E6 Wildshape Ranger Help

[Gullintanni]

So, as it says on the tin, trying to build a Wildshape Ranger for E6, most likely using the Planar Ranger variant. Really not sure how to build this character though. All sources are pretty much open, except for Dragon content. I've heard strength and dex aren't really that important, but the campaign will be starting at level 1, and Wildshaping doesn't come online until 5. I don't really want to cripple the character in the middle.

So...builds anyone? Also considering dipping 1 level of Monk for IUS, Improved Grapple and awesome Saves, but I lose 1 BAB and the iterative attack that comes with full BAB. I also lose 1 extra use of Wildshape which means I'll have 5 hours of wildshaping a day instead of up to 2 different forms for 6 hours a day each. Sounds like a bad trade.

Abilities on a 32 point buy look like this:

Str 14 (for damage pre-wildshape)
Dex 14 (for Imp. Grapple)
Con 16
Int 14 cause...why not?
Wis 12 (to cast level 1 spells a smidgen earlier, and I'll get 2/day later, also will saves)
Cha 8

Feats:
Human - Improved UAS
1 - Improved Grapple
Ranger 1 - Track
3 - Open (Thinking about Steadfast Determination...since I've got the prereq)
Ranger 3 Endurance
6 Multi-Attack
1st Bonus Feat at 5000xp - Natural Bond to trade in Animal Companion for either a Dire Bat or an Ape.

Thoughts?

[vitkiraven]

Would dipping two levels of Barbarian kill your wild shaping? It'd give you rage and improved grapple (bear version).

Edit: and take the Wildshape as a capstone style feat? Just realize would Kill your wildshaping.

[Cog]

Would dipping two levels of Barbarian kill your wild shaping?
Considering you'd no longer have enough levels left to even pick up wild shape in the first place, yes, it would.

[vitkiraven]

It wouldn't let me edit it before you posted (specifically, forum was busy message). Iggy it anyway.

[Darrin]

Would dipping two levels of Barbarian kill your wild shaping? It'd give you rage and improved grapple (bear version).


Yes, because Wildshape Ranger doesn't get Wildshape until level 5. He can fit in one level of barbarian, which could give him Pounce (Spirit Lion) or Improved Grab (Spirit Bear), but both of those will probably be available in various wildshape forms.

If you want the Monk's unarmed strike but still want full BAB, consider Battledancer 1 from Dragon Compendium (you also add your Cha bonus to AC when unarmored).

For your 3rd level feat, see if Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle) is available. Consider taking Snap Kick at 6th (or soon after).

[Gullintanni]

If I was going to dip a level, it would either be in Barbarian for Whirling Frenzy, and Pounce/Improved Grapple, or Monk for...well...everything else that it does pretty well. Feats in particular. The loss of an iterative attack doesn't hurt that badly, but I'd still prefer not to.

I am indeed considering the Capstone feat to be apply for 6th level Wildshaping classes instead of just for 6th level Druids.

What I'm most worried about is the Feat progression. I think the Ability scores are mostly fine as they are.



For your 3rd level feat, see if Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle) is available. Consider taking Snap Kick at 6th (or soon after).

Just as an FYI, I'm the DM and I'm building the character for one of my players. I can read in sources as necessary, including ToB if I really need to.

No Dragon content so no Battledancer. The best way to accomplish the whole monk thing would be a 1 level dip in FoTF for Con to AC and unarmed damage, but that's 2 more feats that I need to squeeze into the early build.

[Hyfigh]

I like taking queues from the uber-charger style. You get forms (like leopard, and fleshraker) that let you pounce. It's not as good as the straight uber-charger in the way of raw damage, but you're way more versatile.

Also, do the Mystic Ranger variant instead. Wizzy spells - even the low end ones - are tasty gravy.

[Fax Celestis]

You could trade away your spellcasting for the Champion of the Wild ACF from CCham and get two bonus feats (at 1st and 4th).

[Hyfigh]

You could trade away your spellcasting for the Champion of the Wild ACF from CCham and get two bonus feats (at 1st and 4th).

+1 if you don't want Mystic Ranger.

[Person_Man]

My suggestions:

Aberration Blood->Inhuman Reach: Gives you +2 to Grapple checks and +5 to your natural reach. VERY useful at all levels for melee builds, especially when combined with a reach weapon and/or Combat Reflexes.
Aberration Blood->Aberration Wild Shape. Lets you Wild Shape into Aberrations, with the same size and HD limits of your normal Wild Shape. Spend some time looking through the various Monster Manuals and the back of splat books, especially Lords of Madness itself. For example, the Gibbering Mouther (6 bites, Blinding Spittle, swim speed, +8 NA, 1d4 constitution damage on bite, improved grab, swallow whole) or Grell (perfect flight, 10 tentacles, improved grab, paralysis, blindsight).
Darkstalker: Allows you to use Hide/Move Silently against enemies with Blindsense, Blindsight, Scent, or Tremorsense. You can also get Hide in Plain Sight from an Umbral Collar (grants Dark template) in Tome of Magic. When combined with the massive Hide and Move Silently bonuses from various Wild Shape forms, you should be able to elude almost anyone's detection.
Arcane Hunter alternate class feature: Lose normal favored enemy, gain Favored Enemy (Arcanists). Comp Mage, p 32.
Urban Companion (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a): Lose your normal Animal Companion, gain a superior Familiar. This is noteworthy because your Urban Companion/Familiar has 75% of your hit points and shares your BAB, and benefits greatly from the Improved Familiar feat.

