JadePhoenix
2013-06-14, 07:25 AM
Hello!
I've looking over Ranger archetypes and noticed some of them are a lot more interesting than the vanilla Ranger, specially at low levels. Guide/Skirmisher is a combination that I find specially interesting, since it seems to have a lot of Aragorn in it. Shapeshifter sounds too good to be true, trading away favored terrain for customizable bonuses.
However, what I really want to talk about it the Skirmisher. 3.5 tried to give us spell-less Rangers several times and most of them sucked - the Complete Champion version was the most palatable and only because it meant Ranger 4 could be used a springboard onto other classes. However, Skirmisher sounds like something I'd trade Ranger spells for, specially at low levels. Most of the abilities are crap, but there are some hidden gems, such as Chameleon Step, Defensive Bow Stance, Skill Sage, Surprise Shift and the no-save-debuffs (Tangling Attack, Rattling Strike, Hobbling Attack, Distracting Attack). There are enough good ranger tricks that you won't have to take bad tricks if you go Ranger all the way, but it really shines with multiclassing.
Consider you're a multiclass Ranger 5 with spells - you get 1 spell (2 if you have Wis 12-19, 3 if you have Wis 20) from the first level list. Which is kind of cool, but nothing to write home about.
If you're a Skirmisher, though, you would get 2 uses of a Ranger trick and every point of Wisdom modifier would mean an extra trick. That's 7 tricks with Wisdom 20, but that's absurd, no Ranger has that much Wisdom. Wisdom 14 is a lot more acceptable, netting you 4 uses of Ranger tricks.
I've seen some people misreading Stag's Leap, though. You don't get a jump action out its free action activation, you only get the ability to make jumps as if you had been running beforehand
White not exactly good, Heel and Sic'em can make you feel like a pokemon trainer, if you want that.
I've looking over Ranger archetypes and noticed some of them are a lot more interesting than the vanilla Ranger, specially at low levels. Guide/Skirmisher is a combination that I find specially interesting, since it seems to have a lot of Aragorn in it. Shapeshifter sounds too good to be true, trading away favored terrain for customizable bonuses.
However, what I really want to talk about it the Skirmisher. 3.5 tried to give us spell-less Rangers several times and most of them sucked - the Complete Champion version was the most palatable and only because it meant Ranger 4 could be used a springboard onto other classes. However, Skirmisher sounds like something I'd trade Ranger spells for, specially at low levels. Most of the abilities are crap, but there are some hidden gems, such as Chameleon Step, Defensive Bow Stance, Skill Sage, Surprise Shift and the no-save-debuffs (Tangling Attack, Rattling Strike, Hobbling Attack, Distracting Attack). There are enough good ranger tricks that you won't have to take bad tricks if you go Ranger all the way, but it really shines with multiclassing.
Consider you're a multiclass Ranger 5 with spells - you get 1 spell (2 if you have Wis 12-19, 3 if you have Wis 20) from the first level list. Which is kind of cool, but nothing to write home about.
If you're a Skirmisher, though, you would get 2 uses of a Ranger trick and every point of Wisdom modifier would mean an extra trick. That's 7 tricks with Wisdom 20, but that's absurd, no Ranger has that much Wisdom. Wisdom 14 is a lot more acceptable, netting you 4 uses of Ranger tricks.
I've seen some people misreading Stag's Leap, though. You don't get a jump action out its free action activation, you only get the ability to make jumps as if you had been running beforehand
White not exactly good, Heel and Sic'em can make you feel like a pokemon trainer, if you want that.