Rangers=Underpowered. How to fix?
Rangers=Underpowered. How to fix?
I keep hearing that Rangers are underpowered in IWD2. It's lame because I love rangers (who'd have guessed, huh). So, without further ado, if I was to go into it and try to give the rangers a few boons to make them special all over again via mod, what would be the alterations that will make them 'cool'?
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Well, I am slowly making a 3.5e spell MOD for IWD2 (done most of the spell icon BAMs and done 1st-3rd level wizard/sorcerer and bard spells, along with existing spell changes (re-levelling and changing effects/durations)).
So steer clear of this part please - there are a two Ranger only spells which are going to be included (one is a Sanctuary-like spell affecting the whole party!)
Here are a few Ranger abilities from 3.5e rulebook (by level):
1st: favoured enemy; tracking; wild empathy
2nd: combat style - either 2-weapon or archery (free Rapid shot feat)
3rd: endurance - bonus feat!
4th: animal companion
5th: favoured enemy
6th: improved combat style (there is no Manyshot or Improved 2-weapon fighting feats)
7th: woodland stride
8th: swift tracking
9th: Evasion feat
10th: favoured enemy
11th: combat style mastery
13th: camoflage (can hide anywhere)
15th: favoured enemy
18th: hide in plain sight
20th: favoured enemy
There are a couple of improvements I can see that can be implemented (such as the free feats).
One interesting thing would be the animal companion. However, you would also have to do it for the druid (and possibly familiars for wizards/sorcerers). It would require a "summons" that can pass between areas.
So steer clear of this part please - there are a two Ranger only spells which are going to be included (one is a Sanctuary-like spell affecting the whole party!)
Here are a few Ranger abilities from 3.5e rulebook (by level):
1st: favoured enemy; tracking; wild empathy
2nd: combat style - either 2-weapon or archery (free Rapid shot feat)
3rd: endurance - bonus feat!
4th: animal companion
5th: favoured enemy
6th: improved combat style (there is no Manyshot or Improved 2-weapon fighting feats)
7th: woodland stride
8th: swift tracking
9th: Evasion feat
10th: favoured enemy
11th: combat style mastery
13th: camoflage (can hide anywhere)
15th: favoured enemy
18th: hide in plain sight
20th: favoured enemy
There are a couple of improvements I can see that can be implemented (such as the free feats).
One interesting thing would be the animal companion. However, you would also have to do it for the druid (and possibly familiars for wizards/sorcerers). It would require a "summons" that can pass between areas.
It's no problem having fun playing a ranger.
The difference in power between a ranger and a paladin,fighter or barbarian is only about as high as the difference between halfling and dwarf, but many have fun playing a halfling. Minmaxing or taking a caster class will make a far bigger difference, but not many play a party consisting of 1 cleric and 5 sorcerers just because they are far more powerful.
If you take a ranger instead of another warrior class he won't be really weaker during the game, weapon distribution and other things play a much bigger role.
Soloing a ranger is far easier than soloing a fighter or paladin btw.
Some spells like sunscorch, entangle, storm shell and call lightning can also be quite useful, especially if you don't have a druid.
So playing a pure ranger is no problem unless you're an ultra powergamer.
If you want the benefits from the other warrior classes without editing you can just mix in a few levels of other classes. 1 level adds already most paladin bonusses, 3 nearly everything, 4 fighter levels allow weapon mastery which is the only noteworthy fighter bonus, ...
Since the gap to the other classes isn't that big giving free "rapid shot" and bow mastery at the start in order to simulate manyshot will be enough to make the ranger "cool" compared to the other pure class warriors.
Making simple composite bows buyable in Targos will improve this even more and change the ranger into a cool sniping machine with some spells in the opinion of most players.
The difference in power between a ranger and a paladin,fighter or barbarian is only about as high as the difference between halfling and dwarf, but many have fun playing a halfling. Minmaxing or taking a caster class will make a far bigger difference, but not many play a party consisting of 1 cleric and 5 sorcerers just because they are far more powerful.
