Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

You can come up better names for these.

"Anti-Paladin"

Requires: Evil Alignment and Evil Deity

Loses: Ranger Combat Styles, Woodland Stride, Evasion, Camouflage, and Hide in Plain Sight.

Gains: Turn Undead and Dark Blessing

"Slayer"
Loses: Ranger Combat Styles

Gains: Improved Favored Enemy feat for their every Favored Enemy

"Beast Master"
Loses: Ranger Combat Styles

Gains: Extra HD to the summon spells in the ranger spell book. (Summon Creatures I-IV, and Conjure Animals.)

Sun Wukong wrote:"Slayer"
Loses: Ranger Combat Styles

Gains: Improved Favored Enemy feat for their every Favored Enemy

This one doesn't work since you could simply take the 4 feats you get from Combat Styles while gaining +3 damage to all FE's (7 for a pure ranger, 8 for R26/HS4). That's a net gain of 3 or 4 feats equivalent. I still hold out hope that some day IFE will be worth taking on a Ranger, either by lowering to +3 (instead of bugged +5) damage and making it work against all FE's (since it's essentially 1 more damage than Weapon Specialization, but doesn't effect everything) or leaving at +5, but allowing selection of 2 enemies for one feat. Personally I prefer 1 feat for +3 damage against all FE's, but even getting the +3 against 3 enemies for one feat would be better than the current way the feat works.

The other two are fine I guess, but IMO they're not worth implementing. R26/BG4 gets TU and Dark Blessing without losing anything, except one epic feat and one pre-epic feat on Cleave (Power Attack is needed anyway if you're going for EDM). As to Beastmaster Summon Creature 4 w/ extra HD is not going to hold up past areas of CR ~12 which sucks since Ranger doesn't get it until 16. Adding HD to lesser creatures isn't going to make them compete with better summons.

What is HS? Did you mean Cavestalker?

Anyhow, on the "Slayer" kit, while you could take the four+ feats for the combat styles it would still require a high dexterity build. Perfect Two-Weapon fighting requries 25 dexterity while One Shot requires 27 dexterity.

A strength based two-weapon fighting ranger will get that 5~ off hand damage against everything from their strength modifier alone, while strength also increase their AB and carrying capacity. Not to mention that they could spend their feats on those extra Improved Favored Enemy feats as an example.

A dexterity based ranged build doesn't need to get Point Blank Shot for Rapid Shot, and you can actually afford to pick stealth improving feats and Natural Bond to improve your tanky animal companion, not to mention to possibility for Combat Strike for situational +4 AB and Damage against everything.

Thus to me the 'Slayer' kit is something for the Sword-and-Board and Two-handed ranger types. Anyhow, I am not against Slayer losing more ranger abilities. For example, they could also lose their Animal Companion, which in itself is a beast. No time for taking care of animals, as you are slaying things, or something like that.



As for the Ranger 26/Blackguard 4, you need to spend a feat on Cleave and Practised Spell Caster, you will also lose out on your animal companion progression, an Epic Bonus Feat, and one favored enemy. This is why I think that the 'Anti-Paladin' kit could have a window of existance, not to mention that there are always those who want some kind of an 'Anti-Paladin' type of base class, and I think the ranger base class could be a good base for it. You got the fiendies and monstrous animal companions, you got skill set that leans towards stealth and setting traps, you got those favored enemies, divine spell book, and thus in a way all you are lacking is Turn Undead and Dark Blessing. Not to mention that there isn't a real alternative since the 'Knight' base class was named as 'Man-at-Arms' and you would still need to get that Blackgaurd dip for an 'Anti-Paladin' type of build. I would probably want to add medium and heavy armor proficiencies to the 'Anti-Paladin' kit to since without Combat Feats it is freed from the light armor limitations.




Finally, as for "Beast Master" kit, it actually depends on how much the HD of the summons are raised. As you said, the ranger spell book has its limits, but it doesn't mean you couldn't have every two levels giving +1 HD to your summons, naturally up to the general HD cap. Hence at level 16 that Summon Creature IV spell would produce a HD 16 summon. Thus a level 30 Beast Master could have a HD 23 creature summoned through the Summon Creature IV spell. Grab a Spell Focus Conjuration and you got HD 24 summon. You could grab Greater Spell Focus to improve Summon Creature III to bring forth a HD 23 summon at level 30, but it would not improve the Summon Creature IV itself beyond meeting the HD cap sooner. But you would basically have lots of animals around you.

As a wisdom based build you could have Animal Companion Buffed up, Summon Creature III or IV buffed up, and the Animal Swarm for funsies.

Sun Wukong wrote:What is HS? Did you mean Cavestalker?

Harper Scout.

Sun Wukong wrote:Anyhow, on the "Slayer" kit, while you could take the four+ feats for the combat styles it would still require a high dexterity build. Perfect Two-Weapon fighting requries 25 dexterity while One Shot requires 27 dexterity.

Dex based PTWF Ranger can simply take Deadly Defense and they still have a net gain to feats. Archery Ranger will max DEX anyway and One Shot is not necessarily a damage improvement over Manyshot so losing one of the two uses Ranger can get isn't the end of the world. One Shot does have specific uses/benefits, but in order to get +5 damage against all FE's I'd say it's more than a good trade.

