New Rangers:

Level 1 Skills & Spells:
-Standard Weapons: axe, dagger, spear, staff, sword, whip
-Exotic: batter, discharge, lunge, project, swing, rip, wallop

**they lose scrolls and staves but get to practice exotics to represent their
magic stemming from the wilds and the weapons they can create.

Level 4 Skills & Spells:
-Camoflauge

Level 5 Skills & Spells:
-Pursuit: ranger automatically follows a fleeing target in the wilderness but must be set before combat is initiated. Syntax: pursue <target>
-Quiet movement

Level 6 Skills & Spells:
-Fast Healing

Level 7 Skills & Spells:
-Acute Vision
-Dark Vision
-Path Finding: this skill increases the potential success of Pursuit.

Level 8 Skills & Spells:
-Second Attack

**loses kick in that it is too simplistic and non-ranger.

Level 9 Skills & Spells:
-Dodge
-Butcher: modified to be able to use ingrediants to make things like pemmican or jerky. syntax butcher <target> <ingredient> <ingredient>
Different combinations could result in different food properties.

Level 10 Skills & Spells:
-Herbs
-Protection from Cold

**shield block lost in favour of more exotic loving later.

Level 11 Skills & Spells:
-Disarm

Level 12 Skills & Spells:
-Ambush

Level 13 Skills & Spells:
-Enhanced Damage

Level 14 Skills & Spells:
-Hand to Hand
-Dual Wield

**moved up dual wield to compensate for shield block loss.

Level 15 Skills & Spells:
-Haggle
-Tame
-Barkskin

Level 16 Skills & Spells:
-Meditation
-Lash

Level 18 Skills & Spells:
-Lore
-Dual Wield Exotics: allows for an exotic to be wielded off hand but not the special attack.
-Dual Wield Whip: allows for a whip to be wielded off hand and lashing.

**Rangers are inventive in weapon use from watching animals fights.

Level 19 Skills & Spells:
-Find Water
-Creep
-Call Lightning

**moved back to help maintain class balance and removed control weather because it makes no sense for a non magical non empowered class like a ranger.

Level 20 Skills & Spells:
-Pugil
-Warcry
-Serpentstrike

**lose shield cleave because shields stuff not ranger like.

Level 22 Skills & Spells:
-Camp
-Entangle

**moved back entangle to maintain class balance.

Level 23 Skills & Spells:
-Venomous Serpentstrike: when a ranger uses an exotic in their primary had and serpentstrike the exotics special attack has a chance to be initiated as well depending on skill with the exotic.

**got rid of charge and went with more wilderness related skill. Thanks to Karel for ideas.

Level25 Skills & Spells:
-Third Attack

Level 28 Skills & Spells:
-Survivalist

Level 30 Skills & Spells:
-Fashion Exotic
-Bearcharge
-Track: this skill works to improve both pursuit and ambush-pursuit.

** fashion exotic gives Imms a heck of a fun job to figure out what can be made from what. Okay may be tedious but a nut like me would love it.

Level 32 Skills & Spells:
-Waylay
-Enhanced Pursuit: ranger will now pursue up to two rooms away with success based on original skill tested each room. Automatic with a pursuit attempt.

** dropped fashion spear to focus rangers more on exotics.

Level 35 Skills & Spells:
-Wilderness Familiarity
-Backrake

Level 40 Skills & Spells:
-Snare
-Imbue Fashioned Exotic

**shifting focus to exotics.

Level 43 Skills & Spells:
-Enhanced Bearcharge: when wielding an exotic in the primary hand if the target is knocked the ranger immediately attempts attack related to the exotic wielded.

Level 45 Skills & Spells:
-Rushing Ambush: a ranger may using his knowledge of his surroundings focus so intently upon a single target that he will be able to rush into an adjacent room to ambush them. Skill is modified by ambush, wilderness familiarity, and pursuit skills. Syntax rush <target>

**watching great cats, alligators, and other rushing ambush predators the ranger learns to imitate the attack.

Level 51 Skills & Spells:
-Enhanced Rushing Ambush: a ranger focussing on a Rushing Ambush will now rush up to two rooms away to attempt an ambush. Automatic when a -Rushing Ambush attempted.
-Exotic Insight: now when dual wielding an exotic the ranger can use the special attacks of the offhand exotic.

