[3.5] Ranger Blues [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Bronk

2018-02-01, 09:09 PM

My wife is relatively new to the game ... feeling a bit ineffectual.

Careful! That's a good way to lose a player, and this isn't just any player.

Some of the recent opponents have had DR that she didn't have arrows for, which is not helping.

I'm planning on dropping Hank's Energy Bow as loot for her in the next story arc, so I'm hoping that will help a little.

Drop that thing stat! Don't let her feel bad for weeks or months on end!

Any other thoughts on how I can help her character feel relevant in (and out) of combat?

For equipment: After the one good bow, start dropping weapon crystals, Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows (charisma bonus as fire damage to melee), and the Girdle of Hate (doubles a favored enemy bonus). Drop a bunch of stuff for her animal companion as well, like improved barding. Let he train her AC as a warbeast, and drop a dog or a generalized version of the Gnome Warfox Harness (turns a fox into a dire fox).

For feats: Improved Favored Enemy (+3 to all FE bonuses) is good, and if you've got that, Extra Favored Enemy is an improved choice as well. Planar Tracking can be fun. Possibly Wild Cohort, if she wants a better animal companion (improves by level with a slight penalty instead of half level), or to switch out her current animal companion and keep it as the wild cohort.

Spells: Bummer about the lack of spells. Depending on how this was achieved, there might have been a better way that gave her more options. Here's a list of ACF options I picked up somewhere on the forums:

Trade Combat Style for Wild Shape and Barbarian Fast Movement,
Trade Wild Shape for Monk Fast Movement, Monk Unarmored AC, Favored Enemy, Track, and Swift Tracker.
Trade Track for Trap Expert (Dungeonscape)
Grab Shooting Star Substitution level @ 8th to trade Swift Tracker for and expanded spell list (and still get Swift Tracker due to ACF) (CV)
If allowed, trade Barbarian Fast Movement for a Spirtual Totem (CChamp)
Trade on of your Favored Enemies for Favored Enemy: Arcanist (CMage)

Roleplaying: Make sure you include more ranger themes in your stories, or at least options that include tracking. Also, don't start shying away from including the ranger's favored enemies in your games more often. Throw in more flying enemies to shoot at.

After that, things should get better, and you'll probably have to start worrying about the paladin. Good luck!

Jiece18

2018-02-01, 09:28 PM

She also isn't happy that she is the sole stealthy PC, and because they usually travel as a group, doesn't get a chance to use her stealth very much.

This a common problem for stealth builds because most groups are more charge in than sneak up. Could try doing a few encounters where the group needs to breach a mine or stronghold where she could scout ahead.

Speaking of scout, she could pick up a few levels of scout. The bonus damage from Skirmish can help add to her damage potential. Sadly it can't be used while mounted.

Another option is add some Rouge levels. You can sneak attack within 30' of a flat-footed or flanked target for extra damage.

Sleven

2018-02-01, 09:31 PM

Hey T,

I suspect making a spontaneous caster version of ranger might overwhelm her. So an easier fix might be to encourage her to take a few levels of Scout and take the Swift Hunter feat. Then you can drop a few of the gems (and wands) that bypass precision damage immunity for the creatures she doesn't have as favored enemies, or a few Enemy Spirit Pouches (MIC) to help expand her favored enemy list to keep her precision damage consistent. That should give her a decent damage boost.

The Woodland Archer tactical feat might also help her feel like she has a consistent means of making her stealth skills useful.

As far as items go, the Splitting enchantment with the Collision enchantment can be a really effective damage combination that just plain works, and is easier to gauge the impact of in lower powered games.

Hope it helps.

Blue Jay

2018-02-01, 09:59 PM

Any other thoughts on how I can help her character feel relevant in (and out) of combat?

Are you strictly following RAW? If you're open to ad hoc house-rule stuff, simple boosts like these might be useful:
full druid progression on her Animal Companion (or, if you think that's too much, druid progression - 2 or something)
Dex to damage with her bow
an endless supply of arrows of various useful kinds
upgrade her ranger feats (i.e., turn Rapid Shot into Improved Rapid Shot, or Manyshot into Greater Manyshot)

None of that should really be game-breaking, but it might do her some good.

Goaty14

2018-02-01, 10:23 PM

full druid progression on her Animal Companion (or, if you think that's too much, druid progression - 2 or something)

Is a feat called 'Natural Bond' from Complete Adventurer IIRC.

PrismCat21

2018-02-01, 10:33 PM

My first thought was skirmish and giving her the option of power attacking with a bow. but Hank's Energy Bow already allows Power Shot :P

I'd have a bunch of special arrows as upcoming loot. Look at the Ranger spells from Champions of Ruin and put those as enchanted arrows.
Bloodfreeze arrow, Shadow arrow, Doublestrike arrow, Darkflame arrow, and Arrowsplit(basically splitting) are all wonderful spells that will work just fine as enchanted arrows. Have 2d6 of each or some such as loot in for an enemy archer

KillingAScarab

2018-02-01, 10:47 PM

Is a feat called 'Natural Bond' from Complete Adventurer IIRC.Natural bond only makes up 3 levels of the difference between character level and effective druid level for an animal companion. It won't ever turn the ranger animal companion into as good of one as a druid's. A wild cohort (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) is closer to that progression by using character level, but is explicitly designed to not get everything a druid's animal companion does.

There might be something in the the Iron Chef submissions for Order of the Bow Initiate (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?425634-Iron-Chef-Optimisation-Challenge-in-the-Playground-LXX/page9) to look into. Psionics aren't allowed, though, so Swifty's build is out.

Fizban

2018-02-01, 11:02 PM

Also, with all the gear suggestions, we should probably know what the current gear list is. Weapon crystals are nice, but I'd have expected one to be there already. The party has no Haste, so weapon attackers are also an entire attack behind what "conventional wisdom" says their dps should be, unless the weapon attackers have items with haste attacks, so that's another mark behind the direct damage spells.

The Warmage is dealing (relatively) large amounts of damage in combat; both the Paladin and FS (after buffs) are dealing respectable melee damage.
I should have caught that last time you mentioned party makeup, yeah Warmage is basically a magical AoE touch AC archer, and even if it wasn't too late there's not much to be done to nerf it aside from making touch AC less touch and removing the [long] range spells. And on top of it they've got Sand Shaper for all those extra spells, and will have free metamagic soon enough. Now I feel dumb for not pointing it out. And IIRC this is a spell-less ranger right? Yeah, that's bad.

I'm planning on dropping Hank's Energy Bow as loot for her in the next story arc, so I'm hoping that will help a little.
How does your group do treasure? 'Cause you'll want to pull some shenanigans on what cost you're counting that as, and if everyone knows the book prices on everything and keeps their wealth levels even, that's gonna be a lot harder.

Since the ranger's up against a warmage, they need to ignore DR basically for free, so that part of the bow basically needs to be free. Power Attack is overrated in my opinion, but the base damage up to 2d6 is nice. The main thing to force the match is annoyingly obvious though: get the ranger touch attacking or shooting massive shots, like move/free/automatic True Strike/Hunter's Mercy shots (Find the Gap is a ranger 3 spell that lets you touch attack every round). And I know you don't want to do homebrew, but with a spell-less ranger you can't even throw a pile of RAW money at the problem with metamagic wand-gripped chambered blahs or the higher level ranger spells, since they can't activate them. The underpriced Heartseeking Amulet gives out touch attacks (but in melee only RAW), and MiC just loves making things swift actions for convenience.

Encounter design: the only advantage bows really have over spells is the range, but Fireball and Ice Storm and other Long range spells can only be somewhat outranged by a bow, with Guided Shot spam, and of course this requires outdoor encounters at longer than Long range. Normally I'd expect an archer to roll with the fact that AoEs are a thing, but when the caster also has better single target damage available at all times, that's not okay. Limiting AoEs requires spacing foes far enough apart to avoid them, and placing them out of the Orbs' Short range limits that as well. The problem is this all adds up to one thing: for an archer to have a role, you need to attack them from longer range with other archers (or "archers") of sufficient skill and range. These archers could also ready actions to shoot the warmage to disrupt spells, such that the archers need to be dealt with in order to allow the warmage to nuke the mobs that would otherwise overwhelm/bypass the front line. Which all adds up to a very specific encounter you can't repeat constantly.

Also, no prepared casting (hence why her and the paladin are non-casting variants).
Uh. . . this sounds like one of those "the forum made me do it" kinda things where prepared casting is out because its just so OP. . . and then sand shaper warmage. I had originally assumed they were spell-less because new players, which I hope was the main reason. 'Cause the quickest fix I see is restoring ranger casting and giving her a reskin of the Battle Blessing feat that lets Paladins quicken all their spells: boom, Hunter's Mercy every round until you run out of slots, 'handful of Pearl of Power 1's and she's got as many crit shots as the Warmage has orbs. Boom, Arrowstorm and Arrowsplit and Find the Gap at 11th (and the other CoR ranger arrows, though a bunch of the levels are just wrong). Just want raw damage? Fell the Greatest Foe and Foebane.

Bottom line: fixing spells with spells. If there's a no prepared limit for some setting reason, rip the spells known count out of Hexblade and put the ranger on spontaneous casting (that's 4x 1st and 2x 2nd at this level, and you want DPS, choices not difficult). Unless they dumped wis or something.

'Cause the other option is just lol Splitting. And personally, if I found a weapon that just literally doubles my number of attacks at all times, that's a rather disgustingly obvious crutch/not-even-a-choice. But yeah, a new player might not know that and just think its cool without noticing, and its an easier RAW fix than changing other things- but then once they get savvy enough to break it in the future you'll have to take it away or hold other limits in place and leave it as a non-option.

Speaking of scout, she could pick up a few levels of scout. The bonus damage from Skirmish can help add to her damage potential. Sadly it can't be used while mounted.
Skirmish requires movement, can't full attack while moving, can't skirmish on multiple attacks without greater manyshot (which doesn't actually have the note that normally lets Rangers ignore Point Blank Shot on requirements thanks to their combat style). Swift Hunter is a commonly suggested build, but its very feat intensive and you really can't just pivot into it mid-game. And it only works at 30', basically removing the only advantage a bow has over close range spells.

