival and Nature and make the same skill checks.

4.

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While there is design space here, many of the elements that made ranger unique were jettisoned to shore up a very narrow kind of character. Many of the most ranger-y things are now feat locked or were absent pre-APG.

Yes, I think this was marketed to us as "customizability." There was a lot of debate in the Playtest forums about what is a Ranger. On one side, you had players like myself who wanted the class to recapture the character agency of AD&D and/or fix all the problems from PF1. On the other, you had a bunch of people who, in truth, simply didn't like the PF1 Ranger. Many of them claimed to play the class, but I suspect that they were simply dipping.

So when Paizo stripped the class down to the studs, you had a vocal minority who loved it because it didn't feel like anything from before. This was especially true of all those who insisted Spells shouldn't be a part of the class. And of course not, they were never seeing spells because you don't get spells when you only take 2 levels of Ranger ...lol.

So rather than fix the problems with the PF1 Ranger, Paizo just kind scrapped it in favor of a "wilderness hunter" as you put it. Pre-load it with Survival and Nature and we'll call it a day. If only they had not conducted the Post-Playtest survey, they would not have had to own up to players wanting spells.

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Many of the most ranger-y things are now feat locked or were absent pre-APG.

And to add insult to injury, they bake in Trackless Step *faceplam*. I just don't understand in what gaming universe is that fun? After nearly a decade of Ranger play in PFS, homebrew, and APs,, Trackless Step has had zero value. Zero. Why not give Rangers a choice of feats at lvl 5 instead of just one? How many builds do you think will include Trackless Step?

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Don't get me wrong, Hunter's Edge makes the Ranger a fine class mechanically;

I would disagree with that. Hunter's Edge is really a statistical collar. It's purpose is to limit the Ranger's combat agency to focusing on single targets and thus limiting it's damage potential by constantly imposing action economy tax. But I don't begrudge Paizo that approach. Paizo has to make room for a lot of martial classes and they've got to come up with clever ways to keep them from encroaching. I get it. I can even applaud the design and craft that went into it.

Quote:

... they can be competitive and effective when it comes to the math going into game systems, but their flavor is simply subpar.

I am not sure about the competitiveness. I haven't had the opportunity to play at high levels and with lots of other combat focused/optimized martials. So far, this game seems to be dominated by the dice gods, so I am not sure how competitive the class is in actual encounters. But...I emphatically agre that the flavor is horribly lacking.

Quote:

I feel like there's simply not a lot of space left for the hunter archetype to expand anymore than it already has, and the fact that so many things that make a ranger a ranger in the first place are feats means accessing the class's flavor is a matter of taxation. The warden spells are more of the same.

The problem as I saw it and see it was that the Ranger has no purpose. The thing that makes the Ranger, a Ranger, is what exactly? And...this is the most important part....whatever it is, it isn't really useful to normative game play.

I petitioned Paizo ad nauseam to make the Ranger a tracker, "first and foremost." And...allow tracking to do things that were substantively beneficial besides following someone. They could have done it with a tracking mechanism by hardcoding benefits like mandating that all things leave tracks, knowing the size, number, and type of creature, getting Initiative bonuses, knowing what's behind a door, etc. all from successfully finding tracks.

A perfect example of Paizo doing this is with the Investigator. The Investigator's pivot is Pursue a Lead. This pivot is useful in normative game play. Solving mysteries and discovering the truth about something that entire scenarios are built around. Paizo needed to give the Ranger something like that.

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Take the tax out of the equation. I've seen plenty of panels, updates and interviews that the team gives saying they're trying to distance themselves from arbitrary feat taxes the likes of which made 1e something of a nightmare for new players.

A-frickin-men. You know, I don't mind having to choose a combat style and being denied other combat options as a result. I can even respect the commoditizing of the flavor. But forcing the class to give up its flavor for basic combat is just a screw job on the class. Paizo is shooting themselves in the foot by denying players a chance to really enjoy the flavor of the class, even if that flavor has little substantive impact.

It's just so disappointing and has prevented me from embracing PF2.

[oholoko]

I think the gravity bow/heal companion problem is the kind that starts with the game but ends without it as new powers get introduced. But i think the problem is rangers have no versatile interesting non damage spell.
Monk got ki rush that is an end all be all. Yeah i don't want to deal damage with it it still breaks action economy and gives concealment.

