D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]

[JaronK]

The thing with FE, like Sneak Attack, is that it throw off balance if it's too inconsistant.  If we balance the Ranger for having FE working, then he's underpowered when it doesn't, and if we balance him for when he doesn't have it working, he's overpowered when he does.  The designers figured this out... that's why newer classes are far more likely to have abilities that can always work, if you can make them do so (a Swordsage can have sneak attack, but when that doesn't work he just switches stances to something that does).  I think it's better to allow the switching because then we can balance Rangers under the assumption that it will work.  Sometimes it won't, but that's because the player wasn't able to target his abilities properly... not because the DM just decided that he wasn't going to use undead for a few weeks.

Also, I don't like the idea that a hunter class could fight undead for a month straight and never learn to adapt to them.

JaronK

[Kuroimaken]

The thing with FE, like Sneak Attack, is that it throw off balance if it's too inconsistant.  If we balance the Ranger for having FE working, then he's underpowered when it doesn't, and if we balance him for when he doesn't have it working, he's overpowered when he does.  The designers figured this out... that's why newer classes are far more likely to have abilities that can always work, if you can make them do so (a Swordsage can have sneak attack, but when that doesn't work he just switches stances to something that does).  I think it's better to allow the switching because then we can balance Rangers under the assumption that it will work.  Sometimes it won't, but that's because the player wasn't able to target his abilities properly... not because the DM just decided that he wasn't going to use undead for a few weeks.

Also, I don't like the idea that a hunter class could fight undead for a month straight and never learn to adapt to them.

Excellent point, JaronK. We could have probably saved ourselves part of this discussion if only it had come up earlier. 

[Elennsar]

Here's the thing:

A ranger with Favored Enemy: Saracens is going to be going to great lengths to go to places that he'll run into them. A ranger's favored enemy is a group that for whatever reason, he wants to go after.

As for fighting undead for a month straight and never learn to adapt to them: I don't either.

However, I do think it should require time for the ranger to adapt. Not necessarily "navel gazing and doing nothing"...a week of constantly fighting X is a lot better as prepartion than two weeks studying books.

As for balance: Then make the bonuses for FE reasonably modest.

A ranger vs. his FE should be no more overpowered than a paladin vs. evil targets. Both have (theoretically) a solid foundation and "do really well versus".

Having "Favored Enemy: Anything" simply makes the class, if halfway decent otherwise, overpowered.

[Kuroimaken]

That really depends on what the bonuses are like. If we're talking, say, +2 or +4, and you need setup, it's not overpowered.

If we're talking +6 or more with no setup, then it is.

[Elennsar]

I'd go for the following:

+1 (outsiders, or something very broad)
+2 (fiends, or something about equal to the categories now)
+4 (demons, or something specific within one of the categories now)

Maybe an additional +1/+2/+2 at 10th and at 20th level.

Thoughts of the moment, undoubtedly imperfect.

[Midnight_v]

Here's the thing:

A ranger with Favored Enemy: Saracens is going to be going to great lengths to go to places that he'll run into them. A ranger's favored enemy is a group that for whatever reason, he wants to go after.

As for fighting undead for a month straight and never learn to adapt to them: I don't either.

However, I do think it should require time for the ranger to adapt. Not necessarily "navel gazing and doing nothing"...a week of constantly fighting X is a lot better as prepartion than two weeks studying books.

As for balance: Then make the bonuses for FE reasonably modest.

A ranger vs. his FE should be no more overpowered than a paladin vs. evil targets. Both have (theoretically) a solid foundation and "do really well versus".

Having "Favored Enemy: Anything" simply makes the class, if halfway decent otherwise, overpowered.

I... I agree with Elennsar seeing the suggestions for favoed enemy I wish I'd never brought it up.
...
"Favored Enemy: Anything" is something I'm against.

Hmm..
we could increase the number of Fe's...
and or
Change the bonus to scale differently.
1 enemy  +2+
2 enemies +4 for all of them;
no +4 v dragons +2 vs goblins
and so on.

the 8 hour chagne isn't bad...

[Elennsar]

The eight hour change is VERY bad. It still has the "versus anything I think I'll fight". There's no requirement for a ranger to invest anything he'll miss. If he picks the wrong enemy, he can switch that night. No regrets, nothing. And it's unlikely you'd go from fighting orcs one day to lizardmen the next to goblins the third etc.

I can think of some circumstances it would come up, but not often.

[JaronK]

See, I think that's a good thing.  If he's this hunter who's powerful enough at hunting that he can compete with a reality warping Wizard and a Warblade that can punch through steel with his bare hands, then he should be good enough to adapt his hunting skill against the enemies he's been fighting for a while.  Heck, what's so wrong with our expert hunter fighting some lizardmen and then right after words saying "okay, I'm going to concentrate and think about how they fought and acted.  With one hour of thought on this, I'll be an expert on the hunting of Lizardmen"?  That sounds great to me.

JaronK

[Elennsar]

Because it is not that simple.

Oh wait, this is the fantasyland, where all you need is a feat to do 1d6 acidic damage when farting.

Right.

Now, if there was a penalty for "unfamilar monsters", then being able to negate that would make sense. There isn't.

[JaronK]

There is.  You don't get your bonuses (which in theory would be balanced in, so the Ranger is slightly weaker than the other classes when he doesn't have them).

And yes, it is that simple.  There is no feat that does that by the way.

JaronK

[Elennsar]

Having a ranger able to get a bonus versus whatever he wants after an hour is just as believable as that feat would be.

[JaronK]

You find farting and causing acid damage to be as believable as a legendary hunter being able to study for an hour and then know enough about a type of creature to more effectively hunt it?

