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Not to mention that saying "You don't have to use the class' main class feature" as a positive is already starting off on the wrong foot and further proves that outwit isn't a good subclass.That's an oddly generous way of saying Outwit doesn't get any damage bonuses.
Roughly, considering the Outwit Ranger doesn't need to Hunt Prey for its damage
It's pretty much how I've always looked at the oracle; if you just ignore its cursebound focus spells [and therefor it's entire curse mechanic], it's not a bad class... :P
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Not every party composition is the same, and neither is every character build the same. Discounting Outwit because you personally can come up with a more preferred class, skill feat selection, or turn rotation of actions does not mean those are universal truths across all games.
An Outwit Ranger gains these circumstance bonuses from their subclass and doesn't need to do much else aside from selecting their preferred skill increases dependent on their desired play-style, and that's it. They don't need to auto-pick a skill feat to get similar benefits to a single skill. They don't need to force another ally in their party to spend one of their actions and a reaction every turn to give them their desired bonuses. They don't need to play an entirely different class with a different class fantasy in order to do what they want to do and also get a damage buff to them, but also restrict the kind of weapons they can use.
Outwit Rangers can just build themselves however they want, be it a Stealthy sniper, a Recall Knowledge expert that passes on benefits to all of their party members, an Intimidating or Deceptive bounty hunter, or they can be a mighty hunter with an animal companion who can also get these benefits. No, an Outwit Ranger won't be the most "optimal" choice with every party composition, but that's literally true for most classes. There's always gonna be classes, builds or party comps that won't jive together. And that's perfectly okay.
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And that's perfectly okay.
The thing is, nothing about anything you said would stop being true if Outwit was a good subclass.
There's always gonna be classes, builds or party comps that won't jive together. And that's perfectly okay.
Of course there are perfectly good reasons why someone might want to play an Outwit ranger: they might like the flavor, or just want a challenge. And of course, if someone does want to play an Outwit ranger, nobody should step on their fun. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about whether the subclass is well-designed.
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Outwit would be a good subclass with one change to its hunt prey.
Hunt group instead of hunt prey.
All of a sudden its able to apply its aC+1 to all enemys in the encounter.
Create a diversion and apply its +2 to all enemies in the encounter.
and so on. that would be a significant boost to outwit.
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The thing is, nothing about anything you said would stop being true if Outwit was a good subclass.
Just for comparison, an 18-Strength Flurry/Precision Ranger using the classical Hunt Prey + Twin Takedown + Strike does 5% more damage on average during its 16 first levels than the same Ranger making just 3 bland Strikes with a Greatsword. So calling out Outwit without criticizing Flurry and Precision is a bit buyist. Outwit is roughly as bad as Flurry and Precision, the Ranger subclass has a much lower impact than the Fighter proficiency or the Barbarian Rage.
If I had to review the Ranger, I'd buff all 3 subclasses. Precision is the only one "competitive" before high level only because it synergizes well with the action economy enhancers that Hunted Shot and Twin Takedown are.
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The thing is, nothing about anything you said would stop being true if Outwit was a good subclass.Just for comparison, an 18-Strength Flurry/Precision Ranger using the classical Hunt Prey + Twin Takedown + Strike does 5% more damage on average during its 16 first levels than the same Ranger making just 3 bland Strikes with a Greatsword.
Nothing about outwit suggests or pushes you into a greatsword, so I'm not sure how it's a factor: I think the bigger issue is that you only do 5% more damage when you actually use your class damage features... :p
Nothing about outwit suggests or pushes you into a greatsword, so I'm not sure how it's a factor
Comparing an optimized build with a non-optimized one will not bring much results. 2-handed weapons are in general better in PF2 than 2-weapon fighting. As Outwit doesn't push you toward a specific combat style, it's better to choose the best one.
I think the bigger issue is that you only do 5% more damage when you actually use your class damage features... :p
Definitely. That's why I call out all Ranger's Edges. Precision is the only one that is fine at low level if you get some good 2-action activity that isn't affected by MAP, so mostly by looking outside the Ranger's class... Also, Precision's Masterful Hunter is a big pile of crap: What's the point in boosting secondary hits when your whole Edge is based on attacking until you hit once?
If I had to review Hunter's Edges:
- Flurry: If you hit your Prey with a Strike that increases your MAP normally then this Strike doesn't increase your MAP.
