Ideas to boost ranger?

[Legacy_WhiteTiger]

               

You're right, though a high level ranger fighting against his favored enemy will fare much better than same level fighter.

Fighters have versatility when it comes to fighting, while rangers specialize. I do believe this is a kind of balance, too.

 

Why are we comparing the ranger to fighter?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               In low-magic settings, I disagree with you, White Tiger.

And in higher magic settings rangers still don't fare bad.


If we're talking about low-magic setting, levelling a pure ranger (or an almost pure ranger, like 36-39 levels) will give you the benefit of a not so bad animal companion.

And that's one reason to level a ranger, another being favored enemies.

Altogether, 40lvls of tanger will allow you to be pretty overpowered against 9 out of 25 races. If you're a PvE oriented ranger, you can focus on races common as NPC enemies, such as dragons, giants, etc.

If you're a PvP player, you can have all PC races as player characters and two more (which you can use to cover some popular polymorphs).


Even if one is to take only 20lvls, like you said, it's still five favored enemy races and +5 bonuses, which is definitely a worthy addition to any other 20lvls of melee class.

I do believe, though, that a ranger fares the best as a pure class in low-magic environments.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

BTW Comparing rangefr to a fighter is really not right, also its bad idea to give anyone weapon specialization as a bonus feat because you can always multiclass with fighter - so doing this will break any combo with fighter for weapon specialization (15ranger/4fighter/1rogue etc.)

 

Pre-epic fighter has +2dmg on specialized weapon starting at level 4, +6 at level 21 with epic weapon specialization.

Ranger has 1 +1/5level dmg bonus with every weapon against 1 favored enemy/5levels and +2ab and +2k6damage with bane of enemies at lvl 21.

 

Against his favored enemies, ranger has much higher damage than figher. Of course, thats only against his enemies so anytime he fights something not specialized against he has no bonus which is quite bad. But even though there are lots of races, some racial types are more favoured than others. For example outsiders cover really big number of monsters, undeads are second huge category, while monstroust humanoids or beast and magical beast are very rare to encounter and contain only a few creatures.

 

Anyway, you can easily multiclass ranger with fighter as you need only 4fighter levels to get the most of him. Fighter is not viable pure class, rather than best class to multiclass with, while ranger is very good pure.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               Well, I recently changed my mind regatding shortbow weapon sprcialization in my module. Rangers would no longer gain epic shortbow specialization as I said earlier (since I decided it would be too much of a free bonus), but I still give them shortbow specialization for free (at level 25 now, not to make rangers an inherently better choice for arcane archers).


I don't understand, Shadooow, why you think it breaks ranger/fighter builds. Rangers still don't get specialization in any melee weapon (or any weapon other than a shortbow, for that matter), so they will still need to multiclass to specialize in melee.


I've used this method with assassins and dagger specialization, too, but this is not related to this topic.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

I don't understand, Shadooow, why you think it breaks ranger/fighter builds. Rangers still don't get specialization in any melee weapon (or any weapon other than a shortbow, for that matter), so they will still need to multiclass to specialize in melee.


I've used this method with assassins and dagger specialization, too, but this is not related to this topic.

if you give them the weapon specialization for free they don't have to multiclass in fighter / this turns out to be actuallz advantage for players of course, but fact is that multiclassing into fighter is no longer advantaging (to a point, of course if you trying to boost ranged combat, they will still might want to take fighter for shortsword etc.)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

if you give them the weapon specialization for free they don't have to multiclass in fighter / this turns out to be actuallz advantage for players of course, but fact is that multiclassing into fighter is no longer advantaging (to a point, of course if you trying to boost ranged combat, they will still might want to take fighter for shortsword etc.)

 

Or they could get EWS through champion of Torm.  No need for a melee weapon then (except a melee weapon focus feat to qualify for COT).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiteTiger]

               

What makes any class good is the possibility to pick a feat. This is the base of all classes. The difference is that there are different feats available to each one class

               
               

               

                     Modifié par WhiteTiger, 19 novembre 2014 - 05:02 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

You're right, though a high level ranger fighting against his favored enemy will fare much better than same level fighter.

Fighters have versatility when it comes to fighting, while rangers specialize. I do believe this is a kind of balance, too.

 

Hence why I said "until favored enemies start racking up" '>

 

But until Bane of Enemies Rangers are basically just worse.

 

 players tend to pick up only a few levels of ranger (like max 20)

 

Then they're doing it wrong, a level 35-40 ranger is extremely powerful -- at least 9 favored enemies with +2 AB and 16 bonus damage versus those enemies.

