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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Class 3.5 Ranger Variant - Moonlight Ranger



gooddragon1
2018-08-07, 09:57 PM
Deleted content

nonsi
2018-08-08, 12:17 AM
.

At first impression it looks weak.

Seems to me like your vision would be a lot clearer if you made a complete class table and emphasized the changes with strikeouts (omissions) and bolded text (additions) within the "Special" column.

Just fill in the blanks.


Table: The Ranger

SavesSpell per day
LevelBABFRWSpecial0th1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th

1+1+2+2+0 X

2+2+3+3+0 X

3+3+3+3+1 X

4+4+4+4+1 X

5+5+4+4+1 X

6+6+5+5+2 X

7+7+5+5+2 X

8+8+6+6+2 X

9+9+6+6+3 X

10+10+7+7+3 X

11+11+7+7+3 X

12+12+8+8+4 X

13+13+8+8+4 X

14+14+9+9+4 X

15+15+9+9+5 X

16+16+10+10+5 X

17+17+10+10+5 X

18+18+11+11+6 X

19+19+11+11+6 X

20+20+12+12+6 X

Goaty14
2018-08-08, 11:02 AM
I'd agree that it looks poorly written, and some things that are changed look like the particular change doesn't actually DO anything or just there to add more words (i.e "appropriate nocturnal animal" irritates me because do you really expect the player to shift through with his DM and figure out which ones are/aren't nocturnal???).

I'd personally rate it T5 for trading all of your class features for more restrictions on the few class features you keep, and a piddly ability to do +2d6 on every attack. If you can imagine a duskblade without class features and just using his spells slots for arcane strike, that's pretty much what this amounts to.


Any nonlawful nonevil.

Explain these? I don't see the moon (or the wider topic, astrology) as being connected with any particular alignment.


The moonlight ranger loses class features except his animal companion, evasion, proficiencies, spellcasting, and wild empathy. Some class features are altered and new ones are gained as noted below.

That's... actually losing nearly all of what makes a ranger a ranger. Favored Enemy, Track (ok it's just a bonus feat, but still), Combat Style? Sure you don't want to make a new class?


A moonlight ranger can only select a wolf or otherwise appropriate nocturnal animal companion (such as an owl).

(Bolded). This is too vague, so either you tell us which animal companions are appropriate nocturnal creatures, or just list Wolf or Owl. Also what does an aquatic ranger pick?


Lunar Fang (Su)

At 1st level, a moonlight ranger may expend a moonlight ranger spell slot as a swift action to improve the potency of all ranged weapon and light weapon attacks (with a single light weapon) he makes in a single round. All eligible attacks in the round deal an extra 1d6 magical damage for each level of the spell slot expended and an additional amount of magical damage equal to his wisdom or 1 (whichever is greater). This extra damage ignores damage reduction due to its magical nature. If an eligible weapon would add magical cold damage to its attack (such as through the frost weapon enhancement) that damage can be converted to magical damage through this ability even without using spell slots. While attacking at night, the moonlight ranger may also add his wisdom modifier (if any) to attack rolls as an insight bonus with these attacks so long as he has expended a spell slot. A moonlight ranger may use this ability as a swift action without expending a spell slot, but he adds only his wisdom modifier or 1 (whichever is greater) in extra magical damage and all eligible attacks in the round are made at a -2 penalty. A moonlight ranger may also choose to replace the damage eligible attacks would deal with 1d6 magical damage (in the case of ranged weapons he creates temporary magical ammunition for the weapon on hand thrown weapons (generally only darts and javelins) that only he can use). This damage replacement means that no effects that increase the damage an eligible attack would deal outside of this ability apply (cold damage converted over/wisdom bonus/spell slots expended still function, but feats, composite bows, magic items, spells, etc. do not add damage) and such attacks cannot achieve critical hits. The magic of this ability is tenacious even in unfavorable circumstances for magic (such as an antimagic field), but while most of it's abilities function normally in such circumstances any extra damage dice it would grant are automatically treated as 1's (2d6 damage becomes 2 damage).

At 10th level, a moonlight ranger may reduce his base attack bonus by -10 to gain a +15 competence bonus on ranged attacks for 1 round (this reduction of base attack bonus affects the number of attacks he can make, feats he can use, and may have other effects). Furthermore, the moonlight ranger does not provoke attacks of opportunity while making ranged attacks for the round in which he uses this ability.

At 12th level, a moonlight ranger may add this wisdom modifier to attack rolls if he expended at least a 2nd level spell slot even if it isn't night time.