As for stealth or even non-combat, completely dependent on what the party is doing and what other skills they might have. Sneak attackers can actually force hide to get sneak attack in combat quite easily, making that stealth always important, but rangers don't have sneak attack to the only combat use for hide is. . . hiding. Anything out of combat you just have to make it important. Scouting is splitting the party and I've basically never seen "I want to use my stealth so I'm going to go off alone and risk getting killed and screwing over the party" as a good idea. Since the party lacks spellcasters capable of altering their loadouts, there's little they can do to prepare by scouting anyway, other than the actual tactical information of knowing beforehand what they're fighting. Which only works if they're attacking enemy groups that can be scouted and against which knowing things would actually change priorities. Unless you want to focus on antagonistic status quo fortresses, scouting just isn't a role and I don't see much you can to do make hide useful.

Other skills on the other hand should not be very affected by the spellcasters, since they only know X spells, but if you don't have any skills other than stealth and animals, and stealth has no use other than hiding, that only leaves animals. And sudden animal problems do indeed smack of pandering. That leaves inclement weather, which the sand shaper take with Endure Elements unless you rathcet it up to flash-flood or hurricane/tornado territory, and tracking.

Tracking is one of the few skills that never is quite invalidated by spells and is crazy important when it comes up, so there you go. Assuming they took survival to use that free Track feat, have more encounters that don't happen until the Ranger tracks them down, or where the loot is back at the lair and must be tracked down, or mysteries or questions than can be solved by checking the tracks.

Yahzi

2018-02-02, 01:40 AM

Mooks! Have encounters where the boss fights from behind a line of toughs. And then have him make concentration rolls to cast spells when he gets hit with an arrow.

Troacctid

2018-02-02, 03:46 AM

Mooks! Have encounters where the boss fights from behind a line of toughs. And then have him make concentration rolls to cast spells when he gets hit with an arrow.
Sounds like a great way to have her be outclassed by the Warmage yet again.

DEMON

2018-02-02, 07:25 AM

As I've mentioned earlier, the problem is that we're trying to match spell-less archery-focused Ranger with a class built predominantly around dealing damage through spells and 2 melee-focused classes. As a side note, I'm hoping the spell-less Ranger is of the CC-, not the CW- variety.

And the Warmage did the smart choice of improving his range of spells known via Sand Shaper, while our Ranger can't even activate wands of Ranger spells. The energy bow will definitely help with its 2d6 base damage, power attack and bypassing pretty much any DR out there. Not having to worry about running out of arrows is another plus. Barring that, there's also Raptor Arrows, if she has the "proper divine connection".

You still could go the Swift Hunter router, taking 4 levels of Scout. But even a simple Greater Manyshot build would only come online at level 13 now (Greater Manyshot @ 12, Swift Hunter @ 13 with Scout 4). Then there's favored enemies. You should already have 2 options available, with another one just around the corner (or a bit further away, if going Swift Hunter).

You didn't share any details of the build, so I'm unsure if she's actually riding the Riding Dog, which would be a no-go with Scout, or what race she is, as you know but there are some races with better Favored Enemy bonuses, most notably the Elf (Undead and Lolths sycopanths are usually good options, depending on the campaign). It can also get a slightly better animal companion (thanks to it being a magical beast), but at this level it's dangerously close to a blood smear anyway.

Let's face it, there's very little this class can offer past level 11 (when you get 2 bonus feats, if we're talking about the CC spell-less Ranger). I mean, camouflage and HiPS are nice, but also a ton of levels away. Might as well multiclass to whatever catches her fancy. For example, if she's an Elf, Justice of Weald and Woe PrC is easy to qualify for and would give her access to at least some of the archery spells as well as some sneak attack, poison use and HiPS.

Telonius

2018-02-02, 08:02 AM

Would you be open to homebrew? I put this Prestige Class (called Master Fletcher) together for one of my players in the last campaign. It wasn't really gamebreaking, and gave him a bunch of Green Arrow-esque trick arrow options that he otherwise wouldn't have had. The prereqs had a single level of Artificer in mind, but if that's off the table for your campaign you could make it "first-level spells" of any kind and switch the "Infused Arrows" to something else appropriate.

Master Fletcher

Hit Dice: d8

Requirements:
Weapon Focus (any bow), Point Blank Shot
Craft (Fletching) 8 ranks
Base Attack Bonus +5
Ability to use 1st-level Infusions

Class Skills: The Master Fletcher’s list of class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Perception (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Stealth (Dex), Survival (Wis), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).

Skill points at each level: 4 + Int modifier.

Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Special
Spellcasting

1
+1
+2
+2
+0
Mechanical Arrows, Alchemical Arrows. Enhance Arrows +1
-

2
+2
+3
+3
+0
Infused Arrows, Enhance Arrows +2
+1 level of existing spellcasting class

3
+3
+3
+3
+1
Bonus Feat: Craft Magic Arms, Enhance Arrows +3
-

4
+4
+4
+4
+1
Magical Arrows, Enhance Arrows +4
+1 level of existing spellcasting class

5
+5
+4
+4
+1
Close Combat Archery, Enhance Arrows +5
-

Class Features

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Master Fletchers gain no proficiency in weapons or armor.

Spellcasting: At levels 2 and 4, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in a spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one spellcasting class before becoming a Master Fletcher you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known.

Enhance Arrows: Starting at 1st level, every magical arrow a Master Fletcher nocks and lets fly becomes magical, gaining a +1 enhancement bonus (or a special ability of equivalent modifier). This ability stacks with any enhancement modifier the arrow already possesses (or receives from a bow). The Master Fletcher may choose to alter the bonuses or special abilities once every 24 hours by spending 15 minutes meditating. Unlike magic weapons created by normal means, the archer need not spend experience points or gold pieces to accomplish this task. However, an archer’s magic arrows only function for her. For every level the character advances past 1st level in the prestige class, the magic arrows she creates gain +1 greater potency.

Mechanical Arrows: A Master Fletcher may spend 15 minutes/day preparing a number of special arrows equal to (Master Fletcher Level*2) plus intelligence bonus. The character may modify an arrow to make it function as one of the following items: net, bolas, harpoon, grappling hook. If the arrow strikes its target, the target is affected as though by one of those items (in addition to taking damage from the arrow as normal). Arrows prepared in this manner last only 24 hours.

Alchemical Arrows: By making a DC 15 Craft (fletching) check, the character may combine any alchemical item they possess with an arrow. (The character must purchase or create the alchemical item). The alchemical item takes effect wherever the arrow strikes. Any damage the alchemical item does is in addition to the regular arrow damage. Making the alchemical arrow consumes both the arrow and the alchemical item.

Infused Arrows: Starting at second level, the character may use any Infusion on a group of 20 arrows as a standard action (or less, if the infusion casting time is less).

Bonus Feat: At 3rd level, a Master Fletcher gains the effect of the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat, but only for bows and arrows. The caster level is equal to the Master Fletcher level times 3.

Magical Arrows: At 4th level, by making a DC 20 Craft (fletching) check, the character may combine any scroll with an arrow. If the arrow hits, the spell activates with the target being the center of the effect. An arrow created in this manner functions only for the Master Fletcher who created it; it functions as a normal arrow for anyone else attempting to use it. If the arrow misses, there is a 25% chance that the arrow is destroyed and the spell lost. If the arrow is not destroyed, it can be recovered as usual.

Close Combat Archery: At level 5, a Master Fletcher no longer provokes an attack of opportunity by making a ranged attack. Enemies adjacent to you are considered threatened by your bow.

Bronk

2018-02-02, 10:08 AM

As far as items go, the Splitting enchantment with the Collision enchantment can be a really effective damage combination that just plain works, and is easier to gauge the impact of in lower powered games.

'Hunting' is pretty good, for +4 flat damage bonus to favored enemies (could be on top of collision).

'Impaling' gives you three attacks per day as touch attacks.

Magebane is a bane property that has a wider range of use than most... there are a lot of arcane casting monsters out there, on top of those with class levels in a caster class.

These can be more easily added to a weapon if the weapon is first an item familiar as well.

Fizban

2018-02-02, 10:15 AM

Impaling is a melee-only property.

Though that has reminded me about the nifty Exit Wound property from CW- not a fix, but does give an archer some line attack capability that'd be pretty cool if they didn't have to compete with a Warmage.

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-02, 10:28 AM

I don't think you're looking at caster supremacy here (do Warmage's even have that?). I suspect that the problem is more that she's not build right to be even a halfway decent archer.

Archers need bonus damage from somewhere (beyond composite bows because MAD), which is something newbies often don't realize until they're in the game being inefficient while the rest of the party kills stuff. It doesn't help that most of the archer PrC's are hidden in obscure sources.
The Energy Bow (or at least one with the Force enhancement) is pretty much necessary to bypass DR, as are a few sources of bonus damage (Collision, weapon crystals, stuff has already been mentioned). Feats like Knowledge Devotion also help a lot. It doesn't really matter as long as there's bonus damage coming from somewhere - which is something that the Ranger class doesn't really offer by itself.
I'd suggest dropping some of those sooner rather than later on arrows. Once she sees the difference proper enhancements make she can get the ones she likes most on her weapon.

Frankly to make an archer anywhere near enjoyable to play you want ~20 damage (at 9th level) per shot at the absolute least to feel like you're doing something. Anything else is just torture.

Spells are also a major power multiplier for archers, so banning those just adds to the problem.

weckar

2018-02-02, 10:33 AM

Another little thing that does not help archers: Ever tried figuring out what enchantments go on bows, and which on arrows? Because making this clear is a hell of a time.

Florian

2018-02-02, 10:58 AM

Any other thoughts on how I can help her character feel relevant in (and out) of combat?

Reads more like a laundry list of basic gm failure, if you'd ask me.

weckar

2018-02-02, 11:07 AM

Reads more like a laundry list of basic gm failure, if you'd ask me.

Ouch. No need to that hard on poor Thurbane. He's too cuddly for that.

CharonsHelper

2018-02-02, 11:12 AM

I know you are running 3.5 but this Pathfinder feat could help get past DR.

Clustered Shots (Combat)

Prerequisites: Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, base attack bonus +6.

Benefit: When you use a full-attack action to make multiple ranged weapon attacks against the same opponent, total the damage from all hits before applying that opponent’s damage reduction.

I'll +1 this.

Actually - archery in Pathfinder is a good deal more powerful in general than in 3.5. Generally it's considered the most potent martial combat style.