 

Why are we comparing the ranger to fighter?

 

Because fighters are viewed as the baseline -- they have no special tricks or traits, they simply get more feats (except for Weapon Specialization which is fairly minor).  Thus the question becomes "If you're just flat out worse than a fighter in most/all situations, why not just be a fighter?"  It's the generic comparison.

 

Altogether, 40lvls of tanger will allow you to be pretty overpowered against 9 out of 25 races. If you're a PvE oriented ranger, you can focus on races common as NPC enemies, such as dragons, giants, etc.

 

You can actually take even more favored enemies than that -- you get 10 Epic Ranger bonus feats alone plus 5 favored enemies pre-epic.  You'll likely take EWF/EP/AS with three but that means you can easily get 12 Favored Enemies if you wish while also getting Great Str VII and EWF/EP/AS.  And can drop a Great Str or two for even more favored enemies.

 

Fighter is not viable pure class, rather than best class to multiclass with, while ranger is very good pure.

 

It's a perfectly viable pure class unless you're balancing around Fighter 12s/Rogue 3/WM 25.  Is it slightly weaker?  Sure.  Is it still strong?  Yes.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_tobtor]

               

Magical master: while you are most likely correct in your points, I do wonder if you miss the point? Yes the ranger is "just flat out inferior to fighters" when it comes to fighting (at low lvls or against monsters not favoured enemy. But if fighters are not even to be allowed to be the best at fighting simple hand-to-hand combat (ok, they are not, I know...), what the point of the fighter? If you make the ranger as good as the fighter in combat, what is the point of the fighter?

 

I think ranger should have a different role, than the fighter. In a heavy combat module this is hard to do, because there are limited functions and they are already taken (damage-dealing, healers, someone to soak up damage and a wizards controlling the combat etc). But saying that a ranger is inferior to fighters in direct combat is a bit like saying a rogue is - of course it is. Rogues of course adds all the trap-stuff, lock-picking etc. So what is needed is to give the Ranger a unique role, not just bump up its AB and AC to equal it with the fighter

 

Here it is important to add useful animals for combat and quest solving (talking to them), and make the extra skill-points useful in the story somehow. Or add more ranger oriented stuff (hunting, tracking, etc.).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

If you make the ranger as good as the fighter in combat, what is the point of the fighter?

 

I never said you should.  My point was that low level rangers lack the animal companion, spells, and favored enemies, so you go from low level rangers being much worse than fighters in most situations to high level rangers being much better than fighters in most situations.

 

In your example, the rogue doesn't go from being worthless with locks/traps at low level to being amazing at high level -- that's his role/advantage the entire time, in exchange for being weaker at combat.

 

If the ranger feat didn't limit rangers to DW in light armor only (and, like I said, I've made a script system to get around this limitation) and if they got their animal companion at level 1, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion '>  The problem would still exist (favored enemy going from +1 damage versus one enemy race at level 1 to +16 damage/2 AB to nine or more + races at level 40) but to a lesser degree.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

MagicalMaster, I do wonder...

 

It's a perfectly viable pure class unless you're balancing around Fighter 12s/Rogue 3/WM 25.  Is it slightly weaker?  Sure.  Is it still strong?  Yes.

Well, even a pure WM (ie. with 10 Fighter levels) is better than a pure fighter at level 40, even against enemies immune to critical hits.

In this scenario, WM still has +7 AB and 30 uses of Ki damage, which, I think, still beats 9 more bonus feats that fighter has over WM.

 

So, a WM is still better even against enemies with crit immunity. If we don't handicap them this way, then fighters are not only "slightly" weaker.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lazarus Magni]

               

Indeed altering blade thirst and bane of enemies as Terrorble mentioned are an easy way to go to boot rangers. We did this a while back on our world too with a degree of sucess.

 

Plus all this talk about the need for this b/c of this class or that class... sorry but it's all very subjective according to the world you are playing in. And I am not just talking low or high magic. NWN allows for so many customizations beyond that, the magic level is only one part of the picture. So to debate the worth of a PW owner's inquiry for a change is pretty moot if you don't know their world that is being developed. Just my opinion...

 

It's part of the beauty of NWN. It was never balanced to begin with, and once modules start modifying, it only becomes more of a continuing endevor. I give whitetiger props for trying to take on a percieved need of his/her world.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Well, even a pure WM (ie. with 10 Fighter levels) is better than a pure fighter at level 40, even against enemies immune to critical hits.

In this scenario, WM still has +7 AB and 30 uses of Ki damage, which, I think, still beats 9 more bonus feats that fighter has over WM.

