RHOD: Will this Ranger be too powerful?

[Vintrastorm]

I know the following party is underoptimized and that the bonus probably isn't that big compared to what others could get. But it should be considered in relation to the other characters, not what could be made with a optimized build.

I might DM Red Hand of Doom with my players in a couple of months/weeks depending on how often we get to play and I was thinking about the powerlevel of my players.

It's a mostly Core (PHB, DMG, MM) game with some alternate stuff thrown in. Mostly under DM supervision.

It's basically a non-optimized party.

We have one Human cleric of Lathander who will probably end up taking ranger/paladin levels to increase fighting skills and add diversity.

One half-orc fighter with cleave, power attack and 2h sword. Basic stuff.

And a Human Ranger, TWF with Battle Axe and Hand Axe. He'll probably be taking 1-2 levels of rogue later on for diplomacy etc. (Aiming for Harper Agent PrC). Right now he has Favored Enemy Goblinods and when he hits his next Ranger Favored Enemy he was thinking of taking RHOD as an organization for Favored Enemy. (Yes, I allow organizations).

The thing I'm wondering about is if the Ranger will outshine the others too much with his +6 damage to almost every enemy (+4 to the rest of them who aren't Goblins).

[elonin]

Letting him take an organization as a favored enemy isn't RAW. Shouldn't be too much of a problem unless he works to outshine the others.

[Xerlith]

The Ranger should be decent, but not gamebreakingly so. It's, after all, only damage.
If it's too much, you can pretty much tone him down with some DR which won't hinder the PAttacker much, but the Ranger will feel it - be careful not to overdo it.

Point the Cleric to the Ordained Champion and Prestige Paladin classes. They may be to his taste.

[Firechanter]

Well, seeing how Rangers are MAD, and TWF is an inferior fighting style, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

You might worry a bit more about the Cleric being on the upper end of the power scale, because this class has much better Core support than any of the other characters.
BTW, I also played a Cleric in a core-centric game once, and deliberately mixed in Ranger levels to reduce faceroll spellcasting uberness. Worked out pretty well.

The Fighter, on the other hand, could turn out really unsatisfying... his fighting ability will be just a tad better than the Ranger's, but opposed to him he will be able to contribute _nothing_ outside of combat.

Isn't there a fourth character?
If you want to pull of this game with just 3 PCs, it might be advisable to encourage each player to use more powerful classes and optimize more.

[Spore]

You will never get to the fighter in terms of DPR, so the added damage is fine. But how do you explain bonus damage on people in an organization? I could accept all other benefits, but an organization doesn't don a similar physique.

[Firechanter]

You will never get to the fighter in terms of DPR, so the added damage is fine. But how do you explain bonus damage on people in an organization? I could accept all other benefits, but an organization doesn't don a similar physique.

Well, it's already a bit of a stretch that Basilisks and Unicorns share one category, while Humans and Elves are supposedly totally different creatures. :p

[Vintrastorm]

Organizations aren't RAW in core but I've seen it mentioned as an alternative many times. I don't really care it it's not RAW. The players have been talking about how cool it would be to take the Zentharims (for example) or some other organization as favored enemies and I don't want to take that away from them. :smallsmile:


I tried pointing him to the Prestige Cleric but he's a little worried that he might feel that it's too much opting/doesn't "feel" right compared to "normal" paladin. (You're only supposed to be able to take the Prestige bard/ranger/paladin if you exclude the base classes. The "feel right" thing is a power level thing and he's afraid that it will take away something from the character.)

I think that the one that would be easiest, from a player perspective, to "max out" a bit would be the fighter. She's new to the game but is enjoying it. Although she's been having some trouble with bad dice rolls (and apparently counting her attack bonus as +3 instead of +6 for a while. :smallbiggrin:)

[Vintrastorm]

BTW, up until the last hours of gameplay tonight the most valuable partymember for the last 3 sessions has been the rangers warhound (riding dog trained for war). :smallbiggrin:

[Vanitas]

Letting him take an organization as a favored enemy isn't RAW. Shouldn't be too much of a problem unless he works to outshine the others.

It is RAW in Faerun and since he is already going with Harper Agent...

[Nihilarian]

The Rival Organization ACF is here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a).

[Vintrastorm]

(Campaign is set in Faerun. A variant of Damara to be more specific )