[3.5] Ranger variant - Esoteric ranger

[Pechvarry]

So this is written in the style of a variant class (similar to wildshape ranger and the like), but it's definitely more powerful than the PHB ranger (as is the wildshape ranger, once again). If you'd rather see it as a Ranger Fix, go for it. I've seen remarked on these forums that Knowledge Devotion is What Favored Enemy Should Have Been. Instead of going that route, I used the Archivist for inspiration, building a party-based ranger. In comparison to the PHB ranger, it's harder to screw over based on DM choices of monsters, generally adds more overall (because it buffs the entire party), though typically with smaller numbers. It's also not so good at many skill checks against what would be favored enemies, though the "overwhelm" Foe Lore may offset this loss.

The chart is the full esoteric ranger chart instead of just what's changed, for simplicity's sake.

{table]Lvl| Class features
1|Foe lore (tactics), world-wise, track, wild empathy
2|Combat style
3|Endurance
4|Animal companion, Foe lore (puissance)
5|Foe lore max +2, world-wise
6|Improved combat style
7|Woodland stride, foe lore (exploit)
8|Swift tracker
9|Evasion
10|Foe lore (overwhelm), foe lore max +3, world-wise
11|Combat style mastery
12|
13|Camouflage, foe lore (superior tactics)
14|
15|Foe lore max +4, world-wise
16|Foe lore (greater puissance)
17|Hide in plain sight
18|
19|
20|Foe lore max +5, world-wise[/table]

Esoteric Ranger: An Esoteric Ranger does not gain Favored Enemy at level 1, or any of its improvements at further Ranger levels. He instead gains the following:

World-wise: At 1st level, 5th level, and every 5 levels thereafter, the Esoteric Ranger may add another Knowledge skill to their Ranger class skill list. This becomes a permanent skill addition for the level it is gained, as well as all future Ranger levels.

Foe Lore: Choose a creature type in an encounter (such as Dragon or Plant) and make a corresponding Knowledge check DC 10 as a move action. If you succeed, you and your allies gain a +1 bonus against opponents of that type for one minute. The nature of the bonus is dependent on what Foe Lores are available to you. At first level, you know the Tactics Foe Lore. Every 3 levels thereafter, a new Foe Lore is learned. For humanoids and outsiders, you must select a subtype (such as chaotic or elf) for each attempt. In order to be affected, allies must be able to see and hear you.

Tactics: add the bonus to allies' attack rolls against the chosen creature type.|

Puissance: add the bonus to allies' saves.

Exploit: You and your allies add 1d6 damage per point of bonus to attacks against the chosen creature type.

Overwhelm: the bonus applies to you and your allies' opposed checks, combat maneuvers, opposed skill checks (such as spot vs a hide check), and opposed level checks including opposed caster level checks (though not caster level checks for other purposes, such as penetrating spell resistance).

Superior Tactics: your Tactics improves; in addition to the bonus to attack, you and your allies also gain the Foe Lore bonus to armor class against attacks from the chosen creature type.

Greater Puissance: In addition to a bonus to saves, you and your allies may add the Foe Lore bonus to save DCs against the chosen foe.

Foe Lore Max: Starting at level 5, the size of the bonus increases by +1 for every 10 points by which you exceed the DC of the knowledge check. The maximum bonus is indicated on the chart and improves every 5 levels thereafter.

---

Note that instead of giving them Knowledge skills (all, taken individually), I simply let them grab more. The reason for this is I felt it made a low-level Ranger seem more wilderness-y, focusing on K:Nature and K:Dungeoneering (and one extra), but letting them grow into adventurers who've seen it all.

Balance-wise, I'm not sure where this will end up. I think it actually buffs better than bardic music but I don't want to use that as a benchmark. PHB bard has always been a very lackluster buffer, relying on heavy optimization to make it worthwhile. Since the Archivist is effectively a Cleric with the capacity to play bard every once in a while, I couldn't imagine the features being overpowered on a Ranger.

While pasting everything into the post window, I actually changed around the orders of Exploit and Overwhelm. Exploit was made dice of damage to begin with because TWF is still an option, and +1-5 damage (at the cost of a move action) just isn't good enough. Likewise, I changed its level obtained because I think some extra dice of damage are important as soon as possible. Tell me if this is too much, too early. Or if the damage needs lowered to d4s or some such.