Also - at level 9 she might start being able to afford Bane arrow craziness. Grab an Efficient Quiver and then start getting every sort of Bane arrow to stuff in there. Whenever you're in a tough fight start using the Bane arrows, at least on the initial shot (since you might not want to risk missing). It's a bit pricey at 9, but it's really potent.

daremetoidareyo

2018-02-02, 11:53 AM

next arc should focus on hunting down a group comprised mostly of favored enemies and picking them off before a final confrontation. something real bad has to occur if they aren't stopped, and the terrain they're on can't be scouted tracking by air. tracking + potshots at fleeing foes + some ambushes.

weapon augment crystals loaded with ranged weapon bonii to add to the hankbow is a good utility option, including a few grappling hook arrows, or a few lasso arrows will offer even more options. archery requires some distance between attacker and encounter, maybe give her a heads up round here or there to rapid shot in the surprise round.

Troacctid

2018-02-02, 12:34 PM

I don't think you're looking at caster supremacy here (do Warmage's even have that?). I suspect that the problem is more that she's not build right to be even a halfway decent archer.
Warmages definitely have caster supremacy. They can easily outpace the damage output of martial classes (especially archers) without really even trying, and they also have AOE and battlefield control options thrown in for free. And that's without Sandshaper, which adds summoning and other silliness to the mix.

Ouch. No need to that hard on poor Thurbane. He's too cuddly for that.
Agreed. Not the DM's fault the rules of the game are poorly balanced.

Hecuba

2018-02-02, 01:11 PM

Archers need bonus damage from somewhere (beyond composite bows because MAD), which is something newbies often don't realize until they're in the game being inefficient while the rest of the party kills stuff. It doesn't help that most of the archer PrC's are hidden in obscure sources.

Seconding this. The easiest way to fix that after the fact is to take advantage of the fact that you can have different magical effects on both the bow and the ammunition.
Thus, you probably don't want to try to give her Hank's, as it gets rid of the ammunition.

Disclaimer: - This will be blatantly over WBL guidelines. I'm generally fine with that to prop up a struggling new player - but you're also in DM's girlfriend territory, so be careful of questions of undue favoritism.

For ammunition, give her some +1 Splitting Raptor Arrows (+5 equivalent). These will cause her arrows to hit twice and come back every round.
For the bow, give her a +1 Force Collision Longbow. These will give the arrows +6 damage and auto-passes DR.
Keep the ammunition in an Quiver of Energy for an additional 1d6 damage per hit (let's say acid). If you need more damage still, you could make a custom quiver applying more than one energy type of this.

Presuming she's currently using a bog-standard +4 longbow, this moves her from a full attack of:

2 x (1d8+4 piercing), avg 17
to

4 x (1d8+6 force + 1d6 acid), avg 56

This presumes, of course, that she will hit either way. If she is not usually hitting on iteratives or if that is dependent on a higher enhancement bonus, some of this has to change.

FocusWolf413

2018-02-02, 01:17 PM

Pull the deadly aim feat from pathfinder.

Jiece18

2018-02-02, 01:19 PM

Disclaimer: - This will be blatantly over WBL guidelines. I'm generally fine with that to prop up a struggling new player - but you're also in DM's girlfriend territory, so be careful of questions of undue favoritism.

Yeah, this is something you want to be careful of. Even a group of good friends can fall apart if they feel one player is getting better rewards than them.

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-02, 01:19 PM

Seconding this. The easiest way to fix that after the fact is to take advantage of the fact that you can have different magical effects on both the bow and the ammunition.
Thus, you probably don't want to try to give her Hank's, as it gets rid of the ammunition.

You can still fire normal arrows with Hank's Energy Bow if you want to. You just don't have to carry normal nonmagical ammunition for trash mobs and have an option that always bypasses DR.

And you don't really need much to get up acceptable damage. Energy Bow is +2 iirc, add Collision to that, 14 Str and you already have ~16 damage per shot before Power Shot or anything else.
Add Knowledge Devotion to that and an augment crystal of some kind of elemental damage and you're already at a comfortable level of damage for now, before things like Holy/Bane arrows and other situational boni.
Splitting is nice, but it's killer on WBL.

Hecuba

2018-02-02, 02:40 PM

You can still fire normal arrows with Hank's Energy Bow if you want to. You just don't have to carry normal nonmagical ammunition for trash mobs and have an option that always bypasses DR.
Indeed you can.
But it's effectively an overpriced +2 bow with Power Shot at that point, and I think Power Shot will be something of a trap here.

At level 9, shoving even 4 into Power shot is really only going to break even if you can still make the 2nd iterative about 60% of the time after taking the penalty.
This becomes even worse in 2 levels when you get an iterative at +1.

Normally, Power Shot will come out ahead. But normally you're also adding some form of precision damage. Even something as simple as a bog-standard scout with improved skirmish would be adding +5d6 precision damage to the mix - which means missing the iteratives isn't the end of the world.
But since we're coming to this already at Ranger 9, we don't have that option. The second hit is a big part of the damage package here, and missing it is significant - about as significant, in fact, as not having precision damage available.

If the enemy mix is such that you can make heavy use of Power Shot without concerns of missing regularly, or the combat structure is such that you aren't using full attack reliably, then Hank's will still be great.
If not, it effectively becomes a slightly overpriced +2 bow. I'd rather have a +1 firey or shock bow in that situation.

Darrin

2018-02-02, 02:40 PM

Feats: Sense Weakness (Draconomicon) is a good way to plow through the first 5 points of DR. The downside is the two prereqs: Combat Expertise and Weapon Focus. Math-wise, I'm not sure how it stacks up against Clustered Shots, but if she's already got Weapon Focus and Combat Expertise (the latter is available via Champion of the Wild ACF), she's 66% of the way there. Woodland Archer is also good for making sure arrow #2 or #3 hits, unless she's using Manyshot, but that may be worth a handwave.

Equip: Ugh, I just realized she has no spellcasting... so wand chambers with instant of power or blades of fire isn't an option. Well, make sure you drop a Lesser Crystal of Acid Assault (3000 GP, MIC) ASAP. Bracers of Lightning (11000 GP, MIC) would also be a good drop. Basically, +2d6 damage on all your arrows makes a world of difference when you're an archer. Dropping a Glyph Seal (1000 GP, MIC) so one of the spellcasters can pre-cast a buff on her bow might be good, too.

As for solo sneaking... that's just not something D&D does very well. I'd try to do something like, make a Hide check DC 15, if successful you can setup anywhere on the battlefield behind cover and all enemies are flat-footed for your first turn. Yeah, I'm not sure how to fix that without going into encounter design and maybe fussing around with some of the deeper game structures of how sneaking works.

Thurbane

2018-02-02, 03:27 PM

Reads more like a laundry list of basic gm failure, if you'd ask me.

:smallconfused:

...could you expand on this for me?

ross

2018-02-02, 03:31 PM

just give her double damage and more attacks per round, and remove damage reduction from enemies

CharonsHelper

2018-02-02, 03:36 PM

just give her double damage and more attacks per round, and remove damage reduction from enemies

And then all of the enemies explode into gold that only she can use!! Plus she gets candy.

Lvl 2 Expert

2018-02-02, 03:48 PM

And then all of the enemies explode into gold that only she can use!! Plus she gets candy.

I love candy!

Anthrowhale

2018-02-02, 04:50 PM

Is the Favored Soul buffing the Ranger? Maybe just asking for some help of that sort would be good.

A good archer combines bonuses from several sources: (greater) magic weapon, bow enchantments, arrow enchantments, and DR bypassing arrow heads. Is a source of Greater Magic Weapon available? W.r.t. enchantments, I like Merciful + energy damage. Merciful can convert the energy damage to nonlethal which allows you to bypass energy resistance against opponents who are not also immune to nonlethal.

DEMON

2018-02-02, 05:32 PM

DR bypassing arrow heads

Speaking of which, all of the non-magical arrows should be of the cold iron serpentstongue variety. The price increase (x4 over normal arrows, so basically 4x nothing) is insignificant and you've got piercing, slashing and cold iron DR covered right there.

And if the campaign has a predominant kind of enemies, favored enemy bonus can be upped with stuff like Hunting weapon property (+4 dmg), Enemy spirit pouch (+2 dmg, +1 attack), Improved Favored Enemy feat (+3 dmg) at the cost of 1 feat, +1 weapon property and a magic item worth 2100 gp. The weapon property and the feat apply to all your favored enemies. Suggestion: Stalker of Kharesh gets FE: Evil @ level 2. Alternatively, Mortal Hunter gets something that I think should be adapted as FE: Mortals @ level 1.

Anthrowhale

2018-02-02, 07:20 PM

Speaking of which, all of the non-magical arrows should be of the cold iron serpentstongue variety. The price increase (x4 over normal arrows, so basically 4x nothing) is insignificant and you've got piercing, slashing and cold iron DR covered right there.

Right.

Thinking a little bit deeper, at less than half of wealth-by-level, I'd probably go with Serrenwood composite (appropriate Str) bow +1+merciful bow with a lesser crystal of acid assault (15K+crafting cost), then get a collection of Silver&Cold Iron Serpent's tongue arrows with a few swiftwing arrows for long range combat and a few adamantium arrows for attacking objects/golems. This would give 1d8+Str+1(magic)+2d6 = 12.5+Str damage/hit which counts as magical ghost touch piercing slashing nonlethal {cold iron, silver, or adamantium} damage, possibly with a half range penalty. For undead & golems you need to turn off the nonlethal (-3.5) and deal acid damage. Relative to the warmage, the archer ends up able to deal nonlethal damage, able to deal damage at longer ranges better, and able to deal sustained damage better while being weaker in peak damage and incapable of AoE damage.

Hank's energy bow exceeds half of WBL and it's difficult to use the power shot feature effectively without build planning. The only good way I know to do that is via Manyshot Fell Shot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#fellShot) which requires a 4-feat tax (Wild talent, Psionic Meditation, Psionic Shot, Fell Shot). It is great if you can get there.

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-02, 07:32 PM

Hank's energy bow exceeds half of WBL and it's difficult to use the power shot feature effectively without build planning. The only good way I know to do that is via Manyshot Fell Shot (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#fellShot) which requires a 4-feat tax (Wild talent, Psionic Meditation, Psionic Shot, Fell Shot). It is great if you can get there.
Law Devotion works. Woodland Archer helps too. There's also a ton of buffs that increase attack bonus but very few that increase damage.
It's fairly easy to compensate at least partially for losing your BAB to hit. Hell, melee fighters do it all the time. It's a lot harder to get more bonus damage on archery without sneak attack or skirmish though.

tiercel

2018-02-02, 07:37 PM

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-02, 08:25 PM

There’s a fair bit on this thread about making ranger-archery damage output more relevant vs warmage, and that’s certainly one step, but (as was mentioned a bit earlier on) part of a ranger’s schtick is full-BAB-skillmonkey.

