How much is the Ranger's Animal Companion Worth?

[Raistlin1040]

So, in my party, campaign circumstances have made animals impossible. No familiars for a Wizard or Sorcerer, no animal companions for rangers and druids, and no mount for a paladin. My group has a TWF ranger, and though he's a great character, he is somewhat underpowered. Characters are level 12, and I'm trying to decide what to give him in place of the animal companion. I'm thinking some Tiger Claw maneuvers and stances from Tome of Battle, but the Ranger companion is worth less than a Druid's, and I'm not sure how much to give him. He's also the nonspellcasting ranger variant from CW.

What is a fair trade off for an animal companion, using Tome of Battle (or something else if you have an idea).

[Natael]

Usually, I wind up giving the ranger a full companion and forcing the druid into the PHB2 ACF. Since you're completely without animals, that doesn't matter too much.

One of my players is using this (tome of battle variant):
Sublime Way Ranger it seems reasonably balanced with the rest of the party.

[Coidzor]

Usually, I wind up giving the ranger a full companion and forcing the druid into the PHB2 ACF. Since you're completely without animals, that doesn't matter too much.

One of my players is using this (tome of battle variant):
Sublime Way Ranger it seems reasonably balanced with the rest of the party.

Yeah, if you could negotiate with the DM for ToB stuff instead of an animal companion and you're not spellcasting, you're far better off just trying to get a Sublime Way Ranger OK'd.


Distracting attack (which makes people you hit count as flanked until your next turn) is something that one can give up the Animal Companion for. As is Solitary Hunter. Those are... Dragon ACFs, IIRC.

[Evard]

You could always give him sneak attack or rage to boost his damage. heck even both since they can't be used together.

Or from here http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Races...ilure_of_Feats

Mage Slayer [Combat]
You have trained long and hard to kill magic users. Maybe you hate them, maybe you just noticed that most of the really dangerous creatures in the world use magic.

Benefits: This is a combat feat that scales with your Base Attack Bonus.

* +0: You gain Spell Resistance of 5 + Character Level.
* +1: Damage you inflict is considered "ongoing damage" for the purposes of concentration checks made before the beginning of your next round. All your attacks in a round are considered the same source of continuing damage.
* +6: Creatures cannot cast defensively within your threat range.
* +11: Your attacks ignore Deflection bonuses to AC.
* +16: When a creature uses a [Teleportation] effect within medium range of yourself, you may choose to be transported as well. This is not an action.

[Raistlin1040]

I actually am the DM. I've been keeping track of effectiveness for a while, in terms of combat, and the Warblade, Bard, and Warlock are consistantly more useful than the Ranger, so I wanted to give him a few nice manuevers/stances so that he could get some time to shine. I'm not in a position to completely overhaul his character, I'd just like to give him something to make him feel a bit cooler and more useful than "I full attack".

Rage is a possibility. I'm certain he'd enjoy the ToB stuff, I'm not entirely sure if he'd want Rage.

[Evard]

wow yeah the ranger needs a HUGE boost to be on the same level as the others... unless the others are very very unoptimized O_O


take a look at the link there are a few feats from there that would work nicely to even things up

[Raistlin1040]

They're all new players, and I made their characters to specifically circumvent all the cheese that is possible. I'd say that they're all solidly built characters, for the concepts they gave me. However, the ranger does better than you'd expect because almost all of the enemies are Evil Outsiders and Magical Beasts, which are his two highest favored enemies.

[Vizzerdrix]

A D10 HD and the use of medium armor.

[PId6]

By default, a ranger's AC is nearly worthless, so if you something on par with that, "nothing" comes fairly close.

However, if you actually want to improve the class (and it really does need the boost), just give him a maneuver progression like so:

Spoiler

Show

Level	Known	Readied	Stances
1	2	2	1
2	3	2	1
3	3*	2	1
4	3	3	1
5	4*	3	2
6	4	3	2
7	4*	3	2
8	5	3	2
9	5*	3	2
10	5	4	2
11	6*	4	3
12	6	4	3
13	6*	4	3
14	7	4	3
15	7*	4	3
16	7	5	4
17	8*	5	4
18	8	5	4
19	8*	5	4
20	9	6	4

* = level in which he can swap a maneuver known.

Use warblade recovery, and allow maneuvers from Desert Wind and Tiger Claw. This should help make up for using non-spellcasting variant as well (which is a pretty heavy nerf).

[ericgrau]

With a good dex light armor AC is pretty high. If you can reach the max dex allowed by your armor you can typically get a 75% miss chance with only a little trouble. Maybe 60% for TWF (ranged can use a MW buckler). At lower levels you might be 5 points behind the max dex for mithril for a 50% miss chance, or 35% with TWF.

On topic I'd say the animal companion is worth a permanent summon monster equal to 1/4 your class level, with the option to put all day buffs on him. So... not very much at all. Maybe as much as a feat. I mean at half druid progression the ranger's companion is so far behind that he's stuck on utility uses.

The reason rangers tend to fall behind in most parties is because combat-wise they are worse than fighters in every way imaginable: MAD, far less feats (including the free ranger feats), light armor AC (or, if he spends his time pumping dex, his str damage will suffer instead). And being able to turn into a tree with your spells doesn't help you any there. If the DM brushes up on the skill rules and provides some wilderness, scouting, sniping, etc. challenges then the party ranger could shine more. The other way with splatbooks is to give rangers spells that are 10 times better than the core spells in combat... but useless in the wilderness. IMO that's heavy power creep while killing the original ranger. Might as well roll up a paladin instead. Or a warblade or w/e.

Martial classes in general can fall behind at high levels if they're not given enough treasure too. A whopping 88,000 gp worth owned is expected by level 12.

[Fouredged Sword]

It is, infact, worth exactly one feat. See the Wild Cohort Feat in the web additions.

[n00b killa]

Check out the Pathfinder ranger (Pathfinder as in the RPG).

They have a built in variant for the animal companion, plus a lot more other fixes (like the d10 HD and medium armor prof already mentioned on a previous post).

http://www.pathfindersrd.com/classes...classes/ranger

[Telonius]

Yeah, if you could negotiate with the DM for ToB stuff instead of an animal companion and you're not spellcasting, you're far better off just trying to get a Sublime Way Ranger OK'd.


Distracting attack (which makes people you hit count as flanked until your next turn) is something that one can give up the Animal Companion for. As is Solitary Hunter. Those are... Dragon ACFs, IIRC.

Distracting Attack is in PHB2. I'd recommend it if you have a Rogue in the group.

[Ruinix]

non spellcaster variant of CW is a sh**
give to him the non spellcaster variant of RotW, is a lot better since he earn a few feats from the fighter list.

the distracting shot feat it worth ONLY if u have a rogue in the party in that case that rogue give u a son XDDD otherwise it sux.

something like rage would be nice but check if fit with the char role.

[2xMachina]

It is, infact, worth exactly one feat. See the Wild Cohort Feat in the web additions.

I'd say wose than the feat. The feat works even if you PrC/multiclass. Ranger AC does not.

[Eldariel]

I'd say wose than the feat. The feat works even if you PrC/multiclass. Ranger AC does not.

The feat also gives you a much stronger AC; Ranger's AC is Level/2 while Wild Cohort (while having worse upgrades) is Level-3; since Ranger's AC is gotten on level 4, there's really no point at which it would be stronger than a Wild Cohort and it grows weaker incredibly fast.

So yes, Ranger's AC is not worth a feat. It's quite a bit under a feat, actually, as Distracting Attack showcases (it's not an ability worth a feat in and of itself, but it's still more synergistic and ties better to many characters than the poor AC).