If you take a ranger instead of another warrior class he won't be really weaker during the game, weapon distribution and other things play a much bigger role.
Soloing a ranger is far easier than soloing a fighter or paladin btw.
Some spells like sunscorch, entangle, storm shell and call lightning can also be quite useful, especially if you don't have a druid.
So playing a pure ranger is no problem unless you're an ultra powergamer.
If you want the benefits from the other warrior classes without editing you can just mix in a few levels of other classes. 1 level adds already most paladin bonusses, 3 nearly everything, 4 fighter levels allow weapon mastery which is the only noteworthy fighter bonus, ...
Since the gap to the other classes isn't that big giving free "rapid shot" and bow mastery at the start in order to simulate manyshot will be enough to make the ranger "cool" compared to the other pure class warriors.
Making simple composite bows buyable in Targos will improve this even more and change the ranger into a cool sniping machine with some spells in the opinion of most players.
I don't really want to mess with spells, though an animal companion is something I did want to do, but it could be impossible or beyound my ability.
An animal companion is difficult to do "properly". In Pen-and-Paper, animal companion levels up with the user and that's the only way they can be useful imo.
I think that
-animal companion depending on the alignment that would level up with the master.... if can be done, but probably not
OR
-rapid shot as 'free' feature at creation (I don't want to give bow mastery, because the rangers are not necesserily archers only)
-evasion on level 9
-"improved" Dual-Wielding or something like that which gives them to hit bonuses with dual-wielding
An animal companion is difficult to do "properly". In Pen-and-Paper, animal companion levels up with the user and that's the only way they can be useful imo.
I think that
-animal companion depending on the alignment that would level up with the master.... if can be done, but probably not
OR
-rapid shot as 'free' feature at creation (I don't want to give bow mastery, because the rangers are not necesserily archers only)
-evasion on level 9
-"improved" Dual-Wielding or something like that which gives them to hit bonuses with dual-wielding
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I once wrote a little mod to upgrade Rangers to roughly match the so-called "Monte Cook" Ranger. (You can Google "Monte Cook Ranger" if you want to look at the details of this version of the ranger class.)
These are the basic elements that define the official "Monte Cook" ranger.
A. 1d8 instead of 1d10 for Hit Points
B. Improved Reflex Save bonuses
C. Slightly improved spell progression
D. More skill points
E. Bonus Feats (from a list of specific feats)
F. Tracking ability at level 1
G. New and more ranger specific spells and feats
H. The removal of the virtual dual-wielding feat
My minimalist mod included:
Slightly improved spell progression
More skill points (a base of 3 sp per level-up instead of 2)
Bonus Feats (a general feat point every 4th level starting at level 1; i.e. 1, 5, 9, etc.) Not as focused (i.e. on a limited choice of feats) as the "monte cook" or 3.5e calls for, but workable within the limitations of the engine.
Tracking ability (automatically gave the ranger the Forester feat and 1 sp in Wilderness Lore at creation)
This was a fairly easy mini-mod to create, since it only relied on changing 5 2DA files. It ended up making pure rangers a little more fun to play.
BTW, pure rangers can be surprisingly useful in HOF, since by that time, they have the ability to cast some useful summoning spells, while remaining effective tanks.
Jelaweb,
I've also been slowly working on a mod that would incorporate some 3.5e stuff, as well as some other stuff ... new stores, new items, etc.
Trying to emulate that list of 3.5 ranger stuff is extremely difficult or impossible with normal IE modding methods. I've actually spent a fair amount of time thinking about it.
I've been able to write code that would make rangers effectively be a 1d8 class and have the Reflex saves, both as defined by the 3.5ed rulebook. Also, setting rangers to start with only light armor prof and a base of 3 sp/level was also easy (just modifying 2DA files).
Domi,
The closest that I think that one can come to creating an animal companion special "ability" would be to create a special ability button that would cast a summoning spell for a specific creature, probably usable once a day, but with a decent duration. However, like any other summons, it would not be able to pass from area to area. There would be limitations on the types of companions possible. That is, you'd probably be limited to whatever animations already exist in the game. The simplest would probably be some sort of wolf companion, since there are some wold animations, and various incarnations of wolves and dire wolves in the game's CRE files.
