Opinions on Rangers

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@monster:
You shouldn't take everything the manual says for granted. +3 damage with a single handed weapon is pretty much the same with the damage you get from a 2H weapon. 1d8 ws 1d10
The bonus to AC is negligible, since is rather hard to build a fighter with 18 in Str, Dex and Con, compared to a ranger. Put 18-19 in Dex and the ranger is not going to need a shield.
Not all the best weapons are one-handed. Some of them are good, but for maximum damage go for 2H.
Leveling up faster makes them useful only at the very first levels.
Shooting skill? So now you're not going to focus in one weapon, but also put some proficency in bows? What about the argumment with shields? -1 THAC0 with missile weapons does not make the fighter better.
And rangers can be only humans? Go for elves, they make great tanks. Gnomes have +1 Int and -1 Wis. I fail to see how this makes them better fighters.

@raptor: As for the bonus to attack/round every 6 levels, this does not apply to fighters only, but to warriors (fighter, paladin and ranger). They have the same number. The only difference is that a fighter gets an extra attack/round at level 9 while the ranger already has one at level 1.

And you both ignore the ranger's spellcasting abilities. Sure, they are low on number of spells they can cast, but on medium and high level rangers are the best tanks in the game.

 

You are repeating a manual error. You actually get 1.5 extra attacks for grandmastery. You gain a full extra attack when raising from **** to *****.

And 2 extra piercing attacks with his ears.

@Redrake:

I don't. You can conclude this from my prior posts.

1d8+1 is as good as 1d10. So +2 still remains.

Bonus AC isn't negligible.
For a human fighter with 18 str, dex, con you need a total roll of 63, it's very hard to roll that bad.
It's actually even easier to roll 18/00 str, 18 dex and con for a fighter than for a ranger since you can lower 3 stats to 3 and spend the points otherwise. Rangers can't have low wisdom so there are less points for shifting around.

You won't be able to do as much damage per round with a 2-handed weapon as with the long swords of action +4.

No. It gets even more useful later.
One Example:
When a fighter reaches 1,250,000 XP he gets for levelling up from 12 to 13:
3 HP, 1 thac0, saving throws +2 and an extra half attack.
The ranger will have to wait extra 250,000 XP to gain this. He will always be at least one level behind the fighter from now on.

The difference between ** and *** is +2 thac0 and +1 damage. You can even get ***** in slings(they can even do more damage than bows because of the strength bonus) or axes or daggers which are useable with shields.

Never wrote that rangers can be only humans.
Elves are worse than humans. 19 instead of 18 dex don't help in melee, but the 17 instead of 18 con will cost 9 HP which really do matter. You can't use "raise dead" on elves.
Unlike elves gnomes get +5 bonus save vs. magic and wands and can wear the "helm of the trusted defender". A halfling wearing the strength girdle is even better.

I just wanted to tell you that you forgot many fighter advantages in your conclusion. Why should I write stories about ranger spells ?
Using a shield will lower their number of attacks and rangers don't get spells or abilities which help them at tanking like paladins, so they are not the best tanks.

But if you use higher level rangers as spellcasters spells like entangle or static charge can really help a lot, especially if you don't have a druid in your party.

It's probably not too difficult to solo HoF mode with a ranger starting unequipped at level1 for an experienced player. With a fighter this seems impossible.

 

Rangers are better offensive choice as they get an extra attack, paladins are more defensive as they can insta-heal, cure disease, cast pro from evil, and have better saving throws and natural immunities. It is a matter of personal preference, why don't you get BOTH in your party?

As a side note, R/Cs are a neat class, they are only limited to type B weapons, but it is not that bad, (three white doeves is an awesome weapon against many enemies) they are the masters of divine magic&melee combo, better than ordinary F/C IMHO.

 

Ofelix, Elves gain a +1 to hit with a sword, not +1 attack.


HUGE difference.

re: everybody who slammed me:

I'll still take a fighter over a ranger. And I'll still multiclass or dualclass a Cleric/Ranger for a really great character.

 

Why everybody wants to have an elves-rangers?

Elves are best (specials)fighters for use with longsword and -bow, also nice as fighter-thiefs.

Rangers are best for big (2handed) weapons and as Dual-Clerics, because of the bonus-attack.

