Questions for you rangers

limorkil · Post by **limorkil** » Tue Jul 30, 2002 10:12 am

I keep toying with the idea of playing a ranger. Looking in the manual they seem to have three things going for them:
1. Dual wield
2. Animal companion
3. Spells

The above all sounds good, but I have a couple of questions and I don't fancy playing a ranger for 6-10 levels to find out the answers so I was wondering if you rangers could answer them for me:

1. What level is the animal companion compared to your level? I know that the druid's animal companion starts off around level 4, which means it is pretty effective because it is 3 levels higher than the druid (not sure if it stays higher level than the druid as the druid level up, but it seems to based on playing the first three levels.) I'm wondering whether the animal if useful or whether it dies all the time.

2. Looking in the manual, the ranger doesn't get many spells and they aren't very good either. Seems like nearly all the spells are readily available as potions.

smass · Post by **smass** » Tue Jul 30, 2002 11:18 am

Good point about the spells. I played a cleric/ranger to level 12 cleric and 6 ranger. The spells didn't matter in this case. I wanted the free duel wield - but the restriction on wearing studded leather or less to use dual wield made me wish I had run a cleric/fighter instead - there are more feats available so you can take ambidexterity and two weapon fighting anyway.

One quick note - I was dissapointed that I played to end of Chapter two with my ranger/cleric and second guessed myself. So I downloaded a leveler module and made up a new character with all the changes that I liked and started chapter 3 with him. No need to run through the whole game again if you mess up and are as anal as me

.

Eriks · Post by **Eriks** » Tue Jul 30, 2002 5:19 pm

The animal companions dish out significant damage to almost all enemies, they do die pretty fast against strong monsters though, so the trick is to make sure you are taking the heat while your companion just deals out the damage. Some of the spells (cat's grace for instance) are useful although it is true you can find many of them in potions. If you like playing finesse type characters then Ranger is lots of fun. Dual Wield is great and the extra skill points compared to a fighter make the Ranger worthwhile in my opinion. It is a challenge to find good armor though.

archerknight · Post by **archerknight** » Tue Jul 30, 2002 5:30 pm

I've enjoyed playing a ranger. I like the dual wielding. The armor restrictions haven't bothered me too much. The companion does get a lot of the damage, but if you talk to him it gives you the option to feed him which restores all it's health. I prefer the bear. He has the most hp and seems to be the toughest. I use the spells mainly for summoned animals. Once you get the dire wolf, between the wolf, your companion and your henchman you have a pretty formitable party.

/-\lastor · Post by **/-\lastor** » Tue Jul 30, 2002 6:28 pm

Ranger aren't IMO that good a class, but they are PERFECT for multiclassing, taking 1 level to take 2 feats and a favoured enemy (don't know if this is also in NWN though). If you've got a fighter, paladin or even a rogue, this should be your first multiclass priority.

Xanu · Post by **Xanu** » Wed Jul 31, 2002 8:39 pm

Hm, personally, I don't think the lack of a range of spells for rangers are that big a problem - I've completed the game (in Hardcore D&D) without resting a single time - thus no casting spells for me, though I designated a few quick slots for assorted spells

I've found that for dual-welding, the Shadow Legion Armor is the best: 2 base AC, +4 AC, max. dex. bonuses of 6, and +5 to hide (not that I hide often) - I've seen another armor (Armor of the Wolf, or something) that gives 8 to dex. bonuses, but my dex isn't high enough to make the full use of the armor, so I stuck with the Shadow Legion.

------------------------------SPOILER--------------------------------

Ah, and IMHO a full ranger isn't so bad a class - my dual welding ranger didn't have too may prob. with the red dragon (didn't give him the tainted orb - I infact gave him the orb with the essence of the living dragon, not having killed the blue one), and singled Morag w/o too much problem(tommy and the direwolf died as soon as the battle started

)

seraphim · Post by **seraphim** » Thu Aug 01, 2002 2:03 am

i ahve always been a fan of the ranger, though i admit that, since i spend so little time in the wilderness, i often end up wearing heavy armor and taking the heavy armor slot. the spell stuff is really just a bonus, rarely used, and since potions can often do the same thing, they are rarely needed--except for invisibility purge. that i do use. i have been toying with a ranger thief with about 3 levels of thief and that has worked very well. that sneak attack it pretty good. especially when combined with a called shot or a knockdown. i think my favorite thing about the ranger is the animal companion. i can at least accept the low level of AI in an animal companion rather than a human henchman (not to emntion the sometimes better exp grab from animals than henchies). mostly, though, i just love to watch teh two hand fighting. great stuff, especially when you set it on parry and watch him parry and riposte and slice and dice the baddies. the end, at leats for me (19th level straight ranger) was REAL easy. daelen died in a minute or two in the blade barrier and the critter hung out outside the as back-up. i chopped up one or two of the protection clerics and then just obliterated the end lizard. no probs.

limorkil · Post by **limorkil** » Fri Aug 02, 2002 8:49 am

(Please be careful to warn of spoilers people)

I decided to multiclass a ranger with a rogue. Not sure how many rogue levels I will take, but I expect to end up with something like ranger(11) rogue(9) or possible 13/7 or 15/5.

I read in another post that the animal companion is the same as what a druid 5 levels lower gets. My druid started with a level 3-4 animal companion, so I guess my ranger will have a companion 2-3 levels lower than his class level. Given that I am multi-classing, that means the animal companion will be pretty useless. Still, I will use it just for the distraction it causes and to get the ranger look.

I decided not to bother with ranger spells. There are a couple that are handy, but it's not worth all those points in Wisdom. What I ended up with was this (at level 1):

Mordwyn the Elf Ranger
STR 14 (+2)
DEX 18 (+4)
CON 12 (+1)
INT 14 (+2)
WIS 8 (-1)
CHR 10 (0)

I know the points I spent on INT could be used elsewhere, but I just love distributing skill points. Gives me something fun to do at level-up. It's also why I love the rogue class. The only reason I don't go pure rogue is that I found that the XP you get per kill is tied to your highest level class. For example: A character that is rogue(2) ranger(1) gets 48XP for a weak zombie, whereas a ranger(2) rogue(1) only gets 17XP. I found that rogues, bards and monks level up too fast unless I bring a henchman along to take some of the XP, and I hate levelling up too fast.

My level-up progression will be something like this (aim is to get the multiclass XP penalty):

1 - Rogue
2 - Ranger
3 - Ranger
4 - Ranger
5 - Ranger
6 - Rogue
7 - Ranger
And then alternate Rogue/Ranger until I am Ranger(11)/Rogue(9).