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Te'Shen
2008-05-26, 01:15 AM
I'm taking a few variants and trying to make it fill in for a rogue in a low level dungeon. I've traded the wildshaping variant ranger's wildshaping and animal companion for shapeshifting, and I'm taking the trapfinding and losing track thanks to the dungeonscape variant. I'm also trading the ride skill for the tumble skill.

Is this a viable class build... and what can be done to help it out?


Lv Base F R W Features 1st 2nd 3rd 4th
1 +1 +2 +2 +0 1st favored enemy, Trapfinding, wild empathy, Predator Form — — — —
2 +2 +3 +3 +0 Fast Movement +10 — — — —
3 +3 +3 +3 +1 Endurance — — — —
4 +4 +4 +4 +1 Predator Form (Mobility) 0 — — —
5 +5 +4 +4 +1 2nd favored enemy, Aerial Form 0 — — —
6 +6/+1 +5 +5 +2 style 1 — — —
7 +7/+2 +5 +5 +2 Woodland stride, Aerial Form (Flyby attack) 1 — — —
8 +8/+3 +6 +6 +2 Ferocious Slayer Form 1 0 — —
9 +9/+4 +6 +6 +3 Evasion 1 0 — —
10 +10/+5 +7 +7 +3 3rd favored enemy, Ferocious Slayer Form (Imp. Crit.) 1 1 — —
11 +11/+6/+1 +7 +7 +3 1 1 0 —
12 +12/+7/+2 +8 +8 +4 Forrest Avenger Form 1 1 1 —
13 +13/+8/+3 +8 +8 +4 Camouflage 1 1 1 —
14 +14/+9/+4 +9 +9 +4 Forrest Avenger Form (Imp. Overrun) 2 1 1 0
15 +15/+10/+5 +9 +9 +5 4th favored enemy 2 1 1 1
16 +16/+11/+6/+1 +10 +10 +5 Elemental Fury Form 2 2 1 1
17 +17/+12/+7/+2 +10 +10 +5 Hide in plain sight 2 2 2 1
18 +18/+13/+8/+3 +11 +11 +6 Elemental Fury Form (Great Cleave) 3 2 2 1
19 +19/+14/+9/+4 +11 +11 +6 3 3 3 2
20 +20/+15/+10/+5 +12 +12 +6 5th favored enemy 3 3 3 3

Tempest Fennac
2008-05-26, 02:57 AM
It seems overpowered due to normal Wildshaping Rangers not getting full Wild Shape progression. Could you limit Shapeshifting progression so that you get the Aerial form at about level 8 while getting Ferocious Slayer at around level 16? Admittedly, trading in the animal companion as well would help to balance it. Does that variant get Disable Device as a class skill?

Te'Shen
2008-05-26, 03:55 AM
It seems overpowered due to normal Wildshaping Rangers not getting full Wild Shape progression. Could you limit Shapeshifting progression so that you get the Aerial form at about level 8 while getting Ferocious Slayer at around level 16? Admittedly, trading in the animal companion as well would help to balance it. Does that variant get Disable Device as a class skill?To answer your question, yes, the Dungeonscape ranger variant trades track and swift tracker for trapfinding and the disable device skill... so open lock is still cross class.

Trading ride for tumble is an option from Urban Class Features (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a).

As for the shapeshift, it's not RAW, but just the effect of swapping things in other variants. A wildshaping ranger gives up combat styles for wildshape as a druid, small and medium animal forms only and fast movement as a barbarian. I think it goes at second level since that is where the first combat style is, but I could be overthinking it.

Shapeshifting druid lets you trade your animal companion and your wildshaping ability for the ability to shapeshift. No a wildshaping ranger's wildshape isn't as good as a druids nor is his animal companion as good as a druid's animal companion... but I don't think shapeshift is as strong as wildshape, especially since you can take as many levels in Master of Many forms to increase a wildshaping ranger's utility without losing too much. Shapeshift also has built in scaling enhancements and works off your base form so it's not as easy to abuse as wildshape is...

I guess I could delay some features by adding levels of something else, like a level in (pounce) barbarian and one to four levels in the warshaper prc... but I was actually looking to multiclass/prc as little as possible.

Tempest Fennac
2008-05-26, 04:01 AM
A lot of people have said that Shapeshifting isn't as powerful as wildshaping for Druids (as well as eliminating Natural Spell, it adds to the Druid's existing stats rather then replacing them, so the Druid needs descent Str and Dex to begin with).