Project Wild: The Ranger Reborn[UPDATED]

[veekie]

I can see another issue overlaying the other mentioned ones. The Paths are frontloaded, heavily so. For pretty much every Path your best ability is either the first or second, and for some of them(like shapeshift+companion or spellcasting), it should easily have been multiple abilities. This would rather heavily mess up your power growth curves, and puts the Ranger as powerful in multiple areas simultaneously.

EDIT:
And a bit of loose wording

Opponents within range who witness the action may become frightened or shaken.

For such a low level ability, Shaken itself would have been pretty significant. Frightened would crack it rather badly.

[EjoThims]

You are, I'm sure. Unless specified, get bigger does not grant extra strength. Monsters get the strength on top of getting bigger because of the monster advancement rules.

The rules for size changes are included in the discussion of monster improvements, but are in no way limited to monsters (nor to HD base size increases).

One of the staples of 3.5 is that, unless specified otherwise, rules for monsters and players work the same.

'Once per encounter' is badly defined, too. 1/hour per 3HD or something?

The definition of encounter is pretty explicit.

But I definitely have to second. This (poorly) attempts to address far too many issues and instead of just handling Rangers stereotypes replaces the bulk of all mundane classes.

And it is not a huge boost to those classes, but the balance point is not internally consistent in the least.

[mishra]

Why does the Ranger gain Mind Blank at all, let alone at level 18? What is the fluff for a Ranger character to ignore a Enchanter because he hunted in the woods?
What's the angle? What's the reasoning, other than simply filling empty space at the end of his levels?
I can easily see the reason for such Immunity in, say, the Slayer PrC, as it a psionic Prestige class focused on protecting your mind (while still being a Ranger-type).

[ketaro]

Oh gosh what is this.

I read through this and just was all this isn't a ranger. This is Aragorn, King of Gondor in a handy dandy class format.
And only then did I notice the author's username and the irony hit me like a ton of bricks.

Just my inane comment...

[Aragorn]

I read through this and just was all this isn't a ranger. This is Aragorn, King of Gondor in a handy dandy class format.
And only then did I notice the author's username and the irony hit me like a ton of bricks.

I am glad you appreciated what I've tried to do. However I think its high time to fix this class because it got away from what I wanted and life circumstances demanded my attention. Now that its been in the works for two years now, I think I should finally fix it. An update will follow in a few days.

[Aragorn]

New class features added, broken/silly ones fixes, and major revisions complete. Hopefully the new is better than the old and the class flows better. Feel free to comment. I've gone through and tried to break the class at a few different levels and come up with pleasing results. At worst the class is the equivalent to an ubercharger with a few more abilities and at best its a well rounded Tier 2.5 with the right Paths.

[EjoThims]

Still way too many options that are way too powerful compared to other ways to obtain them.

This isn't a Ranger.

This is a (nearly) complete (but very unbalanced) replacement for all mundane classes as well as the Ranger and Paladin (and probably other martial spellcasters - especially with the raised max spell level for the casting option).

If that's your goal, it's fine (though I fundamentally disagree with it from a design perspective), but trying to continue parading it as a "Ranger" rewrite will continue to have your 'PEACGing' focused on that diversity instead of the balance of said diversity.



That aside, Path of the Wild is hideously OP, especially alongside the other class features. That one option of one feature alone makes him better than the Shapeshift Druid at everything except spellcasting, and if you also take spellcasting you're not far behind there. Then the third option... Then the entire rest of the class to boot!

Nerf the fuck outa that, regardless of what else you do.

[VennDygrem]

I think, as others are pointing out, that you really need to take a long, serious look at your core concept, and decide what the foundations are supposed to be. What is a ranger supposed to do? What are they supposed to be good at? Take those things, and then make your class the best at that, within reason. The rogue should be the best at sneaking in to places & bypassing the security, knowing the right place to slip their blade to catch their opponent unaware rather than marching in being a tank, and often, being a jack-of-all-trades (though master of none) with just the right tools for just about any task. The Fighter should, well, be the best at fighting. Being a warrior, a master of arms, combat tactics and strategies, and being damn tough. The Barbarian should be a berserker whose wild, unpredictable combat prowess comes from an uncanny reserve of strength and power unrelated to training half your life with blade, bow, and shield as the Fighter does.

The real problem is that these are all my preconceived notions of what the classes should be. So, if I were doing a rewrite of those classes, those are the qualities I would focus on. I wouldn't give the Fighter the same Rage ability I'd give the Barbarian. I wouldn't give the Barbarian the same benefits and capabilities with weapons and armor that I'd give the Fighter. And so on. If the Barbarian is different enough in concept from the Fighter, I wouldn't make them two parts of the same whole (such as two paths of the same class). I'd make two classes. Mixing paths is what multiclassing ought to be for, if it were done right.

Figure out what you think the Ranger should be good at. Make it good at those things. Leave the other stuff to the other guys.

[phaedrusxy]

Figure out what you think the Ranger should be good at. Make it good at those things. Leave the other stuff to the other guys.

I actually don't mind modular class design if it is done well. The core fighter is basically a modular class, as it can perform very differently depending on what feats it picks up. Spellcasters like sorcerers are also, in many ways, since what they do can be very different depending on their choices of known spells. It can be very hard to balance the different combinations against each other, though. (Both the fighter and sorcerer could in fact be argued to be poorly designed for exactly that reason... the effectiveness of their available options varies wildly). So the safer (i.e. more easily balanced) way to design classes is with a completely fixed progression. It can be less satisfying for some people to play classes where all the options are fixed, though (particularly optimizers and other people who like fiddling with things, and analyzing or trying out different possibilities).

So while I don't know that he needs to go completely back to the drawing board, and make a class with more fixed abilities, taking a second look at the ones that are particularly weak or powerful compared to the others sounds like a good idea. Alternatively, he could split this up into 3 or 4 classes, or even one base class that which naturally leads into 3 or 4 prestige classes which are more specialized. Modular base classes vs. generic base classes with multiple PrC options are two pretty different approaches to class design. I think comparing the games Mutants and Masterminds vs. D20 Modern can illustrate the extremes of this pretty well. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

[VennDygrem]

Mostly my thinking was that there are too many 'paths' and that they seem better attributed to different classes rather than to a Ranger. I agree that modular classes certainly can be fun and interesting, but balance is certainly an issue. It seems rare that such a class is balanced properly.

[EjoThims]

I actually don't mind modular class design if it is done well.

Neither do I. I actually prefer it.

But there should still be a common theme (mechanically or fluffily - but preferably both) between the modular options that just is not being presented here.

The broad scope and poor balance of the options here just makes that disconnect even worse.