Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rathje 11-23-05, 06:48 PM	Heyo', everyone. I've ended up building or having players play a lot of Fighters instead of Rangers for a single reason: the Animal Companion. It comes in at level four. We usually start at level one, which means it can't be worked into a background as easily as all things. Then there's the whole aspect of a loner Druid without a companion, but still does Druidic stuff. Simply not taking using the ability could lead to needless unbalanced gameplay. Is there any balanced trade-off for missing out on an animal companion? I heard a few months ago of a house rule that anyone can drop a class ability in exchange for a feat. It sounds balanced, but it could lead to some problems. Fighter suddenly becomes less useful, since another character could hypothetically lose a number of abilities to gain a compromise between class and new fancy feats. A Barbarian at level one could drop Fast Movement, take heavy armor, and be equal to or better than a Fighter in every way. Even if they put the skill points in to lose illiteracy, they have the same skill points as a Fighter (and one more class skill). Anyhow, there's my question.
Gilean 11-24-05, 01:07 PM	Druidic Avenger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druidVariant DruidicAvenger) is found in the UA, and it has no companion. Other than that, just give a power boost of similar level (not too significant, in the case of ranger's companion), possibly post it on the forum for feedback.