Too much wording. I think you're overthinking the ability to make it consistently deal 2d6+WIS, which even if untyped, is still incredibly weak. A few noticeable things:
-Only applies to one light weapon. TWF is already weak enough, why screw it over more than it already is?
-Tries to "fix" too many things simultaneously, making the ability front-loaded. Like, at level 1, you're already addressing Damage Reduction, adding it to the frost enhancement (!?!?), disarming, and running out of ammunition, all at level 1! You should probably try to make a solid baseline ability, and then try to have it improve (damage especially needs to catch up) as the ranger levels.


Eyes of the Equinox (Su)

At 1st level, the eyes of the moonlight ranger appear silver in color and are more adept at seeing in darker environments. The moonlight ranger gains low light vision or the range of his existing low light vision increases by 30 feet. The moonlight ranger also gains light sensitivity which causes him to be dazzled in bright sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell. At 5th level, a moonlight ranger also gains dark vision out to 60 feet or his existing dark vision range improves by 30 feet.

(bolded) Don't give players class features that hurt them. Either make the pre-existing conditions worse and make the class feature improve it, or don't have it at all.


A moonlight ranger has the spell slot progression of a druid for 1st and 2nd level spells but does not gain spell slots of any other level. Their caster level is half their moonlight ranger class level rounded down (minimum 1). At 14th level and every even numbered level thereafter (16th, 18th, etc.) a moonlight ranger may recover an expended spell slot once per day as a standard action (2/day at 16th, 3/day at 18th, etc.).

-Remove the recover spell slot ability (your class feature can be replaced by 4,000 gp magic item)
-Let the spell slot progression go past 2nd level spells, but don't give the ranger an appropriate spell list to fill said slots (thus allowing for your Lunar Fang to actually scale).
-Maybe let the ranger still learn all the normal ranger spells, but delay the levels at which he gains access to them (i.e ranger spells that use a 2nd level slot use a moonlight ranger's 4th level slot, 3rd -> 6th, 4th -> 7th. You would still have all of the normal ranger spells at the normal progression (i.e both get ranger 3rd spells known at level 11), sometimes 1 level early).


Keep:
All 1st and 2nd level ranger spells except Entangle.

Why not entangle?


rope trick (duration of 1 day per caster level, conjures it's own rope made out of force with a length of at least 5 feet and at most 20 feet per caster level, and can safely allow extradimensional space items as long as no more than 16000 lbs of it are used which counts against how much the rope can support for climbing/creatures in such items still count toward the limit)

Variable-moonberry (as goodberry except it can be prepared as 1st level for 1d4 berries or 2nd level for 2d4 berries and conjures berries from elsewhere that disintegrate in direct sunlight rather than enchanting existing berries, a creature can never overstuff itself with moonberries)

Needs it's own spell description. Honestly I don't think that neither of these should be changed, but if you want to change it, do it right. Oh, and keep in mind that any new spells onto the list is eligible to be zoinked off onto an archivist.

rferries
2018-08-08, 01:45 PM
Explain these? I don't see the moon (or the wider topic, astrology) as being connected with any particular alignment.

Chiming in to say that I understand this change, at least. Most bestial, lunar and lycanthropic deities in DnD are chaotic (Selune, Malar, etc), sometimes chaotic good specifically.

Goaty14
2018-08-10, 12:47 PM
What happens if one of these rangers is underground?


Chiming in to say that I understand this change, at least. Most bestial, lunar and lycanthropic deities in DnD are chaotic (Selune, Malar, etc), sometimes chaotic good specifically.

Except the ranger isn't a deity-based divine spellcaster (like a cleric), and thus has no reason to be based off of them like that. Even if all of the moon deities are chaotic, what's the argument to make them non-evil? Or was there some sort of urge to add alignment restrictions because why not?


It's also meant to be able to scale upwards and downwards within an large range of balance points depending on what a DM is aiming for allowing in their campaign.

And... so can any other class? Intentionally making it weak (i.e incompetent at what it is supposed to do)


Yes. There are Tome of Battle fixes for ranged out there that do a spectacular job. But I'd rather play this and some others might as well so I'm sharing it so that they can.

Wherever did I say to make a ToB fix?


Further on why not a new class, I wanted to capture some of the flavor. Not all of it, but some of it. The first 3.5 character I ever played outside of that one time at a wotc event was a ranger. As I learned about the game I discovered why it requires accommodations. It's just nice to deal some damage with a bow and arrow and the survivalist ranger has a nice feel to it for me (and perhaps others).

