[Sitraahra]

ok, heres the sich: in 2 days time, I'm starting a game as a player. I'm an urban ranger [posted on this before]...for all intents and purposes, consider it a normal ranger. We're keeping the characters melee [as opposed to magical] oriented, and theres another normal ranger whose going the ranged route, so I'm going TWF.....only I seem to have forgotten, there are no good feats with TWF, and I feel pidgeonholed into it by my class [but its a waste of class abilities if I don't use it...]. we start at lv 3

additionally, at least one of the players is a powergamer: is there anything I can take that doesn't suck?

[Dthclaw]

Aside from all the feats out of the Complete series aimed at two weapon fighting? Not many. But seriously, do you really need anything beyond those?

[Oneiros]

Two Weapon Defense isn't bad if you want to up AC

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Ride TWF adn TWD into the ground. Pick up Overseize TWF as soon as possible. Get a pair of the biggest freakin scimitars you can find. Let the critical hits abound. I fyou really want ot be evil, pick up levels in Dervish as soon as possible. With a ranger and two keen speed scimitars, at level 20, you should be making 9 attacks per round and as soon as you hit epic, you'll have 10. Moreover, if you max out drvish, you'll get a round a day when you can move your full movement, make 20 attacks, and apply the great cleave feat to each of them even if you don't have the feat normally. That's if you want to powergame, that is. It only requires tons of Dex and aa few ransk in Dance. The rest you should probably pick up along the way normally. Good luck.

P.S. The Great Scimitar is a bastard sword version fo the scimitar that deals 1d8 damage. Well worth the feat if you have it to spare.

[Sitraahra]

heres a big list of most of thge stuff that applies;

twd is...not very good. if I spend 3 feats on it I get....+3 AC? +1ac ain't that great either

the suggestion for the dervish is a good one, but I really want to stick with urban ranger, and I'm only 3rd lv...about 12th lv is as far as I'm ready to plan atm

I'm considering a grappling range ranger...does that work with anything?

Attached File(s)

•  twf.doc (43K)
  Number of downloads: 6

[Dthclaw]

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twd is...not very good. if I spend 3 feats on it I get....+3 AC? +1ac ain't that great either

And... how many other feats grant AC bonuses? Not many. And TWD has no drawbacks to it, unlike various flavors of Expertise, and applies all around, unlike Dodge. If I were getting a bunch of TWF feats for free, I sure as hell would be picking up AC bonuses, small though they might be.

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I'm considering a grappling range ranger...does that work with anything?

Uh... grappling with bows doesn't really work, no.

[Oneiros]

Dthclaw, on Jul 19 2006, 08:31 PM, said:

And... how many other feats grant AC bonuses? Not many. And TWD has no drawbacks to it, unlike various flavors of Expertise, and applies all around, unlike Dodge. If I were getting a bunch of TWF feats for free, I sure as hell would be picking up AC bonuses, small though they might be.

Yep. Especially for a class that can't use heavier armor.

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Uh... grappling with bows doesn't really work, no.

Bola's or Net, maybe? Though that's more tripping than grappling. But if they're already tripped, they're easier to grapple.

Is this urban ranger a bounty hunter? Rough street survivalist? Law enforcement of any kind? Just wondering.

[Sitraahra]

once again, I'm going twf ranger, not ranged. I don't use a bow at all, and havn't planned for any other ranged weapon. I also don't have the dex for twd anyway.

as a grapple ranger, I would close to grapple range and then hit with twf and daggers or spiked gauntlets or the like. most enemies have trouble with grapple range, it helps the party rogue, and light weapons can be used. I know its hard to remember that grappling isn't neccesarily grabbing someone; the terminology used is confusing

details on my urban ranger class can be found in the class forum, but this char in particular is closest to a traveler and rough street survivalist

[Jimp]

Question:
Since you seem to hate two weapon fighting so much, why choose it?
You could always go for a different class or use ranged weapons. I know you said the other ranger took ranged weapons but 2 functioning attackers are better than 1 functioning and 1 problematic.

[Oneiros]

Sitraahra, on Jul 20 2006, 01:19 AM, said:

once again, I'm going twf ranger, not ranged. I don't use a bow at all, and havn't planned for any other ranged weapon. I also don't have the dex for twd anyway.

Not to be totally min-max, but your dex is less than 15? Given their skills and armor limitations, I'd say Dex is a Ranger's most important stat, and I'm surprised this isn't higher. Or do you just have lower stats all 'round?

