D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]

[Kuroimaken]

[veekie]

Compromise: An hour's meditation per +2 shifted.

Animal companion is fine for rangers though, people can after all pick a favored hunting dog or a pet wolf for it if they are more into a more outdoor warrior sort than a martial hippie, it should be raised up to a full featured pet though, the emasculated version they normally get doesn't really help much in a fight.

[Elennsar]

The acid fart is an observation on the "this is fantasy and being realistic is completely out of the question". It's no more justifiable for someone to be able to do acid damage with a fart than for someone to be able to study something for an hour and gain his full bonuses, which can be quite high. (If you gain +10 to damage, at 16th+ level, that can be 40 damage. That's...a lot.)

Particularly if its something he had no idea existed before that hour.

As for a floating +2...hm.

My problem is that there's no reason that a ranger would be better at hunting undead than a fighter, other than choosing to focus on them and spend a great deal of time/effort/energy on it.

Sure, rangers are master hunters, that's not the problem. But somehow everyone else is totally clueless? That doesn't sound right. Surely a fighter who have fought mostly undead for 10 levels would have -some- understanding.

One thing that needs to be fixed, incidently, regardless of FE:

As written, Survival is one of those skills that after a certain level (such as when you can teleport everywhere) becomes irrelevant, or at least very minor. What's the point of being able to survive in the wilderness via foraging when you can easily and cheaply buy "create food and water as much as you want", just to make things worse?

Rangers as "wilderness savvy" is...totally irrelevant there. We need to fix this.

Even if "teleporting places" and "create food and/or water by magic" isn't itself bothersome, it making the skill useless is as bad as healing spells making the Heal skill useless is.

"Spells replace skills!" is not a good idea.

[Kuroimaken]

My problem is that there's no reason that a ranger would be better at hunting undead than a fighter, other than choosing to focus on them and spend a great deal of time/effort/energy on it.

Sure, rangers are master hunters, that's not the problem. But somehow everyone else is totally clueless? That doesn't sound right. Surely a fighter who have fought mostly undead for 10 levels would have -some- understanding.

By contrast, the Fighter knows a lot more tricks when it comes to fighting than a ranger does. Things go more or less like this. A ranger learns how to kill best, while the fighter learns how to kill, disarm, grapple, trip, stop charging peeps, shoot people with a bow, fight with two weapons, etc.. The ranger has a narrower focus, the fighter has a broader one.

[Elennsar]

The problem is that if its simply "Hey I've been fighting X for a while, I should be able to do much better!"...there's no reason only rangers would learn that.

So I'd rather have Favored Enemy (Enemies?) be a group that takes a while to shift. A ranger might be able to potentially hunt anything, given the time to study, but that time will be needed.

"Cannot be shifted!" sucks, even if the DM doesn't shaft you.

[SiggyDevil]

Compromise: An hour's meditation per +2 shifted.

I'll go for that compromise.

[Elennsar]

I'd go for it if it was an actual compromise.

If its a choice betwen the extreme of "two weeks of downtime" and "one hour to switch all", "an hour per +2" is a slightly toned down version of #2.

[veekie]

It does put an end to the whole camp/reset thing though, a +2 simply isn't worth burning an hour on, though a higher level ranger is going to take quite a while to completely reset his system. Might want to cap the time taken.

Elennsar, the only way to make it remain practical at a week long reset(which, btw, already exists due to retraining rules with the current ranger) is to increase the benefit, but that makes adjudicating an appropriate challenge level for the ranger an impossible task, they either demolish the target or fail to scratch.

[RobbyPants]

My problem is that there's no reason that a ranger would be better at hunting undead than a fighter, other than choosing to focus on them and spend a great deal of time/effort/energy on it.

Sure, rangers are master hunters, that's not the problem. But somehow everyone else is totally clueless? That doesn't sound right. Surely a fighter who have fought mostly undead for 10 levels would have -some- understanding.

They're good at it by virture of being rangers.  That's what they do.  You represent the ability mechanically by taking levels in the class.  That's no different then saying that there's no reason a wizard should be better at casting spells than a fighter.  They're different classes.  They have different focuses.  If you want to focus on X, then you take a class that focuses on X.  If you want your fighter to be a better hunter, then multiclass!

[Elennsar]

Or they get a modest bonus instead of OMGHEHITFORHOWMUCH?!?!

A ranger should not be dependent on FE to contribute, nor should his FE bonus make him the most powerful character by a great margin in the group when it does apply (however often that is).

Robby: There is no reason why it should take "I'm a focused hunter, screw this general combat mastery stuff" to benefit from having fought undead 80% of the time for ten levels.

[SiggyDevil]

I am wholly against the week-long refocus.

You could swap it out using the PHB2 retraining rules faster than that!

[RobbyPants]

Or they get a modest bonus instead of OMGHEHITFORHOWMUCH?!?!

