"Building a Monster Hunter"

[SangoProduction]

So, we all know the memes. Rangers suck. Well, that's actually a 5e meme, but let's face it, ranger doesn't have much of an identity. Indeed, almost its defining class feature, favored enemy, is only ever of any use when you are facing a particular enemy type.
Which means it's either a boring flat bonus, or it's actually not affecting anything.

So, I was trying to consider what sort of abilities a class that's meant to be a hunter really have. This is what I've come up with, but I'd be really interested in what you guys think.

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Enhanced Tracking, obviously. Perhaps even a special sense (equivalent of Life-sense or whatever) that targets specifically creatures you've been tracking down. You hone in on your prey such that even without "seeing" them, you "know" where they are. You should also, obviously, be able to tell whether or not the trail you're following is regularly used by the creature you're tracking.

Enhanced Ambush Protection...because hunters tend to excel when they can ambush, and thus know what they should be looking out for. This might involve free, easy to set up noise maker traps / Alarm-equivalent-spells to provide safe sleeping. Also bonus to perception vs ambushes, scaling on both size of ambush and hunter level. Trap detection would also be pretty obvious.

Ability to Lay Traps. Because the only thing better than you ambushing your prey is if your prey ambushes itself. Probably involves loading spells into traps, with custom parameters to go off, as well as its blast size/shape. Traps tend to be relatively poor combat tools...because they are traps... But it should compensate by just being really flexible in its usage. Even getting to disassemble your spell traps to regain the spell, or even move them around.

Preparation for Enemies. A dragon hunter isn't going to go in with a bow and arrow going "I have +2 to hit it instead of an orc, that's all I need." Well, the ones that live don't do that. Inevitably this would have to be some sort of flexible debuff / buff system.
Or perhaps, after ruminating on an enemy for [amount of time], they can try and disable/neutralize a characteristic. So they coat the party's swords with salt to nullify the demon's damage resistance. Or they fashion a paper bag to put over the gorgon's head. Something like that.


A Combat Style. In 3.5, this was basically a choice between two pre-planned sets of bonus feats. Boring. So, how's about actual hunting styles. Persistence vs Perfect Shot
Persistence Style would be based around stacking bleed (ignoring normal bleed stacking rules), while punishing enemies for movement. It's meant to stall and wait until the enemy dies, with active defensive options. And of course, the Endurance feat... and a bonus to track recently bleeding targets.
Persistence...doesn't really work in most D&D combat, where a 4 round combat would take almost 1 or 2 hours... And almost all DMs choosing to fight to the death rather than run. But whatever. Kinda why bleed in general is bad, even if they did normally stack. And weren't trivially mitigated.

Perfect Shot has two main features. First: you can use 2d10 rather than 1d20 to hit (if so desired, per round). And the second is to deal crit damage when exceeding target's AC by [certain amount], rather than when you roll within a certain range. So, you can maintain reliable hits with 2d10, or risk higher pay off with 1d20.
Probably escalates to 2d12 around level 8-10, and grants rider effects to crits like sickened.

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From there, I'm kind of out of ideas. I mean, with some fleshing out, you can definitely make 5-ish ability themes stretch through 20 levels. But the class features so far do seem a little narrow. The Preparation for Enemies bit does have pretty great potential for expansion.
Any further ideas for the type of things such a monster hunter would have?

[Fouredged Sword]

Scout 3 / Ranger 12 / Trapsmith 5

Take Trapsmith the moment you qualify for it to get the sweet sweet trap laying and magic it offers. Take Swift Hunter as a feat and aim for greater manyshot the moment you can. Take various sneak attack immune creature types as your favored enemies to make them vulnerable to your skirmish damage.

[Doctor Despair]

Enhanced Tracking, obviously. Perhaps even a special sense (equivalent of Life-sense or whatever) that targets specifically creatures you've been tracking down. You hone in on your prey such that even without "seeing" them, you "know" where they are. You should also, obviously, be able to tell whether or not the trail you're following is regularly used by the creature you're tracking.

Give them Adaptive Favored Enemy, with a process to attune their favored enemy to whatever they're currently hunting; grant them an adaptive version of Nemesis, and you have exactly what you're discussing here. Technically, by RAW, the PHB II includes retraining rules for class features like this (and for feats), so just streamline that process for rangers.

