Post/Author/DateTime	Post
CHeard 01-04-06, 05:37 PM	Hello, everyone! I'm about to start a new campaign with a new group, and one of my players is trying to decide between playing a ranger or a rogue. I think I'd like to offer him the option of playing a scout from Complete Adventurer, because it would give him the combat capability plus the trapfinding features (which I know will be useful in the campaign). I haven't had experience with a scout PC before, and wanted your opinion as to whether the class is nicely balanced with the core classes. The other PCs in the party will be a paladin, monk, cleric, and wizard. Would a scout be good in this mix, or would a straight-up rogue be better? Thanks for your input, as always. Chris
Koga:The ninja trick 01-04-06, 05:48 PM	All non-magick users are balanced. (The paladin/ranger are balanced too, they were just not meant to use spells..) So no, from what The Koga knows about the scout, no problem at all..
ChibiQueso 01-04-06, 05:56 PM	As described in Complete Adventurer, scouts love having a stable party base to fall back on during reconaissance. Scouts, in spirit, are meant to find obstacles in front of the main force. I have to agree with it. Scouts are a nice class (but then again, for a scouting person, you COULD just use a rogue or a ranger...or even a monk, a scout is just more explorer with a much higher priority on mobility. and blindsense and blindsight as class abilities just rock.)
Elemental_Elf 01-04-06, 05:57 PM	They seem balanced as they're best abilty relys on movement of 10ft. which eliminates any hope of getting a full attack out of 'em. So yeah, they're balanced.
Damionte 01-04-06, 06:18 PM	They work out very well and are balanced approprietly. They fill a nice nitch spot between a rogue and a ranger. I'm actually playing mine as an urban scout to fill the rogue slot in our group.
Enamel_32 01-04-06, 07:01 PM	It works nicely, half-scout and half-rogue in nature. I've been quite happy with playing with one, and while it doesn't contribute anything truly special to the party, greater manyshot does good damage... and the skills are definitely helpful.
Damionte 01-04-06, 07:50 PM	Yeah you don't fill all of the roles a rogue does. Just the dungeon delving traps and hide stuff. You also only do half of his damage. You Can't fill all the roles of a ranger. You don't fight as well and you don't get spells or a pet, but you are comfortable in that outdoors environment. If you like the Ranger but don't like all the devine stuff like me the scout is a good choice. Or if you want a rogue but are not interested in all the social skills they are also known for and just want to worry about trapfinding and sneaking artound to scout then it's also a great class.
DisposableHero_ 01-04-06, 07:53 PM	They seem balanced as they're best abilty relys on movement of 10ft. which eliminates any hope of getting a full attack out of 'em. So yeah, they're balanced.Doesn't eliminate any hope. In fact the cornerstone of making a powerful scout is getting the movement and a full attack. The easiest option for this being the dervish prestige class.
Todd 01-04-06, 08:19 PM	Or one could take greater manyshot and go the archer route making full attacks with skirmish. But in any event scouts play fine with others. Recently played in a mid to high level game with a pure scout as the party trapfinder and he did fine. We missed the rogue social skills a bit but couldn't complain too much. The guy playing the scout went the melee route with Spring Attack (single attack ;) ) and had fun with it since he felt that it was easier for him to get skirmish damage than it had been for him when he had played a rogue some time back.
chitzk0i 01-04-06, 08:26 PM	The scout in our party outshone pretty much everybody else for the first few encounters, anyway. At first level, 1d8+1d6 skirmish is a lot of damage.
a_psh 01-04-06, 09:51 PM	I don't really like the scout very much - I think a simple multiclass ranger/rogue makes for a better (which, mostly, means "more interesting to me personally") character. But I think that, unless you really find some crazy feats that would break any character and pile them on one after the other, the scout is quite balanced.
Nephlite 01-04-06, 10:52 PM	I don't really like the scout very much - I think a simple multiclass ranger/rogue makes for a better (which, mostly, means "more interesting to me personally") character. But I think that, unless you really find some crazy feats that would break any character and pile them on one after the other, the scout is quite balanced. Few stuf break the Scout. Maxing his damage/potencial is just fun. Multi-classing has problems: BAB Saves HD Skills Exp Penalty (unless favored or within one level of each other). Can't be done at level 1. Scout doesn't have these problems as it is a base class. It has the HD It has pretty good BAB. Good Saves. Good Skills. Concept can be played at level 1.
a_psh 01-04-06, 11:41 PM	Multi-classing has problems: BAB SavesI consider these two to be non-issues, since I'm so used to fractional saves and BAB by now.HD SkillsErr, I'm not quite sure how these are multiclassing issues... just that fact that you get different kinds of them? Please clarify.Exp Penalty (unless favored or within one level of each other).This is annoying. The experience penalty seems to be one of the most common rules to be house-ruled out these days.Can't be done at level 1.In the case of the ranger/rogue, your abilities are so complementary that this isn't a really big deal like it might be with, say, a fighter/mage. You can easily make a first-level stealthy scouty skirmisher with just ranger 1 or just rogue 1.
Gnarl 01-05-06, 04:20 AM	Last summer, one of my player was playing a scout that went all the way to 7th level. It was a halfling scout using a war sling and skipots. So with richoches it even could attack to opponents at a time (I figured both should be skirmishes but that's another debate). We also happened to have an archer ranger as a comparison point. Against critters not immuned to sneaks the scout usually did more damage. Otherwise, the ranger clearly outshined the scout. The scout did less damage (on average) than the melee ranger, less than the wizard and less than the cleric. The strongest point of the scout was it's fantastic ability to survive. With increadibly easy tumble checks to make, the scout was always running all over the place, boucing of walls and all. The scout only did one attack, but so did my dragons which immensly compensated for the lack of hit points. The only time the scout fell unsconscious was when he rolled a 1 on saves against an empowered lightening bolt. All in all, the class didn't break my game, far from it. Oh, did I mention my player loved it?
Lotus Crane 01-05-06, 04:25 AM	One of the things I like to with scouts is house-rule them to being able to skirmish while mounted. By the errata, scouts aren't supposed to be able to do that, but that seems like a needless nerf to me, because really, how often does mounted combat come up in play anyway? And a full skirimish attack is only 5d6 extra damage per hit, compared to a full sneak attack at 10d6 extra damage per hit, so I'm all for giving the scout twice as many opportunities to compensate.