JaronK

[Elennsar]

If that hunter was oh, the God of Hunters, or at least the patron saint, then it's a bit more believable.

Given that this isn't even "at 20th level, it only takes an hour", then yes, I do think the fart for acid damage is about as believable.

One is as founded on anything remotely humanly possible as the other.

[Eldariel]

Eh, you aren't an expert hunter before paragon levels at least. +2 is just "rudimentary understanding of their weaknesses" and +4 is "solid knowledge". Gaining such rudimentary insight into an enemy type with an hour's research isn't even much of a stretch. The Legendary Hunters do become experts - heck, only they possess the capability to even be expert hunters - and they happen to have the "Legendary"-thing explaining their greater-than-human aptitude.

[Midnight_v]

I agree that there might be a better fix...

  However your reductio ad absurdum is failing, because there actually are hunters "big game hunters" who hunt a variety of different game. You know the british dudes with all the dangerous animal heads mounted on the walls.  
 Further there are and have been tribemen(ancient ones as well) who actually did hunt various things. Spring time the fish cause salmon are plentiful or we catch a bear who shows up with the same idea, Summer time comes lets catch some elk (They're mating and that makes animals stupid for example)/ or boar if we happen across em...
and so on and so on. . .

  So applying that knowledge to fantasyland you know where the Wizards live and faeries might blind you. We could develop it to the natural extension of that logic.
Once you know how to hunt, well you know the rules of hunting. Thusly all you have to do is study the particular habits of whatever it is you're planning to fight. . .

  I mean at 11th level you could damn well "BE" the patron saint of hunters. The saint template is only what lA+2 maybe +3 which brings us back to where we need to be , Mechanical considerations.
I don't like this because we are indeed giving the ranger favored enemy "anything" and I think that falls out of line somehow. many times people where debating the ranger archer vs the fighter archer and the ranger archer tended to win only vs the favored enemies, but it did so damnned consitently. So now the ranger would pretty much own any campaign he showed up in if the DM had a theme.
Uhmm... aberations for instance.... or against the giants, vault of the drow.
FE Arrow storm and animal companion attacks its pretty good really.

If we make it 1 hour reload then its.
 Ranger fights 1 fight perday (but perhaps adventure) without his FE Bonus.
If its 8 hours it ranger fights 1 day of the adventure without his FE bonus.
.... niether of which I'm really fond of ...

Perhaps we should simply increase the number of favored enimies and not give it a recharge.
How many would be too many?

Also there's the whole protector of the forest aspect that everyone seems to be ignoring for the "hunter" aspect. . .
I can't believe we just gave this thing full animal compaion progression...
I'd like to really compare this to the Warblade or OWA's paladin to see what we're really doing.

[Elennsar]

The problem is that it is not "incompetent versus anything else", it is "better versus this" for any halfway realistic hunters.

FE is one ability, however useful, not the only feature rangers have that make them able to survive.

As for levels of expertise and the bonuses:

Gaining +2 to +4, when everyone else gains +0 (no matter how familiar) to the same things...this isn't just "oh, if you stab them here, it's easier."

[SiggyDevil]

You find farting and causing acid damage to be as believable as a legendary hunter being able to study for an hour and then know enough about a type of creature to more effectively hunt it?

JaronK

In a fantasy setting with wizards, dragons, beholders, and displacer beasts, yes.

[Elennsar]

I'm not sure if that's an observation that "study for an hour is fine!" or that farting to cause acid damage is no more absurd than the setting on the whole is absurd (as in, it's all crazy).

I'm really not.

[RobbyPants]

Maybe rangers just get FE as normal per the PHB.  They still make the same choices whether to spread thin or focus.  The choice is still permanent.

In addition, they get a single "floating" FE bonus, that's stuck forever at +2 (or some level-scaling number we decide is better).  They can retrain this floating FE with one or eight hours (whichever we think is better).  Maybe give this out at 5th level instead of 1st, or maybe it's only +1 at 1st level.

This is like having your cake and eating it too.  We get all the advantages of:

• The ranger has more versatility
• This mechanically represents the rangers ability to adapt to a foe
• The rangers is still stuck with permanent decisions he makes
• He no longer gets a full FE-everything.  It's a lower number (+2)

I think it helps with the retraining arguments.  Hopefully both sides can get something they like out of this.

And for the record, I think the acid-fart feat is a bad annalolgy.  It's not much of an argument to make up something ludicrous to support your side.  It's just a bad comparison.

[RabidPirateMan]

I think we should stay away from real world examples (surprise surprise) since there is no gray area when searching for realism.  At the end of the day, your ranger is still hunting reptile hominids, which I'm sorry to say are only real in New York.

I still kinda like my suggestion; it allows the hour switch while still keeping the FE bonuses from switching violently from one end of the spectrum to the other.

As well, I'd like to address JaronK's analogy to FE and SA- Average rogue damage with SA is 35 per hit, while the ranger gets a flat 10.  When I play ranger, I find more use out of the skill bonuses than the damage.  Still, while a rogue might be nerfed because he doesn't get SA, a ranger still has plenty of other things he can do against a non FE enemy.  He can whoop more ass overall than a Paladin fighting someone who doesn't tie up girls to railroad tracks or a Barbarian who is just not feeling like getting angry.

Now, if you wanted him to be MORE reliant on FE, that's certainly an interesting concept.  However, it's worth then to scale him back- spells and full AC are pretty powerful, and if he's going to mainly be sticking to hunting people he hates, then I want to see him much less capable of fighting outside them.  That way, you can buff his bonus to around 20 or 30, but as I'm typing this it seems less and less interesting to have him be a shtick class.  I'd rather keep him Tier 4 and being a Jack of all Trades than a Tier 3 and being just the best huntard of damage dealing.