Choose one of your favored enemies. You can sense the presence of creatures of this type within 60 feet, as well as pinpoint their exact location (distance and direction) relative to you. Normal barriers and obstructions do not block this supernatural ability, allowing you to sense the presence and location of creatures behind doors or walls, for example. This feat does not allow you to see an invisible or hidden creature (although you can still discern its location). In addition to sensing the presence of your favored enemy, you deal +1d6 points of damage on weapon attack rolls made against evil representatives of the favored enemy creature type.



Enhanced Ambush Protection...because hunters tend to excel when they can ambush, and thus know what they should be looking out for. This might involve free, easy to set up noise maker traps / Alarm-equivalent-spells to provide safe sleeping. Also bonus to perception vs ambushes, scaling on both size of ambush and hunter level. Trap detection would also be pretty obvious.

This can be resolved with mundane traps -- bells on strings, and so on. Nemesis would help with ambushes when on the move.



Ability to Lay Traps. Because the only thing better than you ambushing your prey is if your prey ambushes itself. Probably involves loading spells into traps, with custom parameters to go off, as well as its blast size/shape. Traps tend to be relatively poor combat tools...because they are traps... But it should compensate by just being really flexible in its usage. Even getting to disassemble your spell traps to regain the spell, or even move them around.

Trapsmith might have some useful abilities to borrow from for this.



Preparation for Enemies. A dragon hunter isn't going to go in with a bow and arrow going "I have +2 to hit it instead of an orc, that's all I need." Well, the ones that live don't do that. Inevitably this would have to be some sort of flexible debuff / buff system.
Or perhaps, after ruminating on an enemy for [amount of time], they can try and disable/neutralize a characteristic. So they coat the party's swords with salt to nullify the demon's damage resistance. Or they fashion a paper bag to put over the gorgon's head. Something like that.


This is homebrew territory, but perhaps an arrow or poison of Ability Rip or a similar effect that only functions on your current favored enemy? Spell-storing arrows could have various debuffs by RAW, but only up to the 3rd level.

[SangoProduction]

Speaking of "Monster Hunter," being able to make grotesque (hopefully non-necromantic) weapons and armor out of your foes is also probably interesting.
I think there's the Trophy feat in 3.5, and the vast array of dragon-sourced items.

[Ramza00]

Something like Archivist / Urban Savant that allows you to do things based off knowledge checks like extra attack bonus, extra damage, save bonuses, higher spell dcs, etc.
Favored Enemy should be a feat that scales and anyone can have access to. That said a Ranger would get several of these feats for free as bonus feats.
6th Spellcasting, but a limited spell list similar to Ranger 4th level spellcast and less like the Bard.
Spells should be about healing, buffing, and battlefield control restricting sigh, smoke bombs, traps, etc. Some of the battlefield control spells should be early access that only a ranger can get it that early via your HD but you have to set up the effect for 1 min or longer casting time and you bring the enemy towards that location. Other battlefield control should be swift or standard action for you bring a utility belt effect to disrupt sight, smell, and so on.
Full BAB class, but you are the "smart" type of fighter who is meant to fight things in nature / wild aka "the range" and not learn humanoid to humanoid battle tactics like how to use point blade real well against other point blade users. Thus something that is a blend between Fighter and Rogue but with a flavor of a person who is at peace with nature and can cover a large amount of land real quick.
Alternatively think a Full BAB chameleon but with 4th level spells instead of 6th.

[Fouredged Sword]

Something like Archivist / Urban Savant that allows you to do things based off knowledge checks like extra attack bonus, extra damage, save bonuses, higher spell dcs, etc.
Favored Enemy should be a feat that scales and anyone can have access to. That said a Ranger would get several of these feats for free as bonus feats.
6th Spellcasting, but a limited spell list similar to Ranger 4th level spellcast and less like the Bard.
Spells should be about healing, buffing, and battlefield control restricting sigh, smoke bombs, traps, etc. Some of the battlefield control spells should be early access that only a ranger can get it that early via your HD but you have to set up the effect for 1 min or longer casting time and you bring the enemy towards that location. Other battlefield control should be swift or standard action for you bring a utility belt effect to disrupt sight, smell, and so on.
Full BAB class, but you are the "smart" type of fighter who is meant to fight things in nature / wild aka "the range" and not learn humanoid to humanoid battle tactics like how to use point blade real well against other point blade users. Thus something that is a blend between Fighter and Rogue but with a flavor of a person who is at peace with nature and can cover a large amount of land real quick.
Alternatively think a Full BAB chameleon but with 4th level spells instead of 6th.