Encounters that involve some need for, or at least benefit to, stealth up front will help make the ranger more relevant, certainly — setting up the party as well as, in at least some situations, allowing combat to begin at longer ranges (where archery is potentially more relevant; not that the warmage doesn’t have any medium/long range options, but they are a little more limited than “all the things”).

Heck, even just allowing the “spell-less” ranger to have wand access as a houserule would give that character more tricks (combat and otherwise).

Combat is a fairly major part of D&D. It's a big chunk of your actual playtime in the vast majority of games.
Some people are fine playing non-combat characters, but unless it's explicitly a low-combat campaign every character needs to be able to contribute to combat.
Feeling like you can't do that is frustrating, especially if it's not intended (someone building an archer presumably wants to shoot things) and doubly so for a newbie.
The DM obviously fudging things to make you feel less useless doesn't help. Often it does the opposite.

The problem is that in 3.5 archers need to optimize to an extent.
A fighter picks up Power Attack and is fine. A rogue does well enough with just Sneak Attack (unless everything is immune).
Casters don't strictly need to optimize in a low-mid power game, even if they're just blasting, and if they're unsatisfied with their performance they can just switch their spell loadout the next day.
But an archer needs to go book diving to be even marginally effective at his role. Actually competing with well-built party members? You better know your books or have a good handbook.

Florian

2018-02-03, 04:11 AM

:smallconfused:

...could you expand on this for me?

You have two newbies to the game and they play classes and a combat style that actually need a air bit of experience to build and run in a way that is satisfying (in as much that they work on the basic level of competency that a Barbarian with Power Attack does without further optimization).

Then you decide, for whatever reason, to take away their spellcasting, which is one of the features that help those classes keep up. You could have, maybe, just switched to spells known mode if prepping spells is a setting-based no-go. Share Spells is there for a reason, like sharing a Barkskin with the companion to make it more durable. Actually, why is she still running around with the basic starting animal and is the dog even capable of overcoming DR of any type?

At the same time, you allow your experienced players to go for full casting classes, especially using tricks like Sand Shaper to circumvent the inherent limitations of the Warmage. I don´t want to ask if the FS is one of the self-buffing types that wants to replace a frontliner.

Now you come up with Hanks Energy Bow which will basically only worsen the "trap". You can't really upgrade that bow further and using Power Shot wrong might actually reduce combat efficiency even more. But it´s back to square one when it comes to dealing with regeneration.... and again, missing the spells to just deal with it.

So we have the situation that a basic MM1 Human Skeleton could be lucky enough to survive the full attack of a 9th level character, which is somewhat sad.

You should know fully well that careful monster selection is one of the few tools a gm has to actively push or lower character performance. DR but no SR mages the blaster shine, SR but no DR makes the weapon users shine. Monsters that damage/drain attributes or need special preparation to go up against drain spell slots, making mundanes shine (unless, of course, wands with the right spells are cheap and easy to get), and so on....

tiercel

2018-02-03, 04:18 AM

Combat is a fairly major part of D&D. It's a big chunk of your actual playtime in the vast majority of games.
Some people are fine playing non-combat characters, but unless it's explicitly a low-combat campaign every character needs to be able to contribute to combat.
Feeling like you can't do that is frustrating, especially if it's not intended (someone building an archer presumably wants to shoot things) and doubly so for a newbie.
The DM obviously fudging things to make you feel less useless doesn't help. Often it does the opposite.

The problem is that in 3.5 archers need to optimize to an extent.
A fighter picks up Power Attack and is fine. A rogue does well enough with just Sneak Attack (unless everything is immune).
Casters don't strictly need to optimize in a low-mid power game, even if they're just blasting, and if they're unsatisfied with their performance they can just switch their spell loadout the next day.
But an archer needs to go book diving to be even marginally effective at his role. Actually competing with well-built party members? You better know your books or have a good handbook.

Part of my point was that encounters that allow for skill use even leading into combat will not only give the whole party an advantage, but might let the ranger start combat on more archery-favorable terms. If every combat starts with kick-in-the-door in narrow dungeon rooms and corridors, within Orb of X range, then it will just be that much easier for a warmage to always outclass archery damage from Round 1 without particularly trying.

I’m not saying that there isn’t good and useful, and even necessary, combat advice in this thread; I’m saying part of what might make a ranger more satisfying to play is if it doesn’t feel like just direct competition with another party member. To the extent that the ranger feels different than another character and can still contribute, it doesn’t have to come down purely to a DPS-off. If the ranger can be more tactical or open tactical options for the party, then there is added benefit. (This is also part of why I suggested handwaving wand access back in... a lot of Spell Compendium even-Ranger-1 spells are pretty tasty and fit nicely into wand form without having to drop a WBL bomb.)

KillingAScarab

2018-02-03, 06:21 AM

You have two newbies to the game...Thurbane has only stated one player is new to D&D. I think the paladin may be an NPC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?549617-Letting-Players-Control-NPC-Allies&p=22796584#post22796584).

Actually, why is she still running around with the basic starting animal and is the dog even capable of overcoming DR of any type?If the dog is being used as a mount, it doesn't need to do damage. I know there's a build (http://www.cayzle.com/screeds/book007.html) out there I have wanted to try for some time, though that used druid to get a better mount and ranger for two-weapon throwing. It could benefit from the Wild Life articles (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118x), also, but that author favored core only.

Deepbluediver

2018-02-03, 09:57 AM

Her main focus is archery, and her riding dog AC.

Focus is mainly on archery; secondary focus on animal companion.

I think this might be an issue (didn't read the entire thread yet so I apologize if someone else brought this up)- I get the impression she might be splitting her focus. How exactly is the AC being used in combat? If you've got a mount I'd expect her to make some sort of charger-build. Mounted archery might work in an open field, where you can simply kite enemies to death (it worked for the mongols) but in the narrow confines of a dungeon you've got much less room to maneuver, and the rest of the party probably isn't as fast as you anyway.

I'd suggest maybe shifting focus to repurpose the AC as furry/scaly/feathery missile she can send flying at enemy-faces, which would let it do a better job of adding it's potential damage to her own. Maybe look outside the MMI for ideas for improved animal companions, or possibly just stack some templates on it.

Second, what benefit did your Ranger gain for giving up spellcasting? I've heard of a few different variants but knowing this might help figure out what other strengths she had to focus on.

KillingAScarab

2018-02-03, 10:34 AM

I think this might be an issue (didn't read the entire thread yet so I apologize if someone else brought this up)- I get the impression she might be splitting her focus. How exactly is the AC being used in combat? If you've got a mount I'd expect her to make some sort of charger-build. Mounted archery might work in an open field, where you can simply kite enemies to death (it worked for the mongols) but in the narrow confines of a dungeon you've got much less room to maneuver, and the rest of the party probably isn't as fast as you anyway.If the ranger can't use magic device to get the effect and share spell, you could get slippers of spider climbing (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#slippersofSpiderClimbing) in the form of mitts (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031125a). You would probably also need a modified military saddle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#saddleMilitary), but once that's sorted, you're running on the ceiling, oh what a feeling.

Second, what benefit did your Ranger gain for giving up spellcasting? I've heard of a few different variants but knowing this might help figure out what other strengths she had to focus on.If it's the Complete Warrior version, it's intended for low-magic campaigns and doesn't offer much back in return. Barbarian fast movement at 6th level is the only thing which would be in effect. A +4 bonus to one ability score for 1 minute/level comes at 11th (supernatural ability). Two spell-like abilities come at 13th and 16th level, but unlike most spell-like abilities the caster level is still 1/2 class level.

Blue Jay

2018-02-03, 10:39 AM

Now you come up with Hanks Energy Bow which will basically only worsen the "trap". You can't really upgrade that bow further...

Sure you can. Any weapon can be upgraded, even specific weapons like the energy bow. Here's the quote under the "Specific Weapons" section of the Magic Item Compendium (p. 46):

The following weapons are usually constructed with the properties described here. You can increase the enhancement bonus of these weapons or add more special properties just as you would for any other item.

The energy bow is a +2 composite longbow, so if you want to add a +1 property to it (like seeking), it costs 10,000 gp, just as it would for any other +2 weapon.

Florian

2018-02-03, 10:41 AM

PrismCat21

2018-02-03, 10:44 AM

You have two newbies to the game and they play classes and a combat style that actually need a air bit of experience to build and run in a way that is satisfying (in as much that they work on the basic level of competency that a Barbarian with Power Attack does without further optimization).

Then you decide, for whatever reason, to take away their spellcasting, which is one of the features that help those classes keep up. You could have, maybe, just switched to spells known mode if prepping spells is a setting-based no-go. Share Spells is there for a reason, like sharing a Barkskin with the companion to make it more durable. Actually, why is she still running around with the basic starting animal and is the dog even capable of overcoming DR of any type?

At the same time, you allow your experienced players to go for full casting classes, especially using tricks like Sand Shaper to circumvent the inherent limitations of the Warmage. I don´t want to ask if the FS is one of the self-buffing types that wants to replace a frontliner.

Now you come up with Hanks Energy Bow which will basically only worsen the "trap". You can't really upgrade that bow further and using Power Shot wrong might actually reduce combat efficiency even more. But it´s back to square one when it comes to dealing with regeneration.... and again, missing the spells to just deal with it.

So we have the situation that a basic MM1 Human Skeleton could be lucky enough to survive the full attack of a 9th level character, which is somewhat sad.

You should know fully well that careful monster selection is one of the few tools a gm has to actively push or lower character performance. DR but no SR mages the blaster shine, SR but no DR makes the weapon users shine. Monsters that damage/drain attributes or need special preparation to go up against drain spell slots, making mundanes shine (unless, of course, wands with the right spells are cheap and easy to get), and so on....

You seem to be making quite a few assumptions about Thurbane not even hinted at in his post.

I'd be willing to bet that not even one of your accusations is true.
If your posts on this thread are anything to go by concerning your character and mindset, I'd also be willing to bet that Thurbane is well above a better DM, and player, than you can imagine.

You obviously have nothing constructive to add. So stop making accusations, and play nice.

Anthrowhale

2018-02-03, 10:46 AM

Law Devotion works. Woodland Archer helps too. There's also a ton of buffs that increase attack bonus but very few that increase damage.
It's fairly easy to compensate at least partially for losing your BAB to hit. Hell, melee fighters do it all the time. It's a lot harder to get more bonus damage on archery without sneak attack or skirmish though.

