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Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 heliomance May 10, 2008 22:21:05	I'm currently playing a Ranger 5/Horizon Walker 4, with the two weapon fighting tree. In two levels time I get dimension door. I can't decide which to take as my level 12 feat - Improved Trip or Quicken Spell-Like Ability. I will be taking them both, which order do you recommend? I really don't want to dip into fighter, as I already have my build planned up to level 23, assuming we ever get there. (After horizon walker I'm going into a homebrew class, Planar Master, which grants all sorts of fun plane-based abilities)
#2 erhnamdj May 10, 2008 22:56:39	Well, you can't act after using dimension door, can you? Doesn't look like quickening it will be of much use. Also, since you have your build planned out could you go ahead and post that, along with what books you have allowed?
#3 heliomance May 11, 2008 9:15:48	Basically after Horizon Walker 6, I'll be going into the Planar Master class for ten levels, possibly with one level of the UA planar ranger variant. The world we're in is very heavily homebrewed, and there are probably enough house rules involved that it could qualify as D&D 3.75. I'll detail the important ones. Basically, anything in the following info that isn't in the rules is a homebrew house rule. Also, you can pick up certain racial feats every fifth level. My build at the moment: Undead (Free Soul) Elf Ranger 5/Horizon Walker 4 Both combat styles taken Off-hand defense Show Off-Hand Defense: At 2nd level, a ranger may choose to devote all off-hand attacks to defense during an attack, and gains half of the AC bonus they would gain from their ranger attack bonus i.e. (Ranger Level + Dexterity bonus)/2 To gain this effect they must make at least one attack with their main hand.
#4 heliomance May 12, 2008 2:23:30	Hum, Any advice, or is the homebrew situaton too weird?
#5 reis May 12, 2008 2:48:08	something that might be more helpful is an understanding of what you are looking to optimize with this character. You are a ranger, ok, do you want to be good at two weapon fighting? ranged attacks? tracking? The Planar Master seems like one of those prestige classes that seems ok for a dip at best, maybe to get area shift? Genesis SLA is nice but from a optimization I would be wary of taking 10 levels in a prestige class as a ranger/horizon walker unless it offers impressive in-combat benefits at nearly every level as well as full BAB. Clearly, we would need a more complete details on the prestige class in order to make any kind of real calls about it. I don't understand why you took weapon focus(quarterstaff) or weapon finesse, seeing as longsword and longbow aren't finesse-able? Lifesense is maybe a decent choice and the fast healing 1 feat, but there are certainly more optimal feats for combat for a ranger/HW Make sure to take the cavernous planar mastery as your 2nd planar terrain mastery to get the very powerul tremorsense are you able to use tome of battle: the book of nine swords? it has a lot of very good options or optimizing any sort of non-spellcasting combatant, especially melee ones. let us know what you think about these comments and I'll make another post to try and help.
#6 heliomance May 12, 2008 9:00:06	I took the quarterstaff and finesse as I started off as a staff fighter, before my GM told me about the racial feats. Planar master is full BAB I believe, and I feel it is worth taking the full thing. As I say, later levels give the ability to manipulate planar matter, so if I can make a chunk of the elemental plane of fire appear mid combat and then direct the flames from it to hit enemies, that could be rather useful. I don't know about ToB, as I say, my DMs attitude to splat is "ask me and I'll look over it and let you know if you can use it". Fast healing was pretty much essential. We have no-one in the party capable of casting inflict spells or otherwise channeling negative energy, and I'm the only undead one. Fast healing meant I didn't have to rely on expensive potions for healing; I now have per-encounter hit points. As for tremorsense, I was planning to leave HW after getting DD, as I said. DD is needed to qualify for planar master. As for what I want to optimise for, I want to be useful in combat, really. I don't dish enough damage to compete with the party BSF/meatshield (Dwarven Fighter/Battlesmith), and I thought Improved Trip might be a useful way of becoming effective battlefield control. Quickened DD would do the same if my DM houserules that I can act after it, giving me incredible mobility on the battlefield. With that I could become a very good caster killer, stepping out of the air behind the enemy lines and stabbing a wizard. DD has been slightly altered in its range; it is now line of sight. This means the range has vastly increased, but if I can't see there, I can't go there.