 

So, a WM is still better even against enemies with crit immunity. If we don't handicap them this way, then fighters are not only "slightly" weaker.

 

A few things.

 

1, 12 Fighter/28 is closer to pure WM for our purposes, Ki Damage is worthless and can literally do less damage than normal at times if I recall correctly.  Plus then you get EWS, no reason to go 30 WM.

 

2, WMs are brokenly overpowered.  7 AB is usually 70-105% more damage dealt (call it 85% to error on the safe of caution) and for something like a keen longsword, it's also a damage increase of 38% through the crit feats.  Combine those and a weapon master will be doing 156%+ EXTRA damage (256% of a fighter's damage) versus difficult mobs.  That's insane.  A pure barbarian gets 10 damage reduction and a rage that can fear enemies.  A pure ranger gets 2 AB and 16 bonus damage versus favored enemies.  An RDD gains 4 AB, 4 damage, and 4 AC (ignoring other complications).  None of those are in the realm of doing two and a half times the damage.

 

3, the WM is not actually better than a pure fighter in every way -- the pure fighter has 4 extra fighter feats to take in epic, which means at a minimum he can grab 80 more HP.  Now, most modules and PWs are set up in a manner that having 10-15% more HP doesn't even matter in epic levels, but it is technically a very minor advantage (basically the equivalent of the pure fighter getting d12 HP, and actually slightly better).

 

But the general point is that you can't compare a pure fighter to arguably the most powerful prestige class that can literally double your character's power.  Sure, it's weaker than a fighter/WM.  But modules and worlds aren't designed so that you need to be a fighter/WM to beat it 99.9% of the time -- because then nearly nothing else could.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiteTiger]

               

Indeed altering blade thirst and bane of enemies as Terrorble mentioned are an easy way to go to boot rangers. We did this a while back on our world too with a degree of sucess.

Nice!

I got interested in the success of your game.  '>

 

Plus all this talk about the need for this b/c of this class or that class... sorry but it's all very subjective according to the world you are playing in. And I am not just talking low or high magic. NWN allows for so many customizations beyond that, the magic level is only one part of the picture. So to debate the worth of a PW owner's inquiry for a change is pretty moot if you don't know their world that is being developed. Just my opinion...

 

It's part of the beauty of NWN. It was never balanced to begin with, and once modules start modifying, it only becomes more of a continuing endevor. I give whitetiger props for trying to take on a percieved need of his/her world.

 

True. just that! 

 

We use almost all standard configurations to let the game dynamic. I do not feel the ranger is in place on this issue, that explains why I started this thread.

 

I already have some ideas for what to do with rangers now. May be that an unnatural modification is not necessary (like increasing skill points). I do not usually use this type of modification in the module, except to boost enemy creatures. I turn up AC, HP, abilitys, skills, damage, feats etc., all sparingly to keep the game difficulty.

 

Some worlds have too many changes and this makes the game confusing.

 

For now (ideas I like):

 

- placing new strong animals (up to level 15)

very natural, animals with power up to lvl 15

 

- crafting animal skins

I do not know how I will do this, but I'll try

 

- special items given by reward for rangers

unique plot for rangers (I'm doing this for other classes also. thats really good)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Terrorble]

               

I mentioned earlier that changing spells is one way to go about it.  I do realize this type of thing isn't for everyone, but here's a couple other things I did for Rangers to make them more interesting in my setting.

 

I worked in a bonus to the entangle DC for rangers based on their set trap skill.  Otherwise, they can't entangle much given their typically low WIS modifiers.

 

Fixing entangle and grease so their heartbeat scripts fire reliably really improves the outlook for rangers too.

 

 

Cure Serious Wounds was very unexciting to me so I turned it into a combat healing spell for Rangers and Paladins that I call Life Channel.  It attempts to channel the amount of life you are missing from enemies within a radius around you.  However, the amount you can channel from a single target is limited by Ranger/Paladin level.  So if you are missing 100hp, and can channel up to 20hp per target, you can gain it all back if there are five targets within the radius - barring a fort saves for half damage by the targets.  If there was only one target, then you could only get 20hp back.  Outside of combat, it's cure serious wounds.

 

I have toyed around with a system for buffing spells with spell focus feats.  Normally, the only reason you take a spell focus feat is to increase the DCs of spells.  So I have things like transmutation focus increase the bonuses from One With the Land and Magic Fang or the duration or magnitude of Cat's Grace or add concealment bonuses to camouflage.  Abjuration focus can increase the amount of damage an elemental protection can take before collapsing.  Conjuration focus buffs summons, increases healing spells, etc.