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View Full Version : Tell me if ya'll think this is fair [3.5]



cdawg
2009-08-16, 01:31 AM
I'm creating an NPC ranger for my party to encounter, and I want him to basically be focused on his animal companion. Towards that end, would you think it's an even trade-off for him to lose the ability to cast spells, but advance as though he were a druid in terms of his animal companion? If you think not, what if he also sacrificed his combat style? Thank you for your thoughts, I know it's random but I need some extra input :smallredface:

Berserk Monk
2009-08-16, 01:36 AM
Sacrifice both spellcasting and combat style (maybe tracking too as a bonus feat).

sofawall
2009-08-16, 01:44 AM
You can get something very similar to an animal companion using Wild Cohort.

Sliver
2009-08-16, 02:13 AM
Spellcasting or combat style.. Maybe only a single feat..

Worira
2009-08-16, 02:27 AM
Y'all.

Anyway, it depends what you're trying to balance him with, ranger or druid.

PinkysBrain
2009-08-16, 02:29 AM
I personally advocate simply using class level -4 as effective druid level ... so with natural bond you are almost up to a normal strength animal companion.

I wouldn't have him sacrifice anything for it ... but I'm off the "if you aren't going to nerf casters then just boost everything else" school of thought.

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-08-16, 02:50 AM
It's an NPC. And you are trying to make it interesting. Don't be constrained by the rules. Within the rules, you can the feat Natural Bond or Wild Cohort to improve your animal companion. Heck you can just take Leadership and now you have a druid with an animal companion only two levels lower than you. Or you can just train an animal of the appropriate animal companion level using the Handle Animal skill.

Trading off spellcasting for a full progression animal companion is way more than enough. Without spellcasting, the ranger can't buff his animal companion which is what the animal companion focused ranger would be doing anyway.

So, in the end, I say remove spell casting, give the full progression animal companion and have a fun encounter.

PinkysBrain
2009-08-16, 03:07 AM
Leadership doesn't work for NPCs ... the extra characters are far too strong to be counted as a class feature. In that case simply give him a loyal animal with it's own CR and add it to the EL.

sofawall
2009-08-16, 03:20 AM
Leadership doesn't work for NPCs ... the extra characters are far too strong to be counted as a class feature. In that case simply give him a loyal animal with it's own CR and add it to the EL.

Fixed it for you.

PinkysBrain
2009-08-16, 03:29 AM
Bull, it doesn't work for NPCs either ... the increase in the challenge of the encounter is in no relation to having one less feat on the NPC. Using CRs and the EL table might be a poor rule of thumb in the first place, but this makes a mockery of it. You would be screwing your players on experience.

Now, of course the ranger is underpowered in general (the broken PHB2/CoR spells help, but it's too easy to just hijack those spells on other characters to allow them). To only offset that with a freebie cohort for the NPC while leaving players with a broken class would be hypocritical.

sofawall
2009-08-16, 03:40 AM
The point was that it doesn't work. Period. At all. The feat is broken. It is more powerful than Epic spellcasting, if only because Epic spellcasting itself depends on it.

Omegonthesane
2009-08-16, 03:45 AM
Alternate interpretation: Leadership is the only, and I mean only, feat that's powerful enough for a category of abilities that most L6 characters have only three of. Everything else is too weak to be called a feat by RAW.

Could you give me a story of when having a cohort 2 whole levels lower than you, in a world where power scales exponentially - not linearly - to your level, has broken the game?

sofawall
2009-08-16, 03:49 AM
It's the followers, really. If you include followers, I can name a couple: Epic Spellcasting. Economy Destabilization.

Also, action economy.

Omegonthesane
2009-08-16, 04:04 AM
Wait, your problem is the really weak guys who follow Leadershippers around?

You could just houserule that Leadership doesn't give you Followers. Do they actually help in the kind of areas where you _want_ players to be powerful?

Alternately, you ban Epic Spellcasting and rethink the economy. But a reasonably optimised 20th level dude (i.e. 3rd or 2nd tier class, I'm assuming 1st tier is forever forbidden) can probably crush the whole Prime Material beneath his heel by sheer brute force if he really wants to, so I'd be shocked if he couldn't destabilise the economy too.

sofawall
2009-08-16, 04:10 AM
Actually, my main problem is with followers. They serve no purpose but to break the game, really.

arguskos
2009-08-16, 04:12 AM
Actually, my main problem is with followers. They serve no purpose but to break the game, really.
So... houserule that Leadership doesn't provide followers, just a cohort. BAM! Fixed. Now it's just a feat, maybe a pretty good feat, but not a game-breakingly terrifying one.