They do.  At level one, they get +2, which is noticable, but not super awesome.  By the time they're getting +6, they're 10th level; well beyond the realm of human norms.

I've said this sevearl times before.  This is how D&D works.  You play levels 1-5, gaining power.  Some time after that, your character simply becomes capable of great and powerful things.  I have no desier to change it.  There's a lovely D&D based game out there called E6 for anyone who'd like to play a more realistic power level game.

Robby: There is no reason why it should take "I'm a focused hunter, screw this general combat mastery stuff" to benefit from having fought undead 80% of the time for ten levels.

So what?  Rangers are fighters and rangers, but fighters are just fighters?

[Elennsar]

Add this to the list of reasons why WotC should burn for great stupid.

If you want "Can hunt anything really well, and we mean anything, just takes a really short period of time to prep", you're basically saying "you gain +X to (forget the whole list of things FE benefits) as long as you are prepared for the encounter."

A FE: Undead ranger should be happy in an undead heavy campaign and switch to something else in a not so heavy campaign, but having a ranger happy -whatever- you pick because he can easily switch his FE to it kind of negates any idea that its an enemy he's particularly dedicated to, which has been what it is supposed to mean since I don't know when. Before third edition, I know that.

Robby: You're missing my point. It's not the "human vs. not human". Its "modest game effect versus massive game effect".

As for so what: Anyone who has fought undead for ten levels should have a better understanding than someone who hasn't, if its purely experience with facing a given foe. Sounds more like a feat then a class feature if its "you've learned to clobber X better by spending lots of time clobbering X". 

[RobbyPants]

You're going to run into this with any system that has classes.  At some point, you just have to figure that you get some abilities by advancing that class.  Feats and multiclassing can both help blur that line.

[Elennsar]

The problem is that when you can benefit from multiclassing like that, there's no reason NOT to multiclass as freely as the rules permit.

While there's nothing wrong with mutliclassed characters per se, there is a lot wrong with them making single classed a bad idea.

Shelving FE for a second, what are we doing with making sure "wilderness savvy" is useful through out the game?

The fact that a ranger with high Survival can survive (find food, water, and shelter) in the harshest of environments is utterly meaningless with a few spells.

[JaronK]

The problem is that when you can benefit from multiclassing like that, there's no reason NOT to multiclass as freely as the rules permit.

Unless of course higher levels of classes give high level abilities worth having.  There's great reason not to multiclass out of Dread Necromancer or Warblade or Swordsage, for example.

JaronK

[Elennsar]

Yeah, but even there, unless you want/need that ability NOW, taking one level in a class that will boost you in ways the current one doesn't can be excessively good.

Lion Totem Barbarian/Fighter is perfectly legitimate by fluff, I believe (or as legitimate as any barbarian/fighter), but so easy to break.

[Midnight_v]

Wow... well tihs is going well...

So, as i was saying,

Give the ranger skirmish advancment so he's on par for damage with everyone else.

Swift hunter feat without have to take that scout level isn't that much as scouts can already get favored enemy witout ranger levels.
He can take improved skirmish as a bonus feat later if he wants.
 
Skirmish (which turns off this whole What to do with favored enemy as you're not worthless when you suddenly end up fighting Zergs or whatever and I knew that what it'd boil down to when people refused the idea initially...)
We improve the animal companion to druidic levels
Improve the casting  (Slightly)  (spelllist to driud 1-4 hopefully)
Favored enemy damage  becomes non-precision but resulting from an undefined Divine force.  
 
Ranger fixed.

Ahh a campstone ability that lets a ranger Do something fucked up to his favored enemies,
Maybe a death attack that affects even shit like Oozes and undead and the such... It not precision it divine and it's level 20 so no biggy on that.

Well thats my quick fix.

Ahh and keep your reality our of my d&d. Suspension of belief is one of those things that if applied to certain classes and not others will and has unbalance(d) the game. Plus said suspension varies for everybody so it's really subjective. Some people will swear its acceptable for a katana to cut though at tank and say "Othewise its not realistic".
Acid farts...
Troglodytes can actually USE acid farts... might take a couple level of druid to case venomfire but there are creatures in the D&D world that actually use Farts as an offensive tactic.
So do skunks in a sense, I mean its a spray but the idea is similar enough) as well as a beetle that shoots fire out of its ass. So well yeah...

Having actually magic just makes "Reality" a poor choice of argument. Lets just not do it.

Lion Totem Barbarian/Fighter is perfectly legitimate by fluff, I believe (or as legitimate as any barbarian/fighter), but so easy to break.

 Define "broke".
If by that you mean "overpowerd compared to the weakest"  then we shold revise that definition.
 

[Elennsar]

Broken: Overpowered compared to a straight 8th level fighter. Saying that "well, 8th level fighters suck" has a good deal to do with that.