Giving Rapid Shot at creation is uber-easy. Just a modification of the FEATS.2DA file.
Allowing weapon specialization (i.e. 3 points) in Bow is not doable without a DLL, since to my knowledge, this is a hardcoded limitation.
"Improved" dual wielding? According to the 3.5e manual, IDW lets you get a 2nd extra attack with your offhand weapon. Since IWD2 already limits the maximum number of attacks at 5, I don't really think that this feat would matter much, as is. Furthermore, it would require some sort of DLL to implement. Even if one wanted to go your suggested route of "to hit bonuses when dual-wielding", without a DLL, I don't really think that there's any way to code this sort of bonus, since I don't think that there's anyway to know if you are dual-wielding.
Let's face it. When it comes to modifying classes, unless you can write DLL's to modify the base IWD2-IE program, you are limited to whatever changes can be done with changes thru the 2DA files.
3.5e basically sets to possible paths for rangers... an archer path and a dual-wielding path. Unfortunately, modifications to support any sort of improved dual wielding path are not do-able without DLL's. I suppose that one could widen that thought to say that the dual-wielding path could be a general melee path. But even that, other than just giving rangers extra feats to spend any way they chose (which is a doable thing), there's no real way to make them get better in only one path.
Perhaps the "best" (such as it is) way to "improve" rangers is to go the Monte Cook direction, since much of it is implementable. And just give the rangers extra feat points to use as they choose. If they choose to be archers, fine. If they choose to be melee warriors, fine. And if they choose to spend those feats on other things, oh well.
Geeez, enough rambling on my part.
These are the basic elements that define the official "Monte Cook" ranger.
A. 1d8 instead of 1d10 for Hit Points
B. Improved Reflex Save bonuses
C. Slightly improved spell progression
D. More skill points
E. Bonus Feats (from a list of specific feats)
F. Tracking ability at level 1
G. New and more ranger specific spells and feats
H. The removal of the virtual dual-wielding feat
My minimalist mod included:
Slightly improved spell progression
More skill points (a base of 3 sp per level-up instead of 2)
Bonus Feats (a general feat point every 4th level starting at level 1; i.e. 1, 5, 9, etc.) Not as focused (i.e. on a limited choice of feats) as the "monte cook" or 3.5e calls for, but workable within the limitations of the engine.
Tracking ability (automatically gave the ranger the Forester feat and 1 sp in Wilderness Lore at creation)
This was a fairly easy mini-mod to create, since it only relied on changing 5 2DA files. It ended up making pure rangers a little more fun to play.
BTW, pure rangers can be surprisingly useful in HOF, since by that time, they have the ability to cast some useful summoning spells, while remaining effective tanks.
Jelaweb,
I've also been slowly working on a mod that would incorporate some 3.5e stuff, as well as some other stuff ... new stores, new items, etc.
Trying to emulate that list of 3.5 ranger stuff is extremely difficult or impossible with normal IE modding methods. I've actually spent a fair amount of time thinking about it.
I've been able to write code that would make rangers effectively be a 1d8 class and have the Reflex saves, both as defined by the 3.5ed rulebook. Also, setting rangers to start with only light armor prof and a base of 3 sp/level was also easy (just modifying 2DA files).
Domi,
The closest that I think that one can come to creating an animal companion special "ability" would be to create a special ability button that would cast a summoning spell for a specific creature, probably usable once a day, but with a decent duration. However, like any other summons, it would not be able to pass from area to area. There would be limitations on the types of companions possible. That is, you'd probably be limited to whatever animations already exist in the game. The simplest would probably be some sort of wolf companion, since there are some wold animations, and various incarnations of wolves and dire wolves in the game's CRE files.
Giving Rapid Shot at creation is uber-easy. Just a modification of the FEATS.2DA file.