**more feral ranger goodness and a bit of a reward for the heroic ranger types who kept at it to earn this loving.

I wanted Rangers to be more feral, more in tune with the Wilderness. What would be more so than a ranger wielding a tapered elk horn and a thorned clutch vine coming down to rip and swing you to death? Animal based assaults are just too cool. Owlbear beaks, bear claws, lion jaw, along with specific vines and such. Essence of will-o-wisp in a jar etc. Fun stuff I would I hope.

Kept some wildnerness magic essence in call lightning, discharge, and project.

PS I do not want to see cool rangers like Zaenthul deleting any more!And editted for better appearance.

First off, I miss call bears. Now that was fun!

Enough on that though, the butcher idea has some merit though I'd also like to add a decay timer on steaks and maybe change them to making jerky. Steaks won't last and would attract flies quickly and spoil. All that meat laying around after some rangers go through an area would call in a whole pack of carrion feeders.

I hate the idea of losing staves for one reason: detect invis

I think I'd hate losing shield block as well even if it is seldom used, there are times when tanking out of the wilds when you need it, badly.

The exotics idea...I'm not sure. I would hate to lose the current staff/spear fashion and imbue weapons because of their usefulness to the class when ranking. The disadvantage to exotics is that at high level, everyone knows them well so you lose the advantage of wielding a weapon that a class may not know. (P.S. I hate that orcs learn staff defense, now what are rangers supposed to use on 'em?)

It would be nice if there were ways to finish off pk's at higher levels but I'm not sure why rushing ambush does that...just creep and ambush. Maybe if it also lagged better than bearcharge....



One final comment on Immortals watching rangers: I wish you guys would come down harder on rangers killing things that are at home in the wilds. It seems to be a blatant violation of the ranger helpfile and yet probably half the rangers rolled seem to do it all through the lower and middle ranges.

Maybe make it a penalty like when good aligns kill good mobs: you lose exp rather than gain any.

I had a ranger awhile back in scion, whose role was that everything he learned was just so he could kill those that made their home in the wilds. Elves and sylvans mostly. He didn't give a damn about what lived there though. I think a lot of evil rangers are somewhere along the same lines on their view of the local wildlife, and even good rangers don't really need to care overly much I think. Unless they're vegetarian peaceniks anyways. Rabbit tastes good. Yet they would take xp hits anytime they killed something they didn't give a damn about, or decided to hunt for food?

I guess my point is that playing a ranger who didn't give a damn about anything in the wild should be as hard as a necro who didn't want to raise the undead; it goes against everything the guild is there for. It's not an issue of good vs evil as much as 'at home in the wilds' vs. not.

If you wanted to run that role, then why would you (as a character) ever have enrolled in ranger school? You'd either have to be sphere deception or had some major traumatic event to turn you (which would leave scars on you, maybe in the form of loss of some skills), wouldn't you?

As far as I know this aspect of ranger role-play has never been enforced by the Imms, but then I will admit to not knowing the vast majority of what they do, so it might have. But if it's in the helpfiles on the class, I think it should have some impact on the characters. Kind of like the dwarven loyalty thing, or the elves being good. You could play a good elf gone bad, but you'd lose for a while much of what you know.

Think of it like spies. Best way to catch one is have one of your own. Want to catch a thief? Know what a thief knows. Essentially learning the skills not because you really care what they stand for, but to counteract them. Think it is a far cry from the necro (because the ranger still plans to use the skills) or the race thing (Ted Nuggent is a great woodsman, and I have my doubts about his concern for the wildlife. Except how they taste.)As for the helpfile, I don't think it was ever changed when they started letting them be evil.

You'd have to be sphere Deception. Why would the guildmaster offer to teach you anything if they had an idea that you were going to run around killing what they are there to protect?

It'd be like if Ted Nugent were a Game Warden: ah, poor bunny is out in the rain *BLAM*. Pretty soon someone is going to tell the higher ups and his ass'd be canned.

Much like Muuloc, I don't get the connection between rangers and exotics. I also think the hypothetical ranger you're proposing would be significantly weaker, particularly at the hero ranks.