The scout also captures the same flavor (except w/o the racism-based bonuses! :smalltongue:), and is a completely separate class as well. WotC did it, so why can't you?


It's a flavor decision and a tradeoff. This class is meant to be able to fit into a range of power levels. I just liked the idea. Easy enough to remove if a DM feels its too weak.

The class feature does not change the class' overall competency at all. It gives a minor bonus that is hardly used in exchange for a -1 to attack. The ability existing/not existing doesn't do anything significant, nor would a player notice its absence. All I'm seeing is a poor excuse to get rid of a dead level.


-Not every game will have free access to whatever magic items you want

Okay? "X doesn't happen in 10% of games, so surely I have to make it a class feature in order to fix that!" is what you mean, right? Even a minority of players don't get a Pearl of Power II, generally speaking, most of them can.

It feels like a weird mix of "Let's include a VoP fix!", "what if the player doesn't get item X", and "why don't you just give them more spell slots?", that it makes me think that it shouldn't exist at all.


Weakness is a relative idea in 3.5. It depends on gear and what the power level of the campaign is.

Then the gear and power level of the campaign determine the baseline strength, and this class is still weak. If weakness was *just* relative, then the tier system just wouldn't exist by virtue of comparing a highly-optimized fighter vs a lowly optimized wizard. The entire concept of weakness in 3.5 is based around similar levels of optimization, which I think that this class falls behind in.


In the right circumstances (core only) a moonlight ranger can deal 210 points of damage on average in a round in which he does a full attack after expending a 2nd level spell slot to his ability.

I find it humorous that you'd think a GM in a core-only campaign would allow homebrew before allowing other 1st party material, but I digress. A normal ranger gets and additional +50 (5 attacks/+10 Favored Enemy), and has actual spellcasting, not a variable X/day ability that can also cast some limited spells.

Setting the limitation to core-only makes it look like to me that you're intentionally limiting how the ranger does, no?


3>Makes a nice 1 level dip so that other ranged weapon users can consider using it. Ranged characters have a hard time with a lot of stuff early on and even later on without serious gear considerations. This class variant makes them at least viable. I'm not completely sure a 1 level dip actually will make all ranged weapon classes viable, but it would at least help some of them.

If one of your stated goals is to make a class that considers "being a viable dip" a worthy accomplishment, then I cannot help you. WotC did that once, and we ended up with the fighter.

Maat Mons
2018-08-10, 03:53 PM
Low-light vision is "twice as far as a human," and superior low-light vision is "four times as far as a human." This "+30 feet" you're adding to low-light vision is bizarre. Is it adding on to both the range at which you can see clearly, and the range you treat as shadowy illumination? So shadowy illumination no longer extends twice as far from a light source as normal illumination?

You know, there are lots of races with low-light vision that don't have light sensitivity. In fact, I can't think of a single race with light sensitivity that merely has low-light vision. Superior low-light vision, yes. But not regular low-light vision.

There are probably races with darkvision to a range of 60 feet that have light sensitivity. But I personally wouldn't put it on a race that didn't have darkvision to at least a range of 120 feet. And I wouldn't put it on a class at all. There's a trait that bumps preexisting darkvision from 60 feet to 120 feet, with the downside that you gain light sensitivity. Why not let players take that if they want light sensitivity for thematic reasons?

Races of the Dragon published sundark goggles. They're just goggles with tinted lenses. They eliminate the penalty from light sensitivity. So, the effect of putting in this weakness is not going to be that moolight ranges have a "thematically appropriate" penalty in bright light. It's going to be that every moonlight ranger wears steampunk sunglasses. Effectively writing wardrobe choices into your class features isn't a good design choice. (And no, it wasn't any better when druid did it with nonmetallic armor.) Also, between the silvery eyes, and the dark-tinted goggles, you're basically dictating that everyone who plays this class must make a thinly-veiled Riddick clone. That's pretty limiting, theme-wise.



I'm seeing a lot of dead levels here. Levels 2 & 3, 6-8, 11, and everything from 13 onward. (No, "extra spell slots" isn't a class feature, even if you write it in the "special" column.) Just because 14 dead levels is on par with Wizards of the Coast designs doesn't mean you have to set your sights so low.




Honestly, the animal companion is usually so weak that it wouldn't matter much anyways

Okay, now I'm not saying I disagree on a ranger's animal companion being weak. But, if you don't believe that a rangers animal companion provides any substantial benefit, why is it still a part of this class?

