A good ranger dual wield build?

[chad878262]

no offense meant, but I highly encourage others not to use the above build. AC and AB will be awful, skill points will be awful, CL will also be awful and you won't even have enough feats to pull it off (but even if you could, I wouldn't do it).

[loucolouco]

No offense taken.
But i totally disagree...

The AC will be better then the suggestions given till now. monk bonus ac, tempest bonus ac, wis ac, better dex ac, dodge, GTWD... it's surely a much BETTER AC. that's not awful at all ... Also you'll have better hide and MV since you don't use armor... ohh another plus lol.

The AB as i said you can just skip OTWF and Monkey Grip and go for normal/small weapon. the BAB will be 28 at lvl30. Using 2 great axe give a -4 AB. Get wep focus, tempest bonus, epic prowess. At end It'll be only -1 AB. But you can skip the 2 great axe and focus on anything you like and have better AB. So no... again not awful AB...

The skills is just enough to max mv hide and tumble... you don't need more than that unless few on UMD and you have few to spare here. So it's more than enough...

The Cl? really a ranger worried about CL? Druid cleric wiz ok but ranger.. Even with full spellcasting progression you should never be worried about cl on ranger. few buffs is all a ranger use and if dispelled it won't hurt much either... just carry some scrolls if needed. And why would you want feats for CL on a ranger... If you want a caster, ranger isn't the right class... 21 ranger is more than enough... and never worry about CL...

Practiced spellcaster is a waste of feat... Rangers aren't casters at all...

Protective ward isn't bad... In fact it's good

ICE isn't your friend since you aren't a tank and should never focus on it and won't have stats to put 13 int and also have wis con str dex...
+6 ac for -6 ab isn't a good choice for a hitter...
better go for 2 GTWD since you already have higher dex and let int die.
So a BIG NO to ICE.

UMD is good ... will help you a lot.

LoH is better than armor skin but not that good as most say... If you have to chose go for LoH of course. If you can get both.

Do get weapon focus and epic prowess since the main objective is to have high AB to have good damage output.

Returning to the build. In fact this build is good since you have much better AC, CAN have good AB, have evasion, run faster and hide better. Did i mention you get Improved knockdown for free?

Other possibility is to go 21 ranger 4 fighter 5 tempest. This one have the best AB and damage and if you get GTWD a little smaller AC but better than the other options...

[Wyatt]

I'm afraid your suggestions imply that you are not particularly familiar with our PW here. If you want to play that build, by all means. BGTSCC is fairly forgiving for unoptimized builds especially in a party setting. The argument that it is one of the best builds available is misleading however and should be pointed out to prevent people from having unreasonable expectations for this build you've provided.

[loucolouco]

Never said it's the best... in fact it's not even near the best... it just a interesting and fun build since you use 2 great axes...
I was just defending the build set
EDIT:
Saying it's awful and implying its unoptimized when the build has better AC, better hide/MS, have improved knockdown and, just changing the weapons and changing few feats, it has the same AB and free feats for other feats like even more ac;

And being the only 2 points against the build: the weaker animal companion and a not full CL is a little strange...

One more with cavestalker that can HIPS in caves...

Not full CL on ranger that exist in a pw, that i'm not used to, but that has plenty of magical items with immunity spells etc sounds pretty ok to me. If this pw was completely no magical equipment or just enhanced weapons then i would agree that the full CL would be important. And i don't really need to have a lvl 30 char to start knowing the pw.

If at least you point me exactly why it's awful or unoptimized I'll surely accept it and rest my argument and the creator of the post will have even more info to work with...

[chad878262]

Let's start with AC...

10 + 3 (Tumble) + 1 (Monk AC) + 2 (Tempest) + 1 (TWD, you can't fit greater and OTWF/Monkey grip) +4 (DEX 18) +2 (WIS 14) +4 (robes) +5 (barkskin) +4 (halo of sand) +4(dodge boots) +2(cats grace) +2 (owl's wisdom) = 44, which is not terrible at all... except that 13 of that AC is coming from spells....so when you get dispelled, assuming you have +4 gear (natural armor and deflection AC) as backups it's 39, which is not so good. Also, those Ranger spells open up your slots so you can use things like stealth gear or items with special qualities...but you can't rely on your spells (which on this server are quite good). 39 AC in epic area's will get destroyed fairly quickly since you do not have HiPS indoors.