#7 Wyvernhand May 12, 2008 10:08:46	Unfortunately, due to the way combat works in 3.5, TWF is very weak without some sort of gimick to add a large source of non-str based damage for example Sneak Attack or Dragonfire Inspiration. You don't benefit from Power Attack, the primary source of melee damage but pretty much requires holding one weapon in both hands to scale the best. I'd see about swapping to a 2hander, possibly with reach if you can. A Glaive would be great, or a Guisarme if you really want to trip. You'd need 2 feats to take Improve Trip though, since I didn't see that you have Combat Expertese, which also requires a 13+ int. If you really want to be a mage slayer type, you need to take the Mage Slayer feat from Complete Arcane. This prevents an caster from casting defensively while you threaten them. In order for this feat to be effective, you'd need a reach weapon though, and a feat like Standstill and possibly the Thicket of Blades ability from ToB. How far can you go to rebuild your char? Cause as it stands, you can't do much of what you want to do, you can barely even deal damage effectively, much less lock someone down. Tremorsense would be somewhat effective, especially if you take Mage Slayer with Pierce Magical Conceilment. Any mage worth his salt that's invisible will probably be flying as well though, so that's not super effective. So, yea....You've kind of built yourself into a bind. How much can are you allowed to rebuild? We can sit here and make suggestions till we are blue in the face, but if you are stuck with what you have, you might consider taking your next level in Samuri and for the Sepuku (ex) ability.
#8 heliomance May 12, 2008 11:16:44	Lifesense will allow me to pinpoint the square of any creature within 30 ft. They still have concealment, but I know where they are. Tripping is useful with TWF I feel, as I can make a fairly stupid number of attacks per round if I really try. I really don't want to stop dual wielding because of the off-hand defense ability detailed above. My AC drops about 7 points if I stop dual wielding. I think I'll ask my DM if I can swap out finesse and WF quarterstaff under the rules in the PHB II, as they're really doing nothing for me at the moment. If I can do that, I'll swap them for combat expertise and improved trip. That way I can take quicken SLA at 12th and then maybe mage slayer at 15th. Basically, I know I haven't got a hope at being any good straight damage-wise, so I want to go the battlefield control route.
#9 Wyvernhand May 12, 2008 11:56:20	So, you want to trip with your weapons, well then you need tripping weapons, such as Kamas, Kusiri-Gamas, or a Gnome Hooked Hammer or something similar. You can't trip with a Quarterstaff, and you can't trip with a Longsword. Also, failing a trip attempt means your opponent gets a countertrip roll, and if you fail that too, you are either tripped yourself, or you can drop the weapon. If you get unlucky in your first attack, you lose all of your full attack for that weapon. Tripping is also suboptimal at high levels because if most of what you fight isn't humanoids with class levels, most monsters scale faster with str and size than a player does and tripping quickly becomes a real risk to yourself. Standstill + reach weapon is a much more reliable method of control than trip is. Standstill doesn't really work well without reach or while TWF because your damage is low and your reach is short.
#10 heliomance May 13, 2008 7:44:46	They don't get a countertrip roll if I have improved trip, do they? What method of battlefield control do you recomend then, bearing in mind that I want to keep using longswords as thanks to the racial feats I will eventually get GWS.
#11 Wyvernhand May 13, 2008 11:26:58	Wrong. Improved Trip makes no mention of preventing countertrip. I think Knockdown did, back in 3.0, but the 3.5 version of it also makes no note of preventing countertrip. The only things you can do to prevent countertrip are to increase your stability (be a dwarf, get Steadfast Boots, Roots of the Mountain stance from ToB), or chop off your legs so that you don't qualify for being tripped. I'd highly recommend against the 2nd option. Really, if you want to be big in control, you need a reach weapon. You don't need mega reach, but more than 5' is pretty important. The only way you can get reach without a reach weapon is to increase your character's size. None of the ways to do it are 100%, as they are either short term, dispelable, or not RAW. Sorry man. Standstill works, but you need to hit pretty hard in order to force a save high enough that most things aren't going to automake it. That means hitting for at least 30-40 damage in a single attack at level 10ish, or 40-50 at about level 15ish. The only way I think you can reach those numbers is to use 1 longsword in both hands with Power Attack. Since you don't want to do that, I have no idea how to help you.
#12 heliomance May 14, 2008 7:53:48	On the other hand, I could take Improved Disarm instead of Improved Trip. That works with longswords, and protects me from being diarmed in turn.
#13 Wyvernhand May 14, 2008 8:31:12	Unfortunately, disarm only works against things that actually wield weapons. This excludes their use vs most undead, constructs, animals, monstrous humanoids with claws, magical beasts, aberitions, plants, oozes, constructs, many outsiders, and a host of other common baddies. Plus, if you fail a disarm check, you can get counterdisarmed. This interupts your iterative squence with that weapon, if you are currently in sequence. Plus, disarm is less attractive if you aren't using a 2handed weapon to do it, or having a free hand open to catch the weapon. A little trick however, if you don't mind trashing the treasure, is to disarm early in a full attack, and use later attacks to sunder the weapon. Since its lying on the ground, its considered unattended. That means you skip the opposed attack roll and go straight to damage. Its a good thing.
#14 heliomance May 14, 2008 9:28:42	Improved Disarm specifically does protect against counter disarming. Also, undead in this world are sentient and generaly do wield weapons. We're unlikely to encounter any in the near future anyway, however, as we've left the undead nation down south. Even if we did, they're nominally allied with us. You raise a good point about it being no good against animals, though.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