Law Devotion is 1/day so it seems like a questionable investment. Woodland Archer, Skirmish, and Sneak Attack are good, but they aren't part of the present build.

The present build might be able to put out a +15/+15/+10 attack routine. Against CR 9 monster (average AC 21) that's a 25% or 50% miss chance. With Hank's Energy Bow, the base damage is ~12 in expectation (2 enhance +3 str +7 from 2d6) which works out to an expected 24 damage. Using Power Shot+1, this rises to 24.05 with all greater degrees of Power Shot resulting in worse expected damage. In contrast, the Serrenwood composite (appropriate Str) +1+merciful bow with a lesser crystal of acid assault is cheaper and does ~15 damage on hit which works out to 30 expected damage. That's the same as the expected damage of a Warmage 9 using an Orb and hitting 95% of the time. Looking into the future, this bow also costs less to enhance further. Something like Boots of Speed (+12K), Shock (+10K), Frost (+14K), Flaming (+18K), Seeking (+22K), then Ring of Blinking (+27K) assuming you can get access to Greater Magic Weapon somehow. On the arrow side, use anarchic/axiomatic/etc.... to penetrate aligned resistance when that becomes a problem.

PrismCat21

2018-02-03, 10:51 AM

@KillingAScarab:

The main instance you need to be concerned about an animals AC is when sending it to the frontline as a beat-stick. As a mount, especially when used alongside mounted archery, it´s easier to pimp your ride skill and make the check to replace AC.

I fail to see where KillingAScarab mentioned anything about Armor Class. Would you mind showing exactly what your post is referring to?

KillingAScarab

2018-02-03, 11:03 AM

I fail to see where KillingAScarab mentioned anything about Armor Class. Would you mind showing exactly what your post is referring to?Its not a problem. I think that was just a general "here's something nice you can do with ride" since I mentioned I have not tried such a build, yet.

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-03, 11:06 AM

Another solution may be to rebuild her character as a Swift Hunter or just replace one of her levels with Rogue and get the Craven feat. She'd do okay damage with either.
It might get frustrating without access to spells like Sniper's Shot though, but at least she'd be able to kill something.

Now you come up with Hanks Energy Bow which will basically only worsen the "trap". You can't really upgrade that bow further and using Power Shot wrong might actually reduce combat efficiency even more. But it´s back to square one when it comes to dealing with regeneration.... and again, missing the spells to just deal with it.

If you can trust a newbie fighter to understand Power Attack you can expect a newbie archer to understand Power Shot. It's not that complicated. Though i'd reduce the enhancement bonus (and cost) to +1 as a courtesy or replace it with something actually useful like the Seeking property.

The "trap" and reason that the Energy Bow is so important is that bonus damage sources for archers are incredibly rare despite being absolutely necessary even in a low-op game.
At least outside of specific builds that get either Skirmish or Sneak Attack.

Honestly i just let Power Attack work for ranged weapons and tell people playing archers at my table to take it. They're still at a disadvantage to chargers but at least they can reasonably keep up with CR-appropriate hp numbers.

Law Devotion is 1/day so it seems like a questionable investment. Woodland Archer, Skirmish, and Sneak Attack are good, but they aren't part of the present build.
I'd combine it with a cleric dip obviously. It's just one of the cheapest ways to get a big bonus to hit that scales with level. And i wasn't suggesting Skirmish or Sneak Attack, just pointing out how hard it is to get decent archery damage without them (though i'm doing so now since it's the easiest solution).

The present build might be able to put out a +15/+15/+10 attack routine. Against CR 9 monster (average AC 21) that's a 25% or 50% miss chance. With Hank's Energy Bow, the base damage is ~12 in expectation (2 enhance +3 str +7 from 2d6) which works out to an expected 24 damage. Using Power Shot+1, this rises to 24.05 with all greater degrees of Power Shot resulting in worse expected damage. In contrast, the Serrenwood composite (appropriate Str) +1+merciful bow with a lesser crystal of acid assault is cheaper and does ~15 damage on hit which works out to 30 expected damage. That's the same as the expected damage of a Warmage 9 using an Orb and hitting 95% of the time. Looking into the future, this bow also costs less to enhance further. Something like Boots of Speed (+12K), Shock (+10K), Frost (+14K), Flaming (+18K), Seeking (+22K), then Ring of Blinking (+27K) assuming you can get access to Greater Magic Weapon somehow. On the arrow side, use anarchic/axiomatic/etc.... to penetrate aligned resistance when that becomes a problem.
The Energy Bow also has scaling strength rating, which is important if you have access to buffs. Which you should because it's the only relatively easy way to get something resembling damage out of pure ranger archery.

Relying on stacking Shock/Frost/Flaming is a problem since lots of enemies get at least minor elemental resistances as you increase in level. Most of the time half of them won't do anything. Not to mention it's way outside of WBL for a long time. Enemy hp will outscale them before you even get them.
It's also a problem because you want Collision and Splitting on your bow. And buying +4 arrows just to reach barely acceptable damage is unsustainable.

That's kinda my whole point. There is no easy way to get acceptable damage and keep it acceptable as you level up without either Sneak Attack/Skirmish or obscure PrCs like Shiba Protector on a wis-based archer.
A spell-less ranger is pretty much doomed to lag behind on damage no matter what you do.

Florian

2018-02-03, 11:09 AM

I fail to see where KillingAScarab mentioned anything about Armor Class. Would you mind showing exactly what your post is referring to?

Look at the actual OP post for "concerned about AC", that's why I don´t jump to the conclusion that it´s a mounted build.

KillingAScarab

2018-02-03, 11:12 AM

Look at the actual OP post for "concerned about AC", that's why I don´t jump to the conclusion that it´s a mounted build.I think "riding dog AC" is meant to be short for animal companion, not armor class.

Florian

2018-02-03, 11:25 AM

I think "riding dog AC" is meant to be short for animal companion, not armor class.

If you don´t use it as an active combat asset, but more of a class feature (meaning: mount), D&D offers maybe the least incentive to actually care about it. Shoot the horse to stop the knight is something that doesn't really work with companions.....

Anthrowhale

2018-02-03, 12:35 PM

The Energy Bow also has scaling strength rating, which is important if you have access to buffs. Which you should because it's the only relatively easy way to get something resembling damage out of pure ranger archery.

The scaling strength damage is pretty nice. You can achieve the same effect via Morphing (+1 enhancement).

Relying on stacking Shock/Frost/Flaming is a problem since lots of enemies get at least minor elemental resistances as you increase in level. Most of the time half of them won't do anything.
This is what Merciful is for. As long as the archer can recognize undead/golems, they can select Merciful to be on or off as needed. When merciful is on, the elemental damage becomes nonlethal. Hence, a creature must be immune to both nonlethal and elemental damage to avoid damage.

Not to mention it's way outside of WBL for a long time. Enemy hp will outscale them before you even get them.

Yes, those are future enchantments, but no I don't think enemy hp will necessarily outscale them.

It's also a problem because you want Collision and Splitting on your bow. And buying +4 arrows just to reach barely acceptable damage is unsustainable.

Collision trades expected 7 damage for a consistent 5 damage except on Undead/Golems where it's 3.5 for 5. Splitting is very nice but the opportunity cost of 10.5 damage is pretty harsh unless you are sticking it on an arrow.

That's kinda my whole point. There is no easy way to get acceptable damage and keep it acceptable as you level up without either Sneak Attack/Skirmish or obscure PrCs like Shiba Protector on a wis-based archer.
A spell-less ranger is pretty much doomed to lag behind on damage no matter what you do.
I disagree although I think one more trick (which probably isn't applicable here) is required to make this super-obvious. If you are an outsider, then you can pay for a permanent casting of Polymorph Any Object[Kelvezu] and use a Hat of Disguise so you don't look like a freak.

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-03, 01:20 PM

The scaling strength damage is pretty nice. You can achieve the same effect via Morphing (+1 enhancement).
We're already having problems fitting all the enhancements we want/need on our weapon (and at a reasonable level) and you want to add one more?
If you don't want the Energy Bow just go for a Bow of the Wintermoon. The relic status doesn't matter for our purposes.
It's +1 with scaling strength for everyone for 3,400gp iirc, which i think is very reasonable. Certainly better than Morphing if you want any other enhancements at all, which we do.

It's also a better investment than a Serrenwood bow, which doesn't even come up most of the time. Just buy some Serrenwood arrows instead.

This is what Merciful is for. As long as the archer can recognize undead/golems, they can select Merciful to be on or off as needed. When merciful is on, the elemental damage becomes nonlethal. Hence, a creature must be immune to both nonlethal and elemental damage to avoid damage.
Yet another +1 enhancement that drives the price for our weapon up. And nobody is talking about immunity to elemental damage. Resistance 5 will make those enhancements useless just fine. Resistance 5 or 10 to at least one element is common as hell at higher levels.

Yes, those are future enchantments, but no I don't think enemy hp will necessarily outscale them.
The expected ~30 damage/round in your previous post is already below what i'd consider the acceptable low end.
A damage focused character should be able to reasonably expect to kill a CR-equivalent enemy with a full attack, barring outliers. ~30 damage per round barely kills a wizard 9 with 12 Con. As long as he doesn't have any spells up. And that's the absolute low end of hp values.
The rest is simple math. Even adding another d6 (~3,5) of damage every level isn't enough to keep up with monster hp scaling, and relying on Flaming/Frost/Shock falls far, far short of that. While eating up all your WBL.

Collision trades expected 7 damage for a consistent 5 damage except on Undead/Golems where it's 3.5 for 5. Splitting is very nice but the opportunity cost of 10.5 damage is pretty harsh unless you are sticking it on an arrow.
Collision also isn't negated by even the tiniest amount of resistance. It's also multiplied on a crit. It still wouldn't be worth it if there were any other options available. But it's pretty much the easiest way to boost your shot damage for a spell-less archer there is.
Splitting is a +3 bonus. Again, buying +4 arrows just to reach acceptable damage isn't sustainable. Especially not if you blow all your WBL on +1d6 elemental damage enhancements for your bow.

I disagree although I think one more trick (which probably isn't applicable here) is required to make this super-obvious. If you are an outsider, then you can pay for a permanent casting of Polymorph Any Object[Kelvezu] and use a Hat of Disguise so you don't look like a freak.
You're not seriously saying that the ability to pay for PAO abuse makes a spell-less archer ranger not suck, are you? This is your argument?

