[PF] Non-spelling casting Ranger

[Tetsubo 57]

I love me some Rangers. But I have never been thrilled with the spell casting aspects of the class. Not since 1E. I love the idea of the combat styles, the animal companion, all of the outdoorsy stuff, favored terrain etc. But the spells? Not so much. So, if *you* were going to remove the spell casting what would you add in as a replacement?

So far I've come up with a few ideas:

Animal companion at 1st level.
Barbarian fast movement.
Barbarian DR.

This front loads the class a bit though. Another idea is to leave the animal companion as it is, drop the DR and give the class the evasion feat tree. But keep the fast movement bonus.

Any thoughts?

[zagan]

The option already exist it's in complete warrior page 13.
They gain:
Fast movement at level 6th exactly like the barbarian
Nature blessing: at 11th a standard action once per day for 1 min they +4 to Con, Dex or Wis.
Healing touch: at 13th once per day cast neutralize poison or remove disease with a caster level equal to half ranger level.
Freedom of movement: at 16th once per day cast freedom of movement on himself with a caster level equal to half ranger level.

It's not worth the loss of the spellcasting Ranger have a few good spell. if you really want to replace it with something full animal companion progression would be a good start I think, perhaps the ability to take both combat style.

[Melamoto]

There's also a variant without casting in Complete Champion. Gives bonus feats every 4 levels, starting at 4th.