It should be noted that I also let Rangers base their spellcasting off of INT, which makes this variant much more appealing.

Anything I should be aware of? Thoughts and suggestions? Should I perhaps put a limit on how many party members can be buffed?

//Change log already:
-as mentioned above, exploit and overwhelm switched places.
-changed base DC from 15 to 10. At first I thought 10 would be too easy, but it's still going up by 10 for each "grade", and a level 1 ranger really needs to be able to use their class features.

[Spiryt]

Seems like interesting idea.

[Jota]

I will just say this: if I wanted Knowledge Devotion on my ranger, I'd take said feat. You've essentially fixed the ranger by making the numbers bigger, which works, but is boring.

I would suggest making this a prestige class for the aforementioned wildshape ranger (pre-reqs being a couple or said ranger levels, favored enemy, Knowledge Devotion), and having the Knowledge Devotion-themed abilities be more varied than simply bigger numbers. Things like ability to critical constructs, elementals, and undead, weapons always considered ghost touch, good, or any material the ranger chooses, maybe attacks the reduce fly speed or maneuverability, gaining elemental resistances, or just anything specific to the nature of the opponent rather than "lol, I hit harder." Your trade-off could be wildshape for these new bonuses, maybe.

[Pechvarry]

I will just say this: if I wanted Knowledge Devotion on my ranger, I'd take said feat. You've essentially fixed the ranger by making the numbers bigger, which works, but is boring.

Funny, 'cuz I was hoping it's not Knowledge Devotion with bigger numbers (excepting the ability to add dice of damage -- adding something a standard TWF Ranger needs but lacks: enough +damage to make it worthwhile). It's a party buffer that happens to rely on knowledge checks.

Thematically, if there was a class that should be making use of knowledge checks to understand foes, it should be the Hunter; the Man Who Has Seen It All. So this is less of being awesomely original, and more of putting the features I love of Archivist and putting them on a class I feel deserves them (as opposed to a class that can cast spells from multiple tier 1 lists).

As for the rest, if this has inspired you to make a prestige class that can do all of that cool stuff, go for it. I'd love to see it.

[T.G. Oskar]

I will just say this: if I wanted Knowledge Devotion on my ranger, I'd take said feat. You've essentially fixed the ranger by making the numbers bigger, which works, but is boring.

Actually, no. Pech here essentially used the Archivist's Dark Knowledge, except he uses a martial chassis such as the Ranger, which is strikingly different. Basically, it sacrificed personal knowledge of a small group of favored enemies into a much more diverse series of buffs towards the specified creatures. If you chose...say, Aberrations, Outsiders, Undead and a few others, you'd have Dark Knowledge in its entirety. You don't get merely a number of bonuses to attack and defense against the enemy; you get a series of bonuses applied to all allies, which is entirely different from Knowledge Devotion. All the contrary; getting Knowledge Devotion makes this character even more powerful, since you can decide to keep the bonus on attack and damage rolls, and provide another bonus to your allies (such as bonuses to saves with puissance, or exploit to deal even more damage than a bard can give with Dragonfire Inspiration). Buffing your allies against a certain group certainly can't be boring, more if you actually can fight in the frontlines and provide some support while at it.

--

Now, what I see here is something that's hard to work, since it seems quite a bit like an Alternate Class Feature but far stronger. Reasons are because you can apply it to all enemies instead of one, because it provides even more benefits than Favored Enemy, and because the progression is coupled with an ability that would make a bit more sense if gained earlier (I speak of World-View; basically, someone with Education sacrifices a feat to make a class feature obsolete. I know you speak of this type of variant features (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#otherClassVariants), but since you're basically exchanging one feature for another, I feel it's better explained as an ACF. But then again, I'm partialized towards ACFs instead of variant classes, so YMMV.