heliomance

May 10, 2008 22:21:05

I'm currently playing a Ranger 5/Horizon Walker 4, with the two weapon fighting tree. In two levels time I get dimension door. I can't decide which to take as my level 12 feat - Improved Trip or Quicken Spell-Like Ability. I will be taking them both, which order do you recommend? I really don't want to dip into fighter, as I already have my build planned up to level 23, assuming we ever get there. (After horizon walker I'm going into a homebrew class, Planar Master, which grants all sorts of fun plane-based abilities)

erhnamdj

May 10, 2008 22:56:39

Well, you can't act after using dimension door, can you? Doesn't look like quickening it will be of much use. Also, since you have your build planned out could you go ahead and post that, along with what books you have allowed?

heliomance

May 11, 2008 9:15:48

Basically after Horizon Walker 6, I'll be going into the Planar Master class for ten levels, possibly with one level of the UA planar ranger variant.
The world we're in is very heavily homebrewed, and there are probably enough house rules involved that it could qualify as D&D 3.75. I'll detail the important ones. Basically, anything in the following info that isn't in the rules is a homebrew house rule. Also, you can pick up certain racial feats every fifth level.

My build at the moment:
Undead (Free Soul) Elf Ranger 5/Horizon Walker 4
Both combat styles taken
Off-hand defense

Show

Off-Hand Defense: At 2nd level, a ranger may choose to devote all off-hand attacks to defense during an attack, and gains half of the AC bonus they would gain from their ranger attack bonus i.e. (Ranger Level + Dexterity bonus)/2

To gain this effect they must make at least one attack with their main hand.

heliomance

May 12, 2008 2:23:30

Hum, Any advice, or is the homebrew situaton too weird?

reis

May 12, 2008 2:48:08

something that might be more helpful is an understanding of what you are looking to optimize with this character. You are a ranger, ok, do you want to be good at two weapon fighting? ranged attacks? tracking?