If I'm going to have a pet owl, and it's not going to be of any use, in combat or otherwise, then why can't I just have a pet owl? I can just flat-out buy a dog or pack mule, regardless of my class. Would it make any sense to create a class feature that says "You gain a pack mule, to carry your stuff. This is somehow a class feature even though literally ever character who wants one can get a pack mule easily."? So, why can't a woodsy character befriend an owl, and gain no mechanical benefit, without a class feature specifically telling him he can? If he can, why have a class feature that just gives a character permision to do something they could already do?

Maat Mons
2018-08-12, 12:25 AM
You know, you say you're interested in the DM's sanity. But for most of the criticisms people have put forward, your answer has been "let the DM deal with it." You're refusing to do more work on the class, and expecting that all that work will instead be done by the DM. Actually, not the DM. You're figuring that each one will individually do the work you couldn't be bothered to, because they won't have access to each other's results, and all that effort will need to be duplicated each and every time.

Let's be clear, the DM can change anything and everything about the game. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't even try to make homebrew that would function without the DM needing to expend a lot of time and energy. For example, yes, a DM might have some homebrew monsters that he'd like to make options for animal companions. If you give a list of animal companions from official sources, then he can just take that, add his own animals on, and be done. No muss, no fuss. If you give no such list, the DM not only has to go through his own homebrew monsters, but every single book he's letting his players use too.

I'm going to be frank here. You do not seem to have expended much effort on this. You've made it very clear that you have no intention of putting in any more work. And you apparently take it as granted that other people (DMs who use this) will pick up your slack.

rferries
2018-08-12, 08:02 AM
Chiming in again to say I'm surprised at much of the criticism here - a lot of seems excessively nit-picky or just plain random (e.g. the alignment complaints - people are aware of the existence of bards, monks, paladins, and their variant classes I hope?). Some of the mechanics are a bit wordy and could use some streamlining, but overall it's a flavourful class, and very far from broken.

EDIT:

I'm going to be frank here. You do not seem to have expended much effort on this. You've made it very clear that you have no intention of putting in any more work. And you apparently take it as granted that other people (DMs who use this) will pick up your slack.

This complaint in particular seems unfair. The class has clearly involved effort (even too much, as I've said about the writing), and you're basically accusing OP of lying when they said they were speaking from personal experience with the class.

Goaty14
2018-08-12, 12:44 PM
Chiming in again to say I'm surprised at much of the criticism here - a lot of seems excessively nit-picky or just plain random (e.g. the alignment complaints - people are aware of the existence of bards, monks, paladins, and their variant classes I hope?). Some of the mechanics are a bit wordy and could use some streamlining, but overall it's a flavourful class, and very far from broken.

Yes, but 1) This has TWO constraints on alignment (Nonlawful/Nonevil), hence ruling out 5/9ths of the alignment system (ok, the paladin rules out 8/9ths, but I think most people would agree that the constraint is a design flaw). and 2) Broken? Maybe not.
That said, the Truenamer also isn't broken because weakness is relative and it's entirely up to the DM in order to fix any "supposed" problems about it. Don't listen to anybody who tells you the truenamer is weak, because the truenamer is actually the BEST CLASS because it can be adapted to play in ANY POWER LEVEL of the group.


This complaint in particular seems unfair. The class has clearly involved effort (even too much, as I've said about the writing), and you're basically accusing OP of lying when they said they were speaking from personal experience with the class.

1) Everything requires effort, 2) Fun Fact: Proofreading and improving your own work adds additional work than just making it (i.e a poorly-written class requires less effort than a well-written one that goes through revisions). 3) It's pretty clear that even though the variant class has flaws and he has put some degree of effort into it, he isn't willing to do anything else about it and leave it up to the consumer (i.e the DM/player) to deal with it (Fun Fact: WotC did that too!), which really boils my blood. (Also makes me mad that the creator sounds really condescending to just deal with/change themselves anything that they find wrong with it as if this was the most perfect and peer-reviewed homebrew to ever appear).

All of that (^) pretty much aligns with what Maat Mons said. You're welcome to disagree with that, but if it isn't painstakingly obvious how that is true, I'm willing to point it out to you.

Maat Mons
2018-08-12, 10:22 PM
I think I've offended you and others and I'm sorry for that. I'm still not going to change the homebrew due to artistic integrity.

When apologizing for making people feel like their input is not valued, maybe don't say that the input they gave was so bad that listening to it would have violated your integrity.

Maat Mons
2018-08-12, 11:15 PM
Thank you.