- Precision: Keeping the damage bonus and adding: As long as you don't attack another creature and haven't succeeded at an attack this turn, your Strikes against your Prey are not affected by your MAP.
- Outwit: I'd remove Intimidation, Stealth and Deception bonus and add: choose 2 skills: You benefit from a +2 circumstance bonus when using these skills (not only against your Prey). Also, when you Hunt Prey, you can use a 1-action activity using one of these skills on your Prey as a free action. I'd also increase the AC bonus to +2 (and then +3 at level 17).
I feel the ranger (and outwit in particular) have suffered from being in the more rushed PC1 in which Paizo decided to ignore the ranger in favor of the classes that needed changes the most (even though for whatever reason they also heavily buffed the rogue which didn't need it). If they would have switched ranger with monk that could easily stay the same I'm sure they would have buffed outwit in some way.
That's why I call out all Ranger's Edges. Precision is the only one that is fine at low level if you get some good 2-action activity that isn't affected by MAP, so mostly by looking outside the Ranger's class... Also, Precision's Masterful Hunter is a big pile of crap: What's the point in boosting secondary hits when your whole Edge is based on attacking until you hit once?
Yes. They are a mix of features.
Precision is mostly reasonable.
Flurry can be all right at higher level.
Outwit is fringe at best.
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Nothing about outwit suggests or pushes you into a greatsword, so I'm not sure how it's a factorComparing an optimized build with a non-optimized one will not bring much results. 2-handed weapons are in general better in PF2 than 2-weapon fighting. As Outwit doesn't push you toward a specific combat style, it's better to choose the best one.
I think the bigger issue is that you only do 5% more damage when you actually use your class damage features... :pDefinitely. That's why I call out all Ranger's Edges. Precision is the only one that is fine at low level if you get some good 2-action activity that isn't affected by MAP, so mostly by looking outside the Ranger's class... Also, Precision's Masterful Hunter is a big pile of crap: What's the point in boosting secondary hits when your whole Edge is based on attacking until you hit once?
If I had to review Hunter's Edges:
- Flurry: If you hit your Prey with a Strike that increases your MAP normally then this Strike doesn't increase your MAP.
- Precision: Keeping the damage bonus and adding: As long as you don't attack another creature and haven't succeeded at an attack this turn, your Strikes against your Prey are not affected by your MAP.
- Outwit: I'd remove Intimidation, Stealth and Deception bonus and add: choose 2 skills: You benefit from a +2 circumstance bonus when using these skills (not only against your Prey). Also, when you Hunt Prey, you can use a 1-action activity using one of these skills on your Prey as a free action. I'd also increase the AC bonus to +2 (and then +3 at level 17).
What Super Bidi says is true due to how striking runes work. The bigger the die, the more damage you will do as for the majority of characters the increased number of dice are the primary source of your damage. This by default makes two-handed weapons substantially better than any other fighting style, especially with classes that rely heavily on reaction attacks or don't have much of a damage booster.
That is why even when playing a flurry ranger, I've found the only way to do good damage with them is a finesse, agile weapon like a Goblin Slicer where you can stack of a lot of per attack damage onto the strikes or a weapon with a good crit ability like a falcata because due to the randomness of dice you often end up getting a lot of crits doing a lot of attacks, especially against minion level creatures.
Outwit lack of a stackable class feature on a martial class is absolutely terrible. Eliminates a bunch of interactive mechanics like Aid, use of a shield, cover, use of certain skill feats which use circumstance bonuses to boost your roll, and any time you try to stack something on with a circumstance bonus, you can't do as it as an outwit ranger.
All to do what? Provide the equivalent of Expert aid to another player's Intimidate or Deception checks using Warden's Boon that you don't get until much later? If you want to add a nice bonus to your ally and do more damage, play a wit swashbuckler with One for All and make your Aid-like ability work for nearly everything with a roll you can build up to be extremely easy from level 1. Your charisma even helps you a great deal by making the roll easier.
The outwit ranger is literally worse than a wit swashbuckler.
Paizo seems to put an extremely high value on reducing the MAP penalty.
I find Flurry to be pretty nice with some weapons. I can build a good flurry build that feels powerful. It's trash if you're using any kind of standard weapon like a longsword and shortsword or any weapon other than ones with good crit damage or finesse, agile with backstabber, deadly, or fatal.