Again, my opinion is that Improved Favored Enemy should be changed so that it's one feat for all FE's or at least so that it doesn't take 7 feats for a pure Ranger to get the benefits (even if damage / skill bonuses are lowered to accommodate the improvement). Doubt it will happen, but in any case I also don't think +5 to all FE's will happen, especially when you are only giving up combat styles that would be a net gain. Consider that 2 of those FE's are Epic, thus if you want Improved FE on your last 2 FE's you have to spend Epic Feats. however, the way you have set it up those are granted free. In every way it is better than combat styles.

the anti-pal kit is not gonna fill the niche to me unless he gets the pali spell book. other than that, they seem fun to me.

R1/BMas25/Th4 would be the new archer build. one shot is not great so can even be skipped to get the ESF or other stuff.

Improved Favored Enemies should be moved to an epic feat +require 21 levels of Ranger. Make it give +5 to all FEs you have. *sage nod*

Calodan wrote:Improved Favored Enemies should be moved to an epic feat +require 21 levels of Ranger. Make it give +5 to all FEs you have. *sage nod*

That would be almost as good as Bane of Enemies and too good. BoE is 2d6 or ~7 damage per hit against all FE's. Though making it an Epic Feat giving +3 to all FE's would be worth it and still better than current. Also do like the thought of still requiring 21 Ranger.

chad878262 wrote:Dex based PTWF Ranger can simply take Deadly Defense and they still have a net gain to feats.

A feat that a strength based PTWF Ranger can also use if they choose to make use of light weapons and avoid Power Attack. Such a build also grab Northlander Hewing, which does give notable increase per damage on hit due to that high strength.

Sun Wukong wrote:Archery Ranger will max DEX anyway and One Shot is not necessarily a damage improvement over Manyshot so losing one of the two uses Ranger can get isn't the end of the world. One Shot does have specific uses/benefits, but in order to get +5 damage against all FE's I'd say it's more than a good trade.

Wisdom based Zen Archery is more than valid option since it can make full use of the ranger spell book. But high wisdom means limited dexterity.

And once again, the number of favored enemies remains limited. You can go for the most generic mobs and do well on the server, but all it takes is a new area or DM spawns to throw a curve ball at that specified damage output. I guess we are looking at this based on different preferences or something. Because to me on a ranged build the loss of automatic combat feats are a net loss.

As for Improved Favored Enemy feats, I got nothing against one feat giving +3 against all favored enemies... It just basically means you can partially ignore the common 10 or so DR this server has. But if IFE is one feat, it will create pressure to make Favored Power Attack also a single feat that applies to all favored enemies... And well, I know how that discussion is going to go.

aaron22 wrote: R1/BMas25/Th4 would be the new archer build. one shot is not great so can even be skipped to get the ESF or other stuff.

Epic Spell Focus requires 9th level spells. Ranger's spell book ends at 4th level spells. You could just go for 'Beast Master 30' that grabs Augment Summon and Beckon the Frozen, and get that extra epic feat, and favored enemy. But once again, you need to spend feats on:

Point Blank Shot,
Rapid Shot,
Many Shot,
Improved Rapid Shot,
Zen Archery if you want to get most out of your spell book... and so on.

I did a quick google search and it appears the 'official' D&D iteration of Improved Favored Enemy is an Epic Feat that gives +1 to skills and damage to all FE's and requires 5 or more FE's to qualify. (Source=SRD http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Improved_Favored_Enemy)

This seems a bit weak on the server due to increased mob HP, but can't forget the bonus to skills and the fact that the PnP feat can be taken multiple times with stacking benefits. This is all theory as it's been discussed before and few on QC or in other groups have any desire to change IFE or FPA. Favored Power Attack is not a feat in any official D&D source that I know of, but if it were to be one feat for all FE's it would also need adjusted.

Also, based on SRD Rangers Favored Enemies should grant +1 bonus on Survival and Sense Motive checks so that would be a (very slight) bump if it were implemented.

Improved Favored Enemy: https://dndtools.net/feats/dungeon-mast ... emy--1489/

Favored Power Attack: https://dndtools.net/feats/dragon-compe ... ack--3356/


How about if IFE were pre-epic feat that could be taken X amount of times and it gave +1 bonus?

Sun Wukong wrote:Improved Favored Enemy: https://dndtools.net/feats/dungeon-mast ... emy--1489/

Favored Power Attack: https://dndtools.net/feats/dragon-compe ... ack--3356/


How about if IFE were pre-epic feat that could be taken X amount of times and it gave +1 bonus?

Good find, D&D Tools has some homebrewed stuff so didn't think to look there, but they did call out the sources. Seems to indicated FPA is only against one FE while IFE is an epic feat against all FEs...

d20srd <- Where you find the core source book materials.

Dndtools <- Where you find classes, spells, feats, from source books.

DandWiki <- Homebrewed so much that it is not even D&D anymore.

Sun Wukong wrote:d20srd <- Where you find the core source book materials.

Dndtools <- Where you find classes, spells, feats, from source books.

DandWiki <- Homebrewed so much that it is not even D&D anymore.

d20srd <- skeleton

DnD Tools <- the flesh

DnDWiki <- fancy clothes

True enough.