The first thing is the knowledge devotion feat. It grants a bonus to attacks based on a knowledge check.

[Doctor Despair]

Speaking of "Monster Hunter," being able to make grotesque (hopefully non-necromantic) weapons and armor out of your foes is also probably interesting.
I think there's the Trophy feat in 3.5, and the vast array of dragon-sourced items.

Actually, there are two, technically: Snatch Trophy and Trophy Collector.

Required for
Bloodsoaked Intimidate (CR) ,

Benefit
After dealing a creature enough damage to drop it to negative hit points, you can slice or pry off a trophy as a free action. You must be adjacent to the dead or dying creature. The trophy could be a small body part such as a fi nger or ear. Carving a trophy in this manner requires a light slashing or piercing weapon and deals 1d6 points of damage to the target creature. (A creature with regeneration can regrow the severed body part.) Alternatively, you can take a small item worn or carried by your fallen foe, such as a piece of jewelry, pouch, potion, light weapon, or helmet, in which case the victim takes no damage. The snatched item can weigh no more than 2 pounds. You must have a free hand to collect the trophy.

Prerequisite
Craft (taxidermy) 6 ranks,

Benefit
When you defeat a foe in combat, you can preserve a part of its body and create a trophy that you can wear or brandish. In order to be worthy of your efforts, the opponent must have a CR greater than your current level. A trophy has a value equal to the defeated creature's CR × 100 gp. You must spend time using the Craft (taxidermy) skill to create the trophy as normal. Once you create a trophy, you can sell it for its market price or wear it. When you create a trophy, you must design it to occupy space on your body as one of these kinds of magic items: amulet, belt, boots, or cloak. You cannot gain the benefit of both a magic item and a trophy if both occupy the same space on your body; in such a case, the object you donned last becomes functional and the other object does not work. While wearing a trophy, you gain a +2 bonus on Intimidate checks per trophy against creatures of the same type as the trophy, except for outsiders and humanoids. In these two cases, the target must share the same subtype as the creature from which you crafted the trophy. You take a --4 penalty on Diplomacy checks against creatures of the same type or subtype as one or more of your worn trophies. For each trophy you wear, you gain a +1 bonus on saves against fear effects. Once per day, you gain a morale bonus on a single Will save equal to the number of trophies you wear. In this case, you draw upon the memories of past victories to strengthen your resolve. If you choose to take this morale bonus on a save against a fear effect, it stacks with the usual +1 bonus on saves per trophy worn.

Special
You can only craft trophies from corporeal creatures that you actively helped defeat. You cannot craft trophies from oozes.



Something like Archivist / Urban Savant that allows you to do things based off knowledge checks like extra attack bonus, extra damage, save bonuses, higher spell dcs, etc.
Favored Enemy should be a feat that scales and anyone can have access to. That said a Ranger would get several of these feats for free as bonus feats.
6th Spellcasting, but a limited spell list similar to Ranger 4th level spellcast and less like the Bard.
Spells should be about healing, buffing, and battlefield control restricting sigh, smoke bombs, traps, etc. Some of the battlefield control spells should be early access that only a ranger can get it that early via your HD but you have to set up the effect for 1 min or longer casting time and you bring the enemy towards that location. Other battlefield control should be swift or standard action for you bring a utility belt effect to disrupt sight, smell, and so on.
Full BAB class, but you are the "smart" type of fighter who is meant to fight things in nature / wild aka "the range" and not learn humanoid to humanoid battle tactics like how to use point blade real well against other point blade users. Thus something that is a blend between Fighter and Rogue but with a flavor of a person who is at peace with nature and can cover a large amount of land real quick.
Alternatively think a Full BAB chameleon but with 4th level spells instead of 6th.


Full BAB Urban Savant + all these ranger buffs? Sounds like a fun class to play.

Edit: Play off the name for Wild Savant

[Thurbane]

Leviathan Hunter from Stormwrack has some stuff along these lines: Hunter's insight, trophy, fell the leviathan etc.

[Doctor Despair]

Come to think of it, Sworn Slayer (Dragon 324) fits some of this, too.

So you can retrain Nemesis and favored enemy target to be appropriate to the creature you're hunting (or invest in a Dorje of Psychic Reformation and take Extra Favored Enemy to allow you to swap targets with that).

You can use Trophy Hunter to craft wearable pieces, or just use harvested materials if the material is used in statted-out armor. Presumably it'd be a Survival check to harvest the parts.

