Ok, so this is a kind of generic 'hunter/outlander' class, that could be used for rangers or barbarians.

Remove: Spells, Wild Empathy, Animal Companion

Decrease: Skills from 6+ to 4+

Increase: Hit die from d8 to d10

Add: Fast Movement at first level, Uncanny Dodge at 4th level, Improved Uncanny Dodge at 8th level

Modify: Third combat style available, "great weapon fighting". Feats are Power Attack, Cleave, and Improved Bull Rush. (This as a nod to the barbarians.)

Wild Empathy and some kind of Berserker thing remain available as options through the feat system.

Is this OK? Too weak/too strong? Other thoughts?

If you let them do all this in medium armor would that make it too strong?

I'm no expert but trading the spells for medium armor seems pretty even.

I'm not really of the same opinion. You can spent a Feat and get all the Medium Armor you can eat, but you can't say the same about magic.
One easy trade for magic might be to grant a bonus Feat every level you'd normally see a spell level increase.

That would make the ranger vastly too powerful, Thanatos.

The medium armor gets in the way of stealth, but if you let the guy use his combat style in it that starts to get pretty potent. It seems like too much.

I think that giving up the spells and the two animal thingies and two skill points/level is slightly more than getting fast movement and uncanny dodge and the bump to d10 hit dice. How much more, I'm not sure, but I'm looking to compensate.

Quote from: CalithenaOk, so this is a kind of generic 'hunter/outlander' class, that could be used for rangers or barbarians.

Remove: Spells, Wild Empathy, Animal Companion

Add: Fast Movement at first level, Uncanny Dodge at 4th level, Improved Uncanny Dodge at 8th level

Modify: Third combat style available, "great weapon fighting". Feats are Power Attack, Cleave, and Improved Bull Rush. (This as a nod to the barbarians.)

This part all seems fine.

Quote from: CalithenaDecrease: Skills from 6+ to 4+

Increase: Hit die from d8 to d10

If you let them do all this in medium armor would that make it too strong?

The hit die increase seems too powerful, and not offset by the other things (like decreased skills).

I don't care for the medium armor - it just doesn't feel right to me. If you do wear medium armor, you should lose access to special abilities like fast movement, uncanny dodge etc. I don't like the idea of a medium armor fighter who can move quickly, gets defensive bonuses etc. Rogues and rangers should be lightly armored. Give them other defensive bonuses to make up for it, but limit them to light armor

Hmmm. It's interesting to see different people's impressions on this. I feel like the skills are worth more than the extra 2 hit points at first level and 1 per level thereafter.

QuoteI don't like the idea of a medium armor fighter who can move quickly, gets defensive bonuses etc.

You mean like the Barbarian?

I see your point though.

This class is meant to substitute for both rangers (because I don't like the whole grizzly adams/druidic paladin angle) and barbarians (because I don't like rage). As long as it can do a decent job at a balanced, non-magical ranger that's good enough for me though.

Do you think the d10 hit die version with light armor only is balanced, or no? What about a d8 version with medium armor substituting for the skill loss?

Thanks for the feedback - I'd like more impressions from 3e vets, since I'm a few years out of practice (I was good a few years back though - my 3.5 encounters and stat blocks needed virtually no editing for the NG Wilderlands boxed set, according to Clark Peterson himself!)

My line of thinking right now is that medium armor guy may be an acceptable compromise if Thanatos is right that the spells are worth so much - possibly with some ability reductions if in MA, though not the combat styles - but maybe that's too much, but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, or getting new ideas for special abilities to make up the perceived difference.

I certainly prefer medium armor to d12 hit dice or damage reduction.

Anyway, I do think that FM, UD, and IUD by themselves don't quite make up for animal companions, wild empathy, and spells.

Abyssal Maw? Jreints? Pseudoephedrine? Other d20 wonks? Any thoughts on balance here?

Well, the hit die and skill switcheroo basically takes the Ranger all the way back to 3.0, so I don't see a big balance problem there.

The barbarian abilities _and_ the combat styles just make this variant way to front-laden. You'll basically have to get the level table and stretch those out over the first ten or so levels. Regarding the combat abilities, I'd just go the monk route and offer some limited bonus feats here and there. And they'd have to stick to the full prerequisites...

I've been worried about the front-loading too, Sos. I think Wild Empathy and the Animal Companion are good enough that it's not a total wash, but maybe a little stretching is in order.

I'm actually going to suggest re-looking the whole concept, and maybe building a class from the ground up, because what you're doing is a little more complicated then just switching one or two features. I'm not sure yet, I'm working it out as I go along.

It looks like you're interested in a martial, non-casting wilderness warrior. You're not a fan of Rage as a class ability, but you said you wanted to leave a nod to Barbarians - probably for use by others. I'm of two minds about this, though. Are you just making it for you, or are you making it as a DM for a game (or for publication)? If it's just you, don't sweat a nod to Barbarians. Otherwise, let's see what we can do.