Two-weapon fighting is not great in PF2. Then again two-weapon fighting has been mostly inferior since 2nd edition D&D when it was king.
I always felt like after two-weapon fighting became King in 2nd edition, D&D made two-handed weapon fighting king for 3E/F1 and Paizo seems to have kept that going into PF2.
The reduced hit penalties don't seem to make up for the way striking runes boost two-handed weapon damage. Even most of the rogues I see played like to use Elven Curved Blades, a two-handed weapon, to maximize damage.
Not sure if they intended Striking Runes to devalue lower dice weapons, but that is what it did. Which is why I prefer the static bonuses of PF1, though they build the advantage of two-handed weapons into feats like Power Attack and the strength bonus to damage. In that regard, 5e did weapons a little better as from what I can recall you can use any weapon in 5E D&D and be fine.
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The thing is, nothing about anything you said would stop being true if Outwit was a good subclass.Just for comparison, an 18-Strength Flurry/Precision Ranger using the classical Hunt Prey + Twin Takedown + Strike does 5% more damage on average during its 16 first levels than the same Ranger making just 3 bland Strikes with a Greatsword. So calling out Outwit without criticizing Flurry and Precision is a bit buyist. Outwit is roughly as bad as Flurry and Precision, the Ranger subclass has a much lower impact than the Fighter proficiency or the Barbarian Rage.
If I had to review the Ranger, I'd buff all 3 subclasses. Precision is the only one "competitive" before high level only because it synergizes well with the action economy enhancers that Hunted Shot and Twin Takedown are.
Un, am I missing something? If you want to wield a greatsword surely the comparison is between the Precision ranger with the greatsword vs the outwit ranger with the greatsword. And the precision ranger is going to win that (he has the option to hunt prey if he thinks that a good idea and the option to not if the enemy is going to go down so quickly that it isn't worth the action to do so)
I don't think you have to be high level to truly benefit from flurry honestly. A good ol' 2nd-level human ranger can have Hunted Shot, Gravity Weapon (through Natural Ambition), and Hunter's Aim if they go ranged. In the first round of combat you Hunt Prey (if you didn't before), stride if you need to better position yourself or use Gravity Weapon, and use Hunted Shot (+0/-3 MAP). From that point onwards, against that same target, you can do a rotation of Hunted Shot (+0/-3 MAP) + Hunter's Aim (an effective -4 MAP since the +2 to attack from Hunter's Aim would reduce MAP from -6 to -4). Three attacks with a decent accuracy + Gravity Weapon damage leads to a very solid low-level ranged build. The main problem with this like with most rangers is having to use Hunt Prey when you defeat your hunted foe, though even then you are at least making two attacks per round which is more or less the expected for most martials.
Flurry with a bow isn't too bad in my experience. You go through a lot of arrows though.
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Do people really count ammunition, and specifically arrows? I feel its pretty common for most people assume that common ammunition is infinite for simplicity.
Do people really count ammunition, and specifically arrows? I feel its pretty common for most people assume that common ammunition is infinite for simplicity.
Its part of immersion. I do let my players recover half of thier ammo from the bodies.
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Do people really count ammunition, and specifically arrows? I feel its pretty common for most people assume that common ammunition is infinite for simplicity.
Yes. I expect ammunition to be counted, especially if you are using something like Flurry where you can fire 10 plus arrows easily per fight. I expect you to spend coin on arrows and track them. You don't get infinite arrows.
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I mean, 10 of most common ammunition cost literally 1 sp. At the only moment in which this is a "problem" is at 1st level, then even a 3rd or 4th level character can likely walk around with at least 10 gp in their pockets, which translates to a 1000 arrows. You are likely not even going to make 1000 attacks in the whole campaign, so tracking ammunition "just in case" you run out of ammunition is a situation that is never going to happen.
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I mean, 10 of most common ammunition cost literally 1 sp. At the only moment in which this is a "problem" is at 1st level, then even a 3rd or 4th level character can likely walk around with at least 10 gp in their pockets, which translates to a 1000 arrows. You are likely not even going to make 1000 attacks in the whole campaign, so tracking ammunition "just in case" you run out of ammunition is a situation that is never going to happen.
