Tiering the Pathfinder Classes - Ranger and Paladin

[pabelfly]

I'm interested in starting work on a tier list for Pathfinder, in the same way that we have a tier list for 3.5 (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!). This link is a collection of discussions about the power and versatility of all the base classes of 3.5 DnD, and it’s quite a useful resource. I think Pathfinder could do with a similar resource as a point of information and discussion.

There has been an informal attempt to do a tier list for Pathfinder, which I've also used as part of the reference to this thread: (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?649283-%85-And-What-Is-the-*Deal*-with-Pathfinder-Tiers). But this lacks discussion on the classes and a shared consensus on how scoring works, both of which are as important as the tier number itself.

The current, work-in-progress thread for Pathfinder Tiers version of this thread is here (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?650140-Why-Each-Class-is-in-its-Tier-Pathfinder-Edition-(Work-in-Progress)). This thread has links to previous tiering threads and short summaries of thread discussions for those who missed them when they were posted. Contributions and votes for older threads are still welcome.

This thread, we’ll be taking on Paladin and Ranger.

For reference, in the informal thread:
Paladin is tiered between 3.5 and 4
Ranger is tiered at 3.88

So, the questions are: what should each of these be tiered at? And are there any notable archetypes for these classes that deserve separate tiering? I guess a discussion thread is the way to find out.

Since we had some discussion about Paladin and Ranger in the previous thread, I'll share a few highlights:


Paladin in particular I clock as significantly more powerful than Bloodrager in a lot of ways, primarily because their spell list is better even if their caster level is worse (Bloodrager does NOT suffer the -3 CL that Pally and Ranger deal with) and Paladin gets the ability to mimic spell effects like Remove Disease, Lesser Restoration, Dispel Magic, Regenerate, and even Raise Dead on a per-day basis with no costly spell components.


If I'm talking about combat prowess, it probably goes something like Paladin>Bloodrager>Barbarian>Ranger>Fighter>UMonk? But then in terms of noncombat utility stuff, it goes like Paladin>Ranger>UMonk>Bloodrager>Barbarian>Fighter... the ones threatening to break into T3 are Paladin and maybe Ranger?


I'd say favoured enemy is generally more limiting than bonuses against evil creatures, but instant enemy lets you get around that limitation, which I don't think a Paladin can do. There's nothing better than a Paladin against a demon or evil dragon, though a Ranger with the right favoured enemy might be more accurate at higher levels... I could definitely see a Ranger being more effective in a campaign with a lot of the same enemy type, but Paladins have the advantage if you rarely fight non-evil opponents and don't do a tonne of fights in a day.


It's safe to say Ranger is worse than Fighter when it comes to combat, Favoured Enemy isn't reliable, Instant Enemy is a 3rd level spell so you'll never have many and it's too expensive to be a practical wand (plus wands lose the swift action cast time), and there's just not enough good buffs on the ranger list to push it ahead (as opposed to Paladin and Bloodrager who have better buff spells along with the ever powerful Smite and Rage)




What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system. A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a vanilla Magus. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in Fighter and Barbarian territory. Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of chained Monk, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

[Rynjin]

Pathfinder Paladins: BIG STRONG FOR BIG LONG.

I'm gonna double down on what I said in the previous thread, **** it: Pathfinder Paladins are T3. They may not have started the game's lifespan that way, but they certainly ended it as such. They might be lower T3 than say a Summoner, but I'd still clock them as at least a 3.4 or something.

Paladins dong dong never die. They have ridiculously high saves. Heavy armor. The ability to heal themselves as a SWIFT ACTION that can be augmented by Feats like Fey Foundling and Greater Mercy to launch that healing into the arena off "regains 1/2 to 3/4 of their max HP per round".

They are extremely good at condition removal, either by healing someone directly or by taking it onto themselves as it happens with Paladin's Sacrifice (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/p/paladin-s-sacrifice/) and just eating it from there (if they're immune) or suffering in silence for a round until they CAN remove it, because they're a Paladin dammit and that's what heroes do.

They can even bring people back to life (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/ultimate-mercy/) once (MINIMUM) per day.

Also, y'know, they can basically instagib any evil creature they come across, and at higher levels can even provide stuff like their own flight with Angelic Aspect.

Paladins are wholly self-sufficient as a class and having a Paladin in the party is, IMO, just as nice as having a Bard in a different way. Is the Paladin making everyone else better? No, not directly. Are they as good at skills? No, they're usually stupid and imperceptive so they don't have to see/hear/speak the evils their party members do. But dammit they're lovable rocks that your enemies will break upon and your allies will rally around just for the love of Sarenrae DO NOT ask them to go on a stealth mission I beg you.

Anyway, Rangers are pretty good too, making it IMO to to the top of T4. Like 3.6 or something. They have a decent utility list, with Resist Energy as a 1st level spell as a standout (even if they don't get it until 4th level anyway, that's still the same level a Sorcerer gets it), the ability to basically become unstoppable against 3 enemy types over the average campaign, access to party buffs via Hunter's Bond and archetypes like Freebooter (or a whole extra body with the Animal Companion option), and a great assortment of skills.

They might even creep into the bottom of T3 in the specific circumstance of a heavily wilderness/exploration based campaign like Kingmaker, as some of their more niche utility options (eg. class features like Track and Quarry or spells like Lay of the Land) stop being niche and start being campaign-altering.

[Maat Mons]

With the Sacred Servant archetype, a Paladin can use (Lesser/Greater) Planar Ally 1/week with no payment required. You can keep the Ally around for 1 day/caster level. So eventually you just constantly have a planetar following you around. … Or I guess your deity could be a **** and always send you a single lantern archon, even when you’re 20th level. I’m not really sure how to factor all this in.

[pabelfly]

With the Sacred Servant archetype, a Paladin can use (Lesser/Greater) Planar Ally 1/week with no payment required. You can keep the Ally around for 1 day/caster level. So eventually you just constantly have a planetar following you around. … Or I guess your deity could be a **** and always send you a single lantern archon, even when you’re 20th level. I’m not really sure how to factor all this in.

If you're caster level 8, for example, does that mean you'd have two servants around for one day? Or is the old one dismissed when the new one is summoned?

[spectralphoenix]

If you're caster level 8, for example, does that mean you'd have two servants around for one day? Or is the old one dismissed when the new one is summoned?

In theory you can have as many planar allies around as you want, in practice I think Planar Ally abuse starts to edge into Gentleman's Agreement territory, since a cleric could theoretically use all their spell slots for a week casting it, then lead an army of outsiders into a dungeon.

[Thunder999]

I think ranger is the weaker of them, but both are easily competent enough for tier 4.
Sure favoured enemy is a bit unreliable (or perhaps that should be extremely campaign dependant, since they really shine in campaigns with a consistent enemy) but it's among the best of the various martial damage/attack bonus boosters when it does (big numbers for no action cost basically). Smite is similar, though a bit more reliable, most campaigns have plenty of evil enemies, particularly for the important fights, in return it's limited use and when not smiting the Paladin is a bit lacking offensively (not having any bonus feats or the like to fall back on), though generally still adequate.

It's whether they've got enough other options to hit tier 3 that gets interesting.

Ranger is pretty much entirely reliant on the spell list here, and it's actually pretty good, lots of generally useful or situational great options: Endure Elements, Alarm, Hide from Animals, Protection from Spores, Air Bubble, Dream Feast, Flotsam Vessel, Commune With Birds, Carrion Compass, most of the Detect X spells Speak with Animals, Nature's Paths, Animal Messenger, Keep Watch, Ant Haul, Glide, Aquatic Cavalry (also gets Alter Summon Monster for some minor cheese with this), Delay Disease, Web Shelter, Replay Tracks, Riversight, Speak with Plants, Hide Campsight, Allfood (Hunters, who copy the Ranger spell list, are the only other class with this one), Water Walk, Free Swim, Life Bubble, Delay Poison, Neutralise Poison, Remove Disease (beware the CL check on those two though), Spectral Scout, Sylvan Hideaway, See Through Stone, Full Pouch, Nondetection, Lesser Entice Fey, Inspiring Recovery, Grove of Respite, Summon Flight of Eagles, Commune with Nature, Commune with Plane.
Spells per day are limited and access to each spell level is very slow, but I'm surprised how much utility that list has.
I can actually see an argument for low tier 3, though I'm not sure it's quite enough.

Paladin has more to go on, Lay on Hands with Mercies can actually heal a decent selection of conditions and you can expand it to include Death with the right feat, though I do think it's probably going to come down to the spell list (the sort of versatility a tier 3 class should have is just really hard to pull off without spells).
Endure Elements, Lesser Restoration, most of the Detect X spells, Abadar's Truthtelling (aka much more reliable Zone of Truth), Keep Watch, Oath of Anonymity, Swift Girding, Abeyance, Undetectable Alignment (though that's of dubious use to a Paladin, using any class feature will give you away after all), Aquatic Cavalry, Delay Disease, Delay Poison, Remove Paralysis, Zone of Truth, Dispel Magic, Remove Curse,Talisman of Reprieve, Dispel Evil/Chaos, Flame Steed, King's Castle (very limited teleportation swap), Restoration.
It's definitely a shorter list, and that's despite me counting a bunch of conditon-curing effects.

Ranger seems to have more utility than Paladin. (Paladins do seem a bit better off in terms of combat spells, that's just not getting them into tier 3)

I'm currently thinking Paladin at 3.8, Ranger at 3.6 (3.55), though I expect the discussion to be quite interesting so that could change.
Ranger is definitely either the bottom tier 3 class or top tier 4 class though.

[TotallyNotEvil]

I don't think Paladin is generally better at straight up fighting than a Bloodrager, as the latter has easy access to things like Shield, Mirror Image, Displacement, Haste, Resist Energy, etc. I.e., the usual stand out arcane spells, which can come from himself, native scrolls/wands or as rage powers, plus rage, plus tremendous action economy as their rage applies multiple of said spells at once.

However, I do feel the trade off in general combat ability is worthwhile, as you do get decent assorted utility with healing and mercies, and when your Smite comes in, it comes in big time.

And of course, Aura of Justice is just absolutely freaking ridiculous, and it's right there as a core class feature.

I'm not sure they are T3 tho. Depending on the campaign, they can be the absolute MVP, say, on Wrath of the Righteous, or they can end up doing very little- if you are fighting a ****load of magical beasts, for example. Tho there might be an archetype for that, it does highlight they are campaign dependant to really bring their all, while the 'Rager is going to wreck face regardless.

T3 we are talking U. Summoner, Bard, Magus, Hunter, Warpriest, Alchemist, Investigator... It's a real stand-out crowd. It comes closer than the 'Rager, probably, but I don't think it quite cinches it.

I can see it as comparable to a Bloodrager, perhaps a tad better as there is a lot of support for it, so I'm going to say 3.75- better than the average T4, but I wouldn't call it T3.

Haven't really done much with Rangers, so I will refrain from voting.

[Bucky]

Some thoughts on Paladin casting.

Paladin gets a few 3rds and 4ths that are much higher on other spell lists. Standouts are Angelic Aspect (Paladin 3, Cleric 5), Greater Angelic Aspect (Paladin 4, Cleric 8) and Archon's Trumpet (Paladin 4, Cleric 7).

Paladins also get a deep pool of Swift-action combat effects. In addition to self-healing and smiting, they have the Litany group of spells that full-casters generally don't have access to. A Paladin with 2nd level spell slots to burn can go full beatstick on one target while throwing a series of save-or-suck-for-a-round spells at another.

The downsides are steep, though. Paladins don't generally have those spell slots to burn. A paladin has one non-bonus spell slot total at level 6, and gains exactly one slot per level for the rest of her career. Oh, and casts at -3 CL for a hard time beating saving throws and spell resistance on the offensive options.

[Kurald Galain]

Paladin - Several people have already pointed out how amazing they are. Straight out of the box, Smite Evil is some of the best DPR in the game, and it ignores any and all DR. Then we get excellent saving throws, and various abilities to heal or cure the party. Then we get a fully-leveled animal companion with good intelligence, who can fill a variety of roles both in and out of combat. And there's good social skills, and of course they get archetypes too.
Frankly, almost every paladin I've seen in gameplay really stands out as highly effective; so I'll give them a full Tier Three.

Ranger - This is the class that nobody wants to play. I've seen several metrics of class popularity, and consistently the most-played classes are (in no particular order) Alchemist, Witch, and all Core classes except the Ranger. I don't mean that popularity equals power; but that it's the least-played Core class by a wide margin clearly means there is something wrong here.
It's not hard to see why. The Ranger's signature mechanic, favored enemy, is highly unreliable: unless your campaign is something like Giantslayer, you have no way of knowing how frequently you'll encounter your fave enemy (and given how many creature types exist, it probably isn't often). Other than that, the class gets a smattering of minor skill boosts, a low amount of spells in a game chock full of 6-level casters, bonus feats but from strict groupings only, and an underleveled animal from a not-so-good list. The class doesn't bring anything unique to the table; all of what it does is decidedly unimpressive; and it lacks the attack or damage boosts that most other combat classes get.
Overall, the class doesn't really do anything well, making it a flat Tier Five. And the Hunter class is commonly considered "ranger unchained" in that it's a similar-themed class that does not suck.

[Kurald Galain]

they can be the absolute MVP, say, on Wrath of the Righteous, or they can end up doing very little- if you are fighting a ****load of magical beasts, for example.
Quite a lot of magical beasts are in fact evil, and thus smitable. I'd say the most popular paladin archetype is the one that gives you more smites.


Tier four: Here we're in Fighter, Paladin
By the way you should probably take this out, as we're in the middle of discussing him :smallbiggrin:

[pabelfly]

By the way you should probably take this out, as we're in the middle of discussing him :smallbiggrin:

Lol.

Vote Update

Paladin

KuraldGalain – 3.0
Rynjin – 3.4
TotallyNotEvil – 3.75
Thunder999 – 3.8

Average – 3.49

Ranger
Thunder999 – 3.55
Rynjin – 3.6
KuraldGalain – 5

Average – 4.05

Just so we're clear, that 3.49 means Paladin barely scrapes into Tier 3 at this point in time.

[Rynjin]

Ranger - This is the class that nobody wants to play. I've seen several metrics of class popularity, and consistently the most-played classes are (in no particular order) Alchemist, Witch, and all Core classes except the Ranger. I don't mean that popularity equals power; but that it's the least-played Core class by a wide margin clearly means there is something wrong here.
It's not hard to see why. The Ranger's signature mechanic, favored enemy, is highly unreliable: unless your campaign is something like Giantslayer, you have no way of knowing how frequently you'll encounter your fave enemy (and given how many creature types exist, it probably isn't often). Other than that, the class gets a smattering of minor skill boosts, a low amount of spells in a game chock full of 6-level casters, bonus feats but from strict groupings only, and an underleveled animal from a not-so-good list. The class doesn't bring anything unique to the table; all of what it does is decidedly unimpressive; and it lacks the attack or damage boosts that most other combat classes get.
Overall, the class doesn't really do anything well, making it a flat Tier Five. And the Hunter class is commonly considered "ranger unchained" in that it's a similar-themed class that does not suck.

This seems a reductive take on Ranger IMO, and it relies on a number of assumptions the game does not intend, like that the Ranger will not know what Favored Enemies are good to take. It's clear that Paizo intends for the GM to make it clear in general what the themes of the campaign will be and what enemies will be encountered more often; every single Adventure Path ever made has a section in the Player's Guide with a ranked list of what Favored Enemy options will be best for the party Ranger in that campaign. In unforeseen circumstances you have Instant Enemy to make up the difference.

The bonus Feats in "strict groupings" tend to be the best possible Feats for the chosen fighting style, and ignore all prerequisites. Being able to get, for example, Shield Master a full 5 levels early or to be a purely Str based TWFer is amazing for a martial.

The Animal Companion can be boosted with a Feat (which rangers get plenty of) and has some strong options such as the Elk even without archetypes. And if you don't like it, there's always the Party Bond option (which is a great at-will buff) or any of the plethora of archetypes that trade Animal Companion for another feature like additional spell slots and Divination as an SLA (Spirit Ranger), Rage (Wild Stalker), half his Favored Terrain bonuses in any terrain (Fortune Finder), etc.

And the spell list is solid, though mostly consists of combat buffs.

In general, "Ranger is weaker than Rogue" is an absolute buckwild take for a multitude of reasons.

[ciopo]

Paladin gets a few 3rds and 4ths that are much higher on other spell lists. Standouts are Angelic Aspect (Paladin 3, Cleric 5), Greater Angelic Aspect (Paladin 4, Cleric 8) and Archon's Trumpet (Paladin 4, Cleric 7).

that's a bit "false", spell level isn't the only metric in term of access here, a paladin gets angelic aspect at 10th level, a cleric gets angelic aspect at 9th level. In term of spell access we should look at what character level you get what while staying single classed, not at what spell level you get what. Rough equivalency to full casters for by-character-level access would be paladin 1st : spont 2nd ; paladin 2nd : prepared 4th; paladin 3rd : spont 5th; paladin 4th : prepared 7th.

In this regard for example, lesser restoration is "on track" when it's a paladin 1st level spell, rather than "early access".

Some are indeed early access, such as greater angelic aspect you mentioned, two whole level earlier, which is significant

It is relevant for wand access/costs tho, a paladin wand of angelic aspect costs 15750, compared to a cleric wand of angelic aspect 33750.

but you better get craft wands yourself if that's the case, because I doubt GM generally will "okay" letting oyu buy a wand of lesser restoration for only 750gp.

It is, however, powerful on it's own, does pf rule about increasing the DC to craft stuff without satysfing all the prerequisites apply to wand too?

[Kurald Galain]

It's clear that Paizo intends for the GM to make it clear in general what the themes of the campaign will be and what enemies will be encountered more often
Just why would that be "clear"? At least half of Paizo's adventure paths don't even have a consistent kind of enemy, and the highly popular PFS public campaign doesn't have one either. Just because Paizo gives suggestions for core classes doesn't mean they actually help.

For example, let's take the most famous adventure path, Rise of the Runelords. The first book says right on the cover that it focuses on goblins.
Surprise! The various bosses and leaders are actually humans and outsiders. Goblins will, of course, never be a threat again outside this level range.
The second book contains zero goblins or for that matter outsiders, and its main enemy is undead. But surprise again! The actually important battles are against cultists and monstrous humanoids!
Given its level range, the third book doesn't give you a new kind of favored enemy, and it has zero goblins or undead. Its main enemy type (giants) is not foreshadowed in earlier books, and its final big fights are not against giants either.

Wow, it would sure suck to play a ranger in that campaign. To drive the point home, ROTR actually has a couple rangers accompany the party at one point, and all except one have the wrong kind of favored enemy and end up laugably ineffective in combat.


In unforeseen circumstances you have Instant Enemy to make up the difference.
Oh right. Once per day, at level 10, you'll get a good bonus against a single enemy, at a level where fighters have a flat +2/+4 against everything and barbarians are about to unlock Greater Rage. Color me unimpressed.

[Rynjin]

Just why would that be "clear"? At least half of Paizo's adventure paths don't even have a consistent kind of enemy, and the highly popular PFS public campaign doesn't have one either. Just because Paizo gives suggestions for core classes doesn't mean they actually help.

For example, let's take the most famous adventure path, Rise of the Runelords. The first book says right on the cover that it focuses on goblins.
Surprise! The various bosses and leaders are actually humans and outsiders. Goblins will, of course, never be a threat again outside this level range.
The second book contains zero goblins or for that matter outsiders, and its main enemy is undead. But surprise again! The actually important battles are against cultists and monstrous humanoids!
Given its level range, the third book doesn't give you a new kind of favored enemy, and it has zero goblins or undead. Its main enemy type is not foreshadowed in earlier books.

Wow, it would sure suck to play a ranger in that campaign. To drive the point home, ROTR actually has a couple rangers accompany the party at one point, and all except one have the wrong kind of favored enemy and end up laugably ineffective in combat.


RotRL doesn't have it down to a science as much as other APs (which specifically call out Rangers), being the oldest adventure and not even being written for Pathfinder, but it does still include this bit:


A prepared character should be suited to challenge monstrous humanoids, giants,
magical beasts, and undead, and even greater threats at higher levels, such as evil outsiders and dragons.

Notice how it doesn't mention goblins? And it covers pretty much everything you mentioned there, narrowing down the options for a prospective Ranger.

Later APs refined this approach. By the time you get to the actual first PATHFINDER AP, Council of Thieves, it looks more like this:


A ranger’s best choices for favored enemies in Council
of Thieves are (listed alphabetically): humanoid (human),
outsider (lawful), outsider (evil), outsider (native), undead.
Good secondary choices include aberration, animal,
construct, fey, humanoid (giant), magical beast, and
monstrous humanoid. Opportunities to fight all monster
types occur in the Adventure Path, but the ones listed
above are most common.


A ranger’s best choice for favored terrains are urban
and underground. Good secondary choices include forest,
mountain/hills, swamp, or water. Other favored terrain
choices are poor selections for the Council of Thieves
Adventure Path.

And it's wholly accurate. If you take Human, Evil Outsider, and Undead in that order in Council of Thieves you will be a happy camper.

[pabelfly]

I'm actually playing a ranger build in 3.5 right now. When taking my first level of Ranger at level 2, I asked my DM if he had any suggestions for Favored Enemies for me, and he said he did not. Not really helpful that one of my class features is just extra bookwork and maths that might not affect my character's ability in combat at all.

There's lots of stuff I like about Ranger, but a Ranger's favored enemy class feature is heavily dependent on DM management style, campaign setting and game management in a way that other class abilities simply aren't.

[Rynjin]

I'm actually playing a ranger build in 3.5 right now. When taking my first level of Ranger at level 2, I asked my DM if he had any suggestions for Favored Enemies for me, and he said he did not. Not really helpful that one of my class features is just extra bookwork and maths that might not affect my character's ability in combat at all.

There's lots of stuff I like about Ranger, but a Ranger's favored enemy class feature is heavily dependent on DM management style, campaign setting and game management in a way that other class abilities simply aren't.

I'd argue that any game is bad with a GM who has no clue what he's doing and is actively unhelpful to players.

[pabelfly]

I'd argue that any game is bad with a GM who has no clue what he's doing and is actively unhelpful to players.

My GM is a good GM. He's just not interested in running a campaign specifically centred around one or two particular types of enemy, which Ranger seems to presuppose. It's not a presumption that I would make before starting a long-term campaign, whether I was a GM or a player.

My build is also centred around both Swift Hunter and Stalker of Kharash, so not getting much use out of my first Favored Enemy isn't much of an issue to me, but I definitely can see how it would be if I were going full Ranger 20.

[Kurald Galain]

There's lots of stuff I like about Ranger, but a Ranger's favored enemy class feature is heavily dependent on DM management style, campaign setting and game management in a way that other class abilities simply aren't.
Yes. And there's a subtle but important difference with 3E:
In 3E, the ranger's attack/damage are the same as (e.g.) the fighter, and fave enemy adds to that.
In PF, the ranger's attack/damage are behind the fighter (because fighter now gets Weapon Training), and fave enemy adds to that. Several martial classes have bonuses similar to the fighter's that apply pretty much all the time, e.g. slayer studied target.

Ranger's fave enemy bonus is about twice as big... so to be competitive, it should apply roughly half of the time. And it really doesn't: even the Giantslayer campaign (which sounds like a shoe-in for fave enemy) has a lot of giant animals, giant undead, giant outsiders, and other things that don't count as a "giant". And that's a clear outlier; most campaigns will have more diverse enemies than that; and worse, the most important enemies are often a different type. Unfortunately, this means that the ranger falls short compared to those other martials.

This is also why the Bane enchantment isn't very good (except if it's flexible, as e.g. the Inquisitor ability). Except for flavor reasons, few players want to invest a lot of money in e.g. a dragonbane sword, because most of your battles just won't be against dragons.

Paladin is the opposite: even when mooks aren't smitable, the most important enemies are pretty much always evil; and boy howdy does smite take these down FAST!

[AvatarVecna]

I've not yet done a deep dive into either class outside of playing them a few times each, but I will say that the fact that adventuring paths come with a section advising players on how to not accidentally ruin their builds is not actually the argument in favor of ranger you think it is.

[Rynjin]

I've not yet done a deep dive into either class outside of playing them a few times each, but I will say that the fact that adventuring paths come with a section advising players on how to not accidentally ruin their builds is not actually the argument in favor of ranger you think it is.

Adventure Paths come with a lot of advice for how not to ruin your character. Or, nore accurately, how to build a fitting one. "Don't make an urban-reliant character for this campaign" for Kingmaker. "If you lack social skills you WILL have a bad time" for War for the Crown, "This is not the campaign for your illusionist or enchanter" for Carrion Crown, etc.

[AvatarVecna]

Adventure Paths come with a lot of advice for how not to ruin your character. Or, nore accurately, how to build a fitting one. "Don't make an urban-reliant character for this campaign" for Kingmaker. "If you lack social skills you WILL have a bad time" for War for the Crown, "This is not the campaign for your illusionist or enchanter" for Carrion Crown, etc.

I still feel like there's a difference between advising all builds towards/against general strategies, and then being like "rangers, meet my gaze. You listening? Good. Don't do this, it will ruin your life. Do you understand me?" every single time.

[Firechanter]

Well, gotta say the PF Paladin has kinda won my heart, it's become my favourite class in the whole game. They start out as T4 but with the proper options (archetypes, splatbook spells, feats) they can be at least lower T3 (so, 3.4 or so).
Godlike at single-target damage ("Bosskiller") - at least as long as that target is Evil.
With Oath of Vengeance, you can keep smiting all day - but it's not really necessary.
You can buff up your weapon situationally, which is awesome bc you don't waste money on situational properties but still have a good selection at your disposal.
Godlike endurance thanks to LoH, and great defenses all around.
The spells come in a little late, but they are great nonetheless. Angelic Aspect is my absolute favourite.
If you still feel you need more spells on your list, Unsanctioned Knowledge is your friend.
Also, you can choose to be good at UMD (Dangerously Curious) and use wands to your heart's content. For instance, I like to use wands of Shield, Mirror Image, Resist Energy, even Dimension Door and stuff like that.

Everyone harps on about Sacred Servant and it's certainly good, but definitely not a must-have. Personally I prefer the weapon buffs.

So to sum up, some aspects how the Paladin is better than, for instance, the Fighter and Barbarian in combat:
- being natively able to fly (at least from ca level 10 on), he can turn any engagement into melee
- having better saves, he is much less likely to being taken out of the fight by any lowlevel caster (or a highlevel one)
- able to bypass the DR of any Evil enemy,
- able to activate certain weapon properties on demand, without tying any precious WBL into it
- extend his own stamina (hp) by multiple factors, huge self-healing where Ftr and Bbn have 0.

Comparing the Pala to the Bloodrager, I'd also give him the advantage bc of better AC, better saves, and self-healing. The BR is way more MAD, due to being limited to Medium armour, and requiring a higher CON score for his rages and pure hp pool. The Pala can get away with something like Dex 12, Con 12, and pump the rest in Cha.

Outside combat, the Pala's main niche will be social, mostly Diplo, but also able to pick up any other social (Cha) skill and be good at it. He also has the mobility afforded by Flight. It's not much compared to a Bard, but it's more than the Fighter has to offer.

So, in conclusion, definitely better than Tier 4.

[Kurald Galain]

I still feel like there's a difference between advising all builds towards/against general strategies, and then being like "rangers, meet my gaze. You listening? Good. Don't do this, it will ruin your life. Do you understand me?" every single time.
Indeed.

Also consider how useful the advice actually is. Rise of the Runelords recommends the following for favored enemies: animal, vermin, goblinoid, undead, fey, magical beast, dragon, and giant. Well that's a pretty long list. Out of these, three are actually useful, but each in one book only (see the spoiler in my previous post). So yeah, that's not really good advice.

Likewise, Kingmaker suggests: animal, dragon, fey, humanoid (boggard, human, giant, or reptilian), magical beast, monstrous humanoid, plant, undead, and vermin. Again, pretty long list. I haven't played KM, but I'd wager that boggard and vermin are too rare to be useful, whereas animal and reptilian feel like a wasteful choice because they're rarely actually a threat after level two or so. So again, probably not good advice.

Curse of the Crimson Throne doesn't give this kind of advice at all.

So it strikes me as rather common that the ranger picks a fave enemy more-or-less at random, and then ends up fighting them rarely or never.

[pabelfly]

Indeed.

Also consider how useful the advice actually is. Rise of the Runelords recommends the following for favored enemies: animal, vermin, goblinoid, undead, fey, magical beast, dragon, and giant. Well that's a pretty long list. Out of these, three are actually useful, but each in one book only (see the spoiler in my previous post). So yeah, that's not really good advice.

Likewise, Kingmaker suggests: animal, dragon, fey, humanoid (boggard, human, giant, or reptilian), magical beast, monstrous humanoid, plant, undead, and vermin. Again, pretty long list. I haven't played KM, but I'd wager that boggard and vermin are too rare to be useful, whereas animal and reptilian feel like a wasteful choice because they're rarely actually a threat after level two or so. So again, probably not good advice.

Curse of the Crimson Throne doesn't give this kind of advice at all.

So it strikes me as rather common that the ranger picks a fave enemy more-or-less at random, and then ends up fighting them rarely or never.

The alternative is actually just as bad in a different way. Let's say you start a new campaign, and say to your DM, "Oh, I want to play a ranger. I think I'll go with Favored Enemy: Undead." Imagine the DM in this situation saying, "well, guess we need some Undead encounters to make that relevant". They then have to scrap a bunch of alternate encounter ideas and monsters. Now, instead of being able to use different monsters and different encounters they wanted to use that were suitable for the story they want to create, they need to scrap all of that and keep on coming up with reasons for you to battle undead monsters. Which I'd say seems like a pretty lousy situation for a DM and the other players to be in.

[AvatarVecna]

Ranger is T4 I think. It's gotbreally solid utility, and decent Combat, but the circumstantial nature of its combat boosts are going to cause it to lag behind fighter in most combat situations. If there's an archetype that makes it possible to re-select Favored enemy now and then (even as infrequently as at the start of each day), I'd be more willing to rate it higher. As it is, most games are just going to have too much enemy variety (by which I mean, basically any at all) for a standard ranger to have a chance at outperforming a standard fighter, or even just breaking even. Worse than fighter at fighting but much broader utility makes it T4 for similar reasons to the rogue.

[Firechanter]

Ha, yes, just wanted to chime in on the usefulness of the PF AP Player Guides.
Particularly the example Kurald cites here is a perfect demonstration of their uselessness.
It suggests no less than TWELVE creature categories as FE types.

animal, dragon, fey, humanoid (boggard, human, giant, or reptilian), magical beast, monstrous humanoid, plant, undead, and vermin
And out of personal experience, I can tell you that some of these don't even appear as enemies; and some others not in more than one or two encounters over the entire campaign. And ofc some of the rest are simply not enough of a threat to warrant blowing an FE pick on them.

What may be some good picks all in all:
Humans, Giants, Undead, Magical Beasts, maybe Fey
(and not necessarily in that order)

There are also Aberrations, Evil Outsiders and Elementals, not many but even these picks would make more sense than Monstrous Humanoids or Vermin.

--> summing up, the advice offered by the Player's Guide is worse than useless.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I think we're focusing a bit too much on Favored Enemy. That feature has always sucked, probably always will, except if D&D One remakes it completely. The point is, Rangers do not need that to be decent at what they do. They are a full BAB class with bonus feats and spells. Even if they don't encounter any favored enemy at all during the campaign, they get more utility out of combat than the fighter by a long shot, and are even more flexible in combat. I'm not saying they're tier 3 by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't see them T5 either. I'm voting Tier 3.9.

[Gnaeus]

The alternative is actually just as bad in a different way. Let's say you start a new campaign, and say to your DM, "Oh, I want to play a ranger. I think I'll go with Favored Enemy: Undead." Imagine the DM in this situation saying, "well, guess we need some Undead encounters to make that relevant". They then have to scrap a bunch of alternate encounter ideas and monsters. Now, instead of being able to use different monsters and different encounters they wanted to use that were suitable for the story they want to create, they need to scrap all of that and keep on coming up with reasons for you to battle undead monsters. Which I'd say seems like a pretty lousy situation for a DM and the other players to be in.

I would say that the DM realizing that your class is intrinsically non-functional and rewriting the campaign to make you relevant is a hallmark of a low tier class. Telling the DM that this may be necessary is one of the reasons we do tiering in the first place.

Ranger T4. Weaker than a fighter, but better utility. Has signposts leading to decent performance in the form of favored enemy and combat style, but some of those are traps.

Withholding paladin judgment while I watch discussion.

[AvatarVecna]

I think we're focusing a bit too much on Favored Enemy. That feature has always sucked, probably always will, except if D&D One remakes it completely. The point is, Rangers do not need that to be decent at what they do. They are a full BAB class with bonus feats and spells. Even if they don't encounter any favored enemy at all during the campaign, they get more utility out of combat than the fighter by a long shot, and are even more flexible in combat. I'm not saying they're tier 3 by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't see them T5 either. I'm voting Tier 3.9.

I don't think anyone is arguing T5. I think "a bit worse than fighter at fighting, outside of very circumstantial situations, but waaaaaay better at skills/magic utility" is an easy T4. Filling a similar niche to rogue.


I would say that the DM realizing that your class is intrinsically non-functional and rewriting the campaign to make you relevant is a hallmark of a low tier class. Telling the DM that this may be necessary is one of the reasons we do tiering in the first place.

This, 100%.

[pabelfly]

I would say that the DM realizing that your class is intrinsically non-functional and rewriting the campaign to make you relevant is a hallmark of a low tier class. Telling the DM that this may be necessary is one of the reasons we do tiering in the first place.

I don't think Favored Enemy works, but the rest of Ranger is decent. Five bonus feats (including getting to ignore some feat prerequisites), full BAB, Fort and Reflex as good saves, 4th-level spells, an animal companion, and 6+ INT skill points/level. I think it's a decent option.


I don't think anyone is arguing T5. I think "a bit worse than fighter at fighting, outside of very circumstantial situations, but waaaaaay better at skills/magic utility" is an easy T4. Filling a similar niche to rogue.

We have had one person vote T5 for Ranger. But I agree with you on Ranger filling a similar niche to Rogue. A skillmonkey that can contribute in combat.

[Wildstag]

There's lots of stuff I like about Ranger, but a Ranger's favored enemy class feature is heavily dependent on DM management style, campaign setting and game management in a way that other class abilities simply aren't.

It really does come down to this for the Ranger. One of my favorite characters, Malvin Firel in my signature (mind it has some mistakes I'm sure) was a Ranger at the start, with a strong focus on killing undead. But then again, the GM emphasized from the start that the game was going to heavily feature the undead. In that game, I was the primary damage dealer, and even then I was a mixed-caster wielding seventh level spells near the end (we reached 20, but I didn't gain 8th-level spells until that level).

Favored Enemy works when your GM commits to a theme. When it deviates, the Ranger suffers.

It is partially for this that I believe that the Fortune-Finder archetype for PF Ranger is among the better ones. Firstly, despite AONPRD's claim, there is no racial restriction on the archetype, further supported by the creator of the archetype. (https://paizo.com/products/btpy9oo8/discuss&page=18?Pathfinder-Player-Companion-Blood-of-the-Beast#871) It gives up mediocre abilities to get the Studied Target ability from Slayer. And since Studied Target advances at half-FE rate, it actually gets slightly higher than Weapon Training.

I'm still in favor of T4, but that archetype significantly shores up Ranger's greatest weakness without sacrificing too much.

[Thunder999]

Favoured Enemy lets you choose which bonus to increase, so you can end up with your highest bonus in what you're currently fighting easily enough.
Also, peopel are really ignoring the entire rest of the class to complain about FE, the combat styles are very good, they generally consist of all the best feats for a given style and let you skip a lot of annoying prerequisites.
The casting is actually much better than most people seem to think, it's got good buffs and utility spells (direct offense was never going to work with a 4/9 caster, DCs can't keep up, even most 6/9 casters avoid save based spells).

I played through RotR with a ranger and they worked fine, FE:Giant and FE:Undead are far from limited to one book.
There's also the fact that you can totally use the significant downtime between early books (quite common in APs) to retrain your first favoured enemy if you took goblins. And that FE:Goblin choice will have made you really strong for that 1st book.
Figured that was worth mentioning since it's getting brought up a lot.

Oh and the reason ranger isn't that popular is mostly because Slayer and Hunter exist. Slayer ditches the utility casting and companion for more reliable combat, suiting people who just want to be a martial with pre-req skipping bonus feats, and hunter has a much better animal companion and casting (though being spontaneous is actually a big negative when the good ranger spells are often quite situational).
Neither of those prevent the ranger from being a good class on its own merits and I really don't understand how anyone could put it in tier 5. A ranger who just never faced favoured enemies would still not be tier 5, because you still have good bonus feats, an animal companion and spellcasting.

Fortune finder doesn't trade away minor abilities it loses the animal companion

[Drelua]

I was leaning towards T4 for Paladin, I know they're extremely effective in combat but wasn't sure they could do enough outside of that. I've seen a pretty standard sword and board Pally solo some kind of undead worm that was I think 3 or 4 CR higher than their level, and the thing could barely hit them. Between heavy armor, charisma to AC, swift action self-healing, a bunch of immunities, and the best saves in the game, they're very deadly, andjust about unkillable. Well, unless they participate in a chase. I made that mistake and fell off a building in Curse of the Crimson Throne. But as has been pointed out, they're also effective healers and a good face.

I'm convinced they're T3, maybe not as versatile as some of the 2/3 casters in that tier, but more effective than most of them when they're doing their thing. Maybe lower T3, so I'll vote Paladin: 3.2.


It is partially for this that I believe that the Fortune-Finder archetype for PF Ranger is among the better ones. Firstly, despite AONPRD's claim, there is no racial restriction on the archetype, further supported by the creator of the archetype. (https://paizo.com/products/btpy9oo8/discuss&page=18?Pathfinder-Player-Companion-Blood-of-the-Beast#871) It gives up mediocre abilities to get the Studied Target ability from Slayer. And since Studied Target advances at half-FE rate, it actually gets slightly higher than Weapon Training.

I'm still in favor of T4, but that archetype significantly shores up Ranger's greatest weakness without sacrificing too much.

I'm not sure studied target is worth losing Hunter's Bond, especially since it takes a move action to activate until level 11. While it frustrates me quite a lot that Rangers are one of the only classes without a good way to use their full level as their druid level, (most classes have an archetype that gives them a full level animal companion, like Mad Dog Barbarian) they just have to take Boon Companion. Being able to ride a tiger into battle is probably more valuable than getting half your FE bonus as a move action.

Regarding FE, yes it's situational and campaign dependent, but my first PFS character that I played to level 13 was consistently the deadliest character in the group, or close to it. Even when my FE (Undead) didn't come up, which it did fairly often but certainly not every scenario, I was power attacking with a dwarven longhammer. One thing to keep in mind is that if your first FE doesn't come up much, when you get to 5 you can take a new one and put that one at +4, you're not stuck with your first choice as your main choice. Either Undead or Outsider (Evil) are usually good choices. I also had Favoured Terrain (Underground) and that did come up almost every session.

Yeah, Rangers are usually weaker than Fighters in combat, but they have a few handy spells, one more good save, good skills, a few useful stealth abilities at higher levels, and an animal companion. And starting at level 10, one instant enemy per day can make a big difference, especially if you're only doing a few encounters per day. Not being able to fight like a Fighter most of the time isn't a problem, because they have way more to do outside of combat. I wouldn't mind letting a fighter take the spotlight in most fights, then taking over when undead or whatever show up.

They're not as powerful or broadly useful as a Paladin, but still a solid class with or without FE IMO, so I'll say Ranger: 3.8.

[Kurald Galain]

the combat styles are very good, they generally consist of all the best feats for a given style
Whatever makes you think they are "the best", though? It's pretty obvious that feats from the whole combat list (e.g. Fighter) are always at least as good as feats from a narrow list.


and let you skip a lot of annoying prerequisites.
Other than TWF, I'm not aware of any particularly effective examples here.


most 6/9 casters avoid save based spells
That's more for a later thread, but this is really not the case; I frequently see e.g. bards and mesmerists use save-based spells.

[Bucky]

As GM, I like Rangers as, essentially, the elite version of Warrior. I have the luxury of taking Favored Enemy: PCs and Favored Terrain: Right Here. The canned Combat Styles are a boon because they mostly work out of the box regardless of the base race and without the need to triple-check prerequisites. The only major concession is heavy armor.

Further, they hit the most important NPC Enemy utility spot - explaining why they're in the encounter in the first place. Wild Empathy helps set up encounters against mixed wild animals and humanoids, which are otherwise tricky to explain. They have the right skills to locate the party in the middle of nowhere, and class features that boost those skills, and the occasional divination to augment them both. The skills also open up mounted travel and combat, or they could use their 1st level slots on Nature's Paths, Tireless Pursuit (with Endurace!) and/or Longstrider to outpace the party on the campaign map. On defense, stealth, perception and the alarm spell let the Ranger make pre-combat preparations without necessarily tipping the party off.

The animal companion is a nice bonus, a disposable pawn that doesn't cost any of my CR budget. Bait, scout, mount or speed bump.

So how does this affect Ranger's tiering when the tier list is for PCs? Well, it's clearly better than Warrior but that's not saying much. It's a class that can contribute in multiple ways to seriously challenging a PC party. But it's a safe inclusion - it'll present a serious and predictable threat, not an overwhelming one or one that can casually shut multiple PCs out of the encounter like a tier 1 caster could.

[Thunder999]

Whatever makes you think they are "the best", though? It's pretty obvious that feats from the whole combat list (e.g. Fighter) are always at least as good as feats from a narrow list.

They're generally just the feats you want to do that thing, so sure, it's from a small list, but that's basically irrelevant since you're never in a situation where you didn't already want them.


Other than TWF, I'm not aware of any particularly effective examples here.

Improved Precise Shot at level 6 (it has a +11 BAB Prerequisite), Point Blank Master (sort of, it lets you use weapon focus rather than weapon specialisation to qualify, so you can use it despite not being a fighter).
Crossbow Mastery (It renders the Rapid Reload prereq useless, so skipping it is nice, though admittedly only Bolt Ace Gunslingers actually like crossbows)
All the dex prerequisites on ranged feats sort of count if you're using Erastil's Blessing for wisdom based attack rolls (though honestly just sticking with dex is probably better).
Dazzling Display and Shatter Defences from Menacing skip weapon focus, Dreadful Carnage skips Furious Focus and comes a level early.
Mounted Skirmisher comes in 4 levels early.
Shield Master 5 levels early is pretty great.

[Rynjin]

Whatever makes you think they are "the best", though? It's pretty obvious that feats from the whole combat list (e.g. Fighter) are always at least as good as feats from a narrow list.

Fighters need to meet prereqs.


Other than TWF, I'm not aware of any particularly effective examples here.

Shield Master is a biggun, though may fall under the TWF umbrella for you. Point Blank Master is otherwise a Fighter-only Feat, and Rangers can get it at 6 without the two Feat tax that Fighters need (Weapon Focus and Weapon Spec). More niche, but the Archery style also lets you get Crossbow Mastery without the redundant Rapid Reload Feat.

And, you know, Improved Precise Shot 5 levels early is amazing.

Being able to get Shatter Defenses without Dazzling Display and Weapon Focus is solid, though the other Feats in the Menacing tree aren't great.

The Underhanded style is interesting because it lets you get Improved/Greater Dirty Trick without needing Combat Expertise.

The Elemental tree can skip all 4 of the terrible prerequisites for Whirlwind Attack. The other Feats in the tree are frankly awful, but it's not a bad choice for a simple THF Ranger just based on that alone.

So Archery, TWFing, and Sword and Board are the big winners here, but there are interesting options for all fighting styles.

[Kurald Galain]

Well, it's good to see there are more examples than ole' TWF. Point Blank Master is a particularly good find here; and getting Whirlwind more-or-less for free at least makes it usable (as normally, whirlwind is simply killed by its ludicrous prereqs).

Still, that list does mean that out of the twenty-eight printed combat styles, the prereq-skipping is relevant for only a few of them. All the others are just worse than getting three freely-picked combat feats (which is relevant because a lot of classes get freely-picked combat feats).

[Thunder999]

Rangers actually get 5 combat style feats, the list just doesn't expand after level 10 (presumably because there's not enough feats with high enough level prerequisites for that to be necessary).
The ones that don't skip much are just getting 5 free feats you probably already wanted, which isn't bad, not as good as a fighter of course, but the fighter doesn't have an animal companion and 4/9 prepared casting from a solid list.

[AnonymousPepper]

I'm going to go all in on Paladin and join the "**** it, they're full tier 3" gang. They just get so many amazing class features and great options, and their core kit just so happens to line up perfectly with what most campaigns and adventure paths are looking for.

Provided you can stomach the (greatly relaxed from 3e) code of conduct, I'd go so far as to call a well-built Paladin the best frontliner in the first-party game, aside from of course T1s that are just doing it because they can and want to, though Arsenal Warpriests do give them a run for their money. Hell, even in the generally-accepted third party areas (Spheres and DSP), Paladin holds up against Warders just fine and arguably are still just flat better than most things a Spheres of Might user can pull off. So, we're looking at an exceptional combatant here.

Then add in all their class features - either a flying mount or a weapon self buff, spellcasting off a short but excellent list, ridiculously powerful and most importantly action economy-friendly self-healing, just saying no to a lot of negative conditions and being able to remove them practically at-will from your party, the ability to spec into reviving dead party members as just a daily class feature... yeah.

Remember the 3rd edition A-Game Paladin build? The one that got arcane spellcasting in its slots, was arguably a better bard than actual bards when it came to music, and got bonus spells keyed off Strength? And that was considered enough to hit T3? I'd argue the PF paladin is capable of a similar power level. I can't stop gushing about how well-done the class is compared to what it was building off of.

3.0.

-

Now, Ranger... Ranger is tougher. I have to admit I'm a bit less familiar with them, but they do seem like an archetypical low T3. They have a limited spell list that nonetheless does have a good chunk of utility and some unique options on it, and they can be good as archers, plus their skill spread isn't half bad. The problem is that they're just not good at any one particular thing in comparison to other classes that also attempt to fill the same niches. Frankly, Favored Enemy is nice, but it barely lets them keep up with, say, a Zen Archer, who is also that good against every target, or even just someone with Weapon Training who's almost as good against everything. They end up being extremely reliant on Instant Enemy to excel, and that... kind of sucks.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to Ranger's spell list being significantly worse, the chassis being weaker, and Favored Enemy being just finicky, but with at least better skills to play with. Frankly, I just can't see myself playing a Ranger when Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor or Arsenal Warpriest is right there with significantly better spell lists and class features. Exception being in campaigns where you know you will be up against specifically a lot of one type of enemy - Wrath of the Righteous comes to mind. In those cases, Favored Enemy suddenly becomes a much, much better feature and puts you on par with the aforementioned in many respects, even if your spell list still lets you down.

3.7.

[Rynjin]

Well, it's good to see there are more examples than ole' TWF. Point Blank Master is a particularly good find here; and getting Whirlwind more-or-less for free at least makes it usable (as normally, whirlwind is simply killed by its ludicrous prereqs).

Still, that list does mean that out of the twenty-eight printed combat styles, the prereq-skipping is relevant for only a few of them. All the others are just worse than getting three freely-picked combat feats (which is relevant because a lot of classes get freely-picked combat feats).

I left off the Divine styles and whatnot, so I didn't actually look at all of them; I'm sure there are relevant ones in that bundle as well. I just looked at the Core plus Ultimate Combat (I think?) Styles which total to 12 Styles, most of which have something worth mentioning in them even if some are shared (eg. Archery and Crossbow both have the Crossbow Mastery bonus and most of the same Feats).

But TBH I don't think providing a curated list of Feats basically anybody using that fighting style would take anyway is worse than getting "free" Feats due to how Pathfinder works.

Sure, theoretically your archer character could use their Bonus Combat Feat to take Lightning Stance or something, but chances are they're taking Point Blank, Precise Shot Rapid Shot, and Manyshot at a bare minimum before ever branching out.

And on top of that, most characters besides Fighter that get unrestricted bonus Combat Feats are...3/4 BaB, meaning their access is slowed considerably. Of the full BaB cast I think it's only Fighter and Brawler that get unrestricted Feats at regular levels.

So in the end it's just an illusion of choice anyway.

[Maat Mons]

Since someone asked, in Pathfinder the rule allowing you to bypass prerequisites doesn’t apply to spell prerequisites of spell completion items, spell trigger items, or potions.

Coming into this thread, I was pretty sure I’d be rating Paladin at 3.6, and Ranger somewhere in Tier 4, though I wasn’t sure where. After reading all the discussion… I’m still in the exact same place.

Paladin: Tier 3.6
Ranger: Tier ??? (needs more research)

[Thunder999]

Ultimately, I think it comes down to Ranger's spell list being significantly worse

Very curious how you came to that conclusion, when I looked through them in my first post I found a lot more good utility on the Ranger's list than the Paladin's, it's my pick for the best 4/9 list.

[Rynjin]

Very curious how you came to that conclusion, when I looked through them in my first post I found a lot more good utility on the Ranger's list than the Paladin's, it's my pick for the best 4/9 list.

More utility, yes. Good utility? Ehhhh...very campaign-dependent on a lot of it.

[Bucky]

On the NPC enemy side of the screen, Paladin monster advancement is a bit busted by RAW. For some reason Paladin isn't considered to have any role, so it's not a key [associated] class for any monsters that don't have Paladin features. Slightly charismatic beatsticks therefore get to add two full BAB Paladin levels, with their nice tanky class features, per added CR.

I consider that a Paizo mistake, so I don't use CR-optimized half-monster paladins at the table.

[AnonymousPepper]

Very curious how you came to that conclusion, when I looked through them in my first post I found a lot more good utility on the Ranger's list than the Paladin's, it's my pick for the best 4/9 list.

Ranger has more utility, undeniably. Paladin has fairly limited utility options.

Paladin's list, however, absolutely rocks at what it's trying to do in most situations.

Ranger's list, on the other hand... uh... yes, it has utility, all sorts of utility, but not good utility, imo. It's a much more context-dependent list than Paladin's, and even when it's in its sweet spot, it doesn't quite hit the same way Pally's top-notch options do.

[Drelua]

On the NPC enemy side of the screen, Paladin monster advancement is a bit busted by RAW. For some reason Paladin isn't considered to have any role, so it's not a key [associated] class for any monsters that don't have Paladin features. Slightly charismatic beatsticks therefore get to add two full BAB Paladin levels, with their nice tanky class features, per added CR.

I consider that a Paizo mistake, so I don't use CR-optimized half-monster paladins at the table.

I thought this was just a rule that got carried over from 3.5, so I went and compared my Monster Manual to my Bestiary. I didn't realize Paizo changed it in some weird ways. 3.5 specifically says Paladin is a combat class, and lists Ranger as both a combat class and a skill class. I can't imagine why they would have changed that.

[Firechanter]

BTW I don't find the Ranger spell list so bad. Of course there's a lot of chaff, especially extremely situational, over-leveled spells that nobody, absolutely nobody is ever gonna use.
But there are also a lot of very useful staples that should be "always on" when a party is exploring or engaging in combat.
Just the other day in my game, our party had to neutralize a fort full of enemies - mostly archers, alchemists and assassins - and the Ranger basically trivialized the entire encounter with just 3 spells: Resist Energy, Delay Poison, and Fickle Winds. Granted, the enemy had no T1/2 casters among them, but neither did the players. And no, I did not tailor that encounter specifically to the Ranger's strength, but just ran it pretty much like it was laid out in the module.

Again, if I imagine "What If" that character wasn't a Ranger but, say, a Barbarian or Rogue? Barring UMD, it would have been painful at the very least.
As it were, the encounter was so utterly trivialized, I didn't even bother rolling, but just described how they came plowing over the fortress walls like the helo assault in Apocalypse Now (granted, the Flight was not provided by the Ranger). There was absolutely no angle left how the opposition could have hurt meaningfully them.

As for Favoured Enemy, in most campaigns that is too situational to be really useful, so I generally prefer - and advise other players - to swap it out for something else.
While it's not an official Archetype, I offer to swap FE for Studied Target (or, as my Ranger player calls it, "Slayer Thing"). However that doesn't really have an influence on the Tier rating I would say; it's just a general boost in combat that's always useful.

So all in all:
I'd rate the Ranger somewhat lower than the Paladin. More out-of-combat utility, less sheer fighting force. But if it's enough to lift it over the 3.5 threshold? I don't know. It seems to straddle that fence quite precisely.

A few posts up, I said the Paladin would be at least T3.4. After the other users' input in this thread I would like to adjust that rating, so my current assessment for these two classes is:

Paladin: 3.1
Ranger: 3.5

[pabelfly]

Vote Update

Paladin
KuraldGalain, AnonymousPepper – 3.0
Firechanter 3.1
Drelua – 3.2
Rynjin – 3.4
Maat Mons – 3.6
TotallyNotEvil – 3.75
Thunder999 – 3.8

Average – 3.36



Ranger
Firechanter – 3.5
Thunder999 – 3.55
Rynjin – 3.6
AnonymousPepper – 3.7
Drelua – 3.8
Beni-Kujaku – 3.9
AvatarVecna, Gnaeus – 4
KuraldGalain – 5

Average – 3.89

[Elvensilver]

Should Anti-Paladin also get ranked here or will this be the subject of a later thread?

The class is described as an "alternate paladin class", but with cruelities, different class-skills and a different auras, it plays sonewhat differently.

[Thunder999]

We probably should have done Antipaladin at the same time, but at this point it's probably best to just put it in another thread.
It's definitely different enough to rate seperately, mercies and lay on hands are important, and it gets neither, spell list is probably a bit weaker too.

Alternate classes were originally envisioned as really big archetypes, but eventually that was dropped and they're just ordinary base classes.

[Rynjin]

Should Anti-Paladin also get ranked here or will this be the subject of a later thread?

The class is described as an "alternate paladin class", but with cruelities, different class-skills and a different auras, it plays sonewhat differently.

Well I'll tell you this much: Anti-Paladin ain't T3.

[Maat Mons]

Cruelty seems to provide decent debuff options. Aura of Despair helps them land, but more importantly, helps land the effects of other casters in you party.

I’d say the Antipaladin spell list is overall worse than the Paladin spell list. It seems more geared towards save-based effects, but lagging behind on spell level access also means lagging behind on spell save DCs. Aura of Despair helps with this, but even so, many of those spells overlap with Cruelties, which will have a higher DC.

If you opt for the Fiendish Servant option of Fiendish Boon, you get a 24/7 Summon Monster effect, which is nice. But if anything happens to the creature, you have to wait 30 days before you can summon it again, which is pretty punishing. That kind of rules out in-combat uses, which mostly leaves summoning a Succubus to help you in out-of-combat situations.

Overall, I’d say Antipaladin is a little lower-Tier than Paladin, but still above average for Tier 4. I’ll rate it Tier 3.8.

[AnonymousPepper]

Vote Update-snip-


I rated Ranger 3.7, you missed that.

Also, yeah, I do concur that Antipaladin should be rated separately. It is absolutely in no way tier 3. It's like... 4.0 at best, and that's riding on the coattails of what it does keep from its parent class.

One of the things that makes Paladin so good - the nature of D&D is that you are most often fighting evil things, which Paladin is built to do - is one of the big things that Antipaladin firmly flips on its head. Forced chaotic evil even has the effect of making you a tough fit in the published evil campaigns like Hell's Vengeance that are predominately meant for the lawful evil corner. That's strike one. Related to it, swapping out the usually-effective Smite Evil and Detect Evil for the much less likely Good variants is just a straight downgrade. Strike two. Swapping out Lay On Hands for Touch of Corruption is, like, strikes three through five, as you lose the ability to just be a turbo heal tank, and instead... gain the ability to do a thing you could, frankly, already just do with a full attack. Unless you heal from negative energy, in which case, I hope the rest of your party does too. The alternate spells and the alternate auras are frankly sidegrades at best, as well. In short, you can only really make an Antipaladin work in a game built to accommodate one and with a lot of finagling on the build end.

[Rynjin]

Even if you CAN heal from negative energy, Antipaladins don't get the ability to touch themselves as a Swift by RAW. While a common hourserule, it is just that and is a further strike to the class's power.

While the class may be Tier 0 in terms of official art featuring it, it's a T4 class at best and arguably T5. It is frankly awful in almost every mechanical sense and waffles between being useless in most campaigns for obvious reasons and being useless even in campaigns specifically designed to support evil characters by having its hands tied by an absurdly stupid Code.

But that art is great though, for real.



https://64.media.tumblr.com/4d225b53b75197719b2acd01a9e2a69b/tumblr_nf9niyMhul1r3sy6wo1_1280.png

https://www.pngitem.com/pimgs/m/255-2557889_transparent-knight-pathfinder-pathfinder-antipaladin-hd-png-download.png

[Bucky]

Antipaladins have a fluff social malus. Even though they're charismatic and have social skills, characters who know they're talking to an antipaladin won't trust the antipaladin. This is so severe that when I had an Antipaladin PC, one of my villains effectively eliminated him with RP after some divinations revealed his class. All it took was a few disposable minions persuasively accusing him of being an antipaladin in public, and the character fled the campaign in between sessions.

Oh, and for some unfathomable reason their aura gives them bonus damage received from paladins.

A different campaign, where I was player rather than GM, featured a paladin PC and antipaladin final campaign boss. The paladin totally dominated the antipaladin to the point of anticlimax despite being a lower level, but that was before the Litany of Eloquence nerf.

[pabelfly]

I rated Ranger 3.7, you missed that.

Added, apologies.

[Kurald Galain]

Looking at the antipally mechanically, I'd say they're weaker than the fighter (with its massive combat bonuses plus Advanced Weapon Training special abilities) or the rogue (with its high sneak attack damage plus large amount of skill points plus skill-based talents), and that's before considering how an antipally oath makes them an awful fit for pretty much any party in terms of behavior. I'd call that a clear Tier Five.

Aside from that, I find the antipally remarkably silly in design: you take a famous existing class then cross out all instances of "law" and "good" and scribble in "chaos" and "evil" instead, and expect that to somehow make sense? Come on, I see better villains than that on Saturday morning cartoons. And it looks like Paizo's writers agree, because you very rarely see an antipally anywhere in any module or adventure path (and even then, it's almost always a one-off battle, or a throwaway line about ages ago) - as opposed to Hellknights, the very-lawful mostly-evil order of Cheliax and Asmodeus. Hellknights are actually well-written, a credible threat, and often seen in lore and adventure paths; but we can't rate them here because they're mechanically a prestige class.

[AnonymousPepper]

Looking at the antipally mechanically, I'd say they're weaker than the fighter (with its massive combat bonuses plus Advanced Weapon Training special abilities) or the rogue (with its high sneak attack damage plus large amount of skill points plus skill-based talents), and that's before considering how an antipally oath makes them an awful fit for pretty much any party in terms of behavior. I'd call that a clear Tier Five.

Aside from that, I find the antipally remarkably silly in design: you take a famous existing class then cross out all instances of "law" and "good" and scribble in "chaos" and "evil" instead, and expect that to somehow make sense? Come on, I see better villains than that on Saturday morning cartoons. And it looks like Paizo's writers agree, because you very rarely see an antipally anywhere in any module or adventure path (and even then, it's almost always a one-off battle, or a throwaway line about ages ago) - as opposed to Hellknights, the very-lawful mostly-evil order of Cheliax and Asmodeus. Hellknights are actually well-written, a credible threat, and often seen in lore and adventure paths; but we can't rate them here because they're mechanically a prestige class.

Honestly, I agree, the more I think about just how bad its Code is, the more inclined I am to give it like a 4.5. And I'm only giving it that much on the condition that you're playing in a game that it can actually function in at all, and you optimize the hell out of a fear build to abuse it stripping away fear immunity; in any normal game, it's a contender for 5+, given that rules dysfunction someone pointed out earlier that they can't even swift heal themselves for some reason even if they heal from negative energy (the 4.5 is also dependent on a GM overlooking that particular oversight and you being able to use it). Not far into 5+, it's not Truenamer levels of nonfunctional, but a solid 5.2 in normal play. So, split the difference and call Antipaladin a hard 5.0. Should it get revisited later, that's my vote for it, if we're taking a vote now, samesies.

Only reason I'm willing to be charitable at all to the class is that its code is so restrictive - ironically, for a chaotic evil class - that it should never see play unless the GM is willing to accommodate it and the campaign is a good fit for it. No player or GM should touch it unless it's in a circumstance where it does function. And in those places? Yeah, it can work. You do become a very strong healing tank with a self-enchanting sword (please ignore the advanced weapon training that lets you do the same thing) and a nasty immunity-piercing fear build and, if you're consistently facing good enemies, Smite is still as strong as ever. If you put the code aside, it's honestly still stronger than a fighter when the stars line up for it, which is the only case where it should be used to begin with. But then you remember the code is still hampering you even in games where the GM is going out of their way to make you fit, and you just... sigh and wonder why you didn't roll a fighter anyway.

Frankly, as funny as that art is, it really does show the Antipally's backside. I'm fully on board with your take - it's nothing more than a Bizarro interpretation of the Paladin that only functions as a literal puppy-kicker. I would go so far as to call Hellknights the real Antipaladin, with the published subclass of the same name being an April Fools' entry. Hellknights are the true dark reflection of Paladins and are everything Antipaladin should have been.

[Firechanter]

Antipal has a few, very niche, selling points - such as being able to override the Pal's fear immunity. But that's about it. Otherwise I agree with the crowd; it's just not a well-made class. As a PC it's basically unplayable. For most published modules / APs, with the typical focus on Evil opponents, the T-rating would probably be below 5.0.

In one campaign our GM repeatedly tried throwing an Antipal against us specifically to counter my Paladin.
The first time it was a total fluke; it was a pretty big battle spread out over a small village, and that Antipal ended up one-on-one with our low-op Crusader Cleric... who was of LN alignment, and the Antipal was basically helpless against him. The PC just clobbered her unconscious with his frickin shield.
The other time it was a different Antipal and it actually did come to that coveted duel between him and my character. He won initiative, charged, creamed me with a juicy Smite Good with his Humanbane Greataxe, and iirc even rolled a crit - that brought me down to mb 40-50% HP, and that was his one moment of glory. Then it was my turn and, well, he didn't survive my Full Attack. I don't even remember if I used my Swift for a LoH or a Hurtful attack.

[Arkain]

Since besides Antipaladin there are also more alternate classes with Samurai and Ninja, maybe it's sensible to dedicate another thread to them?

[Thunder999]

I feel like with how harshly people are rating the code of conduct and CE alignment, Tyrant and Insinuator archetypes might be worth doing seperately.

Tyrant changes almost nothing beyond the code and making your Summon Monster bond do lawful rather than chaotic outsiders.
It's certainly more playable, a perfect thematic fit for Hell's Vengeance.

Insinuator makes more changes, the code is basically just "Be really selfish at all times" with any Evil allowed, but the actual mechanical changes are interesting:
It trades detect evil for what amounts to detect neutral (so just about the least useful option).
It picks one of CE, NE and LE each day to count as for aura and such.
I gets to smite anyone not of that alignment, but only has half level as a damage bonus (full cha to hit though), so definitely an upgrade. Also trades the largely redundant deflection bonus for some temporary hp (not the best, but not bad)
Gets Lay on Hands, but self only, so some lost utility, but the big strength was always that swift action self heal.
Gets self only mercies to go with it, not bad, but they were often better to fix allies (since if you can't take actions you can't heal yourself).
It trades spells for some bonus combat feats.
There's others but nothing as major.
I'd call it tier 4, no spells and no healing allies' conditions really hurts your ability to do more than just kill things, and a normal paladin is still better at even that.

Personally I'd shove them all in tier 4, it's not as good as the paladin, but it's not terrible.

Touch of Corruption and Cruelties pair excellently with a Conductive weapon, the immunity bypass aura makes intimidate builds (and since we're damned already, lets have that damnation feat to make everything we intimidate frightened) much more reliable etc.

[Endless Rain]

The Paladin's abilities aren't really that great against non-evil monsters, and its code of conduct, especially under a restrictive DM, prevents many solutions to problems that are still open to almost any other class, so I can't rate it Tier 3. I think it's a shoe-in for Tier 4, as a class very good at solving a few problems. Those problems, evil-aligned monsters, simply happen to be the most common problem in typical PF games and I feel the Paladin is being overrated because of it.

The Ranger, as well, I feel fits in Tier 4, for reasons other posters have gone over already.

[Drelua]

The Paladin's abilities aren't really that great against non-evil monsters, and its code of conduct, especially under a restrictive DM, prevents many solutions to problems that are still open to almost any other class, so I can't rate it Tier 3. I think it's a shoe-in for Tier 4, as a class very good at solving a few problems. Those problems, evil-aligned monsters, simply happen to be the most common problem in typical PF games and I feel the Paladin is being overrated because of it.

The Ranger, as well, I feel fits in Tier 4, for reasons other posters have gone over already.

Against non-evil monsters, Paladins still have probably the best saves in the game, some good healing with the ability to remove debuffs, and full use of their divine bond, whether it's a mount or a weapon bond. And they can take more damage than pretty much any other class while still fighting with swift action self-healing. I've played a couple Paladins, and seen a few others in PFS, never seen them unable to contribute effectively except with stealth or a chase scene or something like that where 2+int skills and full plate's ACP is a problem.

[Firechanter]

It's exactly _one_ ability that the Paladin can't use against Non-Evil monsters. Everything else, from excellent saves over fantastic self-healing / durability, to buffing his weapon for free, not to mention the spell selection, still applies.
I fail to follow the logic that every single tool must apply every single time or you're tier 4. Bards rely a lot on Enchantments that don't work against a whole lot of enemies, so does that mean they aren't tier 3 either?

FWIW, for me the weapon buffing ability freed up enough cash that I was able to afford a Bane Baldric. Instant Bane Weapon for 5 rounds per day may not sound like much, but it proved to be extremely effective especially against non-evil opponents. Again, while technically everyone can buy that item, the Paladin's Divine Bond ability specifically made it easier for me to cough up the cash for it.

The CoC is a potential drawback, yes. But if you have such an antagonistic GM who stoops down to using _that_ against you, iit's likely that your gaming group has deeper problems. In general, the CoC has never been a problem for me, because while it may preclude my Paladin from personally pursuing certain actions, nowhere does it say you must or even should force everyone else to uphold an oath they never took.

[Kurald Galain]

Since besides Antipaladin there are also more alternate classes with Samurai and Ninja, maybe it's sensible to dedicate another thread to them?
I'd say we should have more tiers with three or four related classes, as this makes it easier to compare them.


The Paladin's abilities aren't really that great against non-evil monsters,
Thankfully, in almost every campaign you are guaranteed to fight a lot of evil monsters. Against non-evil monsters, he just has to rely on full BAB, a full-level animal companion, amazing saving throws, and good self-healing ability... that still makes him a better combatant than most martials.


and its code of conduct, especially under a restrictive DM, prevents many solutions to problems that are still open to almost any other classThis is largely false with the PF paladin.

[Thunder999]

Code of Conduct is really overblown as a drawback, I really don't see it getting in the way of much, it's not like paladins would be amazing poisoners without it or anything. (They'd suck at poison, just like everyone else other than a couple of alchemist archetypes).

I'm sure there's games out there where all the enemies are strangely neutral and bizarrely convoluted moral dilemmas show up every other session, but they're not remotely common enough to affect tiering.

[Nihilarian]

I'm not sure how much alignment should play a factor in these numerical rankings. It sucks that it kinda doesn't make sense to play in 90% of campaigns, but other than Smite Good and the lack of good enemies in typical campaigns its largely a roleplay issue. If you're in a normal campaign and for whatever reason the roleplay aspect isn't an issue, your class abilities outside of Smite Good should be fully functional regardless of alignment.

Paladin: 3.2. Smite Evil depends on the campaign, but evil enemies are very common, and I'm enamored with the sheer durability. Add a full strength animal companion, a nice spell list, and a smattering of aura abilities, and i think you end up with a nicely versatile class.

Ranger: 3.8. While theoretically similar, Ranger's class abilities lack a lot of oomph compared to the Paladin. Favored Enemy's condition is a lot stricter than Paladin's. After the animal companion (which takes a penalty, unlike paladin), the Ranger's most interesting ability is the bonus feats without needing to meet requirements. There's quite a few different styles out there now, so there's a certain amount of customization available. A perfectly cromulent class that just doesn't pack a lot of power.

Antipaladin: 3.8. The lack of good enemies in typical campaigns is a negative. Trading lay on hands for an offensive ability that can't be utilized during your normal dps routine without a conductive weapon is a negative. A smaller and probably worse spell list than either of the above. The summon monster is a bit better than a mount, I think. This class feels like one tweak away from being solid. I'd forgive the rest if ToC was better integrated into the class instead of being slapped in as the reverse of LoH without thinking about it enough. Or if it was just LoH, I guess.

[Firechanter]

One more thought regarding the Antipal: there are various ways to use ToC for healing. You can be a Dhampir, for one. You can dip into Black-blooded Oracle. There are probably more, outside of borrowing the tomb-tainted feat from 3.5.

Drawbacks are, it's still not fast self-healing, the Antipal doesn't get to use it as Swift action, which is kinda the Paladin's big draw, and there's an opportunity cost, and you can't be healed "normally" anymore, so all in all it remains worse than LoH.

[Kurald Galain]

I'm not sure how much alignment should play a factor in these numerical rankings. It sucks that it kinda doesn't make sense to play in 90% of campaigns,
Not alignment, but code of conduct. The problem is not that the antipally's alignment must be evil, but that his code makes it VERY hard to cooperate with any serious party, even a morally dubious party. As noted above, antipally is still unplayable in most evil campaigns.

[Satinavian]

The CoC is a potential drawback, yes. But if you have such an antagonistic GM who stoops down to using _that_ against you, iit's likely that your gaming group has deeper problems. In general, the CoC has never been a problem for me, because while it may preclude my Paladin from personally pursuing certain actions, nowhere does it say you must or even should force everyone else to uphold an oath they never took.The Pathfinder Paladin got the most problematic part of the CoC removed in comparison to 3.x. It does now allow associating with evil guys, allowing both diverse parties and more diplomacy.

Before you could regularly run into problems even without the GM being out to get you : Another player wanted to play an evil character, another PC switching alignment to evil due to their actions alone, a group who wanted to use "enemy of my enemy" in an evil vs. evil conflict, evil individuals in allied neutral or good organizations you wanted to work with ... all of those problems are not problems anymore in PF.

[AvatarVecna]

The way it affects tiers is a matter of how the CoC seeps into the rest of the class design. A paladin is, first and foremost, a selfless hero. The CoC lends itself to a mechanically-helpful character. Spend spell slots improving my ally's skills? Sure!

Antipaladin does the opposite. When designers are picking powers and spells they're thinking "is this fitting for a selfish jackass?" and that tends to leave antipaladin as a bruiser with few noncombat qualities..

Edit: Teamwork feats only work if everyone has them, or at least a few people have them. There's an archetype i see now and then that focuses around Teamwork feats by having the character actually spend feats on them, and then gaining a lited ability that allows allies to count as having them too. This archetype turns them into a feat generator for the party, and thus a buffer.

I would bet paladin has an archetype that does this. And similarly, I would bet that Antipaladin does not.

[pabelfly]

Vote Update

Paladin
KuraldGalain, AnonymousPepper – 3.0
Firechanter 3.1
Drelua, Nihilarian – 3.2
Rynjin – 3.4
Maat Mons – 3.6
TotallyNotEvil – 3.75
Thunder999 – 3.8
Endless Rain, Exelsisxax – 4

Average – 3.46



Ranger
Firechanter – 3.5
Thunder999 – 3.55
Rynjin – 3.6
AnonymousPepper – 3.7
Drelua, Nihilarian, Maat Mons – 3.8
Beni-Kujaku – 3.9
AvatarVecna, Gnaeus, Endless Rain – 4
Exelsisxax – 4.5
KuraldGalain – 5

Average – 3.93

[pabelfly]

Class writeups. Critiques and suggestions always appreciated


Paladin (3.41)
Throughout the life of Pathfinder, Paladin received a lot of support that ended up making Paladin quite a powerful martial class. Smite Evil is powerful against any Evil enemies, which are likely the most common enemy type in the game, especially for boss-type enemies. Paladins also come with possibly the best saves in the game, good HP, heavy armor proficiency, swift-action self-healing, and the ability to remove various conditions the party suffers. While it has a small spell list compared to other classes, and limited spell slots for most of its career, their spell list is filled with plenty of great support and self-buffing options. You definitely not going to be short of good choices for your daily spell list. Definitely earns a spot as a lower-end Tier 3 class.

Ranger (3.90)
Ranger is a class that does a lot of things decently but nothing really well. Favored Enemy is the exception to this, expect this feature to be treated mostly as character flavour outside of a campaign themed around a specific monster type. Aside from that, Rangers get full BAB, some bonus combat feats, 6+ INT skill points, an animal companion, and a decent utility-based spell list. They do suffer from limited spell slots for most of their career though. All of this makes Ranger a decent, if not exceptional, and Tier 4 class material. A player looking for a more powerful Ranger might consider Hunter over Ranger. In exchange for slightly lower BAB, hit points, and Favored Enemy, you get more spells, more spell slots, a much improved animal companion, and Animal Focus, which gives you your choice of bonus to a variety of stats or abilities.

[Bucky]

Class writeups. Critiques and suggestions always appreciated

In both cases, mention very limited spell slots for most of their career as a drawback.

[Kurald Galain]

I suggest adding that the Hunter class is, effectively, the Unchained Ranger, who has better spellcasting, a better animal companion, and replaces favored enemy by the (much more effective) Animal Focus; albeit it has lower BAB and hit points. It's probably a better tier.

[Drelua]

Class writeups. Critiques and suggestions always appreciated


Paladin (3.41)
Throughout the life of Pathfinder, Paladin received a lot of support that ended up making Paladin quite a powerful martial class. Smite Evil is powerful against any Evil enemies, which are likely the most common enemy type in the game, especially for boss-type enemies. Paladins also come with possibly the best saves in the game, good HP, heavy armor proficiency, swift-action self-healing, and the ability to remove various conditions the party suffers. While it has a small spell list compared to other classes, there are plenty of great support and self-buffing options. You definitely not going to be short of good choices choosing daily spells. Definitely a lower-end Tier 3 class.

Ranger (3.90)
Ranger is a class that does a lot of things decently but nothing really well. Favored Enemy is the exception to this, this feature is character flavour outside of a campaign themed around a specific monster type. Even in that situation, the bonuses are going to be worse than a Fighter’s Weapon Training, except Fighter gets their attack bonuses every combat. Aside from that, Rangers get full BAB, some bonus combat feats, 6+ INT skill points, an animal companion, and a decent utility-based spell list. This all makes Ranger decent, if not exceptional, and Tier 4 class material.

Have to disagree with this part, 2 + 2 every 5 levels is better than weapon training, even with gloves of dueling. Weapon training is, as you said, better than favoured enemy because it's always on, and because it unlocks advanced weapon training, but when you can actually use favoured enemy, it is stronger.

I had a half-orc ranger get disarmed of his greataxe once, or maybe stunned and dropped it, while fighting his favoured enemy, evil outsiders. He was level 13-ish. So I pulled a dagger from my wrist sheath, power attacked, and did twenty something damage in one hit. I remember how surprised the GM was when he said "...with a knife!?" And then I bought an adamantine locked gauntlet and *never* took it off.

Similar thing happened with my dwarf barbarian 1/ranger 10 in a PFS game at a convention. Had FE Undead, got grappled by a Mohrg. Raged, power attacked, activated boots of speed, did 80 damage in 3 hits with my boulder helm. Even if a Fighter was smart enough to have a light weapon that was in their main weapon training group, they wouldn't have been able to match that easily. And of course I did a lot more with my dwarven longhammer.

[Kaouse]

Concerning the Ranger, you don't buy wands of Instant Enemy.

You buy Lesser Metamagic Rods of Echoing Spell. Cheaper, maintains the swift action use, works forever (instead of 50 max uses) and can be used on other spells if the need arises (though getting up to a +10 untyped attack and damage bonus vs a particular enemy and activating stuff like Bane vs them is such an insane buff, it's hard to see what else would even be useful).

The basic combat assumption in Pathfinder is that there are 4 encounters per day. So with a single Rod of Echoing Spell, you only need 1 spell slot on Instant Enemy to be able to use it for every encounter, on average. Just don't spend it on basic mooks and you should be fine. Besides, mooks are what Combat Styles and Animal Companions are for.

Ranger also has a bunch of divination spells that give them great utility, and if they absolutely need a wand, they can wield the Wand of Cure (X) Wounds. I think the Ranger is a solid class, and I greatly value the use of an extra body when it comes to the Animal Companion, so I rate it pretty highly - a solid 3.5 class, IMHO.

Paladin is an insane class that's almost Tier 3 if not actually already there. Hell, with Ultimate Mercy, I'd put them squarely in Tier 3 easy.

Antipaladin gets a lot of flak, but people underestimate how good it is at debuffing opponents. Negating immunity to fear is pretty huge. It means that the Antipaladin can make the best use of an Intimidate stacking build, via the very on-brand Damnation feats. With just 2 of them, your intimidate stacks with itself, allowing you to completely debilitate any one opponent. You could even take this further with Performance Feats focused on Dazzling Display, to debilitate entire groups of enemies. And there's shockingly little counterplay to this, thanks to your Aura of Cowardice. In the late game, these kinds of builds are some of the most dangerous, since they can effectively "fear-lock" you out of doing anything for as long as the fear-user desires.

Basically, Antipaladin is really good for munchkins, and is hyper offensive where the Paladin is hyper defensive. But lack of defensive utility does hurt a bit, even though you do still retain most of the benefits of Smite and Divine Grace/Unholy Resilience. I'd rate the class a solid 3.8 or so. Definitely much better than base (CRB only) Fighter and much MUCH better than base (CRB only) Rouge. Hell, outside of Iron Caster & Eldritch Scoundrel respectively, I struggle to think of builds that can match the Antipaladin.

[pabelfly]

Okay, fixed up the class entries. Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I'll do the next tiering thread tomorrow.

[Bucky]

The counterplay to Aura of Cowardice fear stacking is to be more than ten feet away from the antipalladin, while having an immunity. Conveniently, being frightened or panicked does not prevent running away, and the immunity reasserts itself after moving.

[Kurald Galain]

Weapon training is, as you said, better than favoured enemy because it's always on, and because it unlocks advanced weapon training, but when you can actually use favoured enemy, it is stronger.
That's not right. The ranger has multiple fave enemies and you're looking only at the strongest one. All of the others are, in fact, weaker than weapon training.


Concerning the Ranger, you don't buy wands of Instant Enemy.

You buy Lesser Metamagic Rods of Echoing Spell.
That doesn't work, because now you have to spend a move action drawing your rod, then a swift action for the spell, and then an action to put the rod away.


Negating immunity to fear is pretty huge.
The problem is that the anti-pal doesn't negate immunity to mind affecting (such as any and all constructs, undead, and plants). So this ability is not nearly as good as it looks, and (e.g.) rogues and bards make better fear-focused debuffers.

[Arkain]

That's not right. The ranger has multiple fave enemies and you're looking only at the strongest one. All of the others are, in fact, weaker than weapon training.


That doesn't work, because now you have to spend a move action drawing your rod, then a swift action for the spell, and then an action to put the rod away.




I tend to think that there are at least two big issues with favored enemies. One is that usually all are somewhat mediocre or one is very strong, while the others don't matter. Could be resolved my making all equally strong. "Oh no, I can't use Instant Enemy on this lich, as I have undead at +2 already! How I wish it were a goblin instead!" how irritating can game design be, honestly? The other is that they are unchangeable. If you could change your favored enemies after resting or at least whenever you gain new ones during level up you wouldn't be so dissuaded from for example picking goblinoids for the low levels because your GM told you that there'll be goblins... at least for a while, until they stop showing. Similar if less severe issues arise with favored terrain, as once again you kind of need your GM to babysit your character so you get to actually use your class features. Or you'll have to use retraining extensively, which requires time and wealth, which might mess with the campaign.
May just be me, but when dominant class features hold up glowing neon signs with "Please houserule me!" then something may be off. And tiering doesn't involve houseruling until it actually works.

To be fair, while that specifically may not work, there are probably ways. Weaponwand as an easy soultion likely isn't an option by RAW unfortunately, but you could be a tiefling with a prehensile tail for instance or gain some other means to hold extra items. That's a lot of hoops to jump through however and may just underline the point more.

[Kaouse]

That's not right. The ranger has multiple fave enemies and you're looking only at the strongest one. All of the others are, in fact, weaker than weapon training.


That doesn't work, because now you have to spend a move action drawing your rod, then a swift action for the spell, and then an action to put the rod away.


The problem is that the anti-pal doesn't negate immunity to mind affecting (such as any and all constructs, undead, and plants). So this ability is not nearly as good as it looks, and (e.g.) rogues and bards make better fear-focused debuffers.

Weapon Training at base is a +4 to attack and damage with a single weapon. Favored Enemy is a +10 to attack and damage vs one favored enemy, +8 vs another, +6 vs another, +4 vs another, and +2 vs a last. Favored Enemy is the stronger buff on average, even when you account for a +6 Weapon Training with Gloves of Dueling (+7 if Weapon Master).

As for the rods, it depends on what you weapon you use, mostly. If you use unarmed strikes, then you can wield the rod and fight simultaneously without issue. Regardless of weapon though, you can always drop held items as a free action, so get some weapon cords attached to the rod and enter the battle holding it. Use the rod as part of the spell as a swift action, drop the rod as a free action, do whatever else you want with the rest of your turn (move + standard or full round action remaining). If you really want to push this further, just get a race with a Prehensile Tail racial trait to hold the rod for you, keeping your hands free. For what it's worth, Vanara Rangers happen to have one of the best Ranger Favored Class Bonuses amongst all races, on top of having a Prehensile Tail.

Concerning the Antipaladin, I suppose you have a point when it comes to immunity to mind-affecting, which I always neglect cuz it means no morale bonuses. But it also means that in a PvE scenario, fear based debuffs aren't always the best. That said, Antipaladin Cruelties offer a wide range of debuffs, not just ones based on Fear. Furthermore, just being around them reduces enemy saves, meaning that their mere presence is a debuff. They're especially good at spreading disease, since they can contract diseases at will and spread them without having to deal with the downsides. The fact that they can easily use other debuffs only proves my point that they're better than stuff like Rogue that can really on focus on fear and/or sicken with the proper archetypes.

Something else that the Antipaladin can do that I only just now realized? They can take the feat, "Dreamed Secrets" and gain access to arcane spells. Specifically, this gives them access to things like the very on-brand Blood Money spell, which is especially great when you realize that they already have Animate Dead on their spell list. In other words, Antipaladin can do minionmancy way better than anyone else on this list. The rest of their spell list, while not as expansive as the base Paladin, still has a few notable standouts, like Greater Invisibility + Dimension Blade, or Vampiric Touch or Silence. That said, Blood Money + Animate Dead is probably well worth a ticket to Tier 3 land on it's own, IMHO.

[exelsisxax]

Might be too late, but i'll throw mine in.

Paladin: T4
Ranger: T4.5

So, the mechanical specificities have been discussed to death about the many ways that paladin is quite meaningfully better than ranger so it gets a better number. But this is one of the threads which I think best shows how the old definitions and benchmarks for tiers, often grandfathered in from 3.5, are basically causing tier inflation.

Almost everything in PF is just so much better at things than 3.5. The distinctions between categories that were once clear and unambiguous (wizard is dramatically better than sorcerer, because it is a sorcerer with a familiar and can change spells daily) have been scrambled, eroded, and smoothed out in many cases. If we go by the given definitions, skald and magus would be lowest T2 - they can, after all, cast from entire lists and the only reason they aren't getting shoved up in there is that the meaning of T2 has shifted around the likewise much stronger sorcerer, without an associated refinement in the definition of T2.

So i'm putting them down as high tier not because they're bad, but because the use-case of tiers has shifted such that T4 is now a totally functional class, and T5 is just not good rather than craptastic. If we don't recognize how the scale has changed, we'll end up with everything sliding up into T4 minimum because nothing quite sucks like 3.5's emblems of T5.

[Rynjin]

That's not right. The ranger has multiple fave enemies and you're looking only at the strongest one. All of the others are, in fact, weaker than weapon training.

Only the two weakest ones will be weaker than Weapon Training, and only at high levels. Your second best Favored Enemy is +4 at level 20, and the weakest +2, while Weapon Training hits +5 at level 17.

Your strongest will be a whopping +10 at that point, and then +8 and +6, all stronger than Weapon Training.

And of course Weapon Training only has that advantage at 17-20 and scattered levels in-between. Ranger gets their second Favored Enemy at 5, giving them a +4 and a +2 boost when Fighter has +1. At 9, Weapon Training catches up to +2, but then at 10 FE goes up to 6/4/2 leaving it equal again at worst, and at level 13 Weapon Training boosts to +3, beating out exactly the weakest Favored Enemy, which it still beats after FE goes up to 8/6/4/2.

[pabelfly]

Might be too late, but i'll throw mine in.

Paladin: T4
Ranger: T4.5

Not too late at all, I'm happy to add votes for any threads you want to vote in, including previous threads I've done.


So, the mechanical specificities have been discussed to death about the many ways that paladin is quite meaningfully better than ranger so it gets a better number. But this is one of the threads which I think best shows how the old definitions and benchmarks for tiers, often grandfathered in from 3.5, are basically causing tier inflation.

Almost everything in PF is just so much better at things than 3.5. The distinctions between categories that were once clear and unambiguous (wizard is dramatically better than sorcerer, because it is a sorcerer with a familiar and can change spells daily) have been scrambled, eroded, and smoothed out in many cases. If we go by the given definitions, skald and magus would be lowest T2 - they can, after all, cast from entire lists and the only reason they aren't getting shoved up in there is that the meaning of T2 has shifted around the likewise much stronger sorcerer, without an associated refinement in the definition of T2.

So i'm putting them down as high tier not because they're bad, but because the use-case of tiers has shifted such that T4 is now a totally functional class, and T5 is just not good rather than craptastic. If we don't recognize how the scale has changed, we'll end up with everything sliding up into T4 minimum because nothing quite sucks like 3.5's emblems of T5.

I don't know if I'd say there's tier inflation for Pathfinder. We're using the same definitions from 3.5's tiering to vote on Pathfinder stuff. If Pathfinder has classes that are more capable and/or adaptable than their 3.5 counterparts, then it makes sense they'd tier higher. From what I've seen here, a Pathfinder Paladin is far more capable than it's 3.5 counterpart, given a similar level of optimization. They don't just have more HP or feats or skill points, their inherent capabilities are far more than what 3.5's Paladin has to offer.

And don't worry, there are still T5 classes in Pathfinder. Chained Monk got into T5 under the new set of threads so far, and I'm sure we'll come across more craptastic classes as we work through the various expansion books too.

Also, new tiering thread is up. https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?651150-Tiering-the-Pathfinder-Classes-Bard-and-Skald

Still, feel free to continue to discuss/vote on Ranger and Paladin here.

[Drelua]

Weapon Training at base is a +4 to attack and damage with a single weapon. Favored Enemy is a +10 to attack and damage vs one favored enemy, +8 vs another, +6 vs another, +4 vs another, and +2 vs a last. Favored Enemy is the stronger buff on average, even when you account for a +6 Weapon Training with Gloves of Dueling (+7 if Weapon Master).

Not how it works unfortunately, if a Ranger has one favored enemy at +10 the rest are all at +2. They can increase one by 2 every 5 levels, they don't all go up. They do have a point, it's funny how instant enemy makes it so Rangers are least effective against their favored enemies that are at +2, and have the potential to be at their most effective against anything that isn't a favored enemy at all, a limited number of times per day.

I do think the rods are a good idea though, especially for two-handed rangers, including archers, they can just carry the rod around all the time and drop it at the start of the fight, though this would be a problem if you wanted to use it in the middle of a fight. Even TWFers could easily draw their other weapon as part of a move though, they're often going to be unable to full attack as their first action anyway. Quick Draw might even be worth it as a feat tax to use the rod.

[Nihilarian]

"Favored Enemy: ...

At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional favored enemy. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by +2."

All favored enemies start at +2 and you get a total of 4 boosts you can apply to existing Favored Enemy selections.

So no, it doesn't go
+10, +8, +6, +4, +2

It goes
+10, +2, +2, +2, +2
Or
+4, +4, +4, +4, +2

Weapon Training is half the +10 but you get it whenever you want it, and it's better entirely than the +4s if you go that route.

EDIT: I'd prefer Weapon Training even if FE was +10, +8, +6, +4, +2 just because I decide when I'm using an axe and when I'm using a spear. FE needs to be like +10 across the board to make up for how narrow it is.

[Rynjin]

"Favored Enemy: ...

At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional favored enemy. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by +2."

All favored enemies start at +2 and you get a total of 4 boosts you can apply to existing Favored Enemy selections.

So no, it doesn't go
+10, +8, +6, +4, +2

It goes
+10, +2, +2, +2, +2
Or
+4, +4, +4, +4, +2

Weapon Training is half the +10 but you get it whenever you want it, and it's better entirely than the +4s if you go that route.

*rubs eyes*

I refuse to accept this reality as fact, my life has been a lie.

Man it's been a while since I played a Ranger.

[AnonymousPepper]

I... That's news to me too, and I don't like it.

Ranger wouldn't be that great of a class even if it read "At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional type of enemy to whom their favored enemy bonus applies. In addition, at each such interval, the favored enemy bonus increases by +2." That it doesn't even just increase the bonuses by +2 for each one, staggered, is just mean.

I'm feeling more secure in my rating of Ranger, not gonna lie. It really cements that Ranger is a bad class being held together by Instant Enemy-brand duct tape.

[Maat Mons]

Oh man, I never got around to posting my rating for Ranger. I’m going with 3.8. I feel it has more versatility than some other Tier 4 classes due to spells and skills. But its still very much Tier 4, and not at the top of it, in my opinion.

Ranger: Tier 3.8

On the topic of Favored Enemy bonus scaling, some of you guys clearly learned to play in 3.0, because that’s how long it’s been since all pervious FEs got a bonus… though back then it wound up at +5, +4, +3, +2, +1.

[Kaouse]

"Favored Enemy: ...

At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional favored enemy. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by +2."

All favored enemies start at +2 and you get a total of 4 boosts you can apply to existing Favored Enemy selections.

So no, it doesn't go
+10, +8, +6, +4, +2

It goes
+10, +2, +2, +2, +2
Or
+4, +4, +4, +4, +2

Weapon Training is half the +10 but you get it whenever you want it, and it's better entirely than the +4s if you go that route.

EDIT: I'd prefer Weapon Training even if FE was +10, +8, +6, +4, +2 just because I decide when I'm using an axe and when I'm using a spear. FE needs to be like +10 across the board to make up for how narrow it is.

Oh right, I was thinking of the pre-errata Rogue talent, Terrain Mastery.

Oh well, I generally always go for Woodland Skirmisher so that I only ever have a single Favored Enemy anyway. IIRC, Instant Enemy won't do much for you if you're fighting an enemy that's already one of your lesser Favored Enemies. As a result, it's arguably a buff to only have a singular Focused Enemy. The Focused Terrain helps out immensely as well, especially once you get long lasting Terrain Bond.

Weapon Training is more reliable, I agree, but if your opponent likes to disarm or sunder, you're REALLY in a bad spot. Even if you had a backup weapon that was the exact same type, chances are it isn't going to be as enhanced as the last one. Even Warrior Spirit, the hands down best Advanced Weapon Training ability, won't save you unfortunately. Since you have to chose a single weapon (NOT weapon type, actual weapon) to use it with at the start of the day. I hate that kind of extreme over-reliance on singular items. As a Ranger I like that I can pick up a stick and start swinging after a quick swift action spell, IMHO.

Also, I like that Rangers are practically better Rogues than Rogues are. They get Camoflouge and Hide in Plain Sight naturally, and with Terrain Bond up it basically works anywhere and everywhere. They also get an insane initiative bonus, and a significant Perception Bonus (practically doubled with Woodland Skirmisher), so they can go first pretty easily. If they wanted to, they could even get some sneak attack damage dice with Sense Vitals. And on top of all of this, they have a free animal companion they can flank with.

I think that the Ranger has so much more going on than what most people see when they take a look at the clunky Favored Enemy and Favored Terrain class features.

[Kitsuneymg]

Only the two weakest ones will be weaker than Weapon Training, and only at high levels. Your second best Favored Enemy is +4 at level 20, and the weakest +2, while Weapon Training hits +5 at level 17.

Your strongest will be a whopping +10 at that point, and then +8 and +6, all stronger than Weapon Training.

And of course Weapon Training only has that advantage at 17-20 and scattered levels in-between. Ranger gets their second Favored Enemy at 5, giving them a +4 and a +2 boost when Fighter has +1. At 9, Weapon Training catches up to +2, but then at 10 FE goes up to 6/4/2 leaving it equal again at worst, and at level 13 Weapon Training boosts to +3, beating out exactly the weakest Favored Enemy, which it still beats after FE goes up to 8/6/4/2.

Incorrect.

[quote]At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional favored enemy. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by +2.

Only one FE increases every 5 levels. If you have a +10, the other 4 are all. +2.

Edit: IMO, paladin is 3.5. Sacred servant archetype is 3.
Ranger is 4.2. It’s worse than barbarian and fighter, and those are pretty much the definition of 4 to me.

[Arkain]

Ranger - This is the class that nobody wants to play.

Proven by the thread's confusion about favored enemy progression? :smallbiggrin:

[pabelfly]

Oh man, I never got around to posting my rating for Ranger. I’m going with 3.8. I feel it has more versatility than some other Tier 4 classes due to spells and skills. But its still very much Tier 4, and not at the top of it, in my opinion.

Ranger: Tier 3.8

Okay, added you.

[Wildstag]

At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional favored enemy. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by +2.

Only one FE increases every 5 levels. If you have a +10, the other 4 are all. +2.

Hence why I said that a few pages back that the Fortune Finder is a big upgrade to the Ranger, since it gives Studied Target at half the highest Favored Enemy bonus. You can keep one at +10, but get +5 against literally anything else, and by the level you have a +10 bonus, it only takes an immediate or swift action to study. Full equivalence to weapon training, and along with all the other upsides to being a Ranger.

[Firechanter]

Hence why I said that a few pages back that the Fortune Finder is a big upgrade to the Ranger, since it gives Studied Target at half the highest Favored Enemy bonus. You can keep one at +10, but get +5 against literally anything else, and by the level you have a +10 bonus, it only takes an immediate or swift action to study. Full equivalence to weapon training, and along with all the other upsides to being a Ranger.

Huh, I completely missed that. That AT never made a blip on my radar bc the table on OGN doesn't mark the FE as modified.
The Swift Study comes in a bit late; otherwise it's the best of both worlds between FE and Studied Target.

Unfo I can't advise my player to retroactively slap it on her Ranger in our current game bc she has a Familiar. ^^ ftr, we houseruled to swap out the entire FE for Studied Target w the Slayer's progression.

On another note, I have the impression that people tend to underestimate the significance of sth like +4 to Attack and Dmg. It's not just a bit of extra damage, it probably more like doubles the effective output. Bonuses don't have to be +10 to be relevant is all I'm saying.

[Kurald Galain]

Almost everything in PF is just so much better at things than 3.5. The distinctions between categories that were once clear and unambiguous (wizard is dramatically better than sorcerer, because it is a sorcerer with a familiar and can change spells daily) have been scrambled, eroded, and smoothed out in many cases. If we go by the given definitions, skald and magus would be lowest T2 - they can, after all, cast from entire lists and the only reason they aren't getting shoved up in there is that the meaning of T2 has shifted around the likewise much stronger sorcerer, without an associated refinement in the definition of T2.
That's a fair point. As it stands, we should consider certain of the six-level casters for T2, because we have a fair amount of non-casters or four-level casters pushing into T3 now (or at least, getting numerous T3 votes); and in general the six-level casters are noticeably more effective and more versatile than either martials or four-level casters.

[Rynjin]

What non-casters have been put forward for T3? IMO having at least SOME casting (or an equivalent, like a massive number of SLAs or versatile Su abilities) is kind of a hard prereq for T3 and above.

[pabelfly]

What non-casters have been put forward for T3? IMO having at least SOME casting (or an equivalent, like a massive number of SLAs or versatile Su abilities) is kind of a hard prereq for T3 and above.

Kurald might mean that Paladins creep into the lower end of T3 with only fourth-level casting. But we've tiered two other 4th-level casters - Bloodrager and Ranger - but they only ended up in T4. Paladins are in the bottom of T3 because they're a lot more comprehensive and well-rounded than the other two classes.

[Kurald Galain]

I meant "martial or four-level caster", because six-level casters are also generally more effective/versatile than four-level casters. Frankly, the vast majority of games are at (approx) levels 3 through 10, and at those levels a four-level caster isn't noticeably a spellcaster yet.

[pabelfly]

I meant "martial or four-level caster", because six-level casters are also generally more effective/versatile than four-level casters. Frankly, the vast majority of games are at (approx) levels 3 through 10, and at those levels a four-level caster isn't noticeably a spellcaster yet.

But look what a Paladin is like in this level range without any spells:
- Good Fort and Will saves, plus Divine Grace for some amazing saves
- Able to heal themselves and the party
- The ability to help remove debuffs and status on an ally
- Heavy armor proficiency
- Smite evil for bonus damage against evil enemies
- Detect Evil

That's some pretty good utility they have available, even without spells. Being a low-end T3 seems reasonable to me with these benefits.

[Rynjin]

I meant "martial or four-level caster", because six-level casters are also generally more effective/versatile than four-level casters. Frankly, the vast majority of games are at (approx) levels 3 through 10, and at those levels a four-level caster isn't noticeably a spellcaster yet.

I think in short Paladins trip my "numerous and/or versatile SU abilities" clause pretty nicely even without the casting. Mercies outright mimic a lot of Cleric spells for instance, up to and including Regenerate.

[Kurald Galain]

That's some pretty good utility they have available, even without spells. Being a low-end T3 seems reasonable to me with these benefits.
I agree, and that's also why some other classes should be considered high-end T3. Or, as Excelsixax noted, possibly low-end T2.

[Kurald Galain]

Also, I like that Rangers are practically better Rogues than Rogues are. They get Camoflouge and Hide in Plain Sight naturally, and with Terrain Bond up it basically works anywhere and everywhere.
So what you're saying is that using level-13 and level-17 abilities, a ranger can go unseen basically anywhere. That is well above where most campaigns end. More to the point, this is something the Greater Invis spell does at level seven, the Hellcat Stealth feat does at level six, and a rogue with the ninja alternate class does at level two. So that's really not a strong case for the ranger.

It looks like in reality, the Rogue is a better ranger than the ranger is :smalltongue: The rogue certainly has better skills, plus skill-boosting rogue talents, and sneak attack gives a much better bonus in general than fave enemy does.

[Kaouse]

So what you're saying is that using level-13 and level-17 abilities, a ranger can go unseen basically anywhere. That is well above where most campaigns end. More to the point, this is something the Greater Invis spell does at level seven, the Hellcat Stealth feat does at level six, and a rogue with the ninja alternate class does at level two. So that's really not a strong case for the ranger.

It looks like in reality, the Rogue is a better ranger than the ranger is :smalltongue: The rogue certainly has better skills, plus skill-boosting rogue talents, and sneak attack gives a much better bonus in general than fave enemy does.

The problem with comparing Greater Invisibility to Hide in Plain Sight, is that A.) Greater Invisibility has a short duration, and B.) Greater Invisibility is hard countered by see invisibility and true seeing, which many creatures get for free at higher levels.

If you really want a spell that makes Hide in Plain Sight look like poo, look no further than Impenetrable Veil, which is generally available around level 16-17. But we're not talking about high level magic, here.

Comparing the Rogue and the Ranger is laughable. The Rogue isn't a good skill monkey. It gets a wide breadth of skills, but doesn't get huge bonuses in anything outside of trapfinding.

Compare this to the Ranger, who gets almost as much skills, but can also get a huge bonus to numerous skills while inside his Favored Terrain (which is almost anywhere once the hour/2 level duration spell, Terrain Bond, comes into play).

This doesn't even include skill boosting spells like Acute Senses that the Ranger has access to. Speaking of spells, Ranger can even cast a spell to grant them Sneak Attack (Sense Vitals), only...they make far better use of it since they can Stealth anywhere as a class feature, and have a flank buddy as a class feature.

This is why I consider the Ranger to be far superior to the Rogue. Or the Fighter, for that matter, since Rangers also get Combat Feats, but without needing to care about prerequisites. The Ranger might be a smattering of class features of varying consistency, but their spells really tie them together in the late game, IMHO. Between Instant Enemy and Terrain Bond, they become WAY more consistent to play. And with those spells and others, they completely outdo both the Rogue and the Fighter in their own niches, IMHO.

[Kurald Galain]

The Rogue isn't a good skill monkey. It gets a wide breadth of skills, but doesn't get huge bonuses in anything outside of trapfinding.
You appear to be thinking of the 3E rogue. Check out the various skill-boosting talents and archetypes the PF rogue gets.


Compare this to the Ranger, who gets almost as much skills, but can also get a huge bonus to numerous skills
Here's the problem: your argument relies almost entirely on a 4th-level spell. That means that below level thirteen, the ranger gets the occasional +2 to +4 bonus (I'm not sure why you'd call that "huge") to only two relevant skills (survival and geography are rarely relevant, and it feels dishonest to call two skills "numerous"), and in the right terrain ONLY.

The rogue can easily surpass that with the various skill-boosting talents and archetypes, starting from low level. Since most campaigns don't reach level 13, the ranger is at a big disadvantage here.

[Kaouse]

You appear to be thinking of the 3E rogue. Check out the various skill-boosting talents and archetypes the PF rogue gets.


Here's the problem: your argument relies almost entirely on a 4th-level spell. That means that below level thirteen, the ranger gets the occasional +2 to +4 bonus (I'm not sure why you'd call that "huge") to only two relevant skills (survival and geography are rarely relevant, and it feels dishonest to call two skills "numerous"), and in the right terrain ONLY.

The rogue can easily surpass that with the various skill-boosting talents and archetypes, starting from low level. Since most campaigns don't reach level 13, the ranger is at a big disadvantage here.

Eh, most Rogue talents are downright terrible, last I checked. The only decent skill monkey archetype I can think of is the Phantom Thief, which completely gets rid of sneak attack (and even debilitating injury if you happened to be unchained).

Alternatively, you could mean Eldritch Scoundrel, which gets rid of half of your sneak attack and half of your rogue talents in order to give you Magus spellcasting from the Sorcerer/Wizard list.

Given the huge skill boosting spells on the Sorcerer/Wizard list, I'd be inclined to agree with you on that front. But if you don't mean Eldritch Scoundrel, I'd have to question what the Rogue has to counter even low level Ranger spells like Acute Senses or Heightened Awareness or even just rolling twice cuz you have an animal companion to also roll skill checks.

Feel free to give me an example of some skill monkey Rogue techs/builds in case I missed anything, though.

[vasilidor]

I am going to say 3.5 for paladin. Some archetypes will take it to tier 3, other drop it to tier 4.
Rangers? 4.25. the only way they are better than fighters is utility spells and more skill points. Otherwise they are worse than fighters. And in a party with other castors, chances of the utility spells they do get being used are pretty low.

[pabelfly]

Vote Update

Paladin
KuraldGalain, AnonymousPepper, Kaouse – 3.0
Firechanter 3.1
Drelua, Nihilarian – 3.2
Rynjin – 3.4
Vasilidor – 3.5
Maat Mons – 3.6
TotallyNotEvil – 3.75
Thunder999 – 3.8
Endless Rain, Exelsisxax – 4

Average – 3.37



Ranger
Firechanter, Kaouse – 3.5
Thunder999 – 3.55
Rynjin – 3.6
AnonymousPepper – 3.7
Drelua, Nihilarian, Maat Mons – 3.8
Beni-Kujaku – 3.9
AvatarVecna, Gnaeus, Endless Rain – 4
Vasilidor – 4.25
Exelsisxax – 4.5
KuraldGalain – 5

Average – 3.96

[zlefin]

What non-casters have been put forward for T3? IMO having at least SOME casting (or an equivalent, like a massive number of SLAs or versatile Su abilities) is kind of a hard prereq for T3 and above.

While I'm not sure any have, I'd say it's not a hard prereq, it's a soft prereq. The tiering is descriptive about the relative balance of party members; and it's about consistent patterns in the balance mistakes various designers made.
As a result of those consistent mistakes, non-casters didn't make it to tier 3; though it's possible to do so in principle. It'd be quite trivial to homebrew a class that has no slas or su, but is clearly at least tier 3. Since tiering is across a range of optimization levels; classes with a high floor can reach tier 3 much more readily. It'd just be obvious that such a class is overpowered compared to comparable non-casting classes, so the designers wouldn't do that.

