Underground Camouflage

[kuscotopia]

The Camouflage ability for rangers does not work underground. This is a shame for higher level rangers who fancy themselves dungeon delvers.

It would be great to see either these areas denoted differently in the toolset such that camouflage works or perhaps the base camouflage ability altered in such a way that works in underground zones as well as outdoors.

[Doubtful]

http://www.sundren.org/wiki/index.php?title=Dark_Hunter

4th level ability.

Edit: That may appear to be rudely brief.

The Dark Hunter class is perfectly suited for rangers who want to specialize as dungeon delvers, giving them rather spiffy skills at hiding away in the caves of doom.

What would be nice (but probably nigh on impossible to actually implement) would be the Favoured Terrain version of Favoured enemies, a nice little switch out that changes the ranger from a person who specialises in killing certain things to someone who works within certain environments - Ideal for characters who're based on environmental/community protection rather than outright brutal death to specific creatures.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/UA:Favo...ed_Environment

Great for:
Tim grew up in Fatwattle, a small hamlet located in fells below the mountains of Exposition. He learned to read the weather of the hills as well as coming to know the range of plants, animals and creatures that lived there. A good swordsman and friendly guide Tim earned good money leading adventuring groups across the dangerous and bleak landscape. Tim also began to lead adventuring groups up into the mountains and nearby moraine that led to the Bleaktop glacier. (taking Fav.Env: Hills then either Mountain or Desert, cold depending on which he wants more).

Not great for:
Tim grew up in Fatwattle, nearby there was goblins. Tim learned to kill them good. Later he killed orcs good too.

[kuscotopia]

Dark Hunter is a spiffy class and does have an underground notion of the ability. But I feel the class has a few issues to be resolved for dwarves as they spend the first two levels earning what they already have. In general, set trap isn't a class skill for Dark Hunter which makes it a problem for the ranger who wants their trapping to stay competitive as they level.

I will make a new suggestion around those issues as it is off topic for this thread.

Particularly for rangers looking to invest 17 levels in order to get HiPS, the dark hunter route is not an option. Favored terrain would indeed be great, but as you mentioned the odds of it actually seeing implementation are low.

[Cornuto]

The ability 'camoflage' in question is the one that lets Rangers run around at full speed (usually more than full with long-strider) while in stealth mode instead of creeping about at half-speed like rogues.

Darkhunter doesn't really solve that.

[Doubtful]

Ah! I got confused between the PnP version and the NWN2 version. My mistake.

In that case it's really a shame we can't have favored terrain to select where your abilities work.

Alternately I'd support implementing it in wild indoor areas (and for non wild areas if we ever get the Urban Ranger variant)

[Snowmane]

Tim grew up in Fatwattle, nearby there was goblins. Tim learned to kill them good , but not nearly as good as the fighters in his village, since they got bonus feats every other level and Weapon Training. Later he killed orcs good too, but still not as good as the village fighters. Then he hit level 21 and got Bane of Enemies, but by that point it was too late. The fighters would just laugh at him with their maxed out strength scores and insane AB values while he had to split his stats between stength and dex in order to keep his AC up since he could only wear light armor.

FTFY.

Sorry for the smart ass retort, but the state of rangers (My favorite class) compared to the fighter and paladin classes in all versions of 3rd edition has always made me sad. More so now that Sundren has implemented pathfinder like bonuses for fighters and paladins.

As for Favored Terrains, since they are just skill bonuses, those could be implemented by a few custom feats available to rangers as bonus feats, a local variable on each area declaring its terrain type, and some tweaks to the onEnter and onExit scripts. Don't get me wrong, it would be a lot of work, but it really wouldn't be hard. Implementing this would actually add some nice flavor to the class and make rangers in their favored terrains balance out the insane Hide and Move Silently skills of rogues. (But then again the stealth system is another hard coded game engine nightmare that really can't be balanced)

With regards to the original issue, it does stink that camoflague feat can't work in underground areas since its effects are hard coded, but Sundren does have that wonderful Longstrider spell which I believe helps to counteract the speed penalty.

[Cornuto]

Archery based rangers with bane of enemies are pretty rad. I'd put one up against a fighter any day.

Melee rangers not so much... (If favored power attack covered all favored enemies they'd get a bit of a leg up)

[Doubtful]

You're comparing apples and pears with that smart ass retort.

Fighters - Kill most things pretty good. What they do is fight. As Fighters.

Rangers - Kill some things pretty well, but also scout, track, hunt, cast spells and get a plethora of supernatural abilities. Plus they get one of a selection of handy-dandy animal companions to help with their lack of pugilistic panache.

Blubbering that a fighter is better at fighting is just plain silly.

That said, I'd also love to see favored power attack changed to cover all enemies. Plus the pathfinderisation of the class.

[roguethree]

Rangers aren't meant to be fighters. Still, a TWF Ranger at 21, with his 10 attacks a round and Bane of Enemies, is a death engine, and if he's fighting the fighter outside, where his HiPS works, that's not a great fight for the fighter. It's worse yet if it's an archery ranger.

Oh, and if you're putting points into DEX for anything other than AB as an archery ranger, you're doing it wrong. Your AC is never going to be good; get HP. A melee ranger should prioritize STR and CON and abuse his Woodland Stride/Longstrider mobility. Even in indoor areas, you have the movement speed to break line of sight and get stealthed again.

Agreed on Favored Power Attack, and add Improved Favored Enemy to that, as well.

[thaelis]

Rangers aren't meant to be fighters. Still, a TWF Ranger at 21, with his 10 attacks a round and Bane of Enemies, is a death engine, and if he's fighting the fighter outside, where his HiPS works, that's not a great fight for the fighter. It's worse yet if it's an archery ranger.

Oh, and if you're putting points into DEX for anything other than AB as an archery ranger, you're doing it wrong. Your AC is never going to be good; get HP. A melee ranger should prioritize STR and CON and abuse his Woodland Stride/Longstrider mobility. Even in indoor areas, you have the movement speed to break line of sight and get stealthed again.

Agreed on Favored Power Attack, and add Improved Favored Enemy to that, as well.

I was thinking Ranger looks pretty crap on paper now compared to Fighter, but actually I'm rather convinced by r3's argument... If played well the Fighter's better AB/damage wouldn't really matter since they can't hit something they can't see

I'd still like to see them get a little something though, since Fighters/Palys got all the love in the recent updates. Maybe not even something combat-based, just something cool.

[Snowmane]

I apologize for derailing the thread. Perhaps we should create a new one to discuss potential modifications to the ranger class for whenever that class gets its turn for pathfinderization?