No, they cannot carry a 1000 arrows with all their other gear. Some people like to pretend you can look ridiculous trying to carry all that ammo, but some of us like a bit of pseudo-realism in the game. So you can carry a finite number of arrows and a 1000 isn't even close.
The way we do it in our campaign is the player carries about 40 arrows in quivers on the body, usually in a back or belt quiver. Then carries extra ammo in a carrying item like a bag of holding with tips wrapped to prevent any puncturing of the bag or on a pack animal where bundles of arrows are kept. We also allow the recovery of around 50 percent of the ammo.
We don't do the bad movie trope of endless ammo. Just doesn't suit our tastes. I don't fault someone for doing so if they don't mind the mental image of it as ammo is easy to stack and carry along and you often find tons of it.
Ignoring the fact that I loathe bulk rules because they add innecesary tracking to a game that isn't about micromanaging this kind of stuff or realism, I didn't mention the 1000 arrows thing assuming someone is going to realistically going to carry 1000 arrows, I said it because the only thing that tracking ammunition brings to the table is slowing down the in-between encounter moments because you have to count how many arrows do you have left, even when realistically you are never going to run out of them because as long as you are close to a town or someone is at least trained in Crafting you'll always effectively have infinite arrows because money isn't a problem. This is a bit off-topic, but I also feel Paizo tries to be excessively realistic with stuff like bulk when you are otherwise playing a game about superhumans that even at 1st level do stuff that is way beyond the human limit. At least it isn't as bad as it used to be in PF1e.
Anyways, people can play the game like they want. I just don't see the point to tracking ammunition when its near impossible for someone to run out of it.
Flurry rangers or monastic archer monks are generally the only classes in my campaigns I've seen go through enough ammo that tracking feels better being done.
Precision rangers often go for the one big hit or use other ranger feats that are also closer to one big hit. The one fighter archer I've seen archetyped into Eldtrich Archer and became a one big hit archer as well. Starlit Span is a one big hit archer. Casters using a bow usually just shoot once with a cantrip.
Flurry archers and monastic archer monks go through tons of arrows.
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The thing is, nothing about anything you said would stop being true if Outwit was a good subclass.Just for comparison, an 18-Strength Flurry/Precision Ranger using the classical Hunt Prey + Twin Takedown + Strike does 5% more damage on average during its 16 first levels than the same Ranger making just 3 bland Strikes with a Greatsword. So calling out Outwit without criticizing Flurry and Precision is a bit buyist. Outwit is roughly as bad as Flurry and Precision, the Ranger subclass has a much lower impact than the Fighter proficiency or the Barbarian Rage.
If I had to review the Ranger, I'd buff all 3 subclasses. Precision is the only one "competitive" before high level only because it synergizes well with the action economy enhancers that Hunted Shot and Twin Takedown are.
You do know that Flurry and Precision rangers can use greatswords, too, right?
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I don't really bother to count arrows because you can often (in reality) reuse arrows. Also, tracking that is just a pain in the butt, so I would just trust players to keep track of that stuff unless the party comes up with some sort of "we fill the chasm with arrows" plan.
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I am using foundry right now and it does all the tracking. My players have to spend their money to get as many as they are going to carry. Bulk rules apply. They can recover back half from foes after a fight. It works pretty well.
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Just because it didn't seem to be mentioned previously, flurry ranger pairs well with athletic maneuvers like Trip and Grapple. Start off with those, then use your reduced MAP against the off-guard enemy. Unfortunately there's not a ton of feat support for it in the class, but the basic actions are strong enough.
One of the bummers about Outwit imo is that it doesn't include a bonus on those athletics attacks, even a +1 at the start alongside AC could've been nice and still fits the theme.
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I only occasionally check encumberance, and just don't find it important enough to count ammunition. 90% of the time it is just not relevant. I would if the players were isolated in some way. But there are so many low level magical work arounds to carrying a ridiculous number of arrows.
When the Ranger hits a dozen enemies with Impossible Volley, my first thought on realism is how do you fire that many arrows at once, not do you have enough ammunition.
Just because it didn't seem to be mentioned previously, flurry ranger pairs well with athletic maneuvers like Trip and Grapple. Start off with those, then use your reduced MAP against the off-guard enemy. Unfortunately there's not a ton of feat support for it in the class, but the basic actions are strong enough.
