PF: Ranger Build

[alexthemad]

Hello all. I am fairly new to playing D&D 3.5 and I have never played pathfinder and I would like some help building a ranger. I have read the guide to rangers from treantmonk and I really liked his "switch hitter" build. But I get confused when reading about when and where to pick feats and which stats are most important. And I'm really lost on the animal companion, about how to level it. So can I get a level by level build please? Or a place where it's a bit easier to figure it out.

I'm trying to join a PbP game with the following rules.
Level 15
25 point buy (I'd like to not have a stat below 10, but I'm not opposed to it completely)
I'd like to be human.
I'd like to stay in the ranger class, to cut down on my confusion.

Thanks for any help or information I receive!

(edit)
So I've put a little more research into it and here is what I've come up with.

1: Favored enemy-orcs, Track, Wild Empathy, Power Atk, Cleave
2: Rapid Shot
3:Endurance, Fav Terrain-Mountain, Quickdraw
4: Animal Companion-Wolf
5: Fav Enemy-Human, Deadly Aim
6: Manyshot
7: Woodland Stride, Crit Focus-Falchion
8: Swift Tracker, Fav Terrain-Forest
9: Evasion, Improved Crit-Falchion
10: Precise Shot, Fav enemy-Evil
11: Quarry, Blind Crit-Falchion
12: Camouflage
13:Fav Terrain-Swamp, Vital Strike
14: Improved Precise Shot
15: Fav enemy-Earth, Heavy Armour or Blind Fighting

Does this look right? Anything I should change? I still don't understand the animal companion. Input is appreciated. Thanks again.

[AttilaTheGeek]

I'm not an expert on rangers by any means, but I can point out a couple feats that seem amiss.

Vital Strike is bad. It's just a trap feat. Note that it only doubles the weapon's damage dice, not your bonus, so it's not double damage, it's more like one and a quarter damage.

Also, the Falchion is not nearly as good as it looks. If you swap it out for a Greatsword (another two-handed melee weapon in the same slot), you'll hit for an extra 2.5 damage on every single hit. It's because 2d4 averages 5 but 2d6 averages 7.5.

Critical Focus and Improved Critical aren't that great either- I'd swap them out for Weapon Focus and one other. That feat could be Toughness, if there's only one other melee fighter in your group and you need to take some of the heat, or it could be Lunge if you have a good group of tanks already and you want to stay behind them while doing damage.

I would most definitely not take Heavy Armor. That max dex penalty is going to severely limit your ability to hit with bows. If you want more survivability in melee, I might get a wand of Shield or spend a little more on your Ring of Protection and Amulet of Natural Armor. The dusty rose prism (+1 AC) is also a good buy. If the game is low-magic or the wand of Shield is out for some reason and you're *really* hurting for AC, there's the Shield of Swings feat for a +1 shield bonus, but it's not really considered a great buy because of the alternatives, or Dodge for a +1 (aptly named) dodge bonus.

Another option is to drop strength entirely, switch your melee weapon to a scimitar, and take Weapon Finesse and Dervish Dance (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/pel-s-lab/dervish-dance). You'd lose out on ranged damage by not adding strength to a composite longbow, but you'd be able to pump melee through the roof by being able to buy a belt of +6 DEX/CON instead of DEX/STR. If you do go that route, you'll definitely want Celestial Armor, which has the highest max dex bonus at +8. If you go higher than that, which is a goal for a dex build, Bracers of Armor will work. They're just a little more expensive.

Other equipment you'll want: Boots of Speed, maybe the lesser Spell Absorption Ioun Stone (pale lavender, I believe) if you'll fight casters, a Tome of Dex Bonus, a Cloak of Resistance +4 or +5, a Handy Haversack, Greater Bracers of Archery, and a Hat of Disguise. Never, ever forget the Hat of Disguise.

[grarrrg]

Animal Companions (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions)
Rangers are effective level -3 for the Chart, so at Ranger 4 you'll have a "level 1" companion.


Also, the Falchion is not nearly as good as it looks. If you swap it out for a Greatsword (another two-handed melee weapon in the same slot), you'll hit for an extra 2.5 damage on every single hit. It's because 2d4 averages 5 but 2d6 averages 7.5.


Either Falchion or Greatsword is fine.

(nitpick) 2d6 averages 7, so it's only +2 better on average.
The Greatsword has a Crit of 19-20/x2
The Falchion has a Crit of 18-20/x2

So the Falchion will have less damage, but will Crit more often.

I do agree on the Improved Critical feat though. You are probably better off spending some money and getting Keen on your weapon instead (same effect, doesn't use a feat).


I also agree on not bothering with Heavy Armor.

[avr]

If you're playing PF, you don't have to have an animal companion at all. The basic ranger can choose either to be able to share some of their favored enemy bonus, or to get an animal companion. The class feature name is Hunters Bond. Note that many archetypes trade this feature out or change it.

If you do get an animal companion, you probably also want to squeeze in the boon companion feat somewhere. This gives you an animal companion based off your full ranger level rather than level -3.

The animal companion's stats are as per this page here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions). You get the per-level stats from the table then scroll down to the exact animal you've chosen and combine it with the stats there, including any 4th level and/or 7th level advancements since you're starting well above that.

Example: Assuming you've taken the boon companion feat and that you want a lion animal companion.

