Help me build a melee Mystic Ranger

[Wacky89]

So i dont particulary like to play mundane characters, but our group needed a frontliner.
How would you go about making a melee mystic ranger?
I've been looking into tripping but its very feat heavy. One feat that's locked in for roleplaying reasons is Wild Cohort.
I guess i could take the wild shape ACF, but that still leaves a big gap in my build what im gonna do at early levels.
The campaign is mid-tier power level, 32 point buy, 2 flaws & traits, starting at lvl 1.
I've already agreed no caster level shenanigans, but the the class gives me cl = lvl

I was thinking lesser Zenythri or Human for race. (Open for suggestions)

[Dunsparce]

If you are allowed to use additional Dragon magazine content, I would recommend the Strong-Arm combat style which gives Power Attack, Improved Sunder and Great Cleave as their combat style bonus feats.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Sword of the Arcane Order is not a bad pick, if you want a magical front-liner.


Improved Trip is available from barbarian 2, which also gets you Pounce and Whirling Frenzy/Favoured Enemy. Probably not a bad thing to have, though you lose some casting. You can also throw in a level of crusader for Iron Guard's Glare, or, later on, Thicket of Blades.

[Rebel7284]

At first level, just pick up a Longspear and enjoy having full BAB and poking approaching foes.
Rhino Rush if you want to charge for some extra damage.

Alternatively, if you want to dump physical stats, you can also use Aspect of the Wolf and bite/trip.
Wild Cohort is great of course (two wolves are better than one). Enrage Animal is a fun little spell if you go for that.

At later levels, if you do take Sword of the Arcane Order, just use any gish handbook to figure out how to fight then. Wraithstrike, Mirror Image, Etc.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The Mystic Ranger doesn't get martial weapons, but that's about it for weaknesses. A spear is a perfectly acceptable melee weapon, and you get spells like Crabwalk, Claws of the Beast, Rhino's Rush, Swift Haste, and Bladestorm-- not to mention the possibility of wizard spells through Sword of the Arcane Order. Those low-level spells certainly push charging as a strong option. If you decide to go for the mini-Druid Wild Shape build*, Aspect of the Wolf is early-game stat replacement.

*RAW is debatable, since Mystic Ranger alters when you get combat style stuff.

[DEMON]

The Mystic Ranger doesn't get martial weapons, but that's about it for weaknesses. A spear is a perfectly acceptable melee weapon, and you get spells like Crabwalk, Claws of the Beast, Rhino's Rush, Swift Haste, and Bladestorm-- not to mention the possibility of wizard spells through Sword of the Arcane Order. Those low-level spells certainly push charging as a strong option. If you decide to go for the mini-Druid Wild Shape build*, Aspect of the Wolf is early-game stat replacement.

*RAW is debatable, since Mystic Ranger alters when you get combat style stuff.

Considering the bolded facts above and if you can get the WS ACF, Intuitive Attack (feat, BoED) allows you to completely dump STR and still have a fine attack bonus regardless of whether you're using your simple weapons or natural weapons through Wild Shape or spells (such as the suggested Aspect of the Wolf).

Add Knowledge Devotion (feat, CC) and level 3 for more attack and damage bonus and Natural Spell at level 6 for casting in your WS forms.

Try to squeeze in Power Attack in there somewhere (flaw). Also, look for feats that give you additional forms - Exalted Wild Shape is available at level 9 and Dragon Wild Shape is available at level 12. Pick whatever catches your fancy for your level 15 and level 18 feats.

Of course, the Wild Cohort, that you need to take, is available through the 2nd flaw.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Combine it with Wildshape Ranger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger). You don't get large size forms, but a Fleshraker is good enough to last into the higher levels, and you can use it to gain fly, burrow, and swim speeds when needed. The loss of combat styles is negligible for a frontliner who should have a shield or two-handed weapon anyway.