Trapsmith 1 grants the ability to make a bunch of traps; trapsmith 3 improves on them.

Poisonmaking could be a good feature to mix into the build for creature-specific debuffs, as you'd want to watch and learn about the creature to figure out which stat to target and what its immunities are, where it drinks, what it eats, etc. A 1 level dip in assassin or one of its cousins (avenger/blackdog/etc) would be fitting for that, as you effectively assassinate the creatures. That also opens up the option to open with a death attack to kill OR paralyze the creature, which is fitting to the game, too.

1-5 levels in Leviathan Hunter are thematic, if a bit lackluster overall. Combine with Knowledge Devotion for more bonuses.

[Maat Mons]

I think Illithid Slayer is an excellent example of a class that is themed on specializing in one type of enemy, yet succeeds in being generally useful, instead of very situational. I mean, it does the dumb, boring, and derivative thing of giving +whatever to some rolls against illithids. But it also gives you interesting and broadly applicable abilities, which nevertheless all make sense fore someone who's only goal is being the best illithid killer they can be.

[Gruftzwerg]

the warlock option (what else to expect from me^^):

- Flexible Mind feat to get hide and survival as class skills
- Scent via least Invocation
- Track feat

- take charm invocation to dip Mindbender 1
- take Mindsight feat

- Voidsense = Blindsense 30ft.

- Nightmare becomes Real gives you basically Hide in Plain Sight and can be viewed as big trap. Even when enemies make their saves, you can still HIPS. (so you don't need to increase DC if you don't want and can dump Cha if you want)

- Fly Invocation removes your footstep sounds

Can be played/build ranged with Eldritch Blast or as melee with Eldritch Claws/Glaive.
I have a predator themed clawlock build in my signature that might be interesting to some degree.

A rogue/ranger/xxx as first lvl with Able Learner can be a good choice if you want to have more class skills as warlock to pick from. Since you have the option to dump CHA, we can invest more into INT

[NigelWalmsley]

So, we all know the memes. Rangers suck. Well, that's actually a 5e meme, but let's face it, ranger doesn't have much of an identity.

The Ranger is a lot like the Druid, in that it has abilities that support several different shticks. Unlike the Druid, none of those abilities are really at viable level. You could imagine a character who contributed by being a "beastmaster" or a "survivalist", but they'd need a lot more than the Ranger gets to support those shticks.


Enhanced Tracking, obviously. Perhaps even a special sense (equivalent of Life-sense or whatever) that targets specifically creatures you've been tracking down. You hone in on your prey such that even without "seeing" them, you "know" where they are. You should also, obviously, be able to tell whether or not the trail you're following is regularly used by the creature you're tracking.

Enhanced Ambush Protection...because hunters tend to excel when they can ambush, and thus know what they should be looking out for. This might involve free, easy to set up noise maker traps / Alarm-equivalent-spells to provide safe sleeping. Also bonus to perception vs ambushes, scaling on both size of ambush and hunter level. Trap detection would also be pretty obvious.

This sounds like you want to build a class that's good at scouting in some abstract way. However, you seem to be going about this the wrong way. Rather than thinking of abilities that someone might have that are scouting-related, you need to start by looking and what problems someone might solve by scouting, and what obstacles prevent characters from scouting effectively as-is. Off the top of my head, two big problems are that scouting often requires splitting the party and that mundane stealth is poorly-defined and vulnerable to DM-fiat shutdowns without very high level abilities.


A Combat Style. In 3.5, this was basically a choice between two pre-planned sets of bonus feats. Boring. So, how's about actual hunting styles. Persistence vs Perfect Shot

Combat Style is fine. Both TWF and Archery are viable(-ish) combat strategies in 3e. The Ranger's problem is that they rely on having large per-attack damage bonuses like Sneak Attack or DFI, which the Ranger couldn't consistently provide. Hence why Swift Hunter is so popular. I think the big thing I would add is a Combat Style for Mounted Combat.


Any further ideas for the type of things such a monster hunter would have?

Well, there are two important class features the RAW Ranger has that you haven't considered: spellcasting and the animal companion. Both are, by RAW, at a level where we basically don't care about them, but if they were better than they are, you could imagine either being a defining feature of the Ranger. The idea I've been toying with for my Ranger/Paladin fixes is giving them 6/9 Recharge casting (with a buff slots system to handle buff spells). Alternatively, you could lean all the way into WoW's Hunter class, and up the role Animal Companion(s) play for the class.