My personal bias is to discourage "new class" or "class revamp" posts because it's likely to involve a lot of work on your end, but knowing what we're looking for, what the code readily supports, what people are already working on, etc. are prerequisites for a large project of this kind, and that is probably beyond the scope of this forum.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Look at my reply to Muuloc, please? I see exotics as perfectly suited to Rangers. All the ones I have run into have been natural based weapons even the magic ones have their basis in the wilderness.

As per your not discussing that here. I think it is always a good idea to bounce ideas about because a half decent one may occasionally pop up. If someone wishes to do the work, let them! In the long run it helps you out giving you more options to draw upon. I did not ask for others to put their "revamp" up only to comment on what I did. :P

Hap. Hol. Valg.

EDIT: bows seem like ranger weapons to me and when you look the majority of exotics are based either take something from a felled foe of some strength... rangers should know how to do this OR based on materials found in nature.

Expand Exotics List:

ashen longbow: ranger weapon
barbed net: make fishing net of barbed vines.
Black King's sceptre
blacksmith's tongs
blackwood rod: made of nature based stuff.
blade of corruption
blue crystal: crystals found in nature.
claw of the Dracolich: natural weapon
claw of the yellow dragon: natural weapon
Claws of Tiamat: natural weapon
crossbow of accuracy: natural weapon
cruel trident: ranger fishing :P
Daemon Claw: natural weapon
elven crossbow: natural weapon
ethereal blade
Golden Claw: claw = natural weapon
hand of doom
ivory longbow: ranger weapon
jade dragon claw: natural weapon
lightning rod: lightning.. ranger call lightning..oh yeah.
mace of a high priestess
marmalade orb: weird but is in a natural setting :D
master shortbow: ranger..bow. natural fit
Master's mace
Midnight dragon claw: natural weapon
net of living spiders: natural weapon
onyx claw: natural weapon
lobster pincers: natural weapon
red dragon claw: natural weapon
rod of weaponry
rolling pin: wood ...so natural based.
rotting dentures: natural weapon Eww.
sceptre of the ancients
scorpion tail: natural weapon
Shining Blue Crystal: crystal natural based
silver claw: natural based
slavemaster's wrath
Sliver, the Backbiter: fashioned like a spear too!
Sphere of Darsylon: not sure what made of
Sphere of Authority: not sure what made of
spiked staff: seems natural
spirit-knight's blade
star-shaped blade of Anazu
steel whisk
Sting of Scorpion: natural weapon
sturdy war sling: ranger like weapon.
Taint of Shadar Logoth (gone)
Wand of Orcus
weaponsmaster's scimitar
White King's sceptre
wicked-looking broom: wood and wheat natural based
wolverine claw: natural weapon
wooden bow: ranger like weapon
wooden bow: ranger like weapon
wooden long bow: ranger like weapon
yellow dragon claw: ranger like weapon
yew bow: ranger like weapon

All natural/nature based:

a bladed length of rope
the essence of a will-o-wisp
a sickle carved from a single hip bone
the fang of a monstrous swamp serpent
a chain of living wooden links
an orb formed from Calandaryl frost
a net woven from thorned vines
a net woven of spider silk

Exotics seem less like a coat rack or a mug but more along the lines of something found to have special properties. I see a coat rack or a mug as improvisional weapons not exotics. Ho ho ho!

PS OH! I am NOT arguing for the implementation of this, just my logic behind coming up with it! ;)

Exotics seem less like a coat rack or a mug but more along the lines of something found to have special properties. I see a coat rack or a mug as improvisional weapons not exotics.

Exotic weapons are defined as something that is used as weapon in the fashion that don't fit the conventional weapon types.

Scepters and staffs in this list are all moot point for rangers perspective, as a scepter is essentially a mace and a staff is a staff. What makes the weapons in this list exotic isn't the thing that would make them more rangerey. Staff or spear would be relatively easy to fashion, needing a straight wooden stick and maybe a sharp stone or something as the tip for spear. Essentially, something not too hard to do in wilderness. Many of your suggestions need dead animal of some kind as an ingredient, which isn't something I would see more conventional for rangers than fashioning staff or spear from a stick.