For your race, go with a Frostblood Half-Orc in Dragon Magic, which gives you Endurance as a racial bonus feat at 1st level. This allows you to pick any feat you qualify for when Ranger would give you Endurance. Mystic Ranger delays Endurance to 4th level, and that's exactly the level you need to pick up Sword of the Arcane Order. Thus going Frostblood Half-Orc gives a Mystic Ranger Sword of the Arcane Order as a bonus feat at 4th level.

Use the Half-Humans and Humanlike Races variant in Races of Destiny p150 to be counted as a Humanoid (Human) instead of a Humanoid (Orc). You can still take anything that specifically lists Half-Orc as a prerequisite, and this also allows you to take anything with Human as a prerequisite. At 1st level take the feat Magical Training in Player's Guide to Faerun, which gives you a few 0-level spells and a spellbook that you've already put a few 0-level spells into. Preparing those spells from a spellbook automatically allows you to learn more spells and add them to your spellbook per the Rules Compendium, the process described there is identical to the way Wizards learn and scribe spells. This allows you to collect Wizard spells that you can later prepare in your Mystic Ranger spell slots via Sword of the Arcane Order.

Other than that, I'd probably pick up Combat Reflexes and Wild Cohort (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a), and use a two-handed reach weapon such as a glaive. Focus on Str and Dex, and your spellcasting stat doesn't need to be any higher than what you need to cast a given level of spells. Plan to pick up Power Attack, Natural Spell, and Leap Attack.

[Endarire]

Important bits below.

Human Mystic Ranger (with Wild Shape and Sword of the Arcane Order)2/Wizard (Conjurer)1/Mystic Ranger+X.

(Alternatively, go Neraph from Planar Handbook to be an Outsider with Favored Class: Ranger, +2 Natural Armor, and other misc. goodies including simple/martial proficiency.)

1: {Aggressive}, <Shaky>, <FLAW>
1: Improved Initiative, FEAT, FEAT
3: [Abrupt Jaunt: Swapped out Familiar], Greyhawk Method, [Scribe Scroll OR [Fighter] Feat]
6: Sword of the Arcane Order, [Wild Shape!]
9: Natural Spell

Greyhawk Method is to get you extra spells for Mystic Ranger and a spellbook and other Conjurer1 dip goodies.

Remember, venomfire is a Ranger4 spell (available at Ranger8) and Fleshrakers are Medium Animals. You can seriously eat face this way. If you're an Outsider, you can use alter self and polymorph to become Outsiders of any legal size category, which can make even venomfire Fleshrakers seem comparable or tame.

[Wacky89]

Thanks for the suggestions but a wizard will be very rare in this campaign.
So i would imagine it will be hard to get scrolls of spells.
I kinda dont want to do wild shape.

What would you suggest for a non SotAO and wildshape mystic ranger.
I guess i could still do frostblood orc and take Headlong Rush at lvl 4?
What do you think?

[Dunsparce]

Thanks for the suggestions but a wizard will be very rare in this campaign.
So i would imagine it will be hard to get scrolls of spells.
I kinda dont want to do wild shape.

What would you suggest for a non SotAO and wildshape mystic ranger.
I guess i could still do frostblood orc and take Headlong Rush at lvl 4?
What do you think?

I can respect that, in fact I only ever play Mystic Ranger without using Sword of the Arcane or the Wildshape variant.

First thing is the strong-arm style I previously mentioned, since using a two-handed weapon(or using a one-handed weapon with two hands) would increase damage.

Also your spells are your best friend, most can be found in Spell Compendium, my personal favorite being Swift Haste, a level 2 spell(and thus obtained at level 4), basically it's a self-only Haste spell that is a swift action to cast and lasts 1d4 rounds. In fact that book overall has plenty of nice Ranger spells(like Mass Curse of Impeding Blades), but for ones outside the book I would recommend Instant of Power from Forge of War, Impeding Stones from Cityscape, and Haboob from Sandstorm(works great combined with Impeding Stones)

Also do not be afraid to rely on Summon Nature's Ally for the first 10 levels, their are always good options to help with combat. At higher levels Control Winds, one of the level 5 spells you get, can be highly destructive.