I like Freebooter 10/Barb 10 on Amiri since she already has a Barb level and I’ve usually given Ekun 8 Sacred Huntmaster levels for Domain abilities and sharing Feats with Ekun.
The one time I tested pure Ranger was on Ekun in that pic and he just destroyed everything. Improved Quarry as a Free Action resolves immediately (unlike clunky Swift/Move Actions). It’s just straight up +4 to hit, nothing to do with Crit confirmation.
It’s even better modded since you continue to get Combat Style Feats at 14 and 18. Sneaks are chip damage at that point. If you want Sneaks you get full Vitals with nice duration at high level Ranger.
I'm not sure about that - if you look at the description of Quarry it says "all threats are automatically confirmed". But you still have to make the threat. If I was building a crit character, I'd go for two-handed fighter and wait for level 19 devestating blow where you make a single attack that gives you a critical hit. I'm assuming that means a scythe character gets a crit + another multiplier at level 20?.
Or level 4 as a Sword Saint for perfect critical and level 16 as a barbarian for the lethal stance line that gives you another - so does that stacks for x2 multipliers?. Just pick a 18-20 weapon...
But anyway, I initially said the Ranger was a weak class for me, but you said it was one of the strongest in the game.
WTF are you talking about? You use Improved Quarry to get the +4 Insight to hit as a Free Action, numbnuts. The Crit confirmation is just gravy. Yes, of course, if you suffer through 18 levels of suck on THF, you get an autothreat at 19
as a standard action. No thanks.
You didn't say Ranger was a weak class
for you, don't try to wriggle out of this with some postmodern bullshit. You said it was weak period.
You're wrong. Own it. Now you're smarter. That's what this game is for.
Ok, ok, no need to get menatally erect. I'm not changeing anything I said. Ranger is a shit class. Nothing it does is specifically better than any other class, and it isn't greater than the sum of its parts. If we're going to be specific about who said what, you said Ranger was the most powerful class in P:K on page 363. Do you honestly believe that?.
A two handed fighter gets to crit once per round at will. 46-52 dam per hit and I'm doing 250 damage with a scythe here:
With a falchion (without any feats except improved crit) he's still doing almost 50 average damage per attack. Take the middle road with a elven longsword and you're doing 150 average per critical hit. We all know on a 15-20 range, you're mostly gonna get at (average) least one per round, and then you can guarantee a x3 multiplier for the following round. How does 6APR ranged with spells, FE, and IW or Master hunter compete with that?.
Plus, favoured enemy is even more shit than I thought. You can't go 2 enemies at 10 & 8 damage. You can only pick one enemy, and then spread it out. 4 doubled up seems logical, and 1 odd one. But then master hunter only works on favoured enemies, and its limited to 5 uses. All other classes get unlimited with their save or die uses but are still resticted to 1 enemy. So I might be inclined to go for as many enemies as possible to use on all FE, but then Slayer and Rogue arn't that restricted. Also COTW added assassinate (unlimited use) at level 10 for Slayer and Ninja, so a multiclass option is open there.
Then compare favoured enemy to fighter. A fighter gets weapon specialisation + greater + weapon training: thats +8 damage to all enemies with one weapon, and +6 with another. Then if you go (with a mod) weapon finesse > fighters finesse > trained grace you get "double your weapon training bonus". So if you take it as per COTW's implementation (with seperate feat from weapon training) you get another 4 and 3 damage. If I take the description literally it could be 8 and 6. But lets settle for +12 damage and 9 to all enemies.
So you're gonna build a better fighter or archer with the fighter class than Ranger with all the feats. Ranger gets combat style ok, buy you said prodigious TWF doesn't give a Ranger what he's already got - well, no - because he can now go full STR in TWF and use his combat feats for ranged. Still doesn't compare though, as I can dip into Slayer or Ninja for 10 levels and get assassinate + the combat style feats with the slayer. And with all the damage bonuses, fighter makes a better prodigious TWF and archer.
Also, I don't know what you mean by 1 level of rogue not applying to traps (do you mean the rogue level applying to finding traps of a level) but you can also pick up the slayer talent to apply that as a class skill, and unless a mod has changed something, I can take 1 level of rogue and 19 of another and still get it as a class skill at level up.
I also manage a 12 stormwalker 8 Rogue class - may not be fully optimised, but still more fun than a straight class. All the STR TWF feats, HIPS anywhere, 5D6 sneak attack (with ASA) and teleport around the battlefield at will. I could also have gone 8 levels of fighter to up the BAB or Slayer for the remaining combat style feats. And I'd prefer that over the crap I get for the remaining Ranger levels.
There's even enough feats in fighter for a scythe with all weapon feats, and a falchion as a backup with the critical focus (x2) effects per critical. Or I could drop them and still pick up the archery feats. Not that hard to get 18 STR and 19 DEX and then let your weapon training outclass FE. Using COTW, I can also pick up quick draw to switch between weapons and the threat ranges - and they arn't going anywhere (unlike a Ranger's spells).
You also get an extra critical multiplier with the Barbarian 'deadly accuracy' powers. So that's +6 to hit, double the roll to confirm a crit, and x1 weapon multiplier at level 16. That to me makes for a permanent/more often hitting TWF who doesn't have to rely on limited spells to augment hitting things hard. And I'd take an extra multiplier over IQ or Master Hunter anyday - including the metagaming of knowing which weapons (like that longbow from the wyvern) that adds one as an enchantment: so what would that be x5 crit threat longbow?.
I did a prodigious (for the light weapons treated as medium) STR based single class ranger. All the TWF feats, 5 ranged combat style feats (with 2 to spare in normal feats) quick draw and improved crit bow & longsword. Fully buffed with spells (except aspect of the bear 'cause they don't get that) and I don't see the draw:
But then I suppose I'm just doing it wrong...