Now let's talk Attack Bonus, your BAB is 28 and with a +3 STR item you should have +9 so

28 + 9 (STR) + 4 (weapon) + 1 (tempest) +1 (epic prowess) -2 (OSTWF) -2 (Monkey Grip) = 39 which without full time HiPS in epic areas will probably hit on maybe 4-6 out of 12 attacks... Would be better off using one great axe w/ improved PA for about the same AB, but doing a lot more damage per round. Generally on this server AC is not too awful to deal with, but with a melee build with no HiPS it is still recommended to get in the ~44 AB range if you want to land most of your attacks.

Skills... you can max Hide, MS and Tumble, but that's it...No UMD for you, as the most you will be able to get in a fourth skill cross class is about 5 or 6 points (need 11 to use wands, more if you want to use scrolls with any success.) This is bad because your AC would be a bit more defensible with a barkskin wand/spiderskin scroll... You can still use shield potions, but short duration at 5 minutes per swig.

Some things your spell book can give you as a Ranger in addition too the AC spells listed above:

- Free blindfight
- +1 AB through aid
- invisibility purge, which can help against epic enemies such as Frost Giant Mystics
- +4 CON for +60 HP (though this can be dangerous if dispelled or expires when you have 60 HP or fewer, even if you win combat)
- bonuses to stealth (I know you think your stealth is decent on this build, but it's really not... Base is under 40 so you will need a lot of items to get it to a point where you won't be spotted (generally in epics you need a minimum of mid to high 50's to use stealth in some area's... Many require mid 60's or even as high as low 80's to truly be safe from detection).

All of these help a Ranger be a middle to high tier class if build and used correctly, but adding feats and classes that add AC, at the cost of AC and CL doesn't help you, it hurts you. Your build may be fun for you and I'm not saying it can't work in a party...however, if someone is looking at a viable build that ever plans to solo this build will not last in any epic area's.

Compare this to a pure Ranger 30 w/ 16 DEX, similar STR (probably +1 higher AB/Dmg if optimized) casting cats grace w/ a mithral breastplate and you can get ~40-42 AC without being dispellable and still have skill points for some UMD so that you can add IMA and shield when necessary without carrying a ton of potions. Now, if you wanted to go R26/M4 I can support that, sure... +2 AC from Tumble, +4 from WIS is essentially 1 better than what you get from a breastplate, but I still recommend full caster level to protect your AC which is middle tier in the 40's and once you dip below it becomes bad news in epics.

Hope this helps, as Wyatt said you should play whatever you want, but the Ranger spell list on this server is not something to ignore if you want to survive as a Ranger. Generally unless you are stopping Ranger at 11 or less, the spellbook needs to be a major part of your build.

[loucolouco]

Let's start with AC...

10 + 3 (Tumble) + 1 (Monk AC) + 2 (Tempest) + 1 (TWD, you can't fit greater and OTWF/Monkey grip) +4 (DEX 18) +2 (WIS 14) +4 (robes) +5 (barkskin) +4 (halo of sand) +4(dodge boots) +2(cats grace) +2 (owl's wisdom) = 44, which is not terrible at all... except that 13 of that AC is coming from spells....so when you get dispelled, assuming you have +4 gear (natural armor and deflection AC) as backups it's 39, which is not so good. Also, those Ranger spells open up your slots so you can use things like stealth gear or items with special qualities...but you can't rely on your spells (which on this server are quite good). 39 AC in epic area's will get destroyed fairly quickly since you do not have HiPS indoors.

amulet of natural armor, boots with ac and dex, another item with wis... the GTWD and OTWF/Monkey you have enough feats to get all of them but as i said you don't have to go for it you can change and get normal and light weapon and get only GTWD... Also dex won't be 18 but 20. so it's +5
AC won't be 44 that can be dispelled its 47 and the dispel will make your ac go to 46. lose 1 from barkskin.

