|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The thief-thrown weapon thing shows this isn't intended to work. You can strain and try to finagle the rules to try to make it work anyway, but then you're not really acting in good faith.
That said, I think there are some gaps here. Ranger does shooty shooty with bow well, and two weapon fighting in melee. Very very classic ranger fantasy. But there are some other also fairly classic ranger fantasies that PF2 doesn't do, for weird reasons.
Two-weapon throwing. I can see a ranger throwing dual hatchets, the aesthetics are fine, it just lacks good mechanics.
Unarmed strikes, particularly claws/other ancestry ones. Seems like a ranger should be able to find a fighting style that's close to nature. But Twin Takedown insists on wielding weapons, so not unarmed strikes.
We should be campaigning for the ranger to get the breadth in feats and fighting styles it deserves, not straining the rules of the existing feat in a way we know isn't meant to work.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
TBH I was never quite sure what led them to decide to make the ranger a TWF/archery specialist.
Two weapon fighting especially seems like thematically kind of a bad fit for a ranger. Wilderness exploration implies a reasonable amount of climbing, moving aside brush, carrying torches, using rope, and other activities that would make having one hand free a good idea.
Need feats for single 1h weapon combat style, and for using adventuring gear as improvised combat tools.
I think two-weapon fighting & archery needed support, so Paizo gave it. Two-handed weapons begin at the top of the curve so that style didn't get an action-economy feat on top. Meanwhile Ranger feats that provide a melee Strike work better for THW vs. TWF. There aren't that many such feats, but Disrupt Prey stands out. And THW take less of a hit when tactics suggest it's less optimal to use Hunted Prey, like say if fighting minions or needing more mobility at the moment. Plus bonus attacks from Haste or Strike Hard! also work better.
Pair up a polearm w/ forced movement on a critical alongside Snares which IMO are easier to deploy for a THW Ranger than a TWF (albeit easiest for an archer).
Seconded that (perhaps new) Ranger feats should be compatible with thrown (esp. hatchets!) and unarmed attacks (even if a limited set of those) since those do arguably need support to contend with the big weapons.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ever since, ranger has been "two weapon fighting+bow"
It's not really 'ever since' though. 2e D&D ranger had fairly freeform combat style access. The 3.5 Ranger had only archery and TWF in core, but eventually gained access to alternate combat styles through ACFs, and the PF1 Ranger had access to a huge number of combat style choices over the life of the game.
TWF and Archery being the only styles with internal support is very much a conscious decision made for PF2.
I think two-weapon fighting & archery needed support, so Paizo gave it.
I mean, so do unarmed and thrown (arguably more than archery) but Paizo went out of their way to prevent Rangers from using their class feats with those styles. Single 1h weapons are also generally considered a little on the weak side (hence why some of the few raw DPR enhancing feats are for that combat style).
So it's definitely not just an issue of providing feats for things that need it.