 

Partly because elves are stereotypically seen as ranger-types in fantasy. They also get the +1 thac0 bonus (and 19 Dexterity which is useful for missile weapons) when using longswords and bows, both of which are commonly seen as 'ranger weapons'.

In terms of efficiency, they don't make the best tanks as +1 Dexterity doesn't match up to the -1 Constitution penalty.

 

Lot's of misinformation in some of the earlier posts in this thread. I like rangers, because they really do help you get through the early part of the game when rangers are better melee characters than fighters. But after level 9 the ranger loses a lot of his utility - a fighter, particularly a halfling or gnome is a far superior tank to the ranger. What are high level rangers good for? They are significantly and unarguably inferior to high level fighters as tanks. They are equally unarguably inferior to high level fighters as archers. Their spells are a nice little bonus but they get too few to make a huge difference, and most of them don't complement their fighting very well. The stelath is nice (especially at level 5 or so when they have very high skill levels and your thief can't afford steath yet), but at higher levels theif backstab becomes increasingly useful, and you will want to have your thirf max out stealth anyway. I appreciate the argument that their ability to be effective with 3 or 4 weapons is very handy, particularyl given the many specialized weapons available, but I don't think this is much of an advantage.

But as I said rangers are spectacularly useful up to level 9 when a fighter can take over the melee role.

As elf is an awful choice of race for ranger, you might as well make any single class ranger human (only benefit from making him or her a half-elf is a tiny stealth bonus). So I think the best approach with a ranger is to dual class him to cleric around level 9. You get all the benefits of the ranger class when they matter the most, and when your ranger is starting to lose his usefulness you can turn him into a cleric who is much more useful than the striaght class. Depending on when you dual the cleric will ultimately have access to level 1 and 2 druid spells, of which there are several nice ones. The clericical buffs complement the ranegr skills pretty nicely. And having an extra spell caster late in the game is great, particualarly when he has decent melee power as well.

[ September 08, 2006, 17:06: Message edited by: ister ]

 

And

You are using a subjective point of view in order to support a supposedly objective argument. This isn't particuarly good form, especially as this topic has shown quite a few fans of rangers who are quite willing to argue the point. For what it's worth, I agree that high level fighters are generally more powerful than their ranger equivalents- but I wouldn't have used the term 'significantly' as this implies they are far superior.

 

By "significantly better" I meant "noticeably better". Not "much better". Sorry.

Many of the ranger fans on this thread seem to be misinformed. For example, elf is an awful choice for a ranger, as +1 to hit with a long sword cannot make up for -1 hp per level, and fighters are always better archers than rangers. Elves don't get an exta attack with a long sword. Level 9 and higher fighters get the exact same number of attacks as rangers of the same level, but with a shield. Two handed weapons are rarely better than one handed weapons.

The only arguments I find plausible as to why rangers are better than fighters are:
-The flexibility to use specific weapons against specific enemies at full effectiveness (the fighter is limited to the weapon he has 5 stars in)
-Stealth
-small number of low level druid spells

The subjective part is how do these advantages compare to the fighter advantages
-ability to use a shield without any loss of effectiveness
-more effective use of missile weapons
-better saving throws (25% less chance of failing vs spells and maybe poison)
-more damage per hit, and better to hit rolls.
-faster level progression.

I'm sorry but I don't see a sensible argument that the first set of advantages outweigh the secodn set of advantages. In certain situations using the right weapon can indeed make a huge difference, but that's about it.

 

Comparing a melee-specialized 9th level fighter to a ranger in melee situations and a missile-specialized 9th level fighter to a ranger in missile situations is a bit off. Pick one or adjust the level up.

Not all fighters are under 4 feet tall. Yes, it can be argued that only fighters can get this as they can be dwarves, gnomes, or halflings, and rangers can't, but don't treat it as if it's a given that any fighter will get it.

In the end, I think rangers end up being better for the beginning levels, but fighters take over from there.

 

I accounted for that in my earlier example, that is why the ranger have 3.5 attacks a round and a fighter have 3 attacks per round. And Fighter's don't "get" an attack at level 9, they have to take grand mastery in a weapon, which is first posible at level 9. It is becose of the Grand Mastery that they get the attack. (and note correction at bottom)

Regarding spellcasting, i love it, always loved rangers, and its always the first character to get into my teams. But i still admit that the spellcasting is not helping teh ranger much becose of the spells, as they (as others have mentioned earier) doesn't help him much in combat etc. I ended up memorising cure spells and entangles in lack of naything better to memorise just to let the druid or cleric focus on other things.

