Dark Hunter PrC

[Palanan]

Just came across the Dark Hunter (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030315a) on the recently restored Wizards archive, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this before. It’s 3.0, which is probably the main reason, but at first glance it looks interesting.

It seems designed for rangers, and it offers spontaneous arcane casting keyed to Wisdom. The spell selection is extremely limited, but there are some interesting choices for a stealth/pursuit character.

Apart from that, is there any advantage to arcane casting on a ranger chassis?

[Kayblis]

Looks like a class suffering from an identity crysis. It's somewhat related to ranger, yet it has its own spellcasting of a different kind, and a bad one at that with no advancement of previous class features. It's an arcane casting class, but for some reason it casts off Wisdom. It requires +5 BAB to enter, but is a medium BAB class, d6 HD and 4 skill points, which is a considerably worse chassis than the supposed best entry Ranger class. It's 10 levels long, but doesn't give you much to justify half your entire career. Its capstone ability is thematic, but it's an out-of-combat ability that comes around level 15 and honestly means nothing if you have any caster in the group to gather info(and up to lv 14, you have no way to gather info anyways). As a final offense, your character is completely bound to obey a queen that's moderately insane and way above your league, so you're tied to a servant RP no matter what.

It's a complete mess, and besides all that, it's a weak class that does its job kinda poorly. It's probably not talked about because it's a bad class overall.

[Mike Miller]

There is a 3.5 Dark Hunter PrC in Complete Warrior. It is also craptastic.

[bean illus]

Just came across the Dark Hunter (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030315a) on the recently restored Wizards archive, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this before. It’s 3.0, which is probably the main reason, but at first glance it looks interesting.

It seems designed for rangers, and it offers spontaneous arcane casting keyed to Wisdom. The spell selection is extremely limited, but there are some interesting choices for a stealth/pursuit character.

Apart from that, is there any advantage to arcane casting on a ranger chassis?

Dude, it implies you get a giant owl, eagle, or half dragon pegasus mount at 2nd level e7. That alone is cool.

It's worth noting that the prc can be entered otherwise than ranger. Let's stick to ranger. The real question is how do you mesh with later edition splat books and acfs?

It has rapid spell access, compared to ranger 15, but you lose favored enemy, and lose or delay a combat feat.

Spontaneous spells are cool. There are spells there a ranger doesn't get. But one of the strengths of ranger is its spell support for archery, including a number of swift spells. Dark Hunter could go well with Mystic Ranger 10, for instance.

I like it. Especially if the flying mount question gets worked out. I don't need to explain to you what greater invisibility and dimension door at 12th level mean to an archer (for instance).

Wait, did we just find a flying mount that shares spells with greater invisibility as a spontaneous spell?
10 levels is a steep investment, and i don't know what the stats are on a 1/2 dragon pegasus, but teleporting in on a flying invisible dragon every encounter sounds almost worth it.

Core Ranger 12/ Dark Hunter 8
Saves 14 14 6, and with a high Wis.

[TheCount]

the WIS based arcane spells are also a great rarity, i think there is only another one that works like that.
also, new senses, i love getting new senses, and it gets the 3 low hanging fruits, low-light, darkvision and scent.
and ex speed bonus, thats kinda rare.
sure, its not optimized but flavorfull, and you keep all the abilities even if you no longer serve the queen.
the skill list is handy as well, at least, what remains after its converted.

[daremetoidareyo]

prepares and casts spells just like a sorcerer does. A bloodline feat adds to that spell list.

and create water as an arcane spell!

any neat theurging options?

[Zaq]

It was long enough ago that the formatting's hard to read now, but we had an early Iron Chef (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?186097-Iron-Chef-Optimization-Challenge-in-the-Playground-XVIII&p=10359380&viewfull=1#post10359380) about this one! Holy hell this was NINE YEARS AGO omg I'm so old

I'm still proud of my Ogar (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=10359380&postcount=112) entry for the "tower of bears" trick...