(3.5) Environmental Ranger

[Goonthegoof]

This is not my class, someone else wrote it up for a non magic campaign as a kind of ranger/druid cross without any of the supernatural stuff and an emphasis on a particular environment. I'm posting it here as a better organised way of presenting it, the tables on the GITP forum are usually pretty easy to use.
Hit Die: D8

Class Skills

The Environmental Ranger's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) ×4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier.

{table=head]Level|Base Attack|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1st|+1|+2|+2|+0|Animal Companion, Favoured Environment, Wild Empathy, Track, Nature Sense, 1st Favoured Enemy
2nd|+2|+3|+3|+0|Environmental Stride, Combat Style
3rd|+3|+3|+3|+1|Endurance
4th|+4|+4|+4|+1|
5th|+5|+4|+4|+1|2nd Favoured Enemy
6th|+6|+5|+5|+2|Improved Combat Style
7th|+7|+5|+5|+2|
8th|+8|+6|+6|+2|
9th|+9|+6|+6|+3|Venom Immunity
10th|+10|+7|+7|+3|3rd favoured enemy
11th|+11|+7|+7|+3|Combat Style Mastery
12th|+12|+8|+8|+4|
13th|+13|+8|+8|+4|
14th|+14|+9|+9|+4|
15th|+15|+9|+9|+5|4th favoured enemy, Timeless Body
16th|+16|+10|+10|+5|
17th|+17|+10|+10|+5|
18th|+18|+11|+11|+6|
19th|+19|+11|+11|+6|
20th|+20|+12|+12|+6|5th favoured enemy[/table]

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A ranger is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, and with light armor and shields (except tower shields).

Favoured Environment
At level one you may pick a favoured environment (sea, desert, forest, urban, mountain). All class abilities tagged with (Favoured Environment) only work in or against creatures native that environment.

Animal Companion
As the druid class feature of the same name.

Wild Empathy (Favoured Environment)
As the druid class feature of the same name.

Track (Favoured Environment)
A first level Environmental Ranger grants track as a bonus feat.

Nature Sense (Favoured Environment)
As the druid class feature of the same name.

Favoured Enemy
As the ranger class feature of the same name, but the bonus to damage rolls is +1 and the bonuses can not be increased.

Combat Style
As ranger ability, but you must select a specific weapon type for combat style feats to work with. You gain a +2 on attack and damage rolls with this weapon, but take a -1 penalty to attack rolls and cannot use combat style feats when wielding any other weapon type.

Environmental Stride (Favoured Environment)
As the druid's woodland stride class feature, but it works in similar conditions in your favoured environment only. You gain the natural swimmer ability if your favoured environment is sea.

Endurance
A third level Environmental Ranger gains Endurance as a bonus feat.

Improved Combat Style
As the ranger ability of the same name.

Venom Immunity (Favoured Environment)
As the druid ability of the same name.

Combat Style Mastery
As the ranger ability of the same name.

Timeless Body
As the druid ability of the same name.

[Cidolfas]

I dunno about the table, but this seems like not much of an upgrade over the standard ranger. I've always felt that in order to make favored enemy more useful, the ranger should give more of them, especially when Wizards saw fit to split hairs between the different subtypes of humanoid. Even if more were to be given, the benefits that you gain are pretty minimal. Although the common solution to the ranger seems to be gestalting it with the scout and ignoring favored enemy more or less altogether, I think a good ranger fix would focus on what is really unique to the ranger and apart from all other classes, that being Favored Enemy.

That's mostly a critique of the SRD ranger, but it's a problem that this one seems to do little to rectify. The favored environment abilities are too meager for my liking; it's basically throwing on the druid's not-so-impressive class features (that would be everything but spells and wild shape, which are honestly the only things anyone should ever care about in regards to the druid) and then adding the caveat that it only works in one place. For example, I would have to question if venom immunity even makes sense for said class feature. If he's immune to poison from one thing, why not generalize it and make him immune to all poisons anywhere? I know that it's not realistic per se, but it would add a tiny bit more to what is a weak class. Not even nearly enough to make up the difference, though.

It doesn't even specify the certain types of favored environments, which is an issue. That leaves all of to DM fiat, and is too ambiguous to be mechanically viable as a class feature. That doesn't even take into account the issue above, which is that the benefits are minimal at best and barely vary at all.

All things considered, this class places an undue amount of trust in Wizards' opinion of the ranger, on which most people will likely back me up when I say it is misplaced. It doesn't add anything significant enough to help the ranger even keep pace with a core fighter of the same level. That's my verdict.

[Lyndworm]

Here's a fixed table for you:
Environmental Ranger
{table=head]Level|Base Attack|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1st|+1|+2|+2|+0|Animal Companion, Favoured Environment, Wild Empathy, Track, Nature Sense, 1st Favoured Enemy
2nd|+2|+3|+3|+0|Environmental Stride, Combat Style
3rd|+3|+3|+3|+1|Endurance
4th|+4|+4|+4|+1|
5th|+5|+4|+4|+1|2nd Favoured Enemy
6th|+6/+1|+5|+5|+2|Improved Combat Style
7th|+7/+2|+5|+5|+2|
8th|+8/+3|+6|+6|+2|
9th|+9/+4|+6|+6|+3|Venom Immunity
10th|+10/+5|+7|+7|+3|3rd favoured enemy
11th|+11/+6/+1|+7|+7|+3|Combat Style Mastery
12th|+12/+7/+2|+8|+8|+4|
13th|+13/+8/+3|+8|+8|+4|
14th|+14/+9/+4|+9|+9|+4|
15th|+15/+10/+5|+9|+9|+5|4th favoured enemy, Timeless Body
16th|+16/+11/+6/+1|+10|+10|+5|
17th|+17/+12/+7/+2|+10|+10|+5|
18th|+18/+13/+8/+3|+11|+11|+6|
19th|+19/+14/+9/+4|+11|+11|+6|
20th|+20/+15/+10/+5|+12|+12|+6|5th favoured enemy[/table]
I'd have to agree with pretty much everything Cidolfas said, though... So I don't have anything to add.

[Goonthegoof]

Thanks for the table fix :smallsmile:

Also something that should also be noted that I forgot to is that the campaign takes place in a world that's mostly water. Thus far about half the combat has been in the sea environment, so the favoured environment option isn't as restricting as it looks.

[Cidolfas]

I had actually considered "underwater" as a potential example for how loosely you could define the environment, but once you get on land there would probably be issues with what kind of land you are on. Either way, the fact that it doesn't add very much to the class is really the most important issue in my opinion.