Instead of an arbitrary addition of class features, I'd say the Esoteric Ranger gains all Knowledge skills (even Knowledge: Psionics) at 1st level, but perhaps sacrificing other skills (say, athletic skills such as Climb, Jump and Swim, or Handle Animal/Ride). The exchanged benefit is kinda odd, since it starts kinda innocuous (at 1st level you succeed on a result of 5 or more with full ranks and Int 12 or higher), then gets a bit ridiculous as it grows; at 5th level, you need to get a result of 20 which means you need 11 or higher with Int 12 and full ranks; at 10th level you need a result of 30 or higher which means a result of 15 or higher with Int 14 and full ranks, and so on. By the time you reach level 15, you need some serious bonuses or you'll be reliably getting +2, probably +3; at level 20, it'll be near-impossible.

While personally I'd do it different, there are two ways to this predicament: either make the roll a 10+CR (or 10+HD) check and gain a +1 bonus for every 5 points you exceed on the roll (much like a regular Knowledge check) but you automatically get the highest possible result (so a roll of 20 means you might get a really high bonus on the enemy), or make the bonus increase by level but make the DC semi-static; basically, make the DC equal to 13 + CR or 13 + HD, thus a result of 10 on the roll with full ranks and no other bonuses against a creature of CR (or HD) equal to your character level nets you the maximum bonus from the class. That way, you'll ensure either prizing those who optimize or a properly, tightly scaling DC which nets the maximum possible benefit upon a successful roll.

Other than that (and perhaps a bit of reformatting, using either the ACF format or the variant class formats on Unearthed Arcana), it's a really interesting way to revamp the Ranger. It makes it a bit less bounty hunter and a bit more HUNTER, which is nice because it changes the perception of the Ranger itself.

[Pechvarry]

Alternate Class Feature

I actually prefer ACFs too, but it just wasn't working for me. I wanted the new Lores to be come every 3 levels instead of every 5, and replacing an "every 5" with an "every 3, but stuff changes every 5" seemed... odd. As for the knowledge skills, I really could just say "all Knowledge skills are class skills. It's working well for the Duskblade." Though I definitely want to avoid removing current Ranger skills from the class list. Even if you allow your Ranger casting to be based off of INT, they would sink so much optimization into Knowledge skills that they will never be the full on skill monkey that normal Rangers can be. Anyway, back to the "all Knowledge skills" thing, World-wise was originally just another benefit of the Foe Lores. And as I said above, I intended it to be something that forced Rangers to be more wilderness-y at the start, with their horizons broadening over time. However, if it's too awkward and just upsets the status quo (because the status is not quo!), I'll just include the broadened skill list from the get-go.


The exchanged benefit is kinda odd, since it starts kinda innocuous (at 1st level you succeed on a result of 5 or more with full ranks and Int 12 or higher), then gets a bit ridiculous as it grows; at 5th level, you need to get a result of 20 which means you need 11 or higher with Int 12 and full ranks; at 10th level you need a result of 30 or higher which means a result of 15 or higher with Int 14 and full ranks, and so on. By the time you reach level 15, you need some serious bonuses or you'll be reliably getting +2, probably +3; at level 20, it'll be near-impossible.

Ho hum. First, my reasoning: I was aware that it's nearly impossible to get the full benefit at level 20, at least with all 6 main Knowledge skills. But I've been using that in my brain to help rationalize how much more potent this is than standard Ranger. Additionally, it means a player could still build a character who specializes with different types of foes (1 rank in 5 of the 6, but maxed ranks in the 6th) if need be. Finally, it allows a lot of room for player optimization. They can dedicate resources (feats, WBL, etc) to their knowledge efficiency, or their standard fighting capacity.

That said... I'm not sure I like any of the above justification (though room to optimize is good to some degree, I don't like it doubling or tripling what a class can do). In fact, the Foe Lore caps were only put in place to deter super optimization. I think the formula needs work, but I think I still want varying degrees of success, with the highest bonuses unobtainable for every skill (without high optimization). So 10+CR/HD, +5 for each additional grade, sounds like it may be best. But I want to think on it for a day.

Re: taking Knowledge Devotion on a character of this class: I'm afraid it's so appealing as to be a feat tax for an Esoteric Ranger.

EDIT: I'm wondering if it'd be a good move to add Animal Companion to the "trade in" list. Would pay for a simple addition of class skills all at 1st level, as well as eased up knowledge checks.