One of the bummers about Outwit imo is that it doesn't include a bonus on those athletics attacks, even a +1 at the start alongside AC could've been nice and still fits the theme.
I've been wanting to try a claw dancer ranger. Their grapple + multi strike combos seem real fun.
Just because it didn't seem to be mentioned previously, flurry ranger pairs well with athletic maneuvers like Trip and Grapple. Start off with those, then use your reduced MAP against the off-guard enemy. Unfortunately there's not a ton of feat support for it in the class, but the basic actions are strong enough.
One of the bummers about Outwit imo is that it doesn't include a bonus on those athletics attacks, even a +1 at the start alongside AC could've been nice and still fits the theme.
Agree with this!
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I've played a strength flurry ranger up to level 20 and it really shines in the damage department. You need to optimize, sneak attack, damage runes. Agile weapons, backstabber or twin. But also double prey. Master hunter is super for action economy. After level 10 it only gets better, before that, due to lack of damage runes it is not bad, but it gets very good after L10. It helps if there are chars who can give a damage bonus, like the witch or bard. And of course haste is optimal for melee flurry. Essential at L18, move -> attack 6x. Opportune backstab helps for more attacks.
A melee partner was a thief rogue. Higher damage per hit, but only one or two attacks per round.
With a bard in the party, even bosses could be shredded. Heroism, synesthesia, dirge combined.
A L10 and higher flurry melee ranger is top tier on damage. Play it well, go for big targets to have less issues with Hunt Prey. I'll admit the actions are very repetitive. Hunt (RK) attack. With max Wis and nature and a bonus, chances for RK are also good enough.
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Outwit would be a good subclass with one change to its hunt prey.
Hunt group instead of hunt prey.All of a sudden its able to apply its aC+1 to all enemys in the encounter.
Create a diversion and apply its +2 to all enemies in the encounter.
and so on. that would be a significant boost to outwit.
Honestly, this would help a lot of rangers. I think a thematic limitation would be if hunt prey applied to all creatures of the same type in the same group. If you're tracking a pack or man eating wolves, it doesn't make sense that you'd only designate one as your prey. How would you even know which one is your prey? This would really help the action economy problem.
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I think I'd rather see it go the other way tbh-
Ranger as the dude who picks one target to single out and has action economy issues if there's a lot of target swapping seems fine, but they aren't actually really all that much better at focusing in on a single enemy in the first place.
One of the awkward points of the Ranger is that (tho again I don't think they're bad) regardless of edge even in horrendously white room "infinite rounds against a single target they've already hunted" DPR comparisons Rangers are still only just pretty okay.
In part because their dpr mechanics are a little weak and in part because their action compression makes their 'optimal rounds' less of a spike... the last part is arguably a good thing, but does help contribute to the feeling that even in their 'specialty' rangers struggle to stand out.
Honestly, this would help a lot of rangers. I think a thematic limitation would be if hunt prey applied to all creatures of the same type in the same group. If you're tracking a pack or man eating wolves, it doesn't make sense that you'd only designate one as your prey. How would you even know which one is your prey? This would really help the action economy problem.Outwit would be a good subclass with one change to its hunt prey.
Hunt group instead of hunt prey.All of a sudden its able to apply its aC+1 to all enemys in the encounter.
Create a diversion and apply its +2 to all enemies in the encounter.
and so on. that would be a significant boost to outwit.
Maybe as a general ranger thing hunt prey when done as an exploration activity should be for the whole group being tracked. It makes more sense that way too since exploration mode is giving the ranger time to figure out all the quirks of a group of prey.
In battle the single prey restriction being enforced for all but outwit is a balance thing. Outwit isnt contributing more damage the way the other two are and the armor and skill bonuses are far too watered down by only affecting a single target. Unless they want to increase the armor bonus and untype it.
PS: thats a within class compare though, i get it that when you start comparing ranger outside class all hunters edges suffer from having to reapply hunt prey.
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I think I'd rather see it go the other way tbh-
Ranger as the dude who picks one target to single out and has action economy issues if there's a lot of target swapping seems fine, but they aren't actually really all that much better at focusing in on a single enemy in the first place.
One of the awkward points of the Ranger is that (tho again I don't think they're bad) regardless of edge even in horrendously white room "infinite rounds against a single target they've already hunted" DPR comparisons Rangers are still only just pretty okay.