[SuperBidi]

I also like 2E Rangers.
1E Rangers were having too many features that were either on or off, and mostly off. Favored Enemy was the embodiment of such features, but all their wilderness features were similar.

Unlike what you say, N N, Rangers have a few defining features. They are, in my opinion, the best bow characters (and bow Ranger is clearly a trope, more than the melee one actually (WoW took only the range part of Rangers when building their Hunter)). They are the only martials having access to animal companions. Also, I like the Monster Hunter line of feats which gives a unique position to the Ranger (most martials don't care about buffing) while using and improving one of their strength: skills.

The old Ranger features are now feats and I quite like that. In the past, Rangers were having things like Camouflage that were either absolutely useless (Hello Absalom) or super present (the whole campaign happens in the wilderness). Now, if the campaign happens in the wilderness, you can take the feats and you have your bang for your buck. If the campaign is mostly urban, you just don't take the feat.
Well, if you want to take the feat regardless of the setting of the campaign you end up with a 1E Ranger and it's bad. But anyway, there's no point in having wilderness features if you play an urban campaign.
And the fact that these feats compete with combat feats would be a problem if combat feats were important. Most of my Rangers are multiclassed as low level Ranger feats are a bunch of garbage. Taking Animal Empathy won't break your character, as it competes with mostly useless feats.

So, even if I agree that the Ranger has lost lots of its gimmicky features and as such can be built in a way that completely ignores the wilderness part of its identity, even if I agree that you can't get all the gimmicky features you got in 1E as it would ask for too many feats, I think the end result is quite good in providing a good martial with a wilderness icing. Right now, it's one of the best Ranger you can find out there.

[Salamileg]

I also really like the PF2 Ranger. I never played PF1 (and never looked at the ranger when I was trying to learn the system) so that's not a point of comparison to me.

I see the ranger primarily as a hunter. And them basically having a mechanic that has them pick a target out and say "one of us is about to die, and I don't think it will be me" is very evocative, which is why I like Hunt Prey and Hunter's Edge so much.

And consider me a part of the vocal minority that didn't want spells on the ranger, if it is that, because I can honestly say I don't think I'll ever play a ranger with Warden spells. I'm happy they exist for people who do want them, though.

[oholoko]

I think i finally understood my problem with N N 959 points. It's because i never played a class thinking i am the class, might be a difference with my table. But when i play i never thought 'oh yeah i am a ranger' i always thought my name is bill 2 eyes, i hit stuff multiple times and have a pet.
How can i have a pet and hit multiple times? Ranger? Multiclass something? Prestige? No one in my table would call me a ranger.
Currently in my table we have a sorcerer that is great at stealing who never steals and is often called a cleric or priest... Or deity right now as we are high level as he is the main healer. An cleric often mistaken as a hand to hand fighter/monk due to the fact He punchs a lot and uses smite as a main gimmick and has a god. An ranger that fights like an barbarian and charges in with his pet. And a barbarian/wizard that is mostly know for crafting and his love of storm giants.
When N N 959 talks he says the ranger i guess to me the ranger weren't ever a class, i mean... Mecanically he always was but i never saw the ranger as a ranger, i always saw rangers as a means to create a character. So having it strip down to bare concepts to me was better actually, but now i can see how this is annoying. If you want a pf1 ranger in pf2 you will need a lot of resources one of witch is a multiclass for spellcasting. With that you get the base ranger of pf1 and then none of the feats that used to make your pf1 ranger different from the other rangers. When i create i think of what i want first then go to ways to make it real, not think i want to play the AD&D ranger/pf1 ranger because those concepts in my table never existed.

(Also my experience with pf1 is extremely limited as i switched from 3.5 to pf2 mostly.)

Edit: Just to show the difference. None of the things any character is know for in my group is a main class feature.
Punching hard is easily achieved with a monk and one inch punch, healing with medic/cleric or other stuff, charging with a mount (paladin,cavalier etc) and crafting... Well alchemist and hitting hard as a fighter/alchemist if you count the fact he is the heaviest hitter.
We don't see what the ranger needs to do as unique, just it needs to be able to do it well enough to compensate for it's flaws.

[RexAliquid]

Salamileg wrote:

I also really like the PF2 Ranger. I never played PF1 (and never looked at the ranger when I was trying to learn the system) so that's not a point of comparison to me.