Checked up with AD&D Players Options: Combat and Tactics and it looks like you are right on that one, though it is worded quite unclear. But indeed one should get +1 attack to get Grand mastery thus setting both ranger and fighter at 3.5 attacks at level 13.

 

@ister

So rangers are better than fighters for the first 250,000 XP which you'll reach in chapter4. That's longer than the first half of the game.
If you don't have any expansions the ranger is better than the fighter most of the time.
The ranger advantage at the beginning is bigger than the fighter advantage at the end.

And I wouldn't dual a ranger to cleric at level 9. Dualing at level 7 is much better. For the next two levels you'll only gain a few HP and a little stealth. But you'll loose a full cleric level, including HP, saving throws, thac0 and spellcasting progression.

@raptor: You actually get this extra full attack in IWD. I experienced this myself.
What's written in the player's AD&D options isn't relevant. We're talking about IWD here.

 

Making a specialist:

Elves - fighter:
FIRST:
Large Swords **
Bows **

Then (Level 3):
Bows *** (you have a sniper with level 3)

Level 11:
Large Swords *****


Make a 2-handed Allrounder (also Level 11):

Half-Elves-Ranger:
spear **
halbert **
axe **
great swords or staff or x-bow **

For the other weapons (1-handed) make fighter-thiefs, ranger-clerics or fighter-mages.

 

Well the melee specialized fighter is just as good as the ranger at missile attacks. As of level 12 he's better.

Likewise the missile specialized fighter will eventually be better than the ranger at melee.

My point was more that if you want a character who excels at melee you should use a fighter. And if you want a character who excels at missile you should use a fighter. Even if you want one who can do a bit of both, you should pick a fighter.

(All of this subject to the caveat that until level 9 rangers are much better than fighters at melee)

And what is the reasons for not using a gnome (or dwarf I suppose, although that's a tradeoff I wouldn't make) as a melee specialist? The only reasonable ones (IMHO) are role playing reasons - I don't "get" gnomes, or "having all these tall people with a short guy in front is stupid". If you're not trying to build the most powerful party possible, then all of this discussion will not influence your decision on whether to take a ranger or not. Most people would argue that a human ranger is 'cooler' than a gnome fighter. And those people should absolutely take a ranger, despite the fact that he's not as good as the fighter in the end.

So, yes, I assume that you take a fighter with saving throw bonuses, because I assume you're trying to get the best front liner possible.

The fighter does have advantages that last the whole game, but I think you're right. The low level ranger is much better than the fighter especially until they both get their extra 1/2 attack at level 7.

Well it's not a simple decision. But at level 7 the fighter is still quite a bit less effective in melee than the ranger. The choice is between level 9 ranger/ level 14 cleric and level 7 ranger/level 15 cleric.
The level 9 dual gets 6 extra hp, and 10% (I think) of stealth (and I agree that this really doesn't matter). The level 7 dual gets 1 better saving throw (in the end), and an extra 4th and 5th level clerical spell.
Thsoe are meaningful advantages, but the disadvantage is losing out on the ranger side for two levels. But 6 hp is 2/3 of the difference between what an elf and a human get, and I think it helps a little. I'd choose based on exactly where I am and what equipment I have at level 7.

[ September 12, 2006, 22:09: Message edited by: ister ]

 

A few extra HP only one character, but more and longer lasting cleric spells like recitation or magic resistance help the whole party.

Your "in the end" conclusion isn't fully correct.
When priests do a level-up which improves saving throws they also gain +2 thac0.

 

Really? I thought that a level 9 ranger has a base THAC0 that is better than that of a level 15 cleric. Shouldn't the ranger have base THAC0 of 11 and the cleric 13? Or am I remembering this wrong?

 

Priests get two points lower THAC0 every three levels, while warriors get one point lower every level. So a level 9 ranger has the same THAC0 as a level 13-15 cleric: 12.

 

The Level 7 Ranger->Cleric is even better, because every "buff" earlier with higher level:
Draw Upon Holy Might (with this better THAC0)
Prayer
Recitation
Righteous Wrath of the Faithful
Entropy Shield
a.s.o

Fightingabilities:
Best = wariors
good = priests!!! (67%)
medi = bards and thiefs (50%)
bad = wizards (33%)