Now let's talk Attack Bonus, your BAB is 28 and with a +3 STR item you should have +9 so

28 + 9 (STR) + 4 (weapon) + 1 (tempest) +1 (epic prowess) -2 (OSTWF) -2 (Monkey Grip) = 39 which without full time HiPS in epic areas will probably hit on maybe 4-6 out of 12 attacks... Would be better off using one great axe w/ improved PA for about the same AB, but doing a lot more damage per round. Generally on this server AC is not too awful to deal with, but with a melee build with no HiPS it is still recommended to get in the ~44 AB range if you want to land most of your attacks.

Again as i said you don't have to go to 2 great axe although it looks good but i know its not efficient. Also you forgot wep focus so it would be 40 AB and able to use Improved knockdown and HIPS. Coming from HIPS and landing a improved knockdown is just perfect...

But as i said you can always skip 2 great axe and go for 2 small weapons giving you 44 ab.

The improved Pa with 2-handed great axe... ok you could just build another class and char build and have more AB with more damage... But here we are talking about 2 weapon fighting ranger not 2 handed ranger...

Skills... you can max Hide, MS and Tumble, but that's it...No UMD for you, as the most you will be able to get in a fourth skill cross class is about 5 or 6 points (need 11 to use wands, more if you want to use scrolls with any success.) This is bad because your AC would be a bit more defensible with a barkskin wand/spider skin scroll... You can still use shield potions, but short duration at 5 minutes per swig.

In fact ranger gain 6 skills and with 6 int its 4 per lvl, on monk lvl you gain 2 and on tempest 0. So you can 30 tumble 33 hide 33 mv and you'll have few to get UMD to go to 6 or 10 if you get hide mv to 29. not a great option since you need all hide MV possible... but someone how want that much more skills could just go 10 con 8 int... or get str to 17...

Some things your spell book can give you as a Ranger in addition to the AC spells listed above:

- Free blindfight
- +1 AB through aid
- invisibility purge, which can help against epic enemies such as Frost Giant Mystics
- +4 CON for +60 HP (though this can be dangerous if dispelled or expires when you have 60 HP or fewer, even if you win combat)
- bonuses to stealth (I know you think your stealth is decent on this build, but it's really not... Base is under 40 so you will need a lot of items to get it to a point where you won't be spotted (generally in epics you need a minimum of mid to high 50's to use stealth in some area's... Many require mid 60's or even as high as low 80's to truly be safe from detection).

aid you can carry pots
+4 con never on spell. go for item... it's suicideon spell...
invisibility purge is not a spell you'll need every time and you can cast it few times also so not that important...
bonus on stealth ... camouflage is the only one i really wouldn't like to see dispelled. And no i never though the hide MV skills are good where they are... i have played enough on many servers and for many years to know that to rely on hide and MV it has to be on ridiculous high lvls...

All of these help a Ranger be a middle to high tier class if build and used correctly, but adding feats and classes that add AC, at the cost of AC and CL doesn't help you, it hurts you. Your build may be fun for you and I'm not saying it can't work in a party...however, if someone is looking at a viable build that ever plans to solo this build will not last in any epic area's.

in fact as i see it the only point CL hurts you is on one spell since the pw isn't that low on magic items you can use items... So again high CL isn't as near important as you stated... Ranger don't have that good spells to say that it's so important... I wouldn't say that for a cleric or wiz or bard...

Compare this to a pure Ranger 30 w/ 16 DEX, similar STR (probably +1 higher AB/Dmg if optimized) casting cats grace w/ a mithral breastplate and you can get ~40-42 AC without being dispellable and still have skill points for some UMD so that you can add IMA and shield when necessary without carrying a ton of potions. Now, if you wanted to go R26/M4 I can support that, sure... +2 AC from Tumble, +4 from WIS is essentially 1 better than what you get from a breastplate, but I still recommend full caster level to protect your AC which is middle tier in the 40's and once you dip below it becomes bad news in epics.

Hope this helps, as Wyatt said you should play whatever you want, but the Ranger spell list on this server is not something to ignore if you want to survive as a Ranger. Generally unless you are stopping Ranger at 11 or less, the spellbook needs to be a major part of your build.

Ra26/M4 isn't good at all just for ac you have a better options like ninja same bonus ac and 2d6 sneak... or just go 4 figther or 4 tempest...