I see the ranger primarily as a hunter. And them basically having a mechanic that has them pick a target out and say "one of us is about to die, and I don't think it will be me" is very evocative, which is why I like Hunt Prey and Hunter's Edge so much.

And consider me a part of the vocal minority that didn't want spells on the ranger, if it is that, because I can honestly say I don't think I'll ever play a ranger with Warden spells. I'm happy they exist for people who do want them, though.

Yeah, I may have a ranger concept that goes with warden spells eventually (and I'm glad they exist), but none of my current ranger characters will use them.

Hunter's Edge and the playstyles that stem from that choice are what make the Ranger my favorite class in PF2.

[Malk_Content]

While you do have to multiclass you can have everything, except favoured enemy, that your pf1 ranger had, on your pf2 ranger by level 6 at the latest. Yeah you've spend your (class) feats on it but in pf1 you were spending that customizations on +1s anyway.

[Gorignak227]

All in all i think i prefer the PF1 version of the ranger but the PF2 ranger isn't too bad.
But I do have a few thoughts.

Snares and Hunter's Edge are both great additions to the PF2 ranger

Focus Spells are cool but wish more of them had a little broader flexibility so they compared more favorably to just multiclassing druid spellcasting.

Hunt Prey feels a little bad to use
I guess its kind of supposed to feel bad to use but its weird getting bummed at your fellow party members for always killing your hunted guy and to shy away from focusing guys down with the rest of the party. Additionally its action penalty is at odds on a class which has pets, dual wielding, and actually being able to use their 3rd action for an attack via flurry. Of course smart players will say, "no you shouldn't play a dark elf with a panther friend and two swords because you're going to be too action hungry", but isn't that weird that your main feature goes against a lot of your other class features rather than synergizing? Plus after playing a flurry ranger next to a fighter you have some class envy that they don't have to do anything special and get fighters +2/-2/-6 vs your Flurry 0/-2/-4.

I do like the benefit for ranged weapons negating ranged increment penalties but wish there were some benefits of the base action on a melee build. So hunt prey feels like a game designer trick to give a ranger something cool but with a drawback that you don't quite see until you start playing with it. Ideally if you were to multiclass into ranger the Hunt Prey feature should be something they were excited to get. I almost think hunt prey should have had the monster hunter effect in the base package.

Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain
I used to like these features from PF1 but not too fond of them in PF2.
Like the Favored Terrain upgrade ideas but not quite good enough to usually pick.

[Vlorax]

Gorignak227 wrote:

All in all i think i prefer the PF1 version of the ranger but the PF2 ranger isn't too bad.

But I do have a few thoughts.

Snares and Hunter's Edge are both great additions to the PF2 ranger

Focus Spells are cool but wish more of them had a little broader flexibility so they compared more favorably to just multiclassing druid spellcasting.

Hunt Prey feels a little bad to use
I guess its kind of supposed to feel bad to use but its weird getting bummed at your fellow party members for always killing your hunted guy and to shy away from focusing guys down with the rest of the party. Additionally its action penalty is at odds on a class which has pets, dual wielding, and actually being able to use their 3rd action for an attack via flurry. Of course smart players will say, "no you shouldn't play a dark elf with a panther friend and two swords because you're going to be too action hungry", but isn't that weird that your main feature goes against a lot of your other class features rather than synergizing? Plus after playing a flurry ranger next to a fighter you have some class envy that they don't have to do anything special and get fighters +2/-2/-6 vs your Flurry 0/-2/-4.

I do like the benefit for ranged weapons negating ranged increment penalties but wish there were some benefits of the base action on a melee build. So hunt prey feels like a game designer trick to give a ranger something cool but with a drawback that you don't quite see until you start playing with it. Ideally if you were to multiclass into ranger the Hunt Prey feature should be something they were excited to get. I almost think hunt prey should have had the monster hunter effect in the base package.

Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain
I used to like these features from PF1 but not too fond of them in PF2.
Like the Favored Terrain upgrade ideas but not quite good enough to usually pick.

I agree that Hunt Prey could feel better to use, there should be a way to designate a new target if your hunted prey dies without costing an action.