First of all, let's look at the Scout. There's a non-casting wilderness class that's been described as a 'wilderness rogue'. It's also very well designed. I understand that you're looking for a more melee-oriented concept, or maybe something more combat oriented? Anyhow, I'd aim for a little overpowered rather then end a little underpowered. My sense of balance directed at the Tome of Battle isn't quite honed yet, but what I do know is that we can shoot fairly high without getting into 'well-played Wizard' territory or even 'Druids and Clerics' territory.

After all, Clerics get full casting in Medium and Heavy armor, and that beats the shit out of being able to use a sub-optimal attack setup like Two-Weapon Fighting.

Ok. So, looking at Tome of Battle, I see that a Swordsage is almost what you're looking for except that it doesn't get Survival as a class skill and its hit die is d8, but that's probably the wrong flavor for you. I'll just take my cues from the 3.5 Ranger, instead. (I checked ToB because I just got it, and I'm enthusiastic. Don't mind my geeking, over here. :haw: )

I'd recommend a d10 Hit Die, Light and Medium Armor, two Good Saves (Fort and Ref) or 1 Good Save and Two Medium ones (ala the Duelist, good Fort, et al), 4+Int. Skills, Favored Enemy (you didn't suggest you wanted to drop it), Track, drop wild empathy, drop Endurance, add Fast Movement at 3, add uncanny dodge at 4, drop woodland stride and swift tracker, drop evasion at 9, and replace hide in plane sight with improved uncanny dodge, drop spells, add a Rage combat style (instead of Feats, get Rage), and bonus Feats at 5, 10, 12, and 15.

You gain +4 Feats (after a while, you hit Feat saturation. I'd say spells are better), +1 hp per level, probably +2 AC (which Rage'll cancel anyhow), +10 movement, uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge. That's good stuff.

You lose spells, 2 key skills per level, wild empathy, Endurance, woodland stride, swift tracker, evasion, hide in plane sight. Spells is the big one here, and the ability to use wands and the like was also pretty crucial. Now you can't, because Use Magic Device isn't on your list. Never underestimate the potency of being a spellcaster - especially since Rangers got a lot of specialized spells that were really good combat enhancers and the like.

I'd say that it looks over powered, but that it's not. If you play with that, it won't unbalance your game, or your money back, though I'd love some feedback from others to hear what they'd suggest differently.

EDIT: Here's how it breaks down:
1: 1st Favored Enemy, Track
2: Combat Style (Ranged, Rage, Two-Weapon)
3: Fast Movement
4: Bonus Feat, Uncanny Dodge
5: 2nd Favored Enemy
6: Improved Combat Style (Ranged, Rage, Two-Weapon)
7: -
8: Bonus Feat
9: -
10: 3rd Favored Enemy
11: Combat Style Master (Ranged, Rage, Two-Weapon)
12: Bonus Feat
13: Camouflage
14: -
15: 4th Favored Enemy
16: Bonus Feat
17: Improved Evasion
18:
19:
20: 5th Favored Enemy

I'd prefer to do something like a ToB progression instead of bonus Feats, but that requires research and work I can't do right now, and I'm not sure you'd want it.

IMO, you are better off starting with Barbarian as the base class and modding it.  Say, dropping the hit dice to d10, removing Rage, adding new class skills (stealth, some knowledges).  You need another bump up -- that could be adding sparse bonus feats (Endurance, Run, Dodge), or class abilities (Weapon styles, evasion at high level).  For example:

1st:  Dodge
3rd:  Endurance
6th:  Rapid Shot, Mobility, TWF, PA -- or any one feat that requires one of these
10th:  Evasion
(and so on)

Yeah, there are a ton of ways to do it. Luckily, this is one of those cases where a good guess probably won't fuck things up in any major kind of way. Those abilities are all useful, but not likely to break game balance, so if somebody placed Fast Movement a level too low or added too many Bonus Feats, you're still not likely to see something that's going to make a Cleric look like a total wuss.

One very easy way to do it is just to take out all the 'naturalistic' ranger and barbarian abilities and make them into fighter bonus feats. Then you customize your fighter as you see fit.

However, I sort of think on balance a light/medium armor fighter as a separate class, with a more definite skill progression, is better, both because there's a separate fantasy archetype here (or more than one) and because the idea of the fighter as a trained, civilized warrior is strongly enforced by the possible long-term feat progression in the core 3.x rules. The 3.x fighter is more of a definite thing than the 'fighting man' of yore IMO.

These are interesting ideas, not sure I've been swayed from my own alt-ranger yet, but keep 'em coming, by all means.

I'd also take a serious look at the Scout. This alone, along with a bit of multi-classing can solve lots of problems without changing the basic class setup. The "skirmish" abilities IMHO better model the light fighter archetype than the silly two-weapon fighting shtick.
Multi-classing the scout with fighter, swashbuckler or barbarian make for some neat fun.

I defintely want a non-mystical wilderness fighter core class that's viable and balanced 1-20 without multiclassing.