Saph
2009-08-16, 04:23 AM
No, it's still game-breakingly powerful.

Having a full caster cohort two levels below your own full caster is crazy broken. The followers are just a freebie.

arguskos
2009-08-16, 04:51 AM
No, it's still game-breakingly powerful.

Having a full caster cohort two levels below your own full caster is crazy broken. The followers are just a freebie.
While quite true, this assumes your player is TRYING to be a bastard, in which case nothing you can do, short of hit them with a book, with stop them!

Why must everyone assume that players are all out to get their DMs and that it's a Cold War between DM and Player? :smallmad:

(Note: Not ranting at you, Saph, just the prevailing thought, please don't take it that I'm mad at you or anything)

EDIT: Yes, yes, this is probably some sort of fallacy, but really? Can we all realize that with a bit of sanity, these issues aren't that big of a deal? *sigh* I'm just frustrated with people being bastards to well-meaning DMs.

Omegonthesane
2009-08-16, 05:02 AM
No, it's still game-breakingly powerful.

Having a full caster cohort two levels below your own full caster is crazy broken. The followers are just a freebie.

Really? "Oh, wow, he can break the game in all the ways I already broke the game two levels ago".

A cohort is no more game-breaking than a PC.

Maybe you just don't want to acknowledge the awfulness of MTs and other classes that make you give up three or more caster levels. If Fighter McWarrior can spend a feat to contribute more spellcasting to the party than the caster does, you _know_ the caster sucks.

Saph
2009-08-16, 05:15 AM
While quite true, this assumes your player is TRYING to be a bastard, in which case nothing you can do, short of hit them with a book, with stop them!

Why must everyone assume that players are all out to get their DMs and that it's a Cold War between DM and Player? :smallmad:

Well, sure. No ability is automatically broken; if the player is trying to be balanced, he can always succeed at it. I've played in games with huge power differentials that still worked great, because the players co-operated and were considerate.

But if you were making a list of things that can be broken with minimal effort, Leadership is right up there in the first tier. Even CharOp boards frequently have an unspoken agreement to ignore Leadership in their builds; that should tell you something.


Maybe you just don't want to acknowledge the awfulness of MTs and other classes that make you give up three or more caster levels.

What on earth are you talking about? I haven't mentioned Mystic Theurges, you have.


A cohort is no more game-breaking than a PC.

It's called action economy. If I have two characters under my control, I get twice as many actions as a single PC. If I have three characters under my control, I get three times as many actions as a single PC. In general, if you're getting two or more actions to an enemy's one action, you win. (The only exception is when there's a very high gap between the faster party's attack and the slower party's defence.)

Omegonthesane
2009-08-16, 06:51 AM
What on earth are you talking about? I haven't mentioned Mystic Theurges, you have.
I got a little too into it and started conjecturing.


It's called action economy. If I have two characters under my control, I get twice as many actions as a single PC. If I have three characters under my control, I get three times as many actions as a single PC. In general, if you're getting two or more actions to an enemy's one action, you win.

Guess I just have too deeply ingrained an impression of high-level fights, with death rays and full sneak attacks flying around. Primarily death rays because Rogue doesn't get flat out broken spells as well as awesome class features.
"You win initiative. The Big Bad dies. GG, here's the loot."
"You lose initiative. Roll a new character."
Hard to care about economy of actions if you're playing rocket launcher tag.


(The only exception is when there's a very high gap between the faster party's attack and the slower party's defence.)

The theory is that if you are two levels behind, you are deeply gimped compared to your comrades and therefore are subject to this exception. Maybe cohorts need to be weaker than that. Or, maybe cohorts aren't allowed to be full casters and casters aren't allowed to have cohorts, because you probably _need_ economy of actions to stand a chance against a stereotypical wizard.

PinkysBrain
2009-08-16, 07:19 AM
Rolling initiative 2 times means improved odds even for rocket tag.

pingcode20
2009-08-16, 07:26 AM
Also, two vs one means that the two 'win' rocket tag pretty much automatically. Simply because even if the one blows up the first guy, the other one can still shoot a rocket at him.

