Ranger spell review

[Nick]

How about if Herbal Curing gave temporary RPois and PStun, and maybe even temporary immunity from cuts?

[Estie]

A typical ranger has rpoison long before he can cast herbal curing. Pstun is useful, but mostly for melee. Immunity from cuts would be less than shard resistance, yes ? Shard resistance is about the last one on the list to worry about.

The question is: is the intention for the ranger to rely on ranged attacks ? (the name sounding like it is, as we all know, coincidence).

If the answer is yes, then the current version does a bad job at that, at the very least when playing with randarts.
Launchers are rarer than melee weapons and needing specifically a bow to get the ranger advantage means youll end up as a melee fighter for most of the game. Given that the spell set, in particular decoy, is very conducive to melee fighting means its more often better to use the ranged slot as a stat boost, like a fighter.

Maybe that is the intention; but if not, then my first suggestion would be to apply the ranger extra shots to all types of launchers, not just bows. That way you have a better shot (pun!) at ending up shooting things.

As for the spell set: it would help if there was anything that only worked in conjunction with archery.

If the intention is adherence to pseudo-history, then of course Aragorn wasnt the archer - Legolas was. In that case remove the extra shots from ranger entirely and introduce the archer class - maybe as simple as a warrior with fewer hit points, less melee blows but more shots per round.

[Thraalbee]

Ranger is the embodiment of Aragorn which I find belong to the game. He is a hybrid for sure. xbow sems way off. adding sling however feels somewhat reasonable. A pure archer is fun (try frogcomposband!) and the slingmaster even more so. But do we need them in Vanilla? I would play them if they were there, but I feel no great need. I am ok with the ranger as it is now.

[Pete Mack]

I sorta feel that the light crossbow is a very blackguardly weapon. The heavy xbow is more for pure war, when you're up against plate armor. But for brigandry and thuggery, and just plain murder, the light crossbow is a fine weapon.

[Estie]

@Thraalbee, @Pete:

I am not disagreeing with the sentiment. But why does it have to be exclusive for ranged weapons ?

One ranger wields a bow, another can wield a crossbow. You dont make the same exclusion for melee weapons:

The dunadan ranger should wield a longsword, doesnt mean my dwarf ranger cant wield an awl pike. Or a kobold rogue a MoD.

Given that launchers are already harder to come by than melee, it isnt good game ergonomics to place additional barriers. Especially given that the only (minor) melee barrier - blunt weapons only for priest - has been removed.

[archolewa]

@Thraalbee, @Pete:

I am not disagreeing with the sentiment. But why does it have to be exclusive for ranged weapons ?

One ranger wields a bow, another can wield a crossbow. You dont make the same exclusion for melee weapons:

The dunadan ranger should wield a longsword, doesnt mean my dwarf ranger cant wield an awl pike. Or a kobold rogue a MoD.

Given that launchers are already harder to come by than melee, it isnt good game ergonomics to place additional barriers. Especially given that the only (minor) melee barrier - blunt weapons only for priest - has been removed.

Adding insult to injury is of course that you also need the required ammo. Ranged weapons already have so many barriers, forcing Rangers to only be awesome with a specific class is overtuning in my opinion.

Now, I dont know that it needs to be extra shots for slings and xbows, if we want to make things interesting. You could do something like rangers dont need ammo for slings (they are really good at foraging for rocks for their sling), and xbows ignore some fraction of AC, so they end up being much more accurate, or they have an enhanced crit rate or something.

But I agree Rangers should get *something* for the other two classes of launchers.

[Voovus]

I agree with what @Estie wrote.

Also, it would be good to have some class that primarily relies on shooting. I don't mind whether this is Ranger or Archer (... or Amazon... ).

For what it's worth, in the olden days of Moria, the Ranger was a Warrior/Mage hybrid with no (or minimal) bonuses to missile weapons.

[DavidMedley]

Seems to me that rangers are slowly taking on a more interesting and canon flavor of outdoorsmen, hunters and trackers. We can't tie them too closely to the Rangers of the North unless you want to restrict their race. And we shouldn't tie the class too closely to just one character, who happened to find Narsil on DL1. Legolas is of the ranger class, even though he's not a Ranger of the North. And for all we know, The Rangers might have mostly relied on bows.

There was a great suggestion to give rangers a Fletchery ability, which in practice just means they get more arrow drops. We're already calculating hearing range... Maybe Rangers could have an ESP-like ablitlity that functions within a certain hearing distance?

I think the class is really strong and the main problem is ranged cheese, not the class. The class is fun. Cheese is not.

[Nick]

Thanks everyone for the excellent discussion, I am again amazed by this forum

I agree with pretty much all the points made. So here's my current thinking:

• Herbal Curing really is rubbish where it is. How about we just replace Cure Poison with it, in book 1? Probably just for rangers, I don't know what we do for druids.
• I'm inclined to agree that rangers should get the same bonuses for all missile weapons. This kind of loses the niceness of Create Arrows. Could we maybe add a later spell that creates bolts or shots (out of something else, or even out of nothing), so regular bows have a distinctness still?

Opinions on these, or other suggestions?

[Selkie]

[*]Herbal Curing really is rubbish where it is. How about we just replace Cure Poison with it, in book 1? Probably just for rangers, I don't know what we do for druids.[*]I'm inclined to agree that rangers should get the same bonuses for all missile weapons. This kind of loses the niceness of Create Arrows. Could we maybe add a later spell that creates bolts or shots (out of something else, or even out of nothing), so regular bows have a distinctness still?[/LIST]

Opinions on these, or other suggestions?

Couldn't you just make herbal curing heal 300HP and leave it where it is. This change would turn it into a decent enough spell, without getting close to the healing ability of a paladin.

I honestly don't mind that rangers get bow bonuses, it feels true to the class. But I really think the extra shot bonus should be doubled. At the moment it's a bit too insignificant.

[Pete Mack]

@selkie
300hp is as much as 4.1 and earlier Paladin. It would change the class into a second paladin type, but with good ranged combat.

[Estie]

wand -> arrows
staff -> bolts
(non artifact) mithril item -> mithril shots

[Voovus]

wand -> arrows
staff -> bolts
(non artifact) mithril item -> mithril shots

I'd suggest breaking the symmetry between the three, so that different rangeders had a different feel to them. For example:

Wand/Staff -> Arrows (quality depends only on item used)
Spell that takes no resources -> Bolts (quality depends only on clv)
Pebbles/Shots never break.

I appreciate that this would mean more work for Nick than three similar systems.

[Estie]

I'd suggest breaking the symmetry between the three, so that different rangeders had a different feel to them. For example:

Wand/Staff -> Arrows (quality depends only on item used)
Spell that takes no resources -> Bolts (quality depends only on clv)
Pebbles/Shots never break.

I appreciate that this would mean more work for Nick than three similar systems.

Sounds good. Nick, get to work.

[Nick]

I'd suggest breaking the symmetry between the three, so that different rangeders had a different feel to them.

Yes, I like this idea too. It's also made me think about other tweaks that might make for more interesting choices for missile combat:

• Maybe extra shots - at least a ranger's where they seem to represent increasing skill - should have a different effect depending on launcher type. There's only so much better one can get at reloading a heavy crossbow, but practiced users of regular bows and slings can get very much quicker than a novice.
• Maybe there should be a difference between how STR and DEX affect accuracy for different ranged weapons, with DEX more important for a sling and STR for a longbow, for example.