Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 clefable Dec 17, 2008 9:54:44	Hi all. I was thinking of making a swift hunting ranger based character. My hopes are for a general purpose character, capable of facing (and at least surviving) most challenges. Race: Human. 32 point buy: 11 str, 17 dex, 14 con, 14 int, 12 wis, 8 cha. Two flaws. The purpose of having a human and a decent int is to get extra skill points. At +3 skill points per level it adds up to +60 at level 20. Human with 2 flaws gets 3 bonus feats. To get str bonus to damage with a composite longbow, I will just get myself a belt of strength. Classes: Ranger: Good bab progressions. Gets evasion. Scout: for the mix of class abilities and skirmish. Gets uncanny dodge at level 3. Shadow dancer: Gets Hide in plain sight (Hips). The ranger's Hips only works in the wild. Also, a ranger needs to be level 17 to get such his Hips. The shadow dancer's Hips works wherever there is a shadow. 2 levels in shadow dancer also nets me darkvision, evasion and uncanny dodge. Monk: the monk gets wisdom bonus to ac. The way I see it, my dex is eventually going to be 22. With a +6 gloves of dexterity, I get a dex of 28, giving me an ac bonus from dex of +9. Instead of wearing light armour which accomodates this dex bonus to ac (which only gives +1 to ac), I get a +6 Periapt of Wisdom. This will boost my wisdom to 18, giving me an ac bonus of +4. (Note that I will probably be getting custom magic items that give a much greater bonus to dex and wis). In addition to this, a cobra strike monk variant can get dodge and mobility as bonus feats, which are required to qualify for shadow dancer. Feats: I will getting whatever feats a ranger specialising in ranged combat is going to get. Knowledge devotion (Complete champion): Roll a knowledge check of the appropriate type, get bonus to attack and damge (up to +5). The knowledge domains necessary to cover most types of creatures are: Arcana, dundeoneering, local, nature, religion, planes. Monk provides knowledge (arcana) and (religion) as class skills. Scout gets Knowledge (nature) and (dundeoneering) as class skills. Planar ranger variant gets knowledge (planes) as a class skill. This leaves us with knowledge (local), which applies to ALL humanoids (except outsiders and undead). One may therefore benefit the most from having skill points in this. Fortunately, the knowledge devotion feat grants you your choice of any knowledge domain to be used as a class skill, regardless of your class. Thus, all knowledge domains covering most creature types will be, at some point in time, a class skill for you. The class skill for knowledge (local), assuming you fight a lot of humanoids, will be a class skill for you all the time. Darkstalker (lords of madness): creatures who have scent and blindsence etc get no advantage in trying to find me. Skills: I get about 215 skill points. Plenty of points to invest in stuff like the various knowledge domains. Max out: Disable device, Hide, Listen, Move silently, Search, Spot and Survival. I am considering getting an animal companion as a mount. This means I will have to invest in riding. Issues: Monk, ranger and shadow dancer gets evasion. Evasion will stack with only one more evasion to get improved evasion. This is only a problem if I go with 2 levels of monk (more on this later). My solution is to swap out the monk or ranger's evasion for spell reflection (from complete mage). Its not that useful, but at least nothing is wasted. The ranger and scout's levels can stack for the purposes of skirmishing and favoured enemies if I go with the swift hunter feat (complete scoundrel). To get +5d6 skirmish damage, I need to get my ranger and scout levels to a total combined level of 17. 4 levels in scout gets me a bonus feat and a nice combination of the good skill bonuses of a scout and only one bab lost. If ranger and scout levels add up to 17, I get 3 levels for shadow dancer and monk. I will be going for 2 levels of shadow dancer to get dark vision, improved uncanny dodge (stacking uncanny dodge of shadow dancer and scout) and improved evasion (stacking evasion of ranger and shadow dancer). This leaves me with 1 level of monk. Since I will be taking monk quite early (to benefit from its bonus feats to help qualify for shadow dancer), 1 level of monk and 4 levels of scout gives me a multiclass xp penalty. I could avoid this by taking 2 levels of monk and 3 levels of scout. If I take 2 levels of shadow dancer to benefit from dark vision and the stacking of evasion and uncanny dodge, this leaves me with 13 levels of ranger. This leaves me with a ranger + scout level of 16, which is one level short of getting +5d6 skirmish damage. To skirmish, I need to move at least 10 feet. To get my extra attacks from my bab, I need a full round. I am thinking of getting a mount to solve this problem, but am not sure if mounted archery is a good idea as it would require additional feats to be functional. That said, being capable of some mounted action means I can be more general purpose-ish. Reference: Swift hunter's handbook: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=854152 Ranger handbook: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=892470 Scouts handbook: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=584572
#2 feloniousela Dec 17, 2008 14:34:25	Dread Commando is a good class from Heroes of Battle. It may work in this build instead of a lot of the other levels you don't really seem to want other than to get to certain Skirmish dice. HiPS with Dread Commando works really well. One solution to the moving and full attack problem is to get Pounce or the Bounding Assault style feats. Barbarian 1 w/ Lion Totem and Whirling Frenzy variants could be decent. I am not sure how charging interacts with the Dread Commando 5th level ability, but you may be able to charge while hidden and silent.