Malacode
2009-08-16, 07:30 AM
That depends on the rocket. Timestop, followed Forcecage and Minor Creation, Black Lotus Extract or Cloudkill? That's one hell of a rocket, and it isn't limited to one opponent. Economy of Action is pretty much screwed over once you get access to some of the higher level, time affecting spells, even if you're playing Rocket Tag.

Eldariel
2009-08-16, 10:07 AM
@OP: In normal games, I'd just give the Ranger full AC progression without giving up anything. That makes things a bit more fair and gives you more of an incentive to take Ranger-levels. As it stands, Ranger's animal companion is just there as a flanking buddy and maybe scout - it's a rather trivial class feature to be honest. This change would make it somewhat relevant.


@Leadership discussion: There are counters to basically everything. Time Stop? My Battlemagic Perception/Ring of Spell-Battle trigger giving me a free counterspell attempt. Maw of Chaos? I can redirect it to affect you or bring up defensive Wards to stop it or move myself as an immediate action (Abrupt Jaunt/Lesser Celerity/similars). Or I can activate a Scarab of Invulnerability and let you do your worst, to which I'm probably immune.

Sure, being 2 levels behind hurts somewhat, but still, it's not like level 17 Wizards only fight with their level 9 spells. Sure, if it's a Wizard duel, there's a very high probability that Time Stop, Gate and Disjunction will be involved, but plenty of lower level spells are relevant too and having another guy with Greater Dispel, Feeblemind, Enervation, etc. available is always handy (yes, they're stoppable: see Greater Dispel Magic to get them through). And before then, the spell power difference between the levels is slightly lower.


And that's without going into the Artificer/Bard-line of cohorts (seriously, Bard-cohort with Words of Creation using Inspire Greatness on you makes Polymorph/Shapechange all the more fun).

That said, my personal issue with Leadership is that it's not something you should get with a feat, nor is it something you should have to invest a feat in. Leadership is an ability that should be derived from the character and his personality in-game without any mechanical ties - if some character is a leader-like person and attracts cohorts and followers, he shouldn't need a feat to get them.

In AD&D 2nd edition, level 10 characters automatically attracted cohorts. Leadership is basically just a poor conversion of that, because for some reason they didn't want for it to be automatic (the whole "they wanted to give DM the option not to deal with it" is bull****, 'cause DM has the option of saying "No" to anything).

playswithfire
2009-08-16, 10:17 AM
I'm creating an NPC ranger for my party to encounter, and I want him to basically be focused on his animal companion. Towards that end, would you think it's an even trade-off for him to lose the ability to cast spells, but advance as though he were a druid in terms of his animal companion? If you think not, what if he also sacrificed his combat style? Thank you for your thoughts, I know it's random but I need some extra input :smallredface:

Drop spellcasting and Track (generally useless) and give his animal companion the Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) progression, maybe?

Flickerdart
2009-08-16, 10:18 AM
Thrallherd is even worse than Leadership, if harder to get to, because you're a manifester in addition to your caster Thrall.

HamsterOfTheGod
2009-08-16, 10:31 AM
Leadership doesn't work for NPCs ... the extra characters are far too strong to be counted as a class feature. In that case simply give him a loyal animal with it's own CR and add it to the EL.

So? I was pointing out the ways a ranger PC or NPC can improve his animal companion within the RAW. My larger point was that the OP's encounter seemed like an interesting one and his class variant seemed fair. He wanted to make a ranger NPC with a full progression animal companion and wanted to make it "fair". My response was that it was fair meant that I actually think
1) it's CR is the CR of the ranger
2) it's not overpowered or underpowered for the CR
3) you could give the same class option to the PCs and not change the power level of the ranger much

As for leadership being exceedingly powerful as a feat...does that really need to be debated...yet again...

FMArthur
2009-08-16, 12:26 PM
Just don't tell your players that it is a ranger. There's no point in misleading them about what rangers can or cannot do and showing off the special privelidges NPCs get when pursuing PC paths. Call it something else, make it a druid that follows the ranger around; anything but saying "this is a ranger who doesn't have to follow ranger rules".

