I need help building an Uber charger ranger with a few house rules

[Awakeninfinity]

As the above title; my GM has the following house rules-

1.) Personal range potions are a thing.

2.)Masterwork Potion belts allow a potion to be drawn and consumed as a free action (yes a free action; I know) once per round, a 2nd potion uses your move action, and a 3rd uses your standard .

3.) Critical Fumbles are a thing.

I want to show him that the top two are really bad ideas.

I don't think talking is going to work; he'll argue that since both sides can use these things it's fair (it's definitely not fair when there is twenty plus minions exploiting it maliciously). I would make my AC completely untouchable with a can't touch me Gish; but I really don't want to expose him to Divine Companion. I'll probably be ignoring AC because of it becoming irrelevant with free action potions of true strike.

D&D 3.5 (minus ToB) only please.

Paranthese indicate base stats where changed.

Current Build

Tom
Male Human FTR 2/ RGR 6
N Medium Humanoid( Human)

Melee +1 Keen Sharpness (Crit+1) Glaive

STR 18 (15). INT 10
DEX 12. WIS 14
CON 14 (13). CHA 8

Spells : Rhino's Rush , Jump

Feats: Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Improved Toughness, Track, TWF, Endurance, Leap Attack, Favored Power Attack, Raptor School.

I have about 4500 gp left.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The potion thing looks like it's seriously screwing your party out of all the loot you would get from opponents, since they're drinking it all at the start of every fight. I would recommend a strategy of starting the fight, letting them drink their potions, then retreating. Come back an hour later when their durations have all run out and they're out of potions. When I'm DMing and enemies have potions, they always have three times as many as I expect them to use. They wouldn't expect this to be their last fight and if they only have one they may try to conserve it.


Dragon issue 326 has variant fighting styles for Ranger, namely Strong-Arm which gives you Power Attack at 2nd, Improved Sunder at 6th, and Great Cleave at 11th. It doesn't look like TWF is doing anything for you, go with Strong-Arm if possible.

I honestly don't see why you're even using more than one or two Ranger levels in the first place, apart from a few spells prepared. Put a wand chamber in your weapon, put a wand of Rhino's Rush in it, and you only need a single level of Ranger to be able to activate that. Per the Rules Compendium, a spell trigger or spell completion item takes the same action to activate as the spell being used, so a wand of a swift spell is also a swift action to use. If you can use Strong-Arm take only two levels of Ranger, if you can't use Strong-Arm then take only one level of it with this UA variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#ranger) to get fast movement (which gives +4 to jump due to land speed).

Include two levels of Barbarian, use the Lion spiritual totem in CC to trade that fast movement for Pounce, trade Rage for Whirling Frenzy (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm#rageVariantWhirlingFrenzy ) (which you may end up not using), and use Wolf Totem (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#barbarianVariantTotemB arbarian) to get Improved Trip at the 2nd level instead of Uncanny Dodge. Take Knock-Down (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineAbilitiesFeats.htm#knockDown) and when you hit with a normal attack, you get a free trip attempt, and if that succeeds Improved Trip gives you another free hit. So you get an extra attack with Whirling Frenzy if using it, you get to full attack on a charge, and you get another free hit if you succeed in knocking them down.

The Quick trait (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterTraits.htm#quick) gives you +10 ft. land speed, which gives a +4 bonus to jump checks. The hp tradeoff is doable if you have a decent Con bonus and HD size.

Get Valorous on your weapon, from Unapproachable East. That makes you deal double damage on a charge, which combine with Rhino's Rush is triple damage even without a critical hit. Get Armbands of Might in MIC which increases your Power Attack bonus damage by two if you're taking at least a -2 for Power Attack, and that gets increased by Leap Attack.

[Awakeninfinity]

I had honestly forgotten about wand chambers; I do have a question; does Favored power attack stack with leap Attack? Because I'm not too sure- I'm sure my DM would house rule in favor of stacking- the tripping pouncer sounds like a blast though- the dm is both a power gamer and a war gamer so he tends to run games with an "I must win" mentality from time to time...

He's been calling my damage "weak" (I power attacked for 22 points on a single attack (but I'm currently playing a Gish that didn't roll particularly well on abilities) while capping at 110 with crits with a CR 15 (at least; possibly much higher) boss with minions versus a group of five players at ecl 8 I'm expecting to get killed trying to escape; so this is a replacement character.

[Mato]

He's been calling my damage "weak" (I power attacked for 22 points on a single attack ... at ecl 8.fyi, that is extremely weak by optimization standards. For example a greatsword with PA & THF deals up to 2d6+16 (avg 21) before strength modifiers, other feats, class bonuses, weapon customization, and so on.

You need to pick up power attack and improved bullrush with your fighter levels and make shock trooperCW your 6th level feat. Raptor school can also be replaced with battle jumpUE which doubles your damage instead of trying to add +4. I'd also ditch improved initiative, improved toughness, and favored power attack too. But then again I'd use the mystic rangerDra336 and sword of the arcane orderCoV.

Try to at least aim for something like human mystic ranger 8 with sword of the arcane order, power attack, improved bullrush, & shock trooper for feats and a +1 valorous greatsword for a weapon for example. That kind of build can cast primal instinct for a +5 bonus to initiative plus it has access to both rhino's rush and wrathstrike. So it's normal charge is like +15 & 4d6+46 (it can be vs touch ac or 6d6+69 dmg via spells), plus and it has 4th level spell access and full BAB. You can re-compensate for the AC loss while charging with various spells, AC is about to become useless anyway, and if you need help picking some just ask.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I've been thinking about those potion belts a bit more, and I think the best course of action will be to make a Spellthief 1/ Psion (Kineticist) or Ardent 4/ Psychic Assassin (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723d) 1 (or Psychic Avenger (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070401a) maybe). The Spellthief level allows you to use wands of any Wizard spells of a school that class gets access to, namely Nerveskitter and later Wraithstrike. You must have Energy Missile as a power known, either via Kineticist or Substitute Powers (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a).

Take Improved Initiative, keep a Wand of Nerveskitter on hand (a darkwood heavy shield can have a wand chamber), and get a Ring of Anticipation (DotU) so you can roll initiative twice and take the better result every time. You should win initiative every fight, and the first thing you want to do is Energy Missile five opponents' potion belts into nothing, then if needed drink a free-action potion of Synchronicity, and Energy Missile more potion belts. All their potions will fall to the ground, so they'll need to spend a move action to pick one up and a standard action to drink it. You'll completely nerf the op potion belts of your opponents at the outset of every encounter.

If the DM has opponents start pre-drinking potions, just retreat and wait for the durations to expire. If the DM starts giving opponents adamantine potion belts or making them otherwise indestructible, just quit the game because that's a telltale sign of a terrible DM.

[Awakeninfinity]

fyi, that is extremely weak by optimization standards. For example a greatsword with PA & THF deals up to 2d6+16 (avg 21) before strength modifiers, other feats, class bonuses, weapon customization, and so on.



I did roll double ones; but the current character I'm playing is a low level Gish optimized for party support. (I'm building up into a buff centered Gish; but if the DM keeps throwing things so high above our APL I'll be playing this character instead.

It's been a while since he's run 3.5 with my group; so he may just be readjusting- but then again; maybe not.