What is the deal with pure Rangers?

[Rataxes]

Is it just me, or are the special class abilities of a Ranger vastly inferior to both the pure Fighter and the pure Paladin's class specific abilities?

What do you get

1) Shitloads of Charm Animal spells, which is pretty much the most worthless spell in the entire game. Though I did find it useful when going through Improved Ilyich, I've failed to find any other use for it what so ever after that encounter.

2) Two stars in Two Weapon Style. Ok, this actually would be pretty good, if you were a pure Fighter that is, since he can place almost all available stars into one weapon upon creation and only leave one for Two Weapon Style. A Ranger however, can only put two stars into any weapon, and would even without this TWS bonus thus be able to max out Two Weapon Style and two weapon types of his choice immediately with the six stars he's given upon creation. Again, this is somewhat useful in the beginning, but still pales in comparison to the Grand Mastery of the Fighter, or the Clerical spells, Lay on Hands, and Undead Turning of the Paladin.

3) A small number of Druidic spells up to level 3. This spell selection is actually crap when you think about it. You can get a few Cure Minor/Medium Wounds and an Armor of Faith or two, but most Druidic lvl 1-3 spells are simply worthless and even the rest are just barely useful in certain situations. None of them compare the least to Draw Upon Holy Might, Free Action, Prot from Evil 10' Radius, Negative Plane Protection, Silence 15' Radius, Defensive Harmony etc etc. Call Lightning might've been remotely decent if it hadn't been for the fact that dangerous outdoor areas simply don't exist in this game.

4) Stealth. Now this is the only ability that makes the pure Ranger somewhat worthwhile IMHO. Though you DO want this sort of class to wear Heavy Armor, it is entirely possible to remove your armor, hide in shadows, and then put it back on, in certain situations. There are also a few very good Leather armors that can stand tall among the best metal armors in the game. Still, you will hardly be able to utilize this ability as much as a Thief does, and neither would the playing style of a Fighter such as the Ranger warrant you to do so. Thus, I don't think this one and only useful feature can really make up for the other weak abilities they get.

They also level up slower than a Fighter [img]smile.gif[/img]

Anything I missed? Anyone care to explain to me why the pure Ranger is such a great class?

[ 02-13-2003, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Angelousss]

rangers are much better in pnp because they might fit the campaign better. Bauldur's Gate is city campaign which handicaps rangers and alot of the fun of rangers is the roleplaying the ranger character

[Xen]

Well Rangers are good.Very good=>Ranger/Cleric especially

Hide in Shadows is good to check area(s)
TWS is good-FoA&Crom

Cheers

Xen

[Alson]

Roleplaying considerations aside, i also see no justification to pick the plain Ranger over a plain Fighter or Paladin. Stealth alone isn't worth it, thanks to the sheer numbers of Potions of Invisibility in the game.

[Kaltia]

I actually like rangers-best dual-weilders, and since I have a jumble of mods on my system, one of them (WHo knows which) has enabled rangers to get grandmastery in things . It's cheating, real cheating, so I hardly ever use it except on my "Teach people a lesson" ranger (Stats of 25 each, Imoen's belt, only used to PK multi-playing whingers who think it's funny to CTRL+Y your character)

[Alson]

Originally posted by Kaltia: I actually like rangers-best dual-weilders, and since I have a jumble of mods on my system, one of them (WHo knows which) has enabled rangers to get grandmastery in things ...

It's an Ease-of-Use component.

[Butterfingers]

Well, a plain ranger has some stuff going for him that works out to his favour. All three of the Ranger kits can not wear Elven Chain, which is kinda funny really, especially if your Ranger is an Elf. I find the Ranger's Spell selection quite useful. Flameblades, Resist Fire, Armor of Faith, and, a bug swarm for on the spot mage disruption. When my mage starts getting ready to lob fireballs, Minsc rushes to cast Resist Fire.

That said however, the three kits do have quite a bit going for them. Power gaming aside, all three of them have a certain flavour of roleplaying that is fun.

Stalkers are like Swashbucklers with better hit points, better THAC0, and backstab. I have read of Six of Spades' page that in ToB, this gets fixed, but, in my game, you can backstab with nasty weapons like halbreds and spears. Valygar with the Impaler and a good backstab can make short work of most anything. (The extra piercing damage gets multiplied. Is this a bug or not?)

Beastmasters I think play out much better then people think, plus, you get a cool familiar.

Archers. Put away your bows, get a crossbow, become God on the battlefield.

[Kaltia]

Just for this...Dundee's said this countless times: Tuigan bow+1 vs. Firetooth (Improved).
Tuigan bow+Greater deathblow+room of illithids=dead.
Firetooth+GW+room full of illithids=YOU dead.
IMO the best weapons for the archer are bows or darts. (No kidding-darts of stun are pretty good, darts of wounding also.)

[Rataxes]

Well this comparison obviously becomes invalid if you start mixing kits and multiclasses into the fray With that said, I still think the Paladin and Fighter Kits are more interesting and powerful than the Ranger kits, with the exception of the Archer of course. Stalkers are more like Rangers with a rather puny backstab ability (or hey, that's exactly what they are ) than Swashbucklers, which makes the differences between them and any regular Fighter pretty much the same.

True, there are some useful Cleric/Druid spells on lvls 1-3, but give me one decent Druid-only spell on those levels, other than Summon Insects.

[Butterfingers]

I disagree a bit with the backstabbing. Valygar has done some incredible damage backstabbing damage, with spears, katanas, etc. He has better THAC0 then most thieves, meaning he connects more often.

Let somebody jab the Impaler in your kidneys and then we shall sit down and talk about painful backstabs... Or let somebody ram Dragon's Breath into your spine.

Impaler Backstabs and piles of Invisibility Potions is one of the many ways I clear out the Mind Flayer populations.