cdawg
2009-08-16, 01:25 PM
hey guys, thanks for all the great suggestions (and sorry about misspelling "y'all"). To clarify, the PCs won't be fighting this ranger; he's going to be an on-again-off-again ally (and a potential love interest for one of the female characters). House-ruling the ranger class as a whole is not really something I want to do at this point, I just want to make it so that his extra-powerful animal is not going to make him outshine the rest of the group in combat. However, it is pretty critical to the ranger's character and role in the story that he be a ranger. I want him to have a very loyal and special dog as a friend, but I want the dog to be capable and sturdy in combat because the basic ranger companion is pretty much, like people said and like it says in the rulebook, a scout and possibly a flanker. Thank you for the Wild Cohort suggestion; I've never heard of that before (noob, I know) but it'll definitely make the group's fighter happy (she always wanted an animal companion). I think I'm going to just go ahead and drop the spellcasting and give him full animal progression, and let him keep his combat style, but I'm going to limit the special powers the animal gets - no evasion or improved evasion, no shared spells (obviously, since he can't cast spells), and no alternative animal selection. Thanks for the suggestions, guys :smallsmile:

Moriato
2009-08-16, 02:07 PM
What level? If it's any less than 6, just have him take natural bond. A 6th level druid with natural bond will choose his companions as a 6th level druid.

After that, if it were me I'd have him get into the Lion of Talisid (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20031004b) prc. Its levels stack with ranger for the purposes of his animal companion, so a ranger 6/lion of talisid 10 with natural bond would choose his companion as a 16th level druid.

It also improves your animal companion at level 4 by adding blink dog, asperi, giant eagle, giant owl, pagasus, and unicorn to the list, or you can apply the "celestial creature" template to any of the standard animals to turn it into a magical beast, give it smite evil 1/day, damage reduction, resistance to acid, cold, and electricity, darkvision 60ft, and spell resisance of HD +5. Also being a magical beast raises its int to 3, which...


Intelligence
A creature can speak all the languages mentioned in its description, plus one additional language per point of Intelligence bonus. Any creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher understands at least one language (Common, unless noted otherwise).


So no more "tricks". You can just tell you companion what you want, and it should understand.

Also, the ranger himself gets some nifty abilities. He gets all his normal spellcasting progression, immunity to fear, POUNCE, haste, WILD SHAPE, scent, and a holy word type su ability as the capstone.

He'd lose 3 points of base attack but still have enough to get his 4th attack before 20

sofawall
2009-08-16, 03:51 PM
Why have I never heard of this PrC before?

Moriato
2009-08-16, 04:39 PM
Why have I never heard of this PrC before?

Possibly because it's from the book of exalted deeds, which some people seem to take as an insult to their personal beliefs rather than a splatbook for a fictional universe.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-08-17, 08:45 AM
Possibly because it's from the book of exalted deeds, which some people seem to take as an insult to their personal beliefs rather than a splatbook for a fictional universe.Or because that book is full of things that are mostly OP, underpowered, or stupid. This is the book that gave us VoP(spend 2 feats to make yourself weaker), Vow of Peace(+4 to save DCs on all Beguiler spells), and Ravages(Poisons are evil, even when you use them on evil people. Use these, they're exactly like poisons but only work on evil people, so they're Good:smallmad:).

There's some good stuff in the book, but mostly, it's terrible.

Another_Poet
2009-08-17, 09:19 AM
It's an NPC. And you are trying to make it interesting. Don't be constrained by the rules.

This.

Also, here is a tactic that anyone can use to bolster their ranger power.

You only get one Animal Companion, but you can purchase additional animals. Prices for trained warhorses and trained riding dogs are in the PHB equipment section. Have your Ranger purchase a trained-for-battle riding dog. It comes with all the tricks it needs to attack in battle (and no, you don't HAVE to ride it!). Riding dog is a better choice than Horse because it gets a free trip attempt on every successful attack, just like a wolf does.

Handling your Animal Companion is a free action. Handling your Extra Dog is a move action. You still have a standard action left to shoot an arrow, heal one of the animals, etc.

If you like, get TWO extra dogs. Free action to handle AC, move to handle Dog1, move to handle Dog2, and the dogs can flank for even more successful trips.

Arguably once you give the order to Attack the dog will keep attacking till it is dead or out of opponents, so you could even add more than 2 extra dogs, but then be prepared for your PCs to want to use that same tactic.

The beautiful thing about this is that when the party sees they're up against a dire lion or a fleshraker dinosaur and 2 normal dogs, they'll focus all their attacks on the lion/dino. It won't be until after the rogue and wizard have both been tripped prone and in range of AoOs from all 3 animals that they realise they should've gunned down the small fries first :smallcool: