Why has Belkar never multi-classed out of ranger??

[pwning doodes]

It has just occurred to me that even though Belkar has at least ten levels in Ranger, he cannot cast a single spell because his Wisdom score is lower than 11. (The Class and Level Geekery thread thinks it is 9.) Sticking with a class where you can't use half of the features seems like a stupid move. I understand that Belkar is really dumb sometimes (see: negative Wisdom modifier) but he seems to care about being good at killing stuff and looking awesome while doing it. Early on, he took one level in Barbarian, but he didn't take any more after that. He also considered becoming a Cleric of Banjo, but then realized he didn't need zappy cleric powers to hurt Roy. So what is going on? Why doesn't he choose to multi-class?

Is 3.5e set up so that abandoning your class and choosing a new one is highly penalized? Is it really true that the best way for Belkar to get better at killing stuff is to take more levels in Ranger? Is it just that there is no class better suited to his base stats than Ranger? Or do you think that this is some weird quirk in Belkar's psychology? I would love to hear your guys' opinions on this, because I'm frankly a little bit baffled. It doesn't make sense to me that Belkar would look at everything his fellow adventurers are doing (for example, Haley doing a lot of damage with Sneak Attack) and decide he didn't need to be as badass as them. It seems like he would feel inadequate and look for a way to increase his Badass Quotient. If not in comparison to other PCs, wouldn't he at least want more killing power if he knew it was available? Let me know what you think -- I'm sure my thinking about this could be flawed.

--pwning doodes

P.S. I think it would be hilarious if somehow Belkar had been slowly raising his Wisdom score somehow since his "character development" with Shojo so that at a critical moment, he could start casting spells and surprise everyone. I don't know if it's really that likely, but Comic #1276 could be considered foreshadowing for it, because Speak With Animals is on the Ranger spell list and it is a first level spell, meaning Belkar would only have to have a Wisdom of 11 to cast it. Is there a way of organically raising a stat as you level up in 3.5e? Or are you stuck with the stats you rolled up at the very beginning, except for magic items, temporary buffs, or boons of various kinds?

[ZhonLord]

No. In 3.5, rangers don't get spellcasting to begin with. They're a combination of ranged combat, animal handling and dextrous melee combat. The most Belkar can do magically is use scrolls that require Wisdom to cast, provided his score gets buffed by someone.

Also he did multiclass, he took levels in barbarian.

[Tzardok]

There is one rule that penalizes your XP gain if you have multiple classes that have widely different levels, but that one already applies in this case for the Ranger/Barbarian difference.

On the other hand, how do you know that he never took another level in Barbarian? He could've just as well only taken Barbarian levels since "joining" the barbarian's guild.


No. In 3.5, rangers don't get spellcasting to begin with. They're a combination of ranged combat, animal handling and dextrous melee combat. The most Belkar can do magically is use scrolls that require Wisdom to cast, provided his score gets buffed by someone.

Also he did multiclass, he took levels in barbarian.

Not true. Rangers with a normal wisdom score can cast spells. See here (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm) under spells.

[ZhonLord]

Not true. Rangers with a normal wisdom score can cast spells. See here (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm) under spells.

Huh. I had completely forgotten about that. My mistake.

[Peelee]

Sticking with a class where you can't use half of the features seems like a stupid move.

Spellcasting is not half of Ranger features, and the story is not a D&D game. Belkar kept taking Ranger because he liked it and it worked with what his goals in life were. It doesn't matter if it seems suboptimal, because very few characters are optimal to begin with.

[Tubercular Ox]

Huh. I had completely forgotten about that. My mistake.

I'm with you. I didn't know rangers could talk to animals until Good Deeds Gone Unpunished rubbed my nose in it, and I didn't know it was a spell they were using until the discussion around the latest comic.

[atanamis]

Why did Rudy keep trying to play football for Notre Dame? Sometimes people keep wanting to do a thing they just aren't naturally good at. Maybe he had a bad high school guidance counselor, or maybe there was a ranger who was a mentor or comfort to him as a child who he secretly wants to emulate. We just don't know enough about Belkar's personal motivations to understand why he keeps pursuing ranger. And even if someone ever asked him, we know he's as likely to stab them as give a straight answer. The answer isn't mechanical or rules based, but due to his personal goals and desires. And if there is any member of the party less likely to tell us what those are, I'm not sure who that would be.

[brian 333]

3.5 Rangers are actually pretty awesome at minion-killing. Built and equipped properly, they are awesome mage killers.

High level rangers are fantastic spies and information gathering specialists.

They are not able to stand up to fighters of their level, and rogues can be a real pain. Druids can beat the snot out of them and their pets too, which are also too low level to make a difference in a duel scenario.

Rangers can be very good characters without multiclassing. It's not common to run a straight support character, but in that role 3.5 single-classed rangers can be fun.

[Precure]

He didn't? :smallconfused:

[Kish]

Ranger (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm) .

[Metastachydium]

(The Class and Level Geekery thread thinks it is 9.)

That's because a flat +4 apparently brought it up to the 13 neccessary to cast CSW.


Sticking with a class where you can't use half of the features seems like a stupid move.

As Mr. Lee said, Rnager spells are not as big a deal as you think they are, unless one's a Mystic Ranger, which Belkar quite obviously isn't.


I understand that Belkar is really dumb sometimes (see: negative Wisdom modifier) but he seems to care about being good at killing stuff and looking awesome while doing it.

Is it really true that the best way for Belkar to get better at killing stuff is to take more levels in Ranger?

It doesn't make sense to me that Belkar would look at everything his fellow adventurers are doing (for example, Haley doing a lot of damage with Sneak Attack) and decide he didn't need to be as badass as them. It seems like he would feel inadequate and look for a way to increase his Badass Quotient. If not in comparison to other PCs, wouldn't he at least want more killing power if he knew it was available? Let me know what you think -- I'm sure my thinking about this could be flawed.

Yes, Belkar wants to kill stuff and look awesome while at it. But the only weird thing I see about how he means to achieve that is using daggers rather than some bigger light weapon, and even that can be explained away by how weapon sizes worked back in 3.0.

That Belkar is not an efficient killer in general is a statement that baffles me in turn. In actual fact, he easily outperforms Haley quantitatively and, I'd argue, also qualitatively a lot of the time (v. Crystal). I will likewise contest the notion that he has reason to believe the others look better while fighting. Belkar likes to make a good show; during the battle of Azure City, he seriously considers not drinking a potion just to have a badass battle-damaged look. Now tell me this: why on earth would the style of his colleagues appeal to him, then? Haley either fights from a distance or relies on not being seen and flankers; and Roy… Well, Roy hits things with a sword until I break, I suppose? Belkar likes to do things up close and personal and rely on himself. He enjoys being flashy and using his surprisingly good mobility in combat. Why on earth would he want to be more like Haley or Roy when he can double backflip on people and stab them 6(+?) times a round, the latter of which is basically a ranger class feature?


I think it would be hilarious if somehow Belkar had been slowly raising his Wisdom score somehow since his "character development" with Shojo so that at a critical moment, he could start casting spells and surprise everyone. I don't know if it's really that likely, but Comic #1276 could be considered foreshadowing for it, because Speak With Animals is on the Ranger spell list and it is a first level spell, meaning Belkar would only have to have a Wisdom of 11 to cast it.

That I can get behind, on the other hand.


Is there a way of organically raising a stat as you level up in 3.5e?

Yup. Everyone gets a +1 to one stat every four levels.


They are not able to stand up to fighters of their level,

Disagreed. Fighters have precious little going for them. The ranger's main issue is that FE is a gamble; but should they pick good ones, they'll easily outdamage the Fighter, whose only saving grace will be the higher HD. Heavy armour is not that valuable on the long run and the Fighter could really use skills such as Tumble.


Druids can beat the snot out of them and their pets too, which are also too low level to make a difference in a duel scenario.

That's… Not really a Ranger problem. That's more like a Druid problem, in fact.

[KillianHawkeye]

The primary reason is ego.

He took a little bit of Barbarian because the idea of raging appealed to him, but Belkar considers himself a Ranger. He thinks he is really good at what he likes to do, and he understands that he fills a vague niche in his party. He wouldn't become a Rogue or a Fighter because of his history with Rogues and Fighters. He feels he is superior to them all. He enjoys his life as it is, except when some party poopers rain on his parade. He has had his share of challenges and setbacks, but he's overcome most of them on his own so far (and the one time he really needed help, when Durkon saved him from Malack, really bothered him and led to a lot of character growth). He eventually realized he needs to start changing his ways, but he never needed to change his character class.

If it were a real D&D game, then if anything he should've entered into a prestige class by this point. But most of the prestige classes aren't open content for Rich to make a lot of comic references to, and they're also highly specific to the 3E edition which Rich has been keeping in the background more and more. And none of the other main characters are doing any multiclassing except Elan, and his prestige class that he learned from Julian Scoundrel is made up for the comic.

You might as well be asking why Roy never multiclassed out of Fighter.

[Metastachydium]

And none of the other main characters are doing any multiclassing

Funnily enough, sensible multiclassing is mostly done by antagonists the bulk of the Order hates, such as Miko and Thog (with their strategically placed two-level dips).

[KillianHawkeye]

Funnily enough, sensible multiclassing is mostly done by antagonists the bulk of the Order hates, such as Miko and Thog (with their strategically placed two-level dips).

I actually think it's because those characters have more limited appearances that they can have a more complicated character build. There's less time to talk about it. Take Nale's complicated Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer build that's just for a joke about how he's doing Bard without actually being a Bard.

In fact, Nale, Miko and Thog are all dead. Belkar is soon to die as well. If O'chul bites the bullet during the fight against Xykon, we might just conclude that multiclassing is bad for one's health! :smallamused:

[Metastachydium]

I actually think it's because those characters have more limited appearances that they can have a more complicated character build. There's less time to talk about it. Take Nale's complicated Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer build that's just for a joke about how he's doing Bard without actually being a Bard.

In fact, Nale, Miko and Thog are all dead. Belkar is soon to die as well. If O'chul bites the bullet during the fight against Xykon, we might just conclude that multiclassing is bad for one's health! :smallamused:

Don't forget Minrah! Minrah also has a (not particularly sensible) multiclass build.

[Ruck]

The simplest answer-- besides "He has; he took a level in Barbarian"-- is that these are characters in a story, not powergamers.

[Mechalich]

If it were a real D&D game, then if anything he should've entered into a prestige class by this point. But most of the prestige classes aren't open content for Rich to make a lot of comic references to, and they're also highly specific to the 3E edition which Rich has been keeping in the background more and more.


Indeed, there's only four PrCs in the SRD that make any sense for Belkar: Assassin, Duelist, Horizon Walker, and Shadowdancer. No one from the Assassins would ever try to recruit a loose cannon like Belkar, so that's out. Duelist isn't worth bothering with. He doesn't have the ranks to take Horizon Walker (there's no way he's put that many skill points into Knowledge (Geography)). And Shadowdancer, being based on hiding, doesn't appeal to his mindset. So PrCs are a dead end.

There's a good argument that he should take a 2nd Barbarian level, for Uncanny Dodge, and that if 20th level where in the offing (it's not) a decent build might be Ranger 15/Barbarian 5, but I can see him holding on to get the 15th Ranger level at the moment for the fourth favored enemy bonus.

[brian 333]

Okay, I may have said this before, but I played a single-classed ranger from level 1 to level 22.

He was a halfling ranger, dex-build. Maxed skills in hide, move silent, and listen, with healing, animal handling, and a few other flavor skills. Feats followed the combat mobility tree.

He was always about 6AC, 25% damage, and a ton of feats behind the fighters. His pets were virtually useless, and aside from some between-encounter healing and stealth buffs, his spell list was about four levels behind useless.

He could go anywhere outdoors and remain undetected. Invisibility was useless against him. He could penetrate a defensive line and be amongst the enemy casters, disrupting their spellcasting ability or just plain killing them. He could shred a mob of mooks, especially if they happened to be on his FE list. He could screw up enemy stealth specialists.

A favorite tactic was to cast Darkness (from an item) on himself, then abuse the enemy fighters.

He was a lot of fun to play. Multiclassing may have made him better at some mechanical things, but I don't think he'd have been as good as he was at what he did best. He was a mage-killer!

[Metastachydium]

Okay, I may have said this before, but I played a single-classed ranger from level 1 to level 22.

He was a halfling ranger, dex-build. Maxed skills in hide, move silent, and listen, with healing, animal handling, and a few other flavor skills.

No Tumble? Tumble's the best.


He was always about 6AC,

I'm not sure how.


25% damage,

I don't know about that. Uberchargers exist, but, y'know, an archery Ranger at level 12 with the right build can do a lot of damage to FEs and a respectable amount to others. Let's say, we have an Azurin; takes PBS and EWP (greatbow) at first, gets Rapid Shot at second, Precise Shot ath 3rd, takes Improved Favored Enemy while gaining Manyshot (meh) at 6th, takes Improved Rapid Shot at 9th, gets Improved Precise Shot at 11th and picks Azure Enmity at 12th. Give 'em some strongarm bracers. Load up on Hunter's Mercy. Now our Ranger has four attacks per round, the first two at full BAB; against a primary FE, this deals up to 6d8+45/2d8+15/2d8+15/2d8+15 (with a conservative estimate of +2 enhancement, say, +2 STR, assuming a composite bow, +2 insight, +9 FE bonus damage) on a first round, assuming no lucky crit, no enemy spirit pouch, no weapon crystals and whatnot… I wouldn't say that's bad. The main issue is not damage potential, but FE being situational.


aside from some between-encounter healing and stealth buffs, his spell list was about four levels behind useless.

SpC kind of salvaged Ranger spells, though. It's still not a main feature of a big deal, but it's far from useless.

[Peelee]

I'm not sure how.

Plenty of ways for fighters to have a higher AC

[Metastachydium]

Plenty of ways for fighters to have a higher AC

But plenty of ways for rangers to compensate as well. I mean, it's not like light armour isn't the best kind of armour and they are all but guaranteed to have a higher DEX, especially archers.

[brian 333]

But plenty of ways for rangers to compensate as well. I mean, it's not like light armour isn't the best kind of armour and they are all but guaranteed to have a higher DEX, especially archers.

Small weapons and shortbow guarantee less average damage, plus Str bonuses Dex-Ranger never gets. He could lay down considerable damage, certainly enough to mess up fully buffed sorcerers and wizards, but his efforts were better used clearing the minions and letting the fighter engage the boss.

I could really relate to Belkar's moment outside the wall of Azure City.

Tumble was one of the skills Merogo dabbled in, but early on I invested in stealth and stealth detection, which eats up the skill points.

AC was pretty even in the early game, but by mid-levels my ranger's Dex made the switch from medium to light armor an even trade. Then all the really good armor started dropping. Full plate, half plate +2, Adamantine, etc. The few light armor drops had to be shared with rogues, druids, sorcerers, etc. In this case, it also had to be sized for small...

My best armor was commissioned from a fellow player. Stealth bonuses were favored rather than AC. By that point, nothing was being found that was better than what he had, so he was stuck with an AC that could never compete with the tank builds.

But, the day he wandered through a boss dungeon mapping for an upcoming raid he was the Sexy Shoeless God of Sneaking!

[wilphe]

The simplest answer-- besides "He has; he took a level in Barbarian"-- is that these are characters in a story, not powergamers.

Apart from that, Belkar stays in Ranger for the favoured enemy bonuses, such as:

"v Kobolds", "v all non-Belkars" and maybe "v Goblinoids".

Other classes might make him better at hurting people, Ranger makes him better at hurting the people he hates

[Metastachydium]

Small weapons and shortbow guarantee less average damage, plus Str bonuses Dex-Ranger never gets. He could lay down considerable damage, certainly enough to mess up fully buffed sorcerers and wizards, but his efforts were better used clearing the minions and letting the fighter engage the boss.

Rangers are proficient with all martial weapons, and as I tried to demonstrate above (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25727081&postcount=20), they can have a ludicrous damage output against FEs and a decent one against anything else if they invest into it (I mean, 12d8+90 at 12th level in a round is not bad). As for Small weapons… Yeah. But that's a size issue, not a Ranger issue (not that Small size is a bad deal, mind you: I'm sure you picked it for good reasons).


I could really relate to Belkar's moment outside the wall of Azure City.

Me too! I'm currently playing a Knight whose specialty is roughly analogous to Belkar's, except the mook horror show results from a 20' reach, Bulwark of Defense, Combat Reflexes and Mage Slayer rather than loads and loads of little on-turn attacks.


Tumble was one of the skills Merogo dabbled in, but early on I invested in stealth and stealth detection, which eats up the skill points.

Um, no? Rangers get 6+INT per level. After Hide, Listen, Move Silently and Spot you're left with 2 or more, unless there's an INT penalty at play.


AC was pretty even in the early game, but by mid-levels my ranger's Dex made the switch from medium to light armor an even trade. Then all the really good armor started dropping. Full plate, half plate +2, Adamantine, etc. The few light armor drops had to be shared with rogues, druids, sorcerers, etc. In this case, it also had to be sized for small...

My best armor was commissioned from a fellow player. Stealth bonuses were favored rather than AC. By that point, nothing was being found that was better than what he had, so he was stuck with an AC that could never compete with the tank builds.

Ah, I see! That must have been tough and I can empathize. Still, that's an affordability issue (which varies from game to game) rather than a Ranger issue. Chain shirt is simply much better than it has any right to be, especially with a good DEX, whereas most medium and heavy armours are kind of bad.


But, the day he wandered through a boss dungeon mapping for an upcoming raid he was the Sexy Shoeless God of Sneaking!

Sounds fun, anyhow!


Apart from that, Belkar stays in Ranger for the favoured enemy bonuses, such as:

"v Kobolds", "v all non-Belkars" and maybe "v Goblinoids".

Other classes might make him better at hurting people, Ranger makes him better at hurting the people he hates

I bet Humanoid [Human] is also somewhere in the mix, honestly. Maybe Undead too.

[Kish]

The OP acknowledges that Belkar did actually multiclass, so the thread title kind of makes my head hurt. I'd also like to point out that there's no reason to be confident Belkar took only one barbarian level. The bulk of his levels are ranger, but he could easily have anywhere from 1-6 barbarian levels now.

[Metastachydium]

The OP acknowledges that Belkar did actually multiclass, so the thread title kind of makes my head hurt. I'd also like to point out that there's no reason to be confident Belkar took only one barbarian level. The bulk of his levels are ranger, but he could easily have anywhere from 1-6 barbarian levels now.

Yup. It seems likely that he took at least 11 Ranger levels (to get GTWF which he quite clearly does have as a bonus feat), but even that is just a very reasonable assumptions. He certainly considered taking (further) levels (beyond his first one in Barbarian) in classes other than Ranger (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0515.html), after all.

[brian 333]

Rangers are proficient with all martial weapons, and as I tried to demonstrate above (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25727081&postcount=20), they can have a ludicrous damage output against FEs and a decent one against anything else if they invest into it (I mean, 12d8+90 at 12th level in a round is not bad). As for Small weapons… Yeah. But that's a size issue, not a Ranger issue (not that Small size is a bad deal, mind you: I'm sure you picked it for good reasons).

The combat feats in your build mean the mobility feats in Merogo's would have been absent. He was built for getting past the battle line and to the spellcasters as quickly as possible. It is surprising how much more effective your team can be when enemy casters are engaged in melee.


Um, no? Rangers get 6+INT per level. After Hide, Listen, Move Silently and Spot you're left with 2 or more, unless there's an INT penalty at play.

3.0 Ranger


Ah, I see! That must have been tough and I can empathize. Still, that's an affordability issue (which varies from game to game) rather than a Ranger issue. Chain shirt is simply much better than it has any right to be, especially with a good DEX, whereas most medium and heavy armours are kind of bad.

Chain shirt is good for Dex builds. Never found a good one, and when your dex bonus exceeds 6 any armor needs awesome bonuses to be worth wearing. Medium armor needs to be +4 just to even out, and at +8 dex bonus, magical clothing is as good as magical armor.

[Metastachydium]

The combat feats in your build mean the mobility feats in Merogo's would have been absent. He was built for getting past the battle line and to the spellcasters as quickly as possible. It is surprising how much more effective your team can be when enemy casters are engaged in melee.

In my experience, erasing them from the board with a single round of sustained fire before they could do much can help with the same.


3.0 Ranger

Say no more! 3.0 was… Kind of bad, and that in many ways. But hey, at least Rangers had a respectable d10 for HD!


Chain shirt is good for Dex builds. Never found a good one, and when your dex bonus exceeds 6 any armor needs awesome bonuses to be worth wearing. Medium armor needs to be +4 just to even out, and at +8 dex bonus, magical clothing is as good as magical armor.

Mithral chain shirt's +4 armour/+6 DEX goes a long way. It is, in fact, better than padded +8 DEX, even if you have to let those 2 points go to waste for the purpose of boosting AC. Mithral full plate can compete with it, numerically, but it's still medium with ACP and costs a ludicrous 10 times as much (1100 gp versus 10500 gp).

[brian 333]

+5 Camouflaged Clothing.

No dex penalties, +10 hide outdoors, +5 Move Silent, Displacement 1/day, Barkskin 3/day.

I had to provide the displacer beast hide and the barkskin scrolls. With an effective Dex in the mid to high 20s, I could never find a better suit. Plus, Weapon Finesse with short sword/dagger made it difficult for any spellcaster to get a spell off within 5'.

Were there better builds? Sure. My guy wasn't as good an archer as an archer build, and wasn't as good a fighter as a melee build. He was awesome as a stealth build. Outdoors, from early levels, he was virtually unspottable, and he could detect sneaking or hidden like nobody's business.

[JonahFalcon]

(sigh) The entire joke with Belkar is that he's a very crappy Ranger.

[Peat]

The two most obvious answers to me are that

a) There were never any great jokes or storylines to make about Belkar changing class more that really added to the story, so why bother
b) Ranger spellcasting shall be important at some stage, so making sure we all know Belkar is a ranger is important, which means multiclassing him doesn't fit thematically

[Psyren]

(sigh) The entire joke with Belkar is that he's a very crappy Ranger.

And he still got in over the monk :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

[ZhonLord]

He did, he multiclassed into Barbarian all the way back in book 2.

I would like to reiterate this now that the discussion has reached a new page. Belkar Bitterleaf is a multi-class character, primarily ranger with a dip in barbarian.

[Finagle]

Dunning-Krueger syndrome. With a WIS of 9, Belkar is too incompetent to realize that he is incompetent. He thus keeps throwing good levels after bad when he really should have taken more other classes by now.

I like this explanation. But really, the explanation is that OOTS are not optimal because they're not real-world powergaming munchkins. They're a representation of what "real" PCs would be like in an RPG world.

Also, this makes real-world powergaming munchkins very frustrated to see the non-optimal builds, and the author has this whole thing about confounding reader expectations. Like how General Tarquin was a villain, and as a fascist we expected him to act a certain way. But he was totally cool! Until he lost his cool, but hey he's still a villain.

[wilphe]

Say no more! 3.0 was… Kind of bad, and that in many ways. But hey, at least Rangers had a respectable d10 for HD!


Yes, but the very first joke in the strip is about conversion to 3.5 - and the immediate way this manifests for Belkar is being hit with weapon sizing which made TWF for small characters worse

[Kish]

Yes, but the very first joke in the strip is about conversion to 3.5 - and the immediate way this manifests for Belkar is being hit with weapon sizing which made TWF for small characters worse
Given that he was explicitly saying he wanted new skill points--and he did, in fact, get increased from 4+int modifier per level to 6+int modifier per level--

--I wouldn't read more into that than "Rich chose to write a joke about the cosmos slugging Belkar one, instead of a not-a-joke where everyone was happy with their increased power."

[Psyren]

Dunning-Krueger syndrome. With a WIS of 9, Belkar is too incompetent to realize that he is incompetent. He thus keeps throwing good levels after bad when he really should have taken more other classes by now.

I like this explanation. But really, the explanation is that OOTS are not optimal because they're not real-world powergaming munchkins. They're a representation of what "real" PCs would be like in an RPG world.

Also, this makes real-world powergaming munchkins very frustrated to see the non-optimal builds, and the author has this whole thing about confounding reader expectations. Like how General Tarquin was a villain, and as a fascist we expected him to act a certain way. But he was totally cool! Until he lost his cool, but hey he's still a villain.

To be fair, Ranger levels aren't actually bad for him. Since he is two-weapon fighting with light weapons, a great deal of his damage is coming from additional damage riders on each attack, and Favored Enemy provides that. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that his broad sociopathy allows him to treat more creatures as favored enemies than a normal ranger would.

[Snails]

Belkar's original character concept is an evil sadistic little runt who loves hurting people.

To that end, he is modeled as having lots of Favored Enemy: (all) Humanoids -- yes, he is probably a cheat for always applying an FE to every humanoid he meets. Thus many Ranger levels. Also recall that the 3.0 Ranger had some restrictions about having FE with civilized races (the details of which I cannot recall), so this works well with the evil sadistic little runt idea.

Coupled with TWFing, Belkar is a superb humanoid mook killer or other low AC targets like humanoid wizards. That is a sub-optimal build, not it ain't actually bad and it fits just fine within this team and this story.

As others have pointed out, he has some number of barbarian levels but the number is unknown. Belkar has always been a little bit barbarianish in personality, and so that works out fine.

[Kish]

The 3.0 ranger had to be evil to select their own race as a favored enemy. That's it.

[Tzardok]

*opens mouth* ... *closes mouth*

I just noticed for the first time that 3.5 removed that restriction.

[wilphe]

Given that he was explicitly saying he wanted new skill points--and he did, in fact, get increased from 4+int modifier per level to 6+int modifier per level--

--I wouldn't read more into that than "Rich chose to write a joke about the cosmos slugging Belkar one, instead of a not-a-joke where everyone was happy with their increased power."

Yes, it is like V being unable to Teleport because it moved from Transmutation to Conjuration.

Being a small TWF was less bad in 3.0

So while the party in general is low-OP, two of them actually got a bit worse in the transition

[littlebum2002]

To that end, he is modeled as having lots of Favored Enemy: (all) Humanoids -- yes, he is probably a cheat for always applying an FE to every humanoid he meets.

I would attach a rider to this and say he probably has FE: All Medium Sized Humanoids. Along with FE: Kobolds of course. But other than them he doesn't seem to have the same hatred for other Small sized creatures as he does for the cloud-scrapers

[KillianHawkeye]

I expect Belkar probably has Favored Enemy humans, goblinoids, kobolds, and undead.

Possibly also Favored Enemy paladins, horses, and thieves' guild members. :smallwink:

[woweedd]

Belkar's Favored Enemy almost certainly applies to undead. As he notes here (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0957.html), they were the only things he was even allowed to kill for months, and he states that he's gotten "pretty good at it, really", which would seem to be the way of fluffing the bonus Favored Enemy grants: You've killed so many of the things that you're familiar with how best to deal damage to them by experience. His other favored enemy, i'd guess, is humans, the supposition being that in this old interview (http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=467), Rich states Belkar was partly inspired by a character he played in a game, a tough as nails Halfling ranger who had favored enemy for humans. Bit tenous, but it's a good enough connection for me. Kobolds are also a strong possibility, of course.

[Kish]

If Belkar ever took one (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm) level of ranger after the strip where he realizes he has Evasion, that'd be three favored enemies.

Although I think the answer to the "what are Belkar's favored enemies?" question is "Rich never bothered to figure it out; it's been a long time since 'you have +2/+4/+6 damage against that creature type' would be a strip's punchline."

[Lumix19]

Yeah, Humans, Kobolds and Undead seem safe bets for Belkar's Favored Enemies.

There's a very good reason for him to continue to level as a Ranger as well which is that it increases Mr. Scruffy's stats as an animal companion. Not that Rangers get very strong animal companions but that's by the by.

[woweedd]

If Belkar ever took one (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/ranger.htm) level of ranger after the strip where he realizes he has Evasion, that'd be three favored enemies.

Although I think the answer to the "what are Belkar's favored enemies?" question is "Rich never bothered to figure it out; it's been a long time since 'you have +2/+4/+6 damage against that creature type' would be a strip's punchline."

I'm willing to bet on undead, just because the bit about getting good at killing them very much sounds like an in-character description of a Favored Enemy bonus, but, yeah, it really doesn't matter being as the comic doesn't involve dice rolls.