Allowing weapon specialization (i.e. 3 points) in Bow is not doable without a DLL, since to my knowledge, this is a hardcoded limitation.
"Improved" dual wielding? According to the 3.5e manual, IDW lets you get a 2nd extra attack with your offhand weapon. Since IWD2 already limits the maximum number of attacks at 5, I don't really think that this feat would matter much, as is. Furthermore, it would require some sort of DLL to implement. Even if one wanted to go your suggested route of "to hit bonuses when dual-wielding", without a DLL, I don't really think that there's any way to code this sort of bonus, since I don't think that there's anyway to know if you are dual-wielding.
Let's face it. When it comes to modifying classes, unless you can write DLL's to modify the base IWD2-IE program, you are limited to whatever changes can be done with changes thru the 2DA files.
3.5e basically sets to possible paths for rangers... an archer path and a dual-wielding path. Unfortunately, modifications to support any sort of improved dual wielding path are not do-able without DLL's. I suppose that one could widen that thought to say that the dual-wielding path could be a general melee path. But even that, other than just giving rangers extra feats to spend any way they chose (which is a doable thing), there's no real way to make them get better in only one path.
Perhaps the "best" (such as it is) way to "improve" rangers is to go the Monte Cook direction, since much of it is implementable. And just give the rangers extra feat points to use as they choose. If they choose to be archers, fine. If they choose to be melee warriors, fine. And if they choose to spend those feats on other things, oh well.
Geeez, enough rambling on my part.
There are a couple of BG2 mods that implement familiars for NPCs that move between areas. I think I can give it a try to see if similar scripts will work in IWD2.The closest that I think that one can come to creating an animal companion special "ability" would be to create a special ability button that would cast a summoning spell for a specific creature, probably usable once a day, but with a decent duration. However, like any other summons, it would not be able to pass from area to area. There would be limitations on the types of companions possible. That is, you'd probably be limited to whatever animations already exist in the game. The simplest would probably be some sort of wolf companion, since there are some wold animations, and various incarnations of wolves and dire wolves in the game's CRE files.
As for types of the companion and companions level up it's relatively easy. There are numerous animals a druid can shapeshift to, and they both belong to the Vale and look pretty neat. So:
Lawful Good: Polar Bear
Neutral Good: Arctic Boar
Chaotic Good: Winter Wolf
Lawful Neutral: Snow Leopard
True Neutral: Black Panther
Chaotic Neutral: Monstrous Snake
Lawful Evil: Dire Bear
Neutral Evil: Dire Panther
Chaotic Evil: Dire Wolf
I think that leveling a companion up could be done via a short cutscene whith a blackout where your previous creature is destroyed and the new one with the higher HP and more attacks whatever summoned.
So the big one is crossing between areas.
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Animal Companions.
I looked into "Find Familiar" as a spell to implement a while ago. The obvious place to look was in the Drider caves with the Golem you activate. This is the only "companion" in IWD2 (to my mind) that travels between areas with you.
So you need to look at 53PCGLM1.BCS to start with. I gave up, because I thought the familiar BCS file would end up being huge. And mods with new areas would not work...
There may be another way of doing this - but it would require changing every area BCS instead...
Crucis:
Improved Dual wielding needs more than just a simple DLL hack. It would require hacking the code to implement a second offhand animation, to make it look "real". And I don't know about IWD2 DLL hacking (DLLs yes, but I don't know the function addresses and parameters that IWD2 use - real programmer talk!).
And if I could do that, I would probably add several new feats and make the conversational skills usable in items - i.e. there is an effect for "Hide in Shadows", but none for Diplomacy (or Concentration, for that matter). And probably add prestige classes and do a million other things I would want this game to be (IWD2 with the NWN2 ruleset).
I looked into "Find Familiar" as a spell to implement a while ago. The obvious place to look was in the Drider caves with the Golem you activate. This is the only "companion" in IWD2 (to my mind) that travels between areas with you.
So you need to look at 53PCGLM1.BCS to start with. I gave up, because I thought the familiar BCS file would end up being huge. And mods with new areas would not work...