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as a grapple ranger, I would close to grapple range and then hit with twf and daggers or spiked gauntlets or the like. Most enemies have trouble with grapple range, it helps the party rogue, and light weapons can be used. I know its hard to remember that grappling isn't neccesarily grabbing someone; the terminology used is confusing

Again, low Dex (and AC) is going to hurt you, since Grappling provokes an AoO, and is thwarted by a successful one, unless you take the Improved Grappling feat. But that has Improved Unarmed Strike as a prereq, and requires Dex 13.

As an aside, Improved Unarmed Strike seems like a wasted feat to me, since you can't have your hands permanently magically enhanced like normal weapons. And if you use gauntlets to get around this, why not just use spiked gauntlets and negate the need for the feat in the first place? [/rant]

Offensively, Weapon Focus with whatever weapon you're going to be normally TWF with is a good choice, even if it's Unarmed Strikes. Dodge is looking like your best bet for improving AC.

You might want to consider the Thug fighter variant from UA as well, which is a little more "street smart warrior", and isn't as reliant on Dex.

[super sorcerer]

You know, it is hard for me to think why a character who's mental ability scores total is higher by 4 from its physical ability scores would ever be a TWF ranger. With constitution 11 you will not have enough hit points to be a melee warrior and with dexterity of 12 you need to play a character with a full plate. If I had to play a melee character I would have take something more like paladin so your 14 charisma and 14 wisdom will not be a complete waste. I am realy sorry but I would never play a TWF ranger with these ability scores in any high powered campain (or with high powergamers).
If you have to play a ranger be a bowmaster becouse even though you have str-15 dex-12 you could use mighty composite longbow so you stay far from the enemies. Even if you do play a TWF ranger with this character you should have a mighty composite longbow becouse you can use it as an extra weapon who help keeping your foes awway from your low AC and low HP.

[Ssri-Tel-Quessir Hitokiri]

Well, technically, you don't have to be the "ranger" class to be a ranger. Since you are not going to be focusing on magic all that much anyways, why not just go fighter with some levels of rogue? The character would still be a good fighter and have enough street smarts to deal with lots of situations. Also, with the levels in fighter, you could wear any kind of armor that you wanted. Go mithril something (breastplate?) and use the fighter feats to go grappling. Use the rogue abilities to be street smart and know where to go to find information.

[Jimp]

Another option is to just use one weapon and take your bonus feats in either TWF OR ranged combat. Ranged combat would be useful for those times when you need to use your bow and such, TWF for in-case you have the right feats at later levels.
You can be a ranger using a 1 handed weapon and shield, or a 2 handed weapon, or just wands, or whatever. Just because rangers give TWF and ranged feats doesn't mean you 100% must use them.
Granted that in this case it would be wiser mechanics wise to just be a plain fighter or rogue or something similar, but I'm makig the suggestion in the case of Sitr deffinatly using ranger.

[RedSlayer]

By the sound of it, wouldnt the "Thug" variant of the fighter be more up your ally? It doesnt sound like you wanna do a whole lotta rangering.

Its in UA.

[Sitraahra]

for any interested, decided to go with sword and shield. Twf shord and shield, that is

while I still have to check what kind of a weapon the shield couns as [1 handed or light], it allows me to get AC and do damage [especially after improved shield bash].

other ideas I ended up rejecting were:

twf grapple range [thats range not ranged] - not allowed by the rules, specifically
2 bastard swords - good idea, just not my style [2d6 vs 1d10+1d10 and -2 to hit]
reach polearm with haft strike feat - really neat idea, but not very useful without more dex to make polearm aoo's worth it:

thanks for all your help and suggestions.

while for any other time, being the thug class [not familier with this - gotta check out the unearthed!] or various other classes to make a ranger like guy would be very cool, but I petitioned to have my version of the urban ranger [as posted int he classes forum] allowed, and I want to play it for more reasons then just in game effectiveness. My stats, for those not curious enough to download, are
Str 15 Con 11 Dex 12 Int 14 Wis 14 Cha 14

similiar to a rogue or bard, my skills, especially social interactive ones [especially as I track with gather information] are particularly ephasized. they need not be for every urban ranger, but its how I see him. I don't see this as wanting to be a rogue or bard, any mroe then wielding a big sword makes me a wanna-be-fighter or casting spells makes me a wanna-be-druid. its a unque varient...well, I discussed this elsewhere. thanks again