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View Full Version : Pathfinder Homebrew Archetype Advice: Arcane Ranger



Slayer Lord
2016-05-30, 10:04 PM
I've had this idea rattling around in my head for a while, so I thought I'd consult with my fellow playgrounders to see if I can get this idea off the ground. The basic idea is that it's a ranger who specializes in hunting creatures of magical origin (someone has to pick up after all those careless wizards), and is trained in arcane spellcasting to help bring them down. I have a list of class possible class abilities, and I'm looking for some advice on how to balance them, or what class features they replace, or see if anyone has any better ideas.

-Alternate skills: Replace Knowledge Nature and Geography with Knowledge Arcana and the Planes. Should be self-explanatory.
- Armor Proficiency: At level 1 has the ability to cast arcane ranger spells in light armor like a bard or magus, at later levels can cast in medium armor. What would be an appropriate feature to replace that with, if anything?
- Limited Favored Enemy list: Can only pick from Aberrations, Constructs, Dragons, Fey, Magical Beasts, Oozes (?), Outsiders, or Undead. Should there be any additional bonus for focusing on these, or will the other class features balance it out?
- Spells- Intelligence based spellcasting. Uses the Magus spell list levels 1-4, but uses vanilla ranger spell progression.
- Combat Casting/Swift Casting- I don't want to make it too much like the magus, but I thought it would be interesting to borrow some of that. Either at level 4 the class would get combat casting like a magus along with spells. Or at level 6 when rangers get multiple attacks then the player could choose to replace one of those attacks with a spell, using the appropriate BAB modifier when necessary. For example, say you wanted to attack with melee at +6 and then do a Shocking Grasp with a +1. Or cast True Strike first and then shoot an arrow. Either way I was thinking about replacing Hunter's Bond with it...
- Familiar- ...Or allow the ranger to get a familiar instead of a standard animal companion (Wizard lvl = Ranger lvl -3).
- Disciplined Mind- Finally, I remembered that rangers normally have pretty good saves, since even with the low Will progression, being divine casters would pump it up a bit. So I thought maybe to keep onto that I could give it the ability to add Intelliegence mod to Will.

So that about sums it up. Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?