The Ranger Megatopic

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RamblerTeo
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by RamblerTeo » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:30 pm

please dad

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Aero Silver
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Aero Silver » Wed Aug 16, 2017 8:46 pm

Speaking of animal companions, can the summon be changed to unlimited times a day with a cool down, like the BG and SD summons? Currently, it is once per rest.

Someday...
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RamblerTeo
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by RamblerTeo » Thu Aug 17, 2017 4:32 am

Tfw ur ranger will never be chad enough to have a qt tanned elf fluid druid :(

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Petrifictus
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Petrifictus » Thu Aug 17, 2017 8:12 am

I think it would be fun to have a ability to take control of your animal companion like the wizards and sorcerers with their familiars. Would be fun to roleplay with Wotan's boar Dibs. :)
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WanderingPoet
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by WanderingPoet » Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:30 pm

You already can, to my knowledge - just type '-a' to type through the animal companion, and use the player tool to move it about.
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Lorkas
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Lorkas » Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:14 pm

You just can't take your animal companion exploring other maps or far across your current map though, as you can with a familiar.

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Baseili
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Baseili » Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:32 am

What about tacking on the ability to add weakening poisons (things that effect con, wis, str, dex, int and cha) to weapons/ammo?
Make it a class ability to chose between the five different types to apply depending on what type of foe they are facing, and infinite use so it can be switched on the fly. Maybe as an extension of Favoured Enemy, ranking up the potency every 5 levels.

Starting at 1d2 at level 10, 1d3 at 15, 1d4 at 20 and so forth.

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Aero Silver
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Aero Silver » Wed Aug 23, 2017 6:56 pm

Is there a way to improve the AI of the animal companions? If i control the animal companion with the free tool, it holds its position, even if it can clearly see me getting slaughtered. And if i let it loose, it goes on its merry way and aggros entire mobs before i am done with the current group of enemies.
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Invader_Nym
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Invader_Nym » Fri Sep 01, 2017 7:24 am

Nitro wrote:Why not just allow the HiPS to work anywhere? Urban rangers are a thing after all, and the fact that most UD caves aren't tagged as wilderness really hurts the deep doggers who play focused rangers.
It has been my experience that HIPS is actually /more/ available than I anticipated in the UD.

Invader_Nym
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Invader_Nym » Fri Sep 01, 2017 7:25 am

Aero Silver wrote:Is there a way to improve the AI of the animal companions? If i control the animal companion with the free tool, it holds its position, even if it can clearly see me getting slaughtered. And if i let it loose, it goes on its merry way and aggros entire mobs before i am done with the current group of enemies.
Yes, the AI of the animal companion is a big problem. In many cases the animal companion is a liability because operating him comes at a cost. You're distributing your attention across two avatars, instead of one, and one of the avatars occasionally does whatever it wants, and thus needs special attention.

Tetra
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Tetra » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:31 am

Aero Silver wrote:Speaking of animal companions, can the summon be changed to unlimited times a day with a cool down, like the BG and SD summons? Currently, it is once per rest.

Someday...
This would be nice. Server transitions are a ranger and druids enemy..

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Wytchee
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Wytchee » Fri Sep 01, 2017 9:27 pm

Animal comps on a cooldown would make me soooo happy.
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Invader_Nym
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Invader_Nym » Sat Sep 02, 2017 9:30 pm

Ranger needs AC very badly.

One problem with ranger over other melee builds is that multi-classing out of ranger comes at a cost to animal companion levels and spell levels. Obviously other melee builds like fighter/barbarian don't have to pay this cost, which is an advantage to them.

I made this suggestion a while back, and I've seen it done on another server brilliantly. It'd be nice if parry worked like tumble did, except they didn't stack. Ranger could then stay ranger and pick up that extra AC, and make good on those bonus skill-points in a meaningful way.

In an effort to bolster my AC I have been searching for a few months for a ranger with 56 tailoring for that runic ranger armor, to no avail. Maybe we could reduce that DC and increase the material component requirement?