There may be another way of doing this - but it would require changing every area BCS instead...
Crucis:
Improved Dual wielding needs more than just a simple DLL hack. It would require hacking the code to implement a second offhand animation, to make it look "real". And I don't know about IWD2 DLL hacking (DLLs yes, but I don't know the function addresses and parameters that IWD2 use - real programmer talk!).
And if I could do that, I would probably add several new feats and make the conversational skills usable in items - i.e. there is an effect for "Hide in Shadows", but none for Diplomacy (or Concentration, for that matter). And probably add prestige classes and do a million other things I would want this game to be (IWD2 with the NWN2 ruleset).
BG2 mods use MoveGlobalObject. Off hand it does not exist in IWd2, but I am wondering if it can be simulated or added. I'm going to borwse Cirerrek's script comparisons to see if anything presents itself.
There is no problem driving it from DPLAYER3, it is very reliable in IWD2, the only thing is finding the right one that makes the creature to jump to the user between areas.
There is no problem driving it from DPLAYER3, it is very reliable in IWD2, the only thing is finding the right one that makes the creature to jump to the user between areas.
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Heh, I managed to summon creature every time the party enters new area. However, it's now immortal.
I think I can make it better by a) making creature leave if it is out of ranger's sight for longer than a few seconds and not return for some time and leave for longer if it falls below 95% hitpoints. The creature will "heal" upon enetering every new area - it's an exploit, I know, but the resummon based on out of ranger's sight is the best I can do, upon trying many, many things.
It will require a long-long script and many-many CRE files to make the creature summon at an appropriate level in every new area etc. I think that my initial plan to develop 9 creatures for each alignment is too much work, so I'll probably run with three:
Bear, Panther and Wolf for Good, Neutral and Evil alignments correspondingly.
Also, I think I will require the ranger to have high Animal Empathy to have a companion and only one ranger per party will be able to have it.
Does that sound like a relatively good compromise?
I think I can make it better by a) making creature leave if it is out of ranger's sight for longer than a few seconds and not return for some time and leave for longer if it falls below 95% hitpoints. The creature will "heal" upon enetering every new area - it's an exploit, I know, but the resummon based on out of ranger's sight is the best I can do, upon trying many, many things.
It will require a long-long script and many-many CRE files to make the creature summon at an appropriate level in every new area etc. I think that my initial plan to develop 9 creatures for each alignment is too much work, so I'll probably run with three:
Bear, Panther and Wolf for Good, Neutral and Evil alignments correspondingly.
Also, I think I will require the ranger to have high Animal Empathy to have a companion and only one ranger per party will be able to have it.
Does that sound like a relatively good compromise?
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Hey crucis, if you are making some items, try and make "Duergar forged Goggles" (I'm thinking of the Jan Jansen portrait!) which gives Immunity to Day Blindness - it might increase the chances of someone actually playing the game with this race!
(Making this for a Drow would make an already powerful race TOO powerful)
(Making this for a Drow would make an already powerful race TOO powerful)
Is there a BAM in IWD1/2 or BG2 for goggles? I don't remember one. Such an item sounds easy enough, as long as there's an effect within the IWD2 IE engine to handle it.Jelaweb wrote:Hey crucis, if you are making some items, try and make "Duergar forged Goggles" (I'm thinking of the Jan Jansen portrait!) which gives Immunity to Day Blindness - it might increase the chances of someone actually playing the game with this race!
(Making this for a Drow would make an already powerful race TOO powerful)
Ahhhh, yes. I'd forgotten about the ID goggles.
Well, if there's an opcode for dayblindness, creating an immunity item for it should be quite easy.
EDIT: Ok, I see that there is an opcode for Day Blindness (#435). Creating an item that confers immunity to this opcode is no problem. The real question is, would an item with this immunity nullify the hardcoded day blindness effect? I suppose that the only way to find out is to create the item and find out. IIRC, one of the pre-generated parties has both a drow and a deurgar in it.
