Ranger Pets

Remove all ads!

And a Ranger can fill in the ranged fire support niche in a way that only Rogues can match. And at the same time, Rangers can act as backup tanks or bodyguards to the squishies in the rear areas. They have the END to stand in the melee wall, at least for a while, even if they may not have been built for pure tanking (i.e. high DEFL and armor with high DR). Oh, there's nothing really stopping one from putting heavy armor on a ranger. But that usually goes against the class' general desire to reduce recovery time and increase action speed to get off shots as quickly as possible.

It does kinda stink that there are no true Ranger class melee abilities, though there are some that are usable in both melee and ranged combat.

---------- Added 0 hours, 9 minutes and 18 seconds later... ----------

Rangers seem to fit somewhere between Fighters, Barbarians, Rogues, and Druids. And it seems difficult to figure out how to find a unique balance role for them between those four classes.

There are a lot of people who have a view of the ranger as archer. There are others who have the view of ranger as a dual wielding melee warrior, courtesy of a series of DnD novels about a certain character.

There just doesn't seem to be an easy answer to the question "What is a ranger?"

Personally, I could care less about animal companions, though allowing them to be a selectable option is fine. Also, I was never overly fond of ranger spellcasting in DnD. I'm just find with the idea of a Ranger with some special abilities but no actual spellcasting as such. I think that "nature" spellcasting should be left to the Druids.

But then where does the Ranger fit compared to the Fighter, Barbarian, and Rogue? That seems to be the important question that needs to be answered.

 

Sorry, what I meant was any class can be replaced by at least one other. I didn't mean to imply Fighter/Monk/Barbarian can replace Wizard.

Rogue can replace Ranger for example. Druid and Wizard are interchangable. Druid and Cleric are interchangable.Etc....

About the niche... imo the designers were NOT trying to give each class a niche. It seems to me they were trying to make every class viable to a party, or better yet, balanced, which makes classes interchangable. Though I love 2nd D&D, I have always hated that only the Thief can be the trap guy. But that was the intent of the Game Engine Design. In PoE I use my Dwarf Barbarian as my scout/trap man and heavy damage dealer. He's awesome.

 

A concept ingrained into their mind by RPGs where rangers are almost always called "hunters" in translation. But hunters and rangers, while they have some overlap, are two very different concepts.

Traditionally, a ranger is a scout, a trailblazer, and a protector of the wilderness. The problem is translating that into an RPG system.

I think making rangers into proper beastmasters would have given them a much better niche, potentially matched only by chanter summoners.

I certainly don't support the idea of them being ranged attackers. Even if rogues are the only ones who can match them in pure ranged mayhem, it's still a bland concept and a role that almost any other class can fill efficiently and offers a ton of other options.

No, they were not, but they should have been. If the only real selling point of a class is the ability to deal lots of damage, then you've failed and should go back to the drawing board. Fighters or Barbarians in D&D can do thousands of points of damage at higher levels, but that doesn't make them interesting, it just forces everyone into a game of rocket tag.

 

RPGs have limitations. CRPGs have even more. So of course classes like Ranger get turned into a multitude of different woodsman types from hunters to archers, etc.... Just as Fighters cover a multitude of various warrior types. You can't have 500 class choices. Devs aren't THAT bored. Most of what a real life Ranger would consist of isn't even an option in CRPGs as the game would get boring fast and the dual wielded option is already overdone lately by WotC. So they went back to the Archer-type for Rangers in PoE. Understandable from where I sit.

 

I like the ranger class especially when using the bear. I am hoping the devs at OE never catch up with the fact that the bear can sneak right up to an enemy and fix that piece of cheese. Rangers are more versatile than people realize depending on how you buiild them. They won't replace wizards or priests but they can protect them. They can also tank if you want to go that route.

You can use your bear to spy out the enemy, how many and where then have your ranger target one with a bow or gun to draw them out or if you can get close enough have your wizard lay down an AoE spell.

 

From a logical PoV, I think that there are times when an animal companion might logically be able to walk up close to some enemies without drawing undue attention. For example, out in a wilderness area. OTOH, there are times when an animal companion, at least those currently in the game, would be completely out of place and should arguably trigger a reaction when spotted. For example, an Antelope in a dungeon or in Defiance Bay. While I'm sure that it'd be technically possible to do this in code, whether it'd be worth the time and effort is a different question.

 

Currently I am going through a dungeon with humanoids in et and if the animal gets too close to the enemy they, the enemy, will attack it. So maybe the devs are more on the ball then I gave them credit for.