I think Illithid Slayer is an excellent example of a class that is themed on specializing in one type of enemy, yet succeeds in being generally useful, instead of very situational. I mean, it does the dumb, boring, and derivative thing of giving +whatever to some rolls against illithids. But it also gives you interesting and broadly applicable abilities, which nevertheless all make sense fore someone who's only goal is being the best illithid killer they can be.

This is the way. Favored Enemy should not be a numeric bonus. It should be a broadly-applicable bonus that happens to be useful against a certain type of creature. Favored Enemy (Dragon) should give you things like Evasion, Energy Resistance, or Flight, all of which have clear utility against Dragons while being useful against any type of enemy. Do that for every type and you have a character who can specialize as an X Hunter while still being useful if you never face an X.

[Telonius]

There must be some kind of "Ranger needs fixing" bat-signal; I've been putting together a few ideas as well. The file is saved on my other computer right now, but the gist of it:

Ranger gets full animal companion progression.

Rapid Shot and TWF scale for iteratives. At the Combat Style improvements, you would get "Two blades as one" (enhancing one blade gives both the bonus; enhancements stack but abilities overlap - essentially a huge discount on keeping both of your TWF weapons competitive) or "Fletching" (count as having Craft Arms and Armor for arrows only, can enchant an ability if an equal-level caster would be able to, arrow enhancement stacks with bow enhancement). Each Combat Style improvement gives another +2 bonus to attack on TWF or Rapid Shot. For the second combat style improvement, can't remember what I put down for TWF, but archery gets to turn any bow it wields into Hank's Energy Bow (as in, can "power attack" with it). [EDIT: Just remembered - TWF gets Rend of 1d6+ half Ranger level once per round per foe if they get hit with both weapons in a TWF attack]

At two points (can't remember which level I had) give them "Hunter's Senses" - their choice of Darkvision 60, Scent 30, Tremorsense 20, Blindsense 10, or Blindsight 5. Stacks with the same if they already had it from another source.

Selecting a Favored Enemy gives them that enemy's Knowledge type as a class skill for that and all future Ranger levels; the ability to make untrained knowledge checks about that favored enemy specifically (Favored: Dragon gives you the bonus on Know(Arcana) checks on Dragons, but not on Constructs etc); and a bonus (haven't decided if Ranger level/2, or something else) on Knowledge checks against that type of foe.

I'll probably post this in homebrew along with some ideas for other mundane classes (Rogue and Fighter are mostly done, no idea what if anything I'd do with Barbarian)

[bean illus]

I like it. Sounds fun. But ...

I don't think we should replace ranger. Make it a prestige class, for ranger types.

Decide what level you want to enter it (6-7? Before combat feat 2, or after?), and how many levels the prc has (I'm thinking 10, but some prcs get a lot out of 5).

Then, decide which classes should enter it on time, and set some prerequisites that exlude all but those classes. Say, BAB 5, 8 survival, skill focus survival, a martial weapon, and track. That makes it obvious to rangers at 6th, for some skills and a feat. Scout 3 remains an option, but not much of one.

The prerequisites are fully feasible on time for other full bab classes for an investment, usually of 3 feats. Meanwhile it's possible for 3/4 bab dips to enter at 7th, only 1 level later. 1/2 bab builds could only enter much later.

Give them an rapid progression ranger casting. Just let Monster Hunter 1 spellcasting start at Ranger 10, so 2nd level spells are available, and 3rd level spells at MH 2. Keep caster level at 1/2 MH levels, but let ranger stack.
Rangers get a caster boost, martials get good spells (after sacrificing 3 feats), casters recieve little from dipping into MH. If a ranger overlaps caster levels with MH, the spell pools stay separate (many low level ranger spells are great).

I love the adaptive favored enemy. Every morning a MH can meditate and choose an favored enemy. He receives a scaling class bonus. If it happens to also be a favored enemy, the bonus stacks. At later levels he can refocus enemies 2/day.
Later, he can choose a specific target, within the chosen favored enemy, for another stacking bonus. This takes 5 minutes, because even though combat bonuses are given, it's a hunter ability. The MH wracks his brain, and remembers some habitual quirk the target has, and expoits it.

Have ranger, scout, and swift hunter abilities stack, at slower progression. Add ranger abilities you want, but leave some things for the ranger (don't give MH evasion ever, less skill access, and bonus feat choices later than ranger).