A little help

[ccannon995]

Hello everyone! Getting ready to start SoU and was trying to get some advice about character development. I want to mostly be a ranger but add in either rogue or fighter (which should I choose?). Then, as a prestige class, I'd like to consider weapon master vs. CoT? What would you all do and for how many levels apiece?

Also, what would be good choices to dual wield with this character? I've always heard that rapiers are good (weapon finesse) but what about the other hand? Thanks a lot!

[Mercc]

I would go with rogue. After all a ranger is just a specialized fighter is he not? Or did 3E change that?

Mercc

[philip]

I don't know much about the prcs but if you want to sual wield you should try out keen rapiers with improved critical [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Stratos]

Adding levels of Fighter to your Ranger will only really give you some extra feats as well as Weapon Specialization. Rogue levels will give you rogue skills, sneak attacks as well as a number of other benefits. Both the Ranger and the Rogue uses stealth and both benefit from a high dexterity, so they mix very well.

The Cot PrC is basically a Fighter/Paladin hybrid and will give you Paladin-like abilities as well as bonus feats every two levels, just like a Fighter, with the excepton of Weapon Spec. Several of his abilites are charisma based, though, so you might want to start with a decent score here. Unfortunately, charisma is not the most important skill for either the Ranger or the Rogue.

Pick the Weapon Master PrC if you want to specialize in one kind of weapons and get massive combat bonuses while using those. Level 7 is a good stopping point if you pick the WM prC.

[ScottG]

the weapon master class is problematic - particularly for SOU where you'll likely only get to level 13 at the most.

The reason is that you need to have a WHOLE LOT OF FEATS for this class, and the only way to do it fairly well for SOU's constraints is Fighter to weapon master.

Another reason its a poor class for SOU is that you'll either won't get to the point where the Weapon Master is really good (level 7) or you will but it will be at the very end of the game. (and like stratos has mentioned, there is no reason to go beyond 7 levels as a weapon master.)

Additionally I've tried out the various weapons with weapon master and the choice is really rapier's or scimitars because of the low initial criticals. by the time you get them down to 10-20 threat range with ALL the bonuses available then you'll hit so often that you'll critical enough to overcome any increase in damage that another weapon type might have.

If you just want an additional class for your ranger then consider the blackguard - never a boring choice. (Unlike the other 10 hit dice classes, stealth is a class skill for the Ranger, and so it works VERY well with the Blackguard - i.e. this class allows dualing to Blackguard the most quickly). Its also a well balanced character for every level in SOU. Finally you can take the character into HOTU and still add one more prestige class - perhaps at that point you'll want a weapon master?