SwampFoot
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by SwampFoot » Sun Sep 03, 2017 2:42 am

Auto-awaken or a cooldown and infinite uses would be awesome for most, though a few of them need some minor tweeks.

Wolf needs weapon finesse and some of the smaller ones could benefit greatly from an AC adjustment. Rangers have limited means to buff their companions.

I think where rangers are in currently is not a bad place. It's just some love given to their companions that's needed. AC, AB, and Damage changes would just make them more like fighters and barbarians and less like the stealthy survivor they should be.

Just a thought... What if we made the Ranger Auto-guard his companion? This would give it a longer use. The rare AC centric Ranger would have to forgo calling on his companion if he wanted to guard his PC allies.

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Mr_Rieper
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Mr_Rieper » Sun Sep 03, 2017 11:23 am

We should stay away from unlimited uses of anything. Besides the arcane GSF changes, which do not scale by the way, infinite uses of things generally seems to be nothing more than a band-aid to problems, and just causes problems elsewhere in the server.

Infinite uses of your animal companion would be very irritating to deal with in PvP, as you'd just have people re-summoning their companion to remotely harass people. And that's just the first thing that comes to mind. I'm sure there are quite a few possibilities with being able to infinitely re-summon a creature that scales with your levels. Remember how irritating it is when warlocks do it? Well, what if the creature wasn't classified as an outsider?

Treat things as though they were vancian, it'll be better in the long run. Ability and spell tweaks, perhaps a bonus feat from a limited selection, changes to weapon mechanics -- these are all steps in the right direction. Please, no more infinite casting.
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Gulddrengen
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Gulddrengen » Sun Sep 03, 2017 12:51 pm

Would be neat with some kind of 'ambush' skill, that does sneak attack damage with cooldown or something, right now rogues are usually the better ambushers.

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Dreams
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Dreams » Sun Sep 03, 2017 1:22 pm

Just having Animal Companions being on a 1-hour cooldown from time of departure would go a long way, same way that it has for Blackguards.

SwampFoot
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by SwampFoot » Sun Sep 03, 2017 8:19 pm

Blackguards, Shadowdancers and warlocks all have conciderably more powerful or useful summns they never run out of. An unbuffed animal companion given the same treatment isn't server breaking. In PvP you attack the summoner, not the summon anyway so I don't see how that's going to change.

Worst case the ranger gets a free distraction when things get rough. Right now my rangers don't summon their companions unless in dire need or in areas they aren't likely to lose them. A cooldown on companions would give the ranger a different edge than fighters or barbarians. Fighters rely on fighting skill, barbarians rely on high damage and constitution, a ranger should be relying on his natural abilty, that being his companion. Changing weapon mechanics and offering them boons to further damage from their weapons places them squarely in the camp of fighters and barbarians and strips them of their niche role.

Ironsoul
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Ironsoul » Sun Sep 03, 2017 9:20 pm

While I agree that having a useful animal companion you could RP with and adventure together would be the ultimate ranger fantasy I think they're just too "unfun" to bother trying to fix.

Unless the summon functions like the new Earth Elementals ie no damage but tones of DR to take pressure off you I don't feel like it's worth the development time.

I've only played rangers for years on Arelith, that's because I love the class fantasy.

The ways I feel best suited to improve the ranger experience is to take what's already there one step further. The tracking feature is one of the most powerful and coolest boons in the game, even more so with the recent -investigate changes. I'd like to see that go a step further for epic rangers.

Improve their favoured enemies to make the improvements scale better before bane of enemies.

Give feat toughness for free at some level.

Give rangers extend spell for free or expanded spell slots somehow. Ranger third spell level is awesome. But you only get to choose 4? Most have short duration.

I would give the bonus archery feats to a default ranger - it's just a quality of life change really

Maybe give the minimap to rangers auto explored.

That's about it really. The RP rewards for me being a ranger has always been enough in my opinion.

Nitro
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Nitro » Sun Sep 03, 2017 9:24 pm

SwampFoot wrote:Blackguards, Shadowdancers and warlocks all have conciderably more powerful or useful summns they never run out of. An unbuffed animal companion given the same treatment isn't server breaking. In PvP you attack the summoner, not the summon anyway so I don't see how that's going to change.