First thing that comes to my mind when the word exotic is used is pristine wilderness that has almost no human intervention. Now when you look at Rangers as guardians of said wilderness I think that is where I made the leap to exotics and Rangers. Orchids are exotic, exotic destinations, exotic locales etc etc. Now throw in Rangers to protect such things.. wee! And of course in those strange places you do not find swords, spears, staffs and the like as much as you find weird unusual... fascinating...often beautiful... stuff. :D Yeah I am cheating to lead into below.

Exotics by definition are things that are: strange or unusual in a way that is fascinating or beautiful; strikingly unusual.
-As perGage Canadian dictionary.

Or in this case, strikingly dangerous.

PS Sure I am nut case but I love ranger ideas that would make them absolutely unique to CF and something to help incorporate exotics more into CF. :)

Exotic weapons are merely weapons that don't fit in a category. They don't necessarily have anything to do with nature, and in some cases are distinctly unnatural.

If you want to play a character with a special talent with all exotic weapons, that option exists. I don't foresee us duplicating that functionality.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Fashion exotics would be a bit more involved than the current fashion staff/spear. I envision it to require some time spent in the area a ranger wants to make weapon in and to have different exotics formed in different areas.

Examples:
Spiderhaunt Woods
step 1 Finding Material
possible results: fang, pincers, leg, spinnerette, chitin, multifaceted eye, spider silk, spider egg, poison sac.
additional factor: type of spider the item comes from.

step 2 Creation of Exotic
Using one or more components found the ranger attempts to fashion an exotics. NB He may fail utterly and make nothing.
syntax fashion rip/wallop/lung/discharge/swing/project/batter <item1> <item2>

Not sure if you could trust the playerbase enough to let them name the weapon they made.. would be uber groovy if you could. Fanged Spidersilk Cord. :)

step 3 Learn about what you made!

Use it! See what it does etc.

Phase spider exotic weapon may be invisible.. therefore a wee bit harder to disarm for those who forget their detect invis...or it could have a property that allows it to overcome damage reduction since it penetrates so well...okay that last was a wee bit insane but you get the idea. :D

You swing a fanged spidersilk cord and it entangles them and they are poisoned. Woot woot.. chugga chugga. Go Rangers!

Scrolls and staves are really what makes hero range ranger PK viable, IMHO, against skilled enemies or people with damage reduction.

>Scrolls and staves are really what makes hero range ranger PK
>viable, IMHO, against skilled enemies or people with damage
>reduction.

Actually exotics more than compensate when you think about it. There are exotics that bleed, disarm, poison, entangle, cold based, fire based etc. Add in a snare to hold your enemy taking a few ticks from their preps then a well set up ambush nearby. Scary.

The increased ability for a ranger to keep an enemy in combat with pursuit and the additional power of bearcharge, serpentstrike, and backrake would definately compensate for a lack of scrolls and staves.

What I envisioned with my... attempt.. at making rangers more interesting was to have them more of a hunter type that could whack you hard OR harry you to kill you. Imitating animal hunting techniques. :)

Edit: OH! And now you are a bigtime threat to everyone because how many people have spent the time to learn all the different exotics?
You will hit more often and be very hard to prepare for. Exotics are amazing.. some do more than one thing... bleed & disarm.. bleed & entangle... etc ... fun stuff IMO!

If you think that increased tanking/hitting with exotic weapons compared to just normal usage of them at the cost of scrolls and staves is a worthwhile trade then I'm afraid I'm just going to have to disagree with you.

Group haste, group resist, heal group, aura for self, shield for self, significantly easier than potions...much better overall than 3 round attacks that can cause bleeding. You already can cause bleeding with backrake, disarm and etc already with lower lag and higher success rates. Additionally, exotics are nice but I'd have a hard time trading my healing staff/spear or a pair of beefy axes for them, for obvious reasons.

Just gonna have to agree to disagree, scrolls and staves can maledict and do a number of utility things well beyond the classes inate abilities.

There is just absolutely know way exotics make up for what is possible with a stocked arsenal of scrolls and staves.

