Are rangers underestimated?
Lightmaker89
Member Posts: 14
When doing Google searches for the NWN1 ranger I read a lot of negativity. Is this unfair?
First of all, a lot of the analysis of this class assumes you're going to be pidgeonholed into two weapon fighting. But the way I see it, TWF isn't mandatory. Whoever designed the ranger seemed to be suggesting that you either two weapon fight or utilize real armor. IMHO the latter is viable, I can't see any reason why you can't make an armored hulk who beats people down with a greataxe. you may not have rage or weapon specialization or buckets of extra feats, but you have a freaking bear.
Or you can utilize the two weapon fighting feats you get for free, spend your first couple level up feats on PBS/Rapid shot and spend most of your remaining levels on feats that support both your archery and TWF: Do called shot, Dodge/mobility, toughness, improved initiative, etc. even care if you're in melee or shooting? No. They just make your character better. Does favored enemy care? No. By level 20 it's 5 weapon focuses and 2.5 weapon specializations that will work on any weapon you pick up.
That brings me to another problem people have with rangers. Everyone says favored enemy is too situational. As a level 1 or even 15 player in a PvE campaign environment this is true. (When I fool around with Hordes of the Underdark I encounter elvee, dwarves, undead, giants, pixies and dragons within the first half hour. I only have four favored enemies). But for a high level server for PvP purposes I think the ranger is looking excellent with enough favored enemies to cover all playable races, with some left over for undead or dragons or outsiders (whatever you expect your opponents to be summoning or transforming into). Coupled with bane of enemies this looks extremely powerful for PvP.
A final note on the ranger's PvP potential: The ranger is a slightly trickier, more technical class than the fighter or barbarian. You can stealth, but you can't sneak attack so there's less of a quantifiable advantage. You can set traps, but that's an external thing and not a guarantee of dealing +X damage, particularly without planning. Generally speaking I feel like some of the ranger's advantages in combat are subtle and difficult to convey when you're theorycrafting for who can do the most damage or have the highest AC.
A bit of a ramble, but does anyone else feel like pure rangers are written off unfairly?
First of all, a lot of the analysis of this class assumes you're going to be pidgeonholed into two weapon fighting. But the way I see it, TWF isn't mandatory. Whoever designed the ranger seemed to be suggesting that you either two weapon fight or utilize real armor. IMHO the latter is viable, I can't see any reason why you can't make an armored hulk who beats people down with a greataxe. you may not have rage or weapon specialization or buckets of extra feats, but you have a freaking bear.
Or you can utilize the two weapon fighting feats you get for free, spend your first couple level up feats on PBS/Rapid shot and spend most of your remaining levels on feats that support both your archery and TWF: Do called shot, Dodge/mobility, toughness, improved initiative, etc. even care if you're in melee or shooting? No. They just make your character better. Does favored enemy care? No. By level 20 it's 5 weapon focuses and 2.5 weapon specializations that will work on any weapon you pick up.
That brings me to another problem people have with rangers. Everyone says favored enemy is too situational. As a level 1 or even 15 player in a PvE campaign environment this is true. (When I fool around with Hordes of the Underdark I encounter elvee, dwarves, undead, giants, pixies and dragons within the first half hour. I only have four favored enemies). But for a high level server for PvP purposes I think the ranger is looking excellent with enough favored enemies to cover all playable races, with some left over for undead or dragons or outsiders (whatever you expect your opponents to be summoning or transforming into). Coupled with bane of enemies this looks extremely powerful for PvP.
A final note on the ranger's PvP potential: The ranger is a slightly trickier, more technical class than the fighter or barbarian. You can stealth, but you can't sneak attack so there's less of a quantifiable advantage. You can set traps, but that's an external thing and not a guarantee of dealing +X damage, particularly without planning. Generally speaking I feel like some of the ranger's advantages in combat are subtle and difficult to convey when you're theorycrafting for who can do the most damage or have the highest AC.
A bit of a ramble, but does anyone else feel like pure rangers are written off unfairly?
1
Comments
In PVP or PVE you can really get kind of ridiculous by dual wielding kamas in flurry of blows mode with the free dual wielding perks you can from ranger and only taking one monk level. That's a lot of attacks, the most you can get in-game in fact. If you have elemental damage kamas or Bane of Enemies or Devastating/Overwhelming Critical this is even better.
Because it gave them Two-Weapon Fighting or Archery paths.
In NwN1 they're in an awkward spot where for some reason you get Medium Armor but you can't use it with Dualwield (wat).
Yeah Flurry and Dualwield (or the Two Weapon Fighting feats) stack, so Monk1/Ranger is a good multiclass with Kamas only.
I am not sure that pure Ranger is that good but it makes a great base for Prestige Classes.
Ranger/Monk, Ranger/Blackguard, Ranger/Assassin, Ranger/Shadowdancer, Ranger/Weapon Master with Kukris or even Monk1/Ranger9/Assassin.
Rogue/Ranger1 (so you get free Dualwield which is very very useful for a Rogue).
Imho, pure Ranger is kind of underwhelming and underdeveloped in NwN1.
If you do use them pure and with melee weapons, it's better to raise Strength, because you lack extra source of damage (like Sneak Attack), go Shadowdancer 1 and you can Hide in Plain Sight for "defense".
Also, they do have a great skill set, but they lack the skill point capital to gain return on such investments.
My typical rangers usually are strength based, usually acquire heavy-armor proficiencies, and then use their spells to sneak about undetected. I tend to favor trap crafting and trap setting, and will usually multiclass a few levels into a Rogue, Bard or something with Tumble/UMD.
Monte Cook's ranger was an improvement in the vein of a more general survivalist and the basis of the 3.5 ranger revision, rather than a wilderness warrior. The interesting thing is that he later came out with another alternative ranger but went back to d10 hd and removed combat styles and some of the special abilities in exchange for a bonus feat every 4 levels.
But still, I know what you mean, and I agree, since I'm talking about only one spell from Ranger's list, when most of the spells should be more useful in a wide range.
In my mod I have removed True Seeing, and provide all characters with keen-sense feat for free. (it's not RP though) ... this gives full room for rangers builds and generally speaking Csing mechanics
It heavily depends on environment of course. Ranger is quite strong for PvP as a hide-focused build but that álso only works if there is no true seeing.
In PvE, after level 20 ranger is missing a lot of AB. If the module is balanced around RDD characters and WMs, ranger will be missing AB. He has good damage but that requires a lot of dedication, you need to take 25 levels to get +6 dmg and it will only work on 6 races. Fighter has the same benefit for 4 levels and unconditional. Bane of Enemies helps a bit but just a bit.
Anyway, if you are playing official campaigns or some fan-made singleplayer modules, you will rarely have a problem. Their dificulty is usually quite low - at least compared to the multiplayer standarts. When players talks about class balance and which class is weak and which is strong they mostly using a standard lvl 40 multiplayer environment in consideration.