Blue Jay

2018-02-03, 01:49 PM

The present build might be able to put out a +15/+15/+10 attack routine. Against CR 9 monster (average AC 21) that's a 25% or 50% miss chance. With Hank's Energy Bow, the base damage is ~12 in expectation (2 enhance +3 str +7 from 2d6) which works out to an expected 24 damage. Using Power Shot+1, this rises to 24.05 with all greater degrees of Power Shot resulting in worse expected damage. In contrast, the Serrenwood composite (appropriate Str) +1+merciful bow with a lesser crystal of acid assault is cheaper and does ~15 damage on hit which works out to 30 expected damage.

The disadvantage of serrenwood+merciful is that they usually don't synergize: most things that are affected by serrenwood are not affected by merciful, and vice-versa.

The Energy Bow also strikes ethereal, while serrenwood doesn't.

Another advantage is that the Energy Bow mitigates the "quiver budget" problem: you'll only ever need to have any arrows at all as a contingency measure against antimagic fields or the incredibly rare opponent that has immunity to force effects.

The scaling strength damage is pretty nice. You can achieve the same effect via Morphing (+1 enhancement).

Morphing only works for melee or thrown weapons.

This is what Merciful is for. As long as the archer can recognize undead/golems, they can select Merciful to be on or off as needed. When merciful is on, the elemental damage becomes nonlethal. Hence, a creature must be immune to both nonlethal and elemental damage to avoid damage.

As far as I'm aware, there is no official consensus on whether merciful converts extra energy damage to nonlethal damage. Personally, I've asked two DM's for rulings on it, and they both ruled that it doesn't. I think there was an old Customer Support or FAQ comment that they both cited for their decision, but I don't know where it is.

But, even if it does convert it, nonlethal damage doesn't affect how the damage interacts with DR or Energy Resistance, so merciful doesn't make your attacks overcome anything it doesn't already overcome.

Collision trades expected 7 damage for a consistent 5 damage except on Undead/Golems where it's 3.5 for 5. Splitting is very nice but the opportunity cost of 10.5 damage is pretty harsh unless you are sticking it on an arrow.

Collision and splitting are especially potent on the Energy Bow because they both give extra damage output that ignores all Energy Resistances and DR*, so it's about the most reliable kind of damage you can get.

*I think Thurbane decided in this previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?543137-3-5-Hank-s-Energy-Bow) to rule that the Energy Bow ignores all DR, even though it's not actually written into the rules that way.

Anthrowhale

2018-02-03, 02:09 PM

If you don't want the Energy Bow just go for a Bow of the Wintermoon. The relic status doesn't matter for our purposes.
It's +1 with scaling strength for everyone for 3,400gp iirc, which i think is very reasonable.

This is a good idea. A Merciful Wintermoon bow with an Acid Assault crystal costs just 12.4K while a Merciful Shock Wintermoon bow with an Acid Assault crystal costs 22.4K. So, for the cost of Hank's Energy Bow, you can be dealing ~19 damage/hit (assuming strength 16) which averages to 38/round against AC 21 with a 15/15/10 attack routine. And if you can use the True Believer feat at level 9, this rises to an expected 45/round.

Yet another +1 enhancement that drives the price for our weapon up. And nobody is talking about immunity to elemental damage. Resistance 5 will make those enhancements useless just fine.

Again, resistance 5 to acid does nothing when merciful is on since all acid damage becomes nonlethal damage.

The expected ~30 damage/round in your previous post is already below what i'd consider the acceptable low end.

30/round appears to be inline with the rest of the party and with the expectations of the game. A party of 4 encountering a CR9 creature with an average AC of 21 and an average of 131 hitpoints nearly kills it in the first round if everyone contributes 30 hp of damage. I realize there are high op parties that can punch well above their weight class, but I'm unconvinced that is what is desired here.

Especially not if you blow all your WBL on +1d6 elemental damage enhancements for your bow.

I've carefully avoided using more than half of WBL on damage output and notably kept the price below Hank's Energy Bow. I just laid out a order of improvements at future levels.

You're not seriously saying that the ability to pay for PAO abuse makes a spell-less archer ranger not suck, are you? This is your argument?
Yes. It's cheap, routine according to the rules, in core, and highly effective.

Troacctid

2018-02-03, 02:34 PM

Part of my point was that encounters that allow for skill use even leading into combat will not only give the whole party an advantage, but might let the ranger start combat on more archery-favorable terms. If every combat starts with kick-in-the-door in narrow dungeon rooms and corridors, within Orb of X range, then it will just be that much easier for a warmage to always outclass archery damage from Round 1 without particularly trying.
How often are you going to have encounters where you start at 100+ feet and all the monsters have spell resistance? Seems like it would get stale pretty quick. And how do the melee characters feel about this state of affairs?

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-03, 02:40 PM

30/round appears to be inline with the rest of the party and with the expectations of the game. A party of 4 encountering a CR9 creature with an average AC of 21 and an average of 131 hitpoints nearly kills it in the first round if everyone contributes 30 hp of damage. I realize there are high op parties that can punch well above their weight class, but I'm unconvinced that is what is desired here.
A rogue 9 with no feats and only a single mundane dagger does more than ~30 damage per round.
A blasting-focused spellcaster 9 who hasn't put any resources at all into actually being better at blasting does ~30 damage per round as an AoE.
A barbarian 9 with 22 Str (after buffs/rage/etc), a mundane greatsword and nothing else does ~30 damage per round.
A druid 9's unbuffed, unoptimized animal companion manages ~30 damage per round if you don't pick a particularly pathetic one.

You can see where this is going, right? ~30 damage per round at level 9 isn't low op, it's "i haven't bothered taking feats or doing anything at all to be good at my primary role" level.

A ranger 9 doing ~30 damage per round with all his feats dumped into making his archery better and more than half his WBL spent on his weapon isn't acceptable damage anywhere.

I've carefully avoided using more than half of WBL on damage output and notably kept the price below Hank's Energy Bow. I just laid out a order of improvements at future levels.
That's the problem i was referring to, sorry if that wasn't clear. Due to the scaling of price for additional enhancement bonus you're blowing ever more money on a static amount of bonus damage. A very small static amount of bonus damage.
A Merciful Flaming Frost Shocking bow costs in excess of 50,000gp. That's more than half your WBL until level 13. At which point ~25-30 damage per hit just doesn't cut it.

Yes. It's cheap, routine according to the rules, in core, and highly effectively.
By that logic every class is fine as long as you can go buy a PAO. That's no basis for game balance. It's also very likely not what someone making a spell-less archer ranger wants to play.

Florian

2018-02-03, 02:45 PM

How often are you going to have encounters where you start at 100+ feet and all the monsters have spell resistance? Seems like it would get stale pretty quick. And how do the melee characters feel about this state of affairs?

The last campaign I was in that regularly used open spaces, the melee types were more than happy, because, you know, pounce and spirited charge is a thing.

Anthrowhale

2018-02-03, 02:57 PM

The disadvantage of serrenwood+merciful is that they usually don't synergize: most things that are affected by serrenwood are not affected by merciful, and vice-versa.
Agreed. The Wintermoon bow seems better.

Another advantage is that the Energy Bow mitigates the "quiver budget" problem: you'll only ever need to have any arrows at all as a contingency measure against antimagic fields or the incredibly rare opponent that has immunity to force effects.

I disagree here. The ability to have enchanted arrows is a great advantage for an archer since it allows you to have (theoretically) up to +23 enhancements operating in a single attack (+9 on the arrow, +9 on the bow, and +5 from GMW), and at wealth-limited levels this allows you to benefit from three sources of noncumulative weapon enhancements.

Morphing only works for melee or thrown weapons.

Thanks, I missed that. Wintermoon bow seems better anyways.

As far as I'm aware, there is no official consensus on whether merciful converts extra energy damage to nonlethal damage. Personally, I've asked two DM's for rulings on it, and they both ruled that it doesn't. I think there was an old Customer Support or FAQ comment that they both cited for their decision, but I don't know where it is.

I don't understand why there is controversy. Merciful (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#merciful) says
all damage it deals is nonlethal damage which doesn't seem to leave any wiggle room for interpretation.

But, even if it does convert it, nonlethal damage doesn't affect how the damage interacts with DR or Energy Resistance, so merciful doesn't make your attacks overcome anything it doesn't already overcome.

Sure it does --- fire resistance does not reduce nonlethal damage. Stated another way, 'nonlethal fire damage' does not exist anywhere in the game. The text in the Nonlethal Substitution feat is particularly explicit about this if that helps.

Collision and splitting are especially potent on the Energy Bow because they both give extra damage output that ignores all Energy Resistances and DR*, so it's about the most reliable kind of damage you can get.
Both seem to expensive given wealth by level limits. A Collision Energy Bow would cost 46.6K gp.

Anthrowhale

2018-02-03, 03:23 PM

A rogue 9 with no feats and only a single mundane dagger does more than ~30 damage per round.
A blasting-focused spellcaster 9 who hasn't put any resources at all into actually being better at blasting does ~30 damage per round as an AoE.
A barbarian 9 with 22 Str (after buffs/rage/etc), a mundane greatsword and nothing else does ~30 damage per round.
A druid 9's unbuffed, unoptimized animal companion manages ~30 damage per round if you don't pick a particularly pathetic one.

I believe you are adding up damage * number of hits here rather than taking into account the probability of a miss. For example the Barbrian 9 would do 16 expected damage on hit with a 15/10 attack routine that hits 75% of the time with the first iterative and 50% of the time with the second iterative against AC 21 which is average for a CR 9 monster. That works out to 20 expected damage (not 30) after taking into account the probability of a miss.

You can see where this is going, right? ~30 damage per round at level 9 isn't low op, it's "i haven't bothered taking feats or doing anything at all to be good at my primary role" level.

A ranger 9 doing ~30 damage per round with all his feats dumped into making his archery better and more than half his WBL spent on his weapon isn't acceptable damage anywhere.

I'm not sure where you are getting 'more than half of wealth by level'. With your Wintermoon bow improvement, the cost is close to 1/3 of wealth by level. Furthermore, we have not been discussing feats other than the ones granted by the Ranger class since the request was for approaches which do not require rebuilding.

That's the problem i was referring to, sorry if that wasn't clear. Due to the scaling of price for additional enhancement bonus you're blowing ever more money on a static amount of bonus damage. A very small static amount of bonus damage.
A Merciful Flaming Frost Shocking bow costs in excess of 50,000gp. That's more than half your WBL until level 13. At which point ~25-30 damage per hit just doesn't cut it.

