Rogue is massively useful as a utility class, even slippery mind is useful(rerolling when failing against mind based spells, sooo useful on this server after dispel change).
The considerable benefits of taking rogue are quite impressive:
8+int mod skills
Epic dodge capable
Rogue specific useful feats
Sneak attacks
Spot/listen
So while it's not suuuuuuper impressive in it's own right(considerably shitty saves, ab, and unimpressive AC on it's own), it does in fact have its utility in pretty much any situation.
In comparison however, ranger is not far off....
4+int mod skills
1+1 damage, spot, listen, and taunt for every 5 levels of ranger(+6 damage/spot/listen/taunt for 25)
against favored enemies.
+2 static ab and an -additional- 2d6 damage against favored enemies as well
Useful spells(ultravision, grease, camouflage, one with the land, aid, purge, freedom, mass camo, and now blade thirst(of which only it can cast)).
Spot/listen/set traps
Free dual weilding at level 9(provided using light armor or less, dual weilding normally requiring 13+ dex mod and THREE feats to use)
Free bonus feats at level 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35; optional as to what the ranger chooses in epic levels, IN ADDITION TO IT'S EPIC FEAT PER 3 LEVELS NORMALLY.
+1/1 ab
On hit regen half class level, -every- hit. In update this is fixed to roll on top of flame weapon.
Blade Thirst giving +1 per 5 ranger levels mainhand, +1 per 4 ranger levels off hand ab.
Blade Thirst increases weapon power, A +3 bonus from blade thirst to mainhand makes a +5 weapon count as +8(MASSIVE BENEFIT).
When dispelled only needing to cast 2 buffs for ab(compared to paladin 4, one of which is short duration).
ANY ALIGNMENT
Paladin:
2+int mod skills
Immunity to NORMAL FEAR(not terrifying rage from barbarian).
Useful spells(Bless, bless weapon, deafening clang, divine favor, aid, dispel magic(great for AOES, SOON TO BE SCROLLS), prayer, deathward, freedom, and holysword.
Taunt.
+1/1 ab
Holysword giving.... Well pretty much just 16 spell resistance and 1d8 divine against evil.
Needs to cast 4 ab buffs to regain it's full ab after a dispel(2 of each are short duration).
Charisma modifier added to saves.
Divine shield POSSIBLE, at the cost of 13+ strength, power attack, and divine shield taken as feats.
Single instance of heal at character levelxcharisma modifier.
Requires lawful good.
I mean when you take everything into consideration... It's like the ONLY THINGS that makes paladin even a good choice when compared against ranger is that it can get AC and saves. Ranger gets pretty much everything else. More skills, better skill choices(though taunt is pretty cool, ironically though ranger is a better taunter then paladin lolz), free dual weilding, bonus feats, penetration against forms of DR(epic warding being the most important, but I wouldn't put it past me to put DR on other monsters/bosses), and on hit regen.
What's the incentive for paladin? The boost to saves is nice, but if that's the ONLY difference, I'd rather build a ranger CoT, and just WRECK THINGS with my ab, or in contrast, go full on ranger/harper scout.
CoT being +1 saves per 2 and harper +1 per 1..... The fact you can just combine ranger with ANYTHING means it pretty much trumps paladin every time.
If ranger DOES get divine shield it needs to cost as much if not more to get it.
Proposed idea:
*Requires dodge feat(13+ dex)
*AC bonus and duration equal to wisdom modifier
*AC is against favored enemies.
*AC negates natural bonuses from other classes.
With this implementation a ranger with default favored enemies can hope to defend against only so many races.
Excluding the Crag Smoging races, which Hexis thinks are shit(halfling and gnome), your average ranger
needs human, half-elf, elf, half-orc, dwarf, dragon, and construct(ranger gets 5 favoreds by level 20 from 1, 5, 10, 15, 20), thus a ranger only needs to invest 2 extra favored enemies to cover the last 2 races(if Hexis considers dragon and construct worth covering, I would, but I'd consider covering halfling too, having -8 AC against anything is brutal)
Your generic ranger/rdd(26/4/10) does manage to defend against pretty much any race because of it's large amount of bonus feats(23,25,26,29), but a ranger/PM does not, but
the implementation of this is quite fair.
On one hand, only a select number of races are really used, but on the other hand, IF someone used one of these normally un-used races, the ranger suffers such a massive penalty against them, thus if the ranger -really- wants to be balanced it would be wise to cover all the races it can, which can vary in the amount of investment for feats.
Lastly the cost of ab for a ranger/rdd by needing to get 13+ dex and take dodge as a feat hurts it in two places, the loss of feats hurts because it actually puts dev as requiring epic feats and improved knockdown not far off.
A ranger/rdd gets feats at 1(+1 possible if human), 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18(7, 8 with human) and if it intends to take dev, that means it needs to have the following feats: weapon focus, improved critical, power attack, cleave, Blindfight(slightly arguable with purge) and great cleave, now you add dodge on top of this and you've used up all 6, you don't even have skill focus discipline or great fortitude, but using human you can get this.
Still NOW your build lacks kd, so you're really hoping on that dev to work. Thus it's unlikely people would intentionally use ranger/rdd for dev. So lets go with the not dev option: weapon focus, dodge, skill focus discipline, great fort, blindfight, kd, improved kd, perhaps another feat using human(probably
improved critical).
This is workable, so with the 16 strength I was able to get making my ranger/rdd at base(human) I ended up with 50 strength(but I took epic disc, epic fort, and armor skin). So the ab calculates to: 30(base)+20(50 strength)+4(focuses, prowess)+2(bane)+1(aid)+5(25 ranger, doesn't hit the 30 ranger bonus)+1(self bard song)+weapon bonus = 63+weapon, landing it at 70 ab possible, pretty much the same as pally/rdd(more easily obtains 52 strength).
It's AC comes to(and this is max): 10(base)+8(dex mod)+8(Kevlar, 1 base+7 magical)+6(gold amulet)+8(tower shield)+5(deflection)+5(boots)+4(haste)+4(10 RDD)+1(dodge feat, though situational)+8(tumble)+2(armor skin)+11(possible magical dodge) = 80, however on it's own it only gets 78 and 1 of this is not effective against flanking, then subtract 4 from RDD's natural benefit. It lands on 74(with dodge) and 73(without).(4 or more of it's AC effective only against select races, which the ranger may or may not encounter)
The case is the same for PM with the exception of minusing 6 for 10 PM and zero AC benefit for 12 PM or more.
With monk it's -1 per 5(does not cancel out monks wisdom bonus, ranger/monks get fairly crap AC even dex based, fairly unnecessary to cancel this from it, my disarmer monk with max dex for instance is 73 AC, since it's 18 monk it'd get 5, and it's dex based with something like 60 discipline).
Essentially with this you get an AC bonus the rangers not only have to work for, but cancels out any free bonus to AC as well.
The only other acceptable option would be to pretty much just nerf the sh** out of blade thirst and even then, ranger is probably used more then half the time. Paladin gets a lot, but it's limited as hell to.
Considering how a ranger/rdd is pulling -70- ab on this server with a +5 from blade thirst and it was +3 on DeX, the only logical explanation for ranger not just WRECKING EVERYTHING is the type of items available and mages/DC casters in pretty much -every- fight. Considering the item economy on this server however, rangers getting a divine shield for free would literally turn the ranger/RDD into a [hackable, IE Confusion spell]tank composed of indestructible materials that shoots nuclear missiles. I mean DAMN, with generic ranger/rdd without dodge feat, it's AC is still -78-.WITH 70 SELF AB and even if blade thirst was +3 it'd be 68 SELF.
