(3.5) Rate this character: Rangerdin

[Shade Kerrin]

The comments of the forum proved useful last time I did this, so once again I am asking for a character rating.

Conceptually, this one is a friendly, good natured woman who avoids mentioning her paladin-hood unless it is necessary. In combat, I am going for an angle of 'as the wind,' giving her high mobility and a large number of attacks. Character will mostly fight at range, but can be halfway competent in melee

Crunch:
32 PB stats: 13/14/10/10/14/16
Xeph Ranger 2/Paladin 4/Ranger +2/Consecrated Harrier X

Variants:Holy Warrior(Change Pal spells for feats), Champion of the Wild(Change Ran spells for feats), possibly something to exchange for ranger's animal companion

Feats: 1 - Xeph Celerity(extra attack as swift action, 3/day), R - Track, R - Rapid Shot, 3 - Power Attack, 6 - Travel Devotion, P - Divine Might, R - Endurance, R - Point Blank Shot, 9 - Woodland Archer

Possible other feats: Air Devotion, Divine Vigor, Extra Turning/Burst, Crossbow Sniper, Imp Precise Shot

This character is not slated for any particular game, but will likely be thrown amongst low to mid levels of optimization. Oh, and I will have access to the spells provided by the Spell compendium

[Shade Kerrin]

Bumping: Nothing to say?

[Urpriest]

In terms of trades for the animal companion, the one in PHB II (Distracting Shot IIRC) is pretty good, especially if you have a rogue in your group.

Despite your ranged focus, it seems like you're putting quite a few feats into melee (Power Attack and Divine Might at least). If you're trying to avoid melee I'm not sure it's worth the investment.

[Flickerdart]

Remember that you lose your Ranger feats when you're in armour heavier than light, so your Paladin's armour proficiencies go to waste.

[Jyokage]

Also, if you are going for semi competent in melee, you could always trade the companion for Solitary Hunting, which gives you your favored enemy bonus to attack and damage. I find that more useful than having to actually use a companion to flank.

[Flickerdart]

Companion might be useful - designating the same creature for both Companion and Mount gets you a toned-down supermount. Being mounted is a lot better mobility since the thing should be flying around.

[SurlySeraph]

Why no spellcasting? With your Paladin level for Turn Undead, you could pick up Divine Metamagic and persist some very useful and not-that-broken spells like Arrow Mind, Sniper's Shot, Hunter's Eye, and Camouflage.

Consecrated Harrier won't much for you that Ranger and Paladin won't, and though taking the non-casting variants removes some MAD, going into Consecrated Harrier adds it right back in by requiring high Wis. Plus the "church-sponsored assassin" flavor doesn't seem to fit well with your concept.
Plus if you go into CH, it makes more sense to go into it about as soon as you qualify, possibly delaying to pick up Turn Undead and Rapid Shot first. Endurance and a 1st-level animal companion aren't going to be as useful as the CH's 1st and 2nd-level abilities. Though Distracting Attack and another feat might be more useful.

If you're going Paladin/ Ranger, picking up Devoted Tracker to make your mount and animal companion the same animal is good. But if you don't want a mount, there's certainly no reason to tell you to take one.

I wouldn't recommend taking multiple feats that run off Turn Undead uses, since you'll run out quickly and make a bunch of them pointless.

One item you might look into are Elvencraft bows, which can be used as quarterstaffs in melee.

Looks fine overall, but I think it would be more fun with a few changes.

[Keld Denar]

Your build of Paladin4/Ranger2 is actually a decent lead-in to the Suel Arcanamach class (CArcane). Its a neat little partial casting class with a lot of neat tools. True_Shinkin has a pretty good guide in his sig if you are looking for inspiration.

Just a thought.

[Shade Kerrin]

Thankyou all for your advice

To Urpriest, I triple checked and couldn't find anything that limited Divine might to melee. Could you point out the limiter?
I'm not really worried about wasting heavy armor prof, but good point there.
Yokage, where would I find Solitary Hunter?
Seraph, amazingly the fluff of Consecrated Harrier fits this character perfectly. Yes, she is also just about as MAD as you can possibly get. Since we typically roll stats, though, it shouldn't be too much of a problem for when I actually use her.
For DMMing ranger spells, can't I just do the same with CH? Its spell list entry is "All ranger spells, plus a couple more." The 2 level delay is basically because I prefer to have all essential feats before level 10.
Keld, Suel Arcanamach could be nice, though it doesn't have the fun Ranger spells I have been looking at

[Chilingsworth]

If you're going Paladin/ Ranger, picking up Devoted Tracker to make your mount and animal companion the same animal is good. But if you don't want a mount, there's certainly no reason to tell you to take one.


Doesn't devoted tracker also allow you to multiclass between ranger and paladin freely? If not, your paladin level will be stuck as soon as you take a ranger level.