[RexAliquid]

Gorignak227 wrote:

Hunt Prey feels a little bad to use

I guess its kind of supposed to feel bad to use but its weird getting bummed at your fellow party members for always killing your hunted guy and to shy away from focusing guys down with the rest of the party. Additionally its action penalty is at odds on a class which has pets, dual wielding, and actually being able to use their 3rd action for an attack via flurry. Of course smart players will say, "no you shouldn't play a dark elf with a panther friend and two swords because you're going to be too action hungry", but isn't that weird that your main feature goes against a lot of your other class features rather than synergizing? Plus after playing a flurry ranger next to a fighter you have some class envy that they don't have to do anything special and get fighters +2/-2/-6 vs your Flurry 0/-2/-4.

Hunt Prey as a standalone is not very exciting, but it does enable your Hunter's Edge. Viewed as half of a two-action activity, it is like a Power Attack or Double Slice, only better if your target survives for a second round. The poor fighter has to keep using two actions for those neat things when the ranger only has to spend one for a bonus precision die or twin takedown.

[Gorignak227]

RexAliquid wrote:

Hunt Prey as a standalone is not very exciting, but it does enable your Hunter's Edge. Viewed as half of a two-action activity, it is like a Power Attack or Double Slice, only better if your target survives for a second round. The poor fighter has to keep using two actions for those neat things when the ranger only has to spend one for a bonus precision die or twin takedown.

Yes, agree on the mechanical benefits, but wish they chose a different way of enabling hunter's edge that felt better in play.

[N N 959]

RexAliquid wrote:

Hunt Prey as a standalone is not very exciting...

It's not exciting and it actually creates a lot of overhead for both GM and player.

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...but it does enable your Hunter's Edge.

That's ostensibly what Paizo wants people to think. In truth, HE is a bottleneck/constraint. Its purpose is to limit the Ranger's effectiveness to a specific context.

I bring this up, not as a criticism of what Paizo did, but as an objective observation. Paizo has to make room for half a dozen martial characters to all feel different and feel substantive. Paizo has wanted the Fighter to be the top of the martial class. So they had to devise a way for the Ranger to be good at fighting, but keep that in a confined design space. Ergo, if one believes that a constant Flurry/Precision is better than a Fighter's +2, then you've got to offset that advantage. And Paizo does that by chewing up actions.

This also explains why some people may think the Precision Ranger is better. Since the Precision mechanic is far less impacted by lost action economy, it is less constrained by Hunt Prey. Fairly straight forward outcome and suggests that Precision was devised during the Playtest, not before it.

Quote:

Viewed as half of a two-action activity, it is like a Power Attack or Double Slice, only better if your target survives for a second round. The poor fighter has to keep using two actions for those neat things when the ranger only has to spend one for a bonus precision die or twin takedown.

In my experience, so far, the Hunt Prey mechanic actually costs the Ranger a lot more than one action per combat. As others have opined, it is more likely that my Prey is taken down before I even get to attack it. At least this is true in PFS games where you're often running with six players and everyone is foaming at the mouth to do their combat thing.

I've also detected subtle meta-gaming by GMs. I think it's hard for a GM to ignore the fact that one of the NPCs is marked and susceptible. It's not blatant or malicious or willful, but I feel it has been unavoidable and present to varying degrees. I've noticed similar reactions to the Champion's retribution, but in some cases GM will use that as a way to softball encounters, i.e. have NPCs invoke it so as to help the party. Unfortunately, Hunt Prey doesn't really lend itself to the same process.

Vlorax wrote:

I agree that Hunt Prey could feel better to use, there should be a way to designate a new target if your hunted prey dies without costing an action.

What's really odd about this observation is that the Playtest Ranger was only Flurry, and the Twin T/Hunted S equivalents, were double actions. So have you to scratch your head and ask how does Paizo come out with a Ranger that couldn't even function in combat. In both my Playtest scenarios, my Ranger came in dead last in damage (I tracked it during the games). Way behind the Champion in my group.

[Grankless]

Target something you don't think the party is going to instagib, then?

Plus Hunt does things out of combat too.

[Squiggit]

Coming into the ranger from the perspective of PF1 it really does feel like the class is nothing but loss. The PF1 core ranger had good skills and combat styles and spells and an animal companion all as part of the core chassis. If you go into PF2 looking to port over your PF1 ranger or re-imagine that same concept, it's an incredibly uphill battle, because you're never going to have enough feats to pay for everything you want. IMO trying to juggle all the different potential things a ranger could have or might be really highlights one of the weaknesses in PF2's feat economy by straining everything you want to do through essentially one pipeline.

My players who have approached the Ranger without any of that baggage though have generally had more fun, although even then I wouldn't say the class is without flaws. Hunt Prey and similar mechanics can really make you feel like you're stumbling over your own action economy when fighting weaker enemies. But on the other hand, while it looks like it's a mechanic coded toward letting the ranger mow down bosses and other tough enemies that stick around for a while, the ranger in my group has never really felt like he's actually stood out in those encounters either and ends up just kind of feeling 'normal' against those enemies. It's not particularly problematic, but it's been sort of a let down that he doesn't end up really shining in the scenario where his class feels like it's built to shine.

I also just generally think Outwit isn't well designed but that's another topic.

[PossibleCabbage]

Whatever the identity of a ranger should be, "I am fantastic at fighting certain things and in certain places, and just okay at it otherwise" ain't it.

If nothing else, this puts pressure on the players to "see the future" and make the right choices for what those things and places are.

Wilderness person, martial edition seems about right to me.

[RexAliquid]

N N 959 wrote:

RexAliquid wrote:

Hunt Prey as a standalone is not very exciting...

It's not exciting and it actually creates a lot of overhead for both GM and player.

Quote:

...but it does enable your Hunter's Edge.

That's ostensibly what Paizo wants people to think. In truth, HE is a bottleneck/constraint. Its purpose is to limit the Ranger's effectiveness to a specific context.

I bring this up, not as a criticism of what Paizo did, but as an objective observation. Paizo has to make room for half a dozen martial characters to all feel different and feel substantive. Paizo has wanted the Fighter to be the top of the martial class. So they had to devise a way for the Ranger to be good at fighting, but keep that in a confined design space. Ergo, if one believes that a constant Flurry/Precision is better than a Fighter's +2, then you've got to offset that advantage. And Paizo does that by chewing up actions.

This also explains why some people may think the Precision Ranger is better. Since the Precision mechanic is far less impacted by lost action economy, it is less constrained by Hunt Prey. Fairly straight forward outcome and suggests that Precision was devised during the Playtest, not before it.

Quote:

Viewed as half of a two-action activity, it is like a Power Attack or Double Slice, only better if your target survives for a second round. The poor fighter has to keep using two actions for those neat things when the ranger only has to spend one for a bonus precision die or twin takedown.

In my experience, so far, the Hunt Prey mechanic actually costs the Ranger a lot more than one action per combat. As others have opined, it is more likely that my Prey is taken down before I even get to attack it. At least this is true in PFS games where you're often running with six players and everyone is foaming at the mouth to do their combat thing.

I've also detected subtle meta-gaming by GMs. I think it's hard for a GM to ignore the fact that one of the NPCs is...

Again, don’t Hunt Prey as your third action. It is the first action of a two action activity that is just as effective as a fighter feat.

[RexAliquid]

Gorignak227 wrote:

RexAliquid wrote:

Hunt Prey as a standalone is not very exciting, but it does enable your Hunter's Edge. Viewed as half of a two-action activity, it is like a Power Attack or Double Slice, only better if your target survives for a second round. The poor fighter has to keep using two actions for those neat things when the ranger only has to spend one for a bonus precision die or twin takedown.

Yes, agree on the mechanical benefits, but wish they chose a different way of enabling hunter's edge that felt better in play.

It takes getting used to, yes. People get caught up thinking they must Hunt Prey before attacking and make bad choices with their third actions. A 0 MAP attack is way more valuable than Hunt Prey as your last action. It’s frustrating to learn this the hard way (in large PFS groups), but fun to realize when you have figured out better tactics that make your character more effective.

[N N 959]

RexAliquid wrote:

Again, don’t Hunt Prey as your third action. It is the first action of a two action activity that is just as effective as a fighter feat.****It takes getting used to, yes. People get caught up thinking they must Hunt Prey before attacking and make bad choices with their third actions. A 0 MAP attack is way more valuable than Hunt Prey as your last action. It’s frustrating to learn this the hard way (in large PFS groups), but fun to realize when you have figured out better tactics that make your character more effective.

Not sure I'm following your thought process. Whose using Hunt Prey as a 3rd action?

The paradigm for the Feat is that you're designating a target before you attack it. So if you're advising players to go ahead and attack things without designating them as Prey first, you're conceding the implementation is broken and/or often succeeds in hampering the combat effectiveness. I would call that an issue.

Hunt Prey + Twin Takedown a la Flurry, is not just as a effective as a Fighter's Double Slice. It's considerably worse. DS is attacking at +2 / +2 versus the Ranger's +0 / -2. If every +1 is a 10% damage difference when we include Crits, the Fighter combo is doing 60% more damage on average.

Fighter's don't get Hunted Shot, but they get PBS. At less than 30ft with a longbow, the Fighter, is getting +2 / -3 vs the Rangers -2 / -5. That's a 70% damage increase vs the Flurry Ranger for the same two actions.

The only time the Ranger can start to regain ground is if they can manage a 3rd and 4th shot which come at some decided advantage vs the Fighter. However, those attacks (at least at levels below 17) have such a low expected damage, that they don't add enough extra damage to make up for the frontloaded advantage that Fighter has.

Squiggit wrote:

It's not particularly problematic, but it's been sort of a let down that he doesn't end up really shining in the scenario where his class feels like it's built to shine.

This is the truth of the Ranger, as I have come to know the class. Now, the Dice Gods being what they are, a Precision Ranger can certainly lay out some burst damage. And no doubt this skews a lot of people's perceptions of the Ranger's combat effectiveness. I've gotten 2nd and 3rd attack criticals with Flurry and felt like a world beater, but those are anecdotal. Statistically...I think the truth is far different than perception.

[Gortle]

Grankless wrote:

Personally, I feel this is the first edition of a d20 game where Rangers aren't a s#&+ty, boring grab bag of mechanics. I can't speak for 4E, given I've never played it - but at least those ones don't have magic randomly baked in to the class for no reason.

Rangers being explicitly codified as "master hunter and tracker" is so much better than "fighter with racism powers".

Yes I approve of the concept of the 2e Ranger. Hunter and tracker powers, very litte if any magic, and no hated foes.

Magic was always an add on to rangers and shouldn't be the default option. Mechancis against specific species are difficult to balance - the ranger is too strong or too weak. Its been in older editions, but it just doesn't thematically fit.

I'd be much happier with more skirmishing and archery powers.

[rainzax]

Grankless wrote:

Target something you don't think the party is going to instagib, then?

This.

There is space in some Ranger builds where planning for the round after can pay off nicely.

[RCJak]

N N 959 has really carried the thread forward. Many of his points are well said and earnestly thought out. I'll admit he cares a good deal more for the class than I care to, but a lot of the comments that haven't been his cause me some pause. While N N certainly details a lot of his problems with the direction Paizo has taken the ranger this edition, a lot of the counter points amount to relatively little. Perhaps I can outline some sentiments, as I see them, without being too critical.

“I like how the Ranger plays.”

While N N may not mirror my sympathy to rangers being at least effective on the battlefield, I feel this is a perfectly reasonable observation to make, if not a very penetrating one. I'm certainly glad the numbers add up, as they should, but why does a ranger warrant a party-slot when the same objective could be accomplished by a fighter with a much richer narrative space to grow into? Consider the fact that narratively, the fighter will universally be the duelist due to their accuracy, the horde-breaker based on their feats leading to action potency, and the competitor when it comes to hitting or impressing based on feats related to their skill set. All of these are ostensibly tied to the most martial of all martial classes, and still there is an immense amount of ammunition here to allow fighters to perform impressively and gain the 'limelight' entirely outside of combat while still exhibiting their class abilities. Ranger's deficiency will be detailed later.

I will waste no time in this thread to detail the extensive concept mine that can be dug for the fighter, but compared to the ranger? If the wilderness hunter is precisely what you're looking for, in certain situations, you will find yourself mirroring a fighter in all but its versatility. I must ask these folks that say ranger plays well, is this sufficient from a roleplay perspective? Is your role merely a matter of meeting a DC in rather exotic circumstances? If so, I suppose I can say no more to you, as you're enjoying the game and it is working for you. I, however, do expect more of a class that demands distinction if it is to operate as its own class.

“Rangers should not have spells.”

Can I ask why? Why are spells so objectionable, even focus spells, to the concept of the ranger? I tried to detail this class in a manner that called back to AD&D; a martial branch that nonetheless veered into the realm of the 'primal' classes, for those merely of 2e extraction. N N had a very poignant observation that Ranger 2 was incredibly common in 1e, and their spellcasting never even entered the equation for the many 'players' of rangers. Perhaps the fact that no one sees spellcasting as an essential element of ranger reflects on this general trajectory of regarding ranger as little more than a 'dip' class than a role in and of itself. I can speak to seeing rangers played and playing rangers above level 10, and the lack of this element to the ranger makes them the poorer for its lacking. Consider, for a moment, that without the ranger of 1e, the only class that utilized the druid spell list was the druid itself, despite a great deal of narrative effort being made to emphasize druidic and ranger efforts aligning in a great number of different things. The arcane spell list is utilized by half a dozen classes, the divine spell list is the same, even the occult could arguably be applied to bard, mesmer, sorcerer, arcane trickster, any number of different class options. Why does druid demand and require its own spell list that is soley its purview? I feel as though rangers are a natural fit to this, and the fact that so many comments in this thread alone reflect the inclination of rangers to dedicate into druid seems to argue for itself.

“The Wilderness Hunter is good enough.”

I cannot speak to your particular campaign or your particular arcs, but I must demand a little more depth on this. Is this concept as rich as a bard? Who can elect to play as a spy, a penny-singer, a montebank, an evangelist and a skald? Is the ranger deep enough to reflect this kind of diversity? In 2e, I cannot say, in earnestness, that it does. What is ranger-y? Tracking and nature-y stuff comes to mind, certainly, but 2e has turned rather hard to make these two elements of play entirely skill focused. A fighter or a rogue or a wizard can be just as effective as a ranger in these spaces in 2e. Skills in 1e were at a much higher premium than they now are in 2e, and clerics enduring their regrettable skill count was a -huge- liability for the class. The fact rangers gained just so many was an immense boon, and was, in essence, a critical flavor of the class. I'll waste no time reminiscing about 1e, as it is neither here nor there, but dedicating mechanics to tracking itself and reading nature and feeding your party were once essential parts of the 'adventuring experience'. They have now either entirely been forgotten or permitted to be handwaved by a feat anyone can take, which leaves the ranger in the lurch.

I would ask you to take a brief browse of the ranger feats and gauge their distinction compared to other classes. Barbarians can eat spells because their superstition compels spellcraft to fail, and they can be stirred to greater heights as a result. Sorcerers can make their own ancestry just as intimate a part of their spellcasting as their magical bloodline. Fighters can make distance and reach and pushing and pulling their tools based on their weapons' utilities. Rangers see the design space that was neglected from 1e filled in come APG, and not in a way satisfying to those that actually have some investment in the class.

My points remain in my first post, but I did have to point a few fingers. They are not pointed with malice or in some effort to incur wrath. If all you want from the ranger is a relatively standard set of scaling modifiers, or a relatively effective role in combat, you can have as much in 2e. But this does not deserve the space of a class in and of itself. This is the space reserved for an archetype at best and a couple skill or general feats at worst. Pathfinder 2e can do better when it comes to Ranger; nay, it must do better than 5e, given the absolutely abyssal state that class claims even to this day.

[N N 959]

No one wants to try to answer RCJak's questions?

[AnimatedPaper]

Is there any answer available that wouldn't be immediately dismissed? They seemed to have answered their own questions, and already countered those answers as irrelevant or just wrong.

This thread has wandered off from the original question, which was answered in the first reply. Now the discussion is subjective assessment of the Ranger as a class. We've all got our own opinions, so there's not really a lot to discuss that hasn't already resulted in locked threads.

[AnimatedPaper]

RCJak wrote:

a lot of the counter points amount to relatively little.

RCJak wrote:

Is your role merely a matter of meeting a DC in rather exotic circumstances? If so, I suppose I can say no more to you, as you're enjoying the game and it is working for you.

RCJak wrote:

I did have to point a few fingers. They are not pointed with malice or in some effort to incur wrath. If all you want from the ranger is a relatively standard set of scaling modifiers, or a relatively effective role in combat, you can have as much in 2e.

Yeah, after reading these parts, I can't really say the same.

[N N 959]

Fair enough.

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like one reason the Ranger's additions from the APG are somewhat underwhelming is that nearly all of them require you to flip ahead a hundred pages to see what they actually do.

