DSCrankshaw
2007-06-30, 12:27 AM
From the PHB:
Dwarf rangers are rare, but they can be quite effective. Instead of living in the surface wilderness, they are at home in the endless caverns beneath the earth. Here they hunt down and destroy the enemies of dwarvenkind with the relentless precision for which dwarves are known. Dwarf rangers are often known as cavers.
Has anyone tried building one of these? Granted, you can make a dwarf ranger easily enough, and there are enough advantages to make it worthwhile. The Charisma penalty affects Wild Empathy, but that won't exactly kill you, and the bonus to Con will help shore up the ranger's low hit points. Having a scouting type character who can see in the dark is a great advantage, and if you take Oversized Two-weapon Fighting, he can dual wield Dwarven Waraxes, which is fun. However, some ranger special abilities don't fit in too well with the caver concept, namely the spell list, Wilderness Stride, Camouflage, and Hide in Plain Sight, which are designed around the wilderness theme. Now, I suppose you can interpret Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight to include natural caverns, and you can always choose spells which fit the caver theme... just because you have entangle doesn't mean you have to use it. But that still leaves Woodland Stride. Has anyone tried replacing this with something along the lines of, say, Rock Stride (ignore rough terrain caused by uneven floors and debris, as long as the floors are stone)? I'm wondering if some racial substitution levels for dwarf rangers would be worthwhile, or just overkill.
Dwarf rangers are rare, but they can be quite effective. Instead of living in the surface wilderness, they are at home in the endless caverns beneath the earth. Here they hunt down and destroy the enemies of dwarvenkind with the relentless precision for which dwarves are known. Dwarf rangers are often known as cavers.
Has anyone tried building one of these? Granted, you can make a dwarf ranger easily enough, and there are enough advantages to make it worthwhile. The Charisma penalty affects Wild Empathy, but that won't exactly kill you, and the bonus to Con will help shore up the ranger's low hit points. Having a scouting type character who can see in the dark is a great advantage, and if you take Oversized Two-weapon Fighting, he can dual wield Dwarven Waraxes, which is fun. However, some ranger special abilities don't fit in too well with the caver concept, namely the spell list, Wilderness Stride, Camouflage, and Hide in Plain Sight, which are designed around the wilderness theme. Now, I suppose you can interpret Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight to include natural caverns, and you can always choose spells which fit the caver theme... just because you have entangle doesn't mean you have to use it. But that still leaves Woodland Stride. Has anyone tried replacing this with something along the lines of, say, Rock Stride (ignore rough terrain caused by uneven floors and debris, as long as the floors are stone)? I'm wondering if some racial substitution levels for dwarf rangers would be worthwhile, or just overkill.