PF Natural Weapon Ranger help

[Blade Conduit]

Ok, so for starters I'm level 3, Half Orc (taking Feral racial subtype) 25 point buy and WBL. I want to go Ranger and go with the natural attack style. I know I get the three primary attacks and power attack is a good idea. My questions are:

1: What other specific feats should I concern myself with now, and in the future?

2: What are the best stats for the 25 point buy?

3. If I go with heavy strength low dex what kind of armor should I be looking at? (My thought was Mithril Breastplate, Agile)

4: Amulet of Mighty Fists, cost breakdown to benefit, how much for what and I was considering flaming for this, Any thoughts?

All help and recommendations are appreciated. I will be checking this fairly often over the next 4 days. Game starts Tue. Eve.

[NightbringerGGZ]

So my first question for you is how much do you want to play a Ranger and how much do you want to play a Natural Weapon warrior? Generally you want to maximize the number of natural attacks you have, which will mean dipping into some other classes. Alternatively, playing a Synthesis Summoner is the best way of being a strong Natural Attack critter.

1) I wouldn't worry about Improved Natural Attack, it boosts your damage too little to be worth spending a feat on (unless you have nothing else to take).

Ask your GM if the feat Rending Claws qualifies you for the Rending Fury feat chain. Rending Claws lets you do an extra 1D6 damage if you land 2 Claw Attacks. Rending Fury lets you do that damage if you land just 1 hit. Imp Rending Fury boosts the damage by 1D6. Greater Rending Fury adds another 1D6 bleed damage.

Eldritch Claws makes your claw attacks count as Magical and Silver for getting past DR.

Weapon Focus: Claws - Always a good option.

When no other options are available, Extra Traits can be really good with the right choices.

2) High Strength, decent Dexterity and Constitution, a bit of Wisdom for spell casting. With a 25 point build you should have at lest 18 Str.

3) Mithril Agile Breastplate is your best bet. If you pick the Trait Armor Expert you'll have no penalties for wearing the armor.

4) It's very expensive, but also the only way to gain Enhancement Bonuses to your natural attacks. +1 Flaming shouldn't be too bad overall. Hopefully one of your other players is a magic item crafter.

If you're not married to the Orc idea, there are other races that grant natural attacks as well. Every race can get a bite attack with the Adopted > Tusked trait chain. Tieflings are a really nice option.

[Baroncognito]

1: What other specific feats should I concern myself with now, and in the future? Are you going to pick up claws too, or just stick with the bite? If it's just the bite, you're getting strength and a half damage, which is nice. You can grab a shield and keep one hand free. If you're going to use just the bite, then furious focus is nice, because you'll get to power attack without getting the penalties to-hit.



3. If I go with heavy strength low dex what kind of armor should I be looking at? (My thought was Mithril Breastplate, Agile) If you get the trait Armour Expert like Nightbringers is suggesting, you don't need to get an Agile Mithril Breastplate, a normal one won't have the penalty.


4: Amulet of Mighty Fists, cost breakdown to benefit, how much for what and I was considering flaming for this, Any thoughts?

I haven't really needed this for my natural attack ranger yet, but if you have the money, why not?

[Blade Conduit]

So my first question for you is how much do you want to play a Ranger and how much do you want to play a Natural Weapon warrior? Generally you want to maximize the number of natural attacks you have, which will mean dipping into some other classes. Alternatively, playing a Synthesis Summoner is the best way of being a strong Natural Attack critter.

Pretty much very married, the idea is a feral orc who's lived in the woods his whole life. The ranger idea fits much better than summoner but I get where you are coming from.


1) I wouldn't worry about Improved Natural Attack, it boosts your damage too little to be worth spending a feat on (unless you have nothing else to take).

Ask your GM if the feat Rending Claws qualifies you for the Rending Fury feat chain. Rending Claws lets you do an extra 1D6 damage if you land 2 Claw Attacks. Rending Fury lets you do that damage if you land just 1 hit. Imp Rending Fury boosts the damage by 1D6. Greater Rending Fury adds another 1D6 bleed damage.

Eldritch Claws makes your claw attacks count as Magical and Silver for getting past DR.

Weapon Focus: Claws - Always a good option.

When no other options are available, Extra Traits can be really good with the right choices.

