d8 or d10 ranger?

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
I_mongo
NPC
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by I_mongo »

d8 or d10 ranger?

The flame wars on the WotC message boards about the d8 ranger are now history. Is the consensus now that the ranger is a viable class? Is everyone happy with the d8 ranger?

I would prefer to see the ranger go back to d10 hit dice. Indeed, I think d12 would be even better. The d8 forces the ranger into being an archer or a scout. Going into melee is just asking for trouble. A d10 or d12 would give the ranger a better chance of surviving a melee. The ranger class would have to lose some ability to compensate for the bigger hit die, of course.

In the campaign that I DM, I haven’t changed the ranger’s hit die, yet. I have done some other tweaking, of course.

The ranger is not a generic wilderness warrior (or wilderogue, if you prefer). I see the class as a holy warrior, like the paladin. Seeing the ranger as a holy warrior makes it easy to explain his spell casting ability. In my campaigns, I require that rangers be of good alignment, like in 2nd edition AD&D. If they commit an evil act, they lose spell casting and other ranger abilities.

Finally, I give rangers in my campaign the Fast Move ability of the barbarian. Rangers should be able to range, after all. I also feel that this balances out the good alignment requirement.

What do think?

mongo
The_Hanged_Man
Knight-Baron
Posts: 636
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

I like all those changes. The realities of ability score allocation means rangers are behind fighters in hp, even with a d10 hit die. d12 is actually more fair IMO. Fast Move makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't feel the need to take away anything to balance that out. A ranger still pales compared to a wizard or cleric.
Wrenfield
Master
Posts: 252
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by Wrenfield »

Every Ranger I've seen played as an Archer with a player behind the reins taking advantage of its skill-monkey mechanics ... has succeeded.

Every Ranger I've seen played as a TWF combatant ... has failed. Literally.

I tend to think its strongest departure point for PrC-Land is no later than 11th level. The law of diminishing returns kicks in at level 12 and higher. If you want spells, take the Nentyar Hunter/Windwalker combo. And you'll still stay a viable a Ranger.

I still like Ranger/Rogues a lot too. Although they also excel with dips into other PrC's such as Dark Hunter (CW), Knight of the Middle Circle, etc.

I don't have any problem with the 3.5 Ranger. Except for its M.A.D.-nature, as you can really only dump on CHA. If you got a stupid high point-buy though, you can actually make a really freakin' cool Ranger/Nar Demonbinder/Verdant Lord that nets you 7th level spells and a BAB of +18. And for all intents and purposes, it's still a Ranger ...
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by Username17 »

The d8/d10 flame wars were a poitnless distraction and mattered not at all. It's the difference between 2 points of Constitution for only a couple of levels in your entire character.

The 3.5 Ranger is viable for 2 - 5 levels, depending upon what you want to do. After that, it sucks hard, granting you less stuff per level as you rise in level.

The 3rd edition Ranger is viable for exactly 1 level regardless of what you want to do with it.

The 3.5 Ranger is "better" in that you can take more levels of it without necessarily completely sucking, but is in exactly the same place with regards to having a theorectically infinite number of levels ahead of it (counting Epic) which you will never ever take if you know what's good for you.

So is that an improvement? I honestly couldn't say.

I will say that the complete and total nerfing of TWF in 3.5 has made the entire attack form a cruel hoax, so it's "good" that they can gain Archery Bonuses instead. But I'm not sure that's really an improvement since you could make a single level dip TWF ranger in 3rd edition which was viable.

The Ranger concept from 3rd edition is no longer viable. Being a racist two weapon fighter with tracking abilities is simply not practical in 3.5 at all. The Ranger class is viable for a greater number of levels in 3.5 - and that's an entirely metagame improvement which doesn't actually make any difference.

So all I can really say is... meh.

The flame wars were never really talking about anything which was actually important to game balance or game flavor, so I don't care who "won".

-Username17
The_Hanged_Man
Knight-Baron
Posts: 636
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by The_Hanged_Man »

I see hp from hit die and con bonuses differently from you. HP from con bonuses are sunk costs - you have them no matter what. That means, like sunk costs, you have to ignore them for purposes of balance because they can't be controlled.

That's a big difference. a d8 means you survive a longsword hit/level. A d12 means you survive a greataxe hit/level.
User avatar
Absentminded_Wizard
Duke
Posts: 1122
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Ohio
Contact:

Re: d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by Absentminded_Wizard »

I agree that you could give the 3.5 ranger a d10 hit die without taking away anything else without coming close to breaking the game. You could probably add a couple of extra class abilities and still not come close.

And I always suspected that Andy Collins decreed that all rangers would henceforth be archers and rewrote both the class and the TWF rules to make it so.
Doom314's satirical 4e power wrote:Complete AnnihilationWar-metawarrior 1

An awesome bolt of multicolored light fires from your eyes and strikes your foe, disintegrating him into a fine dust in a nonmagical way.

At-will: Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee Weapon ("sword", range 10/20)
Target: One Creature
Attack: Con vs AC
Hit: [W] + Con, and the target is slowed.
User3
Prince
Posts: 3974
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am

Re: d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by User3 »

Is there really anything wrong with kicking up every character's HD except the Barbarian, Cleric, and Druid?

I don't see a d12 Fighter as being unbalanced compared to any other class. Wizards and Sorcerors should have a d6, although with the way Polymorph works it hardly matters.
Giving Rogues a d8 would help lower their Con-dependance, and when the Druid, Rogue, Bard, and Cleric all have the same HD, it might open a few eyes (are extra skill points really worth 9th level spells? 'Cause everything else is the same).

It would really help cement the roles of Tank (d12/full BAB), intermediate/archer/engineer/skirmisher/'specialist' (d8/(3/4) BAB), caster/artillery (d6/.5).

-Catharz Godsfoot
RandomCasualty
Prince
Posts: 3506
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by RandomCasualty »

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1084867917[/unixtime]]
It would really help cement the roles of Tank (d12/full BAB), intermediate/archer/engineer/skirmisher/'specialist' (d8/(3/4) BAB), caster/artillery (d6/.5).


Something like this would be nice IMO and would get away from some of the stupid combos that shouldn't exist, like fighter classes with cleric BaB, like the soulknife and Kensai.
Username17
Serious Badass
Posts: 29894
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: d8 or d10 ranger?

Post by Username17 »

I see hp from hit die and con bonuses differently from you. HP from con bonuses are sunk costs - you have them no matter what. That means, like sunk costs, you have to ignore them for purposes of balance because they can't be controlled.

That's a big difference. a d8 means you survive a longsword hit/level. A d12 means you survive a greataxe hit/level.


This doesn't actually make any sense. A d8 doesn't mean you can survive a longsword, it means 2 extra hit points every level.

If you claim the Con Bonus as a "sunk cost" you have to claim the d4 as a sunk cost as well and all different hit dice as an improvement on that. So a d6 is, on average, a single hit point. A d8 is two hit points, a d10 is 3 hit points, and a d12 is four whole frickin hit points.

That's not exactly nothing, but it's close. Your "sunk costs" even at low level are a variable between about 1 point and about 7.5 points, so your class bonus of 2 or 3 points is not really that big of a deal.

-Username17
Post Reply