The Planar Master seems like one of those prestige classes that seems ok for a dip at best, maybe to get area shift? Genesis SLA is nice but from a optimization I would be wary of taking 10 levels in a prestige class as a ranger/horizon walker unless it offers impressive in-combat benefits at nearly every level as well as full BAB. Clearly, we would need a more complete details on the prestige class in order to make any kind of real calls about it.

I don't understand why you took weapon focus(quarterstaff) or weapon finesse, seeing as longsword and longbow aren't finesse-able? Lifesense is maybe a decent choice and the fast healing 1 feat, but there are certainly more optimal feats for combat for a ranger/HW

Make sure to take the cavernous planar mastery as your 2nd planar terrain mastery to get the very powerul tremorsense

are you able to use tome of battle: the book of nine swords? it has a lot of very good options or optimizing any sort of non-spellcasting combatant, especially melee ones.

let us know what you think about these comments and I'll make another post to try and help.

heliomance

May 12, 2008 9:00:06

I took the quarterstaff and finesse as I started off as a staff fighter, before my GM told me about the racial feats.
Planar master is full BAB I believe, and I feel it is worth taking the full thing. As I say, later levels give the ability to manipulate planar matter, so if I can make a chunk of the elemental plane of fire appear mid combat and then direct the flames from it to hit enemies, that could be rather useful.
I don't know about ToB, as I say, my DMs attitude to splat is "ask me and I'll look over it and let you know if you can use it".
Fast healing was pretty much essential. We have no-one in the party capable of casting inflict spells or otherwise channeling negative energy, and I'm the only undead one. Fast healing meant I didn't have to rely on expensive potions for healing; I now have per-encounter hit points.
As for tremorsense, I was planning to leave HW after getting DD, as I said. DD is needed to qualify for planar master.

As for what I want to optimise for, I want to be useful in combat, really. I don't dish enough damage to compete with the party BSF/meatshield (Dwarven Fighter/Battlesmith), and I thought Improved Trip might be a useful way of becoming effective battlefield control. Quickened DD would do the same if my DM houserules that I can act after it, giving me incredible mobility on the battlefield. With that I could become a very good caster killer, stepping out of the air behind the enemy lines and stabbing a wizard. DD has been slightly altered in its range; it is now line of sight. This means the range has vastly increased, but if I can't see there, I can't go there.

Wyvernhand

May 12, 2008 10:08:46

Unfortunately, due to the way combat works in 3.5, TWF is very weak without some sort of gimick to add a large source of non-str based damage for example Sneak Attack or Dragonfire Inspiration. You don't benefit from Power Attack, the primary source of melee damage but pretty much requires holding one weapon in both hands to scale the best. I'd see about swapping to a 2hander, possibly with reach if you can. A Glaive would be great, or a Guisarme if you really want to trip. You'd need 2 feats to take Improve Trip though, since I didn't see that you have Combat Expertese, which also requires a 13+ int.

If you really want to be a mage slayer type, you need to take the Mage Slayer feat from Complete Arcane. This prevents an caster from casting defensively while you threaten them. In order for this feat to be effective, you'd need a reach weapon though, and a feat like Standstill and possibly the Thicket of Blades ability from ToB. How far can you go to rebuild your char? Cause as it stands, you can't do much of what you want to do, you can barely even deal damage effectively, much less lock someone down.

Tremorsense would be somewhat effective, especially if you take Mage Slayer with Pierce Magical Conceilment. Any mage worth his salt that's invisible will probably be flying as well though, so that's not super effective.

So, yea....You've kind of built yourself into a bind. How much can are you allowed to rebuild? We can sit here and make suggestions till we are blue in the face, but if you are stuck with what you have, you might consider taking your next level in Samuri and for the Sepuku (ex) ability.

heliomance

May 12, 2008 11:16:44

Lifesense will allow me to pinpoint the square of any creature within 30 ft. They still have concealment, but I know where they are.
Tripping is useful with TWF I feel, as I can make a fairly stupid number of attacks per round if I really try. I really don't want to stop dual wielding because of the off-hand defense ability detailed above. My AC drops about 7 points if I stop dual wielding.