My DM says no no to traits but I like the idea of going the rending fury route. Are you quite sure the boost from 1d4 claws to 1d6 isn't worth it. I guess if I'm getting and extra 1d6 from rend and extra from the amulet and then even more down the line from rending feat tree that should definitely work out better. I'll ask him about the feat tree. I was pretty much planning on Eldritch claws later on.


4) It's very expensive, but also the only way to gain Enhancement Bonuses to your natural attacks. +1 Flaming shouldn't be too bad overall. Hopefully one of your other players is a magic item crafter.


I was under the impression that the amulet of mighty fists was the rare exception to the rule and you don't have to have a +1 before giving it an damage type.


u get the trait Armour Expert like Nightbringers is suggesting, you don't need to get an Agile Mithril Breastplate, a normal one won't have the penalty.

I have the extra cash because of no weapon buying so I'm ok with going with the agile breastplate. My dm doesn't do traits.

Overall very good ideas. I had heard rend was a trap but I like the look of it if I can follow it down the line. What would be the major differences between Orc and Tiefling?
Stats I was thinking
Str 18 with the +2 half orc
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10 (could be dropped but the ranger has a lot of skills and I still want them applicable)
Wis 15 (not entirely sure now why I did that except ranger skills and spells)
Cha 8
I saw a build that multiclassed as invulnerable rager and it looked pretty good.
Any other thoughts, ideas, suggestions? Mainly I'm worried about getting up there in level and not being able to stand up with other melee people in the group though right now we only have a magus as the other melee.

[NightbringerGGZ]

Well, if you want to really optimize this, most people will tell you to start splashing constantly to get every source of extra natural attacks possible. I've seen builds that splash in levels of Alchemist (to get the Tentacle discovery) and the Witch (prehensile hair) turning their character into a really strange beast.

For a less cheesy build, have you considered working in a bit of Barbarian? You could use the Fiend Totem rage power to gain a 1D8 Gore attack when raging.

You're right about the Amulet of Mighty Fists, I forgot that it didn't need to be +1 first. That's actually a pretty cheap way to add extra damage. Quick warning though, fire damage is probably the most resisted. I'd suggest going Acid instead.

For your stats, I wouldn't go 15 wisdom. You can pump your wisdom up for spell casting with a headband. 13 - 14 is fine. I'd use the extra points in Int so you can be a bit more of a skill monkey. Alternatively, look at the Skilled racial trait.

As far as dealing damage is concerned, it really depends on how long the adventuring days you face will be. If it's a short adventuring day, letting the magus "go nova" he'll probably out damage you. The benefit of going with Natural Attacks is that you have several attacks that are likely to hit, but the individual damage will be low. Splashing in some Barbarian will help out a lot though.

Btw, if you do multi-class choose to bond with your party and not a pet. The pet will be useless in combat, but sharing your favored class bonus with the party will be really nice.

[Blade Conduit]

For a less cheesy build, have you considered working in a bit of Barbarian? You could use the Fiend Totem rage power to gain a 1D8 Gore attack when raging.

You're right about the Amulet of Mighty Fists, I forgot that it didn't need to be +1 first. That's actually a pretty cheap way to add extra damage. Quick warning though, fire damage is probably the most resisted. I'd suggest going Acid instead.

Actually yeah I was thinking Barbarian. Right now for level 3 I'd go Ranger 1
Barbarian 1 Ranger 2.

Acid over fire check.


For your stats, I wouldn't go 15 wisdom. You can pump your wisdom up for spell casting with a headband. 13 - 14 is fine. I'd use the extra points in Int so you can be a bit more of a skill monkey. Alternatively, look at the Skilled racial trait.

As far as dealing damage is concerned, it really depends on how long the adventuring days you face will be. If it's a short adventuring day, letting the magus "go nova" he'll probably out damage you. The benefit of going with Natural Attacks is that you have several attacks that are likely to hit, but the individual damage will be low. Splashing in some Barbarian will help out a lot though.

Btw, if you do multi-class choose to bond with your party and not a pet. The pet will be useless in combat, but sharing your favored class bonus with the party will be really nice.

Ok changed the Int and Wis around a bit. Yeah I was thinking party bonding instead of animal anyway. We have a druid and my animal would well.. suck.
Thank you much I think this is a great start. I think feat wise I'm going to start with Power Attack at first then at third I'll take combat style rending claws and 3 level aspect of the beast claws.

I was thinking of really dumping the Cha because honestly it completely fits with the character idea anyway but I want to try to convince my DM to let me intimidate through Str instead. Thanks again I appreciate it all.