Party balance fixes, help?

[SilverLeaf167]

My group is gradually getting ready to start a new campaign, and I'm just wondering about one thing...

What class features would be fair for a Ranger to trade for the Rogue's Sneak Attack progression? This would allow his TWF to be slightly less useless... so far I'm thinking that compared to the rest of the party it would be fair if he just swapped away his spells, which he doesn't want anyway.

The other players are a Dwarven Dungeoncrasher Fighter with a charging build, a Elven Warlock who might be going Eldritch Theurge and a Halfling Cloistered Cleric who was been lowered to a support role by some fixes I made to disable DMM and Scry&Die.

On that matter, is there anything about the Eldritch Theurge I should fix/buff/nerf? I've edited the Sorcerer so that they get new spell levels at the same time as Wizards, rather than one level later, so he would be entering as Warlock 3/Sorcerer 3.

[Yora]

If you just drop the spells, which really are not that great, I would advance Sneak attack only by +1d6 every three or even every four levels.
Ranger is not a bad class by itself and for the first 10 levels, when spells are really completely useless, gaining the rogues best feature for free without giving up anything meaningful seems too much for me. Bit slower sneak attack, why not.

Another common change is to remove spellcasting and instead gain 1 fighter bonus fight at every level the ranger would get access to a new spell level. (6th, 10th, 12th, 15th or 4th, 8th, 11th, 14th, depending how you want to implement it.)

[SilverLeaf167]

Yeah, I also had the idea of giving a somewhat slower progression... every 3 levels sounds good, given that he has plenty of other features, a better BAB, a constant flanking buddy etc.

Note that I wasn't really trying to fix the Ranger in general, just give him a fair chance compared to the rest of the party.

[Jheska]

You could always point him towards a scout /ranger combo and pick up swift hunter so that ranger advances skirmish. There are plenty of ways to move and full attack, so point him at one of those.

For a non houseruling option

[SilverLeaf167]

We considered Swift Hunter, but he didn't really like the Skirmish bonuses or flavor, didn't want to jump through hoops to move before attacking (when he could just flank with an animal companion instead) and didn't want to weaken his companion.

So, what do you think about getting +1d6 Sneak Attack every three levels? And what about Eldritch Theurge, is it good?

[GoatBoy]

Eldritch theurge isn't a bad class, but it's never going to be able to match the power of a pure arcane caster. Even with Precocious Apprentice early entry, you need 3 levels of warlock. But it's a step up if your player is focused on the warlock part, as the PrC abilities and sorcerer casting are worth the loss of 3 warlock levels.

Sneak attack damage certainly isn't nothing, but it doesn't increase at the same rate as 2-handed Power Attack damage does with optimization. I wouldn't lose sleep over fretting whether +1d6 every 3 or 4 levels is more appropriate. Plus it's very easy to account for when constructing encounters, so you might as well give the player the better end of the bargain.

There are some pretty potent ranger spells out there, though, for both melee and ranged. Not much in core, but Spell Compendium has some enticing options. Are you sure your player wouldn't rather trade Favored Enemy for sneak attack?

[elvengunner69]

Scout/Rogue is nice because even if he doesn't like the full build he can get that extra 1d6 at least in the first round for being a scout.

Could even add a level of Scout later start Ranger/Rogue combo and add it later. Early on being able to flank and skirmish adding 1d6 x2 can be pretty nice especially if you have a good tank like character that draws the attacks. Bit of Wolverine/Colossus there.

[Dalek-K]

You could send the wildshape ranger variant. I'm sure one form will give the player multiattack and/or some other really neat abilities
.

Sneak attack isn't really that great of an ability, specially a slow progression sneak attack whereas the wildshape would give the player many many options.

Edit: please note the wildshape ranger looses the free TWF feats but you can still gain them. Through normal feats

[SilverLeaf167]

Yes, I am aware of different Ranger variants, and we considered Wild Shape Ranger too, but he again didn't like the flavor or the way it fits into his build and I didn't really look forward to the extra bookkeeping.

[Manateee]

If you're trying to give the Ranger a favorably unbalanced exchange, I don't understand why you'd need an exchange at all.

I wouldn't lose spellcasting though. Since SpC and Champions of Ruin, the Ranger is basically just a vehicle for his wand chambers.

If you have to give something away, I'd go with the animal companion. That thing's too frail to do anything but justify monsters' Cleave feats and area attacks.

[Coidzor]

There's a list somewhere of a Rebalanced Compendium that aimed to put everyone towards T3 over on Brilliant Gameologists.

There's also a list of T3 classes, official and homebrew here on this website too.

[Jheska]

Do a straight swap on swift hunter with skirmish for sneak attack and scout for rogue. Simple, just need to make it require 2d6 sneak attack so that it would require the same number of levels.