I think I'll ask my DM if I can swap out finesse and WF quarterstaff under the rules in the PHB II, as they're really doing nothing for me at the moment. If I can do that, I'll swap them for combat expertise and improved trip. That way I can take quicken SLA at 12th and then maybe mage slayer at 15th.

Basically, I know I haven't got a hope at being any good straight damage-wise, so I want to go the battlefield control route.

Wyvernhand

May 12, 2008 11:56:20

So, you want to trip with your weapons, well then you need tripping weapons, such as Kamas, Kusiri-Gamas, or a Gnome Hooked Hammer or something similar. You can't trip with a Quarterstaff, and you can't trip with a Longsword. Also, failing a trip attempt means your opponent gets a countertrip roll, and if you fail that too, you are either tripped yourself, or you can drop the weapon. If you get unlucky in your first attack, you lose all of your full attack for that weapon. Tripping is also suboptimal at high levels because if most of what you fight isn't humanoids with class levels, most monsters scale faster with str and size than a player does and tripping quickly becomes a real risk to yourself.

Standstill + reach weapon is a much more reliable method of control than trip is. Standstill doesn't really work well without reach or while TWF because your damage is low and your reach is short.

#10

heliomance

May 13, 2008 7:44:46

They don't get a countertrip roll if I have improved trip, do they?
What method of battlefield control do you recomend then, bearing in mind that I want to keep using longswords as thanks to the racial feats I will eventually get GWS.

#11

Wyvernhand

May 13, 2008 11:26:58

Wrong. Improved Trip makes no mention of preventing countertrip. I think Knockdown did, back in 3.0, but the 3.5 version of it also makes no note of preventing countertrip. The only things you can do to prevent countertrip are to increase your stability (be a dwarf, get Steadfast Boots, Roots of the Mountain stance from ToB), or chop off your legs so that you don't qualify for being tripped. I'd highly recommend against the 2nd option.

Really, if you want to be big in control, you need a reach weapon. You don't need mega reach, but more than 5' is pretty important. The only way you can get reach without a reach weapon is to increase your character's size. None of the ways to do it are 100%, as they are either short term, dispelable, or not RAW. Sorry man.

Standstill works, but you need to hit pretty hard in order to force a save high enough that most things aren't going to automake it. That means hitting for at least 30-40 damage in a single attack at level 10ish, or 40-50 at about level 15ish. The only way I think you can reach those numbers is to use 1 longsword in both hands with Power Attack. Since you don't want to do that, I have no idea how to help you.

#12

heliomance

May 14, 2008 7:53:48

On the other hand, I could take Improved Disarm instead of Improved Trip. That works with longswords, and protects me from being diarmed in turn.

#13

Wyvernhand

May 14, 2008 8:31:12

Unfortunately, disarm only works against things that actually wield weapons. This excludes their use vs most undead, constructs, animals, monstrous humanoids with claws, magical beasts, aberitions, plants, oozes, constructs, many outsiders, and a host of other common baddies.

Plus, if you fail a disarm check, you can get counterdisarmed. This interupts your iterative squence with that weapon, if you are currently in sequence.

Plus, disarm is less attractive if you aren't using a 2handed weapon to do it, or having a free hand open to catch the weapon.

A little trick however, if you don't mind trashing the treasure, is to disarm early in a full attack, and use later attacks to sunder the weapon. Since its lying on the ground, its considered unattended. That means you skip the opposed attack roll and go straight to damage. Its a good thing.

#14

heliomance

May 14, 2008 9:28:42

Improved Disarm specifically does protect against counter disarming. Also, undead in this world are sentient and generaly do wield weapons. We're unlikely to encounter any in the near future anyway, however, as we've left the undead nation down south. Even if we did, they're nominally allied with us. You raise a good point about it being no good against animals, though.