In part because their dpr mechanics are a little weak and in part because their action compression makes their 'optimal rounds' less of a spike... the last part is arguably a good thing, but does help contribute to the feeling that even in their 'specialty' rangers struggle to stand out.
I agree.
The inarguable strength of Rangers is in long range archery. It is just that that is not a common scenario in published adventures. Most adventures occur in confined spaces. It is more common in games like where Deriven Firelion plays, where the GM is doing more of the encounter building.
The weakness of Rangers is that their Reactive Strike reaction is terrible. Being limited to a predeclared prey weakens it by half. As a lot of the point of it is stopping enemies from running around you and enemies coming towards you are often not marked yet.
The edges are close to reasonable:
Precision is fine.
Flurry could do with a minor boost. Maybe some extra feat at level 4 that gets them something.
Outwit would work if the AC bonus you get was +2 circumstance bonus, going to +3 at level 17. Maybe a feat to add another skill option. Then it would be mainstream viable.
Master Monster Hunter should be level 4.
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The weakness of Rangers is that their Reactive Strike reaction is terrible. Being limited to a predeclared prey weakens it by half. As a lot of the point of it is stopping enemies from running around you and enemies coming towards you are often not marked yet.
I totally confirm this but with the thaum's Implement's Interruption. I don't know how many times I used it (often crits too) only to immediately turn towards my GM to say "mmm, hey, I actually wasn't exploiting the vulnerability of that enemy so I can't make this attack at all".
One thing I like about ranger is that they can just fly on their own with the animal feature focus spell at level 8.
So if you just wanted to grab a hammer and smack things... this is a decent option since it removes some of the problems.
There are other options, but flight is something worth investing into in some fashion.
does any one think adding power attack and furious focus to the rangers feat list would hurt anything?
Nah, it'd be fine
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I've been toying with the Outwit Edge since yesterday (I like these kind of challenges) and I must admit I haven't found a way to make it work. It's not limited to the Outwit Edge as I have the same issue with the Flurry Edge. But overall, these Edges are not interesting enough to make a unique character. If I really want to play a Ranger for the unique Ranger feats then I'd go for a Precision one.
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Hunt prey could just allow free action transfer to a new target when the last one drops to 0.
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Hunt prey could just allow free action transfer to a new target when the last one drops to 0.
Even if it was a feat, and wasn't a free/extra reaction, it would still be the best feat a ranger could take.
Reworded, a feat that allowed the ranger to hunt prey on a new target when their current target reaches 0 hp (or is destroyed/killed) as a reaction would be a must have for every ranger.
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I would just rather split outwit into a secondary subclass choice much like wizard has two sets of choices. One for Charisma, one for Stealth, and one for Recall knowledge. That way you don’t have to worry about sacrificing your damage for utility.
And then allow Rangers to use Hunt Prey and do something else when anyone drops their prey to 0 HP as a reaction.
Hunt Prey and Stride/Sneak/Take Cover.
Hunt Prey and Bon Mot/Demoralize/Create a Diversion.
Hunt Prey and Reload.
Worth noting that you usually have circumstance bonuses to stealth from cover, so building a class path off stealth seems janky.
Beyond that, I would take the idea further and make the outwit bonus separate from edges entirely. Let every ranger pick a skill or three to get a bonus in while retaining either flurry or precision. Their average combat abilities would be much more palettable if they retained more of their PF1 skill advantages, but right now the opportunity cost for leaning into that is too high.
Maybe removing the inherent +2 circumstance bonus to Perception and Tracking, and instead making the options look something like:
Stalker: Like an apex predator, you can always find the trail of your prey, root out their hiding spots, and be upon them before they know what's happening. You get a +2 circumstance bonus on Survival checks and Seek actions. The DC for your prey to hide from you is also 2 higher thanks to this bonus. You also gain a +1 bonus to stealth checks against your hunted prey. (As usual, this bonus is untyped so it stacks with circumstance bonuses, like you might get from cover.)
Guile: You recognize the instinctual emotions all sapient creatures share, and now how to manipulate them. Against your hunted prey, you have a +2 circumstance bonus to Charisma based skill checks and Sense Motive Actions.