Worst case the ranger gets a free distraction when things get rough. Right now my rangers don't summon their companions unless in dire need or in areas they aren't likely to lose them. A cooldown on companions would give the ranger a different edge than fighters or barbarians. Fighters rely on fighting skill, barbarians rely on high damage and constitution, a ranger should be relying on his natural abilty, that being his companion. Changing weapon mechanics and offering them boons to further damage from their weapons places them squarely in the camp of fighters and barbarians and strips them of their niche role.
I'd rather see the animal companions get stronger than to see them be infinitely summonable, it feels thematically appropriate that a warlock can drag out the legions of hell to do his bidding, but rangers are supposed to have a deep bond with their animal companion, one that takes a while to acquire, so pulling out endless hordes of beasts feels a bit odd.

Though, a beastmaster path that sacrificed personal combat power for a beastly animal companion would be pretty cool.

Gulddrengen
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Gulddrengen » Sun Sep 03, 2017 10:11 pm

Ironsoul wrote: I would give the bonus archery feats to a default ranger - it's just a quality of life change really
This. Make the ranger a bit better archer, it fits the hunter theme so well. Always feel most like a ranger when I have my bow in hand.

Invader_Nym
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Invader_Nym » Sun Sep 03, 2017 10:52 pm

Ironsoul wrote: I've only played rangers for years on Arelith, that's because I love the class fantasy.
You, sir, are a genius. I can tell that you've played a ranger for a long time because your ideas are brilliant and perfectly target the problems with ranger.

Give rangers extend spell for free or expanded spell slots somehow. Ranger third spell level is awesome. But you only get to choose 4? Most have short duration.
I think you're absolutely right here, and I think that both ranger and paladin need serious attention when it comes to their spell selection. I had to take extend spell on my ranger to make blade thirst viable, and for the feat-starved ranger buying extend spell was a painful choice. There are many problems with the ranger spellbook that limit its functionality, and in my opinion, the spellbooks are a big part of where ranger will need to get fixed.

Ironsoul wrote:While I agree that having a useful animal companion you could RP with and adventure together would be the ultimate ranger fantasy I think they're just too "unfun" to bother trying to fix.
This is just an unfortunate reality. Baby-sitting summons in NWN is just a chore, and it isn't a lot of fun. Suggestions that involve allowing for the re-summoning of the animal companion aren't any good because the animal companion requires buffs to be valuable and the ranger spellbook is so sparse that you can't really re-buff the companion without resting, which would eliminate the whole point of allowing for the re-summons, since you'd get him back from resting anyway.
Last edited by Invader_Nym on Mon Sep 04, 2017 7:10 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Aero Silver
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Aero Silver » Mon Sep 04, 2017 2:25 am

I have a Ranger SD. The shadow by far outperforms the animal companion. The animal is only good as a sacrificial pet to cover retreat or to separate mobs.
To me, and animal companion is as powerful as a level 2 summon. So Animal Fume is just as good as my trusty companion.

I think that the animal companion should be a DPS that draws aggro, yet it shouldn't be useless as to die in two rounds (currently, it is only good at dying).

Empowering Tracking is a great idea. I am thinking that the Ranger should be able to assess the health of the tracked people, (over 50% is healthy, under 50% is injured, under 20% is severely injured), because injured people tend to drag their feet, bleed out, lean against walls, etc).

Extend Spell will definitely help out with the third level spells, or change the duration of those spells. (i use this level spells on my fourth slots).

Changing Favored Enemy like Peppermint suggested sounds awesome. (Peppermint, pretty pretty please with sugar on top? :) )

Good ideas overall.
All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous. Meaning: all that glitters ain't gold.

Invader_Nym
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Invader_Nym » Fri Sep 08, 2017 4:00 am

What about allowing the ranger to generate traps per-day like he generates arrow bundles?

Invader_Nym
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Re: The Ranger Megatopic

Post by Invader_Nym » Fri Sep 08, 2017 8:32 am

Giving them reflex as a high save would be nice as well, especially since they get evasion.

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