Let's say we are level 14 and have the above bow + boots of speed. We'll use Rapid shot and haste to have an attack routine of about 24/24/24/19/14 against an average AC of 28 and 174 hp. Doing 25 damage/hit this works out to 88 expected damage including the AC miss chance. That's effective enough---you'll be halfway to ending a typical encounter. Since Archer synergizes with full attack and winning initiative, this is quite solid---a party of 4 with 2 archers will end typical encounters before the monsters even have a chance to act.

By that logic every class is fine as long as you can go buy a PAO. That's no basis for game balance. It's also very likely not what someone making a spell-less archer ranger wants to play.
I agree. I didn't point this out as a balanced choice. I was responding to:
There is no easy way to get acceptable damage and keep it acceptable as you level up ...

Blue Jay

2018-02-03, 03:47 PM

I disagree here. The ability to have enchanted arrows is a great advantage for an archer since it allows you to have (theoretically) up to +23 enhancements operating in a single attack (+9 on the arrow, +9 on the bow, and +5 from GMW), and at wealth-limited levels this allows you to benefit from three sources of noncumulative weapon enhancements.

Well, that's true. But, I was thinking more along the lines of arrows made for overcoming different DR's. You can still use enchanted arrows with the Energy Bow if you want them.

New players often find the bookkeeping frustrating, so "no arrow budgeting" is likely a good thing in this instance.

Side Note: has anyone ever homebrewed a quiver that can transfer enchantments to arrows in a manner like the Quiver of Energy does? That would be pretty neat.

I don't understand why there is controversy. Merciful (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#merciful) says which doesn't seem to leave any wiggle room for interpretation.

Yeah, this is what I think too. But, I've only tried to get this approved twice, and it was denied twice, so I'm not willing to dismiss the opposition out of hand.

I don't really remember the whole conversations with my DM's about it, but I do recall some reasoning along the lines of "merciful converts all weapon damage to nonlethal. Energy damage doesn't ever count as weapon damage."

Sure it does --- fire resistance does not reduce nonlethal damage. Stated another way, 'nonlethal fire damage' does not exist anywhere in the game. The text in the Nonlethal Substitution feat is particularly explicit about this if that helps.

Ah, that's slightly different from what I thought you said. You wrote that the creature has to have immunity to both in order to negate the damage, so I thought you were still seeing the damage as being both nonlethal and energy damage. Still, I don't think there are any rules against damage having both an energy type and the nonlethal designation, so I think "nonlethal fire damage" could be a thing.

The Nonlethal Sub feat has specific wording about scrubbing away the damage's original energy type; but the merciful property doesn't have that language, so I always assumed the damage would keep its damage or energy type(s) even if merciful did convert it to nonlethal.

Malimar

2018-02-03, 04:40 PM

Suggest/let her rebuild some levels into Scout and take Swift Hunter? That's a decent way to get bonus damage on a ranger, assuming she's generally within 30' of the enemy and moving around.

...Although at 9th level you're getting close to starting to see iteratives start to matter, so to keep up she may need to find some options to move 10' without using a move action.

Anthrowhale

2018-02-03, 05:01 PM

Well, that's true. But, I was thinking more along the lines of arrows made for overcoming different DR's. You can still use enchanted arrows with the Energy Bow if you want them.
Right. The long term issue with the Hank's Energy Bow is that every enchantment costs 4K gp more since it's a +2 weapon.

<DM logic>
Ok. Sometimes you just have to go along to play.

Ah, that's slightly different from what I thought you said. You wrote that the creature has to have immunity to both in order to negate the damage, so I thought you were still seeing the damage as being both nonlethal and energy damage. Still, I don't think there are any rules against damage having both an energy type and the nonlethal designation, so I think "nonlethal fire damage" could be a thing.

I don't know anything explicitly forbidding 'nonlethal fire damage' it just never appears in the rules where you would expect it. Another example is damage from environmental effects---it's either nonlethal or fire and never nonlethal fire. Inventing 'nonlethal fire damage' to explain the interaction effects is neither RAW nor forbidden by RAW. It's just unspecified, and the simplest solution seems to be not doing the invention.

The Nonlethal Sub feat has specific wording about scrubbing away the damage's original energy type; but the merciful property doesn't have that language, so I always assumed the damage would keep its damage or energy type(s) even if merciful did convert it to nonlethal.
Let's compare:

... deal nonlethal damage instead of normal energy damage.

...all damage it deals is nonlethal damage.
I don't see anything here which says that the effects should differ. Merciful lacks the crystal clear example of Nonlethal Substitution, but it's seems plausibly exactly the same effect is being talked about. If anything, Nonlethal Substitution seems more restrictive---for example it doesn't convert all damage in a Nonlethal Ice Storm since the bludgeoning damage is not energy damage.

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-03, 05:18 PM

I don't know anything explicitly forbidding 'nonlethal fire damage' it just never appears in the rules where you would expect it. Another example is damage from environmental effects---it's either nonlethal or fire and never nonlethal fire. Inventing 'nonlethal fire damage' to explain the interaction effects is neither RAW nor forbidden by RAW. It's just unspecified, and the simplest solution seems to be not doing the invention.

Nonlethal elemental damage is actually a thing that exists. Some spells from Frostburn deal nonlethal cold damage, like Blizzard.
Storm Elementals (MM3) also deal nonlethal electricity damage.

Anthrowhale

2018-02-03, 05:45 PM

Nonlethal elemental damage is actually a thing that exists. Some spells from Frostburn deal nonlethal cold damage, like Blizzard.
Storm Elementals (MM3) also deal nonlethal electricity damage.

Those are good finds! Here's one more (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/traps.htm#cr2BoxofBrownMold) bringing the number of instances to 3. That makes the idea of 'nonlethal fire' or 'nonlethal acid' less preposterous.

Searching a bit, the following spells do nonlethal damage and have an energy descriptor:
Blizzard (nonlethal cold)
Call Avalanche (nonlethal)
Darsson's Chilling Chamber (nonlethal and untyped damage)
Darsson's Fiery Furnace (nonlethal and untyped damage)
Fugue (nonlethal or sonic damage)
Searing Exposure (nonlethal and untyped damage)

Overall, I still lean towards merciful doing pure nonlethal damage as the wording remains very similar to nonlethal spell which is explicit about this. The other interpretation does seem less extreme though.

tiercel

2018-02-03, 05:46 PM

How often are you going to have encounters where you start at 100+ feet and all the monsters have spell resistance? Seems like it would get stale pretty quick. And how do the melee characters feel about this state of affairs?

Well the reverse (how many times do the encounters start within 30-60’?) is certainly something that would be stale for the archer. Plus a ranger character is, unless specifically rebuilt to be of the urban variety, often likely to feel a little frustrated if rarely, say, outside — much less at archery-gives-some-advantage range.

Also spell resistance? Hardly matters at close range vs warmage because, Orbs [RANT REDACTED].

My point is that it might not be surprising if the stealthy outdoorsy character might be frustrated if there are very few opportunities to be outdoors or stealthy, even damage output notwithstanding. (I’m not saying, don’t find at least some damge boost optimization; I’m saying that concentrating on a DPS slugfest against a warmage is probably not the best, most fruitful, or only way to make the ranger feel like “worth playing.”)

Telonius

2018-02-03, 06:22 PM

Thurbane

2018-02-04, 03:50 PM

To kind of refocus - Thurbane, what does the Ranger's skill selection actually look like? I'm guessing Hide/Move Silently/Spot/Listen/Survival are maxed out, but what else does she have going on? You mentioned a riding dog. Is this a Halfling or a Gnome?

I don;t have access to her sheet at the moment, so I'll post the relevant when I'm at home.

She's human - she doesn't actually ride her AC.

Zaq

2018-02-04, 05:39 PM

How open are you to houserules that are straight up buffs? As others have said, the "GM's girlfriend [/wife]" issue is real, but you also know your group and know how well they would react to that sort of thing.

My suggestion is to just axe Favored Enemy and give the Ranger the damage bonus that would be granted by FE all the time. Yes, even then. All the time, regardless of target. It's not overpowered. It's significantly less than a smart Rogue of the same level will be doing, and Rogues aren't exactly paragons of brokenness. It's a grand total of +2 damage per swing per five freaking levels. That is nowhere near the amount of damage that needs to be behind a curtain of "only when the GM chooses to throw a very specific kind of enemy at you." Just make it always on, and suddenly the Ranger is at least passable at archery (and the fact that their Combat Style class feature nudges them towards making lots of attacks isn't just a joke without a punchline). It doesn't make them actually especially good at doing damage, but it makes them not shameful the way they currently are. (+2 damage per swing per five levels is the equivalent of one extra point of Power Attack on a two-handed weapon per five levels. Would you call a class feature that gave you a +1 to hit per five levels OP? I wouldn't. I'd call it underpowered if that were supposed to be one of my main sources of combat ability. This is almost exactly equivalent, given how common and easy PA is. The fact that it would work with archery or with TWF instead of only with THF is a feature, not a bug. But the upshot is that it's not OP at all.)

If you like having racism be a class feature and insist that the Ranger isn't the Ranger unless they're better at killing orcs than killing goblins, then keep the skill bonuses around and tie them to specific enemies. I also don't think it's that OP for the class that's supposed to be some kind of master hunter get better at hunting-based skills (all day every day, regardless of target) by, again, a whopping two points per five levels, but hey, if it means a lot to you that the Ranger needs to be better against some enemies than others, it's less harmful for balance to stick that in the skill category rather than the damage category.

If I'm coming off as cynical, which I probably am, it's not because of your GMing style—it's because I think the RAW Ranger is drastically, drastically underpowered, and I feel like there's genuinely no good reason for that. Everything the Ranger gets is too small (half-strength animal companion—why?) or too limited (how few spells per day? Why limit FE to specific enemies?) or too late (why Woodland Stride five levels past Druid? Why Evasion seven levels past Monk/Rogue? Why bother with almost any of their 3rd level spells at ECL 11?). Just removing some of the arbitrary restrictions would be a small but meaningful step.

Troacctid

2018-02-04, 06:46 PM

(half-strength animal companion—why?)
Because it was originally a spell back in 3.0, and Rangers have half CL, so their companions were weaker accordingly. The designers preserved that in the 3.5 update when it became a class feature; most likely they didn't want a drastic shift from its previous balance point.

...I guess that was probably a rhetorical question.