Primal Knowledge: Whether through academic study or your own observation, you know many secrets of the wilds. Against your Hunted Prey, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Recall Knowledge checks. You also gain this bonus when you use the Aid action on an ally interacting with the creature.
This would let the Ranger lean into whatever aspects of their skill identity they prefer, and solve a lot of the MADness problems Outwit has.
You could even bundle them with a class feat a la muses. Monster Hunter for Primal Knowledge, Wild Empathy for Guile, and... Something for Stalker.
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When PF2 was newer I used to be pretty big on the "figure out how to make outwit work" train.
Builds that went all in on Charisma (to maximize the value of the circumstance buffs) could perform some brutal intimidates and were genuinely a high level menace because their demoralize/scare to death checks could get so high (this was back when scare to death was kind of absurd tho)... but ended up feeling disconnected from a lot of what made the ranger a ranger because of what you were doing with stats.
Builds that played more normally and treated the buffs to RK and Intimidate as free attribute or proficiency bumps felt okay, but always seemed like kind of a bad deal next to rogues who got more skill proficiencies and more flexibility without having to abandon their damage gimmick (even moreso now with the buff to rogue saves in PC1).
... After Dark Archive came out I realized the Thaumaturge did most of the things I wanted Outwit to do, while having the added bonus of consolidating RK and Face skills into one attribute. It even has the same "spend an action per target" kind of combat gimmick. The only thing you really don't have with the Thaumaturge kit is legendary perception (which does sting).
Well that and snares (which Paizo stole from me with PC1), native companions (but even Rangers want beastmaster), and two-handed weapons (sucks thematically, but empowerment covers the mechanical gap here).
... TBH the Thaumaturge feels like it addresses a lot of the problems with Outwit with its attribute consolidation and the fact that you don't have to give up a combat gimmick to be good at skills.
It's one of the reasons I'm so surprised that Paizo opted to take a pass on Outwit for PC1. Not only was it so clearly bad on its own but now we have multiple other classes working in a similar design space without having to give up nearly as much as the Ranger does.
... but Rangers in general just got kind of forgotten for PC1.
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They did stuff with crossbows. must have met their ranger change quota i guess.
But somehow they took rogues which were already one of the best classes in the system and buffed them a ton.
If there was a class I expected to see improved in PC1 it was the ranger.
But somehow they took rogues which were already one of the best classes in the system and buffed them a ton.
If there was a class I expected to see improved in PC1 it was the ranger.
...And not the Witch???
they did a good job with the witch.
When PF2 was newer I used to be pretty big on the "figure out how to make outwit work" train.
Builds that went all in on Charisma (to maximize the value of the circumstance buffs) could perform some brutal intimidates and were genuinely a high level menace because their demoralize/scare to death checks could get so high (this was back when scare to death was kind of absurd tho)... but ended up feeling disconnected from a lot of what made the ranger a ranger because of what you were doing with stats.
Builds that played more normally and treated the buffs to RK and Intimidate as free attribute or proficiency bumps felt okay, but always seemed like kind of a bad deal next to rogues who got more skill proficiencies and more flexibility without having to abandon their damage gimmick (even moreso now with the buff to rogue saves in PC1).
... After Dark Archive came out I realized the Thaumaturge did most of the things I wanted Outwit to do, while having the added bonus of consolidating RK and Face skills into one attribute. It even has the same "spend an action per target" kind of combat gimmick. The only thing you really don't have with the Thaumaturge kit is legendary perception (which does sting).
Well that and snares (which Paizo stole from me with PC1), native companions (but even Rangers want beastmaster), and two-handed weapons (sucks thematically, but empowerment covers the mechanical gap here).
... TBH the Thaumaturge feels like it addresses a lot of the problems with Outwit with its attribute consolidation and the fact that you don't have to give up a combat gimmick to be good at skills.
It's one of the reasons I'm so surprised that Paizo opted to take a pass on Outwit for PC1. Not only was it so clearly bad on its own but now we have multiple other classes working in a similar design space without having to give up nearly as much as the Ranger does.
... but Rangers in general just got kind of forgotten for PC1.
This is a pretty good rundown of why I think PF3 should make the Thaumaturge core instead of Ranger.
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Thaumaturge is much more eclectic a class concept than ranger. It might be popular on these threads but ranger is much more popular a class concept in the general gaming environment.