Even on pure cleric i only use stats spells while i'm without items with stats... and on ranger it's more important to don't rely on those kind of spells even if it can't be easily dispelled. you don't have much slots and for example:
owns wisdom can give a slot of magic that a ranger don't have much... so item on it.
bear endurance should be on item also... even 30 ranger with full CL progression shouldn't have it on spell...
dex is your ac and so if dispelled you'll have 2 ac less and you don't want it... so item.. and than you have slots for camouflage, blades of fire, freedom of mov etc and you'll have slot to have more than one of each... if dispelled you won't lose ac maybe just a little AB if using aid...

Camouflage as i said is the only one i wouldnt like to see dispelled since it's a great help on the build.

As far as we got i can only agree that 2 great axes will hurt but i put it there just to look good just don't use it and you are ok...

the Cl isn't that important as you stated... And as you can see here on forum even cl 30 there are some places with so many dispels that it won't help at all as you can see on the post "Defending against being dispelled" that you already read as you commented lol. So again having cl 30 on ranger isn't that important. and you can use some tactics to avoid dispel as Aelcar wrote on the topic.

the ac is better, the ab can be the same...

the skills you can have umd at low lvl 6 or 10 but can. also could adjust the str to 17 on start and put more on int but i wouldn't do that... or 10 con and 8 int... so no big problems here

With 18 dex and getting it to 20 and lvl on tempest you have access to GTWD which you wouldn't be able with a 16 dex build.

Without using monkey grip and OTWF you can get LoH and Protective ward or armor skin for 48 ac
or even getting those 2 feats and also skipping animal bond and epic animal companion and thats 4 feats for blind fight, LoH, armor skin, protective ward giving you 49 ac undispellable.

No offense but this build is far superior to the options you gave till now and the obsession with Cl on ranger isn't justified... and also i would never suggest ICE for a hitter build... but Improved PA could be an option if it didn't hurt the AB so badly...
the build focus is damage AB and hide MS...
AC I try as hard to rise so it can solo with caution...
Also having 13 int on a build that need str dex con wis is just impossible to do anything optimized... so again ICE never on this build... (its really great feat on other builds but not this one)

[chad878262]

Well...CL 30 makes you IMMUNE to dispel...Only Mords works at that point and that is pretty rare except for bosses and pesky Kobolds in one area. The point of the dispel thread was to point out that the ONLY way to fully protect from dispel is CL30 since the NWN RNG along with the fact that each ward is rolled separately means you will often get dispelled of at least one or two wards even at CL 27-29, but at 30, you can't be dispelled by Greater dispel since the max dispel roll is 40 while your DC is 41. This is why the Ranger spell book is so good, it allows you to have +11 AC (5 BS/4HoS/2DEX), +13 on your build with owls wisdom up WITHOUT ITEMS. This means you can wear some really nice items that would otherwise need to be used to improve stats and AC.

It should also be noted that +4 Dodge/Natural/Deflection items are not cheap, even with the epic store you are looking at ~100K each for natural and deflection and ~350K or more for dodge boots. +4 Cloth armor is about another 40-50K... So that's 600K just for you to have your AC, of which 200K you can get completely for free. Most will not have that kind of gold until they've been around the server well over a year, so they'll be stuck mostly with +3 stuff. However, with Ranger spell book you can get solid AC even with +3 dodge boots and +4 Studded Leather or cloth if you go dex based.

Finally, your stats do not suggest you are using items since +4 stat items are some of the rarest stuff on the server... So if you were going to use items for CON/DEX/WIS shouldn't all of those stats be odd numbers?

I will just repeat that this build is not the optimum way to build a ranger. You waste feats to get tempest essentially for a +2 AC, +1 AB that you could have gotten by taking Protective Ward (+2 AC at Ranger 24) and being able to cast Aid (potion last 3 minutes, vs. 30 minutes at Ranger 30).

When I was playing a pure Ranger I worked with M3ntalist on it and the 'ideal' stat spread would be 16 DEX, 14 WIS (or 11, but then you are dependant on +3 wis item), 10-13 INT (depending on if you want extra AC when needed), 10-14 CON and max STR. This allows you to wear either Studded leather or mithral breastplate and cast cats grace for max AC. you should also get to around 41 AB unbuffed and around 44 AC, 50 with ICE up and 56 if you add IMA and shield.

