Battle Blessing for Rangers

[Biggus]

I'm considering making the Paladin feat Battle Blessing (Complete Champion) available to Rangers too; as far as I can see, they need the help at least as much as Paladins do. Is there any reason why this would be a bad idea?

[Saintheart]

I can only think of a couple of situationals:

- Sword of the Arcane Order Rangers get True Strike, which, if it counts as a Ranger spell for these purposes, means your ranger can swift-action a +20 to his next attack and still pull a full attack in the same round.

- Blade Storm is a Ranger spell. Swift-actioned that means the Ranger picks up at least an extra melee attack against all opponents around him and then being able to pull a full attack right after.


That said, from a quick eyeball it looks to me that all this would do is condense the Ranger's buffing-and-attack routine down to 1 round rather than the normal 2. Or make auto-critting stuff possible: Swift Action Hunter's Mercy -> Standard Action True Strike -> Move Action, next round is a standard action shot and near-guaranteed critical hit, but it still takes you 2 rounds to do it.

Nice little upgrade for archer rangers in particular, but archery is already so niche and lineball as a strategy I don't think it'd hurt.

[smasher0404]

If you play with Dragon Magazine, Mystic Ranger (Dragon Magazine #336) gets accelerated casting at the early levels (getting spell levels 1 level after the equivalent Wizard, and capping at 5th level spells), which depending on how you form the Ranger's version of Battle Blessing could potentially become broken.

[Biggus]

I can only think of a couple of situationals:

- Sword of the Arcane Order Rangers get True Strike, which, if it counts as a Ranger spell for these purposes, means your ranger can swift-action a +20 to his next attack and still pull a full attack in the same round.

- Blade Storm is a Ranger spell. Swift-actioned that means the Ranger picks up at least an extra melee attack against all opponents around him and then being able to pull a full attack right after.

That said, from a quick eyeball it looks to me that all this would do is condense the Ranger's buffing-and-attack routine down to 1 round rather than the normal 2. Or make auto-critting stuff possible: Swift Action Hunter's Mercy -> Standard Action True Strike -> Move Action, next round is a standard action shot and near-guaranteed critical hit, but it still takes you 2 rounds to do it.

Nice little upgrade for archer rangers in particular, but archery is already so niche and lineball as a strategy I don't think it'd hurt.

Thank you. None of these seem too worrying; as Paladins can take Sword of the Arcane Order, all this would do is bring Rangers level with them. Blade Storm is already a swift action, and the fact that Hunter's Mercy is barely worth using when it takes a standard action to cast is what made me consider making BB available to Rangers in the first place.

What does lineball mean btw?


If you play with Dragon Magazine, Mystic Ranger (Dragon Magazine #336) gets accelerated casting at the early levels (getting spell levels 1 level after the equivalent Wizard, and capping at 5th level spells), which depending on how you form the Ranger's version of Battle Blessing could potentially become broken.

Hmm, will have a look at Mystic Ranger, thanks.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Biggus
What does lineball mean btw?

I was wondering this myself. Presumably Aussie slang, since I've never heard it before.

[Saintheart]

As in, on the boundary line. Not saying illegitimate, more like I'm 'on the fence' about it. Or that it's questionable or marginal.

[Biggus]

As in, on the boundary line. Not saying illegitimate, more like I'm 'on the fence' about it. Or that it's questionable or marginal.

Ah, so you meant "it's debatable whether archery is worth pursuing as a strategy at all"? Cool, thanks.