The level 15 line reads
HD 12(d8), BAB +9, Fort +8, Ref +8, Will +4, Skills 12, Feats 6, Natural armour +10, Str/Dex bonus +5, Bonus Tricks 6, Improved Evasion. You also get the specials for earlier levels: Link, share spells, Evasion (Improved Evasion overwrites this one), 3 ability score increases, Devotion, Multiattack.

The Cat, Big entry reads
Cat, Big

Starting Statistics

Size Medium; Speed 40 ft.; AC +1 natural armor; Attack bite (1d6), 2 claws (1d4); Ability Scores Str 13, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10; Special Attacks rake (1d4); Special Qualities low-light vision, scent.

7th-Level Advancement

Size Large; AC +2 natural armor; Attack bite (1d8), 2 claws (1d6); Ability Scores Str +8, Dex –2, Con +4; Special Attacks grab, pounce, rake (1d6).

Add these all up and the ability scores are Str 26, Dex 20, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 15, Cha 10 plus 3 ability score increases you can assign to individual scores. You might choose to put all of them into Con, say, which would make the lions' Con 20.

Saves and attacks should be obvious enough to calculate. Remember it's Large and has Multiattack.

The natural armour bonus is 10+1(Big Cat)+2(Big Cat 7th level advancement) = +12

You get 12 skill ranks and 6 feats to assign.

If your DM is into that sort of micromanagement, it has 6 tricks in addition to any taught to it via Handle Animal. The rules for tricks are under the Handle Animal skill IIRC.

Clear?

[Edenbeast]

Switch-hitter is a good way to go in pathfinder, but the ranger guides are all pretty much outdated. The one you mention was written based on the core book only. Pathfinder has introduced many archetypes, and several new combat styles including two-handed, sword and shield, and natural weapons. Depending on your campaign and your preferences there may be better options.
There's for example a shapeshifter archetype that is all about the natural weapons combat style. I love the trapper archetype, that trades spellcasting for the ranger trap ability that allows you to setting traps as a full-round action, and even shooting traps into combat. There's also an urban ranger archetype for urban settings.

But I don't want to make your confusion even bigger, so just go with your plan. Here's something that hasn't been answered yet:

Your animal companion uses the same tabel as the druid for animal companions (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions), but take your level minus 3. So you're level 15, then your companion is 12. You read in the tabel how many skills your companion gets (allocate them to the listed skills), and how many feats. You can chose from the listed feats. Your animal gets 5 bonus tricks on level 12, that's 5 5 on top of standard 6 you can teach it with handle animal, so it can know 11 tricks in total. For you wolf you take the templete listed further down the page, with the 7th level advancement.

hihi, slow typer..

[mcv]

The classic switch hitter means you need high Str and high Dex. Str is more important, though, because in melee, you will be using a sword.

For feats, spend your regular feats mostly on enhancing your melee. You'll get your archery feats for free from your combat style. The only exception is Deadly Aim which I believe you don't get. It's probably worth spending a feat on it, and it doesn't have any prerequisite feats, so it's fairly cheap.

During early levels, you could use javelin or sling for the strength bonus until you get a composite longbow. I sometimes wonder if that might make Far Shot a good feat to take, but it'll eventually become useless once you get that composite longbow, so probably not.

In the long run a Falchion is indeed better than a greatsword, because the damage your multiplying on a crit tends to get larger. Early on a greatsword is better. If you go Falchion, Improved Crit is definitely nice. Take it before Crit Focus (I think you've switched those around in your list).

Heavy armor is not a good idea. You've got high Dex, so make use of that. You're not going to be the biggest ranged damage dealer, the biggest melee damage dealer and also the party tank.

Vital Strike is also not that great, because it's really not that big, and it only works on standard actions, not full round actions (like rapid shot, or the extra attacks you get at level 6 and beyond). But you've got it listed for level 13, so you've got plenty of time to figure out how many standard attacks your taking in combat.

I have no advice on animal companions.

[Person_Man]

Take some time to read through the Archetypes. They're all online for free in the Pathfinder SRD. (And be sure to navigate through all the different books posted online. All the different archetypes are not in one place).

Skirmisher Archetype (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/coreClasses/ranger.html) is particularly noteworthy, in that the Stag's Leap trick gives you free action Jump checks as early as level 5. Pounce and free movement are pretty hard to come by in Pathfinder, but are essential for melee builds that want to make a full attack every round.

[alexthemad]

Thanks for all the replies, info and advice! It seems as though I have some more research to do with the archtypes and feat selection. I thought the creation rule was core only, but it says PFSRD only, which opens up much more.

The animal companion is making more sense now, thanks.

I'll probably be back with more questions...thanks again!

[Sir Cirdan]

The Falchion is really only better than a keened greatsword if you take critical feats like blinding critical, which you are.

Check the prerequisites for the feats you're taking. Some of them you can't take until later levels: i.e. Blinding critical requires a BAB of +15, Improved Critical requires BAB+8, and Critical Focus requires BAB+9.

[OverdrivePrime]

I love the Pathfinder Ranger, and I love the Guide archetype most of all.
Prior to Pathfinder, I've spent close to 20 years playing rangers who were only situationally effective at killing monsters. My rangers with favored enemy: Giants, Dragons and Aberrations are completely unimpressive the five month arc that we're in a city, and generally only impressive in the wilderness or dungeons every third game or so when we'd actually encounter a favored enemy.

With the guide archetype, you no longer have to be cool only when the DM remembers to let you be cool. You get to be awesome, every single game. The guide lets you be the primary damage delivery against the big bad, by allowing you to use your determine who to use your favored enemy bonus on. It is glorious!