D&D 3E/3.5 My players hate the 3e ranger.

[Flexor the Mighty!]

They want a more bow orientated class. How about removing 2 weapon fighting and ambidexterity and giving them specialization in the bow and point blank shot? I'm not concerned with minor balance issues, hell balance issues at all as the rest of the party isn't concerned if the Ranger is perfectly balanced with thier classes.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

A reasonable idea. Many people do something similar. I would recommend against giving both feats at 1st level. Spread it out a little.

I also like to boost the favored enemies a little. Gives the Ranger a little more oophf at the middle levels.

 

[Witness]

Have you or any of them played a Ranger? I've found that most people who complain about the Ranger haven't ever actually played one.

As for changing the class abilities, I suggest Point-blank Shot and Far Shot, as the bonuses from these can be applied to all ranged weapons not just one type of bow. I also suggest keeping these as virtual feats so they cannot be used in heavy armor. For the future, you should house-rule it that Rangers can choose from a number of starting abilites including those above, Two weap/Ambidex, mounted combat feats, and maybe some generic ones like Skill Focus or Alertness.

 

[Crothian]

Monte Cook's Ranger is nice with bonus feats every 4th level. Otherwise, I'd suggest going Ranger /Fighter.

 

[durath]

I would also suggest using Monte's ranger. It will solve their percieved problem and I really feel it is a better Ranger overall. It is not front loaded and offers good versatility.

 

[Valavien]

I just wen't to have a look at it at www.montecook.com the Ranger was updated on the 4th of April!

 

[Psion]

I would suggest NOT using Monte's ranger, as it is a bit overpowered.

Witness, I understand what you are saying. I think people miss the fact that the ranger gets great stealth and perception skills and spells to boot.. that's nothing to sneeze at. My player's ranger is an asset to the party.

That said, I do allow rangers to swap out their light armor feat with two other feats from a short list, including point blank shot, precise shot, far shot, endurance, run, mounted combat, and mounted archery. I also let those who prefer to forego spellcasting to gain a feat at each juncture they would gain a higher level of spells.

 

[hong]

The most straightforward way to fix the TWF thing is to allow the player to swop out those feats for any other two chosen from the list of fighter bonus feats. You can either allow these at 1st level, or delay them slightly (one at 2nd level, the second at 4th level, say), depending on how prone your group is to exploiting front-end loading.

 

[Reprisal]

Ranger Tweak

I usually tweak the Ranger thusly:

You have the option to take the Ranger as is, or...

... you can take the Ranger sans Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Fighting, but they get Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. Why Precise shot? Because I still think of Rangers as woodsmen and precise shot seems to go nicely with that... For a ranger from the plains, far shot would probably be better though.

 

[dagger]

Here is a list of 25 Ranger Variants people in the community have made.



http://www.electricearth.net/ranger/rangers/ranger_list.html