[AnimatedPaper]

Eh, I think the point that taking until the APG to introduce spells was a bit late is fair. I don't think spells are necessary for the concept of "Ranger" I have in my head, but it is absolutely true that many do. Even if all they added where the level 1 Warden spells into Core, and still made them optional, a greater portion of the playerbase would have been satisfied.

I don't think bundling them into the core chassis would have been good, both because I prefer my rangers spell-less, but also because that would have eaten into their class chassis budget. Either Hunt Prey or Hunter's Edge would have necessarily been cut instead.

Hmm, perhaps a class archetype that eliminates Hunt Prey, but gives a focus cantrip with a similar "Mark" ability might work, maybe in Secrets of Magic? And maybe replaces some other abilities with suitably mystical derivations.

Funny, but once again Martials have the advantage on casters for class archetypes, simply because they have more abilities that aren't just spells.

[rnphillips]

2-weapon Ranger feels like a strictly inferior 2-weapon Fighter. Part of the problem is that Fighters get that better weapon proficiency and there's nothing that even matches that huge advantage. I guess Rangers get 2 more skills than Fighters but lets be honest, non-combat skills play a very minor role. Before the APG one could argue that only Rangers could get an animal companion but that's been gutted with the addition of the Beastmaster archetype.

If you want to play a "Ranger", just make a Fighter and get Nature and Survival skills. Then intentionally wear medium armor rather than full plate.

I also wouldn't be surprised if you did the math that a Precision Ranger would be inferior in almost all circumstances than some boring old 2H weapon fighter.

Ranger would have been better as an archetype.

[Sporkedup]

rnphillips wrote:

2-weapon Ranger feels like a strictly inferior 2-weapon Fighter. Part of the problem is that Fighters get that better weapon proficiency and there's nothing that even matches that huge advantage. I guess Rangers get 2 more skills than Fighters but lets be honest, non-combat skills play a very minor role. Before the APG one could argue that only Rangers could get an animal companion but that's been gutted with the addition of the Beastmaster archetype.

If you want to play a "Ranger", just make a Fighter and get Nature and Survival skills. Then intentionally wear medium armor rather than full plate.

I also wouldn't be surprised if you did the math that a Precision Ranger would be inferior in almost all circumstances than some boring old 2H weapon fighter.

Ranger would have been better as an archetype.

By that logic, barbarians and monks should have been archetypes for fighters too.

A dual-wielding ranger can make more attacks per turn than a dual-wielding fighter, and while fighter is more accurate on the first hit, they are equal on the second and ranger better on the rest.

Animal companion on a ranger gets both the hunter's edge benefit as well as a free action taken against a hunted target, if you wish. I don't think Beastmaster offers you the same thing at all.

Precision rangers look solid for crossbow builds, eldritch archers, and more rogue-like concepts, though the latter probably aren't better at it than rogues are, admittedly. If you're just here to compare DPR, why? That serves no purpose to discuss, really.

I'm not sure why folks are also struggling with the fact that warden spells came in the APG and not the core book. Why? They're here now. Paizo has often talked about the APG as basically the second half of the CRB.

I've had a ranger at every table I've run so far, and all the players have clearly enjoyed both the mechanics (including successes, damage, and options) as well as the flavor. I guess I just don't understand why some people are annoyed that they lost their weak-ass base casting, became very viable martials, and now have gained back the ability to plug in some class-unique spells as desired.

[Pirate Rob]

Sporkedup wrote:

A dual-wielding ranger can make more attacks per turn than a dual-wielding fighter, and while fighter is more accurate on the first hit, they are equal on the second and ranger better on the rest.

Fighter significantly wins out on the second attack still.

Remember a fighter is +2 to hit on all attacks.

So assuming agile weapons the double slicing fighter is +2/+2/-6
and the marking+twin takedown Ranger is +0/-2/-4. Not catching up until the 3rd attack.

With no prior setup and only 1 action to attack, the fighter is +2 and the ranger is +0.

If you have 2 actions to attack Double Slice vs Mark + Twin Takedown is +2/+2 vs 0/-2

Any round where the ranger starts with the target marked looks quite good though.

1 action F vs R

+2 vs +0/-2

2 actions

+2/+2 vs +0/-2/-4

3 actions

+2/+2/-6 vs +0/-2/-4/-4