[Darrin]

You could trade away your spellcasting for the Champion of the Wild ACF from CCham and get two bonus feats (at 1st and 4th).

You don't get a bonus feat at 1st, just 4th. And the list is extremely limited when you ignore the useless crap like Two-Weapon Defense. Good way to get your 1st Combat Style back, though.

Rangers have a smorgasborg of ACFs. Some of my favorites:

Spiritual Connection (Complete Champion). Swap Wild Empathy for speak with animals/plants 3/day.

Trap Expert (Dungeonscape). Swap Track for Trapfinding. I'm in the "Track is useless busywork to make the Ranger feel special, if it's important enough the DM will tell us" camp.

Distracting Attack (PHBII). Animal companion tends to be too weak to be anything but a bloodspatter waiting to happen. If I need one, I can buy a Warbeast or grab one via the Leadership/Wild Cohort feat. Giving the party rogue another chance to sneak attack, however? Sign me up.

[Edit: D'oh! Forgot Arcane Hunter... yeah, if I'm not doing Swift Hunter to skirmish undead/constructs/elementals, grab that.]


I'm also rather fond of using Frostblood Orc/Half-Orc to swap Endurance for another bonus feat, and then using Dragonborn of Bahumat to swap another useless feat (Track, if I haven't already traded it in) for Dragon Wings or Dragon Tail. Dragonborn gets rid of Endurance, but you keep the bonus feat.

[Gullintanni]

You could trade away your spellcasting for the Champion of the Wild ACF from CCham and get two bonus feats (at 1st and 4th).

Pretty limited list...but Combat Expertise and Improved Trip are both pretty decent...and pre-reqs to some golden feats down the road. Plus with Steadfast Determination a bit later, I could afford to dump WIS completely.

Useful, thanks!

No Dragon content -> No Mystic Ranger

I'd been thinking about Urban Companion...is this really a better option than having say a Leopard to jump into combat and flank with? What about the potential for a Dire Bat that if you can find a way to improve its strength a bit, you could ride into battle? With Natural Bond you're using an Improved Animal Companion with the first tier of improvement. Also...Warbeast Template? Opinions here?

The Aberration stuff doesn't really fit with the fluff of the character in question. She's going to be playing as a valkyrie inspired Giant hunter.

Edit: Guess while we're on the topic, Planar Rangers are allowed to recruit Celestial versions of their Animal Companions. These Celestial creatures have an Int Score of 3. What are the implications of this? The PF gang says that such creatures still require Handle Animal checks to control, and can start taking player feats, but the rules for adjudicating this seem nebulous at best.

[Coidzor]

Just as an FYI, I'm the DM and I'm building the character for one of my players. I can read in sources as necessary, including ToB if I really need to.

Then just use a monk fix so it has full BAB if that's the principal objection. Or slap a quick houserule patch of full BAB onto it and move on.

...Why aren't you using a monk fix to begin with? :smallconfused:


Edit: Guess while we're on the topic, Planar Rangers are allowed to recruit Celestial versions of their Animal Companions. These Celestial creatures have an Int Score of 3. What are the implications of this? The PF gang says that such creatures still require Handle Animal checks to control, and can start taking player feats, but the rules for adjudicating this seem nebulous at best.

Wonky bits and pieces of rules throughout the 3.X rules set imply that Handle Animal can be used on things with Int scores from - to 4, but at the same time Int 3 represents the low-end of sapience and the ability to communicate intelligibly without magical assistance.

It's not going to break the game to treat an intelligent animal companion more like a cohort by allowing it to follow instructions and have judgment.

[Hyfigh]

No Dragon content -> No Mystic Ranger

:smalleek: I stand corrected. My bad.

[deuxhero]

Full BAB only fixes one of problems (E6 fixes the front endedness). Swap flurry for Skirmish and boost the skill points while allowing ACFs and they will be playable in e6.

That or unarmed Swordsage.

[Gullintanni]

Then just use a monk fix so it has full BAB if that's the principal objection. Or slap a quick houserule patch of full BAB onto it and move on.

...Why aren't you using a monk fix to begin with? :smallconfused:

My ideal "fix" for monk is Monastic Training + Tashalatora + Psywar, using Pathfinder's Monk as the chassis. :smalltongue:

That said, my players and I aren't fans of homebrew, so even though the Psionic fix above doesn't really improve the Monk any (Lets be honest, the Psionic class is doing all the heavy lifting), it does solve the problem in a manner that's acceptable to the group.



Wonky bits and pieces of rules throughout the 3.X rules set imply that Handle Animal can be used on things with Int scores from - to 4, but at the same time Int 3 represents the low-end of sapience and the ability to communicate intelligibly without magical assistance.

It's not going to break the game to treat an intelligent animal companion more like a cohort by allowing it to follow instructions and have judgment.

In the absence of RAW, this is probably how I'm going to run it. This reduces the amount of book keeping and can only have end result of speeding up gameplay. Which is a good thing.

[Kaje]

A one-level dip won't really hurt your wildshaping. You can get two more uses a day per use of the Extra Wild Shape feat, and E6 certainly isn't hurting for feats.

[Gullintanni]

A one-level dip won't really hurt your wildshaping. You can get two more uses a day per use of the Extra Wild Shape feat, and E6 certainly isn't hurting for feats.

Sourcebook?

[Kaje]

Complete Divine