Anyone can make their own decision as to the type of character they WANT to build, but the Ranger/Tempest/Monk has issues with feat starvation and the issue I have is you are giving up CL30, about 2 points of AB (if you go the great axe/monkey grip/WF route) and you really aren't gaining anything aside from IKD... While IKD is nice and all, you could honestly just take KD/IKD instead of dodge/mobility/spring attack and have a feat left over. Ranger 27/SD3 or R26/CS4 will do much better than this by gaining HiPS anywhere instead of outdoor natural areas only and will be less feat intensive.

[Thorsson]

I like the fact that someone who is new to the server thinks that they should be giving build advice.

Unfortunately it is bad advice. Monk6 actually does very little for a Ranger; sure there's a bit of AC, a bit of speed and some free Feats, but OTOH you lose 2 BAB, 6 CL, free Ranger Feats and Bonus Feats. On BGTSCC Tempest3 only gets +1 to AB and AC, not worth spending 3 Feats on, 2 of them fairly useless and one poor (LoH is much better than Dodge if you have a Feat spare), as well as losing CL and free Feats.

The suggested build could only max at CL25 (and you require another Feat for that) and it will be very painful to go to any number of areas, even while you're levelling, if you intend to rely on spells. If you don't want to rely on spells then there's little point in going Ranger at all - far better to go F12 and add 3 other classes to get anything else you want.

The only thing I would say is that these two classes give full access to Tumble and I would certainly recommend taking 3-4 levels of a class that gives that.

[loucolouco]

I like the fact that someone who is old to the server thinks that someone new to the server is a newbie...
LOL
The point is monk is one of the best options for STR dual rand ranger

"Monk give some speed"... anyone that relys on hide knows that any boost on the speed is welcome and can make the difference...

"Monk give some free feats"... IKD is enough to explain it

About Dodge and for tempest...Dodge is a good feat but mobility and spring attack are also damn good... and for this build it's mandatory but i known you think its weak...

Probably never ever had it on pvp or build it

Chad the immune you say isnt immune and when you need most it dont work... so cl for ranger sucks...

[chad878262]

Chad the immune you say isnt immune and when you need most it dont work... so cl for ranger sucks...

care to qualify this statement? DC for dispel when CL = 30 is 11 + 30 = 41. On our server Greater dispel caps at +20 so d20+20= max of 40 which cannot beat your DC, thus you are immune to anything besides Breach or Mords, which is not to be taken lightly as only a few bosses and one or two mobs ever will have Mords and breaches have been toned down since the dispel fix. Our server has custom spells which make the Rangers spell list quite beneficial so CL30 for a Ranger is quite important. As I stated before it opens up item slots to be used for other benefits. For instance, if your natural AC is taken care of by Barkskin you can wear a Spell Resistance Amulet, Halo of Sand opens up a ring/helm slot by handling your deflection AC as well as any item can. Likewise, Cat's Grace means you don't need a bonus DEX item to max your AC bonus. I won't go through it again, but when you say CL for Ranger sucks you are showing how little you know about playing a Ranger on this server. Play what you want, in any case.

[Theodore01]

"Monk give some speed"...

But doesn't that speed boost only work in robes or naked?

[Akroma666]

Alrighty people.. let's not have a pissing contest for character building. We all have different opinions and tastes. This will be the first warning. I would appreciate it if you guys went back and cleaned up your personal jabs at each other and prevent me or another mod from having to lock the thread or issuing warnings. Especially over constructive character building.

[Thorsson]

But doesn't that speed boost only work in robes or naked?

Yes, and so does the AC. So you might wonder how well that works on a Strength Ranger. You might wonder, but I couldn't possibly comment.

[Rudolph]

Nice. Lots of server-specific Ranger tips. Thanks Chad and Thorsson for all that detailed info and to Luoco for inducing them to share it.

[Aurali]

Is 16 dex required for a feat? Could 14 dex work? With the armor update, it is possible to get light armor that is 6 ac with 4 dex max. Same as mithril breastplate but relaxes the dex requirement some.