Well, if there's an opcode for dayblindness, creating an immunity item for it should be quite easy.
EDIT: Ok, I see that there is an opcode for Day Blindness (#435). Creating an item that confers immunity to this opcode is no problem. The real question is, would an item with this immunity nullify the hardcoded day blindness effect? I suppose that the only way to find out is to create the item and find out. IIRC, one of the pre-generated parties has both a drow and a deurgar in it.
I only mention it because the thread was about "underpowered" Rangers. I thought we should not limit ourselves to one class, but look at the entire spectrum. The most obvious starting point was the Duergar...
For what you get, compared to a Shield Dwarf:
Advantages:
Cast Invisibility 1/day
Immunity to Paralysis
+4 Move Silently
Disadvantages:
+2 ECL
Day Blindness (-2)
-2 CHA
However, when you compare a Drow to a Moon Elf, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
As for Rangers, here is another comparison:
Ranger (30) vs Fighter (18) / Druid (12):
Ranger advantages:
Choose 6 favoured enemies
+3 BAB,
Can cast Sleep, Non-Detection and Iron Skins,
Higher potential Animal Empathy, Hide, Move Silently, Search & Wilderness Lore skills.
Fighter/Druid advantages:
More and better spells - which start at Druid (1) - not Ranger (6),
+2 Fortitude and +4 Will saves,
Picking the 2-weapon fighting feats allows dual-wielding in ANY armour,
8 extra feats (in addition to spending 2 on dual-wielding),
Shapechanging if you want a change of tactic,
Higher potential Diplomacy, Intimidate & Spellcraft skills.
And in the 3.5e rules, Rangers cannot cast Sleep - and won't in my mod! But the Ranger WILL be able to cast spells like Barkskin and Spike Growth...
For what you get, compared to a Shield Dwarf:
Advantages:
Cast Invisibility 1/day
Immunity to Paralysis
+4 Move Silently
Disadvantages:
+2 ECL
Day Blindness (-2)
-2 CHA
However, when you compare a Drow to a Moon Elf, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
As for Rangers, here is another comparison:
Ranger (30) vs Fighter (18) / Druid (12):
Ranger advantages:
Choose 6 favoured enemies
+3 BAB,
Can cast Sleep, Non-Detection and Iron Skins,
Higher potential Animal Empathy, Hide, Move Silently, Search & Wilderness Lore skills.
Fighter/Druid advantages:
More and better spells - which start at Druid (1) - not Ranger (6),
+2 Fortitude and +4 Will saves,
Picking the 2-weapon fighting feats allows dual-wielding in ANY armour,
8 extra feats (in addition to spending 2 on dual-wielding),
Shapechanging if you want a change of tactic,
Higher potential Diplomacy, Intimidate & Spellcraft skills.
And in the 3.5e rules, Rangers cannot cast Sleep - and won't in my mod! But the Ranger WILL be able to cast spells like Barkskin and Spike Growth...
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tir-na_nogoth
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Interesting topic. If much of the MC ranger can be implemented I would be happy to play one. If I remember correctly BIS wanted to use the MC ranger, but WotC said no.
Two questions:
One: Is it possible to remove the virtual dual-wielding feat for rangers? Or is it hard coded?
Two: What is required to change hit dice and saving throws for a class? Does it require much hacking?
Two questions:
One: Is it possible to remove the virtual dual-wielding feat for rangers? Or is it hard coded?
Two: What is required to change hit dice and saving throws for a class? Does it require much hacking?
Hardcoded.tir-na_nogoth wrote:Interesting topic. If much of the MC ranger can be implemented I would be happy to play one. If I remember correctly BIS wanted to use the MC ranger, but WotC said no.
Two questions:
One: Is it possible to remove the virtual dual-wielding feat for rangers? Or is it hard coded?
This is a little tricky because all of the "warrior" classes share the same 2DA files that control HP/level and saves. However, I have written code to support this and intend to introduce it in a mod that I'm currently working on.Two: What is required to change hit dice and saving throws for a class? Does it require much hacking?