[Bucky]

The specific design decision that makes it difficult to reach tier 3 without magic is that relevant spells are generally far more impactful to resolving a situation than relevant feats or boosted skill checks.

[Thunder999]

Kurald Galain, Gnaeus, and Drelua all voted to put rogue in Tier 3, and that class has no spells, though the actual result was Tier 4.

Adaptive Shifter might hit tier 3, though that's not really for this thread.

[Kaouse]

Kurald Galain, Gnaeus, and Drelua all voted to put rogue in Tier 3, and that class has no spells, though the actual result was Tier 4.

Adaptive Shifter might hit tier 3, though that's not really for this thread.

Yeah, I don't know how exactly the Rogue is placed as high as it is. It should be the poster child for Tier 5, IMHO. Literally the worst class in the game. Chained Monk is better than Chained Rogue.

Putting Rogue over Ranger is especially egregious, when Ranger has:

--> Better BAB
--> Better Hit Dice
--> Better Saves
--> Free Combat Feats that ignore prereqs
--> S P E L L C A S T I N G

Rogue gets sneak attack (which Ranger can partially copy with a spell), but Ranger also gets

--> Actual Stealth-based Class Features
--> Free Animal Companion/Flank Buddy

Barring Trapfinding, Ranger can objectively do everything the Rogue does but better.

[vasilidor]

With how trapfinding now works in game, everyone can do it.
Rogues now just get a +1/2 level to do it.

[Rynjin]

With how trapfinding now works in game, everyone can do it.
Rogues now just get a +1/2 level to do it.

For the finding part, yes, though Trapfinding is still needed to DISABLE the traps. But that's not really a huge deal because past like level 4 traps are a joke.

[Drelua]

Yeah, I don't know how exactly the Rogue is placed as high as it is. It should be the poster child for Tier 5, IMHO. Literally the worst class in the game. Chained Monk is better than Chained Rogue.


To be clear, Unchained Rogue is above Ranger, Chained Rogue is not. I voted barely T3 for Unchained, flat 4 for chained, and I was on the higher end there.

It may be about the worst PC class in the game, but that doesn't really mean as much as it sounds like it does far as tiering. I think they're reasonably effective in a good variety situations, which is one of the definitions of T4. They're not as effective as a Fighter or Barbarian in combat, but their skills make them somewhat effective in many other situations. They can be faces, investigators, able to handle traps, and useful exploring. They're not the best at anything, but they're almost always able to contribute.

There may be no PC classes that fall within T5, and that's fine. Well, except maybe anti-pally, but they barely count as a PC class since they're barely allowed to be part of a team.

[Kurald Galain]

Putting Rogue over Ranger is especially egregious, when Ranger has:
Ranger looks all fine and dandy on paper or in laboratory conditions. But once you consider actual gameplay, where almost all of the time you are below level 13 and you have party members to flank with and you don't fight one-and-only-one creature type; and at this point it becomes clear just how dysfunctional the ranger is. Favored enemy doesn't work in practice, favored terrain doesn't do much in practice (at least, at levels 1-12), animal companion is by default underleveled, bonus feats are generally worse than talents/arcana/exploits unique to the class, its spellcasting is utility-focused but comes so late that it's completely unnecessary if you have any 6/9 or 9/9 spellcaster in the party...

Overall, ranger is quite the disaster of a class.

At least the rogue has better damage (due to sneak attack), better saves in practice (due to evasion and emboldening strike), actual Stealth-based class talents/archetypes, it's almost completely SAD whereas ranger is one of the MADdest in the game, free rogue talents (to be fair, a lot of them suck, but the good ones are really good). In actual gameplay, rogue is hands down much more effective than ranger. It should be no surprise, then, that rogue is one of the most popular classes in the game, and ranger is pretty near the bottom of how many people play it.

That is why. Practice trumps theory.

[Rynjin]

Rogue is popular because of the aesthetic, among people who have zero idea about optimization lmao. It's wild that you keep bringing that up as an actual argument. To new players Rogue, Fighter, Wizard, and MAYBE Cleric may as well be the only classes that exist most of the time becaus ethat si teh 4-character archetype that still persists in other media and MMOs and whatnot.

Under absolute worst conditions, no FE, no FT, the Ranger is sick that day...it's still a full BaB class with a pet, two strong saves, good AC, and more usable Feats than Rogue.

Emboldening Strike in no way makes up for the overall lower saves a Rogue has, and I think it's absolutely bizarre you keep harping on that as well.

We're looking at "before level 13", let's say 10, a +2 to all saves. It ain't that hot.

For reference, a Ranger will be looking at a base Fort/Ref/Will of 7/7/3 while a Rogue with Emboldening Strike still only gets bumped up to 5/8/5 and only after the first turn in combat under ideal circumstances, and only if that is the ONLY "Strike" Talent they use; it's completely incompatible with the Crippling Strike you were harping on as one of the big reasons to play Rogue in the Rogue thread.

Evasion is a complete wash, because Ranger ALSO gets Evasion by that point. They miss out on Improved Evasion, which is a neat bonus but not a real gamechanger in most respects.

I genuinely don't get where you're coming from with "Ranger is one of the most MAD classes in the game" either. They are no more MAD than any other martial character, and get to be quite a bit less because they can ignore stat prereqs on a lot of the big offender Feats like TWFing. You really only need to get a 15 in Dex by level 5 so you can get Double Slice without needing to0 take it as one of your COmbat Styles.

Under "actual play conditions" that just requires you to have like a 20 PB and a stat spread of 16 14 14 10 12 8 or something, which is a stat spread pretty much any martial character would love to have. You have to use your level 4 innate for the 15 but who cares? Reverse the 16 and 14 in Str/Dex and you have a similarly great archer spread.

You literally have to stack every single thing in the Rogue's favor for them to come out even, much less on top off the comparison. It's wild.

I think it's very telling that (anecdotally, but I've been in a LOT of games; an anecdotal sample of well over 100 is still a solid sample) I have never seen a Rogue perform exceptionally well in practice. Because a lot of the time their **** saves and lackluster AC gets them killed before they even hit level 5, and most people seem to realize that making a Rogue specifically for a game that starts at high levels is a fool's errand.

[vasilidor]

I have never really seen rogues have absolutely lousy AC as suggested. Generally they start with leather, yes, but they are going to have a AC of 15-17 after Dex and at level 1, that ain't bad. at level 3 or 4 they almost always have a mithral chain shirt and by level 8 there is a +2 on that most of the time and their dex modifier has gone up by one before other magic items are considered. I also always see them flanking. pre level 13 or so the CMD has not taken off so much that you cannot get your acrobatics up enough with just skill points, dex and maybe a feat.
As far as AC goes, Rangers are not going to be much higher, if at all. Ranger gets medium armor, but most often are reliant on Dex. HP wise the Ranger will have an average of +1 per level, a D8 vs. D10.
Instead of going two weapon fighting with the rogue, go exotic weapon prof. Elven Curved Blade and take Weapon Finesse. Be super Flanking buddies with someone with Outflank. Now you hit more often for more damage. Most of the time you will out damage the ranger. Exception being whenever the Ranger gets bonuses from Favored Enemy.

The only time the Ranger would outperform the Rogue in damage is when his favored enemy is the target. And then the favored enemy would need to be fairly high up.
Sneak Attack amounts to 1.75 extra damage per level per hit every time you can get into a flanking position. at level 20 that is +35 damage. Rangers, If they keep one enemy maxed, gain a +0.5 to hit and damage at every level when you average it out for a +10 to hit and damage at level 20. Taking into account that the Ranger gets one more attack then the Rogue, and has a higher base attack, It just about equals out when favored enemy is in play.

It is important to note that Rogues are not really meant to be front line combatants. never were. If you play them as otherwise, you are going to be disappointed. Rangers are sometimes frontline combatants.

[Thunder999]

Rogues are frontline, they might not be the most durable, but they belong in melee range full attacking, so front line is where they have to be.

[Kaouse]

Rogues aren't frontline classes, oh no - it's MUCH worse than that. Rogues are meant to be BEHIND the enemy front lines.

Fighters and such maintain a front line to prevent enemies from freely attacking the squishy backline casters. Backline casters are in the back because they can deal damage but can't take damage.

Rogues however are special. They are meant to venture out ahead of the party (scouting and clearing traps along the way) then attack from BEHIND the enemy, which initiates flanking (and therefore sneak attack) with the frontline.

However, not a single 1pp Rogue can live up to this ideal. The Rogue gets no free bonuses to help them act first, no free bonuses to help get them in position, no free bonuses to keep them alive behind enemy lines (where other enemies may likely exist) and no free bonuses to escape enemy lines when the going gets tough.

So in essence, every Rogue plays with a neutered playstyle. Sure you get sneak attack if you initiate combat, but going ahead alone just gets you killed, and you don't even have any bonuses to initiate combat first. Sure, you could position behind an enemy to flank with the frontline, but if there are multiple enemies then you've just made yourself a qtarget and have only light armor and d8 hit dice to survive.

You do eventually get Improved Uncanny Dodge to help with getting flanked, but that just proves that the game expects you to be in that situation. The class is full of contradictory design and is thus the poster child for Tier 5.

[vasilidor]

A rogue hides until the fighter or fighters have engaged the enemy and then proceed into flanking position. Stabby stabby, the combat ends quickly. Stay out of sight until combat starts.

[Drelua]

Rogues aren't frontline classes, oh no - it's MUCH worse than that. Rogues are meant to be BEHIND the enemy front lines.

Fighters and such maintain a front line to prevent enemies from freely attacking the squishy backline casters. Backline casters are in the back because they can deal damage but can't take damage.

Rogues however are special. They are meant to venture out ahead of the party (scouting and clearing traps along the way) then attack from BEHIND the enemy, which initiates flanking (and therefore sneak attack) with the frontline.

However, not a single 1pp Rogue can live up to this ideal. The Rogue gets no free bonuses to help them act first, no free bonuses to help get them in position, no free bonuses to keep them alive behind enemy lines (where other enemies may likely exist) and no free bonuses to escape enemy lines when the going gets tough.

So in essence, every Rogue plays with a neutered playstyle. Sure you get sneak attack if you initiate combat, but going ahead alone just gets you killed, and you don't even have any bonuses to initiate combat first. Sure, you could position behind an enemy to flank with the frontline, but if there are multiple enemies then you've just made yourself a qtarget and have only light armor and d8 hit dice to survive.

You do eventually get Improved Uncanny Dodge to help with getting flanked, but that just proves that the game expects you to be in that situation. The class is full of contradictory design and is thus the poster child for Tier 5.

Flanking isn't that dangerous in my experience, we're not talking about mass combat where the Rogue has to get behind a shield wall. A group of about 5 doesn't really have a front line, and the groups you're fighting probably don't either. I've very rarely if ever seen a fight where flanking means getting swarmed, and if getting behind them is a problem all you need is for the Fighter to move beside them, you move to their other side, and you're no more exposed than the Fighter, and the Fighter's one 5 foot step away from backing you up against whatever attacks you, unless they're large or bigger.

You seem to be assuming that your flanking partner isn't doing anything to help you flank, which is a group problem not a class problem. If the Fighter's ignoring you completely, and not willing to move slightly differently or 5 foot step to help you flank, they're not a very good team member.

[Rynjin]

Flanking isn't that dangerous in my experience, we're not talking about mass combat where the Rogue has to get behind a shield wall. A group of about 5 doesn't really have a front line, and the groups you're fighting probably don't either. I've very rarely if ever seen a fight where flanking means getting swarmed, and if getting behind them is a problem all you need is for the Fighter to move beside them, you move to their other side, and you're no more exposed than the Fighter, and the Fighter's one 5 foot step away from backing you up against whatever attacks you, unless they're large or bigger.

You seem to be assuming that your flanking partner isn't doing anything to help you flank, which is a group problem not a class problem. If the Fighter's ignoring you completely, and not willing to move slightly differently or 5 foot step to help you flank, they're not a very good team member.

The issue is when the Rogue is expecting a party member to eat AoOs to provide flanking for them, which is all but inevitable sometimes. Doing the 5 ft. shuffle usually takes at least 1 round of setup, which is 1 round of the combat where the Rogue is basically dead weight.

[Bucky]

I never actually voted on this, did I?

Ranger has a decent spread of abilities, possibly enough for tier 3... if so much of it weren't specialized in ways that keep it from being applicable to an average situation. Cross-country scouting and Hide in Plain Sight are very nice utility to set up favorable encounters, but they only cover the Ranger and not the rest of the party. Favored Enemy and Terrain are narrow. Even with an animal companion pitching in, the Ranger's combat power lags behind the Fighter standard without favored enemy. I put Ranger at a slightly below average Tier 4 on this scale - call it Tier 4.1.

Paladin is particularly good at bashing evil things, and particularly tanky as a chasis for delivering an ordinary beatdown alongside its few spells. It's competent at some other things like out-of-combat healing and social scenarios. That fits the definition of tier 3, but its virtues are rather narrow compared to other tier 3 classes - Call it tier 3.25.

Sacred Servant is a standout Paladin archetype, as Maat Mons said. The Planar Ally line one of the benchmark spells for Tier 1-2 casters, and Sacred Servants get it with limited frequency a level before even Clerics do. Also, the domain takes the edge off the Paladin's chronic spell slot hunger, and when the altered bond is active it catches the paladin up on caster level after level eleven. This archetype gives just enough of what makes Cleric a tier 1 caster to put the Sacred Servant Paladin on the border of tier 2 - call it Tier 2.5.

[pabelfly]

Archetypes are tiered separately from classes. Three votes are required for an archetype for it to make it to the master list, and the archetype needs to be more than half a tier stronger or weaker than the base class to be added to the list.

Vote Update

Paladin
KuraldGalain, AnonymousPepper, Kaouse – 3.0
Firechanter 3.1
Drelua, Nihilarian – 3.2
Bucky – 3.25
Rynjin – 3.4
Vasilidor, Kitsuneymg – 3.5
Maat Mons – 3.6
TotallyNotEvil – 3.75
Thunder999 – 3.8
Endless Rain, Exelsisxax – 4

Average – 3.41



Paladin (Sacred Servant)
Bucky – 2.5
Kitsuneymg – 3

Average – 3.75



Ranger
Firechanter, Kaouse – 3.5
Thunder999 – 3.55
Rynjin – 3.6
AnonymousPepper – 3.7
Drelua, Nihilarian, Maat Mons – 3.8
Beni-Kujaku – 3.9
AvatarVecna, Gnaeus, Endless Rain – 4
Bucky – 4.1
Kitsuneymg – 4.2
Vasilidor – 4.25
Exelsisxax – 4.5
KuraldGalain – 5

Average – 3.95

[Wildstag]

I guess I never voted, but I recall discussing a couple of the archetypes, which seem to be getting a bit of attention in other threads. I know it doesn't change too much, but I've considered the Rangers to be a 3.8, better than bog-standard 4, but not close enough to reach 3. Wisdom is a great ability score to keep for defenses, but for skills it's limited to wilderness exploration that isn't guaranteed in every campaign. Admittedly though, if you're working with your GM, that and Favored Enemy/Terrain should be less of an issue.

Paladin bridges the gap better, but I'd still only place it as a 3.5. I think a lot of the arguments against Paladin, especially how narrow their focus is in regards to types of creatures faced, is basically the same as the Ranger's but through rose-tinted glasses. The extra strength comes from, well, their extra strength. The defenses and charisma-focus help in a wider variety of skill-situations and combat situations.

And I would still argue that the Fortune-Finder archetype makes the Ranger slightly stronger in that it gets Studied Target from Slayer, but also gets an improvement to Woodland Stride and Favored Terrain. I also think it's straight up an improvement to either Hunter's Bond. At most it'd raise the tier by .1.

[AvatarVecna]

I think a lot of the arguments against Paladin, especially how narrow their focus is in regards to types of creatures faced, is basically the same as the Ranger's but through rose-tinted glasses.

I can't really agree, to the point that it's actually kind of baffling. Even if we took the position that "Favored Enemy (Humanoid)" or "Favored Enemy (Outsider)" is an acceptable choice that covers all subtypes (which is not how favored enemy works), there are 13 creatures types. Ranger gets to be good against one (lvl 1-4), two (lvl 5-9), three (lvl 10-14), four (lvl 15-19), or five (lvl 20) of them...and is "eh" against the other 8-12 of them. There are 9 alignments, and paladin gets to be good against three (lvl 1-20), and is "eh" against the other 6. Even blatantly cheating in ranger's favor with regards to how FE mechanically functions, and even assuming that the game has no bias in regards to what kind of alignments the players are likely to face off against in combat, ranger won't be applying their bonuses as often as paladins will unless the game has reached level 20.

Oh yeah, and the game is gonna bias towards evil enemies, because that's the default.

Oh yeah, and there's not 13 favored enemy options, there's 32.

Oh yeah, and Ranger only gets their full bonus against one favored enemy; against the rest, they have progressively smaller bonuses. And the full bonus is the only one that was ever truly competitive with the base paladin bonus (let alone the extra bonus they get against dragons/fiends).

If you wanna argue that the paladin list has a lot less utility than the ranger list, sure I can see that argument. But favored enemy is far, far, far more circumstantial than smite evil is. It's not even close.

[Drelua]

Oh yeah, and Ranger only gets their full bonus against one favored enemy; against the rest, they have progressively smaller bonuses. And the full bonus is the only one that was ever truly competitive with the base paladin bonus (let alone the extra bonus they get against dragons/fiends).

If you wanna argue that the paladin list has a lot less utility than the ranger list, sure I can see that argument. But favored enemy is far, far, far more circumstantial than smite evil is. It's not even close.

Not even progressively smaller bonuses, unless they don't max out their highest. One at 2 + 2 every 5 levels, the rest all +2. I think this came up earlier in this thread to a couple people's surprise. Sorry if I'm nitpicking, just wanted to point that out since some people had it mixed up before. The most frustrating thing for a higher level Ranger is when you can't cast Instant Enemy on the big monster, because it's already favored... at +2. :smallfrown:

Favored Terrain is a little better, you will be underground at some point in most PFS scenarios, but it's still not active most of the time. Maybe Ranger comes out ahead in games that have a lot of fights in one day against a very narrow range of enemies, where the Paladin runs out of smites, but that's gotta be a small minority of games. But then the Paladin has always-on immunities and auras, so they're still useful all the time. I like the Ranger, but they are objectively much more situational than Paladin in like 9 out of 10 campaigns/scenarios.

[pabelfly]

I think a lot of the arguments against Paladin, especially how narrow their focus is in regards to types of creatures faced, is basically the same as the Ranger's but through rose-tinted glasses.

Favored Enemy is only worthwhile to treat as a class feature if your DM is happy to build a campaign around a few enemies, for example: "hey, you're fighting off an undead invasion". Even then, there will still be occasions where you have to fight enemies not of that theme. Otherwise it's, at best, an occasional small bonus that will rarely apply when you need it to.

Official campaigns specify how to use Favored Enemy (which is bad because what other class feature gets treated like this), and their recommendations themselves are pretty bad (recommended favored enemies often make little or no appearance, or fade into irrelevance as the campaign progresses). Official campaigns are a mix of different types, which is the nemesis of Favored Enemy class ability.

Meanwhile, Smite might not apply to every enemy, but a lot of difficult enemies are Evil, and the damage bonuses are also much better.

[Wildstag]

Smite, when useful, is used only a single-digit number or times per day, and for most gameplay at most a handful. When the Ranger's Favored Enemy is useful, it is a constant passive ability.

If a Ranger is fighting Demons, and has the relevant Favored Enemy, their bonuses are always on. If a Paladin is fighting Demons, their defensive capability is always on, but their Smite is used for X/day enemies.

Now suppose that same pair is fighting Chaotic Neutral Fey (of which there are many). The Ranger might have a +2 (or greater) bonus against those enemies depending on their choices made and the expectations that player has with their campaign and GM. The Paladin hits the Fey with a weapon. If the boss of that group of Fey is Chaotic Evil, the Ranger still has their bonuses, and the Paladin gets to feel special for having an enemy they can smite. The Paladin's smite attack and damage rolls will be better than Favored Enemy, but are restricted to individual enemies.

The Fortune Finder ranger, which as I provided earlier in thread is NOT intended to be Vanara-only despite what AoNPRD says, gets to be effective against any enemy throughout the day for a bonus equal to half their highest Favored Enemy bonus. As pointed out up-thread, the bonus slightly lags behind Weapon Training (which Favored Enemy seems to be compared to a lot). Granted, it comes at an action cost.

The Paladin is a boss-killer and minion-ignorer. The Ranger does what the Paladin does, just slower. Both classes are undeniably situational, but useful within their niche, and to some degree without.

P.S. But also consider this: a Ranger can play in an evil party easily enough. Also, is the assumption that the DM is adversarial to the player? Why assume more leniency towards Paladins but not Rangers?

[pabelfly]

Also, is the assumption that the DM is adversarial to the player? Why assume more leniency towards Paladins but not Rangers?

1) Evil enemies are really common in play, especially so for bosses, and especially so for official modules. Meanwhile, the experience of most players, both in modules and in homebrew campaigns, is that they'll normally fight a wide mix of enemies that do not fit under one or two "Favored Enemy" options.
2) Paladins have a lot of good things on the table if "smite" isn't usable. Great saves, swift-action self-healing, party healing, removing statuses, buffing and support options. Let's not fixate on one class feature and ignore everything else Paladin has going for it.
3) A DM isn't adversarial if they don't build their game specifically around your one class feature, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect a DM to disregard any interesting encounter or story ideas they have simply because the enemies they'd want to use aren't in your "Favored Enemy" list.

[Rynjin]

What leniency? The percentage of the bestiary with Evil listed in it is significantly larger than he percentage of the bestiary made up by any single type or subtype.

It's pretty common knowledge that the safest Favored Enemy picks are Undead and Evil Outsider anyway. Paladin gets both of those for free and then some.

[Drelua]

While it's true that Paladin has limited uses per day, it is important that they get to choose when to apply that bonus. The Ranger has to rely on luck, or, if it's not a pre-written, the consideration of the GM. While it would be poor form to deliberately avoid the Ranger's FE, it's also not reasonable to expect the GM to bend over backwards to make sure you're always at your best.

And if the PC makes it known that they're the best at killing, say, undead, certain enemies may reasonably avoid sending undead after them. I wouldn't complain about that as a player, as long it was an NPC's in character decision. And depending how many fights you have in a day, a Paladin probably has plenty of smites to go after the biggest thing there in every combat. And if it's not evil, they can easily fall back into a support role.

I grudgingly admit that FE is worse than Smite, even though I love Rangers, but that's not the sole reason most agree Paladin is higher tier than Ranger. If you ignore their main combat bonus and look at everything else they can do, I really feel like Paladin still comes out quite a ways ahead.

[Thunder999]

I've never seen anything like not using undead because they're the ranger's favoured enemy, usually the enemies you fight are just what makes up the enemies forces and switching over to another creature type is not feasible. I suppose you could switch to undead easily enough, just start turning your troops into skeleton champions and juju zombies, get some nice immunities in the deal too.

[Bucky]

If the enemy knows they ranger has orcs as his main favored enemy, they can tactically maneuver to try to keep the boss orc out of his reach while the goblin minions tackle him.

[Drelua]

I've never seen anything like not using undead because they're the ranger's favoured enemy, usually the enemies you fight are just what makes up the enemies forces and switching over to another creature type is not feasible. I suppose you could switch to undead easily enough, just start turning your troops into skeleton champions and juju zombies, get some nice immunities in the deal too.

I mean I haven't seen it either, because I've only been in one long campaign with a Ranger, and I wasn't in that long enough for the enemy to know much about me. But it is a thing that can happen. Even if all the enemies forces are undead, say the bad guy's a typical necromancer, if the Ranger is known to be focused on fighting undead, they might hire mercenaries, or send a planar bound outsider after them. Just because they're a necromancer doesn't mean they don't have other spells.

Of course, that depends on a lot of things. If the Ranger never really says "I'm the best at killing undead" or anything, and the bad guy hasn't seen them fighting other things enough to realize they aren't as good at that, then they might just think the Ranger's tough as hell. Of course if, from the necromancer's perspective, the Ranger seems to be by far the toughest person in the group opposing them, they might send assassins or something and tell them to focus on the one that keeps ripping through his undead hordes like there's nothing to it. Or tell shadows to swarm them if the GM's feeling really mean.

[AnonymousPepper]

Definitely not a thing that will ever happen in adventure paths unless they've gone a bit off the rails, but in more open games... well, I do concur it's a strong possibility, but I'd counter that every class can be shut down or severely hampered by enemy preparation. Ranger's not unique in that respect. It might be a bit easier to plan around if an intelligent BBEG can figure out what your favored enemies and terrains are, but that's I think it's a wash when you consider that it's also less explicitly discernible than "oh, that wizard is obviously a conjuration specialist" - and also that, as I said earlier, Ranger is a poor class held together by Instant Enemy-brand duct tape. That Instant Enemy can work on whatever would get tossed at them instead.

On the whole, I don't think that point is relevant to tiering. All classes get measurably worse when specifically hit with an enemy prepared to fight them.

[Drelua]

Definitely not a thing that will ever happen in adventure paths unless they've gone a bit off the rails, but in more open games... well, I do concur it's a strong possibility, but I'd counter that every class can be shut down or severely hampered by enemy preparation. Ranger's not unique in that respect. It might be a bit easier to plan around if an intelligent BBEG can figure out what your favored enemies and terrains are, but that's I think it's a wash when you consider that it's also less explicitly discernible than "oh, that wizard is obviously a conjuration specialist" - and also that, as I said earlier, Ranger is a poor class held together by Instant Enemy-brand duct tape. That Instant Enemy can work on whatever would get tossed at them instead.

On the whole, I don't think that point is relevant to tiering. All classes get measurably worse when specifically hit with an enemy prepared to fight them.

Agreed, I was off on a bit of a tangent there. The much wider range of potential Smite targets is much more important, even with limited uses per day. If you're in a campaign that typically has a lot of fights in a day, there's easy ways to get more uses, like Oath of Vengeance and a Silver Smite Bracelet. I think it's fair to assume that's something a Paladin will look for if they need it at most optimization levels.

There are campaigns where Favored Enemy may be better than Smite Evil - my Demonslayer Ranger was having a great time in the Wrath of the Righteous cRPG - but even in that case, Paladin may still be better than Ranger thanks to their immunities, the best saves in the game, heavy armor, swift action self healing, and Smite letting them hit harder than the Ranger, albeit less often.

[Wildstag]

2) Paladins have a lot of good things on the table if "smite" isn't usable. Great saves, swift-action self-healing, party healing, removing statuses, buffing and support options. Let's not fixate on one class feature and ignore everything else Paladin has going for it.
3) A DM isn't adversarial if they don't build their game specifically around your one class feature, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect a DM to disregard any interesting encounter or story ideas they have simply because the enemies they'd want to use aren't in your "Favored Enemy" list.

I already mentioned the Paladin's defensive options in the comment where I gave my own opinion on tiers, and shouldn't be rehashed as bringing it back up provides nothing for the argument. Everyone arguing as if I didn't consider it should reread my earlier comment on it, and then come back to this. Because as it stands now, y'all are tunnel-visioning on one specific statement as if that's ALL that I said about it. If you're grumpy that I only gave Paladins a 3.5 despite recognizing their defensive and supporting qualities, I dunno what to tell you.

A Ranger isn't a great option when the game is intended to be episodic and unrelated; monster of the week kinda games. Similarly, a Paladin isn't a great option when the game is adversarial towards Good/Neutral powers because that (generally) requires them to be doing something evil or working with some evil entity.


And if the PC makes it known that they're the best at killing, say, undead, certain enemies may reasonably avoid sending undead after them. I wouldn't complain about that as a player, as long it was an NPC's in character decision. And depending how many fights you have in a day, a Paladin probably has plenty of smites to go after the biggest thing there in every combat. And if it's not evil, they can easily fall back into a support role.

And what is to prevent the GM from changing a lot of the enemies from evil to neutral mercenaries, thus minimizing the usefulness of Paladin's Detect Evil, Aura of Justice, and Smite Evil?

The GM is adversarial, in my opinion, if they say "hey this is the campaign, it'll be undead-focused", and then make everything but the bbeg undead. If the only undead portion of the campaign is that there's a Lich as a final boss, that is an adversarial GM. If the campaign involves a lot of necromancers and their minions, than it makes sense to build around the most common humanoid subtype for the necromancers and Undead itself.

If we're assuming the GM isn't trying to "gotcha" the Paladin every game, than we should also be judging the Ranger as if the GM isn't trying to "gotcha" them as well.

[Drelua]

And what is to prevent the GM from changing a lot of the enemies from evil to neutral mercenaries, thus minimizing the usefulness of Paladin's Detect Evil, Aura of Justice, and Smite Evil?

The GM is adversarial, in my opinion, if they say "hey this is the campaign, it'll be undead-focused", and then make everything but the bbeg undead. If the only undead portion of the campaign is that there's a Lich as a final boss, that is an adversarial GM. If the campaign involves a lot of necromancers and their minions, than it makes sense to build around the most common humanoid subtype for the necromancers and Undead itself.

If we're assuming the GM isn't trying to "gotcha" the Paladin every game, than we should also be judging the Ranger as if the GM isn't trying to "gotcha" them as well.

I did say "if the PC makes it known..." so that point was assuming the character is going to taverns and bragging about how great they are at killing undead, or telling everyone how zombies ate their grandma and so they dedicated their life to destroying undead and learning everything they can about them, or something like that. If that gets back to the necromancer because they had someone watching the party, they could certainly react to that information. That is not an adversarial GM, just a reasonably smart NPC. Yes, I would be annoyed if after that we never encountered undead, but even if the villain never sends undead after us again, we'd still encounter them. They'll be guarding the necromancer's base and probably doing things for them, like digging up old tombs looking for certain items or just bodies for them to reanimate, so we'll still fight them. Undead don't have to be every enemy, or even most of the enemies, for the campaign to be undead focused. I wouldn't complain if they were only like 1 in 4 enemies.

But that was a relatively minor point, like half of 1 paragraph out of 3 from the post you quoted, that I only went into further because it was questioned. I never really said it should change the class' tiering, or wasn't true of other classes. I kinda disagree with some of your reasoning, but I certainly don't object to the rank you gave either class. I did give Ranger the exact same, and only put Paladin .3 higher.

[Bucky]

The GM is supposed to simulate being adversarial even if his overall style isn't.

At mid to high levels, it's reasonable for the GM to give the antagonists divination spells that they use to sniff out information about the party that goes beyond what's available to mundane intel gathering. Favored Enemies and the like play directly into the spell Divination itself - "Which of my available minions should I send to kill Joe Ranger in two days" is well within its normal use.

[Thunder999]

It really depends how varied the group you're fighting is, if they're humanoids and not something like an Orc army then odds are they can selectively avoid sending elves to fight the ranger with Favoured Enemy:Humanoid(Elf), wheras the necromancer is probably just going to have to suck it up and still send in the undead, but might perhaps persuade a living ally or two to join their personal guard.
It's definitely easier to change this than to not send in Evil aligned creatures to fight the Paladin.

If the mercenaries are going around doing evil things for the villain then they should be Evil aligned, in fact a non-evil group should be at least somewhat reluctant to go picking a fight with a paladin as that's a sure sign you're on the wrong side.

[spectralphoenix]

And what is to prevent the GM from changing a lot of the enemies from evil to neutral mercenaries, thus minimizing the usefulness of Paladin's Detect Evil, Aura of Justice, and Smite Evil?

The GM is adversarial, in my opinion, if they say "hey this is the campaign, it'll be undead-focused", and then make everything but the bbeg undead. If the only undead portion of the campaign is that there's a Lich as a final boss, that is an adversarial GM. If the campaign involves a lot of necromancers and their minions, than it makes sense to build around the most common humanoid subtype for the necromancers and Undead itself.

If we're assuming the GM isn't trying to "gotcha" the Paladin every game, than we should also be judging the Ranger as if the GM isn't trying to "gotcha" them as well.

How many of the encounters need to be against undead to count as "fair play?" Half? Two thirds? Even if literally every enemy is undead, that just puts the paladin and ranger on equal footing, since all the undead are also evil. I feel like even most "focused" campaigns are going to have a fair number of off-type encounters, for variety's sake if nothing else. To say nothing of the published Adventure Paths, many of which had "trap" options right in the players guide.

And even if the lich BBEG hires some neutral human mercs to go against the party, the anti-undead ranger loses his bonuses too. At least the Paladin has Diplomacy and a high CHA score to convince them that working for an omnicidal lich is bad for their long-term business model.

[Wildstag]

Yes, I would be annoyed if after that we never encountered undead, but even if the villain never sends undead after us again, we'd still encounter them. They'll be guarding the necromancer's base and probably doing things for them, like digging up old tombs looking for certain items or just bodies for them to reanimate, so we'll still fight them. Undead don't have to be every enemy, or even most of the enemies, for the campaign to be undead focused. I wouldn't complain if they were only like 1 in 4 enemies.

That's kinda my point with the Paladin argument too. The primary offensive class feature for both is situation-dependent. If the villain realizes "oh hey, they've got a Paladin, I should send non-evil peons and lieutenants out to do my bidding", that makes as much sense to me as the same for Ranger, but the Ranger still has a lot of useful features to provide the team. But I question how much is villain metagaming and how much is in-universe realization. Is a ranger more or less identifiable than a paladin? Is the Favored Enemy bonus significant enough for a villain to plan around?


If the mercenaries are going around doing evil things for the villain then they should be Evil aligned, in fact a non-evil group should be at least somewhat reluctant to go picking a fight with a paladin as that's a sure sign you're on the wrong side.

What does a mercenary care about sides when they get their fulfillment anyway? The benefit of a neutral mercenary is their willingness to work for a variety of employers. Once you start forcing them to align with their employer, you effectively remove the concept of neutrality entirely.

[Drelua]

What does a mercenary care about sides when they get their fulfillment anyway? The benefit of a neutral mercenary is their willingness to work for a variety of employers. Once you start forcing them to align with their employer, you effectively remove the concept of neutrality entirely.

To me this depends what the mercenary is doing for the bad guy. If they're just guarding a castle for a weird guy and don't know too much about him, they could easily be neutral, maybe even good. But if you're just taking a job to go kill someone, you're basically an assassin, and in D&D assassins are evil. Just because you're not sneaky about it doesn't make you any less evil, killing people for money is evil either way.

[Bucky]

A villain with legal authority can hire lawful good bounty hunters with the right social fu. I recall a certain encounter, for example, where a villain who was part of the government of a small country hired some clearly good-aligned mercenaries to arrest several party members for serious crimes that the party had committed against citizens of that country. A biased but technically true description of some of their adventuring activities convinced the mercenaries that the PCs were dangerous and depraved criminals who needed to be brought in, and the villain's intent to miscarry justice after a successful arrest was concealed from them but inferred by the party.