ViperMagnum357

2018-02-04, 08:40 PM

Nonlethal elemental damage is actually a thing that exists. Some spells from Frostburn deal nonlethal cold damage, like Blizzard.
Storm Elementals (MM3) also deal nonlethal electricity damage.

This. Nonlethal elemental damage goes back to the start of 3.0, even in Core; in the DMG, Brown Mold deals 3d6 nonlethal cold damage when disturbed.

KillingAScarab

2018-02-04, 08:42 PM

She's human - she doesn't actually ride her AC.She could, though, with access to either animal growth (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animalGrowth.htm) or, better yet, reduce person (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/reducePerson.htm). The 1 minute/level duration on either one makes it a trick you would want to pull out for specific times, however.

Because it was originally a spell back in 3.0, and Rangers have half CL, so their companions were weaker accordingly. The designers preserved that in the 3.5 update when it became a class feature; most likely they didn't want a drastic shift from its previous balance point.Animal friendship, because friendship is magic. The funny thing was, you had the option to never cast that spell, or you could use it to keep multiple/stronger animals around temporarily. Back then, though, rangers lacked class features to support archery and you couldn't choose your own creature type as a favored enemy unless you were evil.

DEMON

2018-02-04, 08:44 PM

Another suggestion, since we're already in the homebrew territory.

The most elegant thing to do with the character, given the "no prepared casters" rule and Favored Sould and Warmage/Sand Shaper in the party is a Mystic Ranger/Duskbalde combo, in that you give the Ranger Duskblade spell progression and Mystic Ranger's spell list to fill its 1st and 5th level slots.

No prepared casting, enough spells slots to make them relevant and not enough spells known to make it overly powerful by any means (this is quite close to spells acting like TOB maneuvers for archery), if you/she pick(s) the right spells known.

As a side note, I think this spellcasting progression is what I think should be done to all the 1/2-casters in any mid-op game, where the real 1/2-casters are losing their breath.

Fizban

2018-02-04, 10:54 PM

It's a grand total of +2 damage per swing per five freaking levels.
Incidentally, I once took note that the amount of bonus damage it seems to take for char-op to consider a character "competitive" is +3/level, based on full sneak attack+Craven and Leap Attack, and of course assuming you full attack at all times.

The baseline is of course +0 damage per level. Barbarians get +2-3 increasing to +3-4, Fighters get +2, increasing to +4 or +6 (with PHB2) with a chosen weapon, and Rangers get +2-8 against their first favored enemy (+10 at 20th if it counts), up to +5-11 (with CW), lifetime totals. The only reason the ranger or any weapon wielding class needs more damage is being expected to compete with metamagicked spellcasters on DPS- which unfortunately is what Warmage/Sand Shaper is leading straight into. But I'd still never agree that favored enemy should just turn into "damage vs everything" regardless of "balance": its one of the most flavor-first abilities there is. If the Ranger must have more damage, let them steal the Weapon Mastery line instead (and basically axe the fighter class as a whole as that was their unique thing).

Animal friendship, because friendship is magic. The funny thing was, you had the option to never cast that spell,
Nothing in 3.5 requires you to take an animal companion at all either- though people like to accuse it of being ubiquitous since its on the class feature list as its own thing. But then the same people who go that far also like to argue that Animate Dead is a wholly expected class feature on every wizard.

So back to the animal companion- you've got someone keeping the starting companion around. This attachment is good, but it also means their companion sucks. Aside from just giving the ranger full progression (and declaring druids to have half/delayed/whatever), I'd suggest fixing the bonus progression so that starting animals actually get something over later options, since its that lack which makes "upgrading" always an upgrade. Here's my current changes:

Str/Dex bonus: doubled- this does mean that some power animals get even stronger late game, but most importantly it means that when Brown Bear shows up at 8th, starting animals are at least getting a more noticeable +4/+4/+4. Every +1 helps.

Special ability changes:
1st-5th (as normal)
6th-8th: Multiattack: as normal (as a bonus feat, or extra attack at -5 for single weapon creatures) - the starting single attack animals need another attack ASAP, move this up.
9th-11th: Devotion: as normal (+4 will vs enchantment) -push this back because it's not important.
12th-14th: Blood Bond: as Blackguard (+2 attack, damage, and saves if it sees master threatened or harmed) -another attack+damage+save boost worth +4's in everything, still not enough to actually beat bigger animals but a hell of a lot better than default.
15th-17th: (as normal with Improved Evasion)
17th-19th: ? -gotta have some kinda capstone for trying to make a 2HD doge stand up to a greater demon, just don't know what to put there.

The main changes this would make to a riding dog at 9th are +3 str/+3 dex (total 21 each, net +1 modifiers), and an iterative bite attack at -5. Bite +12/+7 for 1d6+9 is (obviously) still no Brown Bear or Giant Crocodile , but it's a lot more capable of fending off mooks than it would be now and AC 23 is a lot tougher than the bear's 18, with more affordable barding. Of course the main reason to stick with a medium animal is fitting them in medium corridors, which is the opposite of what is needed to show off archery, and is a moot point if you're using large monsters and thus large corridors anyway (when you already have two front lines to fill attacks on the 10' wide front line).

Sam K

2018-02-05, 01:33 AM

I know you'd rather not do re-training/re-building, but I honestly think that's the way to go.

If someone builds a character that's not capable of doing what they thought the character would be able to do, the solution is not to enable the bad build with custom gear. First, you effectively rob the player of much of the sense of achievement. It's not them or their character contributing, it's the magic item. Second, they never really get to learn WHY the character didn't work in the first place. For a one-off game, these things may not matter that much: the player gets their moment to shine and think archer-rangers are awesome, fun is hopefully had by all. If it's a longer campaign, and/or a player whom you intend to play with in the future, you may want to consider their long-term development.

I would say the order of prio for helping the player get more out of their character should look like this:

1. Retrain. Get feats that actually help doing what the character concept is all about, and get skills that contribute to the party playstyle (stealth is a classic here - if the party doesn't make use of stealth tactics, it's essentially wasted skills).
2. Re-build. Ranger out of the box isn't very good for archery. Spell-less ranger is even worse. A few levels of scout would help a lot, as would some PRCs.
3. Houserule. Since animal companion is supposedly one of her main things, maybe let ranger levels advance it fully (if you do this, make sure it's a general rule at the table, not just something you do for this one player).
4. Fix with loot. You obviously need to drop useful loot for all your players, but dropping custom loot obviously tailored to cover one players broken build should be a last resort.

Obviously, re-training and re-building should never be FORCED on someone, and it should always be a collaborative effort. There's a big difference between "Hey, I know you've been feeling frustrated that your sword and board fighter doesn't play as much as a 'tank' as you imagined. I found this class called 'crusader' that I think has some of those aggro-management tools you want, if you want to we could sit down and go over how it plays? If it seems like something you'd like, we could try switching out a couple of your fighter levels with crusader levels, and see if that makes the character play more like you imagined it would."

Compared to:

"Hey since your character sucks, you said so yourself, I replaced all your sucky figher levels with crusader levels so you wont suck anymore! You can thank me later, sucker!"

Florian

2018-02-05, 06:06 AM

But I'd still never agree that favored enemy should just turn into "damage vs everything" regardless of "balance": its one of the most flavor-first abilities there is. If the Ranger must have more damage, let them steal the Weapon Mastery line instead (and basically axe the fighter class as a whole as that was their unique thing).

Ah, you know, the PF Ranger has both, Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain, but is handed the tools to engage other types at 1/2 strength, but at a cost, either spell slots (Instant Enemy, Terrain Insight) or WBL (Enemy Fetish, Boots of Friendly Terrain).

Contrast that to the PF Slayer class (the spell-less Ranger), that has 1/2 Strength FE/FT bonus against one current enemy fighting or tracking, but can upgrade (Seething Hatred, Extreme Prejudice, Terrain Mastery and the two above items) to full Ranger FE/FT functionality, if needed.

sleepyphoenixx

2018-02-05, 09:51 AM

Incidentally, I once took note that the amount of bonus damage it seems to take for char-op to consider a character "competitive" is +3/level, based on full sneak attack+Craven and Leap Attack, and of course assuming you full attack at all times.
Yeah, that sounds about right. And seeing how most monsters get more than that in hp from their HD increase (before Con) i don't think it's too much.
A lot of tables are below it but as long as they're all there it's not really a problem. It's natural that people investing hours into optimizing would have a higher baseline.

The baseline is of course +0 damage per level.
No, it's not. The absolute, "i'm not even taking feats i'm so low-op" baseline for melee damage is a featless pure rogue. Which still gets +1d6 SA every 2 levels.
Since i doubt that any tables play with no feats the practical baseline is somewhere above that. Probably somewhere around "rogue with the TWF feats as they come available".

Barbarians get +2-3 increasing to +3-4, Fighters get +2, increasing to +4 or +6 (with PHB2) with a chosen weapon, and Rangers get +2-8 against their first favored enemy (+10 at 20th if it counts), up to +5-11 (with CW), lifetime totals.
For a game without feats, same as above. Power Attack is core for a reason. The game assumes a certain increase in damage to stay competitive with monsters.

The only reason the ranger or any weapon wielding class needs more damage is being expected to compete with metamagicked spellcasters on DPS- which unfortunately is what Warmage/Sand Shaper is leading straight into.
The reason the ranger (and everyone else) needs more damage is that monster hp (and damage and everything else) rise as you go up in level.
If you want to keep up with level appropriate encounters you need to do more damage at level 10 than you did at level 1. This is a basic assumption for any level-based RPG.

I'm not even talking about optimization here. As i said, rogues get it automatically. Damage spells scale automatically. Melee are expected to take Power Attack or something equivalent to keep up.
This is only a problem for the (archer) ranger because those options do not exist for archers.

But I'd still never agree that favored enemy should just turn into "damage vs everything" regardless of "balance": its one of the most flavor-first abilities there is. If the Ranger must have more damage, let them steal the Weapon Mastery line instead (and basically axe the fighter class as a whole as that was their unique thing).
Or you could just axe the ranger since FE is their one unique thing. I'd certainly rather keep Dungeoncrasher and other fighter ACFs than the ranger. But that's neither here nor there.

Archers do need an equivalent to Power Attack/Sneak Attack. That's not really a matter of debate, it's a simple fact. Where it comes from doesn't matter.
Making FE universal as a quick fix is certainly one method of doing it (even if +2 damage/5 levels is pathetic), but so is making Power Attack available to archers. It's already available to throwers even, with a feat. There's really no reason not to.