I like a couple of the skill suggestions, but the focus on exotics doesn't jive with me. Exotics are not necessarily any more natural than a staff or spear, and often less so. I don't think rangers should be particularly adept killing with a floating orb of magic, a hacksaw, or a coatrack just by definition of being a ranger.

I see rangers as having to improvise often when out in the wilds and say their blade, spear, or staff disappears. They grab the nearest vine, horn, rock, fang, jawbone, shinbone, knee bone, skull and spine, ass jaw, funky crystal, length of sinew, or whatever else is handy.

As for the magical Orb idea.. it is not really different from them reading scrolls and using wands. Moreover the idea was that they would seek to create them from magical wellsprings found in secret places within the wilds and the like. Hey I found this neat crystal shard.. hmm... hey look a ley line.. hmm.. shard..ley line..walla..instant "Orb". There are tons of naturally occuring crystals and other mineral formations, some even globular that could be found and set up as exotics.

If certain exotic options were too off the wall, simply remove 'em. But seeing that current rangers have some magical ability I thought to try to keep an aspect of it so old school rangers would not feel too cheated. :D

Thought about it for a while... all the exotics I know are all natural stuff:
length of bladed rope.. I see obsidian shards in a oryx hair rope
net of spiderwebs
chain of wooden linkes
barbed thingy.
fang
rod.. from civilized area but still wood
sickle
Calandaryl Frost.. hey from the mountain area :)
Essence O will-o-whisp...from dat special swamp
Tiamat Claws: natural weapon
Midnight Dragon Claw: natural weapon
Lobster claw: natural weapon
Bows: wood and gut!


Arlen's inventory:

Item (Type)
<11 97> a bladed length of rope (exotic)
<40 10887> the essence of a will-o-wisp (exotic)
<33 1527> a sickle carved from a single hip bone (exotic)
<27 1202> the fang of a monstrous swamp serpent (exotic)
<17 487> a fang-studded club of taglo bone (mace)
<17 149> a stone-bladed pick (axe)
<22 669> a chain of living wooden links (exotic)
<30 1046> an orb formed from Calandaryl frost (exotic)
<30 487> a net woven from thorned vines (exotic)

Also I failed to mention that the ranger would have to work at find the item then fashioning it. And depending on which area you were in would determined what you would find. Spiderhaunts woods would be different than Draenette etc.

So far all seem to based in wilds! :D Exotics and Rangers fit hand in gloves!

I don't see how your suggestion overall makes rangers more intersting and versatile. There were some good thoughts though. The butcher idea was good, though I'd think it could be butcher corpse option option, where options could be herbal(this would make the food item heal and it would count as ranger using herbs timer-wise) and dried(this would give harvest-like lag and reduce the steak weight, keeping the fill value as the same).

Exotics are high level weapons known by everyone, which would mean that having low level exotic specialization would have no sense. If these rangers would learn exotics at low levels, it would mean a low level advantage which would diminish at higher levels.

Could you comment on how this type of ranger would be more interesting and versatile in the long run than the old one?

I was looking for something less dependant on cities and such.
I had no idea how to incorporate crafting clothing in that list
so I left it out hoping that someone else would aprroach it. I wanted a list that was somewhat familiar so I based it on the current one.

Orcs? I was more worried about certain legacies being compared... Balance of the Sisters.. Mercy of the Typhoon and another couple.

I think rangers should use their Wilds smart to get others but Wilds can be huge.. so a bit of distance closing was needed.

Also why would not rangers use weapons, spells, and skills based on their wildneress experience? That is what I was going for.. not Wood Orcs. :P

Your rushing ambush suggestion resembled the Shig-ru skill rush. Also, the concept of just grabbing something and charging to attack is also similar to Shig-ru skill pillage, where the orc rips a part of his victims corpse and uses it as a weapon. Also, losing shield block seemed a bit orcey and option-reducing for rangers(currently they choose whether to fashion staff/spear and use it or use shield and one-handed weapon or dual wield).

Feel free to jump on the orc bandwagon if that sounds interesting. :D

I was thinking about tiger form instead of mercy of Typhoon, but influence of Balance was also seen there. While I don't think that the suggestion of rangers as exotic specialists is working well, you did have some good ideas in your post that made it worth posting(I liked the butcher concept).

:D