Realistic/suspension of disbelief: Okay, we assume gravity like Earth gravity. We assume a generally Earth-like world as opposed to oh, Mars. Or Venus.

Where's the line between that use of what things work like and basing how well something works on what works in real life? Just because some things that don't exist in real life exist doesn't mean the properties of the things that do exist must be changed.

As for worthless vs. zerg: So, everyone must be at full power at all times, no abilities that only work some of the time. Got it.

[Midnight_v]

Broken: Overpowered compared to a straight 8th level fighter. Saying that "well, 8th level fighters suck" has a good deal to do with that.

Okay well there you have it then.
1. Broken means something else to me. Pun-pun and things that LordofProcrastination collected. Infinite wishes, Chain Binding...
2. Everything is broken then because 8th level fighters pre rebalance have 3 levels where they get nothing from thier class levels.
3. Futher if were discussing an 8th level fighter no mulitclassing but optimized as far as feats to be useful there are only so many builds... but anything capable of surving the game is in someway new that powerlevel.
Lastly we're not shooting for a fighter 8 we're shooting for Warblade 8.
I argue that comparatively its not broken at all, and that the definition is just off...

Realistic/suspension of disbelief: Okay, we assume gravity like Earth gravity. We assume a generally Earth-like world as opposed to oh, Mars. Or Venus

.
Okay... okay here's the deal with that.
Dragons...pegasi, griffins, manticore, wyverns... non of these thing would be able to fly, now we assume earth like gravity but there are blaring obvious exceptions clearly. This has to be taken into account.

Where's the line between that use of what things work like and basing how well something works on what works in real life? Just because some things that don't exist in real life exist doesn't mean the properties of the things that do exist must be changed.

Yes. Yes it kind of does. If not then all the humans die. If at 10 level you're not ready to join the avengers then 10 level monsters just level your kindom.
This is the major deal too...
Look Elensarr. If you apply real world physics to melee -ist but everyone else is unconstrained by physics, including the monsters. Then the people who are constrained by physics are not simply sub optimal but from a fluff sense would just become extict... and I hate to use fluff but that's whats up.
If everyone else gets a turn when gangbanging reality, but you get to by her dinner, and don't get laid. You are the one whose suffering unduly.
Again, thats why there are thousands of posts in 100 different thread about why the fighter sucks.
Think about it. Everyone else unconstrained by reality but you? So everyone else get superpowers and you don't even get a batcave and a utility belt? Biggest game imbalance ever.

As for worthless vs. zerg: So, everyone must be at full power at all times, no abilities that only work some of the time. Got it.

Is that sarcasm? Did you get the point of what I was saying?
...
... Not full power at all times I..

Okay okay forget it... here's the deal. Since we're finally talking then lets try this.
Everyone should answer these questions. Please.
Assuming the shared design goal of Balancing 3.5 with tier 3. We set an objective.

1. What are the rangers class ablities of note.
2. What is the ranger doing right.
3. What is the ranger doing wrong?
4. Based on 1, 2, 3 what can we do te make the ranger equal in terms of "Power"/"Versitility" to set it equal or nearly equal to a Swordsage, or a Crusader who's dedicated to defending the forest.

 See for me when I asked those questions The only thing I thought was well, the ranger is a TWF or Archer, but both of those styles lack and need somekind of extradamage to be in tune with martial adepts.
 I didn't thing to much of the Animal companion though ultimately I know that hundreds of people everyyear sitdown and try to roll up a "drow elf ranger" so maybe we can power that up slightly without breaking it. Already having one at all wins the economy of actions game but that okay, warriors should get nice things.
So damage. Is there anything else that increases a rangers damage? Ahh.. Swifthunter.
Midnight_v goes to the S.hunter feat and then googles the handbook.
It appeared to be a simple fix. For what I deemed as being wrong. . .
When Robby pointed out that rangers have the advantage and gave them dual strike or whatever and rend
 I thought "Good" now both styles are in synch witheach other and closing in on the
8th level...
8D8 crusders strike + 2d6 weapon + thicket of blades + power attack/ followed by white raven tactics on an ally.
So:
8th:  2 attacks as a standard action 1d8 Longsword + 2d6 skirmish/1d6 shortsword +2d6 skirmish
Lets just round and say thats 6d6 damage +  plus an attack from an animal compaion (which will actually dangerous if we increase its levels any.) It could be 8d6 if we spend a feat on improved skirmish and move 20 feat. Which is great for the archer if you want to play that game.
.....
I kinda had it in my mind when everyone was still arguing about the already completed monk. So soon as my the Scout+ranger = 1 class was dismissed I settled in and fully expected 2 pages of debate when people never really adressed the problem with the ranger to begin with.
.... But please... please ..
Do you're own analysis and share it.
I'm surely interested in what you have to say on the matter of the 4 questions. Maybe we can gain further understanding of each others views.